FEDERAL AGENCY FOR EDUCATION

STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

"TOMSK STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY"

Faculty of Philology

Department of Literature

COURSE WORK

THE THEME OF A LITTLE MAN IN N.V. GOGOL

Performed:

Student of 71 RJ group

3 course FF Guseva T.V.

Job evaluation:

____________________

"___" __________ 20__

Supervisor:

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor

Tatarkina S.V.

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Introduction 3

Chapter 1 The theme of the "little man" in Russian literature of the 19th century 5

Chapter 2"Little Man" in Gogol's story "The Overcoat" 15

2.1 The history of the creation of the "Overcoat" 15

2.2 "Little man" as a social and moral-psychological concept in Gogol's "Overcoat" 16

2.3 Critics and contemporaries of Gogol about the story "The Overcoat" 21

Conclusion 22

Bibliography 23

INTRODUCTION

Russian literature, with its humanistic orientation, could not pass by problems and destinies. common man. Conventionally, in literary criticism, it began to be called the theme of the “little man”. Its origins were Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol and Dostoevsky, who in their works (“Poor Liza”, “ Stationmaster”, “The Overcoat” and “Poor People”) revealed to readers the inner world of a simple person, his feelings and experiences.

F.M. Dostoevsky singles out Gogol as the first to open to readers the world of the "little man". Probably because in his story "The Overcoat" Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin is the main character, all the rest of the characters create a background. Dostoevsky writes: “We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat.

The story "The Overcoat" is one of the best in the work of N.V. Gogol. In it, the writer appears before us as a master of detail, a satirist and a humanist. Narrating the life of a petty official, Gogol was able to create an unforgettable vivid image"little man" with his joys and troubles, difficulties and worries. Hopeless need surrounds Akaky Akakievich, but he does not see the tragedy of his situation, as he is busy with business. Bashmachkin is not burdened by his poverty, because he does not know another life. And when he has a dream - a new overcoat, he is ready to endure any hardships, if only to bring the implementation of his plans closer. The author is quite serious when he describes the delight of his hero about the realization of a dream: the overcoat is sewn! Bashmachkin is completely happy. But for how long?

The "little man" is not destined to be happy in this unfair world. And only after death is justice done. Bashmachkin's "soul" finds peace when he returns his lost thing.

Gogol in his "Overcoat" showed not only the life of the "little man", but also his protest against the injustice of life. Let this "rebellion" be timid, almost fantastic, but the hero nevertheless stands up for his rights, against the foundations of the existing order.

The purpose of this work- to explore the theme of the "little man" in Gogol's work in the material of Gogol's story "The Overcoat".

In accordance with the purpose are determined and main tasks:

1. Consider the theme of the "little man" in the works of Russian classics (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov);

2. Analyze Gogol's work "The Overcoat", considering the main character Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin as a "little man" unable to resist brute force;

3. To explore the image of the “little man” as a school for Russian writers on the material of the story “The Overcoat” by Gogol.

The methodological basis of the course work is research: Yu.G. Manna, M.B. Khrapchenko, A.I. Revyakin, Anikin, S. Mashinsky, which highlight the theme of the "little man"

CHAPTER 1. THE THEME OF A LITTLE MAN IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE 19TH CENTURY

The work of many Russian writers is imbued with love for an ordinary person, pain for him. The theme of the “little man” in literature arose even before N.V. Gogol.

One of the first to put forward the democratic theme of the “little man” in literature was A.S. Pushkin. In Belkin's Tales, completed in 1830, the writer not only draws pictures of the life of the nobility and county ("The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"), but also draws the attention of readers to the fate of the "little man". For the first time this theme was heard in Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman and The Stationmaster. It is he who makes the first attempt to objectively, truthfully portray the "little man".

In general, the image of the “little man”: this is not a noble, but a poor person, insulted by people of higher rank, driven to despair. This means not just a person without ranks and titles, but rather a socio-psychological type, that is, a person who feels his powerlessness in front of life. Sometimes he is capable of protest, the outcome of which is often madness, death.

The hero of the story "The Stationmaster" is alien to sentimental suffering, he has his own sorrows associated with the disorder of life. There is a small postal station somewhere at the crossroads of carriageways, where the official Samson Vyrin and his daughter Dunya live - the only joy that brightens up the hard life of the caretaker, full of shouting and cursing of passing people. And suddenly she is secretly taken away from her father to Petersburg. The worst thing is that Dunya left with the hussar of her own free will. Having crossed the threshold of a new, rich life, she abandoned her father. Samson Vyrin, unable to "return the lost lamb", dies alone, and no one notices his death. About people like him, Pushkin writes at the beginning of the story: “Let us, however, be fair, we will try to enter into their position and, perhaps, we will judge them much more condescendingly.”

Life truth, sympathy for the "little man", insulted at every step by the bosses, standing higher in rank and position - that's what we feel when reading the story. Pushkin cherishes this "little man" who lives in grief and need. The story is imbued with democracy and humanity, so realistically depicting the “little man”.

But Pushkin would not have been great if he had not shown life in all its diversity and development. Life is much richer and more inventive than literature, and the writer showed us this. Samson Vyrin's fears did not come true. His daughter did not become unhappy, not the worst fate awaited her. The writer is not looking for someone to blame. He simply shows an episode from the life of a disenfranchised and poor stationmaster.

The story marked the beginning of the creation in Russian literature of a kind of gallery of images of "little people".

In 1833, Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman" appears, in which the "little man" with a tragic fate expresses a timid protest against the inhuman autocracy.

In this work, the poet tried to solve the problem of the relationship between the individual and the state. Pushkin saw the possibility of achieving agreement, harmony between the individual and the state, he knew that a person can simultaneously recognize himself as part of a great state and a bright individual, free from oppression. By what principle should relations between the individual and the state be built so that the private and the public merge into one whole? Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman" was a kind of attempt to answer this question.

The plot of Pushkin's poem is quite traditional. In the exposition, the author introduces us to Eugene, a modest official, a “little man”. Eugene from the impoverished nobles, which Pushkin briefly mentions, saying that the hero's ancestors were listed in the History of Karamzin. Today's life of Evgeny is very modest: he serves "somewhere", loves Parasha and dreams of marrying his beloved girl.

In The Bronze Horseman, private life and state life are presented as two closed worlds, each of which has its own laws. Eugene's world - dreams of quiet joys family life. The world of the individual and the world of the state are not just separated from each other, they are hostile, each of them brings evil and destruction to the other. So, Peter lays down his city “in spite of his arrogant neighbor” and destroys what is good and holy for a poor fisherman. Peter, who is trying to subdue, tame the elements, causes her evil revenge, that is, becomes the culprit of the collapse of all Eugene's personal hopes. Eugene wants to take revenge, his threat (“You already!”) is ridiculous, but full of desire for rebellion against the “idol”. In return, he receives Peter's evil revenge and madness. Those who rebelled against the state were severely punished.

According to Pushkin, the relationship between the private and the public should be based on love, and therefore the life of the state and the individual should enrich and complement each other. Pushkin resolves the conflict between the individual and the state, overcoming the one-sidedness and worldview of Yevgeny, and the outlook on life of the side opposite to the hero. The culmination of this collision is the rebellion of the "little" man. Pushkin, raising the poor madman to the level of Peter, begins to use sublime vocabulary. In a moment of anger, Eugene is truly terrible, because he dared to threaten the Bronze Horseman himself! However, the rebellion of Eugene, who has gone mad, is a senseless and punishable rebellion. Bowing to idols become their victims. It is possible that Yevgeny's "rebellion" contains a hidden parallel with the fate of the Decembrists. This confirms the finale of the Bronze Horseman.

Analyzing Pushkin's poem, we come to the conclusion that the poet showed himself in it as a true philosopher. "Little" people will rebel against a higher power for as long as the state exists. This is precisely the tragedy and contradiction of the eternal struggle of the weak and the strong. Who is to blame after all: the great state, which has lost interest in the private person, or the “little man”, who has ceased to be interested in the greatness of history, has fallen out of it? The reader's perception of the poem turns out to be extremely contradictory: according to Belinsky, Pushkin substantiated the tragic right of the empire, with all its state power, to dispose of the life of a private person; in the 20th century, some critics suggested that Pushkin was on Yevgeny's side; there is also an opinion that the conflict depicted by Pushkin is tragically insoluble. But it is obvious that for the poet himself in The Bronze Horseman, according to the formula of the literary critic Y. Lotman, “the right way is not to move from one camp to another, but to “rise above the cruel age”, preserving in humanity, human dignity and respect for the lives of others."

The traditions of Pushkin were continued and developed by Dostoevsky and Chekhov.

F.M. Dostoevsky, the theme of the "little man" is a cross-cutting one in all his work. So, already the first novel of the outstanding master "Poor People" touched on this topic, and it became the main one in his work. In almost every novel by Dostoevsky, we encounter “little people”, “humiliated and insulted”, who are forced to live in a cold and cruel world.

By the way, Dostoevsky's novel "Poor People" is imbued with the spirit of Gogol's overcoat. This is a story about the fate of the same "little man", crushed by grief, despair and social lawlessness. The correspondence of the poor official Makar Devushkin with Varenka, who lost her parents and is persecuted by a procuress, reveals the deep drama of the life of these people. Makar and Varenka are ready for each other for any hardships. Makar, living in extreme need, helps Varya. And Varya, having learned about the situation of Makar, comes to his aid. But the heroes of the novel are defenseless. Their rebellion is "rebellion on their knees." Nobody can help them. Varya is taken away to certain death, and Makar is left alone with his grief. Broken, crippled life of two wonderful people, broken by cruel reality.

It is curious to note that Makar Devushkin reads Pushkin's The Stationmaster and Gogol's The Overcoat. He is sympathetic to Samson Vyrin and hostile to Bashmachkin. Probably because he sees his future in him.

In the novel "Crime and Punishment" the theme of the "little man" is revealed with special passion, with special love for these people.

I would like to note that Dostoevsky had a fundamentally new approach to depicting "little people". These are no longer dumb and downtrodden people, as they were with Gogol. Their soul is complex and contradictory, they are endowed with the consciousness of their "I". In Dostoevsky, the “little man” himself begins to speak, talk about his life, fate, troubles, he talks about the injustice of the world in which he lives and those who are “humiliated and insulted” like him.

In the novel "Crime and Punishment" the fate of many "little people" forced to live under the cruel laws of cold, hostile Petersburg passes before the reader's eyes. Together with the main character Rodion Raskolnikov, the reader meets on the pages of the novel “humiliated and insulted”, together with him he experiences their spiritual tragedies. Among them is a dishonored girl, who is hunted by a fat front, and an unfortunate woman who threw herself from a bridge, and Marmeladov, and his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna, and daughter Sonechka. Yes, and Raskolnikov himself also belongs to the "little people", although he is trying to elevate himself above the people around him.

Dostoevsky not only depicts the disasters of the "little man", not only evokes pity for the "humiliated and insulted", but also shows the contradictions of their souls, the combination of good and evil in them. From this point of view, the image of Marmeladov is especially characteristic. The reader, of course, feels sympathy for the poor, tormented man who lost everything in his life, and therefore sank to the very bottom. But Dostoevsky is not limited to sympathy alone. He shows that Marmeladov's drunkenness not only harmed himself (he is fired from work), but also brought a lot of misfortune to his family. Because of him, small children are starving, and the eldest daughter is forced to go outside in order to somehow help the impoverished family. Together with sympathy, Marmeladov also causes contempt for himself, you involuntarily blame him for the troubles that have fallen on the family.

The figure of his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna is also controversial. On the one hand, she is trying in every possible way to prevent the final fall, she recalls her happy childhood and carefree youth when she danced at the ball. But in reality, she simply consoles herself with her memories, allows her adopted daughter to engage in prostitution and even accepts money from her.

As a result of all the misfortunes, Marmeladov, who has "nowhere to go" in life, becomes an inveterate drunkard and commits suicide. His wife dies of consumption, completely exhausted by poverty. They could not endure the pressure of society, soulless St. Petersburg, did not find the strength to resist the oppression of the surrounding reality.

A completely different Sonechka Marmeladova appears before the reader. She is also a “little person”, moreover, nothing worse than her fate can be imagined. But, despite this, she finds a way out of the absolute impasse. She is accustomed to live according to the laws of the heart, according to Christian commandments. It is in them that she draws strength. She reminds that the lives of her brothers and sisters depend on her, so she completely forgets about herself and devotes herself to others. Sonechka becomes a symbol of eternal sacrifice, she has great sympathy for man, compassion for all living things. It is the image of Sonya Marmeladova that is the most obvious exposure of the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bblood according to Raskolnikov's conscience. It is no coincidence that, along with the old woman - pawnbroker, Rodion kills her innocent sister Lizaveta, who is so similar to Sonechka.

Troubles and misfortunes haunt Raskolnikov's family as well. His sister Dunya is ready to marry a person who is opposite to her in order to financially help her brother. Raskolnikov himself lives in poverty, cannot even feed himself, so he is even forced to pawn a ring, a gift from his sister.

The novel contains many descriptions of the fate of "little people". Dostoevsky with deep psychological accuracy described the contradictions reigning in their souls, managed to show not only the downtroddenness and humiliation of such people, but also proved that it is among them that deeply suffering, strong and contradictory personalities are found.

Further in the development of the image of the "little man" there is a tendency of "bifurcation". On the one hand, raznochintsy-democrats appear from among the "little people", and their children become revolutionaries. On the other hand, the "little man" descends, turning into a limited tradesman. We most clearly observe this process in the stories of A.P. Chekhov "Ionych", "Gooseberry", "The Man in the Case".

A.P. Chekhov is a writer of a new era. His stories are distinguished by realism and convey to us the author's disappointment in the social structure and satirical laughter at the vulgarity, philistinism, servility, servility that take place in society. Already in his first stories, he raises the question of the spiritual degradation of man. In his works, images of the so-called "case" people appear - those who are so limited in their aspirations, in the manifestations of their own "I", are so afraid to cross the limits established either by limited people or by themselves, that even a slight change in their usual life leads sometimes to tragedy.

The character of the story "The Death of an Official" Chervyakov is one of the images of "case" people created by Chekhov. Chervyakov in the theater, carried away by the play, "feels at the height of bliss." Suddenly he sneezed and - a terrible thing happens - Chervyakov splashed the bald head of the old general. Several times the hero apologizes to the general, but he still cannot calm down, it constantly seems to him that the “insulted” general is still angry with him. Having brought the poor fellow to a flash of rage and having listened to an angry rebuke, Chervyakov seems to get what he had been striving for so long and stubbornly. “Arriving mechanically home, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and ... died.” Out of fear. "Case" did not allow Chervyakov to rise above his own fears, to overcome the slave psychology. Chekhov tells us that a person like Chervyakov simply could not live on with the consciousness of such a "terrible crime" as he sees an unexpected act in the theater.

Over time, the "little man", deprived of his own dignity, "humiliated and insulted", causes not only compassion, but also condemnation among progressive writers. “You live boringly, gentlemen,” Chekhov said with his work to the “little man”, resigned to his position. With subtle humor, the writer ridicules the death of Ivan Chervyakov, from whose lips the lackey “Your-stvo” has not left his lips all his life.

Another hero of Chekhov, the Greek teacher Belikov (the story "The Man in the Case") becomes an obstacle to social movement; he is afraid of any movement forward: learning to read and write, opening a reading room, helping the poor. In everything he sees "an element of doubt." He hates his own work, the students make him nervous and frightened. Belikov's life is boring, but it is unlikely that he himself is aware of this fact. This person is afraid of the authorities, but everything new scares him even more. In conditions when the formula was in effect: “If the circular does not allow, then it is impossible,” he becomes a terrible figure in the city. Chekhov says about Belikov: “Reality irritated, frightened him, kept him in constant anxiety, and, perhaps, in order to justify this timidity of his, his disgust for the present, he always praised the past ... Only circulars and newspapers were always clear to him. articles in which something was forbidden. But with all this, Belikov kept the whole city in obedience. His fear of "no matter what happened" was transmitted to others. Belikov fenced himself off from life, he stubbornly strove to ensure that everything remained as it was. “This person,” said Burkin, “had a constant and irresistible desire to surround himself with a shell, to create a case for himself that would seclude him, protect him from external influences.” Chekhov brings to the reader's judgment the moral emptiness of his hero, the absurdity of his behavior and all the surrounding reality. Chekhov's work is filled with images of "case" people, whom the author both pities and laughs at at the same time, thereby exposing the vices of the existing world order. Behind the author's humor are more important moral questions. Chekhov makes one think about why a person humiliates himself, turning himself into a “small”, unnecessary person, impoverishes spiritually, and yet in every person “everything should be beautiful: face, clothes, soul, and thoughts.”

The theme of "little people" is the most important in Gogol's St. Petersburg stories. If in "Taras Bulba" the writer embodied the images folk heroes taken from the historical past, then in the stories "Arabesques", in "The Overcoat", referring to the present, he painted the destitute and humiliated, those who belong to the social classes. With great artistic truth, Gogol reflected the thoughts, experiences, sorrows and sufferings of the “little man”, his unequal position in society. The tragedy of the impoverishment of “little” people, the tragedy of their doom to a life filled with anxieties and disasters, constant humiliation of human dignity, is especially prominent in the St. Petersburg stories. All this finds its impressive expression in the life history of Poprishchin and Bashmachkin.

If in "Nevsky Prospekt" the fate of the "little man" is depicted in comparison with the fate of another, "successful" hero, then in "Notes of a Madman" an internal collision is revealed in terms of the hero's attitude to the aristocratic environment and, at the same time, in terms of the clash of cruel life truth with illusions and misconceptions about reality.

Gogol's "Overcoat" occupies a special place in the cycle of "Petersburg Tales" by the author. Popular in the 1930s, the story of an unfortunate, needy official was embodied by Gogol in a work of art that Herzen called "colossal." Gogol's "Overcoat" has become a kind of school for Russian writers. Having shown the humiliation of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, his inability to resist brute force, Gogol, at the same time, protested against injustice and inhumanity by the behavior of his hero. It's a rebellion on its knees.

CHAPTER 2. A LITTLE MAN IN N.V. GOGOL "OVERCOAT"

2.1 The history of the creation of the "Overcoat"

The story of a poor official was created by Gogol while working on " Dead souls". Her creative idea did not immediately receive its artistic embodiment.

The original idea of ​​the "Overcoat" refers to the mid-30s, i.e. by the time of the creation of other St. Petersburg stories, later combined into one cycle. P.V. Annenkov, who visited Gogol before his departure from St. Petersburg, reports: “Once, under Gogol, a clerical anecdote was told about some poor official, a passionate bird hunter, who, by extraordinary savings and tireless, strenuous work, accumulated a sum sufficient to buy 200 rubles worth of a good Lepage gun. The first time, as he set off in his small boat across the Gulf of Finland for prey, putting his precious gun in front of him on his nose, he was, according to his own assurance, in some kind of self-forgetfulness and only came to his senses when, looking at his nose, he did not see his new thing. The gun was pulled into the water by thick reeds, through which he had passed somewhere, and all efforts to find him were in vain. The clerk returned home, went to bed and did not get up again: he caught a fever ... Everyone laughed at the anecdote, which had a true incident at its base, with the exception of Gogol, who listened to him thoughtfully and lowered his head. The anecdote was the first thought of his wonderful story "The Overcoat".

The experiences of the poor official were familiar to Gogol from the first years of his Petersburg life. On April 2, 1830, he wrote to his mother that, despite his frugality, “until now ... he has not been able to make a new one, not only a tailcoat, but even a warm raincoat, necessary for the winter,” “and cut off the whole winter in a summer overcoat ".

The beginning of the first edition of the story (1839) was entitled "The Tale of an Official Stealing an Overcoat". In this edition, the hero did not yet have a name. Later, he received the name "Akaky", which means in Greek "gentle", hinting at his position as a downtrodden official, and the surname Tishkevich (later replaced by Gogol with "Bashmakevich", and then with "Bashmachkin").

The deepening of the plan and its implementation took place gradually; Interrupted by other creative interests, work on the completion of The Overcoat continued until 1842.

While working on the story and preparing it for publication, Gogol foresaw censorship difficulties. This forced him to soften, in comparison with the draft version, certain phrases of Akaky Akakievich’s dying delirium (in particular, the hero’s threat to a significant person was thrown out: “I won’t see that you are a general!”). however, these corrections made by the author did not satisfy the censorship, which demanded that the words about the misfortune that falls not only on ordinary people, but also on "the kings and rulers of the world", and about the abduction by the ghost of overcoats "even the secret advisers themselves."

Written at the time of the highest flowering of Gogol's creative genius, "The Overcoat" in terms of its vital saturation, in terms of the power of mastery, is one of the most perfect and remarkable works of the great artist. Adjacent in its problematics to the St. Petersburg stories, "The Overcoat" develops the theme of a humiliated person. This theme sounded sharply both in the depiction of Piskarev's image and in mournful lamentations about the injustice of the fate of the hero of the Notes of a Madman. But it was in The Overcoat that she received her most complete expression.

2.2 "Little man" as a social and moral-psychological concept in Gogol's "Overcoat"

The story "The Overcoat" first appeared in 1842 in the 3rd volume of Gogol's works. Its theme is the situation of the “little man”, and the idea is spiritual suppression, grinding, depersonalization, robbery of the human person in an antagonistic society, as A.I. Revyakin.

The story "The Overcoat" continues the theme of the "little man", outlined in "The Bronze Horseman" and "The Stationmaster" by Pushkin. But in comparison with Pushkin, Gogol strengthens and expands the social sounding of this theme. The motif of the isolation and defenselessness of a person in The Overcoat, which has long worried Gogol, sounds on some kind of highest - aching note.

In Bashmachkin, for some reason, none of those around him sees a person, but they saw only the "eternal titular adviser." “A short official with a bald spot on his forehead”, somewhat reminiscent of a meek child, utters significant words: “Leave me, why are you offending me?”.

The mother of Akaky Akakievich did not just choose a name for her son - she chose his fate. Although there was nothing to choose from: out of nine difficult-to-pronounce names, she does not find a single suitable one, therefore she has to name her son by her husband Akakiy, a name that means “humble” in Russian calendars - he is “the humblest”, because he is Akakiy “in the square” .

The story of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, the "eternal titular adviser" is the story of the distortion and death of a person under the power of social circumstances. Bureaucratic - bureaucratic Petersburg brings the hero to complete stupefaction. The whole point of his existence lies in the rewriting of ridiculous government papers. Nothing else is given to him. His life is not enlightened and not warmed by anything. As a result, Bashmachkin turns into a typewriter, loses all independence and initiative. For him, an insoluble task is the change of verbs "from the first person to the third." Spiritual poverty, humility and timidity are expressed in his stammering, tongue-tied speech. At the same time, even at the bottom of this warped, trampled soul, Gogol is looking for human content. Akaky Akakievich is trying to find an aesthetic meaning in the only miserable occupation that he has been given: “There, in this rewriting, he saw his own diverse and pleasant world. Pleasure was expressed on his face; some letters he had favorites, to which if he got, he was not himself. Gogol's hero experiences a kind of "illumination" in the story of the overcoat. The overcoat became an "ideal goal", warmed, filled his existence. Starving in order to save up money for her sewing, he "on the other hand ate spiritually, carrying in his thoughts the eternal idea of ​​​​a future overcoat." Sad humor the author’s words are heard that his hero “became somehow more alive, even firmer in character ... Fire was sometimes shown in his eyes, even the most daring and courageous thoughts flashed through his head: shouldn’t we, for sure, put a marten on the collar?”. In the ultimate "grounding" of Akaky Akakievich's dreams, the deepest degree of his social infringement is expressed. But the very ability to experience the ideal remains in him. The human is indestructible under the most cruel social humiliation - this is, first of all, the greatest humanism of The Overcoat.

As already noted, Gogol enhances and expands the social sounding of the theme of the "little man". Bashmachkin, a scribe, a zealous worker who knew how to be satisfied with his miserable lot, suffers insults and humiliations from coldly despotic "significant persons" personifying bureaucratic statehood, from young officials mocking him, from street thugs who took off his new overcoat. And Gogol boldly rushed in defense of his trampled rights, offended human dignity. Recreating the tragedy of the "little man", the writer arouses feelings of pity and compassion for him, calls for social humanism, for humanity, reminds Bashmachkin's colleagues that he is their brother. But the ideological meaning of the story is not limited to this. In it, the author convinces that the wild injustice that reigns in life is capable of causing discontent, a protest even of the quietest, most humble unfortunate.

Intimidated, downtrodden, Bashmachkin showed his dissatisfaction with significant persons who roughly belittled and insulted him, only in a state of unconsciousness, in delirium. But Gogol, being on the side of Bashmachkin, defending him, carries out this protest in a fantastic continuation of the story. Justice, trampled in reality, triumphs in the writer's dreams.

Thus, the theme of man as a victim of the social system is brought to its logical end by Gogol. “A creature disappeared and disappeared, protected by no one, dear to no one, not interesting to anyone.” However, in his dying delirium, the hero experiences another "enlightenment", utters "the most terrible words" never heard from him before, after the words "your excellency." The deceased Bashmachkin turns into an avenger and rips off his overcoat from the very significant person". Gogol resorts to fantasy, but it is emphatically conditional, it is designed to reveal the protesting, rebellious principle lurking in the timid and intimidated hero, a representative of the "lower class" of society. The "rebelliousness" of the ending of "The Overcoat" is somewhat softened by the image of the moral correction of a "significant person" after a collision with a dead man.

Gogol's solution to the social conflict in The Overcoat is given with that critical ruthlessness that is the essence of the ideological and emotional pathos of Russian classical realism.

2.3 Critics and contemporaries of Gogol about the story "The Overcoat"

The theme of a “small”, disenfranchised person, the ideas of social humanism and protest, which sounded so loudly in the story “The Overcoat”, made it a landmark work of Russian literature. It became a banner, a program, a kind of manifesto of the natural school, opened a string of works about the humiliated and insulted, unfortunate victims of the autocratic-bureaucratic regime, crying out for help, and paving the way for consistently democratic literature. This great merit of Gogol was noted by both Belinsky and Chernyshevsky.

Opinions of critics and contemporaries of the author about Gogol's hero differed. Dostoevsky saw in "The Overcoat" "a ruthless mockery of man." Belinsky saw in the figure of Bashmachkin the motive of social exposure, sympathy for the socially oppressed "little man". But here is Apollon Grigoriev’s point of view: “In the image of Akaky Akakievich, the poet drew the line of shallowing God’s creation to the extent that a thing, and the most insignificant thing, becomes for a person a source of boundless joy and annihilating grief.”

And Chernyshevsky called Bashmachkin "a complete idiot." As in "Notes of a Madman" the boundaries of reason and madness are violated, so in "The Overcoat" the line between life and death is erased.

Herzen in his work "The Past and Thoughts" recalls how Count S.G. Stroganov, trustee of the Moscow educational district, addressing the journalist E.F. Korshu, said: “What a terrible story by Gogolev“ The Overcoat ”, because this ghost on the bridge simply drags an overcoat from each of us from the shoulders.”

Gogol sympathizes with each of the heroes of the story as a “shallowed” creation of God. He makes the reader see behind the funny and ordinary behavior of the characters their dehumanization, oblivion of what so pierced one young man: “I am your brother!”. “Significant words” pierced only one young man, who, of course, heard in these words the commanding word about love for one’s neighbor, “many times later he shuddered in his lifetime, seeing how much inhumanity is in a person, even in that person whose light recognizes as noble and honest ... ".

The fantastic finale of the story "The Overcoat" is a silent scene. It is not embarrassment and frustration that Gogol settles in the soul of readers with the end of the story, but, according to literary critics, he does it with the art of the word "instilling harmony and order in the soul."

CONCLUSION

The story "The Overcoat" concentrated all the best that is in the St. Petersburg cycle of Gogol. This is a truly great work, rightly perceived as a kind of symbol of the new realistic, Gogol school in Russian literature. V in a certain sense it is a symbol of all Russian classics of the 19th century. Don't we immediately think of Bashmachkin from The Overcoat when we think about the little man, one of the main characters of this literature?

In The Overcoat, in the end, we see not just a “little man”, but a person in general. A lonely, insecure person, deprived of reliable support, in need of sympathy. Therefore, we can neither mercilessly judge the "little man" nor justify him: he evokes both compassion and ridicule.

In conclusion, I would like to say that a person should not be small. The same Chekhov, showing "case" people, exclaimed in one of his letters to his sister: "My God, how rich Russia is in good people!" The keen eye of the artist, noticing vulgarity, hypocrisy, stupidity, saw something else - the beauty of a good person, like, for example, Dr. Dymov from the story "The Jumper": a modest doctor with a kind heart and a beautiful soul who lives for the happiness of others. Dymov dies saving a child from an illness. So it turns out that this “little man” is not so small.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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dictionary. - Rostov n / a: Phoenix, 2007. - p. 102 - 113.

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11. Mashinsky S. Artistic world of Gogol. – M.: Enlightenment, 1971. – 512 p.

12. Nikiforova S.A. Studying the story of N.V. Gogol's "Overcoat" // Literature at school. - 2004. - No. 4. - p. 33 - 36.

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UMK ed. B. A. Lanina. Literature (10-11) (basic, advanced)

Literature

Man-epoch in Russian literature: what to tell students about Nikolai Gogol?

One of the most mysterious Russian classics. The author of works that, quite unexpectedly for contemporaries, turned out to be significant and had a huge impact on the development of the entire national culture. What can you tell your students about it? What can I remind the eleventh graders, and at the same time myself, about the personality of this inimitable Russian genius?

What is the point?

Nikolai Gogol is a very versatile writer; attentive and curious, writing about the surrounding reality - and yet not entirely in the spirit of realism. Gogol always has a lot of mysticism, grotesque. And this is most likely due to the writer's incredibly vivid imagination - or he had such a special vision of reality. He saw it that way - and what he saw sometimes turns out to be stronger than any imagination.

“Who called Gogol a realist? I remember my school textbooks - Gogol was only a realist in them. What is so realistic? The devil on which Vakula flies to Petersburg? Cherevichki that the queen gives him for Oksanka? Solokha, who is a witch herself? What is so realistic about it? Or, perhaps, a nose that has come off and is walking around St. Petersburg on its own? In Gogol, everything is built on a magnificent writer's imagination. He remembers that even as a child he did this: as soon as a person passes by him, and he, as a boy, conjectures his biography. Who was this person? What family does he live in? Where is he going? What does he want to become? And this is how phantoms were born, Gogol's phantoms - ghosts inhabiting the artistic world of Gogol. Everything in Gogol is too, incredibly bright, memorable. This world looks like an amazing creation of the writer's imagination and writer's fantasy. (B. Lanin).

So, Gogol invented, that is, created entire worlds. Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, he tries to invent St. Petersburg - and suddenly, after the “Petersburg Tales”, depression, nightmares and megalomania become fashionable in this city. In The Inspector General, he came up with a county town and types of provincial officials - and he himself was surprised when they recognized real people (the famous “everyone got it, but I got it the most”, said by Emperor Nicholas I).

"Dead Souls" is a fictional journey through Russia. Miserable and plentiful, dreamy and powerless, wasteful and hoarding - in the face of caricature landowners who appeared before Chichikov's eyes - this Russia was perceived by contemporaries as real, as the last truth about it. The worlds invented by Gogol were perceived as real, real, more truthful than the truth.

When preparing for a conversation with students about Gogol, it is worth emphasizing precisely this unique ability of Gogol - to invent worlds that then become real. Invite students to put themselves in the place of the writer, create their own fiction. For example, draw a plan of the neighborhood where your school is located and come up with the mythology of the places that you marked on the plan. How does fiction become similar to the truth, in some sense even more truthful?

This is a good task to do by dividing the class into groups and creating virtual classrooms for each group. To do this, use the "Classwork" service of the LECTA digital platform: it already has templates creative tasks for students to fill in with their observations.

The questions and tasks presented in the notebook correspond to the content of the textbook included in the "Algorithm of Success" system (authors B.A. Lanin, L.Yu. Ustinova, V.M. Shamchikova), taking into account the structure of state certifications in 9 and 11 kdassa (OGE and USE). Educational material accompanied by colorful illustrations that allow you to intensify work on the development of students' speech. Corresponds to the Federal State Educational Standard of General Education (2010).

About personality and life path

Where did Gogol "grow up" from? When he began to study at the Nezhinsky Lyceum, modern literature Sumarokov and Trediakovsky were considered. When he passed away, Gogol himself was modern literature. Gogol had two "godfathers": Pushkin and Belinsky, but his school teachers were bad; the literature teacher was so indifferent and illiterate that one of the students copied a chapter from "Eugene Onegin" and gave it to him as his own - but he did not notice. He didn’t praise, he didn’t shame: he passed - and that’s fine.

Teacher - this was one of Gogol's first pseudonyms. So he signed his first articles and poems. He had a presentiment of his mission: to become a teacher of the nation, to take the place of a person who would prepare Russia for its exceptional spiritual mission in the world. He longed for a department, dreamed of teaching: he began to lecture on history, but teaching is not accomplished by passion alone, it requires both heavy routine preparation and the painstaking work of a researcher. In general, Gogol's teaching mission failed. In the meantime, he did not succeed - he wrote, published and gradually became the new "star" of Russian literature.

Gogol and contemporaries. At some point, Gogol was introduced to his " literary father”, Pushkin - and Pushkin gave him a plot. After that, Pushkin laughed: "So you can be robbed, then at least scream." The ideas of The Government Inspector and Dead Souls are all donated plots that today are inseparable from Gogol's personality.

But Gogol did not make friends with Belinsky, although he was a member of the critic's circle of friends. They rarely met; Gogol was more to the heart of the Slavophiles: Aksakov, Shevyrev - however, Gogol did not care much about which trend the people dear and close to his heart belonged to. In many ways, Belinsky created Gogol as a writer when, in his famous article, he foreshadowed the decline of Pushkin. Events coincided so that the article was understood unambiguously: the end of the Pushkin era is coming, and here is a new genius, new star Russian literature, Gogol.

Petersburg. This city is one of the main characters in Gogol's works. At one time, the writer dreamed of becoming an official, doing public service. And where? Of course, in St. Petersburg! In the story “The Night Before Christmas”, the heroes see Petersburg as young Gogol expected to see it: huge buildings, the splendor of rich mansions, lights, smart people ... And so Gogol himself went there in a carriage, and as they approached, the passengers all caught the glimpses Petersburg lights: even from afar to catch the first bright light of this stunning city, with its European taste and gloss. Gogol jumped out so often that on the way he managed to freeze his ears and nose. They arrived in Petersburg... And Petersburg turned out to be a cold, impregnable, homeless city - with people who speak differently, with positions that look inaccessible, with doors that do not open. And the letters of recommendation with which Gogol came to St. Petersburg did little to help him.

Gogol as we do not know him. What was he like with his contemporaries? Memories say that it was not easy to communicate with him: the character is difficult and unpredictable. Gogol treated himself very strangely: he ate poorly, never cared about how he looked, was very shy of his reprimand, girls were rarely seen next to him - yes, perhaps they were not seen at all. Gogol had many fears and oddities. For example, he was morbidly suspicious; at some point he decided that he was sick with a fatal stomach disease and that only spaghetti would suit him from food, which they know how to cook only in Rome. Gogol loved Rome in general: it was a saving grace for him, he missed the sun in Petersburg. But, I must say, he also paid tribute to other European cities with pleasure: he visited Düsseldorf, Paris, Nice, joyfully traveled around Switzerland, admired the snow-capped peaks of the Alps. There, far from home, he wrote his great works about Russia - and he was proud of it, and said that this is how he works: that the farther he is, the better he sees Russia, the better he imagines and perceives it.

Mystic writer. Mysterious death. Gogol was always terribly afraid that he would be buried alive. He insisted that obvious traces of decay should appear on the body - only after that he asked to be buried. Is it any wonder that his posthumous history is full of superstitions, rumors, conjectures. When the burial was transferred after the revolution, rumors appeared that Gogol's head had disappeared from the coffin, that, judging by the skeleton, he was moving in the coffin - that is, his death could have been a lethargic dream. Another rumor was that the lining of the coffin was scratched from the inside. Russian clinician V.F. Chizh, after Gogol's death, wrote a long article in which he substantiates in detail the presence of a serious mental illness in Gogol by religious exaltation, a sharp change in mood and unpredictable behavior. But, as you know, such diagnoses are not made posthumously.

These are all rumors, but what really happened? After his devastating correspondence with Belinsky, Gogol still carries ideas within himself, he wants to rise above this fuss, he feels a surge of holiness in himself. He visited the Holy Land, kissed the tomb of the Lord, felt how wrong his life was, what a cold person he came to this tomb. He carries a completely different message. But this message was not given to sound. Gogol passed away in the prime of his talent - in fact, starving himself to death.

We can say that his talent was controlled by the man himself, who, perhaps, did not realize this scale. He did not understand who lives in it. He presented himself as a teacher, and he was a great writer. He imagined himself a teacher of the nation, but it turned out that he opens the horizons of the human imagination.

On the iconic works of Gogol

Burn manuscripts. Every student knows about the sad fate of the second volume of "Dead Souls" - but this is far from the only case when they had to put their creations on fire. There, in St. Petersburg, at the very beginning of his career as a writer, Gogol sent his poem to a magazine - and it was unexpectedly published. He was so delighted that he gave the Hanz Küchelgarten, his poem in the spirit of German romanticism, to the press. And she was so scolded that she had to run around bookstores and buy up all the copies. And burn. Remember: this was the first time he burned his creations. More than once he will make a decision - to betray his creations to fire.

"Overcoat". It would seem that this is a typical story for the natural school, which discovered the image of the “little man”. With a great soul, with great human conceit, with a great desire to take a completely different place: but in Akaky Akakievich there is none of this. Is he even human? In fact, all he is made of is his ridiculous stumbling name and his overcoat. And he threw off this overcoat - and became a real demon of St. Petersburg. And Gogol's mysticism envelops the city and rumbles over it like the laughter of a poor clerk gone forever. After all, he takes his place over St. Petersburg only after death - taking revenge, punishing, flying over this strange cold stone bag - like the devil in one of his unexpected guises.

"Inspector". Another work that had a huge resonance immediately after its publication. However, Gogol himself was sincerely surprised why the public laughs at The Inspector General, which is actually a satirical play. How so, but he did not want to laugh, not to ridicule. Yes, and how surprised: “I only told about six provincial officials! What are they attacking me? Yes, I would try to tell about the capital, about St. Petersburg ... ".

"Dead Souls". This key work in Gogol's work, a great idea nurtured over the years. The novel was supposed to reflect Dante's Hell: that is, "Dead Souls" is Chichikov's journey through the hell of Russia of that time; he descends lower and lower, meeting all the Russian demons - stupidity, greed, greed. He begins his journey with the sweet-spoken Manilov, and ends with Plyushkin, sexless, disgusting and frightening, remember this programmatic definition: “a hole in humanity”? This is a journey through the Aristotelian vices of man, this is a plunge into the depths of human silence and soullessness. And, finally, a tall figure rises above this, at which everyone looks in horror: “Isn’t he Napoleon?”

The entire community met the first volume of the novel unanimously, in a single burst of delight. They applauded Gogol, admired Gogol. He felt that he was accepted - although fame was not his ultimate goal. Everyone was waiting for the continuation of the novel - and suddenly Gogol goes to the tomb of the Lord, becomes a religious writer and thinker. Then he spends time abroad, as if playing for time, then an exacerbation of the disease - either physical or mental ... Then, finally, he announces that the second volume is almost ready. And suddenly - a ridiculous plot with the publication of "Selected places from correspondence with friends." The thin pamphlet that Gogol gives to Pletnev for publication should be published in a printing house in such a way that few people know it, so that it does not fall into the hands of enemies - and of course, the rumor about it spreads instantly. The book meets with an incredibly harsh, sharp response from Belinsky: he calls Gogol a champion of ignorance, an obscurantist, a champion of the whip. They were not close, they did not see each other so often - but still the reproach from Belinsky, the man who opened the way for him, proclaimed him Pushkin's successor, was a very tangible blow for Gogol.

He answered the letter, Belinsky continued - and said that calling him an angry person is nothing, he is not angry: he is furious, he is dejected. It was a terrible disappointment for Belinsky to read selected passages from correspondence with friends written by the author of Dead Souls, The Government Inspector, and The Overcoat. Probably, all this difficult history was the impetus for sending the second volume of Dead Souls into the fire.

Subsequently, this correspondence was banned: Belinsky's letter to Gogol turned out to be one of the most forbidden topics for reading. It was a black mark, the death penalty was due for reading this work. This black mark was raised by Butashevich-Petrashevsky, one of the first major Russian utopians: a provocateur turned out to be in his circle - and Dostoevsky turned out to be one of the regulars of the circle. Among others, he was sentenced to death. Dostoevsky wrote later that he would never forget this: they were taking him to the square, he was counting last minutes own life. There are seven, five, one left ... They put a bag on his head, drums beat ... And at the last moment - hard labor instead of the death penalty. For what? For reading Belinsky's letter to Gogol.

“The second volume of Dead Souls is Gogol's attempt to write everything that Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky will write later. This is an attempt to see something that is not there yet,” Dmitry Bykov believes. Without reading the second volume, try to dream up where Chichikov the second will move half of XIX century and with whom will he meet? First, come up with and fix, then get acquainted with the contents of volume 2 via the Internet and compare. This task can be performed based on the textbook of teaching materials by B. Lanin for grades 7, 8, 9.

Gogol, as a person, is such a complex and mysterious mental organization in which the most heterogeneous, and sometimes directly opposite, principles collide and intertwine. Gogol himself was aware of this mysteriousness and complexity of his mental world and repeatedly expressed this consciousness in his letters.

“I am considered a riddle for everyone, no one has completely figured me out” (From Gogol's letters).

Gogol, as a person, is such a complex and mysterious mental organization in which the most heterogeneous, and sometimes directly opposite, principles collide and intertwine. Gogol himself was aware of this mysteriousness and complexity of his mental world and repeatedly expressed this consciousness in his letters. Also in youthful years, on the school bench, in one of the letters to his mother, he declares himself like this: “I am considered a riddle for everyone; no one has figured me out completely." “Why God,” he exclaims in another letter, “creating a heart, perhaps the only one, at least rare in the world, a pure soul, burning with hot love for everything high and beautiful, why did He give all this such a rough shell ? Why did He dress it all up in such a strange mixture of contradiction, stubbornness, audacious arrogance, and the most humble humility"? Such an unbalanced, incomprehensible nature Gogol was in his youth, and so he remained in his later life. “A lot seemed to us in him,” we read in Arnoldi’s “Memoirs of Gogol,” “inexplicable and mysterious. How, for example, can we reconcile his constant striving for moral perfection with his pride, which we have all witnessed more than once? his amazing subtle, observant mind, visible in all his writings, and, at the same time, in ordinary life - some kind of stupidity and misunderstanding of the simplest and most ordinary things? We also recalled his strange way of dressing and his mockery of those who dressed ridiculously and without taste, his religiosity and humility, and sometimes too strange impatience and little condescension towards others; in a word, they found an abyss of contradictions that seemed difficult to combine in one person. And, in fact, how to combine in one person the naive idealist of the beginning of his literary activity with the crude realist of later times, the cheerful, harmless humorist Rudy Panko, who infected all readers with his laughter; - with a formidable, merciless satirist, from whom all classes got it, - a great artist and poet, creator of immortal works, with an ascetic preacher, author of a strange "Correspondence with Friends"? How to reconcile in one person such opposite principles? Where is the explanation for this complex interweaving of the most diverse mental elements? Where, finally, is the solution to that psychic riddle that Gogol set with his whole existence? We are told that "Gogol's answer may lie in the psychology of that complex, immense whole that we call the name of the 'great man'." But what is a "great man" and what does he have to do with Gogol? What are the special laws that govern the soul of a "great man?" - In our opinion, the solution to Gogol should be sought not in the psychology of a great man in general, but in the psychology of Gogol's greatness, combined with extreme self-abasement, - Gogol's mind, combined with a strange "misunderstanding of things the simplest and most ordinary, - Gogol's talent, combined with ascetic self-denial and painful impotence - in a word, in the psychology of the only, specially Gogol's exceptional personality.

So, what is the personality of Gogol? Despite the complexity and diversity of his inner world, despite the many contradictions that lie in his personality, upon closer acquaintance with the character of Gogol, one cannot fail to notice two main currents, two predominant aspects that absorb all other mental elements with themselves: This, firstly , a side that is directly related to Gogol as a person, and is expressed in his tendency to constant moral introspection, moral self-condemnation and denunciation of others; and, secondly, the other side, which characterizes Gogol as a writer proper and consists in the pictorial power of his talent, artistically and comprehensively reproducing the world of reality surrounding him in the form it is. These two sides of personality can always be easily distinguished in Gogol. Thus, he appears before us as Gogol the moralist and as Gogol the artist, as Gogol the thinker and as Gogol the poet, as Gogol the man and as Gogol the writer. This duality of his nature, which is very early in him and which can be traced in him from the beginning of his life to the end of it, this division of his "I" into two "I" - is salient feature his personality. His whole life, with all its vicissitudes, contradictions and oddities, is nothing but a struggle between these two opposite principles with an alternate preponderance of one side or the other, or, rather, with a preponderance first predominantly of one side, and then of the other; its ultimate tragic fate is nothing else than the final triumph of Gogol the moralist over Gogol the artist. The task of a psychologist-biographer should be to trace this complex psychological process in various phases, which gradually led the cheerful humorist beekeeper Rudy Panko to sharp, painful asceticism, the formidable satirist-writer to self-denial and denial of everything that he lived, and that they had previously written. Without taking upon ourselves the solution of this difficult and complex task, in our present essay we wish to outline only the main points of this process and at least outline the general outline of Gogol's personality.

Son of several famous writer Vasily Afanasyevich Gogol-Yanovsky and his somewhat exalted wife Marya Ivanovna, Gogol naturally inherited an outstanding literary talent and an impressionable, receptive nature. His father, the author of several comedies from Little Russian life, who had a cheerful and good-natured character, had a strong passion for the theater and literature, undoubtedly had a very beneficial influence during his lifetime on the development of his son's literary talent and on the formation of his sympathies. Having from childhood before his eyes an example of respect for the book and an ardent love for the stage, Gogol very early became addicted to reading and acting. At least, in the Nizhyn Gymnasium, soon after Gogol entered it, we already meet him as the initiator and main figure in the organization of the gymnasium theater, in organizing amateur reading of books for self-education, and finally, in publishing the student magazine Zvezdy. This passion for literature and the theater, instilled in him as a child, he retained in himself for the rest of his life. But at that time, as the father could have and undoubtedly had a beneficial influence on the development of the literary talent of his son, his religiously minded and extremely pious mother had a strong influence on education. moral personality Gogol. She tried in her upbringing to lay a firm foundation for the Christian religion and good morals. And the impressionable soul of the child did not remain deaf to these lessons of the mother. Gogol himself later notes this influence of his mother on his religious and moral development. With a special feeling of gratitude, he later recalls these lessons, when, for example, his mother’s stories about the Last Judgment “shocked and awakened all his sensitivity and subsequently gave birth to the highest thoughts.” As the fruit of maternal upbringing, one must also look at the fact that in Gogol a fiery thirst for moral good which he dreams of giving to humanity. Under the influence of this striving to be useful, he very early, still at school, stops thinking "on justice", thinking; that here he can render the greatest benefit to mankind. “I saw,” he writes from Nizhyn to his uncle Kosyarovsky, “that here the work is more than anything else, that here I can only be a good deed, here I will only be truly useful to mankind. Injustice, the greatest misfortune in the world, broke my heart more than anything. I swore not a single minute short life do not lose yours without doing good. This striving for moral benefit, a passionate thirst for achievement, Gogol retained until the end of his life - changing his view only on the types of activity - and this trait should be recognized as the true expression of his moral physiognomy. His hatred for everything vulgar, self-satisfied, insignificant was a manifestation of this trait of his character. And Gogol, in fact, hated all this as much as he could, and pursued vulgarity with particular passion, pursued it wherever he found it, and pursued it as far as Gogol's apt, caustic word could pursue.

But along with the good seeds, the mother for the first time threw some tares into the receptive soul of the son, which later, having grown strongly, bore bitter fruits. Loving her “Nikosha” to the point of unconsciousness, with her immoderate adoration, she engendered in him extreme conceit and an exaggerated assessment of her personality. Later, Gogol himself recognized this extreme of maternal education. “You made every effort,” he writes in one of his letters to his mother, “to educate me as best as possible; but, unfortunately, parents are seldom good educators of their children. You were still young then, for the first time you had children, for the first time you were dealing with them, and so you could - do you know how to proceed, what is needed? I remember: I didn't feel much, I looked at everything as if it were things made to please me .

Along with this conceit, and perhaps as a direct result of it, Gogol very early shows a desire for teaching and reasoning. Already in his youthful letters from Nizhyn to his mother we find clear traces of this trait. He often turns to his mother in them with reproaches, advice, instructions, teachings, and their tone often takes on a rhetorical, pompous connotation. The farther, the more prominent this feature appears. He begins to teach and instruct in his letters not only his mother and sisters, but also his scientists, his more educated friends and acquaintances - Zhukovsky, Pogodin, etc. This desire for teaching, together with self-conceit, in the end did Gogol a disservice: it paved the way for his so famous "Correspondence with Friends" ...

All these traits—the striving for moral benefit, extreme self-conceit, and a passion for teaching—conditioning and supplementing each other and gradually intensifying, then acquired a predominant significance in Gogol’s soul and, over time, formed from him that strange and harsh teacher - moralist as he appears before us at the end of his life.

But, along with this side of Gogol's personality, another side gradually developed, matured and strengthened in him: his great artistic talent, combined with an outstanding gift of observation. The extraordinary impressionability and receptivity of his nature rendered him a great service: they awakened the feeling, nourished the mind and tempered the very talent. The impressions of the reality surrounding him early began to sink into the soul of a gifted boy: nothing escaped his observant gaze, and what he noted last was long and firmly stored in his soul. This is how Gogol himself testifies to this peculiarity of his spiritual nature. “Before,” he says of himself in Chapter VI. I t. Dead Souls- long ago, in the summers of my youth, in the summers of my irretrievably flashed childhood, it was fun for me to drive up to an unfamiliar place for the first time: it doesn’t matter if it was a village, a poor county town, a village, or a suburb - I discovered a lot of curious things in him a childlike curious look. Every building, everything that bore only the imprint of some noticeable feature, everything stopped and amazed me ... Nothing escaped my fresh, subtle attention, and, sticking my nose out of my camping cart, I looked at the hitherto unknown cut of some a frock coat and on wooden boxes with nails, with gray, yellowing in the distance, with raisins and soap, flashing from the doors of a vegetable shop along with cans of dried Moscow sweets; he looked at the infantry officer walking aside, brought in, God knows what province - to the boredom of the county, and at the merchant who flashed in the Siberian in a racing droshky - and mentally carried away behind them into their poor life. The county official, pass by—and I was already wondering where he was going"... "Approaching the village of some landowner," Gogol, "tried to guess who the landowner himself was in his house, in the garden, around him," etc. e. This property of Gogol's mind determined the fact that in his works he could reproduce only what he saw and heard, what he observed directly in life. The creative reproduction of the real world, determined by this peculiarity of its nature, informed and had to inform Gogol's talent realistic direction.“I never created anything in my imagination,” he says about himself, in the Author's Confession, “and did not have this property. The only thing that came out well for me was what was taken from reality, from the data known to me. “ These features - poetic observation and artistic creativity were of great importance for Gogol as a writer. His subtle observation, looking into the very depths human soul, helped him find and guess the characteristic features of his contemporary society, and his artistic creativity gave him the opportunity to embody these features in a whole collection of the most real and truthful types - types not only of Little Russia - which was the birthplace of the poet, but also of Great Russia, which he almost never knew. They formed from him that great realist painter, who was the most expressive writer of contemporary life and his creations had a powerful impact on contemporary society.

In May 1821, Gogol, a twelve-year-old boy, entered the number of pupils of the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences. This gymnasium belonged to that type old school, in which, according to Pushkin, they studied “a little”, “something and somehow”. It was a time when students were ahead of their teachers in many ways and found it possible to ridicule their backwardness almost to the face. In addition, the Nizhyn gymnasium, during the time Gogol studied there, was in especially unfavorable conditions. It had just been opened and needed to be organized and put in order on all aspects of its teaching and upbringing business. Many of the subjects taught in it during this time were so weakly delivered that they could not give the students any preparation. Among these subjects was, by the way, the history of Russian literature. Prof. Nikolsky, who taught this subject, - according to the testimony of one of Gogol's school comrades, - "had no understanding of ancient and Western literatures. In Russian literature, he admired Kheraskov and Sumarokov, found Ozerov, Batyushkov and Zhukovsky not quite classical, and found Pushkin's language and thoughts trivial." Such was the school of that time, such were the professors, and such was the state of education. And if Pushkins, Gogols, Redkins, Puppeteers and many others came out of such schools. etc., then they owed all their acquisitions not so much to the school as to their own talents and amateur performances. True, there was, however, in the schools of that time one good side, which had a beneficial effect on the development of their pupils. Namely: if these schools did not give anything to their students, then at least. nothing was taken from them. They did not restrict the freedom of their students, set aside a spacious circle for their amateur performances and, although negatively, contributed to the development of their individuality and the disclosure of natural talents.

If, along with the general shortcomings of the school of that time, we take into account the properties that relate specifically to Gogol as a student, namely, that he was indifferent to the subjects taught and was considered a lazy and slovenly pupil, then the veracity of Gogol's testimony about himself, which we find in his Author's Confession. “It must be said,” he testifies here, “that I received a rather bad upbringing at school, and therefore it is not surprising that the idea of ​​teaching came to me at a mature age. I started with such initial books that I was ashamed to even show and hide all my studies.

“The school, according to the statement of one of his mentors, namely Mr. Kulzhinsky, accustomed him only to a certain logical formality and sequence of concepts and thoughts, and he owes us nothing more. It was a talent that was not recognized by the school, and if the truth be told, he did not want, or did not know how to confess to the school. True, he sought after to fill in these gaps in education, in his “Confession” he speaks of reading and studying, “books of legislators, psychics and observers of human nature”, but his writings and artistic and journalistic (“Correspondence”) do not confirm this evidence, and the very reading of learned books without prior preparation could hardly bring him significant benefit. Thus, he was forced to stay for the rest of his life with miserable scraps of the simple wisdom of the Nezhin school ... Therefore, not being a prophet, it would not be difficult to predict that no matter how great a man he was later in the field of art, he certainly had to be a mediocre thinker and a bad moralist.

But here Gogol finishes school and enters into life. He is beckoned and attracted to Petersburg, service, glory. School - "after all, this is not life yet," argues one of Gogol's heroes, who (i.e. Gogol) at that time had much in common with him, "this is only a preparation for life: real life in the service: there are feats! “And according to the custom of all ambitious people, Gogol remarks about this hero, “he rushed to St. Petersburg, where, as you know, our ardent youth strives from all sides.” Gogol is horrified at this time by the thought of a traceless existence in the world. “Being in the world and not signifying your existence,” he exclaims, “is terrible for me.” His gigantic spiritual forces are begging to come out, trying to “signify life with one good deed, one benefit to the fatherland” and push him “into the active world”. He hurries to determine his vocation, changes many positions and places one after another, and nowhere can he find peace for his restless soul. Now he is officials of the Department of Destinies, now he is a teacher of history at the Patriotic Institute, now it seems to him that his vocation is the stage, then he thinks to devote himself entirely to painting. Finally, the appearance of his "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" decides his fate and determines his vocation. His short stories from Little Russian life, published under this title, evoke universal sympathy from both critics and the public. Pushkin himself is "amazed by this curious literary novelty." Now before us is Gogol the poet, Gogol the writer. From now on, everything that his artistic inspiration dictates to him will be significant, beautiful, great.

But "Evenings" were only the first experience of his literary activity, a breakdown of his strength and pen. Other plans flash in Gogol's head, other thoughts ripen in his soul. "Evenings" does not satisfy him, and he wants to create something greater and more significant than these "fairy tales and sayings". “May they be doomed to obscurity,” he writes about them shortly after their publication to M.P. Pogodin, “until something weighty, great, artistic comes out of me.” Soon, indeed, The Inspector General (1836) appears, and five or six years later, Dead Souls“(I t.). In these works, the power of Gogol's rich literary talent unfolded in all its breadth and power. Everything vulgar and self-satisfied in its vulgarity, everything insignificant and arrogant in its insignificance, “all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required of a person”, all this was collected in these works “in one heap” and branded with the seal of bitterly poisonous laughter, deep hatred and the greatest contempt. There is no need to dwell on how widely contemporary Russian life with its social phenomena is captured in them and how deeply the soul of a contemporary person is revealed in its most secret recesses: history has already managed to appreciate these works, and paid due tribute to the astonishment of gratitude to the brilliant their author. Suffice it to say that Gogol appeared in them quite at the height of his vocation - to be an artist-denouncer of the vices of contemporary society and the shortcomings of the social system - and conscientiously fulfilled the duty to which he was called upon.

Meanwhile, while the great works of Gogol were ready to make a radical revolution not only in literary world, but also in public life, while both friends and enemies of Gogol have already enrolled him in the advanced people of his contemporary society, at this time his worldview continues to remain at the same level as it was in the days of his conscious childhood and in the years of youth that followed. Apparently, Petersburg did not have any noticeable influence in this case. Pushkin's circle, which Gogol joined shortly after his arrival in the capital, if he could have a beneficial effect on him, then only in an artistic and literary sense; all other parties spiritual development Gogol remained outside the sphere of this influence. It is also not clear that Gogol's trips abroad brought him any significant benefit. His outlook on the world—if only by this name one can call the stock of everyday views and traditional convictions, which he brought up from his home upbringing and school education—remains completely untouched and completely virgin in Petersburg. Warm spontaneous faith in the sphere of religious questions, ardent love for the motherland and respectful recognition of the existing order of social life as it is - not subject to any critical analysis - in the field of political - social issues, - these are the features that should be noted as essential in this primitive, somewhat patriarchal worldview. But with such views, the characteristic and typical feature of Gogol's personality was, as we noted, a passionate desire for moral benefit for the fatherland, an ardent thirst for moral achievement. This feature of his personality constantly pushed Gogol onto the path of practical activity and informed his worldview. active, character. It was she who brought Gogol, as a man and citizen, into a collision with the other side of his activity, with Gogol as a writer.

Even as long as youthful ardor was strong in Gogol, as long as Pushkin was alive, his good genius, Gogol had the opportunity to devote himself inseparably to artistic creativity. But over the years, with the appearance of various illnesses and with other hardships of life that were found on his head, the thought of a fruitlessly lived life more and more disturbed his mind, more and more often embarrassed his conscience. It began to seem to him that the benefit that he brings with his literary works is not so essential that the path he has taken is not entirely correct, and that elsewhere he could have been much more useful. The first strong impetus to this turn in Gogol's mood was given by the first performance of his The Government Inspector. As you know, this performance made a terrific impression on the audience. It was a sudden thunder in the clear sky of public life. In the Auditor they saw a libel on society, undermining the authority of civil power, undermining the very foundations of the social system. Gogol never expected this conclusion, and it horrified him. It seemed that Gogol - the artist for the first time did not calculate his strength here and produced such a thing that embarrassed Gogol - a citizen. “The first work, conceived with the aim of producing a good influence on society”, not only did not achieve the intended goal, but was accompanied by just

the opposite result: “they began to see in comedy,” says Gogol, “the desire to ridicule legalized order of things and government forms, while my intention was to ridicule only arbitrary retreat of some persons from a formal and institutionalized order.” With the accusation of civic unreliability, which Gogol the writer discovered, Gogol the citizen could not reconcile in any way. How? - ridicule not only persons, but also the positions they occupy, ridicule not only human vulgarity, but also the shortcomings of the social system - such thoughts never entered his head. That is why, when Belinsky began to reveal the great public importance of his works, Gogol hurries to renounce everything that the great critic attributed to him, which, indeed, was all his merit, but which was so much at odds with his social views. In his opinion, the social system, whatever it may be, has an unshakable, enduring significance as a “legalized order”. The source of evil is rooted not in social disarray, but in the corrupted soul of a person who is stagnant in his wickedness. Evil - because people are too morally corrupt and do not want to lag behind their shortcomings, do not want to improve. His Skvoznik-Dmukhanovskys, Plyushkins, Nozdrevs, Sobakevichs, Korobochki, etc., seem to him simply random phenomena, as having nothing in common with the course of social life. If they are, then they themselves are to blame. It is enough for them to repent and improve morally in order to become good people. Such was the view of Gogol himself on his types and on the significance of his creations. But from under the inspired pen of a true writer-artist, as the fruit of unconscious creativity, often pours out what he does not foresee and what he does not expect. It happened this time as well. Public sores, contrary to the wishes of the author, surfaced so clearly in The Inspector General that it was impossible not to pay attention to them. Everyone saw them and everyone understood them well, and first of all to you, Emperor Nicholas I, who, after watching the play, said: “everyone got it, but most of all I myself.” There were cries of indignation against the author and cries of protest against his creations. "Liberal! Revolutionary! Slanderer against Russia! To Siberia it "! - such were the general exclamations of the indignant public. And all these terrible words rained down on the head of someone who did not even understand the full significance of the accusations leveled against him, and even more so did not know what they were called on his part. It is therefore not difficult to imagine the despair into which all these attacks plunged Gogol. “Against me,” he complains to Pogodin, “now all classes have resolutely revolted”... "Gogol the Citizen" was embarrassed and deeply shocked. He hurries to justify himself, refers to the ignorance and irritability of the public, which does not want to understand that if several rogues are shown in a comedy, this does not mean that all rogues; that his heroes, the Khlestakovs, etc., are far from being as typical as short-sighted people imagine. But it was too late. Comedy has done its job: it has branded with the stamp of vulgarity and contempt those who deserve it. Embarrassed and alarmed, Gogol hasten to retire abroad in order to take a break from worries and recover from the blow that was inflicted on him, his own own hand. He goes to "walk his melancholy" and " think deeply about your responsibilities“. A very significant and fraught with consequences goal: Gogol the moralist for the first time sharply clashed here with Gogol the artist and they did not recognize each other; not only did they not recognize each other, they did not extend their hand to each other for the fraternal pursuit of the same goal - no! - for the first time they somewhat turned away from each other: Gogol the moralist thought about Gogol the artist and did not fully understand and appreciate him, but not appreciating him, looked at him somewhat sideways. From that time on, a noticeable turn began in him on the path that led him to "Correspondence with Friends", the "great turning point", "the great era of his life". His previous writings begin to seem to him “a student’s notebook, in which negligence and laziness are visible on one page, impatience and haste on the other” ... them "Arabesques", "Evenings" and all other nonsense. He had the idea of ​​combining poetry with teaching in order to bring one benefit with his writings, avoiding the harm that, as it seemed to him, they can bring by careless denunciation and ridicule of human vulgarity. He is now conceived of a new great work, in which the whole Russian person should be shown, with all his properties, not only negative, but also positive. This idea of ​​the positive properties of a Russian person was a direct product of the fear that Gogol experienced before the all-destroying power of his satirical laughter after the presentation of The Inspector General.

In 1842, the first volume of Dead Souls appears, where Gogol's talent remains true to himself, where Gogol the artist still outnumbers Gogol the moralist. But, alas! - lyrical digressions, scattered in abundance throughout this work - were an ominous symptom of the disaster that awaited the whole of educated Russia, which was soon to happen - a significant sign of the defeat that Gogol the artist would soon suffer at the hands of Gogol - moralist. No one has yet suspected an impending thunderstorm, no one has yet sensed an approaching disaster: only Belinsky’s keen eye saw this bifurcation of Gogol’s talent, which was reflected in this creation of his, only his thin ear overheard the false note that slipped here ...

Meanwhile, Gogol himself looks at the first volume as a threshold to a great building, that is, as a preface to that work, in which other motives should be heard, other images should pass through. But Belinsky had already prophesied to him that if he took this road, he would ruin his talent.

Belinsky's prophecy, unfortunately, soon came true. No more than five years passed after the publication of the first volume of Dead Souls, and all reading Russia, instead of the promised second volume of the same work, unfolded with regret a strange book that bore the unusual title Selected passages from Correspondence with friends. No one, except for Gogol's closest friends, knew what this meant; but everyone understood that Russian literature was losing a great and talented writer who enriched it not only with wonderful works, but now presented some kind of vague sermon of well-known, sometimes rather doubtful, truths, only expounded in some extraordinary, doctoral, arrogant tone. There were again screams, screams and groans - this time already screams of reproaches, cries of bewilderment, groans of despair !!! But it was too late: Gogol the moralist gave Gogol the artist the final blow, and Gogol the artist died forever. He fell victim to internal division, moral introspection and painful reflection. He perished in an unbearable struggle against a forcibly imposed unnatural tendency; - died prematurely, in such years, when the forces of man are still in full bloom. Let us not ask fruitless questions about what, under other conditions, Gogol's mighty talent could still give Russian literature, what pearls he would have enriched it with. Let us express our gratitude to him and for what he has done ... All his life he has steadily strived to fulfill his duty as a writer in the best possible way, to justify his high calling by the very deed - and with sad doubts about the fulfilled duty he departed into eternity. So let us calm his spirit once more by recognizing that he faithfully fulfilled his duty, fulfilled it completely, although not with what he thought to fulfill. After all, Gogol is not great, of course, because he left behind a skinny book of capital morality - a book, the likes of which were not few before him, there are many now and will continue to be, but the theme of great artistic works, with which he noted in the history of Russian literature new era, made a radical revolution in it and laid the foundation for a new trend - a realistic one, which continues in it to this day.

Panaev, Literary Memoirs, SPV. 1888 p. 187.

Historical Bulletin, 1901 XII, 977 pp. Engelhardt, Nikolaev censorship.

Ibid., p. 976

Ibid p. 378.

There, cf. page 377.

Ibid., p. 378.

Ibid., p. 384

The theme of the "little man" was first revealed by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. This idea was continued in the future by N. V. Gogol and F. M. Dostoevsky.

Consider the work of A. S. Pushkin "The Stationmaster", where the theme of the "little man" is revealed through a description of the character of Samson Vyrin.

The problem of the “little man”, his “hard fate” was also solved by N.

V. Gogol in his story "The Overcoat". In this work, Nikolai Vasilyevich spoke about the "eternal" titular adviser. Gogol described him as follows: "... short, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat reddish, even somewhat blind-sighted, with a small bald head on his forehead, with wrinkles on both sides of his cheeks and a complexion that is called hemorrhoidal ...". When we imagine this person, a smile appears on the face, one might even say a grin. A feeling of superiority and neglect is born. But when you get acquainted with the life of Akaky Akakievich, with his daily routine, you understand that apart from work, to which he devotes all his time, he has no other entertainment, you begin to feel more and more about his fate and position. The interests of the official are miserable and meager, and the ultimate dream is a new overcoat. An overcoat for Akaky Akakievich, in my opinion, is not a thing, not a wardrobe item, it is protection from the outside world, from eternal mockery and ridicule. He wants to hide in it from others. Resignation, humility, inability to stand up for oneself - these are the main features of Bashmachkin's character. This is exactly what people around him use. Everyone laughs at him, allowing themselves to let go of sharp remarks in the direction of Akaky Akakievich. The official only, silently, listens to these nasty things. He has no fortitude, he cannot answer and protect himself. But everything can change, and for Akaky Akakievich, the day of finding the overcoat became a real holiday. He instantly became stronger, and bold thoughts appeared in his head: “shouldn’t we put the marten on the collar?”. He had a fun lunch, happily went to work, where everyone appreciated his new thing. The official even accepted a birthday invitation from his colleague. But the whole irony of the author lies in the fact that on the way back from Akaky Akakievich, unknown people took away his overcoat. It must be said that having lost a new little thing, he suffered in the same way as people usually suffer about the loss of their closest and dearest person. Having lost his overcoat forever, he lost his last strength along with it. The loss of an overcoat was too difficult a test for an official. Akaky Akakievich could not survive this grief, he developed a severe fever, and soon died. The most terrible thing in this story is that many people simply forgot about him, society did not care about the poor official. Everyone laughed at his misfortune, no one tried to support and reassure Bashmachkin. Having described the image of Akaky Akakievich, Gogol was able to tell us about the problem of the “little man”.

F. M. Dostoevsky also revealed the theme of the “little man” in his work “White Nights”. But it seems to me that Dostoevsky's "little man" is different from the heroes of Pushkin and Gogol. After all, Dostoevsky's dreamer is "small" only because he is different from others. He is distinguished by his cordiality, mercy, participation, and finally by his kind heart. The dreamer leaves this gray, boring world, into his own world, into the beautiful world of illusions and dreams. We see a striking contrast between real life and the one in which the dreamer of Dostoevsky exists. And the hero says that he will never be able to change. He lives in ghostly dreams and loneliness.

The hero of Dostoevsky, after a conversation with Nastya, realized and was afraid of his future. But he understood that, having lived for so many years in this way: night dreams and illusions, dreams and fairy tales, returning every morning to gloomy and gray Petersburg, he would no longer be able to change anything.

Each of the three writers: A. S. Pushkin, N. V. Gogol and M. F. Dostoevsky " small people' turned out differently. But one way or another, they all managed to squeeze one very important thought: no matter what rank a person has, what place he occupies in society, what he is fond of and what he dreams of, everyone deserves respect. We need to be able to consider a personality in each of the people around us, we need to be able to stand up for the weak, understand and support a person in Hard time. Considering yourself better and more worthy than others is a mistake. The Persian poet Saadi said: “He who does not want to lift the fallen, let him be afraid of falling himself, for when he falls, no one will stretch out his hand.”

Man is part of society. He exists among his own kind, is connected with them by thousands of invisible threads: personal and social. Therefore, you cannot live and not depend on those who live next to you. From birth, we become part of the world around us. Growing up, we think about our place in it. A person can be in different relations with society: harmoniously combine with it, resist it, or be such a person that influences the course of social development. Questions of the relationship between the individual and society have always been of interest to writers and poets, therefore they are reflected in fiction.

Let's turn to examples.

Recall the comedy of A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit". The protagonist of the work, Alexander Andreevich Chatsky, is opposed to the Famus society, which he enters after a three-year journey. They have different life principles and ideals. Chatsky is ready to serve for the good of the Motherland, but does not want to serve (“I would be glad to serve, it’s sickening to serve.”), look for a warm place, only care about a career and income. And for people like Famusov, Skalozub and the like, service is an opportunity for a career, increased income, and close ties with the right people. In his monologue “Who are the judges?” Chatsky speaks sharply about serfdom and feudal lords, who do not consider ordinary people to be people, who sell, buy and exchange their slaves. It is these serf-owners who are the members Famus Society. Also, the hero of the play has an uncompromising attitude to the worship of everything foreign, which was so common at that time in Russia, to the "Frenchmen from Bordeaux", to the passion for the French language to the detriment of Russian. Chatsky is a defender of education, because he believes that books and teaching are only beneficial. And people from Famusov's society are ready to "collect all the books and burn them." The hero of Griboedov leaves Moscow, here he received only "woe from the mind." Chatsky is alone and is not yet able to resist the world of the Famusovs and Skalozubs.

In the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time" also speaks of the individual and society. In the story "Princess Mary" the author talks about Pechorin and the "water society". Why do people around do not like Pechorin so much? He is smart, educated, very well versed in people, sees their strengths and weaknesses and knows how to play on it. Pechorin is a "white crow" among others. People do not like those who are in many ways better than them, more difficult, more incomprehensible. Pechorin's conflict with the "water society" ends with the duel of our hero with Grushnitsky and the death of the latter. What is poor Grushnitsky to blame? Only by the fact that he followed the lead of his friends, he agreed to meanness. But what about Pechorin? Neither the love of the princess, nor the victory over the members of the "water society" made him happier. He cannot find his place in life, he does not have a goal worth living for, so he will always be a stranger in the world around him.

In the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" also speaks of the relationship between a person and the society in which he is located. main character After marriage, Katerina finds herself in the “dark kingdom”, dominated by people like Kabanikha and Wild. It is they who set their own laws here. Bigotry, hypocrisy, the power of force and money - that's what they worship. There is nothing alive in their world. And Katerina, whom Dobrolyubov calls “a ray of light in a dark kingdom,” is cramped and hard here. She's like a bird in a cage. Her free and pure soul is torn to freedom. The heroine is trying to fight the dark world: she is looking for support from her husband, trying to find salvation in love for Boris, but all in vain. Talking about the death of Katerina, the writer emphasizes that she could not resist the surrounding society, but, as Dobrolyubov wrote, she illuminated the world for a moment “ dark kingdom", aroused a protest against him even in people like Tikhon, shook his foundations. And this is the merit of such a person as Katerina.

In M. Gorky's story "Old Woman Izergil" there is a legend about Larra. Larra is the son of a woman and an eagle. Proud, strong and brave. When he came to the “powerful tribe of people”, where his mother was from, he behaved like an equal even among the elders of the tribe, he said that he would do as he wanted. And people saw that he considers himself the first on earth and came up with the most terrible execution for him. “The punishment for him is in himself,” they said, they gave him freedom, that is, they freed (fenced off) from everyone. It turned out that this is the most terrible thing for a person - to be outside people. “This is how a man was struck for pride,” says the old woman Izergil. The author wants to say that you need to reckon with the society in which you live and respect its laws.

In conclusion, I would like to note that this topic made me think about my place in our society, about the people I live next to.