Vasily Shukshin "Microscope": a model of the universe of a small man

Shukshin's story "Microscope" refers to a number of short works by the author, dedicated to the so-called "freaks" - heroes, with whom something is constantly happening. The writer himself has come up with the definition of "fagots", he loves his characters, although they sometimes look ridiculous.

Shukshin "Microscope": a brief summary

The husband (Andrey Erin), having come home declares to the wife, that has lost 120 rubles. Zoya's wife, angry, calls the hero and runs after him with a frying pan, inflicting rare blows. Andrei tries to justify himself, promises his wife to work one and a half shifts a day to return money intended for the purchase of winter clothes for children.

A few days later, making sure that his wife calmed down, Erin brings home his microscope. The hero's wife explains that he was given a prize for shock work. Zoe is not very satisfied: it would be better to give a vacuum cleaner. However, Andrey enthusiastically explains to her that microbes are swarming around. And in a microscope they can be discerned, which they do in turn by the whole family.

Erin changes: he starts shouting at his wife, commanding. A little later, and Zoe is pleased that the neighbors consider her husband "scientist." The hero with his son, a fifth grader, sees drops of water, sweat, and blood every day in the magnifying glass of the device. The father dreams of saving mankind by destroying the "millions of microbes", considering various ways for this. However, the idyll is being destroyed with the arrival of Sergei Kulikov, Erin's colleague. He accidentally tells Zoe that there was no prize.

Andrew runs away at night to Sergei home, fearing the fair wrath of his wife. The next day, he returns and learns that his wife carried the microscope to the commission shop. The hero sadly tells his son that his mother is doing the right thing, because children need fur coats.

Shukshin "Microscope": analysis of the work

The main hero of the story is the carpenter of a small workshop at the grain procurement office Andrei Yerin. He lives an ordinary life: he goes to work, sometimes drinks with friends at a stall, he grows children together with a noisy, loving pokomandovat, but in general, nezlobivoy, wife Zoya. These people are like those among whom Shiroshin himself grew up in the Altai village of Srostki. The microscope secretly acquired by Yerin for a monthly salary, for a while, changes the life of the family.

The amount of 120 rubles was huge in Soviet times, it really could live a month, so the wife's anger is understandable. Erin knows perfectly well what awaits him and does not try to protest. But in his controversy with his wife we see a soft humor peculiar to both the writer himself and his hero. Andrei Yerin is not funny, but nice, not pathetic, but romantic. How beautiful he is in his quest for knowledge, let this craving look primitive and amusing. And it seems that already his son should grow up more educated, developing alongside his father and asking from childhood important scientific and human questions.

One of the defining qualities of Andrew is kindness - not only in the ordinary worldly sense, but also universal, philosophical: the hero can not live peacefully if people on Earth are at risk. And ridiculously and amusingly, he tries to find ways to save humanity. Erin forgets about vodka, he soon becomes displeased with the very sight of drunk friends, that only one phrase shows Shukshin. The microscope takes all of his thoughts, makes him happy in his own way. Smiling, he climbs in the evening in a warm bed and enthusiastically whispers to his wife: "You will soon be with a scientist to sleep."

And the hero of the story, however, forgets that his husband is crying offensively, "Well" and "Krivonosik" (Andrei's nose with a hump, broken, probably in a drunken fight), that often takes out a frying pan and takes care of the husband (not to actually beat, but so , To suffer and to let off couples) After all, with whom Andrew shared his life with joy: with his son Petya and his wife Zoya.

Some researchers believe that the appearance of "freaks" in Shukshin's stories was a response to life in a totalitarian Soviet society, but I think that this interpretation narrows the universe of the hero, as Shukshin conceived it. The microscope allows you to look not only into the depths of the cage, but also into the depths of the main character's soul, increasing what was imperceptible under the yoke of household trivia: kindness, sacrifice, love, the pursuit of a new life and subordination to circumstances.

Even our cursory analysis of Shukshin's story allows us to draw such conclusions. This universe of the "little man" depends not so much on the society in which he lives, as on the people around him who are capable of destroying fate or giving it significance.