In 1846, Goncharov finished his first novel and, as he later recalled, “with terrible excitement” he handed it over to the court of V. G. Belinsky, who extremely highly appreciated the new work and dedicated a number of laudatory pages to it in the article “A Look at Russian Literature 1847” year." The novel was published in Sovremennik and created a real sensation in the capital.
The action of the novel covers about fourteen years, starting from 1830 and ending in 1843. This fairly extensive temporal capture of life allowed the writer to recreate a broad picture of the reality of the 30s and 40s, showing the most diverse social strata of the capital and provinces: bureaucracy, philistinism, bourgeoisie, secular world, patriarchal village landowners. The main conflict of the work was the clash between a romantic young man and a bourgeois man, a “collision” all the more acute because the novel depicts the martial arts between a nephew and an uncle.
Construction of the novel " An ordinary story"Goncharov (it consists of two parts, each of which has six chapters, and an epilogue) conveys a clear rhythm, sequence and methodical execution of an ordinary story - the transformation of Aduev Jr. into the likeness of Aduev Sr. The lessons of the latter benefited Alexander. The epilogue reports on the nephew's marriage without love, but with strict calculation: 500 souls and a dowry of 30 thousand rubles await him. “Arithmetic common sense” prevailed and did not fail. The implementation of the law of symmetry and contrast is noticeable in the composition; both parts are held together by a single intrigue, giving the novel a rare harmony, and a common expressive conflict. The book is written in a clear, clean and flexible language that enhances the integrity of the work despite the differences speech characteristics nephew and uncle.
Public and literary significance Goncharov's works are enormous. It dealt a double blow: against romanticism, provincial daydreaming, divorced from life, and soulless bourgeois businessmanism, forgetting about man. (Each of these properties and aspirations, as the author showed, has its own flaws and obvious disadvantages.) It outlined the leading trends in life of that time, painted the image of a “hero of the time,” recreated true pictures of reality, established realism in life and art, and revealed the author’s main method - “realism of an objective attitude towards the hero” (Belinsky), contributed to the development of the socio-psychological novel. L.N. Tolstoy called this book “charm.” He wrote: “This is where you learn to live. You see different views on life, on love, with which you may not agree with any of them, but your own becomes smarter and clearer.”
Goncharov’s work “An Ordinary Story” is distinguished by its exceptional topicality. It makes the reader of our day think about “how to live.” This is exactly what playwright Viktor Rozov titled his article about this novel. It is curious that, having read this novel for the first time, the writer immediately decided to make a play out of it and stage it on stage. This idea was realized at the Sovremennik Theater. This was not accidental and quite significant. V. S. Rozov wrote: “... this novel is modern. For me personally, it was precisely this modernity that was most important. That’s why I wanted to translate it into a play.” Ultimately, the novel by I. A. Goncharov and the play by V. S. Rozov became works about love for man and devotion to high spiritual ideals, which are the highest values in our lives.
“An Ordinary Story” by I.A. Goncharova
In “”, every person at any stage of his development will find the necessary lesson for himself. The naivety and sentimentality of Sashenka Aduev is funny in a business atmosphere. His pathos is false, and the loftiness of his speeches and ideas about life are far from reality. But the uncle cannot be called an ideal either: a efficient breeder, a respected person in society, he is afraid of sincere living feelings and in his practicality goes too far: he is afraid to show sincere warm feelings for his wife, which will lead her to nervous disorder. There is a lot of irony in the uncle's teachings, but the simple-minded nephew takes them too directly - first arguing with them, and then agreeing.
Deprived of false ideals, Alexander Aduev does not acquire genuine ideals - he simply becomes a calculating vulgarity. Goncharov’s irony is aimed at the fact that such a path is no exception. Youthful ideals disappear like “hairs” from a son’s head, which Aduev Jr.’s mother so laments. This is an “ordinary story.” There are not many people who can withstand the pressure big city and bourgeois society on their mind and soul. At the end of the novel, we see that the cynic uncle is much more humane than his capable student nephew. Alexander Aduev turned into business man, for whom nothing is more important than career and money. And St. Petersburg expects new victims - naive and inexperienced.
The novel, first published in Sovremennik in 1847, is autobiographical: Sasha Aduev is easily recognizable as Ivan Goncharov at the time when he devoted all his free time from service to writing poetry and prose. “I then stoked the stoves with piles of written paper,” the writer recalled. “An Ordinary Story” is the first work with which Goncharov decided to go public. In the poems attributed to Sasha, literary scholars recognize the author's original poems (remaining in drafts). Sasha’s poems rehash the “commonplaces” of romanticism: both melancholy and joy are causeless, are in no way connected with reality, “swoop in like a sudden cloud,” etc., etc.
Literary direction
Goncharov is a bright representative of that literary generation which, in the words of modern researcher V.G. Shchukin, “tried with all his might to emphasize their hostility to the romantic worldview they had overcome (of which they constantly convinced themselves and those around them)”: for him “anti-romantic realism was around in the 1840s. something like self-rehabilitation, reckoning with the romantic past.”
Genre
“An Ordinary Story” is a typical novel of education, depicting fundamental changes in the worldview and character of the main character - a typical young man of his generation - under the influence of changes in society and everyday vicissitudes.
Issues
The problem of the inevitability of changes in a person under the influence of changes in society is the main one in the novel, but the attitude towards it is by no means unambiguous: the title itself contains a grain of bitter irony, regret about the naive but pure ideals of youth. And hence the second important problem, which consists in the fact that an individual, perfectly adapted socially, is by no means capable of guaranteeing simple universal human values(physical health, moral satisfaction, family happiness) neither to yourself nor to your loved ones.
Main characters
Aduev Jr. (Alexander) is a beautiful-hearted young man, with whom, in the course of the novel, an “ordinary story” of maturation and hardening occurs.
Aduev Sr. (Peter Ivanovich), Alexander’s uncle, is a “man of action.”
Lizaveta Aleksandrovna is the young wife of Pyotr Ivanovich, she loves and respects her husband, but she sincerely sympathizes with her nephew.
Style, plot and composition
Goncharov’s novel is an exceptional case of stylistic maturity and true mastery of a debut work. The irony that permeates the author’s presentation is subtle, sometimes elusive and manifests itself retroactively, when the simple but elegant composition of the novel forces the reader to return to some plot collisions. Like a conductor, the author controls the tempo and rhythm of reading, forcing you to read into this or that phrase, or even go back.
At the beginning of the novel, Sasha, having completed a course in science, lives in his village. His mother and servants pray to him, his neighbor Sophia is in love with him, best friend Pospelov writes long letters and gets the same answers. Sasha is firmly convinced that the capital is looking forward to him, and there is a brilliant career in it.
In St. Petersburg, Sasha lives in the apartment next to his uncle, forgets Sonechka and falls in love with Nadenka, to whom he dedicates romantic poems. Nadya, soon forgetting her vows, becomes interested in more adult and interesting person. This is how life teaches Sasha the first lesson, which is not as easy to dismiss as failures in poetry or in the service. However, Alexander’s “negative” love experience was waiting in the wings and was in demand when he himself had the opportunity to recapture the young widow Yulia Tafaeva from her uncle’s companion who was in love with her. Subconsciously, Alexander longed for “revenge”: Julia, soon abandoned by him, had to suffer in Nadya’s place.
And now, when Sasha is gradually beginning to understand life, he is disgusted with her. Work - whether in the service or in literature - requires work, and not just “inspiration.” And love is work, and it has its own laws, everyday life, and tests. Sasha confesses to Lisa: “I have known all the emptiness and all the insignificance of life - and I deeply despise it.”
And here, in the midst of Sasha’s “suffering,” a true sufferer appears: an uncle enters, unbearably suffering from pain in the lower back. And the ruthless nephew also accuses him of the fact that his life did not work out. The reader now has a second reason to feel sorry for Aduev Sr. - in the form of a suspicion that things didn’t work out not only with his lower back, but also with his wife. But it would seem that he has achieved success: he will soon receive the position of director of the chancellery, the title of actual state councilor; he is a rich capitalist, a “breeder,” while Aduev Jr. is at the very bottom of the everyday abyss. 8 years have passed since his arrival in the capital. 28-year-old Alexander returns to the village in disgrace. “It was worth coming! You have disgraced the Aduev family!” - Pyotr Ivanovich concludes their argument.
Having lived in the village for a year and a half and buried his mother, Sasha writes smart, affectionate letters to his uncle and aunt, informing them of his desire to return to the capital and asking for friendship, advice and protection. These letters end the dispute, and the plot of the novel itself. That seems to be the whole “ordinary story”: the uncle turned out to be right, the nephew came to his senses... However, the epilogue of the novel turns out to be unexpected.
...4 years after Alexander’s second visit to St. Petersburg, he appears again, 34 years old, plump, bald, but with dignity wearing “his cross” - an order around his neck. In the posture of his uncle, who has already “celebrated his 50th anniversary,” dignity and self-confidence have diminished: his wife Lisa is ill, and perhaps dangerously. The husband tells her that he has decided to quit his service, sells the plant and takes her to Italy to devote “the rest of his life” to her.
The nephew comes to his uncle with good news: he has his eye on a young and rich bride, and her father has already given him his consent: “Go, he says, only in the footsteps of your uncle!”
“Do you remember what letter you wrote to me from the village? – Lisa tells him. “There you understood, explained life to yourself...” And the reader involuntarily has to go back: “Not to be involved in suffering means not to be involved in the fullness of life.” Why did Alexander consciously abandon the found correspondence between life and his own character? What made him cynically prefer a career for the sake of a career and marriage for the sake of wealth and without any interest in the feelings of not only the rich, but the young and, apparently, beautiful bride, who, like Liza, “needs a little something else besides common sense!”?.. There is no room left in the epilogue to answer all these questions, and the reader must simply believe in such a rebirth of the romantic poet into boring cynic, but he must guess the reasons himself.
The appearance of Goncharov's first novel in print was preceded by several small experiments in poetry and prose. On the pages of a handwritten almanac" Moonlit nights", published by the Maykov circle, four of his poems are published (later these are the poems of Sashenka Aduev from "Ordinary History"), stories "Dashing pain"(1838) and "Lucky Mistake"(1839). In these early works one can feel the influence of Pushkin's prose. Thus, in “A Happy Mistake,” which is reminiscent of a secular story in genre, the ardent passions of the romantic characters already have a psychological motivation. Essay "Ivan Savvich Podzhabrin"- the only thing early work young writer, published during Goncharov’s lifetime in Sovremennik in 1848. This is a typical physiological essay exploring morals, in which the features of Gogol’s style are noticeable: the narrative in it is focused on fabulous manner, enough great place occupy lyrical digressions, and Ivan Savvich and his servant Avdey were created, undoubtedly, under the influence of “The Inspector General”.
Already by the beginning of the 1840s. Goncharov’s creative positions are determined, his unconditional interest in Russian reality, in what has “stayed” but has not become a thing of the past, and in what is new that has made its way into life.
Novel "An Ordinary Story" was the first Russian work that explored the forms of social progress in Russia. Goncharov's innovation lay in the fact that he tried to see the manifestation of social patterns in the fate of an individual. In the novel we have the ordinary story of the transformation of the young romantic Alexander Aduev into a representative of the new bourgeois formation. Already in the first attempt of the novel, certain plot-compositional principles for the structure of the conflict are developed, which will subsequently be used by Goncharov in his other works.
Externally, the plot of "An Ordinary History" has a clearly chronological character. Goncharov carefully and leisurely tells the story of the life of the Aduevs in Rrach, creating in the reader’s imagination an image of a noble province dear to the author’s heart. At the beginning of the novel, Sashenka Aduev is passionate about Pushkin, he writes poetry himself, listening to what is happening in his heart and soul. Alexander is exalted, smart, confident that he is an exceptional being, who should belong not last place in life. Throughout the course of the novel, Goncharov debunks the romantic ideals of Aduev. As for the social revelations of romanticism, they are not directly declared anywhere in the novel. Goncharov leads the reader to the conviction that the historical time of romanticism has passed through the entire course of novel events.
The narrative in the novel begins with a presentation of the story of Yevsey and Agrafena - the Aduev serfs, an ordinary story of landowner tyranny, told in an everyday, calm tone. Sending her son to St. Petersburg, Anna Pavlovna is focused only on her experiences, and she does not care about the feelings of Yevsey and Agrafena, whom she separates for a long time. However, as the author says, addressing the reader, she “did not prepare her son for the fight against what awaited him and awaits everyone ahead.” Goncharov reveals the world of the provincial nobility, living in a completely different dimension, in three letters brought by his nephew to his uncle. Each of them is associated with one of the plot motives that will be implemented in the novel. Thus, in Zaezzhalov’s letter Kostyakov is mentioned - “ wonderful man- the soul is wide open and such a joker,” communication with which will constitute one of the “epochs” of the development of the younger Aduev. The aunt’s letter also represents a kind of anticipation of one of the plot twists of the novel. The ardent enthusiasm of Marya Gorbatova’s memories of the yellow flower and ribbon as a symbol of tender feelings for Peter Ivanovich is replaced by a completely reasonable request for English wool for embroidery. This letter is a kind of “summary” of the image of Sashenka’s future, to which the hero will come in the finale. In the final phrase to his mother, “Do not leave him, dear brother-in-law, with your advice and take him into your care; I’m handing it over to you from hand to hand." The most important principle of constructing the system of images of the work is "programmed." The role of Sashenka's mentor passes to his uncle, but his philosophy of life is just as little taken into account by young Aduev as his mother's words. One of the functions of the uncle's image in the novel becomes a debunking romantic ideals nephew
The fate of Pyotr Ivanovich is a clear example of the benefits of abandoning romantic illusions. This hero does not deny reality and does not oppose himself to it; he recognizes the need for active inclusion in life, familiarization with the harsh everyday work. The hero of the novel, which appeared in print in 1846, became an artistic generalization of a phenomenon that was just “erupting” in Russian reality, but did not escape the attentive Goncharov. Many of the writer’s contemporaries went through the harsh school of everyday work: Gogol, Dostoevsky, Nekrasov, and Saltykov, who overcame social romanticism, but did not lose faith in the ideal. As for the image of the elder Aduev, Goncharov shows what a terrible moral disaster the desire to evaluate everything around him from the standpoint of practical benefit can turn into for a person.
The assessment of the romantic as the most important personality quality is far from unambiguous. Goncharov shows that the “liberation” of a person from the ideals of youth and the associated memories of love, friendship, and family affections destroys the personality, occurs unnoticed and is irreversible. Gradually, the reader begins to understand that an ordinary story of familiarization with the prose of life has already happened to Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev, when, under the influence of circumstances, a person is freed from romantic ideals of goodness and becomes like everyone else. It is this path that Alexander Aduev takes, gradually becoming disillusioned with friendship, love, service, and family feelings. However, the end of the novel - Alexander's profitable marriage and borrowing money from his uncle - is not the end of the work. The ending is a sad reflection on the fate of Pyotr Ivanovich, who succeeded on the basis of real practicality. The depth of the moral catastrophe that has already befallen society with the loss of faith in romanticism is revealed precisely in this life story. The novel ends happily for the younger one, but tragically for the older one: the latter is sick with boredom and the monotony of the monotonous life that has filled him - the pursuit of a place in the sun, fortune, rank. These are all quite practical things, they bring income, give a position in society - but for what? And only a terrible guess that Elizaveta Alexandrovna’s illness is the result of her devoted service to him, service that killed her living soul, makes Pyotr Ivanovich think about the meaning of his life.
In studies of Goncharov’s work, it was noted that the originality of the novel’s conflict lies in the collision of two forms of life presented in the dialogues between uncle and nephew, and that dialogue is the constructive basis of the novel. But this is not entirely true, since the character of Aduev Jr. changes not at all under the influence of his uncle’s beliefs, but under the influence of circumstances embodied in the twists and turns of the novel (writing poetry, infatuation with Nadenka, disappointment in friendship, meeting with Kostikov, leaving for the village, etc. ). The circumstances “alien” to the hero are concretized by the image of St. Petersburg given in the second chapter of the novel against the background of the memories of the “provincial egoist” Aduev about the peace of rural life. The turning point in the hero occurs during his meeting with the Bronze Horseman. Aduev turns to this symbol of power “not with a bitter reproach in his soul, like poor Evgeny, but with an enthusiastic thought.” This episode has a pronounced polemical character: Goncharov’s hero “argues” with Pushkin’s hero, being confident that he can overcome circumstances and not submit to them.
The dialogue plays an essential function in clarifying the author's point of view, which is not identical to either the position of the uncle or the position of the nephew. It manifests itself in a dialogue-dispute that continues without stopping almost until the end of the novel. This is a debate about creativity as a special state of mind. The theme of creativity first appears in a letter from young Aduev to Pospelov, in which the hero characterizes his uncle as a man of the “crowd,” always and equally calm in everything, and completes his analysis moral qualities Pyotr Ivanovich with the words: “...I think he hasn’t even read Pushkin.” The serious conclusion that vegetating “without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love” can destroy a person will turn out to be prophetic: having added prose to Pushkin’s lines (“And without hair”), the uncle, without suspecting it, pronounces a sentence on himself. Sashenka’s romantic poems, which he destroyed with his criticism, from the position of Pyotr Ivanovich are an expression of reluctance to “pull the burden” of daily work, and his remark “writers are like others” can be seen as the hero’s conviction that unprofessional pursuit of literature is self-indulgence and a manifestation of lordly laziness . Confronting the positions of his heroes, Goncharov himself is arguing with an invisible enemy, because the poems of Aduev Jr. are the poems of the young Goncharov, which he never published, apparently feeling that this is not his kind of creativity. However, the fact of their inclusion in the text of the novel is very significant. Of course they are weak artistically and may seem like a parody of romantic daydreaming, but the lyrical pathos of the poems is caused not only by Goncharov’s desire to expose idealism: Sashenka’s romanticism is aimed at criticizing the depersonalization of man by the bureaucratic reality of St. Petersburg and at criticizing the moral slavery of women.
The theme of the poet and the crowd - one of the cross-cutting themes of the novel - manifests itself in a unique way. Its detailed interpretation is given by the young Aduevs in Chapter IV, which reveals the state of the hero who has reached the apogee of happiness in love. Dreams about Nadenka and dreams of poetic glory merge together, but the author accompanies this enthusiastic monologue with his own commentary. From it, the reader learns about a comedy, two stories, an essay, and a “journey somewhere” created by Sashenka, but not accepted for publication, and gets acquainted with the plot of a story from American life, which Nadenka listened to with delight, but was not accepted for publication. Failures are perceived by Aduev in the spirit of the romantic conflict between the poet and the crowd; he recognizes himself as a person capable of “creating a special world” without difficulty, easily and freely. And only at the end of the monologue the position of the author-narrator, who doubts the success of this kind of creativity, is indicated.
Dialogue, as the most important substantive element of the genre form of Goncharov’s novel, turns out to be a form of expression of the author’s point of view in other novels, where its dialectical character increases. The writer’s task was to strive to indicate his position without insisting on it as the only reliable one. This, apparently, can explain the “absurdities” of the artistic structure, the contradictory characters of the heroes of “Oblomov” and “Cliff”, for which Druzhinin, Dobrolyubov, and many others reproached the author. Goncharov, due to his character, temperament, and worldview, could not and did not want to write out ideas that were not thought through and not suffered through personal experience recipes for correcting damaged morals. Like his young hero Aduev, he took up elegant prose when “the heart beats more evenly, the thoughts come into order.”
In the 1840s Goncharov saw the conflict between the individual and society as developing in several directions at once, two of which he evaluates in Ordinary History, and the other two he outlines as possible: the hero’s involvement in the life of the St. Petersburg petty bureaucracy and philistinism (Kostyakov) - this conflict has already been partially revealed in " Bronze Horseman"(in the fate of Evgeniy) - and immersion in the physical and moral dream, from which Aduev sobered up. Philistinism and sleep are intermediate stages of the hero’s evolution, which in artistic structure"Oblomov" will be fully realized and will develop into independent storylines.
The theme, ideas and images of "Oblomov" and "Cliff" already existed hidden in art world“Ordinary history”, the measured life of Goncharov the official went on as usual. By the will of fate and by one's own will he was destined to experience what he dreamed about as a teenager.
I. A. Goncharov with M. Yu. Lermontov, I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, A. I. Herzen in the 1840s laid the foundation for the Russian classical novel.
Goncharov’s first creation of this kind was “Ordinary History,” on which he worked in 1845-1846. Its publication in the magazine “Sovremennik” (1847) brought the author not just fame, but noisy fame, and aroused enthusiastic assessments from the most demanding critics - V. G. Belinsky, Ap. Grigorieva, V.P. Botkina. Grigoriev considered her best work since the appearance of " Dead souls" Belinsky stated that Goncharov now occupies one of the most prominent places in Russian literature.
In the novel “An Ordinary History,” the analysis of which interests us, Goncharov brought onto the stage and forced two heroes to speak out to the end, who personified two sides of Russian reality, previously separated and distant from each other, and now brought together by life itself.
Aduev Sr. is a type well known to the novelist, characteristic of his St. Petersburg environment. He is a sign of the times, a product of the “St. Petersburg period of Russian history.” This is not only a successful metropolitan official, but also a new businessman, an entrepreneur, who derives considerable benefit from his work for the benefit of industry and general progress. He is a practitioner and at the same time a philosopher in his field, who has developed an irrefutable system of principles and rules that guarantee him success, well-being, and spiritual comfort. Pyotr Ivanovich has no doubt that he fully understood the nature of man and the laws of his existence, that he measured all his needs and capabilities; he is convinced that everything that goes beyond the limits of the measured is groundless dreams, idle and harmful fantasies, resulting from inactivity, stupidity and ignorance of reality. Filled with such confidence, armed with experience, common sense, and caustic irony, he mercilessly debunks and executes his nephew’s naive belief in the “lofty and beautiful,” in “ eternal love", into "the sanctity of friendship."
Aduev Jr. was also well known to Goncharov. These Aduevs are the offspring of old lordly estates, most of them enthusiastic idealists, who brought from their home, from books, from the walls of the university both sublime and abstract ideas about human feelings, about virtues, about creativity and public service. Petersburg becomes a difficult test for Alexander. And it turns out that to the young hero there is nothing to oppose the logic and prose of St. Petersburg reality. His resources are insignificant, his inspiration is formless, his enthusiasm is short-lived, his arguments are unconvincing in a dispute with modernity - and with his uncle. The further Goncharov develops and completes the character of Alexander (repeatedly emphasizing his kinship with Pushkin’s Lensky), the clearer it becomes that this romantic appropriated romanticism to himself, but failed to embody it in action, in fate, in creativity, which is what distinguishes him from the true romantics. At the end of the novel, he decides to put his mental and spiritual wealth into profitable circulation - into that circulation of abilities and capital that creates the St. Petersburg civilization - and succeeds in this no less than his uncle.
Goncharov does not administer justice and reprisal to the heroes, he only carefully collects all the details of their lives and composes a simple, harmonious picture - without sharp contours, without too thick shadows, without too bright spots of light. The meaning of the picture emerges by itself, although it is not as simple as some critics thought. It is impossible to make a mistake in it: all the data is reliable, tangible, everything lives and moves here freely and naturally. This is the irresistible power of Goncharov’s realism, which manifested itself already in his first novel, “An Ordinary Story.”