The history of the creation of Rasputin’s work “French Lessons”
“I am sure that what makes a person a writer is his childhood, the ability at an early age to see and feel everything that then gives him the right to put pen to paper. Education, books, life experience nurture and strengthen this gift in the future, but it should be born in childhood,” wrote Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin in 1974 in the Irkutsk newspaper “Soviet Youth.” In 1973, one of Rasputin’s best stories, “French Lessons,” was published. The writer himself singles it out among his works: “I didn’t have to invent anything there. Everything happened to me. I didn't have to go far to get the prototype. I needed to return to people the good that they did for me in their time.”
Rasputin's story "French Lessons" is dedicated to Anastasia Prokopyevna Kopylova, the mother of his friend, the famous playwright Alexander Vampilov, who worked at school all her life. The story was based on a memory of a child’s life; it, according to the writer, “was one of those that warms even with a slight touch.”
The story is autobiographical. Lydia Mikhailovna is named in the work by her own name (her last name is Molokova). In 1997, the writer, in a conversation with a correspondent of the magazine “Literature at School,” talked about meetings with her: “I recently visited me, and she and I long and desperately remembered our school, and the Angarsk village of Ust-Uda almost half a century ago, and a lot from that difficult and happy time.”
Type, genre, creative method of the analyzed work
The work “French Lessons” is written in the short story genre. The Russian Soviet short story flourished in the twenties
(Babel, Ivanov, Zoshchenko) and then the sixties and seventies (Kazakov, Shukshin, etc.) years. The story reacts more quickly to changes in social life than other prose genres, since it is written faster.
The story can be considered the oldest and first of the literary genres. A brief retelling of an event - a hunting incident, a duel with an enemy, etc. - is already an oral history. Unlike other kinds and types of art, which are conventional in their essence, storytelling is inherent in humanity, having arisen simultaneously with speech and being not only the transfer of information, but also a means of social memory. The story is the original form of literary organization of language. A story is considered to be a completed prose work of up to forty-five pages. This is an approximate value - two author's sheets. Such a thing is read “in one breath.”
Rasputin's story “French Lessons” is a realistic work written in the first person. It can fully be considered an autobiographical story.
Subjects
“It’s strange: why do we, just like before our parents, always feel guilty before our teachers? And not for what happened at school, no, but for what happened to us after.” This is how the writer begins his story “French Lessons”. Thus, he defines the main themes of the work: the relationship between teacher and student, the depiction of life illuminated by spiritual and moral meaning, the formation of the hero, his acquisition of spiritual experience in communication with Lydia Mikhailovna. French lessons and communication with Lydia Mikhailovna became life lessons for the hero and the education of feelings.
From a pedagogical point of view, a teacher playing for money with her student is an immoral act. But what is behind this action? - asks the writer. Seeing that the schoolboy (during the hungry post-war years) was malnourished, the French teacher, under the guise of additional classes, invites him to her home and tries to feed him. She sends him packages as if from her mother. But the boy refuses. The teacher offers to play for money and, naturally, “loses” so that the boy can buy milk for himself with these pennies. And she’s happy that she succeeds in this deception.
The idea of the story lies in the words of Rasputin: “The reader learns from books not life, but feelings. Literature, in my opinion, is, first of all, the education of feelings. And above all kindness, purity, nobility.” These words directly relate to the story “French Lessons”.
The main characters of the work
The main characters of the story are an eleven-year-old boy and a French teacher, Lidia Mikhailovna.
Lydia Mikhailovna was no more than twenty-five years old and “there was no cruelty in her face.” She treated the boy with understanding and sympathy, and appreciated his determination. She recognized her student's remarkable learning abilities and was ready to help them develop in any way possible. Lydia Mikhailovna is endowed with an extraordinary capacity for compassion and kindness, for which she suffered, losing her job.
The boy amazes with his determination and desire to learn and get out into the world under any circumstances. The story about the boy can be presented in the form of a quotation plan:
“In order to study further... and I had to equip myself in the regional center.”
“I studied well here too... in all subjects except French, I got straight A’s.”
“I felt so bad, so bitter and hateful! “worse than any disease.”
“Having received it (the ruble), ... I bought a jar of milk at the market.”
“They beat me one by one... there was no more unhappy person that day than me.”
“I was scared and lost... she seemed to me like an extraordinary person, not like everyone else.”
Plot and composition
“I went to fifth grade in 1948. It would be more correct to say, I went: in our village there was only an elementary school, so in order to study further, I had to travel from home fifty kilometers to the regional center.” For the first time, due to circumstances, an eleven-year-old boy is torn away from his family, torn from his usual surroundings. However, the little hero understands that the hopes of not only his relatives, but also the entire village are placed on him: after all, according to the unanimous opinion of his fellow villagers, he is called to be a “learned man.” The hero makes every effort, overcoming hunger and homesickness, so as not to let his fellow countrymen down.
A young teacher approached the boy with special understanding. She began to additionally study French with the hero, hoping to feed him at home. Pride did not allow the boy to accept help from a stranger. Lydia Mikhailovna’s idea with the parcel was not crowned with success. The teacher filled it with “city” products and thereby gave herself away. Looking for a way to help the boy, the teacher invites him to play wall game for money.
The climax of the story comes after the teacher begins to play wall games with the boy. The paradoxical nature of the situation sharpens the story to the limit. The teacher could not help but know that at that time such a relationship between a teacher and a student could lead not only to dismissal from work, but also to criminal liability. The boy did not fully understand this. But when trouble did happen, he began to understand the teacher’s behavior more deeply. And this led him to realize some aspects of life at that time.
The ending of the story is almost melodramatic. The package with Antonov apples, which he, a resident of Siberia, had never tried, seemed to echo the first, unsuccessful package with city food - pasta. More and more new touches are preparing this ending, which turned out to be not at all unexpected. In the story, the heart of a distrustful village boy opens up to the purity of a young teacher. The story is surprisingly modern. It contains the great courage of a little woman, the insight of a closed, ignorant child, and the lessons of humanity.
Artistic originality
An analysis of the work shows how, with wise humor, kindness, humanity, and most importantly, with complete psychological accuracy, the writer describes the relationship between a hungry student and a young teacher. The narrative flows slowly, with everyday details, but its rhythm imperceptibly captures it.
The language of the narrative is simple and at the same time expressive. The writer skillfully used phraseological units, achieving expressiveness and imagery of the work. Phraseologisms in the story “French Lessons” mostly express one concept and are characterized by a certain meaning, which is often equal to the meaning of the word:
“I studied well here too. What was left for me? Then I came here, I had no other business here, and I didn’t yet know how to take care of what was entrusted to me” (lazyly).
“I had never seen Bird at school before, but looking ahead, I’ll say that in the third quarter he suddenly fell on our class out of the blue” (unexpectedly).
“Hunging and knowing that my grub wouldn’t last long anyway, no matter how much I saved it, I ate until I was full, until my stomach hurt, and then, after a day or two, I put my teeth back on the shelf” (starve).
“But there was no point in locking myself away, Tishkin managed to sell me whole” (betray).
One of the features of the story’s language is the presence of regional words and outdated vocabulary characteristic of the time the story takes place. For example:
Apartment - rent an apartment.
A lorry is a truck with a carrying capacity of 1.5 tons.
A teahouse is a type of public canteen where visitors are offered tea and snacks.
Toss - to slurp.
Naked boiling water is clean, without impurities.
To blather - to chat, talk.
To bale is to hit lightly.
Khluzda is a rogue, a deceiver, a cheater.
Hiding is something that is hidden.
Meaning of the work
The works of V. Rasputin invariably attract readers, because next to the everyday, everyday things in the writer’s works there are always spiritual values, moral laws, unique characters, and the complex, sometimes contradictory, inner world of the heroes. The author's thoughts about life, about man, about nature help us discover inexhaustible reserves of goodness and beauty in ourselves and in the world around us.
In difficult times, the main character of the story had to learn. The post-war years were a kind of test not only for adults, but also for children, because both good and bad in childhood are perceived much brighter and more acutely. But difficulties strengthen character, so the main character often displays such qualities as willpower, pride, a sense of proportion, endurance, and determination.
Many years later, Rasputin will again turn to the events of long ago. “Now that quite a large part of my life has been lived, I want to comprehend and understand how correctly and usefully I spent it. I have many friends who are always ready to help, I have something to remember. Now I understand that my closest friend is my former teacher, a French teacher. Yes, decades later I remember her as a true friend, the only person who understood me while studying at school. And even years later, when we met, she showed me a gesture of attention, sending me apples and pasta, as before. And no matter who I am, no matter what depends on me, she will always treat me only as a student, because for her I was, am and will always remain a student. Now I remember how then she, taking the blame upon herself, left school, and at parting she said to me: “Study well and don’t blame yourself for anything!” By doing this, she taught me a lesson and showed me how a real good person should act. It’s not for nothing that they say: a school teacher is a teacher of life.”
This is interesting
Lidia Mikhailovna Molokova is the prototype of the teacher from the famous story by Valentin Rasputin “French Lessons”. The same Lydia Mikhailovna... Since the details of her biography became known to others, Lydia Mikhailovna has to endlessly answer the same question: “How did you decide to play with a student for money?” Well, what's the answer? All that remains is to tell how everything really happened.
First meeting
“I sputtered in French in the manner of our village tongue twisters... Lidia Mikhailovna, the French teacher, listening to me, winced helplessly and closed her eyes.”
It seems that in this story everything was determined by Mr. Chance. By chance, schoolgirl Lydia Danilova ended up in Siberia with her parents during the war. By chance I entered the French department at the Irkutsk Pedagogical Institute. She was going to university to study history, but she was confused... by the walls of her future alma mater: the high gloomy arches of the former theological seminary building seemed to be pressing on the young girl. The applicant took the documents and went to the pedagogical department. There were only places left in the French group... By chance she ended up in a district school, in the remote village of Ust-Uda. This was the worst place you could be assigned to. And for some reason it went to a student with an excellent diploma. “For insolence,” explains the heroine herself.
“My friend and I came to Ust-Uda as exiles,” recalls Lydia Mikhailovna. — And we were greeted there wonderfully, very warmly! They even gave us three hundred square meters of potatoes to dig up so that we would have something to eat. True, while we were digging, we were bitten by a midge. And when we drove home in our city clothes and with swollen faces, everyone we met made fun of us.
In the sponsored eighth grade, the young teacher also did not make a serious impression at first. The guys turned out to be mischievous. Valya Rasputin studied in a parallel class. More serious students gathered there. The class teacher, mathematics teacher Vera Andreevna Kirilenko, apparently, did not let them down. “In fact, Rasputin primarily wrote about his teacher from Vera Andreevna,” says Lidia Mikhailovna. “Beautiful, her eyes were a little squinted,” that’s all about her. Discreet, neat, with good taste. They said that she was one of the former front-line soldiers. But for some reason Vera Andreevna disappeared from all biographies of the writer. Having worked for the required three years, Vera Andreevna left Ust-Uda for Kuban (by the way, it was there that the heroine of “French Lessons” left). And Lydia Mikhailovna had to shoulder the class leadership in the joint ninth grade. Among his noisy peers, Valentin Rasputin did not particularly stand out. Those who can loudly express themselves are remembered. Valya did not strive for this. Tall, thin, modest, shy, always ready to respond and help. But he himself never stepped forward. “Rasputin writes about himself in the story with utmost honesty,” says Lydia Molokova. “His mother really brought him from a neighboring village to Ust-Uda and left him to live there, otherwise he would have had to walk many kilometers every day to school in the cold. But his French was not as terrible as he described. Rasputin dressed extremely modestly. All schoolchildren of that time looked approximately the same. A poor jacket, which usually passed from brother to brother in village families, and the same well-worn hat. On the feet, ichigi are a Siberian form of footwear like boots made of rawhide, into which hay was stuffed so that the feet did not freeze. A canvas bag with textbooks hung over his shoulder.
Rasputin studied well and was admitted to Irkutsk University without exams. And Lidia Mikhailovna, having graduated from ninth grade, went to join her husband in Irkutsk.
Second meeting
“She sat in front of me, neat, all smart and beautiful, beautiful both in clothes and in her feminine youth... I could smell the perfume from her, which I took for my very breath, besides, she was a teacher of not some kind of arithmetic something, not history, but mysterious French...”
(V. Rasputin “French Lessons”).
In general, there was nothing beyond the student-teacher scheme in the relationship between Lydia Molokova and Valentin Rasputin. But why else does a writer need imagination, if not to make something beautiful out of the ordinary? This is how a parcel of pasta appeared in “French Lessons”, which the teacher secretly sent to a starving student, and a game of “wall” for money, which the “French woman” imposed on the student so that he would have extra pennies for milk.
“I took his book as a reproach: this is what you had to be and how a little frivolous you were,” says Lydia Mikhailovna. “And the fact that he wrote so well about teachers is a matter of his kindness, not ours.”
...Later they met in Irkutsk, when Lidia Mikhailovna and her husband were walking down the street. Valya Rasputin by that time began to look more respectable. Instead of an old shirt, he had a checkered jacket. “I didn’t even recognize him, I said: “Oh, Valya, how smart you are!” - the teacher recalls. “And he lowered his head, embarrassed by our praise.” I asked how he studies. That's the whole conversation."
Then their paths diverged for a long time. Lidia Mikhailovna lived in Irkutsk and raised two daughters. Soon her husband died, and she moved to Saransk, closer to her mother. Lidia Molokova worked at Saransk State University for forty years. There were also business trips abroad: first she worked as a Russian teacher in Cambodia, then she taught language at a military school in Algeria. And then there was another business trip to France, during which Lydia Mikhailovna learned that she had become a book heroine.
Third meeting
Everything happened by chance again. Before the trip, our teachers were instructed in full. We even gave a lecture about trends in modern Russian literature. Listing the best contemporary writers, critic Galina Belaya named a familiar name - “Valentin Rasputin.”
I thought: “It can’t be that it was him,” Lidia Mikhailovna was shocked. But the remark still stuck in my soul. Already in Paris, Lydia Molokova went to a bookstore where our books were sold. What was not here! Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, all the most scarce collected works. But I had to follow Rasputin: his books were quickly sold out. Finally she managed to buy three volumes. In the evening, Lidia Mikhailovna came to the dormitory on campus, opened the table of contents of the book and gasped. Among the stories were “French Lessons.” The teacher found the right page and...
That’s when I jumped,” the teacher recalls that day. — The teacher’s name was Lydia Mikhailovna! I started reading, read to the end and breathed a sigh of relief - this is not about me. This is a collective image. Lidia Mikhailovna immediately sent one of the books to Siberia. On the parcel I wrote: “Irkutsk. To the writer Rasputin." By some miracle this parcel reached the addressee.
“I knew you would be found,” the former student immediately responded. A warm correspondence began between Lydia Mikhailovna and Valentin Grigorievich. “I once complained to him that now I couldn’t “get rid of” pasta and gambling. Everyone thinks that’s how it happened,” the teacher says, sorting through the letters. “And he wrote: “And don’t refuse!” They still won't believe you. And the guys may have a suspicion that everything beautiful in literature and life is not so pure.” By the way, Rasputin himself, judging by his statements, is sure that Lydia Molokova did send him pasta. But due to her kindness, she did not attach much importance to this. And this fact was simply erased from her memory.
...They had another meeting when Lydia Mikhailovna was visiting her cousin in Moscow. She dialed Rasputin’s number and immediately heard: “Come.” “I liked the kind of non-philistine comfort in their house,” Lidia Mikhailovna shares her impressions. - A minimum of things. Just what you need. I liked his wife Svetlana, a pleasant, wise, modest woman. Then Valentin Rasputin went to accompany her to the metro. They walked arm in arm through beautiful snowy Moscow: a student and a teacher, a writer and the heroine of a book. Lanterns were burning, couples were walking, children were playing in the snow...
And this whole story seemed at that moment even more fabulous than the most incredible fiction.
Larisa Plakhina. Newspaper “New Business” No. 33 dated November 23, 2006.
Conversation with the writer: The richest heritage is in the hands of a literature teacher...//Literature at school. - 1997. No. 2.
Galitskikh E.O. Soul speaks to soul // Literature at school. - 1997. No. 2.
KotenkoNL. Valentin Rasputin: Essay on creativity. - M., 1988.
Pankeev IA Valentin Rasputin. - M., 1990.
The moral significance of V. Rasputin’s story “French Lessons”
V. G. Rasputin is one of the greatest modern writers. In his works, he preaches eternal life values on which the world rests.
The story “French Lessons” is an autobiographical work. The hero of the story is a simple village boy. Life is not easy for his family. A single mother is raising three children who know well what hunger and deprivation are. Nevertheless, she still decides to send her son to the area to study. Not because he doesn’t know that it will be hard for him there, not because he’s heartless, but because “it can’t get any worse.” The boy himself agrees to leave to study. Despite his age, he is quite purposeful and has a thirst for knowledge, and his natural inclinations are quite good. “Your guy is growing up smart,” everyone in the village said to his mother. So she went “in defiance of all misfortunes.”
Finding himself among strangers, the destitute boy suddenly realizes how lonely he feels, how “bitter and hateful,” “worse than any disease.” Homesickness overcomes him, for his mother's affection, for warmth, for his native corner. From mental anguish, he becomes physically weaker, losing weight so much that it immediately catches the eye of the mother who came to see him.
There are not enough maternal packages for the boy; he is truly starving. Showing emotional sensitivity, he does not undertake to look for who is stealing his limited supplies - Aunt Nadya, exhausted by a hard lot, or one of her children, who are half-starved like himself.
The little man realizes how hard it is for his mother to get these pitiful pieces; he understands that she is tearing the last away from herself and from his brother and sister. He tries his best to study, and everything comes easy to him, except French.
Eternal malnutrition and hungry fainting push the hero on the path of searching for money, and he finds it quite quickly: Fedka invites him to play “chika”. It didn’t cost the smart boy anything to figure out the game, and, having quickly adapted to it, he soon began to win.
The hero immediately understood a certain subordination in the company of guys, where everyone treated Vadik and Ptah with fear and ingratiation. Vadik and Ptah had the upper hand not only because they were older and more physically developed than the others, they did not hesitate to use their fists, openly cheated, cheated in the game, behaved cheekily and impudently. The hero does not intend to indulge them in their unkind deeds and undeservedly endure insults. He speaks openly about the deception he has noticed and repeats this without stopping, all the time while he is being beaten for it. Do not break this small, honest man, do not trample on his moral principles!
For the hero, gambling for money is not a means of profit, but a path to survival. He sets a threshold for himself in advance, beyond which he never goes. The boy wins exactly a mug of milk and leaves. The aggressive passion and passion for money that control Vadik and Ptah are alien to him. He has strong self-control, has a firm and unbending will. This is a persistent, courageous, independent person, persistent in achieving his goal.
An impression that remained for the rest of his life was his meeting with his French teacher, Lydia Mikhailovna. By right of the class teacher, she was more interested in the students of the class where the hero studied than others, and it was difficult to hide anything from her. Seeing the bruises on the boy’s face for the first time, she asked him about what had happened with kind irony. Of course he lied. Telling everything means exposing everyone who played for money, and this is unacceptable for the hero. But Tishkin, without hesitation, reports who beat his classmate and why. He sees nothing reprehensible in his betrayal.
After this, the hero no longer expected anything good. “Gone!” - he thought, because he could easily be expelled from school for playing with money.
But Lidia Mikhailovna turned out to be not the kind of person to make a fuss without understanding anything. She strictly stopped Tishkin’s ridicule, and decided to talk to the hero after lessons, one on one, the way a real teacher should have done it.
Having learned that her student only wins a ruble, which is spent on milk, Lidia Mikhailovna understood a lot about his childishly difficult, long-suffering life. She also understood perfectly well that playing with money and such fights would not bring the boy to any good. She began to look for a way out for him and found it, deciding to assign him additional classes in French, with which he was not doing well. Lydia Mikhailovna’s plan was simple - to distract the boy from going to the wasteland and, inviting him to visit her, feed him. This wise decision was made by this woman who was not indifferent to the fate of others. But it was not so easy to cope with the stubborn boy. He feels a huge gap between himself and the teacher. It is no coincidence that the author draws their portraits side by side. Hers - so smart and beautiful, smelling of perfume and him, unkempt without a mother, skinny and pathetic. Finding himself visiting Lydia Mikhailovna, the boy feels uncomfortable and awkward. The most terrible test for him is not his French classes, but the teacher’s persuasion to sit at the table, which he stubbornly refuses. To sit at the table next to the teacher and satisfy his hunger at her expense and in front of her eyes is worse than death for a boy.
Lidia Mikhailovna is diligently looking for a way out of this situation. She collects a simple package and sends it to the hero, who quickly realizes that his poor mother could not send him pasta, much less apples.
The teacher's next decisive step is to play for money with the boy. In the game, the boy sees her completely different - not as a strict auntie, but as a simple girl, not alien to play, excitement, and delight.
Everything is ruined by the sudden appearance of the director in Lydia Mikhailovna’s apartment, who caught her in the midst of a game with a student for money. "It is a crime. Molestation. Seduction,” he shouts, not intending to understand anything. Lydia Mikhailovna behaves with dignity in a conversation with her boss. She shows courage, honesty, and a sense of self-worth. Her actions were guided by kindness, mercy, sensitivity, responsiveness, spiritual generosity, but Vasily Andreevich did not want to see this.
The word “lesson” in the title of the story has two meanings. Firstly, this is a teaching hour devoted to a separate subject, and secondly, this is something instructive from which conclusions can be drawn for the future. It is the second meaning of this word that becomes decisive for understanding the intent of the story. The boy remembered the lessons of kindness and cordiality taught by Lydia Mikhailovna for the rest of his life. Literary critic Semenova calls Lydia Mikhailovna’s act “the highest pedagogy,” “the one that pierces the heart forever and shines with the pure, simple-minded light of a natural example... before which one is ashamed of all one’s adult deviations from oneself.”
The moral significance of Rasputin's story lies in the celebration of eternal values - kindness and love for humanity.
We invite you to familiarize yourself with one of the best stories in the work of Valentin Grigorievich and present his analysis. Rasputin published French Lessons in 1973. The writer himself does not distinguish it from his other works. He notes that he did not have to invent anything, because everything described in the story happened to him. The author's photo is presented below.
The meaning of the title of this story
The word “lesson” has two meanings in the work created by Rasputin (“French Lessons”). Analysis of the story allows us to note that the first of them is a teaching hour devoted to a certain subject. The second is something instructive. It is this meaning that becomes decisive for understanding the intent of the story that interests us. The boy carried the lessons of warmth and kindness taught by the teacher throughout his life.
Who is the story dedicated to?
Rasputin dedicated “French Lessons” to Anastasia Prokopyevna Kopylova, the analysis of which interests us. This woman is the mother of the famous playwright and friend Valentin Grigorievich. She worked in school all her life. Memories of childhood life formed the basis of the story. According to the writer himself, the events of the past were capable of warming even with a weak touch.
French teacher
Lidia Mikhailovna is called by her own name in the work (her last name is Molokova). In 1997, the writer spoke about his meetings with her to a correspondent for the publication Literature at School. He said that Lydia Mikhailovna was visiting him, and they remembered the school, the village of Ust-Uda and much of that happy and difficult time.
Features of the story genre
The genre of "French Lessons" is a story. The 20s (Zoshchenko, Ivanov, Babel), and then the 60s-70s (Shukshin, Kazakov, etc.) saw the heyday of the Soviet story. This genre reacts more quickly than other prose genres to changes in the life of society, since it is written faster.
It can be considered that the story is the first and oldest of the literary genres. After all, a brief retelling of some event, for example, a duel with an enemy, a hunting incident, and the like, is, in fact, an oral story. Unlike all other types and kinds of art, storytelling is inherent to humanity from the beginning. It arose along with speech and is not just a means of transmitting information, but also acts as an instrument of public memory.
The work of Valentin Grigorievich is realistic. Rasputin wrote “French Lessons” in the first person. Analyzing it, we note that this story can be considered fully autobiographical.
The main themes of the work
Starting the work, the writer asks the question of why we always feel guilty before teachers, as well as before parents. And the guilt is not for what happened at school, but for what happened to us after. Thus, the author defines the main themes of his work: the relationship between student and teacher, the depiction of a life illuminated by moral and spiritual meaning, the formation of a hero who acquires spiritual experience thanks to Lydia Mikhailovna. Communication with the teacher and French lessons became life lessons for the narrator.
Play for money
Playing for money between a teacher and a student would seem to be an immoral act. However, what is behind it? The answer to this question is given in the work of V. G. Rasputin (“French Lessons”). The analysis allows us to reveal the motives driving Lydia Mikhailovna.
Seeing that in the post-war hungry years the student was malnourished, the teacher invites him, under the guise of extra classes, to her home to feed him. She sends him a package, supposedly from her mother. But the boy refuses her help. The idea with the package was not successful: it contained “urban” products, and this gave the teacher away. Then Lidia Mikhailovna offers him a game for money and, of course, “loses” so that the boy can buy milk for himself with these pennies. The woman is happy that she succeeds in this deception. And Rasputin does not condemn her at all (“French Lessons”). Our analysis even allows us to say that the writer supports it.
The culmination of the work
The climax of the work comes after this game. The story sharpens the paradoxical nature of the situation to the limit. The teacher did not know that at that time such a relationship with a student could lead to dismissal and even criminal liability. Even the boy did not fully know this. But when trouble did happen, he began to understand the behavior of his schoolteacher more deeply and realized some aspects of life at that time.
The ending of the story
The ending of the story created by Rasputin (“French Lessons”) is almost melodramatic. An analysis of the work shows that the package with Antonov apples (and the boy never tried them, since he was a resident of Siberia) seems to echo the unsuccessful first package with pasta - city food. This ending, which turned out to be by no means unexpected, is also preparing new touches. The heart of the village mistrustful boy in the story opens up to the purity of the teacher. Rasputin's story is surprisingly modern. The writer depicted in it the courage of a young woman, the insight of an ignorant, withdrawn child, and taught the reader lessons of humanity.
The idea of the story is for us to learn feelings, not life, from books. Rasputin notes that literature is the education of feelings such as nobility, purity, kindness.
Main characters
Let's continue "French Lessons" by Rasputin V.G. with a description of the main characters. In the story they are an 11-year-old boy and Lydia Mikhailovna. She was no more than 25 years old at that time. The author notes that there was no cruelty in her face. She treated the boy with sympathy and understanding and was able to appreciate his determination. The teacher recognized great learning abilities in her student and was ready to help them develop. This woman is endowed with compassion for people, as well as kindness. She had to suffer for these qualities, losing her job.
In the story, the boy amazes with his determination, desire to learn and go out into the world under any circumstances. He entered fifth grade in 1948. In the village where the boy lived there was only an elementary school. Therefore, he had to go to the regional center, located 50 km away, in order to continue his studies. For the first time, an 11-year-old boy, due to circumstances, found himself cut off from his family and his usual surroundings. But he understands that not only his relatives, but also the village have hopes for him. According to his fellow villagers, he should become a “learned man.” And the hero makes all his efforts for this, overcoming homesickness and hunger in order not to let his fellow countrymen down.
With kindness, wise humor, humanity and psychological accuracy, Rasputin portrays the relationship with a young teacher of a hungry student ("French Lessons"). The analysis of the work presented in this article will help you understand them. The narrative flows slowly, rich in everyday details, but its rhythm gradually captivates.
Language of the work
The language of the work, the author of which is Valentin Rasputin (“French Lessons”), is simple and expressive at the same time. An analysis of its linguistic features reveals the skillful use of phraseological units in the story. The author thereby achieves imagery and expressiveness of the work (“sell it out of the blue”, “out of the blue”, “carelessly”, etc.).
One of the linguistic features is also the presence of outdated vocabulary, which was characteristic of the time of the work, as well as regional words. These are, for example: “lodging”, “one and a half”, “tea”, “throwing”, “blathering”, “baling”, “hlyuzda”, “hiding”. By analyzing Rasputin's story "French Lessons" yourself, you can find other similar words.
Moral meaning of the work
The main character of the story had to study in difficult times. The post-war years were a serious test for adults and children. In childhood, as you know, both bad and good are perceived much more sharply and vividly. However, difficulties also strengthen character, and the main character often displays such qualities as determination, endurance, sense of proportion, pride, and willpower. The moral significance of the work lies in the celebration of eternal values - philanthropy and kindness.
The significance of Rasputin's work
The works of Valentin Rasputin invariably attract more and more new readers, since alongside the everyday, everyday life, his works always contain moral laws, spiritual values, unique characters, and the contradictory and complex inner world of the characters. The writer’s thoughts about man, about life, about nature help to find inexhaustible reserves of beauty and goodness in the world around us and within ourselves.
This concludes the analysis of the story “French Lessons”. Rasputin is already one of the classical authors whose works are studied in school. Of course, this is an outstanding master of modern fiction.
Valentin Rasputin belongs to the galaxy of talented modern writers. His work is so multifaceted that every reader, regardless of age, will find in it something especially important for themselves.
His heroes are characterized by such qualities as justice, mercy, kindness, self-sacrifice, sincerity and honesty. The author continues to inherit the humanistic traditions of twentieth-century literature in his work.
One of the works that proclaims eternal human values and virtues is the story “French Lessons.”
The history of the creation of the story “French Lessons”
The story is based on the autobiographical story of the author. The prototype of the image of Lydia Mikhailovna is V. Rasputin’s teacher, who occupied a very important place in his life.
According to Rasputin, it is precisely such a woman who has the power to change what is beyond the control of an ordinary person. It was the teacher who helped the author set the right life priorities and understand what is good and what is evil.
In the story “French Lessons” we see an ordinary rural boy and his teacher. The child has purity and a kind soul, but difficult living conditions, eternal poverty, hunger, pushes him onto the wrong path. In order to earn authority among a group of boys, the child begins to play “chika” with them so that they will accept him faster.
But still this does not help, and the boy is forced to endure constant humiliation and even assault from the older guys. This situation was noticed in time by the French teacher, Lidia Mikhailovna. She tries to find out from the child what prompted him to play for money.
The boy, who is not used to kind attitude and ordinary human participation, begins to tell the teacher that he plays in order to have friends and earn money for food, since he is constantly hungry due to his parents’ poverty.
The problem of awakening conscience
Lidia Mikhailovna sincerely wants to help him and, under the pretext of studying French, invites him to her home. The teacher always tried to feed the child, but pride and self-esteem did not allow him to accept food.
Lydia Mikhailovna finally found a way to help the boy; she invited him to play an already well-known game for money. The teacher often gave in, thus providing her student with money for a hearty lunch every day.
Helping the boy, the teacher cunningly led him away from the dubious company, and also did not go against his principles. The heroine of Lidia Mikhailovna is the ray of goodness that disadvantaged people so need. She did not remain indifferent to the little man’s misfortune, but willingly began to help him, risking losing her job.
The author in his story, as is typical for him, glorifies human kindness and noble impulses. After all, both the boy and the teacher were honest people, with a humanistic value system. The story also acutely raises the topic of social vulnerability of young children who are forced to earn money on their own for the most basic food needs.
>Essays based on the work French Lessons
Humanity
What is humanity? This is, first of all, a friendly and humane attitude towards people, that is, the ability to understand another person, feel his experiences and at the right time come to the aid of his neighbor. It is this moral quality that Valentin Rasputin’s story “French Lessons” (1973) is dedicated to.
The author himself was deeply convinced that the main task of literature is to educate human feelings: “...first of all, kindness, purity, nobility.” The bearer of these moral ideals in his work is the French teacher Lidia Mikhailovna.
This young woman, in order to help her poor starving student, violated many school prohibitions and rules, for which she ultimately paid with her work. But even after this, she continued to take care of the boy and send him food.
The teacher’s ability, no matter what, to remain true to her ideals and go towards her goal is truly admirable. With her behavior, this woman demonstrates an example of true humanity.
Lidia Mikhailovna many times faced a choice: to help her pupil or to abandon him. When she first found out that the boy was gambling, she could have reported this to the director, since, from the point of view of school ideology, this was the teacher’s behavior that was considered correct. But the teacher did not do this.
After asking the boy about his action and learning that the hero only needed money to buy a “jar of milk,” Lidia Mikhailovna was able to enter into the child’s position and understand him. Therefore, she began to study French with him additionally at home, so that later she would be able to feed the student dinner. But the boy resisted this desire every time, because from such, as it seemed to him, too generous an offer, “all appetite jumped out of him like a bullet.”
At this moment, Lidia Mikhailovna could also give up her idea of helping the child, but she persistently moved forward, first throwing a parcel of food to the hero, and then offering to play “wall” for money. The woman was not even frightened by the fact that the school director lived in the next apartment and could hear them. And when in the end this happened, Lidia Mikhailovna honestly admitted to the director what she had done and took all the blame upon herself. Thus, she gave her pupil a chance to continue his studies at school.
It seems to me that a person capable of demonstrating such high moral qualities certainly deserves respect. That is why the author dedicates his story to a simple school teacher who turned out to be capable of committing a truly worthy and noble act.
