War is one of the worst events that can happen in people's lives. She has tremendous destructive power, which makes us forget about humanity and morality. But man differs from animals in that his soul is “Christian” by nature (definition of B. Augustine). A constant reminder of this is Sholokhov’s short story Foal, written in 1926. The writer focuses on the military confrontation between the Reds and the Whites, during which the greatest mystery of the world - the birth of a new creature - is accomplished.
Mikhail Sholokhov, “Foal”: a summary of the story
The small-sized work shows the complex relationship between the two opposite sides of life on the Don: the war with death-bearing shots and unexplained cruelty, and a world with maternal love and the ability to sympathize. Contrast and different parts of the story. At the beginning, his reader witnesses how a new life is born, and in the finale, how simply a person dies from a bullet that has overtaken him.
Foal appearance
The story begins with a description of a summer day. A quite everyday picture with flies buzzing around the dunghill, bees ringing in the front garden and a screaming rooster is complemented by a hail of buckshot from explosions, machine-gun bursts that are heard in the distance and the groan of a wounded man lying in the hut. Under such conditions, a foal was born in a red mare.
The first feeling he experienced was horror. And only after the mother licked him, and he buried himself in her warm udder, did the feeling of fullness of life come. His very appearance was as if out of place - Mikhail Sholokhov brings the reader to such an idea. A foal is associated with joy and happiness, and around only blood and suffering.
Host confusion
Coming out of the hut Trofim looked around his horse. She was thin, tired, but her eyes radiated prideful joy, and her upper lip seemed to smile. Next to her, like a toy horse, a foal swayed on the thin legs. The man faced a difficult choice: what to do? To kill - the answer was obvious ... After all, he didn’t have a place in the war - he would interfere in battle.
Fate is resolved
Soon Trofim, as if making excuses, confusedly told the commander how strange his mare had been behaving recently. The squadron was adamant: "Shoot." So categorically, however, as relied on in the war, a decision is made about the fate of only the creature born, says Mikhail Sholokhov.
The foal was supposed to live only until dawn, as early in the morning Trofim went to the stable with a rifle. On the way, he greeted the squadron peacefully sitting on the porch - he tried to weave a ladle for dumplings. To the commander’s question: “Are you going to eliminate the foal?” did not answer anything and, waving his hand, went on.
A minute, two - but the shot never came. Soon Trofim appeared from around the corner of the stable. He was embarrassed, writes Sholokhov. Foal - a summary of the conversation that followed between the squadron and Trofim came down to the fact that the rifle was faulty - it stayed on. "The war will end - it’s still ... to plow on it," the commander reasoned.
You look at him - "a heart from a stone turns into a washcloth"
About a month has passed. Once in a battle, Trofim could not get his mare to go forward. She had a bite of a bit, turned on a place and all waited for a frolic foal. At some point, an embittered man jumped off his horse, threw up his rifle and fired a clip into the raging imp. However, they all flew by: either missed, or the hand trembled. "Kicked his legs stupidly," made another circle and stopped nearby - this is how the foal behaves directly at that time, as Sholokhov notes.
A summary of the conversation that night between Trofim and the commander helped convey the squadron's phrases: “Stallion ... destroy. I’ll look at him, and ... I can’t chop ... He looks kind of home .. and the tail is like a fox’s ... Wonderful ..! ”
Crossing
Soon, the Cossacks took the most convenient positions on the river and began shelling. The detachment had to swim across the Don.
Trofim entrusted his mare to the platoon, and he himself transported saddles in the boat. When the squadron followed the squadron into the water, he began to look with his eyes for his redhead. A weakened man swam with difficulty near the mother - this becomes clear from the description given by Sholokhov, a foal. The summary of what happened next is as follows. Trofim heard a mournful neighing. He fired first - “I'll kill you!” - and then, forgetting about the danger, he went to the rescue. At this time, a Cossack officer, observing from the right bank, ordered not to shoot. Silence fell for a while.
And a little later, already on the left bank, a tragedy occurred. A mare that got out of the water licked her cub, and a tired Trofim got to his feet and managed to take only two steps. He suddenly felt a hot injection in his chest and fell near the foal he had saved. On the opposite side, the officer indifferently threw away the still smoking sleeve.
The universal significance of the work
An analysis of Sholokhov's story “Foal” leads to extremely important conclusions. This work with a warm title shows how in a war man forgets important moral commandments. His soul becomes coarse, and his heart becomes stony. And suddenly, at such a moment, a tiny, defenseless creature appears that awakens thoughts about the house, about good, about love, about the joy of a peaceful, quiet life. This happened with Trofim, and with the squadron commander, and with the White Guard officer, who, though not for long, but still resist the evil they encountered in the war.
However, a single shot in the final is symbolic. He deprived the future of the one who had just gifted it to another. This proves that such reconciliation is imaginary, since none of the warring parties will ever agree to take the first step towards ending the slaughter. And the death of Trofim is part of a universal tragedy: returning to the Christian commandments is much more difficult than forgetting them.