THE THEME OF LONELINESS IN A.P. CHEKHOV'S PROSE

Аннотация

This article examines the theme of loneliness in A.P. Chekhov's prose. The author analyzes Chekhov's key works, which raise the problem of loneliness, explores the characters' characters and the circumstances that lead them to isolation and alienation. The article also discusses how the theme of loneliness reflects broader social and philosophical issues concerning human existence, and what role it plays in the overall context of Chekhov's work. Keywords: A.P. Chekhov, loneliness, prose, characters, isolation, alienation, social problems, philosophical issues Endless poverty, alcoholic brothers, a failed father, ignorant critics, evil doctors, an actress wife, debts, auctions, mortgages, gastritis and hemorrhoids, and eventually premature aging, hemoptysis and death in a boring German village — this is what the life of one of the most sought-after playwrights in the history of world literature looks like. Looking at this life from the outside, we can safely say that its main plot was liberation, that is, a meaningful desire for solitude away from the mess of relatives, fans, drunken village peasants and literary salons. He fled all his life — to Melikhovo, Sakhalin, Yalta, Germany, where he died six months before Bloody Sunday, without seeing either the revolution or the Civil war, almost completely alone. And this whole life fits into the formula deduced by Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin.: “Another feature of idyll is its strict limitation to only a few basic realities of life. Love, birth, death, marriage, work, food and drink, age — these are the basic realities of an idyllic life" [1, 259]. The only difference is that Chekhov's idyll, like the speech of his characters, is full of sadness. Bakhtin emphasized that the idyll is always limited by these basic realities of life, but in Chekhov this limitation becomes a source of tragedy, because through these simple and immutable moments of life pass not happy, but tormented souls. Yulia Kristeva writes: “Let's recall the speech of a depressed person: it is monotonous and repetitive. A phrase that cannot connect into a single whole is interrupted, exhausted, and stops” [2, 22]. Such is the speech of the protagonist of Chekhov's short story “Sadness,” deeply imbued with a personal tragedy that finds no response. Being a master of the most subtle psychological observations, in his story “Sadness” Chekhov addresses the theme of human loneliness, misunderstanding 124 THEORETICAL ASPECTS IN THE FORMATION OF PEDAGOGICAL SCIENCES International scientific-online conference and the unbearable severity of experiences that, without finding a response, destroy the soul. The main character of the story, the coachman Jonah Potapov, loses his son, and his grief becomes the basis of the plot, permeated by the bitter realization of human indifference. The story opens with a scene in which Jonah, standing in the cold waiting for passengers, is lost in thought. His posture, actions and mood convey a state of depression: "Jonah was white as a ghost. He's bent over as much as possible for a living body, and he's not moving." Through such details, Chekhov creates the image of a man whose soul seems to be paralyzed by unspoken grief. However, despite all the evidence of the tragedy, others remain deaf to his inner world. And now let's pay attention to the place where the action of the story takes place. The chronotope of the road, as described by Mikhail Bakhtin, represents a unique intersection of time and space, where people's destinies are intertwined [1, 275], despite social and cultural distances. In Anton Chekhov's short story “Sadness,” this chronotope takes on a special meaning, emphasizing the theme of human isolation and the impossibility of communication in conditions that theoretically facilitate meeting and dialogue. However, Chekhov transforms the habitual perception of the road as a place of casual contact, making it a symbol of loneliness and inability to overcome internal barriers. The desire machines that arise in Jonah's path could become sources of relief, connections with other people. But there is no genuine desire to be heard in this space. In the hero's life, everything is already devoid of true human relationships. Bakhtin noted that the road is a space where "temporary paths" intersect, which allows events to begin and unfold. In Anguish, the driver moves along the road, transporting passengers, and each new passenger could be an opportunity for him to share his grief. But instead, the road in the story turns into a metaphor for emptiness. People who cross paths with Jonah do not linger in his life and do not take part in his sufferings. Thus, Chekhov's chronotope of the road acquires an additional meaning: it is not only a point of intersection of destinies, but also a space where the impossibility of dialogue becomes especially obvious. Chekhov uses the chronotope of the road to create a contrast between the attempt to open up and the paralyzing paralysis.