Comparative characteristics of Larra and Danko. Essay “Comparative characteristics of Larra and Danko. Origin of Larra and Danko

Maxim Gorky's story "Old Woman Izergil". Romantic pathos and the harsh truth of life
From 20th century literature

We will continue the conversation about Maxim Gorky’s story “The Old Woman Izergil”, compare the characteristics of the images of Larra and Danko, get acquainted with the concepts of “antipode” and “pathos”, and analyze the image of the old woman Izergil.

In the last lesson we characterized the images of Larra and Danko, now we will compare them.

Comparative characteristics of the images of Larra and Danko

Larra's image	Danko's image
Origin
	One of the people
Appearance
A 20-year-old young man, handsome and strong; the eyes are “cold and proud, like those of the king of birds”	“a handsome young man”, “a lot of strength and living fire shone in his eyes”
Attitude towards people
Arrogance, contempt: “he answered if he wanted, or was silent, and when the elders of the tribe came, he spoke to them as to his equals”	Altruism: “he loved people and thought that maybe without him they would die. And so his heart flared up with the fire of desire to save them, to lead them to the easy path.”
Actions
Capable of murder	Capable of self-sacrifice: “He tore his chest with his hands and tore his heart out of it. It burned like the sun, and the whole forest fell silent, illuminated by this torch of great love for people.”
Reaction of others
The name Larra means “outcast, thrown out”	The reaction to the feat was mixed. At first, “Everyone followed him together - they believed in him.” Then “They began to reproach him for his inability to manage them.” At the end “Joyful and full of hope, they did not notice his death”
Final
Doomed to eternal loneliness. “He has no life, and death does not smile on him. And there is no place for him among people... That’s how the man was struck for his pride!”	He dies in the name of saving people. “The proud daredevil Danko cast his gaze forward at the expanse of the steppe,” he cast a joyful glance at the free land and laughed proudly. And then he fell and died."

The heroes have only one thing in common: both are beautiful, young, and brave. Otherwise they are opposite. Larra became the embodiment of selfishness, cruelty, and cynical indifference to people (Fig. 1).

Danko (Fig. 2) became a symbol of feat, a hero ready for self-sacrifice. Thus, the story is built on an antithesis, and the heroes of the work are antipodes.

Antipode(from ancient Greek “opposite” or “opposing”) - in the general sense, something opposite to something else. In a figurative sense, it can be applied to people with opposing views.

The term "antipode" was introduced by Plato in his dialogue "Timaeus" to combine the relativity of the concepts of "up" and "down".

In the story “The Old Woman Izergil,” in addition to ancient legends, the author included a story about the life of the old woman Izergil herself. Let's remember the composition of the story. Memories of the old woman Izergil are compositionally placed between two legends. The heroes of legends are not real people, but symbols: Larra is a symbol of selfishness, Danko is a symbol of altruism. As for the image of the old woman Izergil (Fig. 3), her life and fate are quite realistic. Let's talk about this in more detail.

Rice. 3. Old woman Izergil ()

Izergil is very old: “Time bent her in half, her once black eyes were dull and watery. Her dry voice sounded strange, it crunched, as if the old woman was speaking with bones.” The old woman Izergil talks about herself, about her life, about the men whom she first loved and then abandoned, and only for the sake of one of them she was ready to give her life. Her lovers did not have to be beautiful. She loved those who were capable of real action.

“...He loved exploits. And when a person loves feats, he always knows how to do them and will find where it is possible. In life, you know, there is always room for exploits. And those who do not find them for themselves are simply lazy, or cowards, or do not understand life, because if people understood life, everyone would want to leave behind their shadow in it. And then life would not devour people without a trace..."

In her life, Izergil often acted selfishly. Suffice it to recall the incident when she escaped from the Sultan’s harem along with his son. The Sultan’s son soon died, which the old woman recalls as follows: “I cried over him, maybe it was I who killed him?..”. But other moments of her life, when she truly loved, she was ready for a feat. For example, to save a loved one from captivity, she risked her life.

Old woman Izergil measures people by such concepts as honesty, directness, courage, and the ability to act. These are the people she considers beautiful. Izergil despises people who are boring, weak, and cowardly. She is proud that she lived a bright and interesting life, and believes that she should pass on her life experience to young people.

That is why she tells us two legends, as if giving us the right to choose which path to follow: along the path of pride, like Larra, or along the path of pride, like Danko. Because there is one step difference between pride and pride. This could be a carelessly spoken word or an action dictated by our selfishness. We must remember that we live among people and take into account their feelings, moods, and opinions. We must remember that for every word we say, every action we take, we are responsible to others as well as to our conscience. This is exactly what Gorky wanted to make the reader think about (Fig. 4) in the story “Old Woman Izergil”.

Rice. 4. M. Gorky ()

Pathos(from the Greek “suffering, inspiration, passion”) - the emotional content of a work of art, feelings and emotions that the author puts into the text, expecting the reader’s empathy.

In the history of literature, the term "pathos" has been used in different meanings. So, for example, in the era of Antiquity, pathos was the name given to the state of a person’s soul, the passions that the hero experiences. In Russian literature, critic V.G. Belinsky (Fig. 5) proposed using the term “pathos” to characterize the work and creativity of the writer as a whole.

Rice. 5. V.G. Belinsky ()

References

Korovina V.Ya. Textbook on literature. 7th grade. Part 1. - 2012.
Korovina V.Ya. Textbook on literature. 7th grade. Part 2. - 2009.
Ladygin M.B., Zaitseva O.N. Textbook-reader on literature. 7th grade. - 2012.

Nado5.ru ().
Litra.ru ().
Goldlit.ru ().

Homework

Tell us what antipode and pathos are.
Give a detailed description of the image of the old woman Izergil and think about what features of Larra and Danko the image of the old woman embodies.
Write an essay on the topic: “Larra and Danko in our time.”

Danko and Larra are two heroes of Gorky’s famous story “Old Woman Izergil”. The old woman, narrating about her life, weaves into this story two beautiful ancient legends about the son of the eagle Larra and the son of the people Danko.

First, the old woman talks about Larra. He is a handsome, proud and strong man. Usually, physical beauty in Gorky already symbolizes a person with high moral ideals. But, as it turns out, this is not always true. Izergil says: “the beautiful are always brave.” This statement is correct, judging by Gorky's early stories. Larra is brave and decisive. But everything about him is excessive: pride and strength. He's too selfish. How much benefit Larra could bring to people if he used the treasures of his soul for their benefit! But he doesn't want to give. He only wants to take, and take the best.

Larra, being the son of an eagle, does not value human society. He prefers loneliness and freedom. Striving for this, he often shows hardness. There is no love, no pity, no compassion in him. He dreams only of loneliness, because he does not see anything attractive in life among people. Sometimes the worst punishment for us is having our wishes come true. This was the case with Larra. He received eternal loneliness and eternal freedom to wander the earth. But how can a person’s soul endure this, even if he is the son of an eagle? No. That’s why Larra’s soul suffers. Only in his eternal wanderings on earth does he understand how unbearable it is to be alone. Every person, by his nature, needs a society of his own kind.

What does happiness consist of? Gorky, in the story “Old Woman Izergil,” answers this question this way: happiness is possible only in love, and the highest happiness is in self-sacrifice. The old woman Izergil talks about this in the legend of Danko.

Danko is somewhat similar to Larra. He is equally handsome, brave, and freedom-loving. But this is a completely different person. He directs the strength of his soul, the burning of his heart to serve people.

Let us remember that part of the legend when people begin to become disillusioned with Danko. They are overcome by unbelief. In the end, they even decide to kill Danko. But does this stop him, does it weaken his desire to lead his people to the light? No. Larra lived among people who were not plotting anything bad against him. It would seem that Danko had much more reasons to become embittered and even hate people. But within him lives a readiness for self-sacrifice and a thirst for achievement. He does not hesitate for a single moment when he needs to tear his heart out of his chest! I think Danko understood that his feat would not be appreciated, that those people for whom he illuminated the path with his heart would immediately forget about him. And so it happened. People, rushing towards their goal, trampled Danko’s hot heart that had fallen to the ground. But he didn't think about himself as he tore out his heart. A person who accomplishes a feat never thinks about himself and how people will react to it. He acts in the name of a high goal. So Danko acted only in the name of saving people.

In the image of Danko, Gorky embodied his ideal of a revolutionary. In Gorky's mind, this is a man with a burning heart, leading people to the light at the cost of his own death. Danko is ready to die for the sake of his cause; he illuminates the dark consciousness of people with light. It’s the same with revolutionaries: they fight despite the danger of death. They know for sure that, having died themselves, they will leave behind their ideas that will illuminate the path for people.

Gorky argues that Daiko's existence makes sense, because it was aimed at benefiting people. Larra sought only for his own benefit. Gorky, having told us the fate of Larra, affirms the idea that an existence like this can give nothing but emptiness and loneliness. Even the fate of the old woman Izergil, outwardly so unsuccessful, actually makes sense. And this meaning lies in the fact that she did not spare the strength of her soul. She loved people, and they, in turn, answered her in kind. Against the background of even this life, Larra’s existence seems pitiful.

Comparing the fates of Larra and Danko, Gorky makes one important conclusion: a short but bright life dedicated to serving people is better than an eternal selfish existence for its own sake. You can’t be isolated in your egoism. If you want to get as much as possible for yourself, you will most likely lose much more than you want to gain. And vice versa, you gain more the more mental strength you spend for the benefit of people. Danko, who tore out his heart, was much more alive than Larra, who received eternal existence. A high goal justifies any life, so every person, to the extent possible, should strive, if not for a feat, but to help people, to live for them.

The heroes of Maxim Gorky's early works are proud, beautiful, strong and brave people; they always fight alone against dark forces. One of these works is the story “Old Woman Izergil”. This story introduces us to two romantic legends set many thousands of years ago.
Danko was a representative of one of the ancient tribes, Lappa - the son of a woman and an eagle. The similarity of the heroes is in their beautiful appearance, courage and strength, but otherwise they are the complete opposite of each other, that is, antipodes. However, there are serious differences in the appearance of the heroes. Larra's gaze was cold and proud, like that of the king of birds. In Danko’s gaze, on the contrary, “there shone a lot of fire and living fire.” The people of the Larra tribe hated him for his excessive pride. “And they talked to him, and he answered if he wanted, or was silent, and when the elders of the tribe came, he spoke to them like! with your peers." Larra fell and killed without regretting it at all, and for this people hated him even more. “...And he hit her and, when she fell, he stood with his foot on her chest, so that blood sprayed from her mouth to the sky.” The people of the tribe also understood that Larra was no better than them, although he believed that there were no more people like me, that is, he was an individualist. When asked why he killed the girl, Larra answers. “Do you only use yours? I see that every person has only speech, arms and legs, but he owns animals, women, land... and much more.”
His logic is simple and terrible, if everyone followed it, then on earth soon! There would only be a pitiful handful of people left, fighting for survival and hunting each other. Understanding the depth of Larra’s wrongness, unable to forgive and forget the crime he committed, the tribe condemns him to eternal loneliness. Life outside society gives rise to a feeling of inexpressible melancholy in Larra. “In his eyes,” says Izergil, “there was so much melancholy that one could poison all the people of the world with it.”
Pride, according to the author, is the most wonderful character trait. It makes a slave free and strong, it turns a nonentity into a person. Pride does not tolerate anything philistine and “generally accepted.” But hypertrophied pride gives rise to absolute freedom, freedom from society, freedom from all moral principles and principles, which ultimately leads to terrible consequences. It is this idea of Gorky that is key in the old woman Izergil’s story about Larra, who,! being just such an absolutely free individual, he dies spiritually for everyone (and above all for himself), remaining to live forever in his physical shell. The hero has found death in immortality. Gorky reminds us of the eternal truth: you cannot live in society and be free from it. Larra was doomed to loneliness and considered death to be his true happiness. True happiness, according to Gorky, lies in giving oneself to people, as Danko did.
The people of the tribe in which Danko lived, on the contrary, “looked at him and saw that he was the best of all” for his high fortitude, courage and ability to lead people. After all, it was Danko who was not afraid to lead his tribe through the forest thicket, and all along the way he maintained faith in the best. People, looking at him, believed in their salvation. Even when the people of the tribe became embittered with him, “became like animals,” because of their fatigue and powerlessness, they wanted to kill him, Danko was unable to! answer them in kind. His love for people extinguished his irritation and anger. And for the sake of these people, Danko sacrificed his life, tearing his selves out of his chest.

Composition

overhead, illuminating the path for people with the bright light of his burning heart, Danko boldly led them forward. And the people perked up and followed him “to the sea of sunshine and clean air.” “The proud daredevil Danko cast his gaze forward at the expanse of the steppe,” he cast a joyful glance at the free land and laughed proudly. And then he fell and died.” “People, joyful and full of hope, did not notice his death” and forgot about him, as one forgets about everything in the world. Larra was also ready to die, but not for the sake of people, but for himself, because the loneliness to which people doomed him was unbearable for him. But even wandering alone, Larra could not repent and ask for forgiveness from people, because he remained just as proud, arrogant and selfish.
The story “Old Woman Izergil” is dedicated to the problem of the purpose and meaning of life. Arrogant, proud
and a cruel person has no place among people. But it is also difficult for a person with high fortitude, a “burning” heart, full of love for PEOPLE and a desire to help them, to live among them. People are afraid of that power
which comes from people like Danko, and they do not appreciate it. In the story “Old Woman Izergil,” Gorky draws exceptional characters, exalts proud and strong-willed people for whom freedom is above all. For him, Izergil, Danko and Larra, despite the extreme contradictions in the nature of the first, the seeming uselessness of the feat of the second and the infinite distance from all living things of the third, are genuine heroes, people who bring into the world the idea of freedom in its various manifestations. However, in order to truly live life, it is not enough to “burn”, it is not enough to be free and proud, feeling and restless. You need to have the main thing - a goal. A goal that would justify a person’s existence, because “a person’s price is his business.” “There is always a place for heroic deeds in life.” "Forward! - higher! everyone - forward! and - above - this is the credo of a real Man.”

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