The story of I. S. Turgenev's "Asya" had a personal character for the author.
It was based on the features inherent in the biography of the writer. The characterization of Asya in the story "Asya" is impossible without a brief digression into life, or rather the love of Ivan Sergeevich.
Eternal friend of Pauline Viardot
The relationship between Pauline Viardot and Ivan Sergeevich lasted a long 40 years. It was a love story that settled only in the heart of one man, Turgenev, and the woman passionately revered by him did not reciprocate. She was married. And for all four decades, Ivan Sergeevich came to their house as an eternal and forever faithful friend of the family. Having settled "on the edge of someone else's nest", the writer tried to build his own, but until the end of his life he loved Pauline Viardot. Viardot became a woman of love, a killer of the happiness of girls who fell recklessly in love with Ivan Sergeevich.
It is worth saying that the tragic relationship with Viardot was not new to him. Quite stillyoung Ivan at the age of eighteen fell in love with the daughter of Princess Shakhovskaya, Katenka. A sweet angelic creature, which the girl seemed at first glance, in fact, was not. She had a long intimate relationship with the chief womanizer of the village. By an evil irony, Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev, the writer's father, won the girl's heart.
However, not only the writer's heart was broken, he himself more than once rejected women who loved him. After all, until the end of his days, he adored Pauline Viardot.
Characterization of Asya in the story "Asya". Type of Turgenev girl
Many people know that Turgenev girls exist, but few remember what she is like, the heroine from the writer's stories.
The portrait characteristic of Asya, found on the pages of the story, is as follows.
As can be seen from the above lines, Asya had an atypical beauty: a boyish appearance combined short curly hair, large eyes fringed with long eyelashes, and an unusually slender figure.
A brief description of Asya, her external image will be incomplete, if not to mention that, most likely, Turgenev's disappointment in the girls of the highest circle (the consequences of unrequited love for Ekaterina Shakhovskaya) was reflected in her.
It is here, on the pages of the story "Asya", that not only Turgenev's girl, but Turgenev's feeling of love is born. Love is compared to revolution.
Love, like revolution, tests heroes and their feelings for resilience, vitality.
Origin of Asya andcharacter
The backstory of the heroine's life made a significant contribution to the character of the girl. This is the illegitimate daughter of a landowner and a maid. Her mother tried to bring her up in severity. However, after the death of Tatyana, Asya was taken to his father. Because of him, feelings such as pride and distrust arose in the girl’s soul.
Asya's characterization from Turgenev's story introduces initial inconsistencies into her image. She is controversial and playful in dealing with all people. If you take her interest in everything around, then you can understand that the girl shows it a little unnaturally. Since she looks at everything with curiosity, however, in fact, she does not delve into and peer into anything carefully.
Despite her inherent self-love, she has a strange addiction: to make acquaintances with people who are class below her.
A moment of spiritual awakening
Asia's characterization from Turgenev's story will be incomplete if you do not consider the issue of the spiritual awakening of the main characters: Asya and Mr. N. N.
The hero and the author of the story, having met Asya in a small German town, feels that his soul trembled. We can say that he spiritually revived, opened to feelings. Asya removes the pink veil through which he looked at himself and at his life. N. N. understands how false his existence was before he met Asya: the time spent on travel now seems to him an unaffordable luxury.
The reborn worldview of Mr. N. N. looks forward to every meeting with trepidation. However, faced with a choice: love and responsibility or loneliness, he comes to the conclusion that it is absurd to possibly marry someone whose temper he will never conquer.
Love also helps to reveal Asya's character. She begins to realize herself as a person. Now she cannot get by with the usual reading of books from which she drew knowledge about "true" love. Asya opens up to feelings, hopes. For the first time in her life, she stopped doubting and opened herself to vivid feelings.
What is she, Asya, in the eyes of Mr. N. N.?
The characterization of Asya in the story "Asya" is not made by Ivan Sergeevich himself, he assigns this task to his hero, Mr. N. N.
Thanks to this, we can notice the transformation of the hero's attitude towards his beloved: from hostility to love and misunderstanding.
Mr. N. N. noted the spiritual impulse of Asya, who wants to show her “high” origin:
All her actions at first seem to him "childish antics." But soon he saw her in the form of a frightened but beautiful bird:
The relationship between Asya and Mr. N. N
The verbal description of Asya in the story "Asya" predicts the tragic outcome of the emerging relationship between the heroine and Mr. N. N.
By nature, Asya is a contradictory nature from her very roots. One has only to remember the girl's attitude to her mother and her origin:
The girl loved to be noticed, and at the same time she was afraid of it, becausewas quite timid and bashful.
Asya dreams of a hero who will become for her the embodiment of happiness, love and thought. A hero who can meekly oppose himself to "human vulgarity" in order to save love.
Asya saw her hero in Mr. N. N.
The narrator fell in love with the girl from the first moment they met. She wanted to intrigue him and at the same time show that she was a well-born young lady, and not some kind of daughter of the maid Tatyana. This behavior, unusual for her, influenced Mr. N. N.'s first impression
Then she falls in love with N. N. and begins to expect from him not just actions, but an answer. The answer to her question: "What to do?" The heroine dreams of a feat, but she never expects it from her lover.
But why? The answer is simple: Mr. N. N. not endowed with spiritual we alth inherent in Asa. His image is rather meager and a little dull, although not without a touch of edification. This is how he appears before us according to Chernyshevsky. Turgenev himself sees him as a man with a trembling, tormented soul.
"Asya", characteristic of N. N
Souls heartfelt impulses, thoughts about the meaning of life were unfamiliar to the hero of the story N. N., on whose behalf the story is being told. He led a dissolute life in which he did what he wanted and thought only about his own desires, neglecting the opinions of others.
He didn't care about the sense of morality, duty, responsibility. He never thought about the consequences of his actions, while shifting the most important decisions onto the shoulders of others.
However, N. N. - not the full embodiment of the bad hero of the story. Despite everything, he did not lose the ability to understand and separate good from evil. He is quite curious and inquisitive. The purpose of his journey is not a desire to know the world, but a dream to know many new people and faces. N. N. proud enough, but the feeling of rejected love is not alien to him: earlier he was in love with a widow who rejected him. Despite this, he remains a kind and pleasant enough young man of 25.
Mr. N. N. realizes that Asya is a strange girl, therefore she is afraid to face unexpected turns of her character in the future. In addition, he sees marriage as an unbearable burden, which is based on responsibility for someone else's fate and life.
Afraid of change and changeable, but full of life, N. N. renounces possible mutual happiness, placing on Asya's shoulders the responsibility for deciding the outcome of their relationship. Having thus committed a betrayal, he predicts in advance for himself a lonely existence. By betraying Asya, he rejected life, love, and the future. However, Ivan Sergeevich is in no hurry to reproach him. Because he paid the price for his mistake…
