The eighteenth century gave Russian (and world, of course) literature many prominent names, talented figures. One of them is Denis Fonvizin, writer and playwright. To most ordinary people, he is known as the author of the comedy "Undergrowth." How was the author’s most famous work created, with whom he wrote his characters, and what is special about Mitrofanushka, one of the characters in the play?
Denis Fonvizin
Before talking about the comedy itself, it is necessary to at least briefly say about its author. Denis Fonvizin lived not too long (only forty-seven years), but a bright life. Most know him only as the person who wrote The Undergrowth, meanwhile, he wrote the play The Foreman, many translations and adaptations, treatises and essays.
Despite the fact that he wrote only two plays (and after the “Foreman” he had not turned to drama for more than ten years), it was Fonvizin who was the “progenitor” of the so-called Russian everyday comedy.
"Undergrowth" Fonvizin: the history of creation
Despite the fact that “The Undergrowth” was completed by a writer and politician in the early eighties, there is reason to believe that Fonvizin conceived his satirical “comedy of morals” back in the sixties: it was at this time that the play was first seen only in the past century - when the author’s life was never published. Her characters can be called early prototypes of the heroes of the “Younger”: in each of them familiar features are quite easily captured.
While working on comedy, Denis Ivanovich used a huge variety of sources - both articles, and works of various authors (both modern and past centuries), and even texts written by Catherine the Great herself. Having finished work on The Undergrowth, Fonvizin, of course, decided to stage the play, although he understood that it would be difficult to do this - an abundance of new ideas and bold utterances blocked the way for the work to reach a wide audience. Nevertheless, he himself undertook the preparation of the play and, although slowly, albeit with all kinds of delays, The Undergrowth saw the light in the theater on Tsaritsyno Meadow and received phenomenal success with the audience. This happened in 1782, and a year later the play was first published.
Who is the undergrowth
Many are sincerely puzzled by the title of the work. In fact, why is the undergrowth? What kind of word is this? Everything is simple. In the eighteenth century (and it was then that Denis Fonvizin lived and worked), a “young man” was called a young man of noble (that is, noble) origin who did not receive an education. A lazy man, stupid, incapable of anything - that’s who the undergrowth is. Such youths could not get a job, and marriage permission was not issued to them.
Denis Ivanovich called his work “Undergrowth” because this is exactly what Mitrofanushka, one of the main characters. He put a little more satire in this word than it actually had. The undergrowth, with the light hand of Fonvizin, is not only uneducated, but also selfish and rude young man. The characterization of the image of Mitrofanushka will be presented in more detail below.
Summary of the work
The plot of "Undergrowth" revolves around the modest girl Sophia, left without parents and therefore taken up by the Prostakov family, greedy and narrow-minded people. Sophia is a wealthy heiress, a bride for marriage, and the Prostakovs also want to get a spouse with such a dowry, trying to pass her off as their sixteen-year-old son Mitrofanushka, a young man, and brother Prostakova Skotinin, obsessed with the idea of ​​a large number of cattle in Sophia's farm. Sophia, on the other hand, has a beloved man - Milon, for whom her only relative - Uncle Starodum, wants to give her. He comes to the Prostakovs and is very surprised to see the owners fawning before him and his niece. They try to expose Mitrofanushka in the best light, however, an uneducated and lazy laziness spoils all the attempts of mother.
Having learned that Starodum and Milon are taking Sophia away, they try to steal her at night on the orders of the Prostakovs, but Milon prevents the abduction. It all ends with the fact that the Prostakovs lose not only a profitable bride, but also their estates - they are all to blame for their greed, anger and greed.
Main characters
The main heroes of the Undergrowth are the already mentioned Mitrofanushka, his parents (it should be noted that everyone in this family is run by a mother who does not consider the servants to be people who are intensely following the fashion of that time; the father of the family is completely under the heel of his imperious wife, which even raises her hand), Sophia, her uncle Starodum, fiance Milon, government official Pravdin, whose goal is to expose the atrocities of the Prostakovs (in this he succeeds). It is necessary to pay special attention to the fact that Fonvizin used “speaking” names for his characters - they are endowed with both positive (Starodum, Pravdin, Sophia) and negative (Skotinin, Prostakov) characters. In the description of Mitrofanushka, his name is also of great importance - from the Greek "Mitrofan" means "sissy", which really fully reflects the character of the hero. Only at the very end of the play Mitrofanushka curses with her mother and tells her to keep up with him.
Fonvizin pushes completely different social strata in his work with his foreheads - officials, nobles, and servants are represented here ... He openly ridicules the nobles with their upbringing, and condemns people like the Prostakovs. From the very first words of the play it is easy to understand where are the positive and where are the negative characters and what is the author's attitude towards each of them. Largely due to well-written images of negative characters (especially the characteristic of Mitrofanushka), the “comedy of morals” brought such a success to its creator. The name Mitrofanushka generally became a household word. The play, moreover, was dismantled into winged expressions with quotes.
Characteristics of Mitrofanushki should be given special attention. However, first it is necessary to say about three more characters in the play. These are the teachers of Mitrofanushka - Tsyfirkin, Kuteikin and Vralman. They can not be directly attributed to either positive or negative characters, they belong to this type of people, in which both good and bad are combined. However, their surnames are also “speaking”: they say the main property of a person - for example, Vralman has a lie, and Tsyfirkin has a love of mathematics.
"Undergrowth": a characteristic of Mitrofanushka
The character in whose “honor” the work is named is almost sixteen years old. While many at his age are completely independent adults, Mitrofanushka cannot even take a step without her mother’s hint, without holding onto her skirt. He is one of those who are called "sissy" (and, as mentioned above, a direct indication of this is contained even in the meaning of his name). Despite the fact that Mitrofanushka has a father, the boy does not receive male education in the full sense of the word - his father is also not famous for such properties.
For parents, Mitrofanushka is still a small child - even in his presence they talk about him in this way, calling him a child, a child - and Mitrofanushka uses this shamelessly throughout the comedy. The boy does not put his father penniless, once again proving thereby that he is a perfect "sissy". A scene in which Mitrofan pities his mother, tired of beating her father, is very indicative in this regard - so she, poor, worked hard, beating him. About sympathizing with the father, there is no question.
Briefly, the characterization of Mitrofanushka in The Undergrowth is not entirely possible - so much can be said about this character. For example, he loves to have a hearty meal, and then to soak up the whole thing idle (however, he doesn’t have much to do except study, in which, honestly, he is not at all diligent). Like his mother, Mitrofan is a rather heartless person. He loves to humiliate others, putting them below himself, once again "indicating a place" to people working for him. So, he constantly offends his nanny, who has been assigned to him since birth, who is always on his side. This is another significant moment in the characterization of Mitrofanushka from the comedy "Undergrowth."
Mitrofanushka is a sneak and insolent, but meanwhile he is a sneak: already at that age he feels who shouldn’t be rude, before whom he should “show his best qualities”. The only trouble is that with such a mama’s upbringing of the best qualities, Mitrofanushka simply can’t have it. Even to her, the one who loves him so blindly and allows everything to him, he threatens, blackmails her in attempts to achieve what she wants for herself. Such qualities do not honor the characterization of Mitrofanushka, speaking of him as a bad man, ready to go over the heads for his own sake and his own requirements, as a man who loves only as long as he fulfills his will.
Interestingly, Mitrofan is self-critical: he realizes that he is lazy and stupid. However, he is not completely upset about this, saying that "he is not a clever hunter." It is unlikely that such a quality passed to him from his mother; rather, he adopted it from his father - at least something he should have inherited from him. This is a brief description of Mitrofanushka, the hero whose name has been called for several centuries by people with similar character traits.
Was there a boy?
It is known that sketches for his work Fonvizin "spied" in life. But what about the heroes? Are they invented completely or written off from real persons?
The characterization of the hero Mitrofanushka gives reason to believe that his prototype was Aleksey Olenin. Subsequently, he became known as a statesman and historian, as well as an artist. But until he was eighteen years old, his behavior was absolutely similar to that of Mitrofanushka: he did not want to study, he was rude, lazy, as they say, wasted his life. It is believed that the comedy Fonvizin helped Aleksey Olenin to take the true path: supposedly, having read it, he recognized himself as the main character, first saw his portrait from the side and was so shocked that he found motivation for “rebirth”.
Like it or not, it is now impossible to reliably know. But some facts from the biography of Olenin have been preserved. So, until the age of ten, he was raised by his father and a specially hired tutor, he also studied at home. When he went to school (and not to any, but to the Page Court), he was soon sent to continue his studies abroad - he was chosen for this purpose, since little Alyosha showed excellent academic success. Abroad, he graduated from two higher institutions - thus, to say that Olenin was a lazy person and an ignoramus, like Mitrofanushka, is not necessary. It is possible that some of the qualities inherent in Olenin resembled that of Mitrofanushka, however, it is most likely impossible to say that Olenin is a wholly-owned prototype of the Fonvizin hero. More likely, however, that Mitrofan is a kind of collective image.
The meaning of the comedy "Undergrowth" in the literature
The undergrowth has been studied for more than two centuries - from the very release of the play to this day. It is difficult to overestimate its significance: it satirically ridicules the social and even state structure of society. And he does it openly, not even afraid of power - but meanwhile, Catherine the Great, precisely because of this, after the publication of The Malidium, forbade the publication of anything that came from the pen of Fonvizin.
His comedy emphasizes the acute issues of the time, but they remain no less relevant today. The shortcomings of society that existed in the eighteenth century did not disappear anywhere in the twenty-first. The play with a light hand Pushkin called "folk comedy" - it has every right to be called so in our days.
Interesting Facts
- In the first version of the play, Mitrofanushka is called Ivanushka.
- The initial version of the comedy is closer to the play The Brigadier.
- Fonvizin worked on the "Undergrowth" for about three years.
- Fonvizin drew ideas for writing the work from his life, but he talked about creating only one scene - the one where Yeremeyevna protects her pupil from Skotinin.
- When Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol studied at the gymnasium, he played the role of Madame Prostakova in school productions.
- Fonvizin scribbled the continuation of “The Little Boy” in letters to each other Sophia and Starodum: according to the author’s idea, after the wedding, Milon cheated on Sophia, which she complained to her uncle about.
- For the first time, the idea of ​​creating such a work originated with Denis Ivanovich when he was in France.
More than two centuries have passed since the creation of the play, and it does not lose its relevance to this day. All new and new studies are devoted to the study of comedy itself and its individual characters. So, Denis Fonvizin managed to notice and highlight something in his work that will at all times attract the attention of readers and spectators.