To be faithful is a virtue, to know loyalty is an honor. Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach

Human relationships are a complex mechanism, which, however, is not so easy to fix if some failures are coming. This is especially true of feelings, strong and all-consuming. Loyalty and betrayal are two sides of the same coin shared by two. And the choice of each of them leads to consequences in which both are involved, regardless of who betrayed or was betrayed.

Love is a creative feeling, but sometimes, if this feeling is unrequited, you can see its destructive power, which radically changes the personality of a loving person. A vivid example of such changes is the hero of the work of E. Bronte "Wuthering Heights" - Heathcliff. He was a foundling and raised with Katherine and her brother, constantly ridiculed about his origins. However, Katherine fell in love with him for who he is, but having fallen under the spell of the wealthy and educated Edgar Linton, the girl betrays her lover and marries, experiencing love in a new way.

Heathcliff leaves, but when he returns, revenge becomes the meaning of life. Katherine cannot let go of the past, but she cannot be with her former lover either, and this painful situation brings her to the grave. Driven by vengeance, Heathcliff marries Linton's sister, torturing and humiliating the young wife to hurt Edgar's feelings. The once thin and vulnerable mental warehouse of the hero is replaced by despotic, gloomy, on the verge of insanity, and these sufferings do not let him go until his death.

Often, love comes as a fleeting attraction, which eventually transforms into a deep feeling that pushes for betrayal. In the secrecy of such relations there is some kind of excitement that urges again and again to go against conscience and public opinion. But the impasse forces you to constantly scroll in your head the prospect of such relationships and feelings that provide moments of happiness and pleasure and endless time periods of waiting, confusion, jealousy, fear, pain, disappointment and suffering. A.P. Chekhov very accurately conveyed these changes through relationships in the story "The Lady with the Dog". A young lady who has fallen under the spell of a holiday romance and cheated on her husband is constantly tormented by pangs of conscience and the fear that she has become fallen in the eyes of the seducer himself. Gurov liked women and used it, constantly cheating on his wife. But after meeting with Anna, she realizes real feelings in what happened after a while. Wanting to continue the relationship, he finds the lady who took away his peace, and finds reciprocity. But everyone remains with his own, continuing secret meetings and not daring to make serious changes, while being aware of all the hardships of the situation.

A huge role in the formation of relationships and devotion is played by a person’s own position, framework, principles, ideals that he sets for himself. An example of such commitment to one's principles is Tatyana in A.S. Pushkin's poem "Eugene Onegin". The girl, having fallen in love and not having received reciprocity, continues to live on and marries another person. Time will pass and Onegin, realizing the mistakes, will come to Tatyana and offer his love. But the woman will refuse. Not in retaliation for past grievances, but because he does not want to step over his principles. Tatyana remains faithful to her husband, despite the feelings she continues to have for Eugene.

Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that only mutual feelings can carry development. Unrequited love is unhappy and dangerous, which pushes people to treason, betrayal, crime. And there is no justification for treason, which becomes a destructive element in the consciousness of the individual, her relationships, since having changed, a person first of all betrays himself. There should be frankness in the relationship, then you will not have to face a difficult moral choice.

The writing

The story "The Lady with the Dog" was conceived at a turning point, both for Russia and for the whole world. The year of writing is 1889, that is, the penultimate year of the 19th century. What was Russia of that time? A country of pre-revolutionary sentiments, tired of the ideas of Domostroy that have been put into practice for centuries, tired of how wrong everything is, and how little a person means by himself, and how little his feelings and thoughts mean. In just 19 years, Russia will explode and inexorably begin to change, but now, in 1889, thanks to Chekhov, it appears before us in one of its most threatening and terrifying guises: Russia is a tyrant state, a devourer of human lives. .

However, at that time (by the way, we note that the time of writing the story and the time depicted by the author coincide) few people could still see the impending, or rather, close approaching threat. Life went on as before, for everyday worries are the best remedy for clairvoyance, because behind them you see nothing but themselves. As before, quite wealthy people go on vacation (you can go to Paris, but if funds do not allow, then to Yalta), husbands cheat on their wives, owners of hotels and inns earn money. In addition, there are more and more so-called "enlightened" women or, as Gurov's wife used to say to herself, "thinking" women, to whom men treated, at best, condescendingly, seeing in this, firstly, a threat to patriarchy , and secondly, the obvious female stupidity. Later it turned out that both of them were mistaken.

Apparently, Chekhov did not like women who were trying to artificially become taller than men. Judging by "The Lady with the Dog" and "The House with the Mezzanine" (where such a heroine was Lidia Volchaninova), such dislike arose as a result of the understanding that "thinking" women would not save the general situation, and perhaps even aggravate it.

"The people are entangled in a great chain, and you do not cut this chain, but only add new links - that's my conviction." ("House with mezzanine"). It seems that this phrase, in addition to the hero who uttered it, could be signed by the author himself.

I must say that "The Lady with the Dog" and "The House with the Mezzanine" are very similar. Not in terms of content, but in terms of the feelings that these two stories leave after reading them. And the details - thoughts about enlightened women, about what prevents two lovers from uniting - complete the similarity.

Thus, we come directly to the text, to its themes and problems. The topic is simple, but for the townsfolk it is also an occasion for rather slippery gossip: a holiday romance and its consequences. But after all, knowing the style of Chekhov's narration, one cannot even assume that his goal was to depict precisely the notorious holiday romance. You have to dig much deeper. In my opinion, the main goal of the work is to show the reader (especially, of course, the reader of that time) what he did not notice before: this is the seeming hopelessness of the situation, as if it were really better for the heroes to give up their love, this is the fear of the heroes themselves to overcome the views of society, fear of taking steps towards their real, not stolen happiness, their being bound by chimeric chains of non-existent duties. And of course, it is quite clear that not only the heroes are to blame for their inaction. This inaction gave rise to something similar to the "dark kingdom" in Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm. But this new "dark kingdom" does not rest on the tyranny of some and the voicelessness of others, but on general indifference to each other and blindness to the present state of things. A prime example of this is the following scene:

One night, leaving the doctor's club with his partner, an official, he (Gurov) could not resist and said:

If you knew what a charming woman I met in Yalta!

The official got into the sleigh and drove off, but suddenly turned around and called out:

Dmitry Dmitrich!!

And just now you were right: the sturgeon is stinky!

As we can see, this official, Gurov's partner in playing cards, is indifferent, blind and deaf. He is only interested in the state of his own stomach, and the concept of tact, in the presence of which you will not respond like this to a remark about a charming woman, is completely unfamiliar to him.

Returning to the theme of the story - the resort novel - one cannot fail to notice that the theme is divided into two separate sub-themes, one way or another connected with each other and forming the main one.

The first, which we are introduced to at the beginning, is the behavior of men and women in resorts away from family and their usual way of life. We see how Gurov is seized by "the seductive thought of a quick, fleeting connection, of an affair with an unknown woman." Later we learn that he succeeds in doing this. Now we can be puzzled: for what purpose does Chekhov open this topic? It seems to me that this topic is intended not only to start the action, but also serves certain purposes. In fact, not just out of boredom, Gurov makes this acquaintance! If there were no such prerequisite as an unloved wife, Gurov would hardly have cheated on her. Yes, and Anna Sergeevna did not love her husband. So, they came together out of loneliness, instinctively feeling the lack of love, needing it.

In our time, it is not clear to many how people who did not have any positive feelings for each other connected their destinies, but even at the end of the 19th century it was as real as it is today. That, I think, is the purpose of the first subtopic: to show people how wrong a family union is without love and respect, what consequences it can lead to.

The second sub-theme is the theme of love and the changes that it brings with it. The meeting with Anna Sergeevna changed Gurov. He fell in love with her, fell in love with a woman for the first time in his life, experienced in adulthood everything that young men feel: “And only now, when his head has become gray-haired, he fell in love properly, truly - for the first time in his life.” And together with love, understanding came to him:

What wild manners, what faces! What senseless nights, what uninteresting, imperceptible days! A frantic game of cards, gluttony, drunkenness, constant talk all about one thing. Unnecessary deeds and conversations all about one thing take in their share the best part of the time, the best forces, and, in the end, there remains some kind of short, wingless life, some kind of nonsense, and you can’t leave and run away, as if you were sitting in a madhouse or in the prison companies!

Love itself changed Gurov, as if Chekhov says, love can do anything. And now his hero is no longer a life-burner, but a real person who knows how to sympathize, be sincere, gentle.

Having dealt with the purpose of the story, for the sake of which it was written, we will consider in detail the plot of the work, its composition. Among those walking on the Yalta embankment, a new face appears - a lady with a dog. This event is the start of an action. By the way, the exposure in this case follows the plot, and not vice versa. A few days later, in the garden, the main character - Gurov - meets this lady. This is how the action begins. Together they walk, spend a lot of time. Gradually, our heroes - and there are two of them - become attached to each other, but, as we remember, Gurov had his own plans for Anna Sergeevna. He dreamed of a holiday romance.

After a week of acquaintance, the action suddenly approached the first high point of its development - the first climax. Gurov and Anna Sergeevna went to her room, and there, according to Anna Sergeevna, she fell.

It seems that Gurov achieved what he wanted, and something must follow from this. According to the logic of things, the heroes must either part and avert their eyes from each other during random meetings, or continue to meet.

“Then every afternoon they met on the embankment, had breakfast together, dined, walked, admired the sea.”

The denouement was a letter that came from Anna Sergeevna's husband, in which he begged his wife to return home. Soon Gurov also went home, thinking that they would never see each other again.

However, the action is still developing. Upon his arrival home, Gurov cannot forget the lady with the dog, and the memory, very real, follows him like a shadow. He changes internally and, finally, matures in order to see Anna Sergeevna again. In December, during the holidays, he comes to S. and makes inquiries about where Anna von Diederitz lives. Unable to see her during the day, Gurov goes to the theater in the evening in the hope that she will be there.

The second climax was their meeting. Again, the heroes face a choice - to be or not to be together, and after a short meeting they part again, but now in the firm belief that Anna Sergeevna will come to Gurov in Moscow. Such is the denouement.

The story concludes with a narration about the further meetings of the characters, but in the full sense this cannot be called a conclusion: the last paragraph allows for further development of the action and further experiences of Anna Sergeevna and Gurov.

Until now, we have not talked about anyone else, except for Anna Sergeevna and Gurov, as if the rest of the heroes do not exist. Partly so it also is. The fact is that Chekhov singles out only two heroes - those who are able to develop. Thus, he emphasizes the disunity of people, as if they speak different languages. Everyone around is impersonal; even if there are many of them, you will not see the presence of a person. We are given only two portraits of minor characters: Gurov's wife and Anna Sergeevna's husband, and even outwardly these people are unattractive, not to mention their other features. And the role that these heroes play is always negative: they are the force that separates lovers.

The portraits of the main characters are inviting. She is: a short blonde with an angular laugh; thin, weak neck, beautiful gray eyes. There is something "pathetic" in her (in Gurov's words), or rather, when looking at her, one wants to be strong and feel sorry for her. He: "In his appearance, in his character, in his whole nature there was something attractive, elusive, which disposed women to him."

Oddly enough, only one character is shown in development. Only Gurov radically changes his position in life, and Anna Sergeevna remains practically unchanged, except that she understands that she is not a fallen woman, and finds the strength in herself to fight.

The story covers a time period of approximately six months to a year, it is impossible to determine exactly. During this time, the action was transferred from Yalta to Moscow, from Moscow to the city of S. and back. According to the author, the characters are exactly "two migratory birds, a male and a female, who were caught and forced to live in separate cages." However, even at a distance from each other, they continue to mentally be together.

So, based on the foregoing, we see that we have a typical story in terms of genre - a small prose work in terms of the volume of phenomena and events depicted, and hence the volume of the text, in which characters act, representing certain individuals. They are shown to us in a well-known completed (that is, having a beginning and an end) moment of their life, which most fully reveals their characters to us. The number of characters in the story is small, and all of them, except for the main ones, are outlined briefly.

Chekhov uses literary language throughout the story to show that the characters belong to the so-called "decent society", however, from the whole variety of artistic means, he uses only portraits of heroes and landscapes that accurately reflect the state of mind of the characters, emphasizing them.

We examined only one small work by A.P. Chekhov, but we see how masterfully the author shows seemingly insignificant, but entailing so much life situations, describes integral, exceptionally realistic characters with all their shortcomings and is able to convey to the reader not only the content , but also the ideas of the story, and also makes us feel confident that true love, loyalty can accomplish a lot.

Plot-plot organization of A.P. Chekhov's story "The Lady with the Dog"

One of many is a “face” that does not stand out from the crowd, attracting attention to itself only by novelty - this is how Anna Sergeevna appears to us at the beginning of A.P. Chekhov’s work “The Lady with the Dog”. Anton Pavlovich, however, does not treat her disdainfully, he already focuses on this character in the title, but indirectly, without naming her name or surname (as opposed to I.S. Turgenev's "Rudin" or "Romeo and Juliet" Shakespeare) - only a lady with a dog.

Speaking about the plot, A.P. Chekhov takes as a basis the history of an ordinary holiday romance - a story, apparently, truly eternal. Events develop according to the usual pattern: on vacation, two unhappy married people find each other with one, it would seem, goal: to forget everyday chores for a few minutes and feel a little happier, albeit not for long. After several weeks of “carefree happiness”, a wife (or husband, it all depends on the author’s desire for “originality”) comes to one of the two participants in a hastily formed union, a huge scandal occurs, and then everyone goes home, and only occasionally during the first months of separation, the heroes of the "tragicomedy" are visited by memories of the rest, causing either dreary sighs or dull irritation.

The plot is more than predictable, that is, predictable for the chosen plot. Chekhov introduces us to the main character of his story - Gurov, who already has so-called selfish plans associated with the "new face". As if by the way, the author also reveals a little the image of the “lady with the dog” that has already intrigued the reader (I want to emphasize that we see her through Gurov’s eyes, and Chekhov allows himself a more complete description of the woman precisely in his presence). Immediately, Anton Pavlovich for the first time, unobtrusively, separates the heroine from the masses: “She walked alone, all in the same beret, with a white spitz; no one knew who she was, and they called her just like that: a lady with a dog.

Further, in the exposition, Chekhov introduces the main character to the reader in more detail: Dmitry Dmitrievich Gurov. This is a "decent" "Muscovite", a man accustomed to women's society, married, but not having any warm feelings for his wife and often cheating on her ("he was married" - the author says, from which it follows that Gurov's marriage did not take place according to his will, and there has never been much love between the spouses). Further, Gurov opens up even more: in the scene of meeting the “lady with the dog” he likes, it becomes quite obvious that he is not stupid, resourceful, charming, observant and very knowledgeable in dealing with girls. The episode of the acquaintance itself and the first day the characters spend together are quite common for the plot of a holiday romance. Also here, some facts about the life of Anna Sergeevna become clear, and finally Chekhov reveals to us the name of the mysterious lady. It is important to note that the reader recognizes the name of the woman at the same time as Gurov - this proves that he is the main character of the story - in fact, the center of the story. But here Anton Pavlovich unexpectedly introduces a free motive that contradicts the plot as a whole: “There is something pathetic in it, after all,” this thought, which so noticeably cuts the ear of a reader accustomed to tradition, arises in Gurov on a par with completely trivial images and epithets, while he thinks of Anna Sergeevna. Chekhov even puts his hero's thought into a separate paragraph, thereby graphically showing the reader its isolation.

Closer relationships, for the sake of which, in fact, Gurov started everything, begin to develop with Dmitry Dmitrievich and Anna Sergeevna on the pier, when they meet the steamer together: the woman is visibly worried and confused (“She talked a lot, and her questions were jerky, and she herself immediately forgot what she was asking about; then she lost her lorgnette in the crowd."), but the main character of Chekhov does not know confusion and behaves absolutely calm and confident.

"What kind of meetings do not happen in life!". And the truth is, what kind of meetings do not happen! Now Chekhov is already openly talking about the uniqueness of Anna Sergeevna, about her dissimilarity to others (Gurov compares her with his past "experience", but he has not yet met such ones). The author draws the reader's attention to the game he played, he seems to show off his dexterity: “Anna Sergeevna, this "lady with a dog", reacted somehow to what happened especially, very seriously, exactly to his fall - it seemed so, and it was strange and inopportune. And Gurov? Gurov is confused ("I don't understand," he said quietly.). Just think about it! Dmitry Dmitritch Gurov himself is at a loss, being so experienced and knowledgeable in dealing with women, he simply does not know what to say, do ... And it is truly shameful, shameful for someone like him, he takes up a watermelon lying on the table in Anna Sergeevna's room, so that "at least half an hour passes in silence." Also, there is another contradiction to the plot here: contrary to the usual development of events, where the holiday romance (and especially its culmination) should cause fleeting joy, short-term happiness, both characters do not experience any of this - Gurov feels very uncomfortable, and Anna Sergeevna and completely in despair (“Anna Sergeevna ... reacted to what happened somehow especially, very seriously ...”, “long hair hung sadly”, “in a sad pose”). Gurov’s internal monologue, which is pronounced during the joint stay of lovers in Oreanda, also serves as a deviation from the plot: Chekhov shows the reader that his hero is a deep person, with a rich inner world, a person capable of talking about the eternal (which is opposed to the usual idea of ​​the hero of the story holiday romance: ignorant and extremely earthly).

Subsequently, Anton Pavlovich again briefly returns to the usual plot, which is emphasized by the description of the remaining days spent by Anna Sergeevna and Gurov in Yalta together ("Then every noon they met on the embankment, had breakfast together, dined, walked, admired the sea.", "... all alone and the same questions…” - the author points to the routine of their days, to the monotonous course of their life). However, Chekhov immediately dismisses the conflict, which is the culmination of any holiday romance story: “We were waiting for my husband to arrive. But a letter came from him ... ", thus, already here the author quite directly indicates his preference for the plot over the plot, he leaves the story unfinished, not reaching its climax - the highest point of the conflict, not satisfying the expectations of the reader, who has already managed to predict the end for himself, and causing him even slight indignation. In the scene of Gurov’s farewell to Anna Sergeevna, the author also says goodbye to the plot: “And he thought that there was another adventure or adventure in his life, and it, too, had already ended, and now a memory remains ...”. Dmitry Dmitrievich does not just say goodbye to his next "adventure", here he says goodbye to his entire past life, habits and ideas, he says goodbye to himself, because then the reader will see a completely changed, new person.

The city of S. Chekhov supplies a plentiful amount of greyness: the floor covered with "gray soldier's cloth", the inkwell "grey from dust", the gray blanket, the "gray, long, with nails" fence (looking at it, one gets the impression that this city, this life is a prison for Anna Sergeevna at all) - all this is like a description of the inner world of the heroine: the reader is already ready to see a dull, unhappy woman, in whose life absolutely all colors are absent, except for black and white. Gurov himself finds himself in all this, and both of them are unhappy, and a gray fence with nails is in the life of each of them. Here Chekhov has already completely abandoned the plot, very categorically, following a completely opposite path (in stories about holiday romances, the characters cannot be so desperately unhappy); The reader is further convinced of this: “Both the husband believed and did not believe,” - the complete absence of a conflict appropriate to this plot, Chekhov hints that it is not foreseen.

From now on, Dmitry Dmitrievich Gurov has two lives: “one explicit, which was seen and known by everyone who needed it, full of conditional truth and conditional deceit, completely similar to the life of his acquaintances and friends, and the other, which proceeded secretly” (this is most clearly seen in the scene where he goes to meet Anna Sergeevna, seeing his daughter off to the gymnasium). Now they are “very close, dear people”, now Gurov orders tea (this scene is set by the author in contrast to the scene with a watermelon at the very beginning of the work), not in order to put himself at least somewhere, but he understands that Anna Sergeevna needs time to calm down. Now her thoughts are no longer a mystery to Gurov, he knows what Anna Sergeevna is thinking about, knows about her experiences, these thoughts seem to sound in his head. Chekhov shows the reader a man in his new state, a man who truly loves.

Speaking of the plot, through the double life of Gurov, Anton Pavlovich conveys the idea of ​​the duality of his story - here he also has, as it were, two lives, more precisely, realities: the plot life and the plot life. Taking as a basis a story familiar to many and trivial in its content, Chekhov opposed it with a plot, as if playing. And the reader, having read the story to the end, will smile and remain calm for the fate of Anna Sergeevna and Dmitry Dmitritch, because the author fully assured everyone: their path "is just beginning" and "it will not end soon, no one knows when." Skorokhodova Lyudmila, 2nd year student of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after Herzen, St. Petersburg

The story "The Lady with the Dog" was created by Chekhov in 1898 under the impression of life in Yalta.

The theme set forth in the work is simple and familiar to many readers - a holiday romance and its consequences. But Chekhov's idea was not to portray the notorious holiday romance. The purpose of the work lies much deeper. The author wants to show the reader (and especially the reader of that time) how the hopelessness of the life situation, the fear of condemnation from the outside and the inability to take steps towards one's true love gave rise to a society that was deaf and blind to everything.

In the first part, the writer demonstrates the behavior of a man and a woman at a resort away from their family and their usual way of life. The protagonist Gurov Dmitry Dmitrievich is in the grip of a seductive thought about a fleeting connection, about an affair with an unknown charming woman. An unloved, bored wife and three children remained at home. But the soul, tired without love, literally requires affection and tenderness. The same looking for understanding and a lady with a dog. The main character never even loved her husband. The acquaintance of the unfree and unhappy in marriage was predetermined.

Gurov just wanted to unwind and have a good rest. But the meeting with Anna Sergeevna changed him. He sincerely fell in love with her, fell in love as for the first time in his life, having experienced aching youthful feelings in adulthood. And this love illuminated him with a flash of awareness of all the stupidity of imperceptible uninteresting days.

Chekhov brings readers to the main postulate - love can do anything. That is why his hero has changed, regained his sight. He is no longer a life-burner, but a person capable of compassion, being sincere, and faithful.

The storyline is drawn by the author with filigree literary art. Here, among the people walking on the waterfront of the resort, a new face appears - a lady with a dog. A few days later Gurov meets this lady. After a week of meetings, according to Anna Sergeevna, she fell.

It seems that the "Don Juan" has achieved what he wanted, and what should follow from this. A letter from Anna Sergeevna's husband with a plea to return home interrupts the pleasant pastime. Soon Gurov also went home, sincerely believing that he would never see her again. But the hero said goodbye not to his next "adventure", but to his entire past life, habits and thoughts, he said goodbye to himself as well. Therefore, further on, he appears as a completely new person.

And if at first the return home, to Moscow, is pleasant and comfortable for Dmitry Dmitrievich, then later his mind's eye again turns to Anna Sergeevna. Feelings cover Gurov swiftly and cleanse him of hypocrisy and indifference. Internal changes push him in search of his beloved woman.

The writer deliberately depicts the dullness and dullness of the city of S., where the heroine lives. It is like a prison for pure and bright relationships. Fate puts them before a difficult choice, but love does wonders. Not having the strength to overcome their true and strong feelings, Gurov and Anna Sergeevna decide to continue meeting. She comes to visit him in Moscow for dates at a hotel.

Contrary to the sanctimonious mood of society, the author clearly sympathizes with the main characters. And this location is visible in their portraits. Gurov is a respectable Muscovite, charming, resourceful, observant and very courteous in dealing with ladies. She has beautiful gray eyes and a delicate neck.

Chekhov completely abandoned the accepted standards and very categorically develops the plot of the story along a completely opposite path. After all, in stories about holiday romances, the characters should not be so desperately unhappy.

From now on, Gurov has two lives: an explicit one, but full of conditional truth and deceit, and the other - flowing in secret from others.

Chekhov does not ask questions about what awaits these people. He simply shows how love can transform a person. But only the main character is shown in spiritual development. The lady with the dog hardly changes, except that she understands that she is not a fallen woman. But her thoughts are now close and understandable to Gurov, because now he loves for real.

Lesson 89

Lesson Objectives:

1. Show the meaning of the story "The Bride" and "The Lady with the Dog" in Chekhov's work; to give an idea of ​​the artistic features of the work: to expand the concept of moral categories.

2. Learning to analyze the work.

3. Education aesthetic taste, respect for the most beautiful and amazing feeling of love.

During the classes.

1. Preparing students for the perception of the story:
teacher's word .
Everyone knows the statement of F.M. Dostoevsky

that Pushkin took a certain secret with him to the grave, and now we are unraveling this secret without him. These same words - about the mystery, about the mystery of creativity - I'm sure can be attributed to Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

His originality puzzled even his contemporaries, and until now he remains one of the most "unsolved" writers. Indeed, behind the seeming simplicity of Chekhov's works, there is something that defies a clear critical formulation. "Enemy of vulgarity?" "The Twilight Singer?" "Poet of the End?" He was close and understandable to L. Tolstoy, and M. Gorky, and D. Merezhkovsky ... For A. Bely, Chekhov was a writer who discovered a new art - “realism of symbolism or symbolism of realism”.

Student's report about A.P. Chekhov's story "The Bride".

The story "The Bride" - Chekhov's last completed story - had a special fate in literary criticism. Many saw in him "a turning point in the writer's work towards a more vigorous, optimistic perception of reality." In the opinion of Soviet criticism, the meaning of the story "The Bride" is absolutely transparent. Nadya Shumina, a future revolutionary, awakens to a new, conscious life under the influence of the revolutionary-democrat Sasha and accomplishes a feat - she leaves her "native corner" that has become disgusting to her just on the eve of the wedding. Parallels were often drawn: Nadia - Sasha and Anya - Petya from The Cherry Orchard. “The writer could not agree on censorship conditions that Nadia and Anya were going into a revolutionary struggle,” wrote V. Yermilov. For him, it is clear that in Nadia Shumilova Chekhov showed "a wonderful image of a Russian girl who has embarked on an honest path of revolutionary struggle in order to turn life around, to turn the Motherland into a flowering garden."

A. Turkov no longer claims that Nadia is leaving for the revolution, however, he notes that the story "The Bride" resembles numerous works of democratic writers of the 60-70s about the breakup of a young man and a girl with their environment for the sake of life inspired by high ideals .. (Turkov A. Chekhov and his time, - M., 1987. - S. 517). Indeed, Anton Pavlovich himself in a letter to O.L. Knipper remarked: "Now I am writing a story in the old manner, in the manner of the seventies."

2. Conversation with students:

• 
  what makes the heroine of the story Nadia Shumina run away from her home almost on the eve of the wedding ?

(Example answer:

From a small exposition at the beginning of the story, we learned that Nadia Shumina is 23 years old, that from the age of 16 she "passionately dreamed of marriage." But now, when the day of her wedding with Andrey Andreevich, the “clever, kind” man whom she liked, had already been appointed, everything suddenly changed all at once: “there was no joy, she slept badly at night, the fun was gone.” As if continuing a well-known theme, Chekhov shows that Nadia suddenly felt herself closed in a case in which she was stuffy and dreary. A young girl rushes into space: “I wanted to think that not here, but somewhere under the sky, above the trees, far outside the city, in the fields and forests, now its own spring life has unfolded, mysterious, beautiful, rich and holy, inaccessible to the understanding of the weak, sinful person.)

• 
  How a writer creates the impression of a “case” with the help of details »?

(Sounds, smells of fried turkey, oil paint; the clatter of knives in the kitchen, Sasha's cough).

Students write conclusions in notebooks.

• 
  What family friend Alexander Timofeevich is trying to explain to Nadia ? (students read examples from the text).

3 . Student report about Andrei Andreevich, Nadya's fiancé . (An exemplary answer.

At first glance, a typical Chekhov intellectual: graduated from the Faculty of Philology (like Gurov from the story "The Lady with the Dog"), "looks like an artist" (like Alekhine from the "little trilogy"), plays the violin (like Andrey Prozorov from "Three Sisters" ). But the reader sees Andrey Andreevich's uselessness. “I don’t do anything and I can’t do anything,” he admits. Nadya's fiancé belongs to the type of people about whom Lopakhin says: "And how many, brother, are there people in Russia who exist for no one knows why." Andrei Andreevich is incapable of working, does not want to serve (“Why is it that I am so disgusted even by the thought that someday I will put a cockade on my forehead and go to serve?”), He is sometimes even too lazy to talk: “He loved the violin, perhaps because during the game it was possible to remain silent.

However, Andrey Andreevich's speech characteristics are very expressive. “Oh, how happy I am! I'm mad with delight!" - he says to Nadia, and it seems to her that she read something like that in a novel - "old, tattered, long abandoned."

“O mother Russia,” Andrey Andreevich says with pathos, “how many more idle and useless people you carry on yourself! How many of you are like me, long-suffering! For a taciturn hero, such a tirade is stronger than a “respected closet”!)

Conversation with students :

How Nadya's grandmother and mother took her sudden departure ?

(Grandma lay motionless for three days. Nina Ivanovna had aged a lot in a year.)

Written responses :

What does Nadia put into the words: “You are very unhappy, mother”?

How does Nadia's attitude towards people around her change?

Individual task . Is Nadia capable of true love?

- Selective reading of written responses .

4 . Closing conversation with students :

What exactly pushes Nadya to run away from home (“the desire to turn life around” or specific egoism)?


What human vices does A.P. Chekhov in his story "The Bride"? (In Chekhov, his heroes bring suffering to their loved ones unconsciously: either due to their spiritual limitations, or due to the universal properties of the world in which they live. Similarly, Nadya, not wanting it at all, dooms her relatives to grief, longing and loneliness , not interested in what is going on in their souls, not feeling any moral responsibility to them.Now, at the end of the story, it no longer seems to her that she "jays someone's life". She is young, healthy, free and has means, in order to "directly and boldly look into the eyes of one's fate, to recognize oneself as right.")

5. Teacher's word . In parting, the writer left us a riddle, which we are also trying to solve. In the final lines of the story we read: "She went upstairs to pack, and the next day she said goodbye to her friends and, alive, cheerful, left the city - as she thought, forever." What does this "as expected" mean? Is it Nadya's decision not to return to her hometown or the author's assessment of what is happening? True to his principles, Chekhov gives the reader the opportunity to think and guess for himself how the fate of his heroine will turn out.

6. Conversation on the text of the story "The Lady with the Dog"

Where do the events in the story take place?

What do we know about the main characters before they met?

Both characters are family people. What is missing in their family relationships?

What are their family relationships based on?

For what purpose, besides rest, did the heroes come to Yalta?

2) Working with text:

What "bitter experience" did Gurov have?

What impression did Gurov make on women?

How did he react to them?

Reading an excerpt. Ch.1 "And then one day, in the evening" to "She laughed"

For what purpose did Gurov decide to meet the "lady in the beret"?

What impression did Anna Sergeevna make on Gurov?

(“There is something pathetic about her after all”)

Read how Anna Sergeevna differed from Gurov's previous women!

Why is the heroine unwilling and unable to justify her behavior?

(The idea is that a holiday romance should cause joy, but both heroes do not experience anything like that.

Gurov - confused (and he is experienced in dealing with women!)

Anna Sergeyevna -in desperation "I love an honest, clean life.")

How did Gurov react to Anna Sergeevna's revelation?

(eating watermelon! - invulnerable indifference to the suffering of another - symbolizes an indifferent lover, accustomed to easy victories)

Tell us about the relationship between the characters before they went home.

(pay attention to the rich inner world of Gurov, in which his ability to

Read the episode that tells about the state of the hero after returning home (ch. 3 - at the beginning).

Try to answer the questions Gurov puts to himself.

(what happened? Already talking to himself about his love, wants to open up to someone)

Dialogue with an official about "sturgeon with a smell" -

HERO'S INTERNAL CONFLICT!

His whole gut rejects the existing way of his life - he wants more. The hero is reborn. He realized that he was leading a double life: hiding not only his "romance", but also "a real human life."

Read the episode from the words "He came to C ..." to "He thought ...".

Tell us about the meeting of heroes in the theater.

Describe Gurov's behavior in the hotel when Anna Sergeevna is crying.

(I ordered tea! - a symbol of home, everyday life, peace)

Teacher's word.

Chekhov is a subtle psychologist, a master of briefly and concisely speaking about many things, about important things. He used such techniques as subtext, artistic detail, symbol.

Artistic detail - expressive detail in the work, which has a significant content and ideological and emotional load.

Symbol - sign, allusion.

In the story "The Lady with the Dog" one can trace the emergence of a genuine, inner closeness of two personalities, which the author emphasized with artistic details symbolizing important, essential, characteristic. Hoping for a thoughtful reader.Remember the episodes: watermelon in Yalta and tea in Moscow! From indifference to an atmosphere of domestic intimacy, when Gurov already loves, understands, supports.

Prove with quotes from the text that the characters truly love each other.

6. Generalization of the material:

Consider why Chekhov called the story "The Lady with the Dog."

(the main event of the story is the change that occurs under the influence of love. The lady with the dog is a symbol of the spiritual change that occurred with Gurov. Internal rebirth, the rebirth of a person under the influence of love for a woman)

What title would you give this story?

What do you think Chekhov wanted to say by describing this story to us?

Teacher's word.

This story has no plot ending. This is called an open ending. What did Chekhov want to emphasize by this?

Thus, we can sum up:

It is important for Chekhov to say not where the characters want to go, but what they are running from.

The fate of the heroes makes us think about why people are unhappy, what needs to be done to bring joy, sincerity, love into life.

For Chekhov, the main thing is that there is a gradual “uncovering” of a person, the acquisition of the true meaning of life, the desire of people to get away from those rules that make them unhappy. According to Chekhov, one can respect people for their ability to love!

7. Homework to choose from: