Fable of Krylov "Cock and pearl grain": plot and analysis

Usually, there is no difficulty in interpreting such a small work as Krylov's fable. "Rooster and pearl grain" is not an exception, but if someone suddenly had problems in the process of interpretation, then we suggest to get acquainted with our understanding of this text.

Plot

The rooster dug into the dung heap and discovered a pearl grain. The hero did not understand that he had got a treasure in his hands (or wings), and began complaining about fate and saying that he would be more pleased with the edible find, and in general, pearls are an empty and useless thing.

Ivan Andreevich carefully treated the reader's nerves, so in the last two lines of the work (meaning the fable) Krylov "The Rooster and the Pearl Grain" placed morality.

Morality

When a person does not understand anything, even if this object is liked by the majority, he will not find anything important, beautiful and useful in it. Rather, he will declare the thing (or phenomenon) junk, and he will do so by all means loud and publicly, in order to show his "knowledge".

It is not difficult to understand who the critical arrows of the author are aimed at. Krylov's fable "The Rooster and the Pearl Grain" exposes the ignorant. They do not want to know anything new, do not have the curiosity to learn the unknown and, at the same time, tend to give their ignorance for a "dissenting opinion."

I.A. Krylov and Socrates

The analogy begs, does not it? Only a sage can openly admit his ignorance in some matter. Socrates said: "I only know that I do not know anything." Why did the Greek treat himself without due respect? It's very simple: the more a person knows, the more he understands how little he really knows. The sphere of ignorance expands with the sphere of knowledge, the first much larger than the second, and the process of expanding these spaces in the potential is infinite. But what is obvious to a sage is a mystery, covered in darkness, for the ignorant. And Krylov's fable "The Rooster and the Pearl Grain" tells not about the sage.

Why do people persist in their delusion?

Of course, it is clear that noble motives (the desire for truth, for example) should govern a person, but in fact he is completely given to the power of fear, his slave man. If we remember, then for most of our life we are afraid: first "babaik" in a dark corner, then that we fail the exam (at school, institute), then - that we will not find a job, then - that we will not repay the loan. And finally, someone is just afraid of death, sudden death.

People get used to fear so much that it poisons even such a wonderful activity as cognition. A person can not even grow wings and tear himself away from the earth, forgetting the sorrows of the earthly vale, instead he is always worried about even what is beyond his control. Such is the man.

But most do not have such a refined fear. Usually people are very afraid of being wrong, because everyone thinks that his life is the best, and his experience is priceless, and only the wise do not care about their lives, their experience, and their rightness in the eyes of the majority, because their soul is given to knowledge.

And all these arguments at first glance seem to be far from what Krylov wrote. "Rooster and pearl grain" (like any fable) is a deeply philosophical work that affects several layers of existence at once.