A brief description of the asi of Turgenev's story. Techniques for creating the image of Asya in the work of the same name by I.S. Turgenev

Very touching, lyrical and beautiful from the point of view of literary art, the story "Asya" was written in 1857 by Ivan Turgenev. Millions of readers were literally captivated by this work - people read, re-read and read "Asya", it was translated into many foreign languages, and critics did not hide their delight. Turgenev wrote an attractive and unpretentious love story, but how beautiful and unforgettable it turned out! Now we will make a short analysis of the story "Asya" by Ivan Turgenev, and in addition, you can read the summary on our website. In the same article, the plot of "Ashi" will be presented very briefly.

Writing history and prototypes

The story was published when Turgenev was almost forty years old. It is known that the author was not only well educated, but also had a rare talent. Once Ivan Turgenev went on a trip to Germany, and fleetingly saw the following picture: two women looked out of the windows from a two-story house - one was an elderly and orderly lady, and she looked from the first floor, and the second was a young girl, and looked out she is on top. The writer thought - who are these women, why do they live in the same house, what brought them together? Reflections on this glimpsed picture prompted Turgenev to write the lyrical story "Asya", the analysis of which we are now conducting.

Let's discuss who could become the prototype of the main character. Turgenev, as you know, had a daughter, Pauline Brewer, who was born illegitimate. She is very reminiscent of the timid and sensual main character Asya. At the same time, the writer had a sister, so it is quite possible that Turgenev could also consider Varvara Zhitova as Asya's prototype. Both that and the other girl could not come to terms with their dubious position in society, which worried Asya herself.

The plot of the story "Asya" is very short

A short retelling of the plot will help to better understand the analysis of the story "Asya" by Turgenev. The story is told by the main character. We see the anonymous Mr. N.N., who traveled abroad and met his compatriots there. Young people made acquaintances and even became friends. So, N. N. meets the Gagins. This is a brother and his half-sister Asya, who also went on a trip to Europe.

Gagin and N.N. like each other, they have a lot in common, so they communicate, relax together and have fun. In the end, N.N. falls in love with Asya, and the main character experiences reciprocal feelings. They declare their love, but misunderstandings in the relationship lead to mixed feelings and awkward conversation. Asya and Gagin abruptly leave, leaving a note, at the very moment when N.N. decided to ask for her hand. He rushes about in search of the Gagins, looking for them everywhere, but does not find them. And the feelings that he had for Asya will never be repeated again in his life.

Be sure to read Gagin's characterization, and it is important that we reviewed the plot of the story "Asya" very briefly, because this makes it easier to analyze further.

Image of Asya

Asya seems to us a special and unusual girl. She reads a lot, draws beautifully and takes what is happening close to her heart. She has a heightened sense of justice, but as far as character is concerned, she is changeable and even somewhat extravagant. At times, she is drawn to reckless and desperate acts, as can be seen from her decision to leave her relationship with N.N., with whom she fell deeply in love.

However, an analysis of the story "Asya" shows that the girl's soul is easy to hurt, she is very impressionable, kind and affectionate. Of course, such a nature attracted Mr. N.N., who began to spend a lot of time with his new friends. He is looking for the reasons for her actions and sometimes is perplexed: to condemn him Asya or to admire her.

Important details of the analysis of the story "Asya"

When Asya begins to communicate with the main character N.N., unintelligible and previously unknown feelings awaken in her soul. The girl is still very young and inexperienced, and does not know how to cope with her emotions. She is afraid of this state, this explains her strange and changeable actions, which can hardly be called ordinary whims. She wants to evoke sympathy from N.N., to be attractive and charming in his eyes, and in the end she opens up to both him and Gagin.

Yes, this is a childish and naive act, but here she is - a sweet, kind girl Asya. Unfortunately, neither Gagin nor N.N. appreciate Asya's frank and temperamental behavior. She seems reckless to her brother, and the protagonist reflects on her temper, thinking that it is crazy to marry a girl of seventeen years of age with such a character. In addition, he found out that Asya was illegitimate, and yet such a wedding would cause misunderstanding in secular circles! Even a short analysis of the story "Asya" showed that this ruined their relationship, and when N.N. changed his mind, it was already too late.

Of course, we have something to think about: could Gagin reason with his sister, whom he loved so much, and whose whims he always fulfilled, and convince her not to rush things? Or maybe Gagin should have talked more frankly with N.N.? Was it worth Asya to make such a hasty decision and leave the relationship? Was it cruel to the main character? And Mr. N.N. himself - was he ready to fight for his love, to go against secular rules, to put feelings higher? Well, there are a lot of questions, but can anyone give definitive answers to them? Hardly. Let everyone find the answer for himself...

You have read the analysis of the story "Asya" by Turgenev, also in this article the plot of the story was presented very briefly, a description of the image of Asya and a description of all the characters.

The protagonist of Turgenev's story, on behalf of whom the story is being told, is a twenty-five-year-old rich man who travels, in his own words, "without any purpose, without a plan." The young man is unfamiliar with painful thoughts about the meaning of existence. The only thing that guides the hero in life is his own desire: "I was healthy, young, cheerful, my money was not transferred, worries did not have time to start - I lived without looking back, did what I wanted, prospered, in a word, - the narrator admits "... I lived without looking back."

"Without looking back" is an indicator of the degree of his social emancipation, which is determined not only and not so much by the unburdenedness of all kinds of worldly worries and the absence of thoughts about tomorrow, but by a certain freedom in terms of moral and ethical.

"Without looking back" means not thinking about the consequences of one's actions, "not taking responsibility for the fate of one's neighbor."

"Without looking back" implies, therefore, absolute freedom of will and action without any moral obligations on their part.

As you can see, the character of the hero of the story from the very beginning is set by the author as rather contradictory. On the one hand, the attunement to the wave of his own desires testifies to the well-known selfishness of his nature. At the same time, the deep inner need of the hero is an attraction to society, and this contradicts egoism. He is guided by curiosity, a genuine interest in the world, in people: "It amused me to observe people ... but I didn’t even observe them, I examined them with some kind of joyful and insatiable curiosity." However, the hero's aspiration to meet people is partly imaginary, because the role of an outside observer implies a certain elevation above the surrounding people, isolation from society. But at the same time, along with the desire to take the position of the leader, he does not feel the slightest discomfort from the position of the follower: “In the crowd it was always especially easy and gratifying for me; it was fun for me to go where others were going, to shout when others shouted, and at the same time I loved to watch these others scream." We note that in the end, it was precisely the statement, which turned out to be the freedom of expression of the hero’s will, it was precisely the dependence on the opinion of the “crowd”, on common social class prejudices that prevented the hero from finding happiness: having fallen in love, he did not dare to connect his fate with a girl of a lower origin, the illegitimate daughter of a landowner.

Turgenev masterfully shows the origin and evolution of love feelings in the hero. At the first meeting, the girl whom Mr. N. saw seemed to him very pretty.

Further - a conversation in the Gagins' house, Asya's somewhat strange behavior, a moonlit night, a boat, Asya on the shore, throwing an unexpected phrase: "You drove a pillar into the moon, you broke it ...", the sounds of a Lanner waltz - this is enough for the hero to feel yourself unreasonably happy. Somewhere in the depths of his soul, the thought of love is born in him, but he does not give it a go. Soon, with pleasure, even with hidden complacency, the hero begins to guess that Asya loves him. He drowns in this blissful sweet feeling, not wanting to look into himself and speed things up. Asya is not like that. Having fallen in love, she is ready for the most extreme decisions. And these decisions are required from the hero. But when Gagin starts talking about marriage, N.N. again leaves the answer, as he once left him in a conversation with Asya about wings. After reassuring Gagin, he begins to interpret "as calmly as possible" about what should be done in connection with Asya's note. And then, left alone, thinking about what had happened, he remarks: "Her love made me both happy and embarrassed ... The inevitability of a quick, almost instantaneous decision tormented me ...". And he comes to the conclusion: "Marrying a seventeen-year-old girl, with her disposition, how can this be!"

The structure of the narrator's image in the story is very complex. According to the first sentence of the story, we understand that this story was written down from the words of N.N. The one who supposedly wrote it down reveals himself with just two words: "... began N.N." Then N.N. tells the story of his love, at that time he was probably about fifty years old. Several N.N. coexist in the story at the same time:

N. N. fifty years old;

N.N., twenty-five years old - as he was in reality (found in actions);

N. N. at twenty-five years old - the way N. N. sees him at fifty years old (discovered through attempts at introspection).

The story takes the form of memories shared by N.N. twenty-five years after meeting Asya. The temporary distance is necessary for Turgenev in order to give the aged hero the opportunity to look at himself from the outside, to pass judgment on himself.

Thus, the reader sees N. N. - a young man of about twenty-five, cheerful, carefree, living for his own pleasure. He subtly feels the beauty of nature, is observant, well-read, has acquired knowledge in the field of painting and music, is sociable, has an interest in the world around him, in people. But he is indifferent to work, and he does not need it. Nevertheless, with all his strengths and weaknesses, he managed to touch Asya's heart.

Almost every famous Russian classic in his work turned to such a literary genre as a story, its main characteristics are the average volume between a novel and a story, one detailed plot line, a small number of characters. The famous prose writer of the 19th century, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, turned to this genre more than once throughout his entire literary career.

One of his most famous works, written in the genre of love lyrics, is the story "Asya", which is also often referred to as an elegiac genre of literature. Here readers find not only beautiful landscape sketches and a subtle, poetic description of feelings, but also some lyrical motifs that smoothly turn into plot ones. Even during the life of the writer, the story was translated and published in many European countries and enjoyed a great polarity of readers both in Russia and abroad.

History of writing

The story "Asya" Turgenev began to write in July 1857 in Germany, in the city of Sinzeg am Rhein, where the events described in the book take place. Having finished the book in November of the same year (writing the story was a little delayed due to the author’s illness and overwork), Turgenev sent the work to the editors of the Russian journal Sovremennik, in which it had long been expected and published in early 1858.

According to Turgenev himself, he was inspired to write the story by a fleeting picture he saw in Germany: an elderly woman looks out of the window of the house on the first floor, and the silhouette of a young girl is seen in the window of the second floor. The writer, thinking about what he saw, comes up with a possible fate for these people and thus creates the story "Asya".

According to many literary critics, this story was personal for the author, since it was based on some events that took place in Turgenev's real life, and the images of the main characters have a clear connection both with the author himself and with his inner circle (the prototype for Asya could be the fate of his illegitimate daughter Polina Brewer or his half-sister V.N. Zhitova, also born out of wedlock, Mr. N.N., on behalf of whom the story is told in Asya, has character traits and a similar fate with the author himself) .

Analysis of the work

Plot development

The description of the events that took place in the story is conducted on behalf of a certain N.N., whose name the author leaves unknown. The narrator recalls his youth and his stay in Germany, where on the banks of the Rhine he meets his compatriot from Russia Gagin and his sister Anna, whom he takes care of and calls Asya. A young girl with her eccentricity of actions, constantly changing disposition and amazing attractive appearance makes N.N. great impression, and he wants to know as much as possible about her.

Gagin tells him the difficult fate of Asya: she is his illegitimate half-sister, born from his father's relationship with the maid. After the death of her mother, her father took the thirteen-year-old Asya to him and raised her as a young lady from a good society should. Gagin, after the death of his father, becomes her guardian, first he sends her to a boarding house, then they leave to live abroad. Now N.N., knowing the unclear social status of the girl who was born to a serf mother and a landowner father, understands what caused Asya's nervous tension and her slightly eccentric behavior. He becomes deeply sorry for the unfortunate Asya, and he begins to have tender feelings for the girl.

Asya, like Pushkinskaya Tatyana, writes a letter to Mr. N.N. asking for a date, he, unsure of his feelings, hesitates and makes a promise to Gagin not to accept his sister's love, because he is afraid to marry her. The meeting between Asya and the narrator is chaotic, Mr. N.N. reproaches her that she confessed her feelings for his brother and now they cannot be together. Asya runs away in confusion, N.N. realizes that he really loves the girl and wants her back, but does not find it. The next day, having come to the Gagins' house with the firm intention of asking for the girl's hand, he learns that Gagin and Asya left the city, he tries to find them, but all his efforts are in vain. Never again in his life N.N. does not meet Asya and her brother, and at the end of his life's journey, he realizes that although he had other hobbies, he truly loved only Asya and he still keeps the dried flower that she once gave him.

main characters

The main character of the story, Anna, whom her brother calls Asya, is a young girl with an unusually attractive appearance (a thin boyish figure, short curly hair, wide-open eyes bordered by long and fluffy eyelashes), a direct and noble character, distinguished by an ardent temperament and a difficult, tragic fate. Born from an extramarital affair between a maid and a landowner, and raised by her mother in strictness and obedience, after her death, she cannot get used to her new role as a mistress for a long time. She perfectly understands her false position, therefore she does not know how to behave in society, she is shy and shy of everyone, and at the same time proudly wants no one to pay attention to her origin. Left early alone without parental attention and left to herself, Asya, beyond her years, thinks early about the life contradictions surrounding her.

The main character of the story, like other female images in Turgenev's works, is distinguished by an amazing purity of soul, morality, sincerity and openness of feelings, a craving for strong feelings and experiences, a desire to perform feats and great deeds for the benefit of people. It is on the pages of this story that such a common concept for all the heroines of the Turgenev young lady and the Turgenev feeling of love appears, which for the author is akin to a revolution invading the lives of the heroes, testing their feelings for stamina and ability to survive in difficult living conditions.

Mr. N.N.

The main male character and narrator of the story, Mr. N.N., has the features of a new literary type, which in Turgenev replaced the type of "superfluous people". This hero completely lacks the typical “extra person” conflict with the outside world. He is an absolutely calm and prosperous person with a balanced and harmonious self-organization, easily gives in to vivid impressions and feelings, all his experiences are simple and natural, without falsehood and pretense. In love experiences, this hero strives for peace of mind, which would be intertwined with their aesthetic completeness.

After meeting Asya, his love becomes more tense and contradictory; at the last moment, the hero cannot fully surrender to feelings, because they are overshadowed by the disclosure of the secret of feelings. Later, he cannot immediately tell Asya's brother that he is ready to marry her, because he does not want to disturb the feeling of happiness that overwhelms him, and also fearing future changes and the responsibility that he will have to take on someone else's life. All this leads to a tragic denouement, after his betrayal, he loses Asya forever and it is too late to correct the mistakes he made. He has lost his love, rejected the future and the very life that he could have, and pays for it throughout his life devoid of joy and love.

Features of compositional construction

The genre of this work belongs to an elegiac story, the basis of which is a description of love experiences and melancholic discussions about the meaning of life, regret about unfulfilled dreams and sadness about the future. The work is based on a beautiful love story that ended in a tragic separation. The composition of the story is built according to the classical model: the beginning of the plot is a meeting with the Gagin family, the development of the plot is the rapprochement of the main characters, the emergence of love, the culmination is a conversation between Gagin and N.N. about Asya's feelings, the denouement is a date with Asya, an explanation of the main characters, the Gagin family leaves Germany, an epilogue - Mr. N.N. reflects on the past, regrets unfulfilled love. The highlight of this work is Turgenev's use of the old literary technique of plot framing, when a narrator is introduced into the narrative and the motivation for his actions is given. Thus, the reader receives a "story within a story" designed to reinforce the meaning of the story being told.

In his critical article “A Russian Man at a Rendezvous,” Chernyshevsky sharply condemns the indecisiveness and petty, timid selfishness of Mr. N.N., whose image is slightly softened by the author in the epilogue of the work. Chernyshevsky, on the contrary, without choosing expressions, sharply condemns the act of Mr. N.N. and pronounces his sentence in the same way as he did. The story "Asya", due to the depth of its content, has become a real gem in the literary heritage of the great Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. The great writer, like no one else, managed to convey his philosophical reflections and thoughts about the fate of people, about that time in the life of every person when his actions and words can forever change it for better or worse.

The story "Asya", one of the most lyrical works of I.S. Turgenev, was first published in the journal "Sovremennik" (1858. - No. 1) with the subtitle "N.N.'s Story". On the cover of the draft autograph, Turgenev accurately dated his work: “Asya. Story. Started at Sinzig on the banks of the Rhine June 30/July 12, 1857 on Sunday, finished in Rome on November 15/27 of the same year on Friday.

In this work, Turgenev largely follows Pushkin's canonical image of a Russian woman with her natural, open and vivid feelings, which, as a rule, do not find a proper response in the male environment. This story marked Turgenev's exit from a deep mental crisis, and it was during this period that Turgenev gradually occupied one of the leading places in Russian literature.

The story "Asya" made an extraordinary impression on contemporaries and gave rise to a mass of responses, letters and articles that served to create a special political myth around the story. Among the publications, the most famous was the article by N. G. Chernyshevsky “Russian man on rendez-vous” (“Athene”, 1958. - No. 18), which was the most striking political action of revolutionary democracy against liberalism.

In most works, attention was focused on the personality of the protagonist, Mr. N.N., as a representative of "superfluous people". The characteristic of Asya occupies a significant place in the article by D.I. Pisarev "Female types in the novels and stories of Pisemsky, Turgenev and Goncharov" ("Russian Word", 1861.- Book 12). To the Democrat, Asya appears to be a model of a "fresh, energetic girl." "Asya is a sweet, fresh, free child of nature" Pisarev D.I. Female types in the novels and stories of Pisemsky, Turgenev and Goncharov // Pisarev D.I. Works in 4 volumes.-T.1.-M., 1955.-S.249., he writes, and, opposing it to girls spoiled by secular education, criticizes the entire noble system of education. Pisarev believes that such characters prove the need for the social emancipation of women, because they serve as confirmation of what boundless creative and moral forces lurk in a woman. The critic especially appreciates in Asa that she "knows how to discuss her own actions in her own way and pronounce a sentence on herself" in the same place. P.251. Pisarev does not find this originality, independence of thought and behavior in the hero who hangs him, who seems to him to be a representative of the "golden mean", the bearer of a noble society.

Subsequently, "Asya" remained one of the favorite works of democratic readers. At the same time, some of them, following Chernyshevsky, saw the main meaning of this story in the political condemnation of the liberal nobleman; others, on the contrary, considered it as a work in which a purely lyrical principle triumphs

Considering the criticism of that period, E.G. Etkind See N.G. Etkind. Double Man (“Asya”) // Etkind N. G. “Inner Man” and External Speech: Essays on the Psychopathics of Russian Literature of the 18th-19th Centuries.-M., 1999.-S.169-213. did not deny the validity of the remarks of the democratic revolutionaries, provided that Turgenev's story had a "socio-political side". In his opinion, critics, "who were looking everywhere for denunciations of Russian liberalism," "imposed on Turgenev's story an important socio-political meaning for them." “In a talented but unfair article ... Chernyshevsky attacked the hero of Asya, Mr. N.N., as a typical representative of his contemporary spineless liberalism, emphasizing in the hero the flabbiness of nature and inability to fight decisively.” “Pisarev ... found in the character of Asya all the necessary justifications for the feminist movement, and in N.N. - a representative of the "golden mean", the bearer of the morality of a noble society, living on other people's ideas, which he "cannot master and digest." But "... a heightened interest in the socio-political side of the story's problems was quite natural during the years of the revolutionary situation" Notes on the story "Asya" / / Turgenev I.S. Complete collection of works and letters: in 28 volumes - T.7.-M.-L., 1964.-S.437 ..

The action of the novel takes place abroad, in provincial Germany, where Russian tourists accidentally meet: young Mr. N.N. and the girl Asya with her brother.

The participant in the events himself acts as a narrator: 45-year-old Mr. N.N., who recalls a story that happened in his youth (“I was then twenty-five years old. Here and further quotes from: Turgenev I.S. Complete works and letters: in 28 volumes - T.7.-M.-L., 1964.-S.71-122 .."). Thus, the event and the narrative about it belong to different time plans. This form of narration limits the possibilities of the author's psychological analysis, but provides an opportunity for direct introspection and self-disclosure: N.N. constantly comments on his experiences, looking at himself - after many years - from the outside. His vision is thus more objective, but at the same time more lyrical, elegiac.

Mr. N.N. travels, in his own words, "without any purpose, without a plan." He is unfamiliar with painful thoughts about the meaning of existence. The only thing that guides the hero in life is his own desire. “I was healthy, young, cheerful, my money was not transferred, worries did not have time to start - I lived without looking back, did what I wanted, prospered, in a word.” The discreet landscape attracts him during the trip much more than the so-called "sights". On the journey, he is driven by the desire to see new faces, namely faces: “I was only interested in people; I hated curious monuments, wonderful gatherings…”

The small German town of Z., where, seeking solitude after a love failure with “one young widow,” N.N. stopped, attracted him with its simplicity, the fact that there is nothing “majestic” and “super interesting” in it, and most of all - its peace that is felt in everything. It is no coincidence that the author describes it at night, when the town is "sensitively and peacefully" dozing. Another city of L., which is located on the opposite bank of the Rhine, has a different pace of life. There is not even a trace of the silence that is typical for Z. Flags flutter in the square, loud music plays. Despite the fact that the hero of the story is more akin to calmness, he is also attracted by a different rhythm of life: “all this, the joyful boiling of young, fresh life, this impulse forward - wherever it was, if only forward - this good-natured expanse touched me and set on fire." It is also important that it was here, at the “celebration of life”, that N.N. meets Gagin and his sister Asya.

What the characters have in common - their nationality, awareness of themselves as the only Russians in a foreign land - makes the first moments of their acquaintance the most touching and warm. Although Turgenev's heroes have a national, historical, social and everyday certainty, they are people who have spiritually outgrown their class life and circle and are free from traditional norms and relationships (in Asya this is additionally motivated by her origin). The collapse of class-patriarchal ties at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s and the growth of personal consciousness and values ​​were reflected in the homeless state of the heroes: Asya “did not want to come under the general level,” she dreamed of “going somewhere far away, to prayer, to a difficult feat” , "avoided Russians" abroad and N.N. Nedzvetsky V.A. Love-cross-duty…//Izvestiya AN. Ser. Literature and language.-1996.-T.55.-№2.-S.19.

Turgenev refuses to use the dynamic method of character development in the exposition, replacing it with a direct descriptive characteristic. The author introduces the characters without preliminary descriptions and immediately puts them in an atmosphere of acute life situations, referring to the method of foreshadowing or revealing the personality, which is not common, but psychologically expressive.

The reader sees the artist Gagin and Asya from the point of view of Mr. N.N. from an external position in relation to these characters. In the first six chapters that make up the exposition, one can learn about the brother and sister only what the hero knows about them. He describes the appearance, behavior, words and gestures of Gagin and Asya. The narrator does not know Asya and sees only the strangeness, capriciousness, mystery and inconsistency of her nature. It is through the assessment and attitude of Mr. N.N. readers get acquainted with Asya.

Actually, external beauty is not the dominant feature of the “Turgenev girl”. In the guise of heroines, personal charm, grace, and human uniqueness have always been important to Turgenev. Asya is exactly like this: “There was something special in the warehouse of her swarthy round face, with a small thin nose, almost childish cheeks and black, bright eyes. She was gracefully built ... ". At a joint dinner, N.N. notes the peculiarities in the behavior of Asya, who behaved differently from how a well-bred secular young lady should behave in the presence of a guest: “Not for a single moment, he did not sit still: she got up, ran into the house and ran again, sang in a low voice, often laughed ...” Speed and mobility are the main features of the heroine's appearance. “I have not seen a more mobile creature,” admits N.N.

Artistic nature, romantic Asya subtly feels the beauty and poetry of the surrounding world. This is also evidenced by the choice of place of residence: the brother and sister settled outside the city in a “small house” that stood “at the very top of the mountain”, and do not get tired of admiring the charm of the environment; and her cry to N.N.: “You drove into the moon pillar, you broke it!”. But, where Asya sees the moonlight, associated with poetry and the light of love, the narrator reveals only the impenetrable blackness of the waves. And this double angle of view of the landscape deepens the image of the heroine and reveals the difference in the worldview of the characters.

Asya does not accept any conventions, does not calibrate her actions in accordance with the canons of etiquette and always remains original. In the naivety and spontaneity of the heroine's behavior there is a rush to something important, real, which should be the essence of human existence.

The character of the heroine is woven from contradictions and extremes. All its properties and features are given in the ultimate expression. These are, first of all, her sincerity and directness, which immediately embarrass N.N. Confuses others and the maximalism of all her feelings and desires. Dreams of love merge with the ideal of sacrificial heroism, with the thought of prayer, of a difficult feat, and, in the end, with longing for something beyond. These traits of a “great soul” (as in Pushkin’s Tatiana, with whom Asya is clearly related) reveal a folk, and sometimes common folk flavor.

It is no coincidence that communication with this “girl overflowing with life” makes the hero take a fresh look at himself. The world is literally colored for him with new colors. Even smells are perceived by the hero now somehow differently. The “strong, familiar”, “steppe smell” of hemp suddenly reminded him of his homeland. This completely “Russian girl”, without knowing it herself, helped the hero of the story to realize his own restlessness. For the first time in his youth, he feels regret because he is wasting his strength so senselessly in wanderings: “What am I doing here, why am I dragging myself in a foreign country, between strangers?”

In the behavior of the heroine there are some elements of theatricality. In the performance being played out, Asya tries to involve those around her, distributing roles at her own discretion. The most indicative in this regard is the episode with the geranium flower, where the abandoned branch is a kind of invitation to accept the "conditions of the game." But, giving her appearance and manners the features of one or another character, Asya never overacted. She is sincere and organic in her "roles". She plays like children or geniuses play, completely surrendering to the role, being carried away by the "stage image" and transferring the imaginary into reality.

Watching with curiosity the reincarnations of the heroine, whose tricks sometimes exceed the wildest expectations, N.N. notes in the girl "something tense, not quite natural." He calls her "chameleon", "semi-mysterious", "attractive but strange creature". Mysteriousness, inexplicability, unpredictability become the leitmotif of Asya's image. This "mysteriousness" and "unpredictability" arises from the fact that the girl is more free from conventions than male heroes. For Asya, this is due to the natural ardor of nature (“She doesn’t have a single feeling in full,” Gagin says about her), with her origin (Asya is illegitimate). She is demanding of herself and needs help to fulfill her aspirations. “Tell me what should I read? Tell me what should I do?” she asks N.

Time in the story flows unevenly. The writer snatches certain episodes from the life of the characters, corresponding to different stages of a love story. The first period includes three days. This stage of acquaintance, unconscious attraction. Love endless, like a stream, the heroes of "Asia" crave. “I still,” says N.N., “didn’t dare to call him by name, but happiness, happiness to the point of satiety - that’s what I wanted, that’s what I yearned for ...”.

The development of real feeling moves in strange leaps, through absurd, inexplicable contradictions. Asya climbs the rocks, sitting down on a dangerous stone above the steepness: “... her slender appearance was clearly and beautifully drawn in the clear sky, but I looked at her with a hostile feeling. Already the day before, I noticed something tense in her, not quite natural ... Her movements were very sweet, but I was still annoyed at her, although I involuntarily admired her lightness and dexterity. "What a crazy!" - exclaims Gagin, seeing his sister perched on the ruins right above the abyss. But a considerable amount of annoyance joins the feeling of his admiration, because he perfectly understands that Asino's behavior is largely dictated by some kind of childish ambition. It is no coincidence that Gagin, knowing his sister, warns: "Do not tease her ..., she, perhaps, will climb the tower."

Mr. N.N., having met Asya, soon forgot the beautiful and intelligent "young widow", who preferred the "red-cheeked Bavarian lieutenant" to the young man. However, Mr. N. does not bring to his consciousness the meaning of this motive, does not realize his feelings and Asya's feelings. Unconscious inner ardor, and then the first love that is born, serve as the reason for Asya's opposite moods, the excitement of her feelings surprises her. While the hero does not seek to unravel his feelings, Asya, on the contrary, seeks to understand the mysterious process taking place in her soul.

After the hero returns from a three-day trip to the mountains, he has a conversation with Gagin. Noticing her sister's sudden mood swings, transition from laughter to tears; her assurances that she "loves him alone" alerted Gagin. In a frank conversation, he told Mr. N.N. Asya's life story. Seeing the mutual interest of young people, Gagin points to the moral maximalism and impulsiveness of the girl’s nature (“... she doesn’t have a single feeling in half”; “She’s real gunpowder. Until now, she didn’t like anyone, but it’s a disaster if she loves someone!” , on high exactingness in choosing the object of love (“They (Petersburg young people”) she didn’t like at all. No, Asya needs a hero, an extraordinary person ...”).

Although Asya's immediate consciousness is not exposed, nevertheless, the girl's feelings capture due to their transmission through external movement. When revealing the personality of Asya Turgenev, he turns to the method of slow, detailed exposure of the image through the perception and evaluation of others. The main way to create the image of Asya is scenes of dramatic action, combined with a gesture drawing, mimic changes in the face, outwardly expressing the movement of feelings and moods. So, having created some idea of ​​the external, spiritual appearance of Asya, her image is expressively revealed in Gagin's story about her biography.

But the story of Asya is reported already after the first sketchy, but dramatic disclosure of the characters. The biographical digression is very meaningful: it contributes to the disclosure of the character in its socio-historical essence, in its individual originality. Although we see Asya in the future from the position of N.N., this position is no longer external, because the features of the inner world of the heroine are revealed. While Mr. N. at the beginning of the work sees her "from the outside", her oddities and unusual gestures are striking. Gagin's story about her is already bringing readers closer to understanding her inner world, and this makes one feel the possibility of a tragic ending.

V. M. Markovich notes in the character of Asya interweaving “with moral and psychological anomalies, reminiscent of the heroes and heroines of Dostoevsky. The most obvious of them is a combination of infringement and indestructible pride, which develops into a painful contradiction between the desire for self-affirmation and ... a sense of one's own inferiority. The source of the contradiction is the “false position” of the illegitimate, which Asya also perceives like the heroines and heroes of Dostoevsky - as an absolutely irreparable injustice, dooming her to eternal inequality with other people. From this, new painful contradictions arise: “... she was both ashamed of her mother, and ashamed of her shame, and proud of her. Hence - the ultimate tension of mental life and the eccentricity of Asya's behavior. And in particular - the unbridledness of her experiences and actions "Markovich V.M. "Russian European" in Turgenev's prose of the 1850s // In memory of Grigory Abramovich Byalogo.-SPb., 1996.-S.24-42.

Mr. N.N., having understood a lot in the character of the girl, is incredibly relieved. Former irritation was replaced by liveliness and readiness for mutual understanding. Asya now appears before the hero not in external attractiveness and unusual appearance, but in the unique individuality of her dramatic fate. The inner world of the heroine no longer repels the young man with its complexity and incomprehensibility: “Now I understood a lot about her that had previously confused me: her inner restlessness, her inability to behave, her desire to show off - everything became clear to me. I looked into this soul: a secret oppression pressed her constantly, her inexperienced self-esteem was anxiously confused and beating, but her whole being strove for the truth, ”I liked her soul,” and further: “I felt that her image ... squeezed into my soul ".

In Asya's imagination, lofty human aspirations, high moral ideals do not contradict the hope for the realization of personal happiness, on the contrary, they presuppose each other. The love that has arisen, although not yet realized, helps her in determining her ideals. The desire to feel the delight of the flight, the selfless ecstasy of the waltz are lyrical expressions of the desire for happiness and fullness of life. It is characterized by an idealistic belief in the unlimited possibilities of man. Romantic distances beckon her, she craves activity. Asya is sure that “to live not in vain, to leave a trace behind yourself”, to accomplish a “difficult feat” is within the power of any person. N.N. I lost faith in such things for a long time and, although the question of the heroine: “Is it impossible?” - he answers: "Try", but to himself with sad confidence states: "It's impossible ..."

The deep meaning of the narrator's statement about the wings that can grow in a person goes beyond the love theme, absorbing general philosophical content. Inspiration can be the ability of a person to soar above the ordinary, and poetic daydreaming, and the predominance of a sublimely romantic worldview over rationality and pragmatism. This metaphor is so understandable and close to Asya that she immediately “tryes it on” for herself (“So let’s go, let’s go ... I’ll ask my brother to play a waltz for us ... We’ll imagine that we are flying, that we have grown wings”), highlights the dominant character heroines: the disturbing impulsiveness of the soul in its striving for the sublimely ideal. For a moment, the heroes managed to “fly up”. The smooth sounds of Lanner's waltz seemed to lift them off the ground. Music and dance liberate the characters. Asya becomes “sweet and simple”, her angularity disappears, and “something soft, feminine” appears through the “girlish strict appearance”. Even N.N. having fun like a child.

It is the image of the waltz, which ends Chapter IX, that is the plastic embodiment of the possible spiritual rapprochement of the characters. As V.A. Nedzvetsky noted: “In its pathos of infinity and immortality, the love of Turgenev’s heroes is akin to the soviet phenomena of art ... Therefore, classical works of art not only explain the development and drama of feelings, ... but also stimulate their emergence to a great extent” see Nedzvetsky V .BUT. Love-cross-duty…//Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences. Ser. Literature and language.-1996.-T.55.-№2.-S.20. Two weeks later, N.N. there he reads Goethe's novel Hermann and Dorothea, reporting that "At first, Asya just darted past us, then suddenly stopped, lowered her ear, quietly sat down beside me and listened to the reading to the end." Another time, the hero reads to Gagin "from Onegin", in connection with which Asya will later remark: "But I would like to be Tatyana ...". And almost everything that the hero feels is mediated by aesthetic perception. Asya is associated with N.N. now with Raphael's Galatea, now with Pushkin's Tatyana, now with Dorothea from Goethe's poem.

Love in the same place as a phenomenon of the life of nature is subject to the same mysterious forces. Asya is not aware of the capricious play of mysterious forces in herself, and this is partly the reason for the frequent changes in her moods. Unconsciously, she strives for the fullness of life, not knowing that this - according to the author's concept - is unattainable. Asya's passionate dance expresses precisely this desire for happiness. When she realizes that she is in love, a new feeling weighs heavily on her soul. Turgenev again expresses this only with the help of psychology: “... do you want me to play a waltz for you, like yesterday?” - asks Gagin. “No, no,” Asya objected and clenched her hands, “today, for nothing! .. “For nothing,” she repeated, turning pale. Between "yesterday" and "today" there is a huge psychological distance, during which time Asya becomes aware of her feelings. After all, Asya means it when the next day N.N. makes an indirect confession: “My wings have grown, but there is nowhere to fly.” A great feeling made the heroine grow up sharply, grow as a person. Asya’s entire behavior during this meeting was, in essence, an unspoken declaration of love: “I will do everything that you tell me ..”, lamenting that “you can never tell the whole truth”, anxiety: “After all, you can’t be bored with me?”, childishly sincere “honestly” “to tell the truth, the pleading question: “If I suddenly died, would you feel sorry for me?”

“Awakening, the love of heroes captures them with the power of the natural elements, which cannot be resisted. The need for eternal and unquenchable love in Turgenev's heroes is similar to that imperious manifestation of vital will, which, according to the German philosopher A. Schopenhauer, is inherent in the human personality by nature itself Nedzvetsky V.A. Love-cross-duty…//Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences. Ser. Literature and language.-1996.-T.55.-№2.-S.20.»

But if they are not able to resist such a feeling, then it is not given to them to make it eternal. How it is not given to perpetuate youth, how it is not allowed for a person to equalize with the source of everything and beauty on earth - nature. The consciousness of the disproportion fatal to the best hopes of the individual sums up the story "Asya". “So,” she said in her last phrase, “it is easy for the evaporation of an insignificant grass to survive all the joys and sorrows of a person - it survives the person himself.”

In "Ace" nature - the mighty Rhine, the mountains adjacent to the German towns Z. and L. - and even the cosmos in the form of a pillar of moonlight over the river form superhuman coordinates of the characters' relationship. In the story there is a direct likening of the feeling of the heroine of this element: it came to her "as unexpectedly and as irresistibly as a thunderstorm."

The heroes of the story hope through love to harmoniously combine the spiritual and practical aspects of being, its "poetry" and "prose" in their daily existence. The depth of Asya's feelings is emphasized by the contrasting parallel between them and the heartfelt feelings of the pretty German maid Ganchen. She was so “disappointed” when “her fiancé became a soldier” that she did not even thank N.N. for putting a generous tip in her hand. But at the end of the story, the narrator again saw Ganhen: “She was sitting near the shore on a bench. Her face was pale, but not sad; a young handsome guy stood next to her and, laughing, told her something ... ".

Asya's love is just as disharmonious and intensely disturbing as her whole spiritual life. Every moment of love, each of its changing situations, the heroine experiences as the only and decisive one. She does not feel support in what has already been experienced, there is no support for her in hopes for the future, in expectations or dreams. For her love "there is no tomorrow", just as there is no yesterday. Therefore, Asya's love inevitably turns out to be disastrous.

Mr. N.N. experiences the emergence of love differently. At first, he observes Asya as an artist. The heroine more and more attracts his attention, but he carelessly enjoys his position and does not seek to understand the nature of the spiritual movements occurring in their hearts. For Mr. N.N., emerging love also means aesthetic pleasure, and for Asya - a mysterious, difficult, responsible test. The hero has a thirst for happiness, but it is not combined with a high moral aspiration, like Asya's.

It was no coincidence that the scene of the hero's explanation with Asya was a source of controversy even before the story appeared in print. The combination in it of the climax of the action with its instant denouement, a sharp turn of the plot, which unexpectedly reveals the essence of the relationship and the character of the characters, is a distinctive feature of this story. It was the meeting scene that found a response in a number of literary works, the main part of which was devoted to the consideration of the personality of the protagonist. Numerous opposite characteristics of Mr. N.N. can be cited, but the purpose of this work is to analyze the image of Asya.

In the story "Asya", as in "Rudin" and "Faust", the initiative of the meeting belongs to the woman. Turgenev explores the moral and psychological appearance of his heroes, and their meeting is the final, final episode in this study. The scene of explanation, in which the heroine of the story meets for the last time, proceeds with dramatic speed and finally clarifies the complex, contradictory nature of the girl. Having experienced in a short time an explanation of a whole gamut of feelings - from timidity, an instant flash of happiness and complete self-giving (“Yours ... - she whispered barely audibly”) to shame and despair, Asya finds the strength in herself to stop the painful scene and, having defeated her weakness , "with lightning speed" disappears, leaving Mr. N.N. in complete confusion.

This scene most clearly reflects the contradiction, the discrepancy between the psychological rhythms of Mr. N.N. and Asi. The fullness of the feeling experienced by Asya, her timidity, bashfulness and resignation to fate are embodied in her laconic remarks, barely audible in the silence of a dark room. On the contrary, Mr. N.N., to whom the initiative in the dialogue belongs, is verbose. Asya’s state of mind, the depth of her feelings are now evidenced by external manifestations of emotions: her cold hands (“I grabbed her hand, she was cold and lay as if dead on my palm”), pale lips, jerky sentences, rapid breathing, then - in short moments of happiness - her whisper, a devoted look, and the onset of a dramatic turn predicts her sudden sobbing and falling to her knees. All this emphasizes the increasing distance between the hero and the heroine. The flush of shame on Asya's face and her sobs are not only a consequence of her disappointment. Asya realizes that Mr. N. is not a hero, that in exchange for her devotion she receives half-hearted feelings and cowardice, and in exchange for her disinterestedness - selfishness.

The difference in the characters' characters develops into tragic mismatches that lead to a fatal denouement. At the moment of the last explanation N, N. cannot surrender to the feeling, his love reaches its limit only when Asya seems lost to him and when she is really lost to him forever.

L.A. Khodanen L.A. Khodanen The idyllic beginning in the story of I.S. Turgenev "Asya" // Historical development of the forms of the artistic whole in classical Russian and foreign literature: Interuniversity. Sat. scientific tr.-Kemerovo, 1991.-S.60-67.

Highlighting the stages of the formation of a human personality, he defines the heroine as “the embodiment of the ideal impulse of youth, Gagin is an adult even in his youth (“Youth did not boil in him; she shone with a quiet light”). State of N.N. - a brief transitional moment from youth to maturity. This correlation of characters is clarified in Gagin's conversation with N.N. Gagin knows for sure that Asya needs “a hero, an extraordinary person or a picturesque shepherd in a mountain gorge” and therefore is perplexed how she could fall in love with N.N. The reverent relationship of his sister with N.N. Gagin translates into the language of everyday prose. Thrice repeated by him: “But you don’t marry her,” brings down the hero’s ideal impulse, makes him look at the story with Asya through the eyes of an adult. Therefore, the outcome of this conversation is logical: “To marry a seventeen-year-old girl with her temper, how is it possible!” - says the hero, almost repeating the words of Gagin.

Asya's sincere recognition contrasts with the growing adult prudence of N.N. Harmonious unity of souls in this last dialogue did not happen: "One word ... I squandered it to the wind, ... but ... it was too late." His word, which was supposed to be an answer to the love of the heroine, was never uttered.

Here the story gives a gradation of human types: on the one hand, the hero, for whom the impulse is organic and awakens the highest substantial forces (Asya), and, on the other hand, the hero, for whom the ideal impulse is a transient stage, replaced by the sober look of an adult. The substantial forces of nature, awakened in a spiritual impulse, turn out to be too weak to come into conflict with a sober practical way of life. They do not become an organic part of his being. The complexity and depth of these gradations are emphasized by the poetics of the story's title. Asya is a heroine who disappeared into oblivion, and the motif of death accompanies this name with a light dotted line. In adolescence, cut off from her native soil, Asya "almost died" in a boarding school. After a dramatic rendezvous, the hero, who was looking for Asya in vain, sees on the very bank of the Rhine a white figure flashing like a quick shadow near a lonely stone cross on the grave of a drowned man. And, finally, pondering the fate of Asya in the “epilogue”, the old man again assumes the early death of the heroine: “... the hand that I only once had to press to my lips, perhaps, has been smoldering in the grave for a long time ...”

This motif of death emphasizes the ideality of the heroine and, on the other hand, reveals the tragic impracticability of the ideal into reality.

The reason for the failed happiness of young people was determined in different ways. Chernyshevsky, wanted to prove that it was not fatal laws that were to blame for the narrator's unhappy love, but he himself, as a typical "extra person", who succumbs to any decisive actions. Turgenev was far from such an understanding of the meaning of his story. His hero is innocent of his misfortune. It was not spiritual flabbiness that killed him, but the wayward power of love. At the time of the meeting with Asya, he was not yet ready for a decisive confession - and happiness turned out to be unattainable, and life was broken.

A number of episodes serve as predictions for the future drama of heroes. See Nedzvetsky V.A. Love-cross-duty…//Izvestiya AN. Ser. Literature and language. -1996.-T.55.-No.2.-S.17-26.

Goodbye Asya and N.N. without any apparent reason, the tragic end was a foregone conclusion. Gagin remarks: "Until now, she has not liked anyone, but it's a disaster if she falls in love." "Oh, what a soul this girl has... but she will certainly destroy herself." Asya herself says to the hero: "To die is better than to live like this." From the very beginning to the epilogue, metaphorical prophecies of the coming tragedy run through the text.

Such is already the word: “Gretchen is not that exclamation, not that question”, which “begged to be on the lips” of N.N. even before he met the Gagins. But Gretchen, i.e. the unfortunate and distraught beloved of Goethe's Faust, Margarita, was for Turgenev's contemporaries the clearest symbol of tragic love and life. Further, this motif is reinforced and strengthened by the image of "a little Madonna with an almost childish face and a red heart on her chest, pierced by swords ...". “Almost childish cheeks” and “graceful”, but not yet fully developed constitution, were noted by N.N. in the guise of Asya at the time of meeting a girl. Later, she will cause him to associate with one of the figures of the Triumph of Galatea by Raphael, famous, above all, for the images of the Mother of God. The “Statue of the Madonna” again in the context of Asya appears in the eighth chapter of the story, where the girl indirectly revealed her feelings for N.N. for the first time, suddenly giving him her hand when parting. Finally, the “little Madonna”, “still sad” looking out of the dark green of the old ash tree, will appear at the end of the event part of the work after the hero receives Asya’s last “little note” with the words “Farewell forever!”

The same word “goodbye” (and not “goodbye” or “see you”) the heroine uses at the end of the first meeting N.N. with the Gagins, when, returning to his place, the hero crosses the Rhine. And this accidental slip of the tongue turns out to be more than justified, given that Asya "attached" to N.N. "at first sight". With her “farewell”, the girl, thus, involuntarily prophesied, acted as their voice, ultimately, completely identical with N.N. fate.

The metaphorical harbingers of the latter are also the ruins (“ruin”) of a feudal castle, the legend of Lorelei, the image of a “deaf, barely lit room” and the persistent motif of the cross. The ruins of the castle, on the ledge of which Asya appears to N.N., is a sign of chivalrous times and chivalrous fidelity to the chosen lady. The girl herself is not averse to presenting herself as an object of chivalrous worship. However, only “ruins” remained from the heroic eras, and now the reality or illusory nature of chivalrous love is determined by far not only by man.

With many associations, Asya’s fate is forestalled by the “fairy tale” about Lorelei, also dating back to the knightly centuries, which the girl learns from an old German woman. Here is the place of action that is common with the story - the bank of the Rhine with the legendary rock, and similar characters - the daughter of a simple fisherman (Asya is the daughter of a peasant woman) and the young knight-count, at first glance, personally guilty of his separation from Laura Lorelei. The role of the German legend in the context of the story is determined not by these particular parallels with it, but by the true - superpersonal - cause of the death of both Lorelei and her lover. This is the "old god of the Rhine", angry at the people who stopped honoring him and decided to take revenge on them. It was he who turned Lorelei into a siren-sorceress that is fatal to humans.

The image of the “gloomy room” first appears in Asya’s brother’s story about Asya’s childhood: Gagin’s mother died in such a room. In turn, stable in Turgenev's stories of the 50s, he, as a metaphor for the coffin, acts as a premonition of the inevitable death of one or another hero. And the last intimate date of the heroine with N.N. takes place not in a bright and joyful, but in a "deaf, barely lit room."

All the above-mentioned allegorical allusions to the future drama are integrated into the story by the cross-cutting motif of the cross, and not a wooden one, i.e. short-lived, but stone. Sitting on the "stone bench", N.N. sees a statue of the Madonna; near the "stone chapel" Asya first appoints a meeting with the hero. The very symbol of a man's destiny appears for the first time after the words of the heroine about the desire to "go somewhere far ..." - in Asya's reading of a deliberately inaccurate couplet from Pushkin's "Onegin": "Where is now the cross and the shadow of the branches / Above my poor mother." And at the end of the story part of the story, there is also a direct meeting of the heroes with the cross. "Where could she go, what did she do to herself?" - I exclaimed in the anguish of helpless despair ... Something white flashed suddenly on the very bank of the river. I know this place; there, over the grave of a man who had drowned seventy years ago, stood a stone cross, half-buried into the ground, with an ancient inscription. My heart sank… I ran to the cross: the white figure disappeared.”

This is not a joint, but separately meeting of heroes with an ancient symbol of human self-denial and sacrifice - genuine climax The point of view of V.A. Nedzvetsky. Most researchers consider the previous meeting scene to be the climax. works that predetermined its real denouement. Contrary to the seemingly obvious possibility of calming Asya's female pride and being happy together, N.N. will never see the girl again, and all searches for her will remain as futile as the hope of both heroes for "immortal" happiness.

"Asya" differs from the previous Turgenev stories in the increased internal complexity and versatility of characters. All the richness of the content grows out of a dynamic and sharply dramatic juxtaposition of two types of human psychology, embodied in the images of the hero and the heroine. Asya's character has features that put her on a par with such heroines as Marya Pavlovna, Sofya Zlotnitskaya, Vera Eltsova. She is brought closer to them by honesty, directness, a kind of maximalism of feelings and desires. But the heroine of the story is a phenomenon of another literary series, leading to Lisa Kalitina.

Literature:

1. Turgenev I.S. Complete works: in 28 vols.-T.7.-M.-L., 1964.-S.71-122..

2. Kurlyandskaya G. Method and style of Turgenev the romanticist.-Tula, 1967.

3. Lotman L.M. Comments on the story "Asya" // Turgenev I.S. Complete collection of works and letters: in 28 volumes - T.7.-M.-L., 1964.-S.437.

4. Markovich V.M. "Russian European" in Turgenev's prose of the 1850s // In memory of Grigory Abramovich Byalogo.-SPb., 1996.-S.24-42.

5. Nedzvetsky V. A. Love - cross - duty / / Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences. Ser. Literature and language. - 1996. - T. 55. - No. 2. - P. 17-26.

6. Pisarev D.I. Female types in the novels and stories of Pisemsky, Turgenev and Goncharov // Pisarev D.I. Works in 4 volumes.-T.1.-M., 1955.-S.231-274.

7. Kheteshi I. On the construction of the novel by I. S. Turgenev “Asya” // From Pushkin to Bely: Problems of the Poetics of Russian Realism of the 19th - early 20th centuries / Ed. V. M. Markovich.-SPb., 1992. - S. 136-146.

8. Khodanen L.A. The idyllic beginning in the story of I.S. Turgenev "Asya" // Historical development of the forms of the artistic whole in classical Russian and foreign literature: Interuniversity. Sat. scientific tr.-Kemerovo, 1991.-p.64.

9. Chernyshevsky N.G. Russian man on rendez-vous // Chernyshevsky N.G. Collected works in 5 vols.-T.3.-M., 1973.

10. Etkind N.G. Double Man (“Asya”) // Etkind N. G. “Inner Man” and External Speech: Essays on the Psychopoetics of Russian Literature of the 18th-19th Centuries.-M., 1999.-S.169-213.

Ivan Turgenev not only made a significant contribution to the development of Russian literature within the existing areas, but also discovered new original features of the national culture. In particular, he created the image of the Turgenev young lady - he revealed the unique character of the Russian girl on the pages of his books. To get acquainted with this special one, it is enough to read the story "Asya", where the female portrait acquired unique features.

The writer was busy writing this work for several months (from July to November 1857). He wrote heavily and slowly, because illness and fatigue were already making themselves felt. Who is the prototype of Asya is not exactly known. Among the versions, the point of view that the author described his illegitimate daughter prevails. Also, the fate of his sister on the paternal side could be reflected in the image (her mother was a peasant woman). Based on these examples, Turgenev knew very well how a teenager who finds himself in such a situation feels, and reflected his observations in the story, showing a very delicate social conflict, to which he himself was to blame.

The work "Asya" was completed in 1857 and published in Sovremennik. The story of the story, told by the author himself, is as follows: once Turgenev in a German town saw an elderly woman looking out of a window on the first floor, and the head of a young girl on the floor above. Then he decided to imagine what their fate could be, and embodied these fantasies in the form of a book.

Why is the story called that?

The work got its name in honor of the main character, whose love story is the focus of the author. His main priority was the disclosure of the ideal female image, called "Turgenev's young lady." To see and evaluate a woman, according to the writer, is possible only through the prism of the feeling that she experiences. Only in it, its mysterious and incomprehensible nature is fully revealed. Therefore, Asya is experiencing the shock of his first love and is experiencing it with the dignity inherent in an adult and mature lady, and not the naive child that she was before meeting N.N.

This reincarnation shows Turgenev. At the end of the book, we say goodbye to Asya the child and get acquainted with Anna Gagina, a sincere, strong and self-aware woman who does not agree to compromises: when N.N. afraid to surrender to the feeling completely and immediately recognize it, she, overcoming pain, left him forever. But in memory of the bright time of childhood, when Anna was still Asya, the writer calls his work this diminutive name.

Genre: novel or short story?

Of course, "Asya" is a story. The story is never divided into chapters, and its volume is much smaller. The segment from the life of the characters depicted in the book is smaller than in the novel, but longer than in the smallest form of prose. Turgenev also held this opinion about the genre nature of his creation.

Traditionally, there are more characters and events in the story than in the story. In addition, it is the sequence of episodes that becomes the subject of the image in it, in which cause-and-effect relationships are revealed, which lead the reader to realize the meaning of the finale of the work. This is what happens in the book "Asya": the characters get to know each other, their communication leads to mutual interest, N.N. learns about the origin of Anna, she confesses her love to him, he is afraid to take her feelings seriously, and in the end all this leads to a break. The writer first intrigues us, for example, shows the strange behavior of the heroine, and then explains it through the story of her birth.

What is the piece about?

The main character is a young man, on whose behalf the story is being told. These are the memories of an already mature man about the events of his youth. In "Ace" a middle-aged secular man N.N. recalls a story that happened to him when he was 25 years old. The beginning of his story, where he meets his brother and sister Gagin, is the exposition of the story. Place and time of action - "a small German town Z. near the Rhine (river)". The writer is referring to the city of Sinzig in the province of Germany. Turgenev himself traveled there in 1857, at the same time he finished the book. The narrator writes in the past tense, stipulating that the events described took place 20 years ago. Accordingly, they took place in June 1837 (N.N. himself reports on the month in the first chapter).

What Turgenev wrote about in Asa is familiar to the reader since the time of reading Eugene Onegin. Asya Gagina is the same young Tatyana who fell in love for the first time, but did not find reciprocity. It was the poem "Eugene Onegin" that N.N. for the Gagins. Only the heroine in the story does not look like Tatyana. She is very changeable and fickle: either she laughs all day long, or she walks gloomier than a cloud. The reason for this mood lies in the difficult history of the girl: she is the illegitimate sister of Gagin. In high society, she feels like a stranger, as if unworthy of the honor that she has been given. Thoughts about her future situation constantly weigh on her, so Anna has a difficult character. But, in the end, she, like Tatyana from "Eugene Onegin", decides to confess her love to N.N. ridicule. Asya, having heard a reproach instead of a confession, runs away. A N.N. understands how dear she is to him, and decides to ask for her hand the next day. But it's too late, as the next morning he finds out that the Gagins have left, leaving him a note:

Goodbye, we won't see each other again. I'm not leaving out of pride - no, I can't do otherwise. Yesterday, when I was crying in front of you, if you had said one word to me, just one word, I would have stayed. You didn't say it. Apparently, it's better this way ... Goodbye forever!

Main characters and their characteristics

The reader's attention is attracted, first of all, by the main characters of the work. It is they who embody the author's intention and are the supporting images on which the narrative is built.

1. Asya (Anna Gagina)- a typical "Turgenev young lady": she is a wild, but sensitive girl who is capable of true love, but does not accept cowardice and weakness of character. This is how her brother described her: “Pride developed in her strongly, distrust too; bad habits took root, simplicity disappeared. She wanted (she herself confessed this to me once) to make the whole world forget her origin; she was ashamed of her mother, and ashamed of her shame, and proud of her. She grew up in nature on the estate, studied at the boarding school. At first she was raised by her mother, a maid in her father's house. After her death, the master took the girl to him. Then the upbringing was continued by his legitimate son, the brother of the main character. Anna is a modest, naive, well-educated person. She has not matured yet, so she fools around and plays pranks, not taking life seriously. However, her character changed when she fell in love with N.N.: he became fickle and strange, the girl was sometimes too lively, sometimes sad. Changing images, she unconsciously sought to attract the attention of a gentleman, but her intentions were absolutely sincere. She even fell ill with a fever from a feeling that overwhelmed her heart. From her further actions and words, we can conclude that she is a strong and strong-willed woman, capable of sacrifice for the sake of honor. Turgenev himself outlined her description: “The girl whom he called his sister seemed to me very pretty at first sight. There was something of her own, special, in the make-up of her swarthy, round face, with a small, thin nose, almost childish cheeks, and black, bright eyes. She was gracefully built, but as if not yet fully developed. The somewhat idealized image of Asya was repeated in the faces of other famous heroines of the writer.
2. N.N.- a narrator who, 20 years after the event described, takes up a pen to ease his soul. He can never forget his lost love. He appears before us as a selfish and idle rich young man who travels from nothing to do. He is lonely and afraid of his loneliness, because, by his own admission, he loves to be in the crowd and look at people. At the same time, he does not want to get acquainted with the Russians, apparently, he is afraid of disturbing his peace. He ironically remarks that "he considered it his duty to indulge in sadness and loneliness for a while." This desire to show off even in front of himself reveals in him the weaknesses of nature: he is insincere, false, superficial, looking for an excuse for his idleness in fictitious and far-fetched suffering. It is impossible not to note his impressionability: thoughts about his homeland angered him, a meeting with Anna made him feel happy. The protagonist is educated and noble, lives "as he wants", and he is characterized by inconstancy. Understands art, loves nature, but cannot find application for his knowledge and feelings. He likes to analyze people with his mind, but he does not feel them with his heart, which is why he could not understand Asya's behavior for so long. Love for her revealed not the best qualities in him: cowardice, indecision, selfishness.
3. Gagin- Anna's older brother, who takes care of her. This is how the author writes about him: “It was just a Russian soul, truthful, honest, simple, but, unfortunately, a little sluggish, without tenacity and inner heat. Youth did not seethe in him; she shone with a quiet light. He was very nice and smart, but I could not imagine what would become of him as soon as he matured. The hero is very kind and sympathetic. He honored and respected the family, because he honestly fulfilled the last will of his father, and loved his sister like his own. Anna is very dear to him, so he sacrifices friendship for her peace of mind and leaves N.N., taking the heroine away. In general, he willingly sacrifices his interests for the sake of others, because in order to raise his sister, he resigns and leaves his homeland. Other characters in his description always look positive, he finds an excuse for all of them: both the secretive father and the compliant maid, masterful Asya.

Minor characters are only mentioned in passing by the narrator. This is a young widow on the waters who rejected the narrator, Gagin's father (a kind, gentle, but unhappy person), his brother, who arranged for his nephew to serve in St. Petersburg, Asya's mother (Tatyana Vasilyevna is a proud and impregnable woman), Yakov (the butler of Gagin the elder) . The description of the characters given by the author allows a deeper understanding of the story "Asya" and the realities of the era that became its basis.

Topic

1. Theme of love. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev wrote many stories about this. For him, feeling is a test of the souls of heroes: “No, love is one of those passions that breaks our “I”, makes us forget about ourselves and our interests,” the writer said. Only a real person can truly love. However, the tragedy is that many people do not cope with this test, and it takes two to love. When one fails to truly love, the other undeservedly remains alone. So it happened in this book: N.N. could not pass the test of love, but Anna, although she coped with it, still could not stand the insult of neglect and left forever.
2. The theme of the superfluous person in the story "Asya" also occupies an important place. The main character can not find a place in the world. His idle and aimless life abroad is proof of this. He wanders around in search of who knows what, because he cannot apply his skills and knowledge in the real case. His failure is also manifested in love, because he is afraid of the girl’s direct recognition, afraid of the strength of her feelings, therefore he cannot realize in time how dear she is to him.
3. The theme of the family is also raised by the author. Gagin raised Asya as his sister, although he understood the complexity of her situation. Perhaps it was this circumstance that prompted him to travel, where the girl could be distracted and hide from sidelong glances. Turgenev emphasizes the superiority of family values ​​over class prejudices, urging his compatriots to care more about family ties than about the purity of blood.
4. Nostalgia theme. The whole story is imbued with the nostalgic mood of the protagonist, who lives with memories of the time when he was young and in love.

Issues

• The problem of moral choice. The hero does not know what to do: is it worth taking responsibility for such a young and offended creature? Is he ready to say goodbye to single life and tie himself to one single woman? Besides, she had already taken away his choice by telling her brother. He was annoyed that the girl took all the initiative, and therefore accused her of being too frank with Gagin. N.N. was confused, and even not experienced enough to unravel the subtle nature of his beloved, so it is not surprising that his choice turned out to be wrong.
• Problems of feeling and duty. Often these principles are opposed to each other. Asya loves N.N., but after his hesitation and reproaches, she realizes that he is not sure of his feelings. The duty of honor tells her to leave and not see him again, although her heart rebels and asks to give her lover another chance. However, her brother is also adamant in matters of honor, so the Gagins leave N.N.
• The problem of extramarital affairs. In the time of Turgenev, almost all nobles had illegitimate children, and this was not considered abnormal. But the writer, although he himself became the father of such a child, draws attention to how badly children live, whose origin is outside the law. They suffer without guilt for the sins of their parents, suffer from gossip and cannot arrange their future. For example, the author depicts Asya's studies in a boarding school, where all the girls treated her with disdain because of her history.
• The problem of transition. Asya at the time of the events described is only 17 years old, she has not yet formed as a person, so her behavior is so unpredictable and eccentric. It is very difficult for a brother to deal with her, because he does not yet have experience in the parental field. Yes and N.N. could not understand her contradictory and sentimental nature. This is the reason for the tragedy of their relationship.
• The problem of cowardice. N.N. she is afraid of serious feelings, therefore she does not say the very cherished word that Asya was waiting for.

The basic idea

The story of the main character is a tragedy of naive first feelings, when a young dreamy person first encounters the cruel realities of life. The conclusions from this collision are the main idea of ​​the story "Asya". The girl went through the test of love, but many of her illusions were broken in it. In indecision N.N. she read the sentence to herself, which her brother had mentioned earlier in a conversation with a friend: in such a position she cannot count on a good match. Few will agree to marry her, no matter how beautiful or funny she is. She had seen before that people despise her for her unequal origin, but now the person she loves hesitates and does not dare to bind himself with a word. Anna interpreted this as cowardice, and her dreams crumbled to dust. She learned to be more selective in boyfriends and not to trust them with her heart secrets.

Love in this case opens up the adult world to the heroine, literally pulling her out of her blissful childhood. Happiness would not be a lesson for her, but a continuation of a girl's dream, it would not reveal this contradictory character, and Asya's portrait in the gallery of female characters in Russian literature was greatly impoverished from a happy ending. In tragedy, she gained the necessary experience and became richer spiritually. As you can see, the meaning of Turgenev's story is also to show how the test of love affects people: some show dignity and fortitude, others show cowardice, tactlessness and indecision.

This story from the lips of a mature man is so instructive that it leaves no doubt that the hero recalls this episode of his life as an edification to himself and the listener. Now, after so many years, he understands that he himself missed the love of his life, he himself destroyed this sublime and sincere relationship. The narrator encourages the reader to be more attentive and more determined than he is, not to let his guiding star go away. Thus, the main idea of ​​the work "Asya" is to show how fragile and fleeting happiness is if it is not recognized in time, and how merciless love is, which does not give a second attempt.

What does the story teach?

Turgenev, showing the idle and empty lifestyle of his hero, says that the carelessness and aimlessness of existence will make a person unhappy. N.N. in old age, he bitterly complains about himself in his youth, regretting the loss of Asya and the very opportunity to change his fate: “Then it never occurred to me that a person is not a plant and he cannot flourish for a long time.” He realizes with bitterness that this "flowering" did not bear fruit. Thus, morality in the story "Asya" reveals to us the true meaning of being - you need to live for the sake of the goal, for the sake of loved ones, for the sake of creativity and creation, no matter what it is expressed in, and not for the sake of oneself alone. After all, it was egoism and the fear of losing the opportunity to “bloom” that prevented N.N. utter the very cherished word that Anna was waiting for.

Another conclusion that Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev makes in Asa is the assertion that one should not be afraid of one's feelings. The heroine gave herself completely to them, burned herself with her first love, but she learned a lot about life and about the person to whom she wanted to devote it. Now she will be more attentive to people, will learn to understand them. Without this cruel experience, she would not have revealed herself as a person, would not have understood herself and her desires. After breaking up with N.N. she realized what the man of her dreams should be. So do not be afraid of the sincere impulses of the soul, you need to give them free rein, and come what may.

Criticism

The reviewers called N.N. a typical literary embodiment of the “superfluous person”, and later they singled out a new type of heroine - the “Tugenev young lady”. Chernyshevsky, Turgenev's ideological opponent, studied the image of the protagonist with particular attention. He dedicated an ironic article to him called “Russian man on rendez-vous. Reflections after reading the story "Asya". In it, he condemns not only the moral imperfection of the character, but also the poverty of the entire social group to which he belongs. The idleness and selfishness of noble offspring destroys real people in them. It is in this that the critic sees the cause of the tragedy. His friend and colleague Dobrolyubov enthusiastically appreciated the story and the author's work on it:

Turgenev ... talks about his heroes as about people close to him, snatches their ardent feeling from his chest and watches them with tender participation, with painful trepidation, he himself suffers and rejoices along with the faces created by him, he himself is carried away by the poetic atmosphere that he loves always surround them...

The writer himself speaks very warmly about his creation: "I wrote it very passionately, almost in tears ...".

Many critics responded positively to Turgenev's work "Asya" even at the stage of reading the manuscript. I. I. Panaev, for example, wrote to the author about the impression of the editors of Sovremennik in the following terms:

I read the proofs, the proofreader, and, moreover, Chernyshevsky. If there are still mistakes, it means that we did everything we could, and we can’t do it better. Annenkov has read the story, and you probably already know his opinion about it. He is delighted

Annenkov was a close friend of Turgenev and his most important critic. In a letter to the author, he praises his new work, calling it "a frank step towards nature and poetry."

In a personal letter dated January 16, 1858, E. Ya. Kolbasin (a critic who positively assesses Turgenev’s work) informed the writer: “Now I have come from the Tyutchevs, where there was a dispute about Asya. I like too. They find that Asya's face is strained, not alive. I said the opposite, and Annenkov, who arrived in time for the dispute, completely supported me and brilliantly refuted them.

However, it was not without controversy. Nekrasov, editor-in-chief of the Sovremennik magazine, suggested changing the scene of the explanation of the main characters, believing that it would belittle the image of N.N. too much:

One remark, personally mine, and that is unimportant: in the scene of a meeting at the knees, the hero unexpectedly showed an unnecessary rudeness of nature, which you don’t expect from him, bursting into reproaches: they should have been softened and reduced, I wanted to, but I didn’t dare, especially since Annenkov against this

As a result, the book was left unchanged, because even Chernyshevsky stood up for it, who, although he did not deny the rudeness of the scene, noted that it best reflects the real appearance of the class to which the narrator belongs.

S. S. Dudyshkin, who in the article “Tales and Stories of I. S. Turgenev”, published in “Notes of the Fatherland”, contrasted the “sick personality of a Russian person of the 19th century” with an honest worker - a bourgeois businessman. He was also extremely worried about the historical fate of the "superfluous people", posed by the author of Asya.

The story is clearly not for everyone. After its publication, reproaches rained down on the writer. For example, reviewer V.P. Botkin told Fet: “Not everyone likes Asya. It seems to me that Asya's face failed - and in general the thing has a prosaically invented look. There is nothing to say about other people. As a lyricist, Turgenev can only express well what he experienced ... ". The famous poet, the addressee of the letter, was in solidarity with his friend and recognized the image of the main character as far-fetched and lifeless.

But Tolstoy was the most indignant of all critics, who assessed the work as follows: “Asya” by Turgenev, in my opinion, is the weakest thing of all that he wrote” - this remark was contained in a letter to Nekrasov. Lev Nikolayevich connected the book with the personal life of a friend. He was unhappy that he arranged for the illegitimate daughter Pauline in France, forever separating her from her own mother. Such a “hypocritical position” was sharply condemned by the count, he openly accused his colleague of cruelty and improper upbringing of his daughter, which was also described in the story. This conflict led to the fact that the authors did not communicate for 17 years.

Later, the story was not forgotten and often appeared in the statements of famous public figures of the era. For example, Lenin compared Russian liberals to an indecisive character:

... Just like the ardent Turgenev hero who escaped from Asya, about whom Chernyshevsky wrote: "A Russian man on rendez-vous"