In the same thirty-third year, a terrible and irreparable disaster happened in our family. The second summer in a row was dry. They showed up early, began to overripe and fall off the bread. The population of the village almost entirely moved to the farms - to harvest not everywhere the rye killed by the heat, the crispy, low-growing wheat with an awned ear that survived in the ravines and lowlands. The streets of the village were deserted. Hairy calves wandered homelessly through them, and cows, poorly fed by children and old women, who suffered a lot that summer and gave little milk, blissed hoarsely with shriveled throats. In the heat there are a lot of wasps, the cows chew this creature along with the grass, and if they don’t finish chewing it, it bites the intestines and peritoneum vigorously until it dies, the cow runs wild, twitches, stops eating, loses milk.
The grandmother whittled the wrestler’s onions into swill, fed the cow from the gate to “protect” him from the bad eye and ailments. Several chickens fluttered sluggishly in the dust near our yard. Sharik grew up and began to behave restlessly; at night, wild dogs howled outside the outskirts, and he howled at them. sometimes turning to bitter sobs - his heart was tearing, that’s how he sobbed, inviting, in the grandmother’s opinion, inevitable disaster. And he called.
About six versts from the village, in the Fokinsky ulus, Aunt Apronya suffered, leaving her children at home: Sanka, Vanyukha and Petenka. Sanka turned seven in the spring, Vanyukha is nearing the end of her sixth year, and Petenka is not even four years old yet. This group, running wild without adult supervision and longing for their parents, decided to go to their mother’s arable land. Men of this age, as we know, do not have hesitations, and if they plan something, they will certainly carry it out. How the three guys walked, where they gained strength and fearlessness, is difficult to explain. Maybe the Almighty really helped her get to the place, but most likely it was the ingenuity of village children, accustomed from childhood to living by their labor and ingenuity. On the way, the boys crossed a mountain river, albeit small, but with rubble; then - a taiga saddle with stone outcrops and humpbacks, while we rolled down a landslide descent into a gorge where there is no water, but is filled with hot sharp stones brought by streams during the lash water, we passed a hot gorge that killed the grass and all living things in the stones, except snakes and lizards . The thread of the road, unwinding, led them to the harvested fields, then to the dusty, bald, yellowed oats.
For a long time the children turned back to the taiga, to the gorge, rejoicing that they had got out into the light, and although they were tormented by the heat, the walk became more fun. And they finally got to the farmhouse, drank some cold water, carefully brushed the dust from their little brother’s head and shirt, sat down to catch their breath in the cold, under a canopy covered with chap and straw, and dozed off. Sanka and Vanyukha were very tired - they took turns carrying Petenka up the mountain on snatches. And he is so heavy - he pulled on his chest for a long time, so his belly was filled with his mother’s milk.
Closer to the village, when Petenka began to sit in the dust and whine, refusing to go further, the boys fascinated him with various gizmos visible ahead: they showed a gopher standing with his butt near a hole, then a kestrel hovering over a dry rustling meadow, then a clear-water steaming in a rocky hole. Manu, in which you can have as much cold, very cold, sweet, sweet water as you want, and you just need to move your feet quickly, and that very moment you will find yourself on the shore, drink and splash. But the time came when the child was completely exhausted and no amount of persuasion and luring had any effect on him. He plopped down onto the road decisively and silently. And then the savvy boys used the last resort: they showed him a yellow strip rolling down a steep slope, where working people could be seen: “Mom is there. She saved Petenka a warm blanket and some milk.” Petenka immediately believed this, swallowed his saliva, stood up, gave his brothers his hands and, with difficulty moving his broken legs, moved towards the Fokinsky ulus.
The brothers forgot the deceitful trick, but Petenka remembered about his mother, and about the shanezhka, and about the little glass with milk, and when the brothers fell asleep under the canopy, he went out of the gate of the farm, cutting off the blinding light of the sun setting in the evening with his palm, looked for a yellow stripe and dragged himself there. There his mother actually reaped rye and knitted sheaves. She didn’t know, she didn’t know that her robber sons had come to the rescue without permission and the youngest had come to her. And he would have stomped, but he ended up in a waterhole that stretched along the road. That pothole was soft on the feet - there was sand and small pebbles in it. The higher the reservoir rose, the narrower and deeper it became, and either along the washed out, collapsed edge, or along the spring groove made by the snowman to the roadside ditch, Petenka wandered away from the road. He did not fall on the strip of bread spilled along the mountain slope, where his mother, baked by the sun until her head rang, deafened from fatigue, crunchily cut rye stalks with a sickle, in a bundle under a bush was stored Petenka’s card shanezhka and a jar of fragrant forest strawberries, picked in the morning by the dew. If only the harness could be overcome as soon as possible, the sun would set as soon as possible - and the reaper would run straight from the field to the village over the mountain - bringing a gift to the children. There will be joy! Somehow they are there, the robber nightingales? They wouldn't set anything on fire. They wouldn't drown in the river...
Ordinary peasant thoughts and anxieties, shortening the hot day, quenching time, brightening up the dullness of monotonous hard work. No, the mother’s heart did not predict trouble. The feelings and premonitions of a seriously tired person become deaf, dull. Only idle people have strange dreams and are tormented by sweet, mysterious or disturbing premonitions. She tied up her quota of sheaves, compiled them into suslons and straightened up, rubbing her stiff lower back, thinking that on the road, you’ll see, she’ll warm up when she goes down to the river, rinses her face and legs - she’ll completely wake up from her stupor...
And then she saw Sanka’s curly head, covered in shorts, with Vanyukha waddling behind Sanka. His shirt looks like it’s been bitten off his belly, you can even see his navel tied crookedly. They call the eldest Mukha - he is light, buzzing, restless. Vanyukha is voluptuous, kind, loves to sing songs, but when he gets angry, he turns all black, stomps his feet, bites his hand. They tease him with a bull. The youngest has neither character nor nickname yet. His cartilage is also not ossified everywhere. He even stopped procrastinating on his mother’s breast just before the suffering...
My boys are coming! They're digging with their scissors! My fly is buzzing and eating honey berries. The bull moos - he wants milk! - the mother sang, meeting her sons and as she walked, she squeezed out their noses, brushed the dust from their cheeks, buttoned up their shirts, took apart her bundle: she broke the shanezha, put it in pieces for the children, sprinkled berries into their sweaty palms - eat, dear ones, eat, dear ones. How does our little foolish little one live and do without his mother?
And he left for you...
For many days the mother circled around the fields, screaming until she lost her voice and fell to the ground exhausted. The collective farm brigade scoured all the surrounding forests. Afterwards, the whole village searched for Petenka, but they didn’t find a scrap of the boy’s shirt, nor did they see a drop of blood anywhere.
The Lord God took him, innocent and bright, as his servant-angels, - the old women, susceptible to superstitions and terrible fables, assured. My aunt, shocked by grief, suspected the neighbors, who supposedly had a grudge against her, had done something wrong, so the foolish boy went out to mow, there were the neighbors’ dogs, and he started to run away from them. But you can’t run from hunting dogs. They tore the boy apart. That's what the neighbors did; They placed the child under the seed that was thrown at that time, and in the winter, when the hay was taken out, they hid it in the snow, and there the little animals polished it off. But the peasants before, long before the harvest, on Elijah’s Day, put the hay in its place, and the neighbors could not be in the meadows, and Siberian huskies are intelligent dogs, they never rush at people, especially children, unless they are rabid.
My aunt nursed my grandchildren from Sanka and Vanyukha: she saw a lot during her difficult life, she lost and buried so many close people - she couldn’t count; two husbands, father, mother, sisters, brothers and small children had to be seen off to the next world. However, she rarely remembers them, she will mourn, as expected, on her parents’ day in the cemetery and calm down. People are mourned and buried - this means that their soul is calmed, in its eternal place. But where, in what forests, in what unknown spaces does the unpleasant child’s soul wander homelessly?..
More than forty years have passed, but at night the mother still hears light barefoot steps, stretches out her hands, calls, calls and cannot reach her little son, and her dream always ends the same way: up, along a mountain road, between frozen grains, illuminated by sunlight, she leaves from her there is a little boy in a white shirt...
Boy in a white shirt
Viktor Petrovich Astafiev
FROM THE COMPILER
...The desire to present selected stories written on Siberian material by Russian Soviet prose writers over the past ten to fifteen years gave rise to the idea of this book, designed not only to promote the works of small form of the 60-70s, but also the story in general in all its intra-genre richness.
The collection was formed in such a way that the characters in the stories formed a kind of “group portrait” of our contemporary Siberian, a working man in all the diversity of manifestations of his personality...
Victor Astafiev
Boy in a white shirt
In the dry summer of thirty-three, they showed up early, began to overripe and fall off the grain. The population of our village almost entirely moved to farms - to harvest not everywhere the rye killed by the heat and the crispy low-growing wheat with an awned ear that survived in the ravines and lowlands. The streets of the village were deserted. Hairy calves wandered homelessly through them, cows poorly fed by children and old women blissed hoarsely with shriveled throats, chickens, preserved in some houses, fluttered sluggishly in the dust, and feral dogs howled outside the outskirts.
About six versts from the village, in the Fokinsky ulus, my eldest aunt also suffered, leaving her children at home: Sanka, Vanyukha and Petenka. Sanka turned seven in the spring, Vanyukha is approaching her sixth year, and Petenka is not yet three years old.
This group, running wild without adult supervision and longing for their parents, decided to go to the arable land, to their mother. Men of this age, as we know, do not have hesitations, and if they plan something, they will certainly carry it out.
How this trio walked, where they gained strength and fearlessness, is difficult to explain. Maybe the Almighty really helped her get to the place, but most likely it was the ingenuity of the village children, accustomed from childhood to living by their labor and ingenuity. On the way, the boys crossed a mountain river, albeit small, but with rubble; then - a taiga saddle with stone outcrops and humpbacks, until they rolled down a landslide descent into a gorge where there is no water, but is full of hot, sharp stones brought by streams during wild spring water. They passed a hot gorge, which killed the grass and all living things in the stones, except for snakes and lizards, and the thread of the road, unwinding, led them to the harvested meadows, then into the dusty, bald, yellowed oats.
For a long time the children turned back to the taiga, to the gorge, rejoicing that they had got out into the light, and although they were tormented by the heat, the walk became more fun. And they finally got to the farmhouse, drank some cold water, carefully brushed the dust from their little brother’s head and shirt, sat down to catch their breath in the cold, under a canopy covered with chap and straw, and dozed off.
Sanka and Vanyukha were very tired - they took turns carrying Petenka up the mountain on snatches. And he is so heavy - he pulled on his chest for a long time, so his belly was filled with his mother’s milk. Closer to the village, when Petenka began to sit in the dust and whine, refusing to go further, the boys fascinated him with various gizmos visible ahead: they showed a gopher standing with his butt near a hole, then a kestrel hovering over a dry rustling meadow, then a clear-water steaming in a rocky hole. The Manu River, in which you can find as much cold, very cold, sweet, sweet water as you want, and you just need to move your feet, and that very moment you will find yourself on the shore, and you will drink and splash.
But the time came when the child was completely exhausted and no amount of persuasion and luring had any effect on him. He plopped down onto the road decisively and silently. And then the savvy boys used the last resort: they showed him a yellow strip rolling down a steep slope, where working people could be seen: “Mom is there. She saved Petenka a warm blanket and some milk.”
Petenka immediately believed this, swallowed his saliva, stood up, gave his brothers his hands and, with difficulty moving his broken legs, moved towards the Fokinsky ulus.
The brothers forgot their deception, but Petenka remembered about his mother, and about the shanezhka, and about the shalik with milk, and when the brothers fell asleep under the canopy, he went out of the gate of the village and, cutting off the blinding light of the sun setting in the evening with his palm, dragged himself to the yellow strip , where his mother actually reaped rye and knitted sheaves.
She didn’t know, she didn’t know that her robber sons had come to the rescue without permission and the youngest had come to her. And he would have stomped, but he ended up in a waterhole that stretched along the road. That pothole was soft on the feet - there was sand and small pebbles in it. The higher the reservoir rose, the narrower and deeper it became, and either along the washed out, collapsed edge, or along the vernal groove made by the snowman to the roadside ditch, Petenka wandered away from the road. He did not fall on the strip of grain spilled across the mountain slope, where until his head was ringing, baked by the sun, deaf from fatigue, his mother was crisply cutting rye stalks with a sickle, and in a bundle under a bush, Petenka’s card shanezhka and a glass of fragrant forest fruit were actually stored strawberries, in the morning, according to the dew collected.
If only she could overcome the harness sooner, sooner the sun would set - and she would run straight from the field to the village over the mountain - she would bring a gift to the children. There will be joy! Somehow they are there, the robber nightingales? They wouldn't set anything on fire. They wouldn't drown in the river...
Ordinary peasant thoughts and anxieties, shortening the sultry day, extinguishing time like forest fire, brightening up the dullness of monotonous hard work.
No, the mother’s heart did not predict trouble. The feelings and premonitions of a seriously tired person become deaf, dull. Only idle people have strange dreams and are tormented by sweet, mysterious or disturbing premonitions.
She tied up her quota of sheaves, made them into worts, straightened up, rubbing her stiff lower back, and thought that on the road, you’ll see, she’ll warm up, and when she goes down to the river, rinses her face and legs, she’ll wake up completely from her foolishness... And then she saw Sankina a shaggy head in shortcomings. And Vanyukha waddles behind Sanka and Vanyukha. His shirt looks like it’s been bitten off his belly, you can even see his navel tied crookedly. They call the eldest Mukha - he is light, buzzing, restless. And Vanyukha is voluptuous, kind, loves to sing songs, but when he gets angry, he turns all black, stomps his feet and bites his hand. They tease him with a bull. The youngest has neither character nor nickname yet. His cartilage is also not ossified everywhere. He even just stopped procrastinating on his mother’s breast before suffering...
My boys are coming! They're digging with their scissors! My fly is buzzing and eating honey berries. The bull moos - he wants milk! - the mother sang, meeting her sons, and as she walked she squeezed out their noses, brushed the dust from their cheeks, buttoned up their shirts and took apart her bundle: she broke the shanezha, put it in a piece for the children, sprinkled berries into her sweaty palms - eat, dear ones, eat, glorious ones. How is it going? How does our little foolish little one live and fare without his mother?
And he left for you...
For many days the mother circled around the fields, screaming until she became voiceless and fell to the ground, exhausted. The collective farm brigade scoured the surrounding forests. Afterwards, the whole village searched for Petenka, but they didn’t even find a scrap from the boy’s shirt, and they didn’t see a drop of blood anywhere. The Lord God took him, innocent and bright, to be one of his angels, assured my fellow countrymen who were susceptible to superstitions and terrible fables...
My aunt, shocked by grief, suspected the neighbors, who supposedly had a “grievance” against her, had done something wrong, they say, the foolish boy went out to mow, and there were the neighbors’ dogs, and he rushed to run away from them. But you can’t run from hunting dogs. They tore the boy apart. So the neighbors made a shelter and put the child under the embryo that was being thrown at that time, and in the winter, when the hay was taken out, they hid it in the snow, and there the animals spent it.
But our men put the hay in place long before the harvest, and the neighbors could not be in the meadows, and Siberian huskies never rush at people, unless they are mad.
My aunt nursed my grandchildren from Sanka and Vanyukha; She had seen a lot during her difficult life, she lost and buried so many close people - she couldn’t count them: two husbands, father and mother, sisters and brothers, small children also had to see off the world. But she rarely remembers them, she will mourn, as expected, on her parents’ day in the cemetery and calm down. People are mourned and buried - this means their soul is calmed, it is in its eternal place.
But where, in what forests and unknown spaces does the unpleasant child’s soul wander homelessly?..
Thirty years have already passed, and at night the mother still hears light barefoot steps, stretches out her hands, calls, calls and can’t reach her son, and her dream always ends the same: up, along a mountain road, between the frozen grains, illuminated by the sunlight, the little one leaves her boy in a white shirt...
MBOU Shilokshanskaya school
Lesson summary: “The tragedy of a mother who lost her child.”
(based on the work of V. Astafiev “The Boy in a White Shirt”, 7th grade)
Zubova Tatyana Vladimirovna
Teacher of Russian language and literature
2016
Subject: The tragedy of a mother who lost a child (based on the work of V. Astafiev “The Boy in a White Shirt”, 7th grade)
Target: nurturing in students such qualities as compassion, empathy, sympathy, responsiveness.
Tasks:
Educational:
Introduce students to V. Astafiev’s work “The Boy in a White Shirt”;
Develop skills in working with text.
Educational:
Develop creative thinking, attention, memory, activity of students;
Develop students' cognitive interest;
Develop the ability to self-assess your activities.
Educational:
To cultivate qualities such as compassion, empathy, empathy, responsiveness;
Instill love and interest in native literature;
Create a favorable psychological climate for the opportunity to unlock the potential of each child;
Cultivate perseverance, discipline, responsibility, and self-respect.
Teaching methods:
- creative reading method - This is the activation of artistic perception, the formation of artistic experiences through the means of art. The method of creative reading promotes the development of observation, the ability to see and hear what is happening around, the ability to find the right words to convey one’s impressions.
- heuristic method – a method that encourages students to analyze works, reason, and formulate their thoughts into coherent speech. This method develops critical thought and teaches independent acquisition of knowledge.
Forms of organization of cognitive activity: frontal, group, individual.
Means of education: portrait of a writer, exhibition of books, computer, projector, text, envelopes with words, school notebooks, cards with hearts, magnets.
A multimedia application is used in the lessonMicrosoftPowerPoint. The demo must start in full screen mode. To move to the next slide, click the left mouse button. Videos are also clickable.
Lesson outline:
Organizing time.(1 min)
Students’ emotional mood for the lesson, checking readiness for the lesson.
The class is set to work.
Preparing to understand new material.
Working with a parable.
(5 minutes)
The teacher reads a parable about compassion.
Answer the Teacher's question: what is compassion?
Working with the word.
Let's make a definition from those words that are given in your envelope called “Compassion”?
Read out the definition you came up with.
Find synonyms for this word.
Creating a cluster.
When should we have compassion for someone? Make a cluster: reasons for compassion.
Children listen and prepare to analyze the text they listen to.
Student answers.
Children create a definition of the word “compassion” using word cards.
Compassion is pity, sympathy, caused by the misfortune of another person.
Humanity, pity, mercy, compassion, condolences, regret, sympathy, participation.
Students create a cluster for the word compassion
www. proza. ru
(slide No. 1)
Appendix No. 1
(slide No. 2)
(slide No. 3)
Preparation for primary perception of the text.
(2 minutes)
Frontal work.
Whose grief and misfortune is the hardest to watch?
Teacher's conclusion:
The mother’s grief is boundless and inexpressible, her loss is irreparable.
What work clearly shows maternal pain?
What's the worst thing for a mother?
What do you think we will talk about in class? Determine the topic of our lesson.
The topic of our lesson is “The tragedy of a mother who lost her son”
What problems will we solve in today's lesson?
Write down the topic of the lesson in your notebook.
mothers
V. Astafiev “Boy in a white shirt”
Death, illness, missing child.
Students express their assumptions, listen to their friends, formulate a topic, and define tasks.
Students make notes in their notebooks.
(slide No. 4)
Stage of primary perception of the text.
(8 minutes)
Frontal work.
What is V. Astafiev’s work about?
What idea did V. Astafiev want to convey to us?
Why does the story have such a tragic ending?
Teacher's conclusion:
V.P. Astafiev wrote: “My life is dear and close to me, just like every person has his own life... A person does not choose life on his own, it is determined by fate, and it is up to him only to some extent to manage it, and not swim wherever it takes you” Despite the difficulties and hardships “that befell Viktor Petrovich, he did not harden in soul, he always deeply felt kindness”
What is kindness?
Working with the word.
Make up a definition from the words that are given on the desk in the envelope called “Kindness.”
Probably, not everyone is given the ability to understand the pain of a stranger, to feel it as if it were their own; not everyone can come to the aid of a stranger at any moment, sympathize with someone else’s grief, give good advice, feel sorry. But I hope that you can, and today we will make sure of this.
What time is described in the work? Find this description in the text.
How can you characterize the time described in the work?
Preparing for a student's performance.
Korotkova Dasha prepared a short message about the plight of ordinary people in the 30s.
How did people live?
What did you do to feed your children?
Who worked in the field?
Who raised the children?
To make it easier for you to imagine the situation of that time, let's watch a short video.
Teacher's word:
This was the case in the family described by V. Astafiev. All adults worked in the fields from dawn to dusk in order to somehow feed their children. Let's look at the fate of the story's heroes in more detail.
Student answers.
Student answers
Students make up a definition and read out the resulting interpretations of the word.
1933 was a hungry year. Students read the beginning of the piece.
Heavy, difficult, hungry.
The student talks about the difficult life of that time, the rest perceive the information and analyze it.
Based on the material they hear, children try to answer questions and imagine the environment in which people lived in the 1930s.
Students watch a video.
(slide No. 5)
Appendix No. 2
(slide No. 6)
video
Analysis of a literary work.
(10 minutes)
What happened in the story? Briefly convey the main points of the story.
Are little Petya's brothers to blame?
Is the mother to blame? Why?
How can you justify your mother?
Did the mother know that the children had gone to her in the field? Find words in the text that prove this. Let's read the meeting of mother and children by role.
How did the mother meet her children?
How does this characterize her?
Does a mother love her children?
Does the mother blame the children for what happened? And yourself?
Teacher's conclusion:
“In a mother’s heart there is an abyss, in the depths of which there is always forgiveness,” said Honore de Balzac. Of course, the mother does not blame the children for what happened. They are still small and cannot yet foresee the consequences of their actions, although after this incident, most likely, the children have matured, become more responsible, and smarter.
Who is to blame?
What words does Astafiev choose to describe his mother’s condition?
Do you think the children helped their mother in search of her brother and survive the trouble?
Find the last lines of text. What is the point of the ending?
Why is the mother still waiting for her son?
Will she be able to forget her son?
Read the statements of V. Hugo and E. Dvoretskaya about mother’s grief:
“Time does not bring oblivion to a mother who has lost her child. This kind of grief never gets old. Mourning dresses wear out, but darkness remains in the heart,” said V. Hugo
“She lost her son, she lost her future, and spring will never come for her,” wrote El.Dvoretskaya
How do you understand these statements?
Are there many women who spend their entire lives mourning for their children?
Can we help such mothers?
One of the students conveys the main points of the story, the rest complement.
Students answer, reason, share their impressions and assumptions. Children listen to each other’s answers, complement in some ways, correct in others.
Students find an episode of the meeting in the text and role-play the dialogue between mother and children.
Students continue to answer the teacher's questions.
Students answer questions.
Students read the final lines of the story and answer the question.
Students read the statements. They share their thoughts.
(slide No. 7)
Checking homework.
(5 minutes)
At home, you should have prepared examples from works of fiction that show the suffering of mothers.
Checking your homework.
How do you feel about these women?
Student performances. Students present their work in the form of a presentation or report.
Student answers.
Independent work.
(7 minutes)
Organization of independent work in groups.
Can we help our heroine? How?
Let's divide into several groups to complete the next task.
Let's help a mother who has lost her child. To do this, use the sun and its rays, which always warm people with their warmth. With the help of kind words, try to help our heroine. Think about what word you will put at the head?
Let's see whose sun shines brighter. I give you the floor.
Creative task.
We hope that our kind words will warm many with their warmth.
When reading any work, we expect a happy ending, unfortunately, we did not find this in Astafiev’s story, but we can try to change the ending of the story ourselves.
Let's change the ending of the story so that the ending is happy.
Student answers.
Students are divided into groups.
The guys determine tasks, actions, and distribute tasks among themselves.
Students think about the question, offer options for helping the heroine, then place the words on the rays around the sun.
Students comment on the proposed types of help for the heroine of the story.
Students perform a creative task. After finishing the discussion in groups, the children share the ending options with the class, listen to different proposals, comment, and complement the answers of their comrades.
8. Homework and instructions on how to complete it.
(2 minutes)
Now let's write down our homework. Your task is to write the “golden” rules of life that we must follow in order to be a PERSON who at the end of his life will say that he did not live his life in vain.
Students write down their homework.
(slide No. 8)
Summing up the lesson.
(3 minutes)
Organization of assessment activities.
What work did we study in today's lesson?
What impression did it make on you?
What is the mother's tragedy?
Will she be able to forget her pain?
What advice do you give to the brothers of the missing boy?
What does the story teach?
What is compassion?
What qualities should a compassionate, sympathetic, empathetic person have?
Take the last envelope, in which you will see the fragments of a broken mother's heart. Write words of wishes to your mothers on your fragment. Let's glue the pieces together and make one big loving mother's heart. Come home today and tell your parents how much you love them.
Let's end our conversation with a wonderful poem, thanks to which, I hope, you will draw the right conclusions for yourself.
Students answer questions and listen to other children's statements.
Students write words and use a magnet to place their shard on the board.
A student reads the poem “Prayer for Mom”
(Appendix 3)
(slide No. 10)
stihi. ru
Reflection.
(2 minutes)
Students evaluate their work in class.
(slide No. 9)
(Appendix 4)
One of the most famous Soviet authors is V. Astafiev. “The Boy in a White Shirt” (a brief summary of this story is the subject of this article) is perhaps the author’s most piercing and touching work, in which he described the difficult time of the early 1930s, when famine broke out in a number of regions of the USSR, claiming lives many people. This work is distinguished by its lyricism and at the same time deep drama, largely due to the fact that it mainly focuses on the little boy Petenka, who became a victim of difficult times.
Introduction
Astafiev is a true master of lyrical prose. “The Boy in a White Shirt” (the summary of this work is proof of this) is a story that reflects the realities of the difficult era of the 1930s. At the beginning, the author describes a sad picture of the village, which was deserted due to the fact that the entire working-age population was forced to go to work to save the harvest from drought. The narrator's aunt also went to the field, leaving only her three little sons: Sasha, who was seven years old, six-year-old Vanya, and Petenka, who was not yet three years old. The boys, missing their mother, decided to go looking for her on their own. Astafiev masterfully described the rural steppe landscape in his work. “The Boy in a White Shirt” (a summary of the story shows the writer’s ability to briefly and laconically create a panorama of nature with the help of epithets) is a work in which subtle, kind humor is combined with deep philosophical reflections on life and its meaning.
Heroes' Journey
For the brothers, the search for their mother became a real challenge. The writer did not skimp on paint, showing what obstacles they managed to overcome on the road: a river, a gorge, rubble, oats. The author paints a touching picture of how the older brothers carried the younger one on their shoulders, how they persuaded him with various inventions and lured him to continue the journey, showing them animals and a river, until, finally, they resorted to the last resort and said that their mother was waiting for them ahead. These words forced Petenka to move on, despite his mortal fatigue. The writer Astafiev conveyed the experiences of his characters very reliably. “The Boy in a White Shirt” (a brief summary of the story shows how subtly and skillfully he conveys the emotional experiences of the characters) is a work that, despite its brevity, amazes with the authenticity of its reproduction of the era.
Description of the mother
An important place in the essay is occupied by the image of the boys’ mother, who worked in the field during her sons’ trip. The writer reproduces in detail the difficult conditions of her work. The only joy for her was the memory of her children. The thought of them helps her come to terms with the difficult conditions and hard work in the harvest. She has stored milk for the boys and is waiting impatiently for the time when she can give them food. The author describes in very touching terms the meeting of a mother with her sons. At the same time, he uses lively conversational speech to convey all the tenderness of this woman. The first thing she did was straighten their clothes, and then fed them, giving them the last of her supplies. The writer describes in very strong terms the mother’s grief when she learned of the disappearance of her youngest son.
Life after loss
Astafiev wrote many famous works. “The Boy in a White Shirt” (a brief summary of the story will give schoolchildren some idea of the work of this writer) is a work that occupies a prominent place in Soviet literature, despite its small volume. The final part of the essay is devoted to the life of the mother after this tragic story. She had a large family, she outlived and buried many, but she did not remember any of her relatives with such warmth and love as her youngest Petenka. No one knew how to convey the experiences of ordinary village people like Viktor Astafiev. “The Boy in a White Shirt” (a summary of the story should include a description of the features of his language) is an essay that can be offered to schoolchildren during lessons on Soviet literature.
Language
This essay is written in a lively colloquial language, which is full of folk expressions and even fabulous folklore elements. This gives the story a particularly sad lyrical tone that permeates the entire work. The author affectionately compares the boys to robber nightingales, describes nature with colorful epithets, and conveys the relationship between the brothers with the help of touching epithets. The ending has a deeply symbolic meaning, largely due to the creation of the image of a child in snow-white clothes, which symbolizes his purity and innocence. So, Astafiev became one of the most recognized Soviet writers. “The Boy in a White Shirt” (a very brief summary of the story should contain a conclusion about the idea of the story) is an essay that is a must-read for anyone who is interested not only in the author’s work, but also in the history of the country.
1933 It's a dry summer. The entire population of the Far Eastern village moves to the farms to harvest the remaining rye and wheat. Old people and children remain in the village. Vitin's dog Sharik howls, calling for trouble, in the grandmother's opinion. And trouble comes.
Aunt Apronya's house is located about six versts from the village. There she harvests the crops, leaving three sons at home, the youngest of whom is only three years old.
Longing for their mother, the brothers go to the village, overcome a mountain river, a taiga saddle, a hot gorge and reach the village unharmed. The youngest Petenka gets tired halfway, and the elders persuade him to go, promising to bring him to his mother. At the end of the journey, they take turns dragging it on their backs.
The tired brothers sit under the canopy and fall asleep. Petenka decides to go to his mother.
The higher the reservoir rose, the narrower and deeper it became, and either along the washed out, collapsed edge, or along the spring groove made by the snowman to the roadside ditch, Petenka wandered away from the road.
Apronya, meanwhile, is thinking about the children. She has some gifts, picked some berries in the forest and wants to run into the village in the evening. Suddenly she notices the shaggy heads of her older sons in the shortfalls, but the youngest is not with them. They searched for Petenka for many days, but they never found her. Not a drop of blood or a scrap of clothing remained from the boy.
Forty years have passed. Apronya nursed her grandchildren, buried her relatives, but never for a moment forgot about Petenka. Relatives are mourned, buried, and the child’s soul wanders somewhere in unknown spaces. And Aprona keeps dreaming about how a boy in a white shirt walks away from her along a path between tall grains of bread.
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