What moral problems does Russian literature help solve? Problems of morality in modern literature. Purpose of the research work
Description of the presentation by individual slides:
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Problems of morality in works of Russian literature Arguments for an essay
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Morality - This is a system of rules of personal behavior, first of all, answering the question: what is good and what is bad; what is good and what is evil. This system is based on values that a given person considers important and necessary. As a rule, such values include human life, happiness, family, love, welfare and others. Depending on what kind of values a person chooses for himself, it is determined what the person’s actions will be - moral or immoral. Therefore, morality is an independent choice of a person.
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PROBLEMS OF MORALITY: The problem of a person’s moral quest has its roots in ancient Russian literature and folklore. It is associated with such concepts as: honor, conscience, dignity, patriotism, valor, honesty, mercy, etc. Since ancient times, all these qualities have been valued by man; they helped him in difficult life situations with choices. To this day, we know the following proverbs: “In whom there is honor, there lies truth,” “Without a root, not a blade of grass grows,” “A man without a homeland is a nightingale without a song,” “Take care of honor from a young age, and take care of your dress again.” The most interesting sources on which modern literature relies are fairy tales, epics, short stories, stories, etc.
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Problems of morality In literature: In literature there are works that touch on many problems of morality.
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The problem of morality is one of the key problems in Russian literature, which always teaches, educates, and not just entertains. “War and Peace” L.N. Tolstoy is a novel about the spiritual quest of the main characters, moving towards the highest moral truth through delusions and mistakes. For the great writer, spirituality is the main quality of Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Andrei Bolkonsky. It is worth listening to the wise advice of the master of words, learning from him the highest truths.
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The problem of morality in the work of A. I. Solzhenitsyn “Matrenin’s Dvor”. The main character is a simple Russian woman who “didn’t chase after things”, was trouble-free and impractical. But it is precisely these, according to the author, who are the righteous on whom our land rests.
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The problem of a person’s attitude to his homeland, his small homeland The problem of his attitude to his small homeland is raised by V.G. Rasputin in the story “Farewell to Matera”. Those who truly love their native land protect their island from flooding, and strangers are ready to desecrate the graves, burn down huts, which for others, for example, for Daria, are not just a home, but a home where parents died and children were born.
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The problem of a person’s relationship to his homeland, small homeland The theme of the homeland is one of the main ones in the work of I.A. Bunina. Having left Russia, he wrote only about it until the end of his days. The work “Antonov Apples” is imbued with sad lyricism. The smell of Antonov apples became for the author the personification of his homeland. Russia is shown by Bunin as diverse, contradictory, where the eternal harmony of nature is combined with human tragedies
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The problem of loneliness in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky It seems to me that sometimes it is the person himself who is guilty of loneliness, having separated himself, like Rodion Raskolnikov, the hero of Dostoevsky’s novel, by pride, the desire for power or crime. You have to be open and kind, then there will be people who will save you from loneliness. The sincere love of Sonya Marmeladova saves Raskolnikov and gives him hope for the future.
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The problem of mercy and humanism. The pages of works of Russian literature teach us to be merciful to those who, due to various circumstances or social injustice, find themselves at the bottom of their lives or in a difficult situation. The lines of A.S. Pushkin’s story “The Station Warden,” telling about Samson Vyrin, for the first time in Russian literature showed that any person deserves sympathy, respect, compassion, no matter what level of the social ladder he is at.
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The problem of mercy and humanism in the story of M.A. Sholokhov "The Fate of Man". The soldier’s “ash-sprinkled” eyes saw the little man’s grief; the Russian soul was not hardened by countless losses and showed mercy.
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The problem of honor and conscience In Russian literature there are many great works that can educate a person and make him better. For example, in the story by A.S. Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter" Pyotr Grinev goes through the path of trials, mistakes, the path of learning the truth, comprehending wisdom, love and mercy. It is no coincidence that the author introduces the story with an epigraph: “Take care of your honor from a young age.”
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The problem of honor and dishonor In Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" Pierre Bezukhov challenged Dolokhov to a duel, defending his honor and dignity. Dining at the table with Dolokhov, Pierre was very tense. He was worried about the relationship between Helen and Dolokhov. And when Dolokhov made his toast, Pierre’s doubts began to overcome him even more. And then, when Dolokhov snatched the letter intended for Bezukhov, a challenge to a duel occurred.
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The problem of honor, conscience The problem of conscience is one of the main ones in V.G. Rasputin’s story “Live and Remember.” A meeting with her deserter husband becomes both joy and torment for the main character, Nastena Guskova. Before the war, they dreamed of a child, and now, when Andrei is forced to hide, fate gives them such a chance. Nastena feels like a criminal, because the pangs of conscience cannot be compared with anything, so the heroine commits a terrible sin - she throws herself into the river, destroying both herself and her unborn child.
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The problem of moral choice between good and evil, lies and truth The hero of Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, Rodion Raskolnikov, is obsessed with a diabolical idea. “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?” - he asks a question. There is a struggle between dark and light forces in his heart, and only through blood, murder and terrible spiritual torment does he come to the truth that not cruelty, but love and mercy can save a person.
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The problem of moral choice between good and evil, lies and truth Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, the hero of the novel “Crime and Punishment” is an acquirer, a business man. This is a scoundrel by conviction who puts only money first. This hero is a warning to us living in the 21st century that forgetting eternal truths always leads to disaster.
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Problems of cruelty and betrayal in the modern world The heroine of the story by V.P. Astafieva “Lyudochka” came to the city to work. She was brutally abused, and her close friend betrayed her and did not protect her. And the girl suffers, but finds no sympathy from either her mother or Gavrilovna. The human circle did not save the heroine, and she committed suicide.
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The problem of cruelty in the modern world and people. The lines of Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” teach us a great truth: cruelty, murder, “blood according to conscience,” invented by Raskolnikov, are absurd, because only God can give life or take it. Dostoevsky tells us that to be cruel, to transgress the great commandments of goodness and mercy means to destroy one’s own soul.
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The problem of true and false values. Let us remember the immortal lines of “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol, when Chichikov at the governor’s ball chooses who to approach - the “fat” or the “thin”. The hero strives only for wealth, and at any cost, so he joins the “fat people”, where he finds all the familiar faces. This is his moral choice that determines his future fate.
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The problem of kindness and sincerity in the works of L.N. Tolstoy Kindness in a person must be cultivated from childhood. This feeling should be an integral part of the personality. All this is embodied in the image of the main character of the novel “War and Peace” Natalya Rostova.
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The problem of the moral soul, the inner spiritual world It is the moral qualities of a person that make the inner world truly rich and complete. Man is part of nature. If he lives in harmony with it, then he subtly feels the beauty of the world and knows how to convey it. Such an example could be Andrei Bolkonsky in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace".
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The problem of self-sacrifice, compassion, mercy Sonya Marmeladova, the heroine of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” is the embodiment of humility and Christian love for one’s neighbor. The basis of her life is self-sacrifice. In the name of love for her neighbor, she is ready for the most unbearable suffering. It is Sonya who carries within herself the truth to which Rodion Raskolnikov must come through painful searching. With the power of her love, the ability to endure any torment, she helps him overcome himself and take a step towards resurrection.
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Problems of self-sacrifice, love for people; indifference, cruelty In the story of the Russian writer Maxim Gorky “Old Woman Izergil” the image of Danko is striking. This is a romantic hero who sacrificed himself for the sake of people. He led people through the forest with calls to defeat the darkness. But during the journey, weak people began to lose heart and die. Then they accused Danko of mismanaging them. And in the name of his great love for people, he tore open his chest, took out his burning heart and ran forward, holding it like a torch. People ran after him and overcame a difficult road, forgetting their hero, and Danko died.
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Problems of fidelity, love, devotion, self-sacrifice. In the story “Garnet Bracelet” by A.I. Kuprin consider this problem through the image of Zheltkov. His whole life revolved around Vera Sheina. As a sign of his fiery love, Zheltkov gives the most precious thing - a garnet bracelet. But the hero is by no means pitiful, and the depth of his feelings, the ability to sacrifice himself deserves not only sympathy, but also admiration. Zheltkov rises above the entire society of the Sheins, where true love would never arise.
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Problems of compassion, mercy, self-confidence The heroine of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" Sonya Marmeladova with her compassion saves Rodion Raskolnikov from spiritual death. She gets him to turn himself in and then goes with him to hard labor, helping Rodion with her love to find his lost faith.
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The problem of compassion, mercy, fidelity, faith, love Compassion and mercy are important components of the image of Natasha Rostova. Natasha, like no one else in the novel, knows how to give people happiness, love selflessly, giving all of herself without a trace. It is worth remembering how the author describes her in the days of separation from Prince Andrei: “Natasha did not want to go anywhere and, like a shadow, idle and sad, walked around the rooms...”. She is life itself. Even the trials endured did not harden the soul, but strengthened it.
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The problem of a callous and soulless attitude towards a person The main character of A. Platonov’s work “Yushka” was subjected to cruel treatment. He is only forty years old, but to those around him he seems like a very old man. An incurable disease made him old before his time. Callous, soulless and cruel people surround him: children laugh at him, and adults, when they have trouble, take out their anger on him. They mercilessly mock a sick person, beat him, humiliate him. By scolding for disobedience, adults scare children with the fact that when they grow up, they will become like Yushka.
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The problem of human spirituality Alyoshka, the hero of A. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” is precisely an example of a spiritual person. He went to prison because of his faith, but did not abandon it; on the contrary, this young man defended his truth and tried to convey it to other prisoners. Not a single day passed without reading the Gospel, copied into an ordinary notebook.
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Problems of bribery and philistinism. A striking example is the heroes of N. V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General”. For example, the mayor Skvoznik - Dmukhanovsky, a bribe taker and embezzler who deceived three governors in his time, was convinced that any problems can be solved with the help of money and the ability to “splurge”
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Plan:
1 Moral problems in works of modern poetry. 2 Brief information about the writer’s work. 3 Brief summary of the work “Fire”.
1 Moral problems in works of modern poetry.
Nowadays, the problem of morality has become especially urgent, as the personality is disintegrating. In our society, there is a need to talk and reflect on the changing human psychology, on the relationships between people, and finally, on the meaning of life, which the heroes and heroines of V. Rasputin’s novels and short stories so tirelessly and so painfully comprehend. Now at every step we encounter the loss of human qualities: conscience, duty, mercy, kindness. And in Rasputin’s works we find situations close to modern life, and they help us understand the complexity of this problem.
The works of V. Rasputin consist of “living thoughts”, and we must be able to understand them, if only because for us it is more important than for the writer himself, because the future of society and each individual depends on us.
In today's literature there are undoubted names, without which neither we nor our descendants can imagine it. One of these names is Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin. In 1974, in the Irkutsk newspaper “Soviet Youth,” Valentin Rasputin wrote: “I am sure that what makes a person a writer is his childhood, the ability at an early age to see and feel everything that then gives him the right to take up the pen. Education, books, life experience nurture and strengthen this gift in the future, but it should be born in childhood.” And his own example best confirms the truth of these words, because V. Rasputin, like no one else, carried its moral values throughout his life in his work.
V. Rasputin was born on March 15, 1937 in the Irkutsk region, in the village of Ust-Uda, located on the banks of the Angara River, three hundred kilometers from Irkutsk. And he grew up in these same places, in a village with a beautiful, melodious estate, Atalanka. We will not see this name in the writer’s works, but it is she, Atalanka, who will appear to us in “Farewell to Matera”, and in “The Last Term”, and in the story “Live and Remember”, where the consonance of Atamanovka is distantly but clearly discerned. Specific people will become literary heroes. Truly, as V. Hugo said, “the principles laid down in a person’s childhood are like letters carved on the bark of a young tree, growing, unfolding with him, constituting an integral part of him.” And these beginnings, in relation to Valentin Rasputin, are unthinkable without the influence of Siberia-taiga itself, the Angara (“I believe that in my writing it played an important role: once at an integral moment I went out to the Angara and was stunned - and from I was stupefied by the beauty that entered me, as well as by the conscious and material feeling of the Motherland that emerged from it”); without his native village, of which he was a part and which for the first time made him think about the relationships between people; without a pure, unclouded folk language.
His conscious childhood, that very “preschool and school period”, which gives a person almost more to live than all the remaining years and decades, partially coincided with the war: the future writer came to the first grade of the Atalan elementary school in 1944. And although there were no battles here, life, like everywhere else in those years, was difficult. “For our generation, the bread of childhood was very difficult,” the writer noted decades later. But about those same years he will also say something more important and generalizing: “It was a time of extreme manifestation of human community, when people stood together against big and small troubles.”
During the war, Rasputin also felt people's relationships with each other and understood their relationship to society. This also left its mark on the young soul of the future writer. And later in his work, Rasputin would pose in stories and tales the moral problems of society, which he would try to solve himself.
Then, as he himself reports, “...moved to fifth grade.” But this was not the usual transfer from one class to another, to which we have all been accustomed for a long time. It was a whole story, and a dramatic one at that, full of emotions. Having completed four classes in Atalanka and graduated very well, which was noted by the entire village, now for one thing or another, turning to the most literate student with requests, Rasputin himself, of course, wanted to continue his studies. But the school, in which there were fifth and subsequent grades, was located only in the regional center of Ust-Uda, and this is as much as fifty kilometers from their native village. You can’t run into people every day - you have to move there to live, alone, without parents, without family. Moreover, as V. Rasputin would later write, “before that, no one from our village in the region studied. I was the first."
It was difficult for the mother to raise three children alone in those almost hungry years; It’s not easier to let the eldest of them, Valentin, into an independent life at that age. But she made up her mind and, as we learn from the story “French Lessons,” she went to the regional center, agreed with her friend that her son would live with her, and on the last day of August, Uncle Vanya, the driver of the only lorry and a half on the collective farm, unloaded the boy on Podkamennaya Street , where he was to live, helped him carry the bundle with the bed into the house, patted him on the shoulder encouragingly and drove off. “So, at the age of eleven, my independent life began. The famine that year has not yet gone away...” (we are talking about the forty-eighth year). His mother gave him bread and potatoes once a week, which were always in short supply, but he continued to study. And since he did everything only conscientiously (“What could I do? - Then I came here, I had no other business here... I would hardly have dared to go to school if I had left at least one lesson unlearned”), then and they assessed his knowledge only as excellent, except, perhaps, for French: pronunciation was not given, “he spoke French in the manner of our village tongue twisters.”
We learn about how a teenager felt in an unfamiliar city, what he was thinking about and what he was doing by rereading the story “French Lessons.” But, without knowing how the writer’s childhood passed, what it was filled with, it is impossible to read his works deeply, with full understanding, so it is necessary to dwell on some moments of the school period of his life: they, these moments, will not sink into eternity, will not be forgotten , will sprout, like from grain, into independent plants, into the whole world of the soul.
The story “French Lessons” is an autobiographical work. He helped V. Rasputin find his teacher. She read the story and recognized him and herself, but she didn’t remember how she sent him a parcel with pasta. True goodness on the part of the one who creates it has less memory on the part of the one who receives it. That’s why it’s good, so as not to look for direct returns. In the story “French Lessons,” V. Rasputin talks about the courage of a boy who preserved the purity of his soul, the inviolability of his moral laws, fearlessly and courageously, like a soldier, bearing his duties and his bruises. The boy is attracted by the clarity, integrity, and fearlessness of his soul, but it is much more difficult for him to live, much more difficult to resist than for the teacher: he is small, he is alone in a strange place, he is constantly hungry, but still he will never bow to either Vadik or Ptah , who beat him bloody, not in front of Lydia Mikhailovna, who wants the best for him. The boy organically combines the bright, cheerful carefree nature of childhood, a love of play, faith in the kindness of people around him and childish, serious thoughts about the troubles brought by the war. The writer recalls himself, an eleven-year-old boy who survived the war and the post-war hardships of life. Adults are often ashamed in front of children for bad deeds, their own and others’ mistakes, and difficulties.
Literary readingTopic: Moral problems in the works of Russian writers
Goals: Understanding the problem of morality.
Evaluate the actions and relationships between loved ones.
Form an idea of the personality of the heroes.
Tasks:
1. Form:
the idea of goodness, kindness, good, good deeds;
the ability to correctly evaluate oneself and others, teach to see positive qualities in people, heroes, characters.
3. Learn to analyze literary texts.
4. To cultivate in children such personality qualities as kindness, generosity, responsiveness;
Lesson script:
Org. Moment
Psychological attitude
Cryptographer
Introduction to the lesson topic and goal setting
Let's turn to the dictionary to interpret the word - morality. I am certainly a moral person." It turns out that many people have certain problems with spiritual and mental qualities. This is exactly what our lesson today is about.
Formulate the topic of our lesson?
Moral problems in the works of Russian writers.
What goals do we set for ourselves?
5. “Tree of Predictions”
In order for our lesson to be successful, what can you suggest for today’s work?
Pay attention to our tree and use the leaflet to rate your attitude towards work.
6. Work on the topic of the lesson
Today in our lesson “Virtual Guest. This - Vasily Alexandrovich Sukhomlinsky. Sincere love for children, romantic aspirations of the individual, passion and conviction distinguished the outstanding teacher Vasily Aleksandrovich Sukhomlinsky. A wonderful teacher - an innovator, a passionate publicist, he primarily cared about the problems of children and adolescents. Over two decades, he published 35 books and hundreds of scientific articles - reflections. We have already studied his stories - parables this fall. (“I want to have my say”) Until his last day, he remained the director of the Pavlysh school, an ordinary rural school where ordinary village children studied.
Today we will get acquainted with another story - the parable “Birthday Dinner”. Before you anticipate what this story is about, let's find out what a parable is. (" Parable- this is a short instructive story in the literary genre, containing moral or religious teaching (wisdom). Close to a fable. In the parable there is no depiction of characters, indications of the place and time of action, or showing phenomena in development: its purpose is not to depict events, but to report about them.”
What do you think: what is this parable about? (children's answers)
Let's read and clarify your assumptions.
(Reading by teacher with interruption)
Rating after initial listening
Not at ease - awkward.
To not believe your eyes is to be very surprised.
No good - very bad
Grabbing your head - becoming horrified, in despair
Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter
So-so – neither bad nor good
Select and point to the selected phraseological unit.
Remember your choice, it will be useful to us when summing up.
7. Radio play
Let us now read the text by role in groups. There are 4 of you: 2 authors, mom and Nina. 1 author reads to the words: Nina’s birthday is coming soon.
Let's listen to the second part of the story with the words “Guests have arrived...”
8. "Six Hats"
Now let's start the discussion. 6 hats will help us with this.
The hats are on your desks, you know what to do. Let's repeat the algorithm for working in groups. We started work.
We listen to the speakers' answers. Additions only after the leaders speak.
Let's return to phraseological units, have your opinions changed when assessing Nina's actions?
Define Nina’s action in one word. (betrayal)
9. Results of the work
- Diagnostics
- Put + - yes, - if no.
- Mark on the tree of predictions.
10. Assessment in the route sheet
11. Homework
Today's world has established certain standards by which the dignity of a person in the 21st century is assessed. These criteria can be divided into two categories: spiritual and material.
The first include kindness, decency, readiness for self-sacrifice, pity, and other qualities based on morality and spirituality. to the second, first of all, material well-being.
Unfortunately, the material values of modern society significantly prevail over the spiritual ones. this imbalance has become a threat to normal human relations and leads to the devaluation of centuries-old values. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the problem of lack of spirituality has become the leitmotif of the work of many modern writers.
“To be or to have?” - this is the question asked by the 20th century writer Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn in the story “Matrenin’s Dvor”. The tragic fate of the Russian peasantry contains not one, but many real stories, human characters, destinies, experiences, thoughts, and actions.
It is no coincidence that “Matryonin’s Dvor” is one of the works that laid the foundation for such a historically significant phenomenon of Russian literature as “village prose”.
The original title of the story was “A village is not worthwhile without a righteous man.” When publishing the story in Novy Mir, Tvardovsky gave it the more prosaic title “Matrenin’s Dvor,” and the writer agreed with the renaming of the title.
It is no coincidence that it was “Matrenin yard"and not "Matryona", for example. because it is not the uniqueness of an individual character that is described, but precisely the way of life.
The story was outwardly unpretentious. on behalf of a rural mathematics teacher (who is easily identified as the author himself: Ignatich-Isaich), who returned from prison in 1956 (at the request of censorship, the time of action was changed to 1953, pre-Khrushchev time), a Central Russian village is described (though not the outback, only 184 km from Moscow), what it was like after the war and what it remained 10 years later. the story was not filled with revolutionary sentiments, did not expose either the system or the way of collective farm life. At the center of the story was the joyless life of the elderly peasant woman Matryona Vasilievna Grigorieva and her terrible death at a railway crossing. nevertheless, it is this story that has come under critical attack.
The critic and publicist V. Poltoratsky calculated that approximately in the area where the heroine of the story Matryona lived, there is an advanced collective farm “Bolshevik”, about whose achievements and successes the critic wrote in the newspapers. Poltoratsky sought to clearly show how to write about the Soviet village: “I think it’s a matter of the author’s position - where to look and what to see. and it is very unfortunate that it was a talented person who chose such a point of view, which limited his horizons to the old fence of Matryona’s yard. look beyond this fence - and some twenty kilometers from Talnov you would see the Bolshevik collective farm and could show us the righteous of the new century ... "
Commenting on the remarks and reproaches expressed by Poltoratsky, Solzhenitsyn wrote: “The story “Matrenin’s Dvor” was the first to be attacked in the Soviet press. In particular, the author pointed out that the experience of the neighboring prosperous collective farm, where the chairman was the Hero of Socialist Labor, was not used. The critics did not notice that he was mentioned in the story as a forest destroyer and speculator.”
In fact, the story says: “And in this place, dense, impenetrable forests stood before and survived the revolution. Then they were cut down by peat developers and a neighboring collective farm. Its chairman, Gorshkov, razed quite a few hectares of forest and profitably sold it to the Odessa region, thereby raising his collective farm and receiving a Hero of Socialist Labor for himself.”
The entrepreneurial spirit of the collective farm “owner,” from Solzhenitsyn’s point of view, can only highlight the general ill-being of the Russian village. Talnov's position became hopeless, and Matrenin's courtyard became perishing.
The story is based on the contrast of the disinterested, poor Matryona with the greedy for “good” Thaddeus, Matryona’s brother-in-law, her sisters-in-law, adopted daughter Kira with her husband and other relatives. Almost all the people of the collective farm are “purchasers”: this includes the chairman, who talks to people about everything except fuel, which everyone is waiting for: “because he himself has stocked up”; his wife, the chairman, who invites old people, disabled people, including Matryona herself, to work on the collective farm, but cannot pay for the work, even Aunt Masha “the only one who sincerely loved Matryona in this village” “her half-century friend” after the death of the heroine, comes to her house to get some bundles for her daughter.
Even after the death of the heroine, the relatives do not find a kind word about her, and all because of Matryona’s disdain for property: “... and she did not pursue the acquisition; and not careful; and she didn’t even keep a pig, for some reason she didn’t like to feed it; and, stupid, helped strangers for free...” The characterization of Matryona, as Solzhenitsyn justifies it, is dominated by the words “wasn’t”, “didn’t have”, “didn’t pursue” - complete self-denial, dedication, self-restraint. and not for the sake of boasting, not because of asceticism... Matryona simply has a different value system: everyone has it, “but she didn’t have it”; everyone had, “but she did not have”; “I didn’t struggle to buy things and then cherish them more than my life”; “She did not accumulate property before her death. a dirty white goat, a lanky cat, ficuses…” - that’s all that remains of Matryona in this world. and because of the remaining pitiful property - a hut, a room, a barn, a fence, a goat - all Matryona's relatives almost came to blows. They were reconciled only by the considerations of a predator - if they go to court, then “the court will give the hut not to one or the other, but to the village council.”
Choosing between “to be” and “to have,” Matryona always preferred be: be kind, sympathetic, warm-hearted, selfless, hardworking; preferred give away to the people around her - acquaintances and strangers, and not to take. and those who were stuck at the crossing, having killed Matryona and two others - both Thaddeus and the “self-confident, fat-faced” tractor driver, who himself died - preferred have: one wanted to transport the room to a new place in one go, the other wanted to earn money in one “run” of the tractor. The thirst to “have” turned against “to be” into a crime, the death of people, the violation of human feelings, moral ideals, and the destruction of one’s own soul.
So one of the main culprits of the tragedy - Thaddeus - spent three days after the incident at the railway crossing, until the funeral of the victims, trying to regain the upper room. “his daughter was losing her mind, his son-in-law was facing trial, in his own house lay the son he had killed, on the same street was the woman he had killed, whom he had once loved, Thaddeus only came for a short time to stand at the coffins, holding his beard. His high forehead was overshadowed by a heavy thought, but this thought was to save the logs of the upper room from the fire and the machinations of Matryona’s sisters.” Considering Thaddeus to be the undoubted murderer of Matryona, the narrator - after the death of the heroine - says: “for forty years his threat lay in the corner like an old cleaver, but it still struck...”.
The contrast between Thaddeus and Matryona in Solzhenitsyn's story takes on a symbolic meaning and turns into a kind of author's philosophy of life. Having compared the character, principles, behavior of Thaddeus with other Talnovsky residents, the narrator Ignatich comes to a disappointing conclusion: “... Thaddeus was not the only one in the village.” Moreover, this very phenomenon - the thirst for property - turns out, from the author’s point of view, to be a national disaster: “What good The language strangely calls our property ours, the people's or mine. And losing it is considered shameful and stupid in front of people.” But the soul, conscience, trust in people, a friendly disposition towards them, love to lose is not a shame, and not stupid, and not a pity - that’s what’s scary, that’s what’s unrighteous and sinful, according to Solzhenitsyn’s conviction.
Greed for " good"(property, material) and neglect of the present good, spiritual, moral, incorruptible - things that are tightly connected with each other, supporting each other. And that's not the point property, not in relation to something as to his own personally suffered, endured, thought out and felt. Rather, on the contrary: spiritual and moral goodness consists of transferring, giving something his to another person; the acquisition of material “goods” is hunger someone else's.
All critics of “Matryona’s Court”, of course, understood that the writer’s story, with his Matryona, Thaddeus, Ignatich and the “ancient”, all-knowing old woman, embodying the eternity of people’s life, its ultimate wisdom (she utters only when she appears in Matryona’s house: “Two there are riddles in the world: “how I was born, I don’t remember; youth), this is the “truth of life”, real “national characters”, so different from those usually shown as prosperous in the same type of Soviet literature.
“Matryona’s Court” of the 50s was replaced by Viktor Astafiev’s novel “The Sad Detective”. The novel was published in 1985, during a turning point in the life of our society. It was written in the style of harsh realism and therefore caused a surge of criticism. The reviews were mostly positive. The events of the novel are relevant today, just as works about honor and duty, good and evil, honesty and lies are always relevant.
The life of policeman Leonid Soshnin is shown from two sides - his work: fighting crime and life in retirement, seemingly peaceful and quiet. But, unfortunately, the line has been erased and every day a person’s life is under threat.
Astafiev draws clear images of which society consists, from hooligans and murderers, to the hard worker Aunt Granya. The contrast of characters and ideals help determine the attitude of the heroes to the world, to people; their values.
If we turn to the image of Aunt Granya, who raised Leonid Soshnin, we will see an example of self-sacrifice and philanthropy. Having never had children of her own, she takes up raising orphans, devotes all her time to them, meanwhile suffers humiliation and rudeness from her husband, but even after his death she does not dare to say a bad word about him. Leonid Soshnin, having already become a policeman, and having forgotten about Aunt Grana, meets her again under very sad circumstances... Having learned about the abuse of her, Soshnin is ready to shoot the scoundrels. But before the crime. fortunately it doesn't work out. Criminals go to jail. But Aunt Granya reproaches herself: “They ruined young lives... They cannot withstand such terms. If they stand it, they’ll become gray-haired mushshins…”, she regrets that she filed a complaint with the police. Amazing, excessive humanity in her words. “Aunt Granya! Yes, they abused your gray hairs!” exclaims the main character, to which she replies: “Well, what now? Killed me? Well, I would cry... It’s a shame, of course.” Stepping over her pride, she worries about human lives.
If we turn to the criminal world, in particular to the drunken brawler who killed four people, we will see cynicism and indifference to human life. “Why did you kill people, little snake?” asked Leonid Soshnin, to which the “canary” replied, “ smiling carelessly“: “But I didn’t like the hari!”
And people stand up for this criminal, this murderer: “Such a boy! Curly boy! And he, the beast, has his head against the wall.” An amazing feature of the Russian people is to instantly go over to the side of recent criminals, protecting them from justice, calling justice itself “atrocity.” The author himself talks about this strange generosity: “... why are Russian people eternally compassionate towards prisoners and often indifferent to themselves, to their neighbor - a disabled person of war and labor? We are ready to give the last piece to a convict, a bone crusher and a bloodletter, to take away from the police a malicious hooligan who has just raged, whose arms have been twisted, and to hate his co-tenant because he forgets to turn off the light in the toilet, to reach in the battle for the light such a degree of hostility that they can Don’t give water to the sick person, don’t poke your head into his room...”
How amazingly contradictory is the phenomenon that the author calls the “Russian soul”, amazing philanthropy bordering on complete indifference. It's horrible. I remember an incident in the St. Petersburg metro when not a single person came to the aid of a girl who had fallen between the cars, although many had such an opportunity. People, unfortunately, have not changed at all. Therefore, the literature of the late 20th century continued to talk about immorality and lack of spirituality. The problems remained the same, but new ones were added to them.
Turning to Victor Pelevin’s story “The Recluse and the Six-Fingered,” we will see a grotesque allegory on modern society. The main idea of the work was the confrontation based on the “man-crowd” principle.
The main characters of the story are two chickens named Recluse and Six-Fingered, who are raised for slaughter at a plant (poultry farm) named after Lunacharsky. As it turns out from the story, the chicken community has a rather complex structure depending on its proximity to the feeder.
The plot of the story begins with the expulsion of Six-Fingers from society. Having been torn away from society and the feeding trough, Six-Fingered encounters the Recluse, a chicken-and-chick wandering between different societies within the plant. Thanks to his extraordinary intellect, he was able to independently master the language of people, learned to read the time on a clock, and understood that chickens hatch from eggs (although he did not see this himself).
Six-fingered becomes the student and associate of the Recluse. Together they travel from world to world, accumulating and generalizing knowledge and experience. The Recluse's highest goal is to understand a certain mysterious phenomenon called “flight.” The recluse believes that having mastered flight, he will be able to escape beyond the boundaries of the plant’s universe.
It is no coincidence that until the end of the work the reader remains unaware that the story is about chickens. From the very beginning, the author separates “society” and the main characters. The main task of this “society” becomes getting closer to the feeding trough - thus the author ironizes the desire to “acquire” real society. The heroes are looking for a way out of the “worlds”, realizing their impending death. Turning to the episode with the “throwing” of the heroes over the “wall to the world,” we meet “Old Mothers” “... no one, including the fat-faced one, knew what it was - it was just such a tradition,” they “shouted out hurtful words to the Recluse through tears and Six-Fingered, mourning and cursing them at the same time.” Cruel irony is seen in these seemingly minor images. If we remember the mourning mothers in the real life of ancient Rus', we see sincere human compassion and grief, but here the author shows that feelings are replaced by habit, which is why the line between mourning and cursing is so thin.
The reader may be surprised by the strange combination of heroes - the philosopher Recluse and the stupid Six-Fingered. Why is it that a fool is able to get out of society and has the right to exist? Let us return, again, to the episode of exile: “Six-fingered last time looked at everything that remained below and noticed that someone from the distant crowd was waving farewell to him - then he waved back...” Having got out of his “world” and seeing how he irretrievably disappeared and died, Six-Fingered cries, remembering the “man” below. The recluse calls it love. This is what sets the six-fingered chicken apart from all the rest. He has a heart. Perhaps the author personifies this with a strange rudiment of the sixth finger, because this is not typical for the rest of society (“society”).
The goal of the heroes - as mentioned above - is the “highest state” - flight. It’s no coincidence that Six-Fingered takes off first. Since morality and cordiality are more important and more important than calculation and cold reason (inherent in the Recluse).
Developing progressively, the literature of our time remains unchanged in its strict reproach to heartlessness, cynicism and indifference. Figuratively speaking, those who killed the heroine of Matryona's Court defended criminals and bloodletters in The Sad Detective, and then formed a thoughtless society in The Recluse and the Six-Fingered.
I would like to summarize my analysis with the work of Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstoy “Kys”. The book was written over fourteen years and became the winner of many literary works. “Kys” is a post-apocalyptic dystopia. The novel takes place after a nuclear explosion, in a world of mutated plants, animals and people. Among the masses, the previous culture died out, and only those who lived before the explosion (the so-called “ former"), keep it. The main character of the novel, Benedict, is the son of the “former” woman Polina Mikhailovna. After her death, Benedict is taken in by another “former” - Nikita Ivanovich. He tries to accustom him to culture, but to no avail... The image of Kysi - some terrible creature - runs through the entire novel, periodically appearing in Benedict’s imagination and thoughts. Kys herself does not appear in the novel, probably being a figment of the characters’ imagination, the embodiment of fear of the unknown and incomprehensible, of the dark sides of her own soul. In the minds of the novel's heroes, Kys is invisible and lives in the dense northern forests: “She sits on the dark branches and screams so wildly and pitifully: Ky-ys! Whoops! - and no one can see her. A man will go into the forest like this, and she will fall on his neck from behind: hop! and the backbone with your teeth: crunch! - and with his claw he will find the main vein and sever it, and the whole mind will come out of the person.”
Along with the physical mutation, there is a mutation of values, which, however, was characteristic of people even before the explosion. People have one passion - the Mouse (a kind of monetary unit). The concept of “justice” is peculiar according to the principle - if someone steals from me, I will go and steal from the second, who will steal from the third, and then the third will steal from the first thief. So you see, “justice” will come out.
The main character of the novel, Benedict, is distinguished from other “darlings” by his passion not only for mice and “plaques” (a monetary unit), but also for books (they occupy a special place in the novel). It is important to note that Benedict's job is that of a copyist. The head of the city, Fyodor Kuzmich, keeps a huge library that existed even before the explosion and passes off works of both the world's greatest classics and folklore as his own creativity. These books are handed over to scribes, who transfer the contents onto birch bark and sell them to people. There is a surprisingly clearly planned system that misleads people: books (genuine, printed) are presented as a source of radiation; there is a detachment of “orderlies” who take book owners away to an unknown direction - “for treatment.” People are intimidated. The only people who know that books are not dangerous are the “former” people who lived before the explosion. They know the true authors of literary works, but the “darlings”, naturally, do not believe them.
Benedict’s mentor and, in fact, the main ideological hero of the work, Nikita Ivanovich is the “former” person, his goal is to educate Benedict. But these attempts are futile. Neither carving Pushkin from wood nor communicating is good for Benedict. Having married the daughter of the chief orderly, having gained access to books, Benya still does not understand the meaning of them, but reads out of interest. In the reading episodes, the sharp irony characteristic of Tatyana Tolstoy sounds: “... there is a magazine “Potatoes and Vegetables”, with pictures. And there is "Behind the Wheel". And there is "Siberian Lights". And there is “Syntax”, a kind of obscene word, but you can’t understand what it means. It must be obscene. Benedict flipped through it: yes, there are swear words there. Postponed: interesting. Read at night." In a thirst for meaningless reading, the hero commits a crime. The scene of his murder of the man, the owner of the book, is written very briefly, fluently. The author shows the ordinary attitude towards murder, indifference to human life, and even though Benedict’s torment after the crime is described, he, carrying out a coup d’etat together with his son-in-law, without hesitation kills the guards, and after that the “greatest murza” (the head of the city), pursuing the “good "The goal is to save books." As for the coup, Kudeyar Kudeyarych, who came to power, becomes the new tyrant, all his transformations are the renaming of Fedor Kuzmichsk to Kudeyar Kudeyarychsk and the ban on gatherings of more than three. This whole miserable revolution leads to a new explosion and the complete destruction of the city...
A novel is written in a sharp, sarcastic language, the purpose of which is to show the plight of an unspiritual society, to depict the mutation of a person, but not physical deformity, but mental and spiritual wretchedness. The attitude of people towards each other, their indifference to the death of others and the fear of their own is duplicity that has become the norm. The main character of the novel thinks about people, about strangers and loved ones, about those who are pitied and those who are not pitied. In one episode he reflects on his neighbor:
“A neighbor is not a simple matter, it is not just anyone, not a passer-by, not a passer-by. A person is given a neighbor to weigh his heart, cloud his mind, and inflame his temper. From him, from the neighbor, there seems to be some serious worry or anxiety coming from him. Sometimes a thought will arise: why is he, a neighbor, like this and not another? What is he doing?..You look at him: he went out onto the porch. Yawns. Looks to the sky. He spat. Looks up at the sky again. And you think: what is he looking at? What didn't he see there? It’s worth it, it’s worth it, but he doesn’t know what it’s worth. You shout: - Hey! - What?.. - But nothing! That's what. I got upset, little girl... Why did I get upset?.. - And what do you want? - But nothing! - Well, shut up! - Shut up yourself, otherwise I’ll give you right now! Well, you’ll fight another time, to the death, otherwise you’ll just break your arms and legs, knock out an eye, or something else. Neighbor because."
Described with humor, amusing, time-stylized language, the attitude towards people is in fact the author’s cry about rudeness that has become the norm. Theft, drunkenness, rowdy behavior - all this is normal for the society described in the novel. And as a result, Kys is the embodiment of human fears, perhaps not existing at all. But this same Kys is a warning, a warning from the author, that nothing but fear and chaos can give rise to immorality, cynicism and indifference.
Whether there was an explosion or not is not important. Reading the novel, you understand that we now see almost all aspects of the fictional society around us.
Having gathered together the experience of writers of the 20th century, the reader clearly sees that the axis of human vices is growing. Having now a clear understanding of immorality, I would like to turn to morality directly.
Morality is taking oneself for oneself. Since, as follows from the definition, morality is based on free will, only a free being can be moral. In contrast to, which is an external requirement for an individual’s behavior, along with, morality is an internal attitude to act in accordance with one’s own.
To remain honest with your conscience, you don’t need much—it’s enough not to be indifferent. This is exactly what modern literature teaches.
Tags: The problem of morality in modern literature Abstract Literature
