Dolokhov in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's War and Peace apologizes to Pierre on the eve of the Battle of Borodino. In moments of danger, during a period of general tragedy, conscience awakens in this tough man. Bezukhov is surprised by this. Dolokhov shows himself as a decent person when he, with other Cossacks and hussars, frees a party of prisoners, where Pierre will be; when he finds it difficult to speak, seeing Petya lying motionless. Conscience is a moral category, without it it is impossible to imagine a real person.

Issues of conscience and honor are important for Nikolai Rostov. Having lost a lot of money to Dolokhov, he promises himself to return it to his father, who saved him from dishonor. After a while, Rostov will do the same to his father when he enters into an inheritance and accepts all his debts. Could he have acted differently if in his parents' home he was instilled with a sense of duty and responsibility for his actions. Conscience is that internal law that does not allow Nikolai Rostov to act immorally.

2) “The Captain’s Daughter” (Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin).

Captain Mironov is also an example of fidelity to his duty, honor and conscience. He did not betray the Fatherland and the Empress, but chose to die with dignity, boldly throwing accusations in Pugachev’s face that he was a criminal and a state traitor.

3) “The Master and Margarita” (Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov).

The problem of conscience and moral choice closely connected with the image of Pontius Pilate. Woland begins to tell this story, and the main character becomes not Yeshua Ha-Nozri, but Pilate himself, who executed his defendant.

4) “Quiet Don” (M.A. Sholokhov).

Grigory Melekhov in the years civil war led the Cossack hundred. He lost this position due to the fact that he did not allow his subordinates to rob prisoners and the population. (In past wars, robbery was common among the Cossacks, but it was regulated). This behavior of his caused dissatisfaction not only from his superiors, but also from Panteley Prokofievich, his father, who, taking advantage of his son’s opportunities, decided to “profit” from the loot. Panteley Prokofievich had already done this, having visited his eldest son Petro, and was confident that Grigory would allow him to rob the Cossacks who sympathized with the “reds”. Gregory’s position in this regard was specific: he took “only food and horse feed, vaguely afraid of touching someone else’s property and disgusted by robbery.” The robbery of his own Cossacks seemed “particularly disgusting” to him, even if they supported the “Reds”. “Isn’t there enough of your own? You boors! People were shot for such things on the German front,” he says angrily to his father. (Part 6 Chapter 9)

5) “Hero of Our Time” (Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov)

The fact that for an act committed contrary to the voice of conscience, sooner or later there will be retribution is confirmed by the fate of Grushnitsky. Wanting to take revenge on Pechorin and humiliate him in the eyes of his friends, Grushnitsky challenges him to a duel, knowing that Pechorin’s pistol will not be loaded. A vile act towards a former friend, towards a person. Pechorin accidentally learns about Grushnitsky’s plans and, as they show, further events, prevents his own murder. Without waiting for Grushnitsky’s conscience to awaken and him to admit his treachery, Pechorin kills him in cold blood.

6) “Oblomov” (Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov).

Mikhei Andreevich Tarantiev and his godfather Ivan Matveevich Mukhoyarov commit lawless acts against Ilya Ilyich Oblomov several times. Tarantiev, taking advantage of the disposition and trust of the simple-minded and ignorant Oblomov, after getting him drunk, forces him to sign a contract for renting housing on conditions that are extortionate for Oblomov. Later, he will recommend the swindler and thief Zaterty to him as the manager of the estate, telling him about the professional merits of this man. Hoping that Zaterty is indeed a smart and honest manager, Oblomov will entrust him with the estate. There is something frightening in its validity and timelessness in the words of Mukhoyarov: “Yes, godfather, until there are no more idiots in Rus' who sign papers without reading, our brother can live!” (Part 3, Chapter 10). For the third time, Tarantyev and his godfather will oblige Oblomov to pay a non-existent debt under a loan letter to his landlady. How low must a person fall if he allows himself to profit from the innocence, gullibility, and kindness of other people. Mukhoyarov did not even spare his own sister and nephews, forcing them to live almost from hand to mouth, for the sake of their own wealth and well-being.

7) “Crime and Punishment” (Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky).

Raskolnikov, who created his theory of “blood on the conscience,” calculated everything and checked it “arithmetically.” It is his conscience that does not allow him to become “Napoleon”. The death of the “useless” old woman causes unexpected consequences in the lives of the people around Raskolnikov; therefore, when solving moral issues, one cannot trust only logic and reason. “The voice of conscience remains for a long time at the threshold of Raskolnikov’s consciousness, but deprives him of the emotional balance of the “ruler,” dooms him to the torment of loneliness and separates him from people” (G. Kurlyandskaya). The struggle between reason, which justifies blood, and conscience, which protests against shed blood, ends for Raskolnikov with the victory of conscience. “There is one law - the moral law,” says Dostoevsky. Having understood the truth, the hero returns to the people from whom he was separated by the crime he committed.

Lexical meaning:

1) Conscience is a category of ethics that expresses an individual’s ability to exercise moral self-control, to determine from the standpoint of good and evil the attitude towards one’s own and others’ actions and lines of behavior. S. makes his assessments as if independently of practicality. interest, but in reality, in various manifestations, a person’s S. reflects the impact on him of specific. historical, social class living conditions and education.

2) Conscience is one of the qualities human personality(properties of human intellect), ensuring the preservation of homeostasis (the state of the environment and its position in it) and conditioned by the ability of the intellect to model its future state and the behavior of other people in relation to the “carrier” of conscience. Conscience is one of the products of education.

3) Conscience - (shared knowledge, know, know): a person’s ability to be aware of his duty and responsibility to other people, to independently evaluate and control his behavior, to be a judge of his own thoughts and actions. “The matter of conscience is the matter of a person, which he leads against himself” (I. Kant). Conscience is a moral feeling that allows you to determine the value of your own actions.

4) Conscience - the concept of moral consciousness, internal conviction of what is good and evil, consciousness of moral responsibility for one’s behavior; expression of an individual’s ability to exercise moral self-control on the basis of the norms and rules of behavior formulated in a given society, to independently formulate high moral responsibilities for oneself, to demand that one fulfill them and to self-assess one’s actions from the heights of morality and morality.

Aphorisms:

“The strongest feature that distinguishes man from animals is his moral sense, or conscience. And its dominance is expressed in the short but powerful and extremely expressive word “must.” Charles Darwin

“Honor is external conscience, and conscience is internal honor.” And Schopenhauer.

“A clear conscience is not afraid of lies, rumors, or gossip.” Ovid

“Never act against your conscience, even if state interests require it.” A. Einstein

“Often people are proud of the purity of their conscience only because they have a short memory.” L.N. Tolstoy

“How can the heart not be content when the conscience is calm!” D.I. Fonvizin

“Along with state laws, there are also laws of conscience that make up for the omissions of the legislation.” G. Fielding.

“You can’t live without a conscience and with a great mind.” M. Gorky

“Only he who has clothed himself in the armor of lies, impudence and shamelessness will not flinch before the judgment of his conscience.” M. Gorky

  • Updated: May 31, 2016
  • By: Mironova Marina Viktorovna

Sometimes when we do something we don’t even think about the consequences and then very often we regret it, because it’s impossible to fix everything. Only after some time does the realization come. In this text, V.P. Astafiev raises the problem of repentance.

The narrator tells about his shameful act, which he committed in childhood: when the singer’s voice was heard through the loudspeaker, the hero, with words of indignation, pulled the plug out of the socket, thereby setting an example for other children.

Many years later, he found himself at a free symphony concert at a resort where they played

worthy classical music. Almost immediately, the audience began to show their dissatisfaction: leaving the hall “with indignation, shouting, cursing..., as if they had been deceived in their best desires and dreams.” And the narrator sat, shrinking into himself, and listened to the musicians, remembering his act, but that singer “will never hear my repentance, she will not be able to forgive me,” he thought. “Life is not a letter; there is no postscript in it.”

I completely agree with V.P. Astafiev and believe that everyone learns from their mistakes. Having stumbled once and repented, a person forever remembers his act as a moral lesson.

The problem under discussion is so important that many writers raised it in their works, for example, F. M. Dostoevsky in the novel “Crime and Punishment.” The main character Raskolnikov created a theory according to which people are divided into “trembling creatures” and those who have the right.” To test this, Rodion decided to kill, but it did not bring him happiness. With Sonya's help, the hero managed to atone for his sin through repentance.

V.P. Astafiev has a story “A Horse with a Pink Mane”, where he is concerned about the same problem. The hero deceived his grandmother (he put grass at the bottom of a basket of strawberries). But immediately his conscience began to torment him: upon his grandmother’s return, the boy cried bitterly and repented of what he had done; and my grandmother initially believed that he would confess, so she still bought him a “carrot with a horse.”

Thus, anyone can face this problem, and it can be difficult to solve, but those who are able to realize their own mistakes will never repeat them again.


Other works on this topic:

  1. Music is considered a thing so amazing that the heart can listen to everything it says! Sometimes the human soul remains deaf, and all because it is important to grow to...
  2. It is common for every person to commit shameful acts, but not everyone can admit their mistake or repent of what they have done. It is precisely the problem of repentance that Astafiev poses in his text. Thinking...
  3. Repentance is an incredibly important ability human soul. If a person is unable to repent of his bad actions, committed intentionally, this means that, most likely, he...
  4. Every fighter probably experiences hunger in war. But is everyone capable of sharing the last thing they have? The author of this text raises the problem of manifestation of humanity and...
  5. Feat and heroism... What do these two concepts mean to people? What gives rise to “heroic selflessness” – “nobility of people” or “underdevelopment of personality”? This topic became the target...
  6. Poetry is a fire that lights up in the Soul of a person. This fire burns, warms and illuminates. JI. H. Tolstoy Poetry is truly the ocean of the soul. A real poet himself unwittingly...
  7. In the text proposed for analysis, V.P. Astafiev raises the problem of the loss of loved ones and late repentance for them. This is exactly what he is thinking about. This...

Essay requirements for the Unified State Examination last years changed several times, but one thing remained unchanged - the need to prove the correctness of one’s judgments. And for this you need to choose the right arguments.

The problem of repentance will interest us first of all. In this article we will present several options for arguments selected from the school reading list. From it you can choose those that are best suited for your work.

What are arguments for?

When writing an essay for part C, you need to express your opinion regarding the given topic. But your thesis needs evidence. That is, it is necessary not only to express your position, but also to confirm it.

Very often the problem of repentance comes up in exams; it is quite easy to find arguments for it if the student is well acquainted with the school literature curriculum. However, not everyone manages to immediately remember the desired work, so it is better to select several arguments in advance on the most common topics.

What are the arguments?

In order to fully reveal the problem of repentance, arguments must be selected based on the basic requirements of the Unified State Exam in the Russian language. According to them, all evidence is divided into three types:

  • Personal experience, that is, facts taken from your life. They do not have to be reliable, since no one will check whether this actually happened.
  • Information that the student received from the school curriculum. For example, from geography, history, etc. lessons.
  • Literary arguments that will interest us in the first place. This is the reading experience that the examinee must acquire during training.

Arguments from literature

So, we are interested in the problem of repentance. Arguments from the literature will be necessary if you want to get high score for the essay. At the same time, when selecting arguments, you need to give priority attention to those works that are included in the school curriculum or are considered classics. You should not take texts from little-known authors or popular literature (fantasy, detective stories, etc.), as they may be unfamiliar to the inspectors. Therefore, you need to refresh your memory in advance of the main works that were studied during your school years. Usually in one novel or story you can find examples on almost all topics found in the Unified State Examination. The best option would be to immediately select several works that are familiar to you. So, let's look at the classics that raise the issue of repentance.

"The Captain's Daughter" (Pushkin)

The problem of repentance is very common in Russian literature. Therefore, it is quite easy to select arguments. Let's start with our most famous writer A.S. Pushkin and his novel “ Captain's daughter».

At the center of the work is the love of the protagonist Peter Grinev. This feeling is broad and comprehensive, like life. What interests us about this feeling is that it was thanks to him that the hero realized the evil that he had caused to his loved ones, realized his mistakes and was able to repent. Thanks to the fact that Grinev reconsidered his views on life and attitude towards others, he was able to change the future for himself and his beloved.

Thanks to repentance, his best qualities appeared in Peter - generosity, honesty, selflessness, courage, etc. We can say that it changed him and made him a different person.

"Sotnik" (Bykov)

Now let's talk about Bykov's work, which presents a completely different side of the problem of repentance. Arguments from the literature can be different, and you need to choose them depending on your statement, so it’s worth stocking up on a variety of examples.

Thus, the theme of repentance in “The Sotnik” is not at all similar to Pushkin’s. First of all, because the characters themselves are different. Partisan Rybak is captured and in order to survive, he needs to hand over a comrade to the Germans. And he commits this act. But years pass, and the thought of betrayal does not leave him. Repentance overtakes him too late, this feeling can no longer correct anything. Moreover, it does not allow the Fisherman to live in peace.

In this work, repentance did not become an opportunity for the hero to get out of the vicious circle and get rid of suffering. Bykov did not consider Rybak worthy of forgiveness. On the other hand, a person must answer for such crimes throughout his life, since he betrayed not only his friend, but also himself and his loved ones.

“Dark Alleys” (Bunin)

The problem of repentance may appear in a different light. Arguments for an essay on the Unified State Exam should be varied, so let’s take Bunin’s story “Dark Alleys” as an example. In this work, the hero did not have enough strength to admit his mistakes and repent, but retribution overtook him. Once in his youth, Nikolai seduced and abandoned a girl who sincerely loved him. Time passed, but she could not forget her first love, so she refused the advances of other men and preferred solitude. But Nikolai did not find happiness either. Life severely punished him for his crime. The hero's wife constantly cheats on him, and his son has become a real scoundrel. However, all this does not lead him to thoughts of repentance. Here repentance appears before the reader as an act that requires incredible spiritual effort and courage, which not everyone can find within themselves. It is for indecision and lack of will that Nikolai pays.

As an argument, an example from " Dark alleys"is suitable only for those who in their thesis addressed the problem of reckoning and retribution for those who did not repent of their atrocities. Only then will mentioning this work be appropriate.

"Boris Godunov" (Pushkin)

Now let's talk about the problem of delayed repentance. The arguments for this topic will be slightly different, since we will only be interested in one aspect of repentance. So, this problem is perfectly revealed in Pushkin’s tragedy “Boris Godunov”. This example is not only literary, but also partly historical, since the writer turns to the description of epoch-making events that took place in our country.

In "Boris Godunov" the problem of late repentance is very clearly presented. Arguments for written work on this topic must be selected taking into account Pushkin’s tragedy. In the center of the work is the story of Godunov, who ascended the royal throne. However, he had to pay a terrible price for power - to kill the baby, the real heir, Tsarevich Dmitry. Several years have passed, and now the time has come to repent. The hero is no longer able to correct what he has done; he can only suffer and suffer. His conscience haunts him; Godunov begins to see bloody boys everywhere. Those close to the king understand that he is weakening and going crazy. The boyars decide to overthrow the illegal ruler and kill him. Thus, Godunov dies for the same reason as Dmitry. This is the hero’s retribution for a bloody crime, repentance for which overtook him only after several years.

The problem of human repentance. Arguments from Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”

The theme of repentance became the basis for another great work, which gained considerable popularity and love among readers.

The main character commits a crime to prove his inhuman theory about the lower and higher people. Raskolnikov commits murder and begins to suffer, but tries in every possible way to drown out the voice of his conscience. He doesn't want to admit he's wrong. Repentance becomes a turning point in the life and fate of Raskolnikov. It opens the way for him to faith and true values, makes him reconsider his views and realize what is truly precious in this world.

Throughout the entire novel, Dostoevsky led his hero precisely to repentance and recognition of his guilt. This feeling made Raskolnikov's best character traits emerge and made him much more attractive. Although the hero still suffered punishment for his crime, and it turned out to be very severe.

The problem of repentance: arguments from life

Now let's talk about another type of argument. It is very easy to find such examples. Even if nothing like this has ever happened in your life, you can come up with it. However, such arguments are rated lower than literary ones. So, for a good book example you will get 2 points, but for a real example - only one.

Arguments based on personal experience are based on observations of one’s life, the lives of parents, relatives, friends and acquaintances.

Must be remembered

There are several general requirements for any essay, including those that reveal the problem of guilt and remorse. Arguments must necessarily confirm the thesis you have expressed and in no case contradict it. The following points must also be taken into account:

  • Reviewers take into account and evaluate only the first two arguments, so there is no point in giving more examples. It is better to pay attention not to quantity, but to quality.
  • Remember that literary arguments are rated higher, so try to include at least one similar example.
  • Do not forget about examples taken from folklore or folk tales. Similar arguments are also taken into account, but are assessed with only one point.
  • Remember that all arguments are worth 3 points. Therefore, it is best to follow the following scheme: one example from folklore or personal experience, the second is from literature.

Now a few words about how to correctly write a literary argument:

  • Be sure to include the author's last name and initials and the full title of the work.
  • It is not enough to name the writer and the title; you need to describe the main characters, their words, actions, thoughts, but only those that are related to the topic of the essay and your thesis.
  • The approximate amount of text per argument is one or two sentences. But these numbers ultimately depend on the specific topic.
  • Start giving examples only after you have expressed your position.

Summing up

Thus, the problem of repentance is widely represented in literature. Therefore, choosing arguments for the Unified State Exam in the Russian language will not be difficult. The main thing is that all your examples confirm the thesis and look concise and harmonious. Often, the main problem of examinees is not the choice of work, but its description. Expressing an idea in a few sentences is not always easy. In order to avoid such a problem, you need to practice in advance. Take a sheet of paper and try to concisely and clearly describe your opinions, without going beyond the stated volumes.

The main thing is not to lose confidence and prepare as best as possible, then it will not be difficult to get it.

Regional scientific and practical conference for schoolchildren

Essay

/ study/

Theme of sin and repentance

in Russian literature

Performed: 10th grade student

Municipal educational institution "Nebylovskaya Secondary School"

Runova Yulia

Supervisor: teacher Titov S.L.

Unprecedented 2011

1. Introduction. About the problem of sin and repentance. With tr. 3-4

2. The theme of sin and repentance in Russian literature: pp.4-10

· The sinful, lost and ruined soul of Katerina in the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "The Thunderstorm". pp. 4-5

· The great power of compassion and empathy between man and man in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". pp.5-7

· “Test of strength” in Leonid Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot” pp. 8-10

3. Conclusion. Staying in virtue as a manifestation without sinful life. With tr. 10

4. Literature used p.11

1. Introduction

On the problem of sin and repentance

Recently, the question of what is morality and what is immorality has been very acute for people. How to live: according to the laws of a soulless society or according to conscience? This dilemma should concern each of us. The voice of conscience is the inner, secret voice of God in us, and woe to those who do not listen to its advice and demands, who deliberately drown out its voice so as not to hear its judgment and not feel its torment, who leans more towards the side of sin and vice .

In my work, I pursue a goal: to try to understand what is happening. What's the matter? What is the reason that people’s conscience has become coarsened and dulled and a person no longer feels its remorse, he has become unscrupulous? The works of clergy and the works of Russian classics will help me achieve my goal.

As I consider the issue of sin and repentance, I will hopefully strive for self-examination and inner improvement. What does it mean to examine your conscience, to look into your heart? We must not forget: if the heart is filled with petrified insensibility, deathly coldness, then the soul is in danger.

Self-justification, impatience of reproaches, vanity, stubbornness, selfishness and pride - these are the main sins that need to be paid serious attention to. Sin puts a stain on us that cannot be removed by anything other than sincere repentance. There is a good way that leads us to the knowledge of our sins - this is to remember what people accuse us of, especially those living nearby and loved ones. Their comments, accusations, and reproaches are almost always justified. But knowing about your sins does not mean repenting of them. Grief over the evil deeds committed is what is most important in repentance. After great sorrow, the sinner receives great joy and consolation - the unity of the soul with the Almighty. This is the fruit of true humility and repentance. Repentance is not only confession in church, it is a person’s whole life in a feeling of repentance.

There are many pious, intelligent and learned;

There are many truthful, chaste, ready

Help everyone, forgive sometimes, but you can meet a little

With a humble soul - to recognize yourself as the worst of all!

Seeing all the sins in yourself is a feat!

It's the same as hating yourself

This means - to renounce the idol of self-conceit!

This means agreeing to accept all insults.

Pride is the most terrible of all sins, but beautiful humility

Christ Himself became incarnate!

2. The theme of sin and repentance in Russian literature The sinful, lost and ruined soul of Katerina in the drama “The Thunderstorm”.

The theme of sin, retribution and repentance is highly traditional for Russian classical literature. Suffice it to recall such works as “The Enchanted Wanderer” by N.S. Leskova, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N.A. Nekrasov, “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky and many others. The same theme is developed in his socio-psychological drama “The Thunderstorm” by A.N. Ostrovsky, one of the outstanding masters of Russian drama.
The drama "The Thunderstorm", written in 1859 on the basis of real life impressions, paints a vivid picture of the life of a provincial Volga city, a bourgeois-merchant environment. The main character, Katerina Kabanova, is an extraordinary person - sincere, unable to be a hypocrite, freedom-loving and natural. It is difficult for such a woman to get along in a family where everyone submits to a domineering, despotic mother, where a weak-willed and spineless husband cannot serve as support and protection for her. But Katerina is also deeply religious. This alone constitutes the contradiction between the freedom-loving, open nature of the heroine and the preaching of Christian humility and patience. The motive of the thunderstorm, Katerina’s unreasonable fear of this natural phenomenon, is also connected with this: she is afraid not of death, but of the fact that she will die without repentance, without having time to properly perform all the necessary religious rituals. The scary thing is “that death will suddenly find you as you are, with all your sins, with all your evil thoughts,” Katerina admits to Varvara. She considers her nascent love for Boris a “terrible sin,” trying to break and deceive herself that she will love only her husband. The scene of Tikhon's departure is decisive for the further development of the action. Katerina was rudely humiliated by her mother-in-law, Tikhon did not understand and pushed her away, and led Varvara into temptation, giving away the key to the gate. The author is like a master psychological analysis, reveals the heroine’s state of mind: why she, well aware of the sinfulness and forbiddenness of her love, is unable to resist it. She clearly understands that she has “ruined” her soul, and for her this is the most terrible tragedy. Katerina is not interested in the opinions of others, public reputation - all this is petty and insignificant compared to the tragedy of a soul ruined by mortal sin. “If I was not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment?” - she says to Boris. Therefore, “The Thunderstorm” is not so much a tragedy of love as a tragedy of conscience, collapse inner world a heroine forced to live by the rules of hypocritical public morality.

In the scene of Katerina’s public repentance, Ostrovsky again shows himself to be a subtle psychologist: he again connects the heroine’s state of mind with the motif of a thunderstorm, and we see how every seemingly little thing affects the further outcome of events. Random remarks from passersby, threats from a crazy lady, a fresco on the wall of the chapel - all this drop by drop fills the heroine’s patience, and she falls to her knees, confessing to the sin she has committed. Again, the contrast between a truly believing soul and the hypocritical behavior of ordinary people is revealed. There is no place for forgiveness or mercy. In response to Kuligin’s words that enemies need to be forgiven, Tikhon replies: “Go, talk to your mother, what will she tell you about this.” Boris Grigorievich is also weak, unable to protect Katerina. The poor woman dreams of her last date, considering only herself to blame for everything. She dreams of death as a release from torment; now she doesn’t care: “I’ve already ruined my soul.” And having said goodbye to Boris, she realizes even more clearly that she has no reason to live anymore: she is disgusted with the house, its walls, and people. An already ruined soul is indifferent to the sin of suicide; what is much more important to it is that “you cannot live.” Katerina’s suicide was regarded in criticism in different ways: both as a protest of the individual against the foundations of the “dark kingdom” (NA. Dobrolyubov), and as simply stupidity (D.I. Pisarev). But we can probably talk about the tragedy of a truly religious person in a world of generally accepted hypocritical morality, where sin is simply covered up by external appearances and lies, and there is no place for forgiveness and mercy. Katerina paid dearly for her originality, exclusivity, and desire for love and happiness. Will retribution come to this society for its lost soul? Can Tikhon’s words, thrown to his mother in anger, be considered an epiphany: “Mama, you ruined her...” It is unlikely that anything will change in the life of the city of Kalinov, although the revolutionary democrats claimed that in “The Thunderstorm” there is a clear sense of “that something refreshing and encouraging” (N.A. Dobrolyubov). But character main character, a sincere, bright personality, capable of selfless love and dedication, has become one of the brightest characters in Russian drama and arouses the sympathy of readers, even despite the fact that the heroine is a sinful, lost soul.

The great power of compassion and sympathy between man and man in Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”

The novel “Crime and Punishment” was written by Dostoevsky after hard labor, when the writer’s views took on a religious overtones. Convinced that it is impossible to avoid evil in any social structure, that evil comes from the human soul, the author of the novel rejected the revolutionary path of transforming society. Raising the question only of the moral improvement of each person, the writer turned to religion.

Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova are the two main characters of the novel, appearing as two oncoming streams. Their worldview forms the ideological part of the work. Sonya Marmeladova is Dostoevsky’s moral ideal. She brings with her the light of hope, faith, love and sympathy, tenderness and understanding. For Sonya, all people have the same right to life. She is firmly convinced that no one can achieve happiness, both their own and that of others, through crime. A sin remains a sin, no matter who commits it and for what purpose.

Sonya Marmeladova and Rodion Raskolnikov exist in complete different worlds. They are like two opposite poles, but cannot exist without each other. The image of Raskolnikov embodies the idea of ​​rebellion, while the image of Marmeladova embodies the idea of ​​humility and repentance. Sonya is a highly moral, deeply religious woman. She believes in the deep inner meaning of life, she does not understand Raskolnikov’s ideas about the meaninglessness of everything that exists. She sees the predestination of God in everything and believes that nothing depends on man. Its truth is God, love, humility. The meaning of life for her lies in the great power of compassion and empathy from person to person.

Moral problems associated with sin and repentance have always worried Russian literature. A. S. Pushkin staged it extensively in the drama “Boris Godunov.” In an era of social unrest main character works - the future Tsar Boris - commits a crime, which he commits with the wrong hands. This event is the murder of the son of Ivan the Terrible, heir to the Russian throne in Uglich. Throughout his subsequent life, Boris Godunov tries to justify himself before fate and the people, carrying out various reforms in his life, performing good deeds. But all his endeavors are doomed to complete failure. The country is overtaken by hunger, destruction, and disease.

F. M. Dostoevsky raised the problem of sin and repentance especially acutely in his work. This theme is painted in tragic tones, and the tragedy unfolds in everyday life, at the objective level. But he depicts this life far from the way other realist writers did - the whole universe condenses before the reader.

In the novels of this writer, there is a conflict between a strong personality and his conscience. The sin that his heroes commit is closely related to the idea that has taken possession of the character.

This is especially evident in the novel Crime and Punishment. The plot, the conflict of the work is outlined by the author already in the title. Punishment for a sin committed is inevitable, inescapable, such is the law of life. Moreover, the hero’s most terrible punishment is expressed in his moral torment, in his repentance.

Repentance among Dostoevsky's heroes is often embodied in the motives of madness or suicide. An example of this is fever, depression, Raskolnikov’s illness and Svidrigailov’s suicide. If the hero remains alive, he begins new life- and every time through hard labor (Raskolnikov, Rogozhin, Mitya Karamazov).

The problem of moral sin and repentance was raised not only by F. M. Dostoevsky, but also by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. If Raskolnikov in the novel “Crime and Punishment” commits a crime not only against his conscience, but also punishable by law, then the main character of the novel “Lord Golovlevs” Judushka slowly, purposefully, imperceptibly leads to the destruction of the entire Golovlev family.

This novel - a family chronicle - can rightly be called the story of the dead. At first tragically own home the eldest son Stepka the dunce dies, followed by Porfiry’s younger brother Pashka the quiet one, Anna Petrovna’s daughter Lyubinka commits suicide, all of Judushka’s children die - the elder Vladimir and little Petenka. The “head of the house” Arina Petrovna also dies in misfortune.

Judas is directly responsible for the death of every family member. With his fanatical speeches and meanness, he deceived, brought the closest people to the brink solely for the sake of monetary gain, in order to get his mother’s estate. At the end of his dissolute, vile life, a small chance appears for the revival of the family - the birth of a son, Petenka. But Judas orders his mother to kill the unborn child. At the end of the novel, the writer shows the awakening of the hero's conscience, but this awakening does not lead to a moral revival of the individual. Enlightenment comes sooner or later for everyone, but for Judas it came too late, when nothing could be changed.

Thus, the theme of sin and repentance runs through the work of many Russian writers. They paid great attention to cultivating a person's moral sense. Retribution inevitably comes to criminals in various forms: terrible visions, dreams, illnesses, death. A feeling of shame can revive a person to a new life free from torment. But often this feeling comes to the heroes too late. It is noteworthy that at one time T. Mann called Russian literature “sacred” precisely for its attention to the problems of conscience, sin, retribution and human repentance.