Development methods

The White Steamer is the short meaning of the title of the story. Lesson "white steamer" by Chingiz Aitmatov. Flowers and stones

The author immerses the reader in the outskirts of Kyrgyzstan and immediately introduces him to the main character - a boy without a name and past, with a dubious future, lives on the ranger cordon, near the shores of a forest lake. His aunt and her husband, huntsman Orozkul, live with him. They are not involved in raising the boy at all, thereby leaving him to his own devices. The only person who is at least somehow involved in the guy’s fate is grandfather Momun, the huntsman’s assistant.

The story shows us, through comparisons between fictional life in fairy tales and its real side, that good does not always prevail over evil. The eternal struggle between white and black, justice over injustice, as a result may not end with a fairy-tale cliche: “they lived happily ever after.”

Read the summary of Aitmatov's stories The White Steamship

No one and nothing makes the boy happy. He has no friends and no one with whom he can spend time in conversation. His constant companions and interlocutors are the stones surrounding the place where he lives, binoculars from the time of the war, through which he looked at the horizons of the lake, and a briefcase donated by his grandfather Momun. To get away from real life misfortunes, the boy creates two fictional stories around himself, which he begins to diligently believe in and act out.

The first story is that his father, whom the boy never knew, is a sailor and he serves on a large white steamer, and from time to time the ship appears and gracefully sways on the surface of the lake. The boy plays out all this in his imagination, often peering through binoculars in search of a steamer. He imagines becoming a small fish, diving into the lake and swimming towards the ship. And having climbed on board, he hugs and greets his father.

The second story that the boy believes in is the tale of the mother deer. Legend says that in the past, many years ago, there lived a tribe near the banks of the river, which was attacked by enemies and killed everyone except two children, a boy and a girl. The leader of the attacking tribe handed the children to the old woman and ordered her to get rid of them. She led them to the river bank and when she was ready to carry out the leader’s order, the mother deer approached them. She began to ask not to kill the children and give them up. To which the old woman said: “These are the cubs of people, you cannot cope with them and when they grow up, they will want to kill your fawns. After all, people are very cruel creatures and kill not only animals, but also each other.” The mother deer still insisted that the children stay with her.

Red deer become the target of poachers during the boy's time. The huntsman contributes to the development of poaching on a huge scale. First, for a generous reward, Orozkul allows the felling of relict pine trees. Further developments of events take on a cruel coloration. One cool evening, the insidious Orozkul, with no less insidious plans, decides to gain the support of the wise grandfather Momun. Having failed to achieve a result in the negotiations, he decides to give his grandfather vodka and, for greater effect, threatens him with dismissal. Thus, he achieves what he wants and forces Momun to kill a female deer.

Dark evening, white smoke from a fire and the sweet smell of roasted meat. There is a company of three people around the fire: Orozkul, Momun and a visiting guest. Deer meat was roasting over a fire. The boy did not want to believe in the cruelty of people and that this was really a dead deer, until he saw the remains of the poor animal behind the barn. The boy lost hope in a second, disappointment gave way to his legs and weakness pressed on his chest. Tears flowed in a stream, he did not want to accept the cruelty of reality, the cruelty of those people who surround him.

Deciding to escape from this sight, he runs to the lake. A place that always fueled hope in him when he looked at the horizon through binoculars and saw the outline of a white steamship.

The tragic end of the story makes the reader truly feel the pain of a boy who lived his whole life believing in good and bright things. And at one moment this faith is taken away from him. The boy again imagines, closing his eyes, that he is a little fish that jumps into the water and swims away to the far ends of the lake in search of his father, a sailor.

The fire is burning, the meat is roasting, the three men are still sitting in the same positions. They didn’t hear the splash of water and they never noticed the boy’s quiet disappearance.

Picture or drawing of a White steamer

about the author

In 2013, a list of “100 books for schoolchildren” was compiled. This list includes the story “The White Steamer” by Aitmatov, a brief summary of which is presented below. This writer has been awarded state prizes more than once, but his talent, of course, is expressed primarily in the love of his readers, the number of which has not decreased over the years.

He entered literature thanks to such works as “The First Teacher,” “Mother’s Field,” and “The Camel’s Eye.” He became famous in the early sixties. More than one film was based on the works of Chingiz Aitmatov. The film "The White Steamer" was released in 1975. Other famous works by Aitmatov: “Mother’s Field”, “Stormy Stop”, “Early Cranes”, “The Scaffold”, “And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century”.

"White Steamer": summary

Chingiz Aitmatov had a special artistic style. That’s why it’s not easy to retell his works. The writer loved his native land very much. Most of his characters live in a remote village, somewhere near the border of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. He harmoniously wove ancient tales and legends into the plot. There is also an ancient Kyrgyz legend in Chingiz Aitmatov’s story “The White Steamship”.

It is not recommended to read summaries of classic works. But if you don’t have time, and you need to find out the plot of a famous book, you can neglect such recommendations. In addition, a summary of the story “The White Ship” can inspire you to read the original.

Below is a detailed summary. The story consists of five chapters. We will present a brief summary of Aitmatov’s “The White Steamship” according to the following plan:

Auto shop.
Flowers and stones.
Old Man Momun.
Seydakhmat.
White ship.
Orozkul.
Binoculars.
Dam.
Father.
Mother.
Momun's revolt.

The main character of the story “The White Steamship” by Chingiz Aitmatov is a seven-year-old boy. The author does not name his name. It is only said that he was the only boy “in three houses.” The heroes of Aitmatov’s story “The White Steamship” live in a remote village located near the border, where a truck shop occasionally stops by. The nearest school is a few kilometers away.

Auto shop

The appearance of a store on wheels is a real event in this godforsaken village. The boy has a habit of bathing in a dam that his grandfather built. If it weren't for this dam, he probably would have drowned long ago. The river, as his grandmother said, would have long ago carried his bones straight to Issyk-Kul. It is unlikely that anyone would rush to save him. The boy's grandmother was not his own.

And then one day, when the boy was swimming in his dam, he saw a truck shop approaching the village. Behind the mobile store going down the mountain, dust swirled in its wake. The boy was delighted - he hoped that they would buy him a briefcase. He jumped out of the cold water, hurriedly got dressed and ran to announce the arrival of the auto shop to everyone. He ran, running around boulders and jumping over bushes, not stopping anywhere for a second.

Flowers and stones

It is worth making some digression here. The boy ran without stopping, without saying a word to the stones that lay on the ground. He gave each of them a name long ago. The hero of the story "The White Ship" has neither friends nor relatives. He has no one to talk to. Children tend to invent imaginary friends for themselves. The interlocutors of the protagonist of Aitmatov's story "The White Steamship" were inanimate objects - stones, binoculars, and then a brand new briefcase bought at a car shop.

Camel, Saddle, Tank - these are the names of the cobblestones with which a lonely seven-year-old boy communicates. The boy has little joy in life. He rarely goes to the movies - several times his grandfather took him to a neighboring tract. One day a boy watched a war film and learned about what a tank is. Hence the name of one of the “friends”.

The hero of the story “The White Steamship” by Aitmatov also has an unusual attitude towards plants. Among them there are both favorites and enemies. The prickly thistle is the main enemy. The boy fought with him more than once. But the thistle is growing rapidly, and there is no end in sight to this war. The boy's favorite plants are field bindweeds. These flowers are especially beautiful in the morning.

The boy loves to climb into the thickets of shiraljins. They are his most faithful friends. Here he hides from his grandmother when he wants to cry. He lies on his back and looks at the sky, which becomes almost indistinguishable due to tears. At such moments, he wants to become a fish and swim far, far away, so that others ask: “Where is the boy? Where did he go?”

The hero of the story “The White Steamship” by Chingiz Aitmatov lives alone, without friends, and only a car shop makes him forget about the stones, flowers and thickets of shiraljins.

The boy ran to the village, which consisted of only three houses, and joyfully announced the arrival of the auto shop. The men had already dispersed by that time. Only the women remained, and there were only three of them: the grandmother, Aunt Bekey (the sister of the boy’s mother, the wife of the most important person at the cordon) and the neighbor. The women quickly ran to the van. The boy was glad that he brought good news to the village.

Even the stern grandmother praised her grandson, as if he had brought a store on wheels here. But attention quickly turned to the goods that the owner of the van had brought. Despite the fact that there were only three women, they managed to cause a commotion next to the makeshift shop. But their fuse very quickly dried up, which made the seller quite upset.

The grandmother began to complain about the lack of money. The neighbor did not find anything interesting among the goods. Only Aunt Bekey bought two bottles of vodka, which, according to the grandmother, brought trouble to her head. The sister of the main character's mother was the most unfortunate woman in the world - she had no children, for which her husband periodically beat her.

Old Man Momun

The women bought goods “for pennies” and left. Only the boy remained. The seller irritably collected the goods. The boy would have been left without a briefcase that day if old Momun had not arrived in time. This is the grandfather of the main character of Chingiz Aitmatov’s story “The White Steamship”. The only person who loved the boy who talked with the stones.

Old Man Momun was a very kind man. He readily helped everyone. However, few people appreciated Momun’s kindness, just as people would not appreciate gold if it were suddenly given away for free. Whatever the old man was entrusted with, he did easily and quickly. No one took the harmless Momun seriously; everyone was ready to make fun of him. But the old man was never offended. He continued to help everyone, for which he received the nickname “Efficient Momun”.

The grandfather’s appearance was not at all that of an aksakal. There was no importance, no gravity, no severity in him - nothing that is inherent in Kyrgyz old men. But at first glance it became clear that he was a man of rare kindness. He also had amazing independence from the opinions of others. Momun was never afraid to say, answer, or smile the wrong way. In this sense, he was an absolutely happy person. The old man also had bitterness. He often cried at night. But only those close to him knew what was in old Momun’s soul.

Still, it was not in vain that the merchant traveled such a distance. Old Momun bought a briefcase for his grandson - he's going to school soon. The boy never thought that his happiness would be so great. This day was perhaps the happiest in his short life. From that moment on, he did not part with his briefcase.

Seydakhmat

This is the name of another hero of Ch. Aitmatov’s story “The White Steamship”. Seidakhmat is a young forester, one who is considered an important person at the cordon. After the boy got the briefcase, he walked around the entire village, bragging about his purchase. He showed his grandfather’s gift to Seidakhmat. However, he did not appreciate it.

The school was located five kilometers from the house where the boy lived. His grandfather promised to take him there to school on horseback. But to fellow villagers it seemed stupid and nonsense. Nobody was happy for the boy. No one was impressed by the brand new briefcase. And visiting school seemed a dubious event to the poorly educated residents of the cordon.

It is not surprising that the boy loved to talk to stones and flowers. They, unlike people, never laughed at him or his ridiculous grandfather. Now the boy has another inanimate friend - a briefcase. He happily told him about the old man Momun - a kind, simple-minded man, at whom the inhabitants of the cordon were laughing in vain.

White steamer

The boy, like other residents of the village, had his own responsibilities: he had to look after the calf. But he did not always manage to carry them out properly. The boy had binoculars, with which he liked to look into the distance, to where a white steamer sometimes sailed along the river.

Ch. Aitmatov in the story masterfully conveys the inner world of a lonely child. His hero constantly talks to an inanimate object; for him, a briefcase is not a new thing, but a new friend. The White Steamer is the main image in the story by Ch. T. Aitmatov. We’ll talk about what connected the boy with the distant ship a little later.

Orozkul

The husband of the aunt of the main character of The White Steamship, Aitmatov, was an evil, cruel man. And very unhappy. But his fellow villagers respected him and tried in every possible way to please him. The fact is that Orozkul could help with the construction of the house. He was the senior guard of the protected forest. An important person. Orozkul could help in delivering the logs. Or, on the contrary, he could have made the house stand unfinished for years. The boy did not understand this, and therefore wondered why everyone loved his aunt’s husband. After all, he is evil, cruel. These should be thrown into the river. The boy did not like Orozkul.

Anger and self-pity choke Orozkul. He goes home and knows that today he will beat his wife. He always does this. After all, it is Bekey who is to blame for all his sorrows. She hasn't been able to give birth for a year now.

Orozkul jumped off his horse and went to the river, where he washed himself with cold water. The boy decided that he had a headache. In reality, Orozkul was crying. He cried because it was not his son who ran out to meet him, because he could not say a single kind word to this child with a briefcase.

Binoculars

The boy got this item from his grandfather. The old man himself did not use binoculars; he said that he could see everything perfectly well without them. The seven-year-old child enjoyed looking at the mountains, the pine forest and, of course, the white steamer. True, the latter was rarely seen.

Thanks to binoculars, the boy saw Lake Issyk-Kul, which was located far from his home. Now the boy shared his impressions with a wordless briefcase. First, he waited for the white steamer to appear, which he told his “friend” about, then he admired the school.

Dam

Through binoculars, the place where the boy usually swam was clearly visible. The dam was made by my grandfather. The old man moved a lot of stones, choosing the larger ones. The current in this place was very strong. The river could easily carry away the boy, as the grumpy grandmother told Momun more than once. At the same time she added: “If she’s drowning, I won’t lift a finger!” The old man had been fiddling with the dam all day. He tried to place the stones on top of each other so that the water between them would enter and exit freely.

On the day the boy got his briefcase, an unpleasant incident occurred. He stared at the white steamer and completely forgot about his duties. Meanwhile, the calf began to chew the laundry that the old woman had hung out. The boy saw this from afar. At first Bekey tried to calm the old woman down, but she, as usual, began accusing her stepdaughter of being infertile. A scandal began. Everyone quarreled. When the boy returned home, there was suspicious silence.

The heroes of Aitmatov's story "The White Steamship" are unhappy people. Bekey is unhappy that her husband regularly beats her. But she and her husband are united by a common grief - the absence of children. Momun is grieving because his eldest son was killed in the war, and his daughters did not find happiness in their family life. The old woman, the wife of the boy's grandfather, remembers her dead children and her late husband. She appeared in this house not long ago - after the death of the protagonist’s grandmother.

Father

The hero of Aitmatov’s story “The White Steamship” talked not only with stones, flowers and a brand new briefcase. He often turned in his thoughts to his father, whom he did not remember at all. Once the boy heard that he would be a sailor. Since then, looking through binoculars at the ship, he imagined that somewhere there, on the deck, his father was standing.

The boy dreamed of becoming a fish, swimming to a white ship and meeting this man. He would certainly tell him about old Momun - a kind man whom no one appreciates. The boy would tell his father about the evil old woman who came to their house after the death of his grandmother. He would tell him about all the inhabitants of the cordon, even about Orozkul - an evil man who certainly needs to be thrown into the cold river.

Mother

The boy grew up an orphan, but his parents were alive. The sailor father has long since acquired a new family. The boy even heard once that on deck, when he returned on his white ship, he was always greeted by his wife and two children. Mother left for the big city a long time ago and also started a new family. One day Momun went to see her, and her daughter promised him that she would take the boy when she got back on her feet. But when this will happen is unknown. However, the old man then told her: “As long as I am alive, I will take care of the boy.”

Aitmatov included several legends in the story "The White Steamship". These are ancient tales that Momun tells his grandson. The boy imagines that someday he will tell them to his father. One of the legends that the old man told was the legend of the Horned Mother Deer. Below is a summary of it. In “The White Steamship” Chingiz Aitmatov devoted an entire chapter to this legend.

The Legend of the Horned Mother Deer

This story happened a long time ago, when the Kyrgyz tribe was surrounded by many enemies. And the Kyrgyz themselves often attacked their neighbors. People then lived by robbery. The one who knew how to take the enemy by surprise and seize the wealth of the enemy was considered smart. People killed each other, blood flowed continuously.

One day, enemies attacked the Kyrgyz tribe and killed almost everyone. Only a boy and a girl remained, who on the day of the raid went far to the river. When they returned, they saw ashes and the mutilated bodies of loved ones. Oddly enough, the children went to the village where the people who killed their relatives lived. Khan ordered the destruction of the “unfinished enemy seed.” A deer saved the children from death. She fed them, warmed them, educated them. When the boy and girl grew up, they got married and had children. But the descendants of those rescued by the deer began to kill their brothers - the deer.

The Kirghiz now decorated the graves of their relatives with the horns of the noble animal. The mountains are empty. There are no more deer. People were born who had never seen this graceful animal in their entire lives. The mother deer was offended by people. She climbed the highest mountain peak, said goodbye to Lake Issyk-Kul and went far, far away.

Momun's Riot

Autumn came. Momun, as promised, took his grandson to school every day. And then he helped his son-in-law - Orozkul often promised construction material to residents of the cordon, and in return accepted offerings. In the fall, we had to climb far into the mountains in order to cut down a pine tree. We needed real mountain wood. One day Orozkul did not keep his promise: he took a lamb but did not cut down a pine tree, after which he almost lost his position as a guard of a protected forest. A deceived fellow villager wrote a slander against him, which contained both truth and lies. But this was long before the story told in the story “White Passage” by Chingiz Aitmatov took place. We will continue the summary with a description of the climactic scene.

In September the berries ripened and the lambs grew up. The women prepared dried cheese and hid it in winter bags. The men, having agreed with Orozkul, increasingly reminded him of the promised forest. This upset him a lot. If there was a way to return his promises, he would certainly use it. But such a method does not exist, and therefore Orozkul had to climb the mountains with Momun, and upon returning he would be cold with fear: at any moment the forest crawler could be suspected of theft. On one of these trips he almost died. Momun, a lover of fairy tales, having witnessed this incident, believed that the son-in-law owed his salvation to the deer, who returned to Kyrgyz soil several centuries later.

Orozkul's heart did not soften even after he almost died. That day he and Momun had to cut down several pine trees. When the old man told him that he needed to pick up his grandson from school and therefore put off work until the evening, he became furious. He did not let Momun go, and besides, he attacked his father-in-law with ridiculous accusations (the main one, as always, was his daughter’s infertility). The kind old man could not disobey his son-in-law. He worked silently, and his heart was breaking. Momun imagined his grandson standing, alone, abandoned by everyone, near the school, when the other children had long since fled to their homes. The old man had never been late before.

The boy loved going to school. He carefully placed the briefcase, which now contained notebooks and textbooks, next to the pillow when he went to bed. This irritated the grandmother, but the boy ignored her caustic words. Momun was happy for the boy. He was, as has already been said, a harmless man. But not on the day when his little grandson stood alone at the school. The old man suddenly became furious and called his son-in-law a “scoundrel.” Orozkul attacked his father-in-law with his fists, but he, despite the threats, mounted his horse and rode towards the school. This would be the rebellion of the Efficient Momun - an act for which he later had to pay.

The boy cried and was offended by his grandfather, who did not pick him up from school on time. On the way home they were silent for a long time. But suddenly the old man remembered the returning deer and, in order to calm the child, began to tell him the already well-known fairy tale about the Horned Mother Deer. Meanwhile, he thought about what he and his daughter would have to endure. After all, Orozkul is vengeful, he will not forgive the old man that, although for the first time in his life, he disobeyed him.

Momun's son-in-law, returning home, as always, took his anger out on his wife - he beat her and then kicked her out of the house. She went to the neighbors. Bekey did not blame her dissolute husband for her misfortunes, but her father. However, it was customary to blame all the dogs on the unfortunate old man. Having learned from a neighbor that his daughter did not want to talk to him, Momun became even more upset.

This was part of Orozkul's vengeful plan: to turn Bekey against his father. Returning from the forest that evening, he beat his wife for a long time, while repeating that Momun was to blame for all the troubles. Orozkul announced his dismissal to the old man (the boy’s grandfather had worked for him for a long time and received a tiny salary).

The next day the boy did not go to school - he developed a fever. The old woman reproached her husband for a long time, wondering how this humble, quiet man, who had never offended a fly in his entire life, suddenly dared to contradict Orozkul. She forced the old man to go to work and thereby beg forgiveness from his son-in-law.

Orozkul was very power-hungry. It gave him pleasure to watch the humiliation of the old man, who, with his head bowed, followed him towards the forest. An acquaintance, Orozkul, came to pick up logs. The old man helped load the timber, showing great diligence - he was watched by the old woman, who repeated the phrase more than once in the morning: “Without a salary, you are nothing!” Orozkul didn’t seem to see his father-in-law’s efforts.

And suddenly people who came to the forest for firewood saw an extraordinary picture: several deer stood by the river. They drank the water leisurely, with a sense of dignity. And then we went towards the forest. Then Orozkul, who knew about Momun’s love for fairy tales about the Horned Mother Deer, came up with another plan for revenge. A plan whose implementation will kill the old man.

The boy, meanwhile, lay in his bed and dreamed about how one day people would tame red deer. By the way, the day before, that evening, when a scandal broke out in the house caused by Momun’s unexpected disobedience, the main character saw these animals. He ran to the river, to his favorite stones, and suddenly saw deer. The boy was sure that the largest of them was the same Horned Mother Deer. In his thoughts, for a long time he asked her to send a child to Aunt Bekey. Orozkul will then stop beating her, Momun will not grieve, and peace will reign in their family. He thought about this even when he lay sick in his bed.

Suddenly, a drunken Seidakhmat burst into the house. He dragged the boy outside, despite protests and words: “Grandfather did not tell me to get up.” There were strangers in the yard. The boy did not immediately find his grandfather, but when he saw him, he was very surprised. Momun was drunk. He was on his knees, lighting a fire for meat. And not far from him, to the side lay a deer head. It was the head of the Horned Mother Deer - so the boy decided.

He wanted to run away, but his legs did not obey him. He watched in horror as a drunken Orozkul tried to cut off the antlers from the head of a dead mother deer. And then again I lay in a fever and heard how people, wheezing and slurping, ate deer meat.

On that terrible evening, the boy especially wanted to turn into a fish and swim far from this house. He got up, went to the river, undressed and went into the cold water. The boy never turned into a fish, he never swam to the white ship...

You rejected what your childish soul did not put up with.

The boy's soul did not put up with the harshness of the world, and he left it. This is the text of “The White Ship” in brief.

Aitmatov wrote in two languages: Kyrgyz and Russian. He became the pride of his small, but once very warlike people. Moreover, his works are included in the lists of the best works of Russian literature.

Analysis of Aitmatov’s “White Steamer”

In his work, the writer told an ancient legend about good and evil. But neither in the legend of the Horned Mother Deer, nor in the main storyline, good wins.

The main character of the story “The White Steamship” by Ch. T. Aitmatov divides the world into two dimensions: the fantastic and the real. There is good only in fiction. But Chingiz Aitmatov in The White Steamship did not create strictly negative or positive images. He showed life as it is.

Orozkul undoubtedly evokes negative emotions in the reader. Every person has an inner craving for good. In Orozkul, selfishness and self-pity are too strong. This quality kills everything human and good in him. The author, conveying his inner world, says:

A feeling of shame burned through him.

This happened to Orozkul when he was once again rude to old Momun. Another scene shows this seemingly cruel and heartless man crying:

He couldn't find a single kind word for this boy with the briefcase.

But every time good thoughts appear in Orozkul’s soul, he drowns them out with self-pity.

Opposed to Orozkul Momun. The old man, despite all the hardships, did not lose the ability to love and understand his loved ones. He does hard work without complaint and listens to insults. But he indulges his son-in-law’s whims not out of weakness - for the sake of his daughter and grandson. For their happiness, he is ready to make any sacrifice, even killing deer. After all, it is the old man who shoots the deer on the orders of his son-in-law. And then he gets drunk for the first time in his life.

Each of the characters in the story has their own grief. Momun's wife often thinks about her former family. All her children, and she had five, died. The woman's heart hardened. But she is not as evil as the boy seems. And there is a place for compassion in her soul.

The world is shown through the eyes of a child in Aitmatov's work "The White Steamship". The summary, of course, does not convey this unusual artistic view of reality. The boy does not understand why everyone fears and respects the cruel Orozkul. In his thoughts, he often imagines the day when justice will prevail. He believes in the legend of the Horned Mother Deer, and this belief gives him strength.

The boy hopes that someday the Horned Mother Deer will help him and his beloved grandfather. He frantically asks her in his thoughts to send Aunt Bekey a child. After all, then her husband will stop beating her, and the unfortunate old man will not cry at night. And then the boy sees the head of a dead deer. His ideas about justice and goodness are crumbling. He leaves this cruel world, believing until the last minutes of his life that he will really turn into a fish and swim to the white ship. But no miracle happens. The boy dies.

Screen adaptation

There are no negative reviews about Aitmatov’s “White Steamer”. The story of an old man and a boy escaping harsh reality in the world of fairy tales and legends leaves no one indifferent. In 1976, Bolotbek Shamshiev directed the film “The White Steamship.” Aitmatov wrote the script for this film. The film was awarded several awards, including the State Prize.

LESSON PLAN

Subject name: Russian literature

Class: 7 "B" Teacher:Gorbicheva A.A.

№ Lesson: 46 date: 02/25/2017

Lesson type : gaining new knowledge

Subject: "Real and mythological in Ch. Aitmatov's story "The White Steamship"."
Goal: compilation and defense of literature projects; understanding the moral position of Ch. Aitmatov.
Tasks:
educational: to show how through a person’s relationship to the natural world his character is revealed; identify how the story relates four artistic worlds: natural, life-like, mythological and fairy-tale.
developmental: development of coherent oral and written speech; thinking, memory; analytical skills; ability to work with text, highlight the main thing; carry out ontological analysis of the text; ability to work in a team.
educational: to develop interest in moral issues, “eternal” problems, to learn to feel the word.
Lesson type: learning new material
Lesson form: lesson-defense of creative projects
A person must be, first of all, a person,
he must live in harmony with people like him,
in harmony with nature, he must be
bearer of high ideals...
Ch. Aitmatov
During the classes
I. Organizational moment. 1 min
II. Introductory part. 2 minutes
1. The teacher's word. Today we have an unusual lesson. Lesson-defense of creative projects based on the story “The White Steamship” by Ch. Aitmatov. It can be noted that it was in this genre that the writer was able to express the entire diverse range of human feelings and thoughts. According to the writer, “a person must be, first of all, a person, he must live in harmony with people like him, in harmony with nature, he must be a bearer of high ideals.”
Ch. Aitmatov in his work does not break away from the roots that nurtured his talent, from Kyrgyz folklore; on the contrary, he rethought and reincarnated the images created by folk art. The writer allows himself to outline a “present-future” time perspective for the reader and always leaves the latter the right to make his own moral choice. According to Ch. Aitmatov, “art should call for joy, life affirmation, and optimism. But it is also true that art should plunge a person into deep thoughts and shocks, evoke in him useful feelings of compassion, protest against evil, give him a reason to lament, grieve and yearn to restore, to defend the best in life that was destroyed ... "
Before starting work, let's get acquainted with the main stages of Ch. Aitmatov's creative path.
2. Brief student message about the life and work of Ch. Aitmatov
3. Addressing the topic of the lesson. Goal setting. 1 min
During the lesson you will have to fill them out and answer the question:
Why does Ch. Aitmatov pay special attention to myths and legends? To do this, we need to consider how the work’s 3 artistic worlds relate to each other: life-like, fairy-tale and mythological.
You have been divided into groups. Each group worked on their own project.
4. Protection of projects of creative groups.
1 group “Fairy-tale world” 10-12 min
“He had two fairy tales. One of our own, which no one knew about. The other one is what my grandfather told me. Then there was not one left. This is what we're talking about." This is how Ch. Aitmatov’s story “The White Steamer” begins. The main character of the story, a seven-year-old boy, living in a complex reality, divides his world into three dimensions: the real world, the mythological world and the world of fairy tales, goodness and justice, which, as it were, compensates for the injustices of reality, and there are many of them.
The cruelty and indifference of adults could not serve as support, help and consolation for the boy. And then he creates his own fairy tale. In this fairy tale, the boy also has true friends - stones, plants, binoculars and a briefcase, to whom he entrusts his secret thoughts and dreams.
The hero of the story is a boy, naively pure and dreamy, spiritually open and selfless.
He has an amazing ability of imagination, moral purity, and the ability to live in fiction. His inner, intimate cohabitants are all the grace of existence: mountains, forest, open space, lakes, seasons. And against the backdrop of an ideal family, like the one that appeared to him on the other side of the river in a vision of three deer, the disgrace of this artificial gathering of people on a forest cordon, supposedly forming a family, appears especially pitiful. They are all strangers to each other. And in the words of the grandmother: “And a stranger is always a stranger, no matter how much you feed him, no matter how much you follow him,” - they are all brought together, and in the fear of life they are afraid to break away from each other - to break out into a different life, free, with open possibilities . The cordon space is closed and cramped for the boy. Even the dam that the grandfather made traps the boy in this limited space. All around, there are mountain, forest, and steppe expanses calling for freedom and true life, but here people are strangling, afraid to go beyond the borders. That's why the boy goes to Karaulnaya Mountain. His friend, binoculars, helps him with this. With his help, the boy can at least temporarily escape from this place with cruel people. Somewhere there is life, where there are good people. And most importantly, there you can see a white steamer, a symbol of hope. In the magical world of a fairy tale, a boy meets his father. He dreams of turning into a fish and getting through Issyk-Kul to the white ship where his father is sailing as a sailor. The boy comes to look at the white steamer with his friend - a briefcase that his grandfather Momun gave him so that the boy could go to school with him. We can compare the briefcase to the boy himself - the space of the briefcase is as closed as the boy himself. He is trying to close himself off from the injustice and evil of the real world: “The boy’s heart rolled along the floor, climbed onto the windowsill, closer to the briefcase, and whispered with it.”
In addition to strong physical vision, the boy is endowed with even stronger, more powerful internal vision. He sees a new and untested world, where life is so serene, full of established harmony, there is eternal bliss in the arms of fabulous beauty. Only in nature does the boy feel at home. That is why the boy creates his own fairy tale.
The artistic details in Ch. Aitmatov’s story make a very strong impression on us because they are also included in the problem of good and evil. These are stones, herbs, plants with which the boy talks. The boy has a very subtle soul. So, in the episode when the truck shop arrived, the boy is in a hurry, but does not step on a single stone, carefully runs around them. After all, stones are our main friends.
Stone “Camel”: “Red humpbacked granite, chest-deep in the ground. Usually the boy did not pass without patting his camel on the hump.”
Saddle Boulder: “Half white, half black, piebald stone with a saddle where you could sit astride a horse.”
Stone “Wolf”: “Very similar to a wolf, brown, with gray hair, with powerful and heavy foreheads. He approached it and took aim.”
Stone “Tank”: “His favorite stone. An indestructible block right next to the river on a washed-out bank. Just wait, the tank will rush from the shore and go.”
We set ourselves a goal: to figure out why the boy gave these particular names to his stone friends. To do this, we turned to symbol dictionaries.
“Camel”: A symbol of perseverance and power, independence and dignity, a sacred animal of Allah.
“Saddle”: Symbol of family life, peace. They were placed on the graves of shamans.
“Wolf”: A symbol of courage, victory, fearlessness, caring for the family.
"Tank": Symbol of combat power.
Thus, every artistic detail is included in the problem of good and evil in the work. The boy is endowed with powerful inner vision. He feels nature very subtly.
Each object personifies good or evil for him: “Among the plants there are “beloved”, “brave”, “fearful”, “evil” and all sorts of others.
So, “thistle” is popularly known as “thistle”. This is not a simple plant with interesting legends and history. Thistle is a prickly herbaceous plant, a weed that is constantly being fought. They say that behind its thorns hides a vulnerable soul, capable of self-sacrifice and mutual assistance. We believe that the boy associated the thistle with Orozkul. The boy fights with Orozkul, hoping that he can become kind if he has children. But this doesn't happen. Although, somewhere deep down, Orozkul had something human. You can remember the episode when the drunken Orozkul cries because he cannot find a single friendly word for the boy. But as with a butcher, “the boy fought with it dozens of times a day. But there was no end in sight to this war—the bully kept growing and multiplying…” and so Orozkul got away with everything.
“Convolvuli” - “The smartest and funniest flowers. They greet the sun best in the morning. Other herbs don’t understand anything - whether it’s morning or evening, it’s all the same to them. And the bindweeds, just warming the rays, open their eyes and laugh. First one eye, and then the second, and then one after another all the swirls of flowers bloom on the bindweed. White, light blue, lilac, different...". These are unpretentious flowers, whose stems do not stretch upward, as usual, but creep or entwine, like small vines, any support. They are a symbol of humility and submission. We believe that the boy associates bindweed with his grandfather Momun. He is the only person who cares about the boy. But who, unfortunately, by his age had never forced anyone to respect him: “Both the old man and the little one were on a first-name basis with him, you could make fun of him - the old man was harmless; one could not even take him into account - an unresponsive old man...”
“Feather grass” - “They are eccentrics - feather grass! Windy heads. Their soft, silky panicles cannot live without wind. They just wait - wherever it blows, that’s where they go. If they had legs, they would probably run away wherever they look... But they are pretending.” They are a symbol of the steppes, magical purification; the silvery “waves” of feather grass are associated with the boundless sea. We also correlate feather grass with the image of grandfather Momun, who “was an eccentric, and they treated him like an eccentric...”.
“Shiraljins are true friends. Especially if there is some kind of offense and you want to cry so that no one sees, it is best to hide in shiraljins. They smell like a pine forest at the edge. Hot and quiet in shiraljins. And most importantly, they do not obscure the sky. You need to lie on your back and look at the sky. At first, it’s almost impossible to discern anything through the tears. And then the clouds will come and do whatever you imagine above. The clouds know that you are not feeling well, that you want to go somewhere or fly away..."
As in any fairy tale, the magical world into which the boy plunges is beautiful and fair. Here good always triumphs over evil, beauty and harmony reign here, which the boy so lacks in real life. His fairy tales were the only thing that helped the boy live, to remain a kind, unspoiled child who believed in goodness and that it would win. That inner world protected the pure soul of the child from the evil of the external, surrounding world. But the boy’s inner world collided with the outer world, in which evil opposed good.
Having swum away like a fish along the river, he rejected what his childish soul did not put up with. But he still had faith in goodness, because he did not die, but escaped from reality into his fairy tale world; he did not commit suicide, but “sailed away like a fish down the river.”

Group 2 “Mythological world” 5-7 min
This is what the myth sounds like in the story (a brief retelling of the legend according to the diagram on the slide).
“...This happened a long time ago. A Kyrgyz tribe lived on the banks of the Enesai River. The tribe was attacked by enemies and killed. Only a boy and a girl remained. But then the children also fell into the hands of enemies. The Khan gave them to the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman and ordered to put an end to the Kirghiz. But when the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman had already brought them to the shore of the Enesai, a mother deer came out of the forest and began to ask for the children. “People killed my fawns,” she said. “And my udder is full, asking for children!” The Pockmarked Lame Old Woman warned: “These are the children of men. They will grow up and kill your fawns. After all, people are not like animals, they don’t feel sorry for each other either.” But the mother deer begged the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman, and brought the children, now her own, to Issyk-Kul.
The children grew up and got married. The woman went into labor and was in pain. The man got scared and started calling the mother deer. And then an iridescent ringing was heard from afar. The horned mother deer brought a baby's cradle - beshik - on her horns. And on the bow of the beshik the silver bell rang. And immediately the woman gave birth. They named their firstborn in honor of the mother deer - Bugubay. From him came the Bugu family.
Then a rich man died, and his children decided to install deer horns on the tomb. Since then, there has been no mercy for deer in the Issyk-Kul forests. And there were no more deer. The mountains are empty. And when the Horned Mother Deer left, she said that she would never return
In the story we see a complex structure of the text: the introduced text about the Horned Mother Deer illuminates events running in parallel with the main ones (text within the text). The legend of the mother deer is presented by the author as a very real story. In ideological and semantic terms, the legend turns out to be the leading one; it psychologically and philosophically illuminates the events of real life.
In our project, we decided to find out why the deer uterus is the ancestor of the clan for the Kyrgyz. To do this, we decided to look at the symbolism of the deer. So the deer is:
- A symbol of repeated creation and rebirth;
- the path of solitude and purity;
- a symbol of nobility and greatness;
- A symbol of the beginning opposing evil.
We were also interested in the fact that the story indicates the presence of horns in the name of the deer - Horned Mother Deer. What do the horns symbolize:
- force;
- power;
- power;
- Mystical rebirth;
- courage;
- nobility.
Thus, the myth present in the work performs a dual function: ideological, aesthetic and national. The myth of the Horned Mother Deer in the story is a link between the present and the past. For Aitmatov, a myth is a “clump of wisdom” of the ancients, a proven experience for generations. Myth models an artistic picture of the world and becomes a tool for revealing pressing problems of our time and penetrating into the depths of the public mind. By analogy with myth, the artist depicts social relations, interpreting them philosophically. Those. The mythological world, we believe, helps to better consider the life-like, real world. Momun, just as the Horned Mother Deer takes care of a boy and a girl, raises her abandoned grandson. The deer, according to Eastern mythology, is the royal prey, and therefore it is likened to the king; his killing on a hunt is identified with the death of the hero himself.
Thus, having killed the Horned Mother Deer, Momun “kills” himself: “...struck by grief and shame, the old man lay as if dead, face down, not responding to the boy’s voice.”
Aitmatov turns to myth as a metaphor that, through age-old wisdom, reflects the problems of modernity, which still remain relevant today, such as the connection between generations and the transfer of spiritual experience.

Group 3 “Life-like world”. 5-7 min
The action of the story takes place on a small cordon. There are only three families at the cordon: grandfather Momun and Grandma, aunt Bekey - “the most unfortunate of all women” because she cannot have children, for which she is systematically beaten by her husband Orozkul, the head of the cordon; the worker Seidakhmat and his wife Guljamal also live here . And “the only boy in all three yards.” The boy was left by his parents in the care of his grandfather. Both father and mother already have other families. The boy lives with his grandfather Momun, where their relative Orozkul constantly oppresses and humiliates them. The grandfather could not protect his grandson from the cruelties and injustices of this world, because he himself was weak. In the story, as, alas, in life, it turns out that the best people are poor, unhappy, humiliated by those who have power and strength. Thus, grandfather Momun “worked all his life from morning to evening, lived in troubles, but did not learn to force himself to be respected” and found himself at the mercy of a vindictive and narrow-minded relative - Orozkul.
And the boy sees this life full of injustices. In the real world itself, we would emphasize the presence of a separate problem of the collision of good and evil, thereby highlighting two separate thematic lines in the story: the inner world of the boy against the outside world and Momun against Orozkul in the outer world itself.
Good and evil are two mutually exclusive concepts. And in his dreams, the boy tried to make the real world kinder by “re-educating” evil. He hoped that Orozkul would become kind if he had children, if he knew that he would leave offspring behind him. But at the same time, it is clear that if there was even a drop of goodness in Orozkul, he would give his warmth to the boy, as the Horned Mother Deer did in the legend. And, knowing that his uncle was actually filled only with evil, the boy often saw in his dreams a picture of retribution. The boy, like the reader, subconsciously understood that evil and good cannot coexist, something must be exterminated. Orozkul forced Grandfather Momun to violate his moral laws, to trample on what both he and the boy believed in for so long. Orozkul forced him not only to kill a deer, but to encroach on what he believed in all his life, “the memory of his ancestors, his conscience and his covenants,” the moral laws of the Buginians. Momun did evil in the name of good, for the sake of his “ill-fated daughter,” for the sake of his grandson. But his philosophy of evil in the name of good failed. By killing the deer, he dooms the boy to death. Momun himself helped create a world of legend for his grandson, telling him about the Horned Mother Deer, but he himself destroyed this world. “And now, stricken with grief and shame, the old man lay face down on the ground.” And the boy was left completely alone in this world. All his dreams and hopes were instantly destroyed, the cruelty of the world, from which he had been hiding for a long time, appeared before him in all its guise.
But we still do not believe that evil has won. No, it lost in a duel with a seven-year-old child who will come to these people for the rest of his life, both in dreams and in reality. You cannot destroy everything in your path with impunity. And no one will ever love Orozkul, because he sows only fear and pain. And everyone who indulged this evil with their indifference will never be happy, because in every drop of rain they will see a silvery fish with the eyes of a boy. Good is stronger than evil. There are more good people. Not people like Momun, who don’t know how to fight for good, but people who come to the rescue in difficult times. The boy did not remain rude and weak, but sailed away to the kind, strong one, sailed to his white ship, to his dream.
5. Generalization.
- I ask you to answer the question posed at the beginning of the lesson: why does Aitmatov pay special attention to myths and legends, and how do the worlds of the work relate to each other?
- Student answer: Aitmatov introduced into modern realistic prose what is the legacy of a past culture: myth, legend, tradition. Elements of the mythological consciousness of the world can be adapted to the modern way of thinking. So the topic of memory is important in many ways. We need to understand what historical memory is. People must remember everything. As the master of words himself said: “Someone will correctly note: it’s hard for the one who remembers everything. So, let it be hard for us, but we must not forget the lessons of the past. And let these lessons influence us in everything: our behavior, our consciousness, our actions.”
6. Reflection with implementation. 5 minutes
1. The teacher's word.

Parable about good and evil

Let's try to come up with tips to help avoid evil. Each person writes on a piece of paper what they think is the most important advice. Then you will read them out.
2. Students read out their tips and attach them

Adviсe:
1. Don’t wish others harm, do good, and the world will become a better place.
2 Don’t make others angry and don’t be angry yourself.
3. Don’t keep anger, hatred, rudeness in your heart
4. Kindness will save the world!
5. Don’t do to others what you don’t want for yourself.
6. Always help people who need our help;
7. Just smile at each other and say warm, affectionate words as often as possible.
3. The teacher's word.
But you floated away. Did you know that you will never turn into a fish? That you won’t sail to Issyk-Kul, you won’t see a white ship and you won’t tell it: “Hello, white ship, it’s me!” ... And the fact is that a child’s conscience in a person is like an embryo in a grain; without an embryo, the grain does not germinate. And no matter what awaits us in the world, the truth will remain forever, as long as people are born and die... Saying goodbye to you, I repeat your words, boy: “Hello, white ship, it’s me!”

I . Introductory part

Brief student message about the life and work of Ch. Aitmatov
2. Appeal to the writer's statement
(teacher reads).

“Art should call for joy, life affirmation, optimism. But it is also true that art should plunge a person into deep thoughts and shocks, evoke in him useful feelings of compassion, protest against evil, give him a reason to lament, grieve and yearn to restore, to defend the best in life that turned out to be trampled upon, destroyed... »

3. Addressing the topic of the lesson

What do you consider the most important thing in human life?(Be kind. Love people and your homeland. Live honestly. Take care of nature, etc.)

Now let's see how the heroes of the story understand this.

PROTECTION OF PROJECTS

Group work
II . Comparative characteristics of Momun Orazkul

Ch. Aitmatov in many of his works resorts to sharp contrasts of heroes. This technique allows you to draw characters more clearly. Are there such heroes in the story?

Momun Orozkul

2. Conversation

“Many-wise” people call Momun the Efficient. What does this word mean?

Is there some kind of mockery in this nickname? Is this fair to Momun?

Why do people perceive the kindness of an old man as eccentricity, and maybe even stupidity?

Did you have a moment while reading the story when you sympathized with even such a hero as Orozkul, saw a glimpse of something human in him?

Analytical conversation

He had two fairy tales. One of our own, which no one knew about. The other one is what my grandfather told me. Then there was not one left. This is what we're talking about

How does a boy live among adults? Why does he so often want to “go somewhere or fly away”?

What questions worry the boy? What is he trying to understand?

What is the essence of the boy's dream about the White Steamship?

What definitions would you choose to characterize this hero?

What made the boy become a fish and swim away? WORDS ON THE BOARD

ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

IV . Understanding the final words of the story.

Why, despite the tragic end of the story, does a bright feeling arise in our soul?

Parable about good and evil

Once upon a time, an old man revealed one vital truth to his grandson:

- There is a struggle in every person, very similar to the struggle of two wolves. One wolf represents evil: envy, jealousy, regret, selfishness, ambition, lies. The other wolf represents goodness: peace, love, hope, truth, kindness and loyalty. The grandson, touched to the depths of his soul by his grandfather’s words, thought for a moment, and then asked:

- Which wolf wins in the end? The old man smiled and answered:

- The wolf you feed always wins.

REFLECTION
But you floated away. Did you know that you will never turn into a fish? That you won’t sail to Issyk-Kul, you won’t see a white ship and you won’t tell it: “Hello, white ship, it’s me!” ... And the fact is that a child’s conscience in a person is like an embryo in a grain; without an embryo, the grain does not germinate. And no matter what awaits us in the world, the truth will remain forever, as long as people are born and die... Saying goodbye to you, I repeat your words, boy: “Hello, white ship, it’s me!”