Citius or Longius

The story of relationships between a man and a woman, or between a child and parent are one of the popular topics in world literature. This kind of relationships is familiar to everyone that is why readers are able to easily create emotional linkage to the heroes and heroines of the work of art. Most of the time stories about such relationships are connected with the drama, are full of different kinds of emotions such as happiness, sadness, grief and parting. Nikolay Karamzin’s “Poor Liza” and Marko Vovchok’s “Plaything” are good examples of how written story could properly describe the feelings that people are having in relationships with lovers, friends, masters, parents and other people. Nikolay Karamzin’s story about poor Liza showed whole inner world of a young woman who felt in love with young man, her feelings to her mother, nature and other people, and most important, her feelings about betrayal. Marko Vovchok in her story about Igrushechka also demonstrated feeling of the heroine by writing in the first person, which is very useful tool in creating emotional linkage between authors and readers. Personally, by reading the story in such style of writing I began to empathize and started to feel the same emotions that heroine felt. For instance, at the end, when Igrushechka looked at the picture of young lady Zinochka, who died a long time ago, I felt that feelings of sadness and nostalgia about that times when she was alive. Both of these heroines had their own stories filled with different types of emotions. Both of heroines’ stories have similarities and differences; these stories show how emotions and feelings could differently affect human life. In this work through the analysis of Karamzin’s and Vovchok’s stories of heroines the impact of feelings and emotions on human decision making will be discussed.  

First, let us begin with the analysis of the story of a young woman Liza, who lived with her widowed mother. Liza was young and beautiful girl, who spent most of her time working in the field and selling flowers in order to feed her family. Due to the death of her father and inability of her mother to work, Liza became the only one who is responsible for her family. Author described her through the conversations with other people. For instance, Karamzin showed that she was very polite and honest in the dialog with Erast, when he wanted to purchase flowers. She refused to accept 1 ruble instead of five kopecks, saying that “I do not need extra”, shows us her nature. However, her kindness and honesty made her weak in front of the injustice and betrayal, which led to tragic events.