The little man in literature is a gogol. Little man "in the works of N

A. Pushkin discovered a new dramatic character in the poor official, N.V. Gogol continued the development of this theme in St. Petersburg novels (Nevsky Prospekt, Notes of a Madman, Portrait, Overcoat). But he continued in a peculiar way, relying on his own life experience. Gogol himself for some time was this "little man." Arriving in St. Petersburg in 1829, Gogol learned from his own experience the position of a poor official, and the environment of young artists, and the experiences of a poor man who does not have money to buy a warm overcoat. And it was this experience that allowed Gogol to show Petersburg in all colors with its external gloss and internal squalor. That is why the theme of the “little man” sounded most vividly, fully and widely in the work of N. Gogol. And it will be true to say that it is from the work of N. Gogol that the image of the “little man” begins its march through the pages of the works of Russian classics of the 19th century.

It is no coincidence that the cycle of stories in the work of N. Gogol is called "Petersburg". The image of the "little man" is a product of the big city. If A. Pushkin discovered in a poor official a new dramatic character of a rebel and accuser, then N. Gogol continued and deepened the same theme in St. Petersburg stories. At the beginning of the 19th century, St. Petersburg was one of the most beautiful and richest European cities. But upon closer and more careful examination, the duality of the Russian capital was noticeable. On the one hand, it was a city of luxurious palaces, parks, bridges, fountains, architectural monuments and structures that any European capital would envy. On the other hand, it was a city of deaf and eternally dark courtyards, miserable damp shacks, where poor officials, artisans and impoverished artists lived.

Petersburg struck N. Gogol with pictures of deep social contradictions, tragic social catastrophes. According to Gogol, Petersburg is a city where human relations are distorted, vulgarity triumphs, and talents perish. It is in this terrible, crazy city that amazing incidents occur with the official Poprishchin. With contempt and disdain, those around him treat the petty official Poprishchin. After all, he "does not have a penny for his soul," and therefore he is "zero, nothing more." Poprishchin's job is to mend feathers for the director of the department on a daily basis. The charm of the luxurious life of the nobility delights and overwhelms the petty official. But in the general's house he is treated like an inanimate object. And this causes a protest in Poprishchin's mind. He dreams of becoming a general "only to see how they will get along ..." But tragedy triumphs here too - Poprishchin goes crazy.

The heroes of N. Gogol go crazy or die in an unequal struggle with the cruel conditions of reality [ Lauri, 2009, p.36].

Having read the stories of N. Gogol, we remember for a long time how an unlucky official in a cap of indefinite shape and in a blue fleece overcoat, with an old collar, stopped in front of the window to look through the whole windows of shops, shining with wonderful lights and magnificent gilding. For a long time, with envy, the official intently examined various objects and, having come to his senses, continued on his way with deep anguish and steadfast firmness. N. Gogol opens the world of "little people", the world of officials in his "Petersburg Tales" to the reader.

The theme of the "little man" is the most important in N. Gogol's St. Petersburg stories. If in "Taras Bulba" the writer embodied the images of folk heroes taken from the historical past, then in the stories "Arabesques", "The Overcoat", referring to the present, he painted the destitute and humiliated, those who belong to the social lower classes. With great artistic truth, N. Gogol reflected the thoughts, experiences, sorrows and sufferings of the “little man”, his unequal position in society. The tragedy of the deprivation of “little” people, the tragedy of their doom to a life filled with anxieties and disasters, constant humiliation of human dignity, is especially prominent in the St. Petersburg stories. All this finds its impressive expression in the life story of Poprishchin and Bashmachkin. [Takiullina, 2005, p.129].

If in "Nevsky Prospekt" the fate of the "little man" is depicted in comparison with the fate of another, "successful" hero, then in "Notes of a Madman" an internal collision is revealed in terms of the hero's attitude to the aristocratic environment and, at the same time, in terms of the clash of cruel life truth with illusions and misconceptions about reality.

The story "The Overcoat" is central in the cycle of "Petersburg Tales". The main idea of ​​the "Overcoat" is very sublime. We can say with confidence that this small work, in terms of the depth of the idea, stands above everything written by Gogol. In "The Overcoat" he does not expose anyone. Gogol speaks here with an evangelical sermon of love for one's neighbors; in the image of a hero, he draws a “poor in spirit”, a “small” person, “insignificant”, inconspicuous and claims that this creature is worthy of both human love and even respect. It was difficult to come up with such a "daring" idea at a time when the average audience was still under the influence of spectacular characters. Marlinsky and his imitators, and all the more honor to Gogol that he decided to say his word in defense of the hero "humiliated and insulted", not even being afraid to put him on a pedestal.

"Petersburg Tales" differ in character from the previous works of N. Gogol. Before us is bureaucratic Petersburg, This is the capital - the main and high-society, huge city. Business, commercial and labor city. And the "universal communication" of St. Petersburg - the brilliant Nevsky Prospekt, on the sidewalk of which everything that lives in St. Petersburg leaves its traces; "takes out on him the power of strength or the power of weakness." And before the reader flashes, as in a kaleidoscope, a motley mixture of clothes and faces, in his imagination there is a terrible picture of the restless, intense life of the capital. The bureaucracy of that time helped to write this accurate portrait of the capital.

The delays of the bureaucracy were so obvious (the problem of "higher" and "lower") that it was impossible not to write about it. But even more surprising is the ability of N. Gogol himself to reveal with such depth the essence of the social contradictions of the life of a huge city in a brief description of only one street - Nevsky Prospekt. In the story "The Overcoat" N. Gogol addresses the hated world of officials, and his satire becomes harsh and merciless. This short story made a huge impression on the readers. N. Gogol, following other writers, came to the defense of the "little man" - an intimidated, powerless, miserable official. He expressed the most sincere, warmest and most sincere sympathy for the destitute person in the beautiful lines of the final argument about the fate and death of one of the many victims of heartlessness and arbitrariness [ Nightingale, 2011, p.6].

The victim of such arbitrariness, a typical representative of a petty official in the story, is Akaky Akakievich. Everything about him was ordinary: both his appearance and his inner spiritual humiliation. N. Gogol truthfully portrayed his hero as a victim of unfair activities. In The Overcoat, the tragic and the comic complement each other. The author sympathizes with his hero, and at the same time sees his mental limitations and laughs at him. For the entire time of his stay in the department, Akaki Akakievich did not advance at all through the ranks. N. Gogol shows how limited and miserable was the world in which Akaky Akakievich existed, content with squalid housing, dinner, a worn uniform and an overcoat that was worn out by old age. N. Gogol laughs, but he laughs not just at Akaky Akakievich, he laughs at the whole society.

But Akaky Akakievich had his own "poetry of life", which had the same humiliated character as his whole life. In copying papers, he saw some kind of his own diverse and "pleasant" world. In Akaky Akakievich, the human principle was nevertheless preserved. The people around him did not accept his timidity and humility and mocked him in every possible way, poured pieces of paper on his head. The life story of Akaky Akakievich is a new streak in his life. A new overcoat is a symbol of new life. The apogee of Akaky Akakievich's work is his first visit to the department in a new overcoat and attending a party at the clerk's. The hard work of Akaky Akakievich was crowned with success, he at least somehow proved to people that he had conceit. On this, it seemed, the pinnacle of well-being, disaster befell him. Two robbers take off his overcoat. Despair causes Akaky Akakievich to protest impotently. Seeking reception from the "most private" and addressing the "significant person", Akaky Akakievich "once in his life" wanted to show his character. N. Gogol sees the failure of his hero's capabilities, but he gives him the opportunity to resist. But Akaki is powerless in the face of a soulless bureaucratic machine and, in the end, dies as quietly as he lived. The writer does not end the story here. He shows us the ending: the dead Akaki Akakievich, who was meek and humble during his lifetime, now appears as a ghost.

A famous episode in the play "The Overcoat" is the choice of a name. Here is not just bad luck with the names in the calendar, but precisely a picture of nonsense (since a name is a person): he could be Mokkiy (translation: “mockery”), and Sossius (“big man”), and Khozdazat, and Trifiliy, and Varakhasiy, and repeated the name of his father: “the father was Akaki, so let the son be Akaki (“doing no evil”), this phrase can be read as a sentence of fate: the father was a “little man”, let the son be also a “little man”. Actually, life, devoid of meaning and joy, is only dying for the “little man”, and out of modesty he is ready to complete his career immediately, as soon as he was born [ Nightingale, 2011, p.7].

Bashmachkin is dead. But the story of the poor official does not end there. We learn that Akaky Akakievich, who was dying in a fever, in his delirium scolded “His Excellency” so much that the old housewife, who was sitting at the bedside of the patient, became frightened. Thus, just before his death, anger woke up in the soul of the downtrodden Bashmachkin against the people who killed him.

N. Gogol tells us at the end of his story that in the world in which Akaky Akakievich lived, the hero as a person, as a person challenging the whole society, can only live after death. The Overcoat tells about the most ordinary and insignificant person, about the most ordinary events in his life. The story had a great influence on the direction of Russian literature, the theme of the "little man" became one of the most important for many years.

"The Overcoat" by N. Gogol occupies a special place in the cycle of "Petersburg Tales" by the author. Popular in the 1930s, the plot about an unfortunate official, downtrodden with need, was embodied by N.V. Gogol into a work of art, which A.I. Herzen called "colossal" [ Guminsky, 2012, p.8].

"The Overcoat" by N. Gogol became a kind of school for Russian writers. Having shown the humiliation of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, his inability to resist brute force, N.V. Gogol, at the same time, protested against injustice and inhumanity by the behavior of his hero. It's a rebellion on its knees.

The story "The Overcoat" first appeared in 1842 in the 3rd volume of N. Gogol's works. Its theme is the situation of the “little man”, and the idea is spiritual suppression, grinding, depersonalization, robbery of the human person in an antagonistic society, as A.I. Revyakin [ Revyakin, 1977, p.396].

The story "The Overcoat" continues the theme of the "little man", outlined in "The Bronze Horseman" and "The Stationmaster" by A. Pushkin. But in comparison with A. Pushkin, N. Gogol strengthens and expands the social sounding of this topic. The motif of the isolation and defenselessness of a person in The Overcoat, which has long worried N. Gogol, sounds on some highest - aching note.

In N. Gogol's story "The Overcoat" the idea of ​​a compassionate humane attitude towards the "little man" is directly expressed. » [Nabati, 2011, p.102].

The main character of this story, Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, works as a titular adviser in some institution. The senseless clerical service killed every living thought in Bashmachkin, and he found the only pleasure only in rewriting papers: “He lovingly wrote letters in even handwriting and completely immersed himself in work, forgetting the insults caused to him by his colleagues, and poverty, and worries about daily bread. Even at home, he only thought that “God will send something to rewrite tomorrow” [ Gogol, 2012, p.24].

But even in this downtrodden official, a man woke up when a new, worthy goal appeared for the continuation of his life. This new goal and joy for Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin was a new overcoat: “He even became somehow more alive, even firmer in character. Doubt, indecision disappeared by itself from his face and from his actions ... "[ There. - S.28]. Bashmachkin does not part with his dream for a single day. He thinks about it, as another person thinks about love, about family. So he orders himself a new overcoat, and as Gogol himself says in the story "... his existence has become somehow fuller" [ There. - S.32].

The description of the life of Akaky Akakievich is permeated with irony, but there is both pity and sadness in it.

Introducing the reader into the spiritual world of the hero, describing his feelings, thoughts, dreams, joys and sorrows, the author makes it clear what happiness it was for Bashmachkin to achieve and acquire an overcoat, what a disaster its loss turns into.

There was no happier person than Akaky Akakievich in the world when they brought him an overcoat. This overcoat played the role of a savior angel, who brought happiness to Bashmachkin. Already after he bought a new overcoat, he became a completely new happy person, the new overcoat gave meaning and purpose to his life.

But his joy was very short and short-lived. When he returned home at night, he was robbed, and none of the surrounding people takes part in the fate of the unfortunate official Bashmachkin. He will once again become unhappy and lose the joys of his life. In vain he seeks help from a "significant person." But nothing came of this, and they even accused him of rebellion against the bosses and the "higher".

After these tragic events, Akaki Akakievich falls ill and dies of sadness.

At the end of this story, "a small and timid man", brought to disappointment by the world of the strong, protests against this merciless world. According to N. Gogol, the humiliation and insult of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin has two reasons: firstly, he himself is to blame, because he does not know the value of his life and does not even consider himself a man, and only an overcoat turns him into a man, and only after buying an overcoat begins a new life for him; secondly, according to N. Gogol, "strong" and "significant persons" do not allow small people to grow up in society and violate their natural rights.

The world of such "small" people as Akaky Akakievich is very limited. The goal and joy of such people lies in only one object, without which they cannot continue life, they cannot think at all from many sides. Apparently, the author of The Overcoat believes that every person should have a goal to which he will strive, and if the goal of life is very small and insignificant, then the person himself becomes just as “small” and insignificant: in Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin the purpose and joy of life was in a new overcoat. When he lost the purpose of his life, Nabati Sh. died. Gogol and in the story "The Cow" [Saedi, 2011, p.105].

Thus, the theme of the “little man” - the victim of the social system, was brought up by N.V. Gogol to its logical end. “A creature disappeared and disappeared, protected by no one, dear to no one, not interesting to anyone” [Ibid. - p.106] However, in his dying delirium, the hero experiences another "enlightenment", utters "the most terrible words" never heard from him before, after the words "your excellency." The deceased Bashmachkin turns into an avenger and rips off his overcoat from the most "significant person". N. Gogol resorts to fantasy, but it is emphatically conditional, it is designed to reveal the protesting, rebellious principle lurking in a timid and intimidated hero, a representative of the "lower class" of society. The "rebelliousness" of the ending of "The Overcoat" is somewhat softened by the image of the moral correction of a "significant person" after a collision with a dead man.

Gogol's solution to the social conflict in The Overcoat is given with that critical ruthlessness that is the essence of the ideological and emotional pathos of Russian classical realism.

The image of the “little man” in N. Gogol’s story “The Overcoat”, in particular, and in all his work in general, allows the writer to focus on the “little people” living next to us: insecure, lonely, deprived of protection and support, in need of sympathy. This is a kind of criticism of the social order.

Of the great Russian writers, following Pushkin, Gogol turned to the theme of the little man. In his works, the social motif of opposing a small person with a soul, those in power, intensified. His little man is also par excellence a petty official, whose consciousness is downtrodden and humiliated. Gogol deliberately makes his Akaky Akakievich (the story "The Overcoat") even more downtrodden than it really could be, his range of interests is extremely miserable and meager, and life's aspirations do not extend beyond buying a new overcoat. At first, this hero appears even in a comic light, but very soon this touch of comedy is completely removed, giving way to tragedy. Gogol with great power made it felt that in the life of a small person there is the presence of the soul, the divine principle, which is not seen by indifferent people around. It would seem that an insignificant circumstance - the theft of a new overcoat - becomes a real life tragedy for a small person, and Gogol's skill is that he makes the reader experience this tragedy as his own. In the development of the plot of the story, the conflict between Akaky Akakievich and the “significant person”, not even named by name, to whom he goes for help and who arrogantly refuses this help, is of great importance - of course, because the “significant person” is completely indifferent and incomprehensible to suffering a petty official, and I don’t want to bother myself once again. Gogol makes it so that in fact it is the “significant person”, and not the unknown thieves of the overcoat, that becomes the direct cause of the death of Akaky Akakievich. The theme of bureaucratic indifference to a person, the perversion of genuine human relations in a bureaucratic environment is one of the most important in The Overcoat. And in contrast to this indifference, the theme of conscience and shame sounds loudly in the story, which should guide a person in communication with his neighbor, regardless of rank, or external unpretentiousness, and even the comicality of some individual person. One of the lyrical climaxes of the story is the case of a young official who, following the example of others, began to mock Akaky Akakievich and heard in response only the helpless “Why are you offending me?”. This simple phrase had an amazing effect on the young official: “he suddenly stopped, as if pierced, and since then everything seemed to have changed before him and appeared in a different form. Some unnatural force pushed him away from the comrades he met, mistaking them for decent, secular people. And for a long time afterwards, in the midst of the most merry moments, he imagined a short official with a bald spot on his forehead, with his penetrating words: “Leave me, why do you offend me?” - and in these penetrating words other words rang: "I am your brother."

Gogol's humanistic thought was expressed quite clearly in this episode. In general, it must be said that in interpreting the theme of the little man, Gogol, as it were, leaves for a while his gift of laughter, showing that laughing at a person, even the most insignificant one, is sinful and blasphemous, you should not laugh, but see your brother in him, pity , to be imbued with that invisible tragedy that appears on the surface at first as a reason for laughter, as an anecdote. Such is his interpretation of the little man in the story "Notes of a Madman". The story begins with extremely funny statements by a mad official who imagines himself to be the Spanish king, and at first this is very funny and absurd. But the end of the story is completely different - tragic.

The theme of the little man was also reflected in Dead Souls. The largest and most significant inserted plot is devoted to this topic - the so-called "The Tale of Captain Kopeikin". Here we meet with the same motives of Gogol, with the initially comical figure of Captain Kopeikin, who, however, is placed in tragic circumstances by nothing more than bureaucratic indifference. At the same time, Gogol’s understanding of official relations here goes deeper: he no longer shows “excellence” as a stupid and heartless person, on the contrary, he would like to help Kopeikin and sympathize with him, but the general order of things is such that nothing can be done nevertheless. The thing is that the state bureaucratic machine does not care about a living concrete person at all, it is busy with larger-scale affairs. Here, Gogol's beloved idea that a dead bureaucratic form suppresses living life resounds with particular force.

It is noteworthy that Gogol, unlike his predecessors, is trying to show the awakening of the self-consciousness of a small person. True, this awakening is still timid, occurs against the conscious will of the hero and often takes on fantastic, grotesque forms. In madness and megalomania, it is expressed in the Notes of a Madman, in death delirium - in Akaky Akakievich. But after all, it is not by chance that the same Akaky Akakievich, after death, was given the ability to live and take revenge on his tormentors, tearing off their overcoats; it is no coincidence that captain Kopeikin goes to the robbers. All this shows that even the most meek and unresponsive little person can be brought to the point where the courage of despair rises in him. This process of awakening self-consciousness in a small person, captured by Gogol at the very first, initial stage, is very important for the further development of this theme in Russian literature.

"Little man" - a type of literary hero, usually a petty official, who becomes a victim of the arbitrariness of the authorities or cruel life circumstances. Tsarist injustice and cruel times forced the “little people” to withdraw into themselves, to become isolated, becoming the subject of ridicule of more successful colleagues, they lived unnoticed and died unnoticed, and sometimes went crazy. But it was precisely such heroes who, having experienced a strong shock, began to appeal for justice and even fight against the powers that be.

The first were the heroes of A.S. Pushkin: Eugene from the poem "The Bronze Horseman" and Samson Vyrin from the story. But it is precisely the heroes of Gogol's works, especially his "Petersburg Tales", that are rightfully considered the embodiment of this type. F. M. Dostoevsky will later say: “We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat, bearing in mind that Russian writers, including Dostoevsky himself, will constantly turn to this topic, and Gogol's heroes will become role models.