Conclusion from the tale of the wise minnow. Consideration of the fairy tale by M.E.

CONCLUSION. 11g

Analysis of the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was born in January 1826 in the village of Spas-Ugol, Tver province. According to his father, he belonged to an old and wealthy noble family, and according to his mother, he belonged to the merchant class. After successfully graduating from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, Saltykov becomes an official in the military department, but he is of little interest in service.
In 1847 its first appear in print literary works- “Contradictions” and “Complicated Affairs.” But they started talking seriously about Saltykov as a writer only in 1856, when he began publishing “Provincial Sketches.”

He directed his extraordinary talent to open their eyes, to show those who do not yet see the lawlessness going on in the country, the flourishing ignorance and stupidity, the triumph of bureaucracy.

But today I would like to dwell on the writer’s fairy-tale cycle, begun in 1869. Fairy tales were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological and creative quest of the satirist. At that time, due to the existence of strict censorship, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show the entire inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of considerable age“Shchedrin was able to convey to people sharp criticism of the existing order.

In 1883, the famous “Wise Minnow” appeared, which over the past hundred years has become extra years Shchedrin's textbook tale. The plot of this fairy tale is known to everyone: once upon a time there lived a minnow, who at first was no different from his own kind. But, a coward by nature, he decided to live his whole life without sticking out in his hole, flinching from every rustle, from every shadow that flashed next to his hole. And so life passed by - no family, no children. And so he disappeared - either himself, or the pike swallowed him. Only before death does the minnow think about his life: “Who did he help? Who did you regret, what good did he do in life? “He lived - he trembled and he died - he trembled.” Only before death does the average person realize that no one needs him, no one knows him and no one will remember him.

But this is the plot, the external side of the fairy tale, what is on the surface. And the subtext of Shchedrin’s caricature depiction in this fairy tale of the morals of modern bourgeois Russia was well explained by the artist A. Kanevsky, who made illustrations for the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow”: “...everyone understands that Shchedrin is not talking about fish. The gudgeon is a cowardly man in the street, trembling for his own skin. He is a man, but also a minnow, the writer put him in this form, and I, the artist, must preserve it. My task is to combine the image of a frightened commoner gudgeon, to combine fish and human properties. It is very difficult to “understand” a fish, to give it a pose, a movement, a gesture. How to display forever frozen fear on a fish’s “face”? The figurine of the gudgeon official gave me a lot of trouble....”

The writer shows the terrible philistine alienation and self-isolation in “The Wise Minnow.” M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is bitter and sick of the Russian people. Reading Saltykov-Shchedrin is quite difficult. Therefore, perhaps, many did not understand the meaning of his fairy tales. But the majority of “children of a fair age” appreciated the work of the great satirist as it deserved.

In conclusion, I would like to add that the thoughts expressed by the writer in fairy tales are still contemporary today. Shchedrin's satire is time-tested and it sounds especially poignant in times of social turmoil, such as those that Russia is experiencing today.

The essay was prepared by Leonid Zusmanov

In 1847 His first literary works, “Contradictions” and “Complicated Affairs,” appeared in print. But they started talking seriously about Saltykov as a writer only in 1856, when he began publishing “Provincial Sketches.”

He directed his extraordinary talent to open the eyes of those who do not yet see the lawlessness going on in the country, the flourishing ignorance and stupidity, and the triumph of bureaucracy.

But today I would like to dwell on the writer’s fairy-tale cycle, begun in 1869. Fairy tales were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological and creative quest of the satirist. At that time, due to the existence of strict censorship, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show all the inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” Shchedrin was able to convey to people a sharp criticism of the existing order.

In 1883, the famous “The Wise Minnow” appeared, which over the past hundred-plus years has become Shchedrin’s textbook fairy tale. The plot of this fairy tale is known to everyone: once upon a time there was a gudgeon, which at first was no different from its own kind. But, a coward by nature, he decided to live his whole life without sticking out, in his hole, flinching from every rustle, from every shadow that flashed next to his hole. So life passed me by - no family, no children. And so he disappeared - either on his own or some pike swallowed him. Only before death does the minnow think about his life: “Who did he help? Who did you regret, what good did he do in life? “He lived - he trembled and he died - he trembled.” Only before death does the average person realize that no one needs him, no one knows him and no one will remember him.

But this is the plot, the external side of the fairy tale, what is on the surface. And the subtext of Shchedrin’s caricature in this tale of the morals of modern bourgeois Russia was well explained by the artist A. Kanevsky, who made illustrations for the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow”: “...everyone understands that Shchedrin is not talking about fish. The gudgeon is a cowardly man in the street, trembling for his own skin. He is a man, but also a minnow, the writer put him in this form, and I, the artist, must preserve it. My task is to combine the image of a frightened man in the street and a minnow, to combine fish and human properties. It is very difficult to “comprehend” a fish, to give it a pose, a movement, a gesture. How to display forever frozen fear on a fish’s “face”? The figurine of the minnow-official gave me a lot of trouble....”

The writer shows the terrible philistine alienation and self-isolation in “The Wise Minnow.” M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin is bitter and painful for the Russian people. Reading Saltykov-Shchedrin is quite difficult. Therefore, perhaps many did not understand the meaning of his fairy tales. But the majority of “children of a fair age” appreciated the work of the great satirist as it deserved.

In conclusion, I would like to add that the thoughts expressed by the writer in fairy tales are still contemporary today. Shchedrin's satire is time-tested and it sounds especially poignant in times of social unrest, such as those that Russia is experiencing today.

Problems of the fairy tale "The Wise Minnow" by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

In the complex sense of Shchedrin’s tales, small in volume and large in their ideological content, the following topics can be distinguished: satire on the autocratic government and on the exploiting classes, depiction of the life of the people in Tsarist Russia, exposure of the behavior and psychology of the secularist-minded layers of the intelligentsia, disclosure of individual morality and propaganda of the socialist ideal and new morality.
In the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow,” Shchedrin exposed for condemnation the cowardice of that part of the intelligentsia who, during the years of political reaction, succumbed to a mood of shameful panic. Depicting the pitiful fate of a hero who went mad with fear and walled himself up in a dark hole for the rest of his life, the satirist showed his warning and contempt for all those who, obeying the instinct of self-preservation, plunge into the narrow world of their own needs instead of active social struggle.
The gudgeon's parents lived quietly and peacefully, did not interfere in the life of society, and therefore died a natural death. And they ordered their son to watch with both, protecting himself. Their son was smart and took his parents’ words literally. He protected himself not only from large fish, but also from crayfish and water fleas. Although they were smaller than him, they could cause more harm, in his opinion. He was completely mad with fear and was even afraid to have a wife and children.
Shchedrin also ridiculed the minnow’s thoughts about man, that is, about the government. How old is he various means came up with the idea to destroy the minnows, that is, the people, but they, knowing all these stupid means, still swallow them. “Even though this is the stupidest tool, with us minnows, the more stupid, the more accurate,” this is how the old minnow thinks about the life of a people who do not want to learn even from their mistakes.
That gudgeon did not live, but did nothing but tremble and rejoice that he was alive. Even the pikes began to praise him, hoping that he would come out of the hole. But he doesn't. I sat for more than a hundred years and thought that I was the smartest. But Saltykov-Shchedrin speaks about the wrong course of reasoning of the minnow, that the wrong minnows become worse citizens who sit in holes, tremble and therefore eat in vain. What is the benefit to society from their existence? No. Therefore, it did not consider the gudgeon smart, but only called it a fool.
Originality artistic skill Shchedrin found herself in great power of his laughter, in the art of using humor, hyperbole, grotesque and fantasy for a realistic depiction of reality and assessing it from a progressive public positions. In his tales, those who tried to hide from the enemy, avoid social struggle, and live by their own needs die. He tried to instill in the reader a sense of social duty, to teach him to live social life, social needs. Only under these conditions can a person be called smart and wise.

Kosminov L. 11 g

Analysis of the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was born in January 1826 in the village of Spas-Ugol, Tver province. According to his father, he belonged to an old and rich noble family, and according to his mother, he belonged to the merchant class. After successfully graduating from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, Saltykov becomes an official in the military department, but he is of little interest in the service.
In 1847 His first literary works, “Contradictions” and “Complicated Affairs,” appeared in print. But they started talking seriously about Saltykov as a writer only in 1856, when he began publishing “Provincial Sketches.”

He directed his extraordinary talent to open the eyes of those who do not yet see the lawlessness going on in the country, the flourishing ignorance and stupidity, and the triumph of bureaucracy.

But today I would like to dwell on the writer’s fairy-tale cycle, begun in 1869. Fairy tales were a kind of result, a synthesis of the ideological and creative quest of the satirist. At that time, due to the existence of strict censorship, the author could not fully expose the vices of society, show all the inconsistency of the Russian administrative apparatus. And yet, with the help of fairy tales “for children of a fair age,” Shchedrin was able to convey to people a sharp criticism of the existing order.

But this is the plot, the external side of the fairy tale, what is on the surface. And the subtext of Shchedrin’s caricature in this fairy tale of the morals of modern bourgeois Russia was well explained by the artist A. Kanevsky, who made illustrations for the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow”: “…. Everyone understands that Shchedrin is not talking about fish. The gudgeon is a cowardly man in the street, trembling for his own skin. He is a man, but also a minnow, the writer put him in this form, and I, the artist, must preserve it. My task is to combine the image of a frightened man in the street and a minnow, to combine fish and human properties. It is very difficult to “comprehend” a fish, to give it a pose, a movement, a gesture. How to display forever frozen fear on a fish’s “face”? The figurine of the minnow-official gave me a lot of trouble... "

In conclusion, I would like to add that the thoughts expressed by the writer in fairy tales are still contemporary today. Shchedrin's satire is time-tested and it sounds especially poignant in times of social unrest, such as those that Russia is experiencing today.

Fairy tale "The Wise Minnow"

Many fairy tales by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are dedicated to exposing philistinism. One of the most poignant is “The Wise Minnow.” The fairy tale appeared in 1883 and over the past hundred years has become one of the most famous, a textbook tale of a satirist.

At the center of the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” is the fate of a cowardly man in the street, a man lacking a social outlook and with bourgeois demands. The image of a small, helpless and cowardly fish perfectly characterizes this trembling man in the street. In the work the writer puts important philosophical problems: what is the meaning of life and the purpose of man.

Saltykov-Shchedrin puts into the title of the tale a telling, unambiguously evaluative epithet: “The Wise Minnow.” What does the epithet “wise” mean? Synonyms for it are the words “smart”, “reasonable”. At first, the reader retains the belief that it was not in vain that the satirist characterized his hero this way, but gradually, as events unfold and gudgeon conclusions, it becomes clear that the meaning that the author puts into the word “wise” is undoubtedly ironic. The gudgeon considered himself wise, and the author called his fairy tale that way. The irony in this title reveals the worthlessness and uselessness of the average person, trembling for his life.

“Once upon a time there was a minnow,” and he was “enlightened, moderately liberal.” Smart parents lived in the river “Aridian eyelids” “Aridian eyelids lived in the river...” - the expression “Aridian (or Aredian) eyelids” means extreme longevity. It goes back to a biblical character named Jared, who, as stated in the Bible, lived 962 years (Genesis, V, 20). and, dying, bequeathed to him to live, looking both ways. The gudgeon understands that trouble threatens him from everywhere: from big fish, from the minnow neighbors, from a man (his own father was once almost boiled in the ear). The gudgeon builds a hole for itself, where no one except it fits, swims out at night for food, and during the day “shivers” in the hole, lacks sleep, is malnourished, but does its best to protect its life. Crayfish and pike lie in wait for him, but he avoids death. The gudgeon has no family: “he would like to live on his own.” "And he lived wise minnow it's been like this for over a hundred years. Everything was trembling, everything was trembling. He has no friends, no relatives; neither he is to anyone, nor anyone is to him.” Only once in its life does a gudgeon decide to crawl out of its hole and “swim like a goldeneye all over the river!”, but it gets scared. Even when dying, the gudgeon trembles. No one cares about him, no one asks his advice on how to live a hundred years, no one calls him wise, but rather a “dumb” and “hateful.” In the end, the gudgeon disappears to God knows where: even the pikes don’t need it, sick and dying.

The tale is based on the satirist’s favorite techniques - grotesque and hyperbole. Using the grotesque, Saltykov-Shchedrin brings to the point of absurdity the idea of the squalor of a lonely, selfish existence and the fear for one’s life that suppresses all other feelings. And by using hyperbolization, the satirist emphasizes negative qualities gudgeon: cowardice, stupidity, narrow-mindedness and conceit that is exorbitant for a small fish (“Not a single thought will come to mind: “Let me ask the wise gudgeon how he managed to live for more than a hundred years without being swallowed by a pike, “He didn’t break a crayfish with his claws, nor did he catch a fisherman with a hook?”, “And what’s most offensive of all: I haven’t even heard of anyone calling him wise”).

The tale is different harmonious composition. In a small work, the author manages to describe the entire life of the hero from birth to death. Gradually, tracing the course of the minnow’s life, the author evokes in the reader a variety of feelings: ridicule, irony, turning into a feeling of disgust, and in the end, compassion for the everyday philosophy of a quiet, wordless, but useless and worthless creature.

In this tale, as in all other tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, there is a limited circle of characters: the gudgeon himself and his father, whose behests the son faithfully followed. People and other inhabitants of the river (pike, perch, crayfish and other minnows) are only named by the author.

The author in the fairy tale denounces the cowardice, mental limitations, and failure in life of the average person. Allegory (allegory) and the technique of zoological likening help the satirist to deceive the tsarist censorship and create a sharply negative, repulsive image. Zoological comparisons serve the main purpose of satire - to show negative phenomena and people in low and funny. Comparison social vices with the animal world is one of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s witty satire techniques; he uses it both in individual episodes and in entire fairy tales. Attributing human properties to fish, the satirist simultaneously shows that humans also have “fishy” traits, and “minnow” is the definition of a person, an artistic metaphor that aptly characterizes ordinary people. The meaning of this allegory is revealed in the words of the author: “Those who think that only those minnows can be considered worthy citizens who, mad with fear, sit in a hole and tremble, believe incorrectly. No, these are not citizens, but at least useless minnows.”

In this tale, as in many of his other works, the writer combines fantasy with realistic image everyday life. Before us is a gudgeon - a small fish that is afraid of everything in the world. But we learn that this little fish “does not receive a salary,” “does not keep servants,” “does not play cards, does not drink wine, does not smoke tobacco, does not chase red girls.” So unusual combination a sense of the reality of what is happening is achieved. The fate of the law-abiding official is also guessed in the fate of the gudgeon.

Saltykov-Shchedrin in the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow” adds to the fairy tale speech modern concepts, thereby connecting the folklore beginning of the fairy tale with reality. Thus, Shchedrin uses the usual fairy-tale beginning (“once upon a time there was a minnow”), common fairy-tale phrases (“neither in a fairy tale can you tell, nor can you describe with a pen,” “began to live and live well,” “bread and salt”), folk expressions(“crazy chamber”, “out of nowhere”), colloquialisms (“disgraceful life”, “destroy”, “take a nap”) and much more. And next to these words there are words of a completely different style, belonging to real time: “chew with life”, “did exercise at night”, “will recommend”, “life process completes”.

Such a connection folklore motifs and fantasy with real, topical reality is one of the main features of Shchedrin’s satire and his new genre of political fairy tale. Exactly this special shape storytelling helped Saltykov-Shchedrin increase the scale artistic image, to give the satire on the small man in the street a huge scope, to create a real symbol of a cowardly person.

In the fairy tale “The Wise Minnow,” Saltykov-Shchedrin traditionally interweaves comic elements with tragic ones. With humor, the satirist conveys to the reader the fish’s opinion about man: “What about man? - what kind of malicious creature is this! no matter what tricks he came up with in order to destroy him, the minnow, in vain! And the seine, and the nets, and the tops, and the hole, and, finally... I’ll fish!”, describes the flattering speeches of the pikes: “Now, if everyone lived like this, it would be quiet in the river!” But they said it on purpose; they thought that he would recommend himself for praise - here, they say, I am! then bang! But he didn’t fall for this trick either, and once again, with his wisdom, he defeated the machinations of his enemies.” And the author himself constantly laughs at the gudgeon, his fears and imaginary victories over predators.

However, the death of the gudgeon, its slow decline and dying thoughts, Saltykov-Shchedrin, being an ardent opponent of such a cowardly and meaningless existence, describes with bitterness and even some pity: “In his hole it is dark, cramped, there is nowhere to turn, no Sunbeam He won’t look in there, and there’s no smell of warmth. And he lies in this damp darkness, blind, exhausted, useless to anyone...” The lonely and unnoticed death of the minnow is truly tragic, despite his entire previous worthless life.

How much Saltykov-Shchedrin despises such a humiliating life for a person! He reduces the entire biography of the minnow to short formula: “He lived and trembled, and he died - he trembled.” This expression has become an aphorism. The author claims that one cannot live with the only joy in life: “Glory to you, Lord, I am alive!” It is this philosophy of life-fear that the author ridicules. Saltykov-Shchedrin shows the reader a terrible self-isolation and philistine alienation.

Before his death, the gudgeon asks himself rhetorical questions: “What joys did he have? Who did he console? Who to whom good advice submitted? To whom kind word said? Whom did you shelter, warm, protect?” There is one answer to all these questions - no one, no one, none. These questions are introduced into the fairy tale for the reader, so that he asks himself and thinks about the meaning of his life. After all, even the minnow’s dreams are connected with his empty womb existence: “It’s as if he won two hundred thousand, grew by as much as half an arshin and swallows the pike himself.” This is how it would be, of course, if dreams became reality, because nothing else was implanted in the soul of the average person.

Saltykov-Shchedrin is trying to convey to the reader the idea that one cannot live only for the sake of preserving one’s life. The story of the wise minnow in an exaggerated form teaches the need to set oneself high goals and go to them. It is necessary to remember human dignity, courage and honor.

The writer “forces” the gudgeon to die ingloriously. In the final rhetorical question a devastating, sarcastic sentence is heard: “Most likely, he died himself, because what sweetness is it for a pike to swallow a sick, dying gudgeon, and what’s more, a wise one?”

fairy tale artistic political satirist