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• Task - 1. Two points of view on the image of Darling.
• Repetition. Genre of the story, composition, strong positions.
• Checking homework. Story plan, compositional techniques.
• Task - 2. Linguistic analysis.
• Task - 3. The meaning of the title of the story.
• Homework. Writing is discussion.

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Exercise 1

Compare two points of view on the image of Darling.

• L.N. Tolstoy
• M. Gorky

Whose opinion do you prefer? Why?

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L.N. Tolstoy

“Despite the wonderful, cheerful comedy of the whole work, I cannot read some parts of this book without tears. amazing story... The author, obviously, wants to laugh at a pitiful, according to his reasoning, creature ... but it’s not funny, but the amazing soul of Darling is holy.

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M. Gorky

“Here anxiously, like a gray mouse, Darling darts, - a sweet, meek woman who knows how to love so slavishly, so much. You can slap her on the cheek, and she won't even dare to moan loudly, meek slave."

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Repetition

• Define the genre of the story.
• What are the features of Chekhov's stories?
• Define text composition.
• Name the compositional techniques of the text.
• Define language composition.
• List the strengths of the text.

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Genre of the story

The short story is an epic genre of small volume, requiring at least two events and a shock ending. The story is characterized by economy mode. S. Broitman

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Chekhov's stories

Chekhov's story is rooted in the tradition of anecdote and parable. Chekhov's stories are an amalgamation of an anecdote and a parable. V. Tyup

Anecdote (Greek) - a short entertaining story about an unexpected event with an unpredictable ending. A parable is a short story in an edifying form, claiming to be a universal generalization.

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Composition

The structure of a literary text can be described by isolating different points of view, that is, the author's positions from which the narration is conducted (narrator, narrator, character). B. Uspensky

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Composition is the composition and a certain arrangement of parts, elements and images of a work in some significant temporal sequence. A. Esin

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Compositional techniques

1. Repeat
2. Gain
3. opposition
4. Installation

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Language composition

Comparison, opposition, alternation of word rows in a literary text. V.Vinogradov

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Strong positions of the text

1. Name
2. Epigraph
3. Beginning and end of text, chapter, part (first and last sentence)
4. Words in the rhyme of a poem

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Checking homework

• 2 group. Reading written works “My attitude to Darling”.
• Group 1. Story plan, compositional techniques.
• Group 3. Analysis of strong positions: titles, beginning and end of each chapter.
• Individual task: Compare the images of Dushechka and A.M. Pshenitsyna.

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Story plan

1. Darling is married to an entrepreneur Kukin.
2. Death of a husband.
3. Darling is married to the manager Pustovalov.
4. Death of a husband.
5. Roman Dushechki with veterinarian Smirnin.
6. Departure of the veterinarian.
7. Loneliness.
8. Love for Sasha.

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Compositional techniques

The composition is based on thematic repetitions. “Darling every time becomes her husband’s “understudy”. Under Kukin, she sat at his cash desk, looked after the orders in the garden, wrote down expenses, paid out salaries ... Under Pustovalov, “she sat in the office until the evening and wrote accounts there and sold the goods. But at the same time, Olga Semyonovna did not remain only an assistant - she appropriated someone else's personal experience, someone else's "direction of life", as if doubling the object of his affection. Darling's selflessness, as it gradually becomes clear towards the end of the story, is a form of spiritual dependency.

V.Tyupa

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Task - 2

• Linguistic analysis of the fragment from the words “In Lent he left for Moscow…”
• Find keywords, build a word sequence that creates the image of the heroine.
• Determine the author's attitude to Olenka.
• Make a conclusion.

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Keywords

I couldn’t sleep without him, I sat by the window, looked at the stars, compared myself with chickens, they don’t sleep, they are worried, there is no rooster in the chicken coop.

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Author's attitude

“In the poetic tradition, contemplation of the starry sky usually presupposes an exalted frame of mind, a dream of wingedness. According to mythological ideas, the soul is generally winged. Olenka also compares herself to winged creatures, however, flightless, and contemplation of the universe makes her think of a chicken coop. Just as a chicken is a kind of parody of a free migratory bird..., Chekhov's Darling is a parody of the traditionally allegorical Psyche.

V.Tyupa

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Conclusion

The heroine of the story is deprived of the ability to independently choose her life position, she uses other people's self-determinations. Chekhov's irony develops into sarcasm.

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Task - 3

• Why is there a chapter about Sashenka in the finale?
• Why is the story called "Darling"?
• Make a conclusion.

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Conclusion

“So, no degeneration of “Darling” into an adult “soul” under the ennobling influence of maternal feelings is visible in the final part of the work. On the contrary, having accepted the author's point of view on what is being communicated to us in the text, we will be forced to admit that the last attachment finally reveals Olga Semyonovna's failure as a person. Darling ... with her inability to self-determination, her inability to actualize this meaning in herself, appears in the story as an undeveloped “embryo” of personality.”

V.Tyupa

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Homework

1. Composition - reasoning
2. Darling is an undeveloped “embryo” of personality (V. Tyupa). Do you agree with this thought of a literary critic?
3. Darling is a wonderful wife and mother, a man's dream. Do you agree with this statement?

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Preview:

This lesson is held on the eve of studying the work of A.P. Chekhov so that no additional factors affect the achievement of the ultimate goal stated in the topic, such as: biographical data, features of the author's worldview, the originality of his work, that is, consideration of the story is immanent and directly depends on the skill of linguistic text analysis, which is the basis of research technology. The main task is to prove that the linguistic analysis of the text is the most objective way to identify the author's position, and therefore the formation of this skill continues in the lesson. In addition, acting as researchers, students develop general intellectual skills.

Lesson objectives:

Educational: through linguistic analysis of the text, try to identify the author's attitude to the heroine of the story.

Developing:

1. Development of the skill of linguistic analysis of the text as a universal means of identifying the author's position.

2. The development of cognitive activity and independence, coherent speech of students.

Educational:

1. Formation of an unbiased attitude towards a person, criteria for assessing a person.

2. Raising interest in the study of the subject.

Lesson type: a heuristic conversation structured as a study of a literary text.

Equipment: handout for character speech analysis, Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language, ed. S.I. Ozhegova and N.Yu. Shvedova

I. Setting the goal of the lesson and motivation learning activities students.

Teacher. Placing A.P. Chekhov’s story “Darling” in his journal “Reading Circle”, L.N. Tolstoy writes: “We can do without women doctors, telegraph operators, lawyers, scientists, writers, but without mothers, helpers, girlfriends, comforters, loving in a man all the best that is in him ... without such women it would be bad to live in the world. In the same 1899, another Russian writer A.M. Gorky spoke differently about Chekhov’s heroine: “The author’s mind with cruel clarity illuminates cramped and dirty houses, in which small, miserable people suffocate from boredom and laziness, filling their houses with meaningless, half-asleep bustle. Here anxiously, like a gray mouse, Darling scurries - a sweet, meek woman who knows how to love so slavishly, so much. You can hit her on the cheek, and she won’t even dare to moan loudly - a meek slave.

a genius of the 19th century, saw in Dushechka the ideal of a woman, the other - the "petrel of the revolution" - considers her a miserable slave.

And what is your impression?

Student responses.

Teacher. A.P. Chekhov himself said that the writer is not a judge, but only an impartial witness to life. But this does not mean that he does not have his own point of view: after all, if he undertakes to portray something, it means that this something caused him certain thoughts.

Work with text

Today in the lesson we will try to understand how Chekhov treated his heroine, and we will do this using the technology of linguistic text analysis, since language is always a way of expressing the author's thought. And let us turn to only two components of the story - the speech of the characters and their portrait characteristics. Let's start with the first sentence of the story.

Researchers hear dissonance in it. What is it? What words of the phrase are opposed?

Students "Olenka" - the childishness of the heroine, and "thinking" is not a child's occupation

Determine by explanatory dictionary Ozhegova lex. the meaning of the word "think".

Let's correlate this meaning with the next phrase of the story. What is the content of her thoughts?

Students “it will soon be evening” - and the flies will not pester.

- In what vein, from the very beginning of the story, does Chekhov present his heroine? Students Ironically, reduced. thoughtfulness turns into "pseudo-thoughtfulness", i.e. the complete absence of real reflections in the mind of the heroine.

Teacher But let's not rush to conclusions, because everything is known in comparison, especially since the author introduces a new character. This is Kukin, entrepreneur and owner of the Tivoli Pleasure Garden.

Through lexical meaning words "entrepreneur", "pleasure garden" characterize this hero.

Students A business man who earns money by entertaining the public.

Teacher And so he spoke ... (Reading Kukin's speech student)

What does this speech and the remarks with which the author accompanies it tell us about the hero?

Students Speech is very emotional, pompous, this is evidenced by lexical repetitions, syntactic parallelism, an abundance of emotionally expressive vocabulary. In speech, there are a lot of rhetorical questions, exclamations, sentences are built on the principle of gradation. The author's remarks “spread his hands”, spoke “with despair”, spoke with hysterical laughter” reflect the extreme intensity of the passions tearing apart Kukin’s soul. What are these passions, what caused his despair? Kukin's concern for the public, the desire to appear before Olenka as a kind of ascetic in the field of art are deceptive. It is clear that the main phrase for him is terrible losses every day. This is what makes him curse the public and the weather, and not at all concern for high art, especially since the operettas, extravaganzas that Kukin puts on are the vulgarity in which he accuses the townsfolk. The clichéd nature of Kukin's speech, her feigned passion, false pathos make one think about whether the hero plays some role and what? The answer is simple - his role - the hero of a melodrama - is precisely the style of his speech, and the goal is simple - to attract Olenka's attention. It turns out that Kukin does not have his own voice, his speech reveals the borrowing of other people's passions and opinions.

Teacher Kukin achieves what he wants: “In the end, Kukin’s misfortunes touched her, she fell in love with him.” This Chekhov phrase is an allusion to Shakespeare’s line from the tragedy Othello. But if the torments of Othello are real, the torments of a person who has gone through pain, humiliation, suffering, then Kukin's "torments" cause laughter. The allusion is followed by a portrait of Othello-Kukin.

What adds a portrait to our idea of ​​a hero?

Students First, the details of the portrait are given logically - from external to internal. Secondly, the details of the appearance emphasize that we have a weak, pitiful creature in front of us, but it does not cause pity, since the mannerisms and the simulated grimace of despair became the face of the hero, exposing him inner emptiness. An analysis of Kukin's speech and his portrait make it possible to understand that we have before us an entrepreneur, mediocrely playing the role of a sufferer, covering up his selfish goals with lofty words about art and its purpose.

Teacher Olenka's second husband was Vasily Andreevich Pustovalov, manager of the timber warehouse of the merchant Babakaev.

- What does his portrait tell us about the hero?

Students Limited only by the details of clothing, moreover, the manner of dressing clearly indicates the desire of the hero to look different from who you are - the desire to play someone else's role

Teacher What does Pustovalov say to Olenka and how does his speech characterize the hero?

Students He speaks of a person as a thing, while at the same time he does not finish the phrase at all: it is not clear from it what needs to be endured with humility. His speech is not only illiterate, but also insensitive, which suggests that it is a stranger. Its source is, obviously, the sermons of the local priest, since it contains vocabulary and turns of church services.

Teacher Pustovalov hides behind God, as Kukin covered himself with art, but their mercantile essence is similar, and Olenka's speech shows this. Her first phrase after a new marriage: “Now the forest becomes more expensive by 20% every year”

Olenka's new hobby is the regimental veterinarian Smirnin. Chekhov does not give a portrait of this hero at all, and he limits his speech to only one remark - Olenka's shout.

- What does this line say about the hero?

Students His professional affiliation requires kindness and mercy, but even in relation to Olenka he is rude, and his speech resembles a snake's hiss. Therefore, we involuntarily understand that professional speech is a mask that hides the human inferiority of Smirnin, his human incompetence.

Teacher Here are three characters that Chekhov placed next to the heroine, defining the role of husbands for them. Denoting the figure of each of them, the author shows the reader how much what they are talking about does not correspond to their inner world.

Calling the story "Darling", Chekhov obviously had in mind not only the image main character, but also one of the important problems of Russian literature - what makes a person highly spiritual? And he turns to these sources of spirituality. Art. But in the modern world of Chekhov, art has become smaller, and talking about it has become a convenient form of demonstrating one's originality, a form that covers up true commercial goals. Faith. She also became only a form, and her essence was replaced by love for material goods. Kindness and humanity. But even those who, by the nature of their profession, should carry it, do not possess them. What will happen to Russia next, if now everything is distorted, has only an external side and is devoid of essence?

It's time to turn to the image of the main character. Olenka Plemyannikova, she is the darling, whose nickname Chekhov calls the story.

What is the lexical meaning of this word? How seriously does the author connect this meaning with Olenka?

Let's turn to the portrait of the heroine, because it is with him that the author associates her nickname.

Researcher of creativity Chekhov V.I. Tyupa, examining the portrait of the heroine, says: “The order of the definitions offered to the reader is such that the spiritual characterization of the heroine, gradually deepened, suddenly ends with a rough bodily remark -“ very healthy ”-, which, it would seem, should be at the very beginning of this series, his“ lack of spirituality "would be gradually removed, and so it, picked up by the next phrase, obscures the spirituality of the previous characteristics" The literary critic concludes that the author's ironic attitude towards the heroine, confirming his opinion by the fact that she was given the nickname "darling" precisely for the pleasure she received from contemplating her healthy body.

- Do you agree with this interpretation of Olenka's portrait?

Students The logic of the details of the portrait is the opposite of how the portraits of characters, to which the author has a negative attitude, were presented.

Teacher Perhaps this logic is due to the fact that there it was about men, but here it is a woman? Are there other women in the story? Yes, it's the vet's wife.

How does Chekhov present this portrait? How does the author feel about this character?

Students From external characteristics to internal ones, but neither the one nor the other attracts either the author or the reader. This emancipated woman, who has her own opinion and lives according to her own will, independent of anyone, even forgets about her own child.

The main character has no opinion of her own. Tyupa defines its essence with the terrible word “habitant”: the spiritual poverty of a person forces her to adapt her external existence to someone else’s, borrowed meaning of life. Is it so?

How would any layman evaluate Smirnin's decision to divorce his wife?

Students The decision is correct, because she cheated on him, enteredimmoral, and society condemns it: vice must be punished

Teacher What does Olenka advise Smirnin? How does this characterize her?

Students This is advice that goes against public opinion. These are not echoes of Pustovalov's speeches, because in his comforting words there is not only no sincerity, but no sense either. Darling's advice comes from the heart: "you would have reconciled ... you would have forgiven ... the boy, I suppose he understands everything."

Teacher These are the words of Darling herself, and not someone's rehash. Remember what Olenka says to Smirnin, who returned with his family. What is it: self-interest, calculation or impulse of the soul? (sincere joy, ready to give everything to make another person happy, there is not even a shadow of jealousy, resentment) this is not a pose, but the position of the heroine, and it is emphasized by the author throughout the story. And then another character appears in the story. This is Sasha, the son of a veterinarian.

- Did Olenka become a hanger-on with the Smirnin family?

Students She became a mother for Sasha.

Teacher Life itself revealed nature in her, her inner essence - the maternal principle.

How sweet you are to me! she said to Kukin, smoothing his hair. How pretty you are! - clearly maternal gesture.

With Pustovalov, "both, according to some strange train of thought, stood in front of the images, bowed to the ground and prayed that God would send them children."

And now someone else's child has become the meaning of her life. Could this be the subject of irony or sarcasm? Of course not. Laughing at this is blasphemous.

It's time to sum up our research.

- How does Chekhov feel about his heroine?

Students He does not put her on a pedestal of holiness, an ideal. She is a narrow-minded, undeveloped creature, somewhat limited, but in comparison with all the pseudo-developed, pseudo-well-meaning, pseudo-intelligent characters of the story, she wins. Her "foreign" speeches cannot obscure her kindness, cordiality, readiness to help everyone who needs it.

Teacher In today's lesson, with the help of linguistic analysis of the text, we tried to take an unbiased approach to assessing the heroine of Chekhov's story and tried to understand the author's attitude towards her. And consideration of the system of characters and the placement of accents in their characteristics allows us to conclude that the problem posed by the great writer is topical.

Literature

Tyupa V.I. The artistry of the Chekhov story. - M .: graduate School, 1989. - P.133.

Olga Mikhailovna SKIBINA (1956) - Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Orenburg State Pedagogical University.

Time and space of Chekhov's Darling

The story "Darling" is one of the most famous and at the same time the most difficult to interpret (and therefore study) Chekhov's stories. Preparing for the lesson, the teacher will first of all have to answer simple “childish” questions for himself, which will then be posed in the class. What is this story about? Did Darushechka's life take place or did it not take place? How does the author feel about his character? Why did critics evaluate this story so differently (from the “monograph of love” to the story about “chicken love”)? Maybe the character of the heroine is multifaceted - or is it something else? Answers to these questions can be obtained only by very close reading of the story, knowing some important features of Chekhov's poetics. Special attention it is worth paying attention to the artistic time and space of "Darling" - it is through them that the meaning of the story will be revealed to us.

And the story of Olga Semyonovna's wingless life, unable to orient herself in the reality around her and realize herself as a person, leads, at first glance, to the idea of ​​a static image: there are no opportunities for formation, growth, development here. As a result of the events depicted in the story (meeting - death of a lover - loneliness - a new meeting), nothing in the fate of the heroine has been changed, nothing has been created again. The end returns to the beginning. The life of Olga Semyonovna, it would seem, is filled with many events, the story contains almost all the attributes of action-packed fiction: love, betrayal, death, abrupt shifts in relationships. And yet, this life is perceived as a truly eventless existence, since all this multitude of events resembles running in place. They do not change either the nature of Olga Semyonovna, or the surrounding reality. But if the result of the event in the story is “zero,” why then Chekhov writes about all the heroine’s previous attachments (entrepreneur Kukin, timber merchant Pustovalov, veterinarian Smirnin) extremely concisely and succinctly in the form of the past tense, and her last attachment to someone else’s child gives on two pages Does the story take place in the present tense?

Time for Olenka moves only when she has a deep attachment, for which she lives - her life stops when there is no such attachment. Here is how Chekhov describes the life of Darling with her husbands - with Kukin: “After the wedding they lived well ...”, “and in the winter they lived well ...”; with Pustovalov: “And again they lived well, again Olenka blossomed ...”. By the way, the repetition of the same words in a small narrative space testifies to the irony of the author - this is one of Chekhov's artistic methods for evaluating a person. Despite the fact that the time of action in the story does not last hours and days, but months and even years, it seems to consist of separate episodes that create the impression of the whole fate of Olga Semyonovna. Chekhov skillfully “condenses” time, noting in life path the heroines are only those segments of it that were marked for her by important changes: “Three months later”, “And so the Pustovalovs lived quietly and peacefully, in love
and consent for six years”, “When six months have passed”, “And so day after day, year after year - and not a single joy.”

When the “darling” Olga Semyonovna is not filled, like a vessel, to the brim with affection for someone, is not completely absorbed by love, “which would capture her whole being,” then her life turns out to be just an expectation of a new meeting and a new attachment. In fact, this is the expectation of the opportunity to join other people's interests and fill one's existence with them, that is, the expectation of a full-fledged being. This time, eventless for the heroine, seems to have almost stopped: “The veterinarian left with the regiment, left forever<...>and Olenka was left alone<...>In the evenings Olenka sat on the porch<...>looked blankly at her empty yard, thought of nothing, wanted nothing, and then, when night fell, she went to sleep and dreamed of her empty yard<...>and most importantly, worst of all, she no longer had any opinions ... ”This is slowly dragging time - subjective time, the time of the heroine, for whom “the connection of times has broken up”.

The narrator himself does not for a moment forget that “everything flows, everything changes”: “The city gradually expanded in all directions; The gypsy settlement was already called a street, and where the Tivoli garden and timber warehouses had been, houses had already grown and a series of alleys had formed. How quickly time flies! Olenka's house darkened, the roof rusted, the barn squinted, and the whole yard was overgrown with weeds and prickly nettles. Olenka, on the other hand, does not see the changes taking place, time for her is devoid of a progressive historical course, it moves in narrow circles, and the circle of the week, the month is no different from the circle of the year, of all life.

The spatial world of Olga Semyonovna is also limited: its contours are clearly marked by a wing, another grave of another husband, a church, annoying flies. It is no coincidence that on sleepless nights during the departure of her husband, Olenka “sat at the window and looked at the stars. And at this time, she compared herself to chickens, who also stay up all night and are worried when there is no rooster in the hen house. The space outside the heroine does not seem to exist. She cannot independently navigate in a complex and confusing world for her - gaining this orientation is tantamount to finding the meaning of life, happiness for her.

Darling, having met with her lover, begins to live his life, think with his thoughts, look at what is happening through his eyes. There is a kind of superposition of points of view: the narrator withdraws himself, his role is “taken” by Olenka, who, in turn, chooses the position of her next husband as an “observation post”. It turns out that we see everything described either through the eyes of the entrepreneur Kukin, or through the eyes of the veterinarian Smirnin. However, the image of the surrounding world from the positions of these heroes is not given in its pure form, but is refracted in the limited consciousness of Olenka. The inner spiritual world of these heroes, therefore, appears before us not in the assessment of the narrator, but in the statements of Darling, and since she almost verbatim reproduces the style of speech of her beloved, the idea of ​​​​them is complete - and at the same time this idea characterizes Olenka herself.

After her wedding with Kukin, “she already told her acquaintances that the most wonderful, most important and necessary thing in the world is the theater, and that you can get real pleasure only in the theater.” But then her theatrical spouse was replaced by a timber merchant, and the spatial sphere for Olenka began to be limited to objects of “forest origin”:<...>At night, when she slept, she dreamed of whole mountains of boards and planks, endless strings of carts. And if earlier Darling said: “Tomorrow Vanechka and I are staging Orpheus in Hell,” now, at the suggestion of friends to go to the theater, she answered: “Vasechka and I have no time to go to theaters. We are working people, we are not up to trifles. What good is there in these theatres?”

Withering without love, Darling suddenly comes to life when the opportunity opens up for her to devote herself to raising someone else's child. Not in years and months, not even in weeks and days, but in minutes, in moments, her life is now measured. “The next day they were already painting the roof on the house and whitewashing the wall, and Olenka, akimbo, walked around the yard and ordered. The old smile shone on her face, and all of her came to life, brightened, as if waking up from a long sleep. How long this “dream” lasted, we can judge by the fact that the returned veterinarian was “already gray-haired”, and his son was “already in his tenth year”. The rhythm of the narration is changing, now every minute of the Darling is filled with meaning, content; time is not only indicated, but counted down: “the next day”, “in the evening”, “every morning”, “at the third hour”, “a minute passes”, etc.

It would seem that there is a complete repetition of the same plot situation (this is evidenced by almost word for word reproduced expressions). However, after meeting with Sashenka, the state of the heroine herself changed. Chekhov described his former hobbies obviously ironically: “In the end, Kukin’s misfortunes touched her, she fell in love with him”; Pustovalov “sat for a short time, about five minutes, and spoke little, but Olenka fell in love with him”; "It's been six months<...>and Olenka found her new happiness in her wing” (about Smirnin). But all this is, as it were, a prehistory, an excursion into the past of the heroine (let us pay attention to the tense of verbs), a kind of study of the external circumstances of her life, which led to what the countdown of time and true life begins from: “Oh, how she loves him! For this strange boy, for his dimples on her cheeks, for a cap, she would give her whole life, she would give it with joy, with tears of tenderness ... Her face, rejuvenated in six months, smiles, shines. And although everything repeated: “And she begins to talk about teachers, about lessons, about textbooks, the same thing that Sasha says about them,” nevertheless, the former Darling revealed herself by no means in an ironic light. She felt like a mother, taking spiritual responsibility for the child. The author's attitude towards the heroine changes, notes of sympathy and touching attention appear. Leo Tolstoy, admiring the story, said about it this way: "I wanted to curse, but I blessed it."

The finale of the story creates a certain perspective, but a dual perspective: on the one hand, this is the possibility of complete happiness (thoughts about Sasha, his future, about his quiet old age near him), on the other hand, a daily repeated knock on the gate, which for Darling means the end is approaching (“this is a telegram from Kharkov,” she thinks, starting to tremble all over. “Mother demands Sasha to come to her ...”). And we understand that in this case everything can return to its starting point, and life will again go in a vicious circle, and the true need to love and be loved can get a false outcome. Thus, the theme of the story may well be designated as the drama of failed motherhood - and then we understand the change in his pathos in the finale.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote the story "Darling" in 1899. It refers to the late work of the writer. It is noteworthy that Chekhov's "Darling" immediately caused a mixed assessment in literary circles.

The main theme of the work is love. Only for the main character does it become not just a need, but the meaning of life. And it is much more important for her not to receive love, but to give it. The comicality of the situation is that every time the story of selfless deep feelings of the heroine is repeated. The composition of the story consists of four parts: according to the number of heart affections in Olenka's life. We give below summary this literary work.

A few words about the main character

Olenka Plemyannikova, the daughter of a retired collegiate assessor, lives in her house with her father. This is a rosy-cheeked young lady with a white delicate neck, plump hands, a meek look and a touching smile.

People around love a pretty girl. Everyone likes her without exception. When talking with her, I just want to touch her hand and tell her: “Darling!” Some kind of attachment is always present in Olenka's soul: at first she was in love with a French teacher, then she began to adore her papa, and after her aunt, who visited her twice a year. The problem is that these sympathies often replace one another. But this does not bother Olenka, as well as the people around her. They are impressed by the girl's naivety, her gullibility and quiet kindness. This is how Chekhov describes his heroine in the story "Darling". A summary will help to get an idea of ​​​​the personal qualities of the heroine. Her image is contradictory: on the one hand, she is endowed with the gift of selfless love. So to dissolve in your soulmate is not given to everyone. And this, of course, causes the reader to respect the heroine. However, on the other hand, she appears to us as a gullible and windy person. The complete absence of spiritual interests, the lack of one's own views and ideas about the world around - all this causes ridicule of the reader.

Kukin - Olenka's first affection

In the large house of the Plemyannikovs, a certain Ivan Petrovich Kukin, owner and entrepreneur of the Tivoli entertainment garden, lodges. Olenka often sees him in the yard. Kukin constantly complains about life. All you hear from him is: “The public today is wild and ignorant. What is an operetta, extravaganza to her? Give her a booty! Nobody walks. Yes, and these rains every evening! And I have to pay rent, artists have to pay salaries. Solid losses. I'm broke! Olenka is very sorry for him. On the other hand, love for this person wakes up in her heart. So what, that he is thin, small in stature and speaks in a shrill voice. In her view, Kukin is a hero who daily fights with his main enemy - an ignorant public. The heroine's sympathy turns out to be mutual, and soon the young people get married. Now Olenka is working with might and main in her husband's theater. She, like him, scolds the audience, talks about the importance of art in the life of a person and lends to actors. In winter, the affairs of the spouses are better. In the evenings, Olenka gives Ivan Petrovich tea with raspberries and wraps him in warm blankets, wanting to improve her husband's failing health.

Unfortunately, the happiness of the young was short-lived: Kukin left for Moscow during Great Lent to recruit a new troupe and died there suddenly. After burying her husband, the young lady plunged into deep mourning. True, it did not last long. Chekhov's story "Darling" will tell us about what happened next. In the meantime, we see that the heroine, imbued with the thoughts of her husband, becomes his shadow and echo. Her individual qualities as if it didn't exist. With the death of a spouse, a woman loses the meaning of life.

Olenka is getting married again

When Olenka, as usual, returned home from mass, Vasily Andreevich Pustovalov, the forest manager of the merchant Babakaev, turned out to be next to her. He walked the woman to the gate and left. Only since then, our heroine has not found a place for herself. Soon a matchmaker from Pustovalov appeared in her house. The young people played a wedding and began to live in peace and harmony. Now Olenka talked only about forest land, about the price of timber, about the difficulties of transporting it. It seemed to her that she had always been doing this. It was warm and cozy in the Pustovalovs' house, it smelled deliciously of homemade food. The couple did not go anywhere, spending the weekend only in each other's company.

When those around her advised the "darling" to go to the theater and unwind, she replied that this was not an empty occupation for working people. In the absence of her husband, when he left for the forest, the woman was bored. Her leisure time was sometimes brightened up by the military veterinarian Smirnin. This gentleman in another city left his wife with a child, which did not prevent him from spending time in the company of other women. Olenka shamed him and strongly advised him to change his mind and make peace with his wife. So the quiet family happiness of the “darling” would have lasted for many more years, if not for the tragic death of her husband. Vasily Andreevich once caught a cold and died suddenly. Olenka again plunged into deep mourning. What does the author want to pay attention to when describing the second attachment of the heroine, what amuses Chekhov here? Darling is a selfless woman, capable of a great and deep feeling. The comicality of the situation is that the story of great love to the grave in the life of the heroine is repeated. And here the same thing: complete dissolution in the beloved, echoing his words, quiet family happiness and a tragic ending.

New heroine sympathy

Now those around him hardly saw Olenka. Only sometimes she could be found in the church or at the vegetable market with the cook. But soon the neighbors already saw a picture in the courtyard of the house: the “darling” is sitting at a table in the garden, and Smirnin is drinking tea next to her. Everything became clear from the moment Olenka suddenly told one friend at the post office about the problem of milk contamination from sick cows and horses. Since then, the young lady only talked about rinderpest, pearl disease, and much more. Olenka and Smirnin tried to keep their relationship secret. However, it became clear to others: a new affection appeared in the heart of a woman. What else will Chekhov tell us in his story "Darling"? The summary of the work allows us to trace the chain of Olenka's sympathies. The author gives the reader the opportunity to feel the deep feelings of the heroine. And at the same time, using the example of a repetition of the situation, he shows how they are limited and relative. It becomes clear to us how a new feeling was born in the heart of the heroine. This is her third attachment. It seems comical that with her arrival, the deep mourning of a woman instantly disappears.

Olenka is left alone

But Olenka was not happy this time either. Smirnin was soon assigned to a distant regiment, and he left without calling his beloved with him. The woman was left alone. Her father died long ago. There were no relatives around. Black days began for Olenka. She lost weight, grew ugly and aged. Friends, when they saw her, tried to cross to the other end of the street so as not to meet her. On summer evenings, Olenka sat on the porch, going over all her affections in her memory. But it seemed to be empty there. It seemed to her that there was no meaning in life. Before, she could explain everything, talk about everything. Now there was such an emptiness in her heart and thoughts, it was so eerie and bitter, as if she had "overeaten wormwood." This is how he described the loneliness of the heroine in his Darling lives only when he can give love close person next to her. It would seem that here you need to feel sorry for the heroine, because she suffers. But the author deliberately and now belittles Olenka's feelings, ironically over them in the words: "as if she overate wormwood ...". And this is fair. Further, we will see how quickly the pictures in a woman's life change from complete despondency and sorrow to absolute happiness.

The new meaning of the life of the heroine

Everything changed in one moment. He returned to the city of Smirnin with his wife and ten-year-old son. Olenka gladly invited him and his family to live in her house. She herself moved into the outbuilding. There was a new meaning in her life. She went about happy, taking charge of the yard. This change was not hidden from the eyes of others. Friends noticed that the woman looked younger, prettier, recovered. It became clear to everyone: the old “darling” returned. And this means that in her heart again a new attachment. Further, we will see what nevertheless captured Chekhov's darling Olenka. Her last sympathy is an example of selfless tenderness, readiness to die for her child. Probably, every woman in her life should realize this natural need - to give tenderness and warmth to children. The good news is that our heroine also took place as a woman and mother.

Maternal feelings in Olenka's soul

Olenka fell in love with Sashenka, the son of Smirnin, with all her heart. The wife of the former veterinarian went to Kharkov on business, he himself disappeared somewhere for days on end, appearing only late in the evening. The child spent the whole day in the house alone. It seemed to Olenka that he was forever hungry, abandoned by his parents. She took the boy to her wing. With what tenderness the woman looked at him, seeing him off to the gymnasium.

How she pampered the child, regaling him incessantly with sweets. With what pleasure I did with Sasha homework. Now from the "darling" one could hear only about studying at the gymnasium, textbooks, teachers and the like. Olenka blossomed, gained weight. The woman was afraid of one thing - that her beloved Sashenka would suddenly be taken away from her. With what fear she listened to the knock on the gate: what if it came from the boy's mother, who demands him to her? At this unfinished moment, Chekhov ends his work. "Darling", analysis and summary which is given here, this is a story about selfless love, which is so rare in our lives, about its sometimes ridiculous and ridiculous manifestations. The main thing in the heroine is an inexhaustible supply of tenderness and warmth, care and affection. Ridiculous and insignificant in comparison with her, her chosen ones. She is funny only in the part when she completely accepts their way of life and their views on reality. Only in her last maternal affection does she become truly beautiful. In this image of her, many women will surely recognize themselves.

We retold and analyzed Chekhov's story "Darling", followed how a woman from a narrow-minded bourgeois turns into a real Chekhov heroine.

The opinions of contemporaries about the heroine of the story "Darling" (1898) turned out to be sharply opposite. Almost everyone liked the story, they laughed and cried at it. But what is the main thing in Darling and how the author proposes to treat it - many mutually exclusive judgments have been and continue to be expressed on this subject.

Darling - a faceless slave of his affections? (This is how Gorky perceived the heroine of the story.)

Darling - a fickle, unprincipled creature? (This is how it appears in Lenin's review.)

Darling - the embodiment of the true destiny of a woman?

(L. Tolstoy saw her like this.)

The ambiguity of the image and work, the possibility of versatile understanding and interpretation is a property of the creations of high art. No wonder Leo Tolstoy put the image of Darling next to the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, with the image of Shakespeare's Horatio from Hamlet. Tolstoy argued that ridicule was at the heart of the concept of Darling, but believed that the story did not turn out the way Chekhov intended it. He considered “Darling” a masterpiece, but it turned out, as it were, in addition to or contrary to the author’s intentions, “unconsciously”: ridicule was conceived - praise turned out.

So, what is in this story: ridicule, admiration? And what is the main thing in Dushechka? And one more thing - did the image really turn out exactly like this against the will of the author, or was Chekhov's intention expressed quite definitely, and the point is to feel, guess, see this intention?

How can you see it? Listening to the language in which the author speaks with readers - the language of artistic means, techniques. Repetition - Chekhov's favorite artistic means - in the story "Darling" is perhaps the main way to build a work.

The story tells about the change of four affections of Darling. An entrepreneur, a timber merchant, a veterinarian, a little schoolboy enter her life in turn, then leave (or can leave her) - this is how the four-part composition of the story is set. Since each of the four parts-situations develops according to the same pattern (Dearie's understanding of someone else's situation - pity or sympathy - love - reproduction of other people's opinions - end), already somewhere in the middle of the second of them, the reader is tuned in to the expectation of repetition. And he is not mistaken; and then this reader's expectation is justified once again.

And most often, resorting to repetition, the writer counts on a comic effect. The monotony, the expectation of situations, the monotony of actions, multiplied by the seemingly mechanical assignment of their reproduction - all this sets the reader up for an ironic reaction.

Not only the composition “Darlings” is based on repetition. Repetitions - large and small - meet us from the very beginning of the work.

The very first words of Chekhov's story contain an imperceptible hint both about the environment in which the action will take place, and even about the tone of the further narration. This is also done with the help of repetition - in this case, suffixes. Darling, Olenka, on the porch: diminutive suffixes, repeated in the title and in the first phrase, tune in to a story about the familiar environment and type of people, about the average and ordinary.

But if the reader has succumbed to the charm of these suffixes and has already tuned in to a sentimental mood, to tenderness and admiration, the author immediately interrupts this expectation.

Immediately a character appears with the ridiculous surname Kukin (absurd precisely in conjunction with the exotic for the Russian province and pretentious name “Tivoli”). And again, the effect desired by the author is achieved through repetition. Already on the first page, Kukin, like a circus clown-loser, fails three times, three times becomes a victim of hostile forces hated by him - rainy weather and an ignorant (i.e., indifferent to his undertakings) public. It is clear that such repetition leads to an undeniably comical perception of this character and everything that happens to him.

So, already on the first page of the story (and there are 12 of these pages in total), its main tone, the basic principle by which the story will be conducted, is established. This principle is not a single tone of the story, let's say lyrical, sentimental, or, conversely, only ironic, mocking. This is a combination of opposite tonalities, replacing, or rather, interrupting one another: sometimes serious, sometimes ironic; either lyrical or comic. According to this principle, the narrative in “Darling” is built, and it is precisely such an artistic construction that helps to understand the author's meaning of the work.

The first page is not limited to the use of repetition in this story. Not only words and situations are repeated. Chekhov alternates the description of one-time events or scenes with what usually happens, always repeats itself or often. Thus, the author builds artistic time in the story on the alternation of the one-time with the repetitive.

Kukin utters his desperately hysterical monologue in anticipation of the approaching rain again in front of Olenka “one hot evening”. But then we find out that everything happened again on the second day, and on the third. Also, one fine day, Olenka felt that she fell in love with this sufferer. But then we learn that she always loved someone "and could not live without it." The word “loved” is repeated four times - this is how the author denotes the main content of Olenka’s life. And the pleasure that everyone experienced when looking at her - both men and familiar ladies - is indicated as a reaction that was invariably repeated. The proposal that Kukin made to her, their wedding, his trip to Moscow during Lent, the telegram with the news of his death are one-time events. And everything that filled the time between these events is designated as constantly repeating: the chores of Darling in the garden, in the theater, and the way she scolded the audience word for word for her husband or praised theatrical work, and the way the actors called her “Vanichka and I” and “darling”, and Kukin’s irremovable tendency to complain about fate, and the way she felt sorry for him and comforted him ...

"Once" here is synonymous with "always". This is how Chekhov usually organizes time in his stories: the result is a complex, capacious brevity - whole destinies set out on several pages.

Twice it says in this description "we lived well." This is already a repetition of some assessment. Of course, here “good” reflects the point of view of the heroine: it was from such a life that she “became stout and beamed with pleasure”, while her companion in this life period only “loosened and turned yellow and complained”. Then, also twice, this “good” will be repeated in the description of the next segment of the life of Darling, already with the timber merchant Pustovalov; and it will become completely clear that “good” in her world, from her point of view, is when she has someone to love and care about. And, meeting once again such a “good”, the reader is ready to perceive it not in the literal sense, but with a dose of irony.

So the principle outlined at the beginning of the story: to let the reader feel the feeling experienced by the heroine, but then be sure to indicate the relativity, the limitation of this feeling, to smile at this limitation, is consistently observed.

Even the telegram about Kukin's death, which made Darling deeply unhappy, contains the absurdly funny words "suchala", "hokho-rony". These “funeral Tuesdays”, by the way, strangely repeat the motif already associated with Kukin. On the second day of his conversations with Olenka, he delivered his monologue with complaints about fate "with hysterical laughter." As if echoing from the other world, the sound of this Kuka's hysterical laughter echoed in the telegram.

And then this method of reduction is repeated, indicating the relativity of the heroine's feelings and how she herself evaluates what is happening. About the feeling of loneliness and emptiness that Olenka possessed after she had no one to love, it is said: “And so terrible, and so bitter, as if she had eaten too much wormwood.” The feelings themselves are of a high order, and their explanation is through plant-animal associations. Again a decline, again an ironic smile. Phrases like this combine not an unambiguous, but a dual (sympathetic-ironic) characterization and assessment.

So repetition becomes the main organizing principle of the story - from its composition as a whole to the ways of characterizing the characters, from the correlation of individual paragraphs to the roll call within a single sentence.

But not only the purposes of irony in relation to the heroine are served artistic means used by the author, and the main among them are repetitions.

Repetition in art (not necessarily only in verbal art) serves to create the rhythm of a single passage or a work as a whole. Something (some group of sounds, words) must be repeated several times in order for the listener, the reader to have a sense of the rhythm underlying this work. And then the artist, seeking something new, more strong impact, may resort to the following technique - a violation of the rhythm, a deviation from the specified rhythm. And Chekhov resorts to it more than once.

Rhythm in the construction of "Darling" - four, approximately similar in beginning, development and ending, episodes in the life of the heroine. But in the middle of the second episode, a motif arises - a mention of a boy deprived of parental love - a motif that, as it turns out later, will respond in the fourth and last episode and which will give a very special meaning to the appearance of the heroine and the final attitude towards her.

It is this boy who will become the new, last and most important affection of Darling. It would seem that with the help of repetitions, the given rhythm is completely reproduced in this part of the story. Darling at first sympathizes with the person who appeared on her way, then she is seized by love for him (“her heart in her chest suddenly became warm and contracted sweetly ... she looked at him with tenderness and pity ...”), and this love is accompanied by a complete transition to his circle of concepts (“An island is a piece of land ...”).

In fact, the rhythm in this episode is sharply broken. Darling is seized by love unknown to her before, motherly, something completely different from love for her ex-husbands. And in relation to this last love (“as if this boy was her own son”), all the former ones seem insignificant, inauthentic.

In this part, as it were, the method of recreating the feelings of the heroine, set in previous episodes, is canceled. Previously, after the transfer of these feelings and sensations of Darling - most often tenderness, contentment, pleasantness - something necessarily followed in the narration that reduced, canceled these feelings and sensations. Interruptions, ironic declines consistently accompanied all previous features inner world heroines. The image of Darling appeared in a double light: the touching and sweet in her was inseparable from the funny and limited. The lyrical beginning in the story about her was invariably accompanied by the ironic beginning.

But in the last episode, when Darling's love took a completely new direction, she is described in a completely different way.

“Oh, how she loves him! Of her former affections, none was so deep, never before had her soul submitted so selflessly, disinterestedly and with such joy as now, when motherly feeling flared up in her more and more. For this strange boy, for his dimples on his cheeks, for his cap, she would give her whole life, she would give it with joy, with tears of tenderness. Why? And who knows - why?

In its main property - abundance of love - Darling has not changed. Another property of her soul remained unchanged - to “submit” without a trace to the one she loves. This property is reminiscent of the very next paragraphs, in which Darling tells, to those he meets, “about teachers, about lessons, about textbooks - the same thing that Sasha says about them,” and cries with Sasha when she prepares lessons with him. Chekhov's grin remains in the story about Darling to the end, but it no longer cancels the understanding, sympathy for the heroine, to which the author led us in the last episode of his story, understanding the ratio of her properties in Darling, which of them is the main one, and which ones are related. Only with the advent of Sasha, the main talent of Darling was truly realized and unfolded - the ability for selfless love.

So what, “Darling” is a story about this gift, which is not given to everyone, but in such an exceptional concentration is rarely found at all? Yes, this is a story about a person who is able to love to self-forgetfulness. And about those funny, funny and absurd manifestations that this ability takes in reality. First of all, Darushechka's chosen ones are ridiculous and insignificant, and she is ridiculous to the extent that she adopts their way of life and vision of the world. The main thing in it is an inexhaustible supply of love.

In art, the power of love is often measured by the willingness to die for a loved one. Olenka is sincerely killed after the death of both Kukin and Pustovalov, and in her lamentations - as a rhetorical figure - she could well express a desire to go with them to another world. But to die for the sake of Kukin or Pustovalov would have looked really absurd. And the truth of love for Sashenka is confirmed precisely by the willingness to give life for him - "with joy, with tears of tenderness." This is what speaks of the authenticity and involvement in the highest of the last feelings of Darling.

Darling lives in the same environment, among people of the same stock and level as Ionych. The strength of this environment, the inability to escape from the forms of life behavior imposed by them, are experienced by both Ionych and Dushechka: he - trying to resist and resist these forms, she - accepting them voluntarily and with joy. But these two heroes are described by Chekhov in different ways, and the writer embodied different aspects of his idea of ​​the world in them.

“Ionych” is a story about a defeat in a life struggle, it is built as a story about an imperceptible, but inexorable degradation of a person. With Darling, such degradation does not occur. The extraordinary gift that she carries within herself allows her not only to remain unchanged, but to find a use for this heavenly gift in a miserable everyday life. The possession of such a gift really illuminates and elevates her, although more often it seems that she is the flesh of the flesh of this miserable and insignificant world.

Tolstoy, guided by his views on the appointment of a woman and enchanted in Chekhov's heroine by the gift of love-self-sacrifice, did not want to ridicule what he considered holy and beautiful. He explained the ambiguous coverage of the heroine of the story by the fact that Chekhov wanted to write one thing, but thanks to the intervention of the “god of poetry”, he got something else: they say, Chekhov wanted to laugh at Darling, as a result, he glorified her. But Chekhov the artist, of course, remained in full possession of the art of depicting the complex in the simple. He did not write about what a woman should be. That women can be completely different, he showed - in passing, briefly, but quite clearly - in the form of Smirnin's wife, Sasha's mother. She is not allowed to love: neither for her husband, nor for a child, although she, quite possibly, could prove herself in any social or professional field.

It doesn't matter - the reader sympathizes not with her, but with Darling in the open and disturbing finale of the story: will the inexorable rhythm not be broken and Darling will lose what fills her life, and this time, as in the three previous cases?