Sections: Literature
Lesson plan.
- The history of the Melekhov family. Already in the history of the family, the character of Gregory is laid.
- Portrait characteristics of Grigory in comparison with his brother Peter (it is Grigory, and not Peter, who is the successor of the “Turk” family - the Melekhovs.)
- Attitude to work (home, estate Listnitsky Yagodnoye, longing for the earth, eight returns home: ever-increasing craving for home, housekeeping.
- The image of Gregory at war as the embodiment of the author's concept of war (duty, coercion, senseless cruelty, destruction). Gregory never fought with his Cossacks, Melekhov's participation in the internecine fratricidal war is never described.
- Typical and individual in the image of Gregory. (why does Melekhov return home without waiting for an amnesty?)
- Points of view of writers and critics on the image of Grigory Melekhov
I
In criticism, disputes about the essence of the tragedy of Grigory Melekhov still do not stop.
At first it was believed that this is the tragedy of the renegade.
He supposedly went against the people and therefore lost all human features, became a lone wolf, a beast.
Rebuttal: the renegade does not evoke sympathy, but they cried over the fate of Melekhov. Yes, and Melekhov did not become a beast, did not lose the ability to feel, suffer, did not lose the desire to live.
Others explained the tragedy of Melekhov as a delusion.
Here it was true that Gregory, according to this theory, carried in himself the traits of the Russian national character, the Russian peasantry. Further, they said that he was half owner, half worker. / Lenin's quote about the peasant (art. about L. Tolstoy))
So Grigory hesitated, but in the end got lost. Therefore, he must be condemned and pitied.
But! Grigory is confused not because he is the owner, but because in each of the warring parties does not find absolute moral truth, to which he aspires with the maximalism inherent in Russian people.
1) From the first pages, Gregory is depicted in everyday creative peasant life:
- Fishing
- With a horse at the watering hole
- In love,
- Scenes of peasant labor
C: “His feet confidently trampled the ground”
Melekhov is merged with the world, is a part of it.
But in Gregory, the personal principle is unusually clearly manifested, Russian moral maximalism with its desire to get to the bottom without stopping halfway, not to put up with any violations of the natural course of life.
2) He is sincere and honest in his thoughts and actions.(this is especially pronounced in relations with Natasha and Aksinya:
- The last meeting of Gregory with Natalia (part VII, chapter 7)
- The death of Natalia and the experiences associated with it (part VII ch.16-18)
- The death of Aksinya (part VIII ch.17)
3) Gregory a strong emotional reaction to everything that happens, him responsive on the impressions of life heart. It has developed feeling of pity, compassion, This can be seen from these lines:
- At the hayfield, Grigory accidentally cut ********* (Part I Ch.9)
- Episode with Franya part 2 ch.11
- Fuss with the murdered Austrian (part 3 ch.10)
- Reaction to the news of the execution of Kotlyarov (part VI)
4) Staying always honest, morally independent and upright in character, Gregory showed himself as a person capable of an act.
- Fight with Stepan Astakhov because of Aksinya (Part I, Chapter 12)
- Leaving with Aksinya in Yagodnoye (part 2 ch. 11-12)
- Collision with the sergeant major (part 3 ch. 11)
- Break with Podtelkov (part 3 ch. 12)
- Encounter with General Fitskhalaurav (Part VII, Chapter 10)
- The decision, without waiting for the amnesty, to return to the farm (Part VIII, Chapter 18).
5) Bribes the sincerity of his motives- he never lied to himself, in his doubts and throwing. We are convinced of this by his internal monologues (part VI ch.21,28)
Gregory is the only character who given the right to monologues– “thoughts”, revealing its spiritual beginning.
6) It is impossible to "obey dogmatic rules" forced Grigory to abandon his household, his land, to leave with Aksinya for the Listnitsky estate with a koshoch.
There, shows Sholokhov , social life disrupted the course of natural life. There, for the first time, the hero broke away from the earth, from the origins.
“An easy, well-fed life spoiled him. He became lazy, put on weight, looked older than his years.
7) But too firmly in Gregory the national beginning so as not to be preserved in his soul. As soon as Melekhov was on his own land during the hunt, all the excitement disappeared, and the eternal, main feeling trembled in his soul.
8) This abyss, m / y by the desire of man unfortunately and the destructive tendencies of the era, widened and deepened in the first world war. (loyal to duty - active in battles - rewards)
But! The more he goes into military action, the more he is drawn to the ground, to work. He dreams of the steppe. His heart is with his beloved and distant woman. And his conscience gnaws at his soul: “… it's hard to kiss a kid, open to look into his eyes.”
9) The revolution returned Melekhov to the earth, with his beloved, to his family, and children. And he wholeheartedly sided with the new system . But the same revolution his cruelty to the Cossacks, his injustice to the prisoners, and to Grigory himself pushed again him on the warpath.
Fatigue and anger lead the hero to cruelty - the murder of sailors by Melekhov (it was after him that Grigory would dangle on the ground in “monstrous enlightenment”, realizing that he had gone far from what he was born for and what he fought for.
“The wrong course in life, and maybe I’m to blame for this,” he admitted.
10) Standing up with all his inherent energy for the interests of the workers and therefore became one of the leaders of the Veshensky uprising, Gregory is convinced that it did not bring the expected results: from white movement the Cossacks suffer in the same way as before they suffered from the Reds. (Peace did not come to the Don, but the same nobles returned, despising the ordinary Cossack, the Cossack-peasant.
11) But Gregory a sense of national exclusiveness is alien: Gregory has deep respect for the Englishman - a mechanic with labor mazols.
Melekhov precedes his refusal to evacuate overseas with a statement about Russia: “Whatever the mother, she is a relative of a stranger!”
12) And again salvation for Melekhov - a return to the earth, to Aksinya, and children . Violence disgusts him. (he releases relatives of the Red Cossacks from prison) drives a horse to save Ivan Alekseevich and Mishka Koshevoy.)
13) Turning to red in recent years civil war, Gregory became , according to Prokhor Zykov, “cheerful and sleek ". But it is also important that the roles Melekhov did not fight with his , but was on the Polish front.
In the VIII part, the ideal of Gregory is outlined: “ He was going home in order to finally get down to work, to live with the children, with Aksinya ... ”
But his dream did not come true. Mikhail Koshevoy ( representative revolutionary violence) provoked Gregory to run away from home, from children, Aksinya .
15) He is forced to hide in farms, join Fomin's gang.
The lack of a way out (and the thirst for life did not let him go under execution) pushes him to an obvious wrong deed.
16) All that Gregory had left by the end of the novel was children, mother earth (Sholokhov emphasizes three times that Grigory heals chest pain by lying down on “damp earth”) and love for Aksinya. But this little still leaves with the death of a beloved woman.
“The black sky and the dazzlingly shining black disk of the sun” (this characterizes the strength of Gregory's feelings and the degree of sensation or loss).
“Everything was taken from him, everything was destroyed by a ruthless death. Only the children remained, but he himself still convulsively clung to the ground, as if in fact his broken life represented some value for him and for others.
In this craving for life there is no personal salvation for Grigory Melekhov, but there is an affirmation of the ideal of life.
At the end of the novel, when life is reborn, Grigory threw a rifle, revolver, cartridges into the water, wiped his hands. The Don crossed over the blue March ice, walked with a large stride towards the house. He stood at the gates of his native house, holding his son in his arms ... "
Opinion of critics about the ending.
Critics argued for a long time and a lot about the further fate of Melekhov. Soviet literary scholars argued that Melekhov would join socialist life. Western critics say that the venerable Cossack will be arrested the next day and then executed.
Sholokhov, with an open ending, left room for both paths. This is of no fundamental importance, because. at the end of the novel, what constitutes essence humanistic philosophy of the protagonist of the novel, humanity in20th century: “under the cold sun, a huge world shines, life continues, embodied in the symbolic picture of a child in his father's arms.(the image of a child as a symbol of eternal life was already present in many of Sholokhov's Don Stories, and The Fate of Man also ends with it.
Conclusion
The path of Grigory Melekhov to the ideal of true life - it's a tragic way gains, mistakes and losses, which was passed by the entire Russian people in the XX century.
"Grigory Melekhov - whole person in a tragically torn time." (E. Tamarchenko)
- Portrait, Aksinya's character. (part 1 ch.3,4,12)
The origin and development of Aksinya and Grigory's love. (part 1 ch.3, ch.2, ch.10) - Dunyasha Melekhova (part 1 ch. 3,4,9)
- Daria Melekhova. Dramatic fate.
- Maternal love of Ilyinichna.
- The tragedy of Natalia.
Grigory Melekhov is one of the central characters in M. Sholokhov's novel The Quiet Flows the Don. The tragedy of Gregory's fate is closely connected with the tragedy of the Cossacks in Rus'. The writer managed to realistically convey the fate of the hero and prove the objective necessity of his actions.
Gregory is a young Cossack. People liked him for his love for housekeeping and work, for his Cossack prowess. From the first pages of the novel, we notice the inconsistency of Gregory's character.
It manifests itself both in personal relationships and in actions in the war. Grishka keeps in touch with the married Aksinya, but his father’s disappointment in him (Melekhov beat Grishka. “Zhenya! Zhenya for a fool! ..” - the father shouted to his son.) Disturbs the Cossack and he interrupts his relationship with the girl without experiencing mental anguish, but at the wedding with Natalya, for whom he was not the best candidate for a husband, but still had the luck to be chosen by her, he thought only of Aksinya. His throwing between the two girls continues throughout most of the novel, and neither of them has a good fate: Natalya survives a suicide attempt, is expelled by her family and lives in longing for her husband, Aksinya dies altogether ...
Melekhov himself does not understand what he needs, he cannot decide which side to take, with whom to be. We see the same in his attitude to the war, to the revolution. Gregory went to war with strong convictions, but the war breaks him. We see the spiritual experiences of the Cossack: "... My conscience is killing me. I stabbed one with a lance near Leshniuv. In the heat of the moment ... It was impossible otherwise ... Why did I cut down this one? .." he, the bastard, with his soul. He dreams at night, you bastard. Am I to blame? .. "He becomes stale and cold, but humanity does not leave Gregory. However, the Cossack dreams of returning to his homeland, he is drawn by the earth, his native chicken. Grishka was able to go through the war, get into the hospital, rise to the rank of officer. He stood out in the crowd of Cossacks, Four St. George's crosses and four medals are an indicator of this. Melekhov tried to understand the essence of the red and white movement, but could not. He went over to the side of the Reds, but he saw that cruelty is equal on each side, he realized that there is no "good" side and "bad" side, that everywhere there is blood, cruelty, injustice. In the hero’s conversations, we see the hopelessness of the choice: “If then the Red Army men were not going to kill me at the party, I might not have participated in the uprising.
If you weren't an officer, no one would touch you.
“If I hadn’t been hired, I wouldn’t have been an officer.” The Cossack dreams of returning to his homeland, he is drawn by the earth, his native chicken. I recall the words he said at the beginning of the novel: “I won’t move from the earth. Here is the steppe, there is something to breathe, but there?
The tragedy of Gregory is a tragedy of inconsistency, a tragedy of a personality who finds himself at a crossroads in an era of turning points. historical events, the tragedy of the entire Russian Cossacks. At the end of the story, Gregory returns to earth. He has no one close to him except his son, but the main thing is that the Cossack finds himself, his place in life.
"Quiet Flows the Don" by Sholokhov is not only a novel about one person and his fate, it is an epic of the whole people in a variable historical period. This article reveals the tragedy in Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Don", the tragic fate of the main characters and the causes of their misfortunes.
Characteristics of Grigory Melekhov
Grigory Melekhov is the protagonist of Sholokhov's novel Quiet Flows the Don. He is young, hot and open to the world. He loves to fish and do farm work. In his veins flows the blood of his grandmother - a captive Turkish woman, whose genes influenced the appearance of Gregory. Grigory was more like his father, while his older brother Peter was more like his mother: “... the youngest, Grigory, popped into his father: half a head taller than Peter, at least six years younger, the same as Bati, drooping kite nose, blue tonsils of hot eyes in slightly slanting slits, sharp slabs of cheekbones covered with brown, ruddy skin. Grigory stooped in the same way as his father, even in a smile both of them had a common, bestial ... ".
During the hostilities, Melekhov shows himself to be a brave warrior. For bravery, he receives St. George's crosses and many awards. The character of Gregory is distinguished by philanthropy, it is not for nothing that he saves from death the hated Stepan Astakhov, his worst enemy.
The love line with the participation of Grigory closes in a love triangle, consisting of Natalya Korshunova, his wife, Aksinya Astakhova, his lover, and Grigory Melekhov himself. Despite his love for Aksinya, the main character cannot disobey his father and marries Natalia. By his act, he dooms not only himself to suffering, but also two young women in love with him.
The fate of Grigory Melekhov
The novel covers the time period from 1912 to 1922. It is in these conditions that the character and worldview of Grigory Melekhov is formed. Until the age of 19, Grigory lives the life of an ordinary young man, but having fallen in love with Aksinya, he has to resist rumors and rejection of their vicious connection by close and dear people.
Marrying Natalya Korshunova does not make him happy, he still loves Aksinya, but his father's condemnation stops him.
Once at the front, Grigory forgets a little about his " love triangle”, completely immersed in military events. During this time, his daughter dies from Aksinya, and the woman, unable to cope with her grief, seeks solace from another man. Gregory decides not to return to the girl who betrayed him, and comes to Natalya, who still loves him. However, you can't tell your heart. His soul yearns for Aksinya. Natalia feels this and even tries to commit suicide. Having survived, she does not feel the love of Gregory, continues to grieve and dies as a result of her illness. Grigory feels guilty, but continues to love Aksinya. They decide to leave their farm to live with relatives, but Aksinya dies along the way.
The tragedy of Grigory Melekhov
The life of Grigory Melekhov is very tragic. Despite great love, Gregory's personal life did not work out. Perhaps if he had been more stubborn, tried to win back his love and arrange personal happiness, then he would have been more fortunate. But having feelings for Aksinya, he is not able to abandon the family, which condemns him for having an affair with a married woman.
In the war, the protagonist is also disappointed. He sees that they are being killed, raped and looted from both sides. He is not close to the laws that are followed at the front. He understands that he is protecting his homeland, but killing is contrary to his nature. Grigory takes the murder of an Austrian, whom he has to kill, hard, although he understands that there is no place for pity in war. His throwing between whites and reds does not lead to anything good, for some time he even becomes a deserter.
The fate of Grigory Melekhov is very tragic. The author shows how the fate of the people breaks down during the period of turning points in the history of the state.
Artwork test
For in those days there will be such sorrow as has not been since the beginning of creation… even until now there will not be… But brother will betray brother to death, and father - children; and children will rise up against their parents and kill them.
From the gospel
“On the gently sloping, sandy left bank, above the Don, lies the village of Veshenskaya ... all in a mound of yellow sands ... Where the Don, arching, leaves the station for Bazaky, a lake, the width of the Don in shallow water, leaves in a sleeve in a thicket of poplars. At the end of the lake, the village also ends ... ” Here, among the nature of the native Don steppe, familiar from childhood, which he sang, among the people to whom he dedicated his books, Mikhail Sholokhov constantly lived and worked. From here, from the free Don, the protagonist of Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Flows the Don" - Grigory Melikhov, comes from.
Grigory - a young Cossack, a daring man, a man with capital letter: strong, brave, loving, a real man. Sholokhov endowed his hero with such qualities. At the same time, Grigory Melikhov is not without weaknesses, which is confirmed by his reckless passion for a married woman - Aksinya, whom he is unable to overcome. But, in my opinion, the weaknesses, doubts of the hero are perhaps the most important. It is by his ability to survive, to solve problems, to tame passions, that a person is great. And yet - imperfection, one of the main features of a real person. We must pay tribute to Mikhail Sholokhov - he created a truly subtle image of the imperfect, but strong and kind Grigory, in whose face all the searches, torments, doubts and sorrows of the Russian people of that rebellious time were reflected.
For a long time Cossacks lived freely on the Don: they occupied the land, sowed bread, fought with the Tatars and Turks, were a reliable support for the Russian tsars, fought for them and for the state.
The end of this life is described in the first books of The Quiet Flows the Don by Sholokhov. Cheerful, joyful, full of work and pleasant worries, the life of the Cossacks is interrupted by the first World War. And with it, the age-old way of life irrevocably collapses. Gloomy winds blew over the Don steppes. And yet, fighting is a common thing for the Cossacks, a revolution is a completely different thing ...
In February, one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, the king to whom they swore allegiance was overthrown. There was a split. The people were faced with the problem of choice, unfamiliar to the village: whose side to take, whom to believe. Main character novel "Quiet Flows the Don" Grigory Melikhov is tormented by the same doubts as the rest of the Cossacks. At first, Izvarin seems right to him, who says: “We need our own, and, above all, the deliverance of the Cossacks from all guardians ... Deliver, God, from friends, and we will manage the enemies ourselves.”
But after meeting with another hero of the novel - Podtelkov, Grigory leans towards the Reds, fights on their side, although his soul still does not stick to any shore. After being wounded under a deep station, he goes to his native farm. And there he is even more tormented by doubts: “There, behind, everything was confused, contradictory. It was difficult to find the right path; like in a swampy gati, the soil broke out under their feet, the path was crushed, and there was no certainty whether it was going along the right one.
Melikhov did not find his place among those who wanted to establish order alien to the Don people. And now he, along with other fellow villagers, enters to fight with Podtelkov.
Tragically, the writer draws the capture of the Podtelkov detachment. There are suddenly classmates, godfathers, just people who believe in one God, who previously could call each other fellow countrymen. Joyful exclamations, memories. And the next day, the captured Cossacks are put against the wall... A bloody river spills over the Don land. In a deadly fight, brother goes to brother, son to father. Forgotten valor and honor, traditions, laws, life is crumbling, adjusted for centuries. And now Grigory, who previously internally resisted bloodshed, easily decides to take someone else's into account.
And the time began when power changed, and yesterday's winners, not having time to execute their opponents, become defeated and persecuted. Everyone is cruel, even women. Let us recall a very powerful scene when Daria kills Kotlyarov, considering him the murderer of her husband Peter.
Gregory becomes one of the major military leaders of the rebels, but something is already breaking in his soul from many years of military murder: he forgets about his family, he becomes more and more indifferent to himself.
The uprising is crushed. And again, fate makes a coup with Melikhov. He is forcibly mobilized into the Red Army...
Against the background of these throwings, Gregory is experiencing a tragedy also in personal life, a red stripe through which an unsuccessful marriage, forbidden love, a series of deaths of relatives and loved ones pass.
With a black steppe scorched by fires, Sholokhov compares Grigory's life at the end of his journey. Strong, brave man became a light chip in the stormy ocean of historical change. Here it is Tolstoy's insignificance of personality in history. But no matter how great the tragedy of what is happening, hope is inspired by the last symbolic picture - father and son, and all around “young grass is greening merrily, fluttering over it in blue sky countless larks, migrating geese graze on the fodder greenery, and build nests that have settled for the summer little bustards.
