Bitter Makar Chudra analysis briefly. “The theme of freedom in M. Gorky’s story “Makar Chudra.” The main characters and their characteristics


Composition

1. Romantic stories by M. Gorky.
2. Story composition, plot, characters, conflict.
3. Conflict resolution. Author's position.

You go, well, go your own way, without turning to the side. Straight ahead and go. Maybe you won’t lose your life in vain. That's it, falcon!
M. Gorky

The early stories of M. Gorky are called works of romanticism of the “new stage”. His revolutionary romantic “Makar Chudra”, “Chelkash”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “Song of the Falcon”, “Song of the Petrel” are on the same level. Their bright heroes are endowed with the main feature - a passion for freedom. This determines their actions. Based on the traditions of Russian classical literature, the writer puts a special pathos into his works: romance calls for action, struggle, and achievement of heroism. They were relevant as propaganda on the eve of the revolution and remain relevant now because they contain wisdom.

The author's years of wandering around Russia gave him vast life experience. He wrote down his impressions in a travel notebook, and many stories were later included in his works. “Makar Chudra” was the first published story by M. Gorky. It was he, published in 1892 in the Tiflis newspaper “Caucasus”, who was first signed with this pseudonym. The story immediately attracted attention with its vivid images and topical issues. Gorky told a legend he heard on his travels about people who value independence and freedom more than anything else in the world.

The story is constructed in an unusual way - the author uses a frame composition, this is the so-called “story within a story.” The story begins with a dialogue between the old gypsy Makara Chudra and the narrator. The image of the narrator here is special. This is a dialogue where we do not hear the narrator’s words, and we do not see him himself; there are only responses from Makara Chudra.

Gorky's heroes are the embodiment of pride and audacity, integral characters, independent of their passions, beautiful and self-confident people. Old Makar says that for him the truth of life is freedom. He was not born to be a slave, the will and expanse of the steppe are clear to him, “the sound of the sea wave gladdens his heart.” Makar believes that you need to live without stopping in one place and without thinking about life, so as not to stop loving it. There is no need to ask yourself why you live, otherwise you will be overcome by melancholy. He does not understand the Russian, who advises him to live according to God’s word and says that then God will give everything: why doesn’t he himself ask him for new clothes to replace the torn ones? The gypsy tells a story that “as soon as you remember, you will be a free bird throughout your life.” Freedom for him is the greatest value in the world.

This romantic legend helps us understand the hero's inner world and what he values. The daring fellow Loiko Zobar loved only horses, and even then not for long - he had nothing cherished and he was not afraid of anything. This is how Makar Chudra characterizes him: “I’ll be damned if I didn’t already love him as myself, before he said a word to me or simply noticed that I also live in this world! Look, falcon, what kind of people there are! He will look into your eyes and fill your soul, and you are not at all ashamed of this, but also proud for you. With such a person you become a better person. There are few such people, friend!.. And he is as wise as an old man, and knowledgeable in everything, and he understood Russian and Magyar literacy. It used to be that he would go talk and wouldn’t sleep for a long time listening to him! And he plays - God bless me if anyone else in the world played like that! He used to draw a bow along the strings - and your heart would tremble, draw it again - and it would freeze, listening, and he plays and smiles. I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time, listening to him.”

The beautiful Radda would not sell her freedom and pride for any money. When Zobar tells her of his love, she knocks him down with a belt whip. And then she comes to him to make peace. This is what Radda Loiko says: “I have never loved anyone, Loiko, but I love you. And I also love freedom! Will, Loiko, I love you more than you. And I can’t live without you, just as you can’t live without me. So I want you to be mine, body and soul.” Radda demands from the loving gypsy that he submit to her as the eldest, in full view of the entire camp. Gypsies are such proud people that kneeling is like death for them. However, the hard-hearted Radda demands this from Loiko, promising him her love. Why is Rudd's "devil wench" behaving this way? Why is it not easy for Loiko to confess his love? The heroes are freedom-loving and do not want to be subordinated to anything, even love passion. They do not recognize dependence even on a loved one, and therefore they talk about love and immediately fight for independence, for supremacy.

How do the gypsies feel about what is happening? They “even wanted to go somewhere, just not to see Loiko Zobar fall at the feet of a girl - even if this girl was Radda. I was ashamed of something, and sorry, and sad.” How is the conflict resolved? What do the heroes choose? The ending of the story is tragic. Loiko refuses to bow at her feet and plunges a knife into Radda, and then kneels in front of the dead girl. Before her death, Radda says that she knew that Loiko would do so, appreciating the fact that he did not give up his ideal for the sake of love, did not humiliate himself. Radda's father, Danilo, plunges the same knife into Loiko's back.

The landscape in the story conveys the feelings of the characters - “the sea sang a gloomy and solemn hymn to the proud pair of handsome gypsies.” A seascape with a strong cold wind, the silent darkness of the steppe, autumn rain, the flame of a fire - these sketches look like the frame of a legend. The author says that a person will only become a fighter if he has achieved inner freedom. Gorky gives Loiko the traits and makings of a folk hero, ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of another person or for the sake of an idea.

The story of Zobar and Radda shows that they value freedom more than life and love. Everyone sets their own impossible conditions for their loved one. According to Makar Chudra, pride and love are incompatible, and more than anything else, a gypsy must protect his independence, even if it can only be preserved at the cost of his own life. The narrator leads us to the idea that pride dooms a person to loneliness. And therefore the heroes become hostages of their freedom.

Composition

The long and fruitful career of M. Gorky began with the story “Makar Chudra”. The main theme of M. Gorky's stories, especially his early works, is the question of man. The writer shows the world as split, and a person is forced either to come to terms with the death of his personality, or is forced to look for ways to revive it. Questions of the spirit occupied many writers at the beginning of the century, not only among the intelligentsia, but also among the common people. The heroes of M. Gorky's early stories are the so-called “tramps”. These people feel responsible for the general disorder and begin to look for a way out. M. Gorky's heroes are strong personalities, and the depiction of their lives is imbued with the spirit of freedom. A prominent place in his work belongs to the romantic principle. M. Gorky affirms the ideal of a strong, free-spirited personality capable of heroic deeds. He is especially attracted to “obstinate people, mischievous people or happy sinners” - cheerful and proud people who know no fear of life. Such people are cramped within the framework set by fate, they try to expand them. Studying the fates and characters of such people, Gorky traveled a lot around Russia, explaining this with “the desire to see where I live, what kind of people are around me.” In the form of legends and fairy tales, Gorky develops his understanding of freedom, true and imaginary, and the ways to achieve it. The author's search for a perfect spiritual experience began with an appeal to the memory of generations, which has preserved beautiful pages of the past in legends and tales of different peoples. It is possible to understand the meaning of these Gorky tales only in their correlation with realistic stories. The romantic hero finds himself included in an environment of limited or cruel, evil fellow tribesmen. But the more bleak and dull his existence, the stronger his need for the bright, the unknown. In the romantic images, the writer’s bitter observations of the contradictions of the human soul and the dream of beauty are embodied in an infinitely enhanced version. Popular wisdom is addressed to a phenomenon that deeply worried the writer. Makar Chudra says: “They are funny, those people of yours. They’re huddled together and crushing each other, and there’s so much space on earth...” M. Gorky pits freedom not only against unfreedom, but also against other highest values ​​in order to establish freedom as the highest among these values. In the story “Makar Chudra” the writer collides freedom and love. The romantic hero is conceived as a destroyer of the sleepy existence of the majority.

It is said about the gypsy Loiko Zobar: “With such a person you yourself become better...”. In the bloody drama that unfolded between him and Radda, there is also a rejection of ordinary human fate.

The plot of the story is based on a poetic love story. But the passion is not love, but a passion for freedom - this is what determines both the thoughts and actions of the characters. The whole story is imbued with the spirit of freedom. The main question that the writer poses is how to resolve the conflict between the desire to love and be loved and the desire for complete freedom and independence? It is not surprising that the ending of the story is tragic.

“Makar Chudra” is built on the principle of “a story within a story.” Before the reader is a cold autumn night, a strong damp wind from the sea, the flames of a fire, the song of a young gypsy and the old gypsy's story about passions and feelings no less bright than fire, no less strong than the wind. The author uses the so-called frame composition to set the reader up accordingly, because the story of Zobar and Radda can be interpreted in different ways. The action takes place at night, in thick darkness, under the plaintive howl of the wind: the narrator (an eyewitness and indirect participant in the events described), lying in a “strong, beautiful pose,” grazes horses, symbolizing swiftness and freedom. Chudra's story sounds like a starless autumn night, and autumn, with its cold winds and fading nature, is a mysterious period that defies logical explanation, as well as the ending of the love story of Radda and Zobar, which is unexpected for the reader who is in the mood for an idyll.

The average reader is inclined to condemn the excessive pride of the girl and the cruelty of the guy. He calculates in his mind many options for ending this story: Zobar refuses Radda her request, and they part ways; Zobar agrees, and the matter ends with the wedding. But Gorky's ending is much brighter and more tragic. The main characters are young gypsies who have absorbed the spirit of free life with their mother's milk. The author characterizes them with individual poetic phrases: Radda’s beauty “could be played on the violin,” Zobar “would tear my heart out of my chest and give it away... if only (she) would feel good about it.”

This kind of characteristic is not only a tribute to the genre of legend. It allows the reader to understand the essence of the images drawn by the writer. Having barely read these words, we already see the heroes in front of us as real people. And we understand that the freedom-loving, proud Radda simply cannot leave with the rich gentleman, seduced by the sound of gold, and Zobar cannot steal the horse he likes, even though it is guarded by a regiment of soldiers.

For these heroes, the inability to do what the soul requires, the need to step over themselves by doing something against their will, is tantamount to a long and painful death, because freedom is their essence, their spirit. When these two people meet, “the scythe lands on the stone.” Here Gorky collides two elements - love and freedom. Love is a union of equals, the essence of love is freedom. But life often proves the opposite - in love, one person submits to another. After kissing Radda's hand, Loiko kills her. And the author, realizing that Zobar simply had no other choice (Radda did not leave him one, and she, in turn, was left with no choice by her love for freedom), at the same time does not justify this murder, punishing Loiko with the hand of Radda’s father. It’s not in vain that Radda dies with the words: “I knew you would do this!” She, too, could not live with Zobar, who humiliated himself before her, who lost himself. Radda dies happy - her lover did not disappoint her.

In all the early stories of M. Gorky, boring everyday life is opposed to rare energy by spiritual impulses. Makar Chudra concludes his story this way: “...go your own way, without turning to the side. Straight ahead and go. Maybe you won’t lose your life in vain.” Both Zobar and Radda went their own way, without betraying themselves, and their names will forever remain in the memory of people.

Maxim Gorky's first published work was the story "Makar Chudra". Its analysis makes it possible to understand that, despite his youth and inexperience, the author managed to organically depict the life of the gypsies and convey the fullness of their feelings. For Gorky, his wanderings across vast Russia were not in vain. The writer did not always have something to eat, but he never parted with his thick notebook for a minute, in which he wrote down unusual stories, legends, and some interesting events from the lives of random companions.

Gypsy love story

Analysis of “Makar Chudra” shows the author of the work in the image of a romantic writer. The main character of the story is an old gypsy who is sincerely proud of his free life. He despises peasants who are already born slaves, whose purpose is to dig in the ground, but at the same time they do not even have time to dig their own grave before death. The heroes of the legend told by Makar are the embodiment of the maximalist desire for freedom.

Radda and Loiko love each other, they are happy together, but they are too fixated on personal freedom. An analysis of “Makar Chudra” shows that the main characters even looked at love as a hateful chain that fettered them and diminished their independence. Declaring their love, young people set conditions for each other, while each of them strives to be the main one in the couple. Gypsies never kneel before anyone, this is considered a terrible humiliation, but Loiko gives in to Radda and bows before her, immediately killing his beloved, and then he himself dies at the hands of her father.

Comparison of the value systems of the gypsy and the narrator

Analysis of “Makar Chudra” shows that for the main character, Radda and Loiko are the ideals of love of freedom. The old gypsy understands that the highest degree of pride and love cannot get along together, no matter how wonderful these feelings are. But he is sure that every person must defend his freedom, even at the cost of his own life. Gorky's story is interesting because of the presence of a narrator in it, in whose image the author himself can be discerned. Its influence on the work is subtle, but still sufficient for the writer to express his own thoughts.

Gorky does not agree with all of the old gypsy’s judgments. Makar Chudra (analysis of the story shows the author’s admiration for the heroes of the legend) does not receive direct objections from the narrator, but still at the very end, summing up the story, the author says that the young people have become slaves of their freedom. Pride and independence make people unhappy and alone

nokimi, because sometimes you still have to sacrifice your interests for the sake of your family and loved ones.

Musicality of the story

An analysis of “Makar Chudra” shows how successfully the writer used the technique of landscape sketches. The frame of the entire story is the sea, which clearly expresses the feelings and state of mind of the characters. The work is filled with musicality; it is even said that Radda’s beauty can only be played on the violin. Maxim Gorky's story immediately attracted attention with the brightness of its images and memorable plot.

The story “Makar Chudra” was written in 1892 and belongs to the early period of Gorky’s work. Here his romantic ideals were especially clearly manifested. The narration is told from the point of view of the narrator. The frame is a description of the sea and a conversation with an old gypsy. Inside the text is a legend about the love of two gypsies, which Makar Chudra recalls. Thus, we have a story within a story. Below you will find an analysis of the story “Makar Chudra” by Gorky.

Features of romanticism in the story “Makar Chudra”

The main feature of romanticism as a literary movement is dual worlds: the division of the world into the real and the ideal. The story depicts an ideal world of freedom, beauty, songs and music, beautiful freedom-loving people. Already in the exhibition, Makar Chudra contrasts the eternal vegetation of ordinary people, their shameful slavery with freedom and understanding of the world. People, according to the hero, are not born to “pick up the earth.” He thinks about a person: “Does he know his will? Is the expanse of the steppe clear? Does the sound of the sea wave gladden his heart?” This is precisely the meaning and purpose of life: in understanding the world, learning its secrets. What else becomes clear when we analyze the story “Makar Chudra”?

The focus in romanticism is on the exceptional hero, free, beautiful, standing above the surrounding everyday life. Such heroes in the story are Loiko Zobar and Radda. Most of all they value the ideal of freedom. Heroes are guided by feelings, passion, and not reason.

Landscape in romanticism is not just a backdrop for action, it carries a special meaning. The love of romantics for sea and mountain views is well known. It is in the vast expanses of the sea and mountains that the free and passionate soul of an exceptional hero can find a response. The main technique when depicting nature is personification: “the sea sang a gloomy and solemn hymn,” “the darkness of the autumn night shuddered” and timidly moved away. Makar Chudra, a philosopher, a wise old gypsy, is in complete unity with the surrounding world, the quiet splash of waves, the beauty of the sea.

In the finale, the narrator seems to be immersed in an ideal world: the melody of the sea draws him to where the proud Loiko Zobar and the beautiful Radda are circling in an eternal dance.

Analysis of the story “Makar Chudra” - conflict

In his short story, Gorky touches on several serious topics. These are questions about freedom and slavery, the meaning of human life, the beauty of nature and the world as a whole, about love and self-love.

The conflict is based on the antithesis between freedom and slavery. For Makar Chudra, freedom is the opportunity to enjoy life, the absence of any restrictions. Loiko and Radda value, above all, personal freedom, independence from other people, not only externally, but also internally. They place will above everything, even above love. This is the main conflict. For heroes, to fall in love means to submit to another person, and they cannot do this, it is contrary to their nature. Therefore, a vicious circle situation arises. It is no coincidence that Radda says: “At will, Loiko, I love more than you. And I can’t live without you, just as you can’t live without me.” Even a brief analysis of the story “Makar Chudra” makes it possible to clearly understand this idea.

A beautiful gypsy can only love a strong man, whom she cannot make submissive to herself, but, having fallen in love, she will not submit herself. She gives her lover a task to test him, and knows in advance that Loiko will not fulfill the condition of bowing to her in front of the entire camp. Therefore, when the gypsy plunges a knife into her chest, Radda, smiling, says that she knew what he would do. She smiles because the hero passed the test of strength of character and love of freedom, he turned out to be worthy of Radda’s love. But the paradox is that love and pride turned out to be incompatible, so the heroes die.

This article presented an analysis of the story “Makar Chudra”. We hope you found this article helpful. Our literary blog created with the aim of highlighting different aspects of works of world literature and their authors. Read also

Editor's Choice
Hello, my dear hostesses and owners! What are the plans for the new year? No, well, what? By the way, November is already over - it’s time...

Beef aspic is a universal dish that can be served both on a holiday table and during a diet. This aspic is wonderful...

Liver is a healthy product that contains essential vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Pork, chicken or beef liver...

The savory snacks, which look like cakes, are relatively simple to prepare and layered like a sweet treat. Toppings...
03/31/2018 Surely every housewife has her own signature recipe for cooking turkey. Turkey wrapped in bacon, baked in the oven -...
- an original delicacy that differs from classic berry preparations in its tenderness and rich aroma. Watermelon jam...
It is better to remain silent and look like a cretin than to break the silence and destroy any suspicion of it. Common sense and...
Read the biography of the philosopher: briefly about life, main ideas, teachings, philosophy GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNITZ (1646-1716)German philosopher,...
Prepare the chicken. If necessary, defrost it. Check that the feathers are plucked properly. Gut the chicken, cut off the butt and neck...