"Moral man", Nekrasov: analysis of the poem, portrait of a notorious scoundrel

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

N. A. Nekrasov, as soon as he became a co-owner of the Sovremennik magazine, published his short and capacious work in the very first issue in 1847. It came out under the title "Moral Man" (Nekrasov). The history of the journal goes back to A. S. Pushkin.

Transformations of Sovremennik

When a new printed edition appeared in 1836, it came out four times a year and was completely unprofitable, moreover, ruinous. By 1843 there was a perfect crisis. Its publisher, P. A. Pletnev, in 1846 finally “got rid of” him: he sold him to Nekrasov and Panaev.

And the magazine quickly became popular, because the best domestic writers, critics, and historians were involved in working with it. During this period, the poet, with a very deep share of satire, describes in his works his contemporary society: bribe-takers, careerists, swindlers. A striking example is the "Moral Man" (Nekrasov). Analysis of the poem, its behaviorthe main character is the topic of our article.

A satirical portrait

In four stanzas, ten lines each, the poet, as if from pieces of a mosaic, put together the image of his hero. This is a completely immoral type, which gave the name to the work - "Moral Man" (Nekrasov). We begin our analysis of the poem with the first stanza. It is absolutely impossible to live with such a boring, cowardly, perverse concept of morality, and proud of himself, a narcissistic type. His wife went on a date with a noble man, and the hero, remaining with "clean hands", "sneaked" to them with the police. He prudently declined the duel. And the wife died in anguish. The moralist "did no harm to anyone in his life." In this case, he used public ethics.

Second episode

A friend didn't repay the debt to our hero in a timely manner. How is this situation described in the work "The Moral Man" (Nekrasov)? The analysis of the poem cannot avoid this fact: the protagonist sent a friend to prison, where the borrower died. The sensitive scoundrel wept after death, saying that he "did no harm to anyone in his life." He is absolutely convinced of this, since formally the civil code is on his side.

Third episode

Our "moral man" trained a serf peasant to be a wonderful cook. But the trouble is, he was carried away by reading and thinking. Can this be allowed? What did the protagonist of the work "Moral Man" (Nekrasov) do? An analysis of the poem cannot be carried out without an evaluation of this episode. Herothought for a while. He just flogged a man who realized he had dignity of his own.

According to the "moral man", he is the master, and only he has the right to think - this is how the whole society argues, and no one will condemn him. After that, the serf could not live in humiliation and drowned himself. “Found foolishness,” commented on the death of the cook a “fatherly” acted scoundrel, who again repeats that he “did no harm to anyone in his life.”

Last Episode

His daughter fell in love with a simple teacher. Is connivance possible? She must be cursed for this and take advantage of the parent's right to dispose of the life and happiness of her daughter. A moral person, more precisely, a vile and nasty man in the street, quickly marries her to a rich old man: supposedly everyone does this, and he is no exception.

A year passes, and his child dies of longing and grief. But the “moral person” is fully convinced that he “has never done harm to anyone in his life.”

Artistic means of the author

How does Nekrasov build his poem ("The Moral Man")? The verse is written mainly in iambic two-foot, which includes pyrrhic. The combination is complex, it has cross paragraphs and paired rhymes. But it is read easily, without tension, naturally, like breathing. In his work Nekrasov ("Moral Man"), the verse consists of four numbered quatrains, each of which has ten stanzas.

Author notuses epithets, comparisons, metaphors, using colloquial speech, which he is the first to boldly introduce into poetry. This gives worldly flavor to all the actions of the protagonist. His style is democratic. Bitter irony permeates the entire poem, since the artistic method is realism. The same refrain is repeated in every quatrain, drawing the reader's attention to the disgusting caricature that appears before us as an immoral cowardly egoist.

"Moral Man" (Nekrasov): theme and idea of the poem

The theme of the work was the moral foundations of that time. The poet exposes everyone who hides under the mask of good manners and morality and does evil. He debunks every so-called decent person, showing meanness in close-up, and speaks about it openly and without embellishment. The denunciation of a society consisting of petty people who consider themselves the pillars on which the state rests became the main idea of \u200b\u200bthe poem.