Humiliated and insulted main characters. Analysis of the story "Humiliated and Offended"

The heroes of this work fall into two groups. (1). Old man Ikhmenev - Natasha, Ikhmenev's daughter - Alyosha (Valkovsky's son), with whom Natasha is in love - Katya, with whom Alyosha (the princess's adopted daughter) falls in love. (2). Old man Jerome Smith - his daughter (Nellie's mother) - Valkovsky (Nellie's father), whom Smith's daughter Nellie loved, Smith's granddaughter - the princess, close girlfriend Valkovsky.

Despite the ban of her father, Ikhmenev, Natasha runs away to Alyosha, but he falls in love with Katya. Alyosha is the fruit of a marriage between the then poor and young Valkovsky and the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Smith's daughter once, against the will of her parents, went to Valkovsky, from whom she gave birth to a daughter, Nellie, but Valkovsky left them, throwing in his lot with the princess. Nellie's unfortunate mother died.

The story about the characters of the first group (old man Ikhmenev, his daughter Natasha, her lover Alyosha) is told in the present tense. The storyline of the second group of heroes, where the action is built around Valkovsky, belongs to the past and has the same unhappy resolution.

The story of two generations of fathers, daughters and their lovers, their feelings, rivalry and betrayal is presented in the form of notes, the authorship of which belongs to Ivan Petrovich. Ivan - ex-lover Natasha, whom she left for Alyosha, currently acts as her friend and advisor. Since Ivan accidentally manages to save Nelly, who looks like a young girl, he learns from her the history of the relationship between her father and mother, that is, the characters of the second group.

At the end of the novel, Alyosha goes to Katya, Nellie (she also calls herself Elena) dies from the severity of the experience. Before her death, Nelly manages to reconcile Ikhmenev and his daughter Natasha. However, the previous relationship between Natasha and Ivan is not restored. Ivan continues to devotedly take care of his former mistress until the very end.

The novel ends at the point where Ivan, who has described all these vicissitudes, is confined to his bed by illness and awaits imminent death.
Dostoevsky builds a plot structure that is easily understandable to the common reader: Ikhmenev, who, because of his fatherly love, curses the daughter who left him for her lover; Valkovsky, who seduces a pure girl and abandons her with her child for the sake of his career; impressionable and unhappy girl Nelly. The fact that the seducers Valkovsky and his son Alyosha have stepdaughters as their partners aggravates the artificiality of the plot. Apparently, Dostoevsky wanted to depict the relationship between the characters in the most accessible way.

A supporter of “pure literature”, who demands a precise structure and hates vulgar melodrama, was probably right to evaluate “The Humiliated and Insulted” as a work of “low” quality. Nevertheless, the common reader appreciated the writer's skill. The novel gained wide popularity, Dostoevsky gained new readers. Of course, “The Humiliated and Insulted” is a novel designed for recognition by the mass reader, but a careful look will discern in its characters the “real” Dostoevsky with his inherent problems.

Ivan Petrovich: characteristics of the hero

The novel is narrated in the first person, these are the “notes” of Ivan Petrovich. He is a writer, the hero of his debut work is a petty and impoverished official (just as it was in “Poor People” - the debut work of Dostoevsky himself). In Ivan Petrovich’s story, the critic B. also appears (it is clear that this is an allusion to Belinsky), who, after reading Ivan’s manuscript, rejoices “like a child.” That is, here we observe the same circumstances as in the life of Dostoevsky himself. It turns out that Dostoevsky remembers his youth, which serves as material for creating the image of Ivan Petrovich.

The character of Ivan Petrovich is not particularly complicated. He appears as a young man who sympathizes with the unfortunate and, without thinking about his failing health, extends a helping hand to them.

Natasha leaves her parents and breaks up love affair with Ivan and leaves for his new lover - Alyosha. But she can't hold him. Ivan becomes a faithful adviser and friend to the unhappy and desperate Natasha. For her loving and devoted father, who suffers from complete loss and anger, he also becomes a faithful listener to his revelations. Ivan protects and saves young Nelly from the hands of the pimp, who suffers one misfortune after another. Thus he is full of sacrificial service.

Remembering his young years, Dostoevsky brings out a philanthropist and altruist, full of sympathy for unfortunate people and wanting to help them. That is, in the writer and hero the already mentioned champion of “socialism as a new Christianity”, in which Dostoevsky so sacredly believed in the days of his youth, continues to be present. This “socialism” presents as its ideal a “new Christ”, filled with compassion for trampled and dishonored women. Imitating Christ, sacrificing oneself for the sake of unfortunate women and suffering children, saving them through love - this is the highest purpose of man.

In the 40s of the XIX century. this teaching was warmly accepted as a “new truth” by educated Russian youth. As V.L. Komarovich says in Dostoevsky’s Youth, the writer was a “man of the 40s,” that is, he deeply absorbed these humanistic ideals. In “The Diary of a Writer” (“One of the Modern Falsehoods,” 1873), Dostoevsky directly speaks of the “holiness” of this teaching and his readiness to die for it. “We, Petrashevites, stood on the scaffold and listened to our verdict without the slightest remorse.”

Having gone through hard labor and soldiering, in December 1859 Fyodor Mikhailovich returned to St. Petersburg after a ten-year break. He attributed to Ivan his ideals of philanthropy, which he himself professed in his youth, but Ivan’s fate is tragic. A champion of the idea of ​​good, Ivan cannot do anything to make unhappy people happy. He himself is abandoned by people and writes his “notes”, waiting for death in a hospital bed.

In the magazine publication of the novel, it was preceded by the subtitle “From the Notes of a Failed Writer.” It directly testifies to the author’s intention: “The Humiliated and Insulted” can be read as a “report” about the collapse of Dostoevsky the philanthropist.

But it's not that simple. If we take these notes on defeat in their entirety, we will see an interesting detail: yes, Ivan lost, but he is not buried at all. Ivan is reborn in our eyes as a warm and wonderful person. Ivan abandons himself, he lends a helping hand to his beloved Natasha, he consistently acts as a generous and unfortunate savior and sacrificer, he suffers defeat... In this respect, he is similar to the Dreamer from White Nights, who sacrifices himself for his beautiful ideals. Dostoevsky sought to return to literary life. Perhaps he hoped that a type like Ivan - a failing man with a beautiful soul - would be greeted favorably and would be in tune with the sentiments of those readership circles who were eagerly awaiting the abolition of serfdom, among whom humanistic ideals were becoming increasingly widespread. The calculation turned out to be correct: “The Humiliated and the Insulted” was a huge success, Dostoevsky again found himself in the thick of literary life as the author of “Poor People” and “The Humiliated and the Insulted.”

Prince Peter Valkovsky: characterization of the hero

Researchers and critics unanimously note that among the characters in the novel a new type for Dostoevsky appears - this is Prince Pyotr Valkovsky. The misfortunes that befall the heroes of the novel are caused by him. He mocks Ivan, who always stands on the side of the weak, who, having rejected himself, extends a helping hand even to Natasha, who rejected him. Valkovsky tells him: you are philanthropists according to Schiller, you believe that there is no higher purpose for a person than to constantly help others; but in reality you are playing an unworthy play, because you are flaunting your generosity and I am tired of it; my truth is that there is a personality, “this is myself. Everything is for me, and the whole world was created for me. Listen, my friend, I still believe that you can live well in the world. And this is the best faith...”

If we think about Valkovsky’s reasoning, we will notice a certain distance that Dostoevsky keeps in relation to “socialism as a new Christianity.”

Dreamer Vasya from " Uncle's dream”, who dreams of a wonderful community, turns into Ivan from “The Humiliated and Insulted”; M. from " Little hero", who despises "romanticism", becomes Prince Valkovsky - the duel continues. Dostoevsky's ambivalence towards socialism as a form of philanthropy is reflected in the confrontation of his characters.

At first glance, it seems that Valkovsky’s arguments destroy the ideals of “socialism” (philanthropy). But in his later works the writer would send defeat to characters like Valkovsky. The egoist Valkovsky, proud that “the whole world was created for me,” will turn into a lifeless and powerless person. Like him, both Svidrigailov from Crime and Punishment and Stavrogin from Demons are opponents of Schiller and his ideas. But they, unlike Valkovsky, do not glorify their selfishness. The light of philanthropic ideals is inaccessible to them, they suffer from a cold and gloomy feeling of “another world.” They experience suffering and are heading towards collapse. This shows that “socialism as a new Christianity” was for Dostoevsky the promise of a bright and warm afterlife.

Alyosha Valkovsky: characteristics of the hero

The prince's son, Alyosha Valkovsky, leaves a complex impression. Strange as it may seem, Alyosha has absolutely no conscious intention (and perhaps precisely because there is no such intention in him) to offend and push away another person, but without any twinge of conscience he breaks off relationships with other people, he destroys these relationships and makes people suffer. “He was quite innocent. And when, how could this innocent person become guilty?” He was “a boy, a naive egoist.”

Alyosha is absolutely weak-willed - that’s what Ivan thinks. Good and evil should leave at least some trace in a person’s heart, but it is not found in Alyosha. And therefore, although he has no desire to do harm to a person, he brings it: he spoils the relationship between Ivan and Natasha, between Natasha and her father. Alyosha reasons like this: I didn’t want this tragedy, Natasha just fell in love with me, and I fell in love with her - that’s all. When he succumbed to the new charm and fell in love with Katya, Alyosha did not hide it from Natasha. That is, as he himself believes, he is a frank person and acts according to the impulse of his heart. Alyosha can be defined as a “naive egoist.” There is some strange purity in the young man Alyosha. In the event of unfavorable circumstances, he does not become depressed - for the same reasons. When he fails, he becomes really sad, but the sadness does not last for long. Ivan writes about this young man: “It seems to me that this child could never lie, even as a joke, and if he did lie, then, really, without suspecting anything bad about it.”

Alyosha’s extraordinary “purity” poses a huge danger to the world, which is governed by a wide variety of emotions and intentions. This weak-willed young man-child, who is incapable of lying, dictated by a sense of responsibility and care for a person, is for the world of ordinary human relations « dangerous child", he is a villain who has no intention of being a villain.

Strange as it may seem, Dostoevsky does not condemn Alyosha. It is noticeable in Dostoevsky that a person similar to Alyosha - with his lack of intrigue - found a greater response in his soul than a person who, having decided on his emotional and spiritual preferences, begins to act in an independent way. Fyodor Mikhailovich unconsciously strove to get closer to such a “childish” type of person who has neither the power nor the spiritual responsibility to condemn others - a gentle person who does not distinguish good from evil.

In almost all of Dostoevsky’s works there is a type dear to the writer, who is almost always given the features of “childhood”, which reveals the writer’s instinctive preferences. Myshkin from The Idiot, like Alyosha, is a young man-child, he is sick, but he is pure, and it is in him that Dostoevsky feels a “beautiful” person.

The basis of the author’s aesthetic ideas is a craving for a person in whom there is no personalism and effective practical morality, but there is absolute purity.

Natasha Ikhmeneva: characteristics of the heroine

Natasha Ikhmeneva does not see in the young man-child Alyosha a flighty and disgusting young man, she sees in him the owner of a child’s heart of rare purity and beauty. It is said about Natasha that she loves Alyosha, but this is love invented by Dostoevsky, such love does not exist in the world ordinary people. She herself confesses to Ivan: “You see, Vanya: I decided that I did not love him as an equal, the way a woman usually loves a man. I loved him like... almost like a mother.” But this " mother's love“is also unusual: she does not set as her goal to “raise” and teach the “child” Alyosha to be independent in this sinful and dangerous world. She knows that Alyosha does not have enough strength to “build a nest” and settle there with a woman. She decided in advance that he was a “pure” child who had nothing to do with the worries of this world. Therefore, she sacrifices herself - to protect his beautiful childish heart from these worries. When Alyosha falls in love with Katya, she responds to his enthusiasm for Katya with a mixed feeling of pain and joy. It seems to her: since Alyosha does not hide his new hobby from her, his mistress, this is proof of his exceptional honesty and sincerity. Natasha does not perceive this love as a stone in her heart and, worried about Alyosha’s future, encourages his new hobby.

If you look at Natasha with an impartial look, you cannot help but come to the conclusion that her love for this “childish soul” is a thing closed in on itself, it is a one-man show who is content with the role assigned to him. Like Zina in “Uncle’s Dream,” Natasha Ikhmeneva is the owner of a “literary” character. Zina's mother reproaches her for loving not a living person, but her beautiful dream. Her words can also be addressed to Natasha. It seems that the prototype of Zina was apparently Dostoevsky’s first wife, Maria Isaeva. Natasha is cut to the same measurements.

Dostoevsky's love drama consisted in the fact that Maria's heart was torn between them by the teacher Vergunov, and for some time she was inclined in favor of Vergunov. And at this time Dostoevsky was in exactly the same position as Ivan. Dostoevsky acted as a sympathetic older brother and helped the lovers. He tried to calm Maria’s suffering and helped Vergunov get a job. And Dostoevsky the writer reinterpreted this relationship in a literary way, and Zina from “Uncle’s Dream” and Natasha in “The Humiliated and Insulted” were born. It is not known whether Maria was a “mother” who decided to protect the “purity” of the young teacher, but Dostoevsky himself interpreted a woman’s love for a man precisely as a mother’s love for the unclouded “childish” soul. The desire to see love in this way was extremely strong in Dostoevsky.

The type of love that Natasha experiences was already revealed in Katerina from “The Mistress.” In her confused and passionate monologues, she talks about Ordynov’s “pure soul”, about the love of his older sister and younger brother. In The Idiot, Natasha will develop into Nastasya Filippovna. When the “child” Myshkin falls in love with Aglaya, she will want to sacrifice herself. In this respect, “The Humiliated and Insulted” can be considered the forerunner of “The Idiot.”

All these “women according to Dostoevsky” are very far from “ earthly love” and its realities, they are the product of Dostoevsky’s admiration for the “pure heart,” an admiration that, like poisonous gas, clouds the head. The “pure heart of a child” seems to these women to be the highest manifestation of “beauty.” They believe that this heart cannot be allowed to be wounded, and therefore they prefer to sacrifice themselves.

As can be seen from the behavior of Maria Alexandrovna from “Uncle’s Dream,” Dostoevsky did not treat the desire to sacrifice himself without criticism. But this naive desire had to do with higher ideals, it was integral part utopianism of the 40s, it was Dostoevsky’s “chronic disease”. Like him female characters, he himself also could not get rid of this disease. Anyone who has read Dostoevsky's late novels - "Crime and Punishment", "Demons", "The Adolescent", "The Brothers Karamazov" - will confirm that Dostoevsky was very sensitive to social and political problems then Russia. But he was not a “social” writer who simply “inserts” newspaper chronicles indicating social discord into his works to describe the psychology of Russian youth. As Dostoevsky’s young friend, Vladimir Solovyov, testified, the writer was preoccupied with the search for the “kingdom of truth” (see “Three Speeches in Memory of Dostoevsky”). Fyodor Mikhailovich himself said that “truth is more poetic than anything that exists in the world.”

Alyosha’s “pure childish heart,” for which Natasha is ready to sacrifice herself, is a fragment of that “poetic truth” that Dostoevsky strove for all his life. This truth can be called differently. In early works this is - happy life, similar to an endless holiday (“Netochka Nezvanova”), brotherly-sisterly love (“Mistress”) - images inspired by the imagery of utopian ideas; in later works it is the “new Jerusalem” (“Crime and Punishment”), “heaven on earth” (“Teenager”).

“The Humiliated and Insulted” is a novel addressed to the mass reader, which tells the story of the complex relationships between urban fathers and daughters in the then Russia of the 60s, but even in this work Dostoevsky could not resist speculating about his understanding of “truth” .

Nellie: characteristics of the heroine

Starting from “Poor People” and ending with “The Diary of a Writer,” Dostoevsky repeatedly describes the fate of silently suffering children with crippled destinies. The abundance of childhood suffering and death is characteristic feature writer's creativity. But these children are often able to understand the psychology of adults better than the adults themselves; they know how to resist despair that adults themselves cannot cope with; They contain such ardent love that adults do not experience.

Nellie from “The Humiliated and Insulted” is a representative of just such a “tribe” of children, but even among them she stands out for her “unchildishness.” There are scenes in the novel where she does not know how to express her feelings towards Ivan, the first man who treated her kindly. As a result, she expresses her love in the form of hostility and even tries to run away from him. Nellie's behavior - so "dark" and so violent - is very different from what we are used to seeing in literature describing girls.

Nellie is on a par with Lisa (“Eternal Husband”), Ilyusha (“The Brothers Karamazov”), and the girl-wife (“Meek”) - in the sense that Dostoevsky, with his inherent “cruel talent,” depicts the suffering of small and weak creatures . It is more common for Fyodor Mikhailvoich to portray the sick and weak than the strong and healthy. In his works, unfortunate boys and girls experience human weakness with amazing strength.

Last year, on the twenty-second of March, in the evening, a strange incident happened to me. All that day I walked around the city and looked for an apartment. The old one was very damp, and by then I was already starting to cough badly. I wanted to move since the fall, but waited until spring. I couldn't find anything decent all day. Firstly, I wanted a special apartment, not from the tenants, and secondly, at least one room, but certainly a large one, and of course at the same time as cheap as possible. I noticed that in a cramped apartment even my thoughts are cramped. When I was thinking about my future stories, I always liked to walk back and forth around the room. By the way: I always found it more pleasant to think about my essays and dream about how they would be written than to actually write them, and, really, this was not out of laziness. From what?

In the morning I felt unwell, and by sunset I even felt very unwell: something like a fever began. Besides, I had been on my feet all day and was tired. In the evening, just before dusk, I walked along Voznesensky Prospekt. I love the March sun in St. Petersburg, especially the sunset, of course on a clear, frosty evening. The whole street will suddenly sparkle, bathed in bright light. All the houses seem to suddenly sparkle. Their gray, yellow and dirty green colors will lose all their gloom for a moment; It’s as if your soul becomes clearer, as if you shudder and someone nudges you with their elbow. A New Look, new thoughts... It's amazing what one ray of sunshine can do to a person's soul!

But the sunbeam went out; the frost grew stronger and began to pinch my nose; the twilight was deepening; gas flashed from shops and stores. Having reached Miller's confectionery, I suddenly stopped in my tracks and began to look at the other side of the street, as if sensing that something extraordinary was about to happen to me, and at that very moment on the opposite side I saw an old man and his dog. I remember very well that my heart sank from some most unpleasant sensation and I myself could not decide what kind of sensation it was.

I'm not a mystic; I almost don’t believe in premonitions and fortune telling; however, several rather inexplicable incidents happened to me, as perhaps to everyone else, in my life. For example, this old man: why, when I met him at that time, did I immediately feel that something not quite ordinary would happen to me that same evening? However, I was sick; and painful sensations are almost always deceptive.

The old man, with his slow, weak step, moving his legs as if they were sticks, as if not bending them, hunched over and lightly hitting his cane on the slabs of the sidewalk, approached the pastry shop. In my life I have never met such a strange, absurd figure. And before this meeting, when we met with him at Miller’s, he always struck me painfully. His high growth, a hunched back, a deathly eighty-year-old face, an old coat, torn at the seams, a broken twenty-year-old round hat that covered his naked head, on which there remained, at the very back of his head, a tuft of hair that was no longer gray, but white-yellow; all his movements, which were made somehow senselessly, as if by a wound-up spring, all this involuntarily amazed everyone who met him for the first time. Indeed, it was somehow strange to see such an outdated old man alone, unattended, especially since he looked like a madman who had run away from his guards. I was also struck by his extraordinary thinness: there was almost no body on him, and it was as if only skin was glued to his bones. His large but dull eyes, set in some kind of blue circles, always looked straight ahead, never to the side and never seeing anything - I’m sure of that. Although he was looking at you, he walked straight towards you, as if there was empty space in front of him. I've noticed this several times. He started appearing at Miller's recently, from nowhere and always with his dog. None of the visitors to the pastry shop ever dared to talk to him, and he himself did not speak to any of them.

“And why is he dragging himself to Miller, and what should he do there? – I thought, standing on the other side of the street and irresistibly looking at him. Some kind of annoyance - a consequence of illness and fatigue - began to boil inside me. -What is he thinking about? - I continued to myself, - what is in his head? And does he still think about anything? His face is so dead that it expresses absolutely nothing. And where did he get this disgusting dog, which does not leave his side, as if it were something whole, inseparable with him, and which is so similar to him?

This unfortunate dog also seemed to be about eighty years old; yes, it certainly had to be. Firstly, she looked as old as any dog ​​can be, and secondly, why did it immediately occur to me, from the first time I saw her, that this dog could not be like all dogs; that she is an extraordinary dog; that there must certainly be something fantastic, enchanted in it; that this might be some kind of Mephistopheles doggy style and that her fate is connected by some mysterious, unknown bonds with the fate of her owner. Looking at her, you would immediately agree that it had probably been twenty years since she last ate. She was thin, like a skeleton, or (which is better?) like her master. Almost all the fur had come out on her, also on her tail, which hung like a stick, always tucked tightly. The long-eared head hung down gloomily. I have never met such a nasty dog ​​in my life. When they both walked down the street - the gentleman in front, and the dog behind him - her nose directly touched the hem of his dress, as if glued to it. And their gait and their whole appearance almost said with every step:

We are old, old, God, how old we are!

I remember that it once occurred to me that the old man and the dog had somehow crawled out of some page of Hoffmann, illustrated by Gavarni, and were walking around the world in the form of walking posters for the publication. I crossed the street and followed the old man into the candy store.

In the candy store, the old man gave himself a very strange performance, and Miller, standing behind his counter, began to Lately make a dissatisfied grimace when an uninvited visitor enters. Firstly, the strange guest never asked anything. Each time he went straight to the corner of the stove and sat down on a chair there. If his place at the stove was occupied, then, after standing for some time in senseless bewilderment at the gentleman who had taken his place, he would go, as if puzzled, to another corner to the window. There he chose a chair, slowly sat down on it, took off his hat, put it on the floor next to him, put his cane next to the hat and then, leaning back in the chair, remained motionless for three or four hours. He never picked up a single newspaper, never uttered a single word, not a single sound; but just sat, looking in front of him with all his eyes, but with such a dull, lifeless gaze that one could bet that he saw nothing of everything around him and heard nothing. The dog, having twirled around two or three times in one place, sullenly lay down at his feet, stuck its muzzle between his boots, sighed deeply and, stretching out to its full length on the floor, also remained motionless for the whole evening, as if dying for this time. It seemed as if these two creatures had been lying somewhere dead all day and, as the sun set, they suddenly came to life only in order to get to Miller’s confectionery and thereby fulfill some mysterious, unknown duty. After sitting for three or four hours, the old man would finally get up, take his hat and go home somewhere. The dog also got up and, again tucking its tail and hanging its head, mechanically followed him at the same slow pace. The visitors to the candy store finally began to avoid the old man in every possible way and did not even sit next to him, as if he inspired disgust in them. He didn't notice any of this.

Ivan Petrovich, a twenty-four-year-old aspiring writer, in search of new apartment meets a strange old man with a dog on a St. Petersburg street. Impossibly thin, in rags, he has a habit of sitting for hours in Miller's pastry shop near Voznesensky Prospekt, warming himself by the stove and staring with a deathly, unseeing gaze at one of the visitors. On this March evening, one of them is indignant at the “impoliteness” of the poor man. He leaves in fear and dies nearby on the sidewalk. Arriving at the stranger's home, Ivan Petrovich finds out his name - Smith - and decides to move into his empty home under the very roof of an apartment building,

An orphan since childhood, Ivan Petrovich grew up in the family of Nikolai Sergeevich Ikhmenev, a small nobleman of an old family, managing the rich estate of Prince Pyotr Alexandrovich Valkovsky. Friendship and love connected him with the Ikhmenevs’ daughter Natasha, three years younger than him. As a young man, the hero went to St. Petersburg, to university, and saw “his people” only five years later, when they moved to the capital because of a quarrel with Valkovsky. The latter showed friendship and trust to his manager for many years, to the point that he sent his then nineteen-year-old son Alyosha to be “educated” by him. Believing rumors about the Ikhmenevs’ desire to marry the young prince to their daughter, Valkovsky, in retaliation, accused the kind, honest and naive old man of theft and started a lawsuit.

Ivan Petrovich is almost a daily guest at the Ikhmenevs’, where he is again welcomed as family. It was here that he read his first novel, which had just been published and was extremely successful. The love between him and Natasha is growing stronger, there is already talk of a wedding, with which, however, they decide to wait one year until the groom’s literary position is strengthened.

The “wonderful” time passes when Alyosha begins to visit the Ikhmenevs. Valkovsky, who has his own plans for his son’s future, repeats the accusation of pimping and forbids the latter to see Natasha. The offended Ikhmenev, however, does not suspect the love of his daughter and the young prince until she leaves her parental home for her lover.

The lovers rent an apartment and want to get married soon. Their relationship is complicated by Alyosha's unusual character. This handsome, graceful secular youth is a mere child in terms of naivety, selflessness, innocence, sincerity, but also selfishness, frivolity, irresponsibility, and spinelessness. Loving Natasha immensely, he does not try to provide for her financially, often leaves her alone, and prolongs the painful state of his mistress for her. The carried away, weak-willed Alyosha succumbs to the influence of his father, who wants to marry him to a rich woman. To do this, it is necessary to separate his son from Natasha, and the prince denies the young man financial support. This serious challenge for a young couple. But Natasha is ready to live modestly and work. In addition, the bride found by the prince for Alyosha, Katya, is a beautiful girl, pure and naive, like her intended groom. It is impossible not to be carried away by her, and the new love, according to the calculations of the intelligent and insightful prince, will soon displace the old one from the unstable heart of his son. And Katya herself already loves Alyosha, not knowing that he is not free.

From the very beginning, her lover is clear to Natasha: “if I am not with him always, constantly, every moment, he will stop loving me, forget me and leave me.” She loves “like crazy”, “it’s not good”, she “even the torment from him is happiness.” A stronger nature, she strives to dominate and “torture until it hurts” - “and that’s why ‹…› hastened to be ‹…› the first sacrifice.” Natasha continues to love Ivan Petrovich - as a sincere and reliable friend, a support, a “heart of gold” that selflessly bestows her with care and warmth. "The three of us will live together."

Smith's former apartment is visited by his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Nellie. Struck by her isolation, wildness and beggarly appearance, Ivan Petrovich finds out the conditions of her life: Nellie’s mother recently died of consumption, and the girl fell into the hands of a cruel pimp. Thinking about ways to save Nellie, the hero runs into an old school friend Masloboev on the street, a private detective, with the help of whom he snatches the girl from a depraved den and settles her in his apartment. Nellie is seriously ill, and most importantly, misfortune and human malice have made her distrustful and painfully proud. She accepts care for herself with suspicion, slowly thaws, but finally becomes passionately attached to her savior. He is even jealous of Natasha, whose fate her older friend is so preoccupied with.

It's been six months since the latter left her inconsolable parents. The father suffers silently and proudly, shedding tears over the portrait of his daughter at night, and condemning and almost cursing her during the day. The mother takes her soul away in conversations about her with Ivan Petrovich, who reports all the news. They are disappointing. Alyosha is getting closer and closer to Katya, not showing up at Natasha’s for several days. She thinks about breaking up: “He can’t marry me; he is unable to go against his father.” It’s hard “when he himself, the first, forgets” her near another - that’s why Natasha wants to get ahead of the “traitor.” However, Alyosha announces to Katya that their marriage is impossible because of his love for Natasha and his obligations to her. The generosity of the “bride,” who approved of his “nobility” and showed concern for the situation of his “happy” rival, delights Alyosha. Prince Valkovsky, concerned about his son’s “firmness,” makes a new “move.” Coming to Natasha and Alyosha, he gives feigned consent to their marriage, hoping that the calmed conscience of the young man will no longer be an obstacle to his growing love for Katya. Alyosha is “delighted” with his father’s action; Ivan Petrovich, based on a number of signs, notices that the prince does not care about his son’s happiness. Natasha also quickly unravels Valkovsky’s “game,” whose plan, however, is quite successful. During a heated conversation, she exposes him in front of Alyosha. The pretender decides to act differently: he asks to be friends with Ivan Petrovich.

The latter is surprised to learn that the prince is using Masloboev’s services on some matter related to Nelly and her deceased mother. Using innuendo and hints, a classmate introduces the hero to his essence: many years ago, Valkovsky “got into” an enterprise with the English breeder Smith. Wanting to take possession of his money “for free,” he seduced and took abroad an idealist passionately in love with him, Smith’s daughter, who gave it to him. A bankrupt old man cursed his daughter. Soon the swindler abandoned the girl, with whom, apparently, he was nevertheless forced to marry, with little Nelly in his arms, without any means of livelihood. After long wanderings, the terminally ill mother returned with Nellie to St. Petersburg in the hope that the girl’s father would take part in her fate. In desperation, she more than once tried to write to her scoundrel husband, overcoming pride and contempt. Valkovsky himself, cherishing plans for a new profitable marriage, was afraid of documents about the legal marriage, possibly kept by Nellie’s mother. Masloboev was hired to search for them.

Valkovsky takes the hero to Katya’s for the evening, where Alyosha is also present. Natasha’s friend can be convinced of the futility of her hopes for Alyosha’s love: Natasha’s “groom” cannot tear himself away from Katya’s company. Then Ivan Petrovich and the prince go to dinner at a restaurant. During the conversation, Valkovsky drops his mask: he arrogantly disparages Ikhmenev’s gullibility and nobility, cynically rants about Natasha’s feminine virtues, reveals his mercantile plans for Alyosha and Katya, laughs at Ivan Petrovich’s feelings for Natasha and offers him money for marrying her. This is a strong, but absolutely immoral person, whose credo is “love yourself” and use others to your advantage. The prince is especially amused by playing on the sublime feelings of his victims. He himself values ​​only money and rough pleasures. He wants the hero to prepare Natasha for the imminent separation from Alyosha (he must go to the village with Katya) without “scenes, pastorals and Schillerism.” His goal is to remain a loving and noble father in the eyes of his son “for the most convenient subsequent acquisition of Katya’s money.”

Far from his father’s plans, Alyosha is torn between two girls, no longer knowing which one he loves more. However, Katya is more of a match for him by nature. Before leaving, the rivals meet and decide Alyosha’s fate apart from his participation: Natasha painfully yields to Katya her lover, “without character” and childishly “narrow-minded” in mind. In a strange way, “this is what she loved most about him,” and now Katya loves the same thing.

Valkovsky offers the abandoned Natasha money for an affair with the depraved old man Count. Ivan Petrovich, who arrived in time, beats and rudely drives out the offender. Natasha must return to parents' house. But how can one convince old man Ikhmenev to forgive his beloved daughter, who has disgraced him? In addition to other grievances, the prince has just won a lawsuit and is robbing the unfortunate father of his entire small fortune.

The Ikhmenevs had long been planning to take in an orphan girl. The choice fell on Nellie. But she refused to live with “cruel” people like her grandfather Smith, who never forgave her mother during her lifetime. By begging Nellie to tell Ikhmenev the story of her mother, Ivan Petrovich hopes to soften the old man’s heart. His plan succeeds: the family is reunited, and Nellie soon becomes “the idol of the whole house” and responds to “universal love” for herself.

On warm June evenings, Ivan Petrovich, Masloboev and the doctor often gather in the hospitable house of the Ikhmenevs on Vasilyevsky Island. Separation is coming: the old man has received a position in Perm. Natasha is sad about what she experienced. Family happiness is also overshadowed by Nellie's serious heart disease, from which the poor thing soon dies. Before her death, the legitimate daughter of Prince Valkovsky does not forgive, contrary to the gospel commandment, her traitor father, but, on the contrary, curses him. Natasha, dejected by the future separation from Ivan Petrovich, regrets that she ruined their possible happiness together.

These notes were compiled by the hero a year after the events described. Now he is alone, in the hospital and it seems that he will die soon.

Natasha’s mother experiences no less suffering, forced to endure both her daughter’s departure and her husband’s anger. But Natasha also suffers, whose love Dostoevsky portrayed in the novel as self-sacrifice. In the name of feelings for Alyosha, the girl forgets about all her previous affections and sacrifices her own dignity. Dostoevsky highly appreciates Natasha’s selfless love and sees strength of character in her actions.

However, life does not bring her happiness. Natasha suffers both because her father cursed her and because of the prince’s treachery. But the direct culprit of Natasha’s suffering is none other than Alyosha. It was he who tore her away from her family, disgraced by his own father; he deceived her with the promise of marriage. He leaves Natasha and, at the insistence of the prince, marries the owner of a million-dollar fortune. It would seem that there is every reason to condemn the culprit of Natasha’s drama, Alyosha. But Dostoevsky does not do this. In accordance with the code of Christian humanism, the writer “mitigates” Alyosha’s guilt. The narrator on whose behalf the story is told, the writer Ivan Petrovich, looks at Alyosha with the loving eyes of Natasha.

He does not see the selfishness of the hero’s behavior, and sometimes he admires, even admires Alyosha and is inclined to interpret all the low actions of the young prince as a harmless manifestation of sweet childishness. The author forced his dishonored, deceived heroine to call for pity and forgiveness: “Don’t blame him (Alyosha - P.P.), Vanya,” interrupted Natasha... “you can’t judge him like everyone else... he was not brought up like that.” . Does he understand what he is doing?.. He has no character...” Here Dostoevsky quite clearly preaches the Christian idea of ​​forgiveness to our offenders, and this weakens the social urgency of the novel.

The hatred of this “Christian virtue” was subtly noticed by Dobrolyubov, from whom Alyosha did not arouse sympathy.

Some modern critics highlight Alyosha’s sincerity and are even inclined to draw a line from this “barchuk” to the hero of the novel “The Idiot” Myshkin or to Alyosha Karamazov. But such a parallel is not solid. Sincerity itself does not protect a person from bad deeds, does not guarantee against selfishness, and does not make a person impeccable. Yes, Alyosha is sincere and, perhaps, even kind, but, unlike Myshkin, there is selfishness and selfishness in him. And this is manifested both in his attitude towards Katya and in his love for Natasha. When he convinces Natasha to agree to his marriage with Katya, the egoistic logic is noticeable in his words: since Natasha loves him, it means that she should love his happiness, that is, agree to his marriage with Katya. With the entire course of the plot, the author proves that if Alyosha had really been on Natasha’s side, if his love for her had been faithful, strong, devoid of selfishness, no one would have destroyed their happiness and neither Natasha nor her parents would have become victims of Prince Valkovsky. However, as a moralist, Dostoevsky does not condemn Alyosha. On the contrary, he's in in this case preaches the idea of ​​forgiveness, making Natasha the bearer of this idea. But modern reader, alien to the Christian idea of ​​forgiveness, cannot look at Alyosha through the eyes of Natasha. He judges the hero by his actions and deeds. Naturally, our assessment of Alyosha differs from Dostoevsky’s assessment.

Dostoevsky’s code of humanism also included such a concept as suffering. The writer was sincerely convinced that suffering purifies a person. And therefore, in the Ikhmenev family, the question of active struggle against social injustice. If in Dostoevsky’s first novel “Poor People” the hero Makar Devushkin sharply protested against the suffering of the humiliated and insulted, tried to reveal the social causes of this suffering (“For what morality is all this being done?” he asked), then in the novel “The Humiliated and Insulted” Ikhmenev refuses protest and calls for proud humility: “Oh! let us be humiliated, let us be insulted, but we are together again, and let, now let these proud and arrogant ones, who humiliated and insulted us, triumph!” Dostoevsky attached great importance to this passive solidarity of all those who have gone through the crucible of suffering, who have come to terms with their disastrous, humiliated situation and are not looking for a way out in the struggle. Therefore, with the call to “go hand in hand”, with which Ikhmenev addresses Natasha, whom he has forgiven, Dostoevsky ends the fourth part of the novel.

But this storyline of “The Humiliated and Insulted” is not the main achievement of Dostoevsky the realist. It is covered by another storyline of the novel, which is completed in the epilogue - the story of Nellie and the entire Smith family.

Old Man Smith with his dog Azorka, whose fate was “in some mysterious, unknown ways connected with the fate of its owner”; Nellie's mother, rejected by her father, begging on the streets of St. Petersburg and dying in a damp basement, and, finally, Nellie herself, suffering beatings from the bourgeois woman and the pimp Bubnova and all sorts of abuse from her clients - all these humiliated and insulted are depicted in the novel with even greater social acuity. It is the tragic fate of Nelly, this proud, not childishly serious girl who went through all the torment and tyranny of earthly hell, excitedly told by Dostoevsky, that allows us to deeply reveal the blatant injustice of social relations. But Nellie is not passive. She cannot come to terms with and forgive her offenders. On the contrary, she is obsessed with revenge. Her rebellion against the prince and against the conditions of complete tragedy surrounding her. Dostoevsky, in his novel “The Humiliated and the Insulted,” for the first time so acutely raised the question of the suffering of innocent children crippled by the conditions of bourgeois reality.

The image of Nellie is a great artistic achievement of Dostoevsky the realist. From this image, as well as from the image of Netochka Nezvanova (the heroine of the story of the same name), a direct line will stretch to the heroine of the novel “The Idiot” Nastasya Filippovna, the same as Nellie, proud, shy, extremely proud, denouncing the injustices of the bourgeois world.

Thus, depicting the fates of Natasha Ikhmeneva and Nelly, Dostoevsky gives, as it were, two answers to the question about the behavior of a suffering person: on the one hand, passive, enlightened humility, and on the other, an irreconcilable curse on the entire unjust world. These two answers left their mark on artistic structure novel: the entire line of the Ikhmenevs is painted in lyrical, sometimes sentimental and conciliatory tones; in the description of the story of Nellie and the atrocities of Prince Valkovsky, an accusatory palette of colors predominates. Between these two storylines of the novel - passive and active protest - there are very significant connecting links: Prince Valkovsky and his antipode - the writer Ivan Petrovich, on whose behalf the story is told. Valkovsky embodies He contains all the evil of the capitalist world. He is a high-society libertine, a scoundrel, a seducer and an egoist. He recognizes one rule: “Love yourself!” For him, life is a commercial transaction, and people are only a means to achieve selfish goals. The prince first marries the daughter of a tax farmer, appropriates her fortune, and soon he takes his wife away from the world - he deceives the daughter of the breeder Smith, the future mother of Nellie. and robs this woman too, and then drives her out into the street. The prince gives his son Alyosha to Ikhmenev to untie his hands. Having learned about Katya’s millions, the prince intends her to be Alyosha’s bride. Money for this demon of profit is the measure of all things, a symbol. power; in the name of money, he is ready to commit any crimes. “I love importance, rank, hotels, debauchery, and not ideals in life,” the prince cynically declares, he mocks the Schiller romance of youth, the high ideals of the poets. everything that is not subject to monetary interest. The prince is sure that “the deepest egoism lies at the basis of all human virtues.” Dostoevsky needed such a concentration of vices in one person in order to clearly depict the truly satanic power of capital in those years, in order to arouse the reader’s hatred for him. her.

If Prince Valkovsky is depicted as the pole of evil, then the narrator Ivan Petrovich is depicted as the pole of good; according to the author’s plan, a man in highest degree humane and generous. In this hero Dostoevsky captured some of the features of his own biography: Ivan Petrovich is a writer, his first novel resembles Dostoevsky’s first novel “Poor People,” and critic B.’s review of this novel is Belinsky’s review of “Poor People.” But Ivan Petrovich is not only a narrator, he is also the protagonist of the novel, a hero in love with Natasha. With the help of Ivan Petrovich, all the threads of the highly branched plot of the novel are connected.

As a narrator, Ivan Petrovich “is something like a confidant of ancient tragedies to us,” writes Dobrolyubov. “Natasha’s father comes to him to inform him of his intentions, her mother sends for him to ask about Natasha, Natasha calls him to her to pour out him his heart, Alyosha turns to him - to express his love, frivolity and repentance, Katya, Alyosha’s fiancée, meets him to talk with him about Alyosha’s love for Natasha, he comes across Nellie to show his character, and Masloboev to find out and to tell about Nellie’s relationship with the prince, and finally, the prince himself... gets drunk so much as to express to Ivan Petrovich all the nastiness of his character. And Ivan Petrovich listens to everything and writes everything down.” This role of Ivan Petrovich is completely justified. And not only by his writing profession, but also by the humanity of his nature, which in many ways resembles the nature of Dostoevsky himself. The clash between Ivan Petrovich and Prince Valkovsky gives a well-known idea of ​​the ideological conflict mid-19th centuries between good and evil, altruism and selfishness, predation and selflessness. Having no real opportunity to actively fight against evil, Ivan Petrovich diligently strives for moral assistance to all the humiliated and insulted, he grieves them with sorrows and sympathizes with their suffering.

A slightly different role of Ivan Petrovich as the hero of the novel, as a man who fell in love with Natasha. By creating this image, Dostoevsky developed his theory of sacrificial love, love-altruism. Ivan Petrovich loves Natasha infinitely. His self-forgetfulness in love reaches such an extent that he is ready to give her up to Alyosha in the name of Natasha’s happiness. Dostoevsky creates a character who will later be embodied in Prince Myshkin in the novel “The Idiot,” where this theory of love-altruism will receive broad justification.

How to interpret this character? What predominates in him: strength or weakness? Dobrolyubov answered this question quite definitely: weakness. He wrote: “I confess, I don’t like all these gentlemen who bring their spiritual greatness to the point of deliberately kissing their bride’s lover and being at his beck and call. They either didn’t love at all, or they loved only with their heads... If these romantic self-sacrifices definitely loved, then what rag hearts they must have, what chicken feelings! And these people were shown to us as the ideal of something!”

Dobrolyubov openly expressed his dislike for a hero capable of sacrificial love, and in this one could feel the spirit of the era of the 60s, when the debunking of weak-willed noble intellectuals became one of the main tasks of Russian democracy. Dostoevsky himself did not consider the behavior of his Ivan Petrovich a manifestation of weakness. On the contrary, he saw in this a sign of fortitude, a person’s ability to rise above his own egoism and perform an altruistic act - to ensure the happiness of his neighbor. Therefore, he sincerely saw something ideal in the actions of Ivan Petrovich and infected the reader with this mood.

“Humiliated and Offended” is a specific type of novel genre. It combines the features of a psychological novel with elements of an adventure-detective novel. Events are extremely concentrated and occur in the shortest possible period of time. Psychological conflicts develop in the form of acute and intense dialogues. The characters confess to each other, talk about their past, their feelings and experiences, reveal their views on the world (such are the heartfelt confessions of Ikhmenev, Nellie, or the cynical, character-revealing and repulsive confessions of Prince Valkovsky with their ugliness).

Dostoevsky also attaches great importance to the external and objective environment of the heroes, to pictures of nature. Landscape in Dostoevsky always plays an important psychological role. The novel begins with a symbolic picture of evening Petersburg: “In the evening, just before dusk, I walked along Voznesensky Prospekt. I love the March sun in St. Petersburg, especially the sunset, of course, on a clear, frosty evening. The whole street will suddenly sparkle, bathed in bright light. All the houses seem to suddenly sparkle. Their gray, yellow and dirty green colors will lose all their gloom for a moment; as if your soul would clear up, as if you would shudder or someone would nudge you with their elbow. A new look, new thoughts... It’s amazing what one ray of sun can do to a person’s soul!” It is not difficult to notice that the author correlates the picture of nature with his mood (“as if my soul would clear up”). Before proceeding to the presentation of events, a description of nature is again given: “But the sun’s ray went out; the frost grew stronger and began to pinch my nose; the twilight was deepening; gas flashed from shops and stores.” However, here the extinguished ray is no longer just a detail of the landscape, but also a harbinger of some kind of misfortune, some unfortunate event. And then we learn about the death of the lonely old man Smith and his strange dog. For Dostoevsky, nature is always the key to upcoming events. After Smith's death, Ivan Petrovich, who moved into his apartment, speaks of his sadness; as a narrator, he focuses our attention on the fact that “the weather was inclement and cold,” “it was snowing,” but in the evening “the sun appeared and some stray ray, probably out of curiosity, looked into my room.” "The Lost Ray" foreshadows the appearance of Nellie, Smith's granddaughter. In Chapter VIII of the fourth part of the novel, the reconciliation of Nikolai Sergeevich Ikhmenev with Natasha is preceded by a remarkable phenomenon: a “rather strong clap of thunder” is heard. The chapter ends with Ikhmenev forgiving his daughter, and about Natasha the author writes: “The scarf with which she covered her head was bunched up on the back of her head, and large drops of rain sparkled on the broken thick strands of her hair.” Nature here testifies to the purification and rebirth of the human soul. In his confession, set out in the subsequent (Chapter IX), Ikhmenev explains the true meaning of the symbol: “She is here again, near my heart! - he cried, “oh, thank you, God, for everything, for everything, both for your anger and for your mercy!.. And for your sun, which has shone now, after the thunderstorm, on us!” (italics mine. - P.P.).

Thus, Dostoevsky not only humanizes nature, but also very skillfully merges landscape with action, with the portrait and character of the hero.

Among visual arts With the help of which Dostoevsky creates images of heroes, expressive portrait sketches occupy a significant place. Usually they are accompanied by the author's emotional assessment. Here, for example, is a portrait of Natasha Ikhmeneva: “I looked at her with bewilderment and fear. How she has changed in three weeks! My heart ached with melancholy when I saw those sunken, pale cheeks, lips parched as if in a fever, and eyes sparkling from under dark eyelashes with a fiery fire and some kind of passionate determination.” It is not difficult to notice what clearly “shines through” in this portrait inner world heroines.

The portrait of Prince Valkovsky is conveyed in detail and is very thoroughly commented by the author: “The correct oval of the face is somewhat dark, excellent teeth, small and rather thin lips, beautifully outlined, a straight, somewhat oblong nose, a high forehead, on which not the slightest wrinkle was yet visible, gray, rather large eyes...” These are the objective details of the portrait. Next come the author’s debunking comments: “... all this made him almost handsome, and yet his face did not make a pleasant impression.” We immediately learn that the expression on the prince’s face “was as if not his own, but always feigned, deliberate, borrowed”, that “under the always mask” lies “something evil, cunning and extremely selfish”, that “his rays the glances seemed to split into two and between the soft, affectionate rays flashed hard, distrustful, inquisitive, angry ones.” The portrait imperceptibly turned into an expanded psychological characteristics, and this is the strength of Dostoevsky the artist, who erases the boundaries between external and internal, thanks to which he “manifests” main feature your hero.

The novel “The Humiliated and the Insulted” preceded such large philosophical and psychological paintings by Dostoevsky as “Crime and Punishment”, “The Idiot”, “The Brothers Karamazov”. It marked the victory of the realistic principle in Dostoevsky’s work in the 60s. “The Humiliated and Insulted” earned universal recognition from readers and progressive critics, who were able, on the basis of this work, to predict the further rise of the great writer. The novel had a great influence on Russian society and on subsequent literature, since he aroused hatred of those who humiliate and insult human dignity, called for humanity, for the education of true nobility.

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Narration in "Humiliated and Offended" conducted in the first person. Ivan Petrovich - an aspiring poor St. Petersburg writer, commoner - is both the narrator and the protagonist of the novel. This image is partly autobiographical in nature. Story about literary debut Ivan Petrovich, an enthusiastic assessment of his first novel by “critic B.” (i.e. V. G. Belinsky), the relationship of the young writer with his “entrepreneur” (publisher) - these and some other facts go back to the biography of the young Dostoevsky.

In "Humiliated and Offended" the novelist abandoned the strict chronological principle characteristic of his subsequent novels. The chronology of the novel is confusing, and the historical background against which the events take place is conventional.

"Humiliated and insulted" - first great novel Dostoevsky after hard labor. It reflected the ideological and artistic evolution of the writer, who brought from Siberia the conviction about the tragic isolation of the advanced Russian intelligentsia from the “soil”, disbelief in the revolutionary path of transforming Russian reality.

Ivan Petrovich is depicted as a writer of the Belinsky school and an ideological like-minded critic. However, the humanistic ideal of brotherhood, goodness and justice to which the hero is faithful, unlike Belinsky’s ideals, is not of an active, effective nature. The attitude of the heroes towards the literary first-born of Ivan Petrovich, as it were, serves as a criterion for their moral essence. The humanistic pathos of “Poor People” is close to the Ikhmenevs, but completely alien to Valkovsky, who is capable of feeling for the disadvantaged “little man” only a feeling of arrogant contempt characteristic of an aristocratic environment.

The events described in the novel take place in St. Petersburg. The writer strove to accurately reproduce the topography of the northern capital. The anti-capitalist theme, interpreted by Dostoevsky from a humanistic perspective, runs through the entire novel.

The story of Nellie allowed Dostoevsky to depict the St. Petersburg slums and brothels with their inhabitants, the life of the urban social “bottom”, where poverty, illness, vices, and crimes reign. " Small man", lost in it scary world, doomed to poverty, shame, physical and moral death. The fates of the other heroes of the novel, “humiliated and insulted,” are no less tragic. Nellie's mother and grandfather, robbed and deceived by Valkovsky, die; misfortunes befell the Ikhmenev family, ruined and disgraced by the same Valkovsky; The personal life and literary plans of Ivan Petrovich collapsed.

The omnipotent and triumphant evil is represented in the novel by Prince Valkovsky, who, according to the apt remark of N. A. Dobrolyubov, “has his soul completely taken out.” Valkovsky is a theorist and practitioner of frank, cynical, predatory egoism and individualism. Everyone is drawn to this ominous figure. storylines novel. He is the cause of misfortune and suffering for the “humiliated and insulted.”

Valkovsky is a new type for the writer. This hero-ideologist is the literary predecessor of more complex and artistically perfect heroes of the same plan - the “underground paradoxist”, Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, Stavrogin. The image of Valkovsky does not yet possess the psychological and philosophical complexity that is characteristic, for example, of those most related to him, Svidrigailov and Stavrogin, in whose souls, however, there is a painful struggle between evil and good.

The image of Prince Valkovsky has certain analogies in Western European literature - in the works of Choderlos de Laclos, Marquis de Sade, Schiller, Hoffmann, E. Sue, F. Soulier, Balzac. Money for Valkovsky is the main driver and executor human destinies. Moreover, the prince is a hedonist who strives to enjoy life, to which he treats as a consumer. “Life is a commercial transaction,” Valkovsky asserts in a conversation with Ivan Petrovich, “don’t throw money away for nothing, but, perhaps, pay for pleasing, and you will fulfill all your duties to your neighbor,” that’s my morality<...>I don't have and don't want to have ideals<...>You can live so cheerfully, so sweetly in the world without ideals..."

If Valkovsky belongs to the “predatory type,” then his son Alyosha is one of the kind, but weak, weak-willed people. Childhood, simplicity, and “innocence” give Alyosha a peculiar charm and partly make him similar to Alyosha Karamazov. In contrast to his father, Alyosha is not a conscious bearer of evil, but his thoughtless egoism, frivolity, and irresponsibility in his actions objectively contribute to evil.

Drawing the world of the “humiliated and insulted,” Dostoevsky does not idealize the internal capabilities of his heroes. These are not only good, noble, unfortunate and suffering people, worthy of love and participation. At the same time, they are morally sick, flawed, because the constant insult human dignity does not go unpunished, but cripples a person’s soul and embitters him.

Selfishness separates, separates even those closest to you, dear friends friend of people (the Ikhmenev family), hinders their human understanding and unity. Valkovsky is the bearer of the most terrible thing - predatory, cynical, wolfish egoism. Alyosha Valkovsky and Katya represent naive, spontaneous egoism in the novel. Natasha is characterized by the selfishness of sick, exclusive, sacrificial love for an unworthy chosen one, making her deaf to the suffering of loved ones (parents, Ivan Petrovich). She, like Nellie, is highly characterized by the egoism of suffering, in which she proudly and fiercely withdraws. The selfishness of suffering is also characteristic of old man Ikhmenev and partly of Ivan Petrovich.

Of course, Dostoevsky understood that such moral unity does not destroy social evil, which triumphs in the novel in the person of Valkovsky. The finale of the novel shows the tragically destroyed destinies of its heroes. The humanist writer truthfully showed the tragically insoluble conflicts of his era.

The most thorough and meaningful analysis of the novel “Humiliated and Insulted” is given in the famous article by N. A. Dobrolyubov “Downtrodden People”, published in the September book of Sovremennik for 1861.

Dobrolyubov ranked Dostoevsky's novel among the "best literary phenomena of the year" and mentioned with sympathy Dostoevsky's commitment to the "humanistic" trend of the 1840s.

Dobrolyubov noted that in “The Humiliated and Insulted” “there are a lot of lively, well-finished details, the hero of the novel, although he aims for melodrama, is not bad in places, the character of little Nelly is depicted positively well, the character of the old man Ikhmenev is also very vividly and naturally outlined "All this gives the novel the right to the attention of the public."

However, in general, the novel did not satisfy the critic, who said that “Humiliated and Insulted” was “below aesthetic requirements.”

Among the artistic failures of the novel, Dobrolyubov considers the image of the main character, who, according to the critic, from “all the humiliated and insulted<...>humiliated and insulted perhaps more than anyone else." "The action of the novel," the critic notes, "lasts about a month, and here Ivan Petrovich is constantly running errands <...>But that's it; What it’s in his soul, we don’t know, although we see that he’s not feeling well. In a word, before us is not a passionately in love, to the point of self-sacrifice loving person <...>in front of us simply an author who clumsily adopted a well-known story form without thinking about the responsibilities it imposes on him. That is why the tone of the story is decidedly false, composed; and the narrator himself, who, in essence, should be a character, is something like a confidant of ancient tragedies for us." Other characters in the novel were also criticized." Natasha’s syllogisms are amazingly true, as if she studied them in the seminary,” Dobrolyubov sneers. - Her psychological insight is amazing; the structure of her speech would have done honor to any speaker, even the ancients. But you must agree, it’s very noticeable that Natasha speaks in the style of Mr. Dostoevsky? And this syllable is learned for the most part characters". The critic is perplexed, "how can a stinking booger like Alyosha inspire the love of such a girl.". Dostoevsky did not explain this. “The heroine’s heart is hidden from us, and the author, apparently, understands its secrets no more than we do.”

According to the critic, Dostoevsky also failed to “look into the soul” of Valkovsky. The general nature of Dobrolyubov’s comments indicates that he assessed Dostoevsky’s novel primarily from the standpoint of Gogol’s poetics and the “natural school” of the 1840s-1850s, which provided for the social motivation of the characters and behavior of the heroes. Therefore, the critic could not fully appreciate Dostoevsky’s artistic innovation, which paved the way for the ideological novel. The title of Dobrolyubov’s article is directly related to his interpretation ideological content novel. The critic classifies Dostoevsky’s “humiliated and insulted” heroes as “downtrodden people,” qualifying their “downtroddenness” as “renunciation of of one's own will, from one's own personality."

Reflecting on the situation of “downtrodden, humiliated and insulted individuals,” of whom “we have many in the middle class,” Dobrolyubov comes to the conclusion that, despite outward reconciliation with their situation, “they feel its bitterness” and “long for a way out.” “Where is this exit, when and how - life will show.”

The critic looks with a certain optimism at the future of the “downtrodden people”, since since the appearance of “Makar Ivanovich and his brothers,” life has already stepped forward, and in society there is a “general desire to restore human dignity and full rights in each and every one.” “Perhaps,” concludes Dobrolyubov, “here a way out of the bitter situation of the driven and downtrodden is already opening up, of course, not through their own efforts, but with the help of characters less exposed to the weight of such a killing and oppressive situation.