What are antipodes in literature. Creative works in literature
In a broad sense, antipodes are entities that are opposite to each other. The term is borrowed from where it denoted opposing things, phenomena and quantities. The concept is used in physics, philosophy, literature and other areas of science and art.
Where do the antipodes live?
Antipodes in terms of geography can, for example, be called the inhabitants of New Zealand and Spain, since these countries are located in strictly opposite points of the planet to each other.
Explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, among other meanings, unanimously distinguish the following: antipodes are people of opposite views, beliefs, actions, etc. It is with this meaning that the literary device is associated, with the help of which the author creates a picture of life and expresses his concept.
The antipode hero is interesting not only from the point of view of plot collisions. His presence creates conflict and helps the reader to take a closer look at the main character, see the hidden motives of his actions, and thoroughly understand the idea of the work.
Russian classics are rich in such literary pairs that represent antipodes. Moreover, these characters can be not only enemies, but that does not prevent them from being antipodes. Onegin and Lensky, about whom Pushkin says that they are "like ice and fire", Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov, Grinev and Shvabrin, Oblomov and Stolz, Karamazov - Ivan and Alyosha - this is far from a complete list of names.
Eternal duel
In the brilliant comedy "Woe from Wit" by A. Griboyedov, the ardent and witty Chatsky also has antipodes. First of all, this is the “modest” Molchalin. These people would not be put side by side at all - they are so far apart in their way of thinking from each other, but only one object of love brings them together - Sofya Famusova. Both heroes are smart in their own way, but this mind is different. Molchalin, convinced that “one must depend on others,” won recognition for his obsequiousness, courtesy, pragmatic professionalism and caution. In contrast to him, the sincere, talented, independent Chatsky, who "wants to preach liberty," is recognized by the majority as crazy. The common sense of the conformist Molchalin, it would seem, triumphs over the "crazy" impudent rejection of vulgarity, hypocrisy and stupidity. However, sympathy is still on the side of the freedom lover Chatsky, who leaves Moscow with a broken heart. The presence of an antipode hero in the play makes the conflict especially expressive and emphasizes how typical the fate of a loner who decides to contradict the majority is.
The secret of true love
In F. Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, it is not immediately possible to recognize the antipodes of the protagonist. At first glance, Svidrigailov and Luzhin are seen as completely opposite to Raskolnikov, from whom the hero wants to protect and save people. However, gradually we understand that Raskolnikov, absorbed in his idea, is rather their double - in terms of the inhuman, cynical and criminal content of this idea. Nevertheless, Raskolnikov has antipodes - this is Porfiry Petrovich. The latter was fascinated in his youth by such Raskolnikov's views, but his conscience did not allow him to follow this path. And Sonya also “criminated”, but not by taking the life of others, but by sacrificing herself for the sake of others. Thanks to this opposition, the author helps us understand what the true essence of Christian mercy and love is.
Chatsky's advice was not to the liking of Natalya Dmitrievna and Platon Mikhailovich for several reasons. The first thing we see when reading this passage is the submission of Platon Mikhailovich to his wife. Chatsky's advice encouraged an old friend to live his own life, but Natalya Dmitrievna did not want to lose her power - this becomes the first reason that Chatsky's words did not please the heroes. The second reason is that Chatsky reminds Platon Mikhailovich of a past life full of “camp noise”; Gorich bitterly regrets that this life cannot be returned. To the third reason, we can attribute the fact that Platon Mikhailovich is jealous of Chatsky in his freedom and regrets that he got married: “if you marry, then remember me!”
Heroes-antipodes are depicted in many works of Russian literature, one of which is the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time".
The antipodes in the work are Pechorin and Grushnitsky. Like Platon Mikhailovich, Grushnitsky is an old friend for the protagonist. However, if the friendship of Chatsky and Gorich remains unchanged, then Pechorin and Grushnitsky enter into a serious conflict, which ends in a quarrel, mutual hatred, a duel and murder.
Such heroes are also depicted in the story "The Captain's Daughter" by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Pyotr Grinev and Shvabrin, as Griboedov's antipode heroes, are military people. However, unlike Chatsky and Gorich, there is no real friendship between Pushkin's heroes; Shvabrin only pretends to respect Grinev, and then their relationship turns into enmity and hatred towards each other.
Updated: 2018-08-14
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Russian literature has given us a cavalcade of both positive and negative characters. We decided to recall the second group. Beware, spoilers.
20. Alexei Molchalin (Alexander Griboyedov, "Woe from Wit")
Molchalin is the hero of "nothing", Famusov's secretary. He is faithful to his father's behest: "to please all people without exception - the owner, the boss, his servant, the janitor's dog."
In a conversation with Chatsky, he sets out his life principles, which are that "at my age one should not dare to have one's own judgment."
Molchalin is sure that you need to think and act as is customary in the "famus" society, otherwise they will gossip about you, and, as you know, "evil tongues are worse than pistols."
He despises Sophia, but is ready to please Famusov to sit with her all night long, playing the role of a lover.
19. Grushnitsky (Mikhail Lermontov, "A Hero of Our Time")
Grushnitsky has no name in Lermontov's story. He is the "double" of the main character - Pechorin. According to Lermontov’s description, Grushnitsky is “... one of those people who have ready-made lush phrases for all occasions, who are simply not touched by the beautiful and who importantly drape in extraordinary feelings, sublime passions and exceptional suffering. To produce an effect is their delight ... ".
Grushnitsky is very fond of pathos. There is not an ounce of sincerity in him. Grushnitsky is in love with Princess Mary, and at first she answers him with special attention, but then falls in love with Pechorin.
The case ends in a duel. Grushnitsky is so low that he conspires with friends and they do not load Pechorin's pistol. The hero cannot forgive such frank meanness. He reloads the pistol and kills Grushnitsky.
18. Afanasy Totsky (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot)
Afanasy Totsky, having adopted and dependent Nastya Barashkova, the daughter of a deceased neighbor, eventually “became close to her”, developing a suicidal complex in the girl and indirectly becoming one of the culprits of her death.
Extremely greedy to the female, at the age of 55, Totsky decided to connect his life with the daughter of General Yepanchin Alexandra, deciding to marry Nastasya to Ganya Ivolgin. However, neither of these things worked out. As a result, Totsky "was captivated by a visiting Frenchwoman, a Marquise and a Legitimist."
17. Alena Ivanovna (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment)
The old pawnbroker is a character that has become a household name. Even those who have not read Dostoevsky's novel have heard of her. Alena Ivanovna is not so old by today’s standards, she is “60 years old”, but the author describes her like this: “... a dry old woman with sharp and angry eyes with a small pointed nose ... Her blond, slightly graying hair was oiled with oil. Some kind of flannel rag was wrapped around her thin and long neck, similar to a chicken leg ... ".
The old woman pawnbroker is engaged in usury and profits from the grief of people. She takes valuable things at huge interest, treats her younger sister Lizaveta, and beats her.
16. Arkady Svidrigailov (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment)
Svidrigailov - one of Raskolnikov's doubles in Dostoevsky's novel, a widower, at one time was bought out of prison by his wife, lived in the village for 7 years. A cynical and depraved person. On his conscience, the suicide of a servant, a 14-year-old girl, possibly the poisoning of his wife.
Due to Svidrigailov's harassment, Raskolnikov's sister lost her job. Upon learning that Raskolnikov is a murderer, Luzhin blackmails Dunya. The girl shoots at Svidrigailov and misses.
Svidrigailov is an ideological scoundrel, he does not experience moral torment and experiences "world boredom", eternity seems to him "a bathhouse with spiders." As a result, he commits suicide with a shot from a revolver.
15. Boar (Alexander Ostrovsky, Thunderstorm)
In the image of Kabanikh, one of the central characters in the play "Thunderstorm", Ostrovsky reflected the outgoing patriarchal, strict archaism. Kabanova Marfa Ignatievna - "a rich merchant's wife, widow", Katerina's mother-in-law, mother of Tikhon and Varvara.
The boar is very domineering and strong, she is religious, but more outwardly, because she does not believe in forgiveness or mercy. She is as practical as possible and lives by earthly interests.
Kabanikha is sure that the family way of life can be preserved only on fear and orders: “After all, out of love, parents are strict with you, out of love they scold you, everyone thinks to teach good.” She perceives the departure of the former order as a personal tragedy: “That’s how the old days are brought out ... What will happen, as the elders die, ... I don’t know.”
14. Lady (Ivan Turgenev, "Mumu")
We all know the sad story that Gerasim drowned Mumu, but not everyone remembers why he did it, but he did it because the despotic lady ordered him to do so.
The same landowner had previously given the washerwoman Tatyana, with whom Gerasim was in love, to the drunkard shoemaker Kapiton, which ruined both.
The lady, at her own discretion, decides the fate of her serfs, not at all considering their wishes, and sometimes even common sense.
13. Footman Yasha (Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard)
Lackey Yasha in Anton Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" is an unpleasant character. He openly bows to everything foreign, while he is extremely ignorant, rude and even boorish. When his mother comes to him from the village and waits for him in the servants' room all day, Yasha dismissively declares: "It is very necessary, I could come tomorrow."
Yasha tries to behave decently in public, tries to appear educated and well-mannered, but at the same time, alone with Firs, she says to the old man: “You are tired, grandfather. If only you'd die sooner."
Yasha is very proud of the fact that he lived abroad. With a foreign gloss, he wins the heart of the maid Dunyasha, but uses her location for his own benefit. After the sale of the estate, the lackey persuades Ranevskaya to take him back to Paris with her. It is impossible for him to stay in Russia: "the country is uneducated, the people are immoral, moreover, boredom ...".
12. Pavel Smerdyakov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)
Smerdyakov is a character with a speaking surname, according to rumors, the illegitimate son of Fyodor Karrmazov from the city's holy fool Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya. The surname Smerdyakov was given to him by Fyodor Pavlovich in honor of his mother.
Smerdyakov serves as a cook in Karamazov's house, and, apparently, he cooks quite well. However, this is "a man with rottenness." This is evidenced by at least Smerdyakov’s reasoning about history: “In the twelfth year there was a great invasion of Russia by Emperor Napoleon of France, the first, and it would be good if these very French had conquered us then, an intelligent nation would have conquered a very stupid one, sir, and annexed to itself. There would even be other orders.”
Smerdyakov is the murderer of Karamazov's father.
11. Pyotr Luzhin (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment)
Luzhin is another of the twins of Rodion Raskolnikov, a business man of 45 years old, "with a cautious and obnoxious physiognomy."
Having broken out "from rags to riches", Luzhin is proud of his pseudo-education, behaves arrogantly and stiffly. Having made an offer to Dunya, he anticipates that she will be grateful to him all her life for the fact that he "brought her to the people."
He also wooed Dunya by calculation, believing that she would be useful to him for his career. Luzhin hates Raskolnikov because he opposes their alliance with Dunya. Luzhin, on the other hand, pockets Sonya Marmeladova one hundred rubles at her father's funeral, accusing her of stealing.
10. Kirila Troyekurov (Alexander Pushkin, "Dubrovsky")
Troekurov is an example of a Russian master, spoiled by his power and environment. He spends his time in idleness, drunkenness, voluptuousness. Troekurov sincerely believes in his impunity and unlimited possibilities (“That is the strength to take away the estate without any right”).
The master loves his daughter Masha, but passes her off as an old man she does not love. Troekurov's serfs look like their master - the Troekurov kennel is insolent to Dubrovsky Sr. - and thereby quarrels old friends.
9. Sergei Talberg (Mikhail Bulgakov, White Guard)
Sergei Talberg is the husband of Elena Turbina, a traitor and opportunist. He easily changes his principles, beliefs, without much effort and remorse. Thalberg is always where it is easier to live, so he runs abroad. He leaves his family and friends. Even Talberg's eyes (which, as you know, are the "mirror of the soul") are "two-story", he is the exact opposite of the Turbins.
Talberg was the first to put on a red armband at the military school in March 1917 and, as a member of the military committee, arrested the famous General Petrov.
8. Alexey Shvabrin (Alexander Pushkin, The Captain's Daughter)
Shvabrin is the antipode of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Captain's Daughter" by Pyotr Grinev. He was exiled to the Belogorsk fortress for murder in a duel. Shvabrin is undoubtedly smart, but at the same time he is cunning, impudent, cynical, and mocking. Having received Masha Mironova's refusal, he spreads dirty rumors about her, wounds him in the back in a duel with Grinev, goes over to Pugachev's side, and, having been captured by government troops, spreads rumors that Grinev is a traitor. In general, a rubbish person.
7. Vasilisa Kostyleva (Maxim Gorky, "At the Bottom")
In Gorky's play "At the Bottom" everything is sad and melancholy. Such an atmosphere is diligently maintained by the owners of the rooming house where the action takes place - the Kostylevs. The husband is a nasty cowardly and greedy old man, Vasilisa's wife is a prudent, dodgy opportunist, forcing her lover Vaska Ash to steal for her sake. When she finds out that he himself is in love with her sister, she promises to give her away in exchange for killing her husband.
6. Mazepa (Alexander Pushkin, Poltava)
Mazepa is a historical character, but if in history the role of Mazepa is ambiguous, then in Pushkin's poem Mazepa is an unambiguously negative character. Mazepa appears in the poem as an absolutely immoral, dishonorable, vengeful, vicious person, like a treacherous hypocrite for whom nothing is sacred (he “does not know the shrine”, “does not remember goodness”), a person who is accustomed to achieve his goal at any cost.
The seducer of his young goddaughter Maria, he publicly executes her father Kochubey and - already sentenced to death - subjected to severe torture in order to find out where he hid his treasures. Without equivocation, Pushkin denounces Mazepa's political activity, which is determined only by the love of power and the thirst for revenge on Peter.
5. Foma Opiskin (Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants")
Foma Opiskin is an extremely negative character. Livelier, hypocrite, liar. He diligently portrays piety and education, tells everyone about his supposedly ascetic experience and sparkles with quotes from books...
When he gets his hands on power, he shows his true nature. “The low soul, having come out from under oppression, oppresses itself. Thomas was oppressed - and he immediately felt the need to oppress himself; they broke down on him - and he himself began to break down on others. He was a jester and immediately felt the need to have his own jesters. He boasted to the point of absurdity, broke down to the point of impossibility, demanded bird's milk, tyrannized without measure, and it came to the point that good people, having not yet witnessed all these tricks, but listening only to stories, considered all this to be a miracle, an obsession, they were baptized and spat…”
4. Viktor Komarovsky (Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago)
Lawyer Komarovsky is a negative character in Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago. In the fates of the main characters - Zhivago and Lara, Komarovsky is an "evil genius" and a "grey eminence". He is guilty of the ruin of the Zhivago family and the death of the protagonist's father, he cohabits with Lara's mother and with Lara herself. Finally, Komarovsky deceives Zhivago and his wife apart. Komarovsky is smart, prudent, greedy, cynical. All in all, a bad person. He himself understands this, but it suits him perfectly.
3. Judas Golovlev (Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, "Gentlemen Golovlevs")
Porfiry Vladimirovich Golovlev, nicknamed Yudushka and Krovopivushka, is "the last representative of a swindled family." He is hypocritical, greedy, cowardly, prudent. He spends his life in endless slander and litigation, drives his son to suicide, while imitating extreme religiosity, reading prayers "without the participation of the heart."
Toward the end of his dark life, Golovlev gets drunk and runs wild, goes into a March blizzard. In the morning, his stiff corpse is found.
2. Andriy (Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba)
Andriy is the youngest son of Taras Bulba, the hero of the story of the same name by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Andriy, as Gogol writes, from early youth began to feel the "need for love." This need brings him down. He falls in love with a panochka, betrays his homeland, friends, and father. Andriy admits: “Who said that my homeland is Ukraine? Who gave it to me in the homeland? The fatherland is what our soul seeks, which is sweeter for it than anything. My homeland is you! ... and everything that is, I will sell, give, destroy for such a homeland!
Andrew is a traitor. He is killed by his own father.
1. Fyodor Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)
He is voluptuous, greedy, envious, stupid. To maturity, he became flabby, began to drink a lot, opened several taverns, made many countrymen his debtors ... He began to compete with his eldest son Dmitry for the heart of Grushenka Svetlova, which paved the way for the crime - Karamazov was killed by his illegitimate son Peter Smerdyakov.
