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Belarusian State University

Faculty of Philology

Department of Russian Literature

"Problems of Herzen's novel" Who is to blame? " (problems of love, marriage, parenting, guilt and innocence). Plot-compositional structure and system of images. Types of heroes of time "

Performed:

2nd year student, 5 groups

Specialties "Russian Philology"

Govorunova Valentina Vasilievna

Minsk, 2013

The novel "Who is to blame?" started by Herzen in 1841 in Novgorod. Its first part was completed in Moscow and appeared in 1845 and 1846 in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. It was published in its entirety as a separate edition in 1847 as an appendix to the Sovremennik magazine.

According to Belinsky, the peculiarity of the novel "Who is to blame?" - the power of thought. "Iskander," writes Belinsky, "always has a thought ahead, he knows ahead of time what he is writing for and for what."

In the first part of the novel, the main characters are characterized and the circumstances of their lives are outlined in many ways. This part is mostly epic, presenting a chain of biographies of the main characters. novel character compositional serf

The plot of the novel is a complex knot of family and household, socio-philosophical and political contradictions. It was from the arrival of Beltov in the city that an acute struggle of ideas, moral principles of the conservative noble and democratically raznochin camps developed. The nobles, sensing in Beltov “a protest, some kind of denunciation of their life, some kind of objection to the whole order of it,” did not choose him anywhere, “gave him a ride”. Not satisfied with this, they weaved a vile web of dirty gossip about Beltov and Lyubov Alexandrovna.

Starting from the beginning, the development of the plot of the novel takes on increasing emotional and psychological tension. The relations of supporters of the democratic camp are getting complicated. The experiences of Beltov and Krutsiferskaya become the center of the image. The culmination of their relationship, being the culmination of the novel as a whole, is a declaration of love, and then a farewell date in the park.

The compositional art of the novel was also expressed in the fact that the individual biographies with which it began gradually merge into an indecomposable stream of life.

With the apparent fragmentary narrative, when the story from the author is replaced by letters from the heroes, excerpts from the diary, biographical digressions, Herzen's novel is strictly consistent. “This story, despite the fact that it will consist of separate chapters and episodes, has such integrity that a torn sheet spoils everything,” Herzen writes.

The main organizing principle of the novel is not an intrigue, not a plot situation, but the leading idea - the dependence of people on the circumstances that ruin them. All episodes of the novel obey this idea, it gives them an internal semantic and external integrity.

Herzen shows his heroes in development. For this he uses their biographies. According to him, it is in the biography, in the history of a person's life, in the evolution of his behavior, determined by specific circumstances, that his social essence and original individuality are revealed. Guided by his conviction, Herzen builds the novel in the form of a chain of typical biographies, related to each other. life destinies... In some cases, its chapters are called "Biographies of Their Excellencies", "Biography of Dmitry Yakovlevich".

Compositional originality of the novel "Who is to blame?" lies in the sequential arrangement of his characters, in social contrast and gradation. Arousing the reader's interest, Herzen expands the social sound of the novel and enhances the psychological drama. Starting at the estate, the action is transferred to the provincial town, and in episodes from the life of the main characters - to Moscow, St. Petersburg and abroad.

Herzen called history a "ladder of ascent." First of all, it is the spiritual elevation of the individual over the living conditions of a certain environment. In the novel, a person only asserts himself when he is separated from his environment.

The first step of this "ladder" is entered by Krucifersky, a dreamer and romantic, confident that nothing is accidental in life. He helps the Negro's daughter to climb, but she climbs a step higher and now sees more than he; Cruciferous, timid and timid, he can no longer take a step forward. She raises her head and, seeing Beltov there, gives him her hand.

But the fact of the matter is that this meeting did not change anything in their lives, but only increased the severity of reality, exacerbated the feeling of loneliness. Their life was unchanged. Lyuba was the first to feel it, it seemed to her that she, along with Krucifersky, was lost among the silent expanses.

The novel clearly expresses the author's sympathy for the Russian people. The social circles that rule in estates or in bureaucratic institutions, Herzen opposed the clearly sympathetic depicted peasants, the democratic intelligentsia. The writer attaches great importance to every image of the peasants, even the secondary ones. So, he in no way wanted to print his novel if the censorship distorted or threw out the image of Sophie. Herzen managed in his novel to show the irreconcilable hostility of the peasants towards the landowners, as well as their moral superiority over their owners. Lyubonka is especially admired by peasant children, in whom she, expressing the views of the author, sees rich inner inclinations: "What glorious faces they have, open and noble!"

In the image of Krucifersky, Herzen poses the problem of the "little" person. Krutsifersky, the son of a provincial doctor, by the accidental grace of a philanthropist, graduated from Moscow University, wanted to study science, but the need, the impossibility of even existing in private lessons, forced him to go to the condition of Negroov, and then become a teacher in a provincial gymnasium. This is a modest, kind, prudent person, an enthusiastic admirer of everything beautiful, a passive romantic, an idealist. Dmitry Yakovlevich sacredly believed in the ideals hovering above the earth, and explained all the phenomena of life to the spiritual, divine... In practical life, this is a helpless, fearful child. The meaning of life was his all-absorbing love for Lyubonka, family happiness, which he reveled in. And when this happiness began to hesitate and collapse, then he was morally crushed, able only to pray, cry, be jealous and get drunk. The figure of Krucifersky acquires a tragic character, determined by his discord with life, his ideological backwardness, and infantilism.

Dr. Krupov and Lyubonka represent a new step in disclosing the type of commoner. Krupov is a materialist. Despite the inert provincial life that stifles all the best impulses, Semyon Ivanovich retained his human beginnings, a touching love for people, for children, and a sense of his own dignity. Defending his independence, he tries to bring good to people to the best of his ability, without examining their ranks, titles and states. Invoking the wrath of those in power, neglecting their class prejudices, Krupov goes first of all not to the noble, but to the one most in need of treatment. Through Krupov, the author sometimes expresses his own views on the typicality of the Negro family, on the narrowness of human life, devoted only to family happiness.

The image of Lyubonka appears psychologically more complex. Illegitimate daughter Negro from a peasant serf, she is with early childhood found herself in conditions of undeserved grievances, gross insults. Everyone and everything in the house reminded Lyubov Alexandrovna that she was a young lady "by goodness", "by grace." Oppressed and even despised for her "servile" origin, she feels lonely, a stranger. Feeling insulting injustice towards herself every day, she hated untruth and everything that oppresses, crushes the freedom of a person. Compassion for the peasants, relatives of her by blood, and the oppression experienced, aroused in her ardent sympathy for them. Being all the time under the wind of moral adversity, Lyubonka developed firmness in herself in defending her human rights and intransigence to evil in any of its forms. And then Beltov appeared, indicating, in addition to family, the possibilities and other happiness. Lyubov Aleksandrovna admits that after meeting with him she changed, matured: "How many new questions have arisen in my soul! .. He opened a new world to me inside me." The unusually rich, active nature of Beltov carried away Lyubov Alexandrovna, awakened her dormant possibilities. Beltov was amazed at her extraordinary talent: "The results for which I sacrificed half my life," he says to Krupov, "were simple, self-understood truths for her." In the image of Lyubonka, Herzen shows a woman's rights to equality with a man. Lyubov Aleksandrovna found in Beltov a person who was in tune with her in everything, her true happiness was with him. And on the way to this happiness, in addition to moral and legal norms, public opinion, there is Krutsifersky, begging not to leave him, and their son. Lyubov Aleksandrovna knows that she will no longer have happiness with Dmitry Yakovlevich. But, obeying the circumstances, pitying the weak, dying Dmitry Yakovlevich, who pulled her out of Negro oppression, saving her family for her child, she, out of a sense of duty, remains with Krutsifersky. Gorky said very rightly about her: "This woman remains with her husband - a weak man, so as not to kill him by betrayal."

The drama of Beltov, the "superfluous" person, is placed by the author in direct dependence on the social system that prevailed in Russia at that time. Researchers very often saw the cause of Beltov's tragedy in his abstract humanitarian education. But it would be a mistake to understand the image of Beltov only as a moralizing illustration of the fact that education should be practical. The leading pathos of this image lies elsewhere - in the condemnation of the social conditions that ruined Beltov. But what prevents this “fiery, active nature” from developing for the good of society? Undoubtedly, the presence of a large family estate, the lack of practical skills, labor perseverance, the lack of a sober look at the surrounding conditions, but most importantly, social circumstances! Those circumstances are terrible, antihuman, in which they are superfluous, noble, bright people, ready for any deeds for the sake of general happiness, are not needed. The state of such people is hopelessly painful. Their right-wing, indignant protest turns out to be powerless.

But this does not limit the social meaning, the progressive and educational role of the Beltov image. His relationship with Lyubov Alexandrovna is an energetic protest against the proprietary norms of marriage and family relations. In the relationship between Beltov and Krutsiferskaya, the writer outlined the ideal of a love that spiritually raises and raises people, revealing all the abilities inherent in them.

Thus, Herzen's main goal was to show with his own eyes that the social conditions he portrayed stifle the best people, stifle their aspirations, judging them by the unfair but indisputable court of the musty, conservative public opinion, entangling them with networks of prejudice. And this determined their tragedy. Favorable decision of the fate of all goodies the novel can only provide a radical transformation of reality - such is the fundamental idea of ​​Herzen.

The novel “Who is to blame?" This novel is social, everyday, philosophical, journalistic and psychological.

Herzen saw his task not in resolving the issue, but in identifying it correctly. Therefore, he chose the protocol epigraph: “And this case, due to the non-discovery of the guilty, should be betrayed to the will of God, and the case, considering it unresolved, should be handed over to the archives. Protocol".

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If we turn to Belinsky's opinion that "Who is to blame?" not a novel as such, but a "series of biographies", then in this work, indeed, after the ironic description of how a young man named Dmitry Krutsifersky was hired as a teacher in the house of General Negroov (who has a daughter Lyubonka who lived with a servant) "Biography of Their Excellencies" and "Biography of Dmitry Yakovlevich". The narrator dominates everything: everything described is clearly seen through his eyes.

The biography of the general and the general's wife is ironic through and through, and the narrator's ironic comments on the actions of the heroes look like a palliative replacement for artistic and prosaic psychologism - indeed, this is a purely external method of explaining to the reader how he should understand the heroes. The narrator's ironic remarks let the reader know, for example, that the general is a tyrant, a soldier and a serf owner (the "speaking" surname additionally reveals his "planter" nature), and his wife is unnatural, insincere, plays romanticism and, depicting "motherhood", tends to flirt with boys.

After the succinctly (in the form of a cursory retelling of events) the story of Krucifersky's marriage to Lyubonka, a detailed biography follows again - this time Beltov, who will, in accordance with the literary behavioral stereotype " extra person"(Onegin, Pechorin, etc.), in the future to destroy the unpretentious happiness of this young family and even provoke the physical death of the heroes (in the briefly outlined finale, after Beltov's disappearance from the city, Lyubonka, by the will of the author, soon becomes mortally ill, and the morally crushed Dmitry" prays to God and drinks ").

This narrator, who passes the story through the prism of his irony-colored perception of the world, is now busily laconic, now talkative and flowing into details, the narrator, close to being the undeclared main actor, noticeably resembles the lyrical hero of poetry.

The researcher wrote about the laconic finale of the novel: "The concentrated condensation of the denouement" is "a device as heretical as the sad disappearance of Pechorin, broken by life, to the East."

Well, great romance Lermontov - the prose of the poet. She was inwardly close to Herzen, who “did not find a place for himself in the arts”, in whose synthetic talent, besides a number of others, there was also a lyrical component. Interestingly, the novels of prose writers as such rarely satisfied him. Herzen spoke out about his dislike for Goncharov and Dostoevsky, did not immediately accept Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. L.N. Tolstoy, he put above "War and Peace" autobiographical "Childhood". It is not difficult to see here a connection with the peculiarities of his own work (it was in the works "about himself", about his own soul and its movements, Herzen was strong).

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (March 25 (April 6) 1812, Moscow - January 9 (21), 1870, Paris) - Russian publicist, writer, philosopher, teacher, one of the most prominent critics of the feudal Russian Empire.

(The natural school is a conventional name for the initial stage of the development of critical realism in Russian literature of the 1840s, which arose under the influence of the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Turgenev and Dostoevsky, Grigorovich, Herzen, Goncharov, Nekrasov, Panaev, Dahl, Chernyshevsky , Saltykov-Shchedrin and others)

Problematic

Composition of the novel "Who is to blame?" very original... Only the first chapter of the first part has its own romantic form of exposition and the plot of the action - “The retired general and teacher, determined to the place”. This is followed by: "Biography of their excellencies" and "Biography of Dmitry Yakovlevich Krutsifersky." Chapter " Live-by-life"Is a chapter from the correct narrative form, but is followed by" Biography of Vladimir Beltov”. Herzen wanted to compose a novel from this kind of separate biographies, where "in footnotes it can be said that such and such married such and such." “For me, a story is a frame,” said Herzen. He painted mainly portraits, he was most interested in faces and biographies. "A person is a track record in which everything is noted," Herzen writes, "a passport on which visas remain." At visible fragmentary narrative, when the story from the author is replaced by letters from the heroes, excerpts from the diary, biographical digressions, Herzen's novel is strictly consistent.

He saw his task not in resolving the issue, but in identifying it correctly. Therefore, he chose the protocol epigraph: “And this case, due to the non-discovery of the guilty, should be betrayed to the will of God, and the case, considering it unresolved, should be handed over to the archives. Protocol". But he was not writing a protocol, but a novel in which investigated not “the case, but the law of modern reality”. That is why the question in the title of the book resonated with such force in the hearts of his contemporaries. The critic saw the main idea of ​​the novel in the fact that the problem of the century receives from Herzen not a personal, but a general meaning: “It is not we who are to blame, but the lie that we have been entangled in since childhood”.

But Herzen was the problem of moral identity and personality... Among the heroes of Herzen there are no villains who would deliberately and deliberately do evil to their neighbors. ... His heroes are children of the century, no better and no worse than others; rather, even better than many, and in some of them there are pledges of amazing abilities and opportunities. Even General Negroov, the owner of "white slaves", a feudal owner and despot by the circumstances of his life, is depicted as a man in whom "life has crushed more than one opportunity." Herzen's thought was social in essence, he studied the psychology of his time and saw a direct connection between a person's character and his environment. Herzen called history “a ladder of ascent”. This thought meant above all spiritual elevation of the personality over the living conditions of a certain environment... So, in his novel "Who is to blame?" only there and then the personality asserts itself when it separates from its environment; otherwise it is swallowed up by the emptiness of slavery and despotism.

“Who is guilty?" - intellectual romance... His heroes are thinking people, but they have their own “woe from the mind”. And it consists in the fact that, with all their brilliant ideals, they were forced to live in a gray light, and therefore their thoughts seethed “in empty action”. Even genius does not save Beltov from this “million of torments”, from the realization that gray light is stronger than his brilliant ideals, if his lonely voice is lost amid the silence of the steppe. This is where feeling overwhelmed and bored:"Steppe - go wherever you want, in all directions - the will is free, only you won't get anywhere ..."

“Who is guilty?" - a question that did not give an unambiguous answer. It was not for nothing that the search for an answer to Herzen's question occupied the most prominent Russian thinkers - from Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The novel "Who is to blame?" predicted the future... It was a prophetic book. Beltov, like Herzen, not only in the provincial town, among officials, but also in the capital's chancellery - everywhere he found "the most perfect melancholy", "was dying of boredom." “On his native shore” he could not find a worthy job for himself. But slavery also took root “on the other side”. On the ruins of the 1848 revolution, the triumphant bourgeois created an empire of property owners, discarding the good dreams of brotherhood, equality and justice. And again “the most perfect emptiness” was formed, where thought was dying of boredom. And Herzen, as predicted by his novel "Who is to blame?" He did not renounce either revolution or socialism. But he was overcome by fatigue and frustration. Like Beltov, Herzen “made and lived an abyss”. But everything they experienced belonged to history. That is why his thoughts and memories are so significant. That which tormented Beltov as a mystery became for Herzen modern experience and insightful knowledge. Again the very question that started it all arose before him: "Who is to blame?"

Beltov's image

Beltov's image contains a lot that is unclear, seemingly contradictory, sometimes given only in hints. This was reflected in the creative subjectivity of Herzen, who created the character of the hero on the fresh traces of his own ideological development, and even more - the censorship conditions that did not allow him to speak about much directly. This also determined the misunderstanding of Beltov's character on the part of Belinsky. In the “prehistory” of the hero, the critic drew attention only to the fact that Beltov “has a lot of intelligence”, that his “nature” is spoiled by “false upbringing”, “wealth”, and therefore he has no “special vocation for any kind of activity. "That he" was condemned to languish ... by the anguish of inaction. " In the main part of the novel, the character of the hero, according to the critic, is "arbitrarily changed by the author", and Beltov "suddenly appears before us, some kind of higher, brilliant nature, for whose activities reality does not represent a worthy field ...". "This is no longer Beltov, but something like Pechorin." The latter opinion is true: the matured Beltov has something in common with Pechorin. But this is not their "genius", and their tragic relationship with society... However, Belinsky was mistaken in assessing the character of the young Beltov. Already in his youth, Beltov was not just a spoiled barich. And then there were more romantic impulses in him than "longing for inaction." As for his transition to skepticism of a mature understanding of life, this transition looks sudden because the author could not tell about it in detail. This turning point is not happening at the author's discretion, and as a result “the power of circumstances". This time Herzen's hero is a Russian nobleman and even the son of a peasant serf. Unlike Chatsky, Onegin and Pechorin, who received the capital, secular-aristocratic education, Beltov, like the heroes of Turgenev (Lezhnev, Lavretsky, etc.), was brought up in the estate, and from there he got into the circle of students of Moscow University. A characteristic feature of Beltov's ideological development is his early pursuit of romantic ideals... Drawing on his own experience, Herzen connects these aspirations with the reading of Plutarch and Schiller, with strong impressions of the revolutionary movements in the West.

… Beltov's development took place in the context of Russian social life in the early 1830s... Herzen speaks briefly and deliberately vaguely about "a friendly circle of five or six young men," but stresses at the same time that the ideas of this circle were "alien to the environment" and that "young people made colossal plans for themselves," far from being realized. In this Beltov differs sharply * from Pechorin... Pechorin, created by temperament for an active social struggle, thirsts for "storms and battles", but exchanges his forces in casual everyday encounters. Beltov, brought up more abstractly, draws himself "colossal plans", but exchanges in the performance of particular practical tasks, which he always undertakes to solve alone, "desperate courage of thought." First of all, such is Beltov's service in department e, which the aristocrat Pechorin would never have gone to. Beltov, undoubtedly, set himself a "colossal" and naively romantic task: alone to fight and overcome injustice. It was not for nothing that the officials were indignant at the fact that he “rushes about with all sorts of rubbish, gets excited, as if his own father is being cut, and he saves” ... thrown out of service for obstinacy... The same is the hobby Beltova medicine... And here he would like to benefit people, trying to solve difficult scientific problems with "desperate courage of thought", and was defeated. Even in painting, the young man's civic-romantic interests were reflected. Summing up the failures of his hero in the first part of the novel, asking a "wise question" about their causes, Herzen correctly believes that the answer should be sought not in the "mental structure of a person", but, as he deliberately vaguely says, "in the atmosphere, in the environment, in influences and contacts ... ". Beltov himself well objected later to Krupov, who explained his trinket as wealth, that there are "rather strong motives for work" and "apart from hunger", at least "a desire to speak out." Pechorin would not say so. This is the self-esteem of a "man of the 1840s". And in this respect Beltov can be compared not with Pechorin, but with Rudin. Beltov realized the reason for his failures only during his wanderings in the West. The author many times emphasizes that before leaving the country, his hero, due to his romantic upbringing, "did not understand reality." Now he understood something about her. In his own words, he "lost his youthful beliefs" and "acquired a sober look, maybe a bleak and sad, but true." Calling Beltov's new views “cheerless,” but “true,” Herzen undoubtedly means the ideological crisis that the most advanced people of Russia experienced in the early 1940s during the transition from philosophical idealism to materialism. ... .. This is precisely what Herzen emphasizes in Beltov, saying that Beltov "lived a lot with thought", that he now has "bold sharp thinking" and even "a terrible breadth of understanding", that he is internally open to "all contemporary issues." It is interesting, however, that Herzen, not content with this, scattered in the novel hints of some kind of Beltov's activities abroad, which apparently led him to new views and moods. You can try to bring these hints into one whole, at least hypothetically.

His book "Who is to blame?" Herzen called it a hoax in two parts. But he also called it a story: "Who is to blame?" Was the first story that I wrote. " Rather, it was a novel in several stories with an inner connection, consistency and unity.

Composition of the novel "Who is to blame?" eminently original. Only the first chapter of the first part has its own romance form of exposure and the plot of the action - "A retired general and teacher, determined to the place." Herzen wanted to compose a novel from this kind of separate biographies, where "in footnotes it can be said that such and such married such and such."

But he was not writing a "protocol", but a novel in which he explored the law of modern reality. That is why the question in the headline resonated with such force in the hearts of his contemporaries. The critic A.A. Grigoriev formulates the main problem of the novel as follows: "It is not we who are to blame, but the lie that we have been entangled in since childhood."

But Herzen was also interested in the problem of the moral self-awareness of the individual. Among the heroes of Herzen there are no "villains" who would deliberately do evil, his heroes are the children of the century, no better and no worse than others. Even General Negroov, the owner of "white slaves", a feudal owner and despot by the circumstances of his life, is portrayed by him as a man in whom "life has crushed more than one opportunity."

Herzen called history a "ladder of ascent." This thought meant, first of all, the spiritual elevation of the individual over the living conditions of a particular environment. In the novel, a person only asserts himself when he is separated from his environment.

The first step of this "ladder" is entered by Krucifersky, a dreamer and romantic, confident that nothing is accidental in life. He helps Lyuba, Negro's daughter, to ascend, but she climbs a step higher and now sees more than he does; Cruciferous, timid and timid, he can no longer take a step forward. She raises her head and, seeing Beltov there, gives him her hand.

But the fact of the matter is that this meeting, "accidental" and at the same time "irresistible", did not change anything in their lives, but only increased the severity of reality, exacerbated the feeling of loneliness. Their life was unchanged. Lyuba was the first to feel it, it seemed to her that she, along with Krucifersky, was lost among the silent expanses. Herzen unfolds an apt metaphor in relation to Beltov, deriving it from the popular proverb "One is not a warrior in the field": "I am definitely a hero of folk tales ... I walked along all the crossroads and shouted:" Is there a man alive in the field? "But the man did not respond ... My misfortune! .. And one in the field is not a warrior ... I left the field ... ".

"Who is guilty?" - an intellectual novel; his heroes are thinking people, but they have their own "woe from wits". With all their "brilliant ideals" they are forced to live "in a gray light." And there are notes of despair here, since the fate of Beltov is the fate of one of the galaxy of "superfluous people", the heir to Chatsky, Onegin and Pechorin. Nothing saved Beltov from this "million torments", from the bitter consciousness that light is stronger than his ideas and aspirations, that his lonely voice is being lost. Hence the feeling of depression and boredom arises.

The novel predicted the future. It was in many ways a prophetic book. Beltov, like Herzen, not only in the provincial town, among officials, but also in the capital's chancellery, found "imperfect melancholy" everywhere, "was dying of boredom." "On his native shore" he could not find a worthy job for himself.

But Herzen spoke not only about external barriers, but also about the inner weakness of a person brought up in slavery. “Who is to blame is a question that did not give an unambiguous answer. It was not for nothing that the search for an answer to Herzen's question occupied the most prominent Russian thinkers - from Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.