Presentation "The Path of Quest of Grigory Melekhov. Choosing a Path." Essay on the topic: The path of quest of Grigory Melikhov in the novel Quiet Don, Sholokhov Movement of the soul using the example of Grigory Melekhov

The life story of the central hero of M. Sholokhov's epic novel "Quiet Don" Grigory Melekhov most fully reflected the drama of the fate of the Don Cossacks. He suffered such cruel trials that a person, it would seem, is not able to endure. First the First World War, then the revolution and fratricidal civil war, the attempt to destroy the Cossacks, the uprising and its suppression.

In the difficult fate of Grigory Melekhov, Cossack freedom and the fate of the people merged together. The strong character, integrity and rebellion inherited from his father have haunted him since his youth. Having fallen in love with Aksinya, a married woman, he leaves with her, disdaining public morality and his father’s prohibitions. By nature, the hero is a kind, brave and courageous person who stands up for justice. The author shows his hard work in scenes of hunting, fishing, and haymaking. Throughout the entire novel, in harsh battles on one side or the other, he searches for the truth.

The First World War destroys his illusions. Proud of their Cossack army, its glorious victories, in Voronezh the Cossacks hear from a local old man the phrase thrown after them with pity: “My dear... beef!” The elderly man knew that there is nothing worse than war, this is not an adventure in which you can become a hero, it is dirt, blood, stench and horror. Valiant arrogance flies off Gregory when he sees his Cossack friends dying: “The first to fall from his horse was the cornet Lyakhovsky. Prokhor galloped at him... With a cutter, like a diamond on glass, he cut out Gregory’s memory and held for a long time the pink gums of Prokhor’s horse with barbed slabs of teeth, Prokhor, who fell flat, trampled by the hooves of a Cossack galloping behind him... They fell again. The Cossacks and horses fell.”

In parallel, the author shows events in the homeland of the Cossacks, where their families remained. “And no matter how much simple-haired Cossack women run out into the alleys and look from under their palms, we won’t be able to wait for those dear to our hearts! No matter how many tears stream from swollen and faded eyes, it will not wash away the melancholy! No matter how much you cry on the days of anniversaries and commemorations, the eastern wind will not carry their cries to Galicia and East Prussia, to the settled mounds of mass graves!”

The war appears to the writer and his characters as a series of hardships and deaths that change all the foundations. War cripples from the inside and destroys all the most precious things that people have. It forces the heroes to take a fresh look at the problems of duty and justice, to look for the truth and not find it in any of the warring camps. Once among the Reds, Gregory sees the same cruelty, intransigence, and thirst for the blood of his enemies as the Whites. War destroys the smooth life of families, peaceful work, takes away the last, kills love. Grigory and Pyotr Melekhov, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy and other heroes of Sholokhov do not understand why the fratricidal war is being waged. For whose sake and what should they die in the prime of life? After all, life on the farm gives them a lot of joy, beauty, hope, and opportunity. War is only deprivation and death. But they see that the hardships of war fall primarily on the shoulders of the civilian population, ordinary people; it is they, not the commanders, who will starve and die.

There are also characters in the work who think completely differently. The heroes Shtokman and Bunchuk see the country solely as an arena of class battles. For them, people are tin soldiers in someone else’s game, and pity for a person is a crime.

The fate of Grigory Melekhov is a life incinerated by war. The personal relationships of the characters take place against the backdrop of the most tragic history of the country. Gregory cannot forget his first enemy, an Austrian soldier, whom he hacked to death with a saber. The moment of murder changed him beyond recognition. The hero has lost his point of support, his kind, fair soul protests, cannot survive such violence against common sense. The Austrian's skull, cut in two, becomes an obsession for Gregory. But the war goes on, and Melekhov continues to kill. He is not the only one who thinks about the terrible downside of military duty. He hears the words of his own Cossack: “It’s easier to kill someone else who has broken their hand in this matter than to crush a louse. The man has fallen in price for the revolution.” A stray bullet that kills the very soul of Grigory - Aksinya, is perceived as a death sentence for all participants in the massacre. The war is actually being waged against all living people; it is not for nothing that Gregory, having buried Aksinya in a ravine, sees above him a black sky and a dazzling black disk of the sun.

Melekhov rushes between the two warring sides. Everywhere he encounters violence and cruelty, which he cannot accept, and therefore cannot take one side. When his mother reproaches him for participating in the execution of captured sailors, he himself admits that he became cruel in the war: “I don’t feel sorry for the children either.”

Realizing that the war is killing the best people of his time and that the truth cannot be found among thousands of deaths, Grigory throws down his weapon and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise his children. At almost 30 years old, the hero is almost an old man. Sholokhov in his immortal work raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The writer sympathizes with his hero, whose life is broken: “Like a steppe scorched by burning fires, Grigory’s life became black...” The image of Grigory Melekhov became a great creative success for Sholokhov.

“Quiet Don” is a work that shows the life of the Don Cossacks in one of the most difficult historical periods in Russia. The realities of the first third of the twentieth century, which upended the entire habitual way of life, seemed to travel like caterpillars through the destinies of the common people. Through the life path of Grigory Melekhov in the novel “Quiet Flows the Don”, Sholokhov reveals the main idea of ​​the work, which is to depict the clash of personality and historical events beyond his control, his wounded fate.

The struggle between duty and feelings

At the beginning of the work, the main character is shown as a hardworking guy, distinguished by his ardent disposition, which he inherited from his ancestors. Cossack and even Turkish blood flowed in him. Grishka's eastern roots endowed him with a striking appearance that could turn the heads of more than one Don beauty, and his Cossack tenacity, sometimes bordering on stubbornness, ensured the stamina and steadfastness of his character.

On the one hand, he shows respect and love for his parents, on the other hand, he does not listen to their opinion. The first conflict between Grigory and his parents occurs because of his love affair with his married neighbor Aksinya. To end the sinful relationship between Aksinya and Gregory, his parents decide to marry him. But their choice in the role of the sweet and meek Natalya Korshunova did not solve the problem, but only aggravated it. Despite the official marriage, love for his wife did not appear, but for Aksinya, who, tormented by jealousy, increasingly sought meetings with him, only flared up.

Blackmail from his father with his house and property forced the hot-tempered and impulsive Grigory to leave the farm, his wife, and relatives in his heart and leave with Aksinya. Because of his action, the proud and unyielding Cossack, whose family had cultivated its own land and grown its own grain from time immemorial, had to become a mercenary, which made Gregory feel ashamed and disgusted. But now he had to answer both for Aksinya, who left her husband because of him, and for the child she was carrying.

War and Aksinya's betrayal

A new misfortune was not long in coming: the war began, and Gregory, who swore allegiance to the sovereign, was forced to leave both his old and new family and go to the front. In his absence, Aksinya remained in the manor's house. The death of her daughter and news from the front about the death of Gregory weakened the woman’s strength, and she was forced to succumb to the pressure of the centurion Listnitsky.

Having returned from the front and learning about Aksinya’s betrayal, Grigory returns to his family again. For some period of time, his wife, relatives and soon-to-be twins make him happy. But the troubled times on the Don associated with the Revolution did not allow them to enjoy family happiness.

Ideological and personal doubts

In the novel “Quiet Don”, Grigory Melekhov’s path is full of quests, doubts and contradictions, both politically and in love. He constantly rushed about, not knowing where the truth was: “Everyone has their own truth, their own furrow. People have always fought for a piece of bread, for a plot of land, for the right to life. We must fight those who want to take away life and the right to it...” He decided to lead the Cossack division and repair the supports of the advancing Reds. However, the further the Civil War continued, the more Gregory doubted the correctness of his choice, the more clearly he understood that the Cossacks were waging war at windmills. The interests of the Cossacks and their native land were of no interest to anyone.

The same pattern of behavior is typical in the personal life of the protagonist of the work. Over time, he forgives Aksinya, realizing that he cannot live without her love and takes her with him to the front. Afterwards he sends her home, where she is forced to once again return to her husband. Arriving on leave, he looks at Natalya with different eyes, appreciating her devotion and fidelity. He was drawn to his wife, and this intimacy culminated in the conception of his third child.

But again his passion for Aksinya got the better of him. His last betrayal led to the death of his wife. Grigory drowns his remorse and the impossibility of resisting his feelings in the war, becoming cruel and merciless: “I was so smeared with other people’s blood that I no longer had any regrets left for anyone. I almost don’t regret my childhood, but I don’t even think about myself. The war took everything out of me. I myself became scary. Look into my soul, and there’s blackness there, like in an empty well...”

A stranger among his own

The loss of loved ones and the retreat sobered Gregory, he understands: he must be able to preserve what he has left. He takes Aksinya with him on retreat, but because of typhus he is forced to leave her.

He again begins to search for the truth and finds himself in the Red Army, taking command of a cavalry squadron. However, even participation in hostilities on the side of the Soviets will not wash away Grigory’s past, tainted by the white movement. He faces execution, which his sister Dunya warned him about. Taking Aksinya, he attempts to escape, during which the woman he loves is killed. Having fought for his land both on the side of the Cossacks and the Reds, he remained a stranger among his own.

The path of quest of Grigory Melekhov in the novel is the fate of a simple man who loved his land, but lost everything he had and valued, defending it for the life of the next generation, which in the finale is personified by his son Mishatka.

Work test

“Quiet Don” by M. Sholokhov is a novel about the fate of the people at a turning point. The genius given to Sholokhov by nature, aggravated by the cruel reality in which he developed, was able to capture the very essence of the world's anxiety in the air, put it on the ground, as soon as possible in art, comprehend it with an artistic mind and clothe it in artistic flesh - in such infinitely green the story of a simple Don Cossack Grigory Melekhov.

This courageous and open-hearted man (what a truly personality!) befell, one might say, everything that defined the century - world war and civil war, revolution and counter-revolution, genocide over the Cossacks, over the peasantry... It seems there are no such tests for human dignity and freedom, through which, like through a gauntlet, time would not have driven him. And he is a Cossack, in his very genes he carries the memory of the former Cossack freedom, of what was done to it, turning the once freest into state slaves and guardsmen.

It is not surprising that in the human nature of Grigory Melekhov the peculiarity of the family and the fate of the people are intertwined, a long history that is happening before our eyes. After all, what we learned about the young guy Grishka from the first chapters is already a rebellion, a challenge to violence and lack of freedom. If farm morality forbids him to love his beloved, if the strict “house-builder” of the family wants to decide his fate in his own way, then he answers them in his own way - he sends everyone to hell, slams the door of his native kuren and leaves with Aksinya to Yagodnoye, free and young , who decided to live as his soul dictates.

An even more cruel transpersonal power will throw him into the bloody mess of war, will try to turn him into a gray-overcoated slaughter beast, but here, in a completely hopeless situation, he will show the same ineradicable pride, will begin to boldly play with death, he is free to dispose of his own life as wants!

The revolution seemed like salvation for people like Melekhov, because the words of freedom were inscribed on its banners!.. And, it seems, there was no greater disappointment in Melekhov’s life than the reality of the red camp, where the same lawlessness reigned, and violence against the human person turned the main weapon in the fight for future happiness. Crossing out all ideas about male, knightly honor in war, on Podtelkov’s orders, the defenders of freedom, like cabbage, cut the unarmed prisoners with sabers. And ahead there will also be Commissar Malkin, sophisticatedly mocking the Cossacks in the captured village, and the atrocities of the fighters of the Tiraspol detachment of the 2nd Socialist Army, robbing farmsteads and raping Cossack women. And Grigory Melekhov himself, as soon as he returns to his native Tatarsky to heal his wound and somehow sort out the confusion of his thoughts, yesterday’s comrades will begin to poison him, like a wild animal raised from his bed, they will pursue him, burn him in a stinking dung burial place.

Therefore, when the Cossack rebellion begins, it will seem to Melekhov that everything has finally been decided - both for himself and for his native land: “We must fight with those who want to take away life, the right to it” ... - he rushes into battle with “ red-bellied,” setting his horse on fire, even squealing with impatience; and the future appears to him as a straight path, clearly illuminated by the night month...

Meanwhile, ahead there are only new crashes and the increasingly tightening grip of this very “historical necessity” that learned people love to talk about so much - no matter what Gregory undertakes and no matter what desperate actions he dares to try to break out of the ring! A bitter epiphany awaits him in the rebellion, when he will have to admit: “Life is going wrong, and maybe I’m to blame for this,” and the already completely doomed, overtaken in the port of Novorossiysk: “Let them go, we don’t care at all...”. The hope that was revived that it was possible to somehow “replay life” again, in Budyonny’s cavalry will turn into another dispelled illusion, and again, for the umpteenth time, he will say with such tired humility and heartfelt sincerity in front of his friend from childhood, Mishka Koshev : “I’m tired of everything: both the revolution and the counter-revolution. Let it all go to waste... let it all go to waste! I want to live near my children...”

No matter how it is! What seems to Gregory to be the final completion of his entire martyrdom and search is in fact only a short respite given to him, because it is Koshevoy and his comrades who will drive him further and further - through the Fominsk gang, through new deaths, the death of the most dear creature on earth , dear Aksinya, with whom he intended to make a last attempt to break out of the next circle. Over her grave, Gregory will understand the last thing: that “they will not part for long.”

Now this is a mockery of his truth-seeking behavior! Is it really possible that in Rus' only the bandit camp is the only embodiment of free will? And yet, by the will of a man born free, who had no regard for either the white generals or the Red Terror, he would commit his last daring act, albeit completely reckless: at least for an hour he would return to his native kuren, to the familiar Don steep, which in this In this case, it really gives rise to the idea of ​​the edge of an abyss. Having never grown into a “Cossack-Bolshevik”, not debunked, Grigory Melekhov stood over his cliff, holding a warmly hugging boy in his arms... “That’s all...”.

We can rightfully call Mikhail Sholokhov a chronicler, a researcher of the beginning of the last century. He created a whole gallery of images that, in terms of their expressiveness and artistic value, stood on a par with the most remarkable literary images.

“Quiet Don” is a novel about the fate of the people at a turning point. The path of Gregory's life quest is thorny. At the beginning of the story, young Gregory - a real Cossack, a brilliant horseman, hunter, fisherman, diligent rural worker - is quite happy and carefree. The traditional Cossack commitment to military glory helps him out in his first trials on the bloody battlefields in 1914.

However, what distinguishes him from his brothers in arms is his sensitivity to any manifestation of cruelty, to any violence against the weak and defenseless, and, as events unfold, also a protest against the horrors and absurdities of war. In fact, he spends his entire life in an environment of hatred and fear that is alien to him, becoming embittered and discovering with disgust that he is sowing only death around him. He has no time to be at home, with his family, among people who love him.

All this cruelty, filth, violence forced Gregory to take a fresh look at life: in the hospital where he was after being wounded, doubts appeared, his devotion to the Tsar, the Fatherland and military duty wavered.

In the seventeenth year, he seeks political truth in a world of rapidly changing values, guided more often by the external signs of events than by their essence.

At first he fights for the Reds, but their killing of unarmed prisoners repulses him, and when the Bolsheviks come to the Don, committing robbery and violence, he fights them with cold fury. And again the search for truth does not find an answer. They turn into the greatest drama of a person completely lost in the cycle of events.

The deep forces of Gregory’s soul push him away from both whites and reds: “They are all the same! They are all a yoke on the neck of the Cossacks!”

Both a return to the dominance of officers in the event of a White victory, and the power of the Reds on the Don are unacceptable for Gregory. With bitter mockery, he tells the former messenger that he envies Koshevoy and Listnitsky: “It was clear to them from the very beginning, but to me everything was still unclear. They both have their own straight roads, their own ends, but since I was 17, I’ve been walking through the villages like a drunk, swaying...”

One night, under the threat of arrest, and therefore inevitable execution, Grigory flees his native farm. After long wanderings, longing for his children and Aksinya, he secretly returns. He and Aksinya flee at night in the hope of getting to Kuban and starting a new life. Enthusiastic joy fills the soul of this woman at the thought that she is again next to Gregory. But her happiness is short-lived. On the road, during a pursuit, a stray bullet mortally wounds Aksinya. Gregory buries her: “He carefully crushed the wet yellow clay on the grave mound with his palms and knelt for a long time near the grave, bowing his head, quietly swaying. There was no need for him to rush now. It was all over..."

Hiding for weeks in the thicket of the forest, Grigory experiences an increasingly strong desire to “go... to Russian places, show off like the kids, then he could die...”. He returns to his native farm: “Well, the little that Gregory dreamed about during sleepless nights has come true. He stood at the gates of his home, holding his son in his arms... This was all that was left in his life, what still connected him with the earth and with this whole huge world shining under the cold sun.”

Gregory did not have long to enjoy this joy. It is obvious that he returned to die. In a novel full of cruelty, executions, murders, Sholokhov wisely lowers the curtain on this final episode. Meanwhile, an entire human life flashed before us, flashing brightly and slowly fading away. Sholokhov's life description of Grigory is quite voluminous. Gregory lived in the full sense of the word. He loved and was loved, he lived an ordinary peaceful life on his native farm and was content. He always tried to do the right thing.

Many moments of Gregory's life in the novel are peculiar “escapes” from events that are beyond the control of his mind. The passion of Gregory's quest is most often replaced by a return to himself, to natural life, to his home. But at the same time, it cannot be said that the hero’s life quest has reached a dead end, no. He had true love, and fate did not deprive him of the opportunity to become a happy father.

Speaking about Gregory’s moral choice in life, it is impossible to say unambiguously whether his choice was always the only correct one. But he was almost always guided by his own principles and beliefs, trying to find a better lot in life. This desire of his was sincere and affected the interests not only of him, but also of many people close to him. Despite his fruitless searches, Gregory was happy, although not for long. But even these short minutes of much-needed happiness were enough. They were not lost in vain, just as Grigory Melekhov did not live his life in vain.

Grigory Melekhov most fully reflected the drama of the fate of the Don Cossacks. He suffered such cruel trials that a person, it would seem, is not able to endure. First the First World War, then the revolution and fratricidal civil war, the attempt to destroy the Cossacks, the uprising and its suppression.
In the difficult fate of Grigory Melekhov, Cossack freedom and the fate of the people merged together. The strong character, integrity and rebellion inherited from his father have haunted him since his youth. Having fallen in love with Aksinya, a married woman, he leaves with her, disdaining public morality and his father’s prohibitions. By nature, the hero is a kind, brave and courageous person who stands up for justice. The author shows his hard work in scenes of hunting, fishing, and haymaking. Throughout the entire novel, in harsh battles on one side or the other, he searches for the truth.
The First World War destroys his illusions. Proud of their Cossack army, its glorious victories, in Voronezh the Cossacks hear from a local old man the phrase thrown after them with pity: “My dear... beef!” The elderly man knew that there is nothing worse than war, this is not an adventure in which you can become a hero, it is dirt, blood, stench and horror. Valiant arrogance flies off Gregory when he sees his Cossack friends dying: “The first to fall from his horse was the cornet Lyakhovsky. Prokhor galloped at him... With a cutter, like a diamond on glass, he cut out Gregory’s memory and held for a long time the pink gums of Prokhor’s horse with barbed slabs of teeth, Prokhor, who fell flat, trampled by the hooves of a Cossack galloping behind him... They fell again. The Cossacks and horses fell.”
In parallel, the author shows events in the homeland of the Cossacks, where their families remained. “And no matter how much simple-haired Cossack women run out into the alleys and look from under their palms, we won’t be able to wait for those dear to our hearts! No matter how many tears stream from swollen and faded eyes, it will not wash away the melancholy! No matter how much you cry on the days of anniversaries and commemorations, the eastern wind will not carry their cries to Galicia and East Prussia, to the settled mounds of mass graves!”
The war appears to the writer and his characters as a series of hardships and deaths that change all the foundations. War cripples from the inside and destroys all the most precious things that people have. It forces the heroes to take a fresh look at the problems of duty and justice, to look for the truth and not find it in any of the warring camps. Once among the Reds, Gregory sees the same cruelty, intransigence, and thirst for the blood of his enemies as the Whites. War destroys the smooth life of families, peaceful work, takes away the last, kills love. Grigory and Pyotr Melekhov, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy and other heroes of Sholokhov do not understand why the fratricidal war is being waged. For whose sake and what should they die in the prime of life? After all, life on the farm gives them a lot of joy, beauty, hope, and opportunity. War is only deprivation and death. But they see that the hardships of war fall primarily on the shoulders of the civilian population, ordinary people; it is they, not the commanders, who will starve and die.
There are also characters in the work who think completely differently. The heroes Shtokman and Bunchuk see the country solely as an arena of class battles. For them, people are tin soldiers in someone else’s game, and pity for a person is a crime.
The fate of Grigory Melekhov is a life incinerated by war. The personal relationships of the characters take place against the backdrop of the most tragic history of the country. Gregory cannot forget his first enemy, an Austrian soldier, whom he hacked to death with a saber. The moment of murder changed him beyond recognition. The hero has lost his point of support, his kind, fair soul protests, cannot survive such violence against common sense. The Austrian's skull, cut in two, becomes an obsession for Gregory. But the war goes on, and Melekhov continues to kill. He is not the only one who thinks about the terrible downside of military duty. He hears the words of his own Cossack: “It’s easier to kill someone else who has broken their hand in this matter than to crush a louse. The man has fallen in price for the revolution.” A stray bullet that kills the very soul of Grigory - Aksinya, is perceived as a death sentence for all participants in the massacre. The war is actually being waged against all living people; it is not for nothing that Gregory, having buried Aksinya in a ravine, sees above him a black sky and a dazzling black disk of the sun.
Melekhov rushes between the two warring sides. Everywhere he encounters violence and cruelty, which he cannot accept, and therefore cannot take one side. When his mother reproaches him for participating in the execution of captured sailors, he himself admits that he became cruel in the war: “I don’t feel sorry for the children either.”
Realizing that the war is killing the best people of his time and that the truth cannot be found among thousands of deaths, Grigory throws down his weapon and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise his children. At almost 30 years old, the hero is almost an old man. in his immortal work, he raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The writer sympathizes with his hero, whose life is broken: “Like a steppe scorched by burning fires, Grigory’s life became black...” The image of Grigory Melekhov became a great creative success for Sholokhov.