The image of the national character in the story of V. Shukshin "Freak

T.G. Sverbilova

The stories of Vasily Shukshin (1929-1974), an actor, director, screenwriter, writer, a native of the Siberian hinterland who knew the Russian village beyond description, are usually referred to as the so-called "village prose". However, Shukshin's strange characters, eccentrics and philosophers, meet the parameters of "village prose" only in their place of residence.

"Freak" - this is the name of one of the writer's stories. He always invents some stories that, in his opinion, can somehow bloom gray everyday life. Being in the city, visiting, he paints a new baby carriage with watercolors to make it more fun. The child's mother, immersed in this "evil" life, is naturally unhappy. The "freaks" have to return home to the village ahead of time.

Or here is the carpenter Semka from the story "The Master", who was struck by the beauty of the old church in the neighboring village. An unknown architect of the seventeenth century, not for the sake of glory, put it in an inconspicuous place, but for the sake of that sense of beauty, which united him with Semka. And Shukshin's eccentric goes to persuade church and state authorities to restore, repair a wonderful little church. The eccentric, as always in Shukshin's stories, was let down by his lack of education. It turns out that the church has no historical and artistic value, since it is only a later repetition of the Vladimir churches of the 15th century. And Semka, of course, did not know about these temples.

The tragedy of Shukshin's "freaks" is that, by the will of fate, he is cut off from world human civilization, he is simply not familiar with it, and he has to "reinvent the wheel", because he does not want to live on his daily bread, like his neighbors and relatives. So his searching mind struggles over the secret of the perpetual motion machine ("Stubborn") or over the creation of a means for the destruction of all "microbes" ("Microscope"). And even all his life, the village "eccentric" writes a treatise "On the State", which no one will ever appreciate ("Strokes to the Portrait"). "Freak" is an adult child, although, according to the conditions of his life, he is as rude as everyone else. But when he has an "idea", he becomes spontaneous and inquisitive, like children. Andrey Yerin from the story "Microscope" quits drinking and, together with his fifth-grader son, examines everything under a microscope for hours, not trusting scientists. When the dream of a "freak" about the reorganization of the world is broken, he usually returns back - to the beaten path of physical stupefying labor and a general unspiritual life. Exposed Andrey Erin gets drunk again, as the wife's decision to sell the microscope in order to return the money spent, in her opinion, for nothing, to the family, kills the dream of some other life, meaningful and spiritual. What kind of life it is, the hero does not know, but he feels that there are other interests in the world besides caring for physical survival. But he meekly returns to his usual, boring everyday life.

Sometimes the dream of a “freaks” does not go beyond a good bath on Saturdays (“Alyosha Beskonvoyny”), but the meaning of his life can be concentrated in it. After all, the essence of a dream does not change depending on how big or small it is. It is important that a person gives himself to her with all his heart. For Alyosha Beskonvoyny bath is a sacred action, ritual, rite, magic. He is like a primitive man who worships water and fire. All that is left of the civilization he does not need is the worship of the bath.

Country life is usually contrasted with city life as natural, healthy and complete. Shukshin was one of the first to dare to show the full horror of stupefying, hard physical labor, devoid of any spiritual basis. Life in the outback breaks even great optimists. The story "Wider step, maestro!" written in the tradition of Bulgakov's Notes of a Young Doctor. The young surgeon of the district hospital, a graduate of the capital's medical institute, dreams of a professional career, of brilliant operations, but the exhausting everyday life of the province will crush him too. The hero of Bulgakov, a village doctor, eventually manages to move to the city, so the stories of the Notes of a Young Doctor are not only humorous, but also bright. Shukshin shows how rural life destroys the best intentions of a person.

The writer managed in his stories to portray the eternal hostility of the village to the city, which was not customary to talk about in the literature of his time. In the story "Cut off" the image of the village eccentric undergoes a transformation: it loses the charm of a pretty dreamer. This is a demagogue who is specially kept to put to shame, “cut off” visiting townspeople who have become “people” and left the village forever. His erudition is dogmatism and a set of high-profile phrases devoid of meaning. In terms of their structure (a combination of trivial judgments expressed with incredible aplomb), the verbal exercises of the “erudite” date back to the “writings” of the Bolshevik leaders. This is the "Soviet language" as a special form, inaccessible to the understanding of the language of the absurd by a normal person. That is why the two PhDs in Shukshin's story turn out to be "cut off". But, despite this, the demagogue does not enjoy the love of his fellow villagers: “In the voice of the peasants one could even hear, as it were, pity for the candidates, sympathy. Gleb Kapustin, as before, invariably surprised. Amazing. Even admired. Though love, let's say, was not there. No, there was no love. Gleb is cruel, and no one, ever, anywhere has ever loved cruelty.”

Although some illusions about rural life remain with Shukshin. Compared to its traditional thousand-year-old culture, the younger urban culture clearly loses out. So, in the story “The Hunt to Live,” the old hunter who warmed up the fugitive killer descends in his worldview to an older and more humane folk tradition than this guy, rushing to the city and not stopping before killing his savior. But at the same time, the hero's gullibility looks like helplessness, weakness, although he, a hardy Siberian hunter, is able to physically surpass the young one.

In the story “How the Old Man Died”, Shukshin relies on the tradition of Leo Tolstoy, who in his story “Three Deaths” contrasts the selfish death of a lady with the natural and calm death of a tree and a peasant. Shukshin's old man dies with great dignity, which deserves admiration.

However, not all Shukshin old people are so close to the mythological, original human consciousness. In one of the writer's best stories - "In Autumn" - an old ferryman escorts his former bride, his first love, on his last journey. By the stupidity of a hero who got involved with atheist activists, his fiancee married another. A whole life has passed, and now, when “you can’t turn anything back,” the quarrel of two old rivals at the coffin looks stupid. Here, in its initial reflections on the meaning of human life, the writer's prose also approaches myth: there is an analogy with the plot of Charon, who transports the souls of the dead on a boat across the River Styx. In the writer's story of the same name, Timofei Khudyakov, a storekeeper at the base, who drunkenly mistook his own father-in-law for Nikolai Ugodnik, asks "to give birth to him again": "I lived like I sang a song, but sang badly. It's a pity - the song was good.

Regrets about a poorly lived life arise not only among the villagers, but also among the townspeople who left the village and made a career. In the story "Two Letters" we have a night and day letter from a factory boss to a childhood friend. In the first - longing and pain, and in the second - an attempt to present your real life as prosperous, without regrets.

Where is the real hero?

But in the story “How the Bunny Flew in Balloons,” the city boss has to urgently call his brother from the province by plane to remind him of a forgotten fairy tale for a seriously ill little daughter. But the girl felt better even without her uncle's fairy tale. Here are the brothers in the kitchen. Life has passed, but there was no great joy. Only the hero carefully hides this inner trouble and repents of his nocturnal frankness in the morning.

Perhaps the most optimistic story of the writer is written on the topic of overcoming loneliness. This is "Space, the nervous system and shmat fat." The outer outline of the story is a conversation between a stingy old man and his young tenth grader Yurka. Yurka's life is rather hungry, and there is no prosperity in it. But he is supported and made optimistic by the study of the sciences. He is a great rationalist and believes in progress. How Yurka tells the host the story of Academician Pavlov, who dictated to the students his feelings at the moment of his own death. This story struck the old man so much that he gave the eternally hungry Yurka a piece of lard from his reserves. At first glance, this is a story about the beneficial effect of positive knowledge, science on a person: even the greedy old man was touched. In fact, this is a story about overcoming loneliness. Yurka is a lonely teenager from a dysfunctional family who lives far from home. But in his youth, he easily copes with his difficulties with the help of his studies. The old man, although inferior to Yurka in education, nevertheless surpasses him in worldly experience, a life lived. And the conclusion of this life is "one is bad." Even Academician Pavlov, according to the old man, could not dictate how he dies if he did not have relatives. It turned out funny: the old man learned a completely non-traditional lesson from the story with Pavlov. Instead of the conclusion: “Science ennobles human life,” he concluded: “It is bad for a lonely person.” And he was right.

Shukshin, more than the achievements of science, appreciated the ability of people to overcome loneliness, to establish mutual understanding, dialogue. But on the way to a dialogue, Shukshin always has boors, such as a watchman in a hospital who beats a patient and does not let his mother go to him (“Vanka Teplyashin”). Exactly the same watchman overshadowed the last days of the writer himself, not letting his friends into the hospital. Such louts as the saleswoman in the story “Insult” or as the mother-in-law suing her son-in-law in the story “My son-in-law stole a firewood car” are terrible because they are confident in their right to offend, humiliate the dignity of another person. Shukshin's hero is always very vulnerable, easily amenable to provocation by boors. This is its weakness, as well as the weakness of the state system, in which boors triumph at all levels of life.

Vasily Shukshin is known as a film director, the author of the film scripts "Stove-shops", "Kalina Krasnaya", "I came to give you freedom" (about Stepan Razin). In "Kalina Krasnaya" the hero also falls under the power of boors who take his life. In this film, Shukshin was perhaps the first to frankly tell the truth about the criminal world, which is an alternative to the legal world. Mutual responsibility does not allow a person to leave the mafia clan. Although the death of the hero looks rather random, conditional, we understand that evil plays an equally important role in our lives as light and good. This discovery, probably, the artist himself could not stand. But he was able to say better than others about the border culture of that layer of the country's population that separates the city and the countryside - the townspeople in the first generation, the former villagers.

In one of his last stories, Uncle Yermolai, the author thinks about simple village workers, kind and honest people. Was there any great meaning in their life, or was it one job? Their children, educated, living in the city, understand their lives differently. But which one is right? The author doesn't talk about it.

Keywords: Vasily Shukshin, criticism of the work of Vasily Shukshin, criticism of the works of Vasily Shukshin, analysis of the stories of Vasily Shukshin, download criticism, download analysis, free download, Russian literature of the 20th century.

Analysis of Vasily Makarovich Shukshin's story "The Freak".

The story explores the eternal images of the prodigal son, Satan (reptile), a fool. The fool, who is especially closely examined by the writer, has his own modification - the freak. For the first time, such an image appears in the story of 1967, which is called just that - "Freak".

This is an unusual person, with a complex character, striving to comprehend the movements of his own soul, the meaning of life.

This is the main character of the story "Freak".

How do we see the main character?

-How did Chudik stand out from his environment?

First of all, “something always happened to him”, “he kept getting into some stories.” These were not socially significant acts or adventurous adventures. "Freak" suffered from minor incidents caused by his own missteps.

Examples of such incidents and oversights.

The wife calls the protagonist "sometimes affectionately" a freak. The whole story is a description of Chudik's vacation trip to his brother in the Urals. For him, this becomes a big, long-awaited event - after all, they had not seen their brother for 12 years.

Chudik is a typical village dweller. But he “possessed one feature: something constantly happened to him. He did not want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got into some stories - small, however, but annoying.

The first incident happens to the hero on the way to the Urals. In the district store, where Chudik buys gifts for his nephews, he accidentally notices a fifty-ruble note on the floor: “The Freak even trembled with joy, his eyes lit up. In a hurry, so that someone would not get ahead of him, he began to quickly think about how it would be more fun, witty to say this, in line, about a piece of paper. The hero does not have the audacity to pick it up silently...

Natural honesty, often inherent in all villagers, pushes him to make an unsuccessful joke. I began to quickly think about how it would be more fun, smarter to say this, in line, about a piece of paper. And the hero does not have enough conscience to raise it silently. Yes, and how can he do this, when even “hooligans and sellers did not respect. I was afraid." But, meanwhile, "respected the city people."
The hero drew the attention of everyone to himself and to be misunderstood - the queue was silent ...
The weirdo put the money on the counter and left. But on the way, he discovers that the "piece of paper" was his. But the hero is embarrassed to return and pick it up, although this money was withdrawn from the book, which means that it has been accumulating for quite a long time. Their loss is a great loss, so much so that they have to return home. The weirdo scolds himself aloud for a long time when he walks down the street, quietly - when he rides the bus. “Yes, why am I like this?” - the hero is perplexed. At home he got hit on the head by his wife with a slotted spoon, withdrew the money again and again went to his brother.

But the money was withdrawn from the book, accumulated for a long time, and their loss is a big loss for the hero. So big that he has to go home. The Crank wanted to return to the store, explain the queues, somehow justify his absent-mindedness. But instead, he scolds himself for a long time: “But why am I like this?” At home, Crank "got hit on the head" by his wife with a skimmer, withdrew the money again and went to his brother.

The main character is strange and incomprehensible to the reaction that he causes in almost all the people he meets on his life path. According to his ideas, he behaves naturally, the way he should behave. But people are not used to such openness and sincerity, so they look at the hero as a real weirdo.

And now the Freak is finally on the plane. He is a little afraid, because he does not quite trust this miracle of technology. He tries to talk to a new neighbor, but he is more interested in the newspaper. Landing soon, the stewardess asks to fasten your seat belts. Although the neighbor reacted to the Chudik with hostility, the hero, gently touching him, says that it would be worthwhile to buckle up. But the self-confident “reader with the newspaper” didn’t listen, and fell down… And he should have thanked Chudik for his care, but instead he yelled at him because he, helping to look for his false teeth, touched it with his hands (what else?). Another would be offended in the place of the hero - such gratitude for the care. And he invites a neighbor to his brother's house to boil, disinfect his jaw. “The reader looked at Chudik in surprise and stopped screaming” - he did not expect such an answer to his rudeness.

At the airport Chudik writes a telegram to his wife: “Landed. A lilac branch fell on my chest, dear Pear, do not forget me. Vasyatka. The telegraph operator forwards the text to the short “Flew. Basil". And again, Chudik does not understand why he should not write such things to his beloved wife in telegrams. The hero is extremely open, even in communication with complete strangers.

Chudik knew that he had a brother, that he had nephews, but he could not even think that he also had a daughter-in-law. He also could not think that she would dislike him from the very first day of their acquaintance. But the hero is not offended. He again wants to do a good deed, and one that would please an inhospitable relative. The next day after his arrival, Crank paints a baby carriage. And then, pleased with himself, he goes to buy a gift for his nephew.

For this "eccentricity" the daughter-in-law kicks the hero out of the house. Neither he himself, nor even his brother Dmitry, understand why Sofya Ivanovna is so angry at ordinary people. They conclude that she is "obsessed with her responsible". It seems that this is the lot of all city people. Position, position in society - this is the measure of human dignity for the "educated", and spiritual qualities are in last place for them. The weirdo left... Dmitry didn't say anything...

The hero came home when it was raining steam. The weirdo got off the bus, took off his new shoes, ran across the warm wet ground.

Only at the very end of the story, Shukshin says that the Chudik's name is Vasily Egorych Knyazev, that he works as a projectionist in the village, that he loves detectives and dogs, that he dreamed of being a spy as a child. Yes, and it's not that important. The important thing is that he does what his heart tells him, because such a decision is the only correct and sincere one.

Shukshin describes all this touchingly and extremely simply. Only a tender smile, sad, but kind, can appear on our face. Sometimes Chudik feels sorry. But this is not because the author is trying to arouse sympathy. No, Shukshin never idealizes his heroes. It shows the person for who they are.

The author, of course, admires him, and we, the readers, share this Shukshin admiration. The weirdo admires everything that surrounds him in life, loves his land, on which he cheerfully runs barefoot in the rain and returns home excited and joyful. And the writer in the end reveals the true name and surname of the hero, his eccentric passions (“he dreamed of being a spy” and “adored detectives”) and age. And it turns out that he is Vasily Knyazev.

The hero of the story is taken from the village environment, because, according to Shukshin, only a simple person from the outback retained all the positive qualities that were originally given to man. Most of all, he is characterized by that sincerity, kindness and naivety, which is so lacking in modern urban people, disfigured by progress and the so-called civilization.

Gerasimova Nina

The research work raises the question of the relationship between the images of freaks in V.M. Shukshin and Smolensk writer Sergei Vyazankov

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Municipal budgetary institution secondary school No. 12

Research work on the literature of the Smolensk region on the topic

“Images of weirdos in the works of V.M. Shukshin and S.V. Vyazankov"

9th grade B students

Gerasimova Nina

Teacher Kozlova E.V.

Smolensk, 2012-2013 year

1. Introduction
2. Analysis of the images of "freaks" in the work of V.M. Shukshina
3. Analysis of the images of "freaks" in the work of S.V. Vyazankova
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography

Introduction

The golden peasant Rus' is fading into oblivion... Fewer and fewer peasant huts remain in Rus', more and more dead villages are disappearing from the map of Russia. Thickets of bitter repentance - grass skeletons of old and abandoned village houses that have collapsed from old age. In other houses, along with old spinning wheels and praniki, yellowed photographs rot, which are not needed by forgetful descendants.

How could it happen that we lost the sweet spirit of fresh hay, the bitter spirit of uncut sedge? Where, at what stage of the journey did we lose our roots, which for centuries connected us with the Motherland? Are we Russian now? How many people today will have their hearts stirred by the smell of freshly cut grass?

And it’s no longer important for some modern, undoubtedly talented writers to know how hay differs from silage and how it is mowed in general, it doesn’t matter for them to know all the hardship and bitterness of peasant labor when drying this same hay, but also the joy that your work is not in vain , now, we managed to get out before the storm, now the grateful cow will look at you with warm, moist eyes, and then bury her fluffy muzzle in the perfumed hay ...

It doesn’t matter ... They don’t sing about the village now, it’s almost gone, and only the memory of an exceptional minority does not allow us to completely forget that it was, peasant Rus', where all problems were solved by the world, where there was no place for evil and vulgarity, and if they met in the way of people, they always received a well-deserved punishment.

Sergei Vyazankov, a Smolensk writer, also belonged to this exceptional minority of talents. In his first and, unfortunately, last book, “Repentance is Grass,” he draws vivid images of simple villagers, not very literate, not teetotalers at all, but pure in soul and noble with inner folk intelligence ...

V. Rasputin spoke of S. Vyazankov extremely kindly, because the topics raised by the Smolensk writer were close to Rasputin himself: “...S. Vyazankov is a strong and fully accomplished writer. At his age, to feel life and words in such a way, to conduct action psychologically so precisely, far from everyone is capable, or rather, rarely anyone is capable.

The heroes of S. Vyazankov live in a world in which everything is interconnected, in which the connection with nature is still so strong that the cattleman Ivan can beat the unlucky livestock specialist - a dropout for the death of a first-calf heifer, and the groom Timofey can lose the joy of life after the death of his beloved horse Beli.

They are freaks, somewhat reminiscent of Shukshin's freaks, they cannot calmly pass by beauty: they will definitely admire; they cannot calmly endure injustice: they will surely be indignant, and this attention to the little things of life sometimes even saves from death itself.

Shukshin's characters are living people, bright, memorable characters. One of the central images in the stories of V.M. Shukshin is the image of a "freak" - a person "with oddities", slightly out of this world, constantly in search of something incomprehensible and unknown to him.

So I put forward hypothesis - heroes of the stories of the Smolensk writer Vyazankov S.V. live according to the same principles as the “freaks” heroes of V.M. Shukshin.

The purpose of this workis an analysis of the features of the artistic images of "freaks" in the stories of V.M. Shukshin and S.V. Vyazankov.

Work tasks include:

1. Disclosure of the image of the "freaks" as one of the central in the work of writers;
2. Analysis of the artistic means of creating images of "freaks" in the stories of V.M. Shukshin and S.V. Vyazankov.

The work is done by a descriptive method with elements of literary analysis. The theoretical basis of the work was the work of modern Russian literary scholars and critics who paid attention to the work of V.M. Shukshin, as well as the work of Smolensk researchers of S.V. Vyazankov. The material of the study is the texts of stories by V.M. Shukshin and S.V. Vyazankov.

Part 1

The work of the writer V. M. Shukshin attracts attention with the acuteness of the formulation of the eternal problem about the meaning of life, about the enduring spiritual values ​​of a person - his moral ideals, honor, duty, conscience. In his works, one of the leading places is occupied by the fate of unusual people with complex characters, the so-called freaks, who seek to comprehend the movements of their own souls, the meaning of life. This is the main character of the story "Freak". The author emphasizes his eccentricity, which distinguishes the hero from other, "correct" people. This technique helps to show his best human qualities: truthfulness, conscientiousness, kindness.

The talent of Vasily Makarovich Shukshin is outstanding, standing out from other talents of that era. He is looking for his heroes among the common people. He is attracted by unusual destinies, the characters of extraordinary people, sometimes contradictory in their actions. Such images are always difficult to understand, but at the same time, they are close to every Russian person.

It is this character that Shukshin draws in the story "Freak". The wife calls the protagonist a freak. He is a typical village dweller. This is how the eccentricity, clearly noticeable to others, becomes his main problem and misfortune: “The Freak had one feature: something constantly happened to him. He did not want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got into some stories - small, however, but annoying.

The story is built in the form of a presentation of events that happened during Chudik's vacation trip to his brother in the Urals. The hero is going on the road, buying gifts for his nephews, and then an episode takes place in which the wonderful properties of his soul are revealed: honesty, modesty, shyness. The weirdo looked, "... and at the counter, where the line is, a fifty-ruble piece of paper lies at the feet of people." A problematic situation for the hero is created: secretly appropriate a piece of paper or announce to everyone about the find and give it to the owner, because she, "such a green fool lies to herself, no one sees her." Using the word “fool” in relation to an inanimate object, Shukshin conveys the nuances of the hero’s state of mind: the joy of the find and the realization that no one but him sees the piece of paper. At the same time, the main question - how Chudik will act - remains open for now.
The weirdo announces to everyone about his find. The owner of the lost fifty-ruble note was not found, and it was decided to put it in a conspicuous place on the counter. The hero leaves the store in a pleasant mood. He is pleased with himself, with how easy it is for him, it turned out fun. But then it turns out that the money found belonged ... to him. “It was my paper! - Chudik said loudly. “But why am I like this?” - Chudik argued bitterly aloud. The conscientiousness and shyness of the hero do not allow him to reach out for the damned piece of paper, although he understands that he will be punished for a long time for absent-mindedness, that at home he will have an explanation with his wife. It is significant that the author, both in his own narration and in Chudik's speech, calls the fifty-ruble bill nothing more than a piece of paper, emphasizing the dismissive attitude towards it.
This seemingly insignificant episode reveals Shukshin's view of one of the most important problems of a person's spiritual life - petty-bourgeois hoarding. However, the author does not idealize his hero at all. Idealization contradicts the very essence of Shukshin's work, for whom the highest measure of artistry was the desire to talk about everything simply and directly.

Biographers claim that a similar incident happened to Shukshin himself in the spring of 1967 in Biysk, when he went to Srostki on a business trip to Pravda to write an article about youth. The question arises: are there any "signs" of such a hero in V. Shukshin himself?

A weirdo is an absent-minded person, he may seem ill-mannered, he has not reached the highest heights of literacy. But all the listed shortcomings of the hero seem insignificant compared to his “bright soul” (V. M. Shukshin called one of his stories: “Bright souls”). And what induces him to commit strange acts are positive, unselfish motives, they make even eccentricity, imaginary or genuine, forgivable.
Revealing the best moral qualities of the characters in moments of difficult trials that fall to their lot. The author puts his hero, a man of conscience, in conditions that require all the spiritual reserves of kindness and stamina, so as not to break down, not to lose faith, seeing that the ultra-modern cheeky rubbish is supposedly the face of our time, and conscience and decency seem to be hopelessly outdated.
Despite its simplicity, Chudik reflects on the problems that concern humanity at all times: what is the meaning of life? What is good and evil? Who in this life is “right, who is smarter”? And by all his actions he proves that he is right, and not those who consider him an eccentric, a "freak". The works of Vasily Shukshin and their heroes are true both in social and everyday terms and in art.

It is worth noting that the heroes are never idealized by Shukshin. It shows the person as he is. The hero is taken from a rural environment, because, according to the author, only a simple person from the outback retained all the positive qualities that were originally given to a person. The village dweller has that sincerity, kindness and naivete, which is so lacking in modern urban people, with characters born of progress and criteria for evaluating a person dictated by a degrading society.

The appearance of the hero Shukshin in the early sixties was somewhat unexpected. The author himself understood thatherohe does not look in the accepted form, but he vehemently argued that there was nothing strange in his hero. "HeHumanalive, able to suffer and do things, and if his soul is sick, if his actions, from the generally accepted point of view, are absurd, then you try, try to figure out why this happened, ask yourself if you envy him. This is the author's point of view on his character. It's a pity, but not all the characters who know the "freak" agree with her, are next to him. So who is he, the "freak", what is it about him that arouses anxiety and conscience in us and causes almost lost, nostalgic sympathy for him, a man of not the best rules and regulations?

“Freaks on the contrary” are callous, soulless people, shifted to the wrong side - they see neither sadness in their eyes, nor a hot gleam, their soul is dead. And the “freaky”, as mentioned above, is not interested in appearance, he worries about his sick soul. All the heroes - "freaks", absolutely everyone, have a soul, it's what makes them strange, does not give them rest. This soul is tossing. Shukshin himself says: "The eccentricity of my heroes is a form of manifestation of their spirituality." “Recently, something was completely wrong in the soul of Timofey Khudyakov - everything in the world was disgusted. So I would get on all fours, and growl, and bark, and shake my head. Maybe I would cry." ("Ticket to the second session")

We see that the soul of the “freaks” hurts, dries up, something is wrong, it’s bad at heart. In the first two contexts, we learn about this from the author, because he knows his characters as well as possible. In the last two contexts, the “freaks” themselves tell us about their inner experiences, worries, anxieties. Other characters ("freaks" and "anti-freaks") are not subject to the assessment of the soul of the hero-"freaks". They do not notice the pain that the character is experiencing, because this is the internal state of the hero. This state can only be understoodauthorand the hero himself, who experiences it. We have identified the following pattern: spiritual experiences are conveyed by verbs. These are the verbs to hurt - “to experience pain”, to become disgusted - “to become hateful, very tired”, to cry - “to shed tears from pain, grief”, to feel - “to feel” and others. Experts according to the soul argue: let a person search for a soul; he will certainly not find it, because no one has yet managed to find what is not there, but, busy with this search, he will be distracted from worse and even more empty pursuits that would bring him only harm. But it's not. The soul, which cannot be grasped for anything, by any side, means a lot for a person.

The soul is the essence of the personality, the life of a permanent, historical person continuing in it, not broken by temporary hardships. The main character traits of the "freaks" are courage and conscientiousness. First, let's talk about courage. “And he lived with one watchman, an old woman was fighting.” ("There lived a man"). Combat for Shukshin means bold. And courage, as Ozhegov S.I. interprets, is “bold behavior, determination.” Therefore, there is respect for the hero who possesses it. In the following example, the subject of the assessment of the character of the "weird" is another "weird". We see that the assessment remains positive. “He is a brave man, dad. I respect him". (“From the childhood years of Ivan Popov”). The qualitative adjective "brave" has a particular evaluative meaning, refers to normative assessments. The assessment of the “anti-freaky” and the self-assessment of the courage of the “freak” are not presented in the stories. When two characters collide (“freaks” and “anti-freaks”), the “crank” constantly experiences a feeling of fear, is afraid of his opponent. Therefore, the author endows his hero with courage, so that he fights fear, overcomes it.

The hero of Shukshin is always ashamed, at least a little, at least to a small extent, but still ashamed. Therefore, the author loves his heroes, "freaks", because they can understand, admit their injustice and wrong. This is also indicated by the following example: “He felt ashamed that he was in a hurry: he actually decided that his brother-in-law wanted to hit him when he reached out with his fist.” ("Svoyak Sergey Sergeevich").

In the following context, the subject of evaluation is another character (“freaks”): “As I understand now, he was a good-natured man, of great patience and conscientiousness. He lived with us on arable land, repaired the rope harness himself, and cursed at the same time for a long time. (“From the childhood years of Ivan Popov”).

The conscientious hero of V. M. Shukshin comes from the common people, he performs "without makeup and without hair." An assessment of conscientiousness by an “anti-freaker” is not presented, because this character trait is alien to him. This happens because they cannot closely examine the confusion of the hero's soul and necessarily search for a way out of these turmoil, these doubts. This can only be done by the author and the "freaks" themselves, who declare the turmoil of their souls. “To hell with her, with this Larisa! .. Maybe she will tell, or maybe she won’t tell. But he is still at home. And it didn't hurt as much as last night. Well, what's the big deal here?.. It's just a shame. Well, it might work somehow." ("Medic Volodya"). “Volodya even liked how he began to impudently unbelt, he secretly envied his fellow students, citizens, especially senior students, but he himself did not dare to pretend to be the same - he was ashamed.” ("Medic Volodya").

Conscience is the main character trait of a "freak". He is always ashamed, ashamed, embarrassed by the consciousness of being wrong or feeling embarrassed. The “Freak” himself is aware of this, therefore he feels a sense of shame, repentance. He admits it to himself. Conclusions. Thus, having considered the “freaky” hero, we came to the following conclusions: firstly, the “freaky” as the main favorite character of Shukshin is analyzed by the author in different aspects, and therefore is an object, including an axiological description; secondly, both the external portrait characteristics of the character and his inner world are subjected to evaluative analysis.

And now let's ask ourselves the question: is it possible to take the name of the story "Freak" at face value, that is, does Shukshin consider his hero a "freak" in the proper sense of the word? At first glance it seems that yes, he thinks. “The weirdo had one feature: something constantly happened to him. He did not want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got into some stories - small, however, but annoying. Given such a forewarning, one should seem to imagine one of those people about whom they say: "twenty-two misfortunes", well, something like Chekhov's Epikhodov. And the first adventures that happen to him during a trip to his brother seem to confirm this opinion - the story of fifty rubles, for example, belongs to the number of pure, so to speak, "fatal" accidents.

However, already the conversation with the neighbor on the plane and the story with the telegram contain a certain subtext that prompts us to think that everything is not as simple as it seems, and that Vasily Yegorych's bad luck is not so much his fate, but his nature. First of all, it is clear to us: the kindest Vasily Yegorych is simple-hearted and spontaneous to the point of ... stupidity. Yes, to the point of stupidity - we have to admit this, because both the text of his telegram and the conversation with the telegraph operator are quite at the level of his “joke” about fried baubles,

Another touch, and also very revealing. On the train, having heard a lot of different road stories, Chudik decides to make his own contribution to the general conversation and tells a story that, according to his concepts, is also quite funny: “We have a fool in the neighboring village too ... He grabbed a firebrand - and for his mother. Drunk. She runs away from him and shouts: “Hands,” she shouts, “don’t burn your hands, son!” He also cares about him. And he is rushing, a drunken mug. To mother. Imagine how pa-do to be rude, tactless ... "

Vasily Yegorych, of course, does not know that his "story" is a legend widely known among many peoples of the world, a poetic and wise parable about a mother, about the holiness of maternal feelings. But it's not that he doesn't know. Another thing is worse: as we see, he does not even feel the meaning of what he is talking about, since the whole story in his eyes is nothing more than a funny incident, almost an anecdote. Kind and direct Vasily Yegorych is stupid, definitely stupid ...

The reasons for the “fatal” bad luck of the Chudik, thus, begin to become clear for us: they are that his ideas about the surrounding reality in many respects do not correspond to the order of things that is objectively present in it. But who is to blame for this? Does the eccentric need to rise to the level of reality, or does she herself have to show some special, additional “understanding” so that all sorts of stories finally stop happening to Vasily Yegorych? There is no getting away from these questions, because the answer to them essentially determines the assessment of the very ideological and humanistic orientation of the story.

Vasily Yegorych will not change - that's clear. As before, he will meddle with people with his joyful willingness to communicate, with his sincere lack of understanding that people do not always enjoy communicating with him. But not all of his actions are ridiculous! In some cases, can he count, if on understanding, then at least on simple human indulgence? Understanding his aspirations, his good intentions must, in some cases, prevail over the usual rejection of their curious results. And isn't this habitual rejection, especially in those cases when it is just habitual, a sin incomparably greater than the clumsy and stupid kindness of the Chudik?

It is this question that Shukshin poses, bringing Sofia Ivanovna, Chudik's daughter-in-law, to the mat. And the answer is absolutely clear. No matter how absurd the story with the baby stroller may look, nevertheless, absolute human correctness is undeniably on the side of the Chudik. The "extenuating circumstances" of his bumbling obligingness are far more serious than his guilt. And Vasily Yegorych suffers here not so much as a result of his next blunder, but because people this time did not show elementary human sensitivity. A hundred times misunderstood, as they say, "just right", in this case he himself judges human misunderstanding.

So who is he, Vasily Yegorych Knyazev? A “natural man” who, by the very fact of his existence, reproaches a society that has hardened in the course of civilization? "Freak", whose eccentricity is manifested the more definitely, the more obvious its eccentricity?

Let's not rush to present him as some kind of righteous man, whose kindness and spontaneity should make us think about our own moral imperfection, which is still quite tangibly making itself felt. We will not make of him either Akaky Akakievich or Prince Myshkin. Moreover, Shukshin himself does not end the story on this "compassionate" note. The dramatic climax is followed by an epilogue, and this epilogue brings the final and extremely characteristic touch to the portrait of the Chudik. “The Crank came home when it was raining brightly. The weirdo got off the bus, took off his new shoes, ran across the warm wet ground - a suitcase in one hand, shoes in the other.

And what can be said about him in conclusion, if not what Shukshin himself said: “His name was Vasily Yegorych Knyazev. He was thirty-nine years old. He worked as a projectionist in the village. He adored detectives and dogs. As a child, I dreamed of being a spy." Sounds like an epitaph, doesn't it? And the same contrasts in it as in his nature. And the same unity. He adored dogs - in his natural kindness and because, of course, that he met with their complete "understanding"; adored detectives - in his complete inability to be like them; and for the same reason - "as a child I dreamed of being a spy." Nature, as we see, is quite ordinary. In ordinary everyday life, we might not have noticed him, just as, in fact, we did not notice him before Shukshin's story. And if here, in the story, he still looks like a very colorful figure, it is mainly because the writer, as it were, put him "under high tension", which revealed his nature in all its contradictory unity and specificity.

The two situations described in this story are typically Shukshin's: a person is unbalanced by something or someone, or struck or offended by something, and he wants to somehow resolve this pain by returning to the normal logic of life.

The impressionable, vulnerable, feeling the beauty of the world and at the same time awkward Chudik is compared in the story with the petty-bourgeois world of the daughter-in-law, the barmaid of the administration, in the past a village woman who seeks to erase everything village in her memory, to transform into a real townswoman. But this is not the opposition of the city and the countryside, which was found by critics in the stories of the writer of the 60s. ("Ignakha has arrived", "Snake venom", "Two letters", "Nylon Christmas tree", etc.). Objectively speaking, this opposition as such did not exist in his stories at all. Shukshin explored the serious problem of a marginal (intermediate) person who left the village and did not fully acclimatize in the city (“I choose the village for residence”) or took root at the cost of losing something important in himself, as in the case of Chudik’s daughter-in-law and other heroes.

This problem was deeply personal for the writer himself: “So it turned out for me by the age of forty that I was neither urban to the end, nor rural already. Terribly uncomfortable position. It’s not even between two chairs, but rather like this: one foot on on the shore, the other in the boat. And it’s impossible not to swim, and it’s kind of scary to swim ... But this position of mine has its “pluses” ... From comparisons, from all sorts of “from there - here" and "from there - there" thoughts not only about the "village" and "city" - about Russia.

In an awkward, strange person, according to Shukshin, the truth of his time is most fully expressed.

“There is another type of person in Rus' in whom time, the truth of time, cries out just as furiously as in a genius, just as impatiently as in a talented one, just as secretly and indestructibly, as in a thinking and intelligent one ... This man is a fool,” - so wrote V. Shukshin in the article "Morality is truth." For Shukshin, “freaks”, “fools” are phenomena of time, very instructive, the truth of time cries out in them in its own way. And who are they, the heroes of his stories, these “freaks”, if not the bearers of pure goodness, opposed to rationality and mechanics. They, these "strange people", have the most important "strangeness": they love everyone like fools. Natural natural purity, conscientiousness, talent - these qualities, the main ones for Shukshin, make his heroes related to the hero of a Russian fairy tale. In the artistic world of Shukshin, the slightest sign of disrespect for one’s own or someone else’s human dignity is of fundamental importance, the writer’s characters, for the most part, nervously, painfully react to evil, to the humiliation of a person by a person, to insults ... It is the hero of the story “Freak” who is one of the first to set a deeply personal, a truly Shukshin question: “I don’t understand: why did they become evil?” Brother's wife, who fiercely hated the ingenuous Freak; a neighbor on the plane, rustling with a newspaper and uttering just one phrase: “Children are the flowers of life, they should be planted with their heads down”; a strict, dry telegraph operator, contemptuously suggesting to Chudik that a telegram is a form of communication. There are many such stories in Shukshin's other stories. And they are opposed by weirdos, beautiful people in their kindness and responsiveness. Heroes, whose actions are perceived as eccentricity, act in this way due to internal moral concepts, perhaps not yet realized by them themselves. In his heroes, who do not act "like everyone else", Shukshin tries to discern the facets of human spontaneity and talent. A natural craving for creativity is characteristic of these heroes: whether it’s Vasya (“Stenka Razin”), who feels talent in himself, or Bronka Pupkov, an artist by nature (“Mil pardon, madam!”), Or Semka Rys (“Master”), or the Crank, who took and painted the stroller: “... on the top of the stroller, the Crank let the cranes fly in a corner, along the bottom - different flowers, grass-ant, a couple of cockerels, chickens ...” Shukshin spoke about his strange people more than once, spoke about sympathy and affection to them, was convinced that "their fates are merged with the fate of the people." Another characteristic feature of Shukshin's stories is that he constantly, tirelessly, wherever possible, exalted Pity. This feeling, along with Goodness, underlies Shukshin's worldview. Not only without Truth, Conscience, Goodness, but without Pity it is impossible to imagine him. In his works, this word is found at every step, it is a sign that helps to understand the hero. “To regret… It is necessary to regret or not to regret - this is how false people put the question. You still find the strength to regret. Weak, but feigned invents what needs to be respected. To regret means to respect, but even more.

Chapter 2

Viktor Smirnov wrote in June 1997: “Having returned to Smolensk from the Caucasus, where I was on literary business, I learned from a tearful wife a terrible, unthinkable, improbable news: drowned while fishing with his wife, my best, my most gifted, my the most sonorous student, my Russian pride, my Smolensk joy, my great hope - Sergey Vyazankov. His first and, alas, now his last book, remarkable in language, imagery and depth of prose, “Penance Grass”, has just come out. It has just been adopted in Smolensk, and then in Moscow - unanimously and with inspiration! - to the Writers' Union of Russia. He died in the prime of life, without waiting for wide recognition, success, fame - all that, no doubt, awaited him in the near future.
At our first meeting, Seryozha gave me to read his story “They don’t water a hot horse.” I was shocked, struck by the piercing artistic power of the work, written, exhaled not just by a young man, but, consider it, a boy. I was especially delighted, but rather, caused some kind of secret, prophetic pain, I’m not afraid of this responsible word, the brilliantly written scene of the death of a young horse drowning in a deep river whirl, running away with a plow from bees and jumping in horror down a cliff.

_____ Seryozha! Didn't you already see yourself drowning in the bubbling water abyss?! This is truly Lermontov's, Yesenin's and, finally, Rubtsov's presentiment of his own fate...

___ He constantly, for many years, wrote to me, came to visit. He became like a member of our family. We loved him. We were waiting for him. Anna Trifonovna Tvardovskaya, the sister of our great poet, having once met Seryozha, later told me with tears in her eyes that this is a real heavenly angel ...

I walked at his country wedding. Played the harmonica. He admired him, somehow especially proudly, with dignity, in a popular way bearing the cheerful and serious title of the groom. He didn’t have a child: they didn’t have time ... Only his spiritual children - stories, stories - remained with us.

The fate of the Smolensk writer Sergei Vyazankov, the author of the talented, lyrical-epic-fairytale book "Penance is Grass", a member of the Writers' Union of Russia, is truly tragic. Born in the village of Zimnitsy, Pochinkovsky district in 1964, died tragically in 1994.

Yes, they are cranks, somewhat reminiscent of Shukshin's cranks: they are conscientious, compassionate, they cannot calmly endure injustice: they will definitely be indignant, and this attention to the little things of life even sometimes saves from death itself. This happened to Venya Sorokin, the hero of the story-parable "Venya mowed the stable." Passion, a truly collector's passion for folk crafts, saved Venya when she met Death. Venya notices, as soon as he casts a glance at Death’s scythe, that “the rubbish scythe: it’s not set right, and it’s badly riveted, and the cape is lowered, and the blade needs to be sharper ... Nonsense scythe: the metal is not hardened, soft, this one needs to be corrected after three strokes” . Venya offered to change the scythe of Death, but instead he bought a rake, on which Death then came and crumbled ...

Yes, the heroes of the Smolensk writer are unusually pure by modern standards, and the very light that S. Vyazankov described in his story “The Birch Drop Grove” burns in them. This flame stands in the lacrimal cup, and those who suck many tears from their neighbors destroy their flame ahead of time. And for others, candles burn even after death: “this is someone who is very loved and remembered, who has done a lot of good on earth. Each candle is a fire of love.

Somewhere, probably, the candle of Sergei Vyazankov himself is still burning, which did not go out after his tragic death, because with his stories he instills love for the Motherland, tells us about historical memory, that one should not lightly forget where your roots are . And it is no coincidence that the father's grave on the river bank is so important in the story "Zhuravkin Corner" not only to the main character, Lenka, but also to his friends, simple village peasants. And it is no coincidence that the hero of the story "Medal" Borka Stasov buries his honestly earned medal "For Courage in a Fire" along with his medal "For Courage" accidentally stolen from a veteran, and the main character of the fairy tale "Silver Fish" gives his last life to someone else's child. The heroes of S. Vyazankov have a conscience, it does not allow either the heroes of the stories or those who will read these stories to live in peace. And who knows, maybe one of them will mow down bitter repentance - the grass that flooded the dying Russian villages ...

CONCLUSION

As a result of the study, I confirmed my hypothesis thatheroes of the stories of the Smolensk writer Vyazankov S.V. live according to the same principles as the “freaks” heroes of V.M. Shukshin.

During the research work on this problem, the following conclusion was made: the freaks S.V. Vyazankov is somewhat reminiscent of Shukshin's freaks: they are conscientious, compassionate, they cannot calmly endure injustice: they will definitely be indignant, and this attention to the little things of life even sometimes saves from death itself. Theycarriers of pure good, opposed to rationality and mechanics. They, these "strange people", have the most important "strangeness": they love everyone like fools. Natural purity, conscientiousness, talent - these qualities, the main ones for Shukshin, are also important for the heroes of S.V. Vyazankov. Heroes, whose actions are perceived as eccentricity, act in this way due to internal moral concepts, perhaps not yet realized by them themselves.

Vasily Yegorych is a timid, inert creature, and his fate, for all its touchingness, is, in general, not very instructive. There are no special conclusions for anyone from PSE. There are, of course, the interests of higher humanism, and they, apparently, require that people, when confronted with such weirdos, show more sensitivity, tolerance, if not participation. By…

We are arranged in such a way that we reckon only with the fact that Tan or otherwise concerns us, participates in our life - whether in a positive or negative way. Freaks like Vasily Yegorych are completely indifferent to us, but we simply don’t usually have the time or generosity to delve into all the “valid” reasons for their ridiculous actions. Yes, however, after all, they themselves will do nothing in order to be taken seriously. For with each of their involuntary collisions with reality, they can only, that they rub the resulting bruise guiltily and ask themselves the question: “Why am I like this; is there something?

There are, however, situations when you still have to take the freaks seriously.

In 1973, six years after The Freak, Shukshin wrote the story Strokes for a Portrait. Some specific thoughts II. N. Knyazev, man and citizen. The hero of the story, a certain Nikolai Nikolaevich Knyazev, an elderly man who works as a television master in a regional town, is also from the breed of weirdos. He, like his namesake Vasily Yegorych (the detail, in my opinion, is very remarkable), also gets into all sorts of strange stories at every turn, and also not due to any special coincidence of circumstances, but solely by the properties of his character. True, many things distinguish him from Vasily Yegorych. He, as we remember, was timid, passive and simply stupid. This one, on the contrary, is active, proud, prickly. And even smart in his own way, despite the obvious absurdity of the idea to which he subordinated his life. In any case, in many of his judgments, non- | looking (I repeat once again) at the absurdity of the original premise, one feels the experience of intense and concentrated spiritual work, and this is always a sign of intellectual independence.

Nikolai Nikolaevich also "stalled". He stalled on the theory of the “expedient state,” in particular, on the fact that, as he believes, people do not understand the supreme expediency of social division. Another hero of The Brothers Karamazov drew attention to the potential ambiguity of the Gogol symbol. “In my sinful opinion,” he said, “the ingenious artist ended up like this either in a fit of childishly innocent fine thinking, or simply fearing the then censorship. For if only his own heroes, the Sobakevichs, the Nozdrevs and the Chichikovs, are harnessed to his troika, then no matter who you plant as a coachman, you won’t get to what good on such mines!

The state appears to him as something like a huge anthill, in which the activity of each ant is entirely and exclusively subordinated to the common interests. In the preface to his extensive work “Thoughts on the State”, which, in his opinion, should finally open people’s eyes, he writes like this: “I began to ask myself with sadness and surprise:“ What would happen if we , like ants, carried the maximum to the state?” Just think about it: no one steals, drinks, loafers - everyone puts his own brick in this grandiose building in his place ... I realized that one global thought about the state should subordinate to itself all specific thoughts related to our life and behavior.

This, so to speak, is the theoretical side of Nikolai Nikolayevich's views, and if it were only in this, then all his "eccentricity" would, apparently, come down only to the fact that he reinvents the wheel. It would be a completely harmless oddity and, in fact, not related to anyone - you never know the eccentrics in the world.

The whole point, however, is that the views of Nikolai Nikolayevich are not just “some specific thoughts II. N. Knyazev, a man and a citizen”, but his very position in life, and the position is active, even offensive. Op does not just theorize - he judges everyone and everything, at every step proving to people how far they are and) far from an ideal person. Let's say, a person came to the village on vacation, wants to take a walk in the forest, go fishing at his leisure - in a word, spend time in accordance with his usual ideas about relaxation. Nikolai Nikolaevich sees this as a clear evasion of this person (in the story this is a certain Silchenko) from his duties to society, almost desertion from the labor front. And he brings down on the head of the poor vacationer a cloud of all sorts of important lectures, caustic parables, ridicule, direct denunciations, in response to which, complacently at first, Silchenko resolutely takes up the log. The theoretical dispute, thus, turns into a serious scandal.

The clash with Silchenko looks somewhat anecdotal, and, probably, that is why the moral basis of Nikolai Nikolayevich's views and actions remains not entirely clear to us, obscured by the obvious absurdity of his logic. But the next episode - an incident with a tipsy electrician - clarifies this basis quite definitely.

I think no one will reproach Nikolai Nikolayevich for acting in excess of his authority in this whole episode, so to speak. In any case, it can be understood: watching a young guy “gurgle” from his pocket into a glass is indeed an unpleasant occupation. That is why Nikolai Nikolayevich's attempt to explain something to this pariah about the "problem of free time" does not seem to us some kind of too gross violence against the individual. Many in Nikolai Nikolayevich's place would probably have acted in exactly the same way. And yet the case again ends in a scandal, and what a scandal! The prophet is stoned again.

What happened, however? Why, despite the fact that Nikolai Nikolayevich seems to be right around the corner, did he again get hard? It remains, apparently, only to assume that - his offender is to blame for everything - he did not understand, a stupid person, good morals, he was offended, climbed with his fists ...

But here’s what’s strange: whether it’s because we already know the absurd character of Nikolai Nikolayevich (and therefore we’re not in too much of a hurry to sympathize with him), or the point here is in some special shade of the author’s intonation, but for some reason this offender does not cause us that noble indignation with which Nikolai Nikolaevich reacted to him. Indeed, for what, in fact, should we condemn the young guy?

Within the framework of the general reasoning, Nikolai Nikolayevich, “as always”, is right: thoughtlessness, drunkenness are harmful, a person should strive, etc. But at the same time, we also understand why, listening to these common truths, a young man grits his teeth more and more tightly. No, but because he does not understand these truths, not at all because. He does not agree with another - with the fact that they are trying to convince him that he is the very person who hinders social development. Nikolai Nikolayevich, as you can see, generalizes all the time: since a person went to the zoo just like that, without a well-thought-out intention to “learn something useful for himself”, then he is generally a “tree” floating with the flow; if this person drank on the day off "for the mood" - therefore, he is a drunkard who has no other interests than "to blow fuselage". And if so, then, therefore, this person is an antisocial element, unworthy of being allowed on that “liner” that ... etc. It is this logic, according to which the young man is, as it were, excommunicated from society, that revolts him more Total. The exalted sermon of Nikolai Nikolaevich thus turns into an ordinary, although, of course, not a deliberate provocation.

Moral dogmatism, intolerance... Are we, however, too strict with Nikolai Nikolaevich? Are we not showing him the same excessive intolerance with which we are inclined to accuse him? After all, as many critics quite rightly point out, Nikolai Nikolayevich, for all the obvious absurdity of his behavior, nevertheless evokes in us a feeling much more complex than just hostility. One cannot, for example, disagree with I. Dedkov: “What is happening to us, why does our irritation against Nikolai Nikolaevich Knyazev seem to dissolve? In this annoying and biting, like an autumn fly, creature, little by little, something immensely pitiful and sad, joylessly conscientious and uselessly honest, is revealed to us, and in his street tirades and in quotations from those ill-fated notebooks, sense, and reason, and even logic, almost ironclad. We feel that in the desperately helpless, amusing antics of this man lives a clear consciousness of his right to think, a clear understanding of the tragedy of the role that he so wants to play ... "

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In Shukshin's story "The Freak", which we will analyze, the conflict between the city and the village is presented, as in many other stories of this author. In essence, the internal conflict of the village world is revealed here: all three characters of the story (Chudik himself, whose real name the reader learns only at the end - Vasily Egorovich Knyazev, his brother Dmitry and wife Sofya Ivanovna) come from the village.

The plot of Shukshin's story "Freak" is found many times in literature and folklore: these are the unsuccessful adventures of a village eccentric in the city. All comic situations and misunderstandings are due to his ignorance of the standards, conventions, and orders of city life. But it is he who turns out to be the bearer of true ideas about the values ​​of life, which are not understood and rejected by the evil presumptuous city. Most often in works with a similar plot, the bearer of true ideas about the values ​​of life, the bearer of the true mind is a village person. Shukshin is close to the same interpretation.

The most serious conflict awaits Chudik in the house of his brother Dmitry. It is due to the unmotivated, as it seems to him, hatred of the daughter-in-law, Sofia Ivanovna, to which neither Chudik himself nor his brother Dmitry can oppose anything.

The reason for the rejection is, according to Dmitry, that Chudik is “not responsible, not a leader. I know her, stupid. Obsessed with their responsible. And who is she! Barmaid in control, bump out of the blue. She looks at it and starts ... She hates me too - that I'm not responsible, from the village. These words clarify the cause of the conflict between the brothers and Sofya Ivanovna: from her point of view, the measure of success in life becomes a leading position in the administration, the name of which Dmitry cannot remember. This is what pushes the brothers, forced out by Sofya Ivanovna into the street, to try to identify the origins of the confrontation that has emerged and compare the rural and urban ways of life.

The culmination of the conflict in Shukshin's story "The Freak" is just the attempt of the Freak to repay it - to somehow appease the daughter-in-law, an attempt, as always, is completely ridiculous. He decided to paint with children's paints, probably watercolors, the carriage of his youngest nephew. This leads to a new outburst of anger on the part of Sofya Ivanovna, this time, I think, quite justified: it is unlikely that the carriage could have been decorated with Chudik’s drawings (“At the top of the carriage, Chudik sent cranes - a flock in a corner, along the bottom - different flowers, grass-ant, a couple roosters, chickens...”), quite appropriate, for example, on a stove, but not on a standard factory-made item that has a fundamentally different aesthetic nature, which the hero is not at all aware of: “And you say - a village. Eccentric. He wanted peace with his daughter-in-law. “The child will be like in a basket.” However, the daughter-in-law of “folk art”, as Chudik comprehends his deeds, did not understand, which led to the speedy resolution of the conflict - the Chudik’s expulsion with the helpless bitter silence of his brother Dmitry, who, apparently, does not have the right to vote in his own house.

What is the meaning of Sofya Ivanovna's dissatisfaction with her husband's brother? Yes, in the fact that she has lost the ability to appreciate a person who is in the traditional system of values, living in the countryside, satisfied with this life, not wanting to accept urban standards due to the fact that he is satisfied with his own - as he understands them. He does not aspire to be “responsible”, he is satisfied with the work of the village projectionist, he is at peace with himself, with the rural world that gave birth to and raised him, and therefore causes Sofia Ivanovna not just indifference, but active rejection, irritation. Why?

Shukshin, thinking about what happens if a person leaves for a city (even worse - to an urban-type settlement), came to the most disappointing conclusions, believing that the village loses its mistress of the house, mother, wife, and the city acquires another boorish saleswoman. This is exactly what we see in the image of Chudik's daughter-in-law, Sofia Ivanovna, in the past a village girl, in the present - a barmaid in a certain department. The point, probably, is that she just lost those qualities that Chudik did not lose: harmony with the village, satisfaction with her world, harmony with herself. Leaving the countryside and rejecting its moral values, not satisfied with the criteria for success in life that the rural world offers, she rushed to the city, perceiving the "department" in which she works as a barmaid, "responsible" in this department as people who have achieved the highest success in life, fulfilled their life potential. Any other scenario of the life path - whether Chudikov, Dmitry's husband - is interpreted by her as a loss, failure, a manifestation of human insolvency. Therefore, those charms of village life that the brothers think about are perceived by her as a pitiful attempt to justify their own inadequacy to themselves and cause a sharp rejection, almost hatred in relation to the "losers" who have almost suffered a collapse in life - their own husband and his village brother. But the bottom line is that Sofya Ivanovna herself suffers a collapse: having abandoned the old values, such a person does not acquire new ones, but does not realize this, believing that “responsible” work in “management” is the highest goal of a person’s life path. This is the very moral vacuum in which the village man finds himself, having lost touch with his world and not gaining new social ties.

If Dmitry’s life can really be perceived as a failure (“Here it is, my life! Have you seen it? How much anger is in a person! .. How much anger!” He complains about his wife to his brother), then this cannot be said about Chudik. Despite the difficult relationship already with his own wife, who from time to time explains to her husband his insignificance with the help of a skimmer, which hits him on the head, the hero is in complete inner harmony with the world of the village that gave birth to him, with the world in which he lives and will live . Show this by referring to the episode of the return of the Freak after his unsuccessful city trip to his village. Why is it at this moment that the hero ceases to be a "freak" and finds his true name?

The confrontation between the city and the countryside is most often given in Shukshin's stories from the point of view of a village dweller - it is he who carries hidden aggression against the city. The townspeople (those for whom the culture of the city is natural, native), on the contrary, are peaceful, most often described either neutrally or with sympathy, as the “candidates” of the Zhuravlevs. Sometimes the opposition of the village to the city is reflected in the desire of the villager to assert his significance, his wealth and superiority over the city dweller, as in the story "Cut off", sometimes - in hatred for a fellow villager who has lost his former roots and has not found new ones, as in "The Freak", sometimes - in the desire to surprise the townspeople with something incredible, impossible, exceptional, as in the story "Mil pardon, madam!". All these attempts, however, turn out to be completely absurd and reveal only one thing: the peasant’s discord with himself and the world of the village, dissatisfaction with his own life, an indistinct desire for something exceptional, which is based on the destruction of the village, tragic for the national fate, as one of the forms of social life and national existence. Shukshin captures a tragic stage in the development of Russian destiny: in the middle of the 20th century, the rural world lost harmony with itself and ceased to satisfy the person who grew up and was brought up in it. At the same time, new ideals, surrogates for city life, of course, could not fill the cultural and moral vacuum formed as a result of the peasant leaving the countryside. This concludes the analysis of Shukshin's story "Freak".