Most people always associate the Silver Age of Russian literature with poetry. However, one cannot help but notice that the beginning of the twentieth century gave us a great many very talented prose writers.
One of these talents was Ivan Bunin. His short stories truly penetrate the reader's soul and raise important philosophical questions for us. One of Bunin’s most striking prose works is the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco,” an analysis of which was prepared by the Many-Wise Litrecon.
The creative story of the story “Mr. from San Francisco” began in an exotic land - on the island of Capri. The work is based on Bunin’s memories of his vacation. A wealthy American died in the hotel where he then lived. This incident is clearly imprinted in the writer’s memory, because one small tragedy did not change the holiday mood of the vacationers.
Contemporaries knew interesting facts about the writing of the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco.” Already in 1915, Bunin wrote in his diary about how he saw Thomas Mann’s story “Death in Venice” in the window of a Moscow bookstore. It was then that he decided to write his story, which was based on that incident in Capri. This is how one insignificant circumstance inspired the author to bring his long-standing idea of a story into reality.
“For some reason I remembered this book and the sudden death of some American who arrived in Capri, at the Quisisana hotel, where we lived that year, and immediately decided to write “Death in Capri,” which I did in four days - slowly, calmly, in harmony with the autumn calm of the gray and already quite short and fresh days and the silence in the estate... Of course, I crossed out the title “Death on Capri” as soon as I wrote the first line: “Mr. from San Francisco...” I made up San Francisco and everything else (except for the fact that some American actually died after dinner at Kwisisan...
Direction and genre
This story can be attributed to the literary movement of realism. The writer strives for a reliable depiction of reality. His characters are typical and reliable. There are names of real places. At the same time, modernism, dominant in the culture of that time, was reflected in Bunin’s prose. Thus, in his story there are many images and symbols that reveal the metaphorical meaning of the text.
The genre of “The Gentleman from San Francisco” is short story. This is a short prose work with a small number of characters and one storyline. There is no specificity; the reader understands that the situation described in the story could happen to anyone and at any time.
Composition and Conflict
Ideologically, the composition of the work is divided into two parts: the arrival of the American rich man at the hotel and the return of his lifeless body to the USA. This construction of the plot is intended to emphasize the main idea of the story, to show the contrast between who a person is during life and who (or what) he becomes after death.
At the heart of the main conflict of the work "Mr. from San Francisco" is the confrontation between worldly things, such as wealth, pleasure and entertainment, and the eternal principle, represented in the story by death itself.
The meaning of the title and ending
In the title of the story, Bunin did not come up with an elegant formula that is a reflection of hidden meanings, nor did he indicate the main idea. Avoiding any specifics both in the narrative and in the title, Bunin once again emphasized the everydayness and insignificance of the life of his hero, busy only with worldly affairs.
This is not a person, but a set of clichés and stereotypes about an inhabitant of the American middle class. He is a master, that is, the master of life, a rich man, whose money other people worship and envy. But how ironic the word “master” sounds when applied to a corpse! This means that a person cannot be the master of anything, because life and death are beyond his control, he has not comprehended their nature. The title of hero is the author's mockery of the smug rich people who think that they own the world, although they cannot even predict their own fate.
Why did the gentleman from San Francisco die? But because he was given a certain period of time, and higher powers did not take into account his plans for life. All the time the hero put off the fulfillment of his cherished desires until later, and when he found time for them, fate laughed at him and reset the counter to zero.
The essence
A certain rich American goes with his daughter and wife to Europe, where he plans to spend two years indulging in relaxation and entertainment. An initially pleasant trip is spoiled by disgusting weather. A gentleman from San Francisco and his family go to Capri, where he is suddenly overtaken by death while reading a newspaper.
On the same day, the wife of the deceased is demanded to immediately remove her husband’s body from the hotel. Due to the lack of a hump, the deceased was placed in a soda box and taken to the port at night. The story ends with the body of the gentleman from San Francisco, put away in the dark ship's hold, returning to America.
The main characters and their characteristics
The heroes of the story “The Master from San Francisco” are listed by the Many-Wise Litrecon in the table:
| heroes of the story “Mr. from San Francisco” | characteristic |
| gentleman from san francisco | a fifty-eight-year-old rich man from the USA. being an entrepreneur, he exploited the labor of Chinese emigrants. Despite his huge earnings and wealth, he believes that all his life he did not live, but only existed, postponing his cherished dreams and hobbies for later. looks at his journey as the beginning of a new life in which he canenjoy the fruits of your work. self-confident. condescendingly arrogant. narcissistic. |
| wife of a gentleman from San Francisco | an unremarkable woman. a cantankerous and hysterical American woman. |
| daughter of a gentleman from San Francisco | a pretty but otherwise unremarkable girl. |
| passengers of the liner | the cream of high society in Europe and America. highly titled persons, rich people and other influential persons. for the most part, empty and insignificant people who do not care about anything but themselves. |
Themes
The themes of the story “Mr. from San Francisco” are diverse, despite the small volume of the work.
- Life values- the main theme of the work. The main character put money and success first in his life, while family, homeland, creativity, and the world as a whole remained “overboard” from his ship. When he decided to catch up, it was too late, and as a result, his whole life was in vain, and the pursuit of material wealth never ended in triumph.
- Family– Bunin describes the family of a rich American with obvious hostility. Family relationships between the gentleman from San Francisco and his loved ones are, as a rule, based on the financial aspect. As long as everything around them is going perfectly, they can be mistaken for good people, but as soon as trouble interferes with the trip, family squabbles and mutual alienation immediately rise to the surface. Bunin shows that in a society obsessed with money, there is no place for real family values.
- Happiness– a gentleman from San Francisco believed all his life that real happiness lies in money and the ability to spend it for your own pleasure. It is precisely this approach to life that Bunin condemns, showing the emptiness and insignificance of an existence tied only to money.
- Dream- the writer paints us a portrait of a thoroughly rotten man, in whose soul there is nothing lofty left. All that an elderly American can dream of is to luxuriate in European hotels. It is very important, according to Bunin, to be able to dream about high things, and not just about worldly joys.
- Love– in the consumer society depicted in the story, there is no place for true love. Everything about it is completely fake and deceitful. Behind the masks of cordiality and helpfulness are hidden envy and indifference.
- Fate– Bunin treats his hero very ironically. At the beginning, showing a living and respected rich man on a cruise ship, in the finale, on the same ship, the forgotten dead old man is sailing back the same route he came. Bitter irony is intended to show the futility of existence, which means nothing before fate.
Problems
The problems of the story “Mr. from San Francisco” are very rich:
- Indifference- the main problem raised in the story. Bunin outlined the alienation in the society that he saw around him. People don’t want to delve into the problems of others, they don’t want to face real grief. They are indifferent to other people's misfortune and want to quickly get rid of any manifestations of instability and sadness. So, after the death of the gentleman, when he could no longer give a tip, the staff, other guests, and even his family did not show any regret or respect for the deceased.
- Selfishness- almost every character in the story thinks only about himself. Both the gentleman from San Francisco and the people around him never thought about the fate or feelings of another person. Everyone only cares about themselves.
- Life and death– Bunin perfectly depicted that no matter how rich and influential a person was during his lifetime, when he dies, he becomes just a corpse, and his past no longer affects anything. Death equalizes people, it is incorruptible. Therefore, human power is ephemeral.
- Lack of spirituality– the atmosphere of moral decline and decay oozes through the lines of the story. Indifference, selfishness, cruelty and greed seem unbearable and terrible from the outside. It is not for nothing that the author called the ship on which the gentleman sailed Atlantis. It is a symbol of a bourgeois society doomed to collapse.
- Cruelty- despite the ostentatious imposingness and cordiality, the society depicted by Bunin is impossibly cruel. It lives by cold calculation alone, measures a person only by money and shamelessly throws it away when the money runs out.
- Society– the main villain of the story is capitalist society, whose laws depersonalize people and kill their souls.
- Social problems– the story raises issues such as social inequality. Using the example of poor Italians and the Chinese exploited by their master San Francisco, Bunin shows us that in a capitalist society, the wealth of the minority is achieved by the sweat and blood of the majority.
main idea
The point of the story "Mr. from San Francisco" is to expose the deceitful capitalist society. He reveals to us his inhuman cruelty and deep depravity, hidden behind ostentatious gloss and external benevolence.
At the same time, Bunin also raises philosophical questions, talking about the futility and transience of existence and the gloomy greatness of death, which in the end equalizes all people with each other and laughs at every achievement. The main idea of the story “Mr. from San Francisco” is the need to humble human pride. We are not the masters of our fate, so we need to be able to enjoy every moment given to us from above, because at any moment the thread of life can be cut off forever, and our plans can remain plans. This is the author's position.
What does it teach?
The moral lessons in the story “Mr. from San Francisco” are, first of all, the need not to cling to material values, not to prioritize acquired wealth, but to value the human soul in oneself. After all, after death, the soul is all that remains with a person, and the memory of it is all that remains on earth. This is Bunin's morality.
Artistic details
The story is quite rich in various details that complement the narrative and emphasize the main idea. The concept of peace in the story “The Mister from San Francisco” is especially interesting:
- In the first part of the story, various luxury items catch our eye: gold glasses, silver chains and other luxurious things, which once again emphasize how this world is tied to material values.
- In the second half of the story, all these beautiful trinkets instantly disappear. All that remains is darkness, a cart carrying a makeshift coffin to the port, and a damp hold. The empty, insignificant life ended and the mysterious Eternity began.
The expression of this Eternity is the calm and quiet sea, which indifferently carries the gentleman from San Francisco, first to Europe, and then back to America. The image of the ocean reflects the hero’s life itself: he floated with the flow, enjoyed comfort and security, but it was this current that led him to death on the island of Capri. Without having time to rest and live for himself, he died, bringing his sacrifice to the altar of success. The flow of life is inexorable: if we ourselves do not turn back, making efforts to change direction, it takes us completely different from where we would like to be. The flow itself is inert and indifferent.
Also interesting are the symbols in the story “The Mister from San Francisco”:
- The name of the ship "Atlantis" indicates the imminent collapse of the capitalist world, obsessed with money and mired in vices.
- The soda box is a striking detail that indicates the essence of the gentleman himself. He, as a product of his era, is very symbolically buried in the waste of this very era of consumption. He was cast aside like trash when he served his purpose and could no longer pay his bills.
Criticism
Despite the war going on at that time, Bunin’s story not only did not get lost against its background, but also attracted the attention of many great writers and critics. The success was universally recognized:
“...the story “The Mister from San Francisco”, when it first appeared... was unanimously noted by critics as a new major “achievement” of a talented artist and, in general, one of the most outstanding works of modern literature.” (A. Ghisetti, “Monthly Magazine”, 1917, No. 1)
One of the most famous writers of the era, Maxim Gorky, in a personal letter, completely admired Bunin, specifically noting the awe he felt while reading “The Gentleman from San Francisco.”
Critic Abram Derman wrote in the magazine “Russian Thought” in 1916: “More than ten years separate us from the end of Chekhov’s work, and during this period, if we exclude what was published after the death of L. N. Tolstoy, it did not appear in Russian a work of art equal in power and significance to the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”... How did the artist evolve? On the scale of his feelings... With some solemn and righteous sadness, the artist painted a large image of enormous evil - an image of sin in which the life of a modern city man with an old heart takes place, and the reader feels here not only the legality, but also the justice and beauty of the author’s own coldness towards his hero..."
Another reviewer from the magazine “Russian Wealth” from 1917 also praised Bunin’s work, but noted that his concept was too narrow, and the entire work could be expressed in one line:
“The story is good, but it suffers from shortcomings of its merits, as the French say. The contrast between the superficial splendor of our modern culture and its insignificance in the face of death is expressed in the story with exciting force, but it exhausts it to the bottom...
The English writer Thomas Mann, who partly inspired Bunin to write the story, believed that the story could be put on a par with the works of such great writers as Tolstoy and Pushkin. But not only Thomas Mann noticed the story of his Russian colleague. In France, Bunin’s prose was also known and received enthusiastically:
"Mr. Bunin... added one more name, little known in France, to... the greatest Russian writers." (review in the French magazine Revue de l'époque (Review of the Epoch), 1921)
Even several decades later, Bunin's work was highly appreciated by critics. In Soviet times, little attention was paid to him as a political emigrant, but during Perestroika, Bunin's prose experienced another period of recognition and popularity among the broad masses.
He did not tolerate verbosity, freed himself from unnecessary epithets, created his prose dense, compressed, which allowed Chekhov at one time to compare it with too “thick broth”... And he absolutely could not stand verbal cliches. When in “The Gentleman from San Francisco” he wrote: “December “turned out to be” not entirely successful,” he ironically put the word stood out in quotation marks, since he borrowed it from a vocabulary alien to him: from the vocabulary of the rich and faceless gentlemen who act in his story. His ear for falsehood and dullness of language was acute. (A. A. Saakyants, article-afterword and comments to the “Collected Works of Bunin in six volumes”, volume 4, 1988)
>Essays based on the work Mister from San Francisco
The idea of the meaning of life in the work
Reading I. A. Bunin’s story “Mr. from San Francisco” you involuntarily think about the question of the meaning of life, as well as about what a person essentially lives for. The story first appeared in 1915 in Moscow, in the collection “The Word”. It tells the story of the life of a wealthy gentleman who and his family travel across the ocean to the shores of Europe. He is fifty-eight years old and has worked tirelessly all his life. And finally, he decided to take a well-deserved rest and spend a couple of years traveling to other countries. Given his financial situation, he could afford everything: a luxurious cabin, an expensive hotel, the best dishes, an excellent tuxedo, and drink wine from the finest glasses.
While traveling, he led a measured life, had long meals, relaxed on a sun lounger, smoked cigars in the evenings, and simply tried to enjoy life without denying himself anything. Throughout the story, we see how the gentleman changes one luxury hotel to another, and we also see the family’s demanding and fastidious attitude towards the staff. Based on the master’s character, we can conclude that servants are not people, but a luxury for him. The author easily transports the reader from one atmosphere to another. And in the reading room, a gentleman who had a huge fortune and was able to buy whatever he wanted, gave up the ghost. In order not to disturb his guests and not to spoil the reputation of the hotel, the owner placed the gentleman's body in the smallest and worst room. And then his body was transported back home in a long soda box, since there was no coffin on the island.
The death of the gentleman from San Francisco occurred almost instantly when he picked up the newspaper and could not see anything else. The lines swam before my eyes, my pince-nez flew off my nose and my body collapsed to the floor. Before he died, he tried to breathe fresh air for a few seconds. But in this desperate struggle he lost. Now neither his money, nor the starched suit in which he went out to dinner, nor the luxurious hotels in different cities mattered. In my opinion, with this outcome the author wanted to show the transience and futility of life. And also, he emphasized that the meaning of life does not lie in money and its quantity. After all, even the richest people cannot buy happiness for themselves. It becomes clear that all people are mortal and neither strength of body, nor wealth, nor power can save them from an inevitable fate.
Symbolism and existential meaning of the story
"Mr. from San Francisco"
In the last lesson, we got acquainted with the work of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin and began to analyze one of his stories “Mr. from San Francisco.” We talked about the composition of the story, discussed the system of images, and talked about the poetics of Bunin's word. Today in the lesson we will have to determine the role of details in the story, note the images and symbols, formulate the theme and idea of the work and come to Bunin’s understanding of human existence.
· Let's talk about the details in the story. What details did you see; Which of them seemed symbolic to you?
· First, let’s remember the concept of “detail”.
Detail – a particularly significant highlighted element of an artistic image, an expressive detail in a work that carries a semantic and ideological-emotional load.
1. Already in the first phrase there is a certain irony towards Mr.: “no one remembered his name either in Naples or Capri,” thereby the author emphasizes that Mr. is just a person.
2. The gentleman from S-F is himself a symbol - he is a collective image of all the bourgeois of that time.
3. The absence of a name is a symbol of facelessness, the inner lack of spirituality of the hero.
4. The image of the steamship “Atlantis” is a symbol of society with its hierarchy: the idle aristocracy of which is contrasted with the people who control the movement of the ship, working hard at the “gigantic” firebox, which the author calls the ninth circle of hell.
5. The images of ordinary residents of Capri are alive and real, and thereby the writer emphasizes that the external well-being of the rich strata of society means nothing in the ocean of our life, that their wealth and luxury are not protection from the flow of real, real life, that such people are doomed from the very beginning to moral baseness and dead life.
6. The very image of the ship is a shell of an idle life, and the ocean is the rest of the world, raging, changing, but in no way touching our hero.
7. The name of the ship - “Atlantis” (What is associated with the word “Atlantis”? - lost civilization) contains a premonition of a disappearing civilization.
8. Does the description of the ship evoke any other associations for you? The description is similar to the Titanic, which reinforces the idea that a mechanized society is doomed to a sad outcome.
9. Still, there is a bright beginning in the story. The beauty of the sky and mountains, which seems to merge with the images of the peasants, nevertheless affirms that there is something true, real in life, which is not subject to money.
10. Siren and music are also a symbol skillfully used by the writer; in this case, the siren is world chaos, and music is harmony and peace.
11. The image of the ship captain, whom the author compares with a pagan god at the beginning and end of the story, is symbolic. In appearance, this man really looks like an idol: red-haired, monstrously large and heavy, in a naval uniform with wide gold stripes. He, as befits God, lives in the captain's cabin - the highest point of the ship, where passengers are prohibited from entering, he is rarely shown in public, but the passengers unconditionally believe in his power and knowledge. And the captain himself, being after all a man, feels very insecure in the raging ocean and relies on the telegraph apparatus standing in the next cabin-radio room.
12. The writer ends the story with a symbolic picture. The steamer, in the hold of which a former millionaire lies in a coffin, sails through the darkness and blizzard in the ocean, and the Devil, “as huge as a cliff,” watches him from the rocks of Gibraltar. It was he who got the soul of the gentleman from San Francisco, it is he who owns the souls of the rich (pp. 368-369).
13. gold fillings of the gentleman from San Francisco
14. his daughter - with “the most delicate pink pimples near the lips and between the shoulder blades”, dressed with innocent frankness
15. Negro servants “with whites like flaky hard-boiled eggs”
16. color details: Mr. was smoking until his face was crimson red, the stokers were crimson from the flames, the red jackets of the musicians and the black crowd of lackeys.
17. The crown prince is all wood
18. The beauty has a tiny, bent, shabby dog
19. a pair of dancing “lovers” – a handsome man who looks like a huge leech
20. Luigi's respect is brought to the point of idiocy
21. the gong in the hotel on Capri sounds “loudly, as if in a pagan temple”
22. The old woman in the corridor, “stooped, but low-cut,” hurried forward “like a chicken.”
23. Mr. was lying on a cheap iron bed, a soda box became his coffin
24. From the very beginning of his journey, he is surrounded by a lot of details that foreshadow or remind him of death. First, he is going to go to Rome to listen to the Catholic prayer of repentance there (which is read before death), then the ship Atlantis, which is a dual symbol in the story: on the one hand, the ship symbolizes a new civilization, where power is determined by wealth and pride, therefore in the end, a ship, especially with such a name, must sink. On the other hand, “Atlantis” is the personification of hell and heaven.
· What role do numerous details play in the story?
· How does Bunin paint a portrait of his hero? What feeling does the reader have and why?
(“Dry, short, poorly cut, but tightly sewn... There was something Mongolian in his yellowish face with a trimmed silver mustache, his large teeth glittered with gold fillings, his strong bald head was like old bone...” This portrait description is lifeless; it evokes a feeling disgust, since we have before us some kind of physiological description. The tragedy has not yet arrived, but it is already felt in these lines).
Ironic, Bunin ridicules all the vices of the bourgeois image life through the collective image of the gentleman, numerous details - the emotional characteristics of the characters.
· You may have noticed that the work emphasizes time and space. Why do you think the plot develops during the journey?
The road is a symbol of the path of life.
· How does the hero relate to time? How did the gentleman plan his trip?
when describing the world around us from the point of view of the gentleman from San Francisco, time is indicated precisely and clearly; in a word, the time is specific. The days on the ship and in the Neapolitan hotel are planned by the hour.
· In which fragments of the text does the action develop rapidly, and in which plot time seems to stop?
The count of time goes unnoticed when the author talks about a real, full life: a panorama of the Bay of Naples, a sketch of a street market, colorful images of the boatman Lorenzo, two Abruzzese highlanders and - most importantly - a description of a “joyful, beautiful, sunny” country. And time seems to stop when the story begins about the measured, planned life of a gentleman from San Francisco.
· When is the first time a writer calls a hero something other than master?
(On the way to the island of Capri. When nature defeats him, he feels old man: “And the gentleman from San Francisco, feeling as he should have - a very old man - was already thinking with melancholy and anger about all these greedy, garlic-smelling little people called Italians...” It was now that feelings awakened in him: “melancholy and anger", "despair". And again the detail arises - “enjoyment of life”!)
· What do the New World and the Old World mean (why not America and Europe)?
The phrase “Old World” appears already in the first paragraph, when the purpose of the gentleman’s trip from San Francisco is described: “solely for fun.” And, emphasizing the circular composition of the story, it also appears at the end - in combination with the “New World”. The New World, which gave birth to the type of people who consume culture “solely for the sake of entertainment”, the “Old World” is living people (Lorenzo, highlanders, etc.). The New World and the Old World are two facets of humanity, where there is a difference between isolation from historical roots and a living sense of history, between civilization and culture.
· Why do the events take place in December (Christmas Eve)?
this is the relationship between birth and death, moreover, the birth of the Savior of the old world and the death of one of the representatives of the artificial new world, and the coexistence of two time lines - mechanical and genuine.
· Why did the man from San Francisco die in Capri, Italy?
All people, regardless of their financial situation, are equal in the face of death. A rich man who decides to get all the pleasures at once “just starting to live” at 58 years old (!), dies suddenly.
· How does the death of an old man make others feel? How do others behave towards the master’s wife and daughter?
His death does not cause sympathy, but a terrible commotion. The hotel owner apologizes and promises to sort everything out quickly. Society is outraged that someone dared to ruin their vacation and remind them of death. They feel disgust and disgust towards their recent companion and his wife. The corpse in a rough box is quickly sent into the hold of the steamer. A rich man who considered himself important and significant, having turned into a dead body, is not needed by anyone.
The idea can be traced in the details, in the plot and composition, in the antithesis of false and true human existence (fake rich people are contrasted - a couple on a steamboat, the strongest image-symbol of the world of consumption, love plays, these are hired lovers - and the real inhabitants of Capri, mostly poor people).
The idea is that human life is fragile, everyone is equal in the face of death. Expresses through a description the attitude of others towards the living Mr. and towards him after death. The gentleman thought that money gave him an advantage. “He was sure that he had every right to rest, to pleasure, to travel excellent in all respects... firstly, he was rich, and secondly, he had just started life.”
· Did our hero live a full life before this journey? What did he devote his whole life to?
Until that moment, Mr. had not lived, but existed, i.e., his entire conscious life was devoted to “comparing himself with those whom Mr. took as a model.” All the gentleman’s beliefs turned out to be wrong.
· Pay attention to the ending: it is the hired couple that is highlighted here - why?
After the death of the master, nothing has changed, all the rich also continue to live their mechanized lives, and the “couple in love” also continues to play love for money.
· Can we call the story a parable? What is a parable?
Parable – a short edifying story in an allegorical form, containing a moral lesson.
· So, can we call the story a parable?
We can, because it tells about the insignificance of wealth and power in the face of death and the triumph of nature, love, sincerity (images of Lorenzo, Abruzzese highlanders).
· Can man resist nature? Can he plan everything like the gentleman from S-F?
Man is mortal (“suddenly mortal” - Woland), therefore man cannot resist nature. All technological advances do not save people from death. This is the eternal philosophy and tragedy of life: a person is born to die.
· What does the parable story teach us?
“Mr. from...” teaches us to enjoy life, and not to be internally unspiritual, not to succumb to a mechanized society.
Bunin's story has an existential meaning. (Existential - associated with being, human existence.) The center of the story is questions of life and death.
· What can resist non-existence?
Genuine human existence, which is shown by the writer in the image of Lorenzo and the Abruzzi highlanders (fragment from the words “Only the market traded in a small square...367-368”).
· What conclusions can we draw from this episode? What 2 sides of the coin does the author show us?
Lorenzo is poor, the Abruzzese mountaineers are poor, singing the glory of the greatest poor in the history of mankind - Our Lady and Savior, who was born “in poor shepherd's shelter." “Atlantis”, a civilization of the rich, which is trying to overcome the darkness, the ocean, the blizzard, is an existential delusion of humanity, a diabolical delusion.
Who spent the rest of his days in exile, not accepting the new government in his homeland. Ivan Alekseevich wrote his work back in 1915, when he lived in Russia, but at that time a crisis in the world of civilization was already felt. And in these troubled and turbulent times, the author of a wonderful and profound work decided to turn to problems that were not related to his native country, but are the most pressing and relevant.
Despite the fact that Bunin the writer constantly shows in his works that he does not accept the bourgeois world and that it only causes him indignation and indignation, it is this world that becomes the plot line of his story. The pathos of the work lies in the fact that the author feels the death of this very world, and there can be no return to the previous existence.
But let’s try to consider the image of the main character that the author draws. He does not mention his name, showing that he is not very handsome in appearance either. The rich gentleman is a little over 50 years old. He devoted his whole life to work to earn as much money as possible. For him, wealth is more important than family and any other moral values. But the people who find themselves next to him on the journey are no better than him. They also value only material values and for them money and gold jewelry are more important than human life.
The writer, using the technique of contrast, contrasts the external well-being of the protagonist, who could afford everything and did not deny himself anything, with his strange and empty inner world, which is completely undeveloped and rather primitive. That is why Bunin gives such an unusual description to his main character. He describes the rich gentleman using a comparison. But what is unusual is that he takes inanimate objects for comparison. Thus, the author compares the bald head of a rich gentleman with an elephant bone, and the hero himself, his lifestyle and behavior with a robot and a doll.
Throughout the entire story, there are no lines spoken by the main character. The author deprives him of this opportunity, since he, like the entire wealthy and rich society in which he exists, is soulless and lifeless. This closed little world has its own laws that allow them not to notice that there are ordinary poor people around them. But they do not take them into account, do not perceive them and do not respect them at all, but treat them with disgust and great contempt.
The meaning of life for people like the main character and the bourgeois society surrounding him is eating, drinking, smoking and receiving other pleasures. But is life given to a person for this? Is this the meaning of human life? According to the path planned by the rich gentleman, the entire family of the protagonist visits museums and examines monuments, but they do it completely indifferently, they are not interested in anything. They do this only because money has already been paid for these excursions, but they have nothing to do with the masterpieces they saw from the world of art.
The steamship on which the rich gentleman and his family are sailing is also interesting. The very name of this ship - “Atlantis” indicates the legend of the mythical island. The ship itself, on which the millionaire sets off on a long voyage, is shown by Ivan Alekseevich as a diagram of the society in which the main character lived. The ship's deck consists of three tiers. On the first tier is the captain himself, who symbolizes evil spirits. He, like a devil in smoke vapor, looks at the world that lives on his ship. The second tier is the rich bourgeoisie. And the third tier is the working people who serve the rich second tier. The author describes this last tier as if it were hell. Exhausted workers throw coal into the furnace around the clock at the highest temperatures without sleep or rest.
This ship sails through the raging waves of the ocean, but people are not afraid of it. Millionaires are not afraid of the ocean, they are not afraid that something might happen to them. They probably don’t even understand this, believing that the money they paid for this trip can do everything impossible. Possessing gold and a lot of money, rich people began to consider themselves masters of nature itself. They think that if they have paid, then the ship and the captain are simply obliged to take them to the final destination of their journey. The writer points out to the reader that all these people live in the illusion of wealth and do not think about anything. And therefore, even the name of the steamship is a symbol of the disappearance of the world of the rich, because such a world without meaning and purpose simply cannot exist.
The death scene of the main character also requires special attention. Bunin describes in detail and step by step the death of a rich gentleman. The author does this in order to clearly show that death does not divide people into classes. According to the plot of the text, a rich man who only worked for many years, having become rich, decided to immediately get all the pleasures that exist in the world in two years. But instead, he dies completely suddenly and unexpectedly. But, not surprisingly, his death does not evoke any emotions in anyone, no one showed sympathy for him. His death only causes displeasure and commotion. The owner of the hotel where the rich gentleman is staying also has to apologize to the visitors for the fact that the death of one of them brought them temporary inconvenience.
And the rich society itself, which quite recently included the rich gentleman himself, is outraged that someone dared to ruin their vacation. Now they treat the hero of the story and his family with disgust and disdain, even with some disgust. And the corpse in a simple and dirty box is loaded onto the ship, but lowered into the darkest hold in order to forget about it for a while. And here the writer emphasizes how the attitude towards the already dead rich gentleman, and indeed towards his family in general, is changing. Even the hotel owner stops pleasing and being kind to them. The same thing happens with servants who become rude. The rich man no longer has power over them, since it is just a dead body.
But the story also contains a bright and open contrast to the rich gentleman, whose body turned out to be of no use to anyone. This is the boatman Lorenze, who, according to Bunin, is a rich poor man. He knows the taste of life, so he is completely indifferent to money, but he loves life in all its manifestations. The writer once again affirms those truths that are known to everyone: nature, its beauty, life, not existence, feelings and emotions - these are the main values in human life. And Ivan Alekseevich’s story “Mr. from San Francisco” is the author’s philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, on the purpose of man in this world, on his death and immortality.
The meaning of the title and problems of the story by I.A. Bunin"Mr. from San Francisco"
(essay preparation lesson)
Stage 1. Topic analysis.
Understanding each word of the topic
meaning - meaning, essence, essence, inner content, depth.
Name - title, title, title, topic, idea.
problematic – a set of problems, a range of issues.
work - story, short story, narration.
Bunin – remarkable Russian writer of the early twentieth century, author, novelist.
Keyword highlighting
Meaning of the name
problems
I.A.Bunin
"Mr. from San Francisco"
Formulating the topic in other words
The meaning of the title and the range of questions of I. A. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco.”
The depth of the name and the totality of problems in I.A. Bunin’s story “Mr. from San Francisco.”
Stage 2. Search for a task contained in a topic.
What is the meaning of the title and what are the problems of I. A. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”?
Why did I.A. Bunin call his story “Mr. from San Francisco”?
Is I. A. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” instructive?
Is man's claim to dominance tenable?
Stage 3. Formulating a thesis.
IN name story I.A.Bunina"Mr. from San Francisco" complete summarized his content. AND "mister", And members his families remain nameless, while minor characters – Lorenzo, Luigi– endowed proper names. Elements living life Bunin contrasts venality bourgeoisie, hostility to natural life, lack of compassion. In the story, hard work and idleness, decency and depravity, sincerity and deceit collide in irreconcilable conflict. Problems addressed author in his story, this is "eternal themes" literature.
Stage 4. Structuring an essay.
Highlighting keywords.
Combining key concepts into semantic “nests”.
I.A.Bunin, “Mr. from San Francisco”, conflict.
The gentleman and his family, nameless, faceless; not life, but existence, business, corruption, idle life, attitude towards nature, natural life, disintegration of human connections, lack of compassion, hostility to natural life, idleness, depravity, deceit.
Minor characters: Lorenzo, Luigi, proper names, the elements of living, natural life, individuality, unique personality, hard work, decency, sincerity.
- “Eternal themes” of literature: close attention to nature, the “internal” course of human life.
Establishing internal connections between “nests” of keywords.
Determining the optimal number of parts of an essay.
I.A.Bunin I
"Mr. from San Francisco"
Mister and his family II
have no name
lifestyle reasons
Tragedy
Proper names of people living natural lives
Problems
"Eternal themes" of literature
Arranging the structural elements of an essay in a logical order.
Stage 5. Introduction to the essay.
Identify topic keywords.
Meaning– this is a subjective meaning, the attitude of a person (the author) to what he is talking about, arguing about.
Name– the main idea put forward by the author in the title.
Issues- this is what worries the writer, questions that make him think about.
Bunin- a brilliant representative of twentieth-century prose.
Construct a judgment that reflects the connections between key concepts. I.A.Bunin is a brilliant representative of twentieth-century prose. In his story “Mr. from San Francisco,” the writer talks about man’s place in the world and believes that man is not the center of the Universe, but a grain of sand in a huge world, that the universe is not subject to man’s control. The story is based on the story of a nameless gentleman.
Construct a judgment about the topic of the essay, including its formulation in other words.
The meaning of the title and the range of questions of I. A. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco.”
Formulate the task that the topic poses to the writer.
Why did I.A. Bunin call his story “Mr. from San Francisco”? Why didn’t you give a name to your hero, how do the heroes of the work live, what moral qualities does the writer endow with them?
Construct a judgment showing the connection between the introduction and the main part of the essay.
Let's try to find the answer to this question by understanding how the heroes of the story live.
Combine these judgments.
I.A.Bunin is a brilliant representative of twentieth-century prose. His work is characterized by an interest in ordinary life and the ability to reveal the tragedy of life. In his story “Mr. from San Francisco,” the writer talks about man’s place in the world and believes that man is not the center of the Universe, but a grain of sand in a huge world, that the universe is not subject to man’s control. The story is based on the story of a nameless gentleman. Why did I.A. Bunin call his story “Mr. from San Francisco”? Why didn't you give your hero a name? Perhaps we will find answers to these questions by understanding how and how the characters in the story live, what moral qualities does the writer endow them with?
Stage 6. Design of the main part.
The gentleman from San Francisco is the personification of a man of bourgeois civilization.
Lack of spirituality.
Bunin's rejection of high society's hostility to nature, to natural life.
The world of natural people.
The collapse of human connections and lack of compassion are the worst things for Bunin.
I.A.Bunin is a brilliant representative of twentieth-century prose.
The problems and meaning of the title of I. A. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco.”
Bunin's appeal to the “eternal themes” of literature.
Stage 7. Writing an essay.
I.A.Bunin is a brilliant representative of twentieth-century prose. His work is characterized by an interest in ordinary life and the ability to reveal the tragedy of life. In his story “Mr. from San Francisco,” the writer talks about man’s place in the world and believes that man is not the center of the Universe, but a grain of sand in a huge world, that the universe is not subject to man’s control. The story is based on the story of a nameless gentleman. Why did I.A. Bunin call his story “Mr. from San Francisco”? Why didn't you give your hero a name? Perhaps we will find answers to these questions by understanding how and how the characters in the story live, and what moral qualities the writer endows them with.
The gentleman from San Francisco is the personification of a man of bourgeois civilization. The hero is simply called “master” because that is his essence. He considers himself a master and revels in his position. He can afford “solely for the sake of entertainment” to go with his family “to the Old World for two whole years”, he can enjoy all the benefits guaranteed by his status, he believes “in the care of all those who fed and watered him, from morning to evening served him, preventing his slightest desire,” can contemptuously throw at the “ragamuffins” through clenched teeth: “Get out!” The gentleman from San Francisco is valuable to others not as a person, but as a master. While he is rich and full of energy, the owner of the hotel “politely and elegantly” bows to his family, and the head waiter makes it clear that “there is and cannot be any doubt about the correctness of the master’s desires.”
Describing the gentleman’s appearance, I.A. Bunin uses epithets that emphasize his wealth and his unnaturalness: “silver mustache”, “golden fillings” of teeth, “strong bald head” is compared to “old ivory”. There is nothing spiritual about the gentleman, his goal is to become rich and reap the fruits of this wealth: “...he has almost become equal to those whom he once took as a model...” The desire came true, but this did not make him any happier. The description of the gentleman from San Francisco is constantly accompanied by the author's irony. The human element begins to appear in the master only at death: “It was no longer the gentleman from San Francisco who was wheezing - he was no longer there - but someone else.” Death makes him human: “his features began to become thinner and brighter...”. And the author now calls his hero “deceased”, “deceased”, “dead”. The attitude of those around him also changes sharply: 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, the servants, who were in awe of the living master, mockingly laughs at the dead, the hotel owner speaks with his wife “without any courtesy”, and places the deceased in the cheapest room, firmly stating the need for urgent removal of the body. The master's attitude towards people is transferred to himself. At the end of the story, the author says that the body of “a dead old man from San Francisco returns “home, to the grave, to the shores of the New World” in a black hold: the power of the “master” turns out to be illusory.
The writer does not give a name not only to the main character. The passengers of the ship represent the nameless “cream” of society, of which the gentleman from San Francisco so wanted to become a member: “Among this brilliant crowd there was a certain great rich man, ... there was a famous Spanish writer, there was a beauty all over the world, there was an elegant couple in love...” Their life is monotonous and empty: “they got up early,...drank coffee, chocolate, cocoa,...sat in baths, did gymnastics, stimulating appetite and good health, performed daily toilets and went to the first breakfast...” This is the impersonality, lack of individuality of those who consider themselves masters of life . This is an artificial paradise, because even the “elegant couple in love” only pretended to be in love: she was “hired by Lloyd to play at love for good money.” Life on a ship is illusory. It is “huge”, but around it there is a “water desert” of the ocean and a “cloudy sky”. And in the “underwater womb of the steamer,” similar to the “gloomy and sultry depths of the underworld,” people worked naked to the waist, “crimson in the flames,” “drenched in acrid, dirty sweat.” The social gap between rich and poor is nothing compared to the abyss that separates man from nature and natural life from non-existence. And, of course, Bunin does not accept the hostility of high society towards nature, towards natural life.
In contrast to “artificial” life, Bunin shows the world of natural people. One of them is Lorenzo - “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 dedicated to him, but he is given a sonorous name, unlike the title character. Both Lorenzo and the Abruzzese highlanders personify the naturalness and joy of being. They live in harmony, in harmony with the world, with nature: “They walked - and the whole country, joyful, beautiful, sunny, stretched under them: and the rocky humps of the island, which almost all lay at their feet, and that fabulous blue, in which he floated, and the shining morning vapors over the sea to the east, under the dazzling sun...” The goat-skin bagpipes and the wooden foregrip of the highlanders are contrasted with the “beautiful orchestra” of the steamship. With their lively, artless music, the mountaineers give praise to the sun, the morning, “the immaculate intercessor of all those who suffer in this evil and beautiful world, and the one born from her womb in the cave of Bethlehem...” These are the true values of life, in contrast to the brilliant, expensive, but artificial , imaginary values of the “masters”.
Thus, the theme of the end of the existing world order, the inevitability of the death of a soulless and spiritual civilization gradually grows in the story. The writer considers the most terrible thing to be the disintegration of human connections and the lack of compassion. And this is exactly what we see in the story “Mr. from San Francisco.” For Bunin, nature is important, however, in his opinion, the highest judge of a person is human memory. The picturesque poor man, old Lorenzo, will live forever on the canvases of artists, but the rich old man from San Francisco was erased from life and forgotten before he could die. And, therefore, the title of the story was not chosen by chance. It provides an impetus for understanding the meaning and meaning of the story, which makes you think about the eternal problems of life, death, love, beauty.
The title of I.A. Bunin’s story “Mr. from San Francisco” fully summarizes its content. Both the “master” and his family members remain nameless, while the minor characters - Lorenzo, Luigi - are given their own names. Bunin contrasts the elements of living life with the corruption of the bourgeoisie, hostility to natural life, and lack of compassion. In the story, hard work and idleness, decency and depravity, sincerity and deceit collide in irreconcilable conflict. The problems that the author addresses in his story are “eternal themes” of literature.