Analysis of the story "The Sandy Teacher" by A. Platonov
The action of Andrey Platonov's story "The Sandy Teacher" takes place in the 1920s in the small Central Asian village of Khoshutovo. Behind the outskirts of the village begins the real desert - ruthless and cold to people.
The idea of the value of knowledge for a person and entire nations is the main idea of the story "The Sandy Teacher". The mission of the main character, teacher Maria Naryshkina, is to bring knowledge. In the conditions where Naryshkina lived, the knowledge and ability to create forest belts, preserve green spaces and plant plants turned out to be vital.
The style of the story "The Sandy Teacher" is very concise. The heroes talk little - in Khoshutov they always talk a little, they save words and strength, because they will still be needed in the fight against the invasion of the sands. The whole story of Maria before she made a fateful decision - to go to work for nomads, for a foreign people, fits the author into several dozen short paragraphs. I would even call the style of the story close to reportage. There are few descriptions of the area in the work, more narration, action.
But the author pays special attention to the feelings and emotions of the characters. They clarify the situation in which the inhabitants of the sand-covered Khoshutovo found themselves better than any description of the landscape. “The old watchman, crazy from silence and loneliness, was delighted with her, as if she had returned to her daughter.” "A sad, slow feeling seized the traveler - Maria Nikiforovna, when she found herself among the deserted sands on the way to Khoshutovo."
Platonov's style is very metaphorical, figurative: "a weak growing heart", "life oozed in the desert." Life in Khoshutov really barely moves, as if water is filtered drop by drop. Here a drop of water is the focus of life itself.
The theme of cultural exchange and mutual understanding between people also occupies one of the central places in the work. Friendliness and the desire to find a common language with different personalities are the values proclaimed by the author in the story. After the appearance, and in fact, the raid of nomads, Maria Naryshkina goes to the leader of the tribe to express all her claims to him, dissuade him from destroying their village, spoiling green spaces. The leader of the nomads, having talked with a young woman, is imbued with sympathy for her. She also to him.
But this does not solve the main problem of the story - how to save the fruits of your labor? How to save the lives of people and the well-being of villages when there is no water, there is not enough grass for everyone? “Someone dies and swears,” says the leader of the tribe. The head of Naryshkina invites her to become a teacher in a nomadic settlement: to teach them to respect other people's work, to cultivate green spaces. Mary becomes the very helping hand that one nation extends to another.
The work also touches on the theme of giving up personal life for the sake of the public good. “Is it possible that youth will have to be buried in the sandy desert among wild nomads?...” - the young teacher thinks. However, remembering "the hopeless fate of the two peoples, squeezed in the vise of the desert," Maria without hesitation decides to go and teach the nomads.
Natalia POLYAKOVA,
Perm
"Antonov apples": artistic originality
One of the main features of I.A. Bunin, usually immediately noted by students, is, of course, the absence of a plot in the usual way, that is, the absence of event dynamics. Students who are already familiar with the concepts of “epic” and “lyrical” plot come to the conclusion that the plot in “Antonov apples” is lyrical, that is, based not on events, but on the experience of the hero.
The very first words of the work: “... I remember an early fine autumn” - carry a lot of information and give food for thought: the work begins with an ellipsis, that is, what is described has neither origins nor history, it is as if snatched from the very elements of life, from its endless stream. With the first word “remembered”, the author immediately plunges the reader into the element of his own (“me”) memories. The plot develops as a chain of memories and sensations associated with them. Since we have a memory in front of us, then, therefore, we are talking about the past. But in Bunin, in relation to the past, verbs of the present tense are used (“it smells of apples”, “it becomes very cold ...”, “we listen for a long time and distinguish trembling in the ground”, and so on). For Bunin's lyrical hero, what is described does not take place in the past, but in the present, now. This relativity of time is also one of the characteristic features of Bunin's poetics.
Memory is a complex of physical sensations. The surrounding world is perceived by all organs of human senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste.
One of the main leitmotif images in the work is probably the image of smell, which accompanies the entire story from beginning to end. In addition to the main leitmotif that permeates the entire work, the smell of Antonov apples, there are other smells here: “strongly pulls cherry branches with fragrant smoke”, “rye aroma of new straw and chaff”, “the smell of apples, and then others: old red furniture tree, dried lime blossom, which has been lying on the windows since June...”, “these books, similar to church breviaries, smell nice... Some kind of pleasant sour mold, old perfumes...”, “smell of smoke, dwelling” ...
Bunin recreates the special beauty and uniqueness of complex smells, what is called synthesis, a “bouquet” of aromas: “the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness”, “the ravines smell strongly of mushroom dampness, rotted leaves and wet tree bark."
The special role of the image of smell in the plot of the work is also due to the fact that over time the nature of smells changes from subtle, barely perceptible harmonious natural aromas in the first and second parts of the story to sharp, unpleasant smells that seem to be some kind of dissonance in the surrounding world - in the second, third and fourth parts of it (“the smell of smoke”, “it smells like dog in the locked hallway”, the smell of “cheap tobacco” or “just shag”).
Smells change - life itself, its foundations change. The change of historical patterns is shown by Bunin as a change in the personal feelings of the hero, a change in worldview.
The visual images in the work are as clear and graphic as possible: “the black sky is drawn with fiery stripes by shooting stars”, “small foliage has almost completely flown from the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky”, “liquid blue shone coldly and brightly in the north above heavy lead clouds the sky, and because of these clouds, the ridges of snowy mountains-clouds slowly floated out”, “the black garden will shine through in the cold turquoise sky and meekly wait for winter ... And the fields are already sharply turning black with arable land and bright green with overgrown winters.” Such a “cinematic” image, built on contrasts, creates for the reader the illusion of an action taking place before the eyes or captured on the artist’s canvas: “In the dark, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: just in the corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness , and someone's black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony, move around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk through the apple trees. Either a black hand a few arshins in size will lie down all over the tree, then two legs will be clearly drawn - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slip from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the very gate ... "
Color plays a very important role in the picture of the surrounding world. Like the smell, it is a plot-forming element, changing noticeably throughout the story. In the first chapters we see "crimson flame", "turquoise sky"; “the diamond seven-star Stozhar, the blue sky, the golden light of the low sun” - a similar color scheme, built not even on the colors themselves, but on their shades, conveys the diversity of the surrounding world and its emotional perception by the hero. But with a change in attitude, the colors of the surrounding world also change, colors gradually disappear from it: “The days are bluish, cloudy ... All day long I wander through the empty plains”, “low gloomy sky”, “gray gentleman”. Halftones and shades (“turquoise”, “purple” and others), which are present in abundance in the first parts of the work, are replaced by the contrast of black and white (“black garden”, “fields turn sharply black with arable land ... fields turn white”, “snowy fields” ). Against a black and white background, Bunin the painter unexpectedly applies a very ominous stroke: “a dead seasoned wolf paints the floor with his pale and already cold blood.”
But, perhaps, the epithet “golden” is the most common one in the work: “big, all golden ... garden”, “golden city of grain”, “golden frames”, “golden light of the sun”.
The semantics of this image is extremely extensive: it is both a direct meaning (“golden frames”), and the designation of the color of autumn foliage, and the transfer of the emotional state of the hero, the solemnity of the minutes of the evening sunset, and a sign of abundance (grain, apples), once inherent in Russia, and a symbol of youth , the "golden" time of the hero's life.
With all the variety of meanings, one thing can be stated: Bunin’s epithet “golden” refers to the past tense, being a characteristic of noble, outgoing Russia. The reader associates this epithet with another concept: the “golden age” of Russian life, the age of relative prosperity, abundance, solidity and strength of being.
This is how I.A. Bunin's age is outgoing.
The elements of life, its diversity, movement are also conveyed in the work by sounds: “the cool silence of the morning is broken only by the well-fed clucking of thrushes ... voices and the booming clatter of apples poured into measures and tubs”, “We listen for a long time and distinguish trembling in the earth. The trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already beyond the garden, the wheels are rapidly knocking out a noisy beat, rumbling and knocking, the train rushes ... closer, closer, louder and more angry ... And suddenly it begins to subside, stall, as if sinking into the ground...”, “a horn blows in the yard and dogs howl in different voices”, “you can hear how the gardener carefully walks around the rooms, melting the stoves, and how the firewood crackles and shoots”. All these infinitely varied sounds, merging, seem to create a symphony of life itself in Bunin's work.
Sensual perception of the world is supplemented in “Antonov apples” with tactile images: “with pleasure you feel the slippery leather of the saddle under you”, “thick rough paper” - and taste: “all through pink boiled ham with peas, stuffed chicken, turkey, marinades and red kvass – strong and sweet-sweet...”, “... a cold and wet apple... for some reason will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others.”
Thus, noting the hero’s instant sensations from contact with the outside world, Bunin seeks to convey everything “deep, wonderful, inexpressible that is in life”.
With maximum accuracy and expressiveness, the attitude of the hero of "Antonov apples" is expressed by the words: "How cold, dewy, and how good it is to live in the world!" The hero in his youth is characterized by an acute experience of joy and the fullness of being: “my chest breathed greedily and capaciously”, “you keep thinking about how good it is to mow, thresh, sleep on the threshing floor in omyot...”
However, as most researchers note, in the artistic world of Bunin, the joy of life is always combined with the tragic consciousness of its finiteness. As E. Maksimova writes, “already early work suggests that the imagination of Bunin the man and Bunin the writer is entirely occupied by the mystery of life and death, the incomprehensibility of this mystery.” The writer constantly remembers that "everything living, material, bodily is certainly subject to death." And in “Antonov apples” the motif of fading, dying of everything that is so dear to the hero is one of the main ones: “The smell of Antonov apples disappears from the landowners’ estates ... The old people died in Vyselki, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseniy Semenych shot himself ...”
It is not just the former way of life that dies - an entire era of Russian history, the noble era, poetized by Bunin in this work, dies. By the end of the story, the motif of emptiness and cold becomes more and more distinct and persistent.
This is shown with particular force in the image of a garden, once “big, golden”, filled with sounds, aromas, but now “frozen overnight, naked”, “blackened”, as well as artistic details, the most expressive of which is found “in wet foliage accidentally forgotten cold and wet apple”, which “for some reason will seem unusually tasty, not at all the same as others”.
This is how, at the level of personal feelings and experiences of the hero, Bunin depicts the process of degeneration of the nobility taking place in Russia, which brings with it irreparable losses in spiritual and cultural terms: ... Good ... notes in their margins, large and with round soft strokes, made with a quill pen. You open the book and read: “A thought worthy of ancient and new philosophers, the flower of reason and feeling of the heart”... and you will involuntarily be carried away by the book itself... And little by little a sweet and strange longing begins to creep into your heart...
And here are the magazines with the names of Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, the lyceum student Pushkin. And with sadness you will remember your grandmother, her clavichord polonaises, her languid recitation of poems from “Eugene Onegin”. And the old dreamy life will stand before you...”
Poetizing the past, its “past century”, the author cannot but think about its future. This motif appears at the end of the story in the form of future tense verbs: “Soon, soon the fields will turn white, winter will soon cover them ...” Reception of repetition enhances the sad lyrical note; images of a bare forest, empty fields emphasize the dreary tone of the ending of the work.
The future is uncertain, it causes unsettling forebodings. The image of the first snow that covered the fields is symbolic: for all its ambiguity, students often associate it with a new blank sheet of paper, and given that the date “1900” is placed under the work, the question involuntarily arises: what will the new century write on this white, spotless sheet, what marks will it leave on it? The lyrical dominant of the work is epithets: “sad, hopeless boldness”...
Lyrics to the song that ends the piece:
My gates were wide,
White snow covered the path-road ... -
once again convey the feeling of the unknown, the ambiguity of the path.
The dots with which the work begins and ends make it clear that everything expressed in it, as already noted, is just a fragment snatched from the endless stream of life.
On the material of the story “Antonov apples”, students get acquainted with the main feature of Bunin’s poetics: the perception of reality as a continuous flow, expressed at the level of human sensations, experiences, feelings, and enrich their understanding of the genre of lyrical prose, which is especially vividly represented in the work of I.A. Bunin. According to Y. Maltsev, Bunin's poetry and prose merge into a completely new synthetic genre.
Notes
Bunin I.A. Sobr. cit.: V 9 t. M., 1966. V. 5. S. 180.
Maksimova E. About miniatures by I.A. Bunin // Russian literature. 1997. No. 1.
Bunin I.A. Sobr. cit.: In 9 volumes ... V. 6. S. 44.
Maltsev Y. Ivan Bunin: 1870–1953. Frankfurt am Main–Moscow: Posev, 1994, p. 272.
Lyubov SELIVANOV,
11th grade, school № 14,
Lipetsk
(teacher -
Lanskaya Olga Vladimirovna)
Composition of the story “Antonov apples”
The most capacious and completely philosophical reflections of I.A. Bunin about the past and the future, the longing for the outgoing patriarchal Russia and the understanding of the catastrophic nature of the coming changes were reflected in the story "Antonov apples", which was written in 1900, at the turn of the century. This date is symbolic, and therefore attracts special attention. It divides the world into past and present, makes you feel the movement of time, turn to the future. It is this date that helps to understand that the story begins (“...I remember an early fine autumn”) and ends (“White snow covered the path-road ...”) unconventionally. A kind of “ring” is formed - an intonational pause that makes the narration continuous. In fact, the story, like eternal life itself, is neither begun nor finished. It sounds in the space of memory and will sound forever, as it embodies the soul of man, the soul of the long-suffering people. It reflects the history of the Russian state.
Particular attention should be paid to the composition of the work. The author divided the story into four chapters, and each chapter is a separate picture of the past, and together they form a whole world that the writer admired so much.
At the beginning of the first chapter an amazing garden is described, “large, all golden, dried up and thinned out.” And it seems that the life of the village, the hopes and thoughts of people - all this seems to be in the background, and in the center is a beautiful and mysterious image of the garden, and this garden is a symbol of the Motherland, and it includes in its space and Vyselki, which “... since the time of grandfathers they were famous for their wealth, ”and old men and old women who“ lived ... for a very long time ”, and a large stone near the porch, which the hostess“ bought herself for her grave ”, and“ barns and rigs, covered with a hairstyle ”. And all this lives together with nature as a single life, all this is inseparable from it, which is why the image of a train rushing past Vyselok seems so wonderful and distant. He is a symbol of a new time, a new life, which “louder and more angry” penetrates the established Russian life, and the earth trembles like a living being, and a person experiences some kind of aching feeling of anxiety, and then looks into the “dark blue depth” for a long time. ” sky, “overflowing with constellations”, and thinks: “How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!” And these words contain the whole mystery of being: joy and sorrow, darkness and light, good and evil, love and hate, life and death, they contain the past, present and future, they contain the whole soul of man.
The second part, like the first one, it begins with folk wisdom: “A vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year”, with good omens, with a description of the harvest year - autumn, which was sometimes patronal holidays, when the people were “cleaned up, satisfied”, when “the view of the village is not at all the same that at another time." Memories of this fabulously rich village with brick yards, which were built by grandfathers, are warmed by heartfelt poetry. Everything around seems close and dear, and over the estate, over the village, there is an amazing smell of Antonov apples. This sweet smell of memories binds the whole story together with a thin thread. This is a kind of leitmotif of the work, and the remark at the end of the fourth chapter that “the smell of Antonov’s apples disappears from the landowner’s estate” says that everything is changing, everything is becoming a thing of the past, that a new time is beginning, “the kingdom of small estates is coming, impoverished to beggary” . And then the author writes that “this beggarly small-town life is also good!” And again he begins to describe the village, his native Vyselki. He talks about how the landowner's day goes by, notices such details that make the picture of being so visible that it seems as if the past is turning into the present, only at the same time the familiar, ordinary is already perceived as lost happiness. This feeling also arises because the author uses a large number of color epithets. So, describing the early morning in the second chapter, the hero recalls: “... you used to open a window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog ...” He sees how “boughs show through in a turquoise sky, how water under the willows becomes transparent” ; he also notes “fresh, lush green winters.”
No less rich and varied and sound scale : one hears, “how carefully ... a long convoy creaks along the high road”, there is a “thump of apples poured into measures and tubs”, voices of people are heard. At the end of the story, the “pleasant noise of threshing” is heard more and more insistently, and the “monotonous cry and whistle of the driver” merge with the rumble of the drum. And then the guitar tunes in, and someone starts a song that everyone picks up "with a sad, hopeless prowess."
Particular attention in Bunin's story must be paid to organization of space . From the first lines, the impression of isolation is created. It seems that the estate is a separate world that lives its own special life, but at the same time this world is part of the whole. So, the peasants pour apples to send them to the city; a train rushes somewhere in the distance past Vyselok... And suddenly there is a feeling that all connections in this space of the past are being destroyed, the integrity of being is irretrievably lost, harmony disappears, the patriarchal world collapses, the person himself, his soul changes. Therefore, the word “remembered” sounds so unusual at the very beginning. There is light sadness in it, the bitterness of loss and at the same time hope.
Unusual and organization of time . Each part is built along a kind of vertical: morning - afternoon - evening - night, in which the natural flow of time is fixed. And yet, the time in the story is unusual, pulsating, and it seems that at the end of the story it speeds up: “small locals come to each other” and “disappear in snowy fields for whole days”. And then only one evening remains in memory, which they spent somewhere in the wilderness. And about this time of day it is written: “And in the evening, on some remote farm, the window of the outhouse glows far in the darkness of a winter night.” And the picture of life becomes symbolic: a road covered with snow, wind and a lonely trembling light in the distance, that hope without which no person can live. And therefore, apparently, the author does not destroy the calendar flow of time: August is followed by September, then comes October, followed by November, and autumn is followed by winter.
And the story ends with the words of a song that is sung awkwardly, with a special feeling.
My gates were wide,
White snow covered the path-road ...
Why does Bunin end his work in this way? The fact is that the author was quite soberly aware that he was covering the roads of history with “white snow”. The wind of change breaks age-old traditions, the settled life of landlords, breaks human destinies. And Bunin tried to see ahead, in the future, the path that Russia would take, but sadly realized that only time could discover it.
So, the main symbol in the story from the very beginning to the end remains image of antonov apples . The meaning given by the author to these words is ambiguous. Antonov apples are wealth (“Village affairs are good if Antonovka is born”). Antonov apples are happiness (“Vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year”). And finally, Antonov apples are all of Russia with its “golden, dried up and thinned gardens”, “maple alleys”, with “the smell of tar in the fresh air” and with a firm consciousness of “how good it is to live in the world”. And in this regard, we can conclude that the story “Antonov apples” reflected the main ideas of Bunin’s work, his worldview as a whole, reflected the history of the human soul, the space of memory in which the movement of existential time is felt, the past of Russia, its present and future.
The story of I.A. Bunin "Antonov apples" refers to one of those of his works, where the writer with sad love recalls the "golden" days that have gone forever. The author worked in an era of fundamental changes in society: the whole beginning of the twentieth century is covered in blood. It was possible to escape from the aggressive environment only in the memories of the best moments.
The idea of the story came to the author in 1891, when he was staying at the estate with his brother Eugene. The smell of Antonov apples, which filled the autumn days, reminded Bunin of those times when the estates prospered, and the landowners did not grow poor, and the peasants reverently treated everything lordly. The author was sensitive to the culture of the nobility and the old local way of life, deeply worried about their decline. That is why a cycle of stories-epitaphs stands out in his work, which tells about a long-gone, “dead”, but still so dear old world.
The writer nurtured his work for 9 years. The Antonov Apples were first published in 1900. However, the story continued to be refined and changed, Bunin polished the literary language, gave the text even more imagery, and removed everything superfluous.
What is the piece about?
"Antonov's Apples" is an alternation of pictures of noble life, united by the memories of a lyrical hero. At first he remembers early autumn, a golden garden, picking apples. All this is managed by the owners, who lived in a hut in the garden, arranging a whole fair there on holidays. The garden is filled with different faces of peasants who amaze with contentment: men, women, children - they are all on the best terms with each other and with the landowners. The idyllic picture is complemented by pictures of nature, at the end of the episode the main character exclaims: “How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!”
The harvest year in the ancestral village of the protagonist Vyselka pleases the eye: everywhere there is contentment, joy, wealth, the simple happiness of the peasants. The narrator himself would like to be a peasant, not seeing any problems in this share, but only health, naturalness and closeness to nature, and not at all poverty, lack of land and humiliation. From the peasant, he moves on to the noble life of former times: serfdom and immediately after, when the landowners still played the main role. An example is the estate of Anna Gerasimovna's aunt, where prosperity, austerity, and serfdom of servants were felt. The decor of the house also seems to be frozen in the past, even talking only about the past, but this also has its own poetry.
Hunting, one of the main entertainments of the nobility, is mentioned separately. Arseny Semenovich, the brother-in-law of the protagonist, organized large-scale hunts, sometimes for several days. The whole house was filled with people, vodka, cigarette smoke, dogs. The conversations and memories about it are noteworthy. The narrator saw these amusements even in a dream, plunging into a slumber on soft featherbeds in some corner room under the images. But it’s also nice to oversleep the hunt, because in the old estate there are books, portraits, magazines all around, at the sight of which “sweet and strange longing” seizes.
But life has changed, it has become "beggarly", "small local". But even in it there are remnants of its former greatness, poetic echoes of the former noble happiness. So, on the threshold of a century of change, the landlords had only memories of carefree days.
Main characters and their characteristics
- Disparate paintings are connected through a lyrical hero, who represents the author's position in the work. He appears before us as a man with a fine mental organization, dreamy, receptive, divorced from reality. He lives in the past, grieving for it and not noticing what is really going on around him, including in the village environment.
- The protagonist's aunt Anna Gerasimovna also lives in the past. Order and accuracy reign in her house, antique furniture is perfectly preserved. The old woman also speaks of the times of her youth, and of her inheritance.
- Shurin Arseny Semenovich is distinguished by a young, dashing spirit, in hunting conditions these reckless qualities are very organic, but what is he like in everyday life, in the household? This remains a mystery, because in his face the noble culture is poeticized, like in the past heroine.
- There are many peasants in the story, but they all have similar qualities: folk wisdom, respect for the landowners, dexterity and thriftiness. They bow low, run at the first call, in general, support a happy noble life.
Problems
The problematics of the story "Antonov apples" mainly focuses on the theme of the impoverishment of the nobility, their loss of their former authority. According to the author, the landowner's life is beautiful, poetic, there is no place for boredom, vulgarity and cruelty in rural life, the owners and peasants coexist perfectly with each other and are unthinkable separately. Bunin's poeticization of serfdom is clearly visible, because it was then that these beautiful estates flourished.
Another important issue raised by the writer is the problem of memory. In the critical, crisis era in which the story was written, one wants peace, warmth. It is his that a person always finds in childhood memories, which are colored with a joyful feeling, from that period only good things usually appear in the memory. This is beautiful and Bunin wants to leave forever in the hearts of readers.
Topic
- The main theme of Bunin's Antonov Apples is the nobility and its way of life. It is immediately evident that the author is proud of his own estate, therefore he puts it very highly. The village landowners are also praised by the writer because of their connection with the peasants, who are clean, highly moral, morally healthy. In rural worries there is no place for melancholy, melancholy and bad habits. It is in these remote estates that the spirit of romanticism, moral values and concepts of honor are alive.
- The theme of nature occupies a large place. Pictures of the native land are painted freshly, cleanly, with respect. The author's love for all these fields, gardens, roads, estates is immediately visible. In them, according to Bunin, lies the true, real Russia. The nature surrounding the lyrical hero truly heals the soul, drives away destructive thoughts.
Meaning
Nostalgia is the main feeling that covers both the author and many readers of that time after reading Antonov Apples. Bunin is a real artist of the word, so his village life is an idyllic picture. The author carefully avoided all sharp corners, in his story life is beautiful and devoid of problems, social contradictions, which in reality had accumulated by the beginning of the 20th century and inevitably led Russia to change.
The meaning of this story by Bunin is to create a picturesque canvas, to plunge into the bygone, but alluring world of serenity and prosperity. For many people, the departure from reality was an exit, but a short one. Nevertheless, "Antonov's Apples" is an exemplary work in artistic terms, and one can learn from Bunin the beauty of his style and imagery.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Such works created in the early period of Ivan Alekseevich's work include the story "Antonov apples", in which the sadness and sadness of the writer himself are felt. The main theme of this Bunin's masterpiece is that the writer points to the main problem of the society of that time - the disappearance of the former estate life, and this is the tragedy of the Russian village.
History of the creation of the story
In the early autumn of 1891, Bunin was visiting the villages with his brother Yevgeny Alekseevich. And at the same time, he writes a letter to his common-law wife Varvara Pashchenko, in which he shares his impressions of the morning smell of Antonov apples. He saw how the autumn morning begins in the villages and he was struck by a cold and gray dawn. Pleasant feelings are also inspired by the old grandfather's estate, which is now abandoned, but once it was buzzing and living.
He writes that he would return with great pleasure at a time when the landowners were in honor. He writes to Varvara about what he then experienced when he went out on the porch early in the morning: “I would like to live as the former landowner! Get up at dawn, leave for the "departing field", do not get off the saddle all day, and in the evening with a healthy appetite, with a healthy fresh mood, return home through the darkened fields.
And only nine years later, in 1899 or 1900, Bunin decides to write the story "Antonov apples", which was based on reflections and impressions from visiting his brother's village estate. It is believed that the prototype of the hero of the story, Arseniy Semenych, was a distant relative of the writer himself.
Despite the fact that the work was published in the year of its writing, Bunin continued to edit the text for another twenty years. The first publication of the work took place in 1900 in the tenth issue of the St. Petersburg magazine "Life". This story was also subtitled "Pictures from the book" Epitaphs ". The second time this work, already revised by Bunin, was included in the collection "Pass" without a subtitle. It is known that in this edition the writer removed several paragraphs from the beginning of the work.
But if we compare the text of the story with the edition of 1915, when the story "Antonov apples" was published in the Complete Works of Bunin, or with the text of the work of 1921, which was published in the collection "Initial Love", then we can see their significant difference.
The plot of the story
The story takes place in early autumn, when the rains were still warm. In the first chapter, the narrator shares his feelings that he experiences in a village estate. So, the morning is fresh and damp, and the gardens are golden and already noticeably thinned. But most of all, the smell of Antonov apples is imprinted in the memory of the narrator. Petty-bourgeois gardeners hired peasants to harvest, so voices and the creak of carts are heard everywhere in the garden. At night, wagon trains loaded with apples leave for the city. At this time, even a man can eat apples to his heart's content.
Usually a large hut is placed in the middle of the garden, which settles in over the summer. An earthen stove appears next to it, all sorts of belongings are lying around, and single beds are arranged in the hut itself. At lunch, it is here that they cook food, and in the evening they put a samovar and the smoke from it pleasantly disperses throughout the district. And on holidays, fairs are held near such a hut. Serf girls dress up in bright sundresses. The “old woman” also comes, which is somewhat reminiscent of a Kholmogory cow. But not so much people buy something, but converge here more for fun. They dance and sing. Closer to dawn, it begins to freshen up, and the people disperse.
The narrator also hurries home and in the depths of the garden observes an incredibly fabulous picture: “Just in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony, are moving around the fire.”
And he also sees a picture: “A black hand several arshins across the tree will lie down, then two legs will be clearly drawn - two black pillars.”
Having reached the hut, the narrator a couple of times, playing, will shoot from a rifle. He will admire the constellations in the sky for a long time, exchange a few phrases with Nikolai. And only when his eyes begin to close, and a cool night shiver runs through his whole body, he decides to go home anyway. And at that moment the narrator begins to understand how good life is in the world.
In the second chapter, the narrator will remember a good and fruitful year. But, as people say, if Antonovka is a success, then the rest of the harvest will be good. Autumn is a wonderful time for hunting. The people are already dressing differently in autumn, as the harvest is harvested and difficult work is left behind. It was interesting for the narrator-barchuk to communicate at such a time with the old men and old women, and to watch them. In Russia, it was believed that the longer the old people live, the richer the village. The houses of such old people were different from others, they were built by their grandfathers.
The peasants lived well, and the narrator even at one time wanted to try to live like a peasant himself, in order to know all the joys of such a life. Serfdom was not felt on the narrator's estate, but it became noticeable on the estate of Anna Gerasimovna's aunt, who lived only twelve miles from Vyselki. Signs of serfdom for the author were:
☛ Low outbuildings.
☛ All the servants come out of the servants' room and bow low, low.
☛ Small old and solid homestead.
☛ Huge garden
The narrator remembers very well his aunt, when she, coughing, came into the room where he was waiting for her. It was small, but also somehow solid, like her house. But most of all, the writer remembered the amazing dinners she had.
In the third chapter, the narrator regrets that both the old estates and the rules established in them have gone somewhere. The only thing left of all this is hunting. But of all these landowners, only the writer's brother-in-law, Arseniy Semenovich, remained. Usually by the end of September the weather turned bad and it rained incessantly. The garden at this time became deserted and boring. But on the other hand, October brought a new time to the estate, when the landowners gathered at their brother-in-law and rushed to hunt. What a wonderful time it was! The hunt went on for weeks. The rest of the time it was a pleasure to read old books from the library and listen to silence.
In the fourth chapter, he hears the bitterness and regret of the writer that the smell of Antonov apples no longer reigns in the village. The inhabitants of the noble estates also disappeared: Anna Gerasimovna died, and the hunter-brother-in-law shot himself.
Artistic Features
It is worth dwelling in more detail on the composition of the story. So, the story consists of four chapters. But, it is worth noting that some researchers do not agree with the definition of the genre and argue that "Antonov apples" is a story.
It is possible to single out the following artistic features in Bunin's story "Antonov apples":
✔ The plot, which is a monologue - a memory.
✔ There is no traditional plot.
✔ The plot is very close to the poetic text.
The narrator gradually changes the chronological picture, trying to lead the reader from the past to what is happening in reality. The ruined houses of the nobles for Bunin is a historical drama that is comparable to the saddest and saddest times of the year:
A generous and bright summer is the past rich and beautiful housing of the landlords and their family estates.
Autumn is a period of withering, the collapse of the foundations that have been formed over the centuries.
Researchers of Bunin's creativity pay attention to the picturesque descriptions that the writer uses in his work. As if he is trying to paint a picture with paints, but only verbal.
Many picturesque details are used by Ivan Alekseevich. Bunin, like A.P. Chekhov, resorts to symbols in his image: ★ The image of a garden is a symbol of harmony.
★ The image of apples is both a continuation of life, kind, and love for life.
Story analysis
Bunin's work "Antonov apples" is the writers' reflections on the fate of the local nobility, which gradually faded and disappeared. The writer's heart shrinks from sadness when he sees wastelands in the place where only yesterday there were busy noble estates. An unsightly picture opens before his eyes: only ashes remained from the estates of the landlords and now they are overgrown with burdock and nettles.
Sincerely, the author of the story "Antonov apples" worries about any character in his work, living with him all the trials and anxieties. The writer created a unique work, where one of his impressions, having created a bright and rich picture, is smoothly replaced by another, no less thick and dense.
Criticism of the story "Antonov apples"
Bunin's contemporaries highly appreciated his work, as the writer in a special way loves and knows nature, village life. He himself belongs to the last generation of writers who come from noble estates.
But critics' reviews were mixed. Julius Isaevich Aikhenvald, who was in great authority at the beginning of the 20th century, gives the following review of Bunin's work: "Bunin's stories, dedicated to this antiquity, sing her waste."
Maxim Gorky, in a letter to Bunin, which was written in November 1900, gave his assessment: “Here Ivan Bunin, like a young god, sang. Beautiful, juicy, soulful. No, it's good when nature makes a person a nobleman, it's good!
But Gorky will reread Bunin's work itself many more times. And already in 1901, in a letter to his best friend Pyatnitsky, he wrote his new impressions:
“Antonov apples smell good - yes! - but - they smell by no means democratic ... Ah, Bunin!
