Abstract: This article is devoted to the study of the images of the main characters of the novel, representing the author's complex view of the pre-Soviet period of Russian history, the First World War and the Revolution. Each character is characterized by his own system of ideological coordinates that form the picture of the world in the novel, expressing the national and cultural consciousness of the era. The character's deep characterization is based on a value paradigm, the constituent elements of which are attitude to nature, religion, homeland, and war. It is considered how these value characteristics are reflected in the life position of each character represented in the novel.The purpose of the article is to consider the system of images in A. Varlamov's novel "The Mental Wolf". The need to consider this problem is determined by the general literary position that the author's idea of life is expressed through a system of characters. The author uses the following research methods: comparative, hermeneutical and comparative typological. With the help of a systematic approach, an analytical study of images is provided. The analysis of the image system in the novel allowed us to correlate the images with the compositional structure of the work, to consider their position in the chronotope, to determine the characterological conflict in the novel. As the analysis made it possible to determine, the characters of Varlamov's novel form a system. Its main feature is the complex connections between the characters. The system of images in the novel is based on the idea of their attraction – repulsion. Relevance is seen in addressing one of the key problems of literary criticism based on the work of a modern author. It is established that complex connections of attraction, repulsion and pair interaction are established between the characters of the novel, which ultimately allows us to talk about a complex ideological concept of the novel depicting a person and his spiritual world in an era of changing social, cultural and political paradigms.