Literary hero. Literary hero and character. Images and characters

Boss

Everything is controlled, requires obedience and respect. The end justifies the means for him. Don Corleone from The Godfather by M. Puzo can be cited as an example.

bad boy

Smart and charismatic. In the past, misfortune happened to him and this seriously affected him. Society accuses Bad Boy of all mortal sins, but he never makes excuses and does not let anyone into his heart. The bad boy becomes a man early, constantly rebels, but his rebellion is a means of self-defense. At heart, he is kind and somewhat sentimental. Example: Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind by M. Mitchell.

Best friend

Stable, peaceful, always ready to help. Often he is torn between duty and his own desires. Example: Christopher Robin in A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh.

Charming

Creative, witty, constantly manipulating people. He can find the key to any heart and knows how to please the crowd. Charming is an actor, he constantly plays in his own theater. Example: Ostap Bender in "12 Chairs" by I. Ilf and E. Petrov.

Lost soul

Lives on past mistakes. Vulnerable, insightful, he sees through people. He is lonely and unsociable and often does not fit into any society. Example: Eddie from "It's me, Eddie" by E. Limonov.

Professor

All immersed in work. He is an expert - often with oddities. His credo: logic and knowledge. Example: Sherlock Holmes from the stories of A. Conan Doyle.

Seeker of adventures

Can't sit in one place. He is fearless, resourceful and selfish. His curiosity is insatiable, he hates theory and always wants to get to the bottom of the truth - even if it is fraught with danger. He inspires others and solves problems on his own. Example: James Bond from Ian Fleming's Casino Royale.

Warrior

Noble, principled and stern. He knows no mercy in the pursuit of justice. Money and power are of secondary importance to him. He is honest and persistent. Takes revenge on enemies or saves beauties. Example: Edmond Dantes from "The Count of Monte Cristo" by A. Dumas.

female characters

boss

Demands attention and respect. She is sharp, adventurous and arrogant. Example: Princess Sophia from "Peter I" by A. Tolstoy.

Temptress

Smart and beautiful, she knows how to attract the attention of men. She is cynical and often manipulates people. Appreciates friends for what they can give her. Uses his attractiveness as a weapon. Always plays a part. Example: Lolita from the novel of the same name by V. Nabokov.

brave girl

Whole nature, sincere, kind and friendly. She has a great sense of humor and you can rely on her. At the same time, she is skeptical and does not know how to value herself at all. Everyone loves her. In difficult situations, she will always lend a helping hand. Brave and persistent. Example: Natasha Rostova from "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy.

Reckless

This lady is eccentric, talkative and impulsive. She tends to exaggerate, is easily distracted, and believes any lie. No discipline. Indifferent to tradition. She wants to try everything herself and often makes decisions based on emotions. Example: Alice from L. Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

White and fluffy

Naive, touching, pure soul. She is easy to convince and easy to offend. She is passive and constantly needs a prince on a white horse. Often falls in love with the wrong person, defending himself only in desperate situations. He understands and accepts everyone. Example: Cinderella from the fairy tale of the same name by Ch. Perrault.

librarian

Clever, bookish. Persistent, serious, you can rely on her. She is unsociable and tries to hide her feelings from others. Perfectionist. She considers herself ugly and does not even try to seduce anyone. Lives in his own world, loves to learn. Often, serious passions boil in her soul. Example: Miss Marple from the detectives of Agatha Christie.

Crusader

Fighting for the right cause. Bold, determined, stubborn. Gets out of it quickly. Passionate about business and often forgets about loved ones. She will not go on a date if a protest march is scheduled for the same day. Her goal is always more important than personal experiences. Example: Iskra's mother from the novel "Tomorrow Was a War" by B. Vasiliev.

Comforter

Can handle any challenge. She will comfort, kiss and give advice. She has iron nerves, but she can't stand being alone. She wants to be needed. Feels best in the family and among close friends. Easily compromises. Often suffering undeservedly. Altruist, idealist and everyday sage. Example: Pelageya Nilovna from the novel "Mother" by M. Gorky.

Pure and mixed archetypes

The archetype can be pure, but it can be mixed, with some kind of dominant. For example, Oksana from "The Night Before Christmas" by N. Gogol is a boss and a temptress.

It happens that the hero gradually changes his archetype: Natasha Rostova starts as a brave girl, and ends up as a comforter.

In literary works, images of people are invariably present and, as a rule, fall into the focus of readers’ attention, and in some cases, their likenesses: humanized animals, plants (“Attalea princeps” by V.M. Garshin) and things (fairytale hut on chicken legs) . There are different forms of human presence in literary works. This is a narrator-narrator, a lyrical hero and a character capable of revealing a person with the utmost fullness and breadth.

This term is taken from French and is of Latin origin. The word “persona” was used by the ancient Romans to designate a mask worn by an actor, and later a face depicted in a work of art.

As synonymous with this term, there are now the phrases "literary hero" and "character". However, these expressions also carry additional meanings: the word “hero” emphasizes the positive role, brightness, unusualness, exclusivity of the depicted person, and the phrase “actor” emphasizes the fact that the character manifests himself mainly in performing actions.

A character is either the product of the writer’s pure fiction (Gulliver and the Lilliputians in J. Swift; Major Kovalev who lost his nose in N.V. Gogol) or the result of inventing the appearance of a real person (whether historical figures or people biographically close to the writer, or even himself); or, finally, the result of the processing and completion of already known literary heroes, such as, say, Don Juan or Faust.

Along with literary heroes as human individuals, sometimes group, collective characters turn out to be very significant (the crowd on the square in several scenes of "Boris Godunov" by A. S. Pushkin, testifying to the opinion of the people and expressing it).

The character has a dual nature. He, firstly, is the subject of the depicted action, the stimulus for the unfolding of events that make up the plot. It was from this side that V.Ya. Propp in his world-famous work Morphology of a Fairy Tale (1928). The scientist spoke about fairy-tale heroes as carriers of certain functions in the plot and emphasized that the faces depicted in fairy tales are significant, first of all, as factors in the movement of event series. A character as a character is often denoted by the term actant (lat. acting).

Secondly, and this is perhaps the main thing, the character has an independent significance in the composition of the work, independent of the plot (event series): he acts as a carrier of stable and stable (sometimes, however, undergoing changes) properties, traits, qualities.

Characters are characterized by the actions they perform (almost in the first place), as well as forms of behavior and communication (because not only what a person does is significant, but also how he behaves at the same time), features of appearance and close circle (in particular, things belonging to the hero), thoughts, feelings, intentions.

And all these manifestations of a person in a literary work (as well as in real life) have a certain resultant - a kind of center, which M.M. Bakhtin called the core of personality, A.A. Ukhtomsky - the dominant, determined by the starting intuitions of a person.

The phrase value orientation is widely used to designate a stable core of people's consciousness and behavior. “There is not a single culture,” wrote E. Fromm, “that could do without a system of value orientations or coordinates.” There are these orientations, the scientist continued, "and each individual."

Value orientations (they can also be called life positions) are very heterogeneous and multifaceted. Consciousness and behavior of people can be directed to the values of religious and moral, actually moral, cognitive, aesthetic. They are also connected with the sphere of instincts, with bodily life and the satisfaction of physical needs, with the desire for fame, authority, and power.

The positions and orientations of both real and fictional persons by writers often take the form of ideas and life programs. Such are the "heroes-ideologists" (the term of M. M. Bakhtin) in romantic and post-romantic literature. But value orientations are often non-rational, direct, intuitive, conditioned by the very nature of people and the tradition in which they are rooted. Let us recall Lermontov's Maxim Maksimych, who did not like "metaphysical debate", or Tolstoy's Natasha Rostova, who "did not deign to be smart."

The heroes of literature from different countries and eras are infinitely diverse. At the same time, in the character sphere, repetition is clearly associated with the genre of the work and, more importantly, with the value orientations of the characters. There are a kind of literary "supertypes" - supra-epochal and international.

There are few such supertypes. As noted by M.M. Bakhtin and (following him) E.M. Meletinsky, for many centuries and even millennia, literature was dominated by an adventurous and heroic person who firmly believes in his own strength, in his initiative, in the ability to achieve his goal.

He manifests his essence in active search and decisive struggle, in adventures and accomplishments, and lives by the idea of his special mission, his own exclusivity and invulnerability. We find capacious and well-aimed formulas of the life positions of such heroes in a number of literary works. For example: “When you can help yourself, / Why cry to heaven with a prayer? / We have been given a choice. Those are right that they dared; / Whoever is weak in spirit will not reach the goal. / “Unrealizable!” - only he says so / Who lingers, hesitates and waits ”(W. Shakespeare. “The end is the crown of business.” Per. M. Donskoy). “Under the hood, my courageous plan / I thought it over, prepared a miracle for the world,” says Pushkin's Grigory Otrepyev about himself. And in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" the devil expressed Ivan's innermost thoughts in this way: "Where I stand, there will immediately be the first place."

Characters belonging to the adventurous-heroic supertype aspire to fame, crave to be loved, have the will to “outlive the fabulousness of life”, i.e. they tend to actively participate in changing life situations, fight, achieve, win. An adventurous heroic character is a kind of chosen one or an impostor, whose energy and strength are realized in an effort to achieve some external goals.

The scope of these goals is very wide: from serving the people, society, humanity to selfishly willful and self-affirmation that knows no boundaries, associated with cunning tricks, deceit, and sometimes with crimes and atrocities (remember Shakespeare's Macbeth and his wife). Characters of the heroic epic gravitate towards the first "pole".

Such is the brave and judicious, generous and pious Aeneas in the world-famous poem by Virgil. Faithful to his duty to his native Troy and his historical mission, he, according to T. S. Elista, “from the first to the last breath” is a “man of fate”: he is not an adventurer, not an intriguer, not a vagabond, not a careerist, he fulfills his destined fate, not by coercion or an accidental decree, and certainly not out of a thirst for glory, but because he subordinated his will to some higher power of a great goal ”(meaning the foundation of Rome).

In a number of other epics, including the Iliad and the Odyssey, the heroic deeds of the characters are combined with their self-will and adventurism (a similar combination in Prometheus, which, however, for many centuries became a symbol of sacrificial service to people).

Much has been said about the essence of the heroic. The concept of adventurism (adventurism) in relation to literature is understood much less. MM. Bakhtin associated the adventurous beginning with the solution of problems dictated by "eternal human nature - self-preservation, the thirst for victory and triumph, the thirst for possession, sensual love."

In addition, we note that adventurism may well be stimulated by the self-sufficient game impulses of a person (Kochkarev in N.V. Gogol's "Marriage", Ostap Bender in I. Ilf and V. Petrov), as well as a thirst for power, as in Pushkin's Grishka Otrepiev and Emelyan Pugacheva.

The adventurous-heroic supertype, embodying the striving for the new, by all means (i.e., the dynamic, fermenting, exciting beginning of the human world), is represented by verbal and artistic works in various modifications, one is not similar to another.

Firstly, these are the gods of historically early myths and the folk epic heroes inheriting their features from Arjuna (the Indian "Mahabharata"), Achilles, Odysseus, Ilya Muromets to Til Ulenspiegel and Taras Bulba, invariably exalted and poeticized.

In the same row - the central figures of medieval chivalric novels and their similarities in the literature of recent centuries, what are the characters of detective stories, science fiction, adventure works for youth, sometimes "big" literature (remember Ruslan and the young Dubrovsky in Pushkin, the hero of the play by E. Rostand "Cyrano de Bergerac", Lancelot from "The Dragon" by E. Schwartz).

Secondly, these are romantic rebels and spiritual wanderers in the literature of the 19th-20th centuries. - whether it be Goethe's Faust, Byron's Cain, Lermontov's Demon, Nietzsche's Zarathustra, or (in a different, mundane variation) such ideological heroes as Onegin, Pechorin, Beltov, Raskolnikov, Orestes ("The Flies" by J.-P. Sartre).

The named characters (Zarathustra is a significant exception) are, as it were, half-heroes, and even anti-heroes, such as, for example, the central person of Notes from the Underground and Stavrogin in F.M. Dostoevsky. In the appearance and fate of the characters in this, so to speak, "demonic" series, the vanity of intellectual and other adventurism, devoid of ties with morality and cultural tradition of a great historical time, is revealed.

Thirdly, the heroic-adventurous beginning is to some extent involved in romantic characters who are alien to any demonism, believe that their soul is beautiful, and are eager to realize their rich opportunities, considering themselves to be some kind of chosen ones and lights. Orientations of this kind in the coverage of writers, as a rule, are internally critical, full of woeful drama, leading to dead ends and catastrophes.

According to Hegel, "the new knights are mostly young men who have to make their way through the worldly cycle, carried out instead of their ideals." Such heroes, the German philosopher continues, “consider it a misfortune that the facts of prosaic reality “brutally oppose their ideals and the infinite law of the heart”: they believe that “it is necessary to make a breach in this order of things, to change, improve the world, or at least , contrary to him, to create a heavenly corner on earth.

Characters of this kind (remember Goethe's Werther, Pushkin's Lensky, Goncharov's Aduev Jr., Chekhov's characters) are not heroes in the full sense of the word. Their lofty thoughts and noble impulses turn out to be illusory and futile; romantically minded characters suffer defeats, suffer, die, or eventually come to terms with the “base prose” of existence, become ordinary people, and even careerists. “Hero,” notes G.K. Kosikov, based on the writing experience of Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, becomes the bearer of the ideal and degradation at the same time.

Thus, the hero of romantic and post-romantic literature (both in his "demonic" and "beautiful" varieties), while retaining his involvement in the adventurous-heroic supertype (the halo of his own exclusivity, the will to large-scale acquisitions and accomplishments), at the same time appeared as a symptom and evidence of the cultural-historical crisis and even the exhaustion of this supertype.

Fourthly, among the characters belonging to this supertype, we also find adventurers proper, who are even less heroic than those listed above. From the tricksters of early myths, threads stretch to the characters of the short stories of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as well as adventure novels. Significantly critical rethinking of adventurism in the literature of modern times, most clearly in the works about Don Giovanni (beginning with Tirso de Molina and Molière).

The images of seekers of a place in high society, careerists in the novels of O. de Balzac, Stendhal, Guy de Maupassant have a consistently anti-adventurous orientation. Hermann in Pushkin's The Queen of Spades, Chichikov in Gogol, Rakitin and Pyotr Verkhovensky in Dostoevsky, Boris Drubetskoy in Tolstoy are in the same row. In other, also very different variations (and far from apologetic) the type of adventurer is captured in such figures of the literature of our century as Felix Krul in T. Mann, the famous Ostap Bender of Ilf and Petrov, and the much less popular Komarovsky in Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago.

A completely different, one might say, polar to adventurous-heroic “supertype” is revealed in medieval hagiographies and those works (including eras close to us) that, to a greater or lesser extent, directly or indirectly inherit hagiographic tradition or are akin to it.

This supertype can rightly be called hagiographic-idyllic. The illustrious “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” vividly testifies to the kinship of hagiographic holiness and idyllic values, where “not ascetic monastic life is surrounded by a halo of holiness, but an ideal married life in the world and the wise, autocratic government of one’s principality.

Characters of this kind are not involved in any struggle for success. They stay in reality, free from the polarization of successes and failures, victories and defeats, and in times of trial they are able to show stamina, having gone from temptations and dead ends of despair (which is confirmed by the words about one of Shakespeare’s heroes who suffered injustice: he has the gift of translating “into meek, a clear mode of fate is severity" - "As you like it"). Even being prone to mental reflection, characters of this kind (for example, Lesk's Savely Tuberozov) continue to dwell in the world of axioms and indisputable truths, rather than deep doubts and insoluble problems.

Spiritual fluctuations in their lives are either absent, or turn out to be short-term and, most importantly, completely surmountable (remember: Alyosha Karamazov’s “strange and uncertain moment” after the death of Elder Zosima), although these people are prone to repentant moods. Here there are firm attitudes of consciousness and behavior: what is commonly called loyalty to moral principles.

Such characters are rooted in close reality with its joys and sorrows, with communication skills and everyday activities. They are open to the world of others, able to love and be benevolent to everyone else, ready for the role of "workers of communication and communication" (M.M. Prishvin). To them, resorting to the terminology of A.A. Ukhtomsky, "dominant on another person" is inherent.

In Russian literary classics of the XIX-XX centuries. hagiographic-idyllic supertype is presented very brightly and widely. Here is Tatyana of the eighth chapter of "Eugene Onegin", and the "group portrait" of the Grinevs and Mironovs in "The Captain's Daughter", and Prince Gvidon ("The Tale of Tsar Saltan"), who did not need to go to distant lands in search of happiness.

In post-Pushkin literature, this is Maxim Maksimych M.Yu. Lermontov, characters in the family chronicles of S.T. Aksakov, old world landowners N.V. Gogol, the characters of "Family Happiness", the Rostovs and Levin by L.N. Tolstoy, Prince Myshkin and Makar Ivanovich, Tikhon and Zosima at F.M. Dostoevsky.

One could also name many heroes of A.N. Ostrovsky, I.A. Goncharova, N.A. Nekrasov, I.S. Turgenev, A.P. Chekhov. In the same row - Turbines at M.A. Bulgakov, the hero and heroine of the story "Fro" by A.P. Platonova, Matrena A.I. Solzhenitsyn, a number of characters in our "village" prose (for example, Ivan Afrikanovich in V.I. Belov's "A Usual Business", the hero of the story "Alyosha Beskonvoyny" by V.M. Shukshin).

Turning to the Russian diaspora, let's call the prose of B.K. Zaitsev and I.S. Shmelev (in particular - Gorkin from "The Summer of the Lord" and "Praying Man"). In the literature of other countries, such faces are deeply significant in Charles Dickens, and in our century - in the tragic novels and stories of W. Faulkner.

The origins of the hagiographic-idyllic supertype are the characters of the ancient Greek myth Philemon and Baucis, who were rewarded by the gods for fidelity in love for each other, for kindness and hospitality: their hut turned into a temple, and they themselves were granted longevity and simultaneous death.

From here, threads stretch to the idylls of Theocritus, Virgil's Bucolics and Georgics, Long's idyllic novel Daphnis and Chloe, Ovid, who directly turned to the myth of Philemon and Baucis, and - after many centuries - to I.V. Goethe (the corresponding episode of the second part of "Faust", as well as the poem "Hermann and Dorothea"). The origins of the “supertype” under consideration have a myth not about gods, but about people, about the human in a person (but not the human-divine, if one resorts to the vocabulary characteristic of the beginning of the Russian XX century).

The hagiographic-idyllic supertype was also outlined by the didactic epic of Hesiod. In "Works and Days" Homer's apology for military prowess, booty and glory was rejected, worldly common sense and peaceful peasant labor were sung, well-being in the family and moral dispensation, which is based on folk tradition and experience, embodied in proverbs and fables, were highly valued.

The world of characters in the series under consideration was also preceded by ancient Greek symposiums, which gave rise to the tradition of friendly mental conversation. In this regard, the figure of Socrates is important as a real person and as the hero of Plato's dialogues, where the great thinker of antiquity appears as the initiator and leading participant in peaceful and trusting conversations, often accompanied by benevolent smiles. The most striking in this regard is the dialogue Phaedo, about the last hours of the philosopher's life.

In the formation of the hagiographic-idyllic supertype, the fairy tale also played its role with its interest in the valuable in the implicit and formless, whether it be the stepdaughter Cinderella or Ivan the Fool, or a kind magician, whose features the sage-scribe Prospero from Shakespeare's "The Tempest" possesses.

The heroes of the hagiographic-idyllic orientation are characterized by inalienation from reality and involvement in the environment, their behavior is creative in the presence of "kindred attention" to the world (M.M. Prishvin). Apparently, there is reason to talk about a trend in the development of literature: from a positive coverage of adventurous-heroic orientations to their critical presentation and to an ever clearer understanding and figurative embodiment of hagiographic-idyllic values.

This trend, in particular, with classical distinctness affected the creative evolution of the AU. Pushkin (from "Prisoner of the Caucasus" and "Gypsies" to "Belkin's Tales" and "The Captain's Daughter"). It finds substantiation and explanation in the philosophizing experiments of our century. Thus, the modern German philosopher J. Habermas argues that the instrumental action, focused on success, eventually gives way to a communicative action aimed at establishing mutual understanding and striving to unite people.

Literary characters can appear not only as "carriers" of value orientations, but also as embodiments of, of course, negative traits or as the focus of trampled, suppressed, failed humanity. At the origins of the “negative” supertype, worthy of ridicule and denunciation, passing through the centuries, is the hunchbacked and oblique, grumbling and mocking Thersites, the enemy of Achilles and Odysseus, who is described in the Iliad. This is perhaps the first anti-hero in European literature.

This word was put into use by F.M. Dostoevsky: “All the traits for an anti-hero are deliberately collected here” (“Notes from the Underground”). Suppressed humanity is embodied in the myth of Sisyphus, doomed to an existence that is hopelessly heavy with its meaninglessness. Here, a person is no longer up to value orientations! Sisyphus as an archetypal figure was considered by A. Camus in his work “The Myth of Sisyphus. An Essay on the Absurd. The named characters of ancient Greek mythology anticipate much in the literature of later and close to us eras.

In reality, where there is no place for any landmarks and goals worthy of a person, many characters of Russian writers of the 19th century live, in particular, N.V. Gogol. Let us recall, for example, the crazy Poprishchin, or Akaky Akakievich with his overcoat, or Major Kovalev, who lost his nose.

“The leading Gogol theme,” says S.G. Bocharov, - there was "fragmentation", historically widely understood as the essence of the entire European Modern Age, which reached its culmination in the 19th century; the characteristic of modern life in all its manifestations as fragmented, fractional extends to the person himself.

In the Petersburg stories of Gogol with the hero-official, a special scale was established for the depiction of a person. This scale is such that a person is perceived as a particle and a fractional value (if not “zero”, as the head of the department inspires Poprishchin).

The man here, Bocharov continues, speaking of the hero of The Overcoat, is “a being reduced not only to the absolute minimum of human existence, value and significance, but simply to zero of all this”: “Akaky Akakievich is not just a “little man”. He is, one might say, even "smaller" than a little man, below the most human measure.

Many characters in "post-Gogol" literature are completely subordinate to a lifeless routine, dead stereotypes of the environment, subject to their own egoistic impulses. They either languish in the monotony and meaninglessness of existence, or they reconcile with it and feel satisfied.

In their world, what Blok called the "immense) gray spider of boredom reigns, and even reigns supreme." Such are the hero of the story "Ionych" and his many likenesses in Chekhov, such (in a uniquely original variation) is the atmosphere of a number of Dostoevsky's works. Let us recall the terrible image that arose in Svidrigailov's imagination: eternity is like a neglected village bathhouse with spiders.

A person driven (or driving himself) into a dead end of boredom has been repeatedly recognized and portrayed by writers as oriented only hedonistically - to bodily pleasures, as alien to morality, tolerant of evil and prone to its apology.

Baudelaire in Western European literature - Marivault, Lesage, Prevost, Diderot and de Sade) - hedonism and its reverse side, evil) were subjected to a thorough, versatile and impressively bleak analysis.

Speaking about the characters of Dostoevsky as a foretaste of the human reality of a number of works of the XX century. Yu. Kristeva, not without reason, uses such phrases as “cracked self”, “split subjects”, carriers of “torn consciousness”.

A person whose value orientations have been shaken or are completely absent has become the subject of close attention of the writers of our century. These are the horrors of F. Kafka, and the theater of the absurd, and the images of participants in the mass destruction of people, and the artistic concept of man as a monster, a monstrous creature.

This is (in the most approximate outlines) the character sphere of a literary work, if you look at it from the perspective of axiology (value theory).

V.E. Khalizev Theory of Literature. 1999

Russian literature has given us a cavalcade of both positive and negative characters. We decided to recall the second group. Beware, spoilers.

20. Alexei Molchalin (Alexander Griboyedov, "Woe from Wit")

Molchalin is the hero of "nothing", Famusov's secretary. He is faithful to his father's behest: "to please all people without exception - the owner, the boss, his servant, the janitor's dog."

In a conversation with Chatsky, he sets out his life principles, which are that "at my age one should not dare to have one's own judgment."

Molchalin is sure that you need to think and act as is customary in the "famus" society, otherwise they will gossip about you, and, as you know, "evil tongues are worse than pistols."

He despises Sophia, but is ready to please Famusov to sit with her all night long, playing the role of a lover.

19. Grushnitsky (Mikhail Lermontov, "A Hero of Our Time")

Grushnitsky has no name in Lermontov's story. He is the "double" of the main character - Pechorin. According to Lermontov’s description, Grushnitsky is “... one of those people who have ready-made lush phrases for all occasions, who are simply not touched by the beautiful and who importantly drape in extraordinary feelings, sublime passions and exceptional suffering. To produce an effect is their delight ... ".

Grushnitsky is very fond of pathos. There is not an ounce of sincerity in him. Grushnitsky is in love with Princess Mary, and at first she answers him with special attention, but then falls in love with Pechorin.

The case ends in a duel. Grushnitsky is so low that he conspires with friends and they do not load Pechorin's pistol. The hero cannot forgive such frank meanness. He reloads the pistol and kills Grushnitsky.

18. Afanasy Totsky (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot)

Afanasy Totsky, having adopted and dependent Nastya Barashkova, the daughter of a deceased neighbor, eventually “became close to her”, developing a suicidal complex in the girl and indirectly becoming one of the culprits of her death.

Extremely greedy to the female, at the age of 55, Totsky decided to connect his life with the daughter of General Yepanchin Alexandra, deciding to marry Nastasya to Ganya Ivolgin. However, neither of these things worked out. As a result, Totsky "was captivated by a visiting Frenchwoman, a Marquise and a Legitimist."

17. Alena Ivanovna (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment)

The old pawnbroker is a character that has become a household name. Even those who have not read Dostoevsky's novel have heard of her. Alena Ivanovna is not so old by today’s standards, she is “60 years old”, but the author describes her like this: “... a dry old woman with sharp and angry eyes with a small pointed nose ... Her blond, slightly graying hair was oiled with oil. Some kind of flannel rag was wrapped around her thin and long neck, similar to a chicken leg ... ".

The old woman pawnbroker is engaged in usury and profits from the grief of people. She takes valuable things at huge interest, treats her younger sister Lizaveta, and beats her.

16. Arkady Svidrigailov (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment)

Svidrigailov - one of Raskolnikov's doubles in Dostoevsky's novel, a widower, at one time was bought out of prison by his wife, lived in the village for 7 years. A cynical and depraved person. On his conscience, the suicide of a servant, a 14-year-old girl, possibly the poisoning of his wife.

Due to Svidrigailov's harassment, Raskolnikov's sister lost her job. Upon learning that Raskolnikov is a murderer, Luzhin blackmails Dunya. The girl shoots at Svidrigailov and misses.

Svidrigailov is an ideological scoundrel, he does not experience moral torment and experiences "world boredom", eternity seems to him "a bathhouse with spiders." As a result, he commits suicide with a shot from a revolver.

15. Boar (Alexander Ostrovsky, Thunderstorm)

In the image of Kabanikh, one of the central characters in the play "Thunderstorm", Ostrovsky reflected the outgoing patriarchal, strict archaism. Kabanova Marfa Ignatievna - "a rich merchant's wife, widow", Katerina's mother-in-law, mother of Tikhon and Varvara.

The boar is very domineering and strong, she is religious, but more outwardly, because she does not believe in forgiveness or mercy. She is as practical as possible and lives by earthly interests.

Kabanikha is sure that the family way of life can be preserved only on fear and orders: “After all, out of love, parents are strict with you, out of love they scold you, everyone thinks to teach good.” She perceives the departure of the former order as a personal tragedy: “That’s how the old days are brought out ... What will happen, as the elders die, ... I don’t know.”

14. Lady (Ivan Turgenev, "Mumu")

We all know the sad story that Gerasim drowned Mumu, but not everyone remembers why he did it, but he did it because the despotic lady ordered him to do so.

The same landowner had previously given the washerwoman Tatyana, with whom Gerasim was in love, to the drunkard shoemaker Kapiton, which ruined both.
The lady, at her own discretion, decides the fate of her serfs, not at all considering their wishes, and sometimes even common sense.

13. Footman Yasha (Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard)

Lackey Yasha in Anton Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" is an unpleasant character. He openly bows to everything foreign, while he is extremely ignorant, rude and even boorish. When his mother comes to him from the village and waits for him in the servants' room all day, Yasha dismissively declares: "It is very necessary, I could come tomorrow."

Yasha tries to behave decently in public, tries to appear educated and well-mannered, but at the same time, alone with Firs, she says to the old man: “You are tired, grandfather. If only you'd die sooner."

Yasha is very proud of the fact that he lived abroad. With a foreign gloss, he wins the heart of the maid Dunyasha, but uses her location for his own benefit. After the sale of the estate, the lackey persuades Ranevskaya to take him back to Paris with her. It is impossible for him to stay in Russia: "the country is uneducated, the people are immoral, moreover, boredom ...".

12. Pavel Smerdyakov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

Smerdyakov is a character with a speaking surname, according to rumors, the illegitimate son of Fyodor Karrmazov from the city's holy fool Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya. The surname Smerdyakov was given to him by Fyodor Pavlovich in honor of his mother.

Smerdyakov serves as a cook in Karamazov's house, and, apparently, he cooks quite well. However, this is "a man with rottenness." This is evidenced by at least Smerdyakov’s reasoning about history: “In the twelfth year there was a great invasion of Russia by Emperor Napoleon of France, the first, and it would be good if these very French had conquered us then, an intelligent nation would have conquered a very stupid one, sir, and annexed to itself. There would even be other orders.”

Smerdyakov is the murderer of Karamazov's father.

11. Pyotr Luzhin (Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment)

Luzhin is another of the twins of Rodion Raskolnikov, a business man of 45 years old, "with a cautious and obnoxious physiognomy."

Having broken out "from rags to riches", Luzhin is proud of his pseudo-education, behaves arrogantly and stiffly. Having made an offer to Dunya, he anticipates that she will be grateful to him all her life for the fact that he "brought her to the people."

He also wooed Dunya by calculation, believing that she would be useful to him for his career. Luzhin hates Raskolnikov because he opposes their union with Dunya. Luzhin, on the other hand, pockets Sonya Marmeladova one hundred rubles at her father's funeral, accusing her of stealing.

10. Kirila Troyekurov (Alexander Pushkin, "Dubrovsky")

Troekurov is an example of a Russian master, spoiled by his power and environment. He spends his time in idleness, drunkenness, voluptuousness. Troekurov sincerely believes in his impunity and unlimited possibilities (“That is the strength to take away the estate without any right”).

The master loves his daughter Masha, but passes her off as an old man she does not love. Troekurov's serfs look like their master - the Troekurov kennel is insolent to Dubrovsky Sr. - and thereby quarrels old friends.

9. Sergei Talberg (Mikhail Bulgakov, White Guard)

Sergei Talberg is the husband of Elena Turbina, a traitor and opportunist. He easily changes his principles, beliefs, without much effort and remorse. Thalberg is always where it is easier to live, so he runs abroad. He leaves his family and friends. Even Talberg's eyes (which, as you know, are the "mirror of the soul") are "two-story", he is the exact opposite of the Turbins.

Talberg was the first to put on a red armband at the military school in March 1917 and, as a member of the military committee, arrested the famous General Petrov.

8. Alexey Shvabrin (Alexander Pushkin, The Captain's Daughter)

Shvabrin is the antipode of the protagonist of Pushkin's story "The Captain's Daughter" by Pyotr Grinev. He was exiled to the Belogorsk fortress for murder in a duel. Shvabrin is undoubtedly smart, but at the same time he is cunning, impudent, cynical, and mocking. Having received Masha Mironova's refusal, he spreads dirty rumors about her, wounds him in the back in a duel with Grinev, goes over to Pugachev's side, and, having been captured by government troops, spreads rumors that Grinev is a traitor. In general, a rubbish person.

7. Vasilisa Kostyleva (Maxim Gorky, "At the Bottom")

In Gorky's play "At the Bottom" everything is sad and melancholy. Such an atmosphere is diligently maintained by the owners of the rooming house where the action takes place - the Kostylevs. The husband is a nasty cowardly and greedy old man, Vasilisa's wife is a prudent, dodgy opportunist, forcing her lover Vaska Ash to steal for her sake. When she finds out that he himself is in love with her sister, she promises to give her away in exchange for killing her husband.

6. Mazepa (Alexander Pushkin, Poltava)

Mazepa is a historical character, but if in history the role of Mazepa is ambiguous, then in Pushkin's poem Mazepa is an unambiguously negative character. Mazepa appears in the poem as an absolutely immoral, dishonorable, vengeful, vicious person, like a treacherous hypocrite for whom nothing is sacred (he “does not know the shrine”, “does not remember goodness”), a person who is accustomed to achieve his goal at any cost.

The seducer of his young goddaughter Maria, he publicly executes her father Kochubey and - already sentenced to death - subjected to severe torture in order to find out where he hid his treasures. Without equivocation, Pushkin denounces Mazepa's political activity, which is determined only by the love of power and the thirst for revenge on Peter.

5. Foma Opiskin (Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants")

Foma Opiskin is an extremely negative character. Livelier, hypocrite, liar. He diligently portrays piety and education, tells everyone about his supposedly ascetic experience and sparkles with quotes from books...

When he gets his hands on power, he shows his true nature. “The low soul, having come out from under oppression, oppresses itself. Thomas was oppressed - and he immediately felt the need to oppress himself; they broke down on him - and he himself began to break down on others. He was a jester and immediately felt the need to have his own jesters. He boasted to the point of absurdity, broke down to the point of impossibility, demanded bird's milk, tyrannized without measure, and it came to the point that good people, having not yet witnessed all these tricks, but listening only to stories, considered all this to be a miracle, an obsession, they were baptized and spat…”

4. Viktor Komarovsky (Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago)

Lawyer Komarovsky is a negative character in Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago. In the fates of the main characters - Zhivago and Lara, Komarovsky is an "evil genius" and a "grey eminence". He is guilty of the ruin of the Zhivago family and the death of the protagonist's father, he cohabits with Lara's mother and with Lara herself. Finally, Komarovsky deceives Zhivago and his wife apart. Komarovsky is smart, prudent, greedy, cynical. All in all, a bad person. He himself understands this, but it suits him perfectly.

3. Judas Golovlev (Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, "Gentlemen Golovlevs")

Porfiry Vladimirovich Golovlev, nicknamed Yudushka and Krovopivushka, is "the last representative of a swindled family." He is hypocritical, greedy, cowardly, prudent. He spends his life in endless slander and litigation, drives his son to suicide, while imitating extreme religiosity, reading prayers "without the participation of the heart."

Toward the end of his dark life, Golovlev gets drunk and runs wild, goes into a March blizzard. In the morning, his stiff corpse is found.

2. Andriy (Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba)

Andriy is the youngest son of Taras Bulba, the hero of the story of the same name by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Andriy, as Gogol writes, from early youth began to feel the "need for love." This need brings him down. He falls in love with a panochka, betrays his homeland, and friends, and his father. Andriy admits: “Who said that my homeland is Ukraine? Who gave it to me in the homeland? The fatherland is what our soul seeks, which is sweeter for it than anything. My homeland is you! ... and everything that is, I will sell, give, destroy for such a homeland!
Andrew is a traitor. He is killed by his own father.

1. Fyodor Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

He is voluptuous, greedy, envious, stupid. To maturity, he became flabby, began to drink a lot, opened several taverns, made many countrymen his debtors ... He began to compete with his eldest son Dmitry for the heart of Grushenka Svetlova, which paved the way for the crime - Karamazov was killed by his illegitimate son Peter Smerdyakov.

Character- the type of artistic image, the subject of action, experience, statements in the work. In the same sense in modern literary criticism, phrases are used literary hero And actor. The author of the textbook believes that the character is the most neutral of the options, because it is embarrassing to call someone who is devoid of heroic traits a hero, and a passive person is the protagonist (Oblomov).

The concept of a character is the most important in the analysis of epic and dramatic works, where it is the characters that form a certain system and the plot that form the basis of the objective world. In the epic, the narrator (narrator) can also be a hero if he participates in the plot (Grinev in Pushkin). In lyric poetry, which primarily recreates the inner world of a person, the characters (if any) are depicted dotted, fragmentary, and most importantly, inextricably linked with the experiences of the lyrical subject. The illusion of the characters' own life in the lyrics is drastically weakened in comparison with the epic and the drama, so it is advisable to consider the question of the characters in the lyrics separately.

Most often, a literary character is a person. The degree of specificity of his image can be different and depends on many reasons: on the place in the system of characters, on the type and genre of the work, but most importantly, on the creative method of the writer. More can be said about the secondary hero of a realistic story (about Gagina in Asa) than about the main character of a modernist novel. Along with people, animals, plants, things, natural elements, fantastic creatures, and so on can act and talk. (fairy tales, Master and Margarita, Mowgli, amphibian man) There are genres in which such characters are obligatory or very likely: fairy tale, fable, ballad, science fiction, animalistic litera, etc.

The center of the subject of artistic knowledge is human beings. In relation to epic and drama, this characters, that is, socially significant features that are manifested with sufficient clarity in the behavior and mentality of people, the highest degree of characteristic - type(often the words character and type are used interchangeably). Creating a literary hero, the writer usually endows him with one or another character: one-sided or multilateral, integral - contradictory, static - developing, etc. Peter in "Peter the Great" by Tolstoy and in "Peter and Alexei" by Merezhkovsky), creating fictional personalities. Character and character are not identical concepts! In literature focused on the embodiment of characters, the latter constitute the main content - the subject of reflection, and often disputes between readers and critics. Critics see different characters in the same character. (the controversy about Katerina, about Bazarov), in this way, the character appears, on the one hand, as a character, on the other, as an artistic image that embodies this character with varying degrees of aesthetic perfection. If the characters in the work are easy to count, then understanding the characters embodied in them is an act of analysis (there are four characters in Tolstoy and Thin, but, obviously, only two characters: Thin, his wife and son form one close-knit family group). The number of characters and characters in the work usually does not match: there are much more characters. There are persons who do not have character, performing only a plot role (in Poor Liza, a friend who informs her mother about the death of her daughter) there are doubles, variants of this type (six princesses Tugoukhovsky, Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky), the existence of characters of the same type gives rise to critics for classifications, (tyrants and unanswered - Dobrolyubov, an extra person in Turgenev's work)

In accordance with their status in the structure of the work, the character and character have different criteria and assessments. Characters evoke ethically colored attitude towards oneself, the characters are primarily evaluated with aesthetic point of view, i.e., depending on how vividly and fully they embody the characters (as the artistic images of Chichikov and Yudushka Golovlev are beautiful and in this capacity deliver aesthetic pleasure)

various components and details of the material world act as means of revealing the character in the work: plot, speech characteristics, portrait, costume, interior, etc. off-stage heroes (chameleon: general and his brother, lovers of dogs of different breeds)

The spatial and temporal framework of the work is expanded due to borrowing characters known to readers. This technique exposes the conventions of art, but also contributes to the laconicism of the image: after all, the names introduced by the writer have become common nouns, the author does not need to characterize them somehow. (Eugene Onegin, the Skotinins, cousin Buyanov, come to Tatyana's name day).

The character sphere of literature consists of collectible heroes(their prototype is a choir in an ancient drama) (a working settlement in Gorky's novel Mother)

With the formation of personality, it is the characters that become the main subject of artistic knowledge. In the programs of literary trends (beginning with classicism), the concept of personality is of fundamental importance. A view is also affirmed of the plot as the most important way of character development, its test and development stimulus. The plot functions of the characters - in abstraction from their characters - became the subject of special analysis in some areas of the literature of the 20th century. (formalist Propp, structuralists).

The basis of the objective world of epic and dramatic works is usually character system and plot. Even in the works, the main theme of which is a man alone with the wild nature, the character sphere, as a rule, is not limited to one hero (Robinson Crusoe, Mowgli) split character, signifying various beginnings in a person, or transformation(Heart of a Dog), a complex double plot in it, in essence, reveals one character. In the early stages of narrative art, the number of characters and the connections between them were determined primarily by the logic of plot development (a single hero of a fairy tale demanded antitheses, then heroines as a pretext for struggle, etc.) Here again Propp with his seven invariants.

In the ancient Greek theater, the number of actors simultaneously on the stage increased gradually. Pre-Aeschylus tragedy - choir and one actor, Aeschylus introduced two instead of one, reduced the chorus parts, Sophocles introduced three actors and scenery. Plot connections as a backbone principle can be very complex and cover a huge number of characters (War and Peace).

However plot connection- not the only type of connection between characters, in literature it is usually not the main one. The character system is a certain ratio of characters. The author composes, builds a chain of events, guided by his character hierarchy depending on the chosen topic. To understand the main problematic character can play a big role minor characters, shading the various properties of his character, as a result, a whole system of parallels and oppositions arises. (Oblomov: Stolz-Oblomov-Zakhar, Olga- Agafya Matveevna)

The thread that makes it possible to see the system of characters behind the characters is, first of all, creative concept, work idea, it is she who creates the unity of the most complex compositions. (Belinsky saw the connection between the five parts of the Hero of Our Time in one thought - in the psychological riddle of Pechorin's character.)

non-participation character in the main action of the work is often a kind of sign of his importance as a spokesman for public opinion, a symbol. (In the Thunderstorm, the plays Kuligin and Feklusha, which do not participate in the intrigue, are, as it were, two poles of the spiritual life of the city of Kalinov)

The principle of "economy" in the construction of the character system is combined, if the content requires it, with the use of twins(two characters, but one type - Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky), collective images and corresponding mass scenes, in general with a multi-heroic nature of the works.

In lyrics the main attention is paid to the disclosure of the experience of the lyrical subject. The object of experience of the lyrical subject is often his own self, in which case it is called lyrical hero(I outlived my desires ... Pushkin, I deeply despise myself for that ... Nekrasov) such a narrow understanding of the lyrical hero, which is only one of the types lyrical subject entrenched in modern literature. Yesenin's poem:

Swamps and swamps

Blue boards of heaven.

Coniferous gilding

The forest roars.

It is without a lyrical hero: nature is described. But the choice of details, the nature of the trails indicate that someone saw this picture. Everything is not just named, but also characterized. The object of perception, the experience of the lyrical subject can be other subjects(Thinking at the front door.. Nekrasov. Stranger. Blok). By analogy with the epic and drama, they can be called characters. G.N. Pospelov identifies a special kind of lyrics - character, which, in particular, includes poetic messages, epigrams, madrigals, epitaphs, inscriptions for portraits, etc. however, the term character can be understood more broadly - as any person who has fallen into the zone of consciousness of the lyrical subject. In the lyrics there are heroes of different types: unlike the lyrical hero, the characters are other "I", therefore, pronouns 2 and 3 persons are used in relation to them. Narrative lyrical poems tend to be multi-personal (on the railway Blok, Orina, a soldier's mother. Nekrasov) Thus, the lyrics can be divided into impersonal and character. The characters in the lyrics are depicted differently than in the epic and drama. There is no plot here, so the characters are rarely revealed through actions and deeds. The main thing is the attitude of the lyrical subject to the character. Pushkin, I remember a wonderful moment: the image of the heroine was created with the help of metaphors, etc. words can be attributed to an ideal lover in general, a specific image does not arise.

An important way of creating character images in lyrics is their nominations, which often characterize not so much the characters as the attitude towards them. subject. distinguish between primary nominations (names, nicknames, pronouns), directly naming the character, and secondary, indicating his qualities, signs. Secondary words may include words used in their direct meaning; tropeic phrases are also secondary nominations. Nominations fix permanent or situational signs of characters. Lyrics in their original setting nameless. The lyrical hero does not need to call himself and one of the participants in the lyrical plot by name. That is why proper names are so rare in lyrics, even when using them, the author tries to include them in the title.

The question of character in lyrics remains debatable. In any case, it is created differently than in the epic and drama. A poem is a work of small volume, here often only a character is outlined, which is often revealed in a cycle of works. The poem can present character system(Block. About valor, about exploits, about glory), if the poem depicts characters united in a group on a common basis, then there is collective image(in Stranger).

An analysis of the characters in the epic, lyrics and drama reveals not only the difference, but also the similarity between literary genres.

The usual method of grouping and stringing motives is to bring out characters, living carriers of certain motives. The belonging of this or that motive to a certain character facilitates the reader's attention. The character is the guiding thread that makes it possible to understand the heap of motives, an auxiliary means for classifying and ordering individual motives. On the other hand, there are techniques that help to understand the very mass of characters and their relationships.

The method of recognizing a character is his "characteristic". By characteristic we mean a system of motives that are inextricably linked with a given character. In a narrow sense, a characteristic is understood as the motives that determine the psychology of a character, his "character".

The simplest element of characterization is already calling the hero by his own name. In elementary fabular forms, sometimes it is enough to simply assign a name to the hero, without any other characteristic ("abstract hero"), in order to fix for him the actions necessary for fabular development. In more complex constructions, it is required that the actions of the hero follow from some psychological unity, so that they are psychologically probable for this character ( psychological motivation of actions). In this case, the hero is awarded certain psychological traits.

Characteristics of the hero can be straight, i.e. his character is reported directly or from the author, or in the speeches of other characters, or in the self-characterization ("confessions") of the hero. Often meets indirect characteristic: character emerges from the actions and behavior of the hero. A special case of an indirect or suggestive characteristic is acceptance of masks, i.e. development of specific motives in harmony with the psychology of the character. So, description of the appearance of the hero, his clothes, the furnishings of his home(for example, Gogol's Plyushkin) - all these are methods of masks. A mask can be not only an external description, through visual representations (images), but also any other. The very name of the hero can serve as a mask. Comedy traditions are curious in this regard. mask names. ("Pravdins", "Milons", "Starodums", "Skalozub", "Gradoboevy", etc.), almost all comedy names contain a characteristic. In the methods of characterization of characters, two main cases should be distinguished: character unchanged, which remains the same in the narrative throughout the plot, and character changing when, as the plot develops, we follow the change in the character of the protagonist. In the latter case, the elements of characterization enter closely into the plot, and the very change of character (typical "repentance of the villain") is already a change in the plot situation. On the other side, hero vocabulary, the style of his speeches, the topics he touches on in a conversation, can also serve as a hero's mask.

The characters are usually emotional coloring. In the most primitive forms we meet virtuous and villainous. Here the emotional attitude towards the hero (sympathy or repulsion) is developed on a moral basis. Positive and negative "types" are a necessary element of plot construction. The attraction of the reader's sympathies to the side of some and the repulsive characterization of others cause the reader's emotional participation ("experience") in the events described, his personal interest in the fate of the characters.

The character who receives the most acute and vivid emotional coloring is called a hero. The hero is the person who is followed by the reader with the greatest tension and attention. The hero evokes compassion, sympathy, joy and grief for the reader.

It should not be forgotten that the emotional attitude towards the hero is given in the work. The author can attract sympathy for the hero, whose character in everyday life could cause repulsion and disgust in the reader. The emotional attitude to the hero is a fact of the artistic construction of the work.

This moment was often missed by publicists-critics of the 60s of the 19th century, who regarded heroes from the point of view of the social usefulness of their character and ideology, taking the hero out of a work of art in which an emotional attitude towards the hero is predetermined. It is necessary to read naively, infecting the author's instructions. The stronger the author's talent, the more difficult it is to resist these emotional directives, the more convincing work. This persuasiveness of the artistic word serves as a source of appeal to it as a means of teaching and preaching.

The hero is not at all a necessary part of the plot. The plot as a system of motives can do without a hero and his characteristics. The hero appears as a result of the plot design of the material and is, on the one hand, a means of stringing motives, on the other hand, as if embodied and personified motivation for the connection of motives. This is clear in the elementary narrative form - in the anecdote.

Copyright Contest -K2
The word "hero" ("heros" - Greek) means a demigod or a deified person.
Among the ancient Greeks, the heroes were either half-breeds (one of the parents is a god, the second is a man), or outstanding men who became famous for their deeds, for example, military exploits or travels. But, according to anyone, the title of a hero gave a person a lot of advantages. He was worshiped, poems and other songs were composed in his honor. Gradually, gradually, the concept of "hero" migrated to literature, where it has stuck to this day.
Now, in our understanding, a hero can be both a “noble man” and a “bad man” if he acts within the framework of a work of art.

The term "character" is adjacent to the term "hero", and often these terms are perceived as synonyms.
In ancient Rome, a persona was a mask that an actor put on before a performance - tragic or comic.

Hero and character are not the same thing.

A LITERARY HERO is an exponent of a plot action that reveals the content of a work.

A CHARACTER is any character in a work.

The word "character" is characteristic in that it does not carry any additional meanings.
Take, for example, the term "actor". It is immediately clear that it - must act = perform actions, and then a whole bunch of heroes do not fit this definition. Starting from Papa Pippi Longstocking, the mythical sea captain, and ending with the people in Boris Godunov, who, as always, is “silent”.
The emotional-evaluative coloring of the term "hero" implies exclusively positive qualities = heroism \ heroism. And then even more people will not fall under this definition. Well, how, say, to call Chichikov or Gobsek a hero?
And now literary critics are fighting with philologists - who should be called a “hero”, and who should be called a “character”?
Who will win, time will tell. For now, we'll keep it simple.

The hero is an important character for expressing the idea of the work. And the characters are everything else.

A little later we will talk about the system of characters in a work of art, there we will talk about the main (heroes) and secondary (characters).

Let's take a look at a couple more definitions.

LYRICAL HERO
The concept of a lyrical hero was first formulated by Yu.N. Tynyanov in 1921 in relation to the work of A.A. Blok.
Lyrical hero - the image of a hero in a lyrical work, experiences, feelings, whose thoughts reflect the author's worldview.
The lyrical hero is not an autobiographical image of the author.
You can’t say “lyrical character” - only “lyrical hero”.

THE IMAGE OF THE HERO is an artistic generalization of human properties, character traits in the individual appearance of the hero.

LITERARY TYPE is a generalized image of human individuality, the most characteristic of a certain social environment at a certain time. It combines two sides - the individual (single) and the general.
Typical does not mean average. The type concentrates in itself all the most striking, characteristic of a whole group of people - social, national, age, etc. For example, the type of a Turgenev girl or a lady of Balzac age.

CHARACTER AND CHARACTER

In modern literary criticism, character is the unique personality of a character, his inner appearance, that is, what distinguishes him from other people.

Character consists of diverse traits and qualities that are not randomly combined. In every character there is a main, dominant feature.

Character can be simple or complex.
A simple character is distinguished by integrity and static. The hero is either positive or negative.
Simple characters are traditionally paired, most often on the basis of the opposition "bad" - "good". Contrasting sharpens the merits of positive heroes and detracts from the merits of negative heroes. Example - Shvabrin and Grinev in The Captain's Daughter
A complex character is a constant search for the hero himself, the spiritual evolution of the hero, etc.
A complex character is very difficult to label "positive" or "negative." It contains contradictions and paradoxes. As in Captain Zheglov, who almost put poor Gruzdev in jail, but easily gave the ration cards to Sharapov's neighbor.

STRUCTURE OF A LITERARY HERO

A literary hero is a complex and multifaceted person. It has two forms - external and internal.

To create the appearance of the hero work:

PORTRAIT. This is a face, figure, distinctive features of the physique (for example, Quasimodo's hump or Karenin's ears).

CLOTHING, which can also reflect certain character traits of the hero.

SPEECH, the features of which characterize the hero no less than his appearance.

AGE, which determines the potential for certain actions.

PROFESSION, which shows the degree of socialization of the hero, determines his position in society.

LIFE STORY. Information about the origin of the hero, his parents / relatives, the country and place where he lives, gives the hero a sensually tangible realism, historical concreteness.

The internal appearance of the hero consists of:

WORLD VIEWS AND ETHICAL BELIEFS, which endow the hero with value orientations, give meaning to his existence.

THOUGHTS AND ATTITUDES that outline the diverse life of the hero's soul.

FAITH (or lack thereof), which determines the presence of the hero in the spiritual field, his attitude towards God and the Church.

STATEMENTS AND ACTIONS, which denote the results of the interaction of the soul and spirit of the hero.
The hero can not only reason, love, but also be aware of emotions, analyze his own activity, that is, reflect. Artistic reflection allows the author to reveal the personal self-esteem of the hero, to characterize his attitude towards himself.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

So, a character is a fictional animated person with a certain character and unique external data. The author must come up with these data and convincingly convey to the reader.
If the author does not do this, the reader perceives the character as cardboard and is not included in his experiences.

Character development is a rather time-consuming process and requires skill.
The most effective way is to write down on a separate sheet of paper all the personality traits of your character that you want to present to the reader. Straight to the point.
The first point is the appearance of the hero (fat, thin, blond, brunette, etc.). The second point is age. The third is education and profession.
Be sure to answer (first of all, to yourself) the following questions:
How does the character relate to other people? (sociable / withdrawn, sensitive / callous, respectful / rude)
- How does the character feel about his work? (hardworking/lazy, prone to creativity/routine, responsible/irresponsible, initiative/passive)
How does the character feel about himself? (has self-respect, is self-critical, proud, modest, impudent, conceited, arrogant, touchy, shy, selfish)
- How does the character feel about his things? (neat/sloppy, careful about things/sloppy)
The choice of questions is not accidental. The answers to them will give a FULL picture of the personality of the character.
It is better to write down the answers and keep them in front of your eyes throughout the work on the work.
What will it give? Even if in the work you do not mention ALL QUALITIES of a person (it is not rational to do this for minor and episodic characters), then all the same, the author's FULL understanding of his characters will be transmitted to the reader and make their images voluminous.

ARTISTIC DETAILS play a huge role in the creation/disclosure of character images.

An artistic detail is a detail that the author endowed with a significant semantic and emotional load.
A bright detail replaces whole descriptive fragments, cuts off unnecessary details that obscure the essence of the matter.
An expressive, well-found detail is evidence of the author's skill.

I would especially like to note such a moment as the CHOICE OF THE NAME OF THE CHARACTER.

According to Pavel Florensky, "names are the essence of the category of personality cognition." Names are not just called, but actually declare the spiritual and physical essence of a person. They form special models of personal existence, which become common for each bearer of a certain name. Names predetermine spiritual qualities, actions and even the fate of a person.

The existence of a character in a work of art begins with the choice of his name. It is very important how you name your hero.
Compare the variants of the name Anna - Anna, Anka, Anka, Nyura, Nyurka, Nyusha, Nyushka, Nyusya, Nyuska.
Each of the options crystallizes certain personality traits, gives the key to character.
Once you've decided on a character's name, don't (unnecessarily) change it as you go along, as this can confuse the reader's perception.
If in life you tend to call friends and acquaintances diminutively, affectionately, disparagingly (Svetka, Mashulya, Lenusik, Dimon), control your passion in writing. In a work of art, the use of such names must be justified. Numerous Vovkas and Tanki look terrible.

CHARACTER SYSTEM

The literary hero is a brightly individual and at the same time distinctly collective person, that is, he is generated by the social environment and interpersonal relationships.

It is unlikely that only one hero will act in your work (although this has happened). In most cases, the character is at the point where the three rays intersect.
The first is friends, associates (friendly relations).
The second is enemies, ill-wishers (hostile relations).
Third - other strangers (neutral relations)
These three rays (and the people in them) create a strict hierarchical structure or CHARACTER SYSTEM.
Characters are divided by the degree of author's attention (or the frequency of the image in the work), the purpose and functions that they perform.

Traditionally, there are main, secondary and episodic characters.

THE MAIN CHARACTER(S) is always at the center of the work.
The protagonist actively explores and transforms artistic reality. Its character (see above) predetermines events.

Axiom - the main character must be bright, that is, his structure must be spelled out thoroughly, no gaps are allowed.

The SECONDARY CHARACTERS are, although next to the main character, but somewhat behind, in the background, so to speak, on the plane of the artistic image.
Characters and portraits of secondary characters are rarely detailed, more often appear dotted. These heroes help the main to open up and ensure the development of the action.

Axiom - a minor character cannot be brighter than the main one.
Otherwise, he will pull the blanket over himself. An example from a related field. The film "Seventeen Moments of Spring". Remember the girl who molested Stirlitz in one of the last episodes? (“Mathematicians say about us that we are terrible crackers .... But in love I am Einstein ...”).
In the first edition of the film, the episode with her was much longer. Actress Inna Ulyanova was so good that she drew all the attention to herself and distorted the scene. Let me remind you that there Stirlitz was supposed to receive an important encryption from the center. However, no one remembered the encryption anymore, everyone reveled in the bright clowning of the EPISODIC (completely passing) character. Ulyanov, of course, is sorry, but the director Lioznova made the absolutely right decision and cut out this scene. An example for reflection, however!

EPISODIC HEROES are on the periphery of the world of the work. They may have no character at all, act as passive executors of the author's will. Their functions are purely official.

POSITIVE and NEGATIVE HEROES usually divide the system of characters in the work into two warring groups (“reds” - “whites”, “ours” - “fascists”).

The theory of dividing characters BY ARCHETYPES is interesting.

The archetype is the primary idea expressed in symbols and images and underlying everything.
That is, each character in the work should serve as a symbol of something.

According to the classics, there are seven archetypes in literature.
So, the main character can be:
- The Protagonist - the one who "accelerates the action", the real Hero.
- Antagonist - completely opposite to the Hero. I mean, villain.
- Guardian, Sage, Mentor and Assistant - those who assist the Protagonist

The secondary characters are:
- Bosom friend - symbolizes support and faith in the main character.
- Skeptic - questions everything that happens
- Reasonable - makes decisions based solely on logic.
- Emotional - reacts only with emotions.

For example, Rowling's Harry Potter novels.
The main character is undoubtedly Harry Potter himself. He is opposed by the Villain - Voldemort. Professor Dumbledore = Sage appears periodically.
And Harry's friends are the sensible Hermione and the emotional Ron.

In conclusion, I want to talk about the number of characters.
When there are a lot of them, this is bad, since they will begin to duplicate each other (there are only seven archetypes!). The competition among the characters will cause discoordination in the minds of the readers.
The most reasonable thing is to stupidly check your heroes by archetypes.
For example, you have three old women in your novel. The first is cheerful, the second is smart, and the third is just a lonely grandmother from the first floor. Ask yourself - what do they embody? And you will understand that a lonely old woman is superfluous. Her phrases (if there are any at all) can be passed on to the second or first (to the old women). This way you will get rid of unnecessary verbal noise, concentrate on the idea.

After all, “The idea is the tyrant of the work” (c) Egri.