The mystical story of Pushkin's story The Undertaker takes place in. Undertaker and Freemasons

N.A. Petrova

"GRAVER" - PROSE OF THE POET

When it comes to the "prose of a poet", we usually mean the prose of poets of the twentieth century. “Russian classical literature does not know the poet's prose in the modern sense of the word.<.. .>The turning point begins at the turn of the century, when, thanks to the emergence of Russian symbolism, the initiative begins again to pass into the hands of poetry ”1. Between the time of the formation of Russian prose, the "aesthetic perception" of which "became possible only against the background of poetic culture," 2 and the time of the return to the poetic dominant, certain convergence of chiasmatic outlines. Contrasting Pushkin's prose with the “poetic prose” of Marlinsky or Gogol, B. Eikhenbaum comes to a paradoxical conclusion: “Pushkin created his prose on the basis of his own verse<...>further prose develops on the ruins of verse, while in Pushkin it is still born

from the verse itself, from the balance of all its elements. "

The difference between the language of prose and poetry is carried out according to various

parameters: rhythmic organization; the relationship between meaning and sound, words and things6, etc. Prose, according to I. Brodsky, “learns” from poetry “the dependence of the specific weight of words on the context. the omission of the self-evident ", -" purely linguistic oversaturation ", which determines the" poetic technology "of construction 7.

Literary criticism at the beginning of the century, relying on the experience of Russian classical literature, considered prose and poetry as "closed semantic categories." Studies of recent decades demonstrate the possibility of reading the 19th century narrative works in ways generated by the specifics of the “poet's prose” and the poetic texts proper, retrospectively addressing the time of the inception of prose. Ex-

following how “the language of poetry is infiltrated into the language of prose and vice versa” 9 was most consistently carried out by W. Schmid. “Poetic reading” of “Belkin's Tales” presupposes the identification of “intratextual equivalences and paradigms”, allusions, the implementation of phraseological units and tropes - what “the symbolists, and after them the formalists, designated as“ verbal art ”10. The emphasis is transferred from the organization of the text to its perception, and the revealed features of the narrative structure are interpreted as "poetic techniques in prose narration."

The main difference between Pushkin's stories and the poet's “prose” is that they tell a story that presupposes following a certain plot, the basis of its component. "Poet's prose" of the twentieth century

represents a "free form" 11 autobiographical or memo-

arched type, devoid of "in the old sense of the word - plot", "fragmentary", built on the "principle of collage or montage" 13, excluding the possibility of an unambiguous genre definition, which can be replaced by the designation of the language of the story ("The Fourth Prose"). The poet's prose ”,“ densely saturated with thought and content ”14 -“ the best Russian prose of the 20th century ”15 -“ you cannot conceive in prose and write in poetry, you cannot put it into poetry ”16. At the beginning of the 19th century, only the established boundary between prose and verse had not yet acquired such rigidity: Pushkin drew up the prosaic plans of his poetic works.

niy and "shifted" into verse someone else's prose. The story of "The Undertaker" is associated with the experience of L. Tolstoy, who discovered that it was impossible to retell Pushkin's "tale "18.

The impossibility of an adequate retelling of The Undertaker indicates that the principle of linearity is not observed in the narrative, which is fundamental by definition for prosaic speech. All those who write about The Undertaker note this feature of his plot. "Pushkin detained

the run of the novel, forcing to feel its every step. With a simple storyline

a complex plot structure is obtained ”19. The Undertaker is different from

the rest of the stories, where "the plot goes straight to its denouement." Regarding another fable "prose of the poet", "Egyptian mark" by O. Mandelstam,

N. Berkovsky noted that in it “the method of images goes against the

get it. The "everlasting" image cannot and does not want to "unfold".

The Undertaker, as it should be in prosaic narration, has a linear plot, but as a poet's prose it is constructed “according to the law of reversibility of poetic matter”, reminiscent of the “waltzing figure” 22 or “echo” - “natural multiple, with all the details,

development of the follow-up to the initial one ”. In the "poet's prose" each subsequent step does not so much build up the plot as it brings the story back and awakens new meanings in what has already been said.

In the story "The Undertaker", which occupies six and a half standard pages, most of the text space is given over to descriptions of phenomena and events rich in details, not motivated by the logic of plot development. The plot action itself, which has no temporary gaps, can be reduced to two events - the hero's move and his trip to visit. Pushkin's famous statement about the need for "accuracy and brevity" is in no way applicable to "The Undertaker": the "intricacy" (A.V. Druzhinin) of his narration has long been noticed, and neither the number of characters introduced, nor the ways of characterizing them agree with the brevity.

From a plot point of view, it is not necessary to mention the undertaker's daughters three times, their names, the names of the shoemaker's wife and daughter, and the name of the worker. An excursion into the history of the booth is not substantiated by the development of the action, and the very figure of the watchman is by no means caused by necessity - the shoemaker or any of the artisans could have provoked the undertaker. The abundance of characters not involved in the action justifies the prosaic dis-

well. It is noteworthy that in subsequent stories Pushkin shortens

number of characters; so, in the plan of the "Stationmaster" there was a clerk in love, mediating between the daughter and the father.

The plot of The Undertaker is doubled with a dream, also full of details, characters, names that have no direct relation to the action. In this doubled state, it develops linearly: the undertaker settles in a new place and begins to settle in it, the dream ends with a happy awakening. Numerous plot layers grow on the plot. One of them is connected with the inner reincarnation of the hero and motivates the mention of his daughters, whom he first "scolded", and then invited to drink tea. Another - with understanding the paradox of life and death, their existence at the expense of each other. The third - with the formation of a metatext substituting the author for the role of the hero25. The fourth - with literary polemics and the emergence of a new type of prosaic storytelling. This series may not be complete. All these plots are revealed, first of all, at the lexical level, but not all of them develop linearly, as it should be for a prosaic narration. Moreover, some plot moves can be oriented simultaneously towards linear and "reversible" development.

The plot, concentrated in the image of the undertaker, is most easily identified and lexical. His character is described at first according to the principle of a mechanical shape-shifter: all the grave-diggers represented by the previous literature are cheerful, but this one is not. Therefore, he is not a "grave digger", but an "undertaker" who, falling out of the type, acquires character, and, consequently, the opportunity to become the hero of the story. The dream returns the hero to the typical bosom, relieving him of the burdens of reflection. Lexically, this plot is designated as not joy (gloom) - joy (joy).

The game with the names of the hero also belongs to the linear, prosaic series. He was twice named Adrian Prokhorov, twenty-two times -

Bovshchik, twenty-one by Adriyan, two by Prokhorov, one by Adriyan Prokhorovich. The hero is named Adrian Prokhorov when he first introduced him to the reader (the undertaker Adrian Prokhorov) and when characterizing his disposition (“Adrian Prokhorov was usually sullen and thoughtful” 26). Further, it is difficult to explain the change of names by a simple desire to avoid repetition. It is logical to assume that the hero will be Adrian in the family and

as a maker in professional activities. Indeed, the hero sitting under the window at tea is called by name, but the undertaker responds to a knock on the door (“Who is there?” - asked the undertaker ”). When it comes to family matters, artisans talk among themselves ("The undertaker asked the shoemaker."), When about the craft - two private people ("asked Adrian" - "answered Schultz), the professionals disperse again (" the shoemaker got up and said goodbye to the undertaker " ). The duality is parodied in relation to Yurko, whom Adriyan meets “as a person who sooner or later may happen to be in need”. In the society of artisans, the eating and drinking hero is stubbornly called Adrian, while a drunken and angry undertaker comes home, talking about his craft. Adrian is going to invite the dead to visit, Adrian falls asleep and it seems that he was awakened, Adrian, he is engaged in funeral as an undertaker (so called four times in a row), and receives his own guests as Adrian (ten times in a row). The dead turn to the owner by their last name, but in the end, from the lips of a nameless worker who has ceased to be, Adrian receives a new title of Adrian Prokhorovich. The change of names from Adrian Prokhorov to Adrian Prokhorovich is linear and works on the plot of spiritual rebirth, it is no coincidence that the awakened hero is announced that he is a “private birthday boy” 28, and the “despair” that appeared in the “seventh cup of tea” is replaced by “hope” - expectation. But the reflection about the discrepancy between his own state of mind and the well-being of the moment is attributed to the undertaker (“the old undertaker felt with surprise

Niem ... ") - the change of name and professional designation goes beyond linearity and plays up in different plot layers the pun" the undertaker moved with his whole house "declared at the beginning. Other names are possibly connected to this game: the name of the dying Tryukhina contains a phonetic association with dust and a corpse, 29 then “the deceased Tryukhin” is a tautology.

Plot layers associated with the life-death paradox and metatext are not linear, but "reversible", as evidenced by a complex language game that does not form unambiguous oppositions and linear lexical chains.

The anecdotal core of the narrative, reduced to the saying "the dead does not live without a coffin," becomes the basis for the variable development of the theme,

characteristic of the plot of the poetic work. Its lexical design is carried out by playing with the names of the lifetime and posthumous dwellings.

“Home” is a dwelling (in this name - “own” and “new”) is designated five times, and in three cases the context does not contain the implied stability (“moved with his whole house”, “house is for sale”, “newly bought house” ) and in two - reveals a paradoxical subtext: the hero "came home" to fill him with the dead ("Summon the dead for a new home!"), but "those who are no longer able to, who have completely collapsed" did not come - "stayed at home" ...

Adrian's new house, "bought by him for a decent amount", is quite spacious (living room, room, back room, kitchen), but it is called a house, a shoemaker has a "cramped apartment", and Yurko has a "booth." The motive of "crowdedness" awakens in the "house" the meaning of "domina", supported by an indication of the color ("yellow house", yellow, and then "new, gray" booth - "coffins of all colors", "simple and painted coffins"), mentioning "Housewarming", fees, the possibility of repair and rent. Difference from lexical

In this series, the gaiety-gloominess here consists in the absence of a plot motivation for the change in meanings. Their poly-identity is recorded in the initial sentence of the story ("The last belongings of the undertaker Adriyan Prokhorov were heaped onto the funeral cart, and the skinny couple dragged from Basmannaya to Nikitskaya for the fourth time, where the undertaker moved with his whole house"), and each time, in order to realize the play of meanings, we have to turn back to a text you have already read. Thus, the “dilapidated canvas” that clothe the skeleton sends us back to the “dilapidated hovel”, the old house, about which Adrian sighs.

The theme of a coffin house is complicated by the fact that a house, unlike a coffin, is not a uniformly enclosed space. There are places of transition between him and the outside world: “unfamiliar threshold”, “door”, “gate”, “gate”, “window” (“windows”).

Adrian stays in the house, if not in bed, then “at the window” or “under the window”. The window is the border between the world of life and the world of death: in the house of the deceased Tryukhina, "all the windows are ... open," in a dream, "The moon through the windows" looks at the dead people filling the house, the undertaker's daughters are forbidden to "stare" out the window.

The next fence-border is the gate (mentioned 5 times) and the wicket (4). The undertaker, as a guide to the kingdom of death, naturally moves to the "Nikitsky gate", his sign is fixed above the gate, the house of the deceased is not mentioned, but is indicated by an open gate ("at the gate of the deceased"). The gate, from which the undertaker with his daughters went to the wedding, is also unlocked by the arriving dead guests. And, finally, the whole city, like a closed space, is separated from the cemetery by a "outpost".

The worlds of the living and the dead in the story constantly replace each other: now coffins and "funeral accessories" settle in the house, now the dead come to housewarming, now the skeleton, as if alive, stretches out its arms and

the new dies, crumbling into bones. Even their vertical distribution (“we all went up to your invitation”) ceases to be significant when the dead guest goes “on the stairs”, and after him, Adrian.

The development of the plot associated with the hero moves by the process of his awareness of the specialness of his own profession, which puts him in an intermediate state between the dead and the living. But in a system of nonlinear, reversible connections, he is not alone in this function. As an intermediary

Nika is Yurko - Moscow Hermes, but in this role G otlib Schultz is not much inferior to him. The shoemaker's house is located "across the street", opposite the Adrian windows, so that the undertaker can see it, or the shoemaker can look into the house, like the moon that looks at the dead. The appearance of a shoemaker, who is cheerful as befits a grave-digger in W. Scott and Shakespeare, is preceded by "three Freemason blows" at the door, which is opened by the unexpected "neighbor" himself. The arrival of the fantastic Stone Guest is described by Pushkin as an ordinary phenomenon ("What kind of knock is there?"), The arrival of a neighbor is sounded as a phenomenon of fate, and the hero's adventure begins with a conversation with him.

Intertextual calls transfer the narrative to the level of metatext, entirely built on reversible associations. Thus, the definition of “our works” in relation to coffins brings us back to “the master's products”, clarifying the paradox of “misfortune” - “pleasure”. The color of the house and the booth, with their clear reference to madness, echoing in the coloring of the coffins ("all colors"), hats and the deceased Tryukhina, has

meaning only in a biographical context, and "bone embrace" - in the context of Pushkin's poems33. In addition, the undertaker is endowed with "imagination." Together with his inherent "gloom", which is ultimately replaced by "joy", an association with "wild

and a harsh "poet.

In "The Grove-maker" - the only one of the stories - it seems as if there is no love theme, except for the mention of a silver wedding and hypothetical lovers of daughters. But a dream - a "terrible vision" - is not devoid of a love tinge. According to M. Gershenzon's observation, "Pushkin often calls love a dream" 35, in the "dream of the imagination" the dead are first mistaken for lovers, the skeleton stretches out its arms, and all together returns us to the "burly Cupid with an overturned torch." Adrian's love for "clients" falls into the category of "fatal passions".

Thus, even the functionally plot elements in The Undertaker are switched into a “reversible” poetic plan, for this it is enough for the meeting of artisans to take place on the occasion of the silver wedding - “linear (analytical) development” is replaced by “crystal-like (synthetic) growth” 36. It is significant that Baratynsky's reaction to the story ("fought and whinnied") Pushkin captures at the quotation level in the words of Petrarch.

The Undertaker - the first of the written stories and the first completed prose by Pushkin - “depicts. the most prosaic reality and at the same time reveals the most distinctly expressed poetic structure ”37. The Undertaker is not a story, but a short story38 that could be told in the genre of a novelistic poem, or, given the fantastic, “terrible component” and a way of telling with the fixation of the present tense, in the genre of a ballad. At the level of the plot layer, it reveals a "reduced presentation of Derzhavin's ode", which served as the source of the epigraph39, at the level of the metatext, elegiac motives40. Pushkin's characteristic paraphrase ("All this meant, friends.") Is carried out in the reverse order: prose is transformed into poetry. The "Undertaker", whose motives unfold in the potential plot lines of the rest of the stories (secret lovers, an unfinished duel of shop associates, in "The Undertaker" -

verbal), in the fates of heroes with "imagination", moving from "gloom" to "fun", in the roll call of names ("is the undertaker's brother to the executioner?" - Samson, the Parisian executioner, whose notes were announced in 1830), becomes their hidden poetic "castle".

1 Orlitsky Yu.B. Verse and Prose in Russian Literature: Essays on History and Theory. Voronezh, 1991.S. 69.

2 Lotman Yu.M. Lectures on structural poetics // Yu.M. Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. M., 1994.S. 83.

3 Eichenbaum B. Through literature: Sat. Art. L., 1924.S. 162, 16, 168.

4 Bely A. On artistic prose, 1919; Tomashevsky B. About the verse. L. 1929, Girshman M. The rhythm of fiction. M., 1982, etc.

5 Tynyanov Yu.N. Poetics. Literary history. Cinema. M., 1977.S. 52.

6 Jacobson R. Works on poetics. M., 1987, S. 324-338.

7 Brodsky I. Works: In 4 volumes.Vol. 4.SPb., 1995.S. 65, 71.

8 Tynyanov Yu. Decree. Op. P. 55.

9 Veselovsky A.N. Historical poetics. L., 1940.S. 380.

10 Schmid V. Pushkin's prose in poetic reading. "Belkin's Tale". SPb., 1996.S. 41, 39.

11 Sahakyants A. Biography of the Creator's Soul // Tsvetaeva M. Prose. M., 1989.S. 4.

12 Filippov B.A. Mandelstam's prose // Mandelstam O.E. Sobr. cit .: In 4 volumes.Vol. 2.

M., 1991. S. IX.

13 Volkov S. Dialogues with Joseph Brodsky. M., 1998.S. 269.

14 Mirsky D.S. O.E. Mandelstam. The Noise of Time // Literary Review. 1991. No.

15 Volkov S. Decree. Op. P. 268. A. Chekhov wrote about classical literature: "all great Russian poets do an excellent job with prose" (Russian writers of the XIX century about Pushkin. L., 1938, p. 374).

16 Tsvetaeva M.I. On poetry and prose // Star. 1992. No. 10.P. 4.

17 Gershenzon M.O. Articles about Pushkin. M., 1926.S. 19.

Russian writers of the XIX century about Pushkin. L., 1938. S. 378. Pushkin's "Gypsies" Tolstoy "with special strength" assessed in the prose retelling by P. Merimee.

19 Eichenbaum B. Decree. Op. S. 165-166.

20 Bocharov S.G. About the artistic worlds. M. 1985.S. 41.

Berkovsky N. The World Created by Literature. M., 1989.S. 300.

22 Mandelstam O. Sobr. cit .: In 4 volumes.Vol. 3.Moscow, 1991.S. 237, 241.

23 Brodsky I. Decree. Op. P. 71.

24 "The narrative of more than three characters resists almost any poetic form, with the exception of the epic." Brodsky I. Decree. Op. P. 65.

25 Turbin V.N. Prologue to the restored but unpublished manuscript of the book “Pushkin. Gogol. Lermontov "(1993) // Questions of literature. 1997. No. 1. S. 58-102.

26 The text of "The Undertaker" is quoted from: Pushkin A.S. Complete Works: In 6 volumes. Vol. IV. M., 1949.S. 80-86.

27 The fact that The Undertaker is a story about professions was noted by V.S. Uzin (On Belkin's Tales. Ptb., 1924, p. 31).

28 "A good birthday boy up to three days or three days" (Dal V. Explanatory dictionary of the living Great Russian language: In 4 volumes. T. 2. M., 1981. S. 43). The action in the story takes three days.

Dal V. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language: In 4 volumes. T. 4. M., 1981. S. 438; Vasmer M. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language: In 4 volumes. M., 1986-1987. T. 4.P. 111.

Tomashevsky B.V. Literature theory. M .; L. 1930.S. 181.

31 Schmid V. Decree. Op. S. 282-284.

32 “We need to put him in a yellow house: otherwise this rabid tomboy will seize us all, us and our fathers,” wrote P. Vyazemsky to A. Turgenev (Russian writers of the XIX century about Pushkin. L., 1938, p. 19).

33 “In tears he embraced me with a trembling hand And predicted happiness for me, unknown to me” (“To Zhukovsky”), the happiness known by the skeleton is death.

34 "Gloom" will respond to Blok ("Oh, I want to live madly.").

35 Gershenzon M.O. Decree. Op. P. 64.

36 Brodsky I. Decree. Op. P. 66.

37 Schmid V. Decree. Op. P. 259. Schmidt's semantics of prosaic and poetic preserves the character of the opposition between “the prose of reality” (P. Vyazemsky) and its metaphysical interpretation.

38 For the genre nature of Shot, see: MG Sokolyansky. And there is no end to it. Articles about Pushkin. Odessa, 1999.S. 84-95.

Ronkin V. Subject quintessence of prose [Electronic resource]. Electronic data. [M.], 2005. Access mode: http: //ronkin.narod.ru.hb.htm, free. Screen title. Data corresponds to 31.01.2006.

40 Uzin V.S. Decree. Op. P. 50.

Cycle "The Stories of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin" | Story number 1

It is necessary to marvel at Pushkin's prose for a very simple feature - contemporaries did not take it seriously, because Alexander did not inform them, or signed with pseudonyms, as in the case of "The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin." There is also sarcasm in the fact that the first work in this cycle was "The Undertaker": about a mystical event that happens to everyone, it is worth picking up alcoholic beverages to death.

The following is known for certain. A certain undertaker harbored a grudge against future employers who dared to offer him a drink to the health of those for whom he had worked all the previous years. This offended him to the extreme, forcing him to curse the jokers, threatening them to call for the future housewarming of the dead they buried. And to his surprise, it happened - the undead came to him.

From the very first lines, Pushkin speaks of his unwillingness to present to the attention of the reader the constantly gloomy undertaker who does not know how to enjoy life. He wanted to show a cheerful worker with a life that is normal for every person, where there is room for different feelings, and more often with a positive meaning. This is how it actually happens, because everyone ridicules the negative features of their craft, in which they find rest.

Therefore, reproaching Western playwrights, Pushkin created a funny undertaker who accepts jokes about his work, and does not forget to joke back. Who knew what side the sharpness would come out to him, which led him to the house of the dead. And again, Pushkin did not make the protagonist succumb to panic, ask himself silly thoughts and look for a reasonable explanation for what was happening. The playful background of the work will continue to whip up the atmosphere with Russian daring gaiety, giving the right to express an insult to people who have already died.

But it is true that the dead may have claims to the undertaker. For someone, he made the wrong coffin, for which there was an agreement. What will the undertaker answer? He can apologize, reduce everything to another joke, or strike at death without further thought, so that he does not spoil the air with his presence. But the undertaker will certainly not have any fear. Although the mystical component of the work should bring him to gray hair.

If the reader thinks that Pushkin wrote something unusual for Russian literature, then he is mistaken. In Russia, there were legends about the dead, committing acts against the will of people, destroying their life and sometimes depriving them of life. Alexander should have known about that. He should have known that a Russian person is never afraid of mystical manifestations, always confident in the possibility of resisting them. This is exactly what the undertaker appears in the story, obliged to endure the presence of the undead, as long as he himself called her to housewarming.

So did this story happen to the main character of the work, or did he see everything in a drunken dream? It depends on the reader's ability to believe in the existence of the other side of reality. However, Pushkin did not tell the story of the undertaker for the sake of entertainment, he put quite an obvious meaning in the narration, thus diluting the oppressive atmosphere due to the cholera raging in the country. That is why he wrote "The Tale of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin", supposedly deceased, driving away thoughts of the inevitable, showing death in its natural embodiment.

Conjectures are permissible, otherwise one cannot comprehend Pushkin's literary heritage. Let's not figure out where the idea of ​​writing The Undertaker came from. It is important that this story was written. There is nothing terrible in its content. Rather, it shows the correct attitude to reality: when the intoxication disappears from the head, then there will be an awareness of what is happening and what has happened.

Composition

The Undertaker is the third story in the Belkin's Tales cycle. It was written in Boldino in 1830. Let's try to consider the plot and composition of the story.

The whole story is clearly divided into three parts: reality, dream and return to the real world. This is the so-called ring composition. The action begins in the yellow house on Nikitskaya and ends there. Moreover, the parts of the story are different in size: the first part (the undertaker's move, his visit to a neighbor) makes up more than half of the entire work. A little less volume is occupied by the description of the events of Adrian's dream. And the third part (the awakening of the undertaker) is the smallest in the story, occupying about 1/12 of the entire text.

It is characteristic that the boundaries of the transition from reality to sleep and back are not verbally indicated in the text. Only the remark of Aksinya, the mortician's worker, about Adrian's strong, long sleep, brings the reader up to date: all the events that have taken place turn out to be nothing more than a nightmare.

The story begins with a description of the hero's housewarming. A description of the undertaker's move to a new house and a story about the character of Adrian, about his craft are presented on display. Here in Pushkin, according to N. Petrunina, there is a combination of opposite concepts: housewarming, life, with its worries and vanity, and "funeral groves", death, detachment from everyday worries. "The last belongings of the undertaker Adrian Prokhorov were heaped on the funeral cart, and the skinny couple trudged from Basmannaya to Nikitskaya for the fourth time, where the undertaker moved with his whole house."

And immediately the author sets the motive for the hero's unpredictability, his certain spiritual complexity, which is necessary for a realistic style. The complexity of Adrian's outlook is already indicated by the lack of joy after receiving what he wants. “Approaching the yellow house, which had seduced his imagination for so long and had finally bought it for a considerable sum, the old undertaker felt with surprise that his heart was not happy.”

Adrian, as it were, listens to his feelings and cannot understand himself. The motives for this sadness can be different. But Pushkin remarks in passing; "... he sighed about the dilapidated hovel, where for eighteen years everything was kept in the strictest order ...". It turns out that nostalgic feelings are not at all alien to Adrian, there are attachments in his heart, the existence of which the reader could hardly guess.

However, it seems that the memory of the former home is only a superficial reason for the hero's gloom. This is what his consciousness, not accustomed to introspection, sees most clearly and distinctly. The main reason for Adrian's "incomprehensible" feelings lies elsewhere. Its roots are deeply rooted in the former life of the undertaker, in his professional ethics, in his human honesty.

The visit to the undertaker by his neighbor, the shoemaker Gottlieb Schultz, and the subsequent invitation to a holiday, represent the plot of the plot. It is characteristic that already here a subtle motive of a future quarrel arises. “My product is not yours; a living man can do without boots, but a dead man cannot live without a coffin, ”the shoemaker notes. Thus, already here, Prokhorov's neighbor is trying to separate the undertaker's craft from other crafts.

Further, the intensity of the action increases. At a festive dinner in a cramped shoemaker's apartment, Adrian's profession elicits everyone's laughter: the artisans who toast to the health of their clients offer the undertaker a toast to the health of their dead. Adrian feels offended: “... why is my craft more dishonest than others? is the undertaker the brother of the executioner? why are the bastards laughing? Isn't the undertaker Gayer Christmastide? " And offended, angry, Prokhorov decides not to invite his neighbors to his housewarming party, but to call the "Orthodox dead" there.

This is followed by the undertaker's dream, which is conventionally divided into two parts. The first part of Adrian's dream includes the hero's troubles at the funeral of the merchant Tryukhina. “The whole day I drove from Razgulyan to the Nikitsky gate and back ...” and only “in the evening I got everything done”. And already in this part there is a hint of Adrian's tendency to cheat: in response to the credulity of the heir, the undertaker “swore that he would not take too much; he exchanged a significant glance with the clerk and went to bother. "

The second part of the dream is a visit to Prokhorov by the dead, who happily come to his housewarming party. But one of them suddenly hints at the undertaker's dishonesty, at his professional dishonesty: “You did not recognize me, Prokhorov,” said the skeleton. "Do you remember the retired sergeant of the Guard, Pyotr Petrovich Kurilkin, the very one to whom you sold your first coffin - and also a pine one for an oak one?"

The hugs of Sergeant Kurilkin, the abuse and threats of the dead are the culmination of the undertaker's dream, which is at the same time the culmination of the entire story.

Thus, here we see an explanation of Adrian's "incomprehensible" feelings associated with the housewarming. And with what money did he buy that same yellow house? Probably, more than once he had to cheat, "deceive" the dead, who cannot "stand up for themselves." Adrian is oppressed by an incomprehensible sensation, but this is nothing more than the awakening of his conscience. It is known that a dream expresses the secret fears of a person. Pushkin's undertaker is afraid not just of the "dead" as such (this fear is normal for a living person), he is afraid of meeting people whom he deceived.

This scene, like some of the previous moments of the narrative (description of the gloomy disposition of the undertaker, his attachment to an old, dilapidated hovel), testifies to the complexity of the hero's inner world. In Prokhorov's dream, according to S.G. Bocharov, "his repressed conscience" is awakened, as it were. However, the researcher believes that changes in the moral character of the undertaker are unlikely: the "self-consciousness" of the Pushkin undertaker in the denouement "passes in vain." But let's not exclude this possibility.

The denouement of the story is Prokhorov's happy awakening, his conversation with a worker. It is characteristic that after a nightmare, the hero freed himself from the feelings that oppressed him, from resentment and no longer holds any grudge against his neighbors. And, I think, we can even assume the possibility of some changes in the moral character of the hero, in his professional activity.

Thus, the composition is circular: the hero seems to be walking along a certain circle of his life, but returns to the starting point as a different, changed person. The subtext of the story guesses the idea of ​​a person's responsibility for their actions, of retribution for the evil committed.

Other compositions on this work

Every time, when the Pushkin cycle of Pyotr Fomenko was extracted from the depths of the television archive, the show aroused great audience interest, responses in the press, “they wrote letters, thanked, argued,” the director recalled. These mesmerizing aerial films-performances "took a very special place in the television Pushkinian - a kind of spiritual tuning fork, exquisite sketches, all together creating a complete, strange, bizarre world" (T. Sergeeva). Of the five stories of the late Belkin, Fomenko filmed three - "reading" the stories in order. Opened this row "Shot" (1981), closed - "Undertaker" (1990).

The "Undertaker" narrated by Belkin seems like a detailed anecdote. Undertaker Adrian Prokhorov, having moved with his daughters to a new house, receives an invitation from a German neighbor to the festival. Stung by the remark of one of the guests in the direction of his profession, a drunken Prokhorov invites his deceased clients to his housewarming party. The next night, when he comes home, he sees the dead people welcoming him. When the situation reaches its peak, he wakes up: the terrible visit was not in reality.

It is known that "The Undertaker" is half a parody, a joke, sir, it is unprofitable for retelling. There is no sense in it, no morality. As B. Eichenbaum said, "the story is resolved into nothing." There are no moves in the play that redraw the story; the director follows the text. In an interview dedicated to Pushkin's television cycle, Fomenko noted that his theater is based on a word that he wants to restore "in its originality and primordiality." In The Undertaker, the actors are not afraid to repeat a phrase, stretch it out, separate one phrase from another with a pause. An expressive sounding word activates the viewer's imagination, which revives a blurred picture, completes the mise-en-scene hidden in the darkness. But, of course, one cannot speak of being dissolved in the author. The boundaries of the director's reading are very clear. An elegiac and slightly philosophical mood is rather an introduction of the theater.

The artist and the cameraman keep the viewer feeling unknown. The space feels much more voluminous than it appears in the frame. It seems as if something is constantly hiding from the viewer. At some moments - with the acquisition of calmness - the camera stops, freezes, the image becomes static. But more often the soil literally leaves from under our feet. Fomenko said that he wanted to make the artist the guide of the camera. The viewer, in fact, seems to be moving by touch after Prokhorov - Mikhail Danilov. Spatial movements of the hero are often filmed without cuts - “in one go”.

Pushkin is moving towards a mystical shift implicitly, indefinitely. In the story, the line is observed between the mundane and the mysterious. In Fomenko's work, the division of the world into the sphere of the living and the sphere of the dead becomes obvious very quickly. Artistic matter is deliberately theatrical, and the director uses this theatricality to whip up mystery. The dark space - consisting of streets, nooks and crannies, rooms - does not penetrate the sun. Special lighting makes the air cloudy, giving the illusion of patina on the old canvas. A group of characters immediately stands out: they have whitewashed faces, flaws (suspicious thinness or a twisted nose), and their vestments - a cocked hat and a powdered braid for a man, a white cap and ribbons for a woman - clearly from a previous era. This is an echo of the 18th century at the beginning of the 19th century. Ghostly figures swarm around Prokhorov, whispering, leaning out of the coffin. As soon as he opens the door or pulls back the curtain, letting in the light, they scatter to the sides. The undertaker himself, his daughters performed by the Kutepov sisters, the worker - Galina Tyunina, the neighbor - Kirill Chernozemov against this background seem to be living, full-blooded characters.

At Fomenko's scenes, when Prokhorov comes to a German for a holiday and when the dead pay a visit to Prokhorov, they are rhymed. It is a feast for the living and a feast for the dead. The dialogue between the two dimensions is set up at the very beginning of the film and further is compositionally supported by inserts of Pushkin's poems.

In the exposition one can hear the voice of Fomenko, wisely, slowly reading lines about how life can be lived: freely and beautifully. And the pale characters (the viewer will later recognize them as dead) gaze sadly at the lighted torches in their hands: a capacious image of fleeting time. In another scene, the same figures, peeping through the windows of the German, look sadly at the celebration of life, which the heroes enjoy. "Let's drink and have fun, let's play with life." But the intonation with which the director reads this, and the context itself, are more reminiscent of "A Feast in a Time of Plague."

The dead are having their fun. And at first the confused Prokhorov is fond of him. He, who among the Germans - "Basurmans" - looked so homeless, it seems, is pleased with the society of the "Orthodox dead". That feast, alive, flows into this one. If there, at the German's, everyone was treated to a cake with lighted candles, then here such a cake seems like a round stand with candles - like in a church, where they put them for repose. The German offered Prokhorov a drink "to the health of the dead," and here an evil oxymoron seems to materialize. The candles on the funeral "cake" are burning - the dead are in good health. The continuous movement of the departed, supported by the whirling of the camera and the sounds of the waltz, beckons with beauty. I remember that critics wrote about Fomenko: his mise-en-scènes sound, they are musical in themselves.

The story "The Undertaker" is one of the five "Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin", written in 1830 in the so-called Boldinskaya autumn. Pushkin published them anonymously, because they were very different from the usual romantic stories and marked the beginning of a new direction - realism. The first was the story "The Undertaker". Preparing the story for publication, Pushkin made The Undertaker the third in a row. The writer introduces the image of the narrator Belkin, who is not identical with the personality of Pushkin himself. In each story, thirty-year-old Pushkin is looking for the meaning of human existence.

Problematic

The Undertaker is the strangest of Pushkin's five stories. Solving the problem of the fear of death, Pushkin portrays a hero who constantly collides with it. Laughter in the face of death is a person's defensive reaction to a frightening unknown. From the very first sentence, the main problem is posed: how does a person who sees death live on a daily basis? Does it change a person? Is it because Adrian is gloomy because he has coffins in his kitchen and living room?

Another problem in the story is connected with the toast at the silver wedding of the shoemaker's neighbor Schultz. One of the guests offers a drink to the health of the dead. If the undertaker lives at the expense of the dead, can he rejoice in the death of a person, profit from it? The Undertaker is so grateful to his dead, whose burial he made rich, that he even invites them to a feast. When the dead come to him (in a dream), Adrian's legs give way. The horror reaches its extreme point when the undertaker meets his first deceased - a retired sergeant of the Guard Pyotr Petrovich Kurilkin, who has turned into a skeleton (as if the saying “the smoking room is alive, alive” comes to life). Even his first deceased was buried by the undertaker dishonestly, selling him a pine coffin as an oak one. What shocks must a person go through in order to stop living by deception?

Heroes of the story

Undertaker Adrian is the protagonist of the story. Despite the housewarming in the long-desired yellow house, the undertaker is sad. His whole life is sheer anxiety. He is worried if the heirs of the dying merchant Tryukhina will call another undertaker. And his profit is dishonest, as his dreams say. In the first dream, the undertaker dreamed that the merchant Tryukhina had nevertheless died. The undertaker promised to take care of everything and not take too much, but at the same time he exchanged a meaningful look with the clerk, that is, he was just about to take too much.

The hero has two daughters, brought up in severity, who do not suffer in the least from the sinister profession of their father. There are many episodic characters in the story: the shoemaker Schultz, who invited the undertaker and his family to visit, the Chukhonian clerk Yurko, who offered the undertaker a drink to the health of the dead, the skeleton of a retired sergeant Kurilkin. The last two heroes push the undertaker to awaken his conscience, but the result remains unknown.

genre

"The Undertaker" is a part of the cycle "Tale of Belkin". In the days of Pushkin, a story was called what today we call a story: a small prose work with a small number of heroes, telling about one event in one storyline. So from the point of view of modern literary criticism, The Undertaker is a story. In the middle of the 19th century. mystical themes followed by awakening were common.

Plot and composition

The story "The Undertaker" can be roughly divided into two parts: the first tells about the undertaker's move, meeting a neighbor and celebrating his silver wedding. There, everyone was pretty drunk and drank to the health of those for whom they work.

The second part is the undertaker's dreams. The first, about the death and burial of the merchant Tryukhina, is very realistic. Both the reader and the undertaker perceive it as life. The undertaker dreams that after a tiring day of the merchant's funeral, he is returning home. And here begins the second part of the dream, phantasmagoric: all the dead (and deceived) buried by him come to the undertaker. Only awakening saves him from death. The attack of the dead is the moment of the highest tension, the climax. The exposition is a story about the move, the development of the action is a feast at the shoemaker's, the undertaker's dreams, the denouement is a happy awakening. In the ring composition, everything ends with the same thing as it began - family troubles. All mystical warnings are forgotten.

• "Undertaker", a summary of the story of Pushkin
• "The Captain's Daughter", a summary of the chapters of Pushkin's story
• "Boris Godunov", analysis of the tragedy of Alexander Pushkin