« French lessons”- the story of the Russian writer Valentin Rasputin.

First appeared in 1973 in the Irkutsk Komsomol newspaper "Soviet Youth" in the issue dedicated to the memory of Alexander Vampilov.

The story takes place in the late 1940s. The hero of the work is an eleven-year-old boy, on behalf of whom the story is being told. Until the age of eleven, he lived and studied in the countryside. He was considered "brainy" because he was literate, and they often came to him with bonds: it was believed that he had a lucky eye. But in the village where our hero lived, there was only an elementary school, and therefore, in order to continue his studies, he had to leave for the regional center. In this difficult post-war period, during the period of devastation and famine, his mother, against all odds, gathered and sent her son to study. In the city, he felt even more hungry, because in the countryside it is easier to get food for himself, and in the city everything has to be bought. The boy had to live with Aunt Nadia. He suffered from anemia, so every day he bought a glass of milk for a ruble.

At school, he studied well, for one five, except for the French language: he was not given pronunciation. Lidia Mikhailovna, the French teacher, grimaced helplessly and closed her eyes as she listened to him. One day, our hero finds out that you can earn money by playing "chika", and he starts playing this game with other boys. However, he did not allow himself to get too carried away with the game and left as soon as he won a ruble. But one day the rest of the guys did not let him leave with the ruble, but forced him to play on. Seventh grader Vadik, the best chika player and local ringleader, provoked a fight in which, of course, our hero had no chance...

The next day, the unfortunate village boy comes to school all beaten up, and Lidia Mikhailovna is told what happened. When the teacher found out that the boy was playing for money, she called him to talk, thinking that he was spending money on sweets, but in fact he was buying milk for treatment. Her attitude towards him immediately changed, and she decided to study French with him separately. The teacher invited him to her home, treated him to dinner, but the boy did not eat out of shyness and pride.

Lidia Mikhailovna, a rather wealthy woman, was very sympathetic to the boy and wanted to

at least give him some attention and care, knowing that he is malnourished. But he stubbornly did not accept the help of a noble teacher. She tried to send him a package of food, but he gave it back. Then Lidia Mikhailovna, in order to give the boy a chance to have money, comes up with a game of "snaking". And he, thinking that such a method would be "honest", agrees and wins. Upon learning about the act of the teacher, the school director considered the game with the student a crime, seduction, but did not understand the essence of what made her go for it. The woman leaves for her place in the Kuban, but she did not forget the boy and sent him a parcel with pasta and even apples, which the boy had never tried, but had only seen in pictures. Lidia Mikhailovna is a kind, disinterested and noble person. Even having lost her job, she does not blame the boy for anything and does not forget about him.

In the work, Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin actually talks about himself, about his life, about his ups and downs.

Listen to the story "French Lessons"

French lessons- one of the best works of Valentin Rasputin. The heroine of the story, a young French teacher, will only see how difficult life is for her talented but half-starved student. Having tried all the open ways to help him, she decides, according to the headmaster, on a "crime" - she dares to play with the boy in the "wall" for money. What did this mean for the teacher herself? How did that boy assess the motives for her actions? Many years later, the hero recalls this, having experienced a lot and gradually realizing for himself the meaning of these “lessons” - the lessons of humanity, kindness and compassion.

Summary of the story “French Lessons”

“It’s strange: why do we, just like before our parents, every time feel guilty before our teachers? And not for what happened at school - no, but for what happened to us after.

I entered the fifth grade in 1948. In our village there was only a junior school, and in order to study further, I had to move to the regional center 50 kilometers from home. At that time we lived very hungry. Of the three children in my family, I was the oldest. We grew up without a father. I did well in elementary school. In the village, I was considered a literate person, and everyone told my mother that I should study. Mom decided that it wouldn’t be worse and hungrier than at home anyway, and she attached me to her friend in the regional center.

Here I also studied well. The exception was French. I easily memorized words and turns of speech, but my pronunciation did not go well. “I scribbled in French in the manner of our village tongue twisters,” which made the young teacher wince.

The best thing for me was at school, among peers, but at home, longing for my native village piled up. In addition, I was severely malnourished. From time to time, my mother sent me bread and potatoes, but these products very quickly disappeared somewhere. “Who was dragging - whether Aunt Nadya, a noisy, wrapped up woman who hung around alone with three children, one of her older girls or her youngest, Fedka, - I didn’t know, I was afraid to even think about it, let alone follow.” Unlike the village, in the city it was impossible to catch a fish or dig up edible roots in the meadow. Often for dinner I got only a mug of boiling water.

Fedka brought me to a company that played for money in "chika". Vadik, a tall seventh-grader, was in charge there. Of my classmates, only Tishkin appeared there, "a fussy boy with blinking eyes." The game was easy. The coins were stacked tails up. They had to be hit with a cue ball so that the coins turned over. Those that turned out heads up became the winners.

Gradually, I mastered all the tricks of the game and began to win. Occasionally, my mother would send me 50 kopecks for milk - and I played with them. I have never won more than a ruble a day, but life has become much easier for me. However, the rest of the company did not like my moderation in the game at all. Vadik began to cheat, and when I tried to catch him, I was severely beaten.

In the morning I had to go to school with a broken face. The first lesson was French, and the teacher Lidia Mikhailovna, who was our classmate, asked what happened to me. I tried to lie, but then Tishkin leaned out and betrayed me with giblets. When Lidia Mikhailovna left me after school, I was very afraid that she would take me to the principal. Our director Vasily Andreevich had a habit of "torturing" the guilty on the line in front of the whole school. In this case, I could be expelled and sent home.

However, Lidia Mikhailovna did not take me to the director. She began to ask why I needed money, and was very surprised when she found out that I was buying milk with it. In the end, I promised her that I would do without gambling, and I lied. In those days, I was especially hungry, I again came to Vadik's company, and soon I was beaten again. Seeing fresh bruises on my face, Lidia Mikhailovna announced that she would work with me individually, after the lessons.

“Thus began a painful and awkward day for me.” Soon Lidia Mikhailovna decided that

“We are running out of time at school until the second shift, and she told me to come to her apartment in the evenings.” For me it was real torture. Timid and shy, in the clean apartment of the teacher, I was completely lost. “Lidiya Mikhailovna was then probably twenty-five years old.” She was a beautiful woman who had already been married, a woman with regular features and slightly slanting eyes. Hiding this flaw, she constantly squinted her eyes. The teacher asked me a lot about my family and constantly invited me to dinner, but I could not endure this test and ran away.

One day they sent me a strange package. She came to the school. The wooden box contained pasta, two large lumps of sugar, and several hematogen tiles. I immediately understood who sent me this parcel - there was nowhere for mother to get pasta. I returned the box to Lidia Mikhailovna, and flatly refused to take the food.

The French lessons did not end there. Once Lidia Mikhailovna struck me with a new invention: she wanted to play with me for money. Lidia Mikhailovna taught me the game of her childhood, the “wall”. Coins should be thrown against the wall, and then try to get your fingers from your coin to someone else's. You get it - the win is yours. Since then, we played every evening, trying to argue in a whisper - the director of the school lived in the next apartment.

Once I noticed that Lidia Mikhailovna was trying to cheat, and not in her favor. In the heat of the argument, we did not notice how the director entered the apartment, having heard loud voices. Lidia Mikhailovna calmly admitted to him that she was playing with a student for money. A few days later she went to her place in the Kuban. In the winter, after the holidays, I received another parcel in which “neat, dense rows<…>there were tubes of pasta, ”and under them - three red apples. "I used to only see apples in pictures, but I guessed they were."

"French Lessons" is a Soviet feature film (film story) directed by Yevgeny Tashkov, based on the story of Valentin Rasputin.

• Mikhail Egorov - Volodya
• Tatyana Tashkova - French teacher Lidia Mikhailovna Tereshkova
• Galina Yatskina - Maria Andreevna, Volodya's mother
• Valentina Talyzina - aunt Nadia
• Oleg Golubitsky - school director Vasily Andreevich
• Claudia Kozlenkova - milk saleswoman
• Boris Novikov - grandfather Ilya
• Vadim Yakovlev - Uncle Vanya
• Misha Kabanov - Bird
• Lydia Savchenko
• Elena Kuzmina
• Evgeny Tashkov
• Sergei Sokolov
• Flenov Dmitry

Analysis of the work “French Lessons” by Rasputin V.G.

History of creation

“I am sure that what makes a person a writer is his childhood, the ability at an early age to see and feel everything that then gives him the right to take up a pen. Education, books, life experience educate and strengthen this gift in the future, but it should be born in childhood,” wrote Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin in 1974 in the Irkutsk newspaper “Soviet Youth”. In 1973, one of Rasputin's best stories "French Lessons" was published. The writer himself singles it out among his works: “I didn’t have to invent anything there. Everything happened to me. I didn't have to go far for the prototype. I needed to return to people the good that they once did for me.

Rasputin's story French lessons”is dedicated to Anastasia Prokopyevna Kopylova, the mother of his friend, the famous playwright Alexander Vampilov, who worked at school all her life. The story was based on the memory of a child's life, it, according to the writer, "was one of those that warm even with a slight touch to them."

The story is autobiographical. Lidia Mikhailovna is named in the work by her own name (her last name is Molokova). In 1997, the writer, in an interview with a correspondent for the Literature at School magazine, spoke about meetings with her: “Recently she was visiting me, and we long and desperately remembered our school, and the Angarsk village of Ust-Uda almost half a century ago, and much of that difficult and happy time."

Genus, genre, creative method

The work "French Lessons" is written in the genre of the story. The heyday of the Russian Soviet short story falls on the twenties (Babel, Ivanov, Zoshchenko) and then the sixties and seventies (Kazakov, Shukshin, etc.). More quickly than other prose genres, the story reacts to changes in social life, as it is written faster.

The story can be considered the oldest and the first of the literary genres. A brief retelling of an event - an incident on a hunt, a duel with an enemy, and the like - is already an oral story. Unlike other kinds and forms of art, conditional in its essence, the story is inherent in humanity, having arisen simultaneously with speech and being not only the transmission of information, but also a means of social memory. The story is the original form of the literary organization of language. A story is considered to be a completed prose work of up to forty-five pages. This is an approximate value - two author's sheets. Such a thing is read "in one breath."

Rasputin's story "French Lessons" is a realistic work written in the first person. It can be fully considered an autobiographical story.

Subject

“It’s strange: why do we, just like before our parents, every time feel guilty before our teachers? And not for what happened at school, no, but for what happened to us later. So the writer begins his story "French Lessons". Thus, he defines the main themes of the work: the relationship between the teacher and the student, the image of life illuminated by spiritual and moral meaning, the formation of the hero, the acquisition of spiritual experience by him in communication with Lydia Mikhailovna. French lessons, communication with Lydia Mikhailovna became life lessons for the hero, education of feelings.

Idea

Playing for money a teacher with her student, from the point of view of pedagogy, is an immoral act. But what is behind this action? - asks the writer. Seeing that the schoolboy (during the hungry post-war years) is malnourished, the French teacher, under the guise of additional classes, invites him to her home and tries to feed him. She sends him packages, as if from her mother. But the boy refuses. The teacher offers to play for money and, of course, "loses" so that the boy can buy milk for these pennies. And she is happy that she succeeds in this deception.

The idea of ​​the story lies in the words of Rasputin: “The reader learns from books not about life, but about feelings. Literature, in my opinion, is primarily the education of feelings. And above all, kindness, purity, nobility. These words are directly related to the story "French Lessons".

Main heroes

The main characters of the story are an eleven-year-old boy and French teacher Lidia Mikhailovna.

Lidia Mikhailovna was no more than twenty-five years old and "there was no cruelty in her face." She treated the boy with understanding and sympathy, appreciated his determination. She saw remarkable learning abilities in her student and is ready to help them develop in any way. Lidia Mikhailovna is endowed with an extraordinary ability for compassion and kindness, for which she suffered, having lost her job.

The boy impresses with his determination, desire to learn and go out into the world under any circumstances. The story about the boy can be presented in the form of a quotation plan:

2. “I studied and it’s good here ... in all subjects, except for French, I kept fives.”

3. “I felt so bad, so bitter and disgusted! - worse than any disease.

4. "Having received it (ruble), ... I bought a jar of milk at the market."

5. "They took turns beating me ... that day there was no person more unfortunate than me."

6. “I was frightened and lost ... she seemed to me an extraordinary person, not like everyone else.”

Plot and composition

“I went to the fifth grade in forty-eight. It would be more correct to say, I went: in our village there was only an elementary school, therefore, in order to study further, I had to equip myself from a house fifty kilometers away to the district center. For the first time, an eleven-year-old boy, by the will of circumstances, is cut off from his family, torn from his usual environment. However, the little hero understands that the hopes of not only his relatives, but the whole village are pinned on him: after all, according to the unanimous opinion of his fellow villagers, he is called to be a "learned man." The hero makes every effort, overcoming hunger and homesickness, so as not to let his countrymen down.

With special understanding, a young teacher approached the boy. She began to additionally study French with the hero, hoping to feed him at home. Pride did not allow the boy to accept help from a stranger. The idea of ​​Lidia Mikhailovna with the parcel was not crowned with success. The teacher filled it with "urban" products and thereby gave herself away. In search of a way to help the boy, the teacher invites him to play for money in the "wall".

The climax of the story comes after the teacher began to play with the boy in the wall. The paradox of the situation sharpens the story to the limit. The teacher could not help but know that at that time such a relationship between a teacher and a student could lead not only to dismissal from work, but also to criminal liability. The boy did not fully understand this. But when the trouble did happen, he began to understand the behavior of the teacher more deeply. And this led him to realize some aspects of the life of that time.

The ending of the story is almost melodramatic. The parcel with Antonov apples, which he, a resident of Siberia, never tried, seems to echo the first, unsuccessful parcel with city food - pasta. More and more strokes are preparing this finale, which turned out to be not at all unexpected. In the story, the heart of an incredulous village boy opens before the purity of a young teacher. The story is surprisingly modern. It contains the great courage of a little woman, the insight of a closed, ignorant child, and the lessons of humanity.

Artistic originality

With wise humor, kindness, humanity, and most importantly, with complete psychological accuracy, the writer describes the relationship between a hungry student and a young teacher. The narration flows slowly, with everyday details, but the rhythm imperceptibly captures it.

The language of the story is simple and at the same time expressive. The writer skillfully used phraseological turns, achieving expressiveness and figurativeness of the work. Phraseologisms in the story "French Lessons" for the most part express one concept and are characterized by a certain meaning, which is often equal to the meaning of the word:

“At school, I had not seen a bird before, but, looking ahead, I’ll say that in the third quarter, he suddenly, like snow on his head, fell on our class” (unexpectedly).

“Hungry and knowing that my grub would not last long, no matter how much I saved it, I ate to satiety, to pain in my stomach, and then after a day or two I again planted my teeth on the shelf” (starve).

“But there was no point in locking myself up, Tishkin managed to sell me with giblets” (betray).

One of the features of the language of the story is the presence of regional words and obsolete vocabulary, characteristic of the time of the story. For example:

Lodge - rent an apartment.

Lorry - a truck with a carrying capacity of 1.5 tons.

Tea room - a kind of public dining room, where tea and snacks are offered to visitors.

toss - sip.

Naked boiling water - pure, without impurities.

Blather - talk, speak.

bale - hit hard.

Hluzda - a swindler, a deceiver, a trickster.

pritaika - what is hidden.

The meaning of the work

The work of V. Rasputin invariably attracts readers, because next to the ordinary, everyday in the writer's works there are always spiritual values, moral laws, unique characters, a complex, sometimes contradictory, inner world of heroes. The author's thoughts about life, about man, about nature help us to discover in ourselves and in the world around us inexhaustible reserves of goodness and beauty.

In difficult times, the main character of the story had to learn. The post-war years were a kind of test not only for adults, but also for children, because both good and bad in childhood are perceived much brighter and sharper. But difficulties temper character, so the main character often shows such qualities as willpower, pride, sense of proportion, endurance, determination.

Many years later, Rasputin will again turn to the events of bygone years. “Now that a fairly large part of my life has been lived, I want to comprehend and understand how correctly and usefully I spent it. I have many friends who are always ready to help, I have something to remember. Now I understand that my closest friend is my former teacher, a French teacher. Yes, decades later, I remember her as a true friend, the only person who understood me while studying at school. And even years later, when we met with her, she showed me a gesture of attention, sending apples and pasta, as before. And whoever I am, no matter what depends on me, she will always treat me only as a student, because for her I was, am and will always remain a student. Now I remember how then she, taking the blame on herself, left the school, and said goodbye to me: “Study well and don’t blame yourself for anything!” By doing this, she taught me a lesson and showed me how a real kind person should act. After all, it is not for nothing that they say: a school teacher is a teacher of life.

The meaning of the title of the story. The humanism of the story "French Lessons".

Humanism, kindness and self-sacrifice of the teacher. The story of V. G. Rasputin "French Lessons" takes us to the distant post-war period. For us, modern readers, it is sometimes difficult to understand all the circumstances in which people lived at that difficult time. The starving boy, the protagonist of the story, is not the exception, but rather the rule. After all, this is how most people lived. The boy does not have a father, and in the family, in addition to him, there are many children. An exhausted mother cannot feed the whole family. Nevertheless, she sends her eldest son to study. She believes that he will at least have hope for a better life. After all, so far nothing good has happened in his life.

The main character tells how he "swallowed himself, and forced his sister to swallow the eyes of sprouted potatoes and grains of oats and rye in order to dilute the plantings in the stomach - then you won't have to think about food all the time." Despite hunger, cold and deprivation, the main character is a talented and capable boy. Everyone notes this. That is why, as the main character recalls, “mother, in spite of all misfortunes, gathered me, although before that no one from our village had studied in the region.” In a new place, the boy has a hard time.

No one needs him here, no one cares about him. In a harsh, difficult time, everyone has the desire to survive on their own and save their children. No one cares about someone else's child. The protagonist is a boy with poor health, deprived of the support and care of loved ones. He is often hungry, suffers from dizziness, and besides, his food is often stolen. However, a resourceful child is looking for his way out of this situation. And finds. The boy begins to play for money, although, from the point of view of the school authorities, such an act was a real crime. But it is the game for money that allows the main character to buy milk for himself: with his anemia, milk is simply necessary. Luck does not always smile on him - often the boy has to starve. “The famine here was not at all like the famine in the countryside. There, always, and especially in autumn, it was possible to intercept, pluck, dig, lift something, fish walked in the Angara, a bird flew in the forest. Here everything around was empty for me: strange people, strange vegetable gardens, strange land.

Quite unexpectedly, a young French teacher, Lidia Mikhailovna, comes to the aid of the protagonist. She understands how hard it is for a boy who is cut off from home and relatives. But the main character himself, accustomed to harsh conditions, does not accept help from the teacher. It is hard for a boy to visit her, to drink tea, which she treats him to. And then Lidia Mikhailovna goes to the trick - sends him a parcel. But how can a city girl know that a remote village does not and cannot have such products as pasta and hematogen. However, the teacher does not leave thoughts to help the boy. Her output is simple and original. She starts playing with him for money, and tries to do everything possible so that he wins,

This act shows the amazing kindness of the young teacher. The title of the story "French Lessons" makes us think about the role of this subject in the harsh post-war years. Then, learning foreign languages ​​seemed like a luxury, unnecessary and useless. And all the more superfluous seemed the French language in the countryside, where the students could barely master the basic subjects that seemed necessary. However, in the life of the protagonist, it was the French lessons that played the main role. The young teacher Lidia Mikhailovna taught the child the lessons of kindness and humanism. She showed him that even in the most difficult times, there are people who can lend a helping hand. The fact that the teacher finds such an exquisite way to help the child, how to play with him for money, speaks volumes. Indeed, having come across misunderstanding and pride on the part of the child, when she tried to send him a parcel, Lidia Mikhailovna could have abandoned further attempts.

The director of the school, Vasily Andreevich, despite his advanced age, could not understand the true motives that led the young teacher. He did not understand why Lidia Mikhailovna was playing for money with her student. Well, you can't blame the director. After all, not every person has a special sensitivity and kindness, which makes it possible to understand another person. Childhood is a special time. Everything that a person lives during this period is remembered for a long time. It is no coincidence that memories have an impact on the rest of your life. It is necessary to educate not with words, but with deeds. Beautiful words mean nothing if a person behaves not in the best way. The young teacher left memories of kindness and sensitivity in the boy's soul. And you can be sure that he remembered it for the rest of his life.

The humanism of the story is that in any conditions there is someone who can lend a helping hand, even if it will not be easy for him. After all, Lydia Mikhailovna herself was probably not rich, it was just as difficult for her financially as for everyone around. Nevertheless, she is ready to deny herself something for the sake of her student. True kindness is shown when it comes to the weak and defenseless. The boy is just like that. He may seem proud, not childishly harsh, and even somewhat embittered. Alas, such is life, harsh, to which he is already accustomed. Even the attention from the teacher cannot make the boy a little more pliable. But even despite this, the story leaves us in a good mood, it allows us to feel faith in people, in their humanity and mercy.

History of creation

“I am sure that what makes a person a writer is his childhood, the ability at an early age to see and feel everything that then gives him the right to take up a pen. Education, books, life experience educate and strengthen this gift in the future, but it should be born in childhood,” wrote Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin in 1974 in the Irkutsk newspaper “Soviet Youth”. In 1973, one of Rasputin's best stories "French Lessons" was published. The writer himself singles it out among his works: “I didn’t have to invent anything there. Everything happened to me. I didn't have to go far for the prototype. I needed to return to people the good that they once did for me.

Rasputin's story "French Lessons" is dedicated to Anastasia Prokopievna Kopylova, the mother of his friend, the famous playwright Alexander Vampilov, who worked at school all her life. The story was based on the memory of a child's life, it, according to the writer, "was one of those that warm even with a slight touch to them."

The story is autobiographical. Lidia Mikhailovna is named in the work by her own name (her last name is Molokova). In 1997, the writer, in an interview with a correspondent for the Literature at School magazine, spoke about meetings with her: “Recently she was visiting me, and we long and desperately remembered our school, and the Angarsk village of Ust-Uda almost half a century ago, and much of that difficult and happy time."

Genus, genre, creative method

The work "French Lessons" is written in the genre of the story. The heyday of the Russian Soviet short story falls on the twenties (Babel, Ivanov, Zoshchenko) and then the sixties and seventies (Kazakov, Shukshin, etc.). More quickly than other prose genres, the story reacts to changes in social life, as it is written faster.

The story can be considered the oldest and the first of the literary genres. A brief retelling of an event - an incident on a hunt, a duel with an enemy, and the like - is already an oral story. Unlike other kinds and forms of art, conditional in its essence, the story is inherent in humanity, having arisen simultaneously with speech and being not only the transmission of information, but also a means of social memory. The story is the original form of the literary organization of language. A story is considered to be a completed prose work of up to forty-five pages. This is an approximate value - two author's sheets. Such a thing is read "in one breath."

Rasputin's story "French Lessons" is a realistic work written in the first person. It can be fully considered an autobiographical story.

Subject

“It’s strange: why do we, just like before our parents, every time feel guilty before our teachers? And not for what happened at school, no, but for what happened to us later. So the writer begins his story "French Lessons". Thus, he defines the main themes of the work: the relationship between the teacher and the student, the image of life illuminated by spiritual and moral meaning, the formation of the hero, the acquisition of spiritual experience by him in communication with Lydia Mikhailovna. French lessons, communication with Lydia Mikhailovna became life lessons for the hero, education of feelings.

Idea

Playing for money a teacher with her student, from the point of view of pedagogy, is an immoral act. But what is behind this action? - asks the writer. Seeing that the schoolboy (during the hungry post-war years) is malnourished, the French teacher, under the guise of additional classes, invites him to her home and tries to feed him. She sends him packages, as if from her mother. But the boy refuses. The teacher offers to play for money and, of course, "loses" so that the boy can buy milk for these pennies. And she is happy that she succeeds in this deception.

The idea of ​​the story lies in the words of Rasputin: “The reader learns from books not about life, but about feelings. Literature, in my opinion, is primarily the education of feelings. And above all, kindness, purity, nobility. These words are directly related to the story "French Lessons".

Main heroes

The main characters of the story are an eleven-year-old boy and French teacher Lidia Mikhailovna.

Lidia Mikhailovna was no more than twenty-five years old and "there was no cruelty in her face." She treated the boy with understanding and sympathy, appreciated his determination. She saw remarkable learning abilities in her student and is ready to help them develop in any way. Lidia Mikhailovna is endowed with an extraordinary ability for compassion and kindness, for which she suffered, having lost her job.

The boy impresses with his determination, desire to learn and go out into the world under any circumstances. The story about the boy can be presented in the form of a quotation plan:

1. "In order to study further ... and I had to equip myself in the district center."
2. “I studied well here ... in all subjects, except French, I kept fives.”
3. “I felt so bad, so bitter and disgusted! - worse than any disease.
4. "Having received it (ruble), ... I bought a jar of milk at the market."
5. "They took turns beating me ... that day there was no person more unfortunate than me."
6. "I was frightened and lost ... she seemed to me an extraordinary person, not like everyone else."

Plot and composition

“I went to the fifth grade in forty-eight. It would be more correct to say, I went: in our village there was only an elementary school, therefore, in order to study further, I had to equip myself from a house fifty kilometers away to the district center. For the first time, an eleven-year-old boy, by the will of circumstances, is cut off from his family, torn from his usual environment. However, the little hero understands that the hopes of not only his relatives, but the whole village are pinned on him: after all, according to the unanimous opinion of his fellow villagers, he is called to be a "learned man." The hero makes every effort, overcoming hunger and homesickness, so as not to let his countrymen down.

With special understanding, a young teacher approached the boy. She began to additionally study French with the hero, hoping to feed him at home. Pride did not allow the boy to accept help from a stranger. The idea of ​​Lidia Mikhailovna with the parcel was not crowned with success. The teacher filled it with "urban" products and thereby gave herself away. In search of a way to help the boy, the teacher invites him to play for money in the "wall".

The climax of the story comes after the teacher began to play with the boy in the wall. The paradox of the situation sharpens the story to the limit. The teacher could not help but know that at that time such a relationship between a teacher and a student could lead not only to dismissal from work, but also to criminal liability. The boy did not fully understand this. But when the trouble did happen, he began to understand the behavior of the teacher more deeply. And this led him to realize some aspects of the life of that time.

The ending of the story is almost melodramatic. The parcel with Antonov apples, which he, a resident of Siberia, never tried, seems to echo the first, unsuccessful parcel with city food - pasta. More and more strokes are preparing this finale, which turned out to be not at all unexpected. In the story, the heart of an incredulous village boy opens before the purity of a young teacher. The story is surprisingly modern. It contains the great courage of a little woman, the insight of a closed, ignorant child, and the lessons of humanity.

Artistic originality

With wise humor, kindness, humanity, and most importantly, with complete psychological accuracy, the writer describes the relationship between a hungry student and a young teacher. The narration flows slowly, with everyday details, but the rhythm imperceptibly captures it.

The language of the story is simple and at the same time expressive. The writer skillfully used phraseological turns, achieving expressiveness and figurativeness of the work. Phraseologisms in the story "French Lessons" for the most part express one concept and are characterized by a certain meaning, which is often equal to the meaning of the word:

“I studied here and it’s good. What was left for me? Then I came here, I didn’t have anything else to do here, and I didn’t know how to treat everything that was entrusted to me in a slipshod way” (lazily).

“At school, I had not seen a bird before, but, looking ahead, I’ll say that in the third quarter, he suddenly, like snow on his head, fell on our class” (unexpectedly).

“Hungry and knowing that my grub would not last long, no matter how much I saved it, I ate to satiety, to pain in my stomach, and then after a day or two I again planted my teeth on the shelf” (starve).

“But there was no point in locking myself up, Tishkin managed to sell me with giblets” (betray).

One of the features of the language of the story is the presence of regional words and obsolete vocabulary, characteristic of the time of the story. For example:

Lodge - rent an apartment.
Lorry - a truck with a carrying capacity of 1.5 tons.
Tea room - a kind of public dining room, where tea and snacks are offered to visitors.
toss - sip.
Naked boiling water - pure, without impurities.
Blather - talk, speak.
bale - hit hard.
Hluzda - a swindler, a deceiver, a trickster.
pritaika - what is hidden.

The meaning of the work

The work of V. Rasputin invariably attracts readers, because next to the ordinary, everyday in the writer's works there are always spiritual values, moral laws, unique characters, a complex, sometimes contradictory, inner world of heroes. The author's thoughts about life, about man, about nature help us to discover in ourselves and in the world around us inexhaustible reserves of goodness and beauty.

In difficult times, the main character of the story had to learn. The post-war years were a kind of test not only for adults, but also for children, because both good and bad in childhood are perceived much brighter and sharper. But difficulties temper character, so the main character often shows such qualities as willpower, pride, sense of proportion, endurance, determination.

Many years later, Rasputin will again turn to the events of bygone years. “Now that a fairly large part of my life has been lived, I want to comprehend and understand how correctly and usefully I spent it. I have many friends who are always ready to help, I have something to remember. Now I understand that my closest friend is my former teacher, a French teacher. Yes, decades later, I remember her as a true friend, the only person who understood me while studying at school. And even years later, when we met with her, she showed me a gesture of attention, sending apples and pasta, as before. And whoever I am, no matter what depends on me, she will always treat me only as a student, because for her I was, am and will always remain a student. Now I remember how then she, taking the blame on herself, left the school, and said goodbye to me: “Study well and don’t blame yourself for anything!” By doing this, she taught me a lesson and showed me how a real kind person should act. After all, it is not for nothing that they say: a school teacher is a teacher of life.

One of the best works of V. Rasputin is the book "French Lessons", a summary of which is offered in the article. It is dedicated to A.P. Kopylova - the teacher of the writer, who for the first time made a teenager think about what kindness, humanity, readiness to sacrifice oneself for the well-being of another.

The beginning of an independent life

The story is told in the first person and represents the memories of an adult about the most significant days of his difficult childhood.

The action takes place in 1948 in a Siberian village. The protagonist is an eight-year-old boy who was the eldest of three children in the family. The mother had to bring them up alone, but, seeing her son's excellent learning abilities, she decides to send him to the 5th grade of the district school. It was fifty kilometers from home, and therefore the boy, who had never parted with his family before, felt very lonely there. He lived with a familiar mother, who also raised children without a husband.

Studying was easy, only the French lesson caused problems. Rasputin (a brief summary conveys only the main points of the story) noted that his village accent in every possible way opposed foreign words. And every time the teacher, Lidia Mikhailovna, began to frown and close her eyes in despair.

Chica game

Another problem was constant hunger. The mother handed over few products, and they ended very quickly: either the hostess helped, or her children. Therefore, the hero immediately began to eat all the products, and then for several days he “planted his teeth on the shelf”. A couple of times my mother handed over money: not much, but I bought a jar of milk for five days. More often he went to bed after drinking boiling water.

The summary of the work "French Lessons" continues with a story about how the hero began to play for money. One day Fedka, the landlady's son, took him to the gardens. The boys played chica there. While the boy had no money, he carefully observed and delved into the rules. And when the village driver brought money from his mother, he decided to try his luck at the game instead of buying milk. At first he lost, and therefore in the evenings he ran to the clearing, took out a hidden puck and trained. Finally, for the first time, the hero won. Now he had money for milk every evening. I didn’t want much - I won the ruble and immediately ran away. This was the cause of an unpleasant story that soon occurred in the clearing. Here is its summary.

"French Lessons" contains a story about boys gathering outside the gardens. The main was Vadik - the oldest. He directed the game and did not touch the boy for some time. But one day he stopped him when he was about to leave. Vadik, who stepped on the coin, said that it did not turn over from the blow, which means that there was no winning. As a result, the hero tried to prove something, and he was beaten.

difficult conversation

In the morning, Lidia Mikhailovna, who was also the class teacher, immediately noticed the bruises on the boy's face. After class, she left the student to talk. Here is a summary of it.

"French Lessons" emphasizes the contrast between the characters. Lidia Mikhailovna was neat, beautiful, a pleasant smell of perfume always emanated from her, which made her seem unearthly to the boy. He walked around in altered father's clothes, old teals, which no one else had at school. And now he was answering her questions about where he spends the money he won. The author emphasizes that the news about milk came as a complete surprise to the teacher.

This incident did not reach the director, which the hero was very happy about.

Painful classes with Lydia Mikhailovna

In the fall, the hero's affairs became very bad: the driver no longer came, and the bag of potatoes he had brought literally evaporated. The boy had to go to the gardens again. However, on the fourth day he was beaten again, and Lidia Mikhailovna, seeing bruises on his face, went to the trick. She decided to give him a private French lesson at her home.

Rasputin (the summary does not fully tell how hard these visits to the teacher were for the hero) notes that the boy was lost in fear and every time he could not wait for the lesson to end. And Lidia Mikhailovna at first tried to invite him to the table, and when she realized that it was useless, she sent a parcel. Opening the box, the boy was delighted, but immediately realized: where did his mother get pasta? They never existed in the village. And hematogen! He immediately understood everything and went with the package to the teacher. She was sincerely surprised that she could eat only potatoes, peas, radishes… Such was the first attempt to help a capable but starving student. We have described its summary. French lessons with Lydia Mikhailovna continued, but now they were real classes.

The game of freeze

A couple of weeks after the story with the package, the teacher started talking about the chick, as if in order to compare it with the “stunners”. In fact, it was the only way to help the boy. At first, she simply told him about how she loved to play in the "wall" as a girl. Then she showed what the essence of the game is, and finally, she offered to try her hand "for fun". And when the rules were mastered, she noted that it was not interesting to play just like that: money adds excitement. This is how the short story continues.

The French lesson now went by quickly, and then they began to play "walls", or "measured". The main thing is that the boy could buy milk every day with “honestly earned money”.

But one day, Lidia Mikhailovna began to “swing”. This happened after the hero realized that she was playing along with him. As a result, a verbal skirmish arose, the consequences of which turned out to be tragic.

Conversation with the director: summary

"French Lessons" ends not very fun for the characters. They were so carried away by the argument that they did not notice how the director entered the room - it was at the school. Stunned by what he saw (the class teacher plays with his student for money), he called what was happening a crime and did not even try to understand the situation. Lidia Mikhailovna said goodbye and left three days later. They never saw each other again.

In the middle of winter, a parcel arrived at the school in the name of the boy, in which there were pasta and three apples from the Kuban.

This is the summary of the story, in which the French lesson became, perhaps, the main moral lesson in the life of the hero.

The moral meaning of V. Rasputin's story "French Lessons"

V. G. Rasputin is one of the greatest contemporary writers. In his works, he preaches the eternal values ​​of life on which the world rests.

The story "French Lessons" is an autobiographical work. The hero of the story is a simple village boy. His family is having a hard time. A single mother brings up three children who know well what hunger and deprivation are. Nevertheless, she still decides to let her son go to the district to study. Not because he does not know that it will be hard for him there, not because he is heartless, but because "it will not get worse." The boy himself agrees to leave to study. Despite his age, he is quite purposeful and has a craving for knowledge, and he has good natural inclinations. “Your brainy guy is growing up,” everyone in his mother’s village said. So she went "against all misfortunes."

Finding himself among strangers, the destitute boy suddenly realizes how lonely he is, how “bitter and shameful,” “worse than any illness.” Homesickness overcomes him, for maternal affection, for warmth, for his native corner. From mental anguish, he physically weakens, loses weight so that it immediately catches the eye of his mother who came to him.

There are not enough maternal transmissions for the boy, he is really starving. Showing spiritual sensitivity, he does not undertake to look for who is stealing his poor supplies from him - Aunt Nadia, exhausted by a heavy share, or one of her half-starved children like himself.

The little man realizes how hard it is for his mother to get these miserable pieces, he understands that she is tearing the last from herself and from his brother and sister. With all his might, he tries to study, and everything comes easy to him, except French.

Eternal malnutrition and hungry swoons push the hero onto the path of finding money, and he finds it rather quickly: Fedka invites him to play "chika". It was easy for the smart boy to figure out the game, and, having adapted to it rather quickly, he soon began to win.

The hero immediately understood a certain subordination in the company of guys, where everyone treated Vadik and Ptakh with fear and fawning. Vadik and Ptakha prevailed not only because they were older and more physically developed than the rest, they did not hesitate to use their fists, openly cheated, cheated in the game, behaved cheekily and arrogantly. The hero does not intend to indulge them in their unkind deeds and undeservedly endure insults. He speaks openly about the perceived deceit and, without stopping, repeats this, all the time while he is being beaten for it. Do not break this small, honest man, do not trample on his moral principles!

Playing for money for the hero is not a means of profit, but a way to survive. He sets a threshold for himself in advance, beyond which he never goes. The boy wins exactly by a mug of milk and leaves. He is alien to the aggressive excitement and passion for money, which are controlled by Vadik and Ptah. He firmly controls himself, has a firm and unbending will. This is a persistent, courageous, independent, stubborn person in achieving the goal.

The impression that remained for a lifetime was in his life a meeting with a French teacher, Lydia Mikhailovna. By the right of a class teacher, she was more interested than others in the students of the class where the hero studied, and it was difficult to hide anything from her. Seeing for the first time the bruises on the boy's face, she asked him about what had happened with kind irony. Of course he lied. Telling everything means exposing everyone who played for money, and this is unacceptable for the hero. But Tishkin, without hesitation, reports who beat his classmate and for what. He does not see anything reprehensible in his betrayal.

After that, the hero no longer expected anything good. "Gone!" he thought, because for playing money he could easily be expelled from school.

But Lidia Mikhailovna turned out to be not the kind of person to raise a fuss without understanding anything. She strictly stopped Tishkin's mockery, and decided to talk to the hero after school, one on one, just as a real teacher should have done.

Having learned that her student wins only a ruble, which is spent on milk, Lidia Mikhailovna understood a lot about his unchildishly difficult, long-suffering life. She also understood very well that playing with money and such fights would not bring the boy to good. She began to look for a way out for him and found him, deciding to give him additional classes in French, with which he did not get along. Lidia Mikhailovna's plan was unpretentious - to distract the boy from hiking in the wasteland and, inviting him to visit her, feed him. Such a wise decision was made by this woman who is not indifferent to the fate of others. But coping with the stubborn boy was not so easy. He feels a huge gulf between himself and the teacher. It is no coincidence that the author draws their portraits nearby. Her - so smart and beautiful, smelling of perfume and him, untidy without a mother, skinny and miserable. Once visiting Lydia Mikhailovna, the boy feels uncomfortable, awkward. The most terrible test for him is not the French language classes, but the persuasion of the teacher to sit down at the table, which he stubbornly refuses. To sit at the table next to the teacher and satisfy his hunger at her expense and in front of her eyes is more terrible for a boy than death.

Lidia Mikhailovna is diligently looking for a way out of this situation. She collects a simple package and sends it to the hero, who quickly realizes that his poor mother could not send him any pasta, much less apples.

The teacher's next decisive step is gambling with the boy. In the game, the boy sees her completely different - not a strict aunt, but a simple girl, not alien to the game, passion, delight.

Everything is ruined by the sudden appearance in the apartment of Lydia Mikhailovna of the director, who found her in the midst of playing with a student for money. "It is a crime. Corruption. Seduction, ”he shouts, not intending to understand anything. Lidia Mikhailovna behaves with dignity in a conversation with her boss. She shows courage, honesty, self-esteem. Her act was guided by kindness, mercy, sensitivity, responsiveness, sincere generosity, but Vasily Andreevich did not want to see this.

The word "lesson" in the title of the story has two meanings. Firstly, this is an academic hour devoted to a separate subject, and secondly, it is something instructive, from which a conclusion can be drawn for the future. It is the second meaning of this word that becomes decisive for understanding the intent of the story. The lessons of kindness and cordiality taught by Lidia Mikhailovna, the boy remembered for the rest of his life. The literary critic Semyonova calls Lydia Mikhailovna's act "higher pedagogy", "one that pierces the heart forever and shines with a pure, ingenuous light of a natural example, ... before which one is ashamed of all one's adult deviations from oneself."

The moral significance of Rasputin's story lies in the glorification of eternal values ​​- kindness and human love.

"French lessons" analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, characters, problems and other issues are disclosed in this article.

In 1973, one of Rasputin's best stories, French Lessons, was published. The writer himself singles it out among his works: “I didn’t have to invent anything there. Everything happened to me. I didn't have to go far for the prototype. I needed to return to people the good that they once did for me.

Rasputin's story "French Lessons" is dedicated to Anastasia Prokopievna Kopylova, the mother of his friend, the famous playwright Alexander Vampilov, who worked at school all her life. The story was based on the memory of a child's life, it, according to the writer, "was one of those that warm even with a slight touch to them."

The story is autobiographical. Lidia Mikhailovna is named in the work by her own name (her last name is Molokova). In 1997, the writer, in an interview with a correspondent for the Literature at School magazine, spoke about meetings with her: “Recently she was visiting me, and we long and desperately remembered our school, and the Angarsk village of Ust-Uda almost half a century ago, and much of that difficult and happy time."

Genus, genre, creative method

The work "French Lessons" is written in the genre of the story. The heyday of the Russian Soviet short story falls on the twenties (Babel, Ivanov, Zoshchenko) and then the sixties and seventies (Kazakov, Shukshin, etc.). More quickly than other prose genres, the story reacts to changes in social life, as it is written faster.

The story can be considered the oldest and the first of the literary genres. A brief retelling of an event - a hunting incident, a duel with an enemy, and the like - is already an oral story. Unlike other kinds and forms of art, conditional in its essence, the story is inherent in humanity, having arisen simultaneously with speech and being not only the transmission of information, but also a means of social memory. The story is the original form of the literary organization of language. A story is considered to be a completed prose work of up to forty-five pages. This is an approximate value - two author's sheets. Such a thing is read "in one breath."

Rasputin's short story "French Lessons" is a realistic work written in the first person. It can be fully considered an autobiographical story.

Subject

“It’s strange: why do we, just like before our parents, every time feel guilty before our teachers? And not for what happened at school - no, but for what happened to us afterward. So the writer begins his story "French Lessons". Thus, he defines the main themes of the work: the relationship between the teacher and the student, the image of life illuminated by spiritual and moral meaning, the formation of the hero, the acquisition of spiritual experience by him in communication with Lydia Mikhailovna. French lessons, communication with Lydia Mikhailovna became life lessons for the hero, education of feelings.

Idea

Playing for money a teacher with her student, from the point of view of pedagogy, is an immoral act. But what is behind this action? the writer asks. Seeing that the schoolboy (during the hungry post-war years) is malnourished, the French teacher, under the guise of additional classes, invites him to her home and tries to feed him. She sends him packages, as if from her mother. But the boy refuses. The teacher offers to play for money and, of course, "loses" so that the boy can buy milk for these pennies. And she is happy that she succeeds in this deception.

The idea of ​​the story lies in the words of Rasputin: “The reader learns from books not about life, but about feelings. Literature, in my opinion, is primarily the education of feelings. And above all, kindness, purity, nobility. These words are directly related to the story "French Lessons".

Main heroes

The main characters of the story are an eleven-year-old boy and French teacher Lidia Mikhailovna.

Lidia Mikhailovna was no more than twenty-five years old and "there was no cruelty in her face." She treated the boy with understanding and sympathy, appreciated his determination. She saw remarkable learning abilities in her student and is ready to help them develop in any way. Lidia Mikhailovna is endowed with an extraordinary ability for compassion and kindness, for which she suffered, having lost her job.

The boy impresses with his determination, desire to learn and go out into the world under any circumstances. The story about the boy can be presented in the form of a quotation plan:

1. "In order to study further ... and I had to equip myself in the district center."
2. “I studied well here ... in all subjects, except French, I kept fives.”
3. “I felt so bad, so bitter and disgusted! - worse than any disease.
4. "Having received it (ruble), ... I bought a jar of milk at the market."
5. "They took turns beating me ... that day there was no person more unfortunate than me."
6. "I was frightened and lost ... she seemed to me an extraordinary person, not like everyone else."

Plot and composition

“I went to the fifth grade in forty-eight. It would be more correct to say, I went: in our village there was only an elementary school, therefore, in order to study further, I had to equip myself from a house fifty kilometers away to the district center. For the first time, an eleven-year-old boy, by the will of circumstances, is cut off from his family, torn from his usual environment. However, the little hero understands that the hopes of not only his relatives, but the whole village are pinned on him: after all, according to the unanimous opinion of his fellow villagers, he is called to be a "learned man." The hero makes every effort, overcoming hunger and homesickness, so as not to let his countrymen down.

With special understanding, a young teacher approached the boy. She began to additionally study French with the hero, hoping to feed him at home. Pride did not allow the boy to accept help from a stranger. The idea of ​​Lidia Mikhailovna with the parcel was not crowned with success. The teacher filled it with "urban" products and thereby gave herself away. In search of a way to help the boy, the teacher invites him to play for money in the "wall".

The climax of the story comes after the teacher began to play with the boy in the wall. The paradox of the situation sharpens the story to the limit. The teacher could not help but know that at that time such a relationship between a teacher and a student could lead not only to dismissal from work, but also to criminal liability. The boy did not fully understand this. But when the trouble did happen, he began to understand the behavior of the teacher more deeply. And this led him to realize some aspects of the life of that time.

The ending of the story is almost melodramatic. A parcel with Antonov apples, which he, a resident of Siberia, never tried, seems to echo the first, unsuccessful parcel with city food - pasta. More and more strokes are preparing this finale, which turned out to be not at all unexpected. In the story, the heart of an incredulous village boy opens before the purity of a young teacher. The story is surprisingly modern. It contains the great courage of a little woman, the insight of a closed, ignorant child, and the lessons of humanity.

Artistic originality

With wise humor, kindness, humanity, and most importantly, with complete psychological accuracy, the writer describes the relationship between a hungry student and a young teacher. The narration flows slowly, with everyday details, but the rhythm imperceptibly captures it.

The language of the story is simple and at the same time expressive. The writer skillfully used phraseological turns, achieving expressiveness and figurativeness of the work. Phraseologisms in the story "French Lessons" for the most part express one concept and are characterized by a certain meaning, which is often equal to the meaning of the word:

“I studied here and it’s good. What was left for me? Then I came here, I didn’t have anything else to do here, and I didn’t know how to treat everything that was entrusted to me in a slipshod way” (lazily).

“At school, I had not seen a bird before, but, looking ahead, I’ll say that in the third quarter, he suddenly, like snow on his head, fell on our class” (unexpectedly).

“Hungry and knowing that my grub would not last long, no matter how much I saved it, I ate to satiety, to pain in my stomach, and then after a day or two I again planted my teeth on the shelf” (starve).

“But there was no point in locking myself up, Tishkin managed to sell me with giblets” (betray).

One of the features of the language of the story is the presence of regional words and obsolete vocabulary, characteristic of the time of the story. For example:

Lodge - rent an apartment.
Lorry - a truck with a carrying capacity of 1.5 tons.
Tea room - a kind of public dining room where tea and snacks are offered to visitors.
toss - sip.
Naked boiling water - pure, without impurities.
Blather - talk, speak.
bale - Hit hard.
Hluzda - a rogue, a deceiver, a trickster.
pritaika - what is hidden.

The meaning of the work

The work of V. Rasputin invariably attracts readers, because next to the ordinary, everyday in the writer's works there are always spiritual values, moral laws, unique characters, a complex, sometimes contradictory, inner world of heroes. The author's thoughts about life, about man, about nature help us to discover in ourselves and in the world around us inexhaustible reserves of goodness and beauty.

In difficult times, the main character of the story had to learn. The post-war years were a kind of test not only for adults, but also for children, because both good and bad in childhood are perceived much brighter and sharper. But difficulties temper character, so the main character often shows such qualities as willpower, pride, sense of proportion, endurance, determination.

Many years later, Rasputin will again turn to the events of bygone years. “Now that a fairly large part of my life has been lived, I want to comprehend and understand how correctly and usefully I spent it. I have many friends who are always ready to help, I have something to remember. Now I understand that my closest friend is my former teacher, a French teacher. Yes, decades later, I remember her as a true friend, the only person who understood me while studying at school. And even years later, when we met with her, she showed me a gesture of attention, sending apples and pasta, as before. And whoever I am, no matter what depends on me, she will always treat me only as a student, because for her I was, am and will always remain a student. Now I remember how then she, taking the blame on herself, left the school, and said goodbye to me: “Study well and don’t blame yourself for anything!” By doing this, she taught me a lesson and showed me how a real kind person should act. After all, it’s not for nothing that they say: a school teacher is a teacher of life.