Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is a wonderful Russian writer, a great man and difficult fate. He was a recognized classic domestic literature and also became the first Nobel laureate in Russia.

Bunin combined all the stories written from 1937 to 1944 into the book Dark Alleys. They are brought together by the motive of memories, the image of Russian nature. He writes about summer, autumn, day and night, grief, happiness, sometimes a brief moment of joy or pain. Bunin comes to the fore with an appeal to eternal themes love, death and nature.

One of the stories included in this collection is " Clean Monday". I decided to dwell on it in more detail.

The external events of the story "Clean Monday" are not very complex and fit perfectly into the theme of the cycle " Dark alleys"The action takes place in 1913. A kind, handsome and frivolous young man (nameless, like his girlfriend) shares his memories here. Young people, he and she, met once at a lecture in a literary and artistic circle and fell in love. They began to meet, spend together free time. He courted her and wanted more Serious relationships but she was mysteriously silent, never letting him get out of control. He himself says that he always "tried not to think, not to think out" the actions of his beloved. No wonder that to understand the silent, mysterious, beautiful woman failed.

For the author, it was important to convey to the reader all its exclusivity, and he succeeded in full. The eyes of a passionate admirer constantly "catch" the inexplicable behavior of his chosen one. She indulged in secular entertainment, allowed the man to caress, but refused to have a serious conversation with him. Even more strange was the parallel fascination with restaurants, theatrical "skits" and cathedrals, sacred books. The heroine, as it were, unites in her soul "styles" that are incompatible with each other. Dreams of reconciling them. That's how he wants to love that better one, and he can't. Their intimacy still happens, but after spending only one night together, the lovers part forever, because the heroine on Clean Monday, i.e. on the first day of the Easter fast in 1913, he makes the final decision to enter a monastery, parting with his past. But, hiding in the monastery, he continues to suffer there unattainable.

The story is virtuously and concisely written. Each stroke has an explicit and hidden meaning. What is the last, refined secular, black and velvet dressing of the heroine with her hairstyle of the Shamakhan queen worth! An unexpected and revealing combination. The girl always follows different ways vividly reminiscent of the differences surrounding it. Such symbolic meaning female image. It combined a craving for spiritual feat and to all the wealth of the world, doubts, sacrifice and longing for the ideal.

There is another meaning of the author's reflections in the story. The eternal contradictions of the human, more specifically, female nature, love, sublime and earthly, sensual, - the trials of the heroine determined. Her courage, ability to go through all the prohibitions and temptations help to discover the mysterious, irresistible power of instinct. But the warmer, the more sympathetic the author's attitude towards the young woman, the more she resists quite natural, although painful for her, inclinations.

In the theme of love, Bunin reveals himself as a man of amazing talent, a subtle psychologist who knows how to convey the state of the soul, wounded by love. The writer does not avoid complex, frank topics, depicting the most intimate human experiences in his stories. Over the centuries, many artists of the word dedicated their works to the great feeling of love, and each of them found something unique, individual to this theme. It seems to me that the peculiarity of Bunin the artist is that he considers love a tragedy, a catastrophe, madness, a great feeling, capable of both infinitely elevating and destroying a person.

Love is a mysterious element that transforms a person's life, giving his fate a uniqueness against the background of ordinary everyday stories, filling his earthly existence with a special meaning.

The extraordinary strength and sincerity of feeling are characteristic of the heroes of Bunin's stories. Love captures all the thoughts of a person, all his strength. In order for love not to run out of steam, it is necessary to part forever, which happens in all Bunin's stories. All his characters live in anticipation of love, looking for it, and most often, scorched by it, they die. The writer's love does not live long in the family, in marriage, in everyday life. A short, dazzling flash, illuminating the souls of lovers to the bottom, leads them to tragic end- death, suicide, separation. The theme of pure and beautiful feeling runs through all the work of the Russian writer. "All love is a great happiness, even if it is not divided" - these are the words from the story "Dark Alleys"

Bunin could repeat all the heroes of his stories.

The story "Clean Monday" is included in the collection of I.A. Bunin "Dark alleys". The writer said that in the stories of this collection he sought to depict "dark alleys of love." In general, love and death are the two main themes in the work of I.A. Bunin.
"Clean Monday" is also dedicated to the theme of love. It describes the unlit, mysterious and mysterious manifestations of this wonderful feeling. It should be noted that it was this story that Bunin himself, in his declining years, considered the best of those written by him.
The genre of this work is short story. In dictionary literary terms the following definition of the story is given: “a small form of epic prose literature". The genre of the story is very close to the story. Its main difference is that the story presents one episode from the life of the characters. In this episode, the character's character is fully and multifaceted. The skill of I.A. Bunin lies in the fact that he highlights the personality of the hero and his life story in just two or three pages of text.
The plot of the story "Clean Monday" is based on the unhappy love of the protagonist, which determined his whole life. Distinctive feature many works of I.A. Bunin - the absence happy love. Even the most prosperous story often ends tragically with this writer.
The narration is conducted in the first person, so the feelings and experiences of the narrator are deeply revealed. We are immersed in his spiritual world, in his strong, all-consuming feeling. The strength of the hero’s love is visible even in the way he describes the appearance of his beloved: “Fluff on her upper lip was in hoarfrost, the amber of her cheeks turned slightly pink, the blackness of the paradise completely merged with the pupil - I could not take my enthusiastic eyes off her face.
Main character very hard going tragic ending his relationship with the heroine. The following passage confirms this: “For a long time I drank in the dirtiest taverns, sinking more and more in every possible way ... Then I began to recover - indifferently, hopelessly.” Judging by these two quotes, the hero is very sensitive and emotional person capable of deep feeling. Bunin avoids direct assessments, but allows us to judge this by the state of the hero's soul, by skillfully selected external details, light hints.
In this story, the author contrasts antiquity with modernity. The text mentions the names of temples, monasteries, icons, quotes from prayers. Along with this, Bunin talks about the most famous restaurants of the early 20th century, about books contemporary authors. So, for example, the heroine cannot finish reading the "Fiery Angel" in any way. Here the irony and skepticism of the author in relation to new literary trends. Modernity, according to Bunin, is not endowed with the spirituality of antiquity.
We look at the heroine of the story through the eyes of the narrator in love with her. Already at the very beginning of the work, her portrait appears before us: “She had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a swarthy amber face, magnificent and somewhat sinister in its density hair, softly shining like black sable fur, black like velvet coal , eyes". Through the lips of the protagonist, a description of the restless soul of the heroine is conveyed, her search for the meaning of life, excitement and doubt. As a result, the image of the “spiritual wanderer” is revealed to us in its entirety.
The climax of the story is the decision of the beloved hero to go to the monastery. This unexpected turn the plot allows you to understand the undecided soul of the heroine.
Very great importance has the title of a story. On the one hand, it is very specific: Clean Monday is the first day of Lent, when the heroine announces her decision to leave worldly life. On this day, the relationship of two lovers ended and the life of the hero ended. On the other hand, the title of the story is symbolic. It is believed that on Clean Monday, the soul is cleansed of everything vain and sinful. Moreover, in the story, not only the heroine, who has chosen a monastic hermitage, changes. Her act encourages the hero to introspection, makes him change, cleanse himself.
"Clean Monday" was written by the author during the years of his Parisian emigration. However, Russian reality shines through literally in every line. This is evidenced by landscape sketches: “The evening was peaceful, sunny, with frost on the trees, on the bloody brick walls of the monastery, jackdaws resembling nuns chatted in silence, the chimes now and then sadly played on the bell tower. Creaking in silence through the snow, we entered the gates, ... the sun had just set, it was still quite light, the branches in hoarfrost had long been drawn on the golden enamel of the sunset with gray coral, and the inextinguishable lamps scattered over the graves mysteriously glimmered around with calm lights.
Only a deeply Russian person could write so piercingly, keeping the image of the Motherland in his longing heart.
"Clean Monday" was written 60 years ago. For the history of the country - whole era… What attracts us contemporary readers, in this story? If you read thoughtfully, you can find answers to eternal philosophical questions: how to love and be loved, what is the meaning of life, what is true values? Bunin was indifferent to everyday life, transient. He is unwaveringly focused on the sublime and beautiful, expressed in a concrete human destiny. According to P. B. Struve, "... the main feature of Bunin's talent is the unusually bright and powerful fusion of lyrical talent with the gift of fine and epic."

The story "Clean Monday" (1944) completes the cycle of late creativity I.A. Bunin "Dark alleys". The writer laughed that he wrote "about the same thirty-eight times." That one theme was the theme of love. And as in all genius, when reading "Dark Alleys" we do not feel exhausted or repeated in similar narratives about the relationship between a man and a woman, although even plot scheme stories of the cycle are of the same type. As a rule, a meeting of heroes is described, a sudden rapprochement, a flash of feelings - and an inevitable parting. Love for Bunin is just a wonderful moment. And in each story he finds new and new shades of love feelings.

IN last story- "Clean Monday" - miraculously lyricism and pathos merged, folk traditions and modern, divine and mundane; here, as if summed up poetic and philosophical results Bunin's creativity. The author unfolds before us a story not only about love, but about secrets. human soul, about the understanding of happiness, about the complex and contradictory national character, about the spirit historical era about faith. And the deliberate similarity of the plots helps the reader to focus not on the course of events, but on the characters and inimitable style Bunin.

Main artistic device in the story "Clean Monday" the reception of the antithesis appears. A whole system of contrasts is being built up: antonyms that permeate the first sentence (“The Moscow gray winter day grew dark, the gas in the lanterns was coldly lit, the shop windows were warmly lit - and Moscow’s evening life, freeing from daytime affairs, flared up: cab sledges rushed thicker and more vigorously, crowded sledges rattled harder , diving trams…”); the hero and the heroine, different in character (“... and as much as I was prone to talkativeness, to simple-hearted gaiety, she was most often silent: she was always thinking something, everything seemed to delve into something mentally ...”); elegant Savor heroines and her deep religiosity; love without external obstacles, and its tragic ending. The movement of the text seems to be controlled by two opposite motives - the vulgarity of the surrounding reality and the spirituality of eternal values.

The story has a retrospective structure: about his passionate love for mysterious beauty hero remembers. This makes it possible to present events as if in a double light: what the hero did not notice “then”, he comprehends already from memory, as if summing up. The construction of the story on separate episodes and the ring composition allows the author not only to show the transience of time, but also to recreate the portrait of the era with the greatest completeness. The historical panorama of the 10s of the 20th century in Russia is represented by people who really existed, who personified the culture of that time. Bunin ironically portrays A. Bely, K. Stanislavsky, F. Chaliapin, and this reflects the writer's manner of communicating with his contemporaries, so familiar to us from his memoirs. At the same time, the details of the reality of the early twentieth century are intertwined with signs of ancient times: along with the Yar and Strelna restaurants, centuries of history Russia is reminded by the countless names of Moscow churches, monasteries, icons (Christ the Savior Cathedral, the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, Zachatievsky Monastery, the icon of the Mother of God of the Three Hands and others), the names of historical figures (Oslyably, Peresvet), quotations from chronicles, legends, prayers. So in the story there is an image of an era that combines modernity and " pre-Petrine Rus'", and so the Russian is drawn national character woven from contradictions.

plot and compositional center works become complicated relationship two heroes - his and her. The narration is conducted in the first person, which creates the effect of presence and enhances the realism of events. The very image of the protagonist is sketched, only his feelings and experiences are shown, and this makes the character related to lyrical hero Bunin's poetry. But we are alarmed that the hero does not understand the one that he sincerely worships. Blinded by love, he cannot comprehend what inner work takes place in the soul of his beloved. However, it is love that gives the hero an exceptional sharpness of perception, through the prism of which the portrait of the heroine is presented in the story. In her description, the epithets “strange” and “mysterious” are defining: “... she was mysterious, incomprehensible to me, our relationship with her was also strange ...”. Details of appearance, repeated in portrait sketches, the epithets "black", "velvet", "amber" do not clarify psychological condition heroines, but, on the contrary, emphasize its mystery.

We learn that the heroine's father is "an enlightened man of noble merchant family”, but further there is a hint of his mediocrity (“he collected something, like all such merchants”). That is, in the origin we do not find an explanation for the duality of the spiritual world of the heroine, who enjoys both worldly passions and reveres religious rites. The duality of character, rather, is rooted in the combination of western and eastern. This girl is serious about reading European literature(Hoffmannsthal, Schnitzler, Tetmeier, Pshibyshevsky), but inside her there is a lot from the East, which is manifested even in appearance: “And she had some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a swarthy amber face, magnificent and somewhat sinister in their thick blackness hair softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, eyes black as velvet charcoal; captivating with velvety crimson lips, the mouth was tinted with a dark fluff ... ". The whole life of the heroine is woven from inexplicable contradictions. She visits ancient temples, monasteries and restaurants, skits with equal interest. Her whole being is a continuous throwing between flesh and spirit, momentary and eternal. Behind the visible secular gloss, it has primordially national, Russian principles. And they turn out to be stronger, as they manifest themselves in beliefs.

Incomprehensible in her opposite inclinations, the heroine, at the same time, very organically fits into the contrasts of Moscow of those years, a city that combined the centuries-old beauty of cathedrals, the chiming of bells with the realities of the new bourgeois era.

As in all of Bunin's work, one of the most important in "Clean Monday" is the motif of beauty, inextricably linked with the image of the heroine. Moreover, beauty is not so much external as internal. The mysterious woman sees her disappearance everywhere - and this is the main torment of her soul. “But this Rus' remained in some northern monasteries ...”. The desire to preserve this beauty in herself leads the heroine to the monastery. In addition, she could not find a meaning in her existence in any way: “It seemed that she did not need anything: neither flowers,

No books, no dinners, no theaters, no dinners outside the city…”. Therefore, a desire arose to fill life with something significant, the spiritual world. The author managed to convey the essence of the heroine so subtly that we cannot even imagine her in a situation of earthly happiness. Interestingly, unlike Lisa Kalitina from " noble nest» I. Turgenev, Bunin's heroine herself does not seek happiness in this life, initially realizing its impossibility. The psychologism of the author of "Dark Alleys" differs significantly from the "dialectics of the soul" of L. Tolstoy and " secret psychologism» I. Turgenev. The movements of the soul of Bunin's heroes defy logical explanation, the heroes seem to have no power over themselves. In this regard, the impersonal verbal constructions often used by the writer (“... for some reason, I definitely wanted to go there ...”) attract attention.

In "Clean Monday" the motifs of the vain world and spiritual life echo with other works by Bunin. Characteristically, each of the motifs is supported by its own system of images. And a greater concentration of detail, combined with summary requires us to read carefully. Thus, functionally loaded details are the substantive basis for the motif of the vain world: literary bohemianism is depicted as a meaningless “skewers”, where there are only “shouts”, antics and posturing. The “spontaneous” details correspond to the motive of spiritual life: descriptions of nature and architectural monuments (“The evening was peaceful, sunny, with frost on the trees; on the bloody brick walls of the monastery, jackdaws resembling nuns chatted in silence, played on the bell tower). The feelings of an artist who loves with all his heart native nature, transmitted via color scheme and emotionally tinted epithets (“subtle and sad”, “light”, “wonderful”, “on the golden enamel of sunset”).

The poetry of the story is manifested in the sound and rhythmic organization of the text. Here, too, contrasts are vivid: “slow somnambulistically beautiful beginning” moonlight sonata” is replaced by a can-can, and the sounds of the liturgy are replaced by a march from “Aida”. The alternation of the most important motifs - temporal and eternal, the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit - forms the rhythmic basis of the story. The "routes" of the heroes' walks also convince of this: "Metropol" - Rogozhskoye cemetery - Yegorov's tavern - theater - "skit". Finally, the very name "Clean Monday" symbolizes, in accordance with Orthodox calendar, the border between vain life and Great Lent, when people must be cleansed of the filth of worldly life. The heroine goes very big sin succumbing to temptation with your loved one on this particular day. True, she already knew at that moment that she was ready to renounce the earthly world and be reborn spiritually, becoming the bride of Christ. It is important that for the hero Clean Monday becomes a turning point in life. On Forgiveness Sunday, both heroes say goodbye to their old life, which did not give them happiness, but in a new life their love remains with them. And only by purifying the soul with this high feeling, a person comprehends true happiness. The relationship between the theme of love and the theme of purification of the soul is the leitmotif of all the work of I.A. Bunin. “All love is a great happiness, even if it is not divided,” the author wrote in the story “Dark Alleys”.

Mister from San Francisco I.A. Bunin Nachalo20 at a time very eventful for Russia with such events as revolutions and wars. Already at that time Bunin was called one of the best craftsmen words in Russia. He writes such works as Chang's Dreams, Easy breath, Grammar of love. In 1915, Bunin wrote, perhaps, one of his most striking works, The Gentleman from San Francisco. The story was originally called Death on Capri. Bunin connected his idea with the story German writer Thomas Mann Death in Venice, but even more with memories of the unexpected death of an American who came to Capri. However, as Ivan Alekseevich himself admitted, he invented San Francisco and everything else while living on the estate of his cousin in the Yelets district of the Oryol province.

The story begins on the ship Atlantis. The main character is a gentleman from San Francisco. Bunin does not give him a name. This is due to the fact that no one remembered him, that there are many like him. The gentleman goes to the Old World for two whole years, with his wife and daughter, solely for the sake of entertainment. He has a planned route, money, desires. He feels and behaves like a master in every respect.

But is it really so? No. For his fifty-eight years, he never learned to live, love, feel, enjoy life, therefore, no matter how hard he tries, he visits all cultural and recreational activities so he gets no pleasure. Here he is pleasant, but bored, like snow-lit museums or cold, wax-smelling churches, in which everywhere is the same stately entrance, covered with a heavy leather curtain, and inside there is a huge emptiness, silence. on the outside, he is elegant, well-groomed, handsome, but inside is empty, soulless. For him, there is no family, joys or troubles, a beloved woman.

There are no surprises or surprises in his life, everything is measured in his life, scheduled for hours, seconds and hours. And he pretends to be happy. Very symbolic is the love couple who were paid to pretend to play love for good money on one or the other ship. Throughout the story, it can be seen that Bunin uses mainly black, white, red, gold colors in the description of the life of rich people.

This is no coincidence. After all, it was in these colors that the royal people dressed. For example, a red mantle with embroidered gold lilies and a black and white ermine. Mr San Francisco is one of the many passengers big ship Atlantis, a huge hotel with all amenities with a night bar, with oriental baths, with its own newspaper on top of which all the cream of society, including the gentleman from San Francisco, amuse and have fun. All this takes place in the middle of the ocean, symbolizing the endlessly flowing life unpredictable in e turns.

He was terrible, but they did not think about him, a siren screamed at the bow with furious anger for a minute, but few of the diners heard the siren, but did not drown out the sounds of a beautiful orchestra. The siren is a symbol of world chaos, the music of calm harmony. The gentleman arrives in Naples, and nature itself begins to interfere with his plans, the sun deceived, sowed rain, something terrible happened everywhere.

But nothing shakes the master, and he and his family go to Capri. And there, as expected, everyone treats him like a master. He is placed in the most refined hotel, assigned the most beautiful and skillful maid, the most prominent of the lakeys. He gets all the very best, but this is as long as he is able to pay. And so he dies, dies, only having begun to live. But death does not fit into the image of a rich hotel at all.

If there hadn’t been a German in the reading room, they would have quickly and deftly managed to cover up this terrible incident in the hotel, instantly, by the back steps, they would have dashed off by the legs and head of the gentleman from San Francisco to hell and not a single soul from the guests would have known what he had done. The master dies in the smallest, worst, dampest and coldest room. The story ends in the same place where Atlantis began. Here everyone is having fun, dancing and having fun, only our master from San Francisco is not there, he does not return home in first class, now he is hidden from human eyes in the womb of the ship in the hold, he lies in a tarred coffin.

There is a vision of the Devil watching the ship, many-tiered, many-pipe, created by the pride of a New Man with an old heart.

What will we do with the received material:

If this material turned out to be useful to you, you can save it to your page on social networks:

More essays, term papers, theses on this topic:

Eternal and "real" in the work of I.A. Bunin "The Gentleman from San Francisco"
In Russian literature, the material has traditionally been given a negative meaning, while the eternal has been put on a pedestal. So, L.N. Tolstoy contrasted .. Let's now see what is the connection between the real and the eternal in the story of I.A. Bunin .. The description of the appearance of the wife and daughter of the protagonist goes into opposition to life in the underwater womb of the ship ..

Bunin I.A. Analysis of the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco"
Money is what he lives for. The description of his entire life, fifty-eight years, is only half a page. We see that he never .. He simply did not have feelings and sensations. Therefore, he does not feel joy and in .. He knows exactly what to do: behave like the rest of the rich people, the so-called "cream of society". He..

Analysis of the story by I.A. Bunin "The Gentleman from San Francisco"
The steamer "Atlantis" is, as it were, a model of a capitalist society. different lives live hold and upper deck. “The gigantic ones rumbled muffledly .. They do not think about the terrible ocean that went behind the walls of the ship, they have fun under .. His death, as it were, portends the death of the whole unjust world of “gentlemen from San Francisco”, which for Bunin is only ..

Review of the work of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"
But the very process of renewal could not but cause a revival of cultural life. A real shock for millions Soviet people was a small publication.. Behind him were already years of persecution and experience as a prisoner of the camp. His .. Solzhenitsyn showed the whole camp life in one day. After reading it becomes clear that this one single day ..

Comparative review of the works of V. Rasputin "The Hut" and "At Home
He is currently continuing his literary work, deals with environmental problems and the situation of the Russian village, to which he devoted almost everything .. Already from the name it follows that in a central way in the story is the house .. The problems raised in the "hut" and "at home" are a logical continuation of the central theme of the works.

Review of a work of modern Russian literature. ("Fatal Eggs" by Bulgakov)
It is written in an easy and interesting way. Some critics called this creation of Bulgakov a trifle. They believed that .. Everything that is outside these sciences, for him, as it were, does not exist. He could say about himself I am a scientist, and everything else to me ..

Totalitarian technique based on George Orwell's "1984"
Especially after reading it to the end, you feel a taste for life, for freedom, you feel much more free than it seemed before. And secondly, the feeling .. This is a dystopia. No, this is more than a dystopia. This is a warning.. George Orwell wrote it in 1947-1949. more precisely, in 1947 he got the idea to write this novel, and he himself came out ..

Tragic images on the example of works of art
This is no longer loneliness from one's own greatness, and not even loneliness from the indifference of the surrounding world. Everything gets complicated and main motive this .. This pain arises from the slightest contact with the outside world. And this world is perceived in a completely different way. The poet in Mayakovsky's poems is a priceless word spender and spendthrift. WITH..

Impersonal sentences in the works of M.Yu. Lermontov
A sentence is a syntactically and intonationally formalized construction that expresses a message. Sentences are two-part, having in their composition .. Impersonal sentences will be discussed in this essay, and in examples it will be .. Brief biographical information: Lermontov Mikhail Yurievich 1814.3(15).10 - was born in Moscow. From 1817 after death..

The dominant of the human personality in documentary prose (based on the book by I.A. Bunin "The Liberation of Tolstoy")
Bunin associated the struggle for the purity of the Russian language with the struggle for its wealth, evidence of this can be found in his critical notes on "new .. Like Tolstoy, he considered the source of motivation for writing" the need .. At the anniversary of Russkiye Vedomosti on October 13, 1913, Bunin made a sad assessment of Russian literature, noting it ..

Glazunova Veronica

REVIEW OF THE STORY "CLEAN MONDAY"

The external events of the story "Clean Monday" are not very complex and fit perfectly into the theme of the "Dark Alleys" cycle. This is a story about the beautiful young love of two nameless people - a man and a woman.

Like most of Bunin's works, "Clean Monday" is an attempt by the author to describe and convey to the reader his understanding of the phenomenon of love, which many great writers did before and after Bunin, but at the same time everyone found something special in love that distinguishes it from others feelings. For Bunin, any real, sincere love is a great happiness for a person, even if it ends in death or separation. " Sunstroke" - Here best definition love in the understanding of Bunin, it comes suddenly, sharply and radically changing the worldview of a person, his view of surrounding reality. But when the happiness of love passes, only pain remains - a person is no longer able to return to former life. "Happiness has no tomorrow; he does not have yesterday either; it does not remember the past, does not think about the future; he has a present - and that is not a day, but an instant, ”writes Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev in the story“ Asya ”. In my opinion, Turgenev's concept of love is similar to Bunin's.

But the story "Clean Monday" is not only a story about love, problems of morality, necessity life choice, honesty to yourself.

Bunin draws these two young people as handsome, self-confident: “We were both rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that in restaurants and at concerts they saw us off with their eyes.” The author emphasizes that material and physical well-being is by no means a guarantee of happiness. Happiness is in the soul of a person, in his self-consciousness and attitude. “Our happiness, my friend,” the heroine cites the words of Platon Karataev, “is like water in a nonsense: you pull it - it puffed up, but you pull it out - there’s nothing.”

Beloved on Clean Monday - Absolutely different people. He, despite his attractiveness and education, is an ordinary person, not distinguished by a special strength of character. She is indeed a whole, rare "chosen" nature. And she cares about serious moral questions, problem of choice later life.

She refuses worldly life, from entertainment, secular society and, most importantly, from his love, and goes to the monastery for "Clean Monday", the first day of Great Lent. Undoubtedly, this is not a groundless impulse, she went to him for a very long time - she visited monasteries, churches, cemeteries. Only in contact with the eternal, the spiritual, did she feel in her place. It may seem strange that she combined these activities with going to theaters, restaurants, reading fashion books, communicating with the bohemian society. This can be explained by her youth, which is characterized by the search for herself, her place in life. Her consciousness is broken, the harmony of the soul is broken. She is intensely looking for something of her own, whole, heroic, selfless and finds her ideal in serving God. The present seems to her pathetic, untenable, and even love for young man cannot keep her in worldly life.

The story "Clean Monday" tells about self-improvement and the ascent of a person to new stages, to which nothing can be an obstacle, even such a feeling as love. Bunin's masterful laconic style allows you to fit on several pages as much deep meaning as is the basis of a whole novel, and main character"Clean Monday" in importance can be compared with many female images major prose XIX century, for example, with Sonechka Marmeladova.