“Feast during the Plague” is a play by A. S. Pushkin, where questions about the meaning of a person’s life, his personal dignity and honor are directly posed. The situation described in this play is emphasized conditionally. The action takes place during a plague - a disaster that a person cannot resist, from whom there is neither salvation nor the ability to escape.
The beginning of the poem
A company is going to feast at one table - this is where the Feast During the Plague begins. The analysis of the poem made by the student must necessarily contain a description of the main scene, as well as a description of the main characters.
Both ladies and gentlemen are present. One of the guests addresses the leader of the party named Walsingham, recalling a friend named Jackson, whose funny jokes have always pleased others, even among the hopelessness into which the city plunged after the outbreak of the plague. But now Jackson is dead, and his friend offers to raise glasses in his honor, imagining for a moment that Jackson can be alive. The party chairman agrees to do so in silence, all the guests raise their glasses and remember the friend who died first.
Mary song
The young girl Mary is one of the main characters of the feast during the Plague. Analysis of the poem will be incomplete without a description of this character. She begins to sing a song in which she recalls her native land. On behalf of her main character, Jenny, the girl asks her lover to leave the region where the epidemic is rampant. She will be watching him from heaven.
Walsingham expresses gratitude to the girl for the song, but here another guest intervenes - Louise, and begins to criticize Mary and her song. Walsingham is interrupted by Louise's stinging speeches, and a noise is heard from the road. A wagon full of dead bodies is shown. Louise faints. Mary tries to reassure her, and Louise says she saw a terrible demon who calls people into a wagon. Louise does not understand whether everything happened in reality or if it was all just a vision.
Walsingham and the priest
The young guest asks Walsingham that the other participants in the feast no longer sing sad songs. The feast president performs the plague anthem, which he himself composed. During the feast, the priest appears and begins to accuse its participants of blasphemy. He begs to interrupt the action and honor the memory of the dead in silence. If young people want to see their family in heaven, then they better go home, says the clergyman.
The chairman of the Walsingham party objects to him, because young hearts want fun and joy that are no longer at home. To this, the priest reminds him that recently he said goodbye to his mother. Walsingham does not want to follow him and answers the priest that he sees the spirit of his wife in a place where his soul will never be. He begs the priest to leave the hall, and he plunges into painful thoughts.
Fun while suffering: inner drama
The analysis of the “Feast during the Plague” must necessarily include the question: what brought completely different people to this feast, and what is it really? Perhaps real blasphemy, or perhaps an attempt to exalt the human spirit in the face of death?
All participants of the feast have fun in the midst of terrible grief. Close people die, a wagon with the bodies of the dead rides, but the feast continues. The external dramatic effect is rather weakened in Pushkin's work “Feast during the Plague”. Analysis of the play must include this fact. Despite the tension of the heroes and their conflicts, they do not perform any actions that could somehow affect the situation. All drama is transferred to their inner world.
Motives of the guests of the feast
In the analysis of “Feast during the Plague”, it is also necessary to indicate that all participants in this gathering have completely different motives that made them come to the feast. For example, a young man comes in order to forget himself in the bacchanalia of feast and drunkenness. Twice he asks Walsingham for fun and glee. A feast for this guest is just a means by which he may not think about the fact that in the future he will find the terrible darkness of the grave. The motives of his rebellion are emotional and devoid of conscious strength.
Louise comes to the feast for fear of being alone. She needs someone nearby to lean on this person, because internally she is completely not ready to fight death. Through her cynicism and caustic monologues fear emerges. This is also worth pointing out in the Feast During the Plague analysis. This was immediately understood by the chairman of the feast, Walsingham: only at first glance it seemed to him that Louise had a "male heart", but in reality fear was hidden behind her speeches.
Only Mary and Walsingham alone find the strength to withstand disaster, to meet death with dignity. Mary’s song reflects how her people relate to adversity. The ideal that is affirmed in it is a rejection of oneself and one's personal happiness in the name of another person. The stronger love is, the greater is self-sacrifice. The description of the song should definitely be included in the analysis of “Feast during the Plague” to get a good grade.
The greatness of the human spirit
However, in Mary’s song only self-denial sounds, an attempt to atone for her sins. Only one Walsingham challenges death itself. In the solemn hymn, the chairman of the feast contrasts danger with his unbending will. The more formidable the catastrophe, the more strongly a person resists it. In the guise of the Plague and Winter, the great poet glorifies not death, but a person who is able to withstand it.
This is the main idea that should be indicated in the analysis of "Feast during the Plague" by Pushkin. Indeed, according to the great poet, the “mortal heart” in terrible moments of danger gains immortality. If Mary sings a song of self-denial in honor of another person, then Walsingham's anthem is dedicated to the struggle of a lonely person against death.
Walsingham Anthem
A brief analysis of The Feast During the Plague should include a description of the fact that the great poet put this song in the heart of a fallen man. Walsingam is the most vulnerable and unprotected among all guests. He is more shocked than others and is in deep despair. Just like Mary, he repents that he is holding this blasphemous feast. He is far from being the winner that may appear in his hymn. Walsingham's mind is defeated.
The image of a priest
Also in the analysis of the play “Feast during the Plague” it is worth mentioning how the poet portrayed the priest. Despite the fact that he does not manage to achieve his goal and stop the feast, nevertheless, the words of the clergy reach the heart of Walsingham. Singing a worthy death, he fenced himself off from the misfortunes of other people, while the priest, forgetting about himself, tries to strengthen the spirit of the dying. He goes to people to calm their souls, to prepare for a meeting with Heaven. But this position does not in any way abolish the heroism of Walsingham, who glorifies the spiritual courage of an ordinary, earthly man with his hymn. The difference between the chairman of the feast and the priest is that Walsingham's heroism is aimed at the guests of the feast and himself. While the priest believes that in the terrible days of the epidemic, he should serve his people unaccountably. If Walsingham is trying to defend the inner possibilities of the human spirit, then the clergyman relies on the continuity of traditions.
Questions posed by the great poet in the play
The impossibility of the unity of personal interests and the interests of society is one of the main problems posed by Pushkin in "Feast during the Plague." Already at that time, the great poet understood that this unity could not be achieved, despite the fact that this task was posed by history itself.
Pushkin did not know whether humanity could achieve this harmony in the future. That is why his play is addressed, first of all, tomorrow. The chairman, who plunges into a state of deep thought, is the embodiment of instability, a person’s lostness. The poet raises the question of whether it is possible to bridge the gap between lonely heroism and service to the world. Walsingham is no longer involved in the feast - his mind is enlightened. So the great poet sought to appeal to a brighter consciousness, to the triumph of man’s moral responsibility for his actions.