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“The central problem in the story“ Pit. Andrey Platonov, "Pit": analysis

Andrey Platonov became known to a wide range of readers only recently, although the most active period of his work fell on the twenties of our century. Platonov, like many other writers who opposed their point of view to the official position of the Soviet government, was banned for a long time. Among his most significant works are the novel "Chevengur", the novels "For the future" and "Doubting Makar".

that the needs for this "house of happiness" will be enormous. The pit will be infinitely deep and wide, and the strength, health and labor of many people will go into it. At the same time, the work does not bring any joy to these people: “Voshchev peered into the face of the unrequited sleeper - whether it expresses the unrequited happiness of a satisfied person. But the sleeper lay dead, his eyes were deeply and sadly hidden.

Thus, the author debunks the myth of a “bright future”, showing that these workers do not live for the sake of happiness, but for the sake of the foundation pit. From this it is clear that the genre of "Pit" is a dystopia. The terrible pictures of Soviet life are contrasted with the ideology and goals proclaimed by the communists, and at the same time it is shown that man has turned from a rational being into an appendage of the propaganda machine.

Another important problem of this work is closer to the real life of those years. Platonov notes that for the sake of the industrialization of the country, thousands of peasants were sacrificed. In the story, this is very clearly seen when the workers stumble upon peasant coffins. The peasants themselves explain that they prepare these coffins in advance, as they anticipate an imminent death. The surplus appropriation took everything from them, leaving no means of subsistence. This scene is very symbolic, as Platonov shows that a new life is being built on the dead bodies of the peasants and their children.

The author especially dwells on the role of collectivization. In describing the "organizational court", he points out that people were arrested and sent for re-education even because they "fell into doubt" or "wept during socialization." The “education of the masses” in this yard was carried out by the poor, that is, the most lazy and mediocre peasants who could not manage a normal economy received power. Platonov emphasizes that collectivization hit the backbone of agriculture, which was the rural middle peasants and wealthy peasants. In describing them, the author is not only historically realistic, but also acts as a kind of psychologist. The request of the peasants for a short delay before being accepted into the state farm, in order to comprehend the upcoming changes, shows that in the village they could not even get used to the idea of not having their own allotment of land, livestock, property. The landscape corresponds to a gloomy picture of socialization: “The night covered the entire village scale, the snow made the air impenetrable and cramped, in which the chest suffocated. A peaceful cover covered the entire visible earth for the coming sleep, only around the barns the snow melted and the earth was black, because the warm blood of cows and sheep came out from under the fences.

The image of Voshchev reflects the consciousness of an ordinary person who is trying to understand and comprehend new laws and foundations. He does not even think of opposing himself to the rest. But he began to think, and so he was fired. Such people are dangerous to the existing regime. They are only needed to dig a pit. Here the author points to the totalitarian nature of the state apparatus and the absence of genuine democracy in the USSR.

A special place in the story is occupied by the image of a girl. Platonov's philosophy here is simple: the criterion for the social harmony of society is the fate of the child. And the fate of Nastya is terrible. The girl did not know the name of her mother, but she knew that there was Lenin. The world of this child is disfigured, because in order to save her daughter, the mother inspires her to hide her non-proletarian origin. The propaganda machine has already infiltrated her mind. The reader is horrified to learn that she advises Safronov to kill the peasants for the cause of the revolution. Who will grow into a child whose toys are stored in a coffin? At the end of the story, the girl dies, and along with her, the ray of hope for Voshchev and other workers dies. In a kind of confrontation between the foundation pit and Nastya, the foundation pit wins, and her dead body lies at the base of the future house.

The story "Pit" is prophetic. Her main task was not to show the horrors of collectivization, dispossession and the hardship of life in those years, although the writer did it masterfully. The author correctly identified the direction in which the society will go. The foundation pit has become our ideal and main goal. The merit of Platonov is that he showed us the source of troubles and misfortunes for many years. Our country is still floundering in this pit, and if the principles of life and worldview of people do not change, all forces and means will continue to go into the pit.

The problem of the poetics of "The Pit"

Platonov began his career as a poet. Therefore, he remained in prose, which retained features that are more characteristic of poetry: a harmonious composition, rhythmic organization of the text and its semantic “density”, unusual for prose works. This "density" is a consequence of the unusual construction of the plot and images of "The Pit", the mobility of their semantic component, the projection of the events of modern life on the images of world culture, as well as the mutual overlap of these latter. All this, of course, pushes the semantic boundaries of the text. Making our "journey" through Platonov's story, we repeatedly drew attention to this, perhaps the most striking feature of the poetics of "The Pit" - the complex meaning of the images of the story, allowing for their different readings, which is created both by linguistic means and by the system of literary allusions, the simultaneous orientation Platonov on a variety of literary and philosophical samples. This general principle of Plato's poetics fully applies to all images of the story and, above all, to the central one - the "general proletarian house".

The study of the literary and philosophical context of the Platonic story, motivated primarily by its plot and the early work of the writer, made it possible not only to see the logic in the construction of the main symbol of the story (the girl Nastya is the tower of the “common proletarian house”), but also to understand its additional meaning: “common proletarian house” , accumulating the theoretical and practical aspects of building socialism, which promised to solve all the problems of human existence and become a just social order, Platonov opposes the Church as a Divine providence for the salvation of people, and also, according to Florensky's interpretation, which has two aspects - ideal and real.

But this same proletarian structure - a hopeless work of human hands and mind - Platonov, as has been repeatedly noted in the literature on the "Pit", likens the biblical Tower of Babel, the construction of which a person wanted to reach heaven and equal himself with God.

The Tower of Babel was an attempt by people to build their own world, different from that created by God, and settle in it on their own and according to their own desires. The builders of the Tower of Babel actually claimed to create a new building of the World. In the mythopoetic consciousness of all peoples, which is reflected primarily in folklore, the idea of the existing world, the concept of this world as a universe receives the image of a tree - the world tree. M. Zolotonosov also calls "the 'general proletarian building', a modernized version of the Tower of Babel" a "new universe, to which its literal, demetaphorized meaning has been returned." The critic emphasizes: “the foundation pit is intended precisely for the new universe, the image of which is the tower in the middle of the world,“ where the working people of the whole earth will enter into an eternal happy settlement. In this tower it is easy to see a variant of the world tree - an image of mythopoetic consciousness, which embodies the universal concept of the world. An attempt at the practical implementation of this project, the task of making a “beam for all of Rus'”, “which will rise - it will reach the sky”, designed in the technocratic style of the era, is another option for the literal realization of social utopia. An eternal, immovable, indestructible Peace Building is being built in the "Pit" which is the goal<…>; the final, burdened with “that superfluous warmth of life, which was once called the soul”, subject to destruction, is sacrificed to this goal.

The “general proletarian house” as a model of social utopia has predecessors in Russian literature of the 20th century, with which it enters into a “roll call”: the Crystal Palace from the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What is to be done?” and "the building of human destiny" from F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Brothers Karamazov".

Despite the disruption of the plans of the builders of the Tower of Babel and the halt of all construction, the Tower of Babel, with which Platonov compares the “common proletarian home”, at the dawn of the socialist era became one of the favorite images of young proletarian literature, a symbol of human courage and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of implementing a great idea, calling to emulate an example of rebellion against an unjust world order. Many poets and writers of Proletkult turn to this image, including one of the best Proletkult members Alexei Gastev. In the short story "The Tower" he symbolically depicts the way to the future victory of the world proletariat in the form of building a tower. On this difficult path to a bright future, the victims and death of many "nameless, but glorious workers" of the tower are inevitable, so that it turns out to be built over the abyss of the grave. However, this does not frighten Gastev and he sings of the sacrifice and Promethean audacity of its builders. Platonov creates his own image of a foundation pit for the foundation of the "general proletarian house", taking into account this image of the grave of the builders of the tower from Gastev's short story, but rethinks the conclusions of the latter. In the burial ground of the foundation pit, the girl Nastya, who embodies the socialist future, turns out to be, which “means the collapse of hopes for building a“ new historical society ””.

But Platonov reinforces the same idea about the absence of a future for socialism with one more literary allusion. In his work, the ideal aspirations of a person are often symbolically depicted as a feeling for a woman. Thus, a woman - a mother or a bride - is, as a rule, a symbol of some ideal. The semantics of this image-symbol and the content of the ideal embodied in it are different in different works of the writer. In The Foundation Pit, this ideal image is represented by two women - Yulia and her daughter Nastya, who personify different historical stages of Russia: the old, bygone, and the new, Soviet. The allegorical meaning has a certain feeling for Nastya's mother, which in her youth arose in two characters of "The Pit": the proletarian Chiklin and the intellectual Prushevsky - the two future builders of the "house". We wrote a lot about Nastya both in the first and in the second parts of our work: an unfortunate orphan of non-proletarian origin, she personifies a new historical society and, together with the “common proletarian home”, from different angles represents socialism, which promised to become an ideal social order. This double image, as shown above, could have a literary source and a prototype - the vision of the Church depicted by Hermes, the main "structure" of the coming City, Heavenly Jerusalem. In his spiritual search for truth, the lyrical hero of P. Florensky's book "The Pillar and Affirmation of Truth" refers to the "Visions" of Herma in his spiritual search for truth.

But we also noted that the plot of the journey that the hero undertakes, at the age of spiritual maturity, parting with old ideals and looking for new life orientations, is based on another well-known literary model - Dante's Divine Comedy, the internal connection of which with The Foundation Pit. saw A. Kharitonov. With the help of this literary parallel, the writer also evaluates socialist reality, its ideal and the possibility of achieving it. There are three parts in Dante's allegorical poem and in his harmonious world: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. The hero is driven on a journey through this otherworldly world by the desire to find the “right path” in life and longing for his early deceased beloved, who, he is sure, is in Paradise - Beatrice, his ideal of love and purity. The lyrical hero Dante makes the main part of his journey accompanied by Virgil, the best of the pre-Christian poets. But at the end of the journey through Purgatory, Beatrice appears to him and brings him to Paradise. In the allegorical story "The Pit" there are two parts, which A. Kharitonov compares with two parts of Dante's afterlife. In the image of the heroine of "The Pit" Nastya, he notes certain Dante reminiscences and a connection with the ideal maiden Beatrice. For the sake of Nastya, the builders of the “common house” are working, the future earthly paradise is intended for her; she is a continuation of the deceased beloved of two builders - "the purpose and meaning of the heroes' journey through the beyond world of the Pit". Like Beatrice, Nastya is a hero wandering through the collective-farm Purgatory, but she dies and "does not reach Paradise, unlike Beatrice." Thus, Platonov also supports his idea of the unattainability of socialist ideals with a literary parallel with the Divine Comedy.

One more well-known plot can be named, which Platonov also took into account in the futurology of The Pit. This story, familiar from childhood, about the sad fate of one house is the fairy tale "Teremok". At the end of the story there is a completely obvious allusion to the situation of "Teremka", which also contains a forecast about the future fate of the "general proletarian house". “Let every person from a barrack and a clay hut fit into our house” (115), says Chiklin, inviting the collective farmers who have come to the pit. Everyone knows how a similar situation ended for the inhabitants of the tower, and Platonov, of course, understood what conclusions follow from this comparison. Perhaps the idea of such an analogy came to his mind only at the end of work on The Foundation Pit. However, it is curious that he tried to return to the situation of "Teremok" in the next work after the "Pit" - the play "Bar-organ". There, the role of a common haven, to which different people come without a fixed place of residence, is played by the "Friendly Food" cooperative. These Soviet "tumbleweeds" greet each other with such "Teremkovo" remarks: "Who are you - drummers or not? - We, young lady, they. “And we are cultural workers”; "Who are you? - We are Bolsheviks on foot. - Where are you going now? We go through collective farms and buildings to socialism”; “And you are building socialism here?<…>Can we build too? - Can you organize the masses? “I can invent an airship,” etc. To the end, Platonov did not succeed in realizing the “Teremok” situation in the “Barmanka”: under the impression of the next events in the country, he changed the main idea of his play. But traces of this intention remained in the text.

The above examples from two of Platonov's works refer to the folklore motifs of his work, the role of which in Platonov's narrative was first pointed out by E. Tolstaya. Among the folklore motifs is Nastya's farewell to her dying mother, who gives her daughter an order: to go far, far away and not tell anyone from whom she was born. An orphan girl is a frequent heroine of Russian folk tales, such as, for example, “Krushechka-Khavroshechka” or “Vasilisa the Beautiful”. And the situation of parting with a dying mother is typically fabulous. So, Khavroshechka says goodbye to the cow, which replaced the orphan's mother. Before dying, the cow advises the girl to keep her bones and in difficult situations to resort to their help. And eight-year-old Vasilisa leaves her dying mother, who blessed her daughter and gave her valuable advice - in misfortune, resort to the help of a doll. Nastya's story differs from the fairy tales in that neither the mother's advice nor her bones helped the orphan - she died.

Of the entire system of images of The Pit, only the main double symbol of the story (“the common proletarian house” and Nastya) we considered in parallel in two contexts - historical and cultural. Such an analysis revealed a complex semantic component of this image-symbol and its philosophical overtones. But the characters of The Foundation Pit are just as unusual: some of them suggest “shifts” in their semantic component, including through historical analogies and literary reminiscences (for example, Prushevsky); some - an additional symbolic interpretation, sometimes hardly compatible with the plot characterization of the hero (for example, Zhachev). To better understand the specifics of Platonic imagery, let us return to these two characters and, in addition to our previous analysis, consider some of their features in a literary and philosophical context.

In the first chapter, we wrote about the engineer Prushevsky, “the producer of the work of the general proletarian house” - about how his scientific interests and belonging to the intelligentsia are connected with the real history of our country and its first leaders, and also on what basis Platonov combined such different forms of activity this character: planning a "common house for the proletariat", directing its construction and "going to the people" as a "cadre of the cultural revolution". Prushevsky has predecessors in the works of Platonov, we also partly named them: Prushevsky continues the work of engineers-transformers of the world, heroes of early Platonov's work. But besides this "pedigree" in Platonov's work, the author of the "common home" project has a kind of "relatives" and in world literature - these are the heroes with whom Platonov deliberately compares Prushevsky. L. Debuser called Faust, the hero of Goethe's poem of the same name, such. The intellectual Prushevsky studied nature for a long time, but he did not comprehend “where life gets excited” (104), what is its truth and mystery. And this smart and educated man conceived with the help of his "general proletarian home" to change people's lives and make them happy. According to all the laws of science, he planned a "common house", which should protect its future inhabitants, relatively speaking, from bad weather and trouble. However, during the construction process, many of its participants perish, so that the foundation pit for the future house is perceived as a huge grave. Faust is also a connoisseur of all sciences, which, however, did not reveal to him the secret of being and the inner connection of the universe. Desperate to solve the mystery of nature with the help of books, Faust decides to comprehend the meaning of human life through his own experience and experiences. The long life path of Faust, who is looking for truth and an absolute ideal and finds his happiness in nothing, ends with an attempt to make other people happy. Shocked by the disaster that the sea flood causes to the coastal strip and its inhabitants, Faust decides to build a dam and thus win back a piece of land from the elements. But with its construction, it mercilessly destroys the patriarchal way of life and physically exterminates the helpless villagers. During the construction of the canal, many of its builders also die. Intoxicated with his own desire to do good and confident in the correctness of his behavior, Faust does not notice the grief that he brought to people. With this failed benefactor of the human race, who dared with his lonely mind to understand the causes of good and evil and change habitual life for the better, according to Debusser, Platonov compares Prushevsky, who also single-handedly decided to make people happy by building a “common house”: the writer always “measures modern history with experience human history since biblical times" and expresses a judgment on the events of our time from the standpoint of the highest manifestations of human wisdom, captured in the best works of world culture. According to Debuser, Platonov describes the idea and work of the engineer based on the assessment that N. F. Fedorov gave to the Faust project and with which the writer could be familiar: “the project itself is false, because violence is behind it.”

In the first chapter, we also wrote about the invalid Zhachev and the real context of this image. In a country that survived two wars, there were quite a few such "cripples". Many of them were crippled in the civil war, but after the victory of the new system, they turned out to be unnecessary and thrown out of life. It was the “thrown out” of the former fighters for the revolution that gave Platonov reason to attach to the image of Zhachev also the theme of L. D. Trotsky, an active participant in the revolution, in 1918–1925. People's Commissar for Military Affairs, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee and the second person in the state, who was expelled from the country in 1929. At the same time, according to the memoirs of Platonov's contemporaries (a link to them is given in the first chapter), the writer himself attached some symbolic meaning to Zhachev's disability and the absence of half of his body. Which one, from the text of "The Pit" is not entirely clear, but for Platonov this is usual: the additional semantic load of his complex images can be a separate topic, only designated, but not disclosed. However, Zhachev laid the foundation for a whole galaxy of Platonic crippled characters. About one of them, the hero of the story "Garbage Wind" (1934), German physicist Albert Lichtenberg, Platonov writes as follows: "the time for a warm, beloved, whole body of a person has passed: everyone needs to be a crippled invalid." Therefore, it should probably also be said about the possible philosophical context of the symbolism of the whole (or crippled) body in the artistic work of Platonov - the symbolism that originates in the image of Zhachev. Moreover, this context can also be somehow connected with the ideas of A. Bogdanov (and other theorists of proletarian culture, such as A. Lunacharsky), as well as P. Florensky, already mentioned when characterizing the early Platonic creativity. At the same time, one must also take into account the fact that in the artistic world of Plato, crippling, or the absence of some part of the body, is not only personal handicap, but also a sign-symbol of some violations, shortcomings in society.

Its theorists saw the ideal of proletarian culture in the coming unification of all mankind into a single, “whole” collective, which they considered the real subject of being: “The inseparable thirst for life and the thirst for freedom<…>can find its complete expression only in the ideal of a perfect integrity and internal unity real subject of social life - the collective. For both Bogdanov and Lunacharsky, the most important thing in the idea of the "collective" as the subject of history and "collectivism" as the creative principle of proletarian literature is the possibility of "wholeness", "wholeness", "unity". Let us characterize the views of A. Bogdanov and A. Lunacharsky on the issue of these ideals of proletarian culture - "whole humanity" and "whole man" - according to a modern study of Platonov's early work. The views of the main ideologists of proletarian culture on the future “wholeness” of man and society are as follows: “The individualistic culture of the past, remaining cut off from mass life and its labor rhythms, gave rise to a “fragmentation” (A. Bogdanov) of life, culture and man. The ideal - "the whole socialist humanity" (A. Lunacharsky) - is in the past and in the future. In the distant past, mankind was united, then, for a number of reasons, there was a "crushing of man" - the separation of the "head" from the "hands", commanded from the obeyer, and an authoritarian form of life arose. The fragmented state turned out to be unnatural; according to Bogdanov, it was not overcome by individualistic culture, in the highest manifestations of which longing for a “whole” person is expressed. Who can pull humanity out of the vicious circle of historical existence? Of course, the proletariat, which, even spontaneously and because of its special position in production, strives for self-organization.<…>It is the proletariat in the sphere of culture that should be engaged in the "gathering" of man.

P. Florensky raises the theme of the "whole body" in connection with the problem of the ideal of the whole personality. He discusses the inner meaning of the word “body” (“related,” suggests Florensky, “to the word “whole,” that is, it means something whole, intact, complete in itself”); about the connection of bodily integrity and integrity with the inner integrity of the individual; about the symmetry of the upper and lower parts of the body and the need for the same internal harmony that characterizes a whole personality. In connection with the importance of the symbol we mentioned in Plato's work, we will abbreviate Florensky's reasoning about the structure and connection of two bodies in a person - the external, perceived by the eyes, and the internal, which is the “true body” of a person and whose integrity one must strive for, and having lost - restore: “The body is something whole, something individual, something special. Here<…>there is some kind of connection, some kind of correspondence between the finest features of the structure of organs and the slightest twists of personal characteristics;<…>everywhere, beyond impersonal matter, a single person looks at us. In the body, its unity is found everywhere.<…>What is usually called the body is nothing more than an ontological surface; and behind it, on the other side of this shell, lies the mystical depth of our being.<…>What can be said about the structure of our true body? Let<…>the "body" of empiricism will indicate its organs and features of its structure, etc.).

Platonov often developed this or that problem, relying on several sources, so the possibility of combining such different philosophical contexts in one symbol is great. So, in the image of such an unusual character, whom Platonov characterizes with the words “not completely all” - a typical disabled person for the time, thrown out of Soviet reality, for which he fought, like one of its main organizers L. Trotsky, - the most important problem of Platonic creativity is outlined, and before the reader opens a new facet of the philosophical problems of "The Foundation Pit".

On the example of several characters of The Foundation Pit, we have shown all the unconventionality of Platonov's image construction, as well as their semantic and structural heterogeneity. A Platonic character may be a more or less ordinary literary hero representing a particular type of era. Such, for example, are Kozlov, Safronov, Chiklin and Pashkin. It can be fabulous, like the hammer fighter Misha Medvedev, and, like in a household fairy tale, not violating the natural course of things, but containing certain political allusions. The Platonic image can be fantastic, for example collective farm horses foraging for themselves. However, Platonov's fantasy also has its own nature: in the case of consciously marching horses, this is a philosophical idea, clearly illustrated by an example from modern village life. The idea of Plato about the resettlement of the soul of a person after his death into a body corresponding to the main concern in life, as well as the idea of the soul-chariot, which is driven by two horses, one of which pulls up to heaven, and the other down, to earthly concerns, Platonov ties to a specific historical situation (the socialization of property in the course of collectivization) and embodies it taking into account modern political ideas (Lenin's statements about the "two souls" of the peasant). The Platonic image can be allegorical in meaning (such are Nastya and her mother Yulia), but it combines an allegorical depiction of certain ideas or concepts (Nastya allegorically depicts socialism under construction and the “Socialist-Revolutionary girl”, Yulia is an allegory of a bygone Russia) with very indefinite symbolic meanings (both Yulia and Nastya are at the same time symbols of a certain ideal - a force that pushes a person to exploits and activities; such a force can be both youthful love and concern for the future welfare of people). The Platonic image can be very broad in meaning and "blurred" in its external outlines - such is the "common proletarian home" and "another city." The Platonic image can be constructed as a polysemantic word that allows semantic shifts in use, which, however, are understandable to all participants in communication - such is Prushevsky. The Platonic image may suggest several different semantic readings, including the symbolic, closed on itself and not disclosed - such is Zhachev. Without a doubt, the coexistence in one artistic space of images so different in their internal organization is absolutely unusual.

The high degree of internal organization of Platonov's prose, which brings it closer to poetry, was first noticed by E. Tolstoy. According to the researcher, the poetic beginning of Plato's texts is manifested primarily in the unity of their construction at the linguistic, plot and ideological levels, in the "multidimensionality" and "poetic depth" of his verbal images. The object of Tolstoy's research was mainly the lower level of text organization - language and proper names. Since we have said almost nothing about the names of the characters in The Foundation Pit - and this is a very important and most developed problem of Platonov's poetics - in conclusion we will cite some observations by Tolstoy and other researchers regarding the specific naming of the heroes of the story and general tendencies in the construction of a proper name in Platonov.

The name is an important detail of the characteristics of the Platonic hero. Its education is subject to certain patterns, among which E. Tolstaya names the following: the merging of several roots into one; connection of the name with the surrounding context and motivation for it; the formation of a name on literary material and even as a result of the imposition of several literary allusions, etc. wax / wax(as in waxed), but also with phonetically indistinguishable at all, colloquially finally; with loved ones in vain And in cabbage soup, cf .: hit like chickens in cabbage soup - rethought in pluck; these additional meanings interact with each other, the result is, as it were, a fan of meanings: wax / wax- "ordinary, natural and economic material"; in general - the idea of community and society; associated with in vain idea vanity, comic overtones suggested by the saying. In a strange way, this range of meanings coincides with the main semantic and plot-forming characteristics of the character. Some features of the names in the "Pit" are very easy to see and without special analysis. First of all, this is the connection of the name with the main theme of the given character and its plot characteristics, as well as additional emphasis on the main motive of the image in the text closest to the name. For example, the surname "Voshchev" is most often derived from the outdated adverb "in vain", that is, in vain, in vain, which also characterizes the results of his search for truth. The same connection is directly indicated in the text: “and he, Voshchev, is eliminated by the rushing, acting youth into the silence of obscurity, as vain an attempt to finish life: I am my goal ”(25). In one of the initial sketches for the story (under the title “One in the World”), this hero bore the surname Otchev, derived from his main question, which was immediately reproduced: “So why should we be happy with you, Comrade Safronov? - Not from what, comrade Otchev! “No,” said Otchev. Platonov duplicates the name and the main idea of the images of Kozlov (“Kozlov, you are cattle!” Safronov defined) and Pashkin’s wife (“Olgusha, frog, because you smell the masses gigantically”). E. Tolstaya considers the phrase “digger Chiklin” to be a phonetic repetition, and A. Kharitonov to be a semantic one (as we already wrote, he derives the hero’s surname from the onomatopoeic verb “chikat”, that is, to beat). In the surname “Prushevsky”, Kharitonov emphasizes the etymological connection with the word “dust” (the word is repeated several times in the text), indicating the main motive of his image: Prushevsky is “dead alive”, and all his interests are connected with death. We wrote above about how Platonov, through his surname, shows loyalty to the regime of the socialist Safronov and at the same time a flaw in his worldview. In the name of the party functionary Lev Ilyich Pashkin, Kharitonov notes the contamination of the names of two leaders of the revolution, Lev Davidovich Trotsky and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Platonov gives his hero “precisely symbolic components of their naming, clichéd almost to the party nickname, and as a result we have an easily readable sign”, which points to “these figures as the founders of this system and this state”, which gave rise to bureaucracy and bureaucrats, as well as the importance of the Trotsky theme for Platonov and The Pit, Kharitonov believes.

“Through a proper name,” writes E. Tolstaya, “the most effective connection of the lower levels of the text with the higher ones is carried out: unlike other verbal material, which acquires meaning only in combinations, within a separate name, even taken out of context, meanings relevant to higher levels - for example, plot, ideological, as well as those associated with metalevels.

In some cases, a proper name may represent the smallest unit of a plot level.<…>Platonov's main principle of constructing a name is a semantic shift: it is a shift in the usual sound and meaning resulting from the replacement of one letter, the merger of several roots into one, the combination of an ordinary name with a common, but semantically or morphologically incompatible suffix, chopping off a root.

Tolstaya accompanies the analysis of the specific names of Platonic characters with the following reasoning, the conclusions of which are consistent with our analysis of the figurative and ideological system of The Pit: “From observations of the phonosemantic and morphological structure of a proper name, out of context, a set of poetic principles emerges, in our opinion, central to the prose of A .Platonov at all levels. This is the flickering of many meanings that do not cancel each other, the association of these meanings with contradictory concepts, up to nuclear semantic oppositions, or with a whole “fan of meanings”: often the semantic tension between the elements of the name is such that one can speak of a semantic conflict as a collapsed plot of the name ".

Tolstoy's hypothesis about the poetic organization of the writer's prose texts is confirmed at the compositional level. The composition of The Pit is so strict that Kharitonov, for example, does not even speak about the construction, but about the architectonics of the Pit, understanding by architectonics “the general construction of the work as a whole, meaningfully generalizing the relationship of its main parts and system elements.” Compared to composition, architectonics implies a greater ratio of all units that make up a work: “This is the highest level of composition of a work, subordinating all other compositional structures that organize the text and are realized at its different levels. At the same time, architectonics is not only a mechanical sum or even an organic set of structural techniques, but is usually characterized by the use of special methods for constructing a work as a whole.

It is possible to single out several compositional structures of the "Pit" and consider their relationship. The first internal division of the story takes place between the introduction (which is sometimes called the first chapter: from the announcement of Voshchev's dismissal on "the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life" to his entry into "another city") and the plot itself. There is an interesting connection between these compositional units of the text, which Kharitonov traced. “The first chapter of the story, which describes Voshchev’s path from the“ factory ”(where the calculation was received) to the“ city ”(where the foundation pit is being built) and ends with the phrase“ Voshchev continued to languish and went to live in this city, ”writes Kharitonov, occupies in the work special place. This chapter, which deserves separate consideration, is expositional (by its plot role), motivated-embryonic (by its thematic content) and aesthetically programmatic (by the degree of concentration of features and techniques of the author's style) character. The first chapter of the story and its final episode turn out to be the "embryo" of the entire "Pit", not only outlining all the main philosophical themes of the work, but also containing its most important plot motifs in a folded form. In this chapter, in its main parts, the philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic system of the story is encoded, the main elements of its objective world are presented, and even the plot roles of some heroes of the Pit, which have not yet entered into action, are “announced”. The pioneer, watched by Voshchev and the invalid, will turn into a girl Nastya in the story; blacksmith Misha - a bear-hammer; the chairman of the regional trade union council, comrade Pashkin, will travel in a car that is being repaired “from off-road driving”, and a legless cripple will come to the pit and will be known by the name Zhachev.”

In the introduction, in a form that was not plotted for the time being, the motives of labor and the “common cause” (“among the general pace of work”), orphanhood (“they taught unfamily children to work and benefit”), the source of life and happiness (“happiness will happen from materialism). The introduction announces the problem of physical and spiritual death and victory over it (“a dead leaf lay next to Voshchev’s head”, “I will find out why you lived and died”), Voshchev’s upcoming “collective” activity (“Voshchev picked up a withered leaf and hid it in the secret compartment of the sack") and the futility of his future search for truth ("Voshchev is eliminated<…>as life's futile attempt to achieve its goal"). The theme of travel as the basis of the plot of the story and the principle of organizing its plot (“Voshchev took things from the apartment and went outside in order to better understand his future on the street”) is also “predetermined” in the introduction, as well as the theme of “otkhodniks” with their outcast (“ there was only a pub for otkhodniks and low-paid categories”). In the introduction, the antithesis “Voshchev is nature” that is relevant for the whole story is set (“it was hot, the daytime wind was blowing, and somewhere roosters were crowing on the road - everything was given over to an unrequited existence, only Voshchev separated himself and was silent”), etc. General the symmetry of the introduction and the main plot of The Foundation Pit also manifested itself at the level of the main symbols of the story - the future foundation pit and the "general proletarian house" as the main images and forms of existence of the new world, in the introduction they also have their prototypes and at the same time alternative analogues in the old world. This is the ravine in which Voshchev spends the night, and the old tree that grew "alone in the midst of bright weather", which the hero observes from the window of the pub. “The construction of socialism” as the main theme and source of the plot-forming image of “The Pit” is also named in the introduction: “His walking path lay in the middle of summer, houses and technical improvements were built on the sides - in those houses the homeless masses will silently exist until now.” Such a compositional principle, when the introduction is the "embryo" of the whole work, puts "The Pit" on a par with epic poetry, in particular with Dante's "Divine Comedy", the content and construction of which Platonov probably focused on.

The second compositional division of "The Foundation Pit" takes place within the main plot: in terms of content and scene, the story is divided into two parts, approximately equal in volume - urban and rural. We wrote above about the real reasons and literary prototypes of such a division, as well as their amazing combination in the text of the Pit. But in addition to this, the high degree of organization of the Platonic narrative, according to A. Kharitonov, manifested itself in the deep connection and internal unity of the two parts of the story. This "unity is supported by many plot and thematic bonds", common motifs and parallel episodes. For example, the rooster mentioned in the first part, which Safronov allegedly persuaded one poor man to eat, becomes a “metaphor for the coming collective farm abundance” in the second part. Moreover, the researcher believes that such compositional and thematic parallelism gives grounds for “a metaphorical rethinking of the title of the work”, for “transition from its plot interpretation to symbolization”: “the village also turns out to be a ‘ditch’.<…>The village is also a foundation pit, and even deeper than the city outskirts of the first half of the story. Kharitonov's observations on the text of "The Pit" suggest that parallelism in the broad sense of the word plays a very significant role in the architectonics of the story: this is the figurative-psychological parallelism of "Voshchev - Nature", which Platonov resorts to to characterize the inner aspirations of the hero; and the antithesis "nature - city". One can give examples of compositional and meaningful parallelisms in the "Pit", for example, the city in the vision of Prushevsky - the tower of the "general proletarian house".

A finer breakdown of the text into chapters, separated from each other by gaps of several lines, belongs to Platonov himself: “Gaps in a work are a sign of a change in point of view, they are genetically and functionally related to the junction in cinematography.”

And finally, the perfection of the construction of The Pit was manifested in its circular composition: the story begins with the theme of “otkhodniks” and the image of a ravine, which soon turns into a foundation pit, and ends with them, but on a higher emotional level.

All this compositional harmony and semantic richness of the "Pit", which were discussed here, became possible thanks to the "building material" of the story - an unusual language that made it possible to realize its "semantic density". We said almost nothing about the language of The Pit, and meanwhile the first thing that strikes readers is Platonov's unique manner of writing, the "wrong charm" of his language. “In the way Platonov puts together a phrase,” writes S. Bocharov, “first of all, his originality is obvious. The reader is attracted by the original speech physiognomy of Plato's prose with its unexpected movements - the faces are not only uncommon, but even seem to be wrong, shifted by a difficult effort and very uneven expression. According to the sculptor F. Suchkov, that is why it is difficult for Platonov to imitate - it's the same as reusing hardened gypsum.

What is usually called "Platonov's language" takes shape by the end of the 1920s and is most clearly manifested precisely in "The Foundation Pit". “Already in the second half of the 20s, Platonov finds his own language, which is always the author’s speech, however, heterogeneous within itself, including tendencies that are different to the opposite, coming out of the same consciousness expressed by Platonic prose,” concludes S. Bocharov , emphasizing at the same time the unity of the Platonic language, in which there are no boundaries between the speech of the author and the characters, and its internal heterogeneity. In the prose of a writer of the 1930s, his language, retaining all its regularities, will outwardly become less spectacular. But it is in The Foundation Pit that the features of the Platonic language are most evident. Bocharov characterized one of them with the help of the art criticism concept of “grotesque” (a depiction of something in a fantastic form, based on exaggerations and sharp contrasts) and called Plato’s phrases “speech grotesques”, which “arise from the grammatical combination of especially incompatible words”. Bocharov gives examples of such grotesque phrases, unusual from the point of view of the literary language: “due to the growth of weakness and thoughtfulness amid the general pace of work”, “due to melancholy”, “in the direction of happiness”, “a member of the general orphanhood”.

Another feature of the Platonic language, which S. Bocharov drew attention to, is a vivid metaphor, combined with a weakening of the very principle of metaphor, which consists in transferring the signs of one series of phenomena (real) to the phenomena of another series (immaterial). Plato's metaphors are perceived literally and are almost visually realized in the plot of the story: "Plato's metaphor has a character that brings it closer to the original ground of metaphor - faith in a real transformation, metamorphosis." Here are examples of such “de-metaphorized” metaphors that actually animate inanimate objects by transferring the signs of living beings to them: “immovable trees carefully kept the heat in their leaves” (21), “music was carried away by the wind into nature through the ravine wasteland” (21), “field light silence and the withering smell of sleep approached here from the common space and stood untouched in the air” (26), “during sleep only the heart that protects a person remains alive” (27), “the heart of a peasant independently rose into the soul, into the tightness of the throat and contracted there releasing the heat of a dangerous life into the upper skin” (79).

Bocharov was one of the first to name what is behind all cases of “incorrect agreement, grammatical shift, rectification” in Platonov’s language - a new, additional meaning of the Platonic phrase, the “polysemy” and “ambivalence” of his metaphors. These features of the Platonic language, directly related to the content of his works, were also written by other modern researchers. Here is how, for example, A. Kharitonov explains the meaning of the deviation from the literary norm in the first phrase of "The Foundation Pit" "on the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life": from a linguistic point of view, this unusual combination (instead of the correct "on the day of his thirtieth birthday") is a fact of realization of the existing in Russian “the construction “on the day of the N-anniversary of something””, which is used, however, to denote “the anniversary of an event that is external to the grammatical subject of the statement in which this model is used, in this case, to Voshchev. “Personal life”, thus, acquires here a shade of something external in relation to Voshchev, as if opposed to the life that he actually lives. This assessment of the hero's "life" corresponds to the plot: he does not have a "personal life", and in the conditions of the "general pace of work" it was not supposed.

An important role in the implementation of the “multiple meanings” of Platonic texts is played by the feature indicated by E. Tolstoy - the simultaneous actualization of several meanings in the word and even the possibility of their internal conflict. One of these cases relates to the characterization of those people whom Voshchev meets in the pub: "There were unrestrained people here who indulged in oblivion of their misfortune." “The inclusion of the official, condemning and sanctimonious euphemism ‘unrestrained people’ in relation to drunkards in the author’s speech, representing the consciousness of the hero,” who is one of the same unfortunate homeless people, Tolstaya believes, “creates a conflict in which the official point of view is defeated precisely the generosity and condescension with which the hero accepts her into the circle of his consciousness. At the same time, the fact of derivation from the verb "withstand" in both voices is resurrected; the unrestrained are those who "couldn't stand it" and those who "couldn't stand it". This strengthens the idea of that evil principle that “withstands” people and judges them depending on their complaisance and from which, “unable to endure”, they flee into drunkenness.

The abundance of all kinds of deviations from linguistic norms is a characteristic feature of Platonic texts. Many of them are currently well analyzed. When describing general trends in the construction of a Platonic phrase, the following forms of grammatical anomalies are most often mentioned: violation of the traditional word compatibility; lexical and semantic redundancy of the phrase; creation of neologisms according to existing models in the language; combining in one verb the actions of different time layers; replacement of verb control; combination of synonyms in one construction; replacing a word with a synonym with a different combination, a quasi-synonym or a paronym, that is, a partial synonym, etc. It is characteristic, however, that in all forms of incorrect agreement and grammatical displacement they usually see not a simple verbal game and a passion for external effects, but manifestation of the general poetics of Platonov, his special literary and philosophical position. The result of all deviations from the literary norm in the structure of the Platonic phrase is similar to the result of the unusual semantic construction of a proper name in the writer's works, which we have already written with reference to E. Tolstaya: "the flickering of many meanings that do not cancel each other." In order to better imagine the principles of the construction of the Platonic phrase, all its charm and “many meanings”, and sometimes a very subtle connection with other fragments of the text, we will analyze some examples of the language of the “Pit”. For example, this: "Many people live like blades of grass in the wind of governing circumstances" (182).

This phrase was formed as a result of combining fragments from several stable speech turns of the Russian language, including phraseological ones. First, “lives like” a person is usually spoken of only if he “lives like a dog”. Moreover, Platonov already used this comparison in the story, but in an inverted form: in the example that we gave earlier, the dog “lived like” Voshchev (“a dog is bored, it lives thanks to one birth, like me”). The hero compared a certain dog with himself, living "thanks to one birth", without a higher meaning and purpose - and these "many people" live the same way. Further, the comparison of people with blades of grass (“many people live like blades of grass”) suggests their thinness and weakness: people were (thin) like blades of grass and swayed from weakness, like blades of grass in the wind. But then it turns out that the wind that shakes people is not the movement of air, but "the wind<…>circumstances." In this meaning, the word “wind” is included in two phraseological turns: “keep your nose in the wind” (i.e., adapt to circumstances), and also “where the wind blows” (applying unprincipledly to circumstances). Consequently, these "many people" were also unscrupulous opportunists. Finally, the participle "guiding" (allowing two meanings: "who should be guided" and "who lead") in that particular historical situation was most often used in expressions like "guiding instructions" and "leading party cadres" and, thus, concretized those circumstances to which "many people" thoughtlessly adapted, despite the fact that these "circumstances" made them "like blades of grass."

Of course, not in all Platonic phrases the additional meaning is so easily distinguished, but in all it “flickers”. The proposal just considered is included in the fragment that Platonov excluded from the text (the episode with the trade union representative), and was taken by us for its clarity. But to the same syntactic model - the merging of several stable verb combinations, from which only parts pass into the final phrase, as a result of which there are, as it were, more actions, and the general meaning of the phrase expands - Platonov resorts very often. Let's take a few examples.

"Kozlov was still destroying the stone in the ground, not looking away at anything." The non-normative “without looking away from anything” is formed as a result of the merger of three verb combinations: “without leaving anywhere”, “without being distracted by anything” and “without looking away, look”.

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Andrey Platonov became known to a wide range of readersonly recently, although the most active period of his creativestva fell on the twenties of our century. Platonov, asand many other writers who opposed their pointview of the official position of the Soviet government, was for a long timeprohibited. Among his most significant works are the novel "Chevengur", stories "For the future" and “Doubting Makar*.

I would like to focus on the story "Pit". IN The author poses several problems with this work. CentralThe problem is formulated in the very title of the story. The image of the boilerwana is the answer that Soviet reality gave to eternal question about the meaning of life. Workers dig a hole for a bookmark

foundation of the "general proletarian Houses", in which should thenhappy to live a new generation. But in the process of work finds outXia that the planned house will not be spacious enough. catLovan has already squeezed out all the vital juices from the workers: “All sleepingwere thin, like the dead, a cramped place between the skin and bones ofeach was occupied with veins, and the thickness of the veins showed howthey must pass a lot of blood during tension labor." However, the plan called for an expansion of the pit. Here we understandthat the needs for this "house of happiness" will be enormous. foundation pitwill be infinitely deep and wide, and the strength, health and labor of many people will go into it. At the same time, work does not bringsieve these people no joy: “Voshchev peered into the face withoutsleepy sleeper - does it not express the unrequited happiness of oud lethal person. But the sleeper lay dead, deep andhis eyes vanished."

Thus, the author debunks the myth of a "bright future",showing that these workers do not live for the sake of happiness, but for the sake of the cauldronon the. From this it is clear that the genre of "Pit" is a dystopia. Horrible pictures of Soviet life are contrasted with ideologicalgies and goals proclaimed by the communists, while showingit is believed that man has turned from a rational being into an appendagepropaganda machine.

Another important problem of this work is closer to the reallife of those years. Platonov notes that for the sake of industrializationcountries were sacrificed thousands of peasants. This is very clearly seen in the story when the workers stumble upon the peasantcoffins. The peasants themselves explain that they prepare these groats in advance.would, as they anticipate an imminent death. Prodrazvyorstka took awaythey have everything, leaving no means of subsistence. This scene is verysymbolic, since Platonov shows that the new life isis on the dead bodies of peasants and their children.

The author especially dwells on the role of collectivization. In descriptionhe points out that people were arrested and sent for re-education even for the fact that they "fell intodoubt” or “wept during socialization”. "Educationmasses" in this yard were produced by the poor, that is, they received powerthe most lazy and mediocre peasants who could not leadnormal economy. Platonov emphasizes that collectivismtion hit the pillar of agriculture, which was the villageViennese middle peasants and wealthy peasants. When describing themtorus is not only historically realistic, but also acts as any psychologist. The request of the peasants for a small delay before being accepted into the state farm in order to comprehend the upcoming changes, according toshows that in the village they could not even get used to the idea of not having their own allotment of land, livestock, property. Landscape withcorresponds to the gloomy picture of socialization: “The night covered the entirevillage scale, the snow made the air impenetrable andnym, in which the chest suffocated. Peaceful cover laid on a dreamcoming all visible earth, only around the stables the snow meltedand the ground was black because the warm blood of cows and sheep came out from under the fence.”

Image Voshcheva reflects the consciousness of an ordinary person, whory tries to understand and comprehend new laws and foundations. He and in my thoughts there is no opposing myself to the rest. But he startedmother, and so he was fired. Such people are dangerous to the existingregime. They are only needed to dig a pit. Herethe author points to the totalitarian state apparatus and from lack of genuine democracy in the USSR.

A special place in the story is occupied by the image of a girl. PhilosophyPlatonov is simple here: the criterion of social harmony of societyis the fate of the child. And the fate of Nastya is terrible. Girl don'tknew the name of the mother, but knew that there is Lenin. The world of this reBenka is mutilated, because in order to save her daughter, the mother inspiresto hide her non-proletarian origin. propagandistThe sky machine had already infiltrated her mind. The reader is horrifiedlearning that she advises Safronov to kill the peasants for the cause of the revolutionlucia. Who will grow into a child whose toys are stored in a coffin? At the end of the story, the girl dies, and with her diesand a ray of hope for Voshchev and other workers. In a kind ofin opposition to the foundation pit and Nastya defeats the foundation pit, and at the basefuture home lies her dead body.

The story "Pit" is prophetic. Her main task was notshow the horrors of collectivization, dispossession and the hardship of life nor those years, although the writer did it masterfully. The author correctly identified the direction in which the society will go. The pit became our ideal and main goal. The merit of Platonov is that he showed us the source of troubles and misfortunes for many years. Our country is still floundering in this pit, and if the principles of life and worldview of people do not change, all forces and means will continue to go into the pit.

DRAMATISM OF JOINING A NEW LIFE(According to the story by A.P. Platonov * Pit)

In the story of A.P. Platonov "Pit" one of thethe most important problems of Russian literature XX century - the problem of introducing a person to a new life.

The hero of Platonov, Voshchev, gets into the brigade, which shoulddig a pit. The reader will learn that Voshchev used to work at a factory, but was fired from there because he thought about the “plan forcabbage soup life." Thus, at the very beginning of the story,the image of a seeker, traditional for Russian folk arthappiness and truth. Indeed, Voshchev is precisely the people's thoughttel, and this is evidenced even by the style in which they are writtenepisodes related to this character. Platonov uses newspaperscliches, because Voshchev, apparently, did not read anything except newspapers andslogans. Voshchev yearns because no one can explainhim what is the meaning of life. However, he soon getsanswer to this question: digging workers explain to him that the meaning life is at work.

Chiklin, Safronov and other workers live in appalling conditions. yah, they work as long as there is strength; they "live for the future", "for-

2-te zz

preparing” his life for the coming prosperity. They don't likeVoshchev’s reflections, because, in their opinion, mental, mentalnaya activity is recreation, not work; think to yourselfwithin yourself is the same as "love yourself" (as does Kozlov). Voshchev joins the brigade, and the hardest workrelieves him of the need to think. So, a new life in hang ty Platonov's "Pit" is "life for the future", constant heavy labour. It is important to note that you can only dig a pitlectively, all together; digger workers have no privacy,there is no opportunity to show individuality, because they all livejust for one purpose.

The symbol of this idea for workers is a little girlNastya. That they see a real baby that's worth it"to live for the future" , inspires them and makes them work harder and more. Digging workers see it as a symbol of communion. Nism: Safronov welcomes the child "as an element of the future." The girl herself is also aware of herself only in connection with communism:“The main one is Lenin, and the second one is Budyonny. When they weren't there only bourgeois lived, then I was not born, because I did not want to. Aas Lenin became, so I became!”

In my opinion, in joining a new life there would be nono drama, if this new life was exhausted by work onpit. However, the digging workers, being communists, had to follow the instructions of the party. At that time was takencourse towards collectivization and dispossession. That is why the earththe molds were sent to the village and the digging of the foundation pit was stopped.

In that part of the story, which is devoted to the organization of the collective farm,the key image, in my opinion, is the image of a bear-hammerfighter. The bear is a fanatic of work, he does not work for the sake of the result. that, but for the sake of the labor process itself. That is why the fact that hetrades, is not suitable for collective farming. In addition, oneof the qualities of a hammerer is bestial cruelty, which is not has no excuse.

In order to understand the reasons for the brutality of the digging workers, whowho treated Nastya with such tenderness and love, it is necessarytalk about those people against whom this cruelty was directedLena. The peasants in the story "The Pit" differ from the workers-landlekops by the fact that they care not about the future prosperity of the world, but aboutyourself. This gives Chiklin and others grounds for considering the peasantsvarnishes, hostile elements. However, in the very first episode de, where we are talking about the peasants, the reader sees what is expressedthis self-care. It turns out that every villager,down to the little ones, they have their own coffin, made exactly to size.The peasants are sure that because of this or that event the Councileven their children will not have time to grow up in any way. Cre styane - poor, downtrodden people who never resist the violence that is committed against them. The Cruelty of Chiklin, Zhachev and other builders of the "new" life is explained not so much by theirpersonal qualities, as much as what the idea prescribed them to be cruel. New life in the story "Pit" - "life for the future",

hard work in the team for the sake of the happiness of future generations.The drama of familiarization with a new life for the heroes of Platonovshares the fact that blind adherence to the idea corrupts them, accustoming them toviolence, and levels the personal qualities of each. For the communitycruelty, violence also do not end in anythingroshim. In my opinion, what dies is Nastya, who issymbol of the communist idea, due to the fact that this ideagradually lost in the streams of blood that shed for it. INin the end, the foundation pit becomes not the foundation of future happinessstya, but his grave.

The problems of A.P. Platonov's story "The Pit"

I would like to focus my attention on the story "The Foundation Pit". In this work, the author poses several problems. The central problem is formulated in the very title of the story. The image of the foundation pit is the answer that Soviet reality gave to the eternal question about the meaning of life. The workers are digging a hole to lay the foundation of a "common proletarian home" in which the new generation must then live happily. But in the process of work it turns out that the planned house will not be spacious enough. The pit had already squeezed out all the vital juices from the workers: “All the sleepers were as thin as the dead, the cramped place between the skin and bones of each was occupied by veins, and the thickness of the veins showed how much blood they must pass during the stress of labor.” However, the plan called for an expansion of the pit. Here we understand that the needs for this “house of happiness” will be enormous. The pit will be infinitely deep and wide, and the strength, health and labor of many people will go into it. At the same time, the work does not bring any joy to these people: “Voshchev peered into the face of the unrequited sleeper - whether it expresses the unrequited happiness of a satisfied person. But the sleeper lay dead, his eyes were deeply and sadly hidden.

The author especially dwells on the role of collectivization. In the description of the “organizational court”, he points out that people were arrested and sent for re-education even because they “fell into doubt” or “wept during socialization”. The “education of the masses” in this yard was carried out by the poor, that is, the most lazy and mediocre peasants who could not manage a normal economy received power. Platonov emphasizes that collectivization hit the backbone of agriculture, which was the rural middle peasants and wealthy peasants. In describing them, the author is not only historically realistic, but also acts as a kind of psychologist. The request of the peasants for a short delay before being accepted into the state farm, in order to comprehend the upcoming changes, shows that in the village they could not even get used to the idea of not having their own allotment of land, livestock, property. The landscape corresponds to a gloomy picture of socialization: “The night covered the entire village scale, the snow made the air impenetrable and cramped, in which the chest suffocated. A peaceful cover covered the whole visible earth for the coming sleep, only around the stables the snow melted and the earth was black, because the warm blood of cows and sheep came out from under the fences.

Problems of A. Platonov's story "Pit"

A. Platonov's story "The Pit" describes the events of industrialization and collectivization that took place in Russia in the 20-30s of the last century. As you know, this time in the history of our country was distinguished by dramatic excesses and absurdities, which turned into a tragedy for the vast majority of people. The era of the collapse of all the old foundations became the subject of the author's attention in the story. Platonov chooses a very specific form for presenting events - everything in his story is turned upside down, everything is distorted, hypertrophied and full of paradoxes.

Thus, Platonov's form also becomes content. The paradoxical presentation of events and the Russian language distorted by official clichés shows how stupid, absurd and scary everything that is happening in the country is.

Platonov made the scene of action an unknown town and its environs, as well as an unnamed village. Throughout the development of action, people work. They hardly rest. They are digging a pit, as if they want to "be saved forever in the abyss of the pit." And here a paradox immediately arises: how can one be saved at the bottom of the abyss, and even forever? People live a terrible and terrible life, which is even difficult to call existence. The author constantly compares them with the dead: they live “without an excess of life”, they are “thin as the dead”, fall after work, “like the dead”, and sometimes sleep in coffins. Having walled up the dead woman in a stone crypt, the worker Chiklin says: "The dead are people too." All this is reminiscent of Gogol's "Dead Souls": the dead are spoken of as living, and the living are likened to the dead. Only in Platonov's story does Gogol's symbolism acquire an even more terrible and eerie meaning.

The next paradox is that people, digging ever deeper down and deepening the foundation pit, are building a gigantic high "general proletarian house". The deeper they dig, the harder it is to believe that a huge house - a tower will be built on the site of this pit. In relation to the people working on the construction of the foundation pit, a very interesting parallel arises with the heroes of Gorky's play "At the Bottom". The diggers also live at the bottom of life, and each of them came up with an "idea of escape from here." One wants to retrain, the second - to start studying, the third (the most cunning) to join the party and "hide in the leadership apparatus." The question involuntarily arises: what has changed since the writing of the play? People live in the same, and even worse conditions, and they cannot rise to the surface.

The characters hardly think about what they are doing. The whole rhythm of life does not allow them to do this, and aimless work dulls them so that not a single thought simply remains. However, the story has its own hero-truth seeker. We look at what is happening through his eyes. This is Voshchev, a man who cannot find a place for himself in the new world precisely because he is constantly thinking about the purpose of everything that happens. Already his surname is associated with the word "generally".

He is looking for the meaning of common existence. He says that his life is not a mystery to him, he wants to see some general meaning of life. He does not fit into life and does not want to submit to thoughtless activities. Voshchev was fired from the factory "due to ... thoughtfulness in it in the midst of common labor." He firmly believes that "without thought, people act senselessly." He utters a very important phrase: "It is as if one or a few of us have extracted a convinced feeling from us and taken it for themselves." People live only according to orders from above. They put on the radio to “listen to achievements and directives,” and the activist “with the lamp on” is always on duty, because he is waiting for someone to drive up in the middle of the night with another instruction.

Voshchev is not even worried about the exhausting work that he has to do, like everyone else. He worries that his soul "ceased to know the truth." The word "truth" is perceived in the story as something confusing the overall picture of meaninglessness. One of the heroes, Safonov, is afraid: "Isn't truth a class enemy?" And if it is avoided, then it can be dreamed or presented in the form of imagination.

In Voshchev's surname one can guess not only a hint of the word "in general", the word "futility" is clearly heard in it. Indeed, all attempts by the protagonist to find the truth remain in vain. Therefore, he envies the birds that can at least "sing the sadness" of this society, because they "flyed from above and it was easier for them." He "yearns" for the future. The very combination of incompatible words already suggests the idea of what kind of future awaits people.

The theme of the future is embodied in the image of the girl Nastya, whom the workers bring to the pit after her mother died (either because she is a "bourgeois woman, or from death"). Safonov, making an "active-thinking face", says: "We, comrades, must have here in the form of childhood the leader of the future proletarian world."

The name of the girl - Nastya - also turns out to be speaking for Platonov. Anastasia is translated from Greek as "resurrected". Thus, it embodies the hope of resurrection. The theme of resurrection also becomes very important in the story.

So, Voshchev collects all sorts of "dead" objects and puts them "for the future." He picks up, for example, a “withered leaf”, puts it in a bag and decides to keep it there, like everything that “has no meaning in life”, like himself.

"When something will come!" exclaims a nameless peasant woman. Apparently never. The girl Nastya dies, and one of the walls of the pit becomes her grave. Death "resurrected" ends the story. This is the logical result of the builders of communism. Voshchev, standing over the deceased Nastya, thinks about whether communism is possible in the world and who needs it? It is no coincidence that the author connects the names of these two heroes in the finale. Hopes for a resurrection are futile. The life that the heroes of the pit lead has no meaning, there is no future either - this is the author's deep conviction. And even if this “happy” future is built, who will live in it?

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