The wise minnow analysis is the main theme of the fairy tale. Analysis of the work “The Wise Minnow” by Saltykov-Shchedrin. Brief analysis of the fairy tale The Wise Minnow

Composition

A special place in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin is occupied by fairy tales with their allegorical images, in which the author was able to say more about Russian society in the sixties, eighties, and tens of the nineteenth century than the historians of those years. Chernyshevsky argued: “None of the writers preceding Shchedrin painted pictures of our life in darker colors. No one punished our own ulcers with greater mercilessness.”

Saltykov-Shchedrin writes “fairy tales” “for children of a fair age,” that is, for an adult reader who needs to open his eyes to life. The fairy tale, due to the simplicity of its form, is accessible to anyone, even an inexperienced reader, and therefore is especially dangerous for the “tops.” No wonder the censor Lebedev reported: “Mr. S.’s intention to publish some of his fairy tales in separate brochures is more than strange. What Mr. S. calls fairy tales does not at all correspond to its name; his fairy tales are the same satire, and the satire is caustic, tendentious , more or less directed against our social and political structure."

The main problem of fairy tales is the relationship between exploiters and exploited. The fairy tales provide satire on Tsarist Russia: on bureaucrats, on bureaucrats, on landowners. The reader is presented with images of the rulers of Russia (“Bear in the Voivodeship”, “Eagle Patron”), exploiters and exploited (“Wild Landowner”, “How One Man Fed Two Generals”), ordinary people (“The Wise Minnow”, “Dried Roach” and others).

The fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" is directed against the entire social system, based on exploitation, and anti-people in its essence. Preserving the spirit and style of a folk tale, the satirist talks about real events in contemporary life. Although the action takes place in “a certain kingdom, a certain state,” the pages of the fairy tale depict a very specific image of a Russian landowner. The whole meaning of his existence comes down to “pampering his white, loose, crumbly body.” He lives off

his men, but hates them, is afraid, cannot stand their “servile spirit.” He considers himself a true representative of the Russian state, its support, and is proud that he is a hereditary Russian nobleman, Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev. He rejoices when some chaff whirlwind carried away all the men to God knows where, and the air in his domain became pure and pure. But the men disappeared, and there was such a famine that in the city “... you can’t buy a piece of meat or a pound of bread at the market.” And the landowner himself went completely wild: “He was all overgrown with hair, from head to toe... and his legs became like iron. He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago, and walked more and more on all fours. He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds...” ". In order not to die of hunger, when the last gingerbread was eaten, the Russian nobleman began to hunt: if he spots a hare, “like an arrow will jump from a tree, grab onto its prey, tear it apart with its nails, and eat it with all the insides, even the skin.”

The landowner's savagery indicates that he cannot live without the help of the "man." After all, it was not for nothing that as soon as the “swarm of men” was caught and put in place, “the smell of chaff and sheepskin began to smell in that district; flour and meat and all kinds of livestock appeared at the market, and so many taxes arrived in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money , just clasped his hands in surprise..."

If we compare the well-known folk tales about the master and the peasant with the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, for example, with “The Wild Landowner,” we will see that the image of the landowner in Shchedrin’s tales is very close to folk tales. But Shchedrin’s men are different from those in fairy tales. In folk tales, a quick-witted, dexterous, resourceful man defeats a stupid master. And in “The Wild Landowner” a collective image of workers, breadwinners of the country and at the same time martyrs-sufferers appears, their “tearful orphan’s prayer” sounds: “Lord, it is easier for us to perish even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!” Thus, modifying a folk tale, the writer condemns the long-suffering of the people, and his fairy tales sound like a call to rise up to fight, to renounce the slave worldview.

Many of Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are dedicated to exposing philistineism. One of the most poignant is “The Wise Minnow.” Gudgeon was "moderate and liberal." Dad taught him the “wisdom of life”: not to interfere in anything, take care of yourself. Now he sits all his life in his hole and trembles, lest he get hit in the ear or end up in the mouth of a pike. He lived like this for more than a hundred years and trembled all the time, and when the time came to die, he trembled even as he died. And it turned out that he had not done anything good in his life, and no one remembers or knows him.

The political orientation of Saltykov-Shchedrin's satire required new artistic forms. To get around censorship obstacles, the satirist had to turn to allegories, allusions, and “Aesopian language.” Thus, in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner,” telling about events “in a certain kingdom, in a certain state,” the author calls the newspaper “Vest,” mentions the actor Sadovsky, and the reader immediately recognizes Russia in the mid-19th century. And in “The Wise Minnow” the image of a small, pathetic fish, helpless and cowardly, is depicted. It perfectly characterizes the trembling man in the street. Shchedrin attributes human properties to fish and at the same time shows that humans can also have “fish” traits. The meaning of this allegory is revealed in the words of the author: “Those who think that only those minnows can be considered worthy citizens who, mad with fear, sit in a hole and tremble, believe incorrectly. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless minnows.” .

Until the end of his life, Saltykov-Shchedrin remained faithful to the ideas of his spiritual friends: Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Nekrasov. The significance of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work is all the greater because during the years of severe reaction he almost alone continued the progressive ideological traditions of the sixties.

"The Wise Minnow" is an epic work, a fairy tale for adults. However, it is included among the school program works quite justifiably, because “the fairy tale is a lie,” but, clearly, “there is a hint in it.” In this case, this is a hint of universal human vices - public and personal, which one way or another can be understood by the younger generation of readers. And since the work is small in volume, the author mainly reveals two interrelated vices - fear of any dangers and complete inaction for the sake of survival. The main character is a minnow, an allegorical image. It is both a fish and a living creature at the same time.

Composition simple tales: from the beginning of “once upon a time” through a story about mentoring from parents and a description of the gudgeon’s lifestyle - to a description of his death. The author does not try to hide the parallels between the plot and real life deep into the subtext. This is how he characterizes his hero: “He was an enlightened minnow, moderately liberal.” This phrase leaves no doubt that the text also has a connection with the author’s contemporary realities.

What does he tell us about? plot fairy tales? The life of a minnow flashes before the reader, simple in its structure, which is based on fear of the potential dangers of the world order. The hero's father and mother lived a long life and died a natural death. And before leaving for another world, they bequeathed their son to be careful, since all the inhabitants of the water world, and even man, could destroy him at any moment. The young minnow mastered his parents' science so well that he literally imprisoned himself in an underwater hole. He came out of it only at night, when everyone was sleeping, was malnourished and “trembled” all day long - just so as not to be captured! In this jitters he lived for 100 years, truly outliving his relatives, even though he was a small fish that anyone could swallow. And in this sense, his life was a success. But his other dream also came true - to live without anyone noticing. Everything came true exactly: no one ever found out about the existence of the wise minnow.

Before his death, the hero begins to think about what would happen if all the fish lived the same way as he does. And he begins to see the light: the genus of minnows would cease altogether! All opportunities passed him by - making friends, starting a family, raising children and passing on his life experience to them. He clearly realizes this before his death and, deep in thought, falls asleep, and then has a dream about how he won 200,000 rubles, grew in size and began to swallow his enemies - pikes. Having relaxed, the gudgeon involuntarily violates the boundaries of its hole, and its “snout” appears outside the hole. And then there is room for the reader's imagination. Because the author does not say exactly what happened to the hero - he only states that he suddenly disappeared. There were no witnesses to this incident, so not only the task of living at least unnoticed was achieved by the minnow, but also the “ultimate task” - to also disappear unnoticed.

Behind all this “Aesopian language” the reader can easily guess Saltykov-Shchedrin’s characteristic manner of depicting the unsightly side of modern life through hyperbolic images and grotesque situations. This is a harsh satire on the reality of 1882–1883 ​​- a period when the conservative trend, actively encouraged by Emperor Alexander III, became the leading one in the political life of Russia. An increase in benefits, rights and all kinds of privileges of the nobility began. Under the guise of a minnow, Shchedrin showed the liberal intelligentsia of Russia, which was only concerned with survival. With irony, the author calls his hero “wise.” For him, this is a conformist person, cowardly and passive both in the social and political spheres, who elevates his opportunism to the rank of philosophy. The work first saw the light in the Geneva emigrant newspaper “Common Cause” under the heading “Fairy tales for children of a fair age” and did not have a signature. Russia learned the writer’s new fairy tale thanks to the progressive magazine Otechestvennye zapiski. But the most important thing is that the work has outlived its time and acquired the character of a satire on the eternal vices of people who are reinsurers.

• “The story of how one man fed two generals”, analysis

Saltykov-Shchedrin is a writer who very often resorted to such a genre as a fairy tale, because with its help, in an allegorical form, it was always possible to reveal the vices of humanity, while his creative activity was surrounded by unfavorable conditions. With the help of this genre, he was able to write during the difficult years of reaction and censorship. Thanks to fairy tales, Saltykov-Shchedrin continued to write, despite the fear of liberal editors. Despite censorship, he gets the opportunity to scourge reaction. And we got acquainted with one of his fairy tales called The Wise Minnow in class and now we will make a short one according to plan.

Brief analysis of the fairy tale The Wise Minnow

Analyzing Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tale The Wise Minnow, we see that the main character is an allegorical image. The fairy tale begins, as usual, with the words Once upon a time. Next we see advice from the minnow's parents, followed by a description of the life of this little fish and its death.

Reading Shchedrin's work and analyzing it, we trace a parallel between life in the real world and the plot of a fairy tale. We meet the main character, a minnow, who lived at first as usual. After the death of his parents, who left him parting words and asked him to take care of himself and keep his eyes open, he became pitiful and cowardly, but considered himself wise.

At first we see in the fish a thinking creature, enlightened, with moderately liberal views, and his parents were not at all stupid, and managed to live until their natural death. But after the death of his parents, he hid in his little hole. He trembled all the time as soon as someone swam past his hole. He swam out from there only at night, sometimes during the day for a snack, but immediately hid. I didn’t finish eating and didn’t get enough sleep. His whole life was spent in fear, and thus Peskar lived until he was a hundred years old. No salary, no servants, no playing cards, no fun. Without family, without procreation. There were somehow thoughts of swimming out of the shelter, living a full life, but then fear conquered his intentions and he abandoned this idea. So he lived, seeing nothing and knowing nothing. Most likely, the wise Minnow died a natural death, because even a pike would not covet a sick minnow.

All his life the gudgeon considered himself wise, and only closer to death he saw a life lived aimlessly. The author managed to show us how dull and miserable life becomes if you live by the wisdom of a coward.

Conclusion

In his fairy tale The Wise Minnow, a brief analysis of which we have just done, Saltykov-Shchedrin depicts the political life of the country in past years. In the image of the minnow, we see the liberals of the inhabitants of the era of reaction, who only saved their skins by sitting in holes and caring only about their own welfare. They don’t try to change anything, they don’t want to direct their strength in the right direction. They only had thoughts about their own salvation, and none of them was going to fight for a just cause. And at that time there were a lot of such minnows among the intelligentsia, so when reading Shchedrin’s fairy tale at one time, the reader could draw an analogy with officials who worked in the office, with editors of liberal newspapers, with employees of banks, offices and other people who did nothing , fearing everyone who is higher and more powerful.

The essay was prepared by Leonid Zusmanov

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was born in January 1826 in the village of Spas-Ugol, Tver province. According to his father, he belonged to an old and rich noble family, and according to his mother, he belonged to the merchant class. After successfully graduating from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, Saltykov becomes an official in the military department, but he is of little interest in the service.

In 1847 His first literary works, “Contradictions” and “Complicated Affairs,” appeared in print. But they started talking seriously about Saltykov as a writer only in 1856, when he began publishing “Provincial Sketches.”

He directed his extraordinary talent to open the eyes of those who do not yet see the lawlessness going on in the country, the flourishing ignorance and stupidity, and the triumph of bureaucracy.

But today I would like to dwell on the writer’s fairy-tale cycle, begun in 1869. Fairy tales were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological and creative quest of the satirist. At that time, due to the existence of strict censorship, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show all the inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” Shchedrin was able to convey to people a sharp criticism of the existing order.

In 1883, the famous “The Wise Minnow” appeared, which over the past hundred-plus years has become Shchedrin’s textbook fairy tale. The plot of this fairy tale is known to everyone: once upon a time there was a gudgeon, which at first was no different from its own kind. But, a coward by nature, he decided to live his whole life without sticking out, in his hole, flinching from every rustle, from every shadow that flashed next to his hole. So life passed me by - no family, no children. And so he disappeared - either on his own or some pike swallowed him. Only before death does the minnow think about his life: “Who did he help? Who did you regret, what good did he do in life? “He lived - he trembled and he died - he trembled.” Only before death does the average person realize that no one needs him, no one knows him and no one will remember him.

But this is the plot, the external side of the fairy tale, what is on the surface. And the subtext of Shchedrin’s caricature in this tale of the morals of modern bourgeois Russia was well explained by the artist A. Kanevsky, who made illustrations for the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow”: “...everyone understands that Shchedrin is not talking about fish. The gudgeon is a cowardly man in the street, trembling for his own skin. He is a man, but also a minnow, the writer put him in this form, and I, the artist, must preserve it. My task is to combine the image of a frightened man in the street and a minnow, to combine fish and human properties. It is very difficult to “comprehend” a fish, to give it a pose, a movement, a gesture. How to display forever frozen fear on a fish’s “face”? The figurine of the minnow-official gave me a lot of trouble....”

The writer shows the terrible philistine alienation and self-isolation in “The Wise Minnow.” M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is bitter and painful for the Russian people. Reading Saltykov-Shchedrin is quite difficult. Therefore, perhaps many did not understand the meaning of his fairy tales. But the majority of “children of a fair age” appreciated the work of the great satirist as it deserved.

In conclusion, I would like to add that the thoughts expressed by the writer in fairy tales are still contemporary today. Shchedrin's satire is time-tested and it sounds especially poignant in times of social unrest, such as those that Russia is experiencing today.

Saltykov-Shchedrin, “The Wise Minnow”, let’s start the analysis of the fairy tale with the personality of the writer.

Mikhail Evgrafovich was born in 1826 (January) in the Tver province. On his father's side he belonged to a very old and rich family of nobles, and on his mother's side he belonged to the class of merchants. Saltykov-Shchedrin successfully graduated and then took up the post of official in the military department. Unfortunately, the service interested him very little.

In 1847, his first literary works were published - “A Tangled Affair” and “Contradictions”. Despite this, it was only in 1856 that people started talking about him seriously as a writer. At this time he began to publish his “Provincial Sketches”.

The writer tried to open the readers' eyes to the lawlessness happening in the country, to ignorance, stupidity, and bureaucracy.

Let's take a closer look at the cycle of fairy tales written by the writer in 1869. This was a kind of synthesis of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s ideological and creative quest, a certain result.

Mikhail Evgrafovich could not fully expose all the vices of society and the failure of management due to the censorship that existed at that time. That is why the writer chose the form of a fairy tale. So he was able to sharply criticize the existing order without fear of prohibitions.

The fairy tale “The Wise Minnow,” which we are analyzing, is quite rich in artistic terms. The author resorts to the use of grotesque, antithesis, and hyperbole. An important role is played by these techniques that helped hide the true meaning of what was written.

The fairy tale appeared in 1883, it is famous to this day, it has even become a textbook. Its plot is known to everyone: there lived a gudgeon who was completely ordinary. His only difference was cowardice, which was so strong that the gudgeon decided to spend his entire life in a hole without sticking his head out of there. There he sat, afraid of every rustle, every shadow. This is how his life passed, no family, no friends. The question arises: what kind of life is this? What good has he done in his life? Nothing. Lived, trembled, died.

That's the whole story, but it's just the surface.

Analysis of the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” implies a deeper study of its meaning.

Saltykov-Shchedrin depicts the morals of contemporary bourgeois Russia. In fact, a minnow does not mean a fish, but a cowardly man in the street who fears and trembles only for his own skin. The writer set himself the task of combining the features of both fish and humans.

The fairy tale depicts philistine alienation and self-isolation. The author is offended and bitter for the Russian people.

Reading the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin is not very easy, which is why not everyone was able to comprehend the true intent of his fairy tales. Unfortunately, the level of thinking and development of modern people does not really correspond to what it should be.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the thoughts expressed by the writer are relevant to this day.

Read the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” again, analyze it based on what you have now learned. Look deeper into the intention of the works, try to read between the lines, then you will be able to analyze not only the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” yourself, but also all works of art.