Exercise
Give a portrait and social description of Arina Petrovna Golovleva.
Question
How does Arina Petrovna feel about her husband and children?
Answer
Arina Petrovna, the mistress and head of the family, is a complex nature, rich in her abilities, but spoiled by the unlimited power over her family and those around her. She single-handedly manages the estate, depriving the peasants, turning her husband into a hanger-on, crippling the lives of hateful children "and corrupting" pets.
The writer's mother Olga Mikhailovna Saltykova, who served as a prototype for Arina Petrovna Golovleva, once in her hearts called her son "a wolf hungry to break the ties of kinship." In fact, in this "despicable milieu" the ties of kinship have long since become a fiction, a "ghost", as Shchedrin puts it. Arina Petrovna, whose word "family" does not leave her tongue, is in fact completely indifferent to her husband and children.
Question
What is the economic and family policy of Arina Petrovna?
Answer
She looks at her own children as “extra mouths” that need to be fed, on which part of the fortune needs to be spent, so Arina Petrovna tries to separate the children as soon as possible, throw them a “piece” in the form of some village, in order to consider herself free from any worries about them.
She only breathed freely when she was alone with her accounts and economic enterprises ... Only occasionally did she glimpse the thought that her children had grown up as strangers to her. Reading the insincere, strained letters of her sons, she "tried to guess which of them would be her villain."
She calmly and ruthlessly watches how her children go bankrupt and die in poverty, and only at the end of her life a bitter question arose before her: “And for whom did I store up! I didn’t get enough sleep at night, I didn’t eat a piece ... for whom?
Question
So, in a fantastic pursuit of "acquired" she increased her husband's wealth. For whom and for what?
Answer
Her greedy acquisitive activity is meaningless, fruitless and aimless. Moreover, the passion for enrichment kills human feelings, and growing wealth exacerbates the struggle of family members for a fatter “piece” of inheritance. And all together: the imperiousness of the hostess and mother, the atmosphere of acquisitiveness, contempt for creative work - morally corrupts the souls of children, forms humiliated, slavish natures, ready for lies, deceit, scolding and betrayal.
Question
What shook Arina Petrovna's foundations of life?
Answer
The abolition of serfdom dealt "the first blow to her authority." Knocked down from her usual positions, having met with real life difficulties, she becomes weak and powerless. The more cunning and insidious "favorite" Judas - "swallows" her capital, turning her mother into a modest hanger-on. This is discussed in the chapter "In a related way."
Question
What is the result of the life of Arina Petrovna?
Answer
Having shown all the callousness and cruelty of the heroine at the time of the heyday of her acquisitive activity, the writer then depicted the tragedy of her gradual lonely extinction. There came an awakening of "the remnants of the feelings that glimmered in her", vague remorse, when "the results of her own life appeared before her mental eye in all their fullness and nakedness."
Literature
Andrey Turkov. Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin // Encyclopedia for children "Avanta +". Volume 9. Russian literature. Part one. M., 1999. S. 594–603
K.I. Tyunkin. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in life and work. M.: Russian Word, 2001
"Golovlevs" is a novel about a family, but, first of all, it is a novel about real and imaginary values, about why a person lives on Earth. In "Lords Golovlyov" the author explores the nature of what inexorably alienates people from each other. He explores such aspirations that begin with a frenzied desire to make the best possible arrangement for one's home, to ensure the future of one's kind. Home, family, clan - these are real values, not imaginary ones. And it is to them that the ancestor and head of the family, Arina Petrovna Golovleva, selflessly gives all her bright life talent.
And it seems to be succeeding: the power of the Golovlev family is undeniable. She herself proudly realizes this: “What a colossus she built!” But when the goal seems to be achieved, it turns out that it was illusory, that everything is lost, and life, one's own and those of one's loved ones, was senselessly sacrificed. The novel, dedicated to the stubborn creation of the "family stronghold", ends in a complete human collapse: the desolation of the house and the collapse of family ties.
So, the novel depicts a family consisting of the head - Arina Petrovna - and her children. Golovleva is an imperious and energetic landowner, the mistress of the entire estate, a complex and purposeful nature, but spoiled by unlimited power over her family and others. She single-handedly rules the entire estate, turning her husband into an unnecessary appendage and crippling the life of "disgusting children." Her passion is hoarding. With all sorts of acquisitions, enrichment, the most vivid memories of the life of Arina Petrovna are associated. And the children, once again listening to her stories about this, perceive the words of their mother as a fascinating fairy tale.
Money relations are the main, most durable thread that connects Arina Petrovna and her sons - Stepan, Pavel and Porfiry. The eldest son, Stepan, by nature observant and witty, but inactive, "the hateful Styopka the boobie", drank himself and died. Another son - Pavel - eventually hated the society of living people and lived in his fantasy world alone with himself. And so his bleak life proceeded, until a fatal illness got the better of him.
The younger son, Porfiry, is perhaps the most "outstanding" figure in this family. The despotic power of Arina Petrovna, material dependence on his mother brought up deceit and servility in him. From childhood, Porfiry knew how to entangle the “good friend mother” with a web of lies and toadying, for which he received the nicknames “Judas” and “bloodsucker” from other family members. These nicknames perfectly reflect his essence. Not Judas, namely Judas, since he was deprived of the scope of a real Judas the traitor. During his worthless life, Porfiry did not commit a single real act.
Betrayal and sycophancy - these are the features that characterize him. He betrays everyone and always. All Judas deeds are so petty and insignificant that they cause indignation and disgust. Even when addressing God, he is frankly practical. The Lord for him is something like the highest authority, to which you can turn with your vile petitions.
So why is the Golovlev family doomed to extinction? Why mother and children never found a common language? The answer is quite clear: despotism, the habitual suppression of the personality of the younger ones, led to the inability of the “heads” to manage their own destinies. Future crashes, children prepared here at home. Golovlev's youth return to their rich but hated native corner only to perish.
At the end of the novel, Shchedrin showed an empty and depopulated "stronghold" in which there is everything. “I don’t live in an empty house!” Judas boasts, but at the same time there is no one here. The image of silence, frightening with its power, the shadows crawling around the house are not at all accidentally repeated in the novel.
And the scene of Judas with “dead souls” is shocking: the deceased mother, brothers, long-dead servants. Turning away from living life, the hero communicates with ghosts until the sudden awakening of a “wild conscience” makes him ask with horror: “What has happened?! where...everything?..». The entire burden of responsibility for the death of the Golovlev family falls on Porfiry. Saltykov will force him to wake up - "for everyone." Judas finally understands that there are real human relationships, the laws of human connection. He is aware of the selfish disunity of the Golovlev family and will take responsibility for all the numerous family sins. Porfiry himself will pass a death sentence on himself - he will be found frozen not far from his mother's grave.
Once a large family lived here: Arina Petrovna Golovleva - an active, energetic hoarder, the head of the clan; her husband is an empty man, a drunkard who retired from business, passionately hating his wife; the loathsome Styopka the booby and the quiet Pashka, as their mother called them, the affectionate Porfisha (however, his mother was always afraid of him) and Annushka, who later ran away from home with a cornet and soon died, abandoned by her husband, leaving her mother in the care of two orphans - Anninka and Lu-binka; Porfiry also had sons.
But years pass, and the house is empty. Standing on the threshold of death, in the face of an awakened conscience, Porfiry Golovlev repeats in anguish: "What is it! What has happened?! Where ... everything ..."
The novel "Golovlevs" consists of a number of chapters that tell about various family events: "Family Court", "Kindred", "Family Results", "Niece", "Unlawful Family Joys" ... The titles of the chapters indicate that that the central problem of the novel is the problem of the family (as in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, which were created around the same time). The novel tells how the "hateful" Styopka the dunce returned to Golovlevo sick and impoverished; how Paul died, leaving all his fortune to Porfiry; how tragically the life of Anninka and Lubinka turned out; how Arina Petrovna died, etc. The history of the Golovlev family is the history of the "dead". Each chapter ends with the death of one of the family members. Moreover, with each death, an increasing fortune is concentrated in the hands of Judas, and at the same time, his loneliness grows and grows. It becomes more and more clear that there is no family at all, that family ties are only an appearance, only a form, that all members of the Golovlev family are at enmity with each other, hate each other and are happy about the death of loved ones.
The figure of the head of the clan, Arina Petrovna, is tragic. "... The word "family" does not leave her language and, in appearance, all her actions are exclusively guided by unceasing concerns about the organization of family affairs." She herself is undernourished, underdrinks and lacks sleep, and keeps others starving, for she cares about increasing Golovlev's wealth. But Mrs. Golovleva feels the senselessness of her activities. "And for whom am I saving all this abyss! For whom am I saving!" - a "truly tragic cry" escapes from the mother's chest. In the name of acquisition, the souls of those for whom, it would seem, the accumulation was made, were ruined.
"On sour milk and spoiled corned beef" orphans-granddaughters were brought up, they were reproached with every piece, their childhood and youth were mutilated, pushed them onto the path of debauchery and death. Deprived of the rights to the inheritance, he drank himself and died in his dirty corner Styopka the Stupid. Left without funds, the "legitimate" son of Porfiry Volodenka committed suicide, and the "illegitimate baby" Volodya was sent to death in an orphanage ...
In a society based on acquisition and calculation, there is no place for pure human relations. The novel depicts a gloomy story of the collapse of the family, the collapse of the human personality, drowned in vulgar trifles, in an atmosphere of idle thought, idle talk and idleness.
In the center of this story is Porfiry Golovlev. As a child, his brother, Styopka the Stupid, called him Yudushka, "blood drinker". "From infancy, he loved to caress his dear friend mother, furtively kiss her on the shoulder, and sometimes a little poof." The atmosphere of despotism and humiliation created from Porfiry a peculiar version of the type of hypocrite and sycophant that Griboyedov portrayed in Mol-chalin, Ostrovsky in Podkhalyuzin. But Porfiry is a particularly terrible version of the hypocrite. Not without reason, when he was still a child, his mother looked at him with doubt. “And I myself can’t understand what’s behind his eyes,” she sometimes reasoned to herself, “he’ll look - well, as if he’s throwing a noose. So he pours poison, and beckons!”
Judas is a hypocrite who covers up his atrocities with unctuous "holy words". With the name of God on his lips, crossing himself and blessing, he pushes his sons to certain death, robs and drives out of the house "dear friend mother."
The main method of revealing the image of Judas is the image of a striking discrepancy between word and deed. Judas "itched", "annoyed, tormented, tyrannized" people "with a whole stream of idle words", "exuding from himself whole masses of verbal pus". In his endless speeches - fragments of gospel texts, walking, worn out proverbs, the rules of capital morality, assurances of kindred feelings. The abundance of diminutive and affectionate forms, intonations of plaintive or touching lamentations give these idle speeches a sugary character. The word ceases to express thought, feeling, it, on the contrary, is designed to hide, veil both.
The son Petenka comes to Porfiry Vladimirych (the father calls his sons only in this way - "Petenka", "Volodenka"). He begs his father for help - it's a matter of life or death. But he hears a refusal. One of the many "deaths" is being committed. A wall of hatred rises between father and son.
Betrayal, predation, cold calculation, the absence of living human feelings - these are the vices of the Golovlev family, completely inherited by Judas. These vices are typical of a society where man is a wolf to man, they are typical not only of the nobility, but also of any exploiting class. Typical in the image of Judas is that he follows in everything "the code created by the tradition of hypocrisy." Lies, idle talk, hypocrisy - these are not only individual vices inherent in Porfiry Vladimirovich. "... Our society is hypocritical..." the satirist wrote in one of his later works. "Is hypocrisy not pus, not an ulcer, not gangrene?" Streams of hypocritical lies flooded the pages of reactionary newspapers, which sang of Russian autocracy. Shchedrin denounces this "vociferous idle talk", "meaningless rigmarole", reminiscent of the rantings of Porfiry Golovlev.
In Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel The Golovlevs, a whole gallery of images of one family, the landowners Golovlevs, is displayed. This family goes to degradation and destruction, it breaks up, and then its members physically disappear into non-existence.
The image of Arina Petrovna: this is the only outstanding person in the Golovlev family. She is the mother and head of the family. “A powerful woman and, moreover, to a large extent gifted with creativity,” characterizes her author. Arina Petrovna manages the household, manages all the affairs of the family. She is cheerful, strong-willed, energetic. But the sense of this is only in the economy. Arina Petrovna suppresses her sons and her husband, who hates her for it. She never loved her husband, she considered him a jester, a weakling, unable to manage the household. “The husband called his wife “witch” and “devil”, the wife called her husband “windmill” and “stringless balalaika”.
In fact, having lived for forty years in a family, Arina Petrovna remains a bachelor who is only interested in money, bills and business conversations. She does not have warm feelings for her husband and children, no sympathy, which is why she punishes loved ones so terribly when they are irresponsible about property or do not obey her.
The image of Stepan Golovlev: this is a "gifted guy" with a mischievous character, with a good memory and learning abilities. However, he was brought up in idleness, all his energy was spent on pranks. After studying, Stepan is unable to make a career as an official in St. Petersburg, since he has neither the ability nor the desire for it. He once again confirms the nickname "Stepka the Stooge", leads a wandering life for a long time. By the age of forty, he is terribly afraid of his mother, who will not support, but, on the contrary, will seize. Stepan comes to the realization that he “cannot do anything”, because he never tried to work, but wanted to get everything for free, snatch a piece from a greedy mother, or someone else. He becomes an inveterate drunkard in Golovlev and dies.
The image of Pavel Golovlev. This is a military man, but also a man suppressed by his mother, colorless. Outwardly, he snaps and is rude to his mother. But inside he is afraid of her and finds fault with her, resisting her influence. “He was a gloomy man, but behind the gloominess there was a lack of deeds - and nothing more.” Having moved to Golovlevo, he entrusts the affairs to his housekeeper - Ulita. Pavel Golovlev himself becomes an inveterate drunkard, consumed by hatred for his brother Judas. They die in this hatred, embittered, with curses and curses.
Image of Judas, Porfiry Golovleva. This man is the quintessence of the Golovlev family. He chose hypocrisy as his weapon. Under the guise of a sweet and sincere person, he achieves his goals, collects tribal property around him. His low soul rejoices at the troubles of his brothers and sisters, and when they die, he takes sincere pleasure in dividing property. In relations with his children, he also thinks about money first of all - and his sons cannot stand it. At the same time, Porfiry never allows himself to say rudeness or causticity. He is polite, feignedly sweet and caring, endlessly reasoning, spreading honeyed speeches, weaving verbal intrigues. People see his deceit, but succumb to it. Even Arina Petrovna herself cannot resist them. But at the end of the novel, Judas also comes to his fall. He becomes incapable of anything but idle talk. For days on end, he gets bored with all the conversations that no one listens to. If the servant turns out to be sensitive to his "verbiage" and nit-picking, then he tries to run away from the owner. The tyranny of Yudushka is becoming more and more petty, he also drinks, like the deceased brothers, for entertainment, he remembers petty offenses or minimal miscalculations in the economy all day long in order to “talk” them. Meanwhile, the real economy does not develop, falls into disrepair and decline. At the end of the novel, a terrible insight descends on Judas: “We need to forgive everyone ... What ... what happened?! Where is…everyone?!” But the family, divided by hatred, coldness and the inability to forgive, has already been destroyed.
The image of Anna and the image of Lyuba from the "Gentlemen of the Golovlevs." Yudushka's nieces are representatives of the last generation of the Golovlevs. They try to escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the family, at first they succeed. They work, play in the theater and are proud of it. But they were not accustomed to consistent, persistent activity. Nor were they accustomed to moral stamina and firmness in life. Lubinka is ruined by her cynicism and prudence, taken from her grandmother, and she herself pushes her sister into the abyss. From actresses, the “Pogorelsky sisters” become kept women, then almost prostitutes. Anninka, morally purer, more sincere, disinterested and kind-hearted, stubbornly clings to life. But she, too, breaks down, and after Lyubinka's suicide, sick and drinking, she returns to Golovlevo, "to die."
Characterization of Arina Petrovna from the novel by Saltykov-Shchedrin Lord Golovleva and received the best answer
Answer from Ђanya Senko[guru]
“Golovlevs” is a novel about a family, but, first of all, it is a novel about real and imaginary values, about why a person lives on Earth. In "Lords Golovlyov" the author explores the nature of what inexorably alienates people from each other. He explores such aspirations that begin with a frenzied desire to best arrange your home, secure the future of your kind. Home, family, clan - these are real values, not imaginary ones. And it is to them that the ancestor and head of the family, Arina Petrovna Golovleva, selflessly gives all her bright life talent.
And it seems to be succeeding: the power of the Golovlev family is undeniable. She herself proudly realizes this: “What a colossus she built! ". But when the goal seems to be achieved, it turns out that it was illusory, that everything is lost, and life, one's own and those of one's loved ones, was senselessly sacrificed. The novel, dedicated to the stubborn creation of a “family stronghold”, ends in a complete human collapse: the desolation of the house and the collapse of family ties.
So, the novel depicts a family consisting of the head - Arina Petrovna - and her children. Golovleva is an imperious and energetic landowner, the mistress of the entire estate, a complex and purposeful nature, but spoiled by unlimited power over her family and others. She single-handedly rules over the entire estate, turning her husband into an unnecessary appendage and crippling the life of "disgusting children." Her passion is hoarding. With all sorts of acquisitions, enrichment, the most vivid memories of the life of Arina Petrovna are connected. And the children, once again listening to her stories about this, perceive the words of their mother as a fascinating fairy tale.
Money relations are the main, most durable thread that connects Arina Petrovna and her sons - Stepan, Pavel and Porfiry. The eldest son, Stepan, by nature observant and witty, but inactive, “the hateful Styopka the boobie,” drank himself and died. Another son - Pavel - eventually hated the society of living people and lived in his fantasy world alone with himself. And so his bleak life proceeded, until a fatal illness got the better of him.
The youngest son, Porfiry, is perhaps the most "outstanding" figure in this family. The despotic power of Arina Petrovna, material dependence on his mother brought up deceit and servility in him. From childhood, Porfiry knew how to entangle his “good friend mother” with a web of lies and toadying, for which he received the nicknames “Judas” and “bloodsucker” from other family members. These nicknames perfectly reflect his essence. Not Judas, namely Judas, since he was deprived of the scope of a real Judas the traitor. During his worthless life, Porfiry did not commit a single real act.
