Bunin's main themes and ideas. To help students
Table of contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 . The theme of love in the works of I.A. Bunin.
Chapter 2 The theme of happiness and the meaning of life in the works of I.A. Bunina.
Chapter 3. The theme of nature in the works of I.A. Bunina. "Antonov apples"
Conclusion
Bibliography
1. Introduction
Classic of Russian literature, honorary academician by category belles lettres, the first of the Russian writers Nobel laureate, poet, prose writer, translator, publicist, literary critic Ivan Alekseevich Bunin won worldwide fame. His work was admired by T. Mann, R. Rolland, F. Mauriac, R. - M. Rilke, M. Gorky, K. Paustovsky, A. Tvardovsky and others. I. Bunin followed his own path all his life; he did not belong to any literary group, much less a political party. It stands apart, unique creative personality in the history of Russian literature of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Bunin's work is characterized by an interest in ordinary life, the ability to reveal the tragedy of life, and the richness of the narrative with details. Bunin is considered to be the successor of Chekhov's realism. Bunin's realism differs from Chekhov's in its extreme sensitivity. Like Chekhov, Bunin addresses eternal themes. For Bunin, nature is important, however, in his opinion, the highest judge of man is human memory. It is memory that protects Bunin’s heroes from inexorable time, from death. Bunin's prose is considered a synthesis of prose and poetry. It has an unusually strong confessional beginning (“Antonov Apples”). Often Bunin's lyrics replace plot basis, a portrait story (“Lyrnik Rodion”) appears.
Among Bunin's works there are stories in which the epic, romantic beginning is expanded. The whole life of the hero comes into the writer’s field of vision (“The Cup of Life”). Bunin is a fatalist, irrationalist; his works are characterized by the pathos of tragedy and skepticism. Bunin's work echoes the modernists' concept of tragedy human passion. Like the Symbolists, Bunin’s appeal to the eternal themes of love, death and nature comes to the fore. The cosmic flavor of the writer’s works, the permeation of his images with the voices of the Universe, brings his work closer to Buddhist ideas. Bunin's works synthesize all these concepts.
Only feeling justifies high demands on oneself and one’s neighbor; only a lover is able to overcome his selfishness. The state of love is not fruitless for Bunin’s heroes; it elevates souls.
In Bunin’s lyrical hero, the fear of death is strong, but in the face of death, many feel inner spiritual enlightenment, come to terms with the end, and do not want to disturb their loved ones with their death (“Cricket”, “Thin Grass”). Bunin is characterized by a special way of depicting the phenomena of the world and the spiritual experiences of man by contrasting them with each other. Thus, in the story “Antonov Apples,” admiration for the generosity and perfection of nature coexists with sadness over the dying of noble estates.
The writer never responded to momentary events; he seemed to be only interested in eternal problems– love, death, nature, soul, meaning of life.
In my work, I set a goal to find out how these themes are revealed in the works of I.A. Bunin.
2. The theme of love in the works of I.A. Bunin.
In the theme of love, Bunin reveals himself as a man of amazing talent, a subtle psychologist who knows how to convey the state of the soul wounded by love. The writer does not avoid complex, frank topics, depicting the most intimate human experiences in his stories. Over the centuries, many literary artists have dedicated their works to the great feeling of love, and each of them found something unique and individual about this theme. It seems to me that the peculiarity of Bunin the artist is that he considers love to be a tragedy, a catastrophe, madness, a great feeling, capable of both infinitely elevating and destroying a person. Love is a mysterious element that transforms a person’s life, giving his destiny uniqueness against the backdrop of ordinary life stories, filling special meaning his earthly existence.
This mystery of existence becomes the theme of Bunin's story "The Grammar of Love" (1915). The hero of the work, a certain Ivlev, having stopped on the way to the house of the recently deceased landowner Khvoshchinsky, reflects on “an incomprehensible love that has turned an entire human life into some kind of ecstatic life, which, perhaps, should have been the most ordinary life,” if not for the strange charm of the maid Lushki. It seems to me that the mystery lies not in the appearance of Lushka, who “was not at all good-looking,” but in the character of the landowner himself, who idolized his beloved. "But what kind of person was this Khvoshchinsky? Crazy or just some kind of stunned, all-focused soul?" According to neighboring landowners. Khvoshchinsky “was known in the district as a rare clever man. And suddenly this love, this Lushka, fell upon him, then her unexpected death - and everything went to dust: he shut himself up in the house, in the room where Lushka lived and died, and for more than twenty years sat on her bed." What can you call this twenty-year seclusion? Insanity? For Bunin, the answer to this question is not at all clear.
The fate of Khvoshchinsky strangely fascinates and worries Ivlev. He understands that Lushka has entered his life forever, awakening in him “a complex feeling, similar to what he once experienced in an Italian town when looking at the relics of a saint.” What made Ivlev buy from Khvoshchinsky’s heir “at an expensive price” a small book “The Grammar of Love”, which the old landowner never parted with, cherishing memories of Lushka? Ivlev would like to understand what the life of a madman in love was filled with, what he ate long years his orphaned soul. And following the hero of the story, the “grandchildren and great-grandsons” who have heard “the voluptuous legend about the hearts of those who loved,” and along with them the reader of Bunin’s work, will try to reveal the secret of this inexplicable feeling.
Trying to understand nature love feeling author and in the story "Sunstroke" (1925). “A strange adventure” shakes the lieutenant’s soul. Having parted with a beautiful stranger, he cannot find peace. At the thought of not being able to meet this woman again, he
I felt such pain and uselessness of all my later life without her, that he was seized by horror and despair." The author convinces the reader of the seriousness of the feelings experienced by the hero of the story. The lieutenant feels "terribly unhappy in this city." "Where to go? What to do?" - he thinks lostly. The depth of the hero's spiritual insight is clearly expressed in final phrase story: “The lieutenant sat under a canopy on the deck, feeling ten years older.” How to explain what happened to him? Maybe the hero came into contact with that great feeling that people call love, and the feeling of the impossibility of loss led him to realize the tragedy of existence?
Torment loving soul, the bitterness of loss, the sweet pain of memories - such unhealed wounds are left in the destinies of Bunin’s heroes by love, and time has no power over it. The story "Dark Alleys" (1935) depicts chance meeting people who loved each other thirty years ago. The situation is quite ordinary: a young nobleman easily parted with the serf girl Nadezhda who was in love with him and married a woman of his circle. And Nadezhda, having received her freedom from the masters, became the owner of an inn and never got married, had no family, no children, and did not know ordinary everyday happiness. “No matter how much time passed, I still lived alone,” she admits to Nikolai Alekseevich. “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten. I could never forgive you. Just as I had nothing more precious than you in the world at that time, so I never was". She could not change herself, her feelings. And Nikolai Alekseevich realized that in Nadezhda he had lost “the most precious thing he had in life.” But this is a momentary epiphany. Leaving the inn, he “remembered with shame his last words and the fact that he kissed her hand, and was immediately ashamed of his shame." And yet it is difficult for him to imagine Nadezhda as his wife, the mistress of the St. Petersburg house, the mother of his children. This gentleman attaches too much great importance class prejudices in order to prefer genuine feelings to them. But he paid for his cowardice with a lack of personal happiness.
How differently the characters in the story interpret what happened to them! For Nikolai Alekseevich this is “a vulgar, ordinary story,” but for Nadezhda it is not dying memories, many years of devotion to love.
Yes, love has many faces and is often inexplicable. This is an eternal mystery, and every reader of Bunin’s works seeks his own answers, reflecting on the mysteries of love. The perception of this feeling is very personal, and therefore someone will treat what is depicted in the book as a “vulgar story,” while others will be shocked by the great gift of love, which, like the talent of a poet or musician, is not given to everyone. But one thing is certain: Bunin’s stories telling about the most intimate things will not leave you indifferent modern readers. Every young person will find in Bunin’s works something consonant with his own thoughts and experiences, will touch great secret love. This is what makes the author of "Sunstroke" always modern writer, arousing deep reader interest.
^ 3. The theme of happiness and the meaning of life in the works of I.A. Bunina.
In one of his best stories, “The Mister from San Francisco,” the writer reflects on the value and meaning of human life, the human right to happiness. Going from the opposite, the writer chooses the “anti-hero” as the central character. With barely perceptible sarcasm, Bunin gives a large stroke of the background history of the hero. “He was firmly convinced that he had every right to rest, to pleasure, to a long and comfortable journey, and who knows what else. His reason for such confidence was that, firstly, he was rich, and secondly, he had just started life, despite his fifty-eight years.”
The clearly planned life of a gentleman from San Francisco, not built according to someone else’s model, turns out to be not as long-lasting and happy as he would like. All the previous time he had been preparing for an easy serene life with its joys and pleasures. But death came without warning, and the master died without tasting the blessings he had counted on. The writer seems to be warning his readers to think about life, its real values and the inexorability of the rapidly flowing time. It is not given to man to know own destiny, so we must appreciate every moment. You should not look at life as endless pleasure or, on the contrary, make hell out of it in the hope of future rewards.
The writer shows Eternal values: life, love, the elements of nature, but in the company of his heroes all this is replaced with a fake: instead of love, a hired couple plays lovers, “living” life is replaced with a clearly measured daily routine. And only nature is not subject to the will of money. People are trying to isolate themselves from the elements with the cabins of the ship, trying not to think about the abyss that reigns below them. They believe in the captain, the reliability of Atlantis, the care of the crew, and most importantly, in the power of money that provides this comfort. The writer shows the fragility of these hopes.
At the very beginning of the journey, a gentleman from San Francisco dies - nothing saves him from his predetermined fate. And a seemingly measured life, promising so many pleasures, turns out to be a completely different side. Now no amount of money can pay for respectful treatment of a lifeless body. The lifeless gentleman returns to the New World in a soda box, deep in the hold of this luxury liner, on which so recently he dreamed of pleasures that promised joy and relaxation. Bunin mercilessly debunks the power of money, its illusory power over the world. Everything is in the hands of God, and it is not for man to consider himself master. There are eternal values that the author worships, showing artless life ordinary people: the bellhop Luigi, the dancers: Carmella and Giuseppe, the boys and the “hefty Capri women.”
Life goes on as usual, you can enjoy it or live it thoughtlessly, but you cannot ignore it, you should not hope to extend your hours, it will not work. And blessed are those “children of nature” who are happy because they are alive, like the two Abruzzese mountaineers who “bared
They put their heads to their lips - and naive and humbly joyful praises poured out to the sun, to the morning, to her, the immaculate intercessor of all those suffering in this evil and wonderful world, and born from her womb in the cave of Bethlehem, in a poor shepherd’s shelter, in the distant country of Judah...”
^ 4. The theme of nature in the works of I.A. Bunina. "Antonov apples"
Animating nature is a favorite technique in Bunin's lyrics. In the naturalness of being, according to Bunin, is the source of the main values of human existence: peace, cheerfulness, joy. The humanization of nature (anthropomorphism), which has long arisen in world literature, including Russian poetry, is repeated persistently by Bunin, enriched with new metaphors. The Tyutchev-like poetry of a thunderstorm as a symbol of the renewal of the world is directly projected onto human life: it is not good without labor and the struggle for happiness (“Don’t frighten me with a thunderstorm”). But Tyutchev’s theme is not repeated, but takes on an unexpected, new turn.
The poet hears in spring thunderstorm not only thunder, but also silence: “How mysterious you are, thunderstorm! How I love your silence” (“The fields smell…”)
Bunin's art of personification is amazing. He was far from symbolism, the style of which is excessively rich in allegories, and the representatives of this group were proud of this. literary direction. However, such a style was quite accessible to the poet, who demonstrated his strong commitment to Pushkin’s clarity of verse. And what symbolist would not appreciate Bunin’s metaphor: “And someone blue eyes looks into the flickering wave" (“On the High Seas”). It is clear that the main advantage of Bunin's poetry was not metaphor as such.
The most outstanding Russian symbolist, Blok (who, however, was rapidly moving towards realism), considered Bunin “a real poet... chaste, strict with himself”; Bunin’s “rigor” lies in the clarity of his poetic thought, in the concrete, “earthly” nature of his worldview. And therefore, he sees nature not in a foggy, ghostly haze, as some kind of abstraction born of the imagination alone (which is typical of symbolists), but as something involved in man and as if even created by him: “Cedar branches are embroidered with dark green plush, fresh and thick.” ("From the window"). What unites man and nature? An eternal life-active, life-creating force: after death comes rebirth unstoppably. “Passion of violent power” of a person - highest manifestation this power. A warrior may die in battle, but where he fell “a mound rose” (“He loved the dark nights in the tent”). “Risen” is a poetic formula for revival. At first, it may seem that Bunin’s theme of the merging of people with the natural world is still somewhat abstract; the moment of an active principle is not highlighted in man’s relationship with nature. But it is not so. Of course, the glorified Russian nature is beautiful in itself.
Bunin’s landscapes, where wildflowers surprise with their “bashful beauty” (“Wild Flowers”), where “the ravines smell strongly of mushroom dampness” (“No birds are visible...”), charmed very demanding readers, for example L. Tolstoy.
Let us turn, for example, to the story “Antonov Apples”. The external organization of his text is prosaic, but in essence this work is close to poetic art. To a certain extent, the story is a symbol of Bunin’s poetic attitude to the world, a joyful hymn to nature.
The most Bunin's favorite the word, one might say, that is pivotal in his style is “freshness.” In the story we note: “fresh morning”, “fresh winter crops”, “fresh forest”. The word “freshness” is combined here with another word related to it in terms of semantic content: “autumn freshness.” A common phrase, but for Bunin it has many meanings: autumn is the time of full ripening, freshness is physical health. A fruitful, healthy life is the highest earthly good - this is the aesthetic and, in essence, philosophical program of the writer.
Impressions from Bunin’s visit to his brother’s estate formed the basis and became the main motive of the story. The work is deservedly considered the pinnacle of the writer’s style. The story was revised several times, syntactic periods were shortened, some details were removed that characterize the fading noble-estate world, phrases were sharpened, etc. The story opens with a description of an early, fine autumn. “I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and - the smell Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, as if there is none at all, voices and the creaking of carts are heard throughout the garden... And the cool silence of the morning is disturbed only by the well-fed cackling of blackbirds on the coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming sound of apples being poured into measures and tubs.” The author describes autumn in the village with undisguised admiration, “giving not only landscape” but also portrait sketches(old men with longevity, white “like harriers”, a sign of a rich village; rich men” who built huge huts for large families, etc.). The writer compares the way of life of a nobleman with the way of a rich peasant life using the example of his aunt’s estate - in her house there was still a sense of serfdom, and how the men took off their hats in front of the gentlemen. What follows is a description of the interior of the estate “full of details - blue and purple glass in the windows” old mahogany furniture with inlays, mirrors in narrow and twisted gold frames” “The fading spirit of the landowners” is supported only by hunting. The author recalls the “rite” of hunting in the house of his brother-in-law Arseny Semenovich” a particularly pleasant holiday when “it happened to oversleep the hunt” - silence in the house” reading old books in thick leather bindings” memories of girls in noble estates (“aristocratically beautiful heads in ancient hairstyles meekly and femininely lower their long eyelashes to sad and tender eyes..."). Lamenting the fact that noble estates are dying, the narrator is surprised at how quickly this process is taking place: “Those days were so recent,” and yet it seems to me that almost a whole century has passed since then... The kingdom of small estates is coming, impoverished to the point of beggary . But this miserable small-scale life is also good!” The writer admires the lifestyle of the “small local”, his daily routine, habits, sad” “hopeless” songs. The narrator is the writer’s “I”, in many ways similar to lyrical hero in Bunin's poetry.
“Antonov apples” are a symbol of Russia receding into the past, similar to Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”: “I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness.” . For Bunin, a seemingly insignificant detail - the smell of Antonov apples - awakens a string of memories of childhood. The hero again feels like a boy, thinking “how good it is to live in the world!” In the second chapter, which begins with the belief “Vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year,” Bunin recreates the fading atmosphere of the manorial estate of his aunt Anna Gerasimovna. “You enter the house and first of all, you will hear the smell of apples, and then others: old mahogany furniture, dried linden blossom, which has been lying on the windows since June...”
The theme of Antonov apples and gardens empty in autumn is replaced in the third chapter by another - hunting, which alone “supported the fading spirit of the landowners.” Bunin recreates in detail life in the estate of Arseny Semenych, whose prototype was one of the writer’s relatives. Almost given fairytale portrait uncle: “He is tall, thin, but broad-shouldered and slender, and has a handsome gypsy face. His eyes sparkle wildly, he is very dexterous, in a silk crimson shirt, velvet trousers and long boots" Late for the hunt, P. remains in the old manor's house. He sorts through his grandfather’s old books, “magazines with the names of Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, lyceum student Pushkin,” and looks at the portraits. “And the old dreamy life will appear before you,” P. reflects. This detailed poetic description of one day in the village is reminiscent of Pushkin’s poem “Winter. What should we do in the village? I meet...". However, this “dreaming life” is becoming a thing of the past. At the beginning of the final, fourth chapter, he writes: “The smell of Antonov apples disappears from the landowners’ estates. These days were so recent, and yet it seems to me that almost a whole century has passed since then. The old people in Vyselki died, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseny Semenych shot himself... The kingdom of small-scale landowners, impoverished to the point of beggary, is coming.” He further states that “this small-scale life is also good” and describes it. But the smell of Antonov apples is no longer there at the end of the story.
5. Conclusion
K. Fedin called Bunin “a Russian classic at the turn of two centuries,” speaking in 1954 at the Second All-Union Congress writers, Bunin was the greatest master of Russian realistic prose and an outstanding poet of the early 20th century.
I. A. Bunin - recognized master words. But his stories attract not only literary critics, but also inexperienced readers with the gentle, softly foggy flow of the narrative, hidden in the depths of rustling, ringing, enticing phrases, a philosophy that the reader feels, despite the fact that Bunin never poses direct questions and never answers right at them.
The question of Bunin, in the words of Anna Akhmatova, “the patriarch of Russian literature of the early twentieth century,” and his life in exile and outside it, is not closed. After all, he was the first Russian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, prestigious in scientific circles around the world, “for the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated the typical Russian character.”
In moments of sadness and despair, disappointment in life, when the meaning of everything is lost, you pick up Bunin’s “Dark Alleys” or “The Life of Arsenyev”, leaf through their “exciting, soul-touching” pages and think about the meaning of existence, about love and death, about a person’s place in the world, you understand that life is good (after all, it is given only once!), beautiful, no matter what:
Let them not come true, let them not come true
These thoughts of rosy days.
But if the devils were nesting in the soul -
This means that angels lived in it.
“You cannot live without hope,” Bunin wrote, “being in exile, far from the Motherland. Yes, the writer is right, a thousand times right. And I think it’s hard for us to disagree with this. “ Eternal themes”, so beautifully “poeticized” in the works of “the patriarch of Russian literature of the early twentieth century,” will always attract the attention of readers of all generations and ages, penetrating their souls and hearts, calling on them to “sow the rational, the good, the eternal.”
Bibliography
Russian literature of the 20th century. L. A. Trubina. Moscow. Flint Publishing, Science Publishing. 1998
Cold autumn. Ivan Bunin in exile (1920 – 1953). Moscow. "Young guard". 1989
Russian literature of the 20th century. "Screen" Moscow. "Trust-Imacom" Smolensk. 1995
Russian writers. Biobibliographical dictionary. Moscow. "Education". 1990
Boldyreva E.M., Ledenev A.V. I. A. Bunin. Stories, Text Analysis. Main content. Essays. – M.: Bustard, 2007. –155 p.
Veresaev V. Literary portraits. – M., Republic, 2000– 526 p.
Krasnyansky V.V. Dictionary of epithets by Ivan Bunin. – M.: Azbukovnik, 2008. – 776 p.
Muromtseva-Bunina V.N. Bunin's life. Conversations with memory. – M.: Soviet writer, 1989. – 512 p. 6.
Slivitskaya O.V. "A heightened sense of life." The world of Ivan Bunin. – M.: Ros. State Humanitarian University, 2004. – 270 p.
Bunin belongs to the last generation of writers from noble estate, which is closely related to the nature of the central zone of Russia. “Few people can know and love nature like Ivan Bunin can,” wrote Alexander Blok in 1907. No wonder Pushkin Prize in 1903 it was awarded to Bunin for his collection of poems “Falling Leaves,” glorifying Russian rural nature. In his poems, the poet connected the sadness of the Russian landscape with Russian life into one inseparable whole. “Against the background of a golden iconostasis, in the fire of falling leaves, gilded by sunset, stands an abandoned estate.” Autumn - the “quiet widow” - is in unusual harmony with empty estates and abandoned farmsteads. “The native silence torments me, the nests of my native desolation torment me.” Bunin’s stories, which are similar to poetry, are also imbued with this sad poetry of withering, dying, desolation. This is the beginning of it famous story“Antonov apples”: “I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried out and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness...” And this smell of Antonov apples accompanies him in all his wanderings and in the capitals of the world as a memory of his Motherland: “But in the evenings,” writes Bunin, “I read old poets, close to me in everyday life and in many of my moods, and finally, simply in the area, - central Russia. And the drawers of my table are full of Antonov apples, and the healthy autumn aroma transports me to the village, to the estates of the landowners."
Along with the degeneration of the noble nests, the village is also degenerating. In the story "The Village" he describes the courtyard of a rich peasant family and sees “darkness and dirt” - both in physical, and in mental, and in moral life." Bunin writes: "The old man is lying there, dying. He is still alive - and already in Sentsy the coffin has been prepared, pies are already being baked for the funeral. And suddenly the old man gets better. Where was the coffin to go? How to justify spending? Lukyan was then cursed for five years for them, lived with reproaches from the world, and starved to death." And here is how Bunin describes the level of political consciousness of the peasants:
Do you know why the court came?
Judge the deputy... They say he wanted to poison the river.
Deputy? Fool, is this really what deputies do?
And the plague knows them...
Bunin’s point of view on the people is polemically pointed against those lovers of the people who idealized the people and flattered them. The dying Russian village is framed by a dull Russian landscape: “White grain rushed askance, falling on a black, poor village, on bumpy, dirty roads, on horse manure, ice and water; the twilight fog hid endless fields, all this great desert with its snows, forests, villages and cities - the kingdom of hunger and death..."
The theme of death will receive varied coverage in Bunin’s work. This is both the death of Russia and death individual person. Death turns out to be not only the resolver of all contradictions, but also the source of absolute, purifying power (“Transfiguration”, “Mitya’s Love”).
Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” was understood more deeply by Alexander Tvardovsky: “In the face of love and death, according to Bunin, the social, class, and property lines that separate people are erased by themselves - everyone is equal before them.” Averky from “The Thin Grass” dies in the corner of his poor hut: a nameless gentleman from San Francisco dies having just decided to have a good lunch in the restaurant of a first-class hotel on the warm sea coast. But death is equally terrible in its inevitability. By the way, when this most famous of Bunin's stories interpreted only in the sense of denouncing capitalism and a symbolic harbinger of its death, then they seem to lose sight of the fact that for the author the idea of susceptibility and a millionaire is much more important common end, about the insignificance and ephemerality of his power in the face of the same mortal outcome for everyone."
Death, as it were, allows one to see a person’s life in its true light. Before physical death, the gentleman from San Francisco suffered spiritual death.
“Until the age of 58, his life was devoted to accumulation. Having become a millionaire, he wants to get all the pleasures that money can buy: ... he thought of holding the carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, where at this time the most selective society flocks, where Some enthusiastically indulge in car and sailing races, others in roulette, others in what is commonly called flirting, and still others in shooting pigeons, which soar very beautifully from cages over the emerald lawn, against the backdrop of a sea the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately knock their white lumps on earth...1 - this is not life, it is a form of life, devoid of internal content. The consumer society has eradicated from itself all the human ability for Sympathy, condolences. The death of the gentleman from San Francisco is perceived with displeasure. After all, “the evening was irreparably ruined,” the owner the hotel feels guilty, gives his word that he will take “all measures in his power" to eliminate the trouble. Money decides everything: guests want to have fun for their money, the owner does not want to lose profit, this explains the disrespect for death, which means moral decline of society, dehumanization in its extreme manifestation.
The deadness of bourgeois society is symbolized by “a thin and flexible pair of hired lovers: a sinfully modest girl with drooping eyelashes, with an innocent hairstyle, and a tall young man with black hair, as if glued on, pale with powder, in the most elegant patent leather shoes, in narrow, long coattails, tailcoat - a handsome man, looking like a huge leech." And no one knew how tired this couple was of pretending to be in love. And what stands underneath them, at the bottom of the dark hold. No one thinks about the futility of life in the face of death.
Many of I. A. Bunin’s works and the entire cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” are devoted to the theme of love. “All the stories in this book are only about love, about its “dark” and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys,” Bunin wrote in one of his letters. Bunin himself considered this book the most perfect in craftsmanship. Bunin sang not platonic, but sensual love, surrounded by a romantic aura. Love, in Bunin’s understanding, is contraindicated in everyday life, any duration, even in a desired marriage, it is an insight,” sunstroke", often leading to death. He describes love in all its states, where it barely dawns and will never come true ("Old Port"), and where it languishes unrecognized ("Ida"), and where it turns into passion ("The Killer" Love captures all thoughts, all the spiritual and physical potentials of a person - but this state cannot last long. So that love does not fizzle out, does not exhaust itself, it is necessary to part - and forever. If the heroes themselves do not do this, then fate intervenes in their lives , fate: one of the lovers dies. The story "Mitya's Love" ends with the hero's suicide. Death here is interpreted as the only possibility of liberation from love.
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Philosophical issues Bunin’s works include a huge range of topics and questions that were relevant during the writer’s lifetime and which remain relevant today.
Philosophical reflections of Bunin
The philosophical problems that the writer touches on in his works were very different. Here are just a few of them:
The decomposition of the world of the peasants and the collapse of the old rural way of life.
The fate of the Russian people.
Love and loneliness.
The meaning of human life.
The first theme about the decomposition of the world of peasants and the collapse of the village and ordinary way of life can be attributed to Bunin’s work “Village”. This story tells how the life of village men changes, changing not only their way of life, but also their moral values and concepts.
One of the philosophical problems that Ivan Alekseevich raises in his work relates to the fate of the Russian people, who were not happy and were not free. He talked about this in his works “Village” and “Antonov Apples”.
Bunin is known throughout the world as the most beautiful and subtle lyricist. For the writer, love was a special feeling that could not last long. He devotes his cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” to this topic, which is both sad and lyrical.
Bunin, both as a person and as a writer, was concerned about the morality of our society. He dedicated his work “Mr. from San Francisco” to this, where he shows the callousness and indifference of bourgeois society.
All the works of the great master of words are characterized by philosophical issues.
The collapse of peasant life and the world
One of the works where the writer raises philosophical problems is the burning story “The Village”. It contrasts two heroes: Tikhon and Kuzma. Despite the fact that Tikhon and Kuzma are brothers, these images are opposite. It is no coincidence that the author endowed his characters with different qualities. This is a reflection of reality. Tikhon is a wealthy peasant, a kulak, and Kuzma is a poor peasant who himself learned to write poetry and was good at it.
The plot of the story takes the reader to the beginning of the twentieth century, when in the village people were starving, turning into beggars. But in this village the ideas of revolution suddenly appear and the peasants, ragged and hungry, come to life listening to them. But poor, illiterate people do not have the patience to delve into political nuances; they very soon become indifferent to what is happening.
The writer writes with bitterness in the story that these peasants are incapable of decisive actions. They do not interfere in any way, and do not even try to prevent the devastation native land, poor villages, allowing their indifference and inactivity to ruin their native places. Ivan Alekseevich suggests that the reason for this is their lack of independence. This can also be heard from the main character, who admits:
“I can’t think, I’m not educated”
Bunin shows that this deficiency appeared among the peasants due to the fact that serfdom existed in the country for a long time.
The fate of the Russian people
The author of such wonderful works, both the story “The Village” and the story “Antonov Apples” bitterly talk about how the Russian people suffer and how difficult their fate is. It is known that Bunin himself never belonged to peasant world. His parents were nobles. But Ivan Alekseevich, like many nobles of that time, was attracted to the study of the psychology of the common man. The writer tried to understand the origins and foundations national character a simple man.
Studying the peasant and his history, the author tried to find in him not only negative, but also positive features. Therefore, he does not see a significant difference between a peasant and a landowner, this is especially felt in the plot of the story “Antonov Apples,” which tells how the village lived. The small nobility and peasants worked and celebrated holidays together. This is especially evident during the harvest in the garden, when Antonov apples smell strong and pleasant.
In such times, the author himself loved to wander in the garden, listening to the voices of men, observing changes in nature. The writer also loved fairs, when the fun began, the men played the harmonica, and the women put on beautiful and bright outfits. At such times it was good to wander around the garden and listen to the conversation of the peasants. And although, according to Bunin, nobles are people who carry the true high culture, but simple men, peasants also contributed to the formation of Russian culture and spiritual world of your country.
Bunin's love and loneliness
Almost all of Ivan Alekseevich’s works that were written in exile are poetic. For him, love is a small moment that cannot last forever, so the author in his stories shows how it fades away under the influence of life circumstances, or by the will of one of the characters. But the theme leads the reader much deeper - this is loneliness. It can be seen and felt in many works. Far from his homeland, abroad, Bunin missed his native places.
Bunin’s story “In Paris” talks about how love can break out far from the homeland, but it is not real, since two people are completely alone. Nikolai Platanich, the hero of the story “In Paris,” left his homeland long ago, because the white officer could not come to terms with what was happening in his homeland. And here, far from his homeland, he accidentally meets beautiful woman. They have a lot in common with Olga Alexandrovna. The heroes of the work speak the same language, their views on the world coincide, and they are both alone. Their souls reached out to each other. Far from Russia, from their homeland, they fall in love.
When Nikolai Platanich, the main character, dies suddenly and completely unexpectedly in the subway, Olga Alexandrovna returns to an empty and lonely house, where she experiences incredible sadness, bitterness of loss and emptiness in her soul. This emptiness has now settled in her soul forever, because lost values cannot be replenished far from her native land.
The meaning of human life
The relevance of Bunin's works lies in the fact that he raises questions of morality. This problem of his works concerned not only the society and the time when the writer lived, but also our modern one. This is one of the biggest philosophical problems that will always face human society.
Immorality, according to the great writer, does not appear immediately, and it is impossible to notice it even at the beginning. But then it grows into some kind of crucial moment begins to give rise to the most terrible consequences. The immorality growing in society hits the people themselves, making them suffer.
An excellent confirmation of this could be famous story Ivan Alekseevich "Mr. from San Francisco." Main character doesn't think about morality or his own spiritual development. He only dreams of this - to get rich. And he subordinates everything to this goal. For many years of his life he works hard without developing as a person. And now, when he is already 50 years old, he achieves the material well-being that he has always dreamed of. The main character does not set himself another, higher goal.
Together with his family, where there is no love and mutual understanding, he goes on a long and distant journey, which he pays in advance. Visiting historical monuments, it turns out that neither he nor his family are interested in them. Material values crowded out interest in beauty.
The main character of this story has no name. It is Bunin who deliberately does not give the rich millionaire a name, showing that the entire bourgeois world consists of such soulless members. The story vividly and accurately describes another world that is constantly working. They have no money, and they don’t have as much fun as the rich do, and the basis of their life is work. They die in poverty and in the holds, but the fun on the ship does not stop because of this. The cheerful and carefree life does not stop even when one of them dies. The millionaire without a name is simply moved away so that his body is not in the way.
A society where there is no sympathy, pity, where people do not experience any feelings, where they do not know beautiful moments of love - this is a dead society that cannot have a future, but they also do not have a present. And the whole world, which is built on the power of money, is an inanimate world, it is an artificial way of life. After all, even the wife and daughter do not feel compassion for the death of a rich millionaire; rather, it is regret about the spoiled trip. These people do not know why they were born into this world, and therefore they simply ruin their lives. The deep meaning of human life is inaccessible to them.
The moral foundations of Ivan Bunin's works will never become outdated, so his works will always be readable. The philosophical problems that Ivan Alekseevich shows in his works were continued by other writers. Among them are A. Kuprin, M. Bulgakov, and B. Pasternak. All of them showed love, loyalty, and honesty in their works. After all, a society without these important moral categories simply cannot exist.
RESPONSE PLAN
You should add one of the realistic stories to your answer. We listened to the following stories as messages: “Konovalov”, “Passion-faces”, “The Orlov Spouses”.
Topic and ideological artistic originality creativity of I. A. Bunin.
RESPONSE PLAN
1. A word about the writer’s work.
2. The main themes and ideas of I. A. Bunin’s prose:
a) the theme of the passing patriarchal past (“Antonov Apples”);
b) criticism of bourgeois reality (“Mr. from San Francisco”);
c) the system of symbols in I. A. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”;
d) the theme of love and death (“Mr. from San Francisco”, “Transfiguration”, “Mitya’s Love”, “Dark Alleys”).
3. I. A. Bunin - Nobel Prize laureate.
1. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953) is called “the last classic.” Bunin's reflections on the deep processes of life result in a perfect artistic form, where the originality of the composition, images, and details are subordinated to the intense author's thought.
2. In his stories, novellas, and poems, Bunin shows us the whole range of problems late XIX- beginning of the 20th century. The themes of his works are so diverse that they seem to be life itself. Let's trace how the themes and problems of Bunin's stories changed throughout his life.
a) The main theme of the early 1900s is the theme of the passing patriarchal past of Russia. The most vivid expression of the problem of a change of system, the collapse of all foundations noble society we see in the story “Antonov Apples”. Bunin regrets Russia's fading past, idealizing the noble way of life. Best memories Bunin's stories about his former life are saturated with the smell of Antonov apples. He hopes that together with the dying noble Russia The roots of the nation will still remain in its memory.
b) In the mid-1910s, the themes and problems of Bunin's stories began to change. He moves away from the theme of Russia's patriarchal past to a critique of bourgeois reality. A striking example of this period is his story "The Master from San Francisco." With the smallest detail, mentioning every detail, Bunin describes the luxury that represents the true life of the gentlemen of modern times. In the center of the work is the image of a millionaire who doesn’t even have own name, since no one remembered him - and does he even need it? This collective image American bourgeois. “Until the age of 58, his life was devoted to accumulation. Having become a millionaire, he wants to get all the pleasures that money can buy: ... he thought of holding the carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, where at this time the most selective society flocks, where some enthusiastically indulge in automobile and sailing races, others roulette, others to what is commonly called flirting, and fourth to shooting pigeons, which soar very beautifully from cages over the emerald lawn, against the backdrop of a sea the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately hit the ground with white lumps...” - this is a life devoid of internal content . The consumer society has erased everything human in itself, the ability for empathy and condolences. The death of the gentleman from San Francisco is perceived with displeasure, because “the evening was irreparably ruined,” the hotel owner feels guilty, and gives his word that he will take “all measures in his power” to eliminate the trouble. Money decides everything: guests want to have fun for their money, the owner does not want to lose profit, this explains the disrespect for death. Such is the moral decline of society, its inhumanity in its extreme manifestation.
c) There are a lot of allegories, associations and symbols in this story. The ship "Atlantis" acts as a symbol of civilization; The gentleman himself is a symbol of the bourgeois well-being of a society where people eat deliciously, dress elegantly and do not care about the world around them. They are not interested in him. They live in society as if in a case, closed forever to people of another circle. The ship symbolizes this shell, the sea symbolizes the rest of the world, raging, but in no way touching the hero and others like him. And nearby, in the same shell, are the people who control the ship, working hard at the gigantic firebox, which the author calls the ninth circle of hell.
There are many biblical allegories in this story. The hold of a ship can be compared to the underworld. The author hints that the gentleman from San Francisco sold his soul for earthly goods and is now paying for it with death.
Symbolic in the story is the image of a huge, rock-like devil, who is a symbol of the impending catastrophe, a kind of warning to humanity. It is also symbolic in the story that after the death of the rich man, the fun continues, absolutely nothing has changed. The ship sails in the opposite direction, only with the body of the rich man in a soda box, and ballroom music thunders again “among the mad blizzard sweeping over the ocean that was buzzing like a funeral mass.”
d) It was important for the author to emphasize the idea of the insignificance of human power in the face of the same mortal outcome for everyone. It turned out that everything accumulated by the master has no meaning before that eternal law to which everyone, without exception, is subject. Obviously, the meaning of life is not in acquiring wealth, but in something else that cannot be assessed monetaryly or aesthetic wisdom. The theme of death receives varied coverage in Bunin’s work. This is both the death of Russia and the death of an individual. Death turns out to be not only the resolver of all contradictions, but also the source of absolute, purifying power (“Transfiguration”, “Mitya’s Love”).
Another of the main themes of the writer’s work is the theme of love. The cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” is devoted to this topic. Bunin considered this book the most perfect in artistic skill. “All the stories in this book are only about love, about its “dark” and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys,” wrote Bunin. The collection “Dark Alleys” is one of the last masterpieces of the great master.
3. In the literature of Russian abroad, Bunin is a star of the first magnitude. After being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1933, Bunin became a symbol of Russian literature throughout the world.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953) is called “the last classic.” In his stories, novellas, and poems, Bunin shows the whole range of problems of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The themes of his works are so diverse that they seem to be life itself.
The main theme of the early 1900s is the theme of Russia's fading patriarchal past. We see the most vivid expression of the problem of a change of system, the collapse of all the foundations of noble society in the story "Antonov apples". Bunin regrets Russia's fading past, idealizing the noble way of life. Bunin’s best memories of his former life are saturated with the smell of Antonov apples. He hopes that, together with the dying Russia of the nobility, the roots of the nation will still be preserved in its memory.
In the mid-1910s, the themes and problems of Bunin's stories began to change. He moves away from the topic of Russia's patriarchal past to criticism of bourgeois reality. A striking example of this period is his story "Mr. from San Francisco".
Bunin's collection “Dark Alleys” is entirely dedicated to love. Most of the stories were written during World War II in Grasse, France, amid the “dark, pleading wail of a siren” and the “very loud rumble and hum” of airplanes. According to V.N. Muromtseva, the writer’s wife, while working on a book about love, found it easier to “endure the unbearable.” Apparently, only by thinking about the eternal (namely, love is eternal), a person can worthily survive the transitory, even such a terrible transitory as war.
The theme of love is interpreted differently in Bunin's stories, however, in this understanding, one can undoubtedly find common features. Thus, in the collection there is not a single story where the relationship between a girl and a young man ended in marriage. The writer depicts not ordinary earthly desires, not just the need to procreate, but a real miracle - that high feeling called love. In Bunin's love, as in life, there is always tragedy. After all, love is too strong a shock to last long. Maybe that's why the heroes of his stories break up or even die. But love remains in their hearts forever.
All works in the collection are united by the motif of memories of youth and homeland.
Story "Dark alleys", which gave the collection its title, was written, as Bunin himself admitted, “very easily, unexpectedly.”
The story of the relationship between Nadezhda and Nikolai Alekseevich, the heroes of the story “Dark Alleys,” is simple, like life itself. Thirty years later, people met who once loved each other very much. She is the owner of a “private room” at the post station, he is a “slender old military man” who stopped in the autumn bad weather to rest and have lunch. The owner of the warm and tidy room turned out to be Nadezhda, “a beautiful woman beyond her age,” dark-haired, “with dark fluff on her upper lip.” She found out ex-lover right away, she said that she didn’t get married because she loved him all her life, despite the fact that he “heartlessly” left her. I was never able to forgive. Nikolai Alekseevich married, as it seemed to him, for love, but he was not happy: his wife left him, cheating on the one who “loved her madly”, his son grew up to be a “scoundrel” and a “spendthrift”.
This, it seems, is the whole story, in which nothing can be corrected. And is it necessary to change anything? Does this make sense? Bunin does not give answers to such questions. We don’t know what happened in the former lives of our heroes. However, it seems that at that time Nikolai Alekseevich’s relationship with the beautiful serf Nadezhda seemed like a slight flirtation. Even now he is perplexed: “What nonsense! This same Nadezhda is not the innkeeper, but my wife, the mistress of my St. Petersburg house, the mother of my children?”
Nadezhda has nothing left in her life except memories of her first love, although she lives strong and “gives money in interest.” She is respected for her fairness, her straightforwardness, her intelligence.
Nikolai Alekseevich left, unable to cope with the surging feelings, remembering the magical poems that he once read to his beloved: “The scarlet rose hips were blooming all around, there were dark linden alleys...”.
This means that the mark on the soul remained quite deep, the memories did not recede. And who isn’t flattered to be the only one in life? The splinter in my heart is firmly lodged, now forever. How else? After all, it turned out that more love never happened. The chance is given only once. They needed to take advantage of it, perhaps by going through a break with family, misunderstanding and condemnation from friends, and perhaps even giving up their career. All this is within the capabilities of a real Man, capable of loving and protecting his Woman. For such a person there are no class differences; he does not accept the law of society as mandatory, but challenges it.
But our hero can neither understand nor appreciate his actions, so repentance does not occur. But love lives in the heart of Nadezhda, who does not stoop to reproaches, complaints, or threats. She is full of human dignity and grateful to fate, which gave her, at the end of her days, a meeting with the one whom she once called “Nikolenka,” to whom she gave “her beauty, her fever.”
True love demands nothing in return, asks for nothing. “Love is beautiful,” because only love can be answered with love...
