The general meaning of all the works of I.A. Bunin about love can be conveyed by a rhetorical question: "Is love infrequent?" So, in his cycle of stories "Dark Alleys" (1943) there is probably not a single work dedicated to happy love. Either way, this feeling is short-lived and ends dramatically, if not tragic. But Bunin claims that, in spite of everything, love is beautiful. She, albeit for a short moment, illuminates the life of a person and gives him meaning for further existence.
So, in the story "Cold Autumn", the storyteller, having lived a long and very difficult life, sums it up: “But, remembering everything that I have experienced since then, I always ask myself: yes, but what was in my life? And I answer myself: only that cold autumn evening. " Only that cold autumn evening when she said goodbye to her fiancé, who was leaving for the war. So light and, at the same time, sad and heavy in her soul.
Only at the end of the evening, the heroes started talking about the most terrible thing: what if the beloved does not return from the war? What if they kill him? The heroine does not want and cannot even think about it: “I thought:“ What if they really kill? and will I, after all, forget it at some time - after all, in the end everything is forgotten? " And hastily answered, frightened by her thought: “Don't say that! I will not survive your death! "
The heroine's groom was indeed killed. And the girl survived his death - this is a feature of human nature. The storyteller even got married and gave birth to a child. After the 1917 revolution, she had to wander around Russia, endure many humiliations, dirty work, illness, the death of her husband, the alienation of her daughter. And so, at the end of the years, thinking about her life, the heroine comes to the conclusion that there was only one love in her life. Moreover, in her life there was only one autumn night, which illuminated the entire life of a woman. This is her life meaning, her support and support.
The storyteller in her bitter life, cut off from her homeland, is warmed by only one memory, one thought: "You live, rejoice in the world, then come to me ..." I lived, I was glad, now I will come soon. "
So, the main part of the story, which has a circular composition, is a description of a cold autumn evening, the last in the life of the characters together. From the words of the girl's father, we learn that the Austrian crown prince was killed in Sarajevo. This meant that a war would inevitably begin. The beloved of the heroine, who was her own, dear person in her family, had to go to the front.
On the same sad evening he was declared the heroine's fiancé. Ironically, their first evening as bride and groom was also their last. That is why the whole evening, in the perception of the narrator and her lover, was permeated with light sadness, aching melancholy, fading beauty. As well as the cold autumn evening that surrounded the heroes in the garden.
Everyday details are of great importance in the story, which turn into psychological ones in the work. So, the heroine accurately lists all the dates that "surrounded" the described events. She remembers everything in the smallest detail, although thirty years have passed and behind her is a very difficult life. This suggests that this evening was very significant for the woman.
The last homemade dinner is described psychologically subtly. All its participants sat in suspense, thinking that this might be their last evening together. But everyone threw in small words, masking their tension and what they really wanted to say.
But finally the young people were left alone. The beloved invites the storyteller to take a walk in the autumn garden. He quotes lines from a poem by Fet. They, to some extent, predict both his fate and the fate of their couple:
Look - among the blackening pines
As if a fire is rising ...
And then the hero adds: “It's still sad. Sad and good. I love you very, very much ... ”What simple and, at the same time, piercing words! Young people love each other, but they cannot be together. This, according to Bunin's theory, is simply impossible. After all, love is always just a flash, only a short moment, burning for a lifetime ...
The next morning the hero left, as it turned out, forever. A “fatal bag” with a small icon was put on his neck, but he did not save the heroine's beloved from death. The narrator returned to the house, not noticing the sunny morning and not feeling joy from it. Bunin subtly conveys her state on the verge of hysteria, a huge emotional experience: "... not knowing what to do with myself now and whether to cry or sing at the top of my voice ..."
Many years have passed since then. But the elderly heroine in Nice all comes back and comes back in memory for this evening and with hope awaits imminent death. What else is left for her? Poor old age, deprived of the support of the only loved one - a daughter.
The image of the heroine's daughter in the story is very important. Bunin shows that a person cut off from his roots, far from his homeland, loses the main thing - his soul: “she became completely French, very cute and completely indifferent to me, served in a chocolate shop near Madlane, wrapped boxes in satin with sleek hands with silver nails paper and tied them with gold laces ... "
The storyteller's daughter is a doll that has lost its essence behind material tinsel.
"Cold Autumn" ... The title of the story is symbolic. This is also a specific designation of the time frame of what is happening in the story. It is also a symbol of the first and last evening in the lives of the heroes. It is also a symbol of the heroine's entire life. This is also the designation of the life of all emigrants who lost their homeland after 1917 ... It is also a symbol of the state that comes after the loss of love-flash ...
Cold autumn ... It is inevitable, but it also enriches a person, because he has the most valuable thing - memories.
Not recognizing the division of literature into prose and lyrics, he created a collection of stories "Dark Alleys", surprising in its beauty and tragic attitude. The life story of the heroine of the story "Cold Autumn" is insightful and poetic, seemingly simple, presented in dry language. As in the entire collection, here are tightly intertwined with each other two themes: love and death.
Bunin perceives love as the highest gift of human destiny. But the purer, more perfect, more beautiful the feeling, the shorter it is. True love always ends in tragedy, for the moments of happiness the heroes pay with longing and pain. A high love experience is associated with the concept of infinity and mystery, which a person can only touch.
There is no traditional in the story plot constructions - there is no intrigue in it. The story is easy to retell, but the true meaning of the text is barely perceptible. Bunin does not have causal relationships, everything is based only on sensations, and therefore life is perceived in a pure, undistorted form.
The heroine fondly recalls her youthful love, a feeling of nagging sadness, longing for unfulfilled, unfulfilled happiness is hidden behind her every word. But the death of a lover is spoken of as something commonplace, the most terrible event in life is presented instantly in a series of events.
Bunin is a subtle psychologist. There is no vivid expression in the text, there are no open feelings, but behind the outer calmness lies a carefully suppressed desire to once again enjoy that breath of happiness that the once cold autumn gave. Callousness says a woman about a series of ridicule of fate. What was her life? She is all concentrated only in that cold autumn evening when happiness was so possible. And then just a string of events and faces. As about something, not exciting, unimportant, the heroine speaks about the hunger that does not know mercy, about the death of her husband, the flight of relatives, the distance of the named daughter. The driest mention is the words about the death of a loved one. The stronger the pain, the more emotions it absorbs, burning out the soul. The unique, lively intonation is associated only with the description of that moment, the "lightning of happiness" that the heroine was lucky to know.
Hidden in the text of the story oxymoron... The hottest, most exciting, tender time is a cold evening. And autumn is a symbol, a time when winter is near, death, oblivion during life. Only the hope of a meeting there, somewhere outside of being and space, everything that supported the existence of the heroine.
- Analysis of the story "Light Breathing"
- "Dark Alleys", analysis of Bunin's story
- A summary of the work of Bunin "Caucasus"
- "Sunstroke", analysis of the story of Bunin
Before us is the story "Cold Autumn" by Bunin. After reading it, you understand once again: only a genius can convey so deeply and penetratingly that which is beyond the limits of human reason and perception. It would seem a simple story, where he, she, mutual feelings, then war, death, wanderings. Russia in the twentieth century has gone through more than one war, and millions of people have experienced such tragedies, but ... There is always a word "but", which is not something that denies, but rather reminds of the uniqueness of feelings and experiences of each person. It is not for nothing that the work "Cold Autumn" is included in IA Bunin's cycle of stories "Dark Alleys", in which the author repeated more than thirty times: he wrote, in fact, about the same thing - about love, but each time in different ways.
An eternal theme in the writer's work
Contains the story "Cold Autumn" (Bunin), an analysis of the eternal theme: the fate of each individual person is the answer to the question, A man lives his own love story from birth to death, and gives his answer. This is true, because he paid the greatest price for it - his life. Can this experience be useful to us? Yes and no ... He can give us strength, inspiration, strengthen our faith in love, but the Universe expects from us something completely new, unique, incomprehensible, so that subsequent generations will be inspired by our stories. It turns out that love is the infinity of life, where there was no beginning and there will be no end.
"Cold Autumn", Bunin: content
“In June of that year, he was staying with us at our estate ...” - with these words the story begins, and the reader involuntarily gets the impression that he has in front of him a passage from the diary, torn out somewhere in the middle. This is one of the features of this work. The main character, on whose behalf the story is told, begins her story with a farewell meeting with her lover. We do not know anything about their past relationship, about when and how their love began. Before us, in fact, there is already a denouement: the lovers and their parents agreed on an imminent wedding, and the future is seen in bright colors, but ... But the heroine's father brings a newspaper with sad news: Ferdinand, the Austrian crown prince, has been killed in Sarajevo, which means war is inevitable, the separation of young people is inevitable, and it is still far from the outcome.
September. He came for just one evening to say goodbye before leaving for the front. The evening passed surprisingly quietly, without unnecessary phrases, without special feelings and emotions. Everyone tried to hide what was happening inside: fear, longing and endless sadness. She absentmindedly walked to the window and looked out into the garden. There, in the black sky, icy stars glittered coldly and sharply. Mother diligently sewed up the silk bag. Everyone knew that there was a golden icon inside, which once served as a talisman at the front for grandfather and great-grandfather. It was touching and creepy. Soon the parents went to bed.
Left alone, they sat in the dining room for a while, and then decided to take a walk. It became cold outside. My soul was getting heavier ... The air was completely winter. This evening, this cold autumn will forever remain in their memory. He did not know how his fate would turn out, but he hoped that she would not immediately forget him if he died. The most important thing is that she should live, be happy, and live a happy life, and he will definitely wait for her there ... She wept bitterly. She was afraid both for him and for herself: what if he really would not be, and one day she would forget him, because everything has its end ...
He left early in the morning. They stood for a long time and looked after him. “They killed him - what a strange word! - in a month, in Galicia "- here it is the denouement, which fit in one single sentence. The epilogue is the next thirty years - an endless series of events that, on the one hand, were important, significant, and on the other ... Death of parents, revolution, poverty, marriage with an elderly retired military man, escape from Russia, another death - the death of her husband , and then his nephew and his wife, wandering all over Europe with their little daughter. What was it all about? The main character sums up and answers herself: only that distant, already barely discernible cold autumn evening, and everything else is an unnecessary dream.
Analysis of the "Cold Autumn" Bunin I.А.
Time. What it is? We used to designate everything: hours, minutes, days. We divide life into the past and the future, trying to catch everything and not miss the main thing. And what is the main thing? Analysis of the "Cold Autumn" Bunin I.А. showed how the author conveyed the conventionality of the existing world order. Space and time take on different forms and are painted in completely different tones in the human soul. The description of the last autumn evening in their life takes up most of the work, while thirty years of life is only one paragraph. During dinner in the dining room, together with the main character, we feel subtle sighs, notice every tilt of the head, see the endlessly changing everyone present, and imperceptibly we come to an understanding that all these seemingly insignificant details are the most important.
The detailed description of the dining room with the windows fogged up from the samovar, the hot lamp over the table in the first part of the story is contrasted with the endless list of cities and countries that our heroine had to visit: Czech Republic, Turkey, Bulgaria, Belgium, Serbia, Paris, Nice ... From a small and a cozy and tender home breathes with warmth and happiness, while glorified Europe with "boxes from a chocolate shop in satin paper with gold laces" - dullness and indifference.
Continuing the analysis of IA Bunin's "Cold Autumn", I would like to dwell on the "secret psychologism", which is used by the writer to convey the inner experiences of the main characters. The farewell meeting has its own face and inside out: external indifference, feigned simplicity and absent-mindedness of the main characters hide their inner confusion and fear of the future. Insignificant phrases, exaggeratedly calm words are pronounced aloud, notes of indifference sound in the voice, but behind all this there is an increasing excitement and depth of feelings. From this it becomes "touching and creepy", "sad and good" ...
Finishing the analysis of IA Bunin's "Cold Autumn", let us pay attention to one more important detail. There are not so many characters in the story: a hero and a heroine, parents, husband, his nephew with his wife and little daughter ... But who are they? Not a single name has been named. Although at the very beginning the name of the crown prince sounds - Ferdinad, whose murder became a pretext for and led to the described tragedy. Thus, the author tries to convey that the tragic fate of the protagonists is both exceptional and typical, because war is a general tragedy that rarely bypasses anyone.
