Gorky believed that a writer is obliged to speculate and typify real person, turning him into the hero of a novel, and the search for prototypes of Dostoevsky’s characters will even lead to philosophical volumes, touching on real people only in passing. Nevertheless, as it turned out, very specific types of characters are most often and most strongly associated with their prototypes - adventurers of all kinds and stripes, or fairy-tale heroes. We decided to try to figure out where they come from book characters using the example of fifteen comparisons of images and their prototypes.
James Bond
Refined man with princely title, married to a Dutch princess and prone to dubious adventures - this is what the prototype of James Bond, Prince Bernard Van Lippe-Biesterfeld, actually looked like. The adventures of James Bond began with a series of books written by English intelligence officer Ian Fleming. The first of them, Casino Royale, was published in 1953, a few years after Fleming was assigned as part of his duty to monitor Prince Bernard, who had defected from German service to British intelligence. The two intelligence officers, after much mutual suspicion, became friends, and it was from Prince Bernard that Bond adopted the manner of ordering a Vodka Martini, adding: “Shaken, not stirred,” as well as the habit of introducing himself effectively: “Bernard, Prince Bernard,” as he liked to say He.
Prince Bernard Van Lippe-Biesterfeld (James Bond), Joseph Bell (Sherlock Holmes)
Sherlock Holmes
The author himself admitted that the image of Sherlock Holmes was related to the doctor Joseph Bell, Conan Doyle’s teacher. In his autobiography, he wrote: “I thought of my old teacher Joe Bell, his eagle profile, his inquisitive mind and his incredible ability to guess at all the details. If he were a detective, he would definitely turn this amazing but disorganized case into something more like an exact science." “Use the power of deduction,” Bell often repeated, and confirmed his words in practice, being able to understand appearance the patient’s biography, inclinations, and often diagnosis. Later, after the release of novels about Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle wrote to his teacher that his hero's unique skills were not fiction, but merely how Bell's skills would have logically developed had the circumstances been right. Bell answered him: “You yourself are Sherlock Holmes, and you know it very well!”
Ostap Bender
By the age of 80, Ostap Bender's prototype had become a quiet conductor of the Moscow-Tashkent train. In life his name was Osip (Ostap) Shor, he was born in Odessa and, as expected, discovered a penchant for adventure back in student years. Returning from Petrograd, where he studied for a year at the Technological Institute, Shor, having neither money nor profession, introduced himself first as a chess grandmaster, then contemporary artist, then a hiding member of the anti-Soviet party. Thanks to these skills, he reached his native Odessa, where he served in the criminal investigation department and fought against local banditry, hence Ostap Bender’s respectful attitude towards the Criminal Code.
Osip (Ostap) Shor
Professor Preobrazhensky
With the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky from Bulgakov's " Heart of a Dog“Things are much more dramatic. He was a French surgeon of Russian origin, Samuil Abramovich Voronov, who in the first quarter of the twentieth century created a real sensation in European medicine. He completely legally transplanted monkey glands into humans to rejuvenate the body. Moreover, the hype was justified - the first operations had the desired effect. As the newspapers wrote, children with disabilities mental development acquired mental alertness, and even in one song of those times called Monkey-Doodle-Doo there were the words “If you are too old for dancing, get yourself a monkey iron.” Voronov himself cited improvement in memory and vision, good spirits, ease of movement and resumption of sexual activity as the results of treatment. Thousands of people underwent treatment according to Voronov’s system, and the doctor himself, to simplify the practice, opened his own monkey nursery on the French Riviera. However, after some time, patients began to feel a deterioration in the body’s condition, rumors appeared that the result of the treatment was nothing more than self-hypnosis, Voronov was branded a charlatan and disappeared from European science until the 90s, when his work began to be discussed again.
Samuil Abramovich Voronov (Professor Preobrazhensky)
Dorian Gray
And here main character“The Picture of Dorian Gray” seriously spoiled the reputation of its real-life original. John Gray, a friend and protégé of Oscar Wilde in his youth, was famous for his penchant for the beautiful and the vicious, as well as for the appearance of a fifteen-year-old boy. Wilde did not hide the similarity of his character with John, and the latter sometimes even called himself Dorian. The happy union ended the moment the newspapers began to write about it: John appeared there as the lover of Oscar Wilde, even more languid and apathetic than everyone who came before him. An angry Gray filed a lawsuit and obtained an apology from the editor, but his friendship with the famous author slowly faded away. Soon Gray met his life partner - the poet and native of Russia Andre Raffalovich, together they converted to Catholicism, then Gray became a priest at St. Patrick's Church in Edinburgh.
John Gray (Dorian Gray)
Peter Pan
Acquaintance with the family of Sylvia and Arthur Davis gave James Matthew Barry, at that time already a famous playwright, his main character - Peter Pan, whose prototype was Michael, one of the Davis sons. Peter Pan became the same age as Michael and acquired from him both some character traits and nightmares. It was from Michael that the portrait of Peter Pan was sculpted for the sculpture in Kensington Gardens. The fairy tale itself was dedicated to Barry’s older brother, David, who died the day before his fourteenth birthday while skating and remained forever young in the memory of his loved ones.
Michael Davis (Peter Pan)
The story of Alice in Wonderland began on the day Lewis Carroll walked with the daughters of the rector of Oxford University, Henry Lidell, among whom was Alice Lidell. Carroll came up with the story on the fly at the request of the children, but the next time he did not forget about it, he began to compose a sequel. Two years later, the author presented Alice with a manuscript consisting of four chapters, to which was attached a photograph of Alice herself at the age of seven. It was entitled “A Christmas gift to a dear girl in memory of a summer day.”
Alice Lidell
While working on Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, according to his biographer Brian Boyd, often scanned the crime sections of newspapers for stories of accidents, murders and violence. The story of Sally Horner and Frank Lasalle in 1948 clearly caught his attention. It was reported that a middle-aged man had abducted twelve-year-old Sally Horner from New Jersey and kept her in his possession for nearly two years until she was found in a Southern California motel. Lasalle, just like Nabokov’s hero, throughout the entire time passed Sally off as his daughter. Nabokov even briefly mentions this incident in the book in the words of Humbert: “Did I do to Dolly the same thing that Frank LaSalle, a fifty-year-old mechanic, did to eleven-year-old Sally Horner in ’48?”
Sally Horner (Lolita) and Frank LaSalle (Humbert)
Karabas-Barabas
Alexei Tolstoy, as is known, although he only sought to rewrite Carlo Collodio’s “Pinocchio” in Russian, published a completely independent story in which analogies with contemporary cultural figures are clearly read. Tolstoy was not a fan of Meyerhold's theater and its biomechanics, so he got the role of the antagonist - Karabas-Barabas. The parody can be read even in the name: Karabas is the Marquis of Karabas from Perrault’s fairy tale, and Barabas is from the Italian word for swindler - baraba. Meyerhold's assistant, who worked under the pseudonym Voldemar Luscinius, played the no less eloquent role of Duremar.
Vsevolod Meyerhold (Karabas-Barabas)
Perhaps the most incredible and mythologized story of the image is the story of Carlson’s creation. His possible prototype is Hermann Goering. Relatives of Astrid Lindgren, of course, refute this version, but it still exists and is actively discussed. Astrid Lindgren and Goering met in the 1920s, when the latter organized an air show in Sweden. At that time, Goering was fully “in the prime of his life,” as Carlson liked to say about himself. After World War I, he became a famous ace pilot with a certain charisma and, according to legend, a good appetite. The little engine behind Carlson’s back is often interpreted as an allusion to Goering’s flying practice. A possible confirmation of this analogy can be considered the fact that for a certain time Astrid Lindgren supported the ideas of the National Socialist Party of Sweden. The book about Carlson was published already in the post-war period in 1955, so it would be madness to advocate a direct analogy of these heroes, however, it is quite possible that bright image the young Goering remained in her memory and in one way or another influenced the appearance of the charming Carlson.
Hermann Goering (Carlson)
One version explains that the teddy bear with sawdust in its head got its name from the nickname of Milne’s son Christopher Robin’s favorite toy. Just like the rest of the characters in the book. However, in fact, Winnie the Pooh was named after a real-life bear who lived in the London Zoo. Her name was Winnipeg, and she entertained the residents of the British capital from 1915 to 1934. The bear had many admirers. Among them was Christopher Robin.
Winnipeg (Winnie the Pooh)
One-legged John Silver
In Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson portrayed his friend, poet and critic Williams Hansley, as a good villain. As a child, William suffered from tuberculosis and doctors, for some unknown reason, decided to amputate one of his legs at the knee. After the book was announced, the writer wrote to a friend: “I have a confession to make. Evil on the outside, but kind at heart, John Silver was based on you. You're not offended, are you?
Williams Hansley (One-Legged John Silver)
Daisy Buchanan
In The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald poignantly described his first love, Ginevra King, whom he dated from 1915 to 1917. Due to the difference social statuses their relationship soon disintegrated, with Fitzgerald wistfully writing that “poor boys should not even think of marrying rich girls.” This phrase was included in the book, and then in the film adaptation of the same name. King also served as the inspiration for Judy Jones in Winter Dreams and Isabel Borge in Beyond Paradise.
Ginevra King (Daisy Buchanan)
Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty
Despite the fact that the main characters in the book are named Sal and Dean, Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road is purely autobiographical. One can only guess why Kerouac abandoned his name in the very famous book for the beatniks.
What is a prototype? This is a real person who inspired the poet or writer to create literary image. There are different answers to what a prototype is. This term is found not only in literature, but also in psychology, engineering, automotive industry and other fields. This article examines the main uses of the word.
What is a prototype in literature
This word came into our speech from the ancient Greek language. It can be translated as “prototype.” It’s easy to understand what a prototype is by remembering the plot famous novel"Fathers and Sons". The prototype of the main character in Turgenev's work, according to many literary scholars, is Dobrolyubov. Although there is an opinion that the author created certain features of Bazarov under the impression of his other contemporaries - Preobrazhensky and Pavlov.
The image of a literary hero not only reproduces individual features of the prototype, but also reflects the type of personality characteristic of a certain era. What is a prototype? The meaning of the term is quite broad. But the definition can be formulated as follows: a bright personality whose features the writer borrowed to create a new image.
Author, creating literary work, uses his life experience. Thus, in Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” one of the critics who wrote a harsh critical article about the protagonist’s work is the prototype of a literary figure who once actively prevented the publication of the novel “The White Guard.”
One character can have several prototypes. But one thing worth considering important point. The prototype cannot have the same name as the hero.
Other examples from the literature:
- "Master and Margarita". The prototype of the main character is Bulgakov.
- "Dog's heart". Professor Preobrazhensky has several prototypes, contemporaries of the writer. Among them are surgeon S. Voronov, doctor A. Zamkov, biologist I. Ivanov, physiologist I. Pavlov.
- "The Tale of a Real Man." The prototype of the main character of Boris Polevoy's work is Alexey Maresyev.
In almost every work you can find a hero who has a prototype. Critics and literary scholars love to argue about which outstanding personalities the writer had in mind when creating this or that image. It is worth saying that the presence of a prototype in the hero in most cases is just an assumption.
The prototype can be not only a historical figure, but also an unremarkable person who was involved in some kind of interesting story, which inspired the writer. For example, Leskov wrote an essay “Lady Macbeth Mtsensk district"under the impression of a newspaper article that talked about a woman who killed her husband.
In cinema, the meaning of the word “prototype” fully corresponds to the meaning literary term. The screenwriter creates the image of a future movie character based on characteristic features a real person. And in 2007, the television film “Liquidation” was released. The main character of this picture has several prototypes. Among them are police lieutenant colonel David Kurlyand and UGRO officer Viktor Pavlov.
Psychology: “prototype” and its definition
This term refers to an abstract image that embodies the various original forms of a particular pattern or object. This concept of cognitive psychology is usually used to refer to a person who has qualities that are characteristic of a particular category.
Engineering
In this area, a term is often used that is the same root as the word whose meaning we discussed above. Namely prototyping. The term is used when it comes to creating a draft version of a certain model for further analysis of the operation of the entire system. This allows you to see a more detailed picture of the device. Prototyping is used in mechanical engineering, programming and other areas of technology.
Automotive industry
A synonym for the word “prototype” in this area is a concept car. Before the production of a new car model, a demonstration of a new style, technology, and design is carried out. For this, prototypes of future machines are used. They are often exhibited at car shows to see consumer reactions. The first concept car was created by Harley Earl, a designer at General Motors.
The term prototype is also used in computer science (generative design pattern). "Prototype" is the title of a film that was supposed to be released in 2014. In fact, the film was never filmed. Making a movie trailer is just a bit of a joke.
Prototype(from the Greek protótypon - prototype), a real person, the idea of which served as the basis for the writer when creating literary type, the image of a person - the hero of the work
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See what a “Character Prototype” is in other dictionaries:
- (from other Greek πρῶτος first and τύπος imprint, imprint; prototype, sample), Prototype: Prototype (cognitive psychology) an abstract image that embodies many similar forms of the same object or pattern, most ... ... Wikipedia
A prototype, a specific historical or contemporary personality of the author, who served as the starting point for creating the image. Gorky defines the process of reworking and typifying the prototype as follows: “I recognize the right of the writer and even consider it... ... Literary encyclopedia
prototype- a, m. prototype gr. protos first + typos imprint. 1. Who or what is a predecessor or example of a subsequent one. BAS 1. For this reason, in every educated state it is accepted as a rule or law: 1) to have and preserve... ... Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language
prototype- y, part 1) A specific person, the facts of her life or the history of her character are used as the basis for the image of a literary character. 2) special The primary appearance, the primary form of any organ or organism from which further organs or organisms have historically evolved.… … Ukrainian Tlumach Dictionary
M. 1. The person who served as the writer’s source of creation literary character. 2. The original form, the form of any organ or organism, from which historically subsequent organs or organisms developed. 3. Who or what is... ... Modern Dictionary Russian language Efremova
prototype- (Greek prototypon prototype) real personality or a literary hero who served the author as a model for creating a character. P. can appear in a work as authentic (Pugachev in The captain's daughter A.S. Pushkin) or a fictitious name (prototype... Dictionary of literary terms
PROTOTYPE- (from the Greek prōtótypon prototype), a real-life person who served the author as a prototype (model) for creating a literary character. “Reworking” of P., his creative transformation is an inevitable consequence of artistic development... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary
Castiel Misha Collins as Castiel Appearance Raising Lazarus Information Nickname Cas Gender Male Age Unknown Occupation Messenger of God Number of episodes ... Wikipedia
Wikipedia has articles about other people with this last name, see Bulgakov. Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov Date of birth ... Wikipedia
Mihai Volontir as Budulaya Information Nickname Russian Gypsy Gender male Age ... Wikipedia
The prototype is a real person who served the author as a prototype (model) for creating a literary character. “Reworking” of the prototype, its creative transformation is an inevitable consequence of the artistic development of the original life material. The degree of focus on the prototype, the nature of its use depend on the direction, genre and creative individuality writer. The presence of a prototype, sometimes vitally significant for the author and giving impetus to work on the work, is an essential feature literary creativity, especially realistic, with its life-likeness, everyday flavor, psychologism - in contrast to the literatures and styles noted high degree normativity and demonstrative convention (classicism, baroque, symbolism). Referring to a prototype is most important in autobiographical writings(early trilogy of L.N. Tolstoy, 1852-57) and in autopsychological lyrics (as a prototype lyrical hero the poet himself speaks here). In relation to documentary literature, where real persons and events are named directly and recreated accurately, there is no reason to talk about a prototype (although elements of a creative reinterpretation of facts are present here too).
A literary character can have several prototypes, combining individual features of various persons known to the author. This is how the images of Grushnitsky were created in “Hero of Our Time” (1839-40) by M.Yu. Lermontov, Ariadne in story of the same name A.P. Chekhov. But often the author, when creating an image, relies on one real person, perceived and recognized by him as a type close to artistic completeness. “Without the district doctor Dmitriev there would have been no Bazarov... I was struck by Bazarov’s manner in him, and I began to look closely at this emerging type everywhere” (Turgenev I.S. Russian writers about literary work). The existence of a prototype does not exclude the closeness of the image created on its basis to any literary character. Tolstoy's Natasha Rostova, having her prototype - Tanya Bers, at the same time possesses the features of the heroine of the novel "Aurora Flott" by M.E. Braddon (1863).
The use of a prototype is often associated with deeply personal aspects of the life of a writer who is not interested in their public discussion. Therefore, especially when it comes to literature, contemporary author, there are ethical boundaries to studying a prototype, which can easily turn into tactless “peeping” on the writer and his environment. Significant is T. Mann's protest against making public (which threatened serious offense and even scandal) the fact that the prototype for Peppercorn from The Magic Mountain was the playwright G. Hauptmann (T. Mann, Letters). In the reader’s perception of a work, “knowledge of the sources that inspired the artist’s inspiration” can sometimes confuse people and even “destroy the impact wonderful work"(Mann T. Collected Works: In 10 volumes. Volume 7). The prototype usually becomes the subject of a biographical description and literary research only much later than the time of writing the work (the autobiographical basis of A.A. Blok’s poetry emerges much more fully than before in the publication: A. Blok. Letters to his wife). Studying a prototype is especially important when you artistic text indicates that the author connects his hero with a real person (a number of works by N.S. Leskov).