The White Poodle

Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (1870–1938) was an outstanding Russian realist writer. He was born in a small district town of Narovchat (now in the Penza region) in a family of hereditary nobles. The future writer’s father died in 1871, a year... after his son was born. The family faced difficult times, and the mother was forced to send the boy to an orphanage. In 1880, Kuprin entered the Second Moscow Military Gymnasium, and in 1887, he joined the Alexandrov Military School. From 1890 to 1894, Aleksandr Ivanovich served as a second lieutenant in the 46th Dnieper Regiment in the Podolsk province. In 1894, he retired and moved to Kyiv. He had no civilian profession, and before picking up a pen, he changed many jobs. A.I. Kuprin was a curious person; he was interested in trying himself in different roles. He jokingly told his friends that he would like to become a horse, a plant, or a fish for a few days. A.I. Kuprin's first work, the story The Last Debut, was published in 1889 when he was a cadet at the military school. When his superiors learned of this, Kuprin was put in solitary confinement for two days. At that time, he vowed to himself to give up literary experiments and not to touch pen and paper. However, his acquaintance with Bunin, Chekhov, and Gorky in the late 1890s made him forget this promise. In 1901, A.I. Kuprin moved to St. Petersburg and began working as a secretary for the Journal for Everyone. By this time, the reading public had duly appreciated his literary talent, and the novella The Duel, published in 1905, finally secured his reputation as a master of words. The plot of the story The White Poodle is based on real events; the writer knew this group of artists personally. The story told by Seryozha deeply affected A.I. Kuprin. In this simple plot, two important themes for the writer are highlighted - the theme of social inequality and the theme of the relationships between people and animals. The author very clearly contrasts the behavior of Seryozha and Trilli. The son of the landlady is clumsy and spoiled, indifferent to nature, while Seryozha is agile, strong, and decisive. The young artist does not even entertain the thought of abandoning his four-legged friend in trouble; for Trilli, only his own needs exist, and he does not even think about the feelings and desires of others.