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The image of Olga Meshcherskaya. "Easy breath

The image of Olga Meshcherskaya. "Easy breath

03.04.2019

the image of Olya Meshcherskaya in the story by I. Bunin Easy breath

Light breathing and Olya Meshcherskaya

Easy breath I read it in the summer of 2004. At that time, the work of Ivan Bunin was extremely interesting to me, since I considered his works to be the standard of fine literature and subtle psychologism. Easy breath is one of his best works. said that the surest criterion for the quality of a poem is the desire to be its author. Having finished Easy breath, I really felt sorry that the story was not written by me.

The main characters of the story are light breathing, a symbol of spiritual purity, and a schoolgirl - a beautiful schoolgirl, endowed with it. From the point of view of form, the story is interesting in that the meaning of its title is revealed to the reader only at the very end, after the death of Meshcherskaya.

Olya Meshcherskaya is a beautiful high school student, cheerful and ... light. Her behavior is so at ease that it deserves any synonyms for the word “easy”. At the beginning of the story, light breathing can be explained as a sense of self that does not depend on the opinion of the outside world. Olya Meshcherskaya does not care what they think of her - only what she wants matters to her. Therefore, she does not pay attention to ink stains on her fingers, or to a mess in her clothes, or to other little things that absorb strangers. The head of the gymnasium, whose authoritative remarks Meshcherskaya has to listen to with enviable constancy, is one of them. However, due to her own inertness, intuitively despised by Meshcherskaya, she cannot embarrass the obstinate pupil and force her to change her faith in herself.

It is the internal independence that gives rise to the lightness of Meshcherskaya. The reasons for Olya's popularity as a friend and as a girl are in her naturalness. But Olya is still young and does not understand the exclusivity of her nature, naively expecting from others the same intentions that she herself pursues.

Easy breathing: Olya Meshcherskaya, fracture

Meeting of Olya Meshcherskaya with Malyutin - crucial moment her life when a painful epiphany comes. In her diary, describing what happened, Meshcherskaya repeats the word “I” seventeen times. “ I don't understand how this could happen, I went crazy, I never thought I was like this!”(Ivan Bunin. Easy Breathing.) Intimacy with a man turned Olya into a woman in literally giving her a new sense of herself.

The evening with Malyutin did not change only one thing in Meshchersky - that which will lead to her death, this gullible conviction that all life is a game. It used to be like this before lower grades who loved her so much, with her high school friends who loved her even more—so it will be now. But now the game of love will turn into a theater having lost all its legibility. Turn the head of an ignoble man and deceive him, at the very last moment, already on the station platform - what's in it bad? Who doesn't fall in love and take vows at seventeen? But the officer kills Olya, cutting off the light breath of her life with one shot. His act is a rebellion, and in some ways tantamount to suicide. It's not that he plebeian kind And ugly. Meshcherskaya played with his whole life, giving him hope for happiness, which he hardly even dared to dream of, and cruelly depriving him of this hope - and with it any endurable future.

The ending leaves a deep impression. Meshcherskaya, who embodied light breathing, dies; the breath itself is dispelled, and it is not clear when it will be incarnated again. Olya's death is unfair: she paid for the intuition, in which there was no evil intent: only spoiled. Alas, Meshcherskaya does not have time to understand what light breathing is, which becomes obvious in the climactic dialogue with Subbotina. Her death is a huge loss, and therefore the heavy and smooth oak cross on her grave looks especially symbolic. And how many people are left in the world who are completely subordinate to the outside world and completely devoid of inner lightness and sincerity? Is the same cool lady. If Olya Meshcherskaya had become her invention during her lifetime, this middle-aged person would certainly have been able to change her life, and perhaps even become happy, cultivating in her soul a drop of light breath given to her by Olya.

On such people as Meshcherskaya, the world is kept, although it sounds pretentious. Light breathing gives strength not only to them, but supports the whole life around, forcing other people to equal the new standard. However, light breathing is defenseless, and if its inspiration destroys itself, nothing will remain of it but grave cross and a tragic gust of cold wind.

Danil Rudoy - 2005

Bunin's pre-revolutionary stories "The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Grammar of Love", "Easy Breath" are united by one theme, one mood - a sense of impending catastrophic social upheavals. Beginning with " Antonovsky apples"(1900), until the last pre-revolutionary year and the story "Light Breath" (1916), the writer does not leave the thought of fatality, the doom of beauty, and this is felt in his prose.

In the story “Easy Breathing”, incompatible concepts collide from the first lines: on the one hand, youth and beauty, on the other, death and decay. “In the cemetery, over a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth ... A medallion is embedded in the very cross, and in the medallion there is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes ...”

This is a portrait of Olya Meshcherskaya.

At the age of fifteen, she was already known as a beauty. “Without any worries and efforts, somehow imperceptibly, grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear gleam in her eyes came to her. In her last winter, Olya, as they said about her in the gymnasium, completely "went crazy with fun." She seemed the most carefree, the happiest."

But now, in the office of the head of the gymnasium, Olya has to make excuses for her beauty and reckless fun: “It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair!” "Ah, that's how it is, you're not to blame! the headmistress said. “You are not to blame for the hair, these expensive combs!”

This is how beauty is blamed. A month later, the verdict followed: "... a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance ... shot her (Olya) on the platform of the station, among a large crowd of people ..." A page from Olya's diary, which the Cossack officer presented to the judicial investigator as his justification, makes this death even more ridiculous, inexplicable. One cannot seriously consider the fact that a beautiful young schoolgirl deceived a Cossack officer, who was three times her age, carried away by her beauty, as a basis for murder.

It remains to admit that the reason lies in her beauty, in her easy breathing, which is "now scattered in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind." material from the site

In Bunin's stories, everything that makes the world alive is doomed to death: youth, love, strength and beauty. The revolution of 1917 was for Bunin the victory of chaos, formlessness and ugliness. He perceived it as an irreparable loss of beauty, structure, harmony, harmony. IN " cursed days”, Written by Bunin in the first post-revolutionary years, the same anxiety about the fate of beauty and youth in Russia sounds: “Again, it brings wet snow. The schoolgirls are walking, plastered with it - beauty and joy ... blue eyes from under the fur muff raised to their face ... What awaits this youth?

"Easy breathing", as the researchers rightly believe, is one of the most enchanting and mysterious stories Bunin. His brilliant analysis was offered famous psychologist dealing with problems artistic creativity, L. S. Vygotsky. The researcher began the analysis of the story with the title, which, in his opinion, is a kind of dominant of the narrative and "determines the entire construction of the story." As the researcher notes, “this is not a story about Olya Meshcherskaya, but about easy breathing; its main feature is that feeling of liberation, lightness, detachment and perfect transparency of life, which cannot be deduced from the very events that underlie it.

These thoughts were expressed by L. Vygotsky in 1965 in the book "Psychology of Art". Even now, after almost half a century, they cause serious controversy. Firstly, the researchers largely disagree with such an unambiguous interpretation of the title of the story, rightly believing that in the text “light breathing” serves as a designation for one of the terms female beauty(“I ... read what beauty a woman should have.”) Of course, even the adoption of such a code of beauty speaks of the spiritual inferiority of the heroine. However, in the story there is no moral judgment on Olya Meshcherskaya: the passionate love of life of the main character is very to the liking of the narrator. He also likes the harmony that reigns in the soul of the heroine when she feels her unity with the world, with nature, with her own soul.

"To be extremely alive means to be extremely doomed," the modern literary critic S. Vaiman once remarked. "Such is the terrifying truth of Bunin's worldview." As can be seen, the above comments only develop certain points put forward by L. S. Vygotsky. Actually, the differences between him and modern researchers begin when it comes to the causes failed life Olya Meshcherskaya. Vygotsky’s opponents tend to see them in the lack of spirituality of existence, in the absence of moral and ethical standards, and cite as evidence a conversation in the boss’s office, a story with a Cossack officer, and the most eye-catching story is the story of a classy lady who at first wanted to devote herself to her brother, “an unremarkable ensign” , then she imagined herself to be an "ideological worker" and, finally, found herself in a frenzied service to the memory of her pupil.

Features of the composition of the story "Easy breathing"

One of the researchers rightly noted that the originality of the composition " Easy breathing is that it excludes any interest in the plot as such. Indeed, the narrative begins with the finale of Olya Meshcherskaya's life, with a description of her grave, and ends essentially the same. The author-narrator transfers the action of the story from the past to the present, mixing two narrative planes, introducing into the fabric artistic text excerpts from the diary of Olya Meshcherskaya, building separate fragments text in contrast: present - past, cheerful - sad, living - dead. The story begins as an epitaph, “an epitaph to girlish beauty,” according to the apt expression of K. G. Paustovsky. Before the eyes of readers, like frames from a chronicle, bleak pictures of a wretched provincial life, a few heroes appear and disappear, and gradually a different world arises on the pages of the work, a world hostile to beauty, and “a story about a completely different story arises: about the doom of beauty and youth to death” (Yu. Maltsev).

Analysis of the story "Easy breathing"

The theme of love occupies one of the leading places in the writer's work. In mature prose, there are noticeable trends in understanding the eternal categories of being - death, love, happiness, nature. Often he describes "moments of love", which have a fatal character, a tragic coloring. great attention he devotes to female characters, mysterious and incomprehensible.

The beginning of the novel "Easy Breath" creates a feeling of sadness and sadness. The author prepares the reader in advance for the fact that the tragedy of human life will unfold on the following pages.

The main character of the novel, Olga Meshcherskaya, a schoolgirl, stands out among her classmates with a cheerful disposition and obvious love to life, she is not at all afraid of other people's opinions, and openly challenges society.

In the last winter, many changes took place in the girl's life. At this time, Olga Meshcherskaya was in the full bloom of her beauty. There were rumors about her that she could not live without admirers, but at the same time she treated them very cruelly. In her last winter, Olya completely devoted herself to the joys of life, she went to balls and went to the skating rink every evening.

Olya always tried to look good, she wore expensive shoes, expensive combs, perhaps she would have dressed in the latest fashion if all the gymnasium girls did not wear uniforms. The headmistress of the gymnasium made a remark to Olga about appearance that such jewelry and shoes should be worn by an adult woman, and not by a simple student. To which Meshcherskaya openly declared that she has the right to dress like a woman, because she is her, and none other than the director's brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin is to blame for this. Olga's answer can be fully regarded as a challenge to the society of that time. A young girl without a shadow of modesty puts on things that are not for her age, behaves like a mature woman and at the same time openly argues her behavior with rather intimate things.

Olga's transformation into a woman took place in the summer at the dacha. When the parents were not at home, Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, a friend of their family, came to visit them at the dacha. Despite the fact that he did not find Olya's father, Malyutin nevertheless stayed at a party, explaining that he wanted it to dry out properly after the rain. In relation to Olya, Alexei Mikhailovich behaved like a gentleman, although the difference in their age was huge, he was 56, she was 15. Malyutin confessed his love to Olya, said all kinds of compliments. During tea drinking, Olga felt bad and lay down on the couch, Alexei Mikhailovich began to kiss her hands, talk about how he was in love, and then kissed her on the lips. Well, what happened next happened. We can say that on the part of Olga it was nothing more than an interest in mystery, the desire to become an adult.

After that there was tragedy. Malyutin shot Olga at the train station and explained this by saying that he was in a state of passion, because she showed him her diary, which described everything that happened, and then Olgino's attitude to the situation. She wrote that she was disgusted with her boyfriend.

Malyutin acted so cruelly because his pride was hurt. He was no longer a young officer, and even a bachelor, it was naturally pleasant for him to amuse himself with the fact that a young girl expressed her sympathy for him. But when he found out that she felt nothing for him but disgust, it was like a bolt from the blue. He himself used to push women away, and then they pushed him away. The society was on the side of Malyutin, he justified himself by the fact that Olga herself allegedly seduced him, promised to become his wife, and then left him. Since Olya had a reputation as a heartbreaker, no one doubted his words.

The story ends with the cool lady Olga Meshcherskaya, a dreamy lady living in her fictional ideal world, coming to Olya's grave every holiday and silently watching her for several hours. For the lady Olya is the ideal of femininity and beauty.

Here, “easy breathing” is an easy attitude to life, sensuality and impulsiveness that were inherent in Olya Meshcherskaya.

After studying the analysis of the story "Light Breath" you will undoubtedly be interested in other works related to Ivan Alekseevich Bunin:

"Sunstroke", analysis of Bunin's story
"Cuckoo", a summary of Bunin's work

The theme of love occupies one of the leading places in the writer's work. In mature prose, there are noticeable trends in understanding the eternal categories of being - death, love, happiness, nature. Often he describes "moments of love", which have a fatal character, a tragic coloring. He pays great attention to female characters, mysterious and incomprehensible.

The main character of the novel, Olga Meshcherskaya, a schoolgirl, stands out among her classmates with a cheerful disposition and a clear love of life, she is not at all afraid of other people's opinions, and openly challenges society.

Olya always tried to look good, she wore expensive shoes, expensive combs, perhaps she would have dressed in the latest fashion if all the gymnasium girls did not wear uniforms. The headmistress of the gymnasium made a remark to Olga about her appearance, that such jewelry and shoes should be worn by an adult woman, and not by a simple student. To which Meshcherskaya openly declared that she has the right to dress like a woman, because she is her, and none other than the director's brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin is to blame for this. Olga's answer can be fully regarded as a challenge to the society of that time. A young girl without a shadow of modesty puts on things that are not for her age, behaves like a mature woman and at the same time openly argues her behavior with rather intimate things.

Here, “easy breathing” is an easy attitude to life, sensuality and impulsiveness that were inherent in Olya Meshcherskaya.

Type: Ideological and artistic analysis of the work

Thirty-three years away from the Motherland - that's how much Ivan Alekseevich Bunin spent abroad. The last thirty-three years of his generally long life. They were not easy for the writer - nostalgia daily tormented Bunin. That is why the action of most of the writer's works created abroad takes place at home, in Russia. A special place among them is occupied by stories devoted to love themes.

Pearl creative heritage I.A. Bunin is considered to be the story "Easy breathing". Here the feeling of beauty is so reverently conveyed, the image of the main character endowed with tragic fate…

In addition, the construction itself, the composition of the work, is unusual. This story is completely broken chronological framework, the text is replete with contrasts, without which it would probably be impossible to understand the author's intention.

So, already from the first lines of the narrative, there is an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, the reader is presented with a picture depicting a cemetery, “spacious ... monuments are still far visible through the bare trees, and the cold wind is ringing and ringing the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.” On the other - "a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes." Life and death, joy and sadness - this is the symbol of the fate of the main character of the story, Olya Meshcherskaya.

The author then describes the girl's childhood. More precisely, he moves from the story of cloudless childhood and adolescence of the heroine to tragic events of the last year she lived: “Without any of her worries and efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that so distinguished her in the last two years from the whole gymnasium came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear sparkle in her eyes.” Olya really stood out from the crowd of schoolgirls and not only external beauty but also in its immediacy. The heroine was not afraid to be funny, she was not afraid that her hair was disheveled, her knees were exposed when she fell, her fingers were dirty. Perhaps that is why the children from lower grades- Olya was sincere and natural in her actions. Perhaps that is why the heroine had the most fans.

Olya Meshcherskaya was considered windy: "The last winter, Meshcherskaya completely went crazy with fun." The author clearly shows the difference between apparent, external and true, internal state heroines: the half-childish state of a schoolgirl running during recess and her shocking confession that she is already a woman.

Further in the story are given brief information about the fact that a month after the conversation in the class lady's room, "a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had ... nothing to do with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her." At the trial, this officer stated that Olya seduced him (she, a young schoolgirl, his fifty-year-old man!), She promised to be his wife, but at the station she admitted that she had never loved him and had not thought about marrying him. Then the heroine gave the Cossack a page from her diary to read, where she describes her condition and the events of that memorable day when she was close to this officer: “I don’t understand how this could happen, I went crazy, I never thought that I was like that! Now there is only one way out for me ... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t survive this! Despite these words, it seems to me that Olya did not fully realize the seriousness of what was happening, her soul is pure and innocent, she is still a child with a claim to "adulthood".

Bunin endows the story "Easy breathing" complex composition: from the fact of the death of the heroine to the description of her childhood, then to the recent past and its origins. In the finale, the writer seems to return to the first lines of his story, to the “April days”. He describes "a little woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves, with an ebony umbrella." This is the cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya, who goes every Sunday to her grave and "peers at her face for hours."

It seems to me that the image of a classy lady in this story is not at all accidental. He, as it were, sets off Olya, contrasts with her. The teacher, unlike the main character of the story, lives by fiction, replacing her real life. In fact, the classy lady is the last link that closes the chain of people who are extremely indifferent to Olya. A picture of the spiritual poverty of the environment Meshchersky Bunin draws masterfully, very convincingly. The idea that pure impulses are doomed in a monotonous, soulless world brings a tragic tone to the story.

Why does a cool lady go to Olya's grave? Olya's death captivated her with a new "dream". The teacher recalls "Oli's pale face in the coffin" and the fact that she once overheard the heroine's conversation with her friend. Olya Meshcherskaya told her friend that she had read in her father’s book about “what beauty a woman should have”: “There, you see, so much has been said that you won’t remember everything ... but most importantly, you know what? Easy breath! But I have it…”

Really, main character she had a light, natural breath - a thirst for some special, unique fate. It is no coincidence, in my opinion, that Olya's cherished dream is said at the end of the story. Meshcherskaya's inner burning is genuine and could evoke a great feeling. But this was prevented by Olya's thoughtless fluttering through life, her vulgar environment. The author shows us undeveloped excellent opportunities girls, her huge potential. All this, according to Bunin, cannot disappear, just as the craving for beauty, happiness, perfection, and easy breathing will never disappear ...