The story of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin "The Duel" is written on biographical material: Kuprin studied at military schools for many years. He did not serve, immediately after graduating from the cadet school he wandered around provincial Russia, took up any job, but never returned to the army. The idea of ​​the story is in the failure of the domestic army, the author sees a crisis in the army, a reluctance to serve or fight both in the soldiers' layers and in the leading ranks.

Lieutenant Romashov is the main character in the story "Duel". At the beginning of his service, a young man dreams of glory, dreams of a thirst for heroism, an officer's honor, in his opinion, is the dignity of a true humanist, ready to sacrifice his life for the sake of high goals. But a year and a half in the army dramatically changed his idea of ​​service. Garrison life is permeated with vulgarity, primitivism of consciousness: daily drinking, endless game of cards, unnecessary connections with bored wives of officers. Romashov was also drawn into such a relationship. All this is done out of boredom, because in the garrison this is the only entertainment, and the service is monotonous and causes nothing but boredom.

Romashov is a dreamer, he is weak-willed, incapable of action, at least he is afraid to be in the spotlight. Upon closer examination of the hero, it becomes clear how he knows how to feel that Romashov is characterized by warmth, gentleness, and compassion. However, all these wonderful qualities cannot always manifest themselves because of the same weak will. In the soul of a young officer, there is a struggle between a man and an officer. It is changing before our eyes. He gradually expels caste prejudices from himself, seeing that all the officers are stupid, embittered, but at the same time "boast" of the "honor of the uniform." They allow themselves to be beaten up by ordinary soldiers, and this happens every day. As a result, the rank and file turn into faceless, obedient slaves. Whether they are smart or stupid, whether they are workers or peasants, the army makes them indistinguishable from each other.

Perhaps such changes occur under the influence of love for Shurochka Nikolaeva? Tender affection for the wife of a colleague is not much different from those feelings that connect Romashova with Raisa Peterson. However, he doesn't think so. He does not notice the flaws of his beloved woman, but she is selfish, hypocritical, power-hungry and calculating. And in the end, she coldly pushes him to an avoidable death. This is Romashov's weakness.

But unlike his colleagues, he never raised a hand against a soldier, taking advantage of his position and superiority. As a deeply impressionable nature, he cannot remain indifferent to what is happening around him. He learns to see the soldier as a friend, a brother. It is he who saves private Khlebnikov from suicide.

Communication with Nazansky, a drunken officer-philosopher, sows seeds of doubt in Romashov's soul about the correctness of his choice. After all, Nazansky is an intelligent, well-read, moral person. The same aspirations once lived in it, which still linger a little in Romashov's soul. But today - this is a drunken, degraded person, his example is proof of the destructiveness of the army environment.

The young officer does not succumb to the influence of the destructive atmosphere of the garrison, he tries in his own way to resist the vulgarity of the environment in which he finds himself. This is his strength. He has his own point of view on what is happening, and she is protesting the generally accepted one. He comes to the idea of ​​the complete abolition of the army. This only speaks of the separation of the second lieutenant from earthly realities. He lives by his fantasies. In the end, the hero comes to the only correct conclusion, in his opinion. He wants to leave the service and devote himself either to science, or art, or physical labor. Who knows what would have happened to Second Lieutenant Romashov further, if not for the duel, which interrupted all his dreams. He, in principle, was sacrificed for the career of another officer. Romashov never managed to do anything, and probably never would have done it.

In the story "Duel" Kuprin showed the appalling state of the disenfranchised soldiers and the degraded officers' masses. By their purely human qualities, the officers of Kuprin's "Duel" are very different people. Almost each of them has a minimum of "good" feelings, fancifully mixed with cruelty, rudeness, indifference. But these "good" feelings are distorted beyond recognition by caste military prejudices. Let the regimental commander Shulgovich (this, according to Leo Tolstoy, "a wonderful positive type"), under his thunderous bourbon style, hide his concern for officers, or Lieutenant Colonel Rafalsky loves animals and give all his free and not free time to collecting a rare domestic menagerie - no real relief , with all their desire, they can not bring. Appearing during the Russo-Japanese War and amid the growth of the first Russian revolution, the work caused a huge public outcry, since it shattered one of the main foundations of the autocratic state - the inviolability of the military caste.

The Duel issue goes beyond the traditional military caste. Kuprin also touches on the issue of the causes of social inequality of people, and on the possible ways of a person's liberation from spiritual oppression, and on the problem of the relationship between the individual and society, the intelligentsia and the people. The plot of the work is built on the twists and turns of fate, an honest Russian officer, who is forced to think about the wrong relations between people by the conditions of an army barracks life. The feeling of spiritual fall haunts not only Romashov, but also Shurochka. Comparison of the two heroes, who are characterized by two types of worldview, is generally characteristic of Kuprin. Both heroes strive to find a way out of the impasse, while Romashov comes to the idea of ​​a protest against the bourgeois well-being and stagnation, and Shurochka adapts to him, despite the outward ostentatious rejection.

The author's attitude to her is ambivalent; he is closer to Romashov's "reckless nobility and noble silence". Kuprin even noted that he considers Romashov his double, and the story itself is largely autobiographical. Romashov is a "natural person", he instinctively resists injustice, but his protest is weak, his dreams and plans easily collapse, as they are immature and ill-considered, often naive. Romashov is close to Chekhov's heroes. But the emerging need for immediate action strengthens his will to actively resist. After meeting with the soldier Khlebnikov, "humiliated and insulted," a turning point comes in Romashov's mind, he is shocked by a person's willingness to commit suicide, in which he sees the only way out of a martyr's life. The sincerity of Khlebnikov's impulse especially clearly indicates to Romashova the stupidity and immaturity of his youthful fantasies, with the aim of only "proving" something to those around him.

A.I.Kuprin's story was published in May 1905. The author continued in it a description of army life. From the sketches of the life of the provincial garrison, a social generalization of the decomposition of not only the army, but also the country as a whole, the state system grows.

This is a story about a crisis that has engulfed various spheres of Russian life. The universal hatred corroding the army is a reflection of the enmity that gripped tsarist Russia.

In "Duel", as in none of his other works, Kuprin with great artistic force portrayed the moral decay of the officers, showed stupid commanders, devoid of any glimpses of civil service. He showed muzzled, frightened soldiers, stupefied by senseless drills, such as Khlebnikov, a puny left-flank soldier. Humane officers, if they met, were subjected to ridicule, senselessly died, like second lieutenant Romashov, or drunk themselves, like Nazansky.

Kuprin made his hero a humane, but weak and quiet person who does not fight evil, but suffers from it. Even the name of the hero - Romashov - and she emphasized the gentleness, gentleness of this man.

Kuprin paints Georgy Romashov with sympathy and sympathy, but also with the author's irony. The history of Romashov, outwardly connected with the army, is not just the story of a young officer. This is the story of a young man who is going through what Kuprin calls the “period of maturation of the soul.” Romashov grows up morally throughout the story, finds answers to very important questions for himself. He suddenly comes to the conclusion that the army is unnecessary, but he understands this very naively. It seems to him that it is worth to all of humanity to say "I do not want to!" - and the war will become inconceivable and the army will die out.

Second lieutenant Romashov decides to break with those around him, realizes that every soldier has his own "I". He has outlined for himself completely new connections with the world. The title of the story has the same generalizing solution as its main conflict. Throughout the story, there is a duel between a young man, reborn for the new, and the various forces of the old. Kuprin writes not about a duel of honor, but about a murder in a duel.

The final treacherous blow was dealt to Romashov in love. Disregard for the weak, hatred for the feeling of pity, which sounded in the speeches of Nazansky, is carried out in practice by Shurochka. Despising the environment and its morality, Shurochka Nikolaeva turns out to be its integral part. The plot of the story ends symbolically: the old world throws all its forces against a man who has begun to spread its wings.

In the summer and autumn of 1905, Kuprin's story shook readers in the Russian army and throughout the country, and very soon there were translations of it into the main European languages. The writer receives not only the widest all-Russian fame, but also the all-European fame.

A man and an army machine - that's, in my opinion, the main problem of Kuprin's story "Duel". This is a realistic tale of Russian officers. At its center is the conflict between the dreamer and the inhuman world that humiliates human dignity.

The plot of the work is everyday tragic: Second Lieutenant Romashov dies as a result of a duel with Lieutenant Nikolayev. An urban intellectual in the uniform of a second lieutenant, Romashov suffers from the vulgarity and absurdity of life, "monotonous like a fence and gray like a soldier's cloth." The general atmosphere of cruelty and impunity that prevailed among the officers creates the preconditions for a conflict to emerge.

"Non-commissioned officers brutally beat their soldiers for an insignificant error in language, for a lost leg while marching ..."

Kuprin writes about the recruits: "They stood in the regimental yard, huddled together, in the rain, like a herd of frightened and obedient animals, looked incredulously, sullenly." Once in the army, these young boys quickly lose their individuality: "They danced, but in this dance, as in singing, there was something wooden, dead, which made you want to cry." They themselves begin to beat the soldiers: "They beat him (Khlebnikov) every day, they laugh at him, they mock him ..."

Romashov feels for the hunted soldier Khlebnikov "a surge of warm, selfless, endless compassion." The author does not idealize young Romashov and does not at all make him a fighter against the way of life in the army. Romashov is only capable of timid disagreement, of hesitant attempts to convince that decent people should not attack an unarmed man with a sword: “It is not fair to beat a soldier. That's shameful."

The atmosphere of contemptuous alienation hardens Lieutenant Romashov. Towards the end of the story, he discovers firmness and strength of character. The fight becomes inevitable. His love for a married woman, Shurochka Nikolaeva, who was not ashamed to conclude a cynical deal with a man in love with her, in which his life became the stake, accelerated the denouement.

It must be said that the theme of the duel runs through all Russian literature of the 19th century. Let us recall the knightly duel between Petrusha Grinev and the slanderer Shvabrin in Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter and compare it with the actual murder of Baren Tuzenbach by Staff Captain Salt in Chekhov's Three Sisters. And we see that before us are different generations, different people, different duels. Over time, “single combat of honor” loses its meaning, as the system of human values ​​loses its meaning. This is what worries Kuprin most of all. Therefore, before us is not just a duel between two military men, it is a duel between good and evil, cynicism and purity.

Kuprin raised in his story the painful, acute problem of the Russian army in the early 1900s. Aloofness, a deaf misunderstanding between officers and soldiers, narrow-mindedness, caste isolation, and the scarcity of the educational level of the Russian officers were outlined by Kuprin cruelly, but precisely.

The more the instruments of murder are improved, the more important becomes the question of the state of morality of those who hold these weapons in their hands. Reading Kuprin's story, we find that among the officers there is the following concept of army life: “Today we will get drunk, tomorrow in the company - one, two, left, right. In the evening we will drink again, and the day after tomorrow in the company. " Is it really all life in this?

But no other was offered. The officers and their wives had to be content with such a routine. How wretched are their entertainments and hobbies: "A rather naive, boyish game was widespread among the young officers in the regiment: to teach orderlies in various outlandish, extraordinary things." And a person, cut off from his environment, often lost his face and succumbed to the general army "decay". Most officers are of low morale. Their conversations are dirty and vulgar. They are not interested in lofty matters. I completely agree with Nazansky's opinion: “They laugh: ha-ha-ha, this is all philosophy! .. It is ridiculous, and wild, and impermissible for an officer of the army infantry to think about lofty matters. This is philosophy, damn it, therefore - nonsense, idle and absurd chatter. "

The creators of the army machine deliberately lower the moral level of the officers. And this is not surprising. In order to force a person to kill his own kind, you need to destroy his ideas of good and evil, of justice. But officers are the core of the army. Consequently, the entire army was subjected to moral decay.

I believe that instilling false, unnatural moral concepts in a person is the root of the army's evil. And Kuprin blames the army for the distortion of the natural purpose of man. No wonder the critics called Kuprin's "Duel" a duel with the army.

But among the heroes of the story there are individual officers who are worried about what is happening. Let's listen to the words of those who have experienced the soullessness of an army machine: “Just a question: where are we going to go if we don't serve? Where we go when we only know - left, right - and no more, no me, no crow. We know how to die, that's right, ”says Lieutenant Vetkin. These officers had nowhere to go. They did not have a specialty, they did not know how to earn bread otherwise than by serving in the army. This hopelessness seems to me the most difficult in their situation. The officers who risked breaking with the army returned back, not finding a place for themselves in life.

However, Romashov nevertheless found the strength to break with the army, although he could not bring his break to the end due to his death in a duel. Romashov did not allow the army machine to erase its personal "I". The protagonist of the story does not see and does not feel the meaning in the very existence of the army.

Of course, the army has its own laws, its own power, its own methods. So it was and will be. It seems to me that a brave daredevil who dared to challenge the army machine is an eminently humanist. Kuprin warned humanity about the danger lurking in the army.

The prophecy and undoubted talent of Kuprin lies in the fact that he saw in the hatred of the military for the "shpak" the outset of a future civil war. His book, which carries the truthful word, concealing such a brilliant prophecy, is immortal.

"Duel" was published in the days of the defeat of the Russian fleet at Tsushima. The cruel, shameful reality of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905 confirmed the pathos of the story and Kuprin's diagnosis. "Duel" became a literary and social sensation in 1905, the first months of the first Russian revolution. The story was highly appreciated by Gorky, Stasov, Repin.

In 1918 Kuprin wrote with anger and grief about the collapse of the front of the First World War: “We had a wonderful army that amazed the whole world. She melted, leaving behind dirty footprints ... "

I share the opinion of the great writer. And I think that the army traits he debunked remain in the modern army. The story of our contemporary S. Kaledin "Stroybat" proves the relevance of this topic in our days: "There is no government on the lips, legal - no. And without the law - you can find it. " Our young generation still hopes for a new humane law that will revive the glory of the Russian army and change the position of servicemen in our country.

AI Kuprin wrote the story The Duel being already a popular author. The former military man himself, the writer knew the officers firsthand. The work on the story took about three years. The reason for such a long period lies, apparently, in the immensity of the chosen topic.

The name Duel has a double meaning. The duel of the young officer Romashov with the unbearable oppressive reality of army life logically ends with a duel - a duel in which one rival dies, and the second has already died long ago, without noticing it himself.

The heroes of the story live in some eerie incomprehensible world. A world where people do not belong to themselves, where common sense is sacrificed to the provisions of military regulations, where relations between people are replaced by subordination. Where a minor mistake can lead to irreparable consequences. Where people, like zombies, walk the same route, unable to wake up from the devil's hypnosis. All Romashov's colleagues, officers, are just the shadows of former people, from whom the army has corroded all human feelings.

And in this ghostly virtual world, not knowing the rules of the game, Romashov is trying to resist the oppressive reality. And at first he even seems to succeed. He starts human relations with his colleagues, he is kind to his orderly Gaynan. He even has a real affair with his friend's wife Shurochka. However, gradually alarming notes appear in the narrative, which gradually become more and more obvious. And finally, the reader begins to understand with horror that there is no way out of this hell and cannot be. That the millstones, abrading and grinding all living things, approach inevitably, and that this cup will not escape the hero.

The atmosphere is gradually heating up, the clouds over the hero are gathering. Romashov now and then finds himself in situations from which he comes out more and more depressed and depressed. The riot arranged for him by the commander, the conversation with the former lover of his beloved - all these events gradually press down, oppress the hero, depriving him of the will to win. And the apotheosis is a wild quarrel with Shurochka's husband, which leads to a challenge to a duel.

The writer did not even include a duel scene in the story, this is not necessary. The outcome of the human life of the hero of the story is summed up in the language of a dry army report.

Preparing for the Unified State Exam and GIA: Composition Kuprin duel analysis "/ January 2016

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In the story "Duel" Kuprin showed the appalling state of the disenfranchised soldiers and the degraded officers' masses. By their purely human qualities, the officers of Kuprin's "Duel" are very different people. Almost each of them has a minimum of "good" feelings, fancifully mixed with cruelty, rudeness, indifference. But these "good" feelings are distorted beyond recognition by caste military prejudices. Let the regimental commander Shulgovich (this, according to Leo Tolstoy, "a wonderful positive type"), under his thunderous bourbon style, hide his concern for officers, or Lieutenant Colonel Rafalsky loves animals and give all his free and not free time to collecting a rare domestic menagerie - no real relief , with all their desire, they can not bring. Appearing during the Russo-Japanese War and amid the growth of the first Russian revolution, the work caused a huge public outcry, since it shattered one of the main foundations of the autocratic state - the inviolability of the military caste.

The Duel issue goes beyond the traditional military caste. Kuprin also touches on the issue of the causes of social inequality of people, and on the possible ways of a person's liberation from spiritual oppression, and on the problem of the relationship between the individual and society, the intelligentsia and the people. The plot of the work is built on the twists and turns of fate, an honest Russian officer, who is forced to think about the wrong relations between people by the conditions of an army barracks life. The feeling of spiritual fall haunts not only Romashov, but also Shurochka. Comparison of the two heroes, who are characterized by two types of worldview, is generally characteristic of Kuprin. Both heroes strive to find a way out of the impasse, while Romashov comes to the idea of ​​a protest against the bourgeois well-being and stagnation, and Shurochka adapts to him, despite the outward ostentatious rejection.

The author's attitude to her is ambivalent; he is closer to Romashov's "reckless nobility and noble silence". Kuprin even noted that he considers Romashov his double, and the story itself is largely autobiographical. Romashov is a "natural person", he instinctively resists injustice, but his protest is weak, his dreams and plans easily collapse, as they are immature and ill-considered, often naive. Romashov is close to Chekhov's heroes. But the emerging need for immediate action strengthens his will to actively resist. After meeting with the soldier Khlebnikov, "humiliated and insulted," a turning point comes in Romashov's mind, he is shocked by a person's willingness to commit suicide, in which he sees the only way out of a martyr's life. The sincerity of Khlebnikov's impulse especially clearly indicates to Romashova the stupidity and immaturity of his youthful fantasies, with the aim of only "proving" something to those around him.

Romashov is shocked by the power of Khlebnikov's suffering, and it is the desire for compassion that makes the second lieutenant think about the fate of the common people. However, Romashov's attitude to Khlebnikov is contradictory: conversations about humanity and justice bear the imprint of abstract humanism, Romashov's call for compassion is largely naive. In "Duel" Kuprin continues the traditions of the psychological analysis of L. N. Tolstoy: in the work one can hear, in addition to the protesting voice of the hero himself, who saw the injustice of a cruel and stupid life, and the author's accusatory voice (Nazansky's monologues).

Kuprin uses Tolstoy's favorite technique - the technique of substitution for the protagonist of the hero-reasoner. In "Duel" Nazansky is the bearer of social ethics. The image of Nazansky is ambiguous: his radical mood (critical monologues, a romantic premonition of a "radiant life", foresight of impending social upheavals, hatred of the military caste's lifestyle, ability to appreciate high, pure love, to feel the spontaneity and beauty of life) conflicts with his own image life. The only salvation from moral death is for the individualist Nazansky and for Romashov an escape from all social ties and obligations. The writer shows that officers, regardless of their personal qualities, are just an obedient instrument of inhumanly categorical statutory conventions.

The caste laws of army life, complicated by material scarcity and provincial spiritual poverty, form a terrible type of Russian officer, who was directly embodied a little later, in the story "Wedding", in the image of the ensign Slezkin, who despised everything that was not part of the everyday life of his narrow life or what he didn't understand. Slezkins, run-agamalovs, sieges zealously perform military rituals, but the service makes a repulsive impression on people of a more subtle mental organization like Romashov precisely because of its unnaturalness and antihumanity. From the denial of petty army rites, Romashov comes to the denial of war as such. Desperate human "I don't want to!" should, according to the young second lieutenant. to destroy the barbaric method - to resolve disputes between peoples by force of arms: “Let’s say, tomorrow, let’s say, this very second this thought occurred to everyone: Russians, Germans, British, Japanese ... And now there is no more war, there are no officers and soldiers; houses ".

A.I.Kuprin's story was published in May 1905. The author continued in it a description of army life. From the sketches of the life of the provincial garrison, a social generalization of the decomposition of not only the army, but also the country as a whole, the state system grows.

This is a story about a crisis that has engulfed various spheres of Russian life. The universal hatred corroding the army is a reflection of the enmity that gripped tsarist Russia.

In "Duel", as in none of his other works, Kuprin with great artistic force portrayed the moral decay of the officers, showed stupid commanders, devoid of any glimpses of civil service. He showed muzzled, frightened soldiers, stupefied by senseless drills, such as Khlebnikov, a puny left-flank soldier. Humane officers, if they met, were subjected to ridicule, senselessly died, like second lieutenant Romashov, or drunk themselves, like Nazansky.

Kuprin made his hero a humane, but weak and quiet person who does not fight evil, but suffers from it. Even the name of the hero - Romashov - and she emphasized the gentleness, gentleness of this man.

Kuprin paints Georgy Romashov with sympathy and sympathy, but also with the author's irony. The history of Romashov, outwardly connected with the army, is not just the story of a young officer. This is the story of a young man who is going through what Kuprin calls the “period of maturation of the soul.” Romashov grows up morally throughout the story, finds answers to very important questions for himself. He suddenly comes to the conclusion that the army is unnecessary, but he understands this very naively. It seems to him that it is worth to all of humanity to say "I do not want to!" - and the war will become inconceivable and the army will die out.

Second lieutenant Romashov decides to break with those around him, realizes that every soldier has his own "I". He has outlined for himself completely new connections with the world. The title of the story has the same generalizing solution as its main conflict. Throughout the story, there is a duel between a young man, reborn for the new, and the various forces of the old. Kuprin writes not about a duel of honor, but about a murder in a duel.

The final treacherous blow was dealt to Romashov in love. Disregard for the weak, hatred for the feeling of pity, which sounded in the speeches of Nazansky, is carried out in practice by Shurochka. Despising the environment and its morality, Shurochka Nikolaeva turns out to be its integral part. The plot of the story ends symbolically: the old world throws all its forces against a man who has begun to spread its wings.

In the summer and autumn of 1905, Kuprin's story shook readers in the Russian army and throughout the country, and very soon there were translations of it into the main European languages. The writer receives not only the widest all-Russian fame, but also the all-European fame.

The story "Duel" by A. Kuprin is considered to be his best work, since it touches upon an important problem of the army's troubles. The author himself was once a cadet, he was initially inspired by this idea - to go to the army, but in the future he will remember these years with horror. Therefore, the theme of the army, its ugliness is very well depicted by him in such works as "At the Turning Point" and "The Duel".

The heroes are army officers, here the author did not stint and created several portraits: Colonel Shulgovich, Captain Osadchiy, officer Nazansky and others. All these characters are not shown in the best light: the army turned them into monsters who recognize exclusively inhumanity and education with sticks.

The main character is Yuri Romashkov, second lieutenant, whom the author himself called literally his double. In him we see completely different features that distinguish him from the aforementioned persons: sincerity, decency, the desire to make this world better than it is. Also, the hero is sometimes dreamy and very intelligent.

Every day Romashkov was convinced that the soldiers were powerless, he saw brutal treatment and indifference on the part of the officers. He tried to protest, but the gesture was sometimes difficult to notice. There were many plans in his head that he dreamed of realizing for the sake of justice. But the further, the more his eyes begin to open. Thus, Khlebnikov's suffering and his impulse to end his own life amaze the hero so much that he finally understands that his fantasies and plans for justice are too stupid and naive.

Romashkov is a person with a bright soul, with a desire to help others. However, love ruined the hero: he believed the married Shurochka, for whom he went to a duel. Romashkova's quarrel with her husband led to a duel that ended sadly. It was a betrayal - the girl knew that this was exactly what the duel would end with, but she tricked the hero in love with herself that there would be a draw. Moreover, she deliberately used his feelings for herself, only to help her husband.

Romashkov, who was looking for justice all this time, in the end could not fight the merciless reality, he lost to her. And the author saw no other way out, except for the death of the hero - otherwise he would have faced another, moral death.

Analysis of Kuprin's story The Duel

The duel is perhaps one of the most famous works of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin.

In this work, we found a reflection of the author's thoughts. He describes the Russian army at the beginning of the 20th century, how its life is arranged, how it actually lives. Using the example of the army, Kuprin shows the social ill-being in which it finds itself. He not only describes and reflects, but also looks for possible ways out of the situation.

The appearance of the army is varied: it consists of different people, differing from each other in certain traits of character, appearance, attitude to life. In the described garrison, everything is like everywhere else: constant drilling in the morning, revelry and drunkenness in the evenings - and so on from day to day.

The main character, second lieutenant Yuri Alekseevich Romashov, is considered to be written by the author himself, Alexander Ivanovich. Romashov is a dreamy personality, somewhat naive, but honest. He truly believes that the world can be changed. As for a young man, he is prone to romanticization, he wants feats, to show himself. But over time, he realizes that this is all empty. He fails to find like-minded people, interlocutors among other officers. The only one with whom he manages to find a common language is Nazansky. Perhaps it was the absence of a person with whom he can speak as with himself that ultimately led to a tragic denouement.

Fate brings Romashov to the officer's wife, Alexandra Petrovna Nikolaeva, or otherwise Shurochka. This woman is beautiful, smart, incredibly pretty, but with all this she is pragmatic and calculating. She is both beautiful and insidious. She is driven by one desire: to leave this city, to get to the capital, to live a "real" life, and she is ready for a lot for this. At one time, she was in love with another, but he was not suitable for the role of someone who can fulfill her ambitious plans. And she chose to marry someone who could help her dream come true. But the years go by, and my husband still does not manage to get a promotion with a transfer to the capital. He already had two chances, and the third was extreme. Shurochka languishes in the shower and it is not surprising that she converges with Romashov. They understand each other like no one else. But unfortunately Romashov cannot help Shurochka get out of this backwater in any way.

Over time, everything becomes clear, and the husband of Alexandra Petrovna learns about the novel. The officers of that time were allowed to duel as the only way to protect their own dignity.

This is the first and last duel in Romashov's life. He will trust the words of Shurochka that her husband will shoot by, and let him shoot by: honor is saved and life too. Romashov, as an honest man, does not even think that he can be deceived. So Romashov was killed as a result of the betrayal of the one he loved.

On the example of Romashov, we can see how the romantic world collapses when faced with reality. So Romashov, having come out to the duel, lost to the harsh reality.

Grade 11 story

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  The story "Khor and Kalinych" is included in the cycle of stories "Notes of a Hunter", and is one of the most famous stories of I.S. Turgenev. It was with this story, published in 1847, that the whole cycle began.

A man and an army machine - that's, in my opinion, the main problem of Kuprin's story "Duel". This is a realistic tale of Russian officers. At its center is the conflict between the dreamer and the inhuman world that humiliates human dignity.

The plot of the work is everyday tragic: Second Lieutenant Romashov dies as a result of a duel with Lieutenant Nikolayev. An urban intellectual in the uniform of a second lieutenant, Romashov suffers from the vulgarity and absurdity of life, "monotonous like a fence and gray like a soldier's cloth." The general atmosphere of cruelty and impunity that prevailed among the officers creates the preconditions for a conflict to emerge.

"Non-commissioned officers brutally beat their soldiers for an insignificant error in language, for a lost leg while marching ..."

Kuprin writes about the recruits: "They stood in the regimental yard, huddled together, in the rain, like a herd of frightened and obedient animals, looked incredulously, sullenly." Once in the army, these young boys quickly lose their individuality: "They danced, but in this dance, as in singing, there was something wooden, dead, which made you want to cry." They themselves begin to beat the soldiers: "They beat him (Khlebnikov) every day, they laugh at him, they mock him ..."

Romashov feels for the hunted soldier Khlebnikov "a surge of warm, selfless, endless compassion." The author does not idealize young Romashov and does not at all make him a fighter against the way of life in the army. Romashov is only capable of timid disagreement, of hesitant attempts to convince that decent people should not attack an unarmed man with a sword: “It is not fair to beat a soldier. That's shameful."

The atmosphere of contemptuous alienation hardens Lieutenant Romashov. Towards the end of the story, he discovers firmness and strength of character. The fight becomes inevitable. His love for a married woman, Shurochka Nikolaeva, who was not ashamed to conclude a cynical deal with a man in love with her, in which his life became the stake, accelerated the denouement.

It must be said that the theme of the duel runs through all Russian literature of the 19th century. Let us recall the knightly duel between Petrusha Grinev and the slanderer Shvabrin in Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter and compare it with the actual murder of Baren Tuzenbach by Staff Captain Salt in Chekhov's Three Sisters. And we see that before us are different generations, different people, different duels. Over time, “single combat of honor” loses its meaning, as the system of human values ​​loses its meaning. This is what worries Kuprin most of all. Therefore, before us is not just a duel between two military men, it is a duel between good and evil, cynicism and purity.

Kuprin raised in his story the painful, acute problem of the Russian army in the early 1900s. Aloofness, a deaf misunderstanding between officers and soldiers, narrow-mindedness, caste isolation, and the scarcity of the educational level of the Russian officers were outlined by Kuprin cruelly, but precisely.

The more the instruments of murder are improved, the more important becomes the question of the state of morality of those who hold these weapons in their hands. Reading Kuprin's story, we find that among the officers there is the following concept of army life: “Today we will get drunk, tomorrow in the company - one, two, left, right. In the evening we will drink again, and the day after tomorrow in the company. " Is it really all life in this?

But no other was offered. The officers and their wives had to be content with such a routine. How wretched are their entertainments and hobbies: "A rather naive, boyish game was widespread among the young officers in the regiment: to teach orderlies in various outlandish, extraordinary things." And a person, cut off from his environment, often lost his face and succumbed to the general army "decay". Most officers are of low morale. Their conversations are dirty and vulgar. They are not interested in lofty matters. I completely agree with Nazansky's opinion: “They laugh: ha-ha-ha, this is all philosophy! .. It is ridiculous, and wild, and impermissible for an officer of the army infantry to think about lofty matters. This is philosophy, damn it, therefore - nonsense, idle and absurd chatter. "

The creators of the army machine deliberately lower the moral level of the officers. And this is not surprising. In order to force a person to kill his own kind, you need to destroy his ideas of good and evil, of justice. But officers are the core of the army. Consequently, the entire army was subjected to moral decay.

I believe that instilling false, unnatural moral concepts in a person is the root of the army's evil. And Kuprin blames the army for the distortion of the natural purpose of man. No wonder the critics called Kuprin's "Duel" a duel with the army.

But among the heroes of the story there are individual officers who are worried about what is happening. Let's listen to the words of those who have experienced the soullessness of an army machine: “Just a question: where are we going to go if we don't serve? Where we go when we only know - left, right - and no more, no me, no crow. We know how to die, that's right, ”says Lieutenant Vetkin. These officers had nowhere to go. They did not have a specialty, they did not know how to earn bread otherwise than by serving in the army. This hopelessness seems to me the most difficult in their situation. The officers who risked breaking with the army returned back, not finding a place for themselves in life.

However, Romashov nevertheless found the strength to break with the army, although he could not bring his break to the end due to his death in a duel. Romashov did not allow the army machine to erase its personal "I". The protagonist of the story does not see and does not feel the meaning in the very existence of the army.

Of course, the army has its own laws, its own power, its own methods. So it was and will be. It seems to me that a brave daredevil who dared to challenge the army machine is an eminently humanist. Kuprin warned humanity about the danger lurking in the army.

The prophecy and undoubted talent of Kuprin lies in the fact that he saw in the hatred of the military for the "shpak" the outset of a future civil war. His book, which carries the truthful word, concealing such a brilliant prophecy, is immortal.

"Duel" was published in the days of the defeat of the Russian fleet at Tsushima. The cruel, shameful reality of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905 confirmed the pathos of the story and Kuprin's diagnosis. "Duel" became a literary and social sensation in 1905, the first months of the first Russian revolution. The story was highly appreciated by Gorky, Stasov, Repin.

In 1918 Kuprin wrote with anger and grief about the collapse of the front of the First World War: “We had a wonderful army that amazed the whole world. She melted, leaving behind dirty footprints ... "

I share the opinion of the great writer. And I think that the army traits he debunked remain in the modern army. The story of our contemporary S. Kaledin "Stroybat" proves the relevance of this topic in our days: "There is no government on the lips, legal - no. And without the law - you can find it. " Our young generation still hopes for a new humane law that will revive the glory of the Russian army and change the position of servicemen in our country.

In the story "Duel" Kuprin showed the appalling state of the disenfranchised soldiers and the degraded officers' masses. By their purely human qualities, the officers of Kuprin's "Duel" are very different people. Almost each of them has a minimum of "good" feelings, fancifully mixed with cruelty, rudeness, indifference. But these "good" feelings are distorted beyond recognition by caste military prejudices. Let the regimental commander Shulgovich (this, according to Leo Tolstoy, "a wonderful positive type"), under his thunderous bourbon style, hide his concern for officers, or Lieutenant Colonel Rafalsky loves animals and give all his free and not free time to collecting a rare domestic menagerie - no real relief , with all their desire, they can not bring. Appearing during the Russo-Japanese War and amid the growth of the first Russian revolution, the work caused a huge public outcry, since it shattered one of the main foundations of the autocratic state - the inviolability of the military caste.

The Duel issue goes beyond the traditional military caste. Kuprin also touches on the issue of the causes of social inequality of people, and on the possible ways of a person's liberation from spiritual oppression, and on the problem of the relationship between the individual and society, the intelligentsia and the people. The plot of the work is built on the twists and turns of fate, an honest Russian officer, who is forced to think about the wrong relations between people by the conditions of an army barracks life. The feeling of spiritual fall haunts not only Romashov, but also Shurochka. Comparison of the two heroes, who are characterized by two types of worldview, is generally characteristic of Kuprin. Both heroes strive to find a way out of the impasse, while Romashov comes to the idea of ​​a protest against the bourgeois well-being and stagnation, and Shurochka adapts to him, despite the outward ostentatious rejection.

The author's attitude to her is ambivalent; he is closer to Romashov's "reckless nobility and noble silence". Kuprin even noted that he considers Romashov his double, and the story itself is largely autobiographical. Romashov is a "natural person", he instinctively resists injustice, but his protest is weak, his dreams and plans easily collapse, as they are immature and ill-considered, often naive. Romashov is close to Chekhov's heroes. But the emerging need for immediate action strengthens his will to actively resist. After meeting with the soldier Khlebnikov, "humiliated and insulted," a turning point comes in Romashov's mind, he is shocked by a person's willingness to commit suicide, in which he sees the only way out of a martyr's life. The sincerity of Khlebnikov's impulse especially clearly indicates to Romashova the stupidity and immaturity of his youthful fantasies, with the aim of only "proving" something to those around him.

Romashov is shocked by the power of Khlebnikov's suffering, and it is the desire for compassion that makes the second lieutenant think about the fate of the common people. However, Romashov's attitude to Khlebnikov is contradictory: conversations about humanity and justice bear the imprint of abstract humanism, Romashov's call for compassion is largely naive. In "Duel" Kuprin continues the traditions of the psychological analysis of L. N. Tolstoy: in the work one can hear, in addition to the protesting voice of the hero himself, who saw the injustice of a cruel and stupid life, and the author's accusatory voice (Nazansky's monologues).

Kuprin uses Tolstoy's favorite technique - the technique of substitution for the protagonist of the hero-reasoner. In "Duel" Nazansky is the bearer of social ethics. The image of Nazansky is ambiguous: his radical mood (critical monologues, a romantic premonition of a "radiant life", foresight of impending social upheavals, hatred of the military caste's lifestyle, ability to appreciate high, pure love, to feel the spontaneity and beauty of life) conflicts with his own image life. The only salvation from moral death is for the individualist Nazansky and for Romashov an escape from all social ties and obligations. The writer shows that officers, regardless of their personal qualities, are just an obedient instrument of inhumanly categorical statutory conventions.

The caste laws of army life, complicated by material scarcity and provincial spiritual poverty, form a terrible type of Russian officer, who was directly embodied a little later, in the story "Wedding", in the image of the ensign Slezkin, who despised everything that was not part of the everyday life of his narrow life or what he didn't understand. Slezkins, run-agamalovs, sieges zealously perform military rituals, but the service makes a repulsive impression on people of a more subtle mental organization like Romashov precisely because of its unnaturalness and antihumanity. From the denial of petty army rites, Romashov comes to the denial of war as such. Desperate human "I don't want to!" should, according to the young second lieutenant. to destroy the barbaric method - to resolve disputes between peoples by force of arms: “Let’s say, tomorrow, let’s say, this very second this thought occurred to everyone: Russians, Germans, British, Japanese ... And now there is no more war, there are no officers and soldiers; houses ".

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Essays on the topic of honor on our website:

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The problem of honor and dishonor is one of the most important in a person's life. We are taught from childhood that it is dishonestly bad to act. Passing the playground, we hear every now and then: “This is not fair! We must replay! "
Here's the definition honor we find the dictionary of S.I. Ozhegova:
There is also a definition of the word "fair":
In the dictionary of V.I. Dahl is given the following sayings about dishonor:

Honor is a moral category. The concept of honor is inextricably linked with the concept of conscience, that is, to be an honest person is to live according to conscience, according to deep inner convictions that one is good and the other is bad.
With the problem of how to act: honestly or dishonestly (lie or tell the truth; betray or remain faithful to the country, person, word, principles, etc.), a person faces literally every day. That is why all the world's literature, in one way or another, turned to her.
the problem of honor and dishonor is one of the most important. Erast, a windy young man, a nobleman, carried away by Liza, a peasant girl, thinks to leave his usual society for her and abandon the old way of life. But in the end, his dreams turn out to be self-deception. Liza, deeply in love with Erast, sincerely believes the young man and gives him the most precious thing she has, a poor girl, - her maiden honor. Karamzin bitterly reproaches Liza for this act:

But if we can understand and justify Liza (she is truly in love!), Then Erast cannot be justified. Brought up in a noble environment in such a way that he cannot earn his own living on his own, the hero, who is threatened with a debt hole, since he has lost all his fortune at cards, decides to marry a rich widow. Lisa, who is waiting for her lover from the war, accidentally learns about everything, and Erast, taken by surprise, wants to pay off the girl with money. The act is deeply dishonorable, showing Erast's cowardice, his lack of will, selfishness. Liza turned out to be more decent than Erast, having paid for her love and lost honor at a very high price - with her own life.
all heroes pass a test of honor. Take care of honor from a young age - this is the main instruction of father to Peter Grinev, who goes to work. And the hero fulfills the parent's command with dignity. He refuses to swear allegiance to Pugachev, while another hero - Alexei Shvabrin - does it without much hesitation. Shvabrin is a traitor, but if his act could only be explained by a completely understandable fear of death, then he could somehow be justified. But Shvabrin is a mean, low man. We know this from how he tried to denigrate Masha Mironova in the eyes of Grinev, how he despicably wounded Peter during a duel. Therefore, his betrayal is quite natural and cannot be justified.
Pugachev's henchmen, who betrayed him, also show themselves to be dishonest people. While Pugachev himself, although presented by Pushkin as an ambiguous figure, turned out to be a man of honor (he gratefully remembers the sheepskin coat presented by Grinev, at the request of the protagonist immediately stands up for Masha and frees her from Shvabrin's captivity).
the issue of honor is also key. Both main characters pass the test of honor - both Eugene Onegin and Tatiana Larina. For Onegin, this test consists in refusing or agreeing to a duel with Lensky. Although, according to the unwritten rules of secular society, it was faint-hearted, dishonorable to refuse a duel (if you did an act - answer me!), In the case of Lenskoye it would be a greater dignity and honor for Onegin to apologize and refuse the duel. But Eugene showed cowardice, frightened of the condemnation of the world: he did not explain himself to Vladimir. Everyone knows the result of the duel: the young poet died in his prime. Thus, formally, Onegin was not guilty of anything: he accepted the challenge and fate turned out to be more favorable to him than to Lensky. But the hero's conscience was unclean. It was the consciousness that he acted dishonestly, dishonestly, in our opinion, that forced Eugene to leave society for seven long years.
Tatyana, on the other hand, passed her honor test with great dignity. She still loves Onegin, which she sincerely confesses to him, but refuses to have a relationship with him, as she wants to preserve the good name of her family. For her, a married woman, this connection is impossible.
A.S. himself Pushkin died tragically in the dawn of strength, defending the honor of his wife, Natalya Nikolaevna, who was accused of being connected with the young Frenchman Dantes. On his death M.Yu. Lermontov wrote wonderful words:
the concept of honor has been replaced by the concept of benefit. It is not without reason that the writer gives him the characterization of a person of a prudently chilled character. From childhood, Chichikov learned well his father’s order “to save and save a penny”. And so little Pavlusha sells food to his classmates, makes a wax bullfinch and sells it the same way. Growing up, he does not shun a shameless scam with the purchase of "dead souls", finding an approach to each seller, deceiving someone, making up an incredible story for this (as he did with Manilov), simply explaining nothing to someone (Korobochka). But other landowners (Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin) are fully aware of the meaning of this event, but nevertheless their "honor" does not in the least suffer from Chichikov's proposal. Each of these landowners happily sells "dead souls" to the protagonist, thereby improving their financial situation.
Officials in the poem are also shown as shameless and dishonest people. And although there are no large, detailed images in the work, Gogol gives beautiful miniature portraits of ministers of the state. So, Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinnoye Snout is a typical official who, using his official position, extorts bribes from visitors. It is he who introduces Chichikov to all the intricacies of the bureaucratic machine.
Unlike the poem

a detailed description of the everyday life and customs of officials of a small town N. is presented. All of them are dishonest, since they do not hesitate to take bribes, and they do not really hide it. Officials feel like full-fledged owners of the town, and the only thing the governor is afraid of is denunciation. The habit of taking and giving bribes is so deeply rooted in the minds of officials that the best way to appease Khlestakov, whom they take for an auditor, they also consider a bribe. Khlestakov, on the other hand, a young man, by Gogol's definition, "without a tsar in his head", not brought up in strict concepts of honor and dignity, having played cards in St. not understanding what was the matter and why he was suddenly so incredibly lucky. He does not care about the consequences of his words and actions. And he is glad to deceive, attributing to himself more and more new merits (both with Pushkin on a friendly foot, and he writes and publishes in magazines, and is familiar with all the ministers), he is not embarrassed by the fact that he declared his love to Marya Antonovna, his daughter the mayor, and his wife Anna Andreevna, and then completely promised to marry Marya Antonovna.
honor turned out to be an empty phrase for Andriy, the youngest son of Taras, an old Cossack colonel. Andrii easily betrays the Cossacks for the sake of his beloved, the Polish lady. Taras and Andria's brother, Ostap, are not like that. For them, Cossack honor is most important. The father, no matter how hard it was for him, mad with anger after he saw his son chopping his own Cossacks in battle, kills his son with a shot.
speaks for itself. The hero of the story is a boy whom the teenagers entrusted during the game to guard an imaginary military warehouse, taking his word of honor not to leave his post. And he did not leave, despite the fact that everyone had long gone away and it was getting dark and scary in the park. Only the permission of the military man, who happened to be nearby by a lucky chance, freed the child from this promise.
In life, it also often happens that a word given by a person turns out to be higher than any personal benefits, circumstances and other things. All this speaks of the high honor of such people. This happened with A.P. Chekhov, who renounced the title of academician after M. Gorky was deprived of the same title, for whom Anton Pavlovich had voted fervently and warmly congratulated on his election. But the Academy of Sciences decided to reverse its decision. Chekhov strongly disagreed with this. He said that his vote in favor of the election of Gorky as an academician was sincere and the decision of the Academy did not at all agree with his personal opinion.
In the works of A.P. Chekhov's problem of honor, including professional honor, was raised more than once.

he talks about Dr. Osip Stepanovich Dymov, who remained faithful to his medical duty to the end. He decides to suck diphtheria films from a sick boy, although this was very dangerous for the doctor, therefore it was not prescribed as a mandatory measure of treatment. But Dymov goes for it, becomes infected and dies.

AI Kuprin wrote the story The Duel being already a popular author. The former military man himself, the writer knew the officers firsthand. The work on the story took about three years. The reason for such a long period lies, apparently, in the immensity of the chosen topic.

The name Duel has a double meaning. The duel of the young officer Romashov with the unbearable oppressive reality of army life logically ends with a duel - a duel in which one rival dies, and the second has already died long ago, without noticing it himself.

The heroes of the story live in some eerie incomprehensible world. A world where people do not belong to themselves, where common sense is sacrificed to the provisions of military regulations, where relations between people are replaced by subordination. Where a minor mistake can lead to irreparable consequences. Where people, like zombies, walk the same route, unable to wake up from the devil's hypnosis. All Romashov's colleagues, officers, are just the shadows of former people, from whom the army has corroded all human feelings.

And in this ghostly virtual world, not knowing the rules of the game, Romashov is trying to resist the oppressive reality. And at first he even seems to succeed. He starts human relations with his colleagues, he is kind to his orderly Gaynan. He even has a real affair with his friend's wife Shurochka. However, gradually alarming notes appear in the narrative, which gradually become more and more obvious. And finally, the reader begins to understand with horror that there is no way out of this hell and cannot be. That the millstones, abrading and grinding all living things, approach inevitably, and that this cup will not escape the hero.

The atmosphere is gradually heating up, the clouds over the hero are gathering. Romashov now and then finds himself in situations from which he comes out more and more depressed and depressed. The riot arranged for him by the commander, the conversation with the former lover of his beloved - all these events gradually press down, oppress the hero, depriving him of the will to win. And the apotheosis is a wild quarrel with Shurochka's husband, which leads to a challenge to a duel.

The writer did not even include a duel scene in the story, this is not necessary. The outcome of the human life of the hero of the story is summed up in the language of a dry army report.

Preparing for the Unified State Exam and GIA: Composition Kuprin duel analysis "/ January 2016

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The story of A.I. Kuprin's "Duel" became a kind of explosion, a shock for the readers. This work told the whole truth about the Russian army of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. And the truth was terrifying.
Kuprin himself, as you know, served in the army and knew "from the inside" all its laws and orders. For the first time in Russian literature, he frankly and in detail showed how the military disfigure people, deliberately destroying their personality. The writer argued that it is not profitable for the army to have thinking, critical people in its ranks. The very specifics of the army demanded in its ranks machines capable only of obeying and killing. And when all this was superimposed on Russian reality, the army turned into an unbearable torture for a person, the ending of which was known in advance - death, spiritual or physical.
In the center of the story is the fate of the young officer Georgy Romashov. The writer paints him as a subtle, deep, thinking and feeling nature. Romashov is a romantic. He came to the army to serve the Motherland, to defend the fatherland. But, plunging into the painful everyday life of the army, the hero begins to see the true face of the Russian army. And this truth repels Romashov.
The hero enters into a kind of duel with the life around him, an army machine. He tries to approach everything from the point of view of human morality, morality. Romashov tries to treat people with love and understanding. Therefore, his heart breaks, and his reason cannot understand what the hero sees around him.
Struck by the incident with Khlebnikov, who was driven to despair by the officers' bullying, Romashov begins to sympathize with him. But, besides this, he realizes that the downtrodden "gray Khlebnikovs with their monotonous submissive and exhausted faces are actually living people, and not mechanical quantities called a company, battalion, regiment ..." That is, the hero begins to see a personality in every soldier ... And with such an approach and view, it is impossible to exist in the army, where the personality is deliberately ignored and destroyed.
Here, in the army, Romashov falls in love. Shurochka Nikolaeva, the wife of Lieutenant Nikolaev, becomes his "goddess". This woman can also be called with all the courage a victim of the army. Talented, capable, with a sharp mind and beautiful appearance, she could make up the happiness of some outstanding person. Moreover, Alexandra Petrovna is very ambitious. She aspires to Petersburg, where, in her opinion, real life takes place.
That is why Shurochka so wishes her husband to finally pass the exams and enter the Academy of the General Staff. This would open the way for further career growth. The heroine makes every effort to make Lieutenant Nikolayev learn the program, but it is given to him with great difficulty. Unfortunately, Shurochka's husband is a narrow-minded and not very capable person.
Romashov adores Alexandra Petrovna. Everything about her seems beautiful to him. But gradually we begin to understand that the romantic hero in many ways came up with the image of his beloved, endowed her with ideal features. In fact, Shurochka turned out to be a rather eccentric and selfish nature. Carried away by "cute Romochka" from boredom and emptiness, she practically becomes the culprit of his death. A duel takes place between Lieutenant Nikolayev and Romashov over Shurochka. And Romashov dies.
This death is very natural in the logic of the development of the story. Let us recall that as a result of his reflections, Romashov comes to the conclusion that the army is not needed at all. But he does not know what he personally can do to improve the situation. We can say that Romashov finds himself at a moral and ideological crossroads. He realizes the viciousness and incorrectness of the system and the way of life around him, but he does not see a way out, has no idea how to fix it.
In general, in the finale of the story, all the fights that the hero fought throughout his life are revealed and brought together. This is Romashov's fight with himself, with his weakness, dreaminess, indecision. This is also his duel with society, which destroys the personality in a person and interferes with the awakening of the personality's self-awareness. As a result, all this is embodied in a literal duel between Romashov and his rival, Lieutenant Nikolayev.
Romashov dies in a duel. And this sad ending of his life is very symbolic. The hero lost the fight with life, or rather, with its absurd order. In such a life there is no place for pure and bright souls, Kuprin says. It is important that Romashov dies at the very moment when his soul is full of love for Shurochka Nikolaeva. Thus, Kuprin once again emphasizes that the existing system, the way of ruining all the best, living, and sincere. There is no place for people in the army and life described by the writer. Only dullness, slaves, cannon fodder survive there.
Even the power of love is unable to change anything in the current system. Or was he not here, the real feeling? Kuprin shows that there is no place for Christian love in the army - for one's neighbor, for a person in general. Everything here is built only on violence and destruction. There is no place and no love of a person for himself, because the system destroys it at the root.
There is no place in the army and no love for a man for a woman. Shurochka does not love her husband, but lives with him, hoping for his promotion. She likes young Romashov, but she does not see her "hero" in him. And, despite this, he plays with him and becomes the reason for his death.
Thus, Kuprin makes us understand that there is no place for love in the Russian army at the beginning of the 20th century, which means there is no place and life. The Russian army is doomed to perish, to extinction.