In literary criticism, "The Exchange" has traditionally been viewed as a work that raises acute social and moral issues in terms of denunciation of the bourgeoisie, consumer attitude to life, betrayal of high ideals (science), and so on. Members of the Lukyanov family acted as negative characters, and Dmitriev's mother, sister and other relatives were portrayed as the moral principle that opposes them. Dmitriev himself was regarded as a type of opportunist who gradually, without noticing it, turned into a tradesman, a consumer, gradually betraying moral ideals, “every day, in the words of his mother, making his “exchange””. However, it seems that such a problem is unlikely to fully exhaust the content of the work. The author's position, however, was not so unambiguous. As a truthful artist, Trifonov, depicting life, captured in the story not only the Dmitriev-Lukyanov family conflicts, but also the social and moral atmosphere of the time, the contradictions of contemporary reality.
First of all, this is reflected in the depiction of the Dmitriev family and that social stratum that is commonly called the "intelligentsia". With all the claims to the "highly spiritual interests" of the representatives of this layer, depicted by Trifonov, it is impossible not to notice their extreme impracticality, unsuitability and isolation from life. Their existence is largely illusory, a “contemptible” reality, in which efforts must be made not only to “smartly” talk about Picasso and other “not accessible to everyone” art, but also to fill up sewer pits, and also to keep clean and the order of their own dwelling, they do not like it. The fact that "talks about Picasso" in the village take place in an atmosphere of terrible stench coming from a broken sewer, which no one repairs, is largely symbolic. This resonates, for example, with Bulgakov's ideas: the arguments of Professor Preobrazhensky from The Heart of a Dog about the nature of devastation and about "singing in a choir" instead of fulfilling one's direct duties. At the same time, representatives of this “stratum” do not consider it shameful (unlike Lukyanov the father, for example) to live at someone else’s expense, freely enjoy the fruits of the work of other people and at the same time despise them for their “low interests” (for example, po-selok is a privileged place where former regional partisans live, and now for the most part their “aesthetic” and posing as hereditary aristocracy descendants who do not personally deserve the benefits they enjoy; especially the Dmitrievs, who settled down to the village under patronage, without having any, even indirect, rights to this). The little details that Trifonov provides in abundance are very eloquent. This is the study of English by Ksenia Fedorovna in order to “read detectives in the original” (at the same time, Lena, a professional translator, makes fun of her mother-in-law’s pronunciation, I think, not least because she is offended by the very fact that her sphere professional interests for someone is the subject of idle curiosity and attempts at least to fill their leisure time with something). This is the desire to "help half-familiar people", which, as psychologists rightly point out, is often a kind of screen, an excuse for a cruel attitude towards one's neighbors. At the same time, the son of Ksenia Fedorovna with his wife and child huddle in a small room in a communal apartment, but the exchange becomes a whole problem for Dmitrieva, although otherwise, after her death, the room will go to the state (under the Soviet regime, there was no private ownership of housing, everything belonged to the state, and people, as it were, rented the area from him for a fee). As a result, the exchange nevertheless takes place, the only fruit of Ksenia Fedorovna's efforts is that she, dying, manages to instill in her son a sense of guilt for her own death (refusal to exchange living space is indicative, but then after 3 days - consent, t (i.e., an ostentatious sacrifice whose sole purpose was to instill in the son precisely this feeling of guilt). In the light of the foregoing, the accusation of hypocrisy thrown by Lena to her mother-in-law does not look so groundless.
"Chekhovian" intonations in the description of the life of the Dmitriev family are clearly felt. We seem to see the same “cherry orchard”, endlessly talking about something “otherworldly” of all these Ranevskys, Gaevs, Trigorins, Arkadins and others like them, who are in idleness that corrodes the soul, living in debt and making unhappy everyone who inadvertently within their reach.
As historians are fond of saying, history tends to repeat itself twice, once as a tragedy and once as a farce. If there was still a lot of tragedy in the discord of Chekhov's characters with life, then in the life of the "aristocracy" of new days it is completely absent. Spiritual emptiness appears before us in its purest form, completely devoid of the exquisite aura of suffering in the decadence style.
The socio-psychological nature of this kind of people is also told by another work by Trifonov - “The House on the Embankment”.
Yuri Trifonov is the son of a professional revolutionary. In 1937, my father was arrested. And my son graduated from the university. His first novel, The Students, won the Stalin Prize. It was a traditional novel for its time about a cheerful, eventful and interesting life.
Then Trifonov breaks his path, leaves for the construction of the Kairakkum Canal, and the heroes of his novels become extraordinary people and at the same time completely ordinary: working, receiving wages, quarreling with each other ... The story "Exchange" is the brightest of the "Moscow cycle". Its content is quite simple. Victor Dmitriev, his wife Lena, their daughter live separately from his mother. The mother-in-law considers Lenochka a bourgeois.
Eternal conflict: mother is unhappy with the choice of her son. But the conflict of the work is different. The mother is seriously ill, and Lenochka demands from her husband that he beg the mother to move in.
You need to change so that the apartment does not disappear. But how do you tell your mother? Victor comes to the conclusion that life is "vile".
His mental anguish is so strong that his heart can not stand it, he himself ends up in the hospital. After the illness, “he somehow immediately passed, turned gray. Not yet an old man, but already elderly, with limp cheeks uncle ... ". Dmitriev's grandfather said that life got worse because people lost their great ideals. People living in momentary problems, betraying themselves and loved ones, lose much more than they acquire material values. They seem to exchange the treasures of their souls for coppers.
And this process of spiritual decay is irreversible. The exchange has taken place. The Dmitrievs increased their living space. But another "exchange" occurs in their lives. They will never be able to forget the evil that they inflicted on Ksenia Fedorovna throughout all the years of their family life.
And her last days were not calm, she, of course, guessed the reasons for such a hasty exchange of apartments. Isn't that why it's so hard for Victor, and he grew old before his time? Trifonov perfectly conveys the mental anguish of the characters.
They are right, a thousand times right, but why is it so unbearable to look into each other's eyes? Victor and Lenochka are not to blame for the death of Xenia Feodorovna. Here are more subtle matters and plans. Now the story has a slightly different tone. Are these people the only ones to blame for their callousness, isn't the state to blame for that situation? The more meaningful the work, the more interesting it is.
In the course of the story, the grandfather, an old revolutionary, says to Victor, “You are not a bad person. But not amazing either.” Dmitriev does not have any lofty idea that inspires his life, there is no passion for any business.
No, which turns out to be very important in this case, and Dmitriev's will power cannot resist the pressure of Lena's wife, who is striving to obtain life's blessings at any cost. At times he protests, makes scandals, but only to clear his conscience, because he almost always capitulates in the end and does as Lena wants. Dmitriev's wife has long been putting her own prosperity at the forefront.
And she knows that her husband will be an obedient tool in achieving her goals: "... She spoke as if everything was predetermined and as if it was clear to him, Dmitriev, that everything was predetermined, and they understand each other without words." Regarding people like Lena, Trifonov said in an interview with critic A. Bocharov: “Egoism is that in humanity that is most difficult to defeat.” And at the same time, the writer is far from sure whether it is possible in principle to completely defeat human egoism, or whether it would not be more reasonable to try to introduce it into some kind of moral limits, to set certain boundaries for it. For example, such: the desire of each person to satisfy their own needs is legitimate and fair as long as it does not harm other people.
After all, egoism is one of the most powerful factors in the development of man and society, and this cannot be ignored. Let us recall that Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky wrote about “reasonable egoism” with sympathy and almost as an ideal of behavior in the novel What Is To Be Done? The trouble, however, is that it is very difficult in real life to find the line that separates "reasonable egoism" from "unreasonable." Trifonov emphasized in the interview mentioned above: "Egoism disappears wherever an idea arises." Dmitriev and Lena do not have such an idea, so selfishness becomes their only moral value.
But this idea and the comforts of those who oppose them do not exist - Ksenia Feodorovna, Victor's sister Laura, cousin of the protagonist Marina ... And it is no coincidence that in a conversation with another critic, L. Anninsky, the writer objected to him: “You pretended that I I idolize the Dmitrievs (meaning all representatives of this family, except for Viktor Georgievich. - B.S.), and I sneer at them.
The Dmitrievs, unlike the Lena family, the Lukyanovs, are not very adapted to life, they do not know how to benefit for themselves either at work or at home. They do not know how and do not want to live at the expense of others.
However, Dmitriev's mother and his family are by no means ideal people. They are characterized by one very disturbing vice of Trifonov - intolerance (it is no coincidence that this is how the writer called his novel about the People's Will Zhelyabov - "Intolerance"). Ksenia Fedorovna calls Lena a petty bourgeois, and she calls her a hypocrite. Dmitriev's mother can hardly be rightly considered a hypocrite, but the inability to accept and understand people with different behavioral attitudes makes her difficult to communicate, and this type of people is not viable in the long run.
Grandfather Dmitriev was still inspired by the revolutionary idea. For subsequent generations, it has greatly faded due to comparison with the post-revolutionary reality, which is very far from ideal. And Trifonov understands that in the late 1960s, when Exchange was written, this idea was already dead, and the Dmitrievs had nothing new.
This is the tragedy of the situation. On the one hand, the purchasers of the Lukyanovs, who know how to work well (the fact that Lena is valued at work is emphasized in the story), know how to equip life, but they don’t think about anything other than that. On the other hand, the Dmitrievs, who still retain the inertia of intellectual decency, but with time are losing it more and more, not supported by the idea. The same Viktor Georgievich has already “became a fool” - probably, in the new generation this process will accelerate. The only hope is that the main character will awaken a conscience. Still, the death of his mother caused him some kind of moral shock, with which, apparently, Dmitriev's physical ailment was also connected.
However, there is little chance of his moral revival. The worm of consumerism has already deeply drained his soul, and weakness of will prevents him from taking decisive steps towards fundamental changes in his life. And not without reason, in the last lines of the story, the author reports that he learned the whole story from Viktor Georgievich himself, who now looks like a sick man, crushed by life. The exchange of moral values for material ones, which took place in his soul, led to a sad result. A reverse exchange is hardly possible for Dmitriev.
Composition based on the novel by Yuri Trifonov "Exchange"
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In Yuri Trifonov's story "The Exchange", two families of Dmitrievs and Lukyanovs are depicted, who became related due to the marriage of two representatives of their young generation - Victor and Lena. To a certain extent, these two families are directly opposed to each other. The author does not show their direct confrontation, which is expressed indirectly through numerous comparisons, frictions and conflicts in the relations of these families. Thus, the Dmitriev family differs from the Lukyanovs in its long-standing roots and the presence of several generations in this family name. It is tradition that ensures the continuity of moral values and ethical principles that have developed in this family. The moral stability of the members of the Dmitriev family is due to the transfer of these values from generation to generation.
However, these values are gradually leaving him and being replaced by others that are opposite to them. Therefore, the image of Fyodor Nikolaevich's grandfather, who appears in the story as a kind of ancient "monster", is extremely important for us, since many fateful historical events fell to his lot. But at the same time, he remains a real historical figure, making it possible to trace the process of the Dmitriev family losing those qualities, life principles that distinguished their house from others. Grandfather embodies the best qualities of the Dmitriev family, which once distinguished all representatives of this family - intelligence, tact, good manners, adherence to principles.
Ksenia Fedorovna, the daughter of Fyodor Nikolaevich, is completely different from her father. She is characterized by excessive pride, feigned intelligence, rejection of his life principles (for example, this is manifested in the scene of a dispute with her father about contempt). It appears such a trait as "prudence", that is, the desire to look better than what it really is. Despite the fact that Ksenia Fedorovna strives to play the role of an ideal mother, she is far from being a positive hero, since negative qualities are equally present in her. After a while, we learn that Ksenia Fedorovna is not at all as intelligent and disinterested as she wants to seem. But, despite her shortcomings, she fully realizes herself as a loving mother. She treats her only son with a feeling of trembling love, pities him, worries about him, perhaps even blames herself for his unrealized opportunities. In his youth, Victor drew superbly, but this gift was not further developed. Ksenia Fedorovna, spiritually bound by love with her son, is also the guardian of the internal ties of the Dmitriev family.
Victor Dmitriev is finally separated and spiritually cut off from his grandfather, in relation to whom he has only "childish devotion". Hence the misunderstanding and alienation that arose in their last conversation, when Victor wanted to talk about Lena, and grandfather wanted to think about death. It is no coincidence that with the death of his grandfather, Dmitriev, more than ever, felt cut off from his home, family, loss of ties with people close to him. However, the origins of the process of Victor's spiritual alienation from his family, which took on an irreversible character with the death of his grandfather, should be sought from the moment of his marriage to Lena Lukyanova. The rapprochement of the two houses becomes the cause of endless quarrels and conflicts between families and turns into the final destruction of the Dmitriev family.
The Lukyanov clan is opposite to them both in origin and occupation. These are practical people "who know how to live", in contrast to the impractical and poorly adapted Dmitrievs. The author presents the Lukyanovs much narrower. They are deprived of a home, and, consequently, of rootedness, support and family ties in this life. In turn, the absence of family ties leads to the absence of spiritual ties in this Lukyanov family, where the feeling of love, family warmth and simple human participation are unfamiliar. Relations in this family are somehow uncomfortable, official business, not at all like home. Therefore, the two fundamental features of the Lukyanovs are not surprising - practicality and incredulity. For this family, a sense of duty replaces a sense of love. It is because of the feeling of his duty to the family that Ivan Vasilyevich financially equips his house and provides for his family, for which Vera Lazarevna feels for him a feeling comparable to dog devotion, since she herself "never worked and lived on Ivan Vasilyevich's dependency."
Lena Lukyanova is an absolute copy of her parents. On the one hand, she combined her father's sense of duty and responsibility to her family, and on the other, Vera Lazarevna's devotion to her husband and family. All this is complemented by the practicality inherent in the entire Lukyanov family. So, Lena tries to carry out a profitable apartment exchange during her mother-in-law's illness. However, all these "deals" are not something immoral for her. For the heroine, initially, only the concept of benefit is moral, because her main life principle is expediency. Finally, Lena's practicality reaches its highest limit. This is confirmed by the "mental defect", "mental inaccuracy", "underdevelopment of feelings", noticed in it by Victor. In this lies her tactlessness in relation to close people (an apartment exchange started out of place, a quarrel that arose due to the movement of Lena's father's portrait in the Dmitrievs' house). In the house of the Dmitriev-Lukyanovs there is no love and family warmth. The daughter of Lena and Victor, Natasha, does not see affection, because for her mother the "measurement of parental love" is an English special school. Hence the constant falsehood, insincerity in relations between members of this family. In Lena's mind, the material replaces the spiritual. The proof of this is the fact that the author never mentions any of her spiritual qualities, talents, reducing everything exclusively to the material. On the other hand, Lena is much more viable than her husband, she is morally stronger and more courageous than him. The situation of the merger of two families, the combination of spiritual principles and practicality, shown by Trifonov, leads to the victory of the latter. Victor finds himself crushed as a person by his wife and, in the end, "sucks".
The story "Exchange" begins at a tragic moment in the hero's life - the fatal illness of the mother and the apartment exchange started in this connection. Thus, the author puts his hero before a choice, since it is in such a situation that the true essence of a person is manifested. Subsequently, it turns out that Viktor Dmitriev is a weak-willed person, constantly making worldly compromises. He seeks to get away from the decision, from responsibility and the desire to preserve the usual order of things at all costs. The cost of choosing Victor is extremely bitter. For the sake of material wealth and a well-equipped life, he loses his mother. But the worst thing is that Victor does not blame himself either for the death of his mother or for breaking spiritual ties with his family. He lays all the blame on the confluence of circumstances that he was never able to overcome, on the irresistible "lukianization". At the end of the story, Victor bitterly admits that he "really does not need anything", that he is only looking for peace.
From that moment on, his rapid "lukyanization" begins. Victor finally loses the spiritual qualities and moral education that were originally inherent in the Dmitrievs' house. Gradually, he turns into a cold, mentally callous person, living in self-deception and taking everything for granted, while his youthful aspirations and real, sincere dreams turn into inaccessible dreams. So the hero dies spiritually, degrades as a person and loses family ties.
An equally important semantic load is the image of Tanya, who embodies normal human connections, relationships and sincere love. She lives according to a completely different system of moral values, according to which it is impossible for her to live with an unloved person, even if he loves her. In turn, this man who loves her quietly leaves, allowing Tanya to live her life. This is true love - the desire for good and happiness for a loved one. Despite all the misfortunes that befell her, Tanya managed to preserve her spiritual world. Largely due to her inner integrity, strong moral principles and spiritual strength, she managed to survive in this life. Thanks to these qualities, Tanya is much stronger and stronger than Victor. Her "exchange" turned out to be much more honest than Dmitriev's material "exchange", since it was carried out in accordance with feelings and at the call of the heart.
“You have already exchanged, Vitya. The exchange has taken place,” is the dramatic finale of the “exchange” put into the mouth of the mother of Viktor Dmitriev, who exchanged the way of life, moral values and life principles of the Dmitriev family for the practical way of life of the Lukyanovs. Thus, the exchange that took place is not so much a material transaction as a spiritual and psychological situation.
The general leitmotif of Yuri Trifonov's story "The Exchange" is reflections on the ever-decreasing spiritual relations between people and the rapidly thinning human ties. From this follows the main problem of the individual - the lack of spiritual ties with other people and, in particular, with loved ones. According to the author, relationships within the family are more dependent on spiritual closeness, on the depth of mutual understanding, and these are very difficult and subtle things that require the usual warmth and sensitivity. This is the tragedy of the Dmitriev-Lukyanov family. Without all these qualities, the family simply cannot exist. As a result, only the outer shell remains, destroyed inside and spiritually disunited.
In the 1950s and 1980s, the genre of so-called "urban" prose flourished. This literature primarily addressed the individual, the problems of everyday moral relations.
The culminating achievement of "urban" pro-se were the works of Yuri Trifonov. It was his story "The Exchange" that marked the beginning of the cycle of "urban" stories. In the "urban" stories, Trifonov wrote about love and family relationships, the most ordinary, but at the same time complex, about the clash of different characters, different life positions, about the problems, joys, anxieties, hopes of an ordinary person, about his life.
In the center of the story "The Exchange" is a rather typical, ordinary life situation, which nevertheless reveals very important moral problems that arise when it is resolved.
The main characters of the story are engineer Dmitriev, his wife Lena and Dmitrieva's mother Ksenia Fedorovna. They have a rather complicated relationship. Lena never loved her mother-in-law; moreover, the relationship between them "was minted in the form of ossified and enduring enmity." Previously, Dmitriev often started talking about moving in with his mother, an elderly and lonely woman. But Lena always violently protested against this, and gradually this topic arose less and less in the conversations of husband and wife, because Dmitriev understood that he could not break Lena's will. In addition, Ksenia Fedorovna became a kind of instrument of enmity in their family skirmishes. During quarrels, the name of Xenia Fedorovna was often heard, although it was not at all that she served as the beginning of the conflict. Dmitriev mentioned his mother when he wanted to accuse Lena of selfishness or callousness, and Lena talked about her, trying to put pressure on the patient or just sarcastically.
Speaking of this, Trifonov points to the flourishing of hostile, hostile relations where, it would seem, there should always be only mutual understanding, patience and love.
The main conflict of the story is connected with the severe illness of Xenia Fedorovna. Doctors suspect "the worst." This is where Lena takes the "bull by the horns". She decides to urgently settle the issue of the exchange, to move in with her mother-in-law. Her illness and, possibly, approaching death become for Dmitriev's wife a way to solve the housing problem. Lena does not think about the moral side of this enterprise. Hearing from his wife about her terrible idea, Dmitriev tries to look into her eyes. Perhaps he hopes to find there doubt, awkwardness, guilt, but he finds only determination. Dmitriev knew that his wife's "spiritual inaccuracy" was exacerbated "when Lena's other, strongest quality came into play: the ability to achieve one's own." The author notes that Lena "bit into her desires like a bulldog" and never retreated from them until they were realized.
Having done the most difficult thing - having said about her plans, Lena acts very methodically. As a subtle psychologist, she "licks" her husband's wound, seeks reconciliation with him. And he, suffering from lack of will, cannot, does not know how to resist it. He perfectly understands all the horror of what is happening, he is aware of the price of the exchange, but he does not find the strength in himself to somehow prevent Lena, just as he once did not find the strength to reconcile her with his mother.
The mission to tell about the upcoming exchange of Ksenia Fedorovna Lena, naturally, entrusted to her husband. This conversation is the most terrible, the most painful for Dmitriev. After the operation, which confirmed the “worst neck”, Ksenia Fedorovna felt better, she gained confidence that she was on the mend. To tell her about the exchange means to deprive her of the last hope for life, because this smart woman could not fail to guess the reason for such loyalty for many years of her daughter-in-law, who was at war with her. The realization of this becomes the most painful for Dmitriev. Lena easily draws up a conversation plan for her husband with Ksenia Fedorovna. "Get it all on me!" she advises. And Dmitriev seems to accept Lenin's condition. His mother is simple-hearted, and if he explains everything to her according to Lenin's plan, she may well believe in the selflessness of exchange. But Dmitriev is afraid of his sister Laura, who is "cunning," shrewd and dislikes Lena very much. Laura has long seen through her brother's wife and will immediately guess what intrigues are behind the idea of \u200b\u200bthe exchange. Laura believes that Dmitriev quietly betrayed her and her mother, “loked himself”, that is, he began to live according to the rules that Lena and her mother, Vera Lazarevna, rely on in life, which their father, Ivan Vasilievich, an enterprising man, once established in their family. , a "powerful" person. It was Laura who noticed Lena’s tactlessness at the very beginning of their family life with Dmitriev, when Lena, without hesitation, took all their best cups for herself, put a bucket near Ksenia Fedorovna’s room, and without hesitation took a portrait of her father-in-law with walls of the middle room and outweighed it in the entrance. Outwardly, these are just everyday little things, but behind them, as Laura managed to see, lies something more.
Lena's blasphemy is revealed especially vividly in the morning after the conversation with Dmitriev. She is in a bad mood because her mother, Vera Lazarevna, fell ill. Vera Lazarevna has cerebral spasms. Why not be sad? Of course, the reason. And no foreshadowing of the mother-in-law's death can compare with her grief. Lena is callous in soul and, moreover, selfish.
Not only Lena is endowed with egoism. Dmitriev's colleague Pasha Snitkin is also selfish. The question of his daughter's admission to a music school is much more important to him than the death of a person. Because, as the author emphasizes, the daughter is her own, dear, and a stranger dies.
Lena's inhumanity contrasts with the soulfulness of Dmitriev's former mistress, Tatyana, who, as Dmitriev realizes, "would probably be his best wife." The news of the exchange makes Tanya blush, because she understands everything perfectly, she enters into the position of Dmitriev, offers him a loan and shows all kinds of sympathy.
Lena is also indifferent to her own father. When he lies with a stroke, she only thinks that she has a ticket to Bulgaria, and calmly goes on vacation.
Ksenia Fedorovna herself is opposed to Lena, whom “friends love, colleagues respect, neighbors in the apartment and in the peacock dacha appreciate, because she is virtuous, compliant, ready to help and take part.”
Lena still gets her way. The sick woman agrees to the exchange. She dies soon after. Dmitriyev suffers a hypertensive crisis. The portrait of the hero, who yielded to his wife in this merciless deed, realizing the significance of his act and experiencing mental suffering because of this, changes dramatically at the end of the story. “Not an old man yet, but already elderly, with limp cheeks, an uncle,” this is how the narrator sees him. But the hero is only thirty-seven years old.
The word "exchange" in Trifonov's story takes on a broader meaning. It is not only about the exchange of housing, a “moral exchange” is being made, a “concession to dubious life values” is being made. “The exchange has taken place...,” Ksenia Fedorovna says to her son. - It was a long time ago".
