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 savagery of the landowner 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.
The fairy tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, intended for adults, introduce the peculiarities of Russian society better than historical works. The story of the wild landowner is like an ordinary fairy tale, but it combines reality with fiction. The landowner, who has become the hero of the story, often reads the actually existing reactionary newspaper Vest.
Left alone, the landowner at first rejoices that his wish has come true. Later comes the realization of one's own stupidity. The swaggering guests, without embarrassment, tell him about stupidity, realizing that the landowner had only candy left from the treats. This is also the official opinion of the police officer who collects taxes, who understands the inseparability of peasant taxes from the stability of the state.
But the landowner does not heed the voice of reason and does not listen to other people's advice. He maintains a firm spirit and dreams of fantastic foreign cars, designed to replace the peasants. A naive dreamer does not realize that in reality he is not able to wash himself. He is completely helpless because he can't do anything.
The tale ends sadly: the stubborn man becomes overgrown with hair, gets on all fours and starts throwing himself at people. It turned out that the gentleman, noble on the outside, had the essence of the simplest creature. He remained human as long as food was brought to him on a plate and dressed in clean clothes.
The higher authorities decided to return the peasants to the estate so that they would work, pay taxes to the treasury and produce food for their masters.
And the landowner remained wild forever. He was caught, cleaned, but he still gravitates towards the forest life and does not like to wash himself. Such is the hero: the ruler in the serf world, but guarded by the simple peasant Senka.
The author laughs at the mores of Russian society. He sympathizes with the peasants and accuses them of being too patient and submissive. At the same time, the writer demonstrates the impotence of the landlords, who cannot live without servants. The tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin call for respect for the people, who are the foundation supporting the well-being of such landowners.
Option 2
Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote his famous work, which was called "The Wild Landowner", in 1869. There he considers quite topical issues, relevant both at that time and now. For him, the genre of fairy tales is central, which he writes far from for children. The author confronts the tragic with the comic in his work, uses such techniques as the grotesque and hyperbole, as well as Aesopian language. Thus, he ridicules autocracy and serfdom, which still exist on the territory of the country.
In the center of events is an ordinary landowner who has a special pride in the fact that noble blood flows in his veins. His goal is just to pamper the body, relax and be yourself. He actually rests and he can afford such a lifestyle only thanks to the peasants, to whom he treats very cruelly, he cannot even bear the spirit of ordinary men.
And now the desire of the landowner is fulfilled, and he is left alone, while God fulfilled not the desire of the landowner, but the desire of the peasants, who are completely exhausted from constant control and supervision.
Thus, Shchedrin ridicules the share of the Russian people, which is quite difficult. Only after a while the hero realizes that he has committed a real stupidity.
And in the end, the landowner is completely wild, inside the highest being of man, the most ordinary animal is hiding, which lives only for the sake of fulfilling its desires.
The hero was restored in a serf society, and a simple Russian peasant named Senka will take care of him.
The fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" is one of the brilliant works of the writer working in the genre of satire. He has to ridicule the socio-political system, he has to expose the existing mores and types of society in which there is a rather strange morality that is not subject to reflection. It shows how helpless the landlords are, who are constantly looked after by simple serfs. All this is ridiculed by the author, who is forced to live in such a society, it is difficult for him to cope with the existing situation, so he tries to show its absurdity, to condemn what is happening in society.
Analysis of the Wild Landlord
One of the best works of Saltykov-Shchedrin was published in 1869 and it is called the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner". This work can be attributed to the genre of satire. Why fairy tale? The author chose this genre for a reason, so he bypassed censorship. The characters in the story do not have names. A peculiar hint from the author that the landowner is a composite image and corresponds to many landowners in Russia in the 19th century. Well, take the rest of the heroes, the peasants and Senka, these are peasants. The author raises a very interesting topic. The main thing for the author is that the peasant, honest and hardworking people are always higher in everything than the nobles.
Thanks to the fairy tale genre, the author's work is very simple and full of irony and various artistic details. With the help of details, the author can very clearly convey the images of the characters. For example, he calls the landowner stupid and soft-bodied. Who did not know grief and rejoiced in life.
The main problem of this work is the difficult life of the common people. In the author's tale, the landowner acts as a soulless and tough monster, he only does what humiliates the poor peasants and tries to take even the last thing from them. The peasants prayed, there was nothing left for them, they, like people, wanted a normal life. The landowner wanted to get rid of them, and in the end, God fulfilled the desire of the peasants to live better and the desire of the landowner to get rid of the peasants. After that, it becomes clear that the whole luxurious life of the landowner is provided by the peasants. With the disappearance of the "serfs", life has changed, now the landowner has become like an animal. He changed outwardly, became more terrible, overgrown, stopped eating normally. The men disappeared and life changed bright colors to gray and dull. Even while spending time as before, in entertainment, the landowner feels that all the same, this is not it. The author reveals the real meaning of the work, which refers to real life. The boyars, the landowners oppress the peasants, they do not read them as people. But, in the absence of "serfs" they cannot live a normal life, because it is the peasants and workers who provide everything that is good for them personally and for the country. And the upper strata of society, apart from problems and troubles, do not carry anything else.
The people in this work, namely the peasants, are honest people, open and loving work. With the help of their labor, the landowner lived happily ever after. By the way, the author shows the peasants not just as one thoughtless crowd, but as smart and insightful people. In this work, justice is very important for the peasants. They considered such an attitude towards themselves unfair and therefore asked God for help.
Saltykov-Shchedrin directly respects the peasants very much, which he shows in the work. This can be seen, very clearly, when the landowner disappeared and lived without peasants, and at the time when he returned. As a result, it turns out that the author brings the reader to one true opinion. Not high-ranking officials, not officials decide the fate of the country and each of the landowners, namely the peasants. All the well-being and all the benefits of rich people rest on them. This is the main idea of the work.
One of the main characters of the work is Countess Anna Fedotovna Tomskaya, who is represented by the author in the form of an eighty-year old woman.
E. M. Remarque went down in history with his works on near-war topics. To be accurate, thanks to works about the First World War.
The image of the pilot Alexei Meresyev has many positive personal qualities of the hero. Undoubtedly, a strong feature of his character is perseverance in achieving his goal.
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 fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" by Saltykov-Shchedrin, like his other satirical works, is intended for an adult audience. It was first published in the progressive literary journal Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1869, when it was headed by editor-publisher Nikolai Nekrasov, a friend and associate of the writer.
Fairy story
A small work occupied several pages of the magazine. The tale tells of a stupid landowner who pestered the peasants living on his land because of their "slippery smell". The peasants disappear, and he remains the only tenant in his estate. The inability to take care of oneself, to manage the household leads first to impoverishment, later to savagery and a complete loss of reason.
The madman hunts hares, which he eats alive, and talks to the bear. The situation reaches the provincial authorities, which orders the peasants to return, catch the wildling and leave it under the supervision of the courtyard.
Literary devices and images used
The work was typical of an author who used satire and metaphor to communicate his thoughts to the general public. Cheerful style, lively dialogues written in everyday colloquial language, cynical humor attracted readers with ease of presentation. The allegorical images made one think, were extremely understandable both for serious subscribers of the magazine and for young cadets and young ladies.
Despite the fairy-tale narrative, Saltykov-Shchedrin directly mentions several times the real newspaper Vest, with whose editorial policy he did not agree. The author makes it the main reason for the protagonist's insanity. Using a satirical technique helps to ridicule a competitor and at the same time convey to the reader the inconsistency of ideas that can lead to absurdity.
The mention of the Moscow theater actor Mikhail Sadovsky, who was then at the peak of his popularity, is calculated to attract the attention of an idle audience. Sadovsky's remarks in interrogative form indicate the absurdity of the actions of the madman, set the reader's judgments in the direction conceived by the author.
Saltykov-Shchedrin uses his literary talent to present his political position and personal attitude to what is happening in an accessible form. The allegories and metaphors used in the text were perfectly understandable to his contemporaries. The reader of our time needs an explanation.
Allegories and political background
The abolition of serfdom in 1861 caused violent upheavals in the economic state of Russia. The reform was timely, but had a lot of controversial points for all classes. Peasant uprisings caused civil and political aggravation.
The wild landowner, whom both the author and the characters constantly call stupid, is a collective image of a radical nobleman. The mental breakdown of centuries-old traditions was difficult for landowners. The recognition of the "muzhik" as a free person with whom it is necessary to build new economic relations occurred with a creak.
According to the plot, the temporarily liable, as the serfs began to be called after the reform, were carried away by God in an unknown direction. This is a direct allusion to the realization of the rights that the reform has endowed them with. The retrograde nobleman rejoices in his absence "man smell", but demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the consequences. It is difficult for him to come to terms with the loss of free labor, but he is ready to starve, if only not to have relations with former serfs.
The landowner constantly reinforces his crazy ideas by reading the newspaper Vest. The publication existed and was distributed at the expense of the part of the nobility, dissatisfied with the ongoing reform. The materials published in it supported the destruction of the system of serfdom, but did not recognize the ability of the peasants to administrative organization and self-government.
Propaganda accused the peasant class of ruining landowners and economic decline. In the finale, when the madman is forcibly brought into human form, the police officer takes away the newspaper from him. The author's prophecy came true, a year after the publication of The Wild Landowner, the owner of Vesti went bankrupt, circulation ceased.
Saltykov describes the economic consequences that can occur without the labor of the temporarily liable, without allegory: "the market is not a piece of meat, not a pound of bread", “looting, robbery and murder spread in the county”. The nobleman himself lost "his body is loose, white, crumbly", impoverished, run wild and finally lost his mind.
Alignment of the situation takes on the captain-correct officer. The representative of the public service voices the main author's idea that “the treasury cannot exist without taxes and duties, and even more so without wine and salt regalia”. He shifts the accusation of disturbing order and ruin from the peasants to "stupid landowner who is the instigator of all turmoil".
The tale of the "Wild Landowner" is a typical example of a political feuilleton, reflecting in a timely and vivid manner what is happening in the 60s of the XIX century.
A brief analysis of Saltykov-Shchedrin's fairy tale "The Wild Landowner": idea, problems, themes, image of the people
The fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” was published by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in 1869. This work is a satire on the Russian landowner and the common Russian people. In order to circumvent censorship, the writer chose a specific genre of "fairy tale", within which a notorious fable is described. In the work, the author does not give his heroes names, as if hinting that the landowner is a collective image of all landowners in Russia in the 19th century. And Senka and the rest of the men are typical representatives of the peasant class. The theme of the work is simple: the superiority of a hardworking and patient people over mediocre and stupid nobles, expressed in an allegorical manner.
Problems, features and meaning of the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner"
Fairy tales by Saltykov-Shchedrin are always distinguished by simplicity, irony and artistic details, using which the author can absolutely accurately convey the character of the character “And that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper Vest and his body was soft, white and crumbly”, “he lived and looked at the light rejoiced."
The main problem in the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner" is the problem of the difficult fate of the people. The landowner in the work appears as a cruel and ruthless tyrant who intends to take away the last from his peasants. But having heard the prayers of the peasants for a better life and the desire of the landowner to get rid of them forever, God fulfills their prayers. The landowner ceases to be disturbed, and the "muzhiks" get rid of oppression. The author shows that in the world of the landowner, the creators of all goods were the peasants. When they disappeared, he himself turned into an animal, overgrown, stopped eating normal food, since all the products disappeared from the market. With the disappearance of the peasants, a bright, rich life left, the world became uninteresting, dull, tasteless. Even the pastimes that had brought pleasure to the landowner before - playing pulca or watching a play in the theater - no longer seemed so tempting. The world is empty without the peasantry. Thus, in the fairy tale “The Wild Landowner” the meaning is quite real: the upper strata of society oppress and trample the lower ones, but at the same time they cannot remain at their illusory height without them, since it is the “serfs” who provide the country, but their master is nothing but problems, unable to provide.
The image of the people in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin
The people in the work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin are hard-working people, in whose hands any business “argues”. Thanks to them, the landowner always lived in abundance. The people appear before us not just as a weak-willed and reckless mass, but as smart and insightful people: "The peasants see: although they have a stupid landowner, they have a great mind." Peasants are also endowed with such an important quality as a sense of justice. They refused to live under the yoke of the landowner, who imposed unfair and sometimes insane restrictions on them, and asked God for help.
The author himself treats the people with respect. This can be seen in the contrast between how the landowner lived after the disappearance of the peasantry and during its return: “And suddenly again there was a smell of chaff and sheepskins in that district; but at the same time, flour, and meat, and all kinds of living creatures appeared in the bazaar, and so many taxes were received in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, only threw up his hands in surprise ... ”, - it can be argued that the people are the driving force of society, the foundation on which the existence of such "landlords" is based, and they certainly owe their well-being to a simple Russian peasant. This is the meaning of the finale of the fairy tale "The Wild Landowner".
Interesting? Save it on your wall!