>Works based on the work The Undertaker

the main idea

The story “The Undertaker” was written by A. S. Pushkin in 1830 in the village of Bolshoye Boldino and was included in the cycle “Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin.” This is one of the most unique stories in terms of plot and composition. The story about the undertaker begins with a description of the main character and his way of life. In fact, the undertaker Adrian Prokhorov is the only character in the work whom the author describes.

This is a gloomy and gloomy resident of Moscow, whose whole family has moved to a new house and is trying to arrange their life. Adrian's main concern is to quickly receive orders from relatives of deceased people, thereby getting ahead of competitors. It would seem that there is nothing unusual in his craft. He, like others, earns money by doing his job. However, as the plot develops, it becomes clear that for him people are not people, but potential coffin fillers. The death of others became life for him.

One circumstance clarifies everything. During a feast at a neighbor's place on the occasion of a silver wedding, all the artisan guests offer a drink to their clients. Adrian alone has no one to drink to, because his clients are long dead. The guests of the feast make fun of this topic, which greatly offends the undertaker. Returning home drunk and angry, he tells his worker Aksinya that he intends to invite his former clients, that is, the dead, to the housewarming party instead of the neighbors. Adrian does not pay attention to Aksinya’s entreaties to come to his senses and cross himself.

As a result, he has a dream in which the dead came to visit him - the people for whom he made coffins. In one of them he recognizes the foreman who was buried during heavy rain; in the other - a retired guard sergeant - Pyotr Petrovich Kurilkin. He loses consciousness from fear, and when he wakes up the next morning, he realizes that it was just a dream. The offense against the neighbors is quickly forgotten, and the hero’s peace of mind is restored.

It remains only to understand for what purpose the author depicted a person of this particular profession. The main emphasis in the story is on the gloomy and gloomy character of Adrian Prokhorov. Perhaps this is why Pushkin chose such a dark craft for his hero. Even the epigraph to the work was chosen in accordance with the content. In my opinion, the author wanted to show that every person has an inherent desire to enjoy life. It doesn’t matter whether he’s an undertaker or a shoemaker. Even the “smallest” person in terms of social status is worthy of respect and understanding.

Composition

“The Stories of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by A. S. Pushkin marked the beginning of the Russian realistic story of the 19th century. Five stories are united under a common title (“Shot”, “Blizzard”, “Undertaker”, “Station Warden”, “Peasant Young Lady”).

In Belkin's Tales, Pushkin draws on the traditions of narrative prose of the late 20s of the 19th century.

In “The Shot” and “The Blizzard,” romantic situations and conflicts are resolved simply and happily, in a real setting, leaving no room for any mysteries and melodramatic endings that were so popular in romantic stories.

In “The Peasant Young Lady,” the seemingly romantic hero, who even wore a ring with the image of a skull, turns out to be a simple and kind fellow who finds his happiness with a sweet, ordinary girl, and the quarrel of their fathers, without giving rise to anything tragic, ends in a kind peace.

In the story “The Undertaker,” all sorts of wonderful and mysterious situations associated with the afterlife, inherent in romantic stories and stories, are reduced to a very prosaic trade in coffins. The appearance of ghosts turned out to be just a dream of the tipsy undertaker Adrian. The mysterious becomes comic, losing all its romantic aura.

With its truthfulness, deep insight into a person’s character, and the absence of any melodrama, the story “The Station Agent” put an end to the influence of the sentimental-didactic story about the “little man,” which originated from Karamzin’s “Poor Liza.” Idealized images, sentimental plot situations, and moralizing are replaced by real types and everyday pictures of inconspicuous, but well-known corners of Russian reality. This is the postal station where the writer finds the genuine joys and sorrows of life. The mannered language gives way to a simple and ingenuous story, based on popular vernacular, like the story of the old caretaker about his Duna.

The story “The Shot” from the first lines is surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery; “some kind of mystery surrounded his fate,” the narrator says about the hero of the story.

Before us is the first character of the “Napoleonic” type in Russian prose. This is a spiritually strong nature, striving for primacy, not being too picky in achieving the goal.

At the same time, this is a living, contradictory personality, endowed with a bright individuality and social typicality, developing throughout the narrative.

Silvio’s hatred is almost plebeian hatred, in fact, not even towards the count as a person, but towards the embodiment of all those who achieved happiness without effort, who by right of birth are endowed with a great name and wealth. But six years after the quarrel, when Silvio makes his confession, one cannot help but feel that this is in many ways a different person: let us remember his mercilessness towards himself, his involuntary admiration for his young rival.

Silvio's eyes sparkle when he reads the letter - the news that the time has come for the shot. However, an obvious mental change occurred in the hero. “I commend you to your conscience,” Silvio says to the count. In fact, he won a spiritual victory over himself, he put himself on trial by his own conscience - that’s why he renounced the “right” to kill.

Other works on this work

Belkin's stories “Belkin's Tales” by A. S. Pushkin as a single work Ideological and artistic originality of "Belkin's Tales" Snowstorm in the story by A.S. Pushkin (thought essay) The story of A. S. Pushkin “The Young Lady-Peasant” Romanticism and irony in “Tales of Belkin” by A. S. Pushkin Silvio is the main character of A. S. Pushkin’s story “The Shot” Silvio - a romantic hero (based on the story by A. S. Pushkin “The Shot”) A holistic analysis of A. S. Pushkin’s story “The Young Lady-Peasant Woman” What did the snowstorm bring to the heroes of A.S. Pushkin’s story “The Snowstorm”

The cycle “Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” was created by A. S. Pushkin in a very short time (September - October 1830). It belongs to the famous fruitful period in the poet’s work - the Boldino autumn.

I. P. Belkin

In the author's introduction “From the Publisher,” Pushkin provides fictitious details about the life of I.P. Belkin. He was an unusually kind and gentle man who had no idea about housekeeping. After retiring, he settled on his estate and began literary activities.

Taking advantage of the owner's youth, the peasants completely got out of hand. “Due to... inexperience and soft-heartedness,” the farm finally fell into disrepair. Belkin did not pay any attention to this. All his free time he read, listened to the stories of the housekeeper, and talked with his best friend.

Ivan Petrovich died suddenly before reaching the age of thirty. He left behind many useless manuscripts, some of which made up “Belkin’s Tale.”

According to a friend of the deceased, all the stories “are for the most part fair and were heard by him (Belkin) from a variety of people.”

Cycle overview

A. Shot

The story is the story of an army officer Silvio, famous for his marksmanship and composure. One day he surprised his comrades by refusing to participate in a duel, which was regarded as a sign of cowardice.

Silvio explains to the narrator the reason for his behavior. In his youth he had a duel. The enemy missed, and Silvio delayed his shot. He is still waiting for the right moment to take revenge, so he cannot put his life in danger.

A few years later, the author learned the ending of this story. Silvio demanded to continue the duel when his former opponent married successfully. The Count missed again, but Silvio did not shoot, satisfied with the confusion and fear of the enemy.

b. Blizzard

A story in which blind chance plays a major role. Poor warrant officer Vladimir Nikolaevich was going to secretly marry his beloved girl, Marya Gavrilovna. On the night of the escape there was a strong snowstorm. Vladimir, having gotten lost, was late for church, and Marya Gavrilovna was accidentally married to a stranger.

A few years later, Marya Gavrilovna met Colonel Burmin. He confessed his love for her, but stated that he was already married to an unknown woman. After the colonel’s story, it turns out that he was the random groom with whom Marya Gavrilovna was once married.

V. Undertaker

A short humorous story of a coffin master, to whom his “clients”—the dead—came to visit in a nightmare.

A sad story about a petty official Samson Vyrin. The caretaker lived with his only beloved daughter Dunya. The captain passing through the station took Dunya with him through deception. Attempts to return my daughter led nowhere. Samson lost the meaning of life, started drinking and soon died. The repentant Dunya was late to find her father alive.

d. Young Peasant Woman

The funniest and most cheerful story in the series. Young lady Liza pretends to be a peasant woman, Akulina, in order to meet the son of a neighboring landowner, Alexei. Secret meetings lead to mutual love. Having learned that his father is going to marry him to his neighbor’s daughter Lisa, Alexey goes to a neighboring estate to prevent this marriage. There he unexpectedly learns that his beloved Akulina is Lisa.

The main meaning and ideas of "Belkin's Tales"

Pushkin sought to show a broad picture of Russian life, including representatives of different classes. First of all, he is interested in living specific people, and not their class affiliation.

Positive or negative human qualities do not depend on nobility and wealth. In “The Shot,” the nobility and courage of the nobleman Silvio evokes admiration. In "The Snowstorm" one feels sincere compassion for the tragedy of young people in love, the cause of which was Vladimir's poverty. In “The Station Agent,” the author’s sympathies are clearly on the side of the practically powerless class of lower officials. The overall humorous story “The Undertaker” makes you think about the unfortunate fate of representatives of a despised profession, who, in mockery, may be offered to drink “to the health of their dead.” The gloomy work leads to the fact that “Adrian Prokhorov was usually gloomy and thoughtful.”

Evgenia Safonova,
Petra-Dubravskaya school,
Samara Region

Written on Nizhny Novgorod land

On the meaning of Pushkin's story "THE UNDERTAKER"

Pushkin's prose is widely represented in modern school programs. Along with the textbook “The Captain's Daughter”, “Dubrovsky”, “The Queen of Spades”, “Belkin’s Tale” is also included in the study. It is not possible to dwell in detail on the history of their readership and critical perception, but nevertheless one cannot fail to note a very characteristic point. Even a cursory glance will reveal a very peculiar temporal sequence of inclusion of Pushkin’s stories in the circle of reader perception. The three most actively studied and studied at school, and even taken independently: “Station Agent”, “Shot” and “Blizzard”. During the lesson, limiting himself to talking about individual works, the teacher, willingly or unwillingly, reduced the entire cycle to their content and meaning, sometimes only mentioning the others. Sometimes “The Shot” was replaced by another story in the cycle - “The Young Peasant Lady”. As for “The Undertaker,” it turned out to be the most closed work for school study and, as a result, much less “read.” A serious objective reason for the “rejection” of the fifth story from studying the entire cycle at school is the difficulty of perceiving it. Also L.N. Tolstoy extremely accurately noticed, while studying with Yasnaya Polyana students, the striking and difficult to directly perceive features of the “Undertaker” they read: “the author’s frivolous attitude towards persons”; “comic characteristics”; “understatement.”

What to do? Is it possible to talk about the conceptual study of “Belkin’s Tales” while ignoring the story “The Undertaker”? By creating five extremely dissimilar (in theme, in style) stories, Pushkin combined them into a cycle, thereby revealing their integrity and closeness in spirit.

"The Undertaker" was written first (September 9, 1830), thereby setting the direction for the entire cycle. As a result, he took a middle place in the cycle, standing between “Blizzard” and “Station Agent”. Thus, the question arises about the creative logic of the movement of the author’s thought, which cannot be comprehended without including the story “The Undertaker” in school study.

When reading a work, certain images, especially when reading with interruptions, usually evoke certain thoughts in the reader - such thoughts are natural and do not kill the emotionality of perception. We will ask students to record questions that arise as they independently study the text in the left column of their notebooks. And write down your answer options on the right, if any appeared during further reading. A literary text that is difficult to understand simply needs this kind of work. The system of homework should be structured so that the main unit is prepared before the lesson, and not after the lesson, so that students learn to ask questions themselves and look for answers in the text, so that the teacher analyzes written work in advance and builds on their basis to analyze a work of art in class. . Empathy deepens when what students become interested in independently receives further development in the lesson. Then knowledge becomes necessary for the students themselves and gives rise to new questions.

One student, without special preparation, will start a conversation about the main character in class. It’s not scary if you talk about the character as if you were talking about a real person whom you just met. When identifying initial perceptions, a naive-realistic approach is quite justified.

Imagine a literary hero as an acquaintance of yours; the writer introduced you to him, showing him in different circumstances and from different sides. Let's now speak about him: how do you imagine him? How is it unusual or, conversely, ordinary? Why did Pushkin decide to offer readers the image of the undertaker Adriyan Prokhorov? What is the secret of this character?

For what purpose, in your opinion, is the hero-undertaker presented by Pushkin? Either to study a representative of this profession, or for the purpose of having fun, or even to capture the author’s own sad state of health at the time of writing. What is the mood of the story? What brings a gloomy note to the beginning of the story?

The leading motive of the narrative is an indication of the gloomy character of Adrian Prokhorov, his gloominess. A gloomy note is also introduced by the character's craft. The epigraph to the story also sets it up. In Pushkin, epigraphs always have a special semantic role that organizes the whole. . “Do we not see every day the coffins, the gray hairs of the decrepit universe”- words from Derzhavin’s “Waterfall”.

Do you think the style of the epigraph correlates with the general style of the story? The high, solemn sound of lines from Derzhavin, their cosmic philosophy, on the one hand, and the insignificant farce from the life of a Moscow undertaker, on the other. Contrast or combination?

The contrast seems to be the high style of the epigraph against the background of the initial, deliberately lowered phrase about the undertaker's luggage, loaded onto the funeral ditch. It is obvious that death has not evoked special feelings in the hero for a long time. There is also irony in the description of the sign, “depicting a portly (!) Cupid (!)... with the caption: “Here, simple and painted coffins are sold and upholstered, they are also rented (!) and old ones (!) are repaired.” Is all this a clear discrepancy with the epigraph? Maybe the author deliberately puts his “low” hero face to face with the eternal questions of existence? After all, they stand not before the chosen ones, but before any mortal. How does a person understand his purpose in life? Does he care about the meaning?

Pushkin's humanism is revealed in the fact that every person in the world is part of the universality and truth of the universe. The author of the story “The Undertaker” suggests seeing something more, significant in an ordinary person (without making the hero better, without embellishing his character). By combining the universal scale of death in the epigraph and the everyday, comic story with the “dead” in the story itself, Pushkin establishes a system of relationships: life-death, being-being. Pushkin again poses questions to readers. What is the meaning of life? How to achieve happiness, what does it consist of? Can the hero be called an “ordinary” person? What does a “simple” person dream of? Thus, the writer, opening the Belkin world to readers, seems to open the doors, but not to the funeral master’s shop, but to Russian life, to the circle of “eternal” questions and problems.

To understand the character of the hero and his role in the ideological orientation of the story, we will select the starting character trait of the image-character, clearly defined in the text, and try to develop it. Prokhorov’s “gloominess” is that artistic detail without which it is impossible to comprehend the story.

The reasons for this gloom? How does it show up in the story? What underlies the character of the hero: a merchant's profit (other people's death as a means of profit), a cynical attitude towards the world and people (he calmly drinks tea on the coffins placed in the room) or something else?

What could be a joyful event for this person? The move to a new place is long-awaited, but there is not a shadow of joy in the hero’s feelings: “Approaching the yellow house, which had seduced his imagination for so long and which he had finally bought for a considerable sum, the old undertaker felt with surprise that his heart was not rejoicing.”

Said as if in passing. But in essence, we have before us the key to the hero’s inner world. In the manuscript there was originally a “pink house”. What associations arise in connection with this color? What did the author want to say by replacing the color? Yellow in the spectrum of Russian culture is considered to gravitate towards the expression of negative-negative meanings. Elegiac memories of the “ramshackle shack” are also a signal; It’s no coincidence that Adrian’s further reaction is even more difficult to explain: “felt With surprise This your indifference." Lack of joy is a serious symptom of a person’s internal state. But “surprise” at this circumstance is already the beginning of a reaction that could entail a number of serious changes in attitude towards life. Is stability of life always the key to contentment and success? What synonym can be found here for the word “stability”? The immobility and immutability of everyday life is a kind of non-existence raised to an absolute. The “gloominess” of an undertaker is not just an attribute of the profession. Next to “gloominess” in the text there is “thoughtfulness”: the hero “sullen and thoughtful”, “as usual... immersed in sad thoughts.” A certain chain of transitions arises: gloomy–sullen–frowning–pensive.

What is the reason for the hero's thoughtfulness? What is he dissatisfied with in life?

Let's compare Adriyan Prokhorov with other characters in the story. “Cheerful” Schultz is the antipode of the “gloomy” Adrian. Why do we put keywords in quotes? How should they be understood in the context of the work?

In Prokhorov’s “gloom” lies dissatisfaction with life, ripening, as we will see later, protest. The following opposition is created: “gloominess–gaiety” as “thoughtfulness–thoughtlessness in relation to life.” As for the outside, a cheerfully smiling Schultz sits at Prokhorov’s samovar against the backdrop of coffins leaning against the walls and calmly drinks tea.

In the story there is another named character in the foreground, whose function is unclear to students upon initial perception. This is the watchman - the Chukhonian Yurko. Together with Prokhorov and Schultz, he forms a kind of semantic “triangle”. Is he opposed to the main character or, on the contrary, correlated with him? Great events are happening around, the life of the capital city is going on, and Yurko spends his days at his booth. The historical events of Moscow are passing by. This exclusion from historical events, from the life of the city is the same immutability, for nothing can change his life: he is always next to his booth, like Adrian next to the coffins.

But how are the heroes different? Pushkin does not have characters that duplicate each other. The heroes, as we said, form a “triangle,” that is, they are all comparable and contrasted at the same time. Let us once again pay attention to the fact that Adrian, unlike Yurko, who is satisfied with everything in life, intuitively senses the absurdity of hopelessness, joylessness, and inferiority of his existence. That's why he's gloomy and thoughtful. He has a need to see the perspective of life, its dynamics, which should destroy the immutability of being, that is, indicate the meaning and significance of further existence. In this case, inviting the dead to your housewarming party is Prokhorov’s “rebellion.” “Why is my craft not more honest than others?” - “...is the undertaker the brother of the executioner?..” What are we talking about here? About the dignity of human existence, no less.

The story about what is happening in reality is replaced by an image of what is happening in a dream. But how does it change? Unnoticed. What is the meaning of the imperceptibility of such a transition? Why does the author need that the person reading this work for the first time cannot distinguish reality from a dream until the very end?

The earliest “epigraph” to Boldino’s works of 1830 was the poem “Demons”. Maybe in it we will find the key to answering the question asked?

Are there situations in the poem on the border between reality and illusoryness? (“What’s there in the field?” - “Who knows? A tree stump or a wolf?”; Do they bury a brownie, // Are they marrying off a witch?) Before us is not just a specific image of a snowstorm, a description of events - before us is an image of a person’s inner world, where something that is impossible in real life can happen.

What is the role of the fantastic in the poem about demons and in the story about the appearance of the dead? The incomprehensible, the unknown in Pushkin belongs not to the external world, but to the world of the “inner man” and is another key to understanding the nature of the image-character. This fantasy is not fantasy as such, but a method of depicting the inner essence, psychology, and character of the hero. What is the source of the supposed joy in Adriyan's dream? Adrian is waiting for a “joyful event” - the death of a profitable client, merchant Tryukhina. But, having come true in a dream, the desire does not bring him joy, but becomes just a household detail, everyday troubles. This means that profit and profit are not the determining components in the hero’s life. You should pay attention to one more detail, which also calls into question acquisitiveness as the main trait of the character. Not forgetting his own benefit, Adrian, however, does not walk around like other merchants on Razgulay near Tryukhina, like a raven who has smelled a dead body. What is a joy for merchants is the gain, for Prokhorov it is more likely the usual troubles of a coffin master.

How is his meeting with his dead acquaintances presented? What feelings does the hero experience here? What is the point of talking to a skeleton? What does awakening look like? On the one hand, hope and illusory joy from a profitable order disappear. But they are suddenly replaced by... new joy. What is it? Phantom or real? This is a burst of joy in the light of the sun of living life.

The “gloomy” hero at the beginning of the story becomes “happy” at the end. And this is already dynamics. “Oh! - said the delighted undertaker... Well, if so, let's have some tea soon Yes, call your daughters.” A failed funeral does not cause either annoyance or irritation. The result is a bright major splash. Thus, there is a refutation of the original situation, a denial of the immobility and hopelessness of existence. This means that the basis of a person’s character is not acquisitiveness or a cynical attitude towards the world and people. The hidden dominant of the story is the urgent need for joy. It carries the designation of the obligation to awaken a person to life, the desire to enjoy, to be a full participant in existence.

Why did Pushkin show this in the life story of some undertaker? Pushkin emphasizes that the desire for the joy of life is inherent in any person, that everyone in this world is self-sufficient and worthy of respect. A “small” person in terms of social status is not at all like that in spiritual terms: both Adriyan Prokhorov, and Samson Vyrin from “The Station Agent”, and other heroes of Pushkin declare their right to ordinary well-being and dignity, understood in a direct, narrower sense - to feel like a person next to the powers that be, and in a broader sense - to be a person in your own eyes.

Will anything change in the undertaker's life from the moment he awakens? Outwardly, perhaps, everything will remain the same, but “internally” the hero is already different. The word “thinking” means the work of thought, the search for the meaning of life. “Thinking,” a person instinctively “anticipates” another, more interesting side of existence. Having awakened from the nightmare, the hero feels this new life, he receives - for the first time in many years - joy from his stay in the world, from communicating with other people.

What unites the story “The Undertaker” with other works of the “Belkin” cycle? Ultimately, this is a question that encapsulates Pushkin’s main conceptual idea - about a person’s place in life, about happiness, honor and dignity.

As mentioned above, the next story after “The Undertaker” was “The Station Agent.” Comparison of heroes and the question: what is the connection between these two stories? - can become homework for the next lesson.

Despite the variety of topics, the cycle of “Tales” is endowed with a single meaning. Already in the first story of the cycle, “The Undertaker,” the idea is affirmed that the life of the smallest person, in some ways even an outcast among fellow artisans, can be given against the backdrop of cosmic existence (epigraph from Derzhavin). The question of human life and death, about the value of life, was posed by Pushkin on a large scale and deeply in “The Shot”, and in “The Snowstorm”, and in “The Station Agent”, and in “The Young Lady-Peasant”.