The theme of the “little man” in the novel “Crime and Punishment”

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky went down in the history of Russian and world literature as a brilliant artist, humanist and democrat, as a researcher of human souls. In the spiritual life of a man of his era, Dostoevsky saw a reflection of the deep processes of the historical development of society. With tragic power, the writer showed how social injustice cripples the souls of people, what unbearable oppression and despair a person experiences when fighting for a humane relationship between people, suffering for the humiliated and insulted.
Dostoevsky's novels are called social and philosophical. In the clash of different ideas and beliefs, the writer strives to find that highest truth, that one idea that can become common to all people. In the most difficult years for the Russian people, he continued to look for ways to save people from the suffering and troubles that the inhumane system brings with it. The writer was especially fascinated by the fate of the “little man” in society. Pushkin and Gogol thought about this topic. This painful theme permeates Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment.”
Dostoevsky's characters usually appear before the reader with already formed beliefs and express a certain idea. The heroes of “Crime and Punishment” are no exception. In the novel, the “little people” are endowed with a certain philosophical idea. These are thinking people, but overwhelmed by life. For example, Semyon Zakharych Marmeladov. His conversation with Raskolnikov, the conversation of the drunken official, is essentially Marmeladov’s monologue. He stands on one idea, the idea of ​​self-destruction. He enjoys beatings, and he trains himself not to pay attention to the attitude of those around him like a fool, and he is accustomed to spending the night wherever he has to. Marmeladov is not able to fight for life, for his family. He doesn’t care about his family, society, or even Raskolnikov. The reward for all this is the rising picture of the “Last Judgment,” when the Almighty will accept Marmeladov and similar “pigs” into the kingdom of heaven precisely because not a single one of them “considered himself worthy of this.” “And he will judge and forgive everyone, both the good and the evil, both the wise and the humble... And when he has finished with everyone, then he will say to us: “Come out,” he will say, you too! Come out drunk, come out weak, come out drunk!" And we will all come out, not ashamed, and stand. And he will say: “You pigs! The image of the beast and its seal; but come you too!”... And he will stretch out his hands to us and we will fall ...”
Dostoevsky describes a weak-willed drunkard who drove his wife to consumption, let his daughter in with a “yellow ticket,” but while condemning him, the writer simultaneously appeals to people. Well, people, have at least a drop of pity for him, take a closer look at him, is he really that bad. After all, he “offered his hand to the unfortunate woman with three children, because he could not look at such suffering”; For the first time, I lost my place through no fault of my own. He suffers most of all from the consciousness of guilt in front of his children. Is this “little man” really that bad? We can say that he was made this way by a society more indifferent and cruel than he himself in his drunkenness.
Raskolnikov meets Marmeladov’s wife Katerina Ivanovna only four times. But all four times he observes her after severe mental shock. He himself did not engage in lengthy speeches with her, and he only listened with half an ear. But he caught that in her speeches there was indignation at the behavior of those around her, a cry of despair, the cry of a person who has nowhere else to go, but vanity suddenly boils up, a desire to rise in his own eyes, in the eyes of Raskolnikov. If the idea of ​​self-destruction is associated with Marmeladov, then the idea of ​​self-affirmation is associated with Katerina Ivanovna. We see that the more hopeless the situation, the more uncontrollable the fantasy. She talks about the story of her life with vain exaggeration, and sees herself in her dreams as the owner of a boarding house for noble maidens. After she is kicked out into the street, she continues to tell everyone that her children have the most aristocratic connections. And she herself makes them behave.
We see that any attempt to internally withstand the conditions to which people are doomed fails. Neither self-deprecation nor self-affirmation, even with the help of lies, helps. A person inevitably collapses morally and then dies physically. But Katerina Ivanovna’s self-affirmation echoes Raskolnikov’s thought about the right of the chosen ones to a special position, about power over all people. The fact is that Marmeladov’s wife is not a chosen person. It is shown by Dostoevsky as a parody. The path of excessive pride leads her to the street. She is simply the “little person” we are talking about today. And Katerina Ivanovna’s megalomania does not reduce her tragedy. Of course, the writer speaks about her fate with great bitterness.
Another character in the novel is one of the “little people”. This is Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin. This type is not capable of self-abasement, of immense self-affirmation through pride, he is not capable of murder, he does not profess any democratic ideas. Luzhin, on the contrary, is for the dominance of egoistic relations, purely bourgeois, inhuman relations. Luzhin's ideas lead to the slow murder of people, to the rejection of goodness and light in their souls. Raskolnikov understands this well: “... is it true that you told your bride... at the very hour when you received her consent that you were most glad that... that she was a beggar... because it is more profitable to take a wife out of poverty in order to then rule over her ... and reproach her for the fact that you have benefited her?..”
Only his own benefit, career, success in the world worries Luzhin. He is ready to humiliate himself, to humiliate, to give everything and everyone for his well-being, to take away the latter for his own benefit. But he will not kill, he will find a lot of ways, cowardly and vile, to crush a person with impunity. This is manifested in its entirety in the wake scene. Such a character was developed by Dostoevsky as the personification of the world that Raskolnikov hates. It is the meadows that push the Marmalades to their death and force young girls to go to the panel.
The type of puddles, the type of vile and low “little people” who will never have a place in any society.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky created a wide canvas of immeasurable human torment, suffering and grief, peering intently into the soul of the so-called “little man.” He discovered in him not only suffering, but also meanness, cowardice and thirst for profit, like Mr. Luzhin. He discovered in him hopelessness and self-destruction, like Marmeladov, and immeasurable destructive pride, like Katerina Ivanovna.
Dostoevsky's worldview is based on one enduring fundamental value - love for man, recognition of man's spirituality. And all the writer’s quests are aimed at creating better living conditions worthy of the title of human being.

F. M. Dostoevsky in his work showed the immensity of the suffering of humiliated and insulted people and expressed enormous pain for this suffering. The writer himself was humiliated and insulted by the terrible reality that broke the fate of his heroes. Each of his works looks like a personal bitter confession. This is exactly how the novel “Crime and Punishment” is perceived. It reflects a desperate protest against the cruel reality that crushed millions of people, just as the unfortunate Marmeladov was crushed to death.
The story of the moral struggle of the novel's protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, unfolds against the backdrop of Everyday life cities. The description of St. Petersburg in the novel makes a depressing impression. Everywhere there is dirt, stench, stuffiness. Drunken cries are heard from the taverns, poorly dressed people crowd the boulevards and squares: “Near the taverns on the lower floors, in the dirty and smelly courtyards of Sennaya Square, and most of all near the taverns, there were crowds of many different and every kind of industrialists and rags... There are no rags here. attracted no one’s arrogant attention, and one could walk around in any form without scandalizing anyone.” Raskolnikov is one of this crowd: “He was so poorly dressed that another, even an ordinary person, would be ashamed to go out into the street in such rags during the day.”
The life of the other heroes of the novel is also terrible - the drunken official Marmeladov, his wife Katerina Ivanovna, who is dying of consumption, Raskolnikov’s mother and sister, who are experiencing the bullying of landowners and rich people.
Dostoevsky depicts various shades of the psychological experiences of a poor man who has nothing to pay his landlord’s rent. The writer shows the torment of children growing up in a dirty corner next to a drunken father and a dying mother, amid constant abuse and quarrels; the tragedy of a young and pure girl, forced due to the desperate situation of her family to start selling herself and dooming herself to constant humiliation.
However, Dostoevsky is not limited to describing everyday phenomena and facts of terrifying reality. He seems to connect them with the depiction of the complex characters of the novel's heroes. The writer strives to show that the everyday everyday life of the city gives rise not only to material poverty and lack of rights, but also cripples the psychology of people. The “little people” driven to despair begin to have various fantastic “ideas” that are no less nightmarish than the reality around them.
This is Raskolnikov’s “idea” about Napoleons and “trembling creatures,” “ordinary” and “extraordinary” people. Dostoevsky shows how this philosophy is born from life itself, under the influence of the terrifying existence of “little people.”
But not only Raskolnikov’s fate consists of tragic trials and painful searches for a way out of the current situation. The lives of the other heroes of the novel - Marmeladov, Sonya, and Dunya - are also deeply tragic.
The heroes of the novel are painfully aware of the hopelessness of their situation and the cruelty of reality. “After all, it is necessary that every person at least have somewhere to go. For there comes a time when you definitely need to go somewhere!.., after all, it is necessary that every person has at least one such place where they would be pitied!.. Do you understand, do you understand... what does it mean, when there is nowhere else to go?..” - from these words of Marmeladov, sounding like a cry for salvation, the heart of every reader contracts. They, in fact, express the main idea of ​​the novel. This is the cry of the soul of a man, exhausted, crushed by his inevitable fate.
The main character of the novel feels a close connection with all humiliated and suffering people, feels a moral responsibility towards them. The destinies of Sonya Marmeladova and Dunya are connected in his mind into one knot of social and moral problems. After committing the crime, Raskolnikov is overcome by despair and anxiety. He experiences fear, hatred of his persecutors, horror of a committed and irreparable act. And then he begins to look more closely than before at other people, to compare his fate with theirs.
Raskolnikov brings Sonya's fate closer to his own; in her behavior and attitude to life, he begins to look for a solution to the issues that torment him.
Sonya Marmeladova appears in the novel as a bearer moral ideals millions of “humiliated and insulted.” Like Raskolnikov, Sonya is a victim of the existing unjust order of things. Her father's drunkenness, the suffering of her stepmother, brother and sisters, doomed to hunger and poverty, forced her, like Raskolnikov, to cross the line of morality. She begins to sell her body, giving herself over to the vile and depraved world. But, unlike Raskolnikov, she is firmly convinced that no hardships in life can justify violence and crime. Sonya calls on Raskolnikov to abandon the morality of the “superman” in order to steadfastly unite his fate with the fate of suffering and oppressed humanity and thereby atone for his guilt before him.
“Little people” in Dostoevsky’s novel, despite the severity of their situation, prefer to be victims rather than executioners. It's better to be crushed than to crush others! This conclusion is gradually being reached main character. At the end of the novel, we see him on the threshold of a “new life,” “a gradual transition from one world to another, acquaintance with a new, hitherto completely unknown reality.”

(378 words) Small man- this is the type literary hero, which arose in Russian literature during the period of realism, that is, in the 20-30s of the 19th century. It is not difficult to guess that this type characterizes a person of the lower class. Low social status and origin initially indicate that these people are not gifted strong character and by will, on the contrary, they do no harm to anyone, they are kind and naive, like children. In the works of F.M. Dostoevsky’s “little man” also found its place. A whole gallery of heroes, humiliated and insulted, misunderstood by life, they play the role of martyrs in the novel “Crime and Punishment”: the Marmeladov family, Lizaveta, Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Avdotya Romanovna. Let's take a closer look at the examples.

So, the Marmeladov family. Starting from the head of the family Semyon Marmeladov and ending with his unfortunate children, one can give excellent examples of weak-willed and good people. The elder Marmeladov is weak because he allowed alcohol to take over him. He ruined the life of his wife, Ekaterina Ivanovna, who has to live in inhuman conditions with small children and daughter Sonechka. “My daughter lives on a yellow ticket, sir...” he said. The retired official evokes misunderstanding and pity among readers. After all, although he regrets what he did, he does not intend to change his life.

Why does the author introduce this type of literary hero? To show the best character traits of Rodion Raskolnikov. It was the Marmeladov family that awakened both bewilderment and regret in him. Thinking about the murder and subsequently committing it, Rodion Romanovich justifies his action as a sacrifice for the good.

But, in addition to the Marmeladov family, mired in problems, there are also heroes who are “little people”. For example, Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, who differs from the Marmeladovs not only in wealth, but also in his vile character. Luzhin cares only about his own benefit, which he sees everywhere. Luzhin also decides to marry Raskolnikov’s sister not out of love, but out of his own convenience. Luzhin dreams of a poor, but beautiful and educated bride who would become a slave for him: “He enthusiastically thought, in the deepest secret, about a well-behaved and poor girl (certainly poor) ... who would consider him her salvation all her life, would revere him , obeyed, was surprised at him, and only him alone...” Thus, the author of Crime and Punishment introduces a character like Luzhin to show that a person with selfish thoughts will never be happy.

Thus, the “little people” in the novel “Crime and Punishment” differ from similar characters of other writers. But each of them is present in the novel in order to further reveal the image of both the image of the main character and to better show the plot lines.

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We all pity and love the clean, washed dead, but you should love the living, dirty ones.
V. M. Shukshin

F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” describes an unusual crime committed by a poor student to test his terrible theory; in the novel it is called “blood according to conscience.” Raskolnikov divides all people into ordinary and extraordinary. The former must live in obedience, the latter “have the right, that is, not the official right, but they themselves have the right to allow their conscience to step over... other obstacles only if the fulfillment of their idea requires it” (3, V). Raskolnikov, having seen enough of the grief, the broken destinies of ordinary (“little”) people - the inhabitants of the St. Petersburg slums, decides to act, since he is no longer able to humbly observe the ugly life around him. Decisiveness, a deep and original mind, the desire to correct an imperfect world, and not to obey its unjust laws - these are the features that do not allow Raskolnikov’s image to be classified as a “little people”.

To believe in himself, the hero needs to make sure whether he is a “trembling creature” (that is, an ordinary person) or “has the right” (that is, an outstanding personality), he can afford “blood according to his conscience,” like successful historical heroes, or he won't be able to. If the test shows that he is one of the chosen ones, then one should boldly set about correcting the unjust world; for Raskolnikov this means making the life of “little people” easier. Thus, in Raskolnikov’s theory, the happiness of “little people” seems to be the main and ultimate goal. This conclusion is not contradicted even by the confession that the hero made to Sonya: he killed not to help his mother and sister Dunya, but “for himself” (5, IV).

From the above reasoning it follows that the theme of the “little man” is one of the main ones in the novel, as it is connected with both social and philosophical content. Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” sounded this theme even stronger and more tragic than Pushkin’s “The Station Agent” and Gogol’s “The Overcoat”. Dostoevsky chose the poorest and dirtiest part of St. Petersburg as the setting for his novel—the area of ​​Sennaya Square and the Kuznechny Market. One after another, the writer unfolds pictures of the hopeless need of “little people”, insulted and humiliated by the unscrupulous “masters of life”. The novel describes in more or less detail several characters who can certainly be classified as traditional type“little people”: the old pawnbroker’s sister Lizaveta, who in Dostoevsky becomes a symbol of the “little man”, Raskolnikova’s mother Pulkheria Aleksandrovna, Marmeladov’s wife Katerina Ivanovna. However, the most in a bright way in this row is, of course, Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov himself, telling his story to Raskolnikov in the tavern.

In this hero, Dostoevsky combined Pushkin and Gogol traditions in the depiction of “little people.” Marmeladov, like Bashmachkin, is pitiful and insignificant, powerless to change his life (to end drunkenness), but he retains, like Samson Vyrin, a living feeling - love for Sonya and Katerina Ivanovna. He is unhappy and, realizing his hopeless situation, exclaims: “Do you know what it means when there is nowhere to go?” (1,II). Just like Vyrin, Marmeladov begins to drink out of grief, misfortune (he lost his job), fear of life and powerlessness to do anything for his family. Like Vyrin, Semyon Zakharovich is worried about the bitter fate of his daughter Sonya, who is forced to “step over” and go to the panel in order to feed Katerina Ivanovna’s starving children. The difference, however, is that the daughter stationmaster was happy (with her love for Minsky), but Sonya was unhappy.

Dostoevsky built in the novel storyline the Marmeladov family in such a way as to emphasize the tragedy of the image of Semyon Zakharovich. Drunken Marmeladov falls under the wheels of a smart carriage through his own fault and dies, leaving his large family without a livelihood. He understands this well, so he last words addressed to Sonya, the only support for Katerina Ivanovna and the children: “Sonya! Daughter! Sorry!” - he shouted and wanted to stretch out his hand to her, but, losing support, he fell off the sofa...” (2, VII).

Katerina Ivanovna does not outwardly resemble the traditional “little person” who meekly accepts suffering. She, according to Marmeladov, is “a hot-tempered, proud and unyielding lady” (1, II), she fusses over the general for her husband, arranges “educational” scandals for her drunken husband, and brings Sonya to the point of reproaches that the girl goes to the panel to earn money for bread for the family. But in essence, Katerina Ivanovna, like all “little people,” is broken by life’s failures. She cannot resist the blows of fate. Her helpless despair is manifested in her last insane act: she runs out into the street with her small children to beg and dies, refusing her final confession. When she is asked to invite a priest, she replies: “What? A priest?.. No need... Where do you have an extra ruble?.., I have no sins!... God must forgive anyway... He himself knows how much I suffered!.. But if he doesn’t forgive, he won’t necessary!..” (5,V). This scene indicates that Dostoevsky’s “little man” even reaches the point of rebellion against God.

Sonya Marmeladova - main character novel - outwardly very similar to the traditional “little man” who humbly submits to circumstances and meekly goes to death. To save people like Sonya, Raskolnikov came up with his theory, but it turns out that Sonya is only at first glance a weak character, but in fact she strong personality: seeing that her family had reached extreme poverty, she made a difficult decision and saved her relatives from starvation, at least temporarily. Despite her shameful profession, Sonya maintains spiritual purity. She endures with dignity the bullying of others about her position in society. Moreover, thanks to her mental fortitude, it was she who was able to support the murderer Raskolnikov, it is she who helps him find the right way out of the moral impasse, from Dostoevsky’s point of view: through sincere repentance and suffering, return to normal. human life. She herself atones for her involuntary sins, and supports Raskolnikov in hard labor. This is how the theme of the “little man” unexpectedly turns in the novel Crime and Punishment.

Raskolnikov’s friend Razumikhin, completely unlike the traditional “little man,” is a very attractive, complete hero. Courage, common sense, and love of life help Razumikhin to withstand all adversity: “He was also remarkable because no failures ever embarrassed him and no bad circumstances seemed to be able to crush him” (1, IV). Thus, Razumikhin cannot be classified as a “little people” because he constantly resists misfortunes and does not bend under the blows of fate. A faithful comrade, Razumikhin takes care of the sick Raskolnikov, invites Doctor Zosimov to see him; Knowing about Porfiry Petrovich’s suspicions about Raskolnikov, he tries to shield the main character by explaining his friend’s strange actions with illness. A poor student himself, he takes care of Raskolnikov's mother and sister, and sincerely falls in love with the dowry-free Dunya. She, however, unexpectedly and very opportunely receives a dowry inheritance from Marfa Petrovna Svidrigailova.

So, in the literary type “little man” we can distinguish general signs: low rank, poverty, and most importantly, the inability to withstand life’s failures and rich offenders.

After Gogol’s “The Overcoat” (1842), Russian writers began to often turn to the image of the “little man” in their works. N.A. Nekrasov, acting as an editor, published in 1845 a two-volume collection “Physiology of St. Petersburg”, which included essays about people from the city slums and back streets of the capital: V.I. Dal portrayed a St. Petersburg janitor, I.I. Panaev - feuilletonist, D.V. Grigorovich - an organ grinder, E.P. Grebenok - residents of the provincial outskirts of St. Petersburg. These essays were mainly descriptive, that is, they contained portraits, psychological and speech characteristics"little people" Dostoevsky in his stories and novels offered a deep understanding social status and the character of the “little man,” which fundamentally distinguished his works from the stories and essays of the above-mentioned authors.

If Pushkin and Gogol’s main feelings towards the “little man” were pity and compassion, then Dostoevsky expressed a different approach to such heroes: he evaluates them more critically. “Little people” before Dostoevsky were predominantly deeply and innocently suffering, and Dostoevsky portrayed them as people who were largely to blame for their plight. For example, Marmeladov, with his drunkenness, pushes his beloved family to death, blaming all worries about young children on Sonya and the half-crazy Katerina Ivanovna. In other words, Dostoevsky’s image of the “little man” becomes more complex, deepens, and enriched with new ideas. This is expressed in the fact that Dostoevsky’s heroes (Marmeladov, Katerina Ivanovna, Sonya and others) not only suffer, but they themselves declare their suffering, they themselves explain their lives. Neither Samson Vyrin nor Akakiy Akakievich Bashmachkin formulated the reasons for their misfortunes, but only meekly endured them, obediently submitting to the blows of fate.

In the formula “little man,” Dostoevsky places the emphasis not on small, as his literary predecessors, but per person. For the humiliated and insulted heroes of Crime and Punishment, the worst thing is to lose self-respect and human dignity. Marmeladov discusses this in confession, and Katerina Ivanovna screams before her death. That is, Dostoevsky’s “little people” themselves refute the theory of Raskolnikov, who considered them only “trembling creatures”, material for the experiments of “extraordinary” people.

The image of the little man in “Crime and Punishment” is constructed somewhat differently, but basically in the same manner. His embodiment there is Marmeladov, a petty official who was expelled from service for drunkenness. His image is internally deeply dramatic. In this seemingly completely worthless person, capable of drinking away the last of his family's money and going to Sonya to ask for a hangover, Dostoevsky, true to his creative principles, finds a living human soul. From Marmeladov’s monologues it is very noticeable that he was once not devoid of pride and consciousness of his own human dignity. Now all that remains of this pride is shame. Marmeladov is no longer able to cope with his destructive passion, is not able to rise, but he is able to punish himself for this with the most severe moral punishment. If he were alone, he would not suffer. But the consciousness that Katerina Ivanovna and the children are suffering because of him is what torments Marmeladov, forcing him to turn with his heartbreaking and desperate confession to the regulars of the tavern, to Raskolnikov. He, once a proud and conscientious person, is not afraid to expose himself to shame and ridicule; on the contrary, he strives for this, because this is how he punishes himself. It is amazing the depth with which this degraded person is able to feel the moral suffering of Katerina Ivanovna, to constantly think about her and the children, about his guilt and his sin. And, what is very important for Dostoevsky, this man continues to trust in God - this is the meaning of the parable he told Raskolnikov. And - another important point for Dostoevsky - hope in divine mercy is combined in Marmeladov with humility and self-abasement, which replaced the former pride. Such a person, according to Dostoevsky, is not lost to God.

An extremely touching detail that completes the image of Marmeladov is the gingerbread that is found in his pocket after death - evidence of his last thought about children. This detail finally sets the evaluative emphasis: the author is far from despising or at least condemning Marmeladov; he is a sinner, but deserves forgiveness. Continuing the tradition of his predecessors, Dostoevsky brings to the fore in his interpretation of the theme of the little man the principle of humanism, the need not to condemn and throw a stone, but to understand and forgive.

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