Dictation Antonov apples. Analysis of the story "Antonov apples" by I.A.

In the story " Antonov apples” I.A. Bunin recreates the world of the Russian estate.

C ama date of writing the story is symbolic: 1900 - turn of the century. It seems to connect the world of the past and the present.

Sadness for the past noble nests- the leitmotif not only of this story, but also of Bunin's numerous poems .

"Evening"

We always remember happiness.
And nowte everywhere. Maybe it
This autumn garden behind the barn
And clean air pouring through the window.

In the bottomless sky with a light white edge
It rises, the cloud shines. For a long time
I follow him ... We see little, we know
And happiness is given only to those who know.

The window is open. She squeaked and sat down
A bird on the windowsill. And from books
I look away tired for a moment.

The day is getting dark, the sky is empty.
The hum of the thresher is heard on the threshing floor...
I see, I hear, I am happy. Everything is in me. (14.08.09)

Questions:

1. Determine the theme of the poem.

2. How is the sense of time and space conveyed in the poem?

3. Name emotionally colored epithets.

4. Explain the meaning of the line: “I see, I hear, I am happy...”.

Pay attention to:

- the subject realities of the landscape painting drawn by the poet;

- techniques for “voicing” the landscape;

- the colors used by the poet, the play of light and shadow;

- vocabulary features (word selection, tropes);

- favorite images of his poetry (images of the sky, wind, steppe);

- prayers of loneliness of the lyrical hero in the "Bunin" landscape.

The first words of the piece“... I remember early fine autumn”immerse us in the world of memories of the hero, and plot begins to develop as a chain of sensations associated with them.
lack of plot, i.e. event dynamics. Withplot of the storylyrical , that is, based not on events (epic), but on the experience of the hero.

The story contains poeticization of the past. However, the poetic vision of the world does not come into conflict with the life reality in Bunin's story.

The author speaks with undisguised admiration about autumn and village life, making very accurate landscape sketches.

Bunin makes in the story not only landscape, but also portrait sketches. The reader meets many people whose portraits are written very accurately, thanks to epithets and comparisons:

lively odnodvorki girls,
lordly in their beautiful and rude, savage costumes
boys in white shirts
old men... tall, big and white as a harrier

• In the first chapter:« In the dark, in the depths of the garden - fabulous picture: exactly in a corner of hell, a crimson flame burns in a hut. surrounded by darkness, and someone's black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony, move around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk through the apple trees. .
• In the second chapter:“The small foliage has almost completely flown from the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky. Water under the vines became transparent, icy and as if heavy… When you used to drive through the village on a sunny morning, everyone thinks about what is good mow, thresh, sleep on the threshing floor, and on a holiday to rise with the sun ... " .
• In the third:« The wind tore and ruffled the trees for whole days, the rains watered them from morning to night ... the wind did not let up. It disturbed the garden, torn, a stream of human smoke continuously running from the chimney, and again caught up with ominous cosmos of ashen clouds. They ran low and fast - and soon, like smoke, clouded the sun. His brilliance faded the window was closing into the blue sky, and in the garden it became deserted and boring and more and more rain began to sow ... ".
• And in the fourth chapter : “The days are bluish, overcast ... All day long I wander through the empty plains ...” .

Output
The description of autumn is conveyed by the narrator through color and sound perception. Reading the story, as if you yourself feel the smell of apples, rye straw, the fragrant smoke of a fire ...
The autumn landscape changes from chapter to chapter: the colors fade, the sunlight becomes less. That is, the story describes the autumn of not one year, but several, and this is constantly emphasized in the text: “I remember a fruitful year”; “These were so recent, but meanwhile it seems that almost a century has passed since then”.

• Compare the description of the golden autumn in Bunin's story with the painting by I. Levitan.

• Composition
  

The story consists of four chapters:

I. In a thinned garden. At the hut: at noon, on a holiday, at night, late at night. Shadows. Train. Shot. II. Village in the harvest year. At my aunt's house. III. Hunting before. Bad weather. Before leaving. In the black forest. In the estate of a bachelor-landowner. For old books. IV. Small town life. Threshing in Riga. Hunting now. In the evening on a deaf farm. Song.

Each chapter is a separate picture of the past, and together they form a whole world that the writer admired so much.

This change of pictures and episodes is accompanied by consistent references to changes in nature - from Indian summer to the onset of winter.

• Way of life and nostalgia for the past

Vasily Maksimov "Everything is in the past" (1889)

• Organization of space and time

The date the story was writtensymbolic . It is this date that helps to understand why the story begins (“...I remember early fine autumn”) and ends (“White snow covered the path-road ...”). Thus, a kind of “ring” is formed, which makes the narrative continuous. In fact, the story, like eternal life itself, is neither begun nor finished. It sounds in the space of memory, as it embodies the soul of man, the soul of the people.

My gates were wide,

White snow covered the path-road ...

• Smell, color, sound...

“strongly pulls with fragrant smoke of cherry branches”,

“rye aroma of new straw and chaff”,

“the smell of apples, and then others: old mahogany furniture, dried lime blossom, which has been lying on the windows since June...”,

“These books, similar to church breviaries, smell nice... Some kind of pleasant sour mold, old perfumes...”,

“smell of smoke, housing”,“the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness”,

“the strong smell from the ravines of mushroom dampness, rotted leaves and wet tree bark”.

“big, all golden ... garden”, “golden city of grain”, “golden frames”, “golden light of the sun”.

The semantics of this image is extremely extensive: it is also the direct meaning (“gold frames”), and fall leaf color designation, and transmission character's emotional state, the solemnity of the minutes of the evening sunset, and a sign of abundance(grain, apples), once inherent in Russia, and a symbol of youth, the “golden” time of the hero’s life. E pity "gold" Bunin refers to the past tense, being a characteristic of the noble, outgoing Russia. The reader associates this epithet with another concept: "golden age" Russian life, an age of relative prosperity, abundance, solidity and strength of being. This is how I.A. Bunin's age is outgoing.

But with a change in attitude, the colors of the surrounding world also change, colors gradually disappear from it: “The days are bluish, overcast ... All day long I wander through the empty plains”, “low gloomy sky”, "gray barin". Halftones and shades (“turquoise”, “lilac” and others), present in the first parts of the work, are replaced by black and white contrast(“black garden”, “fields sharply turn black with arable land ... fields will turn white”, “snow fields”).

visual images in the work are most distinct, graphic: “the black sky is drawn with fiery stripes by shooting stars”, “the small foliage has almost completely flown from the coastal vines, and the branches show through in the turquoise sky”, “the liquid blue sky shone coldly and brightly in the north over heavy lead clouds”, “the black garden will shine through on cold turquoise sky and meekly wait for winter... And the fields are already sharply turning black with arable land and bright green with overgrown winter crops.”

Similar “cinematic” an image built on contrasts creates the reader the illusion of an action taking place before the eyes or captured on the artist’s canvas:

“In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: just in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony, move around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk by apple trees. Either a black hand a few arshins in size will lie down all over the tree, then two legs will be clearly drawn - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slip from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the very gate ... "

“the cool silence of the morning is broken only by a well-fed clatter of thrushes... voices and the booming clatter of apples poured into measures and tubs”,

“We listen for a long time and distinguish trembling in the ground. The trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already beyond the garden, the noisy beat of the wheels is rapidly knocking out, rattling and banging, the train rushes ... closer, closer, louder and more angry ... And suddenly it starts subside, mute, as if going into the ground...”,

“A horn blows in the yard and howling in different voices dogs",

“you can hear how the gardener carefully walks around the rooms, melting the stoves, and how the firewood crackles and shoots”, is heard “how carefully it creaks ... a long convoy along a high road”, people's voices are heard. At the end of the story, everything is heard more insistently “pleasant threshing noise”, and “the monotonous cry and whistle of the driver” merge with the hum of the drum. And then the guitar tunes in and somebody starts a song that everyone picks up. “with a sad, hopeless prowess”.

“with pleasure you feel the slippery leather of the saddle under you”,
“thick rough paper”

“all through pink boiled ham with peas, stuffed chicken, turkey, marinades and red kvass - strong and sweet-sweet...”,
“... a cold and wet apple... for some reason will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others.”

Thus, noting the instant sensations of the hero from contact with the outside world, Bunin seeks to convey all that “deep, wonderful, inexpressible things in life” : “How cold, dewy, and how good it is to live in the world!”

The hero in his youth is characterized by an acute experience of joy and fullness of being: “my chest breathed greedily and capaciously”, “you keep thinking about how good it is to mow, thresh, sleep on the threshing floor in omyot...”

However, in the artistic world of Bunin, the joy of life is always combined with the tragic consciousness of its finiteness. And in "Antonov's apples" the motive of fading, dying of everything that is so dear to the hero, is one of the main ones: “The smell of Antonov’s apples is disappearing from the landowners’ estates... The old people in Vyselki have died, Anna Gerasimovna has died, Arseniy Semenych has shot himself...”

It is not just the former way of life that dies - an entire era of Russian history, the noble era, poetized by Bunin in this work, dies. By the end of the story, it becomes more and more distinct and persistent motive of emptiness and cold.

This is shown with special force in the image of a garden, once "big, golden" filled with sounds, aromas, now - “chilled during the night, naked”, “blackened”, as well as artistic details, the most expressive of which is found “in the wet foliage, an accidentally forgotten cold and wet apple”, which “for some reason it will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others.”

So, at the level of personal feelings and experiences of the hero, Bunin depicts the process taking place in Russia degeneration of the nobility, bearing with it irreparable losses in spiritual and cultural terms:

"Then you'll get down to books - grandfather's books in thick leather bindings, with gold stars on morocco spines ... Good ... notes in their margins, large and with round soft strokes, made with a quill pen. You open the book and read: “A thought worthy ancient and new philosophers, the flower of reason and feelings of the heart”... and you will involuntarily be carried away by the book itself... And little by little, a sweet and strange longing begins to creep into your heart...

... And here are the magazines with the names of Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, the lyceum student Pushkin. And with sadness you will remember your grandmother, her clavichord polonaises, her languid recitation of poems from “Eugene Onegin”. And the old dreamy life will stand before you...”

The story "Antonov apples" Bunin wrote in 1900. The work is a lyrical monologue-reminiscence built using the “association technique”.

main characters

Narrator- “young barchuk”, in the story it is spoken on his behalf, he recalls episodes from the past, is nostalgic.

Anna Gerasimovna- The narrator's aunt.

Arseniy Semenych- the landowner with whom the narrator went hunting.

Chapter I

The narrator recalls an early fine autumn, August, "a dried up and thinned garden", "the smell of Antonov apples". From the garden, the road leads to a large hut, "near which the townspeople acquired a whole household over the summer." On holidays, fairs were held here, where villagers converged and crowded here until the evening.

Late at night the narrator comes to the garden. Taking a gun from the tradesman Nikolai, he shoots, and then peers into the "dark blue depth of the sky" for a long time and returns home along the alley. "How good it is to live in the world!"

Chapter II

If Antonovka was born, then bread was born. The narrator recalls that Vyselki has been famous for “wealth” from time immemorial: “old men and women lived in Vyselki for a very long time.” He cites Pankrat as an example - the peasant remembered his fellow villager Platon Apollonych, which means that Pankrat himself was “at least a hundred”.

"Rich peasants had huts in two or three connections." Bees were bred here, “thick and fat hemp growers darkened on the threshing floors,” and all good things were stored in barns. The narrator "sometimes seemed extremely tempting to be a peasant."

Even in his memory, the "warehouse of average noble life" had "much in common with the warehouse of a rich peasant life." Such "was the estate of Anna Gerasimovna's aunt, who lived twelve versts from Vyselki". Her serfdom was already felt in the yard. There were many low outbuildings made of oak logs.

“The aunt’s garden was famous for its neglect, nightingales, doves and apples,” and the house for its thick thatched roof. “When you enter a house, you will first of all hear the smell of apples.” While talking about antiquity, treats were served at the aunt, apples of different varieties - Antonov, "bell lady", borovinka, "fruit".

Chapter III

"In recent years, one thing has supported the fading spirit of the landowners - hunting."

The narrator recalls how he gathered with other hunters at the estate of Arseniy Semenych. Somehow, “a black greyhound, a favorite of Arseniy Semenych,” began to “devour the remains of a hare with sauce from a dish.” Arseniy Semenych, who came out of the office, fired his revolver and, laughing and playing with his eyes, said: "It's a pity that I missed!" .

The narrator recalls how he rode with the "noisy gang of Arseniy Semenych" and hunted. After the hunt, they stopped to spend the night at the estate with "some almost unknown bachelor landowner."

But "when it happened to oversleep the hunt, the rest was especially pleasant." After a walk in the garden, the narrator went to the library, where grandfather's books were kept. Among them are novels, “magazines with the names of: Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, lyceum student Pushkin” and others. He sadly recalled how his grandmother played the clavichord, read "Eugene Onegin".

Chapter IV

"The smell of Antonov apples disappears from the landowners' estates."

“The old people in Vyselki died, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseniy Semenych shot himself ... The kingdom of small estates, impoverished to beggary, is coming!”

The narrator comes back to the village in late autumn. “Sometimes some small-town neighbor will call in and take me away for a long time ... Small-town life is also good!” "The small man gets up early." Waking up, he goes to work. “Often he glances into the field ... Soon, soon the fields will turn white, soon the winter will cover them ...”

In winter, “again, as in the old days, small locals come to each other” and “disappear for days on end in snowy fields” - they hunt.

Conclusion

In the story “Antonov apples”, Bunin correlates the ruin and gradual disappearance of noble nests with the inevitability of the change of seasons, starting from early autumn and ending in winter. However, the narrator perceives these changes as something natural, recalling the past with light sadness, nostalgia.

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Dictation texts for grade 10

The sun sets in clouds, smoke falls to the ground, swallows fly low, roosters crow in the yards without time, clouds stretch across the sky in long misty strands - all these are signs of rain. And shortly before the rain, although the clouds have not yet pulled, a gentle breath of moisture is heard. It must be brought from where the rains have already fallen.

But the first drops are starting to drip. The folk word "dripping" well conveys the appearance of rain, when still rare drops leave dark specks on dusty paths and roofs.

Then the rain disperses. It is then that a wonderful cool smell of the earth, first wetted by rain, arises. He doesn't last long. It is replaced by the smell of wet grass, especially nettle.

It is characteristic that, no matter what kind of rain it will be, as soon as it starts, it is always called very affectionately - rain. “The rain has gathered”, “the rain has let go”, “the rain washes the grass” ...

How, for example, is the difference between spore rain and mushroom rain?

The word "arguable" means - fast, quick. Spore rain pours steeply, strongly. He always approaches with an oncoming noise.

Particularly good is the spore rain on the river. Each drop of it knocks out a round depression in the water, a small water bowl, jumps, falls again and for a few moments before disappearing, is still visible at the bottom of this water bowl. The drop glistens and looks like a pearl.

At the same time, there is a glass ringing all over the river. By the height of this ringing, you can guess whether the rain is gaining strength or subsiding.

A small mushroom rain sleepily pours from low clouds. The puddles from this rain are always warm. He does not ring, but whispers something of his own, soporific, and is slightly noticeably fiddling in the bushes, as if touching one leaf or another with a soft paw.

Forest humus and moss absorb this rain slowly, thoroughly. Therefore, after it, mushrooms begin to climb violently - sticky butterflies, yellow chanterelles, mushrooms, ruddy mushrooms, honey agarics and countless grebes.

During mushroom rains, the air smells of smoke and the cunning and cautious fish - roach - takes well.

People say about the blind rain falling in the sun: "The princess is crying." The sparkling solar drops of this rain look like large tears. And who should cry with such shining tears of grief or joy, if not the fabulous beauty of the princess!

You can follow the play of light during the rain for a long time, the variety of sounds - from the measured knock on the boarded roof and the liquid ringing in the drainpipe to the continuous, intense rumble when the rain pours, as they say, like a wall.

All this is only a tiny part of what can be said about the rain ...

(K.G. Paustovsky)

With rain, leaf fall, gray clouds, birds flying south in a row, the beautiful autumn has finally come. The birch tree met her first. Autumn seemed to capture the yellow paint and lightly waved a brush at it. The yellow-green leaves of the Russian beauty rustled, whispered, revealing themselves in a new outfit. They shone with gold in the rare rays that peep through the passing clouds. The sky was now overcast with clouds, then suddenly a bright, bright sun appeared on it.

It's good to be in the woods at this time! It is impossible to take your eyes off the reddening maples, the yellowing birches and aspens, from the oak dressed in chain mail. The grass, which had been growing luxuriantly all summer, now drooped, bowed to the ground. Chipmunks scurry here and there. And here is a little mouse-vole. All summer she wore grain in her mink, preparing for the cold winter.

A magpie is worried on a pine tree, a nuthatch scurries along the spreading branches of a birch, a tit tinkles loudly, only a woodpecker sits majestically on the top of a maple tree and watches what is happening now in the forest, occasionally tapping on the trunk, as if reminding of itself.

The interior of the forest, resplendent with many colors, was constantly changing, depending on whether the sun shone or was covered by clouds; at one time it lit up all over, as if suddenly everything was smiling in it ... then suddenly again everything around it turned slightly blue: the bright colors instantly went out, and stealthily, slyly, the tiniest rain began to sow and whisper through the forest.

You walk through the forest, and a fresh wind gently stirs and drives the fallen warped leaves, blue waves joyfully rush along the river, quietly raising scattered geese and ducks; in the distance the mill knocks, half-covered with willows, and, motley in the bright air, doves quickly circle over it ...

I remember the early fine autumn. August was with warm rains at the very time, in the middle of the month. I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning ... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinned garden, I remember maple alleys, the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, it's like it doesn't exist at all. Everywhere smells strongly of apples.

By night it becomes very cold and dewy. Breathing in the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home to dinner past the garden rampart. The voices in the village or the creaking of the gates resound through the icy dawn with unusual clarity. It's getting dark. And here's another smell: in the garden - a fire and strongly pulls the fragrant smoke of cherry branches. In the dark, in the depths of the garden - a fabulous picture: just in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness ...

"A vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year." Village affairs are good if Antonovka is born: it means that bread is born too ... I remember a harvest year.

At early dawn, when the roosters are still crowing, you used to open a window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog, through which the morning sun shines brightly in some places ... You run to wash yourself on the pond. The small foliage has almost completely flown from the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky. The water under the vines became clear, icy and as if heavy. She instantly drives away the night's laziness.

You will enter the house and first of all you will hear the smell of apples, and then others.

Since the end of September, our gardens and threshing floor have been empty, the weather, as usual, has changed dramatically. The wind tore and ruffled the trees for whole days, the rains watered them from morning to night.

The liquid blue sky shone coldly and brightly in the north above heavy lead clouds, and behind these clouds the ridges of snowy mountain-clouds slowly floated out, the window in the blue sky closed, and the garden became deserted and dull, and it began to rain again ... at first quietly, cautiously, then more and more thickly, and finally turned into a downpour with a storm and darkness. It's been a long, unsettling night...

From such a beating, the garden came out completely naked, covered with wet leaves and somehow hushed, resigned. But on the other hand, how beautiful it was when the clear weather came again, the transparent and cold days of early October, the farewell holiday of autumn! The preserved foliage will now hang on the trees until the first frost. The black garden will shine through in the cold turquoise sky and dutifully wait for winter, warming itself in the sunshine. And the fields are already sharply turning black with arable land and bright green with bushy winter crops ...

You wake up and lie in bed for a long time. The whole house is silent. Ahead - a whole day of rest in the already silent winter estate. You will slowly get dressed, wander around the garden, find in the wet foliage an accidentally forgotten cold and wet apple, and for some reason it will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others.

(I.A. Bunin. "Antonov apples")

The early work of the great writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin will be of interest to the reader for its romantic features, although realism is already beginning to be traced in the stories of this period. The peculiarity of the works of this time is the ability of the writer to find a zest, even in ordinary and simple things. With strokes, descriptions, various literary devices, the author brings the reader to the perception of the world through the eyes of the narrator.

Such works created in the early period of Ivan Alekseevich's work include the story "Antonov apples", in which the sadness and sadness of the writer himself are felt. The main theme of this Bunin's masterpiece is that the writer points to the main problem of the society of that time - the disappearance of the former estate life, and this is the tragedy of the Russian village.

History of the creation of the story

In the early autumn of 1891, Bunin was visiting the villages with his brother Yevgeny Alekseevich. And at the same time, he writes a letter to his common-law wife Varvara Pashchenko, in which he shares his impressions of the morning smell of Antonov apples. He saw how the autumn morning begins in the villages and he was struck by a cold and gray dawn. Pleasant feelings are also inspired by the old grandfather's estate, which is now abandoned, but once it was buzzing and living.

He writes that he would return with great pleasure at a time when the landowners were in honor. He writes to Varvara about what he then experienced when he went out on the porch early in the morning: “I would like to live as the former landowner! Get up at dawn, leave for the "departing field", do not get off the saddle all day, and in the evening with a healthy appetite, with a healthy fresh mood, return home through the darkened fields.

And only nine years later, in 1899 or 1900, Bunin decides to write the story "Antonov apples", which was based on reflections and impressions from visiting his brother's village estate. It is believed that the prototype of the hero of the story, Arseniy Semenych, was a distant relative of the writer himself.

Despite the fact that the work was published in the year of its writing, Bunin continued to edit the text for another twenty years. The first publication of the work took place in 1900 in the tenth issue of the St. Petersburg magazine "Life". This story was also subtitled "Pictures from the book" Epitaphs ". The second time this work, already revised by Bunin, was included in the collection "Pass" without a subtitle. It is known that in this edition the writer removed several paragraphs from the beginning of the work.

But if we compare the text of the story with the edition of 1915, when the story "Antonov apples" was published in the Complete Works of Bunin, or with the text of the work of 1921, which was published in the collection "Initial Love", then we can see their significant difference.

The plot of the story

The story takes place in early autumn, when the rains were still warm. In the first chapter, the narrator shares his feelings that he experiences in a village estate. So, the morning is fresh and damp, and the gardens are golden and already noticeably thinned. But most of all, the smell of Antonov apples is imprinted in the memory of the narrator. Petty-bourgeois gardeners hired peasants to harvest, so voices and the creak of carts are heard everywhere in the garden. At night, wagon trains loaded with apples leave for the city. At this time, even a man can eat apples to his heart's content.

Usually a large hut is placed in the middle of the garden, which settles in over the summer. An earthen stove appears next to it, all sorts of belongings are lying around, and single beds are arranged in the hut itself. At lunch, it is here that they cook food, and in the evening they put a samovar and the smoke from it pleasantly disperses throughout the district. And on holidays, fairs are held near such a hut. Serf girls dress up in bright sundresses. The “old woman” also comes, which is somewhat reminiscent of a Kholmogory cow. But not so much people buy something, but converge here more for fun. They dance and sing. Closer to dawn, it begins to freshen up, and the people disperse.

The narrator also hurries home and in the depths of the garden observes an incredibly fabulous picture: “Just in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony, are moving around the fire.”

And he also sees a picture: “A black hand several arshins across the tree will lie down, then two legs will be clearly drawn - two black pillars.”

Having reached the hut, the narrator a couple of times, playing, will shoot from a rifle. He will admire the constellations in the sky for a long time, exchange a few phrases with Nikolai. And only when his eyes begin to close, and a cool night shiver runs through his whole body, he decides to go home anyway. And at that moment the narrator begins to understand how good life is in the world.

In the second chapter, the narrator will remember a good and fruitful year. But, as people say, if Antonovka is a success, then the rest of the harvest will be good. Autumn is a wonderful time for hunting. The people are already dressing differently in autumn, as the harvest is harvested and difficult work is left behind. It was interesting for the narrator-barchuk to communicate at such a time with the old men and old women, and to watch them. In Rus', it was believed that the longer the old people live, the richer the village. The houses of such old people were different from others, they were built by their grandfathers.

The peasants lived well, and the narrator even at one time wanted to try to live like a peasant himself, in order to know all the joys of such a life. Serfdom was not felt on the narrator's estate, but it became noticeable on the estate of Anna Gerasimovna's aunt, who lived only twelve miles from Vyselki. Signs of serfdom for the author were:

☛ Low outbuildings.
☛ All the servants come out of the servants' room and bow low, low.
☛ Small old and solid homestead.
☛ Huge garden

The narrator remembers very well his aunt, when she, coughing, came into the room where he was waiting for her. It was small, but also somehow solid, like her house. But most of all, the writer remembered the amazing dinners she had.

In the third chapter, the narrator regrets that both the old estates and the rules established in them have gone somewhere. The only thing left of all this is hunting. But of all these landowners, only the writer's brother-in-law, Arseniy Semenovich, remained. Usually by the end of September the weather turned bad and it rained incessantly. The garden at this time became deserted and boring. But on the other hand, October brought a new time to the estate, when the landowners gathered at their brother-in-law and rushed to hunt. What a wonderful time it was! The hunt went on for weeks. The rest of the time it was a pleasure to read old books from the library and listen to silence.

In the fourth chapter, he hears the bitterness and regret of the writer that the smell of Antonov apples no longer reigns in the village. The inhabitants of the noble estates also disappeared: Anna Gerasimovna died, and the hunter-brother-in-law shot himself.

Artistic Features

It is worth dwelling in more detail on the composition of the story. So, the story consists of four chapters. But, it is worth noting that some researchers do not agree with the definition of the genre and argue that "Antonov apples" is a story.

It is possible to single out the following artistic features in Bunin's story "Antonov apples":

✔ The plot, which is a monologue - a memory.
✔ There is no traditional plot.
✔ The plot is very close to the poetic text.

The narrator gradually changes the chronological picture, trying to lead the reader from the past to what is happening in reality. The ruined houses of the nobles for Bunin is a historical drama that is comparable to the saddest and saddest times of the year:

A generous and bright summer is the past rich and beautiful housing of the landlords and their family estates.
Autumn is a period of withering, the collapse of the foundations that have been formed over the centuries.

Researchers of Bunin's creativity pay attention to the picturesque descriptions that the writer uses in his work. As if he is trying to paint a picture with paints, but only verbal. Many picturesque details are used by Ivan Alekseevich. Bunin, like A.P. Chekhov, resorts to symbols in his image:

★ The image of a garden is a symbol of harmony.
★ The image of apples is both a continuation of life, kind, and love for life.

Story analysis

Bunin's work "Antonov apples" is the writers' reflections on the fate of the local nobility, which gradually faded and disappeared. The writer's heart shrinks from sadness when he sees wastelands in the place where only yesterday there were busy noble estates. An unsightly picture opens before his eyes: only ashes remained from the estates of the landlords and now they are overgrown with burdock and nettles.

Sincerely, the author of the story "Antonov apples" worries about any character in his work, living with him all the trials and anxieties. The writer created a unique work, where one of his impressions, having created a bright and rich picture, is smoothly replaced by another, no less thick and dense.

Criticism of the story "Antonov apples"

Bunin's contemporaries highly appreciated his work, as the writer in a special way loves and knows nature, village life. He himself belongs to the last generation of writers who come from noble estates.

But critics' reviews were mixed. Julius Isaevich Aikhenvald, who was in great authority at the beginning of the 20th century, gives the following review of Bunin's work: "Bunin's stories, dedicated to this antiquity, sing her waste."

Maxim Gorky, in a letter to Bunin, which was written in November 1900, gave his assessment: “Here Ivan Bunin, like a young god, sang. Beautiful, juicy, soulful. No, it's good when nature makes a person a nobleman, it's good!

But Gorky will reread Bunin's work itself many more times. And already in 1901, in a letter to his best friend Pyatnitsky, he wrote his new impressions:

“Antonov apples smell good - yes! - but - they smell by no means democratic ... Ah, Bunin!

Bunin Ivan Alekseevich

Antonov apples

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin

Antonov apples

I remember the early fine autumn. August was with warm rains, as if on purpose for sowing, with rains at the very time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And "autumn and winter live well, if the water is calm and rainy on Lavrentiya." Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled on the fields. This is also a good sign: "There are a lot of nethers in Indian summer - vigorous autumn" ... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning ... I remember a big, all golden, dried up and thinned garden, I remember maple alleys, the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and - - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so pure, as if it were not there at all, voices and the creak of carts are heard throughout the garden. These are tarkhans, philistine gardeners, who have hired peasants and pour apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on a night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look at the starry sky, smell the tar in the fresh air and listen how carefully a long convoy creaks in the dark along the high road. A peasant pouring apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but such is the establishment - the tradesman will never cut him off, but will also say:

Vali, eat your fill - there's nothing to do! At the drain, everyone drinks honey.

And the cool silence of the morning is broken only by the well-fed clucking of thrushes on coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming clatter of apples poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden, the road to the big hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired a whole household over the summer, are far visible. There is a strong smell of apples everywhere, especially here. In the hut beds are arranged, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, in the corner - dishes. Mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings are lying around the hut, an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and in the garden, between the trees, bluish smoke spreads in a long strip. On holidays, the hut is a whole fair, and behind the trees red hats flash every minute. Lively odnodvorki girls in sundresses strongly smelling of paint are crowding, “masters” come in their beautiful and coarse, savage costumes, a young headman, pregnant, with a wide sleepy face and important, like a Kholmogory cow. On her head are "horns" - braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; legs, in half boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless jacket is plush, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black-purple with brick-colored stripes and overlaid on the hem with a wide gold "groove" ...

Household butterfly! the tradesman says of her, shaking his head. - Now such people are being translated ...

And the boys in white slouchy shirts and short trousers, with open white heads, all fit. They walk in twos and threes, finely pawing their bare feet, and squinting at a shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Buys, of course, one, because purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and a consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him "out of mercy", he trades with jokes, jokes, and even sometimes "touches" on the Tula harmonica. And until evening, people crowd in the garden, laughter and talk are heard near the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing ...

By night in the weather it becomes very cold and dewy. Breathing in the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home to dinner past the garden rampart. The voices in the village or the creaking of the gates resound through the icy dawn with unusual clarity. It's getting dark. And here is another smell: there is a fire in the garden, and it strongly pulls with fragrant smoke of cherry branches. In the dark, in the depths of the garden, a fabulous picture: just in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone's black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, move around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk through the apple trees. . Either a black hand several arshins in size will lie down all over the tree, then two legs will be clearly drawn - two black pillars. And suddenly all this slips from the apple tree - and a shadow falls along the entire alley, from the hut to the very gate ...

Late at night, when the lights go out in the village, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will once again run into the garden.

Rustling through dry foliage, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. It is a little lighter in the clearing there, and the Milky Way is white overhead.

Is that you, bartender? someone calls softly from the darkness.

ME: Are you still awake, Nikolai?

We can't sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there's a passenger train coming...

We listen for a long time and distinguish the trembling in the ground, the trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already beyond the garden, the wheels are rapidly beating out the noisy beat of the wheel: rumbling and knocking, the train rushes ... closer, closer, louder and more angry .. And suddenly it starts to subside, to stall, as if sinking into the ground...

And where is your gun, Nikolai?

But next to the box, sir.

Throw up a heavy, like a crowbar, single-barreled shotgun and shoot with a flurry. A crimson flame with a deafening crackle will flash towards the sky, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clear and sensitive air.

Wow, great! the tradesman will say. - Spend, spend, barchuk, otherwise it's just a disaster! Again, the whole muzzle on the shaft was shaken off ...

And the black sky is drawn with fiery stripes of shooting stars. For a long time you look into its dark blue depth, overflowing with constellations, until the earth floats under your feet. Then you will start up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, you will quickly run along the alley to the house ... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!

"A vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year." Rural affairs are good if Antonovka is born: it means that bread has also been born ... I remember a harvest year.