Analysis of episodes of the play, our people will be numbered. Ideological and artistic analysis of A.N.’s comedy

The plot for this comedy was a case of fraud in the world of merchants. Samson Silych Bolshov borrows a very large sum from his merchant friends to increase his fortune. When the time comes to repay his debts, he does not want to do this.

At that time, bankruptcy was common in Moscow. And he decides to pull off such a scam with the help of his daughter Lipochka, declaring himself bankrupt - a failed debtor. He transferred everything he had to his clerk Lazar. And so that he would not betray him, he gave his only daughter in marriage to him.

Soon he was sent to debtor's prison. Lazarus and his daughter had to pay bail for his release. Bolshov was firmly convinced that soon his only family would free him. But it was not there. The newlyweds decide that it is pointless to spend money on their father’s release and spend all their property at their own discretion. This is where his daughter's duplicity comes into play.

At the beginning of the novel, she seems like a good-natured and sweet girl, but it is soon clear that she is worthy of her greedy father, who could not even imagine that they would do this to him. The girl reproaches her father for the fact that all her life she obeyed him, and did not even see the world with an electric shock. Now, having the means, she wants to live for herself. And the fact that her own father will be in prison does not bother her. Such concepts as “honor and family kinship” are an empty phrase for Lipochka. She grew up seeing only lies. After all, her father’s main law was: “If you don’t deceive, you won’t sell.” Therefore, the girl grew up to be a rude, selfish person who wanted to live, as the author says, “in an educated way.” The girl only thought about how to successfully marry a rich gentleman and live without seeing grief.

As for Podkhalyuzin, nothing is sacred to him and it’s easy for him to destroy family ties. Previously, all he did was obey and assent, but now he has his own fortune. All his life he was just waiting for this moment when he could finally take the place of the owner. He doesn’t relate to anyone at all, so Lazarus, without the slightest hesitation, leaves him in the hole, without even trying to help him.

As the proverb says, “What goes around comes around.” The daughter only took over the legacy of her father, who lived by deception. Children, looking at their parents, follow the same laws. And they are absolutely indifferent to everything, even to the parents who brought them into this world.

The main plot is in the tyranny of the heroes. Bolshov recognizes moral laws, but not for himself. All these norms apply only in one direction. In everything he seeks only profit. He is also undoubtedly sure that all his relatives unconditionally obey him. He divides the world into strangers, who need to be deceived, and into his own, obedient and serving him. Because of this erroneous prejudice, Bolshov finds himself deceived. He is let down by stupid confidence in his own authority.

Reading this play, you understand that you should never try to gain benefits for yourself through deception. Having children, you should set a good example for them, and not teach them a bad one. Otherwise, when they grow up and a parent calls them, they won’t even look back.

Essay-analysis

The comedy is based on a fairly common situation - merchant fraud. Samson Silych Bolshov simply borrowed a huge amount of money in order to increase his wealth. The time has come to return the money, however, he is not going to do it.

At this time, bankruptcy was common in Moscow. He wanted to pull off a scam where the main role would go to Lipochka’s daughter. He declares himself bankrupt and debtor. He transferred everything that Samson had to the clerk Lazarus. To prevent the clerk from betraying Bolshov, he marries his daughter to him.

Samson is sent to prison. Lazarus and his daughter had to pay for their father's freedom. The man was confident that his family would save him. However, the young people decided not to spend money on their father, but to spend it on themselves. This episode revealed the duplicity of Samson's daughter.

At the beginning of the story, the girl looks very nice. However, it is becoming clear that the apple did not fall far from the tree. The girl blames her father for keeping her in a cage. Like, she hasn’t even seen the world in her entire life. She now wants to live for her own pleasure and the girl does not care that her own father is in prison. She grew up in a family where lying was commonplace. Therefore, Lipochka grew up selfish and narcissistic.

Podkhalozin could easily destroy family ties. Previously, he was subordinate to someone, but now he has his own fortune. All his life the tree stump had been waiting to take Samson's place. Therefore, it is not surprising that Lazar did not want to help his former boss.

The daughter grasped her father's condition and was happy. This is not strange or even wild, because children, looking at their parents, become the same. They become indifferent to everything.

The main plot lies in the selfishness and tyranny of the heroes. Many of them understand what morality is, but do not want to live by it. Unfortunately, everyone is looking for benefits only for themselves. The society of that time was mired in lies, greed, cynicism, indifference to everything, even to its neighbors. Of course, this is categorically wrong, however, there were other values ​​then.

Ostrovsky's play “My People” is very useful and instructive. Reading it, you mentally take away something useful for yourself. In this case, it is that you should never cheat to make money. Especially when there are children. After all, they need to be taught the best so that they do not repeat the mistakes of their parents. After all, then the parents themselves will suffer from the fact that they did not pay attention.

Autumn is known to everyone as a very rainy time. Not everyone likes to come home after a short walk with their clothes soaking wet.

Analysis of the comedy by A.N. Ostrovsky's "Our people - we will be numbered!"

The plot of the play is based on a case of fraud common in the last century among merchants. The wealthy merchant Samson Silych Bolshov borrowed a large sum of money from other merchants and, not wanting to pay it back, declared bankruptcy. And he transferred all his property to the name of the clerk Lazar Elizarych Podkhalyuzin, to whom, for his peace of mind, he gave his daughter Lipochka, Olympiada Samsonovna, in marriage. The debtor Bolshov is sent to prison (debt hole), but Samson Silych is sure that his daughter and son-in-law will help him get out of there.

Bolshov is a swindler, a deceiver. He deceives others, and he himself does not notice that he is also deceived. This play is full of deception. Merchants here cannot live a day without being deceived. Deception is what became the main theme of Ostrovsky's play. Bolshov, when deceiving, does not feel any remorse, because everyone does this. Bolshov is ready to deceive everyone, but shows trust in Podkhalyuzin. The main thing for Bolshov is that no one contradicts him. Podkhalyuzin takes advantage of this weakness of the owner, and therefore gains trust in him.

Lipochka also looks for benefits in everything. She marries Podkhalyuzin only because he has money.

In developing the theme, I think the main characters are Bolshov and Podkhalyuzin. They live by deception. Bolshov does not expect to screw up. He no longer sees anything around him except fraud. Podkhalyuzin skillfully uses this. This is the essence of comedy. People deceive others and themselves without noticing it.

Comedy demonstrates the writer’s skill in depicting the character of the hero in the way he speaks, in a special tone of speech. Ostrovsky incorporates every line into the live flow of dialogue. Mastery of language greatly contributed to the success of Ostrovsky's first comedy.

Ostrovsky takes life situations that are relevant at all times. He writes in ordinary language and describes everything simply, making him easy to read.

Few writers describe life situations so skillfully, making you think about them. Thanks to Ostrovsky's talent, we love his plays so much because they open our lives to us. And we try to avoid the mistakes that certain characters made in plays.

“Our people – we will be numbered”

Review questions.

1. Tell us about the history of the creation of the comedy “Our People – We Will Be Numbered.”

2. Explain the meaning of the title of the comedy “Our People – We Will Be Numbered.”

3. Find a scene in the comedy text that contains words that support its title.

3. Give a description of Bolshov.

4. Explain Bolshov’s cruelty.

5. How did Samson Silych’s plan to declare himself bankrupt mature?

6. What circumstances contributed to Bolshov deciding to commit a crime?

7. Samson Silych is a typical tyrant, prove it.

8. What did Samson Silych do in his youth?

9. How he treated his loved ones, give examples from the comedy text

10. What did Lazar Elizarych Podkhalyuzin learn from Bolshov?

11. Tell us about the hero of the comedy Tishka, he suffers from the despotism of the people around him, but for some reason he is not very sorry, explain why?

12. The main word in this comedy is MONEY

What does money give people?

14. What, according to A. Ostrovsky, does money destroy in people?

15. How does the play “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People” end?

16. Why did the closest people refuse to help Bolshov, who found himself in a debt hole?

17. Imagine Samson Bolshov’s living room, describe its interior.

18. How does their speech characterize the main characters of the play “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered”?

19. Why the comedy “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered” was staged on stage only after the death of Tsar Nicholas -I?

“We’ll be our own people” - comedy by A.N. Ostrovsky. Ostrovsky took about four years to create his first major work. An excerpt from the future comedy “The Insolvent Debtor,” processed together with provincial actor D.A. Gorev-Tarasenkov, was published on January 9, 1847 in the “Moscow City List” - signed “A.O. and D.G.” The playwright's semi-accidental co-author did not take part in further work on the play; Ostrovsky continued to work on it alone and according to a new plan. By the middle of 1849, the comedy was finished and called “Bankrupt, or Our People - Let’s Be Numbered!” sent for censorship. Censors banned the comedy for the stage under the pretext that all the characters were “notorious scoundrels” and their “conversations are dirty.”

The censorship ban did not prevent the author from organizing readings of the play in various literary circles and salons (often together with the playwright’s close friend and like-minded person, artist of the Maly Theater P. M. Sadovsky). At one of these readings (December 3, 1849, in the house of M.P. Pogodin) N.V. was present. Gogol, who responded favorably to the play. In 1850, Ostrovsky created a second edition of the play that met censorship requirements: the harsh parts were removed or softened, and a policeman was introduced into the final scene, taking Podkhalyuzin “to the investigative bailiff in the case of concealing the property of the insolvent merchant Bolshov.” First publication: magazine “Moskvityanin”, 1850, No. 6, March. In this edition, the play was published in the first collected works of Ostrovsky and was allowed to be presented.

Ostrovsky's comedy “Our People - Let's Be Numbered” aroused unanimous approval of Russian society; the author was seen as a successor to the traditions of national comedy. V.F. Odoevsky expressed the general opinion, writing: “I consider there to be three tragedies in Rus': “The Minor,” “Woe from Wit,” and “The Inspector General.” On “Bankrut” I put number four.” Classifying the best original Russian comedies as “tragedies” cannot be considered an accidental slip of the tongue. We were talking about a deeply national form of the comic, which does not recognize the elements of “pure comedy” and gravitates towards a complex fusion of the comic with dramatic, touching or pathetic coverage of events. I.A. Goncharov pointed to Ostrovsky's knowledge of "the heart of the Russian man and his skillful introduction of the dramatic element into comedy." L.N. Tolstoy wrote about the “gloomy depth” that can be heard in “Bankrupt” and “Profitable Place”. A.A. Grigoriev emphasized that at the bottom of Ostrovsky’s comedies lies the “bitter and tragic” content of Russian life. In line with this tradition, criticism viewed the main character of the comedy as “King Lear of Zamoskvoretsk.”

Ostrovsky resolved the Shakespearean theme of a father who gave everything to his children and was driven away by them without the slightest compassion within the limits of a national, specific historical, characteristic type. The playwright translated the search for the European spirit into the plane of the spiritual life of the hero of Russian modernity. He revealed the image of the merchant Bolshov as a person in whom the voice of a living soul sounded through the crust of his social “role”.

The source of the drama of the comedy “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People” was Bolshov’s original, self-sufficient, autocratic “self”, manifested in tyranny that knows no boundaries, no limits, no measures. The “grain” of Bolshov’s personality is in the words of the clerk Podkhalyuzin: “If something gets into their heads, nothing can knock out Ottedov.” Pictures of family life reveal the consequences of his tyrant influence on the characters and behavior of the household members. In the reluctance to pay creditors there is the same breadth of the hero’s nature: “Yes, I’d rather burn everything with fire, and I won’t give them a penny.”

Having conceived a false bankruptcy, Bolshov was exhausted in search of an excuse for his fraud: “Let’s assume that we are not Germans, but Orthodox Christians, and we also eat pies with filling. Is that so, huh?” The appearance of the solicitor Rispozhensky, ready to tar any mechanic for a pittance, the reading of Vedomosti with reports of proliferating bankrupts, the gentle nudge of Podkhalyuzin - this is how the motive of temptation, the “devilish instigation” that darkened Bolshov’s conscience, develops in the play. Having found “his” person in the clerk Podkhalyuzin, Bolshov decides to deceive: “There after judge, Vladyko, at the second coming.”

Podkhalyuzin easily won Bolshov’s trust because in the conversation he used categories that Bolshov understood (“soul,” “conscience,” “feeling,” “heart”) and was able to assure that he had all this in abundance. It is curious that Podkhalyuzin, who decided to “take advantage of something extra” in the case of false bankruptcy, also had to persuade himself. And only by convincing himself that there was “no sin” in this, he was able to get everything he wanted: the house, the shops, and the owner’s daughter Lipochka.

The “compliance” of the characters with their own conscience is a consequence of the “science of trade” learned from childhood. In family life, in matters of matchmaking, in the love aspirations of Lipochka and Podkhalyuzin, there is the same ingrained imprint of the trading business, giving a comic highlight to the action of the play. The ritual parental blessing of the young, distorted by the “economic lining”, turns into a farce. The seriousness of the parental curse (in the last act) comes to naught in the ridiculous family quarrel: the dramatic tension is discharged into “nothing”. And only for Bolshov, deceived by Podkhalyuzin, who went through the “strife” and humiliation of a debt trap, shocked by his daughter’s insensitivity, the time for “bargaining” ended. The awakening of personality in the image is associated with the awakening of conscience - the consciousness and sense of sin. The straightening of the human personality, distorted by mercenary practices, lies in the realization that “Judas, after all, he also sold Christ for money, just as we sell our conscience for money...”.

Least of all at this moment the merchant Bolshov resembles the angry Lear, challenging the world order. Unlike his Shakespearean “prototype,” Bolshov does not rise to the level of awareness of the laws of existence, but resigns himself to his fate. Even Podkhalyuzin was “struck” by the humility of the indomitable Bolshov: “It’s a pity for my darling, by God, it’s a pity, sir!” Putting on “an old frock coat, which is worse,” he goes to “bargain with creditors.” The life of the merchant class appears in the comedy as a “market place” that distorts the natural humanity of the heroes. Ostrovsky later wrote that the outlook on life in this comedy seemed “young and too cruel” to him. This “rigidity” of view does not condemn a person, but there is strict justice of his moral assessment.

Coloring his characters with a motley pattern of “character” and “characteristics” (belonging to class, time, occupation), the playwright shows a merchant and a clerk, an errand boy and a drunken clerk, a merchant’s daughter of marriageable age and a busy mother, a matchmaker from Zamoskvoretsk and an absurd housekeeper - in their typicality. But at the same time, behind the rough shell of sociality, he reveals and makes visible the individual mental life of his characters. The found pattern and tone of the “colored” Old Moscow speech, the completeness and richness of the speech characteristics of the characters recommend Ostrovsky as a “playwright of the word”, recreating the voluminous and colorful Zamoskvoretsky life. The “proverbial” name and “speaking” surnames will be included in Ostrovsky’s arsenal of favorite techniques. Ostrovsky’s constant technique will be to show a certain artistic type in the perspective of growth, in the dynamics of its formation: the boy Tishka - the clerk Podkhalyuzin - the merchant Bolshov (cf.: Borodkin - Rusakov in “Don’t Sit in Your Own Sleigh”, Belogubov - Yusov in “Profitable Place” , Vozhevatov - Knurov in “Dowry”, etc.). The method of resolving the conflict will forever remain the triumph of artistic truth over “bare everyday reality.” In Ostrovsky’s first comedy “Our People - Let’s Be Numbered”, many themes, ideas and images were stated that were developed in his further work: “tyranny” and “the law of house-building”, “trading” and “trading psychology”, “one’s own” and “someone else’s”, “law of conscience”, “soul” and “character” in a person.

Due to the censorship ban on the stage performance of “Our People...”, the first productions of the comedy were carried out by amateur forces. The author participated in some of them, playing the role of Podkhalyuzin (in a home performance in the house of S.A. Panova, in the theater at the Red Gate). The first public performance took place in Irkutsk in November 1857, but, having been banned, it was removed from the stage. The premiere took place at the Alexandrinsky Theater (St. Petersburg) on ​​January 16, 1861, at the Maly Theater (Moscow) on January 31, 1861 (the play was in its second edition). In the performance of the Maly Theater P.M. Sadovsky created the image of Podkhalyuzin, which has become classic. Without censorship distortions, the play was first performed on April 30, 1881 at the A.A. Theater. Brenko “Near the Pushkin Monument” (Moscow). The most significant production in the stage history of comedy was the play by A.A. Goncharov at the Mayakovsky Theater (1974, Moscow).

CHAPTER 2 Beginning. "THE OWN PEOPLE - LET'S BE COUNTED!"

Ostrovsky entered literature immediately as an established writer: the comedy “Our People - Let’s Be Numbered!”, originally called “Bankrupt” and published in 1850 in the magazine “Moskvityanin”, brought him all-Russian fame.

The greed and downright delight with which the Russian reading society greeted the comedy of a novice author makes us think about the reasons for such an unusual reaction. Apparently, the appearance of comedy responded to some urgent need for literary development. "Finally!" - this is, perhaps, the word that was heard either explicitly or implicitly in all the reviews. Democratic criticism will soon resolutely classify Ostrovsky as a writer of the Gogolian movement. But the comedy was received just as enthusiastically by the writers of Pushkin’s circle. E.P.’s laudatory reviews are known. Rostopchina, V.F. Odoevsky. Who published the comedy M.P. Pogodin writes in his diary: “In the city - fureur from Bankrut.” Avdotya Panaeva recalls: “There was a lot of talk in the circle about the appearance of Ostrovsky’s comedy. Nekrasov became extremely interested in the author and tried to get acquainted with Ostrovsky and invite him to join the staff of Sovremennik.” According to Sadovsky, General Ermolov exclaimed: “It was not written, it was born itself!” The poet Rostopchina admired: “What a delight “Bankrupt” is! This is our Russian Tartuffe, and he is not inferior to his older brother in the dignity of truth, strength and energy. Hooray! We are creating our own theatrical literature!”

A.F. Pisemsky informs Ostrovsky: “The impression made by your bankrupt on me is so strong that I immediately decided to write to you and impartially express everything that I felt and thought while reading your comedy... placing my hand on my heart, I say: “your “Bankrupt” is the merchant’s “Woe from Wit” or, more precisely, the merchant’s “Dead Souls”.”

V. Odoevsky asks in a letter: “Have you read the comedy or, better yet, the tragedy of Ostrovsky “Our people - we will be numbered!” and whose real name is “Bankrut”? It’s time to bring the most spiritually corrupted class of people out into the open. If this is not a momentary flash, not a mushroom squeezing itself out of the ground, riddled with all sorts of rot, then this person is a huge talent. I think there are three tragedies in Rus': “The Minor”, ​​“Woe from Wit”, “The Inspector General”. On “Bankrut” I put number four.”

A.V. Druzhinin testified: “The success of “Our People” was enormous, unprecedented. The most timid and cold of connoisseurs openly admitted that the young Moscow writer from the first step overtook all the working Russian writers at that time, with the exception of Gogol. But the exception itself did not prove anything. Between Gogol’s “The Inspector General” and the new comedy there was not that impenetrable abyss that, for example, separated “Dead Souls” from the best of the literary works written in Rus' after Gogol’s poem. None of the Russian writers, the most famous, began their career the way Ostrovsky began it.”

It seems that this unanimity with which the Russian intelligent public accepted Ostrovsky’s very sharp, one of the most “accusatory” comedies, is explained precisely by its theatrical merits. For the Russian reading public, Ostrovsky began as “Bankrupt.” He was surprised by the absence of an apprenticeship period. In reality, of course, everything was much more complicated. The first of Ostrovsky’s works that have come down to us are humorous essays in the spirit of the natural school “The Tale of How the Quarterly Warden Started to Dance, or One Step from the Great to the Ridiculous”, “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” and, finally, the first play “Family Picture” , which, in essence, was almost the same physiological sketch with descriptions removed from it.

In 1847, the first play was successfully read at an evening with Shevyrev, and then published. Ostrovsky considered the day of its public reading to be the beginning of his literary career and recalled it with excitement: “The most memorable day of my life for me was February 14, 1847. From that day on, I began to consider myself a Russian writer and, without doubt or hesitation, believed in my calling.”

Both the early prose and the first comedy, the modest success of which in the circle of professors in Moscow was so dear to Ostrovsky - all this turned out to be a kind of sketches for the comedy “Our own people - we will be numbered!” It is with her that what we now call “Ostrovsky’s theater” begins. Of course, “Our people - we will be numbered!” widely uses the achievements of poetics and the very principles of depicting life developed by the natural school, developing them further. Ostrovsky's comedy provides a thorough analysis of one of the aspects of social life; it paints a detailed picture of economic, social, family relations, and also shows the morality of the depicted environment. The object of such scrupulous analysis is a social environment that has not yet been sufficiently mastered by our art: the merchant one. Material relations underlie the conflict depicted. They also determine all the features of life, morality, and behavior of the heroes described by Ostrovsky. However, the depiction of life in this comedy is more complex, and, as will always be the case with Ostrovsky, in the very intrigue of the play, all everyday material problems are brought into the realm of moral ones.

At the center of the “material”, monetary intrigue are Bolshov and Podkhalyuzin, as well as their tool, the drunkard lawyer Rispozhensky.

The list of characters says briefly about Samson Silych Bolshov: “merchant”; all other characters associated with Bolshov’s house are characterized in relation to him (wife, daughter, clerk, boy). Thus, the poster already determines the principle of constructing a system of characters: Bolshov is characterized first of all socially and professionally, then his place in the family world is indirectly determined. His full name is no less significant: Bolshov is the head and owner (“himself”, “big” - this is how in popular speech they meant the head and owner of the house), the biblical name Samson, not being significant in this text in a classicist way, is literally (which is not common in Ostrovsky at all), reinforced by the patronymic, still additionally emphasizes a certain largeness: Samson Silych is the strongman Samson - and, as it were, predicts defeat from the treachery of loved ones. Bolshov's position in the system of characters, as originally stated, does not remain unchanged, however. He represents the world of patriarchal Zamoskvorechye in its simplest, crudest form, not the ideals of the patriarchal merchants, but its everyday everyday practice.

Bolshov is naive, but brutally straightforward in understanding the commandments of his circle: my daughter means, “I want to eat with porridge, I want to churn butter”; there is no “document” - which means you don’t have to fulfill what you promised. Those swindlers who harmed him, Bolshov, are dishonest, but the same trick is done in relation to others - business dexterity, etc.

L.M. Lotman rightly notes that in “My People...” the biographical essay, which is widespread in the natural school, is used in dramatic form. “The hero of such essays is a typical representative of some class. Through his fate and life, aspirations and needs, ethical and aesthetic ideas, the environment to which he belongs, the material basis of its existence, its way of life, its views were characterized.” We see in the play how merchant capital is amassed, and this process is shown to us as if in different stages. Tishka picks up forgotten rubles, saves tips from carrying out various semi-secret assignments, and wins her pennies in a small coin. And that this is already the beginning of a merchant capitalist - we know from remarks about the past of Bolshov, who sold from a stall, the same Tishka in childhood.

The next stage is Podkhalyuzin, who steals from the owner, and then receives the hand of the owner’s daughter as a deposit for help in a risky scam. This is, so to speak, a normal, “honest” way of getting rich. But now it’s a scam -

Bolshov's planned malicious bankruptcy and Podkhalyuzin's fraud towards his master and father-in-law. Bolshov, having decided to commit fraud, provokes Podkhalyuzin’s treacherous scam and himself becomes its victim. But there is nothing unusual in Bolshov’s action, which Ostrovsky convinces us of by forcing Bolshov to read bankruptcy announcements in the newspaper and comment on them accordingly. These are three stages, three steps of a merchant biography.

Before the start of the action, Bolshov had already gone through the usual path of enrichment, which by no means corresponds to moral commandments, but also did not go beyond the scope of ordinary everyday uncleanliness. The fraud he conceived - malicious bankruptcy - is already a sign of modern “commerce,” as evidenced by the scene of reading a newspaper. The transfer of property to the clerk, who is also a newly-made son-in-law, radically changes Bolshov’s position in the system of characters: from now on, from the owner of the position, he becomes a person dependent on the children. The nature of the action also changes, and it is precisely this new situation that corresponds to the changed and now final title of the play. The original title “Bankrupt” referred only to Bolshov and seemed to suggest the stability of the situation and the monocentrism of the play, which determined Bolshov’s role in the intrigue. The new one (albeit given for censorship reasons) successfully outlined the main twists of the intrigue: everyone is drawn into the fraudulent trick - Podkhalyuzin, the matchmaker, Rispozhensky and even Tishka. The current situation changes in the process of development of the action not only Bolshov’s physical position in the plot, but also the viewer’s attitude towards the old man, who became a victim of the treachery of his daughter and son-in-law, causing him, if not sympathy, then pity. Contemporary critic N.P. Nekrasov called Bolshov “the merchant Lear,” which Dobrolyubov unsuccessfully tried to challenge: the comparison was entrenched in criticism and cultural memory.

Unlike the patriarchal Bolshov, Podkhalyuzin already represents new times and feels like a fish in water in them. The name of this hero is an example of Ostrovsky’s complex game of semantic and sound associativity. Everyday associations here are more important than biblical ones: “singing Lazarus” means becoming poor, pretending to be unhappy. This, of course, corresponds to Podkhalyuzin’s manner of dealing with the owner (see the scene of his matchmaking with Lipochka, when he carefully suggests to Bolshov that he himself should propose to the “faithful” clerk to marry the owner’s daughter, and then pretends that he has nothing to do with the “cloth snout” and dream of such happiness). The surname is even more complexly constructed. The Kursk dialect word halyuznoy means “neat” (Dal). The meaning is subdued, muffled by the prefix “under-”, although still with some appearance of “neatness” of his actions, unlike Lipochka, Lazar is preoccupied and looks for excuses for himself, planning to betray his owner: “Everyone has a conscience against a good person; and if he himself deceives others, then what kind of conscience is there!” And in the last action, it is he who wants to maintain some decency in front of people, still planning to go to bargain - albeit obviously in vain, throwing in a penny instead of five kopecks - with creditors, and in front of himself, saying “embarrassing, sir,” “sorry little sis.” , while Lipochka, apparently, does not care at all about the thought of her father’s suffering in a debt hole. But most directly the surname Podkhalyuzin, of course, is associated in sound with the word “sycophant.”

The phonics of the full name - Lazar Elizarych Podkhalyuzin - evokes associations with the expressions “underwater snake”, “creeping reptile”, “warm the snake on your chest”, which is then confirmed directly by the development of the action.

In the system of characters and the very development of the action of the play, Podkhalyuzin’s place does not remain unchanged: if Bolshov gives the initial impetus to the intrigue, then the initiative passes to Lazar, who develops a plan both parallel to Bolshov’s and at the same time directed against him in his own favor. The “corruption of morals”, which the behavior of the “children” is intended to indicate in the play, is also expressed in the fact that if Bolshov, conceiving a false bankruptcy, relies in everything on the inviolability of his patriarchal home and the loyalty of his children and household members, then Podkhalyuzin bribes everyone: the matchmaker, the solicitor and even the boy Tishka.

However, in general, for Ostrovsky in this play it is very important that corruption is not introduced from the outside, it is provoked by the violation of moral laws by the head of the patriarchal house himself, the “father,” and the sins of children are a sad consequence, the result of the actions of elders.

A significant role in the monetary intrigue is played by Sysoy Psoich Rispozhensky, a solicitor who draws up Bolshov’s false bankruptcy and at the same time helps Podkhalyuzin deceive the owner, a type of dishonest attorney and litigator whose services Ostrovsky’s merchants use both to formalize all kinds of illegal transactions and to fulfill their whims . The hero’s characteristic seminary surname speaks of his origin from a clergy position, but it is distorted: it is written not according to its meaning, but according to its pronunciation; direct communication has been lost. At the same time, the surname hints at the well-known idiom - to get drunk “to the point of a vestment” - which the character fully justifies: his irresistible craving for a bottle is played out many times in the play, and the constantly repeated phrase: “I, Samson Silych, will drink vodka!” - the leitmotif of his speeches. The bizarre patronymic, which in merchant houses is readily changed to “Psovich,” emphasizes the motive of servanthood and insignificance.

Dependence on the favor of rude merchant clients who love to show off their power has developed a characteristic type of behavior - at the same time humbly respectful and somewhat buffoonish. Constant reminders of the needs of a struggling family and hungry children have acquired the character of almost ritual phrases that no one accepts as truth, but it is precisely the ritualism of which that seems to formalize the constant readiness to sell out to the highest bidder.

This pitiful creature, the perpetrator of Bolshov’s scam, in the intrigue of the play turns out to be Bolshov’s comic double: in the end, both become “deceived deceivers” and both are victims of Podkhalyuzin.

Material relationships, monetary intrigue and all the twists of fate determined by it and all the actions of the characters are the main thing in comedy.

Each of the heroes is shown “at work.” But there is another sphere, and Ostrovsky also needs it in order to present a complete and reliable report about the country he discovered, Zamoskvorechye: this is all that “superstructure” that exists above this material soil and brings events into the sphere of moral problems. The same money intrigue told us a lot about love and family relationships. What is the culture of the merchants, their “civilization”? And the trends of the times penetrate here, and here they started talking about education, upbringing, beauty.

If Bolshov and Podkhalyuzin are the main figures characterizing the “business” world of Zamoskvorechye, then Lipochka and Podkhalyuzin are the most important characters for the “love” and “cultural” issues of the play. It is no coincidence that the action opens with Lipochka’s long monologue about the charms of dancing, about the virtues of noble military gentlemen, accompanied by the remark “waltzing badly.” This is immediately followed by a scene with the mother, during which the loving mother grumbles and gasps, and the daughter angrily scolds, reproaching the mother for her “lack of education” and demanding that she immediately marry her to a military man. The appearing matchmaker strives not to deceive the customers’ expectations, formulating the Zamoskvoretsky young lady’s idea of ​​an ideal groom in this way: “There are peasants, and an orgen around his neck, and he’s so smart, it’s just a golden statue for you!”

All the conversations in the first act are the usual “romantic” dreams of a merchant young lady of marriageable age, but Lipochka, in her own way, sincerely begins to love the “nasty” groom Podkhalyuzin, who has just been rejected by her with abuse and shame, when it turns out that he has a real opportunity to give her what she considers happiness: “And if for me<...>If you go out, sir, so the first word is: you will wear silk dresses at home, sir.<...>in discussing hats or coats, let’s not look at different noble decorums, but let’s put on which one is more wonderful! We will get Oryol horses<...>We’ll also put on a tailcoat and shave our beard...”

The life of the Zamoskvoretsky merchant house in its own way reflects all-Russian processes and changes: here, too, there is antagonism between the elders and the younger, but the conflict of “fathers and sons” is not developed in the sphere of the struggle for equality or freedom of personal feelings, it is expressed in the desire to “live according to one’s will” . And this realized dream of Lipochka, shown in the fourth act, is already a completely “willful” life, not constrained by any moral prohibitions or at least external rules; Lipochka's extreme callousness, her stinginess, her impudent confidence in her right to neglect everything for the sake of her convenience and peace of mind - in a word, the indescribable coarseness of feelings is such that even in Podkhalyuzin something human is visible in comparison with her, at least outwardly more decent.

And with all the brightness and artistic persuasiveness of Lipochka’s image, one cannot help but notice that such unconditional mercilessness towards his characters is, generally speaking, not characteristic of Ostrovsky. And in this regard, the only person who can be compared with Lipochka is Gurmyzhskaya from “The Forest.”

Compared to Lipochka, whose place in the moral issues of the play is undoubtedly central, Podkhalyuzin is somewhat relegated to the background. But at the same time, he is very interesting and important for his role in the love affair. Gogol, characterizing the contemporary state of society, noticed that now the desire to get a profitable place is more powerful than a love affair, and thus, as it were, contrasted material mercantile interest and the sphere of human feelings.

In Ostrovsky's play this opposition is removed: there is love here, but it is inseparable from material interests. Podkhalyuzin does not pretend at all that he loves Lipochka. He really loves her - in any case, as a means to achieve wealth and at the same time as a symbol of his success in life, an ideal sign for his reliable (as he hopes) merchant business. In the fourth act, the viewer sees a happy married couple, where the husband’s business acumen is combined with his sincere admiration for the “culture” of his wife (the personification of which is Lipochka’s “French language,” which causes Podkhalyuzin’s delight). The friendly union that arises on the ruins of the patriarchal Bolshov house is cemented by the final remark: “And here we are opening a shop: you are welcome! If you send a small child, we won’t treat you like an onion.”

For all its undeniable closeness to the natural school, Ostrovsky's first big play had an undoubted artistic novelty. A very high degree of generalization has been achieved here. The playwright created types that reflected the appearance of an entire phenomenon of Russian life, which entered the cultural memory of the nation as “Ostrovsky types.”

In the comedy "Our People - We'll Be Numbered!" There is a very clearly defined conflict and intrigue. But in the play there are characters who have an indirect relation to it and even who do not have it at all. However, it is impossible to call them episodic - they are written out so richly, in detail, they participate so vividly in what is happening. This is, first of all, of course, the matchmaker and Tishka.

In essence, the entire first act of the play is not connected with intrigue, but it is necessary, because it is here, more than anywhere else, that the everyday life of the environment is depicted - in conversations about suitors, about rags, in brilliant, completely illogical and at the same time creative the speeches of the matchmaker, who “as the word molds, so it lives,” in the nanny’s grumbling, in the squabbles of mother and daughter.

All such parts of the play do not advance the overall intrigue. But they have their own micro-action, in their own way they are very tightly connected with each other and therefore are scenic and interesting. This action can be called a speech movement. The language, the way of thinking that is expressed in these speeches, is in itself so important to Ostrovsky that it forces the viewer to follow with interest all the turns and unexpected moves of this chatter. And here, from a different point of view, the tongue-tied merchants' women, not to mention the matchmakers, turn out to be alive, and quick-witted, and unexpected. Just look at Lipochka’s remark: “Do you want to send me to the next world prematurely, to plague me with your whims? (cries). Well, perhaps I’m already coughing like a fly!” And it’s not without reason that the mother’s wonderful lamentations after Lipochka is betrothed are always cited as an example of the organic interweaving of folklore elements into the artistic fabric of a literary work.

The play contains a number of purely narrative motifs necessary to fully characterize the environment. And Ostrovsky also skillfully ties them together, preventing them from falling apart. Using modern concepts, we can say that he uses elements of montage. For example, the first act ends with the words of Podkhalyuzin: “How, having worked for you since childhood and seeing all your good deeds, one might say, I was taken as a boy, sir, to sweep shops, therefore, I should feel.” The second act opens with the remark: “T and shka (with a brush on the proscenium): Eh, life, life! This is how the light sweeps the floors here!”, and then there is his monologue about life as a boy, the scene with the mirror, and the conversation with Podkhalyuzin.

The very concept of action in Ostrovsky’s world changes: it turns out to be broader than the immediate development of the plot, including what is needed to characterize not only the characters, but also the environment and the flow of life in general. As you know, Gogol believed that the plot should simultaneously cover all the characters in the play, introducing them into action. That is why he noted Ostrovsky’s inexperience, pointing out that the exposition of “Bankrupt” was too extensive. Between the action as intrigue and the action as a depiction of the “slice of life” of the heroes in Ostrovsky’s plays, for the most part, there really is a certain gap, which is why they are often populated by people who are not directly related to the intrigue.

Reading “Our people - we will be numbered!” Today, already knowing everything that followed, we may not always be able to imagine the innovation of this play by Ostrovsky, more easily guessing what connected it with previous literature, with the Gogol direction. The most sensitive contemporaries felt the novelty, because the play already fully outlined the holistic literary and theatrical system of the great playwright, which he later only expanded and supplemented. Odoevsky, in the already cited review of “Bankrupt,” recalls three classic comedies. He calls them tragedies because each of them revealed a side of Russian life that was truly tragic for national history: the arbitrariness and ignorance of the owners of the serf-dominated estate, the deep loneliness of the truth-loving hero, the defenselessness of the population before the tribe of covetous officials who really embodied the state bureaucratic system. And in this series Odoevsky boldly places a comedy by an as yet unknown author. As rewarding material for creating comic sketches, merchants appeared in Russian literature even before Ostrovsky. But Odoevsky quite correctly felt the scale of generalization in the comedy of the young playwright, the same as in the plays of his great predecessors - all-Russian, historical.

“It is known that the emerging realism inevitably had to learn to find, on the one hand, the ideal, the beautiful, first of all, in the ordinary, everyday (the main idea of ​​Belinsky’s “Pushkin cycle”); on the other hand, the negative, “vicious” can also be captured in its ordinary everyday expression,” writes a researcher of realism of the 40s. This focus on the ordinary, everyday, perceived as a sign of modern, serious, “life” literature, as opposed to the conventionality and “literariness” of romantic art, becomes the banner of the era.

It would seem that Ostrovsky, who entered the great literature as the discoverer of the “country of Zamoskvorechye” with its life, which was already exotic in many ways for readers and viewers of that time, did not fit too well into the formula “the realistic is the ordinary.” This seems all the more obvious since the bright everyday pictures in his early plays are far from ethnographic sketches (which would be exactly in the spirit of the natural school), they are artistically active, ideological and functional. But the paradox here is purely external: the deep meaning of Ostrovsky’s discoveries coincides with the analytical pathos of realistic literature.

The world of the “pre-Petrine” Russian man, which existed next to the modernity of the 19th century, just before Ostrovsky remained strange and exotic in literature, the subject of amazed and mocking examination. For the playwright's predecessors in developing the merchant theme, it was a world of curiosities and absurdities, funny tongue-tiedness, outlandish clothes and strange customs, inexplicable fears and surprising manifestations of fun. The “rationalistic” view of the Zamoskvoretsky order was familiar and understandable to Ostrovsky. He is beautifully depicted in Dosuzhev’s monologue (“Hard Days”): “You see, I am now studying the customs of one very wild tribe and, as far as possible, trying to be useful to them... And I live in the part where the days are divided into light and hard ; where people are firmly convinced that the earth stands on three fish and that, according to the latest news, it seems that one is beginning to move: that means things are bad; where people get sick from the evil eye and are cured by sympathy; where there are astronomers who watch comets and look at two people on the moon; where it has its own policy and also receives dispatches, but more and more from White Arabia and the countries adjacent to it. In a word, I live in the abyss.”

Ostrovsky, of course, is ready to join this description of Zamoskvorechye, and this is approximately how he himself talked about it in his early essays. But the fact is that only Ostrovsky showed this “country” precisely as a world, as an island of great-great-grandfather’s life that has reached the present day, which, however, is not at all a preserve of the past, no, it exists and is strangely distorted under the influence of the “Iron Age”. Hence the bizarre forms of the “dark kingdom,” but the essence of its troubles is all-Russian and quite modern.

The essence of Ostrovsky’s artistic discovery is that through the outwardly extraordinary, outlandish, the writer was able to see precisely the ordinary, showing at the same time this ordinary through semi-folklore forms that generalized what was depicted. It was in the everyday life of the middle class that he saw and showed the vice in his “ordinary everyday expression” (“Our own people - we will be numbered!”). Ostrovsky also faced another task - to show the beautiful also “in ordinary everyday expression.” And in the coming years, the playwright discovered this beauty in everyday manifestations of the ideals of folk morality: kindness, loyalty, selflessness, impulses of generosity - in the plays of the Muscovite period and especially the best of them - the comedy “Poverty is not a vice.” And then he saw the beautiful and poeticized it in the heroic folk character of Katerina.