The philosophical role of Turgenev's landscape. Description of nature in Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons”
The role of landscape in I. S. Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons”
Realistic art always tries to reflect actual events and phenomena. Choosing the most prosaic objects, things, events, Russian artists of the second half of the 19th century centuries have tried to convey life as it is, in its most ordinary form. Russian landscape appeared in literature a long time ago and took a strong place. Thus, nature in the works of I. S. Turgenev is a living image, it is like another hero in the system of characters in “Fathers and Sons”.
In the exposition of the novel, the initial landscape depicting poverty, misery, predetermines the theme of the entire work, leads to the idea of the need to change the order that gave rise to such desolation. “No,” thought Arkady, “this is a poor region, it does not amaze you with either contentment or hard work, it is impossible, it is impossible for it to remain like this, transformations are necessary... but how to carry them out, how to act?” Even the very confrontation of the “white ghost” of a bleak, endless winter “with its red day” is already a predestination of conflict, a clash of two views, a clash of “fathers” and “children”, a change of generations.
However, then the picture of the spring awakening of nature introduces a bright, cheerful note of hope for renewal into the novel. Although thoughts of change “disappear” from Arkady’s head, “spring still takes its toll.” But even in this joyful landscape the meaning of this spring in the lives of the heroes is shown in different ways. different generations. If Arkady is simply happy about the “wonderful today”, then Nikolai Petrovich remembers the poems of A. S. Pushkin, which, although interrupted by the appearance of Bazarov, reveal his state of mind and mood:
Perhaps it comes to our minds
In the midst of a poetic dream
Another, old spring...
All his thoughts are directed to the past, so the only road for Nikolai Petrovich, who has lost his “historical vision,” becomes the “road of memories.” In general, the image of the road runs through the entire narrative. The landscape conveys a feeling of spaciousness, openness of space. It is no coincidence that the heroes travel so much. Very often we see them in the garden, alley, on the road... - in the lap of nature much more often than in the limited space of the house. And this leads to an expansion of space in the novel. The image of Russia appears before us. Poems by F. Tyutchev come to mind:
These poor villages
This poor nature...
Nikolai Petrovich’s estate is like his double (the tradition of Gogol, who in “Dead Souls” identified “farm” with the spiritual world of the landowner). Nikolai Petrovich fails to implement his reasonable projects. His failure as the owner of the estate contrasts with his humanity and the depth of his inner world. Turgenev sympathizes with him, and the gazebo, “overgrown and fragrant,” is a symbol of him pure soul. Odintsova’s garden - “alleys” of trimmed Christmas trees, flower “greenhouses” - creates the impression of artificial life. Indeed, this woman’s whole life “rolls as if on rails,” measured and monotonous. The image of “inanimate nature” echoes the external and spiritual appearance of Anna Sergeevna. In general, the place of residence, according to Turgenev, always leaves an imprint on the hero’s life. So, Bazarov, who compared people with trees in a conversation with Odintsova, tells Arkady about his children's talisman - an aspen tree on the edge of a pit. This is the prototype, the double of his life. Lonely, proud, embittered, he surprisingly resembles that tree. All the characters in the novel are tested by their relationship to nature. Bazarov denies nature as a source aesthetic pleasure. Perceiving it materialistically (“nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man is a worker in it”), he denies the relationship between nature and man. And the word “sky,” written by Turgenev in quotation marks and implying a higher principle, God, does not exist for Bazarov, which is why the great esthete Turgenev cannot accept it.
Odintsova, like Bazarov, is indifferent to nature. Her walks in the garden are just part of way of life, this is something familiar, but not very important in her life. For Nikolai Petrovich, nature is a source of inspiration, the most important thing in life. That is why all events associated with them take place in the lap of nature.
Pavel Petrovich does not understand nature, his soul is “dry and passionate”, it can only reflect, but not at all interact with it. He, like Bazarov, does not see “the sky.” Katya and Arkady are childishly in love with nature, although Arkady tries to hide it. The mood and characters of the characters are also emphasized by landscapes. Thus, Fenechka, “so fresh,” is shown against the backdrop of a summer landscape, and Arkady and Katya are as young and carefree as the nature around them. Bazarov, no matter how much he denies nature (“Nature evokes the silence of sleep”), is still subconsciously one with it. It is to nature that he goes to understand himself. He is angry and indignant, but it is nature that becomes a mute witness to his experiences, only she can trust.
Closely connecting nature with state of mind heroes, Turgenev endows the landscape with a psychological function. Nature in the novel divides everything into living and nonliving, natural for humans and not. Therefore, the description of the “glorious, fresh morning” before the duel indicates how vanity everything is in a person’s life before the greatness and beauty of eternal nature. The duel itself seems like “such stupidity” in comparison with this morning.
The last landscape- this is a “requiem” for Bazarov. The entire description of the rural cemetery where Bazarov is buried is filled with lyrical sadness and mournful thoughts. This landscape is of a philosophical nature. The author thinks about eternal life and eternal nature, which gives peace. The landscape in the novel is not only a background, but a philosophical symbol, an example of true life.
Nature and man are quite closely related to each other. In works of fiction, writers use descriptions of nature and its influence on characters in order to more deeply reveal their actions and souls.
As in all of Turgenev’s works, the landscape in “Fathers and Sons” acquires important significance. Thus, the initial landscape of the novel, depicting poverty, misery, desolation (“Rivers with steep banks, and tiny ponds with thin dams, and villages with low huts under dark, often half-swept roofs, and crooked threshing sheds... and churches... with collapsed here and there with plaster... and devastated cemeteries..."), as if leading to the idea of the need to destroy the order that gave rise to this poverty and desolation.
And in the same chapter, the picture of the spring awakening of nature introduces a bright, cheerful note of hope for the best into the novel. The author shows the high spirits of Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov, dreaming of getting closer to his son, correlating Arkady’s arrival with the onset of spring: “Everything around was golden green and shiny under the quiet breath of a warm breeze, everything - trees, bushes and grass.”
I. S. Turgenev skillfully uses pictures of nature to identify and emphasize any feature in the character of the hero.
Young Kirsanov, trying to imitate his friend Bazarov, pretends to be a grown man. In fact, Arkady is a soft, gentle young man. He stands close to nature, understands and feels it. Having forgotten himself, Arkady admires the fields, the setting sun and thoughtfully asks Bazarov: “And nature is nothing?” To which his friend replies: “Trifles, in the sense in which you understand it.”
Young Kirsanov is very similar to his father, Nikolai Petrovich, who is also a dreamer, but does not hide it. Kirsanov Sr. loves to read Pushkin and play the cello, which Bazarov ironizes about. Nikolai Petrovich has a favorite gazebo in his garden, where he often sits, admiring nature, thinking. Kirsanov is surprised how one can “not sympathize with art, nature...” He sees a magnificent landscape: a grove illuminated by the setting sun, a pale blue sky, and he is overcome by a memory, a dream, the image of his deceased wife appears before him, nostalgia for the past torments him.Nikolai Petrovich has tears in his eyes, he raises them to the sky and admires the bright stars. We sympathize with this person, we understand him. With this episode, the author finally reveals to us the romantic nature of Nikolai Petrovich. Turgenev shows how deeply and powerfully nature acts on a person, being the source of his moods, feelings, and thoughts.
The complete opposite of his brother is Pavel Petrovich. That same evening, when Nikolai Petrovich reminisces, he also walks in the garden and looks at the stars, but they do not evoke any emotions in him. “He was not born a romantic, and his foppishly dry and passionate, misanthropic soul, in the French way, did not know how to dream.” Nature here is a subtle lyrical commentary on the painful, hopeless state of Pavel Petrovich, for whom “life... is hard... harder than he himself suspects.”
Turgenev's landscape is included in the system of moral relations of people. The absurdity and absurdity of the duel started by Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich is emphasized
with a description of a “glorious, fresh” morning: “...small motley clouds stood like lambs on the pale clear glaze, fine dew poured out on the leaves and grasses, glittered silver on the cobwebs; the dark greenery seemed to still retain the ruddy color of dawn; the songs of larks rained down from all over the sky.”
Turgenev's skill as an artist is noticeably evident in the fact that he uses paintings of nature to convey psychological nuances in the feelings of the characters.
Bazarov – main character novel. This controversial personality: on the one hand, he is a nihilist who denies everything, but at the same time, he is a hidden romantic, which he is afraid to admit even to himself. In one of his conversations with Arkady, Bazarov notes that “nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man is a worker in it,” and any other perception of it is “nonsense.” He believes that in the world around him there is nothing mysterious, incomprehensible and beyond the control of man. He calls lilac and acacia “good guys” and sincerely, in a businesslike way, is glad that the birch grove has taken over - nature should be useful, this is its purpose.
Bazarov only collects frogs, forcing the village children to climb into the swamp after them, and no longer comes into contact with nature.
Denying the romantic attitude towards nature as a temple, Bazarov himself falls into slavery to the lower elemental forces of the natural “workshop”. He even envies the ant, which, as an insect, has the right “not to invoke feelings of compassion, not like our self-destructive brother.” In a bitter moment of life, Bazarov is inclined to consider even a feeling of compassion as a weakness, an anomaly, denied by the “natural” laws of nature.
There were probably germs of romanticism in the depths of his soul that Eugene could not suppress. We see them when he fell in love with Odintsova and with indignation discovered the dreamer in himself. At this moment, the nihilist seeks loneliness next to nature, “breaking the branches he comes across and cursing in a low voice both her and himself.” Bazarov hates his “stupid romanticism” and despises it.
Difficult, internal process of cognition true love makes Evgeni feel nature in a new way.
The background against which Bazarov’s explanation with Odintsova takes place is a poetic picture of a summer night. Nature is depicted in Eugene’s perception. It was the dark, soft night that looked at him, it was the freshness of the night that seemed “irritable” to him, it was he who heard the mysterious whispering. To Bazarov, a materialist, biologist, the rustling of leaves and night rustles seem mysterious. Romantic feeling high love illuminates the surrounding world with new light.
With endearing sincerity, Turgenev depicted the emerging feeling of love between two heroes: Arkady and Katya. The landscape of the frosty winter day of their wedding is beautiful: “It was a white winter with dense, creaking snow, pink frost on the trees, a pale emerald sky, fresh, as if bitten, faces of people and the busy running of chilled horses.” With the help of the epithets “white” winter, “pink” frost, the author conveys the joyful mood of the newlyweds who have decided to forever link their destinies in marriage.
The pictures of nature in “Fathers and Sons” are also an independent image of the motherland, the image of the motherland, the image of Russia. Symbolizing the homeland, Turgenev’s landscape expresses the idea of the universe, the idea perpetual motion life, the beauty of being.
The final landscape of the novel is permeated with lyrical sadness and mournful thoughts: a description of the rural cemetery where Bazarov is buried. In this description, Turgenev added his assessment of the hero and his deeds. The writer speaks about Eugene with love and sincere pain and at the same time, with a landscape, he affirms the idea that his hero’s “passionate, sinful, rebellious heart” beat in the name of temporary, transitory goals: the flowers growing on Bazarov’s grave “speak ... about eternal reconciliation and endless life." Death is inevitable for a titanic personality. The laws of nature are eternal.
“In depicting nature, Turgenev went further than Pushkin. He perceives his accuracy and fidelity in descriptions of natural phenomena... But compared to Pushkin's, Turgenev's landscape is more psychological. Turgenev’s nature itself lives, breathes, changes in every moment, either in harmony with the feelings and experiences of a person, or shading them, becoming a participant in a given moral and psychological conflict or situation,” wrote S. M. Petrov.
However, it is worth noting that in the depiction of nature there is much that unites Turgenev and Pushkin. First of all, this is a special contemplative attitude towards nature, recognition and affirmation in creativity of its aesthetic significance, its beauty and mystery. The attitude of Turgenev’s hero to nature is always “a test of a person’s aesthetic sensitivity and his moral value.”
Other common feature These artists depicted nature with a philosophical orientation to the landscape. Both Pushkin and Turgenev’s paintings of nature are often symbolic, associated with “eternal” themes and motifs, with thoughts about life and death. And here we already notice a difference in the views of artists. If for Pushkin the existence of man in nature is harmonious, its laws are necessary and reasonable, then Turgenev’s attitude towards nature is ambivalent and contradictory. Worshiping and idolizing nature, Turgenev at the same time believed that nature contained a spontaneous, irrational principle that was hostile to man. Man in Turgenev's works is insignificant in the face of eternity, initially doomed. All this led the writer to “a feeling of invincible disgust for life in general.”
Therefore, Turgenev’s landscape never merges with the analysis of the characters’ experiences, and this analysis itself is practically absent - the writer’s psychologism is “secret”, veiled. In this regard, nature in Turgenev’s works is not connected with inner life characters. And this is the main difference between Turgenev’s landscapes and Tolstoy’s landscapes. At the same time, researchers have repeatedly noted that Turgenev’s pictures of nature are often given in the perception of the heroes, colored by their emotionality and subjective worldview. And in this the writer gets closer to Tolstoy and Goncharov.
Another feature of Turgenev’s landscape is its picturesqueness, “watercolor”, and lightness. Researchers of the writer’s work have repeatedly noted that Turgenev is an artist of halftones, the finest shades, color shifts, various lighting effects. He does not use sharp, defined colors or clear, rough lines in either landscapes or portraits. However, despite the special airiness and lightness of Turgenev’s paintings of nature, they are all very lively and realistic, tangibly concrete. This is created thanks to the sound, tactile and olfactory richness of these paintings. Turgenev's landscapes are full of natural sounds and smells; he masterfully conveys the sensations of summer morning heat and night freshness, spring wind and frosty winter air. And with these features Turgenev’s landscapes remind us of the landscapes of Lermontov and Fet.
According to G. B. Kurlyandskaya, Turgenev’s landscape is similar to Gogol’s landscape in its dynamism and mobility. Turgenev often depicts pictures of nature seen by a traveler, a hero who is on the road.
We find this kind of landscapes in Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons.” Thus, the first landscape of the novel at first seems to be an ordinary background against which the action takes place. “The fields, all the fields stretched right up to the sky, now rising slightly, then falling again; here and there small forests could be seen and, dotted with sparse and low bushes, ravines curled... There were rivers with dug-up banks, and tiny ponds with thin dams, and villages with low huts... like beggars in rags, roadside willows stood with peeled bark and broken branches; emaciated, rough, as if gnawed, cows greedily nibbled the grass in the ditches.” However, this landscape also has a characteristic function and is associated with the ideological content of the novel.
This joyless view, which gives rise to Arkady’s thoughts about “a joyless, endless winter, with its blizzards, frosts and snows,” testifies to the deplorable state of the Kirsanovs’ economy, to their complete lack of practical spirit. However, the meaning of this landscape is deeper: it symbolizes modern heroes Russia, its state of affairs, the poverty of the peasantry. This is where the motivation comes in social conflict novel. Turgenev leads readers to the idea that transformations are necessary, but in what direction should they be carried out? What are the development paths for Russia?
The next landscape in the novel performs several functions at once. Firstly, it is in harmony with the feelings and emotions of the characters. Kirsanov did not see his son whole year, during this time Arkady received the title of candidate, and his father was incredibly happy about his arrival, touched, excited and even a little alarmed. This date, return to home Arkady is happy too. Nature itself seems to be blossoming, sharing the feelings of father and son: “Everything around was golden green and shiny under the quiet breath of a warm breeze, everything - trees, bushes and grass; everywhere the larks poured out in endless ringing streams; the lapwings either screamed, hovering over the low-lying meadows, or silently ran across the hummocks; the rooks walked beautifully black in the tender greenery of the still low spring crops; they disappeared into the rye, which had already turned slightly white, only occasionally did their heads appear in its smoky waves...”
Glad spring landscape This one, in its mood, is completely opposite to the first, as well as to Arkady’s thoughts about the long, endless winter, with its snowstorms and frosts. The motif of youth, renewal of life is included in the narrative along with this picture of nature. Arkady, having completed his studies at the university, returned to native home, to his father's estate. His friend Bazarov came with him. Here there is hope that new, young forces are capable of radical transformations; the future of Russia belongs to them.
In addition, already here we see that Arkady is completely absorbed in this wonderful picture, and therefore he is impressionable and receptive. “Arkady looked and looked, and, gradually weakening, his thoughts disappeared... He threw off his greatcoat and looked at his father so cheerfully, like such a young boy, that he hugged him again.” It is characteristic that Turgenev emphasizes here that the picture of nature is given in the perception of Arkady. The hero is characterized not by the landscape itself directly, but by the impression received from it, which reveals Arkady’s nature, his softness, impressionability, and the superficiality of his “nihilistic views.” Nihilistic views imply recognition of the utilitarian value of nature and exclude it aesthetic value. Arkady is literally mesmerized by the beauty and poetry of nature, he is not just an esthete, he loves nature, although he does not dare admit it. And Turgenev immediately notices this “contradiction” in the hero. Thus, pictures of nature are filled with subtle psychologism and become a means of characterizing the hero.
Further, with the help of landscapes, the writer depicts the struggle between Arkady’s “nihilistic” views and the very essence of his nature. Stepping out of his role for a moment, he begins to admire the air, the wonderful sky, but suddenly casts an indirect glance at Bazarov and falls silent. Elsewhere, Arkady involuntarily admires the colorful fields, “beautifully and softly illuminated by the setting sun.” Thus, the landscape becomes a means of the writer’s “secret psychology,” revealing to the reader the “true state of affairs.”
The attitude towards nature clearly characterizes almost all the characters in the novel. Thus, Turgenev describes Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov on one summer evening. After disputes with representatives younger generation the hero becomes sad. Sadly aware of his separation from his son, Nikolai Petrovich vaguely feels some kind of “advantage” of young people. Trying to understand them, he reflects on how one can “not sympathize with art, nature?...”
Kirsanov looks around, and a magnificent summer landscape appears before his gaze: “It’s already getting dark; the sun disappeared behind a small aspen grove, lying half a mile from the garden: its shadow stretched endlessly across the motionless fields... The sun's rays, from their side, climbed into the grove and, making their way through the thicket, drenched the aspen trunks with such warm light that they became like the trunks of pine trees, and their foliage almost turned blue and above it rose a pale blue sky, slightly reddened by the dawn. The swallows were flying high; the wind stopped completely; belated bees buzzed lazily and drowsily in the lilac flowers..."
Nikolai Petrovich admires the garden, the grove, motionless fields, and the quiet sunset. He is a true esthete who loves everything beautiful. In addition, the hero is dreamy and sentimental. Nature gives birth to many feelings, emotions, and memories. Nikolai Petrovich remembers his youth, deceased wife, and his “softened heart” cannot calm down for a long time; “some kind of searching, vague, sad anxiety” arises in his chest.
However, the landscape here not only clearly characterizes the character and conveys the shades of his state of mind. Drawing this beautiful landscape, Turgenev is covertly polemicizing with Bazarov, who claims that “nature is not a temple, but a workshop.” The author contrasts the rough, materialistic view with a wonderful picture of a summer evening. So the writer simultaneously reveals his own views.
The same landscape vividly characterizes Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. Going out into the garden, he meets his brother, notices his excitement, and tries to understand his feelings. “Nikolai Petrovich explained to him in in short words his state of mind and left. Pavel Petrovich reached the end of the garden, and also became thoughtful, and also raised his eyes to the sky. But his beautiful dark eyes reflected nothing but the light of the stars. He was not born a romantic, and his foppishly dry and passionate, misanthropic soul, in the French way, did not know how to dream.” Turgenev here emphasizes the dryness and “English restraint” of the hero, the absence in him deep feelings. “Deep down, Pavel Petrovich is the same skeptic and empiricist as Bazarov himself...” notes Pisarev. In fact, Pavel Kirsanov turns out to be the only “empiricist” in the novel; he is the only character who demonstrates his indifference to nature.
Bazarov's relationship with nature is much more complex. At first, nature is “trifles” for him; admiring its beauties, in his opinion, is nothing more than romantic nonsense. Turgenev practically does not depict pictures of nature as perceived by Bazarov; the hero does not seem to “notice” it. However, it turns out that Bazarov is not at all as dry and rational as it seems at first glance. He is able to feel nature deeply. He discovers this ability in himself along with the ability to love deeply and selflessly. Love for Odintsova makes Bazarov a poet, and nature reveals its unknown side to him. “The dark, soft night looked into the room with its almost black sky, faintly rustling trees and the fresh smell of free, clean air,” “... through the occasionally fluttering curtain, the irritable freshness of the night poured in, its mysterious whispering could be heard.” This landscape accompanies the hero’s explanation with Anna Sergeevna.
Another landscape of the novel is also connected with the image of Bazarov. This is a description of a hot summer afternoon in the village where Evgeniy’s parents live. “It’s noon. The sun burned from behind a thin curtain of solid whitish clouds. Everything was silent, only the roosters cheerfully crowed to each other in the village... and somewhere high in the tops of the trees the incessant squeak of a young hawk rang like a whiny call. Arkady and Bazarov were lying in the shade of a small haystack, with two armfuls of noisy, dry, but still green and fragrant grass underneath them.”
This landscape itself is the background against which the action takes place. What is very interesting for us here is the conversation between the characters and its very subject matter. Bazarov and Arkady talk about nature. It turns out that as a child, Bazarov loved nature in his own way: the aspen tree that grew on the edge of the pit was a talisman for him, next to which he was never bored.
It is significant that the hero’s talisman was an aspen - the tree on which Judas, who betrayed Christ, hanged himself. This is how the Judas motif is introduced into the narrative. This motive is outlined in Arkady’s relationship with Bazarov, who breaks up with him at the end of the novel. However, here this motive is only outlined. It is fully realized, it seems, in the personality of Bazarov himself, in his comprehensive negation.
By denying the eternal laws of nature (man's desire for happiness, the need for love), the hero denies the Universe itself. As S. Orlovsky notes, “in Turgenev’s thinking, the concept of nature expands into the concept of the elements, which, in turn, is closely intertwined with the image ancient fate" Nature for Turgenev is a mother, man is her son. And at the same time, nature contains a hostile principle: “the gaze of the eternal Isis is not warmed by maternal love for her child, it freezes, compresses the heart with its cold.”
The comprehensive denial of Bazarov was largely due to philosophical views Turgenev. The writer seemed to want to show us doom human pride, the futility of man’s attempts to rise above nature, to neglect it.
In relation to nature, Bazarov in the novel immediately begins to deny his “sonship”; nature for him is “not a temple, but a workshop.” In the same way, the hero tries to deny the holiness of family ties, the holiness of maternal feelings, the holiness of the feeling of love. However, according to Turgenev, all these feelings, merging, are the very essence of nature.
Bazarov's death in the finale reminds us of suicide; it feels like the hero was looking for her. In the biblical parable, Judas repented of his deeds before his death. Has Bazarov repented of his pride? Realizing the inevitability of death, he becomes simple and humane, consoles his parents, and touchingly says goodbye to his beloved woman. Consoling Vasily Ivanovich, Bazarov agrees to fulfill his duty as a Christian - to take communion. However, he agrees to do this later: “after all, even the unconscious are given communion.” While he is conscious, he refuses to see the priest. Bazarov ironically advises his parents to “test” the power of religion when he dies; Vasily Ivanovich jokingly advises them to be a “philosopher”, a “stoic”.
The priest performs rituals over him when Bazarov is already falling into unconsciousness. And here in the novel there is a characteristic episode. “When he was unctioned, when the holy myrrh touched his chest, one of his eyes opened, and it seemed that at the sight of the priest in vestments, the smoking censer, the candles in front of the image, something similar to a shudder of horror was reflected on his dead face.” What kind of feeling possessed Bazarov before his death? A. I. Nezelenov notes that the horror on the hero’s face is “the horror of admitting one’s own mistake.” It turns out that before his death, Bazarov still realizes the fallacy of his worldview and repents of his delusion.
The landscape in the novel often precedes or shades some events. So, the duel between Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich takes place in the early summer morning. “The morning was glorious, fresh, small motley clouds stood like lambs on the pale clear azure; fine dew fell on the leaves and grasses, shining silver on the cobwebs; the damp, dark earth seemed to still retain the ruddy trace of dawn; the songs of larks rained down from all over the sky.” The calmness of nature here foreshadows a favorable outcome of the duel.
The wedding of Arkady and Katya Odintsova, Nikolai Petrovich and Fenechka takes place on one of the frosty winter days. “It was a white winter with the cruel silence of cloudless frosts, dense, creaking snow, pink frost on the trees, a pale emerald sky, fresh, as if bitten, faces of people and the busy running of chilled horses.” The landscape here acts rather as a background against which the action takes place.
A melancholy motif appears in the final landscape of the novel - a description of the rural cemetery where Bazarov is buried. The writer's tone becomes sublime, the thought acquires philosophical depths. Turgenev reflects on the fate of his hero and the greatness of infinite nature, indifferent to man: “No matter what passionate, sinful, rebellious heart hides in the grave, the flowers growing on it serenely look at us with their innocent eyes; They tell us not only about eternal peace, about that great peace of “indifferent nature”; they also talk about eternal reconciliation and endless life...”
This landscape expressed the writer’s philosophical views, his thought about the eternal confrontation endless life nature and mortal human existence. As Georg Brandes notes, “his sorrow is ... the sorrow of a thinker. Turgenev, having deeply penetrated into the essence of existence, realized that nature is indifferent to all human ideals - justice, reason, goodness, the common good, that they will never manifest themselves in it with their inherent divine power.
Thus, the functions of landscape in the novel are different. This is a transfer psychological state heroes, features of their characters. The landscape creates a mood, emphasizing the comic or tragic in positions and situations. The paintings of nature created by Turgenev are full of philosophical motifs and are associated with ideological meaning works.
Landscape in the novel “Fathers and Sons”
Compared to other novels, “Fathers and Sons” is much poorer in landscapes and lyrical digressions. Why is the artist subtle, possessing the gift of extraordinary observation, able to notice “the hasty movements of the damp foot of a duck, with which she scratches the back of her head at the edge of a puddle,” distinguish all the shades of the firmament, the variety of bird voices, almost, almost not use his filigree art in the novel “Fathers” and children?" The only exceptions are the evening landscape in the eleventh chapter, the functions of which are clearly polemical, and the picture of an abandoned rural cemetery in the epilogue of the novel.
Why is Turgenev’s colorful language so scarce? Why is the writer so “modest” in the landscape sketches of this novel? Or maybe this is a certain move that we, its researchers, should unravel? After much research, we came to the following: such an insignificant role of landscape and lyrical digressions was conditioned by the genre itself socially - psychological novel, in which main role played a philosophical and political dialogue.
To clarify Turgenev’s artistic mastery in the novel “Fathers and Sons,” one should turn to the composition of the novel, understood in in a broad sense, as the connection of all elements of the work: characters, plot, landscape, and language, which are diverse means of expressing the writer’s ideological plan.
Extremely spare but expressive artistic means Turgenev draws the image of a modern Russian peasant village. This collective image is created in the reader through a number of details scattered throughout the novel. In the villages during the transition period of 1859 - 1860, on the eve of the abolition of serfdom, poverty, misery, and lack of culture struck, as a terrible legacy of their centuries-old slavery. On the way of Bazarov and Arkady to Maryino, the places could not be called picturesque. “The fields, all the fields, stretched right up to the sky, then rising slightly, then falling again; Here and there small forests could be seen, and ravines, dotted with small and low bushes, twisted, reminding the eye of their own image on the ancient plans of Catherine’s time. There were rivers with dug-out banks, and tiny ponds with thin dams, and villages with low huts under dark, often half-swept roofs, and crooked threshing sheds with walls woven from brushwood and yawning gates near an empty church, sometimes brick with a crumbling one in some places. plaster, then wooden ones with bowed crosses and devastated cemeteries. Arkady's heart gradually sank. As if on purpose, the peasants were all worn out, on bad nags; like beggars in rags, roadside willows with stripped bark and broken branches stood; emaciated, rough, as if gnawed, cows greedily nibbled grass in the ditches. It seemed that they had just escaped from someone’s menacing, deadly claws - and, caused by the pitiful appearance of the exhausted animals, in the midst of the red spring day there arose the white ghost of a bleak, endless winter with its blizzards, frosts and snows...” “No,” thought Arkady, “This is a poor region, it does not amaze you with its contentment or hard work, it cannot remain like this, transformations are necessary... but how to carry them out?” Even the confrontation of the “white ghost” itself is already a predetermination of the conflict, a clash of two views, a clash of “fathers” and “children,” a change of generations.
However, then there is a picture of the spring awakening of nature to renew the Fatherland, its Motherland; “Everything around was golden green, everything waved widely and softly and lay down under the quiet breath of a warm breeze, all the trees, bushes and grass; Everywhere the larks sang with endless ringing strings; the lapwings either screamed, hovering over the low-lying meadows, or silently ran across the hummocks; the rooks walked beautifully black in the tender greenery of the still low spring crops; they disappeared into the rye, which had already turned slightly white, only occasionally did their heads appear in its smoky waves.” But even in this joyful landscape, the meaning of this spring in the lives of heroes of different generations is shown differently. If Arkady is happy about the “wonderful today,” then Nikolai Petrovich only remembers the poems of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, which, although interrupted on the pages of the novel by Evgeniy Bazarov, reveal his state of mind and mood:
How sad your appearance is to me,
Spring, spring, time for love!
Which… "
(“Eugene Onegin”, chapter VII)
Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov is a romantic in his mental make-up. Through nature, he joins the harmonious unity with the universal world. At night in the garden, when the stars “swarmed and mixed” in the sky, he loved to give himself up to “the sad and joyful play of lonely thoughts.” It was at these moments that his state of mind had its own charm of quiet elegiac sadness, a bright elation above the ordinary, everyday flow: “He walked a lot, almost to the point of fatigue, and the anxiety in him, some kind of searching, vague, sad anxiety, still did not subside he, a forty-four-year-old man, an agronomist and owner, was welling up with tears, causeless tears.” All his thoughts are directed to the past, so the only road for Nikolai Petrovich, who has lost his “historical vision,” becomes the road of memories. In general, the image of the road runs through the entire narrative. The landscape conveys a feeling of spaciousness, not enclosed space. It is no coincidence that the hero travels so much. Much more often we see them in the garden, alley, road... - in the lap of nature, rather than in the limited space of the house. And this leads to the wide-ranging scope of the problems in the novel; Such a holistic and versatile image of Russia, shown in “landscape sketches,” more fully reveals the universal humanity in the heroes.
Nikolai Petrovich's estate is like his double. “When Nikolai Petrovich separated himself from his peasants, he had to allocate four tithes of completely flat and bare fields for a new estate. He built a house, a service and a farm, laid out a garden, dug a pond and two wells; but the young trees were poorly received, very little water accumulated in the pond, and the wells turned out to have a salty taste. The arbor alone, made of lilacs and acacias, has grown considerably; Sometimes they drank tea and had lunch there.” Nikolai Petrovich fails to implement good ideas. His failure as an estate owner contrasts with his humanity. Turgenev sympathizes with him, and the gazebo, “overgrown” and fragrant, is a symbol of his pure soul.
“It is interesting that Bazarov resorts to comparing those around him to the natural world more often than other characters in the novel. This, apparently, is an imprint of his inherent professionalism. And yet, these comparisons sometimes sound differently in Bazarov’s mouth than in the author’s speech. By resorting to metaphor, Bazarov determines, as it seems to him, the inner essence of a person or phenomenon. The author sometimes gives a multidimensional, symbolic meaning“natural” and landscape details.
Let us turn to one Bazarov text, which life also forces him to abandon. At first, for Bazarov, “people are like trees in the forest; not a single botanist will study each individual birch tree.” To begin with, we note that in Turgenev there is a significant difference between the trees. Just like birds, trees reflect the hierarchy of characters in the novel. The tree motif in Russian literature is generally endowed with very diverse functions. The hierarchical characterization of trees and characters in Turgenev’s novel is based not on mythological symbolism, but on direct associativity. It seems that favorite tree Bazarova-aspen. Arriving at the Kirsanovs’ estate, Bazarov goes “to a small swamp, near which there is an aspen grove, to look for frogs.” Aspen is the prototype, the double of his life. Lonely, proud, embittered, he is surprisingly similar to this tree. “However, the poor vegetation of Maryino reflects the down-to-earth nature of the owner of the estate, Nikolai Kirsanov, and the common doom of the “living dead”, the lonely owner of the Bobylye farm, Pavel Petrovich, with Bazarov.” All the characters in the novel are tested by their relationship to nature. Bazarov denies nature as a source of aesthetic pleasure. Perceiving it materialistically (“nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man is a worker in it”), he denies the relationship between nature and man. And the word “heaven,” written by Turgenev in quotation marks and implying a higher principle, a bitter world, God, does not exist for Bazarov, which is why the great esthete Turgenev cannot accept it. An active, masterful attitude towards nature turns into blatant one-sidedness, when the laws operating at lower natural levels are absolutized and turned into a kind of master key, with the help of which Bazarov can easily deal with all the mysteries of existence. There is no love, but there is only physiological attraction, there is no beauty in nature, but there is only the eternal cycle of chemical processes of a single substance. Denying romantic relationship to nature, as to the Temple, Bazarov falls into slavery to the lower elemental forces of the natural “workshop”. He envies the ant, which, as an insect, has the right “not to recognize the feeling of compassion, not like our self-destructive brother.” In a bitter moment of life, Bazarov is inclined to consider even a feeling of compassion as a weakness, denied by the natural laws of nature.
But besides the truth of physiological laws, there is the truth of human, spiritualized nature. And if a person wants to be a “worker”, he must take into account the fact that nature at the highest levels is a “Temple”, and not just a “workshop”. And Nikolai Petrovich’s penchant for daydreaming is not rottenness or nonsense. Dreams are not simple fun, but a natural need of a person, one of the powerful manifestations of the creative power of his spirit.
In Chapter XI, Turgenev seems to question the expediency of Bazarov’s denial of nature: “Nikolai Petrovich lowered his head and ran his hand over his face.” “But to reject poetry? - he thought again, “not to sympathize with art, nature...?” And he looked around, as if wanting to understand how one could not sympathize with nature.” All these thoughts of Nikolai Petrovich were inspired by a previous conversation with Bazarov. As soon as Nikolai Petrovich had only to resurrect Bazarov’s denial of nature in his memory, Turgenev immediately, with all the skill of which he was capable, presented the reader with a wonderful, poetic picture of nature: “It was already getting dark; the sun disappeared behind a small aspen grove that lay half a mile from the garden: its shadow stretched endlessly across the motionless fields. A little man was trotting on a white horse along a dark narrow path along the grove; he was clearly visible, all the way down to the patch on his shoulder, even though he was riding in the shadows; The horse's legs flashed pleasantly and distinctly. The sun's rays climbed into the grove and, making their way through the thicket, bathed the trunks of the aspens with such a warm light that they became like the trunks of pine trees, and their foliage almost turned blue and a pale blue sky, slightly blushed by the dawn, rose above it. The swallows were flying high; the wind stopped completely; belated bees buzzed lazily and sleepily in the lilac flowers; midges crowded in a column over a lonely, far-stretched branch.” After such a highly artistic, emotional description of nature, full of poetry and life, you involuntarily think about whether Bazarov is right in his denial of nature or wrong? And when Nikolai Petrovich thought: “How good, my God!... and his favorite poems came to his lips...”, the reader’s sympathy is with him, and not with Bazarov. We have cited one of them, which is in this case performs a certain polemical function: if nature is so beautiful, then what is the point in Bazarov denying it? This easy and subtle test of the expediency of Bazarov’s denial seems to us to be a kind of poetic exploration of the writer, a definite hint of the future trials that await the hero in the main intrigue of the novel.
How do other heroes of the novel relate to nature? Odintsova, like Bazarov, is indifferent to nature. Her walks in the garden are just part of her lifestyle, it is something familiar, but not very important in her life. A number of reminiscent details are found in the description of Odintsova’s estate: “The estate stood on a gentle open hill, not far from a yellow stone church with a green roof, former columns and a painting with a fresco above the main entrance, representing the “Resurrection of Christ” in “Italian taste.” Particularly remarkable for its rounded contours was the dark-skinned warrior in the teddy bear stretched out in the foreground. Behind the church stretched in two rows a long village with here and there chimneys flickering on the thatched roofs. The master's house was built in the style that is known among us under the name of Alexandrovsky; this house was painted the same way yellow paint and it had a green roof, and white columns, and a pediment with a coat of arms. The dark trees of an ancient garden adjoined the house on both sides; an alley of trimmed fir trees led to the entrance.” Thus, Odintsova’s garden was an alley of trimmed fir trees and flower greenhouses that create the impression of artificial life. Indeed, this woman’s whole life “rolls like on rails,” measuredly and monotonously. The image of “inanimate nature” echoes the external and spiritual appearance of Anna Sergeevna. In general, the place of residence, according to Turgenev, always leaves an imprint on the hero’s life. Odintsov in the novel is more likely compared to a spruce; this cold and unchanging tree was a symbol of “arrogance” and “royal virtues.” Monotony and tranquility are the motto of Odintsova and her garden. For Nikolai Petrovich, nature is a source of inspiration, the most important thing in life. It is harmonious, because it is one with “nature”. That is why all events associated with it take place in the lap of nature. Pavel Petrovich does not understand nature; his soul, “dry and passionate,” can only reflect, but not at all interact with it. He, like Bazarov, does not see “the sky,” while Katya and Arkady are childishly in love with nature, although Arkady tries to hide it.
The mood and characters of the characters are also emphasized by the landscape. Thus, Fenechka, “so fresh,” is shown against the backdrop of a summer landscape, and Katya and Arkady are as young and carefree as the nature around them. Bazarov, no matter how much he denies nature (“Nature evokes the silence of sleep”), is still subconsciously united with it. This is where he goes to understand himself. He is angry and indignant, but it is nature that becomes a mute witness to his experiences, only she can trust.
Closely connecting nature with the mental state of the heroes, Turgenev defines one of the main functions of the landscape as psychological. Favorite place Baubles in the garden - a gazebo made of acacias and lilacs. According to Bazarov, “acacia and lilac are good guys and don’t require any care.” And again, we are unlikely to be mistaken if we see in these words an indirect description of the simple, laid-back Fenechka. Acacia and raspberries are friends of Vasily Ivanovich and Arina Vlasevna. Only at a distance from their house, “as if stretched out” Birch Grove, which for some reason is mentioned in a conversation with Bazarov’s father. It is possible that Turgenev’s hero here unconsciously anticipates longing for Odintsova: he talks to her about a “separate birch tree,” and folklore motif Birch trees are traditionally associated with women and love. In a birch grove, only the Kirsanovs, a duel between Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich takes place. The explanation of Arkady and Katya takes place under an ash tree, a delicate and light tree, fanned by a “weak wind”, protecting the lovers from the bright sun and too strong fire of passion. “In Nikolskoye, in the garden, in the shade of a tall ash tree, Katya and Arkady were sitting on a turf bench; Fifi sat on the ground next to them, giving her long body that graceful turn that is known among hunters as a “brown’s bed.” Both Arkady and Katya were silent; he was holding a half-open book in his hands. And she picked out the remaining crumbs of white bread from the basket and threw them to a small family of sparrows, who, with their characteristic cowardly insolence, jumped and chirped at her very feet. A weak wind, stirring in the ash leaves, quietly moved back and forth, both along the dark path and along Fifi’s yellow back; pale golden spots of light; an even shadow poured over Arkady and Katya; only occasionally did a bright stripe light up in her hair.” “Then what about Fenechka’s complaints about the lack of shade around the Kirsanovs’ house?” The “big marquise” “on the north side” does not save the residents of the house either. No, it seems that fiery passion does not overwhelm any of the inhabitants of Maryino. And yet, the motive of heat and drought is connected with the “wrong” family of Nikolai Petrovich. “Those who enter into marital relations without being married are considered the culprits of the drought” by some Slavic peoples. Rain and drought are also associated with different attitudes of people towards the frog. In India, it was believed that the frog helps to bring rain, as it can turn to the thunder god Parjanya, “like a son to his father.” Finally. The frog “can symbolize false wisdom as the destroyer of knowledge,” which may be important for the problems of the novel as a whole. Not only lilacs and lace are associated with the image of Fenechka. Roses, a bouquet of which she knits in her gazebo, are an attribute of the Virgin Mary. In addition, the rose is a symbol of love. Bazarov asks Fenechka for a “red, and not too big” rose (love). There is also a “natural” cross in the novel, hidden in the image of a maple leaf, shaped like a cross. And it is significant that suddenly falling from a tree not at the time of leaf fall, but at the height of summer Maple Leaf resembles a butterfly. “A butterfly is a metaphor for the soul, fluttering out of the body at the moment of death, and Bazarov’s untimely death is predicted by this leaf sadly circling in the air.” Nature in the novel divides everything into living and non-living, natural for humans. Therefore, the description of the “glorious, fresh morning” before the duel indicates how vanity everything is before the greatness and beauty of nature. “The morning was nice and fresh; small motley clouds stood like lambs on the pale clear azure; fine dew fell on the leaves and grasses, glittered like silver on the cobwebs; the damp, dark one seemed to still retain the ruddy trace of dawn; the songs of larks rained down from all over the sky.” The duel itself seems “like stupidity” in comparison with this morning. And the forest, which in Bazarov’s dream refers to Pavel Petrovich, is a symbol in itself. The forest, nature - everything that Bazarov refused is life itself. That is why his death is inevitable. The last landscape is a “requiem” for Bazarov. “There is a small rural cemetery in one of the remote corners of Russia. Like almost all of our cemeteries, it has a sad appearance: the ditches surrounding it have long been overgrown; gray wooden crosses are drooping and rotting under their once painted covers; the stone slabs are all shifted, as if someone is pushing them from below; two or three plucked trees barely provide scant shade; sheep wander ugly through the graves... But between them there is one, which is not touched by man, which is not trampled by animals: only birds sit on it and sing at dawn. An iron fence surrounds it; two young fir trees are planted at both ends; Evgeny Bazarov is buried in this grave." The entire description of the rural cemetery where Bazarov is buried is filled with lyrical sadness and mournful thoughts. Our research shows that this landscape is of a philosophical nature.
Let's summarize. Images of the quiet life of people, flowers, bushes, birds and beetles are contrasted in Turgenev's novel with images of high flight. Only two characters, equal in scale of personality and their tragic loneliness, are reflected in hidden analogies with royal phenomena and proud birds. These are Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich. Why didn’t they find a place for themselves in the hierarchy of trees on the pages of the work? Which tree would correspond to a lion or an eagle? Oak? Oak means glory, fortitude, protection for the weak, unbrokenness and resistance to storms; this is the tree of Perun, a symbol of the “world tree” and, finally, Christ. All this is suitable as a metaphor for the soul, for example, of Tolstoy’s Prince Andrei, but is not suitable for Turgenev’s heroes. Among the small forests mentioned in the symbolic landscape in the third chapter of "Fathers and Sons" is "our forest." “This year they will mix it,” notes Nikolai Petrovich. The doom of the forest emphasizes the motif of death in the landscape and, as it were, predicts the death of Bazarov. It’s interesting that close in his work folklore traditions the poet Koltsov called his poem dedicated to the memory of Pushkin “Forest”. In this poem, the forest is an untimely dying hero. Turgenev brings the fate of Bazarov and “our forest” closer together in Bazarov’s words before his death: “There is a forest here...” Among the “small forests” and “shrubs” Bazarov is alone, and his only relative “forest” is his duel opponent Pavel Petrovich ( Thus, Bazarov’s dream also reveals the deep inner kinship of these heroes). The tragic gap between the maximalist hero and the masses, nature, who “will be brought together,” who “is here,” but is “not needed” by Russia. How can this tragedy of existence, felt most strongly by the complex and proud hero, be overcome? Turgenev raises this question not only in Fathers and Sons. But, I think, in this novel there are words about man and the universe, in which the author revealed to us, the readers, his sense of the Universe. It consists of “barely conscious stalking of a broad wave of life, continuously rolling both around us and in ourselves.”
The author thinks about eternal nature, which gives peace and allows Bazarov to come to terms with life. Turgenev’s nature is humane, it helps to debunk Bazarov’s theory, it expresses the “higher will”, so man must become its continuation and the keeper of “eternal” laws. The landscape in the novel is not only a background, but a philosophical symbol, an example of correct life.
The skill of Turgenev, a landscape painter, is expressed with particular force in his poetic masterpiece “Bezhin Meadow”; “Fathers and Sons” are also not devoid of wonderful descriptions nature “Evening; the sun disappeared behind a small aspen grove; lying half a mile from the garden: its shadow stretched endlessly across the motionless fields. A peasant was trotting on a white horse along a dark narrow path right along the grove; he was all clearly visible, all the way down to the patch on his shoulder, the road that he rode in the shadows; It was pleasant - the horse’s legs flashed clearly. The sun's rays, for their part, climbed into the grove and, making their way through the thicket, bathed the trunks of the pine trees, and their foliage almost turned blue, and above it rose a pale blue sky, slightly crushed by the dawn. The swallows were flying high; the wind stopped completely; belated bees buzzed lazily and sleepily in the lilac flowers; midges crowded in a column over a lonely outstretched branch.
The landscape can be included in the content of the work as part of the national and social reality that the writer depicts. In some novels nature is closely associated with folk life, in others with the world of Christianity or the life of quality. Without these pictures of nature there would be no complete reproduction of reality. The attitude of the author and his heroes to the landscape is determined by the characteristics of their psychological make-up, their ideological and aesthetic views.
The dry soul of Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov does not allow him to see and feel the beauty of nature. Anna Sergeevna Odintsova doesn’t notice her either; she is too cold and reasonable for this. For Bazarov, “nature is not a temple, but a workshop,” that is, he does not recognize an aesthetic attitude towards it. Nature is the highest wisdom, the personification of moral ideals, the measure true values. Man learns from nature, he does not recognize it. Nature organically enters the lives of the “have” heroes, intertwines with their thoughts, sometimes helps to reconsider their lives and even change it dramatically.
The compositional role of landscape in I. S. Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons”
Composition - the construction of the entire work (plots, extra-plot elements and the question of who leads the narrative and who can be considered the spokesman author's position).
Time in the novel unfolds linearly (the action concerns two months of 1859), and only Pavel Petrovich’s love story is inserted and is not included in the plot.
The composition of the work is circular, since the main character Evgeny Bazarov passes along the same path twice: Maryino - Nikolskoye - his parents’ house. This route helps to understand the contrast between the hero of the first half of the journey and the hero of the second. Bazarov, faced with reality, understands that his theory is not universal, but still tries to run away from everything that does not fit into its framework, to hide behind it from the changeable reality.
The novel contains three large landscape sketches, in which one can see the manifestation of the author's position. It is expressed mainly in an indirect way, for example, in Chapter XI, with the help of a landscape, the reader can understand the position of Nikolai Petrovich.
The author's position is expressed in how the plot is constructed. Turgenev follows the principle of objectivity: he rarely uses the author’s direct word, showing, whenever possible, his heroes from all sides. Here the author uses hidden techniques, for example, the duel scene is shown through the eyes of Bazarov, although it is given from the author. The novel is written as a third-person narrative, but behind the figure of the narrator is the author himself. There is no change of narrators, as in Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time", there is no lyrical voice of the author, as in Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" or Gogol's "Dead Souls".
In the third chapter, the reader encounters the first landscape in the novel - a description of the surroundings of the road in Maryino: “The places they passed through could not be called picturesque.” Here the author seems to be painting two landscapes. The first is real: “ragged” men, gnawed trees, skinny cows; and the second - his native land through the eyes of Arkady, who suddenly felt like a “young boy”: everything was “golden green”, “the larks were pouring” and the rye was sprouting.
For Turgenev, it was very important that Arkady could surrender to the general movement of life. It is important for him to both feel and think, because life always takes its toll, it is richer and greater than all theories, than everything that people think about it.
The landscape in the novel plays a significant role compositional role. In this episode, nature helped remove the awkwardness between father and son that arose due to the conversation about Fenechka. Turgenev is a magnificent landscape painter; his sketches of nature are both realistic and highly poetic. Like A. S. Pushkin, Turgenev correlates the life of nature and people, for example, Bazarov, unlike Nikolai Petrovich and Arkady, does not see the beauty of nature, believes that nature is “not a temple, but a workshop, and man is a worker in it.” .
After reading the description of nature given in Chapter XI, it seems that the author understands nature in the same way as Nikolai Petrovich: peering into details, noticing nuances, subtly feeling sounds and smells, the hero seems to be arguing that it is absolutely impossible not to sympathize nature." Evening nature is unusually pleasing to the eye, and even a patch on the shoulder of a passing man looks organically in big picture. Even the boring pale green aspen trunks were transformed, because “the sun’s rays, for their part, climbed into the grove and, breaking through the thicket, bathed the aspen trunks with such a warm light that they became like pine trunks.”
Turgenev paints the distance in blue, as in the paintings of artists or in folklore: the author’s direct affinity and love for nature is manifested here. We can say that with the help of this landscape sketch Turgenev argues with Bazarov. Turgenev shows how Bazarov robs himself when he demonstrates only a utilitarian approach to nature (seeks to see only benefit in nature). For the author, it is of great value that a person can feel so strongly and understand nature so well as Nikolai Petrovich.
The author describes the morning landscape before the duel abruptly and easily, trying to convey energy and charm young day. To do this, he resorts to diminutive options: “clouds”, “lambs”, “cobwebs” - all this adds lightness and freshness to the landscape being described.
But the main landscape of the novel is undoubtedly found in Chapter XXVIII, which serves as an epilogue (begins with the words “Six months have passed”). The novel ends with a description of an abandoned cemetery: “... it looks sad: the ditches surrounding it have long been overgrown; gray wooden crosses droop and rot under their once painted roofs; The stone slabs have all been moved.” This landscape echoes the realistic version of the description of the Kirsanov lands that Turgenev gives at the very beginning of the novel. The author writes how “two already decrepit old men come to one of the graves,” and shows this as something natural and eternal. For Turgenev, it is important to emphasize here that love is eternal, that it conquers even death. In order to confirm this idea, the author quotes Pushkin: the phrase “indifferent nature” is taken from the poem “Do I wander along noisy streets.” This poem was written in 1829: at that time, Pushkin thought a lot about death and tried to understand how it makes sense to accept this law of life and how to relate to it.
