Characteristics and image of Aksinya Astakhova in Sholokhov’s novel The Quiet Don, essay. Sholokhov Spring Aksinya's husband from Quiet

Introduction

The image of Aksinya in the novel “Quiet Don” by Sholokhov is one of the central ones. Her difficult relationship with Grigory Melekhov, developing against the backdrop of fateful historical events, runs like a red thread through the entire work. In “Quiet Flows the Flow”, the image of Aksinya allows the reader to comprehend the full depth of the experiences of a woman for whom love becomes, at the same time, a blessing and a curse.

Description of Aksinya

A detailed description of Aksinya is nowhere to be found in the novel “Quiet Don”. But, the author focuses the reader’s attention on individual details of her appearance, thanks to which an idea of ​​the heroine’s appearance as a whole is formed.

From the first chapters of the novel, a woman of remarkable beauty appears before us. Full body, steep back, plump shoulders, black curly hair and hands rough from work. This is exactly what a classic Cossack woman from the beginning of the century looks like. This is how Sholokhov saw his heroine.

Aksinya’s deep black eyes and full lips attract special attention. They drive Gregory crazy, and the author talks about them most often. Aksinya’s beauty is wild, alluring, even “shameless,” according to the writer, arousing the envy of her neighbors.

Over time, the heroine's appearance changes. When Aksinya meets Gregory again, she is still beautiful, but the “autumn of life” has already left its mark on her appearance. Silver threads appeared in my hair and my skin darkened. The eyes, burning and shining in youth, now exude fatigue. Sholokhov draws a parallel between a faded lily of the valley and a fading woman mourning her life.

It must be said that every meeting with Gregory is reflected in Aksinya’s appearance. The happiness of owning a lover transforms the heroine, makes her more stately, enlivens her facial features, the whole world seems to her “jubilant and bright.”

Characteristics of Aksinya

Aksinya was created for love and family happiness. She dreams of a happy marriage and having children. Aksinya lives by traditions that have developed in the farmstead from time immemorial. Submitting to the will of her mother, she gets married, suffers beatings and humiliation from her husband, and does not dare to contradict her mother-in-law. But Aksinya’s flexible disposition is deceptive. Passion and strength sleep in her soul, which awaken along with her feelings for Gregory.

The characterization of Aksinya in “Quiet Don” is ambiguous. On the one hand, a woman is capable of boundless tenderness towards her lover and children. Finds the most kind words for them. She replaces the children's mother after Natalya's death. On the other hand, she has the strength to defend her love. So, Aksinya rebuffs Pantelei Prokofievich, who came to reproach her for her relationship with her son. He openly admits to Stepan his connection with Grigory, without fear of inevitable reprisals. I am ready to leave home and household in order to be close to my lover.

Life without a loved one makes no sense for Aksinya, who is emotional, capable of self-sacrifice and deep devotion. She, despite the danger, follows him everywhere in pursuit of “illusory happiness.” Her words: “I will follow you everywhere, even to death,” turn out to be prophetic. Love gives her the strength to live, but it also leads the heroine to a tragic death.

Aksinya's fate

Aksinya's fate is tragic from the very beginning. When the heroine was 16 years old, her own father abused her. For this crime, the girl's mother and brother kill him. This event predetermined the future life of the heroine. Aksinya marries Stepan Astakhov, but life with her husband does not work out. After their wedding night, Stepan beats Aksinya, drinks and cheats on her. The heroine hopes that the birth of a child will change their relationship. But the baby soon dies.

Aksinya, like Ostrovsky’s Katerina, needs love. And she finds her in the arms of Grigory Melekhov. The unknown feeling captures the heroine so much that she becomes indifferent to the consequences of this connection. She understands: her husband can kill her, but even possible death cannot keep Aksinya from meeting with Grigory.

Having learned about the upcoming marriage of her lover, the woman tries to forget him. She tries to reconcile with her husband and even performs a “lapel” ritual with the help of a farm healer. But a chance meeting again brings Aksinya and Gregory together. She decides to leave home and, together with her beloved, goes to work at Yagodnoye, the Listnitsky estate.

It would seem that happiness finally smiled on the woman. Her lover lives with her, and they have a daughter. But fate again treated Aksinya cruelly. Gregory goes to the front, and his daughter dies of scarlet fever. The heroine is left alone again. There is no one next to her who would provide her with moral support or comfort her in grief. Despair pushes Aksinya into the arms of Evgeny Listnitsky, who has long shown her signs of attention. Grigory cannot understand the reason that pushed Aksinya to betrayal, and leaves her. The heroine returns to Stepan and gradually fades away, living by inertia next to an unloved person.

Only the acquisition of Gregory brings the woman back to life. She hopes to finally know family happiness. Grigory comes to her with the children, and she tries with all her might to replace Melekhov’s deceased wife, Natalya. But circumstances again separate the lovers and destroy their dreams of a quiet life. Aksinya, hoping for a better life, accepts Grigory’s offer to go to Kuban. But this trip turns out to be the last in the woman’s life. A random bullet ends her life.

Conclusion

Aksinya in “Quiet Don” is a character with a tragic fate. Why does Sholokhov kill his heroine? Could her life have turned out differently? Aksinya is looking for peace, but life circumstances do not allow her to find it. Gregory, who became the meaning of her life, turned out to be an outcast under the new government. He is forced to wander. What kind of life could await the woman next to him? Deprivation away from home and the children she loved. Like Bulgakov’s heroes, apparently, only in death could Aksinya finally calm down.

Work test

In Sholokhov's novel Quiet Don. She became at the same time the personification of sin and holiness, the embodiment of feminine desperate love, for which she is ready to sacrifice herself. She gave herself completely to this love, and without a trace.

The image of Aksinya in the novel Quiet Don

Aksinya is a woman with a difficult fate. As a child, she was raped by her father. Later, Aksinya was married to Astakhov, who raised his hand against her every day because he did not believe in his wife’s purity. But she endured and could not reach her husband. With his cruelty, he pushed away his wife, who directed her unspent love to another. This other one was Grigory Melekhov. The woman completely dissolved in love feelings that she did not intend to hide from others. It’s just a pity that her happiness was short-lived, and the heroine’s life ended tragically.

How does the reader see the image of Aksinya in Sholokhov’s novel Quiet Don? Quotes from the work will help answer the question. In general, the author does not give a specific description of the heroine. However, the overall picture of Aksinya’s image can be compiled from individual phrases. So, at the beginning of the novel, we see a twenty-year-old girl. As the centurion says, this is a beautiful woman. Even pregnancy does not spoil Aksinya’s stately figure. The neck is dark, the eyes are black, and the lips are plump and shamelessly greedy. The beauty of a woman immediately catches the eye; it is destructive in its depravity.

Over the years, although Aksinya has aged, she has not lost her beauty. And although the autumn of life has given her cheeks faded colors, silvered individual strands of hair, dimmed the light in her eyes, the same alluring beauty is still visible on her face.

Characteristics of Aksinya

If we talk about the characterization of Aksinya’s image in the novel, then I would like to talk about her difficult fate. Aksinya has to live with guilt for her father's death. Living in constant beatings, with mental oppression from the death of her child, she doubts that there is love in the world and that anyone can love her. And then, like a ray of sunshine, the feeling she experienced with Melekhov comes into Aksinya’s hopeless life. She is drowning in this love, she is in a hurry to fall out of love, realizing that there is no forgiveness for her betrayal. Aksinya hurries to absorb passion, as if feeling how short the human life is.

Aksinya is a strong-willed woman who possesses all the best feminine qualities. A gentle, patient, compassionate heroine who holds no grudge against anyone. Aksinya is proud and has character, so she can fight back against anyone. She is honest, and therefore does not hide her love for another from her husband. Aksinya is ready to fight for her love, and does not want to give up her Grishka to anyone.

At the end of the article, the Many-wise Litrekon has prepared for you a table with a quotation description of Aksinya Astakhova, the heroine of the novel “Quiet Don”.

(407 words) Aksinya Astakhova is a heroine with a tragic fate in Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don”. This woman provokes and intrigues the reader; it is impossible to pass by her indifferently. She is a passionate, vicious, harsh, but strong-willed heroine, ready to do anything for the sake of her beloved.

Let's start with her characteristics and portrait. The author does not give a clear description of the woman, but points out that she is very beautiful, and everyone envy her unusual beauty, she attracts attention - a statuesque body, black curly hair and a black deep look. She differs from other Cossack women in her “wild” disposition, but behind this majesty lies an ordinary gentle woman who has not received enough love and affection. From childhood, Aksinya was forced to endure rudeness and complete disrespect - at the age of 16, her father abused her. After this, she marries an unloved man, Stepan Astakhov, who, after their wedding night, brutally beats the girl for a sin she did not commit. Then her husband began to cheat on her and disappear from home, and the entire household fell on the heroine’s female shoulders. Thus, Aksinya had no idea what it was like to be loved. But she found this love in Grigory Melekhov. She was transformed after every meeting with him and was a truly happy woman alone with her lover. The woman understood the danger of her connection with Melekhov, but a new and alluring feeling was stronger than fear, she told Gregory: “I will follow you everywhere, even to death.”

Aksinya combines completely opposite qualities and traits. On the one hand, she sincerely and tenderly loves Grigory Melekhov, gives warmth and affection to his children, accepting them as if they were her own. But with the same strength, she courageously defends her feelings, boldly admits to her husband her love affair with Melekhov and is not afraid of condemnation from society, for her there is only she and her lover.

In the fate of Aksinya and after the appearance of Melekhov, there were many negative events - this was the death of their common child, and an attempt to return to her husband, and an accidental betrayal of Gregory, after which he leaves her. She felt pain, fear and loneliness, since, in fact, she had no one dearer than Grigory Melekhov, and she had no one to expect help or moral support from.

But still, her beloved returns, and Aksinya again has the meaning of life, she, as before, is ready to follow him anywhere, so she agrees to leave with Grigory for Kuban. For her it was like an escape into a completely different, new life, but this trip turned out to be the last in Aksinya’s life - she accidentally died from a bullet. But she died in the arms of her lover, remaining faithful to him forever.

Aksinya's image

The author of the novel endowed Aksinya with a special charm. She has both external and internal beauty. She stubbornly fights for her happiness, having early experienced all the bitterness of the female lot, she boldly and openly rebels against the slavish, humiliated position of women, against patriarchal morality. Aksinya’s passionate love for Gregory expresses a decisive protest against wasted youth, against the torture and despotism of her father and unloved husband. Her struggle for Gregory, for happiness with him, is a struggle for the assertion of her human rights. Rebellious and rebellious, with her head held high, she went against prejudice, hypocrisy and falsehood, winning her happiness with her loved one, causing evil rumors and gossip.

Aksinya is incredibly beautiful. This is how Sholokhov describes her: “...The wind ruffled Aksinya’s skirt, fingered small fluffy curls on her dark neck. A cap embroidered with colored silk glowed on the heavy knot of her hair, a pink shirt tucked into a skirt, without wrinkles, covered her round back and plump shoulders...” The heroine has a beautiful and proud gait: she even carries buckets of water in a special way - very majestic and graceful.

The author does not hide anything from Aksinya’s life: neither the fact that she, sixteen years old, was raped by her drunken father, nor the fact that her husband later beat her. Her youth was desecrated by the abuse of her father and the torture of her husband. For the heroine, love is a kind of way out of a hopeless past, which is why she gives herself entirely to her feelings: “Aksinya was reborn from the meadow mowing. As if someone had made a mark on her face, burned the brand. The women, when they met her, grinned sarcastically, shook their heads after her, the girls were jealous, and she proudly held her happy, but shameful head high.”

Aksinya loves Gregory sensually and passionately. The relationship between them is described very harshly: “He persistently, with brutal persistence, courted her. And it was this stubbornness that scared Aksinya.” She is willful and reckless in her passion and loves Gregory so much that she is ready to do anything, even kill her husband. Grigory begins: “I thought, let’s finish with you...” Aksinya thinks out the terrible words to herself: “... let’s finish Stepan,” but “he licked his lips in annoyance...” - and adds, “let’s finish this story. A?"

And Gregory loves Aksinya. “The exciting smell of her lips remains on Gregory’s lips, smelling either of the winter wind, or of the distant, elusive smell of steppe hay sprinkled with May rain...” This description conveys the freshness, health, and purity of the heroine. But the writer also emphasizes her “vicious and alluring beauty,” her lips “shamelessly greedy, plump,” her eyes flashing with a “spoiled, desperate light” and smile.

When Aksinya learns about Melekhov’s decision to leave the farm and live with her, “on her lips, hidden from Grigory’s eyes, a joyful smile, filled with fulfilled happiness, trembled.” She was incredibly happy. Her smile reflects the most contradictory feelings. So, for example, long-standing pain and melancholy, surprise and tenderness were reflected in Aksinya’s smile when, after a long separation, she met Gregory on the banks of the Don, at the pier: “She smiled such a pitiful, confused smile, so unbecoming of her proud face that Gregory my heart trembled with pity and love..."

One of the constant definitions of Aksinya’s human essence, her struggle for happiness, becomes the epithet “proud” in the novel. Aksinya has a “proud” face, despising farm gossip, she “carried her happy but shameful head proudly and high.” After a quarrel with the Melekhovs, she did not greet them, “with satanic pride, flaring her nostrils, she walked past.” The repeatedly repeated definition of “proud” serves to highlight one of Aksinya’s most significant character traits. Aksinya is proud not only of her bright, exciting beauty. Her pride expresses a constant readiness to defend her human dignity, shows resilience, strength and nobility of character.

Difficult life trials did not break Aksinya, but on the contrary, they brought out the best in her. If at the beginning of the novel she could, under the influence of a momentary mood, change Grigory and Listnitsky, insult Natalya, yell at Pantelei Prokofievich, then in the last volume she changes, shows love and understanding towards other people. Aksinya develops a new feeling towards her unloved husband Stepan - she begins to understand him and feel sorry for him in her own way. The attitude towards Natalya also changes: in the last conversation, when Natalya comes to find out whether Aksinya has really “taken possession” of Grigory again, Aksinya no longer mocks Natalya as before, but sensibly, almost like Ilyinichna, reasons: “You know what? Let's not talk about him anymore. He will be alive... he will return - he will choose.” Aksinya loves Gregory’s children with all the fullness of maternal feelings (“They themselves, Grisha, began to call me mother, don’t think that I taught them”). It is no coincidence that Ilyinichna, who had previously been so irreconcilable about Grigory’s relationship with Aksinya, as Dunyashka says, “has fallen in love with Aksinya lately.”

As soon as maternal feelings awaken in Aksinya, everything vicious and defiant in her disappears, and this affects her attitude towards the world and other people. So, Aksinya takes care of grandfather Sashka just as touchingly as Natalya did in her time towards grandfather Grishak. However, Aksinya will have to overcome her self-will for a long time until she finally gives up the desire to take possession of Gregory at any cost and atones, at least partially, for her sin before Natalya by replacing the mother of Gregory’s children.

Aksinya cannot lie, dodge, or deceive. Hypocrisy disgusts her. When Natalya came to talk to her about Gregory, who was rumored to be dating a neighbor, Aksinya tries to evade the answer. But it was enough for Natalya to reproach her, when Astakhova, flushed, proudly and sharply confirmed the assumptions of her deceived wife.

Truthfulness and directness are in her character. For example, Grigory and Stepan are sitting at the same table. When Aksinya saw them together, horror flashed in her eyes. The husband, with hatred and longing, offers her a drink for the long separation. He knew well for whom this man came to them. Aksinya refuses:

"- You know…

I know everything now... Well, not for separation! For the health of our dear guest, Grigory Panteleevich.

I'll drink to his health! “Aksinya said loudly and drank the glass in one gulp.”

And in this impulse is the entire main character, freely and fearlessly expressing her feelings. If Natalya lowered her head under the blow of fate, reproaching herself for not being able to change the course of events, then Aksinya met danger with her head held high and entered into the struggle for happiness.

Aksinya proved her love and loyalty to Gregory with her whole life: “And no matter what she thought about, no matter what she did, she was always invariably, inseparably near Gregory in her thoughts. This is how a blind horse walks in a circle in Chigir, turning the watering wheel around its axis...”

Aksinya did not want to see anything in the world except her beloved, because of him she always lived in terrible tension and excitement, never thinking about whose side he fought on. At his first call, she could part with anything and anyone, just to be close to him. And the last time he came for her at night, she without hesitation and even joyfully got ready and went, not knowing where. To Gregory’s question: “Well? Are you going? - she answers: “What would you think?... Is it sweet for me alone? I’ll go, Grishenka, my dear! I’ll walk, I’ll crawl after you, and I won’t be left alone anymore! I have no life without you... It’s better to kill, but don’t leave again!” Seeing her eyes, swollen from tears, but shining with happiness, Grigory, grinning, thought: “She got ready and went, as if on a visit... Nothing frightens her, what a fine woman...”

But this last attempt by Aksinya to finally find happiness turned into death for her. Far from the farm she found her refuge.

The image of Aksinya is built on the development of the motif of fire and heat, on the motif of the heroine’s special vitality and her gift of “feeling” into nature.

The motif of fire and heat first appears in the portrait of the heroine in the meadow, then it acquires the role of a symbol of the invincibility of love and passion. Forbidden love leaves an imprint on Aksinya’s proud face (it’s like a brand on it scorched), and “shameless fire"love passion manifests itself powerfully and aggressively in the clash with Pantelei Prokofievich, and in separation from Grigory "in the eyes, sprinkled with ashes fear, barely noticeable smoldering ember, left over from what Grishka lit fire».

“Fiery” images become a sign of the truth and exclusivity of Aksinya’s feelings; they are certainly present in scenes and author’s descriptions associated with Aksinya and Gregory. And even at the moment of Gregory’s confession of dislike for his wife, Aksinya’s presence is indicated by a “flickering red speck of a fire” in the steppe, a “speck” from which the flame flares up again: during a date in the winter forest are burning Aksinya’s cheeks are filled with shame and joy, and her eyes flash with “pampered, desperate with a twinkle", and then "all on fire and trembling" she is waiting for news from Gregory, and even the pain caused by pregnancy, pain before fiery splashes, leaves no doubt that Aksinya is carrying Gregory’s child, in her maternal love there is a reflection of fiery love for Gregory: Aksinya was attached to her daughter too burning feeling.

The meeting of Gregory and Aksinya in Yagodnoye is permeated with antithetical motifs of cold and fire: Gregory chills strike, and hands fiery hot; on red Aksinya's lips - frozen smile. And the scene ends with a landscape sketch that parallels the state of Aksinya, who understands the inevitability of separation as retribution for betraying the feeling that connected her with Gregory. And the fire motif seems to be completed in Gregory’s thoughts about Aksinya: “ Destructive, fire her beauty did not belong to him.” This beauty is emphasized again by the author in the scene of Listnitsky’s parting with Aksinya: leaving, he sees yellow the doorway of an abandoned lover - she looks at fire and smiles. And Stepan, returning to the farm, longingly, looks for a long time at the flowing stirrup of the Don, at fiery the last month on the Don water, and the decision comes to return fire Aksinya, start life again.

The motif of heat and fire is continued in the scene of a chance meeting between Aksinya and Gregory on the banks of the Don, which “turned a new corner” of their lives and culminates in the description of three “blazing heat” days in Vyoshenskaya.

In parallel with the development of this motif, there are other natural sketches that are in tune with the sensations and experiences of Sholokhov’s heroine (the symbolic image of the “yellow frost”, the “sun” sign on Aksinya’s cheek in the scene in sunflowers, detailed comparisons with trampled ears of corn and a snow avalanche, landscapes from Aksinya’s life period in Yagodnoye and others), and the “secret sound” of the forest revealed to Aksinya in the episode with the lily of the valley is not accidental. The surprisingly finely drawn picture of nature amazes with its multi-sounding, multi-subject and detailed nature, the stereoscopic nature of the author’s view, emphasizing the naturalness of Sholokhov’s heroine, and the motives of sadness, languid expectation, the transience of life and dissatisfaction of desires open up the horizons of meaning of a particular episode.

The death of Natalya, the retreat with Grigory, a serious illness and return to his native farm, attachment to Grigory’s children - all this changed Aksinya, in her eyes Grigory, who returned home, saw not a spark of feverish passion, but devotion and shine. Aksinya’s ability to value her family life delights the author. “In essence, a person needs very little to be happy. Aksinya, in any case, was happy that evening,” he formulates the main idea of ​​his large-scale narrative.

And the last day of Aksinya is marked radiance her eye. Aksinya enjoys the beauty of a summer morning, her mood is surprisingly in tune with the world around her, and she is again ready to follow her happiness, to go off-road, firmly believing: “We will find our share!” And the whole scene becomes two-dimensional: on one plane - Aksinya’s faith in the possibility of finding “full happiness”, on the other - the author’s sober view, indicated by the words: “Again ghostly the unknown attracted her with happiness,” “the world seemed her jubilant and bright,” with a retrospective and symbolic image of a wreath with rosehip flowers.

The night landscape, filled with anxiety and signs of impending disaster, is pierced by a fiery flash that brings death to the “fire” Aksinye. The motif of fire and heat receives its completion: daylight loses its power, because the disappearance of the symbol “Aksinya - fire, heat” affects the sun: it becomes black, and the disappearance of the parallel of the last episodes “Aksinya - light” makes not only the sun black, but also the sky. Gregory's life without Aksinya is likened to a black steppe scorched by burning fires.

The image of this heroine is amazing in its drama, directness and passion of feeling. It is passion, a powerful, almost bestial erotic, vital energy that unites Gregory and Aksinya - primarily at the deep-natural level of temperament. These are two magnificent natural specimens of a Cossack and a Cossack woman, with a clearly expressed opposite and therefore especially attractive gender sign: he is the embodiment of masculinity (the wild beauty of black burning eyes, thick spreading eyebrows, a vulture nose, an elastic strong body with a chest densely covered with fur... ), she is femininity, magnetic and attractive charm. Gregory is not warm, but hot in everything: in the type of emotionality, in impetuous reactions, in violent outbursts of anger, in bravery in battle, in love (“Damn mad! ... tormented Circassian” - brother Petro about him). Aksinya is also accompanied by the image of heat, fire (“it burned him with the blazing black eyes”), erotic fury (“And what a fierce woman, brothers! On Styopka, you can even wring out a shirt... It’s stuck to his shoulder blades!” She drove him out, in all soap..."). With all the fiery dominance of her erotic nature, such a pliable, affectionate, predominantly feminine element as water, moisture is not alien to her (“wet black eyes”, “In Aksinya’s eyes, moistened and shining...” - here, towards the end of the novel, light also appears).

Aksinya is natural, not uptight, and at times even shameless in her desires, in the manifestations of her sensual naturalness - this is irresistible and lights up men. It would seem that in a certain female typology, Aksinya resembles Daria: strong sensuality, some involvement in erotic abysses, even specific features of appearance emphasized by Sholokhov - the heat of the eyes and mouth, “viciously greedy” lips, a gait swaying at the hips. The writer deprives both of them of motherhood (at the very beginning of “Quiet Don” Daria flashes, singing a lullaby to the baby, who then disappears without a trace, presumably dies, just as Aksinya’s child from Stepan dies “before reaching the age of one year”, and scarlet fever in the same infancy carries away her and Gregory's daughter), in different ways emphasizing their outstanding qualities as female lovers par excellence. And yet, the main and defining thing separates them: Daria lives in the impersonal element of eros, representing a kind of Cossack hetaera, reacting with equal warm favor to the men who come across her path; Aksinya - despite the fact that she is fiery and passionate with both Stepan and Listnitsky - is primarily marked by the individual choice of a single, absolute love.

This love of Aksinya and Grigory is depicted in the novel in a meager sequence of several of its ups: the first convergence, when Stepan left for the camps, then Grigory’s departure from Natalya and life together with Aksinya in Yagodnoye, a breakup and only four years later a new meeting with the Don, reconciliation, one night of love, then three days in Veshenskaya, a joint retreat, when Aksinya’s dream of leaving with her beloved, being together, came true, but not a single, even the most chaste, scene of erotic love, and road hardships, dirt, lice, typhus came into their own , and, finally, a short anxious period of their love after the return of Grigory from Budyonny’s army and in the finale a new escape and death of the heroine.

It is interesting that Aksinya’s love (not counting, perhaps, her first period, when the young Grishka Melekhov sought and achieved her with “bugain persistence”) is, as it were, primary - she captivates, ignites, fans the fire of passion. This becomes especially obvious in the second half of the novel, when her lover went through such horrors, spiritual devastation, and took upon himself such grave sins that Aksinya does not know. A few years after the catastrophe of their relationship, they meet again at Don’s, their “many-year” feeling flares up with renewed vigor, but Aksinya herself calls Gregory, and the two of them leave for the night “into the steppe, beckoning with silence, darkness, the drunken smells of young grass,” - here their love element seems to be cramped in an upper room, nature itself is needed... But what does Grigory think the next day, leaving for the division? “Well, life has turned around again in a new way, but my heart is still cold and empty... Apparently, Aksyutka will no longer be able to cover up this emptiness.”

And at the new meeting in Veshenskaya, it was she who “wound herself with wild hops,” “showering short kisses on Gregory’s nose, forehead, eyes, lips,” continuously stroking him, saying “indescribably affectionate, sweet, womanly, stupid,” “on her cheeks.” the blush blazing with heat appeared more and more, and the pupils seemed to be clouded with blue smoke,” Sholokhov expressively depicts precisely her manifestations of feelings, her, the true bearer of igniting eros, captivating her beloved in a powerful outburst of passion, an orgy of feeling and sensuality. On the ruins of life, in the constant threat of losing her beloved forever, the fire of her reckless and absolute eros burns. The writer creates a powerful contrast in this scene: the Reds are on their heels, there is panic, turmoil, flight, madness, doomsday all around, and they are anchored by their love, on a burning island of passion, where there is no one and nothing but the two of them. And when on the third day Grigory emerges from this sweet, stupefying pool, deciding to go to Tatarskoye, “to find out where the family is,” Aksinya fully reveals her claims to the absolute: either only she is with him and with him, or... “Go ! But don't come to me anymore! I won't accept it. I don’t want it like that!.. I don’t want it!”

In the finale of “Quiet Don,” this demand and thirst for the absolute, which reveal the depths of love, are once again directly expressed by Aksinya: “I will follow you everywhere, even to death!” By the way, only such an absolutely loving woman was able to most accurately determine Gregory’s position in the clutches of fate and hard times: “He’s not a bandit, your father,” she explains to Mishatka. “He’s such a... unhappy man.” And it was not without reason that the writer reserved this almost Melekhov formula for the reader at the very end, at the conclusion of the novel. But the same ending of “Quiet Don” brilliantly reveals the entire illusion of finding such an absolute in the conditions of earthly love and mortal earthly circumstances. “Once again the unknown beckoned her with illusory happiness” - Aksinya experiences a surge of joy, but how brief this moment turned out to be! In the clearing, while Gregory is sleeping, Aksinya either tears off “the purple petals of the fragrant honeydew with her lips,” or picks up a “large armful” of “fragrant, motley flowers” ​​and weaves an “elegant and beautiful” wreath from them, sticking “a few pink rosehip flowers” ​​into it. . At his last farewell to the heroine, Sholokhov generously and subtly, anticipatingly leads the motif of flowers, so mysteriously close to the highest beauty of the visible physical world, and to its aroma, but also to the transience of the phenomena of this world, and to the human coffin and grave, always strewn with the same colors.

Presenting Aksinya as a kind of standard of “love beauty” for a Cossack woman, readers (and after them some researchers) most often compare her with pagan goddesses (Aphrodite, Venus, Astarte, and so on). Indeed, in love Aksinya is somewhat akin to pagan goddesses. The furious swirl of her passions literally fascinates, blinds, leading other novel images of Cossack women into the background, into the so-called internal plot.

In fact, Sholokhov masterfully uses almost the entire arsenal of means that pagan goddesses and their priestesses used in love practice. Scenes of Aksinya’s meetings with Gregory are almost always accompanied by “natural elements.” Sholokhov constantly renews the intensity of passions between them, then separating them, then bringing them together again. It is difficult to remember flowers that the author would not throw on the altar of Aksinya’s love feelings. And the subtext is constantly confusing: if these are lilies of the valley, then they are already fading; if they are leaves, then they are “last year’s”, touched by decay, rotting; if they are beauty, then they are “destructive,” if they are love, then they are “alluringly vicious.” And it is no longer accidental that the warning appears at the very beginning of the novel: “Late woman’s love blooms not with an azure scarlet color, but with a dog’s madness, a drunken roadside.” The overlap with another (non-Christian Orthodox) culture is obvious here: aphrodisiacs were widely used by servants of pagan temples in the practice of introducing men to divine values. No worse than the “flowers of Aphrodite”, Gregory was excited by Aksinya’s “viciously inviting gaze,” her “viciously greedy red lips,” “swollen, slightly inverted, greedy,” “calling, slightly inverted, viciously red.”

Sholokhov constantly emphasizes the “frenzy”, “fury”, “shamelessness” of the feelings of this heroine. Here Aksinya, accompanying her husband to the service, “held onto the stirrup, from bottom to top, lovingly and greedily, like a dog, looking into his eyes.” Having seen Stepan off, she was already with Grigory “furious in her late, bitter love.” At the same time, “their crazy connection was so extraordinary and obvious, they burned so frantically with one shameless flame” that looking at them “was shameful.”

The world in Aksinya’s mind is too clearly divided into “mine” and “alien.” And she constantly emphasizes this division. To one degree or another, every person and social group divides the world into “us” and “strangers”. The size of each of these groups determines the view of the world: the more “insiders,” the friendlier the world. And vice versa. Aksinya has only one “own”; the rest of the world is hostile: “Besides Grishka, I have no husband. There is no one in the whole world"; “At least you have children, but he’s the only one I have in the whole wide world.” That’s why Aksinya defends “what’s hers” so fiercely: it’s mine, I own it, I won’t give it away, don’t interfere.

Aksinya’s goal: to tempt - to take possession - to cherish, not to give away: “She firmly decided on one thing: to take Grishka away from everyone, to fill him with love, to own him as before.” But love regenerates her too. Words of pity and affection appear in her speech: she promises Grigory to love him and feel sorry for him (“Grisha, my friend... darling... let’s leave. I’ll kill you, I’ll feel sorry for you”), she takes pity on Natalya’s orphaned children (“I only feel sorry for the kids, but for myself and I won’t say “oh”

“... They were bored and asked - where is dad? I treat them in every possible way, more and more with affection”); “... And Mikhail treated them with nothing, kindly. And Grigory, remembering Aksinya, imagines her like this: “Here she turns her head, mischievously and lovingly, from below she stinks with the gaze of her fiery black eyes, something unspeakably affectionate, her viciously greedy red lips whisper something hot.”

Throughout her life, Aksinya carried her love for Gregory; the strength and depth of her feeling was expressed in dedication, in the readiness to follow her beloved through the most difficult trials. In the name of this feeling, she leaves her husband and household and leaves with Grigory to work as a farm laborer for the Listnitskys. During the Civil War, she follows Gregory to the front, sharing with him all the hardships of camp life. And for the last time, at his call, she leaves the farm with the hope of finding her “share” in Kuban with him. The whole strength of Aksinya’s character was expressed in one all-encompassing feeling - love for Gregory.

The female characters in the novel "Quiet Don" are unusually expressive: proud and brave Aksinya, hardworking and meek Natalya, majestic and wise Ilyinichna, spontaneous and young Dunyasha. This work, created by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, was published in parts from 1928 to 1940. The image of Aksinya in the novel "Quiet Don" will be discussed in this article.

Briefly about Aksinya

Aksinya in the work was first a mistress, and then an illegal wife. She accompanies him throughout the entire novel. This girl is a native Cossack who was accustomed to hard peasant labor and was fully subject to the prejudices of her class. Aksinya is an integral, strong person with an emotional, direct character. She is capable of decisive actions, cannot lie and be content with easy relationships. The main thing in her life is the realization of her feminine essence. This is Aksinya (“Quiet Don”) in a nutshell. The characteristics can be supplemented with various details. Let's present it in more detail.

The appearance of the heroine and her inner essence

When describing the image of Aksinya in the novel "Quiet Don", one should certainly dwell on her appearance. This heroine is a woman of great charm, captivating internal and external beauty. She has plump, greedy lips, plump shoulders, a dark, chiseled neck. The girl is proud of her alluring, defiantly bright beauty. However, it is not the outer appearance, but the spiritualized, passionate and strong nature, the inner wealth of the heroine, the great power of her love that Sholokhov poetizes in his work.

Position in the Aksinya family

Aksinya has been unhappy since childhood. She learned very early the bitterness of the slave position of women in difficult pre-revolutionary times. Life with Stepan Astakhov, an unloved husband, was a continuation of such a joyless lot. Handed over to beatings and abuse, hard labor and humiliation, the girl did not want to submit to the tyranny of her husband.

The beginning of an affair with Gregory

During the first meeting with Grigory at the Don, and then in the fishing episode, the heroine puts off the caresses of this man, fears the persistence with which Grigory Melekhov flirts with her. However, she soon discovers, to her horror, that she is attracted to this guy. Aksinya was frightened by the new feeling that filled her completely. She is unable to overcome him and therefore comes to Gregory herself. From then on, the girl seemed to be reborn. Love straightened her out. She now walks proudly, holding her happy head high, without hiding or being ashamed of people.

Aksinya’s great determination is combined with integrity and subtlety of feelings, with human kindness and sensitivity. The image of Aksinya in the novel "Quiet Don" would be incomplete without mentioning how she takes care of children. She treats her little daughter with tenderness and deeply experiences her death. Aksinya captivates Mishatka with maternal care and affection. She will truly replace the mother of Gregory’s children after Natalya’s death.

Aksinya's speech

The image of Aksinya (the novel "Quiet Don") can be supplemented with characteristics of the speech of this heroine. Aksinya’s speech reveals warmth and immeasurable cordiality. It is filled with diminutive words (“my friend”, “my little ear”, “kids”, “Teddy Bear”). The heroine’s speech changes sharply when she defends her lover and fights for Gregory. In a fit of anger, Aksinya in the novel “Quiet Don” does not skimp on rude expressions, in which her inflexibility and persistence are felt.

Aging Aksinya

Sholokhov speaks with soft lyricism about the experiences of his heroine as she begins to age. The image of Aksinya in the novel "Quiet Don" changes at this time. The writer compares the heroine with a fading lonely lily of the valley. Aksinya examines through her tears a dying flower that has suddenly burst into flames under the sun. She inhales the scent of lily of the valley and sees that it has been touched by mortal decay. The heroine recalls her own youth, a long life poor in joys. Aksinya falls asleep, burying her tear-stained face in her palms.

The writer notices noticeable changes in the appearance of the heroine of the novel "Quiet Don". Aksinya's image is complemented by new features. Before meeting Grigory, she excitedly looked at her aged, but still beautiful face. The “alluring beauty” remained, but the autumn of life had already cast faded colors on the cheeks, yellowed the eyelids, and woven sparse webs of gray hair. A mournful fatigue looked from the eyes, which Sholokhov notes (“Quiet Don”). Aksinya is no longer the blooming girl we meet at the beginning of the novel.

The heroine's attitude to revolutionary events

In her own way, this heroine tried to find the path to a better life. Aksinya was far from participating in revolutionary events. However, her fate depended on their outcome. Aksinya longed for freedom. For her sake, she was ready to sacrifice her household and peace at any time, and go “to the ends of the earth” from her native place. However, the heroine we are interested in was blinded by love. This limitation of hers, generated by the conditions in which the girl grew up, is reflected in the novel "Quiet Don". Aksinya’s image is such that she lives outside the interests of society, does not know other ways to fight for her own happiness, for fair treatment of herself, except consistency and sincerity in her love for Grigory Melekhov, faith in him, selfless devotion to her beloved. For her, nothing existed except Gregory. When he was absent, the world died for her and was reborn again when Gregory was nearby. Aksinya, not interested in what Melekhov is fighting for, follows him blindly, thinks only about him and loves only him.

Aksinya's devotion

With increasing tension, Aksinya became more and more worried about the person with whom she connected her whole life, all her hopes for finding happiness. She shares all the hardships. Aksinya, in search of “her share,” goes with him recklessly into the unknown, which beckoned her with “ghostly happiness.” The heroine honestly admits that she was “swayed” by longing for her lover. Aksinya, not knowing what awaits her ahead, why and where she is going, admits that she is ready to go even to death with Gregory. She shed many tears during sleepless nights. However, the whole world again seemed bright and jubilant to her after Gregory returned.

Aksinya’s image is such that even love for a child is for her a continuation of her passion for Melekhov, and not a feeling that is rooted in patriarchal family relations. The tragedy is aggravated by the death of a child and a lack of understanding of the social upheavals occurring in society. As a result, Aksinya finally loses the opportunity to “take root in the family” - what is most important for women among her. Aksinya believes this time that she will find “her share” with her loved one, and dies tragically with this faith on the way.

The meaning of Aksinya's image

A sympathetic attitude towards Aksinya’s passion has long been established in literary criticism. Her forbidden love in the 1930s was interpreted as a protest against the social norms of the old world, even as a hymn to free love. The image of Aksinya is among the heroines who love selflessly, but due to tragic circumstances are not able to unite with their loved one. Those who give their beloved a sense of the meaning of life and its completeness. This is Aksinya (“Quiet Don”), whose characteristics were presented in this article.