Family in the understanding of Sholokhov. “Saving the family nest - the idea of Natalia Melekhova’s life” - Document

23.06.2020

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“Family Thought” in Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don”. Woman as the keeper of family warmth

1. M.A. Sholokhov - singer of the quiet Don

“in this world there is the history of the Don Cossacks, the Russian peasantry... centuries-old traditions of moral principles and labor skills that shaped the national character, the characteristics of the whole country.” E.A. Kostin

“Sholokhov’s family is a visual center through the prism of which the “macrocosm” of national culture is revealed to us.” I.I. Tsypenko

An artist, often stern and restrained, when he talks about his native land, he becomes lyrical and pathetic.

The spring of hidden love for the people of the quiet Don, its customs, songs, games, always flowing in the inner layers of Sholokhov’s narrative, suddenly bursts out... The novel “Quiet Don” is also filled with these feelings.

The heroes living on the pages of the novel are Don Cossacks.

The Cossacks are a special class in Rus', but in the life of any people there are unshakable values that are largely similar: family, land, morality. I propose to touch upon this particular facet of Sholokhov’s novel.

Traditions. Origins. Life Family. National spirit. Referring to these concepts is always necessary. After all, by the life of a family, by the strength of family ties, one can judge the viability of a people.

At the center of Sholokhov’s narrative are several families: the Melekhovs, the Korshunovs, the Mokhovs, the Koshevs, the Listnitskys. This is not accidental: the patterns of the era are revealed not only in historical events, but also in the facts of private life, family relationships, where the power of traditions is especially strong and any break in them gives rise to acute, dramatic conflicts.

Starting with family was a new brilliant intuitive discovery of the young writer. The author answered the question of who the Cossacks are, what their roots are, what is the basis of their life, why they behave in this or that situation in this or that way and not otherwise. The family is the carrier of what we call culture. Therefore, Sholokhov focuses on different generations of the Melekhov family.

The story about the fate of the Melekhov family begins with a sharp, dramatic beginning, with the story of Prokofy Melekhov, who amazed the farmers with his “outlandish act.” He brought his Turkish wife back from the Turkish war. He loved her in the evenings, when the “dawns were fading,” he carried her in his arms to the top of the mound, “he sat down next to her, and they looked at the steppe for a long time.” And when an angry crowd approached their house, Prokofy with a saber stood up to defend his beloved wife.

The death of a Turkish woman affirms the greatness and tragedy of true love, love that is different, and therefore annoying to others. This love was a challenge to the Cossacks, their way of life, their traditions - hence the tragedy.

From the first pages, proud people with an independent character and capable of great feelings appear. Thus, from the story of grandfather Gregory, the novel “Quiet Don” enters into the beautiful and at the same time tragic. And for Gregory, love for Aksinya will become a serious test of life.

2. Patriarchy and traditions in the Melekhov family

Family is the basis of folk life in the world of “Quiet Don”. The life circumstances of the Cossack environment are depicted with such thoroughness that they make it possible to recreate the general structure of the family at the beginning of the twentieth century. And the twentieth century threatened to be bloody. Therefore, the eternally unshakable things became more and more valuable: family, land, children.

For the heroes of Quiet Flows the Don, family literally permeates their entire private life. Each individual person was certainly perceived as part of the whole - family, clan. These relationships were an important part of people's life. Kinship became higher than camaraderie, love, business relationships, neighborhood. Moreover, family relationships were taken into account with very great accuracy: “second cousin”, “cousin”, “vodvorki” - some words exist in modern life without much “meaning”. But during the time of the Quiet Don, family closeness was revered very seriously. In the Melekhov family there is great patriarchal power - the omnipotence of the father in the house.

Let the actions be cool, the tone of the elders is decisive and adamant (the younger ones endure this patiently and restrainedly, even the hot and impetuous Grigory), but does Panteley Prokofievich always abuse his power, is assault always unnecessary?

Panteley Prokofievich marries Grigory, and he does not argue not only out of filial obedience: Grishka disgraced the family with his shameless affair with a married neighbor. By the way, Grishka submitted not only to his father, but also to his mother - it was Ilyinichna who decided to marry Grigory to Natalya and persuaded her husband: “... sharpened him like rust is iron, and in the end she broke his stubbornness.” In short, there was a lot of commanding tone and rudeness - but there was never violence in the patriarchal family.

The rudeness was largely explained by the influence of army barracks morals, but not by patriarchy. Pantelei Prokofievich especially loved the “strong words”. So, more than once he caressed his own wife with the words: “old hag,” “shut up, you fool,” and his loving, devoted wife “rinsed her half”: “What are you doing, you old hook! I was a disgrace at first, but in my old age I went completely crazy.” “Turkish blood” was boiling in Prokofievich, but it was he who was one of the centers that united the family.

Another center of the patriarchal family was religion, the great Christian faith, the family image - the icon in the red corner.

The Cossack family acts as the guardian of the faith in the novel, especially in the person of its elder representatives. The black news about the death of Gregory came in those mournful days when “he was growing older day by day,” when “his memory was weakening and his mind was clouded,” only a conversation with Father Vissarion brought the old man to his senses: “From that day on, I broke myself and spiritually recovered.”

I would especially like to say about divorce. The concept itself did not even exist in the Cossack vocabulary. The family was blessed by God! Marriage was indissoluble, but, like everything earthly, it was not unshakable. Having met Grigory not far from Yagodnoye, where his son had gone with Aksinya, Panteley Prokofievich asks: “And God?” Gregory, who did not believe so sacredly, still remembers Him in his subconscious. It is no coincidence that “thoughts about Aksinya and his wife” suddenly flashed in his head during the oath, when he “walked up to the cross.”

The crisis of faith had a disastrous effect for the whole of Russia, especially for the family: the “double law of self-preservation” ceases to operate, when the family kept the faith, and faith protected the unity of the family.

3. Fundamentals of the unity of the Melekhov family

a) At the beginning of the novel, the Melekhov family is intact and friendly. The strength of this family was in unity, when all important issues were resolved openly, brought to the family court, and discussed directly and thoroughly.

The life of Grigory and Natalya did not work out. The council was started by Pantelei Prokofievich. Everyone performs; even Dunyasha, a teenager. Admitted to the council, listens carefully. Grigory is ashamed, he is rude. But no matter how the meetings end, not a single important event goes unnoticed.

What other advice were there? (The arrival of the Reds: retreat or surrender? Affairs of Dunyasha’s heart. 1919 - Daria’s money.)

Conclusion. In the Melekhov family - all Cossacks - responsible and complex matters were resolved openly, in direct, sometimes impartial, discussion. Extremes were smoothed out and leveled out, harsh passions were calmed down. It was neither paradise nor an idyll, but only a close-knit world of related people, for whom family was above personal aspirations and whims.

b) Whispering in corners was considered reprehensible, because centuries-old experience suggested: where secrets begin, decay and split begin.

If suddenly something evil and hostile penetrated inside the family, how did the Melekhovs solve this problem? Were there secrets in the family? (The Melekhov family also had its secrets, there are three of them in the novel.)

All these secrets concern the family.

1. Panteley Prokofievich immediately guessed about the connection between Grigory and Aksinya: the son got involved with the wife of a person close to them - a neighbor. The old man understands that he cannot avoid the conversation, and early in the morning while fishing with Gregory he begins a conversation.

2. Daria and Natalya are secretive about Daria’s illness. Daria asks her to warn her mother: “let her not tell her father about this, otherwise the old man will get mad and kick me out of the house.”

3. Natalya told only Ilyinichna about the abortion: “Will I live with Grishka or not... but I don’t want to give birth to any more children from him.”

All three conversations are conducted outside the house or yard: on the river, in the garden, on the steppe road. This is a sign of reluctance to dirty the family, which is natural for any living and healthy organism.

(This is an argument for another problem - the problem of openness, trust in relationships between people, family members.) Many of you are now thinking about the questions: is this the case in my family? When did we all get together to talk about something? Do we always listen to our elders, do fathers and mothers listen to our children's voices? What about our secrets? Are they secret?

From Sholokhov's novel we learned how the Cossacks cared about the integrity and health of their family.

4. Female images in Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don”

Melechov family female Sholokhov

One of Sholokhov’s techniques in characterizing heroes is comparative analysis. Many of the novel's main characters are revealed through their attitude towards children. Since the bearer of home, family warmth is a woman, the characteristics of the main characters are especially interesting.

Daria. Nothing is known about her parents or origin. The heroine herself says at the end of the novel: “I have no one behind me or in front of me.” Daria gave birth to a child. But what do we learn about him - just a “child”. Or, irritated with her baby, the mother says: “Tiss, you filthy child! No sleep, no peace for you." There are a lot of rude words in the novel, but no one addresses children like that. The child died when he was not even one year old.

Aksinya. She gave birth to a child from Stepan, but even here it is noteworthy briefly: “... the child died before reaching a year.” From Gregory she gave birth to Tanya, she became happy and acquired a particularly happy posture. But love for the child was only a continuation of love for Gregory. Be that as it may, the child also dies about one and a half years old. Gregory took the children into her home after Natalya’s death. “They willingly called her mom,” she leaves them and leaves with Grigory.

Motherly love is manifested with special force in the image of Ilyinichna. It was she who raised her children as we see them in the novel; she not only took care of them, but also conveyed to them her worldview. Hence the deep affinity of the young Melekhovs with their mother, and not with their father. Sholokhov himself, bowing before his own mother, more than once noted the similarities between her and Ilyinichna. They know how to fight for their family, and Natalya becomes the continuer of this destiny.

Natalia. Saving the family nest is the idea of Natalia Melekhova’s life. Natalya Melekhova in M. Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Flows the Don” - drawn by the will of circumstances into a painful rivalry with Aksinya, forced to even insult her, calling her “a walker” - is a truly enlightened-bashful, probably the most angelic creature in the novel.

Natalya appears in the novel as if by chance: as the object of an upcoming matchmaking, wedding. “Natalya... Natalya is a beautiful girl... Very beautiful. Nadys saw her in church,” says Aksinya. The praise is double, even exaggerated, but Aksinya says these words of praise with dry eyes, and a heavy shadow falls from the barn. And in the window where she is looking, there is a yellow night chill.

Sholokhov's world is multi-colored, multi-sounding, and extremely full of complex psychological movements. Sholokhov, the greatest master of characteristic detail, chose almost symbolic epithets that speak of the danger for Natalya: dry, tearless eyes... These dry eyes suggest that someone will not survive in this inevitable struggle.

Gregory in Natalya found a sensitive bearer of great responsibility, found a person for whom love does not know, does not want to know the end, is afraid of even temporary substitution, betrayal, any unreliability. For her there is no discord between consciousness and feeling, there is no devastation from love, even joyful. That is why she seems cold and difficult to Gregory. There is no play of feelings, no love-absorption.

For Natalya, everything is destructive, even Grigory’s involuntary betrayals. At the same time, there is no anger in her, no pleasure from someone else's torment. There is pity... She doesn’t even despise the dissolute Daria, who in the end dealt her the main insulting blow, the unkind pimp, but moves away from her and forgives her.

The old Melekhovs and Korshunovs were the first to feel the bashful tenderness of Natalya’s meek soul. Old Korshunov just doesn’t utter the word “mock” (“Is it possible to do this to a living person?.. Heart, heart... or does he have a wolf’s?”) And Panteley Prokofievich - and he is all in these words, like a house builder ! - literally screams in pain and shame: “She is better than our own!”

And here is the stage of nest construction. Natalya's return to the house of Pantelei Prokofievich, to a house where there is no husband! Naive, inexperienced, believing in the power of a wedding, an oath before the saints, Natalya realizes with amazement that it is she who will have to go through woeful humiliation, that love-martyrdom awaits her. Sholokhov depicts with epic admiration the entire path of Natalya’s return, her difficult decisions, her appeal to her father-in-law.

Returning to the Melekhovs' house is an awareness of one's main strength and height: the power of fidelity, nobility, the power of humility. Soon she became inseparable from the House, from her family, especially from her children! Her entire stay in the Melekhov family is a hidden straightening and ascension of the soul, a movement not just towards victory over Aksinya, the birth of true friendship with Dunyashka and Ilnichnaya. Her prayers saved Gregory from Stepan Astakhov’s shots in the back. And as the highest reward - two wonderful children.

But the fight for the house, for the family is still ahead. This is indicative of Natalya’s dialogue with Aksinya (scene in Yagodnoye). Aksinya openly accuses Natalya: “You want to take the child’s father. Apart from Grishka, I have no husband.” The whole conversation is built on the sharp difference between the fierce Aksinya and the meek Natalya, who admits: “Melancholy pushed me”... Aksinya made the child an argument for her claims against Gregory, “disposed” of what God did not give for bargaining... A completely different turn of events followed - the illness and death of the girl , connection with Listnitsky, Gregory’s departure.

Motherhood did not become a guarantee of happiness for Natalia either. She remained an unloved wife... All the more power in the wonderful scene of chapter 8! This is an elegy with some timidity and hesitation in gestures, with silence, an elegy of farewell.

“She was next to him, his wife and mother of Mishatka and Porlyushka. She dressed up for him and washed her face... She sat so pitiful, ugly and yet beautiful, shining with some kind of pure inner beauty. A mighty wave of tenderness flooded Gregory’s heart... He wanted to say something warm and affectionate to her, but he couldn’t find the words and, silently pulling her towards him, kissed her white sloping forehead and mournful eyes.”

It was no coincidence that Natalya’s passing away, even after a relatively peaceful final explanation with Aksinya, cast a darkest shadow over the fate of Grigory and the entire Melekhov household. Sholokhov's heroes (and especially Natalya) sometimes carry out not a trial, but a kind of superjudgment over time, over the people crippled by it.

Both Natalya and Ilyinichna pass before the reader of “Quiet Don” as heroines, faithful to the end to their mother’s calling, the duty of the guardian of the family. Natalya dies at the moment when she not only abandoned the idea of motherhood, but in an unnaturally evil, vengeful way trampled and destroyed her own idea, the core of her character. Natalya’s interlocutor, a witness to her spiritual crisis, was brilliantly chosen: it was Ilyinichna, a person deeply related to her, Grigory’s mother, who for the first time could not find words to justify her son, to refute Natalya’s rightness. Ilyinichna was only able to convince her daughter-in-law not to curse Grigory, not to wish him death. After Natalya’s death, everyone in the house was surrounded by bitter melancholy from the belated understanding of each other, from the understanding that the family was collapsing.

Conclusion

There is an interesting parallel in the novel: children become the measure of the vitality of the heroines themselves. Without, in essence, children, Daria dies very quickly and like a woman. The absence of children becomes “God’s punishment” for the heroines.

How does Daria end her life? (She has completely become a “beast woman.” From time immemorial, a Cossack woman has been associated with the concepts of “life,” “continuer of the family.” Daria is the only Russian heroine who picks up a military weapon and then kills an unarmed person. That’s why and Daria’s death in the Don is cleansing and terrible.)

What can be said about other heroines in this regard? (Aksinya dies from a bullet, leaving behind no one, “only the black sun.” Natalya leaves the family, cuts herself, curses Gregory, poisons the fetus and ultimately dies.)

What conclusion does Sholokhov lead us to? (The death of a woman is always evil, a disaster, it is the death of a family.)

How strong is Ilyinichna’s motherly love! So great is her desire for everything to be peaceful in the house that her mother even comes to terms with the fact that Mishka Kosheva enters their house as the owner. She sees how Dunyashka reaches out to this man, how Koshevoy tenderly treats her grandson, Mishatka. Children should not be orphans! For Ilyinichna, this becomes the main condition for a new life.

Summarizing

What is the main thing in the sound of the theme of family in Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don”?

Family is the stronghold of power. If a family collapses, peaceful life in the country collapses. A woman is the keeper of family unity.

Children are a symbol of the future. This is what the last pages of the novel are about.

What does Grigory dream about on sleepless nights away from home? How does the novel end? (episode of Gregory’s meeting with his son)

Everything is back to normal. We are again in front of the house - the Cossack kuren of the Melekhovs. And Gregory stands at the gates of his home, holding his son in his arms. This is all that is left in his life, what still connects him with the earth and with this whole huge world shining under the cold sun.

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There are a total of 26 presentations in the topic

L. N. Tolstoy’s words are known that “War and Peace” expresses “people’s thought,” and “Anna Karenina” expresses “family thought.” But you, of course, understand the whole convention of such a “division”: “folk thought” and “family thought” found a single embodiment in both Tolstoy’s novels. M. Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” also connects these themes.

As you remember, L.N. Tolstoy’s attitude towards the war was complex. He was one of the first in world literature (at the same time as the French writer Stendhal) to show the true, unheroic face of war in “Sevastopol Stories”, and exposed the theatricality of Napoleonic battles in the novel “War and Peace”. However, the writer was a fatalist in his views on the causes of the war, believing that the objective course of history is incomprehensible to humans. Moreover, a just, liberation war is of great importance for the writer, as it is capable of uniting the nation and destroying conventional social and cultural barriers between people. The Russian people stand as one “peace” against Napoleon, in the same ranks are the peasant Tikhon Shcherbaty and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, the “countess” Natasha Rostova, throwing her dowry from the carts in order to lay down more wounded, and the commander Kutuzov, wisely waiting for the strength of the people’s anger will exceed the power and professionalism of the invaders.

Unlike Tolstoy, M.A. Sholokhov categorically and unequivocally does not accept war - neither the First World War, nor even more so the Civil, fratricidal one. His main accusation against war is that it is destructive to the basis of human life - to the family. Let us remember that the repeated rapprochement between Gregory and Aksinya occurred after the hero was again forced to break away from his family and children in order to fight with his own blood brothers. The war robbed Daria of her husband, and she went downhill, increasingly losing her sense of responsibility to her family and home. The war drew borders through the kurens and farmsteads of the Cossacks. Mishka Koshevoy kills Grandfather Grishaka, sets fire to the Korshunovs’ smokehouse; the brutalized Mitka Korshunov, who lost the remnants of his soul in punitive operations, slaughters Koshevoy’s family in revenge (after this incident the author loses interest in Mitka: we do not know what his future fate was). How many budding married couples were destroyed by the war! Bolshevik Ilya Bunchuk and Anna Pogudko, nobleman Evgeny Listnitsky and the widow of his friend Olga Nikolaevna, widowed Grigory Melekhov and Aksinya. According to Sholokhov, war is destructive for the people, because it forces brother to fight brother, devastates human souls, and destroys families.

But despite this, it is in the ties of family and blood that the writer sees salvation from the destructive elements of fratricide. Love unites Dunyasha Melekhova and Grigory’s once friend, and now sworn enemy, Mishka Koshevoy. Moreover, Dunyasha, loving her husband, warns her brother about the mortal danger threatening him, and then, in the absence of Gregory, raises his children. And Mishka does not transfer his hatred of Gregory to his son, who, perhaps not by chance, was named Mishatka by the author. Ilyinichna, who once cursed the murderer of her son Peter, takes pity on Koshevoy after he remains an orphan. She welcomes him to her home. In general, it is the woman who has an unbearably difficult but worthy share in Sholokhov’s novel - to connect the broken links of blood ties, to save men mentally crippled by the war, to reconcile opponents.

“Family Thought,” as it is expressed in Sholokhov’s epic, also answers one of the most difficult questions posed by his work: what will be the fate of the Russian Cossacks after the Civil War? Will it disappear as part of the nation or will it retain its unique traditions, moral principles, and way of life? Of course, much in the way of life of the Cossacks will now be different, many Cossack clans were suppressed and degenerated, but the Cossacks themselves survived - and survived primarily due to their family spirit, respect for family ties and love for children.

M. Sholokhov raises in his novel “Quiet Don” deep and universal problems that cannot be interpreted unambiguously and definitively. However, if you ask the reader who is the main character of the novel, the answer will be the same - Grigory Melekhov. It is his fate that is the main core of the story. To better understand the image of the hero, it is very important to analyze the environment in which his character is formed - an analysis of the world of the Don Cossacks.

It is impossible to understand the spiritual world, the everyday way of life of the Cossacks, without turning to their family relationships. Already in the first book we will find many episodes that reveal the principles on which the Cossack family is built. Reading the episode of the fight between Pantelei Prokofievich and his son, we understand that the concepts of family honor (“Don’t be afraid of your father!”), unity with your fellow countrymen (“Don’t be dirty to your neighbor!”) are indestructible for the Cossacks. The family is dominated by the “cult of the elderly”: relationships here are based on strict obedience to elders, sometimes instilled with the help of brute force. And even if at first Grigory resists his father, he later unquestioningly submits to him and marries Natalya Korshunova. In addition, the origins of Gregory’s frantic, unrestrained nature should also be sought in the family. This comes from his father.

Clan and family are sacred concepts for the Cossacks. It is no coincidence that the novel begins with the prehistory of the Melekhov family, and already in the first chapter the author gives a detailed family portrait. In it, the author emphasizes the features of family resemblance: wheat-colored hair - on the maternal side, a feral expression of almond-shaped eyes, a kite nose - on the paternal side.

As for the family, despite the harsh, sometimes harsh relationships, it is a whole organism. Everyone feels an inextricable connection with her, just as with the farmstead, with the native kuren. Even when love for Aksinya drives Grigory from his native place, he does not see the opportunity to leave the farm: “You are a fool, Aksinya, a fool! You play guitar, but there’s nothing to listen to. Well, where do I go from farming? Again at my service this year. This is no good... I won’t move anywhere from the ground. Here there is a steppe, there is something to breathe, but there?

However, Sholokhov does not idealize the life of the Don Cossacks. In the first book of the novel one can easily see a huge number of examples of not just severity, but true cruelty and moral depravity of the Cossacks. This is also the episode when an enraged crowd of farmers mercilessly deals with the wife of Prokofy Melekhov, when Aksinya’s fifty-year-old father rapes his daughter, for which his wife and son beat him to death. This is also when Stepan Astakhov “deliberately and terribly” beats his young wife the day after the wedding, and then again, returning from military training, “woos” her with his boots in front of the indifferently grinning Alyoshka Shamil.

The character of Grigory Melekhov and his duty to his family is clearly revealed in his relationships with Aksinya and Natalya in the scenes of the first book. Genuinely and deeply loving Aksinya, he does not worry about his beloved. When, nine days before Stepan’s return from the camps, Aksinya, tremblingly feeling the inevitability of the danger looming over her, desperately turns to her lover: “What am I, Grisha, going to do?” - he answers: “How can I know.” If in his relationship with Aksinya Grigory submits only to reckless passion, then by marrying Natalya, he, on the contrary, fulfills his duty to his family, without listening to the voice of his heart. He thinks about the torment he is condemning both himself and his loved ones to, although already at the moment of the wedding “indifference shackled Gregory” and his wife’s lips seemed “tasteless” to him.

The novel covers a period of ten years. The heroes experience the most tragic and significant events of the first half of the twentieth century: revolutions, civil war, riots and uprisings - events that determined the fate of the Cossacks, the fate of Grigory Melekhov and his family, his home, which was his stronghold throughout all this time, because it is about family , he thought about his native kuren on the battlefield. But the defeat of the White Cossack movement inevitably leads to the collapse of Gregory’s family; this fall is logically natural. In the third book, the author again turns to the theme of family and home, but their images are dark and sad. Sholokhov depicts the destruction of the Melekhov family.

The death of Peter, which forever remained an unhealed wound in the souls of loved ones. Pantelei Prokofievich's loss of his dominant position in the house. The tragedy and death of Daria, shameless and dissolute, breaking the centuries-old foundations of the Cossack family with the cynicism of her behavior and only before her death, with bitterness, she comprehended the entire bleakness of her “beautiful” life. The death of Natalya, after which old man Melekhov says with a sigh: “Our kuren has fallen in love with death.” Dunyashka's separation from her family, her alienation, turning into a clear rebellion against parental authority. The destruction of the farm during shelling, when “the war, from which Panteley Prokofievich was running, itself came to his yard.” The death of the owner of the house “in retreat”, on someone else’s Stavropol land. The death of Ilyinichna, who was left alone and never received her beloved son. The arrival of Mishka Koshevoy in the house, which can hardly be called the beginning of a new life for the Melekhov kuren, if only because from the first days of his family life Mishka loses interest in the household, believing that the time has not yet come to lay down his arms. The death of Porlyusica, which the reader learns about on the last page. All these are stages of the gradual collapse of what at the beginning of the novel seemed unshakable. The words once uttered by Pantelei Prokofievich to Grigory are noteworthy: “Everything collapsed equally for everyone.” And although we are talking only about fallen fences, these words also have a broader meaning: the destruction of the House, the Family affected not only the Melekhovs - this is a common fate, a common drama of the entire Cossacks.

The narrative in "Quiet Don" is constructed as a depiction of the life of family nests. This novel is often compared to Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” but, despite their compositional similarity, there is a clear and fundamental difference: if Tolstoy’s heroes, having gone through severe trials, come to the creation of a Family, then the heroes of “Quiet Don” experience its collapse, which emphasizes with particular force the dramatic nature of the time depicted by Sholokhov.

30.03.2013 55495 0

Lesson 67
“Family Thought” in Sholokhov’s novel
"Quiet Don" Woman as a guardian
family warmth

Goals: work on individual episodes of the first part of Sholokhov’s novel, revealing the theme of family; identify the significance of female images in the disclosure of this topic.

During the classes

...in this world - the history of the Don Cossacks, the Russian peasantry... centuries-old traditions of moral principles and labor skills that shaped the national character, the characteristics of the whole country.

E. A. Kostin

Sholokhov’s family is a visual center through the prism of which the “macrocosm” of national culture is revealed to us.

I. I. Tsypenko

I. Introductory conversation.

M.A. Sholokhov can be called the singer of the quiet Don. An artist, often stern and restrained, when he talks about his native land, he becomes lyrical and pathetic.

The heroes living on the pages of the novel are Don Cossacks.

-What do you know about this class?

The Cossacks are a special class in Rus', but in the life of any nation there are unshakable values that are largely similar: family, land, morality. I propose to touch upon this particular facet of Sholokhov’s novel.

– Harmony and family. Can we now put an equal sign between these words?

– What is the importance of a woman as the keeper of the warmth of the family hearth?

The questions are written on the board.

The board is designed as a Cossack kuren. A lyrical, melodious Cossack song sounds.

II. “Family Thought” in Sholokhov’s novel.

1. Work with text.

Expressive reading or artistic retelling of an excerpt from the first part of volume I, “The History of the Melekhov Family.”

Initially, the novel was supposed to begin with a description of the rebellion of General Kornilov, but soon the author admits: “I felt that something was not working out for me.”

– What does this story bring to the novel?

Starting with family was a new brilliant intuitive discovery of the young writer. The author answered the question of who the Cossacks are, what their roots are, what is the basis of their life, why they behave in this or that situation in this or that way and not otherwise. The family is the bearer of what we call culture. Therefore, Sholokhov focuses on different generations of the Melekhov family.

– Where does the history of this family begin?

– Why is the young Turkish woman dying and what is denying her death?

2. Patriarchy and traditions in the Melekhov family.

Individual student message.

...Family is the basis of folk life in the world of the “Quiet Don”. The life circumstances of the Cossack environment are depicted with such thoroughness that they make it possible to recreate the general structure of the family at the beginning of the twentieth century. And the twentieth century threatened to be bloody. Therefore, the eternally unshakable things became more and more valuable: family, land, children.

For the heroes of Quiet Flows the Don, family literally permeates their entire private life. Each individual person was certainly perceived as part of the whole - family, clan. These relationships were an important part of people's life. Kinship became higher than camaraderie, love, business relationships, neighborhood. Moreover, family relationships were taken into account with very great accuracy: “second cousin”, “cousin”, “vodvorki” - some words exist in modern everyday life without much “meaning”. But during the time of the Quiet Don, family closeness was revered very seriously. In the Melekhov family there is great patriarchal power - the omnipotence of the father in the house.

Another center of the patriarchal family was religion, the great Christian faith, the family image - the icon in the red corner.

The Cossack family acts as the guardian of the faith in the novel, especially in the person of its elder representatives. The black news came about the death of Gregory, in those mournful days, when “he was growing old day by day,” when “his memory was weakening and his mind was clouded,” only a conversation with Father Vissarion brought the old man to his senses: “From that day, I broke myself and spiritually recovered."

I would especially like to say about divorce. The concept itself did not even exist in the Cossack vocabulary. The family was blessed by God! Marriage was indissoluble, but, like everything earthly, it was not unshakable. Having met Grigory not far from Yagodnoye, where his son had gone with Aksinya, Panteley Prokofievich asks: “And God?” Gregory, who did not believe so sacredly, still remembers Him in his subconscious. It is no coincidence that “thoughts about Aksinya and his wife” suddenly flashed in his head during the oath, when he “walked up to the cross.”

3. The foundations of the unity of the Melekhov family.

A dramatization of the first council of the Melekhov family.

– What other advice did you have? (Coming of the Reds: retreat or surrender? Affairs of Dunyasha’s heart. 1919 – Daria’s money.)

b) Whispering in corners was considered reprehensible, because centuries-old experience suggested: where secrets begin, decay and split begin.

– If suddenly something evil and hostile penetrated inside the family, how did the Melekhovs solve this problem? Were there secrets in the family? (The Melekhov family also had its own secrets; there are three of them in the novel.)

Checking homework(the work was carried out in groups according to the proposed plan):

1. The theme of the secret.

2. Where the conversation takes place.

3. Results of the “heart-to-heart conversation.”

1st group – Gregory’s secret;

2nd group – Daria’s secret;

Group 3 – Natalia’s secret.

All these secrets concern the family.

3. Natalya told only Ilyinichna about the abortion: “Will I live with Grishka or not... but I don’t want to give birth to any more children from him.”

Observation result.

Many of you are now thinking about the questions: is this true in my family? When did we all get together to talk about something? Do we always listen to our elders, do fathers and mothers listen to our children's voices? What about our secrets? Are they secret?

From Sholokhov's novel we learned how the Cossacks cared about the integrity and health of their family.

4. Female images in Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don”.

1) Work with text.

Based on the text, students characterize the female characters in the novel “Quiet Don.”

2) Personal message“Saving the family nest is the idea of Natalia Melekhova’s life.”

Natalya Melekhova in M. Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Flows the Don” - drawn by the will of circumstances into a painful rivalry with Aksinya, forced to even insult her, calling her “a walker” - is a truly enlightened-bashful, probably the most angelic creature in the novel.

Returning to the Melekhovs’ house is an awareness of one’s main strength and height: the power of fidelity, nobility, the power of humility. Soon she became inseparable from the House, from her family, especially from her children! Her entire stay in the Melekhov family is a hidden straightening and ascension of the soul, a movement not just towards victory over Aksinya, the birth of true friendship with Dunyashka and Ilnichnaya. Her prayers saved Gregory from Stepan Astakhov’s shots in the back. And as the highest reward - two wonderful children.

A trained student recites by heart: “She was next to him, his wife and mother of Mishatka and Porlyushka. She dressed up for him and washed her face... She sat so pitiful, ugly and yet beautiful, shining with some kind of pure inner beauty. A mighty wave of tenderness flooded Gregory’s heart... He wanted to say something warm and affectionate to her, but he couldn’t find the words and, silently pulling her towards him, kissed her white sloping forehead and mournful eyes.”

3) Conclusion. There is an interesting parallel in the novel: children become the measure of the vitality of the heroines themselves. Without, in essence, children, Daria dies very quickly and like a woman. The absence of children becomes “God’s punishment” for the heroines.

– How does Daria end her life? (She completely became a “beast woman”. From time immemorial, a Cossack woman was associated with the concepts of “life”, “continuer of the family”. Daria is the only Russian heroine who takes up military weapons and then kills an unarmed man. That is why Daria’s death in the Don purifying and terrible.)

– What can be said about other heroines in this regard? (Aksinya dies from a bullet, leaving no one behind, “only the black sun.” Natalya leaves the family, cuts herself, curses Gregory, poisons the fetus and ultimately dies.)

– What conclusion does Sholokhov lead us to? (The death of a woman is always an evil, a disaster, it is the death of a family.)

III. Lesson summary.

– What, in your opinion, is the main thing in the theme of family in Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don”?

Family is the stronghold of power. If a family collapses, peaceful life in the country collapses. A woman is the keeper of family unity.

Children are a symbol of the future. This is what the last pages of the novel are about.

– What does Grigory dream about on sleepless nights away from home? How does the novel end?

Homework.

An essay answering the questions posed at the beginning of the lesson:

– “Harmony” and “family”. Can we now put an equal sign between these concepts?

– “The roof of your house” – what do these words mean to each of you?

– A woman is the keeper of family warmth.

Family in the understanding of Sholokhov. “Saving the family nest - the idea of ​​Natalia Melekhova’s life” - Document

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Family in the understanding of Sholokhov. “Saving the family nest - the idea of Natalia Melekhova’s life” - Document