In the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin there is always big role The theme of serfdom and the oppression of the peasantry played. Since the writer could not openly express his protest against the existing system, almost all of his works are filled with fairy-tale motifs and allegories. Was no exception satirical tale « Wild landowner", the analysis of which will help 9th grade students better prepare for a literature lesson. Detailed analysis fairy tales will help highlight the main idea of the work, the features of the composition, and will also allow you to better understand what the author teaches in his work.
Brief Analysis
Year of writing– 1869
History of creation– Unable to openly ridicule the vices of autocracy, Saltykov-Shchedrin resorted to allegorical literary form- a fairy tale.
Subject– In Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work “The Wild Landowner” the theme of the situation of serfs in the conditions of Tsarist Russia, the absurdity of the existence of a class of landowners who cannot and do not want to work independently.
Composition– The plot of the tale is based on a grotesque situation, behind which the real relations between the classes of landowners and serfs are hidden. Despite the small size of the work, the composition is created according to a standard plan: beginning, climax and denouement.
Genre- A satirical tale.
Direction- Epic.
History of creation
Mikhail Evgrafovich was always extremely sensitive to the plight of the peasants, forced to be in lifelong bondage to the landowners. Many of the writer’s works, which openly touched on this topic, were criticized and were not allowed to be published by censorship.
However, Saltykov-Shchedrin still found a way out of this situation by turning his attention to the outwardly quite harmless genre of fairy tales. Thanks to the skillful combination of fantasy and reality, the use of traditional folklore elements, metaphors, and bright aphoristic language, the writer managed to disguise the evil and sharp ridicule of the landowners' vices under the guise of an ordinary fairy tale.
In an environment of government reaction, only thanks to fairy tale fantasy could express their views on existing political system. The use of satirical techniques in a folk tale allowed the writer to significantly expand the circle of his readers and reach the masses.
At that time, the magazine was headed by close friend and a like-minded writer - Nikolai Nekrasov, and Saltykov-Shchedrin did not have any problems with the publication of the work.
Subject
Main theme fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" lies in social inequality, a huge gap between the two classes that existed in Russia: landowners and serfs. Enslavement common people, complex relationships between exploiters and exploited - main issue of this work.
In a fairytale-allegorical form, Saltykov-Shchedrin wanted to convey to readers a simple idea- it is the peasant who is the salt of the earth, and without him the landowner is just an empty place. Few of the landowners think about this, and therefore the attitude towards the peasant is contemptuous, demanding and often downright cruel. But only thanks to the peasant does the landowner get the opportunity to enjoy all the benefits that he has in abundance.
In his work, Mikhail Evgrafovich concludes that it is the people who are the drinker and breadwinner not only of their landowner, but of the entire state. The true stronghold of the state is not the class of helpless and lazy landowners, but exclusively the simple Russian people.
It is this thought that haunts the writer: he sincerely complains that the peasants are too patient, dark and downtrodden, and do not fully realize their full strength. He criticizes the irresponsibility and patience of the Russian people, who do nothing to improve their situation.
Composition
Fairy tale "Wild Landowner" - small piece, which took up only a few pages in “Domestic Notes”. In it we're talking about about a stupid master who endlessly pestered the peasants working for him because of the “slave smell.”
In the beginning works main character turned to God with a request to forever get rid of this dark and hateful environment. When the landowner's prayers for deliverance from the peasants were heard, he was left completely alone on his large estate.
Climax The tale fully reveals the master's helplessness without the peasants, who were the source of all blessings in his life. When they disappeared, the once polished gentleman quickly turned into a wild animal: he stopped washing himself, taking care of himself, and eating normal human food. The life of a landowner turned into a boring, unremarkable existence in which there was no place for joy and pleasure. This was the meaning of the title of the fairy tale - the reluctance to give up one’s own principles inevitably leads to “savagery” - civil, intellectual, political.
In denouement works, the landowner, completely impoverished and wild, completely loses his mind.
Main characters
Genre
From the first lines of "The Wild Landowner" it becomes clear that this fairy tale genre. But not good-naturedly didactic, but caustic and satirical, in which the author harshly ridiculed the main vices of the social system in Tsarist Russia.
In his work, Saltykov-Shchedrin managed to preserve the spirit and general style of the nationality. He masterfully used such popular folklore elements as fairy-tale beginnings, fantasy, and hyperbole. However, he managed to tell about modern problems in society, describe events in Russia.
Thanks to fantastic, fairy-tale techniques, the writer was able to reveal all the vices of society. The work in its direction is an epic in which real-life relations in society are grotesquely shown.
Work test
Rating analysis
Average rating: 4.1. Total ratings received: 351.
A satirical depiction of reality appeared in Saltykov-Shchedrin (along with other genres) and in fairy tales. Here, as in folk tales, fantasy and reality are combined. So, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s animals are often humanized, they personify the vices of people.
But the writer has a cycle of fairy tales where people are the heroes. Here Saltykov-Shchedrin chooses other techniques for ridiculing vices. This is, as a rule, grotesque, hyperbole, fantasy.
This is Shchedrin’s fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”. In it, the stupidity of the landowner is taken to the limit. The writer sneers at the master’s “merits”: “The men see: although their landowner is stupid, he has a great mind. He shortened them so that there was nowhere to stick his nose; No matter where they look, everything is forbidden, not allowed, and not yours! The cattle go to water - the landowner shouts: “My water!” The chicken goes outside the outskirts - the landowner shouts: “My land!” And the earth, and the water, and the air - everything became his!”
The landowner considers himself not a man, but a kind of deity. Or at least a person of the highest rank. For him, it’s normal to enjoy the fruits of other people’s labor and not even think about it.
The men of the “wild landowner” are exhausted from hard work and cruel need. Tortured by oppression, the peasants finally prayed: “Lord! It’s easier for us to perish even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!” God heard them, and “there was no man in the entire domain of the stupid landowner.”
At first it seemed to the master that he would now live well without the peasants. And all the noble guests of the landowner approved of his decision: “Oh, how good it is! - the generals praise the landowner, - so now you won’t have that slave smell at all? “Not at all,” the landowner answers.”
It seems that the hero does not realize the deplorability of his situation. The landowner only indulges in dreams, empty in essence: “and so he walks, walks from room to room, then sits down and sits. And he thinks everything. He thinks what kind of cars he will order from England, so that everything is steam and steam, and so that there is no servile spirit at all; he thinks what a fruitful garden he will plant: here there will be pears, plums...” Without his peasants, the “wild landowner” did nothing but caress his “loose, white, crumbly body.”
It is at this moment that the climax of the tale begins. Without his peasants, the landowner, who cannot lift a finger without a peasant, begins to run wild. In Shchedrin's fairy tale cycle, full scope is given for the development of the motif of reincarnation. It was the grotesque in the description of the process of the landowner's savagery that helped the writer show with all clarity how greedy representatives of the “conducting class” can turn into real wild animals.
But if in folk tales the process of transformation itself is not depicted, then Saltykov reproduces it in all its details. This is the unique artistic invention of the satirist. It can be called a grotesque portrait: a landowner, completely wild after the fantastic disappearance of the peasants, turns into primitive man. “He was all overgrown with hair, from head to toe, like the ancient Esau... and his nails became like iron,” Saltykov-Shchedrin slowly narrates. “He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago, walked more and more on all fours, and was even surprised that he had not noticed before that this way of walking was the most decent and most convenient. He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds and adopted some kind of special victory cry, a cross between a whistle, a hiss and a roar.”
Under the new conditions, all the severity of the landowner lost its force. He became helpless, like a small child. Now even “the little mouse was smart and understood that the landowner could not do him any harm without Senka. He only wagged his tail in response to the landowner’s menacing exclamation and a moment later he was already looking out at him from under the sofa, as if saying: wait a minute, stupid landowner! it's only the beginning! I will not only eat the cards, but also your robe, as soon as you oil it properly!”
Thus, the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” shows the degradation of man, his impoverishment spiritual world(was he even in in this case?!), the withering away of all human qualities.
This is explained very simply. In his fairy tales, as in his satires, with all their tragic gloom and accusatory severity, Saltykov remained a moralist and educator. Showing the horror of human fall and its most sinister vices, he still believed that in the future there would be a moral revival of society and times of social and spiritual harmony would come.
A brief analysis of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”: idea, problems, themes, image of the people
The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” was published by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in 1869. This work is a satire on the Russian landowner and the ordinary Russian people. In order to bypass censorship, the writer chose a specific genre, “fairy tale,” within which a deliberate fable is described. In the work, the author does not give his characters names, as if hinting that the landowner is collective image all landowners in Rus' in the 19th century. And Senka and the rest of the men are typical representatives peasant class. The theme of the work is simple: the superiority of the hardworking and patient people over the mediocre and stupid nobles, expressed in an allegorical manner.
Problems, features and meaning of the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”
Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are always distinguished by simplicity, irony and artistic details, using which the author can absolutely accurately convey the character of the character “And that stupid landowner was reading the newspaper “Vest” and his body was soft, white and crumbly,” “he lived and looked at the light and rejoiced.”
The main problem in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is the problem difficult fate people. The landowner in the work appears as a cruel and ruthless tyrant who intends to take away the last thing from his peasants. But after hearing the prayers of the peasants for better life and the landowner's desire to get rid of them forever, God grants their prayers. They stop bothering the landowner, and the “men” get rid of oppression. The author shows that in the world of the landowner, the peasants were the creators of all goods. When they disappeared, he himself turned into an animal, grew overgrown, and stopped eating normal food, since all the food disappeared from the market. With the disappearance of the men, a bright, rich life went away, the world became uninteresting, dull, tasteless. Even the entertainment that previously brought pleasure to the landowner - playing pulque or watching a play in the theater - no longer seemed so tempting. The world is empty without the peasantry. Thus, in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” the meaning is quite real: the upper strata of society oppress and trample the lower ones, but at the same time cannot remain at their illusory heights without them, since it is the “slaves” who provide for the country, but their master is nothing but problems, we are unable to provide.
The image of the people in the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin
The people in the work of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are hardworking people in whose hands any business “argues.” It was thanks to them that the landowner always lived in abundance. The people appear before us not just as a weak-willed and reckless mass, but as smart and insightful people: “The men see: although their landowner is stupid, he has been given a great mind.” Peasants are also endowed with such important quality as a sense of justice. They refused to live under the yoke of a landowner who imposed unfair and sometimes insane restrictions on them, and asked God for help.
The author himself treats the people with respect. This can be seen in the contrast between how the landowner lived after the disappearance of the peasantry and during his return: “And suddenly again there was a smell of chaff and sheepskins in that district; but at the same time, flour, meat, and all kinds of livestock appeared at the market, and so many taxes arrived in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, just clasped his hands in surprise...”, it can be argued that the people are the driving force of society, the foundation on which the existence of such “landowners” is based, and they certainly owe their well-being to the simple Russian peasant. This is the meaning of the ending of the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner”.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Fairy tales with their allegorical images, in which the author was able to say more about Russian society of the 60-80s of the 19th century than the historians of those years. Saltykov-Shchedrin writes these tales “for children of considerable age”, that is, for an adult reader, mentally in the state of a child who needs to open his eyes to life. The fairy tale, due to the simplicity of its form, is accessible to anyone, even an inexperienced reader, and therefore is especially dangerous for those who are ridiculed in it.
The main problem of Shchedrin's fairy tales is the relationship between the exploiters and the exploited. The writer created a satire on Tsarist Russia. The reader is presented with images of rulers (“The Bear in the Voivodeship,” “The Eagle Patron”), exploiters and exploited (“The Wild Landowner,” “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”), and ordinary people (“The Wise Minnow,” “ Dried roach").
The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” is directed against the entire social system, based on exploitation, anti-people in its essence. Keeping the spirit and style folk tale, the satirist talks about real events his contemporary life. The work begins as an ordinary fairy tale: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner...
"But then an element appears modern life: “And that stupid landowner was reading the newspaper “Vest”.” “Vest” is a reactionary-serf newspaper, so the stupidity of the landowner is determined by his worldview. The landowner considers himself a true representative of the Russian state, its support, and is proud that he is a hereditary Russian nobleman, Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev.
The whole point of his existence comes down to pampering his body, “soft, white and crumbly.” He lives at the expense of his men, but he hates and is afraid of them, and cannot stand the “servile spirit.” He rejoices when, by some fantastic whirlwind, all the men were carried away to who knows where, and the air in his domain became pure, pure.
But the men disappeared, and such hunger set in that it was impossible to buy anything at the market. And the landowner himself went completely wild: “He’s all overgrown with hair, from head to toe...
and his nails became like iron. He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago and walked more and more on all fours.
I’ve even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds...” In order not to die of hunger, when the last gingerbread was eaten, the Russian nobleman began to hunt: if he spots a hare, “like an arrow will jump from a tree, grab onto its prey, tear it apart with its nails, and eat it with all the insides, even the skin.” The savagery of the landowner indicates that he cannot live without the help of the peasant.
After all, it was not without reason that as soon as the “swarm of men” was caught and put in place, “flour, meat, and all kinds of living creatures appeared at the market.” The stupidity of the landowner is constantly emphasized by the writer. The peasants themselves were the first to call the landowner stupid; representatives of other classes call the landowner stupid three times (triple repetition technique): actor Sadovsky (“However, brother, you are a stupid landowner!
Who gives you a wash, stupid one?”), the generals, whom he treated instead of “beef” to printed gingerbread cookies and candies (“However, brother, you’re a stupid landowner!”) and, finally, the police captain (“You’re a stupid you, Mr. Landowner!
"). The stupidity of the landowner is visible to everyone, and he indulges in unrealistic dreams that he will achieve prosperity in the economy without the help of the peasants, and thinks about English machines that will replace the serfs. His dreams are absurd, because he cannot do anything on his own.
And only one day the landowner thought: “Is he really a fool? Could it be that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, when translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness?
“If we compare the well-known folk tales about the master and the peasant with the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, for example, with “The Wild Landowner,” we will see that the image of the landowner in Shchedrin’s fairy tales is very close to folklore, and the peasants, on the contrary, differ from the fairy tales. In folk tales, a quick-witted, dexterous, resourceful man defeats a stupid master.
And in “The Wild Landowner” a collective image of workers, breadwinners of the country and, at the same time, patient martyrs and sufferers appears. Thus, modifying a folk tale, the writer condemns the people's long-suffering, and his tales sound like a call to rise up to fight, to renounce the slave worldview.
Of all the arts, literature has the richest possibilities for embodying the comic. Most often, the following types and techniques of comedy are distinguished: satire, humor, grotesque, irony.
Satire is called looking “through a magnifying glass” (V.). The object of satire in literature can be a variety of phenomena.
Political satire is most common. A clear proof of this is the fairy tales of M.
E. Saltykova-Shchedrin.
The fantastic nature of fairy-tale plots allowed Saltykov-Shchedrin to continue criticizing the social system, bypassing censorship even in the face of political reaction. Shchedrin's fairy tales depict not just evil or good people, not just a struggle between good and evil, like most folk tales, they reveal the class struggle in Russia in the second half of the 19th century century.
Let us consider the features of the problems of the writer’s fairy tales using the example of two of them. In “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals,” Shchedrin shows the image of a hard worker-breadwinner.
He can get food, sew clothes, conquer the elemental forces of nature. On the other hand, the reader sees the man’s resignation, his humility, his unquestioning submission to the two generals. He even ties himself to a rope, which once again indicates the submissiveness and downtroddenness of the Russian peasant.
The author calls on the people to fight, protest, calls on them to wake up, think about their situation, and stop submitting meekly. In the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner,” the author shows to what extent a rich gentleman can sink when he finds himself without a man. Abandoned by his peasants, he immediately turns into a dirty and wild animal, moreover, he becomes a forest predator.
And this life, in essence, is a continuation of his previous predatory existence. The wild landowner, like the generals, acquires a dignified appearance again only after his peasants return. Thus, the author gives an unambiguous assessment of contemporary reality.
In their literary form and style, Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales are associated with folklore traditions. In them we meet traditional fairy tale characters: talking animals, fish, birds. The writer uses the beginnings, sayings, proverbs, linguistic and compositional triple repetitions characteristic of a folk tale, vernacular and everyday peasant vocabulary, constant epithets, words with diminutive suffixes.
As in folk tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin does not have a clear time and spatial framework. But, using traditional techniques, the author quite deliberately deviates from tradition.
He introduces socio-political vocabulary, clerical phrases, and French words into the narrative. Episodes of modern society appear on the pages of his fairy tales.
life. This is how styles mix, creating comic effect, and connecting the plot with the problems of our time.
Thus, enriching the tale with new satirical techniques, Saltykov-Shchedrin turned it into a tool of socio-political satire.
Analysis of the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" by Saltykov-ShchedrinThe theme of serfdom and the life of the peasantry played an important role in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. The writer could not openly protest the existing system. Saltykov-Shchedrin hides his merciless criticism of autocracy behind fairy-tale motives. He wrote his political tales from 1883 to 1886. In them, the author truthfully reflected the life of Russia, in which despotic and all-powerful landowners destroy hardworking men.
In this tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects on the unlimited power of landowners, who abuse the peasants in every possible way, imagining themselves almost as gods. The writer also talks about the landowner’s stupidity and lack of education: “that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper “Vest” and his body was soft, white and crumbly.” Shchedrin also expresses the powerless situation of the peasantry in Tsarist Russia in this fairy tale: “There was no torch to light the peasant’s light, there was no rod with which to sweep out the hut.” The main idea of the fairy tale was that the landowner cannot and does not know how to live without the peasant, and the landowner dreamed of work only in nightmares. So in this fairy tale, the landowner, who had no idea about work, becomes a dirty and wild beast. After all the peasants abandoned him, the landowner never even washed himself: “Yes, I’ve been walking around unwashed for so many days!”
The writer caustically ridicules all this negligence of the master class. The life of a landowner without a peasant is far from reminiscent of normal human life.
The master became so wild that “he was covered with hair from head to toe, his nails became like iron, he even lost the ability to pronounce articulate sounds. But he had not yet acquired a tail.” Life without peasants in the district itself has become disrupted: “nobody pays taxes, no one drinks wine in taverns.” “Normal” life begins in the district only when the peasants return to it. In the image of this one landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin showed the life of all the gentlemen in Russia. And the final words of the tale are addressed to each landowner: “He plays grand solitaire, yearns for his former life in the forests, washes himself only under duress, and moos from time to time.”
This fairy tale is full folk motifs, close to Russian folklore. It doesn't have tricky words, but there are simple Russian words: “once said and done”, “peasant trousers”, etc. Saltykov-Shchedrin sympathizes with the people. He believes that the suffering of the peasants will not be endless, and freedom will triumph.