“Analysis of Bunin’s book of stories “Dark Alleys. Ivan Bunin, “Dark Alleys”: analysis

The story “Dark Alleys” opens perhaps Bunin’s most famous cycle of stories, which got its name from this first, “title” work. It is known what importance the writer attached to the initial sound, the first “note” of the narrative, the timbre of which was supposed to determine the entire sound palette of the work. A kind of “beginning” that creates a special lyrical atmosphere of the story were lines from N. Ogarev’s poem “An Ordinary Tale”:

It was a wonderful spring
They sat on the shore
She was in her prime,
His mustache was barely black.
The scarlet rose hips were blooming all around,
There was an alley of dark linden trees...

But, as always with Bunin, “sound” is inseparable from “image”. He, as he wrote in the notes “The Origin of My Stories,” when starting work on the story, was presented with “some kind of big road, a troika harnessed to a tarantass, and autumn bad weather.” We must add to this the literary impulse, which also played a role: Bunin called L.N.’s “Resurrection” as such. Tolstoy, the heroes of this novel - young Nekhlyudov and Katyusha Maslova. All this came together in the writer’s imagination, and a story was born about lost happiness, the irrevocability of time, lost illusions and the power of the past over man.

The meeting of the heroes, once united in their youth by an ardent feeling of love, takes place many years later in the most ordinary, perhaps even nondescript setting: in a muddy road, at an inn located on a large road. Bunin does not skimp on “prosaic” details: “a mud-covered tarantass,” “simple horses,” “tails tied up from the slush.” But the portrait of the arriving man is given in detail, clearly designed to arouse sympathy: “a slender old military man,” with black eyebrows, a white mustache, and a shaved chin. His appearance speaks of nobility, and his stern but tired look contrasts with the liveliness of his movements (the author notices how he “threw” his leg out of the tarantass and “ran up” onto the porch). Bunin clearly wants to emphasize the combination of vivacity and maturity, youthfulness and sedateness in the hero, which is very important for the overall concept of the story, implicated in the desire to collide the past and the present, to strike a spark of memories that will illuminate bright light the past will incinerate, turn into ash what exists today.

The writer deliberately drags out the exposition: of the three and a half pages devoted to the story, almost a page is occupied by the “introduction”. In addition to the description of the stormy day, the hero’s appearance (and at the same time a detailed description of the coachman’s appearance), which is supplemented with new details as the hero frees himself from outerwear, it also contains detailed characteristics the room where the visitor found himself. Moreover, the refrain of this description is an indication of cleanliness and neatness: a clean tablecloth on the table, cleanly washed benches, a recently whitewashed stove, new image in the corner... The author emphasizes this, since it is known that the owners of Russian inns and hotels were not very tidy and a constant feature of these places were cockroaches and dull windows covered with flies. Consequently, he wants to draw our attention to the almost unique way in which this establishment is maintained by its owners, or rather, as we will soon learn, by its mistress.

But the hero remains indifferent to the surrounding environment, although later he will note the cleanliness and neatness. From his behavior and gestures it is clear that he is irritated, tired (Bunin uses the epithet tired for the second time, now in relation to the entire appearance of the arriving officer), perhaps not very healthy (“pale, thin hand”), and is hostile to everything that is happening (“ “hostilely” called the owners), absent-minded (“inattentively” answers the questions of the hostess who appeared). And only this woman’s unexpected address to him: “Nikolai Alekseevich,” makes him seem to wake up. After all, before that, he asked her questions purely mechanically, without thinking, although he managed to glance at her figure, note her rounded shoulders, light legs in worn Tatar shoes.

The author himself, as if in addition to the “unseeing” gaze of the hero, gives a much more sharply expressive, unexpected, juicy portrait of the woman who entered: not very young, but still beautiful, similar to a gypsy, plump, but not overweight, a woman. Bunin deliberately resorts to naturalistic, almost anti-aesthetic details: big breasts, triangular, like a goose, belly. But the anti-aestheticism of the image is “removed”: the breasts are hidden under a red blouse (the diminutive suffix is ​​intended to convey a feeling of lightness), and the stomach is hidden by a black skirt. In general, the combination of black and red in clothes, the fluff above the lip (a sign of passion), and the zoomorphic comparison are aimed at emphasizing the carnal, earthly nature in the heroine.

However, it is she who will reveal - as we will see a little later - the spiritual principle as opposed to the mundane existence that, without realizing it, the hero drags out, without thinking or looking into his past. That's why she's the first! - recognizes him. No wonder she “looked inquisitively at him all the time, squinting slightly,” and he will look at her only after she addresses him by name and patronymic. She - and not he - will name the exact number when it comes to the years they have not seen each other: not thirty-five, but thirty. She will tell you how old he is now. This means that she meticulously calculated everything, which means that every year she left a notch in her memory! And this is at a time when he should never forget what connected them, for in the past he had - no less than - a dishonest act, however, completely ordinary at that time - having fun with a serf girl when visiting friends' estates, sudden departure...

In the terse dialogue between Nadezhda (that’s the name of the owner of the inn) and Nikolai Alekseevich, the details of this story are restored. And the most important thing is the different attitude of the heroes towards the past. If for Nikolai Alekseevich everything that happened is “a vulgar, ordinary story” (however, he is ready to put everything in his life under this standard, as if removing from a person the burden of responsibility for his actions), then for Nadezhda her love became a great test, and a great event, the only one of significance in her life. “Just as I didn’t have anything more valuable than you in the world at that time, so I didn’t have anything later,” she will say.

For Nikolai Alekseevich, the love of a serf was only one of the episodes of his life (Nadezhda directly states this to him: “It’s as if nothing happened for you”). She “wanted to kill herself” several times, and despite her extraordinary beauty, she never got married, never being able to forget her first love. That’s why she refutes Nikolai Alekseevich’s statement that “everything passes over the years” (he, as if trying to convince himself of this, repeats the formula that “everything passes” several times: after all, he really wants to brush aside the past, to imagine everything is not enough significant event), with the words: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.” And she will say them with unshakable confidence. However, Bunin almost never comments on her words, limiting himself to monosyllabic “answered”, “approached”, “paused”. Only once does he slip an indication of the “unkind smile” with which Nadezhda utters the phrase addressed to her seducer: “I was deigned to read all the poems about all sorts of “dark alleys”.”

The writer is also stingy with “historical details.” Only from the words of the heroine of the work: “The gentlemen soon after you gave me my freedom,” and from the mention of the hero’s appearance, which had “a resemblance to Alexander II, which was so common among the military during his reign,” we can get the idea that The story appears to take place in the 60s or 70s years XIX V.

But Bunin is unusually generous in commenting on the condition of Nikolai Alekseevich, for whom a meeting with Nadezhda becomes a meeting with both his past and his conscience. The writer here reveals himself as a “secret psychologist” in all his splendor, making it clear through gestures, intonation of voice, and the behavior of the hero what is happening in his soul. If at first the only thing that interests a visitor at the inn is that “from behind the stove damper there was a sweet smell of cabbage soup” (Bunin even adds this detail: the smell of “boiled cabbage, beef and bay leaf”, - from which we can conclude that the guest is clearly hungry), then upon meeting Nadezhda, upon recognizing her, upon further conversation with her, fatigue and absent-mindedness instantly disappear from him, he begins to look fussy, worried, talking a lot and confusedly (“ mumbled,” “added quickly,” “said hastily”), which is a sharp contrast with the calm majesty of Nadezhda. Bunin points three times to Nikolai Alekseevich’s reaction of embarrassment: “he quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed,” “he stopped and, blushing through his gray hair, began to speak,” “blushed to the point of tears”; emphasizes his dissatisfaction with himself with sudden changes in position: “he walked decisively around the room,” “frowning, he walked again,” “stopping, he grinned painfully.”

All this indicates what a difficult, painful process is taking place in him. But at first, nothing comes to mind except the divine beauty of the young girl (“How beautiful you were!... What a figure, what eyes!... How everyone looked at you”) and the romantic atmosphere of their rapprochement, and he is inclined brush aside what he had heard, hoping to turn the conversation, if not into a joke, then into the direction of “whoever remembers the old will...” However, after he heard that Nadezhda could never forgive him, because one cannot forgive the one who took away the most dear - the soul, who killed it, he seems to see the light. He is especially shocked, apparently, by the fact that to explain her feeling she resorts to the proverb (obviously, especially loved by Bunin, already used by him once in the story “The Village”) “they don’t carry the dead from the graveyard.” This means that she feels dead, that she never came back to life after those happy spring days and that for her, who knew the great power of love, it was not without reason that his question-exclamation: “You couldn’t love me all your life!” - she firmly answers: “So, she could. No matter how much time passed, I lived alone,” - there is no return to life ordinary people. Her love was not easy stronger than death, A stronger than that the life that came after what happened and which she, as a Christian, had to continue, no matter what.

And what kind of life this is, we learn from several remarks exchanged between Nikolai Alekseevich, who is leaving the short-term shelter, and the coachman Klim, who says that the owner of the inn is “smart”, that she is “getting rich” because she “gives money on interest”, that she is “cool”, but “fair”, which means she enjoys both respect and honor. But we understand how petty and insignificant for her, who has fallen in love once and for all, all this mercantile frivolity, how incompatible it is with what is going on in her soul. For Nadezhda, her love is from God. No wonder she says: “What does God give to whom... Everyone’s youth passes, but love is another matter.” That is why her unpreparedness for forgiveness, while Nikolai Alekseevich really wants and hopes that God will forgive him, and even more so Nadezhda will forgive him, because, by all standards, he committed not such a great sin, is not condemned by the author. Although such a maximalist position runs counter to Christian doctrine. But, according to Bunin, a crime against love, against memory is much more serious than the sin of “grudge.” And it is precisely the memory of love, of the past, in his opinion, that justifies a lot.

And what gradually awakens in the hero’s consciousness true understanding what happened speaks in his favor. After all, at first the words he said: “I think that in you I too have lost the most precious thing I had in life,” and his act - he kissed Nadezhda’s hand goodbye - do not cause him anything but shame, and even more - the shame of this shame, are perceived by him as false, ostentatious. But then he begins to understand that what came out accidentally, in a hurry, perhaps even for the sake of a catchphrase, is the most genuine “diagnosis” of the past. His internal dialogue, reflecting hesitation and doubt: “Isn’t it true that she gave me the best moments of my life?” - ends with an unshakable: “Yes, of course, the best moments. And not the best, but truly magical.” But right there - and here Bunin acts as a realist who does not believe in romantic transformations and repentance - another, sobering voice told him that all these thoughts were “nonsense”, that he could not do otherwise, that nothing could be corrected then , not now.

So Bunin, in the very first story of the cycle, gives an idea of ​​the unattainable height to which the most ordinary person is capable of rising if his life is illuminated, albeit tragic, by love. And short moments of this love can “outweigh” all the material benefits of future well-being, all the joys of love interests that do not rise above the level of ordinary affairs, and in general the entire subsequent life with its ups and downs.

Bunin draws the subtlest modulations of the characters’ states, relying on the sound “echo”, the consonance of phrases that are born, often in addition to meaning, in response to spoken words. Thus, the words of coachman Klim that if you don’t give Nadezhda the money on time, then “blame yourself,” echo like echolalia when Nikolai Alekseevich pronounces them out loud: “Yes, yes, blame yourself.” And then in his soul they will continue to sound like “crucifying” his words. “Yes, blame yourself,” he thinks, realizing what kind of guilt lies with him. And the brilliant formula created by the author and put into the heroine’s mouth: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten,” was born in response to Nikolai Alekseevich’s phrase: “Everything passes. Everything is forgotten,” which was previously supposedly confirmed in a quotation from the book of Job: “as you will remember the flowing water.” And more than once throughout the story words will appear that refer us to the past, to memory: “Over the years, everything passes”; “everyone’s youth passes”; “I called you Nikolenka, and you remember me”; “Do you remember how everyone looked at you”, “How can you forget this”, “Well, why remember.” These echoing phrases seem to be weaving a carpet on which Bunin’s formula about the omnipotence of memory will be forever imprinted.

It is impossible not to notice the obvious similarity of this story with Turgenev’s “Asya”. As we remember, even there the hero at the end tries to convince himself that “fate was good in not uniting him with Asya.” He consoles himself with the thought that “he probably would not be happy with such a wife.” It would seem that the situations are similar: in both cases the idea of ​​misalliance, i.e. the possibility of marrying a woman of a lower class is initially rejected. But what is the result of this, it would seem, from the point of view of attitudes accepted in society the right decision? The hero of “Asia” found himself condemned to forever remain a “familyless loner”, dragging out “boring” years of complete loneliness. It's all in the past.

For Nikolai Alekseevich from “Dark Alleys” life turned out differently: he achieved a position in society, is surrounded by family, he has a wife and children. True, as he admits to Nadezhda, he was never happy: his wife, whom he loved “without memory,” cheated and left him, his son, on whom great hopes were pinned, turned out to be “a scoundrel, a spendthrift, an insolent person without a heart, without honor, without conscience.” ....” Of course, it can be assumed that Nikolai Alekseevich somewhat exaggerates his feeling of bitterness, his experiences, in order to somehow make amends for Nadezhda, so that it would not be so painful for her to realize the difference in their states, their different assessment of the past. Moreover, at the end of the story, when he tries to “learn a lesson” from the unexpected meeting, to sum up his life, he, reflecting, comes to the conclusion that it would still be impossible to imagine Nadezhda as the mistress of his St. Petersburg house, the mother of his children. Consequently, we understand that his wife, apparently, returned to him, and besides the scoundrel son, there are other children. But why, in this case, is he so initially irritated, bilious, gloomy, why does he have a stern and at the same time tired look? Why is this look “questioning”? Maybe this is a subconscious desire to still give oneself an account of how he lives? And why does he shake his head in bewilderment, as if driving away doubts... Yes, all because the meeting with Nadezhda brightly illuminated him past life. And it became clear to him that there had never been anything in his life better than those “truly magical” minutes when “the scarlet rose hips were in bloom, there was an alley of dark linden trees,” when he passionately loved passionate Nadezhda, and she recklessly gave herself to him with all recklessness youth.

And the hero of Turgenev’s “Asia” cannot remember anything more vividly than that “burning, tender, deep feeling” that was given to him by a childish and serious girl beyond his years...

Both of them have only “flowers of memories” left from the past - a dried geranium flower thrown from Asya’s window, a scarlet rose hip from Ogarev’s poem that accompanied love story Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda. Only for the latter it is a flower that has caused unhealed wounds with its thorns.

So, following Turgenev, Bunin paints greatness female soul, capable of loving and remembering, in contrast to the male one, burdened with doubts, entangled in petty predilections, subordinate to social conventions. Thus, already the first story of the cycle reinforces the leading motifs of Bunin’s late work - memory, the omnipotence of the past, the significance of a single moment in comparison with a dull series of everyday life.

Kotomina Olga Alexandrovna,

teacher of Municipal Educational Institution Lyceum No. 22, Ivanovo.

Literature lesson notes. 11th grade (1 hour)

The mystery of love in I.A. Bunin’s story “Dark Alleys.”

Lesson type: analysis work of art.

Methodical techniques: analytical conversation, research into the fabric of a work of art, discussion, expressive reading.
We always only remember about happiness.

I.A.Bunin.

During the classes.

1. introduction teachers.

Studying the work of I.A. Bunin, one cannot help but turn to eternal theme in literature and to one of the main ones in the writer’s work - the theme of love. IN last book Ivan Alekseevich " Dark alleys"She became dominant. Love is an incomprehensible, uncontrollable feeling scientific analysis, today we will try to address the riddle of love.

The book “Dark Alleys” is the final book in the work of I.A. Bunin; it absorbed everything that he wrote about when thinking about love earlier. Later, when the book was published and readers were shocked by the “eternal drama of love,” Bunin admitted in one of his letters: “She talks about the tragic and about many tender and beautiful things. I think this is the best and most original thing I have written in my life.”

2. Goal setting.

What goals should you set for yourself today in class?

- figure out what the mystery of love is according to Bunin

- analyze the story “Dark Alleys” (content, images of characters, language, idea)

- determine your own attitude towards the work and its characters *

3. Analytical conversation.

Thirty-eight stories of "Dark Alleys" were written for the most part during the Second World War during the years of Bunin's emigration, from 1937 to 1944. Why, being in a foreign land during a war, does a writer compose a book about the most intimate human feeling?

What impression did the story make on you? What did it make you think about?

How did I.A. Bunin himself perceive love? Let's compare a few of his statements about this feeling:

“All love is great happiness, even if it is not shared.”

“Love is when you want something that doesn’t exist and doesn’t happen.”

“Don’t you already know that love and death are inextricably linked? Every time I experienced a love disaster, ... I was close to suicide."

“Is there such a thing as unhappy love? … Doesn’t the most sorrowful music in the world give happiness?”

“We always only remember happiness.”

How do you understand the words of I.A. Bunin? Which of them would you choose as an epigraph for the lesson? (The statements of I.A. Bunin were selected in advance by one of the students).

(For Bunin, love is happiness and disaster at the same time; for him, love and death are inextricably linked).

Let's try to understand Bunin's philosophy of love and get closer to its solution, based on the text of the story "Dark Alleys."

The mood for the cycle is given by N. P. Ogarev’s poem “An Ordinary Tale,” which is not very accurately quoted by the hero of the story “Dark Alleys.” (N.P. Ogarev (1813-1877) – public figure, publicist, poet and musician.) But the poem ends with sad lines about the meeting of young people:
... It remains closed to people.
What was said there
And how much has been forgotten.
Bunin writes about the unforgettable, which has left a deep mark on the human soul. Let us remember the plot of the story: it is very simple, but it seems as if a whole love drama is compressed in it. (Students briefly convey the content of the story.)

4. Study of text stylistics (work in groups).

Like many of Bunin's works, this story is written in an amazing, unique language. He is simple, almost stingy, but is it really possible to tell in ordinary, non-Bunin words what he wrote with classical power and clarity. The writer makes us hear, see, feel everything that happens. How expressively Bunin was able to convey the meeting of the characters, their experiences, to show everything in such a way that it seems as if the author was telling us the story of people he knew or were close to him.

Let's carry out research work in groups, which will help to better understand the work. Write out epithets, metaphors, comparisons, etc. from the text, analyze the details of the landscape, interior, portraits of characters, then comment on your observations and draw a conclusion.

Student findings on style exploration :

Scenery. Sad autumn landscape, which contains a lot of dirt and black color, creates a feeling of coldness and discomfort at the beginning of the story. At the end there is the same landscape, but the sun “peeped through”, albeit pale, it “shone yellow”, “motley fields” became visible. It is not by chance that the author changes the landscape after the heroes meet: memories of past love, of “the best minutes of life,” come to life in their souls. But these are only memories, their real happiness is impossible.

Interior.The room is “warm, dry and tidy,” the cabbage soup smells sweet, and white and gold colors appear. Here real life, home comfort, although somewhat harsh. The interior is opposed to the landscape.

Portraits.Nikolai Alekseevich “still black-browed, but with a white mustache” and sideburns (contrast), tall, slender, resembles AlexanderII, his look is “questioning, stern and at the same time tired” (contrast again). In a man White hair, “a beautiful long face with dark eyes” and traces of smallpox. This is a man tired of life, sickly, gloomy, although he tries to “look”, he is clearly unhappy. And a “dark-faced” man who looked like a robber brought him.

Nadezhda is a “dark-haired, also black-browed and also beautiful beyond her age” woman, light on her feet, but plump (contrast). The author emphasizes the similarities of the characters, pointing out their closeness. Compares to an elderly gypsy woman and a goose. She is dressed in black and red (possibly symbols of life and death).

5. Analysis figurative system and composition of the work.

Bunin nowhere directly characterizes his heroes, does not directly express his position. It makes the reader think. Is it still possible to determine author's attitude to the heroes, to understand his plan? How?

(Understand author's position helpwords and expressions characterizing the state, feelings, actions of the characters, author's remarks in dialogues, descriptions, construction of the work. The author’s attitude towards the characters is conveyed to the readers.)

Independent work on the images of heroes (optional).

What is our attitude towards heroes? Give them a description. ( We respect the truth of Nadezhda’s feelings, we admire the integrity of her nature, her fulfilled life, despite the pain of betrayal of a loved one. I don’t want to listen to complaints about Nikolai Alekseevich’s unsuccessful life, his excuses are unconvincing, he only quotes and does not really live. Nadezhda for thirty years, “no matter how much time passed, she lived alone”: for her, “everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.”
And her former lover Nikolai Alekseevich accidentally, unexpectedly remembers “the most precious thing he had in life” and lost. And it calms down quickly too. Nevertheless, the “thorn” from his heart will still not disappear. If there was love, then it will remain in the soul and in the memory forever, and the person who failed to consider love betrayed it, succumbed public opinion and class prejudices are severely punished by fate. Nadezhda does not forgive him either.)

How is the story structured? Where does it begin and where does it end? What is the name of this composition? ( The composition is circular, as evidenced by the gloomy autumn landscape framing the work. The motif of the road as a symbol of life is associated with it).

What does such a construction provide for understanding the author’s intention? (Bunin perceived love as part of a large, harmonious world, and the heroes of the work are also part of it). What moment of the plot can be called the climax? Why? (Nadezhda recognized her lover in the newcomer. How will he behave?)

Which artistic device uses I.A. Bunin to create a story? ( Antithesis)

How does antithesis help to understand the idea of ​​a work? (Bunin shows two types of love: harmonious, sincere, natural, real and carnal, infatuation. Love is happiness, but a person in it cannot be completely happy).

Let's look at the title of the work. How would you explain it? Let's compare our reasoning with the opinion of the author himself.

On February 23, 1944, Bunin wrote to Teffi: “This whole book is called after the first story - “Dark Alleys” - in which the “heroine” reminds her lover how he once read her poems about “dark alleys”, and all the stories in this book are only about love, about its “dark” and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys.”

And the name main character, for sure, was not chosen by chance. What does it give hope to the author and to us, the readers? ( She is the hope of the author, who perceives the world order tragically, who sees the only opportunity to enlighten human life spiritual, bright love).

6. Conclusions.

So what is Bunin’s mystery of love?

(For Bunin, love is always associated with death, although sometimes this death may not be physical, but spiritual. Love is happiness and tragedy at the same time. And this comes from Bunin’s perception of life. Love is a flash, a moment of happiness that is remembered for a lifetime. Love is the highest judge in human relationships).

7. Reflection.

What did the story “Dark Alleys” and the lesson on it make you think about?

Which text analysis techniques were easy for you? What mistakes were made? What needs to be improved?

Which group's work can be highlighted and why?

8. Homework.

Write your own interpretation of one of the stories in the Dark Alleys series.

Think about what cyclization of works does for the perception of each individual story.

1.00 /5 (20.00%) 1 vote

The cycle of stories by the outstanding Russian writer Ivan A “Dark Alleys” consists of 38 works. They reflect different layers of time and differ in the methods of creating images and genres. The writer created the last cycle of stories in his life during the Second World War, in last years own life. At a time when the established world was collapsing from a bloody war, he wrote about the power of feelings and eternal love. He ranked his book “Dark Alleys” among his most outstanding works and considered it the most perfect in artistic skill. The cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” is a memoir book in which the author, through people’s declaration of love for each other, confesses his own love for Russia and admires its deep mysterious soul.

The running theme of all the stories in the cycle is love, a great feeling in all its manifestations. The author considers love to be the greatest priceless gift that no one can take away from a person. Therefore, people are truly free only in love.

“Dark Alleys” is one of the stories in the cycle, which gave the title to the entire collection. This story was written in 1938. In it, as in other stories, main theme is love. The author reveals to the reader the catastrophic and tragic nature of love. Love is a gift from above that is beyond human control. The story “Dark Alleys” is, at first glance, a banal story about a meeting of elderly people who, in their youth, loved each other very much. A young, rich and handsome landowner seduces and after a while abandons his maid. But with the help of a simple plot, they managed to impressively and excitingly tell about the seemingly simple things. This work is just a short flash of memories of lost love and youth. The story has only three compositional parts:

• Parking at the inn of an elderly military man.
• A sudden meeting of this military man with his former lover.
• Reflections of the hero of the story about the meeting.

At the beginning of the story, we are presented with pictures of routine and everyday dullness. But suddenly, in the owner of the inn, tired Nikolai Alekseevich recognizes his young love - the beautiful Nadezhda, who served as his maid. He betrayed this girl thirty years ago. Nikolai Alekseevich “quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed.” A whole life has passed since they broke up. It turned out that both heroes remained lonely. Although Nikolai Alekseevich has weight in society and is quite comfortable in life, he is unhappy. His wife “cheated on him, abandoned me even more insultingly than I abandoned you,” and his son has grown very bad person"without heart, without honor, without conscience."

And Nadezhda, who said goodbye to her masters and turned from a former serf into the owner of a private hotel opened at the post station. Nadezhda is a “mind chamber.” And everyone, they say, is getting rich, cool.” But... She never got married. If the hero of the story is already tired of life, then he ex-lover still as beautiful, light and full vitality. Nikolai Alekseevich once voluntarily renounced love, and the punishment for this was complete loneliness for the rest of his life, without a loved one and without happiness. Nadezhda, in the same way, all her life loved only one person, to whom she gave “her beauty, her fever,” whom she once called “Nikolenka.” Love for this man still lives in her heart, but she still does not forgive Nikolai Alekseevich...

Composition

At this time, in the perception of his contemporaries, Bunin appears as a living classic. In 1933, he was the first Russian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. (Later it was received by B. Pasternak, A. Solzhenitsyn, M. Sholokhov and the poet I. Brodsky.) The official message said: “By the decision of the Swedish Academy of November 9, 1933 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to Ivan Bunin for the strict artistic talent with which he recreated in literary prose typical Russian character." The appearance of the first four books of “The Life of Arsenyev” played a significant role in this event. A unique result of moral and spiritual quests was Bunin’s philosophical treatise “The Liberation of Tolstoy” (1937), dedicated to his beloved writer, the creator of “War and Peace”.

During the war years, Bunin completed a book of short stories, “Dark Alleys,” which was published for the first time in New York (1943) in six hundred copies. Of the twenty stories written at that time, eleven were included in the book. This book is entirely about love. “All love is great happiness, even if it is not shared” - these words from the book “Dark Alleys” could be repeated by all “heroes-lovers” from Bunin. With a huge variety of individuals, social status, etc., they live in anticipation of love, search for it, and most often, scorched by it, die. This concept was formed in Bunin’s work back in the pre-revolutionary decade.

"Dark Alleys", a book that has already been published in its final form, in full force in 1946 in Paris, the only one of its kind in Russian literature. Thirty-eight short stories in this collection provide a great variety of unforgettable female types - Rusya, Antigone, Galya Ganskaya (stories of the same name), Polya (Madrid), the heroine of Clean Monday. Near this inflorescence, male characters are much more inexpressive; they are less developed, sometimes only outlined and, as a rule, static. They are characterized rather indirectly, reflectedly - in connection with the physical and mental appearance of the woman who is loved and who occupies a self-sufficient place. Even when only “he” “acts,” for example, a loving officer who shot a quarrelsome beautiful woman, still only “she” remains in memory - “long, wavy,” and her “bare knee in the cut of the hood” (“Steamboat” "Saratov") In “Dark Alleys” we will encounter both rough sensuality and a simply skillfully told playful anecdote (“One Hundred Rupees”), but the theme of pure and beautiful love runs through the book. Extraordinary strength and sincerity of feeling are characteristic of the heroes of these stories, and there is no savoring of risky details, the notorious “strawberry” in them. Love seems to say: “Where I stand cannot be dirty!”

It is not for nothing that next to the full-blooded, breathing suffering and passion stories from “Dark Alleys” (“Tanya”, “Dark Alleys”, “ Clean Monday", "Natalie", etc.) we will encounter some fragments of unfinished, not fully realized works, with raggedness and disintegration of the plot ("Caucasus"), exposition, sketches of future short stories ("Beginning") or direct borrowings from someone else's literature (“Returning to Rome”, “Bernard”).

As a poet, Bunin, of course, honed and improved his gift, but here the muse and inspiration visited him infrequently. The few poems written in exile are permeated with a feeling of loneliness, homelessness and longing for Russia:

* The bird has a nest, the beast has a hole.
* How bitter it was for the young heart,
* When I left my father's yard,
* Say goodbye to your home!
* The beast has a hole, the bird has a nest.
* How the heart beats, sadly and loudly,
* When I enter, being baptized, into someone else’s rented house
* With his already old knapsack!

Other works on this work

/ / / Analysis of Bunin’s collection of stories “Dark Alleys”

The collection of stories by I. Bunin “Dark Alleys” was a real achievement and a literary masterpiece of the author. For the first time, it was published in New York. It included eleven stories, and all of them were devoted to the theme of love. After all, this topic is the most popular and in demand in our society. Many of us miss her so much.

All heroes Bunin's stories encounter different manifestations of love. Some wait for it, others lose it, others betray it, and others keep it for the rest of their lives. After all, love, in all its manifestations, can be called happiness. It evokes bright, real emotions in people’s souls that force us to take action, make compromises and simply enjoy the life around us.

1946 marks the publication complete collection stories "Dark Alleys". It takes place in romantic and mysterious Paris. The collection contains as many as thirty-eight short stories. And in each of them we get acquainted with different, individual female types characters who loved, and also sought their love. These are Fields from the short story “Madrid”, and Ganskaya Galya from story of the same name, and Antigone, and Russia.

Next to such bright images, male characters seem static and little expressive. Quite often, the author does men's images indirect and secondary. They enter into the idea of ​​stories only in order to reveal female characters as clearly as possible.

For example, in the text “Steamboat Saratov” we get acquainted with the story of how an officer in love shot and killed beautiful woman. And what happens! All the same, it is her image that remains and is remembered in the readers’ memory, not his.

In excerpts from the stories there is a mention of both rough and playful love, which is funny described by I. Bunin. But most of the stories in “Dark Alleys” are dedicated to feelings of sincere and true love.

In the collection we get acquainted with both completed stories and those just begun. For example, this is the text of the novel “The Beginning”. The collection also contains unfinished stories. For example, "Caucasus".

I. Bunin considered “Clean Monday” to be one of the most perfect stories. He worked painstakingly on its meaning. Every detail, every line in it matters. Bunin thanked God for giving him the inspiration to write such a masterpiece text. It is in the story “Clean Monday” that the author creates a new type of human relationships and human soul. Russian literature has never seen anything like this.

All the stories in the collection “Dark Alleys” reveal to the reader both light and dark sides love relationship, as well as the cruel and gloomy alleys associated with them. This is what the author himself said and he skillfully transferred his thoughts to paper.