Summary of Platonov's "Pit": grotesque or reality?

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Andrey Platonovich Platonov - Soviet playwright and writer of the first half of the 20th century. His works are distinguished by the fact that they are written in a special, original language. His story "The Foundation Pit" is a vivid grotesque, a harsh satire on the socialist system that existed during the years of the USSR. The focus is on a group of builders, who are instructed to build a common proletarian house that will become the basis of the city of the future. These creators don't work. Over time, they realize that their task is not feasible. Here is a summary of Platonov's "Pit".

Introducing the reader to Voshchev

Voshchev is a thirty-year-old worker at a mechanical plant who has just received a dismissal document, in which thoughtfulness and slowness during the work process were indicated as the reason for suspension from work. Our hero goes to another city to get a new job. Arriving in a wasteland, he finds a warm hole and falls asleep there. At midnight itthe mower suddenly wakes up, clearing this place. He informs Voshchev that the construction of a huge house for all the workers will soon begin here and sends him to the barracks to fill up. Even a summary of Platonov's "Pit" is able to convey all the recklessness of the labor discipline of the Soviet system.

Voshchev in the artel of masters

Our hero wakes up in an artel of builders sent here to build a building. They feed him, tell him about the huge scale of the planned work and give him a shovel.

The pit has already been laid out, and the workers are starting to dig it. Together with them, Voshchev began to work. He decides that he will endure want and hunger, only to have time to build a house for the entire proletariat. This is how the writer Platonov described the feelings of the protagonist in the story. "The Foundation Pit", an analysis of which can be easily done by reading even a short version, ridicules the readiness of the Soviet person for the most impossible tasks set before him by the party.

Digger Chiklin takes orphan Nastya with him

One of the workers in the abandoned building of the former tile factory finds a woman dying of hunger and disease with a little girl in her arms. This is the digger Chiklin. He recalls that in his youth he loved this woman. After her death, the digger takes the girl Nastya to his barracks for education. The summary of Platonov's "Pit" makes the reader pity and compassion for ordinary hard workers.

Organization of collective farm life

At a general meeting of workers the issue of collectivization in the village is being decided. Advicedecided that for these purposes they would send Kozlov and Safronov to the village. Soon they are killed, and Chiklin and Voshchev go to the village to replace them. In order to identify all the kulaks in the village, the diggers decide to attract a bear who works as a hammer in the forge. The animal remembers well in whose houses its labor force was used, and easily determines where the bourgeois live. All identified kulaks are put on a raft and allowed into the open sea. The remaining poor rejoice at the arrival of a new life, dance and march merrily along the road to the foundation pit. They are sure that a cloudless future awaits them soon, where everyone will be happy and equal. By evening, all travelers get to the construction site and see that everything is covered with snow. Platonov's story "The Pit" draws us images of ordinary people obsessed with one common idea - to build a happy future. These hard workers are sure that together they will overcome all obstacles.

Death of Nastya

But reality is cruel. While the diggers were busy collecting in the countryside, the "construction of the century" froze.

The fire went out in the barracks. Little Nastya is sick, she is dying of hunger and cold, just like her mother. All efforts to save her are in vain. And at this time, the collective farmers who came take shovels and begin to diligently dig the ground. Chiklin looks around. It seems to him that all these workers, who have begun to dig the foundation pit so frenziedly, are trying to disappear into it forever. He digs a grave for Nastya with the thought that this child will never be disturbed by the events taking place on the surface of the earth.

You read the shortcontent of Platonov's "Pit". The work is complex, and it is better to read it in the original.