Comparative characteristics of male and female characters in the novels of T. Hardy
The specificity of the presentation of male images (with which the ideological and plot emphasis of works is usually associated) is also determined by the peculiarities of the writer’s “well-being” in the war and post-war period. From his youth, Lawrence had a tendency to have a split personality; his experiences during the war increased mental instability and, obviously, stimulated this tendency so that the latter was reflected in the poetics of the novels. Starting with “Women in Love,” the author’s position in the novel seems to bifurcate between two main male images, opposed to each other; This feature in this and subsequent novels was commented by A. Niven as “finding the irreconcilable Rupert (Burkin - A.P.) and Gerald in his soul, ... objectifying the internal dilemma, the bearer of which Lawrence was at that time,” as well as D.G. Zhantieva - as “a writer’s dispute with himself.” This feature was one way or another noted by M. Murray, G. Howe, F. Leavis, M. S. Dey, N. P. Michalskaya and other critics. However, attempts to create a classification based on this feature, as far as we know (the volume of research devoted to Lawrence’s work is enormous), have not been made.
So, the author’s position in the novel is divided between two heroes, one of whom condenses most of the author’s sympathies, acts as a bearer, a conductor of his ideas, the second, to one degree or another, is his antagonist, committing actions, putting forward moral postulates that conflict with the life position of the first hero as a whole (Burkin and Gerald, Mellors and Clifford) or with its individual points (Lilly and Aaron, Somers and Kangaroo). The confrontation between the two heroes largely determines the development of action and the ideology of the novels.
The first type of hero has the features of an obvious biographical, professional, spiritual, physical (Burkin, Lilly, Somers) or only spiritual and some biographical (Mellors, Burkin) similarity with the author. The surname, and often the name (Rupert, Rawdon, Richard) of such a hero consists of two syllables, that is, there is a rhythmic and phonetic similarity with the author’s first and last name (David Lawrence, David Lawrence, in accordance with the reading rules). The aesthetic of authorial outsideness does not have much force in Lawrence's later novels; a hero of this type always reveals his closeness to the author, despite the fact that the latter in some cases makes great efforts to try to distance himself from him. As W. Allen rightly notes, each new work by Lawrence “was another installment in the multi-part story of his life.” We will call the hero of the first type “author’s” (hereinafter without quotes). Its features are often directly related to the views, aspirations, health and location of its creator at the time the novel was written.
The latter also partly determine the characteristics of characters of the second type. The passionate pathos of the author's hero, his claim to be the exponent of the most important ideas of the era, the "messiah" of his time, require a special kind of "counterweight" - a comrade-in-arms or an enemy of worthy magnitude. He must have considerable intelligence and tangible power. This is how we see Gerald, the “Napoleon of Industry” (“Women in Love”), Clifford, another rising coal industrialist (“Lady Chatterley’s Lover”), Kangaroo, the leader of the “diggers” ready to seize power in Australia (“Kangaroo”). The figure of Aaron Sisson (“Aaron’s Rod”) only at first glance seems modest in this “gallery of giants”: by associating the image of a flute player with religious symbolism, Lawrence encourages us to associate him with one of the grandiose figures of the Bible - the high priest Aaron, brother of the prophet Moses, the second of mortals who had the honor of speaking in the name of God and performing miracles in his name (Bible, book of Exodus).
The function of characters of the second type is to highlight and emphasize the merits of the heroes of the first type (the author's) in the confrontation that arises in the novel. These characters, despite their strength and power, suffer complete (the death of Gerald and Kangaroo) or partial defeat (the fiasco in relationships with the women of Aaron and Clifford). The author’s hero never loses in this confrontation, his mistakes and disappointments remain in the past, outside the scope of the novel’s action (the formation of the “prophet” Lilly, failures with Mellors’ women, and the sad experience of the life of the pacifist Somers is placed in a separate chapter (“Nightmare”), not directly related to the development of the plot in Australia). The author's hero, possessing the truth in a more complete form, may therefore sometimes seem more static compared to his antagonist and other heroes of the novel. So, Lilly mostly makes speeches, Aaron leaves the family, wanders, seduces women, Somers (in the Australian part of the novel "Kangaroo") ponders for a long time and consistently rejects offers of friendship and cooperation from Jack Calcott, Kangaroo, socialist leader Willie Struthers, and shows activity is only in reflection (the only active character is a hero named Jack Calcott).
The second hero, despite the emphasized differences in appearance, views, character, is always in some kind of, perhaps not immediately realized, but nevertheless deep and undeniable affinity with the author's hero. The author himself repeatedly draws the reader's attention to the existence of "internal kinship", "brotherly intimacy" between Burkin and Gerald, Aaron and Lilly, Somers and Kangaroo. Researchers of Lawrence's work talk about the "genetic" kinship of these pairs of heroes - a kinship mediated by the author's consciousness, the personality of the author. Thus, F. Leavis considers Lilly ("Aaron's Rod") to be a character who in many ways embodies the writer's "I", and Aaron is his alter-ego", the same idea is found in G. Howe, A. Niven states that "Somers incorporates Lawrence’s own “I”, and the Kangaroo is “a form of his alter-ego”, M. Murray, equating Somers and Lawrence, believes that the Kangaroo is Lawrence’s attempt to “imagine whether he could rule the nation”, One of Lawrence's modern biographers, Brenda Maddox, considers Mellors and Clifford (Lady Chatterley's Lover) to be "two aspects of Lawrence's own view of himself."
Thus, it can be stated that two male images, interacting, arguing, and sometimes denying each other, complement each other in a unique way, needing each other. There is no doubt that the property of Lawrence's writing is duality, and his heroes are a special kind of doubles.
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GRIGORY MELEKHOV is the central character of “Quiet Don” and the most complex character in the novel. It is his fate that attracts the reader’s attention. At the beginning of the work, Grigory leads the life of an ordinary farm boy. The only thing that disturbs the peaceful course of his life is his love for Aksinya Astakhova. Everything changes first in the army, then in the First World War. Getting to the front, Grigory is faced with violence and injustice that his soul cannot accept. The hero is attracted by the ideas of Garanzhi, and then Chubaty, and he goes over to the side of the Reds. But even here he disappointment comes. The last straw is the execution of young officers led by Chernetsov. Grigory leaves the Reds and participates in the Cossack uprising, and then ends up in Fomin’s gang. Until the end of the work, Grigory Melekhov is in search of his path. Tired of the war, he strives for a quiet life. But fate does not give him a chance. Aksinya, Grigory’s beloved, dies, and the hero, completely devastated, without waiting for an amnesty, returns to his native farm sister and son.
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Stepan Astakhov is Aksinya’s husband, the Melekhovs’ neighbor. This hero cannot be called positive. Although he himself constantly drinks and goes to the “zhelmerki”, Stepan regularly beats his wife because he got her “damaged”. Having learned about Aksinya’s connection with Grigory, Stepan is imbued with hatred of all the Melekhovs. A quarrel with Peter during a trip from the camp develops into real enmity after the Melekhov brothers rescue Aksinya, whom Stepan beats on the street. During the First World War, Astakhov is saved from death by Grigory, whom Stepan vowed to kill. Subsequently, Stepan talks with Grigory, even sits at the same table with him. But Astakhov and Melekhov never reconcile with each other in their souls. Not finding his place on the farm under the new government, Stepan leaves for Crimea.
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Pyotr Melekhov is the eldest son of Pantelei Prkofyevich and Vasilisa Ilyinichna, brother of Grigory. In peaceful years, Peter manifests himself as a gentle person who loves his relatives, especially his younger brother. So, Peter, without hesitation, helps him save Aksinya from the brutal Stepan Astakhov, warns him about the consequences of a connection with Aksinya. Peter changes dramatically when he gets into war. Unlike Gregory, there is no doubt for him whose side he is on. The hero becomes cruel and greedy. He easily kills enemies, does not disdain looting, sending entire carts with looted goods to the farm. Peter's life ends near a ravine, not far from the farm, where he and other fellow villagers enter into battle with the Reds. Peter, captured, is shot by Mikhail Koshevoy.
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Flaubert named his first novel after the heroine, Emma Bovary. And this is natural, since the work is based on a description of the short and sad life of a young woman. But male images in the novel occupy an equally important place. After all, it was they, the men who surrounded Emma, who determined her tragic fate. The heroes of the novel are men of different generations. First we see Emma and Charles Bovary's parents. Charles's father, a retired company paramedic, was forced to leave the service, get married and take up farming, about which he understood nothing. “After getting married, he lived off his dowry for two or three years - he dined well, got up late, smoked porcelain pipes, went to the theater every evening and often dropped into cafes.” When Charles was born, Mr. Bovary, in contrast to the desire of his wife and the desire of the child, tried to develop his son with a harsh Spartan upbringing, not giving much importance to mental development. Not “in teaching happiness, he who is clever will always make it into people,” he liked to say. But soon the fate of his son completely ceased to interest him, as did household affairs. He lived out his life carefree without any interest in him, without business, without love. Emma's father, Rouault's father, also parted with his daughter without much regret when her fiancé, Charles Bovary, appeared. Emma, according to him, still did not understand anything about farming, for which he himself did not have the slightest inclination. Just like Charles’s father, Emma’s father “didn’t cause himself much trouble, he didn’t spare money for his needs - food, warmth and sleep were in his first place.” Relations with his daughter's family were limited to the fact that once a year he sent them a turkey. Emma's husband Charles Bovary is in many ways similar to the representatives of the older generation. He also does what he doesn’t like and doesn’t know. Charles conscientiously goes on calls, trying not to harm his patients. Although one of them had to cut off his leg due to the stupidity and irresponsibility of Charles. Of the male characters in the novel, Charles is distinguished by the fact that he loves Emma. But his love gave Emma nothing. “He taught nothing, knew nothing, wanted nothing.” He was completely satisfied with himself and his life with Emma. And Emma, having gotten married, “could not convince herself that this quiet floodplain was the happiness she dreamed of.” The search for real happiness and a beautiful life pushes Emma to other men. But the handsome Rodolphe is looking only for satisfaction and adventure. And for Leon, Emma is a way of self-affirmation. As soon as Emma needed help, her loved ones immediately abandoned her. Those for whom she destroyed her family and ruined her man turned out to be no better than others. And Emma found herself on the edge of the abyss. The merchant Leray also contributed greatly to this. He accumulated an extraordinary amount of capital for his schemes, taking advantage of Emma's position. Leray thought through his actions well and calmly, step by step, ruined Emma and Charles. The pharmacist Ome is one of the most negative characters in the novel. Stupid, pompous, ambitious, he uses all the vulgarity and dullness of the town of Yonville. It was in the Homa pharmacy that Emma found arsenic and here she decided to commit suicide. And none of the men around her could understand Emma or help her. Even such a pure and young soul as Zhustin is involved in Emma’s death - it is he who illuminates her path to death: he holds a candle when Emma is looking for poison. At the end of the novel, another character appears near the bed of dying Emma - the surgeon Lariviere, a master of his craft, sensitive and soulful. He is the only one of the characters who has greatness, intelligence, and professionalism. He could no longer help Emma and quickly left Yonville. And what should he do here? He is a man of another life, which Emma has never seen or known. She only inexpressively felt that somewhere there was another, bright, beautiful life. But the men who surrounded her could not and did not want to live differently. Men in Flaubert's novel are the heroes on whom the new bourgeois order, hated by the writer, rests, when “vulgarity and feeblemindedness brazenly celebrate their triumph everywhere.” Emma turned out to be the only heroine in the novel who is unbearably bored and lonely in this world. And this makes her stand out in a gray, smug and uninteresting crowd of men.
The novel “Oblomov” is one of the brightest works of Russian literature of the 19th century, which even today excites readers with the severity of the questions raised by the author. The book is interesting, first of all, because the problems of the novel are revealed through the method of antithesis. The contrast between the main characters in Oblomov makes it possible to emphasize the conflict between different worldviews and characters, as well as to better reveal the inner world of each character.
The action of the work unfolds around the destinies of the four main characters of the book: Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, Andrei Ivanovich Stolts, Olga Ilyinskaya and Agafya Pshenitsyna (some researchers supplement this list with Zakhar, but in terms of importance in the narrative he still ranks among the secondary characters). Through the male and female characters in the novel, the author analyzes various aspects of a person’s social and personal life and reveals many “eternal” themes.
Characteristics of male characters
Ilya Oblomov And Andrey Stolts – main characters of "Oblomov" Goncharova. According to the plot of the novel, the men met during their school years and, having become friends, continued to support each other even decades later. Oblomov and Stolz are an example of a truly strong, reliable and fruitful friendship for both men. Ilya Ilyich saw in Andrei Ivanovich a person who is always ready and, most importantly, knows how to solve his problems with others, with the expenses and income of the estate. For Stolz, Oblomov was a pleasant conversationalist, whose company had a calming effect on Andrei Ivanovich and helped him return to peace of mind, which he often lost in the pursuit of new achievements.
In “Oblomov” the characters are presented as antipodes - completely different and almost in no way similar heroes. This can be clearly seen in the depiction of the fates of Oblomov and Stolz. Ilya Ilyich grew up as a “greenhouse”, “room” child, who from an early age was taught a lordly lifestyle, laziness and an attitude towards new knowledge as something optional and unnecessary. Having graduated from school and university “for show,” Ilya Ilyich enters the service, where one of the first disappointments in life awaits him - at work he needs to fight for his place, constantly work and be better than others. However, the most unpleasant thing for Ilya Ilyich is that his colleagues remain unfamiliar people, and do not become a new family for the man. Not accustomed to disappointments and blows, Oblomov, after the first failure at work, gives up and closes himself off from society, creating his own special world of the illusory Oblomovka.
Compared to the active, striving forward Stolz, Ilya Ilyich looks like a lazy, apathetic lump who simply does not want to do anything himself. Andrei Ivanovich's childhood and youth were filled with new impressions. Without suffering from excessive parental care, Stolz could leave home for several days, chose his own path forward, read a lot and was interested in almost everything. Andrei Ivanovich learned his love of knowledge from his mother, while his practical approach to everything, perseverance and ability to work - from his German father. After graduating from university, Stolz leaves his native estate, building his own destiny, earning material wealth and meeting the right people.
Interdependence of male images
The male images of heroes in the novel “Oblomov” are two ways of realizing a person in society, two leading principles that do not find a harmonious combination in any of the characters. On the other hand, Stolz and Oblomov perfectly complement each other, helping each other in finding the most important things to achieve true, not illusory, happiness. After all, Oblomov, in his dreams of rebuilding Oblomovka, appeared to be a man no less active and sociable than his friend, while Stolz throughout the novel continues to reach for the peace of mind that he found in Oblomov. As a result, unconsciously to himself, Andrei Ivanovich creates a kind of Oblomovka on his own estate after his marriage to Olga, gradually turning into a person attached to his home and appreciating the monotonous, calm passage of time.
Despite the fact that the characterization of the heroes of “Oblomov” is built on an antithesis, neither Oblomov nor Stolz are Goncharov’s ideals, but rather are presented as an extreme manifestation of “Oblomov’s” and “progressive” characteristics in a person. The author showed that without the harmony of these two principles, a person will not feel complete and happy, and will not be able to realize himself both socially and spiritually.
Characteristics of female images
The main heroines of the novel “Oblomov” are also opposed to each other. Olga Ilyinskaya is a young lady from a wealthy family, from childhood she studied literacy, science and the art of singing, an active and purposeful girl who likes to choose her own destiny, without adjusting to her husband or loved ones. Olga is not at all like the meek, homely Agafya, ready to do anything for the sake of her loved one, capable of adapting to any lifestyle, as long as Oblomov is happy. Ilyinskaya was not ready to follow the wishes of Ilya Ilyich, to become his ideal “Oblomov” woman, whose main area of activity would be the household - that is, the framework prescribed by Domostroy.
Unlike the uneducated, simple, quiet - the true prototype of the Russian woman - Agafya, Olga is a completely new type of emancipated woman for Russian society, who does not agree to limit herself to four walls and cooking, but sees her destiny in continuous development, self-education and striving forward . However, the tragedy of Ilyinskaya’s fate lies in the fact that even after marrying the active, active Stolz, the girl still takes on the classic role of wife and mother for Russian society, which is not much different from the role described in Domostroy. The discrepancy between desires and the real future leads to Olga’s constant sadness, the feeling that she has not lived the life she dreamed of.
Conclusion
The main characters of the novel “Oblomov” are interesting, attractive personalities, whose stories and destinies allow us to better understand the ideological meaning of the work. Using the example of male characters, the author analyzes the themes of human development, formation in society, the ability to set goals and achieve them, and using the example of female characters, he reveals the theme of love, devotion, and the ability to accept a person as he is.
Oblomov and Stolz are not only opposing characters, but also complementary ones, as are Olga and Agafya. By accepting or developing in themselves the features and qualities of the antipodean image, the heroes could become absolutely happy and harmonious, because it is in the lack of understanding of the path to true happiness that the tragedy of the characters in Oblomov lies. That is why their characteristics in Goncharov’s novel do not have an exclusively negative or positive connotation - the author does not lead the reader to ready-made conclusions, inviting him to choose the right path himself.
Work test
In the system of images, male and female, in Hardy’s novels and stories, one must credit the writer’s ability to construct his plot in such a way that a small number of characters are usually brought to the fore in one work - three, four, five. For example, the first part of the novel “Coming Home” is called “Three Women”. The secondary ones are grouped around the main persons, and a rural “chorus” sounds - the voices of episodic characters, representatives of the masses: peasants, farm laborers, lumberjacks, carters, maids, etc. The main characters, male and female, in Hardy’s novels are grouped, as a rule, according to traditional in European literature, the compositional rules of couples and triangles are a man and a woman in love, two rivals, or girlfriends (binary group), or a woman and two men, etc.
At the same time, the relationships of the heroes within such a “small group” always develop dynamically: “triangles” disintegrate, and sometimes are recreated, new ensembles arise, or some other combinations or groupings of characters are given. But nature always remains the constant background and, in its own way, also a participant in the action in the cycle, or more precisely, Nature with a capital “N”, as a great being, as the embodiment of the Eternal Feminine principle.
The concept of the female character, the image of a Woman as a representative of the “beautiful half” of Humanity, developed gradually in Thomas Hardy during the evolution of his work - from his first unsurvived novel “The Pauper and the Lady” and the book “Ethelbertha’s Hand” to the last lyric poems in which the old master still lived in the delights of love, sang, on behalf of his beloved heroine Tess, a sad song (“Country Women”), and recreated the image of the Virgin Mary, which was far from Christian orthodoxy (“Evening in Galilee”).
Femininity, for Hardy, is, along with the masculine principle, one of those mysterious forces that, being essentially unknowable, elemental, determine the course of events in nature, history, and in the everyday life of people.
Hardy's heroes are led to defeat and death by their characters and the influence of society, their desire to break out of the unchanging boundaries of existence. But one cannot exaggerate the role of his characters’ craving for self-sufficiency.
The only difference between Hardy's men and women in this general sense is that the images of the latter, as already noted, are more mythologized. This is reflected in the large number of likenings of his heroines to ancient and Celtic-Scandinavian goddesses, in the way the writer associates the figures of women with images of witches, fairies from the “local” pantheon, in the romantic “demonization” of some representatives of high society. For Hardy, a woman is still closer to nature, to Mother Nature, than a man, because a woman is connected with her, and spiritually (earth, water, vegetation, especially flowers - all this has long been associated with the feminine principle in mythology and folklore).
For example, she feels good on the farm and in the field, Tess dreams of escaping London to her native village. Sophie, the heroine of the story "The Ban of the Son." Marty South, as the author of the novel “In the Land of the Woods” writes about her, was one of those women who “really approached the subtlest ideal understanding of nature.”
Marty South, the secondary heroine of the novel, who understood nature as deeply as her beloved forester Winterbourne, is awarded apotheosis at the end of the book: “Almost nothing feminine was caught in this strict appearance, she seemed like a saint, without regret renouncing her earthly essence in the name of a higher purpose of man - love for all living things under the sun." Alas, this is a tragic apotheosis, for her love for Winterbourne remained unrequited, the hero died, and she mourns over his grave.
Love for all living things remains, despite all tragic obstacles, and is the best and most expressive character trait of most of the writer’s heroines.
One can find a wealth of material about female love and its various shades, about the paths and stages of its development and extinction in Hardy’s works. And the writer himself could, following the example of Stendhal, create a book that would represent another version of the treatise “On Love”. The English novelist tells dozens and hundreds of stories about love, suddenly flaring up or slowly emerging, stormy, passionate, or, conversely, almost imperceptible to others, as if barely smoldering. About the struggle of motives in the souls and consciousness of lovers, the struggle is sometimes elementary simple, sometimes complicated, taking on bizarre forms, the struggle between everyday considerations (selfish and vain calculations, taking into account the opinions of “Mrs. Grundy”) and spiritual, higher ones, about compromises in personal relationships, so characteristic of the moral climate of England, or about tragedies and disasters.
Among Hardy's heroes and heroines there are no politicians, such as, for example, the radical Felix Holt from the novel of the same name by D. Eliot. None of his heroines thinks about the feminist movement, about the struggle for social equality of women with men. They, as a rule, submit to the authority of their fathers and parents, although, having become wives, they can show their character and dictate their line of behavior to their husbands and lovers. Their strength lies in their weakness or, to put it another way, in their feminine charms (Anna Zegers has a collection of short stories, “The Power of the Weak”). Although Hardy is powerless against the power of Fate (Will, Unknown Cause).
Not being a participant in social movements, the writer agreed in principle with those leading people in England, like J. St. Mill and J. Eliot, who wanted to achieve greater freedom for women in society and advocated for the expansion of female education. It is not without reason that many of Hardy’s heroines try to engage in, as they now say, self-education, and have equal intellectual conversations with men; the image of Susan Bridehead is especially expressive in this regard. At the same time, the novelist believed that women are often stronger than men in another area, in intuitive comprehension of life. This is how he writes about Mrs. Yeobright, Clym’s mother: “She was highly characterized by insight, a kind of penetration into life, all the more surprising since she herself did not participate in life. In practical life, women are most often distinguished by such talent; they can keep an eye on a world you have never seen" ("Return to the Homeland", book 3, chapter 3).
Hardy emphasized in his heroines that natural spiritual talent, which, as we have already noted, is associated with mythology, with “super natural” abilities.
The writer has no villains or notorious scoundrels, of which there were many in the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, and Bulwer-Lytton. Or those closer to Hardy in time, R. Stevenson, Kipling, Bram Stoker, with his famous "Dracula", H. Wells. Even if his characters show cruelty, greed, vanity, and short-sightedness, then their personal guilt is still incommensurate with the great measure of evil that is brought into life thanks to their actions. Thus, the former sergeant Troy brings a lot of disasters to his fellow countrymen, but he himself, in essence, is not a villain (“Far from the Mad Crowd”). Michael Henchard is rude by nature and can be ferocious, but deep down in his soul there is a certain feminine “anima” that does not allow him to commit murder, pushing him to do good deeds. (“Anima,” according to the hypothesis of C. G. Jung, is the “female” component of a man’s subconscious). After a fight with Farfrae, the hero sleeps, curled up in a ball. “There was something femininely weak in this pose, and the fact that such a courageous and stern man took it made a tragic impression” (The Mayor of Casterbridge, chapter 38). Most of Hardy’s male characters are marked by such “femininity,” that is, kindness and defenselessness before the gloomy face of Fate.
Hardy's heroines, be they noble ladies, duchesses, wealthy farmers like Bethsheba Everdeen, be they maids, farmhands, petty traders, governesses, etc. - all of them, as a rule, are deceived by Fate, although they strived for happiness and achieved it in one way or another . But the irony of events is just another name for the phenomenon that Hardy calls the Immanent Will, its “eternal arts” or “cunning mechanisms” that act to harm people.
What has been said about the writer’s male characters applies even more to his heroines. They are, as a rule, kind, they are by nature destined for love, but the tragic paradox of their situation is that Fate is unfavorable social circumstances, the power of patriarchal customs, a coincidence, or a subjective factor - illusions, delusions, prejudices of heroines - everything leads them to defeat. And only relatively rarely does fate smile on his women - see the novel "Under the Green Tree", the happy marriage of Elizabeth Jane with Farfrae ("The Mayor of Casterbridge"), the successful union of Thomasin with the guard Venn from "Homecoming". Although Hardy warned readers in a special note that this “happy ending” was a concession on his part to Victorian censorship. You can also name happy endings in some of Hardy’s short stories and stories, but the overall sad mood from his picture of life as a whole remains.
