What form of life does larra represent. Character history

Larra image and characteristics according to plan

1. General characteristics. Larra is one of the characters in M. Gorky's story "The Old Woman Izergil".

An old gypsy tells a story about him. Larra was born from the union of an earthly woman and an eagle, therefore he considered himself superior to people.

The tribe punished Larra with immortality, which became the most terrible execution for him.

2. The meaning of the name. Larra is translated from the gypsy language as "outcast".

3. Appearance. At the beginning of the legend, Larra is a twenty-year-old handsome and strong young man. He is no different from his fellow tribesmen, only his eyes are "cold and proud."

By the time of the conversation between the narrator and Izergil (a thousand years later), Larra had turned into a disembodied, dark and dense shadow.

4. Son of an eagle. From his father, Larra inherited incredible pride and contempt for people and their laws. Returning with his mother to the tribe, he immediately behaved defiantly: "answered if he wanted, or was silent."

In a patriarchal society, elders enjoyed unquestioned authority. They demanded obedience from Larra, to which he responded with an insult and declared that he would never obey them. The elders became angry and drove the proud man out of the tribe.

Larry didn't mind this at all. He immediately approached the daughter of one of the elders he liked and hugged her. When the girl pushed the insolent man away, he killed her. All the people in the tribe were amazed at the ruthlessness and senselessness of the killing. Larra showed no remorse and made no attempt to escape. He just stood and proudly looked at those around him.

For a while, people were in shock. When they came to their senses, they seized the eagle's son and began to think how to punish him. It was difficult to come up with a punishment for such a heinous crime. The tribe went through several options for execution, but not one of them satisfied them. Then people decided to try to understand why Larra killed the girl for no apparent reason.

Larra demanded to be untied. Only after that did he explain that he had committed the murder, since the girl refused to belong to him. He was told that for the right to own something a person must pay "with mind and strength, sometimes with life." Larra stated that he "wants to keep himself whole."

The whole tribe became scared when it understood the essence of Larra. It was a man with an eagle soul. He considered himself the center of the world and felt no attachment to anything. Larra sought only to satisfy his own selfish desires.

5. Terrible punishment. The wisest man in the tribe came up with a worthy punishment for the proud. He ordered the people to release Larra and give him the right to do whatever he wants. The sound of thunder confirmed the words of the elder: together with freedom, the son of an eagle gained immortality. Larra thought this decision was ridiculous. He left and began to live like his father.

For several decades, Larra came to the tribe and stole everything he wanted. Immortality made him invulnerable to weapons. Strength and agility allowed him to hide unnoticed. Finally, Larra is tired of living. He came to the tribe hoping to be killed for all his crimes. However, people guessed that the son of an eagle is weighed down by immortality and wants to die. They did not touch him and laughingly watched the suffering of the outcast.

In front of the entire tribe, Larra tried to commit suicide, but achieved nothing. Since that time, he wanders the earth alone and waits for death. From the body that had decayed over a thousand years, only a shadow remained, doomed to eternal torment.

The legend of Larra is revealed in the first chapter of Gorky's story "Old Woman Izergil". Through the hero Larra, the author reveals the theme of pride and humility. Pride is a manifestation of self-esteem, often taking on a negative meaning, becoming pride, a spiritual vice. A person with pride will not be able to gain recognition in society, at the same time, peace of mind and happiness. According to Maxim Gorky, he dooms himself to despair.

Larra is the son of a woman and an eagle. He was distinguished by pride, contempt for people, considers himself the first on earth. His name, which means "outcast", he receives after being expelled from the tribe. He commits a crime: he kills a beautiful girl for pushing him away.

This plot reveals Larra's individuality: he only wants to take, but not give anything in return, he also rejects the fact that a person has to sacrifice his mind and strength, and sometimes his life, for everything. The desire to "keep oneself whole", confidence in one's judgments, and rejection of the thoughts and values ​​of the tribe become the main features of his pride. Not measured with the behavior and nature of Larra, the tribe expels the hero from their society.

Larra shows her pride in everything, accepting her punishment with a laugh. He becomes like his father. But the punishment for Larra is his freedom. Pride dooms the hero to complete loneliness. Life without other people is unbearable. The hero longs for death, but cannot die. His stone flesh symbolizes a selfish soul that will never be able to find its place among people. The protagonist is not able to know friendship, love, sacrifice for good. Larra's pride is his true punishment, with which the hero is doomed to exist forever in the form of a shadow flickering in the steppes.

Maxim Gorky managed to convey the individual originality of Larra, the image of the feelings of the protagonist. Thanks to the legend about Larr, you understand that the “heart of stone”, arrogance and selfishness are the features of the anti-ideal that the author condemns. Gorky draws our attention to the fact that it is impossible to live in society and be free from it.

Updated: 2019-10-16

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Useful material on the topic

• “The place of a person in society on the example of 2 works by M. Gorky, the story “Old Woman Izergil”, the play “At the Bottom” Larra, Danko, Satin, Luka

Danko (Fig. 2) became a symbol of heroism, a hero ready for self-sacrifice. Thus, the story is built on the antithesis, and the heroes of the work are antipodes.

Antipode(from other Greek “opposite” or “opposing”) - in a general sense, something opposite to something else. In a figurative sense, it can be applied to people with opposing views.

The term "antipode" was introduced by Plato in his Timaeus to combine the relativity of the concepts "up" and "down".

In the story "Old Woman Izergil", in addition to ancient legends, the author included a story about the life of the old woman Izergil herself. Consider the composition of the story. Memories of the old woman Izergil are compositionally placed between two legends. The heroes of the legends are not real people, but symbols: Larra is a symbol of selfishness, Danko is a symbol of altruism. As for the image of the old woman Izergil (Fig. 3), her life and fate are quite realistic. Let's talk about this in more detail.

Rice. 3. Old woman Izergil ()

Izergil is very old: “Time bent her in half, her once black eyes were dull and watery. Her dry voice sounded strange, it crunched like an old woman spoke with her bones. The old woman Izergil talks about herself, about her life, about the men whom she first loved and then abandoned, and only for the sake of one of them was she ready to give her life. Her lovers didn't have to be beautiful. She loved those who were capable of a real act.

“... He loved exploits. And when a person loves feats, he always knows how to do them and finds where it is possible. In life, you know, there is always a place for exploits. And those who do not find them for themselves are simply lazy, or cowards, or do not understand life, because if people understood life, everyone would want to leave behind their shadow in it. And then life would not devour people without a trace ... "

In her life, Izergil often acted selfishly. Suffice it to recall the case when she fled from the Sultan's harem with his son. The son of the Sultan soon died, which the old woman recalls as follows: “I cried over him, maybe it was I who killed him? ..”. But other moments of her life, when she truly loved, she was ready for a feat. For example, for the sake of saving a loved one from captivity, she risked her life.

The old woman Izergil measures people with such concepts as honesty, directness, courage, and the ability to act. These are the people she considers beautiful. Izergil despises boring, weak, cowardly people. She is proud that she has lived a bright and interesting life, and believes that she should pass on her life experience to the young.

That is why she tells us two legends, as if giving us the right to choose which path to follow: the path of pride, like Larra, or the path of pride, like Danko. Because there is only one step difference between pride and pride. It may be a carelessly spoken word or an act dictated by our egoism. We must remember that we live among people and take their feelings, moods, and opinions into account. We must remember that for each of our words, each of our deeds, we are responsible to others as well as to our own conscience. This is what Gorky wanted to make the reader think about (Fig. 4) in the story "Old Woman Izergil".

Rice. 4. M. Gorky ()

Pathos(from the Greek “suffering, inspiration, passion”) - the emotional content of a work of art, the feelings and emotions that the author puts into the text, expecting the reader's empathy.

In the history of literature, the term "pathos" has been used in different meanings. So, for example, in the era of Antiquity, pathos was the state of the human soul, the passions experienced by the hero. In Russian literature, the critic V.G. Belinsky (Fig. 5) suggested using the term "pathos" to characterize the work and the writer's work as a whole.

Rice. 5. V.G. Belinsky ()

Bibliography

1. Korovina V.Ya. Literature textbook. 7th grade. Part 1. - 2012.
2. Korovina V.Ya. Literature textbook. 7th grade. Part 2. - 2009.
3. Ladygin M.B., Zaitseva O.N. Textbook-reader on literature. 7th grade. - 2012.

1. Nado5.ru ().
2. Litra.ru ().
3. Goldlit.ru ().

Homework

1. Tell us what the antipode and pathos are.
2. Give a detailed description of the image of the old woman Izergil and think about what features of Larra and Danko the image of the old woman embodies.
3. Write an essay on the topic: "Larra and Danko in our time."

The protagonist of the first chapter of Gorky's story "Old Woman Izergil", the son of an eagle and a woman whom he kidnapped from a tribe. This young man, outwardly no different from other people, is shown by the author as a symbol that opposes life itself. Initially inherent qualities of the hero: beauty and pride are completely depreciated in his soulless following of instinct, the desire to achieve his goal by any means, in his very existence, which is devoid of both past and future.

The hero of the legend Larra is a vivid embodiment of the lack of spirituality of a person. He imagines himself to be absolutely perfect, even trying to kill all the people he doesn't like, by these actions he violates all the laws of human existence. Larra, deprived of human destiny, cannot even die. He can only simply exist outcast by all the people of his tribe, who determined his fate.

By nature, this young man is very selfish and this trait goes beyond all conceivable boundaries, it turns into individualism and egoism to an extreme degree. His sense of whimsy is simply inflated to enormous proportions. In creating the image of this young man, the author did not use a direct author's description or his psychological portrait. To do this, he used a description of the characteristics of his hero through his actions.

There is a symbol-detail in the work, it is the eyes of a young man, they are very sharp and cold, in them we can see the look of this person filled with a sense of human dignity. Gorky in his legend uses the method of characterization, the so-called improperly direct. He is provided as a narrator and juxtaposition with another character -

Maxim Gorky entered literature as an author of romantic stories. Among them was the work "Old Woman Izergil", written in 1894. In it, the author tries to evaluate a person based on an analysis of his actions. Benefit for other people becomes their measure. Thus, the concept of an ideal and an anti-ideal, characteristic of romanticism, was realized.

Three heroes are in the center of the writer's attention: Izergil, who acts as a narrator, condemned to eternal immortality Larra and who gave his life to save the Danko tribe. of all three stories (the legends are successfully intertwined with the fate of the old woman herself) is the key to understanding the answer to the question that never loses its relevance: what is the meaning of human existence on earth? In this regard, it is interesting to speculate on what Larra was punished for. Is he the only one to blame for what happened?

Background to the legend of Larra

The action of the story takes place in the evening on the seashore - a typical backdrop for a romantic work. The majestic free nature surrounding the narrator and the old Moldavian lives according to its own laws and at the same time reflects the aspirations of a person, helps to understand his inner world.

The legend that tells about who Larra is, the old woman Izergil remembers not by chance. She points out to her interlocutor the shadows floating across the boundless sky. One of them was "darker and thicker", and moved faster than the others. “He lives for thousands of years… This is what God can do to a man for pride!” - these words became the beginning of a fairy tale about the incredible pride of the eagle man, which became the cause of his curse and immortality.

The story of the birth of the hero

Understanding what Larra was punished for begins with his origins. Once a mighty eagle stole a girl from a strong and powerful tribe. She returned only twenty years later, and next to her was a beautiful young man - a son born from an eagle. The king of birds, which had begun to weaken, rose up and, folding its wings, rushed to the sharp rocks.

Now his descendant stood before the people - outwardly seemingly like them, but still distinguished by proud and cold eyes. And all his actions emphasized that he felt superior to the rest - even with the elders, the young man spoke as an equal to them. The reason is simple. The young man from birth was distinguished by a different psychology, which makes him unlike people, therefore he has no place among them. This is the first characteristic of Larra - the son of a mighty and freedom-loving eagle and an earthly woman.

Murder of a girl

Immediately opposing himself to the entire tribe, Larra calmly deals with the daughter of one of the elders. She first lured him with her eyes, and then pushed him away, frightened of her father. Everyone around was shackled with fear - for the first time before their eyes, a woman was so cruelly killed. And the son of the eagle proudly stood over his victim, not lowering his head and feeling his superiority over the others, for which he was punished.

Larra embarrassed the elders with his behavior. For a long time they tried to understand the act of the young man. Not finding an answer to their questions, they turned to him himself. And for Larra, everything was simple: “I killed her because ... because she pushed me away.” So the reason for the opposition of one person to the crowd, characteristic of a romantic work, was the exorbitant pride and individualism inherited from the royal bird.

Alienation from people

The elders thought for a long time what punishment Larra deserved. The old woman Izergil said that they went through many options until the young man himself, with his speeches, prompted them the answer. He considered himself the first on earth, and therefore, as one of the elders noted, freedom would be the worst punishment for him. The “thunder from heaven” that suddenly burst out at that moment convinced them of the correctness of the decision. Larra was released, and since then he has become an "outcast" - this is the meaning of his name.

More than a thousand years have passed, and his shadow still roams the earth alone. At first he lived freely, like a bird, doing whatever he wanted. Nobody paid any attention to him. But one day the proud son of the eagle himself came to the people: he stood for a long time and did not budge. Someone guessed that he was looking for death. However, everyone remembered what Larra was punished for, and therefore they only laughed, looking at him. Then Larra grabbed a knife and stabbed himself in the chest. But it bounced off his body like a stone.

His flesh has long withered away, and he, turning into a shadow, is still looking for death, which he will never find.

The image of Larra: assessment and meaning

The author condemns his hero for his extreme individualism, for daring to oppose himself to the whole tribe. According to M. Gorky, the main goal of human existence is to serve people. This is how Danko is presented in the story. Larra, on the other hand, is an anti-ideal, for whose behavior and deed there is no justification.

However, do not forget that Larra is not an ordinary person. He is the son of an eagle, who grew up far from people and was not accustomed to human laws. But his trouble is that he is not a bird, like his father. Therefore, Larry deserves not only condemnation, but also sympathy. His tragedy was predetermined at birth.