Roman Goncharov "The Cliff": a brief summary and the history of creation

Roman Goncharov's "Cliff" is the third and final part of the famous trilogy, which also includes the books "Ordinary Story" and "Oblomov." In this work the author continued the polemic with the views of the socialists of the sixties. The writer was worried by the desire of some people to forget about duty, love and affection, leave the family and go to the commune for the bright future of all mankind. Such stories in the 1860's happened often. Roman Goncharova "screams" about the termination by the nihilists of primordial ties, which in no way should be forgotten. The history of the creation and brief content of this work will be discussed in this article.

Purpose

Roman Goncharov's "Cliff" was created almost twenty years. The book was conceived by the writer in 1849, when he once again visited his native Simbirsk. There, memories of childhood reverberated over Ivan Alexandrovich. He wanted to make the scene of the new work dear to the heart of Volga landscapes. So the story of creation began. Goncharov's "breakage", meanwhile, was not yet embodied on paper. In 1862, Ivan Alexandrovich happened to meet on the boat with an interesting man. It was an artist - the nature is ardent and expansive. He easily changed life plans, always remained in captivity of his creative fantasies. But this did not stop him from penetrating someone else's grief and help at the right time. After this meeting, Goncharov had the idea to create a novel about the artist, his artistic complex nature. So, gradually on the picturesque banks of the Volga came the story of the famous work.

Publications

Goncharov periodically brought out to the readers' court some episodes from an unfinished novel. In 1860, a fragment of the work entitled "Sofya Nikolaevna Belovodova" was published in Sovremennik. A year later, in the "Notes of the Fatherland" appeared two more chapters from Goncharov's novel "The Cliff" - "Portrait" and "Grandmother". The final stylistic revision was carried out in France in 1868. The full version of the novel was published in the following year in the journal "Herald of Europe". Separately, the publication of the work was released in a few months. Goncharov often called the "Cliff" a favorite child of his imagination and assigned him a special place in his literary work.

The image of Paradise

Roman Goncharov's "Cliff" begins with the characteristics of the protagonist of the work. This is Paradise Boris Pavlovich - a nobleman from a rich aristocratic family. He lives in St. Petersburg, whereas his estate is managed by Berezhkova Tatiana Markovna (distant relative). The young man graduated from the university, tried his hand at military and civil service, but everywhere he met disappointment. At the very beginning of Goncharov's novel "The Cliff" to Paradise a little over thirty. Despite his age, he "has not sowed anything yet, he has not shaken anything." Boris Pavlovich leads a carefree life, without performing any duties. However, it is naturally endowed with a "divine spark". He has an outstanding talent for the artist. Paradise, despite the advice of his relatives, decides to devote himself entirely to art. However, banal laziness prevents him from realizing himself. Possessing the nature of a lively, mobile and impressionable, Boris Pavlovich strives to kindle serious passions around him. For example, he dreams of "awakening life" in his distant relative, secular beauty Sofya Belovodova. This occupation he devotes all his leisure time in Petersburg.

Sofya Belovodova

This young lady is the personification of a woman statue. Despite the fact that she already happened to be married, she does not know life at all. The woman grew up in a luxurious mansion, her marble solemnity reminiscent of a cemetery. Secular upbringing drowned in her "female instincts of feeling." She is cold, beautiful and submissive to her destiny - to keep up appearances and find herself the next worthy party. Kindle passion in this woman - the coveted dream of Paradise. He writes her portrait, conducts with her long conversations about life and literature. However, Sophia remains cold and unapproachable. In her face, Ivan Goncharov paints the image of the soul that is damaged by the influence of light. "Cliff" shows how sad, when the natural "behests of the heart" are sacrificed to generally accepted conventions. Artistic attempts of Raisky to revive the marble statue and add to it a "thinking face" fail miserably.

Provincial Russia

In the first part of the novel he introduces the reader to the other place of the Goncharov's action. The "break", the summary of which is described in this article, draws a picture of the provincial Rus. When Boris Pavlovich comes to his native village Malinovka for a vacation, he meets there his relative - Tatyana Markovna, who for some reason is called grandmother. In fact, this is a living and very beautiful woman of about fifty. She leads all the affairs in the estate and brings up two orphan girls: Faith and Marfenka. Here, for the first time, the reader is confronted with the concept of "breakage" in its direct meaning. According to local legend, at the bottom of a huge ravine located near the estate, once a jealous husband killed his wife and rival, and then stabbed himself. The suicide seemed to have been buried at the crime scene. Everyone is afraid to visit this place.

Going to Malinovka again, Paradise fears that there "do not live, people grow" and there is no movement of thought. And wrong. It is in provincial Russia that he finds violent passions and real dramas.

Life and love

The doctrines of the nihilists, fashionable in the 1960s, are contested by Goncharov's "Cliff". Analysis of the work indicates that even in the construction of the novel this controversy is traced. It is generally known that, from the point of view of the socialists, the class struggle is ruling the world. The author of Polina Karpova, Marina, Uliana Kozlova proves that life moves with love. It is not always prosperous and fair. Powerful man Saveliy falls in love with the dissolute Marina. A serious and correct Leonty Kozlov is crazy about his empty wife Ulyana. Teacher inadvertently tells Paradise that everything necessary for life is in the books. And wrong. Wisdom is also transmitted from the older generation to the younger. And to see it is to understand that the world is much more complicated than it seems at first sight. This is what Paradise is doing throughout the novel: he finds unusual riddles in the life of people closest to him.

Marfenka

Two completely different heroines represent the reader Goncharov. The "break", the brief content of which, although it gives an idea of the novel, but does not allow you to feel the full depth of the work in full, first introduces us to Marfenka. This girl is distinguished by simplicity and childish spontaneity. She seems to Boris Pavlovich woven from "flowers, rays, heat and colors of spring." Marfenka is very fond of children and eagerly prepares herself for the joy of motherhood. Perhaps, the range of her interests is narrow, but not so closed as the "canary" world of Sophia Belovodova. She knows a lot of things that the elder brother Boris is not available: how to grow rye and oats, how much wood is needed to build a hut. In the end, Paradise understands that it is senseless and even cruel to "develop" this happy and wise creature. Grandmother warns him about this.

Vera

Faith is a completely different type of female nature. This is a girl with forward looks, uncompromising, determined, searching. Goncharov carefully prepares the appearance of this heroine. At first, Boris Pavlovich hears only comments about her. Everyone draws Faith as an outstanding man: she lives alone in an abandoned house, is not afraid to descend into a "terrible" ravine. Even her appearance conceals a riddle. In it there is no classical severity of lines and "cold radiance" of Sophia, there is no child's breath of freshness of Marfenka, but there is some mystery, "not immediately appealing charm". Attempts Raisky to penetrate as a relative in the soul of the Faith are met with resistance. "Beauty has also the right to respect and freedom," - says the girl.

Grandmother and Russia

In the third part of the work, on the image of the grandmother, the attention of the reader is focused on the reader, Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov. "Cliff" draws Tatyana Markovna as an apostolically convinced keeper of the foundations of the old society. It is the most important link in the ideological unfolding of the action of the novel. In his grandmother, the writer reflected the powerful, strong, conservative part of Russia. All its shortcomings are typical for people of the same generation. If you drop them, the reader is presented with a "loving and tender" woman, happily and wisely ruling the "small kingdom" - the village of Malinovka. It is here that Goncharov sees the embodiment of the earthly paradise. In the estate no one is sitting around, and everyone gets what they need. However, everyone has to pay for their mistakes independently. Such a fate, for example, waits for Saveliy, whom Tatyana Markovna allows to marry Marina. The reckoning overtakes the Faith over time.

Very funny is the episode in which the grandmother, in order to warn her students against disobedience to parents, obtains a moralizing novel and arranges a session of instructive reading for all household members. After this, even submissive Marfenka shows self-will and is explained with a longtime admirer Vikentyev. Tatyana Markovna notes later that what she warned her youth against was done at the same time in the garden. Grandmother self-critical and she laughs at her awkward educational methods: "Do not always come in handy, these old customs!"

Fans of the Faith

Throughout the novel, Boris Pavlovich several times collects and disassembles his travel suitcase. And every time curiosity and wounded pride stop him. He wants to unravel the mystery of the Faith. Who is her chosen one? They could be her longtime admirer, Tushin Ivan Ivanovich. He is a successful timber merchant, a business man, personifying Goncharov's "new" Russia. In his estate Smoke, he built a nursery and school for ordinary children, set a short working day and so on. Among his peasants Ivan Ivanovich and the very first worker. In time, Raisky understands the importance of this figure.

However, as the reader learns from the third part of the novel, Mark Volokhov becomes the chosen one of the Faith, the apostle of nihilistic morality. In the town, terrible things are said about him: he enters the house exclusively through the window, never gives up debts and is about to be hounded by the police chief. The best features of his nature - independence, pride and affection for friends. Nihilistic views seem to Goncharov incompatible with the realities of Russian life. The author repels in Volokhov mockery over the old customs, causing behavior and preaching of free sexual relations.

Boris Pavlovich, on the other hand, is very attracted to this person. In the dialogues of the characters there is a certain generality. The idealist and the materialist are equally far from reality, only Paradise declares himself above her, and Volokhov tries to descend as low as possible. He lowers himself and his potential lover to a natural, animal existence. In the very image of Mark there is something animal. Goncharov in the "Cliff" shows that Volokhov reminds him of a gray wolf.

Fall of Faith

This moment is the culmination of the fourth part, and the whole novel as a whole. Here the "precipice" symbolizes sin, down, hell. At first Vera asks Paradise not to let her into the ravine if he hears a shot from there. But then he starts to fight in his hands and, promising that this meeting with Mark will be her last, breaks free and runs away. She does not lie at all. The decision to part is absolutely correct and true, lovers have no future, but when they leave, Vera turns around and stays with Volokhov. Goncharov portrayed something that did not already know the strict novel of the 19th century - the fall of his beloved heroine.

Enlightenment of heroes

In the fifth part, the author shows the ascent of the Faith from the "cliff" of new, nihilistic values. Tatyana Markovna helps her in this. She understands that the sin of the granddaughter can only be redeemed by repentance. And begins "the journey of my grandmother with a burden of trouble." Not only for Vera, she worries. She is afraid that along with the happiness and peace of her granddaughter from Malinovka, life and prosperity will go away. All participants in the novel, witnesses of events pass through the cleansing fire of suffering. Tatiana Markovna eventually confesses to her granddaughter that she committed the same sin in her youth and did not repent before God. She believes that now Vera should become a "grandmother", run Malinovka and devote herself to people. Tushin, sacrificing his own pride, goes to meet Volokhov and informs him that the girl no longer wants to see him. Mark begins to understand the depth of his delusions. He returns to military service in order to be transferred to the Caucasus. He decides to devote himself to sculpture. He feels the strength of a great artist and thinks to develop his abilities. Vera begins to come to her senses and understand the real value of the feelings Tushin feels for her. Every hero of the novel in the final narrative gets a chance to change his destiny and start a new life.

The true picture of the views and customs of noble Russia in the mid-19th century was painted in Goncharov's novel The Cliff. Reviews of literary critics indicate that the writer created a real masterpiece of Russian realistic prose. The author's thoughts about the transitory and eternal are relevant in our days. Everyone should read this novel in the original. Enjoy reading!