Consider one famous play and analyze it. "Duck Hunt" (Vampilov A.V.) was created in the period from 1965 to 1967. This time in the life of the playwright was extremely important, crucial, intense and vibrant. He was born as an artist. At this time, I fully felt the Vampils' own poetic power (Duck Hunt). The analysis summarized in this article will help you better understand this challenging play.
Three layers in the work
The work is complex, original, its structure is sophisticated. This is a play in memory. Acceptance of their use as a special form of dramatic narrative in the 60s was very common. As the analysis shows, “Duck Hunting” (Vampilov) consists of three layers: a layer of the present, memories, and an intermediate, boundary layer of visions.
In the bed of memories there are several rather intense storylines. The main character has an affair with a girl who falls in love with him. Finding treason, the wife leaves. When, it seems, nothing prevents Zilov from reuniting with his young lover, he suddenly gets heavily drunk and scandals, insulting the girl and friends.
In parallel, another plot develops. Zilov gets a new apartment. He "brings" with his former girlfriend his boss. This girl at the same time has an affair with another friend of Zilov. The main character has trouble at work - he slipped a fake report to his superiors. A fellow friend betrayed him, evading responsibility for what he had done. As you can see, this layer is full of events. Nevertheless, he does not carry much drama in himself.
The plot of memories is unusually varied with everyday details. The hero dies his father, whom he had not seen for a long time, Zilov’s wife has an affair with his former fellow practitioner. Finally, the main character dreams of duck hunting.
Another layer of action is a layer of visions of the hero, who wonders how his colleagues, friends, and girlfriends will react to the news of his death. At first he imagines it to himself, and then she seems to him inevitable. This layer consists of 2 interludes. Their text, except for two or three phrases, almost completely coincides verbally. Nevertheless, they are completely opposite in emotional sign. In the first case, the death scene, which the hero imagines, is comic, and in the second in her tone, in the mood there is not a shadow of a smile. The drama, therefore, develops between a half-joking plan to commit suicide, which is inspired by the "original" gift of Kuzakov and Sayapin, and an attempt to implement this plan seriously.
The Confessional Character of the Play
We continue the analysis. "Duck Hunt" (Vampilov) - a work that has a confessional character. The work is built as a confession, lasting throughout the play. It presents in retrospective sequence the life of the hero - from events two months ago to today. The conflict in the work is not external, but internal - moral, lyrical. Tragedy intensifies as the memories of the hero and their awareness in the present approach in time.
Zilov's memoirs make up a complete, comprehensive, whole picture. They lack a causal relationship, despite their coherence. They are motivated by external impulses.
Main character
The main character is Victor Zilov in the play "Duck Hunt" (Vampilov). Analysis of the work is largely based on the worldview of this hero. The events of the play we observe precisely through the prism of Zilov's memories. Many of them occur in 1.5 months of his life. Their apogee is the funeral wreath, which friends gave to the “hero of his time”, who “burned untimely” at work.
The meaning of the remarks
The author's position in the work is expressed through remarks. For drama this is traditional. Vampilov’s remarks are quite common. They make a qualitative emphasis, as, for example, in the case of Irina: in heroine, the main feature is sincerity. Remarks tell the director how to interpret this or that hero.
The role of dialogue in the expression of the author's position
An analysis of A. V. Vampilov’s play “Duck Hunt” would be incomplete if we had not noted the significance of the dialogues. They also traced the author's attitude to the characters. Estimated performance here gives mainly Zilov. This cynic and unpredictable frivolous citizen is allowed a lot, as the jesters were allowed at all times. Even closest friends joke and laugh at Zilov for good reason, sometimes very evil. His environment has different feelings for this hero, but not friendly. This is jealousy, hatred, envy. And Victor deserved them just as much as anyone can deserve.
Mask of zilov
When guests ask Zilov what he loves the most, he does not know what to answer. However, friends (like the state, party, society) know better than him - most of all Zilov loves hunting. One artistic detail emphasizes the tragicomism of the situation (the whole play abounds in such details). Until the end of his memories, Zilov does not remove his hunting accessories like a mask. The leitmotif of the mask in the work of this author does not appear in Duck Hunt for the first time. We see a similar trick in earlier plays (The Story with a Metrange, Elder Son). Vampil characters often resort to shortcuts, since hanging them frees them from thoughts and the need for decision-making.
Duck hunting in the life of the protagonist
For Victor, duck hunting is the embodiment of freedom and dreams. It has been assembled a month before the coveted day and is waiting for the hunt as the beginning of a new life, deliverance, a period for respite. On the one hand, this is an introduction to nature, which is so valuable to modern man. At the same time, hunting is one of the most monstrous symbols of murder, which culture does not take into account. This is a murder legitimized by civilization, which is elevated to the rank of entertainment, and respectable. The dual essence of hunting is an introduction to a pure, eternal natural principle, purification through it, and murder is realized in a play. All action permeates the theme of death.
For Zilov, hunting is the only moment in the life of the spirit. This is an opportunity to break away from everyday life, everyday life, vanity, laziness, lies, which he cannot overcome on his own. This is the world of a perfect dream, high and not compromised anywhere. In this world, his poor, nasty, insulting soul is good, it straightens and comes to life, uniting in a bright and united harmony with all living things.
Vampilov builds the action of the play in such a way that the Waiter is the conductor of Zilov, his constant companion to this world. His figure deprives the utopia of Zilov meaningless, high poetry, purity.
"Heroes of his time"
The work we are interested in tells about the values of the “thaw” generation, or rather, about their decay. Let us analyze Vampilov’s play “Duck Hunt” from the point of view of the characters. The tragicomic existence of the heroes of the work - the Sayapins, Gali, Kushak, Kuzakov, Vera - speaks of their insecurity and the fragility of the surrounding reality, which would seem to be determined by society forever. In the character system there is no division into positive and negative. There is Dima, self-confident, Zilov, suffering from the injustice of life, provoking Vera and Kushak, abiding in eternal fear. There are unhappy people whose life for some reason did not work out.
When analyzing the play "Duck Hunt" by Vampilov, the author’s personality should be taken into account. Vampilov is the last romantic of Russian drama of the Soviet period. He formed as a person in the second half of the 50s. At this time, the goals, slogans, ideals, and aspirations of society, themselves quite humane, seemed to begin to unite with real life just about, would gain meaning and weight in it. Vampilov worked when the process of separation of values proclaimed everywhere and real life began in society. The terrible thing was not that the meaning of ideals was destroyed in this way, but that the meaning of morality as such was destroyed. Vampilov was the son of time that gave birth to him. He longed to know where to go, how he lives, how to live. He needed to give answers to these questions for himself, and he was the first of the playwrights to see that life had come to the last line. And behind her, these questions do not already have the usual answer.
Vampilov is a master of open finals. An analysis of Vampilov’s play “Duck Hunt” shows that this work also ends ambiguously. We will never know whether the protagonist laughs or cries in the last scene.
True time
We are used to using the expression "truth of character", meaning by it what the writer did not falsify in anything, did not conceal anything, portrayed a certain social type that has developed in reality. Reading the play created by Alexander Vampilov (“Duck Hunt”), analyzing it, you can feel pity for a man whose “truth” turned out to be too defenseless. As a rule, talking about morality is boring. The author of the work was not able to be boring. All his plays, including Duck Hunt, are characterized by the tension of the inner world of the protagonist. The work makes us think about life itself, and not just about art and literature. The author wanted to understand the basic laws called the truth of time. We note one more thought, completing the analysis. "Duck Hunt" (Vampilov) - a work that spawned the rhythm of time. He lives inside, and not outside of each of us, so the appearance of "heroes of his time" is natural.
This concludes our analysis of Vampilov’s play “Duck Hunt”. A short work - and so much sense! You can talk about this play for a long time, revealing more and more of its features.