Essay internal conflict of feelings against reason. Internal conflict: feelings versus reason - essay Internal conflict: reason or feelings
The inner world of a person is filled with such components as reason and feeling. These are completely opposite concepts. Reason is the fruit of numerous analyzes and evaluative activities. A feeling is an emotional reflection of reality that occurs instantly. Are reason and feeling always in harmony with each other? How often does a person listen to the call of reason when he is overwhelmed by emotions? Or does he act as his heart desires? Why is a person forced to make this difficult choice? Why does this fight break out? What will it lead to? Is a person, guided by one thing, capable of reaching incredible heights and making a great discovery? Or will this lead to the collapse of the human soul, the destruction of the previous foundation of life and the entire inner world of man? The great minds of mankind have been looking for answers to these questions for many years.
Let us turn to works of world fiction to understand the reasons why a conflict arises between reason and feeling.
As an example, I would like to cite the work of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin “Garnet Bracelet”. Here we can observe the internal struggle that took place in the soul of the main character, Zheltkov. He, a man of humble origin, is madly in love with Princess Sheina. But she is a married woman. Zheltkov understands that they can never be together, but his feelings have such significant power over him that he writes letters to Sheina about his love. She rejects him and asks him not to bother her anymore. Zheltkov realizes that life without his beloved is impossible, it has lost its meaning, so he decides to leave this world.
Here is an example of how a hero, finding himself in the center of a confrontation between reason and feelings, is unable to resist this struggle, he decides to die. After all, his heart wanted one thing, but his mind insisted on something completely different.
As the next example, I would like to cite William Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet". The main characters belong to two warring families - the Montagues and the Capulets. Young people experience the strongest feelings, they love each other madly. However, life circumstances do not allow them to be together, everything is against the feelings of the lovers. The voice of reason tells them not to succumb to the outbreak of love. But emotions prevail in the fight against reason. Unfortunately, the fates of Romeo and Juliet are sad, they both die. This is how the lives of people who give preference to feelings can end tragically.
Conflicts occur very often in our lives. The struggle between reason and feeling is a serious confrontation. It occurs when a person needs to make the right choice, decide on something. A person must weigh all the pros and cons so as not to make a mistake when choosing. After all, the whole future life depends on it.
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Feelings fill our life with experiences, emotions, make it brighter, and the mind cools them down so that a person is not guided in his life by feelings alone. When in balance, these two opposing forces ensure a harmonious state of mind. But it often happens that a conflict arises between feelings and reason. This happens most often when love arises in a person’s soul. This is exactly the kind of conflict described by I.S. Turgenev in the novel “Fathers and Sons”.
The main character of this work, Evgeny Bazarov, was a convinced nihilist. He denied the romantic feeling of love, calling it “nonsense, unforgivable nonsense.” The hero did not believe in love, denied its existence, argued that this was all “romanticism” or “nonsense”, that there was only physiology or “the need of the body.” “And what is this mysterious relationship between a man and a woman?”
But on Bazarov’s life path he meets Anna Sergeevna Odintsova, who completely changes the hero’s attitude towards feelings, strong changes occur in him. Evgeny Bazarov could not even imagine that he would be capable of deep and strong love. I.S. Turgenev depicts the hero’s internal struggle with himself; he cannot cope with the feeling that has arisen: “he could easily cope with his blood, but something else took possession of him.” Love and romanticism, at which Bazarov laughed so caustically, capture the hero entirely, shaking his nihilistic convictions, which seemed so indestructible at the beginning of the novel. He even turns out to be able to feel the beauty of a summer night, its freshness, mystery during a date with Odintsova.
But Odintsova did not truly love Bazarov. For her, her way of life and comfort were more valuable. In all her actions, she is guided only by reason, completely subordinating her feelings to it, pre-calculates all her actions, choosing only those that can cause a minimum of emotional unrest. She chose a calm path that did not bring joy, but did not make her suffer. Behind the serene calm and measured existence of the heroine lies her spiritual coldness, inability to engage in hobbies, indifference, and selfishness.
Because of his love for Odintsova, a conflict arose in the soul of Evgeny Bazarov between reason and feeling. To distract himself, Evgeniy goes to his parents, begins to help his father in his medical practice, but, accidentally injuring his finger while opening a typhus patient, falls ill and dies. Bazarov leaves love in the world, not hatred or nihilism. The conflict that has occurred in his soul unexpectedly leads him to “eternal reconciliation” with “endless life.”
And in the novel L.N. Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" describes the conflict between reason and feeling that arose because of Anna Karenina's love for Vronsky, ending in the death of the heroine. She, like Evgeny Bazarov, was unable to resist her strong feelings. But, if Odintsova did not want to allow herself to respond to Eugene Onegin’s feelings, then Karenina’s love was mutual, but this did not lead her to happiness.
The heroine N.M. did not resist her feelings either. Karamzin "Poor Liza", who fell in love with the rich nobleman Erast. She responded to his feelings without thinking about anything. But, unfortunately, the young nobleman’s feelings soon cooled. He went on a military campaign, where he lost all his fortune, as a result of which he was forced to marry a rich widow. Lisa could not stand Erast's betrayal. For the girl, the act of her loved one was such a strong blow, she was unable to cope with her mental pain and threw herself into the pond to die. Ardent feelings led Lisa to death and brought grief to her mother.
Apparently, when feelings win in a conflict with the mind, this does not bring happiness to a person.
The theme of the essay: “Reason and feelings are two forces that equally need each other.” V.G. Belinsky.
What is the mind? Sobriety of thought, calculation, reason, cold heart? What is a feeling? Infatuation, emotion, momentary passion or a higher spiritual impulse?
According to the critic Belinsky, “reason and feelings are two forces that equally need each other.” And one cannot but agree with him. Reason and feeling are dependent on each other, they are very closely intertwined, it is impossible to break the thin thread between them.
There are situations in a person’s life when feeling prevails over reason. As popular wisdom says, “if you love something, your mind will give up.” It is impossible to say for sure whether this is good or bad. This can lead to either a happy ending or a very sad one.
This also happened to the heroine of Kuprin’s story “Olesya”. The girl fell madly in love and gave herself over to this feeling. Although she knew perfectly well what this would lead to, she knew that a sad outcome was inevitable, but at that moment the feeling prevailed over the mind. She did not regret for a second that she allowed her mind to retreat, as she experienced true happiness. Such happiness that not everyone is given the opportunity to experience in life.
Is it good when reason prevails over feelings? A question to which there is also no clear answer. You can not show your feelings and remain unhappy, while making the one you love unhappy. For what? Does this make sense?
In Pushkin's novel “Eugene Onegin,” feeling and reason collided several times. The first was when “the mind gave way” and Tatyana, succumbing to her first deep feeling, confessed her love to Eugene, which was unacceptable for a girl at that time. Her attempt was in vain. For Eugene, she was just a child and he believed that her fire of love would go out as quickly as it lit up. Little could he imagine that years later he would find himself in her place. But Tatyana appears to us no longer as a little girl. By this time she had learned to manage her feelings with the help of common sense. Despite her love for Eugene, she remained faithful to the man who loved her. Was she happily married? I think that not completely, because I loved someone else. Was Evgeny happy? Again, it seems to me that it’s not complete. After all, if it was true love, then reason only made it worse.
Guided only by reason, you can remain unhappy for the rest of your life. Guided only by feelings, you can find yourself in situations after which unbearable mental pain will remain forever. It turns out that the mind and feelings need each other and it is very difficult to live guided by one thing.
Internal conflict: reason versus feelings.
First you need to understand what feelings and reason are. These are two important forces in a person’s inner world, which very often conflict. There are situations when feelings prevail over reason and a person becomes unable to control himself, but sometimes reason takes over. When discussing the topic of mind and feelings, you wonder whether these two forces should be in harmony. And in literary works we can see this conflict and understand it well.
Let us recall Kuprin’s work “Garnet Bracelet”. It tells us about the unrequited love of a stranger for Princess Vera Nikolaevna. Zheltkov, that same stranger, an ordinary person who lived with a feeling of love for Vera Nikolaevna. Zheltkov understood that he would never be with Vera, she had a husband, but even the fact that she simply received his letters was enough for him; he did not even expect an answer from her. But time passed when he was forbidden to write to her, forbidden to do what he lived for. And he decides to commit suicide. All his feelings overshadow his mind, and he cannot cope with himself or his feelings.
A similar situation exists in Karamzin’s work “Poor Liza.” The main character, poor peasant woman Liza, falls in love with a young man, Erast. And it seems their love will never stop. Lisa completely surrenders to her feelings, but the young nobleman loses interest and goes on a military campaign, where he loses all his fortune and is forced to marry a rich widow. For Lisa, this becomes a severe blow; she experiences mental pain, but cannot cope with it, jumps into the pond. The mind fails to overcome the feelings, and Lisa makes a huge mistake.
Feelings and reason play a huge role in the life of each of us. Events occurring in a person’s life often cause strong emotions and deep experiences, and they are often the motive, the impetus for action and unexpected actions. Reason represents common sense, cold calculation necessary to achieve the most profitable and practically useful result. Reason is given to us in order to control our feelings. Feelings are uncontrollable emotions that can knock a person out of the usual rhythm of life, disrupt his plans and direct them in a different direction. Often it is the conflict between feelings and reason that prevents a person from continuing his life calmly, forcing him to choose one of the paths: feelings and reason encourage different, opposite actions.
This problem is raised in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”. The main character found herself in completely unexpected circumstances: after marriage, her life became boring, she experienced endless humiliation from Kabanikha, her husband’s mother. The new family, the new rules confused the deeply religious, sincere Katerina; most of all, she suffered in her husband’s house from the despotism of her mother-in-law, from the feeling of lack of freedom. Tikhon, her husband, was completely subordinate to his mother, and found solace in his business trips, where he allowed himself a lot. The emerging love for Boris led to a deep conflict in Katerina’s soul between feeling and reason. Being a believer, she understood how sinful her feeling was, but she could not cope with it. Having started dating Boris, she was still internally restless, tormented by her conscience, expecting heavenly punishment. And here, too, feelings took precedence over reason: Katerina publicly admits her sin and, of course, is subjected to humiliation and even greater oppression in her husband’s family. Boris leaves by order of Dikiy for Siberia, refusing to take Katerina with him. And she rushes to the Volga because she could no longer stay in her husband’s house, where living had become completely unbearable.
The life of Andriy, one of the heroes of N.V.’s story, also ended in death. Gogol "Taras Bulba". A conflict arose in his soul between reason and feeling, also because of love. He fell in love with a Polish woman, a representative of a people hostile to him. Andriy understood that his duty to the Fatherland could not allow him to be near his beloved. However, feelings for the girl turned out to be stronger than love for the Motherland, family, father. Love led Andriy to betrayal and death at the hands of his father.
Love, leading to a conflict between feeling and reason, is also described in the story by I.A. Bunin "Dark Alleys". The main character Nikolai Alekseevich stayed briefly in a private hotel, the owner of which he recognized as his former lover Nadezhda, with whom he had been close in his youth, but meanly abandoned him. She confessed to him that she still loved him just as much as before. And Nikolai realized that that period of life when they loved each other was the happiest in his life, that for his act - he abandoned Nadezhda - he paid with fate: his beloved wife left, and his son did not grow up the way Nikolai Alekseevich wanted him to be . It would seem that now, after so many years, the relationship between Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda could develop happily! But no. The hero’s mind rejects the possible connection; class prejudices are too strong in him. He cannot imagine that Nadezhda will become the mistress of his St. Petersburg house, the mother of his children. So the mind deprives Nikolai Alekseevich of a possible happy personal life.
Thus, most often the conflict between feeling and reason arises due to love and leads to human suffering. Guided by feelings, a person can get into trouble; acting based on reason, he deprives himself of happiness. Apparently, only a harmonious balance of reason and feeling, the absence of conflict between them, can contribute to a happy fate.
Yes, there is no conflict between reason and feelings.
Conflict is between opposing desires. For example, I want to meet a girl - and I want to avoid shame (she may refuse).
Feelings signal our needs.
In our example - a feeling of erotic excitement and a feeling of fear.
If I poorly recognize the MIXTURE of my feelings and desires (and do not understand that it is ALWAYS a mixture!), then I will THINK that I have ONE desire (need) - to meet.
But when moving towards a girl, my feelings clearly signal to me that no, no, what are you doing! - there is a desire (need) to avoid shame, and wow!
And then it seems that this is a dispute between reason and feelings.
No. This is a conflict of two needs, one of which was poorly understood.
Here everything is clearly divided into what is innate and what we acquired as an object in the process of education. Why do cats love to be petted, isn't it because they have memories of their mother cat, who washed them with her tongue and surrounded them with warmth? Here is a child chasing pigeons, pulling a cat by the tail, pulling his older sister’s hair, etc. There are two explanations of the situation and two developments of events. Either those around (according to the reasoning: “he is still small, he does not understand anything”; or it is so convenient for me - “whatever the child enjoys, as long as he does not cry and does not distract him from communicating with friends and guests”) do not stop or stop the child’s activities , or stop. If condoned and encouraged, the child perceives that chasing and hurting others is associated with general fun and a good attitude towards me, and the object of education’s own positive emotions. Here a child hurts himself, and the subject of education (an older sister, brother or parent), as it seems to him, is doing a more important thing, beats the “culprit” of the fall and bruise in order to calm the person suffering from the bruise. There is no time to realize - it is more important to calm down and distract from pain - other consequences of such educational influence: the child remembers (is programmed) for the rest of his life that he needs to hit someone so that he himself will feel better. Libido is also formed mainly in the process of personal development.
Whatever happens to a person, in a person there is a comparison and comparison of what is observed and analyzed in reality with that mental image, based on the associativity of thinking, the image that was formed in the process of education.
For example, a dislike for mathematics can develop, although a person has long “forgotten” about it, when a mother or father told a 3-4 year old child, when he caught them doing accounting calculations, that, they say, don’t interfere with your son, that’s how it is tiring, I'm tired/tired here. For example, they gave him an abacus so that the child would not be distracted, and the child went to ride on a large abacus with dominoes. I myself observed such an episode among friends.
I see this a little differently than Evgeniy (with all due respect to him). The conflict of mind and feelings is a confrontation between two primary principles, two components of the dual universe - light and darkness, heaven and earth, spirituality and matter - where the first corresponds to the mind, and the second to the feelings. Let's look at the example of the same girl, but for clarity we will add the fact that we are already married and have children. Reason in this situation claims that close communication with a beautiful girl is a disastrous and destructive step, which, while bringing short-term pleasure, will result in long-term problems. Reason may tell me that such behavior is destructive not only to my personal relationships and well-being, but also to society as a whole. Since a society where betrayal and debauchery flourish is much less stable and viable. All these are very compelling reasons to nip in the bud any possible communication with outside girls. For the mind.
But for feelings, no. Instincts rule over feelings - our natural component, what we have in common with any forest animal. Guided only by instincts, humanity would achieve absolutely nothing. People, like animals, would only consume food, copulate, fight with each other, and try to survive. The development of humanity in general, and man in particular, begins where reason takes precedence over instinct, over feeling, turning it from a master into a servant. A society where reason reigns develops. A society where feelings reign degrades. This does not mean that development implies dryness and insensitivity, since it is also not reasonable to completely reject what we feel, our bestial nature. It exists and will exist regardless of our desires. It's wise to understand it, accept it, and not let it take over.