...the title of a poetic work is always important, because it always points to the main character of the work, in which the idea of ​​the work is embodied, or directly to this thought.
V. G. Belinsky

The theme of “Sunstroke” (1925) is an image of love that suddenly seizes a person and remains a vivid memory in his soul for the rest of his life. The idea of ​​the story is in that original understanding of love, which is associated with the writer’s philosophical views on man and his life. Love, from Bunin’s point of view, is the moment when all a person’s emotional abilities are heightened and he breaks away from the gray, unsettled, unhappy reality and comprehends a “wonderful moment.” This moment quickly passes, leaving in the hero’s soul regret about the irreversibility of happiness and gratitude that it still existed. That is why the short-term, piercing and delightful feeling of two young people, who met by chance on a ship and parted forever after a day, is compared in the story to sunstroke. The heroine speaks about this: “We both got something like sunstroke...”.

It is interesting that this figurative expression is confirmed by the real suffocating heat of the described days. The author gradually builds up the impression of heat: the steamer smells hot from the kitchen; the “beautiful stranger” is traveling home from Anapa, where she was sunbathing under the southern sun on the hot sand; the night when the heroes left the ship was very warm; the footman in the hotel is dressed in a pink shirt; It’s terribly stuffy in a hotel room that’s been so hot during the day, etc. The day following the night was also sunny and so hot that the metal buttons on the lieutenant’s jacket were painful to touch. The town smells irritatingly of various market foods.

All the lieutenant’s experiences after a fleeting adventure really resemble the painful state after sunstroke, when (according to medical indications) a person, as a result of dehydration, feels a headache, dizziness, and irritability. However, this excited state of the hero is not the result of overheating of the body, but a consequence of the awareness of the significance and value of the wasted adventure that he has just experienced. It was the brightest event in the life of the lieutenant and the “beautiful stranger”: “both of them remembered this moment for many years later: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire lives.” So for Bunin, a moment of happiness and a whole life become values ​​of the same order. The writer is attracted by the “mystery of existence” - a combination of joy and sadness, miracle and horror.

The story “Sunstroke” is short, and five of the six pages are occupied by a description of the lieutenant’s experiences after parting with the “beautiful stranger.” In other words, for Bunin it is not interesting to draw the various vicissitudes of love (they have already been depicted thousands of times in Russian and world literature) - the writer comprehends the meaning of love in human life, without wasting himself on enticing little trinkets. Therefore, it is interesting to compare the depiction of love in Bunin’s story “Sunstroke” and in Chekhov’s story “The Lady with the Dog,” especially since literary scholars note the similarity of the plots of these works.

Both Chekhov and Bunin show the gray, ordinary life that stifles human feelings, but they show it in different ways. Chekhov shows the nightmare of the surrounding life, depicting its vulgarity; Bunin - depicting the moment of true passion, that is, real life, according to the writer, which is so different from the gray everyday life. Chekhov's Gurov, having returned to Moscow, cannot tell anyone about his acquaintance with Anna Sergeevna. Once, however, he admits to his card partner that he met a charming woman in the Crimea, but in response he hears: “And just now you were right: the sturgeon is fragrant!” (III). The above phrase made Gurov horrified by his usual life, because he realized that even “in an educated society” few people care about high feelings. And Bunin’s heroes are overcome by the same fear and despair as Gurov. At the moment of happiness, they deliberately fence themselves off from everyday life, and Bunin seems to be saying to the readers: “Now think for yourself what your usual existence is worth compared to the wonderful moments of love.”

To summarize, it should be recognized that in Bunin’s story, sunstroke became an allegory of the highest love that a person can only dream of. “Sunstroke” demonstrates both the artistic principles and philosophical views of the writer.

Bunin’s philosophy of life is such that for him the truly valuable moment is when a person immediately knows the happiness of love (as in “Sunstroke”) or the meaning of existence is revealed to him (as in “Silence”). A moment of happiness strikes Bunin’s heroes, like sunstroke, and the rest of my life is held together only by delightfully sad memories of it.

However, it seems that such a philosophy devalues ​​the rest of a person’s life, which becomes just a vegetation between rare moments of happiness. Gurov in “The Lady with the Dog” knows no worse than Bunin’s “beautiful stranger” that after a few happy days of love everything will end (II), the prose of life will return, but he beat Anna Sergeevna and therefore does not leave her. Chekhov's heroes do not run away from love, and thanks to this, Gurov was able to feel that “now that his head had turned grey, he fell in love properly, for real - for the first time in his life” (IV). In other words, “The Lady with the Dog” just begins where “Sunstroke” ends. Bunin's heroes have enough passionate feelings for one brightly emotional scene in a hotel, and Chekhov's heroes try to overcome the vulgarity of life, and this desire changes them, makes them nobler. The second life position seems more correct, although rarely does anyone succeed.

Bunin's artistic principles, which are reflected in the story, include, firstly, a simple plot, interesting not for its exciting twists, but for its internal depth, and secondly, a special substantive depiction, which gives the story credibility and persuasiveness. Thirdly, Bunin’s critical attitude towards the surrounding reality is expressed indirectly: he depicts in the ordinary life of the heroes an extraordinary love adventure, which shows their entire habitual existence in an unsightly form.

Ivan Bunin's story “Sunstroke” is surprising and original in its own way. At first glance, the storyline is quite common. But this is only at first glance. There is hardly a work more subtly organized than “Sunstroke.” Bunin analyzes in it problems of a personal nature: moments of choice that influence the future fate of a person. The heroes make their choice - and find themselves far from each other.

“Sunstroke” (Bunin): summary

While traveling on a ship, a military man - a lieutenant - and a young woman - a stranger - meet. The author does not give her a name, however, like the lieutenant. They are just people, their story is not at all unique, it is similar to many of those that happen. The couple spends the night together. The young woman is embarrassed, but she does not repent of what happened. She just needs to go, and it's time for him to get off the ship. The lieutenant easily releases the woman, accompanies her to the pier and returns to his room. Here is the smell of her perfume, the unfinished cup of coffee that they forgot to put away, the memories of last night still vivid.

The lieutenant's heart is suddenly filled with a touching feeling, which he is unable to accept and tries to drown out by trying to continuously smoke cigarettes. As if looking for salvation from impending tenderness, he rushes into the city, mindlessly wanders through the market, walks among people and feels When an inexpressible feeling prevents him from thinking, thinking sensibly and reasoning, he decides to send her a telegram, but on the way to the post office he realizes that he doesn’t know neither the woman’s first nor last name, nor her address. Returning to his room, he feels ten years older. The lieutenant already understands that they will never meet again.

This is a very capacious content of the story, although quite short. Bunin's retelling of “Sunstroke” will allow high school students to better prepare for literature lessons. The information may be useful for students of pedagogical colleges, as well as those studying at universities.

What is the story "Sunstroke" about?

Bunin’s work “Sunstroke” tells about unexpected love that overtakes the main characters (the lieutenant and the stranger) while traveling on a ship. Both of them are not ready for the feeling that has appeared.

Moreover, they have absolutely no time to understand this: there is only one day, which decides the outcome of events. When the time comes to say goodbye, the lieutenant cannot even think about what torment he will experience after the young woman leaves his cozy room. It’s as if his whole life is passing before his eyes, which is measured, assessed now from the height of last night and the feeling that bewitched the lieutenant.

Story composition

The story can be roughly divided into three parts, containing different meanings: the first part is the moment when the lieutenant and the stranger are together. Both are confused and somewhat at a loss.

Second compositional part: the moment of farewell between the lieutenant and the young woman. The third part is the moment of awakening a tender feeling that is difficult to cope with. The author very subtly shows the moments of transition from one compositional part to another, while the state of the main character - the lieutenant - gradually becomes the center of the narrative.

The ideological component of the story

The meeting of the lieutenant and the stranger became for both of them akin to real sunstroke, bringing blindness with passion, and then a bitter epiphany. This is what Bunin talks about. The book “Sunstroke” is surrounded by a romantic beginning, talks about everyone’s need to love and be loved, but at the same time it is absolutely devoid of illusions. Perhaps the young men will see here the heroes’ desire to find their only love, but rather, this is an attempt to abandon love in favor of common sense: “We had to save ourselves...” “This new feeling was too much happiness,” which, obviously, the heroes could not afford , otherwise we would have to change the entire established way of life, make some changes in ourselves and change the environment.

Stranger's State

Bunin paints the image of the young woman whom the lieutenant meets on the ship without embellishment and does not endow her with special characteristics. She has no name - she is just a woman with whom a certain lieutenant spent the night.

But the author very subtly emphasizes her experiences, anxieties and worries. The woman says, “I’m not at all what you might imagine me to be.” Perhaps she was looking for the need to love and be loved in this fleeting connection. Perhaps for her everything that happened was nothing more than an accident, a surprise. She must have not received enough warmth and attention in her married life (which is mentioned in the story). We see that the stranger does not make any plans and does not oblige the lieutenant to do anything. That is why she does not consider it necessary to give her name. It is bitter and painful for her to leave, leaving the lieutenant forever, but she does it, obeying her intuition. She subconsciously already knows that their relationship will not end well.

Lieutenant's condition

As shown in the story, probably at first the main character was not ready to evaluate his feelings for an unfamiliar woman. That’s why he so easily lets her go, believing that nothing binds them.

Only upon returning to his room does he feel signs of a developing “fever” and realizes that it cannot be avoided. He no longer belongs to himself, he is not free. He was suddenly incredibly affected by the atmosphere of the room in which they spent the night together: “there was still an unfinished cup of coffee on the table, the bed was still unmade, but she was no longer there.” The lieutenant cannot accept this feeling, pushes it away from himself in every possible way, almost reaching the point of frenzy.

Metamorphosis of the lieutenant and its meaning

The way his state of mind changes speaks of the awakening power of feelings. Perhaps the lieutenant, a military man, could not even imagine that some fleeting meeting with a woman would so upend his entire value system, force him to rethink the significance of life and rediscover its meaning. The theme of love as the greatest secret that knows no compromises is revealed in the story “Sunstroke”. Bunin analyzes the state of his hero, emphasizing confusion and despair, as well as the bitterness with which he tries to suppress the awakening feeling of love within himself. It is quite difficult to win in this unequal battle. The lieutenant is defeated and feels tired, ten years older.

The main idea of ​​the story

Obviously, with his work the author wanted to show the dramatic outcome of love. Meanwhile, each of us is always free to choose what to do in a given difficult situation. The lieutenant and his lady were simply not ready to accept fate’s generous gift, so they chose to part ways as soon as they met. And it’s hard to call it an acquaintance - they didn’t tell each other their names, didn’t exchange addresses.

Most likely, their meeting was only an attempt to drown out the alarming voice of a yearning heart. As you might guess, the characters are unhappy in their personal lives and very lonely, despite being married. They did not leave each other addresses or give their names because they did not want to continue the relationship. This is the main idea of ​​the story “Sunstroke”. Bunin analyzes and compares the heroes, which of them is no longer ready for a new life, but as a result it turns out that both show significant cowardice.

Theater productions and films

This work has been filmed more than once, and also played on the theater stage, so amazing is the situation described in the story “Sunstroke” by Bunin. Mikhalkov filmed the film of the same name in Bouveray. The acting is amazing, extremely conveys the feelings of the characters and their inner pain, which sounds like a heavy chord from beginning to end.

There is probably no other work that evokes such ambivalent feelings as “Sunstroke.” Bunin, reviews of this story (very contradictory) confirm this, described a situation that leaves few people indifferent. Some feel sorry for the main characters and believe that they definitely had to find each other, others are sure that such meetings between a man and a woman should remain a secret, an unattainable dream and have nothing to do with reality. Who knows whether to believe in sudden passion or whether you need to look for the reason deep within yourself? Maybe all “love” is just an enthusiastic fantasy characteristic of youth?

Ivan Bunin “Sunstroke” and the school program

I would like to note that this story is included in the school curriculum of compulsory study of literature and is intended for older schoolchildren - children sixteen to seventeen years old. As a rule, at this age the work is perceived in rosy tones and appears before young people as a story about great love. For older and fairly mature people, the work suddenly opens up from a different perspective and makes us think about the question of how ready we are to accept love in life and how we do it. The fact is that in youth it seems that love itself is capable of defeating any obstacles. By the age of twenty-five to thirty, an understanding comes that nothing in life comes for free, and a feeling like love must be protected with all the strength of the soul and heart.

An unforgettably powerful work - “Sunstroke”. Bunin analyzes in it a person’s ability to accept love in special circumstances of life and how the characters cope with this task shows that in most cases people are not able to recognize it at the very beginning and take responsibility for the development of relationships. This kind of love is doomed.

This is what Bunin talks about in his work “Sunstroke”. The summary allows you to determine the theme of the story, its compositional and ideological component. If you are interested in this description, we recommend that you read on. “Sunstroke”, without a doubt, is one of those works that leave a feeling of slight sadness after reading and linger in the memory for a long time.

Russian literature has always been distinguished by its extraordinary chastity. Love in the minds of Russian people and Russian writers is primarily a spiritual feeling. The attraction of souls, mutual understanding, spiritual community, similarity of interests have always been more important than the attraction of bodies, the desire for physical intimacy. The latter, in accordance with Christian dogmas, was even condemned. L. Tolstoy is serving a strict trial on Anna Karenina, no matter what various critics say. In the traditions of Russian literature, there was also the depiction of women of easy virtue (remember Sonechka Marmeladova) as pure and immaculate creatures, whose soul was in no way affected by the “costs of the profession.” And in no way could a short-term connection, a spontaneous rapprochement, a carnal impulse of a man and a woman towards each other be welcomed or justified. A woman who embarked on this path was perceived as either frivolous or desperate. In order to justify Katerina Kabanova in her actions and see in her betrayal of her husband an impulse for freedom and a protest against oppression in general, N.A. Dobrolyubov, in his article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom,” had to involve the entire system of social relations in Russia! And of course, such relationships were never called love. Passion, attraction at its best. But not love.

Bunin fundamentally rethinks this “scheme”. For him, the feeling that suddenly arises between random fellow travelers on a ship turns out to be as priceless as love. Moreover, it is love that is this intoxicating, selfless, suddenly arising feeling that causes an association with sunstroke. He is convinced of this. “Soon there will be a story,” he wrote to his friend, “Sunstroke,” where again, as in the novel “Mitya’s Love,” in “The Case of Cornet Elagin,” in “Ida,” I talk about love.”

Bunin's interpretation of the theme of love is connected with his idea of ​​Eros as a powerful elemental force - the main form of manifestation of cosmic life. It is tragic at its core, as it turns a person upside down and dramatically changes the course of his life. Much in this regard brings Bunin closer to Tyutchev, who also believed that love does not so much bring harmony to human existence as it reveals the “chaos” hidden in it. But if Tyutchev was nevertheless attracted by the “union of soul with the dear soul,” which ultimately results in a fatal duel, if in his poems we see unique individuals who initially, even striving for this, are not able to bring each other happiness, then Bunin is not worries about the union of souls. Rather, he is shocked by the union of bodies, which in turn gives rise to a special understanding of life and another person, a feeling of ineradicable memory, which makes life meaningful, and reveals in a person his natural principles.

We can say that the entire story “Sunstroke”, which grew, as the writer himself admitted, from one mental “idea of ​​going out on deck... from the light into the darkness of a summer night on the Volga,” is dedicated to the description of this plunge into darkness that the lieutenant experiences , who lost his casual lover. This plunge into darkness, almost “mindlessness,” occurs against the backdrop of an unbearably stuffy sunny day, filling everything around with piercing heat. All descriptions are literally filled with burning sensations: the room where random fellow travelers spend the night is “hotly heated by the sun during the day.” And the next day begins with a “sunny, hot morning.” And later “everything around was flooded with hot, fiery... sun.” And even in the evening, the heat from the heated iron roofs spreads in the rooms, the wind raises white thick dust, the huge river glistens under the sun, the distance of water and sky shines dazzlingly. And after forced wandering around the city, the shoulder straps and buttons of the lieutenant’s jacket “were so burned that it was impossible to touch them. The inside of the cap was wet from sweat, his face was burning...”

The sunshine, the blinding whiteness of these pages should remind readers of the “sunstroke” that overtook the heroes of the story. This is at the same time immeasurable, acute happiness, but it is still a blow, albeit a “solar” one, i.e. painful, twilight state, loss of reason. Therefore, if at first the epithet sunny is adjacent to the epithet happy, then later on the pages of the story there will appear “a joyful, but here it seems like an aimless sun.”

Bunin very carefully reveals the ambiguous meaning of his work. It does not allow the participants in a short-term affair to immediately understand what happened to them. The heroine is the first to utter the words about some kind of “eclipse” or “sunstroke”. Later, he will repeat them in bewilderment: “Indeed, it’s definitely some kind of “sunstroke.” But she still talks about this without thinking, more concerned about immediately ending the relationship, since she may be “unpleasant” to continue it: if they go together again, “everything will be ruined.” At the same time, the heroine repeatedly repeats that something like this has never happened to her, that what happened that day is incomprehensible, incomprehensible, unique. But the lieutenant seems to ignore her words (then, however, with tears in his eyes, perhaps only to revive her intonation, he repeats them), he easily agrees with her, easily takes her to the pier, easily and carefreely returns to the room where they had just been together.

But now the main action begins, because the whole story of the rapprochement of two people was only an exposition, only a preparation for the shock that happened in the soul of the lieutenant and which he immediately cannot believe. First, it talks about the strange feeling of emptiness in the room that struck him when he returned. Bunin boldly juxtaposes antonyms in sentences to sharpen this impression: “The room without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. It was still full of her - and empty... It still smelled of her good English cologne, her unfinished cup still stood on the tray, but she was no longer there.” And in the future, this contrast - the presence of a person in the soul, in memory and his real absence in the surrounding space - will intensify with every moment. In the soul of the lieutenant there is a growing feeling of wildness, unnaturalness, implausibility of what happened, and the unbearable pain of loss. The pain is such that you have to escape from it at all costs. But there is no salvation in anything. And every action only brings him closer to the idea that he cannot “get rid of this sudden, unexpected love” in any way, that he will forever be haunted by memories of what he experienced, “of the smell of her tan and canvas dress,” of “the living, simple and cheerful sound her voices." Once F. Tyutchev begged:

Oh, Lord, give me burning suffering
And dispel the deadness of my soul:
You took it, but the torment of remembering it,
Leave me living flour for it.

Bunin’s heroes don’t need to cast a spell - the “torment of remembering” is always with them. The writer superbly depicts that terrible feeling of loneliness, rejection from other people, which the lieutenant experienced, pierced by love. Dostoevsky believed that such a feeling could be experienced by a person who has committed a terrible crime. This is his Raskolnikov. But what crime did the lieutenant commit? Only that he was overwhelmed by “too much love, too much happiness”!? However, this is precisely what immediately set him apart from the mass of ordinary people living an ordinary, unremarkable life. Bunin specifically snatches individual human figures from this mass in order to clarify this idea. Here, at the entrance of the hotel, a cab driver stopped and simply, carelessly, indifferently, sitting calmly on the box, smokes a cigarette, and another cab driver, taking the lieutenant to the pier, cheerfully says something. Here are the women and men at the bazaar energetically inviting customers, praising their goods, and from the photographs looking at the lieutenant are satisfied newlyweds, a pretty girl in a crooked cap and some military man with magnificent sideburns, in a uniform decorated with orders. And in the cathedral the church choir sings “loudly, cheerfully, decisively.”

Of course, the fun, carefreeness and happiness of others are seen through the eyes of the hero, and, probably, this is not entirely true. But the fact of the matter is that from now on he sees the world exactly this way, imbued with people who are not “struck” by love, “tormenting envy.” After all, they really do not experience that unbearable torment, that incredible suffering that does not give him a moment of peace. Hence his sharp, some kind of convulsive movements, gestures, impetuous actions: “quickly stood up,” “walked hastily,” “stopped in horror,” “began to stare intently.” The writer pays special attention to the character’s gestures, his facial expressions, his views (for example, an unmade bed, perhaps still retaining the warmth of their bodies, repeatedly comes into his field of vision). Also important are his impressions of existence, sensations, the most elementary, but therefore striking, phrases spoken out loud. Only occasionally does the reader get the opportunity to learn about his thoughts. This is how Bunin’s psychological analysis is built, both secret and obvious, somehow “super-visual.”

The culmination of the story can be considered the phrase: “Everything was fine, there was immeasurable happiness, great joy in everything; even in this heat and in all the market smells, in this whole unfamiliar town and in this old county hotel there was it, this joy, and at the same time the heart was simply torn to pieces.” It is even known that in one of the editions of the story it was said that the lieutenant “had a persistent thought of suicide.” This is how the divide between past and present is drawn. From now on, he exists, “deeply unhappy,” and some they, others, are happy and contented. And Bunin agrees that “everything everyday, ordinary is wild, scary” to the heart that was visited by great love - that “new... strange, incomprehensible feeling” that this unremarkable man “could not even imagine in himself.” And the hero mentally condemns his chosen one to a “lonely life” in the future, although he knows very well that she has a husband and daughter. But the husband and daughter are present in the dimension of “ordinary life,” just as simple, unpretentious joys remain in “ordinary life.” Therefore, for him, after parting, the whole world around him turns into a desert (it is not for nothing that the Sahara is mentioned in one of the phrases of the story - for a completely different reason). “The street was completely empty. The houses were all the same, white, two-story, merchant... and it seemed that there was not a soul in them.” The room breathes the heat of “a luminous (and therefore colorless, blinding! - M.M.) and now completely empty, silent... world.” This “silent Volga world” comes to replace the “immeasurable Volga expanse” in which she, the beloved, the only one, dissolved and disappeared forever. This motif of the disappearance and at the same time presence in the world of a human being living in human memory is very reminiscent of the intonation of Bunin’s story “Easy Breathing” -

about the chaotic and unrighteous life of the young schoolgirl Olya Meshcherskaya, who possessed this most inexplicable “light breathing” and died at the hands of her lover. It ends with these lines: “Now this light breath has again dispersed into the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.”

In full accordance with the contrast between the individual existence of a grain of sand (such a definition suggests itself!) and the boundless world, a clash of times, so significant for Bunin’s concept of life, arises - the present, present, even momentary time and eternity, into which time develops without it. The word never begins to sound like a refrain: “he will never see her again,” “he will never tell” her about his feelings. I would like to write: “From now on, my whole life is forever, until your grave...” - but you cannot send her a telegram, since your first and last name are unknown; I’m ready to die even tomorrow in order to spend the day together today, to prove my love, but it is impossible to return my beloved... At first, it seems unbearable to the lieutenant to live without her only an endless, but single day in a dusty town forgotten by God. Then this day will turn into the torment of “the uselessness of all future life without her.”

The story essentially has a circular composition. At the very beginning, a blow to the pier of a landing steamer is heard, and at the end the same sounds are heard. Days passed between them. One day. But in the minds of the hero and the author, they are separated from each other by at least ten years (this figure is repeated twice in the story - after everything that happened, after realizing his loss, the lieutenant feels “ten years older”!), but in fact, by eternity. A different person is traveling on the ship again, having comprehended some of the most important things on earth, having become familiar with its secrets.

What is striking in this story is the sense of thingness, the materiality of what is happening. Indeed, one gets the impression that such a story could have been written by a person who had only actually experienced something similar, who remembered both the lonely hairpin forgotten by his beloved on the night table, and the sweetness of the first kiss, which took his breath away. But Bunin sharply objected to identifying him with his heroes. “I have never told my own novels... both “Mitya’s Love” and “Sunstroke” are all fruits of the imagination,” he was indignant. Rather, in the Maritime Alps, in 1925, when this story was written, he imagined the shining Volga, its yellow shallows, oncoming rafts and a pink steamer sailing along it. All that he was no longer destined to see. And the only words that the author of the story utters “on his own” are the words that they “remembered this moment for many years later: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire lives.” The heroes, who are no longer destined to see each other, cannot know what will happen to them in that “life” that will arise outside the narrative, what they will feel subsequently.

In a purely “dense”, material manner of narration (it was not for nothing that one of the critics called what came from his pen “brocaded prose”), it was precisely the worldview of the writer who thirsted through memory, through touching an object, through a trace left by someone (when Having visited the Middle East, he rejoiced that he saw in some dungeon a “living and clear footprint” left five thousand years ago) to resist the destructive effects of time, to win victory over oblivion, and therefore over death. It is memory, in the writer’s view, that makes a person like God. Bunin proudly said: “I am a man: like God, I am doomed / To know the melancholy of all countries and all times.” Likewise, a person who has recognized love in Bunin’s artistic world can consider himself a deity to whom new, unknown feelings are revealed - kindness, spiritual generosity, nobility. The writer talks about the mystery of the currents that run between people, connecting them into an indissoluble whole, but at the same time persistently reminds us of the unpredictability of the results of our actions, of the “chaos” that is hidden under a decent existence, of the reverent caution that such a fragile organization requires, like human life.

Bunin’s work, especially on the eve of the cataclysm of 1917 and emigration, is permeated with a sense of catastrophism that awaits both the passengers of “Atlantis” and selflessly devoted lovers who are nevertheless separated by life circumstances. But the hymn of love and joy of life, which can be accessible to people whose heart has not grown old, whose soul is open to creativity, will sound no less loudly. But in this joy, and in this love, and in the self-forgetfulness of creativity, Bunin saw the danger of passionate attachment to life, which can sometimes be so strong that his heroes choose death, preferring eternal oblivion to the acute pain of pleasure.

“Sunstroke,” like most of Bunin’s prose from the emigration period, has a love theme. In it, the author shows that shared feelings can give rise to a serious love drama.

L.V. Nikulin in his book “Chekhov, Bunin, Kuprin: Literary Portraits” indicates that initially the story “Sunstroke” was called by the author “Casual Acquaintance”, then Bunin changed the name to “Ksenia”. However, both of these names were crossed out by the author, because did not create Bunin’s mood, “sound” (the first simply reported the event, the second named the potential name of the heroine).

The writer settled on the third, most successful option - “Sunstroke”, which figuratively conveys the state experienced by the main character of the story and helps to reveal the essential features of Bunin’s vision of love: suddenness, brightness, short-term feeling, instantly capturing a person and, as it were, burning him to the ground.

We learn little about the main characters in the story. The author does not indicate names or ages. With this technique, the writer seems to elevate his characters above the environment, time and circumstances. The story has two main characters - a lieutenant and his companion. They had only known each other for a day and could not imagine that an unexpected acquaintance could turn into a feeling that neither of them had experienced in their entire lives. But the lovers are forced to part, because... in the writer’s understanding, everyday life is contraindicated for love and can only destroy and kill it.

A direct polemic with one of the famous stories of A.P. is obvious here. Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog", where the same unexpected meeting of the heroes and the love that visited them continues, develops over time, and overcomes the test of everyday life. The author of “Sunstroke” could not make such a plot decision, because “ordinary life” does not arouse his interest and lies outside the scope of his love concept.

The writer does not immediately give his characters the opportunity to realize everything that happened to them. The whole story of the heroes’ rapprochement is a kind of exposition of the action, preparation for the shock that will happen in the soul of the lieutenant later, and which he will not immediately believe. This happens after the hero, having seen off his companion, returns to the room. At first, the lieutenant is struck by a strange feeling of emptiness in his room.

In the further development of the action, the contrast between the absence of the heroine in the real surrounding space and her presence in the soul and memory of the protagonist gradually intensifies. The lieutenant’s inner world is filled with a feeling of implausibility, unnaturalness of everything that happened and the unbearable pain of loss.

The writer conveys the hero's painful love experiences through changes in his mood. At first, the lieutenant’s heart is compressed with tenderness, he grieves, while trying to hide his confusion. Then there is a kind of dialogue between the lieutenant and himself.

Bunin pays especially close attention to the hero’s gestures, his facial expressions and glances. His impressions are also important, manifested in the form of phrases spoken out loud, quite elementary, but percussive. Only occasionally is the reader given the opportunity to find out the thoughts of the hero. In this way, Bunin builds his psychological author’s analysis - both secret and overt.

The hero tries to laugh, to drive away sad thoughts, but he fails. Every now and then he sees objects that remind him of the stranger: a rumpled bed, a hairpin, an unfinished cup of coffee; smells her perfume. This is how torment and melancholy arise, leaving no trace of the former lightness and carelessness. Showing the abyss that lies between the past and the present, the writer emphasizes the subjective and lyrical experience of time: the momentary present spent with the heroes together and that eternity into which time without his beloved grows for the lieutenant.

Having parted with the heroine, the lieutenant realizes that his life has lost all meaning. It is even known that in one of the editions of “Sunstroke” it was written that the lieutenant was persistently contemplating suicide. So, literally before the reader’s eyes, a kind of metamorphosis takes place: in the place of a completely ordinary and unremarkable army lieutenant, a man appeared who thinks in a new way, suffers and feels ten years older.

What is special about the plot of the story?

(The story begins without an introduction, as if being a continuation of some story. The writer seems to snatch out a piece of life - the brightest piece, like a “sunstroke”. The heroes do not have names, just she is a woman and a man. The writer does not name the names of the heroes - to him it is important to show the feeling itself and what it does to a person.)

Why doesn’t Bunin mention the reasons for the heroes’ sudden love?

(The story is very short, long descriptions are omitted, the reasons that pushed the heroes towards each other are omitted. This remains a mystery that cannot be solved.)

What is special about the heroine’s portrait?

(Bunin does not describe the heroine’s appearance, but highlights the main thing about her - a simple, charming laugh speaks of how “everything was charming about this little woman.”)

How does Bunin describe a stranger after a night in a room?

(“She was fresh, as at seventeen, she was very slightly embarrassed; she was still simple, cheerful and - already reasonable.”)

How does she explain what happened to them?

(“It was as if an eclipse had come over me... Or, rather, we both got something like sunstroke.” The woman was the first to understand the severity of what had happened and the impossibility of continuing this too strong feeling.)

What has changed in the room since she left that reminds you of her?

(“The room without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. It was still full of her - and so be it. All that remained was the smell of good English cologne and an unfinished cup, but she was no longer there...”)

What impression did this make on the lieutenant?

(The lieutenant’s heart suddenly squeezed with such tenderness that he hurried to light a cigarette and walked back and forth around the room several times. The lieutenant laughs at his “strange adventure”, and at the same time “tears well up in his eyes.”)

What is the role of detail in this story?

(At the beginning of the story, the details of the heroine’s portrait: “The light canvas dress smelled of a small strong hand” - emphasize the naturalness, simplicity and charm of the woman. The word “small” appears several times - evidence of defenselessness, weakness (but also strength - “small strong hand "), tenderness.

Other details (the smell of cologne, a cup, a pulled back screen, an unmade bed, a hairpin forgotten by her) enhance the impression of the reality of what happened, deepening the drama: “He felt such pain and such uselessness of his entire future life without her that he was overcome by horror and despair.” The steamboat is a symbol of separation.)

What does such a seemingly small detail mean - a hairpin forgotten by the heroine?

(This is the last trace of the “little woman”, visible, real. It is important for Bunin to show that the feeling that flared up after a fleeting meeting will not leave the hero.)

What new feelings did the lieutenant have?

(All the lieutenant’s senses seemed to be heightened. He “remembered her all, with all her slightest features, remembered the smell of her tan and canvas dress, her strong body, the lively, simple and cheerful sound of her voice.” And another new feeling, previously unexperienced, torments the lieutenant: this is a strange, incomprehensible feeling. He doesn’t know “how to live the whole next day without her,” he feels unhappy.

This feeling gradually transforms: “Everything was good, there was immeasurable happiness, great joy in everything... and at the same time, my heart was simply torn to pieces.”)

Why is the hero trying to free himself from the feeling of love?

(“The sunstroke” that struck the lieutenant was too strong and unbearable. Both the happiness and the pain that accompanied it were unbearable.)

(“Sunstroke” is accompanied by natural heat, which aggravates the feeling of loss. The hot streets cannot dispel the pain of separation and melancholy. Nature in the story emphasizes the strength of the sudden flare-up of feelings and the inevitability of parting.)

Too much love - why is it dramatic and even tragic?

(It is impossible to return your beloved, but it is also impossible to live without her. The hero does not succeed in getting rid of sudden, unexpected love; “sunstroke” leaves an indelible mark on the soul.)

How did the experiences of the past day affect the hero?

(The hero feels ten years older. The instantaneousness of the experience made him so acute that it seems that almost his whole life was contained in him.)

Summary questions about the story:

1. How should we understand the title of the story? What meaning does the writer give to the epithet “sunny”? How does this meaning vary throughout the story?

2. Explain how Bunin paints the inner world of a person. Which Russian writer of the 19th century can you compare the methods of psychological analysis he used?

3. Give examples of the ring composition of a work. Is it possible to talk about the absolute identity of “beginnings” and “endings”?

Conclusion:

Love in Bunin's works is dramatic, even tragic; it is something elusive and natural, blinding a person, affecting him like a sunstroke. Love is a great abyss, mysterious and inexplicable, strong and painful.

Tasks:

1. How is the interpretation of love different in the stories “Easy Breathing”, “The Grammar of Love” and “Sunstroke”?

2. What cross-cutting images and motifs are present in Bunin’s stories about love?