The story of Vanyusha in the story of the fate of a person. Vanyushka from the legendary film “The Fate of Man” worked as a taxi driver for many years. Essay about Vanyusha

There are many works in Russian literature that tell about the Great Patriotic War. A striking example is Mikhail Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man,” where the author gives us not so much a description of the war, but a description of the life of an ordinary person during the difficult war years. In the story "The Fate of Man" the main characters are not historical figures, not titled officials, nor famous officers. They are ordinary people, but with a very difficult fate.

Main characters

Sholokhov's story is small in volume, it takes up only ten pages of text. And there are not so many heroes in it. The main character of the story is a Soviet soldier - Andrei Sokolov. Everything that happens to him in life, we hear from his lips. Sokolov is the narrator of the entire story. His named son, the boy Vanyusha, plays an important role in the story. It ends the sad story of Sokolov and opens a new page in his life. They become inseparable from each other, so let’s classify Vanyusha as one of the main characters.

Andrey Sokolov

Andrei Sokolov is the main character of the story “The Fate of Man” by Sholokhov. His character is truly Russian. How many troubles he experienced, what torments he endured, only he himself knows. The hero speaks about this on the pages of the story: “Why did you, life, cripple me like that?

Why did you distort it like that?” He slowly tells his life from beginning to end to a fellow traveler with whom he sat down to have a cigarette by the road.

Sokolov had to endure a lot: hunger, captivity, the loss of his family, and the death of his son on the day the war ended. But he endured everything, survived everything, because he had a strong character and iron fortitude. “That’s why you’re a man, that’s why you’re a soldier, to endure everything, to endure everything, if need calls for it,” Andrei Sokolov himself said. His Russian character did not allow him to break down, retreat in the face of difficulties, or surrender to the enemy. He snatched life from death itself.
All the hardships and cruelties of the war that Andrei Sokolov endured did not kill his human feelings or harden his heart. When he met little Vanyusha, just as lonely as he was, just as unhappy and unwanted, he realized that he could become his family. “There is no way for us to disappear separately! I’ll take him as my child,” Sokolov decided. And he became a father to a homeless boy.

Sholokhov very accurately revealed the character of the Russian man, a simple soldier who fought not for ranks and orders, but for the Motherland. Sokolov is one of those many who fought for the country, not sparing their lives. He embodied the entire spirit of the Russian people - persistent, strong, invincible. The characterization of the hero of the story “The Fate of a Man” is given by Sholokhov through the speech of the character himself, through his thoughts, feelings, and actions. We walk with him through the pages of his life. Sokolov goes through a difficult path, but remains human. A kind, sympathetic person who lends a helping hand to little Vanyusha.

Vanyusha

A boy of five or six years old. He was left without parents, without a home. His father died at the front, and his mother was killed by a bomb while traveling on a train. Vanyusha walked around in tattered, dirty clothes, and ate what people served. When he met Andrei Sokolov, he reached out to him with all his soul. “Dear folder! I knew! I knew you would find me! You'll find it anyway! I’ve been waiting so long for you to find me!” – the delighted Vanyusha shouted with tears in his eyes. For a long time he could not tear himself away from his father, apparently afraid that he would lose him again. But in Vanyusha’s memory the image of his real father was preserved; he remembered the leather cloak that he wore. And Sokolov told Vanyusha that he probably lost him in the war.

Two loneliness, two destinies are now intertwined so tightly that they can never be separated. The heroes of “The Fate of Man” Andrei Sokolov and Vanyusha are now together, they are one family. And we understand that they will live according to their conscience, in truth. They will survive everything, they will survive everything, they will be able to do everything.

Minor characters

There are also a number of minor characters in the work. This is Sokolov’s wife Irina, his children – daughters Nastenka and Olyushka, son Anatoly. They don’t speak in the story, they are invisible to us, Andrei remembers them. The company commander, the dark-haired German, the military doctor, the traitor Kryzhnev, Lagerführer Müller, the Russian colonel, Andrei’s Uryupinsk friend - all these are the heroes of Sokolov’s own story. Some have neither a first nor a last name, because they are episodic characters in Sokolov’s life.

The real, audible hero here is the author. He meets Andrei Sokolov at the crossing and listens to his life story. It is with him that our hero talks, to whom he tells his fate.

Work test

Vanyushka in M.A. Sholokhov’s work “The Fate of a Man” is a prototype of purity and naivety. During the war years 1941 - 1945. The boy's parents die tragically, his father at the front, and his mother on the train from a bomb explosion. Vanyushka has nothing and no one left, no relatives, no roof over his head. And here on his life’s path, namely in the fall of 1945 in Uryupinsk, he meets Andrei Sokolov. All attention in this story is focused on this person. But the description of his image would not be complete without the boy Vanyushka, small but strong.

When Andrei Sokolov meets Vanyushka, he looks like a child about 5 or 6 years old. The boy was all dirty, shaggy and hungry. The man takes Vanyushka into his upbringing and tells him that he is his father. The boy rejoices at this news, perhaps knowing deep down that it is a lie. Vanyushka misses human affection and warmth, which is why he accepts Andrei Sokolov as a father. The child was very happy about such a meeting, kissed and hugged Andrei, saying that he had been waiting and believed that he would find him.

The man loves Vanyushka like his own son and takes care of him. First he took him to the hairdresser, then he gave him a bath, and when Vanyushka fell asleep, he ran to the shops. I bought him a shirt, sandals and a cap. Vanyushka missed Andrei Sokolov when he was not at home. These two are orphaned people who found each other.

In the story “The Fate of a Man,” the author does not immediately give a portrait description of Vanyushka. He does it gradually. The story is told from the perspective of the narrator and the main character. When meeting Andrei Sokolov on the pier, the narrator carefully examines Vanechka and at the same time jokes with him, calling him “old man.” The boy has curly brown hair, and his hands are pink and cold. Most of all I remember Vanyushka’s eyes – light and blue.

This child is a small but strong personality. He's already been through so much. Vanyushka managed to warm the cold soul of Andrei Sokolov, who had also seen a lot on his way.

The story “The Fate of Man” is a work about victory over human fate. The boy, small but strong in spirit, became the meaning of life for a man from whom fate had taken away everything that was most precious and worth living for.

Option 2

Each person has his own destiny and his own path in life. Sometimes we are unable to change life situations, because what is destined from above will definitely come true, whether we want it or not. Life is a series of events that happen: good, pleasant, and sometimes bad and bringing misfortune to a person. But all the events and people that occur in a person’s life are not accidental. All this has its own meaning, its own purpose, you just need to be able to understand it.

In Mikhail Sholokhov’s work “The Fate of a Man,” Vanyusha appeared in the life of Andrei Sokolov also not by chance, and the main character quickly realized this. At the first meeting, this boy, who was five or six years old, made a strong impression on Sokolov. This little ragamuffin, as the author calls him, fell in love with Andrei Sokolov so much that he missed him, and every evening he hurried to the teahouse to see Vanyushka. This boy was an orphan, his father died at the front, and his mother was killed by a bomb on a train, and Vanyusha was left completely alone. He spent the night wherever he had to, and ate near the teahouse what passers-by would give him.

The child was dirty, his face was covered with dust, his hair was unwashed and unkempt. But his eyes were so bright and expressive, like stars in the night sky. These were children's eyes that radiated faith and hope that everything would be fine. Vanyusha really believed that his father would soon return from the front, and they would be together. Every day he walked near the teahouse or simply sat on the porch, dangling his legs, and waited. The child’s faith was so strong because he understood that children cannot live alone, they must have parents.

All Vanyusha’s expectations and hopes came true, he had a father. There was so much joy and delight when he heard from Andrei Sokolov that he was his father. The boy threw himself on the neck and pressed himself to the cheek of this adult man. The child was overwhelmed with feelings, he screamed thinly and loudly, it was a joyful cry from the soul from great happiness. Vanyusha believed with all his childish heart that this really was his father, he did not have a single drop of doubt. After all, the boy wanted this so badly.

Andrei Sokolov took the boy to his place and began to live together. He looked after him with fatherly care, and what he could not cope with was helped by the mistress of the house, with whom Andrei lived temporarily. The child accepted this care with all the love of a child, because until recently he had been deprived of it. Vanyushka always tried to be with his father, to be separated from him as little as possible, but Andrei did not resist this.

They are two orphaned souls, like two grains of sand, who found each other, an adult and a child, so different and so similar in their grief. Each of them felt light and light in their souls, life again found meaning for both.

Essay about Vanyusha

Sholokhov's story “The Fate of Man” is permeated with the tragedy of war, its inhumanity in relation to the destinies of people. Two loneliness meet completely by chance and find each other. Andrei Sokolov, who fought bravely in the crucible of war, lost his family in this war and Vanyushka, whose father was killed at the front, and whose mother died in a train bombing. They have a common problem - the war has orphaned them. The main character of the story, Andrei Sokolov, lost interest in life, but little Vanyushka saved him from a bitter fate.

Andrey met Vanyushka near the tea shop. For several days he watched a street child who ate scraps. He looked like a boy about 5-6 years old, with brown curly hair, tangled and unkempt, with a face dirty from dust and wearing equally dirty clothes. But his clothes were of good quality, which indicated that his mother cared very much about him.

None of the passers-by paid attention to the boy, for there were many of them scattered around the world by the war. But Andrei paid attention, because he was just as lonely, and maybe because the boy’s eyes radiated warmth and trust, they were childishly naive and shone on his dirty face, like stars after a night rain.

The boy was trusting, he immediately clung to Andrey when he said that he was his dad. Vanyushka was glad that now he was not alone, that he had a kindred spirit, that someone needed him. Perhaps he understood that Andrei was not his father, but the boy more than anything wanted this to be true, and he believed that he now had a father.

Andrey took Vanyushka as his foster child, and the boy turned out to be very talkative, nimble and mischievous, he brought big changes into his life, filled it with happiness and joy. Andrei fell in love with him very much and found the meaning of life.

Vanyushka found his father’s love and quickly became attached to his new father, he missed him when he was away from home for a long time and picked him up from work.

This boy saved Andrei Sokolov from the sad fate of fate, he brightened up his existence, made him believe in a future that seemed useless and lonely to him. This little boy completely changed Andrei's life.

In the image of Vanyushka, the author showed the harsh truth about children of the post-war era who were left orphans. They were hungry, homeless, but did not lose the will to live and bravely endured all the hardships and hardships. These children, like Vanyushka, had will and perseverance, spiritual purity and naivety. They believed in a bright future.

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Pavel Polunin has bad memories from communicating with Fyodor Bondarchuk

Pavel Polunin has bad memories from communicating with Fyodor Bondarchuk

In 1959, the story of the homeless child Vanyushka, who was reliably played by Pavel POLUNIN in Sergei BONDARCHUK’s film drama “The Fate of a Man,” touched everyone. On January 19 this year he celebrated his 60th birthday. "Express Gazeta" congratulated Pavel Evgenievich on his anniversary and found out how his life turned out after filming in the classics of Russian cinema.

In a respectable man today, it is difficult to recognize the grimy kid as we remember him in the film. However, the years have not taken away from Pavel Polunina childlike spontaneity and kindness. We convinced ourselves of this when we visited him and his friendly wife in a cozy “one-room apartment” in the center of Zheleznodorozhny.

My wife and I live modestly, but I have always tried to ensure that the family does not need anything,” the matured “Vanyushka” began the conversation. - During my life I changed many professions: I started as a mechanic’s apprentice, worked as an engineer, as a secretary in the regional committee of the Komsomol, as a department head in the youth tourism bureau. In the mid-2000s, he was laid off. He sold auto parts, then got a job in a taxi.

- You had a good start in becoming an actor.

I got into “The Fate of Man” easily, although there were many contenders for the role of Vanyushka. When Bondarchuk desperate to find a suitable boy, my father - then a student at VGIK - suggested me. This was Sergei Fedorovich’s first directorial work, and he often consulted with himself Sholokhov. Before filming, we arrived in the village of Veshenskaya. Sholokhov immediately asked who would play the boy. They put me out of action, the writer came up, ruffled my hair and said: “Let’s see what kind of Vanyushka you will turn out to be.” Approved, that is. By the way, remember the moment when Vanyushka and Sokolov are running through the flood with blossoming apple trees? In fact, the apple trees had already bloomed before filming, and Don had already moved on. To film the beautiful scene, the group had to cut down trees and attach paper flowers to each branch.

- You weren’t even six years old then, how did you cope?

The hardest part was remembering the text. I couldn’t read yet, so I learned the role by ear, from my mother’s words. Bondarchuk himself helped: he took me with him everywhere, even if scenes with my participation were not filmed. At that time, my mother and father did not live very amicably, and I lacked a male upbringing. Sergei Fedorovich was able to win me over, which is probably why the scene of the meeting between Sokolov and Vanyushka, when the boy shouts: “Folder, dear, I knew that you would find me!” - came out so convincingly.

- Did you get it off the first time?

Bondarchuk used an interesting cinematographic trick: usually the director first films, and then the dubbing comes, but here it’s the other way around - first they recorded the sound, and then the image. To do this, I and a sound engineer were taken to the steppe for two hours.

- For a child, acting in a movie is always an adventure. Have you made many discoveries for yourself?

They talked to me like I was a real actor, but they didn’t allow me to be capricious - my mother quickly put me in my place. True, once Sergei Fedorovich brought me to tears: he rejected the headdress that was given to me for filming - it was too clean for a street child. Local boys crowded nearby. Bondarchuk approached one, gave me my cap, and pushed the greasy cap onto my head. I burst into tears out of resentment.

- You very convincingly portrayed a ragamuffin picking up watermelon rinds at a tea shop.

Back then I didn’t understand what the film was about. We filmed the episode at the tea shop near Voronezh. They dressed me in rags, turned on the camera, and then a local resident approached Bondarchuk: “Why is your child so poor and hungry? Take it, the women and I collected something for him - clothes, baked some pies.” It was so touching. Very little time passed after the war, but people did not become hardened in soul and were ready to give their last.

- And how naturally you devoured the soup in the frame!

Before filming the episode, Bondarchuk called my mother and warned that the scene was serious - I had to act as if I had not been fed for two days. You can imagine: during filming, I eagerly thrashed a two-liter pan of pickle juice! Bondarchuk was shocked. “Didn’t you really feed him?” - he turned to his mother. In fact, the rassolnik was very tasty - I still love it.

- What did you spend your fee on for the role of Vanyushka?

During filming, I earned more than I do now. The salary was 1000 rubles. Mom, as a “tutor of a young actor,” received 800. It was decent money - a bun cost seven kopecks. With that money, my mother bought me new clothes and everything I needed for school.

- Were your classmates jealous?

No, but when our class was about to be transferred to another school, for some reason all the kids transferred except me. My classmates thought that they left me behind due to connections, so they often beat me for it. I didn't appear on the screen for long. After “The Fate of Man” he starred in ten more films (“Annushka”, “First Date”, “Friends and Years”, etc. - A.K.), and then came a breakdown in voice and character. They tried me for several films, but they didn’t take me. For example, he failed the audition for the film “Leader of the Redskins” because he looked too kindly: the director needed a little animal that could stuff a grown man’s collar with a potato, and even give him a kick. In "Welcome or No Trespassing" Elem Klimov chose between me and Viktor Kosykh. But my mother didn’t let me into “Engineer Garin’s Hyperboloid”: in the story, a boy is killed with a laser beam - a bad omen.

- Is this the end of your acting career?

After school, I tried to enter VGIK, but failed the exams and joined the army. I didn’t boast about my work in cinema and told my parents that I would try to get into acting on my own. In addition, after her divorce from her father, her mother married Evgenia Polunina, who gave me his last name - in the credits for “The Fate of Man” I was listed as Pasha Boriskin, so the name Polunin didn’t mean anything to anyone. After serving, I tried to enroll twice more, but it didn’t work out. The third time my mother got involved: she somehow agreed with Bondarchuk to look at me. We met at VGIK, Sergei Fedorovich took me into the hall where the state commission was sitting and asked me to read something. I was confused: “I thought you would ask how my life turned out, take an interest in my affairs.” I left the hall and closed the path to cinema for myself. But I don't regret it.

- Have you seen Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk again?

One more time in 1984 on the 25th anniversary of the film. The Likhachev Plant nominated “The Fate of Man” for the State Prize. We arrived there, performed and went our separate ways. I was 31 years old then. And in 2009, my wife and I were invited to Veshenskaya to celebrate the 104th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Sholokhov. I haven’t been to that land for half a century, but when I arrived, I remembered everything - even where the sheepfold and chicken coop once were. But I still have bad memories from communicating with Bondarchuk’s son, Fedor. When the film turned 45, I called him. Fedor answered dryly: “I don’t deal with these issues, contact someone else.” Apparently, he was busy with long-legged girls - at that time he was hosting the program “You Are a Supermodel.” I reasoned this way: if my own son doesn’t need anything, then why would I bother?

Enemies burned down my home,
They killed his entire family.
Where should the soldier go now?
To whom should I bear my sorrow?
M. V. Isakovsky

“The Fate of a Man” is a story about how a man conquered his fate, and a child became the symbol of this victory. At the front and in German captivity, Andrei Sokolov showed himself to be a courageous and persistent soldier, but by nature he is a very peaceful person. While in captivity, he kept dreaming about his family; in his dreams, he talked to his wife Irina and children: “... I will return, my family, don’t worry about me, I am strong, I will survive, and again we will all be together...”. So thoughts about his family helped him survive in the fascist camp. Two years later, returning home from captivity, he heard from a neighbor a story about the death of his wife and daughters in a bombing. But his eldest son Anatoly was alive, and Andrei Sokolov again began to dream of family life, how after the war he would marry his son and nurse his grandchildren. His son died on Victory Day from a German sniper’s bullet, and his father buried “his last joy and hope in a foreign, German land.” Thus, during the war years, Andrei Sokolov lost everything he valued in life: his wife, children, home.

The hero could not marry another time, since he was monogamous by nature. This reserved and stern man dearly loved his wife: “Looking from the outside, she wasn’t that distinguished, but I wasn’t looking at her from the outside, but point-blank. And for me there was no one more beautiful and desirable than her, there was not and never will be!” Sokolov embodies an active, creative principle: the hero could not live only for himself, with his suffering and difficult war memories - this is not his character. This concept of personality is close to the writer: it is a hero with a courageous and generous character who can resist tragic historical events. Andrei Sokolov needs to take care of others, give himself to people, love. Therefore, he immediately paid attention to the homeless child at the tea shop, saw his “little eyes”, so clear, “like stars after the rain.” The following circumstance is noteworthy: Vanyushka lived for several days near the teahouse where local drivers dined; Many adults saw this boy, feeding on handouts and scraps, but only Andrei Sokolov warmed him up. The boy was adopted by a man with poor health, without a home, without a wife, but, for example, not by the childless friend of Andrei Sokolov, who has a house and a housewife in Uryupinsk.

The child saved the hero from loneliness and despair, the life of an orphaned adult “made sense”, that is, received a worthy goal that fully corresponds to his character and beliefs. Andrei Sokolov gave the boy the fatherly love that the child so dreamed of. The life of the little orphan, tragic at the very beginning, straightened out thanks to a chance meeting at the teahouse. Thus, father and son, orphaned and lost separately, found a common destiny.

Sholokhov evaluates Andrei Sokolov as a true hero, not only because the soldier survived in the most difficult conditions of the front and camp, but also because he managed to retain kindness, sympathy for the suffering of others and the desire to help the weak. Caring for Vanyushka became a worthy content of the life of the main character. The child, as well as the spring landscape, become symbols of the unstoppability of life, symbols of hope. When Andrei Sokolov and Vanyushka approach the author sitting at the crossing, he quickly compares their appearance. The father is tall, stooped, casually dressed in a burnt padded jacket; the boy is small, dressed in a neatly sewn jacket and small boots. One has “big callous hands”; the other has “pink little hands.” An adult has a mortal melancholy in his eyes, which made the author feel uneasy; The little one has a trusting, naively clear look.

Beginning his confession, Andrei Sokolov sends Vanyushka to the water to play, and the child practically falls out of the author’s field of vision, captivated by the story of a random interlocutor. But by the end of the confession, the theme of a deprived and saved childhood comes to the fore, since through his attitude towards the child, Sholokhov tests the spiritual qualities of the adult heroes - Andrei Sokolov and the author. Andrei Sokolov is afraid that he may die of a heart attack and the boy will again be an orphan, and the author turns away so that Vanyushka is not afraid of the tears of his gray-haired “uncle.”

To summarize, it should be noted that the main thing in “The Fate of Man” is the tragic pathos that permeates the entire story. The fates of children, destitute (Vanyushka) or killed (Andrei Sokolov’s own children), are clear evidence of the inhumanity of war. The fate of the main character of the story becomes a living curse of the war. Even when Andrei Sokolov finds a new son, there is no happy ending: the hero sees his wife Irina and his own children in his dreams every night and feels that his health is deteriorating every day.

This premonition of a tragic end is intricately intertwined with Sholokhov’s favorite idea of ​​the inevitable, no matter what, triumph of life over death. Confirming his optimistic view of the world, in the endings of the most tragic works, the writer depicts spring and a child - symbols of life. On the last page of the novel “Quiet Don”, completely devastated, calling for death as deliverance, Grigory Melekhov stands at the threshold of his home and holds his son Mishatka in his arms. In “The Fate of Man,” Andrei Sokolov walks to a docked boat, and Vanyushka, his adopted but beloved son, minces nearby.