The meaning of the image of the main character of the jumper. Analysis of the story “The Jumper” (A.P. Chekhov). “The Jumper”: Chekhov, analysis of the story

The plot of the story “The Jumper” (1892) is structured in such a way that at first nothing foretells a tragic outcome. Olga Ivanovna, who married Doctor Dymov, is surrounded by talented people: a drama theater actor, an opera singer, a writer, a musician, a landowner, and several artists, including the handsome young Ryabovsky. Everyone looks after her, teaches her their art, and Olga Ivanovna is carried away by them. “Among this artistic, free and fate-spoiled company, albeit delicate and modest, Dymov seemed alien, superfluous and small, although he was tall and broad in the shoulders.” Chasing celebrities all her life and collecting them in her house, Olga Ivanovna did not recognize the remarkable talent of her husband’s selfless soul. When he, having contracted diphtheria from a sick child, dies and his fellow doctors speak of him as a rare, wonderful person, Olga Ivanovna regrets that she “missed the celebrity.” Dymov is depicted as a gentle, intelligent man who loves his wife. But, seeing this spiritually limited company around him, in his home, he cannot, due to his concepts of culture, express dissatisfaction, does not resist, and puts up with his wife’s unceremoniousness. Even when it became clear that his wife was cheating on him, he did not dare to explain himself, hoping that the terrible drama would resolve itself. During these difficult experiences, Dymov dies.

Features of style. In the story “The Jumper” he clearly expressed art style, which Chekhov mastered by the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s. The author's irony is visible in the way the details of the picture are combined and correlated, the selection of which the writer attaches great importance. At her wedding, Olga Ivanovna seemed to demonstrate her husband to her famous friends: “Look at him: isn’t it true, there’s something in him,” she said, nodding at her husband and as if wanting to explain why she married a simple, very an ordinary and unremarkable person."

Here she, “grabbing the hand” of her interlocutor, repeating “listen, listen,” tells how “Dymov fell head over heels,” and she “cried all night and fell in love like hell.” Rough, primitive vocabulary gives Olga Ivanovna away. She is not ashamed to tell strangers about her relationship with her husband.

Details of behavior and speech portray a superficial, frivolous, ill-mannered person. Chekhov leaves the reader no doubt about the character and moral qualities of Olga Ivanovna. Right there, at the wedding, she once again demonstrates her husband as an exhibit: “Isn’t it true, there is something strong, powerful, bearish about him? Now his face is facing us at three quarters, poorly lit, but when he turns around, you look at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what can you say about this forehead? Dymov, we’re talking about you!” she shouted to her husband. “Come here.” Extend your honest hand to Ryabovsky... That's it. Be friends."

The story “Ionych” is another example of “case life”. The hero of this story is Dmitry Ionovich Startsev, a young doctor who came to work at the zemstvo hospital. He works “without a free hour.” His soul strives for high ideals. Startsev meets the residents of the city and sees that they lead a vulgar, sleepy, soulless existence. The townsfolk are all “gamblers, alcoholics, wheezing,” they irritate him “with their conversations, their views on life and even their appearance.” It is impossible to talk to them about politics or science. The doctor encounters complete misunderstanding. In response, ordinary people “start such a philosophy, stupid and evil, that all that remains is to wave your hand and walk away.”
Startsev meets the Turkins family, “the most educated and talented in the city,” and falls in love with their daughter Ekaterina Ivanovna, whom the family affectionately calls Kotik. The life of the young doctor is filled with meaning, but it turned out that in his life this was “the only joy and ... the last.” Kitty, seeing the doctor's interest in her, jokingly makes an appointment with him at night at the cemetery. Startsev comes and, having waited in vain for the girl, returns home, irritated and tired. The next day he confesses his love to Kitty and is refused. From that moment on, Startsev’s decisive actions stopped. He feels relief: “his heart has stopped beating restlessly,” his life has returned to normal. When Kotik left to enter the conservatory, he suffered for three days.
By the age of 35, Startsev turned into Ionych. He was no longer annoyed by the local inhabitants, he became one of their own, and outwardly he became like some kind of soulless idol. He plays cards with them and does not feel any desire to develop spiritually. He completely forgets about his love, becomes depressed, gets fat, and in the evenings indulges in his favorite pastime - counting the money he received from the sick. Kotik, who returned to the town, does not recognize the old Startsev. Convinced that she does not have the talent for a big career, she now hopes to resurrect her former love. But Ionych has cut himself off from the whole world and doesn’t want to know anything about it. Having visited the Turkins and seeing Kotik again, he thinks: “It’s good that I didn’t get married then.”
The idea about the social value of a person is expressed by Chekhov in the story “The Jumper”. The writer talks about the true and the imaginary in people's lives. The spiritual beauty of a person is often not visible, especially to narrow-minded people.
The author created the image of an empty, vulgar, eccentric woman Olga Ivanovna. The heroine is very dependent on other people’s opinions, her guests and acquaintances must have been famous, extraordinary people, she included herself in this circle. The content of her life is an amateurish passion for art and flirting with artists. For Olga Ivanovna, life is a performance in which she plays an imaginary self, and around her are guests invented by her. Since the heroine does not understand people at all and has no taste, in reality a vulgar, stupid farce is played out every day. The artist Ryabovsky, whom Olga Ivanovna idolizes at this stage of her life, is essentially mediocre. The writer paints his image satirically: mannered, theatrical, artificial speech, gestures designed for the public.
A truly smart, talented scientist, kind and noble person lives next to Olga Ivanovna. This is her husband, Doctor Dymov. He loves his flighty, eccentric wife, forgives her, like a big child, all her antics. The heroine treats her husband as an empty place, he does not bother her. This narcissistic woman sees only herself and her stuffy little world of bohemian friends. Only after Dymov’s death did Olga Ivanovna realize what a wonderful person he was. It turned out that she knew almost nothing about her own husband; she had no time to inquire about his problems. Realizing that she was left alone, Olga Ivanovna would like to bring her husband back to life, but her usual train of thoughts did not change: “She wanted to explain to him... that he is rare, extraordinary, great person and that she will reverence him all her life, pray and experience sacred fear...” This “jumping” woman understands only this form of relationship. The heroine looks at the friend of her deceased husband, Korostelev, and thinks: “Isn’t it boring to be a simple, unremarkable, unknown person, and even with such a rumpled face and bad manners?” She remained a beautiful soulless doll, obsessed with the idea of ​​greatness.
Chekhov creates the image of Dymov with special love, presenting the reader with a modest, honest, noble man. The writer originally called this story “The Great Man.” The author’s main conclusion is this: you don’t need to look for an extraordinary hero, you need to be able to see the beauty of the soul ordinary person.
Chekhov created a new type of story, in which he raised important themes for our time. With his work, the writer inspired society with disgust “for a sleepy, half-dead life” and contributed to the development of Russian psychological prose.

The story “The Jumper” was written by Chekhov in 1892. main character- Olga Ivanovna is marrying Osip Stepanovich Dymov. At the wedding itself, Olga Ivanovna behaves a little strangely: she seems to be making excuses for her choice of husband in front of the guests. The fact is that she is marrying (as it seems to her) a gray man, unremarkable. Osip Stepanych was a doctor and also had the rank of titular councilor. He led a calm, measured life. Whereas all the heroine’s friends were not quite ordinary people: celebrities and promising people in creativity. Olga Ivanovna constantly moved in circles of creative people. Moreover, one celebrity was replaced by another, as soon as someone became famous even a little, they just started talking about him, and Olga Ivanovna was right there: she immediately found a reason to get to know each other, and immediately invited her to visit. Olga Ivanovna herself did a little bit of everything: she sang, accompanied, read poetry, wrote sketches. Her famous acquaintances noted her creative abilities and told her that if she did something seriously and wasn’t lazy, then she would also be good.

Osip Stepanovich has been involved in medicine all his life and natural sciences, he was not interested in art. The husband did not contradict his wife in anything; there were no parties on Wednesdays at which he served his wife’s guests. The guests, looking at him, thought: "Nice fellow!", and immediately forgot about him, since he was uninteresting to them. But this lifestyle suited both spouses and their family life At first I was happy.

On a trip to the Volga, Olga Ivanovna had an affair with the young artist Ryabovsky. But soon the artist lost interest in her. The woman herself begged him for love. The husband soon began to suspect his wife’s infidelity, but did not reproach her with a word. Soon Olga Ivanovna was talking about Dymov to all her friends: “This man oppresses me with his generosity!”

One day Osip Stepanovich became very ill. Doctors were on duty around the clock, replacing each other, around the patient. Dymov’s friend Korostylev was with him constantly, only his wife, fearing infection, did not come into his room. Just before the death of Osip Stepanovich, realizing that his friend was dying, Korostylev in despair tells what Dymov really was like, that he showed great promise in science, was a gifted scientist, an excellent doctor and kind, a pure person. And Olga Ivanovna remembered how her late father and all his fellow doctors treated him, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity, but she missed it!

It would seem that the grief experienced by the heroine should have convinced her of how wrong she was when she divided people into famous and not famous. But in fact, she was not mourning the loss of a loving and faithful husband, but a future celebrity who had not been noticed by her. “I missed it! I missed it!”, is the best indicator that her grief is not genuine, that she still values ​​in people their external position and the degree of their celebrity.

A.P. Chekhov in his work, helping the reader to better imagine what is happening, uses the following artistic methods: comparisons and eloquent epithets. For example, about Ryabovsky - “His life is like the life of a bird”, and about the dying Dymov - "silent creature", and Korostylev “looked at his friend’s wife as if she were the real villain”. A special subtext is hidden in the very name “Jumping”. The word itself already indicates the inability to concentrate on one thing and the frivolity of the heroine. In addition, the word “Jumper” to everyone educated person reminiscent of I. A. Krylov’s fable “The Dragonfly and the Ant,” in which idleness and frivolity are directly condemned.

“The Jumper” is one of the works of A.P. Chekhov, in which he continues explore the female soul and unpredictable female character. His heroine, Olga Ivanovna, is selfish, deceitful, and vile. But at the same time, she is not selfish; sometimes there are times when she worries about her betrayal. She is superficial, does not know how to separate the important from the unimportant, which causes pity both for herself and for the people around her. After all, she values ​​people not for their human qualities, but only for their achievements. The writer does not make any direct conclusions and conclusions at the end of the story; he provides the reader with the opportunity to think about what he read and draw conclusions for himself.

• Analysis of the story by A.P. Chekhov's "Ionych"

Hello everyone who is reading this post! I would like to immediately apologize for my long absence. All this time I was preparing for a singing competition, which took place in NGLU named after. Dobrolyubova where I'm going to go after 11th grade :)

Today we will talk about creativity again A. P. Chekhova . And the topic of my issue is the analysis of the story “The Jumper”. It is no coincidence that I am writing again about Chekhov and his work. The fact is that we are currently passing this wonderful writer through school curriculum literature. The next task was to analyze one of the writer’s works. My group of 2 people and I got the piece " Jumper ", which I mentioned at the beginning of the post. But before we start analyzing the story, I would like to give a plan that we will adhere to throughout the work:

1. History.

3) Summary.

4) System of images.

5) Symbolism.

6) Issues.

9) Artistic features.

While working in the group, it turned out that we would not be able to reveal all the points. So we decided to shorten the list a little, and ultimately the plan looks like this:

1. History.

3) Summary.

4) Systematic images.

5) Issues.

6) Main idea.

7) Artistic features.

In addition to the written analysis, we completed a presentation. Therefore, in some points the main ideas will be displayed on the slides.

1. History of creation.

The story "The Jumper" was written in November 1891. The first publication of the story took place in the magazine “North” in 1892.
In August 1891, Chekhov spoke about the idea of ​​a new work to the poet and translator Fyodor Chervinsky; he, in turn, shared information with Viktor Aleksandrovich Tikhonov, who had just headed the Sever magazine. In a letter to Chekhov, dated September 12, Tikhonov asked to know “at least the title” of the future work in order to publish an announcement for readers. In response, the writer admitted that the story was still untitled and commented as follows: “Naming it now is as difficult as determining the color of a chicken that will hatch from an egg that has not yet been laid.”
The surviving draft of the story indicates that it was originally called "The Great Man." The manuscript was submitted to Sever at the end of November. However, two weeks later Chekhov sent a letter to the editor in which he proposed calling his “little sensitive novel for family reading"Jumping."

2. Topic.

The main theme is that you can’t flutter through life like a moth,
You can’t think only about your own pleasures and you need to be more attentive to the people living nearby. Only when you lose a devoted person do you understand the futility of vanity.

3. Summary.

The main characters of the story are Osip Stepanovich Dymov, a local doctor, his wife Olga Ivanovna and the landscape painter Ryabovsky.
· “...Osip Stepanovich Dymov, was a doctor and had the rank of titular councilor. He served in two hospitals: in one as a supernumerary resident, and in the other as a dissector.<…>His private practice was insignificant, about fifty rubles a year.”
· Olga Ivanovna: “She sang, played the piano, painted, sculpted, participated in amateur performances, but all this not somehow, but with talent...”
· “...animal and landscape painter Ryabovsky, a very handsome blond young man, about twenty-five years old, who had success at exhibitions and sold his painting for five hundred rubles...”

Olga Ivanovna outwardly resembles Sofya Petrovna Kuvshinnikova, who also studied music and painting. They are brought together by common views and moods, demeanor, and a burning desire to surround themselves with “interesting people.”
The Kuvshinnikovs' house was considered open. Frequent guests were painters Alexei Stepanov, Nikolai Dosekin, Fyodor Rerberg, artists of the Bolshoi and Maly theaters, writers, and poets. The mistress of the house, like the heroine of “The Jumper,” traveled with artists on a boat along the Volga and took drawing lessons from Levitan.
According to contemporaries who knew Kuvshinnikova, Sofya Petrovna was “much deeper than her heroine.” Her studies in music and especially painting were not as superficial as those of Olga Ivanovna; Sofya Petrovna participated in exhibitions, one of her works was acquired by Pavel Tretyakov. However, Chekhov, who visited the Kuvshinnikovs, believed that the interior of the apartment, the presence in it of a “museum effigy with a halberd, shields and fans on the walls” did not characterize the owner in the best way.

Ryabovsky in the original version of the story he had a very noticeable resemblance to Levitan. However, during the editing process, Chekhov made changes to the image of the hero, trying to separate Ryabovsky and his probable prototype as far as possible from each other. The character's appearance and age have also changed: the story features a 25-year-old blue-eyed man who bears little resemblance to the 32-year-old brunette Levitan.
Nevertheless, it was not possible to disguise some of the traits inherent in the artist - first of all, this concerns the “languidness” that Chekhov identified as a touch to the portrait of Ryabovsky in the story and observed in Levitan - in life. In addition, the author emphasized sharp and rapid changes in mood, depression and melancholy, which were characteristic of both the hero and his prototype.

Osip Dymov looked little like Dmitry Pavlovich Kuvshinnikov, an ordinary doctor without brilliant prospects in science.
Involuntarily finding himself included in the “romantic triangle,” Kuvshinnikov behaved exactly like Dymov in “The Jumper”; guessing about the relationship between his wife and Levitan, he “endured his suffering in silence.”
After the publication of the story, Levitan wanted to challenge Chekhov to a duel and did not know him for several years; Kuvshinnikova broke off relations with Chekhov forever. The author himself reacted rather coldly to what was happening, only noting that the “main evidence” against him was “external resemblance.”

5. Issues

In his work, Chekhov responds to the moral and ideological quests of his contemporary intelligentsia. His focus is on the measure of a person’s spiritual value, regardless of his profession and class. Chekhov raises questions about the value of human life, about a person’s moral duty to the people, about the meaning of human life. In stories from the life of the intelligentsia, Chekhov expressed his innermost thoughts about contemporary reality, about the present and future of Russia, about the moral position of man. The author shows how the best representatives of the Russian intelligentsia perish. One of these people is Doctor Dymov. He belongs to that part of the Russian intelligentsia that Chekhov admired. The image of Doctor Dymov combines the heroism of labor, moral human strength, and noble love for the Motherland. His wife Olga Ivanovna devoted her life to the search for a “great man.” Her image is associated with the theme of vulgarity, the meaninglessness of ordinary people, and, according to Gorky, vulgarity was Chekhov’s enemy. Olga Ivanovna never saw the man she was looking for next to her, did not understand the strength and beauty of Dymov. His talent and remarkable spiritual qualities were noticed only after his death. Olga Ivanovna never understood that the value of human life lies in herself, and not in false greatness.

6. Idea.

There is one moment in the story that the author leads to from the very beginning of the story. It is in it that the idea of ​​the work is expressed. The idea of ​​the story, like the theme, lies in its title. And the answer to the question about the title lies in chapter 8: “Olga Ivanovna remembered her entire life with him (Dymov) from beginning to end, with all the details, and suddenly realized that he was, in fact, extraordinary, rare and, in compared to those she knew, a great man. And, remembering how her late father and all his fellow doctors treated him, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity. The walls, ceiling, lamp and carpet on the floor blinked at her mockingly, as if wanting to say: “I missed it! I missed it!” “The mocking “missed” in the context of Chekhov’s story is close in meaning to the word “jumped,” and hence the same root “jumper.” The very interpretation of the word indicates the inability to concentrate on one thing, the flimsiness and frivolity of the heroine.

7. Artistic features.

In his work, A.P. Chekhov used various artistic and expressive means: comparisons, eloquent epithets, rhetorical questions and exclamatory sentences, allegorical expressions, simple rhymes; There is even a children's tongue twister.
Comparisons : “...his life is like the life of a bird” (about Ryabovsky), “...a silent creature...” (about the dying Dymov), and Korostylev “... looked at his friend’s wife as if she were a real villain.”
Epithets : “witchcraft water”, “bottomless sky”, “brooding shores”.
Rhetorical questions : “Am I beautiful?”, “What’s there to ask?”
Exclamations : “Damn it all!”, “Yes, a rare person!”
Allegories : “Nature morte”, “...an indispensable member of the société (from the French Societe - society)...”.
Rhymes : “Nature morte...first grade<…>, resort...damn...port...", "Shrek, Greek, wreck...crack."
Patter : “Osip is hoarse, and Arkhip is hoarse.”

Also, a special subtext is contained in the very title of the work - “The Jumper”. The word itself indicates the inability to concentrate on one thing, emphasizes the frivolity of the heroine: “... with her talents, taste and intelligence, if she doesn’t get scattered, a lot of good will come out. She sang, played the piano, painted, sculpted, participated in amateur performances...”, “She idolized famous people, was proud of them and saw them in her dreams every night. She craved them and could not quench her thirst. The old ones left and were forgotten, new ones came to replace them, but<…>(Olga Ivanovna) greedily looked for new and new great people, found and looked again.”, “...now she was left without a husband and without Ryabovsky...”.

A few words about Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Writing about Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is quite difficult for the simple reason that many people wrote about him, and he also spoke about himself more than once. Chekhov is an excellent prose writer and playwright, a doctor, a completely positive, nobly sacrificial person who worked extremely hard. From my childhood, I, like all the children of our country, remember both “Kashtanka” and Vanka Zhukov with a letter “to my grandfather in the village.” I remember the humorous stories of Antoshi Chekhonte, which seemed to me in my adolescence to be very unkind, superficial and cruelly mocking (I especially did not like “The Death of an Official”). Then there were serious stories by Anton Chekhov, which one could not help but like, writing an essay on a standard topic: “How did Doctor Startsev become Ionych?” Then - Chekhov's plays and an essay on The Cherry Orchard. Then independent reading of less popular stories like “The Black Monk” and “The Student,” which made it possible to learn that the author did not limit himself to criticizing vulgarity and philistinism, but also thought about higher matters.

Chekhov is an example of a hard-working writer who narrated about everyday situations that affected everyone and everyone, who found the complex and deep in the simple and ordinary. He is a subtle psychologist, a master of details and speech characteristics of characters. L.N. Tolstoy This is how he defined Chekhov’s main property:

« Chekhov as an artist cannot even be compared with previous Russian writers - with Turgenev, with Dostoevsky or with me. Chekhov has his own form, like the impressionists. You look at how a person seems to indiscriminately smear with whatever paints come to his hand, and as if these strokes have no relationship with each other. But you step back and look, and overall it’s an amazing impression. Before us is a bright, irresistible picture».

Chekhov is exemplary "self made man"- “a self-made man.” He is the grandson of a serf, the son of a merchant of the third guild, a representative of what is called the working intelligentsia, and his phrase is well known that a person with such origin should “squeeze a slave out of himself drop by drop.” This phrase is taken from letters to the publisher and journalist A.F. Suvorin (January 7, 1889). In it Chekhov writes: “ What noble writers took from nature for nothing, commoners buy at the cost of youth. Write a story about how a young man, the son of a serf, a former shopkeeper, choirboy, high school student and student, brought up on honoring rank, kissing priests' hands, worshiping other people's thoughts, thanked for every piece of bread, was flogged many times, went to class without galoshes , who fought, tormented animals, loved to dine with rich relatives, was a hypocrite to both God and people without any need, only out of consciousness of his insignificance - write how this young man squeezes a slave out of himself drop by drop and how he, waking up one fine morning, feels that it is no longer slave blood that flows in his veins, but real human blood».

Taganrog. The house where A.P. was born Chekhov.

Chekhov was a great worker and demanded the same from everyone else. In a letter to A.S. Suvorin dated December 9, 1890, he outlined his position as follows: “ We, they say in the newspapers, love our great homeland, but how is this love expressed? Instead of knowledge - impudence and conceit beyond measure, instead of work - laziness and disgusting, there is no justice, the concept of honor does not go beyond the “honor of the uniform”... You have to work, and to hell with everything else. The main thing is to be fair, and the rest will follow ».

Biography of A.P. Chekhov very well done. There is a book from the series "The Life of Remarkable People" , I can also recommend a small but very efficient biography, or more detailed.

The main milestones in the life and work of A.P. Chekhov in photographs

Chekhov family. Standing: Ivan, Anton, Nikolai, Alexander Chekhov and M. E. Chekhov (the writer’s uncle); sitting: Mikhail, Maria Chekhov, P. E. Chekhov (the writer's father), E. Ya. Chekhova (the writer's mother), L. P. Chekhov (the writer's aunt) and Georgy Chekhov (the writer's cousin).

A.P. Chekhov at the A.P. gymnasium Chekhov in his student years

A.P. Chekhov - young doctor A.P. Chekhov on Sakhalin

A.P. Chekhov reads “The Seagull” to the artists of the Moscow Art Theater

A.P. Chekhov and M. Gorky

A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Tolstoy

A.I. Kuprin, A.M. Fedorov I.A. Bunin, A.P. Chekhov, S.Ya. Elpatievsky and M. Gorky

in the garden of Chekhov's Yalta house

A.P.Chekhov and his wife - O.L.Knipper-Chekhova

Moscow 1904, funeral of A.P. Chekhov

"Jumping"

Initially the story of A.P. Chekhov's "The Jumping Man" was called differently - "The Great Man", but the author changed his mind at the last moment. In a letter to V.A. He informs Tikhonov of his decision: “ Really, I don’t know what to do with the title of my story! I don't like "The Great Man" at all. It must be called something else - that's a must. Call it that - “Jumping”...» Having changed the name, A.P. Chekhov shifted the emphasis from the hero of the story to the heroine, which only emphasized the modest dignity of this hero.

“The Great Man” (the original title of the story “The Jumper”). Autograph. 1892

Please check out text of the story or listen to it at audio format

Before us is a story with a fairly simple plot: a married couple is shown in which the wife is a multi-talented lady who is drawn to people of art, and the husband is a simple doctor, kind and hard-working, who does not understand art, but treats it with respect.

Illustrations by V. Panov

It is clear that the wife treats her husband condescendingly, pushes him around, and the husband meekly fulfills all her whims, i.e. represents the image of a typical henpecked man. Further, the wife, attracted to people of art, as a result of this attraction takes on an artist lover, who soon became burdened with her. She makes a scene for him, threatens to poison himself if her lover does not come to their home more often, behaves defiantly, so that the husband cannot help but notice what is happening, but the husband endures, throws himself into work and as a result of his labors, which the wife does not see and does not appreciate, defends his dissertation. For the wife, defending her dissertation is of no interest, she is not interested in her husband either, she complains about him to acquaintances who know about her affair: “This man oppresses me with his generosity!” Having caught her lover's mistress, she hurries home and finds out that her husband has fallen ill with diphtheria, saving the life of a boy patient. The wife feels repentance, considers her husband’s illness a punishment for her sin (which is not entirely logical) and, having listened to her husband’s colleagues who come together for examination and treatment, she understands that her husband is “truly extraordinary, rare and, in comparison with those who she knew was a great man. And remembering how her late father and all his fellow doctors treated him, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity. The walls, the ceiling, the lamp and the carpet on the floor blinked at her mockingly, as if wanting to say: “I missed it! I missed it!” She rushes to her husband, but he is already dead.

Drawing by N.V. Kuzmina

Compositionally the story is built on the techniques of antithesis, inversion and gradation.

Antithesis - this is a contrast. The contrast between Doctor Dymov and his wife Olga Ivanovna (altruism and egoism, work and its imitation, love and possessiveness, generosity and baseness), Doctor Dymov and the artist Ryabovsky (modesty and vanity, science and art).

Inversion - this is an inversion. A simple doctor, henpecked husband turns out to be a great man, creator and innovator. His wife, sparkling with talents and abilities, turns out to have no talent for anything specific at all. The romantic love of Olga Ivanovna and Ryabovsky turns into mutual torment and lies. Etc.

Gradation - this is an increase. It is thanks to this technique, i.e. With the sequential arrangement of episodes in which certain character traits of the characters are more and more revealed, the reader develops pity for the main character and downright hatred for the main character. This technique works so wonderfully that even I, a sophisticated reader and a well-bred person, in the process of reading, criticized my “jumping” wife with absolutely unprintable words.

There is a very good film adaptation of this story, carried out in 1955 by S.I. Samsonov. It will allow us to illustrate certain episodes of the story.

First, let's look at the episode with the husband's arrival at the dacha to his resting wife.

Video fragment 1. Film “The Jumper”.

This is, perhaps, the first episode in which the heroine’s behavior evokes an unambiguously negative assessment: before that, everything was forgivable and fell within the bounds of decency. Let us follow how the author uses the technique of gradation.

1. Husband is a wonder

At her own wedding, Olga Ivanovna makes excuses to her famous acquaintances:

“Look at him: isn’t it true, there’s something in him? “she said to her friends, nodding at her husband and as if wanting to explain why she married a simple, very ordinary and unremarkable man.”

From this it is clear that she does not perceive her husband as an equal to herself or the celebrities around her, but what can she do now... Her husband in her eyes is more of a funny acquisition, a curiosity, than the person whom she is obliged to obey. She talks about their love story as a kind of anecdote, a funny incident. They met in the hospital over the bed of her dying father:

“My Dymov hit me head over heels. Really, fate can be so strange. Well, after my father’s death, he sometimes visited me, met me on the street, and one fine evening suddenly bam! proposed... out of the blue... I cried all night and fell in love like hell. And so, as you can see, she became a wife. Isn’t it true that there is something strong, powerful, bearish about him?”

Those. falling in love was a consequence of Dymov’s proposal, and not his concerns about the heroine’s father. She “fell in love like hell” only because they proposed to her, after which she saw in Dymov “ something strong, mighty, bearish" Is this feeling deep?.. Is it not a whim?

2. Fussiness and narrowness of interests

“Every day, getting out of bed at eleven o’clock, Olga Ivanovna played the piano or, if it was sunny, wrote something oil paints. Then, in the first hour, she went to her dressmaker... From the dressmaker, Olga Ivanovna usually went to some actress she knew to find out theater news and, by the way, to inquire about a ticket to the first performance of a new play or to a benefit performance. The actress had to go to an artist’s studio or to an art exhibition, then to one of the celebrities - to invite them to their place, or pay a visit, or just chat.”

We can say that why not, actually? And what's wrong with that? Women are like that, they tend to go to dressmakers to dress up, and to friends to chat, and love entertainment... But the fact is that Dymov was exhausted, working several jobs, to provide his wife with such a daily routine, and she takes it for granted and doesn’t help him at all.

Drawing by Yu.V. Smolnikova

3. Celebrity Collecting

“Every new acquaintance was a real holiday for her. She idolized famous people, was proud of them and saw them in her dreams every night. She craved them and could not quench her thirst. The old ones left and were forgotten, new ones came to replace them, but she soon got used to these too or became disillusioned with them and began to greedily look for new and new great people, found them and looked again. For what?"

What is noteworthy here is, firstly, the heroine’s manic craving for celebrities and, secondly, the heroine’s fickleness, her inconstancy. Thirdly, the text contains the author’s question, characterizing her actions as senseless (Chekhov, like any normal author who does not want to engage in direct moralizing, rarely flaunted his position).

3. Servant Husband

“Dymov was not in the living room, and no one remembered his existence. But exactly at half past eleven the door leading to the dining room opened, Dymov appeared with his good-natured, gentle smile and said, rubbing his hands:

- Please, gentlemen, have a snack...

“My dear maître d’hotel!” said Olga Ivanovna, throwing up her hands in delight. “You are simply charming!”

The guests ate and, looking at Dymov, thought: “Indeed, a nice fellow,” but they soon forgot about him and continued talking about the theater, music and painting.”

Dymov, thus, in his own house is reduced to the level of a servant, but he joyfully fulfills this role, because he loves his wife and wants to please her.

Film still

“What can we do? - the reader will sigh. “In marriage it’s always like this: someone loves, and someone allows themselves to be loved.” That's how it is, but it's just getting ridiculous. The guests eat his bread and salt (and not at all cheap, judging by the description of the table), but they don’t think anything of the owner, as if he is not the owner, but a servant, needed only to set the table. The culmination of this servant status was an episode that we illustrated with a video fragment. After the wife sends her husband, who has just escaped from the city, back for the toiletries that she needed, and he meekly goes, the reader begins to clearly hate Olga Ivanovna, and with each subsequent episode this hatred intensifies.

4. Cuckold husband

« Gentlemen, look at his forehead! Dymov, turn to profile. Gentlemen, look: the face of a Bengal tiger, and the expression is kind and sweet, like a deer. Uh, honey!»

These words of the heroine already contain the author's allusion to future fate a hero whom his wife valued above all as a person who provided her with the opportunity to live a cheerful life and was a picturesque type: he is a head waiter, a model, a courier, and a safe deposit box... Dear man, what is there, he just has nothing to do with art, and the heroine is drawn to art. She introduced her husband to her future lover at her own wedding:

"- Come here. Extend your honest hand to Ryabovsky... That's it. Be friends."

And after a conversation with her husband that he has a shortcoming - a lack of understanding of art, to which Dymov replied that “not understanding does not mean denying,” she exclaims again:

“Let me shake your honest hand!”

In the film, the same phrase was said to her by Ryabovsky when he invited her to go with the artists to the Volga, which precipitated betrayal (the phrase, previously addressed to her husband, is redirected to another man, but Chekhov did not have this). In general, the honest hand of a sweet, kind, meek husband, which he offered her along with his heart, was exchanged for the hand of a talented artist. This is the episode.

Video fragment 2. Film “Jumping”

5. Tired man.

It is noteworthy that Dymov works like an ox and does not complain of fatigue, but the artist Ryabovsky is constantly tired. His first mention of fatigue is comical:

« The artist, pale with excitement, sat down on the bench, looked at Olga Ivanovna with adoring, grateful eyes, then closed his eyes and said, smiling languidly:

- I'm tired.

And leaned againsthead to board».

It was he who was tired of confessing his love to Olga Ivanovna and winning her. He didn't do anything else in the previous episode. The second time he was tired was after he went hunting after a quarrel with Olga Ivanovna, who tortured him with her amorous advances.

“Ryabovsky returned home when the sun was setting. He threw his cap on the table and, pale, exhausted, in dirty boots, sat down on the bench and closed his eyes.

“I’m tired...” he said and moved his eyebrows, trying to lift his eyelids.”

The third time he got tired was when Olga Ivanovna, having brought him a sketch in order to have a reason to see him in the city, found his mistress hiding behind the painting.

“I’m tired...” the artist said languidly, looking at the sketch and shaking his head to overcome drowsiness. - This is nice, of course, but today there will be a sketch, and last year there will be a sketch, and in a month there will be a sketch... How can you not get bored? If I were you, I would give up painting and take up music or something seriously. After all, you are not an artist, but a musician. However, you know how tired I am!»

First of all, from Olga Ivanovna, of course. And she exchanged her husband for this tired man!

6. A generous person

The husband saw everything, knew everything, but continued to accept Ryabovsky. Olga Ivanovna repeatedly spoke about her husband to friends who knew about her affair: “This man oppresses me with his generosity!” She was also quite rightly jealous of Ryabovsky. " If she did not find him in the workshop, she left him a letter in which she swore that if he did not come to her today, she would certainly poison herself. He was a coward, came to her and stayed for dinner. Not embarrassed by the presence of her husband, he spoke insolence to her, and she answered him in kind. Both felt that they were tied to each other, that they were despots and enemies, and they were angry, and out of anger they did not notice that both of them were indecent and that even the short-haired Korostelev understood everything. After lunch, Ryabovsky hurried to say goodbye and leave" Here's how it's screened:

Video fragment 3. Film “Jumping”

Throughout the story, Dymov calls his wife mom. At the same time, as we know, Olga Ivanovna did not give birth, i.e. There is no reason to call her that, except that mother is the most precious thing a person has. And Dymov, even in such an unnatural situation, continued to consider Olga Ivanovna the most precious thing he has:

« Dymov left Korostelev in the living room, went into the bedroom and, embarrassed, confused, said quietly:

- Don't cry loudly, mom... Why? We must remain silent about this... We must not show it... You know what happened, you can’t fix it».

7. Great man

Finally, Dymov finds himself on his deathbed.

Drawing by I.A. Bodyansky

Olga Ivanovna blames herself for his illness (“God punished me”), and besides, she suddenly realizes that she did not notice the most important thing in Dymov - his originality, talent, greatness, and this saddens her most of all: the collection of celebrities has lost the most valuable exhibit. " The walls, the ceiling, the lamp and the carpet on the floor blinked at her mockingly, as if wanting to say: “I missed it! I missed it!”»

She rushes to her husband.

“- Dymov! - she called loudly. - Dymov!

She wanted to explain to him that it was a mistake, that all was not lost, that life could still be beautiful and happy, that he was a rare, extraordinary, great person, and that she would reverence him all her life, pray and experience sacred fear. ..”

But it was too late. Dymov is dead, and is good for nothing else except to be buried.

Video fragment 4. Film “Jumping”