Yulia Yurievna Chernokozova is a literature teacher at Novocherkassk Pedagogical College.

Analysis of the story by I.A. Bunin's "Dark Alleys" at a literature lesson in the senior class

“The scarlet rose hips were blooming all around, there were alleys of dark linden trees...”

In accordance with the program, students are introduced to the works of I.A. Bunin is carried out gradually. In basic school they get an idea of ​​his poetic work, read and analyze epic works - “ Clean Monday", "Sunstroke". In the eleventh grade, when studying a monographic topic on the writer’s work, it is necessary to systematize existing knowledge and help high school students comprehend the peculiarities of the writer’s worldview and skill. It is important to consider each small work chosen for study as part of an integral artistic world containing the unique features of the author’s individuality. Therefore, when starting to work on the story “Dark Alleys,” we set as our goal the creation of conditions not only for students to fully interpret the text, but also for them to comprehend the artistic concept of the entire cycle. Considering that for eleventh-graders, of course, addressing the theme of love is personally significant, we sought, in the process of analyzing Bunin’s work, to arouse in them a desire to deeply comprehend the author’s concept of love and determine their attitude towards it. I. Bunin’s story is harmonious; despite its small volume and condensed plot, it is unusually meaningful, truly “the best words in better order" This allows the lesson to successfully solve another problem - to develop students’ skills through consideration of the elements of form (in this case, through the relationship between plot and plot) to come to empathy with the author.

We choose the words of the writer himself as the epigraph for the dialogue with students: “We live by everything we live only to the extent that we comprehend the price of what we live by. Usually this price is very small: it rises only in moments of delight - the delight of happiness or misfortune, the vivid consciousness of gain or loss; also - in moments of poetic transformation of the past in memory.”

Before working with the text, we recall with our students what works about love they know, analyze the reader’s impressions of the stories I. Bunin read (as homework, we were asked to read not only “Dark Alleys”, but also two or three other stories from this cycle) and note that by the beginning of the 20th century, it seems that everything that could be said about love had already been said. However, I. Bunin speaks about this feeling in his own way. For the heroes of his works, love is a moment of happiness, which is tragic simply because it is irrevocable. The price of this irrevocable moment is realized not at the moment of absorption in the feeling, but later. “Later” can come fifteen minutes after parting with your beloved (“Sunstroke”), and thirty years later (“Dark Alleys”). Bunin's feeling of love is devoid of vulgarity; even purely physical intimacy is exclusively spiritual. These are always “truly magical” moments.

The story we are interested in relates to the late period of I.A.’s creativity. Bunina. At this time, according to the fair remark of the researcher of the writer L.A. Kolobaeva, due to the tendency to expand epic beginning In Bunin’s works, such a genre structure of the story appears, which, as if exceeding its own nature, reaches out to the story and even to the novel, takes on its tasks - through the “moments” of life, to view the beginnings and ends, the history of the individual as a whole, his fate, the whole "cup of life" It is from this point of view that the story “Dark Alleys” is interesting. His analysis should show high school students how “a vulgar, ordinary story” is transformed into “the light breath of Bunin’s story.”

At the very beginning of the analytical conversation based on the text, we find out what this small (only four pages) work by I. Bunin, which gave the name to the whole cycle, is about. Usually the answers are about love, about a meeting, about the life of two people. What is unusual about the love story of Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda? How does the hero himself respond to her? We conclude that the history of the relationship between two people in itself is no different. Nikolai Alekseevich himself assesses her as “vulgar and ordinary.” However, it was interesting to read, there was no feeling of banality. Why?

Let's try to retell the work, highlighting the main events. It is possible that some student will try to build his retelling in chronological order: love and separation - thirty years of separation - meeting at the post station. If the story corresponds to the plot, you can invite high school students to determine the temporal relationship of events and compare them with how the author narrates them. At the same time, we depict this schematically on the board and in notebooks.

What are the similarities and differences between the schemes?

Which version of the story attracts our attention more? Why?

Together with the students, we note that in both diagrams the episodes that make up the story are highlighted. However, the first scheme is a list of episodes in their chronological sequence, and the second is the same set of episodes, but they are arranged differently, according to the laws of the artistic time of the story: present - past - future. The second option attracts the reader more, since we are interested in the moment of recognition, which motivates attention to the conversation-memory that follows it ex-lovers. This makes us experience wonder, creates a desire to learn about what happened in the past, and encourages empathy.

We update the knowledge of eleventh-graders about the plot and the plot, we propose to correlate these concepts with the diagrams depicted on the board, we help to come to the conclusion that reflection on the features of plot construction in a work helps to better understand the author’s intention, in this case - to show an entire human life through one life situation life.

What events from the lives of the characters did the author choose to tell us the life story of two people? Only meager facts: love that arose thirty years ago, a meeting at the station, the family life of Nikolai Alekseevich, which he told Nadezhda in five sentences.

Were these the only events that happened in the lives of forty-eight-year-old Nadezhda and sixty-year-old Nikolai Alekseevich? Of course not. But why did the writer choose them? They were probably the main ones in the fate of the heroes. Let us find confirmation of this in the text.

Nikolai Alekseevich:“I think that I, too, have lost in you the most precious thing I had in life.” “Yes, of course, the best moments. And not the best, but magical!”

Hope:“Everyone’s youth passes, but love is another matter.” “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.” “No matter how much time passed, I still lived alone.” There were many events in Nadezhda’s life: “It’s a long story, sir.” But lived she only loves Nikolai Alekseevich.

Why didn’t I. Bunin tell us the story in more detail? family life Nikolai Alekseevich, this could have turned out to be a fascinating novel? (Loved his wife madly. - Left her. - Adored his son. - Grew up as a scoundrel.) Because in such a small work it was necessary to reveal only the most important thing, which explains everything in the destinies of people. This main thing turned out to be old love. And although the content of the story is “a vulgar, ordinary story,” reading evokes a special lyrical mood: “The scarlet rose hips were blooming all around, there were dark linden alleys…” The atmosphere of the story is as light and harmonious as the iambic tetrameter of these poetic lines. Nikolai Alekseevich’s memory poetically transformed the moments of lost love and showed the real price of this feeling.

For a hero, love is a wonderful moment, but for Nadezhda? We suggest finding words in the text that confirm that Nadezhda retained the feeling for many years. For her, love is her whole life.

In conclusion, we turn to the epigraph, to the words of I. Bunin, revealing “the main creative aspirations of the writer - his pathos, the principles of selection and artistic transformation of life material.” What does the epigraph say? How does it relate to the story analyzed? What moments in a person’s life make it possible to understand the value of what he lives by? Discussion of questions helps to comprehend the story in a lyrical and philosophical vein, when three elements become the main characters: love, time and memory. Love is a state when “the whole world was in the soul” and the person is ideal. Time inexorably drags you away and makes you forget everything. Memory selects and poetically transforms moments of the past - love. The circle, having begun with love, closes with it. I. Bunin proposed in his story “Dark Alleys” exactly such a situation when the memory of an aging hero allows him to realize already forgotten love as the “best,” the only “truly magical” minutes of life.

Story " Dark alleys” opens perhaps Bunin’s most famous cycle of stories, which got its name from this first, “title” work. It is known what importance the writer attached to the initial sound, the first “note” of the narrative, the timbre of which was supposed to determine the entire sound palette of the work. A kind of “beginning” that creates a special lyrical atmosphere of the story were lines from N. Ogarev’s poem “An Ordinary Tale”:

It was a wonderful spring
They sat on the shore
She was in her prime,
His mustache was barely black.
The scarlet rose hips were blooming all around,
There was an alley of dark linden trees...

But, as always with Bunin, “sound” is inseparable from “image”. As he wrote in the notes “The Origin of My Stories,” when he began working on the story, he imagined “some kind of big road, a troika harnessed to a tarantass, and autumn bad weather.” We must add to this the literary impulse, which also played a role: Bunin named L.N.’s “Resurrection” as such. Tolstoy, the heroes of this novel - young Nekhlyudov and Katyusha Maslova. All this came together in the writer’s imagination, and a story was born about lost happiness, the irrevocability of time, lost illusions and the power of the past over man.

A meeting of heroes united once in their youth by a passionate loving feeling, takes place many years later in the most ordinary, perhaps even nondescript setting: in a muddy road, at an inn located on a large road. Bunin does not skimp on “prosaic” details: “a mud-covered tarantass,” “simple horses,” “tails tied up from the slush.” But the portrait of the arriving man is given in detail, clearly designed to arouse sympathy: “a slender old military man,” with black eyebrows, a white mustache, and a shaved chin. His appearance speaks of nobility, and his stern but tired look contrasts with the liveliness of his movements (the author notices how he “threw” his leg out of the tarantass and “ran up” onto the porch). Bunin clearly wants to emphasize the combination of vivacity and maturity, youthfulness and sedateness in the hero, which is very important for general plan a story implicated in the desire to collide the past and the present, to strike a spark of memory that will illuminate bright light the past will incinerate, turn into ash what exists today.

The writer deliberately drags out the exposition: of the three and a half pages devoted to the story, almost a page is occupied by the “introduction”. In addition to the description of the stormy day, the hero’s appearance (and at the same time a detailed description of the coachman’s appearance), which is supplemented with new details as the hero frees himself from outer clothing, it also contains detailed characteristics the room where the visitor found himself. Moreover, the refrain of this description is an indication of cleanliness and neatness: a clean tablecloth on the table, cleanly washed benches, a recently whitewashed stove, new image in the corner... The author emphasizes this, since it is known that the owners of Russian inns and hotels were not very tidy and a constant feature of these places were cockroaches and dull windows covered with flies. Consequently, he wants to draw our attention to the almost unique way in which this establishment is maintained by its owners, or rather, as we will soon learn, by its mistress.

But the hero remains indifferent to the surrounding environment, although later he will note the cleanliness and neatness. From his behavior and gestures it is clear that he is irritated, tired (Bunin uses the epithet tired for the second time, now in relation to the entire appearance of the arriving officer), perhaps not very healthy (“pale, thin hand”), and is hostile to everything that is happening (“ “hostilely” called the owners), absent-minded (“inattentively” answers the questions of the hostess who appeared). And only this woman’s unexpected address to him: “Nikolai Alekseevich,” makes him seem to wake up. After all, before that, he asked her questions purely mechanically, without thinking, although he managed to glance at her figure, note her rounded shoulders, light legs in worn Tatar shoes.

The author himself, as if in addition to the “unseeing” gaze of the hero, gives a much more sharply expressive, unexpected, juicy portrait of the woman who entered: not very young, but still beautiful, similar to a gypsy, plump, but not overweight, a woman. Bunin deliberately resorts to naturalistic, almost anti-aesthetic details: big breasts, triangular, like a goose, belly. But the anti-aestheticism of the image is “removed”: the breasts are hidden under a red blouse (the diminutive suffix is ​​intended to convey a feeling of lightness), and the stomach is hidden by a black skirt. In general, the combination of black and red in clothes, the fluff above the lip (a sign of passion), and the zoomorphic comparison are aimed at emphasizing the carnal, earthly nature in the heroine.

However, it is she who will reveal - as we will see a little later - the spiritual principle as opposed to the mundane existence that, without realizing it, the hero drags out, without thinking or looking into his past. That's why she is the first! - recognizes him. No wonder she “looked inquisitively at him all the time, squinting slightly,” and he will look at her only after she addresses him by name and patronymic. She - and not he - will name the exact number when it comes to the years they have not seen each other: not thirty-five, but thirty. She will tell you how old he is now. This means that she meticulously calculated everything, which means that every year she left a notch in her memory! And this is at a time when he should never forget what connected them, for in the past he had - no less than - a dishonest act, however, completely ordinary at that time - having fun with a serf girl when visiting friends' estates, sudden departure...

In the terse dialogue between Nadezhda (that’s the name of the owner of the inn) and Nikolai Alekseevich, the details of this story are restored. And most importantly - different attitude heroes to the past. If for Nikolai Alekseevich everything that happened is “a vulgar, ordinary story” (however, he is ready to put everything in his life under this standard, as if removing from a person the burden of responsibility for his actions), then for Nadezhda her love became a great test, and a great event, the only one of significance in her life. “Just as I didn’t have anything more valuable than you in the world at that time, so I didn’t have anything later,” she will say.

For Nikolai Alekseevich, the love of a serf was only one of the episodes of his life (Nadezhda directly states this to him: “It’s as if nothing happened for you”). She “wanted to kill herself” several times, and despite her extraordinary beauty, she never got married, never being able to forget her first love. That’s why she refutes Nikolai Alekseevich’s statement that “everything passes over the years” (he, as if trying to convince himself of this, repeats the formula that “everything passes” several times: after all, he really wants to brush aside the past, to imagine everything is not enough significant event), with the words: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.” And she will say them with unshakable confidence. However, Bunin almost never comments on her words, limiting himself to monosyllabic “answered”, “approached”, “paused”. Only once does he slip an indication of the “unkind smile” with which Nadezhda utters the phrase addressed to her seducer: “I was deigned to read all the poems about all sorts of “dark alleys”.”

The writer is also stingy with “historical details.” Only from the words of the heroine of the work: “The gentlemen soon after you gave me my freedom,” and from the mention of the hero’s appearance, which had “a resemblance to Alexander II, which was so common among the military during his reign,” we can get the idea that The story appears to take place in the 60s or 70s years XIX V.

But Bunin is unusually generous in commenting on the condition of Nikolai Alekseevich, for whom a meeting with Nadezhda becomes a meeting with both his past and his conscience. The writer here reveals himself as a “secret psychologist” in all his splendor, making it clear through gestures, intonation of voice, and the behavior of the hero what is happening in his soul. If at first the only thing that interests a visitor at the inn is that “from behind the stove damper there was a sweet smell of cabbage soup” (Bunin even adds this detail: the smell of “boiled cabbage, beef and bay leaf”, - from which we can conclude that the guest is clearly hungry), then upon meeting Nadezhda, upon recognizing her, upon further conversation with her, fatigue and absent-mindedness instantly disappear from him, he begins to look fussy, worried, talking a lot and confusedly (“ mumbled,” “added quickly,” “said hastily”), which is a sharp contrast with the calm majesty of Nadezhda. Bunin points three times to Nikolai Alekseevich’s reaction of embarrassment: “he quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed,” “he stopped and, blushing through his gray hair, began to speak,” “blushed to the point of tears”; emphasizes his dissatisfaction with himself with sudden changes in position: “he walked decisively around the room,” “frowning, he walked again,” “stopping, he grinned painfully.”

All this testifies to what a difficult, painful process is taking place in him. But at first, nothing comes to mind except the divine beauty of the young girl (“How beautiful you were!... What a figure, what eyes!... How everyone looked at you”) and the romantic atmosphere of their rapprochement, and he is inclined brush aside what he had heard, hoping to turn the conversation, if not into a joke, then into the direction of “whoever remembers the old will...” However, after he heard that Nadezhda could never forgive him, because one cannot forgive the one who took away the most dear - the soul, who killed it, he seems to see the light. He is especially shocked, apparently, by the fact that to explain her feeling she resorts to the proverb (obviously, especially loved by Bunin, already used by him once in the story “The Village”) “they don’t carry the dead from the graveyard.” This means that she feels dead, that she never came back to life after those happy spring days and that for her, who knew the great power of love, it was not without reason that his question-exclamation: “You couldn’t love me all your life!” - she firmly answers: “So, she could. No matter how much time passed, I lived alone,” - there is no return to life ordinary people. Her love was not easy stronger than death, A stronger than that the life that came after what happened and which she, as a Christian, had to continue, no matter what.

And what kind of life this is, we learn from several remarks exchanged between Nikolai Alekseevich, who is leaving the short-term shelter, and the coachman Klim, who says that the owner of the inn is “smart,” that she is “getting rich” because she “gives money on interest,” that she is “cool”, but “fair”, which means she enjoys both respect and honor. But we understand how petty and insignificant for her, who has fallen in love once and for all, all this mercantile frivolity, how incompatible it is with what is going on in her soul. For Nadezhda, her love is from God. No wonder she says: “What does God give to whom... Everyone’s youth passes, but love is another matter.” That is why her unpreparedness for forgiveness, while Nikolai Alekseevich really wants and hopes that God will forgive him, and even more so Nadezhda will forgive him, because, by all standards, he committed not such a great sin, is not condemned by the author. Although such a maximalist position runs counter to Christian doctrine. But, according to Bunin, a crime against love, against memory is much more serious than the sin of “grudge.” And it is precisely the memory of love, of the past, in his opinion, that justifies a lot.

And the fact that a true understanding of what happened gradually awakens in the hero’s mind speaks in his favor. After all, at first the words he said: “I think that in you I too have lost the most precious thing I had in life,” and his act - he kissed Nadezhda’s hand goodbye - do not cause him anything but shame, and even more - the shame of this shame, are perceived by him as false, ostentatious. But then he begins to understand that what came out accidentally, in a hurry, perhaps even for the sake of a catchphrase, is the most genuine “diagnosis” of the past. His internal dialogue, reflecting hesitation and doubt: “Isn’t it true that she gave me the best moments of my life?” - ends with an unshakable: “Yes, of course, the best moments. And not the best, but truly magical.” But right there - and here Bunin acts as a realist who does not believe in romantic transformations and repentance - another, sobering voice told him that all these thoughts were “nonsense”, that he could not do otherwise, that nothing could be corrected then , not now.

So Bunin, in the very first story of the cycle, gives an idea of ​​the unattainable height to which the most ordinary person is capable of rising if his life is illuminated, albeit tragic, by love. And short moments of this love can “outweigh” all the material benefits of future well-being, all the joys of love interests that do not rise above the level of ordinary affairs, and in general the entire subsequent life with its ups and downs.

Bunin draws the subtlest modulations of the characters’ states, relying on the sound “echo”, the consonance of phrases that are born, often without meaning, in response to spoken words. Thus, the words of coachman Klim that if you don’t give Nadezhda the money on time, then “blame yourself,” echo like echolalia when Nikolai Alekseevich pronounces them out loud: “Yes, yes, blame yourself.” And then in his soul they will continue to sound like “crucifying” his words. “Yes, blame yourself,” he thinks, realizing what kind of guilt lies with him. And the brilliant formula created by the author and put into the heroine’s mouth: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten,” was born in response to Nikolai Alekseevich’s phrase: “Everything passes. Everything is forgotten,” which was previously supposedly confirmed in a quote from the book of Job: “as you will remember the flowing water.” And more than once throughout the story words will appear that refer us to the past, to memory: “Over the years, everything passes”; “everyone’s youth passes”; “I called you Nikolenka, and you remember me”; “do you remember how everyone looked at you”, “how can you forget this”, “well, why remember.” These echoing phrases seem to be weaving a carpet on which Bunin’s formula about the omnipotence of memory will be forever imprinted.

It is impossible not to notice the obvious similarity of this story with Turgenev’s “Asya”. As we remember, even there the hero at the end tries to convince himself that “fate was good in not uniting him with Asya.” He consoles himself with the thought that “he probably would not be happy with such a wife.” It would seem that the situations are similar: in both cases the idea of ​​misalliance, i.e. the possibility of marrying a woman of a lower class is initially rejected. But what is the result of this, it would seem, from the point of view of attitudes accepted in society the right decision? The hero of “Asia” found himself condemned to forever remain a “familyless loner”, dragging out “boring” years of complete loneliness. It's all in the past.

For Nikolai Alekseevich from “Dark Alleys” life turned out differently: he achieved a position in society, is surrounded by family, he has a wife and children. True, as he admits to Nadezhda, he was never happy: his wife, whom he loved “without memory,” cheated and left him, his son, on whom great hopes were pinned, turned out to be “a scoundrel, a spendthrift, an insolent person without a heart, without honor, without conscience.” ....” Of course, it can be assumed that Nikolai Alekseevich somewhat exaggerates his feeling of bitterness, his experiences, in order to somehow make amends for Nadezhda, so that it would not be so painful for her to realize the difference in their states, their different assessment of the past. Moreover, at the end of the story, when he tries to “learn a lesson” from the unexpected meeting, to sum up his life, he, reflecting, comes to the conclusion that it would still be impossible to imagine Nadezhda as the mistress of his St. Petersburg house, the mother of his children. Consequently, we understand that his wife, apparently, returned to him, and besides the scoundrel son, there are other children. But why, in this case, is he so initially irritated, bilious, gloomy, why does he have a stern and at the same time tired look? Why is this look “questioning”? Maybe this is a subconscious desire to still give oneself an account of how he lives? And why does he shake his head in bewilderment, as if driving away doubts... Yes, all because the meeting with Nadezhda brightly illuminated him past life. And it became clear to him that there had never been anything in his life better than those “truly magical” minutes when “the scarlet rose hips were in bloom, there was an alley of dark linden trees,” when he passionately loved passionate Nadezhda, and she recklessly gave herself to him with all recklessness youth.

And the hero of Turgenev’s “Asia” cannot remember anything brighter than that“burning, tender, deep feeling”, which was given to him by a childish and serious girl beyond his years...

Both of them have only “flowers of memories” left from the past - a dried geranium flower thrown from Asya’s window, a scarlet rose hip from Ogarev’s poem that accompanied love story Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda. Only for the latter it is a flower that has caused unhealed wounds with its thorns.

So, following Turgenev, Bunin paints greatness female soul, capable of loving and remembering, in contrast to men, burdened with doubts, entangled in petty preferences, subordinate to social conventions. Thus, already the first story of the cycle reinforces the leading motifs of Bunin’s late work - memory, the omnipotence of the past, the significance of a single moment in comparison with a dull series of everyday life.

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The cycle of stories by the outstanding Russian writer Ivan A “Dark Alleys” consists of 38 works. They reflect different layers of time and differ in the methods of creating images and genres. The writer created the last cycle of stories in his life during the Second World War, in last years own life. At a time when the established world was collapsing from a bloody war, he wrote about the power of feelings and eternal love. He considered his book “Dark Alleys” to be one of his most outstanding works and considered it the most perfect in artistic skill. The cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” is a memoir book in which the author, through people’s declaration of love for each other, confesses his own love for Russia and admires its deep mysterious soul.

The running theme of all the stories in the cycle is love, a great feeling in all its manifestations. The author considers love to be the greatest priceless gift that no one can take away from a person. Therefore, people are truly free only in love.

“Dark Alleys” is one of the stories in the cycle, which gave the title to the entire collection. This story was written in 1938. In it, as in other stories, main theme is love. The author reveals to the reader the catastrophic and tragic nature of love. Love is a gift from above that is beyond human control. The story “Dark Alleys” is, at first glance, a banal story about a meeting of elderly people who, in their youth, loved each other very much. A young, rich and handsome landowner seduces and after a while abandons his maid. But with the help of a simple plot, they managed to tell an impressive and exciting story about seemingly simple things. This work is just a short flash of memories of lost love and youth. The story has only three compositional parts:

• Parking at the inn of an elderly military man.
• A sudden meeting of this military man with his former lover.
• Reflections of the hero of the story about the meeting.

At the beginning of the story, we are presented with pictures of routine and everyday dullness. But suddenly, in the owner of the inn, tired Nikolai Alekseevich recognizes his young love - the beautiful Nadezhda, who served as his maid. He betrayed this girl thirty years ago. Nikolai Alekseevich “quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed.” It's been a while since they broke up whole life. It turned out that both heroes remained lonely. Although Nikolai Alekseevich has weight in society and is quite comfortable in life, he is unhappy. His wife “cheated on him, abandoned me even more insultingly than I left you,” and his son has grown very bad person"without heart, without honor, without conscience."

And Nadezhda, who said goodbye to her masters and turned from a former serf into the owner of a private hotel opened at the post station. Nadezhda is a “mind chamber.” And everyone, they say, is getting rich, cool.” But... She never got married. If the hero of the story is already tired of life, then he ex-lover still beautiful, light and full of vitality. Nikolai Alekseevich once voluntarily renounced love, and his punishment for this was complete loneliness for the rest of my life, without a loved one and without happiness. Nadezhda, in the same way, all her life loved only one person, to whom she gave “her beauty, her fever,” whom she once called “Nikolenka.” Love for this man still lives in her heart, but she still does not forgive Nikolai Alekseevich...

/ / / Analysis of Bunin’s collection of stories “Dark Alleys”

The collection of stories by I. Bunin “Dark Alleys” was a real achievement and a literary masterpiece of the author. For the first time, it was published in New York. It included eleven stories, and all of them were devoted to the theme of love. After all, this topic is the most popular and in demand in our society. Many of us miss her so much.

All the heroes of Bunin's stories encounter various manifestations of love. Some wait for it, others lose it, others betray it, and others keep it for the rest of their lives. After all, love, in all its manifestations, can be called happiness. It evokes bright, real emotions in people’s souls that force us to take action, make compromises and simply enjoy the life around us.

The year 1946 is marked by the publication of the complete collection of stories “Dark Alleys”. It takes place in romantic and mysterious Paris. The collection contains as many as thirty-eight short stories. And in each of them we get acquainted with different, individual female character types who loved, and also looked for their love. These are Fields from the short story “Madrid”, and Ganskaya Galya from story of the same name, and Antigone, and Russia.

Next to such bright images, male characters seem static and little expressive. Quite often, the author makes male characters indirect and secondary. They enter into the idea of ​​stories only in order to reveal female characters as clearly as possible.

For example, in the text “Steamboat Saratov” we get acquainted with the story of how an officer in love shot a beautiful woman. And what happens! All the same, it is her image that remains and is remembered in the readers’ memory, not his.

In excerpts from the stories there is a mention of both rough and playful love, which is funny described by I. Bunin. But most of the stories in “Dark Alleys” are dedicated to feelings of sincere and true love.

In the collection we get acquainted with both completed stories and those just begun. For example, this is the text of the novel “The Beginning”. The collection also contains unfinished stories. For example, "Caucasus".

I. Bunin considered “Clean Monday” to be one of the most perfect stories. He worked painstakingly on its meaning. Every detail, every line in it matters. Bunin thanked God for giving him the inspiration to write such a masterpiece text. It is in the story “Clean Monday” that the author creates a new type of human relationships and human soul. Russian literature has never seen anything like this.

All the stories in the collection “Dark Alleys” reveal to the reader both light and dark sides love relationship, as well as the cruel and gloomy alleys associated with them. This is what the author himself said and he masterfully transferred his thoughts to paper.

Bunin worked in the 19th and 20th centuries. His attitude to love was special: in the beginning people loved each other very much, but in the end either one of the heroes dies or breaks up. For Bunin, love is a passionate feeling, but similar to a flash.

To analyze Bunin's work "Dark Alleys", you need to touch on the plot.

General Nikolai Alekseevich is the main character, he comes to hometown and meets the woman he loved many years ago. Nadezhda is the mistress of the yard; he does not recognize her right away. But Nadezhda did not forget him and loved Nikolai, even tried to commit suicide. Main characters, seems to feel guilty for leaving her. Therefore, he tries to apologize, saying that any feelings pass.

It turns out that Nikolai’s life was not so easy, he loved his wife, but she cheated on him, and his son grew up to be a scoundrel and an insolent man. He is forced to blame himself for what he did in the past, because Nadezhda could not forgive him.

Bunin's work shows that after 35 years the love between the heroes has not faded. When the general leaves the city, he realizes that Nadezhda is the best thing that happened in his life. He reflects on the life that could have been if the connection between them had not been broken.

Bunin put tragedy into his work, because the lovers never got back together.

Nadezhda was able to maintain love, but this did not help create a union - she was left alone. I didn’t forgive Nikolai either, because the pain was very strong. But Nikolai himself turned out to be weak, did not leave his wife, was afraid of contempt and could not resist society. They could only be submissive to fate.

Bunin shows sad story the fates of two people. Love in the world could not resist the foundations of the old society, so it became fragile and hopeless. But there is also positive trait- love brought a lot of good things into the lives of the heroes, it left its mark, which they will always remember.

Almost all of Bunin’s work touches on the problem of love, and “Dark Alleys” shows how important love is in a person’s life. For Blok, love comes first, because it is what helps a person improve, change his life for the better, gain experience, and also teaches him to be kind and sensitive.

Analysis of the story Dark Alleys

In one of Ogarev’s poems, Bunin was “hooked” by the phrase “...there was an alley of dark linden trees...” Then his imagination painted autumn, rain, a road, and an old soldier in a tarantass. This formed the basis of the story.

This was the idea. The hero of the story in his youth seduced a peasant girl. He had already forgotten about her. But life has a way of bringing surprises. By chance, after many years of driving through familiar places, he stopped in a passing hut. And in beautiful woman, the owner of the hut, recognized the same girl.

The old soldier felt ashamed, he blushed, turned pale, and muttered something like a guilty schoolboy. Life punished him for his deed. He married for love, but never knew the warmth of a family hearth. His wife didn’t love him and cheated on him. And, in the end, she left him. The son grew up to be a scoundrel and a slacker. Everything in life comes back like a boomerang.

What about Nadezhda? She still loves the former master. It didn't work out for her personal life. No family, no beloved husband. But at the same time she could not forgive the master. These are the kind of women who love and hate at the same time.

The military man plunges into memories. Mentally relives their relationship. They warm the soul like the sun a minute before sunset. But he doesn’t allow for a second the thought that everything could have turned out differently. The society of that time would have condemned their relationship. He wasn't ready for this. He didn't need them, these relationships. Then it was possible to put an end to a military career.

He lives as they dictate social rules and foundations. He is a coward by nature. You have to fight for love.

Bunin does not allow love to flow along the family channel, to take shape in happy marriage. Why does he deprive his heroes of human happiness? Perhaps he thinks that fleeting passion is better? Is this eternal unfinished love better? She did not bring happiness to Nadezhda, but she still loves. What does she hope for? Personally, I don’t understand this; I don’t share the author’s views.

The old servant finally sees the light and realizes what he has lost. He speaks about this with such bitterness to Nadezhda. He realized that she was the dearest, brightest person to him. But he still didn’t understand what trump cards he had up his sleeve. Life gave him a second chance at happiness, but he didn’t take advantage of it.

What meaning does Bunin put into the title of the story “Dark Alleys”? What does he mean? Dark recesses of the human soul and human memory. Every person has his own secrets. And they sometimes emerge for him in the most unexpected ways. There is nothing random in life. Accident is a pattern well planned by God, fate or the cosmos.

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