A.P. Chekhov in his humorous story "Chameleon" makes fun of officials. From “But the dog must be exterminated” to “It is his own fault” - Ochumelov’s opinion changes with lightning speed. The author ridicules and condemns the "chameleonism" of the protagonist. In the work of A.P. Chekhov, one can often “meet” works that touch on the problem of “reverence for rank”. One of these is the story "The Death of an Official".
The main character, like Ochumelov, is characterized by "chameleonism". Chervyakov's monologues are filled with fear for high-ranking officials. After all, initially he says that “No one is forbidden to sneeze,” but, noticing General Brizzhalov, changes immediately occur in the hero. "I splashed him!" - the author uses an exclamation to show the reader Chervyakov's sudden anxiety. At the same time, if “Chameleon” is a humorous story and the denouement causes only a smile, then “The Death of an Official” is a satirical work. In the final main character not only dies, but renounces his own human dignity. The problem of "respect for rank" in the story "The Death of an Official" is most condemned by the author.
In N.V. Gogol's comedy The Inspector General, the behavior of officials is also ridiculed. The author, like A.P. Chekhov in "Chameleon", shows his opinion using irony and humor. Speaking surnames the main characters reflect their vices and shortcomings. For example, Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin is described by the writer as a stupid person who has read 5 or 6 books in his entire life. In addition, he also does everything through the sleeves. But, unlike the story of A.P. Chekhov, The Inspector General includes more specific examples of pernicious bureaucracy.
Updated: 2018-02-23
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- 9. In what works of Russian literature is the behavior of officials ridiculed and in what ways can they be compared with A.P. Chekhov?
In what works of Russian literature are images of officials created, and in what ways are these works similar to this fragment?
Ferdyshchenko decided to travel. This intention was very strange, because Ferdyshchenko was in charge of only the city pasture, which did not contain any treasures either on the surface of the earth or in the bowels of it. In different places, of course, dung heaps were lying around, but they, even in archaeological , did not represent anything remarkable. "Where and for what purpose to travel here?" All prudent people have asked themselves this question, but they could not satisfactorily answer it. Even the foreman's housekeeper - and she was very embarrassed when Ferdyshchenko announced his intention to her. “Well, where are you going to hang around?” - she said, - you will stumble upon the first pile and get stuck! Throw your mischief, for Christ's sake! But the brigadier was unmoved. He imagined that the grasses would turn greener and the flowers would bloom brighter as soon as he rode out into the pasture. "Fields will grow fat, rivers will flow, ships will sail, cattle breeding will flourish, communication routes will appear," he muttered to himself and cherished his plan more than the apple of his eye. “He was simple,” the chronicler explains, “so simple that even after so many disasters he did not leave his simplicity.” Obviously, in this case, he copied his patron and benefactor, who was also a hunter for traveling (according to a brief description of the city governors, Ferdyshchenko is designated as follows: the former batman of Prince Potemkin) and loved to be honored everywhere. The plan was extensive. First head to one corner of the pasture; then, cutting its area across, swoop in to the other end; then find yourself in the middle, then go again in a straight direction, and then where your eyes look. Accept congratulations and gifts everywhere. -- You are looking! - he said to the townsfolk, - as soon as you envy me, then beat me in the basins, and then start congratulating me, as if I had come from nowhere! “Listen, Father Pyotr Petrovich! - said the studied Foolovites; but they thought to themselves: "Lord! look at that, the city will burn down again!" He left on Nikolin's very day*, now after early dinners, and at home he said that he would not be soon. With him was a batman Vasily Chernostup and two disabled soldiers. This train headed at a pace to the right corner of the pasture, but since the distance was close, no matter how slow they were, they were in time in half an hour. The Foolovites waiting there, including four people, hit the basins, and one shook a tambourine. Then they began to bring gifts: they served salted sturgeon, and medium-sized stellate sturgeon, and a piece of ham. The foreman came out of the britzka and began to argue that there were few gifts, "and those gifts are not real, but stale ones," and serve to belittle his honor. Then the Foolovites took out another fifty kopecks, and the brigadier calmed down. “Well, now show me, old people,” he said affectionately, “what sights do you have? They began to walk up and down the pasture, but they did not find anything of interest, except for one dunghill. - It was last year, when we camped during the fire, so at that time there were enough cattle here! one of the old men explained. - It would be nice to put a city here, - said the foreman, - and call it Domnoslav, in honor of that archer, which you bothered at that time in vain! And then he added: "Well, what about in the bowels of the earth?" “We don’t know about this,” the Foolovites answered, “we think that there should be a lot of things, but we are afraid to inquire: lest someone see it and tell the authorities!” - Are you afraid? The brigadier chuckled. In a word, in half an hour, and even then without need, the whole inspection was over. The foreman sees that there is a lot of time left (departure from this point was scheduled only for the next day), and he began to grieve and reproach the Foolovites that they have neither navigation, nor shipping, nor mining and coin trade, nor means of communication, nor even statistics - nothing to gladden the boss's heart. And most importantly, there is no entrepreneurial spirit.
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Images of officials are created in many works of Russian literature. With the novel by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "The History of a City" can be compared to the play by N.V. Gogol "The Government Inspector" and the story of A.P. Chekhov "Thick and Thin"
In his play, Gogol described bureaucracy from different angles. He created collective satirical images of the mayor, judge, trustee of charitable institutions, thereby exposing the vices this class of people. Geese run in court, people in the hospital are dying like flies, all officials engage in embezzlement, bribery
The morals of bureaucracy are depicted in such works as the comedy "Woe from Wit" by A.S. Griboyedov and the poem " Dead Souls» N.V. Gogol.
One of the main characters of Griboedov's comedy, Famusov, is a high-ranking official. But he is also greedy for servility: Famusov flatters Skalozub and wants to marry his only daughter to him, because he "aims to become a general." He is not embarrassed by the genuine stupidity of Skalozub, because he is rich, which is why he is extremely polite with him. Similarly, the mayor is ready to flatter for his own benefit, when he tries by all means to win over the imaginary auditor.
The main feature of officials from "Dead Souls" is an immeasurable love for bribery. For example, when Chichikov goes to draw up documents on the case of the peasants, he is hinted that without money there is no way to turn the case around, and the police chief does not take up work at all without the appearance of wine on his table.
In the same way, the mayor and the judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin take bribes without hesitation and rob the treasury.
Updated: 2018-03-20
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The morals of the Russian bureaucracy is one of the most common topics in literature.
She is one of the central in the comedy of A. S. Griboedov “Woe from Wit”. Alexei Stepanovich Molchalin, secretary of the Moscow “ace”, who received three awards and the rank of assessor, in my opinion, has much in common with the heroes of N.V. , which was taken for " important person”, Molchalin considered it his task to achieve the location of influential and wealthy people. Readiness for servility and sycophancy is what unites the heroes of these comedies.
In A. S. Pushkin’s story “Dubrovsky”, the morals of the guardians of “order and justice”, representatives of the state administrative system, are clearly shown, very similar to the world drawn by N. V. Gogol. These are judicial officials, a vivid example of which is Assessor Shabashkin, a reliable tool for implementing the vengeful plans of the landowner Troekurov, a man of such corruption and meanness that even those who use his services abhor him.
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In what works of Russian classics are the mores of bureaucracy depicted, and in what ways do these works resonate with Gogol's Auditor?
The official was not a new figure in Russian literature, because bureaucracy is one of the most common classes in old Russia. And in Russian literature, legions of officials pass before the reader - from registrars to generals.
Such an image of a poor official (Molchalin) is presented in the comedy by A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit".
Molchalin is one of the brightest representatives Famus Society. However, if Famusov, Khlestova and some other characters are living fragments of the "past century", then Molchalin is a person of the same generation as Chatsky. But, unlike Chatsky, Molchalin is a staunch conservative, his views coincide with Famusov's worldview. Just like Famusov, Molchalin considers dependence “on others” to be the basic law of life. Molchalin is a typical "average" person both in terms of mind and claims. But he has "his talent": he is proud of his qualities - "moderation and accuracy." Molchalin's worldview and behavior are strictly dictated by his position in the official hierarchy. He is modest and helpful, because "in the ranks ... small", he cannot do without "patrons", even if he has to completely depend on their will. Molchalin is the antipode of Chatsky, not only in his convictions, but also in the nature of his attitude towards Sophia. Molchalin only skillfully pretends to love the girl, although, by his own admission, he does not find "anything enviable" in her. Molchalin is in love “according to his position”, “in the pleasing of the daughter of such a person” as Famusov, “who feeds and waters, // And sometimes he will give a rank ...” The loss of Sophia’s love does not mean the defeat of Molchalin. Although he made an unforgivable mistake, he managed to get away with it. It is impossible to stop the career of such a person as Molchalin - such is the meaning of the author's attitude towards the hero. Even in the first act, Chatsky rightly remarked that Molchalin "will reach certain degrees", for "The silent ones are blissful in the world."
A completely different image of a poor official was considered by A.S. Pushkin in his "Petersburg story" "The Bronze Horseman". In contrast to the aspirations of Molchalin, the desires of Evgeny, the protagonist of the poem, are modest: he dreams of quiet family happiness, he associates the future with his beloved Parasha (recall that Molchalin's courtship of Sophia is due solely to his desire to get a higher rank). Dreaming of simple ("petty-bourgeois") human happiness, Eugene does not think at all about high ranks, the hero is one of the countless officials "without a nickname" who "serve somewhere" without thinking about the meaning of their service. It is important to note that for A.S. Pushkin, what made Evgeny a “little man” is unacceptable: the isolation of existence in a close circle of family concerns, fenced off from one’s own and historical past. However, despite this, Evgeny is not humiliated by Pushkin, on the contrary, he, unlike the “idol on a bronze horse”, is endowed with a heart and soul, which is of great importance for the author of the poem. He is able to dream, grieve, "fear" for the fate of his beloved, to languish from torment. When grief breaks into his measured life (the death of Parasha during a flood), he seems to wake up, he wants to find those responsible for the death of his beloved. Eugene blames Peter I for his troubles, who built the city in this place, which means he blames the entire state machine, entering into an unequal fight. In this confrontation, Eugene, " small man", is defeated: "deafened by the noise" of his own grief, he perishes. In the words of G.A. Gukovsky, "with Eugene ... is included in high literature ... tragic hero". Thus, for Pushkin, the tragic aspect of the theme of a poor official who is unable to resist the state (an insoluble conflict between the individual and the state) was important.
N.V. also addressed the topic of the poor official. Gogol. In his works (“Overcoat”, “Inspector”), he gives his understanding of the image of a poor official (Bashmachkin, Khlestakov), while if Bashmachkin is close in spirit to Pushkin’s Eugene (“The Bronze Horseman”), then Khlestakov is a kind of “successor” of Molchalin Griboyedov. Like Molchalin, Khlestakov, the hero of the play The Inspector General, has extraordinary adaptability. He easily enters the role of an important person, realizing that he is mistaken for another person: he gets acquainted with the officials, and accepts the petition, and begins, as it should be " significant person", for no reason" to scold "the owners, forcing them" to "shake with fear." Khlestakov is not able to enjoy power over people, he simply repeats what he himself probably experienced more than once in his St. Petersburg department. An unexpected role transforms Khlestakov, making him a smart, powerful and strong-willed person. Talking about his studies in St. Petersburg, Khlestakov involuntarily betrays his “desire for honors beyond merit,” which is similar to Molchalin’s attitude to service: he wants to “take barriers and live happily.” However, Khlestakov, unlike Molchalin, is much more careless, windy; his "lightness" "in thoughts ... extraordinary" is created with the help of a large number of exclamations, while the hero of Griboyedov's play is more cautious. The main idea of N.V. Gogol lies in the fact that even an imaginary bureaucratic “value” is capable of setting in motion generally intelligent people, making them obedient puppets.
Another aspect of the theme of the poor official is considered by Gogol in his story "The Overcoat". Its main character Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin causes an ambiguous attitude towards himself. On the one hand, the hero cannot but evoke pity and sympathy, on the other hand, hostility and disgust. Being a man of a narrow-minded, undeveloped mind, Bashmachkin speaks "mostly in prepositions, adverbs and particles that absolutely have no meaning," but his main occupation is the tedious rewriting of papers, a matter with which the hero is quite satisfied. In the department where he serves, officials "do not show him any respect", joking maliciously at Bashmachkin. The main event in life for him is the purchase of an overcoat, and when it is stolen from him, Bashmachkin loses the meaning of life forever.
Gogol shows that in bureaucratic St. Petersburg, where "significant persons" rule, coldness and indifference to the fate of thousands of Bashmachkins, who are forced to drag out a miserable existence, which deprives them of the opportunity to develop spiritually, makes them miserable, slavish creatures, "eternal titular advisers." Thus, the author's attitude to the hero is difficult to determine unequivocally: he not only sympathizes with Bashmachkin, but also ironically over his hero (the presence in the text of contemptuous intonations caused by the insignificance of Bashmachkin's existence).
So, Gogol showed that spiritual world poor official is extremely scarce. F.M. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, made an important addition to the understanding of the nature of the “little man”, for the first time discovering all the complexity inner world this hero. The writer was interested not in the social, but in the moral and psychological aspect of the theme of the poor official.
Depicting the "humiliated and insulted", Dostoevsky used the principle of contrast between the external and the internal, between the humiliating social position of a person and his elevated self-esteem. Unlike Evgeny ("The Bronze Horseman") and Bashmachkin ("The Overcoat"), the hero of Dostoevsky Marmeladov is a man with great ambitions. He is acutely worried about his undeserved "humiliation", believing that he is "offended" by life, and therefore demanding more from life than it can give him. The absurdity of Marmeladov’s behavior and state of mind unpleasantly strikes Raskolnikov at their first meeting in the tavern: the official behaves proudly and even arrogantly: he looks at visitors “with a touch of some arrogant disdain, as if at people of a lower status and development, with whom he has nothing to talk about” , In Marmeladov, the writer showed the spiritual degradation of "poor officials". They are incapable of rebellion or humility. Their pride is so exorbitant that humility is impossible for them. However, their "rebellion" is tragicomic in nature. So for Marmeladov - this is drunken ranting, "tavern conversations with various strangers." This is not a fight between Eugene and Bronze Horseman and not the appearance of Bashmachkin to a "significant person" after death. Marmeladov is almost proud of his “swinishness” (“I am a born cattle”), with pleasure telling Raskolnikov that he even drank his wife’s “stockings”, “with rude dignity” reporting that Katerina Ivanovna “tearing whirlwinds” to him. The obsessive "self-flagellation" of Marmeladov has nothing to do with true humility. Thus, Dostoevsky has a poor bureaucrat-philosopher, a thinking hero, with a highly developed moral sense, constantly experiencing dissatisfaction with himself, the world and those around him. It is important to note that F.M. Dostoevsky in no way justifies his hero, not “the environment is stuck”, but the person himself is guilty of his deeds, for he bears personal responsibility for them. Saltykov-Shchedrin radically changed his attitude towards bureaucracy; in his writings, the "little man" becomes the "petty man" whom Shchedrin ridicules by making him the subject of satire. (Although already in Gogol the bureaucracy began to be portrayed in Shchedrin's tones: for example, in The Government Inspector). We will focus on Chekhov's "officials". Chekhov's interest in the topic of bureaucracy not only did not fade away, but, on the contrary, flared up, reflected in the stories, in his new vision, but without ignoring past traditions. After all, "... the more inimitable and original the artist, the deeper and more obvious his connection with previous artistic experience."