Pushkin's âAncharâ is one of the poetâs most powerful poems. It protests against the absolute power of one person over another. Pushkin created in him a completely new circle of images for Russian poetry, which he perceived from the East.
History of creation
Pushkin wrote the poem Anchar in 1828, three years after the Decembrist uprising. Shortly before Alexander Sergeyevich, the famous poet P. Katenin created a whole poem with the "tree of life", which was a symbol of royal mercy. Perhaps, as opposed to this flattering work, Anchar was composed. It was printed in the almanac "Northern Flowers" in 1832. At the same time, the poet had to explain with the chief of the gendarmes A. Kh. Benkendorf about a too suspicious topic, and yet the count allowed to publish a freedom-loving work.
Composition
The work consists of nine stanzas. Pushkin's "Anchar" is built on the opposition. The first five stanzas describe the sultry nature of the desert and the deadly, formidable tree for all living things. It is born on the day of anger. Everything in it is drunk with poison: dead green of branches, roots, trunk with dripping drops, which in the evening harden with transparent resin. Anchar stands on stingy and stunted soil in complete solitude. Nobody dares to approach him, except for a black whirlwind. He runs for a moment and already rushes on, carrying away corrupting forces.
The second part, consisting of four stanzas, tells about human relationships with absolute, corrupting, not knowing the mercy of power and the dumb submission of the slave.
With all the fantastic surroundings, the condition of people in Nikolaev Russia is read here. A serf is afraid of his master, who can beat him to death, a soldier is afraid of an officer with gauntlets and to receive a fatal dose of blows, an official is afraid of the head of the chancellery, courtiers are afraid of the emperorâs gaze. Fear pervades the whole vast country. He deprives an ordinary person of dignity and shows him a place in the backyard. But at the same time, the one in whose hands is the deadly power is also deprived of dignity. Getting pleasure from it, the master becomes a slave to his black soul.
So Tsar Pushkin in "Anchar" had only a formidable look to send his subject to certain death.
Theme, idea of ââa poem
This is a typical eastern myth. Unsteady mirages are born from it. There is no such tree in nature and cannot be.
Everything in it is poisonous. The poison pierced the entire trunk, branches, and roots. Even if it rains, it will irrigate combustible sand with poison. To Pushkinâs anchor, so terrible for all living things, a bird does not fly, a formidable tiger does not go. Only a black whirlwind reaches him, and immediately rushes away, becoming corrupting. But! What will not come true if the deity wants!
Without saying a word, only pointing the way to the man with his eyes, the lord sent a dumb slave to the anchor. He obediently flowed on the road, realizing that he was going to death. Following the order, he weakened and lay quietly at the feet of the all-powerful lord. He died next to his master. Invincible is the one who, for the sake of victory over strangers, does not spare his own. This is the secret of the despot. The prince, who nourished arrows with poison, did not die, because evil triumphs in the world, and there wouldnât be such a tree if there were no evil in the world. The poem "Anchar" by Pushkin, the analysis of which we are conducting, reveals the social relations of people: despotism and anti-humanity on the one hand, dumb humility on the other.
Actors and their characteristics
The poor limp slave arouses sympathy. But how many beatings, pains and humiliations he, apparently, suffered, becoming from a free, proud person humble and silent. So, mocking and tormenting, "re-educate" the despots of people.
Well, sovereign? He knew very well that this man would not survive, but calmly waited for his return, not for a moment doubting that he would not run away. And where to run in a hot, waterless desert? Everywhere only death awaits. So in the Russian Empire there is no place for a serf to hide.
Revealing techniques
Continuing the analysis of Pushkin's Anchar, we must say about the perfection of the author as an artist. Visibly and vividly, we see a lonely anchor - a deadly tree, which stands as a "formidable sentinel", on the border of the desert and steppes thirsty for rain, scorched by heat. We see the frozen gold tar on its bark, and the leaves withered by poison on the branches. A tree becomes a metaphor for all the evil that exists in the world.
Only a black whirlwind sweeps over him.
Swift, he is drawn in the imagination, like a crater of a hurricane.
All the evil of the world, collected in a poisonous tree, begins to spread everywhere with great speed. At first itâs just a whirlwind, then rain, which becomes poisonous, later - arrows that bring death to all.
That is, âpoisonousâ and âpoisonâ become keywords for the entire work. And the epithets: the "stunted and mean" desert, the "dead" green of branches, the "black" whirlwind are pumping a gloomy flavor.
A despot fills obedient arrows with poison and begins to sow evil. So it spreads to all the limits available to it. The idea of ââworld evil excites the poet, and his impartial, detached story only enhances the impression he creates.
Genre of work
Most likely, the work âAncharâ can be called a philosophical parable, since history has not preserved reliable information about such a tree.
The Russians assumed that it was growing in Java, but these were only vague speculations that the poet brilliantly defeated.
Size and rhythm
The rhythm of the poem is given by repetitions of a semantic nature (juice flows down, a person flows down a path, sweat flows) and anaphora (roots are filled with poison, branches are dead greens). The poem is written by a four-foot iamba. If you read it slowly, observing semantic caesuras, then in sound it approaches a hexameter.
The plan of "Anchara" by Pushkin is given in the text of the article. Everyone can use it, adding only their personal impression. The poem is deeply tragic. It touches upon the problems of world evil, which will later determine the theme of the works of L. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, M. Lermontov, F. Tyutchev. The humanism of Russian writers and poets urged readers to fight evil in all its forms and manifestations.