Solokha is the brightest image of the story "The Night Before Christmas"

The events of the story "The Night Before Christmas", belonging to the cycle "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", are incredible, fantastic and similar to a fairy tale. All the narrative narrative is saturated with a folkloric spirit, recalling original ancient legends and fabulous legends.

Tie-climax-denouement

The main action of the work "The Night Before Christmas", whose heroes are mostly residents of Dikanka, unfolds around the main character - blacksmith Vakula, and the permanent hero of folk beliefs - a trait. String of the original plot can be considered a conversation between the obstinate beauty Oksana and Vakula, who is in love with her until unconscious. The girl promises to go with the blacksmith under the crown only in the event that he will get her cherished cherevichki, which the empress wears.

The culmination of the action is called the blacksmith's flight riding to St. Petersburg and back. And in the denouement, the protagonist not only extracts the coveted shoes, but also reconciles with the beloved's father, after which the happy couple is knitted by marriage.

Folk beliefs as a basis

Almost all the readers, plunged into the exciting fairy-tale world of literature, noted the extraordinary fascination and poetry of NV Gogol's texts. A distinctive feature of the story "The Night Before Christmas", whose characters are familiar to everyone from childhood, is the widespread use of oral folk art and folklore. This trend can be seen both in the plot twists and in the characters' images. It is from the popular beliefs that Soloha and the devil appear. The demon, who managed to steal a month, and the witch flying out of the chimney of a rural hut and amusing himself with the stars. You can also draw a parallel between folk legends and the magical flight of a blacksmith. In his work, the author believably reflects the spirit of the Ukrainian village, the hinterland.

Solokha

"The Night Before Christmas" in an amazing way combines the real with the fictional, the fabulous. The characters of the story are unique and colorful. Among the female ones, the mother of the protagonist Vakula is especially prominent. Describing this image, we recall that Solokha is a "Balzacian woman of age", she "is no more than forty years old".

Charismatic Gogol's heroine is hard not to remember. Although the author's description is neither bad nor pretty, a large number of representatives of the strong half of the village are her fans. And the woman is so clever, or rather, insidious, that none of the admirers could have imagined that he has a rival. The explanation of such dexterity can serve as the fact that Solokha is a witch. And, as well as it is supposed to the representative of the given "craft", she owns art of seduction in perfection, however, as well as skills of flights on a broomstick. An example of virtue, this character can not be called, but he fascinates the reader no less than the beautiful Oksana, the deacon Osip Nikiforovich or Sverbiguz.

Outlandish name

Many fans of the story are worried about the question of why Vakula's mother is so unusual - Solokha. This name is outlandish even for a witch, perhaps Gogol specially invented it for his heroine? It turns out that no. This name existed in ancient times. His echoes are preserved in modern names like Soloshin, Solokhov or Soloshenko. Most likely, this name is derived from some other Christian one.

As for the origin of the name, there are several different versions. Perhaps Solokha is a derivative of Sophia, which means "wise, wisdom." And if you consider that the witch means "knowing", owning secret knowledge, wisdom, then the name of the heroine is the most suitable and symbolic for the witch. According to another version, it is derived from Solomonides - the female variation of the name Solomon, which is uniquely associated with the image of the legendary king, known throughout the world for his infinite wisdom.

The combination of the real with the fabulous

The traditional characteristic of Solokha is predominantly negative. It is distinguished by cunning, hypocrisy, readiness to commit sneaky acts for the sake of satisfying one's own interests. The woman only welcomed wealthy suitors, while giving preference to the richest among them, the Cossack Chub, as she dreamed of taking his household to her hands, fantasizing about how she would live when she became a full-fledged mistress.

The author consciously portrayed this character in a close interweaving of fantasy and reality: she is simultaneously a clever rural woman, and flirting with both the devil and the deacon a distraught witch. All rural women secretly envy her. Solokha does not frighten or repel the reader, it can not be called a negative character. In the image of this heroine is seen a sly mockery, created by a great writer. In her, this corpulent and attractive woman, Gogol wanted to show the reader various human vices: treason, greed, greed, constant deception.

Enchanted world

In the story "The Night Before Christmas" the reader is presented with a special world with its own laws and rules, traditions. The real situation is so organically poured into fantastic, fabulous, that begins to seem: it should be so. Both worlds in the work, intertwined, merge into a single whole. And the creation of a fabulous atmosphere is facilitated by sketches of the surrounding reality. Many natural phenomena come to life in an enchanted world: "the stars looked", "the month ascended stately to heaven." In the work "The Night Before Christmas" Gogol's skill showed itself fully.