Metaphors in the poem Cloud Pants. Analysis of the first chapter of the poem cloud in pants

"A cloud in pants"

Creativity V.V. Mayakovsky is thematically diverse. In the early period, it is permeated with love experiences. In his mature years, it is dominated by social problems.

Deserved fame was brought by V.V. Mayakovsky's poems "Cloud in Pants", "Flute-Spine", "War and Peace" and "Man". They vividly embodied the stylistic features of the poetics of V.V. Mayakovsky: an abundance of neologisms that are easily and naturally included in the text of the works (“mocking”, “surviving”, “loving”, “December”, etc.), exquisite metaphors (“a bloody flap of the heart”, “the heart is a cold piece of iron "). The titles of the poems themselves are also metaphorical: "A Cloud in Trousers", "Flute-Spine".

It is symbolic that the poem "A Cloud in Trousers" was originally called "The Thirteenth Apostle". This was an attempt to oppose it to traditional religious teaching. It is known that Christ had twelve disciples-apostles. The very word "apostle" means "messenger". According to legend, they were chosen by Christ himself and sent around the world to preach his teachings. The very name "The Thirteenth Apostle" explodes the established religious tradition, indicates that the work claims to be a socially significant fact of reality, and also emphasizes the confessional nature of the poem.

The apostles had great power. They were empowered to perform miracles in the name of Christ. By proclaiming himself the thirteenth apostle, the hero, in fact, declares to the world that he is taking on an important life mission. As can be seen from the further development of the storyline of the work, the mission is to expose the existing social vices and, with the greatest possible spiritual openness, show the world the power of human feelings.

The poem "A cloud in pants" is sometimes called the poet's manifesto. This is an emotionally charged piece. Its ideological meaning was defined by the author himself as four cries of "dine": down with your love, art, system, religion. The lyrical hero overthrows love based on the search for profit and comfort. He opposes the cutesy poetry for aesthetes that flooded the poetry salons of the time. The author believes that the bourgeois system is not historically progressive and will not bring happiness to mankind.

Compositionally, the poem is defined as a tetraptych: it has a small introduction and a four-part division. The desire to show the exclusivity and originality of the lyrical hero sounds in all chapters of the poem. One of them mentions a yellow jacket, in which "the soul is wrapped up from examinations." It is known that V.V. Mayakovsky in life liked to wear a yellow jacket. Having become acquainted with the poem, the reader understands that such a gesture is caused not only and not so much by the desire to stand out, but by an attempt to cover up something very vulnerable and painful in the soul behind the outer shell of a desperate challenge:

It's good when in a yellow jacket
the soul is wrapped up from inspections!

The landscape in the poem is either gothically sublime (“In the glass, the gray raindrops fell off, the grimace was huge, as if the chimeras of Notre Dame Cathedral were howling”), then romantic (“What do I care about Faust, an extravaganza of rockets gliding with Mephistopheles in the heavenly parquet!”), then expressionistically shocking (“The muzzle of all pedestrians was sucked, and in the carriages an athlete was polished behind a fat athlete: people were caught, having eaten through and oozing through the cracks, lard flowed down like a muddy river from the carriages, along with a sucked-up bun, the zhevot of old cutlets”),

The lyrical hero has a strongly preaching, prophetic beginning:

Where people's eyes break off stubby,
head of hungry hordes
in the crown of thorns revolutions
the sixteenth year is coming.

The mixture of styles, eras, cultural and historical realities is replaced in the poem as in a kaleidoscope. The plot is not a sequential development of events, but is built according to the associative principle: fragmentation, uncertainty, understatement - all these features most successfully reflect the nature of the rebellious and crisis era of the beginning of the century.

The lyrical hero of the poet is experiencing a love tragedy. The heroine's name is Maria. The plot of the poem gravitates toward biblical generalization, and such a religiously significant name for the heroine was not chosen by chance. The hero and the heroine are contrasting in everything: he is a huge, clumsy individualist, she is a fragile, little daughter of her society.

The poem was written in 1914-1915, and echoes of the anti-war verses of this time sound in it:

Your body
I will cherish and love
like a soldier
shattered by war
unnecessary,
nobody's
saves his only leg.

The poem belittles the feeling of future changes. The final image of the sleeping Universe, likened to a giant guard dog, is symbolic. It seems that she is about to wake up from her sleep.

Mayakovsky paid a special place in the poem "A Cloud in Pants", which we are analyzing, to the theme of betrayal, which begins with Mary and stretches through other areas: he sees life quite differently, she smiles with her rotten grin, and he does not want to stay there at all where everyone is only interested in the surroundings.

It is striking that Mayakovsky's poems are full of variety and he generously uses expressions and words that become new to the reader, although they are made from ordinary statements that everyone knows. Color is created thanks to vivid images and double meanings that come to life under the thought of readers. If we consider the triptych used in the poem, we can find the word "mock", which expresses aggression towards the one who reads, and this is none other than a representative of the bourgeoisie.

"Down with your art"

Let's continue the analysis of the poem "A Cloud in Pants", namely the second part. First, the author wants to overthrow those who have become idols in art and who were extolled at the time when Mayakovsky wrote the poem. To overthrow these empty idols, the poet explains that only pain can give rise to true art, and that everyone can start creating and see themselves as the main creator.

Mayakovsky here operates with interesting complex adjectives; Or take, for example, "newborn": here the author compiled it from two others, bringing it closer in meaning to renewal and calling for action.

"Down with your system"

It is no secret that Mayakovsky spoke negatively about the political system, which just took shape in the prime of the author as a poet. It is quite appropriate that with such words as: "swear", "fall out of love", "thing" the poet emphasizes one or another side of the weakness and stupidity of the regime. For example, one can reflect on belonging to things or on the verb "break through", with which Mayakovsky emphasizes decisive action, perseverance and speed.

"Down with your religion"

The fourth part is practically free from such difficult newly formed words, because the poet here simply conveys the specifics: no matter how he calls to love Mary, she rejects him, and then the poet is angry with God. He believes that one cannot rely on religion, given its venality, laziness, deceit and other vices.

Although Mayakovsky, and this is clearly seen in the analysis of the poem "A Cloud in Pants", introduces a revolutionary idea, it is clear that thoughts about pain, passion and experiences are concrete and dynamic. They also received a lot of attention. Of course, the poem analyzed by us has become the property of Russian literature; she magnificently and intelligibly expressed the revolutionary moods of the Mayakovsky era.

The poem "A Cloud in Pants" (1915) is the central work of Mayakovsky's pre-revolutionary work. In it, the poet tried to show the sad fate of a person in a bourgeois society. His lyrical hero does not want to put up with reality, so four protests arise in his mind: “Down with your love!”, “Down with your art!”, “Down with your system!”, “Down with your religion!” These four "Down with!", covering all the foundations of bourgeois society, are the global protest of Mayakovsky's lyrical hero.

The lyrical plot of the poem is the unrequited love of the hero for the girl Mary. This love is the real passion. The hero is "beautifully ill", "he has a fire of the heart." But the girl chooses not him, but a "fat wallet", security, stability. The hero is convinced that his beloved has been bought. Maria sold her love for money, luxury, position in society.

In a conversation with a girl, the lyrical hero is calm, “like the pulse of a dead man,” but his soul has died. She was trampled on by modern love, which is sold for money and relies only on calculation.

From the second part of the poem, we understand that the hero is a poet. The main opposition of this part is the poet and the crowd. The author speaks about the conflict between poetry and the surrounding world. The desire of the creators to sing about a young lady, "both love and a flower under the dew" does not meet the requirements of today. The lyrical hero rejects everything pseudo-romantic and sublime and chooses the fate of becoming the singer of the “convicts of the leprosarium city”, which, in his opinion, is cleaner than “Venetian azure, washed by seas and suns at once!”

It is here, in this vulgar, terrible world, where the crush “spits out” into the square, and the street shouts: “Let's go eat!”, The true heroes of life live.

In the last two parts of the poem, Mayakovsky acts as a rebel, protesting against the entire bourgeois system, its religion, denouncing them as the root cause of all human troubles and misfortunes. So, in religion, the lyrical hero of the poem sees only vulgarity and artificiality. Faith in God in the understanding of Mayakovsky's lyrical hero is something that was invented to make a person not free. In the poem, the hero becomes even higher than God and threatens him:

I thought - you are an almighty god,

And you're a half-educated, tiny god.

Thus, we can say that this work completely rejects the established foundations. The lyrical hero of Mayakovsky's poem "A Cloud in Pants" is a rebellious hero. He rebels against the religion, politics, art and love of the bourgeois world. The hero calls for decisive action. In his works, Mayakovsky claims that the role of the poet in the life of society is enormous and that he is able to influence the course of history.

In this poem, the main features of Mayakovsky's poetic style appeared:

1. A combination of verisimilitude and fantasy: "The twelfth hour has fallen, like the head of an executed man from the chopping block."

2. Using the reception of an expanded metaphor. So, the fire of love, the source of which is in the heart, gradually covers the body of the hero, likened to an architectural structure: “Mom! I can't sing. At the church of the heart, the choir is engaged!” The poet's heart is compared to a "church", in which the core - kliros - caught fire.

3. Using the reception of an expanded metaphor. For example, the phraseological unit “nerves diverged” expands with Mayakovsky into a whole picture:

Like a sick person out of bed

The nerve jumped.

Now he and newer two

They rush about in a desperate tap dance ...

4. Widespread use of neologisms: “small, meek darling”, “millions of huge, pure loves”, “December evening”, “languageless street”, “breasts hurried”.

5. In the field of verse - the use of a "ladder", dividing the line into semantic and intonational parts, focusing on certain meanings.

In this article we will talk about one poem by Mayakovsky and analyze it. "A cloud in pants" is a work, the idea of ​​which came to Vladimir Vladimirovich in 1914. At first it was called "The Thirteenth Apostle". The young poet fell in love with Maria Alexandrovna Denisova. However, this love was unhappy. Mayakovsky embodied the bitterness of experiences in poetry. The poem was completely completed in 1915, in the summer. Let's analyze it step by step.

"A Cloud in Pants" (Mayakovsky). Composition of the work

This work consists of an introduction and the following four parts. Each of them implements a private, specific idea. Their essence is defined by Vladimir Vladimirovich himself in the preface to the second edition of the work that came out a little later. These are the "four cries": "down with your love", "down with your religion", "down with your system", "down with your art". We will talk about each of them in more detail, conducting an analysis. "A Cloud in Pants" is a poem that is very interesting to parse.

Issues and themes

A multi-problem and multi-dark work - "A Cloud in Pants". The theme of the poet and the crowd is already stated in the introduction. The protagonist is opposed to the faceless, inert human mass. The "handsome, twenty-two-year-old" lyrical hero contrasts with the world of low images and things. These are frayed, "like a proverb" women; "stale", like a hospital, men. Interestingly, if the crowd remains unchanged, the lyrical hero changes before our eyes. He is either sharp and rude, "impudent and caustic", then vulnerable, relaxed, "impeccably gentle" - "a cloud in his pants", and not a man. Thus, the meaning of such an unusual name is clarified in the work, which, by the way, is very characteristic for the work of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, who liked to use original vivid images and well-aimed expressions.

First part of the poem

According to the author's intention, the first part contains the first cry: "Down with your love." We can say that the theme of love is central throughout the work. Apart from the first section, the fourth part is also devoted to it, as our analysis shows.

"A Cloud in Pants" opens with tense expectation: a lyrical hero is waiting for a meeting with Maria. It is so painful that it seems to him that the candelabra “neighs” and “laughs” in the back, the doors “caress”, “cut” midnight with a knife, raindrops grimace, etc. Infinitely long, painfully time passes. The expanded metaphor of the twelfth hour conveys the depth of the suffering of the one who is waiting. Mayakovsky writes that the twelfth hour fell like "the head of the executed" from the chopping block.

This is not just a fresh metaphor used by Vladimir Vladimirovich, as our analysis shows. "A cloud in pants" Mayakovsky filled with deep inner content: the intensity of passions in the hero's soul is so high that the usual course of time seems hopeless to him. It is perceived as physical death. The hero "writhes," "groans," soon he "will tear his mouth out" with a cry.

tragic news

Finally, the girl appears and tells him that she is getting married soon. The deafening and sharpness of this news is compared by the poet with his other poem called "Nate". He likens the theft of Mary to the abduction of the famous Gioconda from the Louvre, and himself to the dead Pompeii.

At the same time, the almost inhuman calmness and composure with which the lyrical hero outwardly perceives this tragic news is striking. He says that he is "calm", but compares this equanimity to the "pulse of a dead man". Such a comparison signifies an irretrievably, definitively dead hope for reciprocity.

The development of the theme of love in the second part

The theme of love in the second part of this poem receives a new solution. This should certainly be noted when analyzing the poem "A Cloud in Pants". Mayakovsky in the second part speaks of the love lyrics that prevailed in poetry contemporary to Vladimir Vladimirovich. She is concerned only with singing in verses "a flower under the dew", and "love", and "a young lady". Vulgar and crayons these themes, and the poets, "scribbling with rhymes", "boil" the "brew" of nightingales and love. However, they are not at all concerned with human suffering. The poets are afraid, like "leprosy", of the street crowd, they deliberately rush from the street. However, the people of the city, according to the lyrical hero, are cleaner than the "Venetian azure" washed by the sun and the seas.

The poet opposes the unviable art to the authentic, the real, and himself to the squealing "poeticians".

The third part of the poem

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich argued in one of his articles that the poetry of modernity is the poetry of struggle. This journalistic formula received artistic expression in the work of interest to us. It continues to develop in the next, third part of such a work as the poem "A Cloud in Pants", which we are analyzing. Vladimir Vladimirovich considered the work of Severyanin to be lyrics that did not meet the requirements of modernity. Therefore, an unpleasant portrait of this author, his "drunk face" is introduced into the poem. According to the lyrical hero, any author should be concerned not with the elegance of his creations, but first of all with the power of their impact on readers.

The development of the theme of love in the third part of the poem "A Cloud in Pants"

A brief analysis of the third part of the poem is as follows. Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky in it rises to the denial of the cruel and inhuman system that prevailed at that time, in his opinion, in our country. Unacceptable for him is the life of "fat". The theme of love here turns in a new facet in the poem. The author reproduces a parody of love - perversion, debauchery, lust. The whole earth appears as a woman, which is drawn as Rothschild's "mistress" - "obese". True love is opposed to lust.

"Down with your system!"

The existing system gives rise to "massacres", executions, murders, wars. Such a device is accompanied by a "human mess", devastation, betrayal, robbery. It creates chambers of lunatic asylums and prison leper colonies in which prisoners languish. This society is dirty and corrupt. That is why the poet calls "down with your system!". However, Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky does not just throw this slogan-shout into the crowd. He calls for an open struggle of the people of the city, calls for the uplifting of "bloody carcasses." The hero, becoming the "thirteenth apostle", opposes the masters of life, the powers that be.

The main theme of the fourth part

Analysis of the poem "A Cloud in Pants" proceeds to the description of the fourth part. The leading theme in it is the theme of God. It has already been prepared by the previous ones, in which enmity with God, who observes indifferently the sufferings of people, is indicated. The poet enters into open war with him, he denies his omnipotence, omnipotence, omniscience. The hero ("tiny god") even takes an insult and takes out a shoe knife in order to cut it.

The main accusation that is thrown at God is that he did not take care of happiness in love, that he could kiss "without pain." Again, as at the beginning of the work, the lyrical hero turns to Mary. Again, oaths, and tenderness, and imperious demands, and groans, and reproaches, and prayers. However, the poet hopes in vain for reciprocity. All that's left is a bleeding heart. He carries it, just as a dog carries a paw "run over by a train."

The end of the poem

The finale of the poem is a picture of cosmic scales and heights, endless spaces. A hostile sky rises, ominous stars shine. The poet waits for the sky before him to take off his hat in response to the challenge. However, the Universe sleeps, putting on a huge ear "a paw with pincers of stars."

Such is the analysis of the work "A Cloud in Pants". We conducted it sequentially, relying on the text of the poem. We hope you find this information useful. The analysis of the verse "A Cloud in Pants" can be supplemented by including your own reflections and observations. Mayakovsky is a very peculiar and curious poet, who is usually studied with great interest even by schoolchildren.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky spent about a year on this poem and endowed his hero with all his character traits. The hero of his poem is lyrical, he knows how to love and wants to be loved. At the very beginning of the work, the hero is waiting for his beloved girl, and time drags on for so long that it seems to him that everything is mocking him. Even the raindrops seem to dance in front of him and make faces, he does not have enough patience, so he wants to see his beloved.

When the long-awaited meeting took place, the hero was not happy about this. A hole forms in his chest, which he calls the pulse of the dead. His beloved Maria, having come to him, told him that she was getting married soon, thereby breaking the young man's heart. The young guy says that he is so afraid to forget the name of the girl, just like the poet is afraid to forget about writing his works. Finally disappointed in love, the young man goes into politics.

And then a whirlwind of described people swirled, ridiculing the authorities, historical figures and a thoughtless crowd that follows no one knows who and where. The young man says that all these miserable and petty people are not capable of love and even have no idea what it is. Each of them confuses love with lust and mixes this concept with dirt. As a result, the young man is disappointed in God and ceases to believe. He says that the Creator did not see his heart wound and did not understand disappointment and could not help him.

The young man does not stop thinking about Mary, he seems to be in agony and screams out loud that he is so hurt and unpleasant to realize that he was abandoned. The young man understands that it is useless and that everything has collapsed, so he wants the revolution to touch everything.

At first, the poem was called "The Thirteenth Apostle", but the name had to be changed, because Mayakovsky did not want to go to hard labor and called the poem "A Cloud in Pants." Where the pants for the writer act as a rough fabric, so he expressed the outward calmness of the hero of his poem. When Maria announced their separation, the young man outwardly remained unperturbed. The cloud in the title personifies the inner world of a young man. Remaining imperturbable outwardly, inside the young man went crazy, he was very bitter and ill. Thus, the cloud is light and weightless that is inside a person.

Mayakovsky wanted to write about the fact that an outwardly strong and self-confident man, having known such a feeling as love, becomes light and weightless like a cloud. Throughout the poem, the young man struggles with himself, either losing faith in God, or not wanting to forget Mary. Mayakovsky described a man who, despite all his outward calm, was very worried inside.

Analysis of the poem Cloud in Mayakovsky's pants with quotes

The poem originally had a different title, The Thirteen Apostles. Mayakovsky saw himself as the thirteenth apostle. But it was not censored. And the name had to be changed. The poet manages to combine the incompatible. Ease, romanticism and everyday aspects of everyday life.

He writes that "there will be not a man, but a cloud in his pants." It was after all that the pants at that time were identified with the strong half of humanity. The women did not wear trousers. The poem closely intertwines the love torments of the protagonist along with politics. Under it, the poet means himself.

And what remains to be done if the beloved girl refused? It is necessary to plunge headlong into work or politics. Love is a golden staircase without a railing and one can fly off from there at any moment. Falling is always so painful.

The poet passionately denounces the state machine, the people in power. He naively thinks that this will give him oblivion. But it was not there. In desperation, he turns to God. But he can't help him either. The poet in his hearts calls him "drop-out". Love is not so easy to tear out of the heart and mind. Along with the feelings, that old world collapsed. Now Mayakovsky is ready to accept the revolution.

The poem consists of four parts, which are united by a single plot and meaning. Each part is a separate topic. Even at the beginning, the poet declares that he is an opponent of love, art, order and religion. One part is one negative.

Part one - "Down with love." The girl he loves rejected him. The second part is that literature and creative thought will perish in bourgeois society. But only a revolution can save them. The third and fourth parts are a protest against the order and religion.

The main character, despite the denial of everything and rebellious manners, can still be considered gentle, lyrical. The poet was not afraid to publicly declare: “Down with your system!” And how was he not sent to camps or to Kolyma for such lines? He believes that the revolutionary people, dressed in identical gray overcoats, breeds wars and violence. Brave claim!

The main female character's name is Maria. The poet did not accidentally give her this biblical name. He hints that she rejected him, betrayed him, like Judas, who betrayed Christ. She traded a poor poet for a rich man for a French dress. The poet could dress her only in tobacco smoke. But is it possible to condemn a woman for this? Now a lot of girls are doing it. "With a sweet paradise in a hut, if dear ... attache."

In matters of the heart, as in worldly matters, alas, God is no helper. We must believe only in our own strength - the main idea of ​​the poem. The protest of the poet is a reaction to the environment. And love experiences, perhaps, are generally invented to confuse the censors.

Option with quotes

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky wrote his tetraptych "A Cloud in Pants" at the beginning of the First World War or the Great War, as it is called in Western Europe. But that the cubo-futurists, whose leader Mayakovsky considered himself, that the ego-futurists (Igor Severyanin), that other representatives of poetic bohemia, were little interested in her. They were worried about completely different problems. Bright, very unusual, bearing a clearly expressed revolutionary character, the poem was not published under the original title "The Thirteenth Apostle". For this name, Mayakovsky could again be imprisoned, and the poet chose a name that did not say anything to anyone. But the poem itself is the cry of the poet's soul, or rather four cries. Four shouts "Down with".

In the preface, he directly indicates the concept of the poem. "Down with your love, art, system, religion!" This is what Mayakovsky's hero screams about. The poem begins in lyrical tones, although the hero's first cry is: "Down with your love." We learn about his unrequited feelings for Mary, torment and the search for answers to unsolvable questions. The theme of love is the leading one in the poem. It is present in every part of it in one form or another. "Down with your art" - this is the slogan of the second part of the poem. The author believes that art is being strangled on purpose and only a revolution will give it a new meaning and infinitely expand its horizons (how wrong he was).

At that time, the entire thinking Russian society lived in anticipation of the revolution. Mayakovsky did not stand out in this series either. “Down with your system” is the obligatory opposition of the poet to the entire “rotten” bourgeois society. The poet did not bypass the crisis of religion, which had serious consequences at the beginning of the last century. Many people were engaged in God-seeking, including Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy. The revolutionaries, among whom Mayakovsky spent a lot of time, also denied God and God's providence. Therefore, it was impossible to do without the cry of the hero: “Down with your religion”. Moreover, the beloved girl not only betrays the hero, but actually “sells” him. Just like Judas Iscariot.

In general, this poem is the work of the real Vladimir Mayakovsky. His pressure, voice, not a syllable similar to anyone else. Behind the ostentatious nihilism, tender feelings, without any self-interest, open up. The hero of the poem, like its author, did everything for real, including loving and hating. "Community-love" and "Community-hatred" - this is from him and about him.

Analysis of the poem Cloud in pants according to the plan

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