Character, life position
Mokiy Parmenych is a minor character in the work of A. N. Ostrovsky, who embodied the image of an elderly businessman with a large fortune . If you consult Dahl's dictionary, you can find out the origin of his last name. Knur is a boar, boar, male pig. The playwright also attributes the rich man to the same breed, giving him a “speaking” surname - Knurov.
A millionaire represents the highest merchant class, without having a noble origin or title. The opinion of a strict merchant is considered important, and he himself is characterized as the elite of local society. In the work, Gavrilo speaks of this character as a true representative of the “pure public” of the city of Bryakhimov. He has no problems with money and great connections (“For me, the impossible is not enough”).
At the beginning of the play, it is immediately clear that Mokiy Parmenych cares about his health and importance in society. He takes long walks to get his appetite, or maybe sits in a coffee shop. He reads French newspapers, delving into stock tables and reports, and periodically exchanges tea for champagne. While staying in a quiet town on the Volga, each subsequent day resembles the previous one.
Attitude towards people
Being at a high social level, the rich man despises everyone who is poor. He is taciturn with people of the lower circle, treats them with disdain and does not hide it. He communicates, according to him, only with two or three people in the city. This is quite enough, since he lives here periodically, without stopping for long. Yes, and I wouldn’t come, but business obliges me. The merchant spends all his free time in Moscow, St. Petersburg and abroad, where he can breathe freely and have someone to exchange a word with.
The circle of contacts of the merchant in Bryakhimov includes:
- Vasily Vozhevatov is a young successful merchant. Communication with him cannot be called friendship. These are partnerships based on mutual interests.
- Sergei Paratov is a ship owner, a favorite of women. Also an infrequent guest in the city, he likes to lead an idle lifestyle. He often organizes pleasure trips on his steamboat called “Swallow”.
- Ogudalov family. Representatives of an impoverished noble family, Kharita Ignatievna, a middle-aged widow and her daughter Larisa. Groups of young people often gather in their house, but no one is in a hurry to ask the girl to marry. She is beautiful, but poor. Her fate is to marry such a petty man as Karandyshev, or become a toy in the hands of a rich man. However, the mother does not lose hope of finding a match for her. She managed to find a home for her two older daughters, whom she had to raise alone after the death of her husband Dmitry.
In Knurov’s characterization, it can be noted that the merchant is kind in his own way. However, the relationship between him and others is built on the principles of benefit. He can sympathize and provide a little help. However, he does not do anything selflessly - he needs to be interested in the person or the possible benefit from his actions.
Arrogance is clearly manifested in the relationship between Knurov and the minor official Karandyshev. The rich man openly despises a person who could not achieve a position in society, but at the same time behaves provocatively.
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Knurov and Larisa Ogudalova
The house of a poor widow and her daughter is an infrequent place for a merchant to visit due to the fact that people who are unpleasant to him gather there . However, the beautiful and talented girl attracts with her inexperience. Being married, he understands that he can only take her for maintenance. Having become a “friend” of the family, Mokiy Parmenych provides financial assistance, pays for expenses on decorations and preparations for the wedding with Karandyshev.
By giving money to Kharita Ignatievna, the merchant hints that if Larisa changes her mind about getting married, he is ready to assist in her destiny. In his own way, he wishes her happiness and realizes that she will not see an easy life with a dull official. In his opinion, such a luxurious girl will quickly get bored with the half-bourgeois life with a miser and a poor man, and Knurov wants to save her from this fate.
The rich man really likes Larisa. He treats her like a thing, compares her to an “expensive diamond,” but at the same time he sees an intelligent, beautiful girl with whom he is not ashamed to appear in high society . She has graceful manners, plays the guitar well, sings beautifully and at the same time is slim and has a pretty face. Such a companion would become an object of envy, so thoughts about young Ogudalova do not leave the man.
There is no love and tenderness in the dreams of a sensualist. As his companion, Larisa would have lost her freshness and individuality, becoming an insensitive, indifferent doll. A toy that is taken care of and put aside when not needed.
Life gives a man a chance to become a beauty's companion. After Paratov’s immoral act, he and Vasily Vozhevatov play a game about who should take the girl to Paris for an exhibition. Luck in the toss is on Knurov’s side, and he demands the merchant’s word from his opponent that he will not lay claim to Larisa. This brief commitment is taken much more seriously than the girl's opinion.
Larisa has to agree to the merchant’s proposal, who is triumphant. However, his dishonest plans are thwarted by Karandyshev, who, in a fit of jealousy, kills his would-be wife. The rich man will most likely go alone to Paris or find a new object for his claims.
The life principles of the characters in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “Dowry”
1. Life priorities of merchants. 2. The mask and inner essence of Paratov. 3.
Kharita Ignatievna Ogudalova and Larisa. 4. Karandyshev and his life priorities. A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Dowry” is one of the works that are unlikely to ever lose their relevance and modernity.
Although the plot of the play belongs to its time, the essence of the characters' characters, their life principles are very tenacious. The images of two merchants, Knurov and Vozhevatov, embodied the “make money” principle. The principle of their prudent, even cynical attitude extends not only to the business sphere. “No, somehow I, Mokiy Parmenych, don’t notice this in myself at all,” Vozhevatov coolly speaks of love, although he is quite young.
Both merchants are well aware that money, in a certain sense, elevates them above those who have no means of subsistence. Knurov does not deign to talk to everyone; for example, he defiantly shields himself from Karandyshev with a newspaper. The attitude of these people towards Larisa is similar to admiration for an elegant and expensive thing: one could, of course, buy it with money for a while, but one can also do without it. It is indicative how the merchants resolve the dispute over who to offer Larisa a trip to Paris: they cast lots. On the one hand, this gesture clearly demonstrates their attitude towards the girl as a thing, on the other hand, this method is dictated by the reluctance to quarrel over some kind of prank.
Thus, Knurov and Vozhevatov highly value their friendly relations, probably cemented by mutually beneficial cooperation. It is also interesting that, despite all their focus on profit, they still have some semblance of a code of honor, even if it is used only in a narrow circle of “their own”. “The merchant’s honest word” is how they seal their agreement. Despite the cynicism of this agreement, it can be said that the merchants are quite honest towards Larisa herself: Knurov directly states that he offers the girl, if she accepts his offer, to go to him for support. There is no doubt that he would have kept his promises. This is not what Paratov, a brilliant gentleman, a squandered entrepreneur, does.
The image of the “broad Russian soul”, the “ideal man”, which he is in the eyes of Larisa, sharply contrasts with the true essence of this man: “I, Mokiy Parmenych, have nothing cherished; If I find a profit, I’ll sell everything, anything.” Paratov does not intend to offer Larisa anything specific; moreover, he is engaged to someone else. But if Knurov honestly admits that he is married, then Paratov entangles the gullible Larisa with clever half-promises: “... A few more minutes like this... I will give up all calculations, and no force will snatch you from me; perhaps together with my life.”
Nevertheless, despite the duplicity of this man, Larisa believes him until he tells her himself that he is engaged to another, and she is free. In fact, Paratov has no moral principles: he is ready for meanness not only for the sake of profit, but also for the sake of momentary entertainment. Knurov and Vozhevatov perfectly understand the essence of their friend and business partner: “...Do you think that this is not without deception, that he again lured her with words?” - “Yes, certainly.
And the promises must have been definite and serious, otherwise how could she have believed a man who had already deceived her!” Why did Larisa really believe Paratov? Apparently, because Larisa does not understand people well, she sees in them not what is, but what she would like to see. Larisa's life priority is sincerity. She is “simple,” according to Vozhevatov’s definition: “She’s not stupid, but she has no cunning, not like her mother.
This one is all cunning and flattery, and this one, suddenly, out of the blue, says that it’s not necessary.” Larisa's mother is indeed an active and dexterous woman. All her worries were aimed at getting her daughters married better and more profitably. However, her endeavors are not successful. It seems that Kharita Ignatievna managed to develop a sophisticated system of extracting money from potential suitors and rich guests; she married off Larisa’s two sisters, but “you need to ask them if life is sweet for them.” Thus, Kharita Ignatievna’s life priority is the same benefit, practical benefit: “We are poor people, we have to humiliate ourselves all our lives.
It’s better to humiliate yourself from a young age, so that later you can live like a human being.” Karandyshev, of course, does not really fit into this system - Ogudalova agreed to marry her daughter to him only because Larisa herself insisted on it. “...Even if you quit, the loss is small!” - Kharita Ignatievna judiciously notes, believing that Larisa is better off riding along the Volga with rich people than holding on to Karandyshev.
However, Larisa does not share the reasonable principles of life of her mother. Larisa hopes to erase the dream of failed love for Paratov with the quiet joys of family life, but soon these hopes are dashed. Finally, Larisa saw both her beloved and her fiancé in the true light: one turned out to be a scoundrel, the other a nonentity. She is almost ready to agree to go to Knurov for support, but this is by no means a thoughtful, sober decision, but a desperate attempt to find at least something definite, an attempt to overcome the feeling of the collapse of everything she believed in: “I didn’t find love, so I’ll look for gold " Among the life priorities of Yuli Kapitonich Karandyshev, Larisa’s fiancé, the first thing that stands out is his possessive, petty instincts. He tries in every possible way to emphasize his exclusive right to Larisa.
“Ban when you have the right, but now wait a minute to ban, it’s too early,” Larisa’s mother strongly objects when Karandyshev tries to forbid his bride to sing for guests. Karandyshev’s shot at the end of the play is the highest manifestation of his view of Larisa as his property, although the same Karandyshev is indignant at the fact that Knurov and Vozhevatov look at the girl “as a thing.” Karandyshev’s actions are guided not so much by clear principles as by an exaggerated sense of injured pride, a desire to “glorify himself.” However, all his attempts to catch up with the rich are doomed to failure.
Karandyshev would have acted more wisely if he had not thrown a dinner party that made Larisa and her mother blush with shame for him. The play also shows the life principles of Aunt Karandyshev. Her bourgeois frugality, of course, looks a little funny: but in any case, it is at least justified from a practical point of view, because Karandyshev’s salary is small. In conclusion, it should be noted that the life principles of each character in Ostrovsky’s play, of course, strongly depend on the environment in which this or that character was and is, but not everything is determined by the environment. Paratov's duplicity, that is, his lack of any moral values, is a personal position based on selfish aspirations.
Larisa’s exalted attitude towards the object of her love is not supported by objective conditions: the girl’s nobility, as well as her reluctance to give up her ideals and look closely at a living person, do not allow Larisa to doubt Paratov’s sincerity.
The role of the merchant in the plot of the play
Mokiy Parmenych is present in all significant events of the work, without significantly influencing the actions of the heroes. Only the toss game scene could have influenced Larisa’s fate, but Karandyshev’s jealousy got in the way. When a rich man offered her a trip and allowance, the heroine accepted his offer (quote: “I am a thing”).
Perhaps in Paris a girl could feel the joy of life or meet a young patron. She realized that there was no special fate to be expected for people like her, without a dowry. You need to use your main advantages in time - beauty and youth.
Knurov’s characterization would be incomplete without his meaningful speech quotes:
- “In such cases, it is necessary to have a good friend like me, solid, durable.”
- “Don’t be afraid of shame, there will be no condemnation. There are boundaries beyond which condemnation does not cross; I can offer you such enormous content that the most evil critics of other people’s morality will have to shut up and open their mouths in surprise.”
- “I wouldn’t think twice about offering you my hand, but I’m married.”
The all-powerful rich man Knurov is fed up with money, which has distorted his thinking. For him, the object of purchase and sale was not only things, but also people. This attitude towards Larisa can be considered the basis of the tragedy of the play.
