What role did Oblomov's dream play in Goncharov's novel?

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

The ninth episode of the first part of the novel by Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov is the chapter "Oblomov's Dream". In it, a young landowner, who has recently crossed the age of thirty, falls asleep in his untidy, rented four-room apartment in St. Petersburg, and scenes from his own childhood come to him in a dream. Nothing fancy or contrived. Agree, in a dream it is rare when we see documentary in its purest form. Of course, this is an artistic device of the author. Oblomov's dream is a kind of journey to the time when Ilya Ilyich was still a child, surrounded by blind parental love.

Why did Goncharov choose such an unusual form of narration? The need for her presence in the novel is obvious. A young man who is in the prime of his life, at the age at which his peers have achieved significant success in life, spends whole days lying on the couch. Moreover, he does not feel any inner need to get up and do something. It was not by chance and not suddenly that Oblomov came to such an empty inner world and a crippled personality. Oblomov's dream is an analysis of those primary impressions and sensations of the boy Ilyusha, which laterformed into convictions, formed the very basis, the foundation of his personality. Goncharov's appeal to his hero's childhood is not accidental. It is children's impressions, as is known, that bring either a creative or a destructive beginning into a person's life.

Oblomovka - a feudal reserve of laziness

Oblomov's dream begins with his seven-year-old staying in his parental patrimony, the village of Oblomovka. This little world is on the outskirts. News does not reach here, there are practically no visitors here with their troubles. Oblomov's parents come from an old noble family. A generation ago, their home was one of the finest in the area. Life was in full swing here. However, the blood in the veins of these landowners gradually cooled. There was no need to work, they decided, three hundred and fifty serfs would still bring income. Why strain if life will still be well-fed and comfortable. This tribal laziness, when the only concern of the whole family before dinner was its preparation, and after it the whole manor's house fell into a slumber, like a disease, was transmitted to Ilyusha. Surrounded by a host of nannies, in a hurry to fulfill any wish of the child, not even letting him get up from the sofa, a lively and active child absorbed an aversion to work and even fun with peers. He gradually became lethargic and lethargic.

Senseless flight on the wings of fantasy

Then Oblomov's dream took him to the moment when his nanny was reading fairy tales to him. The child's deep-seated creative potential found an outlet here. However, this way out was peculiar: from the perception of Pushkin's fabulous imagesbefore further transferring them into your dreams. Oblomov's dream indicates to us the fact that Ilyusha perceived the stories differently than other children who, having heard a fairy tale, begin to actively play with their peers. He played differently: when he heard a fairy tale, he immersed its heroes in his dream in order to accomplish deeds and noble deeds virtually with them. He did not need peers, did not need to participate in anything. Gradually, the world of dreams replaced the real desires and aspirations of the boy. He weakened, any work began to seem boring to him, unworthy of his attention. Work, Oblomov believed, is for the serfs Vanek and Zakharok.

The school that didn't change its attitude

Oblomov's dream plunged him into his school years, where, together with his peer Andryusha Stolz, the latter's father taught him an elementary school course. The study took place in the neighboring village, Verkhlev. Ilyusha Oblomov at that time was a boy of fourteen, overweight and passive. It would seem that next to him he saw the father and son of the Stolts, active, active. It was a chance for Oblomov to change his outlook on life. However, this did not happen, unfortunately. Crushed by serfdom, one village turned out to be similar to another. In the same way as in Oblomovka, laziness flourished here. People were in a passive, drowsy state. “The world does not live like the Stolts,” Ilyusha decided and remained in the grip of laziness.

Conclusion

From the point of view of literary critics, the dream episode is the key one in I. A. Goncharov's novel "Oblomov". He showed the origins of the formationcharacter of a literary hero, whose name has long been a household name.