In the works of I. A. Bunin, perhaps, the leading place is occupied by the theme of love. Bunin's love is always a tragic feeling that has no hope of a happy ending; it is a difficult test for lovers. This is exactly how it appears to readers in the story “ Sunstroke».
Along with a collection of stories about love " Dark alleys", created by Ivan Alekseevich in the mid-1920s. "Sunstroke" is one of the pearls of his work. The tragedy and complexity of the time during which I. Bunin lived and wrote were fully embodied by the writer in the images of the main characters of this work.
The work was published in Modern Notes in 1926. Critics received the work with caution, skeptically noting the emphasis on the physiological side of love. However, not all reviewers were so sanctimonious; among them there were also those who warmly welcomed Bunin’s literary experiment. In the context of Symbolist poetics, his image of the Stranger was perceived as a mystical sacrament of feeling, clothed in flesh and blood. It is known that the author, when creating his story, was impressed by Chekhov’s work, so he crossed out the introduction and began his story with a random sentence.
About what?
From the very beginning, the story is intriguing in that the narration begins with an impersonal sentence: “After lunch we went out...on deck...”. The lieutenant meets a beautiful stranger on the ship, whose name, like his name, remains unknown to the reader. It's as if they both get sunstroke; Passionate, ardent feelings flare up between them. The traveler and his companion leave the ship for the city, and the next day she leaves by ship to join her family. The young officer is left completely alone and after a while he realizes that he can no longer live without that woman. The story ends with him, sitting under a canopy on the deck, feeling ten years older.
The main characters and their characteristics
- She. From the story you can learn that this woman had a family - a husband and a three-year-old daughter, to whom she was returning by boat from Anapa (probably from vacation or treatment). The meeting with the lieutenant became a “sunstroke” for her - a fleeting adventure, a “cloudness of mind.” She does not tell him her name and asks him not to write to her in her city, because she understands that what happened between them was only a momentary weakness, and her real life lies in something completely different. She is beautiful and charming, her charm lies in her mystery.
- The lieutenant is an ardent and impressionable man. For him, the meeting with a stranger became fatal. He managed to truly understand what happened to him only after his beloved left. He wants to find her, bring her back, because he is seriously interested in her, but it’s too late. The misfortune that can happen to a person from an overabundance of sun was for him a sudden feeling, real love, which made him suffer from the realization of the loss of his beloved. This loss affected him greatly.
Issues
- One of the main problems in the story "Sunstroke" of this story is the problem of the essence of love. In the understanding of I. Bunin, love brings a person not only joy, but also suffering, making him feel unhappy. The happiness of short moments later results in the bitterness of separation and painful parting.
- This also leads to another problem in the story – the problem of the short duration and fragility of happiness. And for mysterious stranger, and for the lieutenant this euphoria was short-lived, but in the future they both “remembered this moment for many years.” Short moments of delight are accompanied by long years of melancholy and loneliness, but I. Bunin is sure that it is thanks to them that life takes on meaning.
Subject
The theme of love in the story “Sunstroke” is a feeling full of tragedy, mental anguish, but at the same time it is filled with passion and ardor. This great, all-consuming sensation becomes both happiness and sorrow. Bunin's love is like a match that quickly flares up and fades out, and at the same time it suddenly strikes, like a sunstroke, and can no longer help but leave its mark on the human soul.
Meaning
The point of “Sunstroke” is to show readers all the facets of love. It occurs suddenly, lasts a short time, and passes severely, like a disease. She is both beautiful and painful. This feeling can either elevate a person or completely destroy him, but it is precisely this feeling that can give him those bright moments of happiness that color his faceless everyday life and fill his life with meaning.
Ivan Aleksandrovich Bunin in the story “Sunstroke” strives to convey to readers his main idea about the fact that ardent and strong emotions do not always have a future: the fever of love is fleeting and like a powerful shock, but this is precisely what makes it the most wonderful feeling in the world.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!They met in the summer, on one of the Volga ships. He is a lieutenant, She is a lovely little, tanned woman (she said she was coming from Anapa). “...I’m completely drunk,” she laughed. - Actually, I'm completely crazy. Three hours ago I didn’t even know you existed.” The lieutenant kissed her hand, and his heart sank blissfully and terribly... The steamer approached the pier, the lieutenant muttered imploringly: “Let's get off...” And a minute later they got off, drove to the hotel on a dusty cab, went into a large, but terribly stuffy room. And as soon as the footman closed the door behind him, both of them suffocated so frantically in the kiss that they remembered this moment for many years later: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire lives. And in the morning she left, she, a little nameless woman, jokingly called herself “a beautiful stranger,” “Princess Marya Morevna.” In the morning, despite an almost sleepless night, she was as fresh as she was at seventeen, a little embarrassed, still simple, cheerful, and - already reasonable: “You must stay until the next ship,” she said. - If we go together, everything will be ruined. I give you my word of honor that I am not at all what you might think of me. Nothing even similar to what happened has ever happened to me, and there never will be again. It was as if an eclipse had come over me... Or, rather, we both got something like sunstroke...” And the lieutenant somehow easily agreed with her, took her to the pier, put her on the ship and kissed her on the deck in front of everyone. He returned to the hotel just as easily and carefree. But something has already changed. The room seemed somehow different. He was still full of her - and empty. And the lieutenant’s heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that he hurried to light a cigarette and walked back and forth around the room several times. There was no strength to look at the unmade bed - and he covered it with a screen: “Well, that’s the end of this “road adventure”! - he thought. - And forgive me, and forever, forever... After all, I can’t come to this city for no reason, no reason, where her husband, her three-year-old girl, in general, all of her usual life ! And this thought struck him. He felt such pain and such uselessness of his entire future life without her that he was overcome by horror and despair. “What is this with me? It seems that this is not the first time - and now... What's special about it? In fact, it looks like some kind of sunstroke! How can I spend the whole day without her in this outback?” He still remembered all of her, but now the main thing was this completely new and incomprehensible feeling, which did not exist while they were together, which he could not even imagine when starting a funny acquaintance. A feeling that there was no one to tell about now. And how to live this endless day, with these memories, with this insoluble torment?... It was necessary to save yourself, to occupy yourself with something, to go somewhere. He went to the market. But at the market everything was so stupid and absurd that he fled from there. I went into the cathedral, where they sang loudly, with a sense of duty fulfilled, then walked for a long time around the small neglected garden: “How can you live peacefully and generally be simple, careless, indifferent? - he thought. “How wild, how absurd everything is everyday, ordinary, when the heart is struck by this terrible “sunstroke,” too much love, too much happiness!” Returning to the hotel, the lieutenant went into the dining room and ordered lunch. Everything was fine, but he knew that he would die tomorrow without hesitation, if by some miracle he could return her, tell her, prove how painfully and enthusiastically he loves her... Why? He didn’t know why, but it was more necessary than life. What to do now when it is no longer possible to get rid of this unexpected love? The lieutenant stood up and resolutely went to the post office with the already prepared phrase of the telegram, but stopped at the post office in horror - he did not know her last name or first name! And the city, hot, sunny, joyful, reminded Anapa so unbearably that the lieutenant, with his head bowed, staggered and stumbled, walked back. He returned to the hotel completely defeated. The room was already tidy, devoid of the last traces of her - only one forgotten hairpin lay on the night table! He lay down on the bed, lay with his hands behind his head and staring intently in front of him, then he clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, feeling tears rolling down his cheeks, and finally fell asleep... When the lieutenant woke up, the evening sun was already yellowing behind the curtains, and yesterday and this morning were remembered as if they were ten years ago. He got up, washed, drank tea with lemon for a long time, paid the bill, got into the cab and drove to the pier. When the ship set sail, the summer night was already blue over the Volga. The lieutenant sat under a canopy on the deck, feeling ten years older.
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 the problems in it personal nature: moments of choice that influence a person’s future fate. 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. Information may also be useful to students teacher training colleges, as well as those who study 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 passes right before his eyes whole life, which is measured, is now assessed 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 the beginning main character I was not ready to evaluate the feeling I had 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 it changes state of mind, 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 this or that 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 heroes are unhappy in personal life 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. compulsory study in literature and is intended for older schoolchildren - children sixteen - 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”. Summary allows you to determine the theme of the story, its compositional and ideological component. If you are interested this description, then we recommend that you turn to reading. “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.
“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.
About the main ones characters We learn little from 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. Inner world The lieutenant is filled with a feeling of improbability, 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.
On a Volga steamship, a lieutenant and a lovely woman met by chance. The steamer moored to the pier, the lieutenant suggested getting off. Hiring a cab, they drove through a sleeping provincial town.
None of them had ever experienced such a frenzied kiss as in a stuffy hotel room either before or after that evening. In the morning, the nameless stranger was a little embarrassed, but fresh and cheerful. She judiciously asked the lieutenant not to leave with her, but to wait for the next ship. He easily agreed, escorted the woman to the pier, and said goodbye with a kiss. Returning to the hotel room, the lieutenant suddenly feels pain, an incomprehensible torment. He does not understand how a small “road adventure,” like “sunstroke,” filled his soul with an inexplicable feeling of unexpected love.
The lieutenant decides to distract himself with a walk. The everyday life of a county bazaar, loud singing in a cathedral, a walk through an abandoned garden frighten him with their everydayness and absurdity. Everything around seems to be good, there is joy in everything, but the lieutenant’s heart is torn to pieces. He admits to himself that he could die for the opportunity to return the stranger, to prove his love to her. The lieutenant decides to send her a telegram, but realizes with horror that he only knows the name of the city where she lives with her husband and three-year-old daughter.
In the room he falls asleep in tears. Waking up in the evening, the main character remembers the events of the past day as a distant past. At night, sitting on the deck of a departing steamship, the lieutenant feels ten years older.
Ivan Bunin in his story speaks of love as an insight, a bright flash that can come and go suddenly, like a sunstroke.
Read the summary of Bunin's sunstroke
This story is amazing, original and very exciting. It talks about sudden love, about the emergence of feelings for which the characters were not ready and they do not have time to understand it all. But the main character has no idea what suffering he will have to go through from the moment he says goodbye to the beautiful young stranger. At first glance, the plot of the story looks common. There are few stories that are as subtly organized as Sunstroke. Writer I. A. Bunin, examines the issues in it personal: the emergence of a dilemma that affects a person’s future life. The main characters make their conscious decision, after which they disperse, and end up very far from each other.
It was the summer season, the most good time for sea travel by ship. One man, who was also liable for military service - a lieutenant and an unfamiliar, pretty, young woman met each other on the deck of this traveling ship. The writer does not give a name to this stranger, nor to the lieutenant. This is a common, common story that is possible and similar to many other stories that happen to other people. They liked each other very much, they looked at each other with bliss and passion. When the lieutenant kissed her hand, her heart sank. When the ship approached the pier, he begged the stranger to get off, and they went ashore together and went to the nearest hotel, where they spent an unforgettable night. After which she is a little embarrassed, but does not regret what happened one bit, because this has never happened to her. In the morning she has to leave, escorting her to the pier, passionately kisses the beauty in front of those around her and goes back to her hotel apartment. There he is overtaken by memories of the past night, driven crazy by the aroma of her perfume, an unfinished cup of coffee that was not put away, forgotten. Suddenly an unusual state washed over him, certain feelings, he could not understand them and begins to smoke cigarettes one after another to drown out everything.
This military man could not understand that this was happening to him and asked himself the question, what did he find so special about her? What should he do without a stranger in this wilderness all day? He decides to find salvation for himself from all these thoughts, to go and walk in this small town. The lieutenant entered the market, then entered the cathedral, when he walked among the people passing by, distracting himself from the obsession of tenderness, he still felt emptiness in his soul. And this whole mixed state prevented him from thinking, from thinking rationally, and he decided to send her a telegram. Walking towards the post office, having thought of the words to send a telegram, he freezes in a stupor at the building, he suddenly remembers that he does not know her first and last name, as well as her residential address. Upon returning to the hotel, he was very tired. In the morning, the main character set off on the ship, sitting on the deck and looking into the distance, he had the feeling as if he had aged ten years. And then it dawns on him that their life paths will never intersect.
The idea of this romantic story consists of a chance meeting of two people that happened suddenly, something like sunstroke happened to them and this led to an extraordinary blinded passion. And then came the epiphany. This story has a sublime and beautiful beginning, it makes everyone understand that loving and being loved is necessary for every person, but without illusions.
Young people reading this story can see here that the main characters strive to find their unique love, but being in prudence, they abandon these feelings. They were fleeing from this obsession. For them, these sublime feelings were an extremely colossal bliss. But it is obvious that the characters in the story should not have allowed this relationship to continue; then they would have had to change their entire lifestyle.
The author subtly described the image and condition of the woman; he does not describe in detail her appearance, characteristics, and did not even give her a name. But he subtly described how she was worried, worried and her anxiety. She didn’t want the lieutenant to think badly of her, that she was not what he might have imagined her to be. Maybe for her everything that happened was just an accident. Perhaps the attention and warmth that she received from a casual relationship was not enough from her own husband. It can be understood from the story that the woman did not intend to plan anything, and therefore does not oblige the lieutenant. And that’s why she doesn’t tell him her name. It’s hard for her to leave, leaving him forever, but she takes her actions based on her own considerations. Realizing that this relationship could end badly.
It tells here that at first the man was not ready to accept these sudden feelings for the stranger. And he lets her go easily, thinking that nothing binds them. But he was wrong. Upon returning to the hotel, to the room where he spent the night with her, feelings of memory came over him, since the atmosphere of the previous night still reigned there. Then his state of mind changed more and more. The lieutenant, a military man, could not imagine that such a meeting would change his entire meaning of life.
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