In his timeless comedy “Woe from Wit,” Griboedov managed to create a whole gallery of truthful and typical characters that are still recognizable today. The images of Chatsky and Sophia are the most interesting to me, because their relationship is far from being as simple as it might seem at first glance.
Both Sophia and Chatsky carry within themselves those qualities that most representatives of Famus society do not possess. They are distinguished by willpower, the ability to experience “living passions,” dedication, and the ability to draw their own conclusions.
Sophia and Chatsky grew up and were brought up together in Famusov’s house:
The habit of being together every day inseparably tied us together with childhood friendship...
During the time spent together, Chatsky managed to recognize in Sophia an intelligent, extraordinary, determined girl and fell in love with her for these qualities. When he, matured, gaining intelligence, having seen a lot, returns to his homeland, we understand that his feelings “were not cooled by the distance, nor by entertainment, nor by a change of place.” He is happy to see Sophia, who has gotten amazingly prettier during the separation, and is sincerely happy to meet her.
Chatsky cannot understand that in the three years while he was gone, Famus society left its ugly mark on the girl. Having read French sentimental novels, Sophia longs for love and wants to be loved, but Chatsky is far away, so she chooses to express her feelings a person who is certainly not worthy of her love. A flatterer and a hypocrite, “the most pitiful creature,” Mol-chalin only uses his relationship with Sophia for selfish purposes, hoping for further advancement up the career ladder. But Sophia, overwhelmed by feelings, is unable to see the true face under the mask, and therefore directs sincere, tender, sacrifice-ready love to the coward and sycophant.
Chatsky soon realizes that Sophia does not share his feelings, and wants to know who her chosen one is - his rival. Much says that this lucky man is Molchalin, but Chatsky does not want and cannot believe it, seeing in the palm of his hand the true essence of the low sycophant.
But does he have that passion, that feeling, that ardor, so that except for you the whole world seems like dust and vanity to him? So that every beat of the heart accelerates towards you with Love?
Accepting Sophia's coldness, Chatsky does not demand reciprocal feelings from her, because it is impossible to make a heart love! However, he strives to know the logic of her actions, her choice, he wants to know those merits of Molchalin that made the girl choose him, but he just can’t find them. To believe that Sophia and Molchalin are close, for Chatsky, means the destruction of his faith and ideas, the recognition that Sophia not only did not grow spiritually during the separation, did not learn to critically comprehend what was happening, but also turned into an ordinary representative of Famus society.
Sophia really went through a good school in her father’s house, she learned to pretend, lie, dodge, but she does this not out of selfish interests, but trying to protect her love. She feels a deep dislike for people who speak impartially about her chosen one, so Chatsky, with his ardor, witticisms and attacks, turns into an enemy for the girl. Defending her love, Sophia is even ready to take treacherous revenge on an old close friend who madly loves her: she starts a rumor about Chatsky’s madness. We see that Sophia rejects Chatsky not only out of female pride, but also for the same reasons for which Famusov’s Moscow does not accept him: his independent and mocking mind scares Sophia, he is “not his own”, from a different circle:
Will such a mind make a family happy?
Meanwhile, Chatsky is still looking for a definition of Sophia’s feelings and is deceived, because everything that he despises has been elevated to the rank of virtue in noble Moscow. Chatsky still hopes for the clarity of Sophia’s mind and feelings, and therefore once again writes Molchalin off:
With such feelings, with such a soul We love!.. The deceiver laughed at me!
But here is the tragic moment of the solution! This moment is truly cruel and tragic, because everyone suffered from it. What did our heroes learn from this lesson?
Chatsky is so shocked by the simplicity of the solution that he breaks not only the threads connecting him with Famusov’s society, he breaks off his relationship with Sophia, offended and humiliated by her choice to the depths of his soul: Material from the site
Here I am donated to! I don’t know how I curbed my rage! I looked and saw and didn’t believe it!
He cannot contain his emotions, his disappointment, indignation, resentment, and blames Sophia for everything. Losing his composure, he reproaches the girl for deception, although it was in her relationship with Chatsky that Sophia was at least cruel, but honest. Now the girl is really in an unenviable position, but she has enough willpower and self-esteem to break off relations with Molchalin and admit to herself her illusions and mistakes:
From then on, it was as if I didn’t know you. Don’t you dare expect my reproaches, complaints, tears, you’re not worth them. But don't let dawn catch you in the house here. May I never hear from you again.
For everything that happened, Sophia blames “herself all around.” Her situation seems hopeless, since, having rejected Molchalin, having lost her devoted friend Chatsky and being left with an angry father, she is alone again. There will be no one to help her survive grief and humiliation, to support her. But I want to believe that she will cope with everything, and that Chatsky, saying: “You will make peace with him after mature reflection,” is wrong.
Griboedov's comedy once again reminded me that at the origins of people's actions lie ambiguous, often contradictory motives, and in order to correctly unravel them, you need to have not only a clear mind, but also intuition, a wide heart, and an open soul.
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On this page there is material on the following topics:
- lesson on the topic of images of Chatsky by Sofia Molchalina
- character analysis of Chatsky and Sophia
- love in the understanding of Chatsky and Sophia essay
- Chatsky's love for Sophia and the hypocritical mask of Molchalin
- Woe from Wit portraits of Chatsky and Sophia
Love in the understanding of Chatsky and Sophia" from the work of A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit". The comedy "Woe from Wit" by Griboyedov is undoubtedly a work of great social significance. It reflected the rebellious time when freedom-loving ideas spread throughout Russia. At the center of the play is Alexander Andreevich Chatsky, who embodied the best features of the progressive noble youth of the beginning of the century. This hero combines two comedy storylines. One contains a conflict between the “past century” and the “present century” and proposes a confrontation between Chatsky and Famusov. Another storyline - Chatsky - Sophia - reveals the personal drama of the protagonist.
Sophia, standing between the Famusov society and Chatsky, played a big role in creating the hero’s “millions of torments,” although she herself experienced her own “woe from the mind.” “Sophia is drawn unclearly...” noted Pushkin. Indeed, in her behavior and moods there is a contradiction between a sober mind and sentimental experiences. Her excellent understanding of the characters of her father and Skalozub is combined with complete blindness in relation to Molchalin. Sophia is much taller than her peers, so poisonously depicted by Griboyedov in the person of the six Tugoukhovsky princesses, for whom it is not love that is important, but a rich “husband-boy”, “husband-servant”. Sophia lives only by love. Molchalin’s low and dependent position even seems to intensify her attraction to him. Her feeling is serious, it gives her the courage not to be afraid of the opinion of the “world”.
We cannot agree that Famusov’s words about Moscow girls: “They won’t say a word in simplicity, they all have a grimace,” have a direct bearing on his daughter. She is always sincere. “What is rumor to me? Whoever wants to judge it,” she says. Sophia is not alien to spiritual interests, she is not carried away by secular vanity. Famusov calls her reading books a “whim.” Indeed, then this was news for a noble girl. Sophia is horrified that her father will predict Skalozub as her groom, who “will not utter a smart word right away.” She also does not like empty cleverness, wit and slander. However, Chatsky’s mercilessly logical, sharp thought is alien and unpleasant to her. Sophia has not grown up to her, she is too full of “sensitivity”. She was brought up in the age of Karamzin and Zhukovsky. Her ideal is a timid, dreamy young man, whose image was depicted in sentimental-romantic literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This is exactly how Sofya Molchalin appears to be.
Her unexpected love for her father's secretary cannot be understood unless you think about everything that happened between her and Chatsky. He attracted her, but suddenly, in a fit of Onegin blues, when he was tired of everything in the world, including her, he went abroad and did not write her a word for three years. Sophia, listening to the lover Chatsky, thinks that he can only “pretend to be in love”, that he “has thought highly of himself.” She exclaims ironically: “The desire to wander attacked him... Ah! If someone loves someone, why search for the mind and travel so far?”
I think that one cannot condemn Sophia for her love for Molchalin. Love for Molchalin is her healthy portrait, her bitter reaction to her love for Chatsky, from which she was left with a feeling of disappointment, resentment, insult. Molchalin may not be as bright as Chatsky, but you can rely on Molchalin’s feelings.
Maybe Molchalin didn’t want Sophia to love him. Molchalin was timidly respectful to everyone who pleased her, like “with a janitor’s dog, so that she would be affectionate.” He wanted to gain the sympathy of the boss's daughter. He tried so hard to gain her favor that she mistook this obsequiousness for the deep, reverent love that she met in sentimental French novels, so hated by her father.
“Woe from Wit” is a multifaceted work. In it one can see a social parody, a criticism of the regime, and a historical sketch of morals. Not the least important place in the book is the love affair. Chatsky’s attitude towards Sophia, their feelings are the core that serves as the basis of the plot, filling it with life and emotions.
Characters through the eyes of schoolchildren
You can analyze “Woe from Wit” endlessly. Consider individual plots
moves with a magnifying glass, compare quotes with the memoirs of contemporaries and biographies of alleged prototypes. But this is the approach of a professional analyst, literary critic. In school lessons the work is read completely differently. And they are analyzed in accordance with the recommendations of methodological publications.
There is a certain type of topic that the Ministry of Education regularly offers students for comprehension and subsequent writing of essays: “Is Sophia worthy of Chatsky’s love?”, “Was Karenina right in making the decision to divorce?”, “Characteristics of the actions of Prince Myshkin.” It is not entirely clear what the education system wants to achieve with this. Such an analysis has nothing in common with the literature itself. This is, rather, a monologue of a grandmother at the entrance, discussing whether Klava from the third apartment was right when she kicked out Vaska the alcoholic, or whether she was wrong.
And the life experience of a 9th grade student hardly allows one to judge what the character should have done. It is unlikely that he will be able to understand what irritates Sophia in Chatsky and why. Except, of course, for the obvious things - those that the heroine herself talks about.
Peculiarities of perception of the play
Traditional
The interpretation of the play “Woe from Wit” is as follows - principled, noble and uncompromising. Those around him are low, narrow-minded and conservative people who do not understand or accept the advanced, innovative ideology of the protagonist. Chatsky speaks, denounces and mocks, attacks the vices of society with his words, and society writhes from well-aimed hits, is angry and indignant.
It is difficult to say whether this is the effect Griboedov was trying to achieve. There is an opposite version, which explains the construction of the play with endless monologues and appeals of the main character precisely by the fact that the author parodied the image of a liberal who talks a lot and does nothing. And the characteristics of Sophia and Chatsky are largely determined by how the reader perceives the work. In the first case, he sees an idealistic hero and a bourgeois woman who did not appreciate his impulses, in the second - a chatterbox-demagogue and... still not an appreciative of his impulses. Is it so?
Details of plot collisions
Who are Chatsky and Sophia? He is twenty-one, she is seventeen. Separated for three years
back. Chatsky left as soon as he came of age, left his guardian’s house and returned to the family estate. Didn't come, didn't write. He just took it and disappeared. For what reasons is not so important. But how should a fourteen-year-old girl in love feel when the man she considers her lover, her future groom, just picks up and leaves like that? Not for a week, not for a month. For three years. Even at thirty this is a long time. And at fourteen it’s an eternity. What was he doing all this time? Who were you thinking about? Can she be sure that love is still alive?
At fourteen years old, with teenage maximalism, with teenage emotionality. Critics make demands on the girl that not every adult woman meets. But Chatsky’s attitude towards Sophia is far from an obvious point. It is enough to imagine the situation through the eyes of the girl, and not the omniscient reader to whom Griboyedov told everything. Isn’t it more logical to ask: should Sophia at all retain at least some feelings for Chatsky? And if so, why? He is not her husband, not her fiancé. He is a romantic admirer, who at one point fled like a moth from a clearing for three whole years. He had an impulse from his soul. Feelings. Offended dignity. What about her? She shouldn't have felt offended, bewildered, angry in such a situation? Disappointment at last? Penelope, of course, waited for Odysseus much longer - but the situation was completely different. Chatsky is far from Odysseus.
Sophia close up
But all this remains behind the scenes. Yes, the attentive reader will understand everything himself if
thinks, but the situation is still presented in hints, snippets of conversations, memories. Therefore, it may well elude a person who is accustomed to seeing only the main plot line of the work. What's there?
Chatsky suddenly returns to his guardian's house, where he has not been for three years. He's excited, he's excited, he's happy. Chatsky's attitude towards Sophia remained the same. But she already loves someone else. The first one is still forgotten. She is passionate about Molchalin. Alas, the chosen one is very bad. Objectively, he is poor, of lower class, this is an obvious misalliance. And subjectively he is a weak-willed sycophant, a flatterer and a nonentity. Although, it should be noted, his prospects are quite good. Molchalin has already begun to make a career and is coping well with the task. It can be assumed that Sophia's new chosen one will go far
At the same time, the young man himself is not in love at all, he is simply afraid to admit it. And the prospect of a profitable marriage is also probably very attractive to him. Often it is this unfortunate choice that is blamed on the girl, answering the question, is Sophia worthy of Chatsky’s love? She traded the eagle for a plucked sparrow, stupid.
Who is Sophia? A girl who grew up without a mother, locked up, almost never leaving the threshold of the house. Her social circle is her father, who has no idea about raising children in general and daughters in particular, and a maid. What might Sophia know about men? Where can she get any experience? The only source of information is books. Ladies' French novels that her daddy allows her to read. How could such a girl discern the insincerity of a person who had gained the trust of much older and more experienced people? This is simply unrealistic.
Sophia is very young, she is naive, romantic and inexperienced. Molchalin is the only young man she sees almost every day. He is poor, honest, unhappy, timid and charming. Everything is the same as in the novels that Sophia reads every day. Of course, she simply could not help but fall in love.
What about Chatsky?
Chatsky’s personality deserves the same close attention. Is this a mistake?
does Sophia do? If you look at the situation objectively, is this marriage a big loss in her life?
Chatsky is twenty-one. He couldn't find a place for himself. Tried there, tried here. But... “I’d be glad to serve, but it’s sickening to be served.” But a position that would meet his needs still doesn’t come across. On what means does Chatsky live? He has an estate. And, naturally, serfs. This is the main source of income for the young liberal. The very one who ardently and sincerely condemns it calls it barbarism and savagery. This is such a funny problem.
Does Chatsky have any prospects? He won't make a career, that's obvious. Neither the military - he is not a stupid martinet. Neither financially - he is not a huckster. Neither political - he will not betray ideals. He won’t become another Demidov either - his grip is not the same. Chatsky is one of those who speak, and not one of those who do.
His reputation is already ruined, society is running away from him like the plague. It is very likely that Chatsky will spend his entire life in his family name, occasionally traveling to resorts and the capital. What irritates Sophia in Chatsky already now will only progress; with age, he will become even more caustic and cynical, embittered by constant failures and disappointments. Can marriage with such a person be considered a successful match? And will Sophia be happy with him - just humanly happy? Even if Chatsky really loves her and keeps this love? Hardly. Perhaps the ending of the play is tragic only for the main character. Sophia was just lucky. Got off cheap.
And about posing the question
Although, when Chatsky’s attitude towards Sophia is discussed in the key: is she worthy of such great love or not - this in itself is strange. Unethical. Is it possible to be worthy of love? What is this, a bonus? Promotion? Compliance with the position held? They don’t love for something, they love for no reason. Because this person is needed, and no one else. That's life. And no love obliges its object to experience reciprocal feelings. Alas. The question itself is incorrect. You can not do it this way. Love is not a potato in the market to tell whether it is worth what they ask for it. And even schoolchildren should be clearly aware of this, not to mention older people.
The comedy “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov is undoubtedly a work of great social significance. It reflected the rebellious time when freedom-loving ideas spread throughout Russia. At the center of the play is Alexander Andreevich Chatsky, who embodied the best features of the progressive noble youth of the beginning of the century. This hero combines two comedy storylines. One (the main one) contains a conflict between the “present century” and the “past century” and proposes a confrontation between Chatsky and Famusov. Another plot point - Chatsky - Sophia - reveals the personal drama of the protagonist.
Sophia, standing between the Famus camp and Chatsky, played a big role in creating the hero’s “minion of torment,” although she herself experienced her own “woe from the mind.” “Sophia is drawn unclearly...” noted Pushkin. Indeed, in her behavior and moods there is a contradiction between a sober mind and sentimental experiences. Her excellent understanding of the characters of her father and Skalozub is combined with complete blindness in relation to Molchalin. Sophia is much taller than her peers, so poisonously portrayed by Griboyedov in the person of the six Tugoukhovsky princesses, for whom it is not love that is important, but a rich “husband-boy”, “husband-servant”. Sophia lives only by love. Molchalin’s low and dependent position even seems to intensify her attraction to him. Her feeling is serious, it gives her the courage not to be afraid of the opinion of the “light”.
We cannot agree that Famusov’s words about Moscow girls: “They won’t say a word in simplicity, they all have a grimace,” have a direct bearing on his daughter. She is always sincere. “What do I need rumors? (Whoever wants, judges that way,” she says. Sophia is not alien to spiritual interests, she is not carried away by secular vanity. Famusov calls her reading books a “whim.” Indeed, then this was news for a noble girl. Sophia is horrified by the fact that her father predicts Skalozub as her groom, who “wouldn’t immediately say that he’s smart.” She also doesn’t like empty cleverness, wit and malicious language. However, Chatsky’s mercilessly logical, sharp thought is alien and unpleasant to her; Sophia has not grown up to her, she is too full of “sensibility.” "She was brought up in the age of Karamzin and Zhukovsky. Her ideal is a timid, dreamy young man, the image of whom was depicted in the sentimental-romantic literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This is exactly how Sofya Molchalin appears.
Her unexpected love for her father's secretary cannot be understood unless you think about everything that happened between her and Chatsky. He attracted her, but suddenly, in a fit of Onegin blues, when he was tired of everything in the world, including her, he went abroad and did not write her a word for three years. Sophia, listening to the lover Chatsky, thinks that he can only “pretend to be in love”, that he “has thought highly of himself.” She exclaims ironically: “The desire to wander attacked him... Ah! If someone loves someone, why bother searching and traveling so far?”
I think that one cannot condemn Sophia for her love for Molchalin. Love for Molchalin is her healthy protest, her bitter reaction to her love for Chatsky, from which she is left with a feeling of disappointment, resentment, insult. Let Molchalin not be as bright as Chatsky, but Molchalin’s feelings (according to her conviction) can be relied upon.
Maybe Molchalin didn’t want Sophia to love him. Molchalin, who pleases everyone, was timidly respectful with her, like “with a janitor’s dog, so that she would be affectionate.” He wanted to gain the sympathy of the boss's daughter. He tried so hard to gain her favor that she mistook this obsequiousness for the deep, reverent love that she encountered in the sentimental French novels that her father so hated.
Sophia saw in Molchalin’s cowardly timidity the noble, chaste timidity of an exalted soul. And it was not immorality that forced her to spend her nights locked up with Molchalin. And many critics reproached her for this. It is confidence in the purity of Molchalin’s thoughts in relation to her, contempt for “rumor” and, of course, love that guides Sophia.
Without seeing Molchalin, she failed to appreciate Chatsky, did not see, like the clever maid Liza, that Chatsky is not only “cheerful and sharp,” but also “sensitive,” that is, not only smart, but also gentle.
It seems to me that when Sophia and Chatsky grew up together, he undoubtedly influenced her. This is what taught Sophia not to turn away from the poor, not to despise them, despite her father’s philosophy - “Whoever is poor is not a match for you.” Three years of separation from Chatsky could not help but change Sophia, and leave an imprint on the false, affected environment of the Moscow “society”.
Chatsky’s freedom-loving thoughts, caustic, caustic ridicule towards people in her circle, especially Molchalin, now irritate Sophia. “Not a man - a snake!” - she speaks about him. And Chatsky feels sincere, ardent love for Sophia. He declares his love for her at his first appearance. There is no secrecy, no falsehood in Chatsky. The strength and nature of his feelings can be judged by the words about Molchalin addressed to Sophia:
But does he have that passion? that feeling?
that ardor?
So that, apart from you, the whole world seems like dust and vanity to him?
Chatsky is having a hard time with his disappointment in his girlfriend. (“And you... who did you choose over me!”) For his impatience, he reproaches her even for what she is not guilty of before him:
Why did they lure me with hope?
Why didn't they tell me directly?
That you turned everything that happened into laughter?
Goncharov notes in this regard that Chatsky acted out a scene of jealousy without having any right to do so. This speaks not only of the blindness of Sophia in love, but also of the blindness of Chatsky in love. The traditional love triangle is broken. Both Sophia and Molchalin are offended in their feelings. And both are trying to lead with dignity. No matter how hard it was for Sophia, she found the courage and dignity not to burst into tears, not to show her weakness in any way. She is irreconcilable with Molchalin, crawling at her feet. In every word one can feel a proud character worthy of Chatsky. She demands that Molchalin immediately leave their house, and that “from now on it’s as if I didn’t know you.”
In my opinion, Sophia is certainly worthy of Chatsky’s love. She is smart and brave no less than Chatsky, because she managed to endure the consequences of her mistake.
In the article “A Million Torments,” Goncharov noted that Sophia “has the makings of a remarkable nature.” It was not for nothing that Chatsky loved her. She deserves sympathy when her father’s sentence sounds: “To the village, to her aunt, to the wilderness, to Saratov.”
Showing the love “duel” of the heroes, Griboyedov discovers personality not only in Chatsky alone, but also in Sophia. And this also confirms that Sophia is a worthy object of love. But, unfortunately, their love did not materialize. Both are in trouble, and it is difficult to say who “hit” harder, more painfully. With the light hand of Sofia, Chatsky was declared a madman. He is expelled from both the girl’s heart and society.
Thus, the personal drama complicates his public drama, embittering Chatsky more and more against the entire noble Moscow.