Abstract:
All of David Kldiashvili’s characters are decorated with individual
features. The question arises: What makes same so individual? What is
the writer’s technique of drawing characters and what determines their
different literary image? Analysis of Kldiashvili’s short stories shows
that at first the author describes a character by author’s discussion and
then by their way of speech. Speech, phrases give him the peculiarity,
which other characters lack. The most famous story by Davit Kldiashvili
is Samanishvili’s Stepmother. Author starts the story by describing Bekina
Samanishvili: “Bekina Samanishvili, of course, was a poor noble, quite
poor even…” This is followed by the description of Bekina’s property and
his attitude towards his situation – “Bekina believed himself to be rich
and there was no man on earth who could make Bekina to admit his
poverty.” This attitude is by the author’s assessment, expressed in the
words of others: “As they say in Imereti region, Bekina was always “dressed
up.” (Kldiashvili 1988 : 94). Along with the author’s words, Kldiashvili’s
character is also well described by his own style of speech. About his
daughter-in-law
giving birth often, the old man smilingly says: “Woman,
in some cases, being good in something is not beneficiary, it is harmful
even…” While commenting to his son that his decision to marry will not harm the family, Bekina says: “My good man, why would it kill you if I bring
some old woman here?... How can you be afraid of an old woman, you,
poor man?! (Kldiashvili 1988 : 97). With these words Bekina neutralizes
his serious decision and makes the expected severity of this decision
for his son seem easier. When Bekina learns about his son’s intension
to choose the twice widowed, childless woman for his father, he asks a
humorous question: “If that cursed woman makes me to follow those two
previous, what will you do then? Ha? Ah, ah, ah!” When Platon borrows
peasant Pavlia Gomiashvili’s old horse to travel, Bekina ironically asks:
“Who did he get this stallion from, Melano, my dear?” and adds: “It might
fall down on the way, woman!” Irony and lightness characterizes Bekina’s
narrative. Even when the tragedy happens, Bekina does not refrain from
recognizing his mistake and attempts to neutralize the complexity of his
child’s situation: “I wish I would have died… Wish I would have been eaten
by the grave like Marika and never seen this day!” This phrase is full of
grief and completes the character’s image.
As an example, we have discussed Bekina’s literary image from
Kldiashvili’s works. In general, observation of his characters by Davit
Kldiashvili has shown to us that the writer repeats the given scheme
of describing characters almost everywhere – author’s description is
replaced by the character’s action, author’s assessment of that action and
character’s dialogue with other character, which even sharper reveals his
image – nature and mood.