), head of a merchant family, Samson Silych Bolshov - “tyrant” clean water. He is rude and stern: “no matter how drunk he is, he’s silent, but when he’s drunk, he’ll kill him, no matter what.” His wife trembles at him, she is ready to lie to him, hide from him; With her hard life, she is depersonalized to the point that even her daughter, Lipochka, does not value her at all. “You are not very important to me!” - she says to her mother.
Ostrovsky. Our people - we will be numbered. Play
Bolshov treats his daughter with complete contempt - he even good-naturedly makes fun of her when she tries to defend her “rights” - he does not consider it necessary to take her into account at all: “My brainchild,” he says, “I want to eat it with porridge, I want butter.” I'm churning." “What am I and a father for if I don’t give orders? I shouldn’t have fed her for nothing!”
Samson Silych’s “tyranny” manifests itself not only in family relationships, but also in business relationships. For no apparent reason, under the influence of a whim, he decides to declare himself “insolvent.” It is not out of greed for money that he becomes a “malicious bankrupt,” but precisely out of “tyranny”: at first he wanted to pay his debtors a relatively high fee “per ruble,” but when they did not agree to this, when his “will” clashed with someone else’s “will,” - his unbridledness spoke within him. He decided not to pay anything, he declared that he was ready to do anything - let them plunder his property, let them steal everything - just so as not to give in to others, just to fulfill his whim: “Don’t interfere with my well-being!”... These words became proverb - they perfectly express the basis of the worldview of all these “tyrants.”
Podkhalyuzin. Cunning, dexterous people who understand this worldview can easily turn into such tyrants in life. In the comedy “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered,” the rogue clerk Lazar Podkhalyuzin is depicted, who knows his master “Bolshov” like the back of his hand. Indulging him, assenting to him, inciting his pride and tyranny, he cunningly ensures that Bolshov transfers all his property to him and marries his daughter to him, against her will. When Podkhalyuzin became the sovereign master, he shows his claws.
Bolshov, by nature, is not an inveterate rogue - it is true that he grew up behind the counter, with the consciousness: “If you don’t deceive, you won’t sell,” - but his malicious bankruptcy is an accidental, rash act, which he decides on under the impression of the moment, under the influence read the newspaper, influenced by the speeches of Podkhalyuzin and Rispozhensky. Bolshov even tries to justify himself with a very naive, but, alas, generally accepted argument: “everyone does this”... But Bolshov is still tormented by the consciousness of his wrongness, he, in the end, repents of what he has done (“the slave beats herself if she is unclean reaps!” he says); He is even honest by nature - he believes in people, he is capable of broad and noble impulses. Podkhalyuzin is not like that: “he is a cold, calculating swindler who doesn’t trust people, who weaves his network deliberately”; he knows neither repentance nor compassion, and is alien to nobility - only greed for money and hopeless selfishness guide him in life. Only love for Lipochka, Bolshov’s daughter, softens this predatory, wolfish appearance a little.
Old man Bolshov, like a malicious bankrupt, ended up in a debt department - in a “pit” - there he will sit until Podkhalyuzin pays off that part of the debt on which he comes to terms with the debtors. The humiliation experienced by the old man breaks his pride - he softens in spirit. Just as King Lear, after a night spent in the steppe, in a storm, in the rain, experiences, unknown to him before, a feeling of pity for those who have no shelter during the storm - so Bolshov, having experienced grief, having drunk the cup of resentment to the dregs, says to his son-in-law and to his daughter in a language that he had never spoken before: “Don’t forget that there are cages with iron bars where poor prisoners sit. Don’t forget us, poor prisoners!”
Grief and shame not only softened him, they corrected him, the former “tyrant” on his knees begs for mercy for himself, speaks to his wife in human language, expresses to his fraudulent son-in-law such truths with which he himself had never been embarrassed before: “don’t chase for more, be happy with what you have. But if you chase after more, they will take away the last and rob you clean.” “You know, Lazarus, Judas, he also sold Christ for money, just as we sell our conscience for money!”...
Lipochka. Lipochka, Bolshov’s daughter, is a match for her husband. She is the same hopeless egoist as he himself... She despises her mother, downtrodden and crushed by life, for her insignificance and small education and does not hide this contempt; She is afraid of her father while he has power in his hands; when he is deprived of this power, she does not hide her contemptuous attitude towards him. She treats her father even more harshly than Podkhalyuzin, and when even Podkhalyuzin experiences some kind of excitement and exclaims: “It’s awkward, sir! I’m sorry for my auntie, by God, I’m sorry!” she remains completely indifferent.
In addition to her natural egoism, which is the result of family despotism - she also has “conceit” - she considers herself “educated” only because she has learned to dance poorly, follows fashion and knows how to be mannered. In the person of this Lipochka, Ostrovsky ridiculed the ridiculous attraction to a new “cultural” life that manifested itself in the merchant environment. Just as in the Russian nobility, in the era of Peter the Great, this attraction was reflected in a purely external way, in the form of “panache,” so in the younger generation of the merchant class in the 18th and especially in the 19th centuries. the same thing happened again.
Agrafena Kondratyevna Bolshova. The old woman Bolshova herself, the wife of Samson Silych, is a downtrodden, impersonal creature, made stupid in a terrible atmosphere of tyranny. But the consciousness of her own dignity and decency did not completely die in her soul. When she sees how mercilessly her son-in-law and daughter treated her husband, she, speechless, found the strength to speak with indignation; completely dependent on her son-in-law, she calls him “robber”, “barbarian” to his face. She retained in her heart the most touching, selfless love for her rude husband-overlord - and the strength of this love was revealed when he appeared “unfortunate” before her.
Sysoy Psoich Rispozhensky. A living and typical image of a petty “prikaznik” is depicted in Rispozhensky. This is a minor official who was expelled from service for abuses. Cunning and cunning, he uses all means, clean and unclean, through humiliation, meanness and crime, to build the edifice of his family well-being with the ant’s tirelessness. This love for his family is a touching trait that softens his unsympathetic appearance; he has a large family on his hands, he wants to give his children an education, he even sends his son to the gymnasium. And for the well-being of the family, he sacrifices himself.
Quiet. Tishka plays an episodic but characteristic role in the comedy. This is a boy at the shop who does errands. He has already received his “education” in the suffocating atmosphere of shop trickery and city life - he is already dishonest, he loves a penny. Over time, he will develop into a Podkhalyuzin, or, at best, a Bolshov. Thus, in the persons of Tishka, Podkhalyuzin and Bolshov, Ostrovsky brought out three generations of the type that was the most characteristic of the merchant life of his time.
One of the striking examples of dramatic Russian literature is considered to be the comedy by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky “Our People - We Will Be Numbered.” In it, the author, with his characteristic humor, describes the problems of relationships in the merchant environment, endowing his characters with bright and original features. We offer a literary analysis of the play according to a plan that will be useful to 10th grade students in preparing for a literature lesson.
Brief Analysis
Year of writing– 1849.
History of creation– The play was published in the magazine “Moskvityanin”, and was very warmly received in literary circles. However, due to the themes raised, the work was banned, and the play could be staged in the theater only after the death of Emperor Nicholas I.
Subject– A conflict between two generations that occurs in a merchant environment that lives by the principle “if you don’t cheat, you won’t sell.”
Composition– The peculiarity of the composition of the play is the absence of exposition. The beginning - the merchant Bolshov occupies a large sum money, his daughter Lipochka dreams of marriage. Development of events - Bolshov declares himself bankrupt, and transfers all his money to Podkhalyuzin, and to strengthen the deal, marries him to Lipochka.
Climax- Lipochka’s refusal to pay the debts of her father, who ended up in debtor’s prison. The denouement is the logical outcome - the deceiver deceived the deceiver.
Genre- A play. Comedy.
Direction– Realism.
History of creation
Alexander Nikolaevich’s first serious work was the play “We Will Be Our Own People,” written in 1849. Ostrovsky worked hard for three years on a comedy, the name of which changed throughout the creative process: “Insolvent Debtor”, “Bankrupt”, the final version was called “Our People - We Will Be Numbered”.
The play was first published in 1850 in the March issue of the Moskvityanin magazine. Its appearance caused great excitement in Russian literary circles, as the young author raised serious problems of society in an ironic form. It is not surprising that the acutely social play was banned by censors, and Ostrovsky found himself under secret police surveillance.
Only after the death of Emperor Nicholas I in 1859, the production of the play became possible, but only under the condition of a more “softened” version of it. The original version of the comedy was presented to the public only in 1881.
Subject
For his work, Ostrovsky chose one of the themes popular in the 19th century - confrontation between two generations, "fathers" and "children". However, he chose a powerful social layer in Russia - the merchants - as the background for the development of the conflict. Through the prism of the relationships between the main characters, the author managed to fully reveal the pressing problems of society.
Ostrovsky portrays the merchant environment, in which vulgarity and ignorance reign, in all its ugliness. It is noteworthy that none of the main characters in the play evoke positive emotions. Bolshov repels with his greed and difficult character, and his daughter Lipochka sees education as just a tribute to fashion and dreams of only one thing - to get married successfully and get rid of the oppression of her tyrant father.
Seeing the meaning of life only in making money and considering it absolutely normal to live according to the principle “if you don’t cheat, you won’t sell,” Bolshov himself is left with nothing. For him, a terrible blow comes from the betrayal of Lipochka, who refuses to pay his debts and indifferently leaves him to “rot” in a debtor’s prison.
Main idea The work lies in the simple truth - “what goes around comes around.” It is impossible to demand from your children to be honest, noble and spiritually sensitive if you yourself do not possess these qualities.
Composition
When conducting an analysis of the composition in the play “Our People - We Will Be Numbered,” it should be noted that there is no exposition in the work. The author does not reveal the background of the events to the reader, and immediately begins the story.
In the beginning Ostrovsky introduces the reader to the tyrant merchant Bolshov, who borrows a large sum of money, but is in no hurry to return it. His daughter Lipochka passionately dreams of getting married successfully and forever leaving the house in which life is so difficult under her father’s oppression.
Action Development the play boils down to the fact that Bolshov, who does not want to fulfill his debentures, decides to declare himself bankrupt. He transfers his entire huge fortune to the clerk Podkhalyuzin, and marries Lipochka to him, in order to thus ensure the safety of his capital. Bolshov is sent to a debtor's prison, but he has no doubt that Lipochka and Podkhalyuzin will free him from there.
Climax plays - Lipochka’s decisive refusal, satisfied with her new life, pay off my father’s loans.
Genre
Alexander Nikolaevich classified his work as a comedy, although, according to many literary critics, it has a number of tragic features. Direction - realism.
Work test
Rating analysis
Average rating: 4.8. Total ratings received: 50.
Nikolai Ostrovsky's play “Our People – We Will Be Numbered” is generously saturated with Gogolian traditions. She's like " Dead souls”, aptly described the shortcomings and vices, but not of the noble, but of the merchant world. The plot was based on the usual story of fraud among the merchants, common in those years.
Duplicity and metamorphoses of comedy heroes
Samson Bolshov is a noble merchant in the city; he borrows a large sum of money from his comrades, but has no desire to give it back in order to further increase his fortune.
Taking advantage of the fact that the trend of declaring oneself bankrupt was already quite widespread in Moscow, Bolshov came up with a scam that was ingenious in his opinion, enlisting the support of his daughter Lipochka.
The girl passionately dreamed of getting married. But in her understanding, the groom must meet all the demands of high society: be of noble origin, dress fashionably, have a fortune.
But the father prepared another party for his daughter - the clerk Lazar Podkhalyuzin. Marriage to the unremarkable Lazar causes Lipochka to become truly hysterical, because her girlish dreams are irreversibly crushed.
However, the girl cannot go against the will of her father and marries him. Meanwhile, Bolshov brings his scam to life - he transfers all his property to Podkhalyuzin, declares himself bankrupt and goes to prison.
But Bolshov does not suffer in prison, because he firmly believes in his preliminary agreement with his daughter and Podkhalyuzin: they had to immediately pay the security deposit for his release.
But Podkhalyuzin and Lipochka decide not to spend money on their father’s freedom and do not pay a ransom for him. Thus, the young family spends their father’s wealth without a shadow of a twinge, while their father is in prison.
Lipochka's duplicity
Lipochka, who in the first pages of the novel appears to us as a bright and kind girl, as the plot develops, turns out to be worthy of her greedy greedy father.
For Bolshov, who despite his desire to get rich by fraud, there are still concepts of honor and family kinship. He couldn’t even think that his own daughter could leave him in trouble.
But Lipochka had completely different views on life: she undoubtedly enters into an agreement with her husband, whom she previously hated, and shares the family wealth with him.
Podkhalyuzin's duplicity
The clerk Podkhalyuzin, while serving with Bolshov, skillfully wins his trust in himself. Moreover, playing the role of an obedient servant, he manages to manipulate the merchant.
For the sake of money, the clerk is ready to do a lot, including changing his lifestyle in order to best meet Lipochka’s needs. Life wisdom does not help Bolshov figure out the true plans of his future son-in-law, and he undoubtedly transfers his entire fortune to him.
Of the many heroes, only Bolshov evokes a semblance of pity in the reader. In his action, he was guided by the desire to get even more rich, but we should not forget that he retained in his soul the concepts of trust, honor, family relations, as a reliable bastion of life.
Unfortunately, this was not characteristic of the two-faced Lipochka and Podkhalyuzin, who, in the pursuit of money, lost all spiritual values.
The play very clearly shows the changes in the life orientations of the main characters. For the sake of material wealth they betray loved one, doom him to torment, suffering and shame.
http://briefly.ru/ostrovskij/svoi_ljudi/
In the play, the author, with his characteristic humor, describes the merchant environment with its habits and aspirations. The main characters of the work are both narrow-minded and arrogant, stubborn and short-sighted. Each of the characters in the play deserves close attention.
Samson Silych Bolshov, a merchant, the head of the family, is above all concerned with his financial affairs. He is ignorant and selfish, it was these qualities that played a cruel joke on him. His wife, Agrafena Kondratievna, is a typical merchant's wife. Having not received any education, she, nevertheless, has a very high opinion of herself, but lives only with pressing, everyday problems. Her daughter Olympiada Samsonovna, or Lipochka, is poorly brought up, uneducated, and does not even know how to dance properly. But at the same time, she is firmly convinced that she deserves the most profitable groom. Lipochka’s reasoning about her desire to marry a noble man is especially funny and absurd. The clerk Lazar Elizarych Podkhalyuzin, whom Lipochka eventually marries, is selfish, selfish, he does not have the slightest gratitude to the merchant Voltov, to whom Podkhalyuzin, one might say, owes everything. Podkhalyuzin values his own person above all else. And as a result, he achieves what is so important to him.
The remaining characters complement the picture of merchant life drawn by the author. All the characters in the play are equally primitive; there is not the slightest hint of nobility or desire for the beautiful and sublime in them. The ultimate dream for them is to provide for everyday, everyday needs.
The relationship between “fathers” and “children” is interesting. The daughter does not show the slightest respect for her mother. During a quarrel, they exchange unflattering characteristics for each other. Lipochka is completely devoid of such a quality as respect for elders. She is indifferent to her mother and father and thinks only of herself. She is petty, stupid and completely matches the family atmosphere that is depicted in this play.
“Fathers” also treat their “children” with complete indifference. For the merchant Bolshov's daughter is only a means to increase capital.
The play “Our People - Let's Be Numbered” shows a world of unspiritual people, in which everyone lives according to their own laws. “Children”, growing up, adopt the attitude of their “fathers” to life, so they do not have any the slightest doubt on what to do next.
The antagonism of rich and poor, dependent, “younger” and “senior” (Dobrolyubov’s expression) is deployed and demonstrated here not in the sphere of the struggle for equality or freedom of personal feelings, but in the sphere of the struggle of selfish interests, the desire to get rich and live “of one’s own free will.” All high values, towards which the dreams and actions of the leading people of the era are directed, have been replaced by their parodic doubles. Education is nothing more than a desire to follow fashion, contempt for customs and a preference for “noble gentlemen” over “bearded” grooms. In Ostrovsky’s comedy there is a war of all against all, and in the very antagonism the playwright reveals the deep unity of the characters: what was obtained by deception is retained only by violence, the coarseness of feelings is a natural product of the coarseness of morals and coercion.
The play reached a very high level of generalization. Based on individualization, the playwright created types that gave flesh and appearance to the whole phenomenon of Russian life, which entered the cultural memory of the nation as “Ostrovsky types.”
8.2.Analysis of the play “Thunderstorm”
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The drama takes place in the provincial town of Kalinov, located on the banks of the Volga. In merchant houses, behind high fences, behind heavy locks, invisible tears are shed, dark deeds are happening. The tyranny of tyrants reigns in the stuffy merchant mansions. It is immediately explained that the cause of poverty is the unscrupulous exploitation of the poor by the rich. The play features two groups of inhabitants of the city of Kalinov. One of them personifies the oppressive power of the “dark kingdom”. These are Dikoy and Kabanikha, oppressors and enemies of everything living and new. Another group includes Katerina, Kuligin, Tikhon, Boris, Kudryash and Varvara. These are victims of the “dark kingdom”, but they express their protest against this force in different ways.
Drawing images of representatives of the “dark kingdom” - Wild and Kabanikha, the author clearly shows that their despotism and cruelty are based on money. This money gives Kabanikha the opportunity to manage her own house and command the wanderers who constantly spread her ridiculous thoughts to the whole world, and generally dictate moral laws throughout the city. The main meaning of the Wild's life is enrichment. The thirst for money disfigured him and turned him into a reckless miser. The moral foundations in his soul are thoroughly shaken.
The young forces of life rebel against the “fathers” of the city. Katerina, the main character of the play, is a strong and free nature, pure and bright, loving and sincere, but in the world where she has to live, these qualities are not only not inherent in most people, they simply cannot understand them. Her tragedy is that the girl is forced to live in captivity, forced to change her moral convictions. Inner purity and truthfulness do not allow her to lie in love, deceive, or pretend. Dobrolyubov called Katerina “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” Her suicide seemed to momentarily illuminate the endless darkness of the “dark kingdom.”
This work was published in 1860, during a period of social upsurge, when the foundations of serfdom began to crumble, and a thunderstorm was really brewing in the stuffy, anxious atmosphere. In Russian literature, a thunderstorm has long been the personification of the struggle for freedom, and for Ostrovsky it is not just a majestic natural phenomenon, but a social upheaval.
N. A. Dobrolyubov, speaking about the innovation of Ostrovsky the playwright, believed that his works did not fit the usual rules, and called them “plays of life.” They develop actions and characters in a new way. Following Griboedov and Gogol, Ostrovsky acts as a master of dramatic conflict, realistically reflecting the social contradictions of the era.
In The Thunderstorm, the conflict does not at all come down to the story of the tragic love of Katerina and Boris. This story itself reflects the typical conflicts of the era of the 60s of the 19th century: the struggle between the obsolete morality of tyrants and their unrequited victims and the new morality of people in whose souls a sense of human dignity is awakening.
Emphases in understanding the tragic fate of Katerina can be placed in different ways. From a social point of view, her tragedy is determined by the conditions of her existence, the inability to escape from the city of Kalinov, despite the fact that this desire has turned into an all-consuming passion for her. The victory of the “dark kingdom” in the conflict with Katerina is predetermined. The challenge that she poses to the Kalinov world dooms her to defeat: after all, in order for her dreams to come true, either she must leave Kalinov (which is impossible), or the entire social and everyday structure must collapse. A “captive” of Kalinov’s world, Katerina is thus faced with a solid “stone wall”: “cracks” have already formed on it, but it is still unshakable. Many characters (Tikhon, Kuligin, Kudryash and Varvara) are dissatisfied with the patriarchal way of life, but their discontent does not develop into open protest.
The philosophical aspect of Katerina's tragedy is her opposition to fate. In this conflict, the heroine also cannot win: she must either submit to the will of fate, resigning herself to her fate as a victim of the “dark kingdom,” or resolve the dispute at the cost of dying.
The psychological side of her tragedy is the insoluble contradiction between the consciousness of sin and the indomitable will that prompts her to commit actions contrary to the internal moral prohibition
To understand the tragic fate of the heroine, all three interconnected aspects of her tragedy are important: social, philosophical and psychological. Only taking into account all the complexity of the tragic contradictions that arose in “The Thunderstorm” can one correctly assess Katerina’s position. In the banal situation of betrayal of a merchant’s wife, significant social, everyday, philosophical and psychological content is “packed.” Adultery from a purely everyday fact has turned into a personal tragedy for which love relationship became not the cause, but the consequence of her opposition to the surrounding world. Katerina’s “sin” is not that she violated a household ban, but that she dared to question the inviolability of the existing order of things. Its fate was determined by the collision of two historical eras.
For the first time in Ostrovsky’s drama, the quagmire of everyday existence became not only the subject of satirical ridicule, but also the source of high tragedy. Thus, the tragic and the comic in “The Thunderstorm” are two poles of the author’s attitude towards the patriarchal merchant life.
8.3. Analysis of the play "Dowry"
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Satirical comedies and psychological dramas are two areas of Ostrovsky’s creativity that are most closely related to post-reform reality.
"Dowry" is rightfully considered the best psychological drama by A. N. Ostrovsky. It is often compared to "The Thunderstorm", and to a certain extent this is fair. “The Thunderstorm” is the main work of Ostrovsky’s pre-reform drama, while “Dowry” absorbs many motifs from the playwright’s post-reform work. The comparison of these plays is also suggested by the fact that in both we see a drama of an extraordinary female nature unfolding, leading to a tragic denouement. Finally, it is also important that in both plays a significant role is played by the collective image of the Volga city in which the action takes place. But the difference in the eras depicted in these plays led to complete dissimilarity art world"Thunderstorms" and "Dowry".
"Dowry" is a drama of the bourgeois era, and this has a decisive influence on its problems. If Katerina’s soul in “The Thunderstorm” grows out of folk culture, inspired by the moral values of Orthodoxy, then Larisa Ogudalova is a man of new times, who has broken ties with the thousand-year-old folk tradition, which freed man not only from the principles of morality, but also from shame, honor, and conscience. Unlike Katerina, Larisa lacks integrity. Her human talent, spontaneous desire for moral purity, truthfulness - everything that comes from her richly gifted nature raises the heroine high above those around her. But Larisa’s everyday drama itself is the result of the fact that bourgeois ideas about life have power over her and influence her understanding of people. The motive of bargaining, which runs through the entire play and is concentrated in the main plot event - the bargaining for Larisa, covers all male heroes, among whom Larisa must make her choice. And Paratov is not only not an exception here, but, as it turns out, he is the most cruel and dishonest participant in the bargaining. Responding to his bride’s enthusiastic stories about the courage of Paratov, who fearlessly shot at the coin that Larisa was holding, Karandyshev correctly remarks: “He has no heart, that’s why he was so brave.” And Ostrovsky agrees with this opinion, although Karandyshev is not the spokesman for the author’s assessments. In general, there is no such hero in the play, but almost every character at one time or another correctly assesses the situation and the people participating in it.
The complexity of the characters' characters - be it the inconsistency of their inner world, like Larisa's, or inconsistency inner essence hero and external behavior, like Paratov’s - this is the psychologism of Ostrovsky’s drama. For everyone around him, Paratov is a great gentleman, a broad-minded person, a reckless brave man, and the author leaves all these colors and gestures to him. But, on the other hand, he subtly, as if by the way, shows us another Paratov, his true face. In the very first meeting with him, we hear a confession: “What “pity” is, I don’t know. I, Mokiy Parmenych, have nothing treasured; if I find a profit, I’ll sell everything, whatever.” And we immediately learn that Paratov is selling not only “Swallow”, but also himself to a bride with gold mines. Ultimately, the scene in Karandyshev’s house subtly compromises him, because the decoration of his apartment and the attempt to arrange a luxurious dinner is a caricature of Paratov’s style and lifestyle. And the whole difference lies in the amounts that each of the heroes can spend on it. The scene characterizing both rivals seeking Larisa’s love is deeply significant. Thus, the means of Ostrovsky’s psychological characteristics are not the self-recognition of the heroes, not reasoning about their feelings and properties, but mainly their actions and everyday dialogue. None of the characters changes during the dramatic action, but is only gradually revealed to the audience. Even the same can be said about Larisa: she begins to see the light, learns the truth about the people around her, and makes the terrible decision to become “a very expensive thing.” And only death frees her from everything that everyday experience has endowed her with. At this moment, she seems to return to the natural beauty of her nature. The finale of the drama - the death of the heroine amid the festive noise, accompanied by gypsy singing - amazes with its artistic audacity. Larisa’s state of mind is shown by the author in the style of “strong drama” and at the same time with impeccable psychological accuracy. She is softened, calmed down, she forgives everyone, because she is happy that she has finally caused an outbreak of human feeling - Karandyshev’s reckless, suicidal, inconsiderate act, which freed her from the humiliating life of a kept woman.
The famous Russian playwright Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, who received a law degree, worked for some time in the Moscow Commercial Court, where property disputes between close relatives were dealt with. This life experience, observations, knowledge of the life and psychology of the bourgeois-merchant class were the basis for the work of the future playwright.
Ostrovsky’s first major work was the play “Bankrupt” (1849), later called “Our people – we will be numbered”, under which it is now staged in all theaters of the country and the world. However, then, in 1850, after publication in the magazine “Moskvityanin”, the play was prohibited from being staged; Moreover, for writing this work, Ostrovsky was placed under secret police surveillance.
It was this circumstance that later gave the basis to V.F. Odoevsky, a writer and public figure, to classify Ostrovsky’s play as a Russian tragedy: “I consider there to be three tragedies in Rus': “The Minor,” “Woe from Wit,” “The Inspector General.” On “Bankrut” I put number four.” Readers of "Moskvityanin" put Ostrovsky's play on a par with Gogol's works and even called them "Dead Souls" by the merchants.
What tragic thing happens in a work that the author himself classified as a comedy? Already this first comedy demonstrates the features of poetics that will be inherent in all Ostrovsky’s plays that make up the repertoire of the new Russian drama: a focus on moral issues helps not only to analyze the social aspects of life, but also to understand family and everyday conflicts, in which the bright character traits of the heroes are manifested.
In the play "Bankrupt" there is a complex compositional a structure that combines an essay-like description of everyday life with intense intrigue. The slow-motion exposition includes morally descriptive episodes that help the reader understand the “cruel morals” of the family of the merchant Bolshov. Small skirmishes between Lipochka (the merchant's daughter) and her mother, visits from the matchmaker, meetings of Samson Silych Bolshov with his daughter's potential suitors - all these scenes lead to almost no action, but provide an opportunity to penetrate into the closed merchant world, which actually reflects the processes in the entire Russian society.
The playwright chose a plot based on a common case of fraud among merchants at that time. Samson Silych borrows a large sum from his fellow merchants. But now he doesn’t want to repay his debts, and he can’t think of anything better than declaring himself bankrupt - a failed debtor. He transfers his decent fortune (both the surname Bolshov and the patronymic Silych indicate this) to the name of his clerk Lazar Podkhalyuzin, and to strengthen the deal he gives his only daughter Olympiada for him. Bolshov is sent to a debtor's prison, but he is calm, because he believes that Lazar will pay for him the required amount of debt from the money he received. Yes, that's just it "our people", Podkhalyuzin and his own daughter Lipochka, do not give him a penny.
In the comedy of the young playwright there is a war of all against all. Traditional for literature of the 19th century century, the conflict between “fathers” and “children” takes on true proportions: the author depicts a vulgar merchant environment worthy only of ridicule. At first, none of the characters in the play evoke a positive attitude. Lipochka dreams only of a “noble” groom and argues with her mother on any occasion. The tyrant father, who himself determined his daughter’s groom, justifies his action with the following words: “For whomever I command, he will go for him. My brainchild: I want to eat it with porridge, I want to churn butter... Was it for nothing that I fed her!”
However, the generation of “fathers” in the person of Samson Silych evokes more sympathy than the “children”. The hero's surname comes from the word "bolshak" - that is, the head of the family. This is significant, because he himself is a former peasant, and a merchant only in the first generation. Having become a merchant, he learned the trading law: “If you don’t cheat, you won’t sell”. Bolshov decides to commit fraud for the sake of his daughter’s future and sincerely believes that there can be no trick on the part of Lipochka and her fiancé, because they “our own people will be numbered”. But life is preparing a cruel lesson for him.
The younger generation in the play is not presented in the best light. Lipochka talks to the matchmaker about enlightenment and emancipation, but does not even know the meaning of these words. She does not dream of equality or freedom of personal feelings - her ideal boils down to the desire to get rich and "live according to your own will". Education for her is just a tribute to fashion and contempt for customs, so she prefers "bearded" grooms "noble" gentlemen.
The author of the comedy, showing “fathers” and “children,” pits two merchant generations against one another. But sympathies remain on the side of the eldest - Bolshov. After all, he still believes in the sincerity of family feelings and family relationships: their people will count, that is, they will not let each other down. The epiphany comes in the finale: a tyrant with the telling name Samson becomes a victim of his own scam. Having conceived a forgery, he believes that it is possible to deceive a stranger, because if you don’t deceive, you won’t live. But he doesn’t even imagine that such a philosophy can also be applied to him. Having entrusted the money to Podkhalyuzin, the naive and simple-minded merchant remains deceived.
But if a naive, simple-minded faith in people still lives in Bolshov, then for the former clerk there is nothing sacred, and with a light heart he destroys the last moral stronghold - the fortress of family ties. All that remains in him is the resourcefulness and flexibility of a rogue businessman. Previously, he only had to assent and please his master, but now the quiet clerk turns into an arrogant and cruel tyrant. The student surpassed his teacher - justice is restored, but not in relation to the merchant.
Her own daughter, in response to her father’s request to pay her debts, reproaches her father for living with him until she was 20 and not seeing the world. And then he becomes indignant: they say, why now give away all the money and wear cotton dresses again? The newly-made son-in-law generally reasons like this: “We can’t be left with nothing. After all, we are not some kind of philistines".
When the only daughter spares ten kopecks to creditors and with a light heart sends her father to prison, Bolshov has an epiphany. A suffering person awakens in him, and the comedy turns into tragedy. It is no coincidence that many performers of the role of Bolshov (M. Shchepkin, F. Burdin) saw the image of a merchant scolded by children, deceived and expelled
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