Matrenin's yard as an argument. "Matrenin's Dvor": analysis of Solzhenitsyn's work (version 3)

The author's title of the story is “A village is not worth it without a righteous man,” however Chief Editor"New World", where the work was published in 1963 (No. 1), A. Tvardovsky insisted on the name "Matrenin's Dvor", which from the point of view of expression author's position incomparably weaker, since for Solzhenitsyn the main thing was the affirmation of the impossibility of the existence of a life devoid of a moral principle, the personification of which among the people was for him the main character of the story.

The story "Matrenin's Dvor", which we will analyze, in terms of reproducing the events of reality, remains completely authentic: both life and death Matryona Vasilievna Zakharova is presented in the work with documentary accuracy; In real life, the action took place in the village of Miltsevo, Vladimir region. Thus, the plot of the story and the images of the characters are not fictitious; one of the characteristic features creativity of Solzhenitsyn: the writer gravitates towards real facts, the artistic interpretation of which in his works is carried out in the direction of identifying philosophical foundations life, transforming everyday life into being, revealing the characters of the heroes in a new way, explaining their actions from the standpoint of not the momentary, vain, but eternal.

Image railway Russian literature has long-standing traditions, and Solzhenitsyn’s story “Matrenin’s Dvor” continues these traditions. Its beginning seems to interest the reader: why at the crossing “for a good six months after that, all the trains slowed down as if to the touch”? Then"? However, further narration removes some of the mystery from the events that caused the trains to almost stop, and it turns out that here, at this crossing, she died terrible death the same Matryona, whom those around her valued little during her life, considering her “funny” and “stupid,” and after her death they began to condemn her for being so “wrong.”

Image main character the story "Matrenin's Dvor" was drawn by the author in highest degree realistically, his Matryona is not embellished at all, she is depicted as the most ordinary Russian woman - but already in the way she “maintains” her hut, the unusual mental makeup of this woman is manifested: “The spacious hut and especially the best part near the window was lined with stools and benches - with pots and tubs of ficuses. They filled the hostess’s loneliness with a silent but lively crowd,” says the author, and the reader sees this world alive - for the hostess - of nature, in which she feels good and at peace. She carefully created this world of hers, in which she found peace of mind, because her life was unusually difficult: “Misunderstood and abandoned even by her husband, who buried six children,” “There were many heaped injustices with Matryona: she was sick, but was not considered disabled; she worked on a collective farm for a quarter of a century, but because she was not at a factory - she was not entitled to a pension for herself, and she could only achieve it for her husband...” - this is what this woman’s life was like.

However, as the author emphasizes, all these life trials did not turn Matryona Vasilyevna into an embittered person, she remained a light-hearted person who knew how to enjoy life, a person who looked at the world openly and joyfully, she retained a “radiant smile”, she learned to find an opportunity to enjoy life in any situation, and, as the author writes, “I noticed “She had a sure way to regain her good mood - work.” Any injustice that spoiled her life was forgotten in the work that transformed her: “And bowing not to the office tables, but to the forest bushes, and having broken her back with the burden, Matryona returned to the hut, already enlightened, satisfied with everything, with her kind smile.” Maybe that’s why she couldn’t refuse anyone who asked (almost demanded...) her help in her work, that she felt joy from work? And neighbors and relatives took advantage of this, and it turned out that Matryona’s hands did not reach her garden - she had to help others, who almost openly despised her for this help: “And even about Matryona’s cordiality and simplicity, which her sister-in-law for admitted to her, she spoke with contemptuous regret."

The author also shows Matryona as a person in whom the genuine, not flaunted, spiritual values ​​of the Russian people are concentrated: kindness, true love to people, faith in them (despite unfair treatment to oneself), even a certain holiness - only holiness everyday life, in which it is unusually difficult for a person to maintain a moral principle. It is noteworthy that the author mentions this when speaking about the place of religion in the heroine’s life: “Perhaps she prayed, but not ostentatiously, embarrassed by me or afraid of oppressing me... in the morning on holidays Matryona lit a lamp. She only had sins less than that of her languid cat. She strangled mice..." The following detail noted by the author also speaks about the spiritual beauty of the heroine: "Those people always have good faces who are in harmony with their conscience... and this reflection warmed their face. Matryona."

The heroine of Solzhenitsyn's story "Matrenin's Dvor" dies under the wheels of a train because of someone else's greed, because of her desire to help others, seemingly relatives. However, these “relatives and friends” swoop down like vultures on the poor (if not to say beggarly) “inheritance”, make “accusatory cries against” each other from crying over the body of the murdered woman, trying to show that it was they who loved the deceased most of all and the most for her. they mourn, and at the same time their crying goes beyond the “ritual norms”, “coldly thought-out, primordially established order.” And at the wake, for which “tasteless pies were baked from bad flour,” they argued about who would get what of the deceased’s things, and “it was all about going to court” - the “relatives” were so unyielding. And after the funeral, Matryona’s sister-in-law remembers her for a long time, and “all her reviews about Matryona were disapproving: she was unscrupulous; and she didn’t chase after money; and she wasn’t careful; and she didn’t even keep a pig, for some reason she didn’t like to feed; and stupid, helped strangers for free..." But it is precisely this, in the eyes of the author, that Matryona is contrasted with all the other heroes of the story, who have lost their human appearance in the pursuit of "production" and other blessings of life, who valued only these most notorious blessings in life, who do not understand, that the main thing in a person is the soul, which is the only thing worth bothering about in this life. It is no coincidence that, having learned about the death of Matryona, the author says: “Killed dear person". Native - because he understood life the same way as he himself, although he never spoke about it, maybe simply because he didn’t know such words...

The author admits at the end of the story that while Matryona was alive, he never managed to fully understand her. Tormented by his guilt for the fact that “on the last day I reproached her for wearing a padded jacket,” he tries to understand what was Matryona’s attractiveness as a person, and reviews of her by her relatives reveal to him the true meaning of this person in his life. own life and the lives of those who, like himself, were unable to understand her during her lifetime: “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous man without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand. the city. Neither the whole land is ours." This recognition characterizes the author as a person capable of admitting his mistakes, which speaks of his mental strength and honesty - unlike those who during life used the kindness of Matryona’s soul, and after death despised her for the same kindness...

On the way to publication, Solzhenitsyn's story "Matrenin's Dvor" underwent changes not only in the title. The date of the events described was changed - at the request of the magazine's editors, the year 1953 was indicated, that is, the Stalin era. And the appearance of the story caused a wave of criticism, the author was reproached that he one-sidedly shows the life of a collective farm village, does not take into account the experience of the advanced collective farm neighboring the village where Matryona lives, although it is about its chairman that the writer says at the very beginning: “It was its chairman, Gorshkov, who brought under the root of quite a few hectares of forest and profitably sold it to the Odessa region, thereby raising his collective farm, and receiving a Hero for himself Socialist Labor“... Probably, the pathos of Solzhenitsyn’s work, which showed that the “righteous man” had left this earth, did not suit those who determined the “meaning” of the story, but its author had nothing to do with it: he would be happy to show a different life, but how be, if it is as it is? The writer’s deep concern for the fate of the people, whose “righteous people” live ununderstood and die such a terrible death, is the essence of his moral position, and Solzhenitsyn’s story “Matryonin’s Dvor,” which we analyzed, is one one of his most significant works, in which this anxiety is felt especially acutely.

The problem of moral choice in the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn "Matrenin Dvor"

Problem moral choice in the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn "Matryonin Dvor"

Solzhenitsyn's story "Matryonin's Dvor" tells about the life of a village in the fifties. The writer depicts how moral ideals and people's lives change with the advent of collective farms and widespread collectivization. It shows the crisis of the Russian village, the dispossession of peasants. People were deprived of property and lost incentive to work.

The life of the peasantry, its way of life and morals - all this can be understood very well by reading this work. Main character it contains the author himself. This is a man who served a long time in the camps and who wants to return to Russia. But not to the Russia that was disfigured by collectivization, but to a remote village, to a pristine world where there will be beautiful nature.

But he was disappointed; there was the same social poverty in the village: “Alas, they didn’t bake bread there. They didn't sell anything edible there. The whole village was dragging food in bags from the regional city.” Having traveled to several villages, he fell in love with the one where a woman of about sixty lived, Matryona. The peasantry here has lost centuries-old economic and cultural traditions. The author sees the house of his mistress Matryona. You can live in this house only in the summer, and even then in good weather: “however, the wood chips rotted, the logs of the log house and the gates, once mighty, turned gray from old age, and their cover thinned out.” Life is terrible: cockroaches and mice are running around. People in the village of Torfoprodukt have nothing to eat. Matryona asks what to cook for lunch, but there is nothing except “kartovi” and “cardboard soup”. But, despite such a difficult life, Matryona chooses the life of a righteous man.

Every person is faced with a choice in life. Everyone decides how to live in our harsh world. Some help others, others think of their lives only as a desire for their own happiness, sometimes even causing harm to people. The main character chooses righteousness, which consists in unrequited help to others. This is her moral choice.

The author appreciates kindness, simplicity, meekness in Matryona and sees the extraordinary beauty of her soul. Her entire existence was concluded in work, selfless help to her friends, sisters-in-law, neighbors: “But not only the collective farm, but any distant relative or just a neighbor also came to Matryona in the evening and said:

Tomorrow, Matryona, you will come to help me. We’ll dig up the potatoes.” Then she dropped everything and helped, and then she was sincerely glad that the potatoes were large.

The life of the main character is not so easy. Having lost her husband in the war and buried six children, she did not lose moral ideals. She herself did not strive for hoarding, did not pursue fashion. Having worked on the collective farm for a quarter of a century, Matryona did not receive a pension, since only factory workers were entitled to pensions: “She was lonely all around, and when she began to get very sick, she was released from the collective farm. There were a lot of injustices with Matryona: she was sick, but was not considered disabled; She worked on a collective farm for a quarter of a century, but because she was not at a factory, she was not entitled to a pension...”

Wealth does not belong to the people, everyone has become slaves in the hands of the state. Replacement in progress moral values: instead of good, they become wealth and thirst for profit. But Matryona did not lose her life aspirations and spiritual guidelines. Even during her lifetime, relatives begin to share the upper room. Wanting to help her pupil Kira, Matryona gives the logs of the upper room to Kira and even helps transport them herself. A tractor, transporting a dismantled upper room, falls under a train, and the heroine dies: “At dawn, the women were brought from the crossing on a sled under a dirty bag thrown over - all that was left of Matryona... Everything was a mess - no legs, not half of the torso, not the left arm " He even dies doing a good deed. Such is the righteous Matryona.

Having lost this beautiful woman, society continues to degrade morally. Thaddeus, who loved Matryona in the past, does not grieve over her death, but only thinks about how to preserve the remaining logs. This is how people lose moral values. Even at wakes, everyone drinks, and when they get drunk, they start singing songs and swearing. Relatives and closest people are indifferent to grief about the departed Matryona. And only the author, who lived with her, was able to see a real righteous person in her: “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand.

Neither the city.

Neither the whole land is ours.”

The story ends with these words.

In his work, Solzhenitsyn showed us the environment in which people live. It is the environment that drives them to greed and loss of moral values. People deteriorate and become cruel. Matryona retained the human being within herself. The author perfectly shows her Russian character, her kindness, sympathy for all living things. The miserable life did not make Matryona’s soul and heart miserable. Only Solzhenitsyn could see a great soul and a righteous man in a simple old woman.

The story “Matryonin’s Dvor” calls for not repeating the mistakes of the last generation, so that people become more humane and moral. After all, these are the basic values ​​of humanity!

Composition

Dali once said: “If you are one of those who believes that modern Art surpassed the art of Vermeer or Raphael, don’t pick up this book and remain in blissful idiocy” (“Ten instructions for someone who wants to become an artist”) - I think it’s difficult to dispute. Of course, the great Salvador spoke about painting, but this saying also applies to literature. Art (be it literature, painting or music) is a way of self-expression; it helps us look into the most hidden corners of the soul.
I don’t like many works of modern Russian literature due to the lack of any artistic or creative principles. Nowadays, a story, poem or novel is often the result of a violent fantasy, a sick imagination or a distorted perception of the world (those who have an idea of ​​​​the “Platonic” Second Coming will understand me and, I hope, will support me). Today's writers are trying to prove that their rejection of modern reality and lack of moral ideals is an individual approach to creativity.

But if today the world is ruled by lawlessness and cowardice, this does not mean that faith is over. It will be reborn, because man one way or another returns to his roots, albeit slowly, but with a firm and confident step (restoration of temples, adoption of religion).
Reading the classics, I find a lot of interesting things for myself. After all, at the beginning life path a person does not always manage to meet someone who would become his best friend and adviser, so one of the main teachers of each of us is a book. What can modern literature teach us? Admit that you learned about first love not from Solzhenitsyn, but from Turgenev or Pushkin (“First Love”, “Eugene Onegin”), about the revival of the human soul from Dostoevsky (“Crime and Punishment”), but about the diversity and strangeness of humanity thinking - after all, from Gogol (“ Dead Souls"). It should be noted that classic always carries with it a dose of optimism. Even in Crime and Punishment, where we're talking about about a terrible offense - murder - and the hero, it would seem, has no justification, Dostoevsky makes us understand that Raskolnikov is not at all lost to society. His conscience is not clear, but for him there are such concepts as honor, justice, dignity.
It seems to me that the classics give us hope for spiritual revival, and in modern literature this is not the case. Let's try, from the point of view of the above, to consider what constitutes the work of a modern Russian writer, in particular

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. To do this, I propose to analyze one of his stories - “Matrenin’s Dvor”, which, in my opinion, poses the problem of loneliness, a person’s relationship with people around him, author's attitude to life.
So, our hero comes to Russia, to the wonderful Russian hinterland with its eternal mysteries, extraordinary personalities And original characters. What awaits him? He does not know. No one expects him, no one remembers. What could he encounter on his way? He just wanted to “get lost” somewhere where radio, television and other advances couldn’t reach him. modern civilization. Well, luck smiled at him: the second time he managed to find a small village not far from the Torfoprodukt station and live there quietly, teaching the younger generation exact science. There were no problems with housing either. They found a “suitable house” for him, in which, in his words, “it was his lot to settle.”

God, how he missed ordinary people who have not lost that spiritual simplicity that each of us is endowed with from birth. How much tenderness and delight an ordinary village woman selling milk, her appearance, her voice, her characteristic accent, evokes in his soul. And with what sympathy he treats the mistress of the house, Matryona. He respected and understood her as she was: big, merciless, soft, sloppy and yet somehow sweet and dear. The unfortunate woman lost all her children and her beloved, having “ruined” her youth, she was left alone. And of course, I couldn’t help but arouse pity. She is not rich, not even prosperous. She is as poor as a “church mouse”, sick, but cannot refuse help. And the author notes a very important quality in her - selflessness. It was not because of money that old Matryona dug potatoes for her neighbors and raised her niece Kirochka not for the sake of gratitude either, but simply loved children. She is a woman after all.
When the war began, poor Matryona did not suspect that it (the war) would divorce her from her “dear” man, and the heroine “goes” to marry her fiancé’s younger brother. But the husband soon leaves the village, goes to war and does not return. And now Matryona is left with nothing. The children died one after another before reaching the age of one year. And at the end of her life she was doomed to loneliness. Only a “bumpy cat”, a “dirty white crooked goat”, mice and cockroaches inhabited her “skewed hut”. Matryona took in her niece Kirochka, and it was last consolation. But, apparently, Matryona is not destined to while away her days in peace. It was urgent to move the room to another village, otherwise Kirochka would miss a good place. It would seem that our heroine should not interfere with the transportation of her own house (the last thing she has left), but should prevent it in every possible way. But no - she decides to help transport the logs. And if Matryona had not gone to the railroad at night and started pushing the cart over the rails, she would have been alive.
How did she end her life? Terrible. Stupid. Tragic, I don't see any justification for her death.

In this work, as in others (“ Procession"), Solzhenitsyn expresses his attitude towards people. He doesn’t like the people and tries to depersonalize them, turning them into a *gray mass.” It seems to him that the people around him are “nothing.” They are not able to understand goodness, they don’t care who is next to them. But the author is another matter. He immediately recognizes a “righteous man” in Matryona, but in fact he himself comes to this conclusion too late.
We must pay tribute to the author of the story: in revealing the image of the heroine, he tries to emphasize her kindness, boundless love to people.
What can I say about this work? I’m not happy - once, I don’t like it - twice, because I can’t understand the author’s position: why did Solzhenitsyn embodied so much evil and dirt in his “creation”? (Remember the depressing environment at home and the attitude of people towards each other.)
Naturally, the writer’s work is inextricably linked with his biography. Many years spent in captivity influenced Solzhenitsyn, but not everyone, even the more unfortunate ones, pour out all their grievances and anger in stories and novels. In my opinion, creative work should express only the best that is in a person in order to show: “This is the good that is in me, feel it and understand!”
Art (literature in particular) should bring bright feelings into the human soul. The reader should empathize with the characters, feel the pain of insults, disappointments and even cry (which, by the way, happened to me), but it’s not good if you have an unpleasant aftertaste in your soul after reading. This is probably some other art that I personally don’t understand.

Why then write at all? It's better to draw in the apocalypse style. All the same, the emotions in these two activities (writing about bad things and drawing) are the same, and you can admire the result large quantity person (if the author wanted it). After all, earlier masters created their works precisely so that people would be horrified by the scenes of general death they saw. And when placing such creations right on the streets (meaning churches), people associated with religion also foresaw that those who could not read would also know about the terrible punishment.

But what cannot be taken away from Solzhenitsyn is that he writes about life based on personal experience, writes specifically about himself, about what he experienced and saw. The author shows us life as it is (in his understanding). Although, when reading his works, one gets the impression that this man never saw anything other than the bad, the ignorant and the unfair. But that's not the main point. Solzhenitsyn’s goal is to reveal to us all the “charm” of existence, using the description of a wretched home, evil neighbors and ungrateful relatives.
Solzhenitsyn talks about injustice, as well as weakness of character, excessive kindness and what this can lead to. He puts his thoughts and his attitude towards society into the author’s mouth. The author (the hero of the story) experienced everything that Solzhenitsyn himself had to endure.
Describing the village, Matryona, the harsh reality, he simultaneously gives his assessment, expressing own opinion. How much bitterness and sarcasm can be heard in the description of the station: on the “gray wooden barracks there was a stern inscription: “Only board the train from the station!” Scrawled on the boards with a nail was: “And without tickets.” And at the ticket office... there was a knife scrawl: “No tickets.” Introducing us to Chairman Gorshkov, the author does not forget to mention how he (Gorshkov) received the Hero of Socialist Labor.

And how much “warmth”, “sensitivity”, “sincereness” is felt in the description of the modest home of Matryona and its inhabitants: “Sometimes the cat and cockroaches ate, but this made her feel unwell. The only thing that cockroaches respected was the line of the partition that separated the mouth from... the clean hut... the kitchen was swarming at night... - the entire floor, the bench, and even the wall were almost completely brown and were moving... »
Note that Gogol’s description of a hotel in the city of N., where cockroaches are also found, does not evoke a feeling of disgust. However, the author cannot do without something “like that.”
Not without hidden pleasure, he writes about his “modesty and tact” when he describes the hostess’s cooking: all these cockroach legs in monotonous food, in his words, “not entirely tasty.” “I obediently ate everything that was cooked for me, patiently putting it aside if I came across something unusual... I didn’t have the courage to reproach Matryona...”

In my opinion, the author likes to describe someone’s grievances and failures (meaning this story): “... Matryona had a lot of grievances...” Again, grievances. If you write not about your own people, then about strangers. And pity. The narrator presses for pity. He is trying to touch a nerve (since he personally couldn’t touch me with anything else). But pity pity is discord...
“No Matryona. A loved one was killed. And on the last day I reproached her for wearing a padded jacket.” The author wants to show us how sensitive and compassionate he is. However, inside he is a hard and dry person. I barely had the strength to read description of the dead Matryona, her mutilated body. Written without emotion, just a statement of fact. This is hard to understand. But what else can be born in a person’s head under the “gnashing of mice”, “rustling of cockroaches” and under the impression of seeing a dead woman? This is comforting.
But the most “fun” thing is the end. In a person, no knowledgeable about life, the thought will appear: “Don’t trust.” The sad picture that we see after the death of the heroine proves this to us. Yes, I agree: the relatives were only thinking about what they could take away from the house. It got to the point that the house itself was taken away. The narrator does not believe in the sincerity of Kira's tears. And the neighbor is of the opinion that Matryona was stupid, and her husband did not love her. In a word, there is emptiness and injustice all around. The author probably believes that everything is bad and that in the end misfortune will befall us. And the people around us are soulless, and they don’t see the beauty in others, and they don’t believe in goodness, and in general, except for him, no one saw kindness, modesty and selflessness in Matryona. “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand. Neither the city. Neither the whole land is ours.”

The writer simply imposes his pessimistic views on the world on us and tries to prove something. He is a skeptic and will never be able to create something beautiful simply because of his life-warped beliefs. However, this is just my opinion.

Other works on this work

IN SEARCH OF THE RIGHTEOUS

Then I learned that crying over the deceased is not just crying, but a kind of marking. Matryona's three sisters flew in, seized the hut, the goat and the stove, locked her chest, gutted two hundred funeral rubles from the lining of her coat, and explained to everyone who came that they were the only ones close to Matryona.

A. Solzhenitsyn, “Matrenin’s Dvor”

Let's start with denial. Let's look at Dahl: “A righteous person is a person who lives in everything according to the law of God.” That is, sinless. She is good, sinless, she did not wait for her betrothed from the war, she married his brother, but the time is difficult, and living alone is difficult, but a righteous person cannot live in ideal conditions, because righteousness is a feat, a spiritual feat. But what does the author offer as proof of Matryona’s holiness?

Doesn't raise a pig, yes, but why? Because killing animals is a sin, but no, her vegetarianism is not indicated anywhere. This means something else, maybe just laziness, the garden hasn’t been fertilized since before the war, and the goat is dirty gray, which means that despite her “busyness” she did almost nothing, maybe she was asked to help, yes several requests are indicated, but it is mentioned that the women plowed each other’s gardens and Matrenin plowed, she just didn’t want to live for him, she didn’t want to, and that’s all.

Let's try differently, as is customary to write in school essay. Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn describes the life of a hardworking, intelligent, but very lonely woman - Matryona, whom no one understood or appreciated, but everyone tried to take advantage of her hard work and responsiveness.

The very title of the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” can be interpreted in different ways. In the first case, for example, the word “yard” can simply mean Matryona’s way of life, her household, her purely everyday worries and difficulties. In the second case, perhaps, we can say that the word “yard” focuses the reader’s attention on the fate of Matryona’s house itself, Matryona’s household yard itself. In the third case, the “yard” symbolizes the circle of people who were in one way or another interested in Matryona, x? Each of the above meanings of the word “yard” contains, of course, the tragedy that is inherent, perhaps, in the way of life of every woman similar to Matryona, but still in the third meaning, it seems to me, the tragedy is greatest, since here we are talking it is no longer about the difficulties of life and not about loneliness, but about the fact that even death cannot make people think one day about justice and proper attitude towards human dignity.

I think that in this case all three meanings of the word “yard” are added up, and each of these meanings reflects one or another tragic picture: the soullessness, deadness of the “living courtyard” that surrounded Matryona during her life and subsequently divided her household; the fate of Matryona’s hut itself after Matryona’s death and during Matryona’s life; the absurd death of Matryona. “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand,” writes Solzhenitsyn. Words involuntarily come to mind French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the meaning of which is that in reality everything is not as it is in reality. Matryona is a contrast to the reality that in Solzhenitsyn’s story is expressed through the anger, envy and acquisitiveness of people. With her way of life, Matryona proved that anyone who lives in this world can be honest and righteous if he lives by a righteous idea and is strong in spirit.

And again an internal protest arises. She lived the way she wanted, not God. So where is the righteousness here? So the village stands without a righteous man. And the city. And our country.