For I. A. Bunin, the feeling of love is always a secret, great, unknowable and not subject to the human mind miracle. In his stories, no matter what love is: strong, real, mutual - it never comes to marriage. He stops her at the highest point of pleasure and perpetuates her in prose.
From 1937 to 1945 Ivan Bunin writes an intriguing work, later it will 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 black streak passing in his life.
Bunin said that "Clean Monday" is the best work that he wrote:
I thank God that he gave me the opportunity to write Clean Monday.
Genre, direction
"Clean Monday" is written in the direction of realism. But before Bunin, they didn’t write about love like that. The writer finds the only words that do not trivialize feelings, but each time re-discover emotions familiar to everyone.
The work “Clean Monday” is a short story, a small everyday work, somewhat similar to a story. The difference can be found only in the plot and compositional construction. The genre of the short story, unlike the story, is characterized by the presence of a certain turn of events. In this book, such a turn is a change in the views on life of the heroine and a sharp change in her lifestyle.
The 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 still does not know what she needs in life. It changes for the better from Monday, and not just the first day of a new week, but a religious celebration, that turning point, which is marked by the church itself, where the heroine goes to cleanse herself from the luxury, idleness and bustle of her former life.
Clean Monday is the first feast of Great Lent in the calendar, and leading to Forgiveness Sunday. The author stretches the thread of the heroine's turning point in her life: from various amusements and unnecessary fun, to the adoption of religion, and leaving for a monastery.
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 she has strong feelings. He is extremely talkative, she is very silent. There was no intimacy between them, and this keeps him at a loss, and some kind of expectation.
For some time they continue to go to theaters, spend evenings together. Forgiveness Sunday is approaching, and they are going to the Novodevichy Convent. Along the way, the heroine talks about how she was at the schismatic cemetery yesterday, and describes with admiration the rite of burial of the archbishop. The narrator did not notice some kind of religiosity in her earlier, and therefore listened attentively, with burning loving eyes. The heroine notices this, and is amazed at how much he loves her.
In the evening they go to the skit, after which the narrator accompanies her home. The girl asks to let the coachmen go, which she has not done before, and to go up to her. It was only 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.
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 the chosen one as a participant in the events, he also sees her as a person who only remembers the past. His views on life after falling in love, after passion, are changing. By the end of the novel, the reader now sees his maturity and depth of thought, but at first the hero was blinded by his passion and did not see the character of his beloved behind her, 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 the heart.
The girl's name cannot be found in the work. For the narrator, this is just the same - unique. The heroine is an ambiguous person. She has education, refinement, intelligence, but at the same time she is removed from the world. She is attracted by an unattainable ideal, to which she can strive only 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 catch a glimpse of in her tense silence, in her desire for quiet and secluded corners, for reflection and loneliness. The girl still can not understand what she needs. She is seduced by the chic life, but at the same time, she resists it, and tries to find something else that will light her path with meaning. And in this honest choice, in this loyalty to oneself lies a great strength, there is a 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, a divine revelation became a guiding star, she found herself, but her chosen one, having lost the woman of his dreams, went astray.
- The problem of misunderstanding. The whole essence of the tragedy of the heroes is a misunderstanding of 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 confused situation. She is looking for herself not in the family, but in the service and spiritual calling. He sincerely does not see this and is trying to impose his vision of the future on her - the creation of marriage bonds.
- Choice theme also featured in the novel. Every person has a choice, and everyone decides for himself how to do the right thing. The main character chose her path - leaving for the 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 traces the 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 goes to the call of her soul, vaguely guessing the destination - the destiny of higher powers. And it's very good for both of them. If a woman made a mistake and got married, she would forever remain unhappy and blame the one who led her astray. A 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 eventually ends in a break. Heroes make such decisions themselves, they have complete freedom of choice. And the meaning of their actions is the idea of the whole book. Each of us must choose exactly the kind of love that we can meekly worship all 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 the doubts and temptations, come to 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 condemn 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. On whether we will be able to hear it depends on the fate, and our own fate, and the position of those to whom we are dear.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Genre focus The work is a short novel in the style of realism, the main theme of which is reflections on love, lost, forgotten in the past, as well as broken destinies, choices and their consequences.
Composition structure The story is traditional for a short story, consisting of three parts, the first of which tells about the arrival of the protagonist in combination with descriptions of nature and the surrounding area, the second describes his meeting with his former beloved woman, and the third part depicts a hasty departure.
main character story is Nikolai Alexandrovich, presented in the form of a sixty-year-old man, based in life on common sense in the form of his own ego and public opinion.
minor character The work presents Nadezhda, the former beloved of Nikolai, left by him sometime in the past, who met the hero at the end of his life path. Hope personifies a girl who was able to overcome the shame of being associated with a rich man and learned to live an independent, honest life.
Distinctive feature The story is an image of the theme of love, which is presented by the author as a tragic and fatal event that has gone forever along with a dear, bright and wonderful feeling. Love in the story is presented in the form of a litmus test, which helps to test the human personality in relation to fortitude and moral purity.
By means of artistic expression in the story are the author's use of precise epithets, vivid metaphors, comparisons and personifications, as well as the use of parallelism, emphasizing the state of mind of the characters.
The originality of the work consists in the inclusion by the writer in the narrative of unexpected abrupt endings, the tragedy and drama of the plot, combined with lyricism in the form of emotions, experiences and mental anguish.
the story consists in conveying to the readership the concept of happiness, which consists in finding spiritual harmony with one's own feelings and rethinking life values.Option 2
Bunin worked in the 19th and 20th centuries. His attitude to love was special: in the beginning, people loved each other very much, but in the end, either one of the heroes dies or they part. For Bunin, love is a passionate feeling, but similar to a flash.
To analyze Bunin's work "Dark Alleys", you need to touch on the plot.
General Nikolai Alekseevich is the main character, he comes to his hometown and meets a woman whom he loved many years ago. Nadezhda is the mistress of the yard, he does not recognize her immediately. But Nadezhda did not forget him and loved Nikolai, even tried to lay hands on herself. The protagonist seems to feel guilty for leaving her. Therefore, he tries to apologize, saying that any feelings pass.
It turns out that Nikolai's life was not so easy, he loved his wife, but she cheated on him, and his son grew up a scoundrel and insolent. He is forced to blame himself for what he did in the past, because Nadezhda could not forgive him.
Bunin's work shows that after 35 years, the love between the characters has not faded away. When the general leaves the city, he realizes that Hope is the best thing in his life. He reflects on the life that could have been if the connection between them had not been interrupted.
Bunin put tragedy into his work, because the lovers did not get along.
Hope was able to keep love, but this did not help create an alliance - she was left alone. I didn’t forgive Nikolai either, because the pain was very strong. And Nikolai himself turned out to be weak, did not leave his wife, was afraid of contempt and could not resist society. They could only be submissive to fate.
Bunin shows the sad story of the fate of two people. Love in the world could not withstand the foundations of the old society, therefore it became fragile and hopeless. But there is also a positive feature - love brought a lot of good things to the lives of the heroes, it left its mark, which they will always remember.
Almost all of Bunin's work touches on the problem of love, and "Dark Alleys" show how important love is in a person's life. For Blok, love comes first, because it helps a person to improve, change life for the better, gain experience, and also teaches to be kind and sensual.
Sample 3
Dark alleys is both a cycle of stories by Ivan Bunin written in exile, and a separate story included in this cycle, and a metaphor borrowed from the poet Nikolai Ogaryov and rethought by the author. Under the dark alleys, Bunin meant the mysterious soul of a person, carefully keeping all the feelings, memories, emotions, meetings once experienced. The author claimed that everyone has such memories that he refers to again and again, and there are the most precious ones that are rarely disturbed, they are securely stored in the remote corners of the soul - dark alleys.
It is about such memories that the story of Ivan Bunin, which was written in 1938 in exile. In a terrible wartime in the city of Grasse in France, a Russian classic wrote about love. Trying to drown out the longing for the Motherland and escape from the horrors of war, Ivan Alekseevich returns to the bright memories of his youth, first feelings and creative endeavors. During this period, the author wrote his best works, including the story "Dark Alleys".
Bunin's hero Ivan Alekseevich, a sixty-year-old man, a high-ranking military man, finds himself in the places of his youth. In the hostess of the inn, he recognizes the former serf girl Nadezhda, whom he, a young landowner, once seduced, and later left. Their chance meeting makes us turn to the memories that have been kept in those very “dark alleys” all this time. From the conversation of the main characters, it becomes known that Nadezhda never forgave her treacherous master, but she could not stop loving either. And Ivan Alekseevich only thanks to this meeting realized that then, many years ago, he left not just a serf girl, but the best that fate had given him. But he didn’t gain anything else: the son is a spendthrift and a spender, his wife cheated and left.
You might get the impression that the story "Dark Alleys" is about retribution, but in fact it is about love. Ivan Bunin put this feeling above all else. Nadezhda, an aged single woman, is happy because she has had love all these years. And the life of Ivan Alekseevich did not work out precisely because he once underestimated this feeling and followed the path of reason.
In a short story, in addition to betrayal, themes of social inequality, and choice, and responsibility for someone else's fate, and the theme of duty are raised. But there is only one conclusion: if you live with your heart and put love as a gift above all else, then all these problems can be solved.
Analysis of the work Dark Alleys
In one of Ogarev's poems, Bunin was "hooked" by the phrase "... there was an alley of dark lindens ..." Further, the imagination painted autumn, rain, a road, and an old campaigner in a tarantass. This formed the basis of the story.
The idea was this. The hero of the story in his youth seduced a peasant girl. He had already forgotten about her. But life tends to bring surprises. By chance, after many years, passing through familiar places, he stopped in a passing hut. And in a beautiful woman, the mistress of the hut, I recognized the same girl.
The old military man felt ashamed, he blushes, turns pale, mumbles something like a delinquent schoolboy. Life punished him for his deed. He married for love, but never knew the warmth of the family hearth. His wife didn't love him, she cheated on him. And, in the end, she left him. The son grew up a scoundrel and a loafer. Everything in life comes back like a boomerang.
What about Hope? She still loves the former master. She didn't have a personal life. No family, no beloved husband. But at the same time she could not forgive the master. These are the women who both love and hate at the same time.
The military is immersed in memories. Mentally re-lives their relationship. They warm the soul like the sun a minute before sunset. But he does not for a second admit the thought that things could have turned out differently. The then society would have condemned their relationship. He wasn't ready for this. He didn't need them, these relationships. Then it was possible to put an end to the military career.
He lives as social rules and principles dictate. He is a coward by nature. You have to fight for love.
Bunin does not allow love to flow along the family channel, to take shape in a happy marriage. Why does he deprive his heroes of human happiness? Perhaps he thinks that fleeting passion is better? Better this eternal unfinished love? She did not bring happiness to Nadezhda, but she still loves. What does she hope for? Personally, I do not understand this, I do not share the views of the author.
The old campaigner finally begins to see clearly and realizes what he has lost. This is what he says with such bitterness to Nadezhda. He realized that she was the dearest, brightest person for him. But he never understood what cards he had up his sleeve. Life gave him a second chance at happiness, but he did not take advantage of it.
What meaning does Bunin put into the title of the story "Dark Alleys"? What does he mean? Dark corners of the human soul and human memory. Every person has their own secrets. And they sometimes pop up for him in the most unexpected way. There is nothing accidental in life. Chance is a pattern well planned by God, fate or the cosmos.
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The story “Dark Alleys” opens, perhaps, the most famous Bunin cycle of stories, which got its name from this first, “title” work. It is known what importance the writer attached to the initial sound, the first “note” of the narrative, the timbre of which was to determine the entire sound palette of the work. A kind of "beginning", creating a special lyrical atmosphere of the story, were the lines from N. Ogarev's poem "An Ordinary Tale":
It was a wonderful spring
They were sitting on the beach
She was in her prime,
His mustache was barely black.
Around the wild rose scarlet bloomed,
There was an alley of dark lindens...
Ho, as always with Bunin, “sound” is inseparable from “image”. To him, as he wrote in the notes “The Origin of My Stories”, at the beginning of work on the story, “some kind of big road, a troika harnessed to a tarantass, and autumn bad weather” presented themselves. It is necessary to add to this a literary impulse, which also played a role: Bunin named “Resurrection” by L.N. Tolstoy, the heroes of this novel are the young Nekhlyudov and Katyusha Maslova. All this came together in the writer's imagination, and a story was born about lost happiness, about the irretrievability of time, about lost illusions and about the power of the past over a person.
The meeting of the heroes, once united in their youth by an ardent love feeling, takes place many years later in the most ordinary, perhaps even nondescript setting: in a mudslide, in an inn lying on a large roadway. Bunin does not skimp on “prosaic” details: “a tarantass thrown with mud”, “simple horses”, “tails tied up from slush”. On the other hand, the portrait of the arrived man is given a detailed one, obviously calculated to arouse sympathy: “a slender old military man”, with black eyebrows, a white mustache, and a shaved chin. His appearance speaks of nobility, and a strict but tired look contrasts with the liveliness of his movements (the author notices how he “thrown” his leg out of the tarantass, “ran up” to the porch). Bunin clearly wants to emphasize the connection in the hero of vivacity and maturity, youthfulness and sedateness, which is very important for the overall idea of the story, implicated in the desire to collide the past and the present, to strike a spark of memories that will illuminate the past with a bright light and incinerate, turn into ashes what exists Today.
The writer deliberately drags out the exposition: out of the three and a half pages given to the story, almost a page is occupied by the “introduction”. In addition to describing the rainy day, the appearance of the hero (and at the same time a detailed description of the appearance of the coachman), which is supplemented with new details as the hero is freed from outer clothing, it also contains a detailed description of the room where the visitor found himself. Moreover, the refrain of this description is an indication of cleanliness and tidiness: a clean tablecloth on the table, cleanly washed benches, a recently whitewashed stove, a new image in the corner ... The author focuses on this, since it is known that the owners of Russian inns and hotels were not neat and a constant feature of these places were cockroaches and dim windows infested with flies. Therefore, he wants to draw our attention to the almost uniqueness of how this institution is maintained by its owners, or rather, as we will soon find out, by its owner.
Ho the hero remains indifferent to the environment, although later he notes cleanliness and tidiness. It can be seen from his behavior and gestures that he is annoyed, tired (Bunin uses the epithet tired for the second time, now in relation to the whole appearance of the officer who arrived), perhaps not very healthy (“pale thin hand”), hostile to everything that happens (“ hostilely” called the owners), absent-minded (“inattentively” answers the questions of the hostess who appeared). And only the unexpected address of this woman to him: “Nikolai Alekseevich,” makes him seem to wake up. After all, before that, he asked her questions purely mechanically, without thinking, although he managed to take a look at her figure, note rounded shoulders, light legs in worn Tatar shoes.
The author himself, as if in addition to the “unseeing” look of the hero, gives a much more sharply expressive, unexpected, juicy portrait of the woman who entered: not very young, but still beautiful, like a gypsy, plump, but not heavy woman. Bunin deliberately resorts to naturalistic, almost anti-aesthetic details: large breasts, a triangular belly, like a goose's. But the defiant anti-aestheticism of the image is “removed”: the breasts are hidden under a red blouse (the diminutive suffix is intended to convey a feeling of lightness), and the belly is hidden by a black skirt. In general, the combination of black and red in clothes, fluff above the lip (a sign of passion), zoomorphic comparison are aimed at emphasizing the carnal, earthly beginnings in the heroine.
However, it is she who will manifest - as we will see a little later - the beginning of the spiritual, as opposed to that mundane existence, which, without realizing it, the hero drags out, without thinking or peering into his past. Therefore, she is the first! - recognizes him. No wonder she “all the time looked inquisitively at him, squinting slightly,” and he peers at her only after she turns to him by name and patronymic. She - and not he - will name the exact number when it comes to the years that they did not see each other: not thirty-five, but thirty. She will tell you how old he is now. It means that everything was scrupulously calculated by her, which means that every year left a notch in her memory! And this is at a time when it was he who should never forget what connected them, because in the past he had - no less - a dishonorable act, however, quite common at that time - fun with a serf girl when visiting friends' estates, a sudden departure...
In a mean dialogue between Nadezhda (that is the name of the hostess of the inn) and Nikolai Alekseevich, the details of this story are restored. And most importantly - the different attitude of the characters to the past. If for Nikolai Alekseevich everything that happened is “a vulgar, ordinary story” (however, he is ready to bring everything in his life under this measure, as if removing the burden of responsibility for his actions from a person), then for Nadezhda her love became and a great trial, and a great event, the only one of significance in her life. “Just as I didn’t have anything more valuable than you in the world at that time, so then it wasn’t,” she says.
For Nikolai Alekseevich, the love of a serf was only one of the episodes of his life (Nadezhda directly declares this to him: “It was as if nothing had happened for you”). She, on the other hand, several times “wanted to lay hands on herself”, never married, despite her extraordinary beauty, and never managed to forget her first love. Therefore, she refutes Nikolai Alekseevich’s statement that “everything passes over the years” (he, as if trying to convince himself of this, repeats the formula that “everything passes” several times: after all, he really wants to brush aside the past, to imagine everything is not enough significant event), with the words: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.” And she will pronounce them with unshakable confidence. However, Bunin almost never comments on her words, limiting herself to the monosyllabic “answered”, “came up”, “suspended”. Only once does he slip an indication of an “evil smile”, with which Nadezhda utters a phrase addressed to her seducer: “I was deigned to read all the poems about all sorts of“ dark alleys ””.
The writer is just as stingy with “historical details”. Only from the words of the heroine of the work: “The gentlemen gave me freedom soon after you,” and from the mention of the hero’s appearance, which had “a resemblance to Alexander II, which was so common among the military at the time of his reign,” we can get an idea that The action of the story takes place, apparently, in the 60s or 70s of the XIX century.
On the other hand, Bunin is unusually generous in commenting on the state of Nikolai Alekseevich, for whom a meeting with Nadezhda becomes a meeting with both his past and his conscience. The writer is here a "secret psychologist" in all its brilliance, making it clear through gestures, intonation of voice, the behavior of the hero, what is happening in his soul. If at first the only thing that interests the visitor at the inn is that “because of the stove damper, there was a sweet smell of cabbage soup” (Bunin even adds such a detail: the smell of “boiled cabbage, beef and bay leaf” was felt, from which we can conclude that the guest is clearly hungry), then when meeting with Nadezhda, when recognizing her, when talking with her, fatigue and absent-mindedness instantly fly off him, he begins to look fussy, worried, talking a lot and stupidly (“muttered”, “added a patter” , “said hastily”), which is in sharp contrast to the calm majesty of Nadezhda. Bunin three times indicates the reaction of Nikolai Alekseevich's embarrassment: “quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed”, “stopped and, blushing through his gray hair, began to speak”, “blushed to tears”; emphasizes his dissatisfaction with himself by abrupt changes in position: “resolutely walked around the room”, “frowning, he walked again”, “stopping, painfully grinned”.
All this testifies to what a difficult, painful process takes place in him. But at first, nothing pops up in his memory except the divine beauty of a young girl (“How good you were! ... What a camp, what eyes! ... How everyone looked at you”) and the romantic atmosphere of their rapprochement, and he is inclined brush aside what he heard, hoping to turn the conversation, if not in jest, then into the mainstream of “whoever remembers the old, to that ...” However, after he heard that Nadezhda could never forgive him, because you can’t forgive someone who took away the most dear - the soul, who killed her, he seemed to see clearly. He is especially shocked, apparently, by the fact that, to explain her feeling, she resorts to the saying (obviously, especially beloved by Bunin, already once used by him in the story “The Village”) “they don’t carry the dead from the graveyard.” This means that she feels dead, that she never came to life after those happy spring days, and that for her, who knew the great power of love, it was not for nothing that he answered his question-exclamation: “After all, you couldn’t love me all the time!” - she replies firmly: “So she could. No matter how much time passed, she lived all the same, ”there is no return to the life of ordinary people. Her love turned out to be not just stronger than death, but stronger than the life that came after what happened and which she, as a Christian, had to continue, no matter what.
And what kind of life this is, we learn from a few remarks exchanged between Nikolai Alekseevich, who is leaving the short shelter, and the coachman Klim, who says that the landlady of the inn has a “mind chamber”, that she is “getting richer”, because “she gives money at interest”, that she is “cool”, but “fair”, which means that she enjoys both respect and honor. Ho, we understand how small and insignificant for her, who fell in love once and for all, all this mercantile flickering, how inconsistent it is with what is happening in her soul. For Nadezhda, her love is from God. No wonder she says: “What God gives to whom ... Youth passes for everyone, but love is another matter.” That is why her unpreparedness for forgiveness, while Nikolai Alekseevich really wants and hopes that God will forgive him, and even more so Nadezhda will forgive him, because, by all standards, he committed not such a great sin, is not condemned by the author. Although such a maximalist position is contrary to Christian doctrine. Ho, according to Bunin, a crime against love, against memory - is much more serious than the sin of "vindictiveness". And just the memory of love, of the past, in his opinion, justifies a lot.
And the fact that a true understanding of what happened gradually awakens in the mind of the hero speaks in his favor. After all, at first the words he said: “I think that I also lost in you the most precious thing that I had in my life,” and the deed - kissed Nadezhda’s hand goodbye - cause him nothing but shame, and even more - the shame of this shame, they are perceived as false, ostentatious. But then he begins to understand that what escaped by chance, in a hurry, perhaps even for a red word, is the most genuine “diagnosis” of the past. His internal dialogue, reflecting hesitation and doubt: “Isn’t it true that she gave me the best moments of my life?” - ends with an unshakable: “Yes, of course, the best minutes. And not the best, but truly magical.” But right there - and here Bunin acts as a realist who does not believe in romantic transformations and repentance - another, sobering voice told him that all these thoughts were “nonsense”, that he could not do otherwise, that even then it was impossible to fix anything , not now.
So Bunin, in the very first story of the cycle, gives an idea of the unattainable height to which the most ordinary person is able to rise if his life is illuminated, albeit tragic, but with love. And the short moments of this love are able to “outweigh” all the material benefits of future well-being, all the pleasures of love interests that do not rise above the level of ordinary intrigues, in general, all subsequent life with its ups and downs.
Bunin draws the subtlest modulations of the states of the characters, relying on the sound “echo”, the consonance of phrases that are born, often in addition to meaning, in response to the spoken words. So, the words of the coachman Klim that if you don’t give Nadezhda the money on time, then “blame it on yourself”, they respond, like echolalia, when Nikolai Alekseevich says them aloud: “Yes, yes, blame yourself.” And then in his soul they will continue to sound like words “crucifying” him. “Yes, blame yourself,” he thinks, realizing what kind of fault lies with him. And the ingenious formula created by the author, put into the mouth of the heroine: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten,” was born in response to the phrase of Nikolai Alekseevich: “Everything passes. Everything is forgotten”, - earlier, as if confirmed in a quote from the book of Job - “as you will remember the water that has flowed”. And more than once during the story there will be words that refer us to the past, to memory: “Everything passes with age”; “youth is passing away for everyone”; “I called you Nikolenka, and you remember me how”; “remember how everyone looked at you”, “how can you forget this”, “well, what to remember”. These echoing phrases seem to weave a carpet on which Bunin's formula about the omnipotence of memory will be imprinted forever.
It is impossible not to catch the obvious similarity of this story with Turgenev's Asya. As we remember, even there the hero at the end tries to convince himself that "fate disposed well, not connecting him with Asya." He consoles himself with the thought that "probably he would not be happy with such a wife." It would seem that the situations are similar: both here and there the idea of misalliance, i.e. the possibility of marrying a woman of a lower class is initially rejected. Ho what is the result of this, it would seem, from the point of view of the attitudes of the correct decision adopted in society? The hero of "Asia" turned out to be condemned forever to remain a "familyless bobyl", dragging out "boring" years of utter loneliness. He's all in the past.
Nikolai Alekseevich from “Dark Alleys” had a different life: he reached a position in society, was surrounded by a family, he had a wife and children. True, as he admits to Nadezhda, he was never happy: the wife whom he loved "without memory" cheated and left him, the son, on whom high hopes were placed, turned out to be "a scoundrel, a waste, an insolent person without a heart, without honor, without conscience ...”. Of course, it can be assumed that Nikolai Alekseevich somewhat exaggerates his feeling of bitterness, his feelings, in order to somehow make amends for Nadezhda, so that it would not be so painful for her to realize the difference in their states, different assessments of the past. Moreover, at the end of the story, when he tries to “learn a lesson” from an unexpected meeting, to sum up what he has lived, he, reflecting, comes to the conclusion that it would still be impossible to imagine Nadezhda as the mistress of his St. Petersburg house, the mother of his children. Therefore, we understand that his wife, apparently, returned to him, and besides the scoundrel son, there are other children. But why, then, is he so initially irritated, bilious, gloomy, why does he have a strict and at the same time tired look? Why is this look “questioning”? Perhaps this is a subconscious desire to still be aware of how he lives? And why does he shake his head in bewilderment, as if driving away doubts from himself ... Yes, all because the meeting with Nadezhda brightly illuminated his past life. And it became clear to him that there had never been anything in his life better than those “truly magical” moments when “the scarlet rose hips bloomed, an alley of dark lindens stood”, when he passionately loved passionate Nadezhda, and she recklessly gave herself to him with all recklessness youth.
And the hero of Turgenev's "Asia" cannot remember anything brighter than that "burning, tender, deep feeling" that a childish and serious girl gave him...
Both of them have only “flowers of memories” left from the past - a dried geranium flower thrown from Asya's window, a scarlet wild rose from Ogarev's poem that accompanied the love story of Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda. Only for the latter is a flower that inflicted non-healing wounds with its thorns.
So, following Turgenev, Bunin draws the greatness of the female soul, capable of loving and remembering, in contrast to the male, burdened with doubts, entangled in petty predilections, subject to social conventions. So already the first story of the cycle consolidates the leading motifs of Bunin's late work - memory, the omnipotence of the past, the significance of a single moment compared to the dull succession of everyday life.
I. A. Bunin is the first of the Russian writers who received the Nobel Prize, who achieved popularity and fame at the world level, has fans and associates, but ... deeply unhappy, because since 1920 he was cut off from his homeland and yearned for her. All the stories of the period of emigration are imbued with a sense of melancholy and nostalgia.
Inspired by the lines of the poem “An Ordinary Tale” by N. Ogarev: “All around the scarlet rose hips bloomed / There was an alley of dark lindens,” Ivan Bunin had the idea to write a cycle of love stories about subtle human feelings. Love is different, but it is always a strong feeling that changes the lives of the characters.
The story "Dark Alleys": a summary
The story "Dark Alleys", of the same name to the cycle and being the main one, was published on October 20, 1938 in the New York edition of "New Earth". The main character, Nikolai Alekseevich, accidentally meets Nadezhda, whom he seduced and abandoned many years ago. For the hero then it was just an affair with a serf girl, but the heroine seriously fell in love and carried this feeling through her whole life. After the novel, the girl got her freedom, began to earn her own living herself, currently owns an inn and "gives money on interest." Nikolai Alekseevich ruined Nadezhda's life, but was punished: his beloved wife left him as meanly as he himself had once done, and his son grew up a scoundrel. The heroes part, now forever, Nikolai Alekseevich understands what kind of love he missed. However, the hero, even in his thoughts, cannot overcome social conventions and imagine what would have happened if he had not abandoned Nadezhda.
Bunin, "Dark Alleys" - audiobook
Listening to the story "Dark Alleys" is unusually pleasant, because the poetic nature of the author's language is also manifested in prose.
The image and characteristics of the protagonist (Nikolai)
The image of Nikolai Alekseevich causes antipathy: this person does not know how to love, he sees only himself and public opinion. He is afraid of himself, of Hope, no matter what happens. But if everything is outwardly decent, you can do whatever you like, for example, break the heart of a girl for whom no one will intercede. Life punished the hero, but did not change him, did not add firmness of spirit. His image personifies the habit, everyday life.
The image and characteristics of the main character (Hope)
Much stronger is Nadezhda, who was able to survive the shame of an affair with a “master” (although she wanted to lay hands on herself, she got out of this state), and also managed to learn how to earn money on her own, and in an honest way. The coachman Klim notes the mind and justice of a woman, she “gives money at interest” and “gets richer”, but does not profit from the poor, but is guided by justice. Hope, despite the tragedy of her love, kept her in her heart for many years, forgave her offender, but did not forget. Her image is the soul, sublimity, which is not in origin, but in personality.
The main idea and main theme of the story "Dark Alleys"
Love in Bunin's "Dark Alleys" is a tragic, fatal, but no less important and wonderful feeling. It becomes eternal, because it remains forever in the memory of both heroes, it was the most precious and bright in their lives, although gone forever. If a person has ever loved like Nadezhda, he has already experienced happiness. Even if this love ended tragically. The life and fate of the heroes of the story "Dark Alleys" would be completely empty and gray without such a bitter and sick, but still amazing and bright feeling, which is a kind of litmus test that tests a human personality for strength of mind and moral purity. Hope passes this test, but Nikolai does not. This is the idea of the work. You can read more about the theme of love in the work here:
"Easy breathing", as the researchers rightly believe, is one of Bunin's most enchanting and mysterious stories. His brilliant analysis was proposed by the famous psychologist dealing with the problems of artistic creativity, L. S. Vygotsky. The researcher began the analysis of the story with the title, which, in his opinion, is a kind of dominant of the narrative and "determines the entire construction of the story." As the researcher notes, “this is not a story about Olya Meshcherskaya, but about easy breathing; its main feature is that feeling of liberation, lightness, detachment and perfect transparency of life, which cannot be deduced from the very events that underlie it.
These thoughts were expressed by L. Vygotsky in 1965 in the book "Psychology of Art". Even now, after almost half a century, they cause serious controversy. Firstly, researchers largely disagree with such an unambiguous interpretation of the title of the story, rightly believing that in the text “light breathing” serves as a designation for one of the components of female beauty (“I ... read what beauty a woman should have.”) Of course, even the adoption of such a code of beauty speaks of the mental inferiority of the heroine. However, in the story there is no moral judgment on Olya Meshcherskaya: the passionate love of life of the main character is very to the liking of the narrator. He also likes the harmony that reigns in the soul of the heroine when she feels her unity with the world, with nature, with her own soul.
"To be extremely alive means to be extremely doomed," the modern literary critic S. Vaiman once remarked. "Such is the terrifying truth of Bunin's worldview." As can be seen, the above comments only develop certain points put forward by L. S. Vygotsky. Actually, the differences between him and modern researchers begin when it comes to the reasons for the failed life of Olya Meshcherskaya. Vygotsky’s opponents tend to see them in the lack of spirituality of existence, in the absence of moral and ethical standards, and cite as evidence a conversation in the boss’s office, a story with a Cossack officer, and the most eye-catching story is the story of a classy lady who at first wanted to devote herself to her brother, “an unremarkable ensign” , then she imagined herself to be an "ideological worker" and, finally, found herself in a frenzied service to the memory of her pupil.
Features of the composition of the story "Easy breathing"
One of the researchers rightly noted that the originality of the composition of "Light Breath" lies in the fact that it excludes any interest in the plot as such. Indeed, the narrative begins with the finale of Olya Meshcherskaya's life, with a description of her grave, and ends essentially the same. The narrator transfers the action of the story from the past to the present, mixing two narrative planes, introducing extracts from the diary of Olya Meshcherskaya into the fabric of the literary text, building separate fragments of the text in contrast: the present - the past, the cheerful - the sad, the living - the dead. The story begins as an epitaph, “an epitaph to girlish beauty,” according to the apt expression of K. G. Paustovsky. Joyless pictures of wretched provincial life flash before the eyes of readers, like frames of a chronicle, a few heroes appear and disappear, and gradually a different world arises on the pages of the work, a world hostile to beauty, and there arises “a story about something completely different: about the doom of beauty and youth to death. "(Yu. Maltsev).
