Fairy tale analysis "Wild Landlord" Saltykov-Shchedrin
The theme of serfdom and the life of the peasantry played an important role in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin. The writer could not openly protest the existing system. Saltykov-Shchedrin hides his merciless criticism of the autocracy behind fairy-tale motives. He wrote his political fairy tales from 1883 to 1886. In them, the settler truthfully reflected the life of Russia, in which despotic and all-powerful landlords destroy hard-working peasants.
In this tale, Saltykov-Shchedrin reflects on the unlimited power of the landowners, who in every way torment the peasants, imagining themselves almost as gods. The writer also speaks of the landowner's stupidity and uneducatedness: "that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper Vest, and his body was soft, white and crumbly." The disenfranchised position of the peasantry in tsarist Russia Shchedrin also expresses in this tale: "There was no need to light a torch for a peasant in the light, there was no more rod than to sweep the hut." The main idea of the fairy tale was that the landowner cannot and does not know how to live without a peasant, and the work of the landowner only dreamed of in nightmares. So in this tale, the landowner, who had no idea about labor, becomes a dirty and wild beast. After he was abandoned by all the peasants, the landowner never even washed his face: “Yes, I’ve been walking unwashed for many days!”.
The writer caustically ridicules all this negligence of the master class. The life of a landowner without a peasant is far from reminiscent of a normal human life.
The master became so wild that "from head to toe he was overgrown with hair, his nails became like iron, he even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds. But he has not yet acquired a tail." Life without peasants was also disrupted in the uyezd itself: "no one pays taxes, no one drinks wine in taverns." "Normal" life begins in the uyezd only when the peasants return to it. In the image of this one landowner, Saltykov-Shchedrin showed the life of all the gentlemen in Russia. And the final words of the tale are addressed to each landowner: "He lays out grand solitaire, yearns for his former life in the forests, washes only under duress, and at times mumbles."
This fairy tale is full of folk motives, close to Russian folklore. There are no tricky words in it, but there are simple Russian words: "it's said and done", "muzhiks' trousers", etc. Saltykov-Shchedrin sympathizes with the people. He believes that the suffering of the peasants is not endless, and freedom will triumph.
The well-known writer Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin was a truly great creator. As an official, he masterfully denounced the ignorant nobles and praised the simple Russian people. Tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the list of which includes more than a dozen, are the property of our classical literature.
All Mikhail Evgrafovich's fairy tales are written with sharp sarcasm. With the help of heroes (animals or people), he ridicules not so much human vices as the stupidity of higher ranks. The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the list of which would be incomplete without the story of the wild landowner, help us to see the attitude of the nobles of the 19th century towards their serfs. The story is short, but it makes you think about many serious things.
The landowner with a strange name Urus Kuchum Kildibaev lives for his own pleasure: he gathers a rich harvest, has luxurious housing and a lot of land. But one day he got tired of the abundance of peasants in his house and decided to get rid of them. The landowner prayed to God, but he did not heed his requests. He began to mock the peasants in every possible way, began to crush them with taxes. And then the Lord took pity on them, and they disappeared.
At first, the stupid landowner was happy: now no one bothered him. But later he began to feel their absence: no one prepared food for him, no one cleaned the house. The visiting generals and police officer called him a fool. But he did not understand why they treated him like that. As a result, he became so wild that he even became like an animal: he was overgrown with hair, climbed trees, and tore his prey with his hands and ate.
Saltykov-Shchedrin skillfully portrayed the satirical guise of the vices of a nobleman. The fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" shows how stupid a person can be who does not understand that he lived well only thanks to his peasants.
In the finale, all the serfs return to the landowner, and life flourishes again: meat is sold in the market, the house is clean and tidy. Yes, but Urus Kuchum never returned to its former appearance. He still hums, missing his former wild life.
Many from childhood remember the fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the list of which is not small: “How a man fed two generals”, “A bear in the province”, “Kissel”, “Konyaga”. True, we begin to understand the real meaning of these stories when we become adults.
Such is the tale "The Wise Gudgeon". He lived all his life and was afraid of everything: cancer, a water flea, a man, and even his own brother. Parents bequeathed to him: "Look at both!" And the scribbler decided to hide all his life and not come across anyone's eyes. And he lived like that for more than a hundred years. I haven't seen or heard anything in my entire life.
The tale of Saltykov-Shchedrin "The Wise Minnow" makes fun of stupid people who are ready to live their whole lives in fear of any danger. Now the old fish-man thought about what he lived for. And he became so sad because he did not see the white light. Decided to emerge from behind his driftwood. And after that no one saw him.
The writer laughs that even a pike will not eat such an old fish. The minnow in the work is called wise, but this is undoubtedly because it is extremely difficult to call him smart.
The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin (listed above) have become a real treasure trove of Russian literature. How clearly and wisely the author describes human shortcomings! These stories have not lost their relevance in our time. In this they resemble fables.
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in his fairy tales remarkably revealed the main properties of a fairy tale as a folk genre and, skillfully using metaphors, hyperbole, and the sharpness of the grotesque, showed the fairy tale as a satirical genre.
In the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" the author depicted the real life of the landowner. There is a beginning here in which you can not notice anything satirical or grotesque - the landowner is afraid that the peasant will "take all the good" from him. Perhaps this is a confirmation that the main idea of the tale is taken from reality. Saltykov-Shchedrin simply turns reality into a fairy tale by adding grotesque turns, satirical hyperbole, and fantastic episodes to reality. He shows with sharp satire that the landowner cannot live without peasants, although he shows this by describing the life of a landowner without peasants.
The tale also speaks of the occupations of the landowner. He laid out grand solitaire, dreamed of his future deeds and how he would plant a fertile garden without a peasant and what cars he would order from England, that he would become a minister ...
But they were all just dreams. In fact, without a man, he could not do anything, only ran wild.
Saltykov-Shchedrin also uses fairy-tale elements: three times the actor Sadovsky, then the generals, then the police captain come to the landowner. In a similar way, the fantastic episode of the disappearance of the peasants, and the friendship of the landowner with the bear, are shown. The author endows the bear with the ability to speak.
The satirical depiction of reality manifested itself in Saltykov-Shchedrin (along with other genres) in fairy tales. Here, as in folk tales, fantasy and reality are combined. So, often in Saltykov-Shchedrin animals are humanized, they personify the vices of people.
But the writer has a cycle of fairy tales, where people are the heroes. Here Saltykov-Shchedrin chooses other methods for ridiculing vices. It is, as a rule, grotesque, hyperbole, fantasy.
Such is Shchedrin's fairy tale "The Wild Landowner". In it, the stupidity of the landowner is brought to the limit. The writer sneers at the "merits" of the gentleman: "The peasants see: although they have a stupid landowner, he has been given a great mind. He shortened them so that there was nowhere to stick out his nose; wherever they look - everything is impossible, but not allowed, but not yours! The cattle will go to the watering hole - the landowner shouts: “My water!” The chicken will come out of the village - the landowner shouts: "My land!" And the earth, and water, and air - everything became his!
The landowner considers himself not a man, but a kind of deity. Or, at least, a person of the highest rank. It is in the order of things for him to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor and not even think about it.
The peasants of the "wild landowner" are languishing from hard work and severe need. Tormented by oppression, the peasants finally prayed: “Lord! It’s easier for us to disappear even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!” God heard them, and "there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner."
At first it seemed to the master that now he would live well without the peasants. Yes, and all the noble guests of the landowner approved of his decision: “Oh, how good it is! - the generals praise the landowner, - so now you will not have this servile smell at all? “Not at all,” the landowner replies.
It seems that the hero does not realize the deplorability of his situation. The landowner only indulges in dreams, empty in their essence: “and now he walks, walks around the rooms, then sits down and sits. And everyone thinks. He thinks what kind of cars he will order from England, so that everything is by ferry and steam, but there is not at all a servile spirit; he thinks what a fruitful garden he will plant: here there will be pears, plums ... ”Without his peasants, the“ wild landowner ”was only engaged in the fact that he did not live his“ loose, white, crumbly body ”.
This is where the climax of the story begins. Without his peasants, the landowner, unable to lift a finger without a peasant, begins to run wild. In Shchedrin's fairy tale cycle, full scope is given for the development of the motive of reincarnation. It was the grotesque in describing the process of the landowner's savagery that helped the writer to clearly show how greedy representatives of the "conducting class" can turn into real wild animals.
But if in folk tales the process of transformation itself is not depicted, then Saltykov reproduces it in all details and details. This is the unique artistic invention of the satirist. It can be called a grotesque portrait: the landowner, completely run wild after the fantastic disappearance of the peasants, turns into a primitive man. “All of him, from head to toe, was overgrown with hair, like the ancient Esau ... and his nails became like iron,” Saltykov-Shchedrin slowly narrates. - He stopped blowing his nose a long time ago, walked more and more on all fours and was even surprised how he had not noticed before that this way of walking was the most decent and most convenient. I even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds and learned some special victory cry, the average between whistling, hissing and barking.
Under the new conditions, all the severity of the landowner lost its strength. He became helpless, like a little child. Now even “the little mouse was smart and understood that the landowner without Senka could not do him any harm. He only wagged his tail in response to the landowner's menacing exclamation, and in a moment was peering at him from under the sofa, as if to say: Wait a minute, stupid landowner! it's only the beginning! I will not only eat cards, but I will also eat your robe, how you oil it properly!
Thus, the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” shows the degradation of a person, the impoverishment of his spiritual world (and did he exist at all in this case ?!), the withering away of all human qualities.
This is explained very simply. In his fairy tales, as in his satires, for all their tragic gloominess and accusatory severity, Saltykov remained a moralist and educator. Showing the horror of human fall and its most sinister vices, he nevertheless believed that in the future there would be a moral revival of society and times of social and spiritual harmony would come.
