Research work "Superfluous Man" in Russian Literature. What does "extra person" mean?

The image of a bored hero in the works of Russian
classics XIXV.

With all the variety of literary
types in the Russian classics of the 19th century, the image of a bored hero stands out clearly.
It is often associated with the image of an "extra person"

"extra person", "extra people" -
where did this term come from in Russian literature? Who was the first to successfully apply
him, that he firmly and permanently established himself in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov,
Turgenev, Goncharov? Many literary critics believe that it was invented by A.I.
Herzen. According to another version, Pushkin himself in a draft version VIII chapters
"Eugene Onegin" called his hero superfluous: "Onegin is worth something superfluous."

Besides Onegin, many critics XIX century and
some literary scholars of the twentieth century refer Pechorin, heroes
novels by I.S. Turgenev Rudin and Lavretsky, as well as Oblomov I.A. Goncharov.

What are the main thematic
signs of these characters, "superfluous people"? First of all, it is a personality
potentially capable of any social action. It does not accept proposals
society "rules of the game", characterized by disbelief in the possibility of changing anything.
"Superfluous person" - a contradictory personality, often in conflict with society and
his way of life. It is also a hero, certainly a dysfunctional one in
relations with parents, and unhappy in love. His position in society
unstable, contains contradictions: it is always connected with at least some side
nobility, but - already in a period of decline, about fame and fortune - rather a memory. He
placed in an environment that is somehow alien to him: a higher or lower environment,
there is always a certain motive of alienation, not always immediately lying on
surfaces. The hero is moderately educated, but this education is rather incomplete,
unsystematic; in a word, this is not a deep thinker, not a scientist, but a person with
the "power of judgment" to make quick but immature conclusions. often
inner emptiness, hidden uncertainty. Often - the gift of eloquence,
writing skills, note-taking, or even writing poetry. Always some
the claim to be the judge of one's fellow men; a shade of hatred is required. In a word,
the hero is a victim of the canons of life.

The novel "Eugene Onegin" - a work of amazing creative destiny. It was created over seven
years - from May 1823 to September 1830.

Pushkin, in the process of working on
novel, set himself the task of demonstrating in the image of Onegin "that
premature old age of the soul, which has become the main feature of the young
generations." And already in the first chapter, the writer notes social factors,
determined the character of the protagonist. This belongs to the upper layer
nobility, education, training, the first steps in the world, usual for this circle,
the experience of a "monotonous and motley" life for eight years. The life of the "free"
nobleman, not burdened with service - vain, carefree, full of entertainment
and love stories - fit into one tiring day ..

In a word, Onegin in his early youth is "a child of fun and luxury." By the way, on this
life segment Onegin - a man in his own way original, witty, "scientist
small", but still quite ordinary, dutifully following the secular "decency
crowd." The only thing in which Onegin "was a true genius" was that "he knew more firmly
of all sciences,” as the Author remarks, not without irony, was “the science of tender passion,” then
there is the ability to love without loving, to imitate feelings, remaining cold and
prudent.

The first chapter is a turning point in
the fate of the protagonist, who managed to abandon the stereotypes of secular
behavior, from the noisy, but internally empty "ritual of life." Thus Pushkin
showed how, from a faceless, but demanding unconditional obedience crowd, suddenly
a bright, outstanding personality appeared, capable of overthrowing the "burden" of secular
conventions, "get away from the hustle and bustle."

Onegin's retreat is his
an undeclared conflict with the world and with the society of rural landowners - only
at first glance, it seems like a "fad" caused by purely individual
reasons: boredom, "Russian melancholy". This is a new stage in the life of a hero. Pushkin
emphasizes that this conflict of Onegin, "Onegin's inimitable
strangeness "became a kind of spokesman for the protest of the protagonist against
social and spiritual dogmas that suppress personality in a person, depriving him of the right
To be youreself. And the emptiness of the hero's soul was the result of emptiness and
the futility of secular life. Onegin is looking for new spiritual values: in
Petersburg and in the countryside, he diligently reads, tries to write poetry. This search for him
new life truths stretched out for many years and remained unfinished.
The internal drama of this process is also obvious: Onegin painfully frees himself.
from the burden of old ideas about life and people, but the past does not let him go.
It seems that Onegin is the rightful master of his own life. But that's only
illusion. In St. Petersburg and in the countryside, he is equally bored - he still cannot
overcome mental laziness and dependence on “public opinion”.
The consequence of this was that the best inclinations of his nature were killed by secular
life. But the hero cannot be considered only a victim of society and circumstances. Having changed
way of life, he took responsibility for his own destiny. But giving up idleness
and the vanity of the world, alas, did not become a doer, but remained only a contemplator.
The feverish pursuit of pleasure has been replaced by solitary contemplation
Main character.

For writers who devote their
creative attention to the theme of "an extra person", it is characteristic to "test" one's own
hero friendship, love, duel, death. Pushkin was no exception. Two
trials that awaited Onegin in the village -
test of love and test of friendship - showed that external freedom automatically
does not entail liberation from false prejudices and opinions. In a relationship
with Tatyana Onegin proved himself to be a noble and mentally subtle person. AND
you can’t blame the hero for not responding to Tatyana’s love: the heart, like
known, do not tell. Another thing is that Onegin did not listen to his own voice.
hearts, but the voices of reason. In confirmation of this, I will say that even in the first chapter
Pushkin noted in the protagonist a "sharp, chilled mind" and an inability to
strong feelings. And it was this mental disproportion that caused the failed
love of Onegin and Tatyana. Onegin also did not pass the test of friendship. And in this
In this case, the cause of the tragedy was his inability to live a life of feeling. not without reason
the author, commenting on the state of the hero before the duel, remarks: “He could feel
discover, / And not bristle like a beast. And on Tatyana's name day, and before
duel with Lensky, Onegin showed himself to be a "ball of prejudice", "a hostage
secular canons", deaf to the voice of one's own heart, and to the feelings
Lensky. His behavior at the name day is the usual "social anger", and the duel -
a consequence of the indifference and fear of the evil speaking of the inveterate bully Zaretsky and
landlord neighbors. Onegin himself did not notice how he became a prisoner of his old
idol - "public opinion". After the murder of Lensky, Evgeny changed
just drastically. It is a pity that only tragedy could reveal to him before
inaccessible world of feelings.

In a depressed state of mind, Onegin
leaves the village and begins wandering around Russia. These travels give him
the opportunity to take a fuller look at life, to reevaluate oneself, to understand how
fruitlessly and he wasted a lot of time and energy in empty pleasures.

In the eighth chapter, Pushkin showed a new
stage in the spiritual development of Onegin. Having met Tatyana in Petersburg, Onegin
completely transformed, in him nothing remained of the former, cold and
rational man - he is an ardent lover, not noticing anything, except
the object of his love (and this is very reminiscent of Lensky). He first experienced
a real feeling, but it turned into a new love drama: now Tatyana
could not answer his belated love. And, as before, in the foreground in
characterization of the hero - the relationship between reason and feeling. Now the mind
was defeated - Onegin loves, "mind not listening to strict penalties." However, the text completely lacks the results of the spiritual
development of a hero who believes in love and happiness. So, Onegin again did not reach
desired goal, there is still no harmony between reason and feeling.

Thus, Eugene Onegin
becomes a "superfluous person". Belonging to the light, he despises it. Him like
Pisarev noted, all that remains is that “put aside the boredom of secular life,
as a necessary evil." Onegin does not find his true purpose and place in
life, he is burdened by his loneliness, lack of demand. Speaking in words
Herzen, "Onegin ... an extra person in the environment where he is, but, not possessing
the necessary strength of character, can not escape from it in any way. But, in the opinion of
writer, the image of Onegin is not finished. After all, a novel in verse is essentially
ends with the following question: “What will Onegin be like in the future?” Myself
Pushkin leaves the character of his hero open, thereby emphasizing the very
Onegin's ability to abruptly change value orientations and, I note,
a certain readiness for action, for an act. True, the opportunities for
Onegin has practically no realization of himself. But the novel doesn't answer
the above question, he asks the reader.

Following the Pushkin hero and Pechorin, the protagonist of the novel
M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of our time", showed himself a type of "superfluous person".
The bored hero appears before the reader again, but he differs from Onegin.

Onegin has indifference, passivity,
inaction. Not that Pechorin. “This man is not indifferent, not apathetically
suffering: he is madly chasing after life, looking for it everywhere; he bitterly accuses
yourself in your delusions. Pechorin is characterized by bright individualism,
painful introspection, internal monologues, the ability to impartially assess
myself. "Moral cripple," he will say
About Me. Onegin is simply bored, skepticism and disappointment are inherent in him.
Belinsky once noted that “Pechorin is a suffering egoist”, and “Onegin is
bored". And to some extent it is.

Pechorin from boredom, from dissatisfaction in life
puts experiments on himself and on people. So, for example, in "Bela" Pechorin
for the sake of gaining a new spiritual experience, without hesitation, he sacrifices both the prince and
Azamat, and Kazbich, and Bela herself. In "Taman" he allowed himself out of curiosity
intervene in the life of "honest smugglers" and forced them to flee, leaving their house, and
along with the blind boy.

In "Princess Mary" Pechorin intervenes in the ensuing
the novel of Grushnitsky and Mary, bursts into the adjusted life of Vera like a whirlwind. To him
hard, he is empty, he is bored. He writes about his longing and attraction
“possession of the soul” of another person, but never once wonders where it came from
his right to this possession! Pechorin's reflections in "The Fatalist" about faith and
unbelief relate not only to the tragedy of the loneliness of modern man in
the world. Man, having lost God, has lost the main thing - moral guidelines, a firm and
certain system of moral values. And no experiments will give
Pechorin of the joy of being. Only faith can give confidence. A deep faith
ancestors lost in the age of Pechorin. Having lost faith in God, the hero also lost faith in
himself - this is his tragedy.

It is surprising that Pechorin, understanding all this, at the same time
time does not see the origins of its tragedy. He thinks as follows: "Evil
breeds evil; the first suffering gives the concept of the pleasure of torturing another…”
It turns out that the whole world surrounding Pechorin is built on the law of the spiritual
slavery: torturing in order to take pleasure in the suffering of another. AND
the unfortunate, suffering, dreams of one thing - to take revenge on the offender. Evil begets evil
not by itself, but in a world without God, in a society where moral
laws where only the threat of legal punishment somehow limits revelry
permissiveness.

Pechorin constantly feels his moral
inferiority: he speaks of the two halves of the soul, that the best part of the soul
dried up, evaporated, died. He "became a moral cripple" - here
the true tragedy and punishment of Pechorin.

Pechorin is a controversial personality,
Yes, he himself understands this: “... I have an innate passion to contradict; my whole
life was only a chain of sad and unfortunate contradictions of heart or mind.
The contradiction becomes the formula for the existence of the hero: he is aware of the
“high purpose” and “immense forces” - and exchanges life in “passions
empty and ungrateful." Yesterday he bought a carpet that the princess liked, and
today, having covered his horse with it, he slowly led it past Mary's windows ... The rest of the day
comprehended the "impression" that he made. And it takes days, months, life!

Pechorin, unfortunately, remained so
until the end of life "smart uselessness." People like Pechorin were created
socio-political conditions of the 30s XIX centuries, times of grim reaction and
police supervision. He is truly lively, gifted, brave, smart. His
tragedy is the tragedy of an active person who has nothing to do.
Pechorin craves activity. But the opportunities to apply these spiritual
he has no desire to put them into practice, to realize them. A debilitating feeling of emptiness
boredom, loneliness pushes him to all sorts of adventures ("Bela", "Taman",
"Fatalist"). And this is the tragedy not only of this hero, but of the entire generation of the 30s
years: “A crowd gloomy and soon forgotten, / We will pass over the world without noise and
trace, / Not throwing a fruitful thought to the centuries, / Not a genius of labor begun ... ".
"Gloomy" ... This is a crowd of disunited loners, not connected by a unity of goals,
ideals, hopes...

He did not ignore the topic of "superfluous
people "and I.A. Goncharov, creating one of the outstanding novels XIX centuries - "Oblomov". Its central character, Ilya
Ilyich Oblomov - a bored gentleman lying on a sofa, dreaming of transformations
and a happy life in the family circle, but doing nothing to make dreams come true in
reality. Undoubtedly, Oblomov is a product of his environment, a kind of
the result of the social and moral development of the nobility. For the nobility
the time of existence at the expense of serfs did not pass without a trace. All this
gave rise to laziness, apathy, an absolute inability to vigorous activity and
typical class vices. Stolz calls this "Oblomovism".

Critic Dobrolyubov as Oblomov
saw, first of all, a socially typical phenomenon, and the key to this image
considered the chapter "Oblomov's Dream". The "dream" of the hero is not quite like a dream. This
a rather harmonious, logical, with an abundance of details picture of Oblomovka's life.
Most likely, this is not actually a dream, with its characteristic illogicality, but
conditional dream. The task of "Sleep", as noted by V.I. Kuleshov, is to give "preliminary
story, an important message about the life of the hero, his childhood ... The reader receives important
information, thanks to which upbringing the hero of the novel became a couch potato ... receives
the opportunity to realize where and in what exactly this life “broke off”. What is
childhood Oblomov? This is a cloudless life in the estate, "fullness of satisfied
desires, contemplation of pleasure.

Is it much different from the one
which Oblomov leads in the house on Gorokhovaya Street? Although Ilya is ready to contribute to this
idyll some changes, its foundations will remain unchanged. Him completely
the life that Stoltz leads is alien: “No! What of the nobles to make artisans! He
has absolutely no doubt that the peasant must always work for
master.

And Oblomov's trouble is, first of all,
that the life he rejects does not itself accept him. Oblomov is alien
activity; his worldview does not allow him to adapt to life
landowner-entrepreneur, find his own path, as Stolz did.All this makes Oblomov "an extra person."

Extra people - where do they come from in life? Whether an event of fate, a trait of character or a fatal predestination separates them from the society in which they live, deprives them not only of the right, but also of the desire to take their place in it, thus deepening the crack in the relationship "personality - society". On the other hand, starting from the well-known truth that contradiction is the key to development, it can be argued that, desiring and striving for further evolution, society itself seeks out in itself and singles out phenomena and people who can create such a contradiction, go to conflict, accepting it. conditions.
Such opposition of the individual to society in literature, inherent in the romanticism of the 19th century, led to the appearance of the image of an “extra” person, a person who was not accepted by society and did not accept him.
Thus, Lermontov’s novel “A Hero of Our Time”, presented to the reader in 1841 in its final version, carried the author’s primordial problem, passing like a through thread through almost all Lermontov’s works, the problem of the individual and society. The transfer of the litigation of man and society to the real historical soil of our time immediately gave life, colors, depth to what was planned in the earlier work of the writer abstractly and one-sidedly. Consideration of the problem against the background of modern reality was accompanied not only by realistic criticism of the social environment, - elements of such criticism had previously accompanied the subjective rebellion of Lermontov's hero, and novelty should not be sought in this; what was new was that, by placing his hero in a real life situation, the author subjected the authenticity of his “heroism” to the test of practice. This meant a test by action, since it was only the effective nature of the protest that made him a “hero”. It is this problem, the problem of active or passive protest of reality, that stands behind any conflict between the individual and society. And in attempts to resolve it, not only the individual features of characters, such as Pechorin, Oblomov, Onegin, are manifested, but also the attitude of the authors towards it: Pushkin, Lermontov, Goncharov. How different these characters are from each other by some internal qualities, the environment surrounding them, interests, the perception of them by other people as “not like that” is just as similar. They are not able, and feel it, to “coincide” with the people around them, to evaluate reality according to all the usual standards and accept it. The dullness and routine of the environment prevents them from finding and seeing their person, a close soul, and this makes them so tragically lonely. This also applies to love. Having met Tatyana in an atmosphere of patriarchal-village life, Onegin did not recognize in her a potentially close person. The personality traits of the heroine were obscured for him by her stereotypical environment. The union with a girl from a “simple Russian family” (3, I), “in the past century” belated, seemed to Onegin a loss of individual independence, which at that time he cherished most of all:
"I thought liberty and peace
Replacement for happiness.
Only as a result of a long lonely wandering Onegin will discover for himself and the reader the opposite - "hateful" - side of absolute personal freedom, dooming its supporter to the position of some kind of abstract being, "not bound by anything" and "alien" for everyone. Having met Tatyana again in St. Petersburg, the hero will sincerely love her, because, already weighed down by his complete human isolation, he is looking for an understanding of a kindred soul. But the current Tatyana is no longer the same:
“How Tatyana has changed!”
She is now able to “calmly and freely” listen to the hero in love with her and read him a “sermon”, similar to the one that Onegin once, guarding her “freedom and peace”, uttered to her. Now she guards her peace, she is in that stage of life in which Onegin was when Tatyana confessed her love to him - she is surrounded by honor and admiration, calm, slightly bored by this brilliance, but not satiated with it, although she is already waking up in her yearning:
"Now I'm glad to give
all this rags of masquerade
[………………………….]
For a shelf of books, for a wild garden,
For our poor dwelling…”.
Ultimately, the heroes did not recognize each other again, which was their fault, but even more trouble. Indeed, in this particular case, the natural fate of modern man was reflected, whose relations both with society and with people like him are imbued with deep objective drama.
Not external barriers and forces, but first of all, such drama and attempts to resolve it, we will then feed on the action in such works as "A Hero of Our Time" and "Oblomov". However, it is precisely here, in the effective (as in Pushkin and Lermontov) and ineffective (as in Goncharov) attitude towards drama, that the tragedies of Oblomov, Pechorin and Onegin are unlike. Oblomov, unlike the other two, did not live. Not having outlived his youth to the end, but also not having reached full maturity, Oblomov smoothly passed into the phase of a person’s life in his declining years: he easily parted with a crowd of friends, secular entertainment and service, which brought only boredom and constant fear of superiors. The result of his development was expressed in the rejection of the unique signs of youth without replacing them with the acquisition of maturity: “He lazily waved his hand at all the youthful hopes that deceived him or deceived by him, all the tenderly sad, bright memories from which the heart beats in others even in old age.” This is how the leading motive of Oblomov's story is formed - extinction. Ilya Ilyich himself sees how hopelessly he has aged by the age of thirty (“I am a flabby, dilapidated, worn caftan”, but not because of labors or turbulent events and trials, but because of the unfulfilled development aspirations: “twelve years in me the light was locked, which was looking for a way out, but only burned its prison, did not break free and died out. " He himself compares his life with an empty flower: "the flower of life blossomed and did not bear fruit." Extinction-aging prematurely invaded all spheres of the hero's life , since none of them really captivated him: he remained an outsider, bored in the service, among friends, in entertainment, and finally in love relationships: “faded and ruined his strength with Mina, paid her more than half of his income and imagined that I ".
Unlike Oblomov, both Pechorin and Onegin tried to actively learn about life, looked for pleasure and an incentive for development in it, tried to try everything, take everything they could reach. But what's the bottom line? Pechorin himself admits: “In my first youth ... I began to enjoy all the pleasures furiously ... and, of course, these pleasures disgusted me ... I was also tired of society ... love only irritated my imagination and pride, and my heart remained empty ... science also became tired of me boring…"
This confession is reminiscent of what Pushkin said about Onegin:
He is in his first youth
Was a victim of violent delusions
And unbridled passions ... "
Like Pechorin, he threw himself into a whirlpool of various activities: entertainment in society, books, women. But the result is still the same:
“I set up a shelf with a detachment of books,
I read and read, but to no avail:
There is boredom, there is deceit or delirium;
That conscience, that makes no sense ...
…
Like women, he left books
And a shelf with their dusty family
Pulled with mourning taffeta.
Moreover, Pushkin quite harshly sums up a certain period of his hero's life:
“That's how he killed eight years,
Losing life's best color.
In these self-damaging confessions of our heroes, there is a sign of one common illness: Oblomov was “bored in the service, among friends, in entertainment, and finally in love relationships”, Pechorin, in the end, “became bored”, Onegin even reading books, found, that "there is boredom." So, boredom is what our heroes suffered from. They did not find consolation in any of the manifestations of life. But of all three, Pechorin sought more and more of everything, and most of all he remained inconsolable. He tried everything, both risk and love, however, he himself remained unhappy, and brought pain to others, moreover, realizing this: “I have an unhappy character,” he admits, “... if I am the cause of the misfortune of others, then I myself am no less unhappy". Of all three, it is Pechorin who is more active, he carries the features of his creator, and not just parallels of fate, like Pushkin and Onegin. Belinsky wrote about Lermontov: “People of our time demand too much from life. Let them not previously know the secret illness caused by the "demon of doubt", "the spirit of reflection, reflection"; but didn’t this mean that people, instead of falling into despair from terrible chains ... were getting used to and indifferently from the sphere of proud ideals, the fullness of feeling passed into a peaceful and respectable state of a vulgar life? People of our time look too directly at things, are too conscientious and accurate in the names of things, are too frank about themselves ... "(8, 8). And in this characterization of Lermontov, the features inherent in Pechorin are visible: frankness about himself, brought to cruelty, search and despair from the inability to “get rid of terrible chains”, but also hope, which, however, and he admits it, turned out to be in vain: “I hoped that boredom does not live under Circassian bullets is in vain: a month later I got so used to their buzzing and the proximity of death that ... I became more bored than before, because I had almost lost my last hope. Almost the last - after all, there was still hope for love, and not only for Pechorin. All of them: Pechorin, Onegin, Oblomov had hope for love as an opportunity for reconciliation not only with society, but also with themselves. Onegin, having fallen in love with Tatyana, rushes to her with all his heart, and how pompous and cold his sermon to Tatyana was in the village, his confession in St. Petersburg sounds so passionate and desperately bold:
“I know: my age is already measured;
But for my life to last
I have to be sure in the morning
That I will see you in the afternoon ... "
Having changed himself in his wanderings, he does not allow the possibility of change in Tatyana, therefore he persistently tries to get her attention, writes letters to her, but does not receive an answer. And here is the decisive moment of insight:
“... There is no hope! He is leaving,
He curses his madness -
And, deeply immersed in it,
He renounced the light again."
Here it is - a defeat, a collapsed hope. And it is even more painful to realize that once with his own hand he averted the possibility of happiness and salvation with love. However, we see that even unfulfilled, unrequited love changed the hero. Even the circle of his reading speaks volumes Gibbon, Rousseau, Herder, Fontenelle - philosophers, educators, scientists. This is the reading circle of the Decembrists, people striving for activity. We see the transformation of heroes: Onegin throws off the tinsel of light and pompous egoism, in his confession one can see a smart, subtle, wise man who knows how to be sincere, not to play. And the word "boredom" is no longer repeated in the novel. So, Onegin's hope for love, at least partially, but still came true?
For Pechorin, the denouement is more tragic: “I was mistaken again: the love of a savage is a little better than the love of a noble lady ... if you want, I still love her ... I will give my life for her - only I’m bored with her ...” What happens between him and Bela , frightens with its cold inevitability. He did not stop loving, but only loves calmer, colder. He realized, perhaps, that love is less than life, and cannot fill the void, since there is nothing to fill.
A person tired of life, perhaps, would find happiness with Bela until the end of his days. But Pechorin was tired not of life, but of its absence. He does not draw when he says: "... maybe I'll die somewhere on the road!" Life burdens him with such terrible force that death seems to be a deliverance, and, most importantly, he does not have that hope that a lonely person almost always has: hope for future joy. There is no joy for him.
Neither Onegin nor Pechorin can find solace in friendship. Onegin's friendship is only what is called it and is easily lost under the pressure of public opinion or the notion of false pride. From the prosaic formula of friendship (“There is nothing to do friends”), Pushkin moves on to the theme of selfishness and the focus of the hero on himself: “But there is no friendship even between us ...” This already anticipates the problems of the novel “A Hero of Our Time”. In Pechorin's life, truly friendly relations begin to take shape only with Vera and Dr. Werner. But even here there is no harmony. Based on the Christian worldview, we can say that in the life of Pechorin there is no revelation, there is no meeting with God. And the social loneliness of Pechorin (there is no friend and beloved) is a sign of another, more terrible loneliness - God-forsakenness. He feels it, and therefore his life is hopeless.
Oblomov is completely afraid of love, because it requires action. Having fallen in love with Olga, he suddenly sees a gap between his ideal (“Isn’t this the secret goal of everyone and everyone: to find in your friend an unchanging physiognomy of peace, an eternal and even flow of feeling”) and the sensations that Olga evokes in him, he feels himself “as before a disaster”, for some reason it “hurts, awkwardly”, love does not warm, but burns him. Unlike Pechorin, who did things with his will, trying to fill life with meaning, and Onegin, who, while going with the flow, still did not oppose certain actions, Oblomov runs away from any situations that require an act. And it is impossible in his mind to find happiness by activity, because he sees that the activity, or rather the appearance of the activity of others, does not bring them happiness. Oblomov sees the sickness of society in the “eternal running around, the eternal game of bad passions ... gossip, gossip, clicks to each other”, in his view, activity is reduced to “eternal running around in starts”, and therefore useless. His inaction is like a protest: “I don’t touch them, I’m not looking for anything, but I just don’t see a normal life in this.”
Unlike Pechorin and Onegin, Oblomov has his own ideals (“life is poetry”, “Everyone is looking for rest and peace”), and he is faithful to them. He is pleased not with events, but with certain signs of life: Olga's voice, her gaze, a lilac branch. In these signs is a celebration of life, and in what Olga encourages him to do - in the chores and cares of life, lies the disease of society, against which he protests with his inaction. In the conflict of external and internal, which is the content of their relationship, not only the hero’s inability to participate in real life is revealed, but also his loyalty to internal principles, as well as thrift, nobility, and the ability to sacrifice himself.
Just like Pechorin for Lermontov, and, to some extent, Onegin for Pushkin, Oblomov is in many ways Goncharov's second self: "I wrote my life and what I grow into it" (5, 279). By his own admission, he himself was a sybarite, he loved serene peace, giving birth to creativity.
Perhaps creative activity, the ability for creative self-realization is what distinguishes Goncharov from Oblomov, as well as other creators of "extra people" from the "extra people" themselves.

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6. Mann Yu. Russian Literature of the 19th century. – M.: Aspect Press, 2001.
7. Marantsman V. G. Roman A. S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". – M.: Enlightenment, 1983.
8. Mikhailova E. Lermontov's prose. - M.: State publishing house of fiction, 1957.
9. Nedzvetsky V. A. From Pushkin to Chekhov. - M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 1999.
10. Roman I. A, Goncharova "Oblomov" in Russian criticism: Sat. articles, - L .: Publishing House of Leningrad. un-ta, 1991.

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To some extent, this theme is opposite to the depiction of the "little man": if there is seen the justification of the fate of everyone, then here - on the contrary, the categorical impulse "one of us is superfluous", which can both relate to the assessment of the hero, and come from the hero himself , and usually these two "directions" not only do not exclude each other, but also characterize one person: the accuser of his neighbors himself turns out to be "superfluous".

"An extra person" is also a certain literary type. Literary types (types of heroes) are a collection of characters who are close in their occupation, worldview and spiritual appearance. The spread of this or that literary type may be dictated by the very need of society to depict people with some kind of stable set of qualities. The interest and benevolent attitude towards them on the part of critics, the success of books in which such people are depicted, stimulates writers to "repeat" or "variate" any literary types. Quite often, a new literary type arouses the interest of critics, who give it a name ("noble robber", "Turgenev's woman", "superfluous person", "little man", "nihilist", "tramp", "humiliated and insulted").

The main thematic signs of "superfluous people". This is, first of all, a person potentially capable of any social action. It does not accept the "rules of the game" proposed by society, and is characterized by disbelief in the possibility of changing anything. The "superfluous person" is a contradictory personality, often in conflict with society and its way of life. This is also a hero, of course, unsuccessful in relations with his parents, and unhappy in love. His position in society is unstable, contains contradictions: he is always at least somehow connected with the nobility, but - already in a period of decline, fame and fortune - rather a memory. He is placed in an environment that is somehow alien to him: a higher or lower environment, there is always a certain motive of alienation, which does not always immediately lie on the surface. The hero is moderately educated, but this education is rather incomplete, unsystematic; in a word, this is not a deep thinker, not a scientist, but a person with a "power of judgment" to make quick but immature conclusions. The crisis of religiosity is very important, often a struggle with churchness, but often internal emptiness, hidden uncertainty, habit to the name of God. Often - the gift of eloquence, skill in writing, keeping records or even writing poetry. There is always some pretension to be the judge of one's neighbors; a shade of hatred is required. In a word, the hero is a victim of the canons of life.

However, with all the seemingly apparent certainty and clarity of the above criteria for evaluating the "extra person", the framework that allows one to speak with absolute certainty about the belonging of a particular character to a given thematic line is very blurred. It follows from this that the "superfluous person" cannot be "superfluous" entirely, but it can be considered both in line with other topics, and merge with other characters belonging to other literary types. The material of the works does not allow assessing Onegin, Pechorin and others only from the point of view of their social "benefit", and the very type of "extra person" is rather the result of understanding the named characters from certain social and ideological positions.

This literary type, as it developed, acquired more and more new features and forms of display. This phenomenon is quite natural, since every writer saw the "superfluous person" as he was in his mind. All the masters of the artistic word who have ever touched on the topic of "extra man", not only added a certain "breath" of their era to this type, but also tried to combine all social phenomena contemporary to them, and most importantly the structure of life, in one image - the image of the hero of the time . All this makes the type of "superfluous person" universal in its own way. This is precisely what allows us to consider the images of Chatsky and Bazarov as heroes who had a direct impact on this type. These images, undoubtedly, do not belong to the type of "extra person", but at the same time they perform one important function: Griboedov's hero, in his confrontation with Famus's society, makes it impossible to peacefully resolve the conflict between an outstanding personality and an inert way of life, thereby pushing other writers to the coverage of this problem, and the image of Bazarov, completing (from my point of view) the type of "superfluous person", was no longer so much a "carrier" of time as its "side" phenomenon.

But before the hero himself could certify himself as a "superfluous person", a more hidden appearance of this type had to occur. The first signs of this type were embodied in the image of Chatsky, the protagonist of AS Griboedov's immortal comedy "Woe from Wit". "Griboyedov is a 'man of one book,'" VF Khodasevich once remarked. "If it weren't for Woe from Wit, Griboedov would have absolutely no place in Russian literature." And, indeed, although the history of dramaturgy speaks of Griboyedov as the author of several wonderful and funny comedies and vaudevilles in his own way, written in collaboration with the leading playwrights of those years (N.I. Khmelnitsky, A.A. Shakhovsky, P.A. Vyazemsky), but it was "Woe from Wit" that turned out to be a one-of-a-kind work. This comedy for the first time broadly and freely depicted modern life and thus opened a new, realistic era in Russian literature. The creative history of this play is exceptionally complex. Her idea dates back to 1818. It was completed in the autumn of 1824, the censorship did not allow this comedy to be printed or staged. Conservatives accused Griboedov of exaggerating satirical colors, which, in their opinion, was the result of the author's "squabbling patriotism", and in Chatsky they saw a clever "crazy man", the embodiment of "Figaro-Griboedov's" philosophy of life.

The above examples of critical interpretations of the play only confirm all the complexity and depth of its social and philosophical problems, indicated in the very title of the comedy: "Woe from Wit". The problems of mind and stupidity, insanity and insanity, tomfoolery and buffoonery, pretense and hypocrisy are posed and solved by Griboedov on a variety of everyday, social and psychological material. Essentially, all characters, including minor, episodic and off-stage ones, are drawn into the discussion of questions about attitudes towards the mind and various forms of stupidity and insanity. The main figure, around which all the variety of opinions about comedy immediately concentrated, was the smart "madman" Chatsky. The general assessment of the author's intention, problems and artistic features of the comedy depended on the interpretation of his character and behavior, relationships with other characters. The main feature of the comedy is the interaction of two plot-forming conflicts: a love conflict, the main participants of which are Chatsky and Sophia, and a socio-ideological conflict, in which Chatsky clashes with conservatives who have gathered in Famusov's house. I want to note that for the hero himself, not a socio-ideological, but a love conflict is of paramount importance. After all, Chatsky came to Moscow with the sole purpose of seeing Sophia, finding confirmation of his former love and, possibly, getting married. It is interesting to trace how the hero's love experiences exacerbate Chatsky's ideological opposition to the Famus society. At first, the protagonist does not even notice the usual vices of the environment where he got, but sees only the comic side in it: "I'm a weirdo to another miracle / Once I laugh, then I'll forget ...".

But Chatsky is not "an extra person." He is only the forerunner of "superfluous people". First of all, this is confirmed by the optimistic sound of the comedy finale, where Chatsky remains with the right of historical choice given to him by the author. Consequently, Griboedov's hero can find (in the future) his place in life. Chatsky could have been among those who went to Senate Square on December 14, 1825, and then his life would have been a foregone conclusion for 30 years ahead: those who took part in the uprising returned from exile only after the death of Nicholas I in 1856. But something else could have happened. An irresistible disgust for the "abominations" of Russian life would make Chatsky an eternal wanderer in a foreign land, a man without a homeland. And then - melancholy, despair, alienation, acrimony and, what is most terrible for such a hero-fighter - forced idleness and inactivity. But this is just the guesswork of the readers.

Chatsky, rejected by society, has the potential to find a use for himself. Onegin will no longer have such an opportunity. He is an "extra person" who has not been able to realize himself, who "deafly suffers from a striking resemblance to the children of the present century." But before answering why, let's turn to the work itself. The novel "Eugene Onegin" is a product of an amazing creative destiny. It was created for more than seven years - from May 1823 to September 1830. The novel was not written "in one breath", but was formed - from stanzas and chapters created at different times, in different circumstances, in different periods of creativity. The work was interrupted not only by the turns of Pushkin's fate (exile to Mikhailovskoye, the Decembrist uprising), but also by new ideas, for the sake of which he more than once abandoned the text of "Eugene Onegin". It seemed that history itself was not very favorable to Pushkin's work: from a novel about a contemporary and modern life, as Pushkin conceived "Eugene Onegin", after 1825 he became a novel about a completely different historical era. And, if we take into account the fragmentation and discontinuity of Pushkin's work, then we can say the following: the novel was for the writer something like a huge "notebook" or a poetic "album". Over the course of more than seven years, these records were replenished with sad "notes" of the heart, "observations" of a cold mind. superfluous person image literature

But "Eugene Onegin" is not only "a poetic album of live impressions of talent playing with its wealth", but also a "novel of life", which has absorbed a huge historical, literary, social and everyday material. This is the first innovation of this work. Secondly, it was fundamentally innovative that Pushkin, largely relying on the work of A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit", found a new type of problematic hero - the "hero of time". Eugene Onegin became such a hero. His fate, character, relationships with people are determined by the totality of the circumstances of modern reality, outstanding personal qualities and the range of "eternal", universal problems that he faces. It is necessary to make a reservation right away: Pushkin, in the process of working on the novel, set himself the task of demonstrating in the image of Onegin "that premature old age of the soul, which has become the main feature of the younger generation." And already in the first chapter, the writer notes the social factors that determined the character of the protagonist. The only thing in which Onegin "was a true genius," that "he knew more firmly than all sciences," as the Author remarks, not without irony, was "the science of tender passion," that is, the ability to love without loving, to imitate feelings, remaining cold and prudent. However, Pushkin is still interested in Onegin not as a representative of a common social type, the whole essence of which is exhausted by a positive description issued by secular rumors: "N.N. a wonderful person." It was important for the writer to show this image in motion, development, so that later each reader would draw the proper conclusions and give a fair assessment of this hero.

The first chapter is a turning point in the fate of the protagonist, who managed to abandon the stereotypes of secular behavior, from the noisy, but internally empty "ritual of life". Thus, Pushkin showed how a bright, outstanding personality suddenly appeared from a faceless, but demanding unconditional obedience crowd, capable of overthrowing the "burden" of secular conventions, "behind the hustle and bustle."

For writers who paid attention to the theme of the "extra person" in their work, it is typical to "test" their hero with friendship, love, a duel, death. Pushkin was no exception. The two tests that awaited Onegin in the countryside - the test of love and the test of friendship - showed that external freedom does not automatically entail liberation from false prejudices and opinions. In relations with Tatyana Onegin proved himself to be a noble and mentally subtle person. And you can’t blame the hero for not responding to Tatyana’s love: as you know, you can’t command the heart. Another thing is that Onegin listened not to the voice of his heart, but to the voice of reason. In confirmation of this, I will say that even in the first chapter, Pushkin noted in the main character a "sharp, chilled mind" and an inability to have strong feelings. And it was this spiritual disproportion that became the cause of the failed love of Onegin and Tatyana. Onegin also did not pass the test of friendship. And in this case, the cause of the tragedy was his inability to live a life of feeling. No wonder the author, commenting on the state of the hero before the duel, remarks: "He could show feelings, / And not bristle like a beast." Both at Tatyana's name day and before the duel with Lensky, Onegin showed himself to be a "ball of prejudice", "a hostage of secular canons", deaf to the voice of his own heart and to Lensky's feelings. His behavior at the name day is the usual "social anger", and the duel is a consequence of the indifference and fear of the evil-speaking of the inveterate bully Zaretsky and the landlord neighbors. Onegin himself did not notice how he became a prisoner of his old idol - "public opinion". After the murder of Lensky, Eugene changed dramatically. It is a pity that only tragedy could open to him a previously inaccessible world of feelings.

Thus, Eugene Onegin becomes "an extra person." Belonging to the light, he despises it. As Pisarev noted, the only thing left for him is "to give up on the boredom of secular life as a necessary evil." Onegin does not find his true purpose and place in life, he is burdened by his loneliness, lack of demand. In the words of Herzen, "Onegin ... is an extra person in the environment where he is, but, not possessing the necessary strength of character, he cannot escape from it in any way." But, according to the writer himself, the image of Onegin is not finished. After all, the novel in verse essentially ends with such a statement of the question: "What will Onegin be like in the future?" Pushkin himself leaves the character of his hero open, emphasizing by this the very ability of Onegin to a sharp change in value orientations and, I note, a certain readiness for action, for an act. True, Onegin has practically no opportunities for self-realization. But the novel does not answer the above question, it asks the reader.

So, the theme of the "superfluous person" comes to an end in a completely different capacity, having passed a difficult evolutionary path: from the romantic pathos of the rejection of life and society to the sharp rejection of the "superfluous person" itself. And the fact that this term can be applied to the heroes of the works of the 20th century does not change anything: the meaning of the term will be different and it will be possible to call it “superfluous” for completely different reasons. There will also be returns to this theme (for example, the image of the "superfluous person" Levushka Odoevtsev from A. Bitov's novel "Pushkin's House"), and proposals that there are no "extra" people, but only various variations of this theme. But the return is no longer a discovery: the 19th century discovered and exhausted the theme of the "superfluous man."

Bibliography:

1. Babaev E.G. Creativity of A.S. Pushkin. - M., 1988
2. Batyuto A.I. Turgenev the novelist. - L., 1972
3. Ilyin E.N. Russian literature: recommendations for schoolchildren and entrants, "SCHOOL-PRESS". M., 1994
4. Krasovsky V.E. History of Russian literature of the XIX century, "OLMA-PRESS". M., 2001
5. Literature. Reference materials. Book for students. M., 1990
6. Makogonenko G.P. Lermontov and Pushkin. M., 1987
7. Monakhova O.P. Russian literature of the 19th century, "OLMA-PRESS". M., 1999
8. Fomichev S.A. Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit": Commentary. - M., 1983
9. Shamrey L.V., Rusova N.Yu. From allegory to iambic. Terminological dictionary-thesaurus on literary criticism. - N.Novgorod, 1993

The image of a bored hero in the works of Russian
classics XIXV.

With all the variety of literary
types in the Russian classics of the 19th century, the image of a bored hero stands out clearly.
It is often associated with the image of an "extra person"

Besides Onegin, many critics XIX century and
some literary scholars of the twentieth century refer Pechorin, heroes
novels by I.S. Turgenev Rudin and Lavretsky, as well as Oblomov I.A. Goncharov.

The novel "Eugene Onegin" - a work of amazing creative destiny. It was created over seven
years - from May 1823 to September 1830.

"extra man" is socio-psychological type, captured in Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century; its main features: alienation from official Russia, from the native environment (usually noble), a sense of intellectual and moral superiority over it and at the same time - mental fatigue, deep skepticism, discord in word and deed. The name "Superfluous Man" came into general use after the "Diary of an Extra Man" (1850) by I.S. Turgenev, the type itself developed earlier: the first vivid incarnation is Onegin ("Eugene Onegin", 1823-31, A.S. Pushkin ), then Pechorin ("A Hero of Our Time", 1839-40, M.Yu. Lermontova), Beltov ("Who is to blame?", 1845 by A.I. Herzen), Turgenev's characters - Rudin ("Rudin", 1856), Lavretsky (“The Nest of Nobles”, 1859) and others. The features of the spiritual image of the “Superfluous Man” (sometimes in a complicated and modified form) can be traced in the literature of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. In Western European literature, the "Superfluous Man" is to a certain extent close to the hero, disappointed in social progress ("Adolf", 1816, B. Constant; "Son of the Century", 1836, A. de Musset). However, in Russia, the contradictions of the social situation, the contrast of civilization and slavery, the oppression of reaction pushed the "Extra Man" to a more prominent place, led to increased drama and intensity of his experiences.

At the turn of the 1850s and 60s, criticism (N.A. Dobrolyubov), attacking the liberal intelligentsia, sharpened the weaknesses of the “Extra Man” - half-heartedness, inability to actively interfere in life, however, the theme of “The Superfluous Man” was unduly reduced to the theme of liberalism , and its historical basis - to the nobility and "Oblomovism". The ratio of the typology of "Extra Man" as a cultural problem with a literary text was also not taken into account, in which - in the most difficult cases - the stability of the psychological complex of character turned out to be problematic: for example, Onegin's mental fatigue and indifference were replaced in the final chapter of Pushkin's novel by youthful passion and enthusiasm . In general, in a broader context of the literary movement, the type of "Superfluous Man", having arisen as a rethinking of the romantic hero, developed under the sign of a more versatile and mobile characterology. Essential in the theme of "The Superfluous Man" was the rejection of educational, moralizing attitudes in the name of the most complete and impartial analysis, reflection of the dialectics of life. It was also important to affirm the value of an individual person, personality, interest in the "history of the human soul" (Lermontov), which created the basis for a fruitful psychological analysis and prepared the future conquests of Russian realism and post-realist artistic movements.