To help a third grader: a summary of Chekhov's "Vanka"

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

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a Russian writer, a recognized master of short stories (mostly humorous). Over 26 years of his work, he created more than 900 works, many of which are included in the golden fund of world classics.

The story "Vanka" was written in 1886. In it, the author describes the life of a simple village boy who was apprenticed to a shoemaker. The difficult lot of peasant children has become one of the most favorite topics for the writer. Here is a summary. "Vanka" by Chekhov is a work that is studied in the primary grades of a comprehensive school. Remembering it will not be superfluous for everyone.

Vanka remembers his grandfather

Vanka Zhukov is nine years old. He was sent to study in Moscow to the shoemaker Alyakhin. The boy often yearns for the village where he came from, and for his grandfather Konstantin Makarych. Of the relatives, Vanka was the only one left. When a boy remembers his grandfather, the image of a small, frail old man with a drunken face and cheerful eyes appears before his eyes. Konstantin Makarych serves as a watchman in the village with the Zhikharevs. Vankaimagines how the grandfather chats with the cooks during the day or sleeps on the stove, his bare feet tucked in, and at night he knocks on the mallet, guarding the manor's estate. Summary “Vanka” by Chekhov does not allow us to convey the fullness of the experiences of a child left without relatives in a big city.

A boy's memories of the village

Thoughts about the village bring sadness and longing to the boy. He decides to write a letter to his grandfather. He was taught to read and write by the young lady Olga Ignatievna, whose mother Vanya Pelageya once served. This lady was very kind, often treated the little boy with candy and taught him to dance a quadrille. When Pelageya died, the boy was given up for education to his grandfather, who sent him to Moscow to Alyakhin. Vanka also often recalls Christmas at the masters, about how, before the holiday, he and his grandfather went to the forest to get a Christmas tree. It was cold, the frost crackled. It was the happiest time for the boy. Only now, living in disfavor with strangers, he realized this. Chekhov's story "Vanka" evokes in the reader a feeling of acute pity and a desire to help the poor boy.

Vanka writes a letter about his difficult life

In his message to his grandfather, the boy describes how hard it is for him to live in a shoemaker's family. In addition to studying, the boy has a lot of obligations at home. He must help in the kitchen and nurse the master's child. For each wrongdoing, the owner beats Vanka with "whatever he can get." For the fact that the boy fell asleep, rocking the cradle with the child, the shoemaker dragged him out into the street by the hair and "combed with a spade." And for the fact that you didn’t clean the herring like that, hostesspoked a fish in the face. They give him little to eat, mostly only bread and porridge, and the gentlemen “crack the cabbage soup themselves.” In the letter, Vanka asks his grandfather to take him to his village, promising that he will be obedient and good. He admits that he even wanted to run away from Moscow, but “he is afraid of the cold, there are no boots.” Summary “Vanka” by Chekhov cannot convey how special and ingenuous children's language the letter of the boy to his grandfather was written.

Vanka sends a letter

Having written the letter, Vanka signed it and sealed the envelope, on which he wrote: "To the village to grandfather." Deciding that it would definitely reach the addressee, he rushed out into the street like a bullet, ran to the first mailbox and dropped it there. Happy, lulled by sweet dreams of returning to the village, the boy returned to the house. An hour later he was sound asleep. In a dream, Vanka saw a village, a stove in the people's room of his grandfather, himself, sitting on it and hanging his bare feet, reading a letter from his grandson to the cooks. This concludes his story about the village boy A. P. Chekhov. "Vanka" is a story about the poverty and lack of rights of peasant children, who simply have no one to protect. Their hard lot and unenviable fate leave no one indifferent.

This work occupies a special place in the writer's work. You have read its summary. "Vanka" Chekhov, we advise you to read in full.