Spring waters annotation to the work. Analysis of the story by I.S

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1. IDEA AND THEMATIC CONTENT OF I.S. TURGENEV "SPRING WATER"

CHAPTER 2. IMAGES OF THE MAIN AND SECONDARY CHARACTERS IN THE STORY

2.2 Female images in the story

2.3 Minor characters

CONCLUSION

LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION

In the late 1860s and the first half of the 1870s, Turgenev wrote a number of stories that belonged to the category of memories of the distant past (“The Brigadier”, “The Story of Lieutenant Ergunov”, “Unfortunate”, “Strange Story”, “Steppe King Lear”, “Knock, knock, knock”, “Spring waters”, “Punin and Baburin”, “Knocking”, etc.). Of these, the story "Spring Waters", the hero of which is another interesting addition to Turgenev's gallery of weak-willed people, became the most significant work of this period.

The story appeared in Vestnik Evropy in 1872 and was close in content to the stories Asya and First Love, written earlier: the same weak-willed, reflective hero, reminiscent of “superfluous people” (Sanin), the same Turgenev girl (Gemma ), experiencing the drama of unsuccessful love. Turgenev admitted that in his youth he “experienced and felt personally” the content of the story. But unlike their tragic endings, Spring Waters ends in a less dramatic plot. A deep and moving lyricism pervades the story.

In this work, Turgenev created images of the outgoing noble culture and new heroes of the era - commoners and democrats, images of selfless Russian women. And although the characters of the story are typical Turgenev's heroes, they still have interesting psychological features, recreated by the author with incredible skill, allowing the reader to penetrate into the depths of various human feelings, to experience them or remember them. And therefore, it is necessary to consider the figurative system of a short story with a small set of characters very carefully, relying on the text, without missing a single detail.

Therefore, the purpose of our course work is to study in detail the text of the story to characterize its figurative system.

Thus, the main and secondary characters of "Spring Waters" are the object of study.

The purpose, object and subject determine the following research objectives in our course work:

Consider the ideological and thematic content of the story;

Identify the main plot-figurative lines;

Consider the images of the main and secondary characters of the story, based on textual characteristics;

Make a conclusion about the artistic skill of Turgenev in the image of the heroes of "Spring Waters".

The theoretical significance of this work is determined by the fact that in criticism the story "Outer Waters" is mainly considered from the standpoint of problem-thematic analysis, and the line of Sanin - Jemma - Polozov is analyzed from the entire figurative system, in our work we have attempted a holistic figurative analysis of the work.

The practical significance of our work lies in the fact that the material presented in it can be used in the study of Turgenev's work as a whole, as well as for the preparation of special courses and optional courses, for example, "Tales of I.S. Turgenev about love (“Spring Waters”, “Asya”, “First Love”, etc.) or “Tales of Russian Writers of the Second Half of the 19th Century”, and when studying the general university course “History of Russian Literature of the 19th Century”.

CHAPTER 1. IDEA AND THEMATIC CONTENT OF THE STORY

I.S. TURGENEV "SPRING WATER"

The figurative system of a work directly depends on its ideological and thematic content: the author creates and develops characters in order to convey some idea to the reader, to make it “live”, “real”, “close” to the reader. The more successfully the images of the characters are created, the easier it is for the reader to perceive the thoughts of the author.

Therefore, before proceeding directly to the analysis of the images of the characters, we need to briefly consider the content of the story, in particular, why the author chose these and not other characters.

The ideological and artistic conception of this work determined the originality of the conflict and a special system, a special relationship of characters laid in its basis.

The conflict on which the story is based is the clash of a young man, not quite ordinary, not stupid, undoubtedly cultured, but indecisive, weak-willed, and a young girl, deep, strong in spirit, integral and strong-willed.

The central part of the plot is the origin, development and tragic ending of love. It is to this side of the story that Turgenev's main attention, as a writer-psychologist, is directed, in revealing these intimate experiences, and his artistic skill is manifested primarily.

There is also a link to a specific historical passage of time in the story. Thus, Sanin's meeting with Gemma dates back to 1840. In addition, Spring Waters contains a number of everyday details typical of the first half of the 19th century (Sanin is going to travel from Germany to Russia in a stagecoach, mail coach, etc.).

If we turn to the figurative system, it should immediately be noted that along with the main storyline - the love of Sanin and Gemma - additional storylines of the same personal order are given, but according to the principle of contrast with the main plot: the dramatic end of the story of Gemma's love for Sanin becomes clearer from comparison with side episodes concerning the history of Sanin and Polozova.

The main storyline in the story is revealed in the usual dramatic way for such works of Turgenev: first, a brief exposition is given, depicting the environment in which the characters must act, then the plot follows (the reader learns about the love of the hero and the heroine), then the action develops, sometimes meeting on the way obstacles, finally comes the moment of the highest tension of the action (explanation of the characters), followed by a catastrophe, and after it an epilogue.

The main narrative unfolds as the memories of the 52-year-old nobleman and landowner Sanin about the events of 30 years ago that happened in his life when he traveled around Germany. Once, while passing through Frankfurt, Sanin went into a pastry shop, where he helped the young daughter of the hostess with her younger brother who had fainted. The family was imbued with sympathy for Sanin and, unexpectedly for himself, he spent several days with them. When he was on a walk with Gemma and her fiancé, one of the young German officers who were sitting at the next table in the tavern allowed himself to be rude and Sanin challenged him to a duel. The duel ended happily for both participants. However, this incident greatly shook the measured life of the girl. She refused the groom, who could not protect her dignity. Sanin suddenly realized that he fell in love with her. The love that engulfed them led Sanin to the idea of marriage. Even Gemma's mother, who was horrified at first because of Gemma's break with her fiancé, gradually calmed down and began to make plans for their future life. In order to sell his estate and get money for living together, Sanin went to Weisbaden to the rich wife of his boarding comrade Polozov, whom he accidentally meets in Frankfurt. However, the rich and young Russian beauty Marya Nikolaevna, on her whim, lured Sanin and made him one of her lovers. Unable to resist the strong nature of Marya Nikolaevna, Sanin goes to Paris for her, but soon turns out to be unnecessary and returns in shame to Russia, where his life passes listlessly in the bustle of society. Only 30 years later, he accidentally finds a dried flower miraculously preserved, which caused that duel and was presented to him by Gemma. He rushes to Frankfurt, where he finds out that Gemma, two years after those events, got married and lives happily in New York with her husband and five children. Her daughter in the photograph looks like that young Italian girl, her mother, to whom Sanin once offered his hand and heart.

As we can see, the number of characters in the story is relatively small, so we can list them (as they appear in the text)

Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin - Russian landowner

Gemma - the daughter of the mistress of the confectionery

Emil - the son of the mistress of the confectionery

Pantaleone - old servant

Louise - maid

Leonora Roselli - mistress of the pastry shop

Carl Klüber - Gemma's fiancé

Baron Döngof - German officer, later - general

Von Richter - Baron Döngoff's second

Ippolit Sidorovich Polozov - Sanin's comrade at the boarding house

Marya Nikolaevna Polozova - Polozov's wife

Naturally, the heroes can be divided into main and secondary. The images of both will be considered by us in the second chapter of our work.

CHAPTER 2. IMAGES OF THE MAIN AND SECONDARY

CHARACTERS IN THE STORY

2.1 Sanin - the main character of "Spring Waters"

First, we note once again that the conflict in the story, and the selection of characteristic episodes, and the ratio of characters - everything obeys one main task of Turgenev: analysis of the psychology of the noble intelligentsia in the field of personal, intimate life. The reader sees how the main characters get to know each other, love each other, and then the main characters part ways, how other characters take part in the story of their love.

The protagonist of the story is Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin, at the beginning of the story we see him already 52 years old, recalling his youth, his love for the girl Jema and his unfinished happiness.

We immediately learn a lot about him, the author tells us everything without concealment: “Sanin passed the 22nd year, and he was in Frankfurt, on his way back from Italy to Russia. He was a man with a small fortune, but independent, almost without a family. After the death of a distant relative, he had several thousand rubles - and he decided to live them abroad, before entering the service, before the final laying on himself of that official collar, without which a secure existence became unthinkable for him. In the first part of the story, Turgenev shows the best that was in Sanin's character and what captivated Gemma in him. In two episodes (Sanin helps Gemma's brother, Emil, who has fallen into a deep faint, and then, defending Gemma's honor, fights in a duel with the German officer Döngoff), Sanin's traits such as nobility, directness, courage are revealed. The author describes the appearance of the protagonist: “Firstly, he was very, very good-looking. Stately, slender growth, pleasant, slightly vague features, affectionate bluish eyes, golden hair, whiteness and ruddiness of the skin - and most importantly: that ingenuously cheerful, trusting, frank, at first somewhat stupid expression, by which in former times one could immediately recognize children of sedate noble families, "father's" sons, good nobles, born and fattened in our free semi-steppe lands; a hesitant gait, a voice with a whisper, a smile like that of a child, as soon as you look at him ... finally, freshness, health - and softness, softness, softness - that's all Sanin for you. And secondly, he was not stupid and got something. He remained fresh, despite the trip abroad: the anxious feelings that overwhelmed the best part of the then youth were little known to him. Usually this is not a characteristic of the author, not the statements of the characters about themselves - for the most part these are external manifestations of their thoughts and feelings: facial expression, voice, posture, movements, manner of singing, performing favorite musical works, reading favorite poems. For example, the scene before Sanin's duel with an officer: “Only once thought came over him: he stumbled upon a young linden tree, broken, in all likelihood, by yesterday's squall. She was positively dying... all the leaves on her were dying. "What is this? an omen?" flashed through his mind; but he immediately whistled, jumped over that same linden tree, and walked along the path. Here the state of mind of the hero is conveyed through the landscape.

Naturally, the hero of the story is not unique among other Turgenev characters of this type. One can compare "Spring Waters", for example, with the novel "Smoke", where the researchers note the closeness of the plot lines and images: Irina - Litvinova - Tatyana and Polozova - Sanin - Gemma. Indeed, Turgenev in the story seemed to change the novel's ending: Sanin did not find the strength to abandon the role of a slave, as was the case with Litvinov, and followed Marya Nikolaevna everywhere. This change in the ending was not accidental and arbitrary, but was determined by the logic of the genre. Also, the genre updated the prevailing dominants in the development of the characters' characters. Sanin, in fact, like Litvinov, is given the opportunity to “build” himself: and he, outwardly weak-willed and spineless, surprised at himself, suddenly begins to do things, sacrifices himself for the sake of another - when he meets Gemma. But the story does not suffice with this quixotic trait, while in the novel it dominates, as in the case of Litvinov. In the “characterless” Litvinov, it is precisely the character and inner strength that are actualized, which is realized, among other things, in the idea of social service. And Sanin turns out to be full of doubts and contempt for himself, he, like Hamlet, is “a sensual and voluptuous person” - it is Hamlet's passion that wins in him. He is also crushed by the general course of life, unable to resist it. Sanin's life revelation is in tune with the reflections of the heroes of many of the writer's stories. Its essence lies in the fact that the happiness of love is as tragically instantaneous as human life, but it is the only meaning and content of this life. Thus, the characters of the novel and the short story, who initially reveal the same properties of character, in different genres realize different dominant principles - either quixotic or Hamletian. The ambivalence of qualities is complemented by the dominance of one of them.

Sanin can also be correlated with Aeneas (with whom he is compared) - the main character of the work "Aeneid", which tells about the journey and return of the wanderer to his homeland. Turgenev has persistent and repeated references to the text of the Aeneid (a thunderstorm and a cave in which Dido and Aeneas took refuge), i.e. to the "Roman" plot. "Aeneas?" - whispers Marya Nikolaevna at the entrance to the guardhouse (that is, the cave). A long forest path leads to it:<…>the shadow of the forest covered them wide and soft, and from all sides<…>track<…>suddenly turned aside and went into a rather narrow gorge. The smell of heather, pine resin, dank, last year's foliage lingered in him - thick and drowsy. From the crevices of the large brown stones, freshness radiated. On both sides of the path rose round mounds, overgrown with green moss.<…>Through the tops of the trees, through the air of the forest, a dull shaking swept<…>went this way all the way deep, but deep into the forest<…>Finally, through the dark green of the spruce bushes, from under a canopy of gray rock, a wretched guardhouse looked at him, with a low door in a wicker wall ... ".

In addition, Sanin brings one more thing closer to Aeneas: Aeneas, in search of a way home, falls into the arms of Queen Dido, forgets about his wife and indulges in love in the arms of a seductress, the same thing happens with Sanin: he forgets about his love for Gemma and succumbs to fatal passion women of Marya Nikolaevna, which ends in nothing.

2.2 Female images in the story

There are two main female images in the story, these are two women who took a direct part in the fate of Sanin: his bride Gemma and the "fatal" beauty Marya Nikolaevna Polozova.

We first learn about Gemma in one of the first scenes of the story, when she asks Sanin to help her brother: “A girl of about nineteen impetuously ran into the confectionery, with dark curls scattered over her bare shoulders, with outstretched bare hands, and, seeing Sanin, immediately rushed to him, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him along, saying in a breathless voice: "Hurry, hurry, here, save!" Not out of unwillingness to obey, but simply out of an excess of amazement, Sanin did not immediately follow the girl - and, as it were, rested on the spot: he had never seen such a beauty in his life. And further, the impression that the girl made on the main character only intensifies: “Sanin himself is ter - and he himself looked askance at her. My God! what a beauty it was! Her nose was somewhat large, but a beautiful, aquiline fret, her upper lip was slightly shaded by fluff; on the other hand, the complexion, even and matte, ivory or milky amber, wavy gloss of hair, like Allori's Judith in the Palazzo Pitti - and especially the eyes, dark gray, with a black border around the pupils, magnificent, triumphant eyes - even now, when fright and grief darkened their brilliance ... Sanin involuntarily remembered the wonderful land from which he was returning ... Yes, he had never seen anything like it in Italy! Turgenev's heroine is Italian, and the Italian flavor par excellence at all levels, from language to descriptions of Italian temperament, emotionality, etc., all the details included in the canonical image of an Italian, is given in the story with almost excessive detail. It is this Italian world, with its temperamental responsiveness, easy flammability, quickly changing sorrows and joys, despair not only from injustice, but from the ignoble form, that emphasizes the cruelty and baseness of Sanin's act. But it is precisely against the "Italian delights" that Marya Nikolaevna opposes Sanina, and perhaps in this she is not entirely unfair.

But in Turgenev, the Italian, in this case corresponding to all possible virtues, in a certain sense, is also inferior to another (Russian) image. As often happens, the negative character "replays" the positive one, and Gemma seems somewhat insipid and boring (despite her artistic talent) in comparison with the bright charm and significance of Marya Nikolaevna, "a very remarkable person" who captivates not only Sanin, but also the author himself. .

Even the surname Polozova speaks of the nature of this woman: the snake is a huge snake, hence the association with the biblical snake-tempter, therefore Polozova is a temptress.

Turgenev almost cartoons of the rapacity and depravity of Marya Nikolaevna: “<…>triumph snaked on his lips - and his eyes, wide and bright to whiteness, expressed one ruthless stupidity and satiety of victory. A hawk that claws a caught bird has such eyes. However, such passages give way to a much more pronounced admiration, primarily for her feminine irresistibility: “And it’s not that she was a notorious beauty<…>she could not boast of the thinness of her skin, nor the grace of her arms and legs - but what did all this mean?<…>Not before the “shrine of beauty”, in the words of Pushkin, anyone who would meet her would stop, but before the charm of a powerful, either Russian or gypsy, flowering female body ... and he would not involuntarily stop!<…>“When this woman comes to you, it’s as if she brings all the happiness of your life to meet you,” etc. The charm of Marya Nikolaevna is dynamic: she is constantly on the move, constantly changing “images”. Against this background, the static nature of Gemma’s perfect beauty, her statuary and picturesqueness in the “museum” sense of the word, especially comes through: she is compared either with the marble Olympic goddesses, or with Allorian Judith in the Palazzo Pitti, or with Raphael Fornarina (but it should be remembered that this does not contradict manifestations of Italian temperament, emotionality, artistry). Annensky spoke about the strange resemblance of pure, concentrated and lonely Turgenev girls (Gemma, however, is not one of them) with statues, about their ability to turn into a statue, about their somewhat heavy statuarity.

No less admiration for the hero (author) is caused by her talent, intelligence, education, in general, the eccentricity of Marya Nikolaevna's nature: “She showed such commercial and administrative abilities that one could only be amazed! All the ins and outs of the economy was well known to her;<…>her every word hit the mark"; “Marya Nikolaevna knew how to tell ... a rare gift in a woman, and even a Russian one!<…>Sanin had to burst out laughing more than once at some brisk and well-aimed phrase. Most of all, Marya Nikolaevna did not tolerate hypocrisy, falsehood and lies ... ”etc. Marya Nikolaevna is a person in the full sense of the word, domineering, strong-willed, and as a person she leaves the pure, immaculate dove Gemma far behind.

Curious, as an illustration, is the theatrical theme in the characterization of both heroines. In the evenings, a performance was played out in the Roselli family: Gemma excellently, “quite like an actor” read the “comedy” of the average Frankfurt writer Maltz, “grimaced the most hilarious grimaces, narrowed her eyes, wrinkled her nose, burred, squeaked”; Sanin “could not be quite astonished at her; he was especially struck by how her ideally beautiful face suddenly assumed such a comical, sometimes almost trivial expression. Obviously, Sanin and Marya Nikolaevna are watching a play of approximately the same level at the Wiesbaden Theater - but with what deadly causticity Marya Nikolaevna speaks of her: ““ Drama! she said indignantly, “German drama. All the same: better than a German comedy.”<…>It was one of the many home-grown works in which well-read but mediocre actors<…>represented the so-called tragic conflict and bored.<…>The grimacing and whimpering rose again on the stage. Sanin perceives the play with her sober and merciless eyes and does not experience any enthusiasm.

The opposition of scales at a deep level is also felt in the fact that both are reported in the conclusion of the story. “She died a long time ago,” Sanin says about Marya Nikolaevna, turning away and frowning, and there is a certain drama latent in this (especially if you remember that the gypsy woman predicted her violent death). This drama is all the more felt against the background of Gemma, who is grateful to Sanin for the fact that meeting with him saved her from an unwanted fiancé and allowed her to find her destiny in America, married to a successful merchant, “with whom she has been living quite happily for twenty-eight years now, in contentment and abundance." Having got rid of all the sentimental, emotional and romantic attributes of Italian (embodied in Frau Lenore, Pantaleon, Emilio and even the poodle Tartaglia), Gemma embodied an example of petty-bourgeois happiness in the American manner, which, in fact, is no different from the once rejected German version ( like the name Slocombe, which replaced Roselli, is no better than Klüber). And Sanin's reaction to this news that made him happy is described in a manner that suggests the author's irony: “We do not undertake to describe the feelings experienced by Sanin when reading this letter. There is no satisfactory expression for such feelings: they are deeper and stronger - and more indefinite than any word. Music alone could convey them.

2.3 Minor characters

writer turgenev story character

The main characters of "Spring Waters" are compared with secondary characters, partly by similarity (Gemma - Emil - their mother), and even more by contrast: Sanin - and a practical, moderate, neat bourgeois, Gemma Kluber's fiancé, Sanin - and a perky, empty burner Döngoff's life. This allows you to more deeply reveal the character of the protagonist through his relationship with these people.

Gema's brother Emilio, who later died in the ranks of Garibaldi's fighters, evokes deep sympathy for the reader. Here is how its author describes: “In the room where he ran after the girl, on an old-fashioned horsehair sofa, all white - white with yellowish tints, like wax or like ancient marble, was a boy of fourteen years old, strikingly similar to a girl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, the shadow of his thick black hair fell like a stain on his petrified forehead, on motionless thin eyebrows; clenched teeth showed from under blue lips. He didn't seem to be breathing; one hand dropped to the floor, the other he threw over his head. The boy was dressed and buttoned up; a tight tie squeezed his neck.

In a tone of good-natured irony, Turgenev draws in the “Spring Waters” of the aged retired singer Panteleon: “... a little old man in a lilac tailcoat with black buttons, a high white tie, short nanke knickers and blue woolen stockings entered the room, hobbling on crooked legs. His tiny face completely disappeared under a whole mass of gray, iron-colored hair. From all sides, rising steeply upwards and falling back in disheveled braids, they gave the old man's figure a resemblance to a crested chicken - the resemblance is all the more striking because under their dark gray mass it was only possible to make out that a pointed nose and round yellow eyes. Next, we get acquainted with the circumstances of the old man's life: “Pantaleone was also introduced to Sanin. It turned out that he was once an opera singer, for baritone parts, but had long ago stopped his theatrical studies and was in the Roselli family something in between a friend of the house and a servant.

On the one hand, this character is comical, designed to revive the Italian flavor of the story, to make it more vivid, naturalistic, on the other hand, it allows us to take a closer look at the family of Gemma, her relatives and friends.

Turgenev satirically depicts a “positive person” - Gemma’s fiancé, the German Klüber: “It must be assumed that at that time in the whole of Frankfurt there was no such polite, decent, important, amiable chief commie as Mr. Klüber. The impeccability of his dress was on the same level with the dignity of his posture, with elegance - a little prim and reserved, in the English way (he spent two years in England), but still the captivating elegance of his manner! At first glance, it became clear that this handsome, somewhat strict, well-mannered and excellently washed young man was accustomed to obey the higher and command the lower, and that behind the counter of his store he inevitably had to inspire respect for the customers themselves! There could not be the slightest doubt about his supernatural honesty: one had only to look at his tightly starched collars! And his voice turned out to be what one would expect: thick and self-confidently juicy, but not too loud, with some even tenderness in timbre. Kluber is good for everyone, but a coward! Yes, and what, not only did he stain himself with shame, he also put his beloved girl in an awkward position. Naturally, the author’s attitude towards him is not too warm, which is why he is depicted ironically. And this irony turns into sarcasm in hindsight when we find out that Kluber stole and died in prison

CONCLUSION

Turgenev positioned the story "Spring Waters" as a work about love. But the general tone of incur is pessimistic. Everything is accidental and transient in life: chance brought Sanin and Gemma together, chance broke their happiness. However, no matter how the first love ends, it, like the sun, illuminates a person’s life, and the memory of it remains forever with him, like a life-giving principle.

Love is a powerful feeling, before which a person is powerless, as well as before the elements of nature. Turgenev does not illuminate the entire psychological process for us, but dwells on individual, but crisis moments, when the feeling that accumulates inside a person suddenly manifests itself outside - in a look, in an act, in a rush. He does this through landscape sketches, events, characteristics of other characters. That is why, with a small set of characters in the story, each image created by the author is unusually bright, artistically complete, perfectly inscribed in the overall ideological and thematic concept of the story.

There are no random people here, everyone is in their place, each character carries a certain ideological load: the main characters express the author's idea, lead and develop the plot, “talk” with the reader, secondary characters add additional color, serve as a means of characterizing the main characters, give comic and satirical shades of the work.

In general, we can conclude that Turgenev is a great master in portraying the characters, in penetrating into their inner world, in expressing the subtlest psychological elements of the story. To create his unique images in the story, he used artistic means that allowed him to depict the characters as “alive”, “close” to the reader, which in turn made it possible to convey his ideas to people, to enter into a dialogue with them on an artistic, figurative level.

LITERATURE

1. Batyuto A.I. Turgenev the novelist. - L., 1972.

2. Golubkov V.V. Artistic skill of I.S. Turgenev. - M., 1955.

3. Zenkovsky V.V. The worldview of I.S. Turgenev / Zenkovsky V.V. // Russian thinkers and Europe. - M., 1997.

4. Kurlyandskaya G.B. The aesthetic world of I.S. Turgenev. - Eagle, 1994.

5. Kurlyandskaya G.B. I.S. Turgenev. Worldview, method, traditions. – Tula, 2001.

6. Petrov S.M. I.S. Turgenev. Life and creation. - M., 1968.

7. Struve P.B. Turgenev / Publication by V. Alexandrov // Literary studies. - M., 2000.

8. Turgenev I.S. Spring waters. / Complete collection of works and letters: In 30 volumes. Works: in 12 volumes - T. 12. - M., 1986.

Golubkov V.V. Artistic skill of I.S. Turgenev. - M., 1955. - S. 110.

Petrov S.M. I.S. Turgenev. Life and creation. - M., 1968. - S. 261.

Batyuto A.I. Turgenev the novelist. - L., 1972. - S. 270.

Turgenev I.S. Spring waters. / Complete collection of works and letters: In 30 volumes. Works: in 12 volumes - V. 12 - M., 1986. - P. 96.

There. – p. 102

Turgenev I.S. Spring waters. / Complete collection of works and letters: In 30 volumes. Works: in 12 volumes - V. 12 - M., 1986. - P. 114.

He occupies an honorable place in Russian literature, primarily due to his works of large form. Six well-known novels and several stories give reason to any critic to consider Turgenev a brilliant prose writer. The themes of the works are very diverse: these are works about "superfluous" people, about serfdom, about love. In the late 1860s - early 70s, Turgenev wrote a number of stories representing memories of the distant past. The "first sign" was the story "Asya", which opened a galaxy of heroes - weak-willed people, intellectual nobles who lost their love due to their weak character and indecision.

The story was written in 1872 and published in 1873. "Spring Waters", largely repeating the plot of previous works. Russian landowner Dmitry Sanin, living abroad, recalls his past love for Gemma Roselli, the daughter of the owner of the confectionery, where the hero went to drink lemonade during his walk around Frankfurt. He was then young, 22 years old, squandering the fortune of a distant relative, traveling around Europe.

Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin is a typical Russian nobleman, an educated and intelligent person: "Dmitry combined freshness, health and an infinitely gentle character". In the process of developing the plot of the story, the hero demonstrates nobility several times. And if at the beginning of the development of events Dmitry showed courage and honor, for example, by helping Gemma's younger brother or by challenging a drunken officer who insulted the honor of his beloved girl to a duel, then by the end of the novel he shows surprising weakness of character.

Fate decreed that, late for the stagecoach to Berlin and left without money, Sanin ended up in the family of an Italian confectioner, managed to work behind the counter and even fell in love with the owner's daughter. He was struck by the perfect beauty of the young Italian woman, especially by the ivory complexion. And she also laughed unusually: she had "cute, incessant, quiet laughter with little amusing squeals". But the girl was engaged to a wealthy German, Karl Klüber, a marriage with whom could save the unenviable position of the Roselli family.

And although Frau Lenore convincingly asks Sanin to persuade Gemma to marry a wealthy German, Dmitry himself falls in love with the girl. On the eve of the duel, she gives Sanin "the rose he won the day before". He is shocked, he understands that the girl is not indifferent, and now he is tormented by the knowledge that he can be killed in a duel. His act seems to him stupid and senseless. But faith in the love of a young beauty gives confidence that everything will end well (this is how everything happens).

Love transforms the hero: he confesses in a letter to Gemma that he loves her, and a day later an explanation takes place. True, Gemma's mother, Frau Lenore, takes the news of the new groom unexpectedly for both: she bursts into tears, like a Russian peasant woman over the coffin of her husband or son. After sobbing for an hour, she nevertheless listens to Sanin's arguments that he is ready to sell his small estate in the Tula province in order to invest this money in the development of a confectionery and save the Roselli family from final ruin. Frau Lenore gradually calms down, asks about Russian laws and even asks to bring her from Russia "Astrakhan lambs on a mantilla". She is embarrassed that they are of different faiths: Sanin is a Christian, and Gemma is a Catholic, but the girl, left alone with her beloved, tears off a pomegranate cross from her neck and gives him as a token of love.

Sanin is sure that the stars favor him, because literally the next day he meets his "an old boarding comrade" Ippolit Polozov, who offers to sell the estate to his wife Marya Nikolaevna. Sanin hastily leaves for Wiesbaden, where he meets Polozov's wife, a beautiful young lady. "in diamonds on the arms and around the neck". Sanin was slightly shocked by her cheeky behavior, but decided "to indulge the whims of this rich lady" just to sell the estate for a good price. But left alone, he recalls with bewilderment the vicious appearance of Marya Nikolaevna: her “not that Russian, not that gypsy flowering female body”, "grey predatory eyes", "serpentine braids"; “and he could not get rid of her image, could not help but hear her voice, not remember her speeches, could not help but feel a special smell, thin, fresh and piercing, which emanated from her clothes”.

This woman attracts Sanin with her business acumen: asking about the estate, she skillfully asks questions that reveal her "commercial and administrative ability". The hero feels as if he is in an exam, which he fails miserably. Polozova asks him to stay for two days to make a final decision, and Sanin is captured by this domineering beautiful woman. The hero is delighted with the eccentricity of Marya Nikolaevna: she is not only a business woman, she is a connoisseur of real art, an excellent rider. It is in the forest during a horseback ride that this woman, accustomed to victories over men, finally seduces the young man, leaving him no choice. He follows her to Paris as a weak-willed victim, not knowing that this is not just a whim of a rich and depraved woman, this is a cruel bet that she made with her husband: she assured that she would seduce his school friend, who was about to get married, in just two days .

Many contemporaries saw image of Marya Nikolaevna Polozova "fatal passion" Turgenev himself - the singer Pauline Viardot, who, according to the testimony of the writer's friends, simply bewitched him, which is why he never found happiness, basking all his life near someone else's family hearth (Viardot was married to Louis Viardot, a French writer, critic, theater figure, and was not going to get divorced, because she owed him her solo career).

witchcraft motif there is also in the "Spring Waters". Polozova asks Sanin if he believes in "dry", and the hero agrees that he feels weak-willed. Yes, and the name of the heroine Polozov - from the "snake", that is, a huge snake, which for a Christian is associated with temptation. After the "fall" comes retribution - the hero is left alone. After 30 years, living out the boring days of his life, the hero remembers his first love - Gemma. Once again in Frankfurt, he learns with bitterness that the girl married an American, went with him to New York and is happily married (they have five children).

The story "Spring Waters", like many other works of Turgenev, is about first love, as a rule, unhappy, but it is she who remains the brightest memory on the slope of every person's life.

"Spring Waters": a summary

Turgenev describes his hero: he is 52 years old, he lived his life as if he were floating on a smooth, imperturbable sea surface, but grief, poverty and madness lurked in its depths. And all his life he was afraid that one of these underwater monsters would one day capsize his boat, disturb the peace. His life, though rich, was utterly empty and lonely.

Wishing to distract from these gloomy thoughts, he begins to sort through old papers. Among the documents, Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin finds a small box with a small cross inside. This item vividly evokes memories of the past.

sick child

Now the story "Spring Waters" takes the reader to the summer of 1840. Summary, Turgenev, according to research, agrees with this idea, describes the chance that Sanin once missed, the chance to change his life.

During these years, Sanin was 22 years old, and he traveled around Europe, descending a small inheritance inherited from a distant relative. On the way back to his homeland, he made a stop in Frankfurt. In the evening he was going to take a stagecoach to Berlin. The rest of the time, he decided to spend on a walk.

In a small street, he noticed Giovanni Roselli's Italian Patisserie and entered it. As soon as he entered, a girl ran up to him and asked for help. It turned out that the girl's younger brother, fourteen-year-old Emil, fainted. And in the house, except for the old servant Pantaleone, there was no one.

Sanin managed to bring the boy back to consciousness. Dmitry noticed the amazing beauty of the girl. Then the doctor entered the room, accompanied by a lady who turned out to be the mother of Emil and the girl. The mother was so happy that her child was saved that she invited Sanin to dinner.

An Evening at Roselli's

The work “Spring Waters” tells about first love. The story describes Dmitry's evening trip to visit, where he is greeted as a hero. Sanin learns the name of the mother of the family - Leonora Roselli. She left Italy with her husband Giovanni 20 years ago and moved to Frankfurt to open a patisserie here. Her daughter's name was Gemma. And Pantaleone, their old servant, was once an opera singer. The guest also learns about Gemma's engagement to the head of a large store, Karl Klüber.

However, Sanin was too carried away by communication, stayed up at a party and was late for his stagecoach. He had little money left, and he sent a letter to a Berlin friend asking for a loan. While waiting for an answer, Dmitry stayed in Frankfurt for a few days. The next day, Emil and Karl Klüber came to see Sanin. Gemma's fiance, a handsome and well-mannered young man, thanked Sanin for saving the boy and invited him to go with the Roselli family for a walk in Soden. On this, Karl left, and Emil remained, soon making friends with Dmitry.

Sanin spent another day with his new acquaintances, never taking his eyes off the beautiful Gemma.

Sanin

Turgenev's story tells about Sanin's youth. In those years, he was a tall, stately and slender young man. His features were a little blurry, he was a descendant of a noble family, and inherited golden hair from his ancestors. He was full of health and youthful freshness. However, he was very gentle.

Walk in Soden

The next day, the Roselli family and Sanin went to the small town of Soden, which is located half an hour from Frankfurt. The walk was organized by Herr Klüber with the pedantry inherent in all Germans. Turgenev's story describes the life of middle-class Europeans. The Rosellis went to dinner at the best tavern in Soden. But Gemma was bored with what was happening, and she wanted to dine on the common terrace, and not in a separate gazebo that her fiancé had ordered.

A company of officers was having lunch on the terrace. They were all very drunk, and one of them approached Gemma. He raised his glass to her health and took the rose that lay next to the girl's plate.

It was an insult to Gemma. However, Kluber did not intercede for the bride, but quickly paid and took the girl to the hotel. Dmitry boldly approached the officer, called him impudent, took the rose and challenged the offender to a duel. Kluber pretended not to notice what had happened, but Emil admired this act.

Duel

The next day, not thinking about love, Sanin talks with the second officer von Donhof. Dmitry himself did not even have acquaintances in Frankfurt, so he took the servant Pantaleone as his seconds. We decided to shoot from twenty paces with pistols.

Dimitri spent the rest of the day with Gemma. Before leaving, the girl gave him the same rose that he had taken from the officer. At that moment, Sanin realized that he had fallen in love.

The duel took place at 10 o'clock. Donhof fired into the air, thereby admitting that he was guilty. As a result, the duelists dispersed, shaking hands.

Gemma

The story about the love of Sanin and Gemma begins. Dimitri pays a visit to Frau Leone. It turns out that Gemma is going to break the engagement, but only this marriage will help save the financial situation of her entire family. The girl's mother asks Sanin to convince her. But the persuasion did not bring results. On the contrary, he realized that Gemma loved him too. After mutual confessions, Dmitry proposes to the girl.

Frau Leona resigned herself to her new fiancé, convinced that he had a fortune. Sanin had an estate in the Tula province, which should have been sold and the money invested in a confectionery. Unexpectedly, on the street, Sanin meets an old friend, Ippolit Polozov, who could buy his estate. But to the request, the friend replies that his wife, an attractive but powerful woman, is in charge of all financial matters.

Mrs. Polozova

The work "Spring Waters" tells how Dmitry, having said goodbye to his bride, leaves for Wiesbaden, where Marya Nikolaevna Polozova is treated with waters. She turns out to be a very beautiful woman with beautiful blonde hair and slightly vulgar features. Sanin interested her at first sight. It turned out that Polozov gave his wife complete freedom and did not interfere in her affairs. He was more concerned with a life of prosperity and good food.

The Polozovs even made a bet on Sanin. Hippolyte was sure that his friend loved his bride too much, so he would not succumb to the charms of his wife. However, he lost, although it cost his wife a lot of work. Dmitry cheated on Gemma three days after arriving at the Polozovs.

Confession

There are no ideal figures in the work "Spring Waters". Heroes appear as ordinary people with their weaknesses and vices. Sanin was no exception, but upon his return he immediately confessed everything to Gemma. Immediately after that, he went on a trip with Polozova. He became the slave of this woman, and accompanied her until he got bored. And then she just threw him out of her life. The only thing left in memory of Gemma is the same cross that he found in the box. As the years passed, he did not understand why he left the girl, because he did not love anyone as much and tenderly as her.

Trying to bring back the past

The work “Spring Waters” is coming to an end (summary). Turgenev again returns to the aged Sanin. His hero, succumbing to surging memories, rushes to Frankfurt. Dmitry Pavlovich wanders the streets in search of a candy store, but cannot even remember the street where it was. In the address book, he finds the name of Major von Donhof. He said that Gemma got married and went to New York. He, after all, Sanin received the address of his beloved.

He writes a letter to her. Gemma sends a reply and thanks Sanin for breaking off the engagement, as it made her happier. She has a wonderful family - a beloved husband and five children. She says that her mother and Pantaleone died, and her brother died in the war. In addition, she attaches a photograph of her daughter to the letter, which is very similar to Gemma in her youth.

Sanin sends a pomegranate cross as a gift to his daughter Jemma. And later he is going to America.

"Spring Waters": analysis

It is best to start the analysis of the work from the first poetic lines taken by Turgenev from an old romance. It is in them that the main theme of the entire work is contained: "Jolly years, happy days - they rushed like spring waters."

Turgenev tells about past dreams, lost opportunities and missed chances in his work. His hero, because of his softness, misses the only chance for happiness. And he is no longer able to correct his mistake, no matter how hard he tries.

Genre originality of the story "Spring Waters"

Of these, the story "Spring Waters", the hero of which is another interesting addition to Turgenev's gallery of weak-willed people, became the most significant work of this period.

But unlike their tragic endings, Spring Waters ends in a less dramatic plot. A deep and moving lyricism pervades the story.

And therefore, it is necessary to consider the figurative system of a short story with a small set of characters very carefully, relying on the text, without missing a single detail.

The ideological and artistic conception of this work determined the originality of the conflict and a special system, a special relationship of characters laid in its basis.

Only 30 years later, he accidentally finds a dried flower miraculously preserved, which caused that duel and was presented to him by Gemma. He rushes to Frankfurt, where he finds out that Gemma, two years after those events, got married and lives happily in New York with her husband and five children. Her daughter in the photograph looks like that young Italian girl, her mother, to whom Sanin once offered his hand and heart.

As we can see, the number of characters in the story is relatively small, so we can list them (as they appear in the text)

Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin - Russian landowner

Gemma - the daughter of the mistress of the confectionery

Emil - the son of the mistress of the confectionery

Pantaleone - old servant

Louise - maid

Leonora Roselli - hostess of a pastry shop

Carl Klüber - Gemma's fiancé

Baron Döngof - German officer, later - general

von Richter - second to Baron Döngoff

Ippolit Sidorovich Polozov - Sanin's comrade at the boarding house

Marya Nikolaevna Polozova - Polozov's wife

Naturally, the heroes can be divided into main and secondary. The images of both will be considered by us in the second chapter of our work.

Love is a powerful feeling, before which a person is powerless, as well as before the elements of nature. Turgenev does not illuminate the entire psychological process for us, but dwells on individual, but crisis moments, when the feeling accumulating inside a person suddenly manifests itself outside - in a look, in an act, in an impulse. He does this through landscape sketches, events, characteristics of other characters. That is why, with a small set of characters in the story, each image created by the author is unusually bright, artistically complete, perfectly inscribed in the overall ideological and thematic concept of the story. [Efimova, 1958, p. 41]

Gemma in the story "Spring Waters" - an Italian girl who fell in love with the main character, Sanin. Gemma is an extraordinary beauty, as if descended from the canvases of the Renaissance masters. In her appearance, the ideal of harmony was embodied, which in the minds of the people of the Turgenev generation was associated precisely with Italy.

Beauty combines in Italian with innate artistry and the power of passion. The spirit of freedom also lives in it, equally opposed to both political despotism (Gemma is a “stubborn republican”) and measured and prudent bourgeoisism. The romantic nature of the heroine is manifested in the love story that makes up the first part of the story: the girl refuses her fiancé, the wealthy merchant Kluber, and falls in love with Sanin, who saved her brother and fought a duel for her honor. Gemma's love is surrounded by a halo of symbolic meaning: in it, according to Turgenev, the "last" secrets of life and beauty are revealed. All the more striking is Sanin's rejection of the happiness that has befallen him. The heroine is having a hard time with his betrayal. But then, as Sanin finds out, she embarks on the path of an ordinary (and, moreover, quite worthy) existence - she leaves for America, gets married and prospers.

Polozova Maria Nikolaevna- a woman who destroyed the love of Sanin and Gemma in Turgenev's story "Spring Waters". She is extremely selfish, often rude and coldly calculating, but for all that she is brightly outstanding. Polozova is a person of a new formation, the daughter of a wealthy illiterate peasant, who received a good education and won a strong position in society, there is nothing in her of the psychology of an upstart: the heroine flaunts her plebeianism, although she despises the environment from which she came out, as, indeed, your new environment.

She knows human weaknesses and knows how to use them. Its goal is complete freedom for itself and power over other people. The sensuality of Marya Nikolaevna Polozova is marked by a touch of a kind of demonism: she seeks to enslave men, destroying their faith in ideal love and the possibility of happiness. There are deep reasons for this in her own destiny. “Having suffered” from slavery, she makes others slaves; never once in her life becoming the object of true love, she deprives such love of happier women. This is how she intrudes into the ideal romance of Gemma and Sanin. This is a kind of revenge on the whole world, which distinguished romantic heroes. But in Turgenev's story "Spring Waters" Polozova is not sublime; the halo of "half-beast and demigod" that surrounded her at climaxes eventually disappears, replaced by mere animal features ("A hawk that claws a captured bird has such eyes").

Sanin Dmitry Pavlovich- the main character of the story "Spring Waters" by Turgenev, a young Russian landowner who travels around Europe for his own entertainment. Suddenly, he becomes the main protagonist of two diametrically opposed love stories. First, he experiences a high pure love for Gemma, and then, almost without any transition, a blind and base passion for Polozova, which manages to completely enslave him. Having fallen in love with Gemma, Sanin behaves like a noble person, becoming Polozova's slave - like a man without honor and conscience. He suffers, realizing the enormity of his betrayal, the baseness of all his behavior, but this does not change anything. The contrast is very sharp, the more significant is the fact that in both situations the behavior of the hero Turgenev explains the same reason - his weak will. The hero each time succumbs to the intervention of chance, obeys circumstances, feelings, the will of other people: whatever their impact, such is he (in a situation of ideal love, he is noble, in a situation of base passion, disgusting). In Sanin's weak will there is some resemblance to the psychology of Turgenev's "superfluous people." But the similarity only accentuates the difference. The weakness of the will, which determines the behavior of this hero, does not receive a specific social explanation (as happened in the stories about "superfluous people"). This enlarges the scale of generalization: the ability at any moment to move from noble idealism to unrestrained fall, immorality is interpreted by the author as a feature of the national character, an expression of the “Russian essence”.

Portal for the student. Self-training

sick child

An Evening at Roselli's

Sanin

Walk in Soden

Duel

Gemma

Mrs. Polozova

Confession

Trying to bring back the past

"Spring Waters": analysis

Genre originality of the story "Spring Waters"

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