The chapter "Last Child" switched the main attention of the truth-seekers to the people's environment. The search for peasant happiness (Izbytkovo village!) Naturally led the peasants to the "lucky" - "governor", the peasant woman Matryona Korchagina. What is the ideological and artistic meaning of the chapter "Peasant Woman"?
In the post-reform era, the peasant woman remained just as oppressed and deprived of rights as before 1861, and it was, apparently, an absurd undertaking to look for a happy woman among the peasant women. This is clear to Nekrasov. In the outline of the chapter, the “lucky” heroine says to the wanderers:
I think so,
What if between women
Are you looking for a happy
So you are just stupid.
But the author of “To whom it is good to live in Rus'”, artistically reproducing Russian reality, is forced to reckon with folk concepts and ideas, no matter how miserable and false they may be. He only reserves the copyright to dispel illusions, to form more correct views on the world, to bring up higher demands on life than those that gave rise to the legend of the happiness of the “governor”. However, the rumor flies from mouth to mouth, and the wanderers go to the village of Klin. The author gets the opportunity to oppose life to the legend.
The Peasant Woman begins with a prologue, which plays the role of an ideological overture to the chapter, prepares the reader for the perception of the image of the peasant woman of the village of Klin, the lucky Matrena Timofeevna Korchagina. The author draws a “thoughtfully and affectionately” noisy grain field, which was moistened “Not so much by warm dew, / Like sweat from a peasant’s face.” As the wanderers move, rye is replaced by flax, fields of peas and vegetables. The kids frolic (“children rush / Some with turnips, some with carrots”), and “women pull beets”. The colorful summer landscape is closely linked by Nekrasov with the theme of inspired peasant labor.
But then the wanderers approached the "unenviable" village of Klin. The joyful, colorful landscape is replaced by another, gloomy and dull:
Whatever the hut - with a backup,
Like a beggar with a crutch.
Comparison of "wretched houses" with skeletons and orphaned jackdaw nests on bare autumn trees further enhances the tragedy of the impression. The charms of rural nature and the beauty of creative peasant labor in the prologue of the chapter are contrasted with the picture of peasant poverty. By landscape contrast, the author makes the reader internally alert and distrustful of the message that one of the workers of this impoverished village is the true lucky woman.
From the village of Klin, the author leads the reader to an abandoned landowner's estate. The picture of its desolation is complemented by the images of numerous courtyards: hungry, weak, relaxed, like frightened Prussians (cockroaches) in the upper room, they crawled around the estate. This “whining household” is opposed by the people who, after a hard day (“the people in the fields are working”), return to the village with a song. Surrounded by this healthy work collective, outwardly almost not standing out from it (“Good way! And which Matryona Timofeevna?”), Making up part of it, appears in Matryona Korchagin's poem.
The portrait characterization of the heroine is very meaningful and poetically rich. The first idea of the appearance of Matryona is given by the replica of the peasants of the village of Nagotina:
Holmogory cow,
Not a woman! kinder
And there is no smoother woman.
The comparison - “a Kholmogory cow is not a woman” - speaks of the health, strength, stateliness of the heroine. It is the key to further characterization, it fully corresponds to the impression that Matryona Timofeevna makes on the truth-seeking peasants.
Her portrait is extremely concise, but it gives an idea of the strength of character, self-esteem (“a portly woman”), and moral purity and exactingness (“big, stern eyes”), and the hard life of the heroine (“hair with gray hair” in 38 years old), and that the storms of life did not break, but only hardened her (“severe and swarthy”). The harsh, natural beauty of a peasant woman is further emphasized by the poverty of clothing: a “short sundress”, and a white shirt that sets off the heroine’s skin color, swarthy from a tan. In Matryona's story, her whole life passes before the reader, and the author reveals the movement of this life, the dynamics of the depicted character through a change in the portrait characteristics of the heroine.
“Thoughtful”, “twisted”, Matryona recalls the years of her girlhood, youth; she, as it were, sees herself in the past from the outside and cannot but admire her former girlish beauty. Gradually, in her story (“Before Marriage”), a generalized portrait of a rural beauty, so well known in folk poetry, appears before the audience. Matrena's maiden name is "clear eyes", "white face", which is not afraid of the dirt of field work. “You’ll work in the field for a day,” says Matryona, and then, after washing in a “hot baenka,”
Again white, fresh,
For spinning with girlfriends
Eat until midnight!
In her native family, the girl blooms, “like a poppy flower”, she is a “good worker” and “sing-dance hunter”. But now comes the fatal hour of farewell to the girl's will... From the mere thought of the future, of the bitter life in "another God-given family" the bride's "white face fades". However, her blooming beauty, "handsomeness" is enough for several years of family life. No wonder the manager Abram Gordeich Sitnikov "boosts" Matryona:
You are a written kralechka
You are a hot berry!
But the years go by, bringing more and more troubles. For a long time, a severe swarthyness replaced a scarlet blush on Matrena's face, petrified with grief; "clear eyes" look at people strictly and severely; hunger and overwork carried away the "pregnancy and prettiness" accumulated in the years of girlhood. Emaciated, fierce by the struggle for life, she no longer resembles a "poppy color", but a hungry she-wolf:
She-wolf that Fedotova
I remembered - hungry,
Similar to kids
I was on it!
So socially, by the conditions of life and work (“Horse's attempts / We carried ...”), as well as psychologically (the death of the first-born, loneliness, the hostile attitude of the family) Nekrasov motivates changes in the appearance of the heroine, at the same time asserting a deep internal connection between images of a red-cheeked laughter woman from the chapter “Before marriage” and a graying, portly woman met by wanderers. Cheerfulness, spiritual clarity, inexhaustible energy, inherent in Matryona from her youth, help her survive in life, maintain the majesty of her posture and beauty.
In the process of working on the image of Matrena, Nekrasov did not immediately determine the age of the heroine. From variant to variant there was a process of “rejuvenation” by its author. To "rejuvenate" Matrena Timofeevna makes the author strive for life and artistic truthfulness. A woman in the village grew old early. The indication of the age of 60 and even 50 conflicted with the portrait of the heroine, the general definition of “beautiful” and such details as “big, strict eyes”, “richest eyelashes”. The latter option eliminated the discrepancy between the heroine's living conditions and her appearance. Matryona is 38 years old, her hair has already been touched by gray hair - evidence of a difficult life, but her beauty has not faded yet. The "rejuvenation" of the heroine was also dictated by the requirement of psychological certainty. 20 years have passed since the marriage and death of Matryona's first-born (if she is 38, not 60!) and the events of the chapters "She-Wolf", "Governor" and "Hard Year" are still quite fresh in her memory. That is why Matryona's speech sounds so emotional, so excited.
Matrena Timofeevna is not only beautiful, dignified, healthy. A smart, courageous woman with a rich, generous, poetic soul, she was created for happiness. And she was very lucky in some ways: a “good, non-drinking” native family (not everyone is like that!), marriage for love (how often did this happen?), prosperity (how not to envy?), patronage of the governor (what happiness! ). Is it any wonder that the legend of the "governor's wife" went for a walk in the villages, that fellow villagers "denounced" her, as Matryona herself says with bitter irony, a lucky woman.
And on the example of the fate of the "lucky" Nekrasov reveals the whole terrible drama of peasant life. The whole story of Matryona is a refutation of the legend about her happiness. From chapter to chapter the drama grows, leaving less room for naive illusions.
In the plot of the main stories of the chapter "Peasant Woman" ("Before Marriage", "Songs", "Demushka", "She-Wolf", "Hard Year", "Woman's Parable"), Nekrasov selected and concentrated the most ordinary, everyday and at the same time the most events characteristic of the life of a Russian peasant woman: work from an early age, simple girlish entertainment, matchmaking, marriage, humiliated position and difficult life in a strange family, family quarrels, beatings, the birth and death of children, caring for them, overwork, hunger in lean years , the bitter lot of a mother-soldier with many children. These events determine the circle of interests, the structure of thoughts and feelings of the peasant woman. They are remembered and presented by the narrator in their temporal sequence, which creates a feeling of simplicity and ingenuity, so inherent in the heroine herself. But for all the outward everydayness of events, the plot of the “Peasant Woman” is full of deep inner drama and social sharpness, which are due to the originality of the heroine herself, her ability to deeply feel, emotionally experience events, her moral purity and exactingness, her disobedience and courage.
Matryona not only introduces the wanderers (and the reader!) with the history of her life, she “opens her whole soul” to them. The tale form, the narration in the first person, gives it a special liveliness, spontaneity, life-like persuasiveness, opens up great opportunities for revealing the innermost depths of the inner life of a peasant woman, hidden from the eyes of an outside observer.
Matrena Timofeevna tells about her hardships simply, with restraint, without exaggerating her colors. Out of inner delicacy, she even keeps silent about her husband’s beatings, and only after the question of the wanderers: “It’s like you didn’t beat it?”, Embarrassed, she admits that there was such a thing. She is silent about her experiences after the death of her parents:
Heard dark nights
Heard violent winds
orphan sadness,
And you don't need to say...
Matrena says almost nothing about those moments when she was subjected to the shameful punishment of whips... But this restraint, in which the inner strength of the Russian peasant Korchagina is felt, only enhances the drama of her story. Excitedly, as if re-experiencing everything, Matryona Timofeevna tells about Philip's matchmaking, her thoughts and anxieties, the birth and death of her first child. Child mortality in the village was colossal, and with the oppressive poverty of the family, the death of a child was sometimes perceived with tears of relief: “God cleaned up”, “one mouth less!” Not so with Matryona. For 20 years, the pain of her mother's heart has not subsided. Even now she has not forgotten the charms of her firstborn:
How written was Demushka!
Beauty is taken from the sun...etc.
In the soul of Matrena Timofeevna, even after 20 years, anger boils against the “unrighteous judges” who sensed prey. That is why there is so much expression and tragic pathos in her curse to the "villainous executioners" ...
Matryona is first of all a woman, a mother who devoted herself entirely to caring for children. But, subjectively caused by maternal feelings, aimed at protecting children, her protest acquires a social coloring, family adversity pushes her onto the path of social protest. For her child and with God, Matryona will enter into an argument. She, a deeply religious woman, alone in the whole village did not obey the hypocrite wanderer, who forbade breastfeeding children on fast days:
If you endure, then mothers
I am a sinner before God
Not my child
Moods of anger, protest, sounded in the curse of Matryona to the “villain-executioners”, do not stall in the future, but manifest themselves in forms other than tears and angry cries: she pushed the headman away, tore Fedotushka, trembling like a leaf, out of his hands, silently lay down under the rod ("She-wolf"). But year after year more and more accumulates in the soul of a peasant woman, barely restrained pain and anger.
For me insults are mortal
Gone unpaid... —
Matrena admits, in whose mind, apparently, not without the influence of grandfather Saveliy (she runs into his gorenka in difficult moments of her life!), The thought of retribution, retribution is born. She cannot follow the advice of the proverb: "Keep your head down, humble heart."
I bow my head
I carry an angry heart! —
she paraphrases the proverb in relation to herself, and in these words is the result of the ideological development of the heroine. In the image of Matrena, Nekrasov generalized, typified the awakening of the people's consciousness, the mood of emerging social anger and protest, observed by him in the 60-70s.
The author constructs the plot of the chapter “Peasant Woman” in such a way that more and more difficulties arise on the life path of the heroine: family oppression, the death of a son, the death of parents, the “terrible year” of lack of bread, the threat of Philip’s recruitment, twice a fire, three times anthrax ... On the example of one fate, Nekrasov gives a vivid idea of the deeply tragic circumstances of the life of a peasant woman and the entire working peasantry in "liberated" Russia.
The compositional structure of the chapter (gradual escalation of dramatic situations) helps the reader to understand how the character of Matrena Timofeevna develops and strengthens in the struggle with life's difficulties. But for all the typical biography of Matryona Korchagina, there is something in it that distinguishes her from a number of others. After all, Matryona was denounced as a lucky woman, the whole district knows about her! The impression of unusualness, originality, vital uniqueness of fate and, most importantly, the originality of her nature is achieved by the introduction of the chapter "Governor". How not a lucky woman, whose son the governor herself baptized! There is something to marvel at the fellow villagers ... But even more surprising (already for the reader!) Is Matryona herself, who, not wanting to bow to fate, is sick, pregnant, runs at night to an unknown city, “reaches” the governor’s wife and saves her husband from recruitment . The plot situation of the chapter “Governor” reveals the strong-willed character, determination of the heroine, as well as her sensitive heart for goodness: the sympathetic attitude of the governor evokes in her a feeling of deep gratitude, in excess of which Matryona praises the kind lady Elena Alexandrovna.
However, Nekrasov is far from the idea that "the secret of people's contentment" lies in the lord's philanthropy. Even Matryona understands that philanthropy is powerless before the inhuman laws of the existing social order (“peasant / Orders are endless ...”) and ironically over her nickname “lucky”. While working on the chapter "The Governor", the author, obviously, sought to make the impact of the meeting with the governor's wife on the further fate of the heroine less significant. In the draft versions of the chapter, it was indicated that Matryona, thanks to the intercession of the governor's wife, happened to help out her fellow villagers, that she received gifts from her benefactor. In the final text, Nekrasov omitted these points.
Initially, the chapter about Matryona Korchagina was called "The Governor". Apparently, not wanting to attach too much importance to the episode with the governor's wife, Nekrasov gives the chapter a different, broadly generalizing name - "Peasant Woman", and the story about the meeting of Matryona with the governor's wife (it is needed to emphasize the unusual fate of the heroine) pushes back, makes the penultimate plot episode of the chapter. As the final chord of the confession of the peasant woman Korchagina, there is a bitter "woman's parable" about the lost "keys to women's happiness", a parable expressing the people's view of women's fate:
Keys to female happiness
From our free will
abandoned, lost
God himself!
To remember this hopeless legend told by a passing wanderer, Matryona is forced by the bitter experience of her own life.
And you - for happiness stuck your head!
It's a shame, well done! —
she throws with a reproach to the strangers.
The legend of the happiness of the peasant woman Korchagina has been dispelled. However, with the entire content of the chapter "Peasant Woman" Nekrasov tells the contemporary reader how and where to look for the lost keys. Not “keys to female happiness”... There are no such special, “female” keys for Nekrasov; from social oppression and lawlessness.
Explores various strata of Russian society: peasants, landowners, clergy. The fate of the Russian peasant woman becomes a special topic, for it turns out to be even harder than the fate of the other peasants. “It’s not a matter between women / to look for a happy one,” Matrena Timofeevna, the head of the Peasant Woman, directly answers the wanderers who turned to her. But a peasant woman, enslaved by both serfdom and the despotism of her husband's family, excites Nekrasov more.
This type was most fully revealed by Nekrasov in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” in the image of Matryona Korchagina. The bitter fate of a peasant woman, eternally humiliated by poverty, overworking and not seeing, causes deep sympathy in the soul of the poet, but at the same time, he notes in her character both human dignity, and pride, and unshakable moral purity. The image of Matryona Timofeevna is given in the poem in dynamics, in development.
The heroine had a happy, carefree early life, and from the age of five she began to get involved in feasible work: “she brought her father to breakfast, she grazed the ducklings”, “turned the hay”, etc. Moreover, she got a good husband. Matryona did not have to, like many other peasant women, live with the “hateful”, endure beatings. Matryona lived with her husband in love and harmony. It was this harmony in the family that helped the heroine endure troubles and misfortunes. Philip was a stove-maker, constantly leaving to work in St. Petersburg. Matryona was very upset by constant separation. She had to adapt to life in a strange family. A young beautiful woman, in the absence of her husband-protector, was pursued by the master's manager. None of the relatives, except for the hundred-year-old grandfather Savely, the heroine did not find support.
The character of Matrena Timofeevna is tempered precisely in severe trials. This is a smart, selfless, strong-willed, resolute woman. This is the image of a peasant woman not only strong in spirit, but also gifted and talented. Matryona about her life is a story about the fate of any peasant woman, a long-suffering Russian woman. The chapter itself is not named after her, but "Peasant Woman". This emphasizes that the fate of Matryona is not at all an exception to the rule, but the typical fate of millions of Russian peasant women. The best spiritual qualities - willpower, the ability to love, fidelity - make Matryona related to the heroines of the poem "Russian Women". Matryona Timofeevna's long story about her (still quite prosperous and extremely lucky!) fate is both an ode to the beauty of the soul of a Russian peasant woman and an accusation to those who doomed her to terrible torment.
Like Yermil Girin, Matryona is known throughout the district. But in the poem she tells about her life herself, and only seven wanderers listen to her. The veracity of the story is emphasized by the request of the wanderers: “Ata lay out your soul to us!” And the heroine of the chapter herself promises: "I will not hide anything."
Matryona Timofeevna's extraordinary creative talent allows her not only to keep folklore in her memory, but also to update it. The story is replete with elements of folklore works dedicated to the bitter fate of a woman: songs, proverbs, sayings, lamentations, lamentations.
Songs play a special role in describing the life of a Russian woman (it is no coincidence that the second chapter of this part of the poem is called “Songs”). Nekrasov depicts the life of a peasant woman in its entirety, from childhood, until the moment when she meets with the seekers of a happy person. There are several moments in the life of Matrena Timofeevna when those feelings that could lead her to decisive action are about to burst out. The first time - when, contrary to her pleas, the doctors begin the autopsy of Demushka's body. But the guard then orders to bind the mother. The second - when the headman decides to punish her son Fedotushka, who took pity on the hungry she-wolf.
The master decides to forgive the child, but to punish the "impudent woman" herself. And Nekrasov shows a very important feature of the strong-willed character of the heroine: she proudly lies down. under the rod, without stooping to ask for forgiveness, endures the pain and shame of public punishment. And only the next day she cried out her grief over the river. The only time when Matrena Timofeevna decides to fight for her happiness is when her husband is taken to the soldiers. She turns with a frantic prayer to the Mother of God, and this prayer, apparently, gives her strength: Matryona Timofeevna finds the courage to turn to the governor, who not only helps the peasant woman, but also becomes the godmother of her child. After this incident, Matryona begins to be called happy. This, it turns out, is the happiness of a peasant woman: not to become a soldier, to find the strength to remain silent and endure and raise children.
The keys to women's happiness, - From our free will, Abandoned, lost ... - such is the gloomy result of Matrena Timofeevna's conversation with seven wanderers. External, cordiality, quick wits, the glory of the lucky woman make it possible to speak of Matryona Timofeevna as a unique, exceptional personality.
By depicting the fate of Matrena Timofeevna, the author makes deep generalizations: Russian women live in constant work, the joys and sorrows of motherhood, in the struggle for a family, for a home. The theme of the female share in the poem merges with the theme of the homeland. The female characters of Nekrasov's heroines speak of the strength, purity and incorruptibility of the common people. Those inhuman conditions of life, against which these images emerge, point to the urgent need for changes in the order, style and way of life in the villages and cities of old-regime Russia.
Need a cheat sheet? Then save - "Matryona Timofeevna as a bright representative of a peasant woman. Literary writings!There are a lot of heroes in the poem "To whom it is good to live in Rus'". Some of them pass by. They are mentioned in passing. For others, the author spared no space and time. They are presented in detail and comprehensively.
The image and characterization of Matrena Korchagina in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is one of such characters. Women's happiness - that's what the wanderers wanted to find in Matryona.
Biography of the main female character
Matrena Timofeevna Korchagina grew up in a family of simple peasants. When she meets the wanderers, she is only 38 years old, but for some reason she calls herself an "old woman". So quickly flies the life of a peasant woman. God gave the woman children - she has 5 sons. One (first-born) died. Why are only sons born? Probably, this is a belief in the appearance in Rus' of a new generation of heroes, honest and strong like a mother.
According to Matryona, she was happy only in the father's family. They took care of her, guarded her sleep, did not force her to work. The girl appreciated the care of her relatives, answered them with kindness and labor. Songs at the wedding, lamentations over the bride and the crying of the girl herself are folklore that conveys the reality of life.
Things have changed in my husband's family. There were so many sufferings that not every woman could endure them. At night, Matrena shed tears, during the day she spread like grass, her head was lowered, anger hid in her heart, but accumulated. A woman understands that everyone lives like that. Philip treats Matryona well. But it is difficult to distinguish a good life from cruelty: he flogs his wife with a whip until she bleeds, goes to work, leaves her alone with her children in a hated family. The girl does not require much attention to herself: a silk scarf and sleigh rides return her to cheerful singing.
The vocation of a Russian peasant woman is to raise children. She becomes a real heroine, courageous and strong. Grief is on the heels. The first son - Demushka dies. Grandfather Savely could not save him. The authorities mock the mother. They torment the body of a child in front of her eyes, the pictures of horror remain in her memory for life. Another son gave a sheep to a hungry she-wolf. Matryona protected the boy, standing in his place for punishment. Mother's love is strong:
"To whom to endure, so mothers!".
Korchagina came to the defense of her husband. The pregnant woman went to the governor with a request not to take him into the soldiers.
The appearance of a woman
Nekrasov describes Matryona with love. He recognizes her beauty and amazing attractiveness. Some features for the modern reader are not characteristic of beauty, but this only confirms how attitudes towards appearance have changed over the centuries:
- "impressive" figure;
- "wide" back;
- "dense" body;
- Holmogory cow.
Most of the characteristics are a manifestation of the tenderness of the author. Beautiful dark hair with gray hair, large expressive eyes with the "richest" lush eyelashes, swarthy skin. Ruddy cheeks and clear eyes. What bright epithets are chosen by those around for Matryona:
- "written kralechka";
- "filling berry";
- "good ... comely";
- "white face".
- The woman is neat in her clothes: a white cotton shirt, a short embroidered sundress.
Matryona's character
The main character trait is diligence. Since childhood, Matrena loves work and does not hide from it. She knows how to put haystacks, ruffle flax, thresh on the barn. The woman's household is large, but she does not complain. She gives all the strength that she received from God to work.
Other features of the Russian beauty:
Frankness: telling the wanderers her fate, she does not embellish or hide anything.
Sincerity: a woman does not prevaricate, she opens her whole destiny from her youth, shares her experiences and "sinful" deeds.
Love of freedom: the desire to be free and free remains in the soul, but the rules of life change the character, make one be secretive.
Courage: often a woman has to become a "brash woman." She is punished, but "arrogance and obstinacy" remain.
Loyalty: the wife is devoted to her husband, in all situations strives to be honest and faithful.
Honesty: Matryona herself leads an honest life and teaches her sons to be like that. She asks them neither to steal nor to cheat.
Woman sincerely believes in God. She prays and consoles herself. It becomes easier for her in conversations with the Mother of God.
Happiness Matryona
Wanderers are sent to Korchagina because of the nickname - the governor's wife. Rarely could anyone from a simple peasant woman become famous in the district with such a title. But did the nickname bring true happiness? No. The people slandered her as a lucky woman, but this is only one case in the life of Matryona. Courage and perseverance returned her husband to the family, life became easier. The children no longer had to go to beg in the villages, but it is impossible to say that Korchagina is happy. Matrena understands this and tries to explain to the peasants: among ordinary Russian women there are no happy women, and cannot be. God Himself denied them this - he lost the keys to joy and will. Her wealth is lakes of tears. The tests were supposed to break the peasant woman, the soul was supposed to become callous. The poem is different. Matryona does not die either spiritually or physically. She continues to believe that there are keys to female happiness. She rejoices every day and admires men. She cannot be considered happy, but no one dares to call her unhappy either. She is a real Russian peasant woman, independent, beautiful and strong.
The image of the peasant woman Matrena Timofeevna in Nekrasov's poem "Who should live well in Rus'". //
- In the exceptional female image of Matrena Timofeevna, Nekrasov showed the full burden of the female share. This theme can be traced throughout Nekrasov's work, but nowhere has the image of a Russian peasant woman been described with such tenderness and participation, so truthfully and subtly. And it is this heroine who will answer in the poem the eternal question about the female share, why the keys to female happiness are abandoned, lost from God himself.
Matrena Timofeevna Korchagina is a smart, selfless woman, the bearer of an angry heart, remembering unrequited grievances. The fate of Matrena Timofeevna is typical for a Russian peasant woman: after marriage, she ended up in hell from a girl's holi, various sorrows fell upon her one after another. As a result, Matrena is forced to take on overwhelming male labor in order to feed her large family.
Being a governor, Matryona still remains a man of the working peasant masses. She, smart and strong, the poet entrusted herself to tell about his fate. The peasant woman is the only part in Nekrasov's poem, all written in the first person. However, this story is not only about Matryona's female share. Her voice is the voice of the people themselves. That is why Matrena Timofeevna sings more often, and the Peasant Woman is a chapter permeated with folklore motifs, almost entirely built on folk poetic images. The fate of the Nekrasov heroine is constantly expanding to the limits of the all-Russian. Nekrasov managed to combine the personal fate of the heroine with mass life, without identifying them. Because, unlike most peasant women, whose marriage was determined by the will of their parents, Matryona Timofeevna marries her beloved.
Further, a picture of traditional family life in a peasant environment unfolds before us, the whole common life. As soon as Matryona entered her husband's family, all household duties immediately fell on her shoulders. Like any other Russian peasant woman, Matrena Timofeevna was brought up in respect for the older generation, so in the new family she unquestioningly obeyed the will of her husband and his parents. The seemingly unbearable work in the harsh peasant life becomes her everyday business, and the women's business.
As you know, beatings in a peasant family were also quite common, however, the heroine of the play is by no means a downtrodden slave. For the rest of her life, the only case of a beating by her husband crashes into her memory. At the same time, a song was put into the heroine's mouth when telling about this, which, without distorting the heroine's individual biography, gives the phenomenon a broad typicality.
Let us also recall the terrible tragedy of the loss of a child that Matryona Timofeevna experienced. Matryona was very upset by the death of her child, despite the ignorant aristocratic convictions that the peasants do not care about their children, because there are at least a dozen of them in each family. However, to the simple Russian heart of Matrena, like any other woman, all her children are dear, she wishes each of them a better life, she cares about everyone equally.
Nekrasov constantly in his poem emphasizes the truly Christian humility of a simple Russian woman, who sometimes faces terrible, unbearable trials. However, Matryona Timofeevna relies on the will of God in everything, like thousands of other women with difficult fates. The heroine takes her life for granted, which is why she pronounces the answer to the question about the female share with deep worldly wisdom: the keys to female happiness are lost from God himself. So, we have before us a collective image of the majority of Russian women, who are wholeheartedly devoted to their family, courageously carrying on their shoulders a huge burden of caring for their relatives and friends, and they carry their burden with incredible humility to fate, relying only on God and on themselves. Such is the female share of the Russian peasant woman, embodied in the person of Matryona Korchagina.
- Thank you, it helped, but you need to carefully write off, they can catch.
- Thank you
The Russian peasant woman became the heroine of many poems and poems by Nekrasov. In her image, Nekrasov showed a person of high moral qualities, he sings of her stamina in life's trials, pride, dignity, caring for her family and children. The female image was most fully revealed by Nekrasov in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” - this is the image of Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina.
The part “Peasant Woman” in the poem is the largest in volume, and it is written in the first person: Matrena Timofeevna herself tells about her fate. Matryona Timofeevna, according to her, was lucky as a girl:
I was lucky in the girls:
We had a good
Non-drinking family.
The family surrounded their beloved daughter with care and affection. In the seventh year, the peasant's daughter began to be taught to work: "she herself ... ran to the herd for a dumpling, brought breakfast to her father, grazed the ducklings." And this work was her joy. Matryona Timofeevna, having worked out in the field, will wash herself in the bathhouse and is ready to sing and dance:
And a good worker
And sing and dance the huntress
I was young.
But how few bright moments in her life! One of them is an engagement to his beloved Filippushka. Matryona did not sleep all night, thinking about the upcoming marriage: she was afraid of “bondage”. And yet love turned out to be stronger than fears of falling into slavery.
Then it was happiness
And hardly ever again!
And then, after marriage, she went “from a girl’s holi to hell.” Exhausting work, “mortal insults”, misfortunes with children, separation from her husband, who was illegally recruited, and many other hardships - such is the bitter life path of Matryona Timofeevna. With pain she says about what is in her:
No broken bone
There is no stretched vein.
Her story reflected all the everyday hardships of a Russian peasant woman: the despotism of family relations, separation from her husband, eternal humiliation, the suffering of a mother who lost her son, material need: fires, loss of livestock, crop failure. Here is how Nekrasov describes the grief of a mother who lost her child:
I rolled around with a ball
I twisted like a worm
Called, woke Demushka -
Yes, it was too late to call! ..
The mind is ready to be clouded by a terrible misfortune. But a huge spiritual strength helps Matryona Timofeevna to survive. She sends angry curses to her enemies, the camp and the doctor, who torment the “white body” of her son: “Villains! Executioners!” Matrena Timofeevna wants to find “their justice”, but Savely dissuades her: “God is high, the tsar is far ... We cannot find the truth.” “Yes, why, grandfather?” - asks the unfortunate. “You are a serf woman!” - and this sounds like a final verdict.
And yet, when misfortune happens to her second son, she becomes “impudent”: she decisively knocks down the elder Silantius, saving Fedotushka from punishment, taking his rods on herself.
Matryona Timofeevna is ready to endure any trials, inhuman torments in order to defend her children, her husband from everyday troubles. What tremendous willpower a woman must have to go alone on a frosty winter night dozens of miles away to a provincial town in search of the truth. Boundless is her love for her husband, which has withstood such a severe test. The governor, amazed by her selfless act, showed “great mercy”:
They sent a messenger to Klin,
The whole truth was brought -
Filipushka was rescued.
Self-esteem, which manifested itself in Matrena Timofeevna in her girlhood, helps her to go majestically through life. This feeling protects her from the impudent claims of Sitnikov, who seeks to make her his mistress. Anger against the enslavers thickens in a cloud in her soul, she herself speaks about her angry heart to the peasant truth-seekers.
However, these trials cannot break her spirit, she retained her human dignity. True, in the face of the force of circumstances created by the social structure of that time, when the “daughter-in-law in the house” was “the last, last slave”, “intimidated”, “cursed”, Matryona Timofeevna also had to put up with it. But she does not take for granted such family relationships that humiliate her, require unquestioning obedience and humility:
Walked with anger in my heart
And didn't say too much
Word to nobody.
The image of Matryona Timofeevna is given in the poem in dynamics, in development. So, for example, in the story with Demushka, at first, in a fit of despair, she is ready to endure everything:
And then I surrendered
I bowed at my feet...
But then the inexorability of the “unrighteous judges”, their cruelty, gives rise to a feeling of protest in her soul:
They don't have a soul in their chest
They have no conscience in their eyes
On the neck - no cross!
The character of the heroine is tempered precisely in these difficult trials. This is a woman of great mind and heart, selfless, strong-willed, resolute.
The chapter "Peasant Woman" is almost entirely built on folk poetic images and motifs. In the characterization of Matrena Timofeevna, folklore genres are widely used: songs, lamentations, lamentations. With their help, the emotional impression is enhanced, they help to express pain and longing, to show more vividly how bitter the life of Matryona Timofeevna is.
In her speech, a number of folklore features are observed: repetitions (“creeping crawling”, “noise-running, “a tree burns and groans, chicks burn and groan”), constant epithets (“violent head”, “white light”, “fierce grief” ), synonymous expressions, words (“fertilized, dismissed”, “how she yawned, how she growled”). When constructing sentences, he often uses exclamatory forms, appeals (“Oh, mother, where are you?”, “Oh, poor young woman!”, “The daughter-in-law is the last in the house, the last slave!”). There are many sayings and proverbs in her speech: “Do not spit on red-hot iron - it will hiss”, “The working horse eats straw, and the idle dance - oats”; often uses diminutive words: "mother", "pale", "pebble".
These features make Matryona Timofeevna's speech uniquely individual, give it special liveliness, concreteness, and emotionality. At the same time, the saturation with sayings, songs, laments testifies to the creative warehouse of her soul, wealth and strength of feeling. This is the image of a peasant woman not only strong in spirit, but also gifted and talented.
Matryona Timofeevna's story about her life is also a story about the fate of any peasant woman, a long-suffering Russian woman. And the part itself is not named after Matryona Timofeevna, but simply “Peasant Woman”. This emphasizes that the fate of Matrena Timofeevna is not at all an exception to the rule, but the fate of millions of the same Russian peasant women. The parable about “the keys to the happiness of women” also speaks of this. And Matryona Timofeevna concludes her thoughts with a bitter conclusion, turning to the wanderers: “You started not a business - look for a happy woman among the women!”
