Character(from the French personage - personality, person) - actor artwork. As a rule, the character takes an active part in the development of the action, but the author or one of the literary heroes can also talk about him. Characters are main and secondary. In some works, the focus is on one character, in others, the writer's attention is drawn to a number of characters.

Character(from the Greek character - trait, feature) - the image of a person in a literary work, which combines the general, repetitive and individual, unique. Through the character reveals the author's view of the world and man. The principles and techniques of creating a character differ depending on the tragic, satirical and other ways of depicting life, on the literary type of the work and genre.

Should be distinguished literary character from character in life. Creating a character, the writer can also reflect the features of the real, historical man. But he inevitably uses fiction, "thinks" the prototype, even if his hero is a historical figure.

"Character" and "character" are not identical concepts. Literature is focused on the creation of characters that often cause controversy, are perceived by critics and readers ambiguously. Therefore, in the same character you can see different tempers. In addition, in the system of images of a literary work, as a rule, there are much more characters than characters. Not every character is a character, some characters only perform plot role. Usually not characters minor characters works. Type- a generalized artistic image, the most possible, characteristic of a certain public environment. A type is a character that contains a social generalization. Prototype- this is a real person who served the author in kind to create the image of a literary hero. This may be a specific historical or modern to the author works of personality, which served him as the fundamental principle in creating the literary image of a person, such as a hero.

Lyrical hero- the image of the hero in a lyrical work, experiences, thoughts, whose feelings reflect the author's worldview; this is the artistic "double" of the author, which has its own inner world, your destiny. This is not an autobiographical image, although it embodies the spiritual world of the author.

System of images - set artistic images literary work. The system of images includes not only images of characters, but also images-details, images-symbols, etc.

Portrait a character is a description of his appearance: faces, figures, in their statics or dynamics (facial expression, especially eyes, facial expressions, gestures, gait); the character's costume is part of his portrait. An important function of the portrait is to reveal the character's character. Facial expression (and especially eyes), facial expressions, gestures, postures, i.e. nonverbal behavior, often indicates the feelings experienced by the character.

10. Types and system of characters.

Character (French personnage, from Latin persona - person, face, mask) - a type of artistic image, the subject of action, experiences, statements in the work. In the same sense in modern literary criticism phrases are used literary hero, character (mainly in drama, where the list of characters traditionally follows the title of the play). In this synonymous series, the word character is the most neutral, its etymology (persona is a mask worn by an actor in ancient theater) is hardly perceptible. A hero (from the Greek heros - demigod, deified person) in some contexts is embarrassing to call someone who is devoid of heroic traits. The concept of a character (hero, character) is the most important in the analysis of epic and dramatic works, where it is the characters that form a certain system and the plot (i.e. system, course of events) form the basis objective world. In the epic, the narrator (narrator) can also be a hero, if he participates in the plot (Grinev in Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter). In the lyrics, which recreate primarily the inner world of a person, the characters (if any) are depicted dotted, fragmentary, and most importantly - V inseparable connection with the experiences of a lyrical subject (for example, an imaginary interlocutor in M. Tsvetaeva's poem "Attempt at Jealousy"). The illusion of the characters' own life in lyrics (compared to epic and drama) is drastically weakened.

Most often, a literary character is a person. The degree of specificity of its image can be very different and depends on many reasons. It can occupy a different place in the character system and, accordingly, be drawn in full height or presented through a few details.

But within the framework of the episode, it is the episodic person that often turns out to be in the spotlight. The choice of hero itself is highly dependent on the genre; can talk about genre heroes in traditionalist literature. So, in the epic, the hero, according to N. Boileau, must be noble both in origin and in character, but at the same time be believable.

The structure of the image in epic works is different than in drama. The principles and techniques of depiction are determined by the concept of the work, the creative method of the writer: more has been reported about the secondary character of a realistic story in biographical and social terms than about the protagonist of a modernist novel. Along with people, animals, plants, things, natural elements, fantastic creatures, robots can act and talk in the work (“Traveling Frog” by V.M. Garshin, “Mowgli” by R. Kipling, “Amphibian Man” by A. Belyaev) .

There are genres, types of literature in which such anthropomorphic characters are obligatory or very likely: a fairy tale, a fable, a ballad, animalistic literature, science fiction, etc.

The character sphere of literature consists not only of individual subjects, but also collectible heroes(their prototype is the choir in ancient drama). Interest in the problems of nationality, social psychology, in particular to the psychology of the crowd, stimulated in the XIX-XX centuries. development of this image angle, introduction to the plot crowd scenes(a working settlement in M. Gorky's novel "Mother"). Group characters are close to collective, where the number of persons is limited and they are usually named by name (seven "temporarily obligated" men in N.A. Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'").

In most works there are off-stage characters that expand its spatio-temporal framework and enlarge the situation (Moliere's Misanthrope, Griboedov's Woe from Wit). This concept is applied not only to drama but also to the epic, where the analogue of the scene can be considered a direct (i.e. not given in the retelling of some hero) image of faces. So, in Chekhov's story "Chameleon", the general and his brother, lovers of dogs of different breeds, belong to off-stage persons. There are works where the off-stage hero is the main one. Such is the play by M. Bulgakov “Alexander Pushkin ( Last days)”, the action of which takes place after the death of the poet.

Another type of character is borrowed, i.e. taken from the works of other writers and usually bearing the same name. Such heroes are natural if the plot is borrowed (Phaedra and Hippolytus in the tragedies "Hippolytus" by Euripides, "Phaedra" by Seneca, "Phaedra" by Racine). But a hero known to the reader (and unknown in such cases are not addressed) can be introduced into a new ensemble of characters, in new plot(Molchalin in the Saltykov-Shchedrin cycle "In the Environment of Moderation and Accuracy", Chichikov, Nozdrev and other heroes of "Dead Souls" in Bulgakov's "Adventures of Chichikov"). In such cases, the borrowing of a character, on the one hand, exposes the conventions of art, on the other hand, contributes to the semiotic richness of the image and its laconism: after all, the names of “foreign” characters, as a rule, have long become common nouns, the author does not need to characterize them somehow.

There are other types of characters as well. For example, a double is introduced, whose phantom existence is generated by the split consciousness of the hero (a tradition that has deep roots in mythology and religion): such are the features of Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky, the black monk in short story of the same name Chekhov. No less conditional is the ancient motif of transformation, the metamorphosis of the hero (“The Invisible Man” by G. Wells, “The Bedbug” by Mayakovsky, “The Heart of a Dog” by Bulgakov).

Character system

Like any system, the character sphere of a work is characterized through its constituent elements (characters) and structure - "a relatively stable way (law) of connecting elements." This or that image receives the status of a character precisely as an element of the system, part of the whole, which is especially clearly seen when comparing the images of animals, plants, and things in various works.

In the works of the life-like style, higher animals are often introduced into the character series, in which, in the stable traditions of animalistics, they emphasize what brings them closer to humans.

At least two subjects are needed to form a character system; their equivalent can be the bifurcation of the hero (for example, in the miniature of D. Kharms from the cycle "Cases" - Semyon Semenovich with glasses and without glasses). In the early stages of narrative art, the number of characters and the connections between them were determined primarily by the logic of plot development. "The single hero of a primitive fairy tale once demanded his antithesis, the opposing hero; still later, the idea of ​​the heroine as a pretext for this struggle arose - and the number three for a long time became the sacred number of the narrative composition." Secondary characters are grouped around the main characters, participating in the struggle on one side or the other ( the most important property structures - hierarchy). At the same time, the variety of specific characters in archaic story genres amenable to classification. The numerous actors of the Russian fairy tale("There are miracles: a goblin wanders there, / A mermaid sits on the branches ...") V.Ya. Propp reduced it to seven invariants, based on the plot functions they perform (absence, prohibition, violation, etc. - a total of 31 functions, according to the scientist's calculations). This "seven-character" scheme included a pest, a giver, an assistant, a princess (the desired character) and her father, a sender, a hero, a false hero.

In the ancient Greek theater, the number of actors who were simultaneously on the stage increased gradually. The pre-Aeschylean tragedy was a song of the choir, to which Thespis added one actor-reciter, who periodically left the stage and returned with reports of new events. "... Aeschylus was the first to introduce two instead of one; he also reduced the choir parts and put dialogue in the first place, and Sophocles introduced three actors and scenery." Thus, the custom of performing a play by three actors (each could play several roles) was established, which was also observed by the Romans. Aeschylus' innovation created "the premise for depicting a clash between the two sides"; the presence of a third actor included minor persons in the action.

Plot connections between characters can be very complex and branched. According to some estimates, there are about six hundred characters in Tolstoy's War and Peace. The appearance of the next character in most cases is motivated by the plot.

Most often, the plot roles of the characters more or less correspond to their significance as characters. Usually the main characters of the works, through which the creative concept is revealed, occupy a central position in the plot. The author builds a chain of events, guided by his hierarchy of characters. At the same time, to understand the main character (heroes), they can play big role minor characters, shading the various properties of his character; as a result, a whole system of parallels and oppositions arises.

However, there may be significant disproportions between the place of the hero in the plot of the work and in the hierarchy of characters. IN " Merchant of Venice" Shakespeare Shylock far surpasses - in originality of type, the potential for the ambiguity of the image - his debtor Antonio, as well as other persons.

The non-participation of a character in the main action is often a sign of his importance as a spokesman for public opinion, an author's reasoner. IN realistic works, with their attention to socio-historical circumstances, such persons usually embody these circumstances, helping to understand the motives of the actions of the main characters. In Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm, the plays by Feklusha and Kuligin, which do not participate in the intrigue, represent two poles of the spiritual life of the city of Kalinov. According to Dobrolyubov, without the so-called "unnecessary" faces in "Thunderstorm" "we cannot understand the faces of the heroine and can easily distort the meaning of the whole play ...". The freedom of the realist playwright in constructing a system of characters is especially evident against the backdrop of the classical rule of unity of action.

Collective images- a sign of the style of many works of the early Soviet literature("Iron Stream" by A. Serafimovich, "Mystery Buff" by V. Mayakovsky). Often this technique was a tribute to fashion, the execution of the "social order", in connection with the peculiar sacralization of the theme of the people.

The "language" of the genre canons of the literature of the past evokes the joy of recognition. This "language" includes a stable ensemble of characters bearing traditional (often "speaking") names. Exploring Character Systems in Aspect historical poetics, their significance, very bright in some genres (commedia dell'arte, mystery, morality, chivalric, pastoral, gothic novels), prepares for a deeper perception modern literature, subtly and widely using the wealth accumulated by culture.

10. Consciousness and self-awareness of the character.

11. Psychologism in literature as the ability to penetrate into the inner world of a person.

Psychologism and its forms

In any work of art, the writer one way or another tells the reader about the feelings, experiences of a person. But the degree of penetration into the inner world of the individual is different. The writer can only record some feeling of the character (“he got scared”), without showing the depth, shades of this feeling, the reasons that caused it. This depiction of a character's feelings cannot be considered psychological analysis. Deep penetration into the inner world of the hero, detailed description, analysis of the various states of his soul, attention to the shades of experiences is called psychological analysis in the literature (often called simply psychologism). Psychological analysis appears in Western European literature in the second half of the 18th century (the era of sentimentalism, when epistolary and diary forms are especially popular. At the beginning of the 20th century, the foundations of the depth psychology of the personality were developed in the works of Z. Freud and C. Jung, a conscious and unconscious beginning was discovered. These discoveries could not but affect literature , in particular on the work of D. Joyce and M. Proust.

First of all, psychologism is discussed in the analysis epic work, since it is here that the writer has the most means of depicting the inner world of the hero. Along with the direct statements of the characters, there is the speech of the narrator, and you can comment on this or that remark of the hero, his act, reveal the true motives of his behavior. This form of psychologism is called summatively denoting.

In cases where the writer depicts only the features of the behavior, speech, facial expressions, appearance of the hero. This is an indirect psychologism, since the inner world of the hero is shown not directly, but through external symptoms, which may not always be unambiguously interpreted. The methods of indirect psychologism include various details of a portrait, landscape, interior, etc. Silence also belongs to the methods of psychologism. Analyzing in detail the behavior of the character, the writer at some point does not say anything at all about the experiences of the hero and thus forces the reader to conduct a psychological analysis himself.

When the writer shows the hero "from the inside", as if penetrating into the consciousness, the soul, directly showing what happens to him at one time or another. This type of psychologism is called direct. The forms of direct psychologism can include the speech of the hero (direct: oral and written; indirect; internal monologue), his dreams.

When a detailed reflection of the hero is shown, natural, sincere, spontaneous, an internal monologue arises, in which the speech manner of the character is preserved. The hero thinks about what worries him especially, is interested in when he needs to take some important decision. The main themes, problems of internal monologues of this or that character are revealed. Thoughts obey internal logic character, so you can trace how he came to a particular decision, conclusion. This technique was called N.G. Chernyshevsky with the dialectic of souls.

A stream of consciousness should be distinguished from an internal monologue, when the thoughts and experiences of the hero are chaotic, not ordered in any way, there is absolutely no logical connection, the connection here is associative. This term was introduced by W. James, the most bright examples its use can be seen in the novel by D. Joyce "Ulysses", M. Proust "In Search of Lost Time". It is believed that this technique was discovered by Tolstoy, using it in special occasions when the hero is half asleep, half delirious. In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov's dreams help to understand the change in his psychological state throughout the novel. First, he has a dream about a horse, which is a warning: Raskolnikov is not a superman, he is able to show sympathy. The thought, symbolically expressed in a dream, is developed by Raskolnik in reality.

In the lyrics, the hero directly expresses his feelings and experiences. But the lyrics are subjective, we see only one point of view, one look, but the hero can tell in great detail and sincerely about his experiences. But in the lyrics, the feelings of the hero are often indicated metaphorically.

IN dramatic work the state of the character is revealed primarily in his monologues, which resemble lyrical statements. However, in the drama of the XIX-XX centuries. the writer pays attention to the facial expressions, gestures of the character, captures the shades of intonation of the characters.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE CHARACTER. PSYCHOLOGISM

The character has a certain structure in which the internal and external are distinguishable. His image is made up of a number of components that reveal both the inner world of a person and his external appearance. Let's start with the first: with the recreation of human consciousness by literature.

The Christian Middle Ages, which formed the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bvalue " secret person”, brought a lot of new things to the inner world of the heroes of literature. The complexity and inconsistency of the human were discovered and the possibility of its transformation on the paths of faith and imitation of Christ was indicated.

Interest in the complexity of the inner world of a person, in the interweaving of various mindsets and impulses, in the change of mental states has been strengthened over the past three or four centuries. Psychologism reached its maximum in the work of L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, who artistically mastered the so-called "dialectics of the soul". In their novels and stories, with unprecedented completeness and concreteness, the processes of the formation of thoughts, feelings, intentions of a person, their interweaving and interaction, sometimes bizarre, are reproduced. According to M.M. bakhtin, artistic dominant Romanov F.M. Dostoevsky was the self-consciousness of the hero-ideologist, who "figures not as a man of life, but as a subject of consciousness and dreams", staying in the "underground": "the author's vision is directed precisely at his self-consciousness and at the hopeless infinity, the bad infinity of this self-consciousness."

The psychologism of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is artistic expression close interest in the fluidity of consciousness, in all kinds of shifts in the inner life of a person, in the deep layers of his personality. Mastering self-consciousness and the "dialectic of the soul" is one of the remarkable discoveries in the field of literary creativity.

Arsenal artistic means mastering the inner life of man is very rich. Here are descriptions of his impressions of the environment, and compact designations of what is happening in the soul of the hero, and lengthy characteristics of his experiences, and internal monologues of characters, and, finally, the image of dreams and hallucinations that reveal the unconscious in a person, his subconscious - that, what is hidden in the depths of the psyche and is unknown to him.

Intensive formation and broad consolidation of psychologism in the literature of the 19th–20th centuries. has deep cultural and historical background. It is associated primarily with the activation of the self-consciousness of a man of the New Age. Modern philosophy distinguishes between consciousness "which realizes itself" and "consciousness which studies itself." The latter is called self-awareness. Self-consciousness is realized mainly in the form of reflection, which constitutes the “act of returning to oneself”. However, an integral, universal property human life is “the primacy of consciousness about something over self-knowledge”, and therefore it is appropriate for reflection to know its boundaries and have certain limits. The activation and growth of reflection in people of the New Age are associated with an unprecedentedly acute experience of a person’s discord with himself and everything around him, and even total alienation from him.

With maximum rigidity, in essence, the solitary consciousness is assessed negatively in “Notes from the Underground” by F.M. Dostoevsky. Here, reflection appears as the destiny of an “anti-hero”, a weak, pitiful, embittered being, striving to “escape” from a true self-assessment, rushing between unrestrained stories about his “shames” and attempts at self-justification. It is no coincidence that the hero admits to a special prison of pleasure delivered by painful introspection.

The meaningful functions of psychologism in literature (along with the words of Hegel cited) are shed light on Bakhtin's judgments about the essence of self-consciousness. The scientist linked a positively significant experience with what he called the “moral reflex” and characterized it as a “trace” of meaning in being: “Experience as something definite<...>directed at a certain meaning, object, state, but not at oneself. Bakhtin contrasted such movements of the soul with painful experiences leading a person to a dead end of duality, which he called "self-reflex". This self-reflex gives rise to what “should not be”: “bad and torn subjectivity”, which is associated with a painful thirst for “self-exaltation” and a fearful “looking back” at the opinions of others about oneself.

The concepts of a literary hero and character are closely related, they both represent the basic elements of any literary work.

Literary hero

It is customary to call a literary hero one of central characters in a literary work, the one who focuses attention on himself and is the main one for the development of the plot and action. It is the fate of a literary hero that is at the center of the plot of any literary work.

The literary hero is the carrier of a constructive role in the work, he must be personified in the representation of the imagination. In addition to the person, it can be an animal, plant or fantasy creature. Literary heroes are divided into main, secondary And episodic.

Many definitions of a literary hero also mention character, or rather, the fact that a fictitious person in prose and poetry is called both a literary hero and a character. Also, the concept of a hero is closely related to the concept of an image, and one can meet the definition of a hero as an artistic image of a person in literature.

Character

The literary character is considered to be the image of a person, which is outlined with completeness and individual certainty. It is through character that a certain type of behavior is revealed, often the one that is inherent in a certain historical time and public consciousness.

Also, through the character, the author reveals his moral and aesthetic concept. human existence. Character is spoken of as organic unity general and individual, that is, in character are expressed and personality traits, and those that are inherent in the public. In a broader sense, a character is an artistically created personality, but one that reflects the actual human type.

To create a certain character in a literary work, there is a whole system of elements. These are external gestures and internal: speech and thoughts. The appearance, place and role of the hero in the development of the plot also forms a certain type of character. There may also be contradictions in the character, which are already embodied in artistic conflicts. The contradictions may be part of a certain character.

Speech and action as ways to create character

One of the main ways to create character in literary works are speech And deed. The language form of expression of the character of the hero is inherent in almost all literary work, it is thanks to this method that readers can fully understand the intricacies of the character of the literary hero and his inner world.

Without speech, it is quite difficult to create a certain character. For a genre like drama, speech characters performs one of the most important characterological functions.

deed is one of the brightest forms of expression of a literary nature. The actions of the hero, his decisions and choices tell us about his nature and the character that the author wanted to express in him. Actions are sometimes more important than speech for the final understanding of the character of a literary hero.

Character. Character. Type. Lyric hero. Image system

Character (from the French personage - personality, person) - the protagonist of a work of art. As a rule, the character takes an active part in the development of the action, but the author or one of the literary heroes can also talk about him. Characters are main and secondary. In some works, the focus is on one character (for example, in Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time"), in others, the writer's attention is attracted by a number of characters ("War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy).

Character (from the Greek character - trait, feature) - the image of a person in a literary work, which combines the general, repetitive and individual, unique. Through the character reveals the author's view of the world and man. The principles and techniques of creating a character differ depending on the tragic, satirical and other ways of depicting life, on the literary type of the work and genre.

Literary character must be distinguished from character in life. Creating a character, the writer can also reflect the features of a real, historical person. But he inevitably uses fiction, "thinks" the prototype, even if his hero is a historical figure.

“Character” and “character” are not identical concepts. Literature is focused on the creation of characters that often cause controversy, are perceived by critics and readers ambiguously. Therefore, in the same character you can see different characters (the image of Bazarov from Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons"). In addition, in the system of images of a literary work, as a rule, there are much more characters than characters. Not every character is a character, some characters perform only a plot role. As a rule, secondary heroes of the work are not characters.

Type - a generalized artistic image, the most possible, characteristic of a particular social environment. A type is a character that contains a social generalization. For example, the type of “superfluous person” in Russian literature, with all its diversity (Chatsky, Onegin, Pechorin, Oblomov), had common features: education, dissatisfaction real life, the desire for justice, the inability to realize oneself in society, the ability to strong feelings etc. Each time gives birth to its own types of heroes. The “extra person” was replaced by the type of “new people”. This, for example, is the nihilist Bazarov.

The lyrical hero is the image of the poet, the lyrical “I”. The inner world of the lyrical hero is revealed not through actions and events, but through a specific state of mind, through the experience of a certain life situation. A lyrical poem is a concrete and single manifestation of the character of a lyrical hero. With the greatest completeness, the image of the lyrical hero is revealed in all the work of the poet. So, in separate lyrical works of Pushkin (“In the depths of Siberian ores ...”, “Anchar”, “Prophet”, “Desire of glory”, “I love you ...” and others), various states of the lyrical hero are expressed, but taken together, they give us a fairly holistic view of it.

The image of the lyrical hero should not be identified with the personality of the poet, just as the experiences of the lyrical hero should not be perceived as the thoughts and feelings of the author himself. The image of the lyrical hero is created by the poet in the same way as the artistic image in the works of other genres, with the help of the selection of life material, typification, and fiction.

The system of images is a set of artistic images of a literary work. The system of images includes not only images of characters, but also images-details, images-symbols, etc.

Artistic means of creating images (character's speech characteristic: dialogue, monologue; author's characteristic, portrait, internal monologue, etc.)

When creating images, the following artistic means are used:

1. The speech characteristic of the hero, which includes a monologue and dialogue. A monologue is a character's speech addressed to another character or to the reader without counting on an answer. Monologues are especially characteristic of dramatic works(one of the most famous is Chatsky's monologue from Griboyedov's Woe from Wit). Dialogue is a verbal communication between the characters, which, in turn, serves as a way to characterize the character and motivates the development of the plot.

In some works, the character himself talks about himself in the form oral story, notes, diaries, letters. This technique, for example, is used in Tolstoy's story "After the Ball".

2. Mutual characteristics, when one character talks about another (mutual characteristics of officials in Gogol's "Inspector").

3. Author's characteristic, when the author talks about his hero. Thus, while reading "War and Peace", we always feel the author's attitude to people and events. It is revealed both in the portraits of the actors, and in direct assessments-characteristics, and in the author's intonation.

Portrait - an image in a literary work of the hero's appearance: facial features, figures, clothes, postures, facial expressions, gestures, demeanor. In literature, there is often a psychological portrait in which, through the appearance of the hero, the writer seeks to reveal his inner world (Pechorin's portrait in Lermontov's Hero of Our Time).

Landscape - the image of nature in a literary work. The landscape also often served as a means of characterizing the hero and his mood at a certain moment (for example, the landscape in Grinev’s perception in Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter before visiting the robber’s “military council” is fundamentally different from the landscape after this visit, when it became clear that the Pugachevites would not execute Grinev ).

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A character easily turns into a hero if he receives an individual, personal dimension or character. According to Aristotle, character refers to the manifestation of the direction of "the will, whatever it may be."

In modern literary criticism, character is the unique individuality of a character; his inner appearance; that is, everything that makes a person a person, that distinguishes him from other people. In other words, the character is the same actor who plays behind the mask - the character. At the heart of the character is the inner "I" of a person, his self. Character shows the image of the soul with all its searches and mistakes, hopes and disappointments. It denotes the versatility of human individuality; reveals its moral and spiritual potential.

Character can be simple or complex. A simple character is distinguished by integrity and static. He endows the hero with an unshakable set of value orientations; makes it either positive or negative. positive and bad guys usually divide the system of characters in the work into two warring factions. For example: patriots and aggressors in the tragedy of Aeschylus ("Persians"); Russians and foreigners (Englishmen) in N.S. Leskov "Lefty"; "last" and "many" in the story of A.G. Malyshkin "Dair's Fall".

Simple characters are traditionally paired, most often on the basis of opposition (Shvabrin - Grinev in A.S. Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter, Javert - Bishop Miriel in V. Hugo's Les Misérables). Opposition sharpens virtues goodies and belittles the merits of negative heroes. It arises not only on an ethical basis. It is also formed by philosophical oppositions (such is the confrontation between Joseph Knecht and Plinio Designori in G. Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game).

A complex character manifests itself in an incessant search, an inner evolution. It expresses diversity mental life personality. It reveals both the brightest, loftiest aspirations of the human soul, as well as its darkest, basest impulses. In a complex character, on the one hand, the prerequisites for the degradation of a person are laid (Ionych by A.P. Chekhov); on the other hand, the possibility of his future transformation and salvation. A complex character is very difficult to designate in the dyad "positive" and "negative". As a rule, it stands between these terms or, more precisely, above them. It condenses the paradox, the contradictory nature of life; concentrates all the most mysterious and strange, which is the secret of man. These are the heroes of F.M. Dostoevsky R. Musil, A. Strindberg and others.

Structure of a literary hero

A literary hero is a complex, multifaceted person. He can live in several dimensions at once: objective, subjective, divine, demonic, bookish (Master M.A. Bulgakova). However, in his relations with society, nature, other people (everything that is opposite to his personality), the literary hero is always binary. He takes on two forms: inner and outer. It goes in two ways: introverting and extroverting. In the aspect of introversion, the hero is “thinking in advance” (we will use the eloquent terminology of C. G. Jung) Prometheus. He lives in a world of feelings, dreams, dreams. In the aspect of extra-version, the literary hero is "acting, and then pondering" Epithemeus. He lives in real world for its active development.

On creation appearance the hero is “worked” by his portrait, profession, age, history (or past). The portrait endows the hero with a face and figure; teaches him a complex distinctive features(fatness, thinness in A.P. Chekhov's story "Thick and Thin") and bright, recognizable habits (a characteristic wound in the neck of the partisan Levinson from A.I. Fadeev's novel "Rout").

Very often, the portrait becomes a means of psychologization and testifies to certain character traits. As, for example, in the famous portrait of Pechorin, given through the eyes of the narrator, a certain wandering officer: “He (Pechorin - P.K.) was of medium height; his slender, thin figure and broad shoulders proved a strong constitution, capable of enduring all the difficulties of a nomadic life.<…>. His gait was careless and lazy, but I noticed that he did not swing his arms - a sure sign of a secret character.

Profession, vocation, age, history of the hero pedal the process of socialization. Profession and vocation give the hero the right to socially useful activities. Age determines the potential for certain actions. The story about his past, parents, country and place where he lives, gives the hero a sensually tangible realism, historical concreteness.

The inner image of the hero is made up of his worldview, ethical beliefs, thoughts, attachments, faith, statements and actions. Worldview and ethical beliefs endow the hero with the necessary ontological and value orientations; give meaning to his existence. Attachments and thoughts outline the manifold life of the soul. Faith (or lack thereof) determines the presence of the hero in the spiritual field, his attitude towards God and the Church (in the literature of Christian countries). Actions and statements denote the results of the interaction of the soul and spirit.

Very important role in the image of the inner appearance of the hero, his consciousness and self-consciousness play. The hero can not only reason, love, but also be aware of emotions, analyze his own activity, that is, reflect. Artistic reflection allows the writer to reveal the personal self-esteem of the hero; describe his relationship with himself.

The individuality of a literary hero is especially clearly reflected in his name. With the choice of a name, the existence of a hero in a literary work begins. His name is condensed inner life mental processes take shape. The name gives the key to the character of a person, crystallizes certain personality traits.

So, for example, the name "Erast", derived from the word "eros", hints in the story of N.M. Karamzin on the sensitivity, passion and immorality of Liza's chosen one. The name "Marina" in the famous Tsvetaeva poem recreates the variability and inconstancy of the lyrical heroine, who is like "sea foam". But invented by A. Green beautiful name"Assol" reflects the musicality and inner harmony of Longren's daughter.

As part of philosophy (from Father Pavel Florensky), "names are the essence of the category of cognition of the individual." Names are not just called, but actually declare the spiritual and physical essence of a person. They form special models of personal existence, which become common for each bearer of a certain name. Names predetermine spiritual qualities, deeds and even the fate of a person. So, conditionally, all Annas have something in common and typical in grace; all Sophias are in wisdom; all Anastasias are in the resurrection.

In literature, the name of the hero is also the spiritual norm of personal existence; sustainable type of life, deeply generalizing reality. The name correlates its external, sound-letter design with an internal, deep meaning; predetermines the actions and character of the hero, unfolds his being. The hero is revealed in close connection with the general idea and image of his name. Such is the “poor”, unfortunate Lisa, Natasha Rostova, Masha Mironova. Each personal name here is a special literary type, a universal way of life, peculiar only to this specific name. For example, the path

Lisa is the path of a quiet, touching rebellion against moral standards, against God (although Elizabeth is "honoring God"). The path of Natalia is the path of simple natural inclinations, which are beautiful in their naturalness. The path of Mary is the path of the "golden mean": the path of a serving mistress, combining both majesty and humility.

In other words, the name transforms the “life” of a literary hero, determines the way the latter moves in the sea of ​​life.

A vivid illustration of the philosophy of P.A. Florensky presents the plot of the story by A.N. Nekrasov "The Adventures of Captain Vrungel". The yacht "Victory" with the famous captain (Vrungel) goes to the international regatta organized by the Enland Club. Vrungel shows firm confidence in victory and really comes first to the finish line. But victory comes at a high price. The new name (the first two letters fall off at the beginning of the journey and turn the yacht into "Trouble") gives the ship the status of doomed. "Trouble" goes to victory through the ebb and flow, fires and icebergs. She is delayed by the regulations of the regatta, customs police, crocodiles and sperm whales. She is under attack by the NATO fleet and organized crime. And all - thanks to the second name.

The question of the literary hero - in his correlation with the author-creator - is the natural conclusion of the entire section "The Structure of a Literary Work". The form of a work of art as a whole, according to M. M. Bakhtin, is a "total reaction" of the author "to the whole of the human hero." In other words, the form of a work is the boundary of the hero (as a whole - hence the concept of the “completion” of the hero), which is created both by his activity (self-determination) and by defining (limiting) the hero by the author.

It is clear that such an understanding cannot apply to any image of a person in a literary work. The reader intuitively distinguishes the "main" depicted persons (characters) from secondary ones, and even more so - only named: both by the degree of participation in the course of events, and by the degree of closeness to their author or the author's interest, one way or another expressed - in direct or indirect assessments - and thereby controlling reader interest (this is most noticeable, for example, in adventurous literature).

Hence the task is to correlate the various existing designations of persons or figures depicted in a literary work - a hero, character, character, type - with their real multiplicity and difference in functions.

Referring to the definitions found in reference literature, we find two trends that exist in parallel and opposite in meaning. The concepts denoted by the four terms are confused wherever they are common ground the “image of a person in literature” is accepted and differ only in cases where the hero, character and type are correlated with the concept of “character”, taking as the initial (at least) idea of ​​a character with certain plot functions.

The image is one of the most indefinite and at the same time the most frequent literary concepts. Note, by the way, the still popular and still unconditional use of the expression "system of images" in the sense of "system of characters", although any plot event, and any element of the stylistic structure (say, comparison or metaphor) are also images.

It is not surprising that if we start from the term "image", the literary hero, character and type turn out to be almost equally images and are recognized as interchangeable. Sometimes even the “image of the narrator” (N. Vladimirova) is considered a “character”.

A delimiting, differentiating role is played by the concept of a character, which usually means any “subject of action”, “actor”, as well as any subject of speech, speaker. From this point of view, firstly, a character can be distinguished from the main character by the degree of participation in the action - as a secondary character and, moreover, from a lyrical subject who can be called a hero, but not a character, since he is not the bearer of the action. .

Secondly, a character can be contrasted with a type: as an individualized character to a non-individualized one, or as a character in which an “internal” aspect is revealed, i.e. motivating causes of behavior and action, "amateur activity" is shown to the character, shown only "from the outside", through behavior and action.

Thus, it is necessary to take into account the differences in the roles of the depicted persons in the plot or the types of their plot functions. In addition, one should distinguish between the plot function of the character (which is an object for other depicted persons or only for the author and reader) and "content" literary personality, which may not coincide with this role in the plot (the role is a possible object for itself). Hence the meaning of the concepts "point of view" and "outlook" for the classification of varieties of the hero.

Theory of Literature / Ed. N.D. Tamarchenko - M., 2004