The main idea of the story, darling. Analysis of Chekhov's story, darling, essay. III. Finding the reference points of the story composition

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote the story “Darling” in 1899. It refers to the late work of the writer. It is noteworthy that Chekhov’s “Darling” immediately caused mixed reviews in literary circles.

The main theme of the work is love. Only for the main character it becomes not just a need, but the meaning of life. Moreover, it is much more important for her not to receive love, but to give it. The comedy of the situation is that every time the story of the heroine’s selfless, deep feelings repeats itself. The composition of the story consists of four parts: according to the number of heartfelt affections in Olenka’s life. Below is a brief summary of this literary creation.

A few words about the main character

Olenka Plemyannikova, the daughter of a retired collegiate assessor, lives in her house with her father. This is a rosy-cheeked young lady with a soft white neck, plump arms, a gentle look and a touching smile.

People around him love a pretty girl. Everyone likes her without exception. When talking to her, you just want to touch her hand and tell her: “Darling!” There is always some kind of affection in Olenka’s soul: at first she was in love with her French teacher, then she began to adore her daddy, and then her aunt, who visited her twice a year. The problem is that these sympathies often replace one another. But Olenka is not bothered by this, nor are the people around her. They are impressed by the girl’s naivety, her gullibility and quiet kindness. This is how Chekhov describes his heroine in the story “Darling”. A brief summary will help you get an idea of the heroine’s personal qualities. Her image is contradictory: on the one hand, she is endowed with the gift of selfless love. Not everyone can dissolve in this way in their soulmate. And this, of course, makes the reader respect the heroine. However, on the other hand, she appears to us as a gullible and flighty person. The complete lack of spiritual interests, the lack of one’s own views and ideas about the world around us - all this evokes ridicule from the reader.

Kukin - Olenka's first affection

In the large house of the Plemyannikovs lives a certain Ivan Petrovich Kukin, the owner and entrepreneur of the Tivoli entertainment garden. Olenka often sees him in the yard. Kukin constantly complains about life. All you can hear from him is: “The public today is wild and ignorant. What does an operetta or extravaganza mean to her? Give her a farce! Nobody is walking. And it rains every evening! But I have to pay rent and salaries to the artists. Total losses. I'm ruined! Olenka is very sorry for him. On the other hand, love for this person awakens in her heart. So what if he is skinny, short in stature and speaks in a shrill voice. In her mind, Kukin is a hero who fights every day with his main enemy - the ignorant public. The heroine's sympathy turns out to be mutual, and soon the young people get married. Now Olenka is working hard at her husband’s theater. She, like him, scolds the audience, talks about the importance of art in a person’s life and gives loans to actors. In winter, things go better for the couple. In the evenings, Olenka gives Ivan Petrovich tea with raspberries and wraps him in warm blankets, wanting to improve her husband’s failing health.

Unfortunately, the happiness of the young people was short-lived: Kukin went to Moscow during Lent to recruit a new troupe and died there suddenly. Having buried her husband, the young lady plunged into deep mourning. True, it did not last long. Chekhov's story “Darling” will tell us what happened next. In the meantime, we see that the heroine, imbued with the thoughts of her husband, becomes his shadow and echo. It was as if her individual qualities did not exist. With the death of her husband, a woman loses the meaning of life.

Olenka is getting married again

When Olenka, as usual, returned home from mass, Vasily Andreich Pustovalov, the forest manager of the merchant Babakaev, was next to her. He walked the woman to the gate and left. Only since then our heroine has not found a place for herself. Soon a matchmaker from Pustovalov appeared in her house. The young people got married and began to live in peace and harmony. Now Olenka talked only about forest lands, about the prices of wood, about the difficulties of its transportation. It seemed to her that she had always been doing this. The Pustovalovs’ house was warm and cozy, and the smell of home-cooked food was delicious. The couple did not go out anywhere, spending the weekend only in each other's company.

When those around her advised her “darling” to go and unwind to the theater, she replied that this was an empty activity not for working people. In the absence of her husband, when he left for the forest, the woman was bored. Her leisure time was sometimes brightened up by the military veterinarian Smirnin. This gentleman in another city left his wife and child, which did not prevent him from spending time in the company of other women. Olenka shamed him and strongly advised him to come to his senses and make peace with his wife. So the quiet family happiness of the “darling” would have lasted for many more years, if not for the tragic death of her husband. Vasily Andreich once caught a cold and died suddenly. Olenka again plunged into deep mourning. What does the author want to draw attention to when describing the heroine’s second affection, what amuses Chekhov here? Darling is a selfless woman, capable of great and deep feelings. The comedy of the situation is that the story of great love to the death is repeated in the heroine’s life. And here it’s the same: complete dissolution in a loved one, echoing his words, quiet family happiness and a tragic ending.

The heroine's new sympathy

Now those around her hardly saw Olenka. Only sometimes could she be found in church or at the vegetable market with the cook. But soon the neighbors already saw a picture in the courtyard of the house: “darling” was sitting at a table in the garden, and Smirnin was drinking tea next to her. Everything became clear from the moment Olenka suddenly told a friend at the post office about the problem of contamination of milk from sick cows and horses. Since then, the young lady has only talked about rinderpest, pearl disease and much more. Olenka and Smirnin tried to keep their relationship secret. However, it became clear to those around her: a new affection had appeared in the woman’s heart. What else will Chekhov tell us about in his story “Darling”? A brief summary of the work allows us to trace the chain of Olenka’s sympathies. The author gives the reader the opportunity to feel the deep feelings of the heroine. And at the same time, using the example of a repetition of the situation, he shows how limited and relative they are. It becomes clear to us how a new feeling arose in the heroine’s heart. This is her third attachment. It seems comical that with her arrival, the woman’s deep mourning instantly disappears.

Olenka is left alone

But Olenka was not happy this time for long. Smirnin was soon assigned to a distant regiment, and he left without inviting his beloved with him. The woman was left alone. Her father died long ago. There were no close people nearby. Dark days have begun for Olenka. She lost weight, looked ugly and aged. When friends saw her, they tried to cross to the other end of the street so as not to meet her. On summer evenings, Olenka sat on the porch, going over all her affections in her memory. But it seemed empty there. It seemed to her that there was no meaning in life. Previously, she could explain everything, talk about everything. Now there was such emptiness in her heart and thoughts, it was so terrible and bitter, as if she had “eaten too much wormwood.” This is how he described the loneliness of the heroine in his Darling lives only when she can give love to a loved one next to her. It would seem that here you need to feel sorry for the heroine, because she is suffering. But the author deliberately belittles Olenka’s feelings even now, ironizing them in the words: “as if she had eaten too much wormwood...”. And rightly so. Next we will see how quickly the pictures in a woman’s life change from complete despondency and sorrow to absolute happiness.

New meaning of the heroine's life

Everything changed in one moment. He returned to the city of Smirnin with his wife and ten-year-old son. Olenka happily invited him and his family to live in her house. She herself moved to the outbuilding. Her life gained new meaning. She walked around happy, giving orders in the yard. This change was not hidden from the eyes of others. Friends noticed that the woman looked younger, prettier, and put on weight. It became clear to everyone: the old “darling” had returned. And this means that there is again a new affection in her heart. Next we will see what captured Chekhov’s darling Olenka. Her last sympathy is an example of selfless tenderness, readiness to die for her child. Probably, every woman in her life should realize this natural need - to give tenderness and warmth to children. The good news is that our heroine has also succeeded as a woman and mother.

Motherly feelings in Olenka's soul

Olenka fell in love with Sashenka, Smirnin’s son, with all her heart. The wife of the former veterinarian left for Kharkov on business, and he himself disappeared somewhere all day long, appearing only late in the evening. The child was alone in the house all day. It seemed to Olenka that he was always hungry, abandoned by his parents. She took the boy to her outhouse. With what tenderness the woman looked at him as she walked him to the gymnasium.

How she spoiled the child, constantly feeding him sweets. With what pleasure I did my homework with Sasha. Now one could only hear from “darling” about studying at the gymnasium, textbooks, teachers, and the like. Olenka blossomed and gained weight. The woman was afraid of one thing - that her beloved Sasha would suddenly be taken away from her. With what fear she listened to the knocking at the gate: what if it came from the boy’s mother, demanding him to come to her? At this unfinished moment, Chekhov ends his work. “Darling,” the analysis and summary of which is given here, is a story about selfless love, which is so rare in our lives, about its sometimes absurd and funny manifestations. The main thing in the heroine is an inexhaustible supply of tenderness and warmth, care and affection. Her chosen ones are ridiculous and insignificant compared to her. She is funny only to the extent that she completely accepts their way of life and their views on reality. Only in her last maternal affection does she become truly beautiful. Many women will probably recognize themselves in this image of her.

We retold and analyzed Chekhov's story “Darling”, and followed how a woman from a small bourgeois woman turns into a real Chekhov heroine.

The opinions of contemporaries about the heroine of the story “Darling” (1898) turned out to be sharply opposite. Almost everyone liked the story; they laughed and cried at it. But what is the main thing in Darling and how the author proposes to treat her - many mutually exclusive judgments have been and continue to be expressed on this subject.

Darling - a faceless slave of her affections? (This is how Gorky perceived the heroine of the story.)

Darling - a fickle, unprincipled creature? (This is how she appears in Lenin’s review.)

Darling - the embodiment of a woman's true purpose?

(L. Tolstoy saw her like this.)

The ambiguity of the image and the work, the possibility of versatile understanding and interpretation is a property of works of high art. It is not for nothing that Leo Tolstoy placed the image of Darling next to the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, with the image of Shakespeare’s Horatio from Hamlet. Tolstoy argued that ridicule was at the heart of the concept of “Darling,” but believed that the story did not turn out the way Chekhov intended it. He considered “Darling” a masterpiece, but it turned out as if in addition to or contrary to the author’s intentions, “unconsciously”: it was intended to be ridiculed, but it turned out to be praise.

So, what is in this story: ridicule, admiration? And what is the main thing about Darling? And one more thing - did the image really turn out that way against the will of the author, or was Chekhov’s intention expressed quite definitely and the point is to feel, guess, see this intention?

How can you see it? Listening to the language in which the author speaks to readers - the language of artistic means and techniques. Repetition, Chekhov’s favorite artistic means, in the story “Darling” is perhaps the main way of constructing the work.

The story tells about the change of four affections of Darling. An entrepreneur, a timber merchant, a veterinarian, and a little schoolboy alternately enter her life, then leave (or may leave her) - this is how the four-part composition of the story is set. Since each of the four parts-situations develops according to the same pattern (Darling’s understanding of someone else’s situation - pity or sympathy - love - reproduction of other people’s opinions - the end), already somewhere in the middle of the second of them the reader is prepared to expect a repetition. And he’s not wrong; and then this reader’s expectation is justified once again.

And most often, when resorting to repetition, the writer counts on a comic effect. Monotony, expected situations, monotony of actions, multiplied by the seemingly mechanical nature of their reproduction - all this sets the reader up for an ironic reaction.

Not only the composition “Darlings” is based on repetition. Repetitions - large and small - greet us from the very beginning of the work.

The very first words of Chekhov's story contain an imperceptible hint about the environment in which the action will take place, and even about the tone of the subsequent narrative. This is also done through repetition - in this case, suffixes. Darling, Olenka, on the porch: diminutive suffixes, repeated in the title and in the first phrase, set the mood for a story about a situation and type of people familiar to the reader, about the average and ordinary.

But if the reader has succumbed to the charm of these suffixes and has already tuned in to a sentimental mood, to tenderness and admiration, the author immediately interrupts this expectation.

A character immediately appears with the absurd surname Kukin (ridiculous precisely in combination with the exotic and pretentious name “Tivoli”, which is exotic for the Russian province). And again, the effect desired by the author is achieved through repetition. Already on the first page, Kukin, like a loser circus clown, fails three times, three times finds himself a victim of hostile forces that he hates - rainy weather and an ignorant (i.e. indifferent to his ideas) public. It is clear that such repetition leads to an undeniably comic perception of this character and everything that happens to him.

So, already on the first page of the story (and there are 12 of these pages in total) its main tone, the basic principle by which the story will be conducted, is established. This principle is not a single tone of the story, let's say lyrical, sentimental or, conversely, only ironic, mocking. This is a combination of opposite tones, replacing, or rather, interrupting one another: sometimes serious, sometimes ironic; sometimes lyrical, sometimes comic. The narrative in “Darling” is built on this principle, and it is precisely this artistic construction that helps to understand the author’s meaning of the work.

The first page does not limit the use of repetition in this story. Not only words and situations are repeated. Chekhov alternates the description of one-time events or scenes with what happens usually, is repeated always or often. Thus, by alternating the one-shot with the repeat, the author builds artistic time in the story.

In anticipation of the approaching rain again, Kukin pronounces his desperately hysterical monologue to Olenka “one hot evening.” But then we find out that everything repeated itself on the second day and on the third. Also, one fine day, Olenka felt that she fell in love with this sufferer. But then we learn that she always loved someone “and could not live without it.” The word “loved” is repeated four times - this is how the author denotes the main content of Olenka’s life. And the pleasure that everyone felt when looking at her - both men and ladies they knew - is designated as a reaction that was invariably repeated. The proposal that Kukin made to her, their wedding, his trip to Moscow during Lent, the telegram with the news of his death are one-time events. And everything that filled the time in the intervals between these events is designated as constantly repeated: Darling’s troubles in the garden, in the theater, and the way she, word for word with her husband, scolded the audience or praised the theater business, and how the actors called her “Vanichka and I” and “darling,” and Kukin’s irrepressible tendency to complain about fate, and the way she pitied and consoled him...

“Once” here is synonymous with “always”. This is how Chekhov usually organizes time in his stories: the result is a complex, capacious brevity - entire destinies outlined on several pages.

“They lived well” is said twice in this description. This is already a repetition of some assessment. Of course, here “good” reflects the point of view of the heroine: it was she who, from such a life, “became plump and was all beaming with pleasure,” while her companion in this period of life only “grew thin and yellow and complained.” Then, also twice, this “good” will be repeated in the description of the next segment of Darling’s life, this time with the timber merchant Pustovalov; and it will finally become clear that “good” in her world, from her point of view, is when she has someone to love and care about. And, encountering such “good” once again, the reader is ready to perceive it not in the literal sense, but with a grain of irony.

So the principle outlined at the beginning of the story: to let the reader feel the feeling experienced by the heroine, but then be sure to indicate the relativity, the limitations of this feeling, to smile at this limitation - is consistently observed.

Even the telegram about Kukin’s death, which made Darling deeply unhappy, contains the absurdly funny words “syuchala”, “hohoron”. These “funeral Tuesdays,” by the way, strangely repeat a motif previously associated with Kukin. He delivered his monologue with complaints about fate on the second day of conversations with Olenka “with hysterical laughter.” As if echoed from the other world, the sound of this Kukin hysterical laughter echoed in the telegram.

And then this technique of reduction is repeated, indicating the relativity of the heroine’s feelings and how she herself evaluates what is happening. About the feeling of loneliness and emptiness that possessed Olenka after she had no one to love, it is said: “And so terrible, and so bitter, as if she had eaten too much wormwood.” The feelings themselves are of a high order, and their explanation is through plant-animal associations. Again a decline, again an ironic smile. Phrases like this combine not an unambiguous, but an ambivalent (sympathetic-ironic) characterization and assessment.

Thus, repetition becomes the main organizing principle of the story - from its composition as a whole to the ways of characterizing the characters, from the correlation of individual paragraphs to roll calls within one sentence.

But not only the purposes of irony in relation to the heroine are served by the artistic means used by the author, and the main thing among them is repetition.

Repetition in art (not necessarily only in verbal art) serves to create the rhythm of a separate passage or a work as a whole. Something (some group of sounds, words) must be repeated several times so that the listener or reader has a feeling of the rhythm underlying this work. And then the artist, seeking a new, stronger impact, can resort to the following technique - violating the rhythm, deviating from the given rhythm. And Chekhov resorts to him more than once.

The rhythm in the construction of “Darling” is four, approximately similar in beginning, development and ending, episodes in the heroine’s life. But then, in the middle of the second episode, a motive appears - a mention of a boy deprived of parental love - a motive that, as it turns out later, will resonate in the fourth and final episode and which will give a very special meaning to the appearance of the heroine and the resulting attitude towards her.

It is this boy who will become the new, last and most important affection of Darling. It would seem that with the help of repetitions the given rhythm is completely reproduced in this part of the story. Darling first sympathizes with the person who appears on her way, then she is overcome by love for him (“her heart in her chest suddenly became warm and squeezed sweetly... she looked at him with tenderness and pity...”), and this love is accompanied by a complete transition to his range of concepts (“An island is a part of the land...”).

In fact, the pacing in this episode is severely disrupted. Darling is possessed by a love unknown to her before, maternal, something completely different from the love for her ex-husbands. And in relation to this last love (“as if this boy was her own son”) all the previous ones seem insignificant, inauthentic.

In this part, the method of recreating the heroine’s feelings, set in previous episodes, is, as it were, canceled. Previously, after the transfer of these feelings and sensations to Darling - most often tenderness, contentment, pleasantness - something necessarily followed in the narration that reduced and canceled these feelings and sensations. Interruptions and ironic declines consistently accompanied all the previous characteristics of the heroine’s inner world. The image of Darling appeared in a double light: the touching and sweet in her was inseparable from the funny and limited. The lyrical beginning in the story about her was invariably accompanied by an ironic beginning.

But in the last episode, when Darling's love took a completely new direction, she was told completely differently.

“Oh, how she loves him! Of her previous attachments, not a single one was so deep; never before had her soul been subjugated so selflessly, disinterestedly and with such joy as now, when her maternal feeling flared up more and more in her. For this boy, a stranger to her, for his dimples, for his cap, she would give her whole life, she would give it with joy, with tears of tenderness. Why? And who knows - why?”

In her main property - love - Darling has not changed. Another property of her soul remained unchanged - to “submit” without reserve to the one she loves. The following paragraphs remind us of this property, in which Darling tells people he meets “about teachers, about lessons, about textbooks - the same thing that Sasha says about them,” and cries with Sasha when she prepares lessons with him. Chekhov's grin remains in the story about Darling until the end, but it no longer cancels out the understanding and sympathy for the heroine to which the author led us in the last episode of his story, the understanding of the relationship in which her properties are in Darling, which of them is the main one, and which ones are accompanying. Only with the advent of Sasha was Darling’s main talent truly realized and developed - the ability for selfless love.

So, “Darling” is a story about this gift, which is not given to everyone, and is rarely found in such an exceptional condensation? Yes, this is a story about a person who is capable of loving to the point of self-forgetfulness. And about those funny, amusing and absurd manifestations that this ability takes in reality. First of all, Darling’s chosen ones are funny and insignificant, and she is funny to the extent that she adopts their way of life and vision of the world. The main thing about her is an inexhaustible supply of love.

In art, the power of love is often measured by the willingness to die for a loved one. Olenka is sincerely killed after the death of both Kukin and Pustovalov, and in her lamentations - as a rhetorical figure - she could well have expressed a desire to go with them to another world. But to die for the sake of Kukin or Pustovalov would look truly absurd. And the truth of love for Sasha is confirmed precisely by the readiness to give his life for him - “with joy, with tears of tenderness.” This speaks of the authenticity and involvement of the highest last feeling of Darling.

Darling lives in the same environment, among people of the same type and level as Ionych. Both Ionych and Darling experience the strength of this environment, the impossibility of breaking out of the forms of life behavior imposed on them: he tried to resist and resist these forms, she accepted them voluntarily and joyfully. But these two heroes were depicted by Chekhov in different ways, and the writer embodied different aspects of his idea of the world in them.

“Ionych” is a story about defeat in the struggle of life; it is constructed as a story about the imperceptible but inexorable degradation of man. Such degradation does not occur with Darling. The extraordinary gift that she carries within herself allows her not only to remain unchanged, but to find use for this heavenly gift in her miserable everyday life. Possessing such a gift truly illuminates and elevates her, although more often it seems that she is flesh and blood of this pitiful and insignificant world.

Tolstoy, guided by his views on the purpose of a woman and fascinated by the gift of love and self-sacrifice in Chekhov’s heroine, did not want to ridicule what he considered holy and beautiful. He explained the ambiguous coverage of the heroine of the story by the fact that Chekhov wanted to write one thing, but thanks to the intervention of the “god of poetry” he came up with something else: they say, Chekhov wanted to laugh at Darling, but as a result he exalted her. But Chekhov the artist, of course, remained in full possession of the art of depicting the complex in the simple. He did not write about what a woman should be. He showed that women can be completely different - in passing, fleetingly, but quite clearly - in the image of Smirnin’s wife, Sasha’s mother. She is not allowed love: neither for her husband, nor for her child, although she, quite possibly, could have shown herself in any social or professional field.

All the same, the reader sympathizes not with her, but with Darling in the open and alarming ending of the story: will the inexorable rhythm really not be broken and Darling will lose what fills her life, and this time, as in the three previous cases?

Written in 1898 and published in the magazine “Family,” A. P. Chekhov’s story “Darling” was included in the 9th volume of the writer’s collected works. The main character, Olga Semyonovna Plemyannikova, lives in her parents’ house not far from the Tivoli garden in Tsyganskaya Slobodka. This sweetest, friendly girl. For her meek disposition and easy-going character, her neighbors nicknamed her “darling.” Chekhov reveals the image of the girl, talks about her fate, sometimes with irony, sometimes with tragic notes.

Olenka Plemyannikova appears before us as a person for whom the meaning of life lies in love for other people. She lives with problems and the worries of her family. Her love is sincere, without pretense. While still a young girl, she loves her dad, her aunt who lives in Bryansk, and her French teacher. Then he falls in love with the theater impresario Kukin, who lives next door in the outbuilding. An unattractive man: short in stature, thin in build, with combed temples and a yellowish face. This eternally dissatisfied, grumbling person. He constantly complains about the rainy weather, about the fact that people don’t go to his theater.

Without even noticing, Olenka literally disappears into his problems. She becomes infected by her husband’s contemptuous attitude towards theater visitors and constantly repeats his words verbatim. Attends rehearsals and makes comments if scenes are too frivolous. The actors take advantage of her kindness, borrow money, but are in no hurry to give it back. Between themselves they call her “Vanya and I.” This phrase constantly sounds in the conversations of the girl herself. Having learned about the death of her husband, Darling loses the meaning of life, its inner content.

The emptiness that has formed in the soul needs to be filled, and Olenka finds solace in a new reckless love for the timber merchant Pustovalov. She is literally consumed by his problems. Now her concerns became the sale of timber and its prices. But life with Pustovalov does not last long; he dies. And Darling again loses the meaning of life.

This love is replaced by love for the veterinarian Smirnin, who quarreled with his wife. Now her problem is poor veterinary supervision in the city. But this relationship does not last long; the doctor is transferred to another city. Olga Semyonovna's life again loses its meaning, she withers and grows old. However, Smirnin comes to the city again with his son Sasha. They move into the outbuildings next to Olenka’s house. The boy enters the gymnasium. Darling immerses herself in Sasha’s school problems, lives with his joys and sorrows, and complains to her neighbors about the difficulties of learning. Her speech contains the words “Sasha and I,” and she constantly quotes excerpts from textbooks. Her dreams are aimed at Sasha's future. Olga sees him as an engineer or a doctor, in a big house, married with children. There is only one thing that worries the woman: she is very afraid that the boy’s parents might take him away.

“Darling” is a story about a person who is able to love passionately, with all his heart. Olenka is touching in her expression of her concerns, but at the same time funny. For her, to love is not to receive, but to give oneself completely, to live by the interests and problems of others.

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The story “Darling,” written in 1899, belongs to the last period of A.P. Chekhov’s work.

A special feature of the story is the ambiguity of the image of the main character, which makes it possible to diversify the understanding and interpretation of this work. That is why one of Chekhov’s best stories, the story of “life in love,” has caused and continues to cause conflicting opinions and assessments today.

Subject of the work

The main theme of the work is love, which Chekhov contrasts with the value vacuum of society. At the same time, the essence of love, as understood by the main character, lies in the ability to give love, and not to receive.

Possessing the gift of seeing the complex in the simple, Chekhov finds and shows in the everyday life of an ordinary person what constitutes the essence of this person, for which he lives.

Plot and compositional structure of the story

In “Darling” two storylines are clearly visible. “Chain of Hobbies” by Darling paints the image of a frivolous lady who quickly changes her heart’s affections and dissolves in her chosen ones. “Chain of Losses and Bereavements” depicts Olga Semyonovna’s feelings upon the loss of her loved ones.

The four-part composition of the story corresponds to the change of Darling's four affections. To construct the narrative, Chekhov uses the technique of repetition: in each of the four parts the situation develops according to the same scenario. Darling understands someone else’s situation, is imbued with sympathy, then love, becoming an “echo” and “shadow” of her lover, then the end of the situation comes. This monotony of actions and the predictability of further developments create a comic effect.

The writer organizes time in the story by alternating repeating scenes and one-time events. The narrative in three parts concerns the heroine’s past, only in the fourth part are verbs of the present tense used.

Chekhov left the ending of the story open: will the situation of loss repeat itself for Darling again? Will she really lose what fills her life and gives it meaning?

System of story images

The main characters of the work are Olga Semyonovna Plemyannikova (Dushechka), Kukin, Pustovalov, a veterinarian, and his son Sasha. Kukin's image has a comic orientation. The images of other characters are not drawn out so brightly.

The greatest attention is paid to the image of the main character. The image of Darling is complex and contradictory. The gift of selfless love that the heroine is endowed with is surprisingly intertwined with a complete lack of spiritual interests and an inability to think independently (“she had no opinions”).

In the first three parts, the image of Darling has two projections: Chekhov shows the touching and sweet in this woman and at the same time makes fun of the funny and limited in her. Using the technique of reduction, the writer first gives the opportunity to feel the feelings of the heroine, but at the same time shows the limitations and relativity of these feelings, and this limitation cannot but make the reader smile. Olga completely dissolves in the world of her chosen one, while losing her own individuality. It is no coincidence that the heroine is deprived of her own speech characteristics, but repeats, like an echo, the words of her husbands. With the help of speech details, Chekhov shows the change in Dushechka’s vocabulary - conversations on theatrical topics under Kukin are replaced by the use of forestry terms under Pustovalov, and then by conversations about horse diseases under the veterinarian Smirnin.

In the fourth part of the story, the irony disappears. Darling appears before the reader in a new light - the light of maternal love. With the appearance of high school student Sasha in her life, deprived of parental love, maternal love awakens in Olga. “Oh, how she loves him!” All previous feelings seem insignificant, unreal in comparison with this last love. Darling realizes her main gift, which so distinguishes her from the world of ordinary people - the ability for selfless love. A woman finds herself in this feeling. Darling grows from a narrow-minded bourgeois into a truly Chekhovian heroine, evoking understanding and sympathy.

Artistic originality of the story

The story is written in an artistic style. The artistic construction of the text is based on the alternation of lyrical and comic tonality of the narrative. The originality of the story is manifested in the repetition of diminutive suffixes, the use of repetition throughout the story, and attention to verbal details.

Analysis of the story by A.P. Chekhov's "Ionych"

The main feature of Chekhov’s nature is a keen instinct for the pain of others, the innate wisdom of a high and kind soul. To understand his views and thoughts, you need to peer into the depths of his works, listen to the sounding voices of the heroes of his work. The writer is interested in ordinary people, in whom he tries to find what makes them filled with high spirituality.

In the eighties of the nineteenth century, Chekhov began to publish in the influential newspaper “Novoe Vremya”, owned by A.S. Suvorin. It becomes possible to sign stories with your real name. Since 1887, almost all of the writer’s works have been published by Suvorin. From these books Russia recognized Chekhov.

Speaking about the prototype of Darling, we can say with confidence that this is a generalized symbol, a certain general character property - the ancestral origin.

I received L.N.’s story with delight. Tolstoy.

Genre, direction

Chekhov continues the best traditions of classical realism, which is intertwined with the techniques of high naturalism.

The writer also comes into contact with symbolism, looking for modern forms of depicting reality in it.

“Darling” is a short story, the musicality of its sound allows us to speak of its intimacy. The narration is accompanied by a slight irony that hides a mocking smile.

The essence

The focus is on the ordinary life of Olga Semyonovna Plemyannikova. There is no plot intrigue.

The story highlights two plot lines, both connected with Olenka’s story: on the one hand, “the chain of the heroine’s hobbies,” on the other, “the chain of losses and bereavements.” Darling loves all three husbands selflessly. She does not demand anything in return for her love. One simply cannot live without passion. Take this feeling away from her, and life will lose all meaning.

All husbands leave this earth. She sincerely mourns them.

True love comes to Darling only when the boy Sasha appears in her destiny.

The main characters and their characteristics

The characters and souls of Chekhov's heroes are not immediately revealed. The author teaches us not to rush into making definitive assessments of his characters.

Olga Semyonovna Plemyannikova- “a quiet, good-natured, compassionate young lady.” Everything about her appearance was “soft”: both her eyes and her white neck. But the calling card was a “kind, naive smile.” A loving person, in whose fate three heartfelt attachments appear one after another: entrepreneur Ivan Kukin, timber warehouse manager Vasily Andreich Pustovalov, veterinarian Vladimir Platonich Smirnin. Olenka becomes their “shadow”, “woman-echo”. Deprived of her own opinion, she always repeats what her husbands say. Loving without looking back, Darling cannot imagine her life alone. Vanechka, Vasechka, then Volodechka. She called everyone “darling.” Left completely alone, she is lost, not a single thought is born in her mind. Emptiness and the unknown of the future become constant companions of life. And only the appearance in her life of a ten-year-old boy Sasha, Smirnin’s son, “gives” Olga Semyonovna love that captures her whole soul. The general character trait can be defined by the general word “femininity”; it expresses the entire image of Darling.
Ivan Kukin. The characterization of the hero is based on an antithesis: he runs the Tivoli pleasure garden, but constantly complains about life. His appearance is nondescript: skinny, he speaks with a twisted mouth. A yellow complexion is a sign of physical ill health and a grumpy character. Unhappy man. Constantly falling rain is a symbol of a hostage in a situation despairing of his fate.
Vasily Andreich Pustovalov- Plemyannikova's neighbor. “Sedate voice”, “dark beard”. A completely forgettable personality. He doesn't like any entertainment. The life together with Olenka is visible through the details: “they both smelled good,” “they returned side by side.”
Vladimir Platonich Smirnin- young man, veterinarian. He separated from his wife because he hated her, but he regularly sent money to support his son.

Topics and issues

The fate of a woman in society always worried Anton Pavlovich. He dedicated unforgettable pages of his work to her, creating the image of a “Chekhov woman”,
The main theme of the story is love. Love for relatives, love for a man and motherly love. The theme of love is the main one in Darling’s life. Her feelings are quiet, sad. The story is about the Russian woman’s ability to selflessness in order to continue and preserve life.
But are the characters in the story completely free in their behavior and judgment? The hardest thing is the question of real human freedom, about overcoming your dependence on loving people.
The problem of happiness. Can a person who lives only for the good and happiness of his family and friends be called happy? Is it really necessary to provide them with “happiness” according to some kind of norm? The author tries to answer these questions with his usual delicacy.
The philosophical problem of the value of life. A person has obligations to it and to its preservation. There is no need to destroy it.
The conflict between everyday meaningless life and personality, which must “kill the slave within” and begin to live consciously. The heroine will have to throw off the sleepy numbness of passivity and take responsibility for someone else's fate.

Meaning

The writer usually does not give consoling answers. Not everything in life is clear to him. But there are values in prose that the master is confident in. What is love? First of all, it is a feeling that allows a person to reveal the potential of his soul. Loving does not mean copying your other half, blindly repeating her thoughts, completely depriving yourself of freedom of choice. Love gives a person invisible energy, which allows him to share with his beloved all the hardships of life and overcome the difficulties encountered along the way. Where there is no true love, life is not completely real - this is the main idea of the writer.

A woman is not only a loving and caring wife. She is the mother who gives the world a child, the continuer of the human race. Chekhov's love is a deeply Christian feeling, hence his idea - to give Darling feelings that elevate her, and not enslave her in routine.

True love is possible only in the family world. Mother's love allows you to go through the path of learning life again with your child.

What does it teach?

Chekhov confronts the reader with the need to choose the answer to the question himself. The main idea is contained in the scene of the “geography lesson”: “An island is a part of the land,” repeats Olenka. “Islands” are human destinies, “land” is our vast world, which consists of family “islands.” After all, only there can you experience the highest fullness of life and find yourself.

The writer teaches that every professed truth is limited. Life in the diversity of its manifestations turns out to be “wiser”. The writer wanted a person not to close himself off from her, but to be able to live every moment she gave.

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