. "A slack young man", the son of Messrs. Prostakov. "Undergrowth" in the time of Fonvizin was called a young man of the nobility who did not have a written certificate of education issued by a teacher. Such a young man could neither marry nor enter the service.

Before starting work on The Undergrowth, Fonvizin spent a year and a half in France, where he became closely acquainted with the life of this country, studied the advanced doctrines of the Enlightenment, jurisprudence and philosophy.

The idea of ​​the play came to the writer after returning to Russia, which took place in 1778. Fonvizin completed work on the play in 1782, having spent about three years on it.

Biography

Mitrofanushka is the son of an unpleasant couple named Prostakovs. The hero's mother, a provincial noblewoman by birth, is an evil woman. He does what he wants, allows himself all sorts of atrocities in relation to serfs and yard servants. At the same time, he loves his son and tries to arrange him in life by marrying Sophia, a girl with a decent inheritance.

Characters of the comedy "Undergrowth"

Sophia herself is in love with a young officer named Milon. This is a kind and well-behaved girl who was educated, she has a guardian - an uncle who owns a large fortune. Prostakova has a brother named Taras Skotinin (this character is Mitrofanushka's uncle). Skotinin, a lover of pigs, also wants to marry Sofya because of the inheritance.

Mitrofanushka's father is a weak and weak-willed person, he is not educated, he cannot even read letters. He is under the heel of his wife and thinks only about how to please her. An authoritarian wife can easily beat Prostakov's father.

Mitrofanushka, like his parents, did not want to study, but sought to settle in life through marriage. The hero has teachers, including one former seminarian who teaches the hero to read and write from the Psalms, a retired sergeant who teaches arithmetic, and a former coachman, a German by birth and a noble smoker, posing as a scientist.

This rogue is hired to teach the hero French and some "sciences", but he does not fulfill his duties and only interferes with the work of other teachers. In fact, the mother is not at all concerned with the upbringing and education of the hero, but only follows the fashion trends in the society of that time. Mitrofanushka also has a nurse, who is called "Eremeevna".

Sophia is a distant relative of the Prostakov family. The girl grew up in Moscow and received a good upbringing, but after the death of her mother (her father died even earlier), she falls into the clutches of the Prostakovs. Those "keep an eye" on the estate belonging to Sophia, at the same time robbing the heroine. The idea to marry the girl to Mitrofanushka is born in Prostakova's head after a rich uncle appears on the horizon, who was considered dead, and at the same time a potential inheritance.

On the basis of the upcoming marriage, Mitrofanushka has a conflict with his uncle, Taras Skotinin, who also thinks of marrying Sophia in order to get his hands on the pigs in the villages belonging to the girl.

Sophia, meanwhile, meets with her longtime lover, the young officer Milon, and the rich uncle comes to pick up his niece from the Prostakovs. Prostakova is trying to flatter Uncle Sophia so that he agrees to Mitrofanushka's marriage to a girl. Uncle, however, is determined to take Sophia to Moscow the very next morning.

The uncle gives the girl the opportunity to choose the groom herself, and she gives her hand to Milon, whom she knew in her mother's house. Upon learning of this, Mitrofanushka's mother plots. The Prostakovs' people are trying to steal Sophia in order to marry the girl with Mitrofanushka by force. Milon catches this scene and prevents the assassination attempt, after which the estate and villages of the Prostakovs are confiscated from them by government decree. At the end of the idler, Mitrofanushka is sent to the service.

Such a way of life and the lack of a sensible education were common among the children of the provincial nobility in those years, so Mitrofanushka is depicted in the play not as a special case of unsuccessful upbringing, but as an image of the era. The appearance of the hero is not directly described in the play, but it can be assumed that Mitrofanushka looked like a typical representative of the provincial noble youth of that time.

The hero is not inclined to constructive activities, study, work and any meaningful activities. Chasing pigeons, messing around, overeating, in a word, somehow killing time in simple entertainment - these are the life goals of Mitrofanushka, and the mother in every possible way encourages such behavior of the hero.

The characterization of the hero looks unpleasant - Mitrofanushka is greedy and stingy, rude, prone to intrigue, deceit and fraud, like her mother. Prostakova loves her son, despite her inherent cruelty to other people, Mitrofanushka betrayed her mother, pushed her away when her mother tried to find support from the hero.

Mitrofanushka is essentially an egoist, thinking exclusively about his own comfort, not being interested in his relatives. The hero’s attitude to learning is quite unambiguous - Mitrofanushka calls one of the teachers a “garrison rat”, any attempts to give the young man at least some knowledge run into a complete unwillingness to learn.

• Fonvizin wrote the play "Undergrowth" in the village of Strelino near Moscow.
• After the play became popular, the word "undergrowth" became widespread in colloquial speech, and the name Mitrofanushka became associated with the image of an ignorant person and an ignoramus.
• A kind of literary game associated with the play. The magazine published a letter allegedly written by Sophia, the heroine of the play, where she complained about her lover Milon, a young officer who in the play prevented the kidnapping of the heroine. He allegedly married her, and then cheated with some "contemptuous woman." In a response letter, Starodum, the heroine's uncle, consoles her. In such a funny way, the play received a plot continuation.

The play "Undergrowth"

• In the play, Sophia reads a book by a real-life author, the 18th-century French educator and theologian Francois Fenelon, who wrote the treatise On the Education of Girls. Starodum, Sophia's uncle, mentions the famous novel of that time by this author, The Adventures of Telemachus.
• Fonvizin had to spend several months to achieve the production. They did not want to stage the play either in Moscow or in St. Petersburg, the censors were frightened by the boldness of the remarks that the author allowed himself through the mouths of the characters. Volny was the first to decide to stage the play. Russian Theater In Petersburg. The success of the first production was deafening - "the audience applauded the play by throwing wallets." After that, the play was staged many times, including in Moscow. The popularity of the comedy "Undergrowth" is evidenced by the appearance of a large number of amateur and student productions.

• The role of Mrs. Prostakova was played by the writer, performing in student performances while studying at the Nizhyn gymnasium.
• The image of Mitrofanushka is compared with - a young officer and a nobleman from Pushkin's story " Captain's daughter". Both heroes indulged in laziness and idleness in their youth, both got bad teachers who taught the heroes nothing, but Grinev, unlike Mitrofanushka, is shown as an honest and good-natured person.

Quotes

“And I, uncle, almost did not have supper at all. Three slices of corned beef, yes hearth, I don’t remember, five, I don’t remember, six.

“The whole night such rubbish climbed into my eyes.<...>then you, mother, then father.

"I don't want to study, I want to get married."

“I myself, mother, am not a fan of smart girls. Your brother is always better."

“Door, which door? This? Adjective. Because it is attached to its place. Over there, by the closet, the door has not been hung for six weeks: so that one is still a noun.

“As soon as I start to fall asleep, then I see that you, mother, deign to beat the father.”

» Fonvizin created in a rather difficult time for Russia. At that moment, Catherine II sat on the throne. The empress herself described this period in the history of the country's development in her diaries very negatively. She noted that she came to power in a state in which laws were guided only in the rarest cases and, as a rule, if they favored some noble person.

Already on the basis of this statement, one can understand that the spiritual life of Russian society of this period was in decline. In his work, Fonvizin tried to draw the attention of readers precisely to the problem of educating the younger generation, on which depends what the future of the whole country will be.

During the period described in the comedy, a decree was issued according to which all young nobles under the age of eighteen were required to receive an education. Otherwise, they were assigned to military service to Her Imperial Majesty.

The heroine of the comedy Prostakova, a domineering and aggressive woman, is used to solving everything herself. She leads her family: her husband is afraid to take a step without her command, and her son, whom she called Mitrofan, which means "close to the mother," was raised as an absolute lazy and ignorant.

The mother decides everything for him, she is afraid of his independence and is always ready to be there. For her, the main thing is that Mitrofan was well. But since she raised him as a lazy person, he has a negative attitude towards education, which requires the expenditure of some effort and time, and does not receive it of his own free will.

The fear of losing her son because of a state decree throws her mother to an undesirable step herself - to hire teachers for Mitrofan.

At first, she approaches this issue decisively, because in addition to fear, she also has a feeling of envy. She does not want to be worse than others, and some noble children have been studying with teachers for a long time. She imagines that her son will go to Petersburg and will seem there to be an ignoramus among the clever ones. This picture frightens her, because the son will thus make fun of her. Therefore, Prostakova does not skimp on money and hires several teachers at once.

The most not indifferent of them can be called a retired soldier Pafnutiy Tsyfirkin, who taught underage arithmetic. His speech is full of military terms, he is constantly engaged in calculations. He is hardworking, he notes that he does not like to sit idle. He is responsible and wants to teach Mitrofan his subject, but he constantly experiences harassment from the student's mother.

She suffers, believing that her beloved son will be exhausted from the lessons and thus creates a reason for interrupting the lesson ahead of time. Yes, and Mitrofanushka himself evades classes and calls Tsyfirkin names. The teacher even refused to take money at the end for the classes, because the "stump", as he called his student, he could not teach anything.

Grammar for Mitrofan is taught by the half-educated seminarian Kuteikin. He considers himself very smart, says that he comes from a scientific family and quit only fearing excessive wisdom. He is a greedy person. The main thing for him is to obtain material benefits, and not to provide true knowledge to the student. Mitrofan often misses his classes.

The most unlucky teacher turned out to be the German Vralman, who was hired to teach Mitrofan French and other sciences. He cannot be tolerated by other teachers. But in the family he took root: he eats with the Prostakovs at the same table, and gets the most. And all because Prostakova is pleased, because this teacher does not captivate her son at all.

Vralman believes that Mitrofan does not need all the sciences, he only needs to avoid communicating with smart people and to be able to show oneself favorably in the world. It is clear that Vralman, who turned out to be a former groom, did not teach the undergrowth either French or other sciences.

Thus, Prostakova hired teachers not at all so that Mitrofan would learn the sciences. She did this so that her son could always be with her and in every possible way contributes to this with his behavior.

For all three reasons: negligence, lack of motivation, and bad teachers. Of course, "why do you need to know, but what are the cabbies for," - says the prostakov, - where they need to go. the same is true of other sciences.

Answer posted by: Guest

but, having coped with one test, the hero immediately faces another - in the garrison he falls into the hands of pirates. but here, too, Jim does not lose his composure and self-respect. he is contemptuously silent, not answering john silver's questions, and only trying to find out what was done to his friends. the hero does not believe for a second that they have betrayed him, and does not want to betray them for anything:

Answer posted by: Guest

the following chapters tell of Chichikov's visit to the estates of Sobakevich, Korobochka, and Plyushkin. Chichikov gets to Nastasya Petrovna's box by accident, having gone astray. she is a rather caring hostess, but Chichikov calls her a clubhead, gets angry, loses patience, but dead Souls buys, especially since for her it is just a commodity. on the estate of Sobakevich, he meets with a rude, base owner, who cares only about food. at the same time, Sobakevich is a practical owner, it even occurs to him to praise this peculiar product. the last landowner visited by Chichikov is Plyushkin. either a woman or a man, Pavel Ivanovich says about him. and the essence of his life is stinginess, crossing all boundaries. sealing wax, feathers, toothpicks, rusty buckets are everywhere in the house - everything that the owner sees, the owner brings into the house. N.V. Gogol called this hero a hole in humanity. however, what is Chichikov himself? he is the son of an impoverished landowner, he learned one thing from childhood: take care of a penny, it will never betray you. this is what Chichikov has been doing all his life. and for this he visits the city n, having somewhere found out that the board of trustees is buying up peasant souls, not being interested in whether the peasants are alive - if there were documents for their presence, Pavel Ivanovich is going to sell several hundred dead souls to this institution.

Answer posted by: Guest

a. P. Chekhov is a recognized master of short stories. Chekhov is a subtle psychologist who reveals the inner world of a person with unique irony. despite the brevity, and maybe even her, he masterfully talks about the problems of happiness and love, hoarding and indifference. in every word from Chekhov's stories, his disgust for vulgarity and everyday life, a dreary petty-bourgeois life. he was accused of this, because not a single great work! but in the little story Chekhov can reveal the whole world, the world of the soul, the cosmos inside a person. only in some of his stories is a complete fusion of a person with the world, harmony and love achieved.

The composition of Kuznetsova Inga “Why Mitrofanushka became undersized”

Why did Mitrofanushka become undersized

I read the comedy by D.I. Fonvizin "Undergrowth". She, written in 1781, remains to this day an unsurpassed masterpiece of Russian dramaturgy of the 18th century. The comedy clearly describes what laziness and extreme love of parents lead to. In the comedy, Mitrofan is a minor, an adult young man who obeys his mother in everything.
Mitrofan is an illiterate, ill-mannered young man who loves to eat deliciously. In the Prostakov family, the main one is Mrs. Prostakov, an imperious, uneducated, extremely flattering woman. She believes that people should respect her for being a noblewoman and it is not necessary for her to be an educated person. Mitrofan's father is timid, submissive, uneducated person. For him, as his wife said, it should be so.
Mitrofan's upbringing conditions were very good. He lived in a rich family, his parents doted on him, they allowed everything, fed him for slaughter, which sometimes made him feel sick. Teachers studied with him personally, came to the house, but this was of little use, since by the age of sixteen Mitrofan knew only a noun and an adjective.
Kuteikin and Tsyfirkin were not teachers by profession and, most likely, they simply could not properly present knowledge to Mitrofan. The second reason was Vralman - a big sucker, who always disrupted the classes of Kuteikin and Tsyfirkin. As soon as the lesson began, Vralman suddenly appeared from somewhere, waving his arms and shouting: “Ai, ai, ai! They want to kill a child! You are my mother!" To which Prostakova finished the lesson and dismissed the teachers. Society is no less to blame for the illiteracy of the population, for the fact that it could not interest people in studying and could not show more attention to people like Mitrofanushka. That is why they do not have hardening, they are not ready for life in society. Most likely, he will simply repeat the life of his father, but this is not a fact; not all women are tolerant and enduring, and no woman needs a husband who can't do anything. Who is to blame for the fact that there are more and more people like Mitrofan? Upbringing, parents, the society that raised such people. And, of course, the man himself. If he does not want to study, no one will force him.

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