Goncharova’s novel “Cliff” is the third and final part of the famous trilogy, which also includes the books “Ordinary History” and “Oblomov”. In this work, the author continued the polemic with the views of the sixties socialists. The writer was worried about the desire of some people to forget about duty, love and affection, leave the family and go into the commune for the sake of the bright future of all mankind. Such stories often happened in the 1860s. Goncharova’s novel “screams” about the breakdown by nihilists of their original ties, which in no case should be forgotten. The history of the creation and the summary of this work will be discussed in this article.
The idea
Goncharov’s novel "Cliff" was created for almost twenty years. The idea of ​​the book arose in the writer in 1849, when he once again visited his native Simbirsk. There, Ivan Alexandrovich surged memories of childhood. He wanted to make the scene of the new work dear to the heart of the Volga landscapes. Thus began the story of creation. Goncharov's “cliff”, meanwhile, has not yet been embodied on paper. In 1862, Ivan Alexandrovich had a chance to meet an interesting person on a ship. This was an artist - a passionate and expansive nature. He easily changed his life plans, forever remained in captivity of his creative fantasies. But this did not stop him from feeling the grief of others and to provide help at the right time. After this meeting, Goncharov had the idea to create a novel about the artist, his artistic complex nature. So, gradually on the picturesque banks of the Volga appeared the plot of the famous work.
Publications
Goncharov periodically brought to court the reader certain episodes from the unfinished novel. In 1860, a piece of the work entitled "Sofya Nikolaevna Belovodova" was published in Sovremennik. And a year later, two more chapters from Goncharov’s novel “Cliff” - “Portrait” and “Grandmother” appeared in the “Domestic Notes”. The final stylistic revision of the work underwent in France in 1868. The full version of the novel was published in the next 1869 in the journal Vestnik Evropy. Separately, the publication of the work saw the light in a few months. Goncharov often called "Cliff" beloved child of his imagination and assigned him a special place in his literary work.
The image of Paradise
Goncharov’s novel “Cliff” begins with a characterization of the main character of the work. This is Paradise Boris Pavlovich - a nobleman from a wealthy aristocratic family. He lives in Petersburg, while his estate is managed by Tatyana Markovna Berezhkova (a distant relative). The young man graduated from the university, tried himself in the military and public service, but everywhere he met with disappointment. At the very beginning of Goncharov’s novel “The Cliff”, Paradise is a little over thirty. Despite a decent age, he "has not sowed anything yet, has not reaped it." Boris Pavlovich leads a carefree life, not fulfilling any duties. However, he is naturally endowed with the “divine spark”. He has an extraordinary talent as an artist. Paradise contrary to the advice of relatives decides to devote himself entirely to art. However, banal laziness prevents him from self-realization. Possessing a kind of lively, mobile and impressionable, Boris Pavlovich seeks to rekindle serious passions around him. For example, she dreams of “awakening life” in her distant relative, secular beauty Sofya Belovodova. He devotes all his leisure time to Petersburg to this occupation.
Sofia Belovodova
This young lady is the personification of a woman statue. Despite the fact that she had already happened to be married, she absolutely does not know life. The woman grew up in a luxurious mansion, its marble solemnity resembling a cemetery. Secular education drowned out in her "female instincts of feeling." She is cold, beautiful and submissive to her fate - to keep up appearances and find herself the next worthy party. Kindle passion in this woman is the cherished dream of Paradise. He writes her portrait, conducts long conversations with her about life and literature. However, Sophia remains cold and impregnable. In her face, Ivan Goncharov draws an image of the soul mutilated by the influence of light of the soul. The “cliff” shows how sad it is when the natural “commandments of the heart” are sacrificed to generally accepted conventions. Paradise's artistic attempts to revive the marble statue and add to it a “thinking face” fail miserably.
Provincial Russia
In the first part of the novel introduces the reader to another scene of action Goncharov. The Cliff, a brief summary of which is described in this article, paints a picture of provincial Russia. When Boris Pavlovich arrives in his native village of Malinovka for a vacation, he meets his relative there - Tatyana Markovna, who for some reason everyone calls her grandmother. In fact, this is a lively and very beautiful woman of about fifty. She conducts all affairs in the estate and brings up two orphan girls: Vera and Marfenka. Here, for the first time, the reader is confronted with the concept of “cliff” in its direct meaning. According to local legend, at the bottom of a huge ravine located near the estate, a jealous husband once killed his wife and rival, and then stabbed himself. It was as if the suicide was buried at the crime scene. Everyone is afraid to visit this place.
Gathering in Robin a second time, Paradise fears that "they do not live there, people grow up" and there is no thought movement. And wrong. It is in provincial Russia that he finds violent passions and real dramas.
Life and love
The doctrines of the fashionable in the 1960s nihilists are disputed by Goncharov's “Cliff”. An analysis of the work indicates that even in the construction of the novel, this controversy can be traced. It is well known that, from the point of view of socialists, the class struggle rules the world. By the images of Polina Karpova, Marina, Ulyana Kozlova, the author proves that life is moved by love. She is not always prosperous and fair. A sedate man Savely falls in love with a dissolute Marina. But the serious and correct Leonty Kozlov is crazy about his empty wife Ulyana. The teacher inadvertently declares to Paradise that everything necessary for life is in the books. And wrong. Wisdom is also passed down from the older generation to the younger. And to see it means to understand that the world is much more complicated than it seems at first glance. This is what Raysky has been doing throughout the novel: he finds unusual puzzles in the lives of his closest people.
Marfenka
Goncharov presents two completely different heroines to the reader. "Cliff", the brief content of which, although it gives an idea of ​​the novel, but does not allow you to feel the full depth of the work in full, first introduces us to Marfenka. This girl is simple and childlike. It seems to Boris Pavlovich woven from "flowers, rays, heat and colors of spring." Marfenka loves children very much and eagerly prepares herself for the joy of motherhood. Perhaps her range of interests is narrow, but not at all as closed as the "canary" world of Sofia Belovodova. She knows a lot of things that her elder brother Boris is inaccessible: how to grow rye and oats, how much forest you need to build a hut. In the end, Paradise understands that “developing” this happy and wise creature is pointless and even cruel. This is what his grandmother warns about.
Vera
Faith is a completely different type of female nature. This is a girl with advanced views, uncompromising, determined, seeking. Goncharov diligently prepares the appearance of this heroine. At first, Boris Pavlovich hears only reviews about her. Everyone portrays Vera as an outstanding person: she lives alone in an abandoned house, she is not afraid to descend into a “terrible” ravine. Even her appearance is a mystery. There is no classical severity of lines and Sophia’s “cold radiance” in it, there is no children's breath of freshness of Marfenka, but there is some mystery, “immediately unspoken delight”. Paradise’s attempts to penetrate Vera’s soul as a relative are rebuffed. “Beauty also has the right to respect and freedom,” the girl states.
Grandma and Russia
In the third part of the work, the image of the grandmother focuses all the attention of the reader Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov. The Cliff portrays Tatyana Markovna as an apostolically convinced guardian of the foundations of the old society. She is the most important link in the ideological unfolding of the action of the novel. In grandmother, the writer reflected the imperious, strong, conservative part of Russia. All its shortcomings are typical for people of the same generation. If we discard them, then a “loving and gentle” woman appears before the reader, happily and wisely managing the “little kingdom” - the village of Robin. It is here that Goncharov sees the embodiment of earthly paradise. Nobody is sitting idle on the estate, and everyone gets what he needs. However, everyone has to pay for their mistakes independently. Such a fate, for example, awaits Savely, whom Tatyana Markovna permits to marry Marina. Retribution overtakes with time and Faith.
A very funny episode is in which the grandmother, in order to warn her pupils from disobedience to her parents, takes out a moralizing novel and arranges an instructive reading session for all households. After that, even the obedient Marfenka shows self-will and speaks with a longtime fan Vikentyev. Tatyana Markovna later remarks that they did what they warned her youth against at that very moment in the garden. Grandmother is self-critical and laughs at her clumsy educational methods herself: “They do not always come in handy, these old customs!”
Faith Fans
Throughout the novel, Boris Pavlovich collects and dismantles his travel suitcase several times. And every time curiosity and wounded pride stop him. He wants to solve the mystery of Vera. Who is her chosen one? It could be her longtime admirer, Tushin Ivan Ivanovich. He is a successful timber merchant, a business man, who, according to Goncharov, personifies “new” Russia. On his Dymka estate, he built a day nursery and a school for ordinary children, established a short working day, and so on. Among his peasants, Ivan Ivanovich and the first worker himself. The significance of this figure eventually understands and Paradise.
However, as the reader learns from the third part of the novel, Mark Volokhov, the apostle of nihilistic morality, becomes Vera's chosen one. In the town, terrible things are said about him: he enters the house exclusively through a window, never repays debts and is about to hunt the police officers with his dogs. The best features of his nature are independence, pride and affection for friends. The nihilistic views seem to Goncharov incompatible with the realities of Russian life. In Volokhov, the author is repelled by mockery of old customs, provoking behavior and the preaching of free sexual relations.
Boris Pavlovich, on the contrary, is very attracted to this man. In the dialogues of the heroes a certain community is traced. The idealist and materialist are equally far from reality, only Paradise declares himself above it, and Volokhov tries to get as low as possible. He lowers himself and his potential lover to a natural, animal existence. In the very appearance of Mark there is something bestial. Goncharov in The Cliff shows that Volokhov reminds him of a gray wolf.
The fall of faith
This moment is the culmination of the fourth part, and indeed the whole novel. Here the "precipice" symbolizes sin, the bottom, hell. First, Vera asks Paradise not to let her into the ravine if he hears a shot from there. But then he begins to fight in his hands and, having promised that this meeting with Mark will be the last for her, breaks out and runs away. She doesn’t lie at all. The decision to leave is absolutely right and true, the lovers have no future, but leaving, Vera turns around and stays with Volokhov. Goncharov portrayed something that a strict 19th-century novel did not yet know - the fall of his beloved heroine.
Enlightenment of Heroes
In the fifth part, the author shows the rise of Vera from the “cliff” of new, nihilistic values. Tatyana Markovna helps her in this. She understands that the sin of the granddaughter can be atoned for only by repentance. And begins the "wandering grandmother with a burden of misfortune." Not only for Vera, she is worried. She is afraid that, together with the happiness and peace of her granddaughter, robins will leave life and well-being from Robin. All participants in the novel, witnesses of the events, pass through the cleansing fire of suffering. Tatyana Markovna finally confesses to her granddaughter that in her youth she committed the same sin and did not repent to God. She believes that now Vera should become a “grandmother”, control the Robin and devote herself to people. Tushin, sacrificing his own pride, goes towards Volokhov and informs him that the girl no longer wants to see him. Mark begins to understand the depth of his errors. He returns to military service in order to then transfer to the Caucasus. Paradise decides to devote himself to sculpture. He feels the strength of a great artist and thinks to develop his abilities. Faith begins to come to its senses and understand the real value of the feelings that Tushin has for it. Each hero of the novel in the finale of the story gets a chance to change his fate and start a new life.
Goncharov painted the true picture of the views and customs of noble Russia in the mid-19th century in the novel "Cliff". The reviews of literary critics indicate that the writer created a real masterpiece of Russian realistic prose. The author’s thoughts about the transient and the eternal are relevant in our days. Everyone should familiarize themselves with this novel in the original. Enjoy reading!