Andreevna's love for the cherry orchard. Characteristics of the hero Ranevskaya, Cherry Orchard, Chekhov

"The Miserly Knight" was conceived in 1826 and finished in the autumn of Boldin in 1830. Published in 1836 in the Sovremennik magazine. Pushkin gave the play the subtitle "From Chenston's Tragicomedy." But the writer of the 18th century. Shenston (in the tradition of the 19th century, his name was written Chenston) there was no such play. Perhaps Pushkin referred to a foreign author so that his contemporaries would not suspect that the poet described his relationship with his father, who was known for his stinginess.

Theme and plot

Pushkin's play "The Covetous Knight" is the first work in a cycle of dramatic sketches, short plays, which were later named "Little Tragedies". Pushkin intended in each play to reveal some side of the human soul, an all-consuming passion (avarice in The Covetous Knight). Spiritual qualities, psychology are shown in sharp and unusual plots.

Heroes and characters

The Baron is rich but stingy. He has six chests full of gold, from which he does not take a dime. Money is not servants or friends for him, as for the usurer Solomon, but gentlemen. The Baron does not want to admit to himself that money has enslaved him. He believes that thanks to money sleeping peacefully in chests, everything is subject to him: love, inspiration, genius, virtue, labor, even villainy. The Baron is ready to kill anyone who encroaches on his wealth, even his own son, whom he challenges to a duel. The duel is hindered by the duke, but the very possibility of losing money kills the baron. The passion that the Baron possesses consumes him.

Solomon has a different attitude to money: it is a way to achieve a goal, to survive. But, like the baron, for the sake of enrichment, he does not disdain anything, offering Albert to poison his own father.

Albert is a worthy young knight, strong and brave, winning tournaments and enjoying the favor of the ladies. He is completely dependent on his father. The young man has nothing to buy a helmet and armor, a dress for a feast and a horse for a tournament, only out of despair he decides to complain to the duke.

Albert has excellent spiritual qualities, he is kind, gives the last bottle of wine to a sick blacksmith. But he is broken by circumstances and dreams of the time when gold will be inherited by him. When the usurer Solomon proposes to bring Albert to the pharmacist who sells poison in order to poison his father, the knight drives him out in disgrace. And soon Albert already accepts the baron's challenge to a duel, he is ready to fight to the death with his own father, who insulted his honor. The Duke calls Albert a monster for this act.

The duke in the tragedy is a representative of the authorities who voluntarily took on this burden. The duke calls his age and the hearts of people terrible. Through the mouth of the Duke, Pushkin speaks about his time.

Problematic

In every small tragedy, Pushkin gazes intently at some vice. In The Covetous Knight, this pernicious passion is avarice: a change in the personality of a once worthy member of society under the influence of vice; the hero's submission to vice; vice as a cause of loss of dignity.

Conflict

The main conflict is external: between the stingy knight and his son, claiming his share. The Baron believes that wealth must be endured in order not to squander it. The Baron's goal is to preserve and increase, Albert's goal is to use and enjoy. The conflict is caused by the clash of these interests. It is aggravated by the participation of the duke, to whom the baron is forced to slander his son. The strength of the conflict is such that only the death of one of the parties can resolve it. Passion destroys the stingy knight, the reader can only guess about the fate of his wealth.

Composition

There are three scenes in the tragedy. From the first, the reader learns about the difficult financial situation of Albert, associated with the avarice of his father. The second scene is a monologue of a stingy knight, from which it is clear that passion has taken possession of him completely. In the third scene, a just duke intervenes in the conflict and involuntarily becomes the cause of the death of the hero possessed by passion. The culmination (the death of the baron) is adjacent to the denouement - the conclusion of the duke: "A terrible century, terrible hearts!"

genre

The Miserly Knight is a tragedy, that is, a dramatic work in which the main character dies. Pushkin achieved the small size of his tragedies, excluding everything unimportant. Pushkin's goal is to show the psychology of a person obsessed with the passion of avarice. All "Little Tragedies" complement each other, creating a voluminous portrait of humanity in all the variety of vices.

Style and artistic identity

All "Little Tragedies" are intended not so much for reading as for staging: how a stingy knight looks theatrically in a dark basement among the gold flickering by the light of a candle! The dialogues of tragedies are dynamic, and the monologue of the stingy knight is a poetic masterpiece. The reader just sees how bloody villainy creeps into the basement and licks the hand of the stingy knight. The images of The Covetous Knight cannot be forgotten.

• "The Miserly Knight", a summary of scenes from the play by Pushkin
• "The Captain's Daughter", a summary of the chapters of Pushkin's story

Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich

The stingy knight

(SCENES FROM HONESTONA TRAGICOMEDY: THE COVETOUS KNIGHT )

In the tower.

Albert and Ivan

Albert

By all means at the tournament

I will appear. Show me the helmet, Ivan.

Ivan hands him a helmet.

Broken through, flawed. Impossible

Put it on. I need to get a new one.

What a blow! accursed Count Delorge!

And you paid him back in order:

How you kicked him out of the stirrups,

He lay dead for a day - and hardly

Recovered.

Albert

And yet he is not at a loss;

His breastplate is intact Venetian,

And his own chest: he is not worth a dime;

The other will not buy for himself.

Why didn't I take off his helmet right there!

And I would have taken it off, if I wouldn’t have been ashamed

I will also give a duke. Damned Count!

He'd better pierce my head.

And I need the dress. Last time

All the knights were sitting here in the atlas

Yes velvet; I was alone in armor

At the ducal table. Disagreed

I got to the tournament by accident.

Now what can I say? O poverty, poverty!

How she humiliates our hearts!

When Delorgue with his heavy spear

He punched my helmet and rode past,

And I spurred with an open head

My emir, rushed like a whirlwind

And he threw the count twenty steps,

Like a little page; like all ladies

They got up from their seats when Clotilde herself,

Covering her face, she involuntarily screamed

And the heralds praised my blow, -

Then no one thought about the reason

And my courage and wondrous strength!

I went mad for a damaged helmet,

What was the fault of heroism? - stinginess.

Yes! it is not difficult to get infected here

Under the roof alone with my father.

What is my poor Emir?

He's all lame.

You cannot go on it yet.

Albert

Well, there’s nothing to do: I’ll buy Gnedoy.

Inexpensive and asking for it.

Inexpensive, but we have no money.

Albert

What does the idler Solomon say?

He says he can no longer

Lend to give you money without a mortgage.

Albert

Mortgage! and where can I get a mortgage, devil!

I told you.

Albert

Grunts and squeezes.

Albert

Would you tell him that my father

He is rich himself, like a Jew, that sooner or later

I inherit everything.

I told.

Albert

He squeezes and groans.

Albert

What a grief!

He wanted to come himself.

Albert

Well, thank God.

I will not release it without ransom.

They knock on the door.

Enters Jew.

Your servant is low.

Albert

Ah, buddy!

Cursed Jew, venerable Solomon,

Perhaps here: so you, I hear,

You don’t believe in debt.

Ah, gracious knight,

I swear to you: I would be glad ... I really can't.

Where can I get the money? I was all ruined,

All the knights assiduously helping.

Nobody pays. I wanted to ask you

Can't you give at least a part ...

Albert

Rogue!

Yes, if I had money,

Would I bother with you? Full,

Don't be stubborn, my dear Solomon;

Come on gold coins. Pour me a hundred

Until you were searched.

If I had a hundred ducats!

Albert

Are you ashamed of your friends

Don't help out?

I swear...

Albert

Full, full.

Do you require a mortgage? what nonsense!

What will I give you as a bet? pigskin?

If I could lay something, long ago

I would have sold it. Or a knightly word

Are you not enough, dog?

Your word,

As long as you are alive, it means a lot.

All the chests of the Flemish rich

As a talisman, it will unlock you.

But if you pass it

To me, a poor Jew, and meanwhile

Die (God forbid), then

In my hands it will be like

The key to the thrown box in the sea.

Albert

Will my father outlive me?

How do you know? our days are not numbered by us;

The youth bloomed in the evening, but today he died,

And here are his four old men

Carried on hunched shoulders to the grave.

The Baron is healthy. God willing - ten, twenty years

And twenty-five and thirty he will live.

Albert

You are lying, Jew: yes in thirty years

I turn fifty, then the money

What are they useful to me?

Money? - money

Always, at any age, they are suitable for us;

But the young man is looking for nimble servants in them

And not regretting sends here and there.

The old man sees in them reliable friends

And protects them like the apple of an eye.

Albert

O! my father is not servants or friends

In them he sees, and masters; and serves them himself.

And how does it serve? like an Algerian slave,

Like a chain dog. In an unheated kennel

Lives, drinks water, eats dry crusts,

He does not sleep all night, everything runs and barks.

And gold is calm in chests

Lies to itself. Shut up! someday

It will serve me, it will forget to lie.

Yes, at a baron's funeral

More money will be shed than tears.

God send you an inheritance soon.

Albert

And you can b ...

Albert

So, I thought that the remedy

There is such a thing ...

Albert

The gold motif, which permeates all musical development in the second scene of the opera, undergoes especially varied changes. In a small orchestral introduction to the picture, he sounds in the low register of tremolating strings dull and gloomy, even somewhat mysterious. The same motive takes on a different color in the central section, which begins with the words of the Baron:

I want to arrange a feast for myself today:
Light a candle in front of every chest
And I will unlock them all, and I will become
Among them, look at the shining heaps.

The gradual increase in light and brilliance, which reach a dazzling brightness at the moment when all the candles are lit in front of the open chests of gold and the gloomy basement appears as if flooded with the glow of a fire, is conveyed by Rachmaninoff in a large symphonic episode, which is the pinnacle of this picture. The long organ point on the dominant prepares the culminating conduct of the theme of gold in a shining D-major (Rachmaninov chose D-major as the “tonality of gold” after Rimsky-Korsakov, in whom it also sounds extremely brightly, with great force in the fourth picture “Sadko” , in the episode of the transformation of fish into gold bars. Of course, when comparing these two examples, one must take into account their completely different expressive character.). The brilliant sonority of the four French horns, accompanied by a powerful orchestral tutti, and the change in the rhythmic pattern of the theme give it a stately chivalrous character:

This climax is followed by a sudden breakdown. The selfless delight of the Baron, exclaiming in ecstasy: "I reign!., My state is strong ..." The picture ends with an episode of an arious character (Moderato: "Who knows how many bitter abstinence") in d-moll - the key that Rachmaninoff usually served to express sorrowful and dramatic experiences. The dramatic construction of this picture is based on three reference points: an introduction based on the theme of gold, a central episode of the miser's feast, in which the same theme develops, and a minor final construction. They affirm the dominant importance of the keys D-dur - d-moll in it. The final arioso (d-moll) summarizes and partially rethinks the three themes. Thus, from the motive of human tears and suffering, a pathetic theme of conscience arises, connecting with the theme of dark obsession and heavy, concentrated reflections:

The theme of gold, "taking over", seems to fade, loses its brilliance and shimmer, and a mournful phrase grows out of it, which alternately passes by the oboe, horn and bassoon, descending into an ever lower register:

In the very last bars of the second picture, the expressive sounding chromatic sequence of harmonies "sliding" towards the tonic in d-moll attracts attention:

This turn, imbued with a mood of gloomy despair, bears a resemblance to both the theme of gold and Albert's leitmotif, thus emphasizing the fatal bond between father and son, whom the rivalry and struggle for the possession of gold made irreconcilable enemies. The same turn sounds at the end of the whole opera, at the time of the death of the old Baron.

Third picture the opera, the most concise and laconic, is almost entirely built on the thematic material already sounded earlier; here he often appears in the same presentation and even in the same tonalities in which he was presented earlier (this picture begins with the introduction of Albert's theme in Es-dur, very reminiscent of the beginning of the first picture). If this achieves the integrity of the characteristics, then at the same time the abundance of repetitions becomes somewhat tedious towards the end and weakens the power of the dramatic impact.

After the scene in the basement, in which, despite the well-known imbalance of the vocal and orchestral-symphonic beginning, Rachmaninov managed to achieve a high tragic pathos, in the final picture there is a clear decline in dramatic tension. One of the most poignant dramatic moments, where there is a direct clash between father and son, ending with the death of the old Baron, turned out to be rather colorless and significantly inferior in terms of the strength of expression to much of the previous one. This imbalance affects the overall impression of the opera. The Baron's monologue rises so high above everything else that the two paintings that surround it seem to some extent as optional pendants to it.