Which image is a generalizing image of insignificance. Acute sense of the crisis of civilization

Test

S. Yesenin

Exercise 1

Match the literary movement of the early 20th century with the "keyword":

3. The highest degree of something, flowering power

4. Future

https://pandia.ru/text/80/169/images/image001_51.gif" alt="*" width="11" height="11 src="> Futurism

https://pandia.ru/text/80/169/images/image001_51.gif" alt="*" width="11" height="11 src="> Symbolism

Task 2

What literary trend was S. Yesenin close to:

1. Symbolism

2. Acmeism

3. Imagism

4. Futurism

Task 3

Most important role in the art world S. Yesenin is a system of images. Which image for the poet is generalizing, uniting all his perception of the world:

1. The image of the moon and the sun

2. Spatial image of the earth

3. The image of moving time

4. The image of the road (path)

Task 4

Determine the artistic means of expression with which S. Yesenin creates an image of nature:

"White birch

under my window

covered with snow,

Like silver."

1. Epithets

2. Metaphors

3. Comparison

4. Metaphorical comparison

Task 5

Determine the artistic means of expression used by the poet. To create an image:

1. “Dawn with the hand of coolness dewy

Knocks down the apples of the dawn.

2. "Blue now dozes, then sighs"

3. "Like earrings, girlish laughter will ring",

4. "... In the waters of the pubic ringing furrow."

5. "... The poplars are languishing loudly."

personification

sound recording

Metaphorical comparisons

Metaphors

Task 6

S. Yesenin uses the artistic technique of antithesis in his appeal to the theme of the Motherland. Antithesis is:

1. Artistic reception, consisting in the use of a transparent allusion to some well-known household, literary or historical fact instead of mentioning the fact itself.

2. Artistic opposition of characters, circumstances, concepts, images, etc., creating the effect of a sharp contrast.

3. Reception of sound recording, which consists in the repetition of consonants that are identical or close in sound.

Task 7

The poetry of S. Yesenin has not only the first, lexical meaning, but with the help artistic means the poet creates both the second, figurative-metaphorical, and the third, philosophical-symbolic, level of the poetic world. Is it possible to single out the main one:

Task 8

The lyrical hero is:

1. A conditional image in lyrical and lyrical-epic works, whose attitude (lyrical assessment) to the depicted seeks to convey the author.

3. Main character or the main character, causing the sympathy of the author (positive hero)

Task 9

The lyrical "I" is the poet himself:

Task 10

What topic does S. Yesenin reveal with the help of the image of a dog, her puppies in the poem "Song of the Dog":

1. The theme of love for all living things in the world and mercy.

2. The theme of the Motherland

3. Nature theme

4. The theme of motherhood

Task 11

All Yesenin's work is a single whole - a kind of lyrical novel, the main character of which is

1. The poet himself

2. The image of the poet

Task 12

Determine the meter of the versification of the given passage:

"It hurts to see your poverty

And birches and poplars"

1. Dactyl

2. Anapaest

Ministry of Education of the Republic of Bashkortostan

GBPOU Sterlitamak Polytechnic College

Methodical development

Topic: “Senseless pursuit of money. Based on the story by I.A. Bunin “The Gentleman from San Francisco”

Developed by: Russian teacher

language and literature

Timofeeva T.G.

2016

Subject: I.A. Bunin. story "The Gentleman from San Francisco". A senseless pursuit of money.

The purpose of the lesson:

show, what new does Bunin bring to the theme traditional for Russian literature; understand author's position;

reveal the history of the creation of the story;

reveal the philosophical content of the story, novelty in the image psychological state a person, to arouse a desire to discuss what is read, to see the ambiguity of interpretations;

fostering a culture of mental work.

Type of lesson:

lecture with elements of conversation, analytical reading.

Equipment: portrait of I.A. Bunin, photographs of different years, drawings of students based on what they read.

During the classes.

Evening.

We always remember happiness.

And happiness is everywhere. Maybe it

This autumn garden behind the barn

And clean air pouring through the window.

In the bottomless sky with a light white edge

Rise, the cloud shines. For a long time

I follow him ... We see little, we know

And happiness is given only to those who know.

The window is open. She squeaked and sat down

A bird on the windowsill. And from books

I look away tired for a moment.

The day is getting dark, the sky is empty.

The hum of the thresher is heard on the threshing floor...

I see, I hear, I am happy. Everything is in me.

(I.A. Bunin. 14.8.09.)

Teacher: This poem belongs to Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, a man who loved life, a man who from a young age was in a hurry to live, fearing that he would not have time to learn and accomplish anything.

I.A. Bunin: “It’s scary to remember how much time wasted in vain, in vain.”Teacher: … he lamented, remembering his life. And added...

I.A. Bunin: “... you won’t cover anything, you won’t learn anything, but you want to live forever, there are so many interesting, poetic things.”

Teacher: This constant desire to fully, profoundly and creatively live life - Bunin has always been closely connected with the rejection of a different worldview. He condemns those who live an external, false life, for the sake of wealth, prosperity or the pursuit of pleasure.

Plowman.

Hurrying along the furrow for coulters,

I leave soft footprints

So well shoddy legs

To step on the velvet of a warm furrow!

In the lilac-blue sea of black soil

I'm lost. And far behind me

Where a dull shine lies on the roof of the house,

The first heat is flowing.

(I.A. Bunin. 1903-1906)

In 1914-1905, Bunin's creativity flourished. The writer is occupied with a wide variety of problems, attracted by the most polar characters. In terms of the variety of topics, Bunin's work did not occupy such a scope.

Bunin has been coming to the idea of the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" for a long time. Years later he wrote...

I.A. Bunin: “... I always looked with true fear at any well-being, the acquisition of this and the possession of this absorbed a person, and the excess and the usual meanness of this well-being aroused hatred in me.”

Teacher: According to Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva-Bunina, the writer's wife, one of the reasons for writing the story was a memory associated with a long-standing impression.

V.N. Muromtseva-Bunin: “In April 1909, on a steamer, on the way from Italy to Odessa, Bunin “started talking about social injustice,” and he answered his opponent like this ...

I.A. Bunin: “If we cut the steamer vertically, we will see: we are sitting, drinking wine, talking in different topics, and the machinists in hell, black from coal, work. Is it fair? And most importantly, those who sit at the top do not consider those who work for them to be people ... "

Teacher: Bunin himself recalls ...

I.A. Bunin: “Once, while walking along the Kuznetsky bridge in Moscow, I saw in the store a book by Thomas Mann “Death in Venice”, but I didn’t buy, and already in September, a guest at my cousin in the Oryol province, remembered this book and the sudden death of an American who arrived in Capri. The original title of the story, "Death on Capri," was changed by me to the first line, "The Gentleman from San Francisco." The work on the story was intense. I stubbornly strove to achieve the ultimate strength and conciseness, got rid of straightforward, edifying, journalistic pages, unnecessary epithets, foreign words, verbal clichés. All this can be seen from the surviving manuscripts of my story.

Teacher: Indeed, the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" is one of the most famous works I.A. Bunina. It strikes with the beauty of the descriptions, makes the reader feel the subtle smell of cigar smoke in the cabin of the steamer and, in contrast to it, the pungent smell of oil and hot iron in the engine room, see the clear sky of Capri and rainy days in Naples - in a word, experience events together with the characters.

What is the exact name of the main character?

No one remembered his name either in Naples or in Capri.

His name is not so important in disclosure main theme story.

Why is he on this journey?

He was firmly convinced that he had every right to rest, to enjoy, to travel in every way excellent. For that certainty...

What was the chosen route? Track it. What can you say about the chosen route?

The route was chosen extensive…

He is trying this route to live a life that he did not have.

(scheme of human life)

Birth, ___1 year,….______________58 years…________________ death

(Gentlemen from San Francisco)

existed _________ until 58 years old (birth) _________________ death

“... he had just begun to live, despite his 58 years. Until that time, he did not live, but only existed, though not very badly, but still placing all his hopes on the future.

If there are proper names in the story?

Ship "Atlantis", geographical names, names of servants.

Does the ship "Atlantis" have a symbolic meaning?

"Atlantis" is a sunken legendary, mythical continent, a symbol of a lost civilization that could not resist the onslaught of the elements. There is also an association with the Titanic that died in 1912. “... The ocean that walked behind the walls was terrible, but they didn’t think about it, firmly believing in the commander’s power over it ...”. - They believed in the unsinkability of the Titanic.

(For comparison, you can use a cinematic technique: the camera first slides over the floors of the ship, showing the rich decoration, details that emphasize the luxury, solidity, reliability of the Titanic, and then gradually moves away until it looks like a nutshell in a huge raging ocean , which fills the entire space).

(Information for the teacher).

Bunin gives an epigraph from the Apocalypse to his story: "Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!" (True, he removed it in the latest edition.) According to the Revelation of John the Theologian, Babylon, the “great harlot,” became the dwelling place of demons and a haven for every unclean spirit ... woe, woe to you, great city of Babylon, strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come” (Rev. 18:2, 10).

On the one hand, "Atlantis" symbolizes a new civilization, where power is determined by wealth and pride, that is, what caused Babylon to perish. On the other hand, “Atlantis” is the personification of heaven and hell: “... its last, ninth circle was like the underwater womb of a steamboat, where gigantic fireboxes cackled deafly, devouring piles of coal with a roar of being thrown with their red-hot mouths (cf .: "throw into a fiery hyena") in them doused with caustic, dirty sweat and waist-deep naked people, crimson from the flames ... ".

Another version existed about the death of the Titanic. In 1912, in addition to thousands of passengers, the Titanic carried the mummy of an Egyptian pharaoh. According to some sources, the ship died precisely because a mummy was being carried in the hold, and they loaded it carelessly there, without observing the rites ...

Chronological motif plays a very important role in the story.

Why is the gentleman from San Francisco going on this journey?

Because he believed that he had every right to do so, and his wife and daughter needed to be dispelled.

What does he do on the ship?

How does he and others like him kill their time?

Is he using his wealth to good use?

His attitude towards people below in position?

Why did the maids and bellhops huddle against the walls as he passed them? Why are there narrow corridors in such large and expensive hotels?

They huddled to show him their respect and respect, and he walked past them and seemed not to notice them.

Find descriptions of the people on the ship. What distinguishing features did you see in the description? (Drawing inside the ship)

Find a description of the decorations of the ship, hotels, rooms, clothes. What color is dominant?

(reading an excerpt with music)

…detachments of soldiers marching with music somewhere; then - exit to the car and slow movement along the crowded narrow and damp corridors of the streets, among the tall, multi-windowed houses, examining the deadly clean and even, pleasant, but boring. Like snow, lit museums or cold, wax-smelling churches, in which everywhere is the same: a majestic entrance, covered with a heavy leather curtain, and inside - a huge emptiness, silence, quiet lights of the menorah, reddening in the depths on a throne adorned with lace, a lonely old woman among the dark wooden desks, slippery tombstones underfoot and someone's "Descent from the Cross", certainly famous. (Reading the episode helps to understand not life, but the seeing off of the deceased. And the further journey of a person from this circle will certainly lead to hell)."Great Void" , that is, the abyss, "silence" - what the gentleman from San Francisco will gain after death.

A huge void…. is what awaits the gentleman from San Francisco and his ilk. "seven lamps fiery ones burned before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God."

How many parts can the story be divided into?

Into two parts. Attitude towards the gentleman from San Francisco before death and after death.

(reading excerpt: protagonist's death)

He skimmed through the titles of some articles, read a few lines about the never-ending Balkan war, familiar gesture he turned over the newspaper, when suddenly the lines flashed before him with a glassy sheen, his neck tensed, his pince-nez flew off his nose ... He rushed forward. I wanted to take a breath of air - and groaned wildly; his lower jaw fell off. Having illuminated the entire mouth with gold fillings, the head fell on the shoulder and wrapped around, the chest of the shirt bulged out like a box - and the whole body, wriggling, raising the carpet with its heels, crawled to the floor, desperately fighting with someone.

Do not be a German in the reading room ....

Guys, how would you finish the sentence?

He would die and no one could help him. This is how people with a human heart would respond. But the story continues in other words: ... they would quickly and deftly manage to hush up this terrible incident in the hotel, instantly, in reverse, they would rush off by the legs and head of the gentleman from San Francisco, to hell - and not a single soul from the guests would know what he did.

Everyone was outraged by his act. He ruined the evening for many, and the rest of the gentlemen continued to eat as if nothing had happened.

He was taken away from human eyes so that no one could see or hear about what this gentleman had done. And already next to him is not a crowd of people, which has always been always there, then the Chinese, whom he ordered in thousands, then sellers of small goods. Next to him is only his wife and daughter and a doctor.

After his death, he did not even find a coffin, they put him in a soda box, and early in the morning, secretly, they took him out of the hotel. And it was no longer a car that drove him back, but a drunk cab driver who earned himself another portion. He returned back on the same ship, but already in the hold of the ship, deeply hidden from human eyes.

The gentleman from San Francisco lived his life in hard and meaningless work, postponing for the future " real life and all the pleasures. And just at the moment when he decides to finally enjoy life, death overtakes him. This is precisely death, its triumph. Moreover, death already triumphs already during life, for itself rich life passengers of a luxurious ocean-going steamer is as terrible as death, it is unnatural and meaningless. The story ends with the terrible material details of the earthly life of the corpse and the figure of the Devil, “huge as a cliff”, watching from the rocks of Gibraltar a steamer passing by (by the way, the mythical continent Atlantis was and sank to the bottom of the ocean near Gibraltar).

And yet - the gentleman from San Francisco died, his wife and daughter left, taking away the terrible box of soda water, and the island became bright and sunny again. People have become happy again, all those who live by a true worldview, not trying to create a new civilization and not contradicting the laws laid down by nature. Death here, therefore, unexpectedly turns out to be an "accomplice" of the beautiful and a rival of the ruthless destroyer time.

What image is a generalizing image of the insignificance, perishability of earthly wealth and glory?

This is also an unnamed image, which is recognizable as the once powerful Roman emperor Tiberius, who last years lived in Capri. Many "come to see the remains of the stone house where he lived." “Humanity will remember him forever,” but this is the glory of Herostratus: “a man who is unspeakably vile in satisfying his lust and for some reason had power over millions of people, who inflicted cruelty on them beyond measure.” In the word "for some reason" - exposure of fictitious power, pride; time puts everything in its place: it gives immortality to the true and plunges the false into oblivion.

In the story, the theme of the end of the existing world order, the inevitability, the death of a soulless and soulless civilization is gradually growing. It is embedded in the epigraph, which was removed by Bunin only in the last edition in 1951: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!” This biblical phrase, reminiscent of the feast of Belshazzar before the fall of the Chaldean kingdom, sounds like a harbinger of future great catastrophes. The mention in the text of Vesuvius, the eruption of which killed Pompeii, reinforces the formidable prediction. sharp feeling the crisis of civilization, acquired for non-existence, is associated with philosophical reflections on life, man, death and immortality.

The internal structure of the story. Help for the teacher. The plot is based on the description of an accident, unexpectedly

who interrupted his well-established life and plans (he "went to the Old World for two whole years, with his wife and daughter, solely for the sake of entertainment") a hero whose name "no one remembered." He is one of those who, until the age of fifty-eight, "worked tirelessly" to become like rich people, "whom he once took as a model." There are many of them, such "people

Questions for the lesson

2. Find the characters in the story. Think about what specific and general meaning they have in the story.

3. For what purpose did Bunin give his ship the name "Atlantis"?

From December 1913, Bunin spent six months in Capri. Prior to that, he traveled to France and other European cities, visited Egypt, Algeria, Ceylon. The impressions of these travels were reflected in the stories and short stories that made up the collections Sukhodol (1912), John the Rydalets (1913), The Cup of Life (1915), and The Gentleman from San Francisco (1916).

The story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" continued the tradition of L.N. Tolstoy, who depicted illness and death as major events revealing the true value of the individual. Along with the philosophical line in Bunin's story, social problems were developed, associated with a critical attitude towards lack of spirituality, to the rise of technical progress to the detriment of internal improvement.

The creative impetus for writing this work was given by the news of the death of a millionaire who arrived in Capri and stayed at a local hotel. Therefore, the story was originally called "Death on Capri." The change in the title emphasizes that the author focuses on the figure of a fifty-eight-year-old anonymous millionaire sailing from America on vacation to blessed Italy.

He devoted his whole life to the unbridled accumulation of wealth, never allowing himself to relax and rest. And only now, a person who neglects nature and despises people, having become “decrepit”, “dry”, unhealthy, decides to spend time among his own kind, surrounded by the sea and pine trees.

It seemed to him, the author remarks sarcastically and caustically, that he "had just begun to live." The rich man does not suspect that all that vain, meaningless time of his existence, which he took out of the brackets of life, should suddenly break off, end in nothing, so that life itself in its true sense is never given to him to know.

Question

What is the main setting of the story?

Answer

The main action of the story takes place on the huge steamship Atlantis. This is a kind of model of a bourgeois society, in which there are upper "floors" and "basements". Upstairs, life goes on, as in a "hotel with all amenities", measured, calm and idle. "Passengers" living "safely", "many", but much more - "a great many" - those who work for them.

Question

What technique does Bunin use to portray the division of society?

Answer

The division has the character of an antithesis: rest, carelessness, dancing and work, "unbearable tension" are opposed; "radiance ... of the chamber" and the gloomy and sultry bowels of the underworld"; "gentlemen" in tailcoats and tuxedos, ladies in "rich" "charming" "toilets" and people covered in caustic, dirty sweat and waist-deep naked people, purple from the flames. Gradually, a picture of heaven and hell is built.

Question

How do "tops" and "bottoms" relate to each other?

Answer

They are strangely related to each other. “Good money” helps to get to the top, and those who, like the “gentleman from San Francisco”, were “rather generous” to people from the “underworld”, they “fed and watered ... from morning to evening served him, warning him of the slightest desire, guarded his purity and peace, dragged his things ... ".

Question

Drawing a peculiar model of bourgeois society, Bunin operates with a number of magnificent symbols. What images in the story are symbolic?

Answer

Firstly, an ocean steamer with a significant name is perceived as a symbol of society. "Atlantis", on which an unnamed millionaire sails to Europe. Atlantis is a sunken legendary, mythical continent, a symbol of a lost civilization that could not resist the onslaught of the elements. There are also associations with the Titanic that died in 1912.

« Ocean, who walked behind the walls "of the steamer, is a symbol of the elements, nature, opposing civilization.

It is also symbolic image of the captain, "a red-haired man of monstrous size and weight, similar ... to a huge idol and very rarely appeared on people from his mysterious chambers."

symbolic main character image(per main character the one whose name is placed in the title of the work, he may not be the main character). The gentleman from San Francisco is the personification of a man of bourgeois civilization.

He uses the underwater “womb” of the ship to the “ninth circle”, speaks of the “hot mouths” of gigantic furnaces, makes the captain appear, “a red-haired worm of monstrous size”, similar to “a huge idol”, and then the Devil on the rocks of Gibraltar; the author reproduces the "shuttle", meaningless cruising of the ship, the formidable ocean and storms on it. The epigraph of the story, given in one of the editions, is also artistically capacious: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!”

The richest symbolism, the rhythm of repetitions, the system of hints, the ring composition, the thickening of paths, the most complex syntax with numerous periods - everything speaks of the possibility, of the approach, finally, of inevitable death. Even the familiar name Gibraltar acquires its sinister meaning in this context.

Question

Why is the main character without a name?

Answer

The hero is called simply "master" because that is his essence. At least he considers himself a master and revels in his position. He can afford to go “to the Old World for two whole years only for the sake of entertainment”, he can enjoy all the benefits guaranteed by his status, he believes “in the care of all those who fed and watered him, served him from morning to evening, warning his slightest desire, ”may contemptuously throw ragamuffins through his teeth: “Get out!”

Question

Answer

Describing the appearance of the gentleman, Bunin uses epithets that emphasize his wealth and his unnaturalness: “silver mustache”, “golden fillings” of teeth, “strong bald head” is compared with “old ivory”. There is nothing spiritual in the master, his goal - to become rich and reap the fruits of this wealth - was realized, but he did not become happier from this. The description of the gentleman from San Francisco is constantly accompanied by the author's irony.

In describing his hero, the author skillfully uses the ability to notice details(the episode with the cufflink is especially memorable) and reception of contrast, contrasting the external respectability and significance of the master with his internal emptiness and squalor. The writer emphasizes the deadness of the hero, the likeness of a thing (his bald head shone like “old ivory”), a mechanical doll, a robot. That is why he fiddles with the notorious cufflink for so long, awkwardly and slowly. That is why he does not utter a single monologue, and two or three of his brief thoughtless remarks rather resemble the creak and crackle of a wind-up toy.

Question

When does the hero begin to change, lose his self-confidence?

Answer

The “master” changes only in the face of death, the human begins to appear in him: “It was no longer the gentleman from San Francisco who was wheezing, he was no more, but someone else.” Death makes him a man: his features began to thin, brighten ... ". “Dead”, “deceased”, “dead” - this is how the author of the hero now calls.

The attitude of those around him changes dramatically: the corpse must be removed from the hotel so as not to spoil the mood of other guests, they cannot provide a coffin - only a soda box (“soda” is also one of the signs of civilization), the servant, who servility to the living, mockingly laughs over the dead. At the end of the story, "the body of a dead old man from San Francisco" is mentioned, which is returning home to the grave, on the shores of the New World, "in a black hold. The power of the "master" turned out to be illusory.

Question

How are the other characters in the story described?

Answer

Just as silent, nameless, mechanized are those who surround the master on the ship. In their characteristics, Bunin also conveys lack of spirituality: tourists are only busy eating, drinking cognacs and liquors, and swimming "in waves of spicy smoke." The author again resorts to contrast, comparing their carefree, measured, regulated, carefree and festive life with the hellishly hard work of watchmen and workers. And in order to reveal the falsity of an allegedly beautiful holiday, the writer depicts a hired young couple who imitate love and tenderness for the joyful contemplation of her idle public. In this pair there was a "sinfully modest girl" and "a young man with black, as if glued hair, pale from powder", "resembling a huge leech."

Question

Why are such episodic characters like Lorenzo and the Abruzzi highlanders?

Answer

These characters appear at the end of the story and outwardly have nothing to do with its action. Lorenzo is "a tall old boatman, a carefree reveler and a handsome man", probably the same age as the gentleman from San Francisco. Only a few lines are devoted to him, but a sonorous name is given, in contrast to the title character. He is famous throughout Italy, more than once served as a model for many painters.

"With a royal habit" he looks around, feeling truly "royal", enjoying life, "drawing with his tatters, a clay pipe and a red woolen beret lowered over one ear." A picturesque poor man, old Lorenzo will live forever on the canvases of artists, and a rich old man from San Francisco was deleted from life and forgotten before he could die.

The Abruzzi highlanders, like Lorenzo, personify the naturalness and joy of being. They live in harmony, in harmony with the world, with nature. The highlanders give praise to the sun, to the morning with their lively, artless music. That's what it is true values life, as opposed to the shiny, expensive, but artificial imaginary values of "masters".

Question

What image summarizes the insignificance and perishability of earthly wealth and glory?

Answer

This is also a nameless image, which recognizes the once powerful Roman emperor Tiberius, who lived the last years of his life in Capri. Many "come to look at the remains of the stone house where he lived." “Humanity will remember him forever,” but this is the glory of Herostratus: “a man inexpressibly vile in satisfying his lust and for some reason having power over millions of people, having done cruelty to them beyond measure.” In the word "for some reason" - exposure of fictitious power, pride; time puts everything in its place: it gives immortality to the true and plunges the false into oblivion.

In the story, the theme of the end of the existing world order, the inevitability of the death of a soulless and soulless civilization gradually grows. It is embedded in the epigraph, which was removed by Bunin only in the last edition of 1951: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!”. This biblical phrase, reminiscent of the feast of Belshazzar before the fall of the Chaldean kingdom, sounds like a harbinger of future great catastrophes. The mention in the text of Vesuvius, the eruption of which killed Pompeii, reinforces the formidable prediction. A keen sense of the crisis of civilization, doomed to non-existence, is associated with philosophical reflections on life, man, death and immortality.

Bunin's story does not evoke a sense of hopelessness. In contrast to the world of the ugly, alien to beauty (Neapolitan museums and songs dedicated to Capri's nature and life itself), the writer conveys the world of beauty. The author's ideal is embodied in the images of the cheerful Abruzzo highlanders, in the beauty of Mount Solaro, it is reflected in the Madonna that adorned the grotto, in the sunniest, fabulously beautiful Italy, which has torn away the gentleman from San Francisco.

And here it is, this expected, inevitable death. On Capri, a gentleman from San Francisco dies suddenly. Our premonition and the epigraph of the story come true. The story of placing the gentleman in a soda box and then in a coffin shows all the futility and senselessness of those accumulations, lusts, self-delusions with which the main character existed up to this point.

There is a new reference point of time and events. The death of the master, as it were, cuts the narrative into two parts, and this determines the originality of the composition. The attitude towards the deceased and his wife changes dramatically. Before our eyes, the owner of the hotel and the bellboy Luigi become indifferent and callous. The pity and absolute uselessness of the one who considered himself the center of the universe is revealed.

Bunin raises questions about the meaning and essence of being, about life and death, about the value of human existence, about sin and guilt, about God's judgment for the criminality of acts. The hero of the story does not receive justification and forgiveness from the author, and the ocean roars angrily as the steamer with the coffin of the deceased moves back.

Final word of the teacher

Once upon a time, Pushkin, in a poem from the period of southern exile, romantically glorified the free sea and, changing its name, called it "ocean". He also painted two deaths at sea, turning his gaze to the rock, the "tomb of glory", and ended the poems with reflections on the good and the tyrant. In essence, Bunin also proposed a similar structure: the ocean is a ship “stored by a whim”, “a feast during the plague” - two deaths (of a millionaire and Tiberius), a rock with the ruins of a palace - a reflection on the good and the tyrant. But how everything is rethought by the writer of the "iron" twentieth century!

With epic thoroughness accessible to prose, Bunin draws the sea not as a free, beautiful and wayward, but as a formidable, ferocious and disastrous element. Pushkin's "feast during the plague" loses its tragic quality and acquires a parodic and grotesque character. The death of the hero of the story is not mourned by people. And the rock on the island, the emperor’s haven, this time becomes not a “tomb of glory”, but a parody monument, an object of tourism: people trudged across the ocean here, Bunin writes with bitter irony, climbed a steep rock, on which a vile and depraved monster lived, doomed people to countless deaths. Such a rethinking conveys the disastrous and catastrophic nature of the world, which, like the ship, is on the edge of the abyss.

Literature

Dmitry Bykov. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. // Encyclopedia for children "Avanta +". Volume 9. Russian literature. Part two. XX century. M., 1999

Vera Muromtseva-Bunina. Bunin's life. Conversations with memory. M.: Vagrius, 2007

Galina Kuznetsova. Grasse diary. M.: Moscow worker, 1995

N.V. Egorova. Lesson developments in Russian literature. Grade 11. I semester. M.: VAKO, 2005

D.N. Murin, E.D. Kononova, E.V. Minenko. Russian literature of the XX century. Grade 11 program. Thematic lesson planning. St. Petersburg: SMIO Press, 2001

E.S. Rogover. Russian literature of the XX century. SP.: Parity, 2002

The purpose of the lesson: to reveal the philosophical content of Bunin's story.

Methodological techniques: analytical reading.

During the classes.

I. The word of the teacher.

The first one was already World War, there was a crisis of civilization. Bunin turned to the problems that are relevant, but not directly related to Russia, to the current Russian reality. In the spring of 1910 I.A. Bunin visited France, Algeria, Capri. In December 1910 - in the spring of 1911. I have been to Egypt and Ceylon. In the spring of 1912 he again left for Capri, and in the summer of the following year he visited Trebizond, Constantinople, Bucharest and other European cities. From December 1913 he spent half a year in Capri. The impressions of these travels were reflected in the stories and short stories that compiled the collections Sukhodol (1912), John the Rydalets (1913), The Cup of Life (1915), and The Gentleman from San Francisco (1916).

The story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" (originally titled "Death on Capri") continued the tradition of L.N. Tolstoy, who portrayed illness and death as the most important events that reveal the true value of a person (Polikushka, 1863; Death of Ivan Ilyich, 1886; Master and Worker, 1895). Along with the philosophical line in Bunin's story, social problems were developed, associated with a critical attitude to the lack of spirituality of bourgeois society, to the rise of technical progress to the detriment of internal improvement.

Bunin does not accept bourgeois civilization as a whole. The pathos of the story is in the feeling of the inevitability of the death of this world.

Plot built on a description of an accident that unexpectedly interrupted a well-established life and hero plans whose name "no one remembers". He is one of those who, until the age of fifty-eight, "worked tirelessly" to become like rich people, "whom he once took as a model."

II. Storytelling conversation.

What images in the story are symbolic?

(Firstly, the symbol of society is perceived as an ocean steamer with the significant name "Atlantis", on which an unnamed millionaire sails to Europe. Atlantis is a sunken legendary, mythical continent, a symbol of a lost civilization that could not resist the onslaught of the elements. There are also associations with the deceased in 1912 year "Titanic" The "ocean that walked behind the walls" of the steamer is a symbol of the elements, nature, opposed to civilization.
The image of the captain is also symbolic, “a red-haired man of monstrous size and heaviness, similar ... to a huge idol and very rarely appeared in front of people from his mysterious chambers.” Symbolic image of the title character ( reference: the title character is the one whose name is placed in the title of the work, he may not be the main character). The gentleman from San Francisco is the personification of a man of bourgeois civilization.)

To more clearly imagine the nature of the relationship between "Atlantis" and the ocean, you can apply a "cinematic" technique: the "camera" first slides along the floors of the ship, demonstrating rich decoration, details that emphasize the luxury, solidity, reliability of "Atlantis", and then gradually "sails away", showing the enormity of the ship as a whole; moving further, the “camera” moves away from the steamer until it becomes like a nutshell in a huge raging ocean that fills the entire space. (Let's recall the final scene of the film Solaris, where, it would seem, the found father's house turns out to be only an imaginary one, given to the hero by the power of the Ocean. If possible, you can show these shots in class).

What is the main setting of the story?

(The main action of the story takes place on the huge ship famous "Atlantis". The limited plot space allows you to focus on the mechanism of the functioning of bourgeois civilization. It appears as a society divided into upper "floors" and "basements". Upstairs, life goes on like in a "hotel with everyone comforts ", measured, calm and idle. "Passengers" living "safely", "many", but much more - "a great many" - those who work for them "in cooks', scullery" and in the "underwater womb" - at the "gigantic furnaces".)

What technique does Bunin use to portray the division of society?

(The division has the nature of the antithesis: rest, carelessness, dances and work, unbearable tension are opposed ”; "radiance ... of the chamber" and "gloomy and sultry bowels of the underworld"; "gentlemen" in tailcoats and tuxedos, ladies in "rich", "charming" "toilets" and "naked people covered in caustic, dirty sweat and waist-deep, purple from the flames." Gradually, a picture of heaven and hell is being built.)

How do "tops" and "bottoms" relate to each other?

(They are strangely related to each other. "Good money" helps to get to the top, and those who, like "the gentleman from San Francisco", were "quite generous" to people from the "underworld", they "fed and watered .. .from morning to evening they served him, preventing his slightest desire, guarded his cleanliness and peace, dragged his things ... ".)

Why is the main character without a name?

(The hero is simply called “master” because that is what he is. At least he considers himself a master and revels in his position. He can afford to “just for the sake of entertainment” go “to the Old World for two whole years”, can enjoy all the benefits guaranteed by his status, believes "in the caring of all those who fed and watered him, served him from morning till night, warned his slightest desire", can contemptuously throw to the ragamuffins through his teeth: "Go away! Via!". ("Away!").)

(Describing the appearance of the gentleman, Bunin uses epithets that emphasize his wealth and his unnaturalness: “silver mustache”, “golden fillings” of teeth, “strong bald head”, is compared with “old ivory”. There is nothing spiritual in the gentleman, his goal is to become rich and reap the benefits of this wealth - came true, but he did not become happier because of this. The description of the gentleman from San Francisco is constantly accompanied by the author's irony.)

When does the hero begin to change, lose his self-confidence?

(“The master” changes only in the face of death, it is no longer the gentleman from San Francisco that begins to appear in him - he was no longer there - but someone else. " Death makes him a man: "his features began to thin, brighten .. .". "Dead", "deceased", "dead" - this is how the author of the hero now calls. The attitude of those around him changes dramatically: the corpse must be removed from the hotel so as not to spoil the mood of other guests, they cannot provide a coffin - only a box from - under a soda ("soda water" is also one of the signs of civilization), the servant, trembling before the living, mockingly laughs at the dead. At the end of the story, the "body of a dead old man from San Francisco" is mentioned, which returns "home, to the grave, to the shores of the New World ", in a black hold. The power of the "master" turned out to be illusory.)

How is society shown in the story?

(The steamboat - the latest technology - is a model human society. Its holds and decks are the layers of this society. On the upper floors of the ship, which looks like “a huge hotel with all amenities”, the life of the rich, who have achieved complete “well-being”, flows measuredly. This life is indicated by the longest indefinitely personal sentence, occupying almost a page: “get up early, ... drink coffee, chocolate, cocoa, ... sit in the baths, stimulating appetite and well-being, make daily toilets and go to the first breakfast .. .". These proposals emphasize the impersonality, lack of individuality of those who consider themselves masters of life. Everything they do is unnatural: entertainment is needed only to stimulate appetite artificially. "Travelers" do not hear the evil howl of a siren, foreshadowing death - it is drowned out by "the sounds of a beautiful string orchestra."
The passengers of the ship represent the nameless “cream” of society: “There was a certain great rich man among this brilliant crowd, ... there was a famous spanish writer, there was a universal beauty, there was an elegant couple in love ... "The couple portrayed love, was" hired by Lloyd to play love for good money. It is an artificial paradise filled with light, warmth and music.
And there is hell. The “underwater womb of the steamer” is like the underworld. There, "gigantic fireboxes cackled deafly, devouring with their red-hot mouths piles of coal, with a roar thrown into them by people covered in caustic, dirty sweat and waist-deep naked people, purple from the flame." Note the disturbing coloring and menacing sound of this description.)

How is the conflict between man and nature resolved?

(Society is just like a well-oiled machine. Nature, which seems to be an object of entertainment along with “antiquity monuments, a tarantella, serenades of wandering singers and ... the love of young Neapolitan women,” recalls the illusory nature of life in a “hotel.” It is “huge”, but around it - the "water desert" of the ocean and the "cloudy sky". Man's eternal fear of the elements is muffled by the sounds of the "string orchestra". He is reminded of the "permanently calling" from hell, groaning "in mortal anguish" and "furious malice" siren, but they hear it "few". All the rest believe in the inviolability of their existence, guarded by a "pagan idol" - the commander of the ship. The specificity of the description is combined with symbolism, which makes it possible to emphasize philosophical character conflict. The social gap between the rich and the poor is nothing compared to the abyss that separates man from nature and life from non-existence.)

What is the role of episodic heroes of the story - Lorenzo and the Abruzzo highlanders?

(These characters appear at the end of the story and are in no way connected with its action. Lorenzo is “a tall old boatman, a carefree reveler and a handsome man,” probably the same age as a gentleman from San Francisco. Only a few lines are dedicated to him, but a sonorous name is given, in contrast from the title character. He is famous throughout Italy, served as a model for many painters more than once. "With a regal habit" he looks around, feeling truly "royal", enjoying life, "drawing with his tatters, a clay pipe and a red woolen beret lowered on one ear.” The picturesque poor old man Lorenzo will live forever on the canvases of artists, and the rich old man from San Francisco was deleted from life and forgotten before he could die.
The Abruzzi highlanders, like Lorenzo, personify the naturalness and joy of being. They live in harmony, in harmony with the world, with nature: “They walked - and a whole country, joyful, beautiful, sunny, stretched under them: and the stony humps of the island, which almost all lay at their feet, and that fabulous blue, in which he swam, and the radiant morning vapors over the sea to the east, under the dazzling sun ... ". The goat-skin bagpipe and the highlanders' wooden forearm are contrasted with the "beautiful string orchestra" of the steamer. The highlanders give their lively, artless music of praise to the sun, morning, “the immaculate intercessor of all those who suffer in this evil and beautiful world and born of her womb in the cave of Bethlehem…” These are the true values of life, as opposed to the brilliant, expensive, but artificial, imaginary values of "masters".)

What image is a generalizing image of the insignificance and perishability of earthly wealth and glory?

(This is also a nameless image, which recognizes the once powerful Roman emperor Tiberius, who lived the last years of his life in Capri. Many "come to look at the remains of the stone house where he lived." "Humanity will forever remember him," but this is the glory of Herostratus : "a man who is unspeakably vile in satisfying his lust and for some reason had power over millions of people, who inflicted cruelty on them beyond measure. " In the word "for some reason" - exposure of fictitious power, pride; time puts everything in its place: gives immortality to the true and casts the false into oblivion.)

III. Teacher's word.

In the story, the theme of the end of the existing world order, the inevitability of the death of a soulless and soulless civilization gradually grows. It is embedded in the epigraph, which was removed by Bunin only in the last edition of 1951: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!” This biblical phrase, reminiscent of the feast of Belshazzar before the fall of the Chaldean kingdom, sounds like a harbinger of future great catastrophes. The mention in the text of Vesuvius, the eruption of which killed Pompeii, reinforces the formidable prediction. A keen sense of the crisis of civilization, doomed to non-existence, is associated with philosophical reflections on life, man, death and immortality.

IV. Analysis of the composition and conflict of the story.
Material for the teacher.

Composition The story is circular. The hero's journey begins in San Francisco and ends with the return "home, to the grave, to the shores of the New World." The "middle" of the story - a visit to the "Old World" - in addition to the specific, has a generalized meaning. " New person”, returning to history, reassesses his place in the world. The arrival of the heroes in Naples, Capri opens up the possibility for inclusion in the text of the author's descriptions of the "wonderful", "joyful, beautiful, sunny" country, the beauty of which is "powerless to express the human word", and philosophical digressions due to Italian impressions.
Climax is the scene of "unexpectedly and rudely falling" on the "master" of death in the "smallest, worst, dampest and coldest" room of the "lower corridor".
This event, only by coincidence, was perceived as a “terrible incident” (“if there hadn’t been a German in the reading room” who escaped from there “with a cry”, the owner would have been able to “calm ... with hasty assurances that this is so, a trifle ...”). The unexpected disappearance into non-existence in the context of the story is perceived as the highest moment of the collision of the illusory and the true, when nature "rudely" proves its omnipotence. But people continue their "carefree", insane existence, quickly returning to peace and tranquility. They cannot be awakened to life not only by the example of one of their contemporaries, but even by the memory of what happened “two thousand years ago” during the time of Tiberius, who lived “on one of the steepest slopes” of Capri, who was the Roman emperor during the life of Jesus Christ.
Conflict The story goes far beyond the scope of a particular case, in connection with which its denouement is connected with reflections on the fate of not one hero, but all past and future passengers of Atlantis. Doomed to the "hard" path of overcoming "darkness, the ocean, blizzards", closed in the "hellish" social machine, humanity is suppressed by the conditions of its earthly life. Only the naive and simple, like children, can enjoy the joy of communion "with the eternal and blissful abode." In the story, the image of “two Abruzzo highlanders” appears, baring their heads in front of a plaster statue of the “immaculate intercessor of all those who suffer”, recalling “her blessed son”, who brought the “beautiful” beginning of good to the “evil” world. The devil remained the owner of the earthly world, watching "from the stony gates of the two worlds" the deeds of the "New Man with an old heart." What will choose where humanity will go, whether it will be able to defeat the evil inclination in itself - this is the question to which the story gives a "suppressing ... soul" answer. But the denouement becomes problematic, since in the finale the idea of a Man is affirmed, whose "pride" turns him into the third force of the world. The symbol of this is the ship's path through time and the elements: "The blizzard fought in its gear and wide-mouthed pipes, whitened with snow, but it was steadfast, firm, majestic and terrible."
Artistic originality The story is connected with the interweaving of the epic and lyrical principles. On the one hand, in full accordance with the realistic principles of depicting the hero in his relationship with the environment, on the basis of social and everyday specifics, a type is created, the reminiscent background for which, first of all, are images " dead souls"(N.V. Gogol. "Dead Souls", 1842), At the same time, just like Gogol's, thanks to the author's assessment, expressed in digressions, there is a deepening of the problem, the conflict acquires a philosophical character.

Supplementary material for the teacher.

The melody of death latently begins to sound from the very first pages of the work, gradually becoming the leading motive. At first, death is extremely aestheticized, picturesque: in Monte Carlo, one of the activities of wealthy loafers is “shooting pigeons, which soar very beautifully and cages over an emerald lawn, against the backdrop of a sea the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately knock white lumps on the ground.” (In general, Bunin is characterized by the aestheticization of things that are usually unsightly, which should rather frighten than attract the observer - well, who, except him, could write about “slightly powdered, delicate pink pimples near the lips and between the shoulder blades” in the daughter of a gentleman from San Francisco, compare the whites of the eyes of blacks with “peeled hard-boiled eggs” or to call a young man in a narrow tailcoat with long tails “a handsome man, like a huge leech!”) Then a hint of death appears in verbal portrait the crown prince of one of the Asian states, a sweet and pleasant person in general, whose mustache, however, "were seen through, like a dead man", and the skin on his face was "as if stretched." And the siren on the ship chokes in "mortal anguish", promising evil, and the museums are cold and "deadly clean", and the ocean walks "mournful mountains from silver foam" and buzzes like a "funeral mass".
But even more clearly the breath of death is felt in the appearance of the main character, in whose portrait yellow-black-silver tones prevail: a yellowish face, gold fillings in the teeth, an ivory skull. Creamy silk underwear, black socks, trousers, and a tuxedo complete his look. Yes, and he sits in the golden-pearl radiance of the hall of the dining room. And it seems that from him these colors spread to nature and the whole the world. Unless an alarming red color is added. It is clear that the ocean rolls its black waves, that a crimson flame escapes from the furnaces of the ship, it is natural that the Italians have black hair, that the rubber capes of the cabbies give off black, that the crowd of lackeys is “black”, and the musicians may have red jackets. But why is the beautiful island of Capri also approaching with “its blackness”, “drilled with red lights”, why even “reconciled waves” shimmer like “black oil”, and “golden boas” flow over them from the lit lanterns on the pier?
So Bunin creates in the reader an idea of the omnipotence of a gentleman from San Francisco, capable of drowning out even the beauty of nature! (...) After all, even sunny Naples is not illuminated by the sun while an American is there, and the island of Capri seems to be some kind of ghost, “as if it had never existed in the world”, when a rich man approaches him ...

Remember, in the works of which writers there is a “talking color scheme. What role does Dostoevsky play in creating the image of St. Petersburg yellow? What other colors are significant?

Bunin needs all this in order to prepare the reader for the climax of the story - the death of the hero, about which he does not think, the thought of which does not penetrate his consciousness at all. And what a surprise can there be in this programmed world, where the solemn dressing for dinner is done in such a way as if a person is preparing for the “crown” (that is, the happy peak of his life!), Where there is a cheerful smartness, albeit not young, but well-shaven and a very elegant man who so easily overtakes an old woman who is late for dinner! Bunin saved only one detail, which is "knocked out" from a series of well-rehearsed deeds and movements: when a gentleman from San Francisco is dressing for dinner, his neck cufflink does not obey his fingers. She does not want to fasten in any way ... But he still defeats her. Painfully biting "flabby skin in the recess under the Adam's apple", wins "with eyes shining from tension", "all gray from the tight collar that squeezed his throat." And suddenly, at that moment, he utters words that in no way fit in with the atmosphere of general contentment, with the enthusiasm that he was prepared to receive. “- Oh. This is terrible! - he muttered ... and repeated with conviction: - This is terrible ... ”What exactly seemed terrible to him in this world designed for pleasure, the gentleman from San Francisco, who was not used to thinking about unpleasant things, did not try to understand. However, it is striking that an American who previously spoke mainly English or Italian (his Russian remarks are very short and are perceived as “passing through”) repeats this word twice in Russian ... By the way, it is worth noting in general his jerky, as barking speech: he does not speak more than two or three words in a row.
"Terrible" was the first touch of Death, never human conscious, in the soul of which "for a long time there was no ... any mystical feelings." After all, as Bunin writes, the intense rhythm of his life did not leave "time for feelings and reflections." However, some feelings, or rather sensations, he still had, however, the simplest, if not base ones ... The writer repeatedly points out that the gentleman from San Francisco revived only at the mention of the tarantella performer. (his question, asked “in an expressionless voice”, about her partner: is he not her husband - just gives out hidden excitement), only imagining how she, “swarthy, with feigned eyes, like a mulatto, in a flowery outfit ( ...) dances”, only anticipating “the love of young Neapolitans, albeit not entirely disinterested”, only admiring the “live pictures” in brothels or looking so frankly at the famous blonde beauty that his daughter felt embarrassed. He feels despair only when he begins to suspect that life is slipping out of his control: he came to Italy to enjoy, and here it is foggy rains and terrifying pitching ... But it is given to him with pleasure to dream about a spoonful of soup and a sip of wine.
And for this, as well as for the whole life lived, in which there was self-confident businesslikeness, and cruel exploitation of other people, and the endless accumulation of wealth, and the conviction that everything around is called to “serve” him, “prevent his slightest desires”, “ carry his things”, for the lack of any living principle, Bunin executes him and executes him cruelly, one might say, mercilessly.
The death of a gentleman from San Francisco shocks with its ugliness, repulsive physiology. Now the writer makes full use of the aesthetic category of "ugly" in order to permanently imprint a disgusting picture in our memory. Bunin does not spare repulsive details in order to recreate a man whom no amount of wealth can save from the humiliation that followed after his death. Later, the dead person is also granted genuine communion with nature, which he was deprived of, which, being alive, he never felt the need for: “the stars looked at him from the sky, the cricket sang with sad carelessness on the wall.”

What works can you name where the death of the hero is described in detail? What is the significance of these “finals” for understanding the ideological intent? How is the author's position expressed in them?

The writer “rewarded” his hero with such an ugly, unenlightened death in order to once again emphasize the horror of that unrighteous life, which could only end in such a way. Indeed, after the death of a gentleman from San Francisco, the world felt relieved. A miracle happened. The very next day, the morning blue sky “became richer”, “peace and tranquility again settled on the island”, ordinary people poured into the streets, and the city market was decorated with his presence by the handsome Lorenzo, who serves as a model for many painters and, as it were, symbolizes beautiful Italy .. .

Lesson 5

in the story of I. A. Bunin "The Gentleman from San Francisco"

The purpose of the lesson: reveal the philosophical content of Bunin's story.

Methodological techniques: analytical reading.

During the classes

I. teacher's word

The First World War was already underway, there was a crisis of civilization. Bunin turned to the problems that are relevant, but not directly related to Russia, to the current Russian reality. In the spring of 1910, I. A. Bunin visited France, Algeria, Capri. In December 1910 - in the spring of 1911. I have been to Egypt and Ceylon. In the spring of 1912 he again left for Capri, and in the summer of the following year he visited Trebizond, Constantinople, Bucharest and other European cities. From December 1913 he spent half a year in Capri. The impressions of these travels were reflected in the stories and short stories that compiled the collections Sukhodol (1912), John the Rydalets (1913), The Cup of Life (1915), and The Gentleman from San Francisco (1916).

The story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" (originally titled "Death on Capri") continued the tradition of Leo Tolstoy, who depicted illness and death as the most important events that reveal the true value of a person ("Polikushka", 1863; "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", 1886; Master and Worker, 1895). Along with the philosophical line in Bunin's story, social problems were developed, associated with a critical attitude to the lack of spirituality of bourgeois society, to the rise of technical progress to the detriment of internal improvement.

Bunin does not accept bourgeois civilization as a whole. The pathos of the story is in the feeling of the inevitability of the death of this world.

Plot built on the description of an accident that unexpectedly interrupted the well-established life and plans of the hero, whose name "no one remembered". He is one of those who, until the age of fifty-eight, "worked tirelessly" to become like rich people, "whom he once took as a model."

II. Storytelling conversation

What images in the story are symbolic?

The image of the captain is also symbolic, “a red-haired man of monstrous size and heaviness, similar ... to a huge idol and very rarely appeared in front of people from his mysterious chambers.” Symbolic image of the title character (reference: the title character is the one whose name appears in the title of the work, he may not be the main character). The gentleman from San Francisco is the personification of a man of bourgeois civilization.)

What is the main setting of the story?

What technique does Bunin use to portray the division of society?

(The separation has the character of an antithesis: rest, carelessness, dancing and work, unbearable stress are opposed "; "radiance ... of the hall" and "gloomy and sultry bowels of the underworld"; "gentlemen" in tailcoats and tuxedos, ladies in "rich", " charming" "toilets" and "bare people covered in acrid, dirty sweat and waist-deep, purple from the flames." A picture of heaven and hell is gradually built up.)

How do "tops" and "bottoms" relate to each other?

Why is the main character without a name?

(The hero is simply called “master” because that is what he is. At least he considers himself a master and revels in his position. He can afford to “just for the sake of entertainment” go “to the Old World for two whole years”, can enjoy all the benefits guaranteed by his status, believes “in the care of all those who fed and watered him, served him from morning to evening, warned his slightest desire”, can contemptuously throw to the ragamuffins through his teeth: “Go away! Via! ("Away!").)

When does the hero begin to change, lose his self-confidence?

How is society shown in the story?

(The steamboat - the last word in technology - is a model of human society. Its holds and decks are the layers of this society. On the upper floors of the ship, which looks like "a huge hotel with all amenities," the life of the rich, who have achieved complete "well-being," flows measuredly. This life is indicated the longest indefinitely personal sentence, occupying almost a page: "get up early, ... drink coffee, chocolate, cocoa, ... sit in the baths, stimulating appetite and well-being, make daily toilets and go to the first breakfast ...". These proposals emphasize the impersonality, lack of individuality of those who consider themselves the masters of life.Everything they do is unnatural: entertainment is needed only to artificially excite the appetite "Travellers" do not hear the evil howl of a siren, foreshadowing death - it is drowned out by "the sounds of a beautiful string orchestra."

The passengers of the ship represent the nameless “cream” of society: “There was a certain great rich man among this brilliant crowd, ... there was a famous Spanish writer, there was a world-class beauty, there was an elegant couple in love ...” The couple portrayed love, was “hired by Lloyd to play love for good money." It is an artificial swarm filled with light, warmth and music. And there is hell.

The “underwater womb of the steamer” is like the underworld. There, "gigantic fireboxes cackled deafly, devouring with their red-hot mouths piles of coal, with a roar thrown into them by people covered in caustic, dirty sweat and waist-deep naked people, purple from the flame." Note the disturbing coloring and menacing sound of this description.)

How is the conflict between man and nature resolved?

(Society is just like a well-oiled machine. Nature, seeming antiquity, tarantella, serenades of wandering singers and ... the love of young Neapolitan women, recalls the illusory nature of life in a “hotel”. It is “huge”, but around it is the “water desert” of the ocean and "cloudy sky". Man's eternal fear of the elements is muffled by the sounds of a "string orchestra". He is reminded of a "permanently calling" from hell, groaning "in mortal anguish" and "furious malice" siren, but "few" hear it. All the rest believe in the inviolability of their existence, guarded by the "pagan idol" - the commander of the ship. The specificity of the description is combined with symbolism, which makes it possible to emphasize the philosophical nature of the conflict. The social gap between rich and poor is nothing compared to the abyss that separates man from nature and life from non-existence.)

What is the role of episodic heroes of the story - Lorenzo and the Abruzzo highlanders?

The Abruzzi highlanders, like Lorenzo, personify the naturalness and joy of being. They live in harmony, in harmony with the world, with nature: “They walked - and a whole country, joyful, beautiful, sunny, stretched under them: and the stony humps of the island, which almost all lay at their feet, and that fabulous blue, in which he swam, and the shining morning vapors over the sea to the east, under the dazzling sun ... ”The goat-fur bagpipes and the highlanders’ wooden toe are contrasted with the“ beautiful string orchestra ”of the steamer. The highlanders give their lively, unsophisticated music of praise to the sun, the morning, "the immaculate intercessor of all those who suffer in this evil and beautiful world, and born from her womb in the cave of Bethlehem ...". These are the true values of life, as opposed to the brilliant, expensive, but artificial, imaginary values of "masters".)

What image is a generalizing image of the insignificance and perishability of earthly wealth and glory?

III. teacher's word

In the story, the theme of the end of the existing world order, the inevitability of the death of a soulless and soulless civilization gradually grows. It is embedded in the epigraph, which was removed by Bunin only in the last edition of 1951: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!” This biblical phrase, reminiscent of the feast of Belshazzar before the fall of the Chaldean kingdom, sounds like a harbinger of future great catastrophes. The mention in the text of Vesuvius, the eruption of which killed Pompeii, reinforces the formidable prediction. A keen sense of the crisis of civilization, doomed to non-existence, is associated with philosophical reflections on life, man, death and immortality.

IV. Analysis of the composition and conflict of the story

Teacher material

Climax is the scene of "unexpectedly and rudely falling" on the "master" of death in the "smallest, worst, dampest and coldest" but least of the "lower corridor".

This event, only by coincidence, was perceived as a “terrible incident” (“if there hadn’t been a German in the reading room” who escaped from there “with a cry”, the owner would have been able to “calm ... with hasty assurances that this is so, a trifle ...”). The unexpected disappearance into non-existence in the context of the story is perceived as the highest moment of the collision of the illusory and the true, when nature "rudely" proves its omnipotence. But people continue their "carefree", insane existence, quickly returning to peace and tranquility. They cannot be awakened to life not only by the example of one of their contemporaries, but even by the memory of what happened “two thousand years ago” during the time of Tiberius, who lived “on one of the steepest slopes” of Capri, who was the Roman emperor during the life of Jesus Christ.

Conflict The story goes far beyond the scope of a particular case, in connection with which its denouement is connected with reflections on the fate of not one hero, but all past and future passengers of Atlantis. Doomed to the "hard" path of overcoming "darkness, the ocean, blizzards", closed in the "hellish" social machine, humanity is suppressed by the conditions of its earthly life. Only the naive and simple, like children, can enjoy the joy of communion "with the eternal and blissful abode." In the story, the image of “two Abruzzo highlanders” appears, baring their heads in front of a plaster statue of “the non-violent intercessor of all those who suffer”, recalling “her blessed son”, who brought the “beautiful” beginning of good to the “evil” world. The devil remained the owner of the earthly world, watching "from the stony gates of the two worlds" the deeds of the "New Man with an old heart." What will choose where humanity will go, whether it will be able to defeat the evil inclination in itself - this is the question to which the story gives a "suppressing ... soul" answer. But the denouement becomes problematic, since in the finale the idea of a Man is affirmed, whose "pride" turns him into the third force of the world. The symbol of this is the ship's path through time and the elements: "The blizzard fought in its gear and wide-mouthed pipes, whitened with snow, but it was steadfast, firm, majestic and terrible."

Artistic originality The story is connected with the interweaving of the epic and lyrical principles. On the one hand, in full accordance with the realistic principles of depicting the hero in his relationship with the environment, on the basis of social specifics, a type is created, the reminiscent background for which, first of all, are the images of “dead souls” (N.V. Gogol. “Dead Souls", 1842), At the same time, just like in Gogol, thanks to the author's assessment, expressed in lyrical digressions, the problems deepen, the conflict acquires a philosophical character.

2. Prepare for a review of stories, think about their problems and linguistic and figurative features.

Additional material for the teacher 1

lesson development on Russian literature XIX century. 10 Class. 1st semester. - M.: Vako, 2003. 4. Zolotareva I.V., Mikhailova T.I. lesson development on Russian literature ...

Women's Portal Flero

GBPOU Sterlitamak Polytechnic College

Methodical development

Topic: “Senseless pursuit of money. Based on the story by I.A. Bunin “The Gentleman from San Francisco”

Developed by: Russian teacher

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