Federal Agency for Education
Penza State Pedagogical University them. V.G. Belinsky
Faculty of Russian Language and Literature
Department of Literature and Teaching Methods
credit work
on literary analysis of a literary text on the topic: "The problem of ecology and moral problems of narration in the stories of V. Astafyev" King-fish "
Completed by: Plyasova V.V.
student of group L-51
Checked by: Klyuchareva I.S.
Penza, 2007
Introduction
1. Genre originality of the narration in the stories "Tsar-fish".
2. Style and language of the work.
4. The problem of the relationship between nature and man. A sharp condemnation of the barbaric attitude to nature on the example of poachers.
5. The symbolic meaning of the chapter "King-fish", its place in the book.
6. Images of goodies. Akim and his fate.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.
Introduction
A book… A simple, unpretentious word. It would seem that nothing special, an ordinary thing that is in every home. Books are in bookcases in bright or modest covers. Sometimes you don’t know what miracle they carry in themselves, opening before us a bright world of fantasy and imagination, often making people kind and smart, helping to understand life, forming a worldview.
In modern prose, I especially like the works of Viktor Petrovich Astafiev. When you read his books in a row, starting with those in which he took place as a writer - the stories "Starodub", "Pass", "The Last Bow", collections of stories - you see with your own eyes how rapidly this original artist of the word grew, with what internal impulses he developed his talent. The object of his love is definite and strict: Motherland, Russia, its nature and people, their destiny on earth.
A real event in life and in literature was the narration in the stories "Tsar-fish". This amazing work is imbued with passionate love for native nature and indignation towards those who, with their indifference, greed, and madness, destroy it. When asked about the theme of “King Fish”, Astafiev answered: “Probably, this is the topic of spiritual communication between a person and the world ... Spiritual existence in the world - this is how I would define the topic of “King Fish”. It is not the first time it has appeared in our literature, but perhaps for the first time it sounded so loud and wide.
Having reread everything that has been written today about the narration in the stories "Tsar Fish", it can be distinguished as generally recognized that the main "heroes" of the work are Man and Nature, whose interaction is comprehended in their harmony and contradiction, in their commonality and isolation, in their mutual influence and repulsion, as it appears to the writer today - perhaps in the most difficult period of their "coexistence" in all human history. In other words, we are dealing with a frankly and emphatically socio-philosophical work, in which thoughts and feelings are embodied in large-scale images that have universal significance.
Astafiev does not idealize nature and its laws, but artistically explores their contradictory content. Nature not only heals the human soul (chapter "The Drop"), but can be blind and cruel, as we see, for example, in the chapter "Commemoration". Reason and spiritual experience allow a person to establish a harmonious relationship between him and nature, actively using and replenishing its wealth. The harmony of the relationship between man and nature, which also implies struggle, excludes destruction. The human soul has a sense of caring for all life on earth, for the beauty of forests, rivers, and seas. The senseless destruction of nature has a destructive effect on man himself. Natural and social laws do not give him the right to cross that “line beyond which a person ends, and from distant times filled with cave horror, he exposes and looks, without blinking, a low-browed, fanged muzzle of a primitive savage.”
In Tsar-Fish, the vital material of various post-war decades is compressed, obeying the philosophical meaning of the ideological content. Constant comparison of the past with the present, the author's desire to more fully embody the character, actions; the spiritual traits of the characters determine the temporal shifts in the work.
V. Semin spoke with great frankness and sincerity about his perception of the work: “The Tsar Fish is a celebration of life. The Great Siberian River and the river of time do not flow through book pages - their movement passes through our heart, through our vessels.
1. Genre originality of the narration in the stories "Tsar-fish"
"Tsar-fish" has the genre designation "narration in stories". Thus, Astafiev deliberately oriented his readers to the fact that they were facing a cycle, which means that artistic unity here is organized not so much by a plot or a stable system of characters (as happens in a story or a novel), but by other “strings”. And in the cyclical genres, it is the “braces” that carry a very significant conceptual load. What are these braces.
First of all, in "Tsar-fish" there is a single and integral artistic space - the action of each of the stories takes place on one of the many tributaries of the Yenisei. And the Yenisei is the “river of life,” which is how it is called in the book. The “river of life” is a capacious image rooted in mythological consciousness: for some ancients, the image of the “river of life”, like the “tree of life” among other peoples, was a visually visible embodiment of the entire structure of life, all beginnings and ends, everything earthly, heavenly and underground, that is, a whole "cosmography".
Such an idea of the unity of all that exists in Tsar-Fish, which returns the modern reader to the cosmogonic principles, is realized through the principle of associations between man and nature. This principle acts as a universal designer of the figurative world of the work: the entire structure of images, from the images of characters to comparisons and metaphors, is sustained by Astafiev from beginning to end in one key - he sees a person through nature, and nature through a person.
So, Astafiev associates a child with a green leaf, which “attached to the tree of life with a short rod”, and the death of an old person is associated with how “over-aged pines fall in an old forest, with a heavy crunch and a long exhalation”. And the image of mother and child turns under the author's pen into the image of a Tree feeding its Sprout:
“Starting at first from the greedily, animal-like gums that pressed down, tensing in advance in anticipation of pain, the mother felt the ribbed, hot palate of the baby, blossomed with all the branches and roots of her body, drove drops of life-giving milk through them, and over the open kidney of the nipple it poured into such flexible, lively, native sprout.
But about the river Oparikha, the author says this: "A blue vein trembling at the temple of the earth." And he directly compares another, noisy rivulet with a person: “The troubled, drunk, like a rookie with a shirt torn on his chest, rumbling, the stream rolled obliquely towards the Lower Tunguska, falling into her soft motherly arms.” There are a lot of these metaphors and comparisons, bright, unexpected, poignant and funny, but always leading to the philosophical core of the book, in Tsar Fish. Such associations, becoming the principle of poetics, in essence, reveal the main, initial position of the author. V. Astafiev reminds us that man and nature are a single whole, that we are all a product of nature, a part of it, and, whether we want it or not, we are together with the laws invented by the human race, under the rule of laws that are much more powerful and insurmountable - laws nature. And therefore, Astafiev proposes to consider the very relationship between man and nature as a kindred relationship, as a relationship between a mother and her children.
Hence the pathos with which the whole "Tsar-fish" is colored. Astafiev builds a whole chain of stories about poachers, and poachers of a different order: in the foreground here are poachers from the village of Chush, “Chushans”, who literally rob their native river, mercilessly poison it; but there is also Goga Gertsev, a poacher who tramples down the souls of lonely women he meets on the way; Finally, the author also considers poachers those state officials who designed and built a dam on the Yenisei in such a way that they rotted the great Siberian river.
Didacticism, which has always been present to one degree or another in Astafiev's works, is most evident in Tsar-Fish. Actually, the very "strings" that ensure the integrity of the "Tsar Fish" as a cycle become the most significant bearers of didactic pathos. Thus, didactics is expressed, first of all, in the uniformity of the plot logic of all stories about human trampling of nature - each of them necessarily ends with the moral punishment of the poacher. The cruel, vicious Commander suffers a tragic blow of fate: his beloved daughter Taika was crushed by a driver - "a land poacher", "having drunk on mumbling" ("At the Golden Hag"). And Rumble, a “chaff belly” and an uncontrollable grabber, is punished in a purely grotesque, buffoonery form: blinded by luck, he boasts of a caught sturgeon in front of a man who turns out to be ... a fish inspector (“Rybak Rumble”). Punishment inevitably overtakes a person even for long-standing atrocities - this is the meaning of the climactic story from the first part of the cycle that gave the name to the whole book. The plot of how the most prudent and seemingly most decent of the poachers, Ignatich, was pulled into the water by a giant fish, acquires a certain mystical and symbolic meaning: being in the abyss, turning into a prisoner of his own prey, almost saying goodbye to life, Itnatyich recalls his long-standing crime - how, as a beardless guy, a "milk-sucker", he took dirty revenge on his "traitor", Glashka Kuklina, and devastated her soul forever. And what happened to him now, Ignatich himself perceives as God's punishment: "The hour of the cross has struck, it's time to account for sins ...".
The author's didactics is also expressed in the juxtaposition of the stories included in the cycle. It is no coincidence that, in contrast to the first part, which was completely occupied by poachers from the village of Chush, atrocious on their native river, in the second part of the book, Akimka, who is spiritually fused with mother nature, took center stage. Its image is given in parallel with the “red-lipped northern flower”, and the analogy is drawn through careful pictorial concretization: “Instead of leaves, the flower had wings, also shaggy, as if covered with a jacket, the stalk propped up the calyx of the flower, a thin, transparent ice flickered in the calyx.” (It can be seen that the childhood of these northern scorbutic Akimok was not very sweet, but it’s still childhood.) And other characters appear next to Akim, who, as best they can, take care of their native land, sympathize with its troubles. And the second part begins with the story "Ear on Boganid", where a kind of moral utopia is drawn. Boganida is a tiny fishing village, “with a dozen crooked, weathered huts to ashy flesh”, but between its inhabitants: the war-mutilated fish receiver Kiryaga-wood, women-carvers, kids - there is some kind of special kind affection, covered up with rude humor or like an angry grumble. The apotheosis of this utopian ethology is the ritual - from the first brigade catch "to feed all the guys indiscriminately with fish soup." The author in detail, savoring every detail, describes how the Boganid children meet boats with cargo, how they help the fishermen, and they not only do not drive them away, but “even the most fierce, unsociable men in the Boganid world were imbued with complacency, a gracious mood that elevates them to own eyes, ”how the process of cooking fish soup is performed. And, finally, “the crown of all daytime accomplishments and worries is an evening meal, holy, gracious,” when other people’s children sit at a common artel table next to other people’s fathers and, in unison, eat fish soup from a common cauldron. This picture is a visible embodiment of the author's ideal - the unity of people living intelligently in a community, in harmony with nature and with each other.
Finally, the didactic pathos in "Tsar Fish" is expressed directly - through the lyrical meditations of the Author, acting as a hero-narrator. Thus, in the story "The Drop", which stands at the beginning of the cycle, a great lyrical meditation begins with the following poetic observation:
“At the pointed end of an oblong willow leaf, an oblong drop swelled, ripened and, poured with heavy force, froze, fearing to bring down the world with its fall. And I froze "Don't fall! Do not fall!" - I conjured, asked, prayed, listening with my skin and heart to the peace hidden in myself and in the world.
And the sight of this drop, frozen on the tip of a willow leaf, causes a whole stream of the Author's experiences - thoughts about the fragility and trembling of life itself, anxiety for the fate of our children, who sooner or later "will be left alone, with themselves and with this most beautiful and formidable world" , and his soul "filled everything around with anxiety, distrust, expectation of trouble."
It is in the lyrical meditations of the Author, in his excited experiences that what is happening here and now, in the social and everyday spheres, is translated into the scale of eternity, correlates with the great and harsh laws of being, being painted in existential tones.
However, in principle, didacticism in art comes out, as a rule, when the artistic reality, recreated by the author, does not have the energy of self-development. And this means that the "universal connection of phenomena" is not yet visible. At such phases of the literary process, the form of the cycle turns out to be in demand, because it manages to capture the mosaic of life, but it can be fastened into a single picture of the world only architectonically: through montage, with the help of very conditional - rhetorical or purely plot devices (it is no coincidence that in a number of subsequent editions "King-fish" Astafiev rearranged the stories, and even excluded some). All this testifies to the hypothetical nature of the concept of the work and the speculativeness of the recipes proposed by the author.
The writer himself told how difficult it was for him to “line up” the “Tsar-fish”:
“I don’t know what is the reason for this, maybe the element of material, of which there is so much accumulated in my soul and memory, that I felt literally crushed by it and intensely searched for a form of work that would contain as much content as possible, that is, would absorb at least part of the material and those torments that took place in the soul. Moreover, all this was done in the process of working on the book, so to speak, on the go, and therefore it was done with great difficulty.
In this search for a form that would unite the entire mosaic of stories into a single whole, the torment of thought, torturing the world, trying to comprehend the just law of human life on earth, expressed itself. It is no coincidence that on the last pages of the “King Fish” the Author turns for help to the age-old wisdom embodied in the Holy Book of Humanity: “Everything has its hour, and a time for every deed under heaven. Time to be born and time to die. Time for war and time for peace. But these aphorisms of Ecclesiastes, which balance everything and everything, do not console either, and The King Fish ends with the tragic question of the Author: “So what am I looking for, why am I tormented, why, why? - I have no answer.
2. Language and style of the work
Just as everyday speech is natural in stories about people or scenes of hunting and fishing that evoke both excitement and passion, so is the majesty and solemnity of the “author’s word”, moderately saturated with Old Slavonicisms and ultramodern combinations, is natural here. These are two lexical facets of one image. They testify that the author is not alien to folk ideas about the attitude to nature. The landscape itself, independent of the hero, does not seem to exist in the narrative, it is always like the open heart of a person, eagerly absorbing everything that the taiga, field, river, lake, sky gives him ...
“There was fog on the river. He was picked up by currents of air, dragged over the water, vomited on washed trees, rolled into rolls, rolled over short stretches, stained with foam rounds.
According to the associative links hidden in the depths of our memory, we represent this river, but this is not enough for the lyrical hero, he longs to convey to us how the river, covered with fog, was transformed in his soul: waving stripes. This is the relieved breathing of the earth after a steamy day, liberation from the oppressive stuffiness, calming with the coolness of all living things.
The thirst to penetrate the secret work of nature that changes the world is replaced by a storm of feelings caused by a single drop ready to fall:
“In the depths of the forests one could guess someone's secret breathing, soft steps. And in the sky it seemed like a meaningful, but also a secret movement of clouds, and maybe other worlds or “wing angels” ?! In such heavenly silence you will believe in angels, and in eternal bliss, and in the decay of evil, and in the resurrection of eternal goodness.
This is so natural for a writer who speaks here about the infinity of the universe and the strength of life. This was natural for all Russian literature, which from time immemorial thought about the drop that forms the oceans, and about man, containing the whole world, about life and death in close connection with the eternity of nature, about the human in the most rational person.
A lot of critical remarks about the language of the "Tsar-fish" have been made, and they appear to this day. As you know, there is no limit to perfection; and the writer himself, understanding this perfectly, returns to the work, polishes its style and language. But many comments, unfortunately, most often resolutely ignore the specifics of Astafiev's language, which nevertheless comes from the depths of the people, and by no means invented by him. The reader, an engineer by profession, felt this well, writing to Astafiev: “The language of this thing is peculiar, bold, sometimes it seems that it is too bold. But I am convinced that it only seems at first glance. In fact, Astafiev needs this courage of word creation, without it there would be no him. We, the readers, need it too. After all, one has only to imagine what would happen to Astafiev's language if we exclude this boldness in handling the word, this brightness - what kind of losses would then arise ?! No, the brightness of Astafiev's word is a vocation, his manner, by the way, is also traditional, although eternally new, but for us it is a great true pleasure ... ".
Namely: traditional and eternally new, because all writers from Pushkin to Tvardovsky fell to the roots of the people and created something of their own, unique in sonority and beauty. If we exclude all unusual and uncommon turns of speech and words from Astafiev's text, and this text will fade, cease to exist.
The image of the author unites all the chapters of the work. There are chapters given only to him, where everything is in the first person, and we comprehend the character of the hero, his worldview, his philosophy, often expressed with journalistic pathos, which caused bewilderment and criticism: they say, the author is good when he portrays, and bad when he argues . Opponents say that the image itself should contain the author's "reasoning": this is what writers who are faithful to the traditions of the genre do. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to object to them: there are no number of examples of the intrusion of a “reasoning” author into the objectified and rather alienated fabric of the novel. V. Astafiev continued the tradition of the Russian novel and even increased the presence of the author in the work. An effort of this kind emotionally colored the content of the novel in a new way and determined its style-forming basis. "The word of the author" has acquired a dominant role in the work.
First of all, we are faced with the image of a sincere and open person who views the modern world through the prism of the past world war. It is worth listening to how he assesses the everyday, as it were, a special case - an ordinary robbery perpetrated by huckster hunters on the Sym river. The extermination of birds and beasts concerns not only hucksters, “shikals”, it is analyzed by the writer as a principle of human relationship with nature:
“Akim forgot that I was in the war, I saw enough of everything in the hell of the trenches and I know, oh, how I know what she, blood, does to a person! That's why I'm afraid when people unbelt in shooting, even at an animal, at a bird, and casually, effortlessly, shed blood. They do not know that, having ceased to be afraid of blood, not honoring it, hot blood, living, they themselves imperceptibly cross that fatal line beyond which a person ends and from distant times filled with cave horror exposes and looks, without blinking, low-browed, fanged the muzzle of a primitive savage."
The "image of the author" in the work is not disguised. The oratorical, expressive-journalistic structure of speech is justified by the clarity and certainty of the attitude to life, the depth of generalization of a particular case. The easily vulnerable soul of the hero is exposed to the possible limit, which inspires boundless reader confidence. “Oh, how I know” is put on the verge of a “pain threshold”, beyond which horror, something unbearable.
The lyrical hero of the novel is the writer himself. Without being blunt, through the perception of taiga residents, questions about the “percentage of truth” in literary writings are raised. The very first chapter of the work "Boie" opens with a declaration of his love for his native land, for the Yenisei. Hours and nights spent by the fire on the river bank are called happy, because “at such moments you are left as if one on one with nature” and “With secret joy you feel: you can and should trust everything that is around ...”.
V. Astafiev calls to trust nature, its wisdom. “It just seems to us,” he says, “that we have transformed everything, including the taiga. No, we only wounded her, damaged, trampled, scratched, burned with fire. But they could not give her fear, their confusion, they did not instill hostility, no matter how hard they tried. Taiga is still majestic, solemn, imperturbable. We inspire ourselves that we control nature and that we wish, we will do with it. But this deception succeeds until you stay with the taiga eye to eye, until you stay in it and heal it, then only you will listen to its power, you will feel its cosmic spaciousness and greatness. The existence of the planet is not yet controlled by the mind of a human being, it is dominated by the elements of natural forces. And trust in this case is a necessary step towards improving the relationship between man and nature. Mankind will finally not harm nature, but will protect its wealth and heal it.
And so, the main thing in the work is the appearance and image of the author, his inner state, position, which manifests itself in almost complete merging with the world that is being narrated. Two powerful human feelings form the basis of the book: love and pain. Pain, sometimes turning into shame or anger in relation to what rapes this life, distorts and disfigures it.
With the magic of his writing talent, Viktor Petrovich Astafiev leads the reader along not the banks of his native river, the Yenisei, to its tributaries, the Surnikha and Oparikha, to the thickets of the riverine taiga, to the foot of the mountains, to Igarka and the coastal village of Boganikha, to geologists and rivermen, to the fishing brigade and camp of poachers...
4. The problem of the relationship between nature and man. A sharp condemnation of the barbaric attitude to nature on the example of poachers
The heroes of "Tsar-Fish" live a difficult life, and the nature surrounding them is harsh, at times cruel to them. It is here, in this test, that people are divided into those for whom, in spite of everything, she still remains a beloved mother, and into others - for whom she is no longer a mother, but something alienated, something something from which you need to take more. Take more - that is, be a poacher, and not only with illegal fishing tackle, but also learn poaching as a way of life.
And this type of people is widely represented in the book by V. Astafiev. Ignatich, Commander, Damka, Rumbled - poachers. Each of them flashes some kind of gold of human love or human dignity. But all this is suppressed by boundless predation, the desire to snatch an extra piece.
All the "prominent" poachers came mainly from the ancient fishing village of Chush or were closely associated with it. A fishing state farm has been created in the village, the enterprise is quite modern, the vast majority of Chushan people work in it. But, despite this outwardly prosperous form of its existence, Chush, according to V. Astafyev, is a kind of base for poaching.
Lives in the village "motley population", "gloomy and hidden rabble." The appearance of the village is unsightly, it is littered, a river with “stinking slurry” flows nearby, and there is also a “rotten pond” where “dead dogs, cans, rags” were dumped. In the center of the village, a dance floor was once put together, but the dances did not take root, and the "park" was soon "occupied by goats, pigs, chickens." The Kedr store is the most mysterious building in the village. Its peculiarity is that it almost never trades, since the "owners" of the store are quickly stealing, and there are essentially no necessary goods on its shelves. The store looks to match everything that is "conspicuous" in the village.
“To the right, all on the same ravine, above the excavation of a dried-up stream, on a trodden outcrop, similar to a grave mound, a gloomy, gloomy room undermined by pigs with closed shutters and doors closed on a wide iron strip, so beaten with nails that you can mistake them for the target riddled with shot is the Kedr store.
The village population is also depicted in this tone. Men drinking on logs by the river, waiting for a steamboat, young people walking along right there in anticipation of all sorts of unexpected incidents. The trendsetter of the Chushan fashion for dressing, smoking, drinking stands out - a student who came for the holidays. “On the chest of the girl, deliciously knocked down, throwing bright hares, a golden plaque was burning, weighing no less than a kilogram ... The girl was hoofing her legs, the plaque was bouncing and beating on her chest.” Sharpening, exaggeration, dismissive coloring of words here are clearly from a satirical arsenal. Moreover, the author still does not refuse a direct assessment of the events taking place.
“Behind the outstanding student,” he continues, “as if at a dog wedding, the Chushan guys trudged along, looking at her faithfully, and then the local girls, more colorful, but no less valuablely dressed, kept at a submissive distance. Everyone was smoking, laughing at something, but I did not leave the feeling of awkwardness from a poorly rehearsed, albeit plausibly played performance.
With even greater intransigence, the captain of the ship is depicted “getting” fish through the Chushans with the help of a bottle, and Damka, a tramp and idler, hunting for fish caught in a poacher way. The pictures of the everyday life of the fishing village are so unsightly that the conclusion suggests itself, which the author made in a direct journalistic form:
“Laws and all sorts of new trends are perceived by the Chushans with ancient, peasant cunning - if the law protects from adversity, helps to strengthen financially, snatch for drinking, it is readily accepted, but if the law is harsh and infringes in some way on the inhabitants of the village of Chush, they pretend to be backward, orphans, we supposedly do not read newspapers, “we live in the forest, we pray to the wheel.” Well, and if they pin it to the wall and do not get out, a silent, long siege of starvation begins, with quiet glanders the Chushans achieve their goal: what needs to be bypassed - they will bypass, what they want to get - they will get, who needs to be survived from the village - they will survive ... ".
In the emphatically local characterization of the village of Chush, we recognize some features that sometimes manifest themselves in life. Orders in the village of Chush, for example, give rise to "gentlemen of fortune" - captains-grabbers, poachers, girls with an exclusively consumer temper - the author recalls that in these parts before the war there was more order, ladies and captains were not enriched and were not corrupted, because "minor fishing" was organized: fish factories entered into agreements with local fishermen, and fish were bought from them at prices slightly higher than from collective farm brigades.
The lady appeared in Chusha by accident - lagged behind the steamer. But “Damka got used to the village ... The fishermen willingly took him with them - for fun. And, pretending to be a fool, showing a free “tiyatr”, he casually got used to trappers, grabbed the essence of fishing, got a wooden boat ... and, to the surprise of the men, he began to catch fish quite smartly and sell it even more quickly to oncoming and transverse people " .
Another type of Chushan poacher, more difficult than Damki. The commander is smart, active, knowledgeable, therefore more aggressive and dangerous. His difficulty lies in the fact that at times he thought about his soul, he loved his daughter Taika the beauty to self-forgetfulness and was ready to do everything for her. Anguish sometimes seized him: “Damn life! He doesn’t remember when he went to bed on time in the summer, when he ate normally, went to the cinema, hugged his wife for joy. The legs are cold, they ache at night, heartburn torments, broomsticks fly from the eyes, and there is no one to complain to.
However, the Commander poached professionally, since snatching more and wherever possible is the meaning of his life. He is the faithful son of Chusha and has been living according to the laws of the village for a long time. For the author, the Commander is a strong, dodgy predator number one, unworthy of compassion.
“Predatorily bending down with his beak to meet the forest breeze, the Commander turned the boat around, making such a turn that the duralumin lay on board ... The Commander greedily licked his lips and, impudently grinning his teeth, went straight to the duralumin of the fish inspectors. He swept so close that he could see the bewilderment on the faces of his pursuers. “It’s okay, Semyon’s replacement, well-tailored and tightly sewn, as they say! .. Yes, this is not lame Semyon with a broken skull! With this, you will have to hand-to-hand, maybe you can’t avoid shooting ... ".
“Beak”, “predatory”, “impudently grinning teeth”, “shooting is inevitable” - these are the main details of the image of the Commander. And although he yearns for a different lot, dreams of leaving for warmer climes and living in peace, honestly - let another fool be chased and shot - he loves his daughter and, as a human being, suffers deeply when she was hit by a car driven by a drunk driver, we experience one insurmountable horror from the goals and meaning of the Commander's life. The rust of lack of spirituality ate all the best that continued to flicker faintly in him.
The story "The Fisherman Rumbled" describes the most inhuman method of catching fish - by trapping, when up to half of it, wounded, punctured with hooks, "leaves to die in agony." “The fish that fell asleep on hooks, especially sterlet and sturgeon, are unsuitable for food ...”. Various crooks catch dead fish and sell them. The author exclaims: “Look, buyer, into the gills of a fish and, if the gills are coal-black or with a poisonous blue tint, hit the seller in the mouth with a fish and say: “Eat yourself, you bastard!”
It rumbled - Bandera, once did a dirty deed: he burned the Red Army soldiers and was taken with a weapon in his hands. He was sued, received ten years in a strict regime, served his term and remained to live in the village of Chush, sensing in it favorable living conditions for himself. This rapprochement between the Commander, Ignatich and other various ladies with such a variety of poachers as Grokhotalo is not accidental. The barbaric, selfishly consumerist attitude to nature is elevated to a principle by this man. V. Astafiev's generalizations acquire a new capacious direction and deepen. If the Lady is shown with a certain amount of humor, if tragic notes are felt in the image of the Commander, then Rumble is depicted only in a satirical vein.
Grokhotalo was in charge of a pig farm in Chusha, raised pigs excellently, and his name did not leave the Board of Honor. But his inner essence was determined by one thing: "In addition to fat and himself, Grokhotalo recognized even pennies, therefore he was a grabber." The story of how he caught a huge sturgeon and how he was caught at the "crime scene" by a previously unfamiliar fish inspection inspector is sustained in evil accusatory colors, like the very beginning of the chapter about him. This is not a person, but a block, his snoring rolls like an anchor chain, his face is tinned, “all objects on it are smeared: no nose, no eyes, no eyebrows, it completely lacks the “breath of intellect”. Unaware that the inspector was in front of him, Rumbled boasted:
“- Here, having scooped up a fish-y! - he said in an intercepted voice and, from excitement, ingenuously gaggled, scratched his stomach, pulled up his pants, not knowing. What else to do and say, he began to wipe the sand from the sturgeon with a trembling palm, cooing something tender, as if tickling, scratching a suckling pig.
The portrait of a humanoid animal with mental underdevelopment and moral emptiness is made in the traditions of satirical literature, that is, with the widest use of sarcasm, irony, and hyperbole. His intercepted voice, quivering palm, innocence, gentle cooing would be directly touching, if it were not for the internal worthlessness of the “block” already known to us, if it were not for the comic situation - he boasts before the fish inspector, if all this, finally, was not combined with the deliberately reducing him face with vocabulary - “gagat”, “scratched his stomach”, “pulled up his pants”.
In Rumbled, V. Astafiev achieves the destroying effect with the whole texture of the image - through the correlation of humor and the grotesque, through the exaggeration of speech and behavior. The author's attitude is expressed in descriptions with linguistic satirical expression.
Somehow, in a not human way, Rumbled wildly survived his failure with a magnificent sturgeon, which was confiscated from him. V. Astafiev masterfully conveys his state: “Rumbled, he moved the mountain of his back, suddenly groaned like a child, plaintively and sat down, looking around the company with dead eyes, recognized everyone, dissolved his red mouth with a howl, shuddered, scratched his chest and left ... ".
In the removal of Grokhotalo into the darkness of the punished, the so-called Astafyev's "theory of retribution" for the evil done to man, society, nature, that is, for "poaching" in the broadest sense, is manifested. The lady paid a fine for illegal methods of fishing, Rumbled with a large fish caught by him, Commander - with the death of his daughter, Ignatich was caught on hooks set by him and almost paid with his life.
Every year we are convinced by new and new facts that humanity is paying for its ill-conceived, often predatory attitude towards nature. The idea of retribution, not for one specific poaching of Damka or Grokhotalo, but for human violation of the ecological balance in nature, pervades the entire book of V. Astafiev. With the greatest completeness, it is expressed, perhaps, in the chapter "Tsar-fish", in the history of life, shock and repentance of Ignatich.
5. The symbolic meaning of the chapter "King-fish", its place in the book
There is a story with the same title in the book "King-Fish". Apparently, the author attaches special importance to it, so I would like to dwell on it in more detail.
Ignatich - main character story. This man is respected by fellow villagers for the fact that he is always happy to help with advice and deed, for his skill in catching fish, for his intelligence and sharpness. This is the most prosperous person in the village, he does everything well and reasonably. Often he helps people, but there is no sincerity in his actions. The hero of the story does not develop good relations with his brother either.
In the village Ignatich is known as the most successful and skillful
fisherman. It is felt that he has an abundance of fishing flair, the experience of his ancestors and his own, acquired over the years.
Ignatich often uses his skills to the detriment of nature and people, as he is engaged in poaching.
Exterminating fish without counting, causing irreparable damage to the natural resources of the river, the protagonist of the story is aware of the illegality and unseemliness of his actions, he is afraid of the shame that can befall him if the poacher is caught in the dark by a fish supervision boat. Forcing Ignatich to fish more than he needed, greed, greed at any cost.
This played a fatal role for him when he met the king-fish. Ignatich came across a fish of extraordinary size. From that moment on, we are completely focused on it, and it is as real to us as everything around. V. Astafiev slows down the course of action, stops and, with rare observation, seems to admire all the features of the fish - its size, beauty and rebellious strength. Astafiev describes it very vividly: “There was something rare, primitive not only in the size of the fish, but also in the shape of its body, from soft, veinless, like a worm mustache, hanging under a head evenly cut below, to a webbed, winged tail - a fish looked like a prehistoric lizard ... ".
Ignatich is struck by the size of the sturgeon, which grew up on boogers alone, he with surprise calls it a mystery of nature. And you involuntarily think not about a specific sturgeon sitting on a samolov hook, but about something big that is personified in this fish.
Ignatich, with the intuition of an experienced fisherman, realized that one could not take such prey alone, but one thought about his brother outraged him: “How? Chop a fish into two or even three parts! Never!" And it turned out for himself that he was no better than his brother, Damka, the unfinished Bandera rumbled: “All grabbers are similar in their guts and muzzles. Only others manage to hide themselves, hide for the time being. Ignatich from those who lurked: "Chaldon's perseverance, vanity, greed, which he considered passion, broke, mangled a person, torn to pieces."
In addition to the thirst for profit, there was another reason that forced Ignatich to measure his strength with a mysterious creature. This is a fishing prowess. "Ah, it wasn't!" The king fish comes across once in a lifetime, and even then not to every Yakov.
However, as soon as Ignatich took a sip of water, having been caught on his own samolov, as far-sighted ancient customs coming from grandfathers and great-grandfathers began to speak in him, the forgotten faith in God and werewolves was stirred up: he did not notice the true beauty of the world, and in the life of other people, in the life He did not take part in society, and in the death of a young niece, in essence, together with her father, he was guilty, and he was disgusting when he insulted his beloved Glakha ...
Everything that was just worldly has turned into a plan of global moral problems; Ignatich appeared as a man, realizing his filth, and the fish with its instinct of motherhood and self-preservation - the personification of nature itself, and their clash acquired a new quality - it turned into a single combat between Man and Nature. And we comprehend this, reading the episode, not by logic, but by feeling, and most clearly at the moment when the Fish, looking for comfort and protection, buried its nose in the side of the Man:
“He shuddered, was horrified, it seemed that the fish, crunching their gills and mouth, slowly chewed him alive. He tried to move away, moving his hands along the side of the tilted boat, but the fish moved after him, stubbornly groped him and, poking the cartilage of a cold nose into a warm side, calmed down, creaked near the heart, as if sawing through the epichondrium with a blunt hacksaw and, with a wet champ, absorbed the insides into an open mouth, right in the hole of the meat grinder.
Not about the fish and its catcher, not about fishing, although difficult, we are talking here, but about the tragedy of Man. With Nature, he is tied with "one mortal end", which is quite real in case of thoughtless and immoral treatment of her. To reveal this "bondage", this unity, V. Astafiev, as an artist, finds images of piercing power. In them, thoughts and feelings are inseparable, merged and natural so much that we do not immediately notice their substantive, philosophical orientation, their aesthetic reality:
“He moved and saw a sturgeon nearby, he felt the half-asleep, lazy movement of his body - the fish tightly and carefully pressed against him with a thick and tender belly. There was something feminine in this solicitude, in the desire to warm, to preserve the emerging life in oneself.
This is not just about fish. It seems to embody the feminine principle of nature and life itself. And this “pity” for man is significant in itself, for it tells us about the place of Man in the life of Nature, especially if he is kind and attentive to her. We must also not forget about the power of nature and its unknown secrets. That is why the last chords of the drama captured by the writer resound so majestically in the chapter.
“The fish turned over on its stomach, felt the jet with its rearing crest, churned its tail, pushed against the water, and it would have torn a man off the boat, with nails, with skin, would have torn off, and several hooks burst at once. The fish beat its tail again and again, until it took off from the trap, tearing its body to shreds, carrying dozens of deadly blows in it. Furious, grievously wounded, but not tamed, she crashed somewhere already invisibility, splashed in the cold wrap, a riot seized the freed, magical king-fish.
Ignatich realized that this incident with the king-fish was a punishment for his bad deeds.
This is the main idea of the story and the whole book: a person will be punished not only for the barbaric attitude towards nature, but also for cruelty to people. Destroying in his soul what nature lays down from the very beginning (kindness, decency, mercy, honesty, love), Ignatich becomes a poacher not only in relation to nature, but also to himself.
Man is an integral part of nature. He must live with her in harmony, otherwise she will avenge her humiliation, subjugation. Astafiev claims this in his book.
Turning to God, Ignatich asks: “Lord! May you separate us! Let this creature go free! She doesn't suit me!" He asks for forgiveness from the girl whom he once offended:
Ignatich is given in volume and plasticity, with that sharpest condemnation, which determines much, if not all, in the novel. Ignatich is a symbolic figure, he is the very king of nature, who, in a collision with the king-fish, suffered a severe defeat. Physical and, most of all, moral suffering is the retribution for a daring attempt to subdue, subjugate or even destroy the king fish, the mother fish, carrying a million eggs in itself. It turned out that man, the recognized king of nature, and the king-fish are connected by mother nature by a single and inextricable chain, only they are, so to speak, at different ends.
It may seem that Astafiev, with his thoughts, only confused the reader even more, and did not build his thoughts, but nevertheless he gives an answer to a difficult question: nature is a temple where a person cannot manage at his own discretion, he must help this temple enrich itself, after all, man is a part of nature, and he is called upon to protect this only home for all living things.
6. Images of goodies. Akim and his fate
A distinctive feature of the novel "Tsar-fish" is that in it, more fully than in many modern works, the people are represented both in their mass, as an artel on Boganid, and in individual characters, such as the buoy keeper Pavel Yegorovich.
The people of V. Astafiev are depicted in many dimensions, with the highlighting of their contrasting characters and social groups, and their conflicts cannot be called simply domestic. Is it possible to reconcile Akim and the former Bandera member Grokhotalo, is it possible to put Nikolai Petrovich, who lives for the family, for the people, and Georgy Gertsev, an individualist and egoist, side by side? It is impossible to somehow equate Kiryaga the tree, Paramon Paramonovich with three fellow robbers ...
The free structure of the novel allowed V. Astafiev to turn to different strata of society, either subordinating their description to some developing plot inside the chapter, or depicting them episodically with a few strokes, that is, extremely briefly, as if in passing, like an old migrant woman who could not even for thirty years to forget their mournful journey along the Gloomy River. It is immediately clear that the "image of the author" is inseparable from people from that thickness of the people, which is dear to him: he himself came out of it. But he does not idealize himself or these people, he does not elevate, he does not romanticize.
The chapter of "Ear on Boganid" is a necessary link in the author's thoughts about the past and present, in the analysis of reality, in the disclosure of folk characters.
In addition to Akim and his family, the chapter depicts an artel of fishermen.
This is not an ordinary artel: it is not settled and inconsistent in composition. Only the foreman, about whom nothing significant has been said, the food receiver nicknamed "Kiryaga-tree", the radio operator, the cook, the midwife Afimya Mozglyakova, did not change in it. It is said about the artel fishermen themselves: “They were generally free from any worries, what they were told to do - they do it, where they were told to live - they live, what they were given to eat - they eat." And Mozglyakova, having served five years "for something", remained to work in the North. It seems that it is not at all an exemplary artel with well-established centuries-old traditions, but random, fluid from year to year, not without any kind of flaws, that is, the people in it are different, there are also embittered, detached from everything. Nevertheless, it was precisely in such an association that collective care for the needy, and above all for children, was formed and established. Even such people, undoubtedly, were touched by the trends of the century, the humanistic principles of which they embody in practice. Tell them about their true humanity, they, perhaps, will not understand or attach any meaning to the words: for themselves, such behavior has become commonplace. Depicting in detail the disasters of only one large family on Boganid - the family of Akim and Kasyanka - the writer said about the most important thing that saved many from starvation, from death in the first working years after the war: indiscriminately brigade ear. Many children survived and grew up on that ear, turned into peasants, dispersed around the world, but they will never forget the artel tol. And it's impossible to forget that."
The pages devoted to waiting for the fishermen, preparing the fish soup, and having dinner at the common table are an example of pictorialism; they can decorate any anthology. Everything is so dense, voluminous and large that it is really impossible to forget. Some Tugunok, a clumsy, finger-sized boy, the first to receive a howling portion from a huge cauldron, completely captures our attention, as if there is nothing more important now than how he, burning and choking, will eat his ear. And suddenly there rose up - there is no other word for her - the glorious girl Kasyanka. She is the first trouble-free worker, a cook and a waitress, a mentor and mother for kids, a faithful guardian of the Boganid customs, a living personification of ideal moral standards, which she is guided by with childish spontaneity. She even gave reasonable advice to the front-line soldier Kiryaga-derevyaga and was almost the only one on Boganid who was his intercessor and comforter in bitter hours, she also sheathed, washed and fed him. “Then in Boganid there is Kasyanka, in order to come in handy and help everyone in time ... Light, white, Kasyanka fluttered along the shore from boiler to table, from table to boiler, like a broomstick, like a small bird, and only after, when everyone was at work, everyone is busy eating, looking around the feast with a caring look, the girl poked from the edge of the table, ate hastily, but neatly, ready at any moment to jump up, bring something or fulfill someone's request.
The Kiryaga-tree itself is depicted with no less care. He was a sniper in the war, was awarded a medal. But Kiryaga drank it once in a difficult moment and terribly punished himself for it. As for the rest, he is a most wonderful person, a diligent owner of the artel business, one of the pillars of the most humane tradition on Boganid. He loved children and doted on Kasyanka. His injury is severe, difficult to bear, and therefore he sought relief in wine. The war ended, but continued to haunt people, this explains the author's sadness and pain when he talks about his fellow front-line soldier with good humor.
In the artistic fabric of the chapter, the same expression and tension is noticeable as in the lyrical chapters, but there is a clear predominance of epic forms. The world on Boganid appears in objective refraction, it is slightly descriptive, always visible and plastic. The village is "a dozen of lopsided, weathered huts to the ash flesh, entirely one-horse, with barn roofs, covered with roofing paper, hopping in the wind." A fishing village was created, which is why it is reported that “the fishing artel arrived in Boganida still in the snow, prepared gear, caulked and pitched boats, floodmen, made oars, repaired a fish receiving point.” And the place where the village stands is depicted in businesslike calm colors: “A sandy spit, washed to a shine with water, licked by waves, completely studded with hangers for drying seines, calmly, lazily stretches from the cape of the river.” And the life of one woman, who for some time became the center of the chapter, is traced carefully from beginning to end. We do not know her name. The mother of seven children from different fathers, and that's it. She is the daughter of a Dolgan woman and a Russian. V. Astafiev considered an amazing character in life and pulled him out with such skill that we believe his every word.
Yes, her children are from different fathers, from those same artel fishermen who were accidentally thrown into the village from year to year. But the words of condemnation - windmill and so on - did not stick to her. She, by the exact definition of everyone, "was and remains a teenage girl in mind and heart." Kindness is her all-consuming quality. Kindness to disarming simplicity. She worked as a cutter during the seasonal months, it was difficult to extract flour, which was then in short supply, but carelessly lowered it with her “kasyashki” in two or three weeks. In these hearty days, whoever wants to come to her - help yourself. All the usual household chores were given to her with difficulty, but for the sake of the family she overcame everything, learned everything. “What she didn’t need to be taught was that it’s easy, carefree fun to love children and all living people,” which is why she saved all seven “even in the most hungry winters.” One word - Mother. The element of unaccountable motherhood, as in nature, is emphasized in it. As soon as she obeyed the "reasonable" advice - to get rid of the eighth child, she immediately died. The concept of "mother nature" is unexpectedly and peculiarly concretized in this nameless woman. We cannot fail to notice that from her, naturally unsophisticated, selfless toiler, comes the inner beauty of Kasyanka, Akim, who preserve her later, no matter how life distorts.
V. Astafiev remains true to himself in this chapter as well. His prose is fearless, it is not afraid of contrasts, the so-called "non-aesthetic" injection of details and all sorts of everyday trifles. Well, why, it seems, does he need “a rotten stink hole” or “mouths with gums bleeding from scurvy”, underlined twice “languishing saliva” and “sticky saliva”?
Let's try, however, to listen to these combinations in context, and make sure that they are in place and that all Tugunk's concentration on the bowl, on the famine he experienced, reproduced here in such detail, is needed so that no one forgets about famine and war, about hungry Tugunki, wherever they are:
“Suffocating from the smell of the fish soup and from the fact that all the yummy was hooked on him, straining at the crown - he wouldn’t stumble, wouldn’t fall, Tugunok gently moved his legs, raking the sand with tattered shoes, going to the artel table, and his hands burned with a hot bowl ... The boy’s mouth overflowed with lingering saliva from animal impatience, rather have enough food, choke on the burning brew, bite off a piece of bread ... It gets dark in the eyes of a small person: the palate grows numb, and sticky saliva does not stay in the mouth - rather, rather to the table, but it burns hands with a bowl, it burns - do not hold back! Oh, don't hold back! Drop! Now it will drop! .. "
Such pictorialism does not exist by itself, it is spiritualized, as in other chapters of The King Fish, by a super-task: to tell the truth about the social existence of the people, to reveal the true sources of its moral strength, to allow a person to look back and think about his future. “Ukha na Boganida” is a hymn to the collective principles in the life of any society. And the images of Pavel Yegorovich, Nikolai Petrovich, Paramon Paramonovich, Kiryaga-tree, Elder and Mother, all taken together, are a poem about kindness and humanity, not speculative, not verbal, but one that is poured out really among the people and inconspicuously and sacredly embodied by them in deeds and deeds.
When we think about Kasyanka and Akim, who were fed by the artel fish soup, we cannot but remember that from childhood they absorbed these collectivist labor skills, these humanistic principles, these ethical norms. Akim and Georgy Gertsev are justly spoken of as opposite types. They called the largest number criticisms, a discussion arose around them.
“The crisis in the relationship between man and nature,” said the reader-scientist, “has arisen mainly through the fault of people like Goga Gertsev. This is generally obvious. It is more difficult to understand otherwise that Akim is not the type of person who can save humanity from the threat of an ecological crisis. Of course, he is noble in his attitude to nature, he almost deifies her, worships her. However, he does not have interaction with it either - in the sense that he cannot understand the complexity of the system of ecological interconnections.
To be more precise, Gertsev is far from alone to blame for the ecological crisis. And to reduce the image of Akim to a dilemma, whether he can or will not be able to understand the complexity of ecological interactions, is hardly legitimate. Akim is an ordinary person. And one must think that our society consists and will consist in the near future not only of scientists, but of such ordinary people, without whose noble attitude towards nature this future is impossible to imagine. Yes, and science itself, in the final analysis, introduces its progressive ideas into life not without such a massive participation of people.
Critic Yu. Seleznev assesses him one-sidedly: “Akim is a “child of nature”, he is her hero, having the strength to prove himself only in a specific, narrow sphere. The nature of the era, the needs of the situation require the hero to be not "a boy, but a husband" in all spheres of life. And the “akims”, as we understand, in the capacity in which our literature shows them to us, are not capable of such a role. Again Akim and "akims" are offered a different role than they occupy in life and as they are presented in the work of V. Astafiev. Akim is not only a “child of nature” (apparently, in a certain narrow sense, because we are all children of nature), but also a representative of the most popular and so far necessary professions - a hunter, fisherman, driver, mechanic, minder ... Only Akim is still a pilot Haven't been but hope to try. And wherever he worked, it was always responsible work and with full dedication. Let us recall with what dedication and ingenuity he made the completely neglected all-terrain vehicle work.
Akim did not receive education, did not acquire great knowledge. This is the misfortune of many of the military generation. But he worked honestly and acquired various professions from an early age, because his childhood was not easy. And he just worked, but was glad that he was earning a living, helping his mother. And he was observant and inquisitive, quickly comprehended how which fish behaves, how best to adapt to it. His fishing work, when the artel left the village forever and the “Kasyashki” and their mother were left alone, became completely childish, hacking and exhausting.
Akim began to understand his mother early, it happened that he reproached her for her carelessness, but he loved and thought about her with tenderness: “Well, what are you going to do with her?” His thoughts about his mother are unusual for a teenager, they stand out with sensitivity and depth:
“The mother is sleeping by the fire, smiling at something. Again and again the boy wonders that this woman or girl ... took it and gave birth to him, such a fool! Gave him brothers and sisters, the tundra and the river, quietly leaving in the infinity of the midnight region, the clear sky, the sun caressing the face with parting warmth, the flower piercing the earth in spring, the sounds of the wind, the whiteness of snow, herds of birds, fish, berries, bushes, Boganida and everything that is around, everything, everything she gave! Astonishingly amazing!”
The process of formation of a teenager's worldview is expressively captured. He comprehends the beauty of the world and the greatness of the mother who gave him this world. The shock experienced by him does not visit every person.
Mother died young. How Akim suffered when he drove up to his native, but already empty Boganida! And how in his own way he comprehended the word "peace", which he remembered drawn on his mother's scarf.
“Do you forget a mother in a cloudberry dress, how, rattling the floorboards torn from the nails, she exfoliates, covering her mouth with a scarf, and pigeons flutter on the scarf, and the word “peace” disappears, then appears, and you don’t have to rack your brains what it means ; the world is an artel, the world is a mother who, even having fun, does not forget about the children ... "
This is the basis of Akim's "philosophy of life", his moral principles, about which he himself spoke, as if justifying himself: "I studied culture at Boganid, and at Bedovoy, and among chauffeurs." In fact, it was a high culture of feelings of a working person.
Akim takes care of the ill Paramon Paramonovich, becomes a moral support for Petrun at the right moment. Petrunya is Akim's partner in the geological party, a bully and a scold, but a jack of all trades. Accidentally and absurdly, he died on a hunt. Akim experienced his death as a personal tragedy. Akim has sympathy for every person. Akim even “felt sorry” for the head of the party, and therefore agreed to work on a broken all-terrain vehicle: a hopeless situation - it is necessary to help out. But Akim revealed himself most fully in the days when he saved Elya, a proud woman who, through the fault of Gertsev, ended up in the taiga. In this case, he laid out his whole self, regretting nothing: "The main thing is to save a person." The woman died from illness and exhaustion.
Before this event, we knew that Akim was adapted to everything, he knew how to do almost everything. Here we saw how he, overcoming weakness, forced himself to work. His industriousness and moral purity merged into one, and he performed a feat of selflessness for the sake of saving another person.
The big scene of departure from the winter hut, when Akim hardly put Elya on her feet, and involuntary return is one of the best in the novel. In it, Akim made an inhumanly difficult, heroic attempt to escape from the captivity of the winter taiga, he almost froze. In these fatal hours, Elya prayed, turning "not to heaven, but to him, a man," who "forever and ever was the support and protection of a woman." And the “god” himself, according to the critic’s definition, at that moment “overcame weakness, got up, stood on all fours, bogged down with his hands in the snow. Baring his teeth in pain, whining like a dog, he pumped himself out of the snow, crawled from under a tree on all fours to a blue trace. And when Akim brought Elya to the same hut, disgusted by him, she, indignant, whipped Akim on his frostbitten face, shouting: “Reptile! Gad! Gad! Where did you take me? I want to mom! To Mom! To Moscow!" "God" could not stand it, he began to swear, but nevertheless he did what he considered necessary, which his conscience prompted him to do. The “philosophy” of the hero should be determined not by words taken out of the context of the whole scene, but by the logic of character development.
Conclusion
It would be unforgivable narrowness to interpret the "Tsar Fish" in purely ecological terms, only as a work advocating for the preservation environment. Nature is important for V.P. Astafiev insofar as it is necessary for people, for their body and soul. His main task is a person. The person who is dear and close to him, whom he knew from childhood, whom he met again on his recent trip to his native places. “My native Siberia has changed, and everything has changed,” the writer concludes his story. Everything flows, everything changes! It was. That's it. So it will be." Will only Siberian nature survive, and the simple-hearted northern man who grew up in its bosom? ..
Later, V. Astafiev defined the essence of his work as follows: “With the whole structure of my story, I wanted to tell the reader: the time has come to preserve, or rather, to protect nature. And if it is impossible not to spend, then it must be done wisely, carefully ... Here, as nowhere else, it is clearly clear that the protection of nature is a deeply human task, if you like, it is the protection of man himself from moral self-destruction ... "
This question is open in the book, since only life can give an answer to it. But it is staged, formulated, because it disturbs the writer.
"Tsar-fish" is a pure spring of poetry. Falling down to it, you absorb those noble moral ideas that this work carries, and you imperceptibly become purer and more beautiful.
This book is simple and unobtrusive. As the hero changes, so do we. I found a book that touched my soul.
Bibliography:
Agenosov V. V. Man and the universe in the lyrical-philosophical novel by V. Astafiev “Tsar-fish” // Agenosov V. V. Soviet philosophical novel. - M., 1989
Vysotskaya V. Man and nature. According to the narration in the stories of V. Astafiev "Tsar-fish" // Literature. - June (No. 24). - With. 14-15
Goncharov A. Creativity of V.P. Astafiev in the context of Russian prose of the 1950-1990s. - M., 2003
Zhukov I. "king-fish": man, history, nature - the tama of the work of V. Astafiev. - In the book: Zhukov I. The birth of a hero. - M., 1984. - 301s. - With. 202-213
Kurbatov V. Moment and eternity: Reflections on the work of V. Astafiev. – Krasnoyarsk, 1983
Lanshchikov A.P. Viktor Astafiev: The right to sincerity / A. Lanshchikov. – M.: “Owls. Russia", 1975. - 96 p. - With. 45-51
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Molchanova N. A. Narration in the stories of V. Astafiev "Tsar-fish" - In the book: Soviet literature. Tradition and innovation. - L., 1981. - 216 p. - With. 164-175
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“So what am I looking for? Why am I suffering? Why?
For what? I don't have an answer."
V. Astafiev
Ecological and moral problems. The narration in the stories "King-fish" was written in 1972-1975, at a time when environmental problems began to rise more sharply in the country.
The main "heroes" of the work are Man and Nature, the interaction of which is comprehended in their harmony and contradiction, in their commonality and isolation, in their mutual influence and repulsion, as it appears to the writer. Critics call it socio-philosophical, since the author's thoughts and feelings are embodied in large-scale images that have universal significance. The chapter "King-fish", which gave the name to the whole story, sounds generalized, almost symbolic. The struggle of a man with a king-fish, a huge sturgeon, that is, nature itself, ends in a dramatic outcome: seriously wounded, but not tamed, carrying deadly hooks in itself, it leaves without surrendering to a man in order to die somewhere. It embodies the feminine principle of nature and life itself. The author draws a scene when a caught fish is tightly and carefully pressed against a person with a thick and tender belly. This speaks of the place of Man in the life of Nature, especially if he is kind and attentive to her. We must not forget about the power of nature and its unknown secrets. Therefore, the last lines of the drama depicted by the writer sound so majestic in the chapter: the departure of the fish. "Furious, grievously wounded, but not tamed, she crashed somewhere already invisibility, splashed in a cold wrap, a riot seized the freed, magical king-fish."
Here we are not talking about the fish and its catcher, not about fishing, although difficult, we are talking about the tragedy of Man. With Nature, he is tied with "one deadly end", which is quite real in case of thoughtless and immoral treatment of her.
In our era, with each new year, a person is becoming more and more aware that, according to the definition of V.I. their unions, but also in the planetary aspect. With each new year, people feel more and more acutely that they are humanity, although this concept itself arose several centuries ago. Mankind has realized its inseparability, no matter how social cataclysms tear it apart today. The influence of mankind on nature becomes in many cases equal to the influence of natural forces.
Of course, the process of "technization" in the use of natural resources is irreversible and a return to "untouched" nature is impossible, no matter how a person today treats it, with approval or indignation. But it is impossible not to take into account the ethical factor in regulating the interactions of man, society, all mankind with nature. It is precisely this problem that V. Astafiev touches upon in Tsar-Fish.
There is no single main character in the story. There are many of them here. First of all, these are Akim, Nikolai Petrovich, the storyteller's brother, Kiryaga, a tree, a fish receiver, Akim's mother, and many, many others.
Everything in the work is devoted to the task of exposing, condemning poaching in the broadest sense of the word, poaching in life, whether it concerns nature or society. The very image of the author everywhere tends to proclaim and affirm the moral principles dear to him. In his "narration in stories" the author freely moves from the depiction of scenes, paintings, images to reflections and generalizations, to journalism, since the main thing here is not the plot. The novel in the usual sense would not allow this.
"King-Fish" is not a collection of stories, but a narrative united by one hero - "the image of the author" - and one all-consuming idea - the idea of the inseparability of man from nature. In the foreground is a philosophical and socio-ecological task. The very scene of the novel - the vast expanses of Siberia - is also related to the character of a person, since it requires from him such outstanding qualities as courage, kindness.
The work does not give ready-made answers to the questions posed, to all the complex problems of modern mankind.
In “Tsar-Fish”, the writer, indignant at poaching robbery in nature, remarks, not without some confusion: “So what am I looking for? Why am I suffering? Why? For what? I don't have an answer."
The one who lives in harmony with nature
kind-hearted and better.
V. Astafiev
Never before has the problem of the relationship between man and nature been as acute as in our time. How to transform the earth to preserve and increase earthly wealth? Renovating, saving and enriching the beauty of nature? This problem is not only ecological, but also moral. IN modern world there is a discrepancy between the gigantic possibilities that a person armed with technology receives and the morality of this person.
Man and nature, their unity and confrontation are the main themes of Astafyev's work "King-fish", which the writer himself called as "narration in stories." This book was written under the influence of the author's trip to the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The main focus of the story, which consists of twelve stories, is ecological. But Astafiev speaks in it about the ecology of the soul, when "man was forgotten in man." The writer believes that each person is personally responsible for everything that happens in the world. “It just seems to us that we have transformed everything, and the taiga too ... - says Astafiev. - We inspire ourselves as if we control nature and what we wish, we will do with it. But this deception succeeds until you stay with the taiga eye to eye, until you stay in it and heal it, then only ... you will feel its cosmic spaciousness and greatness.
The writer calls for the restoration of natural resources, for the economical use of what we have, for the skillful organization of the country's hunting and fishing economy: “Who will argue against the need, against the benefits for each of us of millions, billions of kilowatts? Nobody, of course! But when will we learn not only to take, take - millions, tons, cubic meters, kilowatts - but also to give, when will we learn to take care of our house, like good owners?
The writer is concerned about the scale of the ongoing poaching, in which a person is already beginning to lose his human dignity. Violation of the laws on hunting leads to the violation of moral laws, to the degradation of the individual. “That’s why I’m afraid,” the writer notes, “when people unbelt in shooting, even at an animal, at a bird, and in passing, effortlessly, shed blood. They do not know that having ceased to be afraid of blood ... they imperceptibly cross that fatal line beyond which a person ends and ... looks, without blinking, the low-browed, fanged muzzle of a primitive savage.
The danger of the collapse of man's natural ties with nature and with other people is the main problem that is considered in The King-Fish. Any person who has done evil in relation to the world, especially to its defenseless and most vulnerable representatives - children, women, old people, animals, nature, is punished by life even more cruelly. So, for his rudeness, predation, drunken revelry, the Commander pays with the death of an innocent girl Taika, and Ignatich, being on the verge of death, understands that he is punished for insulting his bride. The clash of kindness and heartlessness, comradely attitude towards people and selfishness can be traced in the characters of the main characters - Akim and Goga Gertsev. Their dispute is a clash of soulless consumer and merciful, humane attitude to nature. If for Akim nature is a nurse, then for Gertsev she is more a stepmother than a mother. The writer claims: whoever is ruthless, cruel to nature, is also ruthless, cruel to man. If Goga did not consider people to be either friends or comrades, he "lived by himself and for himself", then to Akim any person he met in the taiga was his own. There is a fight between Gertsev and Akim due to the fact that Goga, having drunk the front-line soldier Kiryaga, exchanged his only front-line medal for a bottle and melted it down. Akim compares this to robbing a beggar. Gertsev answers him: “I don’t give a damn about the old women, this dirty cripple! I am my own god!" Elya was also on the verge of death, whom Goga took with him to the taiga, accustomed to answering only for himself, thinking only about himself. Saved Elya Akim, for whom it was a natural act. This simple and kind person considers his main duty on earth to work and help his neighbor. But Gertsev was punished by life itself. He died in a duel with nature. material from the site
The hero of the story "The King-fish", which gave the name to the whole story, Ignatich, the elder brother of the Commander, in a duel with the king-fish, personifying nature, having experienced a deep shock, managed to escape. In the face of impending death, he recalls his entire life, recalls the most bitter, shameful - abuse of a girl. He did not raise his hand against a single woman, he never did anything wrong again, he did not leave the village, hoping with humility, helpfulness "to get rid of guilt, to pray for forgiveness." And he perceives his meeting with the king-fish as a punishment for the sin of youth, for insulting a woman. “Forgiveness, are you waiting for mercy? Ignatitch asks himself. - From whom? Nature, she, brother, is also feminine! .. Accept ... all the torment in full for yourself and for those who are currently under this sky, on this earth, torturing a woman, doing dirty tricks on her. This repentance, spiritual cleansing, awareness of the fatality of the poacher's attitude to life helps to free Ignatich. Whoever can repent, see the light, he is not lost for life. That is why the king-fish does not take him with him into the cold dark water. Relations of kinship are established between the world of nature and man.
Viktor Astafiev claims with all his work that only morally strong, spiritually whole people are able to "hold the world on their shoulders, resist its decay, decay."
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The last quarter of the 20th century posed a global problem for humanity - the problem of ecology, the preservation of natural balance. The relationship between nature and man has become so aggravated that it became clear: either man will learn to live as part of nature, according to its laws, or he will destroy the planet and die himself. The theme of the relationship between nature and man was new in Russian literature, and Viktor Astafiev was one of the first to address it.
A native of the Russian North, Astafiev loves and feels nature. Man, according to Astafiev, ceased to behave like a wise and benevolent host, turned into a guest on his own land or into an indifferent and aggressive invader, who is indifferent to the future, who, for the benefit of today, is not able to see the problems that await him in the future.
The name in the story "King-fish" has a symbolic meaning. Sturgeon is called king fish, but it is also a symbol of unconquered nature. The struggle between a man and a king-fish ends tragically: the fish does not give up, but, mortally wounded, it leaves to die. The conquest and conquest of nature leads to its death, because nature must be known, felt, its laws must be used wisely, but not fought against. Astafiev sums up the long-term attitude to nature as a “workshop”, “pantry”, debunks the thesis that man is the king of nature. The truth is forgotten that in nature everything is connected with everything, that if you disturb the balance of a part, you destroy the whole.
Man destroys nature, but he himself perishes. For Viktor Astafiev, the laws of nature and the laws of morality are closely and inextricably linked. As a stranger and a dashing conqueror, he came to the forests of Gosh and died and nearly ruined another life. But worst of all, they gradually succumb to the corrupting influence of the philosophy of consumerism, they begin to barbarously exploit nature, not realizing that they are destroying the house in which they live.
Just a decade after the Tsar Fish was written, the Chernobyl disaster happened. And time was divided into what was before and after Chernobyl. The impact of man on living nature has become equal in destructive force to planetary natural disasters. Local catastrophes are no longer local. Thousands and thousands of kilometers from Chernobyl, radioactive strontium is found in the bones of animals, birds and fish. Contaminated waters have long flowed into the oceans. In Antarctica, penguins are dying, eating infected fish. What Astafiev wrote about has become a terrible reality: the planet is small, it is too fragile for brave experiments. You can't go back to the past, but you can try to save what's left.
The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century gave another concept - human ecology. Humanity, spiritually crippled, having no purpose other than the pursuit of material goods at any cost, cripples nature. Astafiev did not use the term "human ecology", but his books are about this, about the need to preserve moral values.
Victor Astafiev is one of the talented writers of our days. He was born in 1924, spent his childhood and youth in Siberia. All life and work are connected with the native and close to his heart region; the writer always returns to his native place, no matter where...
In the first half of the seventies of the XX century, environmental problems were first raised in the Soviet Union. In the same years, Viktor Astafiev wrote the story, in the stories "Tsar-fish". The main characters of "King-fish" are Nature and Man....
Each writer in any of his works touches on the theme of nature. This may be a simple description of the place of the unfolding events of this work or an expression of the feelings of the hero, but the author always shows his position, his attitude to nature. Victor...
In many works of Russian literature there is reality and fantasy. I want to tell you how in one of Viktor Astafiev's stories "Tsar-fish" the real and the fantastic are combined, that a person who has never believed in either God or omens...
Lesson Objectives:
1. Deepen students' knowledge about V.P. Astafiev. Reveal moral laws, determine the relationship of man and the world in which he lives.
2. Develop monologue speech, improve expressive speech skills, encourage independent work with a book, a dictionary.
3. Cultivate respect for nature.
Equipment: ICT, USC, texts with V. Astafiev's story “King is a fish”.
With the whole system of my story, I wanted to tell the reader: the time has come ... to protect nature ... the protection of nature is the protection of man himself from moral self-destruction.
V. Astafiev.
OSC is compiled on the board throughout the lesson.
During the classes
- Hello guys. The program “Let them talk” is on the air. We are holding our meeting as part of the days of protection from environmental hazards.
– What is ecology? (children's answers, then the meaning of the word is given according to Ozhegov's dictionary).
Thus, we see that ecology is the relationship of people with nature, it is also the harmony of man with himself.
These problems, problems not only ecological, but also moral, are raised by our contemporary, who was called the conscience of our era, V.P. Astafiev in the story “Tsar-fish”.
(Recording date and subject)
What does a talk show imply?
(The teacher draws attention to the fact that speakers on talk shows should be able to defend their opinions, they can enter into an argument, argue their point of view. (the goal of the lesson sounds) The floor is given to biographers who introduce the biography of V.P. Astafiev.)
1slide (portrait of V.P. Astafiev, running line under the portrait.)
“Viktor Petrovich has always walked and is walking slowly “forward” and is rarely consistent on the way. It echoes in some way with the camp theme - Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov. The other edge is with front-line soldiers: Simonov, Bykov, even with the “villagers” Belov, Rasputin, but the biography of the artist himself and the chronicle of his generation became the center of Astafiev’s work, ”- Lev Annensky.
2slide V.P. Astafiev has been a member of the Writers' Union since 1958, an artist whom the critics attributed either to "village" or to "military prose", a member of the editorial board of the magazine "Our Contemporary" and "New World", laureate of the USSR State Prize in 1978 for book "King-fish".
3 slide. “I was born by the light of a lamp in a village bathhouse on the night of May 2, 1924,” the writer recalled.
The future writer was born in the large village of Ovsyanka, Krasnoyarsk Territory, on the banks of the Yenisei. He was not yet 7 years old when he lost his mother: she drowned in the Yenisei. A river of marks will pass through all his works. He will spend his best days on the rivers, about which he will write books, and in each of them he will remember his mother Lidia Ilyinichna. She remained in his life as a bright shadow, a memory, a touch. In his autobiographical essay “Complicit”, V. Astafiev wrote: “If it were given to me to repeat life, I would choose the same one, very eventful, joys, victories, defeats .... And only one thing I would ask my fate to leave with me mom. I have missed her all my life.” He dedicated the story "The Pass" to the memory of his mother. Viktor Petrovich devoted the best pages of his books to those people who from childhood shaped his worldview. And among them the most important was his grandmother Ekaterina Petrovna.
4 slide. In the photo we see her stern, dry face, because it was not for nothing that she was called “general” in the village. But Vitka's grandmother's ability to turn towards the light in difficult moments sunk into Vitka's soul: hungry in the village, there is nothing to eat, and she brings an abandoned puppy to the house, her grandson deceived her, but she still bought him a gingerbread horse, sewed his trousers with a pocket, and he immediately tore them apart, but the grandmother rejoices: thank God he himself remained alive. Yes, and my grandmother felt that her grandson went to her.
5 slide. Through his grandmother, grandfather, through his uncles and aunts, Astafiev comprehended Russian traditions, the beauty and severity of his native Siberian land.
6 slide. And now a difficult, but still happy childhood is over. The future writer was handed over to the Igarsk orphanage.
7slide Orphanage. Spring 1941 Vagrancy, orphanage, indifference of relatives. The writer will tell about this page of his adolescence in the autobiographical book “The Last Bow”, but life in Igarka, where Astafiev studied at school for 6 years, can be quite fully represented from the book “Theft”, where Viktor Petrovich will come in the person of the protagonist.
7 slide. In the fall of 1942, Astafyev volunteered for the front.
8 slide. In the war, he met his fate, his wife Maria Semyonovna.
Everything was in their life: the happiness of the birth of children, and the horror of the funeral of two daughters, and hunger, and cold, and illness. But also fortitude, and wisdom, and fidelity to the only wife who devoted herself to him. In the book “The Sad Detective” we read: “husband and wife, woman and man, completely unaware of each other, in the incomprehensible vast space of the universe, united to become relatives and experience parental share, continuing themselves in children.”
9 slide. In the autumn of 1943, Viktor Petrovich and Maria Semyonovna were demobilized from the army. Severe injuries deprived Viktor Petrovich of his main profession, the compiler of trains. One day he gets to the classes of the literary circle at the newspaper "Chusovoi Rabochiy". After this session, he wrote his first short story "Civil Man" overnight. In 1953, his first book, a collection of short stories, Until Next Spring, was published. In 1958, Astafiev joined the Union of Writers of the RSFSR. Soon the story “The Snows Are Melting” was published, dedicated to life in the village. But Siberia, the native river, inexorably beckoned to itself, and the Astafyev family moved to his small homeland. In his native village Ovsyanka near Krasnoyarsk, V. Astafiev dies in 2001. He glorified this land in the famous and priceless "King-fish".
Teacher's word. We see that Viktor Petrovich was a deeply moral person. The word morality, morality, has already sounded several times today.
– What is morality? (children's answers, then an interpretation is given according to Ozhegov's dictionary)
A sign is posted on the board moral. These qualities can be inherent in a person, someone develops them, and someone destroys them, but there is a moment in a person's life when he returns to what he has lost. Let's remember the heroes of "King Fish" and think about which of the heroes we can say that?
- What kind of reputation did our hero have in the village of Chush? (checking homework, the guys read out quotes characterizing the main hero). Let them talk.
Answers: “He was called politely”, “he was attentive to everyone”, “he was smarter than any mechanic”, “he treated the Chushan people with a certain degree of condescension and superiority”, “however, he didn’t break his hat too much”
- What can we conclude from the description given to Ignatich?
(Ignatich consists of contradictions. The hero’s reputation is built on a combination of conflicting statements. Duality is also emphasized by opposing unions a, but, however, on the other hand, and although there is nothing bad about the Chushan people towards Ignatich, such information is alarming)
- Such were the relations between Ignatich and the Chushans. And what was the relationship with the younger brother Commander. Let's refresh the pages of the story. Let them talk. (role reading).
- What do you think, is it only the rotten pride of the Commander that caused such a terrible hatred for his younger brother? (Ignatich also wishes death to his younger brother, do not stand on ceremony with him.) Of course, he is stronger, more just. but also more ruthless. The conflict that arises between the brothers is associated with greed, anger. We see that we do not like Ignatich in his relationship with his brother, with the Chushans. And one of the moral problems that the author raises is the relationship between people. (Put up a signman-man)
– You and I saw a contradictory personality in relationships with people, we did not see in our hero one of the components of ecology - this is a relationship with nature. The author checks his hero, what he is in relation to the environment. It is known that he is a fisherman, which can be said that he is a good fisherman. Let them talk.
- But there is evidence that he is not just a fisherman, but a poacher. Let them talk. Showing Ignatich in the main business of his life - poaching, the writer lets us into the soul of the hero. We hear the faint voice of his conscience. Ignatich himself despises "the rubbish in himself, the brain", he feels that because of the fish he is forgotten in the man-man. What problem is the author raising? Preservation of identity -the following sign is displayed.
- What kind of fish is this, because of which Ignatich could not save a person in himself? Let them talk. (Reading a passage by heart)
- Ignatich decides to fight with this fish, a fish of amazing beauty, size, with a fish that personifies not a sturgeon sitting on a hook, but something more. Ignatich, who considered himself the king of the river. (reading the relevant passages about the behavior of the fish and the reaction of Ignatich to its movements).
– What are we talking about here?
(Not about the fish and its catcher, not about fishing, but about the tragedy of Man with nature, he is tied with “one mortal end”, which is quite real with soulless and immoral treatment of her. The feminine principle of nature is embodied in the fish, the fish clung to the man, this tells us about the place of man in the life of nature, especially if he is kind and attentive to it.We see here the single combat of man and nature.The king of nature and the queen of rivers meet in an equal fight.Now they are on the same hook.The fate of Ignatich is in the hands of nature .)
What moral problem can we identify ? Human and nature(placard is posted)
- Ignatich called the king once desired for him - a fish a werewolf. Everything about her is disgusting, sickening, obscene. And he himself?
- What image did the writer find to express the essence of the hero? (werewolf)
The selected compositional means showed both sides of the medal: the external one is decent, the hidden one is ugly.
- Where are the origins of his werewolf? We find the answer in the memories that flooded over him in what he thought were terrible hours of death.
Slides with illustrations: offended Glasha, grandfather's precepts, studying at school.
Why did Astafyev tell us this story?
(She recalls the eternal law of life: the evil we have done will return to us, and can completely destroy us. No villainy passes without a trace)
- What saves Ignatich? (deep repentance towards Glasha, repentance before mother nature.) And God heard Ignatich, accepted his repentance this time and sent him not someone, but a brother, with whom he had a long-standing enmity. Asking for forgiveness from everyone, he asked for forgiveness from his brother.
“Forgive and you will be forgiven,” says the gospel commandment.
- What does Ignatich experience after repentance? (release)
- Formulate the idea for which the story was written . (In repentance - liberation)plate.
- The motto of the days of protection from environmental hazards is: “Ecology is safety, this is life.” Nature gives a person life if he loves, protects, protects it, and repents.
And Astafiev himself defined the essence of his work in this way (referring to the epigraph written on the board) “With the whole structure of my story, I wanted to tell the reader: the time has come ... to protect nature ... the protection of nature is the protection of man himself from moral self-destruction.”
Let them say that morality has fallen, let them say that there are no moral people, but I believe in you.
It was the “Let them talk” program. Goodbye.