“Bunin, with amazing skill, elevates prose to the rank of poetry,” writes Julius Aikhenvald. And it's hard to disagree with that. Indeed, the world of Bunin's prose is as surprisingly harmonious as the poetic world. Reading Bunin, we are convinced of how much poetry there is in our prose and how the ordinary is akin to the beautiful.
In his work, the writer addresses a variety of topics. I. A. Bunin enters the world of fiction as the author of works about the Russian village. In 1910-1913, stories of rare depth were published: "The Village", "Dry Valley", - a whole series of amazing stories. Glory came to Bunin, and a heated debate unfolded around these works.
Surprising and constant was Bunin's interest in secret, hidden processes in the human soul, imperceptibly for it itself losing the fullness of feelings, the flight of a dream. “The Cup of Life”, “Son”, “Otto Stein”, “Easy Breath”, “Loopy Ears”, “Chang's Dreams” - the list of these works is difficult to interrupt, since the theme of the world of human feelings and experiences is present in almost all Bunin's works.
In the mid-1910s, the writer became interested in a completely different topic - global processes, which at that time had the most gloomy forecasts. The writer defined the First World War as "an unprecedented catastrophe", comparing it with the opening pages of the Bible. The Gentleman from San Francisco (1915), with its world of flagrant falsehood, paradoxical human egoism and myopia, was supposed to help sober up, although it did not contain direct responses to the war.
Already the first phrase about the choice by the Lord (the gentleman does not have a name) of the route for a pleasure cruise is saturated with a certain meaning. The author presents the morality of wealthy travelers. Interesting to see the details. The ship is called "Atlantis", which, of course, is associated with inevitable death. Different "layers" of the sailors are located on different "levels of life": shiny salons on the one hand, and "hellish" furnaces of the stoker on the other. All this can be compared with the model of the wrong disunited world. A ship above the mighty, formidable depths of the ocean looks like a miserable chip. And the movement of "Atlantis" in a vicious circle and the return with the body of the already dead Master is a symbol of a meaningless movement in space. The sense of impending catastrophe is clear in the usual description.
In Bunin's story, we see both manifestations of domestic, social evil, and absolute, metaphysical evil.
Social evil appears in the story in the form of an unfair bourgeois world order, an image of the inequality of people. It is also the unshakable confidence of some people that they have the right to command others. This is also the pretense of many people who do not just live, but act out, play some role, sometimes already mortally bored with them. And, finally, social evil manifests itself in the fact that people live, obeying not the natural human principle, but the “logic of things” - the social status of a person, his place on the social ladder, and not his true essence, always turns out to be more important.
But not only social trouble is in the field of view of the author. All the problems identified by Bunin can be called eternal, irremovable, they exist in any society, and social evil is only a consequence of eternal, cosmic, world evil. Cosmic evil manifests itself in eternity, indestructible™ of any evil. It is no coincidence that in the story, as a parallel to the fate of the master, the mention of the Roman emperor Nero Tiberius: “A man lived on this island two thousand years ago, indescribably vile in satisfying his lust and for some reason having power over millions of people.”
This evil has not disappeared - it has been reborn thousands of times and reborn in the same gentleman from San Francisco. Cosmic evil is the incomprehensibility and hostility of the world elements to man. The personification of world evil in the story is the Devil, “huge as a cliff”, watching the ship from the rocks - this is a symbol of the dark beginnings of human life that are not subject to reason. F. M. Dostoevsky said about the struggle for human souls: “The devil fights God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people.”
The story about the life collapse of the self-confident "master of life" develops into a lyrically rich reflection on the connection between man and the world, about the greatness of the natural cosmos and its insubordination to human wills, about eternity and the impenetrable mystery of being.
The works of I.A. Bunin are filled with philosophical problems. The main issues of concern to the writer were the questions of death and love, the essence of these phenomena, their influence on human life. In the pre-revolutionary decade, prose came to the fore in the work of Ivan Bunin, absorbing the lyricism inherent in the writer's talent. This is the time to create such masterpieces as stories "Brothers", "The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Chang's Dreams". Literary historians believe that these works are stylistically and ideologically closely related, making together a kind of artistic and philosophical trilogy.
The theme of death is most deeply revealed by Bunin in his story "The Man from San Francisco" (1915). In addition, here the writer tries to answer other questions: what is the happiness of a person, what is his purpose on earth.
The protagonist of the story - a gentleman from San Francisco - is full of snobbery and complacency. All his life he strove for wealth, setting famous billionaires as an example for himself. Finally, it seems to him that the goal is close, it's time to relax, to live for your own pleasure - the hero goes on a cruise on the ship "Atlantis".
He feels himself to be the "master" of the situation, but that was not the case. Bunin shows that money is a powerful force, but it is impossible to buy happiness, prosperity, life with it ... The rich man dies during his brilliant journey, and it turns out that no one needs him dead. Back it, forgotten and abandoned by everyone, is transported in the hold of the ship.
How much servility and admiration this man saw during his lifetime, the same amount of humiliation experienced his mortal body after death. Bunin shows how illusory the power of money in this world. And pitiful is the man who stakes on them. Having created idols for himself, he strives to achieve the same well-being. It seems that the goal has been achieved, he is at the top, for which he has worked tirelessly for many years. And what did he do, what did he leave to posterity? Nobody even remembered his name.
Bunin emphasizes that all people, regardless of their condition, financial situation, are equal before death. It is she who allows you to see the true essence of man. Physical death is mysterious and mysterious, but spiritual death is even more terrible. The writer shows that such a death overtook the hero much earlier, when he devoted his life to accumulating money.
The story "Dreams of Chang" is a philosophical work of the turn of the century. It deals with such eternal themes as love and happiness, talks about the fragility of happiness, built only on love, and the eternity of happiness, based on loyalty and gratitude.
The only values that have survived in the modern world, the writer considers love, beauty and the life of nature. But the love of Bunin's heroes is also tragically colored and, as a rule, doomed ("Grammar of Love"). The theme of the union of love and death, which imparts the utmost sharpness and intensity to the feeling of love, is characteristic of Bunin's work until the last years of his writing life.
The problem of man and civilization in the story of I.A. Bunin "The Gentleman from San Francisco". Woe to you, Babylon, strong city! Apocalypse Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is a writer of subtle psychological characteristics, able to mold a character or environment in detail. With a simple plot, the wealth of thoughts, images and symbols that are inherent in the artist is striking. In his narrative, Bunin is unfussy and thorough. It seems that the whole world around him fits into his small work. This is due to the wonderful and clear style of the writer, the details and details that he includes in his work. The story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” is no exception, in which the writer tries to answer questions that interest him: what is the happiness of a person, his purpose on earth? With hidden irony and sarcasm, Bunin describes the main character - a gentleman from San Francisco, without even honoring him with a name (he did not deserve it). The master himself is full of snobbery and complacency. All his life he strove for wealth, creating idols for himself, trying to achieve the same well-being as they did. Finally, it seems to him that the goal is close, it's time to relax, live for your own pleasure, he is the "master" of the situation, but it was not there. Money is a powerful force, but it is impossible to buy happiness, prosperity, life with it. Going to travel to the Old World, a gentleman from San Francisco carefully develops the route; “The people to whom he belonged used to start enjoying life with a trip to Europe, to India, to Egypt. The route was developed by a gentleman from San Francisco extensive. In December and January, he hoped to enjoy the sun in Southern Italy, the ancient monuments, the tarantella. Carnival he thought to spend in Nice, then Monte Carlo, Rome, Venice, Paris and even Japan. It seems that everything is taken into account and verified. But the weather is failing. She is beyond the control of a mere mortal. For money, you can try to ignore her inconvenience, but not always, and moving to Capri was a terrible test. The flimsy steamboat could hardly cope with the elements that fell upon it. The gentleman from San Francisco believed that everything around was created only to please his person, he firmly believed in the power of the "golden calf". “He was quite generous on the way and therefore fully believed in the care of all those who fed and watered him, served him from morning to evening, preventing his slightest desire, guarded his cleanliness and peace, dragged his things, called for him porters, delivered his chests to the hotels. So it was everywhere, so it was in navigation, so it should have been in Naples. Yes, the wealth of the American tourist, like a magic key, opened many doors, but not all. It could not prolong his life, it did not protect him even after death. How much servility and admiration this man saw during his lifetime, the same amount of humiliation experienced his mortal body after death. Bunin shows how illusory the power of money in this world. And pitiful is the man who stakes on them. Having created idols for himself, he strives to achieve the same well-being. It seems that the goal has been achieved, he is at the top, for which he has worked tirelessly for many years. And what did he do, what did he leave to posterity? Nobody even remembered his name.
The story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" was written by I.A. Bunin in 1915. The story is based on the author's general impression of his journey and, as it were, hints at the social collapse throughout the world. Bunin specifically does not give a name to the main character, presenting us with a generalized image. Initially, the name of the story was "Death on Capri", but in the process of working on the work, Bunin abandoned the title containing the word "death".
Despite this, the feeling of imminent death appears from the very first words of the epigraph.
The story tells about the last days of the life of a wealthy American gentleman who, at the age of 58, decided to start living. It was to start, because he had been working all this time, trying to secure a decent old age. He believed that life is the rest and pleasure that he deserved, so he carefully planned the route of the trip, which in turn is already a stupid obedience to the schedule.
And almost immediately everything goes wrong, as the main character intended. And besides, there was something artificial in his existence, where not only every movement of passengers was painted, but also their emotions. This is where the dissonance between the opinions of the protagonist and the author is already clearly shown. Such an existence cannot be called a full life. The hero lives only for a moment, and then struggling with death.
What happens next is predictable. If at the beginning the hero himself amuses himself, talking with people of the highest circle and watching false lovers, then even after the death of the master, this same highest circle continues to burn through his life now without the main character, whose body rests deep under them.
"The Gentleman from San Francisco" is full of symbolism. The coffin in the hold is a message to those who are having fun, meaning that all people are equal before death, and their money cannot help them in their last painful minutes. Their happiness is actually not happiness at all, their worldview cannot be compared with the vision of the world of ordinary poor mountaineers.
The idea of the work is not just a story about the death of a rich man. The money he had accumulated, his rank no longer mattered. That's what's important. Bunin reveals in his story his own vision of the meaning of life, and this meaning is clearly not in the acquisition of wealth and fame.
The hero is called the master, because this is his essence. At least he thinks so, and therefore revels in his position. It represents that society that destroys all life in humanity, forcing them to come up with a schedule, blindly follow it and coyly smile in feigned pleasure. There is nothing spiritual in such a society, its goal is to be rich and enjoy this wealth. But this has never made anyone truly happy.
"Atlantis" - the ship that carries this society to new pleasures; the ocean on which the ship is sailing is an element beyond the control of even the richest people, capable of instantly destroying the plans of the "dead society" and sending it to the bottom. And at the bottom of the society a gentleman from San Francisco will be waiting. "Atlantis", in fact, is going nowhere, dragging along a blind society of callous people.
The main problem of the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" is a dead society that can only boast in front of all its money and live according to the schedule drawn up by the same insensitive inanimate person. In his diary, Bunin wrote the following: "I cried, writing the end."
What was he crying about? Over the sad fate of the gentleman who had just begun to live: Over his family, now left without a breadwinner? After all, now they will have to look for a groom so that the master's daughter continues her boring life, as the schedule dictates. I think that the fate of the "dead" society, their way of life and impartiality to other people's grief saddened the author; their callousness and insensitivity. This is precisely the problem of modern society, as it was many years ago.
Updated: 2014-06-04
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The philosophical problematics of the works of Bunin, the last Russian and classic and, as Maxim Gorky called him, “the foremost master of modern literature”, covers a wide range of issues that remain relevant in our difficult, disharmonious time.
The decomposition of the peasant world
Changes in the everyday and moral life of the peasants and the sad consequences of such metamorphoses are shown in the story "The Village". The heroes of this work are the fist Tikhon and the poor self-taught poet Kuzma. The philosophical problems of Bunin's works are expressed by the perception of two opposite images. Actions take place at the beginning of the century, when hungry and impoverished village life, under the influence of revolutionary ideas, revives for a while, but then again plunges into deep hibernation.
The writer was acutely worried about the inability of the peasants to resist the devastation of their native villages, their fragmentation. Their main misfortune, he believed, was their lack of independence, which is what the main character of the work admits: “I can’t think, I’m not scientific.” And this shortcoming, Ivan Bunin believed, was a consequence of a long serfdom.
The fate of the Russian people
The philosophical problems of Bunin's works resulted in bitter discussions about the fate of the Russian people. As a native of a noble family, he was always attracted by the psychological analysis of the common man. He looked for the origins of the national character, its positive and negative features in the history of the Russian people. For him, there was no essential difference between a peasant and a landowner. And, although the nobles were the true bearers of high culture, the writer always paid tribute to the role of the peasants in the development of the primordially Russian spiritual world.
Love and loneliness
Ivan Bunin is an unsurpassed lyricist. The stories written in exile are almost poetic works. Love for this writer was not something lasting. She was always interrupted either by the will of one of the heroes, or under the influence of evil fate. But parting and loneliness are most acutely experienced abroad. The philosophical problems of Bunin's works are also the feelings of a Russian person who is in exile. In the story "In Paris" the author tells about a chance meeting of two lonely people far away. Both of them are far from Russia. At first, they are brought together by Russian speech and spiritual kinship. Acquaintance develops into love. And when the main character suddenly dies, the woman, returning to an empty house, experiences a sense of loss and spiritual emptiness, which she can hardly fill in a foreign country, far from her native land.
The topics that the classic of Russian literature touched upon in his works relate to issues that are still relevant today. The philosophical problems of Bunin's works are close to the modern reader. An essay on a topic related to the work of this writer helps to develop the inner world of the student, teaches him to think independently and forms moral thinking.
Meaning of life
One of the troubles of modern society is its immorality. It appears imperceptibly, grows and at some point begins to give rise to horrific consequences. Both individuals and society as a whole suffer from them. That is why, in literature lessons, considerable attention is paid to such a topic as the philosophical problems of Bunin's works. An essay based on the story "The Man from San Francisco" teaches children to understand the importance of spiritual values.
Today, material goods are given such great importance that modern children, at times, do not even realize the existence of other values. The philosophy of a faceless man who increased his wealth for so long and stubbornly that he forgot how to see the world as it is, and as a result - a tragic and pitiful end. This is the main idea of the story about the rich gentleman from San Francisco. The artistic analysis of this work allows teenagers to take a different look at the ideas that reign in the minds of many people today. People who pathologically strive for success and material prosperity and, unfortunately, often serve as an example for a fragile personality.
Reading works of Russian literature contributes to the formation of the correct moral position. The essay on the topic “Philosophical problems of Bunin’s work “The Man from San Francisco”” helps to answer the most, perhaps, topical questions.
The past century gave Russian culture a galaxy of brilliant artists. Their work has become the property of world literature. The moral foundations of the works of these authors will never morally become obsolete. The philosophical problems of the works of Bunin and Kuprin, Pasternak and Bulgakov, Astafiev and Solzhenitsyn are the property of Russian culture. Their books are designed not so much for entertaining reading, but for the formation of the right worldview and the destruction of false stereotypes. After all, no one spoke so accurately and truthfully about such important philosophical categories as love, loyalty and honesty, as the classics of great Russian literature.
"Pines" of 1901 - the first step in the controversy: the image of a snow-covered village where Mitrofan dies - "to live as a laborer of life."
The denunciation of the foundations of an inhuman, ugly system is combined here with a sharp foreboding of the inevitable catastrophe of a society based on violence and enslavement, with the expectation of formidable social upheavals. The poverty and suffering of the enslaved people, trampled under the heel of the English "cultural tregers", are expressively depicted by Bunin in the story "Brothers". The work was the result of living impressions of the author, who visited Ceylon in 1911.
Contrasting are the images of a cruel, satiated Englishman and a young "native" - a rickshaw who is in love with a beautiful girl of his region. One after another, episodes of inhuman mockery of the colonialists over the local population pass: having overstrained himself at overwork, the father of the hero of the story dies, the bride of a young rickshaw ends up in a brothel, and he himself, tormented by unbearable mental pain, commits suicide on a deserted ocean shore. The name “brothers” sounds ironic and angry in relation to the oppressor and his slave.
Not satisfied with the external pattern of events, Bunin seeks to show the psychology of the oppressor. An Englishman, returning from Ceylon, reflects on his role. The author forces him to admit that he brings with him grief, hunger and crimes to all lands where the greedy will of the colonialist brings him ...
“In Africa,” he says, “I killed people, in India, robbed by England, and therefore, partly by me, I saw thousands dying of hunger, in Japan I bought girls for monthly wives, in China I beat defenseless ape-like old men with a stick on the heads, in Java and Ceylon he drove the rickshaw to his death rattle.
In the spirit of abstract humanism, Bunin reflects on the brotherhood of people, on the violation of high moral laws by representatives of that inhuman order in which one "brother" kills another. But this abstract moral idea is artistically overcome by a vivid social denunciation, and the concrete depiction of the disastrous consequences of colonialism in a country that could become an earthly paradise gives the work a great social sound, determines its effectiveness and strength not only for the distant pre-October years, but also for the present. .
The works of I.A. Bunin are filled with philosophical problems. The main issues of concern to the writer were the issues of death and love, the essence of these phenomena, their influence on human life.
In the foreground at Bunin comes an appeal to the eternal themes of love, death and nature. Bunin has long been firmly established as one of the greatest stylists in Russian literature. In his work, the elusive artistic accuracy and freedom, and figurative memory, and knowledge of the national language, and magnificent figurativeness, and verbal sensuality were clearly manifested. All these features are inherent not only in his poetry, but also in prose. In the pre-revolutionary decade, it was prose that came to the fore in the work of Ivan Bunin, absorbing the lyricism inherent in the writer's talent. This is the time to create such masterpieces as the stories "The Brothers", "The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Chang's Dreams". Literary historians believe that these works are stylistically and ideologically closely related, making together a kind of artistic and philosophical trilogy.
The story "Dreams of Chang"was written in 1916. The very beginning of the work ("Does it matter who to talk about? Everyone who lives on earth deserves it") is inspired by Buddhist motifs, because what is in these words, if not a reference to the chain of births and deaths, into which any living creature is drawn - from an ant to a man?And now the reader from the first lines is inwardly ready for the alternations of the present and memories in the story.
And the storyline is like this. During the voyage, the captain of one of the Russian ships bought a red puppy with intelligent black eyes from an old Chinese man. Chang (that was the name of the dog) during a long journey becomes the only listener of the owner. The captain talks about what a happy person he is, because he has an apartment in Odessa, his beloved wife and daughter. Then everything in his life collapses, as the captain realizes that the wife, to whom he aspires with all his heart, does not love him. Without dreams, without hope for the future, without love, this person turns into a bitter drunkard and eventually dies. The main characters of the work are the captain and his faithful dog Chang. It is interesting to observe the changes taking place with the captain throughout his life, to observe how his idea of happiness changes. While sailing on a ship, he says: "But what a wonderful life, my God, how wonderful!" Then the captain loved, he was all in this love and therefore happy. "There were once two truths in the world, constantly replacing each other: the first is that life is unspeakably beautiful, and the other is that life is conceivable only for madmen." Now, after the loss of love, after the disappointment, the captain has only one truth left, the last one. Life seems to him a boring winter day in a dirty tavern. And people ... "They have neither God, nor conscience, nor a reasonable goal of existence, nor love, nor friendship, nor honesty - there is not even a simple pity."
Internal changes also affect the external image of the hero. At the beginning of the story, we see the happy captain, "washed out and shaved, fragrant with the freshness of cologne, with a German mustache, with a shining gaze of keen bright eyes, in everything tight and snow-white." Then he appears before us as a dirty drunkard living in a vile attic. As a comparison, the author cites the attic of his artist friend, who had just found the truth of life. The captain has dirt, cold, meager ugly furnishings, the artist has cleanliness, warmth, comfort, antique furniture. All this is done in order to oppose these two truths and show how awareness of one or the other affects the external image of a person. The abundance of details used in the work creates the emotional coloring and atmosphere necessary for the reader. For the same purpose, a dual composition of the story was created. Two parallels are clearly visible. One is today's world in which there is no happiness, the other is happy memories. But how does communication take place between them? The answer is simple: this is what the image of the dog was needed for. Chang is the thread that connects reality with the past through his dreams. Chang is the only one in the story who has a name. The artist is not only nameless, but also silent. The woman is completely revealed from some kind of book mists: the marvelous "in her marble beauty" Changa Bunin endows with a sense of "a beginningless and endless world that is not accessible to Death", that is, a sense of authenticity - an inexpressible third truth . The captain is swallowed up by death, but Chang does not lose his Chinese name and remains unsteady now, for, according to Bunin, he resignedly follows "the most secret commands of Tao, as some sea creature follows them."
Let's try to understand the philosophical the problem of the work. What is a sense of life? Is human happiness possible? In connection with these questions, the image of "distant hardworking people" (Germans) appears in the story. Using the example of their way of life, the writer talks about the possible ways of human happiness. Labor to live and multiply without knowing the fullness of life. These same "hard-working people" are the embodiment. Endless love, which is hardly worth devoting yourself to, since there is always the possibility of betrayal. Incarnation - the image of the captain The path of eternal thirst for search, in which, however, according to Bunin, there is also no happiness. What is it? Maybe in gratitude and fidelity? This idea carries the image of a dog. Through the real unsightly facts of life, a faithful memory breaks through like a dog, when there was peace in the soul, when the captain and the dog were happy. Thus, the story "Chang's Dreams" is primarily a philosophical work of the turn of the century. It deals with such eternal themes as love and death, talks about the fragility of happiness, built only on love, and the eternity of happiness, based on loyalty and gratitude. In my opinion, Bunin's story is very relevant today. The problems raised in the work found a lively response in my soul, made me think about the meaning of life. After all, the generation to which I belong lives during a transitional period in history, when people tend to take stock and think about the future. It will help to read this work will dispel our inner subconscious fear of him. After all, there are eternal/truths in the world that are not subject to any influence and any changes.
The theme of death is most deeply revealed by Bunin in his story "The Man from San Francisco" (1915). In addition, here the writer tries to answer other questions: what is the happiness of a person, what is his purpose on earth.
The protagonist of the story - a gentleman from San Francisco - is full of snobbery and complacency. All his life he strove for wealth, setting famous billionaires as an example for himself. Finally, it seems to him that the goal is close, it's time to relax, to live for your own pleasure - the hero goes on a cruise on the ship "Atlantis".
He feels himself to be the "master" of the situation, but that was not the case. Bunin shows that money is a powerful force, but it is impossible to buy happiness, prosperity, life with it ... The rich man dies during his brilliant journey, and it turns out that no one needs him dead. Back it, forgotten and abandoned by everyone, is transported in the hold of the ship.
How much servility and admiration this man saw during his lifetime, the same amount of humiliation experienced his mortal body after death. Bunin shows how illusory the power of money in this world. And pitiful is the man who stakes on them. Having created idols for himself, he strives to achieve the same well-being. It seems that the goal has been achieved, he is at the top, for which he has worked tirelessly for many years. And what did he do, what did he leave to posterity? Nobody even remembered his name.
Bunin emphasizes that all people, regardless of their condition, financial situation, are equal before death. It is she who allows you to see the true essence of man. Physical death is mysterious and mysterious, but spiritual death is even more terrible. The writer shows that such a death overtook the hero much earlier, when he devoted his life to accumulating money.
The theme of beauty and love in Bunin's work is represented by very complex and sometimes contradictory situations. Love for a writer is madness, a surge of emotions, a moment of unbridled happiness that ends very quickly, and only then is realized and understood. Love, according to Bunin, is a mysterious, fatal feeling, a passion that completely changes a person's life.
This is exactly the meeting of the lieutenant with a beautiful stranger in "Sunstroke". It was a moment of happiness that cannot be returned or resurrected. When she leaves, the lieutenant sits “under a canopy on the deck, feeling ten years older,” for this feeling suddenly arose and suddenly disappeared, leaving a deep wound in his soul. But still, love is a great happiness. According to Bunin, this is the meaning of human life
