Poor Lisa's life story. Analysis of the story of N

The writing

The story of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin "Poor Liza" is rightfully considered the pinnacle of Russian prose of sentimentalism. Prose, putting the life of the heart and the manifestation of human feelings at the forefront.

Perhaps, in our days, when life values \u200b\u200bare displaced, you will not see anyone by aggression, betrayal and murder, “Poor Liza” will seem to someone a naive work, far from the truth of life, the feelings of the heroes are incredible, and the whole story is sweet, sweet a taste of excessive sentimentality. But "Poor Liza", written by Karamzin in 1792, will forever remain critical step, a milestone in the history of Russian literature. This story is an inexhaustible source of themes, ideas and images for all subsequent Russian authors.

In this work, I would like to dwell on the image of Liza and on the role that this image played for the entire Russian literature.

There are several characters in the story: the peasant Lisa, her mother, the nobleman Erast and the narrator. The core of the plot is the love story between Erast and Lisa. There are many stories in which a man seduces and then abandons a girl. But the peculiarity of the story of Liza and Erast is that it was precisely this alignment of forces in Russia of the eighteenth century that was the most common: a gentleman, landowner, nobleman, taking advantage of his position, without a twinge of conscience, without punishment, and, most importantly, without condemning society, seduces a girl, which is below him in social status.

For the first time, Lisa's name appears in the title of the story. Already at this stage, we can understand that it is the female image that will become the main one in the work. In addition, from the title we can catch the author's attitude to Liza: he calls her “poor”.

The second time we meet with Lisa in the narrator's recollections: "More often than not, I am attracted to the walls of Si ... the new monastery is the memory of the deplorable fate of Liza, poor Liza." Judging by the epithets that the narrator uses when talking about Liza ("beautiful", "amiable"), it may seem to the reader that the narrator was a man in love with Liza, and only after reading the story to the end, we understand that he simply regrets the poor girl. In general, the narrator in the story is the spokesman for the author's attitude, and Karamzin loves his heroine. What for?

Liza is a peasant, she lives in a hut "with an old woman, her mother." Liza's father, a "well-to-do peasant" died, therefore "his wife and daughter were impoverished" and "were forced to give their land for rent, and for very little money." Her mother could not work, and “Liza, who was fifteen years old after her father, - Liza alone, not sparing her tender youth, not sparing her rare beauty, worked day and night - weaving canvases, knitting stockings, in the spring tore flowers, and in the summer she took berries and sold them in Moscow. " We are not yet familiar with the heroine, but we already understand that she is hardworking, ready to sacrifice for the sake of her loved ones.

Gradually, step by step, Karamzin reveals to us the deep and surprisingly pure soul of the protagonist. She has a very soft and sensitive heart: “often tender Liza could not hold back her own tears - ah! she remembered that she had a father and that he was gone, but to calm her mother she tried to hide the sadness of her heart and to seem calm and cheerful. " She is very shy and timid. At the first meeting with Erast, Liza is constantly flushed with embarrassment: "She showed him the flowers and blushed."

The main character of the story is extremely honest. Her honesty towards other people is shown in the episode with the purchase of flowers: when Erast offers Lisa a ruble instead of five kopecks, she replies that she “doesn’t need anything extra”. In addition, the heroine is ridiculously naive: she easily tells where her house is to the first person she likes.

When describing the main character, attention is drawn to her speech characteristics. It is on this basis that we can say that the image of Lisa as a representative of her class has not been worked out clearly enough. Her speech betrays in her not a peasant woman living by her hard work, but rather an airy young lady from high society. “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant, a shepherd, - and if he now drove his flock past me; Oh! I would bow to him with a smile and say kindly: “Hello, dear shepherd! Where are you driving your flock? "And here it grows green grass for your sheep, and here flowers shine, from which you can weave a wreath for your hat. " But, despite this, it was the image of Lisa that became the first image of a woman from the people in Russian literature. In this, progressive for the 18th century, attempt to bring to the stage a heroine unusual for a love story - a young lady, namely a peasant woman, is laid deep meaning... Karamzin, as it were, destroys the boundaries between the estates, pointing out that all people are equal before God and before love, "because peasant women know how to love."

Another innovation of Karamzin was the very interpretation of the female image. Recall that in the eighteenth century, women did not have sufficient freedom. In particular, the woman did not have the freedom to love of her own choosing. The choice for the woman was made by her parents. It is easy to imagine that in this state of affairs, happy marriages, in which the spouses loved each other, were hardly a frequent occurrence. An attempt to love at will, contrary to public opinion, was regarded as a crime against morality. This theme, proposed by Karamzin, will also be reflected in the works of later authors. In particular, Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky.

But in Poor Liza, the author allowed his heroine to fall in love. To love at the behest of the heart, of our own free will. To love ardently, passionately and forever. “When you,” Liza said to Erast, “when you say to me:“ I love you, my friend! ”, When you press me to your heart and look at me with sweet eyes, ah! Then it happens to me so well, so well that I forget myself, I forget everything except Erast. Wonderful? It's wonderful, my friend, that I, without knowing you, could live peacefully and cheerfully! Now I do not understand this, now I think that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. The bright month is dark without your eyes; the singing nightingale is boring without your voice; without your breath the breeze is unpleasant to me.

The author allowed the heroine to love and does not condemn her for it. On the contrary, it is Erast who seems to the reader to be a scoundrel and a villain, after he, having deceived, abandons Lisa. The author condemns his hero, who does not pass the test of the most powerful feeling on earth - love. This "test by love" technique will become very important in the work of the great Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. He will find his fullest embodiment in the novels "Fathers and Sons", "Rudin", "Noble Nest". In Goncharov's novel Oblomov, the main character also had to pass the test of love.

Hero of Karamzin, Erast, betrayed and killed love. For this he will be punished after the death of Liza. He "until the end of his life" will be unhappy: "Having learned about the fate of Lizina, he could not be comforted and considered himself a murderer." At the end of the story we learn that Erast is dying: the narrator "met him a year before his death."

Lisa not only passes the test of love. Her image in love is revealed in all its fullness and beauty. “As for Liza, she completely surrendered to him, she only lived and breathed, in everything, like a lamb, obeyed his will and in his pleasure laid her happiness ...”

In general, Lisa is endowed with almost all Christian virtues. Even in a difficult moment, in separation from her beloved, she discovers such wonderful qualities as respect for her parents and a willingness to sacrifice everything for her beloved. “What keeps me from flying after dear Erast? War is not terrible for me; scary where my friend is not. I want to live with him, I want to die with him, or by my death to save his precious life. " “She already wanted to run after Erast, but the thought; "I have a mother!" - stopped her. "

One of the most important points in revealing the image of Liza - this is her suicide. The purest, angelic soul commits a sin, which was considered and is considered one of the most terrible in Christianity. The heroine was distraught with grief. “I can't live,” Liza thought, “I can't! .. Oh, if the sky had fallen on me! If the land swallowed up the poor! .. No! The sky doesn't fall; the earth does not shake! Woe is me!". “She left the city and suddenly saw herself on the bank of a deep pond, under the shade of ancient oaks, which for several weeks before had been silent witnesses of her raptures. This memory shook her soul; the most terrible heartache was shown on her face ... she threw herself into the water. "

Lisa's suicide makes her image vivid and tragic. Liza appears before us as another, unable to withstand grief, broken, mocked. The most important thing in her life, destiny and higher meaning - love. And Lisa dies. It's amazing how the author relates to the death of his heroine. Although Karamzin, remembering that suicide is a sin, does not give Liza's soul any rest. In the empty hut, “the wind howls, and the superstitious villagers, hearing this noise at night, say; “There is a dead man groaning; poor Liza is groaning there! " But the writer forgives his heroine. The mysterious phrase of the narrator - "When we see you there, in a new life, I will recognize you, tender Lisa!" - reveals to us all the author's love for his heroine. Karamzin believes that his Liza, this purest soul, will go to heaven, to a new life.

For the first time in Karamzin, a woman acts as the highest moral ideal. It was the woman who Karamzin intended to introduce into Russian literature such an important and defining theme as the elevation of the human spirit through suffering. And, finally, it was Karamzin who determined that female images in Russian literature will be educators of feelings.

New life for Lisa, or rather for her image, began much later, in the next century. Liza was reborn again in the heroines of Pushkin, Turgenev, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Ostrovsky, Tolstoy. The image of poor Lisa anticipated a whole gallery of beautiful female Russian characters: from Pushkin's Lisa from The Young Peasant Woman and Dunya from The Station Keeper to Katerina Kabanova from The Bride and Katyusha Maslova from Voskresenya.

Other compositions on this work

The story "Poor Liza", written by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, became one of the first works of sentimentalism in Russia. The love story of a poor girl and a young nobleman won the hearts of many of the writer's contemporaries and was received with great enthusiasm. The work brought unprecedented popularity to the then completely unknown 25-year-old writer. However, with what descriptions does the story "Poor Liza" begin?

History of creation

NM Karamzin was notable for his love for Western culture and actively preached its principles. His role in the life of Russia was enormous and invaluable. This progressive and active man traveled extensively throughout Europe in 1789-1790, and upon his return he published the story Poor Liza in the Moscow Journal.

An analysis of the story shows that the work has a sentimental aesthetic orientation, which is expressed in interest in, regardless of their social status.

At the time of writing the story, Karamzin lived in a country house with his friends, not far from which he was located.It is believed that he served as the basis for the beginning of the work. Thanks to this, the love story and the heroes themselves were perceived by readers as completely real. And the pond not far from the monastery began to be called "Lizin's pond".

"Poor Liza" by Karamzin as a sentimental story

"Poor Liza" is, in fact, a short story, in the genre of which no one in Russia before Karamzin wrote. But the novelty of the writer is not only in the choice of genre, but also in the direction. It was for this story that the title of the first work of Russian sentimentalism was fixed.

Sentimentalism originated in Europe in the 17th century and focused on the sensual side human life... Issues of reason and society went by the wayside for this direction, but emotions, human relationships became a priority.

Sentimentalism has always sought to idealize what is happening, embellish. Answering the question of what descriptions the story "Poor Liza" begins with, we can talk about the idyllic landscape that Karamzin draws for readers.

Theme and idea

One of the main themes of the story is social, and it is connected with the problem of the relationship of the nobility to the peasants. It is not for nothing that Karamzin chooses a peasant girl for the role of the bearer of innocence and morality.

Opposing the images of Liza and Erast, the writer is one of the first to raise the problem of contradictions between town and country. If we turn to what descriptions the story "Poor Liza" begins with, then we will see a quiet, cozy and natural world existing in harmony with nature. The city, on the other hand, frightens, terrifies with its "bulk of houses", "golden domes". Lisa becomes a reflection of nature, she is natural and naive, there is no falsehood and pretense in her.

The author speaks in the story from the position of a humanist. Karamzin depicts all the charm of love, its beauty and strength. But reason and pragmatism can easily destroy this wonderful feeling... The story owes its success to the incredible attention to the person's personality, his experiences. "Poor Liza" aroused sympathy among its readers thanks to Karamzin's amazing ability to portray all the emotional subtleties, experiences, aspirations and thoughts of the heroine.

Heroes

A complete analysis of the story "Poor Liza" is impossible without a detailed examination of the images of the main characters of the work. Lisa and Erast, as noted above, embodied different ideals and principles.

Lisa is an ordinary peasant girl, whose main feature is the ability to feel. She acts according to the dictates of her heart and feelings, which ultimately led her to death, although her morality remained intact. However, there is little peasant in the image of Liza: her speech and thoughts are closer to the language of books, but the feelings of a girl who fell in love for the first time are conveyed with incredible truthfulness. So, despite the external idealization of the heroine, her internal experiences are transmitted very realistically. In this respect, the story "Poor Liza" does not lose its innovation.

What descriptions does the work begin with? First of all, consonant with the character of the heroine, helping the reader to recognize her. It is a natural idyllic world.

Erast appears completely different to the readers. He is an officer who is puzzled only by the search for new entertainment, life in the light tires him and makes him bored. He is not stupid, kind, but weak in character and changeable in his affections. Erast really falls in love, but does not think about the future at all, because Lisa is not of his circle, and he will never be able to marry her.

Karamzin complicated the image of Erast. Usually such a hero in Russian literature was simpler and endowed with certain characteristics. But the writer makes him not an insidious seducer, but a sincerely in love person who, due to weakness of character, could not pass the test and keep his love. This type of hero was new to Russian literature, but immediately caught on and was later called the "superfluous person".

Plot and originality

The plot of the work is rather straightforward. This is the story of the tragic love of a peasant woman and a nobleman, the result of which was the death of Lisa.

What descriptions does Poor Liza begin with? Karamzin paints a natural panorama, the bulk of the monastery, a pond - it is here, surrounded by nature, that the main heroine lives. But the main thing in the story is not the plot and not the description, the main thing is the feelings. And the narrator must awaken these feelings in the audience. For the first time in Russian literature, where the image of the narrator has always remained outside the work, a hero-author appears. This sentimental narrator learns a love story from Erast and retells it to the reader with sadness and sympathy.

Thus, the story has three main characters: Lisa, Erast and the author-narrator. Karamzin also introduces the technique of landscape descriptions and somewhat facilitates the heavyweight style of the Russian literary language.

The meaning of the story "Poor Liza" for Russian literature

An analysis of the story, therefore, shows Karamzin's incredible contribution to the development of Russian literature. In addition to describing the relationship between the city and the countryside, the appearance of an "extra man", many researchers note the birth of a "little man" - in the image of Lisa. This work influenced the work of A.S. Pushkin, F.M.Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, who developed the themes, ideas and images of Karamzin.

The incredible psychologism that brought world fame to Russian literature also gave birth to the story "Poor Liza". What descriptions does this work begin with! How much beauty, originality and incredible stylistic lightness they have! One cannot overestimate the contribution of Karamzin to the development of Russian literature.

Liza is a young innocent girl who lives near Moscow alone with her mother, who constantly shed tears for her early deceased husband, and Lisa had to do all the housework and take care of her. Liza was very honest and naive, she used to trust people, she had whole character, that is, if she gave herself up to any feeling or deed, then she performed this action completely, to the end. At the same time, she did not know life at all, because all the time she lived with a God-fearing mother, away from all sorts of noisy village entertainments.

Mother calls Liza "amiable", "sweet": Karamzin puts these epithets into the mouth of a peasant woman, proving that peasant women also have a sensitive soul.

Lisa believed the young beautiful Erast, because she really liked him, and she, moreover, had never met with such an elegant manner. She fell in love with Erast, but her love was platonic love, she did not perceive herself as a woman at all. At first, this suited Erast, because after a depraved metropolitan life he wanted to take a break from constant sexual intrigues, but after that he inevitably became interested in Lisa as a woman, because she was very beautiful. Liza did not understand this, she only felt how something had changed in their relationship, and it worried her. Erast's departure to the war was a real misfortune for her, but she could not even think that Erast had any plans of her own ... When she saw Erast in Moscow and talked to him, she experienced a great shock. All her gullibility and naivety were deceived and cast down and dust. As an extremely impressionable person, she could not withstand such a blow. Her whole life, which had previously seemed clear and direct to her, turned into a monstrous jumble of incomprehensible events. Lisa could not survive Erast's betrayal and committed suicide. Of course, such a decision was a desperate means of getting away from solving a life problem that faced her, and Lisa could not cope with it. Frightened real life and the need to get out of the illusory world, she chose to perish helplessly, rather than fight and try to understand life as it really is.

You can use a modern analogy that describes such situations very well: she was so immersed in the "Matrix" that real world turned out to be hostile to her and tantamount to the complete disappearance of the personality.

1. New!

   The story "Poor Lisa" is the best piece NM Karamzin and one of the most perfect examples of Russian sentimental literature. It contains many beautiful episodes describing subtle emotional experiences. The work has beautiful ...

The story of N. M. Karamzin "Poor Liza" was one of the first sentimental works of Russian literature of the 18th century. Its plot is very simple - a weak-minded, albeit kind nobleman Erast falls in love with a poor peasant girl Liza. Their love ends ...

Lisa is a poor peasant girl. She lives with her mother ("sensitive, kind old woman") in the village. To earn her living, Lisa takes on any job. In Moscow, selling flowers, the heroine meets a young nobleman Erast and falls in love ...

2. New!

   Erast was a wealthy young nobleman, jaded and tired of life. He had good inclinations and tried to be honest to the best of his ability; at least he understood what he was doing sincerely and what was not. We can say that wealth spoiled him because he ...

Sentimentalism is one of the most significant literary trends of the 18th century in Russia, the brightest representative of which was N.M. Karamzin. Sentimental writers took an interest in portraying ordinary people and ordinary human feelings. By...

What phrase do you think defines the idea of \u200b\u200bPoor Liza? Justify the answer.

The phrase - "and the peasant women know how to love." Sentimentalists, in contrast to the classicists, preferred the cult of feeling over the cult of reason. At the same time, they asserted the extra-class value of a person, his high moral qualities. This key phrase from Karamzin gives a New Look on the problem of social inequality. Differences in social and property status do not yet indicate the superiority of one class over another. Liza's father and mother had high moral values, she herself worked hard. The author describes in detail the development of her love feelings from inception to despair. For Lisa, the loss of love is tantamount to the loss of life. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe story is concentrated in the above phrase, which has become the formula of sentimental literature.

It is important for understanding the author's position and the manner of expressing feelings, which is characteristic of the main heroine of the story: in her vocabulary, in concepts and ideas, she is no different from the expression of the feelings of an educated young lady. VI Korovin explains this by the fact that "Karamzin's artistic task was partly to bring the feelings of a peasant woman closer to the feelings of an educated young lady and thereby erase the differences in the content and forms of emotional experiences."

Describe the main character of the story. What kind artistic means selected by the author to create its external and internal appearance? How is the attitude of the writer towards her expressed?

The image of Lisa is outlined by the author in detail. The heroine inherited from her parents tall moral qualities and beliefs: hard work, honesty, sincerity, kindness. She is pure, naive, unselfish and therefore poorly protected from the vices prevailing around her. She is open to natural manifestations of feelings and therefore prone to delusions, after which a tragic epiphany occurs. The author treats his heroine with tender feeling, admires, deeply experiences her joys and tragedy, constantly worries about her fate. Memories of the deplorable fate of Lisa make him "shed tears of tender sorrow." And the very title of the story expresses the sympathetic and sentimental attitude of Karamzin to Liza.

The characteristic of Liza's external and internal appearance consists of the author's descriptions and comments of her actions, as well as through the indirect transmission of the mother's comments or the love outpourings of Erast himself. Karamzin notes that Liza worked without sparing "her rare beauty, not sparing her tender youth." The impression that she "made in his heart" speaks of her beauty. The kind old mother called Lisa Divine mercy a nurse, the joy of her old age, prayed that the Lord would reward her for what she was doing for her mother. From this we learn that Lisa is virtuous, that she not only reveres her mother, but also frees her from all worries beyond her strength for her poor health.

What verbal details convey the movement of Lisa's feelings for Erast - from timid affection to ardent passion?

An essential detail, with which Lisa and Erast's acquaintance began, were the flowers that Lisa traded in. The request dropped by him to pick flowers only for him planted the first feeling in the girl's soul. She turned out to be more significant for her than for Erast, and therefore the next day, when he did not come, she did not sell the lilies of the valley to anyone and threw them into the Moscow River. Another detail is the timid glances she cast at young man... Karamzin notes the expression of Liza's feelings in her appearance - "her cheeks glowed like dawn on a clear summer evening" - as they grew. Erast's kiss and his first declaration of love echoed in her soul with delightful music. As you can see, color and sound details are important in conveying the movement of feelings from timid affection to ardent passion. The achievement of the apogee of love, which, according to the writer, led to the death of the heroine's purity, is also accompanied by a number of important verbal details. A new word appears and rushes (into his arms). Before that, on dates, they hugged, their hugs were pure and pure. Now changes are taking place around them both in nature and in the color-sound range: kisses have become fiery, the darkness of the evening (as opposed to a quiet moon, a bright month) fed desires; "Not a single star shone in the sky - no ray could illuminate delusion." After what happened, “lightning flashed and thunder struck. Lisa trembled. " "The storm was roaring menacingly, the rain was pouring from black clouds - it seemed that nature was complaining about Liza's lost innocence." After such a turning point in the relationship between Liza and Erast, Karamzin began to convey in more detail the inner state of a young man who was becoming more and more indifferent to his beloved. Since that time, natural symbols have practically disappeared in the narrative. Only twice are ancient oaks, which witnessed their love, mentioned. The gloomy epithet now belongs to the oak tree over the grave of poor Liza.

Note the role of gesture in disclosure internal state heroes. Analyze this author's trick.

A gesture in literature is one of the important techniques in conveying the inner state of a character. Karamzin also uses it widely. Let's analyze the scene of Lisa and Erast's meeting in the city, when she saw him in a carriage approaching the house. Her feeling of joy at the meeting was expressed in gestures: she rushed, he felt himself in an embrace. Although it is said that he felt embraced, the author thereby emphasizes the swiftness of her joyful action. The swiftness of her movements is the swiftness in the expression of feelings. Further, his gestures become swift - he wants to get rid of Lisa as soon as possible so that no one sees him in the arms of a simple peasant woman on the eve of a profitable marriage: he took him by the hand, brought her to the office, locked the door, put the money in her pocket, took her out of the office and ordered the servant to see her off. the girl from the yard. And all this is so fast that Lisa could not recover.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766-1826) greatly influenced the development of Russian literature, transforming the Russian language, freeing it from complex Latin constructions and Slavicisms, bringing it closer to living human speech.

Features of sentimentalism

The writer's creativity fosters feelings, calls for kindness and mercy. This is how a new direction in Russian literature was born - sentimentalism, which main role inner peace person.

Perhaps today the work "Poor Liza" seems somewhat distant from life, and the feelings of the heroes seem unnatural. However, it should be remembered that Karamzin created in I the work "Poor Liza", written in 1792, served as a source of inspiration for the following Russian writers, being an excellent example of this genre. Sentimentalism is characterized by sharp conflicts that often lead to the death of the hero, and Poor Liza is no exception. The death of a girl is shocking and makes many generations of readers empathize.

New name

In addition to the new genre, Karamzin gave our country a new name and made it popular. Translated, Elizabeth means "worshiping God." That was the name of the mother, the wife of the high priest Aaron. This name was practically not found among Russian writers until the 80s of the 18th century. It is worth noting that in European literature this name was often associated with the image of a maid, a servant, usually frivolous and flirtatious, and was used mainly in comedies. The image of Lisa in the story of the work, read below), however, does not follow this tradition. Breaking the usual framework of the meaning of the word, Karamzin broke with classicism, its established definitions.

The image of Lisa in the story "Poor Lisa" played important role in the development of Russian literature in general, so I would like to dwell on it in more detail. You will see that it was a strong nature, not at all what European authors used to portray it. We propose to consider the image of Lisa in the story "Poor Liza" with quotations and a summary of the work.

Characters, plot

But first, we will indicate other characters in the story and briefly describe its main events. In addition to the peasant woman Lisa, the main characters include her mother, Erast and the narrator. In general, the plot of the work is not new: a man seduces a young girl and then abandons her. However, this story had its own characteristics. The author described a situation typical for Russia in the 18th century: a nobleman, a landowner, knowing his impunity and taking advantage of it, seduces a peasant woman, a young girl. What is striking in this story is that at that time, in this situation, society did not at all seek to condemn the landowner, and the truth was in any case on his side.

Already in the title, the attitude of the author himself to his heroine is guessed: he calls Lisa poor.

The first meeting with the heroine

The story begins with a description of Moscow, where some events later take place, as well as in the vicinity of which the heroine was subsequently buried.

For the first time on the pages of the work, the author describes Lisa to us through the eyes of a storyteller. Speaking about her, he uses many epithets ("amiable", "beautiful", etc.), so that the reader may even think that the narrator loved Lisa. However, the ending of the story makes it clear that he simply regrets her. It should be noted that in this story the narrator expresses the attitude of the author himself towards his heroine. Why does Karamzin love and pity Liza?

Lisa's past

Let us turn to the heroine's past and briefly describe the image of Lisa in the story "Poor Liza". This girl is a peasant by birth, lives in a poor hut with her old mother. When our heroine was 15 years old, her father, a "wealthy peasant", died, and after his death the family became impoverished and had to rent out the land for a very small fee. The mother, due to poor health, had no opportunity to work, and Lisa had to work very hard in order to somehow feed herself and her mother. The girl was engaged in various crafts - she knitted stockings, weaved canvases, collected and sold flowers in Moscow in spring, and berries in summer. We are not yet personally acquainted with Lisa, but we already understand that she is selfless, ready to make sacrifices for the sake of loved ones, and hardworking.

Lisa's character

As the plot develops, the character of the main character is revealed, the image of Liza in the story "Poor Liza" by N. M. Karamzin. Poor Lisa is a very attractive heroine. We understand that this is a pure and deep soul with a receptive and soft heart. Liza was often sad because of the death of her father, but she tried not to show it to her mother and tried to seem "calm and cheerful." The girl is timid and shy by nature. When she first met Erast, she "showed him flowers and blushed."

This is the image of Liza in the story "Poor Liza". The plan of this look is complemented by one more detail. The heroine's honesty should also be noted. When Erast wanted to buy flowers from her and offered a ruble instead of five kopecks, she said that she did not want too much. Liza is naive, sometimes to the extreme: she immediately tells a complete stranger where she lives.

The main character's speech

Analyzing this, we can say that in this the image of Liza in the story "Poor Liza" was not worked out thoroughly enough: her speech sometimes is not the same as that of a peasant woman, but as that of a girl from high society. It is clear that an uneducated simple girl simply could not express herself that way. Despite this, the image of Liza in the story "Poor Liza" by Karamzin is considered the first image of a woman from the lower class in Russian literature. The portrayal of a girl from the people in the 18th century was very progressive and atypical, especially as the heroine of a love story. Karamzin put a deep meaning into the image of Liza in the story "Poor Liza": before God and love there are no estates, all people are equal, "and peasant women know how to love."

Later, Alexander Pushkin in his work "The Young Lady-Peasant Woman" continued this theme, but it was Karamzin who first introduced it into literature.

A new attitude towards women

Another novelty of the writer was his attitude towards women. Indeed, in the 18th century, she was considered lower than a man, she had no freedom. The woman could not love whoever she wanted, the parents were looking for the chosen one for her daughter. Of course, in such a situation, it was rare to find happy married couples. Those who tried to love against the will of their parents were subjected to shame in the eyes of society, such love was considered immoral. The image of Liza in the story "Poor Liza" by N. M. Karamzin clearly shows this. Later, other writers, in particular Ostrovsky, developed the topic.

Liza's crime was that she dared to fall in love contrary to public opinion. And they always knew how to love Russian peasant women passionately, ardently and forever. Refusing to marry a rich peasant son from a neighboring village, Lisa gave herself entirely to her lover.

Erast's Betrayal

But Erast turned out to be a scoundrel, leaving Lisa. The heroine only accidentally learns about his betrayal. Having gone to Moscow to buy rose water, she accidentally bumps into his carriage on the street. Lisa rushes to her, but the carriage passes by her and stops at the courtyard of a large house. The heroine runs up, hugs her lover, but he calmly says that he is getting married (as it turns out later, he married a rich widow to improve his situation, since he lost almost all his money at cards during the campaign) and asks to leave him alone, trying buy off Lisa with money. And Karamzin does not justify his hero at all, but openly condemns him. For his betrayal, Erast will be punished: he is destined to be unhappy for the rest of his life and blame himself for Lisa's death. At the end of the work, he dies.

Continuing to analyze the image of Liza in the story "Poor Liza" by Karamzin, we should note one more important detail - she loved Erast, but at the same time did not forget about her mother, and it was taking care of her that stopped Lisa from trying to go to war for her lover. Although the heroine was very worried about Erast, she was afraid that he would be killed in the war. After all, Lisa could not even write a message to her beloved, because she simply did not know how to do it.

Death of a poor girl

Lisa's suicide is a very important episode in revealing her character. After all, this girl seemed to be the embodiment of Christian virtues. How could such a pure soul dare to commit such a grave sin? The heroine decides to drown herself by throwing herself into the water. But you can't blame Liza - grief deprived her of her last strength, and the heroine simply could not stand it. Even before her death, she does not forget about her mother: going to the pond to drown herself, she gives a neighbor's girl one hundred rubles with a request to give them to her mother and say that her daughter loved a man, and he cheated on her. The writer, although he does not justify the suicide of the heroine, still forgives Lisa. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin believes that, despite the gravity of the crime, Liza's soul will go to heaven.

The meaning of the story

Many writers of the 19th century (Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Ostrovsky, Goncharov, Tolstoy) drew inspiration from this image and created many bright female characters, as pure and selfless as the image of Lisa in the story "Poor Liza".

In this story, the author touched on important topics imperfections in the structure of society and the shortcomings of human nature. We cannot fix something on our own, it remains only to accept it as a fact, and it is pointless to condemn and reproach someone. There is no villain in the work, there is only a person belonging to a secular circle, acting according to generally accepted opinions. Erast had a kind heart by nature, but the "artificial" upbringing and education he received spoiled his character. The writer sympathizes with him, because in this situation, it is not the person who should be blamed, but the mores of the era and society under which the hero lived.

Immediately after its publication (in 1792), the work aroused great interest, which did not subside for several decades. Even outright imitations appeared, for example, Svechinsky's "Seductive Henrietta" (1803), Izmailova's "Poor Masha" (1801).

The image of Lisa in the story "Poor Lisa", summary which you just reviewed will be remembered by the readers for a long time. And even now it has not been forgotten, because humanistic ideas are always relevant.