Sonya Marmeladova and Rodion Raskolnikov in the novel Crime and Punishment. Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment


One of the main characters of the novel F.M. Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” is Sonya Marmeladova, a girl forced to work “on a yellow ticket” in order to save her family from starvation. It is to her that the author assigns the most important role in the fate of Raskolnikov.

Sonya's appearance is described in two episodes. The first is the scene of the death of her father, Semyon Zakharych Marmeladov: “Sonya was small, about eighteen years old, thin, but quite pretty blonde... She was also in rags, her outfit was decorated in a street style... with a brightly and shamefully outstanding purpose.”

Another description of her appearance appears in the scene of Sonechka’s acquaintance with Dunya and Pulcheria Alexandrovna: “she was a modestly and even poorly dressed girl, very young, almost like a girl... with a clear but frightened face. She was wearing a very simple house dress...” Both of these portraits are strikingly different from each other, which reflects one of the key features of Sonya’s character - the combination of spiritual purity and moral decline.

Sonya's life story highest degree tragic: unable to watch indifferently as her family perished from hunger and poverty, she voluntarily submitted to humiliation and received “ yellow ticket" Sacrifice, boundless compassion and selflessness forced Sonechka to give all the money she earned to her father and stepmother Katerina Ivanovna.

Sonya has many wonderful human character traits: mercy, sincerity, kindness, understanding, moral purity. She is ready to look for something good and bright in every person, even in those who are not worthy of such treatment.

Sonya knows how to forgive.

She has developed an endless love for people. This love is so strong that Sonechka is determined to consciously give all of herself for their sake.

Such faith in people and a special attitude towards them (“This man is a louse!”) are largely connected with Sonya’s Christian worldview. Her faith in God and the miracle that comes from him truly has no boundaries. “What would I be without God!” In this regard, she is the opposite of Raskolnikov, who opposes her with his atheism and theory about “ordinary” and “extraordinary” people. It is faith that helps Sonya maintain the purity of her soul, protect herself from the dirt and vice that surrounds her; It is not for nothing that almost the only book she has read more than once is the New Testament.

One of the most significant scenes in the novel that influenced later life Raskolnikov, is an episode of joint reading of a passage from the Gospel about the resurrection of Lazarus. “The cinder has long gone out in the crooked candlestick, dimly illuminating in this beggarly room a murderer and a harlot, strangely gathered together to read an eternal book...”

Sonechka plays a crucial role in Raskolnikov’s fate, which consists in reviving his faith in God and returning to the Christian path. Only Sonya was able to accept and forgive his crime, did not condemn him and was able to induce Raskolnikov to confess to his crime. She went with him all the way from recognition to hard labor, and it was her love that was able to return him to the true path.

Sonya has proven herself to be a decisive and active person, capable of making difficult decisions and following them. She convinced Rodion to denounce himself: “Get up! Go now, this very minute, stand at the crossroads, bow, first kiss the earth that you have desecrated, and then bow to the whole world...”

At hard labor, Sonya did everything to ease Raskolnikov’s fate. She becomes a famous and respected person and is addressed by her first name and patronymic. The convicts fell in love with her for her kind attitude towards them, for her selfless help - for something that Raskolnikov does not yet want or cannot understand. At the end of the novel, he finally realizes his feelings for her, realizes how much she suffered for him. “Can her beliefs now not be mine? Her feelings, her aspirations at least..." So Sonya’s love, her dedication and compassion helped Raskolnikov begin the process of becoming on the right path.

The author embodied the best human qualities. Dostoevsky wrote: “I have one moral model and ideal – Christ.” Sonya became for him the source of his own beliefs, decisions dictated by his conscience.

Dostoevsky wrote his novel Crime and Punishment after hard labor. It was at this time that Fyodor Mikhailovich’s beliefs took on a religious overtone. The denunciation of an unjust social system, the search for truth, the dream of happiness for all mankind were combined during this period in his character with disbelief that the world could be remade by force. The writer was convinced that evil cannot be avoided under any social structure. He believed that it came from human soul. Fyodor Mikhailovich raised the question of the need for moral improvement of all people. Therefore, he decided to turn to religion.

Sonya is the writer's ideal

Sonya Marmeladova and Rodion Raskolnikov are the two main characters of the work. They seem to be two counter flows. The ideological part of Crime and Punishment is their worldview. Sonechka Marmeladova is a writer. It is the bearer of faith, hope, empathy, love, understanding and tenderness. According to Dostoevsky, this is exactly what every person should be. This girl is the personification of truth. She believed that all people have an equal right to life. Sonechka Marmeladova was firmly convinced that through crime one cannot achieve happiness - neither someone else's nor one's own. Sin always remains sin. It doesn’t matter who committed it and in the name of what.

Two worlds - Marmeladova and Raskolnikov

Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova exist in different worlds. Like two opposite poles, these heroes cannot live without each other. The idea of ​​rebellion is embodied in Rodion, while Sonechka Marmeladova personifies humility. This is a deeply religious, highly moral girl. She believes that life has a deep inner meaning. Rodion’s ideas that everything that exists is meaningless are incomprehensible to her. Sonechka Marmeladova sees divine predestination in everything. She believes that nothing depends on a person. The truth of this heroine is God, humility, love. For her, the meaning of life is great power empathy and compassion for people.

Raskolnikov mercilessly and passionately judges the world. He cannot tolerate injustice. It is from here that his crime and mental torment stems in the work “Crime and Punishment.” Sonechka Marmeladova, like Rodion, also steps over herself, but she does it completely differently than Raskolnikov. The heroine sacrifices herself to other people rather than killing them. In this, the author embodied the idea that a person has no right to personal, selfish happiness. You need to learn patience. True happiness can only be achieved through suffering.

Why does Sonya take Rodion’s crime to heart?

According to the thoughts of Fyodor Mikhailovich, a person needs to feel responsible not only for his actions, but also for any evil done in the world. That is why Sonya feels that the crime committed by Rodion is also her fault. She takes this hero’s action to heart and shares it hard fate. Raskolnikov decides to reveal his terrible secret to this heroine. Her love revives him. She resurrects Rodion to a new life.

High internal qualities of the heroine, attitude towards happiness

The image of Sonechka Marmeladova is the embodiment of the best human qualities: love, faith, sacrifice and chastity. Even being surrounded by vices, forced to sacrifice her own dignity, this girl maintains the purity of her soul. She does not lose faith that there is no happiness in comfort. Sonya says that “a person is not born to be happy.” It is bought through suffering, it must be earned. The fallen woman Sonya, who ruined her soul, turns out to be a “person of high spirit.” This heroine can be put in the same “category” with Rodion. However, she condemns Raskolnikov for his contempt for people. Sonya cannot accept his “rebellion”. But it seemed to the hero that his ax was raised in her name.

The clash between Sonya and Rodion

According to Fyodor Mikhailovich, this heroine embodies the Russian element, the national principle: humility and patience, and towards people. The clash between Sonya and Rodion, their opposing worldviews are a reflection of the writer’s internal contradictions that troubled his soul.

Sonya hopes for a miracle, for God. Rodion is convinced that there is no God, and there is no point in waiting for a miracle. This hero reveals to the girl the futility of her illusions. Raskolnikov says that her compassion is useless, and her sacrifices are ineffective. It is not because of her shameful profession that Sonechka Marmeladova is a sinner. The characterization of this heroine given by Raskolnikov during the clash does not stand up to criticism. He believes that her feat and sacrifices are in vain, but at the end of the work it is this heroine who revives him to life.

Sonya's ability to penetrate a person's soul

Driven by life into a hopeless situation, the girl tries to do something in the face of death. She, like Rodion, acts according to the law of free choice. However, unlike him, she did not lose faith in humanity, which Dostoevsky notes. Sonechka Marmeladova is a heroine who does not need examples to understand that people are kind by nature and deserve the brightest fate. It is she, and only she, who is able to sympathize with Rodion, since she is not embarrassed by either the ugliness of his social fate or his physical deformity. Sonya Marmeladova penetrates into the essence of the soul through its “scab”. She is in no hurry to judge anyone. The girl understands that behind external evil there are always incomprehensible or unknown reasons that led to the evil of Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov.

The heroine's attitude towards suicide

This girl stands outside the laws of the world that torments her. She's not interested in money. She, of her own free will, wanting to feed her family, went to the panel. And it was precisely because of her indestructible and strong will that she did not commit suicide. When the girl was faced with this question, she carefully thought about it and chose an answer. In her situation, suicide would be a selfish act. Thanks to him, she would be spared pain and shame. Suicide would get her out of the "fetid pit." However, the thought of family did not allow her to take this step. Marmeladova’s measure of determination and will is much higher than Raskolnikov expected. In order to refuse suicide, she needed more fortitude than in order to commit this act.

For this girl, debauchery was worse than death. However, humility excludes suicide. This reveals the full strength of character of this heroine.

Love Sonya

If you define this girl’s nature in one word, then this word is loving. Her love for her neighbor was active. Sonya knew how to respond to the pain of another person. This was especially evident in the episode of Rodion’s confession to murder. This quality makes her image “ideal”. The sentence in the novel is pronounced by the author from the standpoint of this ideal. Fyodor Dostoevsky, in the image of his heroine, presented an example of all-forgiving, all-encompassing love. She does not know envy, does not want anything in return. This love can even be called unspoken, because the girl never talks about it. However, this feeling overwhelms her. It comes out only in the form of actions, but never in the form of words. Silent love only becomes more beautiful from this. Even the desperate Marmeladov bows before her.

The crazy Katerina Ivanovna also prostrates herself in front of the girl. Even Svidrigailov, that eternal libertine, respects Sonya for her. Not to mention Rodion Raskolnikov. Her love healed and saved this hero.

The author of the work through reflection and moral quest came to the idea that any person who finds God looks at the world in a new way. He begins to rethink it. That is why in the epilogue, when the moral resurrection of Rodion is described, Fyodor Mikhailovich writes that “it begins new story"The love of Sonechka Marmeladova and Raskolnikov, described at the end of the work, is the brightest part of the novel.

The immortal meaning of the novel

Dostoevsky, having rightly condemned Rodion for his rebellion, leaves victory to Sonya. It is in her that he sees the highest truth. The author wants to show that suffering purifies, that it is better than violence. Most likely, in our time, Sonechka Marmeladova would be an outcast. The image of this heroine in the novel is too far from the norms of behavior accepted in society. And not every Rodion Raskolnikov will suffer and suffer today. However, as long as “the world stands,” the soul of a person and his conscience are always alive and will live. This is the immortal meaning of the novel by Dostoevsky, who is rightfully considered a great psychological writer.

F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” is one of the most complex works of Russian classical literature. There are many heroes in it, each of whom has their own destiny, their own philosophy, their own point of view on the world. But the uniqueness of the author’s position in this novel lies in the fact that the writer finds points of intersection between different characters. Such heroes, of course, are Sonechka Marmeladova and Raskolnikov.

From the very beginning of the novel, we see that the girl’s fate somehow touched Raskolnikov’s heart. This happened at the moment when Marmeladov, in the tavern, spoke about her sacrificial act: she went out into the street to save her family from hunger.

In the most difficult, difficult days for him, Raskolnikov, having broken all ties with his loved ones, carries his pain in deep loneliness. And when she becomes unbearable, he goes to Sonya. It is in her soul, humiliated by circumstances and inherently beautiful, that he seeks peace.

Despite the complete dissimilarity of these two people, they have something in common. Sonya, like Raskolnikov, broke and trampled herself. Raskolnikov, denying the idea of ​​sacrifice, tells Sonya that she, too, “overstepped, was able to overstep.” It's about moral ruin personality, in this sense both heroes are equally tragic. Raskolnikov is attracted to Sonya not only by the understanding of the commonality of their destinies (“murderer and harlot”), but also by the realization that a person cannot be alone. Even the drunkard Marmeladov, who brought a lot of grief to the family, believes: “After all, it is necessary that every person has at least one place where they would feel sorry for him.” In this sense, Raskolnikov sees salvation in Sonya’s mercy. Thanks to this attitude of Sonya, a very important turn from suffering to compassion takes place in Raskolnikov’s soul.

Sonya, with her characteristic kindness, not understanding Raskolnikov’s complex philosophical constructions, feels the main thing: “he is terribly, infinitely unhappy,” and he needs her. For Raskolnikov, Sonya is the embodiment of endless moral torment. But at the same time, Rodion knows: Sonya will never leave him, will follow him to prison, will share his fate, and this gives him strength, clarifying the future.

And although Raskolnikov internally resists accepting Sonya’s sacrifice, in hard labor he soon realizes that Sonya, with her religiosity, kindness and mercy, with a heart open to people, becomes part of his existence. As the completion of this discovery sounds like a request to bring him the Gospel. “Can her beliefs not now also be my beliefs,” he thinks. Raskolnikov sees that religion, faith is the only refuge for Sonya. Raskolnikov wants to accept her faith not out of conviction (he never opened the Gospel that she gave him), but out of trust and gratitude to her, which force him to look at the world through her eyes.

If Sonya adheres to the traditional faith, then for Raskolnikov God is the embodiment of humanity, the ability to serve the unfortunate, the fallen. Raskolnikov understood in essence what Sonya did. And then he turned his gaze to the convicts and felt that they needed him. Convicted, rejected, they expect help from him, just as he himself once expected it from Sonya. They are waiting for help. The feeling of alienation from people in Raskolnikov’s soul gives way to a sense of community, unity with them, which leads to the spiritual purification of the hero. At this point the story of crime and punishment is interrupted, and life continues.


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In the novel "Crime and Punishment" Sonya and Raskolnikov are the main actors. Through the images of these heroes, Fyodor Mikhailovich is trying to convey to us main idea works, find answers to vital important issues being.

At first glance, there is nothing in common between Sonya Marmeladova and Rodion Raskolnikov. Their life paths intertwine unexpectedly and merge into one.

Raskolnikov is a poor student who abandoned his studies at the Faculty of Law, created a terrible theory about the right of a strong personality and plotted a brutal murder. An educated man, proud and vain, he is closed and uncommunicative. His dream is to become Napoleon.

Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova is a timid “downtrodden” creature who, by the will of fate, finds herself at the very bottom. An eighteen-year-old girl is uneducated, poor and unhappy. Having no other way to earn money, she sells her body. She was forced to lead such a lifestyle by pity and love for her loved ones.

At the heroes different characters, different social circles, level of education, but the same unfortunate fate of the “humiliated and insulted.” They are united by the crime committed. Both crossed the moral line and found themselves outcasts. Raskolnikov kills people for the sake of an idea and glory, Sonya violates the laws of morality, saving her family from starvation. Sonya suffers under the weight of sin, but Raskolnikov does not feel guilty. But they are irresistibly drawn to each other...

Relationship stages

Acquaintance

A strange coincidence of circumstances, a chance meeting, brings the heroes of the novel together. Their relationship develops in stages.

Rodion Raskolnikov learns about the existence of Sonya from the confusing story of the drunken Marmeladov. The fate of the girl interested the hero. Their acquaintance occurred much later and with sufficient tragic circumstances. Young people meet in the room of the Marmeladov family. A cramped corner, a dying official, unhappy Katerina Ivanovna, frightened children - this is the setting for the heroes’ first meeting. Rodion Raskolnikov unceremoniously looks at the girl who entered, “timidly looking around.” She is ready to die of shame for her obscene and inappropriate outfit.

Dating

The roads of Sonya and Raskolnikov in the novel Crime and Punishment often intersect as if completely by accident. First, Rodion Raskolnikov helps the girl. He gives her the last money for his father’s funeral, exposes Luzhin’s vile plan, who tried to accuse Sonya of theft. In the heart young man There is still no room for great love, but he wants to communicate more and more with Sonya Marmeladova. His behavior seems strange. Avoiding communication with people, parting with his family, he goes to Sonya and only to her he confesses his terrible crime. Raskolnikov feels inner strength, which the heroine herself did not suspect.

Pity for the criminal

Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova in Crime and Punishment are two outcasts. Their salvation is in each other. This is probably why the hero’s soul, tormented by doubts, is drawn to the destitute Sonya. He goes to her to feel sorry for her, although he himself needs compassion no less. “We are cursed together, we will go together,” thinks Raskolnikov. Unexpectedly, Sonya opens up to Rodion from the other side. She is not afraid of his confession, does not fall into hysterics. The girl reads aloud the Bible “The Story of the Resurrection of Lazarus” and cries with pity for her loved one: “What are you doing, that you did this to yourself!

There is no one more unhappy than you in the whole world now!” Sonya's power of persuasion is such that it makes her submit. Rodion Raskolnikov, on the advice of a friend, goes to the police station and does sincere confession. Throughout the journey, he feels Sonya's presence, her invisible support and love.

Love and devotion

Sonya is a deep and strong person. Having fallen in love with a person, she is ready to do anything for him. Without hesitation, the girl follows the convicted Raskolnikov to Siberia, deciding to stay nearby for eight long years of hard labor. Her sacrifice amazes the reader, but leaves the main character indifferent. Sonya's kindness resonates in the souls of the most brutal criminals. They rejoice at her appearance, turning to her and saying: “You are our mother, tender, sick.” Rodion Raskolnikov is still cold and rude when dating. His feelings awakened only after Sonya became seriously ill and fell ill. Raskolnikov suddenly realizes that she has become necessary and desirable to him. The love and devotion of a weak girl managed to melt the frozen heart of a criminal and awaken in him the good sides of his soul. F. M. Dostoevsky shows us how, having survived crime and punishment, they were resurrected by love.

Victory of good

The book of the great writer makes you think about the eternal questions of existence, believe in the power true love. She teaches us goodness, faith and mercy. The kindness of weak Sonya turned out to be much stronger than that the evil that settled in Raskolnikov’s soul. She is omnipotent. “The soft and weak conquers the hard and strong,” said Lao Tzu.

Work test

I want swans to live
And from the white flocks
The world has become kinder...

A. Dementyev

Songs and epics, fairy tales and stories, stories and novels of Russian writers teach us kindness, mercy and compassion. And how many proverbs and sayings have been created! “Remember good and forget evil,” “A good deed lives for two centuries,” “While you live, you do good, only the path of good is the salvation of the soul,” says folk wisdom. So what are mercy and compassion? And why today does a person sometimes bring more evil to another person than good? Probably because kindness is a state of mind when a person is able to come to the aid of others, give good advice, and sometimes just feel sorry. Not everyone is able to feel someone else's grief as their own, to sacrifice something for people, and without this there is no mercy or compassion. kind man attracts to himself like a magnet, he gives a piece of his heart, his warmth to the people around him. That is why each of us needs a lot of love, justice, sensitivity, so that we have something to give to others. We understand all this thanks to the great Russian writers and their wonderful works.

The heroes of the novel by F.M. are truly merciful and compassionate people. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". The appearance of the novel “Crime and Punishment” was the result of the writer’s generalization of the most important contradictions of the 60s. Dostoevsky pondered his work for 15 years. Even at engineering school, the future writer was interested in the topic of a strong personality and his rights. In 1865, when Dostoevsky was abroad, the plan for the future novel took shape. Based on the original plot - dramatic story Marmeladov family, then the story of the crime came to the fore, and central theme became the topic of moral responsibility.

“Crime and Punishment” is an ideological novel, social and philosophical in theme, tragic in the nature of the problems posed, adventurous in its plot. The writer’s focus is on the terrible reality of Russia at the end of the 19th century, with its poverty, lack of rights, corruption and disunity of the individual, suffocating from the consciousness of his own powerlessness.

The main character of the novel, dropout student Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, goes to terrible crime– taking the life of another person – under the influence of theories popular among young people of the 60s of the 19th century. Rodion is a dreamer, a romantic, a proud and strong, noble personality, completely absorbed in the idea. The thought of murder causes him not only moral, but also aesthetic disgust: “The main thing: dirty, dirty, disgusting, disgusting!..”. the hero asks the questions: is it permissible to commit small evil for the sake of great good, does a noble goal justify a criminal means? Raskolnikov has a kind and compassionate heart, wounded by the spectacle of human suffering. The reader is convinced of this by reading the episode in which Raskolnikov wanders around St. Petersburg. The hero sees terrible pictures big city and the suffering of the people in it. He is convinced that people cannot find a way out of the social impasse. The unbearably hard life of poor workers, doomed to poverty, humiliation, drunkenness, prostitution and death, shocks him. Raskolnikov perceives other people's pain more acutely than his own. Risking his life, he saves children from the fire; shares the latter with the father of a deceased comrade; a beggar himself, he gives money for the funeral of Mameladov, whom he barely knew. But the hero understands that he cannot help everyone, being a simple student. Raskolnikov comes to the realization of his own powerlessness in the face of evil. And in despair, the hero decides to “transgress” the moral law - to kill out of love for humanity, to commit evil for the sake of good. Raskolnikov seeks power not out of vanity, but in order to really help people dying in poverty and lawlessness. Mercy and compassion are the moral laws that prompted Raskolnikov to commit a crime. The hero feels sorry for everyone: his mother, his sister, the Marmeladov family. For their sake, he committed a crime. The hero wanted to make his mother happy. She helped her children all her life, sending her last money to her son, trying to make her daughter’s life easier. Raskolnikov wanted to save his sister, who lived as a companion to the landowners, from the voluptuous claims of the head of the landowner family. Rodion meets Mareladov in a tavern, where Semyon Zakharovich talks about himself. A drunken official appears before Raskolnikov, the destroyer of his own family, who deserves sympathy, but not condescension. His unfortunate wife evokes burning compassion in Raskolnikov, but she is also guilty of the fact that, even though “the children were sick and crying, they did not eat,” she sent her stepdaughter to the panel... and the whole family lives in her shame, in her suffering. Raskolnikov's conclusion about the meanness of people seems inevitable. Only one thing stuck as a thorn in the hero’s mind: what is Sonya’s fault for sacrificing herself to save her sisters and brother? What are they themselves to blame for - this boy and two girls? For the sake of these children and all others, Raskolnikov decides to commit a crime. He says that children "cannot remain children." The hero explains to the frightened Sonya: “What should I do? Break what is needed once and for all, and that’s all: and take the suffering upon yourself! What? Don't you understand? Afterwards you will understand... Freedom and power, and most importantly - power! Over the entire trembling creature, over the entire anthill!..” What kind of suffering is Raskolnikov talking about? Probably about murder. He is ready to step over himself by killing a person so that subsequent generations can live in harmony with their conscience.

Raskolnikov’s tragedy is that, according to his theory, he wants to act according to the principle “everything is permitted,” but at the same time, the fire of sacrificial love for people lives in him.

In the novel, almost every character is capable of empathy, compassion and be merciful.

Sonechka transgresses through herself for others. To save the family, he goes to the panel. Sonecha finds love and compassion, a willingness to share his fate, Raskolnikov. It is to Sonechka that the hero confesses his crime. She does not judge Raskolnikov for his sin, but painfully sympathizes with him and calls on him to “suffer” and atone for his guilt before God and people. Thanks to his love for the heroine and her love for him, Rodion is resurrected to a new life. “Sonechka, Sonechka Marmelladova, eternal Sonechka, while the world stands!” - a symbol of self-sacrifice in the name of one’s neighbor and endless “insatiable” compassion.

Raskolnikov’s sister, Avdotya Romanovna, who, according to Rodion, “would rather become a Negro to a planter or a Latvian to a Baltic German than to fuel her spirit and her moral sense by a connection with a person she does not respect,” is going to marry Luzhin. Avdotya Romanovna does not love this man, but with this marriage she hopes to improve the situation not so much for herself, but for her brother and mother.

In this work, Dostoevsky showed that it is impossible to do good relying on evil. That compassion and mercy cannot coexist in a person along with hatred of individual people. Here either hatred displaces compassion, or vice versa. A struggle of these feelings takes place in Raskolnikov’s soul, and, in the end, mercy and compassion win.

The hero understands that he cannot live with this black spot, the murder of the old woman, on his conscience. He understands that he is a “trembling creature” and had no right to kill. Every person has the right to life. Who are we to deprive him of this right?

Mercy and compassion play a significant role in the novel. The relationships of almost all the characters are built on them: Raskolnikov and Sonechka, Raskolnikov and Dunya, Raskolnikov and the Marmeladov family, Pulkhiriya Alexandrovna and Raskolnikov, Sonya and the Marmeladovs, Sonya and Dunya. Moreover, mercy and compassion in these relationships were manifested on both sides in contact.

Yes, life is harsh. Many of the heroes' human qualities were tested. During these trials, some became lost among vices and evil. But the main thing is that, among the vulgarity, dirt and depravity, the heroes were able to preserve, perhaps, the most important human qualities - mercy and compassion.