Arms master Levsha is the main character of N. Leskov's story. An interesting tale, which has become the plot of animated and feature films, theatrical performances, conveys the essence of the life of Russian talent.
The image and characteristics of Lefty in the story "Lefty" help to feel the events of the history of Russia, to understand how and what a simple Tula gunsmith lived.
Lefty's appearance
The master gunsmith Lefty remained known to everyone only by his nickname. Nobody knows his real name. The nickname is given for the skillful use of the left hand. It is even more convenient for the master to be baptized with the left. This ability surprised the British. Overseas engineers did not even imagine that it was possible to become a skilled craftsman without owning the right hand.
The left-hander suffers from strabismus. This feature is even more amazing. How did the oblique man manage to forge the smallest details for a miniature flea? What is the acuity of his vision that he works without any microscopes and complex magnifying instruments? Moreover, it performs the thinnest part of the product.
Other special features:
- speck on the face;
- lack of "hair" on the temples.
"... one oblique Left-hander, a birthmark on the cheek, and the hairs on the temples were torn out during teaching ..."
The teacher fought for the boy's hair, which means that the guy managed to be not a particularly diligent and diligent student.
A peasant dresses modestly because of poverty:
- peasant's shoes (buttons) worn down;
- Cossack on hooks.
He wears what he was: in shawls, one leg is in a boot, the other is dangled, and the ozyamchik is old, the hooks do not fasten, they are lost, and the collar is torn; but nothing, do not be embarrassed.
The guy is not shy about his appearance. Get used to it. There is no feeling of discomfort in the story when the boy is being changed, that is, clothes mean nothing to him. It is terrible to read the pages where he is stripped in the hospital and left practically naked on the cold floor. Someone liked his new suit very much.
The image of talent from the outback
Lefty lives in the city of Tula in a small house. A close mansion - this is how the narrator characterizes it. The couriers who arrived with Platov tried to get into the hut, but failed. The doors were so strong that they remained standing, having withstood numerous blows of the heroic force. The roof of the house was removed quickly, on a log. The tightness is proved by the stuffiness of the air, which, when the roof was removed, rose so high above the house that there was not enough air for everyone around. The poor peasant loves his parents. When he is asked to stay in England, the first reason why he refuses new living conditions is his old parents. He affectionately calls his father "Attenka", his mother - "Old Lady". Lefty does not yet have his own family, he is not married.
I'm still single.
The character of a hero from the people
Lefty is one of the three most skilled craftsmen in the city of Tula gunsmiths. This means that among all the gunsmiths of the ancient city, only those who are very talented were chosen. It is even difficult to imagine how many real artisans live in the city of arms production. According to the narrator, the whole Russian nation hopes for Lefty and his friends. The task that the masters face is to prove that Russian craftsmen can do everything better than others, in this story, better than the British.
Masters are hardworking and persistent. They did not give up the work before completion, not fearing the anger of the chieftain, they brought everything to the end.
Special personality traits
The main character has many of his individual characteristics, but at the same time, his personality traits make Lefty a symbol of the entire Russian people, kind and talented.
Education. The gunsmith is not literate, not educated, like almost all the peasantry in Russia in those years. His school consisted of two textbooks: "Psalter" and "Dream Book". Talent lives in the master by nature. He managed to open it.
Cunning. A simple craftsman does not betray the ideas that three gunsmiths had about an English craft. He is silent in England, not trusting his thoughts to overseas engineers. Cunning in a kind way, without evil and intent.
Faith in God. The masters did not start the work without the blessing of the higher divine powers. They went to the icon of Nicholas the Wonderworker. Gunsmiths hope for themselves and for help from above.
Decisiveness and courage. The master is not afraid to meet with the Russian emperor. Do not be embarrassed by torn clothes. He knows that, together with his friends, he fulfilled his order, he is ready to answer for the work. He boldly tells the king that they engraved their names on the horseshoes, what his work was.
It is necessary to take thought and with God's blessing.
Loyal to the Russian people, the oblique craftsman Lefty did not stay abroad, did not seek benefits for himself, even dying, he thought about how to help the Motherland. The patriotism of a simple peasant is amazing.
The Russian people in the works of N. Leskov are a special type of character, high in moral principles, believing in God and their work.
The image of the Russian people in the tale "Levsha" is represented by the character of the main character Lefty and those who are next to him.
Patriotism and devotion to the motherland
The master gunsmith truly loves his country. A left-hander, once abroad, is not lost among the technical devices and perfections of overseas engineering. He behaves confidently, calmly. The master does not give out knowledge and talents. When getting acquainted with many devices, a resident of Tula is calm: the Russians can also do better. In the oblique master, the dignity of the Russian people, which he received with his mother's milk, is surprising. A simple peasant has confidence in his behavior, a certain condescension and modesty.
Good health
Lefty is one of the folk craftsmen. The description of their work is not just surprising. It is hard to imagine how a real work of art is created in a cramped hut with small windows. How much health is required to endure several days of painstaking work without rest and access to fresh air. Men from the people are strong and hardy, they prove respect for themselves and their skills.
The main vice of the Russian people
Drunkenness is a vice that has ruined many Russian peasants. It is surprising that centuries do not change a Russian person. And today drunkenness takes the lives of smart and kind Russian guys. Lefty drinks in England when overseas engineers try to split him. He drinks "to hell" on the ship, returning home. Lefty never once refused a drink offered to him. Drunkenness was one of the reasons for the death of a gunsmith. The Russian people drink a lot, pour their grief and problems into wine. The talents, wisdom and skill of the Russian people are drowning in wine. A difficult fate, hopeless everyday life - everything is filled with wine.
Medical assistance
The Russian people are poor. He dies from lack of medical attention. Doctors demand payment, where can a simple peasant get money for treatment. Perhaps this explains the large number of sorcerers. In almost every village there lived midwives and grandfathers-healers. The pages of the story, where Lefty is taken from hospital to hospital, practically undressed, are hard to read. It turns out that the master is on the floor in a medical institution for the sick, where they are brought to die. What a contradiction: a hospital where they do not treat, but await death. Around indifference, heartlessness and hopelessness. It is impossible to imagine what it is like for people who got there. But the narrator says that the hospital is overcrowded. No one cares how many of the people will die. It is terrible that talent, a brilliant master, is dying. It is impossible to calculate how many interesting things he could do, how he would help his country. How many people like Lefty spent their last days on the cold floor of an institution designed to treat people?
Patience of the Russian people
There are many pages where the patience of a man from the people is described:
- creating horseshoes in a closed room;
- beating of the master by the ataman;
- the return of Platov (the inability to rest, fell asleep - a blow with a whip).
The Russian people are so downtrodden that it becomes scary. There are no openly expressed thoughts anywhere. The most talented Tula craftsmen do not say what they will do with the overseas curiosity, fearing that they will not be able to convey in words the essence of their idea.
Russian speech and soul
The author characterizes Lefty through the mouth of a half-skipper from England. The sailor, who has become a friend of the Russian peasant, says that he has a sheep's coat, but a human soul. He alone showed concern, but could not help the dying master. The speech of people from the people is special. They speak little, so they are precise and accurate. Words in speech are only native Russian. The sentences are clearly structured. A special quality of speech is melodiousness.
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The image of Lefty in Leskov's work is quite interesting and unusual. There are very few people like him, and even more so in our time. He goes with the flow, practically does not change anything, fate develops tragically, but he still enjoys life.
Lefty - a talented Tula gunsmith
When Nikolai Pavlovich, the Russian emperor, ordered to improve a flea brought from England by the previous emperor Alexander Pavlovich, Lefty did the hardest work.
He forged the smallest detail that even the human eye cannot see. Of the three masters who performed the operation to improve the flea, he was the most assiduous, resourceful, and talented.
Modest, inconspicuous and ugly
Despite all the work of Lefty, many underestimated him. Usually this was due to appearance.
He was inconspicuous, ugly face, oblique, and even left-handed. Almost no one guessed what a huge potential is hidden in this seemingly most ordinary peasant.
But, as I said, people like our hero are not often met.
Dear readers! We bring to your attention which was written by N. Leskov.
In his place, many would certainly demand monetary compensation for moral damage, or a personal workshop, or some other reward for the great quality work done.
But Lefty was not like that. He floated calmly with the flow. Didn't go anywhere. Perhaps even underestimated himself. He did not demand anything at all, although he lived not so luxuriously.
Even on the paws of a flea, he did not sign, but simply made the work twice as difficult as the other masters who forged the flea with him. So none of the Russian and English masters who saw the creation of the joint activity knew that not two masters, but three worked on a work of art. And the name of the third remained unknown to the world.
Special Patriotism Lefty
Despite all the difficulties that Lefty went through, he never betrayed his homeland. No matter how much he was underestimated, he always remained true to his beloved country. When he went to England, it can be assumed that he really liked it there. He was offered to stay, promising all the vital and comfortable conditions.
He knew that his work would be appreciated there. But Lefty remembered that there is practically nothing for him closer than his native land, and it doesn’t matter what kind of people there will be. The main thing is that at home. I had to refuse. For some, this may be routine, but for Lefty, it was a huge choice.
Dear readers! We offer in the story of Nikolai Leskov “The Old Genius”
Just imagine: a homeland where no one needs you, and then you are invited to another, more progressive country, where you will be appreciated ...
Lefty dies
Upon arrival in Russia, a terrible thing happens. Our hero is very ill. Dat is so strong that you have to go to the hospital. His name has already been forgotten. What he did is also forgotten. Yes, who he is, everyone has already forgotten. Lefty was taken to a hospital for the poor. In the meantime, they carried it on a stretcher, dropped it, and the guy broke his head. So he died in the hospital. None of those who saw him, none of those who surrounded him, or carried him in a stretcher, suspected that a great master gunsmith was dying before their eyes, with whom practically no one can compare. But he is still happy with what he has. This is how the life of Lefty ends tragically.
With a plan. Levsha, the hero of his short story of the same name, is considered to be Leskov's typical tale hero. The image of Lefty in the story marks a conjugation with the theme of a Russian labor, moreover, a talented person, the so-called "jack of all trades." These are the characterological features of such a hero in a particular literary work.
The hero of Leskov resembles an ancient Russian holy fool - a man without a tribe, without a title, but absolutely exceptional in his own way, that he must be shown to the tsar.
The image of Lefty from the story "Lefty" is presented as the image of any Russian holy fool: "an oblique left-hander, a birthmark on the cheek, and hair on the temples was torn out during teaching"; “in shawls, one trouser leg is in a boot, the other is dangled, and the ozyamchik is old, the hooks do not fasten, they are lost, and the scruff is torn.” In addition, in dealing with the highest person of the state - the emperor - the left-hander does not show any mannerisms, respectfulness and speaks as they say in his hometown of Tula - on an equal footing. Such people only believe in God and Holy Truth.
All this touching Russian spontaneity cannot cope with the state bureaucratic machine: talent is buried in the ground, human life is not valued.
Following Leskov, other writers addressed the problem of a gifted Russian person. The skaz genre was liked by critics for its conciseness, the ability to convey the pressing problems of Russia in a small narrative form.
So, the image of Lefty in the tale is a collective image of a hardworking, honest, disinterested person, illustrating the entire national “Russianness”.
The idea to exalt such a hero for Leskov and his followers was part of the realm of fantasy, since not all residents of a huge, moreover, multinational country were just like that.
With all this, the image of Lefty is a new type of literary hero, through whom both Leskov and his contemporaries transform the strength of the national spirit. In his strength they see the salvation of Russia.
Plan
- Left-hander - a typical "fantastic" hero
- The meaning of the tale "Lefty" for the development of literary criticism
Description of the tale as a new literary genre
Briefly characterizing the historical and cultural situation in Russia at the end of the 19th century, we can say in general that the literary process of this period is undergoing changes. The writers, publicists, historians and local historians who made raids “into the people” identified and approved the main problem of the Russian national character for the whole society. This problem became closely connected with the activities of the raznochintsy, who enlightened the people, gradually dispelling the faith of illiterate peasants in the good "father-king." N. S. Leskov paid great attention to this topic. To express the problem of the Russian people, the image of Lefty in Leskov's story "Lefty" is fundamentally important.
Leskov's literary fate is such that, without a clearly structured worldview, without studying in detail the historical situation contemporary to him, he introduced spontaneous democracy and faith in the strength of the spirit of the Russian people into literature.
60-70s The 19th century in Russian literature was marked by changes not only in the ideological and content plan of the prose works of writers, but also a restructuring of the epic genre system is planned - a sharp aesthetic tilt towards journalism and “factualism”.
This is how fiction appears, based on real life connections, as if not mediated by fiction and intuition. The so-called tale genre is being revived. The name is very similar to the name of the folklore genre "fairy tale", but these two concepts do not mean the same thing.
A tale is a small prose genre that resembles a fairy tale only in the style of presentation of events, but carries a strong realistic load.
Leskov's tales perform a dual function: either testify to the authenticity of the events described, or serve as methods of literary play and mystification.
Left-hander - a typical "fantastic" hero
The given detailed analysis of the image of the main character of the tale will be useful to students of grade 6 when preparing an essay on the topic “The image of the Lefty in Leskov’s story “Lefty””
"The Image of the Lefty" - composition 2
Distinctive properties of N.S. Leskov - fairy tale motifs, the interweaving of the comic and the tragic, the ambiguity of the author's assessments of the characters - fully appeared in one of the most famous works of the writer "Lefty". The title character, outwardly not distinguished by anything special (“a birthmark on the cheek, and the hair on the temples was torn out during training”), is at the same time, according to the author himself, the most skillful among the Tula gunsmiths. However, Leskov does not idealize the hero, showing that, despite his excellent skill, he is not strong in the sciences “and instead of the four rules of addition from arithmetic, he takes everything according to the Psalter and the Half Dream Book.”
Lefty is a skilled artisan, one of those who participated in shoeing a flea, personifies the talent of the Russian people. But the savvy flea stops dancing: Russian craftsmen do not have the elementary technical knowledge that any English master has. Leskov does not give a name to his hero, thereby emphasizing the collective meaning and significance of his character (“Where “Levsha” stands, one must read the Russian people,” said Leskov). The left-hander, being in England, rejects the lucrative offers of the British and returns to Russia. He is disinterested and incorruptible, but he is “downtrodden”, feels his own insignificance next to officials and nobles. Lefty is used to constant threats and beatings.
One of the main themes in the story is the theme of the creative talent of a Russian person, which has already been depicted more than once in the work of Leskov (the stories “Dumb Artist”, “The Sealed Angel”). Talent, according to Leskov, cannot exist independently, it must necessarily be based on the moral, spiritual strength of a person. The left-hander, an unsightly little man, is not afraid to go to the sovereign, as he is confident in his rightness, in the quality of his work.
The image of the Lefty stands among other images of the righteous created by Leskov. He sacrifices himself for the sake of the Fatherland, in the name of the Cause. He travels to England without documents, hungry (on the road, “at each station, the belts were still tightened by one badge so that the intestines and lungs would not get mixed up”) to show Russian ingenuity and skill to foreigners, and earns the respect of the British with his unwillingness to stay in their country . The left-hander has a number of qualities inherent in the gallery of the righteous Leskov: he is a true patriot, a patriot at heart, gifted from birth, he is characterized by high morality and religiosity. He went through many trials, but even at the hour of his death, he remembers that he must tell the military secret of the British, ignorance of which negatively affects the combat capability of the Russian army.
In the inattention of the authorities to the fate of national talents, in the denseness and lack of education of the Russian people themselves, they constitute, according to Leskov, the reason for Russia's backwardness. It is interesting to compare Nikolai's conversation with Lefty, to whom the emperor condescends, and the meeting of the hero with the English, who respect the master in him, speak on equal terms. When Lefty returns to his homeland, he falls ill and dies, useless to anyone. Thrown on the floor in a "common people" hospital, he personifies the inhumanity, short-sightedness and ingratitude of the tsarist government - the reason for Russia's disorder, according to the author.
From the whole story it becomes obvious that Leskov sympathizes with Lefty, pities him; the author's comments are filled with bitterness. The image of Lefty reflected Leskov's search for a positive hero, and, I think, this image is closest to this goal.
In "The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea" N.S. Leskov narrates about a talented gunsmith who performed a technical miracle by making horseshoes and shoeing a steel flea created by the British, and so small that it cannot be seen without a "melkoscope".
Left-hander is a man of the people, dark, small and nondescript. The external characteristic of Lefty is also unpretentious: "a left-handed oblique, a birthmark on the cheek, and the hair on the temples was torn out during training." At first glance, this character is completely uninteresting. However, opinion about him changes when he, having received the task of creating a product more amazing than an English flea that can dance, puts horseshoes on this flea.
He is at the same time a very skilled craftsman, a rare craftsman, and at the same time he is a downtrodden man who considers himself an insignificant creature. When the British make an offer to Lefty to stay with them, he resolutely refuses. The hero cannot even imagine life away from his homeland, where he is absolutely powerless, but he feels himself in his environment. Lefty is not ready to fight the circumstances. Dying, he does not complain about his fate, does not feel bitterness, but only feels the need to discover the secret of the British gunsmithing skills: a gun cannot be cleaned with a brick.
The character of the Russian people is revealed in the image of Lefty. Talented and nameless, a sincere patriot, content with his share, hardworking and undemanding - such is Lefty, such is the whole Russian people. Leskov sees the moral value of a person in his close connection with the Russian national element - nature, native land, people and traditions. However, the author is not inclined to idealize his hero. Leskov does not exalt, but does not belittle the people, but depicts them according to specific historical conditions, while penetrating into the depths of the people's soul, where the richest creative abilities, the desire for ingenuity, skill and service to the motherland are hidden. The author realistically depicts an ordinary representative of the Russian people: he has ingenuity, talent, but is uneducated. The left-hander does not have enough knowledge to bring the matter to the end: the savvy steel flea has lost the ability to dance. This is understandable, because the hero "instead of the four rules of addition from arithmetic, he takes everything according to the Psalter and according to the Half Dream Book."
And with all this, a specific representative of the Russian people with all their talents turns out to be useless to anyone. Having fulfilled his function, proving to the British that Russian masters have no less ability than English ones, he dies, forgotten by everyone.
This inattention of the authorities to the fate of ordinary people, the denseness and lack of education of the people is, according to Leskov, the reason for Russia's backwardness. This can be easily seen by comparing the conversation between Nikolai and Lefty, when the emperor condescends to be a craftsman, and the meeting of the hero with the English, who talk to Lefty on an equal footing, respecting the master in him. The image of the Lefty is the image of a righteous person who is ready to sacrifice himself in the name of the Fatherland and the Common Cause. The hero goes to England, without documents, hungry, “at each station, the belts were still tightened by one badge so that the intestines and lungs would not get mixed up.” He seeks to show foreigners the skill and ingenuity of the Russian people. He earns the respect of the English for his talent and refusal to stay in their country.
But in his own country, Lefty remains unrecognized, he dies, as thousands of the same unrecognized craftsmen from the people died. Only an Englishman was able to see the true essence of a talented master: "Even though he has a sheep's coat, but the soul of a man."
