Is the hero of the story close to the modern reader? Analysis of "Ionych" Chekhov

In Chekhov's story "Ionych", with his characteristic skill and talented characteristics of the heroes of the story, the hard-hitting truth about the generation of that time is conveyed. The author especially acutely emphasizes the issue of the influence of society on an individual person. We invite you to familiarize yourself with brief analysis works. This material can be used for work in a literature lesson in grade 10, as well as for preparing for the Unified State Exam.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing– 1898

History of creation– Researchers of the writer’s work have come to the conclusion that the original themes and ideas of the work underwent significant changes before the author created the final version.

Subject– Personal degradation, life and everyday life of city residents, love theme.

Composition– The story is built using the method of dotted composition: acquaintance with the doctor and the Turkin family, Startsev’s courtship of Ekaterina Ivanovna, followed by the end of the failed love story, then a new meeting with Katya, and ends with a description of the life of the heroes as it will continue in the near future.

Direction– The objective characteristics of the characters, the social problems of society described by Anton Pavlovich, speak of the realistic direction of the story.

History of creation

The writer’s notes contain evidence that the story of the story’s creation gradually changed. If initially the author wanted to describe one family, the Filimonovs, then later the surname was changed to the Turkins, and the main idea of ​​the story also changed: in the final version, the writer assesses not the social impoverishment of the family, but the degradation of the personality of the hero himself.

After the publication of this work, criticism from literary critics was ambiguous; reviews were both positive, paying tribute to Chekhov’s genius, and negative, seeing insufficient openness in the characterization of the characters. One of the critics noted the originality of the description of the hero, who is not an antagonist of society, but a product of decomposition under its influence.

Subject

When analyzing the work in “Ionych”, it is necessary to reveal the essence of the story’s title. The description begins with the Turkin family, giving the impression that it will be about this family. Later comes the understanding that main character- Ionych. Throughout the narrative, Doctor Startsev is degraded, and this is the meaning of the title - the author shows how a respected person in the city, a good doctor, gradually became mired in philistinism, and turned into an ordinary man in the street. This gives the rest of the residents the right to treat him familiarly, with some disdain, putting him on a par with the gray and faceless personalities of the townspeople.

Such degradation of personality is one of the main themes of the work. Startsev, who once strived for some ideals, a young and energetic doctor who loved his profession and devoted all his time to work, slowly but surely began to turn into an ordinary resident of the city. The doctor's only desire was to get rich. Good medical practice began to bring him a stable and large income. Doctor Startsev began to invest all his funds in real estate, buying himself things that corresponded to his position and financial condition. The doctor's degradation began to occur not only in his internal changes in beliefs, but also in external manifestations.

The hero became rude and irritable, he gained weight, and began to experience shortness of breath. The doctor lost interest in public life, there were no feelings left except the thirst for enrichment. Love theme, touched upon by the author in this story, dies in the same way as spirituality Startseva. If at the beginning of the story the hero experienced some kind of feeling for Ekaterina Ivanovna, then this too, as he died spiritually, faded away. Startsev is even relieved that their relationship did not work out.

Issues works and in the state of society as a whole, the writer touches on many moral problems that take place in the life of the town. This includes the lack of education of citizens, their lack of culture and spiritual poverty. Life in the town is boring and dull, according to one routine. Residents spend their time boring and monotonous, each of them lives in their own small world, without setting any global goals and aspirations, the dullness and baseness of the thinking of ordinary people prevails over high ideals.

The role of society had a great influence on Startsev; he abandoned medicine as a vocation, turning it only into a means of enrichment. Based on this, we can draw an unambiguous conclusion: having become like philistine society, Startsev has outlived his usefulness as an individual and mixed with a crowd of the same unprincipled and unspiritual types, this reveals a person’s conflict with the power of influence of his life environment.

Composition

Composition of Chekhov's story consists of five parts. In the first part, we meet the Turkins family and the main character, Doctor Startsev. The doctor arrives in the town as a young, energetic man and is invited to the Turkins’ house. The hero still has ambition, he understands how little the spirituality of this family is developed, and does not seek to continue the established acquaintance.

Startsev is passionate about his work, he is constantly busy, and the second meeting with the Turkin family occurs after a little over a year, in the second part of the work. The mistress of the house began to often invite the young doctor, complaining of migraines, and he began to visit them regularly, preferring conversations with Ekaterina Ivanovna.

The young girl is well-read, and Startsev is interested in communicating with her. After Kotik’s stupid idea of ​​a date at the cemetery, Startsev decided to propose to her, with the thought of a rich dowry. When the girl refused him, he regretted how much extra trouble this proposal had caused him.

The third part of the story describes how Dr. Startsev became bloated and plump in body, but impoverished in soul. He had already ceased to be interested in anything, having found pleasure in counting his money every evening, of which there was already a lot, but he wanted even more. This is how his spiritual impoverishment began, he began to resemble more and more the ordinary inhabitants of the town. And in the next part of the work, Startsev is more and more engaged in his enrichment, rejoicing in the fact that he is not married. He met with Ekaterina Ivanovna a couple more times, but he felt ashamed that he had once proposed to her.

At the end of the story, Doctor Startsev has long turned into Ionych, this is no longer the same young and ambitious doctor who came to the city to seek his medical vocation, but an old, flabby, soulless person, one might say a “dead soul”, seeking happiness in wealth, and morally impoverished.

Main characters

Genre

Of course, “Ionych” is a story, but the description of the hero’s entire life, his gradual spiritual decomposition, in fact, brings him closer to a small novel, the events of this work are so deeply covered. Social problems The societies described by the author classify this story as realism, which reproduces in detail the events and characteristics of the characters.

Work test

Rating Analysis

Average rating: 4.1. Total ratings received: 936.

Stories by A.P. Chekhov, despite their brevity, show us the characters so vividly and vividly that they seem quite animated, even familiar to some extent. The main problem of the story “Ionych” is the interaction between personality and environment, society.

And the question is acute. Who will change whom: young Dmitry Startsev - the society into which he found himself, or is it his? This is the problem with the story “Ionych”.

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 is stingy, 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 don’t open up to the wider world, then it can strike anyone.

One can argue about the genre of the work “Ionych” (1898): on the one hand, it seems to be a story, but it actually describes the entire life of the hero, it is like a “little novel” that contains the stages of spiritual degradation of Dmitry Ionych Startsev . Probably, in terms of its genre, “Ionych” can be considered a story, but in terms of the depth of coverage of events, this work is actually close to the novel genre. The plot of the work is the story of a young doctor who, over time, turns into a “pagan god”, causing fear both with his appearance and his attitude towards people. The five parts of the story are five stages of degradation of this man, and Chekhov shows us how gradually the thirst for profit displaces everything human from his soul.

At the beginning of the work, Startsev appears as an ordinary young doctor who is very conscientious about his duties, he devotes himself entirely to his work. Living “nine miles” from S., he does not visit the city due to work, but when he finds himself there, “as an intelligent person” he is forced to visit the Turkin family, “the most educated and talented in the city.” The “demonstration of talents” by members of this family is described by Chekhov with obvious irony, but it still makes a favorable impression on Dr. Startsev: “Not bad.”

In the second part, the hero changes his attitude towards the Turkins under the influence of a feeling of love for Ekaterina Ivanovna. To Startsev, who is in love with her, everything that happens to him seems unusual, the state of love is a revelation for him, and therefore Ekaterina Ivanovna also “seemed” to him completely different from what she really was. However, the hero here is shown with great sympathy; his night trip to the cemetery, where he unexpectedly goes, speaks of the real deep feeling that he experiences. At the cemetery, he experiences one of the most exciting states of his life: “Startsev was struck by what he now saw for the first time in his life and what he would probably never see again: a world unlike anything else...” Finding himself alone with nature, with eternity, he is desperately “waiting for love at all costs,” but Kotik’s note turns out to be just a joke... And as confirmation of this - “And as if the curtain had fallen, the moon went under the clouds, and suddenly everything It's dark all around." It seems that it was on this night that a turning point occurred in Startsev’s soul; without waiting for love, she gradually began to turn into the “soul” of Ionych...

That this is really so. can be judged based on what the hero experiences in the third part, dedicated to the description of his explanation with Ekaterina Ivanovna. He goes to “make an offer” - and thinks that “they must give a lot of dowry”; he talks himself out of getting married because his chosen one and he are too different people, but he consoles himself: “If they give me a dowry, we’ll set things up…” He finds himself in a club, dressed in “someone else’s tailcoat” (a wonderful detail that emphasizes that for now he is still a “stranger” to this life!), and sincerely explains with Ekaterina Ivanovna, but, having received a refusal, first experiences a feeling of shame (“He was a little ashamed, and his pride was offended...”), and only then - pity (“I felt sorry for his feeling, this love of his”).. Chekhov shows that the refusal morally destroyed the hero, again with the help of a detail: “Startsev’s heart stopped beating restlessly.” He had already become Ionych, because now, remembering himself, when he was in love and happy, “he lazily stretched and said: “How much trouble, however!”

The fourth part describes the “transformation” of Startsev into Ionych. Chekhov shows how gradually in the hero human feelings are replaced by the desire for profit, how until recently a club “alien” to him becomes “his own,” how he finds himself “another entertainment” (besides playing cards): “in the evenings, taking pieces of paper out of his pockets "obtained by practice." Such a life made him see the girl he once loved in a completely different way. “And now he liked her, liked her very much, but something was already missing in her, or something was superfluous - he himself could not say what exactly , but something was already preventing him from feeling as before.” Right now, when Ekaterina Ivanovna was able to appreciate him human qualities, “he felt embarrassed” about how he was four years ago, he is ashamed of himself and his love. It would seem that the meeting with her revived Startsev, he is again ready to be honest with himself, but... “Startsev remembered the pieces of paper that he took out of his pockets with such pleasure in the evenings, and the light in his soul went out”... And now he is even glad that “he didn’t get married then,” because there is no place for all these “feelings” in his present life.

The last part of Chekhov's story "Ionych" is the final "diagnosis" for the main character, which Chekhov mercilessly "gave" to him. The worst thing happened to him - he stopped being a doctor, his “greed overcame”, so for him the sick are no longer people whom he can and should help, but a source of “papers”, and he treats them rudely. The doctor who once could not leave his patients - and the current Ionych... “He is lonely. His life is boring, nothing interests him,” says the author.

The images of the other heroes against the background of Startsev’s image seem sketchy, but this is not entirely true. The Turkin family is drawn by Chekhov with great depth, all its members are distinguished by their individuality, but they are all united by their failure as people who are considered the adornment of the city. This is well understood by Doctor Startsev, who has not yet completely turned into Ionych, who “thought that if the most talented people in the whole city are so mediocre, then what should the city be like.” But if the elder Turkins remain in the dark about their “talents,” then Ekaterina Ivanovna understands everything, she is able to soberly evaluate herself and her family, which makes her image very attractive and arouses sympathy.

Why did Doctor Startsev become Ionych? Who is to blame for this? The author answers this question throughout the course of the narrative. Of course, the person himself is responsible not only for his “physical” health, but also, first of all, for his moral one. Doctor Startsev, who could not cure himself of the disease of money-grubbing, turns into Ionych, who no longer needs anything in this life - and who himself is of no use to anyone...

Composition

A.P. Chekhov's story “Ionych” was seriously criticized in the periodicals of that time. Immediately after the publication of the work in 1898, numerous reproaches fell that the plot of the work was drawn out, the story was boring and inexpressive.

In the center of the work is the life of the Turkin family, the most educated and talented in the city of S. They live on the main street. Their education is expressed primarily in their desire for art. The father of the family, Ivan Petrovich, organizes amateur performances, his wife Vera Iosifovna writes stories and novels, and his daughter plays the piano. However, one detail is noteworthy: Vera Iosifovna never publishes her works under the pretext that the family has funds. It becomes clear that the manifestation of education and intelligence is important for these people only in their own circle. None of the Turkins are going to engage in public educational activities. This moment calls into question the truth of the phrase that the family is the most educated and talented in the city.

There are often guests in the Turkins' house; an atmosphere of simplicity and cordiality reigns. Guests here were always served a plentiful and tasty dinner. A recurring artistic detail that actualizes the atmosphere in the Turkins’ house is the smell of fried onions. The detail emphasizes the hospitality of this house and conveys an atmosphere of homely warmth and comfort. The house has soft, deep armchairs. Good, calm thoughts sound in the conversations of the heroes.

The plot begins with the appointment of Dmitry Ionych Startsev as a zemstvo doctor to the city. Being an intelligent person, he quickly becomes part of the Turkin family circle. He is greeted with cordiality and subtle intellectual jokes. The hostess of the house flirts playfully with the guest. Then he is introduced to his daughter Ekaterina Ivanovna. A.P. Chekhov gives a detailed portrait of the heroine, who is very similar to her mother: “Her expression was still childish and her waist was thin, delicate; and the virgin, already developed breasts, beautiful, healthy, spoke of spring, real spring.” The description of Ekaterina Ivanovna’s piano playing also leaves an ambivalent impression: “They lifted the lid of the piano and opened the notes that were already lying at the ready. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and hit the keys with both hands; and then immediately struck again with all her might, and again, and again; her shoulders and chest were shaking, she stubbornly hit everything in one place, and it seemed that she would not stop until she hammered the key inside the piano. The living room was filled with thunder; everything thundered: the floor, the ceiling, and the furniture... Ekaterina Ivanovna played a difficult passage, interesting precisely because of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and Startsev, listening, pictured to himself how stones were falling from the heights of the mountain, falling and still falling, and he wanted them to stop falling out as soon as possible, and at the same time, he really liked Ekaterina Ivanovna, pink with tension, strong, energetic, with a curl of hair falling on her forehead.” This game is technically strong, but it seems that the heroine does not put her soul into it. It is obvious that both education and talent, which were mentioned at the beginning of the story, in fact turn out to be superficial and untrue. It is no coincidence that Ekaterina Ivanovna’s passage is interesting precisely because of its difficulty. For perception, it is long and monotonous. The portrait of Ekaterina Ivanovna combines romantic (for example, a curl of hair falling on her forehead) and realistic features (“tension, strength and energy”),

With subtle irony, A.P. Chekhov describes the nature of the game itself: these are “noisy, annoying, but still cultural sounds.” This expression “yet” immediately casts doubt on the truth of the culture that the Turkins so want to demonstrate. It’s as if they are playing at high society, trying to dress up in clothes that are not their own, trying on stable standards, examples of people from a cultural environment. The talents in this family stick out excessively; guests, for example, excessively flatter Kotik (as Ekaterina Ivanovna is called at home). A.P. Chekhov ironically emphasizes that the heroine’s desire to go to the conservatory is expressed in frequently recurring seizures. The extraordinary language spoken by the owner of the house, Ivan Petrovich. This language is filled with numerous quotes and jokes, which do not come from the sparkling power of the intellect, but are simply developed by long exercises in wit. One of the central scenes of the story is the scene of Startsov’s explanation with Ekaterina Ivanovna. The freshness and touching nature of the heroine, her ostentatious erudition, in fact turn into a penchant for intrigue and a desire to enhance the romantic touch of the meeting. For example, she makes a date with Startsev at the cemetery near the Demetti monument, although they could have met in a more suitable place. Trusting Startsev understands that Kitty is fooling around, but naively believes that she will come after all.

A.P. Chekhov places a detailed description of the cemetery in the story. It will be recreated in romantic colors. The author emphasizes the combination of black and white flowers in a cemetery landscape. Soft moonlight, the autumn scent of leaves, withered flowers, stars looking from the sky - all these artistic details recreate the atmosphere of mystery, promising a quiet, beautiful, eternal life: “In every grave one can feel the presence of a secret, promising a quiet, beautiful, eternal life.” .

As the clock strikes, he imagines himself dead, buried here forever. It suddenly seems to him that someone is looking at him, and “for a minute he thought that this was not peace or silence, but a dull melancholy of nothingness, suppressed despair...”. The romantic atmosphere of the night cemetery fuels Startsev’s thirst for love, kisses, hugs, and this yearning gradually becomes more and more painful.

The next day, the doctor goes to the Turkins to propose. In this scene, the romantic moods in his head are combined with thoughts about a dowry. Gradually a real vision of the situation comes to his mind: “Stop before it’s too late! Is she a match for you? She is spoiled, capricious, sleeps up to two hours. And you are the deacon’s son, the zemstvo doctor...”

In addition, Startsev’s conversation with Kotik reveals the surface of the heroine’s nature. All her sophistication and erudition, so consistently emphasized by the author throughout the story in the guise of a girl, is suddenly exposed when she... Having learned that Startsev was still waiting for her at the cemetery, although from the very beginning he understood that she was most likely just fooling around, talking about what he suffered. Dmitry Ionych answers him: “And suffer if you don’t understand jokes.” This is where the whole frivolity of her nature is revealed. However, Startsev, carried away by his passion, continues his courtship. He goes home, but soon returns dressed in someone else’s tailcoat and a stiff white tie. He begins to tell Ekaterina Ivanovna about his love: “It seems to me that no one has yet described love correctly, and it is hardly possible to describe this tender, joyful, painful feeling, and whoever has experienced it at least once will not convey it in words.” He eventually proposes to her. Kitty refuses, explaining to Ionych that he dreams of an artistic career. The hero immediately felt like he was at an amateur performance: “And I felt sorry for my feeling, this love of mine, so sorry that it seems that I would have burst into tears or would have grabbed Panteleimon’s broad back with all my might with my umbrella.” The stupid prank with the cemetery increased his suffering and caused indelible mental trauma. He stopped trusting people. While caring for Kitty, he was terribly afraid of gaining weight, but now he had gained weight, gained weight, was reluctant to walk, and began to suffer from shortness of breath. Now Startsev was not close to anyone. The hero's attempt to start conversations about the fact that humanity is moving forward, that we need to work, was perceived among ordinary people as a reproach. Annoying arguments began. Feeling a misunderstanding, Startsev began to avoid conversations. He just had a snack at a party and played screw. The hero began to save money. Four years later, A.P. Chekhov again forces his hero to meet with the Turkins family. One day he is sent an invitation on behalf of Vera Iosifovna, in which there is a note: “I also join my mother’s request. TO.".

When they meet again, Kitty appears to the hero in a different light. There is no former freshness and expression of childish naivety. The hero no longer likes either the pallor or the smile of Ekaterina Ivanovna. The old feelings for her now only cause awkwardness. The hero comes to the conclusion that he did the right thing in not marrying her. Now the heroine has a different attitude towards Startsev. She looks at him with curiosity, and her eyes thank him for the love he once felt for her. The hero suddenly feels sorry for the past.

Now Ekaterina Ivanovna already understands that she is not a great pianist. And she speaks about his mission as a zemstvo doctor with emphasized respect: “What happiness! - Ekaterina Ivanovna repeated with enthusiasm. “When I thought about you in Moscow, you seemed to me so ideal, sublime...” Startsev comes up with the idea that if talented people in the whole city are so mediocre, then what should the city be like?

Three days later, the hero again receives an invitation from the Turkins. Ekaterina Ivanovna asks him to talk.

In the fifth part of the story, the hero appears before us even more degraded. He became even more fat, his character became heavy and irritable. The life of the Turkin family has hardly changed: “Ivan Petrovich has not aged, has not changed at all and still makes jokes and tells jokes; Vera Iosifovna still reads her novels to guests willingly, with heartfelt simplicity. And Kitty plays the piano every day, for four hours.” In the person of the Turkin family, A.P. Chekhov exposes urban inhabitants who only demonstrate their craving for the “reasonable, good, eternal”, but in fact have nothing to offer society.

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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 better man What he didn’t have 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’ 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, while on the whole they remained completely indifferent to the dissident Startsev, turning a deaf ear to the protest and propaganda. 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 a lot 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... ... several 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?

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 hold out for 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 want - 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 dimly, 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.

After living for some time, taking 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 joy 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 absorbed in each of their own, speaking in 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”? People are led to misfortune by 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 indisputable) 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.