Platonov’s work (summary) “Return” is a heartfelt story about what happens to people during the war, how their destinies intersect and intertwine. And strangely enough, but the main feeling guiding people at such a moment in their life is not love, but loneliness. Nevertheless, the work of Platonov is a story about love, which was able to break through the thickness of human estrangement.
Main character
The work (summary) of Platonov's “Return” begins with the fact that Alexei Alekseevich Ivanov returns from the war. In war, he rose to the rank of captain of the guard. The train, which should take him away from the place of deployment, does not arrive immediately. Ivanov is forced once again to visit his colleagues. Then he again leaves for the station to wait for the train.
A. A. Ivanov is 35 years old, his skin is blown away by the winds and burnt by the sun, which makes it brown. Ivanov speaks in a voice that is tired of life, not of the old, but of a kindly old man, one might say.
At the station he meets Masha - a girl of 20 years old, he does not know her closely by service, she also goes home. Maybe from loneliness, or maybe for some other reason, but the former captain asks the young woman for permission not to kiss her voluptuously on the lips, but meekly and paternally on the cheek. She lets, then the train comes.
Alexey Alekseevich first arrives with Masha to her city. He stays with her for two days, then on the next train he nevertheless gets home, where his wife and two children are waiting for him.
Platonov “The Return” wrote with great skill, and this seemingly insignificant episode with Masha plays a rather significant role in the overall fabric of the narrative. What the reader will see later.
Wartime children: Peter and Nastya
But not his wife meets him at the station, but his son. The wife (Lyubov Vasilievna) was waiting for her husband all the time, worked hard and was very worried, and Ivanov arrived only on the sixth day of his departure from the unit, but the train arrived in the morning. Lyuba was at work at that time, so Petrushka had to meet her father. He was 11 years old. He was already quite an adult. The father did not even recognize his son at first.
Peter takes his father’s bag and they go to the house, where they are waiting for Lyubov Vasilievna (she nevertheless took leave from work) and Nastya (the youngest daughter of Alexei). The couple hugs and stands so for some time, than the girl is very upset, she becomes moody and whiny. The child almost does not know his father, because when he left, the baby was only a year old.
The former captain saw that the war had not only responded to him: his wife had grown old and became ill, and his children, at 11 and 5 years old, had become quite adults. Peter ruled everything in the house, Nastya deftly and skillfully helped her mother with the housework as best she could. In other words, the life of the Ivanov family was self-sufficient and, it would seem, did not need it.
With great psychological certainty he described a certain, temporary alienation of the family from its head Platonov. “Return” is a gorgeous thing if you evaluate the drama of the narrative.
The family sat down to eat breakfast, there were pies on the table, but the children ate very sparingly, as they were used to in the war. And then little Nastya pushes her second piece aside and says: “And this is for Uncle Semyon.” Ivanov looks inquiringly at his wife and asks: “Who is this?”, She replies that she really doesn’t know, she knows little about him: he killed the whole family in the war, so he goes to the children to play. Then the newly gathered relatives solve economic problems. Then they have lunch (cabbage soup with meat), then have dinner. The wife wanted to talk privately with her husband, but the overexcited children fell asleep badly that evening. And a difficult conversation between the spouses took place only at night.
Such is the work (summary) of Platonov's “Return” in its introductory part, which precedes the main dialogue of the heroes.
Conversation between Any and Lesha
When the children fell asleep, a conversation took place between the spouses. Quite natural in such a situation, his subject is his wife’s loyalty. Alex asked what kind of uncle Senya was, and apparently wanted to find out what kind of events occurred in his absence.
Uncle Senya is Semyon Evseevich. He works as a supplier in the same factory where Luba works. He is an unhappy person - he lost his family. According to Lyuba, Semen Evseich has the most innocent feelings for her and for children. During the war, he helped them financially: brought flour, sugar, clothes. She refused, but Evseich said that this is how he yearn for his dead family less, his “soul warms up”.
Aleksey, of course, doesn’t believe his wife, he believes that Semyon just got to Lyuba in this way, and she (his wife) “fools her head”. She protests and says that she worked day and night, and Semyon was the children instead of the nanny, until they learned how to manage the household themselves.
So the conversation goes on for a while: she defends herself, he attacks.
In this place Platonov builds up tension, “Return” reaches its emotional peak (I must say, not the last).
Then everything calms down. Alexey believes that there was nothing between her wife and Semyon Evseich. He even gets into him with some kind of hard-to-determine feeling and asks his wife: “Well, have you kissed him even once, since everything turned out so well with you?” She replies that he kissed her a couple of times, but she did not want to. His lips touched her cheek very chastely. He said that he had forgotten and remembered his wife, and Lyuba was very similar to her.
The “Return” (Platonov’s story) gives the reader in this place a false hope that everything will end this way, but if the point was put here, the Russian classic would change himself.
Cheating on Luba
And then Lyuba suddenly confesses to her husband a betrayal, He says that there was still one person who “treated him like he used to,” and she gave him up from loneliness, longing and in search of human warmth. But all this was in vain, because the proximity with the instructor of the district committee of the local trade union turned out strained, painful and alienated and brought no joy to the woman.
The former commander went mad with jealousy, woke the children. In a word, there was a scandal. Ivanov immediately wanted to leave, but his wife told him that she loved only him, and only with him could she be happy.
The time has come for the second “emotional explosion” in the composition. With great skill Platonov described it. “Return” (a very brief summary also allows you to feel it) is like a swing: up and down.
Courage Parsley
Then in a conversation between parents, Peter meets and tells his father a story about how one servant, returning from the front and learning about the betrayal of his wife in order to preserve the love between them, invented the countless mistresses that he supposedly had at the front. They make up with his wife. Nothing brings people closer than general infidelity and gratitude for removing guilt from the soul . This soldier, of course, invented everything, and told people like this: in the war he only thought about how to destroy the “fascist plague”, and he only had the strength to love his Motherland and Fatherland.
Here is such an instructive story. The tale of his son very much surprised Ivanov, but he did not change his decision and left for the station in the morning. Ivanov decided to return to young Masha and start all over again.
The work (summary) of Platonov's “Return” in this place is extremely touching. The reader is touched not only by the courage of the old soldier, but also by the courage of Petka, who decided to speak with his father in this way and in a similar tone.
The scene at the station. Peter is a true hero of the story of A.P. Platonov
In the morning, waking up, Petya discovers that there is no one except Nastya at home. Mom went to work, and his father, apparently, went to the station. Without hesitation, Petya collects his sister, and they run to where they come and (more importantly) where the trains leave.
Ivanov is already on the train. He sees children running after the train (after some time, the captain realizes that these are his children). The one that is lame a lot more, because he has different shoes on his feet: a felt boots on one, and a galosh on the other, he drags a smaller one along with him, but he does not keep up. The larger still manages to wave to his father so that he does not leave.
For the first time in all time, A.A. Ivanov is heart-burned with true, genuine fatherly love, and he, until the train has reached full speed, throws his sack to the ground and jumps off, committing, perhaps, the most correct act in his life.
This concludes the work of the Russian classic, as well as our summary of the story. “Return” Platonov wrote with great inspiration and hard work. He is a real wizard of the Russian word.