Cancer case analysis. Alexander Solzhenitsyn - cancer ward. Events and people

Composition

In “Cancer Ward,” using the example of one hospital ward, Solzhenitsyn depicts the life of an entire state. The author manages to convey the socio-psychological situation of the era, its originality on such a seemingly small material as an image of the life of several cancer patients who, by the will of fate, found themselves in the same hospital building. All the heroes are not just different people with different characters; each of them is a bearer of certain types of consciousness generated by the era of totalitarianism. It is also important that all the heroes are extremely sincere in expressing their feelings and defending their beliefs, as they are faced with death.

Oleg Kostoglotov, a former prisoner, independently came to reject the postulates of the official ideology. Shulubin, a Russian intellectual, participant in the October Revolution, surrendered, outwardly accepting public morality, and doomed himself to a quarter of a century of mental torment. Rusanov appears as the “world leader” of the nomenklatura regime. But, always following the party line, he often uses the power given to him for personal purposes, confusing them with public interests. The beliefs of these heroes are already fully formed and are repeatedly tested during discussions. The remaining heroes are mainly representatives of the passive majority who have accepted official morality, but they are either indifferent to it or do not defend it so zealously. The entire work represents a kind of dialogue in consciousness, reflecting almost the entire spectrum of life ideas characteristic of the era. The external well-being of a system does not mean that it is devoid of internal contradictions. It is in this dialogue that the author sees a potential opportunity to cure the cancer that has affected the entire society.

Born in the same era, the heroes of the story make different life choices. True, not all of them realize that the choice has already been made. Efrem Podduev, who lived his life the way he wanted, suddenly understands, turning to Tolstoy’s books, the entire emptiness of his existence. But this hero’s insight is too late. In essence, the problem of choice confronts every person every second, but out of many decision options, only one is correct, out of all the paths in life, only one is to one’s heart. Demka, a teenager at a crossroads in life, realizes the need for choice. At school he absorbed the official ideology, but in the ward he felt its ambiguity, hearing the very contradictory, sometimes mutually exclusive statements of his neighbors. The clash of positions of different heroes occurs in endless disputes affecting both everyday and existential problems. Kostoglotov is a fighter, he is tireless, he literally pounces on his opponents, expressing everything that has become painful over the years of forced silence. Oleg easily fends off any objections, since his arguments are hard-won by himself, and the thoughts of his opponents are most often inspired by the dominant ideology. Oleg does not accept even a timid attempt at compromise on the part of Rusanov. And Pavel Nikolaevich and his like-minded people are unable to object to Kostoglotov, because they are not ready to defend their convictions themselves. The state has always done this for them.

Rusanov lacks arguments: he is used to realizing that he is right, relying on the support of the system and personal power, but here everyone is equal in the face of imminent and imminent death and in front of each other. Kostoglotov’s advantage in these disputes is also determined by the fact that he speaks from the position of a living person, while Rusanov defends the point of view of a soulless system. Shulubin only occasionally expresses his thoughts, defending the ideas of “moral socialism.” It is precisely the question of the morality of the existing system that all the disputes in the House ultimately revolve around. From Shulubin’s conversation with Vadim Zatsyrko, a talented young scientist, we learn that, in Vadim’s opinion, science is only responsible for the creation of material wealth, and the moral aspect of a scientist should not worry. Demka’s conversation with Asya reveals the essence of the education system: from childhood, students are taught to think and act “like everyone else.” The state, with the help of schools, teaches insincerity and instills in schoolchildren distorted ideas about morality and ethics. In the mouth of Avietta, Rusanov’s daughter, an aspiring poetess, the author puts official ideas about the tasks of literature: literature must embody the image of a “happy tomorrow”, in which all the hopes of today are realized. Talent and writing skill, naturally, cannot be compared with ideological demands. The main thing for a writer is the absence of “ideological dislocations,” so literature becomes a craft serving the primitive tastes of the masses. The ideology of the system does not imply the creation of moral values ​​for which Shulubin, who betrayed his beliefs, but did not lose faith in them, yearns. He understands that a system with a shifted scale of life values ​​is unviable. Rusanov’s stubborn self-confidence, Shulubin’s deep doubts, Kostoglotov’s intransigence are different levels of personality development under totalitarianism. All these life positions are dictated by the conditions of the system, which thus not only forms an iron support for itself from people, but also creates conditions for potential self-destruction.

All three heroes are victims of the system, since it deprived Rusanov of the ability to think independently, forced Shulubin to abandon his beliefs, and took away freedom from Kostoglotov. Any system that oppresses an individual disfigures the souls of all its subjects, even those who serve it faithfully. 3. Thus, the fate of a person, according to Solzhenitsyn, depends on the choice that the person himself makes. Totalitarianism exists not only thanks to tyrants, but also thanks to the passive and indifferent majority, the “crowd”. Only the choice of true values ​​can lead to victory over this monstrous totalitarian system. And everyone has the opportunity to make such a choice.

The novel was originally planned to be published in the New World magazine in the mid-1960s. However, in those years the book was never officially published in the Soviet Union. A little later, the novel began to be published in samizdat and distributed throughout the USSR. In addition, the book was published in other countries in Russian and in translations. The novel became one of A. Solzhenitsyn's greatest literary successes. The work becomes the basis for awarding the author the Nobel Prize. In 1990, the novel was officially published in the Soviet Union in the New World magazine.

The action takes place in a hospital at the clinic of the Tashkent Medical Institute (TashMi). The thirteenth (“cancer”) building gathered people affected by one of the most terrible diseases, undefeated by humanity to the end. With no other activities to do, patients spend their time engaged in numerous debates about ideology, life and death. Each inhabitant of the gloomy building has his own fate and his own way out of this terrible place: some are discharged home to die, others are improved, others are transferred to other departments.

Characteristics

Oleg Kostoglotov

The main character of the novel is a former front-line soldier. Kostoglotov (or as his comrades in misfortune call him, Ogloed) went to prison and was then sentenced to eternal exile in Kazakhstan. Kostoglotov does not consider himself dying. He does not trust “scientific” medicine, preferring folk remedies to it. Ogloed is 34 years old. He once dreamed of becoming an officer and getting a higher education. However, none of his wishes came true. He was not accepted as an officer, and he will no longer go to college, since he considers himself too old to study. Kostoglotov likes the doctor Vera Gangart (Vega) and the nurse Zoya. Ogloed is full of desire to live and take everything from life.

Informer Rusanov

Before being admitted to the hospital, a patient named Rusanov held a “responsible” position. He was an adherent of the Stalinist system and made more than one denunciation in his life. Rusanov, like Ogloed, does not intend to die. He dreams of a decent pension, which he has earned through his hard “work.” The former informer doesn't like the hospital he ended up in. A person like him, Rusanov believes, should undergo treatment under better conditions.

Demka is one of the youngest patients in the ward. The boy has experienced a lot in his 16 years. His parents separated because his mother became a bitch. There was no one to raise Demka. He became an orphan with living parents. The boy dreamed of getting on his own feet and getting a higher education. The only joy in Demka’s life was football. But it was his favorite sport that took away his health. After being hit in the leg by a ball, the boy developed cancer. The leg had to be amputated.

But this could not break the orphan. Demka continues to dream of higher education. He perceives the loss of his leg as a blessing. After all, now he won’t have to waste time on sports and dance floors. The state will pay the boy a lifelong pension, which means he will be able to study and become a writer. Demka met his first love, Asenka, in the hospital. But both Asenka and Demka understand that this feeling will not continue beyond the walls of the “cancer” building. The girl's breasts were amputated, and life lost all meaning for her.

Efrem Podduvaev

Ephraim worked as a builder. Once a terrible illness had already “let go” of him. Podduvaev is confident that this time everything will work out. Shortly before his death, he read a book by Leo Tolstoy, which made him think about many things. Ephraim is discharged from the hospital. After some time he was gone.

Vadim Zatsyrko

Geologist Vadim Zatsyrko also has a great thirst for life. Vadim was always afraid of only one thing - inaction. And now he has been in the hospital for a month. Zatsyrko is 27 years old. He's too young to die. At first, the geologist tries to ignore death, continuing to work on a method for determining the presence of ores from radioactive waters. Then self-confidence begins to gradually leave him.

Alexey Shulubin

Librarian Shulubin managed to tell a lot in his life. In 1917 he became a Bolshevik, then participated in the Civil War. He had no friends, his wife died. Shulubin had children, but they had long forgotten about his existence. The illness became the last step towards loneliness for the librarian. Shulubin doesn't like to talk. He's much more interested in listening.

Character prototypes

Some of the novel's characters had prototypes. The prototype of the doctor Lyudmila Dontsova was Lydia Dunaeva, head of the radiation department. The author named the treating doctor Irina Meike as Vera Gangart in his novel.

The “cancer” corps united a huge number of different people with dissimilar destinies. Perhaps they would never have met outside the walls of this hospital. But then something appeared that united them - a disease from which it is not always possible to recover even in the progressive twentieth century.

Cancer has equalized people of different ages and different social status. The disease behaves in the same way with both the high-ranking Rusanov and the former prisoner Ogloed. Cancer does not spare those who have already been offended by fate. Left without parental care, Demka loses his leg. Forgotten by his loved ones, librarian Shulubin will not have a happy old age. The disease rids society of old and frail, useless people. But why then does she take the young, beautiful, full of life and plans for the future? Why should a young geologist leave this world before reaching the age of thirty, without having time to give humanity what he wanted? Questions remain unanswered.

Only when they found themselves far from the hustle and bustle of everyday life did the inhabitants of the “cancer” building finally have the opportunity to think about the meaning of life. All their lives these people have been striving for something: they dreamed of higher education, of family happiness, of having time to create something. Some patients, such as Rusanov, were not too picky about the methods they used to achieve their goals. But the moment came when all successes, achievements, sorrows and joys ceased to have any meaning. On the threshold of death, the tinsel of existence loses its luster. And only then does a person understand that the main thing in his life was life itself.

The novel contrasts 2 methods of cancer treatment: scientific, in which Dr. Dontsova unconditionally believes, and folk, which Kostoglotov prefers. In the post-revolutionary years, the confrontation between official and traditional medicine became especially aggravated. Oddly enough, even by the middle of the century, doctor’s prescriptions could not overcome “grandmother’s” recipes. Space flights and scientific and technological progress have not destroyed the faith of many people in witchcraft prayers.

The secret of traditional medicine is that it treats not the disease, but the patient, while official, “scientific” medicine is strenuously trying to influence the disease. The treatment proposed by the doctor kills the cancer cells, while simultaneously killing the person himself. Having gotten rid of cancer, the patient gets new health problems. Traditional medicine invites people to return to nature and themselves, to believe in their own powers, which can provide greater healing than any modern medicine.

The novel “Cancer Ward” was written in the 60s of the last century. But in those years it was impossible to publish the work due to censorship, so the novel was distributed among readers in samizdat versions, and was also published abroad. And only in 1990 it was first published on the pages of the “New World” in the USSR. This novel, although the author preferred to call the work a story, gave impetus to awarding the writer the Nobel Prize.

The title of the novel, which the author defended during publication, is symbolic, you understand this immediately when you start reading it. The events take place in the thirteenth building of the hospital in Tashkent. It is this building that houses cancer patients. And when you get to know the characters, you immediately realize that the author chose “cancer” to understand what is happening in society: the cancer of communist society gave birth to such a terrible monster as the camp system.

With his work, Solzhenitsyn gives a warning, warns against the terrible consequences of this cancerous tumor of society. It needs to be removed at the root, gradually curing the metastases, otherwise it will lead to the complete destruction of society. In the cancerous tumor, the author symbolizes both communist society as a whole and the system of camps generated by it. According to the author, a country cannot be healthy if it has such a tumor.

We can call this work a historical narrative, because its pages reflect the historical events of the country and describe the customs and way of life of Soviet society.

Most of the heroes of the work are closely connected with the world of the camps through which they passed. Completely different people with different views, destinies and characters gathered in the cancer ward. But they all have one disease in common: cancer. They come out of this disease in different ways - some improve, while others are discharged to die home, because they are incurable. Using the example of one hospital ward, Solzhenitsyn depicted the life of an entire state.

While in the hospital, patients, having a lot of free time, spend it in reasoning and arguing about life and death, about politics and ideology.

Most of the characters in the work are associated with the camps. Some served time there, others worked for the camps. Therefore, they have different opinions about the system that gave rise to this horror. But they are all victims of the system and in the face of death they find themselves helpless.

Reading “Cancer Ward” we all think about the essence of existence and the meaning of life, about good and evil.

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“The right title of a book, even a story, is found by no means by chance, it is there - part of the soul and essence, it is akin, and changing the name already means wounding the thing.” This is what Solzhenitsyn said (“A calf butted an oak tree”), defending the need to preserve the title of his story - “Cancer Ward.”

From the very first pages it becomes clear that its title is a kind of symbol, that before us is “a work of art that reveals the cancerous tumor of our society.” There is every reason for such an interpretation.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Cancer building. Part 1. Audiobook

Simultaneously with the creation of the “Cancer Ward” (1963-1966), Solzhenitsyn was working on “The Gulag Archipelago” - collecting material, writing the first parts. And, as noted above, on the pages of this monumental work there is a similar symbol (“The Gulag Archipelago has already begun its malignant life and will soon spread metastases throughout the country”; “... the Solovetsky cancer has begun to spread,” etc.).

In his journalistic speeches, Solzhenitsyn also returns more than once to the same symbol, apparently firmly rooted in his consciousness. Thus, he said about communism: “...either it will grow into humanity like a cancer and kill it; or humanity must get rid of it, and then even then with a long treatment of metastases.”

In the writer’s figurative system, cancer symbolizes both communism as a whole, as a global evil, and the system of prisons and camps it generated. Speaking about “Cancer Ward,” the author notes: “What really hangs over the story is the camp system. Yes! A country that carries such a tumor cannot be healthy!”

Many characters in Cancer Ward are in one way or another connected with the world of the Archipelago. And Kostoglotov, and his Ush-Terek friends Kadmins, and the nurse Elizaveta Anatolyevna, and the special settlers - the older sister Mita, the sick Federau and Sibgatov - were subjected to various types of repression. The chief surgeon, Lev Leonidovich, was the camp doctor; the sick Akhmadzhan turned out to be a guard; another patient, Podduev, worked as a foreman at a camp construction site; Rusanov is one of those who contributed to the replenishment of the contingent of prisoners.

Of course, among the characters in the story there are also “free spirits” whose ignorance is monstrous and their blindness is limitless. But this makes the picture of a country poisoned by cancer even more tragic. If the people are blind and deaf, if they are deceived, they will not be cured of this deadly disease!

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Cancer building. Part 2. Audiobook

Responding to critics who viewed “Cancer Ward” as a purely political work, Solzhenitsyn formulated his aesthetic credo this way: “... the tasks of a writer are not limited to defending or criticizing /... / one or another form of government. The writer's tasks concern questions that are more general and more eternal. They concern the secrets of the human heart and conscience, the collision of life and death, overcoming spiritual grief and those laws of extended humanity that originated in the immemorial depths of millennia and will cease only when the sun goes out” (“The Calf Butted an Oak Tree”).

So, the title of the story, expressing its “soul and essence,” is a kind of meaningful symbol. But the writer emphasizes that it was possible to “get” this symbol “only by going through cancer and dying. The mixture is too thick - there are too many medical details for the symbol /... / This is precisely cancer, cancer as such, as it is avoided in entertainment literature, but as patients recognize it every day...”

It is unlikely that any of the readers will doubt the validity of these words. This is by no means an abstract allegory. The medical history of each of the characters - his physical condition, symptoms and development of cancer, methods and results of treatment - all this is reproduced with such accuracy and impressive force that the reader himself begins to experience pain, suffocation, weakness, and a burning fear of death. Indeed, for the symbol “the batch is too thick.”

Why did Solzhenitsyn sometimes need an almost naturalistic description of a terrible disease? Literary purists, through the mouth of the writer Kerbabaev, who said about himself: “I always try to write only about joyful things,” defined their attitude towards “Cancer Ward”: “It just makes you sick when you read it!”

Meanwhile, this purely physiological aspect is part of the soul of the entire work, as organic as in “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” or in “The Gulag Archipelago” the depiction of the physical suffering of prisoners.

This is where the peculiarity of Solzhenitsyn’s creativity comes into play, which has already been mentioned: the ability infect us with the sensations, thoughts, experiences of the writer himself and his characters.

Many of the readers, who have never been on the verge of death, succumbed to this infection, looked into her empty eye sockets and, remaining completely healthy, sitting calmly at home, experienced almost the same spiritual evolution as the sufferers from the cancer ward. This is the power of art, which immeasurably expands our limited life experience. The author makes us think, before it’s too late, about the eternal questions of existence. From purely physiological empathy we rise to deep philosophical reflection.

“...The story is not only about a hospital,” says Solzhenitsyn, “because with an artistic approach, any particular phenomenon becomes, if we use a mathematical comparison, a “bundle of planes”: many life planes unexpectedly intersect at a chosen point...”

What is the author's chosen point? In space it is a hospital ward. In the spiritual sphere, it is the soul of a person completing his life’s journey. “Mental opposition to death” (as defined by Solzhenitsyn himself) constitutes the main nerve of the entire work.

But the following question also arises: what determines the choice of the point at which different planes intersect? The writer answers: “You choose this point based on passion, biography, better knowledge, etc. This point – the cancer ward – was suggested to me by my illness.”

Excerpt from the book by M. Schneerson “Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Essays on creativity."

The work of the great genius, Nobel Prize winner, a man about whom so much has been said, is scary to touch, but I cannot help but write about his story “Cancer Ward” - a work to which he gave, albeit a small, but part of his life, to which he They tried to deprive us for many years. But he clung to life and endured all the hardships of the concentration camps, all their horror; he cultivated within himself his own views on what was happening around him, not borrowed from anyone; He outlined these views in his story.

One of her topics is

This is that, no matter what a person is, good or bad, educated or, conversely, uneducated; no matter what position he holds, when an almost incurable illness befalls him, he ceases to be a high-ranking official and turns into an ordinary person who just wants to live. Solzhenitsyn described life in the cancer ward, in the most terrible of hospitals, where people doomed to death lie. Along with describing a person’s struggle for life, for the desire to simply coexist without pain, without torment, Solzhenitsyn, always and under any circumstances distinguished by his thirst for life, raised many problems. Their circle is quite wide: from the meaning of life, the relationship between a man and a woman to the purpose of literature.

Solzhenitsyn brings together in one of the chambers people of different nationalities, professions, committed to different ideas. One of these patients was Oleg Kostoglotov, an exile, a former prisoner, and the other was Rusanov, the complete opposite of Kostoglotov: a party leader, “a valuable worker, an honored person,” devoted to the party. By showing the events of the story first through the eyes of Rusanov, and then through the perception of Kostoglotov, Solzhenitsyn made it clear that power would gradually change, that the Rusanovs with their “questionnaire management”, with their methods of various warnings, would cease to exist, and the Kostoglotovs would live, who did not accept such concepts as “remains of bourgeois consciousness” and “social origin”. Solzhenitsyn wrote the story, trying to show different views on life: both from the point of view of Bega, and from the point of view of Asya, Dema, Vadim and many others. In some ways their views are similar, in others they diverge. But mainly Solzhenitsyn wants to show the wrongness of those who think, like Rusanov’s daughter, Rusanov himself. They are used to looking for people somewhere downstairs; think only about yourself, without thinking about others. Kostoglotov is an exponent of Solzhenitsyn’s ideas; through Oleg’s arguments with the ward, through his conversations in the camps, he reveals the paradoxical nature of life, or rather, the fact that there was no meaning in such a life, just as there is no meaning in the literature that Avieta extols. According to her concepts, sincerity in literature is harmful. “Literature is to entertain us when we are in a bad mood,” says Avieta, not realizing that literature is truly a teacher of life. And if you have to write about what should be, then it means there will never be truth, since no one can say exactly what will happen. But not everyone can see and describe what exists, and it is unlikely that Avieta will be able to imagine even a hundredth part of the horror when a woman ceases to be a woman, but becomes a workhorse, which subsequently cannot have children. Zoya reveals to Kostoglotov the full horror of hormone therapy; and the fact that he is deprived of the right to continue himself horrifies him: “First I was deprived of my own life. Now they are depriving them of the right... to continue themselves. To whom and why will I be now?.. The worst of freaks! For mercy?.. For alms?..” And no matter how much Efrem, Vadim, Rusanov argue about the meaning of life, no matter how much they talk about it, for everyone it will remain the same - to leave someone behind. Kostoglotov went through everything, and it left its mark on his value system, on his concept of life.

The fact that Solzhenitsyn spent a long time in the camps also influenced his language and style of writing the story. But the work only benefits from this, since everything that he writes about becomes accessible to the person, he is, as it were, transported to the hospital and he himself takes part in everything that happens. But it is unlikely that any of us will be able to fully understand Kostoglotov, who sees a prison everywhere, tries to find and finds a camp approach in everything, even in the zoo. The camp has crippled his life, and he understands that he is unlikely to be able to start his old life, that the road back is closed to him. And millions more of the same lost people are thrown into the vastness of the country, people who, communicating with those who did not touch the camp, understand that there will always be a wall of misunderstanding between them, just as Lyudmila Afanasyevna Kostoglotova did not understand.

We mourn that these people, who were crippled by life, disfigured by the regime, who showed such an insatiable thirst for life, endured terrible suffering, are now forced to endure rejection from society. They have to give up the life to which they have strived for so long, which they deserve.