Summary Platonov's "Pit": grotesque or reality?

Andrei Platonovich Platonov is a Soviet playwright and writer of the first half of the 20th century. His works differ in that they are written in a special, distinctive language. His novel The Pit is a bright grotesque, a rigid satire on the socialist system that existed in the USSR. The group of builders is in the center of attention, which is entrusted to build a common proletarian house, which will become the foundation of the city of the future. These creators do not work. Over time, they understand that their task is not feasible. Here is a short summary of Platonov's "Pit".

Acquaintance of the reader with Voshchev

Voshchev is a thirty-year-old working mechanical plant, who has just received a firing document, in which, in the form of a reason for dismissal , thoughtfulness and slowness during the work process were indicated. Our hero goes to another city to get a new job. Coming to the wasteland, he finds a warm pit and falls asleep there. At midnight he suddenly wakes a mower, clearing this place. He informs Voshchev that soon there will be construction of a huge house for all workers and sends him to the hut to fill it. Even the brief content of Platonov's "Pit" is able to convey all the folly of the discipline of labor of the Soviet system.

Voshchev in the artel masters

Our hero wakes up in the artel of builders sent here for the erection of the building. They feed him, talk about the enormous scale of the planned works and give a shovel. The pit is already dispersed, and the workers begin to dig it. Together with them, Voshchev starts to work. He decides that he will endure hunger and hunger only in time to have a house built for the entire proletariat. So the writer Platonov described in the story the feelings of the main character. The "excavation", the analysis of which can be easily done, reading even a short version, derides the readiness of the Soviet man for the most impossible tasks assigned to him by the party.

Digger Chiklin takes the orphan Nastya with him

One of the workers in an abandoned building of a former tile factory finds a woman dying of hunger and disease with a little girl in her arms. It's the digger Chiklin. He remembers that in his youth he loved this woman. After her death, the digger takes the girl Nastya to her house in the barracks for upbringing. Summary Platonov's "Pit" makes the reader pity and compassion for simple hard workers.

Organization of collective farm life

At the general meeting of workers, the question of collectivization in the countryside is being resolved. The Council decided that for this purpose they would send Kozlova and Safronova to the village. Soon they are killed, and they are sent to the village of Chiklin and Voshchev. In order to identify all the kulaks in the village, the diggers decide to attract a bear who works as a hammer in the smithy. The animal remembers well, in whose houses its labor was used, and without difficulty determines where the bourgeois live. All identified kulaks are put on a raft and allowed into the open sea. The remaining poor people are happy about the arrival of a new life, dancing and cheerfully marching along the road to the excavation. They are sure that soon they will have a cloudless future, where everyone will be happy and equal. By evening all the travelers get to the construction site and see that everything is covered with snow. Platonov's story "The Pit" draws us images of ordinary people obsessed with one common idea - to build a happy future. These hard workers believe that together they will overcome all obstacles.

Death of Nastia

But reality is cruel. While diggers were engaged in collectivization in the village, the "construction of the century" froze. In the barracks the fire was extinguished. Little Nastia is sick, she dies of hunger and cold, just like her mother. All efforts to save her are futile. And at this time the collective farmers who came came to take shovels and begin to dig the earth diligently. Chiklin looks around. It seems to him that all these workers, who have so furiously begun to dig the foundation pit, are trying to disappear in it forever. He is digging a grave for Nastia with the thoughts that this child will never be disturbed by events happening on the surface of the earth.

You have read the summary of Platonov's The Pit. The work is complex, and it is better to read it in the original.