Essay: People in A. Platonov’s work Pit
(based on the novel “We” by Evgeny Zamyatin and the story “The Pit” by Andrei Platonov)
Portrait of an era
What is totalitarianism?
Utopia and dystopia
The story "Pit"
Novel "We"
Conclusion
Portrait of an era
After the revolution of 1917, the direction of socialist realism established itself in Russian literature. The works of Soviet writers were dedicated to the events of the civil war, collectivization, and gigantic construction projects.
But at the same time, works appeared whose authors prophetically warned about the dangers that awaited the socialist idea on the way to turning it into reality.
What is totalitarianism?
Totalitarianism (from Italian. totalitario) - a political regime characterized by an extremely broad ( total) state control over all aspects of society. The purpose of such control over the economy and society is to organize them according to a single plan. Under a totalitarian regime, the entire population of the state is mobilized to support the government (ruling party) and its ideology, while the priority of public interests over private ones is declared.
Utopia and dystopia
Utopia (Greek. topos - “place”, u-topos - “not a place”, “a place that does not exist”) - a genre of fiction, close to science fiction, describing a model of an ideal, from the author’s point of view, society
Dystopia is a negation of the principle of utopia, proof of its failure
Plato, "The Republic"
Thomas More, “Utopia” (“The Golden Book, as useful as it is funny, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia”) ()
Tommaso Campanella, “City of the Sun” (“City of the Sun, or Ideal Republic. Political dialogue”) ()
Andrea, Johann Valentin, “Christianopolis” (“Fortress of Christ, or Description of the Republic of Christianople”) ()
Francis Bacon, "New Atlantis" ()
Cyrano de Bergerac, "Another Light, or States and Empires of the Moon"
Denis Veras D'Allais, "History of Sevarambas"
Bernard Wolf, "Limbo"
Louis Mercier, "year 2440" ()
Huxley, Aldous, "Brave New World" (1930).
Karel Capek, "Krakatit", "R.U.R.", "Factory of the Absolute", "War with the Salamanders".
Savchenko, Vladimir, "Gulliver's Fifth Travel".
Yuri Mukhin, “Business trip to the city of the sun” ()
Alexander Lazarevich, "Nanotech"
Konstantin Merezhkovsky"Earthly Paradise" ().
Francois Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel"
François Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel"
H.G. Wells, "When the Sleeper Awake"
H.G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau
George Orwell, "1984"
Stanislav Lem, “Return from the Stars”, “Futurological Congress”
Jack London, "The Iron Heel"
Sinclair Lewis, "We Can't Do It"
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, The Lustful Seed
Ray Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451"
Kurt Vonnegut, Utopia 14 ("The Mechanical Piano")
A. Platonov’s story “The Pit”
In the story “The Pit,” Andrei Platonov describes Soviet society at the beginning of its existence and reflects on the prospects of the communist system.
The author began writing it in December 1929, at the very peak of the great turning point, or, as the story itself says, at “the bright moment of the socialization of property.”
The writer’s work on “The Pit” was completed in the first half of 1930.
“...You need to quickly dig the ground and build a house, otherwise you will die and won’t make it in time. Let life pass now, like the flow of breath, but through the arrangement of the house it can be organized for future use - for future, unmoving happiness and for childhood.”
“Why... now do we need the meaning of life and the truth of universal origin, if there is no small, faithful person in whom the truth would become joy and movement?”
Roman Zamyatin “We”
The novel is filled with thoughts
about Russian post-revolutionary reality.
It reveals innermost thoughts
about possible and already discovered
during the life of the writer perversions
socialist idea. The writer's most difficult thoughts were caused by the policy of the general construction of communism.
The writer said that the party of organized hatred and organized destruction is not capable of creation.
A single state is a typical example of a totalitarian state.
The Benefactor, the Guardians, the Tablet of Hours, the Green Wall, etc. are constant attributes of a totalitarian regime.
The ideal of life behavior is “reasonable mechanicalness,” and everything that goes beyond its limits is “wild fantasy.” “I” ceases to exist as such - it becomes a cell of the common “we”, a grain of sand in the collective, a faceless part of the crowd.
At the beginning of the novel, D-503 adheres to the traditional views of the people of the United State. The influence of the revolutionary I-330 changes the hero’s worldview.
Even in a totalitarian state, personality develops.
Conclusion. Summary.
Personality development under a totalitarian regime using the example of the hero Voshchev in A. Platonov’s story “The Pit”
Conclusion. conclusions
In their works, E. Zamyatin and A. Platonov showed that a society that does not take into account the needs and inclinations of its citizens cannot be happy.
But, despite all the difficulties and restrictions that a totalitarian regime implies, a person can still develop, grow morally, becoming a PERSONALITY.
Biographical information of A. Platonov
Platonov Andrey Platonovich (1899-1951), writer.
Born on September 1, 1899 in Voronezh in the family of a mechanic at railway workshops, Klimentov (in the 20s of the 20th century, the writer changed his surname to the surname Platonov).
He studied at a parochial school, then at a city school; At the age of 15 he began working to support his family. He was an auxiliary worker, foundry worker, mechanic, etc.
In 1918, Platonov entered the Voronezh Railway Polytechnic. In 1919, he participated in the Civil War in the Red Army.
After the end of the war, he returned to Voronezh and became a student at the Polytechnic Institute (graduated in 1926).
Platonov’s first brochure, “Electrification,” was published in 1921. In 1922, his second book, a collection of poems “Blue Depth,” was published. In 1923-1926. Platonov works as a provincial ameliorator and is responsible for the electrification of agriculture. In 1926 Platonov moved to Moscow. In 1927, the book “Epiphanian Gateways” made the writer famous. In 1928, the collections “Meadow Masters” and “The Hidden Man” were published.
The publication of the story “Doubting Makar” in 1929 caused a wave of criticism against the author. In the same year, the novel “Chevengur” was banned from publication, and Platonov’s next book appeared only eight years later. Since 1928, he collaborated in the magazines “Krasnaya Nov”, “New World”, “October” and others, and continued to work on prose works - the stories “The Pit”, “The Juvenile Sea”.
I tried myself in dramaturgy (“High Voltage”, “Pushkin at the Lyceum”). In 1937, a book of his stories “The Potudan River” was published. The publication of Platonov’s works was permitted during the Great Patriotic War, when he was a front-line correspondent for the newspaper “Red Star” and wrote stories and essays on military topics.
In 1946, after the publication of the story “Ivanov’s Family” (later called “Return”), Platonov was again criticized and stopped publishing. The first book after a long break, “The Magic Ring and Other Tales,” was published in 1954, after the author’s death.
How the system of images is built in the story “The Pit”.
The images of the heroes are created as parodies of social types generated by the era - this is a characteristic feature of dystopia›. The cruel, inhuman reality of barracks communism distorted the characters and destinies of the characters in the work.
While the main characters of the story are given only surnames, the hero, who appears in only one scene, has a surname, first name and patronymic.
3. The main character of the story is the proletarian Voshchev, who is looking for the meaning of life and existence. He looks tired, he has no family, no property, and in his duffel bag there are trinkets he picked up along the way. In his opinion, life outside his body goes on automatically, only he tries to find its meaning, but Voshchev does not feel much pride from the consciousness of this.
Platonov's hero Voshchev is the image of a seeker of happiness and truth. Indeed, Voshchev is precisely a people's thinker, and this is evidenced even by the style in which the episodes relating to this hero are written. Platonov uses newspaper cliches, because Voshchev, apparently, did not read anything except newspapers and slogans. Voshchev is sad because no one can explain to him what the meaning of life is. However, he soon receives an answer to this question: the digger workers explain to him that the meaning of life is to work for the benefit of future generations.
Chiklin, Safronov and other workers live in terrible conditions, work as long as they can; they “live for the future,” “preparing” their lives for future prosperity. They don’t like Voshchev’s thoughts, because, in their opinion, thinking, mental activity is rest, not work; thinking to yourself, within yourself is the same as “loving yourself” (as Kozlov does). Voshchev joins the brigade, and the hardest work relieves him of the need and opportunity to think.
Image of Prushevsky. Engineer Prushevsky feels sad because existence seems meaningless to him; he lives in the memory of his beloved woman and does not find a place for himself in the present, in this life. The only way for Prushevsky to overcome melancholy is to come to the workers, join their team, feel the calmness that is inherent in Chiklin and Safronov, and do useful work. For Prushevsky, as for Voshchev, joining a new life is necessary in order to get rid of one’s own problems.
So, the new life in Platonov’s story “The Pit” is “life for future use,” constant hard work. It is important to note that only collectively, all together, the excavation workers have no personal life, no opportunity to show individuality, because they all live only for the sake of embodying one idea.
The meaning of the word "goat" indicates the most despicable person. Kozlov is always lagging behind and the most pathetic digger, whose reserve of mental and physical strength is critically assessed by Safronov: “He will not survive socialism.”
Why are they contradictory, although the heroes are busy with a common cause?
This is the world of people in the story “The Pit”, and this whole world is busy with one thing - building a bright future.
4. In my opinion, in “The Pit” Platonov’s main task was to show the reader a person who with all his soul wants to build a new life. Building a new life is, first of all, breaking down the old. From this point of view, the language in which the story is written is very interesting. Platonov is the Petrov-Vodkin of literature, he avoids phrases that have already become standard, his literary language is extremely clear, clear and at the same time very colorful.
the story, written in the first years of the “great turning point,” revealed its entire essence (collectivization of farms and souls), showed its driving forces, problems and hopes. In my opinion, Andrei Platonov managed in a unique manner and very clearly to show the people of the state, who were striving to become world leaders.
Personality and society in the story “The Pit” by Platonov.
Describing his heroes, A.P. Platonov also avoids cliches: about Kozlov, he speaks of a man “insignificant in his whole body, a lump of weakness fell into the clay from his dull, monotonous face.” The main character of the story is the proletarian Voshchev, searching for the meaning of life and existence . He looks tired, he has no family, no property, and in his duffel bag there are trinkets he picked up along the way. War disabled Zhachev represents a person who fought and was wounded, which allows him to feel superior to other people who did not fight. Zhachev represents a typical image of a Red Army soldier “to the core” - his war is not over yet, he will fight all the enemies of Soviet power.
The story also presents Soviet power, but not in a pompous and triumphant way, but in an ordinary and everyday way: Prushevsky, Pashkin and Safronov lead the life of the proletariat, but they are just the lowest level of power. The higher power in the story is not shown in any way, which gives “The Pit” a more believable look.
The story also shows peasants who, according to Chigelin, “sow bread and eat half and half with us.” In the village, with the help of an activist who liked to read directives from above, accumulating “enthusiasm, an invincibility of action,” the workers carried out collectivization. The problems of collectivization are brilliantly shown in the works of Sholokhov, but Platonov also managed to successfully reveal this topic.
This is the world of people in the story “The Pit”, and this whole world is busy with one thing - building a bright future. The symbol of this bright future is the girl Nastya, whom the diggers took in as shelter. Zhachev, Voshchev and others connect their future with children, and Nastya, the only “child in the story, besides the faceless pioneers, dies of illness.
6. The image of a girl occupies a special place in the story. And Nastya’s fate is terrible. The girl did not know her mother’s name, but she knew that there was Lenin. The world of this child is disfigured, because in order to save her daughter, her mother inspires her to hide her non-proletarian origin. The propaganda machine has already penetrated her consciousness. At the end of the story, the girl dies, and along with her, a ray of hope for Voshchev and other workers dies. In a kind of confrontation between the pit and Nastya, the pit wins, and into the foundation of the future Houses her dead body lies down.
Nastya for the builders of the “general proletarian Houses" - a symbol of the future that they are building, she is the "socialist element" that gives mental strength to the builders of the "monumental Houses», - At home, which is also intended for Nastya, the symbol of the “socialist generation.” And the death of the girl is the collapse, first of all, of the new “Soviet meaning of life”, the victory of the ancient myth over the utopia of the building of a universal home. And - a return to the painful “remembering of meaning.”
The death of a girl with a name followed by resurrection (Anastasia - resurrected), a stop in the action in the story, the peak of the finale and the question. The story, which captured the real, socio-political events of the “year of the great turning point,” revealed deep-seated questions about the meaning and cost of fundamental destruction in the national and world history of the 20th century.
A child who represented a bright future has died.
Thus, the story, written in the first years of the “great turning point,” revealed its entire essence (collectivization of farms and souls), showed its driving forces, problems and hopes
7.Metaphors, images-symbols: Key words and phrases:
Pit Massa
Dream House Plan
Image of Lenin Temp
Collective farm named after General Line Enthusiasm
Coffins Future
Bear Patience
Raft Truth
Child Loneliness
Image of Death Soul
The image of a truth-seeker The meaning of life
Discovered by a reader in the late 80s of the 20th century A.P. Platonov is one of the few who were not afraid to say the word of truth in the face of the terrible totalitarian machine that has crushed human lives and destinies. This writer conveyed in his work the worldview of a person living in an era that Osip Mandelstam called in his poems the “Wolfhound Age.”
“Is he useful in the world or will everything work out well without him?” Voshchev, the main character of Platonov’s story “The Pit,” thought about this, “about the plan of life,” although society did not need his thoughts. By cultivating external and internal sameness in people, the system devours doubters. Doubt is a deviation from the norm. Why should you think about it if your life has long been given to the state and you are just a cog? If it's broken, they'll replace it with something else. As is known, there were no irreplaceable people in a totalitarian society. Why think about it if the whole country is living five years of happiness - personal and public - and a bright future is programmed ahead of everyone?
Like the hero of Russian fairy tales, Voshchev went around the world to gain wisdom and seek the meaning of life. He joined the builders of the “common proletarian house.” They thought they knew the answer to the age-old question. However, why was it that “their faces were gloomy and thin, and instead of the peace of life they had exhaustion”? In fact, these people turned out to be the same cogs of the machine-system.
In the system’s view, a person is just a tiny, indistinguishable particle of mass, nothing more. Where can one discern the individuality of everyone! Uniqueness is only a hindrance. These people make enemies of the system.
“Liquidated?! Look, today I’m not here, and tomorrow you won’t be. So it will turn out that one of your main people will come to socialism,” says one of the dispossessed people. Safronov and Kozlov die. Nastya is dying. In essence, executioners are both those who give orders and those who carry them out.
In the team of builders of the “common proletarian house”, enemies in this society became their own for their own. Children were also involved in the tragedy. The breakdown of consciousness in a mature person is painful, but in a child, aggression instilled by adults looks especially ugly. “Go kill them!.. They are bastards. Kill them like a class!..” Nastya says to Safronov about the kulaks.
Nastya's death is symbolic. According to the plot, it closes the work. Voshchev and the barracks workers built “that single building where the entire local class of the proletariat will enter to settle,” but during the course of the story they dug only one foundation pit - a gigantic grave, where little Nastya, the dream of universal happiness, was buried. It seems to me that Platonov’s work reflects the lesson taught to people by history. It's good if it is learned.
People in A. Platonov’s work “The Pit”.
Andrei Platonov lived in difficult times for Russia. He believed in the possibility of rebuilding a society in which the common good would be the condition for one's own happiness. But these utopian ideas could not be realized in life. Very soon Platonov realized that it was impossible to turn the people into an impersonal mass. He protested against violence against the individual, the transformation of reasonable people into spiritless creatures who carry out any order from the authorities. This protest is heard in many of Platonov’s works, which are distinguished by the originality of the author’s language and symbolic images.
The theme of human destiny in a totalitarian state is most fully revealed in the story “The Pit”. Diggers are digging a foundation pit, on the site of which they are to build a house for the “happy” inhabitants of socialism. But many of the heroes of the work die, achieving happiness turns out to be impossible without human sacrifice. However, fanatical devotion to the idea does not allow the workers to doubt the correctness of everything that is happening. Only Voshchev began to think about the essence of existence. He was fired because he thought about the meaning of life “amid the general pace of work.” Voshchev is a contradictory nature, a symbolic image of a seeker of truth. In search of the meaning of life, Voshchev ends up with the diggers. This person wants to be an individual, with his desire he poses an involuntary challenge to the state, for which only the masses exist. But, on the other hand, Voshchev participates in collectivization, showing cruelty towards the peasants. This proves that Voshchev, in spite of everything, is a man of his era, of his time.
There are many contrasts in Platonov's work. The workers are digging a pit, on the site of which they want to build a house of universal happiness, and they themselves live in a barn: “Except for breathing, there was no sound in the barracks, no one saw dreams or talked to memories - everyone existed without any excess of life.” A girl who lost her mother and found shelter with the diggers sleeps in a coffin. She is doomed just like the adults. Nastya is a symbol of the future, a person for whom workers dig a hole, sparing no effort. But the girl dies, the pit becomes a grave for the child, the dream of a bright future is buried, and the workers continue to dig.
The language of the story “The Pit” is peculiar. When describing the characters, the author uses non-standard, unusual expressions. “His old veins and insides came close to the outside, he felt his surroundings without calculation or consciousness, but with precision,” the author writes about Chiklin, one of the diggers; Platonov portrays Kozlov like this: “... he was gloomy, insignificant with his whole body, sweat weakness dripped into the clay from his dull, monotonous face.” People in the work are like machines, their faces do not express feelings, and their actions are performed mechanically, thoughtlessly. Platonov’s depiction of nature is completely different: “A dead, fallen leaf lay next to Voshchev’s head, the wind brought it from a distant tree, and now this leaf was faced with humility in the ground.” Unlike humans, nature is alive, it is endowed with feelings. Man exists without thinking about anything. He destroys the soil - the living body of the earth: “Chiklin hastily broke the age-old soil, turning the entire life of his body into blows on dead places.”
By destroying the earth, people kill their soul. The soil is depleted and man loses the meaning of existence. And in the village there is a terrible process of dispossession. The peasants prepare coffins for themselves in advance, since they do not expect anything good from the power of the proletarians. The wind is blowing through the houses, the village is desolate: some are stocking up on coffins, others are being floated on rafts. Thousands of peasants were sacrificed. New life in the country is being built on their dead bodies. Fear and cruelty came to define the era. Anyone could turn into a traitor, an enemy of the people.
Cruelty is inherent in many of the heroes of the work. Such are Safronov and Chiklin, fanatically devoted to the idea of building socialism. Such is the village activist, who day and night awaits a directive from above: “He read each new directive with the curiosity of future pleasure, as if he was peeking into the passionate secrets of the adults, the central people.” The activist unquestioningly follows orders without thinking about their meaning. His job is to execute, and the authorities know better what is good for the people. Power is a symbol of violence in the work. Violence extends to wildlife and humans. People do not create anything, but only destroy. The foundation pit has not been dug, as directives for its expansion are constantly coming. Diggers have no home, no family, their lives have no meaning. There is no meaning in the life of the engineer Prushevsky: “Prushevsky did not see anyone who needed him so much that he would certainly support himself until his still distant death.” He devotes all his time to work, his only goal is to build a house.
At the end of the story, Nastya, the last joy of the diggers, dies. Hope dies with it, but the diggers do not give up their work. It becomes unclear why build a house in which no one will live. The work is built on the opposition of man and nature. Their connection must not be destroyed, otherwise the consequences will be dire. In his story, Platonov showed in a unique way what collectivization and industrialization would lead to. A person in such a state is not able to think, feel, or remain an individual. In such a society there is no individual, there is only a mass - unspiritual and submissive.
34. Social and philosophical in A. Platonov’s novel “The Pit”
"Pit" (1930). The events of December 1929-April 1930 are depicted, an attempt to carry out “complete collectivization” in the country. During Platonov's lifetime, the story was not published. Published in 1969 Expresses the essence of the era of the “great turning point”. The story reflected the main historical events of the late 20s - early 30s: industrialization and collectivization. The symbol of the transformation is the design and construction of a “general proletarian house” intended for the resettlement of the working people of the whole city from private houses. In the second part (action in the village), an “organizational yard” becomes an analogue of a common house, where peasants who have been deprived of their property and joined the collective farm gather.
Platonov understands the doom of the project of reorganizing nature and society based on violence. Two plots are intertwined: the protagonist’s journey in search of truth and the testing of another project to improve the lives of humanity. The hero is a reluctant wanderer, forcibly pushed out of his usual life, deprived of his means of livelihood. Feels unwanted, becomes homeless and poor.
The main motive is the desire of the participant in the events to understand the meaning of what is happening in order to consciously participate in the construction of a new world. It is indicated at the very beginning of the story.
The image of the “common proletarian home” is multi-valued: it is based on the biblical legend of the Tower of Babel, which indicates the scale of the author’s understanding of the “building of socialism.” The symbolic image of the tower house in “The Pit” is enriched with the content that it acquired in the context of proletarian culture and avant-garde art.
The heroes dream that by moving into this house, people will leave hostile nature outside and be freed from the influence of its deadly forces. Faith in man's ability to achieve freedom from the material world brings Platonov closer to Russian avant-garde artists (Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky, Kruchenykh). Platonov’s overcoming of matter is associated with man’s desire to see a large-scale picture of the world and imagine its general plan.
Theme of salvation, preservation of life: Voshchev collected and stored “all sorts of objects of misfortune and obscurity,” hoping that they would help resurrect people; Prushevsky built a house intended to “protect people.” Voshchev is brought closer to the engineer by the feeling of the meaninglessness of people’s lives (they are in some ways twins). Both strive to save and preserve fragile human life. The excavator Chiklin also suffers from the awareness of people’s insecurity: “he felt sorry that people are obliged to live and get lost on this mortal earth, on which comfort has not yet been established.”
Theme of death and immortality. Chiklin has a special attitude towards the dead: “the dead are people too.” The central metaphor of the story is rooted in “universal organizational science,” where the main principle of proletarian art is defined as the organization of matter through the efforts of the collective. The eternal building, according to the architect's plan, should transform mortal human life into eternal life, this is the realization of Paradise on earth.
The symbolism of the house is intertwined with the symbolism of the tree: both images can act as a model of the universe with an emphasized connection between up and down, life and death.
The key word of the story - liquidation - creates a leitmotif. It has several synonyms: elimination, destruction, destruction. The motive of destroying people and nature for the sake of home is constantly heard. All the characters feel empty. “Chiklin destroyed the earth with a crowbar, and his flesh was exhausted.” Images of people with dead souls.
The symbol of complete collectivization - mushrooms prepared by peasants - was perceived as collective farm imprisonment, captivity. Slogans of false content. The process of collectivization is riddled with violence. Peasants become victims of tyranny. The image of a country turned into a camp.
Platonov exposes the mechanism of violence: those who are involved in it themselves become its victims. The tragedy is that it is those for whom bloody sacrifices were made who die. Construction stopped at digging a pit for the foundation. The transformation of the pit into a grave not only for the builders, but also for the future of Russia (the symbol of the future is the girl Nastya, her mother Yulia is the embodiment of the past Russia). An open comparison of a construction site with a grave: “They dig graves there, not houses.”
Julia - the reduction of a person to the level of an animal, painful death by starvation, complete alienation and hostility of others.
Nastya - weakness, death from hunger and cold, lack of vitality. Nastya's death makes the heroes think that there is no communism. The description of Nastya’s burial in a special grave speaks of faith in her future immortality.
In the finale, the “fall” of the heroes who dared to rise above the world into the abyss recreates the situation of the biblical stories about the fall of Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel.
The tragic symbolism of the finale contains a comparison of the deceased with the “dead grain of the future”; it is revealed by correlating the meaning of the events with Dostoevsky’s epigraph to The Brothers Karamazov.
