Analysis of individual works of M. M

Mikhail Zoshchenko's laughter is both funny and sad. Behind the “everyday” absurd and funny situations of his stories are hidden the sad and sometimes tragic reflections of the writer about life, about people, about time.
In the 1924 story “Nervous People,” the writer touches on one of the main problems of his era - the so-called “housing question.” The hero-narrator tells readers about a seemingly insignificant incident - a fight in a communal apartment: “Recently, a fight occurred in our apartment. And it’s not just a fight, but a whole fight.”
Zoshchenko gives a specific designation of the location of his story and its participants - Moscow, 20s, residents of an apartment on the corner of Glazovaya and Borovaya. Thus, the writer seeks to enhance the effect of the reader’s presence, to make him a witness to the events described.
Already at the beginning of the story, a general picture of what happened is given: a fight occurred, in which the disabled Gavrilov suffered the most. The naive narrator sees the reason for the fight in the increased nervousness of the people: “... the people are already very nervous. Gets upset over small trifles. It’s getting hot” And this, according to the hero-narrator, is not surprising: “It is, of course. After the civil war, they say, people’s nerves are always shaken.”
What caused the fight? The reason is the most insignificant and ridiculous. One resident, Marya Vasilyevna Shchiptsova, took a hedgehog from another resident, Daria Petrovna Kobylina, without permission, in order to clean the primus stove. Daria Petrovna was indignant. So, word for word, the two women quarreled. The narrator delicately writes: “They began to talk to each other.” And then he continues: “They made a noise, a roar, a crash.” With the help of gradation, the author reveals to us the true state of affairs: we understand that two neighbors began to quarrel, quarrel and, probably, fight. In addition, thanks to this gradation, a funny, comic effect is created.
Daria Petrovna’s husband, Ivan Stepanych Kobylin, appeared in response to the noise and swearing. This image is a typical image of a Nepman, a “bourgeois undercut.” The narrator describes him this way: “Such a healthy man, even pot-bellied, but, in turn, nervous.” Kobylin, “like an elephant,” works in a cooperative, selling sausage. For his own, money or things, he, as they say, will hang himself. This hero intervenes in the quarrel with his weighty word: “...under no circumstances will I allow unauthorized personnel to use these hedgehogs.” For Kobylin, other people, even neighbors, are “foreign personnel” who should not touch him in any way.
All the residents of the communal apartment came out to the scandal - all twelve people. Having gathered in the cramped kitchen, they began to resolve the controversial issue. The appearance of the disabled Gavrilych and his words “What is this noise, but there is no fight?” became the impetus for the climax of the story - the fight.
In the cramped and narrow kitchen, all the residents began to wave their hands, venting their dissatisfaction with both their neighbors and the terrible living conditions. As a result, the most innocent and defenseless person, the legless disabled man Gavrilych, suffered. Someone, in the heat of a fight, “hits a disabled person on the dome.” Only the arriving police were able to calm the raging residents. Having come to their senses, they cannot understand what led them to such a serious fight. It’s scary because the victim of their madness, the disabled Gavrilych, “lies, you know, on the floor, boring. And blood drips from my head.”
At the end of the story, we learn that a trial was held, the verdict of which was to “register the Izhitsa,” that is, to reprimand the residents of the apartment. The story ends with these words: “And the judge, also a nervous man, got caught and prescribed Izhitsa.”
And here we hear the voice of the author rather than the hero-storyteller. In these words, Zoshchenko himself expresses his attitude towards everything described. For killing a person - a reprimand?!
It seems to me that this verdict confirms the typicality of such situations for Moscow in the 20s of the 20th century. According to Zoshchenko, communal apartments are an absolute evil. Of course, it all depends on specific people. After all, there were also communal apartments in which neighbors lived as one family and never wanted to leave. Of course, the author satirically reveals the image of Kobylin, an uneducated and arrogant grabber. But, at the same time, there is some truth in the words of this hero. Why doesn’t he, like the other twelve residents of a small communal apartment, have the right to his own personal space, to his own apartment? Excited by the cramped conditions and the fact that they are constantly forced to deal with their not always pleasant neighbors, “nervous people” are constantly in conflict. Every little thing causes a storm of emotions in them, as a result of which the most terrible things can happen.
The fact that the “housing issue” is not a trifle, the solution of which can wait, is indicated by the tragic ending of the story “Nervous People”. As a result of the fight, an innocent person, the disabled Gavrilych, dies.
This story by Zoshchenko introduces us to the world of Moscow in the 20s of the last century. The image of the hero-storyteller - an ordinary Muscovite, naively telling about his life, what he knows, and what he witnessed - helps to create the flavor of that time. The language of the narrator and the characters of the work is a mixture of vernacular, vulgarisms and clericalisms, borrowed words. This combination paints a truthful portrait of Zoshchenko’s contemporary and, at the same time, creates a comic effect, causing a sad smile in the reader.
I believe that by exposing the shortcomings of his time, Zoshchenko sought to improve the lives of his contemporaries. Talking about seemingly trifles, the writer showed that life, the life of individual people, consists of little things. Writer Mikhail Zoshchenko considered improving this life his highest goal.

Essay on literature on the topic: Analysis of M. Zoshchenko’s story “Nervous People”

Other writings:

1. M. Zoshchenko’s story “Glass” (1923), at first glance, is very “light” and relaxed. However, it touches on important problems in relationships between people - issues of education, tact, and kind attitude towards each other. The writer shows that philistinism has penetrated so deeply into man that Read More......
2. True, Zoshchenko’s attempts to write in a new way were not immediately understood. Zoshchenko brought one of his first stories to the Sovremennik magazine, whose editor was the poet M. Kuzmin. The story was not accepted. “Your stories are very talented,” says Kuzmin... – But you must agree – this is Read More......
3. Glass In his story “Glass,” Mikhail Zoshchenko reveals the important problem of mutual understanding between people, the issue of education and simple attitude towards each other. At first the work seems easy and understandable, but there is a hidden tact in it that makes you think about yourself and Read More......
4. There is hardly a person who has not read a single work by Mikhail Zoshchenko. In the 20-30s, he actively collaborated in satirical magazines (“Behemoth”, “Smekhach”, “Pushka”, “The Inspector General” and others). And even then his reputation as a famous satirist was established. Continuing the analysis of Zoshchenko traditions in Read More......
5. The Zoshchenko Theater has 10 plays, 8 one-act comedies, 2 librettos, many sketches (for the satirical magazines of the 20-30s “Buzoter”, “Smekhach”, “Behemoth” - under different pseudonyms), miniatures for the stage. He wrote for the theater and about the theater. One way or another, a specific analysis Read More......
6. Mikhail Zoshchenko is a unique writer. His works have a unique flavor: the spirit of Soviet streets of the 20s of the 20th century. While almost all Soviet writers glorified the Great October Revolution and turned to heroic themes, Zoshchenko wrote about a common man living in Read More ......
7. Zoshchenko has a lot of “narrating” characters who explain their lives. To a large extent, these qualities are endowed with the narrator, who sometimes talks very colorfully about serious problems. Having begun to “philosophize” about culture, the narrator continues: “And the question of culture is a dog’s question. At least about Read More......
8. In the work of Mikhail Zoshchenko, in particular in his stories, a special place is occupied by the position of the author's face and the author's mask. In this topic, I would like, to the best of my knowledge of M. Zoshchenko’s work, to reveal the mechanism of the author’s position. The purpose of this essay is to try to understand Read More......

Analysis of the story “Aristocrat” by M. M. Zoshchenko. Already the first satirical works of Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko indicated that Russian literature was replenished with a new name of a writer, unlike anyone else, with his own special view of the world, social life, morality, culture, human relationships. The language of Zoshchenko's prose was also not similar to the language of other writers working in the genre of satire.

Zoshchenko in his works puts the heroes in circumstances to which they cannot adapt, which is why they look funny, absurd, and pitiful. Such, for example, is the character of the story “Aristocrat” Grigory Ivanovich. The narration is narrated by the character himself, that is, we hear the whole story from the first person. Grigory Ivanovich talks about how his infatuation with the aristocrat ended. It must be said that the hero clearly understood for himself what aristocrats look like - they must definitely wear a hat, “she has fildecos stockings,” she can have a pug on her arms, and have a “golden tooth.” Even if a woman does not belong to the aristocracy, but looks as the narrator described her, then for him she automatically goes into the category of aristocrats hated by him after what happened.

And the following happened: the plumber Grigory Ivanovich saw just one of these “aristocrats” at a meeting and became interested in her. The hero's courtship of the lady he likes causes laughter - he comes to her “as an official person” and is interested “in the sense of damage to the water supply and the restroom.” After a month of such visits, the lady began to answer the gentleman’s questions in more detail about the condition of the bathroom. The hero looks pathetic - he absolutely does not know how to carry on a conversation with the object of his interest, and even when they finally began to walk through the streets arm in arm, he feels awkward because he does not know what to talk about and because people are looking at them.

However, Grigory Ivanovich still tries to join the culture and invites his lady to the theater. He is bored in the theater, and during the intermission, instead of discussing what is happening on stage, he again starts talking about what is closer to him - about the water supply. The hero decides to treat the lady to a cake, and since he has “little money,” he pointedly invites her to “eat one cake.” The narrator explains his behavior during the scene with the cakes as “bourgeois modesty” due to lack of money. This very “bourgeois modesty” prevents the gentleman from admitting to the lady that he is short of money and the hero is trying in every possible way to distract his companion from eating cakes that is ruinous for his pocket. He fails, the situation becomes critical, and the hero, disdaining his former intentions of looking like a cultured person, forces the lady to put back the fourth cake, for which he cannot pay: “Put it down,” I say, “back!”, “Put it down,” I say , - to hell with your mother!” The situation also looks comical when the assembled people, the “experts,” evaluate the fourth cake and argue whether it has “a bite” or not.

It is no coincidence that the story takes place in the theater. The theater is considered a symbol of spiritual culture, which was so lacking in society. Therefore, the theater here acts as a background against which the lack of culture, ignorance, and bad manners of people appear most clearly.

Grigory Ivanovich does not blame himself for what happened; he attributes his failure in love affairs to the difference in social origin with his subject of passion. He blames the “aristocrat” for everything, with her “aristocratic” behavior in the theater. He does not admit that he tried to be a cultured person, the hero believes that he tried to behave in relation to the lady as a “bourgeois, uncut”, but in fact he is a “proletariat”.

The funny thing is that the lady had a very distant relationship with the aristocracy - perhaps, the matter was limited only by external resemblance to a representative of high society, and only in the understanding of Grigory Ivanovich. This is evidenced by both the lady’s behavior and her speech. Not at all like a well-mannered and cultured person belonging to the aristocracy, she says at the end of the story to Grigory Ivanovich: “That’s quite disgusting on your part. Those who don’t have money don’t travel with the ladies.”

The entire narrative causes a comic effect, and in combination with the narrator's language - laughter. The narrator's speech is replete with jargon, colloquialisms, puns, and blunders. Just look at the expression “an aristocrat is not a woman to me at all, but a smooth place”! About how the main character “walked” the lady, he himself says this: “I’ll take her by the arm and drag myself like a pike.” He calls the lady “a kind of freak,” and compares himself to “a bourgeois uncut.” As the action of the story develops, the hero no longer minces his expressions - he tells the lady to put the cake “to hell,” and the owner, in the words of Grigory Ivanovich, “twists his fists in front of his face.” The narrator gives his own interpretation to some words. So, for example, to remain indifferent means “to play around.” This hero, who claims to be a cultured person, is not one. And all his attempts to get closer to “culture” look ridiculous. The importance of Zoshchenko’s creativity is difficult to overestimate - his laughter remains relevant in our modern times, because human and social vices, unfortunately, still remain ineradicable.

1. The originality of the creativity of Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko.
2. “Aristocrats” in the understanding of ordinary people of Zoshchenko’s time.
3. The significance of the work of Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko.

Already the first satirical works of Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko indicated that Russian literature was replenished with a new name of a writer, unlike anyone else, with his own special view of the world, social life, morality, culture, human relationships. The language of Zoshchenko's prose was also not similar to the language of other writers working in the genre of satire.

Zoshchenko in his works puts the heroes in circumstances to which they cannot adapt, which is why they look funny, absurd, and pitiful. Such, for example, is the character of the story “Aristocrat” Grigory Ivanovich. The narration is narrated by the character himself, that is, we hear the whole story from the first person. Grigory Ivanovich talks about how his infatuation with the aristocrat ended. It must be said that the hero clearly understood for himself what aristocrats look like - they must certainly wear a hat, “she has fildecos stockings,” she can be with a pug in her arms, and have a “golden tooth.” Even if a woman does not belong to the aristocracy, but looks as the narrator described her, then for him she automatically goes into the category of aristocrats hated by him after what happened.

And the following happened: the plumber Grigory Ivanovich saw just one of these “aristocrats” at a meeting and became interested in her. The hero's courtship of the lady he likes causes laughter - he comes to her “as an official person” and is interested “in the sense of damage to the water supply and the restroom.” After a month of such visits, the lady began to answer the gentleman’s questions in more detail about the condition of the bathroom. The hero looks pitiful - he absolutely does not know how to carry on a conversation with the object of his interest, and even when they finally began to walk arm in arm through the streets, he feels awkward because he does not know what to talk about and because people are looking at them.

However, Grigory Ivanovich still tries to join the culture and invites his lady to the theater. He is bored in the theater, and during the intermission, instead of discussing what is happening on stage, he again starts talking about what is closer to him - about the water supply. The hero decides to treat the lady to a cake, and since he has “little money,” he pointedly invites her to “eat one cake.” The narrator explains his behavior during the scene with the cakes as “bourgeois modesty” due to lack of money. This very “bourgeois modesty” prevents the gentleman from admitting to the lady that he is short of money and the hero is trying in every possible way to distract his companion from eating cakes that is ruinous for his pocket. He fails, the situation becomes critical, and the hero, disdaining his former intentions of appearing to be a cultured person, forces the lady to put back the fourth cake, for which he cannot pay: “Put it down,” I say, “back!”, “Put it down,” I say , - to hell with your mother! The situation also looks comical when the assembled people, the “experts,” evaluate the fourth cake and argue whether it has “a bite” or not.

It is no coincidence that the story takes place in the theater. The theater is considered a symbol of spiritual culture, which was so lacking in society. Therefore, the theater here acts as a background against which the lack of culture, ignorance, and bad manners of people appear most clearly.

Grigory Ivanovich does not blame himself for what happened; he attributes his failure in love affairs to the difference in social origin with his subject of passion. He blames the “aristocrat” for everything, with her “aristocratic” behavior in the theater. He does not admit that he tried to be a cultured person, the hero believes that he tried to behave in relation to the lady as a “bourgeois, uncut”, but in fact he is a “proletariat”.

The funny thing is that the lady had a very distant relationship with the aristocracy - perhaps the matter was limited only by external resemblance to a representative of high society, and only in the understanding of Grigory Ivanovich. This is evidenced by both the lady’s behavior and her speech. Not at all like a well-mannered and cultured person belonging to the aristocracy, she says at the end of the story to Grigory Ivanovich: “That’s quite disgusting on your part. Those who don’t have money don’t travel with the ladies.”

The entire narrative causes a comic effect, and in combination with the narrator's language - laughter. The narrator's speech is replete with jargon, colloquialisms, puns, and blunders. Just look at the expression “an aristocrat is not a woman to me at all, but a smooth place”! About how the main character “walked” the lady, he himself says this: “I’ll take her by the arm and drag myself like a pike.” He calls the lady “a kind of freak”, compares himself to “a bourgeois uncut.” As the action of the story develops The hero is no longer shy in his expressions - he tells the lady to put the cake “to hell,” and the owner, in the words of Grigory Ivanovich, “twists his fists in front of his face." The narrator gives his own interpretation of some words. So, for example, to remain indifferent means “to play the fool.” . This hero, who claims to be a cultured person, is not one. And all his attempts to get closer to “culture” look ridiculous. The importance of Zoshchenko’s work is difficult to overestimate - his laughter remains relevant in our modern times, because human and social vices, to Unfortunately, they still remain ineradicable.

In his stories, M. Zoshchenko not only plays out comic situations that he skillfully notices in life, but exaggerates them to the limit. Zoshchenko turned the story “The Aristocrat” into a small tragicomedy. But we are talking about a natural trip to the theater for any person.

Narrator's comments

The story is told on behalf of a plumber named Grigory Ivanovich, who sees aristocracy in the presence of a hat, a pug sitting on his hands, in his mouth and fashionable stockings. Like in the song about Marusya, who walked along the sea sand. For a complete set, the lady the plumber liked does not have enough waist in a corset. It was precisely these kind of ladies, if I may say so, that Grigory Ivanovich liked, but after getting to know them more closely, he changed his mind.

Trying to get closer

At first glance, Grigory Ivanovich became fascinated by the lady who had a gold tooth shining in her mouth. He didn’t know how to care for her and acted directly - he went into her apartment and asked if the water supply was working - he didn’t have enough imagination for more. But the main comedy of the story is the presence of primitive vocabulary used by the narrator. Out loud he calls the lady not by her first name and patronymic, but citizen, but to himself he thinks that she is a “freak.” That is, there is some disdain on his part. By this, the plumber wants to show that he doesn’t care about the aristocracy of the citizen, since now everyone is equal.

Walks

Then events developed as follows: after about a month, the “lovers” began to walk the streets together. At the same time, Grigory Ivanovich felt very awkward. He didn’t know what to talk about with his fellow traveler. In addition, he felt uncomfortable walking around, leading the lady by the arm, in front of his acquaintances.

The plumber felt like a caught pike. Thus, Zoshchenko continues the comic action. “The Aristocrat” (a summary of the story is presented in the article) will soon show itself in all its glory to both the reader and the storyteller.

Going to the theater

Further, the so-called aristocrat herself asked to go to the theater. It must be assumed that she was not too interested in the performance, but rather in the intermission, in which the described tragicomic event would take place. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. So, the heroes went to the theater, because by chance Grigory Ivanovich turned up two tickets, but only in different places. One was in the stalls, where the gallant gentleman seated the “aristocrat,” and the second place was in the gallery. Our plumber went there and, of course, quickly got bored and went into the foyer. There, during the intermission, he met his companion, heading straight to the buffet. With a broad gesture, Grigory Ivanovich invited the lady to eat one cake. So wittily and comically does Zoshchenko ridicule the tradesman in the theater. The “aristocrat” (we continue to present a summary of the story of the same name) will not behave as our hero expected from her.

At the buffet

Grigory Ivanovich’s heart sank when he saw the lady’s depraved, in his opinion, gait and her incredible gluttony. She grabbed and ate a cake, then another, then, without stopping, began to eat a third. But Grigory Ivanovich, to put it mildly, had no money. And when the “aristocrat” grabbed the fourth, the gentleman could not stand it and shouted for the “trashy woman” to put the confectionery back.

Zoshchenko continues the story with sad irony, which is almost unnoticeable behind the comedy of the situation. “The Aristocrat” (the summary of the story is coming to an end) was confused and scared. And the mean bartender demanded money for four cakes, since the last one, uneaten, was crushed and bitten. An audience gathered here and began to discuss what had happened and argue about whether the cake had been bitten or not. As a result, people had a better time during intermission than at the theater performance. When Grigory Ivanovich scraped off all the change, he barely had enough money to pay for four cakes. Then he proudly invited the “aristocrat” to finish the last delicacy, but she was embarrassed and refused. And then suddenly a new, efficient and nimble character, Zoshchenko, appears on stage. “The Aristocrat” (we continue to outline the summary of the story in this article) is a story in which the author finally brought the situation to the level of anecdotal, introducing into the story a lively guy who flew up and expressed a desire to finish eating the cake. At the same time, the “aristocrat” silently watched as the man instantly ate the delicacy. This is for Grigory Ivanovich’s money!

The final

And again our heroes went to finish watching the opera, since they obviously did not know how to listen. And during the second act, everyone thought about what to say to each other. They returned in deathly silence, and at the house the lady in a bourgeois tone said that without money there was no point in going to the theater. But Grigory Ivanovich did not remain silent, but explained that there is no happiness in money. Since then, he has not liked “aristocrats”. On this note, the story “Aristocrat” by Zoshchenko ends. The retelling, unfortunately, does not convey the vocabulary used by the characters, which is what most characterizes the heroes.

Zoshchenko, “Aristocrat”: analysis

It is funny and sad to read this story, which tells about the 20-30s of the last century, when a social stratum surfaced to the surface, which presented itself as cultural and thinking. The main character is pathetic and ridiculous in his ridiculous attempts to court a woman. The man is capable of speaking in extremely monosyllables and only about plumbing, which he is well versed in. Even in the theater, he asks his companion not whether she liked the performance (this question simply does not occur to him), but whether there is running water here. But the “aristocrat” is no better than Grigory Ivanovich. In the theater, which in the story symbolizes culture, the lady also does not care about what is happening on stage. All her interest was concentrated on the buffet, in which she did not consider it necessary to moderate her appetites and foresee that the gentleman might not have enough money. The lack of culture, dense ignorance and bad manners of both heroes are shown clearly.

Sad irony shines through the lines of the story. Is this the kind of Russia that “Aristocrat” dreamed of seeing - a bright mockery of disgusting, arrogant, ridiculous philistinism, distinguished by a mass of unfounded claims and enormous conceit.