Images of officials in Dead Souls. Collection of ideal essays on social science The image of an official in classical Russian literature

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The morals of the Russian bureaucracy is one of the most common topics in literature.

She is one of the central in the comedy of A. S. Griboedov “Woe from Wit”. Alexei Stepanovich Molchalin, secretary of the Moscow “ace”, who received three awards and the rank of assessor, in my opinion, has much in common with the heroes of N.V. , who was mistaken for an "important person", Molchalin considered it his task to win the favor of influential and wealthy people. Readiness for servility and sycophancy is what unites the heroes of these comedies.

In A. S. Pushkin’s story “Dubrovsky”, the morals of the guardians of “order and justice”, representatives of the state administrative system, are clearly shown, very similar to the world drawn by N. V. Gogol. These are judicial officials, a vivid example of which is Assessor Shabashkin, a reliable tool for implementing the vengeful plans of the landowner Troekurov, a man of such corruption and meanness that even those who use his services abhor him.

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Introduction

image bureaucracy official work of Czechs

Chekhov was one of the first classical writers who fully denounced vulgarity, unwillingness to live a full, eventful life. In Chekhov's works, we see a moral call for the inner freedom of man, spiritual purification. His later stories are thoroughly permeated with an inner spiritual cry: “It’s impossible to live like this anymore!”. M. Gorky wrote about the significance of Chekhov's work:

“No one understood as clearly and subtly as Anton Chekhov, the tragedy of the little things in life, no one before him could so mercilessly, truthfully draw people a shameful and dreary picture of their life in the dull chaos of the philistine everyday life. His enemy was vulgarity; he struggled with her all his life, he ridiculed her and portrayed her with a passionless, sharp pen, being able to find the charm of vulgarity even where at first glance it seemed that everything was arranged very well, conveniently, even with brilliance ... ".

The theme of bureaucracy occupies a special place in Chekhov's work. It is reflected in many of his stories. That is what we decided to choose the topic of this course work.

The image of a poor official is traditional for Russian writers of the 19th century. However, this topic was revealed by writers in different ways, this image underwent significant changes. To reveal the image of a poor official, two completely different aspects are the most important: voluntary resignation to the position of a powerless person, the idea of the impossibility of changing anything, and the completely opposite desire to achieve “known degrees”, without shunning any means.

The leading feature of his heroes is blind veneration, reverence for a superior person; their desire to get a rank is very strong, but they cause pity and sympathy. The principle of combining the comic and the tragic was already embodied in Chekhov's early stories, later he would become the leading one in his poetics.

Chekhov fulfilled his great artistic vocation, noted by A.M. Gorky, - to illuminate the prose of the everyday existence of people from a higher point of view.

The relevance of this course work lies in the fact that this topic has not exhausted itself to this day. The phenomenon of Russian bureaucracy, understanding of its nature and problems is extremely important for the reform and development of our society on a reasonable basis. In addition, A.P. Chekhov, being a recognized classic of Russian and even world literature, will never lose his popularity and modernity.

Speaking about the degree of development of the topic in the educational and popular literature, we emphasize that we did not find a subject and system analysis of the problem, including in the educational and methodological literature, therefore, by our study of this topic, we hope to somehow fill this gap, generalize the existing considerations and information on the topic, identify new approaches and reveal well-known Chekhov's texts in a unified way - through the image of an official. This is the novelty of our work.

The object of our study are the works of A.P. Chekhov, which touched upon the topic of bureaucracy

The subject is the image of an official and the means of his image in the works of A.P. Chekhov.

The purpose of our study is to determine the ways and means of depicting the image of an official in the stories of A.P. Chekhov.

The goal is achieved by solving the following tasks:

To analyze the critical literature on the problem of bureaucracy in the work of A.P. Chekhov;

Compare images of officials A.P. Chekhov with images of officials from other writers;

To identify language means and ways of depicting an official in the stories of A.P. Chekhov;

The structure of this course work includes: introduction, two chapters and conclusion. The introduction substantiates the choice and relevance of the topic of the work, sets the goal of the study, and defines the main tasks.

Chapter 1. The Image of an Official in Russian Literature of the 19th Century

OFFICIAL - Civil servant (pre-rev., Zagr.). Major official. Small official.

“The landowners, the zemstvo chiefs and all sorts of officials commanded the peasants enough!” Lenin.

OFFICIAL - A civil servant. An official who performs his work formally, following the instructions, without active participation in the case; formalist, bureaucrat.

OFFICIAL - in Russia until 1917 a civil servant who had a certain class rank according to the Table of Ranks. Senior officials (usually 4th - 1st classes) were unofficially called dignitaries. In a broad sense - the name of the lower civil servants who did not have ranks (clerks, copyists).

CHINOMVNIK, -a, m.

1. Civil servant in pre-revolutionary Russia and in bourgeois countries. Customs officer. Police officer. petty officials. ? The titular adviser Kaverznev was a very small official. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Senile grief. I happened to see several times how officials went to the presence in the morning.

2. trans. An official who performs his work formally, following the instructions, without active participation in the case. - There are officials sitting on the roadstead, ink rats! Volodya Makarov was worried. “They don’t care that we lost two hours.

Officialdom is an estate that was common in old Russia, so the official was not a new figure in Russian literature. A.S. Pushkin was one of the first to touch on the theme of the "little man", reflecting it in the personality of the official Samson Vyrin in the story "The Stationmaster". A.S. Griboyedov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, F.M. Dostoevsky - everyone experienced a bright palette of feelings for one or another representative of this class: from ridiculing vices to sympathy, pity.

§one. The theme of bureaucracy in Russian literature of the 19th century.

The official was not a new figure in Russian literature, because bureaucracy is one of the most common classes in old Russia. And in Russian literature, legions of officials pass before the reader - from registrars to generals.

Such an image of a poor official (Molchalin) is presented in the comedy by A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit".

Molchalin is one of the brightest representatives of the Famus society. However, if Famusov, Khlestova and some other characters are living fragments of the "past century", then Molchalin is a person of the same generation as Chatsky. But, unlike Chatsky, Molchalin is a staunch conservative, his views coincide with Famusov's worldview. Just like Famusov, Molchalin considers dependence “on others” to be the basic law of life. Molchalin is a typical "average" person both in terms of mind and claims. But he has "his talent": he is proud of his qualities - "moderation and accuracy." Molchalin's worldview and behavior are strictly dictated by his position in the official hierarchy. He is modest and helpful, because "in the ranks ... small", he cannot do without "patrons", even if he has to completely depend on their will. Molchalin is the antipode of Chatsky, not only in his convictions, but also in the nature of his attitude towards Sophia. Molchalin only skillfully pretends to love the girl, although, by his own admission, he does not find "anything enviable" in her. Molchalin is in love “according to his position”, “in the pleasing of the daughter of such a person” as Famusov, “who feeds and waters, // And sometimes he will give a rank ...” The loss of Sophia’s love does not mean the defeat of Molchalin. Although he made an unforgivable mistake, he managed to get away with it. It is impossible to stop the career of such a person as Molchalin - such is the meaning of the author's attitude towards the hero. Even in the first act, Chatsky rightly remarked that Molchalin "will reach certain degrees", for "The silent ones are blissful in the world."

A completely different image of a poor official was considered by A.S. Pushkin in his "Petersburg story" "The Bronze Horseman". In contrast to the aspirations of Molchalin, the desires of Evgeny, the protagonist of the poem, are modest: he dreams of quiet family happiness, he associates the future with his beloved Parasha (recall that Molchalin's courtship of Sophia is due solely to his desire to get a higher rank). Dreaming of simple (“petty-bourgeois”) human happiness, Eugene does not think at all about high ranks, the hero is one of countless officials “without a nickname” who “serve somewhere”, without thinking about the meaning of their service. It is important to note that for A.S. Pushkin, what made Evgeny a “little man” is unacceptable: the isolation of existence in a close circle of family concerns, fenced off from one’s own and historical past. However, despite this, Evgeny is not humiliated by Pushkin, on the contrary, he, unlike the “idol on a bronze horse”, is endowed with a heart and soul, which is of great importance for the author of the poem. He is able to dream, grieve, "fear" for the fate of his beloved, to languish from torment. When grief breaks into his measured life (the death of Parasha during a flood), he seems to wake up, he wants to find those responsible for the death of his beloved. Eugene blames Peter I for his troubles, who built the city in this place, which means he blames the entire state machine, entering into an unequal fight. In this confrontation, Eugene, the "little man", is defeated: "deafened by the noise" of his own grief, he dies. In the words of G.A. Gukovsky, "with Eugene ... enters into high literature ... a tragic hero." Thus, for Pushkin, the tragic aspect of the theme of a poor official who is unable to resist the state (an insoluble conflict between the individual and the state) was important.

N.V. also addressed the topic of the poor official. Gogol. In his works (“Overcoat”, “Inspector”) he gives his understanding of the image of a poor official (Bashmachkin, Khlestakov), while if Bashmachkin is close in spirit to Pushkin’s Eugene (“The Bronze Horseman”), then Khlestakov is a kind of “successor” of Molchalin Griboyedov. Like Molchalin, Khlestakov, the hero of the play The Inspector General, has extraordinary adaptability. He easily enters the role of an important person, realizing that he is being mistaken for another person: he gets acquainted with officials, and accepts the petition, and begins, as it should be for a "significant person", for no reason "scold" the owners, forcing them "to shake from fear." Khlestakov is not able to enjoy power over people, he simply repeats what he himself probably experienced more than once in his St. Petersburg department. An unexpected role transforms Khlestakov, making him a smart, powerful and strong-willed person. Talking about his studies in St. Petersburg, Khlestakov involuntarily betrays his “desire for honors apart from merit”, which is similar to Molchalin’s attitude towards service: he wants to “take barriers and live happily.” However, Khlestakov, unlike Molchalin, is much more careless, windy; his "lightness" "in thoughts ... extraordinary" is created with the help of a large number of exclamations, while the hero of Griboyedov's play is more cautious. The main idea of N.V. Gogol lies in the fact that even an imaginary bureaucratic “value” is capable of setting in motion generally intelligent people, making them obedient puppets.

Another aspect of the theme of the poor official is considered by Gogol in his story "The Overcoat". Its main character Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin causes an ambiguous attitude towards himself. On the one hand, the hero cannot but evoke pity and sympathy, on the other hand, hostility and disgust. Being a man of a narrow-minded, undeveloped mind, Bashmachkin speaks "mostly in prepositions, adverbs and particles that absolutely have no meaning," but his main occupation is the tedious rewriting of papers, a matter with which the hero is quite satisfied. In the department where he serves, officials "do not show him any respect", joking maliciously at Bashmachkin. The main event in life for him is the purchase of an overcoat, and when it is stolen from him, Bashmachkin loses the meaning of life forever.

Gogol shows that in bureaucratic Petersburg, where “significant persons” rule, coldness and indifference to the fate of thousands of Bashmachkins, forced to drag out a miserable existence, which deprives them of the opportunity to develop spiritually, makes them miserable, slavish creatures, “eternal titular advisers”. Thus, the author's attitude to the hero is difficult to determine unequivocally: he not only sympathizes with Bashmachkin, but also ironically over his hero (the presence in the text of contemptuous intonations caused by the insignificance of Bashmachkin's existence).

So, Gogol showed that the spiritual world of a poor official is extremely poor. F.M. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, made an important addition to the understanding of the character of the "little man", for the first time revealing the whole complexity of the inner world of this hero. The writer was interested not in the social, but in the moral and psychological aspect of the theme of the poor official.

Depicting the "humiliated and insulted", Dostoevsky used the principle of contrast between the external and the internal, between the humiliating social position of a person and his elevated self-esteem. Unlike Evgeny ("The Bronze Horseman") and Bashmachkin ("The Overcoat"), the hero of Dostoevsky Marmeladov is a man with great ambitions. He is acutely worried about his undeserved "humiliation", believing that he is "offended" by life, and therefore demanding more from life than it can give him. The absurdity of Marmeladov’s behavior and state of mind unpleasantly strikes Raskolnikov at their first meeting in the tavern: the official behaves proudly and even arrogantly: he looks at the visitors “with a touch of some arrogant disdain, as if at people of a lower status and development, with whom he has nothing to talk about” , In Marmeladov, the writer showed the spiritual degradation of "poor officials". They are incapable of rebellion or humility. Their pride is so exorbitant that humility is impossible for them. However, their "rebellion" is tragicomic in nature. So for Marmeladov - this is drunken ranting, "tavern conversations with various strangers." This is not a fight between Yevgeny and the Bronze Horseman and not the appearance of Bashmachkin to a "significant person" after death. Marmeladov is almost proud of his “swinishness” (“I am a born cattle”), telling Raskolnikov with pleasure that he even drank his wife’s “stockings”, “with rude dignity” reporting that Katerina Ivanovna “tearing whirlwinds” to him. The obsessive "self-flagellation" of Marmeladov has nothing to do with true humility. Thus, Dostoevsky has a poor official-philosopher, a thinking hero, with a highly developed moral sense, constantly experiencing dissatisfaction with himself, the world and those around him. It is important to note that F.M. Dostoevsky in no way justifies his hero, not “the environment is stuck”, but the person himself is guilty of his deeds, for he bears personal responsibility for them. Saltykov-Shchedrin radically changed his attitude towards bureaucracy; in his writings, the "little man" becomes the "petty man" whom Shchedrin ridicules by making him the subject of satire. (Although already in Gogol the bureaucracy began to be portrayed in Shchedrin's tones: for example, in The Government Inspector). We will focus on Chekhov's "officials". Chekhov's interest in the topic of bureaucracy not only did not fade away, but, on the contrary, flared up, reflected in the stories, in his new vision, but without ignoring past traditions. After all, "... the more inimitable and original the artist, the deeper and more obvious his connection with previous artistic experience."

§2. The image of an official in the stories of A.P. Chekhov

It is with Chekhov that the “little man” - the official becomes “petty”, forced to hide, go with the flow, obey the habits and laws established in the hostel.

In fact, Chekhov no longer depicts small people, but what prevents them from being big - he depicts and generalizes the small in people.

In the 80s of the 19th century, when official relations between people permeated all strata of society, the “little man” loses his humane qualities, being a person of the established social system, a product and an instrument rolled into one. Acquiring social status by rank, he becomes an official, not only and not necessarily by profession, but by his main function in society.

In Chekhov, he (an official) acquires a completely independent collective image, bearing the many-sided features of the essence, designated by the concept of "rank", in human society. Thus, in Chekhov's stories, the theme of the "little man" - one of the strongest themes of Russian classical literature - ended.

Destitute and oppressed creatures, these "little people" were indeed worthy of compassion, deprived of the care and protection of the state, "humiliated and insulted" by the power of higher officials.

And here Chekhov is the direct successor of this humanistic tradition of democratic Russian literature, clearly showing in his early stories the omnipotence of police and bureaucratic arbitrariness.

Assimilation of the traditions of Russian classical literature, simultaneously with a decisive rethinking of many of them, will become the defining feature of Chekhov's literary position.

Some literary critics attribute the work of A.P. Chekhov to the direction, which is called "sociological realism", since the main theme of Chekhov is the problem of the social structure of society and the fate of a person in it. This direction explores the objective social relations between people and the conditionality of all other important phenomena of human life by these relations.

The main object of the writer's artistic research - "Chekhov's world" was that in Russian society that connected it into a single state organism, where service relations become the most fundamental relations between people - the basis of society. There is a complex hierarchy of people and institutions that are in a relationship of subordination (commandship and subordination) and coordination (subordination).

On this basis, a system of power and administration unprecedented in history is developing in Russia, in which tens of millions of people are involved - all sorts of bosses, leaders, managers, directors, etc., who become masters of the situation, imposing their ideology and psychology on the whole society, their attitude towards all aspects of public life.

So in the whole gigantic picture of Russian life written by Chekhov, it is not difficult to notice the dominant features of Chekhov's vision of reality, namely, the image of that in people and their relations, which is due to the very fact of their unification into a single state entity, their distribution in this social organism according to various levels of the social hierarchy, depending on the social functions they perform.

Thus, the object of close attention of Chekhov, the writer and researcher, was "official" Russia - the environment of bureaucracy and bureaucratic relations, i.e. the relationship of people to the grandiose state apparatus and the relationship of people within this apparatus itself.

Therefore, it is no coincidence that it was the official who became one of the central figures (if not the most important) in Chekhov's work, and representatives of other social categories began to be considered in their bureaucratic-like functions and relations.

Chapter 2

So, what is he, an official of post-reform Chekhov's Russia?

We learn about this by analyzing the texts of A.P. Chekhov.

Chekhov's refraction of the theme of the "little man" is clearly observed

in the story "The Death of an Official" (1883)

The same type of hero - a small man, humiliated by his social role, who exchanged his own life for fear of the powerful of the world. However, Chekhov solves in a new way the conflict between the tyrant and the victim, beloved in our classics.

If the general behaves in the highest degree "normal", then the behavior of the "victim" is implausible, Chervyakov is exaggeratedly stupid, cowardly and importunate - this does not happen in life. The story is built on the early Chekhov's favorite principle of sharp exaggeration, when the style of "strict realism" is masterfully combined with increased conventionality.

The story, naive in appearance, is, in fact, not so simple: it turns out that death is just a trick and a convention, a mockery and an incident, so the story is perceived as quite humorous.

In the clash of laughter and death, laughter triumphs in the story - as a means of exposing the power over people of trifles erected into a fetish. Official relations here are only a special case of a conditional, invented system of values.

The increased, painful attention of a person to the little things of everyday life stems from the spiritual emptiness and self-sufficiency of the personality, its “smallness” and worthlessness.

The story contains funny, bitter and even tragic: behavior that is ridiculous to the point of absurdity; bitter awareness of the negligible price of human life; the tragic understanding that the worms cannot help but crawl, they will always find their brizzhals.

And one more thing: I would like to draw attention to the situation of embarrassment, so characteristic of Chekhov's characters, and the flight from it into the bureaucracy. Of course, such a paradoxical embarrassment ... with a fatal outcome is clearly beyond the scope of everyday realism, but in everyday life the "little man" often escapes from unforeseen circumstances - through bureaucratic relations, when necessary (by circular) and want (internal needs) outwardly coincide. This is how a true official is born - a bureaucrat, whose inner "I want" - important, desirable - is reborn into a prescribed "must", which is outwardly legalized, permitted and reliably protects against embarrassment in any circumstances.

§one. Verbal vocabulary and its function in the text

The verb, together with verbal forms, which has a large "set" of categories, forms and shades of meanings, is one of the stylistically remarkable parts of speech in the Russian language.

By its nature, the verb is one of the main means of expressing dynamics. This is partly why scientific and business speech are opposed to artistic and colloquial in terms of the frequency of use of verb forms; it is precisely this character of the former that is opposed by the verbal character of the latter. Business speech is characterized by nominal turns of an official nature: Assistance, to eliminate shortcomings, take part in ... etc. Artistic, journalistic and live colloquial speech use verbal forms more widely, avoiding nominal constructions. The general dynamism of speech largely depends on this. If we compare scientific speech as a whole with artistic speech in relation to the use of the verb, then the qualitative nature of the verbs in the first case and the dynamic nature in the second case clearly stand out. This is due not only to the frequency of verbs in speech, but also to their composition, i.e. lexico-grammatical aspect. Since in scientific writings we are talking about constant features and qualities of objects, regular phenomena and more places are occupied by descriptions, since the corresponding verb units are selected from the language system - according to the meaning of lexemes and forms. It is no accident, for example, that in scientific speech, many state verbs used in the present tense do not denote a dynamic state at the moment of speech, as is typical, for example, of colloquial everyday speech, but quality.

The stylistic properties of various categories and forms determine the varying degree of their application in functional styles. For example, forms of the imperative mood, rich in expression and emotionality, are almost unknown in scientific and official business speech, but are widely used in colloquial art and journalistic (in the latter case, in appeals).

Many shades of the aspect of the verb and ways of expressing them have limited areas of use. For example, verbs of multiple and single action are a striking sign of colloquial speech (bival, lavlival, sadanul), but are not characteristic of book speech.

Verbal categories and forms have a rich synonymy, the possibilities of figurative use. For example, the present of a live representation is used to express actions that took place in the past, or vice versa, the past tense is used to express actions in the future, etc. All the variety of these possibilities is presented in fiction. It is also characteristic of artistic speech that, within a relatively small context, a wide variety of forms and their meanings, as well as ways of expressing inclinations, are used for expressive purposes, while scientific and especially business speech is characterized by the use of forms of any one plan or two.

§2. The functioning of verbal vocabulary in the story of A.P. Chekhov "Death of an official"

The pinnacle of the comic discrepancy between what should be, from the point of view of common sense, and what actually happened, is the event underlying the 1883 story "The Death of an Official". One person, sneezing, accidentally splashed another, and then ... died of fear and grief. However, the anecdote is overgrown with the flesh of reliability.

The story is extremely concise and, as a result, dynamic. This special dynamism of the story is contained in verbs and their forms (in all their diversity). It is through the verbal vocabulary that the plot develops, and the characterization of the characters is also given; although, of course, the writer also uses other artistic devices (for example, speaking surnames).

But let's get straight to the text.

The protagonist of the work is introduced into the story of the very first lines: “One fine evening, a no less excellent executor, Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov, was sitting in the second row of chairs and looking through binoculars at the Corneville Bells. He looked and felt himself on top of bliss. But all of a sudden…” As we can see, the plot of the story is already here - the intriguing “But suddenly…”. The ellipsis only enhances this effect. Through verbs, the author introduces us into this atmosphere.

First of all, it should be noted that the action develops in the past long tense, i.e. action is represented in its existence, statically. This is achieved thanks to the form of verbs - past tense, imperfective form (sat, looked, felt).

The verb looked gives us the primary characterization of the hero. Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov sat in the theater and did not look, but looked at the stage. The word itself bears the imprint of colloquialism, stylistic "decrease". Thus, Chervyakov appears to us as a simple layman, a "little man."

The repetition of the verb (... and looked through binoculars at the "Corneville bells". He looked and felt himself ...) fixes our attention on the state of "looking" of the hero, which indicates some of his relaxation and which partly serves as an impetus for the development of the plot, as it causes surprise sneezing.

“But suddenly his face frowned, his eyes rolled up, his breathing stopped ... he took the binoculars away from his eyes, bent down and ... apchi! He sneezed, as you can see." The author gradually brings us to one of the key words of the story. With clear bright verbs, Chekhov conveys the state of Chervyakov, the very process of sneezing (the row frowned - rolled up - stopped - took it away - bent down - sneezed). Thus, the writer conveys the state of a person, his hero through actions.

The author presents this case directly, easily. This is facilitated by a constant appeal to the reader. In this case, the verbs are used in the present tense (it occurs, as you can see). Although it should be noted that it is not the author himself who addresses the readers, but rather the narrator. He owns a small “lyrical digression”, a reflection on sneezing: “Sneezing is not forbidden to anyone and nowhere. Both peasants and police chiefs sneeze, and sometimes even secret advisers. Everyone is sneezing." In the first case, the verb to sneeze as part of a compound verb predicate in an impersonal sentence. In this case, we are dealing with the real timeless, which is only emphasized by the impersonal form. This, in turn, refers us to the scientific style, or rather, to the real timeless with a touch of quality, i.e. we are talking about the quality, the property inherent in man. Further repetition of this verb (sneeze) in the present tense, 3rd person, plural extends this property to all people (Everyone sneezes).

In total, the word sneeze in the story occurs six times (one of them in the form of a gerund), but its repeated repetition (four times in a row) makes it, on the one hand, a logical stress, and this word becomes one of the key words of the text, on the other hand - informs this action of the nature of constant, repeated repetition in life, i.e. commonality, generality.

Further, the action develops dynamically. This is achieved through the use of perfective verbs, tk. it is they who represent action as a component of a dynamic situation [Karpukhin 2004: 106], in development. “Chervyakov was not at all embarrassed, wiped himself with a handkerchief and, like a polite person, looked around him: did he disturb anyone with his sneezing? But here it was already necessary to be embarrassed. He saw that the old man, who was sitting in front of him, in the first row of seats, was diligently wiping his bald head and neck with a glove and muttering something. As we can see, the verbs used here in the perfect form of the past tense convey the actions of the hero, Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov (he was not embarrassed, wiped himself, looked, did not disturb, saw). The imperfective verbs that we meet here convey the state of Brizzhalov rather than the action (wiped, muttered).

In the above passage, the case of opposition is also interesting: I was not embarrassed - I had to be embarrassed. The first form of the 3rd person singular past tense verb conveys Chervyakov's action - he was not embarrassed, speaks of his natural behavior (he just sneezed, and no one is forbidden to sneeze). The second, impersonal form conveys, rather, the action of something extraneous on the consciousness of the hero, the influence from the outside - he had to be embarrassed. And he was embarrassed by the realization that he had caused concern, especially since it turned out to be a state general, the rank of an old man was decisive here. The prevailing morals, principles and admiration for a high rank determine the further behavior of the hero. This verb - to be embarrassed is also one of the key ones.

And then a “fatal” thought comes to Chervyakov’s head: “I sprayed him! thought Chervyakov. - Not my boss, someone else's, but still embarrassing. You have to apologize." This phrase contains two verbs that are key in relation to the entire text. This is to spit and apologize. They "sit" in the mind of the hero and will "torment" him until the very end of the story. Their compositional value is determined by the honesty of their use. The verb to sprinkle occurs four times, and it enters the text, most often, through the dialogue between Chervyakov and Brizzhalov. The verb excuse / apologize occurs seven times and "accompanies" Ivan Dmitritch from the moment the conflict began.

The hero's state changes dramatically when his apology, in his opinion, is not accepted properly. This is achieved by repeating the same verbs in the same forms, but in different contexts. Compare: He looked and felt himself on top of bliss. - He looked, but he no longer felt bliss. The anxiety that arises in Cherovyakov's head is also transmitted through the verb - it "began to torment" him. The prefix gives the verb a rudimentary action, its weak expressiveness. It is this anxiety that makes the hero want to explain: “I should explain to him that I didn’t want to at all ...”. The subjunctive mood gives the action a touch of desirability, but after the next meeting, “desirability” turns into a firm intention: I will explain to him ...

During the second meeting between the general and the executor, laughter comes into the story. It should be noted that laughter here is immediately perceived as a mockery:

You're just laughing, sir! he said, hiding behind the door.

"What kind of jokes are there? thought Chervyakov. “There are no jokes here at all!”

A synonym (including contextual) for the word “laugh” is “mockery”. It is the possibility of ridicule that worries and frightens Chervyakov.

I came yesterday to worry about you,” he muttered, when the general raised inquiring eyes at him, “not to laugh, as you deigned to say. I apologized for the fact that I sneezed, sir ... but I didn’t even think to laugh. Do I dare to laugh? If we laugh, then there will be no respect for persons ... there will be ...

Chervyakov did not think, did not dare to laugh. The last sentence generally concludes the whole essence of the philosophy of the ill-fated executor Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov. Here the inconsistency with elementary human common sense also “emerges”. On the one hand, "no one is forbidden to sneeze", this is natural and characteristic of every person, but on the other hand, he "does not dare to laugh" at this "natural" and, in general, amusing case.

This discrepancy becomes fatal for the hero. Tragic for him is the last "explanation" with the general.

Something broke in Chervyakov's stomach. Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, he backed away to the door, went out into the street and trudged along ... Arriving home mechanically, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and ... died.

The whole tragedy of the denouement, the culmination of the story, is conveyed here precisely through the verbal vocabulary: it came off - not seeing - not hearing - backed away - went out - trudged - having come - without taking off - lay down - died. All of the above verb forms convey, first of all, the state of the hero, his crushing, murder - he did not go, but trudged along, he did not see or hear anything. And as a result, he died.

The tragic ending of the story is not perceived as such. The word "verb", which contains the climax and denouement of the work, is stylistically reduced, colloquial. Thus, the reader feels the attitude of the author himself to the hero, or rather to his death. It is ironic, he does not consider it the death of a Man, the true "pathos" of death is not felt here.

Thus, the entire behavior of Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov, the entire development of actions can be conveyed through the following series of key verbs: sat - looked - sneezed - had to be embarrassed - splashed - apologize - explain - I don’t dare to laugh - came off - backed away - trudged - lay down - died. As you can see, the whole plot fabric of the story rests precisely on the verbal vocabulary (or rather, directly on the verbs).

A.P. Chekhov decisively rethinks the image of the "little man" traditional in Russian literature. Often, “The Death of an Official” by A.P. Chekhov is compared, compared with the “Overcoat” by N.V. Gogol. But Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov is definitely not like Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin. And the general is far from being an "oppressor", he is not so formidable. After all, he barked at his visitor only when he brought him with more and more new visits. The “boiling” of a general can also be conveyed through a number of verbs. So, first he "mumbled", then he "said", then he "made a whiny face and waved his hand" and only then did he "bark". The extent of the general's rage is conveyed by the participial forms - the general, suddenly blue and shaking, barked.

In addition, the state of the general also conveys the person in which he addresses Chervyakov. If at first he answered him in the second number of the plural, i.e. to you (let me listen, laugh), then his last phrase is extremely expressive due to the imperative mood and appeal to you: Get out!

Thus, one of the leading stylistic functions in A.P. Chekhov's "Death of an official" is performed by verbs and their forms. It is the verbal vocabulary that contributes to the brightness, expressiveness and conciseness of the work, which are the defining features of A.P. Chekhov.

Having traced the functioning of the verbal vocabulary in the text, we came to the following conclusions.

The verb, together with verbal forms, which has a large "set" of categories, forms and shades of meanings, is one of the stylistically remarkable parts of speech in the Russian language.

First of all, the verb is the main means of giving the text dynamism, telling it the development of actions.

The functioning of the verb in the text is determined by its personal form, tense, mood, aspect.

The meanings and functions of the past tense are especially diverse in a literary text. The past tense in a literary text is divided into three main types - the past imperfect, expressing a long action in the past (as the past descriptive is called), the past perfect with a productive meaning and the past narrative.

The determining factor here is the form of the verb, which represents the action in two aspects. This is an action view statically and an action view dynamically.

In the story of A.P. Chekhov's "The Death of an Official", the verbal vocabulary determines the entire plot fabric of the story and performs the following functions:

1. verbs of the past tense of the imperfect form to a greater extent convey the state of the hero;

2. perfective past tense verbs report the action directly in development, in dynamics and contains the plot thread of the story;

3. verbs of the present tense (in impersonal sentences) inform the subject, action, state of generality and routine;

4. the same verbs in different contexts contain oppositions, i.e. are contextual homonyms;

5. stylistic reduction of verbs is a means of expressing the author's attitude to the hero, because largely characterize him;

6. the repetition of the same verbs puts a logical emphasis on them and suggests that they may be key;

7. the degree of expressiveness of verbs conveys the emotional state of the characters;

8. participles and gerunds are tinted in relation to verbs and contribute to a more vivid characterization of the characters.

Thus, it is the verbal vocabulary in A.P. Chekhov's "Death of a Clerk" is defining in the writer's stylistic characteristics.

Conclusion

As a result of our research, the main object of which was the “Chekhovian world” and the heroes inhabiting it, we, first of all, have a new vision of A.P. Chekhov - in the key of sociological realism. This allowed us, as the central figure of the "Chekhovian world", to bring out an official acting on behalf of the authorities and who became the personification of the era. "Russia," wrote Chekhov, "is a government country."

And with amazing artistic power, using the example of bureaucracy, he showed that the position of a person in the social system and hierarchy of Russian society began to turn into a factor that determines all other aspects of a person’s life, and the relationship of command and subordination became the basis for all other relations. Chekhov managed to create an unprecedented picture of the tragicomedy of human existence in Russian and world literature in a world of illusory values, worries and anxieties.

M. Gorky wrote about the significance of Chekhov's work:

Therefore, among Chekhov's heroes considered in the term paper, there are not just officials by profession, but various forms of bureaucratic relations, called "Chekhov's world", where Chekhov managed to create an unprecedented picture of the tragicomedy of human existence in Russian and world literature in the world of ghostly values, worries and worries.

The review of the sources used allowed me to see and evaluate different views and approaches to the topic of bureaucracy.

We began the main part of the work with the vision of the official by other writers in order to understand how Chekhov saw and what new things Chekhov brought to this image.

The main task of our study is to show how the writer saw the official.

The theme of the "little man" is traditional in the national

literary tradition - in the stories of Chekhov found a kind of refraction.

Acquiring a social status by rank, Chekhov's little man becomes an inherently petty official - not only and not necessarily by profession, but by his main function in society, losing his humane human qualities.

Through Chekhov's short and apparently quite unpretentious texts, one discovers in all its essence what is miserable, small and petty in the nature of a social person who has completely lost himself in the real world of social conventions and priorities. This moral "kink" of a small person in a hostile social environment, the loss of the human in a person in various forms, we investigated in Chekhov's plots.

It was impossible to avoid another very important aspect of the disclosure of the topic of bureaucracy in Chekhov, since it was this that became the writer's artistic discovery, the subject of his attention and reflection. Chekhov managed to discover the decisive role of everyday life in the creation of the whole structure and way of life of a person. It is here that the main tragedy of human existence, the "little things in life" kill the human in a person ... This is how the common disease of bureaucracy is revealed - self-forgetfulness in a social role, loss of human essence in official self-realization.

The phenomenon of Russian bureaucracy, understanding of its nature and problems is extremely important for the reform and development of our society on a reasonable basis, bequeathed to us by Chekhov. And with renewed vigor, among the universal problems, "Chekhov's problems" "highlighted" - and turned out to be central! After all, the transformation of the Russian state, its social reorganization on a reasonable basis is possible only through a person, and a state person - an official - in the first place.

Chekhov has not been with us for a hundred years now, but Chekhov's message to us, living in Russia of the 21st century, is very important for the construction of "new forms of life" in our Russian reality.

Bibliography

Big Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2000.

Gogol N.V. Favorites - Moscow. Enlightenment. 1986

Griboyedov A.S. Woe from Wit - Moscow AST Astrel. 2003

Gromov M.P. Book about Chekhov - Moscow: Sovremennik, 1989. Electronic version.

Dostoevsky F.M. Crime and Punishment. Moscow enlightenment 1989

Small Academic Dictionary

Pushkin A.S. Selected works in two volumes. volume one. Moscow. fiction.1978

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language Kuznetsov

Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

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