Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a very complex, ambiguous character. To create the image of the main character I.A. Goncharov used many means and techniques.

The disclosure of the image begins with the name of Oblomov. The same name and patronymic speak of cyclicality in the life of Ilya Ilyich and his family.

A very important detail is his portrait. With the help of it, the author more fully reveals the character of the hero, shows his inner world: "The thought walked like a free bird across the face, fluttered in the eyes, sat on half-open lips ...

then it completely disappeared, and then an even light of carelessness glimmered in the whole face. "The whole portrait emphasizes softness. the hero's effeminacy, his phlegm: "... neither fatigue nor boredom could drive softness from his face for a minute ...". The portrait shows the main character traits of Ilya Ilyich, which were developed in the novel.

I.A. Goncharov exacerbates the image of Oblomov through the interior in which the hero lives and the things that surround him in everyday life.

The interior emphasizes the character of Ilya Ilyich. The situation in the apartment speaks of a certain duality of the hero. On the one hand, he tries to surround himself with expensive things (this detail speaks of a desire to live): "The room where Ilya Ilyich lay, at first glance seemed beautifully cleaned." On the other hand, all the premises were neglected (one of the manifestations of the very “Oblomovism” ridiculed by the author): “On the walls ... cobwebs were molded in the form of festoons; ...; mirrors ... could rather serve as tablets ... ". But Oblomov does not pay attention to dirt and dust, he is indifferent to the mess that surrounds him. He was accustomed to such an environment, as he was accustomed to lying on the couch, almost without getting up. One of the features of the protagonist is humility with his current life, laziness, unwillingness to move and do something.

The peculiar symbols of Oblomov's lifestyle are the things surrounding him: a bathrobe, slippers, books, a sofa, etc. The author speaks of a bathrobe and slippers in a special warm way, although they are ordinary things. This whole set of items does not imply anything other than a quiet, domestic life.

The sofa is a special place in Oblomov's life. There he feels in harmony with himself, and he calls reclining on it a "ritual". For him, the sofa has become a place where he can dream, build his own fantasy world. Not only laziness prevents the hero from getting up from the sofa. He is frightened by the hectic life that is outside of his usual state and in which he was once disappointed.

Despite the fact that Oblomov did not go out, he had acquaintances and comrades who visited him. The author emphasizes that Ilya Ilyich does not need these people - they themselves come to him, because they find in him a real human soul. "Others" are minor characters, however, I.A. It is no coincidence that Goncharov introduces them into the exposition part: with the help of these heroes, he more accurately reveals the character of Oblomov, who, against their background, looks like a positive hero. “Where is the man? When to live? - Ilya Ilyich's question to almost all of his guests, whom the author calls indifferent. To Oblomov, he often uses the word "soul."

His servant Zakhar is also important for revealing the Image of the Break. He is a kind of counterpart of Ilya Ilyich, his crooked mirror. The servant "reflects" the worst qualities of his master. For example, Zakhar's awkwardness is a reflection of Oblomov's inability to live. To some extent, the servant prevented the main character from getting out of the state of "Oblomovism", influenced the process of the extinction of his personality. ON THE. Dobrolyubov wrote about Oblomov: "He is the slave of his serf Zakhar, and it is difficult to decide which of them is more subject to the authority of the other."

I.A. Goncharov uses the technique of retrospection in his work in the chapter "Oblomov's Dream". The chapter explains where this complex, contradictory image comes from. The plot of the dream takes the reader to Oblomov’s childhood, to his native village, where he was born and raised: “To what blessed corner did Oblomov’s dream take us? What a wonderful place!" Little Ilyusha's ideas about life were formed from fairy tales that his nanny told him. The flashback shows that the dreams of the protagonist in the end did not coincide with reality, explains how and why Oblomov came to such a life. Druzhinin, in his critical article, wrote that the ninth chapter of the first part turned Oblomov from "a greasy, clumsy piece of meat" into "the heart of dear Oblomov."

An important role in shaping the character of Ilya Ilyich was played by his best friend, Andrei Stolz, a very active and active person. Next to Stolz, Oblomov felt more confident, because he helped him in difficult situations: "If only Stolz would come soon! ... He would have settled it." Andrei tried to pull Oblomov out of a state of complete rest: “There you drove labor out of life: what does it look like? ... I will try to lift you up.”

All means of creating the Image of Oblomov add up to an ambiguous picture. The hero cannot be presented as unambiguously positive or unambiguously negative. The author wanted to show the complexity of the image. You can never judge a person by his appearance and behavior: sometimes a seemingly unpleasant, negative hero hides inside himself the deep soul of a dreamer and a real person.

“Miracles can be done with the Russian language. There is nothing in life and in our minds that could not be conveyed by the Russian word. The sound of music, the spectral brilliance of colors, the play of light, the noise and shadow of gardens, the vagueness of sleep, the heavy rumble of thunder, the whisper of children and the rustle of sea gravel. There are no such sounds, colors, images and thoughts for which there would not be an exact expression in our language. K. G. Paustovsky

An epithet is a figurative definition that gives an artistic description of a phenomenon or object. An epithet is a comparison and can be expressed as an adjective, as well as with a noun, verb or adverb. An epithet is a vivid figurative definition, for example: Wonderful land Blessed corner Dense forests (permanent epithet) Boundless veil Furious peals Peaceful corner

Comparison is one of the means of expressiveness of the language, helping the author to express his point of view, create whole artistic pictures, and give a description of objects. In comparison, one phenomenon is shown and evaluated by comparing it with another phenomenon. Comparison is usually joined by unions: as, as if, as if, exactly, etc., but serves to figuratively describe the most diverse features of objects, qualities, and actions. For example: Seagulls, like condemned Complaints of a monster doomed to torment The sky seems so far and inaccessible, as if it had retreated from people

Personification is one of the types of metaphor, when the transfer of a sign is carried out from a living object to an inanimate one. For example: The dream suffered the Sea leads only to sadness The heart is embarrassed by timidity The roar and peals of the waves do not caress for a weak hearing, they repeat their song Heaven ... retreated from people

Gradation is a stylistic figure that consists in the consequent intensification or, conversely, the weakening of comparisons, images, epithets, metaphors and other expressive means of artistic speech. Gradation is ascending (strengthening of the feature) and descending (weakening of the feature). For example: It only brings sadness to a person: looking at him, you want to cry. The heart is embarrassed by timidity in front of the boundless veil of waters, and there is nothing to rest on the look, exhausted by the monotony of the endless picture. The roar of the beast is powerless before these cries of nature, the voice of man is insignificant, and the man himself is so small, weak, so imperceptibly disappears in the small details of the big picture!

A paraphrase is a turn of speech that consists in replacing a word or name with a descriptive combination containing an element of characteristic of the described object, phenomenon or person. The sea is an immense veil of waters, an endless picture, a wide picture, frantic peals of waves. Oblomovka is a wonderful land, a peaceful corner, a blessed corner of the earth.

Rhetorical questions and rhetorical exclamations are a special means of creating the emotionality of speech, expressing the author's position. For example: Where are we? To what blessed corner of the earth did Oblomov's dream take us? What a wonderful land! And why is it, this wild and grandiose? Sea, for example? God bless him! No, God be with him, with the sea!

The little prince is a symbol of a person - a wanderer in the universe, looking for the hidden meaning of things and his own life. The soul of the Little Prince is not shackled by the ice of indifference, deadness. Therefore, the true vision of the world is revealed to him: he learns the price of true friendship, love and beauty. This is the theme of "vigilance" of the heart, the ability to "see" with the heart, to understand without words. The little prince does not immediately comprehend this wisdom. He leaves his own planet, not knowing that what he will look for on different planets will be so close - on his home planet. The little prince is laconic - he speaks very little about himself and his planet. Only little by little, from random, casually dropped words, the pilot learns that the baby has arrived from a distant planet, “which is all the size of a house” and is called the asteroid B-612. The little prince tells the pilot about how he is at war with the baobabs, which take root so deep and strong that they can tear apart his little planet. The first sprouts must be weeded out, otherwise it will be too late, "this is a very boring job." But he has a "firm rule": "... got up in the morning, washed, put himself in order - and immediately put your planet in order." People must take care of the cleanliness and beauty of their planet, jointly protect and decorate it, and prevent all living things from perishing. The little prince from Saint-Exupery's fairy tale cannot imagine his life without love for gentle sunsets, without the sun. “I once saw the sunset forty-three times in one day!” he says to the pilot. And a little later he adds: “You know ... when it becomes very sad, it’s good to see how the sun goes down ...” The child feels like a particle of the natural world, he calls adults to unite with her. The kid is active and hardworking. Every morning he watered Rosa, talked to her, cleared the three volcanoes on his planet so that they would give more heat, pulled out weeds ... And yet he felt very lonely. In search of friends, in the hope of finding true love, he sets off on his journey through other worlds. He is looking for people in the endless desert surrounding him, because in communication with them he hopes to understand himself and the world around him, to gain experience, which he lacked so much. Visiting six planets in succession, the Little Prince on each of them encounters a certain life phenomenon embodied in the inhabitants of these planets: power, vanity, drunkenness, pseudo-scholarship ... The images of the heroes of A. Saint-Exupery's fairy tale "The Little Prince" have their own prototypes. The image of the Little Prince is both deeply autobiographical and, as it were, removed from the adult author-pilot. He was born out of longing for the little Tonio dying in himself - a descendant of an impoverished noble family, who was called in the family for his blond (at first) hair "King-Sun King", and in college was nicknamed Lunatic for the habit of looking at the starry sky for a long time. The phrase "Little Prince" itself is found, as you probably noticed, in the "Planet of People" (as well as many other images and thoughts). And in 1940, in between battles with the Nazis, Exupery often drew a boy on a piece of paper - sometimes winged, sometimes riding on a cloud.

Artistic skill of I. A. Goncharov in the novel "Oblomov"

The novel by I. A. Goncharov is built on the principle of depicting two opposite life destinies: Oblomov and Stolz. These heroes are united by the image of Olga Ilyinskaya, whom they both loved. The genre of this work is close to an artistic biography. Its content is aimed at comprehending the life of the individual, searching for the origins of socially significant activity in individual biographical experience.

The composition of the novel: sleep - awakening - sleep. The author's manner of narration in these parts depends on which of the characters in question. Where the author writes about Oblomov - humor combined with a lyrical element, often irony; where about Stolz - a strict narrative tone. In the first part of the novel, there is very little action; Oblomov is still lying on the couch, receiving visitors. The hero is engaged in exclusively "mental" activity. For several years now he has been considering a plan for transformations in the 06-lomovka (“He, as soon as he gets up from the sweat in the morning, immediately after tea will lie down on the sofa, prop his head with his hand and ponder, sparing no effort, until, finally, he is naked -va will get tired of hard work and conscience will say: enough done today for the common good ... No one knew or saw this inner life of Ilya Ilyich: everyone thought that Oblomov was so-so, he just lies and eats on health , and that there is nothing more to be expected from him; that the thoughts in his head hardly even fit ...”)

Of great importance in the composition of the novel is the chapter "Oblomov's Dream", in which the author, using the technique of referring to the memory of the hero, shows the childhood of Ilya Ilyich. The origins of "Oblomovism" are in Oblomov's childhood. The conditions of landowner life and noble education ruined his living mind, the desire for any kind of activity and gave rise to apathy and lack of will.

In the second part of the novel, the strong and harmonious personality of Stolz is shown, his Russian-non-German upbringing is described. All Stolz's attempts to return Oblomov to an active life are shattered by immobility, fear of change and indifference to Ilya Ilyich's own fate.

The fourth part describes the "Vyborg Oblo-Movshchina". Here Oblomov, after a break with Olga, marries Agafya Matveevna Pshenitsyna, again plunges into hibernation, and then dies. This part is the postposition of the novel.

The composition of the work is fully consistent with the idea: to show the conditions that gave rise to laziness, to trace how a person turns into a dead

The first part of the novel and the first two chapters of the second part are an exposition in which I. A. Goncharov shows the conditions in which the personality of the protagonist was formed, and also traces his evolution (or rather, degradation).

The plot of the action is Oblomov's acquaintance with Olga Ilyinskaya, nascent love (III and V chapters of the second part). Chapter XII of the third part, where Ilya Il-ich declares his love to Olga, is the climax. But the inability to sacrifice your peace for the sake of love leads to a break. Chapters XI-XII of the third part are devoted to this.

"Oblomov" refers to the psychological direction in literature. Dominant features (laziness, apathy) stand out in the character of the protagonist; in the chapter "Oblomov's Dream" the influence of the social environment on the hero is traced. In the image of Oblomov, I. A. Goncharov combined social generalization with the image of an individualized personality. Oblomov's name has become a household name. The writer condemns, exposes his hero, passes judgment on Oblomovism, but at the same time treats the hero with sympathy. Oblomov is not like the landlords previously portrayed by N.V. Gogol and I.S. Turgenev. There is no despotism and cruelty in him, on the contrary, he is meek, kind, grateful.

In the epilogue of the novel, the reader learns about the death of Ilya Ilyich, traces the fate of Zakhar, Stolz, Olga.

As for the plot of the novel, there is no single point of view. Some literary scholars argue that there are two storylines in the novel: Oblomov - Olga and Stolz - Olga. And Professor A. G. Zetztlin believes that in the novel there is more than one storyline and all events are subordinated to one goal - to show the gradual transformation into a "dead soul"; those chapters in which the relationship between Olga and Stolz are depicted are intended to set off the fate of Oblomov.

The language of the novel is light and clear. The author does not use embellishing epithets, metaphors, the vocabulary is devoid of archaisms and dialectisms, on the contrary, it is enriched with scientific and journalistic words of the 40-50s. The language of each of the heroes is peculiar. Although each of the main characters - Olga, Oblomov, Stolz - speaks the correct literary language, each language is associated with the features of the internal appearance.

There are very few descriptions of the landscape in the work, but where the author depicts summer Oblomovka, the park where Olga and Ilya Ilyich meet, the language is unusually clear and expressive.

I. A. Goncharov shows the life of heroes in moments of ups and downs, reveals Oblomov's struggle with himself - and all this is given in vivid pictures of life, the author's reasoning is reduced to a minimum.

I. A. Goncharov uses several "cross-cutting" artistic details that serve as a means of additional characterization of the hero, revealing the state of his inner world. Lilac in the novel symbolizes the possibility of change for the better. A branch of lilac, thrown by Olga and picked up by 06-Lomov, helps both of them to understand each other's feelings. But just as lilacs bloom in spring, the love of young people is a thing of the past. Everything in life is transient, and Oblomov knows this: “The lilacs have departed,., departed yesterday, and the night with ghosts, with suffocation, has also departed ... Yes! And this moment will depart like lilacs!.. What is it?.. And - love too... love? And I thought that she, like a sultry afternoon, would hang over her lovers and nothing would move or die in her atmosphere: there is no peace in love, and everything changes, everything moves somewhere forward ... "Lilac and on Oblomov’s grave: “Lilac branches, planted by a friendly hand, doze over the grave. Yes, the wormwood smells serenely.

The novel has its own "music". This is the opera Casta diva, performed by Olga, and which Oblomov cannot forget, even falling asleep for the second time. The feeling of love in the novel develops according to the laws of a piece of music. In the history of relations between Olga and Ilya Ilyich, there are “unisons”, “dissonances”, and “counterpoints”. The plot of this opera predicts the tragic end of love.

The portrait description of the hero in the novel is an important element in creating his image. For example, Oblomov and Stolz are people of the same age, but strikingly different in their interests and way of life. And such a different attitude to life also influenced the appearance of the characters. Oblomov's "dominant and basic expression" of his face was softness, which "could not be driven away for a minute" by either fatigue or boredom, "Ilya Ilyich's complexion was neither ruddy, nor swarthy, nor positively pale, but indifferent ny ... ", and he himself is "somehow flabby beyond his years." His body, “judging by the matte, too white color of the neck, small plump hands, soft shoulders, seemed too pampered for a man”; “His movements, when he was even alarmed, were also restrained by softness and laziness, not without a kind of grace.”

Stolz is the complete opposite. “He is all made up of bones, muscles and nerve, like a blooded English horse. He is thin; he has almost no cheeks at all, that is, there is bone and muscle, but no sign of fat roundness; the complexion is even, swarthy and no blush; eyes, although a little greenish, but expressive.

He didn't have any extra moves. If he sat, then he sat quietly, but if he acted, then he used as much facial expressions as needed.

The portraits of both heroes reflect their characters. Oblomov is a gentle, generous, kind person, but at the same time apathetic, lazy, indifferent to himself and his health. He does not have a goal in life and interest, he values ​​\u200b\u200bonly his calmness, he is completely unprepared and not adapted to life.

Stoltz, on the other hand, does not see the meaning of life without labor, he is enterprising and extraordinarily efficient: “He is constantly on the move: if society needs to send an agent to Belgium or England, they send him; you need to write some project or adapt a new idea to the case - choose it. Meanwhile, he travels to the world and reads ... ”Even in his face - strength, energy and calmness. But in Andrey there is no dream, in poetry, he is a bourgeois businessman, striving only for personal independence.

When describing the life of heroes, I. A. Goncharov also uses small details. In the image of Ilya Ilyich Ob-lomov, the “talking detail” is his dressing gown. It becomes an integral part of the life of its owner, as it has a host of “invaluable virtues: it is soft, flexible; you do not feel it on yourself; he, like an obedient slave, submits to the slightest movement of the body. The dressing gown then disappears, then reappears - depending on Oblomov's life circumstances. After meeting Olga Ilyinskaya and, as a result, awakening to life, the dressing gown disappeared: “Tarantiev took him with him to his godmother with other things.” There are no long, soft and wide shoes that you get into with your foot right away. Now Oblomov “sits ... in his home coat; a light scarf is worn around the neck; the collars of the shirt are loosened over the tie and shine like snow. He comes out in a frock coat, beautifully tailored, in a smart hat ... "Yes, and Oblomov himself no longer lies on the sofa all day long, but" cheerful, sings ... ". But after the break with Olga and moving to the Vyborg side, the dressing gown reappears as the cares of Agafya Matveevna. During the financial crisis in Oblomov's life, one of the signs of need is also a bathrobe. He "worn out, and no matter how carefully the holes were sewn up on him, but he is spreading everywhere and not at the seams: a new one would have long been needed."

The descriptions of the interiors are very detailed, the author pays special attention to household details. For example, Oblomov's office "struck with the neglect and negligence that prevailed in it." “The room ... at first glance seemed beautifully decorated. There was a bureau of mahogany, two sofas upholstered in silk fabric, beautiful screens embroidered with birds and fruits that have never been seen in nature. There were silk curtains, carpets, several paintings, bronzes, china, and many beautiful little things.

But the experienced eye of a man of pure taste, with one cursory glance at everything that was there, would read only a desire to somehow maintain the decorum of inevitable decorum, if only to get rid of them ... Refined taste would not be satisfied with these heavy, ungraceful mahogany chairs, wobbly floor-towers. The back of the sofa sank down, the pasted wood lagged behind in places ...

On the walls, near the paintings, cobwebs saturated with dust were molded in the form of festoons; mirrors, instead of reflecting objects, could rather serve as tablets, for writing on them, through the dust, some notes for memory. Carpets were stained. There was a forgotten towel on the sofa; on the table, a rare morning, there was not a plate with a salt shaker and a gnawed bone that had not been removed from yesterday’s dinner, and there were no bread crumbs lying around.

If it were not for the plate, and not for the pipe just smoked leaning against the bed, or not for the owner himself lying on it, then one would think that no one lives here - everything was so dusty, faded and, in general, was devoid of living traces of human presence. On the shelves, it is true, lay two or three open books, a newspaper was lying about, and an inkwell with feathers stood on the bureau; but the pages on which the books were unfolded were covered with dust and turned yellow; it is clear that they were abandoned long ago; the number of the newspaper was last year, and if a pen was dipped in it, only a frightened fly would have escaped with a buzzing buzz. All this is reminiscent of Gogol's Plyushkin, who turned into a "hole in humanity." Probably, Oblomov would have become the same “pro-reha” if it were not for Stolz’s participation in his fate and love for Olga, which awakened (at least for a while!) Ilya Ilyich to life.

The motive of food is one of the main ones in the novel. In Oblomovka, “the main concern was the kitchen and dinner. The whole house conferred about dinner ... Everyone offered their own dish: some soup with offal, some noodles or stomach, some tripes, some red, some white gravy for the sauce ... Caring for food was the first and main life concern in Oblomovka . What calves fattened there for the annual holidays! What a bird was brought up! .. What stocks of jams, pickles, biscuits were there! What honeys, what kvass were brewed, what pies were baked in Oblomovka!” The main task of mothers in Ob-lomovka was to "leave a healthy child, protect him from colds, from the eye and other hostile circumstances ...", and also "so that the child was always cheerful and ate a lot." Food in Oblomovka brings not only physical, but also to some extent spiritual saturation. Cooking dinner is a whole ritual, a favorite pastime of the whole family, courtyards. In the dinner chores in Oblomovka, "everything was fussing and caring, everything lived such a full, ant-like, such a noticeable life."

The foundations of life, laid down from childhood in the consciousness of Ilya Ilyich, influenced his whole future life. He strives for a quiet, calm family life without hassle and upheaval. In Oblomov's dreams, along with beautiful weather, swimming in the river, making a bouquet for his wife, a delicious breakfast: “Tea is ready ... What a kiss! What tea! What a quiet chair! I sit down near the table; on it crackers, cream, fresh butter ... "

When comparing life in Oblomovka and in the expected future of Ilya Ilyich, a clear similarity is visible. In Oblomovka, “on Sundays and on public holidays... the clatter of knives in the kitchen was heard more often and louder; the woman made several trips from the barn to the kitchen with double the amount of flour and eggs; there was more groaning and bloodshed in the poultry yard. They baked a gigantic pie ... ".

And Oblomov finds his ideal of life - in the house of Agafya Matveevna Pshenitsyna. Thanks to her care, Ilya Ilyich has “the same nice coffee in the morning, thick cream, rich, crumbly rolls.” In addition, the hostess still constantly treats him to home-made vodka on alcohol, then a pie with onions and carrots (again, “no worse than our Oblomov ones,” as Zakhar notes).

The novel by I. A. Goncharov was highly appreciated by his contemporaries, causing numerous critical responses. One cannot but agree with the assessment of I. S. Turgenev, who remarked after reading it: “As long as at least one Russian remains, until then Oblomov will be remembered.” Using artistic means, Goncharov masterfully conveyed the characters and way of life of the heroes of the novel. And the character and fate of the protagonist make readers think about the most difficult questions of life, about their purpose in it.

Antithesis is an artistic means, consisting in the opposition of images, objects. At the heart of many works, including the novel by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov", lies this technique. In many ways, the images of Olga Ilyinskaya and Agafya Pshenitsyna are opposite, the existence of people in the city and in the countryside, the way of life in Oblomovka and in Stolz's house are described in contrast, the characters of the main characters - Ilya Ilyich Oblomov and Andrei Ivanovich Stolz are also opposite.
We see the differences even in the story of the childhood of these two people. Oblomov, although he was a cheerful, mobile child (for example, taking advantage of an hour of afternoon sleep, “ran up to the gallery, ran around on creaking boards, climbed the dovecote, climbed into the wilderness of the garden”), but gradually withered away in the surrounding idleness. Already after the ten-minute absence of the little master, numerous servants went in search of him, while Stolz was accustomed to independent activity from childhood and could not show up at home for three or four days. He was used to fulfilling his father's orders, for which he often had to travel, he always did everything himself, and Oblomov constantly relied on his three hundred Zakharovs ("three hundred Zakharovs").
Since Goncharov was one of the representatives of the natural school and agreed with the slogan of the realists "environment stuck", he believed that a person's character largely depends on the environment in which this person grew up. Therefore, it becomes clear why so much attention is paid to the description of the atmosphere that prevailed in Oblomovka and Verkheevo. In the first estate, life flowed slowly, not changing for centuries, far from the noise of cities, their bustle. Here everyone obeyed the old customs and traditions that existed under their fathers and grandfathers. In the house of Stolz lived people accustomed to work, work and independence. Therefore, it is not surprising that the characters of the heroes who grew up in such dissimilar places are so different. This difference is evident even in their portraits. Oblomov was "a young man ... with the absence of any definite idea, any concentration in facial features", and in all his movements there was softness, "which was the dominant and main expression not only of the face, but of the whole soul." His constant companion was a bathrobe - a symbol of laziness and inactive lying on the couch.
Stolz, on the other hand, was “all made up of bones, muscles and nerves”, he did not have a single extra movement, and he often had a cloak with him - a symbol of constant traveling and vigorous activity of its owner. These portraits reflect the main features of the characters. Oblomov is characterized by softness, kindness, inability to take any action, daydreaming. He had no purpose in life, but for himself he decided what kind of person he would not be. This can be seen from his reflections on the visitors. Oblomov's opinion about all of them is approximately the same: “Where is the man here? What did it crumble and shatter into?” Ilya Ilyich is characterized by a rejection of secular life with its fuss and mechanism, he is able to see the true qualities of a person, understand his feelings, which characterizes him as a deep, thinking person.
Stolz, on the other hand, is constantly busy with some business, is on the road: today he is abroad, tomorrow - in Oblomovka, the day after tomorrow - somewhere else. But nowhere in the novel do we see a detailed story about Stolz's activities, its results, the author only informs us about it, which is why the actions of Andrei Ivanovich become for the reader like useless, that is, like vanity. And this endless bustle of Stolz is no better than Oblomov's life according to the old, unchanging traditions. These features, according to the author, are dominant in two national characters: in Russian and in Western, that is, in German. There is also a contrast in the fact that Oblomov grew up in Russia, having absorbed all the features of this land, and Stolz's father is a German who passed on some of his qualities to his son.
With such different characters, these two heroes have different views on many aspects of life, including the problem of family happiness. For Stolz, marriage should be such that the lovers "wake up with the eternal movement of thought, the eternal irritation of the soul and the need to think together, feel, speak!" Oblomov, describing a happy family life, mentions, first of all, household details, such as various lunches, dinners, picnics, and visits. Stoltz would later say that such a “marriage would be only a form, not a content, a means, not an end; would serve as a wide and unchanging frame for visits, receiving guests, dinners and evenings, idle chatter. And each of the heroes finds his ideal. For Oblomov, this is Agafya Pshenitsyna, and for Stolz, Olga Ilyinskaya.
The images of these two women are also opposed. Olga is, first of all, a thinking person, which emphasizes her portrait: “her lips were mostly compressed: a sign of a thought constantly directed at something.” She is an interesting interlocutor and is the personification of spiritual activity, while Pshenitsyna is primarily physical activity. She is always depicted in motion, at work. But there is no spiritual closeness between her and Oblomov, she performs the function of the mistress of the house, takes care of Ilya Ilyich, takes care of him. Olga is a friend for Stolz (their feeling grew out of friendship), a companion with whom he could discuss any issues from different spheres of life: from politics and art to everyday life and raising children.
But Olga could not defeat Oblomovism in the soul of Ilya Ilyich, although there was a period of life in the country when she woke up hopes for his revival. Oblomov's daily routine at the dacha is opposed to his pastime in the city. If at the dacha he often walked, read, studied, even for a while forgot about his dressing gown, then in St. Petersburg he again either dreamily lay on the sofa, or slept, wrapped in this dressing gown.
What are the functions of antithesis in the novel? One of them is a description of two sides of life, different characters. The second function is the search for the ideal. According to the author, a person who combines the best qualities of Oblomov and Stolz can become an ideal. Following some traditions, kindness, attention to people and a thirst for action, love for work - these are the features that a harmonious person of the future should have.