This work tells the story of Aleksa (Gorky's real name)' s childhood from the age of three to ten, vividly reproduces the living conditions of the Russian lower class in the 1970s and 1980s 19, and writes Gorky's understanding of suffering and unique views on social life, with endless vision and strength between the lines.
The protagonist Alisha is an observant and sensitive child. He can tell good from bad. In this respect, the people around him have a great influence on him. With the help of some of his friends, Aletha learned that there are still "truth, goodness and beauty" in the world, and these things are around him. In addition, he also has a firm and unyielding will and tenacious spirit. The pressure of real life has turned Aletha into a strong, upright, brave and confident person. Alisha has a kind heart. He sympathized with the poor and became real friends with the lower working people. Alisha also has a very strong thirst for knowledge. Alisha loves books, and books are forming Alisha's character.
Therefore, Gorky showed his love and praise for these people in his works, and eulogized them through Aletha's warm communication with them. Through the description of Aletha's childhood experience, the works also exposed the social reality at that time. At that time, Russian society was in the 1970s and 1990s. It was on the eve of the Russian revolution that the whole society was under the rule of the czar and the people were displaced. Stealing has become an ethos among villagers, and it is no longer a sin. For ordinary citizens who are half hungry and half full, it is almost the only way to make a living. Children have no money to go to school, and eventually they live on the streets and collect junk for a living. Broadly speaking, it is this social environment in which people live in poverty that causes the tragedy of Alesha.
"Childhood" adopts the method of alternately using children's perspective and adults' perspective to describe in art, and the works mainly observe and describe life from children's perspective, making "Childhood" rich and vivid and full of childlike interest; On the other hand, writers sometimes comment on life from the perspective of adults, which makes the meaning of words in their works clearer, deeper, more ideological and philosophical.
Childhood is based on the writer's own experience, but it is not a simple reproduction of the writer's early life. On the one hand, it truly describes Aletha's growth process and what he saw and heard, and uses a lot of detailed materials; At the same time, try to dig out the typical materials in life and refine them to reflect the essence of life. In childhood, characters are no longer simple individuals, but become representatives of a certain kind of people; Grandfather's home is no longer an ordinary family, but a microcosm of the ordinary citizen society created by the heavy labor, patriarchal handicraft production relations and boring life in the old Russian era. As the author himself said, "I'm not talking about myself, but a suffocating narrow world full of terrible scenes." Here, ordinary Russians once lived and still live. At the same time, bright, healthy and creative things are growing successfully in the soil full of all kinds of bad things such as animals-the people's good qualities, their wisdom and creative spirit, which can "arouse our indestructible hope that a bright and humane life will be revived". "