The unflattering nickname “little people” in the works of not only Dostoevsky, but also many other Russian writers, refers to those with extremely modest incomes, who are sometimes in a very difficult financial situation; they are offended by fate and those around them, they suffer poverty and humiliation.
In the novel “Crime and Punishment” the “little people” include main character- Rodion Raskolnikov, whom at the beginning of the story the reader finds in the most depressed state, not only materially, but also spiritually: it is need that pushes him to crime, it is money that he considers, if not the main thing, but one of the main ones driving forces in the dominant system of the world. In an effort to help the needy, the offended, the insulted, he decides to kill, however, as we know, it does not bring good or happiness to anyone: Rodion demolishes his wealth under a stone, and takes on the weight of his deed and the blame for it - a victim who, due to senselessness, is capable of competing with the victim Sonechka. Raskolnikov’s ultimate goal was not achieved, and cannot be achieved, but if this is so, what can justify the means?
The Raskolnikov family is also counted among those very humiliated and insulted, for the happiness and right to which the main character fights so fiercely and selflessly: Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who is Rodion’s own mother, lives on a modest pension and small earnings from a small job, and sister Dunya endures the bullying of the rich masters, being a simple governess. They have resigned themselves to their fate and do not look at the sky at the cranes; for them, a bird in their hands is wealth that should be protected and cherished. The role of “little people” is firmly rooted in their appearance and demeanor; the mask of humility has become theirs. true face- whether this is good, or, on the contrary, worthy of reproach, in fact hardly belongs to the decision.
A slightly different side of human despair is represented by the Marmeladovs, who, despite their sugary surname, live far from sweet life. The head of the family, Semyon Zakharovich, gives up, loses the battle to fate itself and becomes one of those pitiful ordinary people who, by nature, being people of good and even virtuous character, without even trying to raise their hands in a gesture of defense, meekly accept blows, turning the other cheek. He drags his wife, Katerina Ivanovna, into the quagmire of despair and hopelessness. Need pushes eldest daughter Marmeladova Sonechka to desperate actions, sacrifices that are not justified in to a greater extent none of those for whom they were intended.
A striking example of a fighter is the former student Razumikhin, a friend of Rodion, who did not bend under the wind of circumstances and retained a desperate and rebellious spirit, never forgetting the most important thing, the only thing that the “little people” had left - hope and simple human compassion.
Thus, the main characters in the novel “Crime and Punishment” are people who are impoverished and desperate, but at the same time show their qualities completely in different ways. It is this diversity of personalities in the work that makes it so significant for the self-awareness of the Russian people and all humanity as a whole.
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The theme of the “little man” in the novel “Crime and Punishment”
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky entered the history of Russian and world literature as genius artist, humanist and democrat, as a researcher human souls. In the spiritual life of a man of his era, Dostoevsky saw a reflection of the deep processes of the historical development of society. With tragic power, the writer showed how social injustice cripples the souls of people, what unbearable oppression and despair a person experiences when fighting for a humane relationship between people, suffering for the humiliated and insulted.
Dostoevsky's novels are called social and philosophical. In the clash of different ideas and beliefs, the writer strives to find that the highest truth, the only idea that can become common to all people. In the most difficult years for the Russian people, he continued to look for ways to save people from the suffering and troubles that the inhumane system brings with it. The writer was especially fascinated by fate “ little man” in society. Pushkin and Gogol thought about this topic. This painful theme permeates Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment.”
Dostoevsky's characters usually appear before the reader with already formed beliefs and express a certain idea. The heroes of “Crime and Punishment” are no exception. In the novel, the “little people” are endowed with a certain philosophical idea. These are thinking people, but overwhelmed by life. For example, Semyon Zakharych Marmeladov. His conversation with Raskolnikov, the conversation of the drunken official, is essentially Marmeladov’s monologue. He stands on one idea, the idea of self-destruction. He enjoys beatings, and he trains himself not to pay attention to the attitude of those around him like a fool, and he is accustomed to spending the night wherever he has to. Marmeladov is not able to fight for life, for his family. He doesn't care about his family, society, or even Raskolnikov. The reward for all this is a rising picture.” doomsday”, when the Almighty will accept Marmeladov and similar “pigs” into the kingdom of heaven precisely because not a single one of them “considered himself worthy of this.” “And he will judge and forgive everyone, both the good and the evil, both the wise and the humble... And when he has finished with everyone, then he will say to us: “Come out,” he will say, you too! Come out drunk, come out weak, come out drunk!” And we will all go out without shame and stand. And he will say: “You pigs!” the image of the beast and its seal; but come you too!”... And he will stretch out his hands to us and we will fall down..."
Dostoevsky describes a weak-willed drunkard who drove his wife to consumption and let his daughter go “ yellow ticket”, but condemning him, the writer at the same time appeals to people. Well, people, have at least a drop of pity for him, take a closer look at him, is he really that bad. After all, he “offered his hand to the unfortunate woman with three children, because he could not look at such suffering”; For the first time, I lost my place through no fault of my own. He suffers most of all from the consciousness of guilt in front of his children. Is this “little man” really that bad? We can say that he was made this way by a society more indifferent and cruel than he himself in his drunkenness.
Raskolnikov meets Marmeladov’s wife Katerina Ivanovna only four times. But all four times he observes her after severe mental shock. He himself did not engage in lengthy speeches with her, and he only listened with half an ear. But he caught that in her speeches there was indignation at the behavior of those around her, a cry of despair, the cry of a person who has nowhere else to go, but vanity suddenly boils up, a desire to rise in his own eyes, in the eyes of Raskolnikov. If the idea of self-destruction is associated with Marmeladov, then the idea of self-affirmation is associated with Katerina Ivanovna. We see that the more hopeless the situation, the more uncontrollable the fantasy. She talks about the story of her life with vain exaggeration, and sees herself in her dreams as the owner of a boarding house for noble maidens. After she is kicked out into the street, she continues to tell everyone that her children have the most aristocratic connections. And she herself makes them behave.
We see that any attempt to internally withstand the conditions to which people are doomed fails. Neither self-deprecation nor self-affirmation, even with the help of lies, helps. A person inevitably collapses morally and then dies physically. But Katerina Ivanovna’s self-affirmation echoes Raskolnikov’s thought about the right of the chosen ones to a special position, about power over all people. The fact is that Marmeladov’s wife is not a chosen person. It is shown by Dostoevsky as a parody. The path of excessive pride leads her to the street. She is simply the “little person” we are talking about today. And Katerina Ivanovna’s megalomania does not reduce her tragedy. Of course, the writer speaks about her fate with great bitterness.
Another character in the novel is one of the “little people”. This is Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin. This type is not capable of self-abasement, of immense self-affirmation through pride, he is not capable of murder, he does not profess any democratic ideas. Luzhin, on the contrary, is for the dominance of egoistic relations, purely bourgeois, inhuman relations. Luzhin's ideas lead to the slow murder of people, to the rejection of goodness and light in their souls. Raskolnikov understands this well: “... is it true that you told your bride... at the very hour when you received her consent that you were most glad that... that she was a beggar... because it is more profitable to take a wife out of poverty in order to then rule over her ... and reproach her for the fact that you have benefited her?..”
Only his own benefit, career, success in the world worries Luzhin. He is ready to humiliate himself, to humiliate, to give everything and everyone for his well-being, to take away the last for his own benefit. But he will not kill, he will find a lot of ways, cowardly and vile, to crush a person with impunity. This is manifested in its entirety in the wake scene. Such a character was developed by Dostoevsky as the personification of the world that Raskolnikov hates. It is the meadows that push the Marmalades to their death and force young girls to go to the panel.
The type of puddles, the type of vile and low “little people” who will never have a place in any society.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky created a wide canvas of immeasurable human torment, suffering and grief, peering intently into the soul of the so-called “little man.” He discovered in him not only suffering, but also meanness, cowardice and thirst for profit, like Mr. Luzhin. He discovered in him hopelessness and self-destruction, like Marmeladov, and immense destructive pride, like Katerina Ivanovna.
Dostoevsky's worldview is based on one enduring fundamental value - love for man, recognition of man's spirituality. And all the writer’s quests are aimed at creating better living conditions worthy of the title of human being.
Who did the writers mean by calling some generalized image of their hero this way? This is a person who is not small in size or height; in Russian literature this is the name for a person who may not be dressed sparsely, but most importantly, he is quiet and downtrodden, intimidated by higher officials.
Before Fyodor Dostoevsky, such heroes were described by such writers as Alexander Pushkin in his work “ Stationmaster", Nikolai Gogol in the story "The Overcoat". But it was Dostoevsky who penetrated most deeply into this topic and showed the “little man” in his deeply psychological novel"Crime and Punishment."
The main character of the novel is Rodion Raskolnikov, whom the reader can meet already in the first pages of the novel, since the author shows him already in the first chapter. The reader learns that Rodion is a student who is so poor that he is starving and lives in a miserable and cramped closet. His clothes were rags, in which it was embarrassing to even go outside. But the main character, ashamed of his poor existence, cannot change anything. He is used to living in such a closet, walking around in rags, although he does not like such a life at all. He even had to quit studying at the university because he had nothing to pay for his studies.
Raskolnikov has no money, he gradually pawns all his things. His relatives, who lived in the village, used to at least send him something, but now they themselves are completely impoverished and his mother has nowhere to get this money. Such a life usually breaks a person, making him downtrodden and quiet. But Dostoevsky’s hero turns out to be different; his spirit cannot be broken. Rodion considers himself an “extraordinary person.” And no matter how fate treats him, he still tries to get out of the situation in which he finds himself.
The main character of Dostoevsky's novel is ready to commit a crime and kill a defenseless old woman pawnbroker in order to prove his theory. But there are more victims: an accidental witness to the crime turns out to be the old woman’s sister, Lisa, and Raskolnikov is forced to kill her too. Rodion thinks that he did a good deed, because he saved society from small louses and nonentities who bother everyone and drink their blood. And here, with his thoughts, he is very much like Napoleon.
But why does Dostoevsky’s hero do exactly this? Why doesn't he choose a different path? He suffered, suffered, but after the murder he did not feel remorse, since the young man believed that he had acted correctly and fairly. Even being in hard labor, admitting his action, he still does not consider himself wrong. After all, for a long time he tried to convince himself that he was right, that his theory was correct. According to his theory, it turned out that all people are divided into two types: ordinary and extraordinary, who have the right to kill. Most likely, he also considered himself to be the second type of person, since he allowed himself to commit murder.
It turns out that Raskolnikov is a strong and purposeful person who is capable of decisive actions and does not submit to fate, but tries to fight it, although not always in justified ways. And then Marmeladov, rather than Raskolnikov, can be considered a “little man”. Little is known about Marmeladov, but even from what the reader easily learns from the pages of Dostoevsky’s novel, it is clear that Marmeladov is unhappy. One day he decides to do a wonderful thing and marry Katerina Ivanovna, a mother of many children.
He finds himself in a difficult position, having married an officer's widow and taken custody of her three children. He himself already had a daughter, Sonya, from his first marriage, who also needed to be taken care of. As a result, Marmeladov could not make anyone happier, and at some point it became even harder for them to live with him, as he began to lead a riotous lifestyle: he drinks, constantly leaves the house somewhere, the small salary that he drinks away, fasting children. He accepts and does not contradict the decision my own daughter go to the panel. And he doesn’t resist when his wife hits him.
Marmeladov turns out to be a typical “little man” who cannot withstand the tests that life has in store for him. He is quiet and downtrodden, honest, but weak. He is looking for a world where he can forget about everything. He, the “little man,” turns out to be much weaker than that society in which he lives and is ruled by cruel orders. His wife, Katerina Ivanovna, turns out to be the same. He tries to support his family, but even for the sake of the children, she can no longer continue this life and dies. And the only hope in this family is a young girl who is really looking for a way out, who is not broken. She turns out to be Sonya, in whose arms there are young children.
The fate of these people is sad and tragic. According to Raskolnikov’s theory, they were classified as ordinary, inferior people, and therefore lived only in the present. Rodion Raskolnikov is a little different. He was able to decide to commit a crime, seeing no other way out of the situation in which he was. But he found the courage to admit it. His act aroused enormous feelings and emotions in him. He remains unhappy and distant from this society. And therefore he can also be classified as “little people”. And this is confirmed by the way Luzhin or Svidrigailov treat him.
The main character tried to at least change something, to break out of poverty, he fought when others simply folded their hands. But, unfortunately, he is also a “little man.” Sonechka also belongs to such people, but she fights and, together with Raskolnikov, wins. She had a hard time: going through hunger, ending up on the panel in order to survive and at the same time remain a gentle and sweet creature. Throughout the novel, Sonya submits to her fate, but she cannot fully come to terms with this state of affairs. That's why she is looking for her own world, where she can find salvation.
Sonya Marmeladova finds her own world, which supports her in life, cannot break her, as her parents did - this is the world of God. And despite the fact that both Sonya and Rodion are “little people,” they were able to prove themselves, were able to fight for their existence, and not vegetate insignificantly and drag out their miserable existence. They were born in families where they were doomed to become “little” people, and therefore they followed the path of these very “little people”, submitting, as life taught them to do. But at some point they decided not to submit and to rise above this terrible reality.
Sonya not only tried to find new life, to believe in her, but also helped Rodion in this. He finally gained faith in a new life, in the fact that the future ahead will be better than the present. And it begins new story in the lives of these people, where renewal and rebirth await them. So Dostoevsky showed how a “little man” can be morally reborn. And this salvation, according to the author, can only be found by having faith in God, because this is the fairest judgment.
F. M. Dostoevsky in his work showed the immensity of the suffering of humiliated and insulted people and expressed enormous pain for this suffering. The writer himself was humiliated and insulted by the terrible reality that broke the fate of his heroes. Each of his works looks like a personal bitter confession. This is exactly how the novel “Crime and Punishment” is perceived. It reflects a desperate protest against the cruel reality that crushed millions of people, just as the unfortunate Marmeladov was crushed to death.
The story of the moral struggle of the novel's protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, unfolds against the backdrop of everyday life cities. The description of St. Petersburg in the novel makes a depressing impression. Everywhere there is dirt, stench, stuffiness. Drunken cries are heard from the taverns, poorly dressed people crowd the boulevards and squares: “Near the taverns on the lower floors, in the dirty and smelly courtyards of Sennaya Square, and most of all near the taverns, there were crowds of many different and every kind of industrialists and rags... There are no rags here. attracted no one’s arrogant attention, and one could walk around in any form without scandalizing anyone.” Raskolnikov is one of this crowd: “He was so poorly dressed that another, even an ordinary person, would be ashamed to go out into the street in such rags during the day.”
The life of the other heroes of the novel is also terrible - the drunken official Marmeladov, his wife Katerina Ivanovna, who is dying of consumption, Raskolnikov’s mother and sister, who are experiencing the bullying of landowners and rich people.
Dostoevsky depicts various shades psychological experiences of a poor man who has nothing to pay his landlord’s rent. The writer shows the torment of children growing up in a dirty corner next to a drunken father and a dying mother, amid constant abuse and quarrels; the tragedy of a young and pure girl, forced due to the desperate situation of her family to start selling herself and dooming herself to constant humiliation.
However, Dostoevsky is not limited to describing everyday phenomena and facts of terrifying reality. He seems to connect them with the depiction of the complex characters of the novel's heroes. The writer strives to show that the everyday everyday life of the city gives rise not only to material poverty and lack of rights, but also cripples the psychology of people. The “little people” driven to despair begin to have various fantastic “ideas” that are no less nightmarish than the reality around them.
This is Raskolnikov’s “idea” about Napoleons and “trembling creatures,” “ordinary” and “extraordinary” people. Dostoevsky shows how this philosophy is born from life itself, under the influence of the terrifying existence of “little people.”
But not only Raskolnikov’s fate consists of tragic trials and painful searches for a way out of the current situation. The lives of the other heroes of the novel - Marmeladov, Sonya, and Dunya - are also deeply tragic.
The heroes of the novel are painfully aware of the hopelessness of their situation and the cruelty of reality. “After all, it is necessary that every person at least have somewhere to go. For there comes a time when you absolutely have to go somewhere!.., after all, it is necessary that every person has at least one place where they would be pitied!.. Do you understand, do you understand... what does it mean, when there is nowhere else to go?..” - from these words of Marmeladov, sounding like a cry for salvation, the heart of every reader contracts. They, in fact, express the main idea of the novel. This is the cry of the soul of a man, exhausted, crushed by his inevitable fate.
The main character of the novel feels a close connection with all humiliated and suffering people, feels a moral responsibility towards them. The destinies of Sonya Marmeladova and Dunya are connected in his mind into one knot of social and moral problems. After committing the crime, Raskolnikov is overcome by despair and anxiety. He experiences fear, hatred of his persecutors, horror of a committed and irreparable act. And then he begins to look more closely than before at other people, to compare his fate with theirs.
Raskolnikov brings Sonya's fate closer to his own; in her behavior and attitude to life, he begins to look for a solution to the issues that torment him.
Sonya Marmeladova appears in the novel as a bearer moral ideals millions of “humiliated and insulted.” Like Raskolnikov, Sonya is a victim of the existing unjust order of things. Her father's drunkenness, the suffering of her stepmother, brother and sisters, doomed to hunger and poverty, forced her, like Raskolnikov, to cross the line of morality. She begins to sell her body, giving herself over to the vile and depraved world. But, unlike Raskolnikov, she is firmly convinced that no hardships in life can justify violence and crime. Sonya calls on Raskolnikov to abandon the morality of the “superman” in order to steadfastly unite his fate with the fate of suffering and oppressed humanity and thereby atone for his guilt before him.
“Little people” in Dostoevsky’s novel, despite the severity of their situation, prefer to be victims rather than executioners. It's better to be crushed than to crush others! The main character gradually comes to this conclusion. At the end of the novel, we see him on the threshold of a “new life,” “a gradual transition from one world to another, acquaintance with a new, hitherto completely unknown reality.”
F. M. Dostoevsky in his work showed the immensity of the suffering of humiliated and insulted people and expressed enormous pain for this suffering. The writer himself was humiliated and insulted by the terrible reality that broke the fate of his heroes. Each of his works looks like a personal bitter confession. This is exactly how the novel “Crime and Punishment” is perceived. It reflects a desperate protest against the cruel reality that crushed millions of people, just as the unfortunate Marmeladov was crushed to death.
The story of the moral struggle of the novel's protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, unfolds against the backdrop of everyday life in the city. The description of St. Petersburg in the novel makes a depressing impression. Everywhere there is dirt, stench, stuffiness. Drunken cries are heard from the taverns, poorly dressed people crowd the boulevards and squares: “Near the taverns on the lower floors, in the dirty and smelly courtyards of Sennaya Square, and most of all near the taverns, there were crowds of many different and every kind of industrialists and rags... There are no rags here. attracted no one’s arrogant attention, and one could walk around in any form without scandalizing anyone.” Raskolnikov is one of this crowd: “He was so poorly dressed that another, even an ordinary person, would be ashamed to go out into the street in such rags during the day.”
The life of the other heroes of the novel is also terrible - the drunken official Marmeladov, his wife Katerina Ivanovna, who is dying of consumption, Raskolnikov’s mother and sister, who are experiencing the bullying of landowners and rich people.
Dostoevsky depicts various shades of the psychological experiences of a poor man who has nothing to pay his landlord’s rent. The writer shows the torment of children growing up in a dirty corner next to a drunken father and a dying mother, amid constant abuse and quarrels; the tragedy of a young and pure girl, forced due to the desperate situation of her family to start selling herself and dooming herself to constant humiliation.
However, Dostoevsky is not limited to describing everyday phenomena and facts of terrifying reality. He seems to connect them with the depiction of the complex characters of the novel's heroes. The writer strives to show that the everyday everyday life of the city gives rise not only to material poverty and lack of rights, but also cripples the psychology of people. The “little people” driven to despair begin to have various fantastic “ideas” that are no less nightmarish than the reality around them.
This is Raskolnikov’s “idea” about Napoleons and “trembling creatures,” “ordinary” and “extraordinary” people. Dostoevsky shows how this philosophy is born from life itself, under the influence of the terrifying existence of “little people.”
But not only Raskolnikov’s fate consists of tragic trials and painful searches for a way out of the current situation. The lives of the other heroes of the novel - Marmeladov, Sonya, and Dunya - are also deeply tragic.
The heroes of the novel are painfully aware of the hopelessness of their situation and the cruelty of reality. “After all, it is necessary that every person at least have somewhere to go. For there comes a time when you absolutely have to go somewhere!.., after all, it is necessary that every person has at least one place where they would be pitied!.. Do you understand, do you understand... what does it mean, when there is nowhere else to go?..” - from these words of Marmeladov, sounding like a cry for salvation, the heart of every reader contracts. They, in fact, express the main idea of the novel. This is the cry of the soul of a man, exhausted, crushed by his inevitable fate.
The main character of the novel feels a close connection with all humiliated and suffering people, feels a moral responsibility towards them. The fates of Sonya Marmeladova and Dunya are connected in his mind into one knot of social and moral problems. After committing the crime, Raskolnikov is overcome by despair and anxiety. He experiences fear, hatred of his persecutors, horror of a committed and irreparable act. And then he begins to look more closely than before at other people, to compare his fate with theirs.
Raskolnikov brings Sonya's fate closer to his own; in her behavior and attitude to life, he begins to look for a solution to the issues that torment him.
Sonya Marmeladova appears in the novel as the bearer of the moral ideals of millions of “humiliated and insulted.” Like Raskolnikov, Sonya is a victim of the existing unjust order of things. Her father's drunkenness, the suffering of her stepmother, brother and sisters, doomed to hunger and poverty, forced her, like Raskolnikov, to cross the line of morality. She begins to sell her body, giving herself over to the vile and depraved world. But, unlike Raskolnikov, she is firmly convinced that no hardships in life can justify violence and crime. Sonya calls on Raskolnikov to abandon the morality of the “superman” in order to steadfastly unite his fate with the fate of suffering and oppressed humanity and thereby atone for his guilt before him.
“Little people” in Dostoevsky’s novel, despite the severity of their situation, prefer to be victims rather than executioners. It's better to be crushed than to crush others! The main character gradually comes to this conclusion. At the end of the novel, we see him on the threshold of a “new life,” “a gradual transition from one world to another, acquaintance with a new, hitherto completely unknown reality.”