Man and society.. What is their relationship? How does society influence a person? Is it possible to resist society? Of course, the truth is known. that it is impossible to live in society and be free from it. People united by social ties must observe certain rules of behavior, following historically established canons. And if this is violated, then conflicts, unrest, and chaos arise. Society, in a certain sense, subjugates a person and keeps him within limits. Society shapes the worldview and gives some important guidelines. And if someone challenges society, he becomes an outcast, an outcast. But society can be different: conservative, progressive, democratic, and bourgeois. Undoubtedly, living in a society, one must comply with its laws, but at the same time preserving one’s own “I”, one’s individuality.
In I. Goncharov's novel "Oblomov" we see how the hero of the work, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, becomes a victim of Oblomov's upbringing. The society in which he grew up, formed, crippled his ideas about life. Parents protected little Ilyusha from all everyday worries and adversities and did not allow him to be independent. Since childhood, Ilya saw how the Oblomovites lived: they were afraid of the world surrounding Oblomovka, they were afraid of any changes and transformations, they believed in monsters with dog heads. And Oblomov also became like this. Having matured, he closed himself off from the world within four walls and lay down on the sofa. But he is not at all attracted to the St. Petersburg world. Goncharov shows that the metropolitan society, to which Stolz so persistently calls Oblomov, is devoid of moral ideals. Oblomov, with his subtle soul, feels this well. It turns out that the society that raised Oblomov, despite all the conservatism and ignorance, is no worse than the one in which careerism, hypocrisy, idleness, and envy flourish. And the hero finds himself seemingly on the sidelines of life. Oblomovka remained in dreams, and secular society was alien to Oblomov. Oblomov finds his semblance of happiness in the house of Agafya Pshenitsyna, who, having fallen in love with Ilya Ilyich, protects him from the storms of life. The author of the novel makes you think about what role society played in the life of the main character, how it happened that an intelligent, kind, noble person became absolutely unnecessary, unclaimed in life. If we consider this problem from a historical point of view, we can come to the conclusion that the noble class is disappearing from the stage of history, and its place is being taken by enterprising figures like Stolz, the future bourgeois. In this renewal is the eternal breath of life and its eternal tragedy.
A person can adapt to the society in which he lives, but he must, under any circumstances, take care of his human dignity, his honor, his principles.

Everyone knows that a person can have an impact on the life of society. Let us recall historical examples: coups, revolutions, wars. Many of them were unleashed by specific people, influencing the further development of society. But society also has its influence on a person. One of the classics said: “It is impossible to live in society and be free from society.” I completely agree with this. In literature we will find many examples of heroes who have been influenced by society.

This is Evgeny Onegin, the hero of the work of the same name by A. Pushkin. Society shaped his character, “accustomed” him to an idle life, essentially ruining him. Onegin did not find his place in life, lost a friend, passed by true love.

The character in M. Lermontov’s novel “A Hero of Our Time” had the same fate. The best qualities of Pechorin's nature were completely wasted on the bustle of social life. Oblomov, whose childhood was spent in Oblomovka, which had an influence on the formation of his personality, did not find himself either.

More often than not, the influence of society is negative. The vulgarity of the surrounding life puts pressure on a person. The narrow-mindedness of people, their inability to dream, and reconciliation with reality often extinguishes even the highest impulses. This is exactly what happened to Dmitry Ionovich Startsev, the hero of A.P. Chekhov’s work “Ionych”. At the beginning of the work, this is a young promising doctor. He came to work in the small town of Dyalizh and devotes all his strength to what he loves. We can understand this from the smallest author's details: for example, even on Ascension Day it works. But the desire to serve people collides with the boredom of provincial life. The most talented family in town is not talented at all. Vera Iosifovna writes worthless novels, Ekaterina Ivanovna plays the piano so that the hero gets the feeling that stones are falling from the mountain. Her father constantly practices his wit, but his jokes have not changed for many years. What can we say about other residents of the city! And Startsev falls under the influence of these people. Gradually, the best that was in him is leaving: the ability to see the beauty of nature (remember the scene in the cemetery), the desire for love (the relationship with Kitty did not work out, which he was even glad about: “his heart stopped beating restlessly”). But the desire to earn as much as possible comes. The author shows how less and less moral remains in the hero, he devotes more and more time to the city patients, and he performs the duties of a zemstvo doctor somehow. A passion for making money appears. He puts it at interest and buys houses. But who should live in them, since he is alone? At the end of the work, we are no longer faced with a person, but with a “pagan god.” Thus, the vulgarity of the surrounding life drowned out everything human in Ionych (as he is now called).

Thus, we saw that society undoubtedly influences a person’s life. It forms habits, a way of life, influencing the formation of moral qualities. If the main value in society is money, then, unfortunately, sooner or later a person begins to assimilate these very values. Of course, if a person is strong and can resist society, then this influence will be less. But that's a completely different story.

Ilya Ilyich was not by nature an active and active person. Although, of course, he had all the prerequisites not to vegetate, lying on the couch, but to strive for at least something. Young Ilya Ilyich was smart and educated. It would seem that a brilliant future opens up before him. And how did he manage this future? Extremely unwise and short-sighted. He simply buried all his talents in the ground. It is no wonder that in the future they did not bear any fruit, since there were absolutely no conditions for the growth and further development of all good qualities and abilities.

Let us remember the childhood of Ilya Ilyich. Of course, his childhood can rightfully be called a very happy period. The boy was surrounded by universal love and care. Usually happy and cheerful children grow up into very active people who do not want to turn their lives into a monotonous and gray existence. But with Oblomov everything turned out a little differently. Since childhood, the boy was deprived of the necessary freedom, which is very necessary for optimal personal development. Every person in childhood is a real pioneer, discovering everything new. And little Ilya was spoiled by overly obsessive care; he was not allowed to show any freedom.

The hero’s mother “let him go for a walk in the garden, around the yard, in the meadow, with strict confirmation to the nanny not to leave the child alone, not to let him near horses, dogs, goats, not to go far from the house, and most importantly, not to let him into the ravine, like the most terrible place in the area, which enjoyed a bad reputation." One can easily imagine how a child who was forbidden to express his will in childhood will grow up. Gradually, he begins to lose interest in learning new things. But human life is so short, so every moment is precious.

Ilya Ilyich was deprived of the need to take care of his food, so he did not strive for anything. He knew that he should not be afraid of starvation, and everything else worried him very little. If he had been born into a poor family, from childhood he would have seen the constant work of loved ones in front of him, then he might have had a different attitude towards life in general. Oblomov is very carefree and carefree. In youth, such qualities can be forgiven, but as a person grows up, responsibility for his own destiny must appear. Meanwhile, Ilya Ilyich himself does not strive for anything at all, therefore he bears absolutely no responsibility for his life. He acts like he doesn't care.

And gradually everything really becomes indifferent to him. As a child, Ilya loved to listen to his nanny’s fairy tales. And, obviously, fairy-tale fiction was so close and understandable to him that as he grew older, he could not get rid of his completely unnecessary and useless daydreaming. “Although the adult Ilya Ilyich later learns that there are no honey and milk rivers, no good sorceresses, although he jokes with a smile at his nanny’s stories, this smile is insincere, it is accompanied by a secret sigh: his fairy tale is mixed with life, and he is powerless sometimes it makes me sad, why is a fairy tale not life, and why is life not a fairy tale... "

Many people like to dream, but this quality can be both positive and negative. A dream can help a person move forward, achieve new things, and make amazing discoveries. In a word, a dream can push you to take active actions. But in another case, a dream may turn out to be the only achievement that a person is capable of. And that's the worst part. In this case, the dream turns out to be a destructive factor that prevents a person from moving forward and developing optimally. This is exactly what happened with Oblomov. He spends his days in fruitless dreams, thinking about nothing else. “Everything pulls him in that direction, where they only know that they are walking, where there are no worries and sorrows; he always has the disposition to lie on the stove, walk around in a ready-made, unearned dress and eat at the expense of the good sorceress.”

Oblomov's character

Roman I.A. Goncharov's "Oblomov" was published in 1859. It took almost 10 years to create it. This is one of the most outstanding novels of classical literature of our time. This is how famous literary critics of that era spoke about the novel. Goncharov was able to convey realistically objective and reliable facts about the reality of the layers of the social environment of the historical period. It must be assumed that his most successful achievement was the creation of the image of Oblomov.

He was a young man of about 32-33 years old, of average height, with a pleasant face and an intelligent look, but without any definite depth of meaning. As the author noted, the thought walked across the face like a free bird, fluttered in the eyes, dropped onto half-open lips, hid in the folds of the forehead, then completely disappeared and a carefree young man appeared in front of us. Sometimes one could read boredom or fatigue on his face, but still there was a gentleness of character and the warmth of his soul. Throughout Oblomov’s life, he has been accompanied by three attributes of bourgeois well-being - a sofa, a robe and shoes. At home, Oblomov wore an oriental, soft, roomy robe. He spent all his free time lying down. Laziness was an integral trait of his character. Cleaning in the house was carried out superficially, creating the appearance of cobwebs hanging in the corners, although at first glance one might think that the room was well cleaned. There were two more rooms in the house, but he did not go there at all. If there was an uncleaned plate from dinner with crumbs everywhere, a half-smoked pipe, you would think that the apartment was empty, no one lived in it. He was always surprised by his energetic friends. How can you waste your life like this, scattered on dozens of things at once? His financial condition wanted to be better. Lying on the sofa, Ilya Ilyich was always thinking about how to correct him.

The image of Oblomov is a complex, contradictory, even tragic hero. His character predetermines an ordinary, uninteresting fate, devoid of the energy of life and its bright events. Goncharov draws his main attention to the established system of that era, which influenced his hero. This influence was expressed in Oblomov’s empty and meaningless existence. Helpless attempts at revival under the influence of Olga, Stolz, marriage to Pshenitsyna, and death itself are defined in the novel as Oblomovism.

The very character of the hero, according to the writer’s plan, is much larger and deeper. Oblomov's dream is the key to unlocking the entire novel. The hero moves to another era, to other people. A lot of light, a joyful childhood, gardens, sunny rivers, but first you have to overcome obstacles, an endless sea with raging waves and groans. Behind him are rocks with abysses, a crimson sky with a red glow. After the exciting landscape, we find ourselves in a small corner where people live happily, where they want to be born and die, it cannot be otherwise, so they think. Goncharov describes these residents: “Everything in the village is quiet and sleepy: the silent huts are wide open; not a soul in sight; Only flies fly in clouds and buzz in the stuffy atmosphere.” There we meet young Oblomov. As a child, Oblomov could not dress himself; servants always helped him. As an adult, he also resorts to their help. Ilyusha grows up in an atmosphere of love, peace and excessive care. Oblomovka is a corner where calm and undisturbed silence reigns. It's a dream within a dream. Everything around seems to have frozen, and nothing can wake up these people who live uselessly in a distant village without any connection with the rest of the world. Ilyusha grew up on fairy tales and legends that his nanny told him. Developing daydreaming, the fairy tale tied Ilyusha more to the house, causing inaction.

Oblomov’s dream describes the hero’s childhood and upbringing. All this helps to recognize Oblomov’s character. The life of the Oblomovs is passivity and apathy. Childhood is his ideal. There in Oblomovka, Ilyusha felt warm, reliable and very protected. This ideal doomed him to a further aimless existence.

The solution to the character of Ilya Ilyich in his childhood, from where direct threads stretch to the adult hero. The character of a hero is an objective result of the conditions of birth and upbringing.

Oblomov novel laziness character

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The problem of the influence of the environment on a person has already been raised in Russian literature, but the image of the lout gentleman was finally formed and acquired the features of a typical generalization only in Goncharov. It was the hero of the novel, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a Russian gentleman, who embodied the traits of idleness, laziness, apathy, lack of flight of thought and feeling - in a word, spiritual deadness, which ultimately led to physical death. Drawing a portrait of Ilya Ilyich, Goncharov points out the features of flabbyness acquired at the age of thirty from a sedentary lifestyle, pampered hands unaccustomed to work, plump shoulders that have not experienced the hardships of life. The interior also emphasizes the indifference and laziness of the owner of the house. “Neglect and negligence” reigns everywhere. Showing Oblomov’s ordinary day, Goncharov describes in detail the details (a greasy robe, worn-out slippers), the constant calls of the servant Zakhar to search for a letter, the hero’s train of thoughts (get up or lie down) and notes the inexorable passage of time (Oblomov woke up “early, around eight in the morning,” when I thought that I needed to get up, it was already ten o’clock, but I still didn’t get around to getting up until eleven in the morning and received guests while lying in bed). Zakhar, his master and servant, imitates his master in everything. Both Ilya Ilyich’s constant robe and the old frock coat with a hole under the arm are Zakhar’s attribute. For Oblomov, getting up from the sofa is an incredible difficulty, for Zakhar it is to tear himself away from the stove. Like the master, he always finds an excuse for his laziness. The bickering between one and the other is aimed at doing nothing, finding an excuse for doing something. Zakhar is waiting for the master to leave for the whole day so that in his absence he can “call the women” and do the cleaning, and Oblomov is waiting for the “plan to mature” in order to write a letter to the village. Oblomov’s entire inner life passes in fruitless Manilov-like fantasies: either he imagines himself to be Napoleon, or the hero of his nanny’s fairy tales - in a word, he performs “feats of kindness and generosity.” Even the plan for reorganizing the estate in his mind takes on grandiose features: majordomo Zakhar, greenhouses with southern fruits. “Thought walks like a free bird.” Oblomov is proud of his idleness. According to his concepts, peace and laziness, the way of life that he leads, his “normal state” - lying down - is the true way of life that a Russian gentleman should lead. He angrily reprimands Zakhara, who carelessly compared him to others: “I have never pulled a stocking on my feet as I live, thank God!” However, proud of his lordly inadaptability and independence, Oblomov falls under the influence of someone else's will, starting from Zakhar and ending with Tarantiev and Ivan Matveevich. Thus, in the portrait characteristics, external details, and Oblomov’s lifestyle, Goncharov showed the typical features of the Russian gentleman-baibak: apathy, laziness, inactivity. Goncharov gives readers an idea of ​​the background history of the hero from Ilya Ilyich’s dream, where he sees his childhood, home, family. Here we see such a phenomenon as “Oblomovism.” Goncharov makes it clear that this is not the way of life of one person, but a state of society in which the bright beginning, initiative, humanity are suppressed (remember the sick wanderer in Oblomovka), any movement (bans on little Ilya playing with the village boys). From the first lines of the dream, Goncharov emphasizes the serenity and peace of nature itself, which, as it were, determined the way of life of the people inhabiting Oblomovka. There are no storms, no shocks, no high mountains, no vast seas, just as there are no wars and strange illnesses in the lives of Oblomovites, just as their consciousness is not stirred by upward striving dreams and thoughts. Just as the sky “huddles closer to the earth in order to hug it tighter and protect it from adversity,” so parental love is aimed at freeing the child from work and study. Just as the seasons pass one after another in an imperturbable order, so life in Oblomovka is measured by birthplaces, christenings, weddings, and funerals. The silence and stillness of nature is in harmony with the sleepy lifestyle of the Oblomovites, and the writer focuses on this “invincible all-consuming sleep, similar to death.” On the one hand, the motive of the dream, the consonance with it of the deadness of thoughts and way of life, Goncharov will show in other episodes that reveal the essence of Oblomovism, on the other hand, the dream is like a dream, like an idyll of patriarchal life, a focus on physiological needs (food, sleep, procreation) , the attachment of 284 people to one place, isolation from the outside world, gentleness and warmth, greater than in the alien external business world, humanity, self-sufficiency are poeticized by Goncharov, like Rus' itself. Thus, Oblomov’s life position was formed in this environment with its concepts and ideals, where people perceived work as “God’s punishment,” where three hundred Zakharovs would do everything necessary, where Ilyushenka had before her eyes the example of her father, whose whole activity consisted of observing who where he went and what he carried, where the boy, endowed with immense maternal love, acquired the traits of softness, tenderness, sensitivity (“a dove’s heart”), but lost his will and desire to work. “It all started with the inability to put on stockings, and ended with the inability to live.” Just as Oblomov’s followers once, when faced with the real outside world, gave up before the letter, so Oblomov will subsequently give in before the responsibility for his mistake (he confuses Astrakhan with Arkhangelsk) and resigns. Just as Ilya Ilyich’s father could not send a beer recipe to his friend, so Ilya Ilyich will not be able to either write a letter to the village manager or answer his friend Stolz. By excluding any initiative from the boy’s life, society killed every living movement in him, but the soul of the child was preserved in Oblomov in all the tenderness, naivety, and sincerity that made him interesting to Goncharov. It was these qualities, which no one else around him had, that attracted Olga Ilyinskaya to Oblomov, an unusually smart, pure girl with an integral, deep nature. She was able to see what was hidden behind the shell of the clumsy hulk. For Olga, appearance is not important; she values ​​ordinary human qualities: intelligence, sincerity, naturalness, which, in turn, attracted the hero to her. In this, Oblomov and Olga are similar, but only in this. Subjecting his hero to the test of love, Goncharov follows a tried and tested path in Russian literature, testing his personality for consistency. Olga is an ideal for Oblomov, as well as for Goncharov. Olga fell in love not with the real Oblomov, but with the future, as she wanted to see him. Oblomov understood this much earlier than Olga and tried to warn her and protect himself from future emotional unrest. The wedding was impossible from the start. Olga demanded activity - Oblomov strove for peace. For Olga, the ideal of life is in the pursuit of development of the soul and intellect, for Oblomov, in a serene family circle with a series of lunches and dinners. Ilya Ilyich finds this ideal of family, his native Oblomovism, in his marriage to Agafya Matveevna Pshenitsyna, a bourgeois woman, into whose house he moved from Gorokhovaya Street. In his description of the yard, Goncharov gives a multi-valued description of peace and quiet, noting that “except for the barking dog, it seemed that there was not a single living soul.” The first thing Oblomov notices about Agafya is her thriftiness and thoroughness. She is talented in housekeeping, but otherwise knows nothing. Oblomov's feeling for Pshenitsyna was down-to-earth, for Olga - sublime. He dreams of Olga, looks at Agafya, something had to be done for the wedding with Olga, but the marriage with Agafya develops on its own, imperceptibly. Even Stolz had already given up hope of getting his friend out of this Oblomovism after seeing Ilya Ilyich’s “eternal” robe. If Olga “took off” the robe, then Agafya, patching it up, “so that it would last longer,” put Oblomov in it again. The only thing Stolz can do is take care of Oblomov’s son. Thus, by handing over little Andryusha to Stoltz to raise, Goncharov shows who the future belongs to. Agafya, to whom, after Oblomov’s death, Stolz offered to live with his son, cannot overcome the inextricable connection with Oblomov’s environment. The significance of Oblomov’s image is unusually great. Goncharov contrasted it with the vanity and meaninglessness of the St. Petersburg life of the Volkovs, Sudbinskys, Penkins, who had forgotten about man and sought to satisfy their petty vanity or mercantile interests. Goncharov does not accept this St. Petersburg “Oblomovism,” and through Oblomov’s mouth he expresses his protest against the condemnation of “fallen people.” Oblomov speaks about compassion for the “fallen”, getting up from the sofa in a fit of emotion. Seeing no meaning in the hectic life of St. Petersburg, in pursuit of illusory values, Oblomov’s doing nothing is a kind of protest against the advancing rationalism of the bourgeois era. During this era, Oblomov retained a pure childish soul, but “Oblomovism” - apathy, laziness and lack of will - led him to spiritual and physical death. So, the significance of the work is that Goncharov showed a real picture of the state of Russian society, in which the best inclinations of a person are suppressed by an inactive life. The image of Oblomov, who preserved the “pigeon soul” in the era of the replacement of the feudal structure with the bourgeois one and embodied laziness and apathy, acquired a household meaning. The best thing that the landowner environment could produce was Oblomov with his “heart of gold.” In personal manifestations, Ilya Ilyich is pure and noble, but he is entirely hidden only in them. It is no coincidence that Olga Ilyinskaya always expects the hero to enter the public world. The girl, who fell in love with Oblomov and tried in vain to save him, asks: “What ruined you? There is no name for this evil...” - “There is... Oblomovism,” the hero answers. Life that is like a dream and a dream that is like death is the fate of not only the main character of the novel, but also of many other characters. The events described in the work are common in public life between 1855 and 1862. This is the tragedy of the novel, which describes patriarchal Rus' becoming a thing of the past. So, Oblomov lies on the sofa in a comfortable dressing gown, and life fades away irrevocably. Peace is the hero’s ideal of life, “his normal state.” Ilya Ilyich Oblomov was a Russian landowner who lived in St. Petersburg on income from his estate. This is a man of thirty-two or three years old, of average height, pleasant appearance, received the education accepted in noble society, once dreamed of service, of travel, and was fond of poetry. In terms of intelligence and development, he stands above his acquaintances - Volkov, Penkin, Sudbinsky, Tarantiev. Oblomov has many positive qualities. “This is a crystal, transparent soul,” Stolz says about him. The friend's attempts to awaken the hero to life lead nowhere. The author gives many answers to questions in “Oblomov’s Dream” in the ninth chapter of the novel. In Oblomovka, in his distant childhood years, an important character trait of Ilya Ilyich, poetic dreaminess, developed in many respects in later life. Here Goncharov, following Pushkin, emphasizes that noble culture is inextricably linked with the people's soil. These class traditions, on the one hand, will play a sad role in the development of Oblomov’s character, turning in part into features of “Oblomovism.” But these same foundations will allow the hero to maintain naturalness and a free state of mind, which will be higher than Stolz’s everyday practicality. In Oblomov’s dream, in his relationship to his past life, there are clues to the hero’s subsequent actions. Oblomov cannot be fully understood if one does not realize the fabulous-mythological nature of his character, reproduced precisely in “Oblomov’s Dream.” The fairy tale from “Oblomov’s Dream” passes into the life of the hero and settles with him on the Vyborg side, “the present and the past merged and mixed up.” And again the hero plunges into the “sleepy kingdom”, only it is already called “life”. It is no coincidence that in Goncharov’s novel the hero ends up from Oblomov’s paradise not just anywhere, but precisely in St. Petersburg - a half-Russian, half-European city, cold, bureaucratic, full of bustle. Everything here is the opposite of the morals in Obyaomovka: burdensome service, insincere relationships between people, even the weather is cloudy and dull. The image of Ilya Ilyich is the embodiment of nostalgia for the past. Just as a person is sad about his childhood, so people are sad about their past, which always seems better than the present. Oblomov is only a child of his time. The kingdom of serf Russia is the origin of Oblomov’s apathy, inactivity, and fear of life. The habit of receiving everything for free, without putting in any work, is the basis of all Oblomov’s actions and actions. In his work, Goncharov created a generalized image. This is a literary type, a system of vices of noble society. The image of Oblomov embodies typical features of the Russian character. The author showed a Russian gentleman - a sloth with a broad soul and a kind heart, high feelings. Unlike the people around him, Oblomov realizes his unsuitability for a new life, and at the same time he suffers; today’s life also does not suit him: “It’s worth getting up from the couch for the sake of such a life.” Having turned into an unnecessary and bitter vegetation, Oblomov’s life ends without ending with anything significant. The future of the country does not belong to people like Ilya Ilyich. In his novel, which can be called central to the writer’s work, Goncharov managed to realistically reflect all the complex processes that took place in Russian society in the second half of the 19th century. In the person of Oblomov, on the one hand, the image of a Russian master is reproduced, and on the other, the vices of the author’s contemporary reality - “Oblomovism”.