Stages of Gregory's life. Typical and individual

Grigory Melekhova most fully reflected the drama of the fate of the Don Cossacks. Such cruel trials fell to his lot that a person, it would seem, is not able to endure. First, the First World War, then the revolution and the fratricidal civil war, an attempt to destroy the Cossacks, an uprising and its suppression.
In the difficult fate of Grigory Melekhov, Cossack liberty and the fate of the people merged together. The steep disposition inherited from his father, adherence to principles and rebelliousness do not give him peace from his youth. Having fallen in love with Aksinya, a married woman, he leaves with her, disdaining public morality and the prohibitions of his father. By nature, the hero is a kind, brave and courageous person who stands up for justice. The author shows his hard work in scenes of hunting, fishing, haymaking. Throughout the novel, in severe battles on one or the other side of the belligerents, he seeks the truth.
The First World War destroys his illusions. Proud of their Cossack army, of its glorious victories, in Voronezh, the Cossacks hear from a local old man a phrase thrown after them with pity: "My dear ... beef!" The elderly man knew that there was nothing more terrible than war, this was not an adventure on which one could become a hero, it was filth, blood, stench and horror. Good arrogance flies from Gregory when he sees how his Cossack friends are dying: “The cornet Lyakhovsky was the first to fall from his horse. Prokhor galloped at him ... With a chisel, like a diamond on glass, she carved the memory of Grigory and kept for a long time the pink gums of Prokhorov's horse with bared teeth, Prokhor, who fell flat, trampled by the hooves of a Cossack galloping behind ... More fell. Cossacks fell and horses. "
In parallel, the author shows the events in the homeland of the Cossacks, where their families remained. “And no matter how much simple-haired Cossack women run out into the alleys and look out from under the palms, they will not wait for the dear ones! No matter how many tears flow from swollen and faded eyes - not to wash away the melancholy! No matter how many voices in the days of the anniversary and commemoration, the east wind will not carry their screams to Galicia and East Prussia, to the settled hills of mass graves! "
War is presented to the writer and his heroes as a series of hardships and deaths that change all foundations. War maims from the inside and destroys all the most precious that people have. It makes the heroes look at the problems of duty and justice in a new way, seek the truth and not find it in any of the warring camps. Once with the Reds, Gregory sees everything the same as that of the Whites, cruelty, intransigence, thirst for the blood of enemies. War destroys the well-ordered life of families, peaceful labor, takes away the last, kills love. Grigory and Pyotr Melekhovs, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy and other heroes of Sholokhov do not understand why the fratricidal war is being fought. For whom and why should they die in their prime? After all, life on the farm gives them a lot of joy, beauty, hope, opportunities. War is only hardship and death. But they see that the burdens of war fall primarily on the shoulders of the civilian population, ordinary people, to starve and die - to them, and not to the commanders.
There are also characters in the work who think in a completely different way. Heroes Shtokman and Bunchuk see the country exclusively as an arena of class battles. For them, people are tin soldiers in someone else's game, and pity for a person is a crime.
The fate of Grigory Melekhov is a life incinerated by war. The personal relationships of the heroes take place against the backdrop of the tragic history of the country. Gregory cannot forget the first enemy, the Austrian soldier, whom he hacked to death with a saber. The moment of the murder changed him beyond recognition. The hero has lost a foothold, his kind, fair soul protests, cannot survive such violence against common sense. The skull of an Austrian, cut in two, becomes an obsession for Gregory. But the war goes on, and Melekhov continues to kill. He is not the only one who thinks about the terrible reverse side of military duty. He hears the words of his own Cossack: “It is easier to kill a man by another, which hand in this matter has broken, than to crush a louse. The man for the revolution has fallen in price ”. A stray bullet, which kills the very soul of Gregory - Aksinya, is perceived as a sentence to all participants in the massacre. The war is actually being waged against all living things, it is not for nothing that Gregory, having buried Aksinya in a ravine, sees a black sky and a dazzling black disk of the sun above him.
Melekhov rushes between the two warring parties. Everywhere he comes across violence and cruelty, which he cannot accept, therefore he cannot take one side. When his mother reproaches him for taking part in the execution of the captive sailors, he himself admits that he became cruel in the war: “I don’t regret the children either.”
Realizing that war is killing the best people of its time and that the truth cannot be found among thousands of deaths, Gregory throws down his weapons and returns to his native farm to work on his native land, raise children. At almost 30 years old, the hero is almost an old man.

> Compositions based on The Quiet Don

The path of searches of Grigory Melikhov

The epic novel by MA Sholokhov "Quiet Don" (1928-1940) is a work about the life of the Don Cossacks during the Civil War. The main character of the novel, Grigory Melekhov, is a worthy son of his father, a loving and just person, a seeker of truth. The personal development of Gregory against the background of changing, often hostile events in the world is the main problem of the novel. The author masterfully depicts the stages of the formation and development of the character of the hero, his exploits and disappointments, and most importantly, the search for a life path.

The image of Grigory Melekhov is complex and contradictory. He combined family and household, socio-historical and love lines. He cannot be viewed in isolation from other characters. He is in close unity with his parents, his family and other Cossacks. The "millstones" of the war did not spare Gregory. They walked on his soul, crippling it and leaving traces of blood. On the battlefields, he matured, received many awards, supported the Cossack honor, but at what cost. The kind and humane Gregory hardened, his character hardened, and he became different. If after the first murder he could not sleep at night, tormented by his conscience, then over time he learned to mercilessly kill the enemy and even developed the technique of a fatal blow. However, until the last chapter, he remained a loving, open and fair person.

In search of the truth, Grigory rushed from one camp to another, from “red” to “white”. As a result, he became a renegade. He even envied those who firmly believed in one truth and fought for only one idea. The hero experienced moral vacillations not only at the front, but also at home. On the one hand, a devoted and loving Natalya was waiting for him, and on the other hand, he loved Aksinya, the wife of Stepan Astakhov, all his life. This ambiguous position in various social spheres indicates that Gregory is a doubting nature. He always lived "between two fires." The author himself sympathizes with his hero - a man who lived in a time of trouble, when all moral guidelines were shifted.

Still not understanding what the "truth" is and why this senseless war was needed, having lost almost all his relatives and friends, at the end of the novel Grigory returned to his native land. The only person who related him to the land and this vast world was his son Mishatka. According to the author, this is exactly how the life of a Cossack could be: the son returned to his mother, that is, the Cossack land. Perhaps this was the "truth" that Gregory had been looking for for so long.

Quiet Don is a work that shows the life of the Don Cossacks in one of the most difficult historical periods in Russia. The realities of the first third of the twentieth century, which turned the whole usual way of life, like caterpillars, drove through the destinies of ordinary people. Through the life of Grigory Melekhov in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don", Sholokhov reveals the main idea of ​​the work, which is to depict the collision of a personality and historical events beyond his control, his wounded fate.

The struggle between duty and feelings

At the beginning of the work, the main character is shown as a hardworking guy with a hot temper, which he inherited from his ancestors. Cossack and even Turkish blood flowed in him. Eastern roots endowed Grishka with a bright appearance, capable of turning the head of more than one Don beauty, and Cossack stubbornness, in places bordering on stubbornness, ensured the firmness and steadfastness of his character.

On the one hand, he shows respect and love for his parents, on the other hand, he does not listen to their opinion. The first conflict between Gregory and his parents happens because of his love affair with his married neighbor Aksinya. To end the sinful relationship between Aksinya and Gregory, his parents decide to marry him. But their choice in the role of sweet and meek Natalia Korshunova did not solve the problem, but only exacerbated it. Despite the official marriage, love for his wife did not appear, and for Aksinya, who, tormented by jealousy, increasingly sought a meeting with him, only flared up.

The blackmail of his father with his house and property forced the hot and impulsive Gregory in his hearts to leave the farm, his wife, relatives and leave with Aksinya. Because of his deed, the proud and unyielding Cossack, whose family from time immemorial has worked their own land and grew their own bread, had to go to the mercenaries, which made Gregory ashamed and disgusting. But now he had to answer both for Aksinya, who abandoned her husband because of him, and for the child she carried.

War and betrayal of Aksinya

A new misfortune was not long in coming: the war began, and Gregory, who had sworn allegiance to the sovereign, was forced to leave both the old and the new family and go to the front. In his absence, Aksinya remained in the master's house. The death of her daughter and news from the front about the death of Gregory crippled the woman's strength, and she was forced to succumb to the onslaught of the centurion Listnitsky.

Coming from the front and learning about Aksinya's betrayal, Gregory returns to his family again. For a period of time, his wife, relatives and twins who soon appeared please him. But the time of troubles on the Don, associated with the Revolution, did not allow enjoying family happiness.

Ideological and personal doubts

In the novel "Quiet Flows the Don", the path of Grigory Melekhov is full of quests, doubts and contradictions, both politically and in love. He was constantly rushing about, not knowing where the truth was: “Everyone has their own truth, their own furrow. For a piece of bread, for a plot of land, for the right to life, people have always fought. We must fight with those who want to take away life, the right to it ... ”. He decided to lead the Cossack division and repair the supports for the advancing Reds. However, the further the Civil War continued, the more Gregory doubted the correctness of his choice, he understood more clearly that the Cossacks were waging a war with windmills. The interests of the Cossacks and their native land were of no interest to anyone.

The same model of behavior is typical in the personal life of the protagonist of the work. Over time, he forgives Aksinya, realizing that he cannot live without her love and takes with him to the front. Then he sends her home, where she is forced to return to her husband once again. Arriving on leave, he looks at Natalia with different eyes, appreciating her devotion and loyalty. He was drawn to his wife, and this closeness culminated in the conception of a third child.

But again the passion for Aksinya prevailed over him. His latest betrayal led to the death of his wife. Gregory drowns remorse and the impossibility of confronting feelings in the war, becoming cruel and merciless: “I was so smeared with someone else's blood that I already had no one left to reap. Little kids - and I hardly regret this one, but I don’t even have a thought about myself. The war took everything out of me. I myself have become terrible. Look into my soul, and there is blackness, as in an empty well ... ".

A stranger among his own

The loss of loved ones and the retreat sobered Gregory, he understands: you need to be able to preserve what he has left. He takes Aksinya with him to retreat, but because of typhoid he is forced to leave her.

He again begins to search for the truth and finds himself in the Red Army, taking command of the cavalry squadron. However, even participating in hostilities on the side of the Soviets will not wash away Gregory's past, tarnished by the white movement. He is in danger of being shot, about which his sister Dunya warned him. Taking Aksinya, he makes an attempt to escape, during which his beloved woman is killed. Having fought for his land and on the side of the Cossacks and the Reds, he remained a stranger among his own.

The path of Grigory Melekhov's quest in the novel is the fate of an ordinary person who loved his land, but lost everything that he had and appreciated, protecting it for the life of the next generation, which in the finale is personified by his son Mishatka.

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Sections: Literature

Lesson plan.

1. The history of the Melekhov family. Already in the history of the family, the character of Gregory is laid.
2. The portrait characterization of Gregory in comparison with his brother Peter (it was Grigory, not Peter, who was the successor of the “Turks” family - the Melekhovs.)
3. Attitude towards work (house, the Listnitskys' Yagodnoye estate, longing for the land, eight returns home: an ever-increasing craving for home, thrift.
4. The image of Gregory in the war as the embodiment of the author's concept of war (duty, compulsion, senseless cruelty, destruction). Gregory never fought with his Cossacks, Melekhov's participation in an internecine fratricidal war is never described.
5. Typical and individual in the image of Gregory. (why does Melekhov return home without waiting for the amnesty?)
6. Points of view of writers and critics on the image of Grigory Melekhov

I

In the criticism, disputes about the essence of the tragedy of Grigory Melekhov are still ongoing.

At first there was an opinion that this is the tragedy of a renegade.

He, they say, went against the people and therefore lost all human features, became a lone wolf, a beast.

Refutation: the renegade does not evoke sympathy, and they cried over the fate of Melekhov. And Melekhov did not become a beast, did not lose the ability to feel, suffer, did not lose the desire to live.

Others attributed Melekhov's tragedy to delusion.

Here it was true that Gregory, according to this theory, bore the features of the Russian national character, of the Russian peasantry. It was further said that he was half proprietor, half toiler. / Lenin's quote about the peasant (article about L. Tolstoy))

So Gregory hesitated, but in the end he got lost. Therefore, he must be condemned and pitied.

But! Gregory is confused not because he is the owner, but because in each of the belligerent parties does not find absolute moral truth, to which he aspires with the maximalism inherent in the Russian people.

1) From the first pages, Gregory is depicted in everyday creative peasant life:

• Fishing
• With a horse at the watering hole
• In love,
• Scenes of peasant labor

C: “His feet confidently trampled the ground”

Melekhov is merged with the world, is a part of it.

But in Gregory, the personal principle, Russian moral maximalism, with its desire to get to the bottom of the matter, not stopping halfway, is unusually vividly manifested, not to put up with any violations of the natural course of life.

2) He is sincere and honest in his thoughts and actions.(This is especially pronounced in relations with Natasha and Aksinya:

• The last meeting of Gregory with Natalia (part VII, chapter 7)
• Death of Natalia and related experiences (Part VII, Ch. 16-18)
• Death of Aksinya (part VIII chapter 17)

3) Gregory is distinguished by an acute emotional reaction to everything that happens, him responsive on the impressions of life heart... It has developed feeling of pity, compassion, this can be judged by the following lines:

• During the haymaking, Grigory accidentally cut ********* (part I Ch. 9)
• Episode with Franya, part 2, chapter 11
• Fuss with the murdered Austrian (part 3 of chapter 10)
• Reaction to the news of the execution of Kotlyarov (part VI)

4) Staying always honest, morally independent and straightforward in character, Gregory showed himself as a person capable of an act.

• Fight with Stepan Astakhov over Aksinya (part I, chapter 12)
• Leaving with Aksinya to Yagodnoye (part 2, chapter 11-12)
• Clash with the sergeant (part 3 of chapter 11)
• Break with Podtyolkov (part 3, chapter 12)
• Clash with General Fitzkhalaurav (Part VII, Chapter 10)
• The decision, without waiting for the amnesty, to return to the farm (part VIII, chapter 18).

5) Captivates sincerity of his motives- He never lied to himself, in his doubts and throwing. We are convinced of this by his inner monologues (Part VI, Ch. 21, 28)

Gregory is the only character to whom given the right to monologues- “thoughts” that reveal his spiritual origin.

6) It is impossible to "obey dogmatic rules" forced Gregory to abandon the economy, land, go with Aksinya to the estate of the Listnitsky koshokh.

There, Sholokhov shows , social life has disrupted the course of natural life. There, for the first time, the hero got off the ground, from the origins.

“An easy, well-fed life,” he spoiled. He was lazy, put on weight, looked older than his years. "

7) But too strong in Gregory folk origin so as not to persist in his soul. As soon as Melekhov was on his land during the hunt, all the excitement disappeared, and an eternal, main feeling was trembled in his soul.

8) This abyss m / y by the desire of man, unfortunately and by the destructive tendencies of the era, expanded and deepened in the First World War. (faithful to duty - active in battles - rewards)

But! The more he delves into hostilities, the more he is pulled to the ground, to work. He dreams of the steppe. He has a heart with a beloved and distant woman. And conscience gnaws at his soul: “… It is difficult to kiss a child, to open to look into his eyes.”

9) The revolution returned Melekhov to the land, with his beloved, to his family, and children. And he wholeheartedly took the side of the new system ... But the same revolution his cruelty with the Cossacks, his injustice to the prisoners, and to Gregory himself pushed again him on the warpath.

Fatigue and anger lead the hero to cruelty - the murder of the sailors by Melekhov (it was after him that Grigory would wander the earth in "monstrous enlightenment", realizing that he had gone far from what he was born for and what he fought for.

“The wrong move in life, and maybe I'm to blame for this,” he admitted.

10) Having stood up with all his characteristic energy for the interests of workers and therefore became one of the leaders of the Veshensky uprising, Gregory is convinced that it did not bring the expected results: the Cossacks suffer from the white movement as they suffered from the Reds before. (Peace did not come to the Don, but the same nobles returned, despising the ordinary Cossack, the Cossack-peasant.

11) But Gregory the feeling of national exclusivity is alien: Gregory has deep respect for an Englishman - a mechanic with labor mazols.

Melekhov prefaces his refusal to evacuate across the sea with a statement about Russia: “Whatever the mother, but she is a stranger's relatives!”

12) AND again salvation for Melekhov - a return to the earth, to Aksinya, and children ... Violence disgusts him. (he releases the relatives of the Red Cossacks from prison) drives the horse to save Ivan Alekseevich and Mishka Koshevoy.)

13) Moving on to the red in the last years of the civil war, Gregory became , according to Prokhor Zykov, “Cheerful and sleek ”. But it is also important that the roles Melekhova did not fight with his , and was on the Polish front.

In the 8th hour, the ideal of Gregory is outlined: “ He went home to eventually get to work, live with the children, with Aksinya ... "

But his dream was not destined to come true. Mikhail Koshevoy ( representative revolutionary violence) provoked Gregory to escape from the house, from the children, Aksinya .

15) He is forced to hide in the farms, to join Fomin's gang.

The lack of a way out (and his thirst for life prevented him from being shot) pushes him to an obvious wrong cause.

16) All that Gregory had left by the end of the novel is children, mother earth (Sholokhov emphasizes three times that the pain in Grigory's chest heals by lying on the "damp earth") and love for Aksinya. But even this little goes away with the death of his beloved woman.

“Black sky and dazzling black disc of the sun” (this characterizes the strength of Gregory's feelings and the degree of sensation or loss).

“Everything was taken from him, everything was destroyed by merciless death. Only the children remained, but he himself was still convulsively clinging to the ground, as if in fact his broken life was of some value to him and to others. "

In this craving for life there is no personal salvation for Grigory Melekhov, but there is an affirmation of the ideal of life.

At the end of the novel, when life is reborn, Grigory threw a rifle, revolver, cartridges into the water, wiped his hands. " Don crossed the blue March ice, walked briskly to the house. He stood at the gate of his home, holding his son in his arms ... "

Critics' Opinion on the Finale.

Critics argued for a long time about the future fate of Melekhov. Soviet literary scholars argued that Melekhov would merge into socialist life. Western critics say the venerable Cossack will be arrested the next day and then executed.

Sholokhov left an open ending for both paths. This is not of fundamental importance, since in the finale of the novel, it is asserted what constitutes the essence humanistic philosophy of the protagonist of the novel, humanity inXX century: “under the cold sun ”a huge world shines, life continues, embodied in the symbolic picture of a child in his father's arms.(The image of a child as a symbol of eternal life was already present in many of Sholokhov's "Don Stories", and "The Fate of Man" also ends with it.

Output

Grigory Melekhov's path to the ideal of true life - this is a tragic path gains, mistakes and losses, which was passed by the entire Russian people in the XX century.

"Grigory Melekhov is an integral person in a tragically torn time." (E. Tamarchenko)

1. Portrait, character of Aksinya. (part 1 chap. 3,4,12)
   The origin and development of the love of Aksinya and Gregory. (part 1 chapter 3, part 2, chapter 10)
2. Dunyasha Melekhov (part 1, ch. 3, 4, 9)
3. Daria Melekhova. The dramatic nature of fate.
4. Ilyinichna's maternal love.
5. Natalia's tragedy.

The essay on the theme "The image of Grigory Melekhov" is brief: characteristics, life story and description of the hero in search of truth

In Sholokhov's epic novel The Quiet Don, Grigory Melekhov occupies a central place. He is the most difficult Sholokhov hero. This is a seeker of truth. Such cruel trials fell to his lot that a person, it would seem, is not able to endure. The life path of Grigory Melekhov is difficult and tortuous: first there was the First World War, then the civil war, and, finally, an attempt to destroy the Cossacks, an uprising and its suppression.

The tragedy of Grigory Melekhov is the tragedy of a man who broke away from the people, who became a renegade. His split-off becomes tragic because he is a confused person. He went against himself, against millions of workers like himself.

From his grandfather Prokofy Gregory, he inherited a hot-tempered and independent character, as well as the ability to tender love. The blood of the "Turkish woman" grandmother manifested itself in his appearance, in love, on the battlefields and in the ranks. And from his father he inherited a tough temper, and it is precisely because of this that adherence to principles and rebelliousness from his youth did not give Gregory rest. He fell in love with a married woman Aksinya (this is a turning point in his life) and soon decides to leave with her, despite all the prohibitions of his father and the condemnation of society. The origins of Melekhov's tragedy lay in his rebellious character. This is the predetermination of a tragic fate.

Gregory is a kind, brave and courageous hero who always tries to fight for truth and justice. But a war comes, and it destroys all his ideas about the truth and justice of life. War is presented to the writer and his heroes as a series of losses and terrible deaths: it cripples people from the inside and destroys everything that is dear and dear. She makes all the heroes look at the problems of duty and justice in a new way, to seek the truth and not find it in any of their warring camps. Once with the Reds, Gregory sees everything the same as with Whites, cruelty and lust for blood. He cannot understand why all this? After all, war destroys the well-ordered life of families, peaceful labor, it takes away the last from people and kills love. Grigory and Pyotr Melekhovs, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy and other heroes of Sholokhov are unable to comprehend why this fratricidal massacre is taking place? For whom and for what should people die when they still have a long life?

The fate of Grigory Melekhov is a life incinerated by war. The personal relationships of the heroes unfold against the backdrop of the tragic history of the country. Gregory will never again be able to forget how he killed the first enemy, an Austrian soldier. He hacked him to death with a saber, for him it is terrible. The moment of the murder changed him beyond recognition. The hero has lost a foothold, his kind and fair soul protests, cannot survive such violence against common sense. But the war is going on, Melekhov understands that he must continue to kill. Soon his decision changes: he realizes that war is killing the best people of his time, that among thousands of deaths the truth cannot be found, Gregory throws down his weapons and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise children. At almost 30 years old, the hero is almost an old man. The path of Melekhov's searches turned out to be an impassable thicket. Sholokhov in his work raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The author sympathizes with his hero Grigory Melekhov, whose life was already broken at such a young age.

As a result of his searches, Melekhov is left alone: ​​Aksinya is killed by his recklessness, he is hopelessly far from children, if only because he will bring trouble on them with his closeness. Trying to remain true to himself, he betrays everyone: both the belligerent parties, and women, and ideas. This means that he was initially looking in the wrong place. Thinking only about himself, about his "truth", he disliked and did not serve. At the hour when a weighty masculine word was required of him, Gregory could only provide doubts and self-digging. But the war did not need philosophers, and women did not need the love of wisdom. Thus, Melekhov is the result of the transformation of the type of "superfluous person" in the conditions of the most severe historical conflict.