An essay on the theme of male images in the novel by G. Flaubert “Madame Bovary. Male images in the novels of Jane Austen Ilya Oblomov: a depressive dreamer

Flaubert named his first novel after the heroine, Emma Bovary. And this is natural, since the basis of the work is a description of the short and sad life of a young woman. But male images in the novel occupy an equally important place. After all, it was they, the men who surrounded Emma, who determined her tragic fate. The heroes of the novel are men of different generations. We first see Emma's parents and Charles Bovary. Charles's father, a retired paramedic of the company, was forced to leave the service, marry and take up agriculture, in which he did not understand anything. “After getting married, he lived for two or three years on a dowry - he dined well, got up late, smoked porcelain pipes, went to theaters every evening and often looked into cafes.” When Charles was born, Monsieur Bovary, in contrast to his wife's desire and the desire of the child, tried to develop his son with a harsh Spartan upbringing, not giving much importance to mental development. Not "in teaching happiness - whoever is dexterous will always come out among the people," he liked to say. But soon the fate of his son completely ceased to interest him, as well as economic affairs. He carelessly lived out his life without any interest in him, without work, without love.

Emma's father, Rouault's father, also broke up with his daughter without much regret when the groom, Charles Bovary, appeared. Emma, he said, still did not understand anything about the household, for which he himself had not the least inclination. Just like Charles’s father, Emma’s father “didn’t cause himself much trouble, he didn’t spare money for his needs - food, warmth and sleep were in his first place.” Relations with his daughter's family were limited to the fact that once a year he sent them a turkey.

Emma's husband Charles Bovary is in many ways similar to the older generation. He also does what he does not like and does not know. Charles conscientiously goes on calls, trying not to harm his patients. Although one of them had to cut off his leg due to the stupidity and irresponsibility of Charles. Of the male images in the novel, Charles differs in that he loves Emma. But his love did nothing for Emma. "He taught nothing, knew nothing, desired nothing." He was completely satisfied with himself and his life with Emma. And Emma, having married, “could not convince herself that this quiet floodplain was the happiness she dreamed of.” The search for real happiness, a beautiful life pushes Emma to other men. But the handsome Rodolphe seeks only satisfaction and adventure. And for Leon, Emma is a way of self-affirmation. As soon as Emma needed help, her loved ones immediately abandoned her. Those for whom she destroyed her family, ruined a man, turned out to be no better than others. And Emma was on the edge of the abyss. The trader Leray also rendered considerable assistance to this. He has accumulated extraordinary capital for his machinations, using Emma's position. Leray considered his actions well and calmly, step by step, ruined Emma and Charles.

Apothecary Ome is one of the most negative characters in the novel. Stupid, pompous, ambitious, he uses all the vulgarity and dullness of the town of Yonville. It was in the Ome pharmacy that Emma found arsenic and decided to kill herself here.

And none of the men around her could neither understand Emma nor help her.

Even such a pure and young soul as Justin is involved in Emma's death - it is he who illuminates her path to death: he holds a candle when Emma is looking for poison. At the end of the novel, another character appears near the bed of the dying Emma - the surgeon Lariviere, a master of his craft, sensitive and soulful. He is the only one of the characters in whom there is greatness, intelligence, professionalism. He could no longer help Emma and quickly left Yonville. And what is he to do here? He is a man of another life, which Emma never saw, did not know. She only inexpressively felt that somewhere there was another, bright, beautiful life. But the men who surrounded her did not know how and did not want to live differently.

The men in Flaubert's novel are the heroes on whom the new bourgeois order, hated by the writer, rests, when "vulgarity and stupidity brazenly celebrate their triumph everywhere." Emma turned out to be the only heroine in the novel who is unbearably bored and lonely in this world. And this distinguishes her in a gray, smug and uninteresting crowd of men.

Male images in the novel by G. Flaubert "Madame Bovary"

Eugene Onegin: unloved child

A spoiled boy who, as a child, was bombarded with toys and money, but was not given true parental love. Married Tatyana is an allusion to her mother. She seems inaccessible to him and reminds him of childhood experiences that are associated with happiness. But only such a woman he is ready to worship.

If you are looking for a relationship with a type like Onegin, you should always keep some distance so that he can adore you, but not bend him to his will.

Pechorin: a soulless sufferer

A narcissist who tosses between his own greatness and insignificance, for whom women are just a tool to keep himself in shape. For such men with a painful ego, there is only one ideal - himself.

If you are a female trophy and crazy about characters who are interested in you exactly until the moment they achieve reciprocity, then Pechorin is your option. But for him you are an animated object, nothing more.

Andrey Bolkonsky: daddy's son

A self-doubting teenager who is repressed by his tyrannical father. Career achievements are of little interest to him, he strives for them, waiting for parental approval.

Due to permanent passive aggression, people of this type are often prone to alcoholism. If he is a principled teetotaler, then gastritis, tremor and sometimes erectile dysfunction are guaranteed.

Since he is totally constrained, he needs an eccentric and frivolous woman - such as Natasha Rostova. For him, it is an image of freedom.

Anatole Kuragin: charming scoundrel

The first rake that a girl with no experience in flirting steps on. Not an ounce of intelligence, as a person - rubbish, but a pretty face and a standard package of compliments do their job. Such individuals often lodge with wealthy women of Balzac age who still crave sex.

Pierre Bezukhov: naive mattress

Alternate airfield after the womanizer marathon. Kind, honest, without critical thinking and understanding of their own boundaries. Naive as children, without pride and will. You can stop at such when the last hope for the prince has died. He needs a despotic wife-mother who will give orders, educate and wipe his snot. But this option is not suitable for strong-willed women - crush it by accident. And if you do not crush, you will despise.

Ilya Oblomov: depressive dreamer

I can't bear to watch a man with a severe form of depression torment the whole book. It makes me want to scream Goncharov: "Leave him alone! Enough!"

But those times were still far from the invention of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, so the clinical condition of poor Ilya Ilyich was attributed to shameful laziness and all the time, as it is now fashionable to say, he was shammed.

You don’t even need to touch such men, just step back, let them lie their lives in blissful prostration.

Andrey Stolz: Destroying Angel

Well, since we are talking about Oblomov, we will not ignore a person with a reverse diagnosis - hyperactivity.

Such people are entrepreneurs and careerists who are torn apart by the energy raging inside. They are loud, fast and unceremonious. Get ready for the fact that you will work around the clock and seven days a week to implement his crazy ideas.

Grigory Melekhov: destructive masochist

Drama King. Such men deliberately spread traps under their feet to make it as bloody as possible. They love to suffer and organically cannot stand stability, so their life consists of what they create, destroy, repair, destroy again and create again.

These are people of adrenaline professions bordering on death: the military, sailors, rescuers, testers.

It is very hot and passionate to have an affair with them, but it is better to quickly wrap up, otherwise you will grow old ahead of time and be left with nothing: such a family is not needed.

Alexey Vronsky: seductive hero

Improved version of Anatole Kuragin. The same rubbish, but with streaks of intellect. Suitable for fatalists hungry for sensual sex.

Ripens for family life by the age of 50, when he was already flabby, stout, acquired high blood pressure, which causes a headache and a purple neck.

Usually he finds a young pretty simple woman who gives birth to at least three children for him and gently makes sure that Borenka, Vitenka or Nastyusha eat well and go to the potty on time.

Konstantin Levin: domestic tyrant

The most sane candidate for husbands. Economical, responsible, ambitious, hard-working. Among the shortcomings: jealous, closed, domestic tyrant. His frugality can spill over into greed.

Not suitable for careerists, feminists and entrepreneurs. Such a man wants to see a woman in the kitchen permanently pregnant. Well, still barefoot, so that she would completely depend on him and not run away anywhere.

Danko: revolutionary gigolo

Usually he lives on residences or rents penny rooms in the city center. Drinks a lot, messes around randomly, periodically falls into apathy. He dreams of going to prison and becoming a symbol of the revolution, so he does not miss the opportunity to fight with someone. Always in protest, the first on the barricades. Has a suspended sentence.

Women are attracted by the fact that they live for the sake of beliefs (usually also beautiful). He may be a gigolo, but he will always justify himself, assuring that he spends on "revolutionary needs."

Demon: neurasthenic and fatalist

The hero of the poem Mikhail Lermontov lives under the motto "All or nothing!". More often chooses "nothing" to fall into despair. Inflated ego and a mountain of complexes.

More than anything else, he is afraid of humiliation, while he himself loves to humiliate skillfully and with pleasure.

Should dominate in relationships. He loves scandals and showdowns with breaking dishes. But these relationships never last long, because he is supposed to suffer and seek forever, and not enjoy life. Of course, it is not suitable for family life.

From all of the above, I am forced to conclude that almost none of the listed characters has anything to do with healthy relationships (and even more so with marriage). The most popular types in Russian literature do not promise peace and serenity to a woman. In reality, life with such people is extremely unpleasant and threatens with chronic diseases.

I will end my opus with a quote from the writer Iris Murdoch: "A man of unbridled passions is attractive only in books." Let him stay there.

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In the system of images, male and female, in Hardy's novels and stories, it is necessary to attribute the writer's ability to build his plot in such a way that a small number of characters - three, four, five - are usually brought to the fore in one work. For example, the first part of the novel "Homecoming" is called "Three Women". Secondary characters are grouped around the main characters, and a rural "choir" sounds - the voices of episodic heroes, representatives of the masses: peasants, farm laborers, lumberjacks, carters, maids, etc. The main characters, male and female, in Hardy's novels are grouped, as a rule, according to traditional in European literature, the compositional rules of pairs and triangles are a man and a woman in love, two rivals, or girlfriends (binary group), or a woman and two men, etc.

At the same time, the relations of the characters within such a "small group" always develop dynamically: the "triangles" fall apart, and sometimes they are recreated, new ensembles appear, or some other combinations, groupings of characters are given. But nature always remains the same background and in its own way also a participant in the action in the cycle, more precisely, Nature with a capital letter, as a great being, as the embodiment of the Eternally Feminine principle.

The concept of a female character, the image of a Woman as a representative of the "beautiful half" of Humanity, took shape in Thomas Hardy gradually in the course of the evolution of his work - from his first unpreserved novel "The Poor Man and the Lady" and the book "Ethelberta's Hand" to the last lyric poems in which the old master still lived in the delights of love, sang, on behalf of his beloved heroine Tess, a sad song ("Country Women"), recreated the image of the Virgin Mary, far from Christian orthodoxy ("Evening in Galilee").

Femininity, for Hardy, is, along with the masculine principle, one of those mysterious forces that, being essentially unknowable, spontaneous, determine the course of events in nature, history, and in the everyday life of people.

The heroes of Hardy are led to defeat and death by their characters and the influence of society, their desire to break out of the immutable boundaries of being. But it is impossible to exaggerate the role of this craving of his characters for self-sufficiency.

The only difference between the men and women of Gardy in this general sense is that the images of the latter, as already noted, are more mythologized. This is reflected in the large number of likening of his heroines to ancient and Celtic-Scandinavian goddesses, in the way the writer associates the figures of women with the images of witches, fairies from the "local" pantheon, in the romantic "demonization" of some representatives of the high society. For Hardy, a woman is still closer to nature, to Mother Nature than a man, because a woman is connected with her, and spiritually (earth, water, vegetation, especially flowers, all this has long been associated with the feminine in mythology, in folklore).

For example, she feels good on the farm and in the field, Tess dreams of escaping from London to her native village. Sophie, the heroine of the story "Son's Ban". Marty South, as the author of the novel "In the Edge of the Woods" writes about her, was one of those women who "really approached the finest ideal understanding of nature."

Marty South, the secondary heroine of the novel, who understood nature as deeply as her beloved forester Winterbourne, is honored with an apotheosis in the finale of the book: the name of a higher purpose of man - love for all living things under the sun. Alas, this is a tragic apotheosis, for her love for Winterbourne remained unrequited, the hero died, and she mourns over his grave.

Love for all living things remains, despite all the tragic obstacles, is the best and most expressive character trait of most of the writer's heroines.

About female love and its various shades, about the ways and stages of its development and extinction, one can find the richest material in the works of Hardy. And the writer himself could, following the example of Stendhal, create a book that would represent another version of the treatise "On Love". The English novelist tells dozens and hundreds of stories about love, suddenly flashing or slowly emerging, stormy, passionate, or, conversely, almost imperceptible to others, as if barely smoldering. About the struggle of motives in the souls and minds of lovers, the struggle is either elementary simple, or complicated, taking on bizarre forms, the struggle between worldly considerations (selfish and conceited calculations, taking into account the opinions of "Mrs. Grundy") and spiritual, higher ones, about compromises in personal relationships, so characteristic of the moral climate of England, or about tragedies and catastrophes.

Among the heroes and heroines of Hardy there are no politicians, such as, for example, the radical Felix Holt from the novel of the same name by D. Eliot. None of his heroines thinks about the feminist movement, about the struggle for the social equality of women with men. They, as a rule, obey the authority of their fathers, parents, although, having become wives, they can also show their character, dictate their line of behavior to husbands, lovers. Their strength is in their weakness, or, in other words, in their feminine charms (Anna Zegers has a collection of short stories "The Strength of the Weak"). Although against the power of Fate (Will, Unknown Cause), Gardy is powerless all.

Not being a member of social movements, the writer was in principle in agreement with those progressive people of England, like J. St. Mill and J. Eliot, who wanted to achieve greater freedom for women in society and advocated the expansion of women's education. It is not for nothing that many of Hardy's heroines try to engage in self-education, as they say now, to have intellectual conversations with men on an equal footing, especially in this regard, the image of Susan Bridehead is expressive. At the same time, the novelist believed that a woman is often stronger than men in another area, in intuitive comprehension of life. Here is how he writes about Mrs. Ibright, the mother of Clym: “She was highly characteristic of insight, a kind of insight into life, all the more surprising that she herself did not participate in life. In practical life, women are most often distinguished by such talent; they can watch over a world that has never been seen" ("Homecoming", book 3, chapter 3).

Hardy emphasized in his heroines that natural spiritual endowment, which, as we have already noted, is associated with mythology, with "super natural" abilities.

The writer does not have villains and notorious scoundrels, which were many in the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, Bulwer-Lytton. Or those closer to Hardy in time, R. Stevenson, Kipling, Bram Stoker, with his famous "Dracula", H. Wells. If his characters show cruelty, greed, vanity, short-sightedness, then their personal guilt is still incommensurable with the great measure of evil that is introduced into life due to their actions. So, the former sergeant Troy brings a lot of disasters to his countrymen, but he himself, in essence, is not a villain ("Far from the Mad Crowd"). Michael Henchard is rude and can be ferocious by nature, but in the depths of his soul there is a kind of feminine "anima" that does not allow him to commit murder, pushing him to do good deeds. ("Anima", according to the hypothesis of C. G. Jung, is the "female" component of the subconscious of a man). After the fight with Farfrae, the hero sleeps curled up. "There was something femininely weak in this position, and the fact that such a courageous and stern person took it made a tragic impression" ("Mayor of Casterbridge", chapter 38). Such "femininity", that is, kindness and defenselessness before the gloomy face of Fate, is noted by most of Hardy's male characters.

Hardy's heroines, whether they are noble ladies, duchesses, wealthy farmers like Bethsheba Everdeen, whether they are maids, laborers, petty traders, governesses, etc. - they are all, as a rule, deceived by Fate, although they strived for happiness, one way or another they sought it . But the irony of events is just another name for the phenomenon that Hardy calls the Immanent Will, its "eternal arts" or "cunning mechanisms" that act to harm people.

What has been said about the male characters of the writer applies even more to his heroines. They are, as a rule, kind, they are by nature intended for love, but the tragic paradox of their situation is that Fate is unfavorable social circumstances, the power of patriarchal customs, a combination of circumstances, or a subjective factor - illusions, delusions, prejudices of heroines - everything leads them to defeat. And only relatively rarely does fate smile at his women - see the novel "Under the Green Tree", the happy marriage of Elizabeth Jane with Farfrae ("Mayor of Casterbridge"), the successful union of Thomasin with the guard Venn from "Homecoming". Although Hardy warned readers in a special note that this "happy ending" was a concession on his part to Victorian censorship. You can still name happy endings in some of Hardy's short stories and short stories, but the general sad mood from his picture of life as a whole remains.

Chernyshevsky pointed out that a feature of Tolstoy's realism is his depiction of the internal psychological process of human life, the "dialectic of the soul" of a person. Tolstoy pays great attention to the inner life of the characters. His characters are trying to answer the ever-existing questions: “What is good and evil? Why do I live and who am I? What is the meaning of human life? You have to go through a great emotional drama, try yourself in a variety of fields, make mistakes, fall and be reborn again, in order to finally come to the harmony of life. Tolstoy draws his heroes in a certain environment, in a certain era, showing how this environment, this environment influence people's worldview.

We meet Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov in the Scherer salon and immediately notice what they have in common and distinguishes them from secular society. Both nobles by birth. Their fathers know each other well, they once served together, maybe here lies the origins of their friendship, but secular society treats them differently. Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is his own, equal, if not in views, then in origin. And Bezukhov is greeted only with a tilt of his head, because he is illegitimate. Andrei lived most of the time on his father's estate. His family is there. Pierre Bezukhov has just returned from Paris, where he was completing his education. They also differ in appearance. Prince Andrei is a man of the world. He is dressed in the latest fashion, he has excellent French pronunciation, a quiet slow walk and universal boredom in his eyes. Pierre, on the other hand, is fat, huge and clumsy, he very little resembles a society dandy. Andrei is older than Pierre, but they enjoy each other's company. Prince Andrei appears before us as a completely mature person, which cannot be said about Pierre Bezukhov. The formation of this hero takes place all seven years of the novel's life. When they meet, Prince Andrei tells Pierre about his dissatisfaction with the life he leads. “This life that I lead here, this life is not for me,” says Prince Andrei. Let's try to trace what Prince Andrei and Pierre Bezukhov were talking about after they left the salon. At first, there seems to be a conversation about everyday problems, affairs, career and marriage of Pierre. But Tolstoy is already here

reveals Andrei's inner world, saying that "Prince Andrei was apparently not interested in these abstract conversations about eternal peace." So he is interested in something else. What? The conversation turns to the war, and Prince Andrei expresses his views. Andrei craves fame, believes in Napoleon and wants to imitate him. Pierre at this time also admires Napoleon, mistakenly seeing him as the leader of revolutionary France.

After the meeting at Scherer, the roads of Andrey and Pierre diverge for a while. Prince Andrei enters the service of the headquarters of the commander in chief. He dreams of accomplishing a feat to be noticed. In the battle of Austerlitz, leading the soldiers into battle, he was noticed, even by the same Napoleon, whom he had previously admired so much. But now this is no longer the main thing for Andrey. Wounded, he sees the high blue sky and begins to understand that happiness is in himself. He thinks about the relatives who stayed at home. Disillusioned with his military career, never finding the meaning of life in the war, Bolkonsky returns home.

What is Pierre doing at this time? His life is spent in fun and revelry in the company of Kuragin. The old Count Bezukhov, Pierre's father, dies, and makes his illegitimate son his sole heir. Pierre receives wealth and a title. He is noticed in the world, now he is a welcome guest of all salons and houses. He marries the most beautiful woman - Helen Kuragina, who, for all her beauty, turns out to be a stupid and empty person. Now Pierre begins to think about the meaning of life, to look for answers to eternal questions. He carries out a series of transformations to make life easier for his serfs, but remains misunderstood by the peasants, many of whom consider him simply a fool. In order to understand the people and be understood by them, Pierre will still have to live among this people, go through all the horror of the war with them.

Prince Andrei, returning from the war, receives another blow - his wife dies, leaving him a little son. Shocked by this tragedy, Andrei buries himself alive in the village. He is now trying, like Pierre, to improve the life of the peasants. Pierre arrives in Bogucharovo and finds Andrei quite like Austerlitz, he saw the senselessness, the cruelty of the murder. He is devastated, all his dreams and hopes collapsed. Pierre, on the contrary, has a spiritual uplift: he is fond of Freemasonry and believes that he has learned the truth. Pierre at first does not understand the reason for Andrey's misfortune. It's about murder, is it possible to kill at all? Prince Andrei after the war believes that there are people who can be killed, since they themselves kill. Pierre is confused by these words and advises to live according to God's commandments: treat others the way you want people to treat you. Andrei believes that in life one should strive for happiness, and happiness is the absence of remorse and disease. To distract his friend, Pierre tells him about Freemasonry. Prince Andrei listens attentively to Pierre's words, but sees beyond Masonic philosophy. Pierre's words open a new path for him. Andrei looks up, sees the same high and eternal sky, like the one he looked at at Austerlitz, and here a revelation descends on him. For the second time in my life. It seems that he comprehends the secrets of the universe anew. “A meeting with Pierre was for Prince Andrei an epoch from which he began in appearance, and the same, but in the inner world, his new life.”

In Otradnoye, Andrei meets Natasha, whose whole appearance fascinates him. There is so much energy, joy of life in her that he involuntarily wants to experience something similar himself. Now Prince Andrei believes that life at 31 does not end, but only begins. Bolkonsky leaves for Petersburg. There he meets new people, participates in the work of government commissions. Prince Andrei seeks to benefit the fatherland, but all his work turns out to be idle. Andrey returns to Natasha, but she was carried away by Anatole Kuragin and allowed herself to be persuaded to run away from her house. Proud Prince Andrei cannot forgive her for this act. When French troops invade Russia, he again goes to war.

Pierre also goes to fight. Having sold his estate, he sends money to the formation

shelf. He also had to go through the war, like Andrei. Pierre lives among the soldiers, sleeps side by side with them, just like them, he is starving. There he meets Platon Karataev, who becomes a real teacher for him. Pierre endured a lot and understood a lot. He was destined to see Prince Andrei again, but this meeting was the last. The conversation between them was about the war. Both understood that the battle awaiting the Russian troops was a decisive one in which they must win at any cost. Pierre looks with fear at Prince Andrei, who is not like himself, embittered, now and then breaking into a cry, who offers not to take prisoners. But in Borodino, it is Prince Andrei who does not fire a single shot, and Pierre helps the soldiers on Raevsky's battery. Seriously wounded, Prince Andrei hopes to find peace of mind through understanding his inner world. And again, Natasha helps him in this. It is no longer the same, the former, but another, but now it is infinitely dear to him. Prince Andrei dies, but before his death he acquires the highest truth that he has been searching for all his life. His successor, both physically and spiritually, will be his son Nikolinka.

Pierre still had to experience earthly happiness. After Helen died, he happily married Natasha. Using the example of their marriage, Tolstoy showed a family model to which one should strive.

Throughout the time allotted to them in the novel, the characters are looking for answers to important life questions, trying to understand the meaning of human existence on earth. Bolkonsky believes that one must live for oneself. Happiness for Pierre is to benefit others. Pierre considers it injustice that there is evil for another person. Each hero found his happiness and his understanding of life.

I would like to finish with the words of Tolstoy: “A living person is the one who goes forward, where it is lit ... in front of him is a moving lantern, and which never reaches the lit place, and the lit place goes ahead of him. And that's life. And there is no other." A person must constantly look for himself, his place in life.

(!LANG: Essay on male images in Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary. Male images in Jane Austen's novels Ilya Oblomov: a depressive dreamer

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