The book “The Last Bow” by the Soviet writer Viktor Astafyev is a story in stories that is folk in nature, consisting of compassion, conscience, duty and beauty. The story involves many heroes, but the main ones are the grandmother and her grandson. The orphaned boy Vitya lives with his grandmother Katerina Petrovna, who has become a generalized image of all Russian grandmothers, the embodiment of love, kindness, care, morality and sincere warmth. And at the same time, she was a strict and sometimes even harsh woman. Sometimes she could make fun of her grandson, but nevertheless she loved him very much and cared for him infinitely.
Values ​​instilled in childhood
True friendship is the most precious and very rare reward for a person, Astafiev believed. “A photograph in which I am not” is a story in which the writer wanted to show how the hero relates to his friends. For the author, this was important. After all, friendship is sometimes stronger than family ties.
The story “A photograph in which I am not present” is presented as a separate part in the story “Last Bow”. In it, the author depicted all the exciting moments of his childhood.
To do an analysis of the story, you need to read the summary.
"A photograph in which I am not": the plot
The plot tells that one day a photographer specially came to the village from the city to photograph school students. The children immediately began to think how and where to get up. They decided that diligent good guys should sit in the foreground, those who study satisfactorily in the middle, and the bad ones should be put behind.
Vitka and his bosom friend Sanka, in theory, should have stood behind, since they did not differ in diligent study and, moreover, in behavior. To prove to everyone that they are completely abnormal people, the boys went to ride in the snow from a cliff that no normal person would ever have. As a result, falling out in the snow, they scattered home. The reckoning for such ardor did not take long, and in the evening Vitka's legs hurt.
Grandmother independently diagnosed him with "rheumatism." The boy could not stand up, howled and moaned in pain. Katerina Petrovna was very angry with her grandson and wailed: "I told you, do not go to school!" However, she immediately went for medicine.
Although the grandmother grumbles at her grandson and mimics him, she treats him with great tenderness and strong affection. After giving him a crack, she begins to rub her grandson's feet with ammonia for a long time. Katerina Petrovna deeply sympathizes with him, since he is an orphan: his mother, by fateful accident, drowned in a river, and her father had already formed another family in the city.
friendship
So the summary began. “A photograph in which I am not there”, as a literary work, tells that because of his illness, the boy, Victor, nevertheless misses one of the most important events - photographing with the class. He regrets it very much, meanwhile his grandmother consoles his grandson and says that as soon as he gets well they will go to the city to the "best" photographer Volkov, and he will take any pictures, at least for a portrait, at least for a patchport, though on the Yeroplane, even on a horse, at least on something.
And here the plot approaches the most important moment. The summary (“The photograph in which I am not there”) describes that a friend of Vitka Sanka comes for another in the morning and sees that he cannot stand on his feet, and then he instantly decides not to go take pictures either. Sanka acts as a true friend who does not want to upset Vitka even more and therefore also misses this event. Even though Sanka was getting ready and put on a new quilted jacket, he began to reassure Vitka that it was not the last time the photographer came to them, and the next time they would be shot.
“A photograph in which I am not”: recall and analysis
Although the friendship of village boys is considered here at a very children's level, this episode will affect the development of the personality of the hero. In the future, he will be very important: not only his grandmother's upbringing and care influenced his attitude to the world, but also respectable relations with friends.
The work “A photograph in which I am not present” reveals the image of true Russian grandmothers, how they lived in their villages, kept their households, decorated and insulated their windows with moss, because it “dampens in”, put a corner so that the glass does not freeze, and mountain ash hung from fumes. They judged by the window which hostess lives in the house.
Teacher
Vitya did not go to school for more than a week. Once a teacher came to them and brought a photograph. Katerina Petrovna met him with great cordiality and hospitality, talked sweetly, offered tea and put on the table the treats that can only be in the village: “cranberries”, “lampaseyki” (candy cans), city gingerbread cookies and drying.
The teacher in their village was the most respected person, because he taught children to read and write, and also helped local residents write the necessary letters and documents. For such benevolence, people helped him to look after his child with wood, milk, and grandmother Ekaterina Petrovna spoke to her baby navel.
Conclusion
Here on this, perhaps, you can finish the summary. “A photograph in which I am not present” is a small-sized story that helps the reader to better understand the images of the main characters, to see their moral souls, priorities and life values.
In addition, we understand how important photography is for these people, because it makes up a kind of chronicle and the wall history of the Russian people. And no matter how ridiculous, sometimes ridiculous and pompous these old photographs may be, there is still no desire to laugh at them, you just want to smile, because you understand that many of those who posed went to war, defending their land.
Astafyev writes that the house in which his school was located and against which a photograph was taken was built by his great-grandfather, dispossessed by the Bolsheviks. Families of the dispossessed at that time were expelled directly onto the street, but relatives did not allow them to die, and they settled in other people's homes.
That's about all this and tried to write in his work Astafiev. “The photograph in which I am not” is a small episode from the life of a writer and of all simple, but truly great people.