The problem of man and society in Russian literature of the 19th century. Kabanova I.V

The action of the novel takes place around the 1840s of the XIX century, during the years of the Caucasian War. This can be said quite accurately, since the very title of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" clearly indicates that in a collective way the author, by, collected the vices of his contemporaries.

So what do we know about the society of that time?

The time of the novel coincides with the era of the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, who became famous for his protective and conservative views. Having marked the beginning of his reign by suppressing the speeches of the Decembrists, the emperor led all subsequent policies to strengthen the old order.

This is how the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky: “The emperor set himself the task of not changing anything, not introducing anything new in the foundations, but only maintaining the existing order, filling in the gaps, repairing the dilapidated state of affairs with the help of practical legislation, and doing all this without any participation of society, even with the suppression of social independence, only government means."

40s of the 19th century - the time of ossification public life. Educated people of that time, to whom both Lermontov himself and Pechorin undoubtedly belonged, are the descendants of people who visited Europe during the foreign campaign of the Russian army in 1813, who saw with their own eyes the grandiose transformations that took place in Europe at that time. But all hopes for a change for the better died on December 26 during the suppression of the Decembrists' speech on Senate Square.

Young nobles, by virtue of youth, possessed of unbridled energy, and by virtue of origin, free time and education, often did not have the practical opportunity to realize themselves otherwise than through the satisfaction of their own passions. Society, in effect domestic policy state, was locked in the already tight framework of the autocracy. This was obvious to the previous generation, the generation of the “victors of Napoleon”, inspired not only by a military victory, but also by a fresh hitherto unimaginable idea of ​​social order in the works of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and others. These were people of a new era who sincerely wanted to serve the new Russia. However, instead, total stagnation set in, the “suffocating atmosphere” of the Nikolaev era, which stopped Russia for 30 years.

The decline of Russian public life during the time of Nicholas I was caused by total censorship and thoughtless preservation of the old. The author collected the moral and moral degeneration of the nobility, who did not have the possibility of self-realization in creation, in the image of the hero of our time - Pechorin. Grigory Alexandrovich, by his inclinations, a capable person, instead of creating, exchanged his life for the elimination of passions, in the end, not seeing any satisfaction or benefit in this. Through the whole novel there is a sense of the meaninglessness of existence, uselessness, the impossibility of doing something really important. He is looking for meaning, everything quickly gets boring for him, he does not see anything really important in his own existence. For this reason, the hero is not afraid of death. He plays with her, plays with other people's feelings. Because of this inner emptiness, the hero starts from one story to another, simultaneously breaking other people's destinies. The moment after the death of Bela is indicative, when Grigory, instead of mourning, rolls with laughter in the presence of Maxim Maksimych, throwing the latter into a daze.

A wild desire to feel the taste of life leads the hero to distant Persia, where he is.

The image of Pechorin is the image of the enlightened part of Russia, which, due to objective reasons, could not realize its potential for constructive purposes, for the benefit of society, throwing out energy into self-destruction, through the search for the meaning of life in the fall, allowing the previously unacceptable. The tragedy of the hero of the novel lies in senselessness and indifference. Thoughtless dashing, readiness to die for any reason - a manifestation of an unhealthy society. These qualities can be admired, but do not forget that they could only appear when one's own life has a low value for its owner.

For Russia, the stagnation of public life and thought resulted in the collapse of the Crimean War in the mid-1950s. The failed protective policy of Nicholas I was replaced by the era of the more liberal sovereign Alexander II. In place of Pechorin - the heroes of the new time, such as, for example, central character the story “Fathers and Sons” Yevgeny Bazarov is a revolutionary and democrat, who is also far from creation, but uses his energy not on his own vices, but on the vices of society.

Balzac's most perfect examples are the novels Lost Illusions and The Peasants. In these works, society itself really becomes the historian. In Lost Illusions, for the first time, the writer and the literature of that time seemed to have a “self-movement” of society: in the novel they began to live independently, showing their needs, their essence, the most diverse social strata.

The provincial bourgeoisie, represented by the Cuente brothers and Father Sechard, was able to ruin and disgrace the honest talented inventor David Sechard.

Provincial aristocrats and provincial bourgeois infiltrate the Parisian salons, borrow their way of making a career, destroying rivals. The Parisians themselves ... are bloodless, but in a fierce struggle, states of swagger, political, and salon intrigues win a privileged position, thereby causing envy and hatred of the vanquished.

Balzac shows how success is bought and sold in personal life, art, politics, commerce. We see that only strength and unscrupulousness are valued in this world, which create external brilliance. Humanity, honesty, talent are not needed in this society. The most remarkable for the laws of social life is the story of David Sechard, a talented inventor who had to give up work on his discovery, and - especially - the poet Lucien Chardon.

This is their path - the path of disillusionment, a characteristic phenomenon in France. Lucien is like the young Rastignac, but without willpower and cynical willingness to sell himself, and like Raphael de Valentin - who is addicted, but does not have enough strength to conquer this world on his own.

Lucien immediately differs from David Sechard in his craving for respect and selfishness. His naivete, daydreaming, ability to fall under other people's influences lead to disaster: he actually renounces his talent, becomes a corrupt journalist, carries out dishonorable acts and ends up committing suicide in prison, horrified by the chain of his actions. Balzac shows how illusions dissipate young man who knew the inhuman laws of the modern world.

These laws are the same for the provinces and for the capital - in Paris they are more cynical and at the same time more hidden under a veil of hypocrisy.

Balzac's novels testify to the fact that society condemns a person to the rejection of illusions. For honest people, this means going deeper into their personal lives, as happened with David Sechard and his wife, Eboia. Some heroes learn to profitably trade their beliefs and talents.

But only those who, like Rastignac, have a strong will and are not subject to the temptation of sensuality, can win. The exception is members of the Commonwealth, to which Lucien Chardon joins for a certain time. This is an association of disinterested and talented ministers of science, art, public figures who live in cold attics, who live from hand to mouth, but do not renounce their beliefs.

These people help each other, do not seek fame, but are inspired by the idea to benefit society and develop their field of knowledge or art.

Their life is based on work. The Commonwealth is headed by Daniel D'Artez, a writer and philosopher whose aesthetic program is similar to that of Balzac himself. The Commonwealth includes Republican Michel Chrétien, who dreams of a European federation. But the author himself is aware that the Commonwealth is a dream, because of this, its members are mostly only schematically depicted, the scenes of their meetings are somewhat sentimental, which is unusual for the talent of the author of The Human Comedy.

The novel "Peasants" Balzac himself called "research", he explored the confrontation between the new nobility, which appeared during the time of Napoleon, the bourgeoisie and the peasantry, and for him this is a class that "someday will swallow the bourgeoisie, as the bourgeoisie devoured the nobility in its time."

Balzac does not idealize the peasants - nevertheless, they are not only petty extortionists and deceivers: they remember 1789 well, they know that the revolution did not free them, that all their wealth, as once, is a hoe, and that master same, although it is now called - Work. The dishonest, deceitful and dark peasant Fourchon appears before the readers as a kind of philosopher, a revolutionary in his soul, who remembers the years of the revolution: “The curse of poverty, Your Excellency,” he says, turning to the general, “is growing rapidly and grows much higher than your highest oaks , and gallows are made of oaks ... ".

The spirit of the revolution lived in the memory of the people. It is because of this that the oppressed peasant turns out to be the accuser of masters who do not respect him. This is the result of the "research" carried out by Balzac in this novel.

The melodramatic finale of the work does not belong to its author, but was added at the request of the writer's widow Evelina Ganskaya.

Having visited St. Petersburg in 1843, Balzac did not meet with any of the Russian writers; the names of A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, M. Lermontov were not known to him. Those who could meet him by chance left poor and illiterate testimonies, in the manner of the one sent by the niece of V.K. Kuchelbecker: “Recently we saw Balzac, who came to Russia for several months; no, you can't imagine what a disgusting face that is. Mother noticed, and I completely agree with her, that he looks like the portraits and descriptions that we read about Robespierre, Danton and other similar people. french revolution: he is small in stature, fat, his face is fresh, ruddy, his eyes are intelligent, but the whole expression of his face has something bestial.

The cultural level of the “author” of the letter is in the form of a preserved style of presentation. Official Russia expressed its rejection of the French writer even more clearly: he was placed under secret police surveillance, and the books that came to him from France were subjected to lengthy and thorough checks. The attitude of critics towards Balzac was also ambiguous.

In the 1930s in Russia, he was perceived mainly as a connoisseur of the human heart, a master psychologist V. Belinsky, who at first admired the works of the French novelist, seeing the writer’s skill in depicting the most complex impulses of the soul, in creating a gallery of never-repeated characters, soon time became sharply hostile to him because of his legitimism.”

T. Shevchenko recalls the works of Balzac in the story “The Musician”. I. Franko in numerous articles considered Balzac one of the greatest representatives realistic tradition in world literature. Lesya Ukrainka, in a letter to her brother M. Kosach at the end of 1889, submitted a detailed prospectus of works by prominent writers, which it would be desirable to translate into Ukrainian.

In particular, she advised members of the Pleiades circle to translate Balzac's novels The Thirty-Year-Old Woman, Lost Illusions, and The Peasants.

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Plan

Introduction

The problem of the "new man" in Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit"

The theme of a strong man in the work of N.A. Nekrasov

The problem of "a lonely and superfluous person" in a secular society in poetry and prose by M.Yu. Lermontov

The problem of the "poor man" in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"

Subject folk character in the tragedy of A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"

The theme of the people in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace"

The theme of society in the work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Lord Golovlev"

The problem of the "little man" in the stories and plays of A.P. Chekhov

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

man society Russian literature

Russian literature of the 19th century brought to the whole world the works of such brilliant writers and poets as A.S. Griboyedov, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, N.V. Gogol, I.A. Goncharov, A.N. Ostrovsky, I.S. Turgenev, N.A. Nekrasov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and others.

In many works of these and other Russian authors of the 19th century, the themes of man, personality, people developed; personality was opposed to society (“Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboedov), the problem of “an extra (lonely) person” was demonstrated (“Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin, “A Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov), ​​“ poor man” (“Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky), problems of the people (“War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy) and others. In most of the works, as part of the development of the theme of man and society, the authors demonstrated the tragedy of the individual.

The purpose of this essay is to consider the works of Russian authors of the 19th century, to study their understanding of the problem of man and society, the peculiarities of their perception of these problems. The study used critical literature, as well as the works of writers and poets of the Silver Age.

The problem of the "new man" in Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit"

Consider, for example, a comedy by A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit", which played an outstanding role in the socio-political and moral education several generations of Russian people. It armed them to fight against violence and arbitrariness, meanness and ignorance in the name of freedom and reason, in the name of the triumph of advanced ideas and genuine culture. In the image of the protagonist of the comedy Chatsky, Griboedov for the first time in Russian literature showed a “new man”, inspired by lofty ideas, revolting against a reactionary society in defense of freedom, humanity, mind and culture, cultivating a new morality, developing A New Look on the world and on human relations.

The image of Chatsky - a new, intelligent, developed person - is opposed to the "famus society". In "Woe from Wit" all Famusov's guests simply copy the customs, habits and outfits of French milliners and rootless visiting rogues who got rich on Russian bread. All of them speak "a mixture of French and Nizhny Novgorod" and go dumb with delight at the sight of any visiting "Frenchman from Bordeaux." Through the mouth of Chatsky, Griboyedov, with the greatest passion, exposed this unworthy servility to a stranger and contempt for his own:

So that the Lord destroyed this unclean spirit

Empty, slavish, blind imitation;

So that he would plant a spark in someone with a soul.

Who could by word and example

Hold us like a strong rein,

From pathetic nausea, on the side of a stranger.

Chatsky loves his people very much, but not " famous society"landowners and officials, but the Russian people, hardworking, wise, powerful. Distinctive feature Chatsky as a strong person in contrast to the prim Famus society lies in the fullness of feelings. In everything he shows true passion, he is always ardent in soul. He is hot, witty, eloquent, full of life, impatient. At the same time, Chatsky is the only open positive hero in Griboedov's comedy. But it is impossible to call it exceptional and lonely. He is young, romantic, ardent, he has like-minded people: for example, professors of the Pedagogical Institute, who, according to Princess Tugoukhovskaya, “practice in splits and disbelief”, these are “crazy people”, prone to learning, this is the nephew of the princess, Prince Fedor, “ chemist and botanist. Chatsky defends the rights of a person to freely choose his occupation: to travel, live in the countryside, "fix his mind" in science or devote himself to "creative, high and beautiful arts."

Chatsky defends the "folk society" and ridicules the "famus society", his life and behavior in his monologue:

Are not these rich in robbery?

They found protection from court in friends, in kinship.

Magnificent building chambers,

Where they overflow in feasts and prodigality.

It can be concluded that Chatsky in comedy represents the young thinking generation of Russian society, its best part. A. I. Herzen wrote about Chatsky: “The image of Chatsky, sad, restless in his irony, trembling with indignation, devoted to a dreamy ideal, appears at the last moment of the reign of Alexander I, on the eve of the uprising on St. Isaac's Square. This is a Decembrist, this is a man who completes the era of Peter the Great and tries to see, at least on the horizon, the promised land ... ".

The theme of a strong man in the work of N.A. Nekrasov

The strong man theme is found in lyrical works ON THE. Nekrasov, whose work many call the whole era of Russian literature and public life. The source of Nekrasov's poetry was life itself. Nekrasov positions the problem of the moral choice of a person, a lyrical hero in his poems: the struggle between good and evil, the interweaving of the high, the heroic with the empty, indifferent, ordinary. In 1856, Nekrasov's poem "The Poet and the Citizen" was published in the Sovremennik magazine, in which the author affirmed the social significance of poetry, its role and active participation in life:

Go into the fire for the honor of the Fatherland,

For faith, for love...

Go and die flawlessly

You will not die in vain: the matter is solid,

When blood flows under him.

Nekrasov in this poem simultaneously shows the power of lofty ideas, thoughts and duty of a citizen, a person, a fighter, and at the same time, he implicitly condemns a person’s retreat from duty, serving the motherland and people. In the poem "Elegy" Nekrasov conveys the most sincere, personal sympathy for the people in their difficult lot. Nekrasov, knowing the life of the peasantry, saw real strength in the people, believed in their ability to renew Russia:

Will endure everything - and wide, clear

He will pave the way for himself with his chest ...

An eternal example of serving the Fatherland were such people as N.A. Dobrolyubov ("In Memory of Dobrolyubov"), T.G. Shevchenko (“On the death of Shevchenko”), V.G. Belinsky ("In memory of Belinsky").

Nekrasov himself was born in a simple serf-owning village, where "something was crushing", "my heart ached". He painfully recalls his mother with her "proud, stubborn and beautiful soul”, which was forever given to“ a gloomy ignoramus ... and the slaves carried their lot in silence. The poet praises her pride and strength:

With a head open to the storms of life

All my life under an angry thunderstorm

You stood, - with your chest

Protecting beloved children.

The central place in the lyrics of N.A. Nekrasov is occupied by a “living”, acting, strong person who is alien to passivity and contemplation.

The problem of "a lonely and superfluous person" in a secular society in poetry and prose by M.Yu. Lermontov

The theme of a lonely person who is struggling with society is well disclosed in the work of M.Yu. Lermontov (Valerik):

I thought: “Poor man.

What does he want!”, the sky is clear,

Under the sky there is a lot of space for everyone,

But incessantly and in vain

One is at enmity- For what?"

In his lyrics, Lermontov seeks to tell people about his pain, but all his knowledge and thoughts do not satisfy him. The older he gets, the more difficult the world seems to him. He connects everything that happens to him with the fate of a whole generation. The lyrical hero of the famous "Duma" is hopelessly lonely, but he is also worried about the fate of the generation. The more keenly he peers into life, the clearer it becomes for him that he himself cannot be indifferent to human troubles. Evil must be fought, not run from it. Inaction reconciles with the existing injustice, at the same time causing loneliness and the desire to live in the closed world of one's own "I". And, worst of all, it breeds indifference to the world and people. Only in struggle does a person find himself. In the "Duma" the poet clearly says that it was inaction that ruined his contemporaries.

In the poem “I look at the future with fear ...” M.Yu. Lermontov openly condemns a society alien to feelings, an indifferent generation:

Sadly, I look at our generation!

His coming- either empty or dark...

Shamefully indifferent to good and evil,

At the beginning of the race, we wither without a fight ...

The theme of a lonely person in Lermontov's work is by no means due only to personal drama and hard fate, but it largely reflects the state of Russian social thought during the reaction period. That is why in the lyrics of Lermontov and took significant place a lonely rebel, a Protestant, at enmity with "heaven and earth", fighting for the freedom of the human person, foreseeing his own untimely death.

The poet opposes himself, the "living", the society in which he lives, - the "dead" generation. The “life” of the author is conditioned by the fullness of feelings, even simply by the ability to feel, see, understand and fight, and the “death” of society is determined by indifference and narrow-minded thinking. In the poem "I go out alone on the road ..." the poet is full of sad hopelessness, in this poem he reflects how far the disease of society has gone. The idea of ​​life as “a smooth path without a goal” gives rise to a feeling of the futility of desires - “what good is it to wish in vain and forever? ..” The line: “We hate and we love by chance” logically leads to a bitter conclusion: worth the labor, but it is impossible to love forever.

Further, in the poem “And Boring and Sad...” and in the novel “A Hero of Our Time”, the poet, speaking about friendship, about higher spiritual aspirations, about the meaning of life, about passions, seeks to explore the reasons for dissatisfaction with his appointment. For example, Grushnitsky belongs to a secular society, feature which is lack of spirituality. Pechorin, accepting the conditions of the game, is, as it were, “above society”, knowing full well that “images of soulless people flicker there, masks pulled together by decency”. Pechorin is not only a reproach to all the best people of the generation, but also a call to civil deeds.

Strong, independent, lonely and even free personality symbolizes the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "Sail":

Alas!- he is not looking for happiness

And not from happiness runs!

The theme of a lonely person, permeated with sadness, unsurpassed in the beauty of performance, is clearly seen in Lermontov's lyrics, due to his feelings and the society around him.

IN famous novel M.Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time" solves the problem of why smart and agile people do not find application for their remarkable abilities and "wither without a fight" at the very beginning life path? Lermontov answers this question with the life story of Pechorin, a young man belonging to the generation of the 30s of the 19th century. In the image of Pechorin, the author presented an artistic type that absorbed a whole generation of young people at the beginning of the century. In the preface to Pechorin's Journal, Lermontov writes: "The history of the human soul, even the smallest soul, is almost more curious and more useful than the history of a whole people ...".

In this novel, Lermontov reveals the theme of "an extra person", because Pechorin is an "extra person". His behavior is incomprehensible to others, because it does not correspond to their everyday, common in noble society point of view on life. With all the differences in appearance and character traits, Eugene Onegin from the novel by A.S. Pushkin, and the hero of the comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" Chatsky, and Pechorin M.Yu. Lermontov belong to the type of "superfluous people", that is, people for whom there was neither place nor business in the surrounding society.

Is there a clear similarity between Pechorin and Onegin? Yes. Both of them are representatives of high secular society. Much in common can be noted in the history and youth of these heroes: first, the pursuit of secular pleasures, then disappointment in them, an attempt to do science, reading books and cooling down to them, the same boredom that owns them. Like Onegin, Pechorin is intellectually superior to the surrounding nobility. Both characters are typical representatives thinking people of their time, critical of life and people.

Then the similarities end and the differences begin. Pechorin differs from Onegin in his spiritual way, he lives in different socio-political conditions. Onegin lived in the 1920s, before the Decembrist uprising, at the time of social and political revival. Pechorin is a man of the 30s, when the Decembrists were defeated, and the revolutionary democrats as a social force had not yet declared themselves.

Onegin could go to the Decembrists, Pechorin was deprived of such an opportunity. Pechorin's position is all the more tragic because he is by nature more gifted and deeper than Onegin. This talent is manifested in Pechorin's deep mind, strong passions and steel will. The sharp mind of the hero allows him to correctly judge people, about life, to be critical of himself. The characteristics given by him to people are quite accurate. Pechorin's heart is able to feel deeply and strongly, although outwardly he keeps calm, because "the fullness and depth of feelings and thoughts does not allow frantic impulses." Lermontov shows in his novel a strong, strong-willed personality, eager for activity.

But for all his giftedness and wealth of spiritual powers, Pechorin, by his own fair definition, is a "moral cripple." His character and all his behavior are distinguished by extreme inconsistency, which affects even his appearance, which, like all people, reflects the inner appearance of a person. Pechorin's eyes "did not laugh when he laughed." Lermontov says that: "This is a sign of either an evil temper, or a deep, constant sadness ...".

Pechorin, on the one hand, is skeptical, on the other, he is thirsty for activity; reason in him struggles with feelings; he is selfish, and at the same time capable of deep feelings. Left without Vera, unable to catch up with her, "he fell on the wet grass and, like a child, wept." Lermontov shows in Pechorin the tragedy of personality, " moral cripple”, an intelligent and strong person, the most terrible contradiction of which lies in the presence of “immense forces of the soul” and the commission of petty, insignificant deeds. Pechorin strives to "love the whole world", but brings people only evil and misfortune; his aspirations are noble, but his feelings are not high; he longs for life, but suffers from complete hopelessness, from the realization of his doom.

To the question why everything is so and not otherwise, the hero himself answers in the novel: “In my soul is spoiled by light”, that is, by the secular society in which he lived and from which he could not escape. But the point here is not only in an empty noble society. In the 1920s, the Decembrists left this society. But Pechorin, as already mentioned, is a man of the 30s, typical representative of his time. This time put him before a choice: "either decisive inaction, or empty activity." Energy seeths in him, he wants active action, he understands that he could have "a high purpose."

The tragedy of the noble society is again in its indifference, emptiness, inactivity.

The tragedy of Pechorin's fate is that he never found the main, worthy of his goal in life, since it was impossible in his time to apply his strength to a socially useful cause.

The problem of the "poor man" in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"

Let us now turn to the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". In this work, the author draws the reader's attention to the problem of the "poor man". In the article "The downtrodden people" N.A. Dobrolyubov wrote: “In the works of F.M. Dostoevsky we find one common feature, more or less noticeable in everything he wrote. This is the pain of a person who admits that he is unable or, finally, does not even have the right to be a person, real, complete. independent person on their own."

F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" is a book about the life of destitute poor people, a book that reflects the writer's pain for the desecrated honor of a "little" person. Before readers unfold pictures of the suffering of "little" people. Their lives are spent in dirty closets.

Well-fed Petersburg looks coldly and indifferently at the destitute people. Tavern and street life interferes with the fate of people, leaving an imprint on their experiences and actions. Here is a woman who throws herself into a canal... But a drunk fifteen-year-old girl is walking along the boulevard... A typical shelter for the poor in the capital is the miserable room of the Marmeladovs. At the sight of this room, the poverty of the inhabitants, the bitterness with which Marmeladov told Raskolnikov the story of his life, the story of his family a few hours ago, becomes understandable. Marmeladov's story about himself in a dirty tavern is a bitter confession " dead person crushed unjustly by the yoke of circumstances.

But the very vice of Marmeladov is explained by the immensity of his misfortunes, the awareness of his deprivation, the humiliation that poverty brings him. “Dear sir,” he began almost solemnly, “poverty is not a vice, it is the truth. I know that drunkenness is not a virtue, and this is all the more so. But poverty, sir, poverty is a vice. In poverty, you still retain your nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty - never anyone. Marmeladov is a poor man who has "nowhere to go." Marmeladov is sliding further and further down, but even in the fall he retains the best human impulses, the ability to feel strongly, which are expressed, for example, in his plea for forgiveness to Katerina Ivanovna and Sonya.

All her life, Katerina Ivanovna has been looking for how and with what to feed her children, she has been in need and deprivation. Proud, passionate, adamant, left a widow with three children, under the threat of hunger and poverty, she was forced, “weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands,” to marry a homely official, a widower with a fourteen-year-old daughter Sonya, who, in turn, married Katerina Ivanovna out of a sense of pity and compassion. Poverty kills the Marmeladov family, but they fight, albeit without a chance. Dostoevsky himself says of Katerina Ivanovna: “But Katerina Ivanovna was, moreover, not one of those downtrodden, she could be completely killed by circumstances, but it was impossible to beat her morally, that is, it was impossible to scare and subjugate her will.” This desire to feel like a full-fledged person made Katerina Ivanovna arrange a chic commemoration.

Next to the feeling of self-respect in the soul of Katerina Ivanovna lives another bright feeling - kindness. She tries to justify her husband, saying: “Look, Rodion Romanovich, she found a gingerbread cockerel in his pocket: he’s walking dead drunk, but he remembers about the children ...” She, holding Sonya tightly, as if with her own breast wants to protect her from Luzhin’s accusations says: "Sonya! Sonya! I don’t believe!”… She understands that after the death of her husband her children are doomed to starvation, that fate is not merciful to them. So Dostoevsky refutes the theory of consolation and humility, which allegedly leads everyone to happiness and well-being, just as Katerina Ivanovna rejects the consolation of a priest. Its end is tragic. In unconsciousness, she runs to the general to ask for help, but "their excellencies are having lunch" and the doors are closed in front of her, there is no longer any hope of salvation, and Katerina Ivanovna decides to take the last step: she goes to beg. The scene of the death of a poor woman is impressive. The words with which she dies, “leave the nag,” echo the image of a tortured, beaten to death horse that Raskolnikov once dreamed of. F. Dostoevsky's image of a broken horse, N. Nekrasov's poem about a beaten horse, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tale "Konyaga" - such is the generalized, tragic image of people tortured by life. The face of Katerina Ivanovna captures the tragic image of grief, which is a vivid protest of the free soul of the author. This image stands in a number of eternal images of world literature, the tragedy of the existence of the outcasts is also embodied in the image of Sonechka Marmeladova.

This girl also has nowhere to go and run in this world, according to Marmeladov, “how much can a poor but honest girl earn with honest labor.” Life itself answers this question in the negative. And Sonya goes to sell herself to save her family from starvation, because there is no way out, she has no right to commit suicide.

Her image is inconsistent. On the one hand, it is immoral and negative. On the other hand, had Sonya not violated the norms of morality, she would have doomed the children to starvation. Thus, the image of Sonya turns into a generalizing image of eternal victims. Therefore, Raskolnikov exclaims these famous words: “Sonechka Marmeladova! Eternal Sonechka»...

F.M. Dostoevsky shows Sonya's humiliated position in this world: "Sonya sat down, almost trembling with fear, and timidly looked at both ladies." And it is this timid downtrodden creature that becomes a strong moral mentor, F.M. Dostoevsky! The main thing in Sonya's character is humility, forgiving Christian love for people, religiosity. Eternal humility, faith in God give her strength, help her live. Therefore, it is she who forces Raskolnikov to confess to a crime, showing that true meaning life in suffering. The image of Sonechka Marmeladova was the only light of F.M. Dostoevsky in the general darkness of hopelessness, in the same empty noble society, throughout the whole novel.

In the novel "Crime and Punishment" F.M. Dostoevsky creates an image of pure love for people, an image of eternal human suffering, an image of a doomed victim, each of which was embodied in the image of Sonechka Marmeladova. The fate of Sonya is the fate of the victim of abominations, deformities of the possessive system, in which a woman becomes an object of sale. A similar fate was prepared for Duna Raskolnikova, who was to follow the same path, and Raskolnikov knew this. In a very detailed, psychologically correct portrayal of "poor people" in society, F.M. Dostoevsky carries out the main idea of ​​the novel: it is impossible to live like this any longer. These "poor people" are Dostoevsky's protest to that time and to society, a bitter, heavy, bold protest.

The theme of folk character in the tragedy of A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"

Consider further the tragedy of A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm". Before us is Katerina, who alone in The Thunderstorm is given to hold the fullness of viable principles folk culture. Katerina's worldview harmoniously combines Slavic pagan antiquity with Christian culture, spiritualizing and morally enlightening old pagan beliefs. Katerina's religiosity is inconceivable without sunrises and sunsets, dewy herbs in flowering meadows, flights of birds, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. In the monologues of the heroine, familiar Russian motifs come to life folk songs. In Katerina's worldview, a spring of primordially Russian song culture beats and Christian beliefs take on new life. The joy of life is experienced by the heroine in the temple, the sun bows to the ground in the garden, among the trees, grasses, flowers, morning freshness, awakening nature: I don't know what I'm praying for and what I'm crying about; that's how they'll find me." In the mind of Katerina, ancient pagan myths that have entered the flesh and blood of the Russian folk character are awakened, deep layers are revealed Slavic culture.

But here in the house of the Kabanovs, Katerina gets into " dark kingdom» spiritual unfreedom. “Everything here seems to be from under bondage,” a stern religious spirit has settled here, democracy has faded here, the cheerful generosity of the people's worldview has disappeared. The wanderers in the house of the Kabanikha are different, from among those hypocrites who “due to their weakness did not go far, but heard a lot.” And they talk about the "end times", about the coming end of the world. These wanderers are alien to the pure world of Katerina, they are in the service of Kabanikh, and therefore they cannot have anything in common with Katerina. She is pure, dreaming, believing, and in the house of the Kabanovs "she has almost nothing to breathe" ... The heroine becomes hard, because Ostrovsky shows her as a woman who is alien to compromises, who longs for universal truth and does not agree to anything less.

The theme of the people in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace"

Let us also recall that in 1869, from the pen of L.N. Tolstoy published one of the brilliant works of world literature - the epic novel "War and Peace". In this work main character- not Pechorin, not Onegin, not Chatsky. The protagonist of the novel "War and Peace" is the people. “For a work to be good, one must love the main, basic idea in it. In War and Peace, I loved the thought of the people, as a result of the war of 1812, ”said L.N. Tolstoy.

So, the main character of the novel is the people. The people who rose in 1812 to defend their homeland and defeated in the war of liberation a huge enemy army led by an invincible commander until then. The most important events of the novel are assessed by Tolstoy with folk point vision. The writer’s assessment of the war of 1805 is expressed by the writer in the words of Prince Andrei: “Why did we lose the battle near Austerlitz? .. There was no need for us to fight there: we wanted to leave the battlefield as soon as possible.” The Patriotic War of 1812 was a just, national liberation war for Russia. The Napoleonic hordes crossed the borders of Russia and headed for its center - Moscow. Then all the people came out to fight the invaders. Ordinary Russian people - the peasants Karp and Vlas, the elder Vasilisa, the merchant Ferapontov, the deacon and many others - hostilely meet the Napoleonic army, put up due resistance to it. The feeling of love for the motherland swept the whole society.

L.N. Tolstoy says that "for the Russian people there could be no question whether it would be good or bad under the rule of the French." The Rostovs are leaving Moscow, having handed over carts to the wounded and leaving their house to the mercy of fate; Princess Marya Bolkonskaya leaves her native Bogucharovo nest. Disguised in a simple dress, Count Pierre Bezukhov is armed and stays in Moscow, intending to kill Napoleon.

With all this, not all people united in the face of war. Cause contempt individual representatives of the bureaucratic-aristocratic society, which in the days of nationwide disaster acted for selfish and selfish purposes. The enemy was already in Moscow when Petersburg court life went on in the old way: “There were the same exits, balls, the same French theater, the same interests of service and intrigue.” The patriotism of the Moscow aristocrats consisted in the fact that instead of the French dishes were eaten by Russian cabbage soup, and for French words imposed a fine.

Tolstoy angrily denounces the Moscow governor-general and commander-in-chief of the Moscow garrison, Count Rostopchin, who, due to his arrogance and cowardice, was unable to organize replacements for Kutuzov's heroically fighting army. The author speaks with indignation about careerists - foreign generals like Wolzogen. They gave all of Europe to Napoleon, and then "they came to teach us - glorious teachers!" Among staff officers, Tolstoy singles out a group of people who want only one thing: "... the greatest benefits and pleasures for themselves ... The drone population of the army." These people include Nesvitsky, Drubetsky, Berg, Zherkov and others.

These people L.N. Tolstoy contrasts the common people, who played the main and decisive role in the war against the French conquerors. The patriotic feelings that gripped the Russians gave rise to the general heroism of the defenders of the Motherland. Talking about the battles near Smolensk, Andrei Bolkonsky rightly noted that Russian soldiers “fought there for the first time for the Russian land”, that there was such a spirit in the troops, what he (Bolkonsky) never saw that the Russian soldiers "repulsed the French for two days in a row, and that this success multiplied our forces tenfold."

The “folk thought” is felt even more fully in those chapters of the novel where characters are depicted who are close to the people or strive to understand it: Tushin and Timokhin, Natasha and Princess Marya, Pierre and Prince Andrei - all those who can be called “Russian souls”.

Tolstoy portrays Kutuzov as a person who embodied the spirit of the people. Kutuzov is a truly popular commander. Thus, expressing the needs, thoughts and feelings of the soldiers, he appears during the review near Braunau, and during the Battle of Austerlitz, and especially during Patriotic War 1812. “Kutuzov,” writes Tolstoy, “with his whole Russian being knew and felt what every Russian soldier felt.” Kutuzov is his own for Russia, native person he is a carrier folk wisdom, an exponent of popular feelings. He is distinguished by "an extraordinary power of penetration into the meaning of occurring phenomena, and its source lies in the popular feeling, which he carried in himself in all its purity and strength." Only the recognition of this feeling in him made the people elect him, against the will of the tsar, as commander-in-chief of the Russian army. And only this feeling put him on that height from which he directed all his forces not to kill and exterminate people, but to save and pity them.

Both soldiers and officers - everyone is fighting not for St. George's crosses but for the Fatherland. The defenders of the battery of General Raevsky shake with their moral stamina. Tolstoy shows the extraordinary stamina and courage of the soldiers and the better part of the officers. At the center of the story guerrilla war there is an image of Tikhon Shcherbaty, in which the best national features of the Russian people are embodied. Next to him stands Platon Karataev, who in the novel "represents everything Russian, folk, good." Tolstoy writes: "... it is good for the people who, in a moment of trial ... with simplicity and ease, pick up the first club that comes across and nail it until in their souls feelings of insult and revenge are replaced by contempt and pity."

Speaking about the results of the Battle of Borodino, Tolstoy calls the victory of the Russian people over Napoleon a moral victory. Tolstoy glorifies the people, who, having lost half of the army, stood as menacingly as at the beginning of the battle. And as a result, the people achieved their goal: the native land was cleared by the Russian people from foreign invaders.

The theme of society in the work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "Lord Golovlev"

Let us also recall such a novel about public life as “Lords Golovlevs” by M.E. Satykov-Shchedrin. The novel presents a noble family, which reflects the decay of bourgeois society. As in bourgeois society, everything collapses in this family moral relations, family ties, moral norms of behavior.

In the center of the novel, the head of the family, Arina Petrovna Golovleva, is an imperious landowner, a purposeful, strong housewife, spoiled by power over her family and others. She single-handedly manages the estate, depriving the serfs, turning her husband into a "hooker", crippling the lives of "hateful children" and corrupting her "favorite" children. She builds wealth, without knowing why, implying that she does everything for the family, for the children. But about duty, family, children, she repeats all the time rather in order to hide her indifferent attitude towards them. For Arina Petrovna, the word family is just an empty phrase, even though it never left her lips. She fussed about the family, but at the same time forgot about her. The thirst for hoarding, greed killed the instincts of motherhood in her, all that she could give to children was indifference. And they began to answer her the same. They did not show her gratitude for all the work that she did “for their sake”. But, forever immersed in troubles and calculations, Arina Petrovna forgot about this thought too.

All this, together with time, morally corrupts all the people close to her, as well as herself. The eldest son Stepan drank himself, died a loser. The daughter, from whom Arina Petrovna wanted to make a free accountant, ran away from home and soon died, abandoned by her husband. Arina Petrovna took her two little twin girls to her. The girls grew up and became provincial actresses. Also left to their own devices, as a result, they were drawn into a scandalous lawsuit, later one of them was poisoned, the second did not have the courage to drink poison, and she buried herself alive in Golovlevo.

Then the abolition of serfdom dealt a strong blow to Arina Petrovna: knocked off her usual rhythm, she becomes weak and helpless. She divides the estate between her favorite sons Porfiry and Paul, leaving only capital for herself. The cunning Porfiry managed to lure capital from his mother. Then Paul soon died, leaving his property to the hated brother Porphyry. And now we see clearly that everything for which Arina Petrovna subjected herself and her loved ones to deprivation and torment all her life turned out to be nothing but a ghost.

The problem of the "little man" in the stories and plays of A.P. Chekhov

A.P. also speaks about the degradation of a person under the influence of a passion for profit. Chekhov in his story “Ionych”, which was written in 1898: “How are we doing here? No way. We grow old, we grow fat, we fall. Day and night - a day away, life passes dimly, without impressions, without thoughts ... ".

The hero of the story "Ionych" is a habitual narrow-minded fat man, the peculiarity of which is that he is smart, unlike many others. Dmitry Ionych Startsev understands how insignificant the thoughts of the people around him are, who are happy to talk only about food. But at the same time, Ionych did not even have thoughts that it was necessary to fight with such a way of life. He did not even have a desire to fight for his love. His feeling for Ekaterina Ivanovna is difficult, in fact, to be called love, because it passed three days after her refusal. Startsev thinks with pleasure about her dowry, and Ekaterina Ivanovna's refusal only offends him, and nothing more.

The hero is possessed by mental laziness, which gives rise to the absence of strong feelings and experiences. Over time, this spiritual laziness weathers everything good and sublime from Startsev's soul. They began to own only the passion for profit. At the end of the story, it was the passion for money that extinguished the last flame in Ionych's soul, lit by the words of the already adult and intelligent Ekaterina Ivanovna. Chekhov writes sadly that a strong flame of the human soul can extinguish just a passion for money, simple pieces of paper.

A.P. writes about a man, a little man. Chekhov in his stories: "Everything should be beautiful in a person: the face, and clothes, and the soul, and thoughts." All the writers of Russian literature treated the little man differently. Gogol urged to love and pity the "little man" as he is. Dostoevsky - to see a personality in him. Chekhov, on the other hand, is looking for the guilty not in the society that surrounds a person, but in the person himself. He says that the reason for the humiliation of the little man is himself. Consider Chekhov's story "The Man in the Case". His hero Belikov himself went down, because he is afraid of real life and runs away from it. He is an unfortunate person who poisons the life of himself and those around him. Prohibitions for him are clear and unambiguous, and permissions cause fear and doubt: "No matter how something happens." Under his influence, everyone became afraid to do something: speak loudly, make acquaintances, help the poor, etc.

With their cases, people like Belikov kill all living things. And he was able to find his ideal only after death, it is in the coffin that his facial expression becomes cheerful, peaceful, as if he has finally found that case from which he can no longer get out.

The petty philistine life destroys everything good in a person if there is no inner protest in him. This is what happened with Startsev, with Belikov. Further, Chekhov seeks to show the mood, life of entire classes, strata of society. This is what he does in his plays. In the play "Ivanov" Chekhov again turns to the theme of the little man. The main character of the play is an intellectual who made huge life plans, but helplessly lost to the obstacles that life itself put in front of him. Ivanov is a small man who, as a result of an internal breakdown, turns from an active worker into a broken loser.

In the following plays A.P. Chekhov's "Three Sisters", "Uncle Vanya" the main conflict develops in the clash of morally pure, bright personalities with the world of the townsfolk, greed, greed, cynicism. And then there are people who go to replace all this worldly vulgarity. These are Anya and Petya Trofimov from the play The Cherry Orchard. In this play, A.P. Chekhov shows that not all small people necessarily turn into broken, small and limited. Petya Trofimov, an eternal student, belongs to the student movement. For several months he was hiding at Ranevskaya. This young man is strong, smart, proud, honest. He believes that he can correct his situation only by honest constant work. Petya believes that a bright future awaits his society, his homeland, although he does not know the exact lines of life change. Petya is only proud of his disregard for money. The young man influences the formation of the life positions of Anya, the daughter of Ranevskaya. She is honest, beautiful in her feelings and behavior. With such pure feelings, with faith in the future, a person should no longer be small, this already makes him big. Chekhov also writes about good (“big”) people.

So, in his story "The Jumper" we see how Dr. Dymov, a good man, a doctor who lives for the happiness of others, dies saving someone else's child from illness.

Conclusion

In this essay, such works of Russian writers of the Silver Age as Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm", Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time", Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", Tolstoy's "War and Peace", Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and others were considered. The theme of man and people in the lyrics of Lermontov, Nekrasov, Chekhov's plays has been studied.

Summing up, it should be noted that in Russian literature of the 19th century, the theme of a person, personality, people, society is found in almost every work of the great writers of that time. Russian authors write about the problems of superfluous, new, small, poor, strong, different people. Often in their works we meet with the tragedy of a strong personality or a small person; with the opposition of a strong "living" personality to an indifferent "dead" society. At the same time, we often read about the strength and diligence of the Russian people, to which many writers and poets are especially touching.

List of used literature

1.M.Yu. Lermontov, Selected Works, 1970

2.A.S. Pushkin, "Collected Works", 1989

.A.S. Griboedov, "Woe from Wit", 1999.

.A.P. Chekhov, "Collected Works", 1995

.M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, "Gentlemen Golovlevs", 1992

.L.N. Tolstoy, "War and Peace", 1992.

.F.M. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, 1984.

.ON THE. Nekrasov, "Collection of poems", 1995.

.A.N. Ostrovsky, "Collected Works", 1997.

Tags: The problem of man and society in Russian literature of the 19th century Abstract Literature

Man and Society in the Literature of the Enlightenment

Enlightenment novel in England: “Robinson Crusoe” by D. Defoe.

The literature of the Enlightenment grew out of Classicism XVII century, inheriting his rationalism, the idea of ​​the educational function of literature, attention to the interaction of man and society. Compared with the literature of the previous century, in educational literature there is a significant democratization of the hero, which corresponds to general direction enlightening thought. The hero of a literary work in the 18th century ceases to be a “hero” in the sense of possessing exceptional properties and ceases to occupy the highest levels in the social hierarchy. He remains a "hero" only in a different sense of the word - the central character of the work. The reader can identify with such a hero, put himself in his place; this hero is in no way superior to an ordinary, average person. But at first, this recognizable hero, in order to attract the reader's interest, had to act in an environment unfamiliar to the reader, in circumstances that awaken the reader's imagination. Therefore, with this “ordinary” hero in the literature of the 18th century, extraordinary adventures still occur, out of the ordinary events, because for the reader of the 18th century they justified the story of an ordinary person, they contained the amusing literary work. The hero's adventures can unfold in different spaces, close or far from his home, in familiar social conditions or in a non-European society, or even outside of society in general. But invariably, the literature of the 18th century sharpens and poses, shows close-up problems of the state and social structure, the place of the individual in society and the influence of society on the individual.

England of the 18th century became the birthplace of the enlightenment novel. Recall that the novel is a genre that arose during the transition from the Renaissance to the New Age; this young genre was ignored by classical poetics because it had no precedent in ancient literature and resisted all norms and canons. The novel is aimed at the artistic study of contemporary reality, and English literature turned out to be especially fertile ground for a qualitative leap in the development of the genre, which became enlightenment novel due to several circumstances. Firstly, England is the birthplace of the Enlightenment, a country where in the 18th century real power already belonged to the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeois ideology had the deepest roots. Secondly, the emergence of the novel in England was facilitated by the special circumstances of English literature, where, over the course of the previous century and a half, gradually different genres aesthetic prerequisites were formed, separate elements, the synthesis of which on a new ideological basis gave the novel. From the tradition of Puritan spiritual autobiography, the habit and technique of introspection, the methods of depicting the subtle movements of a person's inner world, came into the novel; from the genre of travel, which described the voyages of English sailors - the adventures of pioneers in distant lands, the reliance of the plot on adventures; finally, from English periodicals, from the essays of Addison and Style of the early 18th century, the novel learned the techniques of depicting the mores of everyday life, everyday details.

The novel, despite its popularity with all sections of readers, is still for a long time was considered a “low” genre, but the leading English critic of the 18th century, Samuel Johnson, a classicist in taste, was forced to admit in the second half of the century: “The works fiction which the current generation especially likes are, as a rule, those that show life in its true form, contain only such incidents that happen every day, reflect only such passions and properties that are known to everyone who deals with people” .

When the well-known journalist and publicist Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), almost sixty years old, wrote Robinson Crusoe in 1719, he least of all thought that an innovative work was coming out from under his pen, the first novel in the literature of the Enlightenment. He did not expect that it was this text that descendants would prefer out of 375 works already published under his signature and earned him the honorary name of “the father of English journalism”. Literary historians believe that in fact he wrote much more, but it is not easy to identify his works, published under various pseudonyms, in a wide stream of the English press at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries. At the time of the creation of the novel, Defoe had a huge life experience behind him: he came from a lower class, in his youth he was a participant in the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, escaped execution, traveled around Europe and spoke six languages, knew the smiles and betrayals of Fortune. His values ​​- wealth, prosperity, the personal responsibility of a person before God and himself - are typically puritanical, bourgeois values, and Defoe's biography is a colorful, eventful biography of the bourgeois of the era of primitive accumulation. He started various enterprises all his life and said about himself: “Thirteen times I became rich and again poor.” Political and literary activity led him to a civil execution at the pillory. For one of the magazines, Defoe wrote a fake autobiography of Robinson Crusoe, the authenticity of which his readers should have believed (and believed).

The plot of the novel is based on real story, told by Captain Woods Rogers in an account of his journey, which Defoe could read in the press. Captain Rogers told how his sailors removed from a desert island in the Atlantic Ocean a man who had spent four years and five months alone there. Alexander Selkirk, a violent mate on an English ship, quarreled with his captain and was put on the island with a gun, gunpowder, a supply of tobacco, and a Bible. When Rogers' sailors found him, he was dressed in goatskins and "looked wilder than the horned original owners of this attire." He forgot how to speak, on the way to England he hid crackers in the secluded places of the ship, and it took time for him to return to a civilized state.

Unlike real prototype, Crusoe at Defoe's twenty-eight years on a desert island has not lost his humanity. The story of the affairs and days of Robinson is permeated with enthusiasm and optimism, the book exudes an unfading charm. Today, "Robinson Crusoe" is read primarily by children and adolescents as a fascinating adventure story, but the novel poses problems that should be discussed in terms of the history of culture and literature.

The protagonist of the novel, Robinson, an exemplary English businessman who embodies the ideology of the emerging bourgeoisie, grows in the novel to a monumental depiction of the creative, creative abilities of a person, and at the same time his portrait is historically completely concrete.

Robinson, the son of a merchant from York, dreams of the sea from a young age. On the one hand, there is nothing exceptional in this - England at that time was the leading maritime power in the world, English sailors plowed all the oceans, the profession of a sailor was the most common, considered honorable. On the other hand, Robinson is drawn to the sea not by the romance of sea voyages; he does not even try to enter the ship as a sailor and study maritime affairs, but in all his voyages he prefers the role of a passenger paying the fare; Robinson trusts the traveler's unfortunate fate for a more prosaic reason: he is drawn to "the rash venture to make a fortune by scouring the world." Indeed, outside of Europe it was easy to get rich quick with some luck, and Robinson runs away from home, defying his father's admonitions. Father Robinson's speech at the beginning of the novel is a hymn to bourgeois virtues, to the "average condition":

Those who leave their homeland in pursuit of adventure, he said, are either those who have nothing to lose, or the ambitious who are eager to borrow highest position; embarking on enterprises that go beyond the framework of everyday life, they strive to improve their affairs and cover their name with glory; but such things are either beyond my powers, or humiliating for me; my place is the middle, that is, what can be called the highest stage of a modest existence, which, as he was convinced by many years of experience, is for us the best in the world, the most suitable for human happiness, freed from need and deprivation, physical labor and suffering falling to the lot of the lower classes, and from luxury, ambition, arrogance and envy of the upper classes. How pleasant such a life is, he said, I can already judge by the fact that all those placed in other conditions envy him: even kings often complain about the bitter fate of people born for great deeds, and regret that fate did not put them between two extremes - insignificance and greatness, and the sage speaks in favor of the middle as a measure of true happiness, when he prays heaven not to send him either poverty or wealth.

However, young Robinson does not heed the voice of prudence, goes to sea, and his first merchant enterprise - an expedition to Guinea - brings him three hundred pounds (it is characteristic how accurately he always names sums of money in the narrative); this luck turns his head and completes his “death”. Therefore, everything that happens to him in the future, Robinson considers as a punishment for filial disobedience, for not obeying the “sober arguments of the best part of his being” - reason. And he ends up on a desert island at the mouth of the Orinoco, succumbing to the temptation to “get rich sooner than circumstances allowed”: he undertakes to deliver slaves from Africa for Brazilian plantations, which will increase his fortune to three or four thousand pounds sterling. During this voyage, he ends up on a desert island after a shipwreck.

And then the central part of the novel begins, an unprecedented experiment begins, which the author puts on his hero. Robinson is a small atom of the bourgeois world, who does not think of himself outside this world and regards everything in the world as a means to achieve his goal, having already traveled three continents, purposefully following his path to wealth.

He is artificially torn out of society, placed in solitude, placed face to face with nature. In the “laboratory” conditions of a tropical uninhabited island, an experiment is being carried out on a person: how will a person torn from civilization behave, individually faced with the eternal, core problem of mankind - how to survive, how to interact with nature? And Crusoe repeats the path of mankind as a whole: he begins to work, so that labor becomes main theme novel.

The Enlightenment novel, for the first time in the history of literature, pays tribute to labor. In the history of civilization, work was usually perceived as a punishment, as an evil: according to the Bible, God placed the need to work on all the descendants of Adam and Eve as a punishment for original sin. In Defoe, labor appears not only as the real main content of human life, not only as a means of obtaining the necessary. Even Puritan moralists were the first to talk about labor as a worthy, great occupation, and labor is not poeticized in Defoe's novel. When Robinson finds himself on a desert island, he does not really know how to do anything, and only little by little, through failure, he learns to grow bread, weave baskets, make his own tools, clay pots, clothes, an umbrella, a boat, breed goats, etc. It has long been noted that it is more difficult for Robinson to give those crafts with which his creator was well acquainted: for example, Defoe at one time owned a tile factory, so Robinson's attempts to mold and burn pots are described in detail. Robinson himself is aware of the saving role of labor:

Even when I realized the whole horror of my situation - all the hopelessness of my loneliness, my complete isolation from people, without a glimmer of hope for deliverance - even then, as soon as the opportunity opened up to stay alive, not to die of hunger, all my grief vanished like a hand : I calmed down, began to work to satisfy my urgent needs and to save my life, and if I lamented about my fate, then least of all I saw heavenly punishment in it ...

However, in the conditions of the human survival experiment started by the author, there is one concession: Robinson quickly “opens up the opportunity not to starve to death, to stay alive.” It cannot be said that all his ties with civilization have been completely cut. First, civilization operates in his skills, in his memory, in his life position; secondly, from the plot point of view, civilization sends its fruits to Robinson surprisingly timely. He would hardly have survived if he had not immediately evacuated all food supplies and tools from the wrecked ship (guns and gunpowder, knives, axes, nails and a screwdriver, sharpener, crowbar), ropes and sails, bed and dress. However, at the same time, civilization is represented on the Isle of Despair only by its technical achievements, and social contradictions do not exist for an isolated, lonely hero. It is from loneliness that he suffers the most, and the appearance of the savage Friday on the island becomes a relief.

As already mentioned, Robinson embodies the psychology of the bourgeois: it seems quite natural for him to appropriate everything and everyone for which there is no legal property right for any of the Europeans. Robinson's favorite pronoun is "mine", and he immediately makes Friday his servant: "I taught him to pronounce the word" master "and made it clear that this is my name." Robinson does not question whether he has the right to appropriate Friday for himself, to sell his friend in captivity, the boy Xuri, to trade in slaves. Other people are of interest to Robinson insofar as they are partners or the subject of his transactions, trading operations, and Robinson does not expect a different attitude towards himself. In Defoe's novel, the world of people, depicted in the story of Robinson's life before his ill-fated expedition, is in a state of Brownian motion, and the stronger its contrast with the bright, transparent world of a desert island.

So, Robinson Crusoe - new look in the gallery of great individualists, and differs from his Renaissance predecessors by the absence of extremes, by the fact that he completely belongs to the real world. No one will call Crusoe a dreamer, like Don Quixote, or an intellectual, a philosopher, like Hamlet. His sphere is practical action, management, trade, that is, he is engaged in the same thing as the majority of mankind. His egoism is natural and natural, he is aimed at a typically bourgeois ideal - wealth. The secret of the charm of this image is in the very exceptional conditions of the educational experiment that the author made on him. For Defoe and his first readers, the interest of the novel lay precisely in the exclusivity of the hero's situation, and detailed description his everyday life, his everyday work justified only by a thousand miles from England.

Robinson's psychology is fully consistent with the simple and artless style of the novel. Its main property is credibility, complete persuasiveness. The illusion of the authenticity of what is happening is achieved by Defoe using so many small details that no one seems to have undertaken to invent. Taking an initially improbable situation, Defoe then develops it, strictly observing the limits of likelihood.

The success of "Robinson Crusoe" with the reader was such that four months later Defoe wrote "The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe", and in 1720 he published the third part of the novel - "Serious reflections during a life and amazing Adventures Robinson Crusoe". During the 18th century, about fifty more “new Robinsons” saw the light in various literatures, in which Defoe's idea gradually turned out to be completely inverted. In Defoe, the hero strives not to become savage, not to be simple himself, to wrest the savage from “simplicity” and nature - his followers have new Robinsons, who, under the influence of the ideas of the late Enlightenment, live one life with nature and are happy to break with an emphatically vicious society. This meaning was put into Defoe's novel by the first passionate exposer of the vices of civilization, Jean Jacques Rousseau; for Defoe, separation from society was a return to the past of mankind - for Rousseau it becomes an abstract example of the formation of man, the ideal of the future.

How teenagers understand the laws by which they live modern society?

Text: Anna Chainikova, teacher of Russian and literature at school No. 171
Photo: proza.ru

As early as next week, graduates will test their skills in analyzing literary works. Will they be able to open the topic? Choose the right arguments? Will they meet the evaluation criteria? We'll find out very soon. In the meantime, we offer you an analysis of the fifth thematic direction- "Human and society". You still have time to take advantage of our advice.

FIPI comment:

For the topics of this direction, the view of a person as a representative of society is relevant. Society largely shapes the personality, but the personality is also able to influence the society. Topics will allow us to consider the problem of the individual and society from different angles: from the point of view of their harmonious interaction, complex confrontation or irreconcilable conflict. It is equally important to think about the conditions under which a person must obey social laws, and society must take into account the interests of each person. Literature has always shown interest in the problem of the relationship between man and society, the creative or destructive consequences of this interaction for the individual and for human civilization.

vocabulary work

Explanatory Dictionary of T. F. Efremova:
MAN - 1. A living being, unlike an animal, possessing the gift of speech, thought and the ability to produce tools and use them. 2. The carrier of any qualities, properties (usually with a definition); personality.
SOCIETY - 1. A set of people united by historically conditioned social forms life together and activities. 2. A circle of people united by a common position, origin, interests. 3. The circle of people with whom someone is in close contact; Wednesday.

Synonyms
Human: personality, individual.
Society: society, environment, environment.

Man and society are closely interconnected and cannot exist without each other. Man is a social being, he was created for society and from early childhood is in it. It is society that develops, shapes a person, and in many respects it depends on the environment and the environment what a person will become. If, for various reasons (conscious choice, chance, exile and isolation used as punishment), a person finds himself outside of society, he loses a part of himself, feels lost, experiences loneliness, and often degenerates.

The problem of interaction between the individual and society worried many writers and poets. What might these relationships be? What are they based on?

Relations can be harmonious when a person and society are in unity, they can be built on confrontation, the struggle of the individual and society, and maybe on an open irreconcilable conflict.

Often, heroes challenge society, oppose themselves to the world. In literature, this is especially common in the works of the Romantic era.

in the story "Old Woman Izergil" Maxim Gorky, telling the story of Larra, invites the reader to think about the question of whether a person can exist outside of society. The son of a proud free eagle and an earthly woman, Larra despises the laws of society and the people who invented them. The young man considers himself exceptional, does not recognize authorities and does not see the need for people: “... he, boldly looking at them, answered that there were no others like him; and if everyone honors them, he does not want to do this". Ignoring the laws of the tribe in which he found himself, Larra continues to live as he lived before, but the refusal to obey the norms of society entails exile. The elders of the tribe say to the impudent youth: “He has no place among us! Let him go where he wants”, - but this only causes the son of a proud eagle to laugh, because he is used to freedom and does not consider loneliness a punishment. But can freedom become burdensome? Yes, turning into loneliness, it will become a punishment, says Maxim Gorky. Coming up with a punishment for killing a girl, choosing from the most severe and cruel, the tribe cannot choose one that satisfies everyone. “There is a punishment. This is a terrible punishment; you won't invent something like that in a thousand years! His punishment is in himself! Let him go, let him be free", says the sage. The name Larra is symbolic: "rejected, thrown out".

Why, then, what at first aroused the laughter of Larra, “remaining free, like his father,” turned into suffering and turned out to be a real punishment? Man is a social being, therefore he cannot live outside society, Gorky claims, and Larra, although he was the son of an eagle, was still half a man. “There was so much longing in his eyes that one could poison all the people of the world with it. So, from that time on, he was left alone, free, waiting for death. And now he walks, walks everywhere ... You see, he has already become like a shadow and will be like that forever! He understands neither the speech of people, nor their actions - nothing. And he is looking for everything, walking, walking ... He has no life, and death does not smile at him. And there is no place for him among people ... That's how a man was struck for pride! Cut off from society, Larra seeks death, but does not find it. Saying “punishment to him is in himself,” the sages who comprehended the social nature of man predicted a proud young man who challenged society, a painful test of loneliness and isolation. The way Larra suffers only confirms the idea that a person cannot exist outside of society.

The hero of another legend, told by the old woman Izergil, becomes Danko, the absolute opposite of Larra. Danko does not oppose himself to society, but merges with it. At the cost of his own life, he saves desperate people, leads them out of the impenetrable forest, lighting the way with his burning heart torn from his chest. Danko accomplishes a feat not because he is waiting for gratitude and praise, but because he loves people. His act is selfless and altruistic. He exists for the sake of people and their good, and even in those moments when people who followed him shower him with reproaches and indignation boils in his heart, Danko does not turn away from them: “He loved people and thought that maybe without him they would die”. "What will I do for people?!"- the hero exclaims, tearing a flaming heart out of his chest.
Danko is an example of nobility and great love to people. It is this romantic hero who becomes Gorky's ideal. A person, according to the writer, should live with people and for the sake of people, not withdraw into himself, not be a selfish individualist, and he can only be happy in society.

Aphorisms and sayings of famous people

• All roads lead to people. (A. de Saint-Exupery)
• Man is made for society. He is unable and does not have the courage to live alone. (W. Blackstone)
• Nature creates man, but society develops and shapes him. (V. G. Belinsky)
• Society is a set of stones that would collapse if one did not support the other. (Seneca)
• Anyone who loves loneliness is either a wild beast or the Lord God. (F. Bacon)
• Man is created to live in society; separate him from him, isolate him - his thoughts will become confused, his character will become hardened, hundreds of absurd passions will arise in his soul, extravagant ideas will sprout in his brain like wild thorns in a wasteland. (D. Diderot)
• Society is like air: it is necessary for breathing, but not enough for life. (D. Santayana)
• There is no more bitter and humiliating dependence than dependence on the will of man, on the arbitrariness of one's equals. (N. A. Berdyaev)
• Don't rely on public opinion. This is not a lighthouse, but wandering lights. (A. Morua)
• It is common for every generation to consider itself called to remake the world. (A. Camus)

What are the questions to think about?

• What is the conflict between the individual and society?
• Can the individual win in the fight against society?
• Can a person change society?
• Can a person exist outside of society?
• Can a person remain civilized outside of society?
• What happens to a person cut off from society?
• Can a person become an individual apart from society?
• Why is it important to maintain individuality?
• Should I express my opinion if it differs from the opinion of the majority?
• What is more important: personal interests or public interests?
• Is it possible to live in society and be free from it?
• What leads to the violation of social norms?
• What kind of person can be called dangerous to society?
• Is a person responsible to society for his actions?
• To what does society's indifference to man lead?
• How does society treat people who are very different from it?