The story of Valentin Rasputin "Money for Mary" was first published in 1967 on the pages of the Angara magazine. Before the release of a turning point in Rasputin's creative biography, the writer worked as a correspondent for various newspapers, wrote stories and essays, published three books and even became a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR. But, all this was a preface to a great mature and talented work in the form of the story "Money for Mary". It was after the release of this work that literary critics noticed the emergence of a new gifted and profound writer. Rasputin himself also believes that it was with "Money for Mary" that his work reached a different level.

It was in this story that the unique "Rasputin" style became noticeable, which he would develop in his subsequent works. From that moment on, the main themes in the writer's work were the search for the causes of good and evil, mercy and cruelty, the opposition of the spiritual principle in man to growing materialism. Rasputin wanted to look deeply into the human soul and find the light in it. The moral basis of all subsequent work of the writer has already become undeniable.

The main character of the story is Maria, who works in the only store in the village. An auditor comes to her and reveals a shortage of a large amount of money - a thousand rubles. If Maria returns this money to the cashier within five days, she will be able to avoid a trial. The family of the main character never had such money. Her husband, tractor driver Kuzma, decides to borrow the necessary amount from fellow villagers, relatives, friends and acquaintances. He goes around the whole village, but Kuzma fails to collect the amount necessary for Maria. Although, according to the writer's hints, local residents have such money. But Mary's husband cannot take them by force or steal them, because he is an honest and decent person.

Reading the story "Money for Mary", the summary of which fits in five days, it turns out that such a short time period can last a lifetime.

There is no fault of the main character of the book in the shortage that has occurred. This woman, due to her inexperience and lack of education, simply miscalculated, and none of her fellow villagers would dare to call her a thief. In fact, all the inhabitants of the village are to blame for what happened. The store itself has had a bad reputation for a long time. He was even called "cursed". After the end of the war, the saleswoman Marusya was imprisoned for five years, and her children were distributed to orphanages. Fedor one-armed with difficulty got out after he was found to have a surplus in the cash register. Then there was a young girl Rosa, who ended up in prison for three years. Everyone in the village knew about this, but they unanimously asked Maria to go to work in the store, because otherwise they had to go to the nearest village, located twenty miles from their village, even for matches and salt.

Rasputin asks readers the question: what happened to these strong, healthy, far from poor people who turned away from someone else's grief? Mary is bitter and offended not only because of the very fact of the shortage, but also because of the fact that distrust of people and disbelief in good has settled in her soul.

The whole story is written in such a way that we see its heroes through the eyes of Maria Kuzma's husband, whom he asks for help. Rasputin very accurately wrote out the entire galaxy of human characters that are often found in human society. Moreover, it was done with talent and in all the finest details.

Conscientious people gave Kuzma everything they had down to the last penny. Seventy-year-old grandfather Gordey, who never had a penny for his soul, asked his son for 15 rubles, although Kuzma did not want to take them. Seriously ill, bedridden aunt Natalya, who had collected a certain amount for her funeral, gave it to her husband Maria, who had the feeling that he was taking this money "from the other world." The chairman of the collective farm managed to raise a large amount, who gave his monthly salary and proposed to follow his example to local chiefs.

On the other hand, there were those in the village who had money, but they decided not to part with it. Stepanida, who always called Maria “native”, did not give a penny, although several hundred were lying near the house for a “rainy day”. The principal of the school gave 100 rubles, but Kuzma had to listen to a lengthy lecture with moralizing from him. Maria's husband had the feeling that this man was not helping people, but wanted everyone around to know about his "virtue".

Kuzma himself never refused any help to anyone in his life and believed that the same kind and sympathetic people live next to him. The attitude towards money in Maria's family was simple: if they are, it's good, but if not, so be it. They were not rich, but not poor either. Their children did not need anything, there was always food in the house, and Kuzma did not think about stocks for a "rainy day", because he did not expect his possible arrival.

Rasputin describes Maria's husband as a solid, honest and persistent person and gives hope to readers that Kuzma must cope with this misfortune and do everything so that his wife is free.

The heroes of the story are written out by the writer with love and some spiritual poetry. And this is especially noticeable in the image of Kuzma.

In the work of Rasputin there is a character Alexei - the brother of the protagonist, who lives in the city, but according to the plot of the book he does not appear in it. Only the impressions of people who knew Alexei about him are described. Mostly they are negative. It turns out that after the death of his father, Kuzma's brother could not come to the wake and did not appear at all in his small homeland for more than seven years. When Maria's husband realizes that he has collected everything he could in the village, but still there is not enough money, Kuzma decides to go to the city to his brother for help. The writer gives the reader hope that Alexei can help his relatives in trouble, but there is no exact answer to this question, since the story ends at the moment when Kuzma comes to the door of his brother's apartment and knocks on him. Each reader may have their own version of the ending.

The main idea of the book

What will happen if the optimistic forecasts do not materialize and Kuzma's brother does not help out his relative? Will Mary go to jail, how will her husband live, what will happen to their children? Fear and distrust in people will settle in the family for a long time. Kuzma can be completely disappointed in human kindness and mutual understanding, and this is the worst thing.

Difficult tests of the protagonist
If you think about it, what did the main character have to endure during these ill-fated five days? He went through humiliation and many other trials that he had never experienced before. The soul of a man was exhausted, it began to seem to him that he was alone in the whole world.

Fear and an ominous silence settled in Kuzma's house. The whole world around seems to be asking the question not about what will happen next with the heroes of the story, but about what happened to the people who live next to them?

The subsequent works of Valentin Rasputin were written in continuation of the main theme of the story "Money for Mary", which is the question "What is happening in modern world with people? Where did their love, friendship, kindness, mutual assistance go? Rasputin posed all these questions in his later stories and novels, but he never found an answer.

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"Money for Mary"

For many of us, the concepts of "humanity" and "mercy" are inextricably linked. Many even identify them (which, however, is not entirely true). The humanist writer could not ignore the theme of mercy, and it is our reflection in the story “Money for Mary”.

The plot of the work is very simple. An emergency occurred in a small Siberian village: the auditor discovered a big shortage in the seller of Maria's store. It is clear to the auditor and fellow villagers that Maria did not take a penny for herself, becoming, most likely, a victim of the accounting launched by her predecessors. But, fortunately for the saleswoman, the auditor turned out to be a sincere person and gave five days to pay off the shortage. He took into account, apparently, both the illiteracy of the woman and her disinterestedness, and most importantly, he took pity on the children.

This, it would seem, quite everyday situation shows human characters well. Maria's fellow villagers are holding a kind of mercy test. They are faced with a difficult choice: either help out their conscientious and always hardworking countrywoman by lending her money, or turn away, not notice the human misfortune, keeping their own savings. Money here becomes a kind of measure of human conscience. The work reflects the author's perception of various kinds of misfortunes. Rasputin's misfortune is not just a disaster. It is also a test of a person, a test that exposes the core of the soul. Here everything is highlighted to the bottom: both good and bad - everything is revealed without concealment. Such crisis psychological situations organize the dramaturgy of the conflict in this story and in other works of the writer.

In Maria's family, money has always been treated simply. Husband Kuzma thought: "Yes - good - no - well, okay." For Kuzma, "money was patches that are put on the holes necessary for living." He could think about stocks of bread and meat - one cannot do without this, but thoughts about stocks of money seemed to him amusing, buffoonish, and he brushed them aside. He was content with what he had. That is why when trouble knocked on his house, Kuzma does not regret the accumulated wealth. He thinks about how to save his wife, the mother of his children. Kuzma promises his sons: “We will turn the whole earth upside down, but we will not give up our mother. We are five men, we can do it.” Mother here is a symbol of the bright and sublime, incapable of any meanness. Mother is life. Protecting her honor and her dignity is what matters to Kuzma, not money.

But Stepanida has a completely different attitude to money. She is unbearable to part with a penny for a while. With difficulty gives money to help Maria and the director of the school Yevgeny Nikolaevich. Not a feeling of compassion for a fellow villager guides his act. He wants to strengthen his reputation with this gesture. He advertises his every step to the whole village. But mercy cannot coexist with rough calculation.

Thus, in the person of the head of the family, we see an ideal that we need to be equal to, solving questions about prosperity and its impact on people's consciousness, about family relationships, the dignity and honor of the family. The author again demonstrates the inextricable connection of several moral problems. A minor deficiency allows you to see the moral character of the representatives of society, reveals different facets of the same quality of a person.

Soviet time. The beginning of monetary reform. A big shortage is revealed during an audit in one store. The saleswoman can be imprisoned. Her husband turns to his fellow villagers for help.

Late at night, Kuzma goes to his brother, but does not believe that he will be able to borrow money. Relatives have long become strangers to each other. During the trip, the man remembers how it all began.

A few days ago, a man came to the village to inspect the store where Maria was the saleswoman. No audit was carried out during the year. In order to save the girl and the mother of four children from punishment, in the form of a criminal term, the auditor proposes to pay the missing thousand rubles while other stores are being checked. Such a huge amount, the couple needs to find within five days.

Many felt sorry for the family. The chairman promised to issue a loan, but only at the end of the year. This did not give Mary much hope. The girl remained upset, and her husband tried his best to support her. They had no money and nothing to sell. Kuzma remembers his rich brother and buys a train ticket. While waiting for his train, the man recalls with grief how he humiliated himself and asked people for money. He first approached the well-to-do headmaster, who kept his cash in the bank. He agreed to borrow a small amount, saying that everyone should help each other.

A cold wind blows on the pyron. A man understands that everything is interconnected. Neighbor, during the trip, Kuzmina is Gennady Ivanovich, director of the radio station. He treats the villagers with contempt, believing that they have more privileges than city people. Man does not want to listen similar conversation, but he patiently waits for the second neighbor to move the topic to a more decent one. Men begin to play preference, but Kuzma does not know the rules of this game. He changes places with the man from the other car.

The ill-fated store was considered cursed. Many workers were short. The last saleswoman, and at all, was planted. Maria began to replace the pregnant woman. The family lived hard. The last child was born very weak. My wife was constantly sick, she was forbidden to do hard work. Everything went well at first. The girl, because of her good disposition, gave food on loans, and trusted strangers to purchase goods. This brought her down. She believed that her husband would help her, but after listening to the conversations of her neighbors, she lost hope.

Kuzma's new neighbors were an adult couple and a drunken young man. The man falls asleep, but even in a dream he sees how he collects money for his wife.

The family had money, but it was never enough. The memories started again.

One night, Kuzmin and a friend named Vasily decided to go to the stingy Stepanida. She was a drinker and the men decided to give her a drink in order to fertilize. Everything turned out to be pointless. She remained just as mean. The man's friend was divorced a long time ago. He was prejudiced against the female sex and believed that his fellow traveler was cheating on his wife. Kuzma admits that he committed such an offense once, after which Maria wanted to leave him. He managed to talk her out of staying. This did not happen again.

The train was approaching the city. The whole village tried to help the unfortunate family. Many, at the request of the chairman, refused a monthly salary. A sleepy man will be a guy. Going out into the vestibule, he complains about his life. He was abandoned by a girl, taking a small child. Kuzma assumes that she has found another, to which the young man is angry.

A man is offered not to collect money, but simply to make his woman pregnant again.

Finally Kuzma arrives. He gets off the train and realizes that the wind has died down, it means to be kind. Having found his brother's house, the man presses the bell.

Picture or drawing Money for Mary

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Why did Maria agree to work as a saleswoman, although she did not have the experience, the necessary knowledge?

Maria agreed to work as a seller for several reasons, the main of which was her natural kindness and understanding of the need to help fellow villagers and open a store after a long downtime. At first, they thought that Maria would work as a seller temporarily while Nadya Vorontsova was on maternity leave, and when she changed her mind about returning, she had to stay for a permanent job. Maria also had some practical considerations: her health did not allow her to do hard work on the collective farm, she needed to look after the children and the house - the store was nearby, and the family needed additional income, as they received loan to build a new house. Nevertheless, Maria, realizing the danger of trading activities for an ignorant person, for a long time did not agree to accept the store. And then she demanded a revision herself.

How are the relations between Kuzma and Maria with fellow villagers after the arrival of trouble in their house?

On the whole, relations on the part of fellow villagers remain friendly and sympathetic. Maria and Kuzma experience a feeling of shame and embarrassment in front of them. Maria is grieving grief, even dreams of death. And both of them hope for help.

What are the reasons for Mary's major shortage?

The reasons are that she did not have the necessary accounting knowledge to keep records in the store, as well as her trust in people. Maria sold goods on credit and this debt was not always returned to her. She did not always receive goods in the regional center herself. It is possible that experienced people in the district consumer union, taking advantage of Maria's illiteracy, could deceive in the invoice. In addition, there was no accounting in the store for a whole year. Sympathizing with Mary, the auditor did not immediately initiate a lawsuit, but gave a five-day period to cover the shortage.

Why does Rasputin take Kuzma from house to house in search of money? Show how the psychological state of Kuzma changes.

The story is based on the motive of ancient Russian quests for the truth. With such a construction of the plot, not only fellow villagers, but our entire society are subjected to a moral check. The reader meets with various characters, various moral principles. Thus, Rasputin expresses important thoughts about the need to preserve the traditions that are formed by the measured rural way of life: “All people come from there, from the village, only some earlier, others later, and some understand this, while others do not<….>human kindness, respect for elders, and hard work also come from the village.

The psychological state of the hero periodically changes depending on who he meets - from hope to hopelessness. And not only because of whether this person lends or does not lend, whether he helps out or does not help out, but Kuzma also has a sense of his own inconvenience, shame, burdening them with his requests, which sometimes put them in an awkward position. So, he could not ask for money from his friend and former work partner Vasiliy. With great embarrassment, he takes the money saved up by Aunt Natalya for the funeral.

For Kuzma, going after money is a path full of moral torment. And another problem manifests itself in the story - this is the material insecurity of the workers. Although at that time a thousand rubles was considered a very large sum, nevertheless, the difficulties in collecting it testify to a serious ill-being in society. With difficulty, Natalya saved up funeral expenses, a non-poor person, the director of the school, keeps savings on a book in the district, even for a hundred rubles he needs to go to the savings bank, and, realizing that he needs help in this situation, he does it with difficulty. The position of the rural intelligentsia (specialists) is clearly not visible, and one can hardly blame a mechanic who does not have enough money to take in a friend, or a veterinarian's wife who has fifty rubles in debt. And Kuzma, for all the severity of his situation, treats them with understanding and does not condemn.

Why does Kuzma go even to those houses, the owners of which obviously will not help him (Stepanida)? Does the hero's plight only lead him to these people? Why does Kuzma turn to those from whom it is not easy to get help (Evgeny Nikolaevich)?

The writer really takes Kuzma to almost all the houses of his fellow villagers, even to those where it is known in advance that they will not give money (Stepanida) or will give it with a lot of reservations (Evgeny Nikolaevich). This is necessary to show the diversity of human characters. And of course, Kuzma is extremely trusting and hopes that in such an extreme situation the best that is in people will be revealed. But hopes are not always justified.

Analyze the scene of the meeting of specialists. What is the main idea of this episode of the story? Try to determine the position of the author.

This scene reveals the psychological characteristics of each of the participants - the chairman, Kuzma, specialists. It is felt that everyone experiences internal difficulties. The chairman is nervous that not everyone has gathered at once, he has to wait. Others feel tense. They agreed with the chairman's request, but their agreement was somehow forced, silent. The agronomist turned out to be the most conscientious and even encouraged Kuzma: “Don't think that he forced us. He did the right thing. Take this money, don't be shy. Consider them yours." This is another approach to the current situation. Others agreed silently.

Rasputin, creating this scene, gives brief characteristics specialists; they can even be called sketches. These are very positive people who love their work and are respected on the collective farm. It would seem that they should determine the level of morality. Along the way, the history of the life of the chairman is given, from which you understand that this call to specialists to help Kuzma follows from the logic of his character, his moral ideas about decency, honor, self-sacrifice, mutual benefit. It is the chairman who appears before us as a true leader of the team, as he always was. Rasputin, as it were, compares, telling the story of the arrest and conviction of the chairman, that risky act committed for the sake of fellow villagers (buying gasoline from the skipper), with an attempt to find money for Maria.

The ideological meaning of the scene of the meeting of specialists is a call for traditional Russian catholicity, the approval of humanistic moral laws, a call for the implementation of the original mission of the intelligentsia. material from the site

Why do you think the events of the first three days are presented in the story as Kuzma's memories during his trip to his brother in the city? What is the meaning of such a compositional technique?

Rasputin uses a very interesting compositional device for conveying previous events through memories. We already know that he could not raise the required amount in the countryside or did not realize all the available opportunities, which slips through his thoughts. Through his memories and reflections on the train, we get to know different people, and we get to know each other in more detail than could happen with a straightforwardly built plot. Kuzma has time for a joint understanding of what happened with the author. The moods and characters of fellow villagers as a whole are analyzed in the mind of Kuzma. It remains to check the feelings of the brother, how he will manifest himself in a situation of family trouble, to check the strength of family ties, which are also an original Russian tradition.

Why is the ending of the story left open?

The ending remains open, it seems, because the author decided to end his story at the most tense moment, on which further fate Kuzma family. The culmination of the story is reached - Kuzma stands at the door of his brother's apartment, stands with hope, although a minute before that he doubted whether to contact him, because his brother is a cut piece. Whatever the outcome, the main thing is that Kuzma nevertheless came to his brother to appeal to kindred feelings. His knock on the door is a knock on the heart of a native person. Together with the reader, the author does not want to be disappointed, he does not want to believe in the destruction of traditional family ties, he believes in the voice of blood, at least in extreme situations. After all, the problem of the family, its fortress is one of the main ones in the work of Valentin Rasputin.

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