on the topic: "Creativity of M. Gorky"
M. Gorky (1868–1936)
Whether we like it or not, love it or not accept the work of Maxim Gorky (A.M. Peshkov), but he was at the top of the literary Olympus at the turn of the century and became part of national culture Russia. Having traced the ideological, moral, aesthetic searches of the writer, assessing the complexity of his path, we will certainly come to the debunking of the poster myth about the "petrel of the revolution" and the creator of the method socialist realism because Gorky is one of the most tragic figures of our century.
"Dense, motley, inexpressibly strange life» will call Gorky his childhood and adolescence V Nizhny Novgorod, referring to the house of the Kashirins - Russian life in miniature with its light and dark sides. Let's take a closer look at them: a solid house in a peasant style in a dyer's settlement, a grandfather growling at apprentices and children, a mother feeling like a host, a grandmother moving somehow sideways, a pungent smell of paint, tightness. And the boy who began to understand early lead abominations life." * penny served as the sun in the skies of philistinism, and this ignited petty, dirty enmity in people ”(“ Notes on philistinism ”). And most importantly, such a life made everyone suffer: the grandmother cries, the smartest and most beautiful apprentice Gypsy dies, the mother rushes about, the grandfather suffers from his tyranny and rudeness, the orphan boy was given "to people" in order to fully understand how scary it is to enter life "a rag and a rogue."
“I came into life to disagree” - the motto of youth will sound. With what? With cruel wrong life, which rarely, very rarely can give a person moments of happiness and joy, such as, for example, sailing along the Volga with good people, admiring grandmother's gambling dance, immersing himself in wonderful world books. Later there will be disagreement with the motives of death, decay, despondency in Russian decadence, with the aesthetics of critical realism, with its hero, incapable of a bright deed, a feat. Gorky is convinced: “In order for a person to become better, he needs to show what he should be"; "the time has come for the need for the heroic" (from letters to A.P. Chekhov).
In the initial period of M. Gorky's work, realism and romanticism, as the two main methods in art, would go hand in hand in his works. The writer's debut will be the story "Makar Chudra", followed by "Old Woman Izergil" and the famous "Song of the Falcon" and "Song of the Petrel". Their heroes will carry the "sun in their blood". And even Gorky's "tramps" are special - "with flowers in their souls", poets who rise above the prose of life, poverty, social impersonality. The drama "At the Bottom" will become some result of Gorky's moral and philosophical searches at the beginning of the century, his Hamlet's "to be or not to be?". Their meaning is to find the way to the truth or to succumb to the ideas of "madmen who inspire golden dreams", humility, humility, agreement with circumstances. Gorky took a pseudonym for himself from the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, who was called "bitter" for persecution during his lifetime. In the fate of A.M. Peshkov will have a lot of bitterness, and the reason for this is largely due to false ideas - Nietzscheanism And Marxism in whose slavery was the most talented, searching, powerful nature of the Russian writer-nugget.
Romantic works of M. Gorky. The theme of human freedom or lack of freedom is central in the writer's work. His first stories romantically glorify the complete freedom of the individual, independent of the conventions of society. In 1892, the story "Makar Chudra" was written, in which we will find all the signs of a romantic work. Let's take a look at the portrait literary hero: "it looked like an old oak, burned by lightning" (about Makar Chudr); “the arrogance of the queen froze on her swarthy matte face”, “her beauty could be played on the violin” (about Rudd); “the mustache fell on the shoulders and mingled with the curls”, “the eyes, like clear stars, burn, and the smile is the whole sun, as if it was forged from one piece of iron along with the horse, it stands all in blood, in the fire of a fire and sparkles with teeth laughing" (about Loiko). The landscape also corresponds to the hero: the restless wind fanning the flames of the fire, the trembling darkness, the boundlessness of the space of the steppe and the sea. The animation and boundlessness of the landscape, as it were, emphasize the boundlessness of the hero's freedom, his unwillingness to sacrifice it. Declared in principle new hero(unlike, say, Chekhov's): handsome, proud, brave, with fire burning in my chest. From the legend told by Makar with admiration and inner pleasure, we learn that He and She, beautiful, smart, strong, “both so good”, “remote”, do not yield to their will, demanding obedience from the other. Radda's pride cannot be broken even by her love for Loiko. The insoluble contradiction between love and pride is resolved by the only rite possible for romantic works - death. And Loiko tried to see if Radda's heart was strong, and plunged a crooked knife into it, and he himself received his death from the hands of his old father. The Christian reader cannot accept the truth of Gorky the romantic, for love presupposes the mutual ability to make concessions to the beloved, which the characters of the story cannot do.
"Old Isergil"(1895), a story with a surprisingly harmonious composition, juicy, expressive language, supposedly based on folk traditions, strikes with ideological confusion. The description of the sea element in the exposition is symbolically connected with the “lesson” of the old woman Izergil to the Russian youth: “U! You will be born old men, Russians”, “gloomy as demons”, i.e. unable to live a bright, full of feats of life. The three-part composition of the story (the legend of Larra, the old woman's confession about her life, the legend of Danko) is built on an antithesis, which is unconditional for the author himself. The son of a woman and an eagle, handsome, proud, brave, who came into conflict with the tribe and killed the girl who did not want to become his concubine, according to Gorky, is disgusting, because he carries the Nietzsche complex: pride, individualism, egocentrism, contempt for common man, detachment, destruction of the morality of the "fathers". But the author clearly sympathizes with the pagan, the harlot old woman Izergil, who was able to kill the sentry for the sake of her beloved and repented of her reckless courage and thirst for pleasure of the flesh. The hero of the third short story, Danko, causes the writer's downright delight, because he brought people out of the "forest", "swamps", "stench" (read: from the darkness of slavery and fear of life). Tearing his chest, he raised his heart like a torch, feat love in the name of a man, his brother. All the laws of romantic poetics are observed: the plot is built on the antitheses "hero" - "crowd", "darkness" - "light", "bondage" - "freedom". But all these key images are not amenable to unambiguous “decoding” (the strength of romantic symbols is that they can be applied to any situation, at any time). From the positions of vulgar Marxism all my life pre-revolutionary Russia could be considered "darkness", and the Decembrists, the People's Will, the proletarian leaders wanted to lead the people to the light - through uprisings, terror, revolution. And it doesn't matter how much blood and tears of children and old people will be shed along the way.
The legend of Danko has a biblical parallel - the story of how Moses led the ancient Jews from Egyptian captivity to their homeland. For forty years he led his compatriots, praying for the salvation of the people, and after the Lord revealed to the prophet the ten commandments for the salvation of the soul, Moses inscribed them on the tablets as the only and immutable plan for the organization terrestrial life and humanity, mired in the sins of conceit, envy, gluttony, adultery, hatred. Is Gorky's Danko the Moses of the New Age? Who and what is in charge? Impatience! Does he understand the ultimate goal of the path? No! Indeed, Gorky's Danko does not rise above the crowd, he does not say: "Push the falling one." But pushes to unjustified sacrifices, and consequently - to a new "darkness".
The position of the narrator of Gorky's early stories differs from the position of the main characters (Makar Chudra and the old woman Izergil), which constitutes the ideological center of the story and determines its problems. Romantic position, for all its external beauty and sublimity is not accepted by the narrator.
"Little Man" by Maxim Gorky in stories "about tramps". AND Gogol, and Pushkin, and Dostoevsky rebelled against the social impersonality of the "little man", woke up " good feelings", Christian compassion for Akaky Akakievich, and for Samson Vyrin, and for Makar Devushkin. M. Gorky, embracing with his artistic gaze the entire social pyramid of bourgeois Russia at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, discovered in it a special layer - people of the "bottom", tramps, lumpen, victims of the City, machines, industry. Story "Chelkash"(1895) begins with a description of the pier of a large port city: the roar of cars, the grinding of metal, heavy giant steamships. "Everything breathes with the fashionable sounds of the hymn to Mercury." Why Mercury in particular? Mercury is the god of trade, enrichment, profit, on the one hand, he is also a guide to realm of the dead (dictionary). These are the new circumstances (dead, iron capitalism) in which Maxim Gorky places his hero.
Chelkash, “an old poisoned wolf, an inveterate drunkard” and “a clever, bold thief”, with tenacious hands and a long bony nose, looks like a steppe hawk waiting for its prey. And she appears in the form of a broad-shouldered, stocky, fair-haired, tanned peasant guy Gavrila, who looked "good-naturedly and trustingly" at Chelkash. Both comrades are poor and hungry. But the first, Chelkash, does not need money as such, he will drink it away. He cares will and the sea, the "contemplation" of which his ebullient, nervous nature never got tired of. "Dark breadth, boundless, free and powerful" gave rise to "powerful dreams." But the other, the peasant, turns out to be hungry for money and ready to “ruin his soul” by robbing the employer. “If only that kind of money” would be spent on farming, buying a cow, building a house, getting a wife! “You are greedy,” Chelkash pronounces the verdict. In Gorky's presentation, Gavril is pathetic, obsequious, low, although there is a struggle inside him: "The trouble is from them" (money).
Gorky's acquaintance with Ukraine falls on the 90s. Already his first story "Makar Chudra" was inspired by the impressions of a trip to Ukraine in 1891. Ukrainian impressions or Ukrainian material formed the basis of many of the writer's works - "Old Woman Izergil", "Chelkash", "Emelyan Pilyai", "Konovalov", " My Companion”, “On Changuly”, “The Wallachian Legend”, etc. In 1891, the writer visited Kiev for the first time, and, over time, came several times for summer holidays to the village of Manuylovka in the Poltava region. Here he got acquainted not only with the life and customs of the Ukrainian people, but also with their literature. In one of the letters written in Manuylovka, he confessed: “For the first time I read Shevchenko as a young man, in the Kotl, in the late 80s ... Then, in the summer of 97 and 98, when I lived in Manuylovka ... I read Shevchenko in Ukrainian the language of the peasants ... I really liked Shevchenko's poems in general ... I would very much like to publish Gulak-Artemovsky, Osnovyanenko, Kotlyarevsky - especially!
In 1889, while undergoing treatment in Yalta, Gorky met A. Chekhov, A. Kuprin, I. Bunin, and the following year he met L. Tolstoy in Moscow. Then Gorky began to take an active part in the revolutionary movement, he was arrested several times by the police. Threats of new arrests forced him to emigrate in 1906 (Germany, France, America, Italy). The revolutionary events of 1905 were met with approval by Gorky. At the same time, his assessment of these events is not devoid of internal hesitation and skepticism in terms of whether the revolution will become a spontaneous force that will sweep away everything in its path. The writer's doubts were reflected in his journalism of that time: "Confession", "On cynicism", "Destruction of personality". In 1913 Gorky returned to Russia. He supported the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, but his own political position regarding her was far from ambiguous. In his journalism of the time (“Revolution and Culture” and “Untimely Thoughts”), Gorky condemned violence and cruelty and expressed his skepticism about the prospects for socio-historical development drawn by the Bolshevik Party: “Most of all, I am struck by the fact that the revolution has no signs of spiritual rebirth person"; “During pogroms, people are killed like wolves, gradually accustomed to the calm destruction of their neighbor.”
In 1921, Gorky left Russia again and lived for the next seven years in Italy, France, Germany, where he tried to comprehend the changes that were taking place in his homeland. In 1928 he returned to Russia, where he collaborated with the Bolshevik government. In the country of Stalinism, the writer was actively engaged in literary, cultural and educational activities. In 1934, at the 1st Congress of Soviet Writers, he was proclaimed the founder of socialist realism, a method that, in the opinion of the then cultural ideologists, was supposed to unite all writers Soviet era. They tried to hide the true scale from Gorky Stalinist repressions, at the same time it belongs to him famous expression: "If the enemy does not conquer, they destroy him", which became the main slogan of Stalin's policy. IN last years In his life, the writer was seriously ill with consumption, and on June 18, 1936 he died. According to one version, he could have been poisoned, because Stalin was afraid that Gorky might openly oppose the policy of repression, and this would gain international publicity.
The literary fate of Gorky is tragic. Condemned by the majority of emigration writers, in the USSR he was proclaimed a classic during his lifetime and was considered the founder and ideological inspirer of socialist realism. After the death of Gorky, for a long time he was considered an unsurpassed genius, a "textbook" literary model, and in the post-Soviet era they tried to proclaim mediocrity and insignificance. However, the real worldview and ideological position of Gorky was far from the ideological schematism and straightforwardness imposed on him, although it was not without internal disagreements and ideological distortions, but artistic value written by him was recognized as unconditional even by his ideological enemies.
In the work of Gorky in the first third of the XX century. distinguish two periods. The first, which covers the years 1899-1912, is considered the most tendentious and politically biased, since it is associated with revolutionary ideology. At this time were created social novels and the stories "Foma Gordeev" (1899), "Troy" (1900-1901), "Mother" (1907), "Confession" (1908), "The Town of Okurov" (1910), "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin" (1911). All these works, according to one of the writer's contemporary critics, "depict a broad picture of Russian provincial life- with all its senseless barbarism, filth and ignorance, where only individuals they are trying to comprehend the "meaning of life", to break out of the swamp and show the dark and oppressed masses a bright path. The same period also saw the dawn of Gorky's dramaturgy, in which, as usual, the same issues are raised as in his prose (Petty Bourgeois, 1901; At the Bottom, 1902; Summer Residents, 1904; Children of the Sun, 1905 ; "Enemies", 1907, etc.).
1913 - 1936 - this is the second period of Gorky's work, which mainly covers autobiographical works and memories (the autobiographical trilogy "Childhood", 1913; "In People", 1915; "My Universities", 1923; the novel "The Artamonov Case", 1925; the epic "The Life of Klim Samgin", 1926-1936, etc.). In the work of Gorky the first thirds of XIX Art., as before, the leading theme remains the theme of humanism, the search for spiritual foundations that define the humanistic ideal, the "moral face" of the "real" Man. But the general ideological tone of these searches is changing here and there. On the one hand, this is manifested in the strengthening of moralizing tendencies, which are especially clearly revealed in Gorky's dramaturgy, and on the other hand, in prose, his political sympathies and priorities are more clearly and ambiguously outlined, which, in fact, directly follow from the slogans and ideology of the then sample. Gorky's artistic orientations are also changing: the realistic method begins to dominate in his poetics, which significantly pushes back the romantic methods of early creativity.
The most remarkable in the context of the general ideological and artistic evolution of Gorky in the first third of the 20th century. is his drama "At the bottom" and the novel "Mother".
"At the Bottom" ("At the Bottom", 1902) - a play that is a socio-philosophical drama in genre, represents the pinnacle of Gorky's dramaturgy. Thematically, it is combined with his prose of the 1990s and completes the cycle of works about "tramps" in the writer's work. “She was the result of my almost twenty years of observation of the world of “former people,” Gorky himself later wrote. The action takes place “at the bottom”, as the drama metaphorically calls a shelter for the homeless, which brought together representatives of various social strata of the then Russia. All of them differ in age, characters, professions, each of them fell to the “bottom” of life for various reasons, but they all are united by a sense of their own social inferiority and an illusory belief that, in the end, they will be able to escape from prison, with which is associated for them with life in a shelter.
In the novel "Mother" (1907-1908), Gorky depicts the steady growth of revolutionary consciousness among the masses. All links of this process are shown, first of all, in connection with its main characters - Nilovna (Pelageya Nilovna Vlasova) and her son Pavel. Pavel is a factory worker, whose fate was at first typical for people of his circle and profession. A social protest ripens in a young man, but the result is only drunkenness and aggressive behavior. The meeting with the Bolshevik underground decisively changes Paul's consciousness. Over time, he becomes a professional revolutionary, and after his arrest, by a court verdict, he must be exiled to Siberia. A similar evolution takes place with his mother Nilovna, who, from a turmoiled life, weak woman turns into a strong-willed and courageous revolutionary, a conscious fighter against social injustice.
This novel is recognized as the most tendentious and artistically rather weak work of Gorky.
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Introduction
1. A word about the writer.
2Features of Gorky's early work.
3. The story "Old Woman Izergil" - awareness of a person's personality:
a) "disembodied cloud" of human life;
b) burning heart;
c) the origins of glory and infamy;
d) Izergil is the romantic ideal of freedom.
Conclusion
Introduction
Maxim Gorky entered literature during the period spiritual crisis who struck Russian society at the turn of the century. Dreams of harmony between man and society that inspired writers of the 19th century, remained unrealized; social and interstate contradictions are aggravated to the limit, threatening to be resolved by a world war and a revolutionary explosion. Unbelief, despondency, apathy for some have become the norm, for others - an impetus to find a way out. Gorky noted that he began to write "by the force of pressure ... of a painfully poor life," to which he sought to oppose his idea of a person, his ideal.
The early work of M. Gorky (the 90s of the 19th century - the first half of the 1900s) goes under the sign of “collecting” the truly human: “I got to know people very early and even in my youth I began to invent a Man in order to satiate my thirst for beauty. Wise people...convinced me that I had ill-invented consolation for myself. Then I again went to the people and - it's so understandable! - again from them I return to the Man, ”Gorky wrote at that time. Gorky's stories of the 1990s can be divided into two groups. Some of them are based on fiction: the author uses legends or composes them himself. Others draw characters and scenes from real life tramps ("Chelkash", "Emelyan Pilyai", "Once in the fall", "Twenty-six and one", etc.). The heroes of all these stories have a romantic attitude.
The hero of the first Gorky story "Makar Chudra" reproaches people for their slavish psychology. Slave people are contrasted in this romantic narrative by the freedom-loving natures of Loiko Zobar and the beautiful Rada. The thirst for personal freedom is so strong for them that they even look at love as a chain that binds their independence. Loiko and Rada, with their spiritual beauty and power of passion, surpass all those around them, which leads to a tense conflict, ending in the death of the heroes. The story "Makar Chudra" affirms the ideal of personal freedom.
The story "Old Woman Izergil" refers to the masterpieces of M. Gorky's early work. The writer here is not interested in the manifestation of the individual character of the hero, but in the generalized concept of the human in the personality.
In the early romantic works of Gorky, the concept of personality is formed, which will be developed in more later works writer.
1. A word about the writer
Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov (M. Gorky - a pseudonym) was born in Nizhny Novgorod on March 16 (28), 1868. His father, a cabinetmaker who became the manager of a steamship office in Astrakhan, died early from cholera (1871). Mother, daughter of the owner of the dyeing workshop V.I. Kashirina, remarried, but soon died of consumption (1879). The boy lived in his grandfather's house, where quarrels reigned, litigation for the division of property between the mother's brothers. It was very difficult for a child to be among them. He was saved by an active, gifted tour and the love of his grandmother. For six years, Alyosha, under the guidance of his grandfather, mastered the Church Slavonic letter, then the civil press. He studied for two years at the Sloboda school, for the 3rd grade he passed as an external student, receiving a certificate of merit. By that time, the grandfather had gone bankrupt and gave his grandson "to the people." Peshkov worked as a messenger in a fashion store, as a servant for a draftsman-contractor and Sergeyev, as a vessel worker on steamboats, as an apprentice in a foreign-painting workshop, as a foreman at fair buildings, and as an extra in a theater. And I read a lot with greed, at first “everything that came to hand”, later I discovered the rich world of Russian literary classics, books on art and philosophy.
In the summer of 1884 he went to Kazan, dreaming of studying at the university. But he was forced to earn a living as a day laborer, laborer, loader, baker's assistant. In Kazan, he met students, attended their gatherings, became close to the populist-minded intelligentsia, read forbidden literature, and attended self-education circles. The hardships of life, the perception of repression against students, personal love drama led to a mental crisis and a suicide attempt. In the summer of 1888, Peshkov went with the populist M. A. Romas to the village of Krasnovidovo for propaganda revolutionary ideas among the peasantry. After the defeat of Romas' bookshop, the young man went to the Caspian Sea, worked there in the fishing industry.
Experienced over all these years later gave rise to the autobiographical prose of M. Gorky; He called the stories about the first three periods of his life according to their content: "Childhood", "In People", "My Universities" (1913-1923).
After a stay in the Caspian, "walking in Rus'" began. Peshkov proceeded on foot, earning by labor for food, the middle and southern regions of Russia. In between travels, he lived in Nizhny Novgorod (1889-1891), doing various menial jobs, then he was a clerk for a lawyer; participated in revolutionary secret activities, for which he was first arrested (1889). In Nizhny he met V. G. Korolenko, who supported the creative undertakings of "this nugget with undoubted literary talent."
2. Romantic ideas in the early works of M. Gorky
A special group in the work of the writer of the 1890s are romantic works(“Makar Chudra”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “About the Little Fairy and the Young Shepherd”, “Song of the Falcon”, “Mute”, “Khan and His Son”, etc.). The writer gives a new breath to this literary trend (romanticism), which had lost its influence by the middle of the nineteenth century.
What made Gorky turn to romanticism? Already in the early, creatively immature poem of the writer, the words are heard: "I came into the world to disagree." These words can serve as an epigraph to all of Gorky's work. The motive of disagreement with reality, in which "lead abominations" reign, there is social injustice, oppression of some people by others, cruelty, violence, poverty, is the leading one. Gorky dreams of a strong, independent, free personality, "with the sun in his blood." But in real life and even in modern writer there were no such people in literature, so the writer bluntly stated, “... that for some reason the luxurious mirror of Russian literature did not reflect flashes popular anger...", and accused literature of not looking for "heroes, she loved to talk about people who were strong only in patience, meek, soft, dreaming of heaven in heaven, silently suffering on earth." Such a position was unacceptable for a maximalist writer. Therefore, Gorky turned to romanticism, which allowed him to portray the hero-figure. Gorky's romantic works are imbued with the pathos of life-affirmation and faith in man.
Gorky's romantic works are characterized by the following features:
hero type- the hero stands out sharply from environment(remember formula of romanticism : "an exceptional hero in exceptional circumstances"), he is rejected, lonely, opposed to the world of everyday reality (cf. Sokol - Uzh), abstractly handsome (Gorky's heroes are not endowed with detailed portrait and psychological characteristics), proud, independent; this hero is ready to argue with fate itself, defending his right to freedom (and this is the main value for which it is worth going to death);
Traditional Choice freedom themes(freedom of the individual), poeticization of freedom (the conflict “mind-feeling” is transformed in Gorky’s works into the conflict “feeling-freedom” (“Makar Chudra”); the author uses symbol images, traditional in the works of romantics, - sea, steppe, sky, wind, falcon (petrel));
Heroes do not act in real, but in a fictional world(the writer refers to a legend, a fairy tale, were - folklore material);
plays a special role scenery, acting at the same time as the background and the hero of the story (the legend of Danko, "Old Woman Izergil");
Use of special visual means: hyperbole(in the description of feelings, thoughts, actions, portrait), epithets, metaphors, comparisons, personifications, highly solemn vocabulary(what makes prose related to poetry);
Often meets framing composition(story within a story). Such a composition of the narrative is subject to one goal: the most complete recreation of the image of the protagonist.
In addition to the narrator (old woman Izergil, Makar Chudra), the image of a "passing", listener(image of the narrator). This image does not manifest itself directly, but is necessary to express the author's position.
The romantic hero is conceived as the destroyer of the sleepy stagnation of the majority. It is said about the gypsy Loiko Zobar (“Makar Chudra”): “With such a person you yourself become better ...” In the bloody drama that unfolded between him and Radda, there is also lurking human destiny. In the Wallachian fairy tale “About the Little Fairy and the Young Shepherd” (1892), the young shepherd dreams of “going somewhere far, far away, where there would be nothing that he knew ...”, and the fairy Maya can only live in her native forest. The heroine of "The Girl and Death" (early 1990s, published in 1917) carries in her heart "an unearthly power" and "an unearthly light". Everywhere boring everyday life is opposed by spiritual impulses of rare energy. The Chudra concludes his tale in this way: “... go your own way, without turning aside. Go straight ahead. Maybe you won’t die in vain.”
Having sung a bright personality following his own path, Gorky turned to the sharp spiritual conflicts of the legendary heroes. In a number of romantic narratives "Old Woman Izergil", "Song of the Falcon » (1895–1899), "Khan and his son" (1896), "Mute » (1896) reflects a heterogeneous collision, often tragic, between a dream, a spiritualized feeling, an attraction to the Beautiful and a fear of life, a dull indifference to beauty.
3 The story "Old Woman Izergil" - awareness of a person's personality
The story was published in 1894 in Samarskaya Gazeta, where Gorky received a permanent employee position. Conceptually and thematically, this work is close to the story "Makar Chudra". Firstly, the writer here complicated the composition. He used double frame. The first "frame" is traditionally a seascape, mysterious and fantastic. Against its background, the image of the main character stands out - the old gypsy Izergil, who tells a casual listener (the image of the narrator) the story of her life. The image of the old woman is endowed with the same qualities as the image of Makar Chudra in short story of the same name. She is characterized by uncompromisingness, the desire for personal freedom, admiration for strong personalities. And the legends inserted into her story (the first is about the proud Larr, the second is about Danko), in addition to serving as a second “frame”, also allow us to better understand and comprehend life position the main character. These legends tell about the events of bygone days, and the heroes are the spokesmen for two opposite points of view (antithesis) on the problem of the meaning of life.
The condemnation of individualism and the affirmation of a heroic deed in the name of the freedom and happiness of the people - such is the idea of the story "The Old Woman Izergil".
The story is built in a peculiar way: with the internal unity of idea and tone, it consists of three, as it were, independent parts. The first part is the legend of Larra, the second is Izergil's story about his youth, the third is the legend of Danko. At the same time, the first and third parts - the legends about Larra and Danko - are opposite to each other. Characteristic story is that it has two narrators and, accordingly, two narrative planes. The general narration is conducted on behalf of the author, who speaks with his thoughts, reflections, assessments. In conclusion, he emphasizes the beauty of the fairy tale about Danko. And the second narrator is the old woman Izergil, who keeps in her memory folk legends about a feat, about evil and good in human life.
The people surrounding the old woman Izergil are also depicted as powerful, strong and almost fabulous heroes.
Gorky writes about Moldovans as follows:
“They walked and sang and laughed; men - bronze, with a lush, black mustache and thick curls to the shoulders, in short jackets and wide trousers; women and girls - cheerful, flexible, with dark blue eyes, also bronze ...
These people in their appearance are not much different from Loiko Zobar, Radda and Danko. Thus, romantic and heroic features were emphasized in life. They are also given in the biography of Izergil. This was done in order to shade an important idea: heroic romance does not oppose life, it only expresses what is inherent in reality itself in a stronger and more vivid form.
The first legend tells of "antihero"- selfish and proud Larre, who, being the son of an eagle and a mortal woman, is filled with contempt for people, their laws, their way of life.
Larra is the embodiment of extreme individualism. He considers himself the first on earth. He does not consider it necessary for himself to obey the laws of the human community, therefore he easily commits a crime - the murder of a girl who refused him. For this he is rejected human society, expelled from among the people. He doesn't feel punished at first, but living alone makes him beg for death. People refuse him this, and even the earth does not want to accept him into its bosom. So he turns into an eternal wanderer, into a shadow, and there is no shelter and peace for him anywhere. And the greatest blessing - life - becomes for him a hopeless torment.
In the second legend, another hero, Danko, is presented. He, just like Larra, is handsome and proud, he also stands out from the crowd of people. But Danko, unlike Larra, heroic personality. His whole short life is given to people. Danko leads his people to freedom from a life of slavery: from the darkness of marshy swamps and dark forests he leads the desperate fellow tribesmen to the light (read, to another life). On the way there were extraordinary difficulties, insurmountable obstacles. And when, weary the hard way, people lost heart when they began to reproach Danko for their inability to manage them, hesitated and were ready to turn back, the hero’s heart flared with the fire of desire to save them. And to illuminate the difficult and long haul and to support the doubting and tired, he tore out his heart from his chest, which burns like a torch from great love and compassion for people, and raised it high above his head.
“It burned so brightly; like the sun, and brighter than the sun, and the whole forest fell silent, illuminated by this torch of great love for people, and the darkness scattered from its light and there, deep in the forest, trembling, fell into the rotten mouth of the swamp. The people, amazed, became like stones.
- Let's go! Danko shouted and rushed forward to his place, holding his burning heart high and lighting the way for people with it.
The idea of \u200b\u200bselfless love for people, heroic self-sacrifice in the name of the happiness of the people, Gorky claims in the legend of Danko.
So, Larra's freedom – it is an individualistic, selfish freedom that turns into a punishment of loneliness. Freedom Danko – it is altruistic freedom, necessary in the name of selfless service to people.
The legends about Larra and Danko are conditional, they are needed in order to clarify the worldview of the main character and the author's point of view.
Really, the central place in the work is still occupied by the story of Izergil herself about her life. This is a story of meetings and partings, short novels that do not leave a noticeable mark in the soul of the heroine. Talking about her hobbies, the heroine focuses the listener's attention on herself, on her indomitable thirst for life and love. But none of her lovers are described in detail, even the names of some have already been erased from her memory. They, like shadows, pass before the listener: a black-moustached fisherman from the Prut, a fiery-red Hutsul, an important Turk, his son, a “little Pole”. But only for the sake of the last lover, Arkadek, Izergil risks his life. Arkadek is a heroic person. He fought for the freedom of the Greeks and was ready to accomplish a feat, "he was ready to go to the ends of the world to do something." To save him from captivity, Izergil, disguised as a beggar, enters the village, where her lover and his comrades are languishing in prison. She has to kill the guard. But having heard false gratitude, Izergil herself rejects her lover. As a result, unruly and proud Izergil becomes like all people: starts a family, raises children, and, having grown old, tells legends and fairy tales to young people, recalling the past, heroic times.
Izergil herself lived a significant and colorful life in her own way. She loved helping good people.
But she lacked what we call ideal. And only Danko embodied the highest understanding of the beauty and greatness of man, sacrificing his life for the happiness of the people. So in the very composition of the story his idea is revealed.
What type of personality is represented in the image of the old woman Izergil? The old woman herself brings her life closer to the life of Danko, this particular hero is an example for her. Indeed, one can find similar features in her life: the ability to perform a feat in the name of love, life among people. It is she who owns the aphoristic statements: "The beautiful are always brave", "In life there is always a place for a feat."
But anyway the image of the old woman is devoid of integrity, some contradictions can be seen: her feelings are sometimes shallow, superficial, her actions are unpredictable, spontaneous, selfish. These traits bring her closer to Larra. Thus, the character of Izergil is ambiguous, contradictory.
But in addition to the point of view of the heroine herself, the story also expresses the narrator's point of view. The narrator occasionally asks the old woman questions, wondering about the fate of her lovers. And it is from her answers that it becomes clear that Izergil is not very concerned about their fate. She explains this indifference to people in her own way: “I was happy for this: I never met again those whom I once loved. These are not good meetings, it’s all the same with the dead ... ”The author does not accept such an explanation, and we feel that he is still inclined to consider Izergil’s personality type close to Larra’s personality type. portrait characteristic Izergil, given by the narrator, once again emphasizes this similarity: “Time bent her in half, her once black eyes were dull and watery. Her dry voice sounded strange, it crunched, as if the old woman spoke with her bones... There were black pits in place of her cheeks, and in one of them lay a strand of ash-gray hair... The skin on her face, neck and arms was all wrinkled... " Such a portrait gives a resemblance to Larra, who "has already become like a shadow."
So, the central image of the story is not at all ideal, but rather contradictory. This indicates that the consciousness of the hero-individualist is anarchic, his love of freedom can be directed both for good and for evil to people.
In the story “Old Woman Izergil”, Larra, who considered himself “the first on earth”, is likened to a mighty beast: “He was dexterous, predatory, strong, cruel and did not meet people face to face”; "He had no tribe, no mother, no livestock, no wife, and he didn't want any of that." And over the years, it turns out that this "son of an eagle and a woman" is deprived of a heart: Larra wanted to plunge a knife into himself, but "the knife broke - they hit it like a stone." The punishment that befell him is terrible and natural - to be a shadow: "He does not understand either the speech of people, or their actions - nothing." In the image of Larra, an anti-human essence is recreated.
Danko cultivated in himself an inexhaustible love for those who "were like animals", "like wolves" who surrounded him, "so that it would be easier for them to capture and kill Danko." And only one desire owned them - to force out of their consciousness the darkness, cruelty, fear of dark forest, from where "something terrible, dark and cold looked at the walking ones." Danko's bright feeling was born of deep longing at the sight of fellow tribesmen who had lost their human appearance. And the hero's heart caught fire and burned to dispel the darkness, not only of the forest, but above all of the soul. The final accent is sad: the rescued did not notice the “proud heart” that fell nearby, and one of them, “afraid of something”, stepped on it with his foot. The gift of self-sacrificing compassion did not seem to have reached; its highest goal.
The story "Old Woman Izergil" in two legendary parts and the woman's memories of the beloved of her youth conveys the bitter truth about the dual human race. He has united the antipodes from the century: handsome men who love, and "old people from birth." Therefore, the story is riddled with symbolic parallels: light and darkness, sun and marsh cold, fiery heart and stone flesh. The thirst for complete overcoming of base experience remains unfulfilled, people continue to live in two ways.
Conclusion
The legend of Larra, the story of Izergil and the legend of Danko at first glance seem to be independent, existing independently of each other. Actually it is not. Each of the three parts of the story expresses general idea and answers the question, what is the happiness of a person.
The people decide to punish the selfish Larra with eternal loneliness. And the greatest blessing - life - becomes for him a hopeless torment.
The old woman Izergil plays a significant role in the story. Fully preserving the realistic character of the image, Gorky at the same time draws a man of "rebellious life". Of course, the "rebellious life" of Izergil and the feat of Danko are different phenomena, and Gorky does not identify them. But the image of the narrator enhances the overall romantic flavor of the work.
Izergil enthusiastically speaks of people with strong will, with mighty and bright, characters capable of a feat. She recalls her lover: “... he loved exploits. And when a person loves feats, he always knows how to do them and finds where it is possible. In life, you know, there is always a place for exploits.
In The Old Woman Izergil, the very manner of Gorky's writing has a romantic character. The writer emphasizes both in people and in nature, mainly the unusual, sublime and beautiful. When Izergil talks about Larra and Danko, fragments of clouds of “magnificent, strange shapes and colors” roam the sky, the sky is decorated with golden specks of stars. "All this - sounds and smells, clouds and people - was strangely beautiful and sad, it seemed like the beginning of a wonderful fairy tale."
Everybody is here means of expression are subordinated not so much to the desire to accurately depict an object or phenomena, but to create a certain elevated mood. This is served by abundantly used hyperbole, and lyrically colored epithets, and comparisons.
List of sources used
1. Dementiev A., Naumov E., Plotkin L. Russian Soviet literature. Textbook for 10 classes high school. 22nd edition. - M .: Education, 1973.
2. Eremina O. A. Lesson planning in literature. Grade 8 to the textbook-reader “Literature. Grade 8: Textbook reader for general education. institutions. At 2 o'clock / Auth. V. Ya. Korovina and others - M .: Education, 2002 ": Toolkit/ O. A. Eremina. - M .: Publishing house "Exam", 2003. - 256 p.
3. Russian literature of the twentieth century. Proc. for 11 cells. general education institutions. At 2 pm, Part 1 / L.A. Smirnova, A.M. Turkov, V.P. Zhuravlev and others; Comp. E. P. Pronina; Ed. V. P. Zhuravleva. - 2nd ed. – M.: Enlightenment. 1998. - 335 p.
4. Soviet literature: tutorial for 6-7 cells. evening (shift) schools, 4th ed. / Compiled by E. V. Kvyatkovsky.
5. Tolkunova T. V., Alieva L. Yu., Babina N. N., Chernenkova O. B. Preparing for the Literature Exam: Lectures. Questions and tasks. – M.: Iris-Press, 2004. – 384 p. – (Home tutor).
6. Exam questions and answers. Literature. 9th and 11th grades. - M.: AST-PRESS, 1999. - 352 p.
Preview:
Subject. M. Gorky. Life, creativity, personality.
Target: To introduce students to the main stages of the biography and creative way M. Gorky.
During the classes.
I. Introductory word.
The name of M. Gorky (present Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov (1868 - 1936) is known to everyone. Gorky is the founder of the literature of socialist realism, literary critic and a publicist, the initiator of the creation and the first chairman of the Union of Writers of the USSR. We know about his childhood and youth from the autobiographical stories "Childhood", "In People", "My Universities".
II. Drawing up a table with biographical data.
In the family of a cabinetmaker.
1871 The Peshkovs move to Astrakhan, where his father dies.
1873 - 1878 Alexey and his mother live with his grandfather, who teaches him to read and write. He studies at the Nizhny Novgorod suburban Kunavinsky elementary school at the same time earning money.
1879 Mother died.
1879 - 1884 Grandfather sends Alyosha "to the people": he worked as a delivery boy in a store, as a servant, a cook on steamboats, and as a student at an icon-painting workshop. Very
I read a lot, later discovered the world of Russian literary classics.
1884 Leaving for Kazan. Unsuccessfully trying to enter the university. Works at the marinas. Attends meetings of revolutionary youth.
December 12, 1887 As a result of the discord between dream and reality, Peshkov tries to commit suicide. (Later, experienced over the years, gave rise to an autobiographical
Prose.)
- gg. Get acquainted with VG Korolenko.
Traveled around the Volga region, Don, Ukraine, Crimea,
Caucasus. Came to Tiflis. On the advice of A.M. Kalyuzhin, member of the People's Will, he begins to write.
The story "Makar Chudra" under a pseudonym
M. Gorky.
1895 In Samarskaya Gazeta, with which Gorky collaborated, the story "Old Woman Izergil" is published. In the journal " Russian wealth”The story “Chelkash” comes out. In criticism, the first talk about Gorky begins.
1898 The book "Essays and Stories" is published. He sends it to A.P. Chekhov, with whom a correspondence begins.
1899 The novel "Foma Gordeev" is published in the magazine "Life".
1900 Meet Leo Tolstoy in Moscow.
1901 Participates in a demonstration in St. Petersburg on the square near the Kazan Cathedral. Arrested and prosecuted for revolutionary activity. L. Tolstoy is busy about the release of Gorky for health reasons. Released after a monthunder house arrest.
1902 At the Moscow Art Theater - the first performance of "At the Bottom".
1905 Actively participates in the revolutionary movement. Speaks at a rally in St. Petersburg, calls to fight against the autocracy. Arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Released on bail. Get to know Lenin.
1906 Works on the novel "Mother". Writes a number of revolutionary notes. Goes to America on a party assignment. Leaves for Capri and stays there until 1913. Works, lectures on Russian literature.
1913-1914 Works on the play "Fake Coin" and autobiographical story"Childhood".
Lives in Finland, St. Petersburg, Moscow. Works on the story "In People".
1917 In the newspaper New life» Gorky negatively assesses the victory of the October Revolution.
1921 Lenin insists on Gorky's departure abroad. Leaving for Helsingfors.
1925 - 1927 Lives in Sorrento, Naples. Completes "The Artamonov Case". Works on the novel "The Life of Klim Samgin". Printed.
1933 Returns to the USSR.
1934 Working on 4 volume of "Samgin". The First All-Union Congress of Writers opens. Gorky as chairman.
III. Characteristic early stage the creativity of the writer.
Gorky's early stories are of a romantic nature.
Let's remember what romanticism is. name romantic traits stories read.
Romanticism - a special type of creativity hallmark which is the display and reproduction of life outside the real-concrete connections of a person with surrounding reality, the image of an exceptional personality, often lonely and not satisfied with the present, striving for a distant ideal and therefore in sharp conflict with society, with people.
Gorky usually has a romantic hero in the center of the story - a proud, strong, freedom-loving, lonely person. The action takes place in an unusual, often exotic setting: in a gypsy camp, in communion with the elements with the natural world - the sea, mountains, coastal cliffs. Often the action is transferred to legendary times.
Let us recall the romantic works of Pushkin and Lermontov. ("Gypsies" by Pushkin, "Mtsyri", "Demon" by Lermontov)
Distinctive features of Gorky's romantic images are proud disobedience to fate and impudent love of freedom, integrity of nature and heroism of character. Without freedom there is no happiness for the hero, it is dearer than life itself. IN romantic stories the writer's observations of contradictions are embodied human soul and the dream of beauty. Makar Chudra says: “They are funny, those people of yours. They huddled together and crush each other, and there are so many places on earth ... "The old woman Izergil almost echoes him:" And I see that people do not live, but everyone tries on.
The ideal world of the hero is opposed to the real, contradictory and far from romantic ideal. These are the heroes of the early romantic stories Gorky. Makar Chudra appears in romantic landscape.
- Give examples to prove it.
(The hero is surrounded by "cold waves of the wind", "darkness of the autumn night", "boundless steppe", "endless sea").
Let's pay attention to the animation of the landscape, to its breadth, which symbolizes the boundlessness of the hero's freedom, his unwillingness to exchange it for anything.
In a romantic landscape appears and main character story "Old Woman Izergil": "The wind flowed in a wide, even wave ..."
In the story "Chelkash" the seascape is described several times: in the light of a bright sun, on a dark night. It is in such a landscape - seaside, night, mysterious and beautiful - that Gorky's heroes can realize themselves. It is said about Chelkash: “A wide, warm feeling always rose in him at the sea, covering his whole soul, it cleansed him a little from worldly filth. He appreciated this and liked to see himself as the best here, among water and air, where thoughts about life and life itself always lose - the first - sharpness, the second - the price. But at night, the soft noise of his sleepy breathing floats over the sea, this immense sound pours calmness into the human soul and, gently taming its evil impulses, will give birth to powerful dreams in it ... "
- What are the main character traits of Gorky's romantic heroes?
(Makar Chudra carries in his character the only principle that he considers most valuable: the maximalist desire for freedom. The same principle is in the character of Chelkash. A distinctive feature of Izergil is her confidence that her whole life was subordinated to love for people, but freedom was higher for her Total.
The heroes of the legends told by M. Chudra and S. Izergil also embody the desire for freedom. Freedom, will is dearer to them than anything in the world. Radda is the highest, exceptional manifestation of pride, which even love for Loiko Zobar cannot break. The insoluble contradiction between love and pride is conceived by Makar Chudra as completely natural, and it can only be resolved by death.)
IV. Summarizing. Homework.
Composition
1. General characteristics of early creativity.
2. The main themes of the period.
3. The theme of human freedom on the example of M. Gorky's stories "Makar Chudra" and "Old Woman Izergil".
4. Two principles in the worldview of M. Gorky.
5. "People of the bottom" in the work of the writer.
6. Landscape as a way of displaying harsh reality.
I came into the world to disagree.
V. G. Korolenko
On turn of XIX-XX centuries, the name of M. Gorky became popular not only in our country, in Russia, but also abroad. His fame was equated with such literary geniuses as A.P. Chekhov, L.N. Tolstoy, V.G. Korolenko. The writer tried to draw the eyes of readers, writers, critics and public figures on the philosophical and aesthetic problems of life. It was these views of M. Gorky that were reflected in his early works.
The beginning of the creative path of M. Gorky coincided with that period of time when the person himself, in essence, completely depreciated, constantly humiliated, became simply a “slave of things”. Such a position and understanding of man forced the writer in all his works to constantly and persistently look for those forces that could liberate the people.) For the first time, the reader saw M. Gorky's story "Makar Chudra" in 1892, which was published in the newspaper "Caucasus". Then his works began to appear in other printed publications: the Kazan newspaper "Volzhsky Vestnik", the Nizhny Novgorod newspaper "Volgar". In 1895, M. Gorky wrote such famous works as "Chelkash", "Old Woman Izergil", "Song of the Falcon". In 1897, the writer was already collaborating with the capital's newspapers Russkaya Mysl, Novoye Slovo, and Severny Vestnik.
In the early poems of M. Gorky, their artistic imperfection is immediately noticeable, but from the very beginning literary activity the writer showed himself as an innovator, as a person striving to "intervene in life." In the poem "Beat!", which was written in 1892 and published only in 1963, the writer calls for a fight against darkness, for military activity.
Let hell burn in my blood
And the heart cries angrily [in it!]
Empty! Still live
And if the hands can, - hit!
Beat the darkness that bound everything around.
The writer addresses a new reader from the people, "inquisitive and greedy for life." He refers to those people who are dissatisfied with the reality of their time, the existing injustice and are trying in every possible way to change their lives. So the main themes of M. Gorky's early work are the theme of the relationship between good and evil, strength and weakness, freedom and necessity.
The leading theme of the writer is the theme of resistance to reality. It is revealed through the images of many heroes who oppose reality, do not obey general rules, seeking to find the truth and gain freedom. Such were the heroes of the brilliant works of M. Gorky "Makar Chudra" and "Old Woman Izergil".
In the story "Makar Chudra" the hero, an old gypsy, denies the foundations of the life that dooms a person to a slave existence. This hero is a brave man, striving for freedom and for changing life in better side.
In "Old Woman Izergil" the same theme of freedom becomes more complicated. There are already two paths to freedom shown here. Danko gives himself completely to people, he strives to make them free. The hero dies warming others with his heart, it is this great love for people that can work wonders. Such a manifestation strong personality in the writer's work one can see in many of his heroes, for example, Falcon ("Song of the Falcon", 1895), Petrel ("Song of the Petrel", 1901).
But if the path to gaining freedom is chosen incorrectly, then this can lead to an absolutely opposite result. In the image of Larra, a half-man (the son of an eagle and an earthly woman), M. Gorky shows the highest degree human pride and freedom. He "wanted to have everything and keep himself whole" by committing a crime - the murder of a girl, for which he was expelled from society. It would seem that Larra acquired the long-awaited freedom, but freedom at the cost of the misfortune of other people brings only loneliness, melancholy and emptiness: “At first, the young man laughed after people ... laughed, remaining alone, free, like his father. But his father was not a man. This one was a man." And in the end, nothing remains of Lara, only longing. The wise man was right when he said that: "the punishment is in himself."
The very worldview of M. Gorky can be divided into two principles that develop in the personality itself. The first is the desire to understand the truth of life, although sometimes it is cruel and unfair. The second beginning is the desire to be distracted from this truth and escape from it into some kind of romantic, saving dreams. For the writer, these two positions are expressed in a clash various characters heroes, and they are absolutely opposite in relation to each other. Such contrasting characters include Lara and Danko, Uzh and Falcon, Gavril and Chelkash. It is in the dialogue of two such different heroes reveals the inconsistency of the world itself. The search for truth is complicated by the fact that, on the one hand, the characters always strive to be truthful, both to themselves and to life itself. But on the other hand, they see how difficult it is for many people to hear and perceive the truth. So in the play "At the Bottom" there is not one hero who would proclaim the truth. Here she is born from the many voices of heroes: Luke, Klesch, Satin, Ashes.
important place in the work of M. Gorky, the theme of "former people" is occupied. These are people who belong to the very bottom of society, and at the same time they have truly high aesthetic qualities. Such is Chelkash in the 1895 story of the same name. This character is distinguished by its humanity, open mind and independence. According to M. Gorky, tramps are "extraordinary people" for him. The writer saw that they live much worse " ordinary people”, but at the same time they feel much better than them, since they are not greedy, do not strangle each other and do not just accumulate money.
In early works, to reveal the general color, emotional tension and strong-willed characters of the characters, the writer uses the technique of describing the landscape. Almost in every work of M. Gorky there is: a splash of waves, the sound of the wind, the rustle of bushes and trees, the rustle of leaves. Such epithets help the reader to understand the diversity of our world, all its colors. In the early work of the writer, it is difficult to draw a line between reality and fiction. M. Gorky on the pages of his books creates a certain art world which is unique to him. The reader is constantly confronted with images of the elements (a raging sea, sheer cliffs, a dormant forest), then with animals personifying a person (Falcon, Petrel), and most importantly with heroic people acting at the call of the heart (Danko). All this was the innovation of M. Gorky - the creation of a new, strong and strong-willed personality.
