Let's start with the properties of the depicted world. The depicted world in a work of art means that conditionally similar real world the picture of reality that the writer paints: people, things, nature, actions, experiences, etc.
In a work of art, a model of the real world is created. This model is unique in the works of each writer; The depicted worlds in different works of art are extremely diverse and can be more or less similar to the real world.
But in any case, we should remember that before us is an artistic reality created by the writer, which is not identical to the primary reality.
The picture of the depicted world is made up of individual artistic details. By artistic detail we will understand the smallest pictorial or expressive artistic detail: an element of a landscape or portrait, a separate thing, an act, a psychological movement, etc.
Being an element of an artistic whole, a detail in itself is the smallest image, a micro-image. At the same time, the detail almost always forms part of a larger image; it is formed by details, forming “blocks”: thus, the habit of not swinging your arms when walking, dark eyebrows and mustaches with blond hair, eyes that did not laugh - all these micro-images form a “block” of a larger image - the portrait of Pechorin, who , in turn, merges into an even larger image - a holistic image of a person.
For ease of analysis, artistic details can be divided into several groups. First of all, external and psychological details are highlighted. External details, as you can easily guess from their name, depict to us the external, objective existence of people, their appearance and habitat.
External details, in turn, are divided into portrait, landscape and material. Psychological details are depicted to us inner world of a person, these are individual mental movements: thoughts, feelings, experiences, desires, etc.
External and psychological details are not separated by an impassable border. Thus, an external detail becomes psychological if it conveys, expresses certain mental movements (in this case we are talking about a psychological portrait) or is included in the course of the hero’s thoughts and experiences (for example, a real ax and the image of this ax in mental life Raskolnikov).
According to the nature of the artistic influence, details-details and details-symbols are distinguished. Details act en masse, describing an object or phenomenon from all conceivable sides; a symbolic detail is singular, trying to capture the essence of the phenomenon at once, highlighting the main thing in it.
In this regard, modern literary critic E. Dobin suggests separating details from details, believing that detail is artistically superior to detail. However, this is unlikely to be the case. Both principles of using artistic details are equivalent, each of them is good in its place.
Here, for example, is the use of detail in the description of the interior in Plyushkin’s house: “On the bureau... there was a lot of all sorts of things: a bunch of finely written pieces of paper, covered with a green marble press with an egg on top, some kind of old book bound in leather with a red edge , a lemon, all dried up, no bigger than a hazelnut, a broken armchair, a glass with some liquid and three flies, covered with a letter, a piece of sealing wax, a piece of a rag picked up somewhere, two feathers, stained with ink, dried out, as if in consumption , a toothpick, completely yellowed.”
Here Gogol needs exactly a lot of details in order to strengthen the impression of the meaningless stinginess, pettiness and wretchedness of the hero’s life.
Detail-detail also creates special persuasiveness in descriptions of the objective world. Complex psychological states are also conveyed with the help of details; here this principle of using details is indispensable.
A symbolic detail has its advantages; it is convenient to express the general impression of an object or phenomenon, and with its help the general psychological tone is well captured. A symbolic detail often conveys with great clarity the author’s attitude towards what is depicted - such, for example, is Oblomov’s robe in Goncharov’s novel.
Let us now move on to a specific consideration of the varieties of artistic details.
Esin A.B. Principles and techniques of analyzing a literary work. - M., 1998
Expressive detail in the work, carrying a significant semantic, ideological and emotional load. The detail is capable of conveying with the help of a small amount of text maximum amount information, with the help of details in one or a few words you can get the most vivid idea of the character (his appearance or psychology), interior, setting. Unlike a detail, which always acts with other details, creating a complete and plausible picture of the world, a detail is always independent. Among the writers who masterfully used the detail are A. Chekhov and N. Gogol.
A. Chekhov in the story uses as a detail the mention of new galoshes and snacks on the table to show the absurdity of the suicide that occurred: “On the floor, at the very legs of the table, a long body covered with white lay motionless. In the weak light of the light bulb, in addition to the white blanket, new rubber galoshes were clearly visible.”. And then it was said that it was suicide “he committed suicide in a strange way, at the samovar, with snacks laid out on the table”.
Figuratively speaking, every part of the gun must fire. The famous literary critic Efim Dobin argues, using the example of the use of details in A. Chekhov, that the detail must undergo a strict selection and must be placed in the foreground. A. Chekhov himself advocated minimizing details, but for the skillful use of a small number of details. When staging plays, A. Chekhov demanded that little details in the setting and clothing match the details in his works. K.G. Paustovsky, in his short story “The Old Man in the Station Buffet,” explains and reflects on the meaning of details (details) in prose. Chekhov said: “A thing cannot live without detail.”
According to the compositional role of details, they can be divided into two main types: narrative details (indicating movement, a change in the picture, setting, character) and descriptive details (depicting, drawing a picture, setting, character at the moment). A detail may appear once in the text, or it may be repeated to enhance the effect, depending on the author’s intention. Details can relate to everyday life, landscape, portrait, interior, as well as gesture, subjective reaction, action and speech.
In different periods of literary history, the role of detail changed: Homer used detailed everyday descriptions to reproduce a picture of reality, while realists moved on to “talking” details, one that served the specific purpose of realistically depicting a typical person in typical circumstances, and modernists used illogical, contrasting, metaphorical details, which allowed them to further reduce the text without compromising the idea.
Literature
- Dobin E. Hero. Plot. Detail. - M.: Soviet writer, 1962
- Dobin E. Plot and reality. The art of detail. - L.: Soviet writer, 1981
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The picture of the depicted world consists of individual artistic details. By artistic detail we will understand the smallest pictorial or expressive artistic detail: an element of a landscape or portrait, a separate thing, an action, a psychological movement, etc. Being an element of the artistic whole, the detail itself is the smallest image, a micro-image. At the same time a detail is almost always part of a larger image; it is formed by details that form “blocks”: for example, the habit of not swinging your arms when walking, dark eyebrows and mustaches with light hair, eyes that did not laugh - all these micro-images form a “block” "of a larger image - a portrait of Pechorin, which, in turn, merges into an even larger image - a holistic image of a person.
For ease of analysis, artistic details can be divided into several groups. Details come first external And psychological. External details, as you can easily guess from their name, depict to us the external, objective existence of people, their appearance and habitat. External details, in turn, are divided into portrait, landscape and material. Psychological details depict to us the inner world of a person; these are individual mental movements: thoughts, feelings, experiences, desires, etc.
External and psychological details are not separated by an impassable border. Thus, an external detail becomes psychological if it conveys, expresses certain mental movements (in this case we are talking about a psychological portrait) or is included in the course of the hero’s thoughts and experiences (for example, a real ax and the image of this ax in Raskolnikov’s mental life).
The nature of artistic influence varies details-details And symbol details. Details act en masse, describing an object or phenomenon from all conceivable sides; a symbolic detail is singular, trying to capture the essence of the phenomenon at once, highlighting the main thing in it. In this regard, modern literary critic E. Dobin suggests separating details from details, believing that detail is artistically superior to detail*. However, this is unlikely to be the case. Both principles of using artistic details are equivalent, each of them is good in its place. Here, for example, is the use of detail in the description of the interior in Plyushkin’s house: “On the bureau... there was a lot of all sorts of things: a bunch of finely written pieces of paper, covered with a green marble press with an egg on top, some kind of old book bound in leather with a red edge, a lemon , all dried up, no more than a hazelnut tall, a broken armchair, a glass with some liquid and three flies, covered with a letter, a piece of sealing wax, a piece of a rag picked up somewhere, two feathers stained with ink, dried out, as if in consumption, a toothpick , completely yellowed.” Here Gogol needs exactly a lot of details in order to strengthen the impression of the meaningless stinginess, pettiness and wretchedness of the hero’s life. Detail-detail also creates special persuasiveness in descriptions of the objective world. Complex psychological states are also conveyed with the help of details; here this principle of using details is indispensable. A symbolic detail has its advantages; it is convenient to express the general impression of an object or phenomenon, and with its help the general psychological tone is well captured. A symbolic detail often conveys with great clarity the author’s attitude towards what is depicted - such, for example, is Oblomov’s robe in Goncharov’s novel.
____________________
* Dobin EU. The Art of Detail: Observations and Analysis. L., 1975. P. 14.
Let us now move on to a specific consideration of the varieties of artistic details.
Portrait
A literary portrait is understood as the depiction in a work of art of a person’s entire appearance, including the face, physique, clothing, demeanor, gestures, and facial expressions. The reader’s acquaintance with the character usually begins with a portrait. Every portrait is characterological to one degree or another - this means that by external features we can at least briefly and approximately judge the character of a person. In this case, the portrait can be provided with an author’s commentary that reveals the connections between the portrait and character (for example, a commentary on the portrait of Pechorin), or it can act on its own (the portrait of Bazarov in “Fathers and Sons”). In this case, the author seems to rely on the reader to draw conclusions about the person’s character himself. This portrait requires closer attention. In general, a full perception of a portrait requires somewhat enhanced work of the imagination, since the reader must imagine a visible image based on the verbal description. At fast reading This is impossible to do, so it is necessary to teach beginning readers to take a short pause after the portrait; Perhaps re-read the description again. As an example, let’s take a portrait from Turgenev’s “Date”: “... he was wearing a short bronze-colored coat... a pink tie with purple tips and a velvet black cap with gold braid. The round collars of his white shirt mercilessly propped up his ears and cut his cheeks, and his starched sleeves covered his entire hand right down to his red and crooked fingers, decorated with silver and gold rings with turquoise forget-me-nots.” It is extremely important here to pay attention to color scheme portrait, to visually imagine its diversity and bad taste in order to appreciate not only the portrait itself, but also the emotional and evaluative meaning that stands behind it. This, naturally, requires slow reading and additional work of imagination.
The correspondence of portrait features to character traits is a rather conditional and relative thing; it depends on the views and beliefs accepted in a given culture, on the nature of artistic convention. In the early stages of cultural development, it was assumed that spiritual beauty corresponded to a beautiful external appearance; positive characters were often portrayed as beautiful in appearance, negative ones as ugly and disgusting. Subsequently, the connections between the external and the internal in a literary portrait become significantly more complicated. In particular, already in the 19th century. a completely inverse relationship between portrait and character becomes possible: a positive hero can be ugly, and a negative one can be beautiful. Example - Quasimodo V. Hugo and Milady from “The Three Musketeers” by A. Dumas. Thus, we see that a portrait in literature has always performed not only a depictive, but also an evaluative function.
If we consider the history of literary portraiture, we can see that this form of literary depiction moved from a generalized abstract portraiture to increasingly individualization. In the early stages of literary development, heroes are often endowed with a conventionally symbolic appearance; Thus, we almost cannot distinguish between the portraits of the heroes of Homer’s poems or Russian military stories. Such a portrait carried only very general information about the hero; This happened because literature had not yet learned at that time to individualize the characters themselves. Often, literature of the early stages of development generally dispensed with portrait characteristics (“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”), assuming that the reader had a good idea of appearance prince, warrior or princely wife; individual ones: the differences in the portrait, as was said, were not perceived as significant. The portrait symbolized first of all social role, social position, and also performed an evaluative function.
Over time, the portrait became more and more individualized, that is, it was filled with those unique features and traits that no longer allowed us to confuse one hero with another and at the same time indicated not the social or other status of the hero, but individual differences in characters. The literature of the Renaissance already knew a very developed individualization of the literary portrait (an excellent example is Don Quixote and Sancho Panza), which later intensified in literature. True, in the future there were returns to the stereotypical, template portrait, but they were already perceived as an aesthetic defect; Thus, Pushkin, speaking in “Eugene Onegin” about Olga’s appearance, ironically refers the reader to popular novels:
Eyes like the sky are blue,
Smile, flaxen curls,
Everything in Olga... but any novel
Take it and you will find it, right,
Her portrait: he is very cute,
I used to love him myself,
But he bored me immensely.
An individualized detail, assigned to a character, can become his constant sign, the sign by which a given character is identified; such, for example, are Helen’s shining shoulders or the radiant eyes of Princess Marya in War and Peace.
The simplest and at the same time the most frequently used form of portrait characterization is portrait description. It consistently, with varying degrees of completeness, gives a kind of list of portrait details, sometimes with a generalized conclusion or author's commentary regarding the character of the character revealed in the portrait; sometimes with special emphasis on one or two leading details. Such, for example, is the portrait of Bazarov in “Fathers and Sons”, the portrait of Natasha in “War and Peace”, the portrait of Captain Lebyadkin in Dostoevsky’s “Demons”.
To others, more complex look portrait characteristic is comparison portrait. It is important not only to help the reader more clearly imagine the hero’s appearance, but also to create in him a certain impression of the person and his appearance. Thus, Chekhov, drawing a portrait of one of his heroines, uses the technique of comparison: “And in those unblinking eyes, and in the small head on a long neck, and in her slenderness, there was something serpentine; green, with a yellow chest, with a smile, she watched how in the spring a viper, stretched out and raising its head, looks out of the young rye at a passerby” (“In the Ravine”).
Finally, the most difficult type of portrait is impression portrait. Its originality lies in the fact that there are no portrait features or details here at all; all that remains is the impression made by the hero’s appearance on an outside observer or on one of the characters in the work. So, for example, the same Chekhov characterizes the appearance of one of his heroes as follows: “His face seems to be pinched by a door or nailed down with a wet rag” (“Two in One”). It is almost impossible to draw an illustration based on such a portrait characteristic, but Chekhov does not need the reader to visually imagine all the portrait features of the hero; it is important that a certain emotional impression is achieved from his appearance and it is quite easy to draw a conclusion about his character. It should be noted that this technique was known in literature long before our time. Suffice it to say that Homer used it. In his “Iliad” he does not give a portrait of Helen, realizing that it is still impossible to convey all her perfect beauty in words. He evokes in the reader a feeling of this beauty, conveying the impression that Helen made on the Trojan elders: they said that because of such a woman they could wage war.
Special mention should be made about the psychological portrait, while dispelling one terminological misunderstanding. Often in educational and scientific literature any portrait is called psychological on the grounds that it reveals character traits. But in this case we should talk about a characteristic portrait, and in fact psychological picture appears in literature when it begins to express one or another psychological state that the character is experiencing at the moment, or a change in such states. A psychological portrait feature is, for example, Raskolnikov’s trembling lip in Crime and Punishment, or this portrait of Pierre from War and Peace: “His haggard face was yellow. He apparently didn’t sleep that night.” Very often the author comments on one or another facial movement that has a psychological meaning, as, for example, in the following passage from Anna Karenina: “She could not possibly express the train of thought that made her smile; but the final conclusion was that her husband, who admired his brother and destroyed himself in front of him, was insincere. Kitty knew that this insincerity of his came from love for his brother, from a feeling of conscience for the fact that he was too happy, and especially from his never-ending desire to be better - she loved this in him and that’s why she smiled.”
Scenery
Landscape in literature is the image of living and inanimate nature in a work. Not in everyone literary work We encounter landscape sketches, but when they appear, they usually perform essential functions. The first and simplest function of a landscape is to indicate the scene of action. However, no matter how simple this function may be at first glance, its aesthetic impact on the reader should not be underestimated. Often the location of the action is of fundamental importance for a given work. For example, many Russian and foreign romantics used the exotic nature of the East as a setting: bright, colorful, unusual, it created a romantic atmosphere of the exceptional in the work, which was necessary. Equally important are the landscapes of Ukraine in Gogol’s “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” and in “Taras Bulba.” And vice versa, in Lermontov’s “Motherland,” for example, the author had to emphasize the ordinariness, the ordinariness of a normal, typical landscape middle zone Russia - with the help of the landscape, Lermontov creates here the image of a “small homeland”, contrasted with the official nationality.
The landscape as a setting is also important because it has an imperceptible, but nevertheless very important educational influence on the formation of character. A classic example of this kind is Pushkin’s Tatyana, “Russian in soul,” largely due to constant and deep communication with Russian nature.
Often, the attitude towards nature shows us some significant aspects of the character's character or worldview. Thus, Onegin’s indifference to the landscape shows us the extreme degree of disappointment of this hero. The discussion about nature, taking place against the backdrop of a beautiful, aesthetically significant landscape in Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons,” reveals differences in the characters and worldviews of Arkady and Bazarov. For the latter, the attitude towards nature is unambiguous (“Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man is a worker in it”), and Arkady, who thoughtfully looks at the landscape spread out in front of him, reveals a suppressed, but meaningful love for nature, the ability to perceive it aesthetically.
The setting in modern literature is often the city. Moreover, in Lately nature as a scene of action is increasingly inferior in this quality to the city, in full accordance with what is happening in real life. The city as a setting has the same functions as the landscape; Even an inaccurate and oxymoronic term appeared in the literature: “urban landscape.” As well as natural environment, the city has the ability to influence the character and psyche of people. In addition, the city in any work has its own unique appearance, and this is not surprising, since each writer not only creates a topographical setting, but in accordance with his artistic goals builds a certain image cities. Thus, Petersburg in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” is, first of all, “restless,” vain, secular. But at the same time, it is a complete, aesthetically valuable whole city that can be admired. And finally, St. Petersburg is a repository of high noble culture, primarily spiritual. In “The Bronze Horseman,” Petersburg personifies the strength and power of statehood, the greatness of Peter’s cause, and at the same time it is hostile to the “little man.” For Gogol, Petersburg, firstly, is a city of bureaucracy, and secondly, a kind of almost mystical place in which the most incredible things can happen, turning reality inside out (“The Nose”, “Portrait”). For Dostoevsky, Petersburg is a city hostile to primordial human and divine nature. He shows it not from the side of its ceremonial splendor, but primarily from the side of the slums, corners, courtyards, alleys, etc. This is a city that crushes a person, depressing his psyche. The image of St. Petersburg is almost always accompanied by such features as stench, dirt, heat, stuffiness, irritation yellow. For Tolstoy, Petersburg is an official city, where unnaturalness and soullessness reign, where the cult of form reigns, where elite with all its vices. St. Petersburg in Tolstoy’s novel is contrasted with Moscow as a primordially Russian city, where people are softer, kinder, more natural - it’s not for nothing that the Rostov family lives in Moscow, it’s not for nothing that great things come for Moscow battle of Borodino. But Chekhov, for example, fundamentally transfers the action of his stories and plays from the capitals to the average Russian city, district or provincial, and its environs. He has practically no image of St. Petersburg, and the image of Moscow acts as the cherished dream of many heroes about a new, bright, interesting, cultural life, etc. Finally, Yesenin’s city is a city in general, without topographical specifics (even in “Moscow Tavern”). The city is something “stone”, “steel”, in a word, inanimate, opposed to the living life of a village, tree, foal, etc. As we see, each writer, and sometimes each work, has his own image of the city, which must be carefully analyzed, since this is extremely important for understanding general meaning and the figurative system of the work.
Returning to the literary depiction of nature itself, we must say about one more function of the landscape, which can be called psychological. It has long been noticed that certain states of nature are somehow correlated with certain human feelings and experiences: the sun - with joy, rain - with sadness; Wed also expressions like “mental storm”. Therefore, landscape details from the earliest stages of the development of literature were successfully used to create a certain emotional atmosphere in a work (for example, in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” a joyful ending is created using the image of the sun) and as a form of indirect psychological image, when the mental state of the characters is not directly described , but as if conveyed to the nature surrounding them, and often this technique is accompanied by psychological parallelism or comparison (“It’s not the wind that bends the branch, It’s not the oak tree that makes noise. It’s my heart that groans. Like an autumn leaf trembles”). In the further development of literature, this technique became more and more more sophisticated, it becomes possible not directly, but indirectly to correlate mental movements with one or another state of nature. At the same time, the character’s mood can correspond to him, or vice versa - contrast with him. So, for example, in Chapter XI of “Fathers and Sons,” nature seems to accompany the dreamy-sad mood of Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov - and he “was unable to part with the darkness, with the garden, with the feeling fresh air on the face and with this sadness, with this anxiety...” And for Pavel Petrovich’s state of mind, the same poetic nature appears as a contrast: “Pavel Petrovich reached the end of the garden, and also thought, and also raised his eyes to the sky. But his beautiful dark eyes reflected nothing but the light of the stars. He was not born a romantic, and his foppishly dry and passionate, misanthropic soul, in the French way, did not know how to dream.”
Special mention should be made of the rare case when nature becomes, as it were, a character in a work of art. This does not mean fables and fairy tales, because the animal characters taking part in them are essentially just masks of human characters. But in some cases, animals become actual characters in the work, with their own psychology and character. The most famous works of this kind are Tolstoy's stories "Kholstomer" and Chekhov's "Kashtanka" and "White-fronted".
world of things
The further, the more people lives not surrounded by nature, but surrounded by man-made, man-made objects, the totality of which is sometimes called “second nature.” Naturally, the world of things is reflected in literature, and over time it becomes increasingly important.
In the early stages of development, the world of things was not widely reflected, and the material details themselves were little individualized. A thing was depicted only insofar as it turned out to be a sign of a person’s belonging to a certain profession or a sign of social status. The indispensable attributes of the king's office were a throne, a crown and a scepter; the things of a warrior are, first of all, his weapons, those of a farmer are a plow, a harrow, etc. This kind of thing, which we will call accessory, was not yet in any way correlated with the character of a particular character, that is, the same process was going on here as in portrait detailing: the individuality of a person is not yet; was mastered by literature, and therefore there was no need to individualize the thing itself. Over time, although an accessory item remains in literature, it loses its meaning and does not carry any significant artistic information.
Another function of a material detail develops later, starting around the Renaissance, but it becomes the leading one for this type of detail. The detail becomes a way of characterizing a person, an expression of his individuality.
This function of material details received particular development in the realistic literature of the 19th century. Thus, in Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”, the characterization of the hero through the things that belong to him becomes almost the most important. The thing even becomes an indicator of a change in character: let’s compare, for example, Onegin’s two offices - St. Petersburg and village. In the first -
Amber on the pipes of Constantinople,
Porcelain and bronze on the table,
And, a joy to pampered feelings,
Perfume in cut crystal...
In another place in the first chapter it is said that Onegin “covered the shelf with books with mourning taffeta.” Before us is a “material portrait” of a rich socialite, not particularly concerned with philosophical questions of the meaning of life. There are completely different things in Onegin’s village office: a portrait of “Lord Byron”, a figurine of Napoleon, books with Onegin’s notes in the margins. This is, first of all, the office of a thinking man, and Onegin’s love for such extraordinary and controversial figures as Byron and Napoleon speaks volumes to the thoughtful reader.
There is also a description in the novel of the third “office”, Uncle Onegin:
Onegin opened the cabinets:
In one I found an expense notebook,
In another there is a whole line of liqueurs,
Jugs of apple water
Yes, the eighth year calendar.
We know practically nothing about Onegin’s uncle, except for a description of the world of things in which he lived, but this is enough to fully imagine the character, habits, inclinations and lifestyle of an ordinary village landowner, who, in fact, does not need an office .
A material detail can sometimes convey the psychological state of a character extremely expressively; Chekhov especially loved to use this method of psychologism. Here is how, for example, psychosis, the logical state of the hero in the story “Three Years” is depicted using a simple and ordinary material detail: “At home, he saw an umbrella on a chair, forgotten by Yulia Sergeevna, grabbed it and greedily kissed it. The umbrella was silk, no longer new, secured with an old elastic band; the handle was made of simple, white bone, cheap. Laptev opened it above him, and it seemed to him that there was even a smell of happiness around him.”
A material detail has the ability to simultaneously characterize a person and express the author’s attitude towards the character. Here, for example, is a material detail in Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” - an ashtray in the shape of a silver bast shoe, standing on the table of Pavel Petrovich, who lives abroad. This detail not only characterizes the character’s ostentatious love of the people, but also expresses a negative assessment of Turgenev. The irony of the detail is that the roughest and at the same time perhaps the most essential object of peasant life here is made of silver and serves as an ashtray.
Completely new possibilities in the use of material details, one might even say their new function, opened up in Gogol’s work. Under his pen, the world of things became a relatively independent object of depiction. The mystery of Gogol's work is that it not completely is subordinated to the task of more vividly and convincingly recreating the character of the hero or the social environment. Gogol's thing outgrows its usual functions. Of course, the situation in Sobakevich’s house is a classic example - it is an indirect characteristic of a person. But not only. Even in this case, the part still has the opportunity to live its own life, independent of humans, and have its own character. “The owner, being a healthy and strong man himself, seemed to want his room to be decorated by people who were also strong and healthy,” but - an unexpected and inexplicable dissonance “between the strong Greeks, no one knows how and for what, Bagration, skinny, thin, fit in , with small banners and cannons below and in the narrowest frames.” The same kind of detail is Korobochka's watch or Nozdryov's barrel organ: at least it would be naive to see in the character of these things a direct parallel to the character of their owners.
Things are interesting to Gogol in themselves, largely regardless of their connections with a specific person. For the first time in world literature, Gogol realized that by studying the world of things as such, the material environment of a person, one can understand a lot - not about the life of this or that person, but about way of life in general.
Hence the inexplicable redundancy of Gogol's detail. Any description of Gogol is as similar as possible; he is in no hurry to move on to action, lovingly and tastefully dwelling, for example, on the image of a set table on which stood “mushrooms, pies, quick-witted cookies, shanizhki, spinners, pancakes, flat cakes with all sorts of toppings: toppings with onions , baked with poppy seeds, baked with cottage cheese, baked with smelts.” And here is another remarkable description: “The room was hung with old striped wallpaper, paintings with some birds, between the windows there were old small mirrors with dark frames in the form of curled leaves, behind each mirror there was either a letter, or an old deck of cards, or a stocking; wall clock with painted flowers on the dial... I couldn’t bear to notice anything else.”(italics mine. - A.E.). This addition to the description seems to contain the main effect: much more “more”! But no, having outlined every little detail in great detail, Gogol complains that there is nothing more to describe, he regretfully breaks away from the description, as if from his favorite pastime...
Gogol's detail seems redundant because he continues the description, enumeration, even exaggeration of small details after the detail has already fulfilled its usual auxiliary function. For example, the narrator envies “the appetite and stomach of the gentlemen mediocre, that at one station they will demand ham, at another a pig, at a third a piece of sturgeon or some kind of baked sausage with onions (“with onions” is no longer a necessary clarification: what difference does it really make to us - with or without onions? - A.E.) and then, as if nothing had happened, they sit down at the table at any time you want (it seems that we can stop here: we have already very clearly understood what “the appetite and stomach of middle-class gentlemen” are. But Gogol continues. - A.E.) and sterlet fish soup with burbot and milk (again optional clarification - A.E.) hisses and grumbles between their teeth (is that enough? Gogol doesn’t. - A.E.), eaten with pie or kulebyak (all? not yet. - A.E.) with a catfish reach."
Let us recall in general Gogol’s most detailed descriptions and lists: of Ivan Ivanovich’s goods, and of what Ivan Nikiforovich’s woman hung out for airing, and of the arrangement of Chichikov’s box, and even the list of characters and performers that Chichikov reads on the poster, and something like this, for example: “What chaises?” and there were no carts there! One has a wide back and a narrow front, the other has a narrow back and a wide front. One was both a chaise and a cart together, the other was neither a chaise nor a cart, another looked like a huge haystack or a fat merchant's wife, another looked like a disheveled Jew or a skeleton not yet completely freed from its skin, another had a perfect pipe with a chibouk in profile, the other was unlike anything, representing some strange creature... something like a carriage with room window, crossed by a thick binding."
With all the ironic intonation of the story, you very soon begin to catch yourself thinking that the irony here is only one side of the matter, and the other is that all this is really terribly interesting. The world of things under Gogol’s pen appears not as an auxiliary means for characterizing the world of people, but rather as a special hypostasis of this world.
Psychologism
When analyzing psychological details, you should definitely keep in mind that in different works they can play a fundamentally different role. In one case, the psychological details are few in number and are of a service, auxiliary nature - then we are talking about elements of a psychological image; their analysis can, as a rule, be neglected. In another case, the psychological image occupies a significant volume in the text, acquires relative independence and becomes extremely important for understanding the content of the work. In this case, a special artistic quality appears in the work, called psychologism. Psychologism is the development and depiction by means of fiction the hero’s inner world: his thoughts, experiences, desires, emotional states, etc., and an image characterized by detail and depth.
There are three main forms of psychological imagery, to which all specific techniques for reproducing the inner world ultimately come down. Two of these three forms were theoretically identified by I.V. Strakhov: “The main forms of psychological analysis can be divided into the depiction of characters “from the inside” - that is, through artistic knowledge of the inner world of the characters, expressed through inner speech, images of memory and imagination; to psychological analysis “from the outside,” expressed in the writer’s psychological interpretation of the expressive features of speech, speech behavior, facial expressions and other means of external manifestation of the psyche”*.
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* Strakhov I.V. Psychological analysis in literary creativity. Saratov 1973 Part 1. S. 4.
Let’s call the first form of psychological depiction direct, and the second indirect, since in it we learn about the hero’s inner world not directly, but through external symptoms of a psychological state. We will talk about the first form a little lower, but for now we will give an example of the second, indirect form of psychological image, which was especially widely used in literature at the early stages of development:
A gloomy cloud of sorrow covered Achilles' face.
He filled both handfuls with ashes and sprinkled them on his head:
The young man's face turned black, his clothes turned black, and he himself
With a great body covering the great space, in the dust
He was stretched out, tearing out his hair, and beating himself on the ground.
Homer. "Iliad". Per V.A. Zhukovsky
Before us is a typical example of an indirect form of psychological depiction, in which the author depicts only the external symptoms of a feeling, without ever invading directly into the consciousness and psyche of the hero.
But the writer has another opportunity, another way to inform the reader about the thoughts and feelings of the character - through naming, ultimately short designation those processes that take place in the inner world. We will call this method summative designating. A.P. Skaftymov wrote about this technique, comparing the features of psychological depiction in Stendhal and Tolstoy: “Stendhal mainly follows the path of verbal designation of feelings. Feelings are named, but not shown”*, and Tolstoy traces in detail the process of feeling through time and thereby recreates it with greater vividness and artistic power.
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* Skaftymov A.P. On psychologism in the works of Stendhal and Tolstoy // Skaftymov A.P. Moral quests of Russian writers. M., 1972 . P. 175.
So, the same psychological state can be reproduced using different forms psychological image. You can, for example, say: “I was offended by Karl Ivanovich because he woke me up,” this will be summative-designating form. Can be depicted external signs grievances: tears, frowning eyebrows, stubborn silence, etc. - This indirect form. But you can, as Tolstoy did, reveal internal state with help straight forms of psychological image: “Suppose,” I thought, “I am small, but why does he bother me? Why doesn’t he kill flies near Volodya’s bed? How many are there? No, Volodya is older than me, and I am smaller than everyone else: that’s why he torments me. “That’s all he thinks about all his life,” I whispered, “how I can make trouble.” He sees very well that he woke me up and scared me, but he acts as if he doesn’t notice... he’s a disgusting man! And the robe, and the cap, and the tassel - how disgusting!”
Naturally, each form of psychological image has different cognitive, visual and expressive capabilities. In the works of writers whom we usually call psychologists - Lermontov, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Maupassant, Faulkner and others - as a rule, all three forms are used to embody mental movements. But the leading role in the system of psychologism is, of course, played by the direct form - the direct reconstruction of processes inner life person.
Let us now briefly get acquainted with the main techniques psychologism, with the help of which the image of the inner world is achieved. Firstly, the narrative about a person’s inner life can be told from either the first or third person, with the first form being historically earlier. These forms have different capabilities. First-person narration creates a greater illusion of credibility of the psychological picture, since the person talks about himself. In a number of cases, the psychological narration in the first person takes on the character of a confession, which enhances the impression. This narrative form is used mainly when there is one main character, whose consciousness and psyche are followed by the author and the reader, and the other characters are secondary, and their inner world is practically not depicted (“Confession” by Rousseau, “Childhood”, “Adolescence” and “Youth” by Tolstoy, etc.).
Third person narration has its advantages in terms of depicting the inner world. This is precisely the artistic form that allows the author, without any restrictions, to introduce the reader into the inner world of the character and show it in the most detail and depth. For the author, there are no secrets in the hero’s soul - he knows everything about him, can trace in detail the internal processes, explain the cause-and-effect relationship between impressions, thoughts, and experiences. The narrator can comment on the hero’s self-analysis, talk about those mental movements that the hero himself cannot notice or which he does not want to admit to himself, as, for example, in the following episode from “War and Peace”: “Natasha, with her sensitivity, also instantly noticed the state of her brother She noticed him, but she herself was so happy at that moment, she was so far from grief, sadness, reproaches, that she “...” deliberately deceived herself. “No, I’m having too much fun now to spoil my fun by sympathizing with someone else’s grief,” she felt and said to herself: “No, I’m probably mistaken, he should be as cheerful as I am.”
At the same time, the narrator can psychologically interpret the external behavior of the hero, his facial expressions and plasticity, etc., as discussed above in connection with psychological external details.
ARTISTIC DETAIL - a microelement of an image (landscape, interior, portrait, depicted things, action, behavior, deed, etc.), which is of greater importance for the expression of content than other microelements. The figurative world of the work (see: Content and form) can be detailed to varying degrees. Thus, Pushkin’s prose is extremely sparsely detailed, the main focus is on the action. “At that moment the rebels ran at us and broke into the fortress. The drum fell silent; the garrison abandoned their guns; I was knocked off my feet, but I got up and, together with the rebels, entered the fortress” - that’s practically the entire description of the assault in “The Captain’s Daughter.” Lermontov's prose is much more fully detailed. In it, even material details reveal mainly the characters and psychology of the characters (for example, Grushnitsky’s thick soldier’s overcoat, the Persian carpet bought by Pechorin to spite Princess Mary). Gogol's details are more focused on everyday life. Food means a lot: the menu of “Dead Souls” is much more plentiful than the menu of “A Hero of Our Time” - in proportion to the attention that the characters pay to it here and there. Gogol is also more attentive to the interiors, portraits, and clothing of his heroes. Very thorough in detailing I.A. Goncharov, I.S. Turgenev.
F.M. Dostoevsky, even more than Lermontov, focused on the psychological experiences of the characters, prefers relatively few, but catchy, expressive details. Such, for example, are Raskolnikov’s too noticeable old round hat or Raskolnikov’s bloody sock. L.N. Tolstoy in such volumetric work, like “War and Peace,” uses leitmotifs - details that repeat and vary in different places in the text, which “fasten” images that are interrupted by other figurative planes. Thus, in the appearance of Natasha and Princess Marya, the eyes stand out many times, and in the appearance of Helen, bare shoulders and a constant smile. Dolokhov often behaves impudently. In Kutuzov, weakness is emphasized more than once, even in the first volume, i.e. in 1805, when he was not too old (a rare hyperbole in Tolstoy, however, implicit), in Alexander I there was a love of all kinds of effects, in Napoleon there was self-confidence and posturing.
It is detailed to contrast with details (in plural) - drawn-out static descriptions. A.P. Chekhov is a master of detail (Khryukin’s dog-bitten finger, Ochumelov’s overcoat in “Chameleon”, Belikov’s “cases”, Dmitry Ionych Startsev’s changing build and manner of speaking, the natural adaptability of the “darling” to the interests of those to whom she gives all her attention), but he an enemy of details, he seems to paint, like impressionist artists, with short strokes, which, however, add up to a single expressive picture. At the same time, Chekhov does not load every detail with a direct meaningful function, which creates the impression of complete freedom of his manner: Chervyakov’s surname in “Death of an Official” is significant, “speaking,” but his first and patronymic are ordinary, random - Ivan Dmitrich; in the finale of “Student”, Ivan Velikopolsky thought about the episode with the Apostle Peter at the fire, about the truth and beauty that guided human life then and in general at all times, - I thought, “when he was crossing the river on a ferry and then, climbing the mountain, looking at his native village...” - the place where important thoughts and feelings come to him does not have a decisive influence on them impact.
But basically, an artistic detail is directly significant, there is something “standing” behind it. Hero of “Clean Monday” I.A. Bunina, not knowing that his beloved will disappear in a day, will leave the world, immediately notices that she is dressed all in black. They wander around the Novodevichy cemetery, the hero looks with emotion at the footprints “that new black boots left in the snow,” she suddenly turned around, feeling it:
It's true how you love me! - she said with quiet bewilderment, shaking her head.” Everything is important here: both the repeated reference to the color black, and the definition, which becomes an epithet, “new” (it was customary to bury the dead in everything new, and the heroine is preparing to bury herself as if alive and finally walks through the cemetery); the feelings and premonitions of both are heightened, but he simply loves, and she is gripped by a complex of complex emotions, among which love is not the main thing, hence the bewilderment at his feelings and shaking her head, meaning, in particular, disagreement with him, the impossibility for her to be like him .
The role of details in “Vasily Terkin” AT is very important. Tvardovsky, stories by A.I. Solzhenitsyn “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” and “ Matrenin Dvor”, “military” and “village” prose: at the front, in a camp, in a poor village there are few things, each is valued. In “Farewell to Matera” V.G. Rasputin, everything that the inhabitants of the island to be flooded were accustomed to during their long, almost permanent life on it, was seen as if for the last time.
In the story by V.M. Shukshin “Cut” to the old woman Agafya Zhuravleva, his son and his wife, both candidates of sciences, came to visit by taxi. “Agafya was brought an electric samovar, a colorful robe and wooden spoons.” The nature of the gifts, completely unnecessary for the village old woman, indicates that the candidate of philological sciences is now very far from the world of his childhood and youth, has ceased to understand and feel it. He and his wife are by no means bad people, however, the malicious Gleb Kapustin “cut” the candidate, albeit demagogically, but, according to the men, thoroughly. The men, out of ignorance, admire the “mean” Gleb and yet do not love him, since he is cruel. Gleb is rather a negative hero, Konstantin Zhuravlev is rather a positive one, an innocent victim in the general opinion, but the details in the exposition of the story indicate that this is partly not accidental.
Artistic detail
Detail - (from French с1е1а) detail, particularity, trifle.
An artistic detail is one of the means of creating an image, which helps to present the embodied character, picture, object, action, experience in their originality and uniqueness. The detail fixes the reader's attention on what seems to the writer the most important, characteristic in nature, in a person or in the objective world around him. The detail is important and significant as part of the artistic whole. In other words, the meaning and power of detail is that the infinitesimal reveals the whole.
Distinguish the following types artistic details, each of which carries a certain semantic and emotional load:
a) verbal detail. For example, by the expression “no matter what happens,” we recognize Belikov, by the address “falcon” - Platon Karataev, by one word “fact” - Semyon Davydov;
b) portrait detail. The hero can be identified by a short upper lip with a mustache (Liza Bolkonskaya) or a small white beautiful hand(Napoleon);
c) object detail: Bazarov’s robe with tassels, Nastya’s book about love in the play “At the Lower Depths”, Polovtsev’s saber - a symbol of a Cossack officer;
d) a psychological detail that expresses an essential feature in the character, behavior, and actions of the hero. Pechorin did not swing his arms when walking, which indicated the secrecy of his nature; the sound of billiard balls changes Gaev’s mood;
e) a landscape detail, with the help of which the color of the situation is created; the gray, leaden sky above Golovlev, the “requiem” landscape in “Quiet Don”, intensifying the inconsolable grief of Grigory Melekhov, who buried Aksinya;
f) detail as a form of artistic generalization (“the case-like” existence of the philistines in the works of Chekhov, the “murlo of the philistine” in the poetry of Mayakovsky).
Special mention should be made of this type of artistic detail, such as the household detail, which, in essence, is used by all writers. A striking example is “Dead Souls”. It is impossible to tear Gogol's heroes away from their everyday life and surrounding things.
A household detail indicates the furnishings, home, things, furniture, clothing, gastronomic preferences, customs, habits, tastes, inclinations actor. It is noteworthy that in Gogol, an everyday detail never acts as an end in itself; it is given not as a background or decoration, but as an integral part of the image. And this is understandable, because the interests of the heroes of the satirical writer do not go beyond the limits of vulgar materiality; spiritual world such heroes are so poor, insignificant, that the thing may well express their inner essence; things seem to grow together with their owners.
A household detail primarily performs a characterological function, that is, it allows one to get an idea of the moral and psychological properties of the characters in the poem. Thus, in Manilov’s estate we see a manor house standing “alone on the jura, that is, on a hill open to all the winds,” a gazebo with the typically sentimental name “Temple of Solitary Reflection,” “a pond covered with greenery”... These details indicate to the impracticality of the landowner, to the fact that mismanagement and disorder reign on his estate, and the owner himself is only capable of senseless project-making.
Manilov’s character can also be judged by the furnishings of the rooms. “There was always something missing in his house”: there was not enough silk material to upholster all the furniture, and two armchairs “stood covered with just matting”; next to a smart, richly decorated bronze candlestick stood “some kind of simple copper invalid, lame, curled to one side.” This combination of objects of the material world on the manor’s estate is bizarre, absurd, and illogical. In all objects and things one feels some kind of disorder, inconsistency, fragmentation. And the owner himself matches his things: Manilov’s soul is as flawed as the decoration of his home, and the claim to “education,” sophistication, grace, and refinement of taste further enhances the hero’s inner emptiness.
Among other things, the author especially emphasizes one thing and highlights it. This thing carries increased semantic load, developing into a symbol. In other words, a detail can acquire the meaning of a multi-valued symbol that has psychological, social and philosophical meaning. In Manilov’s office, one can see such an expressive detail as piles of ash, “arranged, not without effort, in very beautiful rows” - a symbol of idle pastime, covered with a smile, cloying politeness, the embodiment of idleness, the idleness of a hero surrendering to fruitless dreams...
For the most part, Gogol's everyday detail is expressed in action. Thus, in the image of things that belonged to Manilov, a certain movement is captured, during which the essential properties of his character are revealed. For example, in response to Chichikov’s strange request to sell dead Souls“Manilov immediately dropped the pipe and pipe on the floor and, as he opened his mouth, remained with his mouth open for several minutes... Finally, Manilov picked up the pipe with the pipe and looked into his face from below... but he couldn’t think of anything else, as soon as you release the remaining smoke from your mouth in a very thin stream.” These comic poses of the landowner perfectly demonstrate his narrow-mindedness and mental limitations.
Artistic detail is a way of expressing the author's assessment. The district dreamer Manilov is not capable of any business; idleness became part of his nature; the habit of living at the expense of serfs developed traits of apathy and laziness in his character. The landowner's estate is ruined, decline and desolation are felt everywhere.
The artistic detail complements the internal appearance of the character and the integrity of the revealed picture. It gives the depicted extreme concreteness and at the same time generality, expressing the idea, the main meaning of the hero, the essence of his nature.