Literary type
The concept of “literary type” first appears in Hegel’s Aesthetics. In literary theory, “type” and “character” are close, but not interchangeable; "character" in to a greater extent reveals typical features personality, its psychological properties, and “type” is a generalization of certain social phenomena and is associated with typical traits. For example, Maxim Maksimych is a typical Russian soldier, “just a decent person,” as L.N. Tolstoy said about him, while Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin is a type of “suffering egoist,” the embodiment of “the vices of an entire generation in their full development.”
The concept of “typing” includes the process of creating a holistic picture of the world and is the basis of the creative process.
Recognizing typification as an internal need and a law of art, writers realize that the typical is not a copy of reality, but an artistic generalization.
In Moliere, Harpagon and Tartuffe are typical characters, but they are not social, but psychological types, illustrating neglect of moral requirements. If we want to call someone a miser or a hypocrite, we use these proper names as common nouns.
V. G. Belinsky in the article “On the Russian story and the stories of Mr. Gogol” defines the typifying features of a literary hero: “Don’t say: here is a man with a huge soul, with ardent passions, with an extensive mind, but a limited reason, who loves so madly his wife, that he is ready to strangle her with his hands at the slightest suspicion of infidelity - say more simply and briefly: here is Othello!.. Don’t say: here is an official who is vile by conviction, malicious with good intentions, criminal in good faith - say: here is Famusov!
The schematism of classic images is associated with the intentional intention of the authors, using the example of a particular character, to illustrate ethical and aesthetic principles. That is why the image, reduced to a theoretical premise, is marked by maximum typicality. However, an image that bears any one dominant feature, while winning in typicality, often loses in artistry.
The aesthetics of classicism are based on the principles of rationalism. Classicists affirm the view of a work of art as a creation that is consciously created, intelligently organized, and logically provable. Having put forward the principle of “imitation of nature,” classicists consider compliance with known rules and restrictions to be an indispensable condition. The goal of art is the artistic transformation of nature, the transformation of nature into a beautiful and ennobled aesthetic reality.
The strict hierarchy of genres of classicism also gives rise to the normalization of literary types. Social conflicts appear in the work reflected in the souls of the heroes. The division of characters into positive and negative in classic aesthetics is natural. There should be no intermediate types, since art is charged with the task of correcting vices and glorifying virtues ideal person.
Classical playwrights turn to Aristotle, who argued that tragedy “seeks to depict the best people than those currently existing." The heroes of classic plays are forced to struggle with circumstances that, as in the tragedy of antiquity, cannot be prevented. In the classic version of the conflict, the resolution of the tragic situation now depends not on fate, but on the titanic will of the hero, personifying the author’s ideal.
According to the poetics of the genre, the heroes of the tragedy could be mythological characters, monarchs, generals, persons who determined by their will the destinies of many people and even an entire nation. It is they who embody the main requirement - to sacrifice selfish interests in the name of the common good. As a rule, the content of character in a tragedy comes down to one essential trait. It determined the moral and psychological appearance of the hero. Thus, in Sumarokov’s tragedies, Kiy (“Khorev”) and Mstislav (“Mstislav”) are depicted by the playwright only as monarchs who violated their duty to their subjects; Khorev, Truvor, Vysheslav are like heroes who know how to control their feelings and subordinate them to the dictates of duty. Character in classicism is not depicted on its own, but is given in relation to the opposite property. The conflict between duty and feeling, caused by a dramatic combination of circumstances, made the characters of the heroes of the tragedies similar, and sometimes indistinguishable.
In the works of classicism, especially in comedy, the main character trait of the hero is fixed in his behavior and in his name. For example, the image of Pravdin cannot show at least any flaw, and Svinin cannot show the slightest dignity. Vice or virtue take a specific figurative form in Fonvizin’s comedies: the prude Zhekhvat, the braggart Verkholet.
In the literature of sentimentalism, the emphasis is transferred from the environment to the person, to the sphere of his spiritual life. Preference is given to characters in which “sensitivity” predominates. Sentimentality, according to G. Pospelov’s definition, “is a more complex state, caused mainly by the ideological understanding of a certain inconsistency in the social characters of people. Sensitivity is a personal psychological phenomenon; sentimentality has a general cognitive meaning.” Sentimentality of experience is the ability to recognize the external insignificance of other people’s lives, and sometimes in one’s own own life something intrinsically significant. This feeling requires the hero’s mental reflection (emotional contemplation, the ability of introspection). A striking example of a sentimental character is Werther Goethe. The title of the novel is symptomatic - “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” In Goethe's work, suffering is perceived not as a chain of unfortunate events, but as a spiritual experience that can cleanse the hero's soul and ennoble his feelings. The author did not idealize his hero. Upon completion of work on the novel, Goethe wrote that he depicted “ young man immersed in extravagant dreams,” who “perishes... as a result of unhappy passions.”
After a century of “thinking” (as Voltaire called the Age of Enlightenment), authors and readers felt that thought, a logically proven idea does not exhaust the potential of the individual: you can put forward a spectacular idea for improving the world, but this is not enough to correct a vicious world. The era of romanticism is coming. In its content, art reflects the rebellious spirit of man. The romantic theory of genius crystallizes in literature. “Genius and villainy are two incompatible things” - this phrase from Pushkin defines the main types of characters in romanticism. Poets discovered the unusual complexity, depth of the spiritual world of man, the inner infinity of the individual.
Intense interest in strong feelings and secret movements of the soul, in the mysterious side of the universe, gives rise to an exceptionally intense psychologism of images. The craving for the intuitive encourages writers to imagine heroes in extreme situations and to persistently comprehend the hidden sides of nature. The romantic hero lives by imagination, not reality. Special psychological types are emerging: rebels who oppose a high ideal to a triumphant reality; villains who tempt man with omnipotence and omniscience; musicians (gifted people capable of penetrating the world of ideas). Many Romantic heroes become literary myths, symbolizing the thirst for knowledge (Faust), uncompromising devotion (Quasimodo) or absolute evil (Cain). In romanticism, as in sentimentalism, the extra-class value of a person is decisive in assessing the character of a literary hero. That is why the authors deliberately weaken the fact of a person’s dependence on circumstances caused by social conflicts. The lack of motivation of character is explained by its predetermination and self-sufficiency. “One but fiery passion” guides the actions of the heroes.
At the center of romantic aesthetics is a creative subject, a genius who rethinks reality, or a villain who is convinced of the infallibility of his vision of reality. Romanticism professes the cult of individualism, emphasizing not the universal, but the exclusive.
The basis of the literary characterology of realism is the social type. The psychological discoveries of romanticism are reinforced in realism by broad social and historical analysis, ideological motivation for the hero’s behavior. The character, as a rule, is determined by circumstances and environment.
In Russian realistic literature types add up literary heroes, which have common characterological features, their behavior is determined by similar circumstances, and the disclosure of the image in the text is based on traditional plot collisions and motives. The most striking were the “extra man,” “little man,” and “simple man.”
At first glance, the image, the character, the literary type, and the lyrical hero are the same concepts, or at least very similar. Let's try to understand the vicissitudes of the meanings of the concepts being studied.
Image- this is an artistic generalization of human properties, character traits in the individual appearance of the hero. An image is an artistic category that we can evaluate from the point of view of the author’s skill: we cannot despise the image of Plyushkin, since it evokes admiration for Gogol’s skill; we may not like the type of Plyushkin.
Concept "character" broader than the concept of “image”. A character is any character in a work, so it is incorrect to replace the concepts of “image” or “lyrical hero” with this concept. But we note that in relation to the minor characters of the work, we can only use this concept. Sometimes you can come across the following definition: a character is a person who does not influence the event, who is not important in revealing the main problems and ideological conflicts.
Lyrical hero– the image of a hero in a lyrical work, whose experiences, thoughts, feelings reflect the author’s worldview; this is the artistic “double” of the author, having his own inner world, his own destiny. This is not an autobiographical image, although it embodies the spiritual world of the author. For example, the lyrical hero M.Yu. Lermontov is a “son of suffering”, disappointed in reality, romantic, lonely, constantly looking for freedom.
Literary type- this is a generalized image of human individuality, the most possible, characteristic, for a certain social environment at a certain time. A literary type is a unity of the individual and the typical, and “typical” is not synonymous with “average”: a type always absorbs all the most striking features characteristic of a specific group of people. The apogee of the author’s skill in developing a type is the transition of the type to the category of household names (Manilov - household image an idle dreamer, Nozdryov is a liar and a braggart, etc.).
We often come across another concept - character. Character is human individuality, consisting of certain spiritual, moral, mental traits; this is the unity of emotional reaction, temperament, will and a type of behavior determined by the socio-historical situation and time. Each character has a dominant feature that gives living unity to the whole variety of qualities and properties.
Thus, when characterizing a hero, it is very important not to forget about the differences discussed above.
Good luck in characterizing your favorite literary characters!
website, when copying material in full or in part, a link to the source is required.
Initially, heroes in folklore and literary works were characterized by one main feature, one quality. In fairy tales, Baba Yaga was always evil, good fellow- brave. Koschey the Immortal is greedy, a beautiful maiden is wise and faithful. Epic hero Ilya Muromets was powerful and unshakable. Sadko is broad-minded and generous. U fairy-tale heroes There were no individual characters or personal experiences yet.
IN ancient epic a type of epic hero, endowed with an integral character, developed. For example, the hero Achilles in Homer’s poem “The Iliad” is a fearless warrior, this is his main characteristic, which determines all his actions. The character of Hector, the defender of Troy, is determined by his humanity, which is why he wavered in the battle with Achilles and was afraid of him. Epic characters are also found in the literature of later times: let us remember the hero N.V. Gogol - Taras Bulba.
In works ancient Russian literature the characters' characters were not described in detail, although they were also integral and consistent. So, in the story about Peter and Fevronia, it was important for the author to show the courage of Peter and the wisdom of Fevronia; Epiphanius the Wise - piety and feat St. Sergius Radonezh. Hagiographic literature was intended to instruct people, to provide examples of righteous behavior, describing the lives of saints.
In the literature of the Renaissance, heroes of a new type appear. They are no longer determined by any one trait or quality, but by their fate and position in the world. So, Hamlet in tragedy of the same name V. Shakespeare is a type tragic hero - a person who finds himself in hopeless situation. The hero of M. de Cervantes, Don Quixote, due to his madness and absurd behavior, is considered comic hero, although gradually as we read the novel we begin to recognize the seriousness and even tragedy of the image behind this comedy. Both Hamlet and Don Quixote - heroes of lofty ideals, they strive for truth and goodness and represent the type of high hero. The image of Don Quixote became the basis for the image of a tall hero in comedy. In Russian literature, an example of a hero of this kind is, for example, Chatsky in A. S. Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit.”
Drama as a type of literature is divided into genres: tragedy, comedy and drama. If the first two genres are characterized primarily by tragic and comic heroes, then in drama the center of the conflict is dramatic hero. This is the image of the unfortunate girl Larisa Ogudalova in the play “Dowry” by A.N. Ostrovsky. The images of Karandyshev and Larisa’s mother have dramatic features. And the drunkard Robinson in the play, in contrast to the lofty images of Don Quixote and Chatsky, represents type of reduced comic hero.
The image of the merchant Kalashnikov in the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich..." contains epic, heroic and tragic features, the type of this hero cannot be determined unambiguously. However, the merchant Kalashnikov accurately represents a heroic personality - a man who resists injustice and defends his honor, his faith, and his people. This is explained by the fact that in the literature of the last two centuries literary styles, genres, as well as the characters' personalities, have become more complex, thereby reflecting the fact that people's views on life have become fuller and more diverse.
Character (actor)- in prose or dramatic work an artistic image of a person (sometimes fantastic creatures, animals or objects), which is both the subject of the action and the object of the author’s research.
In a literary work there are usually characters of different levels and varying degrees of participation in the development of events.
Hero. Central character, the main one for the development of action is called hero literary work. Characters who enter into ideological or everyday conflict with each other are the most important in character system. In a literary work, the relationship and role of the main, secondary, episodic characters(as well as off-stage characters in dramatic work) are determined by the author's intention.
The role that authors assign to their hero is evidenced by the so-called “character” titles of literary works (for example, “Taras Bulba” by N.V. Gogol, “Heinrich von Oftendinger” by Novalis) . This, however, does not mean that in works entitled with the name of one character, there is necessarily one main character. So, V.G. Belinsky considered Tatyana equal the main character A.S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”, and F.M. Dostoevsky considered her image even more significant than the image of Onegin. Not one, but several titles can be entered by title. characters, which, as a rule, emphasizes their equal importance for the author.
Character- a personality type formed by individual traits. The set of psychological properties that make up the image of a literary character is called character. Incarnation in a hero, a character of a certain life character.
Literary type – a character that carries a broad generalization. In other words, a literary type is a character in whose character the universal human traits inherent in many people prevail over personal, individual traits.
Sometimes the writer’s focus is on a whole group of characters, as, for example, in “family” epic novels: “The Forsyte Saga” by J. Galsworthy, “Buddenbrooks” by T. Mann. In the 19th–20th centuries. begins to be of particular interest to writers collective character as a certain psychological type, which sometimes also manifests itself in the titles of works (“Pompadours and Pompadours” by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, “The Humiliated and Insulted” by F.M. Dostoevsky). Typification is a means of artistic generalization.
Prototype- a specific person who served the writer as the basis for creating a generalized image-character in a work of art.
Portrait as an integral part of the character structure, one of important components works, organically fused with the composition of the text and the idea of the author. Types of portrait (detailed, psychological, satirical, ironic, etc.).
Portrait– one of the means of creating an image: depicting the appearance of the hero of a literary work as a way of characterizing him. A portrait may include a description of the appearance (face, eyes, human figure), actions and states of the hero (the so-called dynamic portrait, which depicts facial expressions, eyes, facial expressions, gestures, posture), as well as features formed by the environment or that are a reflection of the character’s individuality: clothes , manners, hairstyles, etc. A special type of description - psychological picture– allows the author to reveal the character, inner world and emotional experiences of the hero. For example, the portrait of Pechorin in the novel “Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov, portraits of heroes of novels and stories by F.M. Dostoevsky are psychological.
An artistic image is a specificity of art, which is created through typification and individualization.
Typification is the knowledge of reality and its analysis, as a result of which the selection and generalization of life material is carried out, its systematization, the identification of what is significant, the discovery of essential tendencies of the universe and folk-national forms of life.
Individualization is the embodiment of human characters and their unique identity, the artist’s personal vision of public and private existence, contradictions and conflicts of time, concrete sensory exploration of the non-human world and the objective world through artistic means. words.
A character is all the figures in a work, but excluding the lyrics.
Type (imprint, shape, sample) is highest manifestation 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.
The hero is a complex, multifaceted person. He is an exponent of plot action that reveals the content of works of literature, cinema, and theater. The author, who is directly present as a hero, is called a lyrical hero (epic, lyric). The literary hero opposes the literary character, who acts as a contrast to the hero, and is a participant in the plot
A prototype is a specific historical or contemporary personality of the author, who served as the starting point for creating an image. The prototype replaced the problem of the relationship between art and a real analysis of the writer’s personal likes and dislikes. The value of researching a prototype depends on the nature of the prototype itself.
- - a generalized artistic image, the most possible, characteristic of a certain social environment. A type is a character that contains a social generalization. For example, the type of “superfluous person” in Russian literature, with all its diversity (Chatsky, Onegin, Pechorin, Oblomov), had common features: education, dissatisfaction real life, the desire for justice, the inability to realize oneself in society, the ability to have strong feelings, etc. Every time gives birth to its own types of heroes. For changing " extra person“The type of “new people” has arrived. This is, for example, the nihilist Bazarov.
Prototype- a prototype, a specific historical or contemporary personality of the author, who served as the starting point for creating the image.
Character - the image of a person in a literary work, which combines the general, repetitive and individual, unique. The author's view of the world and man is revealed through character. The principles and techniques for creating character differ depending on tragic, satirical and other ways of depicting life, from literary kind work and genre. It is necessary to distinguish literary character from character in life. When creating a character, a writer can also reflect the traits of a real, historical person. But he inevitably uses fiction, “invents” the prototype, even if his hero is a historical figure. "Character" and "character" - concepts are not identical. Literature is focused on creating characters, which often cause controversy and are perceived ambiguously by critics and readers. Therefore, in the same character one can see different tempers(the image of Bazarov from Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons”). In addition, in the system of images of a literary work, there are, as a rule, much more characters than characters. Not every character is a character; some characters only serve a plot role. Typically not in character minor characters works.
Literary hero is an 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.
Often in literature there was a process of formalization of the character of heroes, when they turned into a “type” of some vice, passion, etc. The creation of such “types” was especially characteristic of classicism, with the image of a person playing a auxiliary role in relation to a certain advantage, disadvantage, or inclination.
A special place among literary heroes is occupied by genuine persons introduced into a fictional context - for example, historical characters novels.
Lyrical hero - the image of the poet, the lyrical “I”. Inner world lyrical hero is revealed not through actions and events, but through specific state of mind, through the experience of a certain life situation. A lyric poem is a specific and individual manifestation of the character of the lyrical hero. The image of the lyrical hero is revealed most fully throughout the poet’s work. So, in some lyrical works Pushkin (“In the depths of the Siberian ores...”, “Anchar”, “Prophet”, “Desire for Glory”, “I Love You...” and others) express different states of the lyrical hero, but taken together they give us quite a holistic view of it.
The image of the lyrical hero should not be identified with the personality of the poet, just as the experiences of the lyrical hero should not be perceived as the thoughts and feelings of the author himself. The image of a lyrical hero is created by the poet in the same way as an artistic image in works of other genres, through the selection of life material, typification, and artistic invention.
Character - protagonist of a work of art. As a rule, the character takes an active part in the development of the action, but the author or one of the literary heroes can also talk about him. 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 whole line characters (“War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy).
Artistic image- a universal category of artistic creativity, a form of interpretation and exploration of the world from the position of a certain aesthetic ideal, through the creation of aesthetically affecting objects. Any phenomenon creatively recreated in a work of art is also called an artistic image. An artistic image is an image of art that is created by the author work of art in order to most fully reveal the described phenomenon of reality. At the same time, the meaning artistic image is revealed only in a certain communicative situation, and the final result of such communication depends on the personality, goals and even the mood of the person encountering it, as well as on the specific
Character(with gr. - literal line) - this is a set of psychological properties that make up the image of a literary character.
Individual details of the image, manifested in action, behavior, in certain circumstances, create a multifaceted world of the hero.
The concept of “character” refers to the category of content of a work. It is appropriate to use this term when an analysis of the idea of a work is given and its pathos is determined. In the broad sense of this term all images and heroes of any text inevitably have a typical character.
In antiquity, long before the emergence of a special science about man (anthropology, ethics, physiognomy), main theme literature was the involvement of man in the sphere of uncompromising laws of fate. In the epic, the hero is still entirely dependent on the deity: he cannot act independently; he, in the words of B. Snell, “may be a character, but not yet a personality.” The hero has the same qualities as the gods, but he is a victim of those properties of which he is the bearer. This explains the designation of character with a mask in the ancient theater.
IN modern literature character is a personality structure formed by individual and typological traits and manifested in behavioral characteristics and distinctive properties of nature.
In antiquity, on the contrary, character is a “stamp”, a “frozen mask”.
Literary type - an image of human individuality, the most possible, typical for a particular society.
The concept of “literary type” first appears in Hegel’s Aesthetics .
In literary theory, “type” and “character” are close, but not interchangeable.;
“Character” reveals to a greater extent typical personality traits, its psychological properties, A " “type” is a generalization of certain social phenomena associated with typical features.
For example, Maxim Maksimych is a typical Russian soldier, “just a decent person,” as L.N. Tolstoy said about him, while Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin is a type of “suffering egoist,” the embodiment of “the vices of an entire generation in their full development.” The concept of “typing” includes the process of creating a holistic picture of the world and is the basis of the creative process. Recognizing typification as an internal need and a law of art, writers realize that the typical is not a copy of reality, but an artistic generalization. In Moliere, Harpagon and Tartuffe are typical characters, but these are not social, but psychological types, illustrating neglect of moral requirements. If we want to call someone a miser or a hypocrite, we use these proper names as common nouns. The strict hierarchy of genres of classicism also gives rise to the normalization of literary types. Social conflicts appear in the work reflected in the souls of the heroes.
The division of characters into positive and negative in classic aesthetics is natural. There should be no intermediate types, since art is charged with the task of correcting vices and glorifying the virtues of an ideal person. The psychology of the “little man” was outlined by Pushkin in “ Stationmaster"("Belkin's Tales") in all the evidence of his social existence. An equally significant aspect of the topic is the analysis of dramatic family relationships.
Pushkin’s concept becomes the source of subsequent literary generalizations, predetermines the plots of Gogol (“The Overcoat”), Dostoevsky (Poor People) and Tolstoy about “unhappy families,” conflict situations where “each family is unhappy in its own way.” The “little man” becomes the dominant type in the “natural school.” L.M. Lotman wrote that “the man appeared to the writers” natural school"a cast of a social form that distorts human nature." Further evolution literary type“little man” is associated with a shift in emphasis, according to M. M. Bakhtin, “from the environment to the person.” Already in early work“Poor people” F. M. Dostoevsky focuses on spiritual world hero, although dependence on social circumstances still determines the misfortunes of Makar Devushkin. Dobrolyubov in his article “Downtrodden People” noted: “In the works of Dostoevsky we find one common feature, more or less noticeable in everything he wrote: this is pain about a person who recognizes himself as unable or, finally, not even entitled to be a real person, a complete, independent person, in himself.”
The novel “Poor People” combines two views on the “little man” - Pushkin’s and Gogol’s; Makar Devushkin, after reading both stories, comes to the conclusion that “we are all Samson Vyrins.” This recognition points to a dramatic discovery - the tragedy is predetermined, there is no way to fight circumstances that are insurmountable. Dostoevsky’s famous phrase: “We all came out of Gogol’s “Overcoat”” - implies not so much apprenticeship as the continuation and development of the theme of mercy, immeasurable love for a person rejected by society. The world of Akakiy Akakievich is confined to the dream of an overcoat, the world of Makar Devushkin is caring for Varenka. Dostoevsky represents the type of dreamer who is content with little, and all his actions are dictated by the fear of losing the modest gift of fate. Thematic similarity is found between “Poor People” and the story “White Nights,” the hero of which gives himself a derogatory description: “A dreamer is not a person, but, you know, some kind of creature of the neuter kind. For the most part, he settles somewhere in an inaccessible corner, as if he were hiding there even from daylight.”
Dostoevsky reconsiders the famous type romantic hero who plunges into the world perfect dream, despising reality. Dostoevsky's heroes doomedly preach humility in life, which leads them to death. Another twist on the theme of the little man is associated with the writer’s interest in the topic of drunkenness as an allegory of rebellion against public morality. In the novel “Crime and Punishment,” this type of vice is viewed not as a consequence of social evil, but as a manifestation of selfishness and weakness. Oblivion in drunkenness does not save a person who has “nowhere else to go”; it destroys the destinies of loved ones: Sonya Marmeladova is forced to go to the panel, Katerina Ivanovna goes crazy, and, if not for chance, her children would have faced inevitable death. Chekhov expresses no compassion for " little man”, but shows the real “smallness” of his soul. The story “The Death of an Official” examines the problem of the voluntariness of social obligations undertaken by a person. It is resolved in a grotesque manner. Chervyakov dies not as a “humiliated and insulted” person, but as an official who has lost his natural appearance out of fear. Chekhov proved with all his creativity that a person should not conform his potentialities to the limits allowed by society. The spiritual needs of the individual must triumph over vulgarity and insignificance: “A person needs not three arshins of land, but the entire globe.” The isolation of “case life,” the writer insists, is harmful. The story “The Man in a Case” creates a frightening image of Belikov, an apologist for protective morality. His entire behavior is permeated with the fear that “something might not happen.” The writer exaggerates the image of a defender of social morality; a black suit, glasses, galoshes, and an umbrella are expressive details of the image that create an expressive portrait of a frightening social phenomenon. Belikov's death may seem to bring deliverance to people who fear the zealous guardian of morality, but an optimistic solution to a tragic collision is alien to Chekhov. The writer sadly admits that hopes to correct people who differ from Belikov in their lifestyle, but not in their inner self-awareness, are vain. At the end of the story, a symbolic emphasis is placed to make sure that protective ideas remain alive. The scene of Belikov's funeral is framed by the image of rain, and everyone present opens their umbrellas; this is read as the inescapability of what the fearful teacher actually stood for.