Critical analysis of the plot of the book by A.S. Griboyedov’s “Woe from Wit”, Goncharov brought out in his work. In it, he quite deeply carries out an ideological and social analysis of Griboyedov’s comedy.

The comedy differs from many works of that time in its more durable durability, some kind of novelty and spontaneity. A society that is experiencing the transition to a capitalist system is no longer able to captivate Pushkin’s and Lermontov’s heroes. So Pechorin and Onegin can give people less than the newly-minted hero Chatsky. Freshness

This image is undoubtedly in demand due to the unusualness of its view on such aspects as: education, social activity, the role of man in society.

This work, although it was written later than many others, which it would seem should have been successful with the reader, nevertheless it outlived them. The problems that Griboyedov raised were relevant in the times of Pushkin and Lermontov, and will also be relevant after several eras. This work is read by different segments of the population, with different preferences, with different desires to find something interesting and educational in it.

Some will be interested

Find out how people lived in Moscow at the beginning of the 19th century, their morals and customs. Moreover, the author managed to very successfully convey the very essence of the nobility, its spirit in this period. The types that are written in the comedy are so lively and natural that it seems to the reader that they are his neighbors or close acquaintances. Anyone who has read this work can easily name someone in their circle who is similar to Molchalin or Famusov.

There are readers who cannot help but be attracted by apt epigrams, memorable quotes, and satirical phrases. After all, in all of them, according to Goncharov, there is “the salt of the tongue.” He calls this play a real treasure trove where you can find witty answers for every occasion in life. The quotes that sound in this work have long gone among the people and become aphorisms. For example, who among us doesn’t know this phrase: ‘’ Happy Hours they don’t observe” or “The smoke of the Fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us.”

Without the character of Chatsky, as the author rightly notes, instead of a fun and exciting comedy, most likely, the result would be a boring picture of morals. As you know, Chatsky has a prototype - the then famous philosopher and publicist Chaadaev, who was declared abnormal for his bold views.

In the play, Chatsky suffers the same fate. After all, all the grief of the main character is in his mind. Although Pushkin, at one time, did not agree with this saying, moreover, he was sincerely perplexed about this, considering Chatsky a man of a very narrow mind. Dobrolyubov generally treated this character with great irony. Still, undoubtedly, Chatsky is a pioneer new era and the new century, and this is its purpose.

In comedy we observe a confrontation between two strong personalities challenging each other. The beginning and end of the battle between two difficult characters - Chatsky and Famusov - are traced. One is expressed by the author elegantly and succinctly, which can be compared to an opera overture.

The other, Famusov, Sophia's father, is a retrograde and conservative. And it turns out that two camps open before the reader, in one of which the elders or “fathers”, led by Famusov, and in the other there is only one Chatsky. He, like a noble warrior, wages his fight to the end, furiously, which is so similar to the natural selection carried out in the animal world.

There is in the book the so-called state of the Molchalins. These are unspiritual people who can obsequiously bow down and then easily betray. They vigorously simulate useful activities, but in reality all this is only for career daring. Molchalin Alexey Stepanovich, Famusov’s vile and mediocre secretary, he is the complete opposite of Chatsky.

There is nothing natural and living in his image. He is stupid and cowardly, at the same time abstinent and diligent in his career; in the future he is a typical bureaucrat. His credo, with which he goes through life, is slavery and servility. He calculated everything correctly, because it is precisely such individuals who will subsequently be noticed and elevated by the authorities; they, who do not have their own opinion and voice, will help to rule.

What Chatsky eventually managed to get was just a million torments. He, a very witty and quick-tongued man, was for the time being invincible in various verbal duels. He used his ability to defeat the enemy with a satirical word, to notice his weak points, with amazing mercilessness. But in the battle with Famusov, he felt the unpleasant taste of loss and mental anguish, to which grief was added. He was forced to leave without finding support or moral closeness from anyone.

All he takes with him is torment. In conclusion, Goncharov concludes that literature will always fight confined to the circle of problems that Griboyedov touches on.

Ivan Goncharov

"A Million Torments"

(Critical study)

Woe from mind Griboedova.- Monakhov's benefit, November, 1871

How to look and look (he says),
This century and this century past,
The legend is fresh, but hard to believe -

And about his time he expresses himself like this:

Now everyone breathes more freely, -

Scolded your forever I am merciless, -

I would be glad to serve, but it makes me sick to serve,

He hints himself. There is no mention of “yearning laziness, idle boredom,” and even less of “tender passion,” as a science and an occupation. He loves seriously, seeing Sophia as his future wife.

How Sofya Pavlovna has become prettier for you!

Let me woo you, what would you tell me?

I would be glad to serve, but being served is sickening!

It’s as if he’s marrying Sofyushka... etc.

How he fusses, what agility!

The meanest features of the past life.

And what do I want when everything is decided?
It’s a noose for me, but it’s funny for her!

Look, he gained the friendship of everyone in the house.
Serves under the priest for three years;
He is often pointlessly angry,
And he will disarm him with silence,
From the kindness of his soul he will forgive.
And, by the way,
I could look for fun, -
Not at all, the old people won’t set foot outside the threshold!
We are frolicking and laughing;
He’ll sit with them all day, whether he’s happy or not,
Playing...

Of the most wonderful quality...
He is finally: compliant, modest, quiet,
And there are no wrongdoings in my soul;
He doesn’t cut strangers at random...
That's why I love him!

Who will unravel you!

The light does not punish delusions,
But it requires secrets for them!

It can be worse - you can get away with it!

Listen, lie, but know when to stop!

Yes, he does not recognize the authorities!

How to write an essay. To prepare for the Unified State Exam Vitaly Pavlovich Sitnikov

Goncharov I. A “A Million Torments” (critical study)

Goncharov I. A

"A Million Torments"

(critical study)

The comedy “Woe from Wit” stands out somehow in literature and is distinguished by its youthfulness, freshness and stronger vitality from other works of the word. She is like a hundred-year-old old man, around whom everyone, having lived out their time in turn, dies and lies down, and he walks, vigorous and fresh, between the graves of old people and the cradles of new people. And it never occurs to anyone that someday his turn will come.<…>

Criticism did not move the comedy from the place it had once occupied, as if at a loss as to where to place it. The oral assessment was ahead of the printed one, just as the play itself was long ahead of the printing. But the literate masses actually appreciated it. Immediately realizing its beauty and not finding any flaws, she tore the manuscript into pieces, into verses, half-verses, spread all the salt and wisdom of the play into colloquial speech, as if she had turned a million into ten-kopeck pieces, and so peppered the conversation with Griboyedov’s sayings that she literally wore out the comedy to the point of satiety. .

But the play also passed this test - not only did it not become vulgar, but it seemed to become dearer to readers, it found in each of them a patron, a critic and a friend, like Krylov’s fables, which did not lose their literary power, having passed from the book into living speech.<…>

Some value in comedy a picture of Moscow morals of a certain era, the creation of living types and their skillful grouping. The whole play seems to be a circle of faces familiar to the reader, and, moreover, as definite and closed as a deck of cards. The faces of Famusov, Molchalin, Skalozub and others were etched into the memory as firmly as kings, jacks and queens in cards, and everyone had a more or less consistent concept of all the faces, except for one - Chatsky. So they are all drawn correctly and strictly, and so they have become familiar to everyone. Only about Chatsky many are perplexed: what is he? It's like he's the fifty-third mysterious card in the deck. If there was little disagreement in the understanding of other people, then about Chatsky, on the contrary, the differences have not ended yet and, perhaps, will not end for a long time.

Others, giving justice to the picture of morals, the fidelity of types, value the more epigrammatic salt of language, living satire - morality, with which the play still, like an inexhaustible well, supplies everyone at every everyday step of life.

But both connoisseurs almost pass over in silence the “comedy” itself, the action, and many even deny it conventional stage movement.<…>

All these various impressions and each one’s own point of view based on them serve best definition plays, that is, that the comedy “Woe from Wit” is both a picture of morals, and a gallery of living types, and an ever-sharp, burning satire, and at the same time a comedy and, let’s say for ourselves, - most of all a comedy - which is unlikely to be found in other literatures, if we accept the totality of all other stated conditions. As a painting, it is, without a doubt, enormous. Her canvas captures a long period of Russian life - from Catherine to Emperor Nicholas. The group of twenty faces reflected, like a ray of light in a drop of water, the entire former Moscow, its design, its spirit at that time, its historical moment and morals. And this with such artistic, objective completeness and certainty that only Pushkin and Gogol were given in our country.

In a picture where there is not a single pale spot, not a single extraneous stroke or sound, the viewer and reader feel even now, in our era, among living people. Both the general and the details, all this was not composed, but was entirely taken from Moscow living rooms and transferred to the book and to the stage, with all the warmth and with all the “special imprint” of Moscow - from Famusov to the smallest touches, to Prince Tugoukhovsky and to the footman Parsley, without which the picture would not be complete.

However, for us it is not quite finished yet historical picture: we have not moved away from the era at a sufficient distance for an impassable abyss to lie between it and our time. The coloring was not smoothed out at all; the century has not separated from ours, like a cut-off piece: we have inherited something from there, although the Famusovs, Molchalins, Zagoretskys and others have changed so that they no longer fit into the skin of Griboyedov’s types. The harsh features have become obsolete, of course: no Famusov will now invite Maxim Petrovich to be a jester and hold up Maxim Petrovich as an example, at least not in such a positive and obvious way. Molchalin, even in front of the maid, quietly, now does not confess to those commandments that his father bequeathed to him; such a Skalozub, such a Zagoretsky are impossible even in a distant outback. But as long as there will be a desire for honors apart from merit, as long as there will be masters and hunters to please and “take rewards and live happily,” while gossip, idleness, and emptiness will reign not as vices, but as elements public life, - until then, of course, the features of the Famusovs, Molchalins and others will flash in modern society; there is no need that that “special imprint” of which Famusov was proud has been erased from Moscow itself.<…>

Salt, an epigram, a satire, this colloquial verse, it seems, will never die, just like the sharp and caustic, living Russian mind scattered in them, which Griboyedov imprisoned, like a wizard of some spirit, in his castle, and he scatters there with evil laughter . It is impossible to imagine that another, more natural, simpler, more taken from life speech could ever appear. Prose and verse merged here into something inseparable, then, it seems, so that it would be easier to retain them in memory and put into circulation again all the intelligence, humor, jokes and anger of the Russian mind and language collected by the author. This language was given to the author in the same way as the group of these individuals was given, as the main meaning of the comedy was given, as everything was given together, as if it poured out at once, and everything formed an extraordinary comedy - and in a close sense, as stage play, – and in a broad way, like a comedy of life. It couldn't have been anything else but a comedy.<…>

We have long been accustomed to saying that there is no movement, that is, no action in a play. How is there no movement? There is - living, continuous, from Chatsky’s first appearance on stage to his last word: “A carriage for me, a carriage.”

This is a subtle, intelligent, elegant and passionate comedy, in a close, technical sense, true in small psychological details, but almost elusive for the viewer, because it is disguised by the typical faces of the heroes, ingenious drawing, the color of the place, the era, the charm of the language, with all the poetic forces spilled so abundantly in the play. The action, that is, the actual intrigue in it, in front of these capital aspects seems pale, superfluous, almost unnecessary.

Only when driving around in the entryway does the viewer seem to awaken to the unexpected catastrophe that has broken out between the main characters, and suddenly remember the comedy-intrigue. But even then not for long. The enormous, real meaning of comedy is already growing before him.

The main role, of course, is the role of Chatsky, without which there would be no comedy, but, perhaps, there would be a picture of morals.

Griboyedov himself attributed Chatsky's grief to his mind, but Pushkin denied him any mind at all.

One would think that Griboyedov, out of fatherly love for his hero, flattered him in the title, as if warning the reader that his hero is smart, and everyone else around him is not smart.

Chatsky, apparently, on the contrary, was seriously preparing for activity. “He writes and translates well,” Famusov says about him, and everyone talks about his high intelligence. He, of course, traveled for good reason, studied, read, apparently got down to work, had relations with ministers and separated - it’s not difficult to guess why.

“I would be glad to serve, but being served is sickening,” he himself hints. There is no mention of “yearning laziness, idle boredom,” and even less of “tender passion,” as a science and an occupation. He loves seriously, seeing Sophia as his future wife.

Meanwhile, Chatsky had to drink the bitter cup to the bottom - not finding “living sympathy” in anyone, and leaving, taking with him only “a million torments.”<…>

Every step of Chatsky, almost every word in the play is closely connected with the play of his feelings for Sophia, irritated by some kind of lie in her actions, which he struggles to unravel until the very end. His whole mind and all his strength go into this struggle: it served as a motive, a reason for irritation, for that “millions of torments”, under the influence of which he could only play the role indicated to him by Griboyedov, a role of much greater, higher significance than unsuccessful love , in a word, the role for which the comedy was born.<…>

Two camps were formed, or, on the one hand, a whole camp of the Famusovs and the entire brethren of “fathers and elders,” on the other, one ardent and brave fighter, “the enemy of quest.” This is a struggle for life and death, a struggle for existence, as the newest naturalists define the natural succession of generations in the animal world.<…>

Chatsky strives for a “free life”, “to pursue” science and art and demands “service to the cause, not to individuals,” etc. On whose side is victory? Comedy gives Chatsky only "a million torments" and leaves, apparently, Famusov and his brethren in the same position as they were, without saying anything about the consequences of the struggle.

We now know these consequences. They emerged with the advent of comedy, still in manuscript, in the light - and like an epidemic swept across all of Russia.

Meanwhile, the intrigue of love runs its course, correctly, with subtle psychological fidelity, which in any other play, devoid of other colossal Griboyedov beauties, could make a name for the author.<…>

The comedy between him and Sophia ended; The burning irritation of jealousy subsided, and the coldness of hopelessness entered his soul.

All he had to do was leave; but another, lively, lively comedy invades the stage, several new perspectives of Moscow life open up at once, which not only displace Chatsky’s intrigue from the viewer’s memory, but Chatsky himself seems to forget about it and gets in the way of the crowd. New faces group around him and play, each their own role. This is a ball, with all the Moscow atmosphere, with a series of lively stage sketches, in which each group forms its own separate comedy, with a complete outline of the characters, who managed to play out in a few words into a complete action.

Isn’t the Gorichevs playing a complete comedy? This husband, recently still a cheerful and lively man, is now degraded, clothed, as in a robe, in Moscow life, a gentleman, “a boy-husband, a servant-husband, the ideal of Moscow husbands,” according to Chatsky’s apt definition, - under the shoe of a cloying, cutesy , socialite wife, Moscow lady?

And these six princesses and the countess-granddaughter - this whole contingent of brides, “who know how,” according to Famusov, “to dress themselves up with taffeta, marigold and haze,” “singing the top notes and clinging to military people”?

This Khlestova, a remnant of Catherine’s century, with a pug, with a blackamoor girl, - this princess and prince Peter Ilyich - without a word, but such a talking ruin of the past; Zagoretsky, an obvious swindler, escaping from prison in the best living rooms and paying off with obsequiousness, like dog diarrhea - and these NNs, and all their talk, and all the content that occupies them!

The influx of these faces is so abundant, their portraits are so vivid that the viewer becomes cold to the intrigue, not having time to catch these quick sketches of new faces and listen to their original conversation.

Chatsky is no longer on stage. But before leaving, he gave abundant food to that main comedy that began with Famusov, in the first act, then with Molchalin - that battle with all of Moscow, where, according to the author’s goals, he then came.

In brief, even instant meetings with old acquaintances, he managed to arm everyone against him with caustic remarks and sarcasms. He is already vividly affected by all sorts of trifles - and he gives free rein to his tongue. He angered the old woman Khlestova, gave some inappropriate advice to Gorichev, abruptly cut off the countess-granddaughter and again offended Molchalin.<…>

“A million torments” and “grief” - that’s what he reaped for everything he managed to sow. Until now he had been invincible: his mind mercilessly struck the sore spots of his enemies. Famusov finds nothing but to cover his ears against his logic, and shoots back with commonplaces of the old morality. Molchalin falls silent, the princesses and countesses back away from him, burned by the nettles of his laughter, and his former friend, Sophia, whom he spares alone, dissembles, slips and deals him the main blow on the sly, declaring him at hand, casually, crazy.

He felt his strength and spoke confidently. But the struggle exhausted him. He obviously weakened from this “millions of torments,” and the disorder was so noticeable in him that all the guests grouped around him, just as a crowd gathers around any phenomenon that comes out of the ordinary order of things.

He is not only sad, but also bilious and picky. He, like a wounded man, gathers all his strength, challenges the crowd - and strikes everyone - but he does not have enough power against the united enemy.

He falls into exaggeration, almost into intoxication of speech, and confirms in the opinion of the guests the rumor spread by Sophia about his madness. One can no longer hear sharp, poisonous sarcasm, into which a correct, definite idea is inserted, the truth, but some kind of bitter complaint, as if about a personal insult, about an empty, or, in his own words, “insignificant meeting with a Frenchman from Bordeaux,” which he, in a normal state of mind, would hardly have noticed.

He has ceased to control himself and does not even notice that he himself is putting together a performance at the ball.<…>

He is definitely “not himself”, starting with the monologue “about a Frenchman from Bordeaux” - and remains so until the end of the play. There are only “millions of torments” ahead.

Pushkin, denying Chatsky his mind, probably most of all had in mind the last scene of the 4th act, in the entryway, while driving around. Of course, neither Onegin nor Pechorin, these dandies, would have done what Chatsky did in the entryway. They were too trained “in the science of tender passion,” and Chatsky is distinguished, by the way, by sincerity and simplicity, and does not know how and does not want to show off. He is not a dandy, not a lion. Here not only his mind betrays him, but also his common sense, even simple decency. He did such nonsense!

Having gotten rid of Repetilov's chatter and hid in the Swiss waiting for the carriage, he spied on Sophia's date with Molchalin and played the role of Othello, without having any rights to do so. He reproaches her for why she “lured him with hope,” why she didn’t directly say that the past was forgotten. Every word here is not true. She did not entice him with any hope. All she did was walk away from him, barely spoke to him, admitted indifference, called some old children’s novel and hiding in corners “childish” and even hinted that “God brought her together with Molchalin.”

And he, only because -

… so passionate and so low

Was a waster of tender words,-

in rage for his own useless humiliation, for the deception voluntarily imposed on himself, he executes everyone, and throws at her a cruel and unfair word:

With you I am proud of my breakup,-

when there was nothing to tear apart! Finally he just comes to the point of abuse, pouring out bile:

For the daughter and for the father,

And on the lover fool -

and seethes with rage at everyone, “at the tormentors of the crowd, traitors, clumsy wise men, crafty simpletons, sinister old women,” etc. And he leaves Moscow to look for “a corner for offended feelings,” pronouncing a merciless judgment and sentence on everyone!

If he had one healthy minute, if he had not been burned by “a million torments,” he would, of course, ask himself the question: “Why and for what reason have I done all this mess?” And, of course, I wouldn’t find the answer.

Griboyedov is responsible for him, who ended the play with this disaster for a reason. In it, not only for Sophia, but also for Famusov and all his guests, Chatsky’s “mind,” which sparkled like a ray of light in the whole play, burst out at the end into that thunder at which, as the proverb goes, men are baptized.

From the thunder, Sophia was the first to cross herself, remaining until Chatsky appeared, when Molchalin was already crawling at her feet, still the same unconscious Sofia Pavlovna, with the same lie in which her father raised her, in which he lived himself, his entire house and his entire circle . Having not yet recovered from shame and horror when the mask fell from Molchalin, she first of all rejoices that “at night she learned everything, that there are no reproachful witnesses in her eyes!”

But there are no witnesses, therefore, everything is sewn and covered, you can forget, marry, perhaps, Skalozub, and look at the past...

No way to look. She will endure her moral sense, Liza will not let slip, Molchalin does not dare to say a word. And husband? But what kind of Moscow husband, “one of his wife’s pages,” would look back at the past!

This is her morality, and the morality of her father, and the whole circle.<…>

Chatsky's role is a passive role: it cannot be otherwise. This is the role of all Chatskys, although at the same time it is always victorious. But they do not know about their victory, they only sow, and others reap - and this is their main suffering, that is, in the hopelessness of success.

Of course, he did not bring Pavel Afanasyevich Famusov to his senses, sober him up, or correct him. If Famusov had not had “reproachful witnesses” during his departure, that is, a crowd of lackeys and a doorman, he would have easily dealt with his grief: he would have given his daughter a head wash, he would have torn Lisa’s ear and hastened with Sophia’s wedding to Skalozub. But now it’s impossible: the next morning, thanks to the scene with Chatsky, all of Moscow will know - and most of all “Princess Marya Alekseevna.” His peace will be disturbed from all sides - and will inevitably make him think about something that never occurred to him.<…>

Molchalin, after the scene in the entryway, cannot remain the same Molchalin. The mask is pulled off, he is recognized, and like a caught thief, he has to hide in a corner. The Gorichevs, Zagoretskys, the princesses - all fell under a hail of his shots, and these shots will not remain without a trace.<…>Chatsky created a schism, and if he was deceived in his personal goals, did not find “the charm of meetings, living participation,” then he himself sprinkled living water on the dead soil - taking with him “a million torments,” this Chatsky’s crown of thorns - torments from everything: from “ mind,” and even more from “offended feelings.”<…>

The role and physiognomy of the Chatskys remains unchanged. Chatsky is most of all an exposer of lies and everything that has become obsolete, that drowns out new life, “free life.”

He knows what he is fighting for and what this life should bring him. He does not lose the ground from under his feet and does not believe in a ghost until he has put on flesh and blood, has not been comprehended by reason, truth - in a word, has not become human.<…>He is very positive in his demands and states them in a ready-made program, developed not by him, but by the century that has already begun. With youthful ardor, he does not drive from the stage everything that has survived, that, according to the laws of reason and justice, as according to natural laws in physical nature, remains to live out its term, that can and should be tolerable. He demands space and freedom for his age: he asks for work, but does not want to serve, and stigmatizes servility and buffoonery. He demands “service to the cause, not to individuals,” does not mix “fun or tomfoolery with business,” like Molchalin, he languishes among the empty, idle crowd of “tormentors, traitors, sinister old women, quarrelsome old men,” refusing to bow to their authority of decrepitude , love of rank and so on. He is outraged by the ugly manifestations of serfdom, insane luxury and disgusting morals of “spillage in feasts and extravagance” - phenomena of mental and moral blindness and corruption.

His ideal of a “free life” is definite: it is freedom from all these countless chains of slavery that shackle society, and then freedom - “to focus on the sciences the mind hungry for knowledge”, or to unhinderedly indulge in “the creative, high and beautiful arts” - freedom “ to serve or not to serve”, “to live in a village or travel”, without being considered either a robber or an incendiary, and - a series of further successive similar steps to freedom - from unfreedom.<…>

Chatsky is broken by the amount of old power, inflicting a mortal blow on it in turn with the quality of fresh power.

He is the eternal denouncer of lies hidden in the proverb: “Alone in the field is not a warrior.” No, a warrior, if he is Chatsky, and a winner at that, but an advanced warrior, a skirmisher and always a victim.

Chatsky is inevitable with every change from one century to another. The position of the Chatskys on the social ladder is varied, but the role and fate are all the same, from major state and political figures who control the destinies of the masses, to a modest share in a close circle.<…>

In addition to large and prominent personalities, during sharp transitions from one century to another, the Chatskys live and are not transferred in society, repeating themselves at every step, in every house, where the old and the young coexist under one roof, where two centuries come face to face in crowded families - the struggle of the fresh with the outdated, the sick with the healthy continues, and everyone fights in duels, like Horaces and Curiatia - miniature Famusovs and Chatskys.

Every business that requires updating evokes the shadow of Chatsky - and no matter who the figures are, about any human matter - whether it be a new idea, a step in science, in politics, in war - no matter how people group, they cannot escape anywhere from the two main ones motives for the struggle: from the advice to “learn by looking at your elders,” on the one hand, and from the thirst to strive from routine to a “free life” forward and forward, on the other.<…>