Gentlemen Golovlev analysis of the work. Lord Golovlev analysis of the work Comparative characteristics of Stepan Porfiry and Paul

In Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel The Golovlevs, a whole gallery of images of one family, the landowners Golovlevs, is displayed. This family goes to degradation and destruction, it breaks up, and then its members physically disappear into non-existence.

The image of Arina Petrovna: this is the only outstanding person in the Golovlev family. She is the mother and head of the family. “A powerful woman and, moreover, to a large extent gifted with creativity,” characterizes her author. Arina Petrovna manages the household, manages all the affairs of the family. She is cheerful, strong-willed, energetic. But the sense of this is only in the economy. Arina Petrovna suppresses her sons and her husband, who hates her for it. She never loved her husband, she considered him a jester, a weakling, unable to manage the household. “The husband called his wife “witch” and “devil”, the wife called her husband “windmill” and “stringless balalaika”.

In fact, having lived for forty years in a family, Arina Petrovna remains a bachelor who is only interested in money, bills and business conversations. She does not have warm feelings for her husband and children, no sympathy, which is why she punishes loved ones so terribly when they are irresponsible about property or do not obey her.

The image of Stepan Golovlev: this is a "gifted guy" with a mischievous character, with a good memory and learning abilities. However, he was brought up in idleness, all his energy was spent on pranks. After studying, Stepan is unable to make a career as an official in St. Petersburg, since he has neither the ability nor the desire for it. He once again confirms the nickname "Stepka the Stooge", leads a wandering life for a long time. By the age of forty, he is terribly afraid of his mother, who will not support, but, on the contrary, will seize. Stepan comes to the realization that he “cannot do anything”, because he never tried to work, but wanted to get everything for free, snatch a piece from a greedy mother, or someone else. He becomes an inveterate drunkard in Golovlev and dies.

The image of Pavel Golovlev. This is a military man, but also a man suppressed by his mother, colorless. Outwardly, he snaps and is rude to his mother. But inside he is afraid of her and finds fault with her, resisting her influence. “He was a gloomy man, but behind the gloominess there was a lack of deeds - and nothing more.” Having moved to Golovlevo, he entrusts the affairs to his housekeeper - Ulita. Pavel Golovlev himself becomes an inveterate drunkard, consumed by hatred for his brother Judas. They die in this hatred, embittered, with curses and curses.

Image of Judas, Porfiry Golovleva. This man is the quintessence of the Golovlev family. He chose hypocrisy as his weapon. Under the guise of a sweet and sincere person, he achieves his goals, collects tribal property around him. His low soul rejoices at the troubles of his brothers and sisters, and when they die, he takes sincere pleasure in dividing property. In relations with his children, he also thinks about money first of all - and his sons cannot stand it. At the same time, Porfiry never allows himself to say rudeness or causticity. He is polite, feignedly sweet and caring, endlessly reasoning, spreading honeyed speeches, weaving verbal intrigues. People see his deceit, but succumb to it. Even Arina Petrovna herself cannot resist them. But at the end of the novel, Judas also comes to his fall. He becomes incapable of anything but idle talk. For days on end, he gets bored with all the conversations that no one listens to. If the servant turns out to be sensitive to his "verbiage" and nit-picking, then he tries to run away from the owner. The tyranny of Yudushka is becoming more and more petty, he also drinks, like the deceased brothers, for entertainment, he remembers petty offenses or minimal miscalculations in the economy all day long in order to “talk” them. Meanwhile, the real economy does not develop, falls into disrepair and decline. At the end of the novel, a terrible insight descends on Judas: “We need to forgive everyone ... What ... what happened?! Where is…everyone?!” But the family, divided by hatred, coldness and the inability to forgive, has already been destroyed.

The image of Anna and the image of Lyuba from the "Gentlemen of the Golovlevs." Yudushka's nieces are representatives of the last generation of the Golovlevs. They try to escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the family, at first they succeed. They work, play in the theater and are proud of it. But they were not accustomed to consistent, persistent activity. Nor were they accustomed to moral stamina and firmness in life. Lubinka is ruined by her cynicism and prudence, taken from her grandmother, and she herself pushes her sister into the abyss. From actresses, the “Pogorelsky sisters” become kept women, then almost prostitutes. Anninka, morally purer, more sincere, disinterested and kind-hearted, stubbornly clings to life. But she, too, breaks down, and after Lyubinka's suicide, sick and drinking, she returns to Golovlevo, "to die."

· "The head of the family, Vladimir Mikhailovich Golovlev, even from a young age he was known for his careless and mischievous character, and for Arina Petrovna, who was always distinguished by seriousness and efficiency, he never represented anything pretty. He led an idle and idle life, most often locked himself in his office, imitated the singing of starlings, roosters, etc., and was engaged in composing so-called "free poems"<…>Arina Petrovna did not immediately fall in love with these poems of her husband, she called them foul play and clowning, and since Vladimir Mikhailovich actually got married for this, in order to always have a listener at hand for his poems, it is clear that the quarrels did not take long to wait for themselves. Gradually growing and hardening, these quarrels ended, on the part of the wife, with complete and contemptuous indifference to the jester husband, on the part of the husband - with sincere hatred for his wife, hatred, which, however, included a significant amount of cowardice.- M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin"Gentlemen Golovlyov".

· « Arina Petrovna- a woman of about sixty, but still vigorous and accustomed to live with all her will. She holds herself menacingly; single-handedly and uncontrollably manages the vast Golovlev estate, lives in solitude, prudently, almost sparingly, does not make friends with neighbors, is good-natured to local authorities, and demands from her children that they be in such obedience to her that with every act they ask themselves: something will your mother say about it? In general, she has an independent, inflexible and somewhat obstinate character, which, however, is greatly facilitated by the fact that in the entire Golovlev family there is not a single person from whom she could meet opposition. -M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin"Gentlemen Golovlyov".

· « Stepan Vladimirovich, eldest son,<…>, was known in the family under the name Styopki-stooge and Styopka the mischievous. He very early fell into the number of "hateful" and from childhood he played in the house the role of either a pariah or a jester. Unfortunately, he was a gifted fellow, who too readily and quickly perceived the impressions that the environment produced. From his father, he adopted inexhaustible mischief, from his mother - the ability to quickly guess the weaknesses of people. Thanks to the first quality, he soon became his father's favorite, which further increased his mother's dislike for him. Often, during Arina Petrovna's absences on the housework, the father and teenage son retired to an office decorated with a portrait of Barkov, read free poetry and gossiped, and in particular the “witch”, that is, Arina Petrovna, got it. But the "witch" seemed to guess their occupations by instinct; she rode inaudibly to the porch, went on tiptoe to the study door and overheard the merry speeches. This was followed by an immediate and brutal beating of Styopka the Stupid. But Styopka did not let up; he was insensitive to beatings or exhortations, and in half an hour he began to play tricks again. Either he cuts Anyutka’s kerchief into pieces, then he puts flies in the sleepy Vasyutka’s mouth, then he climbs into the kitchen and steals a pie there (Arina Petrovna, out of economy, kept the children from hand to mouth), which, however, she will immediately share with her brothers. -M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin"Gentlemen Golovlyov".

· “After Stepan Vladimirovich, the eldest member of the Golovlev family was a daughter, Anna Vladimirovna, about which Arina Petrovna also did not like to talk. The fact is that Arina Petrovna had plans for Annushka, and Annushka not only did not justify her hopes, but instead made a scandal for the whole district. When her daughter left the institute, Arina Petrovna settled her in the village, hoping to make her a gifted house secretary and accountant, and instead Annushka, one fine night, fled from Golovlev with the cornet Ulanov and married him. Two years later, the young capital lived, and the cornet fled to no one knows where, leaving Anna Vladimirovna with two twin daughters: Anninka and Lyubonka. Then Anna Vladimirovna herself died three months later, and Arina Petrovna, willy-nilly, had to shelter the orphans at home. Which she did by placing the little ones in the wing and putting the crooked old Palashka to them. -M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin"Gentlemen Golovlyov".

· « Porfiry Vladimirovich was known in the family under three names: Judas, blood-drinking and frank boy, which nicknames were given to him in childhood by Styopka the Stupid. From infancy, he loved to caress his dear friend mother, furtively kiss her on the shoulder, and sometimes even slightly mumble. Silently he would open the door of his mother's room, silently sneak into a corner, sit down and, as if enchanted, did not take his eyes off his mother while she was writing or fiddling with the accounts. But even then Arina Petrovna regarded these filial ingratiations with a kind of suspicion. And then this gaze fixed on her seemed mysterious to her, and then she could not determine for herself what exactly he exudes from himself: poison or filial piety.M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin"Gentlemen Golovlyov".

· “The perfect opposite with Porfiry Vladimirovich was represented by his brother, Pavel Vladimirovich. It was the complete personification of a man devoid of any actions whatsoever. Even as a boy, he did not show the slightest inclination either for learning, or for games, or for sociability, but he liked to live apart, in estrangement from people. He used to hide in a corner, pout and start fantasizing. It seems to him that he has eaten too much oatmeal, that his legs have become thin because of this, and he does not study. Or - that he is not Pavel, a noble son, but Davydka the shepherd, that a bolona has grown on his forehead, like Davydka, that he clicks a rapnik and does not study. Arina Petrovna used to look, look at him, and her mother’s heart would boil up like that ”-M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin"Gentlemen Golovlyov".

At the very beginning of the book, we get acquainted with Stepan Golovlev, Styopka the Stooge. This "prodigal son" returned to his home, realizing that death awaited him here.

The man is down, drinking. The dwelling, a cluttered room, erodes all signs of life from Stepan. It turns into something without thought and feeling.

Mother, Arina Petrovna, is trying to appease her son after an unsuccessful escape from Golovlev, but "the dunce seemed to be petrified", fell silent, wandered around the room for days on end.

The mother was afraid that her son would burn down the estate. He didn't even think about it. “It seemed that he was completely plunged into a dawnless mist, in which there is no place not only for reality, but also for fantasy.”

On this man is the seal of degeneration. What can come of a drunkard and a parasite who has lost himself. Stepan became apathetic and weak-willed, he could not do anything even for himself.

Arina Petrovna, the mother of the family, all her life sought to increase her property, which turned against her and her children.

Son Paul turned into a gloomy "man without deeds."

The protagonist of the work, Porfiry Golovlev, is the personification of the most terrible thing in man.

Styopka the dunce gave him three nicknames in his childhood: Judas, blood-drinking, frank boy. The very word Judas Saltykov-Shchedrin skillfully disguised: sort of like "Judas", but at the same time "darling". Porfiry always pretended to be a good boy: he liked to caress his mother, to tinker. Even for Arina Petrovna, his "look seemed ... mysterious." Mom wanted obedience and devotion, and he played such a good boy.

Porfiry Vladimirovich grew up, but did not change his virtuous, affectionate habits. The role of a caring uncle, worried about the children of his sister, he also played skillfully.

In fact, it was a "blood drinker", ready for the sake of ownership of everything, completely ruthless.

Porfiry is cunning, he constantly weaves a web for someone. Here he came to the house of his dying brother Pavel, where he even tries to joke with his relatives. Shchedrin writes about this: “Everyone smiled, but somehow sourly, as if everyone was talking about himself: well, now the spider has gone to weave a web!”

To the bed of Porfish's dying mother, “like a snake, he slipped ...” This is how he behaves in relation to all relatives. There are no dear people for him. Anninka, the niece, is the last to get into the web of the uncle. Shchedrin writes that Porfiry Vladimirovich met her "with the usual benevolence, in which it was impossible to distinguish whether he wanted to caress a person or intend to suck blood out of him."

The life of Judas is subject to property. It was she who killed the human in him, corrupted the soul that once existed. The scary thing is that he acts “legally”. Do not call the scoundrel to account!

Shchedrin wants to show in his novel that moral poverty awaits everyone who steps on the path of sacrilege.

Horrible is the hypocrisy of Judas, who tries to look better than he really is!

Pretending to be caring, he kicks his mother out of the estate, dooms his sons to death, and appropriates the property of his brothers.

Reading the novel "Lord Golovlev", we laugh and are horrified, and sometimes it becomes just creepy. The writer uses the word "comedy" several times. After all, acquisitiveness, and hypocrisy, and idle talk are comical in their nature. And how terrible is this landowner's world, where hatred reigns, the process of moral and physical decay is in full swing!

In Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel The Golovlevs, a whole gallery of images of one family, the landowners Golovlevs, is displayed. This family goes to degradation and destruction, it breaks up, and then its members physically disappear into non-existence.

The image of Arina Petrovna: this is the only outstanding person in the Golovlev family. She is the mother and head of the family. “A powerful woman and, moreover, to a great extent gifted with creativity,” characterizes her author. Arina Petrovna manages the household, manages all the affairs of the family. She is cheerful, strong-willed, energetic. But the sense of this is only in the economy. Arina Petrovna suppresses her sons and her husband, who hates her for it. She never loved her husband, she considered him a jester, a weakling, unable to manage the household. “The husband called his wife “witch” and “devil”, the wife called her husband “windmill” and “stringless balalaika”.

In fact, having lived for forty years in a family, Arina Petrovna remains a bachelor who is only interested in money, bills and business conversations. She does not have warm feelings for her husband and children, no sympathy, which is why she punishes loved ones so terribly when they are irresponsible about property or do not obey her.

The image of Stepan Golovlev: this is a "gifted guy" with a mischievous character, with a good memory and learning abilities. However, he was brought up in idleness, all his energy was spent on pranks. After studying, Stepan is unable to make a career as an official in St. Petersburg, since he has neither the ability nor the desire for it. He once again confirms the nickname "Stepka the Stooge", leads a wandering life for a long time. By the age of forty, he is terribly afraid of his mother, who will not support, but, on the contrary, will seize. Stepan comes to the realization that he “cannot do anything”, because he never tried to work, but wanted to get everything for free, snatch a piece from a greedy mother, or someone else. He becomes an inveterate drunkard in Golovlev and dies.

The image of Pavel Golovlev. This is a military man, but also a man suppressed by his mother, colorless. Outwardly, he snaps and is rude to his mother. But inside he is afraid of her and finds fault with her, resisting her influence. “He was a gloomy man, but behind the gloominess there was a lack of deeds - and nothing more.” Having moved to Golovlevo, he entrusts the affairs to his housekeeper - Ulita. Pavel Golovlev himself becomes an inveterate drunkard, consumed by hatred for his brother Judas. They die in this hatred, embittered, with curses and curses.

Image of Judas, Porfiry Golovleva. This man is the quintessence of the Golovlev family. He chose hypocrisy as his weapon. Under the guise of a sweet and sincere person, he achieves his goals, collects tribal property around him. His low soul rejoices at the troubles of his brothers and sisters, and when they die, he takes sincere pleasure in dividing property. In relations with his children, he also thinks about money first of all - and his sons cannot stand it. At the same time, Porfiry never allows himself to say rudeness or causticity. He is polite, feignedly sweet and caring, endlessly reasoning, spreading honeyed speeches, weaving verbal intrigues. People see his deceit, but succumb to it. Even Arina Petrovna herself cannot resist them. But at the end of the novel, Judas also comes to his fall. He becomes incapable of anything but idle talk. For days on end, he gets bored with all the conversations that no one listens to. If the servant turns out to be sensitive to his "verbiage" and nit-picking, then he tries to run away from the owner. The tyranny of Yudushka is becoming more and more petty, he also drinks, like the deceased brothers, for entertainment, he remembers petty offenses or minimal miscalculations in the economy all day long in order to “talk” them. Meanwhile, the real economy does not develop, falls into disrepair and decline. At the end of the novel, a terrible insight descends on Judas: “We need to forgive everyone ... What ... what happened?! Where is…everyone?!” But the family, divided by hatred, coldness and the inability to forgive, has already been destroyed.

The image of Anna and the image of Lyuba from the "Gentlemen of the Golovlevs." Yudushka's nieces are representatives of the last generation of the Golovlevs. They try to escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the family, at first they succeed. They work, play in the theater and are proud of it. But they were not accustomed to consistent, persistent activity. Nor were they accustomed to moral stamina and firmness in life. Lubinka is ruined by her cynicism and prudence, taken from her grandmother, and she herself pushes her sister into the abyss. From actresses, the “Pogorelsky sisters” become kept women, then almost prostitutes. Anninka, morally purer, more sincere, disinterested and kind-hearted, stubbornly clings to life. But she, too, breaks down, and after Lyubinka's suicide, sick and drinking, she returns to Golovlevo, "to die."

The Golovlev family in the novel by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin "The Golovlevs"

The novel by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was not originally conceived as an independent work, but was included in the series of satirical essays “Well-meaning Speeches”. When working on this work, the writer's attention was focused on the individual psychological characteristics of the characters, behind which social class characteristics are hidden. Some literary critics define the genre of this work as a family chronicle. But... Reading the novel, we see how gradually, from chapter to chapter, the fate of the Golovlevs takes shape: Arina Petrovna, her husband, daughter and sons, children of Judas, nieces. Each chapter of the novel has a capacious speaking title: "Family Court", "According to Kindred", "Family Results", "Niece", "Unlawful Family Joys", "Eschema", "Calculation". Of the seven titles, the first five are directly related to the theme of the family, family relations, but in fact contain a hidden ironic, satirical allusion to the collapse of the Golovlev family.

The novel begins with a “truly tragic cry” from Arina Rodionovna: “And for whom did I store up! .. for whom? .. And into whom did I turn such monsters!” Arina Petrovna, an independent, domineering woman, with an uncompromising character, not accustomed to listening to other people's opinions. Her whole life is devoted to rounding off the Golovlevsky estate, to hoarding. Her stinginess borders on greed: despite the fact that barrels of food disappear in the cellars, her son Stepan eats leftovers, she feeds her orphan granddaughters with sour milk. Everything that Arina Petrovna does, she, in her opinion, does in the name of the family. The word "family" does not leave her tongue, but in fact it turns out that she lives incomprehensibly even for what and for whom. Her husband "led an idle and idle life", and for Arina Petrovna, "always distinguished by seriousness and efficiency, he did not represent anything pretty."

The relationship between the spouses ended with “complete and contemptuous indifference to the jester husband” on the part of Arina Petrovna and “sincere hatred for his wife” with a significant amount of cowardice on the part of Vladimir Mikhailovich. She called him “windmill” and “stringless balalaika”, he called her “witch” and “devil”. But this did not prevent Arina Petrovna from giving birth to four children: three sons and one daughter. But even in children, she saw only a burden: “in her eyes, children were one of those fatalistic life situations, against the totality of which she did not consider herself entitled to protest, but which, nevertheless, did not touch a single string of her inner being ...” The author sees wearing in her "too independent" and "bachelor nature". Children were not allowed to any family affairs, “she did not even like to talk about her eldest son and daughter; she was more or less indifferent to her youngest son, and only the middle one, Porfish, was not so much loved, but seemed to be afraid.

The eldest son, Stepan, "was known in the family under the name Styopka the Stooge and Styopka the mischievous one." “... He was a gifted fellow, too willingly and quickly perceived the impressions that the environment produced. From his father, he adopted inexhaustible mischief, from his mother - the ability to quickly guess the weaknesses of people. "Constant humiliation" on the part of his mother caused in his soft nature "not anger, not protest, but formed a slavish character, accommodating to buffoonery, not knowing a sense of proportion and devoid of any forethought." We meet Stepan on the pages of the novel at the moment when the estate allocated to him by his mother is sold for debts, and he himself has a hundred rubles in his pocket. “With this capital, he went up to speculation, that is, to play cards, and in a short time lost everything. Then he began to walk around the wealthy peasants of his mother, who lived in Moscow on their own farm; from whom he dined, from whom he begged for a quarter of tobacco, from whom he borrowed little things. But finally, I had to return to Golovlevo, to my mother. Stepan's way home is the way of a man doomed to death. He understands that his mother will "seize" him now; “one thought fills his entire being to the brim: three or four more hours - and there will be nowhere to go further ...”; “It seems to him that the doors of a damp cellar are dissolving before him, that as soon as he steps over the threshold of these doors, they will now slam shut - and then it will all be over.” The sight of the manor's estate, peacefully looking out from behind the trees, reminded Stepan of a coffin.

A distinctive feature of Arina Petrovna (and later of Judas) was that she tried her best to keep outward decorum. Therefore, after the arrival of Stepan, she calls the rest of her sons, Pavel and Porfiry, to the family court. It is absolutely clear that she needs the presence of her sons only to create the illusion that the decision that will be made at the family court is collective: “... what position they will advise you among themselves - so I will do with you. I don’t want to take sin on my soul, but as the brothers decide, so be it!”). All of this is a farce designed to justify her further actions. From the very beginning, a comedy is played out: “Arina Petrovna met her sons solemnly, dejected by grief. Two girls held her by the arms; gray hair was knocked out from under a white cap, his head drooped and swayed from side to side, his legs barely dragged. By decision of the “family” court, Stepan was left to live in the wing, he ate what was left from dinner, received “papa’s old robe” and slippers from clothes. Loneliness, idleness, malnutrition, forced sitting within four walls, drunkenness - all this led to a clouding of the mind. When Arina Petrovna was once informed that Stepan Vladimirovich disappeared from the estate at night, only then did she see the conditions in which her son lived: “The room was dirty, black, slushy ... The ceiling was sooty, the wallpaper on the walls cracked and hung in many places shredded, the window sills blackened under a thick layer of tobacco ash, the pillows lay on the floor covered with sticky mud, a crumpled sheet lay on the bed, all gray from the sewage that had settled on it. Until that moment, even reports that Stepan was “not good” “slip past her ears, leaving no impression in her mind”: “I suppose she will catch her breath, she will outlive us with you! What is he, a lanky stallion, doing! ..». While the search continued, Arina Petrovna was more angry that “there was such a mess because of the dunce” than she was worried about where her son could go in November, in just a dressing gown and shoes. After Stepan was brought in “in a semi-conscious state”, with only cuts, “with a blue and swollen face”, Arina Petrovna “felt so emotional that she almost ordered him to be transferred from the office to the manor’s house, but then calmed down and again left the dunce in office..."

I believe that Stepan was ruined by the whole family: Pavel, by his non-interference in the fate of his brother: “Well, to me! Will you listen to me?"; Judas - by betrayal (he dissuaded his mother from throwing out another "piece"), Arina Petrovna by cruelty. The mother does not understand that her son is seriously ill, but only worries about how Stepan would not burn down the estate. His death gives her a reason to once again teach life: “... Since the evening before, he was completely healthy and even had dinner, and the next morning he was found dead in bed - such is the transience of this life! And what is most regrettable for a mother’s heart: so, without parting words, he left this vain world ... Let this serve as a lesson to all of us: whoever neglects family ties should always expect such an end for himself. And failures in this life, and vain death, and eternal torment in the next life - everything comes from this source. For, no matter how high-minded and even noble we are, if we don’t honor our parents, then they will turn our arrogance and nobility into nothing ... ".

Daughter Anna Vladimirovna not only did not live up to the hopes of her mother, who hoped to “make a gifted house secretary and accountant out of her”, but also “made a scandal for the whole county”: “one fine night she fled from Golovlev with cornet Ulanov and married him.” Her fate is also sad. Her mother gave her "a village of thirty souls with a fallen estate, in which there was a draft from all the windows and there was not a single living floorboard." Having lived all the capital in two years, the husband fled, leaving Anna with two twin daughters. Anna Vladimirovna died three months later, and Arina Petrovna “willy-nilly had to shelter the complete orphans at home,” about which she wrote in a letter to Porfiry: “As your sister lived dissolutely, she died, leaving me on the neck of her two puppies "... If Arina Petrovna could have foreseen that she herself, in her old age, all alone, would happen to live in that estate!

Arina Petrovna is a complex nature. Her greedy acquisitive passion drowned out everything human in her. Talking about the family has become just a habit and self-justification (so that it doesn’t hurt you yourself, and so that evil tongues don’t reproach you). The author's sympathy for the once omnipotent landowner is felt in the depiction of her greatly changed position, in the transmission of previously unknown feelings: “All her life she arranged something, she was killing herself over something, but it turns out that she was killing herself over a ghost. All her life the word "family" did not leave her tongue; in the name of the family, she executed some, rewarded others; in the name of her family, she subjected herself to hardships, tortured herself, disfigured her whole life - and suddenly it turns out that she doesn’t have a family! the greasy collar of an old cotton blouse. It was something bitter, full of hopelessness and, at the same time, powerlessly obstinate... Anguish, mortal anguish seized her whole being. Nauseous! bitterly! - that's the only explanation she could give to her tears.

The youngest, Pavel, was a man devoid of any deeds, showing not the slightest inclination either for learning, or for games, or for sociability, who loved to live apart and fantasize. Moreover, these were absolutely delusional fantasies: “that he ate oatmeal, that his legs became thin from this, and he does not study,” etc. Over the years, that apathetic and mysteriously gloomy personality was formed from him, from which the result is a person devoid of deeds. Maybe he was kind, but did no good to anyone; maybe he was not stupid, but in his whole life he did not commit a single smart deed. From his mother, he inherited obstinacy, sharpness in judgments. Paul was not a master at weaving words (unlike Porphyry). In his mother’s letters, he is short to the point of sharpness, straightforward to the extreme and tongue-tied: “Money, so much for such and such a period, dear parent, I received, and, according to my calculation, I should receive six and a half more, in which I ask you to honor me sorry." Just like his father and brother Stepan, Pavel was prone to alcoholism. Perhaps, against the background of drunkenness, he developed a hatred for the "society of living people", and especially for Porfiry, who, after the division of property, got Golovlevo, and he had a worse estate - Dubrovino. “He himself did not fully realize how deep his hatred for Porfishka lay in him. He hated him with all his thoughts, with all his insides, he hated him incessantly, every minute. As if alive, this foul image rushed about before him, and tearful hypocritical idle talk was heard in his ears ... He hated Judas and at the same time was afraid of him. The last days of Pavel's life were devoted to remembering the insults inflicted on him by his brother, and he mentally took revenge, creating entire dramas in his alcohol-fuelled mind. The obstinacy of character and, perhaps, a misunderstanding that death is close, became the reason that the estate was inherited by Porfiry. However, there was never much love between the members of this family. Perhaps the reason for this was the upbringing received in the family.

Among all the gentlemen of the Golovlevs, the most striking personality is Porfiry, known in the family under three names: Judas, blood-drinking, and an outspoken boy. “From infancy, he loved to caress his dear friend mother, furtively kiss her on the shoulder, and sometimes poof.” Arina Petrovna, in her own way, singled out Porfiry among all the children: “And involuntarily her hand was looking for the best piece on the platter to pass it to his affectionate son ...”, “No matter how strong her confidence was that Porfiry the scoundrel only fawns with his tail, and throws a noose with his eyes ... "," despite the fact that the mere sight of this son raised in her heart a vague alarm of something mysterious, unkind, "she could not determine in any way what" exudes "his look: poison or filial piety ? Porfiry, among the rest of the family, stands out primarily for his verbosity, which has grown into idle talk, meanness of character. The letters of Porfiry, which he sends to his mother, are characterized by a combination of clerical accuracy with immoderate pomp, grandiosity, lisp, self-deprecating subservience; in the flow of the narrative, he can, as it were, inadvertently cast a shadow on his brother: “Money, so much and for such and such a period, mother’s invaluable friend, from your trusted ... received ... I only feel sad and tormented by doubt: not too much Are you bothering your precious health with unceasing concerns about satisfying not only our needs, but also our whims?! I don’t know about my brother, but I…”

The author repeatedly compares this hero with a spider. Pavel was afraid of his brother and even refused to see him, because he knew “that the eyes of Judas exude a bewitching poison, that his voice, like a snake, crawls into the soul and paralyzes the will of a person.” The sons of Porfiry also complain that their father is very annoying: “Just talk to him, he won’t get rid of him later.”

The author skillfully uses visual and artistic means. There are a lot of diminutive and endearing words in Judas's speech, but no kindness or warmth is felt behind them. Sympathy, kind attention, cordial responsiveness and affection turn into a ritual, into a dead form. Suffice it to recall Porfiry’s visit to Paul, his comedy in front of the dying man: “Meanwhile, Judas approached the icon, knelt down, was touched, made three bows to the earth, got up and again found himself at the bedside ... Pavel Vladimirych finally realized that in front of him was not a shadow, and the bloodsucker himself in the flesh ... Judas' eyes looked bright, in a kindred way, but the patient saw very well that in these eyes there was a "loop" that was about to jump out and overwhelm his throat. It can be said that by his appearance Porfiry hastened the death of his brother. He is also the culprit of the death of his sons: he left Volodya without maintenance only because he did not ask permission to marry; He also did not support Petenka in difficult times, and his son died in one of the hospitals on the way to exile. The meanness that Judas shows towards his own children is striking. In response to Volodya’s letter, in which he says that he wants to get married, he replies that “if you want, get married, I can’t interfere,” without saying a word that this “I can’t prevent” does not mean permission at all. And even after the son, driven to despair by poverty, asks for forgiveness, nothing faltered in his heart (“I asked for forgiveness once, he sees that dad does not forgive - and ask another time!”). One can admit that Judas was right when he refuses to contribute the lost public money for Peter (“You messed it up yourself - and get out yourself”). The horror lies in the fact that Judas diligently performed the rite of farewell (knowing that, most likely, he was seeing his son for the last time) and “not a single muscle trembled on his wooden face, not a single note in his voice sounded anything like an appeal prodigal son."

Judas is pious, but his piety stems not so much from love for God as from the fear of devils. He “excellently studied the technique of prayerful standing: ... he knew when to gently move his lips and roll his eyes, when to fold his hands with his palms inward and when to keep them raised, when to be touched and when to stand decorously, making moderate signs of the cross. Both his eyes and nose turned red and moistened at certain moments, which prayer practice pointed out to him. But prayer did not renew him, did not enlighten his feelings, did not bring any ray into his dim existence. He could pray and do all the necessary body movements and at the same time look out the window and notice if anyone goes to the cellar without asking, etc. Moreover, he creates all his “killed” with the name of God on his lips. After praying, he sends his son Volodya, adopted from Yevprakseyushka, to an orphanage. This scene is described satirically, but the laughter freezes, prompting the reader to seriously think about the terrible consequences that the “moral ossification” of the hero leads to. In it lies the key to the acquisitive zeal and predatory betrayal of Porfiry, and in this is his tragedy. The author is convinced that conscience is inherent in everyone, and therefore it should have awakened in Judas as well. It just happened too late: “Here he grew old, went wild, stands with one foot in the grave, and there is no creature in the world that would approach him, “pity” him ... From everywhere, from all the corners of this hateful house, it seemed crawled out "killed" ... Porfiry ends his life by walking at night, undressed, to his mother's grave and freezes. Thus ends the story of the "escheated" family of Golovlevs.

The author believes that an ill-fated fate weighed on the Golovlev family: “for several generations, three characteristics passed through the history of this family: idleness, unsuitability for any business and hard drinking”, which entailed “idle talk, empty thinking and empty womb”. To the above, you can also add a dull atmosphere of life, a passionate desire for profit and absolute lack of spirituality.