Ivan Flyagin: characteristics of the hero and features of the image

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

N. S. Leskov's life was difficult and painful. Misunderstood and underestimated by his contemporaries, he received blows from right-wing critics as insufficiently loyal and from left-wing ones, the same N. A. Nekrasov, who could not help but see the depth of the writer’s talent, but did not publish it in his Sovremennik. And Leskov, the wizard of the word, weaved patterns of Russian speech and lowered his heroes into those abysses in which Dostoevsky's heroes painfully existed, and then raised them to heaven, where the world of Leo Tolstoy was.

He laid a path in our prose that connected these two geniuses. This is especially noticeable when you plunge into the structure of the story "The Enchanted Wanderer". Ivan Flyagin, whose characteristics will be presented below, then descends into the underworld, then soars up to the heights of the spirit.

Hero Appearance

The enchanted wanderer is presented by Leskov as a typical Russian hero. He is huge, and the long black cassock and high cap on his head make him even bigger.

Ivan has a swarthy face, over 50. His hair is thick, but with leadgrey. In size and power, he reminds me of Ilya of Muromets, the good-natured hero from Russian epics. This is how Ivan Flyagin looks like, whose characteristics will reveal the connection between the external and the internal, his wanderings and the dynamics of his development.

Childhood and first murder

He grew up in a stable and knew the temperament of every horse, knew how to cope with the most skittish horse, and this requires not only physical strength, but strength of mind, which the horse will feel and even recognize the owner in a child. And a strong personality grew up, which was morally somewhat undeveloped. The author tells in detail what Ivan Flyagin was at that time. His characterization is given in the episode when he just like that, from the fullness of forces that have nowhere to apply, effortlessly killed an innocent monk. There was only a wave of a whip, with which an eleven-year-old boy hit the monk, and the horses carried away, and the monk, having fallen, immediately died without repentance.

But the soul of the murdered man appeared to the boy and promised that he would die many times, but still go to the monks, not perishing on the roads of life.

Saving the lord's family

And right next to Leskov, like beads, he tells a tale about the opposite case, when, again without thinking about anything, Ivan Flyagin saves the life of his masters. His characteristic is courage and daring, which the fool does not even think about, but only again simply acts without any thought.

The child was led by God, and he saved him from certain death in a deepabyss. These are the abysses into which Leskov immediately throws his character. But from a young age he is completely disinterested. Ivan Flyagin asked for an accordion for his feat. Characteristics of his subsequent actions, for example, refusing a lot of money for the ransom of a girl with whom he was forced to babysit, will show that he never seeks profit for himself.

Second kill and escape

Quite calmly, in a fair fight, he killed (and it was a dispute over who would whip whom), as if it were supposed to be, Tatar Ivan Flyagin. The characteristic of this act shows that 23-year-old young Ivan has not matured to evaluate his own actions, but is ready to accept any, even immoral, rules of the game that are offered to him.

And as a result, he is hiding from justice from the Tatars. But in the end - he is in captivity, in a Tatar prison. Ivan will spend ten years with his "gentile saviors" and will yearn for his homeland until he runs away. And he will be driven by purposefulness, endurance and willpower.

Test of love

On the path of life, Ivan will meet a beautiful songstress, a gypsy Grushenka. She is so beautiful in appearance that Ivan is breathtaking from her beauty, but her spiritual world is also rich.

The girl, feeling that Flyagin will understand her, tells her simple eternal girlish grief: her beloved played with her and left her. And she cannot live without him and is afraid that she will either kill him along with his new lover, or lay hands on herself. Both scare her- It's not Christian. And he asks Grush Ivan to take a sin on his soul - to kill her. Ivan was embarrassed and did not dare at first, but then pity for the unrequited torment of the girl outweighed all his doubts. The strength of her suffering led to Ivan Flyagin pushing Grusha into the abyss. The characteristic of this act lies in the special side of humanity. Killing is terrible, and Christ's commandment says: "Thou sh alt not kill." But Ivan, transgressing through her, reaches the highest level of self-sacrifice - he sacrifices his immortal soul to save the girl's soul. While alive, he hopes to atone for this sin.

Retirement

And here again, the case confronts Ivan with someone else's grief. Under a false name, Flyagin Ivan Severyanych goes to the soldiers, to the war, to certain death. The characteristic of this episode in his life is a continuation of the previous one: compassion and sacrifice lead him to this act. What is above everything? To die for the fatherland, for the people. But fate keeps him - Ivan has not yet passed all the tests that she is going to send him.

What is the meaning of life?

Wanderer, wanderer, kalik passerby, Ivan is a seeker of truth. For him, the main thing is to find the meaning of life, associated with poetry. The image and characterization of Ivan Flyagin in the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" enable the author to embody the dreaminess inherent in the people themselves. Ivan conveys the spirit of seeking the truth. Ivan Flyagin is a miserable person who has experienced so much in his lifetime that would be enough for several people. He takes on his soul untold suffering, which takes him to a new, higher spiritual orbit, on which life andand poetry.

Characterization of Ivan Flyagin as a narrator

Flyagin-Leskov's tale is deliberately slowed down, as in an epic thoughtful song. But when the forces of events and characters gradually accumulate, then it becomes dynamic, impetuous. In the episode of harnessing the horse, which even the Englishman Rarey cannot handle, the way of narration is dynamic and sharp. The descriptions of the horses are given in such a way that folk songs and epics are recalled. The horse in the 6th chapter is compared to a bird that rushes along not by its own strength.

The image is extremely poetic and merges with Gogol's bird-troika. This prose should be read declamatory, slowed down, like a poem in prose. And there are many such poems. What is the episode at the end of the 7th chapter, when the suffering wanderer prays so that the snow melts under his knees, and where the tears dripped, grass appears in the morning. This is what the lyrical poet, the passion-bearer, says. This and other miniatures have the right to a separate existence. But inserted by Leskov into a great narrative, they give it the necessary coloring, enriching reflection.

Property plan of Ivan Flyagin

When writing an essay, you can be guided by such a short plan:

• Intro – Enchanted Wanderer.
• Character appearance.
• Wandering.
• Charm for life.
• "Sinfulness" of Ivan.
• Unmeasured heroic forces.
• Features of the Russian character of the hero.

In conclusion, it should be said that N. S. Leskov himself walked the earth as an enchanted traveler, althoughI saw life in all its complexity. The poetry of life was revealed to N. S. Leskov in contemplation and reflection, in the word. Perhaps the key to "The Enchanted Wanderer" is F. Tyutchev's poem "God send your joy …". Reread and ponder the way of the wanderer.

The epithet "enchanted" increases the sense of poeticity of the traveler's figure. Enchanted, captivating, bewitched, driven mad, subjugated - the range of this spiritual quality is great. For the writer, the enchanted wanderer was a characteristic figure of a person who could be entrusted with part of his dreams, made him the spokesman for the sacred thoughts and aspirations of the people.