Characteristics of Ostap (N. Gogol, "Taras Bulba"). Comparative characteristics of Ostap and Andria

Gogol's story "Taras Bulba" is a mixed product. On the one hand, it seems to glorify the unthinkable power of the Russian spirit, on the other - frightens the modern reader with descriptions of ancient atrocities. It remains only to thank fate for the fact that we did not have to live in that harsh time.

All the values of the Cossacks, their means of achieving the goal and way of life look today wildness ungodly.

Meeting of the Bulba family

The plot is probably still remembered from the school bench: old Colonel Taras Bulba, having waited from the Kiev Academy of his two sons - the elder Ostap and the youngest Andrius, goes with them to Zaporizhzhya Sich, for his attitude to all these "litanies and philosophies" Skeptical. True science considers the old Cossack a hot fight and a man's partnership.

His sons are both healthy, handsome boys of "twenty years old". They are different: the characteristic of Ostap begins to clear from the very first page. Hardly returning home, he enters into a fight with his father, not allowing him to laugh at himself (the old Bulba seemed ridiculous filial "scrolls"). We must pay tribute to the fact that the colonel did not get angry with his eldest son, but quite the opposite: he was delighted and wished to fight the younger one. But this one is made of another dough, and the father immediately prints: "Eh, you're a mazunchik, as I see it!".

The personality of young Ostap

Gogol describes the characters of his heroes in few but expressive phrases, and the characteristic of Ostap is somewhat less than others. Man is a straightforward, loyal comrade, who never betrays his accomplices in bursak ventures.

The eldest son of Taras is indifferent to learning, only the threat of being in monastic services for twenty years, voiced by the father, forces him to take up science. And then it turns out that his abilities are not worse than those of others, but still Ostap almost never thinks about anything, except for "war and binge feast."

At the same time, kindness is not alien to his heart (true, with reservations for "severe and strong" temper and the same era). Tearing the unfortunate mother to the eldest son is a pity, and he leaves the house, sadly lowering his head.

Cherchez la femme

The second son of Bulba is different from the first-born: the comparative characteristic of Ostap and Andria is immediately offered to the attention of the reader. The younger brother is not so morose temper - he is more disposed to science, and to all sorts of feelings. Dreaming of military feats, he, nevertheless, and thinks about many other things. It is interesting that Andriy showed leadership qualities in the Academy, often a beast of various prose, and his resourcefulness and alertness sometimes saved him from punishment. In this sense, the characteristic of Ostap is the opposite: he did not aspire to the leadership, he did not consider it necessary to justify himself. Accepted the well-deserved punishment silently and uncomplainingly, which speaks both of the lack of cunning and the presence of pride.

The main difference, which the characteristic of Andriy and Ostap speaks to the attentive reader, is the place of the woman in the soul of each of them. If the older brother does not think about this, the younger one soon learned the need for love, as soon as he was eighteen.

The ratio of Taras Bulba to the weak half of humanity is more than contemptuous. "The Cossack is not about fussing with women," - this is the categorical characteristic of Taras. Ostap, apparently, was able to raise his father in the "right" spirit. With the younger did not work out: even while studying, he meets in Kiev, "the beautiful Polish girl," the daughter of a visiting governor, and falls in love with her deadly. This feeling will lead him to destruction.

Learning in battle

After arriving at the Sich, the elder Bulba immediately makes an attempt to hammer the ataman at the battle campaign (so that the sons sniff gunpowder). Having been refused, the old colonel bursts into an angry tirade, the meaning of which is that life without war is meaningless.

In the end, Taras finally "lucky". In Kosh is the Cossack with the unfortunate news that throughout the Poles are oppressed by the Orthodox people, and even the churches now belong to the Jews - in order to serve, it is necessary to pay the "Jews". After killing some of the sons of Israel in the vicinity of Sich, the Cossacks march on the valiant campaign and come to the fortified city of Dubno, whose inhabitants are ready to fight to the last, but not surrender to the mercy of the Zaporozhye army. It can not be said that such a position is incorrect: the description of the military exploits of the Cossacks does not at all suggest thoughts of the manifest mercy, where: everywhere, where the brave warriors passed, they burned, killed, plundered and tortured - such were, Gogol repeats, the customs of that cruel time .

Mind and passion

So, Dubno does not give up, but its inhabitants are in a difficult situation: there are no food in the city, the surrounding villages are plundered, and the Cossacks are located in front of the walls, intending to hold the siege until the famine does what the weapons could not.

In the course of the battles, it becomes finally clear what the eldest son of Taras is-Ostap Bulba: the characteristic given to him by the father is the most flattering: "There will be a good colonel in time, and even such that the father will shut up his belt!" The elder brother, despite his rather young age (he is twenty-two), manifests himself as a man, created "to do military affairs". He is brave, cold-blooded, calculating in battle, able to reasonably assess his position and the strength of the enemy. His thought is busy winning - and he finds a way to achieve the desired, even temporarily retreating.

Immediately, the difference between brothers is finally determined: the characteristic of Andriy and Ostap does not contradict what they already know, on the contrary, it is supplemented by new facts.

The youngest son of Taras sees in the battle "raging bliss and ecstasy." He is not inclined to preliminary assessments or meditations: this is nature, rather, passionate and sensual, rather than calm and reasonable. Sometimes, with one onslaught of desperate bravery, he manages to do the impossible, and then the father approves of his son, still giving preference to the elder: "And this is a good ... warrior! Not Ostap, but kind, kind, also a warrior! "

Betrayal of Andrius

Under the besieged city, the Cossacks are harassed by boredom, drunk, and priests. The Zaporozhye discipline described by Gogol would terrify the military specialist: the entire camp is asleep, and only Andrii wanders through the steppe with a tight heart - not otherwise, foreseeing his fate. And really: here is a ghost of someone's ghostly figure. Dazed, he recognizes his maid as his Kiev acquaintance: the Tartar, having emerged from the besieged city in an underground passage, came to ask Andria for bread for her pannochka.

The behavior of the heroes in the course of subsequent events is coordinated with the personality of each of them. We can say that the characterization of Taras Bulba, Ostap, Andriya is complete - it remains only to understand how spiritual qualities can determine fate.

The younger representative of the family, sensual and eager for pleasure, loses his head. Having gone to the fine Polish with bread, Andrii forgets his duty and his homeland. "My fatherland is you!" - he says to his beloved, and remains in the besieged city, having crossed over to the side of the enemy.

The news of the betrayal of his son, brought by the Jew Yankel, painfully hurts Taras. There are in vain attempts to console him: the old colonel remembered that "the power of a weak woman is great ... that the nature of Andria is pliable on this side."

Death of sons

However, the awareness of filial weakness does not induce Bulba to forgive - he is stubborn, cruel and ruthless in his principles: luring the younger offspring into the forest during the battle, the father kills his son with words that have long become winged: "I gave birth to you, I I'll kill you! ".

Having lost one son, the father gives all his love and pride to another. Brutally severed in battle, surviving by a miracle, he goes to Warsaw himself to try to rescue Ostap from captivity - but this, unfortunately, can not be done. It was not possible for the father to see his son (not least because of the quick temper of Taras himself, who could not endure the insults of the guard, who Yankel, whom Yankel was familiar to us, tried to bribe with flattering speeches and gold chervontsi ).

Leaving the hope, the old Bulba is present on the square where the prisoners are executed, and the characteristic of Ostap, given earlier, is again confirmed. Under torture, he does not make a sound, so as not to deliver "heretics" -people pleasure to hear croak groans. His soul trembled only once, with the most cruel torment, and then, yielding to weakness (probably the only time in his short life) Ostap shouted in mental anguish: "Batko! Where are you! Do you hear? "And standing among the onlookers Bulba answered his beloved son:" I hear! ".