At the very beginning of Bunin’s work “” a cemetery and a fresh grave open before us main character story by Olya Meshcherskaya. All further narration takes place in the past tense and describes to us not much, but very bright life young girl.
Olya was open and very kind person who loves life to the fullest. The girl was from a rich family. At the beginning of the story, Bunin shows us Olya as a simple, no different high school student in a colorful dress. One thing made her stand out from the crowd - her childish spontaneity and big eyes burning with joy and fun. Olya was not afraid of anything and was not shy. She was not ashamed of her disheveled hair, ink stains on her hands, or her knees. Nothing overshadowed her lightness and airiness.
Later, Bunin describes the process of Olya’s sharp maturation. In a short period of time, an inconspicuous girl turned into a very beautiful girl. But even though she was a beauty, she did not abandon her childish spontaneity.
Not all my long life Olya strove for something sublime and bright. Lacking wise advice from her surroundings, the girl sought to learn everything about personal experience. It cannot be said that Olya was a cunning and insidious person, she simply enjoyed life, fluttering like a butterfly.
Ultimately, all this brought the girl severe mental trauma. Olya became a woman too early and for this act she reproached herself for the rest of her life. Most likely, she was looking for an opportunity to commit suicide. After all, how can one explain her action when she gave a page from her diary, which described the moment of her intimacy with Malyutin, to the officer whom she had planned to marry? The officer then shot and killed the girl in front of hundreds of witnesses.
Olya Meshcherskaya became " easy breathing”, which dissipated in her carefree and spontaneous life.
In completely different colors, Bunin shows us Olina, a cool lady. The author does not name her. All we know about her is that she was no longer a young woman with gray hair and the fact that she lived in some kind of imaginary world. At the end of the story the author tells us that cool lady Every Sunday I came to the girl’s grave and thought about something for a long time.
In these two female images, Bunin showed us two worlds: one is cheerful and real, filled with feelings, and the second is invented, perishable. Light breathing and a suffocating sigh.
In this textbook collected the most popular essays on the works of great writers and poets of the 20th century. This book will help you short time get acquainted with the works of A. P. Chekhov, I. Bunin, M. Gorky, A. Blok, V. Mayakovsky, A. Akhmatova, M. Tsvetaeva, S. Yesenin and other geniuses of Russian literature, and will also provide an invaluable service in preparing for exams. This manual is intended for schoolchildren and students.
9. Women's images in the stories of I. Bunin
It is unlikely that anyone will argue that some of the best pages Bunin's prose is dedicated to Woman. The reader is presented with amazing female characters, in the light of which they fade men's images. This is especially true for the book Dark alleys" Women play here main role. Men, as a rule, are just a background that sets off the characters and actions of the heroines.
I. Bunin always sought to comprehend the miracle of femininity, the secret of irresistible female happiness. “Women seem somewhat mysterious to me. The more I study them, the less I understand,” he writes out this phrase from Flaubert’s diary.
The heroines of I. Bunin's late prose are distinguished by directness of character, bright individuality and soft sadness. The unforgettable image of Nadezhda from the story “Dark Alleys”. A simple Russian girl was able to selflessly and deeply fall in love with the hero, even years did not erase his appearance. Meeting 30 years later, she proudly protests ex-lover: “What does God give to whom, Nikolai Alekseevich. Everyone’s youth passes, but love is another matter... No matter how much time passed, she still lived alone. I knew that you had not been the same for a long time, that it was as if nothing had happened for you, but…” Only a strong and noble nature is capable of such a boundless feeling. I. Bunin seems to rise above the heroes of the story, regretting that Nadezhda did not meet a person who was able to appreciate and understand her beautiful soul. But it's too late to regret anything. The best years are gone forever.
But there is no unhappy love, as the heroes of another wonderful story, “Natalie,” claim. Here, a fatal accident separates the lovers, still too young and inexperienced, who perceive the absurdity as a catastrophe. However, life is much more diverse and generous than one might imagine. Fate brings the lovers together again mature years when a lot is understood and comprehended. It seems that fate has turned favorably towards Natalie. She still loves and is loved. Boundless happiness fills the souls of the heroes, but not for long: in December Natalie “died on Lake Geneva in premature birth.”
What is happening, why is it impossible for the heroes to enjoy earthly happiness? A wise artist and man, I. Bunin saw too little happiness and joy in real life. Being in exile, far from Russia, the writer could not imagine serene and complete happiness far from his homeland. This is probably why his heroines only feel the bliss of love for a moment and then lose it.
In the book “Dark Alleys” there are many other charming female characters: sweet gray-eyed Tanya, a “simple soul”, devoted to her beloved, ready to make any sacrifice for him (“Tanya”); the tall, stately beauty Katerina Nikolaevna, the daughter of her age, who may seem too bold and extravagant (“Antigone”); simple-minded, naive Polya, who retained the childish purity of her soul, despite her profession (“Madrid”), etc.
The fates of most of Bunin's heroines are tragic. Suddenly and soon the happiness of Olga Alexandrovna, an officer’s wife, who is forced to serve as a waitress (“In Paris”), breaks up with her beloved Rusya (“Rusya”), and Natalie (“Natalie”) dies from childbirth.
The string of charming female characters in Bunin's short stories is endless. But, speaking about the female beauty captured on the pages of his works, one cannot fail to mention Olya Meshcherskaya, the heroine of the story “Easy Breathing”. What was it like amazing girl! This is how the author describes her: “At the age of fourteen, she thin waist and slender legs, breasts and all those forms were already clearly outlined, the charm of which has never yet been expressed by human words; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty.” But the main point This was not the charm of Olya Meshcherskaya. Everyone has probably seen very beautiful faces, which you get tired of looking at after just a minute. Olya was, first of all, a cheerful, “lively” person. There is not a drop of primness, affectation or self-satisfied admiration of her beauty in her: “And she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running.” The girl seems to radiate energy and joy of life. However, “the more beautiful the rose, the faster it fades.” The ending of this story, like other Bunin short stories, is tragic: Olya dies. However, the charm of her image is so great that even now romantics continue to fall in love with it. This is how K. G. Paustovsky writes about this: “Oh, if I only knew! And if I could! I would strew this grave with all the flowers that bloom on earth. I already loved this girl. I shuddered at the irreparability of her fate. I... naively reassured myself that Olya Meshcherskaya was Bunin’s fiction, that only a penchant for a romantic perception of the world made me suffer because of my sudden love for dead girl" K. G. Paustovsky called the story “Easy Breathing” a sad and calm reflection, an epitaph for girlish beauty.
Like an artist and sculptor, Bunin recreated the harmony of colors, lines and forms of beauty female body, sang the beauty embodied in a woman.
- 70.00 KbFemale images in works
I.A. Bunina.
Introduction
A woman is a subtle, elusive world, beyond the understanding of men. And the only one who can reveal the secret of a woman is a writer, we see evidence of this in literature.
Women in the literature of the 19th century very often act as bearers of moral and spiritual qualities and values affirmed by the author. They are undoubtedly more humane, more sublime, spiritually richer and even, at times, stronger than men.
A woman’s inner world, as a rule, is formed in relative independence from the influence of the social environment, from the bustle of everyday life, in a girlish oasis, sublime book impressions, ideal dreams. The sphere of her interests and aspirations is the sphere of feeling, high love, moral ideality. Writers of the 19th century very vividly and emotionally reveal female nature. One of these writers is Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. Connoisseur feminine character, singer of beauty, he gives us a wonderful gallery of female images in his poetic prose.
Relevance
The works of I. A. Bunin cannot leave anyone indifferent - neither a young reader nor a person wise with life experience. They are sad and sublime, full of reflection, truthful. Bunin does not exaggerate when he talks about loneliness, about sorrows, about the troubles that haunt a person throughout his life. High school students read Bunin's poetic prose with interest. After all, all the problems: issues of morality, love, and purity, revealed in Bunin’s works, are relevant to this day.
Purpose of the work: Consider and analyze female images in the prose of I.A. Bunina. And also to explore some patterns of the intersection of material, everyday and spiritual, to find and understand the spiritual and philosophical subtext of Bunin’s story “Clean Monday”.
Female characters in Bunin's stories are especially attractive. The theme of love in Bunin's work occupies a leading place. One way or another, it can be traced in the most different stories and stories. And we understand what the writer wanted to say when he showed how close death and love are in our lives. Bunin always sought to comprehend the miracle of femininity, the secret of irresistible female happiness. “Women seem somewhat mysterious to me. “The more I study them, the less I understand,” he writes this phrase from Flaubert’s diary
Bunin always sought to comprehend the miracle of femininity, the secret of irresistible female happiness. This is especially characteristic of the book “Dark Alleys.” The creation of the cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” was a source of spiritual elation for Bunin during the war years. The author himself considered the works in the collection, written in 1937-1944, to be his highest achievement. Critics defined the cycle of stories as an “encyclopedia of love” or, more precisely, an encyclopedia of love dramas. Love is portrayed here as the most beautiful, the most high feeling. In each of the stories ("Dark Alleys", "Russia", "Antigone", "Tanya", "In Paris", "Galya Ganskaya", "Natalie", "Clean Monday"; this also includes the one written before "Dark Alleys" "The story "Sunstroke") shows the moment of the highest triumph of love. All the stories in the collection are united by the motif of memories of youth and homeland. All of them are fictional, which the author himself has repeatedly emphasized. However, all of them, including their retrospective form, are caused by the state of the author’s soul. Women play a major role here. With amazing skill, Bunin finds the right words and images. They seem to have color and shape. A few precise and colorful strokes - and before us is a portrait of a woman.
Here in front of us is Nadezhda from the story “Dark Alleys”: “...a dark-haired, also black-browed and also still beautiful woman for her age, who looked like an elderly gypsy, with dark fluff on her upper lip and along her cheeks, walked lightly, but was plump. , With big breasts under a red blouse, with a triangular belly, like a goose’s, under a black woolen skirt.”
In the book “Dark Alleys” there are many other charming female characters: sweet gray-eyed Tanya, a “simple soul”, devoted to her beloved, ready to make any sacrifice for him (“Tanya”); the tall, stately beauty Katerina Nikolaevna, the daughter of her age, who may seem too bold and extravagant (“Antigone”); simple-minded, naive Polya, who retained the childish purity of her soul, despite her profession (“Madrid”) and so on.
The fates of most of Bunin's heroines are tragic. Suddenly and soon the happiness of Olga Alexandrovna, an officer’s wife, who is forced to serve as a waitress (“In Paris”), breaks up with her beloved Rusya (“Rusya”), and Natalie (“Natalie”) dies from childbirth.
The ending of another short story in this cycle, “Galya Ganskaya,” is sad. The hero of the story, the artist, never tires of admiring the beauty of this girl. At thirteen years old, she was “sweet, playful, graceful... extremely, with a face with light brown curls along her cheeks, like an angel.” But time passed, Galya grew up: “... no longer a teenager, not an angel, but an amazingly pretty thin girl... Her face under a gray hat is half covered with an ashen veil, and aquamarine eyes shine through it.” Her feeling for the artist was passionate, and his attraction to her was great. However, he soon got ready to leave for Italy for a long time, for a month and a half. In vain does the girl persuade her lover to stay or take her with him. Having been refused, Galya committed suicide. Only then did the artist realize what he had lost.
It is impossible to remain indifferent to the fatal charm of the Little Russian beauty Valeria (“Zoyka and Valeria”): “...she was very beautiful: strong, well-made, with thick dark hair, with velvet eyebrows, almost fused, with menacing eyes the color of black blood, with a hot a dark blush on a tanned face, with a bright shine of teeth and full cherry lips.” The young woman from the short story “One Hundred Rupees” is no less beautiful. Her eyelashes are especially beautiful: “...like those heavenly butterflies that twinkle so magically on the heavenly Indian flowers.” When the beauty reclines in her reed chair, “measurably flickering with the black velvet of her butterfly eyelashes,” waving her fan, she gives the impression of a mysteriously beautiful, unearthly creature: “Beauty, intelligence, stupidity - all these words did not suit her, just as it did not suit her.” everything human: truly she was as if from some other planet.”
The string of charming female characters in Bunin's short stories is endless. It is impossible not to mention the unfortunate, abandoned, still “green” girl Parashka (“On the Road”, 1913). The girl gives herself to the first person she meets, who turns out to be a thief and a scoundrel. The author does not obscure her instinctive attraction to the male strong start, the desire to “spill the wine” of one’s blossoming femininity. But that is not where the origin of the unfolding drama lies. The lack of clarity of the simplest concepts, loneliness, and the unclean environment in which Parashka lives make her easy and lifeless for a potential criminal. The unfortunate woman, as soon as she falls under his power, painfully feels the terrible instability and depravity of her existence.
At the other “pole” of life, compared to Parashka, is the beauty, daughter of wealthy aristocrats Olya Meshcherskaya, the heroine of the story “Easy Breathing”. The story itself is light and transparent, like Olya Meshcherskaya’s whole life. Only what happened to Olya cannot be deciphered so easily.
From the first lines of the story, one gets a dual impression: a sad, deserted cemetery, where on one of the crosses there is “a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.” Life and death, joy and tears - a symbol of the fate of Olya Meshcherskaya
This contrast is further developed. Cloudless childhood, adolescence of the heroine: Olya stood out from the carefree and cheerful crowd of girls of her age. She loved life, accepting it as it was. The young schoolgirl has much more joys and hopes than sorrows and disappointments. Besides, she was really lucky: she was pretty, from a rich family. “Yuna was not afraid of anything” and therefore she was always open, natural, light, attracting the attention of those around her with her love of life, the sparkle of her clear eyes, and the grace of her movements.
Having developed physically early, turning into charming girl Olya Meshcherskaya intuitively strove to fill her soul with something sublime, bright, but she had neither experience nor reliable advisers, so true to herself, she wanted to try everything on her own. Not distinguished by either cunning or cunning, she flitted frivolously between gentlemen, receiving endless pleasure from the awareness of her own femininity. It’s more than unusual to combine her half-childish state as a student running around during recess, and then her almost proud recognition that she is already a woman. Yes, she felt like a woman very early. “But is that bad?” – asks the author. To love and be loved, to find happiness and strength in the inner feeling of belonging to the weaker sex - don’t many people need to be taught this specifically even today? However, not yet able to stop her experiments in time, Olya learned the physical side of love too early for her still fragile soul, which became the most unpleasant surprise for her: “I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought what am I like! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t survive it!..” It seems that what happened was for Olga the first heavy blow in her life, which caused a cruel emotional drama. Unable to do anything half-heartedly, giving herself over to thoughts and feelings completely, without reserve, Olya probably hated herself for her unconscious transgression. There is no vice, no revenge, no firmness of decision in Olya’s actions. But just such a turn is terrible: a creature perishes, not understanding the horror of its situation.
Bunin compares Olya with a light breath that “dissipated in the world,” in the sky, the wind, that is, in life to which she always completely belonged.
And how contrasting the image of another woman seems, her cool lady, an “middle-aged girl” whose name we don’t even know. She had long lived “by some kind of fiction that replaced her real life.” Now her dream, the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings, has become Olya, whose grave she visits so often.
Two female images, so different, stand before your eyes after reading a short story: Olya - a precociously developed woman and the head of the gymnasium - a gray-haired “middle-aged girl”, life and a dream about life, a flood of feelings and an invented, illusory world of her own sensations. Easy breathing and oxygen mask. It awakens thoughts about the perishable and the eternal, about life and its transience. It helps to see the beauty of the world behind simple phenomena and objects, to realize the value of an ever-changing life.
A.I. Bunin’s story “Clean Monday” is very interesting and unusual in its own way. Bunin put his soul into the creation of this story. According to his wife, on one of the sleepless nights he left his confession on a piece of paper: “I thank God that he gave me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.”
Heroes: He and she are Russians, they live in Russia, but they are beautiful not with Russian, but with exotic beauty: “At that time I was beautiful for some reason with southern hot beauty.” “She had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness...” “Most often silent...” "The Tsar-Maiden Queen of Shamakhan."
In her apartment, overlooking the oldest part of Moscow, languages, styles, objects from all over the world were mixed: a Turkish sofa, an expensive piano, “ Moonlight Sonata", books by Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Tetmeier, Przybyshevsky, portrait of the anathematized Tolstoy.
These interior details emphasize that the heroine herself has mixed “high” and “low”. She loved gourmet meals, entertainment, drank a lot, smoked, wore beautiful expensive clothes, and allowed him impudent caresses. Before the reader is a modern woman, born of the New Time. And yet there was a lot in her that was incomprehensible, mysterious, romantic, dreamy, and wise. It seems that incompatible things have been combined in one image.
Who will win in it: a patriarchal woman or an emancipated person?
She was unattainable in her perfection: she was so beautiful that people watched her, she wore a garnet velvet dress or a black velvet one, shoes with gold clasps, and diamond earrings emphasized the exquisite beauty of the heroine. It seems that thoughts about the everyday are never born in this perfect form. How simple, earthly, her confession sounds: “It’s not clear why,” she said thoughtfully, stroking my beaver collar, “but it seems that nothing can be better than the smell of winter air...”
The author helps the reader to see a tender, trembling soul in the heroine. Her physical appearance, bright, bold, catchy, frivolous, does not correspond to the depth of her spiritual experiences. It turns out that there is not a single historical place in Moscow and the surrounding area where she has not been or would not like to be - from the schismatic cemetery to Griboyedov’s apartment. She is interested in the history of the Fatherland, this is not clear to the hero: “... There was not a soul passers-by, and who would Of these, Griboyedov could be needed.” She is interested in the life of Peter and Fevronia, as a symbol of eternal love. She reflects on the purpose of man together with Platon Karataev, tries to understand the philosophical views of L. Tolstov, and admires the heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo, Peresvet and Oslyabya. Pays tribute to Chekhov, a true Russian intellectual. She loves “Russian, chronicle, Russian legends”, rereads them so often that she memorizes them. She remembers how last year, on Holy Day, she went to the Miracle Monastery: “There are puddles everywhere, the air is already soft, spring, my soul is somehow tender, sad, and all the time there is this feeling of the homeland of her ancient times.” The heroine says about herself: “I often go in the mornings or evenings, when you don’t drag me to restaurants and Kremlin cathedrals.”
At the beginning of the story, the heroine speaks in short sentences that end with an ellipsis:
You don't like everything!
Yes, a lot...
No, I'm not fit to be a wife. I'm not good, I'm not good...
The image of the heroine gradually develops, and so does her speech: from short sentences to complex constructions with philosophical concepts and definitions:
How good. And now only this Rus' remains in some northern monasteries. Yes, even in church hymns. I recently went to the Conception Monastery - you can’t imagine how wonderfully the stichera are sung there! And in Chudovoy it’s even better. I last year I kept going there on Strastnaya. Oh, how good it was! There are puddles everywhere, the air is already soft, my soul is somehow tender, sad, and all the time there is this feeling of the homeland, its antiquity... All the doors in the cathedral are open, all day long ordinary people come and go, all day long the service... Oh, I’ll leave I’m going somewhere to a monastery, to some very remote one, in Vologda, Vyatka!
But what remains unchanged is that she still doesn’t say something, holds something back, leaving the unsaid for speculation,
Bunin, gradually changing his narrative style, leads the reader to the idea that the heroine’s departure from the worldly bustle is natural and deliberate. And it’s not all about religiosity, in her opinion, but about the desire to live a spiritual life. Giving up life “here” is not a spiritual impulse, but a thoughtful decision that the heroine can justify. She knows everything about the modern world, but rejects what she learns. Yes, the heroine is trying to find meaning, support in the world around her, but she doesn’t find it, even the hero’s love does not bring her happiness. She cannot respond to her strong feelings and, surrendering to him, goes to the monastery.
Description of work
A woman is a subtle, elusive world, beyond the understanding of men. And the only one who can reveal the secret of a woman is a writer, we see evidence of this in literature.
Women in the literature of the 19th century very often act as bearers of moral and spiritual qualities and values affirmed by the author. They are undoubtedly more humane, more sublime, spiritually richer and even, at times, stronger than men.
A woman’s inner world, as a rule, is formed in relative independence from influence social environment, from the bustle of life, in a girlish oasis, sublime bookish impressions, ideal dreams. The sphere of her interests and aspirations is the sphere of feeling, high love, and moral ideality. Writers of the 19th century very vividly and emotionally reveal female nature. One of these writers is Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. A connoisseur of female character, a singer of beauty, he gives us a wonderful gallery of female images in his poetic prose.
Bunin creates a whole gallery of social portraits. In this gallery, female images occupy a special place. Bunin always sought to comprehend the miracle of femininity, the secret of irresistible female happiness. “Women seem somewhat mysterious to me. The more I study them, the less I understand,” he writes out this phrase from Flaubert’s diary.
Bunin's heroines are harmonious, natural, and evoke genuine admiration and sympathy. We are imbued with their fate, and with such sorrow we watch their suffering. Bunin does not spare the reader, bringing down on him the harsh truth of life. Heroines worthy of simple human happiness turn out to be deeply unhappy.
A simple village girl from the story “Tanya” is experiencing mental torment (She served as a maid for his relative, the small landowner Kazakova, she was seventeen years old, she was small in stature, which was especially noticeable when she softly wiggled her skirt and slightly raised her small breasts, walked barefoot or, in winter, in felt boots, her simple face was only pretty, and her gray peasant eyes were beautiful only with youth). She was seduced and abandoned by a young master. Her feelings are simple: she is ready to give all of herself without demanding anything in return. “How could he, when leaving, remember her only by chance, forget her sweet, simple-hearted voice, her sometimes joyful, sometimes sad, but always loving, devoted eyes, how could he love others and give some of them much more greater value than her!” She suffers without reciprocal feelings, worries, waits, almost buries herself alive and changes before her eyes: “she became so thin and faded all over, her eyes were so timid and sad.” And seeing Petrusha again, she didn’t finds a place for himself. At first he doubts his feelings, and then he realizes his indifference (in fact, he doesn’t) and already comes to terms with it.
In the story “Easy Breathing,” a spoiled girl plays with love. She plays so carelessly that it led to her death. But her image in our perception remains untarnished; she looks like an angel, and not like a courtesan, despite her attachment to earthly pleasures. The heroine is Olya Meshcherskaya, with joyful and amazingly lively eyes. She is carefree and easy-going. Olya was, first of all, a cheerful, “lively” person. There is not a drop of primness, affectation or self-satisfied admiration of her beauty in her: “she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running.” “Without any of her worries or efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that had so distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes.” Bunin depicts Meshcherskaya as a young, flighty “most carefree and happiest” woman: she stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, with shining eyes, ran upstairs. The meaning of her life was love, and after the incident with Malyutin, she has no idea how to live on with such disgust in her soul.
Heroine" Clean Monday"was mysterious, incomprehensible, giving happiness every minute. "It looked like she didn’t need anything: no flowers, no books, no lunches, no theaters, no dinners out of town, although she still had her favorite flowers and unloved, all the books I brought her, she always read, she ate a whole box of chocolate a day, at lunches and dinners she ate as much as me, she loved pies with burbot fish soup, pink hazel grouse in deep-fried sour cream, sometimes she said: “I don’t understand, How can people not get tired of this all their lives, having lunch and dinner every day,” but she herself had lunch and dinner with a Moscow understanding of the matter. Her obvious weakness was only good clothes, velvet, silk, expensive fur,” “she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness, softly shining like black sable fur , eyebrows, eyes black as velvet coal; the mouth, captivating with velvety crimson lips, was shaded with dark fluff." The heroine has long harbored the idea of going to a monastery, she is attracted by "the air is soft, my soul is somehow tender, sad, and all the time this feeling of the homeland, its antiquity... All the doors are in the cathedral is open, the common people come and go all day, the whole day of service..." By leaving for the monastery, she seems to die to the world, breaks off her relationship with the vain life, which was something unnatural for her. She is strong, decisive , smart and firm. She goes to bars and restaurants, but knows everything about the church and wants to become a nun someday. Controversial and therefore inquisitive.
The heroines of Bunin's late prose are distinguished by directness of character, bright individuality and soft sadness. Unforgettable is the image of Nadezhda from the story “Dark Alleys”: “a dark-haired, also black-browed and also still beautiful woman for her age, who looked like an elderly gypsy, with dark fluff on her upper lip and along her cheeks, walked lightly, but plump, with large breasts under a red blouse, with a triangular belly, like a goose’s, under a black woolen skirt.” However, Nadezhda is good not only in appearance. She has a rich and deep inner world. She keeps in her soul love for the master who once seduced her. Having met 30 years later, she proudly objects to her former lover: “What does God give to whom, Nikolai Alekseevich. Everyone’s youth passes, but love is another matter... No matter how much time passed, she lived alone.” They met by chance in an “inn” by the road, where Nadezhda is the hostess, and Nikolai Alekseevich is a traveler. He is unable to get up to the height of her feelings, to understand why Nadezhda did not marry “with such beauty that ... she had,” how it is possible to love one person all her life, only a strong and noble nature is capable of such a boundless feeling, as if Bunin rises above the heroes of the story. , regretting that Nadezhda did not meet a person who was able to appreciate and understand her beautiful soul.
In the book “Dark Alleys” there are many other charming female characters: sweet gray-eyed Tanya, a “simple soul”, devoted to her beloved, ready to make any sacrifice for him (“Tanya”); the tall, stately beauty Katerina Nikolaevna, the daughter of her age, who may seem too bold and extravagant (“Antigone”); simple-minded, naive Polya, who retained the childish purity of her soul, despite her profession (“Madrid”) and so on.
The fates of most of Bunin's heroines are tragic. Suddenly and soon, the happiness of Olga Alexandrovna, an officer’s wife, who is forced to serve as a waitress (“In Paris”), breaks up with her beloved Rusya (“Rusya”), and dies from giving birth to Natalie (“Natalie”).
Bunin's female images are tragic and dramatic. This is strongly reflected in his prose; it becomes clear that the true tragedy of Bunin’s prose is that love is always unhappy. She can't and shouldn't be happy. It is this kind of testing love that is true, it is endowed with great meaning. In the story "Dark Alleys" main character also unhappy, his life presented him with many unpleasant surprises, his son grew up to be a dishonest person, his wife left him. But compared to Nadezhda, he is simpler, his down-to-earth nature is not able to comprehend the entire sacrifice of his former lover. After all, a woman who could not forgive her lover, but carried her feeling throughout her life, is unique. There are very few of them, so the unrequited love that Bunin talks about deserves attention.
8. A man of the people as portrayed by I. Shmelev (story “The Man from the Restaurant”)
Additional information: Significant development trends realistic literature general democratic direction were expressed in creativity Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev(1873–1950). Was a member of "Knowledge".
Shmelev’s heroes are “little people” from “city corners” who, during the years of the revolution, saw a vague hope for the future, or people from the middle strata of the urban population who “thought” under the influence of revolutionary events. The influence of techniques is felt in the stories psychological realism Tolstoy and the motives of Gorky’s creativity.
The plots and situations of Shmelev’s works are also characteristic of other writers of the “Znanievo” circle – S. Gusev-Orenburgsky, S. Naydenov, S. Yushkevich, A. Kuprin. Man's conflict with environment is resolved in the works of these writers on two levels - either it dissolves in the author’s abstract compassion for the “little man” and turns into a “universal human” conflict, or it is resolved in the civil traditions of Russian democratic literature of the 60s and 70s. Shmelev seems to synthesize both of these options. He writes with anger about the perpetrators of lawlessness and poverty working person, about the social contrasts of Russian reality, but does not see any ways to really “make life easier.” Shmelev's man is always lonely.
Shmelev’s most artistically mature works were the story “Citizen Ukleikin” and the story “The Man from the Restaurant.” They clearly expressed what was new in the traditional theme “ little man» literature of realism of the 20th century.
In “Citizen Ukleikin,” Shmelev wanted to portray, in his own words, “a spit-stained and riotous life, confused and ineptly protesting.” Ukleikin is one of those “restless people” who are looking for justice. In this sense, Shmelev’s hero is traditional. But his protest reflected the “new Russian, youthful dissatisfaction with life” awakened by the revolution. The quest of the hero Shmelev is no longer only moral, but also social in nature. A civic feeling is maturing in him. However, “life did not open up” either to Ukleikin or to Shmelev’s other heroes. Nadezhda Ukleikina find civil rights turned out to be illusory. The hero dreams of the future, but this dream does not find support in life. The author himself does not see it.
If in Russia Shmelev gained fame as an “artist of the dispossessed,” then in the literature of the Russian emigration he became an artist of old Russia and a “writer of everyday life of Russian piety.” In exile, Shmelev published a lot; published books of stories, memoirs, and novels one after another. Thematically, one group of Shmelev’s works are books about pre-revolutionary Russia, the other is about “Russian people in exile.” All criticism paid attention to the truly popular language of Shmelev’s essays, which can only be compared with the language of Leskov.
Shmelev's prose has absorbed many traditions of Russian literature - Chekhov, Leskov, and Russian hagiographic literature. From this synthesis, a special “Shmelevsky” style system was developed, in which good-natured humor, sincere gentleness, and a clear adherence to folklore tradition found a place.
Answer: The story “The Man from the Restaurant” was written under the influence of the mood of the revolution (1911). Written in the typical form of a tale from Shmelev on behalf of an elderly waiter (“A peaceful and self-possessed man, given my temperament—thirty-eight years old, one might say, he was seething.”) The hero of the story, the waiter Skorokhodov, like Ukleikin, dreams of justice. But also his dream is paralyzed by the vagueness of ideas about social truth. Having experienced a spiritual crisis after the loss of loved ones, Skorokhodov finds it. moral support in the moral teachings of L. Tolstoy. Strength The story is a social denunciation of predation, hypocrisy, lackeyness, which the old waiter witnesses. But its critical power is weakened by the illusory nature of the hero’s moral conclusion. “Citizen Ukleikin” and “The Man from the Restaurant” are the pinnacles of Shmelev’s pre-revolutionary creativity.Shmelev eagerly followed the social upsurge in the country, seeing in it the only way out to alleviate the plight of millions. And the revolutionary upsurge becomes the same purifying force for his heroes. He raises up the downtrodden and humiliated, awakens humanity in the stupid and self-righteous, he portends the death of the old way of life. But Shmelev knew the workers - fighters against autocracy, soldiers of the revolution - poorly. He saw them and showed them in isolation from the environment, outside the “case,” capturing the type of revolutionary without “typical circumstances.” In "The Man from the Restaurant" this is the son of the waiter Skorokhodov, Ikolay, and his friends.
The main, innovative thing in the story “The Man from the Restaurant” was that Shmelev was able to completely transform into your hero, see the world through the eyes of another person. “I wanted,” Shmelev wrote to Gorky, revealing the idea of the story, “to identify a servant of man, who, by his specific activity, seems to represent in focus the whole mass of servants on different paths of life.” Characters The stories form a single social pyramid, the base of which is occupied by Skorokhodov and the restaurant servants. Closer to the top, lackeyism is performed “not for fifty dollars, but for higher reasons”: thus, an important gentleman in orders throws himself under the table in order to pick up the handkerchief dropped by the minister before the waiter. And the closer to the top of this pyramid, the baser the reasons for servility.
The confession of Skorokhodov, an old worker at the end of his strength, a dishonored father, an outcast who has lost his wife and son, is imbued with wise bitterness. Although “decent society” has deprived him of even his name, leaving him with a faceless “man!”, he is internally immeasurably higher and more decent than those whom he serves. This is a noble, pure soul among rich lackeys, the embodiment of decency in a world of vain acquisitiveness. He sees right through the visitors and harshly condemns their predation and hypocrisy. “I know their real value, I know, sir,” says Skorokhodov, “no matter how they talk in French and about various subjects. One of them was all about how they live in basements, and she complained that we had to stop, but The way she peels the hazel grouse in white wine is like playing a violin with a knife, singing in a warm place and in front of mirrors, and it’s very offensive to them that there are basements and all sorts of infections... It would be better to swear. At least you can see right away what you are like. But no... they also know how to present it with dust.” Skorokhodov, even in his social protest, remains an “average person,” a layman whose ultimate dream is his own house with sweet peas, sunflowers and purebred Langogian chickens. His distrust of the masters is the distrust of a commoner, in which one can also sense hostility towards educated people “in general.”
The image of Skorokhodov is shown in it with remarkable artistic power. A narration about his unhappy life as an old waiter, whose language is intertwined with “educated” expressions (“I couldn’t overcome the languor”), clerical cliches (“I’m performing an operation”), sayings (“I wanted kulebyaks from a dog”), slang words (“crawling ", "zhigulyast", "wasted", "koknut", "ottyabel") - has a precise target orientation. Through Skorokhodov’s style, the peculiarities of the speech of other characters shine through: the pure language of the revolutionary Kolyushka, the archaic bookish and at the same time hairdresser-“intelligent” of Kirill Saveryanych, the boorish merchant of the millionaire Karasev, the distorted accent of the conductor Capuladi, etc. There is, as it were, a superimposition of Skorokhodov’s speech to the speech of the other characters. However, while admiring the skill of Shmelev the artist, critics at the same time noted a certain heaviness of the technique itself: “For 187 pages, the man from the restaurant speaks a specific semi-professional jargon.”
Contents : (dedicated to Olsha Shmeleva) As time passed, Yakov Sofronich realized: it all started with the suicide of Krivoy, their tenant. Before that, he had quarreled with Skorokhodov and promised to convey that Kolyushka and Kirill Severyanych were arguing about politics. He, Krivoy, serves in the detective department. But he hanged himself because they kicked him out from everywhere and he had nothing to live on. Just after this, Kolyushkin’s director summoned Yakov Sofronich, and Natasha began to meet with the officer, and the apartment had to be changed, and new tenants appeared, from whom Kolya’s life went to waste.
The school demanded that the son (he is really harsh, even with his father) apologize to the teacher. Only Kolyushka stood his ground: he was the first to humiliate him and bullied him from the first grade, calling him a ragamuffin and not Skorokhodov, but Skomorokhov. In a word, I was expelled six months before graduation. Unfortunately, he also became friends with the residents. Poor, young, live as husband and wife, and are not married. Suddenly they disappeared. The police showed up, did a search and took Kolya away - they took him away until the circumstances were clarified - and then deported him.
Natalya was not happy either. She went to the skating rink more often, became even more daring, and came late. Cherepakhin, a tenant in love with her, warned that an officer was courting her. There was a scream at home and insults flowed like a river. The daughter started talking about independent life. The final exams are coming soon, and she will live separately. She is hired as a cashier at a decent department store for forty rubles. And so it happened. Only now she lived, unmarried, with a man who promised to marry, but only when his grandmother, who bequeathed a million, died. Of course, he didn’t marry, demanded to get rid of the pregnancy, committed embezzlement and sent Natasha to ask her father for money. And just then the director, Mr. Stose, announced Skorokhodov’s dismissal. The restaurant is very happy with him, and he has been working for twenty years, he can do everything and knows it down to the last detail, but... his son’s arrest, and they have a rule... They are forced to fire him. Moreover, by this time the son had fled from exile. It was true. Yakov Sofronich has already met Kolyushka. He was - not like before, but affectionate and kind with him. He handed the letter to Mama and disappeared again.
Lusha, as she read the news from her son, began to cry, and then grabbed her heart and died. Yakov Sofronich was left alone. Here, however, Natalya, without listening to her roommate, gave birth to a daughter, Yulenka, and gave her to her father. He already worked as a visiting waiter, yearning for white halls, mirrors and a respectable audience.
Of course, there were grievances in the same place, there were plenty of outrages and injustices, however, there was also a kind of art brought to perfection, and Yakov Sofronich completely mastered this art. I had to learn to keep my mouth shut. Respectable fathers of families spent thousands here with their girls; respected elders brought fifteen-year-olds into the office; husbands' wives secretly worked part-time good names. The most terrible memory was left by the plush-upholstered offices. You can scream and call for help as much as you want - no one will hear. Stickleback was right after all. What is the nobility of life in our business?! To which Karp, the man assigned to these rooms, could not stand it again and knocked on the door: so alone she screamed and fought.
And then there was also a ladies’ orchestra playing at the restaurant, consisting of strict young ladies who had graduated from the conservatory. There was a beauty there, thin and light, like a girl, and her eyes were big and sad. And so the commercial adviser Karasev, whose fortune was impossible to live on, began to look at her, because every minute it arrived by five rubles. If he sits in a restaurant for three hours, that’s a thousand. But the young lady doesn’t even look, and didn’t accept the bouquet of roses worth hundreds of rubles, and didn’t stay for the luxurious dinner ordered for the whole orchestra by Karasev. Yakov Sofronich was dressed up to take the bouquet to her apartment in the morning. The old lady accepted the bouquet. Then the thin woman herself came out and slammed the door: “There will be no answer.” A lot of time passed, but Mr. Karasev’s wedding was still held in the restaurant. The thin one left him with another millionaire abroad due to the fact that Mr. Karasev kept refusing to marry her. So he caught up with them on an emergency train and brought them by force. Kolya was eventually found and arrested. In the letter he wrote: “Farewell, dad, and forgive me for everything I caused.” But just before the trial, twelve prisoners ran away, and Kolya was with them, and was saved by a miracle. I was fleeing from pursuit and found myself in a dead end. He rushed into the shop: “Save me and don’t extradite me.” The old shopkeeper took him to the basement. Yakov Sofronich went to see this man. He thanked him, but in response he only said that you couldn’t live without the Lord, but he truly said that he had opened his eyes to the world.
A month later, an unknown person came and said that Stickleback was safe. After that, everything began to improve little by little. Yakov Sofronich spent the summer working in the summer garden, managing the kitchen and buffet for Ignatius Eliseich, from the same restaurant where he once worked. He was very pleased and promised to help. And then the trade union (the director now had to reckon with it) demanded that the illegally dismissed person be reinstated.
And here Yakov Sofronich is again in the same restaurant doing the usual thing. Only the children are not around.