The story of M. Sholokhov "The Mole" is included in the cycle "Don Stories", was first published in the newspaper "Young Leninist" in 1924. With him, in fact, begins the creative biography of Sholokhov. The theme of the civil war, relevant at that time, in this story sheds light on another tragic side of it, showing all the cruelty and absurdity. "The Mole" is written in a recognizable, peculiar in style "Sholokhov's" language.
There are two main characters in the story, so different, fighting against each other, each for their own truth. This is the red commander Nikolka Koshevoy and the old Cossack chieftain. The author tells the reader the story of their destinies, talking about the past and the present. Interestingly, the acquaintance begins with everyday, landscape sketches of what surrounds the characters.
“On the table are cartridge cases, smelling of burnt gunpowder, a mutton bone, a field map, a summary, a type-setting bridle with the smell of horse sweat, a loaf of bread” - this is the hut where Nikolka lodges. She stands over the Don: “From the windows you can see the green splashed Obdon and the blued steel of the water.” The third part begins with the following description: “Along the hummocky letnik, along the ruts, licked by the winds, the mouse wayside curly curls, the quinoa and puffy thickly and terry burst.”
The ataman leads his gang through this area. Both sketches are far from an aesthetic ideal, they help to convey desolation, the everyday life of a useless war.
The young commander is only eighteen years old. His childhood is the childhood of an ordinary child, but he early learned the bitterness of loss: his father disappeared, his mother died. He has been fighting for three years now, and the war has had time to bother him. The only thing that connects the hero with the past is memories and the same mole as his father’s, “the size of a pigeon’s egg, on his left leg, above the ankle” is a symbol of kinship, the connection of generations. Nikolka is young, bold and hot-headed, “having opened up, he jumps alone and waves his saber.” In these lines, he is compared with a young bird, at the same time, he is “a nut, a sucker” (like a foal), his whole life is ahead.
Another main character is the ataman. Sholokhov shows his difficult military fate. “The ataman has not seen his native kurens for seven years,” his soul has hardened. All the tragedy of this helps to convey the metaphor: “traces of forked bull hooves near the muzga”, with which the author compares the inner world of the ataman. Therefore, the ataman is never sober for a day, all the coachmen and machine gunners drunkenly squint on spring carts.
Of great importance in the story are the images of animal symbols created by the author. The ataman is compared with a wolf: "... the ataman leads the gang ... like a wolf who has come to his senses." And then, in the image of a living wolf, we see the image of an ataman: “A wolf jumped out of a windbreak onto a hillock, hung with burrs. He listened, bending his head forward ... The wolf stood and slowly, waddling, pulled into the log, in the thickets of yellowed unmowed kuga ... ". The wolf is an unpleasant, negative creature, but at the same time, the image of a lonely, hungry and therefore unhappy wolf has developed in the mentality of a Russian person.
The ataman is also angry, angry and unhappy. Another comparison helps to better understand him: "... he let go of the reins and flew in like a kite." On the one hand, the kite is a brave, strong bird, but in the last lines of the story, Sholokhov calls this bird a vulture. A metaphor is used here: the vulture is the soul of the ataman, which “reluctantly” leaves the dead body. The bird melts "in the grey, colorless autumn sky", that is, in this ruined and boring world.
Both heroes are tired of the war. Nikolki dreams of going to school, the petrified soul of the ataman yearns for the earth.
The old miller Lukic, like the hand of fate, brings the two detachments together. And in battle, father and son meet, full of hatred for each other, not knowing with whom they are actually fighting. A fierce battle is the climax of the story. “At the edge of the edge, a machine gun rattled desperately, and those, on the path, quickly, as in an exercise, crumbled like lava.” The most "hot" episode is a one-on-one fight.
From the binoculars darting around on his chest, from the cloak, the ataman guessed that not a simple Red Army soldier was galloping, but a commander. Nikolka boldly attacks the chieftain and falls under the blow of his checkers. The dramatic confrontation between the Reds and the Whites turns into a family tragedy: the father kills his son. The most sacred bonds of the family are being destroyed. The symbol of blood ties reappears - a mole on Nikolka's now dead leg. The terrible cry of the ataman who saw her "Son! .. Nikolushka! .. Dear! .. My little blood ..." - the main words in the story. Ataman kills himself. The worst thing is that the culprit of their death is another war - the German one. After all, if my father had not gone to the front, perhaps they would not have ended up on opposite sides, and perhaps this tragedy would not have happened.
The great grief of the whole country, the civil war, in the story is reduced to the tragedy of a particular family, while becoming more understandable and terrible.
There is nothing more sacred than the love of parents and children. The author in the story does not take the side of the Reds, nor the side of the Whites. He stands for a world devoid of senseless confrontation.
Almazova Olga, 9th grade
In her work Almazova O. shares her impressions about the read story by Sholokhov "The Mole". The student notes that the writer is most concerned about the topic of the civil war, as a national catastrophe, not only in the story "The Mole", but also in the cycle "Don Stories". The review draws attention to the features of Sholokhov's style, the artistic originality of the story and the current focus.
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Feedback on the story of Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov "The Mole"
The story "Birthmark" is published in the book of Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov "Don stories". The story "The Mole" was published on the fourteenth of December, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-four. It describes the time of the civil war. A relentless struggle of opposing class forces. The fight is not for life, but for death. And in this struggle the blood of sons, brothers, fathers is shed.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, a Cossack, was born on the Don. All his works, including the Don Stories, are connected with the Don Cossacks.
Most of all, M.A. Sholokhov, as the writer of Don Stories, is concerned about the loss of moral guidelines in the human soul, the idea of the decomposition of human souls, the terrible fratricidal war. M.A. Sholokhov assessed the civil war as a national catastrophe in which there were and could not be winners.
In the center of the story "The Mole" is the fate of a young commander, eighteen-year-old Nikolka, who is dying at the hands of his father. The missing father of Nikolka recognizes his son by a mole on his leg, taking off his boot from the one he killed. The war placed them on different sides. Ataman did not see his son for thirteen years and, of course, could not recognize him in a dashing commander. Only a mole, which the son inherited from his father, opened his eyes to the tragedy of what had happened. A father found a son when he lost him forever. The author paints a harsh, gloomy picture of a father shedding his son's blood. Life has lost its meaning for the ataman, and he ends his life with a pistol shot.
The author consistently tells first about the difficult childhood of Nikolka, then about becoming his squadron commander and about his tragic death. Sholokhov truthfully describes his heroes. He sees them through the eyes of an artist whose soul is open to all human pain and beauty. Reading the description of the portrait of Nikolka, we clearly imagine a broad-shouldered boy, “looks beyond his years. His eyes are aging in radiant wrinkles and his back, stooped like an old man.
The boy has seen a lot in his short life, from early childhood he went to work, grew up an orphan without parental affection and care. M.A. Sholokhov uses many dialect words in order to authenticate events. Throughout the story, there is an opposition (antithesis) of colorful descriptions of nature, symbolizing life, and gloomy, harsh pictures of war, bringing death with them. This is the individual style of Sholokhov.
We live in difficult times. The theme of the civil war is still relevant today.
The work of M. A. Sholokhov is connected with the solution of a number of problems that appeared in the life of an entire people as a result of the revolution, when one system was replaced by another, when the civil war made representatives of the same nationality fierce enemies and divorced father and son. No wonder Marina Tsvetaeva, reflecting on what had happened, remembered the biblical tradition about Cain and Abel:
Brothers, here she is
extreme bet,
Third year already
Abel with Cain
There were no winners in this fratricidal war. Rampant violence, lynching, robberies ousted the ideals of kindness and compassion from the consciousness of people. "Beastliness" was universal. The revolution forced everyone to make their choice, to answer the questions: With whom? Who am I for?
A lot has been written about the works of M. A. Sholokhov, I think more will be written. For me, this is a writer - the author of "The Quiet Flows the Don" and "Virgin Soil Upturned" - a person who has experienced and experienced a lot in his lifetime. It seems to me that all the works of Sholokhov are united by one deep inner meaning, this is one big book about the fate of the people. The beginning of this book can be considered "Don stories", written and published in the 20s of the twentieth century. Despite the fact that these stories are about the revolutionary struggle, the formation of a new, Soviet, power in the country, their themes and problems are relevant for our time.
Writers such as A. Serafimovich, A. Fadeev, A. Tolstoy, I. Babel, M. Bulgakov, B. Pasternak and others have also helped and are helping to comprehend human life, with its ups and downs, hopelessness and happiness. But M. Sholokhov, like no one else, allows us to imagine in bright colorful colors the life of the Don Cossacks, the Don, which has become the site of a fratricidal war, separating no longer the coast, but people, bringing terrible news to the Cossacks' hut. We have the opportunity to compare what was with what is happening now. We seem to rise above the earth and see the life of people - all in its entirety, with its falls and struggles, hopelessness and happiness. The writer creates a real world, full of tragedy and sadness.
I believe that M. Sholokhov is rightly called the "writer of courageous truth." And no matter what they say about him, no matter what critical articles they write, for me he is a courageous person, with a bright civic position. He chose a difficult path - to achieve the greatest persuasiveness in his works. And he succeeded to the fullest.
In my opinion, interest in the theme of the civil war is not only not weakening at the present time, but, on the contrary, is increasing. Wars that periodically arise on the territory of the former USSR are most directly related to Russia. As a result of terrorist attacks, houses blaze and collapse, people lose their homes, die, kill each other, often belonging to the same nationality and even to the same family. History, unfortunately, repeats itself. Moral guidelines are being lost, and it is difficult for a modern young person to understand what is happening. But you need to live according to the laws of goodness, without violating the eternal truths: "Do not kill", "Do not steal", "Love your neighbor as yourself."
It was M. Sholokhov, continuing the traditions of Russian classical literature, as a humanist writer, who spoke about the inadmissibility of war in general and civil war in particular. This theme sounds most vividly in Don Stories (Moscow, Enlightenment, 1984). The story "The Mole" (1924) is programmatic, it opens this cycle.
86 years have passed. The era of the revolution seems so distant and incredible, but its echoes are still heard today. We must know our history, try not to repeat its mistakes. And there can be no fulfilling life in the present and future if we do not know our past. Perhaps many of the mistakes made in our time are due to the fact that we do not want to know our past.
Reading "Rodinka", we find ourselves in a whirlpool of historical upheavals. We are captivated by the drama of the fates of the heroes. Their pain is transferred to us. We feel the writer's conviction in the enduring value of human life. Like no other, M. Sholokhov shows in this story a thirst for earthly joys, a life not exposed to dangers. Thanks to the skill of the writer, we, along with Nikolka and his father, the main characters of the story "The Mole", feel this homeless wandering around the earth of a person, we are not left with the feeling of a destroyed house.
The plot of the story lies in the fact that father and son Koshevoy, that is, the closest people by blood, ended up in different camps. Father-ataman during the fight kills his son. Everyone has their own truth. And the picture seems terrible when the father recognizes his son in the commander he hacked to death by a mole. And there is neither forgiveness nor oblivion for the rest of his life. And so the ataman, "pressing to his chest, kissed his son's freezing hands and, clenching his teeth on the steamy steel of the Mauser, shot himself in the mouth." The writer does not talk about what led these people to different camps. We can only guess how Nikolka ended up among the Reds, and his father among the Whites or Greens. We do not know. But we can explain it to ourselves this way: the Cossack youth more easily broke with the old world, while the elderly preferred already established views. Therefore, often members of the same family turned out to be enemies on the battlefield.
It is known that the main characters of Sholokhov's works are, as a rule, ordinary people, representatives of the people - the Don Cossacks. Nikolka and his father fight for the truth, each for his own. And, as we see, they spare neither their blood nor their lives for her. A violent collision leads to the death of both.
There is little revolutionary romance in the story, or rather, it seems to be completely absent. Of course, the fight between the heroes is for the sake of some unclear bright future. But the ending is tragic: the old and the new world clashed not for life, but for death.
The merit of the writer is that in a small work he managed to say a lot about the era, about the dramatic fate of the characters, to make him see in each of them, first of all, a person. This is also facilitated by the composition of the story "The Mole" - a parallel image of the life of a son and father, a comparison of their fates in six small parts.
M. Sholokhov argues that the home and peaceful labor are the main values of life. It helps us to look deep into the soul, into the very heart of a person. It was hardly possible to convey more strongly, to express all the hopelessness, despair experienced by Nikolka's father. Before us is the image of a silent, voiceless death.
And another image - the image of a wolf - breaks into our consciousness for a minute. The wolf “hung with burrs” is the chieftain, who, being on his native land, prowls with his gang, hiding from the chase. “Like a wolf who has come to his senses from a flock of sheep,” the bandits leave the detachment of Nikolka Koshevoy that is overtaking them. Gangs "these same and the grain completely played off the horses!" And here is the ataman himself, who passed the German captivity, served at Wrangel, Constantinople, a camp in barbed wire, always drunk and already lost his human appearance - a beast, a wolf with his pack. And they are all people. They all want one thing - to live, just as we want it.
The versatility and complexity of the inner world of man is always in the center of Sholokhov's attention. Individualizing the fate of his characters, the author makes the reader make generalizations, allows him to see how complex and contradictory life is, how difficult it is to choose the true path. And the test of moral qualities is human life and death.
Revealing the theme of the civil war, Sholokhov poses in the story the problems of choice, happiness, good and evil, cruelty inherent in every person. It is not in vain that already in this, the first, story, we more than once encounter such a detail as “blood” (“black ribbon of blood”, “smeared hands with blood”, “eyelids covered in blood” and, finally, “Son! My bloody "). Yes, this is a terrible reality.
M. Sholokhov touches on another very important topic - the theme of the house. We understand that neither the son nor his father has a home. They are both lonely and unhappy. Nikolka recalls “as if half asleep” how his father put him on his horse as a child and said: “Hold on to the mane, son!”. And the mother at that time “looked wide-eyed from the door at the little legs” of her son. And the ataman himself "had not seen his native kurens for seven years."
M. Sholokhov helps the reader to imagine people who are relatives by blood, who, by the will of fate, found themselves on opposite sides of the barricade: Nikolka is the “red commander”. His father is a former White Guard, and now just a bandit. None of them currently expects happiness, a completely natural feeling for every person. There is not a word about love for a woman in the story: there is no time, there is a war. Events drag the heroes into chaos and the darkness of a hopeless situation. In the excitement of the murder going on around people, as it were, a darkening of the soul sets in, which led to a terrible denouement. We, as if in reality, hear: “Son! Nikolushka! Native!. My bloody one, say a word! How is that, huh!”
The writer claims: there is no mercy - there is no greatness of the soul. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the correctness of one or another hero: they both kill. Paradox: they kill "for the sake of life on earth." Indeed, the revolution caused a lot of grief to the heroes of the story and to the entire Cossacks. And it was only the beginning of the trials that befell our people.
M. A. Sholokhov is an opponent of any falsehood. We present pictures of what is happening on the Don so vividly that we ourselves become participants in the events. We are captivated by the drama of the fates of the heroes. Their pain is transferred to us.
The writer has a vision. The story begins with the words: "There are cartridge cases on the table, smelling of burnt gunpowder." It's cartridge cases. But they are not the last, there are others for all the belligerents who have to shoot at someone. There are other weapons as well. And here is the ending: “Having leaned from the saddle, waved his saber, for a moment I felt how my body went limp under the blow and obediently slid to the ground.” And one more thing: “Clenching the steamy steel of the Mauser with his teeth, he shot himself in the mouth.”
And yet, contrary to what was said above, the story calls for a peaceful life, advocates for a person's right to happiness, for which he must live on earth!
There are few heroes in The Mole, but in every scene we feel the deep background of folk life: this is Lukich with his mill, this is Nikolka with his squadron and his memories, this is the ataman with his troubles and sorrows. They are all representatives of the people. And their fates are typical of the epoch of revolution and civil war.
We believe the writer in everything, since he himself, a native of the village of Veshenskaya, located on the left bank of the Don, knew the life of the Don Cossacks well. Moreover, he himself was a direct participant in the events taking place there. The author wanted to convey how the new time is reflected in the minds of people, in their psyche and actions.
Following L. Tolstoy, M. Sholokhov asserts with great persuasiveness: war is a crime, and there can be no winners in a civil war: everyone is defeated. War destroys human lives, destroys the grain field - the labor of man, the main condition of his life. Together with the author, we mourn the burnt, trampled, abandoned fields. For the writer, as it were, there is a connection between the element of war, which destroys all life, and natural disasters. Destroying the results of the labor of his hands, man himself breaks the connection between himself and nature. The harmony of life is broken. For example, in the story, Nikolka the Cossack, the squadron commander, is ashamed of his eighteen years, although he managed to liquidate two gangs and leads his "squadron into battle and fights no worse than the old commander!" Yes, 18 years old, almost the same age as us, but what did he see in life? He grew up as an orphan: his father disappeared in the German war, his mother died, until the age of 15 he “looted around the workers”, and then went to fight with Wrangel. And although the military commissar, shell-shocked in the head, told him that “a mole is, they say, happiness,” Nikolka never saw him, this happiness. He was tired of fighting, "tired of living, everything is disgusted."
Creating a picture of the war, Sholokhov paints a picture of an abandoned field. In the story, for example, there is no description of a green stalk of wheat stretching towards the sun, warmth. Here, “on summer days, serene in the steppes of the Don, under the sky, with a thick and transparent ringing of silver, a grain ear calls and sways.” But here is something else: “horse barley and wheat that have come over are dragged from the bins, they are poured under the horses’ feet and the yard is covered with golden grain.”
In a grain ear for Sholokhov - a symbol of life. It is the work of generations. It is the key to the future. As long as the field is growing, man will live. A trampled field is the worst disaster that can fall on a person. So Nikolka, tired of the war, "tired of living." He was "sick of everything," "would he learn to go somewhere." We seem to hear him repeating to himself: “I would like to go to the city to study”. He did not even finish the parochial school. And he would live, bread and raise children! The state of nature is inseparable from the state of the heroes. Nature is always harmonious, it tests the ways of man. She claims that life goes on despite social upheavals.
Thanks to the skill of M. Sholokhov, vivid pictures of what is happening appear in our imagination: here, for example, the broad-shouldered Nikolka, with radiant wrinkles aging his eyes and with a stoop like an old man's back, is still quite a boy ("a boy, after all, a kid, a kuga is green," - his fighters talk about him), a former digger, a member of the RKSM, at the age of eighteen, a squadron commander. Here is his father - a formidable ataman, who "is never sober for a day." And although “zhito blooms sweeter and sweeter in the steppes of the Don,” the ataman drinks because his soul has become stale, and the pain sharpens from the inside, “and you can’t pour any moonshine into the likhomanka.” Here is a military commissar (an episodic figure), who has seen a lot, he promises Nikolka a happy life (“A mole is, they say, fortunately”). Here is the old miller Lukic, who does not want to give grain to the bandits and helps Nikolka locate the gang.
The world of life, the world of nature, the writer conveys with the help of the smallest details and details he has seen. Autumn is already approaching - it's time to harvest, and people are still fighting and fighting. Tired of both. But the war goes to a victorious end.
Reading the story "The Mole", on the one hand, we imagine the beauty of the surrounding nature with its eternal life-giving forces, and on the other, the blood, suffering, death of people as a result of the civil war. Thus, the author helps us understand the idea of the story: stepping on a living thing means inflicting a grave insult on life itself. Parallel series "nature - people" provide an opportunity to understand the events of great social significance.
Being an original artist, M. A. Sholokhov continues the traditions of the Russian literary language - the language of Pushkin, Leskov, Tolstoy, Chekhov. But his language absorbed samples of folk-poetic, lively, colloquial speech. There are few dialogues in the story “The Mole”, the author’s speech prevails here, which is characterized by intonations close to folk poetic speech with unanswered questions, with repetitions like: “You are happy happy! Well, yes, happy! A mole is, they say, happiness! Sholokhov has a special structure of speech: often there are words close in meaning, or the same word is simply repeated: The package brought by courier had three crosses on it, and with this package the courier rode forty miles without resting.
Peculiar metaphors, new phraseological combinations, colloquial expressions (“blued steel of water”, “in his chilled, immovable fingers”, “cheekbones blaze with an annoying blush”, “this summer”, “I’ve been an orphan since childhood, I’ve been dying in workers all my life - but he is happiness!”, “lay down on the grass, tear-stained, gray with dew”, “a black ribbon of blood poking from dusty nostrils”, etc.) create bright, unique images, convey the author's attitude to what is happening.
The “figurative, colorful language”, “thin grasping eye”, about which Sholokhov’s mentor A. S. Serafimovich spoke, were clearly manifested in the story “Birthmark”. “Here it is, ataman’s life, if you look back over your shoulder. His soul has hardened, as in summer the traces of forked ox hooves near the muzga of the steppe stale in the brazier” - is it possible to confuse this language and these images with others?
Sholokhov's phrases are laconic, but full of deep love for working people. It can be seen that the writer understands the feelings and experiences of his characters well.
The story "The Mole" is read in one breath, it is truly a poetic work about the tragic fate of the people during the years of the civil war. Of course, it can also reveal shortcomings. After all, Sholokhov is a novice writer. The art form lacks polish. Perhaps, the conflict itself is overly simplified, the images of the main characters are not sufficiently developed and developed. Perhaps the scene of the death of the father and son is drawn too naturalistically. Perhaps there is an excessive abundance of local words and expressions in the language. May be. But that's not the point of the story. It is important that human suffering is shown here. This is a truthful, realistic story written by a thoughtful, sensitive and outstanding person - M. A. Sholokhov.
The writer has a vision. This story, as it were, calls for a peaceful, creative life, advocates the right of a person to happiness, for which he must live on earth. Unfortunately, history repeats itself: wars break out, claiming the lives of thousands and thousands of innocent people.
M. Sholokhov's story "The Mole" is included in the cycle "Don Stories", was first published in the newspaper "Young Leninist" in 1924. With him, in fact, begins the creative biography of Sholokhov. The topic of the civil war, relevant at that time, in this story sheds light on another tragic side of it, showing all the cruelty and absurdity. “Mole” is written in a recognizable, peculiar in style “Sholokhov” language.
There are two main characters in the story, so different, fighting against each other, each for their own truth. This is the red commander Nikolka Koshevoy and the old Cossack chieftain. The author tells the reader the story of their destinies, talking about the past and the present. Interestingly, the acquaintance begins with everyday, landscape sketches of what surrounds the characters.
“On the table are cartridge cases smelling of burnt gunpowder, a mutton bone, a field map, a report, a type-setting bridle with the smell of horse sweat, a loaf of bread” - this is the hut where Nikolka lodges. She stands over the Don: “From the windows you can see the green splashed Obdon and the blued steel of the water.” The third part begins with the following description: “Along the hummocky letnik, along the ruts, licked by the winds, the mouse wayside curls, the quinoa and pyshyatki thickly and terry burst.”
The ataman leads his gang through this area. Both sketches are far from an aesthetic ideal, they help to convey desolation, the everyday life of a useless war.
The young commander is only eighteen years old. His childhood is the childhood of an ordinary child, but he early learned the bitterness of loss: his father disappeared, his mother died. He has been fighting for three years now, and the war has had time to bother him. The only thing that connects the hero with the past is memories and the same mole as his father’s, “the size of a pigeon’s egg, on the left leg, above the ankle” is a symbol of kinship, the connection of generations. Nikolka is young, bold and hot-headed, “having opened up, he gallops alone and waves his saber.” In these lines, he is compared with a young bird, at the same time, he is a "neuk, sucker", (like a foal), his whole life is ahead.
Another main character is the ataman. Sholokhov shows his difficult military fate. “The ataman has not seen his native kurens for seven years,” his soul hardened. All the tragedy of this helps to convey the metaphor: “traces of forked bull hooves near the muzga”, with which the author compares the inner world of the ataman. Therefore, the ataman is never sober for a day, all the coachmen and machine gunners drunkenly squint on spring carts.
Of great importance in the story are the images of animal symbols created by the author. The ataman is compared with a wolf: “... the ataman leads the gang ... like a wolf who has come to his senses.” And then, in the image of a living wolf, we see the image of an ataman: “A wolf jumped out of a windbreak onto a hillock, hung with burrs. He listened, bending his head forward ... The wolf stood and slowly, waddling, pulled into the log, in the thickets of yellowed unmowed kuga ... ”. The wolf is an unpleasant, negative creature, but at the same time, the image of a lonely, hungry and therefore unhappy wolf has developed in the mentality of a Russian person.
The ataman is also angry, angry and unhappy. Another comparison helps to better understand him: "... he let go of the reins and flew in like a kite." On the one hand, the kite is a brave, strong bird, but in the last lines of the story, Sholokhov calls this bird a vulture. A metaphor is used here: the vulture is the soul of the ataman, which “reluctantly” leaves the dead body. The bird melts “in the grey, colorless autumn sky”, that is, in this ruined and boring world.
Both heroes are tired of the war. Nikolki dreams of going to school, the petrified soul of the ataman yearns for the earth.
The old miller Lukic, like the hand of fate, brings the two detachments together. And in battle, father and son meet, full of hatred for each other, not knowing with whom they are actually fighting. A fierce battle is the climax of the story. “At the edge of the forest, a machine gun rattled desperately, and those, on the path, quickly, as in an exercise, crumbled like lava.” The most “hot” episode is a one-on-one fight.
From the binoculars darting around on his chest, from the cloak, the ataman guessed that not a simple Red Army soldier was galloping, but a commander. Nikolka boldly attacks the chieftain and falls under the blow of his checkers. The dramatic confrontation between the Reds and the Whites turns into a family tragedy: the father kills his son. The most sacred bonds of the family are being destroyed. The symbol of blood ties reappears - a mole on Nikolka's now dead leg. The terrible cry of the ataman who saw her, “Son! Nikolushka! Native! My little blood ... ”- the main words in the story. Ataman kills himself. The most terrible thing is that the culprit of their death is another war - the German one. After all, if my father had not gone to the front, perhaps they would not have ended up on opposite sides, and perhaps this tragedy would not have happened.
The great grief of the whole country, the civil war, in the story is reduced to the tragedy of a particular family, while becoming more understandable and terrible.
There is nothing more sacred than the love of parents and children. The author in the story does not take the side of the Reds, nor the side of the Whites. He stands for a world devoid of senseless confrontation.
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- The years of revolution and civil war thundered throughout Russia. During this critical time, thousands of destinies were broken, a huge number of people died. Orders and customs changed, power changed, chaos reigned in the minds of people. The society was sharply divided into two warring camps - “white” Read More ......
- Cossack life is known to Mikhail Sholokhov from early childhood, because he was born in one of the villages of the Veshenskaya village, the former Don region. At the age of 21, Sholokhov published the book Don Stories, in which he included his first work, Mole. This story strikes the reader with its Read More ......
- The collection "Don Stories" refers to the early works of Mikhail Sholokhov. But these stories by no means can be considered only the first "experiments". The young writer is trying to show the realism of the civil war, without embellishing it, without holding anything back. In "Don Stories" the reader sees a huge gallery of Read More ......
- Mole On the table are cartridges, a lamb bone, a field map, a summary, a bridle, a loaf of bread. Nikolka Koshevoy, the squadron commander, is sitting at the table, he fills out a questionnaire. “A rough leaf says sparingly: Koshevoy Nikolai. Squadron commander. Earthman. Member of the RKSM, age 18. In appearance Read More ......
- The story was written in 1956 during Khrushchev's "thaw". Sholokhov was a participant in the Great Patriotic War. There he heard the life story of a soldier. She touched him very much. Sholokhov nurtured the idea of writing this story for a long time. And in 1956 Read More ......
- The very title of M. A. Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man” indicates that it will deal not only with the life of specific heroes, but also with the fate of a person in a broad sense. In this regard, there are many philosophical generalizations in the work. “Yes Read More ......
- M. Sholokhov wrote the story "The Fate of a Man" in an amazingly short time - just a few days. On the eve of the new year, 1957, the story “The Fate of a Man” was published in Pravda, which struck the world with its artistic power. The story is based on a real fact. In Read More ......
And with secret and heartfelt sadness
I'm thinking, "Bad man.
What does he want!., the sky is clear,
Under the sky there is enough space for everyone,
But incessantly and in vain
He alone is at enmity - why?
M. Yu. Lermontov
The story "The Mole" (1924) refers to the Don cycle of M.A. Sholokhov. The main idea of the work is the depiction of the civil war as a national tragedy: it disfigures human lives and destroys natural human relations, there are no and cannot be winners in it. Having learned that the gang attacked the Grushinsky state farm and that they had to rush there to help the communards, Nikolka Koshevoy thought wearily: “I would like to learn to go somewhere ... and here is the gang ... Blood again, and I’m tired of living like this ... I’m sick of everything..." (II). And Ataman Koshevoy was tired of the war, tired of endless murders and senseless wanderings. After all, the Cossack is not only a warrior, but also a grain grower, which is why the elder Koshevoy is so worried about the sight and smell of flowering fields. Retelling the thoughts of the elder Koshevoy, Sholokhov writes: “The pain, wonderful and incomprehensible, wears away from the inside, fills the muscles with nausea, and the chieftain feels, do not forget her and do not fill the lihomania with any moonshine. And he drinks - there is no sober day because life is fragrant and sweetly blooming in the steppes of the Don, overturned under the sun by a greedy black-earth womb ”(III). The ordinary people suffer from the war, caught between the Reds and the Whites. Robbery, humiliation, lawlessness - everything falls on the old miller Lukich: there is nowhere to hide from the civil war. And how happy was the peaceful day that the old man spent at his mill, until uninvited guests arrived - the bandits of Ataman Koshevoy.
"Mole" is very reminiscent of a ballad. Its plot is tragic: a father kills an unrecognized son, and only when nothing can be fixed, the terrible truth is revealed to the father. Sholokhov transferred this “wandering” literary plot to the era of the civil war on the Don: the father is a bandit chieftain - he kills his only son - an eighteen-year-old red commander. From the ballad in the story, the mystery and understatement of events, the sharp and unexpected denouement, the swiftness of the action are preserved. The latter is obvious, since the plot (the beginning of the battle with the gang), the climax (the fight between Nikolka and the ataman) and the denouement (the suicide of the elder Koshevoy) are in the last (sixth) chapter. A departure from the usual ballad plot is an extended exposition (the first five chapters), built on a sharp contrast between the actions of father and son. An extended exposition is not provided for in the ballad, but the author needs it in order to describe in detail the two main characters and thus express his attitude towards them.
Sholokhov does not explain the choice of heroes (with whom and against whom to fight). It is said sparingly about Nikolka: he is “an orphan from childhood” (I), his father went missing in the German war, his mother died. Until the age of fifteen, he hung around in the workers, and although the author does not describe the life of Nikolka with the owners, according to another story from the Don cycle (“Alyoshka but the Heart”), one can imagine what it was like for a teenager in laborers. Therefore, it is not surprising that at the age of fifteen he became a Red Army soldier: after all, the Reds fought for a good life for the poor. The elder Koshevoy, like many Don Cossacks, fights against the Reds - first in Wrangel's troops, then in a gang. Of course, the lack of a serious motivation for the choice of the characters is a shortcoming of the work, as it leads to the schematism of images. However, in order to deeply reveal the problem of choice in the civil war, a few words that a writer can devote to this issue in a short story are clearly not enough, anyway, the explanation will turn out to be superficial. Therefore, Sholokhov generally refuses to discuss this topic and follows the rule formulated by L. N. Tolstoy: “Do not get carried away by saying everything in one story.”
The writer creates a situation typical of a civil war: social hostility is opposed by family relations. Father and son turned out to be ideological enemies, but Sholokhov notes that each keeps bright memories of the other in his soul. Nikolka remembers how his father taught him, a boy, to ride and walked beside him, leading his horse by the reins. Ataman flees from Turkish captivity to the Don, where seven years ago he left his family - his wife and only son, about whose fate he knows nothing since the beginning of the German war. Sholokhov also notes that the son and father are similar, that is, he emphasizes not only the physical similarity, but also the spiritual relationship of their characters. The son inherited from his father qualities that were very much appreciated by the Cossacks: love for horses, immeasurable courage, organizational talent, for already at the age of eighteen he successfully commanded a squadron.
Sholokhov violates another genre feature of the ballad - the author not only stretches the exposition, as mentioned above, but also openly expresses his attitude towards the characters: the father and son in the story receive a sharply contrasting image. The spiritual clarity of Nikolka, expressed in his dreams, arouses obvious sympathy in the author. Describing the elder Koshevoy, the author several times compares him with a wolf who “quietly makes trouble”, and then leaves the persecution, confusing the tracks like a wolf. In the single combat scene, the ataman, like a predatory kite, fell on the red commander.
It is valuable for the writer that the difficult childhood did not “break” the younger Koshevoy, in his soul he retained compassion for people and the belief that life can be kind and fair. Ataman constantly drinks and mocks people with pleasure (old Lukich is lying at his feet and eating the earth, begging for forgiveness for wanting to hide the grain from the gang). Sholokhov emphasizes the confusion and anger at the whole wide world of the elder Koshevoy.
Nikolka voluntarily joined the Komsomol and defends the Soviet government, as he is sure that he is fighting for a just cause. The bandits who roam the villages, rob, burn, kill, hoping to restore the old order by terror, arouse quite understandable condemnation in the writer.
So, the main characters are contrasted by the author: a bright, conscientious son who dreams of studying and a “stale” (III), desperate, disbelieving father. The reader is clear about the author's attitude towards the characters - sympathy for the son and condemnation of the father, but Sholokhov does not dwell on such a straightforward opposition. In the final scene, the author's attitude to the hero changes: the elder Koshevoy is depicted not as a bandit chieftain, but as an unfortunate father who killed his only and beloved son with his own hand. The new author's attitude is manifested in the description of the father over the son's cooling body: the ataman looks at the face of the dying Red Army soldier with fear, hugs him by the shoulders and addresses him with desperate words, but does not receive any answer. The grief of the father is understandable and cannot but arouse the sympathy and compassion of the author.
Summing up, it should be noted that Sholokhov believed all his life in the ideals of the revolution, which proclaimed its goal to protect the interests of the working person. This was already fully reflected in his early stories, where he clearly sympathizes with the Red Army men, the poor peasants of the farms, who are fighting for a new, just life. Clear political convictions did not prevent him from being a real writer, that is, from depicting the tragic era of his time from a universal, and not from a narrow class (proletarian) position. Soviet critics often reproached Sholokhov: his works expressed "vague", abstract (pitying everyone - both right and wrong) humanism instead of clear revolutionary humanism (combining love for the revolution and hatred for its enemies). The story "The Mole" is just an example of the fact that the author sympathizes with all his heroes - participants and victims of the civil war.
The author's attitude in the story, as shown above, is expressed in various ways: through evaluative comparisons (wolf, kite), through internal monologues that convey the thoughts and feelings of the characters (confusion and fatigue from the civil war of both Koshevs and Lukich), through the background of the father and son of the Koshevs, through their deeds. That is, the author's position in "The Mole" is very restrained: there are no lyrical digressions, emotional exclamations, psychological landscapes.
But now the action of the story is brought to a tragic denouement, and Sholokhov writes another short epilogue, in which for the first and last time a psychological landscape is placed, depicting the autumn steppe, living its own special life, independent of people and their problems. A vulture kite above the unburied dead Cossacks is an exact detail of a deserted battlefield. This piercing silent landscape carries the most important ideological and emotional load: the author finally clarifies his attitude to the described episode of the civil war, calls to rise above the momentary, class assessments of the heroes, awakens in the reader a sense of compassion for both father and son.
