Matryona's story is based on. Matrenin dvor - analysis and plot of the work
The surname of Solzhenitsyn today is associated exclusively with his novel "The Gulag Archipelago" and its scandalous fame. However, he began his career as a writer as a talented short story writer, depicting in his stories the fate of ordinary Russian people of the middle of the twentieth century. The story "Matryonin's Dvor" is the most striking example of Solzhenitsyn's early work, which reflects his best writing talents. The many-wise Lytrecon offers you an analysis of it.
The history of writing the story "Matrenin's Dvor" is a series of interesting facts:
- The story is based on Solzhenitsyn's memories of his life after returning from the labor camp, when he lived for some time in the village of Maltsevo, in the house of the peasant woman Matryona Zakharova. She became the prototype of the main character.
- Work on the work began in the summer of 1959 in the Crimea, and was completed in the same year. The publication was supposed to take place in the Novy Mir magazine, but the work passed the editorial commission only the second time, thanks to the help of the editor A.T. Tvardovsky.
- The censors did not want to let the story go into print with the title "A village is not worth a righteous man" (this was the first title of Solzhenitsyn's work). They saw it as an unacceptable religious connotation. Under pressure from the editors, the author changed the title to neutral.
- "Matrenin's Dvor" became Solzhenitsyn's second work after the book "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." It gave rise to many controversies and disagreements, and after the emigration of the author, it was completely banned, like all the books of the dissident writer.
- Readers saw the story only in 1989, during the Perestroika era, when a new principle of the USSR's policy came into force - glasnost.
Direction and genre
The story "Matryonin Dvor" was written within the framework. The writer strives for a reliable depiction of the surrounding reality. The images he created, their words and actions breathe with authenticity and naturalism. The reader may believe that the events described in the story could have actually happened.
The genre of this work can be defined as a story. The narrative covers a short period of time and includes a minimum number of characters. The problem is local in nature and does not affect the world as a whole. The absence of any specifics only emphasizes the typicality of the events shown.
The meaning of the name
Initially, Solzhenitsyn gave his story the title "A village is not worth a righteous man", which emphasized the main idea of the writer about the highly spiritual protagonist, who selflessly sacrifices herself for the sake of those around her, and this holds the people bitter by poverty together.
However, in the future, in order to avoid Soviet censorship, Tvardovsky advised the writer to replace the title with a less provocative one, which was done. “Matryona's Dvor” is both a reflection of the denouement of the work (the death of the heroine and the division of her property), and an indication of the main theme of the book - the life of a righteous woman in a village exhausted by wars and a predatory policy of power.
Composition and conflict
The story is divided into three chapters.
- The first chapter is devoted to the exposition: the author introduces us to his hero and tells us about Matryona herself.
- In the second chapter, the plot takes place, when the main conflict of the work is exposed, as well as the climax, when the conflict reaches its highest point.
- The third chapter is reserved for the finale, in which all the storylines logically end.
The conflict in the work is of a local nature between the righteous old woman Matryona and those around who use her kindness for their own purposes. However, the artistic features of the story create a sense of the typicality of this situation. Thus, Solzhenitsyn gives this conflict an all-Russian philosophical character. People have become hardened because of the unbearable living conditions, and only a few are able to retain kindness and responsiveness in themselves.
The bottom line: about what?
The story begins with the narrator, having spent ten years in exile in a labor camp, settles in the village of Torfoprodukt, in the house of Matryona Vasilyevna Grigorieva.
Gradually, the main character learns the whole story of Matryona's life, about her unsuccessful marriage, about the death of her children and her husband, about her conflict with her ex-fiancé, Thaddeus, about all the difficulties she had to go through. The narrator is imbued with respect for the old woman, seeing in her the support on which not only the local collective farm rests, but the whole of Russia.
At the end of the story, Matryona, under pressure from the family, Thaddeus gives him to her daughter Kira, whom she raised as her part of her hut bequeathed to her. However, helping to transport the dismantled room, he dies. Matryona's relatives are sad only for show, rejoicing at the opportunity to share the old woman's inheritance.
The main characters and their characteristics
The system of images in the story "Mother's Courtyard" is presented by the Many-Wise Litrecon in table format.
heroes of the story "mother yard" | characteristic |
matryona | an ordinary Russian peasant woman. a kind, sympathetic and obedient old woman who sacrificed herself for the sake of others all her life. after her fiancé, Thaddeus, disappeared without a trace, under pressure from the family she married her husband for his brother, Efim. unfortunately, all her children died before they even lived three months, so many began to consider the matryona "spoiled". Then the matryona took up Kira, the daughter of Thaddeus from her second marriage, and sincerely fell in love with him, bequeathing to her part of her hut. she worked for free and devoted her whole life to people, content with little. |
kira | simple country girl. before marriage, she was brought up by a matron and lived with her. the only person other than the narrator who sincerely grieves for the deceased. she is grateful to the old woman for her love and kindness, but she treats her family coldly, because she was simply given as a puppy to a strange woman. |
Thaddeus | a sixty-year-old Russian peasant. was the favorite groom of the matryona, but was captured during the war, and for a long time nothing was heard of him. after returning, he hated the matron because she did not wait for him. he married a second time to a woman whose name was also matryona. authoritarian head of the family, not shy about using brute force. a greedy person who seeks to accumulate wealth at any cost. |
the narrator Ignatich |
kind and sympathetic person, observant and educated, unlike the villagers. at first in the village he is not accepted because of his dubious past, but the matryona helps him to join the team and find a refuge. It is no coincidence that the author indicates the exact coordinates of the village, emphasizing that he was forbidden to approach the city at a distance of 100 km. this is a reflection of the author himself, even his patronymic is similar to the patronymic of the hero - Isaevich. |
Themes
The theme of the story "Mother's Yard" is universal and is food for thought for all generations of people:
- Soviet village life- Solzhenitsyn portrays the life of Soviet peasants as an ordeal. Rural life is hard, and the peasants themselves are mostly rude, and their morals are cruel. A person has to make great efforts to remain himself in such a hostile atmosphere. The narrator emphasizes that people are exhausted by eternal wars and reforms in agriculture. They have a slave position and no prospects.
- Kindness- Matryona is the focus of kindness in the story. The author sincerely admires the old woman. And, although in the end the kindness of the heroine is used by those around her for their own ends, Solzhenitsyn has no doubts that this is exactly how one should live - giving oneself everything for the good of society and the people, and not stuffing bags of wealth.
- Responsiveness- in the Soviet village, according to the writer, there is no place for responsiveness and sincerity. All peasants think only about their own survival and do not care about the needs of other people. Only Matryona was able to retain her kindness and desire to help others.
- Fate- Solzhenitsyn shows that often a person is not able to control his life and must submit to circumstances, like Matryona, but only he controls the human soul, and he always has a choice: to become angry with the world and become stale, or to preserve humanity in himself.
- Righteousness- Matryona, in the eyes of the writer, looks like the ideal of a righteous Russian person who gives all of himself for the good of other people, on which the entire Russian people and Russia rests. The theme of righteousness is revealed in the actions and thoughts of a woman, in her difficult fate. Whatever happens, she does not become discouraged or complain. She pity only others, but not herself, although fate does not spoil her with attention. This is the essence of the righteous man - to preserve the moral riches of the soul, having gone through all the trials of life, and to inspire people to moral exploits.
Problems
The problematic of the story "Matryona's yard" is a reflection of the problems of the development and formation of the USSR. The victorious revolution did not make the life of the people easier, but only made it more difficult:
- Indifference- the main problem in the story "Matrenin's yard". The villagers are indifferent to each other, they are indifferent to the fate of their fellow villagers. Everyone is trying to get hold of someone else's penny, earn extra money and live more satisfying. All people's worries are only about material success, and the spiritual side of life is indifferent to them as well as the fate of a neighbor.
- Poverty- Solzhenitsyn shows the unbearable conditions in which the Russian peasants live, on which the hard trials of collectivization and war have fallen. People survive, not live. They have neither medicine, nor education, nor the benefits of civilization. Even the customs of people are similar to medieval ones.
- Cruelty- peasant life in Solzhenitsyn's story is subordinated to purely practical interests. In the peasant life there is no place for kindness and weakness, he is cruel and rude. The kindness of the main character is perceived by the villagers as "eccentricity" or even lack of intelligence.
- Greed- the focus of greed in the story is Thaddeus, who is ready to dismantle her hut during Matryona's life in order to increase his wealth. Solzhenitsyn condemns this approach to life.
- War- the story mentions the war, which becomes another difficult test for the village and indirectly becomes the cause of the many years of contention between Matryona and Thaddeus. She cripples people's lives, plunders villages and ruins families, taking the best of the best.
- Death- Matryona's death is perceived by Solzhenitsyn as a catastrophe on a national scale, because with her that idealistic Christian Russia, which the writer admired so much, dies.
Main idea
In his story, Solzhenitsyn depicted the life of a Russian village in the middle of the twentieth century without any embellishment, with all its lack of spirituality and cruelty. This village is contrasted with Matryona, who lives the life of a real Christian. According to the writer, it is precisely at the expense of such selfless individuals as Matryona that the whole country lives, clogged with poverty, war and political miscalculations. The meaning of the story "Matryona's yard" is the priority of eternal Christian values (kindness, responsiveness, mercy, generosity) over the "worldly wisdom" of greedy and mired in everyday life of peasants. Freedom, equality and brotherhood could not replace simple truths in the minds of the people - the need for spiritual development and love for one's neighbor.
The main idea in the story "Matryona's Dvor" is the need for righteousness in everyday life. People cannot live without moral values - kindness, mercy, generosity and mutual assistance. Even if everyone loses them, there must be at least one guardian of the treasury of the soul who will remind everyone of the importance of moral qualities.
What does it teach?
The story "Matryona's Dvor" promotes Christian humility and self-sacrifice, which Matryona demonstrated. He shows that not everyone can do such a life, but he emphasizes that this is how a real person should live. This is the morality laid down by Solzhenitsyn.
Solzhenitsyn condemns the greed, rudeness and selfishness prevailing in the countryside, calls on people to be kinder to each other, to live in peace and harmony. This conclusion can be drawn from the story "Matrenin's yard".
Criticism
Alexander Tvardovsky himself admired Solzhenitsyn's work, calling him a real writer, and his story a true work of art.
By today's arrival, Solzhenitsyn re-read his "Righteous Woman" from five in the morning. Oh my god, a writer. No jokes. The only writer concerned with expressing what lies “at the base” of his mind and heart. Not a shadow of the desire to "hit the bull's eye", to please, to facilitate the task of the editor or critic - as you want, and turn out, and I will not leave mine. Is that only further I can go
L. Chukovskaya, who rotated in journalistic circles, described the story as follows:
... What if Solzhenitsyn's second piece will not be published? I fell in love with her more than the first. She overwhelms with courage, shakes with material - well, of course, and literary skill; and "Matryona" ... here you can already see the great artist, humane, returning us to our native language, loving Russia, as Blok said, with mortally offended love.
"Matryonin Dvor" caused a real explosion in the literary environment and often mirror-opposite responses. Nowadays, the story is considered one of the most outstanding prose works of the second half of the twentieth century and a vivid example of the work of early Solzhenitsyn.
ANALYSIS OF THE STORY OF A. I. SOLZHENITSYN "MATRENIN YARD"
The purpose of the lesson: to try to understand how the writer sees the phenomenon of the "common man", to understand the philosophical meaning of the story.
Methodological techniques: analytical conversation, text comparison.
DURING THE CLASSES
1.The teacher's word
The story "Matrenin's Dvor", like "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", was written in 1959 and published in 1964. "Matryona's Dvor" is an autobiographical work. This is Solzhenitsyn's story about the situation in which he found himself when he returned “from the dusty hot desert,” that is, from the camp. He "wanted to get lost in the interior of Russia", to find "a quiet corner of Russia, away from the railways." The former prisoner could only be hired for hard work, he also wanted to teach. After his rehabilitation in 1957, Solzhenitsyn worked for some time as a physics teacher in the Vladimir region, lived in the village of Miltsevo with the peasant woman Matryona Vasilyevna Zakharova (there he finished the first edition of In the First Circle). The story "Matrenin's Dvor" goes beyond ordinary memories, but acquires a deep meaning, is recognized as a classic. He was called "brilliant", "truly brilliant work." Let's try to understand the phenomenon of this story.
P. Checking homework.
Let us compare the stories "Matrenin's yard" and "One day of Ivan Denisovich".
Both stories are stages of comprehension by the writer of the phenomenon of a “common man”, a carrier of mass consciousness. The heroes of both stories are “common people”, victims of a deadening world. But the attitude towards the heroes is different. The first was called "A village is not worth a righteous man", and the second - Shch-854 "(One day of one convict)". “Righteous” and “convict” are different assessments. The fact that Matryona appears as “tall” (her apologetic smile in front of the formidable chairwoman, her compliance in front of the insolent pressure of her relatives), in the behavior of Ivan Denisovich means “to earn extra money”, “to a rich brigade leader to give dry felt boots directly to the bed”, “to run through the lockers, where someone needs to be served, sweep or bring something. " Matryona is depicted as a saint: “Only she had fewer sins than her nibbled cat. That - strangled mice ... ". Ivan Denisovich is an ordinary person with sins and shortcomings. Matryona is not of this world. Shukhov - his own in the world of the Gulag, almost settled down in it, studied its laws, developed a lot of adaptations for survival. For 8 years of imprisonment, he merged with the camp: "He himself did not know whether he wanted freedom or not," he adapted: "This is as expected - one works, one looks"; "Work is like a stick, there are two ends in it: for people you do - give quality, for a fool you do - give a show." True, he managed not to lose his human dignity, not to sink to the position of a "wick" that licks the bowls.
is not aware of the surrounding absurdity, is not aware of the horror of its existence. He obediently and patiently carries his cross, like Matryona Vasilyevna.
But the heroine's patience is akin to that of a saint.
In "Matryona's Dvor" the image of the heroine is given in the perception of the narrator, he assesses her as a righteous woman. In "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" the world is seen only through the eyes of the hero, assessed by him himself. The reader also evaluates what is happening and cannot help but be horrified, but experience the shock of describing an "almost happy" day.
How is the character of the heroine revealed in the story?
What is the theme of the story?
Matryona is not of this world; the world, others condemn her: “and she was unclean; and did not pursue the acquisition; and not gentle; and didn't even keep a piglet, for some reason didn't like to feed it; and, stupid, helped strangers for free ... ".
In general, he lives "in the run." Look at Matryona's poverty from all angles: “For many years Matryona Vasilyevna did not earn a ruble from anywhere. Because she was not paid her pension. Relatives helped her little. And on the collective farm she did not work for money - for sticks. For sticks of workdays in a trashed book of a bookkeeper. "
But the story is not only about the suffering, misfortune, injustice that befell the Russian woman. He wrote about it this way: “Why is the fate of the old peasant woman, told in a few pages, is of such great interest to us? This woman is unread, illiterate, simple toiler. And, nevertheless, her spiritual world is endowed with such a quality that we talk to her as to Anna Karenina. " Solzhenitsyn replied to Tvardovsky: "You pointed out the very essence - a loving and suffering woman, while all the criticism was scouring all the time over the top, comparing the Talnovsky collective farm and the neighboring ones." Writers come out on the main theme of the story - "how people live." To survive what Matryona Vasilyevna had to endure, and to remain a disinterested, open, delicate, sympathetic person, not to be embittered by fate and people, to preserve her “radiant smile” until old age - what mental strength is needed for this!
The movement of the plot is aimed at comprehending the mystery of the character of the main character. Matryona is revealed not so much in the ordinary present as in the past. Recalling her youth, she says: “You haven't seen me before, Ignatic. All my bags were; I didn’t consider five poods as heavy. The father-in-law shouted: "Matryona, you will break your back!" The divir did not come up to me to put my end of the log on the front end. " the peasants jumped away, but I, however, grabbed the bridle, stopped ... ”And at the last moment of her life she rushed to“ help the peasants ”on the move - and died.
And Matryona reveals herself from a completely unexpected side when she talks about her love: “for the first time I saw Matryona in a completely new way,” “That summer ... we went to sit in the grove with him,” she whispered. - There was a grove ... Almost did not come out, Ignatich. The German war began. They took Thaddeus to the war ... He went to war - he disappeared ... For three years I hid, I waited. And not news, and not a bone ...
Tied with an old, faded handkerchief, Matryona's round face looked at me in the indirect soft reflections of the lamp - as if freed from wrinkles, from everyday careless attire - frightened, girlish, before a terrible choice.
These lyrical, light lines reveal the charm, spiritual beauty, the depth of Matryona's feelings. Outwardly unremarkable, restrained, undemanding, Matryona turns out to be an extraordinary, sincere, pure, open person. The more acute is the feeling of guilt experienced by the narrator: “There is no Matryona. A loved one was killed. And on the last day I reproached her quilted jacket. " “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she is the same righteous person, without whom, according to the proverb, the village is not worth it. Neither the city. Not all our land. " The concluding words of the story return to the original title - "A village is not worth a righteous man" and fill the story about the peasant woman Matryona with a deep, generalizing, philosophical meaning.
What is the symbolic meaning of the story "Matrenin's Dvor"?
Many of Solzhenitsyn's symbols are associated with Christian symbolism, images-symbols of the way of the cross, a righteous man, a martyr. This is directly indicated by the first name “Matrenina Dvor”. And the very name "Matrenin Dvor" is of a general nature. The courtyard, the house of Matryona, is the refuge that the narrator finally finds in his search for "interior Russia" after long years of camps and homelessness: "I didn't like this place in the whole village for miles." The symbolic assimilation of the House of Russia is traditional, because the structure of the house is likened to the structure of the world. The fate of the house is, as it were, repeated, the fate of its mistress is foretold. Forty years have passed here. In this house, she survived two wars - the German and the Patriotic, the death of six children who died in infancy, the loss of her husband, who disappeared in the war. The house is decaying - the hostess is getting old. The house is being dismantled like a man - "on the ribs", and "everything showed that the breakers are not builders and do not expect Matryona to live here for a long time."
As if nature itself resists the destruction of the house - first a long blizzard, exorbitant snowdrifts, then a thaw, damp fogs, streams. And the fact that Matryona's holy water inexplicably disappeared is a bad omen. Matryona dies along with the room, with part of her house. The hostess dies - the house is finally destroyed. Until spring, Matryona's hut was hammered like a coffin - they buried.
Matryona's fear of the railway is also symbolic, because it is the train, a symbol of the hostile peasant life of the world, civilization, that will flatten both the upper room and Matryona herself.
S. WORD OF THE TEACHER.
Righteous Matryona is the writer's moral ideal, on which, in his opinion, the life of society should be based. According to Solzhenitsyn, the meaning of earthly existence is not in prosperity, but in the development of the soul. " Associated with this idea is the writer's understanding of the role of literature, its connection with the Christian tradition. Solzhenitsyn continues one of the main traditions of Russian literature, according to which the writer sees his purpose in preaching truth, spirituality, and is convinced of the need to pose “eternal” questions and seek answers to them. He talked about this in his Nobel lecture: “In Russian literature, the idea that a writer can do a lot in his people - and should have long ago entered into us ... he is the culprit in all the evil committed in his homeland or by his people. "
A writer is judged by his best works. Among the stories of Solzhenitsyn, published in the 60s, Matrenin's Dvor was always put in first place. He was called "brilliant", "truly brilliant work." “The story is true,” “the story is talented,” criticism noted. "Among the stories of Solzhenitsyn, he stands out for his strict artistry, the integrity of the poetic embodiment, the consistency of artistic taste."
Solzhenitsyn is a passionate artist. His story about the fate of a simple peasant woman is full of deep sympathy, compassion, humanity. It evokes a reciprocal feeling in the reader. Each episode "hurts the soul in its own way, hurts in its own way, delights in its own way." The combination of the pages of the lyrical and the epic plans, the linking of episodes according to the principle of emotional contrast, allow the author to change the rhythm of the narrative, its tonality. This is the way the writer goes to recreate a multi-layered picture of life. Already the first pages of the story serve as a convincing example of this. It is opened by the initiation-preliminaries. It's about the tragic. The author-narrator remembers the tragedy that happened at the railway siding. We learn the details of this tragedy at the end of the story.
The features of the literary text noted here make its stylistic analysis preferable, accompanying the expressive reading of individual, most impressive fragments: the lyrical landscapes of Solzhenitsyn, the description of Matryona's yard, Matryona's story about her past, the final scenes.
"Matryona's Dvor" is an autobiographical work. This is the story of Solzhenitsyn and about himself, about the situation in which he found himself, returning in the summer of 1956 "from the dusty hot desert." He "wanted to get lost in the interior of Russia", to find "a quiet corner of Russia, away from the railways." Ignatich (under this name the author appears before us) feels the delicacy of his position: a former camp prisoner (Solzhenitsyn was rehabilitated in 1957) could only be hired for hard work - carrying a stretcher. He also had other desires: "And I was drawn to teach." And in the structure of this phrase with its expressive dash, and in the choice of words, the mood of the hero is conveyed, the most cherished is expressed.
"But something was already beginning to get scared." This line, conveying a sense of time, gives a course to further narration, reveals the meaning of the episode "In the Vladimir Oblono", written in an ironic manner: and although "every letter in my documents was felt, walked from room to room," and then - for the second time - again "walked from room to room, rang the bell, squeaked", they still gave the teacher's place, and printed in the order: "Torfoproduct".
The soul did not accept the settlement with the following name: "Peat product": "Ah, Turgenev did not know that it is possible to compose such a thing in Russian!" The irony is justified here: it also contains the author's sense of the moment. The lines following this ironic phrase are written in a completely different tonality: "The wind of calm pulled me from the names of other villages: Vysokoe Pole, Talnovo, Chaslitsy, Shevertni, Ovintsy, Spudni, Shestimirovo." Ignatich "brightened up" when he heard the folk dialect. The peasant woman's speech "amazed" him: she did not speak, but sang sweetly, and her words were the very ones for which longing drew me from Asia. "
The author appears before us as a lyricist of the finest type, with a developed sense of the Beautiful. In general, the narrative will find a place for lyrical sketches, heartfelt lyrical miniatures. “High Field. One name made the soul happy ”- this is how one of them begins. The other is a description of a “drying up dammed river with a bridge” near the village of Talnovo, which Ignatich “liked”. This is how the author brings us to the house where Matryona lives.
"Matrenin Dvor". It is not by chance that Solzhenitsyn called his work that way. This is one of the key images of the story. The description of the courtyard, detailed, with a lot of details, is devoid of bright colors: Matryona lives "in a run-down". It is important for the author to emphasize the inseparability of the house and the person: if the house is destroyed, its mistress will also die.
"And the years passed, as the water floated ..." As if from a folk song this amazing proverb came into the story. It will contain the whole life of Matryona, all forty years that have passed here. In this house, she will survive two wars - German and Patriotic, the death of six children who died in infancy, the loss of her husband, who disappeared in the war. Here she will grow old, remain lonely, endure hardship. All her wealth is a bumpy cat, a goat and a crowd of ficuses.
Poverty Matryona looks from all angles. Where will prosperity come from in a peasant house? “I only found out later,” says Ignatich, “that year after year, for many years, Matryona Vasilyevna never earned a ruble from anywhere. Because she was not paid her pension. Her family did not help her much. And on the collective farm she did not work for money - for sticks. For the sticks of workdays in the grubby book of the bookkeeper. " These words will be supplemented by the story of Matryona herself about how many grievances she suffered, bustling about her pension, about how she mined peat for the stove, hay for the goat.
The heroine of the story is not a character invented by the writer. The author writes about a real person - Matryona Vasilyevna Zakharova, with whom he lived in the 50s. Natalia Reshetovskaya's book "Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Reading Russia" contains photographs taken by Solzhenitsyn of Matryona Vasilievna, her house, and the room that the writer rented. His recollection story echoes the words of A.T. Tvardovsky, who recalls his neighbor, Aunt Daria,
With her hopeless patience,
With her hut without a passage,
And with a workday empty,
And with difficulty - not more complete ... With all the trouble -
By yesterday's war
And a grave present misfortune.
It is noteworthy that these lines and Solzhenitsyn's story were written at about the same time. In both works, the story of the fate of the peasant woman develops into reflections on the brutal devastation of the Russian countryside during the war and post-war times. “But can you tell about this, in what years you lived ...” This line from a poem by M. Isakovsky is consonant with the prose of F. Abramov, who tells about the fate of Anna and Lisa Pryaslin, Martha Repina ... "!
But Solzhenitsyn's story was not written just to tell once again about the sufferings and troubles that the Russian woman endured. Let us turn to the words of AT Tvardovsky, taken from his speech at the session of the Governing Council of the European Association of Writers: “Why is the fate of an old peasant woman, told in a few pages, of such great interest to us? This woman is unread, illiterate, simple toiler. And, nevertheless, her spiritual world is endowed with such a quality that we talk to her as to Anna Karenina. "
After reading this speech in Literaturnaya Gazeta, Solzhenitsyn immediately wrote to Tvardovsky: “Needless to say, the paragraph of your speech relating to Matryona means a lot to me. You pointed to the very essence - a loving and suffering woman, while all the criticism was scouring all the time over the top, comparing the Talnovsky collective farm and the neighboring ones. "
So two writers come out on the main theme of the story "Matrenin's yard" - "how people live." Indeed: to go through what Matryona Vasilyevna Zakharova experienced, and to remain a disinterested, open, delicate, sympathetic person, not to be embittered by fate and people, to preserve her “radiant smile” until old age ... What kind of mental strength is needed for this ?!
This is what Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn wants to understand and wants to tell about it. The entire movement of the plot of his story is aimed at comprehending the mystery of the character of the main character. Matryona reveals herself not so much in her everyday present as in her past. She herself, remembering her youth, confessed to Ignatich: “You haven't seen me before, Ignatich. All my sacks were; I didn’t consider five poods to be tigers. The father-in-law shouted: “Matryona! You’ll break your back! ” The divir did not come up to me to put my end of the log on the front end ”.
Young, strong, beautiful, Matryona was one of the breed of Russian peasant women who "will stop a galloping horse." And it was like this: “Once the horse with fright carried the sled into the lake, the men jumped off, but I, however, grabbed the bridle, stopped ...” - says Matryona. And at the last moment of her life, she rushed to "help the peasants" on the move - and died.
Matryona will reveal herself most fully in the dramatic episodes of the second part of the story. They are connected with the arrival of the "tall black old man", Thaddeus, the brother of Matryona's husband, who did not return from the war. Thaddeus came not to Matryona, but to the teacher to ask for his eighth-grader son. Left alone with Matryona, Ignatich forgot to think about the old man, and even about herself. And suddenly from her dark corner was heard:
“- I, Ignatich, once almost married him.
She got up from the shabby rag bed and slowly walked out to me, as if following her words. I leaned back - and for the first time I saw Matryona in a completely new way ...
- He first wooed me ... before Yefim ... He was an elder brother ... I was nineteen, Thaddeus was twenty-three ... They lived in this very house then. Theirs was home. Built by their father.
I involuntarily looked around. This old gray rotting house suddenly, through the faded green skin of the wallpaper, under which the mice were running, appeared to me with young, not yet darkened, shaved logs and a cheerful resinous smell.
- And you him? .. And what? ..
“That summer… we went to sit in the grove with him,” she whispered. - There was a grove ... Almost did not come out, Ignatich. The German war began. They took Thaddeus to the war.
She dropped it and flashed before me blue, white and yellow July of the fourteenth year: still peaceful sky, floating clouds and people boiling with ripe stubble. I presented them side by side: a resin hero with a scythe across his back; her, rosy, embracing the sheaf. And - a song, a song under the sky ...
- He went to war - he disappeared ... For three years I hid, waited. And not a word, and not a bone ...
Tied with an old, faded handkerchief, Matryona's round face looked at me in the indirect soft reflections of the lamp - as if freed from wrinkles, from everyday careless attire - frightened, girlish, before a terrible choice.
Where, in what work of modern prose, can you find the same spiritualized pages that could be compared with the sketches of Solzhenitsyn? Compare both in the strength and brightness of the character depicted in them, the depth of its comprehension, the penetration of the author's feeling, the expressiveness, the richness of the language, and in their drama, artistic cohesion of numerous episodes. In modern prose, there is nothing.
Having created a charming character that is interesting for us, the author warms the story about him with a lyrical sense of guilt. “There is no Matryona. A loved one was killed. And on the last day I reproached her for her quilted jacket. " Comparison of Matryona with other characters, especially noticeable at the end of the story, in the scene of the commemoration, strengthened the author's assessments: “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she is the same righteous person, without whom, according to the proverb, the village is not worth it.
Neither the city.
Not all our land. "
The words concluding the story bring us back to the original version of the title - "A village is not worth it without a righteous man."
Questions and tasks for an indicative and analytical conversation based on the story "Matrenin Dvor"
1. Highlight autobiographical moments in the story "Matrenin's yard".
2. Solzhenitsyn the landscape painter. Prepare an expressive reading of landscape sketches, a stylistic commentary on them. What description is associated with the title of the story?
3. Expand the topic "Matryona's past and present." Show what role one and the other plan plays in the story "Matrenin's Dvor".
4. Name the other characters in the story. What role did they play in the fate of the main character?
5. Why was the heading "A village is not worth a righteous man" possible? Expand its philosophical meaning.
"Matrenin Dvor" analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, characters, problems and other issues are disclosed in this article.
"A village is not worth it without a righteous man" - this is the original title of the story. The story has something in common with many works of Russian classical literature. Solzhenitsyn seems to transfer one of Leskov's heroes to the historical epoch of the 20th century, the post-war period. And the more dramatic, tragic is Matryona's fate in the midst of this situation.
Matryona Vasilievna's life seems to be ordinary. She devoted all of her to work, selfless and hard work of the Cross-Yang. When the construction of collective farms began, she went there too, but due to illness she was released from there and now they were attracted when others refused. And she did not work for money, she never took money. Only later, after her death, her sister-in-law, with whom the narrator settled, will remember evil, or rather, remind her of this oddity of hers.
But is Matryona's fate so simple? And who knows what it is like to fall in love with a person and, without waiting for him, to marry another, unloved, and then see your betrothed a few months after the wedding? And then what is it like to live with him side by side, to see him every day, to feel guilty for his and his life that did not work out? The husband did not love her. She bore him six children, but none of them survived. And she had to take on the education of the daughter of her beloved, but already a stranger. How much warmth and kindness accumulated in her, so much she invested in her adopted daughter Kira. Matryona went through so much, but she did not lose that inner light that shone in her eyes, and a smile was cast. She did not hold any grudge against anyone and was only upset when she was offended. She is not angry with her sisters, who appeared only when everything in her life has already become happy. She lives as she is. That is why I have not saved up anything in my life except two hundred rubles for the funeral.
The turning point in her life was that they wanted to take away the room from her. She was not sorry for the good, she never regretted it. It was scary for her to think that they would destroy her house, in which her whole life flew by like an instant. She spent forty years here, endured two wars, a revolution that flew by in echoes. And for her to break and take her upper room is to break and destroy her life. It was the end for her. The real ending of the novel is not accidental either. Human greed destroys Matryona. It is painful to hear the words of the author that Thaddeus, because of whose greed the business began, on the day of death and then Matryona's funeral, only thinks about the abandoned frame. He does not pity her, does not cry for the one whom he once loved so dearly.
Solzhenitsyn shows the era when the foundations of life were turned upside down, when property became the subject and purpose of life. The author not in vain asks the question why things are called "good", because it is, in fact, evil, and terrible. Matryona understood this. She did not chase outfits, she dressed in a country style. Matryona is the embodiment of true folk morality, universal morality, on which the whole world rests.
So Matryona remained not understood by anyone, not truly mourned by anyone. Only Kira alone cried not according to custom, but from the heart. They feared for her sanity.
The story is masterfully written. Solzhenitsyn is a master of subject detailing. From small and seemingly insignificant details, he builds up a special volumetric world. This world is visible and tangible. This world is Russia. We can say with precision where the village of Talnovo is located, but we perfectly understand that all of Russia is in this village. Solzhenitsyn combines the general and the particular and encloses this in a single artistic image.
Plan
- The narrator gets a job as a teacher in Talnovo. Lives with Matryona Vasilievna.
- Gradually, the narrator learns about her past.
- Thaddeus comes to Matryona. He is busy with the upper room, which Matryona promised Kira, his daughter, brought up by Matryona.
- When the log house is being transported across the railway tracks of Matrona, her nephew and husband Kira die.
- There are long disputes over Matryona's hut and property. And the story-teller moves to her sister-in-law.
Several of Solzhenitsyn's works were published in the Novy Mir magazine, including Matrenin's Dvor. The story, according to the writer, is "completely autobiographical and authentic." It speaks about the Russian village, about its inhabitants, about their values, about kindness, justice, sympathy and compassion, work and help - qualities that fit in a righteous man, without whom “the village is not worth it”.
"Matrenin's Dvor" is a story about the injustice and cruelty of a person's fate, about the Soviet order of the post-Stalin era and about the life of the most ordinary people who live far from city life. The narration is conducted not on behalf of the main character, but on behalf of the narrator, Ignatyich, who, in the whole story, seems to play the role of only an outside observer. The story described in the story dates back to 1956 - three years have passed since Stalin's death, and then the Russian people did not yet know and did not realize how to live on.
"Matrenin Dvor" is divided into three parts:
- The first tells the story of Ignatyich, it begins at the Torfprodukt station. The hero immediately reveals his cards, without making any secret out of this: he is a former prisoner, and now he works as a teacher at a school, he came there in search of peace and tranquility. In Stalin's time, it was almost impossible for people who were in prison to find a job, and after the death of the leader, very many became school teachers (a scarce profession). Ignatyich stops with an elderly hardworking woman named Matryona, with whom he is easy to communicate and calm in his soul. Her dwelling was poor, the roof sometimes leaked, but this did not mean at all that there was no comfort in it: “Maybe, to some of the village, who is richer, Matryona's hut did not seem to be well-lived, but we were quite happy with her that autumn and winter good. "
- The second part tells about Matryona's youth, when she had to go through a lot. The war took her fiancé Fadey away from her, and she had to marry his brother, who still had children in his arms. Taking pity on him, she became his wife, although she did not love him at all. But three years later, Fadey suddenly returned, whom the woman still loved. The returning warrior hated her and her brother for their betrayal. But a hard life could not kill her kindness and hard work, because it was in work and caring for others that she found consolation. Even Matryona died, doing business - she helped her lover and her sons to drag a part of her house across the railroad tracks, which was bequeathed to Kira (his daughter). And this death entailed the greed, greed and callousness of Fadey: he decided to take away the inheritance while Matryona was still alive.
- The third part tells how the narrator learns about Matryona's death, describes the funeral and commemoration. People who are close to her do not cry out of grief, but rather because it is so customary, and in their heads they only have thoughts about the division of the property of the deceased. Fadey is not at the commemoration.
main characters
Matryona Vasilievna Grigorieva is an elderly woman, a peasant woman who was released from work on a collective farm due to illness. She was always happy to help people, even strangers. In the episode, when the narrator settles in her hut, the author mentions that she deliberately never looked for a lodger, that is, she did not want to earn money on this basis, she did not even profit from what she could. Her wealth was pots of figs and an old domestic cat, which she took from the street, a goat, as well as mice and cockroaches. Marrying the brother of her fiancé Matryona also came out of a desire to help: "Their mother died ... they did not have enough hands."
Matryona herself also had children, six, but they all died in early childhood, so she later took Fadey's youngest daughter Kira for upbringing. Matryona got up early in the morning, worked until dark, but showed no one tiredness or discontent: she was kind and responsive to everyone. She was always very afraid of becoming a burden to someone, did not complain, even to call the doctor was once again afraid. The matured Kira Matryona wanted to give her room as a gift, for which it was necessary to divide the house - during the move, Fadey's things got stuck in the sledges on the railway tracks, and Matryona was hit by a train. Now there was no one to ask for help, there was no person who was ready to disinterestedly come to the rescue. But the relatives of the deceased kept in mind only the thought of profit, of dividing what was left of the poor peasant woman, already thinking about it at the funeral. Matryona stood out very strongly against the background of her fellow villagers, she was thus irreplaceable, invisible and the only righteous person.
Narrator, Ignatyevich, to some extent is the prototype of the writer. He left the link and was acquitted, after which he set out in search of a calm and serene life, he wanted to work as a school teacher. He found refuge with Matryona. Judging by the desire to move away from the bustle of the city, the narrator is not very sociable, he loves silence. He worries when a woman mistakenly picks up his quilted jacket, and he cannot find a place for himself from the loudness of the loudspeaker. The narrator got along with the mistress of the house, this shows that he is still not entirely antisocial. Nevertheless, he does not understand people very well: he understood the meaning that Matryona lived only after she passed away.
Topics and problems
Solzhenitsyn in his story "Matrenin's Dvor" tells about the life of the inhabitants of the Russian countryside, about the system of power-man relationships, about the high sense of selfless labor in the realm of selfishness and greed.
Of all this, the theme of labor is shown most clearly. Matryona is a person who does not ask for anything in return, and is ready to give himself everything for the good of others. They do not appreciate her and do not even try to understand her, but this is a person who experiences a tragedy every day: at first, the mistakes of youth and the pain of loss, after that - frequent illnesses, hard work, not life, but survival. But from all the problems and hardships Matryona finds solace in her work. And, in the end, it is work and backbreaking work that brings her to death. The meaning of Matryona's life is precisely this, as well as care, help, a desire to be needed. Therefore, active love for others is the main theme of the story.
The problem of morality also occupies an important place in the story. Material values in the village are exalted over the human soul and its labor, over humanity in general. The secondary characters are simply incapable of understanding the depth of Matryona's character: greed and the desire to have more obscures their eyes and does not allow them to see kindness and sincerity. Fadey lost his son and wife, his son-in-law is threatened with imprisonment, but his thoughts are occupied with how to save the logs that they did not have time to burn.
In addition, the story has a theme of mysticism: the motive of an unidentified righteous man and the problem of damned things - which were touched by people full of self-interest. Fadey made the upper room of Matryona's hut cursed, undertaking to bring it down.
Idea
The aforementioned themes and problems in the story "Matrenin's Dvor" are aimed at revealing the depth of the pure worldview of the main character. An ordinary peasant woman serves as an example of the fact that difficulties and losses only temper the Russian person, and do not break him. With the death of Matryona, everything that she figuratively built collapses. Her house is pulled apart, the remnants of the property are divided among themselves, the yard remains empty, ownerless. Therefore, her life looks pitiful, no one realizes the loss. But won't the same thing happen to the palaces and jewels of the powerful? The author demonstrates the frailty of the material and teaches us not to judge others by wealth and achievements. The true meaning is the moral image, which does not fade even after death, because it remains in the memory of those who saw its light.
Perhaps, over time, the heroes will notice that they are missing a very important part of their life: invaluable values. Why reveal global moral problems in such a miserable setting? And what then is the meaning of the title of the story "Matrenin's yard"? The last words that Matryona was a righteous woman erase the boundaries of her court and push them to the scale of the whole world, thereby making the problem of morality universal.
Folk character in the work
Solzhenitsyn argued in his article “Repentance and Self-Restriction”: “There are such inborn angels, they seem to be weightless, they slide, as it were, on top of this slurry, not drowning in it at all, even touching its surface with their feet? Each of us met such, they are not ten and not one hundred in Russia, these are the righteous, we saw them, we were surprised ("eccentrics"), we used their good, in good moments they answered them the same, they have, and immediately plunged again to our doomed depth. "
Matrona is distinguished from the rest by the ability to preserve humanity and a solid core inside. To those who shamelessly used her help and kindness, it might seem that she is weak-willed and malleable, but the heroine helped, proceeding only from inner disinterestedness and moral greatness.
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