Analysis of the work "station keeper" by Pushkin. Station Overseer Analysis of the Work Station Overseer Analysis of the Work Briefly

The history of the creation of Pushkin's work "The Station Keeper"

Boldinskaya autumn in the works of A.S. Pushkin became truly "golden", since it was at this time that he created many of his works. Among them are "Belkin's Tale". In a letter to his friend P. Pletnev, Pushkin wrote: "... I wrote 5 novellas in prose that made Baratynsky laugh and beat." The chronology of the creation of these stories is as follows: The Undertaker was completed on September 9, The Stationmaster was completed on September 14, The Young Peasant Woman was completed on September 20, after an almost month-long hiatus, the last two stories were written: The Shot - October 14 and Blizzard " - The 20th of October. The cycle of Belkin's Tales was Pushkin's first completed prose creation. The five novellas were united by the fictitious person of the author, about whom the “publisher” told in the preface. We learn that I.P. Belkin was born "of honest and noble parents in 1798 in the village of Goryukhino." “He was of average height, had gray eyes, light brown hair, a straight nose; his face was white and thin. " “He led the most moderate life, avoided all kinds of excesses; it never happened ... to see him drunk ..., he had a great penchant for the female sex, but his shyness was truly girlish. " In the fall of 1828, this handsome character "fell ill with a cold fever, turned into a fever, and died ...".
At the end of October 1831, The Tale of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin was published. The preface ended with the words: “Considering it our duty to respect the will of our venerable friend, we bring him our deepest gratitude for the news delivered to us and hope that the public will appreciate their sincerity and good nature. A.P. " The epigraph to all the stories, taken from the Fonvizin "The Minor" (Mrs. Prostakova: "That, my father, he is still a hunter to stories." He collected these "simple" stories, and wrote them down from different storytellers ("The Caretaker" was told to him by the titular adviser A.G. N., "Shot" by Lieutenant Colonel IL. P., "Undertaker" by the clerk B.V., "Blizzard "And" The Young Lady "by the girl K.I.T.), having processed them according to your skill and discretion. Thus, Pushkin, as a real author of stories, is hidden behind a double chain of ingenuous storytellers, and this gives him greater freedom of narration, creates considerable opportunities for comedy, satire and parody, and at the same time allows him to express his attitude to these stories.
With the full designation of the name of the real author, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, they were published in 1834. Creating in this cycle an unforgettable gallery of images living and acting in the Russian provinces, Pushkin tells with a kind smile and humor about modern Russia. Working on "Belkin's Tales", Pushkin outlined one of his main tasks: "Our language must be given more will (of course, in accordance with its spirit)." And when the author of the stories was asked who this Belkin was, Pushkin replied: “Whoever he is there, but the story should be written this way: simple, short and clear”.
The analysis of the work shows that the story "The Station Keeper" occupies a significant place in the work of A.S. Pushkin and is of great importance for all Russian literature. It almost for the first time depicts the hardships of life, pain and suffering of the one who is called the "little man". With her begins in Russian literature the theme of the "humiliated and insulted", which will introduce you to the kind, quiet, suffering heroes and will allow you to see not only meekness, but also the greatness of their hearts. The epigraph is taken from the poem by PA Vyazemsky "Station" ("Collegiate registrar, / Post station dictator"). Pushkin changed the quote, calling the station superintendent a "collegiate registrar" (the lowest civilian rank in pre-revolutionary Russia), and not by the "provincial registrar", as it was in the original, since this rank is higher.

Rod, genre, creative method

"The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin" consists of 5 novellas: "Shot", "Blizzard", "Undertaker", "Station Keeper", "The Young Lady-Peasant". Each of Belkin's Tales is so small in size that one could call it a story. Pushkin calls them stories. For a realist writer reproducing life, the forms of the story and novel in prose were especially suitable. They attracted Pushkin with their much greater, than poetry, intelligibility to the widest readership. “Stories and novels are read by everyone and everywhere,” he noted. Belkin's Tales "are, in fact, the beginning of Russian highly artistic realistic prose.
Pushkin took for the story the most typical romantic plots, which in our time may well be repeated. His characters initially find themselves in situations where the word "love" is present. They are already in love or are just longing for this feeling, but it is from here that the unfolding and whipping up of the plot begins. Belkin's Tales are conceived by the author as a parody of the genre of romantic literature. In the story "Shot", the main character Silvio comes from the outgoing era of romanticism. He is a handsome strong brave man with an integral passionate character and an exotic non-Russian name, reminiscent of the mysterious and fatal heroes of Byron's romantic poems. The Blizzard parodies French novels and romantic ballads by Zhukovsky. At the end of the story, the comic confusion with the suitors leads the heroine of the story to a new, long-suffering happiness. In the story "The Undertaker", in which Adrian Prokhorov invites the dead to his place, Mozart's opera and the horror stories of romantics are parodied. "The Young Lady-Peasant" is a small graceful sitcom with dressing up in the French style, unfolding in a Russian noble estate. But she is kind, funny and witty parodies of the famous tragedy - "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare.
In the cycle of "Belkin's Tales" the center and top is "The Station Keeper". The story laid the foundations of realism in Russian literature. In essence, in terms of its plot, expressiveness, complex capacious theme and ingenious composition, in terms of the very characters it is already a small, succinct novel that influenced subsequent Russian prose and gave birth to Gogol's story "The Overcoat". People here are depicted as simple, and their very story would be simple if different everyday circumstances had not intervened in it.

The subject of the work "The Station Keeper"

In Belkin's Tales, along with the traditional romantic themes from the noble-manor life, Pushkin reveals the theme of human happiness in its broadest sense. Worldly wisdom, rules of everyday behavior, generally accepted morality are enshrined in catechisms, recipes, but not everyone follows them and does not always lead to good luck. It is necessary that fate give a person happiness, so that the circumstances come together successfully. In "Belkin's Tales" it is shown that there are no hopeless situations, one must fight for happiness, and it will be, even if it is impossible.
The story "Stationmaster" is the saddest and most complex work cycle. This is a story about the woeful fate of Vyrin and the happy fate of his daughter. From the very beginning, the author connects the humble history of Samson Vyrin with philosophical meaning the whole cycle. After all, the station superintendent, who does not read books at all, has his own scheme of perception of life. It is reflected in pictures "with decent German poetry" that are hung on the walls of his "humble but neat monastery." The narrator details these pictures depicting the biblical legend of prodigal son... Samson Vyrin looks at everything that happened to him and his daughter through the prism of these pictures. His life experience suggests that misfortune will happen to his daughter, she will be deceived and abandoned. He is a toy, a little man in the hands of the mighty of the world, who have turned money into the main criterion.
Pushkin declared one of the main themes of the Russian Literature XIX century - the theme of the "little man". The significance of this theme for Pushkin was not in denouncing the downtroddenness of his hero, but in the discovery in the "little man" of a compassionate and sensitive soul, endowed with the gift of response to someone else's misfortune and someone else's pain.
From now on, the theme of the "little man" will sound in Russian classical literature constantly.

The idea of ​​the work

“There is no idea in any of Belkin's Tales. You read - nicely, smoothly, smoothly: you read - everything is forgotten, in memory there is nothing but adventures. "Belkin's Tales" are easy to read, because they do not make you think "(" Northern Bee ", 1834, No. 192, August 27).
“True, these stories are entertaining, they cannot be read without pleasure: this comes from a charming syllable, from the art of telling, but they are not artistic creations, but just fairy tales and fables ”(VG Belinsky).
“How long have you re-read Pushkin's prose? Make me a friendship - read all of Belkin's Tale first. They must be studied and studied by every writer. I did it the other day and I cannot convey to you the beneficial influence that this reading had on me ”(from a letter from Leo Tolstoy to PD Golokhvastov).
Such an ambiguous perception of Pushkin's cycle suggests that there is some mystery in "Belkin's Tales". In the "Stationmaster" she is confined in a small artistic detail- wall paintings telling about the prodigal son, which were in the 20-40s. a frequent part of the station environment. The description of those pictures takes the story out of the social and everyday plane into a philosophical one, allows us to comprehend its content in relation to human experience, interprets the “eternal plot” about the prodigal son. The story is imbued with the pathos of compassion.

The nature of the conflict

Analysis of the work shows that in the story “The Stationmaster” is a humiliated and sad hero, the ending is equally mournful and happy: the death of the stationmaster, on the one hand, and the happy life of his daughter, on the other. The story is distinguished by the special nature of the conflict: there is no negative heroes that would be negative in everything; there is no direct evil - and at the same time, the grief of the common man, the station superintendent, does not diminish from this.
The new type of hero and conflict entailed a different system of storytelling, the figure of the narrator - the titular advisor A. G. N. He tells a story he heard from others, from Vyrin himself and from the "red-haired and crooked" boy. Dunya's taking Vyrina away by the hussar is the plot of a drama, followed by a chain of events. From the post station, the action is transferred to St. Petersburg, from the caretaker's house to the grave outside the outskirts. The caretaker is unable to influence the course of events, but before bowing to fate, he tries to turn history back, to save Dunya from what seems to the poor father as the death of his “child”. The hero comprehends what has happened and, moreover, descends into the grave from the powerless consciousness of his own guilt and the irreparability of trouble.
“Little man” is not only a low rank, lack of high social status, but also being lost in life, fear of her, loss of interest and purpose. Pushkin was the first to draw the attention of readers to the fact that, despite his low origin, a person still remains a person and all the same feelings and passions are inherent in him as people of high society. The story "The Station Keeper" teaches to respect and love a person, teaches the ability to sympathize, makes you think that the world in which the station superintendents live is not arranged in the best way.

The main characters of the analyzed work

The author-narrator speaks sympathetically of the "real martyrs of the fourteenth class," the station keepers accused of all sins by the travelers. In fact, their life is a real hard labor: “The traveler takes out all the annoyance accumulated during a boring ride on the caretaker. The weather is unbearable, the road is bad, the coachman is stubborn, the horses are not driven - and the keeper is to blame ... You can easily guess that I have friends from the respectable class of caretakers. " This story was written in memory of one of them.
The main character in the story "The Stationmaster" is Samson Vyrin, a man of about 50 years old. The caretaker was born in about 1766, into a peasant family. The end of the 18th century, when Vyrin was 20-25 years old, was the time of the Suvorov wars and campaigns. As is known from history, Suvorov developed the initiative of his subordinates, encouraged soldiers and non-commissioned officers, promoting them in the service, fostering camaraderie in them, demanded literacy and ingenuity. A man from the peasants under the command of Suvorov could rise to the rank of non-commissioned officer, receive this rank for faithful service and personal courage. Samson Vyrin could be just such a person and most likely served in the Izmailovsky regiment. The text says that, having arrived in St. Petersburg in search of his daughter, he stops at the Izmailovsky regiment, in the house of a retired non-commissioned officer, his old colleague.
It can be assumed that around 1880 he retired and received the position of station superintendent and the rank of collegiate registrar. This position gave a small but constant salary. He got married, and a daughter was soon born. But the wife died, and the daughter was the father's joy and consolation.
Since childhood, she had to shoulder all women's work on her fragile shoulders. Vyrin himself, as he is presented at the beginning of the story, is “fresh and vigorous,” sociable and not angry, despite the fact that undeserved insults were raining down on his head. Just a few years later, driving along the same road, the author, stopping overnight with Samson Vyrin, did not recognize him: from “fresh and vigorous” he turned into an abandoned, flabby old man whose only consolation was a bottle. And it's all about her daughter: without asking for parental consent, Dunya - his life and hope, for the good of which he lived and worked - fled with a passing hussar. The act of his daughter broke Samson, he could not bear the fact that his dear child, his Dunya, whom he protected from all dangers as best he could, was able to do this to him and, what is even more terrible, with himself, she became not a wife, but a mistress.
Pushkin sympathizes with his hero and deeply respects him: a man of the lower class, who grew up in need, hard work, has not forgotten what decency, conscience and honor are. Moreover, he puts these qualities above material wealth. Poverty for Samson is nothing compared to the emptiness of the soul. It is not for nothing that the author introduces into the story such a detail as pictures depicting the story of the prodigal son on the wall in Vyrin's house. Like the father of the prodigal son, Samson was willing to forgive. Only Dunya didn’t come back. Father's suffering was aggravated by the fact that he knew very well how such stories often end: “There are a lot of them in St. Petersburg, young fools, today in satin and velvet, and tomorrow, you will see, they sweep the street with a barn. As you sometimes think that Dunya, perhaps, disappears right there, so involuntarily you will sin and wish her a grave ... ”. An attempt to find her daughter in huge Petersburg ended in nothing. It was here that the station superintendent gave in - he drank completely and after a while died without waiting for his daughter. Pushkin created in his Samson Vyrin an amazingly capacious, truthful image of a simple, little man and showed all his rights to the title and dignity of man.
Dunya in the story is shown as a jack of all trades. No one could cook dinner better than her, clean the house, serve a passer-by. And the father, looking at her agility and beauty, could not get enough of it. At the same time, she is a young coquette, knowing her strength, entering into a conversation with a newcomer without shyness, "like a girl who has seen the light." Belkin sees Dunya in the story for the first time, when she is fourteen years old - an age at which it is too early to think about fate. Dunya knows nothing about this intention of the visiting hussar Minsky. But, breaking away from her father, she chooses her feminine happiness, albeit, perhaps, for a short time. She chooses another world, unknown, dangerous, but in it she, at least, will live. It is difficult to blame her for choosing life, not vegetation, she took a chance and won. Dunya comes to her father only when everything that she could only dream of has come true, although Pushkin does not say a word about her marriage. But six horses, three children, a nurse testify to the successful conclusion of history. Of course, Dunya herself considers herself to be guilty for the death of her father, but the reader will probably forgive her, as Ivan Petrovich Belkin forgives.
Dunya and Minsky, the internal motives of their actions, thoughts and experiences, throughout the story, the narrator, coachman, father, red-haired boy describe from the side. Perhaps that is why the images of Dunya and Minsky are given somewhat schematically. Minsky is noble and rich, he served in the Caucasus, the rank of captain is not small, but if he is in the guard, then already big, equal to an army lieutenant colonel. The kind and cheerful hussar fell in love with the simple-minded caretaker.
Many actions of the heroes of the story are incomprehensible today, but for Pushkin's contemporaries they were natural. So, Minsky, having fallen in love with Dunya, did not marry her. He could do this not only because he was a rake and a frivolous person, but also for a number of objective reasons. First, in order to marry, an officer needed the commander's permission; often, marriage meant resignation. Secondly, Minsky could depend on his parents, who would hardly like a marriage with a dowry woman and not a noblewoman Dunya. It takes time to resolve at least these two problems. Although in the final Minsky was able to do it.

The plot and composition of the analyzed work

TO compositional construction"Belkin's Tales", consisting of five separate stories, have been repeatedly addressed by Russian writers. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote about his intention to write a novel with such a composition in one of his letters: “The stories are completely separate from one another, so that they can even be put on sale separately. I suppose Pushkin was thinking of a similar form of the novel: five novellas (the number of Belkin's Tales) sold separately. Pushkin's stories are indeed separate in all respects: there is no cross-cutting character (in contrast to the five stories of Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time); no general content. But there is a general method of mystery, a "detective" that lies at the base of each story. Pushkin's stories are united, firstly, by the figure of the narrator - Belkin; secondly, by the fact that they are all told. The narrative was, I suppose, that artistic technique, for the sake of which the whole text is started. Narrativeness, as common to all stories, simultaneously allowed them to be read (and sold) separately. Pushkin thought about a work that, being whole as a whole, would be whole in every part. I call this form, using the experience of subsequent Russian prose, a novel-cycle. "
The stories were written by Pushkin in one chronological order, but he arranged them not according to the time of writing, but on the basis of compositional calculation, alternating stories with “unfavorable” and “prosperous” ends. Such a composition informed the entire cycle, despite the presence of deeply dramatic provisions in it, a general optimistic orientation.
Pushkin builds the story "The Station Keeper" on the development of two destinies and characters - father and daughter. The station superintendent Samson Vyrin is an old honored (three medals on faded ribbons) retired soldier, a kind and honest man, but rude and simple-minded, is at the very bottom of the table of ranks, at the lowest rung of the social ladder. He is not only a simple, but a small person whom every passing nobleman can offend, shout, hit, although his lower rank of the 14th class still gave the right to personal nobility. But all the guests were met, calmed down and given tea by his beautiful and lively daughter Dunya. But this family idyll could not last forever and ended at first glance badly, because the caretaker and his daughter had different fates... The passing young handsome hussar Minsky fell in love with Dunya, deftly played out the illness, achieved mutual feelings and took, as befits a hussar, a crying but not resisting girl in a troika to Petersburg.
The little man of the 14th grade did not reconcile himself with such an insult and loss, he went to Petersburg to save his daughter, whom, as Vyrin, not without reason, believed that the insidious seducer would soon abandon and drive out into the street. And the very reproachful appearance of him was important for the further development of this story, for the fate of his Dunya. But it turned out that the story is more complicated than the caretaker imagined. The captain fell in love with his daughter and, moreover, turned out to be a conscientious, honest man, he blushed with shame at the unexpected appearance of his father, who had been deceived by him. And the beautiful Dunya answered the kidnapper with a strong, sincere feeling. The old man gradually drank himself out of grief, longing and loneliness, and despite the moralizing pictures about the prodigal son, his daughter never came to visit him, disappeared, and was not at her father's funeral either. The village cemetery was visited by a beautiful lady with three little barchats and a black pug in a luxurious carriage. She silently lay down on her father's grave and "lay there for a long time." This is a folk custom last goodbye and remembrance, the last "forgive". This is the greatness of human suffering and repentance.

Artistic identity

In "Belkin's Tales" all the features of the poetics and stylistics of Pushkin's fiction... Pushkin appears in them as an excellent short story writer, who is equally accessible to a touching story, and a story that is sharp in plot and twists and turns, and a realistic sketch of manners and everyday life. The artistic requirements for prose, which were formulated by Pushkin in the early 1920s, he is now realizing in his own creative practice. Nothing unnecessary, one necessary in the narration, accuracy in definitions, laconicism and conciseness of the syllable.
"Belkin's Tales" are distinguished by their marginal economy artistic means... From the very first lines, Pushkin introduces the reader to his heroes, introduces him to the circle of events. The portrayal of the characters' characters is just as stingy and no less expressive. The author almost does not give an external portrait of the heroes, almost does not dwell on their emotional experiences. At the same time, the appearance of each of the characters appears with remarkable relief and clarity from his actions and speeches. "A writer should never stop studying this treasure," Lev Tolstoy said about "Belkin's Tales" to a writer he knew.

The meaning of the work

A huge role in the development of Russian fictional prose belongs to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Here he had almost no predecessors. The prosaic literary language was also at a much lower level in comparison with poetry. Therefore, Pushkin faced an especially important and very difficult task of processing the very material of this field of verbal art. Of the Belkin's Tales, the Station Keeper was of exceptional importance for the further development of Russian literature. The very truthful image of the caretaker, warmed by the author's sympathy, opens the gallery of "poor people" created by subsequent Russian writers, humiliated and offended by the social relations of the then reality that were the most difficult for the common man.
The first writer who opened the world of "little people" to the reader was N.M. Karamzin. Karamzin's word has something in common with Pushkin and Lermontov. The greatest influence on subsequent literature was made by Karamzin's story “ Poor Lisa". The author laid the foundation for a huge cycle of works about "little people", took the first step into this previously unknown topic. It was he who opened the way for such writers of the future as Gogol, Dostoevsky and others. A.S. Pushkin was the next writer whose sphere of creative attention began to include the whole vast Russia, its vast expanses, the life of villages, St. Petersburg and Moscow were opened not only from a luxurious entrance, but also through the narrow doors of poor houses. For the first time, Russian literature so piercingly and clearly showed the distortion of the personality by a hostile environment. Pushkin's artistic discovery was directed towards the future, it pushed the way for Russian literature into the unknown.

It is interesting

In the Gatchina district of the Leningrad region, in the village of Vyra, there is a literary-memorial museum of the station superintendent. The museum was created based on the story of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin "The Station Keeper" and archival documents in 1972 in the preserved building of the Vyrskaya post station. Is the first museum in Russia literary hero... The post station was opened in 1800 on the Belarusian post tract, it was the third
by station from St. Petersburg. In Pushkin's time, the Belorussian large postal road passed here, which went from St. Petersburg to the western provinces of Russia. Vyra was the third station from the capital, where travelers changed horses. It was a typical post station, with two buildings, one north and one south, plastered and painted pink. The houses faced the road and were connected by a brick fence with large gates. Through them, carriages, carriages, carriages, carriages of travelers drove into the wide paved courtyard. Inside the courtyard there were stables with senniks, a shed, a shed, a fire tower, a hitching post, and in the middle of the courtyard there was a well.
At the edges of the cobbled courtyard of the postal station, there were two wooden stables, sheds, a smithy, a barn, forming a closed square, into which an access road led from the highway. Life was in full swing in the courtyard: troikas drove in and out, coachmen fussed about, grooms took away the washed horses and brought out fresh ones. The northern building served as the caretaker's dwelling. The name "House of the station superintendent" has been preserved behind it.
According to legend, Samson Vyrin, one of the main characters of Pushkin's "Belkin's Tales", got his surname from the name of this village. It was at the modest post station Vyra A.S. Pushkin, who had traveled here from St. Petersburg to the village of Mi-khaylovskoye more than once (according to some sources, 13 times), heard a sad story about the little official and his daughter and wrote the story "The Station Keeper".
In these places, folk legends have developed, claiming that it was here that the hero of Pushkin's story lived, from here a passing hussar took the beautiful Dunya away, and Samson Vyrin was buried at the local cemetery. Archival research also showed that a caretaker who had a daughter served at the Vyrskaya station for many years.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin traveled a lot. The path he made across Russia is 34 thousand kilometers. In the story "The Stationmaster" Pushkin speaks through the lips of his hero: “For twenty years in a row I have traveled across Russia in all directions; almost all postal routes are known to me; several generations of coachmen are familiar to me; I didn’t know a rare caretaker by sight, I didn’t deal with rare ones ”.
Traveling along post roads, slow, with long "sitting" at the stations, became a real event for Pushkin's contemporaries and, of course, was reflected in literature. The theme of the road can be found in the works of P.A. Vyazemsky, F.N. Glinka, A.N. Radishcheva, N.M. Karamzin, A.S. Pushkin and M.Yu. Lermontov.
The museum was opened on October 15, 1972, the exposition consisted of 72 items. Subsequently, their number increased to 3500. The museum recreates the atmosphere typical for postal stations of Pushkin's time. The museum consists of two stone buildings, a stable, a barn with a watchtower, a well, a saddlery and a smithy. The main building has 3 rooms: a caretaker's room, a daughter's room and a coachman's room.

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