V. Tokareva's stories and novellas are attractive not only for their everyday stories, not only for the types of" little people " that Russian literature has always been so attentive to, but also for their philosophical understanding of the world, life, and people. Favorite characters of the writer are creative people not so much by virtue of their professions, but by their nature, by their essence. Most of all, they (as well as the author himself) are concerned about the problem of happiness. The characters reflect a lot, summarize their life experience, master the treasury of other people's experience accumulated over the centuries and cast in a concise, perfect form.

V. Tokareva's prose is full of aphorisms, 11 short stories and 25 short stories contain 259 aphorisms.

Consider those aphorisms in the text of the writer's works that represent someone else's thought in the flow of the author's or character's own thoughts.

The functions of an aphorism in V. Tokareva's prose often depend on the way it is introduced into the author's narrative. Most often, this is a direct speech: "Markin did not marry for love ( ... ). Yegorov married (...) for passionate love. (...) Markin envied him. Lidka knew that her husband did not love her, and in order to keep her, she gave birth to his children almost every year. But Yegorovskaya Irina did not want to waste her beauty and youth, and her only son had to beg and beg at the cost of tears and humiliations. He had loved her for a long time, for fifteen years, and he had stopped loving her in one day.

As Anton Pavlovich Chekhov said: "Marry for love or without love - the result is the same." So they had the same result with Markin, but at least there are children, and here are devastating, sizzling passions, which now, from a distance, seem to be nothing "("Long Day").

In this description of a specific life situation, key words form oppositions: "love is not love", "every year I gave birth to children - begging for an only son", "I loved for a long time - I stopped loving in one day". The two ways of life have come together at a single point. The conclusion follows Chekhov's aphorism from the story "Three Years", to

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to which the Tokarev hero adds the final phrase with his own amendment:" ... but at least there are children, and here are devastating sizzling passions, which now, from a distance, seem to be nothing." The aphorism is used as a means of ironic characterization of the situation.

Consider the same example of introducing an aphorism: "I know that I will not make any revolution in science and will not create artificial happiness, because there is no artificial happiness (...).

As for my generalship, I'm not a general at all, and it's not a matter of rank. As Anton Pavlovich Chekhov said: "The presence of large dogs should not confuse small dogs, because each barks with the voice that it has."

I am a senior researcher at the SNA. These three letters remind me of a series of Zhiguli numbers in the cities of Stavropol, Saratov, Simferopol. And senior researchers - as many as " Zhiguli "in these cities. And it doesn't hurt me at all..." ("Star in the Fog").

The keyword in the first paragraph is "I". The second section contains a description ("not a general") and an assessment of the situation: "not... it's all about the ranks." Because that's not what matters. The important thing is formulated in Chekhov's aphorism, which is placed in a separate paragraph and serves as the ideological center of the heroine's thoughts, acting as a means of her characterization, testifying to the ability to objective self-assessment and a sense of humor.

Aphorisms are introduced not only in the form of direct, but also indirect speech: "There have always been optimists and pessimists. Maxim Gorky, for example, argued that man is created for happiness. And Velimir Khlebnikov believed that man was created for suffering.

The same thing happened a hundred years ago. Voltaire said that the world is terrible, and his contemporary philosopher Leibniz exclaimed: "Oh! This is the best of worlds... "" ("This is the best of worlds").

An aphorism can act as an independent sentence, included in a non-direct speech as another link in the chain of arguments, arguments, it does not have a link to the source, if it is well known or refers to "massively reproduced" units: "He always put creativity first, ahead of the family, and even more so ahead of unplanned entertainment. A man should express his "I". Leave your own settings to future generations. For example, about the dangers of tobacco, About the benefits of education. Let it be known before him. It will remind you again. Smoking is harmful. It shortens your life. And life is given once. Let them think of him as a chest of mothballs. The chest, by the way, is a useful thing. And these young singers of the garbage dump-they just want to smear everything with black paint. Cross out the past. It wasn't like that then. Now-so. And by the way, you need to look at NOW from later. There is a saying: wait and see. Let them live, and then look around and see" ("Hello").

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Aphorism of N. Ostrovsky in this passage loses its high initial meaning, since it goes immediately after the banal slogans " Smoking is harmful. It shortens your life."

An aphorism can be used in its entirety, but the first part is repeated twice. "From the bottom of the soul, the usual complexes were stirred up. He's the worst. Born to crawl. And a person born to crawl, as you know, cannot fly" ("Masha and Felix"). The repetition of a part of the aphorism carries an emotional burden: it is like a double sentence of the hero to himself, the realization of his doom to a gray and wingless life. This method of repetition seems to increase the weight of the verdict.

The conflict development can be based on the collision of various sayings in the dialogue of the characters:"...I ask my mother: "Why do people live?" She says, " For suffering. Suffering is the norm." And Dad says: "This is the norm for fools. Man is made for happiness." Mom says: "You forgot to add-like a bird to fly. And you can also say that pity humiliates a person." Dad says: "Of course, it humiliates, because only fools and fools count on pity. Smart people rely only on themselves." And my mother says that pity is compassion, complicity in suffering, and it keeps the world together, and this is also a talent that is available to many, even the smartest " ("The happiest day").

Aphorisms reflect opposing points of view and are commented on by each side. The mother uses V. Khlebnikov's dictum, but conveys it inaccurately, approximately. My father, quoting V. Korolenko, is accurate. He uses the first part of the expression, removing the comparative phrase "like a bird to fly", which gives a special categorical formula. His pedantry in quoting emphasizes pragmatism, rigidity, selfishness of character. His mother sneers at his life's attitudes, mockingly completing the aphorism used by his father, and complementing it with a variation of another-Gorky's-formula, favored by the ideology of the Soviet totalitarian system. The father of irony does not accept, already puts forward his own arguments in the same categorical, peremptory form. The mother reveals her point of view, and also resorting to aphorisms.

The aphorism, being part of a complex, unconnected sentence, placed at the end of the stanza, emphasizes the fierce determination of the heroine to get her way: "Veronica rudely lied, but did not repent of what she did: the end justified the means" ("Long Day"). The past tense form of the verb in the aphorism emphasizes the particularity of the case rather than the regularity.

"I was wearing a maxi dress. This dress was brought to me a year ago from Paris, and I had another problem with a chic dress. It was completely inapplicable, and hung in the closet like a rustling, glittering, and useless reminder that a person with-

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built for happiness" ("Happy ending"), In the life of the heroine discord, and everyday life, everyday life banish all hope of happiness. The hopelessness of the situation, the discrepancy between the desired and the actual emphasizes this well-known saying, placed at the end of the sentence.

Sometimes Tokareva modifies the aphorism, and it takes on an ironic connotation: "Femina came ashore. Not a woman, but a Femina, because Soviet women do not have such a back. The composer was worried (...) The back appeared against the background of the sea as a symbol of salvation. For it is known: beauty and women will save the world " ("What the hell are strangers to us"). A composer in a creative crisis. He has achieved fame, is favored by attention, but feels the creative futility of trying to create anything. The figure of a ballerina on the background of the sea reminds him of harmony.

In the story "Long Day", the journalist Veronika Vladimirtseva examines a curious conflict that arose during the hunt between the worker Nechaev and the engineer Zubatkin because of a hare: the hare could not run away from its pursuers, because dirt stuck to its paws, and Zubatkin, who approached, was going to shoot the unfortunate animal at point - blank range. Nechaev pointed the rifle at Zubatkin. A fight ensued. As a result, Zubatkin filed a lawsuit, although he attacked first. Nechaev wrote a letter to the newspaper with a request to protect the hare, as "the public should be on the side of the hare, not Zubatkin." The situation is humorous. Nechaev, from the point of view of the Zubatkins, is a "fool", and from the point of view of Veronika, a "crank" who lives according to the laws of justice and good. Veronika is on Nechaev's side, it seems to her that such people are necessary, that the world rests on them, because only they can boldly resist sober, calculating meanness and cynicism, do good:"...For each Zubatkin, there is a Nechaev. For every smart person, there's a fool. Namely, fools, or rather, cranks, which is also a kind of fools - they were the ones who saved the world "("Long Day"). The writer correlates two aphorisms: the already mentioned formula of Dostoevsky and the aphorism of M. P. Tolstoy. Gorky's "Cranks adorn the World".

The functions of aphorisms in V. Tokareva's prose are diverse: the finished formula is used as a means of characterization of the hero, his emotional state. The choice of an aphorism can emphasize the character's limitations, if he appeals to ready - made well-known formulas (the so-called mass-reproduced units); the ordinariness or even triviality of the situation, sometimes-the discrepancy between the erased phrase and reality. The author can use aphorisms as a starting point for the story or the characters ' search for their own position. At the same time, they seem to rethink the aphorism and comment on it.

Konstantinovsk, Rostov region

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