Roman Goncharova "Cliff": a summary and history of creation

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

Goncharov's novel "Cliff" is the third and final part of the famous trilogy, which also includes the books "Ordinary History" and "Oblomov". In this work, the author continued the polemic with the views of the sixties socialists. The writer was worried about the desire of some people to forget about duty, love and affection, leave their families and go to the commune for the sake of a bright future for all mankind. Such stories in the 1860s were not uncommon. Roman Goncharova "screams" that the nihilists have cut off their primordial ties, which in no case should be forgotten. The history of creation and a brief summary of this work will be discussed in this article.

Design

Goncharov's novel "The Precipice" has been in the making for almost twenty years. The idea of the book came to the writer in 1849, when he once again visited his native Simbirsk. There, memories of childhood flooded over Ivan Alexandrovich. He wanted to make the Volga landscapes dear to the heart the scene of the new work. Thus began the history of creation. "Cliff" Goncharov, meanwhile, has not yet been embodied on paper. In 1862Ivan Alexandrovich happened to meet an interesting person on a steamer. He was an artist - an ardent and expansive nature. He easily changed his life plans, he was always in captivity of his creative fantasies. But this did not prevent him from being imbued with someone else's grief and providing assistance at the right time. After this meeting, Goncharov had the idea to create a novel about the artist, his complex artistic nature. So, gradually, on the picturesque banks of the Volga, the plot of the famous work arose.

Publications

Goncharov periodically brought to the attention of readers individual episodes from the unfinished novel. In 1860, a fragment of a work en titled "Sofya Nikolaevna Belovodova" was published in Sovremennik. And a year later, two more chapters from Goncharov's novel The Cliff appeared in Otechestvennye Zapiski - Portrait and Grandmother. The work underwent a final stylistic revision in France in 1868. The full version of the novel was published the following year in 1869 in the journal Vestnik Evropy. A separate edition of the work saw the light in a few months. Goncharov often called "The Precipice" the favorite child of his fantasy and assigned him a special place in his literary work.

Image of Paradise

Goncharov's novel "The Cliff" begins with a characterization of the protagonist of the work. This is Raisky Boris Pavlovich - a nobleman from a we althy aristocratic family. He lives in St. Petersburg, while Tatyana Berezhkova manages his estate. Markovna (distant relative). The young man graduated from the university, tried himself in the military and civil service, but met with disappointment everywhere. At the very beginning of Goncharov's novel The Cliff, Raisky is in his early thirties. Despite a decent age, he "has not yet sown anything, has not reaped anything." Boris Pavlovich leads a carefree life, not fulfilling any duties. However, he is naturally endowed with a "God's spark." He has an extraordinary talent as an artist. Raisky, against the advice of his relatives, decides to devote himself entirely to art. However, banal laziness prevents him from fulfilling himself. Possessing a lively, mobile and impressionable nature, Boris Pavlovich seeks to kindle serious passions around him. For example, he dreams of "awakening life" in his distant relative, the secular beauty Sofya Belovodova. He devotes all his leisure time in St. Petersburg to this occupation.

Sofya Belovodova

This young lady is the personification of a female statue. Despite the fact that she has already been married, she does not know life at all. The woman grew up in a luxurious mansion, reminiscent of a cemetery with its marble solemnity. Secular upbringing drowned out in her "female instincts of feeling." She is cold, beautiful and submissive to her fate - to keep up appearances and find herself the next worthy party. To kindle passion in this woman is Raisky's cherished dream. He paints her portrait, has long conversations with her about life and literature. However, Sophia remains cold and impregnable. In her face, Ivan Goncharov draws the image of a soul crippled by the influence of light. "Cliff" shows how sad it is when the natural "dictations of the heart"sacrificed to conventional conventions. Raisky's artistic attempts to revive the marble statue and add a "thinking face" to it fail miserably.

Provincial Russia

In the first part of the novel, he introduces the reader to another scene of the Potters' action. "Cliff", a summary of which is described in this article, paints a picture of provincial Russia. When Boris Pavlovich arrives in his native village of Malinovka for the holidays, he meets his relative there, Tatyana Markovna, whom everyone calls grandmother for some reason. In fact, this is a lively and very beautiful woman of about fifty. She manages all the affairs of the estate and brings up two orphan girls: Vera and Marfenka. Here, for the first time, the reader encounters the concept of "cliff" in its direct meaning. According to local legend, at the bottom of a huge ravine located near the estate, a jealous husband once killed his wife and rival, and then stabbed himself to death. The suicide seemed to be buried at the crime scene. Everyone is afraid to visit this place.

Going to Malinovka for the second time, Raisky fears that "people don't live there, people grow" and there is no movement of thought. And he's wrong. It is in provincial Russia that he finds violent passions and real dramas.

Life and love

The doctrines of the nihilists fashionable in the 1960s are challenged by Goncharov's Cliff. An analysis of the work shows that even in the construction of the novel this controversy can be traced. It is common knowledge that, from the point of view of socialists, the class struggle rules the world. Images of Polina Karpova, Marina, Uliana KozlovaThe author proves that life is driven by love. She is not always happy and fair. The sedate man Savely falls in love with the dissolute Marina. And the serious and correct Leonty Kozlov is crazy about his empty wife Ulyana. The teacher inadvertently declares to Raisky that everything necessary for life is in books. And he's wrong. Wisdom is also passed on from the older generation to the younger. And to see it means to understand that the world is much more complicated than it seems at first glance. This is what Raisky does throughout the novel: he finds extraordinary mysteries in the lives of those closest to him.

Marfenka

Goncharov introduces two completely different heroines to the reader. The "Cliff", the brief content of which, although it gives an idea of the novel, does not allow us to fully experience the full depth of the work, first introduces us to Marfenka. This girl is distinguished by simplicity and childish spontaneity. It seems to Boris Pavlovich woven from "flowers, rays, warmth and colors of spring." Marfenka loves children very much and impatiently prepares herself for the joy of motherhood. Perhaps the range of her interests is narrow, but not at all as closed as the "canary" world of Sophia Belovodova. She knows a lot of things that her elder brother Boris cannot: how to grow rye and oats, how much forest is needed to build a hut. In the end, Raisky understands that it is pointless and even cruel to "develop" this happy and wise creature. His grandmother also warns him about this.

Faith

Faith is a completely different type of female nature. This is a girl fromadvanced views, uncompromising, decisive, seeking. Goncharov diligently prepares the appearance of this heroine. At first, Boris Pavlovich hears only reviews about her. Everyone draws Vera as an outstanding person: she lives alone in an abandoned house, is not afraid to go down into the “terrible” ravine. Even her appearance is a mystery. It does not have the classical severity of lines and the “cold radiance” of Sophia, there is no childish breath of Marfenka’s freshness, but there is some kind of secret, “charm that is not immediately expressed.” Raisky's attempts to penetrate as a relative into the soul of Vera are rebuffed. "Beauty also has the right to respect and freedom," she says.

Babushka and Russia

In the third part of the work, Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov focuses all the reader's attention on the image of the grandmother. "Cliff" depicts Tatyana Markovna as an apostolicly convinced guardian of the foundations of the old society. It is the most important link in the ideological development of the action of the novel. In his grandmother, the writer reflected the imperious, strong, conservative part of Russia. All her shortcomings are typical for people of the same generation as her. If we discard them, then the reader is presented with a “loving and tender” woman, happily and wisely managing the “small kingdom” - the village of Malinovka. It is here that Goncharov sees the embodiment of an earthly paradise. No one sits idle on the estate, and everyone gets what they need. However, everyone has to pay for their mistakes on their own. Such a fate, for example, awaits Savely, whom Tatyana Markovna allows to marryat Marina. Retribution overtakes Vera over time.

Very funny is the episode in which the grandmother, in order to warn her pupils against disobedience to their parents, takes out a moralizing novel and arranges a session of edifying reading for all household members. After that, even the submissive Marfenka shows self-will and explains with a long-time admirer Vikentiev. Tatyana Markovna later remarks that what she warned her youth against, they did at that very moment in the garden. Grandmother is self-critical and laughs at her clumsy educational methods herself: “They are not good everywhere, these old customs!”

Faith Worshipers

Throughout the novel, Boris Pavlovich assembles and disassembles his travel suitcase several times. And every time curiosity and wounded pride stop him. He wants to unravel the mystery of Faith. Who is her chosen one? They could be her longtime admirer, Tushin Ivan Ivanovich. He is a successful lumberjack, a business man who, according to Goncharov, personifies the "new" Russia. On his estate Dymki, he built a nursery and a school for ordinary children, established a short working day, and so on. Among his peasants, Ivan Ivanovich is the first worker himself. Raisky also understands the significance of this figure over time.

However, as the reader learns from the third part of the novel, Mark Volokhov, the apostle of nihilistic morality, becomes Vera's chosen one. Terrible things are said about him in the town: he enters the house exclusively through the window, never repays his debts and is going to hunt down the chief of police with his dogs. The best features of his nature are independence, pride and affection for friends. Nihilistic views seem to Goncharov incompatible with the realities of Russian life. The author is repelled in Volokhov by mockery of old customs, defiant behavior and preaching of free sexual relations.

Boris Pavlovich, on the contrary, is very attracted to this man. There is a certain commonality in the dialogues of the characters. The idealist and the materialist are equally far from reality, only Raisky declares himself above it, and Volokhov tries to descend as "lower" as possible. He lowers himself and his potential lover to a natural, animal existence. In the very appearance of Mark there is something bestial. Goncharov in "The Cliff" shows that Volokhov reminds him of a gray wolf.

Fall of Faith

This moment is the culmination of the fourth part, and of the whole novel as a whole. Here the “cliff” symbolizes sin, bottom, hell. First, Vera asks Raisky not to let her into the ravine if he hears a shot from there. But then she begins to fight in his arms and, promising that this meeting with Mark will be her last, breaks out and runs away. She doesn't lie at all. The decision to leave is absolutely correct and correct, the lovers have no future, but when leaving, Vera turns around and stays with Volokhov. Goncharov depicted something that the strict novel of the 19th century did not yet know - the fall of his beloved heroine.

Enlightenment of heroes

In the fifth part, the author shows the ascent of the Faith from the “cliff” of new, nihilistic values. Tatyana helps her with this. Markovna. She understands that the granddaughter's sin can only be atoned for by repentance. And the "wandering of the grandmother with the burden of trouble" begins. She worries not only for Vera. She is afraid that along with the happiness and peace of her granddaughter, life and prosperity will leave Malinovka. All participants in the novel, witnesses of the events, go through the purifying fire of suffering. Tatyana Markovna eventually confesses to her granddaughter that in her youth she committed the same sin and did not repent before God. She believes that now Vera should become a "grandmother", manage Malinovka and devote herself to people. Tushin, sacrificing his own vanity, goes to meet Volokhov and informs him that the girl no longer wants to see him. Mark begins to understand the depth of his delusions. He returns to military service in order to then transfer to the Caucasus. Raisky decides to devote himself to sculpture. He feels the strength of a great artist in himself and thinks to develop his abilities. Vera begins to come to her senses and understand the real value of the feelings that Tushin has for her. Each hero of the novel at the end of the story gets a chance to change his fate and start a new life.

Goncharov painted a true picture of the views and customs of noble Russia in the mid-19th century in the novel "The Precipice". Reviews of literary critics indicate that the writer created a real masterpiece of Russian realistic prose. The author's reflections on the transient and the eternal are relevant even today. Everyone should read this novel in the original. Happy reading!