The hero's existential dilemma in the story "First Love": the Hamletian question

Khao Jingjing PhD in Philology PhD student, Department of History of Russian Literature, St. Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, Leningrad region, Saint Petersburg, nab. University, 7-9, of. 7-9 1925518245@qq.com

Everyone knows that throughout his life I. S. Turgenev maintained a dialogue with W. Shakespeare. He put the English playwright on the same board with the most outstanding and legendary singer of antiquity — Homer, and called him "the deepest connoisseur of the human heart" ^{[24, p. 177]}. According to the Russian writer, Shakespeare's name has already become "one of the most radiant, the greatest human names" [ibid., p. 188]. For the whole modern literary process, Shakespeare is presented as a necessary "constant", and for Turgenev he turns out to be a constant aesthetic guide and guide when faced with controversial and contradictory artistic issues.

The study of the problem of the reception of Shakespeare's legacy in Turgenev's work, as well as the artistic impact Shakespeare's influence on the writer has a long tradition, which can be traced in the research of Russian and foreign scientists. Prosper Merimet clearly points out the similarity of Turgenev's aesthetics with Shakespeare's ("He finds sublime features even in the most base natures. He often reminds me of Shakespeare" ^{[18, p. 277]}). The first attempt to generalize and systematize Turgenev's perception of the English genius belongs to D. S. Gutman ^[8], whose ideas are further supplemented and developed in the works of L. M. Lotman ^[16] and Y. D. Levin ^[14]. The latter gives a general idea of the writer's interest in Shakespeare and analyzes the connection between Turgenev's artistic method and the creative skill of the English poet. The researcher pays special attention to the writer's interpretation of Hamlet and King Lear.

In addition, in the works of A. B. Muratov, P. Waddington, E. G. Novikova, V. M. Markovich, T. V. Shvetsova, I. O. Volkov, etc. Shakespearean poetics in Turgenev's work is also considered from different points of view. The central works in this regard are the short story "Hamlet of Shchigrovsky district", the novella "Enough" and "Steppe King Lear". We are interested in Turgenev's novel "First Love", which is rarely mentioned in the above literature.

The story "First Love", published in 1860, tells about the feelings and related emotional experiences of the young hero Volodya, who fell into the tragedy of love and an unfair fate. The hero falls in love with an impoverished noblewoman Zinaida, who presents herself as a victim of circumstances, a frivolous and attractive girl. However, he later finds out that this proud girl is in love with his father, and voluntarily falls into the slavery of love. The hero's half-childish infatuation came into an insoluble collision with the drama and sacrifice of adult love. The unusual experience of first love left a deep imprint on the rest of his life. The stereoscopic and multidimensional nature of the story allows us to discuss the diverse creative connections of the writer reflected in it with his predecessors and contemporaries.

The plot of the story focuses on love, which enslaves, which obviously goes back to the poetics of A. Schopenhauer, who emphasized the mystical nature of love passion, "treating love as a superpersonal mystical feeling" ^{[7, p. 415]}. The similarity of Turgenev's story with the novel by Alexander Dumas-son was pointed out by a contemporary of the writer. Louis Viardot compared Turgenev's heroine to the “Lady with camellias”: "Who will she choose among her admirers, this new "Lady with Camellias"? A married man. Adultery again, always a prosperous and glorified adultery!" ^{[9, pp. 487-488]}.

O. Y. Korobeynikova ^[11] and M. P. Khokhlova ^[26] analyze Pushkin's reminiscences in the story. A. I. Batyuto draws attention to references in it to V. G. Belinsky, noting that in the story it is important not only "the ability to comprehend the meaning of A. S. Pushkin's work, but also the potential ability of a sympathetic response to judgments about him Belinsky." "An opinion in the spirit of Belinsky," from his point of view, Turgenev puts "into the mouth of Zinaida, who understands the beauty of authentic poetry" ^{[1, p. 631]}. Starting from this position, T. B. Trofimova ^[21] considers Turgenev's tale of love as a polemical response of the novelist to the story "The Little Hero" by F. M. Dostoevsky. As the scientist reveals, V. G. Belinsky becomes the center of the controversy, especially his arguments about romanticism. Theodore Storm's presence in "First Love" also attracted the attention of researchers. L. V. Pumpyansky, for example, reveals that "When restructuring Turgenev's short stories to an elegiac tone new to Russian literature, the role of the Storm was very great, for some points (for example, the lyrical introduction of the theme of old age), perhaps even decisive" ^{[19, p. 439]}. However, we will focus on an aspect of Shakespeare's eternal image, namely the Hamlet question hidden in the story.

Turgenev's interest in Shakespeare's play Hamlet and its main character remained unchanged throughout his creative life. Shakespeare's tragedy became a source of inspiration for the writer. The presence of the Danish prince in Turgenev's works was pointed out by many scientists, and this issue was specifically investigated by T. V. Shvetsova ^[27] and I. O. Volkov ^[6].

The connection of "First Love" as a love and philosophical story with Shakespeare's drama is not obvious, but it still exists. So, I. A. Belyaeva writes: "the story in Turgenev's work actualized the Hamlet principle in the character of the hero. This, of course, does not mean that all the heroes of Turgenev's novels are typologically Hamlets. But they are dominated by Hamlet's dominant. Even with a certain degree of openness to the world and people, they still find themselves focused on themselves, and their existence is closed in time and space" ^{[3, p. 92]}. Noting the political subtext in the story, A. Vdovin emphasizes that "the main meaning, the main attraction of "First Love" has always been and remains for the reader that it is detective and fascinating, a love story told with all the skill, which, of course, leaves room for numerous waste into side plots, one of which is this political allegory, referring to the eternal Hamlet question, which, as we remember, was discussed by Turgenev in the famous article "Hamlet and Don Quixote" ^[5].

The entire text of the story "First Love" seems to be imbued with the atmosphere of Shakespearean romantic poetry. Just as in the tragedy about the Prince of Denmark, Turgenev widely shows the mental and emotional world of the hero-narrator, emphasizes his reflection, describes emotional trials. The hero's experiences seem to be collected in a picturesque gallery of moral and psychological movements of his soul: there is sweet joy and tenderness, anxious forebodings and doubts, bitter disappointment and pain, painful separation and death. Volodya, who is very close to Hamlet in his temperament, loves poetry, is melancholic, contemplative, whimsical, passionate in his pursuit of love. He clearly records all his mental impressions, explores his own feelings, personality and destiny in self-reflection. And in this "egocentric" way, the entire narrative in the analyzed story is constructed. But the more important element of the narrative is the dramatic dominant, which also served as a link for Turgenev's work with Shakespeare's play; this dramatic dominant is associated with the moral breakdown and degradation of the main character.

Turgenev wrote about his very first love in 1871 as follows: "First love is the same revolution: the monotonously correct structure of the established life is broken and destroyed in an instant" [2 2, p. 323]. The unsuccessful experience of first love destroys Volodya's idealistic way of life and values, putting him in front of such difficulties as the need for self-knowledge, confusion of feelings, painful moral choice. And this unrequited youthful love symbolizes the double dilemma (political and ethical) that that young generation had to face. An innocent, sincere, passionate young man, having experienced the "revolution" of first love – a tragic clash of ideals with reality, inevitably turned into a Russian Hamlet.

Already at the very beginning of the story, the writer emphasizes the alienation of the hero-narrator from the secular world. His new neighbor, the impoverished noblewoman Zinaida, is despised by Volodya's mother; although he does not agree with this, speaking of her father's respected, respectable princely title, the hero says: "The princely title had little effect on me: I recently read Schiller's Robbers" [2 3, p. 307]. The reference to the German play, the main character of which is also a Hamlet–type character who constantly suffers from the inconsistency of his romantic ideas about the world of harsh reality, hints that Volodya is a rebel in spirit. Like Hamlet, Volodya is presented as a rebel against the secular social order, to some extent detached from the concerns and interests of the secular world.

Zinaida, in turn, is presented to the reader as a victim of circumstances. Volodya is obsessed with Zinaida, but this obsession of his meets an obstacle in the form of problems of the "local atmosphere". This is what the doctor says in the story – an authoritative person who is able to assess the situation sensibly. He tried many times to awaken the voice of reason in Volodya.: "Yes, your choice is painfully unsuccessful. Don't you see what kind of house this is?" [Ibid., p. 331]; "<W>the air here is harmful to you — believe me, you can get infected" [Ibid.]; "I repeat to you: the local atmosphere is not good for you" [Ibid., p. 332]; "The local atmosphere is harmful, harmful to you, young man" [Ibid., p. 333]. Zinaida's angry but impotent confession echoes these conclusions about the "atmosphere" (both natural and social): "Is life so much fun? Take a look around... Is what good? Or do you think that I do not understand this, do not feel it?" [Ibid., p. 332].

It should be noted that in the French translation of the story, published in Paris in 1863, Turgenev completed the ending (it is reproduced in the subsequent German edition). In it, the writer revealed the attitude of the main characters to the events that make up the plot of the story, and on one important issue they reached agreement:

"That's it... I wanted to say that we live in a strange time... And we are strange people.

— Why is that?

"We are strange people,— he repeated.<ergey > N<ikolaevich>. "You didn't add anything to your confession, did you?"

— Nothing.

— Hmm. However, it is noticeable. It seems to me, in Russia alone...

— Such a story is possible! — interrupted in<ladimir> P<etrovich>.

— Such a story is possible.

In<ladimir> P<etrovich paused.

— What is your opinion? "What is it?" he asked, turning to the owner of the house.

— I agree with C<ergey> N<Ikolaevich," he replied, also without looking up. — But don't be alarmed, we don't want to say that you are a bad person, on the contrary. We want to say that the living conditions in which we were all brought up and raised have developed in a special, unprecedented way, which is unlikely to happen again. We were horrified by your simple and artless story... not because he struck us with his immorality — there is something deeper and darker than simple immorality. Actually, you are not guilty of anything, but you feel some kind of common, national guilt, something similar to a crime.

— What an exaggeration! — I noticed in<ladimir> P<etrovich>.

— Maybe. But I repeat “Hamlet”: “there is something spoiled in the Danish kingdom.” But let's hope that our children won't have to tell their youth like that.

—Yes," said V thoughtfully.<ladimir> P<etrovich>. — It will depend on what this youth will be filled with.

"Let's hope so,— the host repeated, and the guests dispersed in silence" ^{[10, p. 68]}.

That is, the nationwide "unhealthy situation" led to the fact that events developed in a "special, unprecedented way" [Ibid.], against which the story of the narrator turns out to be understandable to listeners. The theme of the oppressive "local atmosphere" in this conversation is again clearly indicated, and it unequivocally refers to Hamlet's words "Denmark is a prison" [2 8, II, 2], as indicated by the mention of the Danish Kingdom in the conversation ("there is something spoiled in the Danish Kingdom" ^{[10, p. 68]}). Thus, the theme of "unhealthy atmosphere" is expanding from the individual and family level to a national scale. As Ilya Kliger writes, this ending, which is not included in the canonical Russian text, suggests that we "read the personal story of young Volodya as a national fable" [2 9, p. 115].

Starting from this, it is easy to see that the story is full of disturbing social metaphors, among which not the least place is occupied by the feeling of oppression of people by power, violence, as if hidden behind light poetry praising love, youth and beauty. The extraordinarily charming Princess Zinaida plays the role of the hostess of the "high-society" salon, pushes her fans around, completely controlling them, setting the "rules of the game". She does not allow anyone to challenge her orders, otherwise she would accuse her fans of "rebellion" [2 3, p. 319]. But, faced with a more powerful authority – Volodya's father Peter Vasilyevich, Zinaida herself seemed to become his slave. With her consent, he imprisoned her in a small wooden house and even beat her with a whip. The scene where Peter beats Zinaida seems to be the most eerie in the story. He hits her on the arm with a whip, and she, as Volodya tells us, "silently looked at my father and, slowly raising her hand to her lips, kissed the scar on it" [Ibid., p. 360]. In this scene, the father looks like a tyrant, and Zinaida responds to violence with gratitude (kissing). Absolute subordination to "power" reaches its apogee here. Let us recall that whipping as a form of punishment has long been associated with autocracy. So, the young A. S. Pushkin wrote about the "History of the Russian State" by N. M. Karamzin:

There is elegance and simplicity in his “Story”

They prove to us without any bias,

The need for autocracy –

And the charms of the whip"

^{[20, p. 112]}.

The juxtaposition of "autocracy" and "whip" in these Pushkin lines is very revealing. One of the researchers who saw this allusion notes that it gives the image of Peter Vasilyevich "another, the most striking and essential attribute of sovereignty. Thus, there is a double sovereign-charismatic violence in the narrative: Pyotr Vasilyevich applies it to Zinaida, and Zinaida passes it on to Volodya and others" [2 9, p. 36].

The position of Pyotr Vasilyevich in the family is also curious: his son loves him blindly, while his father clearly does not show reciprocal feelings ("I loved him, I admired him <...>. <How would I have become passionately attached to him if I hadn't constantly felt his rejecting hand! But when he wanted to, he could almost instantly, in one word, with one movement, arouse in me unlimited confidence in himself" [2 3, pp. 3 23-324] — this is how Volodya tells about his relationship with his father). Pyotr Vasilyevich's wife is very afraid of him for some unknown reason ("I was very afraid of him" [Ibid., p. 304], – Volodya reports). Speaking of his father, the hero uses the word "autocratic" [Ibid.];It is worth noting that this adjective is usually used to describe an autocratic ruler, but here it is moved into the sphere of personal, family relations. Skillfully using this apt word, the writer implies that the position of the father in the family is similar to the position of the ruler in an authoritarian state.

It is worth remembering that the intertwining of state and family is precisely one of the key features of Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. And in the story "First Love" we observe such an intertwining at the narrative level. Also, in both works, the fate of the main characters is largely determined by their relationship with their fathers. If Shakespeare may not describe them so clearly due to the genre nature of the play, then in Turgenev's story the attitude of the son to the father clearly reveals manifestations of the Oedipus complex described by Z. By Freud. Relations in Volodya's family are not very healthy. Volodya himself describes them at the beginning of the story as follows: "My father treated me indifferently and affectionately; my mother almost did not pay attention to me, although she had no children besides me: other worries absorbed her. My father, a man still young and very handsome, married her for convenience; she was ten years older than him. My mother led a sad life: she was constantly worried, jealous, angry — but not in the presence of her father; she was very afraid of him..." [Ibid., p. 36]. And this is a typical picture of "problem families", very characteristic of Russia in the middle of the XIX century. and gave rise to abnormal, unhealthy marital and family relations. Thus, from the very first pages of the story, it can be concluded that Volodya lives in an oppressive, psychologically unhealthy atmosphere. His parents are not united by affection for each other. Volodya, the only child in the family, does not receive the love that he should receive.

From the standpoint of psychoanalysis, Z. According to Freud, a prolonged lack of maternal love can lead to young people experiencing strong emotional attachment to older women, seeking to make up for the lack of maternal care that they did not receive in childhood. And when choosing a spouse, this may manifest itself in the preference of young men for more mature women, which Freud calls "the influence of the maternal prototype on the choice of an object" [2 5, p. 23]. The appearance in Volodya's life of the radiant and beautiful Zinaida, who was five years older than him, awakened a magical feeling of love in the ardent heart of the young man and allowed him to feel the maternal tenderness that he lacked. Volodya fell into her favor and was completely blinded by his feeling: "<She made fun of my passion, fooled, pampered and tormented me" [2 3, p. 326].Let's pay attention to the word "pampered"; pampering is an integral element of the relationship between parents and children. Trying his best to win Zinaida's heart, the young hero eventually received only a kiss on the forehead: "She pressed a clean, calm kiss on my forehead" [Ibid., p. 342]. But a kiss on the forehead in Christian countries is usually an expression of care or blessing on the part of the elders towards the younger ones. In other words, maternal affection is manifested in this kiss, and Volodya was for Zinaida only an object of maternal love, which she herself confirmed, repeatedly talking about their age difference. She saidVolodya is a "little boy" [Ibid., p. 336], called him a "naughty boy" [Ibid., p. 337], and once even said directly to him: "Listen, because I am much older than you — I could be your aunt, really..." [There same, p. 342]. Volodya is just a "sweet, good, smart" child for her, whom she "loves very much" [Ibid.].

Volodya was fascinated by Zinaida's charm, but he did not fully realize what kind of feelings he had for her ("I burned like fire in her presence... but why did I need to know what kind of fire it was on which I burned and melted — it was good for me to melt and burn sweetly" [Ibid., p. 353]), and considered these feelings love. It is also interesting that Volodya's mother was hostile to Zinaida. After their first meeting, she contemptuously called the heroine as a "prideful woman" "with the appearance of a grisette" [Ibid., p. 317]. Later, my mother repeatedly made it clear to Volodya that she did not want Volodya to meet with a "proud woman", and "spoke very badly about her" [Ibid., p. 354] in front of my father. From the very beginning, she saw the girl as a potential rival. The images and characters of the two women in the story are sharply contrasted: the mother is old (ten years older than her father), irritable and demanding, she "led a sad life: she was constantly worried, jealous, angry" [Ibid., p. 304], Zinaida is young, "tenacious and beautiful" [Ibid., p. 326], life developed in her "some kind of semi-contemptuous carelessness and lack of care", Volodya also noted that "there is not enough grief for her" [Ibid., p. 327]. This opposition seems to put Zinaida in a winning position in relation to the hero's mother. She seems perfect to him and even replaces his mother in some ways.

Volodya's discovery that he is competing for Zinaida's love with his father gives the Turgenev youth's first love an even more unusual character. This is a rivalry, as Sh writes. Lipke, "not only causes trauma, but also arises in connection with an earlier trauma, which, however, is not related to sexual violence, but to the detachment between the son and parents" ^{[15, p. 507]}. When Volodya finds out that the object of his suspicions, jealousy and planned revenge turns out to be his own father,"<jealous, ready to kill Othello suddenly turned into a schoolboy" [2 3, p. 3 51]. The next day, he confesses to himself: "Yesterday's excitement has passed. In its place came a heavy confusion and a kind of sadness, as if something had died in me" [Ibid.]. The search for truth, disappointment and despair caused by a collision with the cruel truth, bring Volodya closer to Hamlet. The Prince of Denmark, upon learning that his father's murderer is his own stepfather, also plunges into moral tosses, doubts, and confusion. But Turgenev's hero, unlike Shakespeare's prince (who, however, according to Turgenev, accidentally killed his stepfather), gives up, stops fighting. From the standpoint of psychoanalysis, Volodya perceives Zinaida as his mother or her substitute, and since the mother belongs to the father, taking her away from him is a sin or at least a morally unacceptable act. This leads him to believe that his father should triumph, and he himself should be defeated. At the same time, Volodya's father is an absolute authority. His conquest of Zinaida further strengthens Volodya's submission to him ("On the contrary, he seemed to have grown in my eyes..." [Ibid., p. 3 56]). Under the influence of his father's greatness (largely imaginary), the young hero has to admit that his father became the winner in the competition for Zinaida.

Like Hamlet, who survived the immoral act of his stepfather, Volodya survived the immoral act of his father, as a result of which he suffered a severe psychological blow. His beautiful ideals were completely destroyed by the cruel reality, like flowers, which, as Volodya himself says, "were torn out at once and lay around me, scattered and trampled" [Ibid., p. 3 54]. The indecision inherent in the Hamlet type, leading to an inability to resolve political and ethical dilemmas, does not allow the young hero to become a strong, independent person. Moral breakdown, disappointment in life, annoyance at injustice – all this inner disharmony of the hero, caused by chaos and disharmony of the outside world, cannot lead him, as Belinsky writes, to "courageous and conscious harmony and self-enjoyment of the spirit" ^{[2, p. 292]}; instead, he becomes a Russian Hamlet, helpless, confused, weak-willed. A few years later, when this situation was already in the past, Volodya, after graduating from university, did not know where to put himself, he "hung around while doing nothing" ^{[23, p. 3 62]}. As G. N. Boeva rightly notes, "he lives out his life as he has to <...>, remaining an infantile person, living by unconscious impulses, who did not concentrate her energy on mastering life" ^{[4, p. 88]}. This inability to arrange his own life, which gripped the hero after a failure in love, is even more clearly emphasized at the very end of the story: Volodya misses the opportunity to see Zinaida. He has a desire for such a meeting, but he is hampered by external circumstances, which, due to his willlessness, he can no longer overcome. He is no longer able to fight for his happiness. He is not even able to understand the true causes of his misfortune – in the finale of the story, we see this in forty-year-old Volodya, complaining about his imperceptibly passing life; he finally loses the opportunity to change his life for the better, to bring at least something positive into his hopeless existence.

To sum up, we can say that neither Volodya nor his literary prototype Hamlet are free to control their fate. Both find themselves placed by circumstances in a difficult situation that cannot end well. Hamlet, in order to escape from the world of internal and external contradictions, consciously goes to the only possible way out in his mind – death, while Turgenev's hero, although he does not die, also seeks opportunities to meet death: "by his own irresistible attraction," he "was present at the death of a poor old woman" ^{[23, p. 363]}. But this old woman, despite the fact that the hour of her death had come, still did not want to part with her impoverished life. Death, thus, is presented by Turgenev as a cruel, inexorable element: she takes away the one who does not want to leave life, and the one who hungers for her, having lost the meaning of existence, she leaves to suffer further. Therefore, the Russian Hamlet is also tragic in that he cannot get over his suffering in any way. He died only morally, but physically forced to continue his aimless life, However, the writer still gives us some hope: Turgenev's Hamlet answers the eternal Hamlet question "to be or not to be": "To be." That is why he wants to pray not only for Zinaida, for his father, but also "for himself" [Ibid., p. 364].

Conclusion

In the story "First Love", I. S. Turgenev, in fact, inscribed his character into the Shakespearean dramatic scheme. The use of Shakespearean imagery allowed him to vividly portray a restless personality suffering from internal contradictions, and this personality was placed by the writer in the context of Russian life, which inevitably gave it some features. Having learned from the tradition of German and Russian Hamletism theses about self-knowledge, moral dilemmas, and the imperfection of the social system due to the inability of reflective youth to change it, the writer embodied these themes in his own story. In it, he presents the unhappy love story of the young hero as a socio-political allegory, projecting Volodya's childhood memories onto the painful social situation of the early reign of Nicholas I for freedom-loving youth. The autocratic, perverted, unsettled social environment did not have the most positive impact on the growing up of the younger generation of the 1830s. The political and ethical dilemma of this generation is described by Turgenev using the example of first love: it, as well as the desire of the reflective youth of the 1830s to change something, does not end in anything, but only leads the hero to a tragic failure, which causes him serious psychological trauma, because of which he becomes a Russian Hamlet.