Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a talented Russian writer who very accurately depicted the vices of the society of his era in his works. A special place in his work is occupied by the cycle of stories “Little Trilogy” and “Ionych”. Chekhov (we will give an analysis of one of his works below) wrote then in conditions of widespread social upsurge. He exposed that part of the intelligentsia that not only does not take part in this upsurge, but, on the contrary, tries to isolate itself from life.

Driven by indifference and fear, she does not want to know the problems of the people. With enormous satirical force, Chekhov reveals the theme of “case life” in his seemingly simple creations.

"Ionych" tells us about the history of the spiritual and moral degradation of man. The story has 5 parts, 5 portraits of the main character.

The first is a portrait of Doctor Startsev - a young, intelligent, knowledgeable in art, with good musical and literary taste, an energetic and cheerful person. This is exactly what a real intellectual should be, as Chekhov believes ("Ionych", chapter 1).

Second portrait. Before us is a young man prone to obesity, who prefers riding in a stroller to walking. Deprived of his former vigor, but in love, and therefore capable of some crazy actions.

Third portrait. Startsev’s feelings turned out to be shallow, the love passes. He quickly calms down after experiencing rejection.

Fourth portrait. Startsev has gained weight, suffers from shortness of breath and already has three horses.

He became withdrawn, prefers playing cards to spiritual life, and is unpleasant for him in society. Hard work gave way to coldness, the ability for pure, unselfish feelings died out.

Fifth portrait. Startsev became completely fat, as a result of which his voice became thin and harsh. He was mad with greed. In relation to the sick, he lost all sensitivity, respect, compassion. He became rude, arrogant, angry. The townsfolk now consider him one of their own and simply call him Ionych. In just 10 years, Chekhov's hero is shown to be a complete insignificance.

“Ionych” does not give us unambiguous answers to the question of why there was such a rapid spiritual decay of the once energetic and talented representative of the young intelligentsia. Perhaps Ekaterina Ivanovna, for whom the doctor had tender feelings, was to blame for something. Of course, he himself is to blame for something. However, most of the blame lies precisely with the society surrounding Startsev, Chekhov believes. Ionych, leaving disappointed after an explanation with the matured Katenka, thinks to himself: “What must this city be like if even the most talented people in it are so untalented?”

The Turkin family personifies the entire supposedly advanced and educated part of society. Chekhov ridicules her mercilessly. which was made above, is replete with examples. At the beginning of the story, which describes Startsev’s first visit to the Turkins’ house, the young doctor, with his still clear gaze, notices the slightest details: the fact that Vera Iosifovna’s novel has nothing to do with real life, and the fact that Kotik has no musical talent, and then, how stupid and senseless the owner’s jokes are, but he doesn’t pay much attention to it because he’s in love. When the scales fell from his eyes, and Startsev saw all the vulgarity going on around him, he couldn’t think of anything better than to become the same.

In Chekhov's story "Ionych", with his characteristic skill and talented characteristics of the heroes of the story, the hard-hitting truth about the generation of that time is conveyed. The author especially acutely emphasizes the issue of the influence of society on an individual person. We invite you to read a brief analysis of the work. This material can be used for work in a literature lesson in grade 10, as well as for preparing for the Unified State Exam.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing– 1898

History of creation– Researchers of the writer’s work have come to the conclusion that the original themes and ideas of the work underwent significant changes before the author created the final version.

Subject– Personal degradation, life and everyday life of city residents, love theme.

Composition– The story is built using a dotted composition method: acquaintance with the doctor and the Turkin family, Startsev’s courtship of Ekaterina Ivanovna, followed by the end of a failed love affair, then a new meeting with Katya, and ends with a description of the life of the heroes as it will continue in the near future.

Direction– The objective characteristics of the characters, the social problems of society described by Anton Pavlovich, speak of the realistic direction of the story.

History of creation

The writer’s notes contain evidence that the story of the story’s creation gradually changed. If initially the author wanted to describe one family, the Filimonovs, then later the surname was changed to the Turkins, and the main idea of ​​the story also changed: in the final version, the writer assesses not the social impoverishment of the family, but the degradation of the personality of the hero himself.

After the publication of this work, criticism from literary critics was ambiguous; reviews were both positive, paying tribute to Chekhov’s genius, and negative, seeing insufficient openness in the characterization of the characters. One of the critics noted the originality of the description of the hero, who is not an antagonist of society, but a product of decomposition under its influence.

Subject

When analyzing the work in “Ionych”, it is necessary to reveal the essence of the story’s title. The description begins with the Turkin family, giving the impression that it will be about this family. Later comes the understanding that the main character is Ionych. Throughout the narrative, Doctor Startsev is degraded, and this is the meaning of the title - the author shows how a respected person in the city, a good doctor, gradually became mired in philistinism, and turned into an ordinary man in the street. This gives the rest of the residents the right to treat him familiarly, with some disdain, putting him on a par with the gray and faceless personalities of the townspeople.

Such degradation of personality is one of the main themes of the work. Startsev, who once strived for some ideals, a young and energetic doctor who loved his profession and devoted all his time to work, slowly but surely began to turn into an ordinary resident of the city. The doctor's only desire was to get rich. Good medical practice began to bring him a stable and large income. Doctor Startsev began to invest all his funds in real estate, buying himself things that corresponded to his position and financial condition. The doctor's degradation began to occur not only in his internal changes in beliefs, but also in external manifestations.

The hero became rude and irritable, he gained weight, and began to experience shortness of breath. The doctor lost interest in public life, there were no feelings left except the thirst for enrichment. The love theme touched upon by the author in this story dies in the same way as Startsev’s spiritual beginning. If at the beginning of the story the hero experienced some kind of feeling for Ekaterina Ivanovna, then this too, as he died spiritually, faded away. Startsev is even relieved that their relationship did not work out.

Issues works and in the state of society as a whole, the writer touches on many moral problems that take place in the life of the town. This includes the lack of education of citizens, their lack of culture and spiritual poverty. Life in the town is boring and dull, according to one routine. Residents spend their time boringly and monotonously, each of them lives in their own small world, without setting any global goals and aspirations, the dullness and baseness of the thinking of ordinary people prevails over high ideals.

The role of society had a great influence on Startsev; he abandoned medicine as a vocation, turning it only into a means of enrichment. Based on this, we can draw an unambiguous conclusion: having become like philistine society, Startsev has outlived his usefulness as an individual and mixed with a crowd of the same unprincipled and unspiritual types, this reveals a person’s conflict with the power of influence of his life environment.

Composition

Composition of Chekhov's story consists of five parts. In the first part, we meet the Turkins family and the main character, Doctor Startsev. The doctor arrives in the town as a young, energetic man and is invited to the Turkins’ house. The hero still has ambition, he understands how little the spirituality of this family is developed, and does not seek to continue the established acquaintance.

Startsev is passionate about his work, he is constantly busy, and the second meeting with the Turkin family occurs after a little over a year, in the second part of the work. The mistress of the house began to often invite the young doctor, complaining of migraines, and he began to visit them regularly, preferring conversations with Ekaterina Ivanovna.

The young girl is well-read, and Startsev is interested in communicating with her. After Kotik’s stupid idea of ​​a date at the cemetery, Startsev decided to propose to her, with the thought of a rich dowry. When the girl refused him, he regretted how much extra trouble this proposal had caused him.

The third part of the story describes how Dr. Startsev became bloated and plump in body, but impoverished in soul. He had already ceased to be interested in anything, having found pleasure in counting his money every evening, of which there was already a lot, but he wanted even more. This is how his spiritual impoverishment began, he began to resemble more and more the ordinary inhabitants of the town. And in the next part of the work, Startsev is more and more engaged in his enrichment, rejoicing in the fact that he is not married. He met with Ekaterina Ivanovna a couple more times, but he felt ashamed that he had once proposed to her.

At the end of the story, Doctor Startsev has long turned into Ionych, this is no longer the same young and ambitious doctor who came to the city to seek his medical vocation, but an old, flabby, soulless person, one might say a “dead soul”, seeking happiness in wealth, and morally impoverished.

Main characters

Genre

Of course, “Ionych” is a story, but the description of the hero’s entire life, his gradual spiritual decomposition, in fact, brings him closer to a small novel, the events of this work are so deeply covered. The social problems of society described by the author classify this story as realism, which reproduces in detail the events and characteristics of the characters.

Work test

Rating analysis

Average rating: 4.1. Total ratings received: 936.

Provincial city S. Doctor Dmitry Ionovich Startsev was appointed to serve in this city. The Turkin family, reputed to be cultured and educated, also lives here. Each family member has his own talents: the owner of the family organizes home performances, takes part in them himself, and is considered a great joker and wit. His wife, Vera Iosifovna, is a novelist, and his daughter, Ekaterina Ivanovna, is a pianist. When Turkins invite guests to their house, they “sense” them with their talents. Doctor Startsev visits them. The mistress of the house is reading her incredible novel about an imaginary life. Startsev realizes that the novel is bad, but thinks that listening to it is pleasant. Then Kotik, the daughter of the Turkins, plays virtuoso works on the piano. For better or worse, she's trying really hard. Vera Iosifovna says: in order to avoid the bad influence of society, their daughter received a home education. During the evening meal, the owner of the house shines with his talents. He comes up with some kind of his own language, distorted Russian, and constantly speaks it. The reception ends with a crowning number. Pavlush's footman in a specially invented pose, in a voice that probably seems appropriate for the phrase: “Die, unfortunate one!” says this.

A.P. Chekhov. "Ionych." Summary. Startsev's unsuccessful matchmaking

Turkina Sr. suffers from migraines. Doctors from the city are powerless. Vera Iosifovna turns to Startsev to help her recover. Now the doctor visits the Turkins often and pays a lot of attention to Ekaterina Ivanovna. But she is “all about music.” Startsev is trying to sort things out with Kotik, and she suggests meeting at the cemetery at night. The doctor is waiting at the cemetery, but his beloved does not show up for a date. Dmitry Ionovich decides to propose to Ekaterina Ivanovna and goes to the Turkins’ house the next day. The doctor thinks that the bride will have a good dowry. Perhaps his future father-in-law and mother-in-law will insist that he leave the service. But all these thoughts of Startsev were in vain, Kotik refuses him. She loves not him, but art, and her whole life is now devoted to art. For three days, Dmitry Ionovich finds no relief from mental torment. Then his life returns to normal.

A.P. Chekhov. "Ionych." Summary. Four years pass...

Four years later, Doctor Startsev appears to the reader as a fat man with shortness of breath. He doesn't communicate with anyone, he's not interested. Startsev works a lot because... believes that a person cannot live without work. It’s Vera Iosifovna’s birthday, and she invites Startsev to a reception. Katerina Ivanovna also arrives. But the doctor thinks that she has become very ugly, and everything about her irritates him. The evening goes on as always. Vera Iosifovna is reading her crazy novel, Kitty is playing the piano tediously and loudly. Startsev is very glad that the wedding did not take place. He and Kitty are talking alone in the garden. She already realizes that she is a mediocre pianist, and her mother is also a novelist. The doctor complains about a gray, monotonous life. In his thoughts there is no longer a desire for noble deeds, as before. Kitty thinks it's great to help people. At first, something happens in the doctor’s soul from thoughts about his former life, but remembering the amount of money he earns, he drives away ridiculous thoughts. Startsev doesn’t want to have dinner and is getting ready to go home. Finally, the footman shows the same number. Startsev goes home and thinks about how immoral the city is if its best inhabitants are so narrow-minded, untalented, and vulgar. The doctor no longer accepts invitations to the Turkins’ house, although Kotik bombards him with notes.

A.P. Chekhov. "Ionych." Summary. A few more years pass...

Several years pass: Startsev becomes very fat, works a lot, has a practice in the city and a large fortune. Ionych - that’s what they call him now. He's still alone. The main thing in his life is money. In the Turkins' house, everything is as always: Ivan Petrovich jokes, Vera Iosifovna torments the guests with novels, and Kotik selflessly plays music.

Chekhov "Ionych". Story Analysis

What main idea does Chekhov want to convey to us with this story? At the beginning of the work, we are presented with the main character, the young doctor Startsev, in whose head noble thoughts about work, sympathy for people, and finally, love are ripening. But, reading the story further, we see that our hero and his wallet are becoming fatter, his thoughts are becoming more and more mercantile. Chekhov shows how the environment can “suck in” a person. He turns into a soulless amoeba, which is no longer interested in anything but money. Ionych cannot, and most likely does not want, to fight the gray reality. The money has done its job: at the end of the story, the doctor is only interested in it.

"Ionych." Chekhov. Analysis

The gray immoral environment in the story is represented by the Turkin family. The author describes all its members very ironically. All their actions, repeated throughout the story, are funny and vulgar. And these are the best people in the city. Chekhov's heroes, as always, are very colorful. They make us wonder: am I one of them?

The story told by Chekhov in “Ionych” (1898) is built around two declarations of love, just as, in fact, the plot was built in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”. At first he confesses his love to her and is not reciprocated. And a few years later, she, realizing that there was no better person than him in her life, tells him about her love and with the same negative result. All other events and descriptions are needed as a background, as material to explain why mutual love did not take place, the mutual happiness of two people did not work out.

Who is to blame (or what is to blame) for the fact that the young, full of strength and vitality Dmitry Startsev, as we see him at the beginning of the story, turned into Ionych of the last chapter? How exceptional or, conversely, ordinary is the story of his life? And how does Chekhov manage to fit entire human destinies and ways of life into just a few pages of text?

As if on the surface lies the first explanation of why the hero degrades by the end of the story. The reason can be seen in the unfavorable, hostile environment of Startsev, in the philistine environment of the city of S. And in the absence on the part of the hero of a fight against this environment, of protest against it. “The environment is stuck” is a common explanation for such situations in life and in literature.

Is the environment to blame for the transformation of Startsev into Ionych? No, that would be at least a one-sided explanation.

A hero opposed to the environment, sharply different from the environment - this was a typical conflict in classical literature, starting with “Woe from Wit”. In “Ionych” there is a word directly taken from the characteristics of Famus’ society (“wheezers”), but it, perhaps, only more sharply highlights the difference between the two relationships: Chatsky - Famusov’s Moscow and Startsev - the inhabitants of the city of S.

Actually, Chatsky was kept in an environment alien and hostile to him only by his love interest. He was initially confident of his superiority over this environment, denounced it in his monologues - but the environment pushed him out like a foreign body. Slandered, insulted, but not broken and only strengthened in his convictions, Chatsky left Famusov’s Moscow.

Dmitry Startsev, like Chatsky, falls in love with a girl from an environment alien to him (for Chatsky this separating barrier is spiritual, for Startsev it is material). As an outsider, he enters the “most talented” house in the city of S. He does not have any initial aversion to this environment; on the contrary, for the first time in the Turkins’ house everything seems pleasant to him, or at least entertaining. And then, having learned that he is not loved, unlike Chatsky, he does not rush to “search the world,” but remains to live in the same place where he lived, so to speak, by inertia.

Even if not immediately, but at some point he also felt irritation against those people among whom he had to live and with whom he had to communicate. There is nothing to talk about with them, their interests are limited to food and empty entertainment. Anything truly new is alien to them, the ideas by which the rest of humanity lives are beyond their understanding (for example, how can passports and the death penalty be abolished?).

Well, at first Startsev also tried to protest, convince, preach (“in society, at dinner or tea, he talked about the need to work, that one cannot live without work”). These monologues of Startsev did not receive a response from society. But, unlike the Famusov society, which is aggressive towards the freethinker, the inhabitants of the city of S. simply continue to live as they lived, but on the whole they remained completely indifferent to the dissident Startsev, turning protest and propaganda on deaf ears. True, they awarded him a rather ridiculous nickname (“inflated Pole”), but this is still not a declaration of a person as crazy. Moreover, when he began to live according to the laws of this environment and finally turned into Ionych, they themselves suffered a lot from him.

So, one hero remained unbroken by the environment, the other was absorbed by the environment and subjected to its laws. It would seem clear which of them deserves sympathy and which deserves condemnation. But the point is not at all that one of the heroes is nobler, higher, more positive than the other.

The two works organize artistic time differently. Just one day in the life of Chatsky - and Startsev’s whole life. Chekhov includes the passage of time in the “hero and environment” situation, and this allows us to evaluate what happened differently.

“One day in the winter... in the spring, on a holiday - it was the Ascension... more than a year passed... he began to visit the Turkins often, very often... for about three days things fell out of his hands... he calmed down and healed as before... experience taught him little by little... imperceptibly, little by little... four years passed... three days passed, a week passed... and he never visited the Turkins again... . a few more years have passed...”

Chekhov introduces into the story the test of the hero by the most ordinary thing - the unhurried but unstoppable passage of time. Time tests the strength of any beliefs, tests the strength of any feelings; time calms and consoles, but time also drags on - “imperceptibly, little by little” remaking a person. Chekhov writes not about the exceptional or extraordinary, but about what concerns every ordinary (“average”) person.

That bundle of new ideas, protest, and sermons that Chatsky carries within himself cannot be imagined stretched out like this - over weeks, months, years. The arrival and departure of Chatsky is like the passage of a meteor, a bright comet, a flash of fireworks. And Startsev is tested by something that Chatsky was not tested by - the flow of life, immersion in the passage of time. What does this approach reveal?

For example, it is not enough to have some beliefs, it is not enough to feel indignation against alien people and customs. Dmitry Startsev is by no means deprived of all this, like any normal young man. He knows how to feel contempt, he knows what is worth being indignant about (human stupidity, mediocrity, vulgarity, etc.). And Kotik, who reads a lot, knows what words to use to denounce “this empty, useless life,” which has become “unbearable” for her.

No, Chekhov shows, against the passage of time, the Protestant fervor of youth cannot hold out for long - and can even turn “imperceptibly, little by little” into its opposite. In the last chapter, Ionych no longer tolerates any judgments or objections from the outside (“Please answer only questions! Don’t talk!”).

Moreover, a person can have not only denying enthusiasm - he can also have a positive life program (“You need to work, you can’t live without work,” Startsev claims, and Kotik is convinced: “A person must strive for a higher, brilliant goal... I want to be an artist, I want fame, success, freedom...”). It may seem to him that he lives and acts in accordance with the correctly chosen goal. After all, Startsev doesn’t just pronounce monologues in front of ordinary people - he really works, and he sees more and more patients, both in the village hospital and in the city. But... again “imperceptibly, little by little” time made a destructive substitution. By the end of the story, Ionych works more and more, no longer for the sake of the sick or some kind of lofty goals. What was previously secondary - “pieces of paper obtained through practice”, money - becomes the main content of life, its only goal.

In the face of time, the invisible but main arbiter of destinies in Chekhov's world, any verbally formulated beliefs or beautiful-hearted programs seem fragile and insignificant. In youth, you can despise and be beautiful as much as you want - lo and behold, “imperceptibly, little by little” yesterday’s living person, open to all the impressions of existence, turned into Ionych.

The motive of transformation in the story is associated with the theme of time. The transformation occurs as a gradual transition from the living, not yet settled and unformed to the established, once and for all formed.

In the first three chapters, Dmitry Startsev is young, he has not quite defined, but good intentions and aspirations, he is carefree, full of strength, it costs him nothing to walk nine miles after work (and then nine miles back), music constantly sounds in his soul; like any young man, he is waiting for love and happiness.

But a living person finds himself in an environment of mechanical wind-up dolls. At first he doesn't realize it. The witticisms of Ivan Petrovich, the novels of Vera Iosifovna, Kotik’s play on the piano, the tragic pose of Pava for the first time seem to him quite original and spontaneous, although observation tells him that these witticisms were developed by “long exercises in wit,” that the novels say “about , which never happens in life,” that there is a noticeable stubborn monotony in the young pianist’s playing, and that Pava’s idiotic remark looks like an obligatory dessert to the regular program.

The author of the story resorts to repetition. In the 1st chapter, the Turkins show the guests “their talents cheerfully, with heartfelt simplicity” - and in the 5th chapter, Vera Iosifovna reads her novels to the guests “still willingly, with heartfelt simplicity.” Ivan Petrovich does not change his program of behavior (with all the changes in his repertoire of jokes). The grown-up Pava is even more ridiculous in repeating his line. Both talents and simplicity of heart are not at all the worst qualities that people can display. (Let’s not forget that the Turkins in the city of S. are really the most interesting.) But their programming, routine, and endless repetition ultimately cause melancholy and irritation in the observer.

The rest of the residents of the city of S., who do not have the talents of the Turkins, also live in a routine way, according to a program about which there is nothing to say except: “Day and night - a day away, life passes dimly, without impressions, without thoughts... During the day profit, and in the evening a club, a society of gamblers, alcoholics, wheezing...”

And so, by the last chapter, Startsev himself turned into something ossified, petrified (“not a man, but a pagan god”), moving and acting according to some forever established program. The chapter describes what Ionych (now everyone calls him that only) does day after day, month after month, year after year. Somewhere, all the living things that had worried him in his youth had disappeared, evaporated. There is no happiness, but there are surrogates, substitutes for happiness - buying real estate, pleasing and fearful respect for others. The Turkins remained in their vulgarity - Startsev degraded. Unable to even stay at the level of the Turkins, in his transformation he slipped even lower, to the level of the “stupid and evil” man in the street, for whom he spoke of contempt before. And this is the result of his existence. “That’s all that can be said about him.”

What was the beginning of the transformation, the slide down the inclined plane? At what point in the story can we talk about the guilt of the hero who did not make efforts to prevent this slide?

Maybe this was the effect of failure in love, becoming a turning point in Startsev’s life? Indeed, throughout his life, “love for Kotik was his only joy and, probably, his last.” A frivolous girl’s joke - to make a date at the cemetery - gave him the opportunity for the first and only time in his life to see “a world unlike anything else - a world where the moonlight is so good and soft,” to touch a secret that “promises a quiet life, beautiful, eternal.” The magical night in the old cemetery is the only thing in the story that does not bear the stamp of familiarity, repetition, or routine. She alone remained stunning and unique in the hero’s life.

The next day there was a declaration of love and Kitty’s refusal. The essence of Startsev’s love confession was that there are no words that can convey the feeling that he experiences, and that his love is limitless. Well, we can say that the young man was not particularly eloquent or resourceful in his explanation. But is it possible on this basis to assume that the whole point is in Startsev’s inability to truly feel, that he didn’t really love, didn’t fight for his love, and therefore couldn’t captivate Kotik?

That’s the point, Chekhov shows, that Startsev’s confession was doomed to failure, no matter how eloquent he was, no matter what efforts he made to convince her of his love.

Kotik, like everyone else in the city of S., like everyone else in the Turkins’ house, lives and acts according to some, seemingly predetermined program (the puppet element is noticeable in her) - a program compiled from books she has read, fed by praise for her piano talents and age, as well as hereditary (from Vera Iosifovna) ignorance of life. She rejects Startsev because life in this city seems empty and useless to her, and that she herself wants to strive for a higher, brilliant goal, and not at all become the wife of an ordinary, unremarkable man, and even with such a funny name. Until life and the passage of time show her the fallacy of this program, any words here will be powerless.

This is one of the most characteristic situations for Chekhov’s world: people are separated, they each live with their own feelings, interests, programs, their own stereotypes of life behavior, their own truths; and at the moment when someone most needs to meet a response, understanding from another person, the other person at that moment is absorbed in his own interest, program, etc.

Here, in “Ionych,” the feeling of love that one person experiences is not reciprocated due to the fact that the girl, the object of his love, is absorbed in her own life program, the only one interesting to her at that moment. Then ordinary people will not understand him, here a loved one does not understand.

After living for some time, taking a few sips “from the cup of existence,” Kotik seemed to understand that she had not lived like that (“Now all the young ladies play the piano, and I also played like everyone else, and there was nothing special about me; I she’s as much a pianist as her mother is a writer.” She now considers her main mistake in the past to be that she did not understand Startsev then. But does she truly understand him now? Suffering, the awareness of missed happiness make Ekaterina Ivanovna out of Kotik, a living, suffering person (now she has “sad, grateful, searching eyes”). At the first explanation, she is categorical, he is unsure, at their last meeting he is categorical, but she is timid, timid, and insecure. But, alas, only a change of programs occurs, but the programming and repetition remain. “What a blessing it is to be a zemstvo doctor, to help the suffering, to serve the people. What happiness!<...>When I thought about you in Moscow, you seemed so ideal, sublime to me...” she says, and we see: these are phrases straight from Vera Iosifovna’s novels, far-fetched works that have nothing to do with real life. It’s as if she again sees not a living person, but a mannequin hero from a novel written by her mother.

And again they are each absorbed in their own things, speaking different languages. She is in love, idealizes Startsev, and longs for a reciprocal feeling. With him, the transformation is almost complete; he is already hopelessly sucked into philistine life, thinking about the pleasure of “pieces of paper.” Having flared up for a short time, “the fire in my soul went out.” From misunderstanding and loneliness, a person, alienated from others, withdraws into his shell. So who is to blame for Startsev’s failure in life, for his degradation? Of course, it is not difficult to blame him or the society around him, but this will not be a complete and accurate answer. The environment determines only the forms in which Ionych’s life will take place, what values ​​he will accept, what surrogates of happiness he will console himself with. But other forces and circumstances gave impetus to the hero’s fall and led him to rebirth.

How to resist time, which does the work of transformation “imperceptibly, little by little”? People are led to misfortune by their eternal disunity, self-absorption, and the impossibility of mutual understanding at the most crucial, decisive moments of existence. And how can a person guess the moment that decides his entire future fate? And only when it is too late to change anything, it turns out that a person has only one bright, unforgettable night in his entire life.

Such sobriety, even cruelty in depicting the tragedy of human existence seemed excessive to many in Chekhov's works. Critics believed that Chekhov was thus “killing human hopes.” Indeed, “Ionych” may seem like a mockery of many bright hopes. We need to work! You cannot live without work! A person must strive for a higher, brilliant goal! Helping the suffering, serving the people - what happiness! Writers before and after Chekhov very often made such and similar ideas central to their works, proclaiming them through the mouths of their heroes. Chekhov shows how life and the passage of time devalue and make meaningless any beautiful ideas. All these are common (albeit indisputable) passages, which cost absolutely nothing to say and write. The graphomaniac Vera Iosifovna, who writes “about what never happens in life,” can fill her novels with them. Startsev would never have become the hero of Vera Iosifovna’s novel: what happened to him is what happens in life.

“Ionych” is a story about how incredibly difficult it is to remain human, even knowing what you should be. A story about the relationship between illusions and real (terrible in its everyday life) life. About real, not illusory difficulties of life.

So, does Chekhov really look so hopelessly at the fate of man in the world and leaves no hope?

Yes, Dmitry Startsev inevitably moves toward becoming Ionych, and in his fate Chekhov shows what can happen to anyone. But if Chekhov shows the inevitability of degradation of an initially good, normal person with the imperceptible passage of time, the inevitability of abandonment of dreams and ideas proclaimed in youth, does it mean that he really kills hopes and calls for leaving them at the threshold of life? And he states together with the hero: “How, in essence, Mother Nature plays bad jokes on man, how offensive it is to realize this!”? So you can understand the meaning of the story only by inattentive reading, without reading the text to the end, without thinking about it.

Isn’t it clear in the last chapter how everything that happened to Ionych is called by its proper name, sharply, directly? Greed has overcome. My throat was swollen with fat. He is lonely, his life is boring. There are no joys in life and there won’t be any more. That's all that can be said about him.

How much contempt is contained in these words! It is obvious that the writer, who throughout the entire story carefully traced the spiritual evolution of the hero, making it possible to understand him, here refuses to justify, does not forgive the degradation leading to such an end.

The meaning of the story told to us can thus be understood at the junction of two principles. Mother Nature really plays a bad joke on man; man is often deceived by life and time, and it is difficult to understand the degree of his personal guilt. But it is so disgusting what a person who has been given everything for a normal, useful life can turn into that there can be only one conclusion: everyone must fight against becoming Ionych, even if there is almost no hope of success in this fight.

Gogol, in a lyrical digression included in the chapter about Plyushkin (and the evolution of Ionych is somewhat reminiscent of the changes that occurred with this Gogol hero), appeals to his young readers with an appeal to preserve with all their might the best that is given to everyone in their youth. Chekhov does not make such special lyrical digressions in his story. He calls for resistance to degradation in an almost hopeless situation throughout his entire text.

"A.P. Chekhov gave a detailed picture of provincial life, in which vulgarity, boredom and hopeless melancholy dominate. Critics also note that the writer showed a huge discrepancy between ideals and real life.

2. History of creation. With the subtitle “The Story of Anton Chekhov,” the work was first published in “Monthly Literary Supplements to the Niva Magazine” (No. 9, 1898).

3. The meaning of the name. “Ionych” is the patronymic of the main character, Doctor Dmitry Startsev. He had earned such familiar treatment for several years of medical practice in the city. It ironically hints at the collapse of the former youthful ideals of the young Startsev.

4. Genre. Story.

5. Theme. The main theme of the work is the victory of the bourgeois lifestyle over the pipe dreams of a young man.

6. Issues. The most educated and talented family in town turns out to be incredibly boring and annoying in reality. Dmitry Startsev's first love is rudely trampled by a spoiled girl who dreams of becoming a great artist. Ionych’s lofty ideas about his work gradually turn into a simple desire to accumulate wealth.

7. Heroes. Dmitry Ionych Startsev, Turkin family (Ivan Petrovich, Vera Iosifovna, Ekaterina Ivanovna).

8. Plot and composition. Dmitry Ionych Startsev was appointed zemstvo doctor to a village located near a small provincial town. He was immediately advised to visit the Turkin family in his free time, where intelligent people gather. Startsev took advantage of the advice. He spent a very pleasant evening. The head of the family joked very wittily and told funny stories. His wife read a fragment of her novel, and his daughter showed off her skill at playing the piano.

Startsev was overwhelmed with work for about a year, and then received an invitation from Vera Iosifovna. From that time on, he began to regularly visit the Turkin family. Dmitry Ionych realized that he had fallen in love with Ekaterina Ivanovna, whom the family affectionately called Kotik. One day he managed to be alone with her. However, the girl avoided the conversation and handed Startsev a note, inviting him to the cemetery at midnight.

The main character guessed that this was just a joke. But love forced him to come at night to the appointed place, where, naturally, there was no one. The next day, Startsev proposed to Kotik. The girl thanked her lover, but stated that the province did not suit her. She dreams of achieving fame and success, which family life will interfere with. Dmitry Ionych was very worried for several days, but after Kotik left for Moscow, he calmed down and stopped visiting the Turkins.

Four years have passed. Startsev became a famous and popular doctor in the city. His income increased, and his range of interests narrowed to a minimum, consisting mainly of playing cards for money. One day he was invited again by the Turkins. Having learned that Ekaterina Ivanovna had also arrived, Startsev accepted the invitation. In a private conversation, Kotick admitted that her dreams were stupid.

The old hopes briefly flared up in Ionych’s soul. But when Ekaterina Ivanovna again spoke about the sublime, he withdrew into himself. The owner's jokes and his wife's affair had not changed at all in four years and caused irritation. Startsev left and never visited the Turkins again. Over the years, Startsev acquired enormous authority in the city. They began to call him Ionych. The doctor has no interests left other than further enrichment. The Turkins led their previous lives, considered a talented family, which in reality consisted of three mediocrities.

9. What does the author teach? Chekhov shows how dangerous the sucking “philistine swamp” can be even for an active young man. The cultural life of the Turkins is just a type of philistinism. Ionych and Kotik part with their ideals, since they have no other choice.