The movement of the soul using the example of Grigory Melekhov. Essay “Paths of quest of Grigory Melekhov. Ideological and personal doubts

The heroes of Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Don" were ordinary peasants - workers, and not some outstanding personalities, however, they represent the Cossacks. One of them is Grigory Melekhov. Both Turkish and Cossack blood were intertwined in his family. Since time immemorial, the ancestors of the Melekhovs settled here and worked on this fertile land. The two foundations that create a real Cossack are prowess and love for farming, land, and work. So is Gregory. But there is something special about him that sets him apart from his family, and indeed from the entire village - self-will and independence in his actions and search for truth. But in the soul of the main character there is love and tenderness for a woman, kindness.

Grigory goes to war as a young, cheerful guy with youthful ideas about life and the future. Everything he does comes from the heart, not from the mind. For Gregory, the concept of “depriving a person of life” occupies a special place. He suffers for a long time after killing his first enemy.

But the war went on and established its own laws. Melekhov had to see too many terrible things, so he quite consciously goes over to the side of the Reds. Gregory is adapting to the war, to the deaths of many people.

The protagonist’s heart “hardens” and his psychology changes. A tragedy occurs in his soul - everything human dies.

But revolutionary events pose questions of existence to Melekhov, he tries to find the meaning of life, the historical truth of the time. He needs to know what everyone needs individually and all together.

While fighting, Gregory experiences dissatisfaction with himself, because... he does not seek personal gain for himself, but is afraid of sinning against the truth. The main character is constantly faced with the need to choose; the feeling of a warrior and the feeling of a master are fighting in him. Gregory rushes between two fires in search of the truth. Transitions from one camp to another, painful doubts about the correctness of the chosen path reflect the dramatic contradictions of the time, revealing the struggle of feelings in the soul of the hero.

The war and all subsequent events left an indelible imprint on Gregory’s soul. He feels tired from everything that is happening around him.

In the end, Grigory Melekhov did not find the road and found himself at a historical crossroads. In the tense atmosphere of the White Guard rebellion and kulak uprisings, he cannot hope for forgiveness or oblivion of his past. Gregory rejected the old world, but he did not understand or believe the essence of the new reality, which is confirmed in blood, suffering and injustice.

1. New!

   M. Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” is a work of extraordinary power. The heroes of the novel reflect the historical and social upheavals of the twentieth century. Sholokhov created a gallery of images that, in terms of their expressiveness and artistic value, stood on a par...

The main character of M. A. Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Don" Grigory Melekhov, looking for the truth of life, gets confused a lot, makes mistakes, suffers, because in none of the warring parties does he find the moral truth to which he strives. Gregory is faithful...

The civil war, in my opinion, is the most cruel and bloody war, because sometimes close people fight in it, who once lived in one whole, united country, believed in one God and adhered to the same ideals. How does it happen that relatives...

2. New!

   Epic novel by M.A. In terms of the scale of its coverage of reality and artistic mastery, literary criticism places Sholokhov’s “Quiet Don” on a par with L.N.’s “War and Peace.” Tolstoy. A.N. Tolstoy wrote: “In “The Quiet Don” he [Sholokhov] unfolded an epic...

>Essays based on the work Quiet Don

The path of quest of Grigory Melikhov

The epic novel by M. A. Sholokhov “Quiet Don” (1928-1940) is a work about the life of the Don Cossacks during the civil war. The main character of the novel, Grigory Melekhov, is a worthy son of his father, a loving and fair person, a seeker of truth. Gregory's personal development against the backdrop of changing, often hostile events in the world is the main problem of the novel. The author masterfully depicts the stages of formation and development of the hero's character, his exploits and disappointments, and most importantly, the search for a path in life.

The image of Grigory Melekhov is complex and contradictory. It combines family, social, historical and love lines. He cannot be considered separately from other characters. He is in close unity with his parents, his family and other Cossacks. The “millstones” of the war did not spare Gregory. They walked through his soul, crippling it and leaving bloody traces. On the battlefields he matured, received many awards, supported the Cossack honor, but at what cost. The kind and humane Gregory became hardened, his character was strengthened, and he became different. If after the first murder he could not sleep at night, tormented by his conscience, then over time he learned to mercilessly kill the enemy and even developed the technique of a fatal blow. However, until the last chapter he remained a loving, open and fair person.

In search of the truth, Gregory rushed from one camp to another, from “red” to “white”. As a result, he became a renegade. He even envied those who firmly believed in one truth and fought for only one idea. The hero experienced moral fluctuations not only at the front, but also at home. On the one hand, the devoted and loving Natalya was waiting for him, and on the other hand, all his life he loved Aksinya, the wife of Stepan Astakhov. This ambiguous position in different social spheres indicates that Gregory is a doubtful nature. He always lived “between two fires.” The author himself sympathizes with his hero - a man who lived in troubled times, when all moral guidelines were shifted.

Having still not understood what the “truth” was and why this senseless war was needed, having lost almost all his loved ones and relatives, at the end of the novel Gregory returned to his native land. The only person who related him to the earth and this huge world was his son Mishatka. According to the author, this is exactly what the life of a Cossack could have been like: the son returned to his mother, that is, to the Cossack land. Perhaps this was the “truth” that Gregory had been looking for for so long.

Roman M.A. Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" is a novel about the Cossacks during the era of the civil war. The main character of the work, Grigory Melekhov, continues the tradition of Russian classical literature, in which one of the main images is the truth-seeking hero (works by Nekrasov, Leskov, Tolstoy, Gorky).
Grigory Melekhov also strives to find the meaning of life, to understand the whirlwind of historical events, and to find happiness. This simple Cossack was born into a simple and friendly family, where centuries-old traditions are sacred - they work hard and have fun. The basis of the hero's character - love for work, for his native land, respect for elders, justice, decency, kindness - is laid right here, in the family.
Handsome, hard-working, cheerful, Grigory immediately wins the hearts of those around him: he is not afraid of people’s gossip (he almost openly loves the beautiful Aksinya, the wife of the Cossack Stepan), and does not consider it shameful to become a farm laborer in order to maintain a relationship with the woman he loves.
And at the same time, Gregory is a person who tends to hesitate. So, despite his great love for Aksinya, Grigory does not resist his parents and, at their will, marries Natalya Korshunova.
Without fully realizing it, Melekhov strives to exist “in truth.” He is trying to understand, to answer for himself the question “how should one live?” The hero's search is complicated by the era in which he happened to be born - a time of revolutions and wars.
Gregory will experience strong moral hesitations when he finds himself on the fronts of the First World War. The hero went to war, thinking that he knew whose side was right: he needed to defend the fatherland and destroy the enemy. What could be simpler? Melekhov does just that. He fights valiantly, he is brave and selfless, he does not disgrace the Cossack honor. But gradually doubts come to the hero. He begins to see in his opponents the same people with their hopes, weaknesses, fears, joys. Why all this carnage, what will it bring to people?
The hero begins to realize this especially clearly when Melekhov’s fellow countryman Chubaty kills a captured Austrian, a very young boy. The prisoner is trying to establish contact with the Russians, openly smiling at them, trying to please. The Cossacks were pleased with the decision to take him to headquarters for interrogation, but Chubati simply out of love for violence, out of hatred, kills the boy.
For Melekhov, this event becomes a real moral blow. And although he firmly cherishes the Cossack honor and deserves a reward, he understands that he is not created for war. He painfully wants to know the truth in order to find the meaning of his actions. Having fallen under the influence of the Bolshevik Garanji, the hero, like a sponge, absorbs new thoughts, new ideas. He begins to fight for the Reds. But the murder of unarmed prisoners by the Reds pushes him away from them too.
Gregory’s childishly pure soul alienates him from both the Reds and the Whites. The truth is revealed to Melekhov: the truth cannot be on either side. Red and white are politics, class struggle. And where there is a class struggle, blood always flows, people die, children remain orphans. Truth is peaceful work in our native land, family, love.
Gregory is a hesitant, doubting nature. This allows him to search for the truth, not to stop there, and not to be limited by other people’s explanations. Gregory’s position in life is a position “between”: between the traditions of his fathers and his own will, between two loving women - Aksinya and Natalya, between whites and reds. Finally, between the need to fight and the realization of the meaninglessness and uselessness of the massacre (“my hands need to plow, not fight”).
The author himself sympathizes with his hero. In the novel, Sholokhov objectively describes events, talks about the “truth” of both whites and reds. But his sympathies and experiences are on Melekhov’s side. This man happened to live at a time when all moral guidelines were displaced. It was this, as well as the desire to search for the truth, that led the hero to such a tragic ending - the loss of everything he loved: “Why did you, life, cripple me like that?”
The writer emphasizes that the civil war is a tragedy of the entire Russian people. There is no right or wrong in it, because people die, brother goes against brother, father against son.
Thus, Sholokhov in the novel “Quiet Don” made a truth-seeker a person from the people and from the people. The image of Grigory Melekhov becomes the concentration of the historical and ideological conflict of the work, an expression of the tragic searches of the entire Russian people.

At the very beginning of the novel, it becomes clear that Grigory loves Aksinya Astakhova, the married neighbor of the Melekhovs. The hero rebels against his family, who condemn him, a married man, for his relationship with Aksinya. He does not obey his father’s will and leaves his native farm together with Aksinya, not wanting to live a double life with his disliked wife Natalya, who then attempts suicide - she cuts her neck with a scythe. Grigory and Aksinya become hired workers for the landowner Listnitsky.

In 1914 - Gregory’s first battle and the first person he killed. Gregory is having a hard time. In war, he receives not only the St. George Cross, but also experience. The events of this period make him think about the life structure of the world.

It would seem that revolutions are made for people like Grigory Melekhov. He joined the Red Army, but he had no greater disappointment in his life than the reality of the red camp, where violence, cruelty and lawlessness reign.

Gregory leaves the Red Army and becomes a participant in the Cossack rebellion as a Cossack officer. But here too there is cruelty and injustice.

He again finds himself with the Reds - in Budyonny's cavalry - and again experiences disappointment. In his vacillations from one political camp to another, Gregory strives to find the truth that is closer to his soul and his people.

Ironically, he ends up in Fomin's gang. Gregory thinks that bandits are free people. But even here he feels like a stranger. Melekhov leaves the gang to pick up Aksinya and flee with her to Kuban. But Aksinya’s death from a random bullet in the steppe deprives Gregory of his last hope for a peaceful life. It is at this moment that he sees in front of him a black sky and a “dazzlingly shining black disk of the sun.” The writer depicts the sun - the symbol of life - as black, emphasizing the troubles of the world. Having joined the deserters, Melekhov lived with them for almost a year, but longing again drove him to his home.

At the end of the novel, Natalya and her parents die, Aksinya dies. Only a son and a younger sister remained, who married a red man. Gregory stands at the gates of his home and holds his son in his arms. The ending is left open: will his simple dream of living as his ancestors lived ever come true: “to plow the land, take care of it”?

Female images in the novel.

Women, into whose lives war breaks into, takes away their husbands, sons, destroys their home and hopes for personal happiness, take on their shoulders an unbearable load of work in the field and at home, but do not bend, but courageously carry this load. The novel presents two main types of Russian women: the mother, the keeper of the hearth (Ilyinichna and Natalya) and the beautiful sinner frantically seeking her happiness (Aksinya and Daria). Two women - Aksinya and Natalya - accompany the main character, they selflessly love him, but are opposite in everything.

Love is a necessary need for Aksinya’s existence. Aksinya’s frenzy in love is emphasized by the description of her “shamelessly greedy, plump lips” and “vicious eyes.” The heroine's backstory is scary: at the age of 16, she was raped by her drunken father and married to Stepan Astakhov, a neighbor of the Melekhovs. Aksinya endured humiliation and beatings from her husband. She had neither children nor relatives. It is understandable that she would like “to fall out of bitter love throughout her entire life,” so she fiercely defends her love for Grishka, which has become the meaning of her existence. For her sake, Aksinya is ready for any test. Gradually, almost maternal tenderness appears in her love for Gregory: with the birth of her daughter, her image becomes purer. In separation from Grigory, she becomes attached to his son, and after Ilyinichna’s death she takes care of all Grigory’s children as if they were her own. Her life was cut short by a random steppe bullet when she was happy. She died in Gregory's arms.

Natalya is the embodiment of the idea of ​​home, family, and the natural morality of a Russian woman. She is a selfless and affectionate mother, a pure, faithful and devoted woman. She suffers a lot from her love for her husband. She does not want to put up with her husband’s betrayal, she does not want to be unloved - this forces her to commit suicide. The hardest thing for Gregory to survive is that before her death she “forgave him everything,” that she “loved him and remembered him until the last minute.” Upon learning of Natalya's death, Gregory for the first time felt a stabbing pain in his heart and a ringing in his ears. He is tormented by remorse.

M.A. Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita".

M. Bulgakov's novel is multidimensional. This multidimensionality affects:

1. in the composition - the interweaving of various plot layers of the narrative: the fate of the master and the history of his romance, the plot of the love of the master and Margarita, the fate of Ivan Bezdomny, the actions of Woland and his team in Moscow, a biblical plot, satirical sketches of Moscow in the 20s - 30s years;

2. in multi-themes - intertwining themes of creator and power, love and loyalty, powerlessness of cruelty and the power of forgiveness, conscience and duty, light and peace, struggle and humility, true and false, crime and punishment, good and evil, etc.;

M. Bulgakov's heroes are paradoxical: they are rebels striving to find peace. Yeshua is obsessed with the idea of ​​moral salvation, the triumph of truth and goodness, the happiness of people and rebels against unfreedom and brute power; Woland, obliged as Satan to commit evil, consistently creates justice, mixing the concepts of good and evil, light and darkness, which emphasizes the depravity of society and the earthly life of people; Margarita rebels against everyday reality, destroying and overcoming shame, conventions, prejudices, fear, distances and times with her loyalty and love.

It seems that the master is furthest from rebellion, because he humbles himself and does not fight for either the novel or Margarita. But precisely because he does not fight, he is a master; his job is to create, and he created his honest novel without any self-interest, career gain or common sense. His novel is his rebellion against the “common” idea of ​​the creator. The master creates for centuries, eternity, “accepts praise and slander indifferently,” exactly according to A.S. Pushkin; The fact of creativity itself is important to him, and not someone’s reaction to the novel. And yet the master deserved peace, but not light. Why? Probably not because he gave up the fight for the novel. Perhaps for giving up the fight for love (?). The parallel hero of the Yershalaim chapters, Yeshua, fought for love for people to the end, to death. The Master is not God, but only a man, and like any man, he is weak and sinful in some ways... Only God is worthy of light. Or maybe peace is exactly what the creator needs most?..

Another novel by M. Bulgakov is about escaping from everyday reality or overcoming it. Everyday reality is the regime of Caesar, cruel in its unrighteousness, trampling on the conscience of Pilate, reproducing informers and executioners; this is the false world of the Berliozs and near-literary circles in Moscow in the 30s; this is also the vulgar world of Moscow inhabitants, living on profit, self-interest and sensations.

Yeshua's flight is an appeal to the souls of people. The master is looking for answers to everyday questions in the distant past, which, as it turns out, is closely connected with the present. Margarita rises above everyday life and conventions with the help of Woland's love and miracles. Woland deals with reality with the help of his devilish power. And Natasha doesn’t want to return to reality from the other world at all.

This novel is also about freedom. It is no coincidence that the heroes, freed from all sorts of conventions and dependencies, receive peace, while Pilate, who is not free in his actions, suffers constant torture from anxiety and insomnia.

The novel is based on M. Bulgakov’s idea that the world in all its diversity is one, integral and eternal, and the private fate of any person of any time is inseparable from the fate of eternity and humanity. This explains the multidimensionality of the novel’s artistic fabric, which united all layers of the narrative with one idea into a monolithic, integral work.

At the end of the novel, all the characters and themes converge on the lunar road leading to eternal light, and the debate about life, continuing, goes on to infinity.

Analysis of the episode of the interrogation of Yeshua by Pontius Pilate in the novel “The Master and Margarita” (Chapter 2).

In Chapter 1 of the novel there is practically no exposition or introduction. From the very beginning, Woland's dispute with Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny about the existence of Jesus unfolds. To prove Woland’s correctness, Chapter 2 of “Pontius Pilate” is immediately placed, which tells about the interrogation of Yeshua by the procurator of Judea. As the reader will later understand, this is one of the fragments of the master’s book, which Massolit curses, but Woland, who retold this episode, knows well. Berlioz would later say that this story “does not coincide with the gospel stories,” and he would be right. In the Gospels there is only a slight hint of Pilate’s torment and hesitation when approving the death sentence of Jesus, and in the master’s book, the interrogation of Yeshua is a complex psychological duel not only of moral goodness and power, but also of two people, two individuals.

Several leitmotif details skillfully used by the author in the episode help reveal the meaning of the fight. At the very beginning, Pilate has a premonition of a bad day due to the smell of rose oil, which he hated. Hence the headache that torments the procurator, because of which he does not move his head and looks like stone. Then - the news that the death sentence for the defendant must be approved by him. This is another torment for Pilate.

And yet, at the beginning of the episode, Pilate is calm, confident, and speaks quietly, although the author calls his voice “dull, sick.”

The next leitmotif is the secretary recording the interrogation. Pilate is burned by Yeshua’s words that writing down words distorts their meaning. Later, when Yeshua relieves Pilate of his headache and he feels affection for the deliverer from pain against his will, the procurator will either speak in a language unknown to the secretary, or even kick out the secretary and the convoy in order to be left with Yeshua alone, without witnesses.

Another symbolic image is the sun, which Ratboy obscured with his rough and gloomy figure. The sun is an irritating symbol of heat and light, and the tormented Pilate is constantly trying to hide from this heat and light.

Pilate's eyes are cloudy at first, but after Yeshua's revelations they shine more and more with the same sparks. At some point, it begins to seem that, on the contrary, Yeshua is judging Pilate. He relieves the procurator of his headache, advises him to take a break from business and take a walk (like a doctor), chides him for the loss of faith in people and the meagerness of his life, then claims that only God gives and takes away life, and not the rulers, convinces Pilate that “ There are no evil people in the world."

The role of the swallow flying into and out of the colonnade is interesting. The swallow is a symbol of life, independent of the power of Caesar, not asking the procurator where to build and where not to build a nest. The swallow, like the sun, is an ally of Yeshua. She has a softening effect on Pilate. From this moment on, Yeshua is calm and confident, and Pilate is anxious, irritated from the painful split. He is constantly looking for a reason to leave Yeshua, whom he likes, alive: he either thinks to imprison him in a fortress, or put him in a madhouse, although he himself says that he is not crazy, then with glances, gestures, hints, and reticence, he prompts the prisoner with the words necessary for salvation; “For some reason he looked at the secretary and the convoy with hatred.” Finally, after a fit of rage, when Pilate realized that Yeshua is absolutely uncompromising, he powerlessly asks the prisoner: “No wife?” - as if hoping that she could help straighten the brains of this naive and pure person.

Mikhail Sholokhov... He knows the most...

secret movements of human souls and with

knows how to show with great skill

This. Even his most random heroes,

whose life began and ended on

remain on the same page for a long time -

in your memory.

V.Ya. Shishkov

We can rightfully call M. Sholokhov a chronicler of the Soviet era, its researcher, its singer. He created a whole gallery of images that, in terms of their expressiveness and artistic value, stood on a par with the most remarkable images of advanced literature.

“Quiet Don” is a novel about the fate of the people at a turning point. This is the author’s fundamental point of view on the revolution and the Civil War. The dramatic destinies of the main characters, the cruel lessons of the fate of Grigory Melikhov, the main character of the novel, are formed by Sholokhov into the unity of the historical truth of the people on the path of building a new life. By following the thorny path of Gregory's life quest, one can understand how Sholokhov himself managed to solve the problem of the moral quest of his protagonist.

At the beginning of the story, young Gregory - a real Cossack, a brilliant rider, hunter, fisherman and diligent rural worker - is quite happy and carefree. The traditional Cossack commitment to military glory helps him out in his first trials on the bloody battlefields in 1914. Distinguished by exceptional courage, Gregory quickly gets used to bloody battles. However, what distinguishes him from his brothers in arms is his sensitivity to any manifestation of cruelty. To any violence against the weak and defenseless, and as events develop - also a protest against the horrors and absurdities of war. In fact, he spends his entire life in an environment of hatred and fear that is alien to him, becoming embittered and discovering with disgust how all his talent, his entire being goes into the dangerous skill of creating death. He has no time to be at home, with his family, among people who love him.

All this cruelty, filth, and violence forced Gregory to take a fresh look at life: in the hospital where he was after being wounded, under the influence of revolutionary propaganda, doubts appeared about his devotion to the tsar, the fatherland and military duty.

In the seventeenth year we see Gregory in chaotic and painful attempts to somehow make up his mind in this “time of troubles.” He seeks political truth in a world of rapidly changing values, guided more often by the external signs of events than by their essence.

At first he fights for the Reds, but their murder of unarmed prisoners repulses him, and when the Bolsheviks come to his beloved Don, committing robbery and violence, he fights them with cold fury. And again Gregory’s search for truth does not find an answer. They turn into the greatest drama of a person completely lost in the cycle of events.

The deep forces of Gregory’s soul push him away from both the Reds and the Whites. “They are all the same! - he says to his childhood friends who are leaning towards the Bolsheviks. “They are all a yoke on the neck of the Cossacks!” And when he learns about the rebellion of the Cossacks in the upper reaches of the Don against the Red Army, he takes the side of the rebels. Now he can fight for what is dear to him, for what he loved and cherished all his life: “It’s as if the days of searching for the truth, trials, transitions and difficult internal struggles were not behind him. What was there to think about? Why was the soul rushing about - in search of a way out, in resolving contradictions? Life seemed mocking, wisely simple. Now it seemed to him that from eternity there had not been such a truth in it, under the wing of which anyone could warm up, and embittered to the brim, he thought: everyone has their own truth, their own furrow. People have always fought for a piece of bread, for a plot of land, for the right to life and will continue to fight as long as the sun shines on them, as long as warm blood oozes through their veins. We must fight with those who want to take away life, the right to it; you have to fight hard, without swaying, like in a wall, but the intensity of hatred, the hardness will be given by struggle!”

Both a return to the dominance of officers in the event of a White victory, and the power of the Reds on the Don are unacceptable for Gregory. In the last volume of the novel, demotion as a consequence of disobedience to the White Guard general, the death of his wife and the final defeat of the White Army bring Gregory to the last degree of despair. In the end, he joins Budyonny’s cavalry and heroically fights the Poles, wanting to clear himself of his guilt before the Bolsheviks. But for Gregory there is no salvation in Soviet reality, where even neutrality is considered a crime. With bitter mockery, he tells the former messenger that he envies Koshevoy and the White Guard Listnitsky: “It was clear to them from the very beginning, but to me everything was still unclear. They both have their own straight roads, their own ends, but since I was seventeen, I’ve been walking along the vilyuzhkas like I’m swaying like a drunk...”

One night, under the threat of arrest, and therefore inevitable execution, Grigory flees his native farm. After long wanderings, longing for his children and Aksinya, he secretly returns. Aksinya hugs him, presses her face to his wet overcoat and sobs: “It’s better to kill him, but don’t leave him again!” Having asked his sister to take the children, he and Aksinya flee at night in the hope of getting to Kuban and starting a new life. Enthusiastic joy fills the soul of this woman at the thought that she is again next to Gregory. But her happiness is short-lived: on the road they are caught by a horse outpost, and they rush into the night, pursued by bullets flying after them. When they find shelter in a ditch, Gregory buries his Aksinya: “He carefully crushed the wet yellow clay on the grave mound with his palms and knelt for a long time near the grave, bowing his head, quietly swaying.

There was no need for him to rush now. It was all over..."

Hiding for weeks in the thicket of the forest, Grigory experiences an increasingly strong desire to “walk... around his native places, show off like the kids, then he could die...”. He returns to his native village.

Having touchingly described Grigory’s meeting with his son, Sholokhov ends his novel with the words: “Well, the little that Grigory dreamed about during sleepless nights has come true. He stood at the gates of his home, holding his son in his arms... This was all that was left in his life, what still connected him with the earth and with this whole huge world shining under the cold sun.”

Gregory did not have long to enjoy this joy. It is obvious that he returned to die. To die from communist necessity in the person of Mikhail Koshevoy. In a novel full of cruelty, executions and murders, Sholokhov wisely brings down the curtain on this final episode. Meanwhile, an entire human life flashed before us, flashing brightly and slowly fading away. Sholokhov's biography of Gregory is quite voluminous. Gregory lived, in the full sense of the word, when his idyll of life was not disturbed by anything.

He loved and was loved, he lived an extraordinary worldly life on his native farm and was content. He always tried to do the right thing, and if not, well, every person has the right to make a mistake. Many moments of Gregory’s life in the novel are peculiar “escapes” from events that are beyond his mind. The passion of Gregory’s quest is most often replaced by a return to himself, to a natural life, to his home. But at the same time, it cannot be said that Gregory’s life quests reached a dead end, no, he had true love, and fate did not deprive him of the opportunity to be a happy father. But Gregory was forced to constantly look for a way out. from the difficult situations that have arisen. Speaking about Gregory’s moral choice in life, it is impossible to say unambiguously whether his choice was really the only true and correct one. But he was almost always guided by his own principles and beliefs, trying to find a better life in life, and this is his desire. was not a simple desire to “live better than everyone else.” It was sincere and affected the interests not only of himself, but also of many people close to him, in particular the woman he loved. Despite his fruitless aspirations in life, Gregory was happy, although only for a very short time. But even these short minutes of much-needed happiness were enough. They were not lost in vain, just as Grigory Melekhov did not live his life in vain.