Analysis of the story "Matrenin Dvor" by Solzhenitsyn. The Peasant Theme in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Story Matrenin Dvor
The story of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn "Matrenin Dvor" is a work based on real events, one might say autobiographical. Indeed, after returning from the camp, the author worked in a rural school and lived in the house of Matryona Vasilievna Zakharova, from whom the image of the heroine of the same name was written off in full - right down to the biography and circumstances of death.
The very name of the story "Matryona 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 domestic 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 economic yard itself. In the third case, the "yard" symbolizes the circle of people who were somehow interested in Matryona.
In each of the meanings of the word "yard" I have given above, there is certainly that tragedy that is inherent, perhaps, in the way of life of every woman who looks like Matryona, but nevertheless, in the third meaning, it seems to me, the tragedy is greatest, since here we are no longer talking 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 a proper attitude to the dignity of a person. Much stronger in people, fear for themselves, their lives, without the help of that other person, whose fate never bothered them, prevails.
“Then I learned that crying over the deceased is not just crying, but a kind of litter. 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 told everyone that they were the only ones close to Matryona. I think that in this case, all three meanings of the word "yard" add up, and each of these meanings reflects one or another tragic picture: the soullessness, deadness of the "living courtyard" that surrounded Matryona during her lifetime and later divided her household; the fate of Matryona's hut after Matryona's death and during Matryona's lifetime; the absurd death of Matryona.
The main feature of Solzhenitsyn's literary language is that Alexander Isaevich himself gives an explanatory interpretation of many of the replicas of the heroes of the story, and this reveals to us the veil behind which lies the very mood of Solzhenitsyn, his personal attitude to each of the heroes. However, I got the impression that the author's interpretations are somewhat ironic, but at the same time they somehow synthesize replicas and leave in them only the ins and outs, undisguised, true meaning:
"Ah, auntie-auntie! And how did you not take care of yourself! And, probably, now they were offended by us! And you are our dear, and all your fault! And the upper room has nothing to do with it, and why did you go to where death guarded you? And no one called you there! And how did you die - did not think! And why didn’t you listen to us? but let's talk about the hut!) ".
Reading between the lines of Solzhenitsyn's story, one can understand that Alexander Isaevich himself draws completely different conclusions from what he heard than those that could be expected. "And only then - from these disapproving reviews of the sister-in-law - did the image of Matryona emerge before me, which I did not understand her, even living side by side with her. We all lived next to her and did not understand that she is the same righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, the village does not stand. "
Tragically ended the life of a hardworking, kind, but very lonely woman, whom no one understood and appreciated, but everyone tried to take advantage of her hard work and responsiveness. The hero of the story bitterly repents that he understood his mistress too late - but the rest of the village did not understand this even after her death. The image of Matryona is a living opposition to the reality, which in Solzhenitsyn's story is expressed through malice, envy and human acquisitiveness. The whole life of this simple Russian woman affirms the possibility of the existence of righteousness even in the midst of darkness and dirt. In my opinion, once you have read this story, you can neither forget it nor remain the same yourself.
to Central Russia. Thanks to new trends, a recent convict is now not refused to become a school teacher in the Vladimir village of Miltsevo (in the story - Talnovo). Solzhenitsyn settles in the hut of a local resident, Matryona Vasilievna, a woman of about sixty, who is often ill. Matryona has neither a husband nor children. Her loneliness is brightened up only by the ficuses planted everywhere in the house, and the rickety cat picked up out of pity. (See description of Matrona's house.)
With warm, lyrical sympathy, AI Solzhenitsyn describes the difficult life of Matryona. For many years she did not have a single ruble of earnings. On the collective farm, Matrena works "for the sticks of workdays in the filthy accountant's book." The law that came out after Stalin's death finally gives her the right to seek a pension, but even then not for herself, but for the loss of her husband, who went missing at the front. To do this, you need to collect a bunch of certificates, and then take them to the social security and the village council many times, 10-20 kilometers away. Matrona's hut is full of mice and cockroaches that cannot be bred. From living creatures, she keeps only a goat, and feeds mainly on “kartovy” (potatoes) no larger than a chicken egg: her sandy, unfertilized garden does not give her larger. But even with such a need, Matryona remains a bright person, with a radiant smile. A good mood helps her to maintain work - hiking for peat in the forest (with a two-pound bag over her shoulders for three kilometers), mowing hay for a goat, chores around the house. Due to old age and illness, Matryona has already been released from the collective farm, but the formidable wife of the chairman now and then orders her to help at work for free. Matryona easily agrees to help her neighbors in the gardens without money. Having received a pension of 80 rubles from the state, she puts on new felt boots, a coat from a worn railway overcoat - and believes that her life has noticeably improved.
"Matrenin Dvor" - the house of Matryona Vasilievna Zakharova in the village of Miltsevo, Vladimir Region, the scene of the story by A. I. Solzhenitsyn
Soon Solzhenitsyn also learns the story of Matrena's marriage. In her youth, she was going to marry her neighbor Thaddeus. However, in 1914 he was taken to the German war - and he disappeared without a trace for three years. So without waiting for news from the groom, in the belief that he was dead, Matryona married Thaddeus' brother, Yefim. But a few months later, Thaddeus returned from Hungarian captivity. In his hearts, he threatened to chop Matryona and Yefim with an ax, then he cooled off and took another Matryona, from a neighboring village, for himself. They lived next door to her. Thaddeus was known in Talnovo as an imperious, stingy peasant. He constantly beat his wife, although he had six children from her. Matryona and Yefim also had six, but not one of them lived more than three months. Yefim, having gone to another war in 1941, did not return from it. Matryona, friendly with his wife Thaddeus, begged her youngest daughter, Kira, for ten years raised her as her own, and shortly before Solzhenitsyna appeared in Talnovo, she married her to a locomotive driver in the village of Cherusti. The story of her two fiancés Matryona told Alexander Isaevich herself, being worried at the same time, like a young woman.
Kira and her husband in Cherusty had to get a piece of land, and for this they had to quickly put up some kind of building. Old Thaddeus in the winter suggested moving there the upper room, attached to the mother's house. Matryona was already going to bequeath this room to Kira (and three of her sisters were marking the house). Under the persistent persuasion of the greedy Thaddeus, after two sleepless nights, Matryona agreed during her lifetime, breaking part of the roof of the house, dismantling the upper room and transporting it to Cherusti. Before the eyes of the hostess and Solzhenitsyn, Thaddeus with his sons and sons-in-law came to the matryona yard, clattered with axes, creaked with torn boards and dismantled the upper room into logs. The three sisters of Matryona, having learned how she succumbed to the persuasion of Thaddeus, unanimously called her a fool.
Matrena Vasilievna Zakharova - the prototype of the main character of the story
A tractor was brought in from Cherusti. The logs of the chamber were loaded onto two sledges. The thick-faced tractor driver, in order not to make an extra trip, announced that he would pull two sleds at once - so it turned out to be more profitable for him in terms of money. The disinterested Matryona herself, fussing, helped to load the logs. Already in the dark, the tractor with difficulty pulled a heavy load from the mother's yard. The restless worker did not sit at home here either - she ran away with everyone to help along the way.
She was not destined to return alive ... At the railway crossing, the cable of an overloaded tractor burst. The tractor driver with his son Thaddeus rushed to get along with him, and Matryona was carried along with them. At this time, two coupled locomotives approached the crossing, backwards and without turning on the lights. Unexpectedly flying in, they smashed to death all three who were busy at the cable, mutilated the tractor, fell off the rails themselves. A fast train with a thousand passengers almost got into the wreck, approaching the crossing.
At dawn, everything that was left of Matryona was brought from the crossing on a sled under a dirty bag thrown over. The body had no legs, no half of the torso, no left arm. And the face remained intact, calm, more alive than dead. One woman crossed herself and said:
- The Lord left her the right hand. There will be prayers to God...
The village began to gather for the funeral. Women relatives lamented over the coffin, but self-interest was visible in their words. And it was not hidden that Matrena's sisters and her husband's relatives were preparing for a fight for the legacy of the deceased, for her old house. Only the wife of Thaddeus and the pupil of Cyrus sobbed sincerely. Thaddeus himself, who lost his once beloved woman and son in that catastrophe, clearly thought only of how to save the logs of the upper room scattered during the crash near the railway. Asking for permission to return them, he continually rushed from the coffins to the station and village authorities.
AI Solzhenitsyn in the village of Miltsevo (in the story - Talnovo). October 1956
On Sunday Matryona and son Thaddeus were buried. The memorials are over. In the coming days, Thaddeus pulled out a barn and a fence from his mother's sisters, which he immediately dismantled with his sons and transported on a sled. Alexander Isaevich moved in with one of Matryona's sister-in-laws, who often and always with contemptuous regret spoke of her cordiality, simplicity, how she was "stupid, helped strangers for free", "didn't chase after the equipment and didn't even keep a pig." For Solzhenitsyn, it was precisely from these disdainful words that a new image of Matryona surfaced, which he did not understand her, even living side by side with her. This stranger to her sisters, ridiculous to her sister-in-law, a non-possessive woman who did not save up property for death, buried six children, but did not like her sociable disposition, felt sorry for the rickety cat, and once at night, during a fire, she rushed to save not the hut, but her beloved ficuses - and there is that same righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, the village does not stand.
"Matrenin yard" analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, characters, problems and other issues are disclosed in this article.
“A village does not stand without a righteous man” - this is the original title of the story. The story echoes many works of Russian classical literature. Solzhenitsyn seems to transfer any of Leskov's heroes to the historical era of the 20th century, the post-war period. And the more dramatic, more tragic is the fate of Matryona in the midst of this situation.
The life of Matrena Vasilievna, it would seem, is ordinary. She devoted all of it to work, selfless and hard work of the peasant. When the construction of collective farms began, she went there too, but because of her illness they let her out and now they were already attracted when others refused. And she did not work for money, she never took money. Only later, after her death, her sister-in-law, with whom the narrator settled, will remember evilly, or rather, recall to her this strangeness of hers.
But is the fate of Matryona so simple? And who knows what it's like to fall in love with a person and, without waiting for him, marry another, unloved, and then see your betrothed a few months after the wedding? And what is it like then to live side by side with him, to see him every day, to feel guilty for his and his life that did not work out? Her husband did not love her. She bore him six children, but none of them survived. And she had to take on the upbringing of the daughter of her beloved, but already a stranger. How much warmth and kindness accumulated in her, she invested so much in her adopted daughter Kira. Matrena went through so much, but she did not lose that inner light that shone in her eyes, cast a smile. She did not hold a grudge against anyone and only got upset when she was offended. She is not angry with her sisters, who appeared only when everything in her life had already become well. She lives with what she has. That is why she did not accumulate anything in her life, except for two hundred rubles for the funeral.
The turning point in her life was that they wanted to take away her upper room. She did not feel sorry for the good, she never regretted it. It was terrible for her to think that they would break her house, in which her whole life had flown by in an instant. She spent forty years here, she also endured two wars, a revolution that flew by with echoes. And for her to break and take away her room means to break and destroy her life. For her, this was the end. The real ending of the novel is not accidental either. Human greed destroys Matryona. It is painful to hear the author's words that Thaddeus, because of whose greed the case began, on the day of his death and then the burial of Matryona, only thinks about the abandoned log house. He does not pity her, does not cry for the one whom he once loved so passionately.
Solzhenitsyn shows the era when the foundations of life were turned upside down, when property became the subject and goal of life. It is not in vain that the author wonders why things are called "good", because this is essentially evil, and terrible. Matryona understood this. She did not chase outfits, she dressed in a rustic way. Matryona is the embodiment of true folk morality, universal morality, on which the whole world rests.
So Matryona remained not understood by anyone, not truly mourned by anyone. Only Kira cried alone, not according to custom, but from the heart. They feared for her sanity.
The story is masterfully written. Solzhenitsyn is a master of subject matter detailing. From small and seemingly insignificant details, he builds a special three-dimensional world. This world is visible and tangible. This world is Russia. We can say exactly where in the country the village of Talnovo is located, but we perfectly understand that in this village is all of Russia. Solzhenitsyn combines the general and the particular and puts it into a single artistic image.
Plan
- The narrator gets a job as a teacher in Talnovo. Settles at Matrena Vasilievna.
- Gradually, the narrator learns about her past.
- Thaddeus comes to Matryona. He takes care of the upper room, which Matryona promised Kira, his daughter, brought up by Matryona.
- While transporting a log house across the railroad tracks, Matryona, her nephew and Kira's husband die.
- Because of the hut and property of Matryona, disputes have been going on for a long time. And the narrator moves in with her sister-in-law.
The action of the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn takes place in the mid-1950s. the last century. The story is told in the first person, a kind of person who dreams of living in the outback of his native country, in contrast to those intending to quickly move to the bustling cities of his compatriots. This fact is explained by a long stay in prison, a desire to move away from society, solitude and peace.
Story line
To realize his intention, the character goes to the place "Peat Product" to teach at a high school. Boring barracks and dilapidated five-story houses do not attract him at all. As a result, having found shelter in the remote village of Talnovo, the hero will meet a lonely woman who has lost her health, Matryona.
By no means a prosperous household in a nondescript hut is made up of a shaggy cat abandoned by the former owner, a mirror darkened with time and a pair of posters that attract prying eyes, illustrating the sale of books and productivity.
contrasts
Focusing on these items of unpretentious interior, the author tries to convey to the reader the key problem of the past - the bravado of the official chronicle of events solely for show and the gloomy reality of the impoverished hinterland.
At the same time, the master of the word contrasts the rich spiritual world with the peasant woman who performs overwork on the collective farm. Having worked almost all of her best years, she did not receive a pension from the state either for herself or for her when she lost her breadwinner.
Personal qualities
Attempts to gain at least some penny turn into obstacles from the bureaucratic apparatus. Despite the misunderstanding of those around her and the dishonest actions of the ruling authorities, she manages to maintain humanity, a sense of pity and compassion for people. Surprisingly humble by nature, she does not require additional attention and excessive comfort, sincerely rejoicing in her acquisitions.
Love for nature is expressed in the careful cultivation of numerous ficuses. From further descriptions of Matryona's life, it is known that she could have avoided a lonely fate, because the dwelling was built for children and grandchildren. Only in the 2nd part is the fact of the loss of her six children revealed. She waited 11 years from the war for her husband after declaring him missing.
Summarizing
The image of Matrena embodies the best features of a Russian woman. The narrator is impressed by her good-natured smile, incessant work in the garden or when going to the forest for berries. The author speaks unflatteringly about her surroundings. The replacement of a worn-out railway overcoat with a coat and the pension received cause noticeable envy among the villagers.
In his work, the writer draws attention to the extreme plight of the peasants, their bleak existence with their own meager food and lack of money to feed livestock. At the same time, the unfriendly attitude of each of the people living close to each other is clearly manifested.
Analysis of the story Matryonin yard Solzhenitsyn
The story of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn tells about a man who wanted to get lost in the depths of Russia. Moreover, the hero wanted a truly calm, almost reclusive life. He wanted to be a school teacher. And he succeeded. But in order to work at the school, he needed somewhere to live. He walked through the whole village and looked into every hut. Everywhere was tight. So he had to settle in a large and spacious hut of Matryona Vasilievna. The situation in the hut was not the best: cockroaches, mice, a three-legged cat, an old goat and neglect of the building - all this seemed scary at first. But over time, the hero got used to and got used to Matrena Vasilievna.
The writer describes the mistress of the hut as an old woman of about sixty. She walked in torn things, but she loved them very much. She had only one old, shabby goat from her household. Matryona Vasilievna appears to the reader as an ordinary, but at the same time mysterious woman. She is mostly silent, does not tell anything, and does not ask the hero for anything. Only once did Matryona tell a piece of her life to the hero. How she was going to marry one brother, and married another, because she did not wait for her first brother after the war. Everyone thought he was dead. And so Matrena Vasilievna married her second brother. He was younger than her by a year. But Yefim never laid a finger on Matryona. Arriving from the war, the older brother scolded to cut them down, but soon calmed down and found himself a wife with the same name. This is where her story ended. And then she told all this because Thaddeus came to her to talk with Antoshka's school teacher, who lived with Matryona.
Matrena Vasilievna is presented to the reader in such a way that one wants to feel sorry for her and help her. She had no children. It so happened that they died after three months of life. And so it happened that Vasilievna took one of her brother-in-law's daughters to bring up. The girl's name was Kira. Raised and married Matrena Vasilievna daughter. It was Kira who, at least sometimes, helped Matryona, and so the woman herself tried to survive. She, like all the women in the village, stole peat from the swamps to keep warm in cold winters. And she ate what "God will send." Matrena Vasilievna was a simple-hearted and kind person, she never refused help and did not take anything if she helped.
The hut in which the heroine of the story lived, Vasilyevna bequeathed to Kira. So the day came when they came to dismantle half of the hut, Matryona grieved a little and went to help load the boards. She was like that, Matrena Vasilievna, she always took on men's work. On this day, disaster struck. When the boards were transported on sledges across the railway, then the train crushed almost all of them.
Somehow not everyone really grieved about Matryona Vasilievna. Maybe from the fact that it is so accepted among people that it is necessary to shed tears for the dead, only for this reason it seems like people were crying. But the reader will not see sincerity in these tears. Everyone cries just because it's supposed to. Only the adopted daughter truly grieved for Matryona Vasilievna. She sat aside at the wake and quietly wept.
After the death of Matryona Vasilievna, everyone only thought about who would get what from her very poor property. The sisters shouted loudly about who would get what. Many others expressed what Vasilievna had promised to whom. Even the brother's husband thought that the boards that remained intact should be taken back and put into action.
In my opinion, AI Solzhenitsyn wanted to tell the story about a simple Russian woman. It is about one that is not noticeable at first glance, but if you get to know and talk better with her, then her whole multifaceted soul will be revealed. The author of the story wanted to talk about a strong female character. When, enduring hardships and misfortunes, falling, but rising again, a Russian woman always remains strong in spirit and does not get angry at simple everyday trifles. It is these people, inconspicuous and not requiring much, like Matrena Vasilievna, who make our life easier. When such a person does not become near, it is then that people realize the loss and the importance of the presence of this particular person nearby. In my opinion, the author perfectly chose the words at the end of the story “... a righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, the village does not stand. Neither city. Not all our land."
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In the work “Matryona Dvor”, Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn describes the life of a hardworking, smart, but very lonely woman - Matryona, whom no one understood or appreciated, but everyone tried to take advantage of her diligence and responsiveness.
The very title of the story "Matryona 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 domestic 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 economic yard itself. In the third case, the “yard” symbolizes the circle of people who were somehow interested in Matryona.
In each of the meanings of the word “yard” I have given above, there is certainly that tragedy that is inherent, perhaps, in the lifestyle of every woman who looks like Matryona, but nevertheless, in the third meaning, it seems to me, the tragedy is greatest, since here we are no longer talking 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 a proper attitude to the dignity of a person. Much stronger in people, fear for themselves, their lives, without the help of that other person, whose fate never bothered them, prevails. “Then I learned that crying over the deceased is not just crying, but a kind of mark. Matrona's three sisters flocked, seized the hut, the goat and the oven, locked her chest with a padlock, gutted two hundred funeral rubles from the lining of her coat, and told everyone that they were the only ones close to Matryona.
I think that in this case all three meanings of the word “yard” add up, and each of these meanings reflects one or another tragic picture: the soullessness, deadness of the “living yard” that surrounded Matryona during her lifetime and later divided her household; the fate of Matryona's hut after Matryona's death and during Matryona's lifetime; the absurd death of Matryona.
The main feature of Solzhenitsyn's literary language is that Alexander Isaevich himself gives an explanatory interpretation of many of the replicas of the heroes of the story, and this reveals to us the veil behind which lies the very mood of Solzhenitsyn, his personal attitude to each of the heroes. However, I got the impression that the author's interpretations are somewhat ironic, but at the same time they somehow synthesize replicas and leave in them only the ins and outs, undisguised, true meaning. "Ah, aunty aunty! And how could you not take care of yourself! And, probably, now they are offended by us! And you are our dear, and all your fault! And the upper room has nothing to do with it, and why did you go to where death guarded you And no one called you there! And how you died - I didn’t think! And why didn’t you listen to us (And from all these lamentations the answer stuck out: we are not to blame for her death, but we’ll talk about the hut later!) ”
Reading between the lines of Solzhenitsyn's story, one can understand that Alexander Isaevich himself draws completely different conclusions from what he heard than those that could be expected. "And only then - from these disapproving reviews of the sister-in-law - did the image of Matryona emerge before me, which I did not understand her, even living side by side with her." “We all lived next to her and did not understand that she is the same righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, the village cannot stand.” Involuntarily, the words of the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery come to mind, the meaning of which is that in reality everything is not as it is in reality.
Matryona is a contrast to the reality, which in Solzhenitsyn's story is expressed through the anger, envy and money-grubbing of people. With her way of life, Matrena proved that anyone who lives in this world can be honest and righteous if he lives with a righteous idea and is strong in spirit.
In the center of the story of Alexander Isaevich is the fate of a village woman who worked all her life on a collective farm not for money, but for “sticks”. Let's follow the life of this wonderful woman.
The story begins with the fact that the narrator, on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted, Ignatich, returns to Russia from the dusty, hot steppes of Kazakhstan and settles in the house of Matrena Vasilievna. The question arises: who is Matrena Vasilievna? This is a lonely woman who lost her husband at the front, who buried six children; and “... how she became very ill and was released from the collective farm.” The meager decoration and the only decoration of her hut were pots and tubs with ficuses, a dim mirror and two bright posters. But in measured, colorful sketches, the reader is gradually presented with the image of not just a lonely and destitute woman, but a rare person with an immensely kind soul. Despite the hardships, Matryona has not lost the ability to respond to someone else's need. Not a single plowing in the village could do without it. Together with other women, she harnessed herself to the plow and dragged it on herself. Not a single relative, close or distant, could Matryona refuse to help, leaving her urgent affairs. In essence, having nothing, this woman knows how to give. However, what is the price for her kindness? For the only goat, Matryona cannot collect hay: "... do not mow at the canvas", "there is no mow in the forest", "... they do not order me on the collective farm." And how infinitely long and stubbornly this woman overcame the long way to the village council, fussing about her pension. But the problem with fuel was even more acute: “They didn’t give peat to the residents, but only carried it to the authorities and whoever was with the authorities.” So the poor village women had to gather several people for courage and carry peat secretly in bags. And this terrible reality frightens the reader, alarms: “Really Matryona Vasilyevna always lived like this: she stole peat, harnessed to a plow, knocked on thresholds in the village council”
