My favorite character composition


Time has changed the attitude to many historical events, and literary characters, participants in the civil war in Russia, as if from the height of our time, are no longer so straightforward. And yet Grigory Melekhov, the protagonist of M: Sholokhov’s The Quiet Don, remains for us a favorite “negative hero,” because we thanks to the talent of the writer Sholokhov fell in love with him despite official opinion. This, I believe, Sholokhov to some extent brought democracy’s victory in Russia closer. The author himself wrote: “I describe the struggle of whites with the Reds, and not the struggle of the Reds with the Whites.” This alignment greatly complicated both the task of the artist and the attitude to the novel of public opinion. Critics to this day argue about the fate of the main character of the novel. And really, there is something to break your head. Grigory Melekhov fought against his own people with weapons in his hands. Shed a lot of blood.

Rushed from white to red. He brought grief to two women who loved him and his relatives. But why am I sympathetic to this hero? Probably, primarily because in the tragic period of the revolution and civil war even people with a philosophical education were confused. Gregory is a simple Cossack, a resident of the Don village. It was especially difficult for him to solve for himself such a philosophical problem as a revolutionary choice. In addition, the hero Sholokhov had many respectable human qualities. He was an honest and brave man, passionately fond of a woman, defended justice. His character is already manifested in the first pages of the novel, when Grigory fervently and recklessly falls in love with Aksinya. Already in itself, the forbidden love of these two people represented a rebellion against the generally accepted norms of the morality of Cossack life. This was the first conflict between the hero and society. But historical events are developing rapidly, and already in the second part of the novel, Gregory is involved in social upheavals. With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Sholokhov’s hero
becomes the main character in the novel. Deeply touched me by his moral anguish, when he kills the first man, although an enemy. He is more of a soul than mind, begins to understand the cruelty and senselessness of this human slaughter. Then, at the hospital, Gregory comes to the realization that he lived in a world of illusions far from the truth of life, and begins to act. He goes over to the side of the Bolsheviks. But here, too, he, a military officer of the tsarist army, immediately felt a chill of distrust towards himself. It should be noted and his class contempt for “peasants”, for “goltyba.” For a long time he did not stay with the Reds and again turned to white. But for White, he himself became, as it were, at the level of “goltyba”, because, despite the officer’s rank, he crooked from ordinary Cossacks, and among the nobles he was not very comfortable. To this there was also added the understanding that many white people participate in the fight by petty calculation.

So, after visiting the White and the Reds, the hero felt the need for his own Cossack truth. But in a society divided by civil war, the third way is not given. From this moment Gregory is only concerned with thinking about saving his life and the life of his beloved Aksinya. Forever remembered, crashed into my soul the scene of Farewell Grigory with Aksinya. At the grave mound of my beloved woman, I saw a man, tormented by life, who lost the meaning of his life. And I took the tears of this strong, but deeply unhappy man as a reproach to the world, which does not count with human happiness, seeking to achieve political goals. But even after such a blow Gregory finds the strength to live on. He returns to his native village, although he knows that he will not have forgiveness from the Bolsheviks, but he has already risen above the battle. This time he saw the meaning of his life in the son of Mishka. But knowing what happened in 1937, of course, it would be naive to think that a man like Grigory Melekhov avoided repression.


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My favorite character composition