What are the features of the composition of the novel the hero of our time. What is the peculiarity of the composition of the novel "Quiet Flows the Don"? (Sholokhov M

Features of the composition of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" come from the fact that the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov became an advanced work of its time: in it the author used a new genre of a psychologically oriented novel, a new image of the protagonist and, accordingly, a new compositional articulation of the work.

The author himself, after the publication of his novel in its finished form, admitted that not a single word, not a single line in it arose by chance, everything written was subordinated to one main goal - to show readers their contemporary - a man with noble and bad inclinations, who, obeying the feeling selfishness, he was able to realize in life only his vices, and his virtues remained only good desires.

When the novel was just published, critics and ordinary readers had a lot of questions that related to the compositional division of this work. We will try to consider the main of these issues.

Why was the chronology of the presentation of the episodes of the main character's life broken?

The features of the composition of "A Hero of Our Time" are related to the fact that we learn about the life of the protagonist in a very inconsistent way. The first part of the novel tells how Pechorin stole the Circassian Bela from his own father, made her his mistress, and later lost interest in this girl. As a result of a tragic accident, Bela was killed by the Circassian Kazbich, who was in love with her.

In the second part, entitled "Maxim Maksimovich", readers will learn that several years have passed since the death of Bela, Pechorin decided to go to Persia and died on the way there. From Pechorin's diary, it becomes known about the events that happened to the main character before meeting Bela: Pechorin got into a funny adventure with smugglers on Taman and in the city of Kislovodsk met the young Princess Mary Ligovskaya, whom, unwittingly, he fell in love with himself, and then refused to share her feelings. There was also a duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky, as a result of which the latter was killed.

The novel "A Hero of Our Time" ends with the part "Fatalist", which tells about a private episode from the life of Pechorin.

Studying the plot and composition of "A Hero of Our Time", literary critics agree that the author violated the chronological presentation of the main character's life in order, on the one hand, to emphasize the chaotic life of Pechorin, his inability to subordinate his fate to one main idea, on the other hand, Lermontov tried to reveal the image of his main character gradually: at first, readers saw him from the side through the eyes of Maxim Maksimovich and the narrator-officer, and then only got acquainted with Pechorin's personal diary, in which he was extremely frank.

What is the relationship between plot and plot in a novel?

The innovation of Lermontov as a prose writer contributed to the fact that the plot and plot of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" do not coincide with each other. This leads to the fact that the reader pays more attention not to the external outline of events from the life of the protagonist, but to his inner experiences. Literary critics have dubbed this method of constructing a work “tense composition”, when readers see the heroes of the novel at the peak moments of their fate.

Therefore, the composition of Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time" is a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian literature: the author talks about key episodes from the life of his hero, giving him a description precisely at the moments of the highest life trials: these are Pechorin's love experiences, his duel with Grushnitsky, his skirmish with drunken Cossack, his dangerous adventure with smugglers on Taman.

In addition, Lermontov resorts to the reception of a ring composition: for the first time we meet Pechorin in the fortress in which he serves with Maxim Maksimovich, the last time we see the hero in the same fortress, before he leaves for Persia.

How does the compositional division of a work help to reveal the image of the protagonist?

According to most literary critics, the originality of the compositional solution of the novel helps to consider in detail the image of Pechorin.
In the first part of Bela, Pechorin's personality is shown through the eyes of his commander, the kind and honest Maxim Maksimovich. The author debunks the myth of beautiful love between a savage woman and a young educated nobleman that existed in the literature of that time. Pechorin does not in any way correspond to the image of a young romantic hero, which was created in the works of the writer's contemporaries.

In the second part of "Maxim Maksimovich" we meet a more detailed description of the personality of the protagonist. Pechorin is described through the eyes of the narrator. Readers get an idea of ​​the character's appearance and behavior. The romantic halo around Grigory Alexandrovich flutters completely.

In "Taman" Lermontov refutes the myth of romantic love between a girl engaged in smuggling activities and a young officer. A young smuggler with the romantic name Ondine does not behave at all sublimely, she is ready to kill Pechorin only because he turned out to be an unwitting witness to her crime. Pechorin is also characterized in this part as a man of an adventurous warehouse, ready for anything to satisfy his own desires.

Part "Princess Mary" is built on the principle of a secular story: it has a love story and a conflict between two officers for possession of the girl's heart, which ends tragically. In this part, the image of Pechorin receives a complete realistic characterization: readers see all the external actions of the hero and the secret movements of his soul.

In the last part of the novel The Fatalist, Lermontov poses the most important questions for him about the meaning of human life on earth: is a person the master of his own destiny or is he led by some kind of evil fate; is it possible to cheat one's fate or is it impossible, etc.? In the last part, Pechorin appears before us in the form of a man who is ready to fight fate. However, readers understand that this struggle will eventually lead him to an early death.

The role of composition in the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is very important. It is thanks to the unusual compositional division of the work that the author manages to achieve the full realization of his creative idea - the creation of a new psychologically oriented genre of the novel.

The presented compositional features of the work can be used by students of grade 9 when preparing material for an essay on the topic “Features of the composition of the novel“ A Hero of Our Time ””.

Artwork test

The novel "A Hero of Our Time" is the first psychological novel in Russian literature, and one of the perfect examples of this genre. The psychological analysis of the character of the protagonist is carried out in the complex compositional construction of the novel, the composition of which is bizarre by the violation of the chronological sequence of its main parts. In the novel A Hero of Our Time, composition and style are subordinated to one task: to reveal the image of the hero of his time as deeply and comprehensively as possible, to trace the history of his inner life, since "the history of the human soul,- as the author states in the Preface to Pechorin's Journal, - even the smallest soul, is perhaps more interesting and useful than the history of an entire people, especially ... when it ... is written without a vain desire to arouse interest or surprise. Consequently, the composition of this novel is one of its most important artistic features.

According to the true chronology, the stories should have been arranged as follows: “Taman”, “Princess Mary”, “Fatalist”, “Bela”, “Maxim Maksimych”, Preface to the “Pechorin Journal”. Lermontov breaks the order of events and tells about them not in chronological order: "Bela", "Maxim Maksimych", Preface to "Pechorin's Journal", "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist". Such an arrangement of parts of the novel, which breaks the chronological order, increases the plot tension, makes it possible to interest the reader as much as possible in Pechorin and his fate, gradually revealing his character in all the inconsistency and complexity.

The story is told on behalf of three narrators: a certain wandering officer, staff captain Maxim Maksimych, and, finally, Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin himself. The author resorted to this technique to highlight the events and the character of the protagonist from different points of view, and as fully as possible. For Lermontov, these are not just three narrators, but three types of narrator: an outside observer of what is happening, a secondary character and participant in the events, as well as the main character himself. All three are dominated by the creator of the entire work - the author. We are presented with not just three points of view, but three levels of comprehending the character, psychological disclosure of the nature of the “hero of time”, three measures of comprehending the complex inner world of an outstanding individuality. The presence of three types of narrators, their location in the course of the narrative is closely linked to the overall composition of the novel, and determines the chronological rearrangement of events, while at the same time being in a complex dependence on such a rearrangement.

In the story “Bela”, Maxim Maksimych begins the story about Pechorin: “ He was a nice fellow, I dare to assure you; just a little weird. After all, for example, in the rain, in the cold all day hunting; everyone will get cold, tired, but nothing to him. And another time he sits in his room, the wind smells, he assures that he has caught a cold; the shutter will knock, he will shudder and turn pale; and with me he went to the boar one on one; it happened that for whole hours you couldn’t get a word, but sometimes, as soon as he starts talking, his tummies break with laughter ... Yes, sir, he was very strange.

Lermontov avoids local, dialect or Caucasian foreign words, deliberately using general literary vocabulary. The simplicity and accuracy of Lermontov's prose language were developed under the direct influence of Pushkin's prose.

The central story in the story "Bela" is the story of Maxim Maksimych, included in the notes of a wandering officer. Having put the story about the history of Pechorin and Bela into the mouth of the old Caucasian Maxim Maksimych, Lermontov set off the tragic emptiness of Pechorin and at the same time contrasted him with the whole character of the Russian person.

In the next story, "Maxim Maksimych", the staff captain turns into a character. The story continues on behalf of the author of the novel. Here, for the only time in the entire book, the author meets the hero, Pechorin. This is necessary in order to realistically motivate the detailed psychological portrait of Pechorin included in the second story. The introduction of a second narrator into the fabric of the novel corrects the focus of the image. If Maksim Maksimych examines the events as if through inverted binoculars, so that everything is in his field of vision, but everything is too general, then the storyteller officer zooms in on the image, transfers it from a general plan to a larger one. However, as a narrator, he has a drawback in comparison with the staff captain: he knows too little, being content with only passing observations. The second story, therefore, basically confirms the impression made after acquaintance with the beginning of the novel: Pechorin is too indifferent to people, otherwise his coldness would not have offended Maxim Maksimych, who was so devoted to his friendship with him.

Pechorin is indifferent not only to Maxim Maksimych, but also to himself, giving the Journal to the staff captain. The narrator, observing Pechorin's appearance, notes: “... I must say a few more words about his eyes. First, they didn't laugh when he laughed! Have you ever noticed such strangeness in some people? .. This is a sign - either an evil disposition, or a deep constant sadness. Their half-drooped eyelashes shone with a kind of phosphorescent sheen, so to speak. It was not a reflection of the heat of the soul or a playful imagination: it was a brilliance, like the brilliance of smooth steel, dazzling, but cold; his glance - short, but penetrating and heavy, left an unpleasant impression of an indiscreet question and could have seemed impudent if it had not been so indifferently calm. In the second story, the author, as it were, prepares the reader for the further Pechorin's Journal, because he learns how Pechorin's notes fell into the author's hands.

The second story is able to tease the reader's imagination: what is true in Pechorin - is it an evil temper or a deep constant sadness? Only after that, having aroused an inquisitive interest in such an unusual character, forcing the reader, who is looking for an answer, to be attentive to every detail of the further story, the author changes the narrator, giving the floor to the most central character: as a narrator, he has undoubted advantages over his two predecessors, so it’s not easy knows about himself more than others, but is also able to comprehend his actions, motives, emotions, the subtlest movements of the soul - how rarely does anyone know how. In self-analysis - the strength and weakness of Pechorin, hence his superiority over people and this is one of the reasons for his skepticism, disappointment.

In the Preface to Pechorin's Journal, the author reports something that Pechorin himself could not say: Pechorin died on his way back from a trip to Persia. This is how the author's right to publish the Pechorin's Journal, which consists of three stories: "Taman", "Princess Mary" and "The Fatalist", is justified.

"Taman" is an action-packed story. In this story, everything is explained and unleashed in the most ordinary and prosaic way, although Pechorin is initially perceived somewhat romantically and truly poetically, which is not surprising: Pechorin finds himself in an unusual and atypical environment for a noble hero. It seems to him a mystery poor hut with its unfriendly inhabitants on a high cliff near the Black Sea. And Pechorin invades this strange life of smugglers, incomprehensible to him, "like a stone thrown into a smooth spring" and "I almost went down on my own." Pechorin's sadly ironic exclamation sums up the truthful and bitter conclusion to the whole incident: “Yes, and what do I care about the joys and misfortunes of people, to me, a wandering officer, and even with a traveler on official business! ..” .

The second story, included in Pechorin's Journal, "Princess Mary", develops the theme of the hero of time surrounded by a "water society", surrounded by and in a collision with which Pechorin is shown.

In the story “Princess Mary”, Pechorin speaks to the reader not only as a memoirist-narrator, but also as the author of a diary, a journal in which his thoughts and impressions are accurately recorded. This allows Lermontov to reveal the inner world of his hero with great depth. Pechorin's diary opens with an entry made on May 11, the day after his arrival in Pyatigorsk. Detailed descriptions of subsequent events constitute, as it were, the first, “Pyatigorsk” part of the story. The entry dated June 10 opens the second, "Kislovodsk" part of his diary. In the second part, events develop more rapidly, consistently leading to the culmination of the story and the entire novel - to the duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky. For a duel with Grushnitsky, Pechorin ends up in a fortress with Maxim Maksimych. This is where the story ends. Thus, all the events of "Princess Mary" fit into a period of a little more than a month and a half. But the story of these few days gives Lermontov the opportunity to reveal the contradictory image of Pechorin from within with exceptional depth and completeness.

It is in "Princess Mary" that the hopeless despair, the tragic hopelessness of Pechorin, an intelligent and gifted person, crippled by his environment and upbringing, are most deeply shown.

Pechorin's past within the "Hero of Our Time" is of little interest to Lermontov. The author is almost not busy with the question of the formation of his hero. Lermontov does not even consider it necessary to tell the reader what Pechorin did in St. Petersburg during the five years that passed after his return from the Caucasus until his reappearance in Vladikavkaz (Maxim Maksimych) on his way to Persia. All Lermontov's attention is drawn to the disclosure of the inner life of his hero.

Not only in Russian, but also in world literature, Lermontov was one of the first to master the ability to capture and depict the “mental process of the emergence of thoughts,” as Chernyshevsky put it in an article about the early novels and stories of Leo Tolstoy.

Pechorin consistently and convincingly reveals in his diary not only his thoughts and moods, but also the spiritual world and spiritual appearance of those with whom he has to meet. Neither the intonation of the interlocutor's voice, nor the movements of his eyes, nor facial expressions escape his observation. Every word spoken, every gesture reveals to Pechorin the state of mind of the interlocutor. Pechorin is not only smart, but also observant and sensitive. This explains his ability to understand people well. The portrait characteristics in Pechorin's Journal are striking in their depth and accuracy.

Nature and landscape in A Hero of Our Time, especially in Pechorin's Journal, are very often not only a background for human experiences. The landscape directly clarifies the state of a person, and sometimes emphasizes in contrast the discrepancy between the experiences of the hero and the environment.

The very first meeting between Pechorin and Vera is preceded by a thunderous landscape saturated with electricity: “It was getting hot; white shaggy clouds quickly fled from the snowy mountains, promising a thunderstorm; Mashuk's head was smoking like an extinguished torch; around it, gray wisps of clouds curled and crawled like snakes, held back in their striving and seemed to be clinging to its thorny bush. The air was filled with electricity." .

The contradictory state of Pechorin before the duel is characterized by the duality of images and colors of the morning landscape around Kislovodsk: “I don’t remember a bluer and fresher morning! The sun barely emerged from behind the green peaks, and the merging of the first warmth of its rays with the dying coolness of the night brought some kind of sweet languor to all feelings. .

The same method of contrasting lighting is used in the description of the mountain landscape that surrounded the duelists who climbed to the top of the cliff: “All around, lost in the golden mist of the morning, the peaks of the mountains crowded like an innumerable herd, and Elbrus in the south rose in a white bulk, closing the chain of icy peaks, between which fibrous clouds that had come from the east were already wandering, and went to the edge of the platform and looked down, I felt a little dizzy; down there, it seemed dark and cold, as in a coffin: mossy teeth of rocks, thrown down by a thunderstorm and time, were waiting for their prey. .

Pechorin, who knows how to accurately determine his every thought, every state of mind, restrainedly and sparingly reports on his return from the duel in which Grushnitsky was killed. A brief, expressive description of nature reveals to the reader the grave condition of Pechorin: “The sun seemed dim to me, its rays did not warm me” .

The last story of the "Journal of Pechorin" is "The Fatalist". The tragic death of Vulich, as it were, prepares the reader of The Fatalist for the inevitable and imminent death of Pechorin, which the author has already reported in the Preface to Pechorin's Journal.

In this story, the question of fate and predestination is posed by Lermontov on completely real, even everyday material. In the idealistic philosophical literature, in the stories, short stories and novels of the 1920s and especially of the 1930s, during the period of intensified European reaction, much attention was paid to this issue. The key to the ideological concept of "The Fatalist" is Pechorin's monologue, which combines the first part of the short story with its second part, which deals with the death of Vulich. Pechorin's reflections in this monologue, as it were, sum up the entire Pechorin's Journal and even the novel A Hero of Our Time as a whole.

It was in The Fatalist that Pechorin soberly and courageously discerned the source of many of his troubles, saw the cause of evil, but not the nature of temptation: “In my early youth I was a dreamer; I loved to caress alternately now gloomy, now rosy images that my restless and greedy imagination painted for me. But what is left of this for me? only fatigue, as after a night of fighting with ghosts, and a vague memory full of regrets. In this futile struggle, I exhausted both the heat of the soul and the constancy of the will necessary for real life; I entered this life, having already experienced it mentally, and I became bored and disgusted, like someone who reads a bad imitation of a book he has known for a long time.

The plot of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is based on the main themes that unite the entire work: the themes of the homeland, the human soul, love, society, fate, history, war. In each of the stories of the novel, these themes are intertwined in one way or another.

The main component of the plot of the stories and the entire novel is the scene, the social and national environment, and the historical setting. The conflicts of the stories are born in close connection with the reality of the created artistic world. So, a love conflict - the love story of Pechorin and Bela, no matter how highly and abstractly we talk about it, is depicted in all historical and national concreteness, psychologically correct, with attention to the social nuances of the characters' relationship. The story "Taman" presents an accurate artistic picture of the mores of a seaside town, the cruelty and deceit of the underworld, the sleepy stupidity of garrison employees. In the story "Princess Mary", in addition to the subtle depiction of the theme of love and friendship, Lermontov's remarkable find was the choice of the social environment and the place where events unfold. The conflict between Pechorin and the "water society" turned out to be the intersection point of many plot motifs of the story - social, moral, spiritual and moral. The theme of "The Fatalist" and the hero's temporary stay at the forefront of hostilities, in a remote province, where he so sharply and clearly feels his loneliness and restlessness, correlate very accurately.

The composition of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is particularly complex. First of all, it must be said that the novel consists of autonomous parts - stories, which nevertheless represent an artistic whole. The stories are united by a common hero, but a well-known difficulty in understanding the integrity of the novel is the question: why does the author choose these, and not some other events in Pechorin's life, and why does he arrange them in that order?

The idea of ​​the novel is presented through the disclosure of the image of Pechorin. The leading constructive technique in this regard is the depiction of the hero from two main angles: in the first two stories and the preface, the story about the hero is conducted from the outside, at first we learn about him from Maxim Maksimych. Then we read Pechorin's notes about his adventures in the Caucasus in Pechorin's Journal, that is, using Belinsky's words, we meet on the pages of the magazine with the "inner man". The story "Taman", the first in Pechorin's Journal, combines two perspectives of the hero's image - "from the outside" and "from himself", it is important that the hero is never named by name in it.

The next feature of the composition is that the chronology of events in the life of the hero does not coincide with the chronology of the story about them. So, Pechorin's path outside the novel sequence is as follows: arrival in the Caucasus ("Taman"), vacation after hostilities ("Princess Mary"), a two-week military mission while serving in the fortress ("Fatalist"), the love story of Pechorin and Bela during service in the fortress ("Bela"), meeting with Pechorin four years later ("Maxim Maksimych"), Pechorin's death (preface to Pechorin's Journal). These events are arranged in the novel in a different order: "Bela", "Maxim Maksimych", the preface to "Pechorin's Journal", "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist". This principle of constructing the novel is called "double chronology". There are many explanations for the "double chronology". Two main ones can be distinguished. From the point of view of the plot, such a sequence can be explained by the fact that the wandering writer, publishing a novel about Pechorin, compiled a book in the sequence in which he himself learned about the life of her hero. From the point of view of the meaning of the composition, the fact that the stories before being combined into a novel were scattered episodes from the life of an individual, after the unification they began to represent the stages of his life destiny and spiritual development.

The principle of "reverse chronology" is becoming important, which manifests itself in the fact that the earlier events of Pechorin's life are assigned to the second half of the novel - in the Pechorin's Journal, and they are preceded in the narrative by later events. With this technique, the author seeks to avoid the prejudiced attitude towards the hero, which occurs when we learn about a person "from the outside". The author pursues the same goal by successively changing narrators-narrators who represent the hero from different angles. The wandering writer, later the publisher of a book about Pechorin, acts as an observer, Maxim Maksimych is a direct witness and participant in the events, Pechorin experiences them in his life.

The image of Pechorin becomes clearer, more real and deeper as the story develops. The logic of the sequence of stories is such that in each of them a question arises, the answer to which is expected in the next one. So, in "Bel" we learn about Pechorin from the story of Maxim Maksimych, but we do not see him with our own eyes.

At the end of the story, interest in the personality of the hero awakens in the question: who is he? And in "Maxim Maksimych" we seem to get an answer to it. Pechorin appears in the story physically, it even provides a detailed portrait of the hero with elements of psychologization. However, Pechorin's unusual behavior raises the following question: why is he like that? "Pechorin's Journal" is intended to explain the state of the hero, but the events of "Taman" cause us another bewilderment: what does he need? From the story "Princess Mary" we get a clear explanation: Pechorin needs love and friendship, but at the end of the story a disaster occurs. Pechorin loses everything that binds a person to life, then the problem of choice naturally arises: what should the hero do, should he not give up further struggle in life? The story "The Fatalist" ends with Pechorin's positive choice in favor of life, it ends optimistically: "The officers congratulated me - and for sure, there was something!" It is in this that the ring composition of the novel plays its decisive role: Pechorin returns to the fortress to Maxim Maksimych, and the novel seems to begin again - Pechorin will kidnap Bela, everything will repeat itself, but the meaning of the events will be different, new.

The motive of wandering connects the whole work, its characters are constantly on the road, outside the home. Such is Pechorin, such is the lonely staff captain Maxim Maksimych, who has neither a family nor a permanent home, such is the wandering writer.

Finally, another compositional device of the novel plays the deepest ideological role: the hero dies in the middle of the work and immediately "resurrects" in Pechorin's Journal. This effect makes it possible to show the eternal moral rebirth of man.

Introduction

Composition is one of the most important means by which the writer invents the phenomena of life that interest him in the way he understands them, and characterizes the characters in the work.

The ideological task of the author also determined the peculiar construction of the novel. Its peculiarity is the violation of the chronological sequence of events, which is described in the novel. The novel consists of five parts, five stories, each with its own genre, its own plot and its own title.

"Maxim Maksimych"

"Taman"

"Princess Mary"

"Fatalist"

The hero who unites all these stories into something whole, into a single novel, is Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin. If you arrange the story of his life, invented in the novel, in a certain sequence, you get the following.

A former guards officer, transferred to the Caucasus for some reason, Pechorin goes to the place of his punishment. On the way, he calls in Taman. Here an adventure happened to him, which is told in the story "Taman".

From here he comes to Pyatigorsk ("Princess Mary"). For a duel with Grushnitsky, he was exiled to serve in the fortress. During his service in the fortress, the events told in the stories "Bela" and "The Fatalist" take place. Several years pass. Pechorin, retired, leaves for Persia. On the way there, he meets for the last time with Maxim Maksimych ("Maxim Maksimych").

The layout of the parts of the novel should be like this:

"Taman"

"Princess Mary"

"Fatalist"

"Maxim Maksimych"

And I wanted to figure out why M.Yu. Lermontov built his novel in a completely different way, why he arranged the chapters in a completely different order, what goals the author set for himself, what is the idea of ​​the novel.

Compositional and artistic originality of the novel "A Hero of Our Time"

In 1839, Mikhail Lermontov's story Bela was published in the third issue of the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine. Then, in the eleventh issue, the story "The Fatalist" appeared, and in the second book of the magazine for 1840 - "Taman". In the same 1840, three short stories already known to the reader, telling about various episodes in the life of a certain Pechorin, were published as chapters of the novel A Hero of Our Time. Criticism greeted the new work ambiguously: a sharp controversy ensued. Along with the stormy enthusiasm of the "frantic Vissarion" - Belinsky, who called Lermontov's novel a work representing a "completely new world of art", who saw in it "deep knowledge of the human heart and modern society", "richness of content and originality", voices of critics sounded in the press, absolutely not accepted the novel. The image of Pechorin seemed to them a slanderous caricature, an imitation of Western models. Lermontov's opponents liked only the "truly Russian" Maxim Maksimych. It is indicative that Emperor Nicholas I also appreciated the "Hero ..." in exactly the same way. He himself explained that, having started reading the novel, he was delighted, deciding that it was Maksim Maksimych who was the "hero of our time." However, later discovering his mistake, he was very indignant at the author. The reaction of critics forced Lermontov to supplement the novel with an author's preface and a preface to Pechorin's Journal during the reprint. Both of these prefaces play an important, defining role in the work: they reveal the author's position as voluminously as possible and give the key to unraveling Lermontov's method of cognizing reality. The compositional complexity of the novel is inextricably linked with the psychological complexity of the image of the protagonist.

The ambiguity of Pechorin's character, the inconsistency of this image was revealed not only in the study of his spiritual world itself, but also in the correlation of the hero with other characters. The author forces the reader to constantly compare the main character with those around him. Thus, a compositional solution of the novel was found, according to which the reader gradually approaches the hero.

Having first published three novellas, which were not even the chapters of one part in the final version of the novel, Lermontov “made an application” for a work that was related in genre to “Eugene Onegin”. In "Dedication" Pushkin called his novel "a collection of motley chapters." This emphasized the dominance of the author's will in the presentation of events: the narrative is subject not only and not so much to the sequence of what is happening, but to its significance; episodes are chosen not according to the sharpness of the plot collisions, but according to the psychological richness. Conceived by Lermontov as a "long chain of stories," the novel assumed the same artistic task as Pushkin's. And at the same time, "A Hero of Our Time" creates in Russian literature a special, completely new type of novel, easily and organically combining the features of traditional novel genres (moral, adventurous, personal) and features of "small genres" that are widespread in Russian literature in 1930s: travel essay, bivouac story, secular story, Caucasian short story. As B. Eikhenbaum noted, "A Hero of Our Time was a way out of these small genres on the way to the genre of the novel that unites them."

The composition of the novel is subject to the logic of revealing the image of the protagonist. V. Nabokov in his "Preface to" A Hero of Our Time "wrote about the location of the short stories: "In the first two - "Bela" and "Maxim Maksimych" - the author, or, more precisely, the hero-narrator, an inquisitive traveler, describes his trip to the Caucasus along the Georgian Military Highway in 1837 or so. This is Narrator 1. Having left Tiflis in a northerly direction, he meets an old warrior named Maxim Maksimych on the way. For some time they travel together, and Maxim Maksimych informs Narrator 1 about a certain Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin, who, five years old, while serving in the military in Chechnya, north of Dagestan, once kidnapped a Circassian woman. Maxim Maksimych is Narrator 2, and his story is called "Bela". On their next road trip ("Maxim Maksimych") Narrator 1 and Narrator 2 meet Pechorin himself. The latter becomes Narrator 3 - after all, three more stories will be taken from Pechorin's journal, which Narrator 1 will publish posthumously. The attentive reader will note that the whole trick of such a composition is to bring Pechorin closer to us over and over again, until, finally, he himself speaks to us, but by that time he will no longer be alive. In the first story, Pechorin is at a "second cousin" distance from the reader, since we learn about him from the words of Maxim Maksimych, and even in the transmission of Narrator 1. In the second story, Narrator 2, as it were, withdraws himself, and Narrator 1 gets the opportunity to see Pechorin with his own eyes. With what touching impatience Maxim Maksimych hurried to present his hero in kind. And here we have the last three stories; now that Narrator 1 and Narrator 2 have stepped aside, we find ourselves face to face with Pechorin.

Due to such a spiral composition, the time sequence appears to be blurred, as it were. The stories float, unfold before us, then everything is in full view, then as if in a haze, and then suddenly, retreating, they will appear again in a different perspective or lighting, just as a traveler sees from the gorge a view of the five peaks of the Caucasus Range. This traveler is Lermontov, not Pechorin. The five stories are arranged one after the other in the order in which events come to Narrator 1, but their chronology is different; in general it looks like this:

Around 1830, officer Pechorin, following official duty from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus to the active detachment, stops in the seaside town of Taman (a port separated from the northeastern tip of the Crimean peninsula by a narrow strait). The story that happened to him there is the plot of "Taman", the third story in the novel.

In the active detachment, Pechorin takes part in skirmishes with mountain tribes and after some time, on May 10, 1832, he comes to rest on the waters, in Pyatigorsk. In Pyatigorsk, as well as in Kislovodsk, a nearby resort, he becomes a participant in the dramatic events that lead to the fact that on June 17 he kills an officer in a duel. He tells about all this in the fourth story - "Princess Mary".

On June 19, by order of the military command, Pechorin is transferred to a fortress located in the Chechen Territory, in the northeastern part of the Caucasus, where he arrives only in the fall (the reasons for the delay are not explained). There he meets staff captain Maxim Maksimych. Narrator 1 learns this from Narrator 2 in "Bel", which begins the novel.

In December of the same year (1832), Pechorin left the fortress for two weeks for a Cossack village north of the Terek, where the story he described in the fifth and last story, "The Fatalist", happened.

In the spring of 1833, he kidnaps a Circassian girl, who, four and a half months later, is killed by the robber Kazbich. In December of the same year, Pechorin leaves for Georgia and soon returns to St. Petersburg. We will find out about this in "Bel".

About four years pass, and in the fall of 1837, Narrator 1 and Narrator 2, on their way north, make a stop in Vladikavkaz and there they meet Pechorin, who is already back in the Caucasus, on his way to Persia. This is told by Narrator 1 in "Maxim Maksimych", the second story in the cycle.

In 1838 or 1839, returning from Persia, Pechorin dies under circumstances that may have confirmed the prediction that he would die as a result of an unhappy marriage.

Narrator 1 posthumously publishes his journal, received from Narrator 2. Narrator 1 mentions the death of the hero in his preface (1841) to Pechorin's Journal, which contains Taman, Princess Mary, and Fatalist. Thus, the chronological sequence of five stories, if we talk about their connection with Pechorin's biography, is as follows: "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist", "Bela", "Maxim Maksimych". It is unlikely that in the process of working on "Bela" Lermontov already had an established plan for "Princess Mary". The details of Pechorin's arrival at the Kamenny Brod fortress, reported by Maxim Maksimych in "Bel", do not quite coincide with the details mentioned by Pechorin himself in "Princess Mary" In the first part, we see Pechorin through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych. This person is sincerely attached to Pechorin, but spiritually deep alien to him. They are separated not only by the difference in social status and age. They are people of fundamentally different types of consciousness and children of different eras. For the staff captain, an old Caucasian who began his service under General Ermolov and who forever preserved the "Yermolov" outlook on life, his young a friend is an alien phenomenon, strange and inexplicable... Therefore, in Maxim Maksimych's story, Pechorin appears as a mysterious, enigmatic person: "After all, there are, really, such people whose family is written that various unusual things must happen to them! "What can explain this maxim to the reader? Nothing, except that Maxim Maksimych Pechorin does not understand and does not particularly strive to understand, loving him osto as "nice little".

Maxim Maksimych was not chosen by chance as the first narrator. His image is one of the most important in the novel, because this human type is very characteristic of Russia in the first half of the last century. Under the conditions of the Caucasian war, a new type of "Russian Caucasian" was formed - most often these were people like Yermolov, who put the law of strength and power above all else, and their subordinates - kind, sincere and non-judgmental warriors. This type is embodied in the image of Maxim Maksimych. We must not forget that the Caucasus was called "warm Siberia", and objectionable people were exiled there to the active army - in particular, many Decembrists. Young people also traveled to the Caucasus in a thirst to visit the "real business", they aspired to go there as to an exotic wonderland, to the land of freedom ...

All these features of the Caucasus are present in Lermontov's novel: we see everyday scenes as well as exotic ones; before us flash images of "fabulous" highlanders and ordinary, familiar to all habitues of secular living rooms. One way or another, they are all akin to Pechorin: there is something of a Circassian in him (remember his crazy horseback ride through the mountains without a road after the first meeting with Vera!); he is natural in the circle of Princess Ligovskaya. The only person with whom Pechorin has nothing in common is Maxim Maksimych. People of different generations, different eras and different types of consciousness; the staff captain and Pechorin are absolutely alien to each other. That is why Maxim Maksimych remembered his long-time subordinate, because he could not understand, unravel him. In the story of Maxim Maksimych, Pechorin appears as a romantic hero, meeting with whom became one of the brightest events in his life; while for Pechorin both the staff captain himself and the story with Bela are just an episode among others. Even at a chance meeting, when Maxim Maksimych is ready to throw himself into his arms, Pechorin has nothing to talk about with him: remembering Bela is painful, there is nothing to tell an old friend ... "I have to go, Maxim Maksimych." So, from the short story "Bela" (by the way, written later than others), we learn about the existence of a certain Pechorin - the hero of a romantic story with a Circassian woman. Why did Pechorin need Bela; why, having barely won her love, he is bored and languishing; why he rushed to beat her off Kazbich (after all, he fell out of love!); what tormented him at the bedside of the dying Bela, and why did he laugh when the kindest Maxim Maksimych tried to console him? All these questions remain unanswered; in Pechorin - everything is a mystery, the reader is free to explain the behavior of the hero to the best of his own imagination. In the chapter "Maxim Maksimych" the veil of secrecy begins to lift.

The place of the narrator is taken by the staff captain's former listener, a traveling officer. And the mysterious hero of the "Caucasian short story" is given some living features, his airy and mysterious image begins to take on flesh and blood. The wandering officer does not just describe Pechorin, he gives a psychological portrait. He is a man of the same generation and probably close circle. If Maxim Maksimych was horrified when he heard from Pechorin about the boredom that tormented him: "... my life becomes emptyer day by day ...", then his listener accepted these words without horror, as quite natural: "I answered that there are many people who say the same thing; that there are probably those who tell the truth ... "And therefore, for the officer-narrator, Pechorin is much closer and more understandable; he can explain a lot in the hero: both "spiritual storms", and "some secrecy", and "nervous weakness". So the enigmatic Pechorin, unlike anyone else, becomes a more or less typical person of his time, general patterns are found in his appearance and behavior. And yet the riddle does not disappear, the "oddities" remain. The narrator will note Pechorin's eyes: "they did not laugh when he laughed!" In them, the narrator will try to guess "a sign - either of an evil right, or of deep permanent sadness"; and will be amazed at their brilliance: “it was a brilliance like the brilliance of smooth steel, dazzling, but cold ... That is why the traveler is so happy when he gets Pechorin’s notes: “I grabbed the papers and quickly took them away, fearing that the captain would not repent. The preface to Pechorin's Journal, written on behalf of the narrator, explains his interest in this person.

He speaks of the infinite importance of studying the "history of the human soul", of the need to understand the true reasons for the motives, actions, character of a person: "... and maybe they will find justifications for the actions that they have been accused of so far ..." All this is a preface confirms the spiritual closeness of the narrator and the hero, their belonging to the same generation and the same human type: remember, for example, the narrator’s reasoning about the “artful insincerity of a true friend”, which turns into “inexplicable hatred, which, lurking under the guise of friendship, awaits only the death or misfortune of a beloved subject to burst over his head with a hail of reproaches, advice, ridicule and regrets. How close these words are to the bitter thoughts of Pechorin himself about friendship, how they explain his conviction "I am not capable of friendship"!

The narrator's opinion about Pechorin is expressed unambiguously: "My answer is the title of this book." This is also the explanation of his intense interest in the hero: before us is not only a peculiar person, typical of his era. The hero of time is a personality formed by a given age, and in no other era such a person could have appeared. All the features, all the advantages and disadvantages of his time are concentrated in him. In the preface to the novel, Lermontov polemically states: "The hero of our time, my gracious sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: it is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development." But he does not create his novel of "caustic truths" in order to castigate vices: he brings a mirror to society so that people see themselves, look into their own faces, try to understand themselves. This is the main task of Lermontov's novel. No matter how close Pechorin is to the narrator, he cannot fully understand him. For a complete, deep understanding, Pechorin must speak about himself. And two-thirds of the novel is his confession.

It is important that Pechorin, in no way being Lermontov's self-portrait ("An old and ridiculous joke!" - the preface says about such an interpretation), is often infinitely close to the author in his assessments, emotions, reasoning. This creates a special sense of the common fate of the people of the Lermontov generation. As in the "Duma", the poet, feeling himself within the generation, sharing his guilt and fate, with his understanding of the common tragedy, furious indignation and all the bitterness of reflections, goes out of the general mass, rises above it - to unattainable heights of the spirit.

The composition of Pechorin's Journal is very peculiar. It's like a novel within a novel.

The first short story "Taman" is a single story about the incident that happened to the hero. It outlines the main motives of the entire "journal": Pechorin's desire for active action; "curiosity", pushing him to put "experiments" on himself and others, to interfere in matters that do not concern him; his reckless courage and romantic attitude. And - the main thing! - the desire to understand what drives people, to identify the motives of their actions, to comprehend their psychology. We still do not understand why he needs this, but his behavior in the story with Bela is already becoming clearer to us.

"Princess Mary" is built from diary entries - this is an almost daily chronicle of Pechorin's life. He describes the events of the day. But not only and not so much of them. Please note: Pechorin is not at all interested in "general questions". We learn little about Pyatigorsk, about the public, about the events in the country, in the town itself, about the course of hostilities (and newcomers probably arrive every day - and tell!). Pechorin writes about his thoughts, feelings, his behavior and actions. If Grushnitsky had not been his former acquaintance, Pechorin would not have paid attention to him, but, forced to renew his acquaintance, he bursts out in the journal with a caustic epigram on Grushnitsky himself and those like him. But Dr. Werner Pechorin is interesting: this is a special human type, in some ways close to him, in many ways alien. At the sight of the charming Princess Mary, Pechorin begins to talk about legs and teeth, and the appearance of Vera, with her deep, tragic love, makes him suffer. See the pattern? Pechorin is not interested in playing the role of "disappointed", through and through imitative Grushnitsky, and at first he is not interested in the usual Moscow young lady Mary Ligovskaya. He is looking for original, natural and deep natures, exploring, analyzing them, just as he explores his own soul. For Pechorin, like the officer-narrator, like the author of the novel himself, believes that "the history of the human soul ... is almost more curious and more useful than the history of a whole people ..."

But it’s not enough for Pechorin to simply observe the characters: life in its everyday, unhurried course provides not enough food for thought. Was the naive Maksim Maksimych right, who considered Pechorin to be a "sort of" person, who "has written in his family that various unusual things should happen to him"? Of course no. The point is not that Pechorin is destined for different adventures - he creates them for himself, constantly actively interfering in his own destiny and in the lives of those around him, changing the course of things in such a way that it leads to an explosion, to a collision. So it was in "Bel", when he abruptly changed the fate of the girl, Aroma, their father, Kazbich, weaving their paths into an unthinkable ball. So it was in "Taman", where he intervened in the life of "honest smugglers", in "Princess Mary" ...

Everywhere, Pechorin not only changes and complicates the lives of those around him. He brings into their lives his trouble, his thoughtlessness and craving for the destruction of the House - a symbol of peaceful life, non-participation in the common fate, shelter from the winds of the era. Deprives Bela of her home - her love does not allow her to return to her father; makes him run away from home, fearing parental anger, Aroma; makes "honest smugglers" abandon their shelter and sail into the unknown; destroys the possible homes of Grushnitsky and Mary ... Spiritual restlessness, an eternal search, a thirst for true life and true activity lead Pechorin on and on, do not allow him to stop, withdraw into the circle of family and loved ones, doom him to thoughtlessness and eternal wandering. The motive for the destruction of the House is one of the main ones in the novel: the appearance of a "hero of time", a person who embodied all the features of the era, creates an "explosion situation" - makes people feel all the tragedy of the century, because in the face of the general laws of time, a person is defenseless. Pechorin tests these laws on himself and on those around him. Pushing people against each other and with their destinies, he makes their souls manifest themselves in full, absolutely open up: love, hate, suffer - live, and not run away from life. And in these people, in their souls and destinies, Pechorin seeks to unravel their true destiny.

The story "The Fatalist", which concludes Pechorin's Journal, concentrates the main philosophical problems of the novel: the role of fate in a person's life and the opposition of individual human will to it. But "the main task of the chapter is not a philosophical discussion in itself, but the determination of Pechorin's character in the course of this discussion"

In conclusion, I would like to quote the words of V. G. Belinsky from the article “A Hero of Our Time”

I have placed in this book only what related to Pechorin's stay in the Caucasus; I still have a thick notebook in my hands, where he tells his whole life. Someday she will appear at the judgment of the world; but now I dare not assume this responsibility for many important reasons.

We thank the author for the pleasant promise, but we doubt that he will fulfill it: we are firmly convinced that he parted with his Pechorin forever. In this conviction we are confirmed by the confession of Goethe, who says in his notes that, having written "Werther", which was the fruit of a difficult state of his spirit, he freed himself from it and was so far from the hero of his novel that it was ridiculous for him to see how he left his ardent youth is crazy ... such is the noble nature of the poet, with his own strength he breaks out of every moment of limitation and flies to new, living phenomena of the world, into the full glory of creation ... objecting his own suffering, he is freed from it; translating the dissonances of his spirit into poetic sounds, he again enters his native sphere of eternal harmony ... if Mr. Lermontov fulfills his promise, then we are sure that he will present Pechorin, who is no longer old and familiar to us, about whom there is still a lot to say. Perhaps he will show it to us reformed, recognizing the laws of morality, but, surely, no longer as a consolation, but to the greater chagrin of moralists; maybe he will force him to recognize the rationality and bliss of life, but in order to make sure that this is not for him, that he has lost a lot of strength in the terrible struggle, has become hardened in it and cannot make this rationality and bliss his property ... And it may be that: he will make him a participant in the joys of life, a triumphant winner over the evil genius of life ... But one or the other, and, in any case, redemption will be completely through one of those women whose existence Pechorin so stubbornly did not want to believe, based not on his inner contemplation, but on the poor experiences of his life ... This is what Pushkin did with his Onegin: the woman he rejected resurrected him from mortal sleep for a wonderful life, but not in order to give him happiness, but in order to to punish him for not believing in the mystery of love and life and in the dignity of a woman.

List of used literature

1. Belinsky V.G. "A Hero of Our Time": Works by M. Lermontov. Belinsky V.G. Articles about Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol - M. 1983

2. Gerstein E. The fate of Lermontov M.1986

3. Korovin V.I. The creative path of Lermontov M 1973

4. Manuilov V.A. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time": Commentary. 2nd ed. add. - L., 1975.

5. Mikhailova E. Lermontov's prose. - M., 1975

6. Udodova V.T. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time". - M., 1989.

Answer left Guru

The novel "The Master and Margarita" is not in vain called the "sunset novel" by M. Bulgakov. For many years he rebuilt, supplemented and polished his final work. Everything that M. Bulgakov experienced in his lifetime - both happy and difficult - he gave all his most important thoughts, all his soul and all his talent to this novel. And a truly extraordinary creation was born.

The work is unusual, first of all, in terms of genre. Researchers still cannot determine it. Many consider "Master and Margarita" a mystical novel, referring to the words of the author: "I am a mystical writer." Other researchers call this work satirical, others consider M. Bulgakov's novel fantastic, and fourth - philosophical. It must be said that there are grounds for all these definitions, as we will see below.

But first, a few words about the composition of the novel, without analyzing which it is impossible to understand its genre identity. The book clearly highlights two plots: the real world of Moscow in the 1930s, where the master and Margarita live, and the world of ancient Yershalaim, where Yeshua and Pontius Pilate operate. It should be noted that the second plot is, in a sense, canonical, since the display of gospel events is one of the deepest traditions of world literature. Suffice it to recall in this connection such works as "Paradise Regained" by J. Milton, "Jesus Christ in Flanders" by O. Balzac, "Christ Visiting the Men" by N. Leskov and others.

The story about Yeshua is written in the genre of a parable novel. The account of events is coldly objective, tragically tense and impersonal. The author does not declare himself in any way - neither by addressing the reader, nor by expressing his opinion about what is happening. Based on the events described, we could expect in this layer of Bulgakov's novel the expression of the mystical beginning - various miracles, transformations. But there is nothing like this in the master's novel - all events are absolutely real. The author refuses even the scene of the resurrection - as a sign of the presence of a miracle in the human world.

The novel-parable is a kind of starting point from which the events of the contemporary M. Bulgakov layer develop. The truth, unrecognized in ancient Yershalaim, again comes into the world. Paradoxically, all mysticism has been moved into the narrative of this world. She is also serious - let us recall at least the appearance of the living dead at Satan's ball or the transformation of Volan and his retinue at the end of the novel. It is also grotesque, turning into the mysticism of the current modernity and manifesting itself in the mysterious movements of Styopa Likhodeev, and in miracles in variety shows, and in the “bad apartment” from which people disappear. It is also ironic: it is enough to recall the beginning of the novel, when the devil asks Berlioz if the devil exists, and, having received a negative answer, he laments: “What is it with you - no matter what you miss - there is nothing.” The combination of satire and mysticism thus determines the genre nature of the novel about the master.

From the collision of two worlds and two novels, a very peculiar philosophy emerges.

The theme of fate emerges from the first pages of the novel. The sudden death of Berlioz immediately raises philosophical questions: who cuts the thread of life? Is it possible to influence human destiny? The answer to these questions will be given, but not immediately, and not even in this time and space. Yeshua denies the possibility of one person to influence the fate of another in earthly life. But in another life, in the other world, this is possible; Margarita frees the master and brings forgiveness to Frida, and the master grants Pontius Pilate the desired meeting with the wandering philosopher. This is how the comprehension of the unity of being and non-being, the real fate of a person and the afterlife arises in the novel.

The need to talk about this arises because the writer is deeply convinced that the truth of the historical process has been forgotten, and humanity is going the wrong way. The novel about Yeshua is a return to this mistake, when Pontius Pilate was the first to make a moral choice, for which humanity has been paying for more than two thousand years. The history of the master himself is a repetition of the same mistake. But the repetition of a mistake brings with it a new return - as a reminder of the truth at a new round of history.

So, we are convinced that the genre nature of M. Bulgakov's novel is complex and peculiar. But this should have been a work that survived so many cataclysms of history. Such should be the manuscript that did not burn.