Symbol - (from the ancient Greek symbolon - sign, omen) - a multi-valued allegorical image based on the similarity, resemblance or commonality of objects and phenomena of life. A symbol can express a system of correspondences between different aspects of reality (the natural world and human life, society and personality, real and unreal, earthly and heavenly, external and internal).

The symbol is closely related in origin and principles of figurative translation of reality with other types of allegories. But, unlike, for example, figurative parallelism or comparison (these allegorical images, as a rule, consist of two parts, that is, two-membered), the image-symbol is single-membered. In a symbol, again in contrast to figurative parallelism and comparison, identity or similarity with another object or phenomenon is not obvious and is not fixed verbally or syntactically.

Unlike a metaphor, an image-symbol has multiple meanings. He admits that the reader may have a wide variety of associations. In addition, the meaning of the symbol most often does not coincide with the meaning of the metaphor word. The understanding and interpretation of a symbol is always broader than the similes or metaphorical allegories from which it is composed.

A symbolic image can arise as a result of the use of a wide variety of figurative means: metaphors, figurative parallelisms, comparisons. In some cases, a symbolic image is created without the use of any other types of allegories.

Unlike an allegory, a symbolic image does not have a straightforward, rational meaning. He always retains lively, emotional associations with a wide range of phenomena.

Symbolic images are widely used in literary works: in lyric poetry, epic and drama. Correct interpretation symbols contributes to a deep and correct reading of literary texts. Failure to understand the symbolic nature of images, on the contrary, can lead to gross errors in the interpretation of the text and to a distortion of the author's intention. Symbols always expand the semantic perspective of a work and allow the reader, based on the author’s “tips,” to build a chain of associations connecting various phenomena life. Writers use symbolization (the creation of images-symbols) in order to destroy the illusion of life-likeness that often arises among readers, to emphasize the ambiguity and greater semantic depth of the images they create.

In many of Lermontov's works, natural phenomena often become symbols. Symbolization is a favorite technique of the romantic poet, reflecting on the fate of man in the broad context of world, universal life. A lonely pine and a palm tree (“In the wild north it stands alone...”), a lonely old cliff (“The Cliff”), an oak leaf (“The oak leaf tore off from the branch of the darling...”) are symbols of lonely people suffering from their loneliness or alienation. “Golden cloud” is a symbol of short-lived happiness that makes a person suffer.

A capacious symbol is nature in the poem “Mtsyri”: this is a world in which romantic hero sees a semblance of an ideal world of “anxiety and battles” created by him in his soul. Nature is the goal and meaning of his escape from the monastery, the “homeland” where he dreams of returning. But nature also becomes a formidable rival for Mtsyri: the leopard with whom the hero entered into battle is not just a strong and beautiful animal, it is a symbol of the brute force of nature, its hostility to man. The fight with the leopard is symbolic: it became a duel between the matter of nature, embodied in the leopard, and the unbending, proud human spirit, embodied in Mtsyri.

Symbolization, the creation of symbols based on a wide variety of associations, is a striking feature romantic literature. However, realist writers also use symbols, creating multi-valued generalization images associated with various aspects of people's lives.

In L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace,” at key moments in the heroes’ spiritual quest, the author creates symbolic images that clarify the heroes’ attitude to life, helping to understand their self-knowledge or insight. For example, Prince Andrei, wounded in the battle of Austerlitz, sees a “bottomless blue sky” above him. The symbol of the sky here is both a psychological symbol, clarifying the state of the hero’s soul, and a philosophical symbol, expressing the writer’s attitude to life, understanding of its bottomless depth and the multiplicity of goals that can arise for a person and humanity.

The symbolic image of the cherry orchard is the basis of A.P. Chekhov’s play “ Cherry Orchard" This symbol reveals the characters’ and author’s ideas about life, fate, time, and becomes a figurative “echo” spiritual world heroes. In addition, the cherry orchard is a philosophical symbol that emphasizes the connection of times, the interpenetration of various layers of life, the destinies of the former and new owners of the garden, younger generation, looking to the future.

There are two main types of symbols.

The first type includes symbols that are based in cultural tradition. They are part of culture; to construct them, writers use the language of culture, which is, in principle, understandable to a more or less informed reader. Of course, each such symbol acquires individual semantic shades that are close to the writer and important to him in a particular work.

Such “cultural-historical” symbols are the image-symbols of “sea”, “ship”, “sail”, “road”, “path”, “garden”, “sky”, “blizzard”, “fire”, “crown” , “shield” and “sword”, “rose”, “cross”, “nightingale” and many others. Images, heroes, and plots previously created by culture can become symbols. For example, the biblical image of a prophet, the image of a sower and the parable of the sower from the Gospel, medieval symbolic images of the Beautiful Lady and her knight, the image of Odysseus and his wanderings (“odyssey”), the image of Arion - the mythical singer saved by a dolphin, etc. These are, as it were, ready-made symbolic structures that writers could complement and rethink, creating new variations of symbolic images on their basis. In Russian literature, especially often, the source of new symbols was ancient mythology, and also biblical images and stories.

The second type includes symbols created without relying on cultural tradition. Such symbols arose on the basis of semantic relationships within one literary work or a series of works. These are the symbols of the cherry orchard in A.P. Chekhov’s play, the leopard in M.Yu. Lermontov’s poem “Mtsyri”, the “solitary” oak, the “patriarch of the forests”, in the poems of A.S. Pushkin “Do I wander along the noisy streets... ..” and “When outside the city, thoughtfully, I wander...”, the madly rushing “Rus-troika” in N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”.

Especially often, individual symbols were created by Russian symbolist writers, who considered them not just one of the types of allegorical images, but the most important category of artistic worldview. For example, in the poetry of A.A. Blok, who widely used traditional symbols (“rose”, “cross”, “shield”, Sophia, Queen, Beautiful Lady, etc.), the main place is occupied by individual symbols created by the poet .

The Beautiful Lady of Blok’s early poems is replaced by the Stranger and the Snow Maiden, the image-symbol of “a youth lighting candles” is replaced by the image-symbol of a man “nailed to a tavern counter”, escaping in a wine stupor from the horrors and temptations of a “terrible world”. " Scary world" is one of the most capacious and significant symbols in Blok’s late lyrics. This image arises as a result of the poet’s symbolic understanding of everything that he sees in the world around him and in himself. In Blok’s lyrics, from poem to poem, from cycle to cycle, images-symbols of the path, distance, movement, “ring of existence” unfold: they express the poet’s ideas about the eternal and transitory in people’s lives, about his fate and the fate of the world, they create a “myth” about man and time.

Ideas about symbols among Russian symbolist writers of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. do not coincide with traditional ones. For them, a symbol was not only an artistic image capable of expressing generalized ideas about the world and man. For them, a symbol is the most important “tool” in their special way of comprehending reality. This is a means of cognition and penetration into the world of mystical “entities” through the world of simple and clear, sensually perceived “things”. The symbol was considered by symbolist writers on a par with such aesthetic categories as “beautiful”, “ugly”, “tragic”, “comic”. But a broad aesthetic perception of the symbol seemed insufficient. Many symbolists considered the symbol to be a “super-aesthetic” category, a category of worldview, an element of the mythological perception of the world.

Introduction

From the first day of its publication, Tolstoy's novel had mixed assessment. Slivitskaya O.V.: “Anna Karenina” seems to be designed for the fact that judgments about her can and should be very diverse. This is its organic property. The very artistic fabric of the novel provokes the effect of ambiguity.” Disputes in research circles continue to this day.

This work aims to isolate and analyze symbols in the novel. This topic seems relevant, since today it is one of the poorly developed ones. In the process of reasoning, we will try to determine the main features of Tolstoy’s use of symbols in the poetics of Anna Karenina, identify the most striking of them, and try to interpret and decipher them.

The first part of the work will be devoted to identifying a clear definition of the concept of symbol and symbolism in fiction. Highlighting the specifics of the symbol and its difference from allegory.

In the second part we present characteristic symbolic images and details, we will try to characterize them, based not only on the artistic fabric of the novel, but also on the world literary heritage.

The concept of symbol in literature

Before proceeding to the analysis and analysis of the symbolism of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina", it would not be amiss to say a few words about the very concept of a symbol as such. Ozhegov S.I. defines a symbol as something that serves as a conventional sign of some concept, phenomenon, idea. This concept too general, not giving a complete picture of the symbol in literature. Let's try to understand this concept deeper.

The word symbol itself came to us from Greek language(symbolon - sign, identification mark; symballo - connect, collide, compare). IN Ancient Greece symbols were the halves of a stick cut in two, on which the amounts of debt, collected tax, etc. were marked with signs, as well as a conventional identification mark for members of a secret organization. Based strictly on Greek meaning words, then the symbol is an emblem, conventional artistic image A. Since a symbol has a sign nature, it has all the properties of a sign. However, if the essence of a simple sign is only an indication, then is the symbol limited to this function?

A symbol is not only the name of any particular particularity, unlike a sign, it captures the connection of this particularity with many others, subordinating this connection to one law, a single principle, leading them to a certain single universal. By combining various layers of reality into a single whole, the symbol creates its own complex multidimensional structure, a unique semantic perspective, the explanation and understanding of which requires the interpreter to work with codes of various levels. Therefore, a symbol in literature has not one, but an inexhaustible set of meanings and has an extraordinary semantic capacity.

Losev A.F. develops the concept of a symbol as a constructive principle of possible manifestations of a separate individuality or as a general orientation of various and opposing individuals united into a “single integrity”. In a symbol, “substantial identity of an infinite series of things covered by one model” is achieved, i.e. Losev defines a symbol based on its structure as a combination of a signifier and a signified, in which something that, in its immediate content, has nothing in common with each other, is identified. The essence of identity, according to Losev, is difference. The researcher speaks about the lack of a direct connection and meaningful equality between the symbol and the symbolized, so similarity does not enter into the essence of the symbol.

You can often find an interpretation of a symbol as an allegory, i.e. allegories. This explanation is too superficial, and, moreover, it does not give a clear definition of the symbol and confuses two concepts together, without differentiating or separating their qualitative individual characteristics. Let's dwell on this problem.

Allegory translated from Greek allos - different and agoreyф "- I say, in other words - an allegory. Belokurova gives the allegory this interpretation - a type of allegory: the image of an abstract concept or phenomenon through a concrete image. The connection of the allegory with the designated concepts is quite direct and unambiguous. The allegory depicts strictly a certain object, phenomenon or concept, while the connection between the allegorical image and the concept (i.e. between the image and its implied meaning) is established by analogy. In a word, the decoding of the allegory is direct and unambiguous.

The fundamental difference between a symbol and an allegory is that the meaning of a symbol cannot be deciphered by a simple effort of reason; it is inseparable from the structure of the image. The very structure of the symbol is aimed at giving through each particular phenomenon complete image peace A symbol is not designed to be comprehended by the mind or consciousness, but strives to evoke associations, to emotionally influence the perceiver, to “instill” a certain impression, mood, state, and thereby make them see their deep, hidden essence in an object or phenomenon.

Each of symbolic forms represents a certain way of perception through which its own side of the “real” is built. The subject of interest here is the possible types of relationships between the symbol and the phenomena of reality it signifies.

The criteria for distinguishing relations can be arbitrariness - non-arbitrariness of symbol meanings. Involuntariness (motivation) is based on the recognition of the presence of common properties between a symbol and an object, on the similarity of a visible form with the content expressed in it, as if it were a direct consequence of it; this concept of a symbol is characteristic of antiquity. The analogy relationship is also preserved when emphasizing the discrepancy between the symbolic expression and the meaningful content (religious understanding of the symbol).

An arbitrary (unmotivated) symbol is defined as symbol with a clearly defined meaning not associated with this sign. An unmotivated symbol pays special attention to the signified; the form and denotation can be any. IN in this case the connection between sensory and mental images is analyzed. Then, according to the definition of Yu.M. Lotman, the idea of ​​a symbol is associated with the idea of ​​some content, which, in turn, serves as a plan of expression for another, usually culturally more valuable content.

Thus, by symbol we will understand an image taken in the aspect of its iconicity; it is a sign endowed with all the organicity and inexhaustible ambiguity of the image. The artistic task of a symbol in literature is that by influencing feelings, imagination, emotions, to awaken a readiness to perceive ideal (intangible) concepts, and not to explain them logically; give some hint, an indication of the existence of the depicted hidden meaning and become a “guide” to him (Vyacheslav Ivanov).

sacred symbol novel literature

Symbol - from Greek. symbolon - conventional sign. In Ancient Greece, this was the name given to the halves of a stick cut in two, which helped their owners recognize each other in a distant place. A symbol is an object or word that conventionally expresses the essence of a phenomenon (Lekhin). Artistic symbol- a universal category of aesthetics, best amenable to disclosure through comparison with adjacent categories of image, on the one hand, and sign, on the other. Taking the words broadly, we can say that a symbol is an image taken in the aspect of its signification, and that it is a sign endowed with all the organicity of myth and the inexhaustible ambiguity of the image. Every symbol is an image (and every image is, at least to some extent, a symbol); but if the category of image presupposes objective identity with itself, then the category symbol places emphasis on the other side of the same essence - on the image going beyond its own limits, on the presence of a certain meaning, intimately fused with the image, but not identical to it. Subject image and deep meaning appear in the structure of the symbol as two poles, inconceivable one without the other (for the meaning loses its manifestation outside the image, and the image without the meaning falls apart into its components), but also separated from each other and generating tension between themselves, which is the essence of the symbol. Transitioning into a symbol, the image becomes “transparent”; the meaning “shines through” through it, being given precisely as semantic depth, a semantic perspective that requires a difficult “entry” into oneself.

The meaning of a symbol cannot be deciphered by a simple effort of reason; one must “get used to” it. This is precisely the fundamental difference between a symbol and an allegory: the meaning of a symbol does not exist as some kind of rational formula that can be “embedded” in an image and then extracted from the image. The relationship between the signifier and the signified in a symbol is a dialectical relationship of identity in non-identity: “... each image must be understood as what it is, and only thanks to this is it taken as what it designates” (Schelling). Here we have to look for the specifics of the symbol in relation to the category of the sign. If for a purely utilitarian sign system polysemy is only a meaningless hindrance that harms the rational functioning of the sign, then the more polysemous it is, the more meaningful the symbol: ultimately, the content true symbol through mediating semantic connections, it is each time correlated with the “most important thing” - with the idea of ​​the world’s integrity, with the completeness of the cosmic and human “universum”. The very fact that any symbol generally has “meaning” itself symbolizes the presence of “meaning” in the world and life. “The image of the world, revealed in the word,” these words of B. Pasternak can be attributed to the symbolism of every great poet. The very structure of the symbol is aimed at immersing each particular phenomenon in the element of the “first principles” of existence and through this phenomenon giving a holistic image of the world. Here lies the affinity between symbol and myth; the symbol is the myth, “sublated” (in the Hegelian sense) cultural development, derived from self-identity and aware of its discrepancy with its own meaning.

From myth, the symbol inherited its social and communicative functions, which are indicated by the etymology of the term: the ancient Greeks called symbols suitable friend fragments of one plate to each other along the break line, adding which, people connected by a union of hereditary friendship identified each other. By the symbol, “friends” recognize and understand each other. Unlike an allegory, which can be deciphered by a “stranger,” there is a warmth of unifying mystery in the consciousness.

Yu.V. Shatin suggests that every natural language begins with a symbol, which is the first significant point separation of language from myth. According to C. Pierce, symbols are conventional (i.e. established by agreement) relations of sign and meaning. The symbol, in the words of S.S. Averintsev, points to the image going beyond its own limits, to the presence of a certain meaning, inseparably fused with the image, but not identical to it. Such a symbol cannot be deciphered by a simple effort of reason. It requires not simple recognition as a cultural sign, but active adaptation to its internal structure on the part of the perceiver.

A symbol is a more difficult object to identify compared to metaphor and metonymic transfer. Apparently, the essence of any poetic symbol is that the word as a whole and its meaning, being unconnected by specific conceptual and figurative bonds with classes of homogeneous objects and phenomena, still designate them. A symbol can denote many such classes; its conceptual, that is, generalizing, range is very wide.

A typical symbol, firstly, “grows” from a specific detail of the text, which has a clear verbal designation. When the text is expanded, this detail ceases to be perceived as a detail in the direct nominative function. In other cases, its functionality acquires duality: what is designated by the word “detail” can be perceived both as a detail and as a symbol.

Frequent use of a particular word or phrase helps highlight characters. In this case, it is necessary to replace the named elements with other elements that directly “go out” to the object of designation. The phenomenon of a symbol is the unconditional replacement of any other element with this element.

Symbols quite often and naturally have an intertextual nature: for one writer or poet, stable symbols function in various works.

Unfortunately, symbols are quite often confused, even by experienced linguists, with so-called “keywords.” “Key words” are semantically very close to symbols: both are very rich in meaning; they are indeed very important reference points in the texts; both tend to attract the attention of readers; " keywords” and symbols are the primary features of specific writing styles.

A SYMBOL in the literature of modern times is a polysemantic, fundamentally inexhaustible allegorical image, excluding only absolutely opposite interpretations, hinting at certain world entities that cannot be adequately defined in words. The stranger in the poem by A.A. Blok is a symbol of unfulfilled hopes for the triumph of Eternal Femininity, the embodiment of some new secrets, a dream that replaces reality, an image of beauty among ugliness, and in general almost everything that associations can suggest.

A symbol, being at least an element of semantics literary text, and not just a speech allegory, at the same time it can be partially expressed in speech allegories. Thus, the sail in Lermontov’s poem of the same name is a romantic symbol of a restless soul that does not accept peace and even happiness. Behind it lies the opposition between the real world and the imaginary world, irresistibly attractive with its mystery (hence the questions in “Sail”, which essentially exclude any unambiguous answer). However central image the poems “can be interpreted both as metonymy (someone in a boat - a sail), and as a synecdoche (sail - a boat), and as a metaphor (someone in the worldly sea - a sail).”

Symbols are used not only in unrealistic artistic systems, but also in realism. Realistic symbols are, for example, Pierre Bezukhov’s dream of a water ball formed by many flowing and spreading drops (a symbol of the relationship between all people of the world and the order of life in general), in “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy or A.P.’s cherry orchard Chekhov, an image that symbolizes the outgoing way of life local life, and a profitable enterprise for new business people, and all of Russia as a field of activity for the younger generation, and quite a lot of other things. At the end of the story I.A. Bunin’s “Mr. from San Francisco” a symbolic image of the Devil appears, giving the work as a whole a certain infernal shade; in particular, the image of a huge ship bearing the name of the disappeared Atlantis is animated and in turn becomes a symbol. But a symbolic work is not necessarily symbolist.

Often, symbolic and related works are interpreted in a simplified manner, as allegorical, for example, Pushkin’s “Prophet” is considered an allegory of the purpose and fate of the poet. The creation of the poem is really connected with Pushkin’s biography. The surviving version of “The Prophet” was written after his release from Mikhailovsky exile, immediately after a long conversation with Nicholas I, a conversation that then instilled considerable hope in the poet and inspired him. However, V.F. Khodasevich noted: ““The Prophet” is by no means a self-portrait or a portrait of a poet in general. Pushkin had other, much more modest, ideas about the poet, corresponding to the difference between the prophetic and poetic presence of God. Pushkin portrayed the poet in “The Poet”, and not in “The Prophet”. Knowing very well that a poet is sometimes more insignificant than the most insignificant children of the world, Pushkin recognized himself as a great poet, but did not at all pretend to the “important rank” of a prophet” (review ““Pushkin’s Lot”, article about S.N. Bulgakov). In fact, “The Prophet” was written directly about the prophet, and not about the poet. And yet Khodasevich is too categorical. Without identifying the poet and the prophet, Pushkin could see something akin to a prophetic feat both in his poetic calling and in any worthy human behavior and deed. “The Prophet” is characterized by symbolic ambiguity.

From direct binomial figurative parallelism even in ancient oral folk art such a significant type of verbal-subject allegory as a symbol arose. For lately Symbols began to be called various types of outlines that serve as a symbol for certain abstract concepts.

But in its main meaning, a symbol (Gr. sumbolon - sign, omen) is an independent artistic image that has an emotional and allegorical meaning based on the similarity of life phenomena. The appearance of symbolic images was prepared by a long song tradition. Folk songs passed from one singer to another and remained in the memory of many generations.

And in those cases when these songs were built on the basis of direct binary parallelism, the semantic connection of the images included in it gradually became more and more consolidated in the minds of both the singers themselves and their listeners.

Therefore, as soon as the first term of parallelism appeared in the song - the image of nature, it immediately evoked in the memory of the listeners its second element, known to them in advance - the image of a person, which no longer needed to be reproduced with the help of words. In other words, the image of the life of nature began to signify the life of man; it thereby acquired an allegorical, symbolic meaning. People have learned to understand human life through a hidden analogy with the life of nature. Thus, in the wedding song a parallel was drawn between falcons and matchmakers - “boyars”.

The similarity of the actions of both, strengthened by the frequent repetition of the song, which became habitual, led to the fact that during further performance it was enough to sing about falcons nibbling a duck, and the listeners understood that the matchmakers had chosen the girl and decided on her marriage. Falcons became a symbol of matchmakers, and a duck became a symbol of brides. Here is a similar song that has become symbolic:

Falcons, falcons, where did they fly? We flew from sea to sea. What did you see? We saw a duck on the sea. Why didn't you take it? And the wings were plucked, Hot blood was shed.

This means that in folk art, a symbol is the first member of figurative parallelism, marking its second member. From two-term direct parallelism arose one-term parallelism. Citing a Ukrainian song in which the “dawn” (star) asks the “month” not to set before it, Veselovsky writes: “Let’s discard the second part of the song... and the habit of well-known comparisons will suggest the bride and groom instead of the month and star.”

It should be noted, however, that the point here is not a “habit”, but the very basis of parallelism - the awareness of the objective features of the similarity between the images of nature and people, which is only strengthened by the repetition of the song. Initially, for the emergence of a symbol as a one-term parallelism, it was necessary to first use two-term parallelism, which strongly likened the life of nature to the life of people.

But when the singers and their listeners mastered symbolism as a special type of verbal-object imagery, when the artistic consciousness of society was enriched by this new principle of depicting life, symbolic images began to emerge independently, no longer relying on binary parallelism.

In fiction, in individual creativity different countries and eras, symbolism became even more widely used. The image of nature acquires symbolic meaning in the process of thoughtful individual perception by readers and listeners on the basis of living associations, similar to human life.

At the same time, the image of nature initially preserves for readers a direct, independent meaning, and then, with its emotional content, evokes in them direct emotional parallels with some similar content in people’s lives. Symbolism, that is, the presence of images-symbols, should not be confused with “symbolism” - literary direction, which arose only in late XIX V. Lyrical works are especially rich in symbolism.

It is often distinguished by the greater or lesser abstraction of its problematics, therefore its images-symbols can evoke in the reader various associations with human actions, states, and experiences. In other words, lyrical symbolism often has the ambiguity of its emotional meaning. For example, A. Koltsov’s poem “Forest” (“What, dense forest, || I became thoughtful ...”) is undoubtedly symbolic. True, it is dedicated to the memory of A. S. Pushkin and is often interpreted as an allegorical depiction of the latter tragic years life and then death of the great poet.

But such an interpretation impoverishes the content of the poem and gives its main image a straightforward, rational, allegorical meaning.

For readers who do not know this interpretation, who succumb to the emotional charm of Koltsov’s poems with their folk poetic style, the image of the forest, first perceived in its literal meaning, can then evoke much wider and more varied associations - or with individual people in different conditions their lives, or even with entire social movements etc.

In this perception, Koltsov’s poem retains its symbolic meaning. Lermontov’s works, allegorical in their images (poems “Cliff”, “Leaf”, “In the wild north stands alone...”, ballad Three Palms”, poem “Demon”, etc.) also should not be taken as direct allusions to the personal fate and experiences of the author. Their images must be understood as symbols in their self-sufficient emotional and generalizing allegorical meaning.

In epic and dramatic literature symbolism is much less common, but it can become a property of the imagery of the whole epic work. Such, for example, is Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “The Horse”. In its center is a general image of a peasant horse, exhausted and exhausted half to death by constant hard work.

The author describes appearance animal, its condition; briefly depicts a man: how hard he plows the field. The reader perceives all this at first in the literal sense - as the hopeless working life of a peasant “bed”, which “does not live, but does not die.”

But then, with the help of the author’s bitter thoughts that someone needs not Konyaga’s “well-being”, but “a life that can endure the yoke and work,” the reader begins to realize that all this applies to the owner, a poor peasant living in such , the hopelessness of oppression. And the image of a horse crippled by work symbolizes for him the enslavement of the working peasantry.

Initially, symbolic images were images of nature that evoked emotional analogies with human life. This tradition continues to this day. Along with it, images of individual people, their actions and experiences, signifying some more general processes of human life, often began to receive allegorical, symbolic meaning in literature.

So, when in last act Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" Gaev and Ranevskaya, leaving the sold estate, forget about the old, sick footman Firs, slavishly devoted to his masters, and he remains locked in the old house, doomed to be scrapped, the reader and audience at first see in this the completion of very real events shown in the play. But they may then realize this last scene much deeper and wider - as a symbolic expression of the doom of the estate world.

Introduction to literary criticism: Proc. for philol.. special. un-tov / G.N. Pospelov, P.A. Nikolaev, I.F. Volkov and others; Ed. G.N. Pospelov. - 3rd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Higher. school, 1988. - 528 p.