Antithesis is a sharp rhetorical opposition of images, states or concepts interconnected by internal meaning or general structure. in literature? Numerous examples where opposing or sharply contrasting concepts and images are juxtaposed to enhance the impression explain this. Moreover, the stronger the contrast, the brighter the antithesis.

A.S. Pushkin used such comparisons as “poetry - prose”, “wave - stone”, “ice - fire”. N.A. Nekrasov and S.A. Yesenin they turn into oxymorons: “poor luxury”, “sad joy”.

The role of antithesis is manifested in exact subordination, for example: “I caught up with snowstorms while I was writing about the summer”; “There was an honest conversation, but everything was muddied.”

But this does not have to be done, for example: “Okay, they sang, but they didn’t get it out,” “The praise sounds beautiful, but it’s bitter.” Here are some concepts started singing And didn't pull it out, sounds And bitter are not in a logical subordination of opposites like water and flame or light and darkness, but the concepts are taken with a certain specification, although there is no precision and logical clarity, as is often found in proverbs.

How to make the antithesis expressive?

Enhancing expressiveness is achieved in the following ways:

The contrast can be semantic: “Having twisted everything, we got to the point.” Both words and constructions are contrasted.

Antithetical concepts (containing opposition) can collectively express something common, for example, antithesis in literature, as seen in Derzhavin’s hero, where he calls himself both a king and a slave, portrays a contrasting

The antithetical image often plays a supporting role in the contrasted one, which is the main one. The expressed object is characterized by only one member of the antithesis, where the second has a purely auxiliary function: “For ideal forms no content needed."

Comparison can express the choice of alternative solutions: ““To share or not?” - thought the calculator.”

You can use phonetic similarity, for example, “teach - get bored.”

The antithesis may contain not two, but more contrasting images, i.e. be polynomial.

Antithesis: examples from literature

Contrasts in works are used in titles, character characteristics, images and themes. What is antithesis in literature? General definition does not fully reveal its meaning. It becomes clearer and more multifaceted when analyzing famous works.

Roman L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace"

The title of the work is rich in meaning, despite the fact that a simple antithesis is used. Peace is presented as the antithesis of war. In drafts, the author tries to vary this word, trying to find the best solution.

In the work, Tolstoy creates two poles: good and evil or peace and enmity. The author sharply contrasts the characters with each other, where some are the bearers of life, while others are the bearers of discord. Throughout the novel, comparisons “wrong - right”, “spontaneous - reasonable”, “natural - ostentatious” constantly appear. All this is manifested through images, for example, Natasha and Helen, Napoleon and Kutuzov. The antithesis “false - true” is manifested in the absurd situation of a duel in which Pierre Bezukhov found himself.

Roman F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"

Dostoevsky's methods are completely different, since he has slightly different views on man. His heroes combine good and evil, compassion and selfishness. The internal trial of conscience over Raskolnikov is the greatest punishment for the crime. Dostoevsky's heroes have a dispute not between personalities, but between their ideas, leading to a moral tragedy. Before the crime, Raskolnikov was and after the author gives him a description of the killer.

Roman I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons"

The shift in public consciousness in the mid-19th century was reflected in the novel Fathers and Sons, in which main character opposed to everyone around him. The main thing here is the conflict of generations, the cause of which is attachment. Conflicts with friends are caused by differences of beliefs and uncompromisingness. Defending their ideals and defeating the enemy becomes the goal in itself of the heroes.

Some of them look funny because of their limitations. Trying to overcome it, they try to implement new ideas in order to assert themselves. Turgenev uses the technique of antithesis as At the same time, living images, their relationships are better revealed, and the plot develops.

Thus, it becomes clear what antithesis is in literature. The works of the classics clearly demonstrate this

Conclusion

To compare contrasting or opposing concepts, in order to enhance the impression, antithesis is used. Examples from the literature indicate that it can be the main principle of construction as individual parts, and the whole work.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov” is one of the most controversial works of Russian literature. It was in this novel that not only the epochal problems of changing landowner life and morals were reflected contemporary Goncharov person. “Oblomov” expresses a kind of revolutionary idea of ​​​​the formation of a new type of Russian person. This idea literally pushed the boundaries of the era, went beyond its limits.

The entire novel “Oblomov” is built on the device of antithesis. And the most important opposition was the two heroes, the two central figures of the work - Ilya Ilyich Oblomov and Andrei Stolts - characters who are often called antagonists to each other. But the confrontation and differences between the heroes will ultimately lead to some kind of compromise, a solution to a complex conflict.

Ilya Ilyich is a hero who is rarely called positive. This is a Russian gentleman, a landowner, accustomed to idleness. Oblomov proudly speaks about himself:

“I am a master. I can’t do anything.”

And he really doesn't know how to do anything. Since childhood, surrounded by servants, mothers and nannies, having grown up in the village, not knowing the difficulties of life, he was accustomed to the unhurried flow of life, to constancy - such was life in his home. It, as the author puts it, flowed “like a calm river.” And the word “deceased” was not chosen by chance: it is not just an outdated form of the word, but its double meaning. Life in Oblomovka is not only calm and measured. She is... dead, dying, fading. This is how the life of the main character turned out.

However, it is impossible to name Oblomov negative character. He is the embodiment of Russian morality, Russian mentality, an example of Russian character. Oblomov is generous, kind and soft, gentle. He is honest not only with those around him, but also with himself: he is disgusted by the hypocrisy of the St. Petersburg world, therefore Ilya Ilyich prefers laziness to empty activity. His idle lifestyle is the result of an extreme manifestation of precisely Russian quality, love for humanity. This is a real protest to secular society.

From childhood, Ilya Ilyich was surrounded by care, attention, and kindnessed by his parents and servants, who adored little Ilyusha. But this love acquired an exaggerated character, turned out to be excessive and led to the death of the hero. Since childhood, not accustomed to bothering himself (after all, there were servants in the house who were needed precisely for work), he could not bring himself to act even when it was necessary. As Goncharov accurately put it, “it all started with the inability to put on stockings, and ended with the inability to live.”

Stolz is the complete opposite of Oblomov. Even outwardly he is opposed to the main character. If Ilya Ilyich is a lush, soft man, with gentle hands, then Stolz resembles a “blooded English horse” - sharp, with sharp facial features, with fast speech. Stolz's father is an active man. He taught his son to work, to achieve everything on his own, so as not to be lost in life. But this man did not give him enough love - what Ilya Ilyich had in abundance.

Two people - two opposites, acute social contradiction. A successful, but dry-hearted person - and kind, sympathetic, but absolutely helpless. Goncharov finds a solution to this confrontation between activity and spirituality, a kind of compromise. And this... little Andryusha Oblomov is the son of the Russian soul Oblomov, raised and raised by the German Stoltz, accustomed to work.

The author undoubtedly assumes that mixing these opposites will lead to a good result. Andryusha will be the one ideal person of his - and new, too - time, since he will absorb best qualities antagonist heroes.

This idea of ​​the formation of a new type of person, of course, goes beyond the boundaries of its era. Like Turgenev, who at one time predicted the emergence of the Bazarov generation, Goncharov creates the appearance of a new type of personality, which is destined to change its era - and the time that will follow it.

IN in a broad sense antipodes are entities opposite to each other. The term is borrowed from where it denoted opposing things, phenomena and quantities. The concept is used in physics, philosophy, literature and other areas of science and art.

Where do the Antipodes live?

In terms of geography, we can, for example, call the inhabitants of New Zealand and Spain antipodes, since these countries are located in strictly opposite points of the planet.

Explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, among other meanings, unanimously highlight the following: antipodes are people of opposite views, beliefs, actions, etc. It is with this meaning that the literary device, with the help of which the author creates a picture of life and expresses his concept.

The antipodean hero is interesting not only from the point of view of plot collisions. His presence creates a conflict and helps the reader take a closer look at the main character, see the hidden motives of his actions, and thoroughly understand the idea of ​​the work.

Russian classics are rich in such literary pairs that represent the antipodes. Moreover, these characters can not only be enemies, but that does not prevent them from being antipodes. Onegin and Lensky, about whom Pushkin says that they are “like ice and fire”, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov, Grinev and Shvabrin, Oblomov and Stolz, the Karamazovs - Ivan and Alyosha - this is not a complete series of names.

Eternal duel

In A. Griboyedov’s brilliant comedy “Woe from Wit,” the ardent and witty Chatsky also has antipodes. This is, first of all, the “modest” Molchalin. These people would not be placed side by side at all - they are so far from each other in their way of thinking, but they are only brought together by one object of love - Sofya Famusova. Both heroes are smart in their own way, but this intelligence is different. Molchalin, convinced that “one must depend on others,” won recognition for his obsequiousness, courtesy, pragmatic professionalism and caution. In contrast, the sincere, talented, independent Chatsky, who “wants to preach freedom,” is recognized by the majority as crazy. The common sense of the conformist Molchalin, it would seem, triumphs over the “crazy” daring rejection of vulgarity, hypocrisy and stupidity. However, sympathy is still on the side of the freedom lover Chatsky, who leaves Moscow with a broken heart. The presence of an antipodean hero in the play makes the conflict especially expressive and emphasizes how typical the fate of a loner who decides to contradict the majority is.

The secret of true love

In F. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment,” it is not immediately possible to recognize the antipodes of the main character. At first glance, Svidrigailov and Luzhin seem completely opposite to Raskolnikov, from whom the hero wants to protect and save people. However, we gradually understand that Raskolnikov, absorbed in his idea, is, rather, their double - in the inhuman, cynical and criminal content of this idea. Nevertheless, Raskolnikov has antipodes - this is Porfiry Petrovich. The latter was fascinated by similar Raskolnikov views in his youth, but his conscience did not allow him to follow this path. And Sonya also “transgressed,” but not by taking the lives of others, but by sacrificing herself for the sake of others. Thanks to this contrast, the author helps us understand what true essence Christian charity and love.

1. The contrast between the capital and rural image life.
2. Onegin and Lensky.
3. Contrast between Tatiana and Olga.
4. Tatyana is an inexperienced village young lady and socialite.

It is easy to notice that one of the main principles that guided A. S. Pushkin when writing his novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” is opposition. This is a contrast between the characters of the characters and a contrast between two lifestyles - urban and rural, metropolitan noise and quiet solitude. This is how Eugene Onegin’s father lived:

Having served excellently and nobly,

His father lived in debt

Gave three balls annually

And finally squandered it.

And Onegin’s uncle at that time led a measured and monotonous life on his estate:

...Village old-timer

For about forty years he was quarreling with the housekeeper,

I looked out the window and squashed flies.

...Onegin opened the cabinets:

In one I found a parish notebook,

In another there is a whole line of liqueurs...

Pushkin shows the huge difference in the interests of the urban dandy and rural landowners. Of course, Onegin has a rather superficial education, but he has read a lot of books, can talk about economics, express his opinion about ancient poetry, and even quote a few stanzas in Latin. And rural landowners conduct simple conversations “about haymaking, about wine, about the kennel, about their relatives.”

It should be noted that Onegin himself emphatically contrasts himself with the society of his village neighbors: as soon as he hears how one of them is coming to visit him, he mounts his horse and leaves home.

Vladimir Lensky, a young landowner who arrived on his estate at about the same time as Onegin, is, of course, a completely different person and range of interests than the rest of the village residents. He is an educated man (Pushkin mentions that Lensky studied at the famous University of Göttingen in Germany), and is interested in philosophy and poetry. That is why Onegin and Lensky, despite the great dissimilarity of characters, became friends. They had a lot to talk about. But, if you take a closer look, Onegin and Lensky were antipodes in to a greater extent than Onegin and some “village old-timer” like his late uncle:

They got along. Wave and stone

Poetry and prose, ice and fire

Not so different from each other.

Onegin is a person satiated with pleasures, equally yawning “among fashionable and ancient halls.” He is still able to appreciate the sincerity and strength of Tatyana’s feelings, but he does not want and cannot share them, since his soul has lost spontaneity and faith in happiness.

And Lensky, unlike Onegin, sincerely believes in love and friendship. He is still very young; He devoted the years spent in Germany to study and paid little attention to reality. He cherishes lofty dreams, but he has not yet encountered the inconstancy and meanness of people:

From the cold depravity of the world

Before you even have time to fade,

His soul was warmed

Hello friend, caress girls.

And if Onegin locked his heart to feelings, then Lensky was in love, “like people no longer love in our years.” Of course, Olga is very sweet - with the charm of youth, liveliness, spontaneity, but Lensky does not notice the character traits of his bride. He sees in her an ideal, which he glorifies. We can say that he came up with a certain image and identified it with Olga, whom he has known since childhood. In the same way, Tatyana transfers the features of the heroes of the novels to Onegin, who, despite his coldness and indifference, still noticed that “Olga has no life in her features,” telling Lensky that in his place he would choose another sister. Thus, Onegin (and Pushkin, of course) contrasts the two sisters.

Always modest, always obedient,

Always cheerful like the morning...

Eyes like the sky are blue,

Smile, flaxen curls.

A charming doll portrait, but don't look for depth or consistency in it! And how does Pushkin draw Tatiana, his favorite heroine? She is not at all like her sister: thoughtful, silent, dreamy, she has loved solitude since childhood:

Not your sister's beauty,

Nor the freshness of her ruddy

She wouldn't attract anyone's attention.

Dick, sad, silent,

Like a forest deer is timid,

She is in her own family

The girl seemed like a stranger.

The dissimilarity between the sisters is also evident in the way they approach love. Olga, a cheerful playful girl, can calmly flirt with others in the presence of her fiancé. And when the ill-fated Lensky dies in a duel with Onegin, Olga quickly finds consolation and marries a lancer. It is unlikely that she remembered her first love for a long time.

Tatyana's attitude towards her suddenly flared up feelings for Onegin is completely different. The heroine not only takes her feelings for Onegin seriously, she sincerely believes that this is fate, that this is for life. It is in this attitude to love that the explanation that the girl decided to write the letter herself is rooted young man and confess your feelings, although in those days this was considered a bold offense. And even when Onegin rejects Tatiana’s love, the girl continues to love him. When she becomes a princess, a society lady, she still does not forget her first and only love.

But if deep down in her soul Tatyana remains the same, then her manners change so much that Onegin barely recognizes in the princess the village girl who once confessed her love to him. Onegin told her: “...learn to control yourself.” Well, she learned this science well! Previously, everyone could have noticed Tatiana's confusion (if only the attention of the guests at her name day had not been distracted by the fatty pie). Now no one can read on the girl’s face what is happening in her soul. Perhaps the meeting with Onegin at a social event stirred up memories in Tatyana of her former life and naive girlish dreams, but she did not betray her experiences in any way:

Onegin and Tatyana change roles. Once he was indifferent to the girl, now he is looking for her attention. Once, in self-forgetfulness of feelings, she wrote a letter to Onegin declaring her love, now he writes to her. And Tatyana is cold and imperturbable. She can talk to Onegin, she can not notice him. Tatyana does not distinguish him in any way from other guests who visit her house or those houses where she visits. In those stanzas where Pushkin talks about Tatyana’s new appearance, he constantly reminds of what she was like, compares, contrasts the society lady with the former naive young lady, obsessed with reading sentimental books. romance novels. But at the end of the work it becomes clear that the contrast between the current and former Tatiana is purely external, conditional. Deep down in her heart she regrets the simple rural life and loves Onegin no matter what. “But I was given to another and I will be faithful to him forever,” she responds to Onegin’s love confession. Tatyana remains faithful not only to her husband, but also to herself.

Theory of literature Khalizev Valentin Evgenievich

§ 6. Co- and oppositions

§ 6. Co- and oppositions

In the construction of works, comparisons of subject-speech units play an almost decisive role. L.N. Tolstoy said that “the essence of art” lies “in<…>an endless labyrinth of couplings."

At the origins of compositional analogies, similarities and contrasts (antitheses) - figurative parallelism, characteristic primarily of song poetry different countries and eras. This construction technique was carefully studied by A.N. Veselovsky. The scientist explored numerous comparisons between phenomena inner life man and nature in historically early poetry, especially folk poetry. According to his thought, the original and “simplest” form of “analogies” and “comparisons” in poetic creativity is binomial parallelism, which compares nature and human life. Example from Russian folk song: “The silk grass spreads and curls/Across the meadow/Kisses and favors/Mikhail his wife.” Binary parallelism can also have other functions, for example, bringing different natural phenomena closer together. These are the words of the folk song “Height, height under heaven, / Depth, depth of the ocean-sea,” known from Sadko’s aria (opera by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov).

Veselovsky associates two-term parallelism in its original form with the animism of historically early thinking, which connected natural phenomena with human reality. He also claims that it was from binary parallelism of this kind that symbols, metaphors, and allegorical imagery of fables about animals grew. Poetry's commitment to parallelism was, according to Veselovsky, predetermined by the manner of performing song texts in two voices: the second performer picked up and complemented the first.

Along with the parallelism of syntactic constructions, comparisons (both in contrast and in similarity) of larger text units: events and, most importantly, characters are rooted in literary works. Fairy tale, as shown by V.Ya. Propp always correlates the images of the hero and his opponent (“pest”). As a rule, it is impossible to do without sharp and evaluatively clear character antitheses, without “polarization” of what is being recreated, without contrasting favorable and unfavorable circumstances and events for the heroes.

Incompatibilities and opposites prevail in the character organization and plot construction works and other genres. Let us remember the epic about Ilya Muromets and the filthy Idol, the fairy tale about Cinderella, the antipode of which is the Stepmother; or - from later artistic experience - Molière's opposition to Tartuffe of Cleante. The sane Chatsky in “Woe from Wit” is “opposite,” according to A. S. Griboedov, with twenty-five fools; To the dragon in the famous play by E.L. Schwartz is the antithesis of Lancelot.

The principle of opposition, however, does not reign supreme in literature. Over time, from era to era, along with antitheses (character and event), more dialectical, flexible comparisons of facts and phenomena as simultaneously different and similar became stronger. Thus, in Pushkin’s novel in verse, the three main characters - Onegin, Tatyana, Lensky - are opposed to each other and at the same time similar to one another in their sublime aspirations, “not fitting” into the surrounding reality, and dissatisfaction with it. And the events in the lives of the heroes (first of all, the two explanations of Onegin and Tatyana) with their inescapable drama are more similar to each other than contrasting.

Much is based on comparisons of similarities in “War and Peace”, and in “The Brothers Karamazov”, and in “The Master and Margarita”. This type is most clear artistic construction made itself felt in the plays of A.P. Chekhov, where the oppositions (of heroes and events) moved to the periphery, giving way to the disclosure of various manifestations of the same essentially the same, deepest life drama of the depicted environment, where there are neither completely right nor completely guilty. The writer recreates the world of people helpless in front of life, in which, according to Olga from “Three Sisters,” “everything is not done our way.” “Every play says: it is not individual people who are to blame, but the entire existing structure of life as a whole,” wrote A.P. Skaftymov about Chekhov's plays. “And people’s only fault is that they are weak.” And the fates of the characters, and the events that make up Chekhov's dramatic stories, and stage episodes, and individual statements are linked in such a way that they appear as an endlessly stretching chain of confirmations that the discord between people and life and the destruction of their hopes are inevitable, that thoughts of happiness and the fullness of being are vain. The “components” of the artistic whole here do not so much contrast as complement each other. There is something similar in the so-called “theater of the absurd” (almost in most of the plays of E. Ionesco and S. Beckett), where events and characters are similar to each other in their incongruity, “puppet-likeness,” and absurdity.

The components of what is depicted in the work, as can be seen, are always correlated with each other. An artistic creation is the focus of mutual “roll calls”, sometimes very numerous, rich and varied. And, of course, meaningful in content, activating the reader, directing his reactions.