What is the meaning of the title of the story?
It is known that the word "secret" traditionally, following the definition in the dictionary of V. I. Dahl, - "hidden, hidden, concealed, secret, hidden or hidden from someone" - means something opposite to the concepts of "frank", "external" , "visible". In modern Russian, the definition of "secret" - "undetected, sacredly kept" - is often added "sincere", "intimate", "cordial". However, in connection with Foma Pukhov of Platonov, an outspoken mockingbird who subjected to a harsh analysis the sanctity and sinlessness of the revolution itself, looking for this revolution not in posters and slogans, but in something else - in characters, in the structures of the new power, the concept of "secret", as always, sharply modified, enriched. What a secretive, “buried”, “closed” this Pukhov is, if ... Pukhov opens up at every step, swings open, literally provokes dangerous suspicions about himself ... He does not want to enroll in a primitive political literacy circle: “Teaching stains brains, but I want live fresh. At the suggestion of some workers - "Now you would become a leader, why are you working?" - he mockingly replies: “There are so many leaders. And there are no locomotives! I will not be a parasite!” And to the proposal to become a hero, to be at the forefront, he answers even more frankly: “I am a natural fool!”
In addition to the concept of "secret", Andrey Platonov was very fond of the word "unintentional".
"I accidentally I stopped, I walk alone and think,” says, for example, a boy in the story “A Clay House in the County Garden”. And in the "Secret Man" there is an identification of the concepts "unexpected" and "secret": " Unexpected sympathy for people ... manifested itself in the soul of Pukhov overgrown with life. We will hardly be mistaken if, on the basis of many of Platonov's stories for children, his fairy tales, in general, "signs of abandoned childhood", we say that children or people with an open, childlike elemental soul are the most "intimate", behaving extremely naturally, without pretense, hiding, especially hypocrisy. Children are the most open, artless, they are also the most “intimate”. All their actions are “accidental”, i.e., not prescribed by anyone, sincere, “careless”. Foma Pukhov is continually told: “You will achieve your goal, Pukhov! You will be slapped somewhere!”; “Why are you a grumbler and a non-party member, and not a hero of the era?” etc. And he continues his path as a free contemplator, an ironic spy who does not fit into any bureaucratic system, hierarchy of positions and slogans. "Secrecy" of Pukhov - in this freedom self-development, freedom of judgment and evaluation of the revolution itself, its saints and angels in the conditions of the revolution stopped in a bureaucratic stupor.
"What are the features of the plot development of Pukhov's character and what are they due to?" the teacher will ask the class.
Andrei Platonov does not explain the reasons for the continuous, endless wanderings of Pukhov through the revolution (this 1919-1920 years), his desire to seek good thoughts (i.e., confidence in the truth of the revolution) "not in comfort, but from the intersection with people and events." He did not explain the deep autobiography of the whole story (it was created in 1928 and precedes his story “Doubting Makar”, which caused a sharp rejection by the officialdom of the entire position of Platonov).
The story begins with a defiantly declared, visual theme of movement, the hero's break with peace, with home comfort, with the theme of the onslaught of the oncoming life on his soul; from wind blows, storms. He enters a world where "wind, wind in the whole wide world" and "man does not stand on his feet" (A. Blok). Foma Pukhov, still unknown to the reader, does not just go to the depot, to the steam locomotive, to clear the tracks for the red echelons from snow, he enters the space, into the universe, where "a blizzard unfolded terribly over the very head of Pukhov", where "he was met by a blow snow in the face and the noise of the storm. And this pleases him: the revolution has entered nature, lives in it. In the future, the story more than once appears - and not at all as a passive background of events, a picturesque landscape - an incredibly mobile world of nature, rapidly moving masses of people.
The blizzard howled evenly and stubbornly, under enormous stress somewhere in the steppes of the southeast.
"Cold night poured storm, and lonely people felt anguish and bitterness.
"At night, against the rising wind, the detachment went to the port for landing.
« The wind was hardening and smashed a huge space, extinguishing somewhere hundreds of miles away. Water drops, plucked from the sea rushed in the shaking air and hit in the face like pebbles.
“Sometimes past the Shani (a ship with a Red amphibious assault. - V. Ch.) whole columns of water swept by, enveloped in a whirlwind northeast. Behind them they laid bare deep abyss, almost showing bottom seas».
“The train went all night, - thundering, tormented and making a nightmare into the bone heads of forgotten people ... The wind stirred the iron on the roof of the car, and Pukhov thought about the dreary life of this wind and felt sorry for him.
Pay attention to the fact that among all the feelings of Foma Pukhov, one thing prevails: if only the storm did not stop, the majesty of contact with people heart to heart did not disappear, stagnation did not come, “parade and order”, the kingdom of those who sat in session! And if only he himself, Pukhov, were not placed, like the hero of the civil war Maxim Pashintsev in Chevengur, in a kind of aquarium, a “reservoir”!
Platonov himself by 1927-1928 For years he felt himself, the former romantic of the revolution (see his collection of poems of 1922 "Blue Depth"), terribly offended, offended by the era of bureaucratization, the era of "ink darkness", the realm of desks and meetings. He, like Foma Pukhov, asked himself: are those bureaucrats from his satirical story “The City of Gradov” (1926) really right, who “philosophically” deny the very idea of movement, renewal, the idea of a path, saying: “what flows, will flow, will flow and - stop? In The Secret Man, many of Pukhov's contemporaries - both Sharikov and Zvorychny - have already "stopped", sat down in bureaucratic chairs, believed to their advantage in the "Cathedral of the Revolution", that is, in the dogmas of the new bible.
The character of Pukhov, a wanderer, a righteous person, a bearer of the idea of freedom, “accident” (i.e., naturalness, unprescribed thoughts and actions, the naturalness of a person), is difficult to unfold precisely in his movements, meetings with people. He is not afraid of dangers, inconveniences, he is always prickly, uncompromising, mocking, careless. As soon as the dangerous trip with the snowplow was over, Pukhov immediately suggested to his new friend Pyotr Zvorychny: “Let's move, Pyotr! .. Let's go, Petrush! .. The revolution will pass, but there will be nothing left for us!” He needs the hot spots of the revolution, without the tutelage of bureaucrats. In the future, restless Pukhov, an unbeliever Thomas, a mischievous person, a person of playful behavior, ends up in Novorossiysk, participates (as a mechanic on the Shan landing ship) in the liberation of Crimea from Wrangel, moves to Baku (on an empty oil tank), where he meets an interesting character - sailor Sharikov.
This hero no longer wants to return to his pre-revolutionary working profession. And to Pukhov’s proposal “take a hammer and patch up the ships personally”, he, “having become a scribe ...” being practically illiterate, proudly declares: “You are an eccentric, I’m the general leader of the Caspian Sea!”
The meeting with Sharikov did not stop Pukhov on the spot, did not "sew to the cause", although Sharikov offered him ... to be in charge: "to become the commander of the oil flotilla." “As if through smoke, Pukhov made his way in the stream of unfortunate people to Tsaritsyn. It always happened to him - almost unconsciously he chased life through all the gorges of the earth, sometimes in oblivion of himself, ”Platonov writes, reproducing the confusion of road meetings, Pukhov’s conversations, and finally, his arrival in his native Pokharinsk (of course, Platonov’s native Voronezh) . And finally, his participation in the battle with a certain white general Lyuboslavsky (“he has cavalry - darkness”).
Of course, one should not look for any correspondence to specific historical situations in the routes of Pukhov's wandering, wandering (although extremely active, active, full of dangers), to look for sequences of events of the civil war, of course. All the space in which Pukhov moves is largely conditional, like time. 1919-1920 gg. Some of the contemporaries and eyewitnesses of the real events of those years, such as Platonov’s friend and patron, the editor of the Voronezh Commune G. Z. Litvin-Molotov, even reproached the writer for “deviations from the truth of history”: Wrangel was expelled in 1920, then what could the white general then besiege Pokharinsk (Voronezh)? After all, the raid of the corps of the white Denikin generals Shkuro and Mamontov (they really had a lot of cavalry), who took Voronezh, happened in 1919!
“What pleased Pukhov in the revolution and what immensely upset, intensified the flow of ironic judgments?” The teacher asks the class with a question.
Once in his youth, Andrei Platonov, a native of a large family of a railway foreman in the Yamskaya Sloboda, admitted: “The words about the steam locomotive-revolution turned the steam locomotive into a feeling of revolution for me.” For all his doubts, Foma Pukhov, although by no means a heroic character and not a cold sage, not a conventional mockingbird, still retained the same youthful trait, the romanticism of the author's own feelings of life. Platonov invested much of his perception of the revolution as the grandest event of the 20th century, which changed the whole history, ended the past, “corrupted”, offensive history (or rather, prehistory) into Pukhov’s life feelings, much from his perception of the revolution. “Time stood around like a doomsday”, “deep times breathed over these mountains” - there are a lot of such assessments of time, all the events that changed history, the fate of the former little man, in the story. From the early lyrics of Platonov, from the book "Blue Depth", the most important motif about the eternal mystery, intimacy (freedom) of the human soul passed into the story:
In the story, such “unlit”, i.e., not in need of the bestowed, prescribed, given from outside “light” (directives, orders, agitation), are the young Red Army soldiers on the steamer “Shanya”:
“They did not yet know the value of life, and therefore cowardice was unknown to them - the pity of losing their body ... They were unknown to themselves. Therefore, the Red Army did not have chains in their souls that chained them to their own personality. Therefore, they lived a full life with nature and with history - and history ran in those years like a steam locomotive, dragging the world's load of poverty, despair and humble inertia behind it.
“What upsets Pukhov in the events, in the very atmosphere of the time?” - the teacher will ask the guys.
He, like the author himself, saw in the era of the triumph of bureaucratic forces, the nomenklatura, the corps of omnipotent officials, signs of obvious inhibition, cooling, even “casing”, petrification of everything - souls, deeds, general inspiration, extermination or vulgarization of a great dream. The engineer sending Pukhov on a flight is already a complete fright: “he was put against the wall twice, he quickly turned gray and obeyed everything - without complaint and without reproach. But on the other hand, he was forever silent and spoke only orders.
In Novorossiysk, as Pukhov noted, there were already arrests and defeats of "wealthy people", and his new friend, the sailor Sharikov, already known to himself, realizing his right to proletarian benefits, the benefits of the "rising class", is trying to turn Pukhov onto the path of careerism. If you are a worker, then ... "- then why are you not in the vanguard of the revolution?"
“Two Sharikovs: what do you think, what are their similarities and differences?” The teacher will ask the class a question.
Fortunately for Platonov, it was not noticed that in The Secret Man ... his own Platonic Sharikov had already appeared (after, but independently of Bulgakov's grotesque novel Heart of a Dog, 1925). This yesterday's sailor, also the second "I" of Platonov, does not yet give rise to the so-called "fear-laughter" (laughter after a forbidden anecdote, a scary allegory, mockery of an official text, etc.). Sharikov is no longer averse to building up his revbiography, he does not want to remain in those snotty ones, without whom even Wrangel will be dispensed with, he does not enter, but intermeddle ... into power!
As a result, he - and there is no need for any fantastic operation with a cute dog Sharik! - already with visible pleasure displays his surname on papers, warrants for a package of flour, a piece of manufactory, a pile of firewood, and even, like a puppet, is zealous: “so famously and figuratively sign, so that later the reader of his surname would say: Comrade Sharikov is an intelligent person! ".
A not idle question arises: what is the difference between Platonov's Sharikov and his "Sharikovism" from the corresponding hero in M. Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog" (1925)? Essentially, two Sharikovs appeared in the literature of the 1920s. Platonov did not have to seek the services of Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Bormental (the heroes of The Heart of a Dog) to create the phenomenon of Sharikov - a self-satisfied, still simple-minded demagogue, a bearer of primitive proletarian swagger. There was no need for "material" in the form of a harmless homeless dog Sharik. Platonov's Sharikov is not an extraordinary, not speculative and exceptional (as in Bulgakov's) phenomenon: he is both simpler, more familiar, more everyday, autobiographical, and therefore, probably, more terrible. And it hurts more for Platonov: he grows up in "Chevengur" in Kopenkin, and in "Kotlovan" - in Zhachev. It is not the laboratory that grows it, but time. He is preparing a landing in the Crimea and is trying to somehow teach the fighters. At first, he simply "joyfully rushed around the ship and said something to everyone." It is curious that he no longer spoke, but continuously agitated, not noticing the paucity of his lectures.
Platonovsky Sharikov, having learned to move "big papers on an expensive table", becoming the "general leader of the Caspian Sea", will very soon learn to "buzz" and play tricks in any field.
The finale of The Secret Man is still optimistic on the whole: episodes of dying remain behind for Pukhov - the assistant driver, worker Afonin, and the ghosts of "Sharikovism", and threats against him ... He "again saw the luxury of life and the fury of bold nature", "unintentional returned to him in my soul. However, these episodes of reconciliation, a kind of harmony between the hero-seeker and the hero-philosopher (the first titles of the story "Country of Philosophers"), are very fragile, short-lived. A year later, another mockingbird, only more desperate, “doubted Makar”, having come to Moscow, the supreme, governing city, will cry out: “We don’t care about power - we’ll put the little things at home - our soul is dear to us ... Give your soul, since you are an inventor ". This is perhaps the main, dominant note in the entire Platonov orchestra: "Everything is possible - and everything succeeds, but the main thing is to sow soul in people." Foma Pukhov is the first of the messengers of this Platonic dream-pain.
Questions and topics for review
1. How did Platonov understand the meaning of the word "secret"?
2. Why did Platonov choose the plot of wandering, wandering to reveal his character?
3. What was the autobiography of Pukhov's image? Was not Platonov himself the same wanderer, full of nostalgia for the revolution?
4. What is the difference between Sharikov and the character of the same name from M. A. Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog? Which writer stood closer to his hero?
5. Is it possible to say that Pukhov is partly a concrete historical character, and partly Platonov's "floating point of view" (E. Tolstaya-Segal) on the revolution, its ups and downs?
The work of Andrei Platonovich Platonov is characterized by stable, cross-cutting themes. And one of the key in his works is the image of a wanderer. So Foma Pukhov, the hero of the story "The Secret Man", sets off on a journey in search of the meaning of the proletarian revolution and eternal truth. The writer called his favorite hero a "secret person", spiritually gifted, "secret", that is, outwardly seemingly simple, even indifferent, some kind of Ivan the Fool, but in reality - a deep philosopher and truth seeker. “Without me, the people are incomplete,” he says, making it clear that he is connected with the nation by blood and flesh. He is used to wandering, this Pukhov, and if the people went on a campaign for the Golden Fleece, then he also leaves his little house. The geography of the story is extremely extensive: from the provincial Pokharinsk the hero goes either to Baku, then to Novorossiysk, then to Tsaritsyn, then again to Baku. Most often we see him on the road. The road was the most important leitmotif in the works of Radishchev and Gogol, Leskov and Nekrasov. Like the Russian classics, Platonov's road is a plot-forming element. The plot of the story does not consist in a clash of reds and whites, not in the confrontation of the hero with hostile forces, but in the intense life searches of Foma Pukhov, therefore the plot movement is possible only when the hero is on the road. As soon as he stops, his life loses historical perspective. This is what happens with Zvorychny, Sharikov, Perevoshchikov. Becoming synonymous with spiritual search, Platonov's road is gradually losing its spatial significance. Pukhov's movements across the expanses of Russia are very chaotic, not logically motivated: "almost unconsciously, he was chasing life through all the gorges of the earth" (ch. 4). Moreover, despite the accuracy of geographical names, the cities mentioned in the story do not have specific signs and could well be replaced by others. The fact is that the hero does not have a spatial goal, he is looking not for a place, but for a meaning. The wanderings of the soul do not need a real, objective frame.
Andrei Platonov is an author who is a master of the word recognized in Russian literature. In this article we will tell you about the work will introduce you to this story. She saw the light in 1928. The story was published as a separate edition ("The Secret Man" by Platonov). A summary of the events described in the work is as follows.
Foma Pukhov, the main character, was not gifted with sensitivity. For example, he cut boiled sausage on his wife's coffin, as he got hungry due to the absence of the hostess. Having drunk, after her burial, Pukhov goes to bed. Someone knocks loudly on his door. This is the watchman of his boss's office, who brings the hero a ticket to clear the railway tracks from snow. Pukhov signs this order at the station - try not to sign at that time!
Together with other workers who serve a snowplow carried on two locomotives, the protagonist begins to clear the way from so that the Red Army armored trains and echelons can pass. The front is 60 versts from this place. A snowplow on one snow blockage sharply slows down. Breaking heads, workers fall. It crashes to death Surrounds the workers with a cavalry detachment of Cossacks, ordering them to deliver a snowplow and steam locomotives to a station occupied by the Whites. The red armored train that arrived at the scene shoots the Cossacks stuck in the snow and frees their comrades.
They rest at the Liski station for three days. Pukhov on the wall of the barracks reads an announcement that mechanics are being recruited for the Southern Front, in technical units. He invites Zvorychny, his friend, to go south, explaining that there is nothing left to do at the snowplow: spring is approaching. The revolution will pass, and there will be nothing left for the workers. Zvorychny does not agree, because he does not want to leave his wife with his son.
Pukhov, a week later, together with five locksmiths, goes to Novorossiysk. On three ships, the Reds are equipping a landing party, consisting of 500 people, to the rear of Wrangel, to the Crimea. Poohov sets off on a steamer called "Shanya", serves on it. The landing force passes through the impenetrable night, but the ships lose each other due to the storm. The raging elements do not allow landing on the Crimean coast. People are forced to return to the city of Novorossiysk.
Here comes the news that the Red troops have taken Simferopol. Pukhov spends four months in the city as a senior fitter at a base belonging to the Azov-Black Sea Shipping Company. From the lack of work, he misses: there are few steamboats, and the main character is mainly engaged in compiling reports on breakdowns of mechanisms. Often he walks around the neighborhood, enjoying nature. The protagonist, remembering his dead wife, is sad, buried in the ground, heated by his breath, his face. Wetting it with reluctant, rare drops of tears Pukhov - Platonov's "hidden man". The summary of the story allows only a passing mention of his state of mind.
Let's continue our story. Andrei Platonov further writes that after some time Pukhov leaves the city of Novorossiysk, but is not heading home, but to Baku, in order to walk along the Caspian coast, and then along the Volga to his homeland. In Baku, he meets with Sharikov, a sailor who is establishing a shipping company in the Caspian. This man gives him a business trip to the city of Tsaritsyn in order to attract a qualified proletariat to Baku. Arriving there, the protagonist shows some mechanic, who met him at the office of the plant, Sharikov's mandate. This person reads it, after which, after smearing it with saliva, he sticks a piece of paper to the fence - an interesting detail introduced by Andrey Platonov. "Secret Man" Pukhov looks at the piece of paper and drives in a nail so that the wind does not rip off the document. After that, he goes to the station, where he boards the train. Pukhov asks the passengers where they are going. The meek voice of one person answers that they do not know either. "He's on his way, and we're with him," he says.
Pukhov returns to his homeland, settles in the house of Zvorychny, who worked as a secretary of a workshop cell, and serves here as a locksmith. After a week, he goes to live in his apartment, which he calls the "exclusion zone", because Pukhov is bored here. The main character often visits his comrade Zvorychny and tells him various stories about the Black Sea - in order to drink tea not for nothing. Thomas, returning home, recalls that a human dwelling is called a hearth. He complains that his house does not look like a hearth at all: no fire, no woman. The thoughts of the protagonist created by Platonov ("The Secret Man") are very interesting. Their analysis, unfortunately, is not the subject of our article. However, the transformation that he eventually undergoes, we will try to briefly describe further.
Whites approach the city. Gathered in detachments, the workers defend themselves. A white armored train is bombarding the city with hurricane fire. Foma proposes to organize several sand platforms in order to launch them onto an armored train from a slope. But they shatter into pieces without causing him any harm. The workers, who rushed to the attack, fall under machine-gun fire. Two armored trains of Red Army soldiers come to the aid of the workers in the morning: the city is saved.
After these events, the cell is disassembled: is Pukhov a traitor? Or maybe he came up with this stupid idea because he is simply a silly man? That's what they decided on. Foma Pukhov is weighed down by work in the workshop - with despondency, and not with heaviness. Remembering Sharikov, he writes a letter to him.
The answer comes in a month. A comrade invites him to work in Baku at the oil fields. Foma goes there, serves as a machinist on one of the engines pumping oil from the well to the oil storage. Time passes, the main character becomes well. He regrets only one thing: that he has aged a little and there is no longer something desperate in his soul, as it was before.
Once the main character, whose life tells us the story of Platonov "The Secret Man", went fishing from Baku. He spent the night with his friend Sharikov, to whom his brother returned from captivity. An unexpectedly awakened sympathy for people suddenly clears up in Pukhov's soul. He walks with pleasure, feeling the kinship to his body of all other bodies, the luxury of life, as well as the fury of nature, bold, incredible both in action and in silence. Gradually, the protagonist realizes the most painful and important thing: desperate nature has turned into people, into revolutionary courage. The spiritual foreign land leaves Pukhov, and he feels the familiar warmth of his homeland, as if from an unnecessary wife he returned to his mother. Warmth and light strained over the surrounding world, gradually turned into human strength. When he meets the driver, he says: "Good morning!" He replies: "Revolutionary completely."
Thus ends Platonov's The Secret Man. The summary introduces the reader only to the main events. After reading the original work, you will get to know the main character better and understand better why Platonov used such an unusual definition in relation to him - "inner man". The characters in the story are very interesting. Their characters deserve more detailed consideration.
Explain to me the meaning of Platonov's work The Secret Man in an accessible language ... If you help, I recognize the best ... and got the best answer
Answer from Pawel[guru]
Analysis of the story "The Secret Man" by Platonov A.P.
The hero of the story "The Secret Man" Foma Pukhov, even in his mature years, did not lose his naive perception of the world.
At the beginning of the story, he simply brushes off all the difficult questions. The mechanic Pukhov appreciates only one thing: his work. But on the other hand, he appears as a spontaneous philosopher, in some ways a mischievous person, in some ways a moralizer.
The party cell even concludes "that Pukhov is not a traitor, but just a silly man."
The effort of the "foolish peasant" 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 special humor, which manifests itself in the most unexpected fragments of the text: “Afanas, you are now not a whole person, but a defective one! - said Pukhov with regret.
“The Secret Man” throughout the story, as it were, gathers into one whole his eternally hungry flesh, practical wisdom, mind and soul: “if you only think, you won’t go far either, you need to have a feeling! »
Foma Pukhov not only loves nature, but also understands it. Unity with nature evokes a whole range of feelings in him: “One day, during the sunshine, Pukhov was walking around the city and thought - how much vicious stupidity in people, how much inattention to such a single occupation as life and the whole natural environment” .
Comprehension of 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 scientific "white guard" and an impossible unimaginable feat - and a thirst for feat! - defeated the enemy, from an “external”, thoughtless, empty Foma Poohov, checking everything on his own experience, turns into an “intimate person”.
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Milana Tyz, you know, this is somehow more accessible!
Answer from Maria Saitova[active]
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Answer from 3 answers[guru]
Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: Explain to me the meaning of Platonov's work The Secret Man in an accessible language ... If you help me, I recognize it as the best ...
The artistic world of A.P. Platonov. The faith of A.P. Platonov 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. The heroes of Platonov are people-transformers, boldly subordinating nature to themselves, aspiring to a brighter future. The search for answers to eternal questions and the construction of a new one is often associated with the motive of wandering, orphanhood. These people, constantly doubting and thirsting for the truth, beloved heroes of A.P. Platonov, are looking for "the meaning of life in the heart." The richness of the narrative, the philosophic nature and universality of generalizations distinguish the works of A.P. Platonov, the writer defined his method as follows: “It is necessary to write with the essence, with a dry stream, in a direct way. This is my new way."
The story "The Secret Man" (1928). The work is dedicated to events related to the revolution and the Civil War. The main character, engineer 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 is associated with unbelieving Thomas. He is carried along the earth in the general human stream along the “roads of the revolution”. At first, the hero tries not to pay attention to difficult life issues, but the intimate 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 occur with Pukhov. Against the background of the latent degeneration of good ideas, the “natural fool” Pukhov acutely feels the mismatch between expectations and reality and is disappointed, and therefore some of his jokes provoke reader sadness. A vivid episode of the exam that Foma Pukhov takes is indicative: “What is religion? the examiner did not hesitate. - The prejudice of Karl Marx and popular moonshine. What is the religion of the bourgeoisie for? - So that the people do not mourn. - Do you love, comrade Pu-khov, the proletariat as a whole and are you ready 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, only so that it’s not in vain and not a fool!”
Feelings of disillusionment in the late 1920s becomes acute, painful for Platonov himself. The element, which 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 whole composition of the story is subject to the decision of the author's intention, reflected in the title itself: to go with the hero on his path, on which Pukhov tries to understand everything that is happening around him. On the way, the self-development of the character takes place. “Inadvertent sympathy for people who were working alone against the substance of the whole world cleared up in Pukhov’s soul overgrown with life. Revolution is just the best fate for people, you can’t think of anything more true. It was difficult, abrupt and immediately easy, like a birth. The author does not openly name the reasons why the hero sets off on a journey, but the reader understands them on his own. The “hidden person” is a person with an unusual world hidden in the depths of his soul, striving for knowledge of the environment and not giving in 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. A long way of finding the truth in oneself, in order to change something around, is made by Foma Pukhov. He is much more honest than the “builders of the future” around him. The Natural Fool does not seek to take advantage of career opportunities. The hero goes to Novorossiysk, determining for himself his decision by internal necessity: “We will see the mountain horizons; yes, and it will be more honest somehow! And then I saw - typhoid echelons of a rod, and we sit - we get rations! .. The revolution will pass, but we will have nothing left! Indicative in this regard is another character in the story, embodying a different truth of the time, the sailor Sharikov. Foma does not tolerate sloganism, empty chatter, while Sharikov perfectly mastered the spirit of the times, found himself a “warm” place and, to Pukhov’s advice, personally “strengthen the revolution” with deed (“take a hammer and patch up ships”), he answers with the real owner: “Eccentric you, I'm the head of the Caspian Sea! Who, then, will run 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 work of A.P. Platonov it is a symbol of the revolution, the writer himself noted: “The words about the locomotive-revolution turned the locomotive into a feeling of revolution for me”), in which the hero sits, goes in an unknown direction ( this symbol becomes epic). An interest in his own future that flared up (“Where is he [the train] going?”) is quickly replaced by Pukhov’s humility (“The train was moving somewhere further. From its course, Pukhov calmed down and fell asleep, feeling warmth in an evenly working heart "). Foma needs to walk along the roads of the country himself, see everything with his own eyes, feel it with his heart (unbelieving nature affects). Novorossiysk, the liberation of the Crimea from Wrangel (the mechanic on the ship "Shan"), a trip to Baku and a meeting with the sailor Sharikov constitute certain stages in the life of the hero and the acquisition of the meaning of his existence by Pukhov. The road itself, the movement becomes a 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 a development in their frozen state.
The hero's attempt to figure out 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 are lost. The motive of death that sounds on the pages of the story is closely connected with the motive of universal orphanhood. (Both of them become central in the work of A.P. Platonov.) The theme of death is introduced into the narrative not by chance. The revolution not only failed to resurrect the dead (N. Fedorov's philosophical idea was accepted by A.P. Platonov himself), but brought, and the author constantly draws the reader's attention to this, new deaths.
A certain insensitivity of the main character's heart at the beginning of the journey (cutting sausage on the coffin of his wife) 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 affinity of all bodies to his body. He gradually guessed about the 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 peculiarity of the language. The work reflects the author's idea of the indissolubility of the world of the external and internal, material and non-material. In the story "The Secret Man" the image of life is realized 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. The “strange” language of the narrator Platonov uses to express the inner world of the hero, who has no words to convey his experiences and conclusions. Platonov's language is based on bookish speech with an abundance of abstract vocabulary (A manufactory with propaganda words hung on the walls of the station), a shift in the usual language connections, when the next word is difficult to predict, the folding and unfolding of sentences (Finally, the train left, shooting at air - to frighten transport-hungry bagmen), the 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 life, but being, the essence of things. The image of Foma Pukhov, combining "high tragic and comic culture", becomes one of the whole gallery of seeking and doubting Platonic heroes.
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