When analyzing a work of art, the term “problematics” is often used. In a novel or story, the writer sets out his point of view. It, of course, is subjective, and therefore causes controversy among critics and readers. Problems are the central part of the artistic content, a unique author's view of reality.
Theme
The issue is the subjective side of the content. The subject matter is objective. You can make a long list of books on a specific topic. For example, to name more than a dozen works on conflict between generations. But you will not find a novel identical in ideological ideology to Turgenev’s book “Fathers and Sons”.
Problematics is the moral attitude of a writer to a particular subject. The number of topics that inspire prose writers to literary work is not so great. There are few major writers whose books have similar problems.
Author and Reader
"Problem" in translation from Greek means "task". This word is often found in various fields of human activity. In literary work, problems are the task posed by the author. This is a question that he asks in his work, and not to himself, but to readers.
Anton Chekhov argued that two completely different phenomena should not be confused: the solution of a question and the statement of a question. The writer must correctly pose the question, and this is his main task. It is easy to identify the problems in such works as “Anna Karenina”, “Eugene Onegin”. They do not address copyright issues. But they are delivered correctly.
When reading "Anna Karenina" questions arise. Was the main character right when she left her husband? Did Vronsky destroy his beloved, or did he, first of all, become a victim of his own passion? Both critics and readers answer these questions in different ways. But the problems of the novel primarily affect the features of Russian noble society of the 19th century. The tragedy of the heroine of Tolstoy is that in her environment in the first place is a decent form, and only then feelings.
Types of Issues
Literary scholars distinguish several types of this important aspect of artistic content. The study of problems works began to be engaged in the XIX century. But the first classifications appeared only in the 20th century. One of them belongs to the literary critic Bakhtin. He distinguished between the problems of the author's approach to the image of man.
Pospelov identified the following species:
- national historical;
- mythological;
- descriptive;
- novel.
There are many more classifications of problems, and each of them does not make sense. So, the modern researcher Esin, in addition to the mythological one, identified such types as national, romance, sociocultural, and philosophical. However, some of them are divided into subtypes.
In order to understand what the problems are, it is better to give examples from the literature. What are the problems of the story "Taras Bulba"? It’s easy to guess. After all, the author uses the national-historical type. But there are also novel aspects of the problem in Gogol’s work.
In Crime and Punishment, the author raised important philosophical and moral questions. He paid considerable attention to the role of faith in human life. Although this aspect of the problems in the novel of Dostoevsky, Soviet critics did not see. We give a small analysis of the work.
"Crime and Punishment"
The problems of the novel are philosophical, moral, sociocultural. Where is the line between good and evil? Do they exist? Such questions were posed by the author to readers. However, in the actions of the protagonist, no matter how cruel his act, it is difficult to identify these boundaries.
Another important issue in Crime and Punishment is the issue of priorities. For Raskolnikov at the beginning of the work, money comes first. He believes that only they will bring him closer to the goal, which, in turn, will be a boon to all that gray mass, about which he thinks with disdain. As you know, student ideas are untenable.
In the artistic content of the novel there is a socio-cultural aspect. Dostoevsky depicted Petersburg. But not that smart city, built as if for show. Events take place in poor areas, where it is very difficult for a person to maintain morality and faith in God.