According to one version, the idea of the story "Scarlet Sails" arose during Alexander Grin's walk along the Neva embankment in St. Petersburg. Passing by one of the shops, the writer saw an incredibly beautiful girl. He looked at her for a long time, but did not dare to meet her. The beauty of the stranger so excited the writer that after some time he began to create a story.
An introverted, gloomy man named Longren lives a solitary life with his daughter Assol. Longren makes model sailboats for sale. For a small family, this is the only way to make ends meet. Countrymen hate Longren because of one incident that happened in the distant past.
Once Longren was a sailor and went on a voyage for a long time. Returning once again from swimming, he learned that his wife was no longer alive. Having given birth to a child, Mary had to spend all the money on medicines for herself: the birth was very difficult, and the woman needed urgent treatment.
Mary did not know when her husband would return and, left without a livelihood, went to the innkeeper Menners to borrow money. The innkeeper made an obscene offer to Mary in exchange for help. The honest woman refused and went into town to pawn the ring. On the way, the woman caught a cold and subsequently died of pneumonia.
Longren was forced to raise his daughter on his own and could no longer work on the ship. The former sea knew who destroyed his family happiness.
One day he had a chance to take revenge. During a storm, Menners was swept out to sea on a boat. Longren was the only witness to what happened. The innkeeper called in vain for help. The former sailor stood calmly on the shore and smoked a pipe.
When Menners was already far enough from the coast, Longren reminded him of what he had done with Mary. A few days later, the innkeeper was found. Dying, he managed to tell who was "guilty" of his death. Fellow villagers, many of whom did not know what Menners really was, condemned Longren for his inaction. The former sailor and his daughter became outcasts.
When Assol was 8 years old, she accidentally met the collector of fairy tales Egl, who predicted the girl that years later she would meet her love. Her lover will sail on a ship with scarlet sails. At home, the girl told her father about the strange prediction. Their conversation was overheard by a beggar. He is a retelling of what Longren's countrymen heard. Since then, Assol has become the object of ridicule.
The noble origin of the young man
Arthur Gray, unlike Assol, did not grow up in a miserable hut, but in a castle and came from a rich and noble family. The boy's future was predetermined: he would live the same prim life as his parents. However, Gray has other plans. He dreams of being a brave sailor. The young man secretly left home and entered the Anselm schooner, where he went through a very harsh school. Captain Gop, noticing good inclinations in the young man, decided to make a real sailor out of him. At the age of 20, Gray bought a three-masted galliot "Secret", on which he became the captain.
After 4 years, Gray accidentally finds himself in the vicinity of Liss, a few kilometers from which was Caperna, where Longren lived with his daughter. By chance, Gray meets Assol, sleeping in the thickets.
The beauty of the girl impressed him so much that he took off the old ring from his finger and put it on Assol. Then Gray heads to Kaperna, where he tries to find out at least something about an unusual girl. The captain wandered into the Menners tavern, where his son was now in charge. Hin Menners told Gray that Assol's father is a murderer, and the girl herself is crazy. She dreams of a prince who will sail to her on a ship with scarlet sails. The captain doesn't trust Menners too much. His doubts were finally dispelled by a drunk coal miner, who said that Assol was indeed a very unusual girl, but not crazy. Gray decided to make someone else's dream come true.
Meanwhile, old Longren decides to return to his former occupation. As long as he is alive, his daughter will not work. Longren set sail for the first time in many years. Assol was left alone. One fine day, she notices a ship with scarlet sails on the horizon and realizes that he has sailed for her...
Character characteristics
Assol is the main character of the story. In early childhood, the girl is left alone because of the hatred of others for her father. But loneliness is habitual for Assol, it does not depress and does not frighten her.
She lives in her own fictional world, where the cruelty and cynicism of the surrounding reality do not penetrate.
At the age of eight, a beautiful legend comes into the world of Assol, in which she believed with all her heart. The life of a little girl takes on a new meaning. She starts to wait.
Years go by, but Assol remains the same. Ridicule, offensive nicknames and hatred of fellow villagers for her family did not embitter the young dreamer. Assol is still naive, open to the world and believes in prophecy.
The only son of noble parents grew up in luxury and prosperity. Arthur Gray is a hereditary aristocrat. However, aristocracy is completely alien to him.
Even as a child, Gray was distinguished by courage, audacity and the desire for absolute independence. He knows that he can truly prove himself only in the fight against the elements.
Arthur is not attracted to high society. Social events and dinner parties are not for him. The picture hanging in the library decides the fate of the young man. He leaves home and, having passed the ordeal, becomes the captain of the ship. Audacity and courage, reaching recklessness, do not prevent the young captain from remaining a kind and sympathetic person.
Probably, among the girls of the society in which Gray was born, there would not have been a single one capable of captivating his heart. He does not need stiff ladies with refined manners and a brilliant education. Gray is not looking for love, she finds it herself. Assol is a very unusual girl with an unusual dream. Arthur sees before him a beautiful, bold and pure soul, similar to his own soul.
At the end of the story, the reader has a feeling of a miracle, a dream come true. Despite all the originality of what is happening, the plot of the story is not fantastic. There are no wizards, fairies, or elves in Scarlet Sails. The reader is presented with a completely ordinary, unadorned reality: poor people forced to fight for their existence, injustice and meanness. Nevertheless, it is precisely for its realism and lack of fantasy that this work is so attractive.
The author makes it clear that a person himself creates his dreams, he believes in them and he himself embodies them into reality. It makes no sense to wait for the intervention of some otherworldly forces - fairies, wizards, etc. To understand that a dream belongs only to a person and only a person decides how to dispose of it, you need to trace the entire chain of creating and implementing a dream.
Old Egle created a beautiful legend, apparently to please a little girl. Assol believed in this legend and cannot even imagine that the prophecy will not come true. Gray, falling in love with a beautiful stranger, makes her dream come true. As a result, an absurd, divorced from life fantasy becomes part of reality. And this fantasy was embodied not by creatures endowed with supernatural abilities, but by the most ordinary people.
Faith in a miracle
A dream, according to the author, is the meaning of life. Only she is able to save a person from the daily gray routine. But a dream can become a big disappointment for someone who is inactive and for someone who is waiting for the embodiment of their fantasies from outside, because help from “above” can never be expected.
Gray would never have become a captain by staying in his parent's castle. The dream must turn into a goal, and the goal, in turn, into energetic action. Assol did not have the opportunity to take any action to achieve his goal. But she had the most important thing, something that, perhaps, is more important than action - faith.
In the minds of many people who are not even familiar with the work of A. Green, the phrase "scarlet sails" is strongly associated with the concept of "dream". But another question arises: what is a dream in the understanding of the writer himself and the main characters of his work? And why did scarlet sails become a kind of dream symbol?
When scarlet sails are first mentioned in the story, they are scarlet sails on a toy racing yacht. These scarlet sails were made from scraps of silk, "used by Longren for pasting over steamer cabins - toys of a wealthy buyer." At that moment, our heroine Assol was holding a small boat in her hand. How did the yacht end up in her hands? The fact is that the girl grew up with her father, who makes a living by making toys. The girl's mother died early from pneumonia. Involved in her death was the innkeeper, a wealthy man Menners. He refused to lend money to a woman in a desperate situation.
Mary was forced to go into the city in cold windy weather to pawn a ring for next to nothing. When Mary returned, she fell ill and died. Longren took upon himself the upbringing of his daughter: "he also did all the housework himself and went through the complex art of raising a girl, unusual for a man." Longren soon committed an act, the consequences of which were very sad.
During a storm, the merchant Menners was in mortal danger, but Longren did not help his offender. After this incident, the neighbors began to be unfriendly towards the father and daughter. Assol grew up without friends, all alone, in her own world of dreams and fantasies, which soon took on a real shape.
The moment when for the first time a yacht with scarlet sails was in the hands of Assol became perhaps the most important in all children's life. The girl was delighted, admiring the white boat with scarlet sails. But her delight was not limited to contemplation: Assol decided to subject the toy to a small test. By chance, the yacht, like a real one, floated downstream. Trying to catch up with a fast yacht, the girl met a real wizard on the way. In fact, the wizard was the famous collector of songs and legends, Egle. Egle, noticing in the girl's face "an involuntary expectation of a beautiful, blissful fate", decided to tell a fairy tale. Naturally, his imagination could not miss such an important detail as scarlet sails. Therefore, the prince in Aigle's tale appears not on a white horse, but on a white ship with scarlet sails.
Longren did not try to refute the wizard's interesting prediction. The wise father decided not to take away “such a toy”: “And about scarlet sails, think like me: you will have scarlet sails.” As you can see, many unfavorable and favorable circumstances served to ensure that in Assol's heart a strong, unshakable place was taken by the dream of a happy future and fiery love, which, under scarlet sails, was to break into her gray life.
In Assol, the daughter of a sailor, an artisan and a “living poem with all the wonders of its consonances and images, with the secret of the neighborhood of words, in all the reciprocity of their shadows and light” were mixed “in wonderful beautiful irregularity”. And this second Assol, who “beyond the general phenomena saw the reflected meaning of a different order,” could not get out of the power of the fairy tale. Assol seriously looked out for a ship with scarlet sails in the sea.
If Assol lived comfortably in her fantasy, then Arthur Gray was accustomed from childhood to violate the generally accepted canons, which somehow fettered his freedom. Did he dream of anything? Just as Assol was inspired to grow a dream in his heart by the narrator Egl, so Arthur Gray was inspired by the fruit of human creativity - a painting depicting a ship rising to the crest of a sea rampart. Above the vast sea, the darkness of the abyss towered the figure of the captain. In Arthur's mind, the captain was the destiny, soul and mind of the ship. The dream forced Arthur to leave home at the age of fifteen and plunge into the world of adult games. And in this world from the dreams of a boy, the young man had to work hard, but he achieved his goal.
The meeting of Assol and Arthur was as if predetermined by fate. They each in their own way anticipated unusual changes in their lives. Gray saw a sleeping young girl. Amidst the riot of nature, Arthur "saw her differently." He saw her not so much with his eyes as with his heart. And from that moment on, Arthur began to act at the prompting of his heart. Leaving an expensive family ring on the girl's little finger, he tries to find out everything about the beautiful vision. And when he heard the collier's story about a wonderful girl, about an empty basket that bloomed in an instant, he realized that his heart did not deceive him: "Now he acted decisively and calmly, knowing to the smallest detail everything that lay ahead on the wonderful path."
Arthur was especially careful in choosing the fabric for the sails. And his choice fell on the color “completely pure, like a scarlet morning stream, full of noble fun and royalty ... It did not have mixed shades of fire, poppy petals, play of purple or purple hints; there was also no blue, no shadow, nothing to be doubted. He glowed like a smile with the beauty of a spiritual reflection.
This is the color chosen by Arthur Gray, the color is completely pure, unquestionable and reflecting the spiritual principle - the same pure, unquestionable is a dream. Only for some, a dream becomes an object of passionate desires, while for others, such as Arthur Gray, it becomes a powerful source of energy for transformation and improvement.
According to one version, the idea of the story "Scarlet Sails" arose during Alexander Grin's walk along the Neva embankment in St. Petersburg. Passing by one of the shops, the writer saw an incredibly beautiful girl. He looked at her for a long time, but did not dare to meet her. The beauty of the stranger so excited the writer that after some time he began to create a story.
An introverted, gloomy man named Longren lives a solitary life with his daughter Assol. Longren makes model sailboats for sale. For a small family, this is the only way to make ends meet. Countrymen hate Longren because of one incident that happened in the distant past.
Once Longren was a sailor and went on a voyage for a long time. Returning once again from swimming, he learned that his wife was no longer alive. Having given birth to a child, Mary had to spend all the money on medicines for herself: the birth was very difficult, and the woman needed urgent treatment.
Mary did not know when her husband would return and, left without a livelihood, went to the innkeeper Menners to borrow money. The innkeeper made an obscene offer to Mary in exchange for help. The honest woman refused and went into town to pawn the ring. On the way, the woman caught a cold and subsequently died of pneumonia.
Longren was forced to raise his daughter on his own and could no longer work on the ship. The former sea knew who destroyed his family happiness.
One day he had a chance to take revenge. During a storm, Menners was swept out to sea on a boat. Longren was the only witness to what happened. The innkeeper called in vain for help. The former sailor stood calmly on the shore and smoked a pipe.
When Menners was already far enough from the coast, Longren reminded him of what he had done with Mary. A few days later, the innkeeper was found. Dying, he managed to tell who was "guilty" of his death. Fellow villagers, many of whom did not know what Menners really was, condemned Longren for his inaction. The former sailor and his daughter became outcasts.
When Assol was 8 years old, she accidentally met the collector of fairy tales Egl, who predicted the girl that years later she would meet her love. Her lover will sail on a ship with scarlet sails. At home, the girl told her father about the strange prediction. Their conversation was overheard by a beggar. He is a retelling of what Longren's countrymen heard. Since then, Assol has become the object of ridicule.
The noble origin of the young man
Arthur Gray, unlike Assol, did not grow up in a miserable hut, but in a castle and came from a rich and noble family. The boy's future was predetermined: he would live the same prim life as his parents. However, Gray has other plans. He dreams of being a brave sailor. The young man secretly left home and entered the Anselm schooner, where he went through a very harsh school. Captain Gop, noticing good inclinations in the young man, decided to make a real sailor out of him. At the age of 20, Gray bought a three-masted galliot "Secret", on which he became the captain.
After 4 years, Gray accidentally finds himself in the vicinity of Liss, a few kilometers from which was Caperna, where Longren lived with his daughter. By chance, Gray meets Assol, sleeping in the thickets.
The beauty of the girl impressed him so much that he took off the old ring from his finger and put it on Assol. Then Gray heads to Kaperna, where he tries to find out at least something about an unusual girl. The captain wandered into the Menners tavern, where his son was now in charge. Hin Menners told Gray that Assol's father is a murderer, and the girl herself is crazy. She dreams of a prince who will sail to her on a ship with scarlet sails. The captain doesn't trust Menners too much. His doubts were finally dispelled by a drunk coal miner, who said that Assol was indeed a very unusual girl, but not crazy. Gray decided to make someone else's dream come true.
Meanwhile, old Longren decides to return to his former occupation. As long as he is alive, his daughter will not work. Longren set sail for the first time in many years. Assol was left alone. One fine day, she notices a ship with scarlet sails on the horizon and realizes that he has sailed for her...
Character characteristics
Assol is the main character of the story. In early childhood, the girl is left alone because of the hatred of others for her father. But loneliness is habitual for Assol, it does not depress and does not frighten her.
She lives in her own fictional world, where the cruelty and cynicism of the surrounding reality do not penetrate.
At the age of eight, a beautiful legend comes into the world of Assol, in which she believed with all her heart. The life of a little girl takes on a new meaning. She starts to wait.
Years go by, but Assol remains the same. Ridicule, offensive nicknames and hatred of fellow villagers for her family did not embitter the young dreamer. Assol is still naive, open to the world and believes in prophecy.
The only son of noble parents grew up in luxury and prosperity. Arthur Gray is a hereditary aristocrat. However, aristocracy is completely alien to him.
Even as a child, Gray was distinguished by courage, audacity and the desire for absolute independence. He knows that he can truly prove himself only in the fight against the elements.
Arthur is not attracted to high society. Social events and dinner parties are not for him. The picture hanging in the library decides the fate of the young man. He leaves home and, having passed the ordeal, becomes the captain of the ship. Audacity and courage, reaching recklessness, do not prevent the young captain from remaining a kind and sympathetic person.
Probably, among the girls of the society in which Gray was born, there would not have been a single one capable of captivating his heart. He does not need stiff ladies with refined manners and a brilliant education. Gray is not looking for love, she finds it herself. Assol is a very unusual girl with an unusual dream. Arthur sees before him a beautiful, bold and pure soul, similar to his own soul.
At the end of the story, the reader has a feeling of a miracle, a dream come true. Despite all the originality of what is happening, the plot of the story is not fantastic. There are no wizards, fairies, or elves in Scarlet Sails. The reader is presented with a completely ordinary, unadorned reality: poor people forced to fight for their existence, injustice and meanness. Nevertheless, it is precisely for its realism and lack of fantasy that this work is so attractive.
The author makes it clear that a person himself creates his dreams, he believes in them and he himself embodies them into reality. It makes no sense to wait for the intervention of some otherworldly forces - fairies, wizards, etc. To understand that a dream belongs only to a person and only a person decides how to dispose of it, you need to trace the entire chain of creating and implementing a dream.
Old Egle created a beautiful legend, apparently to please a little girl. Assol believed in this legend and cannot even imagine that the prophecy will not come true. Gray, falling in love with a beautiful stranger, makes her dream come true. As a result, an absurd, divorced from life fantasy becomes part of reality. And this fantasy was embodied not by creatures endowed with supernatural abilities, but by the most ordinary people.
Faith in a miracle
A dream, according to the author, is the meaning of life. Only she is able to save a person from the daily gray routine. But a dream can become a big disappointment for someone who is inactive and for someone who is waiting for the embodiment of their fantasies from outside, because help from “above” can never be expected.
Gray would never have become a captain by staying in his parent's castle. The dream must turn into a goal, and the goal, in turn, into energetic action. Assol did not have the opportunity to take any action to achieve his goal. But she had the most important thing, something that, perhaps, is more important than action - faith.
The symbolic meaning of the title of A. Green's story "Scarlet Sails"
“When the colors of life fade, I take Green. I open it on any page, so in the spring they wipe the glass in the house. Everything becomes light, bright, everything mysteriously excites again, as in childhood. Greene is one of the few who should be in the first aid kit against heart fat and fatigue. With him you can go to the Arctic and virgin lands, go on a date. He is poetic, he is courageous.” This is how the writer Daniil Granin expressed the rich power of Green's influence on the reader.
Thinking about Alexander Grin, we first of all remember his fairy tale story "Scarlet Sails". This fabulous extravaganza has become a symbol of his work. She absorbed all the best that is in other works of Green: a beautiful dream and a true reality, love for a person and faith in his strength, hope for the best and love for the beautiful.
The title of the story is ambiguous. In order for a sailing ship to move, the wind must fill its sails. And a person's life should be filled with deep content, then it makes sense. If life is boring and bleak, its content becomes a dream. A dream can remain a beautiful unrealizable fairy tale. But it can come true.
Green's "Scarlet Sails" is a symbol of a dream that has become a reality. Assol's dream "came to life" because the girl "knew how to love, as her father taught, knew how to wait in spite of everything." And she was able to maintain her faith in beauty, living among people who "did not know how to tell fairy tales and sing songs."
The purple color of silk, chosen by Gray for the sails of the Secret, became the color of joy and beauty, which was so lacking in Caperna.
A white sailboat under purple sails is a symbol of love and new life for Assol, who waited for her happiness.
Green's "Scarlet Sails" is also a statement of the right way to achieve happiness: "do miracles with your own hands." So thought Captain Gray, who fulfilled the dream of a girl he did not know. So the sailor Longren thought that he once made a toy yacht with purple sails, which brought happiness to his daughter.
The fairy tale "Scarlet Sails" is the brightest, life-affirming work of the famous Russian writer A. S. Green. The idea of the story arose from the author on the basis of the real story about the red sails known to him, which, according to him, he followed with enthusiasm. As the writer himself admitted, he “was captivated by the idea of intervening in this story, so that it would end as if written by me, and then, then I would describe it ...”.
Confidence in the need to create such a work was strengthened when one day, passing by showcases with toys, Green saw a beautiful ship there, which stood out against the background of other objects with its sails, which seemed bright red under the rays of sunlight. The story was not created immediately. The author postponed his book for a while, as he thought over for a long time "unusual circumstances in which something decisive had to happen", arising from "some long-term misfortune or expectation, resolved by a ship with red sails." But over time, all the circumstances were thought out, and the real story turned into a wonderful fairy tale, affirming the power of pure love and faith in a dream.
According to the original plan of A. S. Green, the action was to take place during the revolution in cold and hungry Petrograd. And he called his story "Red Sails": after all, red is a traditional symbol of revolution. But later, reality and fantasy changed places, the action was transferred to the invented Caperna (a name consonant with the New Testament Capernaum), symbolizing human emptiness, stupidity and lack of spirituality. The author came up with ports and seas and put a NEW meaning into his work. Now it was called "Scarlet Sails", the writer excluded from it the political meaning of red. Instead, scarlet appeared - "the color of wine, roses, dawn, ruby, healthy lips, blood and small tangerines, the skin of which smells so seductively of pungent volatile oil, this color - in its many shades - is always cheerful and accurate." As you can see, A. Green's favorite color was not chosen by chance: “False or vague interpretations will not stick to him. The feeling of joy it evokes is like a full breath in the midst of a lush garden.”
The very name of the story "Scarlet Sails", thus, has become deeply symbolic. The first thing we imagine when we hear it is the approach, the announcement of something joyful, magical, beautiful. We begin to firmly believe in this magic, in this inevitable happiness. And the plot of the work with each page convinces us more and more of the truth of this faith. We see that everything fabulous, lofty, beautiful, bright, everything that sometimes seems unrealizable, “essentially is just as feasible and possible as a country walk.” Realizing this, Green himself wrote: “I understood one truth. It is to do miracles with your own hands...” Having decorated reality with his fantasies, bringing it closer to a fairy tale, the author, nevertheless, left it extraordinarily real, thereby urging readers to always believe in scarlet sails.
And readers believed: scarlet sails became a symbol, an anthem of the generation of the 60-70s of the XX century. On long voyages, near forest fires, in geologists' tents, in student groups, they composed and sang songs with familiar names and names of cities. Today's readers also believe, because, having become acquainted with this work and its heroes, it is impossible not to be imbued with bright and good hopes.
Thus, having created his story and giving it such a bright name, Alexander Grin created an undying symbol that lives in the minds of people and will probably continue to live for many more centuries. Because no matter how the world changes, people are so arranged that they must believe in a dream - bright, pure, beautiful - believe that, no matter how unrealistic their desires may seem, they will certainly come true. “You write in such a way that everything is visible,” said M. Slonimsky, to whom A. S. Grin was the first to read his story. And indeed, in the work everything is so obvious and real that we see, feel, feel everything that happens to its heroine. Perhaps that is why every girl is waiting for her handsome prince, who will certainly sail for her on a ship with scarlet sails. And on this ship her true happiness will sail to her. Of course, the ship, the sails, and the prince are figurative symbols. Perhaps the handsome prince is walking down the street next to us - it is only important that we meet him so that he sees us. And loved. And he wanted, like Gray, to fulfill our dream.
