The absurdity of the life of the main character of the work
From the very beginning of the work, Ilya Ilyich appears before the reader in a completely absurd situation. He spends every day in his room. Devoid of any impressions. Nothing new happens in his life, there is nothing that would fill it with any meaning. One day is like another. Absolutely uninterested in and uninterested in anything, this person, one might say, resembles a plant.
Ilya Ilyich’s only activity is lying comfortably and serenely on the sofa. Since childhood, he has been accustomed to being constantly taken care of. He never thought about how to ensure his own existence. I always lived with everything ready. There was no such incident that would disturb his serene state. Life is simply convenient for him.
Inaction does not make a person happy
And this constant lying on the couch is not caused by some incurable disease or psychological disorder. No! The terrible thing is that this is the natural state of the main character of the novel. The meaning of Oblomov’s life lies in the soft upholstery of the sofa and a comfortable Persian robe. Every person from time to time tends to think about the purpose of his own existence. The time comes, and many, looking back, begin to reason: “What useful have I done, why am I even living?”
Of course, not everyone can move mountains or perform some heroic deed, but anyone can make their own life interesting and full of impressions. Inaction has never made anyone happy. Perhaps only up to a certain point. But this has nothing to do with Ilya Ilyich. Oblomov, whose life story is described in the novel of the same name by Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov, is not burdened by his inaction. Everything suits him.
Characteristics of the heroes of the novel “Oblomov”
“Oblomov” is the only novel by Goncharov that students study as part of the school curriculum. Few people know, but this book is the second part of a whole trilogy, which also includes “An Ordinary Story” and “The Precipice.” The main character, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, has long become a household name and a synonym for a lazy, inactive person. But the writer’s work gave not only this colorful character, but also many other heroes who deserve special mention.
Oblomov's best friend is Andrei Ivanovich Stolts. A nobleman with German roots, Ilya’s bosom companion since childhood, court adviser in rank, Andrei has all the opposite qualities of Oblomov’s character. The author decided to make him a complete antipode: active, purposeful, persistent, accustomed to doing business and not having his head in the clouds, Stolz is constantly dealing with some of Oblomov’s problems and represents a certain urge and incentive to action and life for a sluggish friend.”...Man was created. arrange himself and even change his nature, but he grew a belly and thinks that nature sent him this burden!..” - this is how Andrei Ivanovich talks about fate. Oblomov, in turn, values his friendship with Stolz, considering him the owner of a kind, sincere heart.
Stolz even differs in appearance from Oblomov, which is not surprising given such different lifestyles: unlike the obese Ilya, Andrei is thin. He has bright green eyes, dark skin with an even complexion and good health, which he rarely complains about: “... he retained the strength of his soul, the strength of his body...” His parents raised him in strictness, did not indulge him with attention and tenderness, and attached importance to the growing son worked constantly. Stolz was not spoiled either by his parents or by fate: he had to overcome many of its difficulties and obstacles: “... in those difficult days when he struggled with life, extricated himself from its twists and turns and grew stronger...”.
As we see, such life circumstances bore fruit, affecting the personality of the hero. A similar conclusion can be drawn based on the greenhouse upbringing of Oblomov himself, who never faced adversity and hardship. Stolz is not alien to such a virtue as hard work, but for him laziness is a vice that must be avoided. “...Work is the image, content, element and goal of life, at least mine...” Decisive and confident, he does not spend time in idle thoughts, but prefers to act. He is glad to experience this life in all its forms, to spend his days with joy and delight: “...He was vigorous in body because he was vigorous in mind...”. Stolz can definitely be called a strong personality, firm in his intentions. This is how the author describes it: “...he walked towards his goal, bravely walking through all the obstacles...” For him, life is a bright flame, and his main desire is for this flame to burn as long as possible. “...Stolz - intelligence, strength, the ability to manage oneself, others, fate...” Despite the fact that Andrei Ivanovich loves to be in the company of new people, make acquaintances, travels a lot to different places, he also appreciates literature and leaves time for reading: “...he goes out into the world and reads: when he has time, God knows...”
It is precisely such a bright and active hero who is destined to become the husband of the woman whom Oblomov loved. This is Olga Sergeevna Ilyinskaya, a young girl just beginning her life’s journey, a charming and endearing young lady: “...a wonderful creature, with a fragrant freshness of mind and feelings. In his eyes, she was only a charming, promising child...” Olga is extremely sincere and ingenuous, there is no feminine tendency towards coquetry and affectation in her. Oblomov considers her an angel, noting her difference from other ladies. Olga’s character is calm, peaceful, quiet, but with all this, the girl has a developed sense of self-esteem: “...you, a proud girl, could, headlong, forgetting shame and upbringing, get carried away and break your duty...” This heroine has many beautiful features: she is sensitive, compassionate, kind, has highly moral ideas: “... according to the correct understanding of true, unhypocritical morality, not inspired by anyone...”
At first, Stolz and Olga have purely friendly relations, but after the girl’s unsuccessful love with Oblomov, Stolz begins to develop feelings for her: “...In the spring they all left for Switzerland. Stolz, back in Paris, decided that from now on he could not live without Olga...” Stolz proposes to Olga, and this marriage was successful: the spouses are ideally suited to each other in character. This is how two bright characters in the novel found their happiness together.
Main character's home
The character of Ilya Ilyich can be judged from some of the lines in which the author describes the room where Oblomov lived. Of course, the decoration of the room did not look poor. It was luxuriously furnished. And yet there was neither coziness nor comfort in it. The paintings that hung on the walls of the room were framed with drawings of cobwebs. Mirrors, designed to allow one to see one's reflection in them, could be used instead of writing paper.
The whole room was covered in dust and dirt. Somewhere there was a randomly thrown thing that would remain there until it was needed again. On the table there are uncleaned dishes, crumbs and leftovers from yesterday's meal. All this does not evoke a feeling of comfort. But Ilya Ilyich does not notice this. Cobwebs, dust, dirt and uncleaned dishes are natural companions of his daily reclining on the sofa.
Problems
The main problem with Oblomov is the lack of motivation to move. The entire society of that time really wants, but cannot, wake up and get out of that terrible depressing state. Many people have become and are still becoming Oblomov’s victims. It’s pure hell to live life as a dead person and not see any purpose. It was this human pain that Goncharov wanted to show, resorting to the concept of conflict: here there is a conflict between a person and society, and between a man and a woman, and between friendship and love, and between loneliness and an idle life in society, and between work and hedonism , and between walking and lying and so on and so forth.
- The problem of love . This feeling can change a person for the better; this transformation is not an end in itself. For Goncharov’s heroine this was not obvious, and she put all the power of her love into the re-education of Ilya Ilyich, not seeing how painful it was for him. While remaking her lover, Olga did not notice that she was squeezing out of him not only bad character traits, but also good ones. In fear of losing himself, Oblomov could not save his beloved girl. He was faced with the problem of a moral choice: either remain himself, but alone, or play the whole life of another person, but for the benefit of his wife. He chose his individuality, and in this decision one can see selfishness or honesty - to each his own.
- The problem of friendship. Stolz and Oblomov passed the test of one love for two, but were unable to snatch a single minute from family life to preserve their partnership. Time (and not a quarrel) separated them; the routine of days broke the bonds of friendship that were strong. They both lost from separation: Ilya Ilyich completely neglected himself, and his friend was mired in petty worries and troubles.
- The problem of education. Ilya Ilyich became a victim of the sleepy atmosphere in Oblomovka, where the servants did everything for him. The boy's liveliness was dulled by endless feasts and naps, and the dull numbness of the wilderness left its mark on his addictions. The theme of education in the novel “Oblomov” becomes clearer in the episode “Oblomov’s Dream,” which we analyzed in a separate article.
Daydreaming in Ilya's character, or How to change life in the village
Often Ilya Ilyich reproaches his own servant, whose name is Zakhar, for sloppiness. But he seemed to adapt to the owner’s character, and perhaps he himself was not far from him from the very beginning; he reacts quite calmly to the untidiness of the home. According to his reasoning, there is no point in cleaning the room from dust, since it still accumulates there again. So what is the meaning of Oblomov’s life? A man who can’t even get his own servant to clean up the mess. He cannot even control his own life, and the existence of those around him is completely beyond his control.
Of course, sometimes he dreams of doing something for his village. He is trying to come up with some plans, again - lying on the sofa, in order to reorganize village life. But this person is already so divorced from reality that all the dreams he has built remain just that. The plans are such that their implementation is almost impossible. They all have some kind of monstrous scope that has nothing to do with reality. But the meaning of life in the work “Oblomov” is not revealed only in the description of one character.
A hero opposite to Oblomov
There is another hero in the work, who is trying to awaken Ilya Ilyich from his lazy state. Andrey Stolts is a person filled with boiling energy and liveliness of mind. Whatever Andrey undertakes, he succeeds in everything, and he enjoys everything. He doesn’t even think about why he does this or that thing. According to the character himself, he works for the sake of work.
What is the difference between the meaning of life of Oblomov and Stolz? Andrey never lies idle, like Ilya Ilyich. He is always busy with something, he has a huge circle of friends with interesting people. Stolz never sits in one place. He is constantly on the move, meeting new places and people. But nevertheless, he does not forget about Ilya Ilyich.
Subject
As Dmitry Bykov says:
Goncharov’s heroes do not duel, like Onegin, Pechorin or Bazarov, do not participate, like Prince Bolkonsky, in historical battles and the writing of Russian laws, and do not commit crimes and transgress the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” as in Dostoevsky’s novels. Everything they do fits into the framework of everyday life, but this is only one facet
Indeed, one facet of Russian life cannot cover the whole novel: the novel is divided into social relations, and into friendly relations, and into love ones... It is the latter theme that is the main one and is highly appreciated by critics.
- The theme of love is embodied in Oblomov’s relationships with two women: Olga and Agafya. This is how Goncharov depicts several varieties of the same feeling. Ilyinskaya’s emotions are saturated with narcissism: in them she sees herself, and only then her chosen one, although she loves him with all her heart. However, she values her brainchild, her project, that is, the non-existent Oblomov. Ilya’s relationship with Agafya is different: the woman fully supported his desire for peace and laziness, idolized him and lived by caring for him and their son Andryusha. The tenant gave her a new life, a family, long-awaited happiness. Her love is adoration to the point of blindness, because indulging her husband’s whims led him to an early death. The main theme of the work is described in more detail in the essay “ The Theme of Love in Oblomov’s Novel .”
- Theme of friendship . Stolz and Oblomov, although they fell in love with the same woman, did not start a conflict and did not betray their friendship. They always complemented each other, talked about the most important and intimate things in both of their lives. This relationship has been ingrained in their hearts since childhood. The boys were different, but got along well with each other. Andrei found peace and kindness while visiting a friend, and Ilya happily accepted his help in everyday affairs. You can read more about this in the essay “Friendship of Oblomov and Stolz.”
- Finding the meaning of life . All heroes are looking for their own path, looking for the answer to the eternal question about the purpose of man. Ilya found it in thinking and finding spiritual harmony, in dreams and the very process of existence. Stolz found himself in an eternal movement forward. The theme of the meaning of life in the novel “Oblomov” in detail in the essay.
Andrey's influence on the main character
Oblomov's monologue about the meaning of life, his judgments about it, are completely opposite to the opinion of Stolz, who becomes the only one who was able to lift Ilya from the soft sofa. Moreover, Andrei even tried to return his comrade to an active life. To do this, he resorts to some trick. Introduces him to Olga Ilyinskaya. Realizing that pleasant communication with a beautiful woman will perhaps quickly awaken in Ilya Ilyich a taste for a more varied life than existence in his room.
How does Oblomov change under the influence of Stolz? His life story is now connected with the beautiful Olga. Tender feelings for this woman even awaken in him. He is trying to change, to adapt to the world in which Ilyinskaya and Stolz live. But his long period of lying on the sofa, his personality degradation do not pass without a trace. The meaning of Oblomov’s life, associated with his uncomfortable room, is very deeply rooted in him. Some time passes, and he begins to feel burdened by his relationship with Olga. And, of course, their breakup became inevitable.
Ilya Ilyich Oblomov. Sliding on the plane of laziness
The central image of the book is the young (32-33 years old) landowner Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a lazy, imposing dreamer. He is a man of average height, with dark gray eyes, pleasant facial features, and childishly pampered plump hands. Oblomov lives in a St. Petersburg apartment on the Vyborg side. The characteristics of this person are ambiguous. Oblomov is an excellent conversationalist. By his nature, he is not capable of causing harm to anyone. His soul is pure. He is educated and has a broad outlook. At any given time, his face reflects a continuous stream of thoughts. It would seem that we are talking about a successful person, if not for the enormous laziness that has taken possession of Ilya Ilyich. Since childhood, numerous nannies took care of him in small ways. “Zakharki da Vanya” from the serfs did any work for him, even small ones. His days pass in idleness and lying on the sofa.
He is naive to such an extent that in the end he finds himself deceived and ruined by swindlers: Mikhei Tarantiev and Ivan Matveevich Mukhoyarov. Mikhei Tarantyev is a forty-year-old big man, a typical “cheater”, “master of talk”, a parasitic type in society. Convinced that he is a scoundrel, Oblomov leaves the apartment and returns to Oblomovka. Tarantyev is a fraudster “on trust”; listening to him, everything seems “clear and understandable” to the victim, but only when it comes to practical execution, nothing works out for Tarantyev. Then he handed over the “warm client” to his accomplice. Ivan Matveevich Mukhoyarov is cut from a different cloth. This is a practical rogue. His craft is forgeries, vilely compiled, ruining documents.
Trusting them, Oblomov signed an enslaving agreement for his Vyborg apartment, and then paid fake “moral damages” to Agafya’s brother Mukhoyarov in the amount of ten thousand rubles through a fake loan letter. Ilya Ilyich's friend Stolz exposes the scoundrels. After this, Tarantiev “goes on the run.”
The meaning of Oblomov's life and death
Ilya Ilyich’s only dream is the desire to find peace. He does not need the vibrant energy of everyday life. The world in which he is closed, with its small space, seems much more pleasant and comfortable to him. And the life that his friend Stolz leads does not attract him. It requires fuss and movement, and this is unusual for Oblomov’s character. Finally, all of Andrei’s ebullient energy, which constantly collides with Ilya’s indifference, has dried up.
Ilya Ilyich finds his solace in the house of a widow, whose last name is Pshenitsyna. Having married her, Oblomov completely stopped worrying about life and gradually fell into moral hibernation. Now he is again dressed in his favorite robe. He's lying on the sofa again. Oblomov's family life leads him to slow decline. For the last time, Andrei visits his friend under the watchful eye of Pshenitsyna. He sees how his friend has sunk and makes a last attempt to pull him out of the pool. But there is no point in this.
What is the novel about?
This novel is, first of all, about the vice of social significance. Often the reader can notice Oblomov’s resemblance not only to his creator, but also to most people who live and have ever lived. Which of the readers, as they became closer to Oblomov, did not recognize themselves lying on the sofa and reflecting on the meaning of life, on the futility of existence, on the power of love, on happiness? Which reader has not crushed his heart with the question: “To be or not to be?”?
The quality of the writer, ultimately, is such that, while trying to expose yet another human flaw, he falls in love with it in the process and serves the reader with such an appetizing aroma that the reader impatiently wants to feast on it. After all, Oblomov is lazy, unkempt, and childish, but the public loves him only because the hero has a soul and he is not ashamed to reveal this soul to us. “Do you think that thoughts don’t require a heart? No, it is fertilized by love” - this is one of the most important postulates of the work that lays the essence of the novel “Oblomov”.
The sofa itself and Oblomov lying on it keep the world in balance. His philosophy, illegibility, confusion, throwing govern the lever of movement and the axis of the globe. In the novel, in this case, there is not only a justification for inaction, but also a desecration of action. The vanity of vanities of Tarantyev or Sudbinsky does not bring any sense, Stolz is successfully making a career, but what kind of career is unknown... Goncharov dares to slightly ridicule work, that is, work in the service, which he hated, which, therefore, was not surprising to notice in the character of the protagonist . “But how upset he was when he saw that there would have to be at least an earthquake in order for a healthy official not to come to work, and as luck would have it, earthquakes don’t happen in St. Petersburg; A flood, of course, could also serve as a barrier, but even that rarely happens.” - the writer conveys all the meaninglessness of state activity, which Oblomov thought about and finally gave up, referring to Hypertrophia cordis cum dilatatione ejus ventriculi sinistri. So what is “Oblomov” about? This is a novel about the fact that if you are lying on the couch, you are perhaps more right than those who walk somewhere or sit somewhere every day. Oblomovism is a diagnosis of humanity, where any activity can lead either to the loss of one’s own soul or to a senseless waste of time.
Positive traits in the character of the main character
Revealing the meaning of Oblomov’s life and death, it is necessary to mention that Ilya Ilyich is still not a negative hero in this work. There are also quite bright positive features in his image. He is an infinitely hospitable and cordial host. Despite constantly lying on the couch, Ilya Ilyich is a very educated person, he appreciates art.
In his relationship with Olga, he does not show rudeness or intolerance, he is gallant and courteous. His inner world is very rich, but destroyed by excessive care since childhood. At first you might think that Ilya Ilyich is infinitely happy, but this is just an illusion. A dream that replaced the real state.
Oblomov, whose problem of the meaning of life has turned into a tragedy, seems to be satisfied with his situation. And yet he understands the futility of his existence. Moments of awareness of his own inaction come to him. After all, Ilya Stoltz forbade Olga to come to him, he did not want her to see the process of his decomposition. An educated person cannot fail to understand how empty and monotonous his life is. Only laziness prevents you from changing it and making it bright and varied.
More about the image of Andrei Stolts
Often the topic of school essays is a comparative description of Oblomov and Stolz. They are opposite even in appearance. Tawny, dark, with sunken cheeks, it seems that Stolz consists entirely of muscles and tendons. He has public service behind him, a rank, and a guaranteed income. Later, while working in a trading company, he earned money to buy a house. He is active and creative, he is offered interesting and lucrative work. In the second part of the novel, it is he who tries to bring Oblomov together with Olga Ilyinskaya, introducing them. However, Oblomov stopped building a relationship with this lady because he was afraid to change housing and engage in active work. Disappointed Olga, who planned to re-educate the lazy man, left him. However, Stolz’s image is not ideal, despite his constant creative work. He, as the opposite of Oblomov, is afraid to dream. Goncharov put an abundance of rationality and rationalism into this image. The writer believed that he had not finalized the image of Stolz. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov even considered this image negative, motivating this judgment by the fact that he is “too pleased with himself” and “thinks too well of himself.”
