Psychologism and features " external pictoriality» prose by I.A. Bunin
(based on the analysis of I. Bunin's story " Antonov apples")
Goals:
1). To develop in students the skills of literary critical analysis of the work;
2). Consider the image of nature, the image of the world of people, the mood of the hero-narrator, the images-symbols of the story "Antonov apples".
3) Reveal the functions of the landscape, which helps to most deeply understand internal state hero, expresses nostalgia for the bygone past;
4) to develop in students the ability to draw conclusions and generalizations.
Epigraph:
No, it's not the landscape that attracts me,
Not the colors I seek to notice,
And what shines in these colors -
Love and joy of being.
(I. Bunin)
During the classes
The epigraph to our lesson was the lines from the poem by I. Bunin. How do you understand their meaning? What are we going to talk about today? What is the topic of our lesson?
The topic of today's lesson is “Psychologism and features of the “external figurativeness” of I.A. Bunin’s prose
(based on the analysis of the story "Antonov apples"). It was in this story that the philosophical reflections of I.A. Bunin about the past and the future, longing for the outgoing Russia and understanding of the catastrophic nature of the coming changes. The story "Antonov apples" was written in 1900, at the turn of the century. This date is symbolic. Why? It sort of divides the world into past and present, makes you feel the movement of time, turn to the future. The story embodies the soul of a man, the soul of a long-suffering people. It reflects the history of the Russian state.
A.T. Tvardovsky said that Bunin "smells the world always and everywhere; he hears and conveys smells - both marvelous, and disgusting, and refined, and indescribably complex. He knows how to show a thing through its smell, with such brightness and strength that her image, as it were, pierces the soul. Bunin breathes in the world; he sniffs it and gives its smells to readers. "
- Do you agree with Tvardovsky's statement? Why? Give examples from the text.
This story is filled with nostalgia. What is this story about? What is its plot? - About Antonovsky apples, about memories. The story aroused bewilderment of Bunin's critics-contemporaries - "everything that comes to hand is described." Indeed, the usual certain storyline the story does not. According to the genre - this is a story-impression, a story-remembrance. In this sense, this story can be considered impressionistic, i.e. a piece of art that captures the moment. (Impressionism is a direction in art, it is characterized by the transmission of subtle moods, psychological nuances, the desire to capture the world in its mobility and variability).
What is the composition of the story?
The story unfolds like a series of memories. The story is told in 1 person. Verbs are most often used in the present tense, which brings the reader closer to what is happening in the memories ("The air is so clean, as if it is not there at all:" Sometimes verbs are in the 2nd person singular, so the reader is involved in the action ("you used to open the window, into the cool garden… ").
- This story is a memory, and what exactly does the hero remember - the narrator? Let's turn to the composition of the work. The author divided the story into four chapters, and each chapter is a separate picture of the past, and together they form the whole world which the writer admired so much. Now we will look at each chapter and see how the image of the garden, the hero-narrator and his mood change. We work in groups:
Group 1 - the image of nature (colors, sounds, smells)
Group 2 - the image of the garden (colors, sounds)
Group 3 - the image of people, their way of life, occupations
Group 4 - the image of the hero-narrator
| part of the story | The image of nature (colors, sounds, smells) | Image of the world of people | Hero Age | Image-symbol |
| 1 | Early fine autumn: "fresh morning", "juicy crackle" of apples. Cool silence, clean air, cheerful echo, the smell of apples (August) | "How lubok picture", fair, new sundresses. Festive colors: "black-lilac, brick color, with a wide gold" poneva lace " | teenager | Something disturbing, mystical, terrible: the fire of Hell as a symbol of death |
| 2 | The water is transparent. Purple haze, turquoise sky (September start) | hunting | Young man | The image of a mortal old woman with a gravestone |
| 3 | Gloomy low clouds, liquid blue sky (end of September) black garden, submissive, humble, one apple | Reading books, admiring the past, magazines | Man in adulthood | Dead silence. Ravine - as an image of loneliness |
| 4 | Empty plains, naked garden, First snow. The smell of apples disappears | The small-scale life of the nobility | Adult |
At the beginning of the first chapter, an amazing garden is described, "large, all golden, dried up and thinned." And it seems that the life of the village, the hopes and thoughts of people - all this seems to be in the background, and in the center is a beautiful and mysterious image of the garden, and this garden is a symbol of the Motherland, and it includes in its space and Vyselki, which "... since the time of grandfathers they were famous for their wealth", and old men and old women who "lived ... for a very long time", and a large stone near the porch, which the hostess "bought herself for her grave", and "barns and rigs, covered with a haircut". And all this lives together with nature as a single life, all this is inseparable from it, which is why the image of a train rushing past Vyselok seems so wonderful and distant. He is a symbol of a new time, a new life, which "more and more loudly and angry" penetrates the established Russian life, and the earth trembles like a living being, and a person experiences some kind of aching feeling of anxiety, and then looks into the "dark blue depth" for a long time. "the sky," overflowing with constellations, "and thinks:" How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world! And these words contain the whole mystery of being: joy and sorrow, darkness and light, good and evil, love and hate, life and death, they contain the past, present and future, they contain the whole soul of man.
The second part, like the first, begins with folk wisdom: "A vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year", with good omens, from a description of the harvest year - autumn, which was sometimes patronal holidays, when the people are "tidy, satisfied", when "the view of the village is not at all the same as at another time." Memories of this fabulously rich village with brick yards, which were built by grandfathers, are warmed by heartfelt poetry. Everything around seems close and dear, and over the estate, over the village, there is an amazing smell of Antonov apples. This sweet smell of memories binds the whole story together with a thin thread. This is a kind of leitmotif of the work, and the remark at the end of the fourth chapter that "the smell of Antonov's apples disappears from the landlord's estate" says that everything is changing, everything is becoming a thing of the past, that a new time is beginning, "the kingdom of small estates is coming, impoverished to beggary" . And then the author writes that "this beggarly small-town life is also good!" And again he begins to describe the village, his native Vyselki. He talks about how the day of the landowner goes, notices such details that make the picture of being so visible that it seems as if the past is turning into the present, only at the same time the familiar, ordinary is already perceived as lost happiness. This feeling also arises because the author uses a large number of color epithets. So, describing the early morning in the second chapter, the hero recalls: "... you used to open a window into a cool garden filled with purple fog ..." He sees how "boughs show through in the turquoise sky, how the water under the willows becomes transparent" ; he also notes "fresh, lush green winters." No less rich and varied is the sound range: one hears, "how carefully creaks ... a long convoy along high road", there is a "thump of apples poured into measures and tubs", people's voices sound. At the end of the story, the "pleasant noise of threshing" is heard more and more insistently, and the "monotonous cry and whistle of the driver" merge with the rumble of the drum. And then the guitar is tuned, and who Someday he starts a song that everyone picks up "with a sad, hopeless prowess."
- What 3 themes intertwine in this story?( Social theme, nature theme, psychological theme.)
Now let's look at each topic and try to find in the text evidence for these topics in each chapter.
1 theme: Social.
In chapter 1, the description of the house "A bed is made in the hut (paragraph 2)" The social structure of peasants, nobles and landlords is described. Read to me how Bunin describes the peasants: "Beautiful and coarse savage costumes:".
In chapter 2 we find ourselves in the village, Anna Gerasimovna's house is described - solid, large, durable, wooden house, around a garden with birds. Quote.
In chapter 3 - another estate, but there is no homeliness ("And now I see myself in the estate of Arseniy Semenych:")
In chapter 4 - a small local beggarly life, ("Here I see myself again in another village", "The small local gets up early:")
Conclusion: Thus, we see the gradual impoverishment, the ruin of the noble estate. Nothing remains of the former abundance in chapter 1.
2nd theme: The theme of nature.
In chapter 1 - warm August, early fine autumn. Description of the garden - a feeling of permeability of the garden "the air is so clean" is created, the smell of apples is EVERYWHERE;
In chapter 2 - cold autumn, the motive of cold, the stove is intensified, but the harmony of life and nature is still felt. Read out.
In chapter 3 - September, dark, evening, night rain, deserted, boring, anxious.
In chapter 4 - November, snow outside the windows, twilight, evening, color - blue.
Conclusion: At first, nature from the first chapters is bright, lively, summery, in the last chapters - nature grows dim, rain. Autumn is dying.
The leitmotif of "Antonov's apples" runs through all 4 chapters, but these apples are different in all chapters: let's try to trace:
Chapter 1 - The smell of green apples
Chapter 2 - a lot of apples, comfort from the smell of apples
Chapter 3 - one apple, but tasty
Chapter 4 - the smell of apples disappears
Thus, apples are a symbol of childhood, which disappear when they grow up, as well as a symbol of Russia, a symbol of life in general.
The end of the story is symbolic. It echoes the beginning. There - the cool silence of the morning, here - late evening, when "glow in the dark winter night outbuilding windows. This is the dawn and dusk of noble life, And more and more often dots appear towards the end of the story. If they give the beginning of the work the character of memories, now they carry innuendo and sadness for the bygone noble life, for the disappeared youth.
Thus, the work reflects the main theme of I.A. Bunin’s work of the 900s - the theme of the patriarchal past of Russia. The writer regrets the passing life, idealizing the noble way of life. His best memories are associated with the smell of Antonov apples. But Bunin hopes that, along with the dying Russia of the past, the roots of the nation will still be preserved in her memory.
Conclusion
So, the main symbol in the story from the very beginning to the end remains the image of Antonov apples. The meaning given by the author to these words is ambiguous. Antonov apples are wealth ("Village affairs are good if Antonovka is born"). Antonov apples are happiness ("Vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year"). And finally, Antonov apples are all of Russia with its "golden, dried up and thinned gardens", "maple alleys", with "the smell of tar in the fresh air" and with a firm consciousness of "how good it is to live in the world." And in this regard, we can conclude that the story "Antonov apples" reflected the main ideas of Bunin's work, his worldview as a whole, reflected the history of the human soul, the space of memory in which the movement of existential time is felt, the past of Russia, its present and future.
Homework
1) Answer in writing the question: "What do Antonov apples smell like?".
(1900) is a story that tells not only about the joys of the old landowner's life in Russia, but also about the inseparable connection between man and nature. And where else can you feel this connection so strongly, if not in the village? Therefore, the protagonist of the work thinks about his native village Vyselki, uttering his lyrical monologue-remembrance.
Bunin's story is filled with folk proverbs and signs. Many of them are associated with the harvest - a generous gift of nature to man. Here, for example, is one of these sayings: “A lot of netting (cobwebs) for Indian summer - vigorous autumn.” "Vigorous" means prolific. And indeed, the hero recalls such a generous and kind autumn, the main gift of which was, of course, Antonovka.
The smell of Antonov apples in September was felt throughout the village. It was felt in the big garden, near the pond, and even in the old landowners' estates. And this meant that village affairs in this case would go well, because if antonovka was born, then bread would certainly also be born.
Smells for Bunin are special way perception surrounding reality. According to A. T. Tvardovsky, the writer "smells the world always and everywhere." And nothing can compare with the natural aroma in terms of its power of impact on a person. That is why in the story "Antonov apples" there are many different smells that convey the mood of the author. This is not only the aroma of ripe antonovka, but also the smell of “new straw and chaff”, the aroma of autumn freshness, cherry branches crackling on the fire, and, finally, the smell of “a bare garden frozen overnight.”
The image of the garden for the writer is of particular importance. For Bunin, this is not just a piece of land where trees, flowers and shrubs grow. The garden in the work "Antonov's Apples" is the same full-fledged character as the narrator himself. As well as main character, like all life in Vyselki, it changes with time and is completely transformed with the advent of winter.
At the beginning of the story, the garden appears before us in all its autumn glory: “all golden, dried up and thinned out”, with a delicate aroma of fallen leaves, the smell of honey and antonovka. Then comes the rainy season. The wind tears and agitates the trees all day long, and from such a “bashing” the garden comes out already “completely naked, covered with wet leaves and somehow hushed, resigned. And now he will continue to “pass through in the cold turquoise sky”, dutifully waiting for the arrival of winter.
In addition to the image of the garden, in Bunin's story we also find a description of other picturesque places in the village. This is a pond with thin coastal vines and heavy ice water, endless fields, blackening their arable land, and quiet mysterious forest, smelling of mushroom dampness, wet tree bark and rotten foliage.
All these descriptions are subject to a single idea - the transition from prosperity to desolation or even death. This creates a certain mood in the reader. Against the background of pictures of fading nature, all those changes that occur with native village Main character.
The once prosperous Vyselki, with their strong noble estates and rich peasant houses, have now gone bankrupt, and the "kingdom of small estates, impoverished to poverty" has come. And it is no coincidence that the story ends with the words of a sad folk song: “White snow covered the path, the road…”
/ / / Analysis of Bunin's story "Antonov apples"
The story "Antonov apples" was written in 1900. This work belongs to early period works of the great Russian poet and writer Ivan Bunin. Bunin was a passionate connoisseur and admirer of the nature of his native land, he sang it more than once in his works. So, in the story "Antonov apples" the writer shows us all the beauty of a wonderful time - Indian summer.
"Antonov apples" is written in the form of a memoir. They do not have a clearly defined plot and end in the same way as they begin - a description of scenes of nature. But in this detailed description of the scenes of nature, one can catch the awe and the love that the author feels for that wonderful time.
In addition to colorful pictures of nature, Bunin pays special attention to folk wisdom. His story - "Antonov apples" is simply riddled with folk signs. Here, for example: if it rains on Lawrence, then the autumn will be protracted, and the winter will be mild.
Bunin can be safely called a patriot of his homeland. He cherishes all the values and color of our vast country. All the images of garden fair participants he created are striking in their accuracy and individuality. You just pay attention to the young old woman, which the author compares with a Kholmogory cow, or a burry peasant who plays the harmonica.
We can feel the whole relief of the story (smells, sounds, aromas, rustles) thanks to the wide use of artistic definitions.
One important detail that runs through the entire piece is the apple scent. Bunin shows us an apple orchard at different times of the day and night. And it seems that the night garden, decorated with shining stars, looks no worse than the daytime one.
The main theme of the work is the theme of the collapse of the noble way of life, which found its expression in the image of the estate. For the then nobility, the estate is not just a place of residence - it is all life. Bunin, with pain in his heart, writes that the apple orchard is fading, the sweet smell of apples is disappearing, that the old foundations are collapsing, everything is a thing of the past. All this brings back nostalgic memories of the time when the nobility was at the zenith of its existence.
The story "Antonov apples" is also inherent character traits Bunin's works - hobbies for simple village life. So, the author admired and greatly appreciated the rural way of life with work in an open field, a clean white shirt, a slice of fresh bread and a glass of fresh milk.
Also in the story "Antonov apples" another acute topic is raised - the topic of class inequality. Bunin claims that middle class nobility to some extent can be called peasant. The writer admits that he did not know the foundations of serfdom, but he often recalled how the current courtyards bowed to their masters.
"Antonov apples" teach us to love the nature of our native land, to love our homeland, as much as I.A. Bunin did. They make us remember our history and our roots.
Bunin was convinced that there should be no "division of fiction into poetry and prose", and admitted that such a view seemed to him "unnatural and outdated." “The poetic element,” he continued his thought, “is spontaneously inherent in works of belles-lettres equally in both poetic and prose form. Prose should also differ in tone. Many purely fictional things are read like poetry, although neither meter nor rhyme is observed in them ... No less than poetry, the demands of musicality and flexibility of language must be made to prose.
These requirements were most fully realized in the masterpiece Bunin's prose- the story "Antonov apples", written in 1901. In this work, the lyrical beginning is clearly manifested, subordinating everything else to itself. The story is a single lyrical monologue that conveys the spiritual state of the hero. The rhythm of poetic breathing, musicality, indefinite fluctuation of intonation, impressionistic imagery become significant. The lyric, as it were, leads the prose. The writer actively uses similes, metaphors, epithets that originally appeared in his poems and are experiencing their second birth here. The narrative flows, obeying only the whimsical mood of the artist, occasionally interrupted by reflections “about”, which are woven into the fabric of the narrative, almost without revealing a seam. Thanks to the saturation of the narrative with poetic imagery, a special laconicism is developed, coupled with magical smoothness and bewitching length. Repetitions of words, pauses create an expressive musical harmony. Here is just one excerpt from “Antonov apples”: “I remember an early fine autumn .... 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 extreme concentration of details, the boldness of comparisons give the impression of elegance, rich decoration of the narrative, while remaining strict, sharp, and clear. Is it not here that the origins of the originality of the writer's later prose, which was called "brocade"?
"Antonov apples" was an extraordinary rise in the skill of Bunin, who had been fruitfully working in literature for almost 10 years. An ideological “reorientation” of the artist also took place in them. Early Bunin worked mainly in line with the populist mindset, i.e. his works were permeated with pity for the perishing peasants scattered in remote corners of Russia, for the impoverished village. He touched social problems, denoting the abyss between those in power and people deprived of the most necessary. Now the main thing in his things is the mood. The mood of farewell, bitterness for the way of life, customs, habits, lost forever, dissolving in the haze of time, a mood determined by the fact that a person is always inclined to poeticize what he loses. From the social content, which in many respects designed his early works, the writer moves on to depicting the mood, which becomes the main “event”, the “plot” of the work. One of the critics - Bunin's contemporaries - recorded this feature in the following words: "The plot, the story, everything receded into the background, everything was replaced by" mood ", and a significant part<...>these stories are more like poems in prose.
Bunin enriched the lyrical prose of the early 20th century. the discovery of new, previously unexplored connections between man and the world around him. The interaction of the surrounding nature and the feelings of the hero becomes extremely intense. For Bunin, by his own admission, “the world is a mirror that reflects what looks into it. Everything depends on the mood. I had many bad moments when everything and everything seemed stupid, vulgar, dead, and this was probably true. But there were other times when everything and everything was good, joyful and meaningful.” And he added, when he was reproached for his addiction to the image of nature: “I don’t write about naked and protocol about nature. I write either about beauty, that is, it doesn’t matter what it is, or I give the reader, to the best of my ability, with nature, a part of my soul.<...>And is a part of my soul worse than some Ivan Petrovich, whom I will portray? But the writer “did not refuse” the depiction of people either.
However, now his characters are busy experiencing the most diverse moods caused by external impressions. The reflection of the world now appears in his works in psychological refraction. In addition to the traditional “humanization” of nature, which was previously encountered in art, the reflection of people’s feelings, thoughts, moods in it, Bunin finds an “independent”, separate, aesthetic principle in nature itself, which clarifies a person’s feeling, “imprints” him, gives him spirituality. .
Initially, "Antonov apples" were intended for the book "Epitaph", conceived by Bunin as a farewell word, said by him after the passing world of the Russian nobility.
It was supposed to include more stories “Ore” and “ new road". The time of writing these works is the time of the final ruin of the “noble nests”, disappearance and a special semi-noble, semi-peasant life, when the noble life of average prosperity still had a resemblance to the rich peasant life. And if in the 1890s. the aesthetic ideal of the writer was associated with the image of a simple person, his working life, then in the 1900s. revealing the inner essence of noble life becomes aesthetically valuable.
The four-part composition of "Antonov's Apples" is full of deep meaning. In terms of musical fullness, it is clearly comparable with the sonata, which also usually consists of four parts. The first part - the memory of picking apples - evokes a major-solemn mood. The smell of apples is associated with joy, combined with the fragrant smoke of cherry branches, the aroma of honey, autumn freshness, new straw and chaff. The words “glorious”, “good”, “cheerfully”, accompanying various states, sound like a refrain. The color and sound range are distinguished by saturation, intensity: a golden garden, coral rowan trees, bluish smoke, the diamond constellation Stozhar, the crimson flame of a fire. The pictures that appear before the eyes of the narrator are wonderfully fabulous. The shadows cast by the figures of people resemble giants. The author captures “pictures” designed to confirm contentment, strength, solidity, stability village life. Even the elder's feet "stupidly and firmly" rest on the ground. The odnodvorki girls are dressed in red sundresses, the “savage” costumes of the courtyards are beautiful. The clothes of one of the women are described in detail: there are “horns” on the head - “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<...>, the sleeveless jacket is plush, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black-lilac with brick-colored stripes and overlaid with a wide gold “groove” on the hem. Detailed descriptions slow down the narration, form special “gaps” when the author seems to call to stop and enjoy what is being contemplated. And already in this story, Bunin’s inherent ability to see beauty even in repulsive things appeared: the tradesman who sells all sorts of trifles has a brother as assistants - “burry nimble semi-idiot”, the face of the elder is “wide, sleepy”, and she herself is “important, like a Kholmogory cow ". And all these "unsightly" details form a single whole with a brisk, smart, noisy village world, where a group of touching boys-buyers is highlighted. They are in short trousers, finely sorted with bare feet (the diminutive suffixes that Bunin resorts to in this case are intended to indicate the reverently unprotected, weak, timid, which is also part of the jubilant world).
The author wants to introduce this marvelous whole reader to the comprehension, so he often uses second-person singular verbs: “go”, “run”, “throw up”, “start up” ... Bunin easily passes from the first person, which is intended to convey personal observations narrator, to the second, designed to prove the universality of experienced sensations. And such a “game” with the use of verbs is amazing. The contrast of juxtapositions also attracts attention (the festive scale of the coming morning and the ominously clear color of the night), resulting in the harmony of the overall sound, disturbed - as a warning - by the intermittent nature of the sounds - the creak of carts, the clatter of falling apples. Sound “interruptions” give rise to a feeling of anxiety, which is confirmed by the philistine’s casual words about the old poet: “Household butterfly! Now they are being translated...”
So for the first time in the story there is a motive for breaking the connection of times. Ho and these words are drowning in the magnificence of the surrounding world, which is perceived as eternal along with the cosmos, the universe. Not without reason, at the end of this part, the narrator’s gaze rushes to the black sky with “fiery stripes of shooting stars”, penetrates into its “dark blue depth”. And as a result of everything experienced, the exclamation sounds: “... how good it is to live in the world!”
The mood of the second part is intended to confirm the former contentment and well-being of village life. The people are tidied up and cheerful, the peasant life is rich, the buildings are homely. The peasant existence in general seems tempting to Bunin, he sees him in an idealized attractive way, through external signs: clean slouchy shirts on holidays, indestructible boots with horseshoes, dinner at his father-in-law with hot lamb on wooden plates, with rushes, honeycomb, mash. The life of a barchuk in the time described by the writer is still inseparable from the life of the courtyards: before hunting, he hastily breakfasts in human hot potatoes and black bread with coarse salt.
Ho, the estate of the narrator's aunt, Anna Gerasimovna, looks especially stable and strong - “small, but all old, strong, surrounded by century-old birches and willows.” Echoes of serfdom are still felt in the behavior of the courtyards. The landowner's house - "small and squat", stands "at the head of the yard, at the very garden - the branches of lindens hugged him." It seems that “he will not even live forever,” he looked so thoroughly from under his unusually high and thick roof, blackened and hardened from time to time. The house has two porches with columns, well-fed pigeons sit on the pediment, in the rooms there is the smell of apples, mahogany furniture, dried lime blossom. Yes, and the aunt herself, leading conversations about the past, is also some kind of “strong”, important, friendly, treating a glorious dinner. Bunin paints the dishes served with taste. But the main treat is apples of various varieties - “duli”, “bell lady”, boletus, prolific. As you can see, the names sound attractive, warm, welcoming...
But gradually the melody of sadness becomes more and more distinguishable, intensifies when referring to the life of nature, as indicated by the gaining strength of the color - silver-blue - gamut: mother-of-pearl glass, lilac fog. This is how the theme of extinction, aging, obsolescence arises... Words with the root “old” begin to prevail. Life is running out last line- this is the feeling that the reader should be imbued with. The theme of death arises at the mention of the longevity of the old men and women of Vyselok, and the writer presents it not spiritually, but mundanely physiological. Pankrat is almost a hundred years old, and he feels that he has “healed”. His old woman “looks blindly into the distance from under sadly raised eyebrows, shakes her head and seems to be trying to remember something.” She was already preparing to leave for another world: she bought a large stone and a shroud with angels, crosses, and a prayer printed around the edges for her grave. The aunt's cook is decrepit, some dilapidated old men and old women look out of the blackened human room - "the last Mohicans", according to Bunin. Ho still breathes from the garden “cheerful autumn coolness”, village signs are still remembered - “vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year”, “autumn and winter live well, if the water is calm and raining on Lavrentiya”.
But already the third part symbolizes the last flash of manifestations of life before complete disappearance. The motif of abandonment, singularity, and the irreplaceability of the former is intensifying: after the former abundance “in the garden you will find an accidentally forgotten wet and cold apple”, there are already “no troikas, no riding “Kyrgyz”, no hounds and greyhounds, no domestics”. Gradually, both nature and landlord life are fading away: the “icy wind” drives “gloomy clouds”, the blue color of the sky is “liquid”, ash clouds look like “cosmos”. The past emerges only from the "yellowed" pages of the "grandfather's book". The splendor of the hunting scene is perceived as the agony of the patient, "the farewell holiday of autumn." The brother-in-law of the narrator, Arseniy Semenych, is in charge of them, tall, slender, thin, broad-shouldered, handsome like a gypsy. He is dressed in a crimson shirt, velvet trousers. He has wild antics: he frightens the guests gathered in the house and the black greyhound that has climbed onto the table with a shot from a revolver. But all this creates a special canvas of being, written out with love, looks bright, attractive, unusual. As well as the detailed sensations of a hunter who has merged with a horse in pursuit of an animal. Bunin paints a picture full of sounds (snorting and wheezing of a horse, desperate cries of hunters, stormy barking and “groans” of dogs), colors (carpet of black fallen leaves, sprawling greenery), smells (mushroom dampness, rotted leaves, wet tree bark, horse sweat , hair of a hunted animal), internal tension (an intoxicating thought of capturing an animal, a breath of icy dampness in the air, a binge after the end of the hunt).
Ho, the flock and hunters disappeared from the eyes, and “dead silence” immediately covers, as if he had fallen into the “reserved halls”. And after this, “the horns ring hopelessly and drearily”, calling the runaway dogs, the surroundings begin to dominate gray shades, which replaced the autumn riot of colors, the smell of mold appears. The subjectivity of the perception of what is happening intensifies: the author moves from an epicly calm tone of memories to an emotionally colored experience: “... the apple will seem unusually tasty.” Memories of the past give rise to a dual feeling: sadness is mixed with the memory of joyful moments that once took place. So, a young sound sleep that overtakes after a hunt cannot be disturbed by the fact that you fall asleep on a bed on which an old man probably died, whose name is surrounded by gloomy fortress legends.
In this part, the conjugation of dynamics and statics, life and death is especially important. Hunting scenes are given as a constant movement, described with the help of verbs of movement: rush, flash, jump out, kick. The end of the hunting season is just as richly and vividly reproduced - “everyone goes from room to room<...>, randomly drink and eat, noisily conveying their impressions ... ”. Ho, this boiling of life seems to “freeze”, interrupted by the sight of “a dead, seasoned wolf, which, baring its teeth, rolling its eyes, lies with its fluffy tail thrown to the side in the middle of the hall and stains the floor with its pale and already cold blood.” So Bunin directly confronts life and death.
But staying in the house the next day after the hunt appears as a kingdom of calm and silence, where the main thing is immersion in the “cultural” past, captured in the books of bygone centuries. Through touching the books of ancient eras, lost connections are restored. Life is forever imprinted in a bizarre ligature and "mannered style" of the eighteenth century. The narrator literally "revels" in them. As well as pompous sentimental phrases that overwhelm the stories of the era of romanticism with their bizarre, slightly ridiculous for modern tastes titles - “Secrets of Alexis”, “Victor, or the Child in the Forest”. The author from “favorite old words”, the smell of skin exuding a pleasant sourness, reminiscent of ancient perfumes, feels the same enduring aching excitement, as earlier from the dialect words to which he resorted to describe peasant life - getting dressed, punka, hairstyle, measures - and the smell of apples, a fire, smoke ... And just like village girls, women and boys, aristocratic “heads in old hairstyles” are beautiful for him, which in family portraits “meekly and femininely lower their long eyelashes to sad and tender eyes ". All this is an “old dreamy life”, of which only a memory remains!
And as a result - the fourth part, reproducing the ensuing ruin, impoverishment, the end of former greatness. The elapsed time is measured by short phrases: “The old people in Vyselki died, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseniy Semenych shot himself.” They sound mournful, like a prayer for the dead. The light, as it were, is fading, darkness is covering everything, the village resembles a desert through which the wind is walking. Ho does not want to say goodbye to the past, and the narrator, as if persuading himself, repeats: “Ho, this beggarly small-town life is good!”, “The small-town life is also good.” And as proof, he cites the “smell of smoke”, which still wafts from the dwelling, and the spirit of winter freshness exuded by a heap of straw, and the noise of people, where “girls are chopping cabbage” and singing “friendly, sadly cheerful village songs”. But all the same, the pale light of an autumn morning, bluish cloudy distances, blackened leaves and a wretched, some kind of twisted rite of daily affairs, which now determine the lifestyle of a small estate nobleman, speak of the illusory nature of a new life, desolation. Instead of a room decorated with portraits, there are the bare walls of an office, instead of a crimson shirt - an unbelted blouse, instead of a handsome owner - a stocky figure in trousers with a sleepy face of a Tatar warehouse, shrouded in the smell of cheap tobacco and shag. From the passage it smells like a dog, in the garden it smells of foliage frozen during the night. And the garden itself is “naked”, rare, with a half-cut birch alley. And the well-fed pigeons and falcons sitting on telegraph wires, like “black badges on music paper” (a comparison successfully found by the writer!), Replaced the shaggy jackdaws.
The end of the former noble reign is marked by a “sad hopeless prowess”, which is the main “mood” of the inhabitants of neglected estates: they again gather together in the evenings, sing with a guitar, drink, hunt. Ho all this is nothing more than a tribute past life done out of habit, because there are no greyhounds and the hunt is no longer the same, and they drink with the last money, and the farm is lost in Russian fields, and the jokes are sad, and you have to “pretend” to be satisfied, not noticing what is really happening. That is why the writer ends the story about the former splendor of the past life of the Russian folk song about a road covered with white snow.
So, according to Bunin, the fate of the Russian nobility turned out to be lost and ruined.
Ho, before telling about the last joys of the petty nobility, Bunin makes the last “stop” in his narrative, describing the threshing. It would seem that friendly work is in full swing again, people are united by a single impulse: “the girls hastily spread the current, run around with stretchers, brooms”, grain “with a buzz and whistle flies into the drum and rises up from under it like a disheveled fan”, gradually “all sounds merge into a pleasant noise of threshing”, “red and yellow scarves, hands, rakes, straw” begin to flicker faster and faster. But there is no former joy in this joint action: it is accompanied by the “monotonous cry and whistle of the driver”, at regular intervals a lazy gelding whipping with a whip, the drum in the rig hums too persistently, the flying trunk covers everything around with a cloud of dust, and the master stands, “all grayed From him". And the fact that Bunin describes in detail how “lazy pulling on the lines, resting their feet on the dung circle and swaying, the horses in the drive go”, among which stands out the brown gelding, which “completely sleeps on the go, since his eyes are blindfolded”, suggests that life has become just as mechanical, inspirited, lazy and doomed, which from now on is revived only by memories and daydreams. It was not for nothing that the narrator kept repeating so insistently: “And now I see myself again in the village, in deep autumn”; “and now I see myself in the estate of Arseny Semenych ...”, “you close your eyes - the whole earth will float under your feet.” Yes, from now on he lives only in memories, as if with his eyes closed ...
The writer in "Antonov apples" did not just expand the scope of his observations. At the beginning of the XX century. he moved on to generalizing reflections. Therefore, the fate of a specific village Vyselki and specific people can be perceived as common destiny the entire nobility, and indeed all of Russia as a whole.
Bunin's conclusion is unequivocal: only in the imagination, only in memory remains the time of happy, carefree youth, thrills and experiences, harmonious existence in unity with nature, the life of ordinary people, the greatness of the cosmos.
IN this story the philosophical, aesthetic and historical concepts of the writer were brought together. The “peasant” and “lordly” well-being of the past were contrasted with the savagery and hopelessness of the present. Smoothly, as if gliding in a minuet, Bunin solemnly and majestically wrote out the fading customs: “an amazing dinner: all through pink ham with peas, stuffed chicken, turkey, marinades, red kvass - strong and sweet-sweet”, a festive autumn fair, rituals hunting fees. The eternal old women and old men of Vyselok, as it were, personified the unshakable strength of the noble life, disturbed, however, by the inexorable course of time. Manor life was presented as a kind of “ paradise lost”, whose bliss, of course, cannot be brought back to life by the pathetic attempts of small-scale nobles, perceived rather as a parody of past luxury. The breath of beauty that once filled the ancient noble estates, the aroma of Antonov apples gave way to the smells of rottenness, mold, desolation.
M. Gorky quite rightly perceived the writer's aesthetic ideal as an attempt to combine the beautiful and the eternal, saying after reading "Antonov apples": "I love<...>rest my soul on that beautiful, in which the eternal is invested. But Gorky nevertheless interpreted the "Antonov apples" in the traditional sociological spirit - as "smelling by no means democratic", i.e. hinted at Bunin's predilection for the time of serfdom. Ho at the same time either caustically or enviously said: “No, it’s good when nature creates a person as a nobleman, it’s good!”
Bunin, who was really proud of his belonging to the nobility and the fact that he is a descendant of Zhukovsky and the poetess Anna Bunina, also laughed at the estate “dependence” of Bunin. Kuprin, creating a parody called "Pies with milk mushrooms." It began like this: “Why do I feel so sour and so sad, and so wet? The night wind burst into the window and rustles the sheets of the sixth book noble families(Bunin was very proud that his family name was entered there. - M.M.). Strange rustles roam the old landowner's house. Perhaps these are mice, or perhaps the shadows of ancestors? Who knows? Everything in the world is mysterious. I look at my finger, and mystical horror seizes me! It would be nice now to eat a pie with milk mushrooms. Ho how is it done? Sweet and tender longing squeezes my heart, my eyes are wet. Where are you, the wonderful time of pies with milk mushrooms, greyhounds, thick-dog males, a field away, serf souls, Antonov apples, redemption payments? With languid sadness in my soul, I go out onto the porch and whistle to a lilac mangy turkey. The old, white-haired male Zaviray scratches his ridged, mangy back against the balcony baluster. The gardener Xenophon walks by, but does not break his hat. In the old days, I would have you, boor, to the stables ... ”etc.
Undoubtedly, Kuprin managed to capture the main features of Bunin's prose: attention to specifics, almost physiological details, accuracy in depicting reality. But he did not appreciate the depth of Bunin's perception of the passing time, the nostalgia for the disappearing, almost imperceptible signs of everyday life, he did not appreciate, focusing on Bunin's alleged predilection for the lordly way of life, the idealization of serf relations. He, of course, could not know that, in fact, the “Antonov apples” grew out of an episode of his youth sunk into Bunin’s memory:
“Today, I spent almost the whole day hunting ...<...>I woke up<...>early. I went out onto the porch and saw that a completely autumn day was beginning. Dawn - greyish, cold, with a slight mist over the first greenery ... The porch and paths around the yard were damp and darkened. The garden smells of "Antonov" apples... You just can't breathe!<...>How I love autumn!.. Not only does my hatred for serfdom disappear, but I even involuntarily begin to poeticize it. It was good to feel in the autumn precisely in the countryside, in grandfather's estate, with an old house, an old threshing floor and a large garden with thatched shafts! It was good to drive all day through the greenery, to drive along forest paths, in half-naked avenues, to feel the cold forest air! .. Really, I would like to live as a former landowner! Get up at dawn, leave for the "field away", 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, to the estate, where it already shines like a wolf's eye on the forest edge, a distant light at home ... It's warm, cozy, a lighted dining room ... "
In this passage, one can feel not the desire to be in the position of the owner of serf souls, but the desire to feel like a person free from petty affairs, not thinking about material objects, dependence on money, capable of mindlessly surrendering to the natural course of events, not knowing hardships and anxieties everyday life, “falling out” of time, and therefore, possessing it infinitely “Ideological” criticism, Gorky, Kuprin did not understand that Bunin wrote not about the feudal past, not about nature in its “pure form”, but about beauty. He realized early on that writing about beauty means writing about everything that exists, since beauty is dissolved in every phenomenon of being:
I catch the joy of life in everything -
In the starry sky, in flowers, aromas.
There's a rainbow... It's fun to live
And it's fun to think about the sky
About the sun, about ripening bread
And treasure simple happiness:
With an open head to roam,
Watch how the children scattered
In the gazebo, golden sand ...
There is no other happiness in the world.
So contempt for the degenerate modernity and the disappearance of the past, to which all the artist's thoughts are turned, led to the appearance in the writer's work of "timeless values". Bunin managed, under the ordinary course of life in the past, to reveal the truly beautiful and indestructible by time. In “Antonov apples”, Bunin’s individual style was determined, which became the leading one for him for the next few years: soft, tender, sincere picturesqueness, thoughtful tone, vaguely written contours, intentionally weak colors, like on old tapestries, a haze of sad dreaminess, poetic perspective, air that pervades the entire story.
Gorky compared Bunin's talent to matte silver and advised him to hone it into a knife in order to strike evil. But Bunin's talent served Beauty, Reason, Goodness and Life. The writer went from things to words, first of all painting “matter”, the objective world. After all, Bunin's estates are not estates "in general", not some kind of blissful paradise, but Vyselki, familiar to the smallest detail, the aunt's estate, the brother-in-law's estate. Numerous details emerge; memorable details give the image authenticity, uniqueness, originality; make them an absolute reality. A kind of cult of the living and beautiful arises, a sensual love for the world is born, filled with smells, sounds, colors, everything visible, audible, tangible. And the reader of "Antonov's Apples" feels "the happiness of enlightenment, / The high thrill of communion / To spiritual life, beauty!" - as Bunin wrote in one of his poems.
Description native nature occupies a special place in the work of I. A. Bunin. His childhood passed among the Oryol forests and fields, and the beauty of the Russian region, either bright, catchy, or modest and sad, won the writer's heart forever.
The story is one of the most lyrical and poetry Bunin. It can be called a poem in prose. It is enough to read a few lines to feel the charm early autumn, to feel all the charm of a brief but wonderful time of Indian summer: 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 pure, as if it were not there at all, voices and the creak of carts are heard throughout the garden.
Appears at Bunin in the charm of cool days, the peace of the fields, ringing distances and wide open spaces. The terrain is flat and can be seen far away. The sky is light and so spacious and deep... Fresh, lush green winters are spreading around in wide shoals... And clearly visible telegraph poles run into the clear distance, and their wires, like silver strings, glide along the slope of the clear sky.
The writer had an amazing and rare flair for colors, subtly felt all the shades of colors. Paint gives rise to smell, light gives rise to paint, and sound restores a series of amazing accurate pictures, wrote K. G. Paustovsky. Reading the Antonov apples, you are convinced of how correctly this feature of Bunin's prose is noted. As if you yourself feel the smell of apples, rye straw, the fragrant smoke of a fire, you see a crimson flame burning near the hut, giant shadows moving along the ground.
From the vast multitude of words, the writer unmistakably chooses the most accurate, strong and picturesque. And here we have a picture painted with surprisingly bright and juicy strokes: At early dawn, when the roosters are still crowing and the huts are smoking black, 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 , and you can’t stand it, you order the horse to be saddled as soon as possible, and you yourself will run to wash yourself on the pond. The small foliage has almost completely flown from the coastal vines, and the branches show through in the turquoise sky.
Bunin equally sharply and subtly sees everything: the early fine autumn, the Central Russian summer, and the cloudy winter. The Russian landscape, with its modest, shy beauty, found its singer in it.
Surprises and delights with the excellent command of the word and the subtle sense of the native language, characteristic of Bunin. His prose has rhythm and inner melody, like poetry and music. Bunin's language is simple, almost stingy, pure and picturesque, wrote K. G. Paustovsky. But at the same time, he is unusually rich in figurative and sound relations from cymbal singing to the ringing of spring water, from measured chasing to amazingly gentle intonations, from light melody to
Thundering biblical denunciations, and from them to the clear, striking language of the Oryol peasants. The poetic vision of the world in Bunin's story does not come into conflict with the reality of life. In it we meet many people whose portraits are painted with a sharp, sometimes overwhelming force. Here pass before our eyes the peasants are lively single-dwelling girls, noblemen in their beautiful and coarse, savage costumes, boys in white slouchy shirts, old men ... tall, big and white as a harrier, ruined landowners. The writer pays special attention to small locals and their lives. This is Russia going into the past. The time of these people is passing. Bunin recalls with tender nostalgia his aunt Anna Gerasimovna and her estate. The smell of apples and lime blossoms brings to mind the old house and garden, the last Mohicans of the former serfs. The house was famous for its hospitality. And the guest felt comfortable in this nest, under the turquoise autumn sky!
And what a beautiful hunting seems to be in the transparent and cold days of early October! The portrait of Arseniy Semenovich is very expressive and effective, in whose estate the hero of the story often visited. The fate of this man was tragic, like many small landowners, impoverished to beggary.
The gray, monotonous everyday life of an incoherent and meaningless life is languidly flowing, which is destined to eke out an inhabitant of a ruined noble nest. But, despite the fact that such an existence bears signs of decline and degeneration, Bunin finds in it a kind of poetry. Good and small life! he says. Exploring Russian reality, peasant and landlord life, the writer sees something that no one noticed before him: the similarity of both the way of life and the characters of the peasant and the gentleman: The warehouse of the average noble life even in my memory, very recently, had much in common with rich peasant life in its efficiency and rural old-world prosperity. Despite the elegiac and calmness of the narration, in the lines of the story one feels pain for the spirit of savagery and degeneration, for peasant and landowner Russia, which was going through a period of decline, material and moral.
Antonov apples are an expression of deep and poetic love for one's country. I. A. Bunin lived a difficult life: he saw a lot, knew, worked, loved and hated, sometimes made mistakes, but for the rest of his life his greatest and unchanging love was his homeland Russia.
Bunin's stories are also imbued with this sad poetry of withering, dying, desolation. But his stories are also imbued with beauty, love. Like, for example, the story Antonovsky apples. This is a very beautiful, interesting and original story.
When I read this story, I was haunted by a strange feeling. I was waiting for the introductory part of the story to end and the action itself, the plot, the climax, the result, to begin. I waited, but suddenly the story ended. I was surprised: Why this work belongs to stories, but there is no plot in it. Then I read it again, slowly, without hurrying anywhere. And then he appeared completely different. Is not epic work, but rather lyrical-epic. But why did Bunin choose just such a form? When I began to read this story for the second time, I was overcome by a feeling of sleep. First, the story begins with an ellipsis. Suddenly, visual images begin to appear.
I remember the big, golden, thinned garden, I remember the maple alleys. Visual images are reinforced by smells: The subtle aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples. Then we hear sounds and completely immerse ourselves in this atmosphere, succumb to the mood of the story.
But what kind of life is this that this story introduces us to? Here the first people appear: A man pouring apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but the tradesman will never cut him off, but only say yours, eat your fill.
We see these kind, beautiful, strong people. And how they talk to each other, with what attention, understanding and love!
Household butterfly! ... Now such people are translated, namely a butterfly, and not an ordinary today's woman or, roughly speaking, a woman. How subtly Bunin conveys all intonations, expressions! Take just one conversation between the priest and Pankrat! Bunin makes us see and feel this life, just feel it. How does he convey these kind, almost paternal relationship man and baron. In this story, Bunin describes the landowner's estate. Already we see it not just as a house, but as something animated, something very important. Its front facade always seemed to me alive, as if an old face was looking out from under a huge cap with hollow eyes. And indeed, the estate in the XIX century is not just a place of residence. Homestead is all life spiritual development, it's a way of life. Even Griboyedov spoke about the estate: Who travels in the countryside, who lives... A fair part of the spiritual life of Russia took place in the estates. Take at least the estates of Chekhov, Blok, Yesenin, Sheremetev.
And Bunin immerses us in this life. In the summer of hunting, powerful communication among the landowners. And books in winter. How Bunin describes the state of mind of this man sitting in an armchair and reading Onegin, Voltaire! The reader has old images, he thinks about everything: about his roots, about his relatives, about the fact that life also flowed before him, people thought, suffered, searched, fell in love. Bunin sets the task of showing Russia, this life. It makes you think about history, about your roots.
And we feel this time, this life. We feel this Russia, patriarchal, with people not prudent, but rather special, in a word, Russian.
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