The Story of I.S. Turgenev's Asya was personal for the author.
It was based on the features inherent in the biography of the writer. Characterization of Asya in the story "Asya" is impossible without a brief digression into life, or rather, the love of Ivan Sergeyevich.
Pauline Viardot's eternal friend
The relationship of Polina Viardot and Ivan Sergeyevich lasted a long 40 years. It was a love story that settled only in the heart of one man, Turgenev, and the woman he passionately revered did not reciprocate. She was married. And all four decades, Ivan Sergeyevich came to their house as an eternal and forever faithful friend of the family. Having settled "on the edge of another's nest", the writer tried to build his own, but until the end of his life he loved Polina Viardo. Viardot became a female homeowner, a killer of happiness for girls who recklessly fell in love with Ivan Sergeyevich.
It is worth saying that the tragic relationship with Viardot was not new to him. Very young Ivan at the age of eighteen fell in love with the daughter of Princess Shakhovskaya, Katenka. The cute angelic creature, which the girl seemed at first glance, in fact was not such. She had a long intimate relationship with the main village womanizer. Ironically, the girlâs heart was conquered by Sergey Nikolaevich Turgenev, the father of the writer.
However, not only the writer was broken heart, he himself repeatedly rejected women who loved him. After all, until the end of his days, he adored Pauline Viardot.
Characterization of Asya in the story Asya. Type of Turgenev girl
Many people know that Turgenevâs girls exist, but few remember what she is, the heroine from the writerâs stories.
The portrait characteristic of Asya found on the pages of the story is as follows.
As can be seen from the above lines, Asya possessed atypical beauty: the boy's appearance combined short curly hair, large eyes bordered with long eyelashes, and an unusually slender camp.
A brief description of Asya, her external image will be incomplete, if not to mention that, most likely, Turgenevâs disappointment in girls of the highest circle was reflected in her (consequences of unrequited love for Ekaterina Shakhovskaya).
It is here, on the pages of the Asya story, that not only the Turgenev girl, but the Turgenev feeling of love arises. Love is compared to revolution.
Love, like the revolution, tests the heroes and their feelings for perseverance, vitality.
Asi's origin and character
The background of the heroine's life made a significant contribution to the character of the girl. This is the illegitimate daughter of a landowner and a maid. Her mother tried to educate her in severity. However, after the death of Tatyana, Asya was taken to her father. Because of him, feelings like pride and incredulity arose in the girlâs soul.
Asyaâs characterization from Turgenevâs novel introduces initial inconsistencies in her image. She is contradictory and playful in relations with all people. If you take her interest in everything around, you can understand that the girl shows this a little unnaturally. Since she looks at everything with curiosity, however, in fact, she does not carefully examine or peer at anything.
Despite her inherent pride, she has a strange addiction: make acquaintances with people who are class below her.
The moment of spiritual awakening
Asyaâs characterization from Turgenevâs novel will be incomplete if you do not ponder the question of the spiritual awakening of the main characters: Asi and Mr. N.N.
The hero and the author of the story, having met Asya in the small German town, feels that his soul trembled. We can say that he spiritually came to life, opened to the senses. Asya removes the pink veil through which he looked at himself and his life. N.N. he understands how false his existence was until the moment he met Asya: the time spent on traveling now seems to him an impermissible luxury.
The reborn worldview of Mr. N.N. with awe awaits each meeting. However, having faced a choice: love and responsibility or loneliness, he comes to the conclusion that it is absurd to marry the one whose temper he will never conquer.
Love also helps reveal Asi's character. She becomes aware of herself as a person. Now she canât do with the usual reading of books, from which she obtained knowledge of âtrueâ love. Asya opens up to feelings, hopes. For the first time in her life, she stopped doubting and opened herself to vivid feelings.
What is it, Asya, in the eyes of Mr. NN?
Asyaâs characterization in the story âAsyaâ is not made by Ivan Sergeyevich himself; he assigns this task to his hero, Mr. N.N.
Thanks to this, we can notice the transformation of the heroâs relationship with his beloved: from hostility to love and misunderstanding.
Mr. N.N. noted the emotional impulse of Asya, who wants to show her "high" origin:
At first, all her actions seemed to him to be "childish antics." But soon he saw her in the guise of a frightened, but beautiful bird:
Relations between Asi and Mr. N.N.
Asya's verbal characterization in Asya predicts the tragic outcome of the nascent relationship between the heroine and Mr. N.N.
By its nature, Asya is a contradictory nature from its very roots. One has only to recall the girlâs attitude to her mother and her origin:
The girl loved to be paid attention to, and at the same time was afraid of this, since she was rather timid and bashful.
Asya dreams of a hero who will become for her the embodiment of happiness, love and thought. A hero who can meekly contrast himself with âhuman vulgarityâ in order to save love.
Asya saw her hero in Mr. N.N.
The narrator fell in love with the girl from the first moment they met. She wanted to intrigue him and at the same time show that she was a noble young lady, and not some daughter of maid Tatyana there. This unusual behavior for her influenced the first impression that Mr. N.N.
Then she falls in love with N.N. and begins to expect from him not just actions, but an answer. The answer to her question: âWhat to do?â The heroine dreams of a feat, but will never wait for him from her lover.
But why? The answer is simple: Mr. N.N. not endowed with the spiritual wealth inherent in Asa. His image is rather scarce and a little dull, although not without a note of edification. So he appears before us in the opinion of Chernyshevsky. Turgenev himself sees him as a man with a trembling, tormented soul.
"Asya", characteristic of N.N.
Souls heart impulses, thoughts about the meaning of life were unfamiliar to the hero of the story NN, on behalf of whom the narrative is being conducted. He led a dissolute life in which he did what he wanted and thought only of his own desires, neglecting the opinions of others.
He did not care about a sense of morality, duty, responsibility. He never thought about what consequences his actions would suffer, while shifting the most important decisions onto the shoulders of others.
However, N.N. - not the full embodiment of the bad hero of the story. Despite everything, he did not lose the ability to understand and share good from evil. He is quite curious and inquisitive. The purpose of his journey is not a desire to know the world, but a dream to learn many new people and faces. N.N. quite proud, but he is not alien to the feeling of rejected love: earlier he was in love with the widow who rejected him. Despite this, he remains a kind and pleasant enough youth of 25 years.
Mr. N.N. realizes that Asya is a girl with oddities, so she is afraid in the future to encounter unexpected twists of her character. In addition, he sees marriage as an unbearable burden, the basis of which is responsibility for the fate of others and life.
Afraid of change and changeable, but full of life, N.N. refuses possible mutual happiness, taking Asi's shoulders responsible for deciding on the outcome of their relationship. Having thus committed a betrayal, he foretells for himself a lonely existence. Having betrayed Asya, he rejected life, love, and the future. However, Ivan Sergeevich is in no hurry to reproach him. Since he himself paid for a mistake ...