Since ancient times, nature and man have been one. Thousands of years ago, ancient people could not imagine their existence outside the environment. After all, nature has always been and will be the cradle of humanity. She gave birth to the world and was able to develop entire generations from a single-celled organism, succeeding each other over the course of several thousand years. But like a fairy tale with a bad ending, the goodness of nature, given to a person, turned evil. The world has forgotten who created it, man has forgotten that he is part of nature. Now he is the owner. But is this really so? The works of modern authors, namely the works of V. Astafiev and V. Rasputin, help answer this question.
Until 60-70 main theme in literature there was a theme of the suffering of humanity, a theme of their existence. But the 70s were characterized by a further expansion of the problems of prose. And if during the same period one of the cardinal problems - “personality, people and history” - was explored in many ways, then V. Astafiev in “The Fish Tsar” raises an equally pressing problem - “man and nature”, “nature and the spiritual state of man” .
The novel consists of a cycle of short stories and novellas, united by one theme. In the story, Astafiev talks about the need to return to nature. The author anxiously emphasizes the irreparable damage that people who live only by their consumer interests bring to all humanity. And therefore, the relationship between nature and man interests the author not only in the direct, but also in the moral aspect. Environmental issues are becoming a subject philosophical reasoning.
In “The King Fish” Astafiev raises three problems. Firstly, according to the author, man is a part of nature, that is, nature and man are a single whole. And we must not forget about this. The image of Akim, the main character of the novel, is built in contrast with the image of Goga. Astafiev expressed all the beauty of the human soul in Akim. The hero is no stranger to kindness, selfless help to people, and sensitivity to nature. Akim is sensitive and humane to environment. Yes, he kills animals, but he does not do it in a consumer sense, not for profit, but only for existence. That is, Akim acts according to the law of survival: predator - prey. However, S. Lominadze spoke about Astafiev’s hero: “... so confident, agile, skillful in the forest, not that he was pathetic, but somehow lost, lonely to the point of screaming, a stranger to everyone, no one needed.”
The image of Goga, which is disgusting to Akim, is a contrast. Smart and intelligent in life, Goga considers himself the king of nature, believes that he can do everything. He wants a lot from life, but offers nothing in return. Let us remember a similar hero, M. Gorky. In Larra, the object of the old woman Izergil’s narrative, selfishness develops into hypertrophy of whim and caprice. He also demands the benefits of life, but Larra does not do the useful things for which he could receive these benefits. That is why he is doomed to eternal loneliness. With Astafiev, everything is much sadder. The author leads the hero to death, but this is a pattern, since Goga, having exalted himself, breaks all moral ties with people and nature and is destroyed internally. His life simply loses meaning.
The second problem raised by Astafiev is poaching. And here we see how ambivalent people can be. A striking example is the poacher Ignatich. An excellent worker, a respected person in society, whose moral values are suppressed by the desire for profit. And there are many such people who destroy nature and live in harmony with their conscience. By doing evil and finding justification, they allow evil to happen everywhere. Astafiev presents poaching as a terrible act. And he is talking not only about the destruction of living and inanimate nature, but also about the destruction of man, human qualities inside yourself. Thus, the last of the problems raised by Astafiev is the lack of spirituality of humanity. Lack of spirituality, in the sense of a person’s refusal to unite with nature into a single whole, and refusal of responsibility for all evil committed.
Thus, we can conclude that Astafiev raises problems that are truly characteristic of modern world. After all, in fact, man, being a part of nature, destroys it with his own hands, not realizing that by killing it, he himself will die.
A slightly different problem is raised in V. Rasputin’s story “Farewell to Matera.” Here the moral and spiritual experiences of people are most clearly shown. Nature in the story takes on the image of the creator of generations, since the tragedy of the situation lies in the soulless attitude towards the past, towards human attachments. As a result of the construction of a hydroelectric power station, people living on Matera are forced to leave their native lands. This choice is most difficult for the elderly, where every stone, every twig reminds of past joys and sorrows, of the living and the dead. Rasputin shows nature in the image of the keeper of the past, that which is gone forever and that is dear to its memory.
Is it right that people are deprived of their memories, replacing the loss with a comfortable apartment? I think not. A person must live where they passed best years his life, where his parents “lie,” where everything is close and everything is dear.
Here we come to the end. Now we can say with confidence that the theme of man and nature is one of the leading ones in literature. But this is not just a topic of practical interaction between man and the environment. This is the theme of the influence of nature on inner world a person, as a result of which the formation of spiritual contemplation and the moral principle of society occurs.
In many works by Astafiev and Rasputin, the main characters are children. It is noteworthy that the stories of these writers are largely autobiographical, but their main character– a generalized image that conveys common features character and life of many boys.
Thus, in V. Astafiev’s story “A Horse with pink mane“The hero is faced with a difficult situation. He and the neighbor kids went to buy strawberries. Vitka knew that his grandmother, with whom he lived, would go to sell this berry in the city. The boy, unlike the Levontiev scoundrels, diligently collected strawberries in a container. And his friends, having quarreled over her, ate the entire harvest. But to Sanka, the youngest and most evil of all the neighboring children, this seemed not enough. He began to urge Vitka to give all the collected berries for general “consumption.” Good-natured and naive hero succumbed to evil cunning. But then he committed an even greater stupidity - he filled the container with grass and only covered the top with berries, for show. And Vitka gave such a basket to his grandmother.
The boy was very tormented by his conscience. He felt bad because his grandmother did not suspect the deception, praised him and promised to bring gingerbread from the city. Life became not a joy for Vitka. Everything changed around him: he could no longer play, as before, carefree and fun. The consciousness of his guilt weighed heavily on him.
And it became even worse for the hero when his grandmother returned from the city. She, of course, discovered her grandson's deception. But, worse than that, Vitka put her in a very awkward position. Katerina Petrovna told everyone how she sold a bunch of berries to some city lady, and a deception was discovered there.
Vitka’s shame and guilt knew no bounds. He was ready to die, to fall into the ground, if only his grandmother would forgive him. Vitka went to ask for forgiveness, but from tears he could not utter even two words. The loving grandmother forgave her grandson and even gave him the prepared gingerbread - a horse with a pink mane. But this one moral lesson the hero remembered for the rest of his life.
The hero of V. Rasputin’s story “French Lessons” also learns his moral lesson, makes his moral choice. He leaves his native village, his mother, to continue his studies. The time in which the story takes place was difficult, post-war. There was hunger in the village and poverty reigned. What could the hero’s mother gather for her son to “feed” him? She sent with Uncle Vanya, the village driver, a bag of potatoes - everything she could. But the boy did not receive this little money in full - it was stolen by the owners, whose apartment the hero lived in.
The hero writes that he was constantly hungry. Even in his sleep he felt the hunger pangs in his stomach. For the sake of food, the boy began to gamble for money. He became a virtuoso of the game “chicka”, but he only won a ruble and not a penny more - for milk.
Soon older boys began to beat the hero - he played too well: “his nose was swollen and swollen, there was a bruise under his left eye, and below it, on his cheek, a fat, bloody abrasion curved.” But the hero continued to go to school even in this form.
He wanted to eat more and more. The hero no longer received any parcels from home - and he went back to play. And again they began to beat him. Then Lidia Mikhailovna, teacher French, decided to help him - she sent the boy a parcel that supposedly came from home. But the hero immediately guessed who such “luxury” came from. And the teacher could not convince the boy to accept this gift with any persuasion - his pride and self-esteem did not allow him.
As a result, Lidia Mikhailovna was forced to leave for her homeland: she was caught playing for money with the hero of the story. And no one wanted to understand that this was another “trick” to save the student from starvation. But the hero also remembered this woman until the end of his life, because she became his savior angel.
The young heroes of the stories of Astafiev and Rasputin make their moral choice. And it always turns out in favor of Good, Light, and moral principles. And we, reading stories, take an example and learn from these boys perseverance, spiritual purity, kindness, wisdom.
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“Two properties of a child’s soul are dear: immediate purity of moral feeling and the ability to easily and freely restore harmony in relationships with the world. They contain endless possibilities and reserves for moral self-improvement.”
Yu. V. Lebedev
What does "morality" mean? Let's turn to Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary and determine the lexical meaning of this word. Morality is the rules that determine the behavior, spiritual and mental qualities necessary for a person in society, as well as the implementation of these rules of behavior. What is a “moral choice”? These are actions performed by a person in accordance with the rules of behavior that are accepted in society.
In the stories of V. G. Rasputin “French Lessons” and V. P. Astafiev “The Horse with a Pink Mane” we met our peers - two boys. Both heroes did bad things: one cheated and deceived his grandmother, and the other played chica for money.
Hero V.P. Astafieva, in order to prove to the Levontiev boys that he was not afraid of his grandmother, deceived her. But his conscience tormented him: “I was tormented at night, tossing and turning on my bed. Sleep did not take me as a completely confused criminal.” It is clear that the hero repented of his action, suffered and cried from the fraud he committed. Grandma bought him a gingerbread anyway because she loved him and forgave him. She taught the boy a real lesson in kindness.
The hero of the story V.G. Rasputin also faced a difficult moral choice. At first he showed himself to be independent, disciplined, and was left alone in a strange city to study. The second test for the boy was hunger. To earn money for food, he started gambling. Only teacher Lydia Mikhailovna tried to help him. The proud boy considered it humiliating for himself to receive help from a teacher in the form of lunch or a parcel, and considered gambling for money to be an honest income. Then the teacher began to play with him, knowing for sure that the boy would beat her and be able to buy milk for himself. Lydia Mikhailovna opened the door to a new world for the hero of the story, in which people can trust and help each other.
The heroes of both stories find the courage to admit their mistakes and learn lessons for life. V.P. Astafiev and V.G. Rasputin recalled these incidents from their childhood: “We wrote these stories in the hope that the lessons taught to us in due time will fall on the soul of both young and adult readers.”
See also: Screen adaptation of V. Rasputin’s story “French Lessons” (Mosfilm, 1978).
Together with the essay “Moral problems of the stories by V. G. Rasputin “French Lessons” and V. P. Astafiev “The Horse with a Pink Mane”” they are often searched for
Oct 31 2010
In our difficult times, we sometimes try not to notice the difficulties that arise in the modern village. But it is they who are associated with the most current problems society - ecology and moral behavior of a person. The solution to these problems determines the further course of the history of our civilization.
The theme of many works by writers - contemporaries of V. Rasputin and V. Astafiev - is ecological problem. The example of Matera shows the fate of our numerous villages, which were destroyed supposedly for the benefit of the people, having built various hydroelectric power plants, thermal power plants, etc. The destinies of the heroes unfold against the background main problem, which hurt everyone. Throughout the history of Matera, the inhabitants stuck to each other, i.e. lived as one family. And the flooding native land unexpectedly fell on their heads. Residents are delaying leaving until the last minute, because many of them were afraid to leave here, where for for long years they existed. In the literal sense of the word, people are being erased from their past and are being confronted with an unknown future.
Mostly elderly people lived in the village, but it is impossible to start a completely new one at 70-80 years old. People resist to the last, they are even ready to die, but they cannot resist the huge machine of Reality, which sweeps away everything in its path. I believe that the heroes created by Rasputin are patriots of their native land. Maybe that’s why even nature itself “helps” the residents to ward off inevitable death from Matera.
Like Rasputin, Astafiev devotes a cycle of his stories to his contemporaries, “those who are lost or wandering, who are ready to shoot each other, who are drowning in the poison of the “babble”. tries by all means to draw the reader's attention to main idea- ruthless attitude towards the taiga. After all, since ancient times it has been a rich source of various natural resources. Using the example of Ignatyich, he shows the lawless robbery of nature. He lives one day at a time, without thinking about the consequences. In a duel with the symbolic king fish, in the face of an unknown higher power, a transformation occurs, at that moment he prays only for salvation. It seems to me that the unusual animal acts as the arbiter of justice over the poacher, showing that it is impossible to use nature forever.
Both works are united by one idea: man’s stewardship of the environment. The urgency of this problem lies in the fact that the merciless exploitation and pollution of nature is fraught with irreparable consequences and environmental disasters in the future.
The existence of human society, its well-being and prosperity depend only on us and our joint efforts!
Need a cheat sheet? Then save - "Essay based on the works of V. Astafiev and V. Rasputin. Literary essays!Composition
What is morality? What is moral choice? Let's look into Dictionary and we learn that morality is the internal, spiritual qualities that guide a person in his life.
In life, every person faces a moral choice, and everyone acts differently, it depends on his spiritual qualities. Likewise, the hero of V. Astafiev’s story “The Horse with a Pink Mane” repeatedly faces a moral choice: he stole the rolls, he deceived his grandmother. He succumbed to an easy life, but his spiritual qualities turned out to be immeasurably higher, his conscience tormented him: “I was tormented at night, tossing and turning on the bed. Sleep did not take me, like a completely confused criminal.” It is clear that the hero repented, but his conscience tormented him even more and he told the truth to his grandmother. Grandma bought him a gingerbread anyway, because she loved him and forgave him, because there is human kindness in the world. His grandmother taught him real lessons of kindness and honesty.
It is precisely this moral choice that characterizes him as a verbal, honest person, capable of good deeds. Only then did the hero understand that a person is loved not for something, but just because.
Let's see what the hero of V. Rasputin's story “French Lessons” did. He also faced a difficult moral choice.
For the first time, he showed himself to be independent, disciplined, he was left alone in a strange city, although he could have gone to his mother in the village, but he chose to study, because he really wanted to learn and was drawn to knowledge. The second terrible test for the boy was hunger. To earn money for food, he started playing chica for money. He played honestly, he wanted to show his abilities, but he was only brutally beaten. The boy did not know that playing for money could not be fair. Only teacher Lydia Mikhailovna tried to help him. She understood him like no one else. She started playing for money with him because she wanted to help him, and
I agreed to this because he did not agree to any other help. She opened the door to a new world for him; there people can trust and help. Now he has learned that there is kindness, compassion, and love in the world.
It so happened that V. Astafiev and V. Rasputin, many years later, remembered what happened to them in childhood: “We wrote these stories in the hope that the lessons taught to us in due time will fall on the soul of both the small and adult reader.”