The story told by Chekhov in “Ionych” (1898) is built around two declarations of love, just as, in fact, the plot was built in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”. At first he confesses his love to her and is not reciprocated. And a few years later, she, realizing that there was no better person than him in her life, tells him about her love and with the same negative result. All other events and descriptions are needed as a background, as material to explain why mutual love did not take place, the mutual happiness of two people did not work out.

Who is to blame (or what is to blame) for the fact that the young, full of strength and vitality Dmitry Startsev, as we see him at the beginning of the story, turned into Ionych of the last chapter? How exceptional or, conversely, ordinary is the story of his life? And how does Chekhov manage to fit entire human destinies and ways of life into just a few pages of text?

As if on the surface lies the first explanation of why the hero degrades by the end of the story. The reason can be seen in the unfavorable, hostile environment of Startsev, in the philistine environment of the city of S. And in the absence on the part of the hero of a fight against this environment, of protest against it. “The environment is stuck” is a common explanation for such situations in life and in literature.

Is the environment to blame for the transformation of Startsev into Ionych? No, that would be at least a one-sided explanation.

A hero opposed to the environment, sharply different from the environment - this was a typical conflict in classical literature, starting with “Woe from Wit”. In “Ionych” there is a word directly taken from the characteristics of Famus’s society (“wheezers”), but it, perhaps, only more sharply highlights the difference between the two relationships: Chatsky - Famusov’s Moscow and Startsev - the inhabitants of the city of S.

Actually, Chatsky was kept in an environment alien and hostile to him only by his love interest. He was initially confident of his superiority over this environment, denounced it in his monologues - but the environment pushed him out like a foreign body. Slandered, insulted, but not broken and only strengthened in his convictions, Chatsky left Famusov’s Moscow.

Dmitry Startsev, like Chatsky, falls in love with a girl from an environment alien to him (for Chatsky this separating barrier is spiritual, for Startsev it is material). As an outsider, he enters the “most talented” house in the city of S. He does not have any initial aversion to this environment; on the contrary, for the first time in the Turkins’ house everything seems pleasant to him, or at least entertaining. And then, having learned that he is not loved, unlike Chatsky, he does not rush to “search the world,” but remains to live in the same place where he lived, so to speak, by inertia.

Even if not immediately, but at some point he also felt irritation against those people among whom he had to live and with whom he had to communicate. There is nothing to talk about with them, their interests are limited to food and empty entertainment. Anything truly new is alien to them, the ideas by which the rest of humanity lives are beyond their understanding (for example, how can passports and the death penalty be abolished?).

Well, at first Startsev also tried to protest, convince, preach (“in society, at dinner or tea, he talked about the need to work, that one cannot live without work”). These monologues of Startsev did not receive a response from society. But, unlike the Famusov society, which is aggressive towards the freethinker, the inhabitants of the city of S. simply continue to live as they lived, but on the whole they remained completely indifferent to the dissident Startsev, turning protest and propaganda on deaf ears. True, they awarded him a rather ridiculous nickname (“inflated Pole”), but this is still not a declaration of a person as crazy. Moreover, when he began to live according to the laws of this environment and finally turned into Ionych, they themselves suffered from him.

So, one hero remained unbroken by the environment, the other was absorbed by the environment and subjected to its laws. It would seem clear which of them deserves sympathy and which deserves condemnation. But the point is not at all that one of the heroes is nobler, higher, more positive than the other.

The two works organize artistic time differently. Just one day in the life of Chatsky - and Startsev’s whole life. Chekhov includes the passage of time in the “hero and environment” situation, and this allows us to evaluate what happened differently.

“One day in the winter... in the spring, on a holiday - it was the Ascension... more than a year passed... he began to visit the Turkins often, very often... for about three days things fell out of his hands... he calmed down and healed as before... experience taught him little by little... imperceptibly, little by little... four years passed... three days passed, a week passed... and he never visited the Turkins again... . a few more years have passed...”

Chekhov introduces into the story the test of the hero by the most ordinary thing - the unhurried but unstoppable passage of time. Time tests the strength of any beliefs, tests the strength of any feelings; time calms and consoles, but time also drags on - “imperceptibly, little by little” remaking a person. Chekhov writes not about the exceptional or extraordinary, but about what concerns every ordinary (“average”) person.

That bundle of new ideas, protest, and sermons that Chatsky carries within himself cannot be imagined stretched out like this - over weeks, months, years. The arrival and departure of Chatsky is like the passage of a meteor, a bright comet, a flash of fireworks. And Startsev is tested by something that Chatsky was not tested by - the flow of life, immersion in the passage of time. What does this approach reveal?

That, for example, it is not enough to have some beliefs, it is not enough to feel indignation against alien people and customs. Dmitry Startsev is by no means deprived of all this, like any normal young man. He knows how to feel contempt, he knows what is worth being indignant about (human stupidity, mediocrity, vulgarity, etc.). And Kotik, who reads a lot, knows what words to use to denounce “this empty, useless life,” which has become “unbearable” for her.

No, Chekhov shows, against the passage of time, the Protestant fervor of youth cannot last long - and can even turn “imperceptibly, little by little” into its opposite. In the last chapter, Ionych no longer tolerates any judgments or objections from the outside (“Please answer only questions! Don’t talk!”).

Moreover, a person can have not only denying enthusiasm - he can also have a positive life program (“You need to work, you can’t live without work,” Startsev claims, and Kotik is convinced: “A person must strive for a higher, brilliant goal... I want to be an artist, I want fame, success, freedom...”). It may seem to him that he lives and acts in accordance with the correctly chosen goal. After all, Startsev doesn’t just pronounce monologues in front of ordinary people - he really works, and he sees more and more patients, both in the village hospital and in the city. But... again “imperceptibly, little by little” time made a destructive substitution. By the end of the story, Ionych works more and more, no longer for the sake of the sick or some kind of lofty goals. What was previously secondary - “pieces of paper obtained through practice”, money - becomes the main content of life, its only goal.

In the face of time, the invisible but main arbiter of destinies in Chekhov’s world, any verbally formulated beliefs or beautiful-hearted programs seem fragile and insignificant. In youth, you can despise and be beautiful as much as you like - lo and behold, “imperceptibly, little by little” yesterday’s living person, open to all the impressions of existence, turned into Ionych.

The motive of transformation in the story is associated with the theme of time. The transformation occurs as a gradual transition from the living, not yet settled and unformed to the established, once and for all formed.

In the first three chapters, Dmitry Startsev is young, he has not quite defined, but good intentions and aspirations, he is carefree, full of strength, it costs him nothing to walk nine miles after work (and then nine miles back), music constantly sounds in his soul; like any young man, he is waiting for love and happiness.

But a living person finds himself in an environment of mechanical wind-up dolls. At first he doesn't realize it. The witticisms of Ivan Petrovich, the novels of Vera Iosifovna, Kotik’s play on the piano, the tragic pose of Pava for the first time seem to him quite original and spontaneous, although observation tells him that these witticisms were developed by “long exercises in wit,” that the novels say “about , which never happens in life,” that there is a noticeable stubborn monotony in the young pianist’s playing, and that Pava’s idiotic remark looks like an obligatory dessert to the regular program.

The author of the story resorts to repetition. In the 1st chapter, the Turkins show the guests “their talents cheerfully, with heartfelt simplicity” - and in the 5th chapter, Vera Iosifovna reads her novels to the guests “still willingly, with heartfelt simplicity.” Ivan Petrovich does not change his program of behavior (with all the changes in his repertoire of jokes). The grown-up Pava is even more ridiculous in repeating his line. Both talents and simplicity of heart are not at all the worst qualities that people can display. (Let’s not forget that the Turkins in the city of S. are really the most interesting.) But their programming, routine, and endless repetition ultimately cause melancholy and irritation in the observer.

The rest of the residents of the city of S., who do not have the talents of the Turkins, also live in a routine way, according to a program about which there is nothing to say except: “Day and night - a day away, life passes dullly, without impressions, without thoughts... During the day profit, and in the evening a club, a society of gamblers, alcoholics, wheezing...”

And so, by the last chapter, Startsev himself turned into something ossified, petrified (“not a man, but a pagan god”), moving and acting according to some forever established program. The chapter describes what Ionych (now everyone calls him that only) does day after day, month after month, year after year. Somewhere, all the living things that had worried him in his youth had disappeared, evaporated. There is no happiness, but there are surrogates, substitutes for happiness - buying real estate, pleasing and fearful respect for others. The Turkins remained in their vulgarity - Startsev degraded. Unable to even stay at the level of the Turkins, in his transformation he slipped even lower, to the level of the “stupid and evil” man in the street, for whom he spoke of contempt before. And this is the result of his existence. “That’s all that can be said about him.”

What was the beginning of the transformation, the slide down the inclined plane? At what point in the story can we talk about the guilt of the hero who did not make efforts to prevent this slide?

Maybe this was the effect of failure in love, becoming a turning point in Startsev’s life? Indeed, throughout his life, “love for Kotik was his only joy and, probably, his last.” A frivolous girl’s joke - to make a date at the cemetery - gave him the opportunity for the first and only time in his life to see “a world unlike anything else - a world where the moonlight is so good and soft,” to touch a secret that “promises a quiet life, beautiful, eternal.” The magical night in the old cemetery is the only thing in the story that does not bear the stamp of familiarity, repetition, or routine. She alone remained stunning and unique in the hero’s life.

The next day there was a declaration of love and Kitty’s refusal. The essence of Startsev’s love confession was that there are no words that can convey the feeling that he experiences, and that his love is limitless. Well, we can say that the young man was not particularly eloquent or resourceful in his explanation. But is it possible on this basis to assume that the whole point is in Startsev’s inability to truly feel, that he didn’t really love, didn’t fight for his love, and therefore couldn’t captivate Kotik?

That’s the point, Chekhov shows, that Startsev’s confession was doomed to failure, no matter how eloquent he was, no matter what efforts he made to convince her of his love.

Kotik, like everyone else in the city of S., like everyone else in the Turkins’ house, lives and acts according to some, seemingly predetermined program (the puppet element is noticeable in her) - a program compiled from books she has read, fed by praise for her piano talents and age, as well as hereditary (from Vera Iosifovna) ignorance of life. She rejects Startsev because life in this city seems empty and useless to her, and that she herself wants to strive for a higher, brilliant goal, and not at all become the wife of an ordinary, unremarkable man, and even with such a funny name. Until life and the passage of time show her the fallacy of this program, any words here will be powerless.

This is one of the most characteristic situations for Chekhov’s world: people are separated, they each live with their own feelings, interests, programs, their own stereotypes of life behavior, their own truths; and at the moment when someone most needs to meet a response, understanding from another person, the other person at that moment is absorbed in his own interest, program, etc.

Here, in “Ionych,” the feeling of love that one person experiences is not reciprocated due to the fact that the girl, the object of his love, is absorbed in her own life program, the only one interesting to her at that moment. Then ordinary people will not understand him, here a loved one does not understand.

Having lived for some time, having taken a few sips “from the cup of existence,” Kotik seemed to understand that she had not lived like that (“Now all the young ladies play the piano, and I also played like everyone else, and there was nothing special about me; I she’s as much a pianist as her mother is a writer.” She now considers her main mistake in the past to be that she did not understand Startsev then. But does she truly understand him now? Suffering, the awareness of missed happiness make Ekaterina Ivanovna out of Kotik, a living, suffering person (now she has “sad, grateful, searching eyes”). At the first explanation, she is categorical, he is unsure, at their last meeting he is categorical, but she is timid, timid, and insecure. But, alas, only a change of programs occurs, but the programming and repetition remain. “What a blessing it is to be a zemstvo doctor, to help the suffering, to serve the people. What happiness!<...>When I thought about you in Moscow, you seemed so ideal, sublime to me...” she says, and we see: these are phrases straight from Vera Iosifovna’s novels, far-fetched works that have nothing to do with real life. It’s as if she again sees not a living person, but a mannequin hero from a novel written by her mother.

And again they are each absorbed in their own things, speaking different languages. She is in love, idealizes Startsev, and longs for a reciprocal feeling. With him, the transformation is almost complete, he is already hopelessly sucked into philistine life, thinking about the pleasure of “pieces of paper”. Having flared up for a short time, “the fire in my soul went out.” From misunderstanding and loneliness, a person, alienated from others, withdraws into his shell. So who is to blame for Startsev’s failure in life, for his degradation? Of course, it is not difficult to blame him or the society around him, but this will not be a complete and accurate answer. The environment determines only the forms in which Ionych’s life will take place, what values he will accept, what surrogates of happiness he will console himself with. But other forces and circumstances gave impetus to the hero’s fall and led him to rebirth.

How to resist time, which does the work of transformation “imperceptibly, little by little”? What leads people to misfortune is their eternal disunity, self-absorption, and the impossibility of mutual understanding at the most crucial, decisive moments of existence. And how can a person guess the moment that decides his entire future fate? And only when it is too late to change anything, it turns out that a person has only one bright, unforgettable night in his entire life.

Such sobriety, even cruelty in depicting the tragedy of human existence seemed excessive to many in Chekhov's works. Critics believed that Chekhov was thus “killing human hopes.” Indeed, “Ionych” may seem like a mockery of many bright hopes. We need to work! You cannot live without work! A person must strive for a higher, brilliant goal! Helping the suffering, serving the people - what happiness! Writers before and after Chekhov very often made such and similar ideas central to their works, proclaiming them through the mouths of their heroes. Chekhov shows how life and the passage of time devalue and make meaningless any beautiful ideas. All these are common (albeit undeniable) passages, which cost absolutely nothing to say and write. The graphomaniac Vera Iosifovna, who writes “about what never happens in life,” can fill her novels with them. Startsev would never have become the hero of Vera Iosifovna’s novel: what happened to him is what happens in life.

“Ionych” is a story about how incredibly difficult it is to remain human, even knowing what you should be. A story about the relationship between illusions and real (terrible in its everyday life) life. About real, not illusory difficulties of life.

So, does Chekhov really look so hopelessly at the fate of man in the world and leaves no hope?

Yes, Dmitry Startsev inevitably moves toward becoming Ionych, and in his fate Chekhov shows what can happen to anyone. But if Chekhov shows the inevitability of degradation of an initially good, normal person with the imperceptible passage of time, the inevitability of abandonment of dreams and ideas proclaimed in youth, does it mean that he really kills hopes and calls for leaving them at the threshold of life? And he states together with the hero: “How, in essence, Mother Nature plays bad jokes on man, how offensive it is to realize this!”? So you can understand the meaning of the story only by inattentive reading, without reading the text to the end, without thinking about it.

Isn’t it clear in the last chapter how everything that happened to Ionych is called by its proper name, sharply, directly? Greed has overcome. My throat was swollen with fat. He is lonely, his life is boring. There are no joys in life and there won’t be any more. That's all that can be said about him.

How much contempt is contained in these words! It is obvious that the writer, who throughout the entire story carefully traced the spiritual evolution of the hero, making it possible to understand him, here refuses to justify, does not forgive the degradation leading to such an end.

The meaning of the story told to us can thus be understood at the junction of two principles. Mother Nature really plays a bad joke on man; man is often deceived by life and time, and it is difficult to understand the degree of his personal guilt. But it is so disgusting what a person who has been given everything for a normal, useful life can turn into that there can be only one conclusion: everyone must fight against becoming Ionych, even if there is almost no hope of success in this fight.

Gogol, in a lyrical digression included in the chapter about Plyushkin (and the evolution of Ionych is somewhat reminiscent of the changes that occurred with this Gogol hero), appeals to his young readers with an appeal to preserve with all their might the best that is given to everyone in their youth. Chekhov does not make such special lyrical digressions in his story. He calls for resistance to degradation in an almost hopeless situation throughout his entire text.

Elena BELYKH,
Far Eastern College
state university,
Vladivostok

Story by A.P. Chekhov's "Ionych"

Analysis of the episode “In the Cemetery”: place, role, content functions

It is generally accepted that Chekhov's story “Ionych” is a story about how the hero, succumbing to the influence of the environment, is vulgarized, loses his good qualities and becomes a commoner. A classic work is a classic, and a classic is a classic, because they never fit into a once and seemingly forever formula. M. Gorky was one of the first to feel that a critic turning to Chekhov’s stories cannot follow the old paths of retelling and “parsing” the text: “It is also impossible to convey the content of Chekhov’s stories because all of them, like expensive and delicate lace, require careful treatment of themselves and cannot stand the touch of rough hands, which can only crush them...” (1, 689)

The task that faces us is to carefully (very carefully!) read the famous Chekhov story covered with a “textbook gloss” and answer the question: was there a boy? Were there any prerequisites for the transformation of the “early” Startsev into Ionych? What is true and imaginary intelligence? What role does the episode play in the work? the hero's failed date at the cemetery, what is its emotional pathos?

P. Weil and A. Genis, not without reason, consider the story “Ionych” a “micro-novel”, because “Chekhov managed to condense the enormous volume of all human life without loss” (2, 178).

Let's reveal story chronotope , that is " interrelation of temporal and spatial relations”(3, 234), or category “composition and plot, which expresses the inextricable connection of time and space” (4, 8).

1. The action takes place in a closed artistic space an ordinary provincial town, embodying all the “boredom and monotony of life” of the Russian hinterland: “When visitors to the provincial town of S. complained to the boredom and monotony of life...” (Hereinafter in quotes from “Ionych” italics are mine. - E.B.). (The first obvious literary association is the famous beginning of N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”: “At the gates of the hotel in the provincial town of NN...”). It is interesting that the place to which the main character, Doctor Startsev, was appointed as a zemstvo doctor, had a very specific name, which sounded somewhat unusual - Dyalizh.

2. Artistic time in the story. In winter, Dmitry Ionych “was introduced to Ivan Petrovich... an invitation followed”; “in the spring, on a holiday - it was the Ascension,” Startsev went into the city, “had lunch, walked in the garden, then somehow Ivan Petrovich’s invitation came to his mind, and he decided to go to the Turkins, see what kind of people they are " After the first visit, “more than a year has passed,” and here he is again in the Turkins’ house. “Autumn was approaching, and it was quiet in the old garden, sad and dark leaves lay on the alleys.” It was at the end of the summer that Startsev arrived at the request of the ill Vera Iosifovna, “and after that he began to visit the Turkins often, very often.” In such “inconsistency”, the contrast between the life of dying nature and the hero’s emerging love, the attentive reader will feel the beginning of the end of the love relationship between Dmitry Ionych and Kotik. (Literary Association: same principle figurative, psychological parallelism, based on likening the internal state of man to the life of nature, brilliantly used in the novel “Oblomov” by I. Goncharov, exploring the love story of Ilya Oblomov and Olga Ilyinskaya.)

Chekhov speaks sparingly about Startsev’s medical practice, but short quotes selected from the text eloquently testify to the irreversible changes that occurred with the young doctor: “... in the hospital there was so many work, and he couldn’t find a free hour. More than a year has passed in labor and loneliness”; “In the city, Startsev already had great practice. Every morning he hastily received patients at home in Dyalizh, then went to the city patients”; “He had one more entertainment...take it out of your pockets in the evenings pieces of paper, obtained by practice”; “In his city huge practice, no time to breathe... He has a lot of trouble, but still he does not give up his zemstvo position, greed prevailed(we hear the indignant, contemptuous voice of the narrator expressing the author’s position. - E.B.), I want to keep up both here and there... When receiving the sick, he usually gets angry, impatiently knocks his stick on the floor and shouts to his unpleasant(again bright assessment detail! - E.B.) voice:

Please answer only questions! Don't talk!

The story is structured according to the laws of the novel genre. It has an exposition, a plot, a climax, a development of action, and an epilogue. “Strikingly, in the short “Ionych” there was even room for the almost obligatory element of a novel - an inserted short story” (2, 180).

Place of this short story - the episode “At the Cemetery” - between the first and second quotes of the description of Dmitry Startsev’s service: “More than a year has passed” since he first visited the Turkins, - and now he is hastily receives patients at the “zemstvo place” and leaves for “paperwork” in the city. Why did such a metamorphosis happen to the doctor? Where is the beginning of the fall of humanity in man? After all, how long did it take for such profound changes to take place?

The episode has its own microplot : the motive for the seemingly illogical, absurd appearance of Dmitry Ionych Startsev in the cemetery is his suddenly flared passion for Kotik. Why did Startsev suddenly decide on such an extravagant act and succumb to obsession? Russian classics more than once tested their heroes for moral integrity and high humanity. Let's remember Onegin, Pechorin, Bazarov... They all passed the test of love. It has long been noted that Chekhov does not have exceptional heroes, extraordinary circumstances on the verge of life and death. Everything is trivial, everyday, desperately ordinary. Gorky wrote about the story “In the Ravine”: “There is nothing in Chekhov’s stories that does not happen in reality. The terrible power of his talent lies precisely in the fact that he never invents anything on his own, does not depict “what does not exist in the world”... He never embellishes people... Chekhov wrote a lot of small comedies about people who overlooked life...” (1, 690). Dmitry Ionych Startsev also had a test of love. And it’s no coincidence that the episode of a failed date with Kitty is culmination the entire story, the highest point of tension, a test of the hero, a certain milestone.

Let us remember how the doctor ended up in the cemetery. After talking with him, Kitty “suddenly” got up from the bench “under the old wide maple tree,” “then awkwardly put a note in his hand and ran into the house and sat down at the piano again.” Startsev read in the note: “Today, at eleven o’clock in the evening, be at the cemetery near the Demetti monument.” His first reaction when he came to his senses was the thoughts that “this is not smart at all,” “for what?” Analyzing this episode, we will trace how the hero’s mental and psychological state changes while waiting for Kotik.

Startsev “ included per episode” with hope. “Everyone has their own oddities,” he thought. - The cat is also strange and - who knows? “Perhaps she’s not joking, she’ll come.” What follows are the words of the narrator: “... and he gave himself up to this weak, empty hope, and it intoxicated him.” If the epithet weak expresses only what it expresses, then empty- this is the author’s knowledge that Kitty will not come, and - deeper - about empty concerns about the spiritual rise of Dmitry Ionych. “ It turns out from the episode” the hero, saying the famous: “Oh, there’s no need to gain weight!”

Exposition episode are the thoughts of the discouraged Startsev. His speech characteristic given in the form improperly direct speech. One gets the impression of the author’s imperceptible penetration into the thoughts of Dmitry Ionych. The exposition takes up one paragraph and provides plenty of food for discussion. Beginning: “It was clear: Kitty was fooling around.” The first impersonal sentence as part of a complex sentence does not seem to give Startsev any grounds for unnecessary reasoning about Ekaterina Ivanovna’s stupid idea. The end of the paragraph is: “... A at half past ten suddenly took And went to the cemetery." A nasty union A emphasizes the impulsiveness of the decision, particle And reinforces this impression. The word “suddenly” is a “Dostoevsky” word, not a Chekhovian one. These are Dostoevsky’s heroes “suddenly,” unexpectedly making decisions, often contradicting themselves. Nothing, as we see, foreshadowed such an act by Doctor Startsev. (By the way, “suddenly” will appear in the story only four times: the first time - when Kitty “suddenly stood up and went to the house”; the second time - in the finale of the episode “In the Cemetery” - this particular detail will have a symbolic meaning; the third “suddenly” will become the reason for the passionate kiss in the carriage, when “the horses turned sharply into the gates of the club, and the carriage tilted”; the last time this adverb appears in the text is when, four years later, Startsev, sitting on a bench in the garden with Ekaterina Ivanovna, “suddenly” becomes. “sad and sorry for the past.”)

Let's return to the doctor's thoughts before his trip to the cemetery. “Who would really seriously think of making a date at night, far outside the city, in a cemetery, when it’s can be easily arranged on the street, in the city garden?” Dmitry Ionych understands the absurdity of Kotik’s proposal. “And is it fitting for him, a zemstvo doctor, smart, respectable person, sigh, receive notes, hang around through cemeteries, doing stupid things that even schoolchildren laugh at now? Where will this novel lead? ? There are two interesting things about this passage.

For the first time, Startsev’s self-assessment is given. Whatever indirect characterization other characters give to the hero, this will be his “absentia” definition (M. Bakhtin’s term). As we see, Dmitry Ionych has quite high self-esteem, which had reason to be from the very beginning of the story. Let us remember: “And Doctor Startsev... was also told that he, as an intelligent person, needed to get to know the Turkins.” This means that the Turkins family is considered intelligent. The bar for an “intelligent person” has certainly been lowered. The words of Chekhov himself from his letter to his brother about educated people- should read: intelligent. “In order to educate yourself and not stand below the level of the environment in which you find yourself, it is not enough to read only Pickwick and memorize a monologue from Faust. This requires continuous day and night work, eternal reading, studying, and will. Every hour is precious here.” We will see in the story the “intelligent” Turkin family and we will judge the level of the “environment” into which Startsev found himself, from the words of the narrator, that is, much earlier than the hero himself.

So, Startsev evaluates the future “enterprise” from the point of view of the average person: “... hang around through cemeteries... Where will this novel lead? What will your comrades say when they find out?? Which of the heroes of Russian literature, standing above their environment, looked back at public opinion? Onegin comes to mind before his duel with Lensky. (“...But the whispers, the laughter of fools...”). The situations are different, but the essence is the same. Although no, not everything is so simple here. Mentally, Onegin still gives an evaluative characterization to representatives of “public opinion.” Chekhov's “hero” “falls short” of a hero. We call it that based on a literary term. “That’s what Startsev thought, wandering around the tables in the club, and at half past ten...” Startsev is not Raskolnikov, who goes “without his own feet” to kill the old pawnbroker, because the decision was made a long time ago. Gives Startsev a chance author, gives you a chance to be alone with yourself, with a world “where there is no life,” a chance to make some important discoveries. That's the exposition of the episode.

Z binding The episode begins with the most important substantive detail involved in the development of the plot: “He already had a couple of horses and a coachman Panteleimon in a velvet vest.” At the beginning of the story, Startsev, having visited the Turkins, “went on foot to his place in Dyalizh.” Now he has a couple of horses and a coachman in a velvet vest. It would seem that what's wrong with this? In the epilogue, Startsev’s movement is described as follows: “When he is plump and red, rides a troika with bells and Panteleimon, also plump and red, with fleshy nape, sitting on the trestle, stretched forward straight, exactly wooden, hands, and shouts to those he meets: “Keep the law!” the picture is impressive, and it seems that it is not a man who is riding, but a pagan god.” There is no irony in this description, it is sarcasm, castigating the complete destruction of the human in man. Panteleimon’s “wooden hands” seem to be continued in detail , characterizing Ionych: he always has a stick in his hands, with which he, coming to the next house “appointed for auction,” “pokes all the doors,” or, “receiving the sick,” “impatiently knocks... on the floor.” We will meet the mirror reflection of the master in the servant in “Oblomov” (Oblomov - Zakhar), in “Fathers and Sons” (Pavel Petrovich - Prokofich). The reflection of the behavior and portrait characteristics of the owners in the servants makes the latter more vulnerable, is a kind of parody of them, and thus the author achieves his goal.

But in the episode of the failed date Startsev is not yet Ionych from the epilogue. The hero “left the horses on the edge of the city, in one of the alleys, and he himself went to the cemetery on foot" “What will your comrades say when they find out?” Perhaps this fear is implied? Most likely yes. But still the meaning of this detail not only this. The distance was not close: “He walked through the field for half a mile.” Startsev walked on foot for the last time!

At half past ten he “suddenly up and went to the cemetery”; at midnight “the clock in the church began to strike”; the next day he will tell Ekaterina Ivanovna that he waited for her “almost until two o’clock”; the narrator will note that the hero “then wandered around for an hour and a half, looking for the lane where he had left his horses.” So, chronotope of the episode: artistic space - cemetery, not the most cheerful place on earth, where, in fact, I stayed alive Dmitry Ionych; borders artistic time episodes are approximately four hours long. Whole four hours of “trampling through cemeteries”! Only four hours during which Startsev turned into Ionych. There are hours and even minutes in life when a person remains “naked,” alone with the universe; when two cosmos - macro and micro - converge in an incredible way. (Let us remember Prince Andrew lying on the field of Austerlitz, and the high sky that opened up to him.) A person must appreciate the lucky card dealt to him, must emerge from contact with eternity different, different, renewed. Such a moment came in the life of a zemstvo doctor on the outskirts of the provincial town of S.

Chekhov mastered all the techniques of artistic representation, including various methods of constructing descriptions. The episode "In the Graveyard" is a brilliant example of the principle psychological parallelism.“The moon was shining. It was quiet, but warm like autumn. In the suburbs, near the slaughterhouses, dogs were howling.” The picture is creepy, and Startsev, as we see, is not a timid person. “The cemetery was marked in the distance by a dark stripe, like a forest or a large garden.”

Garden motif- an important motif in the story “Ionych”, and “the pinnacle image of all Chekhov’s creativity” (2, 187). The garden is an unchanging, eternal setting against which the relationship between Startsev and Ekaterina Ivanovna develops and ends. In the Turkins’ house, “half the windows looked out onto the old shady garden”; “when Vera Iosifovna closed her notebook” with a novel about “what never happens in life”, “in the city garden next door” a choir of songwriters accompanied by an orchestra sang “Luchinushka”, “and this song conveyed something that was not in the novel and what happens in life.” Startsev and Kotik “had a favorite place in the garden: a bench under an old wide maple tree.” This was the time of Dmitry Ionych's passionate love. Four years later, “she looked at him and, apparently, expected him to invite her to go to the garden, but he was silent.” Now Kitty says not “dryly”, as he once did, but excitedly, “nervously”: “For God’s sake, let’s go to the garden.” “They went into the garden and sat down there on a bench under an old maple tree...” The garden is not only a silent witness, but also a participant in the action called “life.” “A garden is a way out of a paradoxical world into an organic world, a transition from a state of anxious anticipation... into eternal active peace” (2, 187).

The episode is built on both likeness and contrast between nature and man. Startsev entered a surreal “world, unlike anything else, a world where the moonlight is so good and soft.” In just one and a half pages, Chekhov, who considered brevity one of the main principles of his poetics, set a kind of “record”: six (!) times he spoke about the moon and moonlight. A narrative detail - the moon - reigns throughout the entire artistic space of the cemetery-forest, cemetery-garden. The static description of the moonlit night slows down the action and interrupts the development of events. We see the landscape through the eyes of Startsev, a landscape in the description of which two colors dominate: white and black. The yellow sand of the alleys further emphasizes the pouring light. “A fence of white stone and a gate appeared... In the moonlight, on the gate one could read: “The hour is coming at the same time...” (I remember: abandon hope, everyone who enters here. - E.B.) Startsev entered the gate, and the first thing he saw were white crosses and monuments on both sides of the wide alley and black shadows from them and from the poplars; and all around you could see white and black in the distance, and sleepy trees bent their branches over the white. It seemed that it was brighter here than in the field...” The end of this rather long paragraph is magnificent. The hero succumbed for a short time to the magic of the cemetery atmosphere, felt the solemnity of the moment, and was imbued with the “mood” of the place. The thrice repeated “no” (“where there is no life, there is no and no”) persistently evokes the idea of the frailty of human existence, the insignificance of vanity and sets one in a high mood; “...but in every dark poplar, in every grave, the presence of a secret is felt, promising a quiet, beautiful, eternal life.” The syntactic triad that completes the phrase is built on the principle of gradation. Each subsequent epithet enhances the impression of the previous one - to eternity, to infinity. The garden “changes without changing. Submitting to the cyclical laws of nature, being born and dying, he conquers death” (2, 187). The phrase that ends the paragraph is the last high feeling that Startsev experienced in life: “From the slabs and withered flowers, along with the autumn smell of leaves, there emanates forgiveness, sadness and peace.” These words are filled with symbolic content. Gravestones are the result, the finale of human life, something that has no continuation, something that is forever. Life after death can only exist in the memory of the living. The autumn smell of leaves and wilted flowers speak of the proximity and inevitability of death. Syntactic triad “forgiveness, sadness, peace” evokes a literary association: a description of the rural cemetery where Evgeny Bazarov is buried. “Like almost all of our cemeteries, it looks sad...” Many generations of critics and readers have struggled with the author’s words that conclude the novel: “Oh no! No matter what passionate, sinful, rebellious heart hides in the grave, the flowers growing on it serenely look at us with their innocent eyes: they tell us not only about eternal peace, about that great peace of “indifferent” nature; they also talk about eternal reconciliation and endless life...” A hidden quotation from Pushkin’s philosophical lyrics, the author’s deep affection for his hero, sounding in the finale of “Fathers and Sons,” make us think about the questions of existence.

Let's return to Chekhov's story. “There is silence all around; in deep humility the stars looked from the sky...” Startsev at the cemetery was “inappropriate,” as were his steps, breaking the silence. The hero was brought back to reality by the chiming of the clock, “and he imagined himself dead, buried here forever.” Everything alive, thirsting for love, was indignant in him: “... it seemed to him that someone was looking at him, and for a minute he thought that this was not peace or silence, but a deep melancholy of non-existence, suppressed despair...” Startsev does not rise above himself, does not make a discovery. “Chekhov’s man is an unfulfilled man” with “an unfulfilled life” (2.180).

Moonlight had a unique influence on Startsev’s thoughts: it seemed to “fuel passion in him,” the doctor “waited passionately and imagined kisses and hugs”; “...how many women and girls are buried here, in these graves, who were beautiful, charming, who loved, who burned with passion at night, surrendering to affection. How, in essence, Mother Nature plays bad jokes on man, how offensive it is to realize this!” Conveying the flow of thoughts of the hero using improperly direct speech, Chekhov brings it to the point of tension, to the climax; “...he wanted to scream that he wanted it, that he was waiting for love at all costs; in front of him turned white no longer pieces of marble, but beautiful bodies, he saw forms that shyly hid in the shade of trees, felt warmth, and this languor became painful...” The highest tension of Startsev’s “spiritual suffering” in the cemetery is a passionate languor, a thirst for love, love carnal, physical...

The director of the scene “In the Cemetery” - moonlight - gives his hero the opportunity to become a participant in the action, to see something that “probably will never happen again.” And the moon prepares the denouement episode: “And it was as if the curtain had fallen, the moon went under the clouds, and suddenly everything went dark all around.” Kotik's joke led Startsev to the cemetery, where he experienced unique, most important feelings and sensations in his life. And there, in the cemetery, Startsev’s formation as a person, as a person, ended. The author is no longer interested in it. All subsequent actions of the hero are said somehow in passing: “Startsev barely found the gate - it was already dark, like an autumn night - then he wandered for an hour and a half, looking for the lane where he left his horses.

“I’m tired, I can barely stand on my feet,” he told Panteleimon.”

The whole episode is a romantic picture with a reduced, vulgarized ending: “And, sitting down with pleasure in the carriage, he thought: “Oh, I shouldn’t get fat!”” This is an episode of the hero’s failed date with himself.

How deep were Startsev’s feelings? Both during his first visit to the Turkins and later, Kotik “admired him with her freshness, the naive expression of her eyes and cheeks.” “Naive expression... cheeks”? We understand that this detail of Kotik’s portrait sounds ironic, but the irony does not come from Startsev, through whose perception the girl’s appearance is given. This is a slight irony of the author. But the hero is in love, and therefore deserves leniency. He admires “the way the dress sat on her, he saw something unusually sweet, touching with its simplicity and naive grace.” The speech characteristics of Dmitry Ionych, his own direct speech, strongly resembles the speech of a hero-lover in vaudeville: “For God’s sake, I beg you, don’t torment me, let’s go to the garden!”; “I haven’t seen you for a whole week... and if you only knew what suffering this is!”; “I want terribly, I crave your voice. Speak”; “Stay with me for at least five minutes! I conjure you!”

Were they interested in each other? “She seemed to him very smart and developed beyond her years.” In general, in many of Chekhov’s works the key words are “seems”, “seemed” and others. They can serve as introductory constructions - words and sentences, or they can be included, as in this case, as part of the predicate. “She seemed smart...” A significant detail that characterizes both the lover Startsev and his beloved. And yet, “with her he could talk about literature, about art, about anything, he could complain about life, about people...”

Let's turn over three sheets. “But four years have passed. One quiet, warm morning a letter was brought to the hospital. Vera Iosifovna... asked him to definitely come to her and ease her suffering. At the bottom there was a note: “I also join my mother’s request. TO."". Seeing her, Startsev noted that she had changed in appearance, had become prettier, the main thing was that “it was already Ekaterina Ivanovna, and not Kotik...” The situation repeated itself exactly the opposite. (I remember, in the words of Y. Lotman, the “formula of the Russian novel” “Eugene Onegin”.) But how reduced the situation is, how pathetic and then terrible Chekhov’s hero is in the finale! If Kotik became Ekaterina Ivanovna, then Dmitry Ionych is simply Ionych. How does he perceive her now? “And now he liked her... but something was already preventing him from feeling as before.” And then the narrator, using a three-time negative verb, conveys Startsev’s growing irritation: “He didn’t like her paleness... he didn’t like her dress, the chair in which she was sitting, he didn’t like something in the past, when he almost married her.” . Moreover, when he “remembered his love, dreams and hopes... he felt embarrassed.” But the desire to talk to Ekaterina Ivanovna still arose. But about what? “...I already wanted to say, complain about life”.

Four years later, having met not with Kotik, but with Ekaterina Ivanovna, sitting on his once beloved bench in the dark garden, “he remembered everything that had happened, all the slightest details, how he wandered around the cemetery, how then in the morning, tired , was returning to his home, and he suddenly felt sad and sorry for the past. And a fire lit up in my soul.”

We remember that Kotick made a date “near the Demetti monument.” It is no coincidence that the narrator devotes a whole paragraph in the meeting episode to the certificate of origin of the monument “in the form of a chapel, with an angel at the top” and its description: “...once upon a time there was an Italian opera passing through S., one of the singers died, and she was buried and erected this monument. No one in the city remembered her anymore, but lamp above the entrance reflected moonlight And, it seemed, was burning" IN soul Startseva a few years later, remembering that night “the fire has lit up”. Just as the moon, which had gone under the clouds, extinguished the lamp, so the light “went out in my soul” when “Startsev remembered the pieces of paper that he took out of his pockets in the evenings with such pleasure.” This object detail - “pieces of paper obtained by practice... which smelled of perfume, and vinegar, and incense, and blubber” - evokes in memory and with lust the Stingy Knight from A. Pushkin’s “little tragedy” admiring his gold in the cellars , and the unforgettable Chichikov, sorting through the contents of a box with a double bottom.

Comparing Startsev’s behavior, speech and thoughts before and after the “inserted short story,” we see that it is on these two pages of text that the most important thing is shown - what explains to us the transformation of Dmitry Ionych into Ionych. (It is precisely this patronymic, which has become a common noun, that Chekhov included in the title of the story.)

Of particular note is the theme of music, which plays a rather significant role in the narrative: after hearing Kotik play the piano for the first time, Startsev “pictured to himself how stones were falling from a high mountain, falling and falling, and he wanted them to stop falling as soon as possible. .. After the winter spent in Dyalizh, among the sick and the peasants, sitting in the living room... listening to these noisy, annoying, but still cultural sounds, - it was so nice, so new...” Then there are congratulations from the “amazed” guests at “such music.” And here is the famous: “Wonderful! - said And Startsev.” We remember, this is only the first chapter, this is only exposition and plot. Startsev’s spiritual and physical appearance had not yet changed in any way. The shortest artistic detail - the coordinating conjunction and - makes the reader think: is the “early” Dmitry Ionych much different from the average person? Could he initially resist the environment? The Russian intellectual is weak, weak in spirit, living by his own labor and reaching out for satiety, comfort, for soft, deep armchairs in which “it was calm,” “pleasant, comfortable, and all such good, calm thoughts came to mind...”, intellectual , with pleasure complaining(this word, as we see, is one of the key words in the story).

And a year later, the lover Startsev listens to “long, tedious exercises on the piano.” After the proposal that Dmitry Ionych finally made to Ekaterina Ivanovna, she unexpectedly rejects him: “... you know, most of all in life I love art, I madly love, adore music, I dedicated my whole life to it...” The heroine’s speech sounds pompous, just like Startsev’s own speech at the moment of confession. They both seem to be acting in some kind of play and take their acting seriously. And yet, it is young Kotik who speaks for the first time, although it sounds naive, about the unbearable vulgarity of life: “...and you want me to continue living in this city, to continue this empty(this epithet again! - E.B.), a useless life that became unbearable for me. To become a wife - oh no, sorry! A person must strive for a higher, brilliant goal...” We will not hear such words from Startsev’s lips. (Dissatisfaction with existence, the dream of a different, meaningful, creative life are the leitmotif of all of Chekhov’s late works, especially his plays.) We know how the heroine’s search for “fame, success, freedom” ended. And four years later, “Ekaterina Ivanovna played the piano noisily and for a long time, and when she finished, they thanked her for a long time and admired her.” Sincere insincerity, the “rituality” of the admiration of the same guests, the vulgarity of the situation and the spiritual squalor of the “most educated and talented” family lead Startsev to think about the mediocrity of the Turkins. In the form of Startsev’s short internal monologue, we hear the author’s merciless voice: “It’s not the one who doesn’t know how to write stories that is mediocre, but the one who writes them and doesn’t know how to hide it.” After Kotik’s noisy game, Startsev thought: “It’s good that I didn’t marry her.” The last chord is the words about “if the most talented people in the whole city are so untalented, then what kind of city should it be.” Later, but an insight that does not essentially change anything. The “musical” theme ends in the epilogue: “And when, at some table next door, the topic of the Turkins comes up, he asks:

Which Turkins are you talking about? About the ones where your daughter plays the piano?”

An expressive action detail: the ending is open, not completed. The verbs are used in the present tense: “when... the conversation comes... he asks,” suggesting endless repetition. Vulgar environment, vulgar hero.

Chekhov’s heroes “invariably - and inevitably - do not grow into themselves... These are not just “little people” who poured into Russian literature long before Chekhov. Makar Devushkin is torn apart by Shakespearean passions, Akakiy Bashmachkin elevates the overcoat to a cosmic symbol. Doctor Startsev has neither passions nor symbols, since he did not recognize them in himself. The inertia of his life knows no contradictions and opposition, because it is natural and rooted in the deepest self-ignorance. Compared to Startsev, Oblomov is a titan of will, and no one would think of calling him Ilyich, as he was Ionych” (2, 180). “In essence, each of his characters is an embryo of surrealism. In it, like in a nuclear charge, the absurdity of everyday existence is condensed” (ibid., 182). Thus, the analysis of a small episode of Doctor Startsev’s failed meeting highlighted the problems and artistic originality of not only A.P.’s story. Chekhov, but also the main themes of his work, connected together the heroes and literary situations of Russian classics.

Literature

1. Reader on literary criticism for schoolchildren and applicants / Compilation, comments by L.A. Sugai. M.: Ripol-Classic, 2000.

2. Weil P., Genis A. Native speech. Lessons in fine literature. M.: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1991.

3. Bakhtin M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. M., 1975.

4. Grigorai I.V., Panchenko T.F., Lelaus V.V. The doctrine of a work of art. Far Eastern University Publishing House, 2000.

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The history of the creation of the story Ionych

The writer began working on “Ionych” in August 1897. The plot of the story “Ionych” is simple - this is the story of the failed marriage of Dmitry Ionych Startsev. In fact, the story is the story of the hero’s entire life, lived meaninglessly. This is a story about how a good person with good inclinations turns into an indifferent ordinary person.

What is the central theme of the story?

Protest against vulgarity, philistinism, spiritual philistinism, self-degeneration of man.

What is the main idea of the work?

It lies in the call “Take care of the person within you!”

What is the composition of the story

The composition of the story is subordinated to one common goal - to show the gradual spiritual impoverishment of the hero and the miserable life of the city. But how can you tell about the life of a hero and an entire city over the course of several pages?

Chekhov achieves this through the following artistic means. Components of the work, such as landscape and dialogue, disappear as the plot develops. Startsev turns into a gloomy, lonely man in the street. Landscape and dialogue are now made unnecessary in the work. You should pay attention to another interesting compositional feature of the story. The author almost does not describe the provincial town in which the events unfold. Meanwhile, the reader feels well the stuffy atmosphere of this city.

Chekhov's story by Ionych Elders

Symbolism of the Startsev surname. What does the name of this hero make you think about? What are the views and character of this person?

Chekhov's surnames, as a rule, are “speaking”. In the city of S. he was considered an intelligent and hardworking person. The hero is probably healthy, walking gives him pleasure and puts him in a good mood. He is full of strength and cheerful.

Analysis of Chapter 1

So, what is known about Startsev is that he was recently appointed as a zemstvo doctor. In the city of S. he was considered an intelligent and hardworking person. Pay attention to this artistic detail (reading the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph of the story). The hero is probably healthy, walking gives him pleasure and puts him in a good mood. He is full of strength and cheerful. But the author, for some purpose, focuses our attention on such artistic details: “he did not have his own horses.” This remark is specifically for the reader (the introductory sentence is highlighted in brackets), and the author himself knows what will happen next. In order for the reader to feel more deeply the personality of Startsev, Chekhov reveals to us not only his inner world, but also, as it were, the very birth of the hero’s thought: “Vera Iosifovna read about how the young, beautiful countess set up schools, hospitals, libraries in her village and how she fell in love with the wandering artist - she read about things that never happen in life, and yet it was pleasant, comfortable to listen to, and all such good, peaceful thoughts came to her head - she didn’t want to get up.”

What assessment do the author and hero give to the content of Vera Iosifovna’s novel? What important detail is highlighted?

(The author believes that what is described does not happen in life. Startsev also does not believe what Vera Iosifovna reads. But after a difficult day full of hard work, you can listen to anything; it was warm, cozy and you didn’t want to get up.)

How is Ekaterina Ivanovna’s playing the piano presented in the story? What special did you notice? Find a description of this episode in the text and read it aloud.

Conclusion:

We see that in the city of S. there is a boring, monotonous life. In the most “pleasant” family there are mediocre and untalented people. Vera Iosifovna writes novels about what does not happen in life. Ekaterina Ivanovna does not put a drop of true feeling into her playing; it is difficult to imagine that she has at least some relation to music as an art. Ivan Petrovich uses a long-memorized set of witticisms and anecdotes. Startsev had almost the same opinion about Vera Iosifovna’s work, but... in the kitchen there was already a clatter of knives and the smell of fried onions could be heard and I didn’t want to get up. Ekaterina Ivanovna’s playing is noisy, mediocre, but... still these are cultural sounds.

So, Startsev was pleased with the evening spent at the Turkins’, everything was “not bad”, not counting the small compromises with himself, with his tastes, and views on life.

Analysis of Chapter 2

More than a year passed between the events described in the first and second chapters. Time is an important artistic detail here.

(Only one thing - the writer’s middle name, which is funny, from her point of view. This is not an accidental detail. Chekhov uses it again to show the frivolity of this heroine (it’s not for nothing that she is called Kotik), the inability to see the main thing, the present, both in literature and in life , in the scene of refusal to Dmitry Ionych in chapter 3: “I want to be an artist, I want fame, success, freedom, and you want me to continue living in this city, to continue this empty, useless life, which has become unbearable for me. To become a wife - oh, no, I’m sorry!”.)

Like many writers, A.P. Chekhov tests his heroes with love. It is love that gives Startsev another chance to remain human. Having received the note about the date, Dmitry Ionych did not doubt for a minute that she would not be at the cemetery, that he himself was no longer capable of such nonsense, and then he still took it and went. Chekhov prefaces the story of this romantic date with a magnificent artistic detail: “He already had his own pair of horses and a coachman Panteleimon in a velvet vest.” When Startsev found himself in the cemetery, his soul responded to the beauty of nature, the secrets of existence seemed to be revealed to him, it seemed that he was about to think, imbued with a philosophical mood, about the eternal problems of life and death...

Chapter 3 Analysis

So, the entire third chapter tells about Startsev’s unsuccessful visit with an official proposal. The reader is already prepared for such an ending. The main character is ready too. Find confirmation in the text (after the scene of explanation: “Startsev’s heart has stopped beating restlessly...”, etc.).

Researchers of Chekhov's work noted that such a construction of the story can be considered as a dotted line, which is confirmed by the repetition of artistic details.

Chapter 4 Analysis

As always, the first paragraph is aesthetically rich. The beginning of the chapter is read. Talking further about the Turkins, Chekhov repeats: “But 4 years have passed.”

WhichchangeshappenedVfamilyTurkins? Vera Iosifovna greeted Startsev with an old joke. Kot “no longer had the former freshness and expression of childish naivety - in her gaze and manners there was something new, timid and guilty, as if here, in the Turkins’ house, she no longer felt at home.” Ivan Petrovich and Pava did not change their “repertoire”. And we, following the author, conclude: if the most talented people in the whole city are so mediocre, then what kind of city should it be?

ChangedwhetherattitudeDmitryIonychaTohim? Startsev’s attitude towards the Turkins also became different. One day, driving past their house, he thought that he should stop by, but for some reason he didn’t stop by and never visited the Turkins’ house again.

Chapter 5 Analysis

So, the last path to love is cut off, nothing delays degradation, the loss of human personality.

Chapter 5 is the result of the entire life of Startsev, the Turkins, the city of S. We read the first paragraph.

Let's remember the beginning of the story. The philistine city of S. and Startsev are two opposite poles. At the end, Startsev is already his own, the same as all the residents. In Dyalizh and in the city they call him simply Ionych. Chekhov leaves no hope for his hero to feel human again. This idea is emphasized by something casually noted by the author: “During the entire time he lived in Dyalizh, love for Kotik was his only joy and, probably, his last.”

At the end of the story, not a trace remains of this bright, human feeling. That's all that can be said about him.

What about the Turkins? Everything is still the same for them. The end of the story, in Chekhov's style, is “not finished.” It's like a piece snatched from life. That’s why the verbs are used here not in the form of the past tense, as in the entire story, but in the form of the present, the so-called abstract: “Walking off to the station, Ivan Petrovich, when the train starts moving, wipes away his tears and shouts:

Goodbye please! “And waves his handkerchief.”

Find in the text of the story unique beacons, milestones by which you can determine the growth of Dr. Startsev’s material prosperity and, at the same time, his moral and spiritual devastation. (To describe the slow lifetime dying of a person within a person, Chekhov uses an original technique - he places peculiar milestones on Startsev’s life path. They go in different directions: a life career, the evolution of tastes, the development and ending of his romance with Ekaterina Ivanovna, and finally, the life path of those people who surround Startsev.)

Chekhov's story by Ionych Elders

Conclusion

So, a careful reading of the text convinces us, the readers, that Chekhov’s artistic thought moves in the story from the particular to the general: the fate of Startsev, who turned into Ionych, is a manifestation of general disorder. The writer shows that the solution to instability and personal problems is impossible without solving public problems. The author masterfully depicts the moral fall of man. And it all started, it would seem, with minor flaws in the character of the hero: the desire for profit in love, insufficient sensitivity to people, irritability, inconsistency in one’s beliefs, inability to defend them, laziness and unwillingness to fight vulgarity.

The soulless life to which Startsev deliberately doomed himself excluded him from the ranks of living people and deprived him of the ability to think and feel. The conclusion follows from the story: if a person is crushed by the force of circumstances and his ability to resist gradually fades away, the death of the human soul occurs - the most terrible retribution that life pays for opportunism. Protecting himself from active life turns into a disaster for Startsev: retreating from reality, he grows into evil with his whole existence, comes to those whom he initially leaves and whom he hates. At the end of the story, the Startsevs and the Turkins are openly placed side by side, equated with each other as people whose lives have equally failed: the idle undertakings of the Turkins are meaningless and immoral, the soulless acquisitiveness of Ionych is immoral and disgusting.

But still, creating the image of Startsev, Chekhov poses the problem of a person’s personal responsibility for his life: after all, the environment that raised and shaped Ionych also brought forward other people, like doctors Kirillov (“Enemies”) and Dymov (“Jumping”). The image of Ionych shows what a person becomes if there is no resistance to vulgarity, laziness, philistinism, and selfishness.

HowIUnderstandcall " Take careVto myselfperson"

Chekhov's stories teach morality and ethics. In some of them A.P. Chekhov poses the problem of the decomposition of personality, of “caseness,” that is, the secrecy of a person. Such stories include “Ionych”, “Man in a Case”, “About Love” and others. Let's look at the plot of one of them, the story "Ionych".

“Ionych” tells the story of doctor Dmitry Ionych Startsev, who arrived in the city of S. Boredom reigns here, a terrible routine, people are sluggish, passive. But Startsev meets the Turkin family, considered the most educated in the city. There he falls in love with the daughter of the Turkins, Vera Iosifovna and Ivan Petrovich, Ekaterina, whom her parents affectionately called Kotik. After some time spent in the circle of the Turkins, he proposed marriage to her, but she rejected him, explaining that she wanted to go to Moscow and become an actress. With this, she broke his heart, after which he lost the meaning of life and began to simply exist.

This is where the decomposition of Startsev’s personality begins. He stops enjoying life, joins the very atmosphere of the city, gets fat, and the residents begin to call him simply Ionych.

The example of Dmitry Startsev proves the words of A.P. Chekhov: “Take care of the person in you.” I believe that by adhering to these words, you can protect yourself from the corruption of the soul to which Ionych was subject. The most important thing is to fight for life, not to join the passive state of the environment and never give up.

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From the history of literature

This question interested many of our writers. M. Yu. Lermontov, I. A. Goncharov, A. S. Griboyedov, I. S. Turgenev, one way or another, carefully studied this topic, which now confronts us as the problematic of the story “Ionych”. Is a person capable of changing society, or will its deadening atmosphere absorb all the best that is in a person, and he will resign himself to inevitable degradation?

First meeting with the Turkins

The aspiring doctor received an appointment as a zemstvo doctor several miles from the city of S. in Dyalizh. He worked and did not think about entertainment, but everyone advised him to make acquaintance with the talented Turkin family. One winter he was introduced to the head of the family, but Startsev postponed his visit. And in the spring, on Ascension Day, on a holiday, having received the sick, Startsev on foot, since he did not have horses, went to the city, singing a romance. And then it occurred to him to visit this friendly, hospitable family. In parallel with the analysis of the problems posed in the story, we will analyze the story “Ionych” by A.P. Chekhov. His owner greeted him with jokes and introduced him to his wife and daughter. Under the aromas of the preparing dinner, the hostess began to read her novel about something that never happens in life, but it made everyone feel calm and good.

Then the daughter played a tedious but complex passage on the piano, and Dmitry Ionovich listened with pleasure to the noisy but cultural sounds. At dinner, the owner joked a lot, and when it was time for Startsev to return, he went to his place in Dyalizh and hummed another romance and did not feel tired. What is this episode about? Only that for the first time the “refined” Turkin family did not seem like a stagnant swamp to the young doctor. The hero has successfully passed the first stage, which is touched upon by the problems of the story “Ionych”: he still loves his job, but is already able to feel comfortable in a house where vulgarity predominates.

In a year

The sexton's son did not visit the Turkins too often. He has already started to change. He got a couple of horses, a carriage and a coachman and unexpectedly fell in love with the Turkins’ daughter, although in his mind he was already wondering what kind of dowry they would give her. This is how the degradation of the doctor, who is not yet simply called Ionych, occurs. The problem with the story in this case is that the doctor has not yet lost his human feelings, but he is already on the verge of losing them. Startsev may still go on a date at night to the cemetery. But he has already taken the path from which he cannot turn: loving and suffering from unrequited love, he wonders where this will all lead. What will people say if they find out that the respectable man he has become is doing stupid things like a high school student? In addition, outwardly Startsev began to turn into Ionych: he began to gain weight, but for now this still bothers him. This is how Ionych balances between youth and maturity. The problem of the story lies in the metamorphoses that occur with the doctor.

Marriage proposal and refusal

Startsev experiences a painful, but short-term, only three days, when the girl refused to become his wife. She left for Moscow, and all love was forgotten instantly. What is the problem with Chekhov's story? Ionych, like all residents of the city of S., is no longer capable of deep feelings. The romances he sang when he arrived here are also forgotten. Poetry leaves his life.

External changes

Four years later, Doctor Startsev acquired a large practice both in Dyalizh and in the city. He has changed in appearance. The doctor became fat, he had shortness of breath, and he no longer walked.

Now Dimitry Ionovich is the owner of the troika with bells. His coachman also changed. He, like his owner, became fat. The doctor loved to play cards. Entertainment such as theater or concerts ceased to interest him.

Internal changes

Startsev did not communicate closely with anyone. Even the liberal inhabitants of the town irritated him with their stupidity and viciousness. They listened with irritation to Startsev’s talk about how humanity is moving forward, and objected. And the doctor’s words that every person should work were taken as a personal reproach and they began to get angry. Therefore, Dmitry Ionovich stopped talking, but only remained gloomily silent, and if he sat down at the table, he ate in silence, looking at his plate. So society gradually destroyed Startsev’s desire not only to talk, but also to think about progress.

New entertainment

Again at the Turkins

One morning a letter arrived at the hospital in which Dmitry Ionych Turkins invited him to the hostess’s birthday. There was a note in the letter that the daughter would also join the invitation. Startsev thought and went. He found the hostess very old. The daughter with whom he was in love also changed. She did not have the same freshness, and there was something guilty in her manners. He both liked her and didn’t like her, and when he remembered his love for her, he felt awkward. The Turkins' evening passed as usual. The mistress of the house was reading her new novel, and it annoyed Startsev with its mediocrity. The daughter played the piano noisily and for a long time, and then she herself invited Startsev to go out into the garden for a walk. They sat down on the very bench where he had once tried to declare his love, and he remembered all the details, and he felt sad, and a light began to glow in his soul. He sadly told how dimly life passes. During the day there is profit, and in the evening there is a club with gamblers and alcoholics.

And suddenly Startsev remembered the money, which he counted with pleasure in the evenings, and everything changed in his soul, tenderness disappeared and the thought appeared how good it was that he remained a bachelor. They returned to the house, where everything began to irritate the doctor. The thought flashed about the mediocrity of this best family in the city, and he never came to the Turkins again.

Dr. Startsev's deeper changes

A few years later, Startsev didn’t just get fat. He became obese, began to breathe heavily and walk with his head thrown back. His practice in the city is no longer just large - it is huge. He behaves rudely with his patients, and they tolerate everything. He acquired an estate, bought two houses in the city and was looking for a third. When he went to inspect a house intended for sale, he behaved completely unceremoniously, or, more precisely, boorishly.

He entered the house, knocked on the door with a stick and, without saying hello, easily entered the rooms where frightened women and children were huddled. This is how the once pure Doctor Startsev became: gloomy and dissatisfied with everything. His changes under the influence of the environment, internal weakness, lack of an ennobling principle and loss of intelligence - these are the problems of the story “Ionych”. Chekhov, with spare but expressive means, shows how a person is sucked into a narrow-minded society. Startsev is completely alone.

He is always bored, nothing interests him. In the evenings he plays cards and has dinner at the club. There is nothing more to say about him.

Chekhov's work “Ionych” is very bitter and honest. It, like an x-ray, enlightened Dr. Startsev’s whole life and diagnosed him as terminally ill. And this disease is contagious. If you live in a shell and only with money, if you do not open up to the wider world, then it can strike anyone.

The main idea of ​​the ion. This is where the decomposition of Startsev’s personality begins

Elena BELYKH, Far Eastern College state university, Vladivostok