Of course, first of all, this is a story about love. That young, passionate love, when every moment of meeting with your beloved is sweet and painful (and the story is told from the perspective of the hero, a young rich man, and this detail will be very important in understanding the meaning of the work), when it is impossible, without incredible tenderness, to look at the star marks , left by her heels on the snow, when incomplete intimacy seems ready to drive you crazy and you are all permeated with that “ecstatic despair” that breaks your heart!
Bunin attached particular importance to the writer’s ability to describe the brightest, most frank moments of love. He dedicated the cycle “to the sharp-sweet moments of rapprochement between a man and a woman.” Dark alleys”, written over 10 years - from the mid-30s to the mid-40s. - and consisting (almost unprecedented in the history of literature!) of 38 short stories, telling only about love, only about meetings, only about partings. And in this sense, “Sunstroke” can be considered as a prelude to this cycle. And as a kind of demand-credo of the writer, one can regard his words in one of the stories: “The writer has the same full right to be bold in his verbal depictions of love and its faces, which at all times was granted in this case to painters and sculptors: only vile souls they see the vile even in the beautiful or the terrible.” Of particular note last words: beautiful and terrible. For Bunin, they are always nearby, inseparable, they determine the very essence of life. Therefore, in “Clean Monday” the heroine will also be brought into something like an ecstatic stupor by “beauty and horror” that accompany death, departure to another world, the entire funeral ritual!
However, the above statement by Bunin did not prevent many critics and literary scholars from seeing the influence of Western literature in the frank stories of “Dark Alleys”: after all, this is indeed the case in Russian classical literature scenes of love had never been depicted before (it is known that L.N. Tolstoy chose to fill an entire line with dots rather than reveal the secret of the closeness of Anna Karenina and Vronsky). For Bunin, there is nothing unworthy or unclean in love (we repeat, in love!). “Love,” as one of his contemporaries wrote, “always seemed to him to be perhaps the most significant mysterious thing in the world... All love is great happiness...” And the story “Clean Monday” tells of such a mysterious, great , happily-unhappy love.
And yet this story, although it has all the signs of a love story and its culmination is the night spent by the lovers together (it is important that this is the night of the eve of Lent; Clean Monday comes after Forgiveness Sunday and is the first day of Lent), it is not about this or not only about this.... Already at the very beginning of the story it is directly stated that a “strange love” will unfold before us between a dazzling handsome man, in whose appearance there is even something “Sicilian” (however, he comes only from Penza), and “The Shamakhan queen” (as those around her call the heroine), whose portrait is given in great detail: there was something “Indian, Persian” in the girl’s beauty (although her origins are very prosaic: her father is a merchant of a noble family from Tver, her grandmother is from Astrakhan ). She has “a dark-amber face, magnificent and somewhat ominous hair in its thick blackness, softly shining like black sable fur, eyebrows, black like velvet coal (Bunin’s amazing oxymoron! - M.M.), eyes”, captivating “ velvety crimson lips, shaded with dark down. Her favorite evening outfit is also described in detail: a garnet velvet dress and matching shoes with gold buckles. (Somewhat unexpected in the rich palette of Bunin’s epithets is the persistent repetition of the epithet velvet, which, obviously, should highlight the amazing softness of the heroine. But let’s not forget about “coal,” which is undoubtedly associated with hardness.) Thus, Bunin’s heroes are deliberately likened to each other to a friend - in the sense of beauty, youth, charm, obvious originality of appearance.
However, further Bunin carefully, but very consistently “prescribes” the differences between the “Sicilian” and the “Shamakhan Queen”, which will turn out to be fundamental and ultimately lead to a dramatic denouement - eternal separation. And here lies the difference between the concept of love revealed in “Sunstroke” and the love of the heroes of “Clean Monday”. There, the lack of a future for the lieutenant and the woman in the canvas dress was explained by the incompatibility of the severity of the experiences caused by the “sun” love blow with the everyday life that millions of people live and which will soon begin for the heroes themselves.
“Sunstroke,” according to Bunin, is one of the manifestations of cosmic living life, which they were able to join for a moment. But it can be revealed to a person both in moments of turning to the highest works of art, and through memory, which blurs temporary barriers, and during contact and dissolution in nature, when you feel like a small part of it.
“Clean Monday” is different. Nothing bothers the heroes; they live such a prosperous life that the concept of everyday life is not very applicable to their pastime. It is no coincidence that Bunin literally piece by piece recreates a rich picture of the intellectual and cultural life of Russia in 1911-1912. (For this story, the attachment of events to a specific time is generally very important. Bunin usually prefers greater temporal abstraction.) Here, as they say, on one spot, all the events that during the first one and a half decades of the 20th century are concentrated. excited the minds of the Russian intelligentsia. These are new productions and skits of the Art Theater; lectures by Andrei Bely, read by him in such an original manner that everyone talked about it; the most popular stylization historical events XVI century - witch trials and V. Bryusov’s novel “Fire Angel”; fashionable writers of the Viennese “modern” school A. Schnitzler and G. Hofmannsthal; works of the Polish decadents K. Tetmaier and S. Przybyszewski; the stories of L. Andreev, who attracted everyone's attention, the concerts of F. Chaliapin... Literary scholars even find historical inconsistencies in the picture of life in pre-war Moscow depicted by Bunin, pointing out that many of the events he cited could not have occurred at the same time. However, it seems that Bunin deliberately compresses time, achieving its utmost density, materiality, and tangibility.
So, every day and evening of the heroes is filled with something interesting - visiting theaters, restaurants. They should not burden themselves with work or study (it is true that the heroine is studying at some courses, but she cannot really answer why she attends them), they are free and young. I would really like to add: and happy. But this word can only be applied to the hero, although he is aware that the happiness of being near her is mixed with torment. And yet for him this is undoubted happiness. “Great happiness,” as Bunin says (and his voice in this story largely merges with the voice of the narrator).
What about the heroine? Is she happy? Isn’t it the greatest happiness for a woman to discover that she is loved more than life itself (“It’s true, how you love me!” she said with quiet bewilderment, shaking her head), that she is desired, that they want to see her as a wife? But this is clearly not enough for the heroine! It is she who utters a significant phrase about happiness, which concludes a whole life philosophy: “Our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it swells, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing.” At the same time, it turns out that it was not invented by her, but said by Platon Karataev, whose wisdom her interlocutor also immediately declared “eastern”.
It’s probably worth immediately paying attention to the fact that Bunin, clearly emphasizing the gesture, emphasized how the young man, in response to Karataev’s words cited by the heroine, “waved his hand.” Thus, the discrepancy between the views and perceptions of certain phenomena by the hero and heroine becomes obvious. He exists in the real dimension, in the present time, therefore he calmly perceives everything that happens in him as an integral part of him. Boxes of chocolates are the same sign of attention for him as a book; In general, he doesn’t care where to go - whether to have dinner at the Metropol, or wander around Ordynka in search of Griboedov’s house, sit at dinner in a tavern, or listen to the gypsies. He does not feel the surrounding vulgarity, which is wonderfully captured by Bunin both in the performance of the “Polish woman Tranblanc”, when his partner shouts out a meaningless set of phrases as a “goat”, and in the cheeky performance of songs by the old gypsy “with the gray muzzle of a drowned man” and the gypsy woman “with a low forehead under a tar bang.” " He is not very offended by drunk people around, annoyingly helpful sex workers, or the emphasized theatricality in the behavior of people of art. And how the height of discrepancy with the heroine is his consent to her invitation, pronounced in English: “All right!”
All this does not mean, of course, that he is not available high feelings that he is unable to appreciate the unusualness and uniqueness of the girl he meets. On the contrary, enthusiastic love clearly saves him from the surrounding vulgarity, and the way with which rapture and pleasure he listens to her words, how he can highlight a special intonation in them, how attentive he is even to little things (he sees a “quiet light” in her eyes, his her “kind talkativeness” pleases her, speaks in his favor. It is not without reason that when he mentions that his beloved may go to a monastery, he, “lost with excitement,” lights a cigarette and almost admits out loud that out of despair he is capable of stabbing someone to death or also becoming a monk. And when something really happens that only arose in the heroine’s imagination, and she decides first to obey, and then, apparently, to take monastic vows (in the epilogue the hero meets her in the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy) - he first sinks and drinks himself to such an extent that it seems that it is impossible to be reborn, and then, although little by little, he “recovers”, returns to life, but somehow “indifferently, hopelessly,” although he sobs, walking through the places where the two of them once visited: He has a sensitive heart: after all, immediately after a night of intimacy, when nothing portends trouble, he feels himself and what happened so strongly and bitterly that the old woman near the Iverskaya Chapel turns to him with the words: “Oh, don’t kill yourself, don’t kill yourself like that!”
Consequently, the height of his feelings and ability to experience are beyond doubt. The heroine herself admits this when, in her farewell letter, she asks God to give him the strength “not to answer” her, realizing that their correspondence will only “uselessly prolong and increase our torment.” And yet the intensity of his mental life cannot be compared with her spiritual experiences and insights. Moreover, Bunin deliberately creates the impression that he, as it were, “echoes” the heroine, agreeing to go where she calls, admiring what delights her, entertaining her with what, as it seems to him, can occupy her in the first place. This does not mean that he does not have his own “I”, his own individuality. He is no stranger to reflections and observations, he is attentive to the changes in his beloved’s mood, and is the first to notice that their relationship is developing in such a “strange” city as Moscow.
But nevertheless, it is she who leads the “party”, it is her voice that is most clearly distinguishable. Actually, the heroine’s fortitude and the choice she ultimately makes become the semantic core of Bunin’s work. It is her deep concentration on something that is not immediately definable, for the time being hidden from prying eyes, that constitutes the alarming nerve of the narrative, the ending of which defies any logical or everyday explanation. And if the hero is talkative and restless, if he can postpone a painful decision until later, assuming that everything will be resolved somehow by itself or in as a last resort not to think about the future at all, then the heroine is always thinking about something of her own, which only indirectly breaks through in her remarks and conversations. She loves to quote Russian chronicles, especially the ancient Russian “The Tale of the Faithful Spouses Peter and Fevronia of Murom” (Bunin incorrectly indicated the name of the prince - Pavel).
She may listen church hymns. The very vowel sounds of the words of the Old Russian language will not leave her indifferent, and she will repeat them, as if spellbound...
And her conversations are no less “strange” than her actions. She either invites her lover to the Novodevichy Convent, then leads him around Ordynka in search of the house where Griboyedov lived (it would be more accurate to say, he visited, because in one of the Horde alleys there was the house of uncle A.S. Griboyedov), then she talks about her visiting an old schismatic cemetery, he confesses his love for Chudov, Zachatievsky and other monasteries, where he constantly goes. And, of course, the most “strange” thing, incomprehensible from the point of view of everyday logic, is her decision to retire to a monastery, to sever all ties with the world.
But Bunin, as a writer, does everything to “explain” this strangeness. The reason for this “strangeness” is the contradictions of the Russian national character, which themselves are a consequence of Rus'’s location at the crossroads of East and West. This is where the story constantly emphasizes the clash between Eastern and Western principles. The author's eye, the narrator's eye, stops at the cathedrals built in Moscow by Italian architects, ancient Russian architecture that has adopted Eastern traditions (something Kyrgyz in the towers of the Kremlin wall), the Persian beauty of the heroine - the daughter of a Tver merchant, discovers a combination of incongruous things in her favorite clothes (the arhaluk Astrakhan grandmother, then a European fashionable dress), in the setting and affections - “Moonlight Sonata” and the Turkish sofa on which she reclines. When the Moscow Kremlin clock strikes, she hears the sounds of a Florentine clock. The heroine’s gaze also captures the “extravagant” habits of the Moscow merchants - pancakes with caviar, washed down with frozen champagne. But she herself is not alien to the same tastes: she orders foreign sherry with Russian navazhka.
No less important is the internal contradiction of the heroine, who is depicted by the writer at a spiritual crossroads. She often says one thing and does something else: she is surprised by the gourmandness of other people, but she herself has lunch and dinner with an excellent appetite, then she attends all the newfangled meetings, then she does not leave the house at all, she is irritated by the surrounding vulgarity, but goes to dance the Tranblanc polka, causing everyone’s admiration and applause, delays moments of intimacy with her beloved, and then suddenly agrees to it...
But in the end, she still makes a decision, the only correct decision, which, according to Bunin, was predetermined by Russia - by its entire destiny, its entire history. The path of repentance, humility and forgiveness.
Refusal of temptations (it is not for nothing that, agreeing to intimacy with her lover, the heroine says, characterizing his beauty: “The serpent in human nature, extremely beautiful...” - i.e., she refers to him the words from the legend of Peter and Fevronia - about the intrigues the devil, who sent the pious princess “a flying serpent for fornication”), which appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. before Russia in the form of uprisings and riots and, according to the writer’s conviction, served as the beginning of its “cursed days” - this is what was supposed to provide his homeland with a worthy future. Forgiveness addressed to all those who are guilty is what would help, according to Bunin, Russia to withstand the whirlwind of historical cataclysms of the 20th century. The path of Russia is the path of fasting and renunciation. But that didn't happen. Russia has chosen a different path. And the writer never tired of mourning her fate while in exile.
Probably, strict zealots of Christian piety will not consider the writer’s arguments in favor of the heroine’s decision convincing. In their opinion, she clearly accepted him not under the influence of the grace that descended on her, but for other reasons. They will rightly feel that there is too little revelation and too much poetry in her adherence to church rituals. She herself says that her love for church rituals can hardly be considered real religiosity. Indeed, she perceives the funeral too aesthetically (forged gold brocade, a white bedspread embroidered with black letters (air) on the face of the deceased, snow blinding in the cold and the shine of fir branches inside the grave), she listens too admiringly to the music of the words of Russian legends (“I’m re-reading what what I especially liked, until I memorize it”), becomes too immersed in the atmosphere accompanying the service in the church (“the stichera are sung marvelously there,” “there are puddles everywhere, the air is already soft, my soul is somehow tender, sad...”, “ all the doors in the cathedral are open, ordinary people come and go all day long.”...). And in this, the heroine, in her own way, turns out to be close to Bunin himself, who also in the Novodevichy Convent will see “jackdaws that look like nuns,” “gray coral branches in the frost,” marvelously emerging “on the golden enamel of the sunset,” blood-red walls and mysteriously glowing lamps. By the way, the closeness of the heroines to the writer, their special spirituality, significance and unusualness were immediately noted by critics. Gradually, the concept of “Bunin’s women” is taking root in literary criticism, as bright and definite as “Turgenev’s girls”.
Thus, in choosing the ending of the story, it is not so much the religious attitude and position of Bunin the Christian that is important, but rather the position of Bunin the writer, for whose worldview a sense of history is extremely important. “The feeling of the homeland, its antiquity,” as the heroine of “Clean Monday” says about it. This is also why she abandoned a future that could have turned out happily, because she decided to leave everything worldly, because the disappearance of beauty, which she feels everywhere, is unbearable for her. “Desperate cancans” and frisky Poles Tranblanc, performed by the most talented people Russia - Moskvin, Stanislavsky and Sulerzhitsky, replaced the singing with “hooks” (what is that!), and in the place of the heroes Peresvet and Oslyabi (remember who they are) - “pale from hops, with large sweat on his forehead,” almost falling off the feet the beauty and pride of the Russian stage - Kachalov and the “daring” Chaliapin.
Therefore, the phrase: “It’s only in some northern monasteries that this Rus' now remains” - appears quite naturally in the mouth of the heroine. She means the irrevocably disappearing feelings of dignity, beauty, goodness, for which she yearns immensely and which she hopes to find in monastic life.
As we have seen, an unambiguous interpretation of “Clean Monday” is hardly possible. This work is about love, and about beauty, and about the duty of man, and about Russia, and about its fate. This is probably why it was Bunin’s favorite story, the best, according to him, of what he wrote, for the creation of which he thanked God...
The story of the great Russian writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin “Clean Monday” is included in his outstanding book of love stories “Dark Alleys”. Like all the works in this collection, this is a story about love, unhappy and tragic. We offer a literary analysis of Bunin's work. The material can be used to prepare for the Unified State Exam in literature in grade 11.
Brief Analysis
Year of writing– 1944
History of creation– Researchers of Bunin’s work believe that the reason for writing “Clean Monday” for the author was his first love.
Topic – In “Clean Monday” the main idea of the story is clearly visible– this is the theme of the lack of meaning in life, loneliness in society.
Composition– The composition is divided into three parts, in the first of which the characters are introduced, the second part is devoted to events Orthodox holidays, and the shortest third is the denouement of the plot.
Genre– “Clean Monday” belongs to the short story genre.
Direction– Neorealism.
History of creation
The writer emigrated to France, this distracted him from the unpleasant moments in life, and he is fruitfully working on his collection “Dark Alleys.” According to researchers, in the story Bunin describes his first love, where the prototype of the main character is the author himself, and the prototype of the heroine is V. Pashchenko.
Ivan Alekseevich himself considered the story “Clean Monday” one of his best creations, and in his diary he praised God for helping him create this magnificent work.
This is a brief history of the creation of the story, the year of writing is 1944, the first publication of the short story was in the New Journal in New York City.
Subject
In the story “Clean Monday”, analysis of the work reveals a large love theme problems and ideas for the novella. The work is dedicated to the theme of true love, real and all-consuming, but in which there is a problem of misunderstanding by the characters of each other.
Two young people fell in love with each other: this is wonderful, since love pushes a person to noble deeds, thanks to this feeling, a person finds the meaning of life. In Bunin's novella, love is tragic, the main characters do not understand each other, and this is their drama. The heroine found a divine revelation for herself, she purified herself spiritually, finding her calling in serving God, and went to a monastery. In her understanding, love for the divine turned out to be stronger than physiological love for her chosen one. She realized in time that by joining her life in marriage with the hero, she would not receive complete happiness. Her spiritual development stands much higher than physiological needs; the heroine has higher moral goals. Having made her choice, she left the bustle of the world, surrendering to the service of God.
The hero loves his chosen one, loves sincerely, but he is unable to understand the tossing of her soul. He cannot find an explanation for her reckless and eccentric actions. In Bunin’s story, the heroine looks like a more alive person; at least somehow, through trial and error, she is looking for her meaning in life. She rushes about, rushes from one extreme to another, but in the end she finds her way.
The main character, throughout all these relationships, simply remains an outside observer. He, in fact, has no aspirations; everything is convenient and comfortable for him when the heroine is nearby. He cannot understand her thoughts; most likely, he does not even try to understand. He simply accepts everything that his chosen one does, and that’s enough for him. From this it follows that every person has the right to choose, whatever it may be. The main thing for a person is to decide what you are, who you are, and where you are going, and you shouldn’t look around, fearing that someone will judge your decision. Self-confidence and self-confidence will help you find the right decision and make the right choice.
Composition
The work of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin includes not only prose, but also poetry. Bunin himself considered himself a poet, which is especially felt in his prose story “Clean Monday.” His expressive artistic media, unusual epithets and comparisons, various metaphors, his special poetic style of narration, give this work lightness and sensuality.
The title of the story itself gives great meaning to the work. The concept of “pure” speaks of the cleansing of the soul, and Monday is a new beginning. It is symbolic that the culmination of events occurs on this day.
Compositional structure The story consists of three parts. The first part introduces the characters and their relationships. Masterful use expressive means gives a deep emotional coloring to the image of the characters and their pastime.
The second part of the composition is more dialogue-based. In this part of the story, the author leads the reader to the very idea of the story. The writer speaks here about the choice of the heroine, about her dreams of the divine. The heroine expresses her secret desire to leave the luxurious social life and retire to the shadow of the monastery walls.
The climax appears the night after Clean Monday, when the heroine is determined to become a novice, and the inevitable separation of the heroes occurs.
The third part comes to the denouement of the plot. The heroine has found her purpose in life; she serves in a monastery. The hero, after separation from his beloved, led a dissolute life for two years, mired in drunkenness and debauchery. Over time, he comes to his senses and leads a quiet, quiet life, in complete indifference and indifference to everything. One day fate gives him a chance; he sees his beloved among the novices of God's temple. Having met her gaze, he turns around and leaves. Who knows, maybe he realized the meaninglessness of his existence and set off for a new life.
Main characters
Genre
Bunin's work was written in short story genre, which is characterized by a sharp turn of events. This is what happens in this story: the main character changes her worldview and abruptly breaks with her past life, changing it in the most radical way.
The novella was written in the direction of realism, but only the great Russian poet and prose writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin could write about love in such words.
Work test
Rating analysis
Average rating: 4.3. Total ratings received: 541.
Clean Monday is considered the beginning of fasting; it is the first day after Maslenitsa, on which many servants of the Lord begin to fast. It was not by chance that Bunin chose this title for his story: here is the observance of fasting, which obliges a person not only to himself, but also to the Lord, here is the making of a decision that changes your whole life, placing a person in an honest framework of existence, which he for himself “ invented" once upon a time. Bunin shows with what feelings, with what impatience, with what renunciation of the world and attachment to everyday life she greets her Clean Monday. Let’s try to more fully reveal the meaning of the name “Clean Monday”. The author could call the story “purification”, “rebirth”, and everything would be this clean Monday. Fasting involves proof of faith in a person's God, through the denial of one's physical needs, a new discovery of oneself, the discovery of one's true spiritual world, that is, rebirth. The heroine was eventually reborn, found her true self, without suffering, as he did, about the loss of those physical (earthly) connections. Her soul found the place that she thinks was destined for her and calmed down.
Let's try to understand for ourselves what feelings lie at the heart of the work. In the relationship between the hero and heroine, it is immediately clear, from the first pages, what their entire union rests on: “...And as for my love, you know very well that, besides my father and you, I have no one in the world. In any case, you are my first and last. Is this not enough for you? But enough about this..." She made a reservation: besides them, she has God, there is her inner spiritual world, with which she eventually retired. But she understands everything, this is enough for him, he is only able to see in himself “...at that time he was handsome for some reason, with a southern, hot beauty, he was even “indecently handsome,” in her “... and she had some kind of beauty then Indian, Persian...” and even in the surrounding majestic things “... and something Kyrgyz in the tips of the towers on the Kremlin walls...” “what he wants to see. A beautiful person surrounded by beautiful things is happy for some time by definition, and he also believes in his love for her. But there is no love! When she made him understand that he was waiting for happiness, but would not wait, that happiness was like water in delirium - soon “... when you pull it out, there is nothing.” How nothing turned out after their night. He waved it off: “Oh, God be with her, with this eastern wisdom!” You might think that he is truly blinded by love, but no, and later this will be proven conclusively. There was no way he could hear her emotional outburst. She was so happy when they were at the Novodevichy Convent: “It’s true, how you love me!” But he is blind and deaf. When she invites him to visit another monastery: “I laughed:
- Back to the monastery?
- No, it’s just me...”
For him, she is just a toy, an ornament with which he enjoys appearing in society and enjoys admiring her. Even when she directly told him that she would go to the monastery (in the Yegorov tavern), he did not react in any way, all his thoughts at that moment were from excitement, not caused by love, but by what - he himself does not know - and it seems that it is precisely that that worries him This. And the last thing that proves that this is not blind love, but an incomprehensible feeling is that with blind love, jealousy is cruel and boundless, where was it when the heroine wrote a “pretzel” with Sulerzhitsky, when Kachalov insulted him in her presence: “What kind of handsome guy is this? I hate it." A sense of ownership, aesthetic superiority - this is what makes the hero think that he loves. She doesn’t love him, this becomes immediately clear from her hints, from her conversations. “...Who knows what love is?” She tries in vain to draw his attention to her inner world, first with invitations to churches, monasteries, then she tried to arouse jealousy in him, remaining a mystery to him, she even tried to prepare him for separation. This is the problem of the story: she is a thing for him, a toy, very expensive jewelry, she is trying to reveal herself to at least someone, and all against the background of the fact that they are both looking for love, which does not exist (young people know how to fall in love, they do not know how to love ).
Bunin, it seems to me, is on the side of the heroine, preparing the reader for the future denouement: first she visits the cemetery, then churches, on Maslenitsa they eat pancakes, which means that cleansing will occur on Clean Monday. A skillfully constructed composition of the story, based on the contradictions between his world and hers: the beauty of churches and cemeteries - the dirt of taverns, drunkenness at "kapusniks". She manages to live in his world, for example, she sometimes smokes a lot, has fun, but he is a stranger in her world. Her world is imbued with the spirit of divine meaning: “Lord, master of my life...”, “... And on two choirs there are two choirs, also all Peresvet...”, “There was a city in the Russian land called Murom...”, etc. Comparing two worlds, from which the author himself chooses the heroine’s world. In the end, he is even forbidden to enter the church, but for money the doors are opened, apparently so that he understands its secret.
Now, if I were a singer and sang on the stage, I would respond to applause with a friendly smile and slight bows to the right and left, up and to the stalls, and I would imperceptibly but carefully move the train away with my foot so as not to step on it...These memories suddenly visit the hero, although he cannot comprehend them. She remained a mystery to him, he never saw this train, and she played, but not on stage, but in life... The only thing he could understand was the calmness she found, and he let go of his love and went into his worldly life.
Love theme - eternal theme. It was addressed by poets and writers of different times, and each tried to interpret this multifaceted feeling in their own way.
I. A Bunin gives his vision of the topic in the cycle of stories “Dark Alleys”. The collection includes thirty-eight stories, all of them are about love, but none of them creates a feeling of repetition, and after reading all the works in the cycle there is no feeling of exhaustion of the topic.
At the center of the story “Clean Monday” is the story of a mysterious and mysterious love. Its heroes are a young couple of lovers. Both of them are “rich, healthy, young and so good-looking that in restaurants and at concerts” those around them watched them go. But the inner world of the heroes is not so similar.
He is blinded by his love. Every Saturday he brings flowers to his chosen one, every now and then spoils her with boxes of chocolate, tries to please her with new books he brought, every evening he invites her to a restaurant, then to the theater, or to some party. Completely absorbed in the feeling of adoration, he cannot and does not really try to understand what a complex inner world lies behind the beautiful appearance of the one he fell in love with. Repeatedly he thinks about the unusualness and strangeness of their relationship, but never once puts an end to these thoughts. "Odd love!" - he remarks. Another time he says: “Yes, after all, this is not love, not love...”. He is surprised at why she “once and for all stopped talking about their future”; he is surprised at how she perceives his gifts, how she behaves in moments of rapprochement. Everything about her is a mystery to him.
The image of the hero is devoid of the psychological depth that the heroine is endowed with. There is no logical motivation in her actions. Every day visiting those establishments where a young lover invites her, she one day notices that she wants to go to the Novo Maiden Convent, because “it’s all taverns and taverns.” The hero has no idea where these thoughts come from, what they are for, what suddenly happened to his chosen one. And a little later she declares that there is nothing to be surprised about, that he simply does not know her. It turns out that she often visits the Kremlin cathedrals, and this happens when her lover “doesn’t drag” her around restaurants. There, and not in entertainment establishments, she finds a sense of harmony and peace of mind. She loves “Russian chronicles, Russian legends” and her stories about this are filled with depth. She says she is not fit to be a wife. Thinking about happiness, quotes Platon Karataev. But the hero still cannot understand what is going on in her soul, he is “indescribably happy with every hour spent near her” and that’s all.
As in the other stories of the “Dark Alleys” series, Bunin does not show in “Clean Monday” love that develops into a state of lasting earthly happiness. Love here also does not end with a happy marriage, and we do not find the image of a woman-mother here. The heroine, having entered into a physically intimate relationship with her beloved, silently leaves, begging him not to ask anything, and then informs him by letter of her departure to the monastery. She rushed for a long time between the momentary and the eternal and, on the night of Clean Monday, surrendering to the hero, she made her final choice. On Clean Monday, the first day of fasting, a person begins to cleanse himself of everything bad. This holiday became a turning point in the relationships between the heroes.
Love in “Clean Monday” is happiness and torment, a great mystery, an incomprehensible riddle. This story is one of the pearls of Bunin’s work, captivating the reader with its rare charm and depth.
In 1937, Ivan Bunin began work on his best book. The collection “Dark Alleys” was first published after the end of World War II. This book is a collection of short tragic stories about love. One of the most famous stories Bunina - “Clean Monday”. Analysis and summary works are presented in today's article.
"Dark alleys"
The analysis of Bunin’s “Clean Monday” should begin with brief history creation of a work. This is one of the last stories included in the collection “Dark Alleys”. Bunin completed work on the work “Clean Monday” on May 12, 1944. The story was first published in New York.
The writer was probably pleased with this essay. After all, in his diary, Bunin wrote: “I thank God for the opportunity to create Clean Monday.”
Bunin, in each of his works included in the collection “Dark Alleys,” reveals to the reader the tragedy and catastrophism of love. This feeling is beyond human control. It suddenly comes into his life, gives fleeting happiness, and then certainly causes unbearable pain.
The narration in the story “Clean Monday” by Bunin is told in the first person. The author does not name the names of his heroes. Love breaks out between two young people. They are both beautiful, rich, healthy and seemingly full of energy. But something is missing in their relationship.
They visit restaurants, concerts, theaters. They discuss books and plays. True, the girl often shows indifference, even hostility. “You don’t like everything,” he once says main character, but he himself does not attach importance to his words. A passionate romance is followed by a sudden separation - unexpected for young man, not for her. The ending is typical of Bunin's style. What caused the break between the lovers?
On the eve of the Orthodox holiday
The story describes their first meeting, but the narrative begins with events that occur some time after they met. The girl attends courses, reads a lot, and otherwise leads an idle lifestyle. And she seems quite happy with everything. But this is only at first glance. He is so absorbed in his feeling, his love for her, that he is not even aware of the other side of her soul.
It is worth paying attention to the title of the story - “Clean Monday”. Meaning Bunin's story quite deep. On the eve of the holy day, the lovers have their first conversation about religiosity. Before this, the main character had no idea that the girl was attracted to everything connected with the church. In his absence, she visits Moscow monasteries, moreover, she is thinking about becoming a monk.
Clean Monday is the beginning of Lent. On this day, cleansing rituals are carried out, the transition from fast food to Lenten restrictions.
Parting
One day they go to the Novodevichy Convent. By the way, this is a rather unusual route for him. Previously, they spent time exclusively in entertainment venues. The visit to the monastery is, of course, the idea of the protagonist's beloved.
The next day, intimacy occurs between them for the first time. And then the girl leaves for Tver, from there she sends a letter to her lover. In this message she asks not to wait for her. She became a novice in one of the Tver monasteries, and perhaps she will decide to take monastic vows. He will never see her again.
After receiving the last letter from his beloved, the hero began to drink, go downhill, and then finally came to his senses. One day later for a long time, saw a nun in a Moscow church, in whom he recognized his former lover. Perhaps the image of his beloved was too firmly entrenched in his mind, and it was not her at all? He didn't tell her anything. He turned and walked out of the temple gates. This is the summary of Bunin’s “Clean Monday”.
Love and tragedy
Bunin's heroes do not find happiness. In "Clean Monday", as in other works of the Russian classic, we are talking about love, which brings only bitterness and disappointment. What is the tragedy of the heroes of this story?
Probably the fact that, being close, they did not know each other at all. Each person is a whole Universe. And sometimes even loved ones cannot unravel his inner world. Bunin spoke about loneliness among people, about love, which is impossible without complete mutual understanding. Analysis work of art cannot be done without characterizing the main characters. What do we know about the girl who, living in prosperity and being loved, went to a monastery?
main character
When analyzing Bunin’s “Clean Monday”, it is worth paying attention to the portrait of a nameless girl that the author creates at the beginning of the work. She led an idle life. She read a lot, studied music, and loved visiting restaurants. But she did all this somehow indifferently, without much interest.
She is educated, well-read, and enjoys immersing herself in the world of luxury. social life. She likes good cuisine, but she wonders “how people don’t get bored having lunch and dinner every day”? She calls acting skits vulgar, while she ends the relationship with her lover by visiting the theater. Bunin's heroine cannot understand what his purpose in this life is. She is not one of those who is content to live in luxury and talk about literature and art.
Inner world main character very rich. She constantly thinks and is in a spiritual search. The girl is attracted by the surrounding reality, but at the same time she is frightened. Love becomes not a salvation for her, but a problem that terribly burdens her, forcing her to make the only correct sudden decision.
The main character refuses worldly joys, and this shows her strong nature. “Clean Monday” is not the only story from the collection “Dark Alleys” in which the author paid a lot of attention to the female image.
Bunin brought to the fore the hero's experiences. At the same time, he showed a rather controversial female character. The heroine is satisfied with the lifestyle she leads, but all sorts of details, little things, depress her. Finally, she decides to go to a monastery, thereby destroying the life of the man who loves her. True, by doing this she causes suffering to herself. After all, in the letter that the girl sends to her lover there are the words: “May God give me the strength not to answer you.”
Main character
Little is known about the future fate of the young man. He had a hard time being separated from his beloved. He disappeared into the dirtiest taverns, drank and became miserable. But still he came to his senses and returned to his previous way of life. It can be assumed that the pain that this strange, extraordinary and somewhat exalted girl inflicted on him will never subside.
In order to find out who the writer was during his lifetime, you just need to read his books. But is the biography of Ivan Bunin really so tragic? Was there true love in his life?
Ivan Bunin
The writer's first wife, Anna Tsakni, was the daughter of an Odessa Greek, editor of a popular magazine at that time. They got married in 1898. Soon a son was born, who did not live even five years. The child died of meningitis. Bunin took the death of his son very hard. The relationship between the spouses went wrong, but his wife did not give him a divorce for a long time. Even after he connected his life with Vera Muromtseva.
The writer's second wife became his "patient shadow." Muromtseva replaced his secretary, mother, and friend. She did not leave him even when he started an affair with Galina Kuznetsova. Still, it was Galina Muromtseva who was next to the writer in last days his life. The creator of “Dark Alleys” was not deprived of love.