At the end of the nineteenth century A.I. Kuprin was the manager of an estate in the Volyn province. Impressed by the beautiful landscapes of that land and the dramatic fate of its inhabitants, he wrote a series of stories. The story "Olesya", which tells about nature and true love, became the adornment of this collection.

The story "Olesya" is one of the first works of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin. It amazes with its depth of images and an unusual plot twist. This story takes the reader to the end of the nineteenth century, when the old way of Russian life was faced with extraordinary technological progress.

The work begins with a description of the nature of the region, where the main character, Ivan Timofeevich, came on business. It's winter outside: snowstorms give way to thaws. The way of the inhabitants of Polesie seems to Ivan, accustomed to the bustle of the city, to be unusual: an atmosphere of superstitious fears and fear of innovation still reign in the villages. Time seemed to have stopped in this village. It is not surprising that it was here that the main character met the witch Olesya. Their love is initially doomed: too different characters appear before the reader. Olesya is a Polissya beauty, proud and determined. In the name of love, she is ready to go to great lengths. Olesya is deprived of cunning and self-interest, selfishness is alien to her. Ivan Timofeevich, on the contrary, is incapable of making fateful decisions, in the story he appears as a timid man, unsure of his actions. He does not fully imagine his life with Olesya, as with his wife.

From the very beginning, Olesya, who has the gift of foresight, feels the inevitability of the tragic end of their love. But she is ready to accept the brunt of the circumstances. Love gives her confidence in her own strength, helps to withstand all the hardships and hardships. It is worth noting that in the image of the forest sorceress Olesya, A.I. Kuprin embodied his ideal of a woman: decisive and courageous, fearless and sincerely loving.

Nature has become the background of the relationship between the two main characters of the story: it mirrors the feelings of Olesya and Ivan Timofeevich. Their life turns into a fairy tale for a moment, but only for a moment. The culmination of the story is Olesya's arrival in the village church, from where the locals drive her away. On the night of the same day, a terrible thunderstorm flared up: a strong hail destroyed half of the harvest. Against the background of these events, Olesya and her grandmother understand that the superstitious villagers will certainly blame them for this. So they decide to leave.

Olesya's last conversation with Ivan takes place in a hut in the forest. Olesya does not tell him where she is going and asks him not to look for her. In memory of herself, the girl gives Ivan a string of red coral.

The story makes you think about what love is in the understanding of people, what a person is capable of in the name of it. Olesya's love is self-sacrifice, it is her love that, it seems to me, is worthy of admiration and respect. As for Ivan Timofeevich, the cowardice of this hero is amusing to doubt the sincerity of his feelings. After all, if you really love someone, then will you allow your loved one to suffer.

A brief analysis of the story of Kuprin Olesya for grade 11

The work "Olesya" was written by Kuprin when people involved in herbal medicine were treated with caution. And although many came to them for treatment, they were not particularly allowed into their circle of Orthodox peasants, considering them sorcerers, blaming them for all their troubles. So it happened with the girl Olesya and her grandmother Manuilikha.

Olesya grew up among the forest, learned many secrets associated with herbs, learned to guess, to speak illnesses. The girl grew up disinterested, open, reasonable. She simply could not help but like Ivan. Everything contributed to the establishment of their relationship, which grew into love. Nature itself helped to develop love events, the sun was shining, the breeze played with foliage, birds chirped around.

Ivan Timofeevich, a naive young man, having met direct Olesya, decided to subjugate her. This is evident in the way he persuades her to attend church. To which the girl agrees, knowing that this cannot be done. He persuades her to leave with him and marry him. He even thought about his grandmother, if she does not want to live with us, there are almshouses in the city. For Olesya, this state of affairs is completely unacceptable, this betrayal in relation to a loved one. She grew up in harmony with nature and many things of civilization are incomprehensible to her. Despite the fact that young people meet and at first glance they are doing well, Olesya does not trust her feelings. Guessing on the cards, she sees that there will be no continuation of their relationship. Ivan will never be able to understand and accept her for who she is, and the society in which he lives even more so. People like Ivan Timofeevich love to subjugate themselves, but not everyone succeeds and rather they themselves go on about the circumstances.

Olesya and her grandmother make a wise decision so as not to ruin their lives and Ivan Timofeevich secretly leave their home. It is difficult for people from different social groups to find a common language; it is even more difficult to integrate into a new environment. Throughout the entire work, the author shows how different these two lovers are. The only thing that binds them is love. For Olesya, she is pure and disinterested, for Ivan, selfish. The whole work is built on the opposition of two personalities.

Analysis of the story for grade 11

Several interesting compositions

Human education begins from birth. For some, it lasts until the end of life. There are different ways of teaching, but we often use books for this. After all, the book is our main source of knowledge.

Analysis of the novel by Nov Turgenev
This work Turgenev directly connected with the incident of student "going to the people", which took place in the seventies of the eighteenth century. Let the novel unfold in the sixties
Composition Man is the master of his country grade 4
Each child who is born automatically becomes a citizen of his state, on the territory of which he was born. Another question is how parents will obtain this citizenship. The child steps into the period of infancy, the mother takes careful care of him
Analysis of the fairy tale Liberal Saltykov-Shchedrin composition
The main character of the work is a representative of liberal views, presented by the writer in the form of a nameless intellectual.
Analysis of Leskov's story The Captured Angel

The work uses the opposition of two worlds: civilization and nature. Through this theme, the theme of love is revealed.
The theme of the story lies in the fact that young people who fell in love with each other do not suspect that their love is doomed in advance and that a person should be as close to nature as possible.
The story is the embodiment of the writer's dream about a wonderful person, about a free and healthy life in merging with nature. The intonation of love is guessed at the very beginning of the piece in the rustle of foliage and the howling of the wind. Nature here not so much serves as a background, as it lives its own life and merges with the character of the heroine.
The main character appears to us as a very impulsive, cheerful and at the same time wise and kind and unpredictable girl to the core. She knows neither calculation nor cunning, selfishness is alien to her.
“... The beauty of her face lies in those large, shiny, dark eyes, to which thin, broken in the middle of the eyebrows gave an elusive shade of guile, imperiousness and naivety; in a dark-pink skin tone, in the willful curl of the lips, of which the lower, somewhat fuller, protruded forward with a determined and capricious look. "
At first Ivan was attracted by her beauty, cheerfulness and childish naivety, but then he notices the following:
"... Not only Olesya's beauty fascinated me in her, but also her whole, original, free nature, her mind, both clear and shrouded in unshakable hereditary superstition, childishly innocent, but not devoid of the sly coquetry of a beautiful woman."
The main character, on the other hand, is the complete opposite of Olesya. But as you know, opposites attract. So, in our case, they fell in love with each other.
Ivan Timofeevich is a kind person by nature, but weak. This kindness is not good, not cordial. He is not master of his word. He likes to take over people, and although he does not want to, he obeys them. Loves to drink wine. He does not value money and does not know how to save it.
Naturally, Ivan could not help but find the "fairy hut" lost in the swamps, where Manuilikha and Olesya lived, because Kuprin planned to do it this way and nothing else. Surrounding the mystery of the story of the witch, he shows us that, as the main characters get to know each other, their relationship develops. And in this regard, they not only get to know each other, but also mutually change. Their attitude towards life changes and their principles change.
Olesya's natural, simple and sublime love makes Ivan Timofeevich forget for a while the prejudices of his environment, awakens in his soul all the best, bright, humane.
Olesya sacrifices herself when she decides to go to church. Naturally, nothing good could come of it. The people recognized her as a witch. They surrounded her. They wanted to smear her with tar, but she twisted and ran away. Olesya wanted to do something pleasant for Ivan, in the end, to please him, overdoing her fear.
Ivan learns from people what exactly happened near the church and is horrified when he hears this. He wants to punish soulless people at the same time and console and numb poor, fragile Olesya.
The culmination of the story falls on the scene when Ivan Timofeevich came to Olesya. In the middle of a conversation with him, she says, remembering:
“- Do you remember when I threw cards at you? After all, it all happened, as they said then. So, the fate of our happiness with you does not want ... And if it were not for this, do you think I would be afraid of something? "
And no matter how he tried to persuade, no matter what he did, not to convince her, at the expense of leaving. She only told him a fairy tale about a hare and a wolf, emphasizing by this that she did not want to name the day when she left the forest with her grandmother, because she did not want him to be tormented by parting and tormented by despair. But he did not fully understand the meaning of her words, only intuitively anticipating loneliness and a moment of suffering.
“The whole sky was covered by a black cloud with sharp curly edges, but the sun was still shining, leaning towards the west, and there was something ominous in this mixture of light and impending darkness. »This passage accurately describes the feelings of the protagonist, his feelings at that moment. At the moment of their farewell, a lifetime and a century. That evening it was raining with hail, as if nature itself showed Olesya its sadness and pain.
He still has a memory of her - red beads.
No one knows and will never know where Manuilikha came from with her granddaughter to the village and where they disappeared forever. And this enigma of the secret Kuprin specially developed in this story in order to create a mysterious halo bordering on a kind of fabulous atmosphere.

Of course, we are used to the fact that all stories must end with a good ending. But what do we see thanks to Kuprin? Before us is a story about two lovers who were as different people as possible. Here, wildness, unity with nature, tenderness, naivety and, at the same time, deep wisdom in the person of a simple girl Olesya are opposed. And in the full sense of this word "city dweller", Ivan Timofeevich, who is by nature not a kind-hearted person, that is, calculating and with malicious intent; weak and a little spender and cannot keep his word. Like all people, without exception, he is selfish and this is most likely not his fault.
The only thing that really unites them with Olesya is that for the first time in their lives in real time, they fell in love with each other.
I was greatly impressed by the intricacies of the plot and the setting of the action taking place at the edge of the forest. And most importantly, I was delighted with the vivid description of nature, which Kuprin endowed with his emotions and character. His work is imbued through and through with a certain lightness and vibrant shades.

30.06.2018

Kuprin olesya analysis problematics. A.I. Kuprin "Olesya": description, characters, analysis of the work

Materials for acquaintance

"Olesya"

8 Responses to “A. I. Kuprin "

In general, the problem of "assault" figures very clearly in this story. This is the apotheosis of social inequality. Of course, we must not forget that corporal punishment for soldiers has been abolished. But in this case, it is no longer a question of punishment, but of mockery: “The non-commissioned officers severely beat their subordinates for an insignificant mistake in language, for a lost leg while marching - they beat them in the blood, knocked out teeth, smashed eardrums with blows to the ear, they pounded on the ground with their fists. " Will a person with a normal psyche begin to behave this way? The moral world of everyone who enters the army is radically changing and, as Romashov notes, is far from being for the better. So even Captain Stelkovsky, the commander of the fifth company, the best company in the regiment, an officer who always "possessed patient, cold-blooded and confident perseverance," as it turned out, also beat the soldiers (as an example Romashov cites how Stelkovsky knocks out a soldier's teeth with a horn, who incorrectly sent a signal to this very horn). That is, you should not envy the fate of people like Stelkovsky.

In the story "Duel" Kuprin touches upon the problem of inequality of people, the relationship between the individual and society.
The plot of the work is built on the crossroads of the soul of the Russian officer Romashov, whom the conditions of army barracks life make him think about the wrong relations between people. Romashov is the most ordinary person who instinctively resists the injustice of the world around him, but his protest is weak, and his dreams and plans easily collapse, since they are very naive. But after meeting with the soldier Khlebnikov, a turning point comes in Romashov's mind, he is shocked by a person's readiness to commit suicide, in which he sees the only way out of a martyr's life and this strengthens his will to actively resist. Romashov is shocked by the power of Khlebnikov's suffering, and it is the desire for compassion that makes the second lieutenant think for the first time about the fate of the common people. But conversations about Romashov's humanity and justice remain largely naive. But this is already a big step towards the moral purification of the hero and his struggle with the cruel society around him.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin. The story "Duel". The problem of a person's moral choice.
AI Kuprin raised in his story "Duel" the topic of alienation, misunderstanding between officers and soldiers. In connection with the topic, the author raises a number of problematic questions. One of which is the problem of moral choice. Georgy Romashov, the main character of the story, was subjected to the most intense moral quest. Dreaminess and lack of will are the most important features of Romashov's nature, which immediately catch the eye. Then the author introduces us to the hero better, and we learn that Romashov is characterized by warmth, gentleness, compassion.
In the soul of the hero, there is a constant struggle between a man and an officer. One of the meanings
Names "duel" is a clash
Romashov with the way of life of an officer and his inner
A duel with yourself. Arriving in the regiment, Romashov dreamed of exploits, of glory. In the evenings the officers gather, play cards, drink. Romashov is drawn into this atmosphere, begins to lead the same lifestyle as everyone else. However, he feels much more subtly and thinks more confidently. He is more and more horrified by the savage, unfair treatment of the soldiers.
He tries to isolate himself from them: "he began to retire from the company of officers, dined at home, did not go to the dance evenings in the meeting at all, and stopped drinking." He "seemed to have matured, grown older and more serious in the last days."
Thus, the hero is morally cleansed. Suffering, his inner insight. He becomes able to sympathize with his neighbor, to feel the grief of others as his own; his moral feeling comes into conflict with the life around him.

The story "Duel" is one of the links in the chain of works by A. I. Kuprin. The author clearly and accurately showed in the "Duel" the social problems of the Russian army and the problem of misunderstanding and alienation between soldiers and officers. On the pages of the story, almost hopeless despair reigns. The heroes are doomed, just as the army itself is doomed. The protagonist of the story, second lieutenant Romashov, finds no sense in the very existence of the army. The teachings, regulations, daily life in the barracks seem to him and his fellow soldiers absolutely meaningless. Second lieutenant Romashov, a young officer who dreams of a career and position in society, is capable of love and compassion, but the writer shows us his negative features: he allows himself to get drunk almost to unconsciousness, he has an affair with another man's wife, which has been going on for six months. Nazansky is an intelligent, educated officer, but a deep drunkard. Captain Plum is a low-key officer, sleazy and stern. His company has its own discipline: he is cruel to junior officers and soldiers, although he is attentive to the needs of the latter. Speaking about the fact that the soldiers were beaten “brutally, to the point of blood, to the point where the offender fell from his feet ...” Kuprin once again emphasizes that, despite the military discipline regulations, assault was widely used in the army. In the story, almost all officers used this means of calling to discipline, and therefore let the junior officers get away with everything. But not all officers were satisfied with this state of affairs, but many resigned themselves, like Vetkin. The desire of second lieutenant Romashov to prove that “you cannot beat a person who not only cannot answer you, but does not even have the right to raise his hand to his face in order to protect himself from a blow”, does not lead to anything and even causes condemnation, because the officers were satisfied this state of affairs.

The problem of love in Kuprin's story "Olesya".
Love is revealed by the writer as a strong, passionate, all-consuming feeling that has completely taken possession of a person. It allows the heroes to reveal the best qualities of the soul, illuminates life with the light of kindness and self-sacrifice. But love in Kuprin's works often ends in tragedy. Such is the beautiful and poetic story of the pure, spontaneous and wise "daughter of nature" from the story "Olesya". This amazing character combines intelligence, beauty, responsiveness, selflessness and willpower. The image of the forest sorceress is covered with mystery. Her fate is unusual, life away from people in an abandoned forest hut. The poetic nature of Polesye has a beneficial effect on the girl. The isolation from civilization allows it to preserve the integrity and purity of nature. On the one hand, she is naive, because she does not know elementary things, yielding in this to the intelligent and educated Ivan Timofeevich. But on the other hand, Olesya has some kind of higher knowledge that is inaccessible to an ordinary smart person.
In the love of the "savage" and the civilized hero, from the very beginning, one can feel the doom, which permeates the work with sadness and hopelessness. The ideas and views of lovers are too different, which lead to separation, despite the strength and sincerity of their feelings. When the city intellectual Ivan Timofeevich, who got lost in the forest during a hunt, saw Olesya for the first time, he was struck not only by the girl's bright and original beauty. He felt her dissimilarity from ordinary country girls. There is something witchcraft in Olesya's appearance, her speech, behavior, which is not subject to logical explanation. This is probably what captivates Ivan Timofeevich in her, in whom admiration imperceptibly develops into love. When Olesya, at the insistent request of the hero, divines to him, then with amazing perspicacity he predicts that his life will be sad, he will not love anyone with his heart, since his heart is cold and lazy, but, on the contrary, will bring a lot of grief and shame to the one who will love him. Olesya's tragic prophecy comes true at the end of the story. No, Ivan Timofeevich commits neither meanness nor betrayal. He sincerely and seriously wants to link his fate with Olesya. But at the same time, the hero shows insensitivity and tactlessness, which doom the girl to shame and persecution. Ivan Timofeevich instills in her the idea that a woman should be devout, although she knows very well that Olesya is considered a witch in the village, and therefore, attending church may cost her her life. Possessing a rare gift of foresight, the heroine for the sake of a loved one goes to church services, feeling angry glances on herself, hearing mocking remarks and abuse. This selfless act of Olesya especially emphasizes her bold, free nature, which contrasts with the darkness and savagery of the villagers. Beaten by local peasant women, Olesya leaves her home not only because she fears their even more cruel revenge, but also because she perfectly understands the impossibility of her dream, the impossibility of happiness. When Ivan Timofeevich finds an empty hut, his eyes are attracted by a string of beads, which towered over heaps of rubbish and rags, like "the memory of Oles and her tender, magnanimous love"

In the story "Duel" IAKuprin touches upon the problem of moral inferiority of a person and shows it on the example of the Russian army. This example is the most striking.
The officers cruelly mocked their subordinates, who, having got into a new situation, did not understand what was happening: “The non-commissioned officers severely beat their subordinates for a minor mistake in language, for a lost leg while marching, - they beat them in blood, knocked out teeth, smashed them with blows eardrums on the ear, pounded on the ground with their fists. The soldiers had no right either to respond to this cruelty, or to dodge the blows, they had no choice. Even the most seemingly patient and cold-blooded officer like Stelkovsky dropped to this level. This situation reigned throughout the army. The main character, Romashov, understood that changes in the army were necessary, but reproached himself for being close to everyone else.
The assault in the Russian army was a big problem for society, which needed to be solved, but it was simply impossible to do it alone.

In the Tale "Olesya" Kuprin tells us that a person loses contact with nature, which is one of the problems of this work.
In his work, the author opposes society and the world around it to each other. People living in cities, having lost touch with their native nature, have become gray, faceless, have lost their beauty. And Olesya, who is connected with the nature around her, is pure, bright. The writer admires his main character, for him this girl is the embodiment of an ideal person. And only by living in harmony with nature, you can become like that. Kuprin tells us that people should not lose contact with nature, because he loses himself, his soul turns black, and his body withers. But if you return to this naturalness, then the soul will begin to bloom, the body will become better.
Thus, we should strive to maintain contact with the environment around us, because it is it that gives us the strength to live and develop.

How does primitive nature affect a person? It is impossible to be insincere next to her; she seems to push a person onto the path of a pure, truthful understanding of life. In his story, A. I. Kuprin puts the main character Olesya in front of the problem of the confrontation between natural and social.
Olesya is a strong, strong-willed character, sensitive, inquisitive mind, while an incredibly beautiful girl. After reading the story, I drew a picture in my head: a tall, black-haired girl in a red scarf, and around there are spreading bright green fir trees. Against the background of the forest, all the spiritual qualities of the heroine are manifested especially vividly: the willingness to sacrifice herself and the wisdom of life. It harmoniously intertwines the beauty of the soul with the beauty of the body.
Society is against Olesya's connection with nature. Here it appears from its most unsightly side: the dullness, dustiness of streets and even faces, intimidation and ugliness of women. This dullness is against everything new, bright, honest. Olesya with her red shawl becomes a stumbling block, the culprit of all troubles.
For narrow thinking, the villagers will be punished by the elements. And again they will blame Olesya for this ...

Filled with sin, without reason or will,
A person is fragile and vain.
Wherever you look, some loss, pain
He has been tormented by flesh and soul for a whole century ...
As soon as one leaves, others will replace them,
All suffering in the world for him is continuous:
His friends, enemies, loved ones, relatives. Anna Bradstreet
Russian literature is rich in wonderful images of beautiful women: strong character, intelligent, loving, courageous and selfless.
The Russian woman with her amazing inner world has always attracted the attention of writers. Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky understood the depth of the spiritual impulses of their heroines.
The works of these writers help to get to know life better, to understand the nature of human relationships. And life is full of conflicts, sometimes tragic, and to understand their essence, to understand their origins - only a great talent of the writer can do.
AI Kuprin's story “Olesya” is a work that marked the beginning of a new literary era. His main character - Olesya - evokes conflicting feelings. She awakens in me pity, understanding, I felt her freedom-loving and strong xsRakteR-
You need to go back to Olesya's past in order to better understand this heroine.
She grew up in constant persecution, moving from one place to another, she was always haunted by the glory of a witch. She and her grandmother even had to go to live in the thicket, to the swamps, away from the villages.
Unlike the peasants, Olesya never attended church, because she believed that magical power was not given to her from God. This further alienated the locals from her. Their hostile attitude brought up in her an amazing spiritual strength.
And so the little girl grew up and became a lovely flower.
Olesya is a tall girl of twenty-five years old, with beautiful long hair of the color of a crow's wing, which gives a special tenderness to her white face. In the big black eyes, you can see a spark of wit, ingenuity. The appearance of the girl is very different from what the village women look like, everything in her speaks of her eccentricity, love of freedom. Belief in magic, otherworldly forces gives it a special charm.
And here in Olesya's life there is a big and strong love. At the first meetings with Ivan Timofeevich, she does not feel anything, but then she realizes that she fell in love with him. Olesya is trying to extinguish the love in her heart. But as soon as she was separated from Ivan Timofeevich for two weeks, she realized that she loved him more than before.
When meeting with her chosen one, Olesya says: "Parting is for love the same as the wind is for fire: it extinguishes a small love, and blows up a big one even more." The heroine gives all of herself without a trace to love, she loves sincerely and tenderly. For her sake, the girl was not afraid to go to church, giving up her principles, she was not afraid of the consequences.
She suffered enormous humiliation when she was attacked by women and pelted with stones. Olesya gives herself up as a sacrifice of love.
Before his departure, Ivan Timofeevich offered Olesya a hand and a heart, but she refused, saying that she did not want to burden him with her presence so that he would be ashamed of her. In this act, the foresight of the girl is visible, she thinks not only about today, but also about the future of Ivan Timofeevich.
However, despite her strong love, Olesya unexpectedly, without saying goodbye to her beloved, leaves, leaving only beads in the house as a keepsake.
Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin portrayed in his work a sincere, sensitive, beautiful heroine who grew up far from civilization, in harmony with nature, capable of deep feelings.

History of creation

A. Kuprin's story "Olesya" was first published in 1898 in the newspaper "Kievlyanin" and was accompanied by a subtitle. "From the memories of Volyn". It is curious that the writer first sent the manuscript to the journal "Russkoe bogatstvo", since before that Kuprin's story "Forest Wilderness", also dedicated to Polesie, had already appeared in this magazine. Thus, the author counted on creating a continuation effect. However, for some reason Russkoe Bogatstvo refused to publish Olesya (perhaps the publishers were not satisfied with the size of the story, because by that time it was the author's largest work), and the cycle planned by the author did not work out. But later, in 1905, "Olesya" was published in an independent edition, accompanied by an introduction from the author, which told the story of the creation of the work. Later, a full-fledged "Polessky cycle" was released, the peak and decoration of which was "Olesya".

The author's introduction has survived only in the archives. In it, Kuprin said that when he visited Polesie with a friend of the landowner Poroshin, he heard from him many legends and tales associated with local beliefs. Among other things, Poroshin said that he himself was in love with a local sorceress. Kuprin would later tell this story in the story, at the same time including in it all the mysticism of local legends, the mysterious mystical atmosphere and the piercing realism of the environment that surrounded him, the difficult fate of Polesie residents.

Analysis of the work

The plot of the story

Compositionally "Olesya" is a retrospective story, that is, the author-narrator returns in his memoirs to the events that took place in his life many years ago.

The basis of the plot and the leading theme of the story is the love between the city nobleman (panych) Ivan Timofeevich and a young resident of Polesie, Olesya. Love is light, but tragic, since its death is inevitable due to a number of circumstances - social inequality, the gap between the heroes.

According to the plot, the hero of the story, Ivan Timofeevich, spends several months in a remote village, on the edge of Volyn Polesye (the territory called Little Russia in tsarist times, today is the west of the Pripyat lowland, in northern Ukraine). A city dweller, he first tries to instill culture in local peasants, heals them, teaches them to read, but the classes are unsuccessful, since people are overcome by worries and they are not interested in either education or development. Ivan Timofeevich increasingly goes hunting in the forest, admires the local landscapes, sometimes listens to the stories of his servant Yarmola, who talks about witches and sorcerers.

Lost one day while hunting, Ivan finds himself in a forest hut - the same witch from Yarmola's stories - Manuilikha and her granddaughter Olesya live here.

The second time the hero comes to the inhabitants of the hut in the spring. Olesya guesses to him, predicting a quick unhappy love and hardships, up to a suicide attempt. The girl also shows mystical abilities - she can influence a person, inspiring her will or fear, and stop the blood. Panych falls in love with Olesya, but she herself remains emphatically cold with him. She is especially angry that the panych stands up for her and her grandmother before the local police officer, who threatened to disperse the inhabitants of the forest hut for their alleged divination and harm to people.

Ivan falls ill and does not appear in the forest hut for a week, but when he comes, it is noticeable that Olesya is happy to see him, and the feelings of both flare up. A month of secret dates and quiet, bright happiness passes. Despite Ivan's obvious and realized inequality of lovers, he proposes to Olesya. She refuses, arguing that she, the servant of the devil, cannot go to church, therefore, and get married, entering into a marriage union. Nevertheless, the girl decides to go to church in order to make a pleasant panychu. Local residents, however, did not appreciate Olesya's impulse and attacked her, severely beating her.

Ivan hurries to the forest house, where the beaten, defeated and morally crushed Olesya tells him that her fears about the impossibility of their union were confirmed - they cannot be together, so she and her grandmother will leave her house. Now the village is even more hostile to Olesya and Ivan - any whim of nature will be associated with its sabotage and sooner or later will be killed.

Before leaving for the city, Ivan again goes into the forest, but in the hut he finds only red olesin beads.

Heroes of the story

The main heroine of the story is the forest witch Olesya (her real name is Alena, according to her grandmother Manuilikha, and Olesya is the local version of the name). A beautiful, tall brunette with intelligent dark eyes immediately attracts Ivan's attention. Natural beauty in a girl is combined with a natural mind - despite the fact that a girl cannot even read, there is perhaps more tact and depth in her than in a city one.

(Olesya)

Olesya is sure that she is “not like everyone else” and soberly understands that for this dissimilarity she can suffer from the people. Ivan does not really believe in Olesya's unusual abilities, believing that there is more of a centuries-old superstition here. However, he cannot deny the mystical nature of the image of Olesya.

Olesya is well aware of the impossibility of her happiness with Ivan, even if he makes a strong-willed decision and marries her, therefore it is she who boldly and simply manages their relationship: firstly, she takes self-control, trying not to impose a panic, and secondly, she decides to part seeing that they are not a couple. Secular life would be unacceptable for Olesya, her husband would inevitably become burdened by her after the absence of common interests would become clear. Olesya does not want to be a burden, to tie Ivan hand and foot and leaves by herself - this is the heroism and strength of the girl.

Ivan is a poor, educated nobleman. Urban boredom leads him to Polesie, where at first he tries to do some business, but in the end, only hunting remains from his studies. He treats the legends about witches like fairy tales - a healthy skepticism is justified by his education.

(Ivan and Olesya)

Ivan Timofeevich is a sincere and kind person, he is able to feel the beauty of nature, and therefore Olesya at first interests him not as a beautiful girl, but how. He wonders how it happened that she was brought up by nature itself, and she came out so gentle and delicate, unlike the rude, uncouth peasants. How did it happen that they, religious, albeit superstitious, are cruder and tougher than Olesya, although she should be the embodiment of evil. For Ivan, a meeting with Olesya is not a lordly fun and a difficult summer love adventure, although he also understands that they are not a couple - in any case, society will be stronger than their love, destroy their happiness. The personification of society in this case does not matter - whether it is a blind and stupid peasant force, whether it be city dwellers, Ivan's colleagues. When he thinks of Olesa as his future wife, in a city dress, trying to keep up small talk with his colleagues, he just comes to a dead end. The loss of Olesya for Ivan is the same tragedy as finding her as a wife. This remains outside the scope of the narrative, but most likely Olesya's prediction came true in full - after her departure he felt bad, right down to thoughts of intentionally leaving this life.

The culmination of events in the story falls on a great holiday - Trinity. This is not an accidental coincidence, it emphasizes and intensifies the tragedy with which Olesya's bright fairy tale is trampled by people who hate her. There is a sarcastic paradox in this: the servant of the devil, Olesya, the witch, turns out to be more open to love than a crowd of people, whose religion fits into the thesis "God is Love".

The author's conclusions sound tragic - it is impossible for two people to be happy together, when the happiness for each of them separately is different. For Ivan, happiness is impossible apart from civilization. For Olesya - out of touch with nature. But at the same time, the author claims, civilization is cruel, society can poison relations between people, morally and physically destroy them, but nature is not.

The theme of love occupies a special place in the work of A. I. Kuprin. The writer gave us three stories united by this beautiful theme - "Pomegranate Bracelet", "Olesya" and "Shulamith".
Kuprin showed different facets of this feeling in each of his works, but one thing is invariably: love illuminates the life of his characters with extraordinary light, becomes the brightest, unique event in life, a gift of fate. It is in love that the best features of his heroes are revealed.
Fate threw the hero of the story "Olesya" into a remote village of the Volyn province, on the outskirts of Polesie. Ivan Timofeevich is a writer. He is an educated, intelligent, inquisitive person. He is interested in people with their customs and traditions; he is interested in the legends and songs of the region. He went to Polesie with the intention of enriching his life experience with new observations useful for the writer: “Polesie ... wilderness ... the bosom of nature ... simple customs ... primitive natures,” he thought, sitting in the carriage.
Life presented Ivan Timofeevich with an unexpected gift: in the wilderness of Polesie he met a wonderful girl and his true love.
Olesya and her grandmother Manuilikha live in the forest, away from the people who once drove them out of the village, suspecting witchcraft. Ivan Timofeevich is an enlightened person and, unlike the dark Polissya peasants, understands that Olesya and Manuilikha simply "have access to some instinctive knowledge gained by chance experience."
Ivan Timofeevich falls in love with Olesya. But he is a man of his time, of his circle. Reproaching Olesya for superstition, Ivan Timofeevich himself is no less at the mercy of prejudices and rules by which people of his circle lived. He did not even dare to imagine how Olesya would look, dressed in a fashionable dress, talking in the living room with the wives of his colleagues, Olesya, torn out of the "charming frame of the old forest."
Next to Olesya, he looks like a weak, unfree person, “a person with a lazy heart,” which will not bring happiness to anyone. “There will be no great joys in your life, but there will be a lot of boredom and hardship,” Olesya predicts from his cards. Ivan Timofeevich could not save Olesya from trouble, who, trying to please her beloved, went to church contrary to her convictions, despite the fear of the hatred of local inhabitants.
In Oles there is courage and determination, which our hero lacks, she has the ability to act. Petty calculations and fears are alien to her when it comes to the feeling: "Let it be, what will be, but I will not give my joy to anyone."
Persecuted and persecuted by superstitious peasants, Olesya leaves, leaving a string of "coral" beads to Ivan Timofeevich's memory. She knows that for him soon "everything will pass, everything will be blotted out," and he will remember her love easily and joyfully without grief.
The story "Olesya" brings new touches to the endless theme of love. Here, Kuprin's love is not only the greatest gift from which it would be a sin to refuse. Reading the story, we understand that this feeling is unthinkable without naturalness and freedom, without courageous determination to defend our feelings, without the ability to sacrifice in the name of those whom we love. Therefore, Kuprin remains the most interesting, intelligent and delicate companion for readers of all times.

Introduction

1. The concept of natural personality

2. The originality of realism

3. The role of romantic beginning

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

The work analyzes the story of the Russian writer Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin (1870 - 1938) "Olesya" (1898).

In 1897 A. Kuprin served in the Rivne district of the Volyn province as the estate manager. The amazing nature and peculiarities of life of the Polesie Territory, the dramatic destinies of its inhabitants inspired the writer to create a cycle of Polesie Tales, which included Olesya.

"Olesya" is one of Kuprin's first major works, and one of his favorites, about which he later spoke. This is a story about the nature and tragic love of "representatives of different worlds" - a young master Ivan Timofeevich, who came to Polesie from a big city for six months, and a young girl Olesya with extraordinary abilities.

The goals and objectives of the work include:

consideration of the concept of "natural personality" in the story;

the originality of the realism of the writer's artistic style;

the role of the romantic component in the story.

1. The concept of natural personality

The concept of "natural personality", reflected in A. Kuprin's story "Olesya", comes from the ideas of the French writer and thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Rousseauism. The main provisions of this concept are as follows:

opposing bourgeois civilization to the simple life of people in the bosom of nature, far from cities in which selfishness and hypocrisy reign and in which true love is doomed;

civilization does not bring happiness to people;

the idea of \u200b\u200b"natural man", man of nature, which consists in opposing man of nature to "a man created by a civilized society." In Kuprin's story, this conflict can be described as "dual world".

A. Kuprin, with his characteristic artistic expressiveness, sketches a portrait of the main heroine of the story, in which, in a bizarre way, both earthly and sublime principles are combined:

“My stranger, a tall brunette of about twenty or twenty-five, carried herself lightly and slenderly. A spacious white shirt loosely and beautifully wrapped around her young, healthy breasts. The original beauty of her face, once seen, could not be forgotten, but it was difficult, even getting used to it, to describe it. His charm lay in those large, shiny, dark eyes, to which thin, broken eyebrows in the middle gave an elusive shade of cunning, imperiousness and naivety; in a dark-pink skin tone, in the willful curl of the lips, of which the lower, somewhat fuller, protruded forward with a resolute and capricious look.

It is likely that the initial feeling that arose in the protagonist of the story, the young master Ivan Timofeevich, was based on "vague" instinctive drives, but further communication with Olesya is reinforced by spiritual closeness. Kuprin brilliantly combines this transformation of the protagonist with descriptions of nature.

The main character Olesya is an ideal “child of nature”, far from a civilized society. Nevertheless, she possesses a combination of rare qualities that are inaccessible to both the main character and ordinary residents.

She, in the words of Kuprin, “has access to those unconscious, instinctive, vague, acquired by chance experience, strange knowledge that, ahead of exact science for whole centuries, live, mixing with funny and wild beliefs, in a dark, closed mass of people, transmitted as the greatest a secret from generation to generation. "

First of all, the young master Ivan Timofeevich is attracted by the romantic "a certain halo of the mystery surrounding her, the superstitious reputation of a witch, life in the forest among the swamps, and especially this proud self-confidence, which shone through in the few words addressed to me."

In the image of Olesya, Kuprin embodied the ideal of a natural person, a free, original and whole person who lives in harmony with nature, “who grew up in the freedom of an old forest as slender and as powerful as young Christmas trees grow”.

Of course, Kuprin most vividly and fully reveals the characters of the main characters, representatives of radically different worlds - in love, in unselfish and honest love.

The birth of love coincides with the spring awakening of nature - the main characters are happy while they live one life with nature and obey its laws:

“For almost a month the naive, charming fairy tale of our love lasted, and to this day, together with the beautiful appearance of Olesya, these blazing evening dawns, these dewy, fragrant lilies of the valley and honey mornings, full of vigorous freshness and ringing bird din, live with unfading strength in my soul, these hot, languid lazy June days ... ".

Ivan Timofeevich, in moments of this uplift, at the peak of emotional closeness with Olesya, compares himself to a “pagan god” or “a young, strong animal”, enjoying “light, warmth, conscious joy of life and calm, healthy, sensual love:

"Not once, neither boredom, nor fatigue, nor the eternal passion for a wandering life has stirred in my soul during this time."

Revealing the character of Olesya, the writer puts his dream into her image - the dream of a Personality not affected by the environment. However, the prejudices and conventions of the environment turn out to be stronger than all the feelings that overwhelm the protagonist, which determines the tragic outcome of this story.

2. The originality of realism

The peculiarity of A. Kuprin's realism lies in the combination of incongruous worlds, the so-called double world, that is, the division of the world into real and ideal, which are opposed to each other.

This is how the romantics initially contrasted the classicistic "imitation of nature" with creative activity, imagination and the artist's originality with his right to transform the real world. In this regard, the movement of romanticism was originally designated as a "protest against God", against the original predestination. In other words, the romantic is not satisfied with the reality, and he creates, in opposition to it, parallel to it, or for the purpose of harmonization - his reality, his world.

Based on this, "dual world" is a clear classic hallmark of traditional romanticism.

The initial pages of "Olesya" can be characterized stylistically as realism, since it describes the life of the Polesie peasants in sufficient detail. And only after Olesya appears in the story, romanticism is already inseparably adjacent to realism.

In other words, the work describes the love of a real person and a romantic ideal heroine. Ivan Timofeevich finds himself in the attractive and mysterious world of Olesya, unknown to him, and she - in his reality. Olesya's ideality, in addition to the listed properties, also lies in the fact that she is ready to sacrifice herself and accept the real world, with all its cruelties. Thus, the work traces the features of both realism and romanticism.

The first conflict of the story lies in the uniqueness of the Polissya traditions, where Christian traditions are closely intertwined with pagan ones. Civilization and wildlife live according to completely different laws.

However, despite the extensive history of human development and evolution (changes in lifestyle, cultural and social changes, etc.) and all the specific moments of human civilization (the development of natural sciences, technology and social transformations), humans have retained the basic traditional ideas of good and evil, love and hate, about enemies and friends.

Initially, the protagonist thinks that he is in some kind of reserved world, in which time has stopped. This feeling is conveyed to the reader.

The world appears before us in two realities - real (where there is one form of time) and magical (where time and space flows according to different laws).

A detailed description of the Polesie space, which is divided into its own - pure, Christian - and pagan, in which evil forces live, is necessary in order to explain to the reader the reason for the negative attitude of the peasants towards the "witch" Olesya.

Ivan Timofeevich, the hero on whose behalf the reader learns about all events, is a kind of "border" separating the real and ideal worlds. The real world is Petersburg and its “upper world”; the ideal world is the forest in which Olesya lives with her grandmother.

Ivan Timofeevich himself talks about Petersburg to Oles with undisguised disgust:

“So these are such tall buildings. And from top to bottom are packed with people. These people live in small kennels, like birds in cages, about ten people in each, so that everyone lacks air. And others below live, under the very earth, in damp and cold; it happens that they don't see the sun in their room all year round. "

Olesya answers Ivan Timofeevich:

“Well, I would never trade my forest for your city. I’ll come to the bazaar in Stepan too, it’ll be so disgusting to me. They push, make noise, scold ... And such melancholy will take me behind the forest - so I would have abandoned everything and ran without looking back ... God be with him, with your city, I would never live there. "

Another conflict follows from the opposition of these worlds. This conflict is social: people brought up in such different conditions simply cannot be together, and are doomed to part.

Therefore, Kuprin does not make romantic love serene and leads the heroes to difficult trials. Thus, the "forest tale" ends tragically. The point is not only in the circumstances of the finale, when Olesya is faced with the harshness and meanness of the world around her. Kuprin examines this issue on a larger scale, from a social point of view: as far as possible, that the ideal "child of nature" lived in an alien environment.

These worlds are clearly opposed to each other and as the main character correctly notes, they cannot be combined:

“I didn't even dare to imagine what Olesya would be like, dressed in a fashionable dress, talking in the living room with the wives of my colleagues, plucked from this charming frame of an old forest full of legends and mysterious forces.”

Thus, the story touches upon not only the theme of love, but also the theme of unattainable happiness.

The peculiarity of Kuprin's realism lies in the fact that this fairy-tale world, into which the main character fell, is devoid of idealism - the villagers appear vicious and limited. Olesya, knowing their mentality and experiencing their rejection on herself, tries to shield herself and defend herself from them:

“And we really touch someone! We don't need people either. Once a year, I just go to a little place to buy soap and salt ... And here's some tea for my grandmother - she loves tea with me. And then at least not to see anyone at all. "

Possessing intuitive knowledge, nobility and a number of other human qualities, Olesya wins over her beloved Ivan Timofeevich, who appears before us as a typical representative of the intelligentsia, a man with a "lazy heart", a sincere, sympathetic, but indecisive and somewhat selfish person. He could not feel the danger that threatened Olesya and, thanks to his susceptibility to the conventions and prejudices of the civilized world, unwittingly, brought misfortune to his beloved.

Olesya feels and understands this from the very beginning, telling her beloved:

“What happened to you is this: although you are a kind person, you are only weak ... Your kindness is not good, not cordial. You are not master of your word. You like to take the upper hand over people, and although you yourself do not want to, you obey. You will not love anyone with your heart, because your heart is cold, lazy, and to those who love you, you will bring a lot of grief. "

Olesya, possessing the gift of providence, inexplicable from Ivan's point of view, feels the inevitability of a tragic end. She knows that Ivan Timofeevich is not able to renounce his world, but, nevertheless, goes to self-denial, tries to try on her way of life with the world that is alien to her.

When Olesya invites Ivan to simply follow him, without any marriage, the protagonist suspects that her refusal is due to the fear of the church. However, Olesya says that for the sake of love for him, she is ready to overcome this too.

Ivan Timofeevich himself, on whose behalf the narration is being conducted, does not justify himself and does not deny that for all his love for Olesya, he depends on the conventions of the civilized world. In fact, it is these conventions that determine the tragedy of the finale, and presentiments of imminent misfortune and close parting now visit the main character:

"I gazed closely into her pale, thrown back face, into her large black eyes with bright moon reflections shining in them, and a vague presentiment of imminent disaster suddenly crawled into my soul with a sudden cold."

3. The role of romantic beginning

The romantic beginning of "Olesya" is guessed at the very beginning of the story, when a realistic, unhurried description of the life and customs of the Polissya peasants is supplied with stories of Ivan Timofeevich's servant - Ermola about "witches" and about a witch living nearby.

However, the romantic beginning appears in its entirety only with the appearance of Olesya, the daughter of the forests. Olesya's romantic image lies not only in her ideality - isolation from people limited by her malice and the absence of base interests in fame, wealth, power, etc. The main motives for her actions are emotions. In addition to this, Olesya is familiar with the secrets of the human subconscious, for which the locals call her a "witch".

Olesya, who does not know all the subtleties, tricks and conventions of the civilized world, due to her openness makes Ivan Timofeevich, at least for a while, forget about all the prejudices of his environment.

At the same time, it should be noted that Olesya is not characterized by naivety and defenselessness - she knows what human malice and rejection are, she knows that any dissimilarity in the human community is punishable, but, nevertheless, she is capable of "acting", unlike beloved.

Olesya's love is the greatest gift to the protagonist, which combines sacrifice and courage, but at the same time Kuprin puts a number of conflicts and contradictions into this gift.

Thus, A. Kuprin sees the true meaning of love in the desire to disinterestedly give his chosen one all the fullness of his feelings.

Conclusion

The concept of "natural personality" in A. Kuprin's story is presented by the following points:

the opposition of two worlds - the real world, which personifies the protagonist and the ideal world, which is personified by the village girl Olesya;

the doom of true love in the civilized world;

the idea of \u200b\u200b"natural man", man of nature, that is, the opposition to man of nature "man created by a civilized society" on the example of the image of Olesya.

Revealing the character of Olesya, the writer puts his dream into her image - the dream of a Personality not affected by the environment.

This concept is also the originality of A. Kuprin's realism - in a combination of incompatible worlds, the so-called dual world, that is, the division of the world into real and ideal, which are opposed to each other.

The first conflict of the story lies in the uniqueness of the Polissya traditions, where Christian traditions are closely intertwined with pagan ones.

The second conflict follows from the confrontation between the real and the ideal worlds: beloved ones brought up in such different conditions simply cannot be together, and are doomed to part.

The romantic component can be traced at the very beginning of "Olesya", when a realistic description of the life of the peasants is supplied with the stories of the master's servant about the "witches" and the witch living nearby.

However, only after Olesya appears in the story, romanticism is inseparably side by side with realism. The main character, once in this fabulous ideal world, for a while forgets about all the conventions of modern traditional society and for some time unites with nature. However, Kuprin remains a realist, and the forest tale ends tragically, which Olesya herself intuitively guesses even at the first stages of her acquaintance with Ivan Timofeevich.

kuprin personality romantic realism

Literature

1. Kuprin A.I. Selected works - Moscow: "Khudozhestvennaya literatura", 1985. - 655 p.

Tutoring

Need help exploring a topic?

Our experts will advise or provide tutoring services on topics of interest to you.
Send a request with the indication of the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.

In the years when revolutionary sentiments were growing, when society was in constant search of insight and the truth of life, the work of A.I. Kuprin was formed. The complex psychological themes of cognition lay at the heart of his numerous works. He attracted readers with the capacious, accessible and dynamic content of his works. The most famous of them is the story "Olesya". Analysis of this book and offers you the Many-wise Litrecon.

It is interesting that A.I. Kuprin can be divided into two periods, the line between which can be clearly traced in the theme and style of writing works.

At the beginning of his career, the writer paid a lot of attention to purely everyday topics. Most likely, this was due to the rich life experience of A.I. Kuprin, who tested himself in many fields of activity. Having felt all the hardships of life and knowing the peculiarities of the life of the poor, the writer created life texts based on what he saw, heard and felt.
The second period of his work dates back to the February Revolution. It was then that his works were imbued with the desire for democratic change. In addition, the subject matter of the texts changed: mainly A.I. Kuprin described the mendicant and devastated life of a Russian emigrant.

The famous story "Olesya" belongs to the early period of the writer's work, which was first published in 1898 in the newspaper "Kievlyanin" with the subtitle "From memories of Volyn". Later, in 1905, Kuprin completed the introduction to the story, in which he described the history of the creation of the work itself. Here are some interesting facts about the writing of Olesya:

The story "Olesya" is based on a real story from the life of the landowner Ivan Timofeevich Poroshin, with whom the writer once visited. He told his own love story with a Polissya witch.
The work also contains autobiographical details: the main character is a writer, like the writer himself, he spent 6 months in Polesie, which also coincides with real facts.
Initially A.I. Kuprin wanted to publish the story in the Russian wealth magazine as a continuation of the 'Polissya cycle'. But the editors of the magazine refused the writer, so the fate of the work changed slightly. They were confused by the anti-religious background of the work: believers were negative heroes, in contrast to the "servants of the devil."

Genre, direction

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, disputes flared up in the literary environment between representatives of the two leading directions of literary thought: realism and modernism. Alexander Ivanovich adhered to the realistic tradition, and therefore his story "Olesya" has collected the features of this trend. So, for example, the love of the main characters Olesya and Ivan Timofeevich was doomed to perish in reality, so the author could not exchange the truth of life for beautiful and unrealizable dreams. And yet there is a place for romanticism in Kuprin's work: civilization is presented in dark colors, nature plays an independent role in the work, and the main character has everything.

By genre, the work is a story. Main features: chronicle plot, a small number of characters and an assessment by the author of events experienced in real life. In addition, we see other features characteristic of the story: the whole plot is twisted around one hero - Ivan Timofeevich, whose character manifests itself against the background of what is happening.

Composition and conflict

The composition of the work is a retrospective, as the author delves into memories from the past, when fate brought him to Polesie. There he got acquainted with the amazing story of the intellectual Ivan Timofeevich.

In addition to the retrospective, the composition is based on numerous contrasts. We can say that the whole story is a collection of various conflicts. Even at the very beginning, we see a struggle between technical progress and a quiet, peaceful life in the pagan Polessye. The reader sees a vivid confrontation between civilization and wildlife, which live according to different laws. Nature and civilization is the main conflict in the story "Olesya". The author sees in the city and people depravity, vulgarity and stupidity, but in nature - nobility, beauty and genuine generosity.

In addition, the plot is based on one of the main conflicts: Olesya and people (villagers). It becomes clear that this opposition is so strong that it is impossible to eliminate it. Olesya's efforts (going to church) led only to tragic consequences both for herself and for the village, which suffered from the witch's spell.

The bottom line: what is the story about?

The essence of the work "Olesya" is very simple. In the small village of Perebrod on the outskirts of Polesie, a young writer Ivan Timofeevich, by the will of fate, wanders during his next forest trip to the house of the local witch Manuilikha. At that time, the hero could not even imagine what this chance meeting would lead to.

There he meets the beautiful Olesya, who fascinates him. From this moment their fantastic love story begins. The young sorceress tries in every possible way to avoid meeting with Ivan, because the cards predicted her death from an unexpected guest. Olesya's fate was sealed.

The main characters and their characteristics

The main characters of the story are the young witch Olesya and the noble writer Ivan Timofeevich. The main character is a young village girl 25 years old who lives in the forest with her grandmother Manuilikha. Olesya is illiterate, but very smart. She loves nature and a quiet life away from people. Ivan Timofeevich, the central character of the story, on the contrary, is a very literate and well-read person by the nature of his occupation. He came to Polesie on business, but by the will of fate fell in love with a young witch.

heroes	characteristic
olesya	A 25-year-old girl who lives away from people. she possesses magical talents and rare perseverance. She received all her knowledge about life from her grandmother, who was not from these places, so the morals of woodland are alien to the oles: local customs seem cruel to her, and people are rude. the girl is smart and proud, strong and noble. she is distinguished by her love for all living things, even forest birds have become tame with her. Olesya is not afraid to argue and prove her case: more than once she defended her belief in magic in front of Ivan. despite her ignorance, she conquered his arguments with her talents. she was able to heal wounds and even control a person from a distance. ingenuity was combined in her with prejudice: she believed that the devil gave her the gift of magic. Olesya believes in fate and believes that it is impossible to argue with her. her empirically acquired knowledge was ahead of science at that time for a long time, so Ivan could not explain it. the girl is also humane and generous: she does not want to bond Ivan, knowing that he cannot be always faithful to her.
ivan	ivan Timofeevich is a poor intellectual and an aspiring writer. Olesya saw in him a weakness of spirit and inconstancy, but she fell in love with kindness and education. Ivan really was well-read, but the forest savage with her conviction surpassed his ability to interpret what he saw and heard. Ivan could not convince her, although he did not believe in magic and even tried to prove it. he is reasonable and reasonable, knows how to observe and analyze. in the depths of his soul, Ivan is fair and kind, therefore he even pities his servant, not firing him because of the poverty of his family. but love did not elevate him, but humiliated him. he could not take the decisive step and take the oles away with him. his indecision only confirmed the olesya's predictions: Ivan is destined to love many girls, but his heart is lazy, and no passion will be real.
manuilikha	grandmother olesya. an old healer with the appearance of a witch has seen a lot in her life: persecution in the village, and corruption among local authorities, and a secluded forest life without help and hope for her. she hardly raised and raised her granddaughter, often sacrificing her interests for her. she sees people through and through, so from the very beginning she did not like Ivan. she did everything to save her granddaughter. she is her only loved one. other people gave her well-founded contempt.
sergeant	police officer Evpsychiy Afrikanovich is a comic character. his name is exotic and unreal, but the image is quite viable. this is a reflection of all the local authorities of woodlands - immoral embezzlers and bribe-takers who in every possible way hid their theft from the people.
yarmola	this is a reflection of all the inhabitants of woodland: a laconic and rude drunkard who keeps his family from hand to mouth and still drinks on. he is surprisingly stupid and undeveloped, leads the life of a predator, prowling through the forest as a poacher. from the very beginning he does not approve of the master's connection, and then completely moves away from him, motivating this with the "sinfulness" of communicating with witches.

The reader sees that for the peasants the witch's den is a forbidden place where a person's foot should not enter, but Kuprin's attitude to Olesya and her grandmother is completely different. We see no negative ratings in the description. On the contrary, he puts the main character in a more favorable light, because even her illiteracy does not look bad against the background of kindness and modesty.

Topics

The theme of the book "Olesya" is romantic and realistic at the same time:

The main theme of the story "Olesya" - love line of Olesya and Ivan Timofeevich. In the center is a pure and real feeling, for the sake of which the main character is ready for any sacrifice. For the sake of the chosen one, she goes to shame, knowing in advance about the pain that she will have to endure.
Despite the fact that the theme of love is central, the work is clearly visible and the theme of the relationship between nature and man, which begins to unfold from the very beginning of the work. The author shows us the confrontation between civilization and wildlife.
Against the background of nature, it reveals and natural man themeraised by the cradle of nature. Such were Olesya and Manuilikha - open and free from prejudices and clichés. We can say that the main character embodies the very moral ideal, because she is distinguished by kindness, responsiveness and fortitude. She does not seek to master the chosen one, but gives him freedom.
Dream theme also traced in the text. Unlike the villagers, whose thinking is mired in prejudice, Olesya lives by a dream, not by standards.

Problems

The problems of the story "Olesya" are diverse and interesting even today:

In the first place, of course, tragic love main characters. Their love story was initially doomed to a tragic ending, because the cruelty of this world does not allow violating standards and rules. Society is not ready to accept those who do not want to live according to templates, which is why Olesya is forced to leave her native forests.
The problem of violence permeates the entire text: the villagers go to church, but do not learn to forgive and love. They torture and kill their own kind (for example, a horse thief who has nails hammered in the heels), but at the same time retain the appearance of decency and piety.
The author vividly reveals world of human feelings against the background of the love line. In his story, not everything is as unambiguous as we would like. Ivan's love is sincere, but at the same time he is not able to stand up for it. Kuprin describes his hesitation, ridiculous for a real feeling: how will Olesya look in a dress among his friends? Should she go to church? But the heroine openly admits that she will not be jealous and will not allow her chosen one: he is free, and let him not take her into his world, it is enough just to give her love here and now.
The problem of fate also occupies an important place in the story. The writer shows how cruel fate can play with people's lives. This is not so much a predestination of fortune-telling as a logical alignment of forces and circumstances: Olesya is not a match for a gentleman. After all, even a great and pure feeling cannot overcome what was previously predetermined by fate.

Details

Details in the story "Olesya" play a special role. So, for example, even the embodiment of love has its innovative facets: at the beginning of the emergence of pure and sincere feelings, we see how nature rejoices and pours out sunlight, but at the end of the work, with the death of love, nature also dies: the ice hail affects the seedlings of the villagers.

The language of the story is quite simple. A.I. Kuprin tried to make the work as accessible as possible for a simple layman who seeks to comprehend the truth of life. The author tried not to overload the text with clever and expressive means in order to convey to the readers his main thoughts.

Meaning

The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe story "Olesya" is that there is essentially nothing behind a "civilized" society, because people who grew up far from civilization may turn out to be much smarter and wiser. A natural person outside the crowd does not lose his individuality and does not obey stereotypical thinking. The crowd is submissive and promiscuous, and is often taken over by its worst members, not the best.

In this regard, the main idea can be distinguished - the need for people to turn to nature in order to restore harmony. Olesya became thus an example of a pure and open person living in relationship with the environment.

Criticism

The story "Olesya" - the famous works of A.I. Kuprin, which was appreciated by the writer's contemporaries. K. Barkhin called the work a "forest symphony", noting the literary charm of the language of the work.

“I like this thing because it is all imbued with the mood of youth. After all, if you were writing it now, you would write it even better, but that immediacy in it would no longer exist ... "

The story was highly praised by Soviet critics, who saw in it a protest against bourgeois society:

Kuprin's protest against the internal enslavement of man is associated with the motives of a certain uneasiness, inconsistency in the bosom of capitalist society, vagrancy in the spirit of Hamsun ... interest in lumpen-proletarians standing "outside of society", admiring the whole, untouched "children of nature" (Listrigones, Olesya , "Wilderness", etc.). " (article "Russian literature" in "Literary encyclopedia in 11 volumes", Moscow, 1929 -1939, volume 10 (1937))

Thus, the story "Olesya" occupies an important place, as in the work of A.I. Kuprin, and in the history of Russian classical literature.