Artistic conflict, or artistic collision (from the Latin collisio - collision), is the confrontation of multidirectional forces acting in a literary work - social, natural, political, moral, philosophical - which receives ideological and aesthetic embodiment in the artistic structure of the work as opposition (opposition) of characters circumstances, individual characters - or different sides of the same character - to each other, themselves artistic ideas works (if they contain ideologically polar principles).
IN " The captain's daughter Pushkin’s conflict between Grinev and Shvabrin over their love for Masha Mironova, which forms the visible basis of the romantic plot itself, fades into the background before the socio-historical conflict - Pugachev’s uprising. The main problem of Pushkin’s novel, in which both conflicts are refracted in a unique way, is the dilemma of two ideas about honor (the epigraph of the work is “Take care of honor from a young age”): on the one hand, the narrow framework of class-class honor (for example, the noble, officer oath of allegiance) ; on the other hand, universal
values of decency, kindness, humanism (fidelity to one’s word, trust in a person, gratitude for kindness done, desire to help in trouble, etc.). Shvabrin is dishonest even from the point of view of the noble code; Grinev rushes between two concepts of honor, one of which is imputed to his duty, the other is dictated by natural feeling; Pugachev turns out to be above the feeling of class hatred towards a nobleman, which would seem completely natural, and meets the highest requirements of human honesty and nobility, surpassing in this respect the narrator himself - Pyotr Andreevich Grinev.
The writer is not obliged to present the reader with a ready-made future historical resolution of the social conflicts he depicts. Often such a resolution of socio-historical conflicts reflected in a literary work is seen by the reader in a semantic context unexpected for the writer. If the reader acts as literary critic, he can determine both the conflict and the method of resolving it much more accurately and far-sightedly than the artist himself. Thus, N.A. Dobrolyubov, analyzing the drama of A.N. Ostrovsky “The Thunderstorm”, was able to consider, behind the socio-psychological collision of the patriarchal merchant-bourgeois life, the most acute social contradiction of all of Russia - the “dark kingdom”, where, among general obedience, hypocrisy and voicelessness “tyranny” reigns supreme, the ominous apotheosis of which is autocracy, and where even the slightest protest is a “ray of light.”
In epic and dramatic works conflict lies at the heart of the plot and is its driving force, defining action development.
Thus, in “The Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov...” by M. Yu. Lermontov, the development of the action is based on the conflict between Kalashnikov and Kiribeevich; in N.V. Gogol's work "Portrait" the action is based on internal conflict in Chartkov’s soul there is a contradiction between the awareness of the artist’s high duty and the passion for profit.
At the heart of the conflict work of art- life contradictions, their detection is the most important function of the plot. Hegel introduced the term “collision” with the meaning of a collision of opposing forces, interests, and aspirations.
The science of literature traditionally recognizes the existence of four types of artistic conflict, which will be discussed further. Firstly, a natural or physical conflict, when the hero enters into a struggle with nature. Secondly, the so-called social conflict when a person is challenged by another person or society. In accordance with the laws art world such a conflict arises in the clash of heroes who are possessed by opposing and mutually exclusive life goals. And for this conflict to be sufficiently acute, sufficiently “tragic”, each of these mutually hostile goals must have its own subjective rightness, each of the heroes must, to some extent, evoke compassion. So Circassian (“ Caucasian prisoner“A.S. Pushkin), like Tamara from M.Yu. Lermontov’s poem “The Demon,” enters into conflict not so much with the hero as with society, and dies. Her “epiphany” costs her life. Or “The Bronze Horseman” – the confrontation between a little man and a formidable reformer. Moreover, it is precisely the correlation of such themes that is characteristic of Russian literature of the 19th century. It should be emphasized that the unquestioning introduction of a character into a certain environment that embraces him, presuming the supremacy of this environment over him, sometimes eliminates the problems of moral responsibility and personal initiative of a member of society, which were so significant for the literature of the 19th century. A variation of this category is a conflict between social groups or generations. Thus, in the novel “Fathers and Sons” I. Turgenev depicts the core social conflict of the 60s of the 19th century - the clash between liberal nobles and democratic commoners. Despite the title, the conflict in the novel is not of an ageist nature, but of an ideological nature, i.e. This is not a conflict between two generations, but essentially a conflict between two worldviews. The role of antipodes in the novel is played by Evgeny Bazarov (exponent of the idea of common democrats) and Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov (central defender of the worldview and lifestyle of the liberal nobility). The breath of the era, its typical features are palpable in the central images of the novel and in the historical background against which the action unfolds. The period of preparation for the peasant reform, the deep social contradictions of that time, the struggle of social forces in the era of the 60s - this is what was reflected in the images of the novel, constituted its historical background and essence main conflict. The third type of conflict traditionally identified in literary studies is internal or psychological, when a person’s desires conflict with his conscience. For example, the moral and psychological conflict of I. Turgenev’s novel “Rudin”, which originated in the author’s early prose. Thus, the confessional elegy “Alone, alone again I” can be considered an original preface to the formation of the storyline “Rudina”, defining the confrontation of the main character between reality and dreams, falling in love with being and dissatisfaction with his own fate, and a significant share of Turgenev’s poems(“To A.S.”, “Confession”, “Did you notice, oh my silent friend...”, “When it’s so joyful, so tender...”, etc.) as a plot “blank” for a future novel. Fourth possible type literary conflict designated as providential when a person opposes the laws of fate or some deity. For example, in the grandiose, sometimes difficult for the reader, “Faust”, everything is built on a global conflict - a large-scale confrontation between the genius of knowledge of Faust and the genius of evil Mephistopheles.
№9Composition of a literary work. External and internal composition.
Composition (from Latin composition - arrangement, comparison) - the structure of a work of art, determined by its content, purpose and largely determines its perception by the reader
A distinction is made between external composition (architectonics) and internal composition (narrative composition).
To the features external compositions include the presence or absence of:
1) dividing the text into fragments (books, volumes, parts, chapters, acts, stanzas, paragraphs);
2) prologue, epilogue;
3) attachments, notes, comments;
4) epigraphs, dedications;
5) inserted texts or episodes;
6) author's digressions (lyrical, philosophical, historical) Author's digression - an extra-plot fragment in literary text, serving directly to express the thoughts and feelings of the author-narrator.
Internal
The composition of the narrative is the features of the organization of the point of view of what is depicted. When characterizing the internal composition, it is necessary to answer the following questions:
1) how the speech situation in the work is organized (who, to whom, in what form the speech is addressed, are there narrators and how many of them, in what order do they change and why, how does the speech situation organized by the author affect the reader);
2) how the plot is structured (linear composition, or retrospective, or with elements of a retrospective story, circular, plot framing; reportage type or memoir, etc.);
3) how the system of images is built (what is the compositional center - one hero, two or a group; how the world of people relates (main, secondary, episodic, extra-plot / extra-scene; double characters, antagonist characters), the world of things, the natural world, the world cities, etc.);
4) how individual images are built;
5) what compositional role is played by the strong positions of the text-literary work.
No. 10 Speech structure thin. works.
The narration could be:
FROM THE AUTHOR (objective form of narration, from the 3rd person): the apparent absence of any subject of narration in the work. This illusion arises because epic works the author does not directly express himself in any way - neither through statements on his own behalf, nor through the emotion of the tone of the story itself. Ideological and emotional comprehension is expressed indirectly - through combinations of details of the substantive imagery of the work.
ON BEHALF OF THE NARRATOR, BUT NOT THE HERO. The narrator expresses himself in emotional statements about the characters, their actions, relationships, and experiences. Usually, the author assigns this role to one of minor characters. The narrator's speech gives the main assessment of the characters and events in a literary work.
Example: “The Captain's Daughter” by Pushkin, where the narration is told from Grinev’s point of view.
The form of first-person narration is SKAZ. The narrative is constructed as an oral story of a specific narrator, equipped with his individual linguistic properties. This form allows you to show someone else's point of view, including one that belongs to another culture.
Another form is EPISTOLARY, i.e. letters from a hero or correspondence between several persons
The third form is MEMOIR, i.e. works written in the form of memoirs, diaries
Personification narrative speech is a powerful, expressive tool.
№ 11 A system of characters as an integral part of a literary work.
When analyzing epic and dramatic works, a lot of attention has to be paid to the composition of the character system, that is, the characters in the work. For the convenience of approaching this analysis, it is customary to distinguish between main, secondary and episodic characters. It would seem a very simple and convenient division, but in practice it often causes bewilderment and some confusion. The fact is that the category of a character (main, secondary or episodic) can be determined according to two different parameters.
The first is the degree of participation in the plot and, accordingly, the amount of text that this character is given.
The second is the degree of importance of this character for revealing aspects of artistic content. It’s easy to analyze in cases where these parameters coincide: for example, in Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” Bazarov is the main character in both parameters, Pavel Petrovich, Nikolai Petrovich, Arkady, Odintsova are secondary characters in all respects, and Sitnikov or Kukshina are episodic.
In some art systems we encounter such an organization of the system of characters that the question of their division into main, secondary and episodic ones loses all meaningful meaning, although in a number of cases differences between individual characters remain in terms of plot and volume of text. It’s not for nothing that Gogol wrote about his comedy “The Inspector General” that “every hero is here; the flow and progress of the play produces a shock to the whole machine: not a single wheel should remain rusty and not included in the work.” Continuing further by comparing the wheels in the car with the characters in the play, Gogol notes that some heroes can only formally prevail over others: “And in the car, some wheels move more noticeably and more powerfully, they can only be called the main ones.”
Quite complex compositional and semantic relationships can arise between the characters of a work. The simplest and most common case is the opposition of two images to each other. According to this principle of contrast, for example, the system of characters in Pushkin’s “Little Tragedies” is built: Mozart - Salieri, Don Juan - the Commander, the Baron - his son, the priest - Walsingham. Somewhat more difficult case when one character is opposed to all others, as, for example, in Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit,” where even quantitative relationships are important: it was not for nothing that Griboedov wrote that in his comedy “twenty-five fools for one smart person" Much less often than opposition, the technique of a kind of “doubleness” is used, when characters are compositionally united by similarity; a classic example is Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky in Gogol.
Often the compositional grouping of characters is carried out in accordance with the themes and problems that these characters embody.
№ 12 Character, character, hero, character, type, prototype and literary hero.
Character(character) – in prose or dramatic work artistic image a person (sometimes fantastic creatures, animals or objects), who is both the subject of the action and the object of the author’s research.
Hero. Central character, the main one for the development of action is called the hero of a literary work. Heroes who enter into ideological or everyday conflict with each other are the most important in the character system. In a literary work, the relationship and role of the main, secondary, episodic characters(as well as non-stage characters in a dramatic work) are determined by the author's intention.
Character- a personality type formed by individual traits. The set of psychological properties that make up the image literary character, is called character. Incarnation in a hero, a character of a certain life character.
Type(imprint, form, sample) is the highest manifestation of character, and character (imprint, distinctive feature) is the universal presence of a person in complex works. Character can grow from type, but type cannot grow from character.
Prototype- a specific person who served the writer as the basis for creating a generalized image-character in a work of art.
Literary hero- This is the image of a person in literature. Also in this sense the concepts “actor” and “character” are used. Often, only the more important characters (characters) are called literary heroes.
Literary heroes are usually divided into positive and negative, but this division is very arbitrary.
Character a work of art - a character. As a rule, the character takes an active part in the development of the action, but the author or someone from literary heroes. There are main and secondary characters. In some works the focus is on one character (for example, in Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”), in others the writer’s attention is drawn to a whole series characters (“War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy).
13.The image of the author in a work of art.
The image of the author is one of the ways to realize the author’s position in an epic or lyric epic work; a personified narrator, endowed with a number of individual characteristics, but not identical to the writer’s personality. The author-narrator always occupies certain spatio-temporal and evaluative-ideological positions in the figurative world of the work; he, as a rule, is opposed to all the characters as a figure of a different status, a different spatio-temporal plane. A significant exception is the image of the author in the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” A.S. Pushkin, either declaring his closeness to the main characters of the novel, or emphasizing their fictionality. The author, unlike the characters, can neither be a direct participant in the events described, nor the object of the image for any of the characters. (Otherwise, we may not be talking about the image of the author, but about the hero-narrator, like Pechorin from “A Hero of Our Time” by M. Yu. Lermontov.) Within the work, the plot plan appears to be a fictional world, conditional in relation to the author, which determines the sequence and completeness of the presentation of facts, the alternation of descriptions, reasoning and stage episodes, the transmission of direct speech of characters and internal monologues.
The presence of the author’s image is indicated by personal and possessive pronouns first person, personal forms of verbs, as well as various kinds of deviations from the plot action, direct assessments and characteristics of characters, generalizations, maxims, rhetorical questions, exclamations, appeals to an imaginary reader and even to characters: “It is very doubtful that the readers will like our chosen hero. The ladies will like him.” If you don’t like it, that can be said in the affirmative...” (N.V. Gogol, “Dead Souls”).
Being outside the plot action, the author can handle both space and time quite freely: freely transferring from one place to another, leaving the “actual present” (action time), or delving into the past, giving the backstory of the characters (the story about Chichikov in the 11th Chapter “Dead Souls”), or looking ahead, demonstrating his omniscience with messages or hints about the immediate or distant future of the heroes: “... It was a redoubt that did not yet have a name, which later received the name of the Raevsky redoubt, or the Kurgan battery. Pierre did not pay much attention to this redoubt. He didn’t know that this place would be more memorable for him than all the places on the Borodino Field” (L.N. Tolstoy, “War and Peace”).
In literature, the second gender. 19th–20th centuries subjective narration with the image of the author is rare; it has given way to an “objective”, “impersonal” narrative, in which there are no signs of a personalized author-narrator and the author’s position is expressed indirectly: through a system of characters, plot development, with the help of expressive details, speech characteristics characters etc. p.
14. Poetics of the title. Title types.
Title- this is an element of text, and a completely special one, “pushed out”, it occupies a separate line and usually has a different font. The title is impossible not to notice - like a beautiful hat, for example. But, as S. Krzhizhanovsky figuratively wrote, the title is “not a hat, but a head, which cannot be attached to the body from the outside.” Writers always take the titles of their works very seriously; sometimes they rework them many times (you probably know the expression “title pain”). Changing the title means changing something very important in the text...
By the title alone you can recognize the author or the direction to which he belongs: the name “Dead Moon” could only be given to the collection by hooligan futurists, but not by A. Akhmatova, N. Gumilyov or Andrei Bely.
Without a title, it is completely unclear what a particular poem is talking about. Here's an example. This is the beginning of B. Slutsky’s poem:
Didn't knock me off my feet. I scribbled with a pen,
Like a swallow, like a bird.
And you can’t cut it out with an axe.
You will not forget and you will not forgive.
And some new seed
You grow carefully in your soul.
Who... "didn't knock you off your feet"? It turns out that it's someone else's line. That's the name of the poem. Anyone who reads the title perceives the beginning of the poem with completely different eyes.
In poetry, all the facts of language and any “little things” of form become significant. This also applies to the title - and even if it... is not there. The absence of a title is a kind of signal: “Attention, now you will read a poem in which there are so many different associations that they cannot be expressed in one word...” The absence of a title indicates that a text rich in associations is expected, elusive to define.
Subject-descriptive titles - titles that directly designate the subject of the description, reflecting the content of the work in a concentrated form.
Figurative and thematic- titles of works that communicate the content of what is to be read, not directly, but figuratively, by using a word or combination of words in a figurative sense, using specific types of tropes.
Ideological and characteristic- headers literary works, indicating the author's assessment of what is being described, on main conclusion the author, the main idea of the entire artistic creation.
Ideological and thematic, or polyvalent titles - those titles that indicate both the theme and the idea of the work.
Now let's analyze a somewhat more familiar category - the plot and its place in the composition of the work. First of all, let’s clarify the terms, because plot and practical literary criticism often mean a variety of things. We will call the plot the system of events and actions contained in the work, its chain of events, and precisely in the sequence in which it is given to us in the work. The last remark is important, since quite often events are told not in chronological sequence, and the reader can find out what happened earlier later. If we take only the main, key episodes of the plot, which are absolutely necessary for its understanding, and arrange them in chronological order, then we get plot - a plot outline or, as it is sometimes called, a “straightened plot.” The plots in different works can be very similar to each other, but the plot is always uniquely individual.
The plot is the dynamic side of the artistic form; it involves movement, development, change. At the heart of any movement, as is known, lies a contradiction, which is the engine of development. The plot also has such an engine - this conflict - an artistically significant contradiction. Conflict is one of those categories that seem to permeate the entire structure of a work of art. When we talked about themes, problems and the ideological world, we also used this term. The fact is that the conflict in the work exists on different levels. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the writer does not invent conflicts, but draws them from primary reality - this is how the conflict moves from life itself into the area of thematic, problematic, pathos. This is a conflict on meaningful level (sometimes another term is used to designate it - “collision”). A meaningful conflict is embodied, as a rule, in the confrontation of characters and in the movement of the plot (at least, this happens in epic and dramatic works), although there are also extra-plot ways of realizing the conflict - for example, in Blok’s “The Stranger” the conflict between the everyday and the romantic is not expressed in terms of plot , and by compositional means - the opposition of images. But we are in in this case interested in the conflict embodied in the plot. This is already a conflict at the level of form, embodying a content conflict. Thus, in “Woe from Wit” by Griboedov, the substantive conflict of two noble groups - the serf nobility and the Decembrist nobility - is embodied in the conflict between Chatsky and Famusov, Molchalin, Khlestova, Tugoukhovskaya, Zagoretsky and others. The separation of substantive and formal plans in the analysis of the conflict is important because allows you to reveal the writer’s skill in embodying life’s collisions, artistic originality work and the non-identity of its primary reality. Thus, Griboyedov in his comedy makes the conflict of noble factions extremely tangible, pitting specific heroes against each other in a narrow space, each of whom pursues his own goals; At the same time, the conflict intensifies as the heroes clash over issues that are essential to them. All this turns from a rather abstract life conflict, dramatically neutral in itself, into an exciting confrontation between living, concrete people who worry, get angry, laugh, worry, etc. The conflict becomes artistic, aesthetically significant only at the level of form.
At the formal level, several types of conflicts should be distinguished. The simplest is conflict between individual characters and groups of characters. The example discussed above with “Woe from Wit” is a good illustration of this type of conflict; a similar conflict is present in Pushkin’s “The Miserly Knight” and “The Captain’s Daughter,” in Shchedrin’s “The History of a City,” Ostrovsky’s “Warm Heart” and “Mad Money” and in many other works.
More complex look conflict is a confrontation between the hero and the way of life, the individual and the environment (social, everyday, cultural, etc.). The difference from the first type is that the hero here is not opposed by anyone in particular; he does not have an opponent with whom he could fight, who could be defeated, thereby resolving the conflict. Thus, in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” the main character does not enter into any significant contradictions with any character, but the very stable forms of Russian social, everyday, cultural life They oppose the hero’s needs, suppress him with everyday life, leading to disappointment, inaction, “the blues” and boredom. So, in Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” all the characters are the sweetest people who, in fact, have nothing to share with each other, everyone is on excellent terms with each other, but nevertheless the main characters - Ranevskaya, Lopakhin, Varya - feel bad, uncomfortable in life , their aspirations are not realized, but no one is to blame for this, except, again, the stable way of Russian life of the late 19th century, which Lopakhin rightly calls “clumsy” and “unhappy.”
Finally, the third type of conflict is an internal, psychological conflict, when the hero is at odds with himself, when he carries certain contradictions within himself, and sometimes contains incompatible principles. Such a conflict is characteristic, for example, of Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” and many other works.
It also happens that in a work we are faced with not one, but two or even all three types of conflicts. Thus, in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” the external conflict between Katerina and Kabanikha is intensified many times over and deepened by an internal conflict: Katerina cannot live without love and freedom, but in her situation both are sins, and the consciousness of her own sinfulness puts the heroine in a truly hopeless situation. position.
To understand a particular work of art, it is very important to correctly determine the type of conflict. Above we gave an example with “A Hero of Our Time”, in which school literary criticism persistently looks for Pechorin’s conflict with the “water” society, instead of paying attention to the much more significant and universal psychological conflict in the novel, which lies in the irreconcilable ideas that exist in Pechorin’s mind : “there is predestination” and “there is no predestination.” As a result, the type of problem is incorrectly formulated, the character of the hero is terribly shallow, of the stories included in the novel, “Princess Mary” is studied almost exclusively, the character of the hero appears completely different from what he really is, Pechorin is scolded for something for which it is absurd to scold him and wrongfully (for egoism, for example) and are praised for something for which there is no merit (departure from secular society) - in a word, the novel is read “exactly the opposite.” And at the beginning of this chain of errors lay an incorrect definition of the type of artistic conflict.
From another point of view, two types of conflicts can be distinguished.
One type - it is called local - assumes the fundamental possibility of resolution through active actions; It's usually the characters who take these actions as the story progresses. For example, Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” is based on such a conflict, where Aleko’s conflict with the gypsies is resolved at the end by the hero’s expulsion from the camp; Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”, where the psychological conflict also finds resolution in the moral purification and resurrection of Raskolnikov, Sholokhov’s novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”, where the socio-psychological conflict among the Cossacks ends in the victory of collectivist sentiments and the collective farm system, as well as many other works.
The second type of conflict - it is called substantial - depicts to us a persistently conflicted existence, and no real practical actions that could resolve this conflict are unthinkable. Conventionally, this type of conflict can be called insoluble in a given period of time. Such, in particular, is the conflict of “Eugene Onegin” discussed above with its confrontation between personality and social order, which cannot be fundamentally resolved or removed by any active actions; such is the conflict in Chekhov’s story “The Bishop,” which depicts a persistently conflicted existence among the Russian intelligentsia of the late 19th century; This is the conflict of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet”, in which the psychological contradictions of the main character are also of a constant, stable nature and are not resolved until the very end of the play. Determining the type of conflict in the analysis is important because different plots are built on different conflicts, which determines the further path of analysis.
It is legitimate to distinguish two kinds (types) of plot conflicts: firstly, local and transitory contradictions, and secondly, stable conflict states (positions).
In literature, the most deeply rooted plots are those whose conflicts, in the course of the events depicted, arise, intensify and are somehow resolved - overcome and exhaust themselves. Life's contradictions here reside within the series of events and are closed in them, entirely concentrated in the time of action, which is steadily moving towards a denouement.
Thus, in W. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Othello” emotional drama the hero is limited to the period of time when Iago’s devilish intrigue was woven and successfully carried out, without which, the harmony of mutual love would have reigned in the lives of Othello and Desdemona. The evil intent of the envious person is the main and the only reason sad delusion, the suffering of jealousy of the protagonist and the death of the heroine at his hand.
The conflict of the tragedy "Othello" (with all its tension and depth) is local and transitory. It is within the plot. And this is by no means a feature of this particular tragedy, and not a property of Shakespeare’s poetics specifically. And not a feature of the genre as such. The relationship between plot and conflict, which we outlined in the example of Othello, is a supra-epochal and supra-genre property of dramatic and epic works.
It is present in traditional epics, comedies, short stories, fables, lyric-epic poems, and often in novels. Based on this kind of plots, Hegel wrote: “At the basis of a collision (i.e. conflict - V.Kh.) lies a violation that cannot be preserved as a violation, but must be eliminated. Collision is such a change in the harmonic state, which in turn must be changed." And further: the conflict “needs resolution following the struggle of opposites.”
Plots based on local and transitory conflicts have been studied in literary studies of the 20th century. very carefully. The palm belongs to V.Ya. Proppu. In the book “Morphology of a Fairy Tale” (1928), the scientist used the term “function of characters” as a reference, by which he meant the action of a character in its significance for the further course of events. In fairy tales, the functions of the characters (that is, their place and role in the development of the action), according to Propp, are built in a certain way.
Firstly, the course of events is associated with an initial “lack” - with the desire and intention of the hero to find something (in many fairy tales this is a bride) that he does not have. Secondly, there is a confrontation between the hero (protagonist) and the anti-hero (antagonist). And finally, thirdly, as a result of the events that took place, the hero receives what he is looking for, gets married, and at the same time “reigns.” A happy ending, harmonizing the lives of the central characters, acts as a necessary component of the plot of a fairy tale.
Trinomial plot outline, which Propp spoke about in relation to fairy tales, was considered in literary studies of the 60-70s as a supra-genre: as a characteristic of the plot as such. This branch of science in literature is called narratology (from the Latin narratio - storytelling). Based on the work of Propp, French scientists of a structuralist orientation (C. Bremont, A.J. Greimas) undertook experiments in constructing a universal model of event series in folklore and literature.
They expressed thoughts about the content of the plot, about the philosophical meaning that is embodied in works where the action is directed from beginning to end. Thus, according to Greimas, in the plot structure studied by Propp, the event series contain “all the signs of human activity - irreversible, free and responsible”; here there is “simultaneously an affirmation of the immutability and possibility of change of the obligatory order and freedom, destroying or restoring this order.” Event series, according to Greimas, carry out mediation (gaining a measure, a middle, a central position), which, we note, is akin to catharsis: “Narrative mediation consists in “humanizing the world”, in giving it a personal and eventual dimension. The world is justified by the existence of man, man is included in the world.”
The universal plot model in question manifests itself in different ways. In short stories and related genres (this includes fairy tales), the proactive and courageous actions of the heroes are positively significant and successful. Thus, in the endings of most of the short stories of the Renaissance (in particular, by Boccaccio), dexterous and cunning, active and energetic people triumph - those who want and know how to achieve their goal, gain the upper hand, defeat rivals and adversaries. In the novelistic model of the plot, there is an apology for vitality, energy, and will.
The situation is different in fables (as well as parables and similar works, where didacticism is directly or indirectly present). Here the hero’s decisive actions are viewed critically, sometimes mockingly, but most importantly, they end in his defeat, which appears as a kind of retribution. The initial situation of short stories and fables is the same (the hero did something to make him feel better), but the result is completely different, even the opposite: in the first case the character achieves what he wants, in the second he remains with broken trough, as happened with the old woman from Pushkin’s “Tales of the Fisherman and the Fish.”
Plots of the fable-parable type can acquire the deepest drama (remember the fate of the heroines of “The Thunderstorm” by A.N. Ostrovsky and “Anna Karenina” by L.N. Tolstoy). The fable-parable beginning, in particular, is present in numerous works of the XIX V. about the loss of humanity of a hero striving for material success and a career (“Lost Illusions” by O. de Balzac, “ An ordinary story» I.A. Goncharova). Such works can rightfully be regarded as artistic embodiment the idea of retribution for violations of the deep laws of existence, rooted (both in ancient and Christian consciousness) - let this retribution come not in the form of external defeats, but in the form of spiritual emptiness and depersonality.
Plots in which the action moves from beginning to end and: temporary, local conflicts are revealed can be called archetypal (since they go back to historically early literature); they dominate centuries of literary and artistic experience. Peripeteia plays a significant role in them; since the time of Aristotle, this term has been used to designate sudden and sharp shifts in the destinies of characters - all kinds of turns from happiness to unhappiness, from success to failure, or in the opposite direction. Peripeteias were of considerable importance in the heroic tales of antiquity, in fairy tales, in comedies and tragedies of antiquity and the Renaissance, in early short stories and novels (love-knightly and adventure-punctual), and later in adventure and detective prose.
Revealing the stages of confrontation between characters (which are usually accompanied by tricks, tricks, intrigues), twists and turns also have a directly meaningful function. They carry within themselves a certain philosophical meaning. Thanks to the twists and turns, life emerges as an arena of happy and unhappy coincidences of circumstances, which capriciously and whimsically replace each other. The heroes are depicted as being at the mercy of fate, which is preparing unexpected changes for them.
“Oh, full of all sorts of twists and turns and fickle variability of human fate!” - exclaims the narrator in the novel “Ethiopica” by the ancient Greek prose writer Heliodorus. Such statements are a “common place” in the literature of antiquity and the Renaissance. They are repeated and varied in every possible way in Sophocles, Boccaccio, Shakespeare: again and again there is talk of “vicissitudes” and “intrigues”, of the “fragile mercies” of fate, which is “the enemy of all the happy” and “the only hope of the unfortunate.” In plots with abundant twists and turns, as can be seen, the idea of the power of all kinds of accidents over human destinies is widely embodied.
A striking example of a plot, as if saturated to the limit with accidents, acting as evidence of the “impermanence” of existence, is Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet.” Its action takes place in repeated twists and turns. Goodwill and the decisive actions of the priest Lorenzo, it would seem, promise Romeo and Juliet unclouded happiness, but fate decides otherwise every time.
The last turn of events turns out to be fatal: Romeo does not receive a letter on time, which says that Juliet did not die, but was put to sleep; Lorenzo appears in the crypt late: Romeo has already taken poison, and Juliet, having woken up, stabbed herself with a dagger.
But chance in traditional plots (no matter how abundant the vicissitudes of the action may be) still does not reign supreme. The final episode (denouement or epilogue) required in them, if not happy, is at least calming and reconciling, as if curbing the chaos of eventual intricacies and leading life into the proper direction: above all kinds of deviations, violations, misunderstandings, raging passions and willful impulses the good world order prevails.
So, in the Shakespearean tragedy that was discussed, the Montagues and Capulets, having experienced grief and a sense of their own guilt, finally reconcile. Other tragedies of Shakespeare (Othello, Hamlet, King Lear) end in a similar way, where after the catastrophic The denouement is followed by a pacifying finale-epilogue, restoring the disturbed world order. The endings that harmonize the reconstructed reality, if they do not bring retribution to the best, then at least mark retribution to the worst (remember Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”).
In the traditional stories that were discussed, the ordered and good reality in its fundamental principles is at times (which is imprinted by a chain of events) attacked by the forces of evil and accidents tending towards chaos, but such attacks are in vain: their result is the restoration and new triumph of harmony and order, which were trampled upon for some period. Human existence, in the process of the events depicted, undergoes something similar to what happens to rails and sleepers when a train passes along them: intense vibration is temporary, as a result of it visible changes doesn't happen.
Plots with abundant twists and turns and a pacifying denouement (or epilogue) embody the idea of the world as something stable, definitely solid, but at the same time not petrified, full of movement (more oscillatory than progressive) - as a reliable ground, hidden and dully shaken, tested by the forces of chaos. Plots with twists and turns and a harmonizing ending embody deep philosophical meanings and capture a vision of the world that is commonly called classical. These plots are invariably involved in the idea of being as orderly and meaningful. At the same time, faith in the harmonizing principles of existence often takes on tones of rosy optimism and idyllic euphoria), which is especially striking in fairy tales (magic and children's).
Such plots also have another purpose: to make the work entertaining. Turning events in the lives of the heroes, sometimes purely random (with accompanying unexpected messages about what happened earlier and spectacular “recognitions”), arouse increased interest in the reader further development actions, and at the same time - to the reading process itself: he wants to find out what will happen to the hero next and how it will all end.
The focus on catchy eventual intricacies is inherent both in works of a purely entertaining nature (detectives, most of the “low-class” mass literature) and in serious, “top”, classical literature. Such is the short story of 0`Henry with its exquisite and spectacular endings, as well as the extremely eventful works of F.M. Dostoevsky, who, regarding his novel “Demons,” said that he is sometimes inclined to put “entertainment above artistry.” Tense and intense dynamics of the event, which makes reading fascinating, are characteristic of works intended for youth. These are the novels of A. Dumas and Jules Verne, among those close to us in time are “Two Captains” by V.A. Kaverina.
The considered event model is historically universal, but not the only one in verbal art. There is another model, equally important (especially in the literature of the last one and a half to two centuries), which remains theoretically unclear. Namely: there is a type of plot composition that serves primarily to identify not local and transitory, occasional conflicts, but stable conflict situations that are conceived and recreated unresolved within the framework of individual life situations, or even unsolvable in principle.
Conflicts of this kind (they can rightfully be called substantial) do not have any clearly defined beginnings and ends; they invariably and constantly color the lives of the heroes, forming a certain background and a kind of accompaniment to the depicted action. Critics and writers of the second half of the 19th century- beginning of the 20th century They have repeatedly talked about the advantages of this principle of organizing plots over traditional ones, and noted its relevance for its time. N.A. Dobrolyubov in the article “ Dark Kingdom" reproached the young A. N. Ostrovsky for his adherence to excessively steep junctions.
Ostrovsky himself later argued that “intrigue is a lie” and that in general “the plot in a dramatic work is unimportant.” “Many conventional rules,” he noted, “have disappeared, and some more will disappear. Now a dramatic work is nothing other than life dramatized.” Artists Art Theater who played in the play “Uncle Vanya,” Chekhov warned against excessive emphasis on turning points, outwardly dramatic moments in the lives of the characters. He noticed that the clash between Voinitsky and Serebryakov is not the source of drama in their lives, but only one of the cases in which this drama manifested itself.
Critic I.F. Annensky said about Gorky’s plays: “Intrigue simply ceased to interest us, because it became banal. Life is now both motley and complex, and most importantly, it has begun to tolerate neither partitions, nor the regular rise and fall of isolated action, nor crudely tangible harmony.”
L.N. Andreev argued that drama and theater should abandon the traditional intricacies of events, for “life itself is moving further and further away from external action, moving more and more into the depths of the soul.” In the same vein is the judgment about the plot of B.M. Eikhenbaum: “The larger the concept of a work, the more closely it is connected with the most acute and complex problems of reality, the more difficult it is for its plot to be successfully “finished,” the more natural it is to leave it “open.”
Similar thoughts were expressed by Western European writers: F. Hebbel (the main thing in drama is not the act, but the experience in the form of internal action), M. Maeterlinck (modern drama is characterized by “progressive paralysis” of external action) and - most persistently - B. Shaw in his work "The Quintessence of Ibsenism." Shaw considered dramas that corresponded to the Hegelian concept of action and collision to be outdated and ironically called them “well-made plays.”
He contrasted all such works (meaning both Shakespeare and Scribe) with modern drama, based not on the vicissitudes of action, but on discussions between characters, i.e., on conflicts associated with the difference in people’s ideals: “A play without a subject of dispute is no longer rated as a serious drama. Today our plays begin with a discussion.” According to Shaw, the playwright’s consistent disclosure of the “layers of life” does not fit with the abundance of accidents in the play and the presence of a traditional denouement in it. A playwright seeking to plumb the depths human life, argued English writer, “thereby undertakes to write plays that have no resolution.”
The above statements testified to a serious restructuring of plot structure taking place in literature, which was carried out by a number of writers, especially intensively in turn of the 19th century and 20th centuries This is G. Ibsen, M. Maeterlinck, and in Russia, first of all, Chekhov. “In “The Seagull”, “Uncle Vanya”, “Three Sisters”, in “The Cherry Orchard,” wrote A.P. Skaftymov, who did a lot to study Chekhov's drama, — ““there are no guilty”, there are no individually and consciously preventing someone else’s happiness. There are no people to blame, therefore, there are no direct opponents and there can be no struggle.” Literature of the 20th century (both narrative and dramatic) in a very to a large extent relies on an unconventional plot structure, corresponding not to Hegel’s concept, but to judgments in the spirit of B. Shaw.
The origins of this plot structure are in the distant past. Yes, hero Divine Comedy“A. Dante (at the same time this is the author himself) is a man who has lost the right path and followed evil paths. This turns into dissatisfaction with himself, doubts about the world order, confusion and horror, from which he later moves on to purification, knowledge of reconciling truth and joyful faith.
The reality perceived by the hero (its “otherworldly appearance” is recreated in the first part of the poem “Hell”) appears as inescapably conflicting. The contradiction that formed the basis of the “Divine Comedy” is not a passing incident, something that can be eliminated through human actions. Existence inevitably contains something terrible and ominous. What we have before us is not a collision in the Hegelian sense, not a temporary violation of harmony that must be restored.
In the spirit of Catholic dogma, Dante (through the mouth of Beatrice) says that there is more generosity in the punishments to which God condemned sinners by placing them in hell than in the “mercy of simple justification” (“Paradise.” Canto VII). The conflict emerges as universal and at the same time intensely, acutely experienced by the hero. It is presented not as a temporary deviation from harmony, but as an integral facet of imperfect earthly existence.
The plot of Dante's poem does not consist of a chain of accidents that would act as twists and turns. It is built on the discovery and emotional mastery by the hero of the fundamental principles of existence and its contradictions, which exist independently of the will and intentions of individual people. In the course of events, it is not the conflict itself that undergoes changes, but the hero’s attitude towards it: the degree of knowledge of existence changes, and as a result it turns out that even a world full of the deepest contradictions is orderly: there is always a place in it for both fair retribution (the torment of sinners in hell) and mercy and retribution (the fate of the hero).
Here, as in the lives, also formed and strengthened in the mainstream Christian tradition, a consistent distinction is made between a stable-conflict reality, an imperfect and sinful world (a general conflict that appears as insoluble within the framework of earthly existence) and the intense formation of harmony and order in the individual consciousness and fate of the hero (a private conflict that finds completion in the finale of the work).
The stable conflict state of the world is explored in a number of works of the 17th century. The deviation from the plot canon is noticeable even in such an action-packed work as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where the action in its deepest essence takes place in the hero’s mind, only occasionally breaking through in his own words (“To be or not to be?” and other monologues). In Cervantes's Don Quixote, the concept of an adventure plot is reinvented: the knight, who believes in his victorious will, is invariably overcome by the hostile “force of things.”
The hero’s repentant mood at the end of the novel is also significant - a motive close to the lives of people. Fundamentally insoluble, even on the broadest scale of historical time (in accordance with the Christian worldview), the vital contradictions in “ Paradise Lost"J. Milton, the finale of which is Adam's insight into the difficult future of humanity. The hero’s discord with those around him is constant and inescapable in the famous “Life of Archpriest Avvakum.”
“It is fitting for me to cry for myself”—with these words Habakkuk concludes his story, burdened both by his own sins and the cruel trials that befell him, and by the untruth reigning around him. Here (unlike “The Divine Comedy”) the final episode has nothing in common with the usual denouement, reconciling and pacifying.
In this celebrated work of ancient Russian literature, perhaps for the first time, the traditional hagiographic composition, which is based on the idea that merit is always rewarded, was rejected. In “The Life of Archpriest Avvakum,” the ideas of medieval hagiographic optimism, which did not allow for the possibility of a tragic situation for a “true” ascetic, weaken.”
With greater energy than ever before, non-canonical plotting made itself felt in the literature of the 19th century, in particular in the works of A.S. Pushkin. Both “Eugene Onegin”, and “The Feast during the Plague”, and “The Bronze Horseman” capture persistent conflict situations that cannot be overcome and harmonized within the framework of the depicted action. Unconventional principles of plot formation are present even in such an “action-packed” writer as F.M. Dostoevsky. If Mitya in The Brothers Karamazov appears mainly as the hero of a traditional, twisted plot, then this cannot be said about Ivan, who is more reasoning than acting, and about Alyosha, who does not pursue any personal goals.
The episodes dedicated to the younger Karamazovs are filled with discussions of what is happening, thoughts on personal and general topics, discussions that, according to B. Shaw, in most cases do not have direct “exits” to the series of events and internal completion. The increasingly persistent turn of writers to non-canonical plots was accompanied by a transformation of the character sphere (as already mentioned, adventurous and heroic principles noticeably “receded”). Accordingly, the artistically captured picture of the world also changed: human reality appeared more and more clearly in its far from complete orderliness, and in a number of cases, especially characteristic of the 20th century. (remember F. Kafka) as chaotic, absurd, essentially negative.
Canonical and non-canonical plots are addressed to readers differently. Authors of works that reveal occasional conflicts usually strive to captivate and entertain readers, and at the same time, to calm them down, console them, and strengthen them in the idea that everything in life will eventually fall into place. In other words, traditional stories are cathartic.
The series of events that reveal substantial conflicts affect us differently. The dominant focus here is not on the strength of the impression, but on the depth of the reader's penetration (following the author) into the complex and contradictory layers of life.
The writer does not so much inspire as he appeals to the spiritual and, in particular, mental activity of the reader. Using Bakhtin's vocabulary, we will say that traditional plots are more monologue-like, while non-traditional plots persistently strive for dialogism. Or in other words: in the first, the author’s deep intonation tends to be rhetorical, in the second, towards colloquialism.
The described types of plots are woven into literary creativity, actively interact and often coexist in the same works, because they have a common property: they equally need characters who have a certain attitude, consciousness, and behavior. If the characters (which happens in the “near-avant-garde” literature of the 20th century) lose their character, are leveled out and dissolve in a faceless “stream of consciousness” or self-sufficient “language games”, in a chain of associations that do not belong to anyone, then at the same time it is reduced to nothing. The plot as such also disappears: there is no one and nothing to depict, and therefore there is no longer a place for the events.
One of the creators of the “new novel” in France, A. Robbe-Grillet, convincingly spoke about this pattern. Based on the statement that “a novel with characters belongs to the past” (an era “marked by the apogee of individuality”), the writer concluded that the possibilities of the plot as such have been exhausted: “... to tell stories (that is, to build series of events. - V.Kh. ) has now become simply impossible.” Robbe-Grillet sees an increasingly intense movement of literature towards “plotlessness” in the works of G. Flaubert, M. Proust, S. Beckett.
However, the art of plotting continues to live (both in literature and in theater and cinema) and, apparently, is not going to die.
V.E. Khalizev Theory of literature. 1999
Now let's analyze a somewhat more familiar category - the plot and its place in the composition of the work. First of all, let’s clarify the terms, because plot and practical literary criticism often mean a variety of things. We will call the plot the system of events and actions contained in the work, its chain of events, and precisely in the sequence in which it is given to us in the work. The last remark is important, since quite often events are not told in chronological order, and the reader can find out what happened earlier later. If we take only the main, key episodes of the plot, which are absolutely necessary for its understanding, and arrange them in chronological order, then we will get plot - a plot outline or, as it is sometimes called, a “straightened plot.” The plots in different works can be very similar to each other, but the plot is always uniquely individual.
Plot is the dynamic side of an artistic form; it involves movement, development, change. At the heart of any movement, as is known, lies a contradiction, which is the engine of development. The plot also has such an engine - this conflict - an artistically significant contradiction. Conflict is one of those categories that seem to permeate the entire structure of a work of art. When we talked about themes, problems and the ideological world, we also used this term. The fact is that the conflict in the work exists at different levels. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the writer does not invent conflicts, but draws them from primary reality - this is how the conflict moves from life itself into the area of thematic, problematic, pathos. This is a conflict on meaningful level (sometimes another term is used to designate it - “collision”). A meaningful conflict is embodied, as a rule, in the confrontation of characters and in the movement of the plot (at least, this happens in epic and dramatic works), although there are also extra-plot ways of realizing the conflict - for example, in Blok’s “The Stranger” the conflict between the everyday and the romantic is not expressed in terms of plot , and by compositional means - the opposition of images. But in this case we are interested in the conflict embodied in the plot. This is already a conflict at the level of form, embodying a content conflict. Thus, in “Woe from Wit” by Griboyedov, the substantive conflict of two noble groups - the serf nobility and the Decembrist nobility - is embodied in the conflict between Chatsky and Famusov, Molchalin, Khlestova, Tugoukhovskaya, Zagoretsky and others. The separation of substantive and formal plans in the analysis of the conflict is important because , which allows us to reveal the writer’s skill in embodying life’s collisions, the artistic originality of the work and the non-identity of its primary reality. Thus, Griboyedov in his comedy makes the conflict of noble factions extremely tangible, pitting specific heroes against each other in a narrow space, each of whom pursues his own goals; At the same time, the conflict intensifies as the heroes clash over issues that are essential to them. All this turns a rather abstract life conflict, dramatically neutral in itself, into an exciting confrontation between living, concrete people who worry, get angry, laugh, worry, etc. The conflict becomes artistic and aesthetically significant only at the level of form.
At the formal level, several types of conflicts should be distinguished. The simplest is conflict between individual characters and groups of characters. The example discussed above with “Woe from Wit” is a good illustration of this type of conflict; a similar conflict is present in Pushkin’s “The Miserly Knight” and “The Captain’s Daughter,” in Shchedrin’s “The History of a City,” Ostrovsky’s “Warm Heart” and “Mad Money” and in many other works.
A more complex type of conflict is the confrontation between the hero and the way of life, the individual and the environment (social, everyday, cultural, etc.). The difference from the first type is that the hero here is not opposed by anyone in particular; he does not have an opponent with whom he could fight, who could be defeated, thereby resolving the conflict. Thus, in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” the main character does not enter into any significant contradictions with any character, but the very stable forms of Russian social, everyday, cultural life oppose the hero’s needs, suppress him with everyday life, leading to disappointment, inaction, and “spleen.” "and boredom. So, in Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” all the characters are the sweetest people who, in fact, have nothing to share with each other, everyone is on excellent terms with each other, but nevertheless the main characters - Ranevskaya, Lopakhin, Varya - feel bad, uncomfortable in life , their aspirations are not realized, but no one is to blame for this, except, again, the stable way of Russian life of the late 19th century, which Lopakhin rightly calls “clumsy” and “unhappy.”
Finally, the third type of conflict is an internal, psychological conflict, when the hero is at odds with himself, when he carries certain contradictions within himself, and sometimes contains incompatible principles. Such a conflict is characteristic, for example, of Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” and many other works.
It also happens that in a work we are faced with not one, but two or even all three types of conflicts. Thus, in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” the external conflict between Katerina and Kabanikha is intensified many times over and deepened by an internal conflict: Katerina cannot live without love and freedom, but in her situation both are sins, and the consciousness of her own sinfulness puts the heroine in a truly hopeless situation. position.
To understand a particular work of art, it is very important to correctly determine the type of conflict. Above we gave an example with “A Hero of Our Time”, in which school literary criticism persistently looks for Pechorin’s conflict with the “water” society, instead of paying attention to the much more significant and universal psychological conflict in the novel, which lies in the irreconcilable ideas that exist in Pechorin’s mind : “there is predestination” and “there is no predestination.” As a result, the type of problem is incorrectly formulated, the character of the hero is terribly shallow, of the stories included in the novel, “Princess Mary” is studied almost exclusively, the character of the hero appears completely different from what he really is, Pechorin is scolded for something for which it is absurd to scold him and wrongfully (for egoism, for example) and are praised for something for which there is no merit (departure from secular society) - in a word, the novel is read “exactly the opposite.” And at the beginning of this chain of errors lay an incorrect definition of the type of artistic conflict.
From another point of view, two types of conflicts can be distinguished.
One type - it is called local - assumes the fundamental possibility of resolution through active actions; It's usually the characters who take these actions as the story progresses. For example, Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” is based on such a conflict, where Aleko’s conflict with the gypsies is resolved at the end by the hero’s expulsion from the camp; Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”, where the psychological conflict also finds resolution in the moral purification and resurrection of Raskolnikov, Sholokhov’s novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”, where the socio-psychological conflict among the Cossacks ends in the victory of collectivist sentiments and the collective farm system, as well as many other works.
The second type of conflict - it is called substantial - depicts to us a persistently conflicted existence, and no real practical actions that could resolve this conflict are unthinkable. Conventionally, this type of conflict can be called insoluble in a given period of time. Such, in particular, is the conflict of “Eugene Onegin” discussed above with its confrontation between personality and social order, which cannot be fundamentally resolved or removed by any active actions; such is the conflict in Chekhov’s story “The Bishop,” which depicts a persistently conflicted existence among the Russian intelligentsia of the late 19th century; This is the conflict of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet”, in which the psychological contradictions of the main character are also of a constant, stable nature and are not resolved until the very end of the play. Determining the type of conflict in the analysis is important because different plots are built on different conflicts, which determines the further path of analysis.
We will call the plot the system of events and actions contained in the work, its chain of events, and precisely in the sequence in which it is given to us in the work. The last remark is important, since quite often events are told not in chronological order, and the reader can find out what happened earlier later. If we take only the main, key episodes of the plot, which are absolutely necessary for its understanding, and arrange them in chronological order, then we will get plot - a plot outline or, as it is sometimes called, a “straightened plot.”
Plot is the dynamic side of an artistic form; it involves movement, development, change. At the heart of any movement, as is known, lies a contradiction, which is the engine of development. The plot also has such an engine - This conflict - artistically significant contradiction. Conflict is one of those categories that seem to permeate the entire structure of a work of art. The conflict in the work exists at different levels. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the writer does not invent conflicts, but draws them from primary reality - this is how the conflict moves from life itself into the area of thematic, problematic, pathos. This conflict on meaningful level(sometimes another term is used to designate it - “collision”). A meaningful conflict is embodied, as a rule, in the confrontation of characters and in the movement of the plot (at least, this happens in epic and dramatic works), although there are also extra-plot ways of realizing the conflict - for example, in Blok’s “The Stranger” the conflict between the everyday and the romantic is not expressed in terms of plot , and by compositional means - the opposition of images. But in this case we are interested in the conflict embodied in the plot. This is already - conflict at the form level, embodying a meaningful collision. Thus, in “Woe from Wit” by Griboedov, the meaningful conflict of two noble groups - the serf nobility and the Decembrist nobility - is embodied in the conflict between Chatsky and Famusov, Molchalin, Khlestova, Tugoukhovskaya, Zagoretsky and others. All this makes a rather abstract life conflict, dramatically neutral in itself, an exciting confrontation between living, concrete people who worry, get angry, laugh, worry, etc. The conflict becomes artistic and aesthetically significant only at the level of form.
At the formal level Several types of conflicts should be distinguished. The simplest one is it is a conflict between individual characters and groups of characters. The example discussed above with “Woe from Wit” is a good illustration of this type of conflict; a similar conflict is present in Pushkin’s “The Miserly Knight” and “The Captain’s Daughter,” in Shchedrin’s “The History of a City,” Ostrovsky’s “Warm Heart” and “Mad Money” and in many other works.
A more complex type of conflict is confrontation between the hero and the way of life, the individual and the environment(social, everyday, cultural, etc.). The difference from the first type is that the hero here is not opposed by anyone in particular; he does not have an opponent with whom he could fight, who could be defeated, thereby resolving the conflict. Thus, in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” the main character does not enter into any significant contradictions with any character, but the very stable forms of Russian social, everyday, and cultural life resist the hero’s needs, suppress him with everyday life, leading to disappointment, inaction, and “spleen.” "and boredom.
Finally, the third type of conflict is internal conflict, psychological, when the hero is not at peace with himself, when it carries within itself certain contradictions, sometimes it contains incompatible principles. Such a conflict is typical, for example, of Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”.
It also happens that in a work we are faced with not one, but two or even all three types of conflicts. Thus, in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” the external conflict between Katerina and Kabanikha is intensified many times over and deepened by an internal conflict: Katerina cannot live without love and freedom, but in her situation both are sins, and the consciousness of her own sinfulness puts the heroine in a truly hopeless situation. position.
To understand a particular work of art, it is very important to correctly determine the type of conflict. Above we gave an example with “A Hero of Our Time”, in which school literary criticism persistently looks for Pechorin’s conflict with the “water” society, instead of paying attention to the much more significant and universal psychological conflict in the novel, which lies in the irreconcilable ideas that exist in Pechorin’s mind : “there is predestination” and “there is no predestination.” As a result, the type of problem is incorrectly formulated, the character of the hero is terribly shallow, of the stories included in the novel, almost exclusively “Princess Mary” is studied, the character of the hero appears completely different from what he really is.
From another point of view, two types of conflicts can be distinguished.
One type - it's called local – assumes the fundamental possibility of resolution through active actions; It's usually the characters who take these actions as the story progresses. The second type of conflict is called substantial- depicts to us a persistently conflictual existence, and no real practical actions that could resolve this conflict are conceivable. Conventionally, this type of conflict can be called insoluble in a given period of time. Such, in particular, is the conflict of “Eugene Onegin” discussed above with its confrontation between personality and social order, which cannot be fundamentally resolved or removed by any active actions.
Plot elements. The conflict develops as the plot progresses. The stages of conflict development are called plot elements. These are exposition, plot, development of action, climax and denouement. Should be paid special attention that isolating these elements is advisable only in connection with the conflict. The fact is that in school there is often a simplified approach to defining plot elements, like: “the plot is when the action begins.” We emphasize that the decisive factor for determining the elements of the plot is the nature of the conflict in each at the moment. So, exposition – This is the part of the work, usually the initial one, which precedes the plot. It usually introduces us to the characters, circumstances, place and time of action. There is no conflict yet in the exhibition. For example, in Chekhov’s “Death of an Official”: “In one wonderful evening an equally excellent executor, Ivan Dmitrich Chervyakov, sat in the second row of seats and looked through binoculars at “The Bells of Corneville.” The exposition ends not at the moment when Chervyakov sneezed - there is nothing controversial in this yet - but when he saw that he had accidentally sprayed the general. This moment will be tie work, that is, the moment of occurrence or detection of a conflict. What follows development of action, that is, a series of episodes in which characters actively try to resolve the conflict(Chervyakov goes to apologize to the general), but he nevertheless becomes more and more acute and tense (the general becomes more and more ferocious from Chervyakov’s apologies, and this makes Chervyakov feel worse). An important feature in the mastery of plotting is to escalate the twists and turns in such a way as to prevent the possibility of a premature resolution of the conflict. Finally, the conflict reaches a point when the contradictions can no longer exist in their previous form and require immediate resolution; the conflict reaches its maximum development. According to the author’s plan, the greatest tension of the reader’s attention and interest usually falls on this same point. This - climax : after the general shouted at him and stamped his feet, “something came off in Chervyakov’s stomach.” Following the climax in close proximity to it (sometimes already in the next phrase or episode) follows interchange - the moment when the conflict exhausts itself, and the denouement can either resolve the conflict or clearly demonstrate its intractability:“Coming home automatically, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and... died.”
It should be noted that the definition of plot elements in the text is, as a rule, of a formal and technical nature and is necessary in order to more accurately imagine external structure plots.
In determining the elements of the plot, there may be various difficulties that need to be foreseen; This is especially true for large-scale works. Firstly, a work may have not one, but several storylines; for each of them, as a rule, there will be a different set of plot elements. Secondly, in a major work, as a rule, there is not one, but several climaxes, after each of which the conflict appears to be weakening and the action begins to decline slightly, and then again begins an upward movement towards the next climax. The climax in this case often represents an imaginary resolution of the conflict, after which the reader can take a breath, but then new events lead to further development of the plot, it turns out that the conflict is not resolved, etc. until a new climax. Finally, we must also keep in mind such cases when analysis of plot elements is either completely impossible, or, although formally possible, but practically and meaningfully does not make sense. And this depends on what type of plot we are dealing with.
Conflict is a clash, opposition, contradiction between characters, or characters and circumstances, or within character, underlying action. Regardless of whether the conflict is solvable or unresolvable, the conflict develops and determines further action, and its development is storyline in the work. Different stories are built on different conflicts. Completeness in the plot is also associated with the development of the conflict and its resolution. If the conflict is exhausted and completed, then the plot is complete and complete. There are two types of plots: dynamic (with local conflict) and adynamic (with substantive conflict).