Analysis of the fairy tale Saltykov-Shchedrin's conscience disappeared essay. The problem of attitude towards conscience according to the text of M.E.

Conscience is what purifies a person and ennobles him, encourages him to think about the actions he commits.

In the fairy tale M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin's conscience disappears. One day a drunkard (“drunkard”) finds her, and an awareness of reality immediately comes to him: he remembers everything that has ever happened to him, and blames himself for not living his life differently (“to the pathetic drunkard, his entire past seems like nothing an ugly crime", "the process of self-condemnation to which he exposes himself hits him incomparably more painfully and severely than the strictest human court").

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The Propoets hurries to get rid of his find and gives it to Prokhorych, the owner of the drinking house ("tavern"). His awakened conscience whispers to him: “But it’s bad to make poor people drunk.” Through tears, Prokhorych begins to prove to people that “wine is the source of misfortune for every person.” Realizing that he is “drunk the poor people” with his own hands, he decides that he has no choice but to die himself or ruin the enterprise.

Arina Ivanovna, the tavern owner's wife, stuck her conscience into the coat pocket of the Hunter, a “decent covetous man” (a moneylender who takes high interest rates). Under her influence, the Trapper was unable to take anything from the men, although he usually does this freely and without hesitation. Having taken off his coat at home, the Trapper becomes the same, but when he puts it on again, his conscience plays in him again. Then he gives away all the money he had at the market, and even decides to feed the men. Realizing what he had done, he drives everyone out of the yard, and he himself is put to bed by his wife.

The catcher sends her conscience by mail to Samuil Davydych Brzhotsky.

Samuel Davydych, struck by the strength of his conscience, donates a hundred-dollar banknote to charity, hiding his martyr in that envelope. Of course, his conscience never forced him to repay his debts: this frail-looking guy withstands “the most severe tortures.”

So the poor, exiled conscience remained with many thousands of people, wandering around the world, but no one wanted to “shelter” it, but wanted to “get rid of it, sell it off.”

Soon it happens that conscience gets to the "philistine" and asks him to bury it in the heart of a "little pure Russian child." The tradesman does just that, so the conscience in that boy begins to grow, like himself. If a man becomes big, he will also have a big conscience. “Then all untruths, deceit and violence will disappear, because the conscience will not be timid and will want to manage everything itself.”

Updated: 2018-05-09

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“Conscience disappeared suddenly... almost instantly! Just yesterday, this annoying hanger-on was just flashing before my eyes, just imagining it in my excited imagination, and suddenly... nothing!” Without conscience, it became easier for people to live; they “hurried to take advantage of the fruits of this freedom.” Robberies and robberies began, people went frantic. Conscience was lying on the road and “everyone threw it away like a worthless rag,” wondering “how in a well-ordered city and in the most lively place such a blatant disgrace could be lying around.”

One “unfortunate drunkard” picked up his conscience “in the hope of getting a scale for it.” And immediately he was overcome by fear and remorse: “out of the darkness of the shameful past” all the shameful acts he had committed emerged. However, this unfortunate and pathetic man is not alone to blame for his sins; there is a monstrous force that “twisted and turned him, as a whirlwind turns and turns an insignificant blade of grass in the steppe.” Consciousness has awakened in a person, but “shows only one way out - the way out of fruitless self-accusation.” The drunkard decided to get rid of his conscience and headed to the drinking house where a certain Prokhorych was trading. The unfortunate man slipped his conscience “in a rag” to this merchant.

Prokhorych immediately began to repent. It's a sin to make people drunk! He even began making speeches to the tavern regulars about the dangers of vodka. To some, the innkeeper offered to take his conscience, but everyone shunned such a gift. Prokhorych was even going to pour the wine into the ditch. There was no trade that day, they didn’t make a penny, but the innkeeper slept peacefully, not like in the previous days. The wife realized that it was impossible to trade with conscience. At dawn, she stole her husband’s conscience and rushed into the street with it. It was a market day, there were a lot of people on the streets. Arina Ivanovna slipped her annoying conscience into the pocket of a quarterly supervisor named Trapper.

The quarterly overseer is always given bribes. At the market, he was accustomed to looking at other people's goods as if they were his own. And suddenly he sees goodness, but understands that it is someone else’s. The men began to laugh at him - they were used to being robbed! They began to call the Catcher Fofan Fofanych. So he left the market “without bags.” The wife was offended and did not give me dinner. As soon as the Catcher took off his coat, he was immediately transformed - “it began to seem again that nothing in the world was alien, but everything was his.” I decided to go to the market to repair the damage. As soon as I put on my coat (and my conscience is in my pocket!), I again felt ashamed to rob people. By the time he reached the market, his own wallet had already become a burden to him. He started handing out money and gave everything away. Moreover, along the way he took with him “the apparently and invisibly poor” to feed them. He came home, told his wife to separate the “strange people,” and took off his coat himself... And he was surprised: why are people wandering around the yard? Flog them, or what? The beggars were kicked out, and the wife began to rummage through her husband’s pockets to see if there was a penny lying around? And I found my conscience in my pocket! The savvy woman decided that financier Samuil Davydovich Brzhotsky “would take a small beating, but he’d survive!” And she sent her conscience by mail.

Both Samuil Davydovich himself and his children are well versed in ways to extract money from anything. Even younger sons realize “how much the latter owes the former for borrowed candy.” Conscience is of no use at all in such a family. Brzhotsky found a way out. He had long promised to make a charitable donation to a certain general. The hundredth banknote (the donation itself) was accompanied by a conscience in an envelope. All this was handed over to the general.

This is how conscience was passed from hand to hand. Nobody needed her. And then conscience asked the last one in his hands: “Find me a little Russian child, dissolve his pure heart before me and bury me in it!”

“A little child grows, and conscience grows with him. And the little child will be a big man, and he will have a big conscience. And then all untruths, deceit and violence will disappear, because the conscience will not be timid and will want to manage everything itself.”

This is the second lesson on M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost.”

Lesson type: combined, group work.

Type of lesson: research, practical lesson.

Methodological techniques: ICT, technologies of critical thinking and differentiated learning

The first lesson is preparation for this lesson: reading a fairy tale, writing down questions that arose during reading, finding expressive means of language and determining their role in the text. The house was given a task: to re-read the fairy tale and follow the changes taking place in the person who had acquired a conscience.

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Slide captions:

I give you my heart On a white leaf, I give you my heart, Do whatever you want with it. Walk anywhere, Walk with him everywhere, Draw whatever you want, I won’t be angry. But it’s better not to learn to draw on it, let my heart remain pure. (Translation by A. Barto on behalf of Martinko Feldek, 4 years old)

Let's talk about conscience. (based on M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”) 1) What is conscience for the heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”? 2) Does a person need a conscience or not? 3) Where does she belong? On the floor in a bundle or in a person’s soul? 4) Why is it needed in the modern world? Goal: understanding the concept of conscience as responsibility for one’s actions based on the analysis of a literary text. What is conscience for the heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Is Missing” and why is it needed in the modern world?

What is conscience for the heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”? 1) Conscience - a sense of moral responsibility for one’s behavior to other people. (Ozhegov S.I., Shvedova N.Yu. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language). 2) Conscience - a feeling and consciousness of moral responsibility for one’s behavior to oneself and the people around you. (Dictionary of the Russian language. Edited by A.P. Evgenieva) 3) Conscience - moral consciousness, moral sense or feeling in a person; inner consciousness of good and evil; the secret place of the soul, in which approval or condemnation of every action is echoed; the ability to recognize the quality of an action; a feeling that encourages truth and goodness, turning away from lies and evil; involuntary love for good and truth; innate truth, in varying degrees of development. (Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary)

What is conscience for the heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”? Conclusion: Conscience became a burden to people, it tormented them. “...the most severe grief of all is the grief of a suddenly acquired conscience.” A person’s attempts to become better are perceived as a disease and are condemned by society.

“...A little child grows, and with him his conscience grows. And the little child will be a big man, and he will have a big conscience. And then all untruths, deceit and violence will disappear, because the conscience will not be timid and will want to manage everything itself.”

Homework for “5”: Write a detailed answer to the question: Why does a person need a conscience? On “4”: Write down (optional) 5 proverbs about conscience among different peoples of the world and answer the question: Why is this moral category important for all people, regardless of nationality?

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Subject: Let's talk about conscience.(Analysis of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”)

Lesson type: combined, group work.

Lesson type: research, practical lesson.

Goals:

Educational.

Acquaintance with the fairy tale by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin “Conscience is gone.”
Improve text analysis skills.
To identify the degree of relevance of the concept of “conscience” in modern society and the reflection of this problem in the literature of the second half of the 19th century

Developmental.

Development of the ability to analyze, systematize, generalize.
Develop independent and group work skills.
Develop imagination, associative and logical thinking.
Continue to develop cognitive interest in literature.

Educational.

To cultivate moral qualities, the ability to evaluate one’s actions, the surrounding reality, to be able to sympathize, empathize, and defend a moral position.
Lay the foundations of moral behavior, develop speech, expressive reading of text.

Equipment: materials for group work (cards with tasks, paper, markers), materials for individual work (taking into accountlevel of training)
multimedia projector for demonstrating a presentation, texts of works of art, presentation for a lesson.

During the classes

I. Organizational moment. Introduction to the lesson.(Call stage)

In the first literature lesson in 9th grade, we told you that

Literature is confession.

Under the guise of confession - a sermon...

So, today we have just a lesson - confession, a lesson - a sermon, and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin will confess to us.

And I'll start my lesson with a poemfour-year-old boy Martinko Feldek from Slovakia, whoI drew a heart on a piece of paper and gave it to my mother with these words: Slide - 1

I give you my heart

On a white leaf,

I give you my heart

Do whatever you want with him.

Walk anywhere

Walk with him everywhere

Draw whatever you want

I won't be angry.

But it's better on it

Don't learn to draw,

Let my heart

Will remain clean.

(Translation by A. Barto on behalf of Martinko Feldek, 4 years old)

Did he understand what a big idea was in his lines?Find these lines.

What associations do you have with the phrase “pure heart”?

On the desk: A pure heart is...

II. Formulating the topic of the lesson, setting goals and objectives.

1. Lesson topic.

A clean heart means a clear conscience. The truth speaks through the mouth of a baby. Today in class I invite you to talk about conscience. Slide - 2

2. Lesson objectives.

Sample questions: Slide - 2

2) Does a person need a conscience or not?

3) Where does she belong? On the floor in a bundle or in a person’s soul?

4) Is it needed by society in general and the individual in particular?

Based on these questions, formulate the purpose of our lesson.

Everything is correct, and all I have to do as a teacher is formulate it. Slide - 2

Which two of these questions will be key?

Problematic question: Slide - 2

What is conscience for the heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Is Missing” and why is it needed in the modern world?

III. Analysis of a fairy tale. ( Conception stage)

- So, conscience and man. Let’s reflect on the problems of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost.” (Reading 1, 2 paragraphs).

What changed in people's lives when conscience disappeared?(Many began to feel more cheerful and freer. They lost track of time, the present and the future were mixed up, movement accelerated - there was no time to think, silence and harmony disappeared, “a person’s movement became easier,” “nothing upset them...”)

What technique is used for this?(Irony. True sages never considered themselves sinless, but were extremely conscientious people)

What would conscience become without a person? (Annoying hanger-on, accuser, yoke, blatant disgrace).

People freed themselves from conscience, and it became a rag, a hangover. Nobody needs her, no one calls her, on the contrary, they throw her around, toss her to each other. So the journey of conscience begins. Although I will say another word - myta′ rstva. Why ordeal and not travel?Trials, because This is not just a journey, it is disaster, suffering, wandering.

The first half of the problematic question sounds like this:What is conscience for the heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”?To answer this question, complete individual and group assignments. (Give out assignments)

What is conscience for the heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”?

First, let's find out what conscience is? How do you understand the meaning of this word?(This is the inner voice that does not allow a person to do evil, causes a feeling of shame from what he has done, this is the voice of God inside us). Slide - 3

3) Conscience - (Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary)

1. Presentation of task 1.

Let's return to our fairy tale. Sad start. A discarded, spat upon, crumpled, useless conscience passes from hand to hand. How they accept it, what the heroes, the very “wise ones of the world” feel, now we will see.

2. Group presentations (task 2):

Conscience appeared in...

1 group – bitter drunkard

Group 2 – owner of a tavern selling alcohol

Group 3 – quarterly overseer

Group 4 – a very stingy and rich financier, banker.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is a satirist writer. With pain in his heart, he writes about his compatriots fleeing from conscience. These are representatives of different strata of society, they all have the same attitude towards conscience.What do these people look like?(Pitiful, insignificant, these are lost people, they have no sense of shame, they don’t even know what it is).

Why do fairy tale heroes get rid of their conscience?

- What is conscience for the heroes of the fairy tale “Conscience Lost” by M.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin? Slide - 4

Conclusion: conscience became a burden to people, it tormented them. “...the most severe grief of all is the grief of a suddenly acquired conscience.” A person’s attempts to become better are perceived as a disease and are condemned by society.

Is this problem still relevant?(A person has the right to choose).

So this is an eternal problem. What if everyone loses their conscience? How to live on earth? What to do? Living without conscience?The writer gives an answer to this question. Let's turn to the ending of the work (reading)

“And for a long time the poor, exiled conscience wandered around the world in this way, and it stayed with many thousands of people. But no one wanted to shelter her, and everyone, on the contrary, was only thinking about how to get rid of her, even by deception, and get away with it.

Finally, she herself became bored with the fact that she, poor thing, had nowhere to lay her head and had to live her life among strangers, and without shelter. So she prayed to her last owner, some tradesman who was selling dust in the passage and could not get by from that trade.

Why are you tyrannizing me? - my poor conscience complained, - why are you pushing me around like some kind of pick-me-up?

What will I do with you, madam conscience, if no one needs you? - the tradesman asked, in turn.”

What words will be key here?

Why does her conscience ask her to find a “little Russian child” for her and place her in his heart? (What do you think, is conscience a natural property of a person or the fruit of upbringing? Why?)

What is the point of the ending?(Saltykov - Shchedrin hopes that the younger generation will not abandon conscience like a worthless rag, will not try to get rid of conscience, but with his help it will come out into the people).

If we figuratively imagine conscience hanging around different people, then together with the writer we will see “a dirty, shabby rag”, “a greasy piece of paper with torn edges”, gray, something like this.What kind of conscience do the guys see?

3. Presentation by a group of artists (Task 3).

This is how everyone should have a conscience, and not like the appearance of a gray, wrinkled rag.

What does a fairy tale teach?(Written response).

VI . Summarizing

Why is conscience needed in the modern world?

1. After the children’s answers, presentation of task 4 (Balakleyets D.)

Conclusion: Conscience is always modern, as it helps to cleanse one's soul. Living with conscience is difficult, sometimes bitter, sometimes painful, but at the same time it is easy and bright, because then there is no need to be ashamed of yourself, the good one who lives inside each of us. Every person needs conscience for the development of his soul, and if it disappears somewhere for a while, falls out of the soul, an ad must be urgently posted:

2. Presentation of task 5 (Ushakov).

- Do you remember what goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the lesson? Have you achieved them?

V. Homework.

On “5”: Write a detailed answer to the question:Why does a person need a conscience?

On “4”: Write out optional 5proverbs about conscience among different peoples of the world and answer the question:Why is this moral category important for all people, regardless of nationality?

Differentiated task:

Exercise 1. Read the definitions of the word “conscience” and answer the question:Which definition do you think is more complete? Why?

1) Conscience is a sense of moral responsibility for one’s behavior before other people.(Ozhegov S.I., Shvedova N.Yu. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language).

2) Conscience is a feeling and awareness of moral responsibility for one’s behavior to oneself and the people around you.(Dictionary of the Russian language. Edited by A.P. Evgenieva)

3) Conscience - moral consciousness, moral sense or feeling in a person; inner consciousness of good and evil; the secret place of the soul, in which approval or condemnation of every action is echoed; the ability to recognize the quality of an action; a feeling that encourages truth and goodness, turning away from lies and evil; involuntary love for good and truth; innate truth, in varying degrees of development.(Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary)

Task 2 . Try to depict conscience as it should be (shape, color). Protect your project.

Task 3 (in groups)

Conscience appeared in

Group 1 - bitter drunkard

Group 2 – tavern owner

Group 3 – quarterly overseer

Group 4 - a very stingy and rich financier, banker.

Heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”

Conscience appeared in...

with conscience	without conscience

Task 4 . Write an advertisement about a missing conscience:

Announcement

Conscience is gone!!!

Special signs:________________________________________________________________. We ask the finder to _____________________________________________.

Preview:

Monitor the changes occurring in the person to whom the conscience has fallen.

Heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”

A bitter drunkard has a conscience

Monitor the changes occurring in the person to whom the conscience has fallen.

Heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”

Monitor the changes occurring in the person to whom the conscience has fallen.

Heroes of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s fairy tale “Conscience Lost”

A very stingy and rich financier, banker has a conscience

with conscience

without conscience

Which definition do you think is more complete? Why?

1) Conscience is a sense of moral responsibility for one’s behavior before other people.(Ozhegov S.I., Shvedova N.Yu. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language).

2) Conscience is a feeling and awareness of moral responsibility for one’s behavior to oneself and the people around you.(Dictionary of the Russian language. Edited by A.P. Evgenieva)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Goal: understanding the concept of conscience as responsibility for one’s actions based on the analysis of a literary text

Equipment: demonstration material (definitions of the concept of “conscience” from explanatory dictionaries)

During the classes

Organizing time. Introduction to the text, topic of the lesson.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin often offers us fairy-tale situations: this is a desert island on which two generals miraculously ended up, and a wild landowner from whose estate all the men miraculously disappeared, and in this fairy tale we have a completely unusual situation - conscience has disappeared. What is conscience, do you think?

(Students' answers)

In your own words, you expressed clear definitions that are in dictionaries (refer to demo material):

Ozhegov S.I., Shvedova N.Yu. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language: Conscience is a feeling of moral responsibility for one’s behavior before people around.

Dictionary of the Russian language / Edited by A.P. Evgenieva: Conscience is the feeling and consciousness of moral responsibility for one’s behavior to oneself and the people around you.

Which definition do you think is more complete? Why?

(Students' answers)

So, conscience disappeared, disappeared, man and conscience were separated - what happened to them?

A man without conscience - how have people changed? “Many began to feel freer”.

How do you understand this? Humanity disappeared, people became like animals.

What about conscience without a person? What has she become? An annoying hanger-on, an accuser, a yoke, a blatant disgrace.

People freed themselves from conscience, and it became a rag, a hangover. Nobody needs her, no one calls her, on the contrary, they throw her around, toss her to each other.

Commented reading of the text.

So the journey of conscience begins. Although I will use another word - ordeal. Which one is stronger? Trials, because This is not just a journey, it is disaster, suffering, wandering.

Who will have a conscience? A drunkard; at Prokhorych, the owner of the tavern; at the Trapper, the quarterly overseer; from Brozhtsky, a wealthy banker.

reading a fragment from the words “And God knows how long the poor exile would have lain like this if some unfortunate drunkard had not raised her, who, with his drunken eyes, coveted even a worthless rag, in the hope of getting a scale for it.” to the words ": before Prokhorych has time to come to his senses, the terrible find is already in his hand."

What is the vice of a drunkard? Is this a vice only of the 19th century? What does conscience do to a drunkard? “An electric current penetrated”, “the head is freed from wine fumes”, “the consciousness of reality, fear, memory, shame returns”

Is this the worst vice? No, because a drunkard is responsible only for himself and destroys only himself.

Reading by role of a fragment from the words “For some time Prokhorych stood with his eyes wide; then suddenly he began to sweat.” to the words “She ran after him with all her might, and barely had time to catch up when she immediately, with amazing dexterity, quietly put her conscience into the pocket of his coat.”

What discovery does Prokhorych make for himself? “It’s easy for the person who has a conscience in his eyes.”

Why does the drunkard feel fear, and Prokhorych - relief when conscience falls into their hands? Prokhorych's vice is more serious: he destroys not only himself.

Reading a fragment from the words “The catcher was small, not exactly shameless, but he didn’t like to embarrass himself and moved his paw quite freely.” to the words “Well, now you can, my friend, feel free to go to the market,” she told her husband upon returning home.”

What letter is the hero's name written with: capital or small? What is this - a name or a nickname? A nickname that reflects the very essence of a person.

What is he like? “Shameless”, “impetuous”, “decent greedy man”.

It's without conscience. And with a conscience in your pocket? “He came to the market square, and it seemed to him that everything that was there, both on the carts, and on the lockers, and in the shops, was not his, but someone else’s. This had never happened to him before.”

What is his vice? Bribery, bribery, an even more serious sin.

Reading a fragment from the words “Samuel Davydych Brzhotsky was sitting at the dinner table, surrounded by his entire family.” to the words “That same evening he completely forgot about the suffering he had endured and invented such an outlandish operation to everyone’s annoyance that the next day everyone gasped as much as they found out.”

Who is Brzhotsky by occupation? Banker.

Look: a prosperous, wealthy family, an intelligent person, a wife, children - what is his vice? He is calculating and even betrays his conscience on the sly.

Reading a fragment from the words “And for a long time the poor, exiled conscience staggered around the world, and it stayed with many thousands of people.” to end

Let's go back to the definitions we worked with at the beginning of the lesson. For whom was conscience a “worthless rag”: for Saltykov-Shchedrin? For his heroes?

(Students' answers)

Read another definition from the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” by V.I. Dalia: " Conscience is the inner consciousness of good and evil, the secret place of the soul, a feeling that encourages truth and goodness."

Do you agree with this definition?

So where is the refuge of conscience? For the first time we hear her voice, her request. What is she asking for? " Find me a little Russian child, dissolve his pure heart before me and bury me in it!”

Why is there a child in the heart?

(Students' answers)

Creative work for associations.

Try to materialize the image of conscience, imagine it in the form of a specific object or phenomenon.

(Students' answers)

Lesson summary.

So, Saltykov-Shchedrin places his hopes on conscience, because for him it is the guardian of the human in man, the mistress of the future state of the world.

A fairy tale, nothing more than a fairy tale,

and yet a great tragedy...

I. Kramskoy

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was a multi-talented writer. He wrote novels, stories, essays, chronicles, and articles. Shchedrin's fairy tales made him especially popular among the people.

The fairy tales have the subtitle “For children of a fair age,” and this suggests that the fairy-tale allegorical form was chosen in order to be able to express thoughts that are dangerous to express in another form. Pretending to be a simpleton, the satirist talks about things that are not at all fabulous.

Fairy tales were written by Shchedrin at the end of his life and seemed to sum up the results of his many years of literary work. They combined the fantastic and the real, the comic and the tragic, hyperbole and Aesopian language.

In the writer’s fairy tales there are both fierce, ignorant rulers (“The Bear in the Voivodeship”, “The Eagle Patron”, “The Wild Landowner”), and hardworking people submissive to their exploiters (“The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, “ Horse”), and the people awakening and seeking the truth (“The Raven Petitioner”).

Many fairy tales convey a belief in the triumph of positive ideals. Thus, the fairy tale “Conscience Lost” tells how conscience was expelled from the world of people. She was thrown away like a useless old rag. The writer expresses confidence that only when he gets into the cradle where a small child lies, conscience will finally find its defender.

The writer widely uses the technique of allegory: under the guise of animals and birds he depicts representatives of various social classes and groups. Based on folk tradition, using images and folk speech filled with folk humor, Shchedrin created works whose goal is to awaken the people. The great satirist sought to make sure that “children of a fair age” would cease to be children. The unusualness of the writer’s fairy tales is that he does not offer readers understandable comparisons, but confronts aspects of the life of humans and animals that no one had noticed before. Sometimes it is simply impossible to understand who we are talking about: “Crucian carp is a quiet fish and prone to idealism.”

Shchedrin turned the fairy tale into a political satire. Each image was directed against the reigning eagles, the beautiful-hearted crucian carp, the moderately liberal minnows.

The writer speaks with sadness and sympathy about the long-suffering of the people, about their naive political illusions. He wants to show that it is impossible for a peasant to get along with the voracious pikes and bears in the province, and to explain to the oppressed people that they themselves are a powerful and formidable force to repel the reigning predators and fight them.

Unfortunately, in life, evil often wins, not good, and this is the true tragedy of the fairy tale “Crucian the Idealist,” after reading which the artist I. Kramskoy said: “A fairy tale, nothing more than a fairy tale, and yet a high tragedy.” Material from the site

The tragic situation of an enslaved, robbed and disenfranchised people, their hard labor, the fruits of which go to the “idle dancers,” is shown in the fairy tale “The Horse.” The image of Konyaga is a symbol of the oppressed, tormented people, to whom the author treats with the greatest sympathy. It is on him that he pins his hopes for a new life: “From century to century, the formidable, motionless bulk of the fields grows numb, as if it were guarding a fairy-tale power in captivity. Who will free this force from captivity? Who will bring her into the world? This task fell to two creatures: the peasant and the Horse,” the author writes confidently.

The fairy tales of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin have been carrying the undying ideas of satire for more than a hundred years. They are still read with great interest today, because even today their characters live among us.

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