It is terrible to touch the work of the great genius, the Nobel Prize winner, the man about whom so much has been said, but I cannot but write about his story "Cancer Ward" - a work to which he gave, albeit a small, but part of his life, to which he tried to deprive for many years. But he clung to life and endured all the hardships of the concentration camps, all their horror; he brought up in himself his own views on what is happening around, not borrowed from anyone; he expressed these views in his story.
One of its themes is that, whatever the person, good or bad, educated or, conversely, uneducated; no matter what position he holds, when an almost incurable disease befalls him, he ceases to be a high-ranking official, turns into an ordinary person who just wants to live. Solzhenitsyn described life in a cancer ward, in the most terrible of hospitals, where people are doomed to death. Along with describing the struggle of a person for life, for the desire to simply coexist without pain, without torment, Solzhenitsyn, always and under any circumstances, distinguished by his craving for life, raised many problems. Their range is quite wide: from the meaning of life, the relationship between a man and a woman to the purpose of literature.
Solzhenitsyn brings together in one of the chambers people of different nationalities, professions, committed to different ideas. One of these patients was Oleg Kostoglotov, an exile, a former convict, and the other was Rusanov, the complete opposite of Kostoglotov: a party leader, “a valuable worker, an honored person”, devoted to the party. Having shown the events of the story first through the eyes of Rusanov, and then through the perception of Kostoglotov, Solzhenitsyn made it clear that power would gradually change, that the Rusanovs with their “questionnaire economy”, with their methods of various warnings, would cease to exist and the Kostoglotovs would live, who did not accept such concepts as "remnants of bourgeois consciousness" and "social origin". Solzhenitsyn wrote the story, trying to show different views on life: both from the point of view of Bega, and from the point of view of Asya, Dema, Vadim and many others. In some ways, their views are similar, in some ways they differ. But basically Solzhenitsyn wants to show the wrongness of those who think like Rusanov's daughter, Rusanov himself. They are accustomed to looking for people somewhere necessarily below; think only of yourself, without thinking about others. Kostoglotov is a spokesman for Solzhenitsyn's ideas; through Oleg's disputes with the ward, through his conversations in the camps, he reveals the paradoxical nature of life, or rather, that there was no point in such a life, just as there is no point in the literature that Avieta extols. According to her, sincerity in literature is harmful. “Literature is to entertain us when we are in a bad mood,” says Avieta, not realizing that literature is really a teacher of life. And if you have to write about what should be, then it means that there will never be truth, since no one can say exactly what will happen. And not everyone can see and describe what is, and it is unlikely that Avieta will be able to imagine at least a hundredth of the horror when a woman ceases to be a woman, but becomes a workhorse, who subsequently cannot have children. Zoya reveals to Kostoglotov the whole horror of hormone therapy; and the fact that he is deprived of the right to continue himself horrifies him: “First they deprived me of my own life. Now they are also depriving them of the right to ... continue themselves. To whom and why will I now be? .. The worst of freaks! For mercy? .. For alms? .. ”And no matter how much Ephraim, Vadim, Rusanov argue about the meaning of life, no matter how much they talk about him, for everyone he will remain the same - leave someone behind him. Kostoglotov went through everything, and this left its mark on his system of values, on his concept of life.
The fact that Solzhenitsyn spent a long time in the camps also influenced his language and style of writing the story. But the work only benefits from this, since everything that he writes about becomes available to a person, he is, as it were, transferred to a hospital and takes part in everything that happens. But it is unlikely that any of us will be able to fully understand Kostoglotov, who sees a prison everywhere, tries to find and finds a camp approach in everything, even in a zoo. The camp has crippled his life, and he understands that he is unlikely to be able to start his former life, that the road back is closed to him. And millions more of the same lost people are thrown into the vastness of the country, people who, communicating with those who did not touch the camp, understand that there will always be a wall of misunderstanding between them, just as Lyudmila Afanasyevna Kostoglotova did not understand.
It is terrible to touch the work of the great genius, Nobel Prize winner, a man about whom so much has been said, but I cannot help but write about his story "Cancer Ward" - a work to which he gave, albeit a small, but part of his life, to which he tried to deprive for many years. But he clung to life and endured all the hardships of the concentration camps, all their horror; he brought up in himself his own views on what is happening around, not borrowed from anyone; he expressed these views in his story.
One of its themes is that no matter what a person is, good or bad, educated or, conversely, uneducated; no matter what position he holds, when an almost incurable disease befalls him, he ceases to be a high-ranking official, turns into an ordinary person who just wants to live. Solzhenitsyn described life in a cancer ward, in the most terrible of hospitals, where people are doomed to death. Along with describing the struggle of a person for life, for the desire to simply coexist without pain, without torment, Solzhenitsyn, always and under any circumstances, distinguished by his craving for life, raised many problems. Their range is quite wide: from the meaning of life, the relationship between a man and a woman to the purpose of literature.
Solzhenitsyn brings together in one of the chambers people of different nationalities, professions, committed to different ideas. One of these patients was Oleg Kostoglotov, an exile, a former convict, and the other was Rusanov, the exact opposite of Kostoglotov: a party leader, “a valuable worker, an honored person”, devoted to the party. Having shown the events of the story first through the eyes of Rusanov, and then through the perception of Kostoglotov, Solzhenitsyn made it clear that power would gradually change, that the Rusanovs with their “questionnaire economy”, with their methods of various warnings, would cease to exist and the Kostoglotovs would live, who did not accept such concepts as "remnants of bourgeois consciousness" and "social origin". Solzhenitsyn wrote the story, trying to show different views on life: both from the point of view of Bega, and from the point of view of Asya, Dema, Vadim and many others. In some ways, their views are similar, in some ways they differ. But basically Solzhenitsyn wants to show the wrongness of those who think like Rusanov's daughter, Rusanov himself. They are accustomed to looking for people somewhere necessarily below; think only of yourself, without thinking about others. Kostoglotov - the spokesman for Solzhenitsyn's ideas; through Oleg's disputes with the ward, through his conversations in the camps, he reveals the paradoxical nature of life, or rather, that there was no point in such a life, just as there is no point in the literature that Avieta extols. According to her, sincerity in literature is harmful. “Literature is to entertain us when we are in a bad mood,” says Avieta, not realizing that literature is really a teacher of life. And if you have to write about what should be, then it means that there will never be truth, since no one can say exactly what will happen. And not everyone can see and describe what is, and it is unlikely that Avieta will be able to imagine at least a hundredth of the horror when a woman ceases to be a woman, but becomes a workhorse, who subsequently cannot have children. Zoya reveals to Kostoglotov the whole horror of hormone therapy; and the fact that he is deprived of the right to continue himself horrifies him: “First they deprived me of my own life. Now they are depriving them of the right to ... continue themselves. To whom and why will I now be? .. The worst of freaks! For mercy? .. For alms? .. ”And no matter how much Ephraim, Vadim, Rusanov argue about the meaning of life, no matter how much they talk about him, for everyone he will remain the same - leave someone behind him. Kostoglotov went through everything, and this left its mark on his system of values, on his concept of life.
The fact that Solzhenitsyn spent a long time in the camps also influenced his language and style of writing the story. But the work only benefits from this, since everything that he writes about becomes available to a person, he is, as it were, transferred to a hospital and takes part in everything that happens. But it is unlikely that any of us will be able to fully understand Kostoglotov, who sees a prison everywhere, tries to find a camp approach in everything, even in a zoo. The camp has crippled his life, and he understands that he is unlikely to be able to start his former life, that the road back is closed to him. And millions more of the same lost people were thrown into the vastness of the country, people who, communicating with those who did not touch the camp, understand that there will always be a wall of misunderstanding between them, just as Lyudmila Afanasyevna Kostoglotova did not understand.
We grieve that these people, who were crippled by life, disfigured by the regime, who showed such an irrepressible thirst for life, experienced terrible suffering, are now forced to endure the exclusion of society. They have to give up the life that they have long sought, that they deserve.
"We must build a moral Russia - or not at all, then it doesn't matter."
“Only faith in a person gives hope.”
A. I. Solzhenitsyn
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) - Nobel laureate in literature (1970), a powerful political figure, a man who suffered so many trials and losses that would be enough for several lives. He was a student, a soldier, a convict, a school teacher, an exile in his Fatherland. He was always inconvenient and objectionable to the authorities, a tough struggle with which ended in his complete expulsion from the country. In 1969 Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Writers' Union of the USSR. He was one of the first to raise the topic of "Stalin's camps". All his life he served Russian literature, and his soul constantly ached for the Russian people. Even in exile, he was tormented by questions of the spiritual healing of Russian society: how can we learn to “live not by lies” and at the same time not lose ourselves.
In the work of Alexander Isaevich, according to N. A. Struve, one of the deepest Christian revelations was reflected - the elevation of the personality through its voluntary self-deprecation. Thought according to Solzhenitsyn: through self-affirmation a person loses himself, through self-restraint he regains himself. In his work, Solzhenitsyn exalted the ability of a person who has gone through all the horrors of the 20th century to find and preserve himself.
The story "Cancer Ward", written in 1963-1966, was published in Russian in 1968 in Germany and France. And in the same year, in December, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the French prize "For the best foreign novel." At home, the story was published only in 1990 in the journal Novy Mir (No. 6–8).
The work is based on the experiences associated with the illness, which the writer was diagnosed with in 1952. The doctors' prognosis was disappointing, he had only a few weeks to live. Pain, fear, despair, the incredible weight of his own burden, and the dreary expectation of the end - all these feelings Solzhenitsyn experienced in those days. In the story, the author tries to understand: why such sufferings are given that cannot be endured. Through the theme of illness, the writer revealed in the story the socio-social problems of a totalitarian state. The heroes have an idea to build a society in which relations will follow from morality. People in such a society will learn to resist physical illness, because if a person is spiritually whole and strong, illness will not stick to him. A complete cure for the disease is the result of a clear conscience. If a person finds the strength in himself to repent of his unseemly deeds, then the disease will recede from him. This is such a simple and at the same time complex philosophy of existence. Basically, it is a Christian philosophy.
The events of the story take place in the hospital building number 13, where patients with a terrible diagnosis of cancer are lying. They resist disease in different ways. One of the heroes of the novel, Pavel Rusanov, is tormented by remorse, he dreams of the victims of his previous denunciations. The other one, Efrem Podduev, does not leave memories of how he mocked the workers, forcing them to bend their backs in the bitter cold. Oleg Kostoglotov, sympathetic to the author, who was barely alive was taken to the hospital, understood everything about himself, his desperate resistance to the disease gives positive results.
A life that brings people together in the cancer ward, makes them think and understand the highest destiny of a person, answer the most important question: “How does a person live?”. And he is alive with love, in the most global sense of the word.
The relationship between the doctor and the patient, the openness and sincerity of doctors, their devotion to their work and patients are described very touchingly.
I would like to note the special language of the story of Alexander Isaevich. Back in the 90s, there was an attempt to analyze his author's dictionary. Let us give examples of some words and expressions: “things thinned out” (made), “felt into her eyes” (looked intently), “palisade of questions”, “cancer exhaustion”, “to splash longing from the soul” (reset), “he warmed up very » (felt empathetic). I admire such a mastery of the word and such a careful and subtle attitude to the feelings of their heroes.
The finale of the story is permeated with a sense of the triumph of life before death. The hero leaves the hospital and rejoices in a new day, spring, love. It holds the hope of final healing and new life.
How can today's reader be interested in Solzhenitsyn's work? Sincerity and frankness of the writer. Alexander Isaevich showed in a person that valuable and unshakable thing that no evil is able to destroy.
I would like to hope that, thinking, we will discover for ourselves more and more new meanings in the talented lines of the prose writer for a long time to come.
In Cancer Ward, Solzhenitsyn depicts the life of an entire state using the example of one hospital ward. The author manages to convey the socio-psychological situation of the era, its originality on such seemingly small material as the image of the life of several cancer patients who, by the will of fate, found themselves in the same hospital building. All heroes are not just different people with different characters; each of them is a bearer of certain types of consciousness generated by the era of totalitarianism. It is also important that all the characters are extremely sincere.
In expressing their feelings and upholding their convictions, as they are in the face of death.
Oleg Kostoglotov, a former convict, independently came to the denial of the postulates of the official ideology. Shulubin, a Russian intellectual, a participant in the October Revolution, gave in, outwardly accepting public morality, and doomed himself to a quarter of a century of mental torment. Rusanov appears as the "world leader" of the nomenklatura regime. But, always strictly following the line of the party, he often uses the power given to him for personal purposes, confusing them with public interests. The beliefs of these heroes are already fully formed and are repeatedly tested.
During the discussions.
The rest of the heroes are mostly representatives of the passive majority who have accepted official morality, but they are either indifferent to it or defend it not so zealously. The whole work is a kind of dialogue of consciousness, reflecting almost the entire spectrum of life ideas characteristic of the era. The external well-being of the system does not mean that it is devoid of internal contradictions. It is in this dialogue that the author sees the potential for curing the cancer that has affected the entire society.
Born of the same era, the characters of the story make different life choices. True, not all of them realize that the choice has already been made. Efrem Podduev, who lived his life the way he wanted, suddenly understands, turning to Tolstoy's books, all the emptiness of his existence. But this epiphany of the hero is too late. In essence, the problem of choice confronts every person every second, but of the many solutions, only one is correct, of all life's paths, only one is to the heart. Demka, a teenager at a crossroads in life, realizes the need for a choice.
At school, he absorbed the official ideology, but in the ward he felt its ambiguity, having heard the very contradictory, sometimes mutually exclusive statements of his neighbors. The clash of positions of different heroes occurs in endless disputes, affecting both everyday and existential problems. Kostoglotov is a fighter, he is tireless, he literally pounces on his opponents, expressing everything that has become sore during the years of forced silence. Oleg easily fends off any objections, since his arguments are self-sufficient, and the thoughts of his opponents are most often inspired by the dominant ideology. Oleg does not accept even a timid attempt at compromise by Rusanov. But Pavel Nikolayevich and his like-minded people are unable to object to Kostoglotov, because they are not ready to defend their convictions themselves. The state has always done this for them.
Rusanov lacks arguments: he is used to realizing his own rightness, relying on the support of the system and personal power, but here everyone is equal in the face of imminent and imminent death and in front of each other. Kostoglotov's advantage in these disputes is also determined by the fact that he speaks from the position of a living person, while Rusanov defends the point of view of a soulless system. Shulubin only occasionally expresses his thoughts, defending the ideas of "moral socialism." It is precisely to the question of the morality of the existing system that all disputes in the chamber ultimately converge. From Shulubin's conversation with Vadim Zatsyrko, a talented young scientist, we learn that, according to Vadim, science is only responsible for the creation of material wealth, and the moral aspect of a scientist should not be a concern. Demka's conversation with Asya reveals the essence of the education system: from childhood, students are taught to think and act “like everyone else”. With the help of schools, the state teaches insincerity, instills in schoolchildren distorted ideas about morality and morality.
In the mouth of Avietta, the daughter of Rusanov, an aspiring poetess, the author puts official ideas about the tasks of literature: literature should embody the image of a “happy tomorrow”, in which all the hopes of today are realized. Talent and writing skill, of course, can not be compared with the ideological requirement. The main thing for the writer is the absence of “ideological dislocations”, so literature becomes a craft that serves the primitive tastes of the masses. The ideology of the system does not imply the creation of moral values, which Shulubin yearns for, betraying his convictions, but not losing faith in them. He understands that a system with a displaced scale of life values is not viable. Rusanov's stubborn self-confidence, Shulubin's deep doubts, Kostoglotov's intransigence - different levels of personality development under totalitarianism. All these life positions are dictated by the conditions of the system, which thus not only forms an iron support for itself from people, but also creates conditions for potential self-destruction.
All three heroes are victims of the system, since it deprived Rusanov of the ability to think independently, forced Shulubin to renounce his beliefs, and took away freedom from Kostoglotov. Any system that oppresses a person disfigures the souls of all its subjects, even those who serve it faithfully. 3. Thus, the fate of a person, according to Solzhenitsyn, depends on the choice that the person himself makes. Totalitarianism exists not only thanks to tyrants, but also thanks to the passive and indifferent to the majority, the “crowd”. Only the choice of true values can lead to victory over this monstrous totalitarian system. And everyone has the opportunity to make such a choice.
(3
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A lesson on the work of A.I. Solzhenitsyn on the topic “Cancer Ward”: the history of creation, problems, heroes” is held in the 10th grade after studying the novel by Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace".
For students of the 10th grade, it is important not only to read the book plot, but also to pay attention to details. The story of AI Solzhenitsyn is considered both in the ideological and political context. Attention is also drawn to the amazing language of the writer's works: precise, poetic, ironic, deeply Russian. The result is a written work “What, in your opinion, is the meaning of human life?”, Offering to think about this issue together with L.N. Tolstoy and A.I. Solzhenitsyn.
municipal budgetary educational institution
“Order of the Badge of Honor” gymnasium No. 2 named after I.P. Pavlova"
Lesson in grade 10 on the topic:
"A. I. Solzhenitsyn's story "Cancer Ward": history of creation, problems, heroes."
Prepared by the teacher of Russian language and literature Belova Irina Fedorovna
Ryazan, 2016
Subject: "A. I. Solzhenitsyn's story "Cancer Ward": history of creation, problems, heroes."
Lesson design : portrait of AI Solzhenitsyn, reviews of the writer, exhibition of books, newspaper publications.
Lesson Objectives : arouse interest in the personality and work of A.I. Solzhenitsyn; tell about the history of the creation of the story "Cancer Ward"; introduce the theme of the story and its characters.
During the classes
The word of the teacher about the history of the creation of the work.
Who is he, Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn?
There have always been people in Russia who could not be silent when silence was the only way to survive. One of these people is Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, an outstanding Russian writer, publicist and public figure.
The Russian reader learned about him in the early sixties, after the publication of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in the Novy Mir magazine.
A. I. Solzhenitsyn did not receive a special literary education, but for the last two pre-war years he studied at the philological faculty of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy and Literature. He was drafted into the army, graduated from the artillery school. Shortly before the end of the war, in February 1945, in East Prussia, Captain A.I. Solzhenitsyn was already accused under a political article, arrested, and then - a prison and a camp.
The camp term ended on the day of Stalin's death, and cancer was immediately discovered; according to the verdict of doctors, he had less than a month to live. It was a terrible moment in the writer's life. In the proximity of death, in anticipation of his fate, AI Solzhenitsyn saw the possibility of posing the most important, final questions of human existence. First of all, about the meaning of life. The disease does not take into account social status, it is indifferent to ideological beliefs, it is terrible because of its suddenness and the fact that it makes everyone equal before death. But A. I. Solzhenitsyn did not die, despite the advanced malignant tumor, and believed that “the life returned to him since then has an embedded purpose.”
In 1955, on the day he was discharged from the cancer ward, in Tashkent, Solzhenitsyn conceived the story "The Cancer Ward". “However, the idea lay without any movement until January 1963, when the story was begun, but even here it was pushed aside by the start of work on The Red Wheel. In 1964, the author made a trip to the Tashkent Oncology Center to meet with his former attending physicians and to clarify some medical circumstances. Since the autumn of 1965, after the arrest of the author's archive, when the materials of the "Archipelago" were being finalized in the Shelter, in places of open life it was only possible to continue this story.
I would like to note that the "Cancer Ward" is one of the most important works of A.I. Solzhenitsyn of the Ryazan period. The Ryazan stage of the life and work of A.I. Solzhenitsyn is called "Boldino autumn". Here he writes or begins to write One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1959), Matrenin Dvor (1959), Cancer Ward (1966), In the First Circle (1958), For the Good of the Cause (1963), "The Gulag Archipelago" (1968), "The Red Wheel (August the Fourteenth)" (1969). It was in Ryazan that fame would come to Solzhenitsyn after the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1962. The atmosphere of the ancient city, its people, Meshchera landscapes influenced
every work written here. As mentioned earlier, Solzhenitsyn came up with the idea of the Cancer Ward back in 1955, after being discharged from the Tashkent hospital. He returns to him on February 3, 1963. “Alexander Isaevich suddenly felt an irresistible desire to write a story from his “oncological past”. In the evening, when we skied around the square, he was already in his “cancer ward,” writes N.A. Reshetovskaya, the first wife of the writer. This happens at a moment impossible for Solzhenitsyn's entire previous life, when he is at the pinnacle of fame, recognition and good fortune.
In the late spring of 1963, A.I. Solzhenitsyn leaves for Solotcha to prepare for writing a story from his “oncological past”. Preparing and tuning in, he reads L.N. Tolstoy is the very tenth volume, which his heroes will then discuss.
In the spring of 1966, part 1 was completed, proposed to Novy Mir, rejected by it, and sent by the author to Samizdat. During 1966, the 2nd part was also completed, with the same fate.
In the autumn of that year, a discussion of the 1st part took place in the prose section of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union, and this was the upper limit of the achieved legality. In the autumn of 1967, Novy Mir legalized the acceptance of the story for publication, but could do nothing further. The first editions of the story were published in 1968 in Paris and Frankfurt.
A brief retelling of the story "Cancer Ward", the problems of the work. (Student's message).
The story "The Cancer Ward" reflects A.I. Solzhenitsyn's impressions of his stay in the Tashkent Oncological Dispensary and the history of his healing.
Solzhenitsyn wrote a story about people on the verge of death, about their last thoughts and actions. The time of action is limited to a few weeks, the place of action is the walls of the hospital. One of its themes is that no matter what a person is, good or bad, educated or, conversely, uneducated; no matter what position he holds, when an almost incurable disease befalls him, he ceases to be a high-ranking official, turns into an ordinary person who just wants to live. Solzhenitsyn described life in a cancer ward, in the most terrible of hospitals, where people are doomed to death. Along with describing the struggle of a person for life, for the desire to simply coexist without pain, without torment, Solzhenitsyn, always and under any circumstances, distinguished by his craving for life, raised many problems. Their range is quite wide: from the meaning of life, the relationship between a man and a woman to the purpose of literature.
Heroes and their prototypes. (Teacher's word)
So, the action of the novel basically takes place in the thirteenth (“cancer”) building of a dirty and overcrowded hospital at the clinic. Solzhenitsyn shows disputes, clashes in matters of ideology, the struggle with illness, with death, the inner world of the inhabitants of the chamber: the protagonist of Leningrad Oleg Kostoglotov, a front-line soldier, a former convict sentenced to eternal life; head of the personnel department Pavel Rusanov - scammer; a schoolboy, an orphan Dyomka, who dreams of getting a higher education; a young scientist-geologist Vadim Zatsyrko, on the verge of death, working on a method for determining the presence of ores by radioactive waters; the librarian of the agricultural technical school Alexei Shulubin, a former scientist in Russian biology; builder Ephraim Podduev, who read a book on the verge of death and thought about his own morality.
Some of the characters in the story have real prototypes:
Lyudmila Afanasievna Dontsova ("mother") - head of the radiation department Lidia Aleksandrovna Dunaeva;
Vera Kornilievna Gangart - treating doctor Irina Emelyanovna Meike;
Krementsov - old man Krementsov, academician Pavlov's beard (chapter 17);
Elizaveta Anatolyevna (Chapter 34) - Elizaveta Denisovna Voronyanskaya.
Checking knowledge of the text of the story .
Find out the hero of the story "Cancer Ward":
“You won’t be happy with such a neighborhood: he had a gangster face. This is how he looked, probably from the scar (the scar began near the corner of the mouth and passed along the bottom of the left cheek almost to the neck); or maybe from uncombed prickly black hair sticking up and up and to the side; or maybe even from a rude harsh expression.(Kostoglotov through the eyes of Rusanov)
“He obviously listened to his voice and at every gesture and turn he obviously saw himself from the outside - what a solid, authoritative, educated and intelligent person he is. In his native village, legends were made about him, he was known in the city, and even in the newspaper he was sometimes mentioned.(Nizamutdin Bakhramovich, head physician)
“He was quite healthy - he didn’t complain about anything in the ward, had no external lesion, his cheeks were filled with healthy swarthyness, and a smooth forelock was laid out on his forehead. He was a guy at least where, at least for dancing ". (Proshka)
“Clumsy, with an uncombed coal head, big hands almost did not fit into the side small pockets of a hospital jacket”. (Kostoglotov)
« He was strong in the shoulders, firm in the legs and of sound mind. He was not only two-wire, but two-core, and after eight hours he could work another eight as the first shift.(Efrem Podduev)
“Short and very slender - it seemed very slender because she emphasized narrow convergence in the waist interception. Her hair, unfashionably put in a knot at the back of her head, was lighter than black, but also darker than dark blond - those in which we are offered the unintelligible word "brown hair", but to say: black blond - between black and blond.(Dr. Gangart)
5. Conversation on the text.
What is the central question, the answer to which all the heroes of the work are looking for?
(It is formulated by the title of Leo Tolstoy's story, which accidentally fell into the hands of one of the patients, Efrem Podduev: "How does a person live?").
What are the central characters of the story arguing about - Oleg Kostoglotov and Pavel Rusanov? What conclusions does A.I. Solzhenitsyn lead the reader to?
(Having shown the events of the story, first through the eyes of Rusanov, and then through the perception of Kostoglotov, Solzhenitsyn made it clear that power would gradually change, that the Rusanovs with their “questionnaire economy”, with their methods of various warnings, would cease to exist, and the Kostoglotovs, who did not accept such concepts, would live as "remnants of bourgeois consciousness" and "social origin").
Who in the story is the spokesman for the ideas of A.I. Solzhenitsyn? (Oleg Kostoglotov).
Solzhenitsyn tried to show the different views of his heroes on life. What are their life principles?
(To the question “How does a person live?” Each hero of the story answers according to his convictions, principles, upbringing, life experience. For example, the Soviet nomenclature worker and informer Rusanov is sure that “people live: by ideology and the public good.” But he learned a long time ago, and even thinks little about its meaning. And the geologist Vadim Zatsyrko claims that a person is alive with creativity. He would like to do a lot in life, complete his large and significant research, and carry out more and more new projects).
The heroes see the meaning of life in everything: in love, in salary, in qualifications, in their native places and in God. This question is answered not only by patients of the cancer corps, but also by oncologists who are fighting for the lives of patients, who face death every day. Give examples.
(About Gangart Vera: “She so wanted to be killed too! She immediately, leaving the institute, wanted to go to the front. They didn’t take her ... And she had to live. That was all she had: to treat, sick. In that was the salvation."
In the last third of the story, a hero appears who deserves special attention - Shulubin. A conversation with Shulubin makes Oleg Kostoglotov think. With traitors, sycophants, opportunists, informers and the like, everything is obvious and does not need any explanation. But Shulubin's life truth shows Kosoglotov a different position. What is this position?
(Shulubin never denounced anyone, did not scoff, did not grovel before the authorities, but nevertheless he never tried to oppose himself to it. Shulubin's position in fact is always the position of the majority. Fear for oneself, for one's family, and finally, fear of remaining alone, "outside the collective" silenced millions).
Guys, what do you think, how does a person live?
6. Generalization.
The story "Cancer Ward" is one of the most important works of A.I. Solzhenitsyn of the Ryazan period. The author puts in it the eternal problems of the meaning of life, love and death, the morality of the existing system, reveals the sources of the material and spiritual poverty of the post-Stalinist society, reveals whether correction is possible and at what cost it is obtained. The author sees the potential possibility of curing the cancerous tumor of the Soviet society in the dialogues-disputes.
6. Homework:
Write an essay on the topic “What do you think is the meaning of human life?”
