GBOU LYCEUM "INTERNATIONAL SPACE SCHOOL N.A. V.N. CHELOMEY"
"Little People" in the works
Russian writers
Teacher of Russian language and literature
Plyga Elena Ivanovna
Baikonur 2014
The theme of the "little man" in Russian literature.
N.M. Karamzin "Poor Lisa"
A.S. Pushkin "The Stationmaster"
N.V. Gogol "Overcoat".
F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment" and "Poor People"
A.P. Chekhov "Death of an Official"
"Little Man" and Time.
"Small man"- a type of literary hero that arose in Russian literature with the advent of realism, that is, in the 20-30s of the XIX century. A small person is a person of low social status and origin, not gifted with outstanding abilities, not distinguished by strength of character, but at the same time kind, not doing harm to anyone, harmless
Forgotten, humiliated people, their life, small joys and big troubles for a long time seemed insignificant, unworthy of attention. Such people and such an attitude towards them gave rise to the era. Cruel times and tsarist injustice forced the "little people" to withdraw into themselves. Suffering, they lived an imperceptible life and also imperceptibly died. But just such people sometimes, by the will of circumstances, obeying the cry of the soul, began to grumble against the powerful of this world, to appeal for justice. Petty officials, stationmasters, "little people" who had gone mad, came out of the shadows against their will.
The theme of the little man is one of the traditional themes in Russian literature of the last two centuries. For the first time, this topic appeared in Russian literature precisely in the 19th century (in Karamzin's "Poor Lisa"). As reasons for this, one can probably name the fact that the image of a small person is characteristic, first of all, for realism, and this artistic method finally took shape only in the 19th century. However, this topic, in my opinion, could be relevant in any historical period, since, among other things, it involves a description of the relationship between man and power, and these relationships have existed since ancient times.
The theme of the little man in the work of N.M. Karamzin "Poor Lisa"
“Karamzin began a new era of Russian literature,” Belinsky argued. This era was primarily characterized by the fact that literature gained influence on society, it became for readers a “textbook of life”, that is, that on which the glory of Russian literature of the 19th century is based. The significance of Karamzin's activity for Russian literature is great. Karamzin's word echoes Pushkin and Lermontov.
“Poor Liza” (1729) is the most popular and best story of this writer. Its plot, presented to the reader as a “sad story”, is extremely simple, but full of dramatic tension.
This is the love story of a poor peasant girl Liza and a rich young nobleman Erast. Public life and secular pleasures bored him. He was constantly bored and "complained about his fate." Erast “read idyllic novels” and dreamed of that happy time when people, not burdened by the conventions and rules of civilization, lived carelessly in the bosom of nature. Thinking only of his own pleasure, he "looked for it in amusements." With the advent of love in his life, everything changes. Erast falls in love with the pure "daughter of nature" - the peasant woman Lisa. Chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Lisa appears as a wonderful shepherdess. Having read novels in which “all people carelessly walked along the rays, bathed in clean springs, kissed like turtledoves, rested under roses and myrtle”, he decided that he “found in Liza what his heart had been looking for for a long time.” Liza, although "the daughter of a rich peasant", is just a peasant woman who is forced to earn her own living. Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism -: pushes the characters into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The picture of pure first love is drawn very touchingly in the story. “Now I think,” Liza says to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your dark eyes, a bright month; the singing nightingale is boring without your voice...” Erast also admires his “shepherdess”. “All the brilliant amusements of the great world seemed to him insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul fed his heart.” But when Lisa gives herself to him, the satiated young man begins to grow cold in his feelings for her. In vain Lisa hopes to regain her lost happiness. Erast goes on a military campaign, loses all his fortune in cards and, in the end, marries a rich widow. And deceived in her best hopes and feelings, Liza throws herself into a pond near the Simonov Monastery.
Karamzin laid the foundation for a huge cycle of literature about "little people", took the first step into this hitherto unknown topic. It was he who opened the way for such classics of the future as Gogol, Dostoevsky and others.
The theme of the little man in the work of A.S. Pushkin "The Stationmaster"
The next (after “Poor Lisa”) significant work on this topic can be considered “The Stationmaster” by A.S. Pushkin.
The disclosure of the social and artistic significance of The Stationmaster was initiated by F.M. Dostoevsky, he expressed judgments about the realism of Pushkin's story, about its cognitive significance, pointed out the typical image of the poor official Vyrin, the simplicity and clarity of the language of the story, noted the depth of the image of the human hero in it. The tragic fate of the "martyr of the fourteenth grade" after F.M. Dostoevsky attracted the attention of critics more than once, who noted the humanism and democracy of Pushkin and evaluated The Stationmaster as one of the first, since the 18th century, realistic stories about a poor official.
Pushkin's choice of the hero, the stationmaster, was not accidental. In the 20s of the 19th century, as is known, many moralistic essays and stories appear in Russian literature, the heroes of which are people of the “lower class”. In addition, the genre of travel is being revived. In the mid-1920s, poems, poems, essays began to appear in magazines more and more often, in which attention was paid not only to descriptions of the region, but also to meetings and conversations with the stationmaster.
Pushkin makes the first attempt to objectively, truthfully portray the "little man". The hero of the story "The Stationmaster" is alien to sentimental suffering, he has his own sorrows associated with the disorder of life.
In the story, three arrivals of the narrator, separated from one another by several years, organize the course of the narration, and in all three parts, as in the introduction, the narration is conducted by the narrator. But in the second, central part of the story, we hear Vyrin himself. In the words of the narrator: “Let us delve into all this carefully, and instead of indignation our heart will be filled with sincere sympathy,” a generalization is given, it is said about hard labor and the position of the stationmaster not of any one tract, but of all, at any time of the year, day and night. Excited lines with rhetorical questions ("who did not curse ...", "who in a moment of anger?", Etc.), interrupted by the demand to be fair, to enter the position of a "real martyr of the fourteenth grade" let us understand what Pushkin says sympathetically about the hard work of these people.
The first meeting in 1816 is described by the narrator with obvious sympathy for his father, for his daughter, the beautiful Duna, and for their well-established life. Vyrin is the image of “a fresh, kind man of about fifty, in a long green frock coat with three medals on faded ribbons”, an old soldier who, probably, walked during military campaigns for about 30 years, he buried his wife in 1812, and only a few years he had to live with his beloved daughter, and a new misfortune fell upon him. The stationmaster Samson Vyrin lived in poverty, his desires were elementary - with work full of insults and humiliation, he earns a living, does not complain about anything and is pleased with fate. Trouble that breaks into this private world, then - a young hussar who secretly takes away his daughter Dunya to Petersburg. Grief has shaken him, but has not yet broken him. The story of Vyrin's fruitless attempts to fight Minsky, after he begged for leave and went to St. Petersburg on foot, is given just as sparingly as the story about Vyrin's hero, but by other means. Four small, but full of vital truth pictures of Vyrin's arrival draw a typical situation in the conditions of social and class inequality - the position of the powerless, weak and the "right" of the strong, the one in power.
The first picture: An old soldier in the role of a petitioner before an indifferent, important official.
Second scene: Father in the role of a petitioner in front of Minsky.
It seemed that a decisive moment had come in a person's life, when all the accumulated past grievances would raise him to rebellion in the name of holy justice. But “... tears welled up in his eyes, and he only said in a trembling voice: Your honor! ...Make such a divine favor!” Instead of protest, there was a plea, a pitiful request.
Third painting: (two days later). Again in front of an important lackey, who pushed him out of the hall with his chest and slammed the door under his nose.
Fourth scene: Again in front of Minsky: "Get out!" - and, with a strong hand, seizing the old man by the collar, pushed him onto the stairs.
And, finally, two days later, the return from St. Petersburg to his station, obviously also on foot. And Samson Vyrin resigned himself.
The second visit of the narrator - he sees that "grief has turned a kind peasant into a frail old man." And the view of the room that did not escape the narrator’s attention (dilapidation, negligence), and the changed appearance of Vyrin (gray hair, deep wrinkles of a long unshaven face, hunched back), and the surprised exclamation: “It was exactly Samson Vyrin, but how old he is!” - all this indicates that the narrator sympathizes with the old caretaker. In the narration of the narrator himself, we hear echoes of the feelings and thoughts of Vyrin, the praying father (“He shook Dunyushkin’s hand; “I saw my poor Dunya”) and Vyrin, a trusting, helpful and disenfranchised person (“It was a pity for him to part with his kind guest”, “not understood how blindness had come upon him", "decided to come to him", "reported to his high nobility" that "an old soldier"; "thought ... he returned, but he was no longer there", , waved his hand and decided to retreat.") 1
The role of Vyrin himself expresses his grief and sheds light on the role of Dunya in his father’s house (“His house held on; what to clean up, what to cook, “It happened that the master, no matter how angry he was, calms down with her and talks mercifully to me”).
The fate of the "little man" in the center of the author's attention and compassion for him is not only the initial, but also the final element of the author's attitude towards his heroes. It is expressed both in the introduction and in each of the three episodes, of which the last two are opposed to the first, while each of the three parts of this lyrical-epic story is painted in different emotional tones. The third part is clearly painted in a tone of lyrical sadness - Samson Vyrin finally resigned himself, took to drink and died of grief and longing.
Life truth, sympathy for the "little man", insulted at every step by the bosses, standing higher in rank and position - that's what we feel when reading the story. Pushkin cherishes this "little man" who lives in grief and need. The story is imbued with democracy and humanity, so realistically depicting the “little man”.
The theme of the little man in the work of N.V. Gogol's "Overcoat"
One of the maximum manifestations of the theme of the little man was found in the work of N.V. Gogol. In the story "The Overcoat", Gogol addresses the hated world of officials, and his satire becomes harsh and merciless: "... he has the gift of sarcasm, which sometimes makes you laugh to the point of convulsions, and sometimes awakens contempt bordering on hatred." Gogol, following other writers, came to the defense of the "little man" - an intimidated, powerless, miserable official. He expressed the most sincere, warmest and most sincere sympathy for the destitute person in the beautiful lines of the final argument about the fate and death of one of the many victims of heartlessness and arbitrariness.
Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (the main character of the story) is one of the most typical little people. This is an official, "not that very remarkable." He, a titular adviser, is extremely poor, even for a decent overcoat he has to save up for a long time, denying himself everything. The overcoat obtained after such labors and torments is soon taken away from him on the street. It would seem that there is a law that will protect him. But it turns out that no one can and does not want to help the robbed official, even those who would simply have to do it. Akaky Akakievich is absolutely defenseless, he has no prospects in life - due to his low rank, he is completely dependent on his superiors, he will not be promoted (he is, after all, "an eternal titular adviser").
Bashmachkin Gogol calls "one official", and Bashmachkin serves in "one department", and he is the most ordinary person. All this allows us to say that Akaky Akakievich is an ordinary little person, hundreds of other officials are in his position. This position of a servant of power characterizes the power itself in a corresponding way. The government is heartless and ruthless. The famous episode in the play “The Overcoat” is the choice of a name, here it’s not just bad luck with the names in the calendar, but precisely a picture of nonsense (since the name is a person): he could be Mokkiy (translation: “mockery”) and Khozdazat, and Trifiliy, and Varakhasiy, and repeated the name of his father: “the father was Akaki, so let the son be Akaki (“doing no evil”), this phrase can be read as a sentence of fate: the father was a “little man”, let the son be also a “little man” ". Actually, life, devoid of meaning and joy, is only dying for the “little man”, and out of modesty he is ready to complete his career immediately, as soon as he is born.
Bashmachkin died: “A creature disappeared and disappeared, protected by no one, dear to no one, not interesting to anyone ...”
But the story of the poor official does not end there. We learn that Akaky Akakievich, who was dying in a fever, in his delirium scolded “His Excellency” so much that the old housewife, who was sitting at the bedside of the patient, became frightened. Thus, just before his death, anger woke up in the soul of the downtrodden Bashmachkin against the people who killed him.
Gogol tells us at the end of his story that in the world in which Akaky Akakievich lived, the hero as a person, as a person challenging the whole society, can only live after death. The Overcoat tells about the most ordinary and insignificant person, about the most ordinary events in his life. The story had a great influence on the direction of Russian literature, the theme of the "little man" became one of the most important for many years.
Gogol's "Overcoat" is a grotesque and a gloomy nightmare that breaks through black holes in a vague picture of life1... (V.V. Nabokov).
The theme of the little man in the work of F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"
F. M. Dostoevsky shows the same defenseless little man in his novel Crime and Punishment.
Here, as in Gogol, an official, Marmeladov, is represented as a small man. This man is at the bottom. For drunkenness he was expelled from the service, and after that nothing could stop him. He drank everything he could drink, although he perfectly understood what he was bringing the family to. He says about himself: "I have an animal image."
Of course, he is most to blame for his situation, but it is also noteworthy that no one wants to help him, everyone laughs at him, only a few are ready to help him (for example, Raskolnikov, who gives the last money to the Marmeladov family). The small man is surrounded by a soulless crowd. “For this I drink, that in this drink I seek compassion and feelings ...”, says Marmeladov. “Sorry! why pity me!" - he exclaims and immediately admits: “There is nothing to feel sorry for me!”
But after all, his children are not to blame for the fact that they are beggars. And the society, which does not care, is probably also to blame. The chief is also to blame, to whom Katerina Ivanovna's appeals were addressed: “Your Excellency! Protect the orphans! The entire ruling class is also to blame, because the carriage that crushed Marmeladov was "waited by some significant person," and therefore this carriage was not detained. Exhausted by poverty, Marmeladov's wife, Katerina Ivanovna, dies of consumption. Sonya goes outside to sell her body in order to save her family from starvation.
The fate of the Raskolnikov family is also difficult. His sister Dunya, wanting to help her brother, is ready to sacrifice herself and marry the rich man Luzhin, for whom she feels disgust.
Sonya, the daughter of Marmeladov, and the former student Raskolnikov also belong to the small people. Raskolnikov understands that the cruel force that creates dead ends for the poor and a bottomless sea of suffering in life is money. And in order to get them, he commits a crime under the influence of a far-fetched idea of "extraordinary personalities." But what is important here is that these people retained human qualities in themselves - compassion, mercy, self-esteem (despite the downtroddenness of Sonya, the poverty of Raskolnikov). They are not yet broken, they are still able to fight for life. Dostoevsky and Gogol depict the social position of little people in approximately the same way, but Dostoevsky, unlike Gogol, also shows the inner world of these people.
Not even poverty, but poverty, in which a person not only literally dies of hunger, but also loses his human appearance and self-esteem - this is the state in which the unfortunate Marmeladov family is immersed. Material suffering entails a world of moral torment that disfigures the human psyche. Dobrolyubov wrote: “In the works of Dostoevsky we find one common feature, more or less noticeable in everything that he wrote: it is the pain of a person who recognizes himself as unable or, finally, not even entitled to be a person by himself.”
To understand the extent of a person's humiliation, one needs to delve into the inner world of the titular adviser Marmeladov. The state of mind of this petty official is much more complex and subtle than that of his literary predecessors - Pushkin's Samson Vyrin and Gogol's Bashmachkin. They do not have the power of introspection, which the hero of Dostoevsky achieved. Marmeladov not only suffers, but also analyzes his state of mind, he, as a doctor, makes a merciless diagnosis of the disease - the degradation of his own personality. Here is how he confesses in his first meeting with Raskolnikov: “Dear Sir, poverty is not a vice, it is the truth. But… poverty is a vice – p. In poverty, you still retain all the nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty, never anyone ... for in poverty I myself am the first ready to offend myself. A person not only perishes from poverty, but understands how he is spiritually devastated: he begins to despise himself, but does not see anything around him to cling to, which would keep him from the decay of his personality. Marmeladov despises himself. We sympathize with him, we are tormented by his torments and we sharply hate the social circumstances that gave rise to human tragedy.
The most important and new, in comparison with other writers who dealt with this topic, is Dostoevsky's downtrodden man's ability to look into himself, the ability of introspection and appropriate actions. The writer subjects to a detailed self-analysis, no other writer in essays, stories, sympathetically depicting the life and customs of the urban poor, had such a leisurely and concentrated psychological penetration and depth of depiction of the character of the characters.
The spirit of Gogol's "Overcoat" is imbued with Dostoevsky's novel "Poor People". Dostoevsky continued study of the soul of the "little man", delved into his inner world. The writer believed that the "little man" did not deserve such treatment as shown in many works, "Poor people" - this was the first novel in Russian literature where the "little man" spoke himself.
The world around Varenka Dobroselova, a young woman who has experienced many sorrows in her life (the death of her father, mother, beloved, the persecution of low people), and Makar Devushkin, a poor elderly official, is terrible. Dostoevsky wrote the novel in letters, otherwise the characters would hardly have been able to open their hearts, they were very timid. This form of narration gave soulfulness to the whole novel and showed one of the main positions of Dostoevsky: the main thing in the “little man” is his nature.
For a poor person, the basis of life is honor and respect, but the heroes of the novel “Poor People” know that it is almost impossible for a “small” person to achieve this socially: “And everyone knows, Varenka, that a poor person is worse than a rag and no one from anyone can’t get respect, don’t write there. ” His protest against injustice is hopeless. Makar Alekseevich is very ambitious, and much of what he does, he does not for himself, but for others to see (he drinks good tea). He tries to hide his shame for himself. Unfortunately, the opinion from the outside is more valuable to him than his own.
Makar Devushkin and Varenka Dobroselova are people of great spiritual purity and kindness. Each of them is ready to give the last for the sake of the other. Makar is a person who knows how to feel, empathize, think and reason, and these are the best qualities of a “little man” according to Dostoevsky.
Makar Alekseevich reads Pushkin's The Stationmaster and Gogol's The Overcoat. They shake him, and he sees himself there: “... after all, I’ll tell you, mother, it will happen that you live, and you don’t know that you have a book at your side, where your whole life is laid out on your fingers” . Random meetings and conversations with people (organ grinder, little beggar boy, usurer, watchman) prompt him to think about social life, constant injustice, human relations, which are based on social inequality and money. The "little man" in Dostoevsky's works has both a heart and a mind. The end of the novel is tragic: Varenka is taken away to certain death by the cruel landowner Bykov, and Makar Devushkin is left alone with his grief.
Dostoevsky shows the "little man" as a personality deeper than Samson Vyrin and Evgeny in Pushkin. The depth of the image is achieved, firstly, by other artistic means. "Poor people" is a novel in letters, unlike Gogol's and Chekhov's stories. Dostoevsky did not choose this genre by chance, because the main goal of the writer is to convey and show all the internal movements, experiences of his hero. The author invites us to feel everything together with the hero, to experience everything together with him, and leads us to the idea that “little people” are individuals in the full sense of the word, and their personal feeling, their ambition is much greater than that of people with a position in society. The “little man” is more vulnerable, it is scary for him that others may not see him as a spiritually rich person. Their own self-consciousness also plays a huge role. The way they treat themselves, whether they feel like individuals, makes them constantly assert themselves even in their own eyes.
Of particular interest is the theme of self-affirmation, which Dostoevsky raises in Poor Folk and continues in The Humiliated and Insulted.
Makar Devushkin considered his help to Varenka a kind of charity, thus showing that he was not a limited poor man, thinking only about how to find money for food. Of course, he does not suspect that he is driven not by the desire to stand out, but by love. But this once again proves to us the main idea of Dostoevsky - the "little man" is capable of high feelings.
So, if in Dostoevsky the “little man” lives on the idea of realizing and asserting his own personality, then in Gogol, Dostoevsky's predecessor, everything is different. Having realized the concept of Dostoevsky, we can reveal the essence of his dispute with Gogol. According to Dostoevsky, Gogol's merit is that Gogol purposefully defended the right to portray the "little man" as an object of literary research. Gogol portrays the "little man" in the same circle of social problems as Dostoevsky, but Gogol's stories were written earlier, naturally, the conclusions were different, which prompted Dostoevsky to argue with him. Akaky Akakievich gives the impression of a downtrodden, miserable, narrow-minded person. Dostoevsky's personality is in the "little man", his ambitions are much greater than his outwardly limiting social and financial position. Dostoevsky emphasizes that the self-esteem of his hero is much greater than that of people with a position.
What is new in Poor Folk emerges already at the level of material that is traditional only at first glance. Abundantly drawing from his predecessors - the essayists of the "natural school" - where it was about the external surroundings of events and the living conditions of his heroes, Dostoevsky, however, introduces significantly new accents into these realities. For example, in this description of the next dwelling of Makar Alekseevich Devushkin: “Well, what a slum I ended up in, Varvara Alekseevna. Well, it's an apartment! ...Imagine, roughly, a long corridor, completely dark and unclean. On his right hand there will be a blank wall, and on his left door and doors, like numbers, all stretch out like that. Well, they hire these rooms, and they have one room in each: they live in one and two, and three. Do not ask in order - Noah's Ark "
The Petersburg slum is transformed by Dostoevsky into a miniature and a symbol of the all-Petersburg and, more broadly, universal human community. Indeed, in the slum-ark, almost all and all sorts of “ranks”, nationalities and specialties of the capital's population are represented - windows to Europe: “There is only one official (he is somewhere in the literary part), a well-read man: both about Homer and Brambeus , and he talks about different compositions they have there, he talks about everything - a smart person! Two officers live and everyone plays cards. Midshipman lives; English teacher lives. ... Our hostess is a very small and unclean old woman - all day in shoes and in a dressing gown and all day she screams at Teresa.
The hopeless titular adviser and poor man Makar Devushkin connects his human well-being by no means with a new overcoat, uniform and similar things. He also puts up with his social and service-hierarchical smallness, sincerely believing that “every state is determined by the Almighty for the human lot. That is determined to be in the general's epaulettes, this is to serve as a titular adviser; to command such and such, and to obey such and such meekly and in fear. Makar Alekseevich composes his autocharacteristic in strict accordance not only with the official norms of a well-intentioned official and citizen, but also with official style: “I have been in the service for about thirty years; I serve impeccably, sober behavior, I have never been seen in riots. Of all the blessings and temptations of the world, what Devushkin calls his "ambition" is more important and "most precious" to Devushkin. And that in fact there is a developed sense of one's personality, only painfully exacerbated not by poverty in itself, but "to the point of humiliation" by the poverty that brings a person and the suspiciousness generated by this humiliation. Consciousness of one's right to a person and to recognition in him as such by all those around him (as Devushkin says, that “that I am no worse than others ... that in my heart and thoughts I am a man”) - this is the pathos and essence of the little man in the understanding and depiction of this type by Dostoevsky.
The loss of personal self-respect is tantamount to Devushkin's transformation from a unique individuality into a "rag", i.e. some faceless stereotype of the poor and titular advisers. This is death in his eyes - not physical, like the hero of The Overcoat, but spiritual and moral. And only with the return of the feeling of his personality Makar Alekseevich is resurrected from the dead.
Dostoevsky himself introduces a fundamentally new meaning into the concept of "poor people", emphasizing not the word "poor", but the word "people". The reader of the novel should not only be imbued with compassion for the characters, he should see them as equals. Being human "no worse than others"- both in their own eyes and in the eyes of those around them - this is what Devushkin himself, Varenka Dobroselova and other characters of the novel close to them desire most of all.
What does it mean for Devushkin to be equal to other people? What, in other words, is dearest of all to the little man of Dostoevsky, what does he vigilantly and painfully worry about, what is he most afraid of losing?
The loss of personal feelings and self-respect is literally death for the hero of Dostoevsky. Their rebirth is the resurrection from the dead. This metamorphosis ascending to the Gospel is experienced by Makar Devushkin in a scene that is terrible for him with “His Excellency”, about the culmination of which he tells Varenka in this way: “Here I feel that the last strength leaves me, that everything, everything is lost! The whole reputation is lost, the whole person is gone.”
So, what, according to Dostoevsky, is the equality of his "little man" to all and every representatives of society and mankind? He is equal to them not by his poverty, which he shares with thousands of petty officials like him, and not because his nature, as adherents of the anthropological principle believed, is homogeneous with the nature of other people, but because he, like millions of people, is God's creation. , therefore, the phenomenon is inherently valuable and unique. And in this sense, Personality. This pathos of the individual, overlooked by the moralists of the natural school, - the author of "Poor People" examined and convincingly showed in the environment and everyday life, the beggarly and monotonous nature of which, it seemed, should have completely leveled the person who was in them. This merit of the young writer cannot be explained only by his artistic insight. The creative discovery of the little man, accomplished in Poor Folk, could have taken place because Dostoevsky the artist was inseparable from Dostoevsky the Christian.
So, Dostoevsky, the most complex and controversial realist artist, on the one hand, shows a “humiliated and insulted” person, and the writer’s heart overflows with love, compassion and pity for this person and hatred for the well-fed, vulgar and depraved, and on the other hand, speaks out for humility, humility, calling: "Humble yourself, proud man!"
“Little people” are people of the lower classes, and their language is folk, it contains vernacular (“clean up, old fool”), clerical words (“compass”), the expression “I have something to say”. To enhance the emotional sound of the image, writers use indirect speech (for example, the story of the grief of the old caretaker is told in the third person, although he himself tells about what happened).
The theme of the little man in the works of A.P. Chekhov
Chekhov, a great artist of the word, like many other writers, also could not bypass the theme of the “little man” in his work.
His heroes are "little people", but many of them became so by their own will. In Chekhov's stories, we will see oppressors of bosses, like Gogol's, there is no acute financial situation in them, humiliating social relations like Dostoevsky's, there is only a person who decides his own destiny. With his visual images of "little people" with impoverished souls, Chekhov calls on readers to fulfill one of his commandments, "Squeeze a slave out of yourself drop by drop." Each of the heroes of his "little trilogy" personifies one of the aspects of life: Belikov ("The Man in the Case") - the personification of power, bureaucracy and censorship, the story ("Gooseberry") - the personification of relations with the land, a perverted image of the landowner of that time, the story of love appears before us as a reflection of the spiritual life of people.
All the stories together make up an ideological whole, create a generalized idea of modern life, where the significant side by side with the insignificant, the tragic with the funny.
In his story “Thick and Thin”, a seemingly firmly established couple in Russian literature, defined by Gogol in Dead Souls, acts. These are two types of official: “big” or “fat”, who is assessed purely negatively by his moral and psychological qualities, and “small”, or “thin”, causing sympathy and respect, since he contains the best features of human nature. But with Chekhov, in the course of the development of the plot, everything turns out to be exactly the opposite.
At first, the situation seems quite familiar. At the station, two old school friends meet who have not seen each other for many years. Tolstoy is sincerely glad to meet his school friend, a childhood friend. They recall childhood pranks from their past and both seem moved to tears. They begin to tell each other about their lives, or rather, mostly the “thin” complains about his hard life as a small employee; His story, it seems, should evoke sympathy for the hero in the reader, but this does not happen. The reason for this is a completely unexpected change of tone and all the behavior of the "thin" when he finds out that his school friend, "fat", has now become a "significant person". “He shrank, hunched, narrowed, and with him his suitcase, bundles and cartons shrank, grimaced.”
The “thin” begins to fawn, to please, to kowtow to the “fat”, trying to extract some benefit from this unexpected meeting for himself. At the same time, he just looks disgusting. "Fat", on the contrary, does not show in his behavior that he is now a "boss", who has the right to order and command. On the contrary, he tries to keep in conversation a confidential tone of conversation with an old friend with whom his childhood memories are connected, always a little sentimental and kind. And, accordingly, the reader as a result treats him with much more sympathy than the "thin". Tolstoy tried to stop this flow of pathetic flattery, but quickly understood everything and accepted the role offered to him, since on the face of Thin "so much reverence, sweetness and respectful acidity were written that the Privy Councilor vomited." He turned away from Thin and gave him his hand in parting. In one minute, the joy of meeting and the sincerity of communication disappeared. Yes, and Thin Tolstoy does not shake hands with Tolstoy, but three fingers, thereby expressing his "assurance of the most perfect respect." Chekhov ridicules voluntary servility.
So, while maintaining complete authorial neutrality in his assessments, Chekhov leads readers to the idea that it is not the rank that determines the face of a person, but personal qualities that allow one to preserve dignity and self-respect, regardless of the rank. At the same time, already in this story, a new trend in the disclosure of the theme of the “little man” is determined, which, perhaps, is most clearly expressed in another story, also related to Chekhov’s early humor with the expressive title “The Death of an Official”.
It is not difficult to despise people's court, it is impossible to despise one's own court ... ”- Pushkin said this not by chance. This expression can be equally applied to a highly moral person who is an ardent champion of morality (and automatically analyzes his own actions and misdeeds in the most severe way), and to a petty person, not very principled and consistent.
A vivid illustration of such a statement is the situation depicted by the writer A.P. Chekhov in the story “The Death of an Official”.
“Little man ” Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov, being in the theater, accidentally sneezed and splashed the bald head of General Brizzhalov, who was sitting in front. The hero experiences this event hard: he “encroached” on the “shrine” of the bureaucratic hierarchy. The story is built on the early Chekhov's favorite principle of sharp exaggeration. Chekhov masterfully combines the style of "strict realism" with heightened conventionality. The general throughout the story behaves in the highest degree "normal", realistic in the narrow sense of the word. He behaves exactly as a real person of his warehouse would behave in a similar episode. At first he is annoyed: he wipes his bald head with a handkerchief. Then he calms down, satisfied, since the inconvenience has passed and they apologized to him. He is even more satisfied, but already somehow wary: they apologize to him intensely, too intensely. And the general’s answer is natural: “Ah, completeness ... I already forgot, but you are all about the same!” Then, as it should, he begins to get into a rage because of the stupidity, excessive cowardice and, finally, the importunity of the official.
Against this background, the conventionality and exaggeration of the character, the behavior of the sneezing one, are seen especially sharply. The further the official behaves, the more idiotically he behaves; he also “dies” from all this. This is how Chervyakov's death is described: “Arriving mechanically home, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa, and ... died.” Already in the entire second half of the story, his behavior goes beyond the limits of everyday plausibility: he is too cowardly, too importunate, this does not happen in life. In the end, Chekhov is quite sharp, open. With this “died”, he takes the story (short story) beyond the framework of everyday realism, between “... sneezed ...” and “... died” the internal distance is too great. Here - a direct convention, a mockery, an incident. Therefore, this story is felt as quite humorous: death is perceived as frivolity, conventionality, exposure of a technique, a move. The writer laughs, plays, the very word "death" does not take seriously. In the clash of laughter and death, laughter triumphs. It defines the overall tone of the piece.
So the funny in Chekhov turns into accusatory. The idea of absolute power over people of ordinary trifles is alien and even hostile to the writer. The heightened, painful attention of a person to the little things of everyday life is a consequence of the incompleteness of his spiritual life.
Chekhov wanted every person to have high moral ideals, so that everyone would educate himself: get rid of shortcomings, improve culture. “Everything should be beautiful in a person: face, clothes, soul, and thoughts,” he said. The protagonist of this work, small and completely unremarkable from the general mass of employees, the official Chervyakov finds himself in a situation that gives him moral discomfort. Deepening into the abyss of emotions, inner turmoil and confusion, Chervyakov thereby slowly kills himself with his own hands. At the same time, no external factors seem to have an effect on him: even a person in front of whom Chervyakov feels guilty - a respectable general, has long forgotten about the situation in which Chervyakov participated, and in general about his existence. Nobody condemns or stigmatizes Chervyakov, nobody makes him an outcast. But he already for himself long ago determined the degree of his guilt, exaggerating it considerably, and arranges for himself a daily execution. From the condemnation of the crowd, you can hide, run away, abstract. It is impossible to hide from yourself; it will not work and not pay attention to their own mental anguish. At the same time, as we see, in order to strictly judge yourself and mentally recognize yourself as a failed, worthless, guilty person, it is absolutely not necessary to adhere to any out of the ordinary moral principles. Even an ordinary layman, an official, a person who has almost never thought about global issues of morality and morality, can inflate his own guilt complex to colossal proportions. Even he is able to bring the situation to the point of absurdity and consistently, systematically engage in self-destruction, literally corroding himself from the inside. The ending of such situations, as a rule, is tragic and instructive. No one can justify a person in his own eyes, except himself. No one can help a person who is not initially a helper to himself. He will not hear words of approval if he does not want to hear them, and he will not be able to withstand even the most insignificant external shocks if he is internally ready only to humbly accept the blows of fate, considering them punishment for his own oversight.
In the story "The Death of an Official" Chekhov's innovation was manifested. The writer turns everything around. It is not the social system that is to blame, but the person himself. There are many details in the story about this. Firstly, this story is comic in its situation, and the “little man” himself is ridiculed in it. But he is ridiculed not because he is poor, invisible, cowardly. Chekhov shows that the true pleasure of Chervyakov (here is the speaking surname) is in humiliation, in groveling. At the end of the story, the general himself is offended, and the dying Chervyakov is not at all sorry. Exploring the psychology of his hero, Chekhov discovers a new psychological type - a serf by nature, a reptile creature. According to Chekhov, this is the real evil.
Secondly, Chervyakov's death is not given as a tragedy. This is not the death of a person, but downright some kind of worm. Chervyakov dies not from fear and not because he could be suspected of lack of self-esteem, but because he was deprived of the opportunity to crawl, his spiritual need, the meaning of life.
The "little man" of our city of the 60s - 70s is not able to get to the surface of life and loudly declare his existence. But after all, he is also a man, not a louse, as Raskolnikov wanted to prove to himself, and he deserves not only attention, but also a better share. The way to achieve this was opened to him by those who in our time sought to "straighten their backs with humpbacks." New writers come to the defense of truth and conscience, they formed a new man. Therefore, you can not close the last page in a huge book dedicated to him - "the little man!"
Further in the development of the image of the "little man" there is a tendency of "bifurcation". On the one hand, raznochintsy-democrats appear from among the "little people", and their children become revolutionaries. On the other hand, the "little man" descends, turning into a limited tradesman. We see this process most clearly in the stories of A.P. Chekhov "Ionych", "Gooseberry", "The Man in the Case".
Teacher Belikov is not an evil person, but timid and withdrawn. In conditions when the formula “Life, not circularly prohibited, but not completely resolved,” was in effect, he becomes a terrible figure in the city.
Everything living, progressive scarecrow Belikov, in everything he saw "an element of doubt." Belikov could not arrange his personal life either. When he saw his fiancee riding a bicycle one day, he was very surprised. Belikov went to explain to his brother Varenka, believing that a woman could not afford such liberty. But the result of the conversation was very sad - the Greek teacher died. The townspeople of Belikov gladly buried, but even after his death, the stamp of "Belikovism" remained on the inhabitants of the city. Belikov continued to live in their minds, he saturated their souls with fear.
Over time, the "little man", deprived of his own dignity, "humiliated and insulted", causes writers not only compassion, but also condemnation. “You live boringly, gentlemen,” said A.P. Chekhov, with his work, to the “little man”, resigned to his position. With subtle humor, the writer ridicules the death of Ivan Chervyakov, from whose lips the lackey “Yourself” has not left his lips all his life. In the same year as "The Death of an Official", the story "Thick and Thin" appears. Chekhov again opposes philistinism, servility. The collegiate servant Porfiry giggles, "like a Chinese", bowing in an obsequious bow, having met his former friend, who has a high rank. The feeling of friendship that connected these two people is forgotten.
Chekhov made his debut with stories and sketches in small humorous magazines and did not immediately stand out against the general background. His early works are far from homogeneous in artistic merit, in their structure they are close to the anecdote genre. After all, humorous magazines of the 80s were mainly entertaining, purely commercial in nature, and therefore it is impossible to connect the birth of Chekhov's great talent with humorous fiction of a low flight. The cradle of this talent was classical literature, the traditions of which the young Chekhov successfully mastered.
The theme of the “little man” is characteristic of early Chekhov; one can name such stories as “The Death of an Official”, “The Man in a Case”, “Gooseberries”, etc.
In a number of Chekhov's early works, Shchedrin's images of the "triumphant pig", "hedgehogs", and "pompadours" glimpse. Chekhov also uses Shchedrin's artistic methods of zoological assimilation, the grotesque. In the story "Unter Prishibaev" hyperbolism is replaced by laconicism, drawing out capacious artistic details that give the character of the hero an almost symbolic meaning. Without violating the everyday authenticity of the type, Chekhov selects the most essential features, carefully eliminating everything that can obscure or obscure these features.
Chekhov's early stories are entirely humorous, and the humor in them is very original and sharply different from the classical literary tradition.
Conclusions:
Considering that all the considered works were written in different years of the 19th century, we can say that a small person still changes in time. Thus, in the Russian literature of the 19th century, the theme of the little man is revealed by depicting the relationship of little people both with the authorities and with other people. At the same time, through the description of the situation of small people, the power standing over them can also be characterized. A small person can belong to different categories of the population. Not only the social status of little people can be shown, but also their inner world. Little people are often to blame for their misfortunes, because they do not try to fight. Drawing images of "little people", writers usually emphasized their weak protest, downtroddenness, which subsequently leads the "little man" to degradation. But each of these heroes has something in life that helps him endure existence: Samson Vyrin has a daughter, the joy of life, Akaky Akakievich has an overcoat, Makar Devushkin and Varenka have their love and care for each other. Having lost this goal, they die, unable to survive the loss.
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Other materials on the work of Dostoevsky F.M.
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The theme of the "little man" has become one of the leading themes of Russian literature of the 19th century since the appearance of Pushkin's story "The Stationmaster". We can say that it was in this topic that the characteristic feature of the perception of the world and man, characteristic of Russian national self-consciousness, was embodied. Nowhere else in world literature was the humiliated position of a person at the lowest rung of the social ladder so sharply perceived, nowhere did he evoke such a sympathetic attitude.
Samson Vyrin in The Stationmaster and Evgeny in Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman, Poprishchin from Madman's Notes and Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin in Gogol's The Overcoat open a long line of "small", inconspicuous, unremarkable heroes who suffer, endure insults and humiliation "only because they are not allowed to be holders of a high rank and title. Sometimes they lack courage and strength of character, often they are not even fully aware that their human dignity is being infringed, sometimes they are so pathetic and insignificant that the reader's attitude towards them becomes ambiguous.But still, the leading line of the theme of the "little man" is always associated with the pathos of compassion and humanism.
That is how the writers perceived this topic, who in the mid-1840s united around Belinsky and formed the so-called “natural school”. For them, the theme of the "little man" becomes central and most significant from a social point of view. No wonder F.M. Dostoevsky, who began his career as a representative of the "natural school", said: "We all came out of Gogol's "Overcoat". But even then, when he not only parted with this group of writers, but even took a very critical position in relation to those whom he recently considered his like-minded people, and then for Dostoevsky the theme of “humiliated and insulted”, the theme of the suffering of the “little man” remained central. But in its disclosure, he went his own way, which in many respects changed both the interpretation of this topic and the attitude towards the “little man”.
For the first time, Dostoevsky appeared before the Russian reader as the author of the story "Poor People", published in! 845 in the "Petersburg collection", which was published by the writers of the "natural school". This story immediately put Dostoevsky in the forefront among young Russian writers and strengthened his fame as the “new Gogol”.
Indeed, much in this work continues Gogol's traditions in revealing the theme of the "little man". Makar Alekseevich Devushkin, the hero of the story "Poor People", according to his social status, clearly belongs to the "little people". This, like Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin from Gogol's "The Overcoat", is an eternal titular adviser living in extreme poverty. This is how he describes his dwelling in a letter to Varenka Dobroselova: “Well, what a slum I ended up in, Varvara Alekseevna. Well, it's an apartment! ... Imagine, approximately, a long corridor, completely dark and unclean. On its right hand there will be a blank wall, and on the left, doors and doors, like numbers, all stretch out like that. Well, they hire these rooms, and they have one room in each: they live in one and two, and three. Do not ask in order - Noah's Ark. How this description resembles the dwellings of those heroes of Dostoevsky's novels; who will appear much later - Raskolnikov, Marmeladov, Sonya and others from among the "small", "humiliated and insulted" people!
But here's what's interesting: Makar Devushkin, like Bashmachkin, does not at all see poverty and his low social status as something improper, requiring change. He, just like Gogol's hero, puts up with his social and service-hierarchical "smallness", sincerely believing that "every state is determined by the Almighty to the lot of man. That is determined to be in the general's epaulettes, this is to serve as a titular adviser; to command such and such, and to obey such and such meekly and in fear. Devushkin even writes the auto-characteristic in official style: “I have been in the service for about thirty years; I serve impeccably, sober behavior, I have never been seen in riots.
The central episode of Dostoevsky's story, like Gogol's "Overcoat", is the meeting of a "little" official with "His Excellency" - a "significant person", according to Gogol's definition. Like Akaky Akakievich, Makar Alekseevich is confused, timid, pitiful. Summoned to the boss about a poorly rewritten official paper, the timid official sees himself in the mirror and is amazed himself: “It was so easy to go crazy because of what I saw there.” And he saw his pitiful, fear-shaken figure. He does not inspire any respect for himself at this moment, and then the ill-fated button, which has long been hanging on a thread on an old uniform, suddenly breaks off and falls right "at the feet of his excellency." Devushkin, who was already completely lost, “rushed to catch” her, and this finally finished him off.
It seems that the finale of this scene should remind the reader of the sad story of Akaky Akakievich Devushkin writes about this Varenka in this way: “Here I feel that my last strength is leaving me, that everything, everything is lost! All reputation is lost, the whole person is gone! The hero experiences at this moment a state similar in his eyes to death. But this death is completely different from that of Gogol's Bashmachkin, because, with all the outward resemblance, Devushkin is fundamentally different from the hero of "The Overcoat", as well as from Pushkin's "little people", and even more so from the type of this hero that has become so common. in the works of other writers of the "natural school". It can be said that Dostoevsky does not so much continue to develop the theme of the "little man" as Pogogol, as he polemicizes with previous interpretations, gives a completely new twist to this theme.
MM Bakhtin, a researcher of Dostoevsky's work, called it "a Copernican coup on a small scale." He said that the writer “depicts not a “poor official”, but the self-consciousness of a poor official. We see not who he is, but how he is aware of himself.” This is a very fair idea, which is confirmed even by the very form of the story chosen by Dostoevsky.
Before us is a "novel in letters", the authors of which are two "little people" - Makar Devushkin and Varenka Dobroselova. It is hard to imagine that Bashmachkin or Vyrin could write something like that. Indeed, in his letters, Devushkin does not just talk about some events of his life, he evaluates them, analyzes them, talks about his experiences, reveals his inner world. It is in this - in the presence of an inner world in itself - that the fundamental difference between Dostoevsky's "little man" and all his predecessors already lies. But more than that - the writer seeks not only to show the existence of the inner world of such people, but also to study it in depth.
Thus, in Dostoevsky, the interest in psychology, so characteristic of his subsequent work, comes to the fore. The writer sought to find in the "small" person a "big" person capable of deep feelings. Indeed, for him, Varenka is both a lover, and a friend, and an attentive, understanding listener, and the object of his constant concern. In his feeling for this girl, there is such a gamut rich in all shades, so much kindness and compassion that we cannot help but see a truly human face in this hero.
Apparently, this is his main difference from all the "little people" in Russian literature that preceded him - and many subsequent ones. The leitmotif of this theme in Dostoevsky is the assertion of the right of the "little man" to a person and the recognition of him as such by all members of society. That is why Devushkin is so humiliated by the comparison with a “rag”, that is, a thing. For him, the most important thing is to be seen as a unique, original personality, as in every other person.
It is interesting how Makar evaluates those literary heroes in whom he finds some analogy with himself. Comparing himself with the heroes of Pushkin's "The Stationmaster" and Gogol's "Overcoat", he prefers Pushkin's Samson Vyrin - it seems to him (the hero of "Poor People") too cruel and merciless to look at such a person in Gogol's story, where Akaky Akakievich is so impersonal that becomes a kind of symbol of the titular adviser in general. For Devushkin, such a situation seems the most humiliating of all that is happening to him or can happen to him. For him, there is nothing more painful than to turn into a symbol of a petty official. It becomes torture for him when “in the whole department” “they introduced Makar Alekseevich into the proverb”: “everyone is against Makar Alekseevich”. This is what it means for the hero of Dostoevsky to turn out to be a rag-thing that other people have the right not to distinguish and not to single out from the general series.
That is why the kindest and most meek Makar Alekseevich turns out to be capable of indignation, anger and even rage when an attempt arises to affect his private life. Among his neighbors is the mediocre writer Ratazyaev, whom Devushkin calls "a literary official." Like Devushkin's other neighbors, he learns about the correspondence between Makar and Varenka, and is going, as Makar Alekseevich says with horror, "to put into his literature" "the whole private ... life" of them. “A poor person, in their opinion, should have everything inside out; that he should have nothing cherished, there are some ambitions no-no-no!” Devushkin says indignantly. He is right that, in fact, writers like Ratazyaev, satirically shown by Dostoevsky, depersonalize the “little man”, whose true feelings turn under their pen into the common stereotype of a novel about “poor love”.
It is from this point of view - the assertion of the right of the "little man" to a person - that the final scene of "His Excellency" should be considered. Continuing the comparison with The Overcoat, we can say that Bashmachkin dies from Gogol because a new overcoat was stolen from him, with which the hero associates his human self-consciousness, unnoticed by anyone, even by the omnipotent "significant person", whose indifference finally finishes Akaky Akakievich. In Dostoevsky, Devushkin experiences a state similar to death, because he can lose his personal self-respect, which has nothing to do with an overcoat, or with a uniform, or anything like that. Physical death sets in for Gogol's hero, while spiritual and moral death can overtake Makar.
But, fortunately, this does not happen: after all, Dostoevsky's "significant person" also changes fundamentally. According to the traditional scheme of the relationship between the “little man” and his boss, “His Excellency” had to not only “scold” him, but also completely humiliate him - and Makar would not have endured this. But something completely unexpected happens, even for Devushkin himself. After all, the boss did not just give him a hundred rubles - the amount itself is huge for a poor official and really helps him improve his situation. But the main thing here is different: this is the human gesture of the boss, whom, according to Makar, “they themselves, straw, drunkard, deigned to shake his unworthy hand!” This is what saves Devushkin, "resurrects" him; “In doing so, they returned me to myself. With this act, they resurrected my spirit!
Neither Akaky Akakievich, who ended his sad story with an act of revenge on a significant person from whom the ghost of Bashmachkin rips off his overcoat, nor any other of the many "little people" depicted by other writers, could know this. The story of Makar Alekseevich Devushkin does not become happy because of this - after all, his life remains difficult, full of hardships and humiliations, and he still loses the girl with whom he deeply cherished love is connected. But Dostoevsky accomplished the “Copernican coup”: after his “Poor People” there will appear “The Humiliated and Insulted”, “Crime and Punishment” and other novels, where the Personality of man will be affirmed as a creation of God, regardless of the conditions in which this person is forced to exist . After all, the main thing is to always remain human. And in this it is difficult to argue with Dostoevsky, no matter how we feel now that "poverty is not a vice."
Poverty is not a vice - Ostrovsky's play, which we met in a lesson at school. The writer wrote it in 1853, and a year later the play was published as a separate book. The play, like the book, was a success. Today we got acquainted with this work. Now let's do the work of Ostrovsky Poverty is not a vice, having considered the problems that the writer raises.
Analysis of the play Poverty is not a vice
In the play, Ostrovsky raises various issues, including the confrontation between the environment and the individual. Very often a person is treated depending on his wealth. The richer, the more he is respected, but spiritual and moral qualities are not taken into account.
Studying Ostrovsky and his Poverty is not a vice, and making an analysis of his work in the 9th grade, we see the influence of money on the fate of people. The author showed us exactly how money can influence a person when a person begins to obey and depend on them. Money comes to the fore, but caring for loved ones becomes secondary. But Ostrovsky could not allow the victory of money over human feelings and proved to readers that wealth can also be powerless. Proof of this was the love of the noblewoman Lyuba Gordeeva, whom her father wanted to give for a Moscow rich man, to the clerk Mitya. After going through the trials, the hearts in love are still reunited. And here, Tortsov's brother Gordeya Lyubim played an important role. It was he who spoke about the plans of the manufacturer Korshunov, for whom Gordey wanted to give his daughter, despite the fact that she loved another. African ruined Lyubim, and now set his sights on Gordey. As a result, Korshunov demands an apology, and Gordey, to spite the manufacturer, marries Lyuba to Mitya. Gordey relented and was grateful to his brother for instructing him in his mind and not allowing him to make a mistake.
So two hearts were reunited, love triumphed over riches.
Making our brief analysis, we see that vices are punished, and good triumphs. The wedding of heroes becomes proof that poverty cannot be a vice, but callousness and greed are real shortcomings.
Questions for the lesson
Is there any similarity between the characters of Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky. How do you understand the attitude of the authors to the "poverty" of their characters?
What is the "poverty" of Lisa ("Poor Liza" Karamzin), Vyrin ("The Stationmaster" Pushkin), Akaky Akakievich ("Overcoat" Gogol), Makar Devushkin ("Poor People" Dostoyevsky)?
Humiliation as a result of poverty, whatever it may be: material poverty, poverty of feelings, poverty as humiliation, as the psychology of life, the pride of poverty...
Question
In the works of which writers the theme of the "little man" is raised?
Answer
The work of many Russian writers is imbued with love for an ordinary person, pain for him.
Already in the stories of sentimentalists, especially in Karamzin (the story "Poor Liza"), the "little man" is shown. It was an idealized, unrealistic image.
One of the first to put forward the theme of the "little man" in literature was A.S. Pushkin. In Belkin's Tales, the writer not only draws pictures of the life of the nobility and county ("The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"), but also draws the attention of readers to the fate of a lower-class official.
Pushkin makes the first attempt to objectively, truthfully depict a hero of this type.
Question
In which Pushkin's work is the problem of the "little man" most clearly reflected? Remind yourself of this story.
Answer
Sentimental suffering is alien to the stationmaster. He has his own sorrows associated with the disorder of life. There is a small postal station somewhere at the crossroads of carriageways. The 14th grade officer Samson Vyrin and his daughter Dunya live here - the only joy that brightens up the hard life of the caretaker, full of shouting and cursing of passing people.
And suddenly the daughter is taken away to Petersburg, taken away secretly from her father. The worst thing is that Dunya left with the hussar of her own free will. Having crossed the threshold of a new, rich life, she abandoned her father. Samson Vyrin goes to St. Petersburg to "return the lost lamb", but he is kicked out of Dunya's house, and in the end he receives several banknotes for his daughter.
"Tears again welled up in his eyes, tears of indignation! He squeezed the papers into a ball, threw them on the ground, stamped them with his heel and went ..."
Vyrin dies alone, and no one notices his death. About people like him, Pushkin writes at the beginning of the story:
"Let us, however, be fair, we will try to enter into their position and, perhaps, we will begin to judge them much more condescendingly."
Conclusion
Life truth, sympathy for the "little man", offended at every step by the bosses, standing higher in rank and position - that's what we feel when reading the story. Pushkin cherishes a person who lives in grief and need. The story is imbued with democracy and humanity.
Question
How is the theme of the little man refracted in Gogol's works?
Answer
The idea of a humane attitude towards the "little man" is directly expressed in Gogol's story "The Overcoat".
Exercise
Describe the hero of Gogol's story "The Overcoat" Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin.
Answer
Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin - "eternal titular adviser". The senseless clerical service killed every living thought in him. The only pleasure he finds in the correspondence of papers. He lovingly draws letters in a clean, even handwriting and completely immerses himself in work, forgetting the insults caused to him by his colleagues, and need, and worries about food and comfort. Even at home, he thinks that "God will send to rewrite tomorrow."
But even in this downtrodden official, a man woke up when the goal of life appeared - a new overcoat.
"He somehow became more alive, even firmer in character. From his face and from his actions, doubt, indecision disappeared by itself ..."
Bashmachkin does not part with his dream for a single day. He thinks about it, as another person thinks about love, about family. Here he is ordering a new overcoat. "...his existence became somehow fuller."
Conclusion
Description of the life of Akaky Akakievich is riddled with irony. But there is also pity and sadness in it. Introducing us into the spiritual world of the hero, describing his feelings, thoughts, dreams, joys and sorrows, the author makes it clear what happiness it was for Bashmachkin to acquire an overcoat and what a disaster its loss turns into.
There was no happier person than Akaky Akakievich when the tailor brought him an overcoat. But his joy was short-lived. When he returned home at night, he was robbed. And none of the people around takes part in the unfortunate official. In vain Bashmachkin sought help from a "significant person." He was even accused of rebellion against superiors and "higher". Frustrated Akaki Akakievich catches a cold and dies.
In the finale, a small, timid man, driven to despair by the world of the strong, protests against this world. Dying, he "badly blasphemes", utters the most terrible words that followed the words "your excellency." This is a rebellion, albeit in a deathbed delirium.
Question
What is the cause of Bashmachkin's death?
Answer
It is not because of the overcoat that the "little man" dies. He becomes a victim of bureaucratic "inhumanity" and "ferocious rudeness", which, according to Gogol, lurks under the guise of "refined, educated secularism." This is the deepest meaning of the story.
Question
In what other work of Gogol is the theme of the little man touched upon?
Answer
Criminal indifference shows the highest Petersburg society to Captain Kopeikin in the poem "Dead Souls". It turned out to be callous, soulless, not just to a small person, but to the defender of the Motherland, the hero of the war of 1812, an invalid who lost all means of subsistence ...
No wonder the fate of Captain Kopeikin is associated with a riot: a warning that the patience of the downtrodden and humiliated will someday end, that there is a limit to everything. And if the broad Russian soul rebelled, then woe to those who oppressed and offended the poor man.
Question
You are already familiar with some of Dostoevsky's works. Where is the theme of the "little man" most acutely touched upon?
Answer
The spirit of Gogol's "Overcoat" is imbued with Dostoevsky's novel "Poor People". This is a story about the fate of the same "little man", crushed by grief, despair and social lawlessness. Correspondence between official Makar Devushkin and Varenka, who has lost her parents and is persecuted by a procuress, reveals the deep drama of the life of these people.
Makar and Varenka are ready for each other for any hardships. Makar, living in extreme need, helps Varya. And Varya, having learned about the situation of Makar, comes to his aid. But the heroes of the novel are defenseless. Their rebellion is "rebellion on their knees." Nobody can help them. Varya is taken away to certain death, and Makar is left alone with his grief. Broken, crippled life of two wonderful people, broken by cruel reality.
Dostoevsky reveals the deep and strong experiences of "little people". It is curious to note that Makar Devushkin reads "The Stationmaster" by Pushkin and "The Overcoat" by Gogol. He is sympathetic to Samson Vyrin and hostile to Bashmachkin. Probably because he sees his future in the latter.
So, Dostoevsky, the most complex and contradictory realist artist, on the one hand, shows a “humiliated and insulted” person, and the writer’s heart overflows with love, suffering and pity for this person and hatred for the well-fed, vulgar and depraved, and on the other hand, speaks out for humility, humility, calling: "Humble yourself, proud man."
Question
Do you think there is a difference between poverty and poverty?
Answer
Marmeladov from Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" turns out to be a victim in a society of arbitrariness and lawlessness. This drunken retired official says to Raskolnikov: "In poverty you still retain your nobility of feelings, but in poverty, never anyone."
Marmeladov explains his idea: "Poverty is not a vice, poverty is a vice," for in poverty the self-esteem of the poor is not yet perverted; the beggar ceases to be a man, ceases to respect himself, humiliates himself, reaching the last degree of moral decline.
The theme of the "little man" was further developed in the works of Chekhov. This will be discussed in the lessons devoted to the work of this writer.
Mark the material on the topic: "The image of the city in the novel." What is Dostoevsky's Petersburg like?
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...3
Chapter 2
2.1. "Little Man" in the works of A.S. Griboedova…………………9
2.2. The development of the image of the “little man” by N.V. Gogol………………..10
2.3. The theme of the "little man" in the work of M.Yu. Lermontov…………..10
2.4. F.M. Dostoevsky, as a successor to the theme of the "little man" ....11
2.5. Vision of the image of the "little man" L.N. Tolstoy…………………..13
2.6. The theme of the "little man" in the works of N.S. Leskova……………16
2.7. A.P. Chekhov and the "little man" in his stories………………………17
2.8. Creation of the image of the “little man” by Maxim Gorky…………..20
2.9. "Little Man" in "Garnet Bracelet" by A.I. Kuprin…………21
2.10. The theme of "Little Man" by A.N. Ostrovsky……………………...21
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….23
List of literature sources………………………………………………...25
Definition "small man" applied to the category of literary heroes of the era realism, usually occupying a rather low place in the social hierarchy: a petty official, a tradesman, or even a poor nobleman. The image of the "little man" turned out to be all the more relevant, the more democratic literature became. The very concept of "little man" is most likely in use introduced Belinsky(Article 1840 "Woe from Wit"). The theme of the "little man" is raised by many writers. It has always been relevant, because its task is reflect the life of a simple person with all its experiences, problems, troubles and small joys. The writer takes on the hard work of showing and explaining the lives of ordinary people. "The little man is the representative of the whole people. And each writer represents him in his own way.
In world literature, one can single out a novel-parable Franz Kafka“A castle that reveals the tragic impotence of a little man and his unwillingness to reconcile with fate.
In German literature, the image of the "little man" gravitated Gerhart Hauptmann in his dramas Before Sunrise and The Lonely. The wealth of images of the "little man" in the works of Hauptmann gives rise to many different options (from a poorly educated carter to a subtle intellectual). Continued the tradition of Hauptmann Hans Fallada .
In Russian literature of the 19th century, the image of the image of a small man became especially popular. Worked on it Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Gribodoev, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy and many other writers.
The idea of a "little man" changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Each writer also had his own personal views on this hero. But since the second third of the 20th century, this image has disappeared from the pages of literary works, since the method of socialist realism does not imply such a hero.
Chapter 1. The image of the "little man" in the works of A.S.
Pushkin
The greatest poet of the 19th century, A.S. Pushkin, also did not leave unnoticed the theme of the “little man”, only he turned his gaze not to the image of a kneeling man, but to the fate of an unfortunate person, showing us his pure soul, unspoiled by wealth and prosperity, who knows how to rejoice, love , suffer. This is a story "Station Master" included in the cycle Belkin's Tale. Pushkin sympathizes with his hero.
Initially, his life is not easy.
"Who did not curse the stationmasters, who did not scold them? Who, in a moment of anger, did not demand from them a fatal book in order to write in it their useless complaint of oppression, rudeness and malfunction? Who does not consider them monsters of the human race, equal to the deceased let's be fair, let's try to understand their position, and maybe we'll judge them much more leniently. not always ... Peace, day or night. All the annoyance accumulated during a boring ride, the traveler vents on the caretaker. The weather is unbearable, the road is bad, the coachman is stubborn, the horses are not driven - and the caretaker is to blame. Entering his poor dwelling, the traveler looks at him as an enemy; well, if he soon manages to get rid of the uninvited guest; but if there are no horses? God! what curses, what threats will fall on his catch! In rain and sleet he is forced to run around the yards; in the storm, in the Epiphany frost, he goes into the canopy, so that only for a moment can he rest from the screams and pushes of the irritated guest ... Let us delve into all this carefully, and instead of indignation, our heart will be filled with sincere compassion.
But the hero of the story Samson Vyrin, remains a happy and calm person. He is accustomed to his service and has a good assistant daughter.
He dreams of simple happiness, grandchildren, a large family, but fate disposes differently. Hussar Minsky, while passing by, takes his daughter Dunya with him. After an unsuccessful attempt to return his daughter, when the hussar "with a strong hand, grabbing the old man by the collar, pushed him onto the stairs," Vyrin was no longer able to fight. And the unfortunate old man dies of longing, grieving about her possible deplorable fate.
Evgeniy, the hero of The Bronze Horseman, looks like Samson Vyrin.
Our hero lives in Kolomna, serves somewhere, shy of nobles. He does not make great plans for the future, he is satisfied with a quiet, inconspicuous life.
He also hopes for his personal, albeit small, but family happiness that he needs so much.
But all his dreams are in vain, because evil fate breaks into his life: the element destroys his beloved. Eugene cannot resist fate, he quietly worries about his loss. And only in a state of madness does he threaten the Bronze Horseman, considering the man who built the city on this dead place to be the culprit of his misfortune. Pushkin looks at his heroes from the side. They do not stand out either in intelligence or in their position in society, but they are kind and decent people, and therefore worthy of respect and sympathy. In the novel "Captain's daughter" the category of "little people" includes Petr Andreevich Grinev and captain Mironov. They are distinguished by the same qualities: kindness, justice, decency, the ability to love and respect people. But they have another very good quality - to remain faithful to the given word. Pushkin took out the saying in the epigraph: "Take care of honor from a young age." They saved their honor. And just as dear to A.S. Pushkin, as are the heroes of his previously named works.
Pushkin puts forward a democratic theme in them
little man (the story "The Stationmaster"), anticipating Gogol's "Overcoat".
Here is what he writes in his critical article "Pushkin's Artistic Prose" literary critic S.M. Petrov:
"Tales of Belkin" appeared in print first realistic work Russian prose. Along with the traditional themes from the life of the nobility ("The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"), Pushkin puts forward in them democratic theme of the little man(the story "The Stationmaster"), anticipating Gogol's "Overcoat".
Belkin's Tales was Pushkin's polemical response to the main currents of contemporary Russian prose. the truthfulness of the image, deep insight into human nature, the absence of any didacticism "Station master" Pushkin put an end to influence
sentimental and didactic story about a little man like "Poor Liza" Karamzin. Idealized images, plot situations of a sentimental story deliberately created for didactic purposes are replaced by real types and everyday pictures, depicting the true joys and sorrows of life.
deep humanism Pushkin's story is opposed to the abstract sensitivity of the sentimental story. The mannered language of the sentimental story, falling into moralistic rhetoric, gives way to a simple and unsophisticated narrative, like the story of the old caretaker about his Dun. Realism replaces sentimentalism in Russian prose.
D. Blagoy considers the image of the “little man”, the unpretentious “college registrar”, to be the crown of Pushkin’s realism, its consistent completion, even going so far as to directly identify the life ideals of Eugene (“The Bronze Horseman”), the most typical of a series of such heroes, with the aspirations of the poet himself.
“In reality, Pushkin of the 1930s, who more than once sympathetically depicted the life and life of “little people”, endowed the latter with warm human feelings, at the same time could not help but see the limitations, the paucity of the spiritual needs of a petty official, tradesman, impoverished nobleman. Pitying the "little man", Pushkin at the same time shows the petty-bourgeois narrowness of his requests.
How typical is the type of French teacher in Dubrovsky:
“I have an old mother, I will send half of my salary to her for food, from the rest of the money in five years I can save up a small capital - sufficient for my future independence, and then bonsoir, I’m going to Paris and embarking on a commercial turn.” - Emphasizes A. Grushkin in article "The Image of a Folk Hero in the Works of Pushkin in the 1930s".
Sometimes little man image at Alexander Sergeevich go into the description of the folk hero. Let us turn to a fragment of the same article by Grushkin:
“In the Songs of the Western Slavs, he found this hero. The latter, it would seem, is endowed with all the features of a “little man”. At first glance, we have before us an undemanding, simple person, whose way of life is primitive to the extreme. What, for example, would you like to tell the old father, who is already “beyond the grave”, the hero of the “Funeral Song?”
I am healthy and son Jan
My mistress gave birth to me.
My daughter lives in Lizgor;
With her husband she is not bored there,
Twark has long gone to sea,
Alive or not, you'll find out for yourself.
But in the everyday, unpretentious life of the "little man" the features of courageous combat heroism suddenly break in. It turns out that far from idyllic associations are associated with the little boy, whom the “hostess” gave birth to:
In honor of his grandfather, he is named Jan:
I have a smart boy;
Already owns a scimitar
And shoots a gun."
The hero of the "Songs", the so-called "little man" ceased to be "little", transformed, exalted by the liberation struggle. Thus, Pushkin created artistic images that outgrow the framework of the noble ideology, filled with deeply democratic exercise.
In a later period, the same Dmitry Blagoy in his book "The Creative Way of Pushkin" brings out a new interpretation of the "little man" of the poet - the one who opposes himself to autocracy:
“The deep regularity, the organic nature of Peter’s theme for Pushkin’s post-December period, is convincingly confirmed by all the further course of his work, in which this theme becomes one of the leading, central themes, being filled, as we will see later, with more and more complex ideological-philosophical and socio-historical content, acquiring an increasingly problematic character, due to the staging and artistic development by Pushkin on this very topic of the central issues of his own modernity and Russian historical life in general - about relationship between the state and the individual, autocratic power and a simple "little" person, about the ways of Russian historical development, about the fate of the country, nation, people. It is this issue that will be at the center of such Pushkin's works related to the theme of Peter, as "Peter the Great's Moor", as "Poltava", as the deepest of the poet's creations - "Petersburg story" in verse, "The Bronze Horseman". The first in this series, as it were, a compressed, concentrated introduction to everything that follows is the poem "Stans".
2.1. "Little Man" in the works of A.S. Griboyedov
The writer who anticipated the image of a little man, even before Pushkin, was Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov.
In comedy Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" shows the collision of the "current century" and "past century". The first are people who live guided by progressive ideas, people who understand what Russia will come to if life is left as it is and does not try to change anything. The latter are representatives of the Moscow nobility, who are quite satisfied with their life. They not only do not want to change anything, but also in every possible way prevent the implementation of the ideas of representatives of the "current century". These two opposing sides are personified by two main characters: Chatsky and Famusov. It is in the Famus world that he lives Molchalin, which we will classify as "little people". This young man learned from childhood the rule of pleasing everyone.
He perfectly feels the mood of the Moscow nobility, the whole society around him. And he behaves as the mighty of this world want, "because now they love the dumb." This contributes to the fact that soon he becomes an integral part of this society, the right hand of his boss, which means a good career in the very near future. The second step is to intermarry with everyone respected person. Sophia, in love not with Molchalin, but with an ideal that she herself invented, does not see his true face, but idealizes him.
In fact, Molchalin is a cunning, treacherous, vile liar who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. His idea of happiness is very one-sided: wealth, a successful career, a significant position in society. Molchalin, in the image of Griboedov, is not only pathetic and disgusting, but also dangerous and completely not like Pushkin's heroes .
At Gogol, a small man has great faith, exists where it seems impossible to exist in the social sense. He continuation of the image laid down by Alexander Sergeevich. But such people live everywhere. We do not notice them, because we do not know how to love in a person his immortal soul. Therefore, stories like "The Overcoat" do not reveal to us the tragic meaning of life. Where sensitivity disappears, wisdom declines.
In a big, cold city, the petty clerk is in terrible misery. No one appreciates his diligence, skill and honesty. Years of need have meant that he can no longer look decent, as required by his service. At the cost of superhuman efforts, he acquires new clothes, as if restoring his lost dignity, but happiness does not last long: malefactors replace new clothes with rags from someone else's shoulder. This man is dying of grief. Death frees from service, but not from service, which is the meaning of being for him. He wanders the city at night, looking for what he has lost. And nothing more. He doesn't need someone else.
M.Yu.Lermontov, unlike many other writers, set himself the goal of portraying an outstanding personality, suffering from inactivity. He was one of the first Russian prose writers to touch on the topic of the "little man". The image of Maxim Maksimovich is unforgettable. We first meet him in the story "Bela". On the way, the narrator meets an elderly officer who gives him useful advice. This is Maxim Maksimovich. He lived in the Caucasus for quite a long time, which means that he knows local customs, customs, and customs very well. At first glance, he wins over the reader.
By origin, Maxim Maksimovich was a nobleman, but, obviously, from the impoverished nobility. Without influential connections and money. Despite his age, he is only in the rank of staff. -captain. This man is not used to curry favor with the powers that be. His words sound honest and sincere.
He is harmless, rustic, it is difficult for him to understand the complex feelings of Pechorin. But he knows one rule firmly - you can’t offend people. His whole protest is expressed in the fact that in the presence of Pechorin he began to put on a uniform, stopped accepting it as before, at home. An old campaigner and a decent man, Maxim Maksimovich understands only one thing, that he is to blame for the death of Bela no less than Pechorin, and inwardly he constantly executes himself for this. Bela and Pechorin replaced him with a family that he never had. But still, the environment to which he is accustomed, in which he lives, has left its mark on his soul and manner of behavior. A kind, taking everything to heart, a brave, resourceful person from the people - that's who Maxim Maksimovich is. Lermontov portrayed him not offended and humiliated, although pity still slips in the depths of the reader's soul. We, the readers, feel that Lermontov loves his hero, Sight him to "little man" the same as that of A.S. Pushkin. And Maxim Maksimovich himself in many ways resembles Captain Mironov.
In F. M. Dostoevsky, the “little man” fully understands his uselessness, uselessness. A vivid example of this is Marmeladov from the novel "Crime and Punishment". He is a drunkard, a rag, an insignificant person, from his point of view, but he is a philosopher.
“My dear sir,” he began almost with solemnity, “poverty is not a vice, but a truth. I know that drunkenness is not a virtue, and even more so. But poverty, dear sir, poverty is a vice. retain your nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty, never anyone. For poverty, they are not even driven out with a stick, but swept out of human company with a broom, so that it would be more insulting; and rightly so, because in poverty I myself am the first ready to insult myself. Marmeladov wants to improve, but he can't. He understands that he has condemned his family, and especially his daughter, to suffering, he is worried about this, but he cannot help himself. “Pity! Why pity me!” Marmeladov suddenly yelled, standing up with his hand outstretched ... “Yes! There’s nothing to pity me for! Crucify me on the cross, not pity me! In Chekhov, "little people" cause indignation, hostility, in Dostoevsky - pity and empathy. "And if there is nowhere else to go! After all, it is necessary that every person could at least go somewhere. For there is a time when you absolutely must go at least somewhere." "Compassion is the most important and, perhaps, the only law of human existence," said Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Compassion helps to survive, helps to understand the "little man" that, despite his baseness and worthlessness, someone needs him, someone worries about him, and this is very important for every person.
Another hero who sympathizes with everyone and tries to help is Sonya Marmeladova. She has a good heart and a great soul. Sonya is a "little person", she cannot change something in the life of the country, change the state, but she is able to help her neighbor, help those who need her help. We see great spiritual wealth and inner beauty in this fragile girl. Her beliefs will not allow anyone to confuse her, to commit acts that are contrary to moral standards. For her, every person is valuable. She can understand and forgive everyone.
And in the novel "Poor People" It's about "little people". Makar Devushkin and Varvara Alekseevna also belong to the lower stratum of society. They want to live well, work, hope for their happiness. Makar Devushkin loves Varenka very much, he is like a father to her: he buys her what she dreams of, although she does not ask him about it, and he himself remains virtually without food, becomes a debtor to the mistress of the house in which he lives. Varenka, having learned about the misfortune of Makar Devushkin, tries to help him: she sends him money so that he can pay off the hostess and buy something for himself. It should be noted that she gives far from the extra money earned by her painstaking work. Pity and kindness are characteristic of this tender girl and her friend Makar Devushkin, who once saved her from an evil relative. Mutual assistance is very important here, because only these people can hope for it. The author wanted to point out the problems of the disadvantaged with his works. They are forced to live in gloomy, dirty, vile and smelly areas of the city. And why did so many of them deserve it? How did Sonya Marmeladova deserve this? How did Makar Devushkin and Varvara Alekseevna deserve this? This is what Dostoevsky draws attention to. His "little man" knows how to reason. He is not only "humiliated and insulted", understanding his insignificance, he is also a philosopher, posing questions of the greatest importance to society.
Pushkin's influence in "Poor People" turns out to be secondary- Gogol writes with an eye on Pushkin, and Dostoevsky - with an eye first of all on Gogol and his "Overcoat". Common features of Pushkin and Dostoevsky- these are similar interpretations of the image of a little man, posing the problem of permissiveness, interest in confession.
2.5. Vision of the image of the "little man" L.N. Tolstoy
L.N .Tolstoy in an epic novel "War and Peace" built in front of readers people of different walks of life, wealth and characters. His sympathy is on the side of those characters who are spiritually close to the people. Therefore, with such warmth, he draws the image of Captain Tushin. This is a hero who belongs to the category of "little people". And at first glance, he is clumsy, funny. But this is only at first glance, when he is not minding his own business. In battle, this is a real hero, courageous, fearless. In Tolstoy's huge novel, Captain Tushin is given ten pages, but the image of this man turns out to be very important for understanding the entire work and the views of the author himself. This is how this hero appears to us at the first meeting:
“Prince Andrey involuntarily smiled, glancing at Staff Captain Tushin. Silently and smiling, Tushin stepped from bare foot to foot, looked inquiringly with large, intelligent and kind eyes first at Prince Andrei, then at the headquarters officer.
“The soldiers say: wiser more dexterously,” said Captain Tushin, smiling and shy, apparently wanting to go from his awkward position into a joking tone. But he had not finished yet, when he felt that his joke was not accepted and did not come out. He was confused.
- If you please go, - said the staff officer, trying to keep seriousness.
Prince Andrei once again looked at the figure of the artilleryman. There was something special in it, not at all military, somewhat comical, but extremely attractive.
And now this timid, insecure person is in a completely different situation, where a lot depends on him, where he forgets about himself, and thinks about the common cause. “The Tushin battery was forgotten, and only at the very end of the case, continuing to hear the cannonade in the center, Prince Bagration sent the staff officer on duty there and then Prince Andrei to order the battery to retreat as soon as possible. in the middle of the action, but the battery continued to fire and was not taken by the French only because the enemy could not imagine the audacity of firing four unprotected cannons.On the contrary, from the energetic action of this battery, he assumed that here, in the center, concentrated the main forces of the Russians, and twice tried to attack this point, and both times were driven off by shots of four cannons standing alone on this hill. And this man, a real hero, after the battle cannot even defend himself from the attacks of those officers who turned out to be cowards, but knew how to win the favor of their superiors by any means. “Tushin appeared on the threshold, timidly making his way from behind the backs of the generals. Bypassing the generals in a cramped hut, embarrassed, as always, at the sight of his superiors, Tushin did not see the flagpole and stumbled on it. Several voices laughed.
- How did the gun leave? - asked Bagration, frowning not so much at the captain as at the laughing ones, among whom Zherkov's voice was heard loudest of all.
Tushin now only, at the sight of the formidable authorities, in all horror imagined his guilt and shame in the fact that he, having remained alive, had lost two guns. He was so excited that until now he had no time to think about it. The laughter of the officers confused him even more. He stood in front of Bagration with a trembling lower jaw and barely said:
- I don't know... Your Excellency... There were no people, Your Excellency.
- You could take from the cover!
That there was no cover, Tushin did not say this, although it was the absolute truth. He was afraid to let the other boss down by this and silently, with fixed eyes, looked straight into Bagration's face, just as a student who has gone astray looks into the examiner's eyes. The silence was quite long. Prince Bagration, apparently not wanting to be strict, had nothing to say; the rest did not dare to intervene in the conversation. Prince Andrei looked at Tushin from under his brows, and his fingers moved nervously.
“Your Excellency,” Prince Andrei interrupted the silence with his harsh voice, “you deigned to send me to Captain Tushin’s battery. I was there and found two-thirds of the men and horses killed, two guns mangled and no cover.
Prince Bagration and Tushin equally stubbornly looked at Bolkonsky, who spoke with restraint and excitement.
“And if, Your Excellency, let me express my opinion,” he continued, “the success of the day we owe most of all to the action of this battery and the heroic stamina of Captain Tushin with his company,” said Prince Andrei and, without waiting for an answer, immediately got up and moved away from the window.
Prince Bagration looked at Tushin and, apparently not wanting to express distrust of Bolkonsky's harsh judgment and at the same time feeling unable to fully believe him, bowed his head and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrew followed him.
“Thank you, you helped me out, my dear,” Tushin told him.
For Leo Tolstoy, a "little man" is a man of the people, capable of performing miracles, but very modest and not understanding his own greatness.
2.6. The theme of the "little man" in the works of N.S. Leskova
At Nikolai Semenovich Leskov"little man" is quite another human, than his predecessors, including Pushkin. In order to understand this, let's compare the heroes of three works of this writer: Lefty, Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin and Katerina Izmailova. All three of these characters are strong personalities, and each is talented in its own way. But all the energy of Katerina Izmailova is aimed at arranging personal happiness by any means. In order to achieve her goals, she goes to crime. And therefore this type of character is rejected by Leskov. He sympathizes with her only when she is cruelly devoted to her beloved.
Lefty is a talented person from the people who cares about his homeland more than the king and courtiers. But he is ruined by a vice so well known to Russian people - drunkenness and the unwillingness of the state to help its subjects. He could do without this help if he were a strong man. But a strong person cannot be a drunk person. Therefore, for Leskov, this is not the hero who should be given preference.
Among the heroes belonging to the category of "little people", Leskov singles out Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin. The hero of Leskov is a hero in appearance and spirit.
He is strong not only physically, but also spiritually. Flyagin's life is an endless test. He is strong in spirit, and this allows him to overcome such difficult life ups and downs. He was on the verge of death, he saved people, he himself fled. But in all these tests he improved.
This is a simple person with his own virtues and shortcomings, gradually eradicating these shortcomings and coming to an understanding of God. Leskov portrays his hero as a strong and brave man With a huge heart and a big soul. Flyagin does not complain about fate, does not cry. Leskov, describing Ivan Severyanovich, evokes pride in the reader for his people, for his country. Flyagin does not humiliate himself before the mighty of this world, like Chekhov's heroes, does not become an inveterate drunkard because of his insolvency, like Dostoevsky's Marmeladov, does not sink "to the bottom" of life, like Gorky's characters, does not wish harm to anyone, does not want to humiliate anyone, does not wait for help from others, does not sit idly by. This is a person who recognizes himself as a person, a real person, ready to defend his rights and the rights of other people, not losing his dignity and confident that a person can do anything.
Little Man" is constantly found on the pages of works A.A. Chekhov. This is the main character of his work. Chekhov's attitude towards such people is especially vividly manifested in his satirical stories. And the relationship is clear. in the story "Death of an Official" the "little man" Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov constantly and obsessively apologizes to General Brizzhalov for accidentally splashing him when he sneezed.
"I sprayed him!" Thought Chervyakov. "Not my boss, someone else's, but still awkward. I must apologize."
The key word in this thought is "boss". Probably, Chervyakov would not endlessly apologize to an ordinary person. Ivan Dmitrievich has a fear of the authorities, and this fear turns into flattery and deprives him of self-respect.
A person already reaches the point where he allows himself to be trampled into the dirt, moreover, he himself helps to do this. We must pay tribute to the general, he treats our hero very politely. But the common man is not accustomed to such treatment. Therefore, Ivan Dmitrievich thinks that he was ignored and comes to ask for forgiveness for several days in a row. Brizzhalov gets fed up with this and finally yells at Chervyakov.
"-Get out !! - the general suddenly turned blue and trembling."
"What, sir?" Chervyakov asked in a whisper, trembling with horror.
Go away!! repeated the general, stamping his feet.
Something broke in Chervyakov's stomach. Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, he backed away to the door, went out into the street and trudged along ... Arriving home mechanically, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and ... died.
This is what the fear of the highest ranks brings, eternal admiration and humiliation before them. For a more complete disclosure of the image of his hero, Chekhov used a "speaking" surname. Yes, Ivan Dmitrievich is small, pitiful, like a worm, you can crush him without effort, and most importantly, he is just as unpleasant.
in the story "Celebration of the Winner" Chekhov presents us with a story in which father and son humiliate themselves in front of the boss so that the son can get a position.
“The boss was talking and, apparently, wanted to seem witty. I don’t know if he said anything funny, but I only remember that dad every minute pushed me in the side and said:
Laugh!..
... - So, so! - Dad whispered. - Well done! He looks at you and laughs... It's good; maybe he'll actually give you a job as an assistant clerk!"
And again we are faced with admiration for superiors. And again, this is self-humiliation and flattery. People are ready to please the boss in order to achieve their insignificant goal. It doesn’t even occur to them to remember that there is a simple human dignity that cannot be lost in any case. A.P. Chekhov wanted all people to be beautiful and free. "Everything in a person should be beautiful: the face, and clothes, and the soul, and thoughts." So Anton Pavlovich thought, therefore, ridiculing a primitive person in his stories, he called for self-improvement. Chekhov hated self-humiliation, eternal subservience and admiration for officials. Gorky said of Chekhov: "Vulgarity was his enemy, and he fought against it all his life." Yes, he fought against it with his works, he bequeathed to us "drop by drop to squeeze a slave out of ourselves." Perhaps such a vile way of life of his "little people", their low thoughts and unworthy behavior is the result not only of personal character traits, but also of their social position and the orders of the existing political system. After all, Chervyakov would not have apologized so diligently and lived in eternal fear of officials if he had not been afraid of the consequences. The characters of the stories "Chameleon", "Thick and Thin", "The Man in the Case" and many others have the same unpleasant qualities of character.
Anton Pavlovich believed that a person should have a goal to which he will strive, and if it is not there or it is very small and insignificant, then the person becomes just as small and insignificant. A person must work and love - these are two things that play a major role in the life of any person: small and not small. Unlike Pushkin, Chekhov specifically emphasizes the human dignity of the “little man” and relationships with superiors in society.
Maksim Gorky wrote a play "At the bottom", in which all the actors are "little people". The action takes place in a rooming house. All the dregs of society are gathered here: drunkards, murderers and thieves. All of them are cruel, they have no feeling of compassion, no desire to help their neighbor. Klesch's wife dies, but he doesn't care. The sister cripples her own sister, everyone always drinks and no one cares about the other. They themselves are to blame for what happened to them, they do not have the strength and perseverance to fight fate. Insults in this society are becoming the norm. No one wants to say a kind, warm word to each other. Then Luke appears in their monotonous, cruel and vile life. He is able to sympathize, comfort people. And gradually, over time, some people become a little kinder. Luke brings them hope for a better life, he is gentle and kind to them. When he leaves, everyone is going to run after him, look for him. And all just because this simple and also "little man" gave them hope and sympathy, all that they had been waiting for so long. Luke is like a biblical character, like a pilgrim. He is the embodiment of goodness and justice. And this similarity is not accidental. Gorky draws the reader's attention to the fact that in our life there is not enough sympathy and warmth. He calls to help your neighbor, and this is important for any person.
This is how Gorky painted the "little man" for us in realistic works, which is fundamentally different from the heroes of his early romantic works. In the play "At the Bottom" we can draw an analogy with "Crime and Punishment".
Dostoevsky also called for compassion. In this, the views of Gorky and Dostoevsky coincide, which means that Gorky also was influenced by the image of the "little man" of Pushkin mediated by Nikolai Gogol.
At A.I. Kuprin in " Garnet bracelet"Zheltkov is a" little man. "And again, the hero belongs to the lower class. But he loves, and he loves in a way that many of the high society are not capable of. Zheltkov fell in love with a girl and all his later life he loved only her alone. He understood that love is a sublime feeling, it is a chance given to him by fate, and it should not be missed.His love is his life, his hope.Yeltkov commits suicide.But after the death of the hero, the woman realizes that no one loved her as much as he. The hero of Kuprin is a man of an extraordinary soul, capable of self-sacrifice, able to truly love, and such a gift is a rarity. Therefore, the "little man" Zheltkov appears to us a figure towering above the surrounding. He not oppressed like the heroes of Pushkin's "little man" rather, on the contrary, he is morally superior to everyone else, but this is what destroys him.
At A.N. Ostrovsky ideas about the "little man" are more like Chekhov's, but there is also something from Dostoevsky in them. In a play "Dowry""little man" is Karandyshev. He does not want to feel like a third-class person, as Chekhov did, but at the same time he is aware of his failure in society, like Dostoevsky's characters. Karandyshev wants to join this society, a society where he is not expected, where no one needs him. But at the same time, he wants to humiliate those who humiliated him. This desire for revenge makes him insensitive towards his bride, whom Karandyshev's behavior causes torment. In The Thunderstorm, Tikhon and Boris, despite their outward dissimilarity, are equally weak-willed. Neither the author nor the readers have any respect for them.
The female images in these plays, on the contrary, are very vivid. The main character of the play "Dowry" is Larisa Ogudalova. Her mother's advice is as follows: "We are poor people, we have to humiliate ourselves all our lives. So it's better to humiliate yourself from a young age, so that later you can live like a human being ... And pretend and lie! Happiness will not follow you if you run away from it yourself." But Larisa Ogudalova is a solid person, unable to dodge and lie. Her soul is open to people. And she doesn't want to live any other way. Katerina Kabanova, like Larisa, is ready to die, but not to live in a vulgar, false world. Death for both of them becomes the only way out. Larisa Ogudalova and Katerina Kabanova look like Sonya Marmeladova. They do not merge with the general mass of petty and bilious people. Sonya is a spiritual person, she does not take offense at anyone and helps everyone. Larisa is also not like everyone else, she does not follow the rule: “You cannot live without tricks in the world.” Before her death, she forgives everyone, although she probably does not take offense at anyone. For all their identical spiritual qualities, the external manifestations of these the heroines are different. Sonya is seemingly a very modest and even timid person. Larisa and Katerina are natures more resolute and strong in appearance, but they are all equally firm spiritually. Ostrovsky's position coincides with the position of Turgenev, who portrayed his girls an order of magnitude higher morally than those around them men.
The image of the "little man" appeared in world literature in the 19th century and became very popular. This hero was a person from low social strata, with his own strengths and weaknesses, joys and sorrows, dreams and aspirations. During the heyday of the realistic trend in literature, the inner world, the psychology of the "little man" occupied many writers. Especially often Russian classics turned to the theme of the “little man”. The first of them were Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov. Even the term itself was first used by the critic Belinsky when considering Griboedov's work Woe from Wit.
Pushkin, as one of the first classics who described the image of the "little man" in the early stages of his work, tried to show the high spirituality of the characters, as, for example, in the story "The Stationmaster". Later, in his works, the motives of the transition of the image of the “little man” and the merger with the image of the national hero sounded - “Songs of the Western Slavs”. In his historical poems, Alexander Sergeevich considers the eternal relationship between the "little man" and unlimited power - "Peter the Great's Moor", "Poltava".
All of Pushkin's works were characterized by a deep penetration into the character of each hero - a "little man", a masterful writing of his portrait, from which not a single feature escaped.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol became a direct successor to the theme of the "little man" of Pushkin. She expressed herself most fully in the story "The Overcoat". Later, in the footsteps of Pushkin and Gogol, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky followed, giving us not a single image of the “little man” in the novels Crime and Punishment and Poor People.
Standing apart is Griboyedov, who looks at this hero in a different way, which brings his views closer to those of Chekhov and partly Ostrovsky. Here
the concept of vulgarity and self-humiliation comes to the fore
In the view of L. Tolstoy, N. Leskov, A. Kuprin, a "little man" is a talented, selfless person. The most striking of these images came out in the novel "War and Peace" and the story "Lefty".
Such diversity in the interpretation of the image of the little man and its evolution in Pushkin himself are explained by constant social changes and the variability of life itself. Each era gives its "little man".
But, since the beginning of the 20th century, this topic has gradually faded away and the image of the “little man” in Russian literature has disappeared, giving way to other heroes.
1. Pushkin A.S. Collected works in 10 volumes. T.5. Novels, short stories. - M: State Publishing House of Fiction, 1960.
2. A. Grushkin. The image of a folk hero in the works of Pushkin in the 1930s. In the book: Pushkin. Vremennik of the Pushkin Commission, vol. 3. Ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M. - L., 1937.
3. Blagoy D.D. Pushkin's creative path. M., 1967.
4. E.P. Pedchak. Russian literature of the late 18th-19th centuries. Foreign literature. –M: Phoenix, 2003.
5. Khramtsev D.V. Pushkin and Dostoevsky // Magazine Samizdat from 09/06/2004.
6. Sokolov A.G. History of Russian literature of the late XIX - early XX century: Proc. -4th ed., additional and revised - M .: Vyssh. school; Ed. Center Academy, 2000.
Pushkin A.S. Collected works in 10 volumes. T.5. Novels, short stories. - M: State Publishing House of Fiction, 1960.
A. Grushkin. The image of a folk hero in the works of Pushkin in the 1930s. In the book: Pushkin. Vremennik of the Pushkin Commission, vol. 3. Ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M. - L., 1937.
Blagoy D.D. Pushkin's creative path. M., 1967.
E.P. Pedchak. Russian literature of the late 18th-19th centuries. Foreign literature. –M: Phoenix, 2003.
Khramtsev D.V. Pushkin and Dostoevsky // Magazine Samizdat from 09/06/2004.
Sokolov A.G. History of Russian literature of the late XIX - early XX century: Proc. -4th ed., additional and revised - M .: Vyssh. school; Ed. Center Academy, 2000.
