Landscape and its functions in the novels of I.A. Goncharov. Like the landscapes in novel A

The purpose of the landscape (as well as many other artistic techniques in this work) is subordinated to the main goal - to show the history of the emergence of such a human character as Oblomov, the history of the formation of his personality and the features of his way of life.

In the eighth chapter of the novel, the author mentions Ilya Ilyich’s favorite dream - to live in the village. And the pictures of this life are always associated not only with “sweet food and sweet laziness,” but also with wonderful rural nature. He would like to sit with a cup of tea “under a canopy of trees impenetrable to the sun, ... enjoying ... the coolness, the silence; and in the distance the fields turn yellow, the sun sets behind the familiar birch tree and blushes the pond, smooth as a mirror...” Oblomov definitely sees “eternal summer, eternal fun” and a lot of food for guests with an “unfading appetite.”

Why is that? Why is he like this and “not different”? This question arises both among readers and the hero himself. Sometimes Oblomov becomes “sad and painful for his underdevelopment, the stop in the growth of moral forces...”. It became especially scary when “the idea of human destiny and purpose…” suddenly arose in his soul, and he “painfully felt that some good, bright beginning was buried in him, as in a grave...”, but “deeply and heavily buried a treasure trove of rubbish." Oblomov understood that he needed to get rid of all this extravagance, all this rubbish that was preventing him from living a full-blooded life, and... his thought obediently returned him to a world where everything was beautiful, where wonderful pictures of nature allowed him to forget about worries, to escape from the reality that troubled his soul. The peculiar, “Oblomov” love for nature, combined with daydreaming, brought calm and even a feeling of happiness into the hero’s life.

In the ninth chapter, Goncharov paints a world where the hero of the novel could live happily if he had never left his native Oblomovka. It is here that we find answers to many questions and understand why Ilya Ilyich’s soul aspired to this “blessed corner.”

Goncharov does not immediately begin the chapter with a description of the “wonderful land.” He first gives landscape sketches in the form of successive beautiful paintings, very contrasting with the nature of Oblomovka, which also makes it possible to understand why this region and this nature contributed to the emergence of Oblomov’s character. Here “there is no sea, no high mountains, rocks and abysses, no dense forests - there is nothing grandiose, wild and gloomy.” And the author explains the negative view of ordinary people on exotic landscapes: images of a raging sea, the power of the elements or the sight of inaccessible rocks, formidable mountains and abysses induce melancholy, fear, anxiety in the soul, tormenting it, and “the heart is embarrassed by timidity...”. This nature does not contribute to the “fun” mood of life, does not calm, does not “lull”, but helps to form an active and energetic character that is able to overcome obstacles and fight difficulties.

The functions of the landscape in the work are different. This is the background against which the action takes place, and the characterization of the hero’s state of mind, and a kind of framing of the plot, and the creation of a special atmosphere of the story.

The first landscape appears before us in “Oblomov’s Dream”. Pictures of nature here are given in the spirit of a poetic idyll. The main function of these landscapes is psychological; we learn in what conditions the main character grew up, how his character was formed, where he spent his childhood. Oblomov's estate is a “blessed corner”, a “wonderful land”, lost in the outback of Russia. Nature there does not amaze us with luxury and pretentiousness - it is modest and unpretentious. There is no sea, high mountains, rocks and abysses, dense forests. The sky there presses “closer... to the earth..., like a parent’s reliable roof”, “the sun... shines brightly and hotly for about six months...”, the river runs “merrily”: sometimes it “spills into a wide pond, sometimes it “strives like a fast thread”, sometimes it barely "crawls over the stones." The stars there are “friendly” and “friendly” blinking from the sky, the rain “will pour briskly, abundantly, jumping merrily, like the large and hot tears of a suddenly joyful person,” thunderstorms “are not terrible, but only beneficial.”

The seasons in this region are correlated with peasant labor, with the natural rhythm of human life. “According to the calendar, spring will come in March, dirty streams will run from the hills, the earth will thaw and smoke with warm steam; the peasant will take off his sheepskin coat, go out into the air in his shirt and, covering his eyes with his hand, admire the sun for a long time, shrugging his shoulders with pleasure; then he will pull a cart turned upside down... or inspect and kick a plow lying idly under a canopy, preparing for ordinary work.” Everything in this natural cycle is reasonable and harmonious. Winter “does not tease with unexpected thaws and does not bend in three arcs with unheard-of frosts ...”, but in February “the soft breeze of the approaching spring is already felt in the air.” But summer is especially wonderful in this region. “There you need to look for fresh, dry air, filled with - not lemon or laurel, but simply the smell of wormwood, pine and bird cherry; there to look for clear days, slightly burning, but not scorching rays of the sun and for almost three months a cloudless sky.”

Peace, tranquility, deep silence lie in the fields, quietly and sleepily in villages scattered not far from each other. On the master's estate, everyone falls into a deep sleep after a varied, plentiful dinner. Life flows lazily and slowly. The same silence and calm reign there in human morals. The range of people's concerns does not go beyond simple everyday life and its rituals: christenings, name days, weddings, funerals. Time in Oblomovka is counted “according to holidays, seasons, various family and home occasions.” The land there is “fertile”: Oblomov’s people don’t have to work hard, they endure the work “as punishment.”

It was in this region that the hero spent his childhood; here, on long winter evenings, he listened to his nanny’s fairy tales, epics, and scary stories. In this atmosphere of the unhurried flow of life, his character was formed. Little Ilyusha loves nature: he wants to run into the meadows or to the bottom of a ravine and play snowballs with the boys. He is curious and observant: he notices that the shadow is ten times larger than Antipas himself, and the shadow of his horse covered the entire meadow. The child wants to explore the world around him, “to rush out and redo everything himself,” but his parents pamper and cherish him, “like an exotic flower in a greenhouse.” Thus, those seeking manifestations of power turn inward, decline and wither. And gradually the hero absorbs this unhurried rhythm of life, its lazy, measured atmosphere. And he gradually becomes the Oblomov we see in St. Petersburg. However, you should not think that this phrase carries only a negative connotation. Both Oblomov’s “dovelike tenderness” and his moral ideals - all this was also formed by the same life. Thus, the landscape here has a psychological function: it is one of the components that shapes the character of the hero.

In the love scenes between Oblomov and Olga Ilyinskaya, pictures of nature acquire symbolic meaning. So, a lilac branch becomes a symbol of this emerging feeling. Here they meet on the path. Olga picks a lilac branch and gives it to Ilya. And he responds by noting that he loves lilies of the valley more, since they are closer to nature. And Oblomov involuntarily asks for forgiveness for the confession that escaped him, attributing his feelings to the effect of music. Olga is upset and discouraged. She drops a lilac branch to the ground. Ilya Ilyich picks it up and on the next date (for lunch with the Ilyinskys) comes with this branch. Then they meet in the park, and Oblomov notices that Olga is embroidering the same lilac branch. Then they talk, and hope for happiness appears in Ilya’s soul. He confesses to Olga that “the color of life has fallen.” And she again plucks a branch of lilac and gives it to him, denoting with it the “color of life” and her annoyance. Trust and understanding appear in their relationship - Oblomov is happy. And Goncharov compares his condition with a person’s impression of an evening landscape. “Oblomov was in that state when a person had just followed the setting summer sun with his eyes and was enjoying its ruddy traces, without taking his eyes off the dawn, without turning back to where the night came from, thinking only about the return of warmth and light tomorrow.”

Love sharpens all the feelings of the heroes. Both Ilya Ilyich and Olga become especially sensitive to natural phenomena, life opens up to them with its new, unknown sides. Thus, Oblomov notes that, despite the external silence and peace, in nature everything is boiling, moving, fussing. “Meanwhile, in the grass everything was moving, crawling, fussing. There are ants running in different directions so fussily and fussily, colliding, scattering, hurrying... Here is a bumblebee buzzing near a flower and crawling into its cup; there are flies in a heap near a leaking drop of juice on a crack in a linden tree; here is a bird somewhere in the thicket that has been repeating the same sound for a long time, maybe calling another. Here are two butterflies, spinning around each other in the air, rushing headlong, as if in a waltz, around tree trunks. The grass smells strong; an incessant crackling sound comes from it...” In the same way, Olga discovers the hitherto unnoticed secret life of nature. “There are the same trees in the forest, but their noise has a special meaning: a living harmony reigned between them and her. The birds don’t just chatter and chirp, but they all say something to each other; and everything speaks around her, everything corresponds to her mood; the flower blooms, and she hears as if his breathing.”

When Oblomov begins to have doubts about the truth of Olga’s feelings, this novel seems to him a monstrous mistake. And again the writer compares Ilya’s feelings with natural phenomena. “What wind suddenly blew on Oblomov? What clouds did you make?<…>He must have had dinner or lay on his back, and the poetic mood gave way to some kind of horror. It often happens in the summer to fall asleep on a quiet, cloudless evening, with twinkling stars, and think how beautiful the field will be tomorrow with the bright morning colors! How fun it is to go deep into the thicket of the forest and hide from the heat!.. And suddenly you wake up from the sound of rain, from sad gray clouds; cold, damp...” Oblomov’s experiences may be far-fetched; he still loves Olga, but subconsciously begins to realize the impossibility of this union and to foresee the end of the relationship. And Olga begins to understand the same thing with her unmistakable feminine intuition. She notices that “the lilacs... have moved away, disappeared!” Love ends with summer.

Autumn pictures of nature create an atmosphere of distance between the characters and each other. They can no longer meet so freely in the forest or parks. And here we note the plot-forming significance of the landscape. Here is one of the autumn landscapes: “The leaves have flown around, you can see right through everything; the crows in the trees scream so unpleasantly..." Oblomov invites Olga not to rush into announcing the news of the wedding. When he finally breaks up with her, snow falls and thickly covers the fence, fence, and garden beds. “The snow was falling in flakes and thickly covering the ground.” This landscape is also symbolic. The snow here seems to bury the hero’s possible happiness.

At the end of the novel, the author paints pictures of southern nature, depicting the life of Olga and Stolz in Crimea. These landscapes deepen the character of the characters, but at the same time they are presented in contrast with “Oblomov’s Dream” in the novel. If the sketches of nature in “Oblomov’s Dream” were detailed and sometimes poetic, the author seemed to dwell with pleasure on characteristic phenomena and details, then in the finale Goncharov limited himself to only describing the impressions of the characters. “They often plunged into silent wonder at the ever-new and brilliant beauty of nature. Their sensitive souls could not get used to this beauty: the earth, the sky, the sea - everything awakened their feelings... They did not greet the morning with indifference; could not stupidly plunge into the darkness of a warm, starry, southern night. They were awakened by the eternal movement of thought, the eternal irritation of the soul and the need to think together, feel, speak!..” We see the sensitivity of these heroes to the beauty of nature, but is their life the writer’s ideal? The author avoids an open answer.

The landscape that paints a picture of the local cemetery at the end of the novel is simple and modest. Here the motif of the lilac branch, which accompanied the hero at the climactic moments of his life, appears again. “What happened to Oblomov? Where is he? Where? - In the nearest cemetery, under a modest urn, his body rests between the bushes, in a quiet place. Lilac branches, planted by a friendly hand, doze over the grave, and wormwood smells serenely. It seems that the angel of silence himself is guarding his sleep.”

Thus, the pictures of nature in the novel are picturesque and varied. Through them, the author conveys his attitude to life, love, reveals the inner world and mood of the characters.

Introduction

Goncharov’s work “Oblomov” is a socio-psychological novel written in the mid-19th century. The book tells the story of the fate of the Russian tradesman Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a personality with a fine spiritual organization, who failed to find his own place in the rapidly changing world of contemporary Russia. The author’s depiction of nature plays a special role in revealing the ideological meaning of the novel - in Oblomov, landscapes are a reflection of the hero’s inner world and are closely related to his feelings and experiences.

Nature of Oblomovka

The most striking landscape of the novel is the nature of Oblomovka, perceived by the reader through the prism of Ilya Ilyich’s dream. The quiet nature of the village, far from the hustle and bustle of cities, attracts with its calm and serenity. There are no dense, frightening forests, no restless sea, no high distant mountains or windy steppes, no fragrant flower beds, only the smell of field grass and wormwood - according to the author, a poet or dreamer would hardly be satisfied with the simple landscape of this area.

The soft, harmonious nature of Oblomovka did not require the peasants to work, which created a special, lazy mood of life in the entire village - the measured passage of time was interrupted only by the changing seasons or weddings, birthdays and funerals, which just as quickly became a thing of the past, replaced by the calmness of the pacifying nature .

Oblomov's dream is a reflection of his childhood impressions and memories. Dreamy Ilya, from an early age, perceived the world through the beauty of the sleepy landscapes of Oblomovka, wanted to explore and get to know the world around him, but the excessive care of his parents led to the withering of the active principle in the hero and contributed to the gradual absorption of that “Oblomovsky” measured rhythm of life, which for him, already an adult , became the only correct and pleasant one.

Four pores of love

Nature in the novel “Oblomov” carries a special semantic and plot load. First of all, it reflects the state of the hero. The symbol of the tender feeling between Olga and Oblomov becomes a fragile branch of lilac, which the girl gives to Ilya Ilyich, to which he replies that he loves lilies of the valley more, and the upset Olga drops the branch. But on the next date, as if having accepted the girl’s feelings, Oblomov comes with the same twig. Even at the moment when Ilya Ilyich tells the girl that “the color of life has fallen,” Olga again plucks a branch of lilac for him as a symbol of spring and the continuation of life. During the heyday of their relationship, quiet summer nature seems to favor their happiness; its secrets and special meanings are revealed to the lover. Describing Oblomov’s condition, the author compares his happiness with the beauty of a delightful summer sunset.

Nature appears completely different at the moments when Oblomov begins to doubt the bright future of their love, comparing them with rainy weather, a gray sky covered with sad clouds, dampness and cold. At the same time, Olga notices that the lilac has already moved away - as if their love has also moved away. The alienation of the heroes is emphasized by the image of the autumn landscape, flying leaves and unpleasantly screaming crows, when the heroes can no longer hide behind fresh green foliage, comprehending the secrets of living nature and their own souls. The separation of lovers is accompanied by a snowfall, which Oblomov falls under - spring love, the symbol of which was a tender lilac branch, finally dies under a blanket of snow and cold.

The love of Oblomov and Olga seems to be part of that distant, familiar “Oblomov” life to Ilya Ilyich. Beginning in the spring and ending in late autumn, their feelings become part of the natural flow of time of living nature, the change of seasons from birth and flourishing to extinction and death, followed by a new birth - the love of Oblomov for Agafya and Olga for Stolz.
At the end of the novel, the author describes the landscape of the modest cemetery where Oblomov is buried. As a reminder of the hero’s wonderful feeling, a lilac planted by friends grows near the grave, and it smells of wormwood, as if the hero had returned to his native Oblomovka again.

Conclusion

The landscape in the novel “Oblomov” performs the leading semantic and plot-forming functions. A subtle sense of nature, the flow of its natural time and inspiration by each of its manifestations in the work is accessible only to the reflective, dreamy Oblomov and the loving Olga. After marriage, when depicting the life of a girl with Stolz in the Crimea, Olga unconsciously loses the ability to feel every manifestation of nature that she had during her relationship with Oblomov. The author seems to be trying to show the reader that, despite the speed of the urbanized world, man is not subject to the natural changes in the cycles of nature - fluid and changing throughout human life.

Work test

Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is one of the most controversial literary heroes. Goncharov's contemporaries immediately after the release of the novel branded the main character as an inveterate sloth and a purely negative character. However, over time, the view of him has changed, although a complete rethinking of Oblomov’s image is still ahead.

In all the everyday vicissitudes that come his way, Oblomov takes the passive side. He leaves, turns away from reality. Away from all everyday joys and fears, affairs and news, he prefers to plunge into dreams, fantasies and... sleep. Oblomov's dream is the best, ideal (for Oblomov) world into which he strives to get.

Descriptively, Oblomov’s dream represents his past, childhood. Through a dream, we are shown the house - Oblomovka, the hero's youth, his family and environment. Father - Ilya Ivanovich, a landowner, a kind man, even good-natured. Mother is a loving and affectionate, caring housewife. Numerous aunts and uncles, guests and distant relatives who fill the house.

All, without exception, people in Oblomovka are simple and kind, do not suffer from illnesses of the soul, and do not worry about the meaning of life. Everyone living in this “blessed land” is interested only in themselves and their own interests. “Happy people lived, thinking that it should not be otherwise, confident that everyone else lived in exactly the same way and that living differently was a sin.”

Nature is especially delightful in that region. It fully corresponds to the lifestyle of the Oblomovka people. Summer is hot and stuffy, filled with the aroma of wormwood, winter is harsh and frosty, but predictable and constant. Spring comes in due course, there are generous warm rains, thunderstorms at the same time... Everything in Oblomovka is clear, simple and somehow sincere. Even “the sky presses closer to the earth to hug it tighter, with love.” What kind of character can there be, nurtured in such a corner of paradise?

(Little Ilyusha with his nanny in the vivid dreams of adult Oblomov)

To understand a person, find out what he dreams about and what he dreams about. In this sense, Oblomov’s dream vividly and comprehensively gives us the opportunity to get to know the hero. One can argue for a long time whether Oblomov’s life was good, whether Oblomov’s life was correct, but one thing remains unchanged. His soul. “A soul as pure as crystal” - this is how everyone who had the opportunity to look into Oblomov’s heart and soul remembers him. Stolts, Olga, Agafya Matveevna, Zakhar - until the end of their lives they keep the bright memory of their friend. So can a purely negative character evoke such feelings in different, dissimilar people?

Is the life shown to us in Oblomov’s dream bad? To some it will seem primitive and boring, to others it will be considered the ideal of peaceful existence and existence. Most people would probably fall into the first category. Even the author seems to favor another, “active and fulfilling life,” the kind that is presented to us by Stolz.

“The time will come, and vigorous steps will be heard... - thousands of Stolts will appear under Russian names, old Oblomovka will leave.” But then Goncharov’s prediction came true and the time came when everyone became entrepreneurs and businessmen. But people are still looking for the meaning of life, they are still dissatisfied with what fate gives them. Only now it’s not the Oblomovs who are waiting for the Stolts, but the Stolts are looking for kind, sincere Oblomovs. When will they finally meet? When will they be able to combine their strengths and abilities to create not a dream, but a real, real, beneficial life?

Oblomov's dream is not an ideal, not the perfection of life, not the goal of existence to which one must strive. However, there is no need to deny it or throw it away as unnecessary.