The work is an essay by a 6th grade student. It examines the image of the story "Mumu", the meaning of the name, the history of creation. The work is supplemented by a presentation
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"Mu Mu"
I.S. Turgenev is a great Russian writer originally from the Oryol province. His work had a great influence on the development of all Russian literature.
"Mumu" is one of his stories, written in 1852. It is based on the events that really took place in the house of the writer’s mother, Varvara Petrovna. The story itself is connected with the abolition of serfdom in Rus', and Gerasim, the main character, is a symbol of the mute, as well as the peasants who have nothing, with a difficult and powerless fate.
Gerasim is one of the numerous servants; he stood out from the rest. Previously, he lived in the village and worked in the field, but then he was taken to work in Moscow as a janitor, but living in the capital, Gerasim was very homesick for his native place.
“...A man twelve inches tall, built like a hero and deaf and dumb from birth... Gifted with extraordinary strength, he worked for four - the matter was in his hands...”.
At first he did not like the lady’s decision to make him a janitor, but soon he got used to his daily duties, living in a closet and was generally satisfied with his life.
The lady is the second main character of the story. Being a power-hungry widow, she lived out her last years of old age in Moscow, surrounded by servants and servants, one of whom was Gerasim.
“Her day, joyful and stormy, has long passed; but the evening was blacker than the night... The old lady, with whom he lived as a janitor, followed ancient customs in everything and kept a large servant"...
Among the lady's servants there was a shoemaker named Kapiton Klimov. In society, he was known as a bitter drunkard with inflated self-esteem. He is Gerasim's rival in matters of the heart, since the lady decides to marry the shoemaker to Tatyana, a thin, blond girl with an unhappy life, who has the position of a laundress and has won the heart of the janitor Gerasim. The courtship of the janitor is clumsy and shy, the matter did not move, and the lady was really looking forward to the wedding, which she herself had planned, and in the end Tatyana nevertheless married Klimov, thanks to the machinations and cunning of the butler Gavrila, another bright character in this story. The lady's hopes that the shoemaker would stop drinking after his marriage were not justified, and he and his wife were sent to the village.
Trying to catch up with Tatyana to say goodbye and give her a gift he had bought long ago, Gerasim changed his mind halfway, and, returning, saw a drowning puppy in the river. He saved the unfortunate dog, took it to his closet and surrounded it with love and care, thereby distracting him from the pain of separation from his beloved. Since Gerasim is deaf and mute, the dog received the name Mumu and over time turned into “a very sweet dog of the Spanish breed, with long ears, a fluffy tail in the shape of a trumpet and large expressive eyes.” She was his faithful and devoted friend, accompanied Gerasim everywhere, guarded the yard at night and was very quiet, not barking in vain.
Having not known about Mumu for much time, the lady ordered to bring her to her. But the bad attitude of the dog towards the lady influenced the attitude of the mistress of the house not only towards Mumu, but also towards Gerasim, and with the help of cunning she managed to convince her servant to get rid of the dog, although everyone in the house had already become attached to Mumu.
The servant tried to sell the dog, but it returned to Gerasim with a piece of rope around its neck, and the janitor hid it. But the lady threw a tantrum, since her order was not carried out, so the butler, who was already to some extent responsible for the fact that Gerasim lost his beloved Tatyana, had no choice but to explain the lady’s order to the janitor with gestures. Gerasim, with a heavy heart, fed Mumu a delicious dinner for the last time, said goodbye to her, swam out to the middle of the river, and drowned her.
"G Erasim heard nothing, neither the quick squeal of the falling Mumu, nor the heavy splash of water; for him the noisiest day was silent and soundless, just as not even the quietest night is soundless for us.”
After carrying out such a cruel order from the lady, Gerasim packed his things and returned on foot to his native village, where the headman gladly received him. The lady looked for him for a long time, but when she found him, she considered him ungrateful and changed her mind about sending him back to Moscow. And Gerasim remained to live in the village as a “bob”, alone, in a dilapidated hut, not even looking at women and not having any more dogs.
The author chose this ending due to the fact that Gerasim wanted to get rid of the pressure of the cruel lady and return to his own region, to his homeland, where he could be appreciated. But in order to finally get rid of the memories of Moscow, of the ill-fated request of the mistress and of all the misfortunes that had accompanied him since the beginning of his stay in the capital, he drowned his beloved dog, saying goodbye to his only friend. In the person of the lady, Turgenev condemned all those who kept serfs and considered themselves the right to dispose of human destinies at their own discretion. And Gerasim is also a person, at first glance, without rights and even defective, since he is deaf and dumb, but he did not forget the feeling of freedom that he had when he lived in the village. And as a result of great heart losses, the main character of the story still regains his freedom, personifying the entire Russian people.
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I.S. Turgenev “Mumu”
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is a great Russian poet, originally from the Oryol province.
He had a great influence on the development of Russian literature.
- “Mumu” is a story by Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, written in 1852. According to researchers, the work is based on real events that took place in the Moscow house of the writer’s mother, Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva.
- First published in Sovremennik magazine in 1854
- “...a man twelve inches tall, built like a hero and deaf and dumb from birth.”
- “Gifted with extraordinary strength, he worked for four people - the matter was in his hands...”
- The lady is the second main character of the story.
- Being a power-hungry widow, she lives out her last years of old age in Moscow, surrounded by servants and servants, one of whom was Gerasim.
- “Her day, joyful and stormy, has long passed; but the evening was blacker than night.”
- “The old lady, with whom he lived as a janitor, followed ancient customs in everything and kept numerous servants: in her house there were not only laundresses, seamstresses, carpenters, tailors and seamstresses, there was even one saddler...”
- The dog’s bad attitude towards the old woman influenced her attitude not only towards Mumu, but also towards Gerasim.
- With the help of cunning, the lady manages to convince her servants to get rid of the dog.
- The people in the yard were unable to remove Mumu on their own, so Gerasim decides to take the most difficult step in his life.
- Having sailed a long distance from the city, he drowns the dog in the river.
The genre of this work is short story. The beginning. The deaf and mute Gerasim was brought to Moscow from the village. He became the lady's janitor. Development of action. The mistress's tyranny breaks Gerasim's fate. First, the peasant is torn from the land, brought to the city, forced to do work alien to him. Then, at the whim of the lady, Tatyana, who fell in love with Gerasim, is married off to the drunkard Kapiton. In the end, Gerasim is deprived of his only dear creature - Mumu. Climax. The lady ordered the dog to be removed from the yard. Denouement. Gerasim carried out the lady’s order, drowned Mumu in the river and went back to the village.
Before coming to the city, Gerasim lived in the village, doing hard peasant labor. This work not only fed him, but also gave him pleasure. He, “as if by himself, without the help of a horse,” easily plowed the stubborn soil and generally resembled a hero. The lifestyle change is not encouraging. Turgenev, with the help of images of nature, explains how difficult his new position is for Gerasim. Either the hero of the story looks like a bull, which is being taken to an unknown destination, and with all his power and strength he is unable to change his life, then he lies for hours in the courtyard of the manor's house face down, like a captured animal. The description of the interior of his closet also helps to understand Gerasim’s character: a “truly heroic bed” on four blocks, a small but very durable table, a three-legged chair - everything was made by him himself. Gerasim smiles, seeing that the chair does not lose its stability even after hitting the ground.
The hero of the story is a serf peasant, the property of a lady. This fact is very important for its characteristics. He is obliged to bring benefit to his mistress and not bother her with any of his desires. His attention to Tatyana, a laundress from a large household, is not at all interesting to his mistress.
Gerasim distinguishes Tatyana from everyone around him because with his heart he knows how to guess those who may need his help and protection.
Gerasim's love for the unfortunate rescued puppy, found on the day of separation from Tatyana, arises immediately and for a long time. Having arranged his find, Gerasim fell asleep in some very light, happy sleep. Mumu responds to Gerasim with attention and love.
Why does Gerasim still carry out the will of the quarrelsome lady? He is a forced man and, like any serf, must unquestioningly carry out the master’s orders. He cannot even marry according to his choice. Having carried out the order to kill Mumu, he lost the last thing that was dear to him. Gerasim rebels, leaves the city, leaves his lady, and returns to his native village. This is a strong-willed act of a brave and determined person. The image of Gerasim embodies the idea that self-esteem is inherent in a person, regardless of his origin, this image is imbued with the author’s sympathy.
The lady is a quarrelsome, headstrong, domineering woman. Whims, mood swings, and tyranny guide her actions. For the sake of entertainment, she decides to start a wedding between Tatiana and Kapiton, and when she sees that nothing came of this idea, she sends them out of sight. Interest in Mumu gives way to anger and a desire to get rid of her. The lady considers herself to have the right to
control other people's destinies. Any single life means nothing to her. Fortunately for Gerasim, she regarded his departure only as ingratitude and did not search for the fugitive and initiate justice.
Observing the fate of the heroes of the story, one can imagine the life of serfs in Russia at that time. Turgenev shows that serfdom disfigures not only peasants and servants, but also the masters themselves. Gerasim's deaf-muteness is not only his own flaw. This is a sign of the inability to express oneself, to be heard.
Everyone knows that the plot of “Mumu” has a real source: this story took place on Lutovinov’s estate; the heroes, Gerasim and Kapiton, were not invented. The lady was immediately recognizable as Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova, who so subtly knew how to torment her serfs. However, the meaning of what is told in “Mumu” significantly exceeds both the content of the plot of the work and Lutovinov’s story itself about the janitor Andrei and his dog.
Turgenev's story was immediately perceived as anti-serfdom. Critics wrote that although its plot is “insignificant,” it makes a strong, stunning impression.
At the same time, some researchers believe that the story contains a broader problem area than the sphere of purely social conflict of the era of serfdom. In particular, S. Brover connects the image of Gerasim with characters from Christian mythology and Russian folklore. By the way, note that Iv. Aksakov, reflecting on Gerasim, wrote that in Turgenev’s character “one can hear... the presence of another, deep thought that lies beyond the scope of the work and is not exhausted by the work.”
How does Gerasim first appear before the reader? He is strong and tall. An inch is 4.45 centimeters. But when in Russian folk speech they talk about height in vershoks, they add them to 2 arshins (arshin - 71.1 cm). Consequently, Gerasim’s height turns out to be 1.95 m, which, of course, is surprising, but still really possible.
Turgenev’s use of popular speech in calculating the hero’s height is quite organic. His Gerasim is a peasant, a plowman. It is appropriate to talk about it in popular language. The author’s depiction of the plowman hero as a two-meter-tall giant is also appropriate. The Slavic tradition is characterized by the exaltation of peasant labor, and with it the image of the farmer.
Previously, his huge palms “leaned” on the plow, his strong hands held a scythe, which he wielded crushingly, and a three-yard flail. Now he has a broom and a shovel in his hands, a symbol of the boring prose of urban civilization (S. Brover).
For Gerasim, who took a broom and shovel in his hands, boredom really becomes an unrelenting companion, since Gerasim’s classes in his new position seemed to him a joke after the hard peasant work; in half an hour everything was ready.
The new position is also boring for him because everything associated with it is imposed labor, made a duty. While hard peasant work, organic to someone born for the land (that’s why Gerasim the Plowman was given heroic strength), gives him true joy.
It was eternal (“tireless”) joyful work in the open air, on a vast land. Nothing hampered the plowman’s movements (no sheepskin coats or caftans!) and he, like a hero, “cut up” with a plow huge chunks of earth, smelling of herbs, mowed with a flourish, and “non-stop” threshed.
In the city, Gerasim is doomed to monotonous activities that do not correspond to his ideas about work (hence the boredom!): keeping the yard clean,” “bringing a barrel of water twice a day,” “carrying and chopping wood for the kitchen and home,” “Don’t let strangers in and keep watch at night.”
It should be emphasized that in the enclosed space of the hero’s city life, an exceptionally defined movement (back and forth) prevails, while the natural cycle (spring-summer-autumn) does not make peasant life monotonous. This especially confirms the spirituality of Gerasim’s activities.
The lady is a capricious, selfish creature. But at the same time, she is unusually pitiful, if only because she cannot influence much of what is happening in her house, for example, reason with the drunkard Capiton. Gavrila and the housekeeper rob her mercilessly; the lady’s servants are deceitful and lazy. And its power is manifested exclusively in whims and pitiful quirks, but which nevertheless distort the destinies of people.
Endowed with power, a pitiful creature is capable of imposing its own will on others: dooming a girl to a hopeless life with a drunkard, turning a giant, a hero into a janitor, and servants into a crowd of slaves (you can steal from the owner, but still remain his slave)...
Someone else's will not only makes a person powerless. Being a principle unnatural to human nature, it is capable of deforming the qualities of his soul.
The closeness and isolation of Gerasimov’s new life brings him, always alienated by his misfortune from the community of people, face to face with those who are called servants in the manor’s house.
And yet why is Gerasim the most remarkable person in the lady’s courtyard environment? To answer this question, it is necessary to draw up a “collective portrait” of the old lady’s servants.
Everyone who was familiar with V.P. Lutovinova and her estate in Spassky could confirm the documentary basis of the picture of courtyard life in the story “Mumu”. Like the writer’s mother (there were up to several dozen families of housekeepers in Spassky), the old lady kept a “numerous” servant: laundresses, seamstresses, carpenters, tailors and seamstresses, a saddler, maids, a shoemaker, the lady’s house doctor, “who constantly brought the lady cherry laurel drops” ( These drops were also used by the family doctor Varvara Petrovna).
As for the atmosphere in the old lady’s house, here, as in Spassky, everything was trembling, moving, fussing, disingenuous, catching signs of approval or anger. And, really, there was a reason. Like Varvara Petrovna, the old lady loved to test her servants for devotion and obedience, while performing a whole theatrical performance: Gerasim is a hard worker; it is labor that constitutes the content of his life both in the village and in the city. The servants are depicted by Turgenev as idle. In the story, the house servants are never shown working; they drink, sleep, gossip, hang around the yard, keep an eye on Gerasim and that’s all. In this regard, the image of the courtyard Broshka, with no specific occupation at all, is clear. The lady considered him a gardener. However, the remark of the butler Gavrila is noteworthy when he instructs Broshka to guard the entrance to Gerasim’s closet: “...What should you do? Take a stick and sit here...” - confirming the absolute inaction of this servant at the lady’s court. The only exception to the rule of idleness established by the servants is Tatyana, who worked for two. It would not be superfluous to emphasize that in this too she is a kindred spirit to Gerasim (in the village he worked for four and in the city he diligently fulfilled... his duty).
It is also significant that even the craftsmen from among the master’s household are either drunkards (like the shoemaker Kapiton Klimov) or do not know how to do their job, like, for example, the house doctor Khariton.
But, of course, the drunken shoemaker Kapiton, who considered himself a creature “offended and not appreciated at his true worth,” especially stood out from among the courtyard servants. How much swagger and arrogance this man carries within himself! Just look at his shaking of his shoulders and complaints about life in Moscow - in some kind of outback! At the same time, we see before us, as the butler Gavrila says, “a bullied man!”, riotous, carefree, in a shabby and tattered frock coat, in “patched trousers,” and, most impressively, in holey boots. Truly a shoemaker without boots, by the way, desperately complaining that he lives without anything to do.
But what the servants have an impeccable command of is the ability to keep in tune with the mood of the hostess. The behavior of the hanger-on, who is at a loss as to the lady’s reaction to Mumu, whom she first saw, is indicative. But the apogee of the servants' servility comes in the events that unfolded around Mumu and her master.
The scene in which it is shown with what fantastic speed the zealous servants pass along the chain the news of the night barking of Gerasim’s dog and, accordingly, the mistress’s suffering, is absolutely stunning. In the picture of the decisive onslaught on the Gerasimovo refuge, Turgenev depicts such a surge of servile zeal that much of the behavior of the servants is difficult to rationally comprehend.
There are several scenes in the work that cause outright bewilderment and even laughter. For example, if it is possible to explain why a whole crowd of people (footmen and cooks led by the butler Gavrila) is advancing on Gerasim’s closet, then it is completely incomprehensible why the butler held his cap during this throw, although there was no wind? One can only imagine the attack on the Gerasimov Shelter so rapid that its participants even tore off their hats as they ran.
Or why, standing under the door of Gerasim’s closet, Gavrila shouted: “Open it... They say open it!”? Perhaps, from excessive zeal, he even forgot about the deafness of the janitor. It is also unclear why, when the door of the closet quickly swung open and all the servants immediately rolled head over heels down the stairs, Gavrila, who, as we know, was standing right next to Gerasim’s door, found himself first on the ground?
In general, from the outside, this whole decisive attack on Gerasim’s closet resembles the attack of hordes of Lilliputians on the sleeping Gulliver. But if Swift’s hero, accepting the laws of the land of Lilliputians and its inhabitants, internally becomes like them, in fact, becomes the same Lilliputian, then Turgenev’s Gerasim was and remains the Man-Mountain. Having forcefully opened the doors of his closet and thereby forcing the servants to slide down the stairs, he, the giant, continued to stand at the top and looked with a grin at the fuss of these little people.
A giant and little people - this is the result of Turgenev’s thoughts about the hero-plowman and the strangers among whom he found himself by the will of the master.
It should be especially emphasized that if for the author Gerasim is a hero, a mighty man, then among the lady’s entourage he is associated with the unclean (“God forgive this devil”, “that devil”, “forest kikimora”)..
In the world of little people, Gerasim falls into the category of outcasts, outcasts. Following the morality formed by society, “little people” at all times refused to accept people different from them. They constantly spy on the "giants". So in Mumu the servants are watching Gerasim (“From all corners, from under the curtains outside the windows they looked at him”; “Soon the whole house learned about the tricks of the dumb janitor”; “Antipka spied on Gerasim through a crack”).
But the most important thing is not even this, but the indifference of the majority of the servants to Gerasim’s suffering. When he tries to find the Mumu stolen by Stepan, those who knew only laughed at him in response...! All this is so reminiscent of a scene from Pushkin’s fairy tale about the seven heroes, in which Prince Elisha goes to the people in search of his bride. “But who laughs in his face, who would rather turn away...” And then Elisha turns to the forces of nature - the wind, the moon, the sun...
And isn’t the story of Ivan Ivanovich (G. Troepolsky. “White Bim, Black Ear”), whose loneliness was also shared by a dog, not people, similar to the friendship of a lonely man with a dog described by Turgenev? But Turgenev shows the hero’s attempts to become part of the world into which he was forcibly plunged. For this, the writer needed Tatiana's story in the story "Mumu".
In the story: “Mumu,” not included in “Notes of a Hunter,” but close in spirit to the stories in this collection. In this story, two main characters are vividly outlined - the old lady and the deaf-mute janitor Gerasim. In addition to them, several other faces were depicted, also typical, although less striking.
Mu Mu. Cartoon
The old lady is depicted as a heartless tyrant, from whom even her own children turned their backs, and who lived out her last days, embittered, capricious, surrounded by a pack of hangers-on and a crowd of servants. Lies and stupid hatred, covered with servility and servility, reign in this house. Everything here trembles for fear of not pleasing the grumpy old woman; people don’t even dare to sleep at night when the lady can’t sleep.
The deaf and dumb Gerasim was brought to this lady's house from her village to serve as a janitor. This healthy, sedate and serious man was created for rural work and in the village he worked with pleasure and joy. The lady's whim tore him out of the expanse of fields and forests, and he found himself in a stuffy city. He languished here and was bored, but he did his job conscientiously and honestly. The servants feared and respected him. He fell in love with the washerwoman Tatyana, but the lady decided to marry her to the drunkard Kapiton, “for his correction.”
Gerasim's heart was broken, but he resigned himself to his fate. He found solace in the dog Mumu, which he raised and fed himself. But the dog annoyed the old lady by not only not coming up when she called her, but even baring her teeth and growling. Gerasim had to drown his only friend himself. After this second loss, Gerasim abandoned his mistress’s town house without permission and went to the village.
The heroine of the story is the washerwoman Tanya, a quiet, unresponsive girl who, under the humiliating oppression of serfdom, has been reduced to the point that she no longer has her own will. When she is told that the lady is marrying her to the drunkard Capiton, she submits to the decision meekly, without attempting to argue or resist...
This touching story is told simply and artlessly, but it has an even stronger effect on the reader. The useful and honest worker Gerasim, with his heroic strength, turns out to be helpless before the whim of an old, useless, hated old woman who has lost her mind. Offended by God, this hero must meekly endure human grievances. This helplessness of the serfs and the irresponsibility of the masters is the main tragedy of serfdom. And, of course, it was impossible to emphasize more strongly the ugliness of this system of life than to portray in the role of offended serfs - unhappy people, like Vlas (“
This article is devoted to the work of I.S. Turgenev. It will carefully analyze the motives of behavior of the main character of the story “Mumu” - the janitor Gerasim. Probably, those who read, but did not have sufficient psychological insight, were tormented since school by the question of why Gerasim drowned Mumu. During the “investigation” the answer will be given.
Personality of Gerasim
The mighty mute Gerasim was uprooted from his native hut in the village and transplanted into the alien urban soil of Moscow. He was two meters tall. He had an abundance of natural power. A Moscow lady took an eye on him and ordered him to be transported from the village to her home. She identified him as a janitor, for he was a noble worker.
No matter how far this information may seem to the reader from answering the question of why Gerasim drowned Mumu, it is very important and is directly related to him. This is the foundation for understanding the hero’s inner world.
Love triangle: Gerasim, Tatiana and Kapiton
The lady had one simple girl in her employ - Tatyana (she worked as a laundress). Gerasim liked the young woman, although both the other servants and the mistress herself understood that such a marriage was hardly possible for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, Gerasim tenderly cherished within himself a timid hope, firstly, for reciprocity, and secondly, that the lady would consent to the marriage.
But, unfortunately, the hopes of the main character were not destined to come true. The quarrelsome and self-centered lady decided in her own way: the drunken shoemaker, who had gotten out of hand, was appointed Tatyana’s husband by the lord’s permission. He himself is not against it, but he was afraid of Gerasim’s reaction to this news. Then the master's servants resorted to a trick: knowing that the dumb janitor could not stand drunkards, the servants forced Tatyana to walk in front of Gerasim drunk. The trick was a success - the janitor himself pushed his sweetheart into Kapiton’s arms. True, the lady’s experiment did not end well. Her shoemaker drank himself to death even in the hands of a hardworking and, one might say, gentle to the point of slavery washerwoman. The unhappy couple's days passed joylessly in a remote village.
The love triangle is important in the context of answering the question of why Gerasim drowned Mumu, since it reveals the “chemistry” of the janitor’s future attachment to his dog.
Gerasim and Mumu
When Gerasim suffered from unspent love, he found a dog. She was only three weeks old. The janitor rescued the dog from the water, brought him to his closet, organized a rookery for the dog (it turns out it was a girl), and fed it milk.
In other words, now the love of a simple Russian mute man, unclaimed by a woman, is completely invested in the creature who unexpectedly appeared in his life. He names the dog Mumu.
The ending of the story
The main character's problems arose when the lady, who had not seen the dog before, suddenly discovered it. Mumu has lived with Gerasim like Christ in his bosom for more than a year. The owner was delighted with the dog. She asked to be immediately brought to the master's chambers. When the dog was delivered, she behaved warily and aggressively in an unfamiliar environment. She didn’t drink the owner’s milk, but began barking at the lady.
Of course, the lady could not bear such an attitude and ordered the dog to be removed from her possession. And so they did. Gerasim looked and looked for her, but never found her. But Mumu returned to her owner one fine day with a chewed leash around her neck. Gerasim realized that the dog did not run away from him on its own, and began to hide it from prying eyes in his closet, and he only took it out into the street at night. But on one such walking night, a drunk lay down near the fence of the owner’s estate. Mumu did not like drunkards, just like her owner, and began to bark hysterically and shrilly at the drunkard. She woke up the whole house, including the lady.
As a result, the dog was ordered to be disposed of. The servants took this too literally and decided to take Mumu’s life. Gerasim volunteered to relocate his beloved pet to a better world with his own hands. Then, unable to withstand the mental anguish, the janitor returned (in fact, fled) to his native land - to the village, again becoming an ordinary man. At first they looked for him, and when they found him, the lady said that “she doesn’t need such an ungrateful worker for nothing.”
Thus, if someone (most likely a schoolboy) decides to write an essay “Why Gerasim drowned Mumu,” he should answer this question in the context of the entire story, so that the author’s narrative acquires depth and richness.
Moral of the story
Turgenev specifically paints Gerasim so powerful in order to show in contrast his spiritual indecision and timidity, one might say, slavery. The janitor drowned his dog not because he felt sorry for her: he imagined how she would wander around other people’s yards in search of food without him. He killed her because he could not resist the master's order and the pressure of other servants. And when the reader understands the whole essence of Gerasim’s inner world, he is shocked by two things: the skill of the writer and the deep tragedy of the story. After all, no one stopped Gerasim from escaping with the dog, in general, so to speak, from preparing the escape in advance when he realized that things were bad. But he didn’t do this, and all because of servile psychology.
Thus, to the question of why Gerasim drowned Mumu, the answers do not imply diversity. The key to understanding the work of I.S. Turgenev - in the slave psychology of Russian people, which the classic masterfully embodied in the image of a dumb janitor.
