Analysis of the ordinary history of Goncharov. Ivan Goncharov is an ordinary story. Social adaptation of Alexander
Decade. Is it a lot or a little? Ten years after Pushkin published his novel in verse "Eugene Onegin", Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov decided to make adjustments to the "hero of the time." With his mind, he grasped the trends of the era and understood that these thoughts and reasoning should have poured out on paper ...
New time ... New characters
Life has quickened. The country was changing ... Pushed the writer to rethink the present, who was the idol of his youth. He mourned his death "like the death of his own mother." Young Goncharov conceived a new book. An Ordinary Story is the title of the first novel by an aspiring author. The plan was grandiose and difficult to underestimate. Objectively was in demand new romance great Russian Literature XIX century, following the Pushkin and Lermontov! Ivan Alexandrovich, while working on the book, showed due discernment, providing his creation with progressive problems, ideology, and confrontation of views. The writer felt: Eugene Onegin cannot continue, “ extra person"In their homeland, reflect the realities of development. Pechorin was not able to do it either.
Goncharov decided to write about the people of the new formation in the novel "An Ordinary History". The history of the creation of the work is evolutionary. It should be noted that this was Goncharov's first novel. Before publication, he read it in the Maikov family. Then he made the changes suggested by Valerian Maikov. And only when Belinsky enthusiastically approved the work, Ivan Alexandrovich published his novel. Contemporaries inspired by the Russian literary critic No. 1 (Belinsky), willingly bought new book with an inscription on the cover "Goncharov" An Ordinary History ".
Design
The author, as it were, decided to start his new book in the “world of Pushkin”, that is, in the classical estate, where the local noblemen ruled, and to finish in the already incipient “new world” - the bourgeois one: among breeders and careerists. Goncharov succeeded in describing these two socio-cultural systems, two successive stages in the development of Russian society. Note that, having realized his idea of the work, a huge contribution to domestic literature made by Goncharov. The "Ordinary Story" evoked a variety of responses. However, all critics agreed on one thing: the novel is timely, truthful, needed. By the way, during the work on the conceived essay, Ivan Goncharov formulated the most interesting idea that all Russians realistic novels The 19th century is rooted in Pushkin's novel.
From the Rooks estate to St. Petersburg
Ivan Goncharov begins to narrate the first part of his work from an ironic scene. "An Ordinary History" begins with the abandonment of one of the main characters, Alexander Fedorovich Aduev, the son of a poor local noblewoman Anna Pavlovna Adueva, of his family estate Rooks. A commotion reigns in the estate: a confused loving mother gathers her child ... This scene is both touching and ironic.
At the same time, the reader has the opportunity to notice a typical picture of unreformed Russia: serfdom turned this landlord’s landholding (in the language of Goncharov’s later novel) into a “sleepy kingdom”. Even time here has "its own dimension": "before lunch" and "after lunch", and the seasons of the year are determined by field work.
Twenty-year-old Alexander leaves together with the valet Yevsey, whom she assigned to serve the young master Agrafena. His mother, sister, and Sonechka, who was in love with him, remained in Rooks. On the day of Alexander's departure, a friend of Pospelov rushed sixty miles away to hug his friend goodbye.
The style of presentation is unlike the typical books of his time, the novel Goncharov writes. "An ordinary story", the characters of which seem to be revealed in the course of an ordinary story of an ordinary person, is not like literary work(the novel does not contain summaries). The content of the book is presented, as it were, not by the author, but by a contemplator, an accomplice, a contemporary of the events described.
About Aduev's motivation
In his family estate, Alexander would certainly have taken place. If he had stayed in Rooks, then his future life would, of course, have been well-equipped. His prosperity, measured by the harvested crop, did not require effort. The young master was automatically provided with a comfortable existence in these parts of the world. However, this literary image- the young landowner - the author Goncharov clearly sympathizes. Therefore, his description contains a kind irony in his "ordinary story" ... What attracts him to Petersburg? He, who writes poetry and tries himself in prose, dreams of fame. He is driven by dreams. In some way, in his disposition, he resembles Lermontov's Lensky: naive, with an overestimated self-esteem ...
What prompted him to take such a decisive step? First, read French novels... The author mentions them in his story. It " Pebbled leather"Balzac," Memoirs of the Devil "by Soulier, as well as the popular" soap fiction "that flooded Europe and Russia in the middle of the 19th century:" Les sept péchés capitaux "," Le manuscrit vert "," L'âne mort ".
Ivan Goncharov shows that Alexander Aduev really absorbed the naive and kind views on life taken from the novels. The "Ordinary History" in episodes of Alexander's words contains quotations from the novels "Green Manuscript" (G. Druino), "Atar-Gul" (E. Syu) ... With a slight sadness, the writer lists all those books that he "had been ill" with in his youth. Then the author will write about this work of his, that he showed in it “himself and people like him” who came to cold, tough, competitive Petersburg (the place where “careers are made”) from “kind mothers”.
Idea of the novel: ideological conflict
However, let's get back to the novel ... Secondly, Alexander brought to the city on the Neva the example of his uncle, Peter Aduev, who seventeen years ago came from the provinces to St. Petersburg and "found his way." It is about the resolved ideological conflict the aforementioned characters and wrote the novel Goncharov. "An Ordinary Story" is not just a different outlook on the life of two people, it is the spirit of the times.
The summary of this book, therefore, consists in the opposition of two worlds. One - dreamy, lordly, spoiled by laziness and the other - practical, filled with the awareness of the need for work, "real". It should be admitted that the writer Ivan Goncharov managed to notice and put on display to the reading public one of the main conflicts of the 40s of the XIX century: between the patriarchal corvee and the nascent business life. They are shown specific traits new society: respect for work, rationalism, professionalism, responsibility for the result of their work, respect for success, rationality, discipline.
Arrival of the nephew
How did the St. Petersburg uncle reacted to the arrival of his nephew? It was like snow on his head for him. He is annoyed. Indeed, on his shoulders, in addition to the usual worries, a letter from Anna Pavlovna's daughter-in-law (Alexander's mother) is naively entrusted with caring for an infantile and excessively ardent and enthusiastic son. The novel Goncharov creates from many similar ironic scenes. "An Ordinary Story" summary which we present in the article, continues with the reading of the message written by Aduev's mother without punctuation marks and sent along with a "tub of honey" and a bag of "dried raspberries". It contains a mother's request not to pamper her son and to look after him. Anna Pavlovna also notified that she would provide her son with money herself. In addition, the letter contains more than a dozen requests from neighbors who knew him as a twenty-year-old boy before leaving for St. Petersburg: from a request for help in a litigation to romantic memories of an old friend about the yellow flowers she once plucked. Uncle, having read the letter and not harboring heartfelt affection for his nephew, decided to render him complicity, guided by the "laws of justice and reason."
Help of Aduev Sr.
Petr Ivanovich, successfully combining public service with economic activities(he is also a breeder), unlike his nephew he lives in a completely different, business, "dry" world. He understands the futility of his nephew's views on the world in terms of career, which is what Goncharov shows in his book ("An Ordinary History"). We will not describe the brief content of this worldview clash, but only say that it consists in the victory of the material world.
Pyotr Ivanovich dryly and busily takes on the accustoming of his nephew to city life. He equips a young man with housing, helps to rent an apartment in the house where he lives. Aduev Sr. tells Alexander how to organize his life, where to eat better. Uncle cannot be reproached for carelessness. He is looking for a job for his nephew that suits his inclinations: translations of articles on the topic Agriculture.
Social adaptation of Alexander
Petersburg business life is gradually drawing in the young man. After two years, he already occupies a prominent place in the publishing house: not only translates articles, but also selects them, is engaged in proofreading of other people's articles, and writes himself on the topic of agriculture. Goncharov's novel tells about how the social orientation of Aduev Jr. is going. The "Ordinary History", the summary of which we are considering, tells about the changes that happened to the young man: his acceptance of the bureaucratic-bureaucratic paradigm.
Disappointments in love and in a friend
Alexander has a new love, Nadenka Lyubetskaya. Sonechka from Rooks has already been thrown out of her heart. Alexander is sincerely in love with Nadenka, he dreams of her ... The calculating girl prefers Count Novinsky to him. Young Aduev completely loses his head from passion, he wants to challenge the count to a duel. Even an uncle cannot cope with such a volcano of passions. At this stage of the novel, Ivan Goncharov introduces a significant nuance. "An Ordinary Story" tells that a romance from a dangerous crisis (possibly threatening suicide) is rescued by another romantic — the wife of Peter Ivanovich, aunt Alexandra, Lizaveta Aleksandrovna. The young man is no longer mad, a dream has come to him, but he is indifferent to his surroundings. However, further a new blow of fate awaits him.
By chance, in St. Petersburg on Nevsky Prospekt, he sees a childhood friend Pospelov. Alexander is delighted: well, finally, someone has appeared nearby, in whom you can always find support, in whom the blood has not cooled down ... However, the friend turns out to be the same only outwardly: his character has undergone significant changes, he has become unpleasantly mercantile and calculating.
How uncle convinced his nephew
Alexander is completely depressed morally, as evidenced by the novel "An Ordinary History". Goncharov, however, further narrates how young Aduev, who has lost faith in people, is brought to his senses by his uncle. He pragmatically and harshly returns his nephew to the realities of life, for a start, accusing him of heartlessness. Alexander agrees with the words of Peter Ivanovich that more should be appreciated those who love and care about him in the real world (mother, uncle, aunt) and less to soar in the fictional world. Aduev Sr. consistently leads his nephew to pragmatism. For this, he constantly, step by step (water wears away the stone) logically analyzes every desire and phrase of Aduev Jr. from the point of view of the experience of other people.
And finally, in his struggle with the romanticism of his nephew, Pyotr Ivanovich strikes a decisive blow. He decides to show Alexander the real power of his writing talent. For this, Aduev Sr. even makes certain material sacrifices. He invites his nephew to publish his story on his own behalf as an experiment. The publisher's response was crushing for the aspiring aspiring writer ... It was, figuratively speaking, a shot that finally killed the romantic in him.
One good turn deserves another
Now both the nephew and the uncle speak the same businesslike, dry language, not bothering themselves with sentimentality. Nobility is out of the soul of Alexander ... He agrees to help his uncle in one rather dirty business. Uncle has a problem: his partner, Surkov, ceases to be a reliable partner under the influence of passion. He falls in love with the widow Tafaeva Yulia Pavlovna. Aduev Sr. asks his nephew to recapture a young woman from Surkov, making her fall in love with him, which Alexander manages to do. However, his relationship with Tafaeva does not end there, but grows into mutual passion. The romantic Yulia Pavlovna brings down such a stream of emotions on the young Aduev that Alexander cannot stand the test of love.
Psychological breakdown of Aduev Jr.
Pyotr Ivanovich manages to dissuade Tafaev. However, Alexander is overcome by complete apathy. He meets with Kostikov, whom Pyotr Ivanovich recommended to him. This is an official deprived of everything the spiritual world and imagination. His destiny is relaxation: "to play checkers or fish", to live without "emotional excitement." Once the aunt, Lizaveta Alexandrovna, trying to stir up the indifferent to everything Alexander, asks him to accompany him to the concert.
Under the influence of the music of the romantic violinist he heard, Alexander decides to give up everything and return to his small homeland, in Grachi. He arrives at his home with his faithful servant Yevsey.
Finding yourself briefly
It is noteworthy that the returned "Petersburg resident" Aduev Jr. already sees the way of landlord economy in a different way, not in a youthful idyllic way. He notices the hard and regular peasant labor, the tireless care of his mother. Alexander begins to creatively rethink that much of what he translated in agricultural technology in the publishing house is far from practice, and takes up reading special literature.
Anna Pavlovna is sad that the soul of her son has lost its former ardor, and he himself has grown bald, replenished, that he has been swallowed up by the maelstrom of Petersburg life. Mom hopes that staying in the house will return the lost to her son, but she does not wait - she dies. Understanding comes to the protagonist of the novel, whose soul has been purified by suffering. true values, real faith. However, at this spiritual height he is destined to remain not long at all. Alexander returns to Petersburg.
What is the "usual" story?
From the epilogue, we learn that in four years Aduev Jr. becomes a collegiate adviser, he has a rather large income, and he is going to marry profitably (a bride's dowry of three hundred thousand rubles and an estate of five hundred serfs awaits him).
In the uncle's family, the opposite changes took place. Aduev Sr. comes to an obvious dead end, where the business world inevitably pushes him. After all, his whole life is completely subordinated to career, entrepreneurship, service. Due to monetary interests, he completely abandoned his individuality, turned himself into a part of a single machine.
Elizaveta Alexandrovna lost her romance, becoming a calm lady. At the end of the novel, she turned into a “home device for ensuring comfort”, which does not bother the spouse with emotions, worries and questions. Goncharov clearly shows that the new bourgeois society, just like the patriarchal-feudal one, is capable of destroying the personality of a woman. unexpectedly disturbed Pyotr Ivanovich, who wants to quit his career as a court counselor and leave the capital with his wife. In the epilogue of the book, he rebelled against the society whose interests he was a conductor of throughout the novel.
Tip: Watch Out for These Scenes of the Romance
- There is an episode in which Goncharov's special relationship to Pushkin is seen. Having just arrived in St. Petersburg, Alexander Aduev goes to the Bronze Horseman (one of Alexander Sergeyevich's favorite places).
- The painting of summer St. Petersburg, the Neva, created by Goncharov, is very romantic, the author's description of the White Nights ... These fragments of the novel are of high quality artistically. It is even worth rereading them periodically. Goncharov is a maestro!
Conclusion
Goncharov depicted a typical trend for his time in the novel. "Ordinary History" analyzes the historical accuracy and shows that in the 40s of the XIX century began, and in the 60s reached its maximum inflow of poor nobles and commoners in St. Petersburg, eager to make a career and take place professionally. In this case, the most important, you see, was the moral aspect. Why was the young man traveling: to serve the Fatherland or just to make a career at any cost?
However, in addition to the problematic component, Goncharov's novel has undoubted artistic value. It marks the beginning of the creation by Russian novelists of a detailed picture of the reality around them. In his article Better Late Than Never, Ivan Goncharov suggested to his readers (which, unfortunately, neither Dobrolyubov nor Belinsky did) that his three novels, the first of which was An Ordinary History, are, in fact, a single trilogy about the era of sleep and awakening of a huge country. Thus, we can say that an integral literary cycle, consisting of three novels, was created by Goncharov about his time (Oblomov, Break, Ordinary History).
Analysis of the novel "An Ordinary Story"
Every person at any stage of his development will find the necessary lesson for himself in “An Ordinary Story”. The naivety and sentimentality of Sasha Aduev is ridiculous in a business atmosphere. His pathos is false, and the lofty speeches and ideas about life are far from reality. But you can't call your uncle an ideal either: a sensible breeder, a person respected in society, he is afraid of a sincere living feeling and in his practicality he goes too far: he is afraid to show sincere warm feelings for his wife, which he brings
her to a nervous breakdown. There is a lot of irony in the teachings of the uncle, but the simple-minded nephew accepts them too directly - at first arguing with them, and then agreeing.
Losing false ideals, Alexander Aduyev does not acquire genuine ideals - he simply becomes a calculating vulgarity. The irony of Goncharov is aimed at the fact that such a path is no exception. Youthful ideals disappear like “hairs” from the head of a son, about which Aduev Jr.'s mother laments so much. This is an “ordinary story”. There are not many people who can resist the pressure big city and bourgeois society on their
mind and soul. At the end of the novel, we see that the cynic uncle is much more human than his capable student nephew. Alexander Aduev has turned into a businessman, for whom nothing is more important than career and money. And St. Petersburg expects new victims - naive and inexperienced.
(1
estimates, average: 5.00
out of 5)
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The appearance in print of Goncharov's first novel was preceded by several small experiments in poetry and prose. On the pages of the manuscript almanac " Moonlit nights"published by the Maikov circle, four of his poems are published (later these are the poems of Sasha Aduev from" Ordinary History "), a story "Dashing to hurt"(1838) and "Happy mistake"(1839). In these early works, the influence of Pushkin's prose is felt. Thus, in The Lucky Mistake, which is reminiscent of a secular story in genre, the passionate passions of romantic characters already have a psychological motivation. Feature article "Ivan Savvich Podzhabrin"- the only early work of the young writer, published during the life of Goncharov in Sovremennik in 1848. This is a typical physiological essay exploring mores, in which features of Gogol's style are noticeable: the narrative in it is focused on a fairy-tale manner, a fairly large place is occupied by lyrical digressions, and Ivan Savvich and his servant Avdey were created, undoubtedly, under the influence of the "Inspector General".
By the beginning of the 1840s. determined the creative position of Goncharov, his unconditional interest in Russian reality, to that which "stood", but did not become a thing of the past, and to that new that was making its way into life.
novel "An ordinary story" was the first Russian work that explored the forms of social progress in Russia. Goncharov's innovation consisted in the fact that he tried to see the manifestation of social laws in the fate of an individual. In the novel we have an ordinary story of the transformation of the young romanticist Alexander Aduev into a representative of a new bourgeois formation. Already in the first experience of the novel, certain plot and compositional principles of the structure of the conflict are developed, which will later be used by Goncharov in his other works.
Outwardly, the plot of "An Ordinary History" has a pronounced chronological character. Goncharov gives a detailed and unhurried story about the life of the Aduevs in Grachi, creating in the reader's imagination the image of a noble province dear to the author's heart. At the beginning of the novel, Sasha Aduev is fascinated by Pushkin, he writes poetry, listening to what is happening in his heart and soul. Alexander is exalted, smart, confident that he is an exceptional being, which should not belong last place in life. Throughout the course of the novel, Goncharov debunks Aduev's romantic ideals. As for the social revelations of romanticism, they are not directly declared anywhere in the novel. Convinced that the historical time of romanticism has passed, Goncharov leads the reader with the entire course of the novel's events.
The narrative in the novel begins with a presentation of the story of Yevsey and Agrafena, the serfs of the Aduevs, an ordinary story of landlord tyranny, told in an everyday calm tone. Sending her son to Petersburg, Anna Pavlovna is focused only on her experiences, and she does not care about the feelings of Yevsey and Agrafena, whom she separates for a long time. However, as the author says, addressing the reader, she and her son "did not prepare for the fight against what awaited him and awaits everyone ahead." Goncharov reveals the world of the provincial nobility, living in a completely different dimension, in three letters brought by his nephew to his uncle. Each of them is associated with one of the motives of the plot movement, which will be realized in the novel. So, in the letter of Zaezzhalov, Kostyakov is mentioned - "a wonderful person - a soul wide open and such a joker", communication with whom will constitute one of the "eras" of the development of the younger Aduev. The aunt's letter also represents a kind of anticipation of one of the novel's plot twists. The fervent enthusiasm of Marya Gorbatova's memories of a yellow flower and a ribbon as a symbol of tender feelings for Pyotr Ivanovich is replaced by a completely reasonable request for English wool for embroidery. This letter is a kind of "outline" of the image of Sasha's future, to which the hero will come in the finale. In the phrase that concludes the letter to the mother, "Do not leave him, my dear fellow, with your advice and take care of him; I am passing him on to you from hand to hand," the most important principle of constructing a system of images of the work is "programmed". The role of Sasha's mentor passes to his uncle, but his philosophy of life is just as little taken for granted by the young Aduev, as well as the words of his mother. One of the functions of the uncle's image in the novel is to debunk the nephew's romantic ideals.
The fate of Pyotr Ivanovich is a clear example of the beneficialness of abandoning romantic illusions. This hero does not deny reality and does not oppose himself to it, he recognizes the need for active inclusion in life, familiarity with the harsh working days. The hero of the novel, which appeared in print in 1846, became an artistic generalization of a phenomenon that was still only "breaking through" in Russian reality, but did not escape the attentive Goncharov. Many of the writer's contemporaries went through the harsh school of everyday work: Gogol, Dostoevsky, Nekrasov, and Saltykov, who overcame social romanticism, but did not lose faith in the ideal. As for the image of the elder Aduyev, Goncharov shows what a terrible moral catastrophe a person's desire to assess everything around him can turn out to be from the standpoint of practical use.
Evaluation of the romantic as the most important personality trait is far from unambiguous. Goncharov shows that the "liberation" of a person from the ideals of youth and the associated memories of love, friendship, family affections destroys the personality, occurs imperceptibly and is irreversible. Gradually, the reader begins to understand that with Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev an ordinary story of familiarizing himself with the prose of life has already happened, when, under the influence of circumstances, a person frees himself from romantic ideals of good and becomes like everyone else. It is this path that Alexander Aduyev goes through, gradually becoming disillusioned with friendship, love, service, and related feelings. However, the end of the novel - Alexander's profitable marriage and the borrowing of money from his uncle - is not the end of the work yet. The finale is a sad reflection on the fate of Pyotr Ivanovich, who succeeded on the basis of real practicality. The depth of the moral catastrophe that has already befallen society with its loss of faith in romanticism is revealed precisely in this life story. The novel ends happily for the younger, but tragically for the older: the latter is sick with boredom and monotony of the monotonous life that filled him - the pursuit of a place in the sun, fortune, rank. These are all quite practical things, they bring income, give a position in society - but for what? And only a terrible guess that Elizaveta Alexandrovna's illness is the result of her devoted service to him, service that killed in her living soul, makes Peter Ivanovich think about the meaning of his life.
In studies of Goncharov's work, it was noted that the originality of the conflict of the novel is in the collision of two life forms presented in the dialogues of the uncle and nephew, and that dialogue is the constructive basis of the novel. But this is not entirely true, since the character of Aduev the younger does not change at all under the influence of his uncle's convictions, but under the influence of the circumstances embodied in the twists and turns of the novel (writing poetry, being infatuated with Nadenka, disappointment in friendship, meeting with Kostikov, leaving for the village, etc.) ). The circumstances "alien" to the hero are concretized by the image of St. Petersburg, given in the second chapter of the novel against the background of the recollections of the "provincial egoist" Aduev about peace rural life... The turning point in the hero occurs during his meeting with the Bronze Horseman. Aduev refers to this symbol of power "not with a bitter reproach in his soul, like poor Eugene, but with an enthusiastic thought." This episode has a pronounced polemical character: Goncharov's hero "argues" with Pushkin's hero, being confident that he can overcome the circumstances and disobey them.
Dialogue plays an essential function in clarifying the author's point of view, which is not identical to either the position of the uncle or the position of the nephew. It manifests itself in a dialogue-dispute, which goes on without stopping, practically until the end of the novel. This is a dispute about creativity as a special state of mind. The theme of creativity first appears in the letter of the young Aduev to Pospelov, in which the hero characterizes his uncle as a person of the "crowd", always and in everything equally calm, and ends his analysis of the moral qualities of Peter Ivanovich with the words: "... I think he did not even read Pushkin ". The serious conclusion that vegetation "without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love" can ruin a person will turn out to be prophetic: having added prosaic ("And without hair") to Pushkin's lines, uncle, without suspecting it, pronounces judgment on himself. Sasha's romantic poems, which he destroyed with his criticism, from the standpoint of Pyotr Ivanovich - an expression of unwillingness to "pull the strap" of daily work, and his remark "writers like others" can be seen as the hero's conviction that unprofessional literary work is pampering and a manifestation of lordly laziness ... Colliding the positions of his heroes, Goncharov himself is arguing with an invisible enemy, because the poems of Aduev the younger are the poems of the young Goncharov, which he never published, apparently feeling that this was not his kind of creativity. However, the fact of their inclusion in the text of the novel is very indicative. Of course, they are artistically weak and may seem like a parody of romantic dreaminess, but the lyrical pathos of the poems is caused not only by Goncharov's desire to expose idealism: Sasha's romanticism is aimed at criticizing the depersonalization of man by the bureaucratic reality of Petersburg and criticizing the moral slavery of women.
The theme of the poet and the crowd - one of the cross-cutting themes of the novel - manifests itself in a peculiar way. Its detailed interpretation by the young Aduevs is given in Chapter IV, which reveals the state of the hero who has reached the apogee of happiness in love. Dreams of Nadenka and dreams of poetic glory merge together, but the author accompanies this enthusiastic monologue with his own commentary. From it, the reader learns about a comedy, two stories, an essay, about a "journey somewhere" created by Sasha, but not accepted in the magazine, gets acquainted with the plot of the story from American life, which was enthusiastically listened to by Nadenka, but not accepted for publication. Failures are perceived by Aduev in the spirit of a romantic conflict between the poet and the crowd, he realizes himself as a person capable of "creating a special world" without difficulty, easily and freely. And only in the finale of the monologue the position of the author-narrator, who doubts the success of this kind of creativity, is indicated.
Dialogue, as the most important substantive element of the genre form of Goncharov's novel, turns out to be a form of expressing the author's point of view in other novels, where its dialectical character will increase. The task of the writer was to strive to define his position without insisting on it as the only reliable one. This, apparently, can explain the "absurdities" of the artistic structure, the contradictory nature of the heroes of "Oblomov" and "Break", in which the author was reproached by Druzhinin, Dobrolyubov, and many others. Goncharov, due to the peculiarities of character, temperament, worldview, could not and did not want to write out ill-considered and not suffered personal experience recipes for correcting damaged morals. Like his young hero Aduev, he took up elegant prose when "the heart beats more evenly, the thoughts come in order."
In the 1840s. Goncharov saw the conflict between personality and society as developing in several directions at once, two of which he assessed in The Ordinary History, and two others outlined as possible: the hero's introduction to the life of the St. Petersburg petty bureaucracy and philistine (Kostyakov) - this conflict has already been partially " The Bronze Horseman"(in the fate of Eugene) - and immersion in physical and moral sleep, from which Aduev sobered. Philistinism and sleep are intermediate stages in the evolution of the hero, which are fully realized in the artistic structure of" Oblomov ", will develop into independent plot lines.
The theme, ideas and images of "Oblomov" and "The Cliff" already covertly existed in the artistic world of "The Ordinary History", the measured life of Goncharov as an official went on as usual. By the will of fate and his own will, he was destined to experience what he dreamed and dreamed of as a teenager.
An Ordinary History, published in 1847 in Sovremennik, was the first artwork IA Goncharov, which appeared in print. The writer worked on the "Ordinary History" for three years. In an autobiographical article "An Unusual History" (1875-1878), he wrote: "It was conceived in 1844, written in 1845, and in 1846 I had to finish a few chapters."
Goncharov read his "Unusual Story" to Belinsky for several evenings in a row. Belinsky was delighted with the new talent, which performed so brilliantly. Before giving his work "for judgment" to Belinsky, Goncharov read it several times in a friendly literary circle of the Maikovs. Before appearing in print, the novel underwent many corrections and alterations.
Recalling the later 40s, the gloomy period of Nikolaev's reign, when progressive Russian literature played a huge role in the struggle against feudal-serf reaction, Goncharov wrote: Serfdom, corporal punishment, the oppression of the authorities, the lie of the prejudices of the public and family life, rudeness, savagery of morals among the masses - that was what stood next in line in the struggle and at which the main forces of the Russian intelligentsia of the thirties and forties were directed. "
"Ordinary History" showed that Goncharov was a writer sensitive to the interests of his time. The work reflects the changes and shifts that took place in the life of feudal Russia in 1830-1840. Calling for the struggle against "all-Russian stagnation", for work for the good of the fatherland, Goncharov passionately sought around him those forces, those people who could fulfill the tasks facing Russian life.
The essence of the pseudo-romantic outlook, inherent in a significant part of the idealistically minded, detached from reality, the noble intelligentsia of the 30s, was revealed by Goncharov in the image of the main hero of the novel - Alexander Aduev. I saw the soil on which this phenomenon grew in the noble-local serf system of life, in the aristocratic upbringing of the landlords.
Romantic perception of life, lofty abstract dreams of fame and exploits, of the extraordinary, poetic impulses - who did not go through all this to some extent in his youth, in the "era of youthful excitement." But the merit of Goncharov as an artist is that he showed how these youthful dreams and illusions are perverted and disfigured by the serf-lordly upbringing.
Young Aduev knows about grief and troubles only "by ear" - "life smiles at him from the diapers." Idleness, ignorance of life "prematurely" developed "heart inclinations" and excessive daydreaming in Aduev. Before us is one of those "romantic sloths", barchuk, who are accustomed to carelessly living at the expense of the labor of others. The young Aduev sees the goal and life not in work and creativity (it seemed strange to him to work), but in “sublime existence”. The Aduevs' estate is dominated by "silence ... stillness ... grace-filled stagnation." But on the estate, he does not find a field for himself. And Aduev leaves "to seek happiness", "to pursue a career and seek fortune - to Petersburg." All the falsity of Aduev's everyday concepts begins to unfold in the novel already in the first clashes of his nephew, a dreamer, spoiled by laziness and lordship, with a practical and intelligent uncle, Peter Ivanych Aduev. The struggle between uncle and nephew also reflected the then, just beginning breakdown of old concepts and mores - sentimentality, caricatured exaggeration of the feeling of friendship and love, poetry of idleness, family and domestic lies of feigned, in essence unprecedented feelings, a waste of time on visits, on unnecessary hospitality etc. In a word, the whole idle, dreamy and affectative side of old morals with the usual impulses of youth to the high, the great, the graceful, to the effects, with a thirst to express it in crackling prose, most of all in verse.
Aduev Sr. at every step mercilessly ridicules the feigned, groundless dreaminess of Aduev Jr. “Your stupid enthusiasm is worthless,” “it is good to sit in the village with your ideals,” “forget these sacred and heavenly feelings, and look closely at the matter.” But the young hero defies moralizing. "Isn't love business?" - he answers his uncle. It is characteristic that after the first failure in love, Aduev Jr. complains about "the boredom of life, the emptiness of the soul." The pages of the novel, dedicated to the description of the hero's love affairs, are the exposure of the selfish, possessive attitude towards a woman, despite all the romantic poses that the hero takes in front of the chosen ones of his heart.
For eight years my uncle was busy with Alexander. In the end, his nephew becomes a businessman, a brilliant career and a profitable marriage of convenience await him. Not a trace remained of the former "heavenly" and "sublime" feelings and dreams. The evolution of the character of Alexander Aduev, shown in "An Ordinary History", was "ordinary" for a part of the noble youth of that time. Having condemned the romanticist Alexander Aduev, Goncharov contrasted him in the novel with another, undoubtedly more positive in a number of features, but by no means an ideal person - Peter Ivanovich Aduev. The writer, who was not a supporter of the revolutionary transformation of feudal-serf Russia, believed in progress based on the activities of enlightened, energetic and humane people. However, the work reflected not so much these views of the writer, only the contradictions that existed in reality, which carried with them the bourgeois-capitalist relations that were going to replace the "all-Russian stagnation". While rejecting the romanticism of the Aduev type, the writer, at the same time, felt the inferiority of the philosophy and practice of bourgeois "common sense", the selfishness and inhumanity of the bourgeois morality of the Aduev elders. Pyotr Ivanovich is smart, businesslike and, in his own way, a "decent man." But he is extremely "indifferent to the person, to his needs, interests." “They look at what a man has in his pocket and his tailcoat buttonhole, but the rest is not the case,” his wife Lizaveta Alexandrovna says about Pyotr Ivanitch and those like him about her spouse: “What was the main goal of his labors? Was he working for a common human goal, fulfilling the lesson given to him by fate, or only for petty reasons, in order to acquire bureaucratic and monetary value between people, or, finally, so that he would not be bent into an arc of need, circumstances? God knows him. He did not like to talk about lofty goals, he called it nonsense, but spoke dryly and simply that it was necessary to do business. "
Alexander and Peter Ivanovich Aduevs are opposed not only as a provincial nobleman-romantic and a businessman-bourgeois, but also as two psychologically opposite types. “One is ecstatic to the point of being mad, the other is icy to the point of fierceness,” says Lizaveta Aleksandrovna about her nephew and husband.
Goncharov strove to find an ideal, that is, a normal type of person not in Aduev the elder and not in Aduev the younger, but something else, the third, in the harmony of “mind” and “heart”. A clear hint of this is already contained in the image of Lizaveta Aleksandrovna Adueva, despite the fact that the “century” “stuck” her, according to Belinsky's just remark, Pyotr Ivanovich.
Among these wonderful images, one should include not only Lizaveta Alexandrovna, but also Nadenka.
The daughter is a few steps ahead of her mother. She fell in love with Aduev without asking and hardly hides it from her mother or keeps silent only for decency, considering her the right to dispose of her own inner world and Aduev himself, which, having studied it well, mastered and commands. This is her obedient slave, gentle, spineless kind, promising something, but petty self-centered, simple, ordinary young man, of which there are many everywhere. And she would accept him, get married - and everything would go as usual.
But the figure of the count appeared, consciously intelligent, dexterous, with brilliance. Nadya saw that Aduev could not stand comparison with him either in mind, or in character, or in upbringing. In her everyday life, Nadenka did not acquire consciousness of any ideals of male dignity, strength, and what strength? She only got enough to see that she saw a thousand times in all the other young men with whom she danced, flirted a little. She listened to his poetry for a minute. She expected the strength and talent to lie there. But it turned out that he only writes tolerable poetry, but no one knows about them, and even sulks about himself at the count for the fact that this one is simple, smart and behaves with dignity. She went over to the side of the latter: for the time being, this was the conscious step of the Russian girl - a silent emancipation, a protest against the mother's authority, which was helpless for her.
The novel by Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov "An Ordinary History", written in 1844 - 1846, became a significant event in Russian literature.
"Goncharov's story made a splash in St. Petersburg - an unheard-of success!" - Belinsky reported in one of his letters.
The novel is a typical everyday phenomenon: young Alexander Aduev, who grew up in the countryside, among the peasants, raised by his tenderly loving mother, full of romantic hopes for eternal love, noble spiritual impulses, leaves for St. Petersburg in order to "make a career and fortune." He didn't even care what business he chose for himself: whether it was a literary field or state activity. There is a lot of naive provincial gullibility in Alexander. He is used to seeing a friend in every person he meets, he is used to seeing people whose eyes radiate human warmth and sympathy. He believes in family feelings, he thinks that his uncle in St. Petersburg will greet him with open arms, as is customary in the village, but ... the uncle does not allow him to hug him, keeps him at some distance. “So this is how it is here, in St. Petersburg,” Alexei thinks, “if his own uncle is so, what about the others? ..”
“The first impressions of a provincial in St. Petersburg are hard. He is wild, sad; no one notices him; he is lost here; no news, no variety, no crowd entertains him. His provincial selfishness declares war on everything that he sees in himself. " He declares war, first of all, on his uncle Peter Ivanovich Aduev. This is a completely different person from Alexander. He is endowed with the ability to take a sober and businesslike look at things. However, over time, dryness and prudence in his character become noticeable. He despises idleness, useless daydreaming, calls his nephew to work.
He kills the hopes of eternal love in Alexander. Sonechka is completely forgotten by Alexander, he is in love with Nadezhda Lyubetskaya. Uncle insists that love is not eternal, that, in the end, Nadya will change Alexandra. But he doesn't believe. "How, is she, this angel?" he asks his uncle. But time passes, and the uncle turns out to be right: Nadenka falls in love with the count. For Alexander it was a heavy blow from which he barely recovered.
Alexander is defeated in everything: in love, in friendship, in work. After he saw his friend Pospelov, he became disillusioned with people, he hated them, took them for animals. And all this is due to the fact that he could not look into his soul, understand himself.
Alexander quit his job, she did not give him pleasure. He also changed externally. From a slender young man with beautiful blond curls, he turns into a fat, bald man with a saggy belly.
But what are the reasons for these terrible changes, what is the source of all Alexander's troubles? Where is the truth? I think that Alexander could not take advantage of uncle's advice so as not to hurt himself. I had to listen to him, save myself from excessive daydreaming, from violent manifestations of feelings. You can't live only by feelings! But also by reason. How to live? The novel does not provide a direct answer to this question. What is needed is the “ golden mean”, An example of which in the novel is Lizaveta Alexandrovna. In life, a person needs work, love, harmony with himself and with the world, spiritual harmony, and this was not enough for Alexander to live in peace.
Goncharov's first novel was published on the pages of the magazine \\\\\\\ "Contemporary \\\\\\\" in March and April issues for 1847. At the center of the novel is a clash of two characters, two philosophies of life, nurtured on the basis of two ...
The novel by Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov "An Ordinary History" was one of the first Russian realistic works telling about Everyday life ordinary people. The novel depicts pictures of Russian reality in the 1840s, typical ...
Goncharov's service was time-consuming, and he was not a prolific writer at all. It took many years before a new novel appeared. In 1847, The Ordinary History was published, in 1859 - Oblomov. And finally, in 1869 - "The Cliff", in ...
The hero of the novel, Alexander Aduev, lives in that transitional time when the serene tranquility of the noble estate was disturbed. The sounds of city life with its feverish pace more and more persistently burst into the lazy silence of Manilov's nests and awaken ...
The first novel by I. A. Goncharov "An Ordinary History" was published on the pages of the "Sovremennik" magazine in March and April issues for 1847. At the center of the novel is a clash of two characters, two philosophies of life, nurtured on the basis of two social ...
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