Theme of the comedy “Undergrowth” The idea of ​​the comedy “Undergrowth”

The comedy "Undergrowth" was written by Denis Fonvizin in the 18th century. In the work, the author reveals the most relevant topics and ideas for that time - issues of social ideals, morality, personal honor and service to the fatherland, the conflict of "fathers and children" and the importance of parental education in the formation of a conscious personality.

The theme of the comedy "Undergrowth"

The leading theme of the comedy "Undergrowth" Fonvizin is the theme of the education of the new nobility.

The author reveals it by contrasting the characters-bearers of the ideas of enlightenment (Pravdin, Starodum, Sophia, Milon) and representatives of the obsolete, obsolete foundations of feudal society (Prostakovs, Mitrofan, Skotinin). Such a division of heroes for the work “Undergrowth” is not accidental - they are brought up differently, which means they have radically opposite views on life. This is reflected even in the relationship between parents and children - it is enough to recall how mutual respect between Sophia and Starodum contrasts with the excessive indulgence of the whims of the spoiled Mitrofan, who does not appreciate what Prostakov gives him and in the end refuses his mother altogether.

It is in the problems of family education that Fonvizin sees the cause of the general moral degradation and lack of education of the Russian nobility of that era. Prostakova, wanting to save money, hires unprofessional teachers - a retired sergeant Tsyfirkin, who did not graduate from the Kuteikin seminary and has nothing to do with the sciences of Vralman. Mitrofan is essentially taught by slaves, but what can they teach, except to be the same as them? (Recall the ironic moment when the young man repeated after Kuteikin “I am a worm ...” and “I am a cattle”). Ironically, Fonvizin drew attention to the fact that Russia of that era needed an urgent reform of education. Nobles should be brought up as strong, independent, enlightened individuals with high ideals. And people serving at the court are no exception - we learn about the decline in their morals from the speeches of Starodum when he recalls the years of his service.

An additional theme of "Undergrowth" is the question of duty to the motherland and its honest fulfillment. As it becomes clear from a detailed analysis of the work, it is closely related to the theme of education. High morality, the concept of honor, the ability to neglect one's own benefit and comfort for the sake of a bright future for the homeland can only be instilled from parents or educated teachers. At the time of writing the play, these views were advanced, since the idea was implanted among the nobility that it was necessary first of all to serve the sovereign, and not the fatherland. It was for such rather harsh statements in the work that Fonvizin was limited in literary activity by order of Catherine II.

The idea of ​​the comedy "Undergrowth"

The idea of ​​the comedy "Undergrowth" echoes its theme - it is a condemnation of immorality, cruelty, stupidity, greed of the landowners and the glorification of the ideals of enlightenment and humanism.
Fonvizin himself was a personality of the Enlightenment, therefore the highest human principles were the main ones for him. Depicting the horrors of the ignorance of the “old” nobles in comedy, the author exposed the shortcomings of the social system that existed in Russia. Fonvizin saw victory over them in the supremacy of a just, humane law, as happens at the end of the play. Personifying the letter of the law, Pravdin, after receiving confirmation that the Prostakov village is coming under his care, forbids Prostakov to “act out” anger at the serfs. Moreover, he himself pays off teachers, but in the way they really deserve. However, the reader (or viewer) understands that the just law has triumphed only in this village, and not throughout tsarist Russia, since the highest ranks are still occupied by representatives of landlord morality - the same Prostakovs and Skotinins, who are ready to flatter for their own benefit to a stranger and deceive their relatives.

Thus, the theme and the idea of ​​"Undergrowth" are closely related. In the comedy, Fonvizin not only ridiculed the cruel, uneducated landowners, but also, using the example of Pravdin, Milon, Sophia, Starodum, showed what the personality of the Enlightenment should be like in tsarist Russia. The author focuses on the fact that it is possible to achieve the renewal of society only through a complete reformation of the system of upbringing and education. Outdated ideals must be discarded, while humanism, honesty, justice, morality must become the basis of the renewed nobility.

Summing up, it is worth noting that Fonvizin created a brilliant work, the ideas of which have not lost their relevance today. The play attracts more and more readers and researchers with its depth and topicality of the issues being clarified.

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The comedy "Undergrowth" was written by Denis Fonvizin in the 18th century. In the work, the author reveals the most relevant topics and ideas for that time - issues of social ideals, morality, personal honor and service to the fatherland, the conflict of "fathers and children" and the importance of parental education in the formation of a conscious personality.

The theme of the comedy "Undergrowth"

The leading theme of the comedy "Undergrowth" by Fonvizin is the theme of educating a new nobility. The author reveals it by contrasting the characters-bearers of the ideas of enlightenment (Pravdin, Starodum, Sophia, Milon) and representatives of the obsolete, obsolete foundations of feudal society (Prostakovs, Mitrofan, Skotinin). Such a division of heroes for the work "Undergrowth" is not accidental - they are brought up differently, which means they have radically opposite views on life. This is reflected even in the relationship between parents and children - it is enough to recall how mutual respect between Sophia and Starodum contrasts with the excessive indulgence of the whims of the spoiled Mitrofan, who does not appreciate what Prostakov gives him and in the end refuses his mother altogether.

It is in the problems of family education that Fonvizin sees the cause of the general moral degradation and lack of education of the Russian nobility of that era. Prostakova, wanting to save money, hires unprofessional teachers - a retired sergeant Tsyfirkin, who did not graduate from the Kuteikin seminary and has nothing to do with the sciences of Vralman. Mitrofan is essentially taught by slaves, but what can they teach, except to be the same as them? (Recall the ironic moment when the young man repeated after Kuteikin “I am a worm ...” and “I am a cattle”). Ironically, Fonvizin drew attention to the fact that Russia of that era needed an urgent reform of education. Nobles should be brought up as strong, independent, enlightened individuals with high ideals. And people serving at the court are no exception - we learn about the decline in their morals from the speeches of Starodum when he recalls the years of his service.

An additional theme of "Undergrowth" is the question of duty to the motherland and its honest fulfillment. As it becomes clear from a detailed analysis of the work, it is closely related to the theme of education. High morality, the concept of honor, the ability to neglect one's own benefit and comfort for the sake of a bright future for the homeland can only be instilled from parents or educated teachers. At the time of writing the play, these views were advanced, since the idea was implanted among the nobility that it was necessary first of all to serve the sovereign, and not the fatherland. It was for such rather harsh statements in the work that Fonvizin was limited in literary activity by order of Catherine II.

The idea of ​​the comedy "Undergrowth"

The idea of ​​the comedy "Undergrowth" echoes its theme - it is a condemnation of immorality, cruelty, stupidity, greed of the landowners and the glorification of the ideals of enlightenment and humanism. Fonvizin himself was a personality of the Enlightenment, therefore the highest human principles were the main ones for him. Depicting the horrors of the ignorance of the "old" nobles in comedy, the author exposed the shortcomings of the social system that existed in Russia. Fonvizin saw victory over them in the supremacy of a just, humane law, as happens at the end of the play. Personifying the letter of the law, Pravdin, after receiving confirmation that the Prostakov village is coming under his care, forbids Prostakov to “act out” anger at the serfs. Moreover, he himself pays off teachers, but in the way they really deserve. However, the reader (or viewer) understands that the just law triumphed only in this village, and not throughout tsarist Russia, since the highest ranks are still occupied by representatives of landlord morality - the same Prostakovs and Skotinins, who, for their own benefit, are ready to flatter a stranger and deceive their relatives.

Thus, the theme and the idea of ​​"Undergrowth" are closely related. In the comedy, Fonvizin not only ridiculed the cruel, uneducated landowners, but also, using the example of Pravdin, Milon, Sophia, Starodum, showed what the personality of the Enlightenment should be like in tsarist Russia. The author focuses on the fact that it is possible to achieve the renewal of society only through a complete reformation of the system of upbringing and education. Outdated ideals must be discarded, while humanism, honesty, justice, morality must become the basis of the renewed nobility.

Summing up, it is worth noting that Fonvizin created a brilliant work, the ideas of which have not lost their relevance today. The play attracts more and more readers and researchers with its depth and topicality of the issues being clarified.

Artwork test

"Undergrowth" - a comedy by Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin. This is the first socio-political comedy in the history of Russian dramaturgy. The author exposes in it the vices of contemporary society. What is the main idea Undergrowth, the main idea and theme.

Undergrowth main idea

Subject Undergrowth - education and enlightenment of Russian society

The main idea "Undergrowth" show with the help of frank humor, ridicule and expose the system of noble education and upbringing of that time. This comedy is an indicator of human character. The creation of images of ignorant landowners shows in the best possible way how the author cares about the future of the fatherland.

Comedy Undergrowth - teaches me to respect elders, teaches me to successfully acquire knowledge, teaches me to appreciate kindness and honesty, teaches me to love people so as not to be like Skotinin, also teaches me to restrain my emotions so as not to be like Prostakova, teaches me to love my Fatherland.

The main problems of the comedy "Undergrowth"- this is the problem of the cruel attitude of the landowners towards their peasants and the problem of educating the younger generation and the "wild ignorance of the old generation" (V. G. Belinsky). However, a comedy denouncing serfdom is called a comedy of education.

The main themes, ideas and images of D.I. Fonvizin "Undergrowth"

It is worth pronouncing the name of Fonvizin's comedy, so that in our imagination the image of a loafer, an ignoramus and sissy. Such a meaning, thanks to Fonvizin's Mitrofan, was acquired by the very word "undergrowth", which had hitherto contained nothing shameful. “Undergrowths” were called noble teenagers who had not reached fifteen years of age, that is, the age determined by Peter I for entry into the service. In 1736, the period of stay in the "undergrowth" was extended to twenty years. The decree on the freedom of the nobility, which abolished the mandatory term of service until then and thereby granted the nobles the right to serve or not to serve, confirmed the compulsory education introduced under Peter and prescribed, “so that no one dares to bring up their children without teaching the sciences worthy of the noble nobility anger." Prostakova is not only “a skilled interpreter of decrees”: she also knows how to bypass them when she wants to. Following established order, she hires teachers for Mitrofanushka, but intends to extend the period of his stay “in the undergrowth”. She cherishes the following thought: “How is happiness written for the family, brother. From our surname Prostakov, look, lying on your side, they fly to their ranks. Why is their Mitrofanushka worse? And, hearing such reasoning, the viewer is convinced that with such a mother, Mitrofan Prostakov will not disgrace his “surname”.

In the image of Mitrofan, Fonvizin shows the living result of the Prostakov's interpretation of the decree on the freedom of the nobility. And as a contrast to this lazy person, who is used to beating his thumbs and climbing the dovecote, he displays positive images of the nobles fulfilling their public duty, that is, public service. Their images personify two types of service: military Milon) and civil Pravdin).

Mandatory training for minors in “sciences worthy of the noble nobility” is perceived by Prostakova and Mitrofan himself as torment, as a painful burden. His famous saying: “I don’t want to study, I want to get married” takes on a special meaning if we recall that Peter’s decree of January 20, 1714 ordered “to teach noble children tsyfiri and geometry, and to impose a fine such that they would not be free to marry until everything won't learn."

The plot of the “Undergrowth”, according to the tradition of classicism, is based on a love affair. However, she plays an unusual role in Fonvizin's comedy and is closely connected with the ideological orientation of the play. Fonvizin completely subordinates the love affair to the tasks of social satire. Psychologically, as a means of revealing the inner experiences of the characters, the love of Milon and Sophia is of little interest to him: he needs it as a convenient excuse for depicting the “evil-minded” characters of people who, for personal reasons, are trying to prevent their connection.

Disclosure of the ideological essence of "Undergrowth" are primarily brought out in comedy artistic images.

A typical comedy technique of that time in the fight against evil was the opposition of a negative phenomenon to a positive phenomenon, and in those cases when it did not exist in reality, it was depicted as allegedly really existing ...

In full accordance with these aesthetic requirements, Fonvizin countered the four negative characters of the Undergrowth - Prostakova, Prostakov, Skotinin and Mitrofan - with the same number of positive actors- Staroduma, Pravdin, Sophia and Milon.

The characters in the play are clearly divided into three groups. The first group consists of negative characters: its center is Prostakova. A group of positive characters unite around Starodum. Finally, the third group includes comedy characters who are outside the actual plot intrigue, but the author needs to create the social background of the play: Trishka, Eremeevna, Kuteikin, Tsyfirkin, Vralman, Prostakov's servant and Starodum's valet.

Of the fifteen actors in the comedy, eleven are endowed with meaningful names. The explanation of the word “simpleton” or “simpleton”, given in the “Dictionary of the Russian Academy” (“foolish, blundered”), is the most consistent with the image of Prostakov himself. But the character of his wife is by no means covered by such a definition. It should not be forgotten that she is nee Skotinina. Its “simplicity” is of a different kind, such as the proverb says: “Simplicity is worse than theft.” Prostakova is not averse to pretending to be ingenuous, but this does not convince anyone.

Such surnames-characteristics as Skotinin, Starodum, Pravdin, Vralman speak for themselves and do not need explanations. The surnames Kuteikin and Tsyfirkin primarily express the social face of the characters. Clerks were called clerks in derision. The tsyfirny doctrine meant arithmetic. Thus, the very name of Tsyfirkin indicated his occupation. Along with openly “speaking” names, Fonvizin also uses hidden “speaking” ones. It is not for nothing that the undergrowth is called Mitrofan. This name in literal translation from Greek means: “revealing his mother”, that is, similar to his mother. Fonvizin gives the positive heroine of the play the name Sofya (“wisdom”), which has become traditional in Russian comedy. A special meaning lies in the name of Milo. Sophia is disgusted by such contenders for her hand as Mitrofan and Skotinin, but she is “nice to him”, this honest and noble young officer.

If the very list of characters in The Undergrowth already contains hints of the character or social affiliation of both negative and positive characters, then their external essence, which are names and surnames, fully corresponds to their inner essence.

The character of Prostakov is determined at the very beginning of the comedy by his own confession to his wife: “In your eyes, mine do not see anything.” Throughout the rest of the play, the viewer is convinced of this more than once. Prostakov is completely under the shoe of his wife. His role in the house is emphasized by the author's remark at the very first remark of Prostakov: "stammering from timidity." This “timidity” or, as Pravdin characterizes it, “extreme weak-mindedness” leads to the fact that Prostakova’s “inhumanity” does not meet any restrictions from her husband and at the end of the comedy Prostakov himself turns out, by his own admission, “guilty without guilt” .

With much more complex visual means, Fonvizin outlined the character of the “despicable fury” - Mrs. Prostakova, nee Skotinina. “... All the scenes in which Prostakova appears,” Vyazemsky wrote, “are full of life and fidelity, because her character is sustained to the end with unrelenting art, with unchanging truth. A mixture of arrogance and meanness, cowardice and malice, vile inhumanity towards everyone and tenderness, equally vile, to the son, for all that ignorance, from which, like from a muddy source, all these properties flow, are coordinated in her character by a sharp-witted and observant painter. These words combine the main character traits of Prostakova. But not ignorance in itself, to which Vyazemsky is inclined to attribute the cause of all evils, but the corrupting influence of serfdom, which, in particular, gives rise to this ignorance, is their "muddy source."

In describing the character of Prostakova, Fonvizin retreats from the straightforwardness and schematism inherent in classicism. If the image of her husband from the first to the last action of the comedy remains unchanged, then the character of Prostakova herself is gradually revealed at the entrance of the play. For all her cunning, Prostakova is stupid, and therefore constantly gives herself away with her head.

Prostakova knows how to pretend. Maddened in her vicious impulse to get "to Skotinin's face", she runs into the stage in the third act and runs into the arriving Starodum. In her fury, Prostakova does not immediately realize who is in front of her. When Starodum calls himself, she, “timid and frightened,” begins to lavish flattering greetings on him.

Only one human feeling, it would seem, remains accessible to this scary woman- love for her son, but the wonderful feeling of motherly love is manifested in her in a distorted form. Prostakova herself involuntarily exposes the animal essence of her love for her son.

The last action of the "Undergrowth" fully justifies the justice of Vyazemsky's judgment about the character of Prostakova: "Just as Molière's Tartuffe stands on the boundary between tragedy and comedy, so does Prostakov."

The main positive character of the play, Starodum, is to a large extent a spokesman for the author's opinions. Not only the content, but also the form of Starodum’s speeches are reminiscent of such works by Fonvizin as “Discourse on the indispensable state laws”, “The experience of the Russian classmate” and “Several questions that can arouse special attention in smart and honest people”. Fonvizin will subsequently emphasize his unanimity with Starodum by naming a journal after him, intended to serve as an organ of the same range of ideas that found vivid expression in The Undergrowth.

The artistic expressiveness of the characters in "Undergrowth" largely depends on the degree of skill with which Fonvizin developed their speech features.

In the language of the negative characters of the comedy, Fonvizin managed to convey in all life authenticity the colloquial speech of the widest circles of the local nobility. The veneer of "secularism" hardly touched this environment, except for rare manifestations of it in Prostakova's speech. However, when she says "delicate addition", she distorts the words "arithmetic" and "geography", turning them into "arithmetic" and "georgaphy". The characters of "Undergrowth" themselves create proverbs and sayings, starting from existing ones. So, for example, in contrast to the saying, born of popular experience and based on the belief that "learning is light", Skotinin creates an aphorism dictated by Skotinin's attitude to science and stating that "learning is nonsense." In its construction, close to the proverb is the expression that Mitrofan utters when, after a collision with his uncle, he is persuaded to sit down for a lesson: “from his fists and for hours”. All these features of the language of the Prostakovs and Skotinins are important not so much for the psychological as for their social and everyday characteristics. Fonvizin is true to reality when he shows that colloquial the average landlord masses are closer to folk speech than to the language of educated representatives of the nobility. The difference between the language of Prostakova and the language of Eremeevna, Trishka, and even Tsyfirkin is less noticeable than the line separating it from the language of Starodum or Pravdin.

The language of the positive characters of "Undergrowth" is also characterized by some common features: logical roundness and bookishness of phrases and, as a natural consequence of this bookishness, the presence of gallicisms. There are a lot of them in the language of Pravdin: “I rejoice at having made our acquaintance”, “I don’t leave to notice”, “makes misfortune”, etc. Pravdin is not inferior to Milon.

It should be noted that the comedy "Undergrowth" was not completely free from convention and artificiality, steadily arising from the dramatic rules of classicism, which were still mandatory for Fonvizin. By virtue of these rules, the action of the comedy takes place over the course of one day. Such limited time, giving the action a certain tension, forces Fonvizin to build plot intrigue on the interlocking of accidents. Prostakov has just reported that for several years now there has been no hearing or spirit from Starodum, as Sophia brings a letter from him. The unnaturalness of such provisions is indisputable. It is implausible, for example, that Starodum arrives from Moscow a few minutes after Sophia receives a letter from him; it is even more improbable that a few hours after his arrival he is already reading a letter sent to him by courier from Count Chestan. However, this unnaturalness of particulars is redeemed by the great naturalness of the whole, and this not only makes their conditionality relatively little perceptible, but also involuntarily compels one to look for a possible explanation for them.

Despite the outward observance of the traditional rules of classical comedy, Fonvizin's play reflects the general movement for Russian comedy of that time through “tearful drama” towards realism. The whole comedy of Fonvizin causes not a simple, cheerful laugh, but a bitter laugh that inspires thought. It is this kind of laughter that has always been inherent in the leading figures of Russian literature. Each of them could apply Cantemir's verse to himself: "I laugh in verse, but in my heart I cry for the malevolent." This laughter-irony is one of the traits national identity Russian satire and Russian comedy.