theme A work of art is a circle of events, phenomena, objects of reality (as well as human consciousness and culture), which is reflected in the work and became the basis of the author's narrative, a means of concrete implementation of a certain ideological and aesthetic intention of the writer. In every large, significant work of art, as a rule, not one any, albeit the most important, theme stands out, but a system of interrelated themes - themes.
Understanding literary work becomes clearer if its content is presented as a series of acute life contradictions ( problems) standing in front of the artist and his characters and urgently demanding their permission in the plot action.
So, problem Raskolnikov in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”: “Do I have the right (to shed blood) or not?”, Or, in other words: “Am I Napoleon or a trembling creature?” - turns different facets in different plot situations, in the relationship of the hero with other characters in the novel. It multiplies, enlarges with the development of the entire plot of the work, being reflected in the characters and destinies of other characters. Almost every one of them transgresses some line of what is morally permissible and thus commits a certain crime against humanity, conscience, humanism, killing something in those around him and in himself. The universal “crime” and the inevitable “punishment”, which unites all the characters and all the events of the work into a tight insoluble knot - this is how the problematic title of the novel can be read, which, according to the author, contains the key problem of Russian social life in the critical 1860s .
Compared with topics, only naming the main subjects of the artistic image, literary issues indicates the main contradictions of reality experienced, comprehended and presented by the artist in his work to the readers. Often, the most acute, burning problems of our time are taken out by the authors in the title of works. In some cases, this is a direct, categorically formulated question, setting the reader to search for an answer to it in the content of the work (“Who is to blame?”, “What to do?”, “Does a person need a lot of land?”), Or an indirect question (“Who on Rus' to live well”, “How the steel was tempered”). In others, the problem is presented in the form of a title socio-philosophical antinomy (“Woe from Wit”, “ Dead Souls”, “Fathers and Sons”, “War and Peace”, “Past and Thoughts”, etc.). Thirdly, it is figuratively, sometimes symbolically indicated problem situation era, described in the work as a combination of circumstances, fraught with burning social problem(“A feast during the plague”, “On the eve”, “Thunderstorm”, “Cliff”, “In the ravine”, “At the bottom”, “Defeat”, etc.), and the formulation of the problem itself must still be speculated by the reader in the process of perceiving a work of art.
The problems of a literary work, in principle, never completely resolved by the authors, are designed for the complicity of readers, arouse interest in ways and means of solving them, contribute to an independent search for answers to the questions posed, already beyond artistic text. However, the writer not only encourages his readers to solve the problems raised in his work, but also offers his own options for solving them, gives direct, sometimes declarative, publicistically open answers to the questions he posed. Such proprietary solutions literary problems in their totality they constitute a multitude of artistic ideas of a work, forming its ideological and aesthetic concept.
If the problem reveals the structure and organizes the thematic content of a literary work in accordance with the author's intention - from artistic details to its name, then the ideas of the writer characterize author's attitude to the events, characters, circumstances depicted by him and express his assessment of both the themes and the problems of the work, as if summing up fictional storytelling generalizing judgments of an ideological, philosophical nature. In a truly artistic work, the problematic is separated from the subject matter.
Theme, problem, idea are the elementary components of three different, albeit interconnected, levels of the artistic content of a literary work. The first - the subject-thematic content of the work - makes it construction material; the second - problematics - organizes this largely "raw" material into a single artistic and aesthetic construction of the whole; the third - the ideological and aesthetic concept - completes this artistically organized unity with a system of authorial conclusions and assessments of an ideological nature.
Since a dramatic work is designed to be staged in a theater where hundreds of spectators come, the circle of life phenomena considered by the author (the theme of the work) must be relevant to the viewer - otherwise the viewer will leave the theater. Therefore, the playwright chooses a theme for the play, determined either by the era or by eternal human needs, primarily spiritual ones, of course. The same can be said about the problems, that is, about those issues that bother the author and which he brings to the reader's and viewers' judgment.
A.N. Ostrovsky addressed topics from the life of Russian merchants, small and large officials, townspeople, creative, primarily theatrical public - that is, those strata of Russian society that were well known to him and studied both from positive and from negative aspects. And the problems raised by the playwright also concerned public spheres:
How can a young smart, talented person break through in life, but who, due to poverty and origin, does not have the strong support of a rich and influential relative or acquaintance? ("There is enough simplicity for every wise man")
Where did the conscience of the Russian merchants go? How did it happen that in the pursuit of profit, both the daughter and the son-in-law are ready to rob the father-in-law and leave him in a debtor's prison, so as not to pay his debts? ("Own people - let's settle!")
Why does a mother sell her daughter's beauty? ("Dowry")
What should a beautiful, but poor and unprotected girl do, so that her love and honor are not ruined? ("Dowry")
How can a person who feels, loves and longs for freedom live among the "dark kingdom" of ignoramuses and tyrants? ("Thunderstorm"), etc.
A. Chekhov dedicated his plays to people of other circles: the Russian intelligentsia, the last "shards" noble families and people of art. But Chekhov's intellectuals get too deeply entangled in "eternal" questions that deprive them of the ability to make decisions; his landlords, idolizing the cherry orchard as an all-Russian treasure, do nothing to save it and are preparing to leave just when the orchard is being cut down; and Chekhov's actors, artists and writers on the stage are completely different from the "stars", "idols" who are applauded by the public: they are petty, stingy, swear over the ruble, quarrel with loved ones, cowardly endure the already extinct and now not at all loving, but a boring and burdensome connection... And the problems of Chekhov's plays are also largely due to time:
But will it be so reverently expected by Chekhov's heroes "tomorrow", "later", "someday"? ("Three sisters")
Why time is running, and the person does not change? ("The Seagull", "Three Sisters", "Uncle Vanya")
Will there ever be a happy end to that path, those wanderings that fall to the lot of a born person? ("The Cherry Orchard")
What is happiness, glory, greatness? ("Gull")
Why does a person have to suffer in order to free himself from delusions and reveal his own talent? ("Gull")
Why does art require such terrible victims? ("Gull")
Is a person able to get out of that routine rut into which he has driven himself? ("Three Sisters", "The Cherry Orchard", "The Seagull")
Chekhov's plays brought new specifics to Russian dramaturgy stage action: there are no special events, "adventures", on the stage. Even out-of-the-ordinary events (for example, the suicide attempt and Treplev's suicide in The Seagull) occur only "behind the scenes".
On the stage, the characters only talk: they quarrel over trifles, sort out relationships that are already clear to everyone, talk about meaningless things, get bored and discuss what happened "behind the scenes". But their dialogues are filled with a powerful energy of internal action: behind insignificant remarks lies a heavy human loneliness, awareness of one's own restlessness, something not done, but very important, without which life will never get better. This property of Chekhov's plays made it possible to consider them as plays of internal dynamics and became a new step in the development of Russian dramaturgy.
Many people often have a question: why are the plays "The Cherry Orchard" and "The Seagull" comedies when such problems are posed and the plots develop in such a way? Do not forget that they were not defined by critics, but by the author himself. Return to the table. What is creative task comedy?
That's right, ridicule vice. Chekhov, on the other hand, ridicules, or rather, chuckles - subtly, ironically, beautifully and sadly - not so much at the vices as at the incongruities, "irregularities" of the life of a contemporary person, be it a landowner, a writer, a doctor or someone else: great actress- greedy; famous writer- henpecked; "to Moscow, to Moscow" - and we will spend our whole lives in the provincial wilderness; a landowner from a noble and wealthy family - and is going to go to the bank as an ordinary employee, knowing nothing about banking; there is no money - and we give gold to a beggar rogue; we are going to transform the world - and we fall down the stairs ...
It is this inconsistency that overwhelms Chekhov's plays(in fact, fundamental basis comic), and makes them comedies in the highest, ancient sense of the word: they are real "comedies of life."
The milestone era (the end of the 19th-beginning of the 20th centuries) demanded from playwrights attention to new topics and, first of all, attention to the very phenomenon of "man". M. Gorky in the play "At the Bottom" draws a terrible model of the "bottom" of human society, creating on the stage a kind of rooming house-cave, as if accommodating the whole world of contemporary human relations in it.
But the "bottom" for Gorky is not only poverty and restlessness. The soul also has a “bottom”, and the revelation of the deaf dark secrets of this soul was embodied in the images of the Baron, Kleshch, Actor, Kostylev, Ash ... darkness, that negativity that has accumulated in their souls throughout their real, actual life. No one will make your life different, except for yourself - this is the result of the author's observations of the heroes of the drama. And therefore, Gorky's drama "At the Bottom" is determined by genre affiliation as a socio-philosophical one. The key problems for Gorky were:
What is the real truth of life?
To what extent is a person capable of taking control of his own destiny? What have you done to make your life different, the way you would like it to be?
Who's to blame that trying to "jump off the tram" and start new life failed?
How should one see a person today, contemporary author, moment?
Pity or condemn? What really helps a person?
How responsible is society and the environment for human life? And etc.
In literary works, the term " subject"has two main interpretations:
1)subject- (from other Greek thema - that which is the basis) the subject of the image, those facts and phenomena of life that the writer captured in his work;
2) main problem set in the work.
Often these two meanings are combined in the concept of "theme". So, in the "Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary" the following definition is given: "Theme is a circle of events that form the life basis of epic and dramatic works and at the same time serving to pose philosophical, social, epic and other ideological problems" (Literary encyclopedic Dictionary. Under. ed. Kozhevnikova V.M., Nikolaeva P.A. - M., 1987, p. 347).
It is necessary to clearly distinguish between the concepts of "topic", "problem", "idea", and - most importantly - the "levels" behind them. artistic content avoiding duplication of terms.
The theme is object of artistic reflection, those life characters and situations, as well as the interaction of a person with society as a whole, with nature, life, etc., which, as it were, pass from reality into a work and form objective side its content. Subject in this sense - everything that has become the subject of the author's interest, understanding and evaluation. Subject acts as a link between primary reality and artistic reality(that is, it seems to belong to both worlds at once: the real and the artistic).
The analysis of the topic focuses on on the writer's selection of the facts of reality as the initial moment of the author's concept works. Sometimes unjustifiably much attention is paid to the topic, as if the main thing in a work of art is the reality that is reflected in it, while in fact the center of gravity of a meaningful analysis should lie in a completely different plane: not that author reflected, A how did you comprehend reflected. An exaggerated attention to the subject can turn a conversation about literature into a conversation about the reality reflected in a work of art, and this is far from always necessary and fruitful. (If we consider "Eugene Onegin" or "Dead Souls" only as an illustration of the life of the nobility early XIX century, then all literature turns into an illustration for a history textbook. This ignores aesthetic specificity works, the originality of the author's view of reality, the special meaningful tasks of literature).
It is wrong to give priority to the analysis of the subject matter because, as already noted, it is the objective side of the content, and, consequently, the author's individuality, his subjective approach to reality, cannot be fully manifested at this level of content. The author's subjectivity and individuality at the level of topics are expressed only in selection of life phenomena, which, of course, does not yet allow us to seriously talk about artistic originality this particular work. To simplify a little, we can say that the theme of the work is determined by the answer to the question: “What is this work about?”. But from the fact that the work is devoted to the theme of love, the theme of war, etc. you can get not so much information about the unique originality of the text (especially since quite often a significant number of writers turn to similar topics).
It should be noted that in a particular artistic whole it is necessary to distinguish between the actual reflection object(topic) and image object(a specific situation drawn by the author). Consider typical mistake of this kind. The theme of the comedy A.S. Griboedov's "Woe from Wit" is often defined as "Chatsky's conflict with the Famus society", while this is just a subject of the image. Chatsky and the Famus society are invented by Griboedov, but the theme cannot be completely invented, it, as indicated, “comes” into artistic reality from the reality of life. In order to “get out” directly on the topic, you need to open characters, embodied in characters. Then the definition of the theme will sound somewhat different: the conflict between the progressive, enlightened and serf-owning, ignorant nobility in Russia in the 10-20s of the XIX century.
The difference between the object of reflection and the subject of the image is very clearly visible in works with conditionally-fantastic imagery. It cannot be said that in the fable of I.A. Krylov "The Wolf and the Lamb" the theme is the conflict between the Wolf and the Lamb, that is, the life of animals. In a fable, this absurdity is easy to feel, and therefore its theme is usually defined correctly: this is the relationship of the strong, having power, and the defenseless.
When analyzing topics, it is traditional to distinguish between topics specific historical And eternal.
Specific historical topics- these are characters and circumstances born and conditioned by a certain socio-historical situation in a particular country; they do not repeat beyond the given time. For example, the topic extra person» in Russian literature of the 19th century, the theme of the Great Patriotic War, etc. Eternal themes record recurring moments in the history of various national societies, in the life of different generations(themes of friendship and love, relationships between generations, the theme of the Motherland, etc.)
Situations are not uncommon when a single theme is organically combines both concrete historical and eternal aspects, equally important for understanding the work: this happens, for example, in “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky, "Fathers and Sons" by I.S. Turgenev, "Master and Margarita" M.A. Bulgakov, etc.
In those cases where the concrete historical aspect of the topic is analyzed, such an analysis should be as historically specific as possible. In order to be specific about the subject matter, it is necessary to pay attention to three parameters: proper social(class, group, social movement), temporal(at the same time, it is desirable to perceive the corresponding era at least in its main defining trends) and National. Only the exact designation of all three parameters will allow us to satisfactorily analyze the concrete historical theme.
There are works in which not one, but several themes can be singled out. Their totality is called topics. Side thematic lines usually "work" for the main one, enrich its sound, help to understand it better.
The term " problem”(from other Greek problema - task, task) has a meaning in literary criticism similar to that in which it is used in various fields of science. A problem is a theoretical or practical issue that needs to be resolved, researched.
In literary works, the following definitions are found: “ Issues(other Greek problema - something thrown forward, i.e. isolated from other aspects of life) - this is an ideological understanding by the writer of those social characters which he depicted in the work. The meaning of this lies in the fact that the writer highlights And reinforces those properties of characters that he, based on his ideological worldview, considers the most significant ”(Introduction to literary criticism. Edited by G.N. Pospelov - M., 1976, p. 77)
Unlike the themes, the problematic is the subjective side of the artistic content, therefore, the author's individuality, the original author's view of the world, or, as L.N. wrote, is maximally manifested in it. Tolstoy, "original moral attitude the author to the subject” (Tolstoy L.N. Preface to the works of Guy de Maupassant / / Complete collection of works. In 90 vols. T. 30 - M., 1951). The number of topics that objective reality provides the writer with is involuntarily limited, so it is not uncommon for works different authors written on the same or similar topic. But there are no two major writers whose works would completely coincide in their problems.
In other words, under issues work of art in literary criticism is usually understood as area of comprehension, understanding by the writer of the reflected reality. This is the sphere in which the author's concept of the world and man is manifested, where the thoughts and experiences of the writer are captured, where the topic is considered from a certain angle. At the level of problems, the reader is, as it were, offered a dialogue, this or that system of values is discussed, questions are raised, artistic “arguments” are given for and against one or another life orientation.
Naturally, the problematics require increased activity from the reader: if he takes the topic for granted, then about the problematics, he can and should have his own thoughts, agreement or disagreement, reflections and experiences, guided by the thoughts and experiences of the author, but not entirely identical.
In many cases, the creations of verbal art become multi-problematic.
Literary critics offer various classifications problems. In particular, in the work of the modern researcher A.B. Esin, Pospelov's classification was clarified and supplemented, as a result of which the following types of problems were identified: "mythological", "national", "sociocultural", "novel" (where "adventurous" and "ideological and moral" are distinguished as subtypes), "philosophical ".
It should be noted that the problem of many specific works often appears in its typological pure form(The fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin are sociocultural, “Poltava” by A.S. Pushkin is national, etc.). Other types of problems do not play a significant role in the content of these works. But often there are also works that combine two, less often three or four problematic types. Thus, ideological-moral and socio-cultural issues are combined in "Eugene Onegin" by A.S. Pushkin, in the dramas of A.N. Ostrovsky; the combination of national and ideological and moral issues is typical for the poem by A.S. Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman".
When analyzing, it should be borne in mind that different types of problems do not always exist in a work “on an equal footing”. So, for example, in the story of N.V. Gogol "Taras Bulba" along with the host national type there are also novelistic aspects of the problem connected with Andriy's love for a Polish woman. To a certain extent, they create a meaningful originality of the story. But in the general artistic structure of the work, these aspects undoubtedly occupy a subordinate position. With the help of the novel conflict, the sharpness of the national conflict is emphasized, the drama of this side of the content is enhanced.
As the third structural component of the content, along with themes and problems, they call idea.
Idea- (from other Greek idea - concept, representation) - usually regarded as the main idea works; the attitude of the author to the depicted phenomena of life, their assessment; « generalizing, emotional, figurative thought that underlies a work of art ”(Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary. Ed. Kozhevnikov V.M., Nikolaev P.A. - M., 1987, p. 114).
The variety of formulations is associated with the complexity of the concept itself, which does not allow for simplified interpretations and cannot be unambiguously interpreted. The point of view of those literary critics who believe that it is necessary to speak not only about actually the idea(that is, a certain thought that the author wanted to convey to readers), but also about author's rating system(the attitude of the creator of a literary text to the depicted phenomenon), author's ideal(the idea of the standard of human relations, of what a person should be, etc.) and pathos works (dominant emotional tone or emotional mood) (Esin A.B. Principles and methods of analysis of a literary work. - M., 1999, pp. 57 - 72). Along with this, scientists talk about the possibility of using the definition of "the ideological concept of the work" or "the ideological world", which refers to the totality of thoughts and feelings expressed in the text in a figurative form and reflecting the attitude of the author to the reality depicted by him.
If the topic is the area of reflection of reality, and the problematic is the area of raising questions, then idea world- the area of artistic decisions, this is a kind of "completion" of artistic content. This is the area where the author's attitude to the world and to its individual manifestations, the author's position becomes clear; here a certain system of values is affirmed or denied, rejected by the author.
The first and most obvious manifestation of the author's position is the system author's ratings. Any artistic image is not a mechanical copy; an active author's biased and selective attitude towards the depicted is introduced into it. Quite often, the system of author's assessments in a literary work is understandable without special analysis (For example, it is quite obvious that the author of the comedy "Undergrowth" D.I. Fonvizin positively evaluates the characters of Pravdin, Starodum, Milon, Sophia and negatively – Skotinin, Prostakova, Mitrofanushka; clearly manifested positive attitude L. Tolstoy towards a family based on love, and his negative attitude towards war as a matter “against human nature”, etc.)
At the same time, quite often there is a complex author's assessment of one kind or another. This is due to the fact that the characters themselves are ambiguous, contain opposite tendencies that cannot be assessed only with a plus or minus sign. Such are the characters (and, of course, character assessments) of Onegin and Lensky, Pechorin, Raskolnikov and many other literary characters.
The basis for the author's rating system is author's ideal- the writer's idea of the highest norm of human relations, of a person who embodies the author's dreams of what a person should be. It must be said at once that the author's ideal is embodied in a work directly and directly only in rare cases. Much more often, the reader has to "reconstruct" the author's ideal as part of the ideological world of the work, comparing positive and negative assessments, since not everyone positive hero and there is the author's ideal.
Quite often (especially in works critical realism) the author's ideal is constructed from the contrary - it is directly opposite to the reality depicted in the work ("Dead Souls" and "The Government Inspector" by N.V. Gogol, fairy tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, etc.).
Another component of the ideological world of the work is artistic idea- the main generalizing thought or system of thoughts (in the latter case, one sometimes speaks of an ideological sound or ideological concept works). Sometimes an idea or one of the ideas is directly formulated by the author himself in the text of the work - for example, in L. Tolstoy's "War and Peace": "There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth." Sometimes the author, as it were, “entrusts” the right to express an idea to one of the characters (M. Gorky puts the phrase into the mouth of the heroine of the story “Old Woman Izergil”: “There is always a place for a feat in life”).
But most often the idea is not formulated in the text of the work, but, as it were, permeates its entire structure. In this case, the idea requires analytical work for its manifestation. When isolating an idea, it must be remembered that it is the result of generalization, abstraction, and therefore inevitably straightens and somewhat simplifies the living and rich artistic sense. As L.N. Tolstoy, the idea formulated by the critic is “one of the truths that can be told” (Letter to N.N. Strakhov dated April 23 and 26, 1876) (L.N. Tolstoy. Complete collection of works. In 90 vols. Vol. 62 - M., 1953, p. 268). In other words, piece of art as a whole is always richer than a rational idea.
Along with the idea of one of the components artistic world works is pathos. In some cases (especially lyrical works, although not only them, but in general all of them, distinguished by a high and pronounced emotional intensity), there is simply no need to rationally single out an idea, since it practically dissolves in pathos. It is no coincidence that B. G. Belinsky wrote that “a poetic idea is not a syllogism, not a dogma, not a rule, it is a living passion, it is pathos” (Complete collection of works in 13 vols. V.7 - M ., 1955, p. 312). Thus, pathos can be defined as the leading emotional tone of the work, its emotional mood.
Plot and conflict
Plot(from French sujet - subject, topic) – a chain of events depicted in a literary work, that is, the life of characters in its spatio-temporal changes, in positions and circumstances replacing each other. The events recreated by the writers form, along with the characters, the basis objective world work and thus an integral "link" of its form.
The plot is the organizing principle of most dramatic and epic (narrative) works. It can also be significant in the lyrical genre of literature (although, as a rule, here it is sparingly detailed and extremely compact): “The Prophet”, “Anchar” by A.S. Pushkin, etc.
The plot, as a rule, comes to the fore in the text of the work, determines its construction (composition) and completely focuses the reader's attention on itself. It is no coincidence that in everyday speech the plot is often identified with the content of the work. In response to someone's request to recall the content of the work, the events that happened to the hero are often recounted. But such a retelling is by no means a disclosure of the content, it only briefly indicates the plot that belongs to the field art form(or is considered a content-formal element).
Like other aspects of the form, the plot expresses the ideological and thematic concept of the work: in the course of events, artistic thought writer. The plot has a unique range of content functions. Firstly, it (along with the system of characters) reveals and characterizes the connections of a person with his environment, thereby his place in reality and destiny, and therefore captures picture of the world: the writer's vision of life as full of meaning, giving food for hope, spiritual enlightenment and joy, or, on the contrary, as hopeless, conducive to spiritual darkness and despair.
Secondly, the plots reveal and directly recreate life's contradictions. Without any conflict in the lives of heroes (long-term or short-term) it is difficult to imagine a sufficiently pronounced plot. Characters in the course of events, as a rule, experience dissatisfaction with something, a desire to get something, achieve something, suffer defeats or win victories, etc.
Thirdly, the series of events create a field of action for the characters, allow them to reveal themselves in a diverse and full way to the readers in their actions, as well as in their emotional and mental responses to what is happening. Through plots, writers often reproduce the processes of the formation of characters. It is no coincidence that M. Gorky, speaking about the plot as a system of relationships between the characters, about their likes and dislikes, described it as "a story of growth and organization of one character or another" (Conversation with the Young. Collected works. Vol. 27 - M., 1953 , p.215).
Plots are made up mainly of the actions of the characters. Action- this is a manifestation of emotions, thoughts and intentions of a person in his actions, movements, spoken words, gestures, facial expressions.
Literature known different types of action. In some cases, the plot is based on the depiction of the decisive actions of the characters, on turning, "nodal" moments in their lives. The action is executed external dynamics: in its process and as a result, the relationship between the characters, their personal fate or social status somehow change. In other cases, events act primarily as reasons for the thoughts and experiences of the characters. Characters at the same time, they show their thoughts and feelings in behavior, words, gestures, facial expressions, but do nothing that would bring noticeable external changes into their lives. And the dynamics of the action turns out to be par excellence internal: in the course of events, it is not so much the position of the heroes that undergoes changes, but their psychological state.
Plots with a predominance of external action are based mainly on ups and downs the course of events. This term denotes sudden and abrupt shifts in the fate of the characters - all kinds of turns from happiness to misfortune, from good luck to failure, or in the opposite direction.
The ups and downs (along with the content function that was discussed) have another purpose: to make the work entertaining. Turning events in the lives of heroes, sometimes purely accidental (along with the accompanying silence about what happened earlier and spectacular “recognitions”), arouse the reader's increased interest in further development action, and thus to the process of reading: he wants to know what will happen to the hero next and how it will end.
The focus on entertaining event intricacies is inherent in both literature of a purely entertaining nature (detectives, most of“grassroots”, mass literature), as well as serious, classical literature (“The Young Lady-Peasant Woman”, “Snowstorm” by A.S. Pushkin, “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky, etc.).
The most important function of the plot is the detection of life's contradictions, that is, conflicts. Conflicts make up important side epic and dramatic works. Properties plot conflicts determined by the problems of writers' creativity.
In works with the "pathos of sociality" (V.G. Belinsky), conflicts are recognized and portrayed as the product of specific historical situations. Here contradictions and clashes between different social groups, strata, classes or nations, states are often accentuated. Such are “The Tale of Igor's Campaign”, “Boris Godunov” by A.S. Pushkin and others.
Social contradictions in these works are embodied directly and openly, they are present here as conflicts are common. However, social contradictions can be captured in the plots indirectly and indirectly, refracted in the personal relationships of the characters, in conflicts. private (« Stationmaster» A.S. Pushkin, "Fathers and Sons" by I.S. Turgenev).
At the formal level, several types of conflicts should be distinguished. The simplest one is conflict between individual characters or groups of characters(“Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedov, “The Stationmaster” by A.S. Pushkin, etc.). More complex view conflict is confrontation between the hero and the way of life, personality and environment(social, everyday, cultural, etc.) The hero here is not opposed by anyone in particular, he does not have an opponent with whom he would have to fight and defeat, thereby resolving the conflict ( A prime example works that depict exactly this type of conflict is A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"). (Esin A.B.Principles and methods of analysis of a literary work. - M., 1999, p.144).
The relationship between conflicts in the lives of characters and the course of events can be different. Often the conflict is fully embodied and exhausts itself in the course of the events depicted. It arises, escalates and is resolved, as it were, before the eyes of readers, thanks to the active actions of the characters. This is conflict local ”, closed, taking place against the backdrop of a conflict-free situation.
Local and transient conflicts are within the plot. Along with them, there are other types of conflicts. In a number of epic and dramatic works, events unfold on sustainable , constant conflict background . The contradictions to which the writer draws attention exist both before the beginning of the events depicted, and in the course of their course, and after their completion.
Stable conflict situations are inherent in almost most of the plots realistic literature XIX - XX centuries. In this case, the writer draws “a persistently conflicted existence, and no real practical actions that can resolve this conflict are unthinkable. Conventionally, this type of conflict can be called unresolvable in this period of time ”(Esin A.B. Principles and methods of analyzing a literary work. - M., 1999, p. 145).
In addition to these types of conflicts, there are more conflicts external And domestic (psychological) . In the first case, the writer depicts the hero's clash with external circumstances (other people, animals, forces of nature, etc.), in the second, those processes that occur in the soul of the character who is forced to wage a "struggle" with himself. External and internal conflicts often combined.
It is impossible to single out only one topic in the story, since the story touches on many areas of life and relationships of a person with the world around him (other people, himself, nature, God). Accordingly, several themes can be distinguished.
1. The theme of the relationship of generations, "boy and old man." It is not particularly expressed and not even declared by the name of the work, but nevertheless significant. “It expresses the living connection of generations, the continuity of courage and struggle, that tenacious force of life that is present in the image of Santiago himself, and in general, as a real motive , opposes the fatal and pessimistic current in Hemingway's work. The boy's belief in the old man as the best fisherman in the world shows how deep Manolin's respect for Santiago is. With a desire, the boy tries to be a good assistant to the old man, he will bring some food, then sardines for bait and will certainly help to load tackle into the boat. The boy reaches out to the old man and takes care of him, in no case because he is old and infirm, and even more
no longer because he is sorry. ... He simply saw the wisdom of the old man, and wanted to learn from him - "everything, everything." He respected him for his colossal life experience.
2. The theme of "the old man and the sea." They are two elements that collide side by side every day, every year. These elements give each other strength. Soul, strength and confidence in a successful hunt give the desire to live an old fisherman. The sea and the fish that live in it are like a mirror image of the old man and his soul.
3. The theme of love for nature. The surrounding world appears as divine the whole picture. A person must respect the place in which he lives, the bowels of the planet that feed him. Anyone living on Earth should be aware that he is not just her master. A creature dependent on it.
4. The theme of the sacredness of the human relationship to the sea. The old man does not perceive the sea as a shop where you can get everything you need. For him, the sea is magic, another world, unique in its beauty, with its own laws and beliefs. “In his mind, he always called the sea la mar, as the people who love him call him in Spanish. Sometimes those who love him speak ill of him, but always as a woman, in the feminine gender. Younger fishermen<…>they call the sea el mar, that is, in masculine. They talk about him as a space, as a rival, and sometimes even as an enemy. Only old people can beg from the sea, calling it "la mar" to themselves, female, wait for a miracle and not be surprised at failures. The sea is a symbol of life, life itself. Also here it is impossible not to note how Hemingway emphasizes the worship of the "magic" sea, showing fishing as a sacred ritual that must be carried out according to certain canons, rules (the angle of the fishing line, the need for silence, the time of day).
5. The theme of human humility. Santiago thought of the sea as a woman who gives great alms or refuses them, and if she allows herself rash or unkind deeds, what can you do, such is her nature.
The old man can no longer fight the sea himself, like those who consider the sea a man and an enemy. He no longer has the strength. Therefore, he considers the sea a mother (mother goddess, giving birth and killing), a woman, and asks her. The pride of the old man does not allow him to ask the boy, but only from her, from the mother, from the woman. And the fact that he is asking means that humility has already begun to come to him. The word “humility” is found more than once in the text. It is said that the old man does not remember when humility came to him. In the process of struggle, humility only began to come to him. The meaning of the text is a description of how humility came to the old man. This parable is about the humility of old age.
6. The theme of resilience. It develops in two directions. First, the stamina of an old fisherman when catching marlin. Despite his size, the old man knows that he must use all his, albeit the last, strength to defeat him, overcome him, catch him, fish him out. And this is how
we know it is given to him with great difficulty. And this plan before us appears Man-Wrestler.
Secondly, marlin's tenacity at the same meeting. Marlin fulfills the role of Warrior Nature. There is a close connection between them, which will exist until the complete disappearance of one of these links. The old man and fish formula for endurance is expressed in the words "Fight to the very end." This idea is confirmed by the following lines of the story: “Fish,” he called quietly, “I won’t part with you until I die. Yes, and she probably won’t part with me,” the old man thought and began to wait for the morning. . The Old Man and the Sea. ]. Be calm and strong, old man, he told himself.
7. The theme of faith. Faith is key concept in "The Old Man and the Sea" Although he did not read the Lord's Prayer a hundred times within the narrative, he acquired that helplessness that is necessary for faith. He realized that it was necessary to believe not in himself (it was important for him that the boy believed in him, in him). What you need not to “buy” happiness from the pagan sea, from the pagan goldfish, but something else. It was faith that the old man acquired, and along with faith, humility. Hemingway's parable of the old man and the sea is also about humility and fortitude. Faith in God, faith in yourself. “Virgin Mother of God, rejoice, blessed Mary, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you in women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, as if you had saved our souls. Amen".
1. The problem of human happiness. What is happiness for a person? Does it need a lot? Does it exist?
2. The problem of attitude to God. Is there a God? Can he give everything? Does he give everyone what they ask for?
3. Problems of victory and defeat. What is victory? Is defeat always bad? Who is the winner in the end?
4. The problem of death, or destruction, is expressed in the work by an eternal law: one must either kill or be killed. According to Hemingway, death is inevitable, but both people and animals refuse to surrender to its power.
5. The problem of human loneliness. Can one person resist the boundless expanse of water? When can a person be called lonely?
According to famous critic I. Kashkina, "Hemingway's humanism is a joyless stoic humanism, the humanism of inner victory at the cost of constant defeat." So decided in this work universal problems: questions of human happiness, youth and old age, relations between man and nature.
One of the central and at the same time the most specific problems of Faulkner's work is racial. Faulkner called this problem the “curse of the white race”. The main thing for the writer here, of course, is not the psychology of outright racists, but the wall of alienation that arises between ordinary people of both races, sincerely striving for mutual understanding, arises as a result of deep, ingrained in the blood and flesh of people, starting from childhood, prejudices. "Every white child in the South," states The Light in August, "will be born 'crucified on a black cross.' A deep psychological elaboration of this proposition is the novel The Defiler of Ashes. The teenager Chick Mallison goes a painful path from the attitude to his help that had once been to him Lucas as a “black man”, which “must admit that he is a black-haired,” through attempts to convince himself that the upcoming lynching of Lucas, unfairly accused of killing white a person, he, Chika, is not at all concerned, and in general it is better to leave the city at this time.
However, many readers (and sometimes critics) who are familiar with Faulkner's works and his theory of time based on inseparable connection past, present and future, the question arises: what kind of future can we talk about in Faulkner's world, where, at first glance, rigid predestination dominates, the conditionality of all human actions and life itself by the past, where "there is no hiding from the dead"? Most clearly J.P. Sartre expressed this point of view in his article “Time in Faulkner's The Noise and Fury”: “Proust and Faulkner ... decapitated time; they took away his future, that is, the dimension free choice and action...,” writes Sartre. Life in Faulkner's books moves "like an increase in the sum that we all add to and complete: "And ... and ... then." Sartre compares the character of “The Noise and Fury” with the passenger of a speeding car sitting backwards: he does not see what is ahead, does not have time to see what is happening around him, on the sides of the road, his gaze is directed back to the path traveled.
Understanding this problem is necessary for a correct understanding of Faulkner's work, because the category of time is one of the most important in his worldview and aesthetics. In the most concentrated form, Faulkner expressed his understanding of the connection between the past and the present, his theory of time.
For Faulkner, the main thing is to show all the complexity, multidimensionality of the depicted life, the impossibility of reducing it to unambiguous definitions. In response to the question why Narcissa Benbow is in Sartoris-- attractive character, and in "Sanctuary" she appears evil, Faulkner replied: "... I believe that no person is completely good or completely bad ...". The character of Narcissa, added the writer, has not changed from Sarthorps to Sanctuary, it is simply illuminated from different points vision.
It should be added that Faulkner's narrators often do not have a final assessment of what is happening, they are in the thick of things and themselves are trying to comprehend their meaning. The American researcher P. Svnggart believes that Faulkner's narrators "combine" with readers, because they, like the reader, try to figure it out in the course of the action they describe.
The reader of a literary work inevitably, with varying degrees of awareness, evaluates what is read in ethical categories (good/evil, good/bad), thus becoming one or another value position in relation to the information received. The most common value categories are the “positiveness” and “negativity” of this or that phenomenon, which are also distinguished in other value series (pleasant/unpleasant, beautiful/ugly, useful/harmful, etc.).
In philosophical ethics, good and evil are distinguished as the main categories as the most general concepts"moral consciousness", serving for "positive and negative assessment of the phenomena of reality." Being among themselves in relations of logical opposition, at the same time they represent sides of the same coin, belonging to a single scale, and in this sense can be reduced to one category (morality); speaking of one of them, we inevitably touch on the other.
In the course of making moral assessments, a person tends to look for clear definitions of good and evil that would give them the status of objectively existing phenomena. At the same time, he is forced to either come to the fundamental indefinability of good and evil, since all possible definitions would correspond only to particular cases - “ certain types good" (J. Moore's theory), or elevate a certain value position - what is considered good - to the rank of objective - what is good (normative ethics). Meanwhile, the categories of good and evil are not descriptive (describing any objective property of an object), but prescriptive, evaluative. Accordingly, differences in the interpretation of this or that thing as "good" / "not good" stem from "differences in the moral positions of opponents."
Numerous temporary digressions in Faulkner's novels are intended specifically to explore the past and how it affects the present. The most complete interaction of the past and the present, their closest interweaving is given in the first chapter of The Noise and Fury, in which the narration is conducted on behalf of Benji. The presence of such indissolubility of temporal layers in the undeveloped, not subject to any extraneous influences, children's consciousness of Benji should probably prove this truth. The attitude of Faulkner's heroes to their past, the acceptance (or rejection) of time in its indissoluble unity determines a lot about their fate. The inexorable power of the past often breeds tragic conflicts in Faulkner's writings. Quentin's attempts to escape from time, to forcibly stop him - are unsuccessful, the death that is embedded in him due to the fact that his formation as a person made him alien to the world in which he lives, relentlessly pursues him in the form of a shadow from which Quentin trying in vain to get rid of it. Thomas Sutlen, a truly tragic figure, trying with titanic efforts to remake, cut off his past, suffers a cruel defeat in the struggle with this past. But in vain is the desire of Bayard Sartoris to adjust, to speed up the passage of time.
In his speech upon receipt Nobel Prize in 1950, Faulkner eloquently and convincingly expressed his belief that "man will not only endure, he will overcome." Man is "immortal...because," the writer continued, "that he possesses a soul, a spirit capable of compassion, sacrifice, and patience." It was in "compassion, sacrifice and patience" that the writer saw a force capable of resisting evil. Faulkner developed this idea repeatedly in his public speaking, and most importantly, she found embodiment in the images of his favorite characters: Dilsey, Gavin Stevens, Horace Benbow (as he appears in the novel "Sanctuaries"), Byron Bunch, Mrs. Powers, Lena Grove. However, single acts of goodness are only capable of bringing enlightenment to the surrounding world for some time, slightly alleviating the situation of people, but they are not able to radically change the world, the vibrations caused by them for a brief moment on the surface of the sea of life quickly fade, and the surface takes on its original form. . It does not save the Compson family about Dilsey from destruction, it cannot help the innocently convicted Goodwin and his Horea Benbow family, and Lena Grove is not able to prevent either the atrocities that are committed in Jefferson during her stay there, or, even more so, those which may be committed there in the future.
