Ivan Andreevich Krylov is familiar to us from his famous rhymed stories with various animals in the lead roles. Living, indicative and surprisingly interesting for children from 4 years of age and older, Ivan Andreevich's fables several decades ago were included in the compulsory school curriculum and are confidently holding their positions to this day. Why did Krylov’s poems appeal to the Russian Ministry of Education, and why do many of us still remember the quatrains of his most popular works? Let's try to find answers to these questions by reviewing one of them: the fable "Elephant and Pug" at our service! But, before revealing its difficult morality, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the content.
Fable "Elephant and Pug": the text of the work in prose
The action in the work takes place on the street of a Russian city. Since in our area the elephant is a strange animal, it is literally driven along the roads in order to show children such an exotic representative of the fauna. And then the little poo Moska runs right under the feet of a huge elephant and begins to yelp intensely. A familiar dog dissuades her from such an ungrateful occupation, since the elephant does not even see her! But the stubborn pug continues to yap in order to show its superiority over other dogs, because she is so brave that she was not afraid of such a huge animal.
"Elephant and Pug": the moral of the fable and its perception by society
This work is somewhat different from the rest of the poems by I. Krylov. The thing is that the fable "Elephant and the Moska" has some kind of double morality, and this is no accident. Let us consider both interpretations of the essence of the work in more detail.
To begin with, the Pug is associated with all of us with a person who wants to establish himself in society by any means, and this can be seen from the last lines of the fable. That is why the little dog began to bark at the elephant: such a game against the public can strengthen its authority among the relatives watching it. Thus, the fable “Elephant and the Pug” shows us all that a competent game in the public can leave the impression that he needs for the people around him. The world show business works according to the script of this poem, and there seems to be nothing wrong with that, but let's take a closer look at the other side of the coin using the example of the second hero of the fable - the Indian elephant.
Despite all his efforts, the pooch Moska was unable to attract the attention of the majestic elephant. Perhaps the second moral of the work follows from this: truly influential people do not care what the yapping brawlers want to prove to them. Or maybe Ivan Andreevich wanted to show us the attitude of power (a majestic and strong elephant) to ordinary people (a mongrel barking underfoot) as an example of his poem? The hidden meaning of this work over the course of several decades has haunted writers and sociologists. Despite this, the fable "Elephant and Pug" is included in the school curriculum as a compulsory work, because it carries a deep semantic meaning and is definitely necessary for study.
The instructive stories of Ivan Andreevich Krylov
The world-famous fabulist from Russia glorified his work with the amazing ability to reveal the human essence on the example of various animals. The fable "Elephant and Pug" in an original way combined in its content the majestic Indian elephant and the little cur. They created an incredibly instructive tandem for children and showed by their example how some people behave. After all, the fable “Elephant and Pug”, like the rest of Krylov’s poetic stories, associates animals with individual representatives of human society.