Khlestakov in the comedy Woe from Wit. Please give a description of the whiplash (quotes!) from the comedy "Woe from Wit". Prince and Princess Tugoukhovsky

Apr 22 2010

The prototype of Khlestova is the powerful and influential Nastasya Dmitrievna Ofrosimova, who belonged to the highest Moscow circle. Leo Tolstoy also described it in War and Peace. Mentioning “Nestor of the noble scoundrels,” who exchanged his serfs for dogs, Griboyedov probably had in mind General Izmailov, a serf-owning landowner, a libertine, who, according to contemporaries, “4 servants who served him for 30 years, exchanged the landowner Shibyakin for 4 greyhounds." Contemporaries and researchers tried to establish prototypes of Chatsky. When it was written, a rumor spread that Chaadaev was depicted in it. This rumor even reached Pushkin, who was in Mikhailovsky, and in one of his letters he asked about its justice.

Chaadaev was close to Griboyedov, and there is no doubt that he, a man of outstanding intelligence and strong character, rose up in Griboyedov’s creative imagination when he drew the appearance of his Chatsky. There is also no doubt that Chaadaev’s features appear in Griboyedovsky’s appearance. Chatsky also captured the features of another friend of Griboedov, the passionate and honest Kuchelbecker, a knight of the Decembrist movement, one of those “young people” in whose souls “the fervor for the creative, high and beautiful arts” was aroused.

But fleshing out the characters did not remove their typicality. One of his contemporaries notes:

“When “Woe from Wit” appeared, everyone immediately gave it justice, but there were many who imagined and even recognized the image of living Moscow personalities in the characters and found the main advantage of this beautiful dramatic satire in the fidelity of the portraits. The view is completely wrong. Griboyedov did not even think about painting portraits; if this were so, then the meaning of “Woe from Wit” would be very short-lived; it would have been lost along with the death of those who served as originals for the essays. And in the continuation of their lives, the dignity of the essay would be much lower than the true one. Griboyedov superbly captured and depicted not individual personalities, but types, of which the work will be very long lasting, and the merit and glory of his masterful work will be just as long lasting.” On this occasion, in our time, A.V. Lunacharsky rightly remarked about the characters of the comedy: “These people are taken synthetically. With Griboyedov, everything corresponds to reality, everything is pure artistic realism, the product is given without any mixture. A real, authentic portrait begins only where it synthesizes the whole person in his most characteristic features and into broad types. The truthful type is a portrait, and the wider it captures, the more artistic and social significance it acquires.”

It depicts such features of life and human relations that went far beyond the framework of the beginning of the 19th century. Chatsky became a symbol of nobility and love of freedom for the next generation. Silence, Famusism, Skalozubovism have become common names to denote everything low and vulgar, bureaucracy, rude martinetry, etc. It is important to note that in his comedy Griboedov strives to reveal in the particular, individual, the general that is inherent in a given era and a given environment. The principle of generalization” through the image of the individual is consistently carried through the entire comedy. Scenes and episodes from the private life of one noble family reveal typical features and paint a social portrait of an entire social circle at a time of intensification of the struggle between two opposing camps in Russian society of the Decembrist era. The fate of one progressive, thinking young man reflects the fate of an entire generation of freedom-loving, Decembrist-minded youth.

Griboyedov was able to give not only a picture of enormous general significance, to reveal the essential, typical aspects of Russian reality of his time, but also to identify the main conflict of the era. The conflict that formed the basis of the comedy amazed contemporaries with its vital truthfulness and historical fidelity. It flowed from the socio-political situation of that time, revealing the very essence of the socio-political struggle of the Decembrist era, the struggle of two public camps that formed after the Patriotic War. This conflict permeates the entire course of the comedy, the entire set of relationships between its characters, giving the content of “Woe from Wit” unity and solidity. The conflict between the serf-owners' camp and the young free-lovers, from among whom the Decembrists emerged, is expressed in the comedy in the clash of two worldviews, two belief systems, opposing moral principles, in the differences in the characters' behavior in everyday life, and finally, in personal intimate relationships that undergo changes in the course of development conflict of the play. The comedy would never have acquired the vitality with which it still amazes today if the conflict depicted in it were not connected with the fate of specific individuals - with the intimate relationships of its main characters. That is why the conflict in “Woe from Wit,” deeply historical in its core, has universal significance and meaning: there is a struggle between an intelligent, honest, freedom-loving person and vices embodied in specific images. It should be noted that the conflict developing in “Woe from Wit” manifests itself in sharp clashes, in an ever-increasing struggle between opposing sides.

The conflict of the comedy also determines its composition. It is built according to a very clear and simple plan. He himself points out this in a letter to Katenin, revealing Griboyedov’s compositional comedy and dramatic principles. “You find the main flaw in the plan,” the playwright wrote, “it seems to me that it is simple and clear in purpose and execution; a girl who is not stupid herself prefers a fool to an intelligent person (not because our sinners have an ordinary mind, no! and in my comedy there are 25 fools for one sane person); and this man, of course, is contrary to the society around him, no one understands him, no one wants to forgive him, why is he a little higher than others. Out of anger, someone made up an idea about him that he was crazy, no one checked and everyone repeated it, the voice of general hostility reaches him, moreover, the dislike of the girl for whom he came to Moscow alone is completely explained to him, he and he didn’t give a damn in everyone’s eyes and was like that. The queen is also disappointed about her honey sugar. What could be more complete than this?..”

As I continue to look at the site, I often wonder who are the positive characters here and who are the negative ones? And I can’t clearly answer this question. It would seem that the most negative heroes subsequently do very good deeds, and the seemingly positive heroes do the opposite.

Old woman Khlestova, Famusov's sister-in-law, is a minor character in the comedy "Woe from Wit" by Alexander Sergeevich Griboedov. She is a living ruin of the past, a remnant of Catherine's century, a typical lady of Catherine's time. In her speech one can hear many ideas characteristic of “all Moscow people.” Her little dog (pug) and her maid of African descent (blackamoor girl) are on the same level for her, approximately at the same level as the gifted trinkets.

Source: comedy "Woe from Wit"

View: Characters of the comedy "Woe from Wit"

Alone among the entire female Moscow society, she does not bow down to everything foreign, there are no foreign words in her speech and she has almost no understanding of army regiments. With all this, the author makes it clear how far she is from modern Moscow society due to her advanced age (she is sixty-five years old).

However, Khlestova, as one of the matriarchs, is extremely authoritative and is one of those who “are judges of everything, everywhere, there are no judges above them.” You can fall out of favor with her by doing something without her permission. Khlestova is grumpy, contentious, and can ruin anyone’s reputation by supporting or spreading a bad rumor. The main thing for her is the nobility and wealth of a person; only the number of souls a person owns can put someone on the same level as her. She considers herself a Christian, but this is an ostentatious and exclusively traditional self-presentation that has nothing to do with faith.

Quotes

Is it easy at sixty-five years old?

Should I drag myself to you, niece?.. - Torment!

I drove from Pokrovka for an hour, I had no power;

Night is the end of the world!

Out of boredom I took it with me

A little black girl and a dog;

Wow! I definitely got rid of the noose;

After all, your father is crazy:

He was given three fathoms of daring, -

He introduces us without asking, is he pleasant to us, is he?

There are wonderful adventures in the world!

In his summer he jumped off crazy!

I drank tea beyond my years.

My fathers, whoever is upset in his mind,

It doesn’t matter whether it’s from books or from drinking;

And I feel sorry for Chatsky.

In a Christian way; he deserves pity;

He was a sharp man, he had about three hundred souls.

And you will really go crazy from these, from some,

From boarding schools, schools, lyceums, you name it,

Yes from lancard mutual training.

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Probably I like negative heroes because, firstly, they are beautiful, secondly, they all have a sad story, thirdly, they must be smart, and fourthly, he must be unhappy and lonely. But I think that the negative heroes are mysterious, brave, but it’s a pity that sometimes these heroes often die at the end of the film or at the end of the anime... But some heroes realize their guilt and begin to fight for the side of good.

The image of a poor official is traditional for Russian writers of the 19th century. However, this topic was explored by writers in different ways, and this image underwent significant changes. To reveal the image of a poor official, the most important are two completely different aspects: voluntary resignation to the position of a powerless person (“little man”), the thought of the impossibility of changing anything (Eugene in “The Bronze Horseman” by A.S. Pushkin, Bashmachkin from the story N. .V. Gogol’s “The Overcoat”, some heroes of F.M. Dostoevsky) and the completely opposite desire to achieve “known degrees”, not disdaining any means. This image of a poor official (Molchalin) is presented in A. S. Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit.” Molchalin is modest and helpful, because “in ranks... small”, he cannot do without “patrons”, even if he has to depend entirely on their will, he is in love “by position”, “with the pleasure of the daughter of such a person” as Famusov , “who feeds and waters, // And sometimes gives rank...”. Khlestakov is a kind of “successor” to Molchalin. Like Molchalin, Khlestakov has extraordinary adaptability. He easily assumes the role of an important person: he gets acquainted with officials, accepts petitions, and begins, as befits a “significant person,” to “scold” the owners for nothing, making them “shake with fear.” Talking about his studies in St. Petersburg, Khlestakov involuntarily betrays a “desire for honors beyond merit,” which is similar to Molchalin’s attitude towards service: he wants to “win awards and have fun.” However, Khlestakov, unlike Molchalin, is much more carefree and flighty; his “lightness” “in thoughts... extraordinary” is created with the help of a large number of exclamations, while the hero of Griboyedov’s play is more cautious.

Part 2

What is “Khlestakovism”?

The concept of Khlestakovism came to us from the immortal comedy of N.V. Gogol's "The Inspector General", which was written in 1835. The author himself spoke about his comedy this way: “In The Inspector General, I decided to put everything bad in Russia into one pile... and laugh at everything at once.” The central character of the play is N.V. Gogol called Khlestakov. So who is he, Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov, and why did his last name begin to be used as a common noun?

N.V. Gogol managed to create a collective and somewhat exaggerated image of a vulgar and worthless little man. Finding himself passing through a county town, Khlestakov loses at cards and is left penniless. City officials mistake him for an auditor from St. Petersburg. At first, Khlestakov is surprised by their behavior, but then, having entered into the role, he begins to consider himself a “significant person.” Under the influence of circumstances, he grows in his own eyes, so he lies more and more boldly (the author uses the grotesque technique when creating the image of the hero). From a collegiate registrar who simply rewrites papers, in a matter of minutes he grows almost to a “field marshal” who “goes to the palace every day” and “is on friendly terms with Pushkin.” At the mayor’s reception, his boasting takes on truly fantastic proportions: “thirty-five thousand couriers alone” are looking for him in the streets, because there is no one else to manage the department, “soup in a saucepan arrived from Paris directly on the ship,” and in his hall “ Counts and princes are milling around." Khlestakov speaks and acts without any consideration. His speech is intermittent and vulgar. It seems that the words come out of his mouth completely unexpectedly. This is one of those people who are called empty, a soap bubble that inflates to incredible sizes, and then suddenly bursts, as if it had never existed. (This is how the author himself characterizes Khlestakov “for gentlemen actors”).

Since then, arrogant, unrestrained, deceitfully frivolous boasting has come to be disparagingly called Khlestakovism. The Khlestakovs have always been there, at all times. But only after the release of “The Inspector General” this phenomenon received a name and entered the dictionaries. In the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language, edited by Ozhegov, we read: “Khlestakovism is shameless, unbridled boasting.” So what is the essence of this vice? This phenomenon is tenacious and has many faces. Khlestakovism is stupidity, spiritual emptiness, primitiveness, opportunism. Such people like to show off, they want to seem more significant than they really are. These are braggarts, boasters and fanfare. Probably, we all sometimes become Khlestakovs, because we so want to seem more significant, to grow in our own eyes. Gogol wrote: “Everyone, at least for a minute... has become or is becoming a Khlestakov... In a word, it is rare that someone will not be one at least once in their life...”

Comedy N.V. Gogol's "The Inspector General" had a huge influence on Russian society of that time. More than a century and a half has passed since then, and Khlestakovs still exist today; this concept has not become archaic, which means that the comedy of the great writer is still relevant today.

Anfisa Nilovna Khlestova

Contemporaries and historians are most unanimous in determining the prototype of Anfisa Nilovna Khlestova. Her original is called Nastasya Dmitrievna Ofrosimova, a great Moscow lady, known for her intelligence, cool character, frankness and quirks.

She was extremely popular in the large society of pre-fire Moscow, and many stories and anecdotes about her have been preserved. D.N. Sverbeev conveys interesting details about one of his meetings with Ofrosimova: “Having returned to Russia from abroad in 1822 and not yet having had time to make any visits to Moscow, I went to a ball at the Noble Assembly; Sometimes up to two thousand people gathered there on Tuesdays. From a distance I noticed Nastasya Dmitrievna Ofrosimova sitting with her daughter on one of the benches between the columns and, anticipating a storm, I tried in every possible way to keep myself away from her, pretending that I had not heard anything, when she shouted to me across the hall: “Sverbeev! come here!” Rushing to the opposite corner of the huge hall, I hoped that I would avoid a menacing meeting with her, but not even a quarter of an hour had passed when the foreman on duty for that evening, unknown to me, with a courteous smile invited me to go to Nastasya Dmitrievna. I answered: “now.” The sergeant-major, repeating the invitation, announced that he had been ordered to bring me to her. “What are you doing with yourself? I bet you’ve been here for a long time, but I haven’t been here yet! Apparently, you hang around taverns, and taverns, and somewhere it’s even worse,” she said, “that’s why you run away from decent people. You know, I loved your mother, respected your father” ... and she went and went! I stood in front of her as if condemned to commercial execution, but as everything comes to an end, she calmed down.” ( Sverbeev D. N. Notes. M., 1899. T. I.).

“I remember the old woman Khlestova well,” writes another memoirist: “it was Nastasya Dmitrievia Ofrosimova;<...>she, under the name of Maria Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, was described in “War and Peace” by Count L.N. Tolstoy. Ofrosimova was with us in the parish of John the Baptist in Staraya Konyushennaya; she strictly maintained order and decorum in the church, forbade conversations, loudly scolded the sextons for obscene singing, or for sluggishness in serving; she tore the ears (like Chatsky) of the boys who came out with candles during the reading of the Gospel and walked with a plate for the candles of the headman, and kept the bread bowl in refectory. Ofrosimova was always the first to approach the cross, since she sent a sexton to a lady unknown to her, who crossed herself with a glove, loudly, for the whole church, giving him the order: “Tell her to take off the dog’s skin!”

Attaching Khlestova to Ofrosimova’s original is one of the most convincing in the literature about the prototypes of Griboyedov’s heroes, although there are other indications of the prototypes of Khlestova, who is closely resembled, for example, by the spiritual appearance and external behavior of the poet’s mother herself, Nastasya Fedorovna Griboyedova.

The prototype of Khlestova is the powerful and influential Nastasya Dmitrievna Ofrosimova, who belonged to the highest Moscow circle. Lev also described it in War and Peace. Mentioning “Nestor of the noble scoundrels,” who exchanged his serfs for dogs, he probably meant General Izmailov, a feudal landowner, a libertine, who, according to contemporaries, “4 servants who served him for 30 years, exchanged the landowner Shibyakin for 4 greyhound dogs." Contemporaries and researchers tried to establish prototypes of Chatsky. When it was written, a rumor spread that Chaadaev was depicted in it. This rumor even reached Pushkin, who was in Mikhailovsky, and in one of his letters he asked about its justice.

Chaadaev was close to Griboyedov, and there is no doubt that the image of him, a man of outstanding intelligence and strong character, arose in Griboyedov’s creative imagination when he painted the appearance of his Chatsky. There is also no doubt that Chaadaev’s features appear in the appearance of Griboyedov’s hero. The features of another friend of Griboyedov, the passionate and honest Kuchelbecker, a knight of the Abrist movement, one of those “young people” in whose souls the “ardor for the creative, high and beautiful arts” was aroused, were also captured in Chatsky.

But fleshing out the characters did not remove their typicality. One of his contemporaries notes:

“When “Woe from Wit” appeared, everyone immediately gave it justice, but there were many who imagined and even recognized the image of living Moscow personalities in the characters and found the main advantage of this beautiful dramatic satire in the fidelity of the portraits. The view is completely wrong. Griboyedov did not even think about painting portraits; if this were so, then the meaning of “Woe from Wit” would be very short-lived; it would have been lost along with the death of those who served as originals for the essays. And in the continuation of their lives, the dignity of the essay would be much lower than the true one. Griboyedov superbly captured and depicted not individual personalities, but types whose life is very long, and the merit and glory of his masterful work will be just as long-lasting.” On this occasion, in our time, A.V. Lunacharsky rightly remarked about the characters of the comedy: “These people are taken synthetically. With Griboyedov, everything corresponds to reality, everything is pure artistic realism, the product is given without any mixture. A real, authentic portrait begins only where it synthesizes the whole person in his most characteristic features and into broad types. A truthful type in literature is a portrait, and the wider it captures, the more artistic and social significance it acquires.”

The comedy depicts such features of life and human relationships that went far beyond the beginning of X