The image of Lefty in the tale. The fate of a talented person in Russia. The fate of the master in Russia (Lefty) The story of the tragic fate of the left-hander

N. S. Leskov shows the tragic fate of the master in Russia, "Lefty". The protagonist of the work, distinguished by his talent, turns out to be unnecessary in his country, for the benefit of which he wanted to create and work.

Plot

Lefty and other Tula masters were entrusted with an important task for the country - to prove that in Russia there are masters no worse than foreign ones. The heroes managed to shoe a flea in a short period of time, which was made by the British and admired by the former Emperor Alexander I.

Lefty went to London to present his work. The British were surprised and delighted with the savvy flea. Highly appreciating Lefty's talent, they asked him to stay to work for them. But the protagonist refused, realizing that he could not live without his homeland.

On the way home, Lefty and the English representative fell ill. Upon arrival, Levsha's companion was immediately taken away and cured, and indifferent people left him to die. The end of the life of the protagonist is truly tragic: returning to his homeland to work for her good, left-hander, who is no longer needed by anyone, dies. Such is the fate of a great professional.

The protagonist

Lefty is a master of his craft. Fate rewarded him with a huge talent, which he could not realize in a country in which Special attention creativity. The hero could take advantage of the offer of the British and stay to work for them, then his talent would be appreciated according to his merits. The left-hander is a real patriot who does not want to leave his homeland. The only problem is that the state and the authorities great person, who was able to prove the skill of the Russian people, is simply not needed. The writer raises the topic of indifference to talented people.

Generalization

Lefty has a real Russian character, this collective image which absorbed the best features of the Russian people. Therefore, revealing the tragic fate of the master Lefty, N. S. Leskov wants to demonstrate not only the life of one person, but the life of all creative people in Russia. The fate of professionals in their field, who are completely unnecessary to their own state, is truly tragic. Everything is aggravated by the fact that Lefty in the tale of N. S. Leskov is valued as a master abroad, but in his own country he is treated with indifference. The authorities do not appreciate those people who can do truly valuable things, they only admire the deeds of foreigners, as Alexander I did, who did not believe in the abilities of the Russian people.

Thoughts about rejection and even open mockery in Russia of smart, talented, but belonging to the lower classes of individuals, were one of the most important, exciting writer Nikolai Leskov, topics. In one of his letters, he once noted that a simple, hardworking and at the same time immensely talented man in our country is taken for granted, that which will always be and that which makes no sense to patronize.

Leskov categorically disagrees with this trend, believing that any person has the right to have normal living and working conditions, and a talented person who works at full strength for the good of his homeland has a doubly right to this. His tale "Lefty" is just some kind of proof of the tragic fate of the Russian people and the need for drastic changes.

In the tale, the true defenders of the glory of their homeland are the masters from Tula, who managed to shoe a flea, who, in a competition of talents with the British, were able not only to demonstrate their boundless talent, but also to maintain dignity and a sense of patriotism.

Lefty is one of the Tula masters, whom it was decided to take with him to the sovereign, and then to Europe in order to demonstrate his work. He has done the impossible, but is not arrogant, accepts the need to meet with the sovereign as a working moment. He comes to the meeting in his old clothes. He did not try to flatter the emperor, did not try to please him, spoke quietly, calmly and simply, as he knew how. Everyone around marveled at this simplicity, tried to hint at the need to be more helpful. The left-hander, of course, understood that the ruler of the country was standing in front of him, but this did not affect his manner of communication in any way. He treated everyone modestly and respectfully, whether it was the sovereign or his fellow worker. For the Lefty, all people are equal.

Indeed, manners, expensive clothes are insignificant compared to true talent: clothes can wear out, manners can be forgotten in certain situations, and talent will always remain with a person.

The left-hander, thanks to his ingenuity and golden hands, who reached the emperor and abroad, became a very unhappy person. In fact, the new environment did not understand him at all. Yes, and temporary increased attention to the peasant is only ostentatious. They washed him in a bath, changed his clothes and took him with him to London. But he spends all the way without eating even a piece and maintains his strength only with Platov's sour. The emperor publicly kisses Lefty, but does nothing to make his life better or at least really thank him for what he has done.

In contrast to the Russians, the British show human concern for Lefty, strive to create all the conditions for him have a good travel. Compatriots do not see in the master a person who deserves even a drop of respect; for them he is a slave, obliged to do all this. The British invite Lefty to their place, promising a decent job and pay. But despite this, our master dreams only of Russia, and longs to return home as soon as possible. To your dark closet.

He returned to St. Petersburg, in a sick state, as he drank all the way to argue with the skipper. However, upon arrival, the skipper is sent to the hospital, where he is quickly brought to his senses, about the simple man Left-hander, dragged all night with exceptional negligence from the doors of one hospital to another, and, without receiving proper help, dies. A person who glorified his country, instead of honor and respect, received complete indifference. Lefty was not accepted in hospitals, as he did not have a document and money.

But Lefty was not mentally broken until the very last minute of his life: he was only worried about how to have time to convey the information that the British do not clean their guns with bricks, and this makes them last longer. He turned out to be the only wise man with an open soul, the only patriot of his country among the mass of heartless people who lost their purity of soul in pursuit of fame and material wealth.

The tale of Lefty, who shod a flea, became a legend, and Lefty himself became a symbol of the boundless talent of a simple Russian person, often oppressed and forgotten.

The true arbiters of events aimed at exalting the glory of Russia are Lefty and his comrades in the tale - those Tula masters, whose art is entrusted with the English curiosity. It is they who show by their behavior true dignity, calm firmness of spirit, full consciousness of national responsibility. Thinking over the current situation, they judge it, not allowing any overlap of assessments in one direction or another: “... the English nation is also not stupid, but rather cunning, and art in it has great meaning. against her,

They say - you need to take it thinking and with God's blessing.

Such behavior, free from empty vanity, contrasts especially vividly with the pettiness of the motives of the Russian tsars.

In this turn of the plot, the writer’s favorite thought about “little great people” who, standing apart from historical events decide the historical destinies of the country. “These direct and reliable people,” Leskov would speak of them with respect and warmth in his later story “The Man on the Clock”, approaching L. Tolstoy in his assessment of the democratic masses.

However, this extremely respectful attitude of the writer towards the Tula masters does not at all exclude mild irony towards them in the tale. Leskov is far from idealizing people's possibilities here, he soberly assesses them. The writer took into account the role of socio-historical circumstances that limit the creative forces of the people, imposing on many Russian inventions the seal of clownish eccentricity or practical inconsistency.

From this point of view, for understanding the general meaning of the tale, it is fundamentally important that the very result of the “breathless”, selfless and inspired work of the Tula masters is fraught with an “insidious” duality of impression: they really manage to create a miracle - to shoe a “nymphosoria”. However, their dominance is not absolute. An eye-savvy flea can no longer “dance dance”. The "improved" English curiosity is at the same time hopelessly broken.

In the development of the plot, this moment, deplorable for the prestige of Russian invention, receives its definite explanation, which is important for understanding the general idea of ​​the tale. As the British rightly judge, the Russian masters, who showed amazing audacity of imagination, obviously did not know the “calculation of strength”, and Lefty has to agree with this: “There is no doubt about this, that we did not go into the sciences ...”

Thus, in depicting the amazing work of the Tula masters, which at the same time elevates them above their overseas rivals and reveals their well-known weakness, Leskov’s bitter, disturbing thought about Russian ignorance, which cruelly oppresses and fetters great forces, expresses itself, alien to any conciliatory and apologetic tendencies. and the possibilities of the people, dooming them to a series of defeats and failures.

The question of what a Russian person can do immediately entails other equally important questions in Leskov’s tale: how does this person live, does he, like the English masters, have “absolute circumstances” for the development of his talent, what attitude he has towards himself? is confronted by those in power, how his fate develops.

True, neither the narrator nor Lefty himself, who have become accustomed to a certain order of things that has long been established in Russia (contrasting with the one that Platov and Lefty saw in England), do not ask themselves these questions, but the writer takes special measures to ensure that they inevitably inevitability rose in the minds of his readers.

Telling, for example, with what “ceremony” Platov traveled, fulfilling the sovereign’s order, Leskov paints the figures of “whistling” Cossacks, who sit on both sides of the driver’s irradiation and throughout the entire journey constantly douse their driver with blows of whips. fortunately, the horses could not be held anywhere at any station, and always a hundred jumps jumped past the stopping place.

The narrator himself does not emphasize such details, he talks about them in passing, casually, as if by the way. However, all these “trifles” of Russian life included in his narrative - the cunning cutting of coachmen, Platov’s rude abuse of Tula masters, the almost arrest of Levsha, who was being taken to St. order, accumulating in themselves the general spirit of Russian life of the Nikolaev times with its unbridled autocracy of some and the lack of rights of others, a spirit that inspires the author with the most bitter feeling.

Saturated with sorrowful details of the death of Lefty, the last chapters of the story even more insistently focus the reader's attention on the situation of the individual in Russia, where "it's scary for a person." A talented master, an artist of his craft, deeply devoted to his fatherland, dies forgotten by everyone in the corridor of the Obukhov hospital for the poor, not having time to serve his country last piece of advice. Such a completion of the plot, containing a bitter paradox, enhances the sound of the humanistic theme of the tale - the tragic fate of a talented person in Russia, doomed to kill a lot of opportunities in himself without worthy use.

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The image of Lefty in the tale. The fate of a talented person in Russia

The true zealots of the glory of Russia are the Tula masters who shod the English flea in the tale - Lefty and his comrades - showing dignity, fortitude, consciousness of national responsibility in rivalry with the British.

In this turn of the plot, the author's favorite thought about "little great people" who, "standing aside from the main historical movement," decide the historical destinies of the country, finds expression.

I. Glazunov. Lefty

Physical flaws emphasize the skill of the Lefty: strabismus and poor control of the right hand do not prevent the hero from shoeing a steel flea that is invisible to the eye. Lefty's squint is also a kind of sign, a seal of outcasts, rejection.

Tula gunsmiths are endowed with a true awareness of their capabilities and the capabilities of overseas craftsmen.

Platov's impatience and irritability betrays his uncertainty about the success of his mission. The writer shows Platov not so much as ferocious and formidable as pathetic and funny. His anger is like anger, ready to fall on the perpetrators of the misfortune that threatens him.

Pay attention to chapter 7. What is the opposite of Platov's fussiness and anger in the tale?

Disregard for the individual, and especially for the individual common man, the work, courage and talent of which, according to the writer, Russia is strong, very often borders on crime. Leskov reproduces all the circumstances as something ordinary, familiar, the general norm of life.