A. Kuprin “Olesya”: description, characters, analysis of the work. Ivan Timofeevich from the story by A.I. Kuprin "Olesya" (1898) Ivan Timofeevich is a kind but weak man

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin often in his works painted an ideal image of a “natural” person, one who is not subject to the corrupting influence of light, whose soul is pure, free, who is close to nature, lives in it, lives with it in one impulse. A striking example of the disclosure of the theme of a “natural” person is the story “Olesya”.

The story described in the story did not appear by chance. One day A.I. Kuprin visited the landowner Ivan Timofeevich Poroshin in Polesie, who told the writer the mysterious story of his relationship with a certain witch. It was this story, enriched with artistic fiction, that formed the basis of Kuprin’s work.

The first publication of the story took place in the magazine “Kievlyanin” in 1898; the work bore the subtitle “From Memories of Volyn,” which emphasized the real basis of the events taking place in the story.

Genre and direction

Alexander Ivanovich worked at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, when a controversy gradually began to flare up between two directions: realism and modernism, which was just beginning to make itself known. Kuprin belongs to the realistic tradition in Russian literature, so the story “Olesya” can easily be classified as a realistic work.

The genre of the work is a story, since it is dominated by a chronicle plot, reproducing the natural course of life. The reader lives through all the events, day after day, following the main character Ivan Timofeevich.

The essence

The action takes place in the small village of Perebrod, Volyn province, on the outskirts of Polesie. The young gentleman-writer is bored, but one day fate takes him to the swamp to the house of the local witch Manuilikha, where he meets the beautiful Olesya. A feeling of love flares up between Ivan and Olesya, but the young sorceress sees that death awaits her if she links her fate with an unexpected guest.

But love is stronger than prejudice and fear, Olesya wants to deceive fate. A young witch goes to church for the sake of Ivan Timofeevich, although she is prohibited from entering there due to her occupation and origin. She makes it clear to the hero that she will commit this brave act, which could lead to irreparable consequences, but Ivan does not understand this and does not have time to save Olesya from the angry crowd. The heroine is severely beaten. In revenge, she sends a curse on the village, and that same night a terrible thunderstorm occurs. Knowing the power of human anger, Manuilikha and her pupil hastily leave the house in the swamp. When a young man comes to this home in the morning, he finds only red beads, as a symbol of his short but true love with Olesya.

The main characters and their characteristics

The main characters of the story are the master writer Ivan Timofeevich and the forest witch Olesya. Completely different, they got together, but could not be happy together.

1. Characteristics of Ivan Timofeevich. This is a kind person, sensitive. He was able to discern a living, natural principle in Oles, because he himself had not yet been completely killed by secular society. The mere fact that he left noisy cities for a village speaks volumes. The heroine is not just a beautiful girl for him, she is a mystery to him. This strange healer believes in conspiracies, tells fortunes, communicates with spirits - she is a witch. And all this attracts the hero. He wants to see and learn something new, real, not covered up by falsehood and far-fetched etiquette. But at the same time, Ivan himself is still at the mercy of the world, he is thinking about marrying Olesya, but he is confused by how she, a savage, can appear in the halls of the capital.
2. Olesya is the ideal of a “natural” person. She was born and lived in the forest, nature was her educator. Olesya’s world is a world of harmony with the surrounding world. In addition, she is in harmony with her inner world. We can note the following qualities of the main character: she is wayward, straightforward, sincere, she does not know how to pretend or pretend. The young witch is smart and kind; one only has to remember the reader’s first meeting with her, because she was tenderly carrying chicks in her lap. One of Olesya’s main traits can be called insubordination, which she inherited from Manuilikha. They both seem to be against the whole world: they live aloof in their swamp, they do not profess an official religion. Even knowing that you can’t escape fate, the young sorceress still tries, consoles herself with the hope that everything will work out for her and Ivan. She is original and unshakable, despite the fact that love is still alive, she leaves, leaves everything, without looking back. The image and characteristics of Olesya are available.

Themes

• The main theme of the story— Olesya’s love, her readiness for self-sacrifice — is the center of the work. Ivan Timofeevich was lucky to meet a real feeling.
• Another important semantic branch is the theme of the confrontation between the ordinary world and the world of natural people. Residents of villages, capitals, Ivan Timofeevich himself are representatives of everyday thinking, permeated with prejudices, conventions, and clichés. The worldview of Olesya and Manuilikha is freedom and open feelings. In connection with these two heroes, the theme of nature appears. The environment is the cradle that raised the main character, an irreplaceable helper, thanks to which Manuilikha and Olesya live away from people and civilization without need, nature gives them everything they need for life. This topic is covered most fully in this one.
• The role of landscape in the story is huge. It is a reflection of the feelings of the characters and their relationships. So, at the beginning of a romance we see a sunny spring, and at the end the break in relations is accompanied by a strong thunderstorm. We wrote more about this in this.

Problems

The problems of the story are varied. Firstly, the writer acutely depicts the conflict between society and those who do not fit into it. So, once they brutally drove Manuilikha out of the village and beat Olesya herself, although both sorceresses did not show any aggression towards the villagers. Society is not ready to accept those who differ from them in at least some way, who do not try to pretend, because they want to live by their own rules, and not according to the template of the majority.

The problem of attitude towards Olesya manifests itself most clearly in the scene of her going to church. For the Russian Orthodox people of the village, it was a real insult that the one who serves evil spirits, in their opinion, appeared in the temple of Christ. At the church, where people ask for God's mercy, they themselves administered cruel and merciless judgment. Perhaps the writer wanted, on the basis of this antithesis, to show that society has distorted the idea of ​​the righteous, the good, and the just.

Meaning

The idea of ​​the story is that people who grew up far from civilization turn out to be much nobler, more delicate, more polite and kinder than “civilized” society itself. The author hints that herd life dulls the individual and erases his individuality. The crowd is submissive and indiscriminate, and is often dominated by its worst members rather than its best. Primitive instincts or acquired stereotypes, such as misinterpreted morality, direct the collective towards degradation. Thus, the inhabitants of the village show themselves to be greater savages than the two witches living in the swamp.

Kuprin's main idea is that people must turn back to nature, must learn to live in harmony with the world and with themselves, so that their cold hearts will melt. Olesya tried to open the world of real feelings to Ivan Timofeevich. He couldn't understand it in time, but the mysterious witch and her red beads will remain in his heart forever.

Conclusion

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin in his story “Olesya” tried to create an ideal of a person, show the problems of the artificial world, open people’s eyes to the driven and immoral society that surrounds them.

The life of the wayward, unshakable Olesya was to some extent destroyed by the touch of the secular world in the person of Ivan Timofeevich. The writer wanted to show that we ourselves destroy the beautiful things that fate gives us, simply because we are blind, blind in soul.

Criticism

The story “Olesya” is one of the most famous works of A.I. Kuprina. The strength and talent of the story were appreciated by the writer’s contemporaries.

K. Barkhin called the work a “forest symphony,” noting the smoothness and beauty of the work’s language.

Maxim Gorky noted the youth and spontaneity of the story.

Thus, the story “Olesya” occupies an important place, both in the work of A.I. himself. Kuprin, and in the history of Russian classical literature.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

Ivan Timofeevich is the main character and narrator of the story “Olesya”. Very sincerely and lyrically, the writer managed to describe his hero to readers. The story shows the image of an ordinary intellectual of that time. From the story we see that these are not ordinary people, they are a special class of the population. These people are very subtle in soul and body, well-read and educated, but what is most interesting is that they go with the flow of their lives and do not want to influence or change anything. The main character belongs to the Russian intelligentsia of the century before last; he is very attentive to all people. Very picky.

The writer managed to show his hero to readers at the crossroads of two roads. When you read a story, a dual attitude towards the hero appears: on the one hand, we evaluate him as a positive character, but at the same time, negative traits appear. He is a very smart and educated person, but boredom overcomes this man; he does not know what to do with himself. At this time he is in Polesie, and his inaction leads to trouble.

The main character has never discussed people's personal lives, but with his stories and moralizing he is trying to teach society something useful. Ivan Timofeevich treated people, tutored people, and even wanted to cooperate with the local authorities. But he has such a subtle soul that all this is boring for him. Need more excitement and adrenaline. He is ready to go to extremes, he is going to meet the witch who lived in those parts.

Forest resident Olesya describes the hero very well. She said that his life was very unhappy, filled with grief and disappointment. But Olesya subtly noticed that Ivan Timofeevich, a very well-read man, knows many branches of science, but he wanted to connect the unconnected. He liked to give gifts to girls. One day the hero asked her. What does she want to receive as a gift, to which the girl asked to go to church with her. This would be the best thing for her. But he knew that girls should not go there. He ran after her, begged, fell to his knees, asked her not to go there. But it was not possible to convince the girl, for which she suffered retribution.

Our hero is a very gentle nature. He lacks willpower, is a weak-willed person, he does not like it when people kiss his hands or when they approach him very closely. Likes to keep people at a distance. They say that you cannot run away from fate, so Ivan Timofeevich did not try to run away from it, thereby destroying the young girl. The only good thing is that in this situation the hero does not justify himself and somewhere deep in his soul he even reproaches himself for this.

The story of Ivan Timofeevich

We all need a change of environment from time to time in order to relax and gain new impressions. So Ivan Timofeevich is going to Polesie. Ivan Timofeevich found himself in the Polesie outback on duty and with the hope of collecting folklore for his literary endeavors. In reality, everything turned out to be not so rosy: the Poleshuks did not make contact, he was a stranger to them, and it was also not possible to teach them to read and write.

The only entertainment was hunting. And then one day, getting lost in the forest, the master meets the beautiful Olesya. A beautiful, friendly girl with a velvety lively voice seemed to captivate Ivan Timofeevich. Meetings of lovers in the forest were like a balm for the soul for the master.

The girl, like her grandmother Manuilikha, knew how to tell fortunes well. Fortune telling for Olesya foreshadowed trouble from meetings with Ivan Timofeevich. The girl felt the master’s weak character, but even this did not stop her.

But the master really didn’t have the willpower: he didn’t know how to bring things to the end, he abandoned all his undertakings halfway (an attempt to teach the Poleshuks to read and write), his words were at odds with his actions, although he was not his master’s words.

As time went. Relations with ordinary peasants did not improve, relations with Olesya continued. Although Ivan Timofeevich was smart, intelligent, kind, he couldn’t even sort out his thoughts.

And I couldn’t accept Olesya for who she was either. Ivan Timofeevich completely confronts the girl with a choice: either he or her witchcraft. It took him time to dare to propose marriage to Olesya.

By agreeing, the girl doomed herself to certain death. The master felt that Olesya’s trip to church was clearly not going to end well, but did nothing to save her from shame. Ivan Timofeevich dared to look at her after the incident. Humiliated, sick, frightened Olesya.

So the master’s cowardice, weakness, and fear were able to destroy the young girl. Kuprin does not condemn Ivan Timofeevich, but on the contrary sympathizes with him because despite everything, the master understands his guilt and responsibility for what happened, but nothing can be corrected, the image of the amazing Olesya will remain only in memory.

Essay 3

Ivan Timofeevich is an intelligent man, born in the city, and he also begins to write stories. Finding himself in one area called Polesie, he tries to find various epics in order to begin his work.

Discussing the personal lives of other people never evoked positive emotions in Ivan Timofeevich. But throughout the entire story, one cannot say just because he is trying to teach everyone something. He combined what was impossible: he treated sick people, tutored and tried to give people at least some kind of education. But he is very bored doing all this, he wants to get the maximum adrenaline and unforgettable feelings from life.

One day the master learns about the existence of a witch whose name is Manuilikha. According to stories, she lives near the swamps. Ivan Timofeevich became interested in this case. Of course, he did not believe in any phenomena that could occur not from this world, but he wanted to get to know her. Such a meeting soon happened. While on a hunt, the main character got lost and came across the house of that same witch. The old woman looked like a real witch. She received the uninvited guest very poorly, but promised to tell fortunes for a coin. As it turned out after some time, the villainess also had a granddaughter with the same abilities. Her name was Alena, but they nicknamed her Olesya for her actions. The girl was incredibly beautiful, Ivan could not stop looking at her. He remembered her so much that he could not forget her image.

Ivan was a kind man, but this kindness did not come from a pure heart. Olesya understood this immediately, but she could no longer do anything. The master was not responsible and did not bring a single matter to fruition. The only example can be given, from which everything will become clear: Ivan Timofeevich tried to teach the peasants to read and write, but quickly finished due to the fact that they did not shine with their intelligence. Olesya was going to church, and trouble was inevitable, but the main character did not dare to prevent it. Although this man was frank and responsive, his heart still did not allow him to open up to people.

The hero of this story is a very gentle nature, as a result of which he shows his weak character. He killed the poor girl without even trying to do anything to correct the terrible situation that happened at the end of the story. But the reader can understand that Ivan does not justify himself and even scolds himself for what happened, because he himself understands that everything depended only on him.

Option 4

Kuprin is a Russian writer who grew up without a father and began his creative career in Moscow. After his father died, he and his mother moved there. There he graduated from a military school and began translating foreign works. Later he became interested in writing his own works, which ended up in local magazines. Thanks to this, the writer gained popularity among local residents, and this gave impetus to writing the story “Olesya”.

The most striking character of this work was Ivan Timofeevich. This intelligent man had bright character traits and the right mindset. Despite this, the hero of the story is pessimistic about the current life, in his calmness, such people are not able to become a ruler in society, and change something in themselves or those around them. Even the activity of tutoring, which he sometimes loved to do most, tired him. He even tried to heal people, but this did not console his nature towards everything that was happening. The character's soul wanted grandiose changes in life. His attempts to find mutual friends in the government ended in boredom, and this pushed him to take a decisive step - to change his life with a trip to Polesie.

Thanks to this move, the author was able to show the image of the main character Olesya, whom Ivan Timofeevich met after getting lost in the forest one day. Olesya was beautiful and attractive. The origins of this acquaintance come from the character’s hobbies for hunting. While hunting, Ivan Timofeevich was able to be alone with nature and with himself.

In these events, the affection of the main characters for each other is born. Despite the fact that Olesya had the ability to tell fortunes and control extraterrestrial forces, she decided to become the wife of Ivan Timofeevich. The heroine’s mother explained in every possible way that she did not need this marriage. The hero of the story himself, without having a “firm” word, somehow influenced the girl and led to disappointment in her fragile heart. In such events, Olesya is left alone, and her ex-husband, due to his sluggish mentality, cannot change anything. His indifference to life destroyed everything in its path. The author even feels sorry for the character to some extent. Having decorated his image with kindness and responsiveness to people, he never tries to complete his work. As a result, he remains a complete loser. Deep down, he scolds himself, and understands that he cannot change anything, his indifference has dragged him into a pool of failures, from which he can no longer get out.

This work by the author clearly expresses the actions of people who are not the “masters” of their word. Kuprin very beautifully expressed the self-esteem of the protagonist, which had an instructive effect on society. Only thanks to this work, many readers saw the essence of pessimism in a person, what it leads to, and what comes of it.

Several interesting essays

Summer is my favorite time of the year, a wonderful time full of joy and fun! I always spend warm summer days with benefit and pleasure.

• Essay Take care of nature 6th, 7th grade with numerical numerical facts reasoning

  Nowadays, when industry is developing at tremendous speed, nature conservation is an integral part of life. Cities are growing, and with them the number of factories, various equipment and a lot of things that pollute the environment are increasing.

• The image and characteristics of Vronsky in the story Anna Karenina by Tolstoy essay

  Alexey Kirillovich Vronsky is one of the central characters in L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina”. The young, brave officer Vronsky received a good education, was brought up, and was accustomed to moving in society. He is a calm, friendly, honest and noble person

• Heroes of the work The Defeat of Fadeev

  Fadeev’s “Destruction” was the brainchild of a book written in the post-October years, where the author’s own memories of the war were fresh.

• The main characters of the work Minor Fonvizin

  One of the heroines of this work is a cruel mixed woman who beat and humiliated the peasants, as well as her weak-willed husband, loving no one except her son

Ivan Timofeevich is the main character and narrator of the story “Olesya”. This is a city intellectual, a gentleman and an aspiring writer. He ended up in Polesie on official business and hopes at the same time to collect folk tales and epics of this area for his work. However, the local peasants quickly disappointed him. They are unsociable, gloomy and rather limited. For example, he repeatedly tried to teach the local boy Yarmola, with whom he sometimes went hunting, to read and write, but to no avail. All attempts to get to know the Perebrod people better also led to nothing.

One day Yarmola told the master that a real witch Manuilikha lived in the forest near the swamps. Ivan Timofeevich found this interesting. He wanted to meet her as soon as possible, although in his heart he did not believe in any witchcraft. Such an opportunity quickly presented itself to him. Soon he got lost while hunting and just came across Manuilikha’s hut. The old woman really looked like a fairy-tale witch. She received the guest unkindly, but promised to tell fortunes for a silver coin. As it turned out, Manuilikha also had a granddaughter with the same unusual gift. Her name was Alena, but in Polesie it was Olesya. The girl was so beautiful and friendly that Ivan Timofeevich from the day they met only thought about her.

By nature, Ivan was a kind man, but weak. Olesya noticed this immediately, but she couldn’t do anything. Even her fortune telling foreshadowed trouble from this man, since his kindness was somehow not good, not heartfelt. And he was not the master of his words and actions. He quickly left what he started without finishing it. For example, wanting to teach local peasants literacy, he quickly abandoned his attempts, since they did not shine with intelligence. Feeling an inevitable disaster because Olesya would go to church, he made no attempt to prevent this. Thus, although this hero was a kind, sympathetic person, he had a “lazy” heart.

“Olesya” Kuprin A.I.

Ivan Timofeevich (Vanechka) is a storyteller, urban intellectual, and aspiring writer.
I.T. On official business he ends up in Polesie. There, while hunting and lost in the forest, the hero meets the beautiful Alena (Olesya, in Polesie).
After this meeting, the image of Olesya could not leave I.T.’s head: he found in the girl an innate nobility, “graceful moderation.” Attracted I.T. and the girl’s “reputation as a witch,” her “life in the forest thicket.” But most of all the hero was fascinated by Olesya’s “integral, original nature, ... mind.”
During the second meeting, the girl tells fortunes to the hero, naming his main traits: “although kind, he is only weak... Kindness... is not good, not cordial. “I am not a master of my word,” I am “painfully eager” for women. He will not be able to love anyone, because “his heart... is cold, lazy.” As a result, Olesya predicts I.T. “great love on the part of the lady of clubs,” through which “she will accept great shame.” By a fatal coincidence, Olesya herself soon falls in love with the “baric” I.T. The characters begin a relationship. I.T. sets a condition for the girl: either he or her witchcraft. The hero persuades Olesya to go to church. There the village women attack her like a witch. Having come to Olesya, I.T. finds her ill from the fear and humiliation she experienced. The next day after the incident, returning to the girl again, the hero discovers that “the hut was empty.” And only a thread of red corals hung on the window reminded of Oles. I.T. almost immediately comes to terms with what happened.

A frequent hero of literature of the late 19th century is an intellectual whose life path does not work out due to his passivity, indecision, inability to find a place in life, laziness, fear of life and committing actions.

This is how the hero of Alexander Kuprin’s story “Olesya” - Ivan Timofeevich - appears before us, kind but weak, smart but inactive.

Characteristics

A man, somewhat satiated with life, not rich, but spoiled, finds himself in the wilderness, in the forests of Polesie. The boredom that haunts him in a remote village pushes him to the fact that “out of idleness” the hero begins to teach and treat ordinary people, and it seems that this boredom haunted him in the world from which he escaped. Fate brings him a meeting with a local savage and witch, the girl Olesya. The hero falls in love, led by the mystical charms of the girl, her exoticism in comparison with the hero’s usual surroundings, her beauty, naturalness, merging with nature. However, the hero can neither make a decision regarding marriage with the forest beauty, nor protect her from a hostile society; he unmistakably sees the impossibility of this union. As a result, the story ends tragically - Olesya is attacked by the villagers and she herself decides to disappear from the hero’s life. They will not see each other again, Olesya secretly leaves, leaving in the hero’s memory bright, unlike anything else memories of their dates and, as a symbol of this brightness, a scarlet thread of coral beads.

(Gennady Voropaev as Ivan Timofeevich, film "Olesya", USSR 1971)

The narration is told on behalf of Ivan Timofeevich, so the reader does not have a clear external portrait; the external image consists of fragmentary characteristics given by Olesya and other characters in the story. Ivan considers himself a “quiet and modest” person, prone to a “wandering” life, which means that we have before us a man without roots, without family and love. By the time Ivan arrived in Polesie, he was an aspiring writer who had managed to publish a story in a small newspaper (the way he speaks of the publication - “newspaper” - and the way he calls his work the word “emboss” indicates a low assessment of his opuses).

He is simple and quite cordial with people, helps the poor man Yarmola, saves his family from hunger and heals the surrounding peasants.

Main features and qualities, psychological portrait of the character

An outsider’s opinion about Ivan speaks much more honestly and with greater psychologism. And this is Olesya’s opinion when the girl tells fortunes for him: kind, but weak, but rather indifferent, conniving. That is, Ivan’s kindness is not an aspiration, but rather goodwill, following etiquette. His heart is lazy and cold, and he is not master of his word. He easily succumbs to the destructive influence of alcohol and passions, as a result of which, Olesya claims, there can be a lot of grief in his life. According to Olesya’s prediction, a “lazy” heart will not allow him to commit suicide in the future - Ivan will have great grief, but due to his tendency to indifference, he will be able to “survive it like this,” although he will be tempted to commit suicide.

The psychological portrait presented by Olesya is most likely correct, although the reader does not know how his life turned out after meeting the forest witch. Ivan really turned out to be greedy for beauty (he didn’t believe in any witchcraft, but became interested in the witch, came to her house and fell in love with the fatal forest princess, completely not thinking about the consequences), but he preferred not to think about the consequences, he quickly burst into flames with ideas, but quickly cooled down (attempts to get closer to the people, teach them, get to know them led nowhere), he did nothing to stop Olesya from going to the temple, as a result of which a tragedy occurred.

Image in the work

(Ivan - Gennady Voropaev and Yarmola - Borislav Borundukov on the hunt, frame from the film "Olesya", USSR 1971)

Ivan and Yarmola share one passion - hunting. There is a time when nothing interests or pleases him except forest landscapes; he feels a certain inseparability with forest paths. He feels the need to be as natural a person as Olesya was in her native forest. Only such naturalness seems beautiful to the hero, and Olesya’s words seem wise and accurate.

(Olesya - Lyudmila Chursina; Ivan - Gennady Voropaev, still from the film "Olesya", USSR 1971)

That is why there is a clear contrast between the images of Olesya and Ivan and the glorification of the image of a natural person. Ivan is an intellectual, an educated person and a writer, but there is no place for him either in the wilderness or in the world, since there are lies, human passions, vulgarity, narrow-mindedness or ignorance all around. Olesya, like a pure ray of light in a forest clearing, flashes in his life, but Ivan cannot grow up to her, morally he loses to her inimitable nobility, her mercy, selflessness, kindness, dedication. And this is the tragedy of the entire Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century - to start and quit, to fall in love and betray, to live, floating with the flow and not finding a place everywhere.