The role of chance in a person’s life (Based on the example of L. N. Tolstoy’s story “After the Ball”)
1. Reception of contrast.
2. A cruel joke. 3. Change of worldview. Chance rules everything. I would also like to know who controls the situation. S. E. Lec The topic of the essay presents a very interesting question - the role of chance in human life. But indeed in life, Mr. Chance plays an important role. And it can not only open your eyes to some event, but also dramatically change the life of one or even several people. So what is the price of the case? To answer this question, consider one of the works of L. N. Tolstoy - the story “After the Ball.” The very title of the work already hints at the fact that an incident in the lives of the heroes plays an important, if not exceptional, significance. The title seems to suggest: something exceptional happened after the ball, which could affect the lives of the main, and possibly secondary characters in the work. The story begins with the respected Ivan Vasilyevich talking about one episode from his biography, which dramatically changed not only his life, but also his view of the world. “You say that a person cannot understand on his own what is good and what is bad, that it’s all about the environment, that the environment is eating away,” Ivan Vasilyevich suddenly spoke. “And I think it’s all a matter of chance.” To describe such a radical change in outlook on life, the writer uses contrasting colors to recreate the shades of a brilliant ball and bloody punishment. In this picture, not only harshness and hypocrisy appear, but also a special color palette. So, for example, the second part of the story turns purple. It’s like a bloody wall that runs between two days and puts an insurmountable barrier between two young people. But not only external circumstances, but also the internal qualities of people change in such a short period of time. They are especially clearly reflected in the colonel’s appearance. Before us appear two seemingly different people before and after the ball. Ivan Vasilyevich notices at the ball that the colonel has a stately figure and a handsome face. However, a few hours later he appears in a different light. And much attention is paid to the face of the military man, who expresses some kind of hatred towards the criminal. Now the colonel has a protruding lip and puffed out cheeks. Not a trace remained of the handsome, “ballroom” face of the military man. He was also changed by an incident: the punishment of a Tatar for escaping. As a result, a new reason for thought arises: if it had not been a Tatar or a colonel, there would have been another reason for punishment. What would be the description of a military man then? The contrast of the two days is also preserved in the color scheme. The ball features pure, airy colors such as white and pink. That evening he “saw only a tall, slender figure in a white dress with a pink belt, her radiant, flushed face with dimples and gentle, sweet eyes.” After the ball, this is one, but very telling color - motley red: “... I caught a glimpse of the back of the one being punished between the rows. It was something so motley, wet, red, unnatural that I didn’t believe it was a human body.” To create the most complete picture of two completely different worlds, the narrator introduces not only color, but also sound shades into his narrative. This allows you to see the difference between the two days at the level of perception of subtle transitions of the melody. At the ball, Ivan Vasilyevich was intoxicated with love and constantly “danced quadrilles, waltzes, polkas,” and mazurkas. All this creates a melancholy and poetic picture of the evening. During punishment, completely different music sounds: the thunder of drums, the whistle of a flute. They do not calm, but seem to tear at the soul even more and leave notes of confusion in it. At first, echoes of the mazurka are still heard in the hero’s soul, but soon they are replaced by a heavier melody: “... I heard the sounds of a flute and drum coming from there. I was singing all the time in my soul and occasionally heard the motif of a mazurka. But it was some other, hard, bad music.” After what he saw in the hero’s soul, the opposite mood still remains. Different tones appear in it: now the harsh voice of a colonel, now the plaintive request of a Tatar, now a drum roll, now the whistle of a flute: “All the way in my ears I had the drum beat and the whistle of a flute, now I heard the words: “Brothers, have mercy,” now I heard the colonel’s self-confident, angry voice.” However, the incident played a cruel joke on the girl herself. Varenka suffered “punishment” for her father’s actions. It cannot, of course, be said that she did not know her father and could not imagine what he was capable of. But the main character combined these two very different images in one picture, thanks to which the young people had to separate. So his love seemed to disappear somewhere: “When she, as often happened with her, with a smile on her face, thought, I immediately remembered the colonel in the square, and I felt somehow awkward and unpleasant, and I became less likely to see her." But what he saw had an impact not only on Ivan Vasilyevich’s relationship with Varenka. It also had a severe impact on the worldview of the narrator himself. He tried to understand and comprehend what he had to see in the morning. At first, Ivan Vasilyevich even assumed that those who punish had some information that was unknown to him. But this could not calm him down and improve his mental balance. “But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find out later. But without finding out, I could not enter military service, as I had wanted before, and not only did I not serve in the military, but I did not serve anywhere and, as you see, was not suitable for anything.” And such ignorance and doubt influenced the fact that Ivan Vasilyevich was unable to enlist in military service, because for him it was embodied in the guise of a cruel colonel - not the fit man who danced at the ball, but in the image of the one who hit the the face of the soldier who weakly struck the Tatar. However, in the story itself there is one small episode that proves that the colonel loves his daughter very much, that is, he would never cause her any harm. The military man denies himself many things, even goes out in public wearing unfashionable calf boots just so that Varenka can deny herself nothing. The Colonel dances beautifully, but in a couple the grace of the dance depends on both partners. So again he does everything to present his daughter in a good light. But chance intervenes in life again. Ivan Vasilyevich and the colonel meet eyes during the punishment, the latter turns away as if he had not noticed anything. He is far from the moral image that L.N. Tolstoy formed in his later works. But I would like to believe that for the colonel himself this meeting, and therefore the incident itself, played an equally important role. Since he turned away, maybe he feels that he is not entirely right and is behaving inappropriately at that moment: he hit the soldier in the face who is “smearing.” Or maybe he just remembers what happened the night before at the provincial leader’s ball and understands how contrasting the picture is playing out before Ivan Vasilyevich’s eyes. It was this contrast that played the biggest role in the life of the main character. If these scenes had not been preserved in his soul, then maybe over time he would have been able to calm down and meet Varenka again. But in his soul there was constantly a struggle between two different, but very impressive pictures. And since the latter was more vivid, speaking and cruel, it left a much greater impression on Ivan Vasilyevich’s soul. Therefore, he could not overcome himself not to remember this. The writer chooses the most effective technique - the technique of contrast. We do not know what his attitude is to what he saw and to the concept of “chance” in this life. But the use of this technique makes it possible to understand that the writer, to some extent, agrees with the main character. And in this way he denounces and does not accept either for his character, or even less for himself, the colonel’s act. This perception of the world also leaves an imprint on the later views of the writer, who begins to think about the spiritual improvement of the individual. He shows us that the colonel is very far from all this. Ivan Vasilyevich, on the contrary, is probably encountering this for the first time and understands that any action must have a spiritual and moral basis. Perhaps then the case will not have its destructive effect on a person.
The problem of the role of chance in human life. Senina 2021. Option 19. (Unified State Examination in Russian)
Can one incident change a person's life forever?
Does it happen that just one meeting affects our future destiny? It is these questions that arise when reading the text of the Soviet Russian writer Yu. M. Nagibin. Revealing the problem of the role of chance in a person’s life, the author talks about an event that happened to his hero. The narration comes from the first person. While picking mushrooms in the forest, the narrator came across a boy. This meeting, according to the hero, is “the main miracle of the day.” The boy tore up the grass, weeded the overgrown cobblestone road that had come from nowhere, explaining that the road should not disappear, since it definitely leads somewhere.
Over the years, the narrator understood the boy’s instruction differently. In the hero's heart there were many roads leading to different people, and these roads need to be cleared. Success will come when oncoming traffic begins from the other end of the road.
The author brings us to the idea that one incident can change a person’s life forever.
I agree with the author’s opinion and also believe that one meeting can influence our future destiny.
Let us prove this by turning to literary arguments. In L. N. Tolstoy’s story “After the Ball,” Ivan Vasilyevich claims that his whole life changed from one incident. In his youth, he was deeply in love with Varenka B., the daughter of a colonel.
On the last day of Maslenitsa at the ball, he danced only with her, was in seventh heaven, and also admired his beloved’s father, who seemed to him a caring and kind person. But after the ball, the young man witnessed the execution, which was led by Colonel Pyotr Vladislavovich. The hero was struck by the cruelty of the punishment on Forgiveness Sunday: the fugitive Tatar was driven through the gauntlet, they beat him on the back with spitzrutens, turning it into a bloody mess. This morning changed the hero’s life: he did not enter either the military or civil service, not wanting to participate in universal evil and carry out inhuman state laws, and his love for Varenka came to naught.
Let us give one more literary argument. In L.N. Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, after a duel with Dolokhov, Pierre experiences a spiritual crisis. At the station in Torzhok he meets the freemason Bazdeev and, under the influence of his sermon, changes his life, decides to serve his neighbor and do good.
Thus, we are convinced that chance plays an important role in a person’s fate, because it can change a lot in life: views, goals, character, actions.
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