What is unique about the composition of the novel “Quiet Don”? (Sholokhov M. A.)

The novel in verse by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” was published in separate chapters for several years. The author himself called his novel “a collection motley chapters” and, at the end of the first chapter, he admitted that he wrote it without a plan and did not want to correct the numerous contradictions. Nevertheless, the composition of the novel is distinguished by deep thoughtfulness, clarity and logical completeness.

What is the composition of the novel "Eugene Onegin"

The main technique in constructing the composition of the novel is its mirror symmetry. As the storyline develops, the characters seem to change places. First, Tatyana falls in love with Onegin and suffers from unrequited love. Onegin, after receiving a letter of confession from her, gives the girl a rather cruel rebuke. At the same time, the author accompanies the heroine, sincerely sympathizing with her. What follows is the duel between Onegin and Lensky - an event that interrupts the love line in order to subsequently present it in a mirror image. When they meet in St. Petersburg, Tatiana and Onegin change places. Now Evgeniy writes her a letter of recognition, now he is ready to fall at the feet of a proud society lady, and Tatyana rejects him. In this situation, the author finds himself next to Onegin. Here you can notice the circular structure of the composition, allowing the reader to return to the past and creating the impression of completeness of the novel.

Ring composition composition

The ring composition reveals the changes that have occurred in the characters central characters. If Onegin at the beginning of the novel, leaving elite, remains a “secular slacker”, unable to fill his leisure time with either reading or creativity, then in the last chapter he appears before the reader as a well-read, thinking person who almost became a poet. Moreover, if at the beginning Evgeniy considers himself satiated, tired of life and incapable of experiencing deep feelings, then by the end he turns into an ardent lover.
Tatyana, having become a society lady, remains at heart the same naive and sincere village girl. However, now she is proud, restrained, does not give free rein to her emotions and will no longer allow herself to commit reckless acts.

Lyrical digressions

Another important feature of the novel’s composition is the presence of numerous lyrical digressions. In them, the author lifts the curtain on the history of the creation of the novel, characterizes its characters, gives a wide panorama of the cultural life of the capital, and then, in contrast, shows an idyllic picture of village life, paints poetic Central Russian landscapes, and talks about rural mores and customs.

All of the above compositional techniques allow the author not only to present an essentially simple plot, but also to show a broad picture of Russian life, distance himself from boring literary canons and, as a result, create a harmonious, integral and complete work.


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Epic novel " Quiet Don"can be considered the pinnacle of M.A. Sholokhov’s creativity. It covers a large period of time, describes the events of the First World War, two revolutions and Civil War, therefore, to understand this work, a large role must be given to composition.

At the center of the novel is the story of the Melekhov family. Through the prism of the personal life of each of its members, Sholokhov conveys the mood of the Don Cossacks in different historical periods.

This technique helps the reader to acutely feel the tragedy of those events and also find out how simple people coped with the difficulties that suddenly befell them.

A special place in the novel is occupied by lyrical digressions. M.A. Sholokhov follows the tradition of the genre and describes the landscape surrounding the heroes in all colors and details. In the writer’s work, the natural world is inseparable from the human world; the Cossacks sincerely love their native land, live in harmony with it and thank it for its generous gifts, which give them the opportunity to exist peacefully. Through nature, the feelings of the heroes seem to materialize. For example, state of mind Aksinya, after the break with Gregory, is compared to the deserted and wild steppe, where cattle once grazed. And Gregory himself, after the funeral of his beloved, saw above him “a dazzling black disk of the sun.” This technique helps the writer to better convey the psychologism of the characters, their emotional condition, which is difficult to describe in words.

An important feature of the composition of “Quiet Don” is the use of antithesis. The entire novel is built on it: Sholokhov constantly compares war and peace, life and death. And accordingly, uncertainty and doubt characterize Grigory Melekhov as the main character. He rushes between whites and reds, between Aksinya and Natalya, between feelings and duty. The constant search for the truth, for one’s place in life is the main motive of “Quiet Don”.

This character trait determines not only an individual person, but also an entire era. The space of the novel is constantly narrowing and expanding. From the events taking place in the Tatarsky farm, the writer moves on to large-scale events that cover large cities and concern the whole country. Sholokhov includes real historical figures and documents in the narrative, and thus “Quiet Don” becomes a kind of chronicle, and Grigory Melekhov becomes a socio-psychological type characterizing society as a whole. And the problem of the work expands - it becomes nationwide.

The florid, unstable plot of “Quiet Don” ends in the Melekhovo courtyard, where it began. Gregory, after long wanderings, returns to his native kuren with his little son. The hero now has the opportunity to start all over again: restore the household, arrange his life, raise a child. The ring composition depicts the cycle of good and evil. And this reveals another important motif of the work - the motif of the transience of time. Peaceful life is disrupted by turmoil and destruction, but then returns to normal again. This is a natural historical process. The earth is gradually healing its wounds. Humanity also heals its wounds. Only memory remains. And Sholokhov expresses this idea at the end of his novel.

Composition is a construction work of art. The effect that the text produces on the reader depends on the composition, since the doctrine of composition says: it is important not only to be able to tell entertaining stories, but also to present them competently.

Gives different definition composition, in our opinion, the simplest definition is this: composition is the construction of a work of art, the arrangement of its parts in a certain sequence.
Composition is the internal organization of a text. Composition is about how the elements of the text are arranged, reflecting the different stages of development of the action. The composition depends on the content of the work and the author’s goals.

Stages of action development (composition elements):

Composition elements– reflect the stages of development of the conflict in the work:

Prologue – introductory text that opens the work, preceding the main story. As a rule, thematically related to the subsequent action. It is often the “gate” of a work, that is, it helps to penetrate the meaning of the subsequent narrative.

Exposition– the background of the events underlying the work of art. As a rule, the exposition provides characteristics of the main characters, their arrangement before the start of the action, before the plot. The exposition explains to the reader why the hero behaves this way. Exposure can be direct or delayed. Direct exposure is located at the very beginning of the work: an example is the novel “The Three Musketeers” by Dumas, which begins with the history of the D’Artagnan family and the characteristics of the young Gascon. Delayed exposure placed in the middle (in I.A. Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov,” the story of Ilya Ilyich is told in “Oblomov’s Dream,” that is, almost in the middle of the work) or even at the end of the text (a textbook example of Gogol’s “Dead Souls”: information about Chichikov’s life before arrival in the provincial city are given in the last chapter of the first volume). The delayed exposure gives the work a mysterious quality.

The beginning of the action is an event that becomes the beginning of an action. The beginning either reveals an existing contradiction, or creates, “knots” conflicts. The plot of “Eugene Onegin” is the death of the protagonist’s uncle, which forces him to go to the village and take over his inheritance. In the story about Harry Potter, the plot is an invitation letter from Hogwart, which the hero receives and thanks to which he learns that he is a wizard.

Main action, development of actions - events committed by the characters after the beginning and preceding the climax.

Climax(from Latin culmen - top) - the highest highest point tension in the development of action. This is the highest point of the conflict, when the contradiction reaches its greatest limit and is expressed in a particularly acute form. The climax in "The Three Musketeers" is the scene of the death of Constance Bonacieux, in "Eugene Onegin" - the scene of Onegin and Tatiana's explanation, in the first story about "Harry Potter" - the scene of the fight over Voldemort. The more conflicts there are in a work, the more difficult it is to reduce all the actions to just one climax, so there may be several climaxes. The climax is the most acute manifestation of the conflict and at the same time it prepares the denouement of the action, and therefore can sometimes precede it. In such works it can be difficult to separate the climax from the denouement.

Denouement- the outcome of the conflict. This is the final moment in creating an artistic conflict. The denouement is always directly related to the action and, as it were, puts the final semantic point in the narrative. The denouement can resolve the conflict: for example, in “The Three Musketeers” it is the execution of Milady. The final outcome in Harry Potter is the final victory over Voldemort. However, the denouement may not eliminate the contradiction; for example, in “Eugene Onegin” and “Woe from Wit” the heroes remain in difficult situations.

Epilogue (from Greekepilogos - afterword)- always concludes, closes the work. The epilogue tells about the further fate of the heroes. For example, Dostoevsky in the epilogue of Crime and Punishment talks about how Raskolnikov changed in hard labor. And in the epilogue of War and Peace, Tolstoy talks about the lives of all the main characters of the novel, as well as how their characters and behavior have changed.

Lyrical digression– the author’s deviation from the plot, the author’s lyrical insertions that have little or nothing to do with the theme of the work. A lyrical digression, on the one hand, slows down the development of the action, on the other hand, it allows the writer to express in an open form Subjective opinion on various issues directly or indirectly related to the central topic. Such, for example, are the famous lyrical digressions in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” or “ Dead souls» Gogol.

Types of composition:

Traditional classification:

Direct (linear, sequential) the events in the work are depicted in chronological order. “Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboedov, “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy.
Ring – the beginning and end of the work echo each other, often completely coinciding. In “Eugene Onegin”: Onegin rejects Tatiana, and at the end of the novel, Tatiana rejects Onegin.
Mirror - a combination of repetition and contrast techniques, as a result of which the initial and final images are repeated exactly the opposite. One of the first scenes of L. Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” depicts the death of a man under the wheels of a train. This is how one commits suicide main character novel.
A story within a story - The main story is told by one of the characters in the work. M. Gorky’s story “The Old Woman Izergil” is constructed according to this scheme.

Classification by A. BESIN (according to the monograph “Principles and Techniques of Analysis of a Literary Work”):

Linear – the events in the work are depicted in chronological order.
Mirror – the initial and final images and actions are repeated exactly the opposite, opposing each other.
Ring – the beginning and ending of the work echo each other and have a number of similar images, motifs, and events.
Retrospection – During the narration, the author makes “digressions into the past.” V. Nabokov’s story “Mashenka” is built on this technique: the hero, having learned that his former lover is coming to the city where he now lives, looks forward to meeting her and remembers their epistolary novel, reading their correspondence.
Default – the reader learns about the event that happened earlier than the others at the end of the work. So, in “The Snowstorm” by A.S. Pushkin, the reader learns about what happened to the heroine during her flight from home only during the denouement.
Free – mixed actions. In such a work one can find elements of a mirror composition, techniques of omission, retrospection and many other compositional techniques aimed at retaining the reader’s attention and enhancing artistic expressiveness.

The novel begins with Ilya Ilyich lying in a robe all day on the sofa in a dirty room and arguing with his servant Zakhar.

“On the walls, near the paintings, cobwebs, saturated with dust, were molded in the form of festoons; the mirrors, instead of reflecting objects, could have been more likely to write on them in the dust, some notes for memory... it was rare that the table did not stand on the table in the morning not cleaned from yesterday dinner plate with a salt shaker and a gnawed bone and no bread crumbs lying around. If it weren’t for this plate, and the freshly smoked pipe leaning against the bed, or the owner himself lying on it, then one would think that no one lives here, so everything was dusty, faded, and generally devoid of traces of human presence "

Alarming letters are coming from the village headman - the income from the estate is decreasing and decreasing. Ilya Ilyich is making grandiose plans for all sorts of transformations on his estate, but to implement them you need to at least get out of bed.

“He had already risen from his bed and almost stood up, looking at his shoes; he even began to lower one foot from the bed towards them, but he immediately picked it up.” And why get up, there is no paper, the ink is dry, and the letter from the headman is lost.

A “gallery of types” is also depicted; all these heroes come one after another to Oblomov. They mostly have “speaking” surnames. Oblomov has the same type of reaction to everything he hears from them: their aspirations seem to him “vanity,” they are all “unhappy.” Then the hero’s position at the time of the story is described: his relationship with Zakhar, an exposition is given that recreates the earlier stages of Oblomov’s life, helping to understand the psychological origins of his current state. “Oblomov’s Dream,” published separately before the completion of the entire novel, has compositional independence and completeness of thought. The content of the dream can be attributed to him personally and to the entire old noble Russia, whose symbol is Oblomovka. This dream, ideologically, perhaps occupies a central place in the novel, since it shows what stands behind the concept of “Oblomovism” - the key word in the novel.
Part 1 of the novel is dedicated to such an ordinary day of Ilya Ilyich. This life is limited by the confines of the room in which Oblomov lies and sleeps. Outwardly, few events happen here, but the picture is full of movement: the hero’s state of mind changes; Oblomov’s character can be guessed through everyday objects.

The first part ends with the appearance of Stolz - this appearance gives the impression of a plot. Such compositional techniques are generally characteristic of a novel: the end of the next part or the beginning of the next is marked by the appearance of a character, apparently changing the whole picture. However, in reality, nothing changes after this, the action does not develop. Such a composition, full of “false moves,” corresponds to the content of the novel: Oblomov constantly talks and thinks about how to start a new life, and even makes attempts in this direction, but they lead nowhere.



The love theme includes several important points, which can only be conditionally called culminating: for example, Oblomov’s letter and the subsequent explanation with Olga (end of the second part), followed by several more meetings and explanations. This is a kind of extended climax, which can hardly even be called a climax - the heroes’ lives pass in anticipation of changes, they consider themselves the bride and groom, while Oblomov has already met with the widow Pshenitsyna and his mood is gradually changing. Still thinking that he wants to marry Olga, Oblomov feels that the inertia of life is winning, he does not want to make the efforts that Olga requires of him, and the way of life that seems to her as an ideal is not at all what Oblomov himself dreamed of . Olga's visit to Oblomov in Chapter VII looks like a kind of climactic explanation, when Oblomov swears his love and firm intentions to be with Olga forever and start a new life. However, this is just another “deception”; Olga herself no longer really believes that this conversation could turn out to be a turning point in their relationship and will really begin new life(“Gentle, gentle, gentle,” Olga repeated mentally, but with a sigh, not like she used to do in the park, and plunged into deep thought.”)
Finally, the next meeting with Olga at the end of the third part (Chapter XI) unexpectedly turns out to be the denouement of their love conflict: it becomes clear that they are breaking up, but this denouement is not caused by any culminating events, it seems to be slowly prepared by the entire course of Oblomov’s life. The beginning of the fourth part looks like an epilogue in relation to the love plot that ended before the reader’s eyes: “A year has passed since Ilya Ilyich’s illness.” However, it turns out that it is now that a real, turning point in the hero’s life is coming - a rapprochement with the widow Pshenitsyna.
Compositionally, it looks like a new plot, but it begins gradually, unnoticed by the hero himself. The two love stories thus overlap, superimpose one on top of the other. It is significant that the love line “Oblomov - Pshenitsyna” is drawn by completely different means than the line “Oblomov - Olga”. So important events in the hero's life, like the union with Agafya Matveevna, and even the birth of a son - are not described in such detail and consistently as meetings and conversations with Olga - the reader learns about all these changes after the fact. It turns out that after a big plot (where there was youth, study, service, St. Petersburg life, Olga and everything else), Oblomov is now participating in some new, small plot, which is the only one suitable for him. It is this (as opposed to the utopian plans of marriage with Olga) that becomes the beginning of his new life, which is at the same time a continuation of life in Oblomovka.
The phrase “Suddenly all this changed” seems like a setup. This is followed by a message about the apoplexy suffered by Ilya Ilyich, after which Agafya Matveevna changed the regime and daily routine in the house.
Arrival of Stolz and last explanation him and Oblomov seems to be the culminating event in this plot. After this meeting, it becomes clear that no more changes and events will follow in the hero’s life. Therefore, Oblomov’s death, which can be considered the denouement of this new history, and the entire novel, although natural, is also not caused by any specific events, but simply his life is coming to an end.
The composition of the novel is thus extremely original and unique in Russian literature.
The composition of the plot looks stretched out, undynamic, complicated and loaded with parallel storylines, details. Dobrolyubov writes that it is precisely these compositional insertions that slow down the action (for example, “Oblomov’s Dream”) that are of utmost importance in the novel. Perhaps it is precisely this composition, despite the reproaches of some critics, that is more consistent with the author’s idea and serves the task of expressing it. The composition of “Oblomov” is interesting even for its imperfection, its vagueness, corresponding to the character of the main character.



Goncharov, a master of detail, gives a detailed description of the office, I. Oblomov’s favorite things: shoes, a robe. The comical nature of the situation is shown through the details; Oblomov’s internal experiences are shown through shoes and a robe - attachment to things, dependence on them. But it cannot be said that this alone exhausts the character of the hero. Oblomov is not only a comic hero, but behind the humorous episodes there are deep dramatic beginnings. Through internal monologues we learn that Oblomov is a living and complex person.

The opposite of Oblomov is his friend, the Russified German Andrei Stolz. He is persistent, hardworking, owes everything he has achieved in life only to himself, is strong and reliable, but the writer himself admitted that the image of Stolz is “pale, unreal, not alive, but just an idea.” A rational, practical person, calculating, sociable, strives for business connections. Unlike Oblomov, he is an energetic, active person, constantly working. But there are no broad ideals - that practice is aimed at personal success.

It is Stolz who, in the form of temptation, slips Olga Ilyinskaya to Oblomov in order to get the couch potato Oblomov out of bed and drag him into the big world. Olga Ilyinskaya is attractive (especially her eyes), well-built, intelligent, and reasonable. At the end of the novel, Olga, surrounded by comfort, experiences melancholy and sadness. Stolz doesn't understand her.

Issues.

1. Social problems.

2. Moral

3. Philosophical.

The novel is imbued with the “irony of despair.” Why, if a person is subtle and deep, he is poorly adapted to harsh reality. Why do those who are busy with business have simpler and rougher feelings and perceptions? The novel "Oblomov" is an anti-serfdom novel.

Questions

1. How is the character of I.A. Goncharov affected his work?

2. What facts of the writer’s biography are reflected in his works?

3. What is the peculiarity of Goncharov the artist?

4. What do you see as the historical and philosophical meaning of the novel?

5. What is the peculiarity of the novel’s composition?

6. What details does Goncharov use to reveal the image of Oblomov?

7. What is the compositional meaning of the image of Oblomov’s many guests? Why does the author make them representatives of different social classes?

8. Was Olga and Oblomov’s happiness possible? Why did she fall in love with the hero? And did you fall in love?

9. Are Oblomov and Stolz antipodes?

The plot of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” is built on the main themes that unite the entire work: the themes of the homeland, the human soul, love, society, fate, history, war. In each of the novel's stories these themes are intertwined in one way or another.

The main components of the plot of the stories and the entire novel are the location of action, the social and national environment, and the historical setting. The conflicts of the stories are born in close connection with the reality of the created art world. So, love conflict— the love story of Pechorin and Bela, no matter how highly and abstractly we talk about it, is depicted in all historical and national specificity, psychologically true, with attention to the social nuances of the characters’ relationships. The story "Taman" represents the exact artistic painting the morals of a seaside town, the cruelty and treachery of the underworld, the sleepy dullness of the garrison employees. In the story “Princess Mary,” in addition to the subtle depiction of the theme of love and friendship, Lermontov’s remarkable discovery was the choice of the social environment and the place where the events unfold. The conflict between Pechorin and the “water society” turned out to be the point of intersection of many plot motifs of the story - social, moral, spiritual and ethical. The theme of “Fatalist” and the hero’s temporary stay at the forefront of hostilities, in a remote province, where he so acutely and clearly feels his loneliness and restlessness, are very accurately correlated.

The composition of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” is particularly complex. First of all, it must be said that the novel consists of autonomous parts - stories, which nevertheless represent an artistic whole. The stories come together common hero, however, a certain difficulty in understanding the integrity of the novel is presented by the questions: why does the author choose these, and not some other events in Pechorin’s life, and why does he arrange them in this particular order?

The idea of ​​the novel is presented through the disclosure of the image of Pechorin. The leading constructive technique in this regard is the depiction of the hero from two main angles: in the first two stories and the preface, the story about the hero is told from the outside, at first we learn about him from Maxim Maksimych. Then we read Pechorin’s notes about his adventures in the Caucasus in “Pechorin’s Journal”, that is, using Belinsky’s words, we meet the “inner man” on the pages of the magazine. The story “Taman,” the first in “Pechorin’s Journal,” connects two perspectives of the hero’s image - “from the outside” and “from himself,” it is important that the hero is never named in it.

The next feature of the composition is that the chronology of events in the hero’s life does not coincide with the chronology of the story about them. Thus, Pechorin’s path outside the novel sequence is as follows: arrival in the Caucasus (“Taman”), vacation after hostilities (“Princess Mary”), a two-week military mission while serving in the fortress (“Fatalist”), the love story of Pechorin and Bela during service in the fortress (“Bela”), meeting with Pechorin four years later (“Maksim Maksimych”), Pechorin’s death (preface to “Pechorin’s Journal”). These events are arranged in a different order in the novel: “Bela”, “Maksim Maksimych”, preface to “Pechorin’s Journal”, “Taman”, “Princess Mary”, “Fatalist”. This principle of constructing a novel is called “double chronology.” There are many explanations for the “dual chronology”. Two main ones can be distinguished. From the point of view of the plot, this sequence can be explained by the fact that the wandering writer publishing a novel about Pechorin compiled the book in the sequence in which he himself learned about the life of its hero. From the point of view of the meaning of the composition, the fact that before being combined into a novel the stories represented isolated episodes from the life of an individual person, after being combined they began to represent the stages of his life destiny and mental development.

The principle of “reverse chronology” becomes important, manifested in the fact that the earlier events of Pechorin’s life are included in the second half of the novel - in “Pechorin’s Journal”, and they are preceded in the narrative by later events. With this technique, the author seeks to avoid a biased attitude towards the hero, which arises when we learn about a person “from the outside.” The author pursues the same goal by successively changing narrators who present the hero from different angles. The wandering writer, later the publisher of a book about Pechorin, acts as an observer, Maxim Maksimych is a direct witness and participant in the events, Pechorin experiences them in his life.

The image of Pechorin becomes clearer, more real and deeper as the narrative develops. The logic of the sequence of stories is such that in each of them a question arises, the answer to which is expected in the next one. So, in “Bel” we learn about Pechorin from the story of Maxim Maksimych, but we do not see him with our own eyes.

At the end of the story, interest in the hero’s personality is awakened by the question: who is he? And in “Maxim Maksimych” we seem to get an answer to it. Pechorin appears physically in the story; it even provides a detailed portrait of the hero with elements of psychologization. However, Pechorin's unusual behavior raises the following question: why is he like this? “Pechorin’s Journal” is intended to explain the hero’s condition, but the events of “Taman” cause us yet another bewilderment: what does he need? From the story “Princess Mary” we get a clear explanation: Pechorin needs love and friendship, but at the end of the story a disaster occurs. Pechorin loses everything that binds a person to life, then the problem of choice naturally arises: what should the hero do, should he give up further struggle in life? The story “Fatalist” ends with Pechorin’s positive choice in favor of life; it ends optimistically: “The officers congratulated me - and certainly, there was something to be said for!” It is in this that the ring composition of the novel plays its decisive role: Pechorin returns to the fortress to Maxim Maksimych, and the novel seems to begin again - Pechorin will kidnap Bela, everything will repeat itself, but the meaning of the events will be different, new.

The motif of wandering connects the entire work; its characters are constantly on the move, away from home. Such is Pechorin, such is the lonely staff captain Maxim Maksimych, who has neither a family nor a permanent shelter, such is the wandering writer.

Finally, the deepest ideological role Another compositional device of the novel plays into play: the hero dies in the middle of the work and immediately “resurrects” in Pechorin’s Journal. This effect makes it possible to show the eternal moral rebirth of man.