A short story of D. Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor”


The action of the comedy “The Minor” takes place in the house of the Prostakov landowners, distinguished by the dense ignorance and savagery of manners.

She is dominated by Ms. Prostakova’s family, a powerful and self-willed woman, brutal with peasants and rough with her family members. Her main passion is a reckless love for her son Mitrofanushka – a lowbrow who evades both the service of the nobility and the training necessary in the noble society of the sciences. In the house there is also a relative of Prostakova, an orphan Sophia, who, being a well-bred and educated girl, suffers under oppression of the order and customs of this family. The mistress of the house wants to marry her to her brother Skotinin, but, unexpectedly having heard of the impressive legacy of Sophia, decides to marry her with Mitrofanushka. The girl, in love with the noble officer of Milo, does not admit even the thought of a wedding with a poor man, but Prostakov does not stop it: by cunning and force, she tries to achieve her.

At the end of the comedy the lovers receive the blessing of Starodum for the wedding, and Prostakova, a famous inhuman attitude towards the peasants, reads the “highest order”, according to which her house and serfs are transferred under state guardianship. “Here is an evil worthy fruit!” – Starodum proclaims, pointing to Prostakov, in the final of the comedy.


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A short story of D. Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor”