Explain the meaning of the name of the tragedy, the miserly knight. The tragedy of the Miserly Knight, the character and image of Albert - artistic analysis. Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich. Moral and philosophical issues of the tragedy “The Miserly Knight”

In “small tragedies” Pushkin confronts the mutually exclusive and at the same time inextricably linked points of view and truths of his heroes in a kind of polyphonic counterpoint. This combination of opposite principles of life is manifested not only in the figurative and semantic structure of the tragedies, but also in their poetics. This is clearly manifested in the title of the first tragedy - “ Stingy Knight».

The action takes place in France, in the late Middle Ages. In the person of Baron Philip, Pushkin captured a unique type of knight-usurer, generated by the era of transition from feudal relations to bourgeois monetary relations. This is a special social “species”, a kind of social centaur, bizarrely combining the features of opposite eras and ways of life. Ideas about knightly honor and his social privilege are still alive in him. At the same time, he is the bearer of other aspirations and ideals, generated by the growing power of money, on which a person’s position in society depends, to a greater extent than on origin and titles. Money undermines, blurs the boundaries of class and caste groups, and destroys the barriers between them. In this regard, the importance of the personal principle in a person increases, his freedom, but at the same time responsibility - for himself and others.

Baron Philip - large, complex character, a man of great will. His main goal is to accumulate gold as main value in the emerging new way of life. At first, this accumulation is not an end in itself for him, but only a means of gaining complete independence and freedom. And the Baron seems to achieve his goal, as evidenced by his monologue in the “basements of the faithful”: “What is not under my control? As a certain demon, I can now rule the world...”, etc. (V, 342-343). However, this independence, power and strength are bought at too high a price - the tears, sweat and blood of the victims of the baron's passion. But the matter is not limited to turning other people into a means of achieving his goal. The Baron ultimately turns himself into only a means of achieving this goal, for which he pays with the loss of his human feelings and qualities, even such natural ones as his father’s, perceiving his own son as his mortal enemy. So money, from a means of gaining independence and freedom, unnoticed by the hero, turns into an end in itself, of which the Baron becomes an appendage. It is not for nothing that his son Albert speaks about money: “Oh, my father sees them not as servants or friends, but as masters, and he himself serves them... like an Algerian slave, - Like a chained dog” (V, 338). Pushkin, as it were, rethinks the problem posed in " Caucasian prisoner": the inevitability of finding slavery on the paths of individualistic escape from society instead of the desired freedom. Egoistic monopassion leads the Baron not only to his alienation, but also to self-alienation, that is, to alienation from his human essence, from humanity as its basis.

However, Baron Philip has his own truth, which explains and to some extent justifies his position in life. Thinking about his son - the heir to all his wealth, which he will get without any effort or worries, he sees in this a violation of justice, the destruction of the foundations of the world order he affirms, in which everything must be achieved and suffered by the person himself, and not passed on as an undeserved gift from God (including the royal throne - here there is an interesting overlap with the problems of “Boris Godunov”, but on a different basis in life). Enjoying the contemplation of his treasures, the Baron exclaims: “I reign!.. What a magical shine! Obedient to me, my power is strong; In her is happiness, in her is my honor and glory!” But after this he is suddenly overwhelmed by confusion and horror: “I reign... but who, after me, will take power over her? My heir! Madman, young spendthrift. The interlocutor of debauched debauchees!” The Baron is horrified not by the inevitability of death, parting with life and treasures, but by the violation of the highest justice, which gave his life meaning: “He will waste... And by what right? Did I really get all this for nothing... Who knows how many bitter abstinences, Bridled passions, heavy thoughts, Daytime worries, sleepless nights All this cost me? that he acquired with blood" (V, 345-346).

There is a logic here, a harmonious philosophy of strong and tragic personality, with its consistent, although it did not stand the test of humanity, truth. Who is to blame for this? On the one hand, historical circumstances, the era of advancing mercantilism, in which the unrestrained growth of material wealth leads to spiritual impoverishment and turns a person from an end in himself into merely a means to achieve other goals. But Pushkin does not relieve responsibility from the hero himself, who chose the path of achieving freedom and independence in individualistic isolation from people.

The image of Albert is also connected with the problem of choosing a life position. It is simplistic to see his common interpretation as a shredded version of his father's personality, in which, over time, the traits of chivalry will be lost and the qualities of a moneylender-hoarder will triumph. In principle, such a metamorphosis is possible. But it is not fatally inevitable, because it also depends on Albert himself whether he will retain his inherent openness to people, sociability, kindness, the ability to think not only about himself, but also about others (the episode with the sick blacksmith is indicative here), or will he lose these qualities, like his father. In this regard, the Duke’s final remark is significant: “Terrible age, terrible hearts.” In it, guilt and responsibility seem to be evenly distributed - between the century and the “heart” of a person, his feeling, mind and will. At the moment of development of the action, Baron Philippe and Albert act, despite their blood relationship, as bearers of two opposing, but in some ways mutually correcting truths. Both have elements of both absoluteness and relativity, tested and developed in each era by each person in his own way.

In “The Miserly Knight,” as in all other “small tragedies,” Pushkin’s realistic mastery reaches its peak - in the depth of penetration into the socio-historical and moral-psychological essence of the characters depicted, in the ability to consider in the temporal and particular - the enduring and universal. In them, such a feature of the poetics of Pushkin’s works as their “dizzying brevity” (A. Akhmatova), which contains the “abyss of space” (N. Gogol), reaches its full development. From tragedy to tragedy, the scale and meaningful capacity of the depicted images-characters increases, the depth, including moral and philosophical, of the depicted conflicts and problems of human existence - in its special national modifications and deep universal “invariants”.

The tragedy “The Miserly Knight” by Pushkin was written in 1830, in the so-called “Boldino autumn” - the most productive creative period writer. Most likely, the idea for the book was inspired by difficult relationship Alexander Sergeevich with his stingy father. One of Pushkin’s “little tragedies” was first published in 1936 in Sovremennik under the title “Scene from Chanston’s tragicomedy.”

For reader's diary And better preparation For the literature lesson, we recommend reading online a summary of “The Miserly Knight” chapter by chapter.

Main characters

Baron– a mature man of the old school, in the past valiant knight. He sees the meaning of all life in the accumulation of wealth.

Albert- a twenty-year-old young man, a knight, forced to endure extreme poverty due to the excessive stinginess of his father, the baron.

Other characters

Jew Solomon- a moneylender who regularly lends money to Albert.

Ivan- a young servant of the knight Albert, who serves him faithfully.

Duke- the main representative of power, subordinate to whom are not only ordinary residents, but also the entire local nobility. Acts as a judge during the confrontation between Albert and the Baron.

Scene I

Knight Albert shares problems with his servant Ivan. Despite his noble origin and knighthood, the young man is in great need. At the last tournament, his helmet was pierced by the spear of Count Delorge. And, although the enemy was defeated, Albert was not too happy about his victory, for which he had to pay a price too high for him - damaged armor.

The horse Emir also suffered, and after a fierce battle he began to limp. Besides, the young nobleman needs a new dress. During a dinner party, he was forced to sit in armor and justify himself to the ladies by saying that “he got into the tournament by accident.”

Albert confesses to the faithful Ivan that his brilliant victory over Count Delorge was caused not by courage, but by his father’s stinginess. The young man is forced to make do with the crumbs that his father allocates to him. He has no choice but to sigh heavily: “Oh poverty, poverty!” How she humbles our hearts!”

To buy a new horse, Albert is forced once again to turn to the moneylender Solomon. However, he refuses to give money without collateral. Solomon gently suggests to the young man that “it’s time for the baron to die,” and offers the services of a pharmacist who makes an effective and fast-acting poison.

In a rage, Albert drives away the Jew who dared to suggest that he poison his own father. However, he is no longer able to eke out a miserable existence. The young knight decides to seek help from the Duke so that he can influence his stingy father to stop keeping his own son, “like a mouse born in hiding.”

Scene II

The Baron goes down to the basement to “pour a handful of accumulated gold” into the still incomplete sixth chest. He compares his accumulations to a hill that grew thanks to small handfuls of earth brought by soldiers on the orders of the king. From the height of this hill the ruler could admire his possessions.

So the baron, looking at his wealth, feels his power and superiority. He understands that, if he wants, he can allow himself anything, any joy, any meanness. Feeling own strength calms the man down, and this consciousness is quite enough for him.

The money that the baron brings to the basement has a bad reputation. Looking at them, the hero remembers that he received the “old doubloon” from an inconsolable widow with three children, who sobbed in the rain for half a day. She was forced to give the last coin to pay off the debt of her deceased husband, but the tears of the poor woman did not pity the insensitive baron.

The miser has no doubt about the origin of the other coin - of course, it was stolen by the rogue and rogue Thibault, but this in no way worries the baron. The main thing is that the sixth chest of gold is slowly but surely replenished.

Every time he opens the chest, the old miser falls into “heat and trembling.” However, he is not afraid of an attack by a villain, no, he is tormented by a strange feeling, akin to the pleasure that an inveterate killer experiences when he plunges a knife into the chest of his victim. The Baron is “pleasant and scary together,” and in this he feels true bliss.

Admiring his wealth, the old man is truly happy, and only one thought gnaws at him. The Baron understands that his last hour is near, and after his death all these treasures, acquired through many years of hardship, will end up in the hands of his son. Gold coins will flow like a river into “satin tattered pockets,” and the carefree young man will instantly spread his father’s wealth around the world, squander it in the company of young beauties and cheerful friends.

The Baron dreams of guarding his chests of gold with a “guard shadow” even after death in the form of a spirit. The possible separation from the wealth he has acquired is a dead weight on the soul of the old man, for whom the only joy in life is to increase his wealth.

Scene III

Albert complains to the Duke that he has to experience “the shame of bitter poverty” and asks him to bring his overly greedy father to reason. The Duke agrees to help the young knight - he is remembered good relationship his own grandfather with the miserly baron. In those days, he was still an honest, brave knight without fear or reproach.

Meanwhile, the Duke notices the Baron at the window, who is heading to his castle. He orders Albert to hide in the next room, and receives his father in his chambers. After exchanging mutual courtesies, the Duke invites the Baron to send his son to him - he is ready to offer the young knight a decent salary and service at court.

To which the old baron replies that this is impossible, since his son wanted to kill him and rob him. Unable to bear such blatant slander, Albert jumps out of the room and accuses his father of lying. The father throws the glove to his son, and he picks it up, thereby making it clear that he accepts the challenge.

Stunned by what he saw, the Duke separates father and son and angrily drives them out of the palace. Such a scene causes the death of the old baron, who in the last moments of his life thinks only about his wealth. The Duke is distraught: “Terrible age, terrible hearts!”

Conclusion

In the work “The Stingy Knight”, Alexander Sergeevich comes under the close attention of such a vice as greed. Under her influence, irreversible personality changes occur: the once fearless and noble knight becomes a slave to gold coins, he completely loses his dignity, and is even ready to harm his only son so that he does not take possession of his wealth.

After reading the retelling of “The Miserly Knight,” we recommend that you read full version plays by Pushkin.

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“- Pushkin depicts avarice that has turned into an all-consuming passion, with all its repulsive ugliness. The Baron is not only the “master” and owner of his wealth, but also slave his. He himself says that he is “above desires,” but in fact this is not true, because the passion for acquisition does not stop in its development.

The highest pleasure of the stingy knight, his “lucky day”, when he can pour a handful of gold “into the sixth chest, not yet full.” It is clear that his desires are not satisfied or satiated by this; While he is alive, he would like to accumulate more and more gold, to fill his chests. There is something demonic in the gloomy figure of the baron; when he wants to unlock the chest to pour a handful of gold into it, he says terrible words:

My heart is tight
Some unknown feeling...
Doctors assure us: there are people
Those who find pleasure in killing.
When I put the key in the lock, the same
I feel what I should feel
They are stabbing the victim with a knife: nice
And scary together...

Pushkin. Stingy knight. Audiobook

As always, from one main vice others are born. We see this clearly in the example of the stingy knight. From stinginess he developed ruthlessness; it is enough to recall the unfortunate widow with three children, who brought her husband’s debt and begged the baron to take pity on her. Looking at the handful of gold in his hand, he remembers:

There is an old doubloon... here it is. Today
The widow gave it to me, but first
Half a day in front of the window with three children
She was on her knees, howling.
It rained, and stopped, and then started again,
The pretender did not move; I could
Drive her away, but something whispered to me,
What husband's debt she brought me
And he won't want to be in jail tomorrow...

What ruthlessness, what heartlessness in this callous soul! From stinginess, the baron developed complete unscrupulousness and unscrupulousness in his means; he is indifferent to how Thibault, the “lazy, rogue,” got the money he owed him: “he stole, of course,” or maybe robbed, killed someone

"There on high road, at night, in the grove..."
…………………………
Yes [says the Baron] if all the tears, blood and sweat,
Spilled for everything that is stored here,
Suddenly everyone emerged from the bowels of the earth,
It would be a flood again - I would choke
In my cellars of the faithful...

Passion joins stinginess lust for power , intoxication with one’s power: “I reign!” exclaims the baron, admiring the shine of gold in the open chest. But this passion for power in him is aimless, empty, not like that of Tsar Boris, who sought to use his power for the good of the people, for the good home country. "The Miserly Knight" is only intoxicated consciousness strength and power, the consciousness that he “like some kind of demon can rule the world,” that with his gold he can enslave “both free Genius,” “both virtue and sleepless labor.” –

I will whistle, and obediently, timidly
Bloody villainy will creep in,
And he will lick my hand and my eyes
Look, there is a sign of my reading in them.
Everything obeys me, but I obey nothing...

He enjoys the consciousness of this power, the consciousness of the availability to him of all the pleasures of the world, but because of his stinginess he will never spend a single handful of accumulated treasures; on the contrary, he would like to hide his basement from “the eyes of the unworthy” until his death and even after death:

Oh, if only from the grave
I could come as a sentry shadow
Sit on the chest and away from the living
Keep my treasures as they are now!

The knight slanderes his son, denigrates him in the eyes of the duke only out of fear that he will spend the money accumulated by his father.

And at the same time the Baron - living soul, it still has human feelings; remorse has not yet died in him, he knows their torment:

Conscience,
A clawed beast, scraping the heart, conscience,
Uninvited guest, annoying interlocutor,
The lender is rude; this witch
From which the month and the graves fade
They get embarrassed and send out the dead!

Apparently the baron suffered a lot in the struggle with his conscience, trying to drown out its voice.

Stingy knight. Painting by K. Makovsky, 1890s

Next to the Baron, in contrast to him, stands before us the much more sympathetic image of his son Albert. The ardent young man suffers from the pitiful situation in which his father keeps him, from the “shame of bitter poverty.” But this poverty does not develop in him stinginess, which would be so easy to become infected “under the same roof as his father”; Albert does not become a miser: he has no money, but we see that he sends the last bottle of wine given to him through his servant to the sick blacksmith. He cannot love his father, but how indignant he is, how shocked he is when he understands the hint of the Jewish moneylender suggesting that he poison his father! Driven to despair by this terrible, vile proposal of the Jew, Albert decides to go to the Duke, complain and “seek justice.” The same ardent, stormy indignation engulfs his honest, noble soul when he hears his father’s disgusting slander being leveled against him. Such injustice and lies drive him to the point where he shouts in his father’s face: “You are a liar!” - and accepts the challenge thrown at him by the baron.

In a few strokes, the figure of the Jew Solomon with his unprincipled, selfish soul is depicted in an unusually vivid and realistic way. This knows the value and power of money! The fear of the weak before the strong and at the same time the greed of his petty soul is felt in his cautious expressions and reservations: when it is unclear, in half hints, he talks about the “wonderful bargaining” of his friend, Tobias, Albert impatiently asks:

“Your old man sells poison?” “Yes -
AND poison..."

Solomon answers. This " And“The Jew tries to soften his vile proposal to poison the baron.

In three short scenes of “The Miserly Knight,” Pushkin concisely, vividly and realistically depicts the characters of all characters, the deep tragedy of a man who has become callous in his vices and perishes from them.

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Tragedy of A.S. Pushkin "The Miserly Knight".TOtext matching problem

Aleksandrova Elena Gennadievna, Ph.D. Sc., doctoral student of the Department of Russian and foreign literature Omsk Humanitarian Academy

Omsk Training Center FPS, Omsk, Russia

The article examines the issues of textual and ideological-content correlation of the tragedy of A.S. Pushkin. The ways and principles of comparative analysis are determined

Key words: comparison, analysis, sign, fate, ruler, text, artistic principle

A necessary element of reading the tragedy “The Miserly Knight” and an important aspect of understanding its spiritual and ethical content is comparison (and not only intra-textual). The polysignificance of all level meanings of the text can be discovered only as a result of comparative analysis.

Pushkin did not have unambiguous images and “simplicity” of characters. With the power of his creative potential, he could make what was known new, sometimes unrecognizable. Using the plot's fame of a literary event, the playwright created something different, marked by the moral and poetic heights of genius, spiritually and compositionally rethought. His Don Juan is more tragic and deeper than its classical predecessor. His stingy man is already different from Molière’s stingy one in that he is a “knight.” Harpagon is predictable and impersonal in his schematically defined passion. Not a single “living” feature, not a single step free from tradition.

The images of Pushkin’s dramatic works are indicated by the “immensity” of internal content and comprehensiveness moral issues and ethical significance.

V.G. Belinsky, comprehending the ideological layers of Pushkin’s dramaturgy, wrote: “The ideal of the miser is one, but its types are infinitely different. Gogol's Plyushkin is disgusting, disgusting - this is a comic face; Pushkin's Baron is terrible - this is a tragic face. Both of them are terribly true. That's not what stingy Moliere- rhetorical personification of stinginess, caricature, pamphlet. No, these are terribly true faces that make you shudder for human nature. Both of them are devoured by the same vile passion, and yet they are not at all similar to one another, because both of them are not an allegorical personification of the idea they express, but living persons in whom the common vice was expressed individually, personally.” Undoubtedly, the truth (but not a tribute to the idea) of the characters and their liveliness internal organization allowed Pushkin to avoid schematic representation, meaningful isolation and traditional genre “constraints”.

The first in matters of moral and artistic correlation of the textual facts of “The Miserly Knight” with other dramatic works of Pushkin, in our opinion, should be called the tragedy “Mozart and Salieri”. The spiritual and meaningful connection between the semantic indicators of the said works is obvious. The image of the stingy knight is more deeply “visible” against the background of revealed signs of similarity with the fate of the composer-murderer. Much of what the baron dreams of is realized by Salieri: the desire to “stop” the one who is following, the desire to “keep treasures as a guard’s shadow.” The poison, which became the reason - but not the reason - for the rapid resolution of the conflict (“This is what the stinginess of my dear father is bringing me to!”, “No, it’s decided - I’ll go look for justice”), nevertheless turns out to be thrown into the glass. However, its owner is the one who is “chosen... to stop,” but not the one who has not suffered for himself the right to be a killer and heir. Perhaps the phrases “By what right?” and “...suffer for yourself wealth...” have not only the meaning of “undeservedness to receive something”, but also the meaning of “unsufferable right to be and become someone.” Mozart’s words about Beaumarchais, who did not deserve the “right” to commit a crime, have similar semantics.

The internal spiritual and aesthetic connection of the tragedies “The Miserly Knight” and “Boris Godunov” also deserves a serious analysis of issues of ideological and textual correlation.

There is a lot in common in the destinies of the ruler of the “hill” and the Tsar - “ruler of Russia”. Each of them reached a height (one the throne, the other the basement). The natures of these people are essentially similar, “inscribed” into the same outline of a moral event - a moral catastrophe. The actual correlation (and at the same time the different significance of motives and actions) of their life signs is easy to detect at the level of the lexical-semantic structure, which is the expression and direct “representation” of the internally contradictory personal characteristics of the heroes.

The endings of their lives are also similar - death. However, the categorical meanings of their death are different in their level of certainty. Boris dies, but tries to protect his son from Retribution, tries to take all the blame and responsibility upon himself, although he is still unable to change the Supreme sentence - he pays with his life and the life of his family for the committed “villainy” - murder.

Philip, dying, morally kills (completes the process of moral decline) and his son. He wants him dead. He wants to eliminate the heir and rule everything himself (more precisely, alone). The actual death of the baron and ethical atrophy life principles his son is the predetermined end point of spiritual degradation, marked by the fact of logical completeness.

However, between the beginning and the end of the path there is a whole tragedy - the tragedy of moral decline.

Boris, while creating his own power, nevertheless sought to pass it on to his son. He prepared him to become an heir, a worthy successor. The Baron, creating the “silent vaults,” forgot about his son as a person close to him and saw in him an “impostor”, whom Godunov saw in Grishka Otrepiev (“I sense heavenly thunder and grief”).

Someday, and soon maybe

All areas that you are now

He depicted it so cleverly on paper,

Everything will be at your fingertips.

But I achieved supreme power... by what?

Don't ask. Enough: you are innocent,

You will now reign by right.

I reign... but who will follow me

Will he take power over her? My heir!

And by what right?

No matter how different the paternal feelings of the heroes were, so different were the children’s attitudes towards them, so different were their last minutes. One, blessing his son, gives him the eternal love of his father and power (though only for a short moment), the other, throwing down the gauntlet, curses and spiritually destroys him.

They are related not only by the degree of royal “height,” but also by the price they paid to own, to “look around with joy from on high.” Godunov killed an innocent child, Baron killed his father, but both of them, willy-nilly, kill their children. The result is the same - moral collapse. But Boris understood that it was not in vain that he was “thirteen years old... in a row // I kept dreaming about the murdered child!” He felt that nothing would save him from Retribution. However, the Baron saw only himself. And he perceived the ruin only as a result of Albert’s frivolity and stupidity, but not as a punishment for a sinful life.

It is important to note that each of the heroes speaks about conscience, but gives this moral category non-identical meanings marked with the stamp of purely personal experiences. For Godunov, conscience is a sign-curse within the framework of “since” - “now”. For the baron - “a clawed beast scratching the heart”, “once upon a time”, “long ago”, “not now”.

Oh! I feel: nothing can

In the midst of worldly sorrows, to calm;

Nothing, nothing... the only thing is conscience.

So, healthy, she will prevail

Over malice, over dark slander. -

But if there is only one spot in it,

One thing, it started up by accident,

Then - trouble! like a pestilence

The soul will burn, the heart will fill with poison,

Reproach hits your ears like a hammer,

And everything feels nauseous and my head is spinning,

And the boys have bloody eyes...

And I’m glad to run, but there’s nowhere... terrible!

Yes, pitiful is the one in whom the advice is unclean.

These words contain the whole life of Godunov’s last thirteen years, a life poisoned by the poison of crime and the horror of what he had done (although Boris himself does not directly talk about this, does not even admit to himself: “I may have angered the heavens...”), fear of punishment and the desire to justify oneself. He did everything to win the love of the people, but rather to earn forgiveness (“Here is the judgment of the mob: seek her love”). However, we should not forget that despite all his experiences, he still accepted power and ascended the throne.

The Baron did not experience such heavy feelings, doomed to murder (at least he does not talk about it), and was not initially so tragically contradictory. Because his goal is “higher” in its idealized motives.

He aspired to become a God and a Demon, but not just a king. Philip ruled not so much over people as over passions, vices, and Evil. Therefore, death stands before the eternal Power (remember what the Baron said about Thibault’s possible murder).

Or the son will say,

That my heart is overgrown with moss,

That I didn't know the desires that made me

And conscience never gnawed, conscience

A clawed beast, scraping the heart, conscience,

Uninvited guest, annoying interlocutor,

The lender is rude, this witch,

From which the month and the graves fade

They get embarrassed and send out the dead?...

Yes, he really sacrificed his conscience, but he stepped over this moral loss and “raised” his hill.

If you pay attention to the dynamics of moral inversion and transformation of the spiritual qualities of Pushkin’s completed dramatic works, then you can notice a certain latent movement of their moral subtext: from “I, I will answer to God for everything...” (“Boris Godunov”) to the hymn to the Plague ( “Feast during the Plague”) through the statement “Everyone says: there is no truth on earth. // But there is no truth - and above.” (“Mozart and Salieri”) and morally characterizing “Terrible century, terrible hearts!” (“The Stingy Knight”) - “fail” (“The Stone Guest”).

The hero of Pushkin's first drama still remembers the feeling of fear of God, understands his frailty and insignificance before Him. The heroes of “Little Tragedies” are already losing this humble trepidation and creating their own Laws. Rejecting the true God, they proclaim themselves to be him. The Baron, descending into the basement, “rules the world” and enslaves the “free genius.” Salieri, “verifying harmony with algebra,” creates his Art and kills the “free genius” (and he “suffered” the right to kill with his life). Don Guan kills too easily, sometimes without even thinking. He sows death and plays with life. Walsingham, glorifies the “reign of Plague” in a city “besieged” by Death. Situationally, the sequence of development of the action of the four dramas of the cycle coincides with the milestone moments biblical motif the Fall and the final event before the flood, punishment: “And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that the thoughts of the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually.

And the Lord repented that he had created man on earth, and was grieved in His heart...

And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt: for all flesh had perverted its way on the earth” (Gen. 6:5-6,12).

Significant in understanding the moral meaning of the problematics of Pushkin’s dramaturgy is the transcription of the meaning of the number six, which is a defining sign in both “Boris Godunov” and “The Miserly Knight”.

I have been reigning peacefully for six years now.

Happy day! I can today

To the sixth chest (to the chest still incomplete)

Pour in a handful of accumulated gold.

For six days God created the earth. Six is a number whose meaning is creativity. It contains both the beginning and the completion of Creation. Six months before the birth of Christ, John the Baptist was born.

The seventh day is the day of God's rest, the day of serving God. “And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, for in it He rested from all His work, which God had created and made” (Gen. 2:3). In the Bible we also find mention of the “Sabbath year” - the year of forgiveness. “In the seventh year do forgiveness.

Forgiveness consists in this: that every creditor who has lent to his neighbor forgives the debt and does not collect it from his neighbor or his brother; for forgiveness is proclaimed for the Lord's sake" (Deut. 15:1-2)

The six years of Godunov’s reign became six steps towards his death-punishment. The number "six" was not followed by "seven", there was no forgiveness, but there was Kara.

Six chests are the “dignity” and property of the baron’s basement. His power and strength, “honor and glory.” However, the sixth chest is “not yet full” (it is no coincidence that Pushkin points to incompleteness, which indicates incompleteness, an unfinished movement). The Baron has not yet completed his Creation. His Law still has an ellipsis, behind which the steps of the heir are clearly heard, ruining and destroying everything that was created during the acquisition of the six chests. Philip does not know the “seventh day”, does not know forgiveness, since he does not know rest from his labors. He cannot “rest from all his deeds,” because this basement is the meaning of his life. He will not be able to “bring tribute by the handful” - he will not live. His entire being is interpreted precisely by gold and power.

God created man on the sixth day; the baron, pouring gold into the sixth chest, completed the moral fall of his son. Before the scene in the basement, Albert was able to refuse poison, but in the palace he is already ready to fight with his father (although this desire - the desire for a direct fight - was immediately caused by Philip's lies)

Note that in Holy Scripture we find mention of the first miracle revealed by Christ to people - the transformation of water into wine. It is noteworthy that this event is also marked with the number “six”. The Gospel of John tells: “There were six stone waterpots, according to the custom of the purification of the Jews, containing two or three measures.

Jesus says to them: Now take some and bring it to the master of the feast. And they carried it away” (John 2:6-8).

So water became wine. The Baron refutes the Miracle of the Supreme Will with sin, defiles it with the movement of the Will of vice. The wine given to Albert turns into water in his glass.

I asked for wine.

We have wine -

Not a bit.

So give me some water. Damn life.

However, one cannot fail to note the fact that Albert nevertheless gave away the wine as a sign of attention, which should indicate that his moral core world is still “alive,” although not strong (Ivan: “Evening I took the last bottle // To the sick blacksmith” ) The fact of the visible inversion of the Miracle states the fact of the moral “dissolution” of the Highest Laws and the moral “ruin” of the individual.

When comparing the textual “data” of these works, it is necessary to note their internal ideological and semantic coherence and the level difference in the initial indicators of the moral consciousness of the heroes. Much in the movement of meanings and the resolution of conflicts is determined by the words “finished” - “resolved”. In “Boris Godunov” and “The Stingy Knight” this lexical sign has the meaning of “making a decision” (“It’s decided: I will not show fear...” / - “No, it’s decided - I’ll go look for justice...”) and the meaning “ end”, “finale”, “decision” (“It’s all over. He’s already in her net” / “It’s all over, my eyes are darkening...”, “No, it’s decided - I’ll go look for justice...”) Identical, but more the word “it’s over” has tragic semantics in “The Stone Guest” - “It’s all over, You’re trembling, Don Guan.” / “I’m dying - it’s over - oh Dona Anna.” Let’s compare: “...It’s over, the hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners” (Mark 14:41)..

Let us pay attention to the punctuational expression of the intense semantic sound of lexemes - either a dot indicates the meaning, separating one morally tragic speech moment from another, or a dash, separating, “tearing” two parts, designated by maximum, extreme moral and physical states.

Taking into account the symbolic and semantic correlation of the dramas “Boris Godunov” and “The Miserly Knight”, it is necessary to note the motivation of the comparative examination of the noted texts, which allows us to trace in detail, to some extent, and attributively (from the point of view of the moral attributes of conflict resolution) the movement of the semantic facts of the issue and ideological content of the plays. The semantics of the sign of one tragedy is revealed within the boundaries of the moral and artistic field of another.

So, we see it as very important in terms of studying the ideological layers of “The Miserly Knight” to compare it with the text of the drama “Scenes from the Times of Knights” dated 1835.

The action of the works takes place within the framework of the so-called “time of knights”, within the boundaries marked by famous names: Albert, Clotilde, Jacob (Albert’s servant). However, Pushkin rethought the issues of value and generic attitudes in terms of plot (namely, plot): main character(Albert) of the first play of “Little Tragedies” is a knight in his own way family line- fades into the background (Albert here is a knight infected with pride and arrogance, but it is not he who drives the drama), but the main character of “Scenes from Knightly Times” is a tradesman who dreams of the glory and exploits of knights. His father, like Albert’s father, is a moneylender, but not by nature, but by nature. He loves his son and wants to see him as an heir.

Pushkin changed the characteristics of the conflict and the situational signs of its development. But the ideological outline has similar points (although, naturally, not in the full philosophical and moral volume of spiritual indicators): a person’s responsibility to himself, to his family.

The baron is not a tradesman (like Martin was), but a knight: “And a knight is as free as a falcon... he never hunches over scores, he walks straight and proud, he will say the word and they believe him...” (“Scenes” from knightly times"). All the more tragic is his fate. Philip, by right of birth, is a nobleman whose honor and glory should not be measured by his fortune (“Money! If only he knew how the knights despise us, despite our money...”). But only money can bring him “peace,” since it is they who can give him power and the right to “be.” Life in general is nothing in comparison with “I reign!..”, gold - “This is my bliss!” Martin is not so deep and poetic in his understanding of wealth: “Thank God. I made myself a house, money, and an honest name...”

In the correlation of textual event facts, it becomes clear why the baron is “above” the petty usurious consciousness of Martyn. He saved not so much in order to simply become rich, but in order to be both God and Demon, in order to rule over people and their passions. Martyn was looking for wealth only in order to survive: “When I was fourteen years old, my late father gave me two kreutzers in my hand and two kicks in the goose, and said: Go Martyn, feed yourself, but it’s hard for me even without you.” . That’s why the heroes’ worldviews are so different and their deaths so different.

What would be interesting, as we see it, would be a “dialogue” between the heroes of the two works.

Franz: “Am I to blame for not loving my condition? that honor is more valuable to me than money?” .

Albert: “... Oh poverty, poverty! // How it humbles our hearts!” .

Franz: “Damn our condition! - My father is rich, but what do I care? A nobleman who has nothing but a rusty helmet is happier and more honorable than my father.”

Albert: “Then no one thought about the reason// And my courage and wondrous strength!// I was furious for the damaged helmet,// What was the fault of heroism? - stinginess."

Franz: “Money! Because he didn’t get the money cheaply, so he thinks that all the power lies in money - how could it not be so!” .

This dialogic “portrait” of the characters allows you to see and understand the whole tragic story the fall of tribal and moral origins. Franz sees (at the beginning of the work) nobility and moral inflexibility in the knights. Albert doesn’t “remember” this anymore, doesn’t know. The Baron was once capable of friendship (it was no coincidence that the “late Duke” always called him Philip, and the young Duke called him a friend to his grandfather: “He was a friend to my grandfather”), and was also capable of fatherly tenderness. Let us remember how he once “blessed the Duke,” covering him with “a heavy helmet, // like a bell.” But he could not bless his son for life, he could not raise him true man, "knight". Albert was not taught to be a real nobleman, but he was taught to be brave in the name of his father's stinginess.

But what do Albert and Franz have in common? Internal rejection of fathers and their philosophy of life, the desire to get rid of the oppression of their position, to change their destiny.

A comparative analysis of the works “The Miserly Knight” and “Scenes from Times of Knighthood” allows us to penetrate into the depths of the consciousness of such people as the Baron, Martin, Solomon. Each of them is a moneylender. But the natural beginnings of the paths of their spiritual decline and moral waste are different, just as the essential characteristics of the desire for wealth are different. In the fate of Martin we see some features of the fate of Solomon, which we could only guess about without knowing about Franz’s father. A comparative understanding of the images of Martyn and the baron allows us to understand the depth and tragedy of the knight’s spiritual failure, the moral discrepancy between “highness” and “lowness” in the mind of the owner of the golden cellar.

We see it as interesting in terms of understanding the issues of the ideological structure of the tragedy “The Miserly Knight” to analyze its problematic-textual connections with works of various generic and genre natures, created within the same temporary cultural context. The objects of comparative reading will be the stories of O. de Balzac “Gobsek” (1830) and N.V. Gogol’s “Portrait” (1835 The first edition, published during Pushkin’s lifetime and, in our opinion, is the most intense, dynamic, unburdened by lengthy reasoning and explanations that appeared in the second edition of 1842).

Works that are different in terms of genre have similar ideological and content messages. Their heroes are endowed with some common features in their natural certainty: passion - vice - “power” (and at the same time - slavish obedience, lack of freedom) - moral death. A certain immanent similarity of worldviews, the programmatic nature of the life principles of people enslaved and spiritually devastated by vice, allows us to allow for a research (moral-associative) rapprochement in one cultural-time period of ethically and aesthetically meaningful sign images of Solomon, Philip, Gobsek and Petromichali.

Each of them considered himself the ruler of the world, an omnipotent expert on human nature, capable of “raising hills” and commanding “bloody villainy,” knowing neither pity, nor sympathy, nor sincerity of relationships. Let's compare the text characteristics of the psychological portraits of the heroes.

"The Stingy Knight"

Everything obeys me, but I obey nothing;

I am above all desires; I am calm;

I know my strength: I have enough

This consciousness...

"Gobsek"

“However, I understood perfectly well that if he (Gobsek) had millions in the bank, then in his thoughts he could own all the countries that he had traveled, searched, weighed, assessed, robbed.”

“So, all human passions... pass before me, and I review them, and I myself live in peace. In a word, I control the world without tiring myself, and the world does not have the slightest power over me.”

“I have the gaze of the Lord God: I read in hearts. Nothing can be hidden from me... I am rich enough to buy human conscience... Isn't this power? I can, if I wish, find the most beautiful women and buy the most tender caresses. Isn’t this pleasure?” .

"The Stingy Knight"

And how many human worries,

Deceptions, tears, prayers and curses

It is a heavy representative!

"Gobsek"

“...of all earthly blessings there is only one that is reliable enough for a person to pursue it. Is this gold. All the forces of humanity are concentrated in gold."

"The Stingy Knight"

There is an old doubloon... here it is. Today

The widow gave it to me, but first

Half a day in front of the window with three children

She was on her knees howling.

"Portrait"

“Pity, like all other passions of a feeling person, never reached him, and no debts could incline him to delay or reduce payment. Several times they found ossified old women at his door, whose blue faces, frozen limbs and dead outstretched arms seemed to still beg for his mercy even after death.”

The noted speech episodes allow us to speak about the obvious immanent closeness of the heroes of Pushkin, Balzac, Gogol, about some ideological correlation between the stories and the tragedy. However, the formal difference naturally predetermines the difference in content-psychological decisions.

Authors of prose works provide maximum detail psychological portraits clearly defined, specifically updated facial features and situationally defined external attributes. The author of a dramatic work “said” everything about his hero with the name, determined his essential characteristics and spiritual indicators.

The laconicism of the form of the tragedy “The Miserly Knight” also determined the “minimalism” of psychological attributes: the miserly knight (in the title of the play, a statement of the fact of the moral atrophy of consciousness) - the basement (in determining the boundaries of the action of the second scene, the place of origin, movement and internal resolution of the conflict is indicated).

The author's remarks occupy a special place among the signs of deep psychologism of the content and self-disclosure of the characters. However, they are not endowed with stern edification and deliberate instructiveness. Everything in them is extreme, maximal, intense, semantically all-encompassing, but not “extensive” in terms of formal expression and syntactic prevalence. The “harmony” of the composition allows Pushkin, within the limits of ethical maxims (the most expressed constants), to comprehend a person’s life, without explaining his actions, without telling in detail about certain facts of pre-events, but subtly, psychologically accurately defining the final (highest, culminating) points of the spiritual conflict.

The type of the stingy, indicated by the schematic definition of the ideological layers of the comedy of classicism (Harpagon by J.-B. Moliere), was rethought by the philosophical and aesthetic depth and pervasiveness of Pushkin’s author’s consciousness. His hero is a stingy knight, a stingy father, who killed the ethics of life in himself and morally destroyed spiritual world son. The Baron elevated the desire to rule to the Absolute and therefore, “owning the world,” he remained alone in his basement. The moneylenders of Balzac and Gogol are also lonely (in moral and psychological terms), and also “great” in their thoughts and ideas. Their whole life is gold, their philosophy of life is power. However, each of them is condemned to slavish service and pity (Derville, the hero of Balzac’s story telling about the life of Gobsek, announced the verdict: “And I even somehow felt sorry for him, as if he were seriously ill”).

The aesthetics of the 19th century made it possible to significantly expand and deepen the figurative space of the typological definition of “miserly”. However, both Balzac and Gogol, having endowed the moneylenders with characteristic, psychologically given traits, still did not penetrate into the internally closed world of moral enslavement, did not “descend” together with the heroes into the “basement”.

Pushkin was able to “see” and “express” in his hero not just a “stingy” person, but a person who was spiritually impoverished, “affected” by baseness and depravity. The playwright “allowed” the hero to remain alone with his essential natural element; by opening the golden chests, he revealed a world of “magical brilliance”, terrifying in its scale and destructive destructiveness. The truth of feelings and the intense truth of ethical conflict determined the depth of the philosophical and spiritual content of the work. There is no monumental rigidity of moral instructions here, but the vitality and liveliness of the author’s narrative within the framework of complex, ambivalent moral and situational indicators of the tragic (in the genre and ideological-spiritual understanding) space.

drama Pushkin comparative analysis

Literature

1. Balzac O. Favorites. - M.: Education, 1985. - 352 p.

2. Belinsky V. G. Works of Alexander Pushkin. - M.: Fiction, 1985. - 560 p.

3. Gogol N.V. Collection. Op.: In 6 vols. - M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1937. - T 3. - P. 307.

4. Pushkin A. S. Complete collection works in 10 volumes. - M.: Terra, 1996 - T. 4. - 528 p.

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