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Nikolenka Irtenyev is a boy from a noble family, he lives and is raised according to established rules, and is friends with children from the same families. He loves his parents and is proud of them. But Nikolenka’s childhood years were restless. He experienced a lot of disappointment in the people around him, including those closest to him.
As a child, Nikolenka especially strived for goodness, truth, love and beauty. And the source of all the most beautiful things for him during these years was his mother. With what love he remembers the sounds of her voice, which were “so sweet and welcoming,” the gentle touches of her hands, “a sad, charming smile.” Nikolenka’s love for her mother and love for God “somehow strangely merged into one feeling,” and this made his soul feel “light, bright and joyful,” and he began to dream about “that God would give happiness to everyone, so that everyone was happy..."
Big role in spiritual development the boy was played by a simple Russian woman - Natalya Savishna. “Her whole life was pure, selfless love and selflessness,” she instilled in Nikolenka the idea that kindness is one of the main qualities in a person’s life.
Nikolenka acutely senses falsehood and deception, and punishes herself for noticing these qualities in herself. One day he wrote a poem for his grandmother's birthday, which included a line saying that he loved his grandmother like his own mother. His mother had already died by that time, and Nikolenka reasoned like this: if this line is sincere, it means that he stopped loving his mother; and if he still loves his mother, it means that he committed falsehood in relation to his grandmother. The boy is very tormented by this.
A large place in the story is occupied by the description of the feeling of love for people, and this child’s ability to love others delights Tolstoy. But the author at the same time shows how the world of big people, the world of adults, destroys this feeling. Nikolenka was attached to the boy Seryozha Ivin, but did not dare to tell him about his affection, did not dare take his hand, say how glad he was to see him, “did not even dare to call him Seryozha, but certainly Sergei,” because “every expression of sensitivity It also proved childishness that the one who allowed himself to do so was still a boy.” Having grown up, the hero more than once regretted that in childhood, “not having yet gone through those bitter trials that lead adults to caution and coldness in relationships,” he deprived himself of “the pure pleasures of tender childish affection due to the strange desire to imitate the big ones.” .
Nikolenka’s attitude towards Ilenka Grap reveals another trait in his character, which also reflects the bad influence of the world of the “big” on him. Ilenka Grap was from a poor family, he became the subject of ridicule and bullying from the boys in Nikolenka Irtenyev’s circle, and Nikolenka also participated in this. But then, as always, I felt a feeling of shame and remorse. Nikolenka Irteniev often deeply repents of her bad actions and acutely experiences her failures. This characterizes him as a thinking person, capable of analyzing his behavior and a person beginning to mature.
This is a little ten-year-old boy with a kind, sensitive heart, a lively and impressionable soul. The formation of Nikolenka’s character takes place among various people close to him: parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, courtyard servants. Relationships with each of them leave a unique mark in the boy’s heart, influencing state of mind, thoughts and feelings of Nikolenka. A responsive and impressionable child carefully observes not only events occurring in the external world, but also changes in his own inner world. This attentiveness to all the movements of her own soul helps Nikolenka cope with many problems and draw the right conclusions. It seems to me that in the future Nikolenka will grow into a kind, observant, sympathetic and honest person.
Do you believe that Nikolenka thought about all the questions that are listed in this chapter? Do you understand his thoughts and feelings?
The author himself assumes that readers will not believe that the issues he writes about in the chapter were interesting to him in his adolescence. Let's call them: the question of the purpose of man, of the future life, of the immortality of the soul. At the same time, he believed that it was he who was the first to discover great and useful truths.
It is worth thinking about whether it seemed to each of us that we were the ones who discovered certain truths.
How did Nikolenka want to test his moral strength? Why did he do this?
Nikolenka came up with a variety of tests for himself: he whipped himself with a rope to strengthen his will, held heavy dictionaries (lexicons) in his hands in order to become stronger, suddenly abandoned his lessons, since it was unknown how long his life would last and he needed to use the present... All these He carried out testing and testing methods, first of all, to harden himself.
Have you thought about symmetry? Try discussing this problem with Nikolenka.
Not every sixth grader can discuss symmetry issues. However, everyone can remember how Nikolenka discussed these issues. So, for him, the question of symmetry unexpectedly grew into the question of eternity and human life. At the same time, he was distracted and immediately began to think about the soul of the water horse that he saw from the window. One smile from his brother, who noticed his condition, was enough for Nikolenka to conclude: “... everything I was thinking about was the most terrible gil (nonsense).”
Do you understand what skepticism is? How do you explain why Nikolenka was interested in him?
Having learned about skepticism, Nikolenka began to doubt the existence of everything that was around him. He even tried to see... emptiness if you quickly looked in the opposite direction. This hobby was also supported by the boy’s egoism, since it gave him the right to consider himself the only one in the whole world.
Reference. Skepticism is a philosophical position that is characterized by doubt about the existence of any reliable criterion of truth.
Why did the teenager Nikolenka “go crazy”?
Nikolenka believed that at this time he, with his hobbies for the philosophy of skepticism, was close to madness. But the author - the adult Nikolenka - saw that reflections on complex issues, which were beyond the strength of the boy’s mind, only caused a habit of abstract thinking that was not beneficial. It was precisely from abstract and overwhelming thoughts that his “mind went crazy.”
Do you agree that Nikolenka made philosophical discoveries?
L. N. Tolstoy himself realized that he had not been able to make any philosophical discoveries in his adolescence and that they were hardly within the capabilities of any adult, even very smart person. As an adult, the author wrote: “...the philosophical discoveries that I made extremely flattered my vanity: I often imagined myself to be a great man...”
Triathlon 2/3
"Adolescence" symbolically begins with a journey. Our life is all a journey, but no other period of life moves as quickly as that very transitional age. Childhood ends, and before adult life still far away.
Again, extraordinary landscapes by Tolstoy, adult affairs (driving a chaise, for example) and the first adult questions. Rich and poor are a contradiction, with which it is not clear what to do, how the usual order of things can suddenly be disrupted because of this contradiction and you will have to part with your loved one. “Has it happened to you, reader, at a certain time in your life, to suddenly notice that your view of things is completely changing, as if all the objects that you had seen before suddenly turned to you with a different, still unknown side?” And the child began to see the world differently; it turned out that other people with their own destinies and opinions live in it. This is probably how growing up happens, and Tolstoy gives us the opportunity to spy a little on this process. The girls have changed, the older brother, father, grandmother, teacher, the whole world and himself have changed.
Again, psychological observations in the form of rules: “... I am convinced that nothing has such a striking influence on a person’s direction as his appearance, and not so much his appearance as the conviction of its attractiveness or unattractiveness.” The tendency to analyze oneself and others increases in this part. The author dissects all the movements of the soul that he undertakes to describe, and draws conclusions from all the incidents. I would like to invite a psychoanalyst to many episodes (the story of Karl Ivanovich and his doom for unhappiness since childhood, Nikolenka’s struggle with her unattractiveness, attitude towards the female sex, etc.). Tolstoy, however, does not wait for someone else’s analysis of his text and himself introduces into it the conclusions of psychologists about adolescence. The feelings of a teenager and his conviction of universal dislike and even hatred, thoughts that he is step-brother to his parents or father, loneliness and hysterical closeness to suicide are very accurately described.
And again the heart sank - now from how adults can be so insensitive and not understand how difficult it is for a child, and offer one solution for all cases - punishment. Over time, everything will be forgotten and smoothed out, but why not just give children love when they need it so much. And then someone’s praise would not be so important for them (“Praise has such a powerful effect not only on a person’s feelings, but also on the mind that under its pleasant influence it seemed to me that I had become much smarter, and thoughts one after another with came into my head with extraordinary speed") and they would have been more independent and happy in their young and adult lives.
No scarier than people than adults, and Tolstoy shows this very subtly. I don't know if everyone needs to read this. I will refrain from making recommendations. I’m moving on myself - to Youth))
March 06 2015
I involuntarily want to run through the desert of adolescence... It seems to me that adolescence in a person’s life is the most difficult period. You involuntarily ask the question: “Why?” In childhood, a person appears in its outer rainbow form.
Joys seem to the child to be the norm of life, and sorrows - a deviation from the norm. In youth, a person’s character, his views on life are almost formed, he is not afraid of the difficulties ahead of him, he begins to feel his way in life. And adolescence is the period of development of a person’s character, when he is no longer a child, but not yet an adult.
This is a period of painful searching for a teenager who begins to comprehend life, his actions and the actions of the people around him, trying to ask himself questions. And indeed, after reading the trilogy of L.N. Tolstoy, you see this. Many writers have addressed this topic. But, it seems to me, L.N. understands and shows the process of personality formation better than others. N. G. Chernyshevsky noted: “In early works L.N. Tolstoy’s deep knowledge of the secret movements of psychological life, the ability to identify the mental process, its forms, its laws, the depiction of the dialectics of the soul through an internal monologue.”
L.N. Tolstoy calls the period of adolescence a “desert.” At this time, the child's behavior becomes special. Main character trilogy - Nikolai Irtenev. leaves in his soul joyful memories of love and care for him. “Happy, happy, irrevocable time of childhood, how can one not love and cherish the memories of it.” But as he grows, conflicts with himself begin to arise more and more often, and Nikolenka tries to drown out these contradictions within himself. As a child, Nikolenka’s father was something unattainable, the embodiment of an ideal, but time passes and he becomes disillusioned with his father, an egoist and gambler.
“In general, he is gradually descending in my eyes from that unattainable height to which his childhood imagination placed him.” During this period, “the mind lives independently of the heart” of a person. It seems to Nikolenka that universal love, affection and tenderness are replaced by punishment and anger. And in his still childhood imagination the question arises about the legality of his birth; he thought that the reason for the changed attitude towards him was his illegitimacy. Nikolenka often begins to think about death, remembering her mother.
At this time, distrust of God appeared, because he sees injustice towards himself, and at this age a person becomes especially vulnerable and takes everything “close to his heart.” “Then the thought of God comes to me, and I boldly ask him: why is he punishing me? I seem to remember to pray morning and evening, so why am I suffering? I can positively say that the first step towards the religious doubts that troubled me during my adolescence was taken by me now, not because misfortune prompted me to grumble and unbelief, but because the thought of the injustice of Providence that came into my head at that time complete mental disorder and daily copying is prohibited 2005 solitude...” This age is also characterized by such a trait as egocentrism.
In adolescence, a person often begins to get involved in various philosophical theories and see yourself as a great person. “However, the philosophical discoveries that I made extremely flattered my vanity: I often imagined myself as a great man, discovering new truths for the benefit of all mankind, and with a proud consciousness of my dignity I looked at other mortals...” But almost always these dreams lead to disappointment, which makes the idea of loneliness even worse.
As we grow older, many of the martyrdom thoughts of adolescence begin to fade. According to Tolstoy - Nikolenka, “one main drawback remains - a tendency to philosophize.” He begins to analyze all his thoughts, and sometimes it reaches the point of absurdity. And this makes him even more lonely, because it seems to him that no one understands him and no one can help him. That is why L.N. Tolstoy calls adolescence a “desert” - a time of loneliness, reflection and dreams.
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