When people talk about Leo Tolstoy, one immediately remembers the wonderful epic works of the Russian classic, such as War and Peace or Anna Karenina. But Lev Nikolaevich is good in small forms. When he takes up a story or a story, his talent does not betray him. The focus is "After the ball." This article will discuss the characteristics of the characters After the Ball.
Plot
The reason for the story is an old story, an eternal question: the environment makes a person or a person creates an environment for his habitat. There is a conversation between familiar people, and it concerns personal improvement.
The main character, Ivan Vasilievich, is a man respected by everyone in the circle where the conversation is taking place, tells a story from his life that refutes the fact that the environment forms a person.
It was a long time ago, one of the main provincial officials held a ball in honor of the last day of Shrovetide. The whole provincial elite came to the ball.
Ivan Vasilievich was then a university student from the same city. There was nothing to do, and the main entertainment was attending such events. At this ball, he saw a girl - Varenka B. and fell in love with her without a memory. I danced only with her. Varenka was the daughter of Colonel Pyotr Vladislavovich, who, together with his wife, honored all those present with his presence at the celebration.
Father had to go home. And in parting, he danced with his daughter, so famously that everyone was absolutely delighted. Seeing this, the young Ivan Vasilyevich was imbued with warm feelings for the old man. The colonel left, and the young people (Varenka and Vanya) were still dancing. In the morning everyone left. Here the events of the work “After the Ball” subside. The heroes of the story can not yet be suspected of something bad.
The hero could not sleep, and he went to stagger around the city. Accidentally, unconsciously came to the house of his sweetheart. On the field adjacent to the house stood a line of soldiers. Under the drumming and the sounds of the flute they let the fugitive Tatar through the ranks. He was beaten from all over with sticks on the back. The back has already turned into a bloody mess, and he only repeated: "Lord, brothers, spare." He said this quietly, because he already lacked the strength to cry.
The torture was led by a “dear colonel,” who was recently dancing with his daughter at a ball. After this event, Ivan Vasilievich’s love for Vara passed. Each time he looked at her face, he saw the Tatar and his back.
The reader may be tired of the excessive detail of the plot, but its consideration is absolutely necessary in order to understand what characteristics of the characters after the ball correspond to them most of all.
Ivan Vasilievich - a man whose conscience woke up
What then happened to Ivan Vasilievich? Then, after the ball, his conscience woke up, and he himself woke from a dream. So much so that it seemed to him as if a whip had been steganed, so sudden was the awareness of the general’s baseness, “light”, which is no different from darkness in a moral, moral sense. So, we can already say that the first characteristic of the heroes “After the Ball” is ready: the main character can be defined as a person who has a conscience.
Colonel
Everything here is a little more complicated. This is not to say that the colonel and his daughter are unscrupulous people. For them, simply the hierarchy that existed in Russia in the 19th century is normal. It is also normal that they can warm up after a holiday or calm the excited nerves by torturing a person. This is nothing out of the ordinary.
The reader can rightly say that if you really think about what characterization of the characters “After the Ball” (implying specifically the colonel), then you need to blame only the old soldier. Oh no, that won't do. The women of the colonel are guilty of his savagery no less than he himself. After all, they did not stop him from committing them.
Varenka
Nothing bad can be said about the fanatic of the fanatic, but good cannot be said about her. She is a faceless narrative character. Only one memory will remain of her: she was amazingly beautiful, but it is difficult to define it substantively if we are talking about the disclosure of the theme “Characteristics of Heroes“ After the Ball ””.
Moral issues raised in the work
So, here in the center of production there is an eternal debate about the confrontation between the individual and society. Also, the author focuses his attention (and the attention of the reader) on the abominations of human duplicity and duplicity.
In this story, L. N. Tolstoy even indirectly answers the question of why, in fact, the Russian revolution happened: because the "upper ranks" allowed themselves such treatment with the "lower classes" and the "lower classes" took revenge. This is the brief moral content of "After the Ball." In fact, this story may fan out other moral problems, but this is a completely different story.