Ivan Bunin, "Easy breathing": analysis of the work

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

And again about love… And if about love, then definitely about Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, because so far he has no equal in literature in the ability to be so deep, exactly,

and at the same time, it is easy and easy to convey an endless palette of colors and shades of life, love and human destinies, and what is most surprising - all this is on two or three sheets. In his stories, time is inversely proportional to the emerging fullness of feelings and emotions. Here you are reading his story “Easy Breathing” (an analysis of the work follows), and it takes five to ten minutes at the most, but at the same time you manage to immerse yourself in the life, and even the soul of the main characters, and live with them for several decades, and sometimes for the rest of your life. Isn't it a miracle?

The story of I. A. Bunin "Easy breathing": analysis and summary

From the first lines, the author introduces the reader to the main characternarration - Olya Meshcherskaya. But what is this acquaintance? An analysis of the story "Light Breathing" draws attention to the scene - a cemetery, a fresh clay mound on the grave and a heavy, smooth oak cross. Time - cold, gray days of April, still bare trees, icy wind. A medallion is inserted into the very cross, and in the medallion there is a portrait of a young girl, a schoolgirl, with happy, “amazingly lively eyes”. As you can see, the narrative is built on contrasts, hence the dual sensations: life and death - spring, the month of April, but still bare trees; a strong tomb cross with a portrait of a young girl, in the prime of her awakening femininity. You involuntarily think about what this earthly life is and what death is, and you are amazed at how closely the atoms of life and death adjoin each other, and along with them beauty and ugliness, simplicity and slyness, stunning success and tragedy …

Main character

The principle of contrast is used both in the image of Olga Meshcherskaya herself and in the description of her short but brilliant life. As a girl, she paid no attention to herself. The only thing that could be said was that she was one of the many sweet, rich and absolutely happy girls who, due to their age, are playful and careless. However, she soon began to develop rapidly and become prettier, and at her incomplete fifteen she was known as a real beauty. She was not afraid of anything and did not hesitate, and at the same time her ink spots on her fingers or disheveled hair looked much more natural,neat and graceful, rather than the deliberate neatness or thoroughness of the styled hair of her friends. No one danced so gracefully at balls as she did. No one skated as skillfully as she did. No one had as many fans as Olya Meshcherskaya … The analysis of the story "Light Breath" does not end there.

Last winter

As they said in the gymnasium, "Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun during her last winter." She flaunts herself everywhere: she combs her hair defiantly, wears expensive combs, ruins her parents for shoes “twenty rubles”. She openly and simply declares to the headmistress that she has long been no longer a girl, but a woman … She flirts with high school student Shenshin, promises him to be faithful and loving, and at the same time is so fickle and capricious in dealing with him, bringing him once to attempted suicide. She, in fact, lures and seduces Aleksey Mikhailovich Malyutin, an adult respectable man of fifty-six years old, and then, realizing her disadvantageous position, as an excuse for her dissolute behavior, arouses in herself a feeling of disgust for him. Further - more … Olya enters into a relationship with a Cossack officer, ugly, plebeian-looking, who had nothing to do with the society in which she moved, and promises him to marry him. And at the station, seeing him off to Novocherkassk, he says that there can be no love between them, and all these conversations are just a mockery and mockery of him. As proof of her words, she gives him to read the page of the diary, which spoke of her firstconnections with Malyutin. Without bearing the insult, the officer shoots at her right there, on the platform … The question arises: why, why does she need all this? What corners of the human soul is trying to open to us the work "Light Breath" (Bunin)? An analysis of the sequence of actions of the main character will allow the reader to answer these and other questions.

Fluttering Moth

And here the image of a fluttering moth involuntarily suggests itself, frivolous, reckless, but possessing an incredible thirst for life, a desire to find some kind of its own, special, fascinating and beautiful destiny, worthy only of the elect. But life is subject to other laws and rules, the violation of which must be paid. Therefore, Olya Meshcherskaya, like a moth, bravely, without fear, and at the same time easily and naturally, regardless of the feelings of others, flies towards the fire, towards the light of life, towards new sensations in order to burn to ashes: smooth the lined notebook, not knowing about the fate of your line, where wisdom, heresy are mixed …”(Brodsky)

Contradictions

Indeed, everything is mixed up in Olya Meshcherskaya. “Easy breathing”, the analysis of the story, allows us to single out such a stylistic device as antithesis in the work - a sharp opposition of concepts, images, states. She is beautiful and at the same time immoral. She was not stupid, she was capable, but at the same time superficial and thoughtless. There was no cruelty in her, "for some reason, no one was loved as much by the lower classes as she was." Her ruthless attitude towards other people's feelingswas not meaningful. She, like a raging element, demolished everything in her path, but not because she sought to destroy and suppress, but only because she could not do otherwise: “… how to combine with this pure look that terrible thing that is now connected with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya?” Both beauty and this rage were her essence, and she was not afraid to show both to the fullest. Therefore, she was so loved, admired, drawn to her, and therefore her life was so bright, but fleeting. It could not be otherwise, which is proved to us by the story “Light Breath” (Bunin). Analysis of the work gives a deeper understanding of the life of the main character.

Classy lady

Antithetical composition (antithesis) is observed both in the description of the very image of the classy lady Olechka Meshcherskaya, and in the indirect, but so guessable comparison of her with the schoolgirl under her charge. For the first time, I. Bunin ("Light Breath") introduces the reader to a new character - the head of the gymnasium, in the scene of a conversation between her and Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya regarding the defiant behavior of the latter. And what do we see? Two absolute opposites - a youthful, but gray-haired madame with an even parting in neatly frilled hair and a light, graceful Olya with a beautifully tidied, albeit beyond her years, hairstyle with an expensive comb. One behaves simply, clearly and lively, fearing nothing and boldly responding to reproaches, despite such a young age and unequal position. The other one keeps her eyes on the endless knitting and secretly gets irritated.

After the tragedy

We remind you that we are talking about the story "Light Breath". An analysis of the work follows. The second and last time the reader encounters the image of a classy lady after Olya's death, in the cemetery. And again we have before us the sharp but vivid clarity of the antithesis. A "middle-aged girl" in black kid gloves and in mourning goes to Olya's grave every Sunday, keeping her eyes on the oak cross for hours. She devoted her life to some kind of "incorporeal" feat. At first, she cared about the fate of her brother, Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, that very remarkable ensign who had seduced a beautiful schoolgirl. After his death, she devoted herself to work, merging entirely with the image of an "ideological worker." Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the main theme of all her thoughts and feelings, one might say, a new dream, a new meaning of life. However, can her life be called life? Yes and no. On the one hand, everything that exists in the world is necessary and has the right to exist, despite the seeming worthlessness and uselessness to us. And on the other hand, in comparison with the splendor, brilliance and audacity of the colors of Olya's short life, it is rather a "slow death". But, as they say, the truth is somewhere in the middle, because a colorful picture of the life path of a young girl is also an illusion, behind which lies emptiness.

Talking

The story "Easy breathing" does not end there. A classy lady sits near her grave for a long time and endlessly recalls the same conversation of two girls overheard once … Olya was chatting with her friend at a big break and mentioned one book fromfather's library. It talked about what a woman should be. First of all, with large black eyes boiling with resin, with thick eyelashes, a delicate blush, longer than usual arms, a thin figure … But most importantly, a woman had to be with easy breathing. Olya understood literally - she sighed and listened to her breathing, the expression "easy breathing" still reflects the essence of her soul, thirsting for life, striving for its fullness and alluring infinity. However, “light breathing” (the analysis of the story of the same name is coming to an end) cannot be eternal. Like everything worldly, like the life of any person and like the life of Olya Meshcherskaya, sooner or later it disappears, dissipates, perhaps becoming part of this world, the cold spring wind or the leaden sky.

What can be said in conclusion about the story "Easy breathing", the analysis of which was carried out above? Written in 1916, long before the collection "Dark Alleys" was born, the short story "Easy Breath" can be called without exaggeration one of the pearls of I. Bunin's work.