Andrey Platonov. “hidden man” (experience of analysis)

The main character of the work, Foma Pukhov, looks very strange against the background of characters of proletarian origin traditional in Soviet art. Unlike the doubtless heroes A.A. Fadeev and N.A. Ostrovsky, Pukhov does not believe in the revolution, he doubts it. He worries about “where and to what end of the world all the revolutions and all human anxiety are going.” Rooted in his soul is a deep passion for true knowledge of the world, the desire to check everything and see for himself. A parallel arises with the Evangelical Apostle Thomas the Unbeliever. He was not with the other apostles when the resurrected Jesus Christ came to them, and Thomas refuses to believe in the resurrection of the Teacher until he himself touches his wounds. There is an interpretation according to which Thomas was the only apostle who was able to comprehend the secret, hidden meaning of the teachings of Christ.

Platonov’s hero, like Nekrasov’s men in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” is attracted by the eternal mystery of happiness. He is interested not so much in everyday life as in being. The story opens with a very strange scene: a hungry Thomas cuts sausage on his wife’s coffin. In this episode, the eternal and the momentary are expressively correlated with each other, and the full extent of Thomas’s difference from an ordinary person is shown. Thomas is orphaned, but he has to continue living.

Thus, from the first episode, the story intertwines the everyday and philosophical dimensions of life. All the questions that concern Thomas will be of both an abstract spiritual and practical, everyday nature. Why, after all, a revolution, thinks Thomas, if it does not bring the highest justice and does not solve the problem of death? For Foma’s acquaintances, the goal of the revolution is quite specific - material equality, practical improvement in the lives of workers. Pukhov is concerned that, apart from this material goal, there is nothing in the revolution.

Foma Pukhov is an eternal wanderer. At first glance, he travels aimlessly, while everyone around him is busy with very specific things. He does not find a permanent refuge for himself, because there is no place for his soul in the revolution. Others find their place: Zvorychny, becoming the secretary of the party cell; sailor Sharikov, who became a labor recruitment commissioner in Baku, became the foreman of the Perevoshchikov assembly shop. From their point of view, the revolution is fulfilling its promise to bring happiness to everyone. Thomas is looking - alas, to no avail - for confirmation of the revolutionary faith. Only the reality of the revolutionary storm is revealed to him - the reality of dying. Having left the house after the death of his wife, he works on a railway snowplow. Before his eyes, an assistant driver dies in a locomotive accident, a white officer kills an engineer, a red armored train is shot “outright” by a Cossack detachment. And there is no end to this feast of death.

Three deaths are depicted especially vividly in the story. Death of the worker Afonin, who fought on the side of the Reds. The death of the white officer Mayevsky, who shot himself: “and his despair was so great that he died before his shot.” The death of an engineer, the head of the distance, who is “saved” by a Cossack officer’s bullet from execution by decision of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The reality of the revolution that Thomas sees only strengthens his doubts about its holiness.

Does this mean that Pukhov does not find happiness in the world? Not at all. Joy and spiritual peace give him a feeling of communication with the whole world (and not with part of it). Platonov carefully describes Pukhov’s feeling of the fullness of life: “The wind stirred Pukhov, like the living hands of a large unknown body, revealing its virginity to the wanderer and not giving it, and Pukhov made noise with his blood from such happiness. This conjugal love of a whole, immaculate land aroused master's feelings in Pukhov. With homely tenderness he looked at all the accessories of nature and found everything appropriate and living in its essence.” This is Thomas’s happiness - the feeling of the need and relevance of everything in life, the organic connection and cooperation of all beings. It is interconnection and cooperation, not struggle and destruction. Foma is a person to whom all the hardships of the country’s life in conditions of civil war and the “luxury” of “desperate nature” are equally open to him, “Good morning!” - Pukhov says to the driver he replaces at the end of the story. And he answers: “Completely revolutionary.”

Another work in which the holiness of the revolutionary cause is “tested” is the novel “Chevengur” (1929). Chevengur is the name of a small town in which a group of Bolsheviks tried to build communism. In the first part of the novel, its heroes wander in search of happiness in Russia, engulfed in civil war. In the second part, they come to the peculiar city of the Sun - Chevengur, where communism has already come true. In revolutionary fervor, the Chevengurs exterminated most of the population “unworthy” to live under communism. Now they have to confront a regular army sent to pacify the city, which is evading state power. The ending of the novel is tragic: the road to communism ends in death. For the heroes, this death has the character of a collective suicide. The Cheven-Gurs die in battle with a feeling of joyful liberation from the futility of the earthly “paradise” they built. "Chevengur" - awareness of the falsity of the goals proclaimed by the Bolshevik revolution. True, there is no unequivocal condemnation of Platonov’s attitude towards his heroes. The author is on their side in a passionate desire to “make the fairy tale come true”, to bring the age-old dream to life. But he leaves them when they begin to divide people into “clean” and “impure”. Chevengur's heroes appear as victims of an incorrectly set goal, a misunderstood idea. This is their fault and misfortune.

The writer will return to the problems posed in the novel until the end of his creative career. Gradually the range of these problems will narrow, because in the 1930s. It will become more and more difficult to discuss them in print. However, the main result of the time travel undertaken by Platonov in the 20s, the result of the test of the past and the future, is the recognition of the “falseness of the project,” the falsity of the plan for a revolutionary remake of life. In the writer's work of the late 1920s - 1930s. the place of the alluring mirages of utopia will be taken by a formidable reality.

Such works of Platonov as the irony-filled story “City of Gradov” (1927), the “organizational-philosophical” essay “Che-Che-O” (1929), and the story “Doubting Makar” (1929) are devoted to the “test of the present.” Literary scholars sometimes call these works a “philosophical-satirical trilogy.” Platonov’s plays “Fourteen Red Huts” (1937-1938, published in 1987) and “Hurdy Organ” (1933, published in 1988) were created using modern material. The most significant works of this period are the stories “The Pit” (1930, published in 1986), “The Juvenile Sea” (1934, published in 1987) and “Jan” (1934).

The hero of the story “The Hidden Man,” Foma Pukhov, did not lose his naive perception of the world even in his mature years.
At the beginning of the story, he simply brushes aside all difficult questions. The mechanic Pukhov values only one thing: his work. But on the other hand, he appears as a spontaneous philosopher, in some ways a mischief-maker, in some ways a moralizer.
The party cell even concludes “that Pukhov is not a traitor, but just a stupid guy.”
The effort of the “silly man” to understand the revolution is expressed in the special individual language of Plato’s prose

- sometimes inert, as if illiterate, but always precise and expressive. The speech of the narrator and the characters bears the stamp of a special humor, manifested in the most unexpected fragments of the text: “Athanas, you are now not a whole person, but a defective one!” - Pukhov said with regret.
“The Hidden Man,” throughout the story, seems to gather into one whole his ever-hungry flesh, practical intelligence, mind and soul: “If you only think, you won’t go far either, you also need to have a feeling!”
Foma Pukhov not only loves nature, but also understands it. Unity with nature evokes in him a whole range of feelings: “In one

day, during the sunshine, Pukhov walked in the outskirts of the city and thought - how much vicious stupidity there is in people, how much inattention to such a single occupation as life and the entire natural environment.”
Understanding the events of the Civil War in his mind takes on a fantastic character. However, basically, in the main thing, he does not lie, but on the contrary, he seeks the truth.
In a difficult, confused time, when the illiterate poor rose up against the learned “white guard” and with an impossible, unimaginable feat - and a thirst for feat! - defeated the enemy, from an “external”, thoughtless, empty person, Foma Pukhov, testing everything from his own experience, turns into a “hidden person”.

Other works on this topic:

The main character of the work, Foma Pukhov, looks very strange against the background of characters of proletarian origin traditional in Soviet art. Unlike the heroes of A... who are not aware of doubts.
Andrei Platonovich Platonov began publishing in 1921. He made his debut with poetry and journalism, published a collection of short stories in 1927, and became famous. The story “The Hidden Man”...
History of creation The story “The Hidden Man” was published in the collection of the same name in 1928. Platonov worked on it in 1926-1927. Literary direction and genre Question about...
“FINDING YOUR WAY, KNOWING YOUR PLACE – THIS IS EVERYTHING FOR A PERSON, IT MEANS FOR HIM TO BEcome YOURSELF” A. Platonov’s whole life was a prism, through...
Foma Pukhov is a person who, at first glance, is not distinguished by sensitivity. He shamelessly cut sausage on his wife’s coffin, and then lay down completely calmly...
1 “Foma Pukhov is not gifted with sensitivity: he cut boiled sausage on his wife’s coffin, being hungry due to the absence of the hostess.” However, in his soul there lives some kind of unpronounceable...
Platonov A.P. “Foma Pukhov is not gifted with sensitivity: he cut boiled sausage on his wife’s coffin, hungry due to the absence of the hostess.” After burying his wife, exhausted, Pukhov lies down...

The artistic world of A.P. Platonov. A.P. Platonov’s faith in the power of goodness, in the light of the human soul, could not help but find its embodiment on the pages of the writer’s works. Platonov's heroes are people-transformers, boldly subjugating nature, striving for a bright future. The search for answers to eternal questions and the construction of something new is often associated with the motive of wandering and orphanhood. These constantly doubting and thirsty people, the beloved heroes of A.P. Platonov, are looking for “the meaning of life in the heart.” The richness of the narrative, the philosophical nature and universality of generalizations distinguish the works of A.P. Platonov; the writer defined his method as follows: “One must write with essence, with a dry stream, in a direct way. This is my new path."

The story “The Hidden Man” (1928). The work is dedicated to events related to the revolution and the Civil War. The main character, driver Foma Pukhov, after the death of his wife goes to the front and participates in the Novorossiysk landing. He does not understand the meaning of his existence, jokes and provokes people to argue, doubts everything, and the very name of the hero evokes an association with Thomas the Unbeliever. He is carried along the earth in the general human flow along the “country roads of the revolution.” At first the hero tries not to pay attention to complex life issues, but the innermost inner world takes precedence over everything external. Widespread in the “new” literature of the 20s, the “transformation” of the hero’s consciousness under the influence of the revolution does not happen with Pukhov. Against the background of the hidden degeneration of good ideas, the “natural fool” Pukhov acutely senses the discrepancy between expectations and reality and experiences disappointment, and therefore some of his jokes provoke the reader’s sadness. A striking episode of the exam that Foma Pukhov takes is indicative: “What is religion? — the examiner continued. — The prejudice of Karl Marx and the people's moonshine. —Why do the bourgeoisie need religion? - So that the people do not mourn. — Do you, Comrade Pukhov, love the proletariat as a whole and are you willing to lay down your life for it? “I love you, Comrade Commissar,” answered Pukhov, in order to pass the exam, “and I agree to shed blood, just so as not in vain and not as a fool!”

Feeling of disappointment in the late 1920s becomes acute and painful for Platonov himself. The element that was supposed to transform society submitted to official rituals. The joy of life born of the revolution and anxiety for its future are reflected in the story.

The entire composition of the story is subordinated to the author's intention, reflected in the title itself: to walk with the hero on his path, on which Pukhov tries to understand everything that is happening around him. The character’s self-development occurs along the way. “An unexpected sympathy for the people who were working alone against the substance of the whole world became clear in Pukhov’s soul, overgrown with life. Revolution is just the best fate for people; you can’t think of anything better. It was difficult, sharp and immediately easy, like birth.” The author does not openly state the reasons why the hero sets off, but the reader understands them on his own. A “hidden person” is a person with an unusual world hidden in the depths of his soul, striving to understand his surroundings and not succumbing to generally accepted ideas about life imposed from the outside.

In modern civilization, according to the writer, the kinship of human souls, the connection between man and the natural world, has been lost. Foma Pukhov makes a long journey of finding truth in himself in order to change something around him. He is much more honest than the “builders of the future” around him. A “natural fool” does not seek to take advantage of the opportunity for career growth. The hero goes to Novorossiysk, determining his decision by internal necessity: “We will see mountain horizons; and somehow it will become more honest! And then I saw that they were sending trainloads of typhoid patients, and we were sitting and getting rations!.. The revolution will pass, but there will be nothing left for us!” Indicative in this regard is another character in the story, embodying a different truth of the time - the sailor Sharikov. Foma does not tolerate sloganeering or empty chatter, but Sharikov perfectly assimilated the spirit of the times, found himself a “warm” place and, to Pukhov’s advice to personally “strengthen the revolution” with action (“take a hammer and patch up the ships”), he responds with a real master: “Eccentric you, I am the head of the Caspian Sea! Who will then be in charge of the entire red flotilla here?

It is significant that the spiritual search does not lead to external changes in the protagonist: at the beginning of the story we see him as a snowplow driver, and at the end as an oil engine driver. The train (and in the works of A.P. Platonov it is a symbol of revolution; the writer himself noted: “The words about the locomotive-revolution turned the locomotive into the feeling of revolution for me”), which the hero boards, goes in an unknown direction ( this symbol takes on an epic character). The interest that flared up in his own future (“Where is it [the train] going?”) is quickly replaced by Pukhov’s humility (“The train was moving somewhere further. From its progress, Pukhov calmed down and fell asleep, feeling the warmth in his smoothly working heart "). Thomas needs to walk along the roads of the country himself, see everything with his own eyes, feel it with his heart (this is due to his unbelieving nature). Novorossiysk, the liberation of Crimea from Wrangel (a mechanic on the ship “Shanya”), a trip to Baku and a meeting with the sailor Sharikov constitute certain stages in the hero’s life and Pukhov’s acquisition of the meaning of his existence. The road itself, the movement, becomes the plot-forming beginning, and as soon as the hero stops somewhere, his life loses its sharpness, his spiritual search is lost. Zvorychny and Sharikov, for example, do not receive such development in their frozen state.

The hero’s attempt to understand how people’s lives have changed under the influence of the “historical storm” leads the character to the idea that the true goal, true feelings have been lost. The motif of death heard on the pages of the story is closely connected with the motif of universal orphanhood. (Both of them become central in the work of A.P. Platonov.) The theme of death is not introduced into the narrative by chance. The revolution not only failed to resurrect the dead (N. Fedorov’s philosophical idea was accepted by A.P. Platonov himself), but it brought, and the author constantly draws the reader’s attention to this, new deaths.

A certain insensibility of the main character’s heart at the beginning of the journey (cutting sausage on his wife’s coffin) is replaced by a feeling of deep unity with the world, which is understood as the meaning of life. At the end of the story, an epiphany occurs: “Pukhov walked with pleasure, feeling, as he had long ago, the kinship of all bodies to his body. He gradually realized what was most important and painful. He even stopped, lowering his eyes - the unexpected in his soul returned to him. Desperate nature passed into people and into the courage of the revolution.” Material from the site

The originality of the language. The work reflects the author’s idea of the indissolubility of the external and internal world, material and immaterial. In the story “The Hidden Man” the depiction of life is carried out in the unity of the comic and tragic principles. The language of Plato’s work reflected the search for a new language, under the sign of which the beginning of the 20th century passed. Symbolic images, which are repeated in a number of the writer’s works, begin to perform a leitmotif function. Platonov uses the “strange” language of the narrator to express the inner world of the hero, who does not have words to convey his experiences and conclusions. The basis of Platonov’s language is bookish speech with an abundance of abstract vocabulary (On the walls of the station there was a manufactory with propaganda words), a displacement of the usual linguistic connections, when the subsequent word is difficult to predict, the folding and unfolding of sentences (Finally the train left, shooting at air - to scare transport-hungry bagmen), deliberate use of tautological repetitions, etc.

A.P. Platonov creates works in which he depicts not things, not objects, but their meaning; the writer is not interested in everyday life, but in being, the essence of things. The image of Foma Pukhov, combining “high tragic and humorous culture,” becomes one of a whole gallery of searching and doubting Platonic heroes.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Use the search

On this page there is material on the following topics:

hidden man review
search for the meaning of separate and common existence in the works of A.P. Platonov
image of Foma Pukhov
hidden man influence of the work
the world of Platonov's heroes

The work belongs to the writer’s fiction, dedicated to the events taking place during the revolution and civil war, revealing the images of ordinary Russian people.

The main character of the story is Foma Pukhov, presented by the writer in the image of a machinist who, after the death of his wife, finds himself in the thick of hostilities in the Novorossiysk direction, portrayed as a person who does not understand the meaning of his own life, a joker and an arguer, constantly doubting everything that is happening around him.

The compositional structure of the story is the embodiment of the author's idea, which is to study the self-development of the protagonist under the influence of the revolutionary events that have taken place, who is capable of preserving his own innermost inner world in these difficult external conditions.

Foma Pukhov is described in the story in the image of an eternal restless wanderer, trying to find his place in the vast world, listening to revolutionary calls for every person to find a happy future.

Having left his home after his wife’s funeral, Foma gets a job as a railway cleaner driver, during which he witnesses the terrible death of an assistant driver in a transport accident. Having subsequently got to the front, Thomas again encounters numerous deaths, seeing how thousands of innocent victims, including children and women, are shot and killed.

Narrating the movements of the main character, the writer introduces into the story a plot-forming image of the road, movement, symbolizing Pukhov’s spiritual transformation, since in episodes in which the hero makes a stop on his way, his spiritual explorations lose their brightness and sharpness, frozen in limbo.

A distinctive feature of the story is the writer’s masterful use of symbolic images expressing the unity of comic and tragic principles. In addition, the narrative content of the work contains the author’s use of deliberate tautological repetitions, displacement of traditional language techniques, an abundance of abstract vocabulary, as well as the folding and unfolding of text sentences. The strange speech structure of the story reflects the inner world of the main character, since, in accordance with the author's plan, the hero is not able to express his experiences and conclusions.

The semantic load of the story “The Hidden Man” lies in the author’s acute, painful disappointment with the revolutionary element, which is destined to play the role of transformer of the social system, bringing the joy of life to every citizen, which ultimately submits to bureaucratic rituals. Using the example of the spiritual development of the protagonist and his final epiphany, seeking to understand human changes that arose as a result of historical turbulent events, the writer demonstrates the loss of true revolutionary goals, as well as genuine human feelings.

Analysis 2

In his works, the author valued words most of all, and dreamed of bringing man closer to nature. In the story "The Hidden Man" He showed an organic personality that does not change its beliefs, an inner world without embellishment. And he contrasted him with his comrades who received new positions, but did not develop morally. Plato, the main character of the story, is looking for himself in the social order that exists around him.

The novel takes place during the Civil War, it changed the destinies of people:

families were destroyed;
people experienced separation;
Front-line soldiers were tested by combat operations.

Different destinies

Fates are different for everyone, something worked out, something didn’t work out, love endured or survived! People were simply looking for a use for themselves. Any work by Platonov, any actions of his heroes, is, first of all, an attempt to find oneself, to integrate into the life that exists.

After the war

The writer characterizes the post-war period as colossal restlessness, a constant desire to move. In the work, the main character travels all the time and searches for himself and an easy life. The movement of the main character can be judged by his personality.

He is not gifted with sensitivity, remember his wife’s funeral, at her grave he cut and ate sausage. Although he knew perfectly well that his wife died of hunger, he has his own truth: “nature takes over.” He represents a person who could not cope with grief and loneliness. For him, in clearing the snow, there was salvation. Throughout the entire route, the snowplow was with him different events happen:

meeting with the Cossacks;
death of an old man;
mutilation and violence.

Death and blood were everywhere, people of the same nationality, with different positions, fought. Pukhov resembles a wanderer and pilgrim. “The spiritual foreignness left Pukhov in the place where he stood, and he recognized the warmth of his homeland, as if he had returned to his children’s mother from an unnecessary wife.” This phrase contains the main meaning of soul searching. Platonov’s hero doubts that he is right and is constantly in search of the truth.

Many events happen in the life of this character. The bosses scold him and give him a certificate for not attending. To which he boldly replies that everything can be learned from books.

Plot

The story has several plots:

Pukhov's travels;
snow removal work with a snow blower;
Pukhov is a mechanic on the ship Shan in Crimea;
living in Baku;
work in Tsaritsyn at a factory.