Love and reason in the story Clean Monday. Essay on the topic: Reason and feelings in the story Clean Monday, Bunin

For I. A. Bunin, the feeling of love is always a secret, great, unknowable and miracle beyond the control of human reason. In his stories, no matter what love is: strong, real, mutual, it never reaches marriage. He stops it at the highest point of pleasure and immortalizes it in prose.

From 1937 to 1945 Ivan Bunin writes an intriguing work, which will later be included in the collection “Dark Alleys”. While writing the book, the author emigrated to France. Thanks to the work on the story, the writer was to some extent distracted from the dark streak that was going on in his life.

Bunin said that “Clean Monday” is the best work that he wrote:

I thank God for giving me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.”

Genre, direction

“Clean Monday” was written in the direction of realism. But before Bunin they didn’t write about love like that. The writer finds those only words that do not trivialize feelings, but each time rediscover emotions familiar to everyone.

The work “Clean Monday” is a short story, a small everyday work, somewhat similar to a short story. The difference can only be found in the plot and compositional structure. The short story genre, unlike the short story, is characterized by the presence of a certain turn of events. In this book, such a turn is a change in the heroine’s outlook on life and a sharp change in her lifestyle.

Meaning of the name

Ivan Bunin clearly draws a parallel with the title of the work, making the main character a girl who rushes between opposites and does not yet know what she needs in life. She changes for the better on Monday, and not just the first day of the new week, but a religious celebration, that turning point, which is marked by the church itself, where the heroine goes to cleanse herself of the luxury, idleness and bustle of her former life.

Clean Monday is the first holiday of Lent in the calendar, leading to Forgiveness Sunday. The author draws the thread of the turning point in the heroine’s life: from various amusements and unnecessary fun, to the adoption of religion, and leaving for a monastery.

The essence

The story is told in the first person. The main events are as follows: every evening the narrator visits a girl who lives opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, for whom he has strong feelings. He is extremely talkative, she is very silent. There was no intimacy between them, and this keeps him in bewilderment and some kind of expectation.

For some time they continue to go to theaters and spend evenings together. Forgiveness Sunday is approaching, and they go to the Novodevichy Convent. Along the way, the heroine talks about how yesterday she was at the schismatic cemetery, and with admiration describes the burial ceremony of the archbishop. The narrator had not previously noticed any religiosity in her, and therefore listened attentively, with glowing, loving eyes. The heroine notices this and is amazed at how much he loves her.

In the evening they go to a skit party, after which the narrator accompanies her home. The girl asks to let the coachmen go, which she hasn’t done before, and come up to her. It was just their evening.

In the morning, the heroine says that she is leaving for Tver, to the monastery - there is no need to wait or look for her.

The main characters and their characteristics

The image of the main character can be viewed from several angles of the narrator: a young man in love evaluates his chosen one as a participant in the events, and he also sees her in the role of a person who only remembers the past. His views on life after falling in love, after passion, change. By the end of the story, the reader now sees his maturity and depth of thoughts, but at the beginning the hero was blinded by his passion and did not see the character of his beloved behind it, did not feel her soul. This is the reason for his loss and the despair into which he plunged after the disappearance of the lady of his heart.

The girl's name cannot be found in the work. For the storyteller, this is simply the same one - unique. The heroine is an ambiguous nature. She has education, sophistication, intelligence, but at the same time she is withdrawn from the world. She is attracted by an unattainable ideal, to which she can only strive within the walls of the monastery. But at the same time, she fell in love with a man and cannot just leave him. The contrast of feelings leads to an internal conflict, which we can glimpse in her tense silence, in her desire for quiet and secluded corners, for reflection and solitude. The girl still cannot understand what she needs. She is seduced by a luxurious life, but at the same time, she resists it and tries to find something else that will illuminate her path with meaning. And in this honest choice, in this loyalty to oneself lies great strength, there is great happiness, which Bunin described with such pleasure.

Topics and issues

The main theme is love. It is she who gives a person meaning in life. For the girl, the guiding star was divine revelation, she found herself, but her chosen one, having lost the woman of his dreams, lost his way.
The problem of misunderstanding. The whole essence of the tragedy of heroes lies in misunderstanding each other. The girl, feeling love for the narrator, does not see anything good in this - for her this is a problem, and not a way out of a confusing situation. She is looking for herself not in the family, but in service and spiritual calling. He sincerely does not see this and tries to impose on her his vision of the future - the creation of marriage bonds.
Theme of choice also appears in the novella. Every person has a choice, and everyone decides for themselves what to do right. The main character chose her own path - entering a monastery. The hero continued to love her, and could not come to terms with her choice, because of this he could not find inner harmony, find himself.
Also I. A. Bunin can be traced theme of human purpose in life. The main character does not know what she wants, but she feels her calling. It is very difficult for her to understand herself, and because of this, the narrator also cannot fully understand her. However, she follows the call of her soul, vaguely guessing her destiny - the destiny of higher powers. And this is very good for both of them. If a woman made a mistake and got married, she would remain unhappy forever and blame the one who led her astray. And the man would suffer from unrequited happiness.
The problem of happiness. The hero sees him in love with the lady, but the lady moves along a different coordinate system. She will find harmony only alone with God.

the main idea

The writer writes about true love, which ultimately ends in breakup. The heroes make such decisions themselves; they have complete freedom of choice. And the meaning of their actions is the idea of the entire book. Each of us must choose exactly that love that we can worship without complaint throughout our lives. A person must be true to himself and the passion that lives in his heart. The heroine found the strength to go to the end and, despite all doubts and temptations, to reach her cherished goal.

The main idea of the novel is an ardent call for honest self-determination. There is no need to be afraid that someone will not understand or judge your decision if you are sure that this is your calling. In addition, a person must be able to resist those obstacles and temptations that prevent him from hearing his own voice. Fate depends on whether we are able to hear him, both our own fate and the position of those to whom we are dear.

Brief analysis of I. Bunin's story "Clean Monday"

Man, like no other earthly creature, is lucky to have reason and the ability to choose. A person chooses his whole life. Having taken a step, he is faced with a choice: to the right or to the left - where to go next. He takes another step and chooses again, and so he walks until the end of the path. Some walk faster, others slower, and the result is different: you take a step and either fall into a bottomless abyss, or end up with your foot on an escalator in the sky. A person is free to choose his job, passions, hobbies, thoughts, worldviews, love. Love can be for money, for power, for art, it can be ordinary, earthly love, or it can happen that above all, above all feelings, a person places love for his homeland or for God.

In Bunin's story "Clean Monday" the heroine is nameless. The name is not important, the name is for the earth, and God knows everyone even without a name. Bunin calls the heroine - she. From the very beginning, she was strange, silent, unusual, as if a stranger to the whole world around her, looking through it, “she kept thinking about something, it was as if she was mentally delving into something; lying on the sofa with a book in her hands, she often lowered it and looked in front of her questioningly." She seemed to be from a completely different world, and just so that she would not be recognized in this world, she read, went to the theater, had lunch, dinner, went for walks, and attended courses. But she was always drawn to something lighter, intangible, to faith, to God, and just as the Church of the Savior was close to the windows of her apartment, so God was close to her heart. She often went to churches, visited monasteries and old cemeteries.

And finally she made up her mind. In the last days of her worldly life, she drank her cup to the bottom, forgave everyone on Forgiveness Sunday and cleansed herself of the ashes of this life on “Clean Monday”: she went to a monastery. “No, I’m not fit to be a wife.” She knew from the very beginning that she could not be a wife. She is destined to be an eternal bride, the bride of Christ. She found her love, she chose her path. You might think that she left home, but in fact she went home. And even her earthly lover forgave her for this. I forgave, although I did not understand. He could not understand that now “she can see in the dark,” and “left the gates” of a strange monastery.

Bibliography

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I have before me the topic of the essay “Reason or Feelings?”, which interested me because these concepts are constantly opposed to each other. After all, intelligence is the ability to think logically and creatively. And feelings are the ability to realize and experience something based on sensations. But how can you make the right choice: follow the dictates of your heart or accept the prompting of your mind? Probably the answer lies in the fact that a person himself must decide what matters most to him. Fiction convinces me of the correctness of this point of view.

Let's remember the works in which this topic is revealed. Reflecting on the difficult choices in people’s lives, I cannot help but turn to the work “Clean Monday” by I.A. Bunin. Depicting the luxurious life of the young Moscow intelligentsia, the writer describes with particular passion a couple of young people.

These are the most ordinary residents of the capital, whose life boils and rages at an unbridled rhythm, but their main difference is that they are rich, healthy and very good-looking. Conversations about their future never continue, so the main character is endlessly in suspense. The girl plays with his feelings, pushes him away from her, but never lets him go completely. At the end of the work, events change and the heroine decides to disappear from the young man’s life, leaving him a letter asking him not to look for her. This story fully shows readers that making a choice between feelings and reason is an unbearable burden for most people.

Updated: 2017-07-13

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However, the time comes for parting, and the small, nameless woman, who jokingly called herself a beautiful stranger, leaves. The lieutenant does not immediately understand that love is leaving him. In a light, happy state of mind, he took her to the pier, kissed her and carefreely returned to the hotel.

His soul was still full of her - and empty, like the hotel room. The aroma of her good English cologne and her unfinished cup only intensified the loneliness. The lieutenant hurried to light a cigarette, but cigarette smoke was not able to overcome melancholy and spiritual emptiness. Sometimes it happens that we understand what a wonderful person fate has brought us together with only at that moment when he is no longer around.

The lieutenant did not often fall in love, otherwise he would not have called the experience a “strange adventure”, and would not have agreed with the nameless stranger that they both received something like sunstroke.

Everything in the hotel room still reminded of her. However, these memories were difficult; just looking at the unmade bed intensified the already unbearable melancholy. Somewhere there, behind the open windows, a steamboat with a mysterious stranger was sailing away from him.

The lieutenant tried for a moment to imagine how the mysterious stranger felt, to feel himself in her place. She probably sits in a glass white salon or on the deck and looks at the huge river shining in the sun, at the oncoming rafts, at the yellow shallows, at the shining distance of water and sky, at this entire immeasurable Volga expanse. And he is tormented by loneliness, irritated by market talk and the squeaking of wheels.

The life of the most ordinary person is often boring and monotonous. And only thanks to such fleeting meetings do people forget about everyday boring affairs, every parting inspires hope for a new meeting, and nothing can be done about it. But where can the lieutenant meet his beloved in the big city? In addition, she has a family, a three-year-old daughter. We need to continue to live, not to let despair take over our mind and soul, if only for the sake of all future meetings.

Everything passes, as Julius Caesar said. At first, a strange, incomprehensible feeling overshadows the mind, but melancholy and loneliness inevitably remain in the past as soon as a person finds himself in society again, communicates with interesting people. New meetings are the best cure for breakups. There is no need to withdraw into yourself, to think about how to live this endless day with these memories, with this inseparable torment.

The lieutenant was alone in this godforsaken town. He expected to find sympathy for himself from those around him. But the street only intensified the painful memories. The hero could not understand how one could calmly sit on the box, smoke and generally be careless and indifferent. He wanted to know if he was the only one so terribly unhappy in this whole city.

At the market, everyone did nothing but praise their goods. It was all so stupid and absurd that the hero ran away from the market. The lieutenant also did not find refuge in the cathedral: they sang loudly, cheerfully and decisively. No one cared about his loneliness, and the merciless sun burned inexorably. The shoulder straps and buttons of his jacket became so hot that it was impossible to touch them. The severity of the lieutenant’s internal experiences was aggravated by the unbearable heat outside. Just yesterday, being under the power of love, he did not notice the scorching sun. Now, it seemed, nothing could overcome the loneliness. The lieutenant tried to find solace in alcohol, but the vodka made his feelings even more intense. The hero so wanted to get rid of this love, and at the same time he dreamed of meeting his beloved again. But how? He did not know either her last name or her first name.

The lieutenant's memory still retained the smell of her tan and canvas dress, the beauty of her strong body and the elegance of her small hands. Looking for a long time at the portrait of some military man on a photo display, the hero thought about the question of whether such love is needed, if then everything everyday becomes scary and wild, is it good when the heart is struck by too much love, too much happiness. They say everything is good in moderation. Once strong love after separation is replaced by envy of others. The same thing happened to the lieutenant: he began to languish with painful envy of all the people who were not suffering. Everything around looked lonely: houses, streets... It seemed like there was not a soul around. All that was left of the former prosperity was white thick dust lying on the pavement.

When the lieutenant returned to the hotel, the room was already tidied and seemed empty. The windows were closed and the curtains were drawn. Only a light breeze entered the room. The lieutenant was tired, besides, he was very drunk and lay with his hands under the back of his head. Tears of despair rolled down his cheeks, so strong was the feeling of man’s powerlessness before an omnipotent fate.

When the lieutenant woke up, the pain of loss dulled a little, as if he had parted with his beloved ten years ago. It was unbearable to stay in the room any longer. Money for the hero had lost all value; it is quite possible that the memories of the city bazaar and the greed of the merchants were still fresh in his memory. Having paid the cab driver generously, he went to the pier and a minute later found himself on a crowded ship following the stranger.

The action has come to a denouement, but at the very end of the story I. A. Bunin puts the finishing touch: in a few days the lieutenant has aged ten years. Feeling captive of love, we do not think about the inevitable moment of separation. The more we love, the more painful our suffering is. This severity of parting with the person closest to you is incomparable to anything. What does a person experience when he loses his love after unearthly happiness, if because of a fleeting infatuation he ages ten years?

Human life is like a zebra: the white stripe of joy and happiness will inevitably be replaced by a black one. But one person's success does not mean another person's failure. We need to live with an open soul, giving joy to people, and then joy will return to our lives, more often we will lose our heads with happiness than languish in anticipation of a new sunstroke. After all, there is nothing more unbearable than waiting.

Brief analysis of I. Bunin's story "Clean Monday"

>Essays on the work Clean Monday

Mind and Feelings

Love is a great feeling, which is sometimes so strong that it can completely subjugate a person’s mind. But it also happens that our mind takes control of our emotions, and then we make more thoughtful, balanced and, most often, more correct decisions. Usually such a rational approach to life is characteristic of men, but in Ivan Alekseevich Bunin’s story “Clean Monday” (1944) the opposite is true.

The main character of this work is passionately in love with a girl and is “indescribably happy with every hour spent near her.” He sees that their relationship is very strange, since his girlfriend does not want to talk about the future, does not allow the thought that she could ever become the wife of a young man (“No, I am not fit to be a wife”) and does not allow him to become completely close with her. At the same time, the hero prefers not to think about it, but simply surrenders to the will of his feelings.

This is not how the situation looks at all from the side of his beloved. This girl sometimes behaves very mysteriously and incomprehensibly because there are a lot of contradictions in her soul. On the one hand, she loves her boyfriend and she likes the life they have, namely trips to restaurants and cultural events, reading books together, walks and conversations. On the other hand, the girl’s soul requires something different, purer and higher. That is why the heroine, often lying on the sofa with a book in her hands, puts it down and “looks questioningly in front of her.”

The girl feels calm when visiting Russian churches and temples, and therefore she thinks about whether she should devote herself to serving the Lord. Intellectually, the heroine understands that only this can make her truly happy, since then all her mental torment will surely disappear and only faith will remain. But her feelings for the young man make the girl still doubt the correctness of this choice.

Several months pass like this, but finally, the heroine makes her final decision: having drunk the cup of worldly pleasures to the bottom, she still leaves her beloved and leaves for Tver in order to first enter a monastery for obedience, and then become a nun.

This decision, dictated by reason and not by feelings, is very difficult for the heroine, and therefore her eyelashes are wet with tears when she presses her warm cheek to the face of her lover for the last time. But the girl does not see the point in “prolonging and increasing” their shared torment. She knows that she will never be able to give the hero what he really wants, because her true purpose is to serve God.