History of creation
The fairy tale “The Pantry of the Sun” was written in about a month and completed in early June 1945. Prishvin took part in the competition for the best book for children, announced by the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR. Prishvin won the competition, and the work was published in the magazine “October” No. 7 for 1945.
From 1941 to 1945 Prishvin was evacuated to the village of Usolye, Yaroslavl region, where he protested against deforestation by peat miners. There he observed the life of orphans, ten-year-old Sonya and eleven-year-old Bori, who successfully managed the household. They became the prototypes of 12-year-old Nastya and 10-year-old Mitrasha.
Prishvin did not have a clear plan, initially intending to describe how the children quarreled in the forest and went to collect cranberries along different paths. The further plot developed by itself during the writing process.
Prishvin thought about the name for a long time. Either he wanted to name the story by the nicknames of the main characters (“The Golden Hen and the Little Man in the Pouch”), by their relationships (“Friends”), then by the location of the action (“Path of Tests,” “Fornication Swamp”), or by the issue (“Friends”). Pravda Antipych", "Friend of Man"). The metaphor “Pantry of the Sun” was not invented by Prishvin. He found this exact expression in a study about swamps, where they were called so because they stored solar fire and heat contained in plants.
Example 2
Why were fairy tales invented? To teach children the difference between good and evil, to show the importance of always doing the right thing. This means that Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin’s fairy tale “The Pantry of the Sun” also taught readers something good. What did this piece teach me?
This tale teaches several important things. Firstly, it shows the importance of caring for nature. The work shows the rule very clearly: nature treats people the way they treat it. Nastya and Mitrashka, for example, took care of the animals, their small herd and behaved well in the forest, so nothing happened to them; on the contrary, they helped the guys get out safe and sound. In my opinion, nature protected the children and sent a long-eared assistant, because the hare always came at the most necessary moment. Then Travka smelled the animal, ran after it and so found Nastya, who remembered her brother. Then the dog ran after the hare again and saved Mitrashka. Then the younger brother, deciding to shoot the animal, accidentally hit the Gray Landowner and thereby saved himself, his sister, and the whole village too. Moreover, the fairy tale shows not only good relationships between man and nature, but also bad ones. For example, before the raid on wolves, which was carried out by the villagers, the Gray Landowner was not so evil and bloodthirsty, but at the time of the work he frightened the entire neighborhood. Thus, the author showed that if you do not love and appreciate nature, you should not expect a good attitude towards yourself in return.
Secondly, this fairy tale teaches how important family is. Nastya and Mitrashka’s mother died of illness, their father died in the Great Patriotic War. Only they had each other, the children could only rely on themselves. The closest people in the world quarreled, and nothing good came of it: the younger brother almost drowned in a swamp while the older sister was picking cranberries. The girl almost forgot about Mitrashka, carried away by her occupation. After it was all over, Nastya realized how wrong she had been and gave all the collected berries to the children evacuated from Leningrad. The author wanted to convey to readers that it is very important to take care of your relatives, to always help them, that quarrels should not spoil relationships between people and prevent them from achieving common goals.
Thus, the fairy tale by Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin “The Pantry of the Sun” taught me to take care of nature and respect it. She also showed the importance of family relationships and love for loved ones.
Literary direction and genre
Prishvin gave the genre definition of “The Pantry of the Sun” himself, calling it a fairy tale. This is not a connection in the genre definition of two antonyms. The realist Prishvin believed that his “things” were more than fairy tales, because they “turn reality into a fairy tale.” Thus, it is written “a fairy tale contained in the categories of space and time,” “a fairy tale without Ivan Tsarevich and Baba Yaga,” “a new fairy tale that would live in real life.”
The eternal values that are glorified in fairy tales also prevail in the modern fairy tale. Prishvin considered himself a modern storyteller.
Theme, main idea and composition
This story is about the connection between man and nature, about true humanity, which makes man the king of nature, the patron of all living things on earth, a friend to all living things. The main idea is the glorification of friendship and collectivism. Of course, the idea is connected with victory in the war, which at the time the story takes place, in 1942, was only a hope. Prishvin introduces the image of friend and enemy, this is a dog, “man’s most faithful friend,” and a wolf, “his worst enemy, doomed to death by his very malice.” This is an image of the fascists, although neither them nor the military operations are mentioned in the story.
The title seems to have no connection with the theme or the main idea, but simply indicates the location of the action. But this is not so, because the sun is the friend and deity of all living things, its storehouse - dead herbs lying close to each other - is a symbol of camaraderie and even brotherhood.
The story consists of 12 parts. The first part acts as an exposition, telling about the good working life of orphaned children. The second part is the beginning. It tells how in the spring children gathered for healthy cranberries that had overwintered under the snow. Mitrasha imitates his father in everything. He takes with him a compass, decoys to attract birds, and a double-barreled shotgun. Nastya, like a mother, takes a towel for the heavy basket, yesterday’s potatoes, bread and milk.
Mitrasha dreams of finding a blood-red Palestinian, that is, an untouched clearing full of cranberries. His father told him that she was located near the Blind Elani - an insidious swamp.
In the third part, the children come to the borina (pine forest in the middle of the swamp) Zvonkaya. They choose to follow an inconspicuous path to the north. In the fourth part the tension increases. Near the Lying Stone, where the children rest, several conflicts occur between trees, showing black grouse, black grouse and ravens. They seem to provoke a quarrel between the children, who argue about the path and disperse, while all the food supplies remain with Nastya.
The fifth part is a retrospective episode about the dog Travka, who lives in a potato pit near the lodge of Antipych, who died two years ago.
The sixth chapter is also retrospective and is devoted to the fight against wolves on the Sukhaya River, the “wolf fortress.” All the wolves were shot, fencing the hunting area with flags, so that they lost their “wolf sense”. And only the Gray landowner jumped over the flags and did this five more times. Since then he has killed more sheep than the entire pack of wolves. At the beginning of spring, the Gray landowner was angry and hungry. He heard Grass howl.
In the seventh chapter, the original plot resumes. The grass followed the hare's trail to the Lying Stone and decided to follow the children's trail first, smelling that it was Nastya who had food. So one day she found Antipych in the forest with her upper nose.
The eighth chapter is the climax. Mitrasha walked along a barely noticeable path to Blind Elani and decided to shorten the path, because the human path went to the left of the compass needle. The “little man” got stuck chest-deep in the swamp and called his sister, hearing her cry. But the wind was from the girl’s direction, and she did not hear her brother. Only magpies and crows anticipated his imminent death.
In the ninth chapter, the storylines of Nastya and Mitrasha converge, just as their paths should have converged in Palestine full of berries. Nastya's greed for sour cranberries awoke, and she filled the basket full, forgetting about food and her brother.
Having lost her human appearance, the forgotten Nastya woke up only after colliding with a snake. Reaching for bread for the arriving Grass, Nastya realized how much time had passed, and in desperation she called her brother. This is the same cry that Mitrash heard in chapter 8.
In the tenth chapter, Grass, howling for Nastya’s grief, heard the fox chasing a hare, and decided to catch it from under the fox, then she drove it to the Blind Elan.
In the eleventh chapter there is another climax: in pursuit of a hare, the grass ends up next to Mitrash, who calls it by name, recognizes Antipych in him and crawls up to the boy, unwittingly helping him get out of the swamp.
In the twelfth chapter there comes a happy ending. Mitrash prepares to kill the hare, but first kills the Gray landowner, whom he encountered in the bushes. Brother and sister are dating. In the morning, fellow villagers go out in search of them, but the children return to meet them with the loot. The neighbors did not immediately believe that Mitrash killed the wolf. He turns into a hero, and two years later he becomes a tall, handsome man. And Nastya gave all her cranberries to orphans from Leningrad, suffering from her greed. At the end, the narrator reveals his identity as a scout for swamp riches.
Man's enemy or friend
In Prishvin’s work, the description of nature is done in the smallest detail. This was done in order to accurately convey the relationship between man and the inhabitants of the forest. So, when Mitrash finds himself in a swamp due to his own carelessness, everything in the world begins to change and frown, regretting such an act with him. When the boy is freed from the shackles of the quagmire, the sun begins to shine. The swamp called Blind Yelan is a real enemy for the child and all those who previously drowned in it.
Also in the text there are two self-sufficient characters from the animal world - the dog Grass and the wolf Gray Landowner. If the first is an example of friendship between people and animals, then the second author shows the true enemy of the human race.
The dog is so devoted to its owner that it cannot come to terms with his death and continues to look for Antipych’s traits in every person it meets. It was thanks to Grass that Mitrash was able to get out of the quagmire.
The wolf appears to the reader as a cunning creature that no one can catch. There are no other representatives of the family in these parts, only the Gray landowner remains.
For humans, the predator has become a real enemy. Over the summer, he alone destroyed as many cattle as his entire flock had never killed before.
The idea of this confrontation is quite understandable. The wolf and the dog come from the same species of animal. But the former are enemies of people, and the latter are devoted friends.
Heroes of the story
Nastya and Mitrash are orphans who are looked after by the entire village. Nastya is 12 years old, she looks like a Golden Hen on high legs, her hair is golden, her freckles are frequent and large, like gold coins, and her nose is clean and sticks up. Mitrasha is 2 years younger, stubborn and strong. He is short, but very dense, with a broad forehead and a wide nape. For his appearance, he received the nickname “Little Man in a Bag.” He also had a protruding nose and freckles.
From their parents, the children inherited a large farm (a cow, a heifer, a goat, sheep, chickens, a pig), and they coped with it very well. The narrator characterizes them as smart, friendly kids, ready to help with public works, so necessary during the war. The narrator treats children very warmly, like the rest of the village residents, and calls them our favorites.
The children worked tirelessly, just like adults. Nastya got up before dawn and busied herself with the housework until nightfall, fulfilling all her feminine duties. Mitrasha made wooden utensils, performed men's duties and took part in public affairs.
Mitrash is obstinate, his favorite saying is “here’s another.” But he is persistent and decides to follow the compass to the north at all costs.
The boy is smart, but he has little life experience. That is why he falls into a swamp trap, but survives not only thanks to the Grass, but also to his ingenuity. Nastya is hot-tempered, like her brother, although she is older. But she is only 12 years old, and she cannot always respond with affection to her brother’s stubbornness. Angry, she turns red as red, spits in her brother’s direction and forgets about him for the whole day. The girl is passionate about picking cranberries and fills a huge basket in a day. Nastya loses her cute appearance from greed for cranberries. She crawls around wet and dirty, the “former Golden Hen.” When Nastya woke up, she repented of her greed. And the transfer of cranberries to orphans from Leningrad was atonement for her misdeed, although no one except the narrator condemned her.
The dog Travka is a full-fledged hero of the story. She is endowed with a human soul. She had a grief, a terrible misfortune - the death of her owner. Grass is a red hound dog with a black strap across the back and black stripes under the eyes with a curve like glasses.
Grass, according to Antipych, understands everything better than people. The meaning of Travka’s life is to work for the owner; for him she caught hares. And after his death, the dog often forgot and brought hares to Antipych’s destroyed guardhouse.
For Travka, all of humanity was Antipych, only with different faces. With her howl, Grass called Antipych to her, it was a prayer for a person. Both brother and sister mispronounce her name. Nastya, by association, calls her Muravka, and Mitrasha calls her real name Zatravka, from which the beginning has disappeared. The grass responds to any of the names, just as it sees Antipych or his enemy in every person. She finds her owner, young Antipych - Mitrasha.
Antipych is like a magical sage. His age is unknown to anyone (more than 80 years and less than 100). It seemed to the narrator that Antipych would never die. Antipych is the keeper of the truth. The narrator is trying to find out this secret from him. But Antipych does not say where the truth is, but promises to whisper in the grass’s ear before his death. In Chapter 11, Prishvin realizes that this is the truth of the eternal struggle of people for love.
The story is written in the first person plural (we). This is a rare form of storytelling associated with the idea of the superiority of the collective over the individual.
Example 1
M. M. Prishvin is a wonderful writer, creator of various stories for children. The fairy tale “The Pantry of the Sun” is one of his most striking works, which is a storehouse of interesting and instructive information. We see how the author describes the beauty of his native land, the relationships between people, as well as the relationship of man to nature.
The heroes of the story are a brother and sister who were orphaned during the Patriotic War. All worries about the household fall on their fragile children's shoulders. However, the children do not give up and get to work. The author thereby teaches us that we should not be afraid to work, even if it is difficult, and then everything will work out. One day, the children go to the forest to pick cranberries, but when they have to choose whether to follow a beaten path or a hidden one, Mitrosha is stubborn and doesn’t want to go where everyone else goes, because there won’t be any berries in that place. Nastya, on the contrary, is afraid of getting lost in an unknown place. As a result, the guys disperse. Because of his stubbornness, Mitrosha ended up in a swamp. The boy was lucky that the dog Travka, whose owner died, lived in the forest and sensed human misfortune. She helped Mitrosha get out of the trap. And if the children had immediately agreed with each other, then the trouble would not have happened. Prishvin wants to convince us that we need to be able to find a compromise, try to listen to each other, and then many problems can be avoided. We, of course, understand that children are just children; it is difficult for them to restrain themselves from excitement and pretend that they know everything better than anyone else. After all, even adults sometimes forget themselves and can start arguing. However, you should always try to maintain clarity of thought, because otherwise you can get into trouble.
The heroes nevertheless showed ingenuity, which helped them get out of trouble. The dog Travka mistook the boy for young Antipych, her former owner, which Mitrosha successfully took advantage of. We see that man treated the animal kindly for many years, and even after the owner passed away, the dog looked for him in every person. The animal was used to helping people, and therefore sensed trouble when the boy fell into a swamp. We must try to treat animals and nature with care, and then they will answer us in kind.
We, city residents, find it very interesting and informative to read such stories. We see a moose and a snake and travel through the forest in search of berries. The author describes the forest, the trees that grow there, the behavior of animals in such detail that we also want to be in the place of the heroes and breathe in the clean rural air. Prishvin is trying to convey to us his love for nature and wants us to also imbue this feeling and try to be more careful about the environment.
