Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin: analysis of the fairy tale “The Selfless Hare.” “Poor Wolf” (analysis of a fairy tale) (Saltykov-Shchedrin M

Many writers and poets used fairy tales in their work. With its help, the author identified one or another vice of humanity or society. Saltykov-Shchedrin's tales are sharply individual and unlike any others. Satire was Saltykov-Shchedrin's weapon. At that time, due to the strict censorship that existed, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show the entire inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” Saltykov-Shchedrin was able to convey to people a sharp criticism of the existing order. Censorship missed the tales of the great satirist, failing to understand their purpose, their revealing power, their challenge to the existing order.

To write fairy tales, the author used grotesque, hyperbole, and antithesis. Also, the “Aesopian” language was important for the author. Trying to hide the true meaning of what was written from censorship, he also used this technique. The writer loved to come up with neologisms to characterize his characters. For example, words such as “pompadours and pompadours”, “foam remover” and others.

Conventionally, all of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s tales can be divided into four groups: satire on government circles and the ruling class; satire of the liberal intelligentsia; folk tales; fairy tales that expose selfish morality and affirm socialist moral ideals.

The first group of fairy tales includes: “The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “The Eagle-Patron”, “The Bogatyr”, “The Wild Landowner” and “The Tale of That. How one man fed two generals.” The fairy tale “The Bear in the Voivodeship” unfolds a merciless criticism of autocracy in all its forms. The story is told about the reign of three bear governors in the forest, different in character: the evil one is replaced by the zealous one, and the zealous one by the good one. But these changes do not in any way affect the general state of forest life. It is no coincidence that the first Toptygin is said in a fairy tale: “he, strictly speaking, was not angry, but just a brute.” The evil lies not in the private abuses of individual governors, but in the bestial, bearish nature of power. It is accomplished with some kind of naive, bestial innocence: “Then he began to look for roots and threads, and by the way, he uprooted a whole forest of foundations. Finally, he climbed into the printing house at night, smashed the machines, mixed up the type, and dumped the works of the human mind into a waste pit. Having done this, the son of a bitch squatted down and waited for encouragement.” In the fairy tale “The Eagle Patron” Saltykov-Shchedrin shows the hostility of the despotic government to enlightenment, and in “The Bogatyr” the history of the Russian autocracy is depicted in the image of a rotting hero and ends with his complete collapse and decomposition.

An unprecedented satire of the Russian intelligentsia is unfolded in fairy tales about fish and hares. In "The Selfless Hare" a special type of cowardice is reproduced: the hare is cowardly, but this is not its main feature. The main thing is different: “I can’t, the wolf didn’t order.” The wolf postponed eating the hare for an indefinite period, left him sitting under a bush, and then even allowed him to go on a date with his bride. What was driving the hare when he doomed himself to be eaten? Cowardice? No, not really: from the hare’s point of view - deep nobility and honesty. After all, he gave his word to the wolf! But the source of this nobility turns out to be obedience elevated to a principle - selfless cowardice! True, the hare also has some secret calculation: the wolf will admire his nobility and suddenly show mercy.

Will the wolf have mercy? This question is answered by another fairy tale called “Poor Wolf.” The wolf is cruel not of his own free will, and “his complexion is tricky”; he cannot eat anything but meat. Thus, in the book, the satirist’s thought matures about the futility of hopes for mercy and generosity of authorities, predatory by nature and by their position in the world of people.

The “sane hare,” in contrast to the selfless one, is a theorist who preaches the idea of a “wolf’s meal civilization.” He is developing a project for intelligently eating hares: it is necessary that the wolves do not immediately kill the hares, but only tear off part of the skin from them, so that after some time the hare could imagine another one. This “project” is Saltykov-Shchedrin’s evil parody of the theories of liberal populists , who, in the reactionary era of the 80s, retreated from revolutionary principles and switched to preaching “small deeds,” gradual concessions, and petty reformism.

The “sane hare,” unlike the selfless one, preaches his theoretical principles. Dried roach does the same thing in comparison with the wise gudgeon. The wise minnow lived and trembled. Dried roach translates this life practice into a reasonable theory, which boils down to the formula: “ears do not grow higher than the forehead.” From this formula she derives the following principles: “You will not touch anyone, and no one will touch you.” But the time comes - and the dried roach, which preaches “moderation and accuracy,” is accused of unreliability and given up as a sacrifice to “hedgehog gloves.”

“The Idealist Crucian Crucian” is adjacent to the tales about liberals; it has a sad, satirical tone. In this tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin debunks the dramatic misconceptions of the Russian and Western European intelligentsia adjacent to the socialist movement. The idealistic crucian professes high socialist ideals and is inclined to self-sacrifice for the sake of their implementation. But he considers social evil a simple delusion of minds. It seems to him that even pikes are not deaf to goodness. He believes in achieving social harmony through moral regeneration, the re-education of pikes.

And so the crucian carp develops its socialist utopias in front of the pike. Twice he manages to talk with the predator, escaping with minor injuries. The third time the inevitable happens: the pike swallows the crucian carp, and how it does it is important. The first question of the idealist crucian is “What is virtue?” makes the predator open its mouth in surprise, automatically draw water into itself, and with it also automatically swallow the crucian carp. With this detail, Saltykov-Shchedrin emphasizes that the point is not in “evil” and “unreasonable” pikes: the very nature of predators is such that they swallow crucian carp involuntarily - they also have a “tricky build”! So, all illusions about the peaceful reconstruction of society, about the re-education of predatory pikes, eagles, bears, wolves are in vain... Now we will try to consider the main features of the writer’s fairy tale genre using the example of several of his works. In “The Wild Landowner” the author shows to what extent a rich gentleman who finds himself without servants can sink. This tale uses hyperbole. At first a cultured man, the landowner turns into a wild animal, feeding on fly agarics. Here we see how helpless a rich man is without a simple peasant, how unadapted and worthless he is. With this tale, the author wanted to show that a simple Russian person is a serious force. A similar idea is put forward in the fairy tale “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals.” But here the reader sees the peasant’s resignation, his humility, unquestioning submission to the two generals. He even ties himself to a chain, which once again indicates the submissiveness, downtroddenness, and enslavement of the Russian peasant.

In “The Wise Piskar” we see the life of an ordinary man who is afraid of everything in the world. “The wise minnow” constantly sits locked up, afraid to go out into the street again, to talk to someone, to get to know someone. He leads a closed, boring life. With his life principles, he resembles another hero, the hero of A.P. Chekhov from the story “The Man in a Case,” Belikov. Only before his 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 and trembled and died - he trembled.” And only before death does the average person realize that no one needs him, no one knows him and no one will remember him.

The moral of the story is: what is human life? How and why to live? What is a sense of life? Don’t these questions worry people in our time, just as they worried people at all times? These are eternal and seemingly unanswerable questions. At what time, no matter who they face, these global questions, everyone answers them in their own way. How many people ask themselves these questions, so many answers to them!

The fairy tale takes us from the level of the minnow to the level of human life. From the point of view of the author himself, the wise minnow, in fact, exposed all his stupid shortcomings in a philosophy of life aimed at a specific goal: “Live as quietly as possible!” What is the mind of the “sage” directed towards? Only to save your “unloved” life. And the satirist makes him, in the face of death, understand the meaninglessness of the life he lived. For all the comedy of this tale, its ending sounds deeply tragic. We hear the voice of Saltykov-Shchedrin himself in the questions that the gudgeon asks himself before his death. All life instantly flashed before the dying man. What joys did he have? Who did he console? Whom did he warm and protect? Who has heard of him? Who will remember his existence? And he had to answer all these questions: “nobody,” “nobody.” So the writer defined the most terrible time for the hero of the fairy tale, the wise minnow: late, fruitless insight, the realization in the face of death that life was lived in vain, in vain! I believe that this tale is not only the most modern among all the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, but even eternal.

The writer shows the terrible philistine aloofness and self-isolation in “The Wise Piskar.” M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is bitter and painful for the Russian people.

With amazing insight, Saltykov-Shchedrin shows the internal kinship of socialist morality with the deep foundations of Christian folk culture in the fairy tale “Christ’s Night”. Easter night. Dreary northern landscape. Everything bears the stamp of loneliness, everything is shackled in silence, helpless, silent and crushed by some formidable bondage... But the bells ring, countless lights come on, gilding the spiers of churches, and the world around comes to life. Lines of village people, depressed and poor, stretch along the roads. At a distance are the rich people, the kulaks - the rulers of the village. Everyone disappears into the distance of the country road, and silence comes again, but somehow sensitive, tense... And exactly. No sooner had the east turned red than a miracle took place: the mocked and crucified Christ is resurrected for judgment on this sinful earth. "Peace to you!" - Christ says to the poor people: they have not lost faith in the triumph of truth, and the Savior says that the hour of their liberation is approaching. Then Christ turns to the crowd of rich people, world-eaters, kulaks. He brands them with a word of censure and opens to them the path of salvation - the judgment of their conscience, painful, but fair. And only traitors have no salvation. Christ curses them and condemns them to eternal wandering.

In the fairy tale "Christ's Night" Saltykov-Shchedrin professes the people's belief in the triumph of truth and goodness. Christ carries out the Last Judgment not in the afterlife, but on this earth, in accordance with peasant ideas that ground Christian ideals.

Saltykov-Shchedrin’s faith in his people and in his history remained unchanged. “I love Russia to the point of heartache and I can’t even imagine myself anywhere other than Russia,” wrote Mikhail Evgrafovich. “Only once in my life did I have to survive for quite a long time in well-disposed foreign places, and I don’t remember a moment in which my heart did not yearn for Russia.” These words can be considered an epigraph to the entire work of the satirist, whose anger and contempt were born from a harsh and demanding love for the Motherland, from a hard-won faith in its creative powers, one of the brightest manifestations of which was Russian classical literature.

Shchedrin organically combines the naive fantasy of a folk tale with a realistic depiction of reality. Moreover, extreme exaggeration in the description of heroes and situations does not contradict the truth of life, but, on the contrary, allows the satirist to focus attention on especially dangerous, negative aspects of the life of Russian society. The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin had a great impact on the further development of Russian literature and especially the genre of satire.

Poor wolf

POOR WOLF

Another animal would probably be touched by the hare’s selflessness, would not limit himself to a promise, but would now have mercy. But of all the predators found in temperate and northern climates, the wolf is the least susceptible to generosity.

However, it is not of his own free will that he is so cruel, but because his complexion is tricky: he cannot eat anything except meat. And in order to get meat food, he cannot do otherwise than deprive a living creature of life. In a word, he undertakes to commit crime, robbery.

It is not easy for him to get his food. Death is not sweet for anyone, but it is only with death that he gets in everyone’s way. Therefore, whoever is stronger defends himself from him, and someone who cannot defend himself is defended by others. Often a hungry wolf walks around, and with bruised sides to boot. At that time he will sit down, raise his snout up and howl so piercingly that for a mile around every living creature, out of fear and out of melancholy, the soul sank to its feet. And the wolf howls even more sadly, because she has wolf cubs and has nothing to feed them.

There is no animal in the world that would not hate the wolf and would not curse it. The whole forest groans at his appearance: “Damned wolf! murderer! murderer!” And he runs forward and forward, not daring to turn his head, but after him: “Robber! life-cutter!” About a month ago, a wolf dragged away a woman's sheep - the woman still hasn't dried her tears: "Damned wolf! Murderer!" And since then he hasn’t had a drop of poppy dew in his mouth: he ate a sheep, but didn’t have to slaughter another... And the woman howls, and he howls... how can you tell!

They say that the wolf deprives the peasant; but the man too, how angry he gets! And he beats him with a club, and fires at him with a gun, and digs wolf holes, and sets traps, and organizes raids on him. “The murderer! the robber! - that’s all you hear about the wolf in the villages - he killed the last cow! He dragged away the remaining sheep!” And what is his fault, if he cannot live in the world otherwise?

And if you kill him, he will be of no use. The meat is unusable, the skin is tough and does not warm. Only for selfishness, that you will have enough fun over him, the damned one, and raise him to the pitchfork alive: let him, the reptile, bleed drop by drop!

A wolf cannot live in the world without losing his stomach - that is his problem! But he doesn’t understand this. If they call him a villain, then he also calls those who persecute, maim, and kill him villains. Does he understand that with his life he is harming other lives? He thinks he lives - that's all. A horse carries weights, a cow gives milk, a sheep gives waves, and he robs and kills. And the horse, and the cow, and the sheep, and the wolf - they all “live”, each in their own way.

And then, however, there was one among the wolves, who had been killing and robbing for many centuries, and suddenly, in his old age, he began to guess that there was something wrong in his life.

This wolf lived very well from his youth and was one of the few predators who almost never went hungry. He robbed day and night, and got away with everything. He stole sheep from under the noses of the shepherds; he climbed into the courtyards of the villages; slaughtered cows; a forester was once mauled to death; A small boy, in front of everyone, was carried away from the street into the forest. He heard that everyone hated and cursed him for these deeds, but these obediences only made him more and more fierce.

If only you could listen to what’s going on in the forest,” he said, “there isn’t a moment when there isn’t a murder there, so that some animal isn’t squealing, losing its life—so is it really worth looking at it?

And he lived in this way, between robberies, until those years when the wolf is already called “seasoned”. He became a little heavier, but still did not give up the robbery; on the contrary, it seemed as if he had even flown. Only if he accidentally fell into the clutches of a bear. But bears don’t like wolves, because wolves attack them in gangs, and rumors often circulate in the forest that somewhere and there Mikhailo Ivanovich made a mistake: the gray enemies tore his fur coat to shreds.

The bear holds the wolf in his paws and thinks: “What should I do with him, with the scoundrel? If he eats him, he will steal from his soul, if he crushes him like that and throws him away, he will only infect the forest with the smell of his carrion. Let me see: maybe he has a conscience.” "Yes. If he has a conscience, he swears not to commit robbery in the future, I will let him go."

Wolf, oh wolf! - said Toptygin, - do you really have no conscience?

Oh, what are you, your dignity! - answered the wolf, - is it possible to live at least one day in the world without a conscience!

Therefore, it is possible, if you live. Think about it: every single day the only news about you is that you either skinned or stabbed to death - does that look like a conscience?

Your dignity! let me report to you! Should I drink and eat, feed my wolf, raise wolf cubs? What resolution would you like to put forward on this matter?

Mikhailo Ivanovich thought and thought and saw: if a wolf is supposed to exist in the world, it follows that he has the right to feed himself.

“I have to,” he says.

But I, except for meat, no, no! If only I could take your dignity, for example: you can feast on raspberries, borrow honey from bees, and suck sheep, but for me at least none of this would happen! Yes, again, your dignity has another perk: in the winter, when you lie down in a den, you don’t need anything except your own paw. And I go through both winter and summer - there is not a moment when I don’t think about food! And all about the meat. So how will I get this food if I don’t kill or strangle it first?

The bear thought about these wolf words, but still wants to try.

“You should,” he says, “at least take it easy, or something...

I, your lordship, make it as easy as I can. The fox is itching: it will jerk once and bounce off, then it will jerk again and bounce back again... And I grab it right by the throat - it’s a sabbath!

The bear became even more thoughtful. He sees that the wolf is telling him the truth, but he is still afraid to let him go: now he will take up robbery again.

Repent, wolf! -- speaks.

There is nothing for me, your lordship, to repent of. No one is the enemy of their life, including me; so where is my fault?

At least promise me!

And I can’t promise, Your Excellency. The fox promises you whatever you want, but I can’t.

What to do? The bear thought and thought, and finally decided.

You are a most unfortunate beast - that’s what I’ll tell you! - he said to the wolf. “I cannot judge you, although I know that I am taking a lot of sin on my soul by letting you go.” I can add one thing: if I were you, not only would I not value life, but I would consider death to be a good thing for myself! And think about these words of mine!

And he released the wolf in all four directions.

The wolf freed himself from the bear's paws and now again took up his old craft. The forest groans from it, and so does the Sabbath. Got into the habit of going to the same village; at two or three nights he slaughtered a whole herd in vain - and that was no good for him. He will lie down with a full belly in the swamp, stretching and squinting his eyes. He even went to war with the bear, his benefactor, but he, fortunately, caught himself in time and only threatened him with his paw from afar.

Whether for a long time or for a short time he was so violent, however, old age finally came to him. His strength diminished, his agility disappeared, and in addition the peasant broke his spine with a log; Even though he had been resting for a while, he still didn’t look like the previous daredevil life-cutter. He will rush after the hare - but there are no legs. He will approach the forest edge, try to carry away a sheep from the herd - and the dogs will just jump and jump. He will tuck his tail between his legs and run empty-handed.

No way, have I become afraid of dogs too? - he asks himself.

He returns to the lair and starts howling. The owl is crying in the forest, and he is howling in the swamp - the passion of the Lord, what a commotion will arise in the village!

Only one day he hunted for a lamb and dragged it by the collar into the forest. But the little lamb was the most senseless: the wolf was dragging him, but he didn’t understand. Only one thing repeats: “What is it? What is it?..”

And I’ll show you what it is...mmmerrrrr-vets! - the wolf became furious.

Uncle! I don’t want to go for a walk in the forest! I want to see my mother! I won’t, uncle, I won’t! - the lamb suddenly guessed and either bleated or sobbed, - ah, shepherd boy, shepherd boy! oh, dogs! dogs!

The wolf stopped and listened. He had slaughtered a lot of sheep in his time, and they were all somehow indifferent. Before the wolf has time to grab her, she has already closed her eyes, lies there, does not move, as if she is correcting a natural duty. And here comes the baby - and look how he’s crying: he wants to live! Ah, apparently, this greedy life is sweet for everyone! Here he is, the wolf, old, old, and he could still live about a hundred years!

And then he remembered Toptygin’s words: “If I were you, I would consider death, not life, to be a good thing for myself...” Why is this so? Why is life a blessing for all other earthly creatures, but for him it is a curse and shame?

And, without waiting for an answer, he released the lamb from the mouth, and he himself wandered, tail down, into the den, so that he could stretch his mind there at his leisure.

But this mind did not reveal anything to him, except for what he had known for a long time, namely: that there was no way for him, a wolf, to live except by murder and robbery.

He lay flat on the ground and could not lie down. The mind says one thing, but the inside lights up with something else. Whether illnesses have weakened him, whether old age has ruined him, or whether hunger has tormented him, he just can’t take back the former power over himself. It’s thundering in his ears: “Damned! Murderer! Life-cutter!” What's wrong with the fact that he doesn't know his own free guilt? After all, you still can’t drown out curses! Oh, apparently the bear said the truth: all that remains is to lay hands on yourself!

So here again, grief: the beast - after all, he doesn’t even know how to lay hands on himself. The beast cannot do anything by itself: neither change the order of life, nor die. He lives as if in a dream, and he will die as if in a dream. Maybe the dogs will tear him to pieces or the man will shoot him; so even here he will only snore and writhe for a moment - and he’ll be gone. And where and how death came - he will not even guess.

Is he going to starve himself... Nowadays he has stopped chasing hares, he just walks around the birds. He catches a young crow or a bird - that’s all he gets. So even here the other vitupers shout in unison: “Damned! damned! damned!”

Precisely the damned one. Well, how can one live only then to kill and rob? Let us suppose that they curse him unfairly, unreasonably: he does not commit robbery of his own free will, but how can one not curse him! How many animals has he killed in his lifetime! How many women and men have he deprived and made unhappy for the rest of their lives!

For many years he suffered in these thoughts; only one word thundered in his ears: “Cursed! damned! damned!” And he repeated to himself more and more often: “Exactly the damned one! The damned one is; a murderer, a life-cutter!” And yet, tormented by hunger, he went after the prey, strangled, tore and tormented...

And he began to call for death. “Death! death! If only you could free animals, men and birds from me! If only you could free me from myself!” - he howled day and night, looking at the sky. And the animals and men, hearing his howl, screamed in fear: “Murderer! murderer! murderer!” He couldn’t even complain to the sky without curses raining down on him from all sides.

Finally, death took pity on him. “Lukashi” appeared in that area [“Lukashi” are peasants from the Velikolutsky district of the Pskov province who study the habits and customs of forest animals and then offer their services to hunters for roundups. (Note by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.)] and neighboring landowners took advantage of their arrival to organize a wolf hunt. One day a wolf lies in his lair and hears his name. He got up and went. He sees: the path ahead is marked with milestones, and from behind and to the sides the men are watching him. But he no longer tried to break through, but walked, head down, towards death...

And suddenly it hit him right between the eyes.

Here it is...death the deliverer!

POOR WOLF

There is no animal in the world that would not hate the wolf and would not curse it. The whole forest groans at his appearance: “Damned wolf! murderer! murderer!” And he runs forward and forward, not daring to turn his head, but after him: “Robber! life-cutter!” About a month ago, a wolf dragged away a woman's sheep, but the woman still hasn't dried her tears: "Damned wolf! Murderer!" And since then he hasn’t had a drop of poppy dew in his mouth: he ate a sheep, but didn’t have to slaughter another... And the woman howls, and he howls... how can you tell!

They say that the wolf deprives the peasant; but the man too, how angry he gets! And he beats him with a club, and fires at him with a gun, and digs wolf holes, and sets traps, and organizes raids on him. “The murderer! the robber!” - that’s all one hears about the wolf in the villages, “he killed the last cow! He dragged away the remaining sheep!” And what is his fault, if he cannot live in the world otherwise?

A wolf cannot live in the world without losing his stomach - that is his problem! But he doesn’t understand this. If they call him a villain, then he also calls those who persecute, maim, and kill him villains. Does he understand that with his life he is harming other lives? He thinks he lives - that's all. A horse carries weights, a cow gives milk, a sheep gives waves, and he robs and kills. A horse, a cow, a sheep, and a wolf - they all “live”, each in their own way.

And then, however, there was one among the wolves, who had been killing and robbing for many centuries, and suddenly, in his old age, he began to guess that there was something wrong in his life.

“If only you could listen to what’s going on in the forest,” he said, “there isn’t a moment when there isn’t a murder there, so that some animal isn’t squealing, losing its life—so is it really worth looking at it?”

The bear holds the wolf in his paws and thinks: “What should I do with him, with the scoundrel? If he eats him, he will steal from his soul, if he crushes him and throws him like that, he will only infect the forest with the smell of his carrion. Let me see: maybe he has a conscience. If he has a conscience, and he swears not to commit robbery in the future, I will let him go."

Wolf, oh wolf! - said Toptygin, - do you really have no conscience?

Oh, what are you, your dignity! - answered the wolf, - is it possible to live at least one day in the world without a conscience!

Therefore, it is possible, if you live. Think about it: every single day the only news about you is that you either skinned or stabbed to death - does that look like a conscience?

Your dignity! let me report to you! Should I drink and eat, feed my wolf, raise wolf cubs? What resolution would you like to put forward on this matter?

Mikhailo Ivanovich thought and thought and saw: if a wolf is supposed to exist in the world, it follows that he has the right to feed himself.

“I have to,” he says.

The bear thought about these wolf words, but still wants to try.

Yes, you should, - he says, - at least take it easy, or something...

The bear became even more thoughtful. He sees that the wolf is telling him the truth, but he is still afraid to let him go: now he will take up robbery again.

Repent, wolf! - speaks.

There is nothing for me, your lordship, to repent of. No one is the enemy of their life, including me; so where is my fault?

At least promise me!

And I can’t promise, Your Excellency. The fox promises you whatever you want, but I can’t.

What to do? The bear thought and thought, and finally decided.

You are a most unfortunate beast - that’s what I’ll tell you! - he said to the wolf. “I can’t judge you, although I know that I’m taking a lot of sin on my soul by letting you go.” I can add one thing: if I were you, not only would I not value life, but I would consider death to be a good thing for myself! And think about these words of mine!

And he released the wolf in all four directions.

The wolf freed himself from the bear's paws and now again took up his old craft. The forest groans from it, and so does the Sabbath. Got into the habit of going to the same village; at two or three nights he slaughtered a whole herd in vain - and it was no good for him. He will lie down with a full belly in the swamp, stretching and squinting his eyes. He even went to war with the bear, his benefactor, but he, fortunately, caught himself in time and only threatened him with his paw from afar.

No way, have I become afraid of dogs too? - he asks himself.

He returns to the lair and starts howling. The owl is crying in the forest, and he is howling in the swamp - the passion of the Lord, what a commotion will arise in the village!

And I’ll show you what it is...mmmerrrrr-vets! - the wolf became furious.

The wolf stopped and listened. He had slaughtered a lot of sheep in his time, and they were all somehow indifferent. Before the wolf has time to grab her, she has already closed her eyes, lies there, does not move, as if she is correcting a natural duty. And here comes the baby - and look how he’s crying: he wants to live! Ah, apparently, this greedy life is sweet for everyone! Here he is, the wolf - old, old, and he could still live about a hundred years!

And, without waiting for an answer, he released the lamb from the mouth, and he himself wandered, tail down, into the den, so that he could stretch his mind there at his leisure.

But this mind did not reveal anything to him, except for what he had known for a long time, namely: that there was no way for him, a wolf, to live except by murder and robbery.

Is he going to starve himself... Nowadays he has stopped chasing hares, he just walks around the birds. If he catches a young crow or bird - that's all he gets. So even here the other vitupers shout in unison: “Damned! damned! damned!”

Precisely the damned one. Well, how can one live only then to kill and rob? Let us suppose that they curse him unfairly, unreasonably: he does not commit robbery by his own will, but how can one not curse him! How many animals has he killed in his lifetime! How many women and men have he deprived and made unhappy for the rest of their lives!

Finally, death took pity on him. “Lukashi” appeared in that area [“Lukashi” are peasants from the Velikolutsky district of the Pskov province who study the habits and customs of forest animals and then offer their services to hunters for roundups. (Note by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.)] and neighboring landowners took advantage of their arrival to organize a wolf hunt. One day a wolf lies in his lair and hears his name. He got up and went. He sees: the path ahead is marked with milestones, and from behind and to the sides the men are watching him. But he no longer tried to break through, but walked, head down, towards death...

And suddenly it hit him right between the eyes.

Here it is...death the deliverer!

Notes

POOR WOLF
(Page 39)

First - OD, 1883, September, No. 55, pp. 6-9, as the third issue (see above for details, p. 450). For the first time in Russia - OZ, 1884, No. 1, pp. 270-275, number two.

A draft manuscript of an early edition has survived (IRLI).

The tale was written in January 1883 (see page 451), typed for the February issue OZ, but for censorship reasons it was removed from it.

When preparing a fairy tale for publication in OZ Saltykov made a stylistic edit and excluded from the text the phrase “It’s not that he is to blame, but his life itself is absolute hell,” which concluded the paragraph “And then I was found...” (see page 40).

The fairy tale "Poor Wolf" continues the fairy tale "Selfless Hare". This is confirmed both by the writer’s indication that there is a connection between the named fairy tales, and by the first phrase of the fairy tale about the “poor wolf.”

In “Poor Wolf” Saltykov embodied one of his constant ideas about the socio-historical determinism of human behavior. The writer touched on this idea in “Provincial Sketches” (see this edition, vol. 2, p. 302), in the last chapter of “The Golovlevs,” in “All the Year Round” (vol. 13, p. 505), in “Adventures with Kramolnikov” and in many other works, and in the fairy tale he gave her the most profound philosophical development. A "predator" cannot change its nature. Hence the peculiar modification of the main image of the fairy tale under the pen of Saltykov. In the folklore tradition of many peoples, the “wolf” is a symbol of evil. Saltykov gives the “wolf” the epithet “poor” and makes the “poor wolf” exclaim with relief at the moment when he is killed: “Here it is...death the deliverer!” The zoological, “wolf” parallel to the exploiters depicted with exceptional clarity the power of the power of the general “order of things” over the souls and actions of people. Some critics saw in the tale a pessimistic “philosophy of the fatality of mutual devouring.” Meanwhile, Saltykov was not a supporter of absolute determinism; in solving social problems, he attached great, and sometimes exaggerated, importance to the moral factor; he preferred and considered possible the path of “bloodless” movement towards “social harmony.” Shunning violent methods of struggle, Saltykov constantly doubted the possibility of doing without them. The writer’s tragic thoughts about the choice of ways to combat social evil were expressed especially strongly in “Poor Wolf,” as in “Karas the Idealist.” Saltykov did not make a final choice in a positive manner. But with the whole meaning of an objective picture showing that “the beast cannot do anything by itself: neither change the order of life, nor die,” “Poor Wolf” exposed the failure of naive hopes for the mercy and generosity of the exploiters, for their peaceful and voluntary social and moral rebirth.

The wolf is the most terrible predator in the forest. He spares neither hares nor sheep. He is able to kill all the livestock of an ordinary man and leave his family to starve. But a man who gets angry with a wolf will not leave it without punishment. This is how wolves and people fight among themselves. But animals are also capable of hatred towards people.

Once upon a time there lived a wolf. He was a real predator: he killed cows, killed a huntsman and killed a little boy. He did not feel hungry. This all went on for a long time. One day fate brought him to a bear. He didn't hate wolves for their actions. The bear did not want to kill the terrible beast, but wanted his conscience to awaken. He started talking about how killing everyone is bad and it’s impossible. The wolf told him that he simply couldn’t live any other way since he was a predator. He needs to feed his own family, and this cannot be done without killing anyone. The bear agreed that it was impossible not to kill and released him. The wolf repented of what he had done and said that he would kill less than before. The bear said that the best deliverance is the death of the wolf.

But the wolf deceived the bear and began to kill more than ever. He began to go to the village alone every night and hunt domestic animals. He eats until he is full, sleeps the rest of the time, and at night he takes up his atrocities again. He did this for a long time, but he became old. Running harder and harder. A man also damaged his spine with a stick. Getting food now became harder and harder each time. He understands that he is no longer able to defeat the dogs. He couldn’t kill a sheep either, and he began howling all night from hunger.

One day he finally managed to pull one lamb out of the herd. He drags him in his animal jaws, and he asks to let him go, he wants to live. Before this, all the sheep were silent and did not resist, but this one really wants to live. The wolf remembered the bear and his words that death would be his deliverance. He took pity and released the lamb.

The wolf brought him to his den and began to wait for his death. He cannot lay hands on himself, but death does not come to him. He can only die from hunger. He's been hungry for a long time now. It is not capable of catching any prey except small crows. Lezha thinks that they cursed him because of his murders. The words that he is a damned murderer are still spinning in my head. He killed countless animals, and also made many people unhappy. He lies there waiting for death.

Hunters came to the forest to hunt. The wolf specifically approached them and bowed his head. Feeling his skull split from the bullet, he realized that that was it, his death had come and would finally relieve him of his suffering.

The essence of the story is that a predator cannot live without killing, but he also has the right to life.

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin: analysis of the fairy tale “The Selfless Hare.” “Poor Wolf” (analysis of a fairy tale) (Saltykov-Shchedrin M

Poor wolf

Picture or drawing Poor wolf

Other retellings and reviews for the reader's diary