They meet in the summer, on one of the Volga ships. He is a lieutenant, She is a lovely, small, tanned woman returning home from Anapa.
“I’m completely drunk,” she laughed. - Actually, I'm completely crazy. Three hours ago I didn’t even know you existed.
The lieutenant kisses her hand, and his heart skips a beat and terribly.
The steamer approaches the pier, the lieutenant begs her to get off. A minute later they go to the hotel and rent a large but stuffy room. As soon as the footman closes the door behind him, both of them merge so frantically in a kiss that they later remember this moment for many years: none of them have ever experienced anything like this.
And in the morning this little nameless woman, who jokingly called herself “a beautiful stranger” and “Princess Marya Morevna,” leaves. Despite the almost sleepless night, she is as fresh as she was at seventeen, a little embarrassed, still simple, cheerful, and already reasonable: she asks the lieutenant to stay until the next ship.
Nothing even close to what happened has ever happened to me, and there never will be again. The eclipse definitely hit me... Or, rather, we both got something like sunstroke...
And the lieutenant somehow easily agrees with her, takes her to the pier, puts her on the ship and kisses her on the deck in front of everyone.
He easily and carefree returns to the hotel, but the room seems somehow different to the lieutenant. It is still full of it - and empty. The lieutenant's heart suddenly contracts with such tenderness that he has no strength to look at the unmade bed - and he covers it with a screen. He thinks this sweet “road adventure” is over. He cannot “come to this city, where her husband, her three-year-old girl, and in general her whole ordinary life are.”
This thought astonishes him. He feels such pain and uselessness of all his later life without her, that he is overcome by horror and despair. The lieutenant begins to believe that this is really “sunstroke” and does not know “how to live this endless day, with these memories, with this insoluble torment.”
The lieutenant goes to the market, to the cathedral, then circles for a long time around the abandoned garden, but nowhere does he find peace and deliverance from this uninvited feeling.
How wild, how absurd everything is everyday, ordinary, when the heart is struck by this terrible “sunstroke”, too much love, too much happiness.
Returning to the hotel, the lieutenant orders lunch. Everything is fine, but he knows that he would die tomorrow without hesitation if it were possible by some miracle to return the “beautiful stranger” and prove how painfully and enthusiastically he loves her. He doesn’t know why, but this is more necessary for him than life.
Realizing that it is impossible to get rid of this unexpected love, the lieutenant resolutely goes to the post office with a telegram already written, but stops at the post office in horror - he does not know her last name or first name! The lieutenant returns to the hotel completely broken, lies down on the bed, closes his eyes, feeling tears rolling down his cheeks, and finally falls asleep.
The lieutenant wakes up in the evening. Yesterday and this morning are remembered to him as a distant past. He gets up, washes himself, drinks tea with lemon for a long time, pays for his room and goes to the pier.
The ship departs at night. The lieutenant sits under a canopy on the deck, feeling ten years older.
Analysis of I. Bunin's story "Sunstroke"
A soft maple leaf meekly and tremblingly rises in the wind and falls again to the cold ground. He is so lonely that he doesn’t care where his fate takes him. Neither the warm rays of the gentle sun, nor the spring freshness of a frosty morning no longer pleases him. This little leaf is so defenseless that it has to come to terms with the fate of fate and only hope that someday it will be possible to find its refuge.
In I. A. Bunin's story "Sunstroke" the lieutenant, like a lonely leaf, wanders around a strange city. This is a story about love at first sight, about fleeting infatuation, about the power of passion and the bitterness of parting. In the works of I. A. Bunin, love is complex and unhappy. The heroes part as if waking up after a sweet love dream.
The same thing happens with the lieutenant. The reader is presented with a picture of heat and stuffiness: a tan on the body, boiling water, hot sea sand, a dusty cab... The air is filled love passion. A terribly stuffy hotel room, very hot during the day - this is a reflection of the state of lovers. The white drawn curtains on the windows are the border of the soul, and two unburned candles on the mirror holder are what may have remained here from the previous couple.
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 unable to overcome melancholy and spiritual emptiness. Sometimes it happens that we understand with what wonderful person Fate brought us together only at that moment when he was 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.
IN hotel room everything still reminded me of her. However, these memories were difficult; just looking at the unmade bed intensified the already unbearable melancholy. Somewhere out there, behind open windows, a ship 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 glistening 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.
Life itself ordinary person 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? 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 again finds himself in society, 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 a portrait of a 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 parting, it 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: white stripe joy and happiness will inevitably be replaced by black. 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.
Composition
Bunin considered his most perfect creation to be the book “ Dark alleys" - a series of stories about love. The book was written during the Second World War, when the Bunin family found itself in extremely difficult situations (conflicts with the authorities, virtual lack of food, cold, etc.). The writer made an unprecedented attempt in artistic courage in this book: he wrote “about the same thing” thirty-eight times (this is the number of stories in the book). However, the result of this amazing constancy is amazing: each time a sensitive reader experiences the reconstructed picture (seemingly known to him) as completely new, and the sharpness of the “details of feeling” communicated to him not only does not dull, but seems to only intensify. In terms of theme and style, the collection “Dark Alleys” is closely related to the story “Sunstroke,” created back in 1927.
The narrative technique of Bunin's later works is distinguished by a striking combination of noble simplicity and sophistication. “Sunstroke” begins - without any pre-emptive explanation - with a vaguely personal sentence: “After dinner, we left the brightly and hotly lit dining room on the deck...”. The reader still knows nothing about the upcoming event or its participants: the reader’s very first impressions are associated with sensations of light and heat. Images of fire, stuffiness, and sunshine will throughout this six-page story maintain the “high temperature” of the narrative. The heroine's hand will smell like tan; a hotel footman in a “pink” blouse will greet the young couple, and the hotel room will be “terribly stuffy, hot”; The “unfamiliar town” will be saturated with heat, in which you will have to burn yourself from touching the buttons of your clothes and squint from the unbearable light.
Who is “she”, where and when does the action take place? Perhaps the reader, like main character, will not have time to realize this: in Bunin’s story all this will be pushed to the periphery only important event- “too much love”, “too much happiness”. The story, devoid of exposition, will end with a laconic epilogue - a short sentence in which the lieutenant, feeling “ten years older,” seems to forever freeze.
The transience of the incident that served as the basis for the plot is emphasized in “Sunstroke”, as in others later works Bunin, fragmentation, punctuation of the story about a love rapprochement: individual details, gestures, fragments of dialogue are selected and as if hastily assembled. The tongue twister speaks of the lieutenant’s parting with the “beautiful stranger”: “easily agreed”, “took him to the pier”, “kissed him on the deck”, “returned to the hotel”. In general, the description of the meeting of lovers takes up a little more than one page of text. This compositional feature Bunin's works about love - the selection of the most significant, turning-point episodes, the high plot "speed" in conveying the love story - allows many literary historians to talk about the "novelistic quality" of Bunin's late prose. Very often (and quite reasonably) researchers directly call these works of his short stories. However, Bunin's works are not reduced to a dynamic narrative about the vicissitudes of love.
The repeating “formula” of the plot - a meeting, a quick rapprochement, a dazzling flash of feelings and an inevitable separation, sometimes accompanied by the death of one of the lovers - precisely because of its repetition, it ceases to be “news” (the literal meaning of the Italian word “novella”). Moreover, as a rule, already the initial fragments of the text contain the author’s indications not only of the transience of the upcoming event, but also of the characters’ future memories. In “Sunstroke,” a similar indication follows immediately after the mention of the first kiss: “...Both...remembered this moment for many years later: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire lives.” A “grammatical inaccuracy”, perhaps deliberately admitted by Bunin in this sentence, deserves attention: the verb “experienced” should have been used in the plural. A possible explanation is the author's desire for extreme generalization: regardless of social, psychological and even sexual differences, the characters in Bunin's stories embody one consciousness and one attitude.
Let us pay attention to how, within the framework of one sentence, quantities of the same order are conjugated and turn out to be “ wonderful moment" and "all life." Bunin writes not only about love, the scale of everything earthly is important to him human existence, he is attracted by the mysterious fusion of “terrible” and “beautiful”, “miracle” and “horror” of this life. That's why love story often turns out to be only part of the work, coexisting with fragments of a meditative nature.
Almost five out of the total six pages of text in “Sunstroke” describe the lieutenant’s condition after parting with a stranger. The novelistic plot itself is only a preamble to the hero’s lyrically rich reflections on the mystery of life. The intonation of these reflections is set by a dotted line of repeated persistent questions that do not imply an answer: “Why prove it?”, “What to do now?”, “Where to go?”. As we see, the event series of the story is subordinated to the universal problems of the eternal “joys and sorrows.” The growing feeling of immensity and - at the same time - the tragic irrevocability of the happiness experienced forms the compositional core of the story in “Sunstroke”.
Bunin's focus on the “eternal” questions of human existence, on existential problems existence does not make stories about love philosophical: the writer does not like logical abstractions and does not allow philosophical terminology into his texts. The foundation of Bunin's style is not a logically consistent development of thought, but an artistic intuition of life, which finds expression in almost physiologically tangible descriptions, in complex “patterns” of light and rhythmic contrasts.
Experiencing life is the material of Bunin’s stories. What is the subject of this experience? At first glance, the narration in his stories is focused on the point of view of the character (this is especially noticeable in “Clean Monday”, the story is told from the point of view of a wealthy Muscovite, outwardly distanced from the author). However, the characters, even if they are endowed with signs of individuality, appear in both stories analyzed as a kind of medium of some higher consciousness. These characters are characterized by “ghostliness”: they are like shadows of the author, and therefore the descriptions of their appearance are extremely laconic. The portrait of the lieutenant in “Sunstroke” was made in a deliberately “depersonalizing” manner: “He... looked at himself in the mirror: his face him, - usual an officer's face, gray from the tan, with a whitish, sun-bleached mustache and bluish white eyes...” About the narrator " Clean Monday“We only learn that he “was handsome at that time, for some reason, with a southern, hot beauty...”
Bunin's characters were given exceptional acuteness of sensory reactions, which was characteristic of the author himself. This is why the writer almost never resorts to the form of internal monologue (this would make sense if the character’s mental organization were significantly different from the author’s). The author and the heroes (and after them the readers) of Bunin’s stories see and hear the same, they are equally amazed at the infinity of the day and the transience of life. Bunin's manner is far from Tolstoy's methods of “dialectics of the soul”; It is also unlike Turgenev’s “secret psychologism” (when the writer avoids direct assessments, but allows one to judge the state of the hero’s soul by skillfully selected external manifestations of feeling). The movements of the soul of Bunin's heroes defy logical explanation. The characters seem to have no control over themselves, as if they are deprived of the ability to control their feelings.
In this regard, Bunin’s predilection for impersonal verbal constructions in descriptions of character states is interesting. “It was necessary to save yourself, to occupy yourself with something, to distract yourself, to go somewhere...” - he conveys the state of the hero of “Sunstroke”. “... For some reason I definitely wanted to go there,” testifies the narrator of “Clean Monday” about his visit to the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery, where he last time will see his beloved. The life of the soul in Bunin’s depiction is beyond the control of reason, inexplicable, it is tormented by the mystery of a meaning hidden from mortals. The most important role in conveying the “emotional whirlwinds” experienced by the characters is played by the techniques of lyrical “contagion” (associative parallels, rhythmic and sound organization of the text).
The lieutenant's vision, hearing, taste and temperature sensations in “Sunstroke” are extremely heightened. That is why the whole symphony of smells is so organic in the story (from the smells of hay and tar - to the smells of “her good English cologne..., her tan and canvas dress”), and the details of the background sound (“the soft knock” of the steamer hitting the pier ; the clink of bowls and pots being sold at the market; the sound of “water boiling and running forward”), and gastronomic details (botvina with ice, lightly salted cucumbers with dill, tea with lemon). But the most expressively described states of the character in the story are associated with an acute perception of the luminous and blazing heat of the sun. It is from the light and temperature details presented again and again close up and giving clarity to the internal rhythm of the story, the “brocade” verbal fabric of “Sunstroke” is woven. By bringing together and focusing these energetic verbal threads, Bunin, without any explanation, without appeals to the character’s consciousness, conveys the ecstasy of the moments he experiences. However, psychological state the lieutenant turns out to be not only the fact of his inner life. The inseparability of beauty and horror; the joy from which “the heart was simply torn into pieces” turn out to be objectively existing characteristics of being.
The writer in his late prose turns not to rationally comprehended facets of life, but to those spheres of experience that allow, at least for a moment, to touch the mysterious, metaphysical depths of existence (metaphysical is that which is beyond the limits of human perception natural phenomena; something that cannot be rationally comprehended). This is exactly what the sphere of love is for Bunin - the sphere of unsolved mystery, unspokenness, opaque semantic depth. The experience of love in the writer’s depiction is associated with an unprecedented rise in all a person’s emotional abilities, with his emergence into a special dimension that contrasts with the everyday flow of life. This is the true dimension of existence, to which not everyone is involved, but only those who are given the happy (and always the only) opportunity to experience the painful joy of love.
Love in Bunin's works allows a person to accept life as the greatest gift, to acutely feel the joy of earthly existence, but this joy for the writer is not a blissful and serene state, but a tragic feeling, tinged with anxiety. The emotional atmosphere of the stories is created by the interaction of motifs of love, beauty, and inevitable finitude and short-term happiness that are persistent in Bunin’s late prose. Joy and torment, sadness and jubilation are fused into an indissoluble whole in Bunin's later works. “Tragic major” - this is how Georgy Adamovich, a critic of the Russian diaspora, defined the pathos of Bunin’s stories about love: “In Bunin’s very language, in the structure of each of his phrases, one can feel spiritual harmony, as if by itself reflecting a certain higher order and structure: everything still holds on to its own places, the sun is the sun, love is love, good is good.”
Ivan Bunin's story “Sunstroke” is surprising and original in its own way. At first glance, storyline quite common. But this is only at first glance. There is hardly a work more subtly organized than “Sunstroke.” Bunin analyzes in it problems of a personal nature: moments of choice that influence future fate person. The heroes make their choice - and find themselves far from each other.
“Sunstroke” (Bunin): summary
While traveling on a ship, a military man - a lieutenant - and a young woman - a stranger - meet. The author does not give her a name, however, like the lieutenant. They are just people, their story is not at all unique, it is similar to many of those that are happening. The couple spends the night together. The young woman is embarrassed, but she does not repent of what happened. She just needs to go, and it's time for him to get off the ship. The lieutenant easily releases the woman, accompanies her to the pier and returns to his room. Here is the smell of her perfume, the unfinished cup of coffee that they forgot to put away, the memories of last night still vivid.
The lieutenant's heart is suddenly filled with a touching feeling, which he is unable to accept and tries to drown out by trying to continuously smoke cigarettes. As if looking for salvation from impending tenderness, he rushes into the city, mindlessly wanders through the market, walks among people and feels When an inexpressible feeling prevents him from thinking, thinking sensibly and reasoning, he decides to send her a telegram, but on the way to the post office he realizes that he doesn’t know neither the woman’s first nor last name, nor her address. Returning to his room, he feels ten years older. The lieutenant already understands that they will never meet again.
This is a very capacious content of the story, although quite short. Bunin's retelling of “Sunstroke” will allow high school students to better prepare for literature lessons. The information may be useful for students of pedagogical colleges, as well as those studying at universities.
What is the story "Sunstroke" about?
Bunin’s work “Sunstroke” tells about unexpected love that overtakes the main characters (the lieutenant and the stranger) while traveling on a ship. Both of them are not ready for the feeling that has appeared.
Moreover, they have absolutely no time to understand this: there is only one day, which decides the outcome of events. When the time comes to say goodbye, the lieutenant cannot even think about what torment he will experience after the young woman leaves his cozy room. It’s as if his whole life is passing before his eyes, which is measured, assessed now from the height of last night and the feeling that bewitched the lieutenant.
Story composition
The story can be roughly divided into three parts, containing different meanings: the first part is the moment when the lieutenant and the stranger are together. Both are confused and somewhat at a loss.
Second compositional part: the moment of farewell between the lieutenant and the young woman. The third part is the moment of awakening a tender feeling that is difficult to cope with. The author very subtly shows the moments of transition from one compositional part to another, while the state of the main character - the lieutenant - gradually becomes the center of the narrative.
The ideological component of the story
The meeting of the lieutenant and the stranger became for both of them akin to real sunstroke, bringing blindness with passion, and then a bitter epiphany. This is what Bunin talks about. The book “Sunstroke” is surrounded by a romantic beginning, talks about everyone’s need to love and be loved, but at the same time it is absolutely devoid of illusions. Perhaps young men will see here the desire of the heroes to find their only love, but rather, this is an attempt to abandon love in favor of common sense: “We had to save ourselves...” “This new feeling was too much happiness,” which, obviously, the heroes could not afford, otherwise they would have to change the entire established way of life, produce make some changes in yourself and change your environment.
Stranger's State
Bunin paints the image of the young woman whom the lieutenant meets on the ship without embellishment and does not endow her with special characteristics. She has no name - she is just a woman with whom a certain lieutenant spent the night.
But the author very subtly emphasizes her experiences, anxieties and worries. The woman says, “I’m not at all what you might imagine me to be.” Perhaps she was looking for the need to love and be loved in this fleeting connection. Perhaps for her everything that happened was nothing more than an accident, a surprise. She must have not received enough warmth and attention in her married life (which is mentioned in the story). We see that the stranger does not make any plans and does not oblige the lieutenant to do anything. That is why she does not consider it necessary to give her name. It is bitter and painful for her to leave, leaving the lieutenant forever, but she does it, obeying her intuition. She subconsciously already knows that their relationship will not end well.
Lieutenant's condition
As shown in the story, probably at first the main character was not ready to appreciate the feeling he had for an unfamiliar woman. That’s why he lets her go so easily, believing that nothing binds them.
Only upon returning to his room does he feel signs of a developing “fever” and realizes that it cannot be avoided. He no longer belongs to himself, he is not free. He was suddenly incredibly affected by the atmosphere of the room in which they spent the night together: “there was still an unfinished cup of coffee on the table, the bed was still unmade, but she was no longer there.” The lieutenant cannot accept this feeling, pushes it away from himself in every possible way, almost reaching the point of frenzy.
Metamorphosis of the lieutenant and its meaning
The way it changes state of mind, speaks of the awakening power of feelings. Perhaps the lieutenant, a military man, could not even imagine that some fleeting meeting with a woman would so upend his entire value system, force him to rethink the significance of life and rediscover its meaning. The theme of love as the greatest secret that knows no compromises is revealed in the story “Sunstroke”. Bunin analyzes the state of his hero, emphasizing confusion and despair, as well as the bitterness with which he tries to suppress the awakening feeling of love within himself. It is quite difficult to win in this unequal battle. The lieutenant is defeated and feels tired, ten years older.
The main idea of the story
Obviously, with his work the author wanted to show the dramatic outcome of love. Meanwhile, each of us is always free to choose what to do in this or that difficult situation. The lieutenant and his lady were simply not ready to accept the generous gift of fate, so they chose to part ways as soon as they met. And it’s hard to call it an acquaintance - they didn’t tell each other their names, didn’t exchange addresses.
Most likely, their meeting was only an attempt to drown out the alarming voice of a yearning heart. As you might guess, the characters are unhappy in their personal lives and very lonely, despite being married. They did not leave each other addresses or give their names because they did not want to continue the relationship. This is the main idea of the story “Sunstroke”. Bunin analyzes and compares the heroes, which of them is no longer ready for a new life, but as a result it turns out that both show significant cowardice.
Theater productions and films
This work has been filmed more than once, and also played on the theater stage, so amazing is the situation described in the story “Sunstroke” by Bunin. Mikhalkov filmed the film of the same name in Bouveray. The acting is amazing, extremely conveys the feelings of the characters and their inner pain, which sounds like a heavy chord from beginning to end.
There is probably no other work that evokes such ambivalent feelings as “Sunstroke.” Bunin, reviews of this story (very contradictory) confirm this, described a situation that leaves few people indifferent. Some feel sorry for the main characters and believe that they definitely had to find each other, others are sure that such meetings between a man and a woman should remain a secret, an unattainable dream and have nothing to do with reality. Who knows whether you should believe a sudden passion or whether you need to look for the reason deep within yourself? Maybe all “love” is just an enthusiastic fantasy characteristic of youth?
Ivan Bunin “Sunstroke” and the school program
I would like to note that this story is included in school curriculum compulsory study in literature and is intended for older schoolchildren - children sixteen - seventeen years old. As a rule, at this age the work is perceived in pink tones, appears before young people as a story about great love. For older and fairly mature people, the work suddenly opens up from a different perspective and makes us think about the question of how ready we are to accept love in life and how we do it. The fact is that in youth it seems that love itself is capable of defeating any obstacles. By the age of twenty-five to thirty, an understanding comes that nothing in life comes for free, and a feeling like love must be protected with all the strength of the soul and heart.
An unforgettably powerful work - “Sunstroke”. Bunin analyzes in it a person’s ability to accept love in special circumstances of life and how the characters cope with this task shows that in most cases people are not able to recognize it at the very beginning and take responsibility for the development of relationships. This kind of love is doomed.
This is what Bunin talks about in his work “Sunstroke”. The summary allows you to determine the theme of the story, its compositional and ideological component. If you are interested in this description, we recommend that you read on. “Sunstroke”, without a doubt, is one of those works that leave a feeling of slight sadness after reading and linger in the memory for a long time.
Bunin’s story “Sunstroke” was written in 1925 and published a year later in Sovremennye Zapiski. The book describes a fleeting romance between a lieutenant and a young married lady who met while traveling on a ship.
Main characters
Lieutenant- a young man, impressionable and ardent.
Stranger– young, beautiful woman, who has a husband and a three-year-old daughter.
While traveling on one of the Volga steamships, the lieutenant meets a beautiful stranger who is returning home after a vacation in Anapa. She does not reveal her name to a new acquaintance, and each time she responds to his persistent requests with “a simple, charming laugh.”
The lieutenant is amazed by the beauty and natural charm of his fellow traveler. Ardent, passionate feelings flare up in his heart. Unable to contain them within himself, he makes a very clear offer to the woman to go ashore. Unexpectedly, she easily and naturally agrees.
At the first stop, they go down the ladder of the ship and find themselves at the pier of a small provincial town. They silently go to a local hotel, where they rent a “terribly stuffy room, hotly heated by the sun during the day.”
Without saying a word to each other, they “choked so frantically in the kiss” that they would remember this sweet, breathtaking moment for many years to come.
The next morning, the “little nameless woman,” having quickly dressed and regained her lost prudence, gets ready to hit the road. She admits that she has never found herself in such a situation before, and for her this sudden outbreak of passion is like an eclipse, “sunstroke.”
The woman asks the lieutenant not to board the ship with her, but to wait for the next voyage. Otherwise, “everything will be ruined,” and she wants to remember only this unexpected night in a provincial hotel.
The man easily agrees and accompanies his companion to the pier, after which he returns to his room. However, at this moment he realizes that something in his life has changed dramatically. Trying to find the reason for this change, he gradually comes to the conclusion that he was head over heels in love with the woman with whom he spent the night.
He rushes about, not knowing what to do with himself in a provincial town. The sound of the stranger’s voice, “the smell of her tan and canvas dress,” and the outline of her strong, elastic body are still fresh in his memory. To distract himself a little, the lieutenant goes for a walk, but this does not calm him down. Unexpectedly, he decides to write a telegram to his beloved, but last moment recalls that he does not know “neither her last name nor her first name.” All he knows about the stranger is that she has a husband and a three-year-old daughter.
Exhausted by mental anguish, the lieutenant boards the evening ship. He sits comfortably on the deck and admires the river views, "feeling ten years older."
Conclusion
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