An essay on the topic Hard times of war and the fate of man (based on the work “The Fate of Man”). Essay on the topic: A man at war based on Sholokhov’s story The Fate of a Man How the war is depicted in the work The Fate of a Man

The Great Patriotic War passed through the destinies of millions of Soviet people, leaving behind a difficult memory: pain, anger, suffering, fear. During the war years, many lost their dearest and closest people, many experienced severe hardships. Rethinking of military events and human actions occurs later. Works of art appear in literature in which, through the prism of the author’s perception, an assessment of what is happening in difficult wartimes is given.
Mikhail Sholokhov could not ignore the topic that concerned everyone and therefore wrote short story“The Fate of Man”, touching on the issue heroic epic. At the center of the story are wartime events that changed the life of Andrei Sokolov, the main character of the work. The writer does not describe military events in detail; this is not the author’s task. The writer’s goal is to show the key episodes that influenced the development of the hero’s personality. The most important event in the life of Andrei Sokolov is captivity. It is in the hands of the fascists, in the face of mortal danger, that various sides of the character’s character are revealed, it is here that the war appears to the reader without embellishment, revealing the essence of people: the vile, vile traitor Kryzhnev; a real doctor who “did his great work both in captivity and in the dark”; “such a skinny, snub-nosed guy,” platoon commander. Andrei Sokolov had to endure inhuman torment in captivity, but the main thing is that he managed to preserve his honor and dignity. The climax of the story is the scene at Commandant Muller's, where the exhausted, hungry, tired hero was brought, but even there he showed the enemy the strength of the Russian soldier. Andrei Sokolov’s action (he drank three glasses of vodka without a snack: he didn’t want to choke on a handout) surprised Muller: “That’s it, Sokolov, you are a real Russian soldier. You are a brave soldier." The war appears to the reader without embellishment: after escaping from captivity, already in the hospital, the hero receives terrible news from home about the death of his family: his wife and two daughters. The heavy war machine spares no one: neither women nor children. The final blow of fate was the death of Anatoly’s eldest son on May 9, Victory Day, at the hands of a German sniper.
War takes away the most precious things from people: family, loved ones. In parallel with the life of Andrei Sokolov, story line the little boy Vanyusha, whom the war also made an orphan, depriving his family of his mother and father.
This is the assessment the writer gives to his two heroes: “Two orphaned people, two grains of sand, thrown into foreign lands by a military hurricane of unprecedented force...”. War condemns people to suffering, but it also develops will, character, when one wants to believe “that this Russian man, a man of unbending will, will endure, and near his father’s shoulder will grow one who, having matured, will be able to endure everything, overcome everything on his way , if his homeland calls for it.”

Essay on literature on the topic: The theme of war in Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of Man”

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The theme of war in Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of Man”

The influence of war on human destiny is a topic to which thousands of books are devoted. Everyone theoretically knows what war is. Those who felt its monstrous touch are much smaller. War is a constant companion of human society. It contradicts all moral laws, but despite this, every year the number of people affected by it is growing.

The fate of a soldier

The image of a soldier has always inspired writers and filmmakers. In books and films, he evokes respect and admiration. In life - detached pity. The state needs soldiers as a nameless living force. His crippled fate can only worry those close to him. The influence of war on a person’s destiny is indelible, regardless of the reason for participating in it. And there can be many reasons. Starting from the desire to protect the homeland and ending with the desire to earn money. One way or another, it is impossible to win the war. Each participant is obviously defeated.

In 1929, a book was published, the author of which, fifteen years before this event, dreamed of getting to his homeland at all costs. Nothing excited his imagination. He wanted to see the war because he believed that only it could make him a real writer. His dream came true: he received many stories, reflected them in his work and became known throughout the world. The book in question is A Farewell to Arms. Author - Ernest Hemingway.

The writer knew firsthand how war affects the destinies of people, how it kills and maims them. He divided people related to her into two categories. The first included those who fight on the front line. To the second - those who incite war. The American classic judged the latter unequivocally, believing that the instigators should be shot in the first days of hostilities. The influence of war on a person’s fate, according to Hemingway, is deadly. After all, it is nothing more than a “brazen, dirty crime.”

The illusion of immortality

Many young people begin to fight, subconsciously not realizing the possible outcome. The tragic end in their thoughts does not correlate with their own fate. The bullet will catch anyone, but not him. He will be able to bypass the mine safely. But the illusion of immortality and excitement dissipate like yesterday’s dream during the first hostilities. And if the outcome is successful, another person returns home. He is not returning alone. There is a war with him, which becomes his companion until the last days of his life.

Revenge

About the atrocities of Russian soldiers in last years began to speak almost openly. Books by German authors, eyewitnesses of the Red Army's march to Berlin, have been translated into Russian. The feeling of patriotism weakened for some time in Russia, which made it possible to write and talk about mass rapes and inhuman atrocities carried out by the victors on German territory in 1945. But what should be the psychological reaction of a person after native land an enemy appeared who destroyed his family and home? The influence of war on a person’s fate is impartial and does not depend on which camp he belongs to. Everyone becomes a victim. The true culprits of such crimes remain, as a rule, unpunished.

About responsibility

In 1945-1946, a trial was held in Nuremberg to try the leaders of Hitler's Germany. Those convicted were sentenced to death or long imprisonment. As a result of the titanic work of investigators and lawyers, sentences were handed down that corresponded to the gravity of the crime committed.

After 1945, wars continue throughout the world. But the people who unleash them are confident of their absolute impunity. More than half a million Soviet soldiers died during the Afghan war. Approximately fourteen thousand Russian military personnel accounted for casualties in the Chechen War. But no one was punished for the madness unleashed. None of the perpetrators of these crimes died. The influence of war on a person is even more terrible because in some, albeit rare cases, it contributes to material enrichment and strengthening of power.

Is war a noble cause?

Five hundred years ago, the leader of the state personally led his subjects into an attack. He took the same risks as ordinary soldiers. Over the past two hundred years the picture has changed. The influence of war on people has become deeper because there is no justice and nobility in it. Military masterminds prefer to sit in the rear, hiding behind the backs of their soldiers.

Ordinary soldiers, finding themselves on the front line, are guided by a persistent desire to escape at any cost. There is a “shoot first” rule for this. The one who shoots second inevitably dies. And the soldier, when he pulls the trigger, no longer thinks about the fact that there is a person in front of him. A click occurs in the psyche, after which living among people who are not versed in the horrors of war is difficult, almost impossible.

More than twenty-five million people died in the Great Patriotic War. Every Soviet family knew grief. And this grief left a deep, painful imprint that was passed on even to descendants. A woman sniper with 309 lives to her credit commands respect. But in the modern world, the former soldier will not find understanding. Talking about his murders is more likely to cause alienation. How does war affect a person's destiny? modern society? The same as for a participant in the liberation of Soviet land from the German occupiers. The only difference is that the defender of his land was a hero, and whoever fought on the opposite side was a criminal. Today, the war is devoid of meaning and patriotism. Not even the fictitious idea for which it is kindled has been created.

Lost generation

Hemingway, Remarque and other authors of the 20th century wrote about how war affects the destinies of people. It is extremely difficult for an immature person to adapt to peaceful life in the post-war years. They have not yet had time to receive an education, their moral positions before appearing at the recruiting station they were not strong enough. The war destroyed in them what had not yet appeared. And after it - alcoholism, suicide, madness.

Nobody needs these people; they are lost to society. There is only one person who will accept the crippled fighter for who he has become, and will not turn away or abandon him. This person is his mother.

Woman at war

A mother who loses her son is unable to come to terms with it. No matter how heroically a soldier dies, the woman who gave birth to him will never be able to come to terms with his death. Patriotism and lofty words lose their meaning and become absurd next to her grief. The influence of war becomes unbearable when this person is a woman. And we are talking not only about soldiers’ mothers, but also about those who, like men, take up arms. A woman was created for the birth of a new life, but not for its destruction.

Children and war

What is war not worth? She is not worth human life, maternal grief. And she is not able to justify a single child’s tears. But those who initiate this bloody crime are not touched even by the cry of a child. World history is full of terrible pages that tell of brutal crimes against children. Despite the fact that history is a science necessary for man to avoid the mistakes of the past, people continue to repeat them.

Children not only die in war, they die after it. But not physically, but mentally. It was after the First World War that the term “child neglect” appeared. This social phenomenon has different prerequisites for its occurrence. But the most powerful of them is war.

In the twenties, orphaned children of war filled the cities. They had to learn to survive. They did this through begging and theft. The first steps into a life in which they were hated turned them into criminals and immoral beings. How does war affect the fate of a person who is just beginning to live? She is depriving him of his future. But only Lucky case and someone’s participation can turn a child who lost his parents in war into a full-fledged member of society. The impact of war on children is so profound that the country that was involved in it has to suffer its consequences for decades.

Fighters today are divided into “killers” and “heroes.” They are neither one nor the other. A soldier is someone who is twice unlucky. The first time was when he went to the front. The second time - when I returned from there. Murder depresses a person. Sometimes awareness comes not immediately, but much later. And then hatred and a desire for revenge settles in the soul, which makes not only the former soldier unhappy, but also his loved ones. And for this it is necessary to judge the organizers of the war, those who, according to Leo Tolstoy, being the lowest and most vicious people, received power and glory as a result of the implementation of their plans.

The fate of man is the fate of the people (based on Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of Man”)

One of the works of M.A. Sholokhov, in which the author sought to tell the world the harsh truth about the enormous price the Soviet people paid for humanity’s right to the future, is the story “The Fate of Man,” published in Pravda on December 31, 1956 - January 1, 1957. Sholokhov wrote this story in an amazingly short time. Only a few days of hard work were devoted to the story. However creative history it takes him many years: between a chance meeting with a man who became the prototype of Andrei Sokolov and the appearance of “The Fate of a Man,” ten years passed. It must be assumed that Sholokhov turned to wartime events not only because the impression of the meeting with the driver, which deeply excited him and gave him an almost ready-made plot, had not faded. The main and determining thing was something else: the last war was such an event in the life of mankind that without taking into account its lessons, not a single one of the most important problems could be understood and solved modern world. Sholokhov, exploring the national origins of the character of the main character Andrei Sokolov, was faithful to the deep tradition of Russian literature, the pathos of which was love for the Russian person, admiration for him, and was especially attentive to those manifestations of his soul that are associated with the national soil.

Andrei Sokolov is a truly Russian man of the Soviet era. His fate reflects the fate of his native people, his personality embodied the features that characterize the appearance of the Russian man, who went through all the horrors of the war imposed on him and, at the cost of enormous, irreparable personal losses and tragic deprivations, defended his Motherland, asserting the great right to life, freedom and independence of his homeland.

The story raises the problem of the psychology of the Russian soldier - a man who embodied the typical traits of national character. The reader is presented with the life story of an ordinary person. A modest worker, the father of the family lived and was happy in his own way. He personifies those moral values, which are inherent in working people. With what tender soulfulness he remembers his wife Irina (“Looking from the outside, she wasn’t that distinguished, but I didn’t look at her from the outside, but point-blank. And for me there was no one more beautiful and desirable than her, never was in the world and never will be!”) How much paternal pride he puts into words about children, especially about his son (“And the children were happy: all three studied with excellent marks,” and the eldest Anatoly turned out to be so capable of mathematics that he they even wrote about him in the central newspaper...").

And suddenly there was war... Andrei Sokolov went to the front to defend his homeland. Like thousands of others just like him. The war tore him away from his home, from his family, from peaceful work. And his whole life seemed to go downhill. All the troubles of the wartime befell the soldier; life suddenly began to beat him and whip him with all its might. The feat of man appears in Sholokhov’s story mainly not on the battlefield or on the labor front, but in conditions of fascist captivity, behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp (“... Before the war I weighed eighty-six kilograms, and by the fall I was no longer pulling more than fifty. One skin remained on the bones, and I couldn’t even carry my own bones. But give me work, and don’t say a word, but such work that a draft horse is not fit for that.” In the spiritual combat with fascism, the character of Andrei Sokolov and his courage are revealed. A person always faces a moral choice: hide, sit out, betray, or forget about the impending danger, about his “I”, help, save, rescue, sacrifice himself. Andrei Sokolov also had to make this choice. Without thinking for a minute, he rushes to the rescue of his comrades (“My comrades may be dying there, but am I going to suffer here?”). At this moment he forgets about himself.

Far from the front, the soldier survived all the hardships of the war and the inhuman bullying of the Nazis. Andrei had to endure many terrible torments during his two years of captivity. After the Germans hounded him with dogs, so much so that his skin and meat flew in shreds, and then they kept him in a punishment cell for a month for escaping, beat him with fists, rubber sticks and all kinds of iron, trampled under their feet, while giving him almost no food and forcing him to work a lot. And more than once death looked him in the eye, each time he found courage in himself and, in spite of everything, remained human. On Muller's orders, he refused to drink to the victory of German arms, although he knew that he could be shot for this. But not only in a clash with the enemy does Sholokhov see a manifestation of the heroic nature of a person. His losses become no less serious trials. The terrible grief of a soldier, deprived of loved ones and shelter, his loneliness. After all, Andrei Sokolov, who emerged victorious from the war, returning peace and tranquility to people, himself lost everything he had in life, love, happiness.

The harsh fate did not even leave the soldier shelter on earth. In the place where the house built with his hands stood, there was a dark crater left by a German air bomb. Andrei Sokolov, after everything that he experienced, it seemed that he could become embittered, bitter, broken, but he does not complain about the world, does not withdraw into his grief, but goes to people. Left alone in this world, this man gave all the warmth that remained in his heart to the orphan Vanyusha, replacing his father. And again life takes on a lofty human meaning: to raise a man from this ragamuffin, from this orphan. With all the logic of his story, M. A. Sholokhov proved that his hero is in no way broken and cannot be broken by life. Having gone through difficult trials, he retained the main thing: his human dignity, love of life, humanity, which help him live and work. Andrey remained kind and trusting to people.

I believe that in “The Fate of Man” there is an appeal to the whole world, to every person: “Stop for a minute! Think about what war brings, what it can bring!” The end of the story is preceded by the author’s leisurely reflection, the reflection of a person who has seen and knows a lot in life. In this reflection there is an affirmation of the greatness and beauty of what is truly human. Glorification of courage, perseverance, glorification of a man who withstood the blows of a military storm and endured the impossible. Two themes - tragic and heroic, feat and suffering - are constantly intertwined in Sholokhov's story, forming a single whole. The sufferings and exploits of Sokolov are not an episode associated with the fate of one person, it is the fate of Russia, the fate of millions of people who participated in the cruel and bloody struggle against fascism, but despite everything they won, and at the same time remained human. This is the main meaning of this work.

The story “The Fate of Man” is addressed to our days, to the future, reminds us of what a person should be, reminds us of those moral principles without which life itself loses its meaning and to which we must be faithful in any circumstances.

The immortal work of M. A. Sholokhov “The Fate of Man” is a real ode to the common people, whose life was completely broken by the war.

Features of the story composition

The main character here is not represented by the legendary heroic personality, but a simple person, one of the millions of people affected by the tragedy of the war.

The fate of man in wartime

Andrei Sokolov was a simple rural worker who, like everyone else, worked on a collective farm, had a family and lived an ordinary measured life. He boldly goes to defend his fatherland from the fascist invaders, thus leaving his children and wife to the mercy of fate.

At the front, the main character begins those terrible trials that turned his life upside down. Andrei learns that his wife, daughter and youngest son were killed in an air attack. He takes this loss very hard, as he feels his own guilt for what happened to his family.

However, Andrei Sokolov has something to live for; he still has his eldest son, who during the war was able to achieve significant success in military affairs, and was his father’s only support. IN last days During the war, fate prepared the last crushing blow for Sokolov; his son is killed by his opponents.

At the end of the war, main character, is morally broken and does not know how to live further: he lost his loved ones, his home was destroyed. Andrey gets a job as a driver in a neighboring village and gradually begins to drink.

As you know, fate, which pushes a person into the abyss, always leaves him with a small straw through which he can get out of it, if desired. Andrei's salvation was a meeting with a little orphan boy whose parents died at the front.

Vanechka had never seen his father and reached out to Andrei, because he longed for the love and attention that the main character showed to him. The dramatic peak in the story is Andrei’s decision to lie to Vanechka that he is his own father.

An unfortunate child, who has never known love, affection or kindness towards himself in his life, throws himself in tears on Andrei Sokolov’s neck and begins to say that he remembered him. So, in essence, two destitute orphans begin a joint life path. They found salvation in each other. Each of them gained a meaning in life.

The moral “core” of Andrei Sokolov’s character

Andrei Sokolov had a real inner core, high ideals of spirituality, steadfastness and patriotism. In one of the episodes of the story, the author tells us how, exhausted by hunger and labor in a concentration camp, Andrei was still able to maintain his human dignity: for a long time he refused the food that the Nazis offered him before they threatened to kill him.

The strength of his character aroused respect even among the German murderers, who ultimately had mercy on him. The bread and lard that they gave to the main character as a reward for his pride, Andrei Sokolov divided among all his starving cellmates.

Mikhail Sholokhov could not ignore the topic that worried everyone and therefore wrote a short story “The Fate of a Man”, touching on the issues of the heroic epic. At the center of the story are wartime events that changed the life of Andrei Sokolov, the main character of the work. The writer does not describe military events in detail; this is not the author’s task. The writer’s goal is to show the key episodes that influenced the development of the hero’s personality. The most important event in the life of Andrei Sokolov is captivity. It is in the hands of the fascists, in the face of mortal danger, that various sides of the character’s character are revealed, it is here that the war appears to the reader without embellishment, revealing the essence of people: the vile, vile traitor Kryzhnev; a real doctor who “did his great work both in captivity and in the dark”; “such a skinny, snub-nosed guy,” platoon commander. Andrei Sokolov had to endure inhuman torment in captivity, but the main thing is that he managed to preserve his honor and dignity. The climax of the story is the scene at Commandant Muller's, where the exhausted, hungry, tired hero was brought, but even there he showed the enemy the strength of the Russian soldier. Andrei Sokolov’s action (he drank three glasses of vodka without a snack: he didn’t want to choke on a handout) surprised Muller: “That’s what, Sokolov, you are a real Russian soldier. You are a brave soldier." The war appears to the reader without embellishment: after escaping from captivity, already in the hospital, the hero receives terrible news from home about the death of his family: his wife and two daughters. The heavy war machine spares no one: neither women nor children. The final blow of fate was the death of Anatoly’s eldest son on May 9, Victory Day, at the hands of a German sniper.

War takes away the most precious things from people: family, loved ones. In parallel with the life of Andrei Sokolov, the storyline of the little boy Vanyusha, whom the war also made an orphan, depriving his relatives of his mother and father, also develops.

This is the assessment the writer gives to his two heroes: “Two orphaned people, two grains of sand, thrown into foreign lands by a military hurricane of unprecedented force...”. War condemns people to suffering, but it also develops will, character, when one wants to believe “that this Russian man, a man of unbending will, will endure, and near his father’s shoulder will grow one who, having matured, will be able to endure everything, overcome everything on his way.” , if his homeland calls for it.”