“White steamer” composition
Chingiz Aitmatov, author of the works “Camel’s Eye”, “Jamilya”, “The First Teacher”, “Mother’s Field”, “And the Day Lasts for More than a Century”, “Farewell, Gyulsary!”, “Plakh”, in the seventies of this century wrote a novel “The White Steamer.” Being a Kirghiz by nationality, Ch. Aitmatov nevertheless wrote in Russian, in his works touching universal and eternal problems, and, in my opinion, his works are interesting by this and worthy of readers’ attention.
For all the works of Ch. Aitmatov, and for the story “The White Steamer” in particular, the theme of good and evil is a central theme of the writer’s work.
The problem of good and evil is one of the eternal themes in the literature. It sounds in the works of Dante and Shakespeare, is reflected in Russian classical literature. This theme is “the basis of many fairy tales and legends.”
Living in this complex reality, the protagonist of the story, a seven-year-old boy, divides his world into two dimensions: the real world and the ancient world, a fantastic world of fairy tales and legends, of good and justice that compensates for the injustice of reality, and there are many. The boy was left by his parents in the care of his grandfather. Both the father and mother have other families. There lives a boy with his grandfather Momun on a distant forest cordon, where their relative Orozkul always oppresses,
And the boy sees this life full of unfairness.
It’s no secret that in every person there is an inner desire for goodness, justice. And if they are not in the real world, a person tries to recreate the shortcomings of these good principles in the inner, fictional world, in dreams, desires to remake the evil world, as it happens to me. In my opinion, this happens to a greater or lesser extent, but with each person, and especially strongly and often happens with children. And of course, the boy from the “White Steamer” was no exception. He had two tales. One of its own, of which no one knew. Another one that my grandfather told me.
The story told by the grandfather – the legend of the Horned Mother – a deer that saved human children, thereby restoring the Kyrgyz family once in the ancient times. But proud and vain people soon forgot about the good of the Horned Mother – the deer. They began to hunt marals, and the deer had to go to other lands.
It is clear that this legend, in which evil wins, could not serve as a support, assistance and consolation for the boy. And then he creates his own legend. His fairy tale is a rock with fictitious names, among which there are “harmful”, and “good”, as well as “favorite”, “bold” and “evil” plants. But “favorite”, “good” and “brave”, probably, was more.
In this fairy tale, the boy has also true friends – binoculars and a briefcase, with which he tests his secret thoughts and dreams. In the magical world of fairy tales, the boy meets his father. He dreams of becoming a fish and getting to Issyk-Kul to a white (white, not black!) Steamship, where his father sails.
And, as in any fairy tale, the magic world into which the boy is submerged is beautiful and fair. This world is represented in the story by a whole series of legends and fairy tales, dreams and dreams of the child. Here, good always triumphs over evil, every crime is punished, beauty and harmony reign here, which the boy does not have enough in real life. His legends are the only thing that helped the boy to live, to remain a kind, unspoiled child, believing in good and that it will win. That inner world protected the pure soul of the child from the evil of the external, the surrounding world. But these worlds should have collided, and, in my opinion, it was inevitable. The inner world of the boy was confronted with an external world in which evil opposed good.
In the most real world, I would emphasize the existence of a separate problem of the collision of good and evil, thereby highlighting in the story two separate thematic lines: the boy’s inner world against the external world and Momun against Orozkul in the outermost world.
Opposition of good and evil is observed both there and there, and in the end in both cases evil wins, and the good dies. Good and evil are two mutually exclusive concepts. And in his dreams, the boy tried to make the real world kinder, “re-educating” evil. He hoped that Orozkul would be good if he had children, if he knew what would be left behind by the offspring. But at the same time it is clear that if there was at least a drop of good in Orozkul, he would give his warmth to the boy, as in the legend the Horned mother – a deer did it. And, knowing that his uncle is actually filled with evil only, the boy often saw in his dream a picture of retribution. The boy, like the reader, subconsciously understood that evil with good can not co-exist, something must be exterminated. But, alas, the good was amazed. Because Orozkul forced Grandfather Momun to violate his moral laws, to trample down what he and the boy believed for so long. Orozkul forced him not only to kill the deer, but to encroach on what he believed all his life, “for the memory of ancestors, for conscience and covenants,” for the moral laws of the Bugians. Momun did evil in the name of good, for his “ill-fated daughter,” for the sake of his grandson. But his philosophy of evil in the name of good failed. After killing a deer, he condemns the boy to death. Momun himself helped create a legendary world for the grandson, telling about the Horned mother-deer, but he himself destroyed the same world. “And now, struck with grief and disgrace, the old man lay face down on the ground.” “for the memory of ancestors, for conscience and covenants,” on the moral laws of the Bugians. Momun did evil in the name of good, for his “ill-fated daughter,” for the sake of his grandson. But his philosophy of evil in the name of good failed. After killing a deer, he condemns the boy to death. Momun himself helped create a legendary world for the grandson, telling about the Horned Mother-deer, but he himself destroyed the same world. “And now, struck with grief and disgrace, the old man lay face down on the ground.” “for the memory of ancestors, for conscience and covenants,” on the moral laws of the Bugians. Momun did evil in the name of good, for his “ill-fated daughter,” for the sake of his grandson. But his philosophy of evil in the name of good failed. After killing a deer, he condemns the boy to death. Momun himself helped create a legendary world for the grandson, telling about the Horned Mother-deer, but he himself destroyed the same world. “And now, struck with grief and disgrace, the old man lay face down on the ground.”
And the boy remained completely alone in this world. In a moment all his dreams and hopes were destroyed, the cruelty of the world, from which he had long been hiding, appeared before him in all his guise. Having sailed with fish by the river, he rejected what his child’s soul did not tolerate. But his faith in the good remained with him, because he did not die, but left reality in his fairy-tale world, he did not commit suicide, but “swam away by the fish along the river”.
The story seems to be incomplete, because many questions remain unanswered, for example, Momun: “And why people are so? You are kind to him – he is evil to you.” Aitmatov does not give an answer to the boy’s question: “Why do people live this way? Why are some evil, other good? Why are there happy and unhappy?” It is not written in the story, why, as in fairy tales, good did not win evil. The right to find answers to them is given to the reader. And although it’s hard to do, I’ll try.
It seems to me that Ch. Aitmatov set as his main task to write the truth, no matter how bitter it may be, but the reader will still draw the right conclusions from it. It is important that good is not passive, it fights, but in life it can and win. There is such a law of world art – to send to death and torment the best of its heroes in order to stir the souls of the living, to call them to do good.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)