"Childhood" by Maxim Gorky as an autobiographical novel

The childhood of Maxim Gorky, one of the best Russian writers, was held on the Volga, in Nizhny Novgorod. His name was then Alyosha Peshkov, the years spent in the grandfather's house were full of events that were not always pleasant, which allowed Soviet biographers and literary critics to interpret these memories as an accusatory evidence of the depravity of capitalism.

Memories of the childhood of a mature man

In 1913, being a mature man (and he was already forty-five years old), the writer wanted to remember how his childhood was going. Maxim Gorky, by that time the author of three novels, five novels, a dozen plays and several good stories, the reader loved. His relations with the authorities were complex. In 1902 he was an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, but soon he was stripped of this title for inciting riots. In 1905, the writer joined the RSDLP, which, it seems, finally forms his class approach to the evaluation of his characters.

At the end of the first decade, an autobiographical trilogy was started, which Maxim Gorky composed. "Childhood" is the first story. Its initial lines immediately set up the fact that it was written not for the public, hungry for entertainment. It begins with a grave scene of his father's funeral, which the boy remembered in all its details, right up to the eyes closed with five-kopeck coins. Despite the rigidity and some detachment of childish perception, the description is truly talented, the picture is vivid and expressive.

Autobiographical plot

After the death of his father, the mother takes the children and carries them on a steamboat from Astrakhan to Nizhny Novgorod, to his grandfather. The baby, Alyosha's brother, is dying on the way.

Accept them at first kindly, only the exclamations of the head of the family "Eh, you-and-and!" Give out the old conflict that arose on the grounds of the undesirable marriage of the daughter. Grandfather Kashirin is an entrepreneur, he has his own business, he is engaged in painting fabrics. Unpleasant smells, noise, unusual words "vitriol", "fuchsin" irritate the child. Maxim Gorky's childhood took place in this turmoil, the uncles were rude, cruel and, apparently, stupid, and the grandfather had all the habits of a domestic tyrant. But all the hardest, the definition of "leaden abominations," was ahead.

Characters

A lot of household details and a variety of relations between the characters imperceptibly enchant every reader who took the first part of the trilogy, written by Maxim Gorky, "Childhood". The main characters of the story talk so that their voices seem to be hovering somewhere near each other, so individual is the manner of speech of each of them. Grandmother, whose influence on the formation of the personality of the future writer can not be overemphasized, as it becomes an ideal of kindness, at the same time, pugnacious brothers, seized with greed, cause a feeling of disgust.

The Good Deed, the neighbor's freeloader, was an eccentric person, but at the same time, obviously, he possessed an extraordinary intellect. It was he who taught little Alyosha to express the idea correctly and distinctly, which undoubtedly influenced the development of literary abilities. Ivan Tsyganok, a 17-year-old foundling brought up in the family, was very kind, which was sometimes manifested in some oddities. So, going to the market for shopping, he invariably spent less money than he should have imagined, and gave the difference to his grandfather, trying to please him. As it turned out, to save, he was stealing. Excessive diligence and led to his premature death: he broke through, fulfilling the master's errand.

There will be only gratitude ...

Reading the story "Childhood" Maxim Gorky, it is difficult not to grasp the feeling of gratitude that the author experienced to the people who surrounded him in the early years. What he received from them enriched his soul, which he himself compared to a hive filled with honey. And nothing that tastes he sometimes was bitter, but seemingly dirty. Departing from the disgraced grandfather at home "in the people", he was sufficiently enriched with life experience, so as not to disappear, not to disappear in the complex adult world.

The story turned out to be eternal. As time has shown, relations between people, often even connected by blood ties, are characteristic for all times and social formations.