The fate of man (disambiguation)
"Destiny of Man" is a short story by the Soviet Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov. Written in 1956-1957. The first publication is the Pravda newspaper, issues for December 31, 1956 and January 1, 1957.
Plot
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War driver Andrey Sokolov has to part with his family and go to the front. Already in the first months of the war, he was wounded and taken prisoner by the Nazis. In captivity, he endures all the hardships of the concentration camp, thanks to his courage he avoids execution and, finally, runs out of it behind the front line, to his own. On a short front-line vacation to his small Motherland, he learns that his beloved wife Irina and both daughters died during the bombing. Of his relatives, he had only a young son, an officer. Returning to the front, Andrei receives news that his son died on the last day of the war.
After the war, the lonely Sokolov works in foreign places. There he meets a little boy Vanya, who was left an orphan. His mother is dead and his father is missing. Sokolov tells the boy that he is his father, and by doing so he gives the boy (and himself) hope for new life.
Two orphaned people, two grains of sand thrown into foreign lands by a military hurricane of unprecedented strength... Is something waiting for them ahead? And I would like to think that this Russian man, a man of unbending will, will survive and grow up near his father’s shoulder, one who, having matured, will be able to endure everything, overcome everything in his path, if his Motherland calls him to this.
History of creation
The plot of the story is based on real events. In the spring of 1946, while hunting, Sholokhov met a man who told him his sad story. Sholokhov was captivated by this story, and he decided: "I will write a story about this, I will definitely write it." After 10 years, rereading the stories of Hemingway, Remarque and others foreign writers, Sholokhov wrote the story "The Fate of a Man" in seven days.
Screen adaptation
In 1959, the story was filmed by the Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk, who played leading role. The film "The Fate of a Man" in 1959 was awarded the main prize at the Moscow Film Festival and opened the way for the director to big cinema.
In domestic literary criticism (for example, in the book by L. G. Yakimenko “The Creativity of M. A. Sholokhov”), it is customary to define the genre of “The Fate of a Man” (1956) as an epic story. The genre, apparently, is very unusual, because it connects seemingly incompatible concepts. It is customary to call a story a small epic form, it usually describes one (bright) event from the life of a hero and there is a narrator. Epic - a monumental form of epic literature, showing the fate of the people, the historical process itself. The epic harmoniously combines historical events and modernity, philosophical reflections on the fate of the world and the personal experiences of the heroes, depicts the multi-heroic action and the life path of individual characters. How is it that in a story on thirty pages Sholokhov achieved a global generalization - in the image of a simple Russian man Andrei Sokolov, an entire nation was embodied and reflected, just as a huge sun is reflected in a small drop of dew?
Sholokhov's story has the main features of an epic. The first sign is the depiction of a turning point in history, that is, events that affect the entire nation and in which folk character appears most clearly. In "The Fate of Man" it is the Patriotic War. She is not portrayed as historical event(that is, a series of military operations), but as the hardest physical and moral test of human character. The main hero of the war in the story is not the commander, not the regiment commander, not even the people (as was the case with L.N. Tolstoy in the epic novel "War and Peace" or as it will be with K.M. Simonov in the trilogy "The Living and the Dead" ), and one ordinary fighter who, even participating in a great battle, sees only a battle of local importance. The war is shown through the fate of the protagonist: both at the front and in fascist captivity, he constantly faces the problem of moral choice, on which his own life and the lives of his comrades depend.
The second sign of the epic is the image of the national character in specific heroes literary work. To do this, Sholokhov describes the life story of Andrei Sokolov, a wonderful Russian person. The hero begins his story about himself from the pre-war years. The reader is presented with a person with the most ordinary biography. The age of the century, he was born in the Voronezh province, fought in the Red Army during the civil war, and was orphaned in 1921, as his parents and sister died of starvation. He sold his house in the village and left for Voronezh. Here, at the right time, he married, children were born (son Anatoly and daughters Nastya and Olya), and only after becoming a father, Andrei Sokolov realized that the life and well-being of these little people depended on him. He stopped drinking with his comrades, learned to be a driver in order to earn more money, saved up money and built a house.
During the war, this outwardly inconspicuous person revealed excellent character traits: courage and intelligence (A.S. Pushkin called them in his “Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg” hallmarks Russian nature), amazing stamina and high spiritual qualities- justice, conscientiousness, sensitivity and kindness. Courage Andrei Sokolov showed in the scene with Muller, when in the face of certain death he retained human dignity, which was appreciated even by the Nazis. Both of his escapes from captivity testify to the ingenuity and prudence of the hero. From the first day of captivity, he decided to run away, but “he wanted to leave for sure,” so he patiently waited for the right moment. Andrei Sokolov fulfilled his intention as soon as the opportunity presented itself (the guards were distracted). The first escape was unsuccessful, and the punishment for it was terrible: the Nazis beat him half to death, set the dogs on fire, and put him in a punishment cell. But the hero did not give up his idea. He thought out the second escape and prepared even more carefully and finally got to his own, taking a German engineer with plans for defensive structures.
Andrey Sokolov's steadfastness arouses admiration: he withstood the bullying and humiliation of fascist captivity, which could not kill his mind, conscience, human dignity, did not turn him into an obedient slave of someone else's will. If before captivity the conscience does not allow the hero to leave his comrades in trouble, so he, without thinking about the danger, carries shells to the battery, then even in captivity he cannot eat bread and lard alone, received from Muller as a reward for courage, but divides everything between comrades in the camp barracks. A sense of justice makes Andrey Sokolov strangle the traitor Kryzhnev in the ruined church, and he does not repent of this act at all. The sensitivity and kindness that the hero felt for his wife and children remained in his soul even after the war: he understood Vanyushka's grief and became attached to the baby with all his heart.
Why can it be argued that in Andrei Sokolov, in a specific hero with a specific fate, a Russian was embodied national character? Were there not during the war cowards, traitors, broken by fear, circumstances, torture? There were, but it was not they who won the victory in the Great Patriotic War, but people similar to Andrei Sokolov, close to him in character. The hero has the traits that Russians value most in a person, and therefore they educate themselves from generation to generation. The national view of a worthy person is expressed in the work with the help of another hero - the author, who listens to the confession of Andrei Sokolov.
The author and the hero are similar, which is confirmed by several episodes from the story. The author immediately draws attention to the fact that a strange couple is wearily approaching him along the river bank - “a tall, round-shouldered man” and completely a little boy. This contrast catches the eye of the author, who immediately notes significant details in the appearance of an adult and a child. For example, he compares the look of a father and a son: the boy's eyes are blue and clear, "like the sky"; at the father - "as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with such an inescapable mortal longing that it is difficult to look at them." And the main character immediately saw in a randomly met man sitting on a fallen wattle fence at the crossing, “his brother”, who would understand the confession of a simple driver. Andrei Sokolov was not mistaken: the author reacts with restraint to the story, does not interrupt with clarifying questions and his own reasoning. Only when Andrey Sokolov recalls his farewell to his wife at the station and his voice breaks with excitement, the author quietly says: “Don’t, friend, don’t remember!”. It is hard to listen to the confession of the driver, but the author does not brush aside a random interlocutor, sparing his own nerves, but allows him to speak out to the end and thereby ease his soul. The author and the protagonist both treat Vanyushka with restraint and kindness. The look of the boy excited the author at the crossing, just as Andrey Sokolov at the teahouse. Adults protect the child from difficult impressions: the father, when he begins his confession, sends Vanyushka to play ashore, and the author, shocked to the core by the story of a simple driver, turns away when he says goodbye so that the child does not see how an elderly gray-haired man is crying, and not get scared.
Sholokhov put the author's assessment of Andrei Sokolov in the title of the story, using the word "man" in a high sense. At the end of the work, the author-narrator, talking about the Russian man, admires the hero and at the same time demonstrates his philosophical understanding of the positive human character. Thus, “The Fate of a Man” includes philosophical reflections on the fate of the world, which is the third indispensable feature of the epic. philosophical idea The story can be formulated as follows: no circumstances can kill a person's desire to do good, to create, to love, because it is these feelings that make a person a person. The fate of Andrei Sokolov serves as proof of this idea. The inhuman treatment in Nazi captivity, the death of the whole family, the irretrievable loss of everything that the hero valued in life, should have embittered him or made him indifferent to everything around him. Contrary to this logic, Andrei Sokolov did not withdraw into his "inescapable" grief, but became attached to a little orphan boy and in this love he found salvation from despair. Thus, like a real tragic hero, Andrey Sokolov enters into a confrontation with a cruel world, with a world war and does not allow his living soul to be killed.
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An interesting, fascinating and exciting work is "The Fate of Man". The meaning of the title of the story can be understood by every reader who carefully reads the work and gets to know the main character. This story will not leave indifferent any reader who has become acquainted with The Fate of a Man, because the author was able to convey in his work all the feelings, experiences and emotions of Andrei Sokolov, whose life was rather difficult and to some extent unhappy.
Meeting with Andrey Sokolov
In order to understand what the meaning of the title of the story “The Fate of a Man” is, it is necessary to get acquainted with summary Sholokhov's works.
At the very beginning of the work, it becomes clear that the narrator was heading to one of the Don villages, but he had to stay on the shore due to the flood of the river and wait for the boat. At this time, a man with a child approached him and mistook him for a driver, because there was a car next to the narrator. Andrei Sokolov really wanted to talk with his colleague. Previously, the man worked as a driver, but on a truck. The narrator decided not to upset the man and did not say that he was not his colleague.
The meaning of the title of the story “The Fate of a Man” becomes clear to every reader already while reading the work. It is worth saying that the author chose, probably, the most accurate name that reflects the meaning of the whole story.
The image of Andrei Sokolov
The image of Sokolov is shown to the reader through the perception of the narrator. The man has strong, overworked hands and sad eyes filled with mortal anguish. It immediately becomes clear that the meaning of Sokolov's life is his son, who is dressed much better and neater than his father. Andrei does not pay attention to himself at all, and only cares about his beloved son.
It is the work "The Fate of a Man" that will not leave indifferent any reader. The meaning of the title of the story becomes clear to everyone who is imbued with the main character and sympathetically reacted to his difficult fate. It is worth saying that the meaning of the work lies precisely in its title.
Honest and open driver
Further, the reader learns about the fate of Andrei Sokolov from his story about his past life narrator. It is worth saying that the main character is quite frank and honest with his interlocutor. Most likely, such openness is due to the fact that Andrey took the narrator for "his own" - a Russian man with a big soul.
The meaning of the title of Sholokhov's story "The Fate of a Man" is interesting to everyone who is going to get acquainted with this work. It is worth noting that the reader will find out the answer to this question already while reading the story. The author conveys all the emotions and experiences of the protagonist so well and clearly that every reader will definitely feel for him and his difficult fate.
The death of Sokolov's parents
Andrey Sokolov shared that his life was the most ordinary, but after the famine, everything changed very much. Then he decided to leave for the Kuban, where he later began to work for the kulaks. It was thanks to this that Sokolov managed to stay alive, unlike his family. Andrei became an orphan because his parents and little sister died of starvation.
It is “The Fate of a Man” that causes a storm of emotions and experiences. The meaning of the title of the story will become clear to every reader, but for this it is necessary to delve into each line and truly feel everything that the protagonist of the work has experienced.
Sokolov's wife and children
A few years later, after a great grief, Andrei still managed not to break. Soon he got married. He spoke only good things about his wife. Sokolov shared with the narrator that his wife was cheerful, compliant and smart. If the spouse comes home bad mood, she never rude him back. Soon Andrei and Irina had a son, and then two daughters.
Sokolov shared with his interlocutor that in 1929 he began to be carried away by cars, after which he became a truck driver. However, the war soon began, which became an obstacle to a good and happy life.
Leaving for the front
Soon Andrei Sokolov was forced to go to the front, where he was escorted by the whole friendly family. It is worth noting that it seemed to Irina that this was the last time that husband and wife were together. Naturally, Andrey was very upset that his wife "buried her husband alive", in connection with which Sokolov went to the front in frustrated feelings.
Undoubtedly, every lover of literature about wartime will like the work “The Fate of a Man”. The meaning of the title of the story will become clear after reading the work.
Meeting the driver with the Nazis
In May 1942, terrible events took place that Andrei will never be able to forget. During the war, Sokolov was also a driver and volunteered to carry ammunition to his artillery battery. However, he could not take them, as the shell fell right next to his car, which turned over from the blast wave. After that, Sokolov lost consciousness, after which he woke up already behind enemy lines. At first, Andrei decided to pretend to be dead, but he raised his head at the moment when several fascists with machine guns were walking right towards him. It is worth saying that the man wanted to die with dignity and stood right in front of the enemy, but was not killed. One fascist was already thinking of shooting when his comrade prevented Sokolov from being killed.
After reading the work, the meaning of the title of the story “The Fate of a Man” immediately becomes clear. It will not be difficult to write an essay on this topic, because the title of the work reflects what it is about.
The escape
After this incident, Andrei was sent barefoot to the west with a column of prisoners.
During the journey to Poznan, Sokolov only thought about how to escape as soon as possible. I must say, the man was lucky, because when the prisoners were digging graves, the guards were distracted. It was then that Andrei managed to escape to the east. But not everything ended the way Sokolov wanted. Already on the fourth day, the Germans with their shepherd dogs caught up with the runaway. As punishment, Andrei was kept in a punishment cell, after which he was sent straight to Germany.
Worthy opponent
Soon Sokolov began working in a stone quarry near Dresden, where he managed to say a phrase that infuriated his superiors. Muller, the commandant of the camp, summoned the driver and said that he would personally shoot him for such words. Sokolov answered him: "Your will."
The commandant thought about something, threw away the pistol and invited Andrey to drink a glass of vodka and eat a piece of bread and a slice of lard for the victory of "German weapons". It is worth noting that Sokolov refused and answered Muller that he was a non-drinker. However, the commandant laughed and replied: "If you do not want to drink to our victory, drink to your death!" Andrei drank the glass to the bottom and replied that after the first glass he did not have a snack. After drinking the second glass, the soldier answered the commandant the same thing. After the third Andrey bit off some bread. Muller decided to leave Sokolov alive, because he respects worthy rivals, and gave the driver a loaf and a piece of lard, which Andrei divided equally among his comrades.
The fact that a simple Russian person is so strong in spirit that he was able to survive the most terrible events that can happen in life, and lies the meaning of the title of Sholokhov's story “The Fate of a Man”. An essay on this topic can be written by absolutely every person who is familiar with the work.
The death of the Sokolov family and the adoption of Vanya
In 1944, Sokolov became the chauffeur of a German engineer major, who treated him more or less well, sometimes even sharing his food with him. Once Andrei stunned him, took the weapon and rushed straight to where the battle was going on. According to the driver, the Germans started shooting at him from behind, and his soldiers in front.
After this incident, Andrei was sent to the hospital, from where he wrote to his wife. Soon an answer came from a neighbor that a shell had hit his house, from which the children and wife of the driver died. At that moment, the son was not at home, so he managed to survive. Sokolov volunteered for the front. After that, Andrei found his son, began to correspond with him, but fate decreed very cruelly. On May 9, 1945, Anatoly died at the hands of a sniper.
The driver did not know where to go, and went to Uryupinsk to his friend, where he met a homeless boy Vanya. Then Andrei told the child that he was his father and adopted the boy, who was very happy to meet his "father".
What is the meaning of the title of the story "The Fate of Man"?
It is worth finding out what the meaning of the title of Sholokhov's work is, after all, because many are interested in this particular question.
The meaning of the title of Sholokhov's story "The Fate of a Man" is that a simple Russian person was able to survive a huge number of negative events, after which he managed to live on, not to break down and forget about all the tragedies. Andrei Sokolov adopted a child and began to live for him, forgetting about all the failures and hardships that had haunted him throughout recent years his life. Despite the death of his parents, wife and children, the main character managed to survive and live on.
The fact that a Russian person was able to overcome all failures and hardships, survive the loss of loved ones and live on, is the meaning of the title of the story by M. Sholokhov “The Fate of a Man”. Main character was so strong in spirit that he managed to forget about everything that happened to him before and start a completely new life in which he is happy man raising a beautiful child. The death of parents, wife and children did not break the spirit of the Russian man, who was able to forget about all the terrible events that took place during the last years of his life, and found the strength to start a new one. happy life. This is precisely the meaning of the work "The Destiny of Man".
The Great Patriotic War, even after many decades, remains the greatest blow to the whole world. What a tragedy this is for the fighting Soviet people, who lost the most people in this bloody duel! The lives of many (both military and civilians) were broken. Sholokhov's story "The Fate of a Man" truthfully depicts these sufferings, not of an individual, but of the entire people who stood up to defend their homeland.
The story "The Fate of a Man" is based on real events: M.A. Sholokhov met a man who told him his tragic biography. This story was almost a ready-made plot, but it did not immediately turn into a literary work. The writer hatched his idea for 10 years, but put it on paper in just a few days. And dedicated to E. Levitskaya, who helped him print main novel his life "Quiet Flows the Don".
The story was published in the Pravda newspaper on the eve of the new year, 1957. And soon it was read on the All-Union Radio, heard by the whole country. Listeners and readers were shocked by the power and veracity of this work, it gained well-deserved popularity. IN literary terms this book opened up a new way for writers to reveal the theme of war - through the fate of a little man.
Essence of the story
The author accidentally meets the main character Andrei Sokolov and his son Vanyushka. During the forced delay at the crossing, the men began to talk, and a casual acquaintance told the writer his story. Here is what he told him.
Before the war, Andrei lived like everyone else: wife, children, household, work. But then thunder struck, and the hero went to the front, where he served as a driver. One fateful day, Sokolov's car came under fire, he was shell-shocked. So he was taken prisoner.
A group of prisoners was brought to the church for an overnight stay, many incidents occurred that night: the execution of a believer who could not desecrate the church (they weren’t even released “before the wind”), and with him several people who accidentally fell under machine gun fire, help from doctor Sokolov and others wounded. Also, the main character had to strangle another prisoner, as he turned out to be a traitor and was going to betray the commissioner. Even during the next transfer to the concentration camp, Andrei tried to escape, but was caught by dogs, who stripped him of his last clothes and bit everything that “skin with meat flew to shreds.”
Then the concentration camp: inhuman work, almost starvation, beatings, humiliation - that's what Sokolov had to endure. “They need four cubic meters of output, and for the grave of each of us, even one cubic meter through the eyes is enough!” - Andrey said imprudently. And for this he appeared before the Lagerführer Müller. They wanted to shoot the main character, but he overcame fear, bravely drank three shots of schnapps for his death, for which he earned respect, a loaf of bread and a piece of lard.
Toward the end of hostilities, Sokolov was appointed as a driver. And, finally, there was an opportunity to escape, and even with the engineer, whom the hero drove. The joy of salvation did not have time to subside, grief arrived: he learned about the death of his family (a shell hit the house), and after all, all this time he lived only in the hope of meeting. Only one son survived. Anatoly also defended the Motherland, with Sokolov they simultaneously approached Berlin from different sides. But right on the day of victory, the last hope was killed. Andrew was left all alone.
Subject
The main theme of the story is a man at war. These tragic events are an indicator of personal qualities: in extreme situations, those character traits that are usually hidden are revealed, it is clear who is who in reality. Andrei Sokolov before the war was no different, he was like everyone else. But in battle, having survived captivity, a constant danger to life, he showed himself. His truly heroic qualities were revealed: patriotism, courage, fortitude, will. On the other hand, the same prisoner as Sokolov, probably also no different in the usual peaceful life, was going to betray his commissar in order to curry favor with the enemy. Thus, the theme of moral choice is also reflected in the work.
Also M.A. Sholokhov touches on the theme of willpower. The war took away from the protagonist not only health and strength, but also the whole family. He has no home, how to continue to live, what to do next, how to find meaning? This question interested hundreds of thousands of people who experienced similar losses. And for Sokolov, taking care of the boy Vanyushka, who was also left without a home and family, became a new meaning. And for his sake, for the sake of the future of his country, you need to live on. Here is the disclosure of the theme of the search for the meaning of life - its real man finds in love and hope for the future.
Issues
- The problem of choice occupies an important place in the story. Every person faces a choice every day. But not everyone has to choose under pain of death, knowing that your fate depends on this decision. So, Andrei had to decide: to betray or remain true to the oath, to bend under the blows of the enemy or to fight. Sokolov was able to remain a worthy person and citizen, because he determined his priorities, guided by honor and morality, and not by the instinct of self-preservation, fear or meanness.
- In the whole fate of the hero, in his life trials, the problem of defenselessness of the common man in the face of war is reflected. Little depends on him, circumstances pile on him, from which he tries to get out at least alive. And if Andrei could save himself, then his family could not. And he feels guilty about it, even though he isn't.
- The problem of cowardice is realized in the work through minor characters. The image of a traitor who is ready to sacrifice the life of a fellow soldier for the sake of momentary gain becomes a counterbalance to the image of the brave and strong-willed Sokolov. And such people were in the war, says the author, but there were fewer of them, that's why we won.
- The tragedy of war. Numerous losses were suffered not only by soldiers, but also by civilians who could not defend themselves in any way.
- Andrei Sokolov is an ordinary person, one of many who had to leave a peaceful existence in order to defend their homeland. He exchanges a simple and happy life for the dangers of war, not even imagining how to stay away. IN extreme circumstances he retains spiritual nobility, shows willpower and stamina. Under the blows of fate, he managed not to break. And to find a new meaning of life, which betrays kindness and responsiveness in him, because he sheltered an orphan.
- Vanyushka is a lonely boy who has to spend the night wherever he has to. His mother was killed during the evacuation, his father at the front. Ragged, dusty, in watermelon juice - this is how he appeared before Sokolov. And Andrei could not leave the child, introduced himself as his father, giving a chance for further normal life both for himself and for him.
Characteristics of the main characters
What was the point of the work?
One of the main ideas of the story is the need to take into account the lessons of the war. The example of Andrei Sokolov shows not what war can do to a person, but what it can do to all of humanity. Prisoners tortured by the concentration camp, orphaned children, destroyed families, scorched fields - this should never be repeated, and therefore should not be forgotten.
No less important is the idea that in any, even the most terrible situation, one must remain a man, not be like an animal, which, out of fear, acts only on the basis of instincts. Survival is the main thing for anyone, but if this is given at the cost of betraying oneself, one's comrades, the Motherland, then the surviving soldier is no longer a person, he is not worthy of this title. Sokolov did not betray his ideals, did not break down, although he went through something that is difficult for a modern reader to even imagine.
Genre
Story is short literary genre, revealing one storyline and a few characters. "The fate of man" refers specifically to him.
However, if you look closely at the composition of the work, you can clarify the general definition, because this is a story within a story. At the beginning, the author narrates, who, by the will of fate, met and talked with his character. Andrey Sokolov himself describes his hard life, first-person narration allows readers to better feel the feelings of the hero and understand him. Author's remarks are introduced to characterize the hero from the outside ("eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes", "I did not see a single tear in his as if dead, extinct eyes ... only large, limply lowered hands trembled finely, chin trembled, firm lips trembled") and show how deeply this strong man suffers.
What values does Sholokhov promote?
The main value for the author (and for readers) is the world. Peace between states, peace in society, peace in the human soul. The war destroyed the happy life of Andrei Sokolov, as well as many people. The echo of the war still does not subside, so its lessons must not be forgotten (although often in Lately this event is overestimated for political purposes, far from the ideals of humanism).
Also, the writer does not forget about the eternal values of the individual: nobility, courage, will, desire to help. The time of knights, noble dignity has long passed, but true nobility does not depend on origin, it is in the soul, expressed in its ability for mercy and empathy, even if the world is collapsing. This story is an excellent lesson in courage and morality for modern readers.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Composition
In domestic literary criticism (for example, in the book by L. G. Yakimenko “The Creativity of M. A. Sholokhov”), it is customary to define the genre of “The Fate of a Man” (1956) as an epic story. The genre, apparently, is very unusual, because it connects seemingly incompatible concepts. It is customary to call a story a small epic form, it usually describes one (bright) event from the life of a hero and there is a narrator. Epic - a monumental form of epic literature, showing the fate of the people, the historical process itself. The epic harmoniously combines historical events and modernity, philosophical reflections on the fate of the world and the personal experiences of the heroes, depicts the multi-heroic action and the life path of individual characters. How is it that in a story on thirty pages Sholokhov achieved a global generalization - in the image of a simple Russian man Andrei Sokolov, an entire nation was embodied and reflected, just as a huge sun is reflected in a small drop of dew?
Sholokhov's story has the main features of an epic. The first sign is the depiction of a critical historical epoch, that is, events that affect the entire nation and in which the national character manifests itself most clearly. In "The Fate of Man" it is the Patriotic War. It is portrayed not as a historical event (that is, a series of military operations), but as the most difficult physical and moral test of human character. The main hero of the war in the story is not the commander, not the regiment commander, not even the people (as was the case with L.N. Tolstoy in the epic novel "War and Peace" or as it will be with K.M. Simonov in the trilogy "The Living and the Dead" ), and one ordinary fighter who, even participating in a great battle, sees only a battle of local importance. The war is shown through the fate of the protagonist: both at the front and in fascist captivity, he constantly faces the problem of moral choice, on which his own life and the lives of his comrades depend.
The second sign of the epic is the image of the national character in the specific heroes of a literary work. To do this, Sholokhov describes the life story of Andrei Sokolov, a wonderful Russian person. The hero begins his story about himself from the pre-war years. The reader is presented with a person with the most ordinary biography. The age of the century, he was born in the Voronezh province, fought in the Red Army during the civil war, and was orphaned in 1921, as his parents and sister died of starvation. He sold his house in the village and left for Voronezh. Here, at the right time, he married, children were born (son Anatoly and daughters Nastya and Olya), and only after becoming a father, Andrei Sokolov realized that the life and well-being of these little people depended on him. He stopped drinking with his comrades, learned to be a driver in order to earn more money, saved up money and built a house.
During the war, wonderful character traits were revealed in this outwardly inconspicuous person: courage and intelligence (A.S. Pushkin in his “Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg” called them the hallmarks of Russian nature), amazing stamina and high spiritual qualities - justice, conscientiousness, sensitivity and kindness. Courage Andrei Sokolov showed in the scene with Muller, when in the face of certain death he retained human dignity, which was appreciated even by the Nazis. Both of his escapes from captivity testify to the ingenuity and prudence of the hero. From the first day of captivity, he decided to run away, but “he wanted to leave for sure,” so he patiently waited for the right moment. Andrei Sokolov fulfilled his intention as soon as the opportunity presented itself (the guards were distracted). The first escape was unsuccessful, and the punishment for it was terrible: the Nazis beat him half to death, set the dogs on fire, and put him in a punishment cell. But the hero did not give up his idea. He thought out the second escape and prepared even more carefully and finally got to his own, taking a German engineer with plans for defensive structures.
Andrey Sokolov's steadfastness arouses admiration: he withstood the bullying and humiliation of fascist captivity, which could not kill his mind, conscience, human dignity, did not turn him into an obedient slave of someone else's will. If before captivity the conscience does not allow the hero to leave his comrades in trouble, so he, without thinking about the danger, carries shells to the battery, then even in captivity he cannot eat bread and lard alone, received from Muller as a reward for courage, but divides everything between comrades in the camp barracks. A sense of justice makes Andrey Sokolov strangle the traitor Kryzhnev in the ruined church, and he does not repent of this act at all. The sensitivity and kindness that the hero felt for his wife and children remained in his soul even after the war: he understood Vanyushka's grief and became attached to the baby with all his heart.
Why can we say that in Andrei Sokolov, in a specific hero with a specific fate, the Russian national character was embodied? Were there not during the war cowards, traitors, broken by fear, circumstances, torture? There were, but it was not they who won the victory in the Great Patriotic War, but people similar to Andrei Sokolov, close to him in character. The hero has the traits that Russians value most in a person, and therefore they educate themselves from generation to generation. The national view of a worthy person is expressed in the work with the help of another hero - the author, who listens to the confession of Andrei Sokolov.
The author and the hero are similar, which is confirmed by several episodes from the story. The author immediately draws attention to the fact that a strange couple is wearily approaching him along the river bank - a “tall, round-shouldered man” and a very small boy. This contrast catches the eye of the author, who immediately notes significant details in the appearance of an adult and a child. For example, he compares the look of a father and a son: the boy's eyes are blue and clear, "like the sky"; at the father - "as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with such an inescapable mortal longing that it is difficult to look at them." And the main character immediately saw in a randomly met man sitting on a fallen wattle fence at the crossing, “his brother”, who would understand the confession of a simple driver. Andrei Sokolov was not mistaken: the author reacts with restraint to the story, does not interrupt with clarifying questions and his own reasoning. Only when Andrey Sokolov recalls his farewell to his wife at the station and his voice breaks with excitement, the author quietly says: “Don’t, friend, don’t remember!”. It is hard to listen to the confession of the driver, but the author does not brush aside a random interlocutor, sparing his own nerves, but allows him to speak out to the end and thereby ease his soul. The author and the protagonist both treat Vanyushka with restraint and kindness. The look of the boy excited the author at the crossing, just as Andrey Sokolov at the teahouse. Adults protect the child from difficult impressions: the father, when he begins his confession, sends Vanyushka to play ashore, and the author, shocked to the core by the story of a simple driver, turns away when he says goodbye so that the child does not see how an elderly gray-haired man is crying, and not get scared.
Sholokhov put the author's assessment of Andrei Sokolov in the title of the story, using the word "man" in a high sense. At the end of the work, the author-narrator, talking about the Russian man, admires the hero and at the same time demonstrates his philosophical understanding of the positive human character. Thus, “The Fate of a Man” includes philosophical reflections on the fate of the world, which is the third indispensable feature of the epic. The philosophical idea of the story can be formulated as follows: no circumstances can kill a person's desire to do good, to create, to love, because it is these feelings that make a person a person. The fate of Andrei Sokolov serves as proof of this idea. The inhuman treatment in Nazi captivity, the death of the whole family, the irretrievable loss of everything that the hero valued in life, should have embittered him or made him indifferent to everything around him. Contrary to this logic, Andrei Sokolov did not withdraw into his "inescapable" grief, but became attached to a little orphan boy and in this love he found salvation from despair. Thus, like a real tragic hero, Andrey Sokolov enters into a confrontation with a cruel world, with a world war and does not allow his living soul to be killed. Life is indestructible both in man and in nature, Sholokhov argues, it is no coincidence that the story “The Fate of Man” begins with a description of awakening nature in the first post-war spring.
Summarizing the above, it should be noted that "The Fate of a Man" is essentially a story, and the scope of the story does not allow for a complex, multi-plot, multi-hero action. But this story really contains the main signs of an epic: it describes the most important historical event of the 20th century - the Patriotic War of 1941-1945; the image of the protagonist embodies the Russian national character, as Sholokhov understands it; in the tragic and at the same time heroic fate of Andrei Sokolov, the writer sees a manifestation of an indestructible and constantly reborn life. This is the philosophical optimism of Sholokhov.
In Andrei Sokolov, the writer showed his concept of the heroic personality in modern world. The protagonist is the arbiter of the fate of history: he took part in the defeat of Nazi Germany directly and indirectly - by raising his eldest son Anatoly, who fought until the last day of World War II. Now, taking care of the younger, step-son, the hero creates the future. Thanks to the epic generalization presented in the image of Andrei Sokolov, the story turned out to be unusually capacious in content: the character and fate of a person become the character and fate of the people. Consequently, the definition of the genre of "The Fate of a Man" as an epic story is quite justified.
