Philosophical problems of Bunin's works. The meaning of the stories
In Bunin's poetry, philosophical lyrics occupied one of the key places. Looking into the past, the writer sought to grasp the “eternal” laws of the development of science, peoples, and humanity. This was the meaning of his appeal to distant civilizations of the past - Slavic and Eastern.
The basis of Bunin’s philosophy of life is the recognition of earthly existence as only a part of eternal cosmic history, in which the life of man and humanity is dissolved. His lyrics intensify the feeling of the fatal confinement of human life in a narrow time frame, the feeling of man’s loneliness in the world.
The desire for the sublime comes into contact with the imperfections of human experience. Next to the desired Atlantis, the “blue abyss”, and the ocean, images of the “naked soul” and “night sadness” appear. The contradictory experiences of the lyrical hero were most clearly manifested in the deeply philosophical motives of dreams and souls. The “bright dream”, “winged”, “intoxicating”, “enlightened happiness” are sung. However, such a sublime feeling carries a “heavenly secret” and becomes “foreign to the earth.”
In prose, one of Bunin’s most famous philosophical works is the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco.” With hidden irony and sarcasm, Bunin describes the main character - a gentleman from San Francisco, without even honoring him with a name. The Master himself is full of snobbery and self-satisfaction. All his life he strived for wealth, setting the richest people in the world as an example for himself and trying to achieve the same prosperity as them. Finally, it seems to him that the set goal is close and, finally, it’s time to relax, live for his own pleasure: “Until this moment, he did not live, but existed.” And the gentleman is already fifty-eight years old...
The hero considers himself the “master” of the situation, but life itself refutes him. Money is a powerful force, but it cannot buy happiness, prosperity, respect, love, life. In addition, there is a force in the world that is beyond the control of anything. This is nature, element. All that rich people, like the gentleman from San Francisco, can do is isolate themselves as much as possible from weather conditions they do not want. However, the elements are still stronger. After all, their lives depend on her favor.
The gentleman from San Francisco believed that everything around him was created only to fulfill his desires; the hero firmly believed in the power of the “golden calf”: “He was quite generous on the way and therefore fully believed in the care of all those who fed and watered they served him from morning to evening, preventing his slightest desire.” Yes, the wealth of the American tourist, like a magic key, opened many doors, but not all. It could not prolong his life, it did not protect him even after death. How much servility and admiration this man saw during his life, the same amount of humiliation his mortal body experienced after death.
Bunin shows how illusory the power of money is in this world, and how pathetic is the person who bets on it. Having created idols for himself, he strives to achieve the same well-being. It seems that the goal has been achieved, he is at the top, for which he worked tirelessly for many years. What did he do that he left for his descendants? Nobody even remembered his name.
Among civilization, in the everyday bustle, it is easy for a person to lose himself, it is easy to replace real goals and ideals with imaginary ones. But this cannot be done. It is necessary to take care of your soul in any conditions, to preserve the treasures that are in it. Bunin’s philosophical works call us to this. With this work, Bunin tried to show that a person can lose himself, but under any conditions he must retain something more within himself - and this is an immortal soul.
Conclusion
It seems to me that, being the heir to the deep lyrical traditions in poetry (philosophical, mental), laid down by Pushkin, Baratynsky and Tyutchev, Ivan Bunin, using his honed and refined gift of a Poet, based on the subtlest nuances of observations of nature and the emotional experiences of man, deepened and developed these themes so much that they generally became fundamental in Russian lyrics. Numerous researchers and biographers (O. Mikhailov) see the origins of Bunin’s poetic gift in the unusual “mental organization of the author”, in his artistic ability to use deep, updated memory, which contains huge layers of world culture, including mythical, epic and folklore foundations. In all his work, Bunin tried to show the immortality of the human soul, and he conveyed this meaning to the reader not literally, but using in different ways in his works.
References
1. http://www.litra.ru/
2. www.referat.sta/
3. http://bolshoy-beysug.ru/
Content:
“Man not only always lies, he also always believes in goodness, beauty and perfection and sees them even where they do not exist at all, or they exist only in the beginning” (E. M. Remarque “Quotes and Aphorisms”).
Topic: " Philosophical issues works by Bunin and Kuprin"
The Silver Age gave the world such famous writers a new milestone of realism, like Bunin and Kuprin. Their works are distinguished by grace, but at the same time they reflect the true life, feelings and experiences of the heroes. The philosophical foundations underlying many of the works of these authors will never become obsolete. Including such a philosophical category as love. Let's take a closer look at how writers described this feeling in their novels? And also, how did they express their attitude towards morality and kindness, service to people and loyalty to philosophical principles?
The work “Olesya” by Kuprin was one of the most successful in his work. At the center of the story is a man, with his thoughts about the meaning of life, which are mixed with the canvases of the outback, as well as the unkind morals of the Perbrod peasants. The writer introduces his reader to a very evil world. This is rural life, which is flavored with ignorance, rudeness, rudeness and drunkenness. This is a world not of thinking people, but of individuals trying to survive in such harsh conditions of reality. But the writer does not plunge the reader into horror, for he contrasts the considered world with harmony and beauty, as well as true love. What is love in Kuprin’s understanding? The writer confidently says that love reveals a person, his worldview and character. It is thanks to this magical feeling, which includes many other philosophical subcategories (morality, sacrifice, affection for one’s neighbor), that a person becomes better. Of course, this does not apply to all people! No no! We remember "Eugene Onegin", where Tatyana's love could not change the main character! You can give hundreds...
examples, however, love heals a tired and sinful soul. The author in “Oles” becomes a continuer of the humanitarian mission of Russian literature and an ardent supporter of the healing properties of love! This is precisely the meaning of the philosophical beginning of his works.
When talking about such a creator of words as Bunin, one inevitably remembers his “ Dark alleys" Despite the fact that this work is difficult to classify as the most famous and popular among the average reader, it is nevertheless beautiful. Bunin is the writer (according to the author of the essay) who is characterized by conciseness of presentation and the absence of complex forms. Dostoevsky, for example, has such forms, which is why it is so difficult to read him. “Dark Alleys” can be reduced to two components: it is a scene of recognizing each other and a stream of regret about unfulfilled love, happiness, and also about the whole life. A hero is a man of conventions. Their society dictates to him, so in the end he regrets that kiss to the woman he once loved. By refusing it, he plunged himself into the abyss of dullness and enduring melancholy, without suspecting it or understanding it. Illusions are what most modern people live by. Without suspecting or understanding the essence of what is happening, we spend our entire lives looking for something, and without finding it, we become philosophers. There is only one consolation: our experience will help our children. So what? main character in "Dark Alleys"? She barely shot, and many years have passed...
She loved and waited, but her moral passion remained unchanged. She didn't dare condemn this man even to herself. This love that lives in her heart is simply amazing. Let's say more: it is incomprehensible to many readers. Especially for modern young people and girls. Nevertheless, it was and is, since philosophical categories will never go into oblivion.
Ivan Bunin is a Russian writer who is known to us as a lyricist. He thinks a lot about the topics of the peasantry, the fate of his people, and human feelings. These topics are always interesting. His works trace his sadness and feeling of loneliness, revealing the essence of human existence, his short stay in this world. He considers a person's values. According to his judgments, we can conclude that a person is just a grain of sand in this world, compared to the universe.
In his stories, Bunin often reveals human nature. It shows how selfish and self-confident people are. A person very rarely thinks about his stay on earth, life expectancy, values and morality. It is human nature to make plans and imagine himself as the Creator of his life... But as we can understand from the work “The Mister from San Francisco,” life teaches us lessons. Sometimes these lessons become fatal.
The essence of this creation is that main character, whose name is not mentioned, devoted his life to acquiring material wealth. He craved them without thinking about the main values. The main character was convinced that in this world it is enough to have a lot of money. After all, with their help it is possible to purchase everything! How wrong he was! Life is such that it demands a high price for the benefits received. He achieved his goal. But at what cost? At a price own life. She paused. And the fact that his departure did not sadden anyone, not even his relatives, became regrettable. Bunin is bitter for the main character. What will be left after it? Who will remember him after a while?
The writer, one might say, grieves in the work for those members of society who are not able to see and feel the pain of others, to sympathize, love and provide help. What future awaits this people? How soon will their world turn to dust? Such a rotten society has no morals and no future!
Ivan Alekseevich himself was from a noble family. But he spent time studying the peasant soul. He was interested in observing the work of the peasants and their manner of communication. Bunin loved to watch the peasants when they were relaxing, having fun at fairs and having conversations.
During his emigration, Bunin wrote stories exploring the theme of love. He talks about its transience and impermanence. About the fact that it breaks against the rocks of everyday storms. Or rather, human love extinguishes due to circumstances that we do not want or cannot resist. It’s difficult to devote yourself to one person all your life and not be disappointed in him.
From all of the above we can conclude about the highly spiritual inner world Bunin, which he reveals in his creations.
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The philosophical issues of Bunin's works include a huge range of topics and questions that were relevant during the writer's lifetime and which remain relevant today.
Philosophical reflections of Bunin
Philosophical problems which the writer touches on in his works were very different. Here are just a few of them:
The decomposition of the world of the peasants and the collapse of the old rural way of life.
The fate of the Russian people.
Love and loneliness.
The meaning of human life.
The first theme about the decomposition of the world of peasants and the collapse of the village and ordinary way of life can be attributed to Bunin’s work “Village”. This story tells how the life of village men changes, changing not only their way of life, but also their moral values and concepts.
One of the philosophical problems that Ivan Alekseevich raises in his work relates to the fate of the Russian people, who were not happy and were not free. He talked about this in his works “Village” and “Antonov Apples”.
Bunin is known throughout the world as the most beautiful and subtle lyricist. For the writer, love was a special feeling that could not last long. He devotes his cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” to this topic, which is both sad and lyrical.
Bunin, both as a person and as a writer, was concerned about the morality of our society. He dedicated his work “Mr. from San Francisco” to this, where he shows the callousness and indifference of bourgeois society.
All the works of the great master of words are characterized by philosophical issues.
The collapse of peasant life and the world
One of the works where the writer raises philosophical problems is the burning story “The Village”. It contrasts two heroes: Tikhon and Kuzma. Despite the fact that Tikhon and Kuzma are brothers, these images are opposite. It is no coincidence that the author endowed his characters with different qualities. This is a reflection of reality. Tikhon is a wealthy peasant, a kulak, and Kuzma is a poor peasant who himself learned to write poetry and was good at it.
The plot of the story takes the reader to the beginning of the twentieth century, when in the village people were starving, turning into beggars. But in this village the ideas of revolution suddenly appear and the peasants, ragged and hungry, come to life listening to them. But poor, illiterate people do not have the patience to delve into political nuances; they very soon become indifferent to what is happening.
The writer writes with bitterness in the story that these peasants are incapable of decisive actions. They do not interfere in any way, and do not even make attempts to prevent the devastation of their native land, poor villages, allowing their indifference and inactivity to ruin their native places. Ivan Alekseevich suggests that the reason for this is their lack of independence. This can also be heard from the main character, who admits:
“I can’t think, I’m not educated”
Bunin shows that this deficiency appeared among the peasants due to the fact that serfdom existed in the country for a long time.
The fate of the Russian people
The author of such wonderful works as the story “The Village” and the story “Antonov Apples” talks bitterly about how the Russian people suffer and how difficult their fate is. It is known that Bunin himself never belonged to the peasant world. His parents were nobles. But Ivan Alekseevich, like many nobles of that time, was attracted to the study of the psychology of the common man. The writer tried to understand the origins and foundations national character a simple man.
Studying the peasant and his history, the author tried to find in him not only negative, but also positive traits. Therefore, he does not see a significant difference between a peasant and a landowner, this is especially felt in the plot of the story “Antonov Apples,” which tells how the village lived. The small nobility and peasants worked and celebrated holidays together. This is especially evident during the harvest in the garden, when Antonov apples smell strong and pleasant.
In such times, the author himself loved to wander in the garden, listening to the voices of men, observing changes in nature. The writer also loved fairs, when the fun began, the men played the harmonica, and the women put on beautiful and bright outfits. At such times it was good to wander around the garden and listen to the conversation of the peasants. And although, according to Bunin, nobles are people who carry true high culture, but simple men and peasants also contributed to the formation of Russian culture and spiritual world of your country.
Bunin's love and loneliness
Almost all of Ivan Alekseevich’s works that were written in exile are poetic. For him, love is a small moment that cannot last forever, so the author in his stories shows how it fades away under the influence of life circumstances, or at the will of one of the characters. But the theme leads the reader much deeper - this is loneliness. It can be seen and felt in many works. Far from his homeland, abroad, Bunin missed his native places.
Bunin’s story “In Paris” talks about how love can break out far from the homeland, but it is not real, since two people are completely alone. Nikolai Platanich, the hero of the story “In Paris,” left his homeland long ago, because the white officer could not come to terms with what was happening in his homeland. And here, far from his homeland, he accidentally meets a beautiful woman. They have a lot in common with Olga Alexandrovna. The heroes of the work speak the same language, their views on the world coincide, and they are both alone. Their souls reached out to each other. Far from Russia, from their homeland, they fall in love.
When Nikolai Platanich, the main character, dies suddenly and completely unexpectedly in the subway, Olga Alexandrovna returns to an empty and lonely house, where she experiences incredible sadness, bitterness of loss and emptiness in her soul. This emptiness has now settled in her soul forever, because lost values cannot be replenished far from her native land.
The meaning of human life
The relevance of Bunin's works lies in the fact that he raises questions of morality. This problem of his works concerned not only the society and the time when the writer lived, but also our modern one. This is one of the biggest philosophical problems that will always face human society.
Immorality, according to the great writer, does not appear immediately, and it is impossible to notice it even at the beginning. But then it grows and at some turning point begins to give rise to the most terrible consequences. The immorality growing in society hits the people themselves, making them suffer.
An excellent confirmation of this can be the famous story of Ivan Alekseevich “The Gentleman from San Francisco”. The main character does not think about morality or his spiritual development. He only dreams of this - to get rich. And he subordinates everything to this goal. For many years of his life he works hard without developing as a person. And now, when he is already 50 years old, he achieves the material well-being that he has always dreamed of. The main character does not set himself another, higher goal.
Together with his family, where there is no love and mutual understanding, he goes on a long and distant journey, which he pays in advance. Visiting historical monuments it turns out that neither he nor his family are interested in them. Material values have replaced interest in beauty.
The main character of this story has no name. It is Bunin who deliberately does not give the rich millionaire a name, showing that the entire bourgeois world consists of such soulless members. The story vividly and accurately describes another world that is constantly working. They have no money, and they don’t have as much fun as the rich do, and the basis of their life is work. They die in poverty and in the holds, but the fun on the ship does not stop because of this. The cheerful and carefree life does not stop even when one of them dies. The millionaire without a name is simply moved away so that his body is not in the way.
A society where there is no sympathy, pity, where people do not experience any feelings, where they do not know beautiful moments of love - this is a dead society that cannot have a future, but they also do not have a present. And the whole world, which is built on the power of money, is an inanimate world, it is an artificial way of life. After all, even the wife and daughter do not feel compassion for the death of a rich millionaire; rather, it is regret about the spoiled trip. These people do not know why they were born into this world, and therefore they simply ruin their lives. The deep meaning of human life is inaccessible to them.
The moral foundations of Ivan Bunin's works will never become outdated, so his works will always be readable. The philosophical problems that Ivan Alekseevich shows in his works were continued by other writers. Among them are A. Kuprin, M. Bulgakov, and B. Pasternak. All of them showed love, loyalty, and honesty in their works. After all, a society without these important moral categories simply cannot exist.
The story "Mr. from San Francisco" was written by I.A. Bunin in 1915. The story is based on the author's general impression of his journey and seems to hint at social collapse throughout the world. Bunin specifically does not name the main character, presenting us with a generalized image. Initially, the title of the story was “Death on Capri,” but in the process of working on the work, Bunin abandoned the title containing the word “death.”
Despite this, the feeling of imminent death appears from the very first words of the epigraph.
The story tells about last days the life of a wealthy American gentleman who, at the age of 58, decided to start living. Just to start, because he worked all this time, trying to provide himself with a decent old age. He believed that life was about relaxation and pleasure, which he deserved, so he carefully planned the route of the trip, which in turn was stupid obedience to the schedule.
And everything almost immediately goes wrong as the main character intended. And besides, there was something artificial about its existence, where not only every movement of the passengers was painted, but also their emotions. This is where the dissonance between the opinions of the main character and the author is clearly shown. Such an existence cannot be called a full life. The hero lives only for a moment, and then fighting death.
The further picture is predictable. If at the beginning the hero himself has fun, talking with people of the highest circle and watching false lovers, then even after the death of the master, this same upper circle continues to waste its life, now without the main character, whose body rests deep under them.
"Mr. from San Francisco" is full of symbolism. The coffin in the hold is a message to those who are having fun, meaning that all people are equal before death, and their money cannot help them in their last painful minutes. Their happiness is in fact not happiness at all; their worldview cannot compare with the vision of the world of ordinary poor mountaineers.
The idea of the work is not just a story about the death of a rich man. The money he had accumulated and his rank no longer mattered. That's what's important. Bunin reveals in his story his own vision of the meaning of life, and this meaning clearly does not lie in the acquisition of wealth and fame.
The hero is called a master because this is his essence. At least that’s what he thinks, and that’s why he revels in his position. He represents the society that destroys all living things in humanity, forcing us to invent a schedule for ourselves, blindly follow it and smile coyly in feigned pleasure. There is nothing spiritual in such a society; its goal is to be rich and enjoy this wealth. But this has never made anyone truly happy.
"Atlantis" is a ship carrying this society to new pleasures; The ocean on which the ship sails is an element beyond the control of even the richest people, capable of instantly destroying the plans of a “dead society” and sending it to the bottom. And at the bottom the society will be waiting for a gentleman from San Francisco. "Atlantis", in fact, is going nowhere, carrying with it a blind society of callous people.
The main problem of the story “Mr. from San Francisco” is a dead society that can only boast of its money in front of everyone and live according to a schedule drawn up by an equally insensitive, inanimate person. In his diary, Bunin wrote the following: “I cried while writing the end.”
What was he crying over? Over the sad fate of a gentleman who had just begun to live: Over his family, now left without a breadwinner? After all, now they will have to look for a groom so that the master’s daughter can continue her boring life, as the schedule dictates. I think that the author was saddened by the fate of the “dead” society, their way of life and impartiality to the grief of others; their callousness and insensitivity. That's the problem modern society, just like many years ago.
Updated: 2014-06-04
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