Grigory melekhov after the war. "Grigory Melekhov" was shot

Raskolnikov's dreams are the semantic and plot pillars of Dostoevsky's entire novel. Raskolnikov's first dream comes to him before a crime, exactly when he hesitates most of all in making a decision: to kill him or not to kill the old woman-pawnbroker. This dream is about Raskolnikov's childhood. She and her father walk through their hometown small town after visiting their grandmother's grave. There is a church next to the cemetery. Raskolnikov, a child with his father, walk past the tavern.

We immediately see two spatial points where the hero of Russian literature rushes about: the church and the tavern. More precisely, these two poles of Dostoevsky's novel are holiness and sin. Raskolnikov, too, will rush throughout the entire novel between these two points: he will fall deeper and deeper into the abyss of sin, then suddenly he will surprise everyone with the miracles of self-sacrifice and kindness.

The drunken coachman Mikolka brutally slaughters his inferior, old and emaciated horse only because it cannot pull the cart, where a dozen drunken people from the tavern have sat down to laugh. Mikolka hits his horse in the eyes with a whip, and then finishes off the shaft, going into a rage and thirsting for blood.

Little Raskolnikov throws himself at Mikolka's feet to protect the unfortunate, downtrodden creature - the "horse". He stands up to defend the weak, against violence and evil.

“- Sit down, I'll take everyone! - Mikolka shouts again, jumping first into the cart, takes the reins and stands on the front end at full height. “The bay dave with Matvey left,” he shouts from the cart, “but the little mare, brothers, only breaks my heart: so, it seems, he killed her, she eats bread for nothing. I say sit down! Jump comin! Jump will go! - And he takes the whip in his hands, with pleasure preparing to whip the savraska. (...)

Everyone climbs into Mikolka's cart with laughter and witticisms. Six people climbed, and you can still plant. They take with them one woman, fat and ruddy. She is wearing red calico, in a kitsch with beads, cats on her legs, snaps nuts and chuckles. All around in the crowd they are also laughing, and indeed, how can one not laugh: it’s such a dashing filly and such a burden to ride at a gallop! The two guys in the cart immediately take a whip to help Mikolka. You hear: "Well!" Laughter in the cart and in the crowd doubles, but Mikolka gets angry and in a rage whips the filly with frequent blows, as if she really thinks that she will go at a gallop.

- Let me go, brothers! - shouts one guy from the crowd who has burst into tears.

- Sit down! Everybody sit down! - shouts Mikolka, - everyone will be lucky. I'll spot!

- And it whips, whips, and no longer knows what to beat from the frenzy.

“Daddy, daddy,” he shouts to his father, “daddy, what are they doing? Daddy, the poor horse is being beaten!

- Let's go, let's go! - says the father, - drunk, playing naughty, fools: let's go, don't look! - and wants to take him away, but he breaks out of his hands and, does not

remembering himself, runs to the horse. But the poor horse is bad. She gasps, stops, twitches again, almost falls.

- Seki to death! - shouts Mikolka, - for that matter. I'll spot!

- Why is there a cross on you, or what, no, devil! - shouts one old man

out of the crowd.

“You've seen such a horse carrying such a load,” adds another.

- Freeze! Shouts a third.

- Don't touch! My goodness! I do what I want. Sit down again! Everybody sit down! I want you to gallop without fail! ..

Suddenly laughter bursts out in one gulp and covers everything: the mare could not bear the frequent blows and began to kick in powerlessness. Even the old man could not resist and grinned. And indeed: that kind of a dashing mare, and still kicking!

Two guys from the crowd get another whip and run to the horse to whip it from the sides. Everyone runs from their side.

- In the face of her, whip in the eyes, in the eyes! - shouts Mikolka.

- Song, brothers! - shouts someone from the cart, and everyone in the cart picks up. A riotous song is heard, a tambourine rattles, a whistle in the refrains. Babenka snaps nuts and chuckles.

... He runs beside the horse, he runs ahead, he sees how it is flogged in the eyes, in the very eyes! He is crying. The heart in him rises, tears flow. One of the secants touches him in the face; he does not feel, he breaks his hands, shouts, rushes to the gray-haired old man with a gray beard, who shakes his head and condemns all that. One woman takes him by the hand and wants to take him away; but he breaks free and again runs to the horse. She already with the last effort, but once again begins to kick.

- And so that those devil! - exclaims Mikolka in rage. He throws the whip, bends down and pulls out a long and thick shaft from the bottom of the cart, takes it by the end in both hands and swings it with effort over the Savrask.

- Will pique! - they shout around.

- My good! - shouts Mikolka and lowers the shaft with all his might. A heavy blow is heard.

And Mikolka swings another time, and another blow with all its might falls on the back of the unfortunate nag. She sinks all backwards, but jumps up and jerks, pulls with all her last strength in different directions in order to take out; but from all sides they take it in six whips, and the shaft again rises and falls a third time, then a fourth, measuredly, with a swing. Mikolka is furious that he cannot kill with one blow.

- Hardy! - they shout around.

- Now it will certainly fall, brothers, here it will end! One amateur shouts from the crowd.

- With her ax, what! End her at once, ”the third shouts. - Eh, eat those mosquitoes! Make way! - Mikolka cries out furiously, throws the shaft, bends down into the cart again and pulls out an iron crowbar. - Watch out!

- he shouts, and with all his might he stuns his poor horse. The blow collapsed; the filly staggered, settled down, was about to jerk, but the crowbar again falls with all its might on her back, and she falls to the ground, as if all four of her legs had been hit at once.

- Finish off! - Mikolka shouts and jumps up, as if he doesn’t remember himself, from the cart. Several guys, also red and drunk, grab whatever they find - whips, sticks, a shaft, and run to the dying filly. Mikolka stands to the side and starts hitting the back with a crowbar in vain. The nag stretches out its muzzle, sighs heavily and dies.

- Finished! - shout in the crowd.

- Why didn’t she ride!

- My good! - shouts Mikolka, with a crowbar in his hands and with bloodshot eyes. He stands as if regretting that there is no one else to beat.

- Well, really, to know, there is no cross on you! - many voices are already shouting from the crowd.

But the poor boy no longer remembers himself. With a cry he makes his way through the crowd to Savraska, grabs her dead, bloody face and kisses her, kisses her in the eyes, on the lips ... Then he suddenly jumps up and in a frenzy rushes with his fists at Mikolka. At that moment, his father, who had been chasing him for a long time, grabs him at last and carries him out of the crowd. "

Why is this horse being slaughtered by a man named Mikolka? This is not accidental at all. Already after the murder of the old woman-pawnbroker and Lizaveta, suspicion falls on the painter Mikolka, who picked up the box of jewels dropped by Raskolnikov, pledged from the chest of the old woman-pawnbroker, and drank the find in the tavern. This Mikolka was one of the schismatics. Before he came to Petersburg, he was under the command of the holy elder and followed the path of faith. However, St. Petersburg "whirled" Mikolka, he forgot the old man's precepts and fell into sin. And, in the opinion of the schismatics, it is better to suffer for a great sin of others, in order to fully atone for your own - a small sin. And now Mikolka takes the blame for a crime that he did not commit. While Raskolnikov, at the time of the murder, appears in the role of that coachman Mikolka, who brutally kills the horse. The roles in reality, in contrast to the dream, are reversed.

So what, then, is the meaning of Raskolnikov's first dream? The dream shows that Raskolnikov is initially kind, that murder is alien to his nature, that he is ready to stop, even if even a minute before the crime. At the very last minute, he can still choose good. Moral responsibility remains entirely in the hands of a person. It is as if God gives man a choice of action until the very last second. But Raskolnikov chooses evil and commits a crime against himself, against his human nature. That is why, even before the murder, his conscience stops Raskolnikov, paints him in a dream terrible pictures of a bloody murder, so that the hero abandons his crazy thought.

Raskolnikov's name takes on symbolic meaning: a split means a split. Even in the surname itself, we see the beating of modernity: people are no longer united, they are split into two halves, they constantly oscillate between good and evil, not knowing what to choose. The meaning of Raskolnikov's image also “doubles”, splits in the eyes of the characters around him. All the heroes of the novel are attracted to him, make biased assessments of him. According to Svidrigailov, "Rodion Romanovich has two roads: either a bullet in the forehead, or along Vladimirka."

Later, remorse after the murder and painful doubts about his own theory had a detrimental effect on his initially good-looking appearance: “Raskolnikov (...) was very pale, absent-minded and gloomy. Outside, he looked like a wounded person or enduring some severe physical pain: his eyebrows were pulled together, his lips were compressed, his eyes were inflamed. "

Around Raskolnikov's first dream, Dostoevsky has a number of contradictory events that are somehow associated with Raskolnikov's dream.

The first event is "trial". So Raskolnikov calls his trip to the old woman-money-giver Alena Ivanovna. He pawns her father's silver watch, but not because he needs money so much so as not to starve to death, but in order to check whether he can “cross” blood or not, that is, whether he is capable of murder. Having laid his father's watch, Raskolnikov symbolically renounces his kind: the father would hardly have approved the idea of ​​his son to commit murder (it is no coincidence that Raskolnikov's name is Rodion; he seems to betray this name at the time of the murder and "trial"), and having committed a crime, he is like " scissors cuts himself off from people, especially from his mother and sister. In a word, during the "test" the soul of Raskolnikov is inclined in favor of evil.

Then he meets in a tavern with Marmeladov, who tells him about his daughter Sonya. She goes to the panel so that three young children of Marmeladov do not starve to death. And Marmeladov, meanwhile, is drinking all the money and even asks Sonya for forty kopecks to get drunk. Immediately after this event, Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother. In it, the mother tells about Raskolnikov's sister Duna, who wants to marry Luzhin, saving her beloved brother Rodya. And Raskolnikov unexpectedly brings Sonya and Dunya closer together. After all, Dunya also sacrifices herself. In essence, she, like Sonya, sells her body for her brother. Raskolnikov does not want to accept such a sacrifice. He sees the murder of the old woman-pawnbroker as a way out of the current situation: "... eternal Sonechka, while the world stands!"; “Oh yes Sonya! What a well, however, they managed to dig! and enjoy (...) Wept, and got used to it. A scoundrel man gets used to everything! "

Raskolnikov rejects compassion, humility and sacrifice, opting for rebellion. At the same time, the motives for his crime are deeply self-deceiving: to free mankind from the harmful old woman, to give the stolen money to his sister and mother, thereby saving Dunya from the voluptuous Luzins and Svidrigailovs. Raskolnikov convinces himself of simple "arithmetic" that with the death of one "ugly old woman" one can make humanity happy.

Finally, just before the dream about Mikolka, Raskolnikov himself saves a fifteen-year-old drunk girl from a respectable gentleman who wanted to take advantage of the fact that she did not understand anything. Raskolnikov asks the policeman to protect the girl, and shouts to the gentleman angrily: "Hey, you, Svidrigailov!" Why Svidrigailov? Because from a letter to his mother he learns about the landowner Svidrigailov, in whose house Dunya served as a governess, and the voluptuous Svidrigailov encroached on his sister's honor. Having protected the girl from the depraved old man, Raskolnikov symbolically protects his sister. This means that he is doing good again. The pendulum in his soul again rushed in the opposite direction - for good. Raskolnikov himself assesses his "trial" as an ugly, disgusting mistake: "Oh my God, how disgusting it all ... And really such horror could have entered my head ..." -Enough! - he said resolutely and solemnly, - away from mirages, away from feigned fears ... There is life! ... - But I have already agreed to live on an arshin of space! "

Raskolnikov's second dream, rather, is not even a dream, but a dream in a state of light and short oblivion. This dream appears to him a few minutes before he goes to the crime. In many ways, Raskolnikov's dream is mysterious and strange: This is an oasis in the African desert of Egypt: “The caravan is resting, the camels are lying at ease; all around the palm trees grow in a whole circle; everyone is having dinner. He still drinks water, right from the stream, which flows and murmurs right there, at the side. And so cool, and wonderful, wonderful, such blue water, cold, runs over multi-colored stones and on such pure sand with golden sparkles ... "

Why does Raskolnikov dream of a desert, an oasis, clean clear water, to the source of which he fell and drinks greedily? This source is exactly the water of faith. Raskolnikov, and a second before the crime, can stop and fall to the source of pure water, to holiness, to restore the lost harmony to the soul. But he does not do this, but, on the contrary, as soon as six o'clock strikes, jumps up and, like an automatic machine, goes to kill.

This dream about a desert and an oasis is reminiscent of a poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Three Palms". It also spoke of an oasis, clear water, three flowering palms. However, nomads drive up to this oasis and chop down three palm trees with an ax, destroying the oasis in the desert. Immediately after the second sleep, Raskolnikov steals an ax in the janitor's room, puts it in a loop under the arm of his summer coat, and goes on a crime. Evil conquers good. The pendulum in Raskolnikov's soul again rushed to the opposite pole. In Raskolnikov, there are, as it were, two people: a humanist and an individualist.

Contrary to the aesthetic appearance of his theory, Raskolnikov's crime is monstrously ugly. At the time of the murder, he acts as an individualist. He kills Alena Ivanovna with the butt of an ax (as if rock itself pushes Raskolnikov's lifeless hand); smeared with blood, the hero cuts the lace on the old woman's chest with two crosses, an icon and a wallet with an ax, wipes his bloody hands on a red set. The merciless logic of murder forces Raskolnikov, who claims to be aesthetic in his theory, to hack to death Lizaveta, who returned to the apartment with the edge of an ax, so that he split her skull to the very neck. Raskolnikov definitely gets into the taste of bloody carnage. But Lizaveta is pregnant. This means that Raskolnikov kills a third, not yet born, but also a person. (Recall that Svidrigailov also kills three people: he poisons his wife, Marfa Petrovna, a fourteen-year-old girl and his servant who have corrupted him commit suicide.) a pawnbroker, closed from the inside with one hook, then Raskolnikov would have killed Koch as well. Raskolnikov kept an ax ready, hiding on the other side of the door. There would be four corpses. In fact, theory is very far from practice, it does not at all resemble the aesthetically beautiful theory of Raskolnikov, created by him in his imagination.

Raskolnikov hides the loot under a stone. He laments that he did not “step over the blood”, did not turn out to be a “superman”, but appeared as an “aesthetic louse” (“Did I kill an old woman? "Forgets the army in Egypt (...) spends half a million people in the Moscow campaign." Raskolnikov does not realize the dead end of his theory, which rejects an unshakable moral law. The hero violated the moral law and fell, because he possessed a conscience, and she takes revenge on him for violating the moral law.

On the other hand, Raskolnikov is magnanimous, noble, responsive, helps a sick comrade from the last means; risking himself, he saves children from the fire, gives maternal money to the Marmeladov family, protects Sonya from Luzhin's slander; he has the makings of a thinker, a scientist. Porfiry Petrovich tells Raskolnikov that he has a "great heart", compares him with the "sun", with Christian martyrs going to execution for their idea: "Become the sun, everyone will see you."

In the theory of Raskolnikov, as a focus, all the conflicting moral and spiritual properties of the hero are concentrated. First of all, according to Raskolnikov's plan, his theory proves that every person is a "scoundrel", and social injustice is in the order of things.

Life itself confronts Raskolnikov's casuistry. The hero's illness after the murder shows the equality of people before conscience, it is a consequence of conscience, so to speak, a physiological manifestation of the spiritual nature of a person. Through the lips of the servant Nastasya ("This is the blood in you screams"), the people judge Raskolnikov's crime.

Raskolnikov's third dream is dreamed by him after the crime. Raskolnikov's third dream is directly related to Raskolnikov's torment after the murder. This dream is also preceded by a number of events. Dostoevsky in the novel exactly follows the well-known psychological observation that "the criminal is always drawn to the scene of the crime." Indeed, Raskolnikov comes to the pawnbroker's apartment after the murder. The apartment is renovated, the door is open. Raskolnikov, as if for no reason at all, begins to pull the bell and listen. One of the workers looks suspiciously at Raskolnikov and calls him "burned out". The bourgeois Kryukov pursues Raskolnikov, walking from the house of the old woman-pawnbroker, and shouts to him: "Murderer!"

Here is Raskolnikov's dream: “He was forgotten; it seemed strange to him that he did not remember how he could find himself on the street. It was already late evening. Twilight deepened, the full moon brightened brighter and brighter; but the air was somehow especially stuffy. People walked in droves along the streets; artisans and busy people went home, others walked; smelled of lime, dust, stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked sad and worried: he remembered very well that he had left the house with some intention, that he had to do something and hurry, but what exactly he had forgotten. Suddenly he stopped and saw that on the other side of the street, on the sidewalk, a man was standing and waving at him. He walked across the street towards him, but suddenly the man turned and walked as if nothing had happened, bowing his head, not turning around and not pretending to call him. "Oh full, did he call?" - Raskolnikov thought, but he began to catch up. Before reaching ten paces, he suddenly recognized him and - was frightened; it was a former tradesman, in the same dressing gown and also hunched over. Raskolnikov walked from afar; his heart beat; turned into an alley - it still did not turn around. "Does he know that I'm going after him?" Thought Raskolnikov. The bourgeois entered the gates of a large house. Raskolnikov hurried up to the gate and began to look to see if he would look around and call him? Indeed, having passed the entire gateway and already leaving into the courtyard, he suddenly turned around and again seemed to wave to him. Raskolnikov immediately passed the gateway, but the tradesman was no longer in the courtyard. Therefore, he entered the first staircase here now. Raskolnikov rushed after him. In fact, two stairs higher still someone's measured, unhurried steps could be heard. Strange, the stairs seemed familiar! There is a window on the first floor; the moonlight passed sadly and mysteriously through the glass; here is the second floor. Bah! This is the very apartment in which the workers smeared ... How could he not immediately recognize? The footsteps of the man walking in front died down: "therefore, he stopped or hid somewhere." Here is the third floor; whether to go further? And what a silence there, even scary ... But he went. The noise of his own footsteps frightened and disturbed him. God, how dark! The bourgeois must have lurked somewhere in the corner. A! the apartment was wide open on the stairs, he thought about it and went in. In the hall it was very dark and empty, not a soul, as if everything had been taken out; quietly, on tiptoe, he walked into the living room: the whole room was brightly bathed in moonlight; everything is the same here: chairs, a mirror, a yellow sofa and framed pictures. A huge, round, copper-red moon looked straight into the windows. "This is such a silence from the month," thought Raskolnikov, "he must be asking a riddle now." He stood and waited, waited a long time, and the quieter the month was, the harder his heart beat, it even hurt. And all is silence. Suddenly an instant dry crack was heard, as if a splinter had been broken, and everything froze again. The awakened fly suddenly hit the glass from the raid and whirred plaintively. At that very moment, in the corner, between the small cupboard and the window, he made out, as it were, a cloak hanging on the wall. “Why is there a cloak? - he thought, - after all, he was not there before ... ”He approached on the sly and guessed that it was as if someone was hiding behind the cloak. He carefully pulled his cloak away with his hand and saw that there was a chair, and an old woman was sitting on a chair in the corner, all hunched over and bowing her head so that he could not make out the face, but it was her. He stood over her: "afraid!" - he thought, quietly freed the ax from the loop and hit the old woman on the crown, once and again. But it’s strange: she didn’t even move from the blows, as if it were made of wood. He was frightened, bent down closer and began to examine her; but she bent her head even lower. Then he bent down completely to the floor and looked into her face from below, looked in and died: the old woman sat and laughed, and burst into a quiet, inaudible laugh, trying hard so that he would not hear her. Suddenly it seemed to him that the door from the bedroom opened a little and that there, too, seemed to be laughing and whispering. Fury overcame him: with all his might he began to beat the old woman on the head, but with each blow of the ax, laughter and whispers from the bedroom were heard more and more loudly, and the old woman was still swaying with laughter. He rushed to run, but the whole hallway was already full of people, the doors on the stairs were wide open, and on the landing, on the stairs and down there - all people, head to head, everyone was looking - but everyone was hiding and waiting, silent ... His heart was shy, the legs do not move, they have grown ... He wanted to cry out and woke up. "

Porfiry Petrovich, having learned about Raskolnikov's arrival at the scene of the murder, will hide the bourgeois Kryukov behind the door of the next room, so that during the interrogation of Raskolnikov the bourgeoisie will suddenly be released and Raskolnikov exposed. Only an unexpected combination of circumstances prevented Porfiry Petrovich: Mikolka took upon himself Raskolnikov's crime - and Porfiry Petrovich was forced to release Raskolnikov. The bourgeois Kryukov, who was sitting outside the door of the investigator's room and heard everything, comes to Raskolnikov, falls on his knees in front of him. He wants to repent before Raskolnikov that he accused him of murder unjustly, believing after Mikolka's voluntary confession that Raskolnikov did not commit any crime.

But this will be later, but for now Raskolnikov is dreaming of this bourgeois Kryukov, who threw this formidable word "murderer" in his face. So, Raskolnikov runs after him to the apartment of the old woman-pawnbroker. He dreams of an old woman hiding from him under a cloak. Raskolnikov beats her with an ax with all his might, but she just laughs. And suddenly in the room, on the threshold, there are a lot of people, and everyone looks at Raskolnikov and laughs. Why is this motive of laughter so important to Dostoevsky? Why is Raskolnikov insanely afraid of this public laugh? The thing is that he is more than anything in the world afraid of being funny. If his theory is ridiculous, then it isn't worth a penny. And Raskolnikov himself in this case, together with his theory, turns out to be not a superman, but an "aesthetic louse," as he declares this to Sonya Marmeladova, confessing to the murder.

Raskolnikov's third dream includes the mechanism of repentance. Raskolnikov Between the third and fourth sleep, Raskolnikov looks in the mirror of his "doubles": Luzhin and Svidrigailov. As we said, Svidrigailov kills, like Raskolnikov, three people. In that case, why is Svidrigailov worse than Raskolnikov ?! It is no coincidence, after overhearing the secret of Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, mocking, tells Raskolnikov that they are "the same berry field", considers him as if his brother in sin, distorts the hero's tragic confessions "with the air of some kind of winking, cheerful trickery."

Luzhin and Svidrigailov, distorting and mimicking his seemingly aesthetic theory, force the hero to reconsider his view of the world and man. Raskolnikov's "double" theories judge Raskolnikov himself. Luzhin's theory of “reasonable egoism”, according to Raskolnikov, is fraught with the following:

Finally, the dispute between Porfiry and Raskolnikov (cf. Porfiry's mockery of how to distinguish the “extraordinary” from the “ordinary”: “Couldn't there be some clothes here, for example, a special one, wear something, there are some brands there ?. . ") And Sonya's words immediately cross out Raskolnikov's cunning dialectics, forcing him to take the path of repentance:" I just killed a louse, Sonya, useless, disgusting, malicious. " - "This is a man vogi!" - exclaims Sonya.

Sonya reads the Gospel parable about the resurrection of Lazarus to Raskolnikov (like Lazarus, the hero of Crime and Punishment is in the "coffin" for four days - Dostoevsky compares Raskolnikov's closet to a "coffin"). Sonya gives Raskolnikov her cross, leaving on herself the cypress cross of Lizaveta, who was killed by him, with whom they exchanged crosses. Thus, Sonya makes it clear to Raskolnikov that he killed his sister, for all people are brothers and sisters in Christ. Raskolnikov is putting into practice Sonya's call to go out to the square, fall on his knees and repent before all the people: "Accept suffering and redeem himself for him ..."

Raskolnikov's repentance on the square is tragically symbolic, reminiscent of the fate of the ancient prophets, as it is given over to popular ridicule. Raskolnikov's acquisition of the faith hoped for in his dreams of New Jerusalem is a long journey. The people do not want to believe in the sincerity of the hero's repentance: “Look, he's overwhelmed! (...) It is he who goes to Jerusalem, brothers, he says goodbye to his homeland, worships the whole world, the capital city of St. Petersburg and its soil kisses "(compare Porfiry's question:" So you still believe in New Jerusalem? ").

It is no coincidence that Raskolnikov dreamed of the last dream of "trichinas" on Easter days, on Holy Week. Raskolnikov's fourth dream Raskolnikov is ill, and in the hospital he has this dream: “He lay in the hospital for the entire end of Lent and the Holy One. Already recovering, he recalled his dreams when he was still lying in the heat and delirious. In his illness, he dreamed that the whole world was condemned as a sacrifice to some terrible, unheard-of and unprecedented pestilence that was spreading from the depths of Asia to Europe. All were to perish, except a few, very few, a select few. Some new trichines appeared, microscopic creatures that entered the bodies of people. But these creatures were spirits, gifted with intelligence and will. People who took them into themselves immediately became possessed and insane. But never, never did people consider themselves as smart and unshakable in the truth, as the infected thought. They have never considered their sentences, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions and beliefs more unshakable. Whole villages, whole cities and peoples became infected and maddened. Everyone was in anxiety and did not understand each other, everyone thought that in one thing was the truth, and he suffered, looking at others, beat his chest, cried and wrung his hands. They did not know whom and how to judge, could not agree what to consider evil, what good. They did not know who to blame, whom to acquit. People killed each other in some senseless rage. Whole armies gathered against each other, but the armies, already on the march, suddenly began to torment themselves, the ranks were upset, the soldiers rushed at each other, injected and cut, bit and ate each other. In the cities, the alarm was sounded all day: everyone was called, but who was calling and why, no one knew, and everyone was in alarm. They abandoned the most common trades, because everyone offered their thoughts, their corrections, and could not agree; farming stopped. In some places people ran into heaps, agreed to do something together, vowed not to part, but immediately started something completely different from what they themselves expected, they began to accuse each other, fought and cut themselves. Fires started, famine began. Everything and everything perished. The ulcer grew and moved on and on. Only a few people could be saved all over the world, they were pure and chosen, destined to start a new kind of people and a new life, to renew and cleanse the earth, but no one saw these people anywhere, no one heard their words and voices. "

Raskolnikov in hard labor never fully repented of his crime. He believes that in vain he succumbed to the pressure of Porfiry Petrovich and confessed to the investigator. It would be better if he committed suicide, like Svidrigailov. He simply did not have the strength to dare to commit suicide. Sonya went to hard labor for Raskolnikov. But Raskolnikov cannot love her. He loves no one, as well as him. Convicts hate Raskolnikov and, on the contrary, love Sonya very much. One of the convicts rushed at Raskolnikov, wanting to kill him.

What is Raskolnikov's theory if not a "trichin" that has infiltrated his soul and made Raskolnikov think that in him alone and in his theory lies the truth ?! Truth cannot abide in a person. According to Dostoevsky, the truth lies in God alone, in Christ. If a person has decided that he is the measure of all things, he is able to go to the murder of another, like Raskolnikov. He gives himself the right to judge who is worthy to live and who to die, who is the “ugly old woman” who should be crushed, and who can continue to live. God alone decides these questions, according to Dostoevsky.

Raskolnikov's dream in the epilogue about "trichines", which shows dying humanity, imagining that truth is contained in man, shows that Raskolnikov is ripe to understand the fallacy and danger of his theory. He is ready to repent, and then the world around him changes: suddenly he sees in convicts not criminals and animals, but people with a human appearance. And the convicts, too, suddenly begin to be kinder to Raskolnikov. Moreover, until he repented of the crime, he was not able to love anyone at all, including Sonya. After dreaming about "trichinas", he falls on his knees in front of her, kisses her leg. He is already capable of love. Sonya gives him the Gospel, and he wants to open this book of faith, but he is still hesitating. However, this is already another story - the story of the resurrection of a "fallen man", as Dostoevsky writes in the finale.

Raskolnikov's dreams are also part of his punishment for the crime. It is a mechanism of conscience that is turned on and works independently of a person. Conscience broadcasts to Raskolnikov these terrible images of dreams and makes him repent of the crime, return to the image of a person who, of course, continues to live in Raskolnikov's soul. Dostoevsky, forcing the hero to take the Christian path of repentance and rebirth, considers this path to be the only true one for man.

Rodion Raskolnikov, as you know, came up with his own theory, dividing people into "trembling creatures" and "having the right", thereby allowing "blood according to conscience." Throughout the entire work, the inconsistency of this hypothesis is proved. Dreams are one of the author's outstanding tools in the fight against the ideology of hatred. They are symbols, the decoding of which is the key to understanding Dostoevsky's complex and multi-tiered design.

• About a slaughtered horse... Already the first dream of the protagonist shows his true features and reveals his ability to compassion. Raskolnikov is transported to childhood, sees a horse being beaten with a whip by brutalized people. This episode proves the ambiguity of the character of the young theorist, who, empathizing with the poor animal in his dream, is actually preparing to kill a person. This dream becomes a symbolic expression of a world overflowing with violence, suffering and evil. It contrasts the tavern, as the personification of an ugly, base world, and the church, with which Raskolnikov has sad but bright memories. The motive of salvation from the terrible world of reality with the help of faith will continue to be traced throughout the novel.
• About Africa... Shortly before the fatal act, Raskolnikov dreamed of Africa in a dream. He sees an oasis, golden sand and blue water, which is a symbol of purification. This dream is the antithesis of the hero's terrible daily life. An important detail is that Rodion dreams of Egypt. In this regard, the motive of Napoleonism appears in a dream. The Egyptian campaign was one of the first undertaken by Napoleon. But there the emperor was in for a failure: the army was struck by the plague. So the hero is not awaiting a triumph of will, but disappointment in the finale of his own campaign.
• About Ilya Petrovich... After the murder of the old woman-pawnbroker, the young man is in a fever. The fever provokes two more dreams. The first of them is about Ilya Petrovich, who beats up the owner of a rented apartment, Rodion. It shows that Raskolnikov does not tolerate bullying a person, no matter how bad he is. It is also easy to understand that Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov has a fear of formal punishment (the law). This fact is embodied in the figure of a policeman.
• About the laughing old woman... Raskolnikov returns to the scene of the crime, where the murder he committed is almost repeated. The difference is that this time the old woman was laughing, mocking the hero. This may indicate that by killing the old woman, he ruined himself. Frightened, Raskolnikov flees from the scene of the crime. In this dream, Rodion feels the horror of exposure and the shame that torments him in reality. In addition, this nightmare confirms that the main character was morally incapable of killing, it was painfully perceived by him and became the reason for his further moral self-destruction.
• Sleep in hard labor... The last dream of the hero finally confirms the inconsistency of Rodion's hypothesis. “In his illness, he dreamed that the whole world was condemned as a victim of some terrible, unheard of and unprecedented plague plague” - the killer sees how his plan to “save” everything that exists is being realized, but in practice it looks terrible. As soon as, thanks to sophistic speculative reasoning, the line between good and evil disappears, people plunge into chaos and lose the moral foundations on which society is based. The dream is opposed to the theory: the hero believed that “unusually few people are born with a new thought,” and in the dream it is said that the world is crumbling from the lack of “pure people”. Thus, this dream contributes to Raskolnikov's sincere repentance: he understands that what is needed is not pretentious philosophizing from the onion, but sincere and good deeds opposed to evil and vice.

Svidrigailov's dreams

Svidrigailov is a character who also has symbolic dreams permeated with deep meaning. Arkady Ivanovich is a man fed up with life. He is equally capable of both cynical and dirty deeds, and noble ones. Several crimes are on his conscience: the murder of his wife and the suicide of the servant and the girl he insulted, who was only 14 years old. But his conscience does not bother him, only dreams convey the hidden side of his soul, unknown to the hero himself, it is thanks to his dreams that Arkady Ivanovich begins to see all his meanness and insignificance. There he beholds himself or the reflection of his qualities, which terrify him. In total, Svidrigailov sees three nightmares, and the line between dream and reality is so blurred that it is sometimes difficult to understand whether it is a vision or reality.

• Mice... In the first dream, the hero sees mice. The mouse is considered the personification of the human soul, an animal that quickly and almost imperceptibly escapes, like a spirit at the moment of death. In Christian Europe, the mouse was a symbol of evil, destructive activity. Thus, we can come to the conclusion that in Svidrigailov's dream the rodent is a harbinger of trouble, the inevitable death of the hero.
• About a drowned girl. Arkady Ivanovich sees a suicide girl. She had "an angelically pure soul that pulled out the last cry of despair, not heard, but impudently mocked in a dark night ...". It is not known exactly, but there were rumors about Svidrigailov that he seduced a fourteen-year-old girl. This dream seems to describe the hero's past. It is possible that it is after this vision that his conscience awakens, and he begins to realize the whole baseness of the actions from which he previously received pleasure.
• About a five-year-old girl... In the last, third dream, Svidrigailov has a dream about a little girl, whom he helps without any malicious intent, but suddenly the child transforms and begins to flirt with Arkady Ivanovich. She has an angelic face, in which the essence of a base woman is gradually emerging. She has a deceptive beauty that outwardly covers the soul of a person. This five-year-old girl reflected all the lasciviousness of Svidrigailov. This frightened him the most. In the image of demonic beauty, one can see a reflection of the duality of the character of the hero, a paradoxical combination of good and evil.

Waking up, Arkady Ivanovich feels his complete spiritual exhaustion and understands: he has no strength and desire to live on. These dreams reveal the hero's complete moral bankruptcy. And, if the second dream reflects an attempt to resist fate, then the last one shows all the ugliness of the hero's soul, from which there is no escape.

The meaning and role of dreams

Dostoevsky's dreams are a bare conscience, not spelled out by any soothing, glorious words.

Thus, in dreams, the true characters of the heroes are revealed, they show what people are afraid to admit even to themselves.

Interesting? Keep it on your wall!

This rich image embodied the dashing thoughtless youth of the Cossack and the wisdom of a life lived, filled with suffering and troubles of a terrible time of change.

The image of Grigory Melekhov

Sholokhov's Grigory Melekhov can be safely called the last free man. Free by any common human measure.

Sholokhov deliberately did not make Melekhov a Bolshevik, despite the fact that the novel was written in an era when the very idea of ​​the immorality of Bolshevism was blasphemous.

And, nevertheless, the reader sympathizes with Gregory even at the moment when he escapes from the Red Army soldiers in a cart with a mortally wounded Aksinya. The reader wishes Gregory salvation, not victory for the Bolsheviks.

Gregory is an honest, hardworking, fearless, trusting and selfless person, a rebel. His rebelliousness manifests itself even in early youth, when, with grim determination, for the sake of love for Aksinya - a married woman - he breaks up with his family.

He is determined not to be intimidated by public opinion or the condemnation of the farmers. He does not tolerate ridicule and condescension from the Cossacks. Reread his mother and father. He is confident in his feelings, his actions are guided only by love, which seems to Gregory, in spite of everything, to be the only value in life, which means that it justifies his decisions.

You need to have great courage to live contrary to the opinion of the majority, to live with your head and heart, not to be afraid to be rejected by your family and society. Only a real man is capable of this, only a real man-fighter. The anger of his father, the contempt of the farmers - Gregory doesn’t care. With the same courage, he jumps over the fence to protect his beloved Aksinya from her husband's cast-iron fists.

Melekhov and Aksinya

In relations with Aksinya, Grigory Melekhov is becoming a man. From a dashing young guy with hot Cossack blood, he turns into a loyal and loving man-protector.

At the very beginning of the novel, when Gregory is only seeking Aksinya, it seems that he does not care at all about the further fate of this woman, whose reputation he ruined with his youthful passion. He even talks about it to his beloved. “The bitch doesn't want - the dog won't jump up,” says Grigory Aksinye and immediately turns purple at the thought that scalded him like boiling water when he saw tears in the woman’s eyes: “I hit the lying one.”

What Grigory himself at first perceived as ordinary lust turned out to be love that he would carry through his whole life, and this woman would not turn out to be his lover, but would become an unofficial wife. For the sake of Aksinya, Grigory will leave his father, mother, and his young wife Natalya. For the sake of Aksinya, he will go to get hired instead of getting rich on his own farm. Will give preference to someone else's home instead of his own.

Undoubtedly, this madness deserves respect, as it speaks of the incredible honesty of this person. Gregory is incapable of living a lie. He cannot pretend and live as others tell him. He does not lie to his wife either. He does not lie when he seeks the truth from "whites" and "red". He lives. Gregory lives his own life, the thread of his fate is woven himself and he does not know how to do it in any other way.

Melekhov and Natalia

Gregory's relationship with his wife Natalya is saturated with tragedy, like his whole life. He married the one he did not love and did not hope to love. The tragedy of their relationship is that Grigory could not lie to his wife. With Natalia, he is cold, he is indifferent. Sholokhov writes that Grigory, by duty, caressed his young wife, tried to stir her up with young amorous zeal, but on her part he met only obedience.

And then Gregory recalled the frenzied pupils of Aksinya, darkened with love, and he understood that he would not live with the icy Natalya. He cannot. Yes, I do not love you, Natalya! - Grigory will somehow say in his hearts and he will immediately understand - no, and really does not love. Subsequently, Gregory will learn to feel sorry for his wife. Especially after her suicide attempt, but she will not be able to love until the end of her life.

Melekhov and the Civil War

Grigory Melekhov is a truth-seeker. That is why, in the novel, Sholokhov portrayed him as a rushing man. He is honest, and therefore has the right to demand honesty from others. The Bolsheviks promised equality that there would be no more poor or rich. However, nothing has changed in life. The platoon commander, as before, is in chrome boots, but the Vanyok is still in windings.

Gregory first falls to the white, then to the red. But one gets the impression that individualism is alien to both Sholokhov and his hero. The novel was written in an era when it was mortally dangerous to be a "renegade" and to be on the side of a Cossack business executive. Therefore, Sholokhov describes the throwing of Melekhov during the Civil War as the throwing of a lost person.

Gregory evokes not condemnation, but compassion and sympathy. In the novel, Gregory acquires a semblance of peace of mind and moral stability only after a short stay with the "Reds". In another way, Sholokhov could not write.

The fate of Grigory Melekhov

For 10 years, during which the action of the novel develops, the fate of Grigory Melekhov is full of tragedies. Living in times of war and political change is a challenge in itself. And to remain human in these times is sometimes an impossible task. We can say that Gregory, having lost Aksinya, having lost his wife, brother, relatives and friends, managed to retain his humanity, remained himself, did not change his inherent honesty.

Actors who played Melekhov in the films "Quiet Don"

In the film adaptation of the novel by Sergei Gerasimov (1957), Pyotr Glebov was approved for the role of Grigory. In the film by Sergei Bondarchuk (1990-91), the role of Grigory went to the British actor Rupert Everett. In the new series, based on the book by Sergei Ursulyak Grigory Melekhov, Evgeny Tkachuk played.

(446 words)

The main character of the novel by M.A. Sholokhov is the Don Cossack Grigory Melekhov. We see how the fate of Gregory develops dramatically on one of the most controversial and bloody pages of our history.

But the novel dates back to long before these events. First, we are introduced to the life and customs of the Cossacks. In this peaceful time, Gregory lives a calm life, not caring about anything. However, at the same time, the hero's first mental breakdown occurs, when, after a stormy romance with Aksinya, Grishka realizes the importance of the family and returns to his wife Natalya. A little later, the First World War begins, in which Gregory takes an active part, having received many awards. But Melekhov himself is disappointed in the war, in which he saw only dirt, blood and death, along with this comes disappointment in the imperial power, which sends thousands of people to death. In this regard, the main character falls under the influence of the ideas of communism, and already in the seventeenth year he takes the side of the Bolsheviks, believing that they can build a new just society.

However, almost immediately, when the red commander Podtyolkov arranges a bloody massacre of the captured White Guards, disappointment comes. For Gregory, this becomes a terrible blow, in his opinion, one cannot fight for a better future, while at the same time creating cruelty and injustice. An innate sense of justice pushes Melekhov away from the Bolsheviks. Returning home, he wants to take care of his family and household. But life does not give him that chance. His home farm supports the White movement, and Melekhov follows them. The death of a brother at the hands of the Reds only fuels the hero's hatred. But when the surrendered detachment of Podtelkov is ruthlessly exterminated, Gregory cannot accept such a cold-blooded destruction of his neighbor.

Soon, the Cossacks, dissatisfied with the White Guards, including Grigory, defect and let the Red Army men pass through their positions. Tired of war and murder, the hero hopes to be left alone. However, the Red Army men begin to commit robbery and murder, and the hero, in order to protect his home and family, joins the separatist uprising. It was during this period that Melekhov fought most zealously and did not torment himself with doubts. He is supported by the knowledge that he is protecting his loved ones. When the Don separatists unite with the white movement, Grigory is again disappointed.

In the final, Melekhov finally goes over to the side of the Reds. Hoping to earn his forgiveness and the chance to return home, he fights without sparing himself. During the war, he lost his brother, wife, father and mother. All that he has left are children, and he only wants to return to them in order to forget about the struggle and never take up arms. Unfortunately this is not possible. For those around him, the Melekhs are a traitor. Suspicion turns into outright hostility, and soon the Soviet government begins a real hunt for Gregory. During the flight, his still beloved Aksinya perishes. After wandering around the steppe, the main character, aged and gray, finally falls in spirit and returns to his native farm. He resigned himself, but wishes, perhaps, to see his son for the last time before accepting his sad fate.

Was repeatedly embodied in the cinema.

History of creation. Possible prototype

The literary biography of Grigory Melekhov, according to researchers, is inseparable from the question of the authorship of the texts of the novel "Quiet Don". Thus, a number of literary critics are of the opinion that “co-author's editing” is visible in the manuscripts of the work; hence - the "inconsistency and contradiction" of the image of the protagonist. Others are convinced that Melekhov's throwings are associated with the formation of his personality and "are on the rise."

In the rough sketches of the novel, dated 1925, Grigory Melekhov was not there - he appeared in the final version, taking the place of the character of Abram Ermakov. At the same time, as noted by the writer Anatoly Kalinin, the name Grigory is often found in Sholokhov's early stories; the stories of the heroes acting in his works such as "Kolovert" and "Shepherd" are very far from Melekhov's fate, but they already reveal "a glimpse of that very young Gregory, who has not yet lost his way on the roads of a harsh hard time."

Evidence that the “predecessor” of Melekhov was Abram Ermakov is, according to the literary critic Felix Kuznetsov, both external similarities (both had “blue bulging whites of the eyes” and “curved left eyebrow”), and common character traits: both the other were distinguished by their ardent disposition and unrestrained actions. At the same time, the two heroes had a common prototype - the Cossack Kharlampy Ermakov, who was shot in 1927 on the basis of the decision of the OGPU collegium. For several decades after the release of The Quiet Don, Sholokhov himself answered questions about prototypes rather evasively, neither confirming nor denying the version about the closeness of the fate of Ermakov and Melekhov: "Yes and no ... Most likely this is a collective image."

The researchers found that Sholokhov was well acquainted with Kharlampy Vasilyevich, and communicated very closely with him when collecting materials related to the history of the Civil War in southern Russia. The archives contain a letter from Mikhail Alexandrovich addressed to Ermakov; it, in particular, mentions the need for a personal meeting in order to obtain "some additional information regarding the era of 1919".

The similarity between Grigory and his prototype was repeatedly established by Soviet scientists during their conversations with Yermakov's daughter Pelageya and several Cossacks older than her. Noteworthy testimony came from a White Guard officer, Yevgeny Kovalev, who served with Yermakov in the Don Army in the summer of 1919. Kovalev found such a striking similarity between Ermakov and Grigory in terms of their appearance and courage that he wrote an article entitled "Kharlampy Ermakov - Hero of The Quiet Don".

Biography milestones

The protagonist of the novel "Quiet Don" was born in 1892 (the date of birth is not indicated in the work, but it was established by researchers on the basis of documents about the draft age that were in force in Russia in the first decades of the 20th century) in the family of a retired sergeant of the Ataman Life Guards Regiment Panteley Melekhov. In the external appearance of Gregory, paternal features are noticeable, which, like other "hump-nosed, wildly beautiful" representatives of the Melekhov family, the farmers called Turks. The novel traces the main stages of Gregory's biography. So, in December 1913 he was drafted into the army; in the service in the 12th Don Cossack Regiment, Melekhov manifests himself as a person who fiercely defends his own honor and strives to prevent insults of other people. In the fall of 1914, he was admitted to the hospital, then returned to the front, took part in the Brusilov breakthrough; by 1916, Gregory already has four St. George's crosses.

Melekhov's life in 1917 is indicated by a dotted line; according to the researchers, such authorial restraint is due to the fact that the hero "remained aloof from the political struggle that swept the country." One of the key moments that influenced his perception of the world is, according to the literary critic Irina Medvedeva-Tomashevskaya, the episode during which captured Cossack officers are destroyed: Bolsheviks ". In Melekhov's views on life, the experience of a farmer and a fighter is combined, therefore, like other Cossacks, he is really worried about three issues: about land, will and power.

Grigory Melekhov and Aksinya

Interest in Aksinya - the wife of the Melekhovs' neighbor Stepan Astakhov - arises from Grigory at the moment when thirty Cossacks, including the heroine's husband, leave for military training in the camps. The novel is developing rapidly; Aksinya and Gregory are brought together by recklessness of feelings, sincerity of impulses, unwillingness to reckon with human rumor. According to the literary critic Svetlana Semyonova, Melekhov and his beloved are united by "passion, powerful, almost bestial erotic, vital energy"; at the same time, the hero with his “wild beauty” is “the embodiment of masculinity,” while the ardent, sensual, attractive Aksinya carries a powerful feminine principle. The love of the characters is like the "spring emancipation of the earth"; it is no coincidence that the description of nature takes up so much space at the time of dates or languor of heroes: "Aksinya and the maple bush", "Aksinya and the sad captivating smell of a lily of the valley touched by wilting."

In the finale of The Quiet Don, the heroes advance at night to the village of Morozovskaya. On the way, the young woman is overtaken by a bullet fired by a "man from the outpost." After the death of Aksinya, the hero plunges into an "apocalyptic stupor"; its existence is reminiscent of "dead charred earth."

Grigory Melekhov and Natalia

Grigory does not marry Natalia Korshunova for love - this is the choice of his father. How far the young bride is from the hero is evidenced by the wedding scene written by the author with a “distant eye”: Melekhov observes the behavior of the guests, records the peculiarities of their behavior during the feast, and at the same time feels a certain isolation from what is happening: “There is a somewhat grotesque montage enlarged details ".

At the same time, Grigory realizes that his wife is “thin, well-dressed,” with a “fine figure,” and she is pretty; seeing her after a long absence, Melekhov notes: "A beautiful woman, shies in the eye." However, he cannot artificially cultivate love for Natalya in himself; the hero's confessions that “there’s nothing in my heart” are juxtaposed with the description of “deadly obsolete grasses” and “black-blue upper wasteland”. Natalya treats her husband differently than Aksinya; in her opinion, according to researchers, there is no temperamental ardor of a rival, but there is a "penetrating radiance".

It is not for nothing that the husband's coarse heart responds to such an intense light, being capable of emotion and tears, which Grigory usually does not feel when he sees Aksinya - here the sensations and feelings are different. Natalya's attitude to Grigory is more chaste and bashful in its immediate sensory manifestations than that of Aksinya, permeated with tenderness and devotion, the inseparability of the physical and mental and spiritual.

The image of Melekhov in cinema

The first performer of the role of Grigory Melekhov was Andrei Abrikosov, who starred in a film based on the first two books of the novel. As the actor later recalled, at the time of the screen test, he had not yet read Sholokhov's works and came to the site unprepared; the idea of ​​the character's image developed later. According to the actress Emma Tsesarskaya, who played Aksinya, after the release of the film, Sholokhov wrote a sequel to The Quiet Don with an eye on the characters embodied in the film.

In subsequent years, the image of Grigory Melekhov was embodied on the screen by Rupert Everett in the television series of Sergei Bondarchuk "Quiet Don" and Yevgeny Tkachuk in the television series by Sergei Ursulyak.

Notes (edit)

1. Yakimenko L.G. Sholokhov // Brief literary encyclopedia / Editor-in-chief A. A. Surkov. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1975 .-- T. 8. - S. 758-764.
2. A. Makarov, Svetlana Makarova."And this power is not from God." "Co-author" processing of literary text in "Quiet Don" // New World. - 1993. - No. 11.
3. Svetlana Semyonova. Philosophical and metaphysical facets of "The Quiet Don" // Voprosy literatury. - 2002. - No. 1.
4. , with. 73.
5. A. V. Kalinin Time of "Quiet Don". - M.: Izvestia, 1975 .-- P. 16.
6. , with. 130.