Aleko is the hero of what poem. Psychological appearance of Aleko in the poem “Gypsies”

/ / / The image of Aleko in Pushkin’s poem “Gypsies”

Alexander Pushkin in his work went from romanticism to realism. The young author still believed in the ideas of the romantics, but at a more mature age he became an adherent of a realistic view of life.

The first step towards realism was the poem "". Here the author is already rethinking the image romantic hero, looks deeper at categories such as freedom, honor.

The main character of the poem is called Aleko. It is not difficult to understand that this is a shortened version of the author's name. The hero belongs to the enlightened youth of the 19th century, to which Pushkin himself belonged.

The hero is positioned in the poem as a fugitive. What is he running from? Judging by his statements, he leaves the false high society that is disgusting to him and hopes to find freedom among the gypsies. In this he is similar to the Byronic type of hero. He feels like a stranger among his own. But will he become one of the strangers? As the tragic ending of the poem shows, definitely not.

Aleko is endowed with a keen, even painful, sense of self-esteem. The framework of the civilized world is perceived by him as violence against man. He wants to find freedom for himself. Therefore, he gladly follows the young gypsy woman to the camp. The girl's father will not contradict his desire to stay. But he hints that it is unlikely that such a young man, pampered by the blessings of city life, will get used to the wretched existence of the gypsies. Aleko is convinced of the opposite. The hero assures that he does not regret his past life.

Aleko remains to live in the camp. And, it seems, he finds the long-awaited harmony among this free people. The life of the gypsies is primitive, but the love of young Zemfira replaces everything for him. They are not forbidden to love each other, no one sets any limits inherent in a civilized society.

The author in the poem takes a new look at the category of freedom. Gypsies are freedom-loving by nature. But this freedom has nothing to do with the spiritual ideal state, but manifests itself in licentiousness and primitiveness.

Zemfira's mother abandons her as a child, following a new man. Zemfira doesn’t even blame her, because she’s the same. The girl is a fan of free love. Her heart does not become attached to one man for a long time. This happened with Aleko. She became passionately attached to him, but after a while she became interested in the young gypsy. I didn’t feel guilty because I considered myself free. And she perceived her husband’s insults as oppression of her free way of life.

Aleko is not able to understand Zemfira, because he grew up in a different society, where such behavior by a woman is condemned. The main character feels insulted and seeks revenge. This opportunity is given to him. He kills Zemfira and her lover. Aleko always wanted freedom for himself, but he himself does not give freedom to others. Thus, he reveals himself as an egoist.

Aleko – main character The poem "Gypsies" is a romantic hero without ideals.

Aleko

GYPSIES
Poem (1824, published 1827)

Aleko is a fugitive from civilization with its “unfreedom”, persecuted by the “law”, the hero of the last of the cycle of “Byronic” poems by Pushkin, in which all the (already obviously insoluble) problems posed by this genre are condensed to the limit.

A. wants to become part of the “wild”, natural world. When the gypsy Zemfira finds him in the desert steppe, he follows her to the camp to become a gypsy. The gypsies do not mind - their will knows no prohibition (here the chains are intended exclusively for the bear), just as it does not know constancy. The wise old man, Zemfira’s father, explains this to the newcomer - once, twice (“...freedom is not always sweet / To those who are accustomed to bliss”). He agrees in advance - for he loves Zemfira, wants to always be with her - and become a “free inhabitant of the world”, like the “bird of God”, not knowing care and labor. Alas, he does not realize that the gypsies are free to the end; that for all their passion they do not know long-lasting, hot passion, and therefore they do not know fidelity; that he needs freedom from someone else's dictate, but he never recognizes someone else's freedom from himself. First of all, Zemfira’s freedom to love whoever she wants.

So the Byronically fragmented plot, breaking up into short dramatic passages, is approaching the inevitable climax of the love (and semantic) conflict. Having spent two years with his beloved Zemfira, A. suddenly hears her allusive song: “Old husband, formidable husband<...>I love someone else...” This is self-exposure, contrastingly shaded by Zemfira’s answer, consistently free: “you are free to be angry.”

"The connection is close; Nothing can stop her - not even the third (according to literary and folklore account, necessarily the last) warning of the old man. Having learned from Zemfira that the Russian moans and sobs terribly in his sleep, he calls A. for a conversation: he again reminds that “people here are free,” he says cautionary tale about his love for Zemfira’s mother, Mariula, who left with a gypsy from another camp; All in vain. Finding Zemfira with someone else, A. kills both. That is, he administers court, which is possible only where there is law. Having described full circle, the action returns to the starting point - the European, who fled from the law into freedom, himself judges the will according to the law established by him. What is the value of freedom that does not promise happiness? What is the value of a civilization from which one cannot hide, because it nests in man himself? A. does not find an answer - he remains completely alone, rejected (but not condemned!) by the camp. Unlike the Caucasian prisoner from poem of the same name Pushkin, he cannot return to the “Russian”, European space, to where “Our double-headed eagle / Still roars with its momentary glory.”

According to the law of the genre, the circumstances of the hero’s life are correlated with the circumstances of the life of the author (who himself is “dear Mariula<...>repeated the tender name"). The connecting link between them is not only the autobiographical epilogue, not only the name A., through which the name of Pushkin himself, Alexander, shines through. The legend about Ovid, which - again for educational purposes - is told by the old man, is very important. It is with Ovid, whom Rome expelled from the center of the empire to the northern outskirts, in the Danube regions, that Pushkin compares himself in poems from the period of southern exile. It is with Ovid, who among the free people yearned for the empire, that the old man compares A. And yet the line separating the author’s inner world from inner world hero, carried out clearly. The author has already realized that “fatal passions are everywhere / And there is no protection from fate”; he is more experienced and wiser than A.; he does not so much rhyme his experiences with the feelings of the hero as coldly and harshly analyze his spiritual world.

The old man’s phrase addressed to A. is “Humble yourselves, proud man"- served as the starting point for the historiosophical constructions of F. M. Dostoevsky’s “Pushkin Speech” (1880); the image of A. became for Dostoevsky the personification of the individualistic, godless principle Western European culture; he is opposed by Tatyana Larina, personifying the humble beginning of Russian conciliarism.

All characteristics in alphabetical order:

From the point of view of the plot and the “main character,” the poem “Gypsies” (1824) is, as it were, a variation of “ Caucasian prisoner" Like the Captive, Aleko, in search of freedom, leaves his “fatherland”, civilized life, goes to the steppes of Moldova, and joins the nomadic gypsies. The method of depicting the characters' characters is in the spirit of the poetics of a “romantic poem”: like the life of the Captive, Aleko’s life before his appearance in the poem is depicted in the most general, deliberately abstract, mysteriously unclear lines. The cover of meaningful understatement and mystery is thrown at the end of the poem and future fate Aleko: he comes from the steppe “darkness”, during the action of the poem he is in a strip of light and again gets lost in an unknown mysterious darkness:

*
Night has come; in a dark cart
*
No one lit the fire
*
No one under the lifting roof
*
I didn’t go to sleep until the morning.

But Aleko’s psychological appearance is developed much more and much more consistently than that of the Captive. The Captive's love of freedom was mentioned in the most general and vague way. It is unclear where his greedy search for freedom stemmed from, as well as what kind of “prison” the freedom he was striving for was opposed to. Aleko's pathetic remarks say this directly. What the poem calls “the shackles of enlightenment”, civilized “slave” life, “captivity of stuffy cities”, people deprived of the charm of nature, ashamed of their natural feelings, trading in their freedom, is contrasted with the free life of the “savage” nomadic tribe. Aleko’s speeches are imbued with an almost Radishchev-like pathos of indignation against the ruling classes - the “idols” of power and strength, as well as against those who servilely grovel before them - “asking for money and chains” (the motive for the ending of the parable of the sower). One might think that it is precisely because of this mood that Aleko turns out to be a “migratory exile”: “He is persecuted by the law.”

The second member of the antithesis is given much sharper and more clearly in “Gypsies” - that free existence in the conditions of which Aleko finds himself. Free from a sedentary, established life, from constraining property, land, home, from the “laws” associated with all this, free like the wind of those steppes along which they roam, the gypsies are, as it were, the ultimate expression of the romantic freedom sought by the hero, together with the closest to life nomadic peoples. But the most important and significant thing that distinguishes “Gypsy” from “Prisoner of the Caucasus” lies in completely different relationships that connect the “enlightened, civilized hero” and the “wild” primitive tribe. The search for freedom by the hero of “Prisoner of the Caucasus” was as uncertain as their motivation. What kind of freedom was he looking for? Where did you expect to find her? In any case, he ends up in the circle of the free tribe completely by accident and, moreover, turns out to be a “slave”, chained among the free and predatory Circassians. In "Gypsies" this external conflict is transferred, as it were, internally. In this regard, the main conflict deepens, acquires much greater tension, sharpness and genuine drama. Aleko comes to the gypsy camp voluntarily. In the future, no one interferes with his freedom, which he enjoys freely. He quite likes the newfound freedom. But Aleko is internally unworthy of this freedom.

In a brilliant analysis of “Gypsies,” in which the idea of ​​this work was deeply revealed for the first time, V. G. Belinsky, however, points out that A. S. Pushkin did not do what he wanted: “... thinking of creating an apotheosis of Aleko from this poem ... instead, he made a terrible satire on him and people like him, pronouncing judgment on them that was inexorably tragic and at the same time bitterly ironic.” In fact, in the poem, which Pushkin began to create after writing the first two chapters of Eugene Onegin, there is neither “apotheosis” nor “satire”. In the image of Onegin, the “hero of the century” is revealed without any romanticization, by means and techniques critical realism, the first example of which is given by Pushkin in his novel in verse. In "Gypsies" this image is still romanticized. But at the same time, and this makes Pushkin’s poem a remarkable example of a kind of “critical romanticism”, the poet, using the means and techniques of romantic art, removes the glorifying halo from the hero, showing not only his strengths, but also his weaknesses.

Aleko is extraordinary, stands out sharply from environment a person who possesses many undoubtedly positive qualities- acutely critical mind, ability to deep feelings, strong will, courage, determination. Aleko stands at the heights of contemporary education. And at the same time, he is deeply dissatisfied with his surroundings, filled with the progressive aspirations of his time, and sincerely and passionately hates the slave and merchant system of his contemporary society. His revolt against society is a revolt in the name of freedom against slavery, in the name of “naturalness”, “nature”, against public relations, based on “money and chains” and fettering, enslaving a person’s thoughts and feelings.

Aleko - character characteristics

ALEKO is the hero of A. S. Pushkin’s poem “Gypsies” (1824). A. is, first of all, a generalized image of the young, European-educated generation of the 19th century, to which he counted himself. This is a hero of the Byronic type, endowed with such keen sense dignity, which perceives all the laws of the civilized world as violence against a person. The conflict with society, with which A. is connected by birth and upbringing, is the starting point of the hero’s biography. However, A.'s past is not revealed in the story. The hero is characterized in the most in a general sense as a “fugitive”, forcibly expelled or voluntarily leaving his familiar environment. Above all, he values ​​freedom and hopes to find it in the natural free life of a gypsy camp.

The story “Gypsies” is based on the contrast between two social structures, characteristic of romanticism: civilization and will. Criticism of the contradictions of civilization occupies an important place in the work. A. denounces the “captivity of stuffy cities”, in which people “trade according to their will”, “they bow their heads before idols and ask for money and chains.” The image of “chains” was traditionally used by the Romantics to characterize feudal despotism and political reaction. In “Gypsies” it is related to modern times. A.'s break with civilization goes beyond narrow personal problems and receives a deep ideological justification. Thus, the motive of exile in the hero’s fate is initially perceived as a sign of his high capabilities, his moral advantages over a flawed civilization.

Subsequently, the exile A. appears among the primitive people, whose life Pushkin characterizes with the metaphors “will”, “bliss”, “laziness”, “silence”. This is a kind of place where evil has not yet penetrated and where, it seems, A. can rest his soul and find his happiness. But it is precisely such an environment, fundamentally alien to activity, that in contrast reveals the oddities of A.’s personality and character. The life practice of a romantic hero is traditionally carried out in passions. Such a hero manifests himself in violent experiences, in the exclusivity of desires and actions, especially in the sphere love relationship. In the previous world, A.’s life was not successful; Finding himself in a gypsy camp, he pins his hope for another, new life on Zemfira. She is for him more valuable than the world" As long as Zemfira loves him, life for A. is full of harmony. But with Zemfira’s betrayal, the newfound balance collapses. A.'s pride is offended, his heart is tormented by jealousy and the need for revenge. Blinded by an explosion of indomitable desires, in an effort to restore the trampled, as it seems to him, justice, A. inevitably goes to crime - the murder of Zemfira. In A.’s love, possessive, egoistic instincts are manifested, i.e. those moral qualities, which characterize him as the bearer of the spirit of the civilization he despises. The paradox of A.’s fate is that it is he, the champion of freedom and justice, who brings simple life Gypsy blood, violence - that is, morally corrupts her. This plot twist reveals the hero's failure. It turns out that the “son of civilization” (as A. called it) is incompatible with the communal gypsy life, just as he is incompatible with the world of enlightenment. A second expulsion - this time from a gypsy camp - and the punishment of loneliness completes storyline hero.

A.’s life credo is clarified in the story by Zemfira’s old father. If A. defends the rights of an individual, then the old gypsy, obediently accepting the natural order of being, speaks on behalf of tribal life. In the unpredictable behavior of a gypsy woman, in the spontaneity of her love, he sees only a surge of natural forces that are not subject to human judgment. The old man, who once in his youth also experienced the pangs of love, now wants to warn A., to convey his experience to him. But “angry and strong” A. does not hear the old man and does not accept his advice. “No, without arguing, // I will not renounce my rights, // Or at least enjoy vengeance,” he declares.

Colliding two life philosophies, Pushkin does not give preference to one or the other. The most important technique of contrast in romantic thinking is necessary for particularly vivid illumination of the conflict under consideration. In essence, A. symbolizes in this conflict the extremes of development of a modern individualistic society, the enormously expanded principle of personality. This perhaps explains the maximum generalization of the characterization of the hero, who is deprived of a real biography and nationality, and is excluded from a specific historical and everyday environment. IN literary criticism There was a long tradition of accusing A. of insolvency (Belinsky saw him as an egoist, Dostoevsky - an eternal outcast). But Pushkin’s position is much more complex than exposing the hero. Although in “Gypsies” the hero is objectified, the presence of autobiographical features in him (A. is the gypsy form of the name Alexander) indicates a lyrical interpretation of not only some of the hero’s views (criticism of modernity, for example), but also the general tone of the author’s compassion for his fate. A. tragic. In an expressive portrait of the hero of the time, doomed to follow the paths of evil and paying with his life for his errors, Pushkin showed the imperfection of human nature itself, the objective tragedy of the ways of development of human culture.

Aleko

ALEKO is the hero of A.S. Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” (1824). A. is, first of all, a generalized image of the young, European-educated generation of the 19th century, to which Pushkin counted himself. This is a hero of the Byronic type, endowed with such a keen sense of dignity that he perceives all the laws of the civilized world as violence against man. The conflict with society, with which A. is connected by birth and upbringing, is the starting point of the hero’s biography. However, A.'s past is not revealed in the story. The hero is characterized in the most general sense as a “fugitive”, forcibly expelled or voluntarily leaving his familiar environment. Above all, he values ​​freedom and hopes to find it in the natural free life of a gypsy camp.

The story “Gypsies” is based on the contrast between two social structures, characteristic of romanticism: civilization and wild will. Criticism of the contradictions of civilization occupies an important place in the work. A. denounces the “captivity of stuffy cities”, in which people “trade according to their will”, “they bow their heads before idols and ask for money and chains.” The image of "chains" was traditionally used by the Romantics to characterize feudal despotism and political reaction. In "Gypsies" he is relegated to modern times. A.'s break with civilization goes beyond narrow personal problems and receives a deep ideological justification. Thus, the motive of exile in the hero’s fate is initially perceived as a sign of his high capabilities, his moral advantages over a flawed civilization.

Subsequently, the exile A. appears among the primitive people, whose life Pushkin characterizes with the metaphors “will”, “bliss”, “laziness”, “silence”. This is a kind of paradise, where evil has not yet penetrated and where, it seems, A. can rest his soul and find his happiness. But it is precisely such an environment, fundamentally alien to activity, that in contrast reveals the oddities of A.’s personality and character. The life practice of a romantic hero is traditionally carried out in passions. Such a hero manifests himself in stormy experiences, in the exclusivity of desires and actions, especially in the sphere of love relationships. In the previous world, A.’s life was not successful; Finding himself in a gypsy camp, he pins his hope for another, new life on Zemfira. She is “more precious to him than the world.” As long as Zemfira loves him, life for A. is full of harmony. But with Zemfira’s betrayal, the newfound balance collapses. A.'s pride is offended, his heart is tormented by jealousy and the need for revenge. Blinded by an explosion of indomitable desires, in an effort to restore the trampled, as it seems to him, justice, A. inevitably goes to crime - the murder of Zemfira. In A.’s love, possessive, egoistic instincts are manifested, i.e. those moral qualities that characterize him as the bearer of the spirit of the civilization he despises. The paradox of A.’s fate is that it is he, the champion of freedom and justice, who brings blood and violence into the innocent simple life of the gypsies - that is, morally corrupts it. This plot twist reveals the hero's failure. It turns out that the “son of civilization” (as A. Belinsky called it) is incompatible with the communal gypsy life, just as he is incompatible with the world of enlightenment. A second expulsion - this time from a gypsy camp - and punishment by loneliness complete the hero’s storyline.

A.’s life credo is clarified in the story by Zemfira’s old father. If A. defends the rights of an individual, then the old gypsy, obediently accepting the natural order of being, speaks on behalf of tribal life. In the unpredictable behavior of a gypsy woman, in the spontaneity of her love, he sees only a surge of natural forces that are not subject to human judgment. The old man, who once in his youth also experienced the pangs of love, now wants to warn A., to convey his experience to him. But “angry and strong” A. does not hear the old man and does not accept his advice. “No, without arguing, // I will not renounce my rights, // Or at least I will enjoy vengeance,” he declares.

Confronting two life philosophies, Pushkin does not give preference to one or the other. The most important technique of contrast in romantic thinking is necessary for particularly vivid illumination of the conflict under consideration. In essence, A. symbolizes in this conflict the extremes of development of a modern individualistic society, the enormously expanded principle of personality. This perhaps explains the maximum generalization of the characterization of the hero, who is deprived of a real biography and nationality, and is excluded from a specific historical and everyday environment. In literary criticism, there has been a long tradition of accusing A. of insolvency (Belinsky saw him as an egoist, Dostoevsky - an eternal outcast). But Pushkin’s position is much more complex than exposing the hero. Although in “Gypsies” the hero is objectified, the presence of autobiographical features in him (A. is the gypsy form of the name Alexander) indicates a lyrical interpretation of not only some of the hero’s views (criticism of modernity, for example), but also the general tone of the author’s compassion for his fate. A. tragic. In an expressive portrait of the hero of the time, doomed to follow the paths of evil and paying with his life for his errors, Pushkin showed the imperfection of human nature itself, the objective tragedy of the ways of development of human culture.

Fox: Belinsky V.G. Article seven. Poems: “Gypsies”, “Poltava”, “Count Pulin” // Belinsky V.G. Works of Alexander Pushkin. M., 1985; Dostoevsky F.M. Pushkin // Dostoevsky F.M. Complete collection essays. L., 1984. T.26; Fridman N.V. Romanticism in the works of A.S. Pushkin. M., 1980; Mann Yu. Dynamics of Russian romanticism. M., 1995.

L.M. Elnitskaya The image of Pushkin's A. was embodied in the opera of the same name by S.V. Rachmaninov to the libretto by Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko (1892). The title of the opera indicates the transfer of the conflict into the intimate space of the lyrical and psychological “little tragedy.” A man of all-crushing passions, A. is gloomy from the first note, tormented by jealous suspicions. The composer compassionately reveals the tragedy of the loneliness of the rejected hero. The music “from the first person” talks about the all-justifying feeling of love, which elevates A. above her lover and rival.