Theory of literature Khalizev Valentin Evgenievich

§ 6. Co- and oppositions

§ 6. Co- and oppositions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this novel, Tolstoy showed and compared the two most important feelings inherent in a person. Love and hate. Levin felt love for all the people and problems surrounding him on his wedding day, and a feeling of hatred for Karenina at the moment of his near-death experiences. By contrasting these two heroes, one can see more broadly and more specifically one of the main goals of the novel, the meaning of which is to compare two types of love. A lost lady with high moral standards and beautiful appearance had one love - Anna Karenina, the second love - in a spiritually reborn gentleman, with his stubborn approach to figure everything out and the desire for happiness in life.

Anna Karenina's love was doomed from the very beginning. First, she cheated on her husband and betrayed her entire family. Secondly, all her love, despite strong passion and uncontrollable attraction, was based only on carnal need and selfishness. Anna wanted intense experiences, romance, passion, and carefreeness. Throughout Tolstoy's entire novel, Anna never once gave the concept of love or explained the experience of this feeling. All the arguments that she came up with to denigrate her husband’s attitude towards her had no basis; she did it only because she wanted to somehow justify herself in her own eyes. After she realized that she was not receiving the attention that she so dreamed of in her relationship with her lover, her suspicious nature again began to come up with excuses for herself, accusing her lover of crimes that he did not commit. Precisely because it was not real, not pure love, or rather not love, but ordinary selfish lust, because of which her whole life was destroyed, she felt disgust and hatred. And hatred, of course, led to revenge. Revenge was death. This is the only way to get away from yourself, to escape from problems and shame. And at the same time it is revenge for neglecting her love.

We see a completely different picture in Levin’s relationship.

Let us remember the evening when Levin confessed his love to Kitty for the second time, and she reciprocated his feelings. He was filled with a feeling of delight and happiness - it was love. That evening, in order to somehow pass the time until the next day, he went with his brother to the meeting. At the meeting, everyone was arguing about the deduction of some amounts and about laying some pipes, they were very animatedly sarcastic to each other.

Levin listened to them and clearly saw that they were not angry, but that they were all such kind, nice people, and so it all went well, sweetly between them. What was remarkable for Levin was that now they were all visible to him through and through, and by small, previously unnoticeable signs, he recognized the soul of each and clearly saw that they were all kind. In particular, they all loved him, Levin, extremely much today. This was evident from the way they spoke to him, how affectionately, lovingly even all the strangers looked at him.

The man with whom he had previously felt some kind of dissatisfaction, now seemed smart and kind to him, invited him to drink tea. And Levin couldn’t even remember what irritated him about him, and stayed with him until 2 am. Upon returning to the hotel, the hero saw a footman whom he had not even noticed before, and he also turned out to be a very smart and good, and most importantly, a kind person.

He ate almost nothing and could not sleep. Although the room was fresh, the heat stifled him. “All night and morning Levin lived completely unconsciously and felt completely removed from the conditions of material life. He felt completely independent of his body: he moved without muscle effort and felt that he could do anything. He was sure that he would fly up or move the corner of the house if necessary. And what he saw then, he never saw again. Especially the children going to school, the gray pigeons that flew from the roof onto the sidewalk, and the cods sprinkled with flour, which were put out by an invisible hand, touched him. These fish, pigeons and two boys were unearthly creatures. All this together was so extraordinarily good that Levin laughed and cried with joy.”

It was not an earthly feeling, a feeling of love. This love was expressed in everything, it filled him from the inside and illuminated everything around him. This relationship was truly built correctly. Levin didn't put future wife slave frames. He did not want to marry just to satisfy his natural desires. First of all, he wanted a family mutual love, without love he saw no meaning in it. He also built his relationships on complete openness and trust. And even though he was an unbeliever, he agreed to fast and go to Divine Services. In principle, he wanted the same human happiness as Karenina, but everything that Levin did for this love indicates self-sacrifice. While Karenina did not sacrifice herself at all for the sake of her imaginary love. She sacrificed her family, her husband, her son, but not herself. She sacrificed everything that was built by the joint efforts of her family, that is, she destroyed everything that love should build.

Precisely because Levin’s love was pure, it had a future, it had further development.

“Levin had been married for three months. He was happy, but not at all as he expected. At every step he found disappointment in his old dreams and new unexpected charm. Levin was happy, but, having entered family life, he saw at every step that it was not at all what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a person would experience if he admired the smooth, happy passage of a boat on the lake, after he himself sat in this boat. He saw that it’s not enough to sit upright without swaying, you also have to think, not for a moment forgetting where to swim, that there is water under your feet and you have to row, and that it hurts unaccustomed hands, that it’s easy to just look at it, but that although doing this is very joyful, it is very difficult.”

In this passage, the writer of the novel shows us that love, even with the right beginning, has great difficulties that must be overcome with great effort. Levin, like all men, involuntarily imagined family life only as the pleasure of love, which should not be hindered by anything and from which petty worries should not distract. Jealousy, possible betrayal, cooling of the feelings of the other half, love for another person - all the depressing feelings that Karenina experienced for Vronsky were also experienced by Levin for his wife. And despite all the doubts and disappointments, Levin understood everything and moved on, trying to overcome all difficulties.

After exploring love in Levin's life, we are left with only one important point in his life - “to believe or not to believe?” - this question arose before him after all the difficulties he had experienced: Kitty’s refusal, Kitty’s mutual love, family conflicts, the death of his brother, the birth of a child. All this in his life did not pass without a trace, but it helped him somehow settle down and gain a footing in this world. It is precisely such difficult turns in his fate that lead him to faith and need for God. And he, as if raising all his thoughts from the depths of his soul, thinks about this necessary important issue- to believe or not to believe?

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

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

Having served excellently and nobly,

His father lived in debt

Gave three balls annually

And finally squandered it.

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

...Village old-timer

For about forty years he was quarreling with the housekeeper,

I looked out the window and squashed flies.

...Onegin opened the cabinets:

In one I found a parish notebook,

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

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

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

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

They got along. Wave and stone

Poetry and prose, ice and fire

Not so different from each other.

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

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

From the cold depravity of the world

Before you even have time to fade,

His soul was warmed

Hello friend, caress girls.

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

Always modest, always obedient,

Always cheerful like the morning...

Eyes like the sky are blue,

Smile, flaxen curls.

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

Not your sister's beauty,

Nor the freshness of her ruddy

She wouldn't attract anyone's attention.

Dick, sad, silent,

Like a forest deer is timid,

She is in her own family

The girl seemed like a stranger.

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

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

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

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

The concept of "antithesis" comes from an ancient Greek term consisting of two parts: "thesa", which means "position", and "anti" - "against". Adding them up, we get “opposite”, that is, “opposite”. Antithesis, the definition and examples of which we will present to you in this article, is a opposition of elements of composition, characters, images, words. This artistic technique in literature, which allows the writers and poets who use it to characterize the characters more fully, to identify author's attitude to different aspects of what is depicted, as well as to the characters themselves.

Condition necessary for antithesis

An essential condition necessary in order to be able to talk about such a technique as antithesis (examples of which we will give below) is subordination general concept opposites or some general point of view on them.

Such subordination does not have to be logically exact. For example, such proverbs as “Small is the spool, but dear”, “Rarely, but accurately”, are constructed antithetically, although the concepts that are opposed in them cannot be called logically subordinate, such as, for example, “beginning” and “end”, "light" and "darkness".

But in this context they are considered as opposite because the words “small” and “rarely” are taken with a specification of meaning in relation to the words “expensive” and “aptly”, taken in their literal meaning, which are compared with them. Entering into antithesis, tropes can hide even more of its logical precision and clarity.

Verbal antithesis

Examples of the use of this technique are numerous. Verbal antithesis occurs when in one sentence or in a poetic phrase some phrases or words are combined with the opposite emotional coloring or meaning.

Let's take, for example, an excerpt from a poem by A.S. Pushkin:

"The city is lush, the city is poor

The spirit of bondage, the slender appearance...".

In the first line here, the antithesis (“poor” - “lush”) of the epithets selected for the word “city” expresses Alexander Sergeevich’s idea of ​​​​Petersburg, which is concretized in the second line by the antithesis of the corresponding epithets. Here the external appearance of the city (in the text - “slender appearance”) and the spiritual content of its life (“spirit of bondage”) are contrasted. In another poem by the same author, verbal antitheses are used to emphasize the discrepancy between the spirit of the “poor knight” and his external appearance. It is said about this hero that he was “pale” and “twilight” in appearance, but in spirit he was “direct” and “brave.” Such a contrast is a verbal antithesis. Examples of it are found quite often in the literature.

Antithesis expressing complex emotional states

Antithesis serves to express not only the aspects of a phenomenon and an object, as well as the author’s emotionally charged attitude towards them, but also various complex emotional states. An example can be found in A.A. Blok's poem "In the Restaurant". Lyrical hero works, he met his beloved in the restaurant “boldly” and “embarrassed,” bowing with “an arrogant gaze.”

Various verbal antitheses are often oxymorons. In other words, it is a combination of words that have opposite meanings.

Figurative antithesis

A figurative antithesis is a contrast that exists between two different images. These could be characters from the work. Examples of antithesis from fiction are numerous: these are Lensky and Onegin, Molchalin and Chatsky, Stepan Kalashnikov and Kiribeevich, Pavel Petrovich and Bazarov, Napoleon and Kutuzov, etc. Also, a figurative antithesis can refer to the image of a village and a city (for example, in A.S. Pushkin’s poem “Village” ), in addition, to the disharmony of the hero’s soul and universal harmony (Lermontov, “I go out alone on the road”), the image of free nature and the “dungeon” monastery (Lermontov, “Mtsyri”), etc. A figurative antithesis, of which we are only examples what they brought was a favorite technique of such a master of style as Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.

Compositional antithesis

There is also such a variety of this technique as compositional antithesis. This is one of the principles by which literary works. Compositional antithesis is a contrast between various episodes and storylines, scenes in drama and epic, stanzas and fragments in lyric poems. Let's take as an example the novel by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin "Eugene Onegin".

In it, in the third and fourth chapters, the failed relationship of Onegin and Tatyana is contrasted. happy love"Lensky and Olga. In Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" the antithesis of two conflicts (love and ideological) allows us to understand the true meaning of the views and beliefs of the nihilist Yevgeny Bazarov, as well as the main reason why they collapsed. Others can be given examples.

Antithesis from literature, presented in lyric poems

Widely used this technique also in various lyric poems. For Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, these are, for example, “Elegy”, “Poet and the Crowd”, “Poet”, “Village” (an example of antithesis in Alexander Sergeevich’s poems - the opposition of slavery of the people and a peaceful landscape), “To Chaadaev”. Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov - “Poet”, “Sail”, “Dream”, “Dispute”, “Gratitude”, “Why”, “January 1”, “Leaf”, “To the Portrait”. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov - “Reflections at the Main Entrance”, “ Railway" and others.

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

Where do the Antipodes live?

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

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

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

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

Eternal duel

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

The secret of true love

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