An essay based on Karamzin’s story “Poor Liza. Essay: The image of Poor Lisa from N. M. Karamzin’s story “Poor Lisa” Essay “Poor Lisa”

(451 words) N. M. Karamzin made the main character of his story “Poor Liza” a peasant woman - a girl not at all from the upper class. The writer immediately breaks tradition by calling her Lisa: in European literature of his time, maids and maids, flirtatious girls with a frivolous character, were usually called this way, but the name “Elizabeth” itself is translated as “who worships God,” and this becomes one of the key characteristics of the new heroine.

From the first lines, the reader notices that the author sympathizes with Lisa, admires her and feels sorry for her, calling her “dear,” “beautiful,” and “poor.” We learn that at the age of 15, Lisa lost her father, her mother cannot work due to poor health, and the girl begins to work hard early to feed herself and her mother. She weaves canvas, knits stockings, and collects flowers and berries for sale in the city. At the same time, the heroine is not only hardworking and selfless, she is very receptive and soft-hearted. In order not to upset her mother, Lisa “tried to appear calm and cheerful,” although she was worried about the death of her father. It is in such little things that the deep and beautiful soul of the heroine is revealed.

Lisa is honest and open, childishly naive. She refuses to take extra for the flowers she sold, blushes and is embarrassed by the kind words addressed to her by a handsome stranger.

Having fallen in love with Erast, Lisa shows all the ardor and strength of her nature. Secret evening dates with him become her main joy and meaning. Lisa understands that a rich nobleman cannot connect his fate with a simple peasant girl, but Erast so passionately swears his love for her, and is so kind and generous to her mother, that Lisa trusts him.

Having learned that Erast is going to war, Lisa is immediately ready to follow him:

“War is not scary for me; It's scary where my friend is not there. I want to live with him, I want to die with him, or I want to save his precious life with my death.”

However, Lisa’s lover turns out to be too weak and soft to follow his love against social principles; in the war he loses at cards and, in order to improve his affairs, chooses the simplest and most common path at that time - marrying a rich widow.

Erast's betrayal and the destruction of all hopes associated with him pushes the girl to the most desperate act - suicide. The narrator does not justify this step, but forgives Lisa, because grief deprives her of strength. Moreover, he expresses the hope that Lisa’s pure soul will go to Heaven and find a new life there.

Having made the main character of his story a peasant woman, Karamzin for the first time raises the problem of the equality of all people and classes in front of real feelings, for “even peasant women know how to love.” Another innovation is the author’s interpretation of the female image. In Russia in the 18th century, a woman was not a completely free figure; her life and marriage were dictated by family and external circumstances. Karamzin allows his heroine to love and in this love to reveal all the strength and fullness of her character. It is the woman who appears in Karamzin’s story as the representative of the highest moral ideal. This theme would later be picked up by Pushkin, Turgenev, Goncharov and other writers, who would create a whole gallery of strong and beautiful female images.

The story of N.M. Karamzin's "Poor Liza" was written in 1792. This work in many ways became a milestone in Russian literature. It was an example of Russian sentimentalist prose.
It is known that the founder and developer of sentimentalism was N.M. Karamzin. This direction was based on attention to human feelings, to the world of the human soul, regardless of class and rank.
Sentimentalist literature did a lot for the development of the Russian literary language. She brought into it a whole layer of new vocabulary, gave a model for a different language - elegant, sophisticated, “salon”.
This work is dedicated to revealing the soul, the world of feelings of a simple girl from the people. The title itself - “Poor Liza” - shows that the main character is the peasant woman Liza, and the author, first of all, is interested in her spiritual tragedy.
By bringing his Liza to the fore, Karamzin asserted a humanistic idea. He was convinced that all people are equal, that all of them, regardless of class and wealth, experience the same feelings, want to love, suffer from betrayal, cry and rejoice at the same things. And the feelings of a peasant woman are equal in importance to the feelings of an aristocrat, and, perhaps, more noble, pure, sublime.
The work is based on the love story of a poor girl Lisa for a young nobleman Erast. Lisa is described in ideal tones. This is a beautiful, hardworking girl who was forced to go to work because her father died. Lisa was left with her sick mother in her arms. Her loving daughter could not allow her to work. That's why Lisa goes to town to sell flowers. It was there that she met Erast.
This young rake led a riotous lifestyle. He was fed up with secular beauties; affairs with them were nothing new for the hero. In Lisa, Erast saw freshness, charming purity and naivety - something that women of high society did not have. Erast quickly became interested in the girl and met her mother.
Lisa’s mother seemed to sense something was wrong and warned her daughter about the dangers lurking in the city. But it was too late. Lisa fell in love with Erast with all the strength of her innocent soul. Class prejudices and fears receded before her love. She gave all of herself to Erast: “When,” Lisa said to Erast, “when you tell me: “I love you, my friend!”, when you press me to your heart and look at me with your touching eyes, ah! Then it happens to me so good, so good that I forget myself, I forget everything except Erast.”
But what is this “noble lucky one”? What were his feelings towards Lisa? The author writes that Erast reveled in their relationship while it was spiritual, almost friendly. Seeing immeasurable love in the girl’s eyes, the hero rose in his eyes and stroked his pride. “I will live with Liza, like brother and sister, I will not use her love for evil and I will always be happy!” - thought Erast.
But as soon as the relationship between him and Lisa became carnal, the young man lost interest in the girl. The novelty disappeared, interest disappeared, and routine, boredom, ordinariness appeared. Erast began to move away from his beloved and finally announced to her that he was going to war. Lisa’s grief and fears knew no bounds, but what could she do? Erast promised to remember his sweetheart.
Hard times have come for Lisa. Everything around her seemed dull, sad, and painful. But in an instant the girl’s heart was completely broken. She found out that her Erast was marrying someone else. This womanizer wasted money in the army and has now found himself a rich widow. He forgot to think about Lisa.
Of course, the girl could not bear such a blow. What could she do? Only take her own life, because her heart was broken and her honor was violated. Lisa throws herself off the water.
The ending of the story becomes even sadder because Lisa’s mother also dies after learning about her daughter’s death. And Erast’s fate was unfortunate. He could not forgive himself for the death of Lisa until the end of his life.
It is interesting that there is another character in the story - the author. He actively participates in the narrative, sympathizes with Lisa with all his heart, like an adult comrade, he scolds Erast.
It is the image of the author that brings great lyricism and provides examples of “salon” language: “He kissed her, kissed her with such fervor that the whole universe seemed to her to be burning in fire!”, “They hugged - but chaste, bashful Cynthia did not hide from them behind a cloud : their embrace was pure and immaculate,” “She threw herself into his arms - and at this hour purity had to perish!”
The story “Poor Liza” was the first example of sentimentalist prose in Russia. It, in addition to its artistic merits (language, style, attempt to convey the psychological state of the characters), proclaims a valuable idea. According to Karamzin, all people are equal and equally worthy of respect. Moreover, commoners can be more noble than nobles.
It was Karamzin who showed that the main character of a work of literature can be a simple person, the world of his feelings, the life of his heart.

Such a trend in Russian literature as sentimentalism came from France. It is mainly aimed at describing the problems of human souls.
In his story “Poor Liza” Karamzin talks about love between representatives of different classes. Lisa is a peasant woman, Erast is a nobleman. The girl lives with her mother near Moscow, earns money selling flowers, where she met a representative of the nobility. Erast is a naturally kind man with a fair amount of intelligence.

At the same time, he is quite frivolous,

Careless and weak-willed. This is also expressed in his love for Lisa, which turned out to be not as strong as the reader would have liked.
Having lost greatly at cards, Erast wants to improve the current situation by marrying a wealthy widow, betraying Lisa with this act. This greatly shocked the weak-spirited peasant woman, which leads to her death - the girl throws herself into the pond.
The predetermining factor in the ending of the story is class inequality. Marriage between a peasant woman and a nobleman is impossible. Lisa knew how to love, but this did not mean that such love would make her happy.

The story was meant to show that a person’s personal qualities are much more important than wealth, and nobility cannot replace deep feelings.
Being a great humanist, Karamzin did not recognize serfdom. A person with a subtle soul could not accept the possibility of some people to control the destinies of others. Despite the fact that the tragically deceased main character was not a serf, but only a free peasant, class lines separated them.

And even Lisa’s strong, sincere love for Erast could not erase it.
It cannot be said that in the story the author inclines the reader to the side of one of the heroes. Karamzin only forces the reader to make a choice between pure feelings and material values. The image of the main character tells us this. Erast is interesting, but with a contradictory character.

But the poetic nature could not resist the desire to live in abundance, in exchange for high feelings. Natural kindness gives way to selfishness, which is accompanied by cruelty and the ability to deceive, which led to the death of Lisa. When Erast learns that the girl has died, he finds no consolation and calls himself a murderer.

Thus, Karamzin once again emphasizes that regardless of the class to which a person belongs, he should not be exempt from responsibility for those actions that lie on his conscience.

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31. The image of the main character Lisa is striking in its purity and sincerity. The peasant girl is more like a fairy-tale heroine. There is nothing ordinary, everyday, vulgar about her. Lisa’s nature is sublime and beautiful, despite the fact that the girl’s life cannot be called fairy-tale. Lisa lost her father early and lives with her old mother. The girl has to work a lot. But she does not complain about fate. […]...
32. The story begins with a description of the cemetery where the girl Lisa is buried. Based on this picture, the author tells the sad story of a young peasant woman who paid with her life for her love. One day, while selling lilies of the valley collected in the forest on the street, Lisa met the young nobleman Erast. Her beauty, naturalness and simplicity captivated the aristocrat, devastated by social life. Each new meeting strengthened the love of the young [...]
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34. Tatyana Alekseevna IGNATENKO (1983) – teacher of Russian language and literature. Lives in the village of Novominskaya, Kanevsky district, Krasnodar region. Working with the story “Poor Lisa” is designed for two lessons. It begins with the words of Karamzin: “They say that the author needs talent and knowledge: a sharp, insightful mind, a vivid imagination, and so on. Fair, but not enough. He needs to have […]
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39. Karamzin’s best story is rightly recognized as “Poor Liza” (1792), which is based on the educational thought about the extra-class value of the human personality. The problems of the story are of a social and moral nature: the peasant woman Liza is opposed to the nobleman Erast. The characters are revealed in the heroes' attitude to love. Lisa’s feelings are distinguished by their depth, constancy, and selflessness: she understands perfectly well that she is not destined to be Erast’s wife. Twice during [...]
40. Karamzin’s story “Poor Liza” enjoyed enormous success among Russian readers at the beginning of the 19th century, which had a significant influence on the formation and development of new Russian literature. The plot of this story is very simple: it boils down to a sad love story between the poor peasant girl Lisa and the rich young nobleman Erast. The main interest of the story lies in Lisa’s spiritual life, in the history of the heyday and [...]

The story “Poor Liza,” written at the end of the 18th century, opened up for its contemporaries such a genre in literature as sentimentalism. The main character of the story, after whom the work was named, is the peasant woman Lisa. So what is the characterization of poor Lisa in the quotes?

External characteristics of Lisa

The main character of Nikolai Karamzin's story is a young girl Lisa. It is known about her appearance that she is very beautiful: “..Lisa’s beauty at the first meeting made an impression on his heart...”. The girl has very beautiful blue eyes that cannot leave anyone indifferent: “...her blue eyes quickly turned to the ground, meeting his gaze...”

She is beautiful not only in soul, but also in body. Many people looked at her when she sold flowers in the city. The nobleman Erast, who fell in love with the girl, despite the fact that she was a peasant, did not escape this fate.

Karamzin became the first writer to create a work in the style of sentimentalism.

The image of the main character

From the first pages of the story, the reader begins to sympathize with the main character. She is young, beautiful, modest and has a big heart. The girl is used to working: she sews, weaves, picks berries and flowers, and then sells them in the city. She takes care of her elderly mother, does not reproach her for anything, but, on the contrary, says that her time has come to look after her mother: “... you fed me with your breasts and followed me when I was a child; now it’s my turn to follow you..."

Lisa is a peasant woman. She is uneducated, but is used to hard work. A chance meeting with the nobleman Erast determined her entire fate. Despite belonging to different classes, young people fall in love with each other. Erast was struck not only by her appearance, but also by her inner beauty. When he offers her more money than expected for flowers, she refuses, citing the fact that she doesn’t need someone else’s money.

However, the love of the heroes does not withstand external factors. While the girl waits for her lover and sheds tears for him, Erast squanders his fortune and is left with nothing. As a result, he decides to marry a rich widow, thereby betraying the feelings of the poor girl who is madly in love with him. Only in this man did she see her happiness: “... she, completely surrendering to him, only lived and breathed for him, in everything, like a lamb, she obeyed his will and placed her happiness in his pleasure...”

Unable to bear the betrayal, Lisa no longer sees the meaning of her existence. The story ends very sadly, a young girl who has not yet seen life drowns herself in a pond.

This article will help schoolchildren write an essay on the topic “Quote description of “Poor Lisa.” Here the appearance and character of the girl, her attitude towards her loved one are revealed. For the first time in Russian literature, the author raises the issue of social inequality between lovers.

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Essay on the topic: Lisa. Artwork: Poor Lisa

Liza (Poor Liza) is the main character of the story, which, along with other works published by Karamzin in the Moscow Journal (Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter, Frol Silin, the Benevolent Man, Liodor, etc.), is not just brought literary fame to its author, but made a complete revolution in the public consciousness of the 18th century. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, Karamzin turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically ordinary features. His words “...even peasant women know how to love” became popular.

Poor peasant girl Lisa is left an orphan early on. She lives in one of the villages near Moscow with her mother - “a sensitive, kind old lady”, from whom she inherits her main talent - the ability to love. To support himself and his mother, L. takes on any job. In the spring she goes to the city to sell flowers. There, in Moscow, L. meets the young nobleman Erast. Tired of the windy social life, Erast falls in love with a spontaneous, innocent girl “with the love of a brother.” It seems so to him. However, soon platonic love turns into sensual. L., “having completely surrendered to him, she only lived and breathed by him.” But gradually L. begins to notice the change taking place in Erast. He explains his cooling off by the fact that he needs to go to war. To improve matters, Erast marries an elderly rich widow. Having learned about this, L. drowns himself in the pond.

Sensitivity - so in the language of the late 18th century. determined the main advantage of Karamzin’s stories, meaning by this the ability to sympathize, to discover the “tenderest feelings” in the “curves of the heart,” as well as the ability to enjoy the contemplation of one’s own emotions. Sensitivity is also the central character trait of L. She trusts the movements of her heart and lives by “tender passions.” Ultimately, it is ardor and ardor that lead to L.’s death, but it is morally justified.

Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the contrast between city and countryside into Russian literature. In Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - finds himself defenseless when he finds himself in urban space, where laws different from the laws of nature apply. No wonder L.’s mother tells her (thus indirectly predicting everything that will happen later): “My heart is always in the wrong place when you go to the city; I always put a candle in front of the image and pray to the Lord God that he will protect you from all troubles and misfortunes.”

It is no coincidence that the first step on the path to disaster is L.’s insincerity: for the first time she “retreats from herself,” hiding, on Erast’s advice, their love from her mother, to whom she had previously confided all her secrets. Later, it was in relation to his dearly beloved mother that L. would repeat Erast’s worst act. He tries to “pay off” L. and, driving her away, gives her a hundred rubles. But L. does the same, sending his mother, along with the news of his death, the “ten imperials” that Erast gave her. Naturally, L.’s mother needs this money just as much as the heroine herself: “Liza’s mother heard about the terrible death of her daughter, and her blood cooled with horror - her eyes closed forever.”

The tragic outcome of the love between a peasant woman and an officer confirms the rightness of the mother, who warned L. at the very beginning of the story: “You still don’t know how evil people can offend a poor girl.” The general rule turns into a specific situation, poor L. herself takes the place of the impersonal poor girl, and the universal plot is transferred to Russian soil and acquires a national flavor.

For the arrangement of characters in the story, it is also important that the narrator learns the story of poor L. directly from Erast and himself often comes to be sad at “Liza’s grave.” The coexistence of the author and the hero in the same narrative space was not familiar to Russian literature before Karamzin. The narrator of “Poor Lisa” is mentally involved in the relationships of the characters. Already the title of the story is based on combining the heroine’s own name with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her, who constantly repeats that he has no power to change the course of events (“Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad true story?”).

“Poor Lisa” is perceived as a story about true events. L. belongs to the characters with “registration”. “...More and more often I am attracted to the walls of the Si...nova Monastery - the memory of the deplorable fate of Lisa, poor Lisa,” - this is how the author begins his story. With a gap in the middle of a word, any Muscovite could guess the name of the Simonov Monastery, the first buildings of which date back to the 14th century. (to date, only a few buildings have survived, most of them were blown up in 1930). The pond, located under the walls of the monastery, was called the Fox Pond, but thanks to Karamzin’s story it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage for Muscovites. In the minds of the monks of the Simonov Monastery, who zealously guarded the memory of L., she was, first of all, a fallen victim. Essentially, L. was canonized by sentimental culture.

First of all, the same unhappy girls in love, like L. herself, came to cry at the place of Liza’s death. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees growing around the pond was mercilessly cut up by the knives of the “pilgrims.” The inscriptions carved on the trees were both serious (“In these streams, poor Liza passed away her days; / If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh”), and satirical, hostile to Karamzin and his heroine (the couplet acquired particular fame among such “birch epigrams”: “Erast’s bride perished in these streams. / Drown yourself, girls, there’s plenty of room in the pond”).

Karamzin and his story were certainly mentioned when describing the Simonov Monastery in guidebooks to Moscow and special books and articles. But gradually these references began to have an increasingly ironic character, and already in 1848, in the famous work of M. N. Zagoskin “Moscow and Muscovites” in the chapter “Walk to the Simonov Monastery” not a word was said either about Karamzin or his heroine. As sentimental prose lost the charm of novelty, “Poor Liza” ceased to be perceived as a story about true events, much less as an object of worship, but became in the minds of most readers (a primitive fiction, a curiosity, reflecting the tastes and concepts of a bygone era.

The image of “poor L.” immediately sold out in numerous literary copies of Karamzin’s epigones (cf., for example, “The Unhappy Liza” by Dolgorukov). But the image of L. and the associated ideal of sensitivity received serious development not in these stories, but in poetry. The invisible presence of “poor L.” palpably in Zhukovsky’s elegy “Rural Cemetery,” published ten years after Karamzin’s story, in 1802, which laid, according to V.S. Solovyov, “the beginning of truly human poetry in Russia.” The very plot of the seduced villager was addressed by three major poets of Pushkin’s time: E. A. Baratynsky (in the plot poem “Eda”, 1826, A. A. Delvig (in the idyll “The End of the Golden Age”, 1828) and I. I. Kozlov (in the “Russian story” “Mad”, 1830).

In “Belkin's Tales” Pushkin twice varies the plot outline of the story about “poor L.”, enhancing its tragic sound in “The Station Agent” and turning it into a joke in “The Young Lady-Peasant”. The connection between “Poor Liza” and “The Queen of Spades,” whose heroine is named Lizaveta Ivanovna, is very complex. Pushkin develops Karamzin’s theme: his “poor Liza” (like “poor Tanya,” the heroine of “Eugene Onegin”) experiences a catastrophe: having lost hope of love, she marries another, quite worthy person. All Pushkin’s heroines, who are in the “force field” of Karamzin’s heroine, are destined for a happy or unhappy life, but life. “To the origins”, P. I. Tchaikovsky returns Pushkin’s Liza to Karamzin, in whose opera “The Queen of Spades” Liza (no longer Lizaveta Ivanovna) commits suicide by throwing herself into the Winter Canal.

L.'s fate in different versions of its resolution is carefully described by F. M. Dostoevsky. In his work, both the word “poor” and the name “Liza” acquire a special status from the very beginning. The most famous among his heroines - namesakes of the Karamzin peasant woman - are Lizaveta ("Crime and Punishment"), Elizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina ("The Idiot"), blessed Lizaveta and Liza Tushina ("Demons"), and Lizaveta Smerdyashaya ("The Brothers Karamazov"). But the Swiss Marie from “The Idiot” and Sonechka Marmeladova from “Crime and Punishment” would also not exist without Liza Karamzin. The Karamzin scheme also forms the basis of the history of the relationship between Nekhlyudov and Katyusha Maslova, the heroes of L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection”.

In the 20th century “Poor Liza” has by no means lost its meaning: on the contrary, interest in Karamzin’s story and its heroine has increased. One of the sensational productions of the 1980s. became a theatrical version of “Poor Lisa” at M. Rozovsky’s theater-studio “At the Nikitsky Gate”.