Moral lessons of life. Analysis of the fairy tale "The Black Hen, or Underground Inhabitants" by Antony Pogorelsky. Analysis of the work “The Black Hen” What is the theme of the fairy tale “The Black Hen”
A fairy tale called “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants” was written by the Russian writer A. Pogorelsky in 1829. But the work has not lost its relevance today. The fairy tale will be of interest to many schoolchildren, and for some it can serve as a real source of life wisdom.
How the book was created
Many schoolchildren liked the fairy tale “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants.” Reader reviews of this book are very positive. However, not everyone knows for what purpose the fairy tale was originally created. This work was a gift to A. Tolstoy, for whom Pogorelsky replaced his father. Alexei Tolstoy was a relative paternal line of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. It is known that over time, Alexey Nikolaevich also became a popular writer and even contributed to the creation of the famous image of Kozma Prutkov.
However, this awaited him only in the future, and for now the boy was causing a lot of difficulties for Pogorelsky due to the fact that he did not want to study. That is why Pogorelsky decided to compose a fairy tale that would encourage his pupil to work in his studies. Over time, the book became increasingly popular, and every schoolchild could write a review about it. "The Black Hen, or the Underground Dwellers" has become a classic for every student. Perhaps fans of the fairy tale will be interested to know that the surname Pogorelsky is actually a pseudonym. In fact, the writer's name was Alexey Alekseevich Perovsky.
The main character of the fairy tale, the scene of action
The main character of “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants” is the boy Alyosha. The fairy tale begins with a story about the main character. The boy studies in a private boarding school and often suffers from his loneliness. He is tormented by longing for his parents, who, having paid money for education, live with their worries far from St. Petersburg. Books replace the emptiness in Alyosha’s soul and communication with loved ones. The child's imagination takes him to distant lands, where he imagines himself as a valiant knight. Parents take other children away on weekends and holidays. But for Alyosha, books remain the only consolation. The setting of the fairy tale, as stated, is a small private boarding house in St. Petersburg, where parents send their children to study. Having paid money for their child’s education for several years in advance, they, in fact, disappear from his life completely.
The beginning of the story
The main characters of “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants” are the boy Alyosha and Chernushka, a character whom Alyosha meets in the poultry yard. It is there that the boy spends a significant part of his free time. He really enjoys watching how birds live. He especially liked the chicken Chernushka. It seems to Alyosha that Chernushka is silently trying to tell him something and has a meaningful look. One day Alyosha wakes up from Chernushka’s screams and saves a chicken from the hands of the cook. And with this act the boy discovers an unusual, fairy-tale world. This is how the fairy tale “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants” by Antony Pogorelsky begins.
Introduction to the Underworld
At night, Chernushka comes to the boy and begins to talk to him in a human voice. Alyosha was very surprised, but decided to follow Chernushka into the magical underground world where little people live. The king of this unusual people offers Alyosha any reward for his ability to save their minister, Chernushka, from death. But Alyosha could not come up with anything better than asking the king for a magical ability - to be able to answer correctly in any lesson, even without preparation. The king of the underground inhabitants did not like this idea, because it spoke of Alyosha’s laziness and carelessness.
A lazy student's dream
However, a word is a word, and he had to keep his promise. Alyosha received a special hemp seed, which he always had to carry with him in order to answer his homework. At parting, Alyosha was ordered not to tell anyone what he saw in the underworld. Otherwise, its inhabitants will have to leave their places, leave forever, and begin to build their lives in unknown lands. Alyosha swore that he would not break this promise.
Since then, the hero of the fairy tale “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants” has become the best student in all of St. Petersburg. He feels awkward at first as the teachers praise him completely undeserved. But soon Alyosha himself begins to believe in what is chosen and exceptional. He begins to be proud and often plays pranks. His character is getting worse and worse. Alyosha becomes more and more lazy, becomes angry, and shows impudence.
Plot development
It is not enough to read the summary of “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants.” This book is definitely worth reading, because it contains many useful ideas, and its plot will be interesting to everyone. The teacher tries not to praise Alyosha anymore, but, on the contrary, tries to bring him to his senses. And he asks him to memorize as many as 20 pages of text. However, Alyosha loses the magic grain, and therefore can no longer answer the lesson. He is locked in his bedroom until he completes the teacher's assignment. But his lazy memory can no longer work so quickly do this work. At night, Chernushka reappears and returns him the precious gift of the underground king. Chernushka also asks him to correct himself and once again reminds him to remain silent about the magical kingdom. Alyosha promises to do both.
The next day, the main character of the fairy tale “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants” by Antony Pogorelsky brilliantly answers the lesson. But instead of praising his student, the teacher begins to interrogate him when he managed to learn the task. If Alyosha does not tell everything, he will be whipped. Out of fear, Alyosha forgot about all his promises and spoke about his acquaintance with the kingdom of the underground inhabitants, their king and Chernushka. But no one believed him, and still he was punished. Already at this stage one can understand the main idea of “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants.” Alyosha betrayed his friends, but the main vice that became the cause of all his troubles was banal laziness.
End of story
The inhabitants of the underworld had to leave their homes, Minister Chernushka was shackled, and the magic grain disappeared forever. Due to a painful feeling of guilt, Alyosha fell ill with a fever and did not get out of bed for six weeks. After recovery, the main character becomes obedient and kind again. His relationship with his teacher and comrades becomes the same as before. Alyosha becomes a diligent student, although not the best. This is the ending of the fairy tale “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants.”
Main ideas of the tale
Chernushka gives Alyosha a lot of advice with which he could save himself and not become evil and lazy. The Minister of the Underworld warns him that it is not so easy to get rid of vices - after all, vices “enter through the door and come out through the crack.” It is worth noting that Chernushka’s advice coincides with the conclusions made by Alyosha’s school teacher. Labor, as both the teacher and the Black Hen believe, is the basis of morality and inner beauty of any person. Idleness, on the contrary, only corrupts - recalls Pogorelsky in the work “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants.” The main idea of the fairy tale is that there is goodness in every person, but in order for it to manifest itself, you need to make efforts, try to cultivate and manifest it. No other way. If this is not done, trouble can fall not only on the person himself, but also on those close and dear to him who are close to him.
Lessons from the story
Pogorelsky's fairy tale is interesting not only for its magical plot, but also for the morality that Pogorelsky tried to convey to his pupil. There is very little left of the writer’s literary heritage, and that is why it is worth listening to the ideas that can be found in the works that have survived to our times. What does “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants” teach and who will benefit from these lessons? They will be useful to every student, regardless of his academic performance. After all, they teach everyone to be better. And first of all, you should not try to put yourself above other people, even if you have any outstanding talents and abilities.
“The Black Hen” is a short story by Antony Pogorelsky, written by him for his little nephew Alexei Tolstoy, a future famous writer. In this article we will provide an analysis of the story “The Black Hen”, which will help you become better acquainted with the work and understand its essence. It would also be a good idea to read the summary of this story. But first, let’s discuss what genre “The Black Hen” belongs to and talk about the main character.
Genre of the work “Black Hen, or Underground Inhabitants”
The work is subtitled “A Magic Tale for Children,” although it is more in line with the genre of a romantic fairy tale. Here there is a two-world characteristic of romanticism: the real world - the boarding school where the main character Alyosha studied, and the magical world - the underground kingdom. Moreover, these two worlds are not isolated from each other. For example, Chernushka is actually an ordinary chicken, but in the magical world she is an honored minister.
The work is similar to a fairy tale by the presence of a hero who must pass tests, the presence of magical objects (hemp seed), and the motif of threefold repetition. An analysis of the story “The Black Hen” clearly shows this.
The image of the main character of the work “The Black Hen”
The main character is a boy Alyosha, who lives and studies in a boarding school in St. Petersburg.
At first, he is shown as an inquisitive and smart child who likes learning, he is friends with his comrades, he is only sad on weekends and holidays, waiting for letters “from daddy and mummy.” Another good quality of Alyosha is his kindness. He feeds the chickens in the yard, and when the cook is about to kill his beloved Chernushka, with tears he rushes to protect the chicken and gives up his golden imperial, just to save her. Considering the plot of the fairy tale, we will continue the analysis of “The Black Hen” by Pogorelsky.
For the good deed, the corydalis decided to thank her savior. She showed him the underground kingdom so that the boy would not feel his loneliness so keenly. His life becomes interesting: in the magical kingdom he sees knights, talks with the king, walks through an unusual garden, looks at beautiful trees of unusual colors, and wild animals on chains. Chernushka tells him in detail about the underworld and her people.
As a reward for his kindness, Alyosha receives another gift - a hemp seed, thanks to which he can answer any lesson without learning anything at all. It should be noted that the king with a sigh gives the boy such a seed: he is forced to do this, since he promised to fulfill his wish for saving Chernushka. But the ruler does not like at all that Alyosha will be lazy and receive praise without making any effort.
Conclusions in the analysis of the story “The Black Hen”
Let us note that Alyosha himself initially feels awkward when he is praised for a good answer: an inner voice insists that he does not deserve praise, because “this lesson does not cost him any work.”
Pogorelsky shows how Alyosha changed: soon he was no longer tormented by pangs of conscience, he himself believed in his own extraordinary abilities, and began to put on airs in front of other boys. As a result, the hero lost all his friends. Pogorelsky notes that in Alyosha, like in any person, there is an internal struggle. He felt that the praise was unfair, he had to improve, but his pride took over, and the boy became more and more selfish.
In addition, an analysis of the story “The Black Hen” reveals that in this work Pogorelsky gives a moral lesson to his readers: other people’s merits will not bring happiness, undeserved success, which is not the result of work, leads to selfishness and loss of good character traits.
The culmination of the work is the moment of Alyosha’s betrayal. He talks about the underground kingdom, violating the ban, and Chernushka, along with all the inhabitants, is forced to move “far, far from these places.”
Pogorelsky contrasts the magnanimous Chernushka with Alyosha, who has become petty and cowardly. Before leaving, the underground minister forgives Alyosha; he remembers his salvation and is still grateful for it. He asks the boy only one thing: to become kind and good again. Alyosha suffers for a long time because of his action, feels guilty and strives with all his might to improve. He succeeds, he becomes “obedient, kind, modest and diligent.” And let us also note one important idea when analyzing the story “The Black Hen”.
Pogorelsky, using the example of Alyosha, shows his little readers that kindness, curiosity, and honesty must be constantly cultivated in oneself. One careless, cowardly act of ours can bring misfortune to others. You can earn the love and respect of people only by doing good deeds for others.
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Antony Pogorelsky Black chicken, or Underground inhabitants Pilipenko Yana, 5 “A” class
Anthony Pogorelsky (1787-1836) The real name of the writer is Alexey Alekseevich Perovsky. He was well educated, graduated from Moscow University, and took part in the Patriotic War of 1812. Pogorelsky wrote poetry, articles about literature, and prose. The most famous is his fairy tale “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants.”
Alyosha is the main character of the fairy tale. The writer composed this fairy tale for his nephew Alyosha, after whom the main character is named. Alyosha is a pupil of a private boarding school for boys. He was a kind, sympathetic and smart boy. Everyone loved and caressed him. One day a magical story happened to Alyosha.
Friendship with Chernushka Alyosha was bored at the boarding house on weekends, when his friends went home. Out of boredom, he fed the chickens. The boy became very friendly with one of them, Chernushka. One day Alyosha saved Chernushka from a chef’s knife. And at night Chernushka came to the boy’s bedroom and told him that she was not an ordinary chicken, but a minister of the Underworld. Chernushka invited Alyosha to a magical land.
In the Underground Kingdom In the Underground Kingdom, Alyosha met the king and other inhabitants of the magical land. In gratitude for saving Chernushka, the king gave the boy a hemp seed, which helped him know all the lessons without having to learn them. The inhabitants of the Underworld showed Alyosha their country, treated him to sweets, rode horses, and invited him to hunt.
The magic grain Alyosha returned to the boarding house. Now he became the best student, because he had a magic grain. At first he was ashamed of his success, but then he began to show off in front of his friends. From a sweet and kind boy he turned into a proud and disobedient one.
The deception has been revealed! Alyosha stopped studying his homework completely. But one day a terrible thing happened - he lost a grain and could not answer the lesson. The teacher punished the boy and locked him in the room. Chernushka helped him and gave him a new grain. Alyosha answered the lesson perfectly, but the teacher did not believe that the boy learned 20 pages so quickly.
Alyosha is sick. Alyosha's comrades said that he had not studied his lessons, and the teacher ordered the rod to be brought. Alyosha got scared and told everyone about the Underground Kingdom and its inhabitants. Out of grief and shame, Alyosha fell ill.
Farewell to Chernushka In the evening Chernushka came to the boy’s bedroom and said that now all the inhabitants of the Underground Kingdom must move. Alyosha noticed that Minister Chernushka had chains on his hands. This is retribution for the fact that Alyosha discovered the secret of the Underworld.
Alyosha's recovery In parting, Chernushka asked Alyosha to improve and become a kind and hardworking boy again. Alyosha was sick for a very long time. After six weeks he recovered, and everything that happened to him seemed like a bad dream. Alyosha again became a kind, obedient and modest boy. His comrades fell in love with him again and followed his example.
Russian prose literary fairy tale of the first half of the 19th century
Plan:
1. The tale of A. Pogorelsky “The Black Chicken, or Underground Inhabitants.” Problems, ideological meaning, plot, image of the main character, originality of style, genre specificity.
2. The main aspects of V.F.’s creativity Odoevsky.
3. Further development of the literary fairy tale in Russia
Literature
1. Mineralova I.G. Children's literature. - M., 2002, p. 60 - 61, 72 - 76, 92-96
2. Sharov A. Wizards come to people. - M., 1979
Romantic writers discovered the fairy tale genre for “high” literature. In parallel with this, in the era of romanticism, childhood was discovered as a unique, inimitable world, the depth and value of which attracts adults.
The researcher of Russian romanticism N. Verkovsky wrote that romanticism established the cult of the child and the cult of childhood. In search of the ideal of romance, they turned to an unclouded child's view of the world, contrasting it with the sometimes selfish, crudely material world of adults. The world of childhood and the world of fairy tales are ideally combined in the work of A. Pogorelsky. His magical story “The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants” has become a classic work, originally addressed to young readers.
Anthony Pogorelsky is the pseudonym of Alexei Alekseevich Perovsky, the son of the noble Catherine’s nobleman A.K. Razumovsky. As a child, A. Perovsky received a varied education at home, then graduated from Moscow University in just over two years. He left the university with the title of Doctor of Philosophy and Literary Sciences, which he received for lectures in the natural sciences. During the War of 1812, Perovsky was a military officer, participated in the battles of Dresden, Kulm, and served in Saxony. Here he met the famous German musician and romantic writer T. Amadeus Hoffmann. Communication with Hoffmann left an imprint on the nature of Perovsky’s work.
The ironic pseudonym “Antony Pogorelsky” is associated with the name of the writer’s estate Pogoreltsy in the Chernigov province and the name of St. Anthony of Pechersk, who once retired from the world to Chernigov. Antony Pogorelsky is one of the most mysterious figures in Russian literature. Friends called him the Byron of St. Petersburg: he was also smart, talented, recklessly brave, and even outwardly resembled the famous English poet.
A. Pogorelsky wrote poetry, articles about literature, in prose he largely anticipated the appearance of Gogol, and stood at the origins of the fantastic trend in Russian literature. The collection of stories “The Double, or My Evenings in Little Russia” (1828) attracted people with the mystery of either mysterious or touching stories told with a fair amount of clever irony; the novel “The Monastery” (1 part - 1830, 2 parts - 1833) was at one time noted as the first successful work about the Russian provincial nobility, and finally, the magic story for children “The Black Hen, or Underground Inhabitants” (1829) throughout For more than a hundred years he has been captivating children with fairy-tale plots and, without edification, convincing them of the true value of goodness, truth, honesty and hard work. Pogorelsky contributed to the development of Russian literature by contributing to the education and literary development of his nephew, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy.
"The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants" (1828).
Problems, ideological meaning. The story is subtitled “A Magic Tale for Children.” There are two lines of narration in it - real and fabulous-fantastic. Their bizarre combination determines the plot, style, and imagery of the work. Pogorelsky wrote a story for his ten-year-old nephew. He calls the main character Alyosha. Translated from Greek, Alexey means intercessor, so the dedication to his nephew, the literary character’s own name and his essence happily coincided. But in the fairy tale there are tangible echoes not only of Alyosha Tolstoy’s childhood, but also of the author himself (also Alexei). As a child, he was placed in a boarding house for a short time, suffered from separation from home, ran away from it, and broke his leg. The high wooden fence enclosing the boarding yard and the living space of its pupils is not only a realistic detail in “The Black Hen”, but also a symbolic sign of the author’s “memory of Childhood”.
“The gate and gate that led to the alley were always locked, and therefore Alyosha never managed to visit this alley, which greatly aroused his curiosity. Whenever they allowed him to play in the yard during rest hours, his first movement was to run up to the fence.”
Round holes in the fence are the only connection with the outside world. The boy is lonely, and he feels this especially bitterly during the “vacant time”, when he is separated from his comrades.
A sad, poignant note permeates Pogorelsky's story. The narration is told on behalf of the author-narrator, with frequent appeals to imaginary listeners, which gives special warmth and trust. The time and place of the events that took place are specified: “Forty years ago, in St. Petersburg on Vasilyevsky Island, in the First Line, there lived the owner of a men’s boarding house...” Before the reader, Petersburg of the late 19th century appears, a boarding house, a teacher with curls, a toupee and a long braid, his wife, powdered and pomaded, with a whole greenhouse of different colors on her head. Alyosha's outfit is written out in detail.
All descriptions are bright, picturesque, convex, given taking into account children's perception. For a child, detail is important in the overall picture. Finding himself in the kingdom of the underground inhabitants, “Alyosha began to carefully examine the hall, which was very richly decorated. It seemed to him that the walls were made of marble, such as he had seen in the mineral study of the boarding house. The panels and doors were pure gold. At the end of the hall, under a green canopy, on an elevated place, there were armchairs made of gold. Alyosha admired this decoration, but it seemed strange to him that everything was in the smallest form, as if for small dolls.”
Realistic objects, everyday details in fairy-tale episodes (tiny lit candles in silver chandeliers, nodding goal porcelain Chinese dolls, twenty little knights in gold armor, with crimson feathers on their hats) bring the two levels of narration together, making it natural Alyosha's transition from the real world to the magical and fantastic one.
Everything that happened to the hero makes the reader think about many serious questions. How to feel about success? How not to be proud of unexpected great luck? What can happen if you don't listen to the voice of conscience? What is fidelity to one's word? Is it easy to overcome the bad in yourself? After all, “vices usually enter through the door and exit through a crack.” The author poses a complex of moral problems without condescension to either the hero’s age or the reader’s age. A child’s life is not a toy version of an adult: everything in life happens once and in earnest.
Is The Black Hen didactic? The educational pathos is obvious. If we ignore the artistic fabric of the story, it can be expressed in words: be honest, hardworking, modest. But Pogorelsky managed to put the educational idea into such a romantically elevated and at the same time life-convincing, truly magical-fairy-tale form that the child reader perceives the moral lesson with his heart.
The plot of the story. The serious problems of Pogorelsky's story are easily absorbed by children thanks to the fascinating fairy-tale plot and the very successful central image of the hero - the reader's peer.
Analysis of the plot of the story convinces that in terms of genre the work is not so unambiguous, which additionally imparts artistic completeness and pedagogical depth to its content.
The story begins with exposition (prehistory of events unfolding directly within the artistic time of the work).
The beginning- Alyosha’s intercession for Chernushka.
Climax(the highest point of tension of all problem lines), a kind of event “node” of the conflict - Alyosha’s choice in the magical gardens of the underground inhabitants of hemp seeds , and not other grown beautiful flowers and fruits . This very choice is accompanied by seduction(it’s hard not to succumb to the temptation to easily know everything perfectly). But, having once given in to his thought, which seems harmless to others, the little man embarks on the path of first a very small, and then increasingly growing lie. So, it seems, forgetting the rules also magically comes to him. and promises. Then the kind and compassionate boy begins to express pride, an unjustified sense of superiority over others. This pride grows from a magical remedy - hemp seed, datura herb.
Moreover, the loss of a hemp seed by the hero is not yet the end; the boy is twice given a chance to get out of the current situation without moral losses, but, having found the hemp seed again, he embarks on the same disastrous path.
The denouement there will be an exposure of deception, “betrayal” of the underground inhabitants, and their departure is already an epilogue (events that are sure to follow, and no one can change them). Lyrically, the denouement is Alyosha’s repentance, a bitter, irreparable feeling of loss, pity for the heroes with whom he must part, and nothing can be changed either in his actions or in the actions of others. The event side is the reason for the beginning of the “work of the soul.”
Intuitively, the reader comes to a conclusion, albeit not verbally formulated: pride and arrogance are overcome by remorse, repentance, complicity, compassion, pity for others. Moral conclusions sound aphoristic: “The lost are corrected by people, the wicked are corrected by angels, and the proud are corrected by the Lord GOD himself.”(St. John Climacus)
The image of the main character
The image of Alyosha, a nine-year-old pupil of an old St. Petersburg boarding school, was developed by the writer with special attention to his inner life. For the first time in a Russian children's book, a living boy appeared here, every emotional movement of which speaks of the author's deep knowledge of child psychology. Alyosha is endowed with features characteristic of a child of his age. He is emotional, impressionable, observant, inquisitive; reading ancient chivalric novels (the typical reading repertoire of an 18th-century boy) developed his naturally rich imagination. He is kind, brave, sympathetic. And at the same time, nothing childish is alien to him. He is playful, restless, easily succumbed to the temptation of not learning a boring lesson, playing cunning, and hiding his childhood secrets from adults.
Like most children, fairy tales and reality are fused together in his mind. In the real world, the boy clearly sees traces of the miraculous, elusive for adults, and he himself continuously creates a fairy tale every minute in everyday life. So it seems to him that the holes in the fence, knocked together from old boards, were turned by a sorceress, and, of course, there is nothing surprising if she brings news from home or a toy. An ordinary chicken, fleeing the persecution of the cook, suddenly can easily speak and ask for help. That’s why magic knights, coming to life porcelain dolls, a mysterious underground kingdom with its peaceful and kind people, a grain with magical powers, and other fairy tale wonders with all the rights and laws.
How easily a fairy tale invades the life of Pogorelsky’s hero, so freely, in turn, the techniques of realistic writing are introduced into the story of the mysterious: accuracy in the description of everyday details and elements of psychological analysis unusual for a fairy tale.
The details of everyday life in the fairy-tale episodes of the story seem to have been suggested to the artist by a child, filled with naive faith in the reality of everything wonderful. Tiny lit candles in silver candlesticks, the size of Alyosha’s little finger, appear on the chairs, washstand and on the floor of the dark room, the chicken Chernushka comes for Alyosha; a large couch made of Dutch tiles, on which people and animals are painted in blue glaze, is encountered on their way to the underworld. They also see antique beds with white muslin canopies. It is easy to notice that all these objects came into the story not from an unknown magical land, but from an ordinary St. Petersburg mansion of the 18th century. Thus, the writer and the hero, as it were, “revive” the fairy tale, convincing the reader of the authenticity of the plot’s fiction.
The further Alyosha and Chernushka go into the mysterious world of underground inhabitants, the less historical and everyday flavor becomes in the text. But the clarity of a child’s vision, children’s vigilance and concreteness of ideas remain: twenty knights in golden armor, with crimson feathers on their armor, quietly marching in pairs into the hall, twenty little pages in crimson dresses carrying the royal robe. The clothes of the courtiers, the decoration of the palace chambers - everything was painted by Pogorelsky with a thoroughness that captivates a child, creating the illusion of “realness”, which he values so much both in games and in fairy tales.
Almost all the events of a fairy tale can be explained, say, by the hero’s tendency to daydream, to fantasize. He loves chivalric romances and is often ready to see the ordinary in a fantastic light. The director of the schools, for whose reception the boarding house is excitedly preparing, in his imagination appears as “a famous knight in shiny armor and a helmet with shiny feathers,” but, to his surprise, instead of a “feathered helmet,” Alyosha sees “ just a small bald head, whitely powdered, the only decoration of which... was a small bun.” But the author does not seek to destroy the fragile balance between fairy tales and life; he leaves unsaid, for example, why Chernushka, being a minister, appears in the form of a chicken and what connection the underground inhabitants have with the old Dutch women.
A developed imagination, the ability to dream, fantasize constitute the wealth of the personality of a growing person. That is why the main character of the story is so charming. This is the first living, non-schematic image of a child, a boy in children's literature. Alyosha, like any ten-year-old child, is inquisitive, active, and impressionable. His kindness and responsiveness manifested itself in the rescue of his beloved chicken Chernushka, which served as the beginning of the fairy tale plot. It was a decisive and courageous act: the little boy threw himself on the cook’s neck, who inspired him with “horror and disgust” with her cruelty (the cook at that moment grabbed Chernushka by the wing with a knife in her hands). Alyosha, without hesitation, parted with his precious imperial gift from his kind grandmother. For the author of a sentimental children's story, this episode would be quite enough to reward the hero a hundredfold for his kind heart. But Pogorelsky paints a living boy, childishly spontaneous, playful, unable to resist the temptation of idleness and vanity.
Alyosha takes the first step towards his troubles unintentionally. At the king’s tempting offer to name his wish, Alyosha “hastened to answer” and said the first thing that could come to mind for almost every schoolchild: “I would like that, without studying, I would always know my lesson, no matter what I was given.”
The denouement of the story - the scene of Chernushka's farewell to Alyosha, the noise of the small people leaving their kingdom, Alyosha's despair at the irreparability of his rash act - is perceived by the reader as an emotional shock. For the first time, perhaps in his life, he and the hero are experiencing the drama of betrayal. Without exaggeration, one can speak of catharsis - the elevation of the enlightened soul of the young reader, who succumbed to the magic of Pogorelsky's fairy tale.
Style Features
The originality of the thinking of the child, the hero of the story, through whose eyes many of the events of the story were seen, prompted the writer to select visual means. Therefore, every line of “The Black Hen” resonates with readers who are the hero’s peers.
The writer, inventive in fantastic fiction, is attentive to the careful recreation of genuine life. The landscapes of old St. Petersburg, full of details, as if copied from life, more precisely, of one of its oldest streets - the First Line of Vasilyevsky Island, with its wooden sidewalks, small mansions covered with Dutch tiles, and spacious courtyards fenced with baroque boards. Pogorelsky described in detail and carefully Alyosha’s clothes, the decoration of the festive table, and the complex hairstyle of the teacher’s wife, made in the fashion of that time, and many other details of everyday life in St. Petersburg in the 18th century.
The everyday scenes of the story are marked by the author's slightly mocking smile. This is exactly how the pages are made, depicting the funny bustle in the teacher’s house before the principal’s arrival.
The vocabulary and style of the story is extremely interesting. The style of “Black Chicken” is free and varied. In an effort to make the story entertaining for a child, Pogorelsky does not allow simplification, does not strive for such accessibility, which is achieved by impoverishing the text. When encountering thoughts and images in a work that are complex and not fully understandable, the child assimilates their context in a generalized way, not being able to approach them analytically. But mastering a text that requires certain mental efforts from the reader, designed “for growth,” is always more fruitful than easy reading.
“The Black Hen” is easily perceived by the modern reader. There is practically no archaic vocabulary or outdated figures of speech here. And at the same time, the story is structured stylistically diverse. There is an epic leisurely exposition, an emotional story about the rescue of Chernushka, about miraculous incidents associated with underground inhabitants. Often the author resorts to lively, relaxed dialogue.
In the style of the story, a significant role belongs to the writer’s reproduction of children’s thoughts and speech. Pogorelsky was one of the first to pay attention to its specificity and use it as a means of artistic representation. “If I were a knight,” Alyosha reflects, “I would never drive a cab.” Or: “She (the old Dutch woman) seemed to him (Alyosha) like wax.” Thus, Pogorelsky uses childish intonation both for the hero’s speech characteristics and in the author’s speech. Stylistic diversity, bold appeal to lexical layers of varying degrees of complexity and at the same time attention to the peculiarities of perception of the child reader made Pogorelsky's story a classic children's book.
