What is the idea of the story easy breathing. Interpretation of easy breathing
Analysis of the story Easy breath»
The theme of love occupies one of the leading places in the writer's work. In mature prose, there are noticeable trends in understanding the eternal categories of being - death, love, happiness, nature. Often he describes "moments of love", which have a fatal character, a tragic coloring. He pays great attention female characters, mysterious and incomprehensible.
The beginning of the novel "Light Breath" creates a feeling of sadness and sadness. The author prepares the reader in advance for the fact that the tragedy of human life will unfold on the following pages.
The main character of the novel, Olga Meshcherskaya, a schoolgirl, stands out among her classmates with a cheerful disposition and a clear love of life, she is not at all afraid of other people's opinions, and openly challenges society.
In the last winter, many changes took place in the girl's life. At this time, Olga Meshcherskaya was in the full bloom of her beauty. There were rumors about her that she could not live without admirers, but at the same time she treated them very cruelly. In her last winter, Olya completely devoted herself to the joys of life, she went to balls and went to the skating rink every evening.
Olya always tried to look good, she wore expensive shoes, expensive combs, perhaps she would have dressed according to latest fashion if all high school girls didn't wear uniforms. The headmistress of the gymnasium made a remark to Olga about appearance that such jewelry and shoes should be worn by an adult woman, and not by a simple student. To which Meshcherskaya openly declared that she has the right to dress like a woman, because she is her, and none other than the director's brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin is to blame for this. Olga's answer can be fully regarded as a challenge to the society of that time. A young girl without a shadow of modesty puts on things that are not for her age, behaves like a mature woman and at the same time openly argues her behavior with rather intimate things.
Olga's transformation into a woman took place in the summer at the dacha. When the parents were not at home, Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, a friend of their family, came to visit them at the dacha. Despite the fact that he did not find Olya's father, Malyutin nevertheless stayed at a party, explaining that he wanted it to dry out properly after the rain. In relation to Olya, Alexei Mikhailovich behaved like a gentleman, although the difference in their age was huge, he was 56, she was 15. Malyutin confessed his love to Olya, said all kinds of compliments. During tea drinking, Olga felt bad and lay down on the couch, Alexei Mikhailovich began to kiss her hands, talk about how he was in love, and then kissed her on the lips. Well, what happened next happened. We can say that on the part of Olga it was nothing more than an interest in mystery, the desire to become an adult.
After that there was tragedy. Malyutin shot Olga at the train station and explained this by saying that he was in a state of passion, because she showed him her diary, which described everything that happened, and then Olgino's attitude to the situation. She wrote that she was disgusted with her boyfriend.
Malyutin acted so cruelly because his pride was hurt. He was no longer a young officer, and even a bachelor, it was natural for him to amuse himself with the fact that a young girl expressed her sympathy for him. But when he found out that she felt nothing for him but disgust, it was like a bolt from the blue. He himself used to push women away, and then they pushed him away. The society was on the side of Malyutin, he justified himself by the fact that Olga herself allegedly seduced him, promised to become his wife, and then left him. Since Olya had a reputation as a heartbreaker, no one doubted his words.
The story ends with the fact that the classy lady Olga Meshcherskaya, a dreamy lady living in her fictional ideal world, comes to Olya's grave every holiday and watches her silently for several hours. For the lady Olya is the ideal of femininity and beauty.
Here, “easy breathing” is an easy attitude to life, sensuality and impulsiveness that were inherent in Olya Meshcherskaya.
After studying the analysis of the story "Light Breath" you will undoubtedly be interested in other works related to Ivan Alekseevich Bunin:
- "Sunstroke", analysis of Bunin's story
- "Cuckoo", a summary of Bunin's work
One of the most widely known works of I.A. Bunin is undoubtedly the story "Easy breathing". It can be assumed that the impetus for writing it was the writer's trip to Capri, where during a walk the writer saw a tombstone with a medallion in a small cemetery. It depicted a very young and unusually beautiful girl with a happy expression. The tragedy of this terrible inconsistency, apparently, struck the writer so much that he decided to "revive" the heroine on the pages of his prose.
Image " easy breathing”, which organizes the whole story, is taken from an old book that the main character Olya Meshcherskaya reads, retelling to her friend the episode that especially struck her. It says that a woman should be able to be beautiful and the most important thing in her is just “easy breathing”. The heroine joyfully concludes that she has it and that only happiness awaits her in life. However, fate decrees otherwise.
The central character of this story is the schoolgirl Olya Meshcherskaya. She is famous for her beauty, sweet spontaneity, charming naturalness. “She was not afraid of anything - neither ink stains on her fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair, nor a knee that became naked when she fell on the run,” the author of the story writes lovingly about her. In Olya there is even something from Natasha Rostova - the same love of life, the same openness to the whole world. No one danced better than Olya, did not skate, no one was looked after like that. This young creature with bright, lively eyes seemed to be created only for happiness.
But one Cossack officer, who sought closeness with her and was refused, cuts off this young beautiful life with one shot.
This ending is too tragic, and sometimes you want to reproach "the writer for such a painful end. But let's think about it: did the shot really kill the heroine? Maybe the officer just pulled the trigger, and the tragedy happened much earlier?
Indeed, reading the story, one wonders why, besides Olya, in this provincial town there is not a single person who is at least somewhat worthy of being depicted with the same admiration. The rest of the characters simply leave us indifferent, like, for example, Meshcherskaya's friend, or they are disgusted. Such is the friend of Olya's father, fifty-six-year-old Malyutin. The whole city seems to be saturated with a suffocating atmosphere of vulgarity, inertness and debauchery. Indeed, how can you explain Olya's behavior? Yes, she is charming, sweet, natural, but when reading the scene where Meshcherskaya confesses to the head of the gymnasium that she is already a woman, you involuntarily become embarrassed by such a terrible split personality: on the one hand, Olya is perfection itself, on the other, she is just a girl who knew too early the joy of carnal pleasures. These contradictory images of the same heroine do not give an unambiguous understanding of her character, and sometimes an almost hooligan thought comes to mind: is Olya Nabokov's Lola, introduced by Bunin into literature long before the author of Lolita?
In my opinion, the motives of the actions of the heroine of Easy Breath are very difficult to assess from a logical point of view. They are irrational, "uterine". Revealing the image of such an ambiguous heroine as Meshcherskaya, one should not be afraid to consider different and even opposite points of view. Above we said that the fate and character of Olya is the product of the inert provincial environment where she grew up. Now, faced with the striking inconsistency of the heroine, one can assume a completely different thing.
Bunin, as you know, although he is considered the last classic of critical realism, still does not fully follow his principles of depicting reality. To say that Meshcherskaya is just a product of the environment that corrupts and kills young innocence means, in my opinion, to consider the story too straightforward, thereby impoverishing the original author's intention. Correct society, and there will be no vices - that's what they said in the 19th century, but in the 20th century they are increasingly not looking for reasons, saying that the world is unknowable. Meshcherskaya is like that, and nothing more. As another argument, one can recall the stories of Bunin
about love, in particular - "Dark Alleys", where the actions of the characters are also very difficult to motivate. They seem to be controlled by some kind of blind, unreasoning force, spontaneously giving people happiness with grief in half. In general, Bunin is characterized by just such a worldview. Let us recall the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco", in which fate manages the hero's life in the most unexpected way, without giving any explanations. In the light of these considerations, it is possible to make a judgment about Olya that is opposite and to some extent balancing our first conclusions: the writer, in the form of a schoolgirl unlike any other, wanted to show the true nature of a woman who is completely dominated by blind, “uterine” instincts. The conviction that life disposes of us solely at its own discretion is perfectly illustrated by the example of a young girl who knew life too early and died untimely because of that.
Probably, it is impossible to give an unambiguous answer to the question of who Olya really is, what problems Bunin raises in this story, and it is hardly necessary. You can penetrate deeper into the image of the main character, better understand the specifics and problems of the story and try to reconcile the two opposing points of view outlined above, by thinking about the title. “Light breathing”, which “dispersed forever in this cold wind”, is, in my opinion, a figurative expression of what is spiritual, truly human in a person. A charming and at the same time depraved schoolgirl, a stupid and evil officer who left her, a provincial town with all its deformities - all this will remain on sinful earth, and this spirit that lived in Olya Meshcherskaya will fly up to incarnate again into something and remind us that in addition to our vain and petty thoughts and deeds, there is something else in the world that is beyond our control. This, in my opinion, is the enduring significance of the outstanding story of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin.
One of the most widely known works of I.A. Bunin is undoubtedly the story "Easy breathing". It can be assumed that the impetus for writing it was the writer's trip to Capri, where during a walk the writer saw a tombstone with a medallion in a small cemetery. It depicted a very young and unusually beautiful girl with a happy expression on her face. The tragedy of this terrible inconsistency, apparently, struck the writer so much that he decided to "revive" the heroine on the pages of his prose.
The image of “light breathing”, which organizes the whole story, is taken from an old book that the main character Olya Meshcherskaya reads, retelling to her friend the episode that especially struck her. It says that a woman should be able to be beautiful and the most important thing in her is just “easy breathing”. The heroine joyfully concludes that she has it and that only happiness awaits her in life. However, fate decrees otherwise.
The central character of this story is the schoolgirl Olya Meshcherskaya. She is famous for her beauty, sweet spontaneity, charming naturalness. “She was not afraid of anything - neither ink stains on her fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair, nor a knee that became naked when she fell on the run,” the author of the story writes lovingly about her. In Olya there is even something from Natasha Rostova - the same love of life, the same openness to the whole world. No one danced better than Olya, did not skate, no one was looked after like that. This young creature with bright, lively eyes seemed to be created only for happiness.
But one Cossack officer, who sought closeness with her and was refused, cuts off this young beautiful life with one shot.
This ending is too tragic, and sometimes you want to reproach "the writer for such a painful end. But let's think about it: did the shot really kill the heroine? Maybe the officer just pulled the trigger, and the tragedy happened much earlier?
Indeed, reading the story, one wonders why, besides Olya, in this provincial town there is not a single person who is at least somewhat worthy of being depicted with the same admiration. The rest of the characters simply leave us indifferent, like, for example, Meshcherskaya's friend, or they are disgusted. Such is the friend of Olya's father, fifty-six-year-old Malyutin. The whole city seems to be saturated with a suffocating atmosphere of vulgarity, inertness and debauchery. Indeed, how can you explain Olya's behavior? Yes, she is charming, sweet, natural, but when reading the scene where Meshcherskaya confesses to the head of the gymnasium that she is already a woman, you involuntarily become embarrassed by such a terrible split personality: on the one hand, Olya is perfection itself, on the other, she is just a girl who knew too early the joy of carnal pleasures. These contradictory images of the same heroine do not give an unambiguous understanding of her character, and sometimes an almost hooligan thought comes to mind: is Olya Nabokov's Lola, introduced by Bunin into literature long before the author of Lolita?
In my opinion, the motives of the actions of the heroine of Easy Breath are very difficult to assess from a logical point of view. They are irrational, "uterine". Revealing the image of such an ambiguous heroine as Meshcherskaya, one should not be afraid to consider different and even opposite points of view. Above we said that the fate and character of Olya is the product of the inert provincial environment where she grew up. Now, faced with the striking inconsistency of the heroine, one can assume a completely different thing.
Bunin, as you know, although he is considered the last classic of critical realism, still does not fully follow his principles of depicting reality. To say that Meshcherskaya is just a product of the environment that corrupts and kills young innocence means, in my opinion, to consider the story too straightforward, thereby impoverishing the original author's intention. Correct society, and there will be no vices - that's what they said in the 19th century, but in the 20th century they are increasingly not looking for reasons, saying that the world is unknowable. Meshcherskaya is like that, and nothing more. As another argument, one can recall the stories of Bunin
about love, in particular - "Dark Alleys", where the actions of the characters are also very difficult to motivate. They seem to be controlled by some kind of blind, unreasoning force, spontaneously giving people happiness with grief in half. In general, Bunin is characterized by just such a worldview. Let us recall the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco", in which fate manages the hero's life in the most unexpected way, without giving any explanations. In the light of these considerations, it is possible to make a judgment about Olya that is opposite and to some extent balancing our first conclusions: the writer, in the form of a schoolgirl unlike any other, wanted to show the true nature of a woman who is completely dominated by blind, “uterine” instincts. The conviction that life disposes of us solely at its own discretion is perfectly illustrated by the example of a young girl who knew life too early and died untimely because of that.
Probably, it is impossible to give an unambiguous answer to the question of who Olya really is, what problems Bunin raises in this story, and it is hardly necessary. You can penetrate deeper into the image of the main character, better understand the specifics and problems of the story and try to reconcile the two opposing points of view outlined above, by thinking about the title. “Light breathing”, which “dispersed forever in this cold wind”, is, in my opinion, a figurative expression of what is spiritual, truly human in a person. A charming and at the same time depraved schoolgirl, a stupid and evil officer who left her, a provincial town with all its deformities - all this will remain on sinful earth, and this spirit that lived in Olya Meshcherskaya will fly up to incarnate again into something and remind us that in addition to our vain and petty thoughts and deeds, there is something else in the world that is beyond our control. This, in my opinion, is the enduring significance of the outstanding story of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin.
Despite the fact that this story by Bunin is not included in the list of works that constitute the mandatory minimum content of literature programs, many philologists turn to him when studying the prose of the early twentieth century. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons that prompt the teacher to read this particular Bunin text with students can be considered the presence of remarkable philological works devoted to the story “Easy Breathing”: first of all, the famous study by L.S. Vygotsky and a brilliant article by A.K. Zholkovsky. In educational and methodical literature recent years assignment options and lesson models developed have been published, which also encourages them to try them out in practice. What teacher-philologist does not want to work with such luxurious material and once again be convinced of personal experience that “methodological techniques carefully selected by the teacher (associative, stylistic analysis) contribute to the development of intertextual hearing of readers, associative thinking, language sense, and improvement of the analytical and interpretive abilities of schoolchildren”! However, bright hopes, unfortunately, are not always justified. And one of the reasons for this is obvious to many of us: today, in most cases, we are dealing with completely different high school readers than, for example, twenty or even ten years ago.
I taught my first Easy Breathing lesson in 1991. I can’t say that those eleventh-graders of mine were very “philological”, but there was no doubt that they had certain reading skills. The time was vague, a turning point, the current methodological abundance was never dreamed of by the then teachers, so the topics for essays and assignments for written work were thought up in the most direct way - they asked what they wanted. And, accordingly, having read aloud the story of I.A. Bunin, we “from a sheet” wrote answers to the most natural question: why is the story called “Easy breathing”? I don't have those works. But I well remember my feelings during the test. No, it did not look like literary articles, and it was difficult to call it writings in the strict sense. Of course, they didn’t read any Vygotsky, there was no Internet, collections of finished works, if they appeared on commercial stalls, were not yet in great demand (and how could these cheat sheets help here?) - and the children themselves, who could , solved this not weak “philological problem”. Reading their work, I received tremendous pleasure. The strangeness of the composition of the story was noticed by many (one student expressed her thought figuratively: as if the pages of a girl's diary were turned over by the wind - it will open here, then there ...). Others thought of comparing (and contrasting) Olya Meshcherskaya and a classy lady. Almost everyone was surprised by the contrast of the title - light, transparent - and a gloomy plot. And some even compared the opening and closing lines of the story and connected this with their version of the answer to question asked. I realized that from now on I would offer such a task to all my students.
Grave of I.A. Bunin in the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois near Paris.
It hasn't been that long. Three or four years. Again we read "Easy breathing". Unable to resist the temptation to follow the beaten path, I ask the same question for written work in the lesson - and I feel that not everyone understands what needs to be done. Well, the name - and the name, as the author wanted - he called it, that's all. I had to reformulate the task on the go: “What will change in our perception of Bunin’s story if it is called differently?” - and at the same time, by joint efforts, verbally select “possible” options: “A short life”, “Olya Meshcherskaya”, “Death of a schoolgirl” ... This helped most. But everyone coped with the work in different ways: some simply slipped into a retelling, trying to argue in such a simple way that such a story could not be called anything other than “Light Breath”! I had to completely devote the next lesson to “debriefing” - commenting on versions, summarizing and - tips on what else it would be worth paying attention to in this text.
Since then, each next generation of high school students that I had to meet forced me to invent new modifications of tasks to work with this Bunin's story. Gradually, the task began to look like a series of questions, allowing each student to gradually, step by step, reflect on their perception and understanding of the story, which at first glance seems to be not at all difficult for many modern teenagers.
Why didn't I give up writing on Easy Breath altogether? Why do I continue to offer it in this way - after the first reading of the text aloud in the lesson, and only then discussing the story (and the results of the work) orally? I think, first of all, because the effect of suddenness is valuable here - direct, momentary contact of the emerging reader with a difficult artistic text without intermediaries: whether it is a textbook with reference materials or a teacher who dominates the lesson, or more competent classmates.
Of course, it happens that few people in the class cope with the work as a whole as the teacher would like. When I first encountered a similar situation two years ago, I, checking the received work, made a selection of answers to each question - and with this I came to the next lesson. It turned out that discussing such material is no less interesting than the story itself.
1. Try to describe your immediate impression of this story (like, dislike, left indifferent, carried away, made you think, seemed incomprehensible)? What do you think, are Bunin's texts simple or complex for perception, understanding? Did reading this text affect your mood? If yes, how has it changed?
This story touched and left some confusion, but it is impossible to catch this feeling that has appeared and make it out.(Lunina Tonya )
The story was at first captivating, then it seemed terribly banal, and then I realized that I did not understand anything. What are we talking about? This story has completely changed my mood. It became somehow “disappointed”: “What is it all about? What is it for? - Unclear!" At the end, there was a feeling: “how? Is that all?” ( Ishikaev Timur )
I did not like this story: it is easy to read, but difficult to understand. ( Kamkin Maxim)
The story is easy to read, it seems to be not difficult to understand, but at the same time it is “heavy”, because it makes you think. ( Black Volodya)
I didn't like the story because I didn't understand it.(Nikitin Sergey)
The story was read in one breath. I didn't even notice how it ended. ( Romanov Sasha)
The story seemed incomprehensible and in many respects thanks to this it made me think.(Novikov Egor)
This story got me hooked.(Turkin Alexey)
I understood, that I can't stay to Olya indifferent. This story made me quite for a long time think about your own life.(Shelkovkina Veronica)
I realized that I could not grasp the essence of this story. A lot of details and events for such a small volume. (Panova Julia)
Bunin somehow grabs the reader and doesn't let go. It's hard to understand, but it's hard to dwell on incompleteness. In my opinion, the first half of the story (including Olya's diary) is a completely finished story. But the second part, making us think, pumps energy out of us.(Andrey Masyago)
Of course, this text makes you think. It seems that it is not complicated, not big, but it is difficult to grasp the meaning, some general idea, morality. After reading there was some dazedness. wanted guess the meaning but it didn't work. (Postupaeva Sveta)
2. The story is small in volume, but there are many events in it. Follow the story. Do you see any compositional features? Try to explain why it is built the way it is.
Can be seen in the story cyclicality: The story starts from the end.(Turkin Alexey)
The author does not tell everything in chronological order, but literally throws reader from place to place, from time to time. But if you rearrange the fragments in the order in which the reader is used to seeing them, then the text will lose some of its peculiarity, it will become more ordinary.(Shcherbina Slava)
The plot is like jumping from one time to another.(Tsibulsky Nikita)
The composition can be considered as two stories in one, or even as a chain of stories nested in each other.(Novikov Egor)
It seemed to me that the text of the story was not narrative. These are some memories spontaneously popping up in the head and disturbing the memory.(Kokhanchik Alexey)
From the chain of events, a scarf seems to be connected. Here comes one thread, then it intertwines with another, they alternate, and then one whole appears. There is no other way to build this story.. (Postupaeva Sveta)
The author constantly throws us from the present to the past and back. If you read quickly, you will not immediately understand what follows what. And only at the very end we meet keywords
- "easy breath".(Kurilyuk Natasha)
There are no events of the time interval between Olya's conversation with her boss and the murder in the story. The author left a riddle for readers. The story is written in Bunin's “light breathing”, and this gap is a sigh for the author.(Kosorotikov Nikita)
3. Why is there a story of a cool lady in the story about the life of Olya Meshcherskaya?
Maybe the story of a classy lady is present in order to restore the reputation of Olya Meshcherskaya in the eyes of the reader? After all, a cool lady remembers it Fine: She goes to her grave every holiday. That is, in this way the author tries to direct the reader's perception in the right direction. Also the classy lady is connecting link between the main text and a fragment about easy breathing.(Shcherbina Slava)
A cool lady constantly lives for something, some idea. And Olya lived for herself. Perhaps the cool lady story is here for contrast.(Novikov Egor)
I think she's a great lady envied Ole, but in some way admired this girl. She had something that the cool lady didn't have - easy breathing.(Panova Julia)
4. The story is called "Easy breathing." Why? Try, leaving the text unchanged, to replace the title ("Olya" or "Death of a schoolgirl"). Will it affect the reader's perception of the work?
If the story had been called differently, we might not have noticed this “easy breathing” at all.(Postupaeva Sveta)
The “Easy breathing” option attracts with uncertainty. Other names are banal and do not cause interest in the story. A "Easy Breath" entices, bewitches.
(Kamkin Maxim)
The first associations with the name? Light is not heavy, windy, graceful, and breathing is life. Easy breathing - graceful life.(Black Volodya)
“Easy breathing” - a symbol of exclusivity? Rare gift? Something so beautiful that no one can see it...?(Andrey Masyago)
"Easy breathing"... It's kind of sublime. The story of a carefree girl. She herself lived in this world, like a light breath: fun, carefree, graceful. “Easy breathing” is herself, Olya.(Zhivodkov Mstislav)
When I read this story, to be honest, I did not understand it at all. And I noticed the wording “easy breathing” only at the very end. And then I realized that she, Olya, not only had a light breath, she was very light herself. Innocent, with bright, glowing eyes. With an easy attitude to everything. And with all this, she just breaks into adulthood.(Panova Julia)
“Easy breathing” is some kind of symbol that reflects the essence of Olya Meshcherskaya or something more general - for example, love, beauty ... The episode with a conversation about easy breathing shows Olya from the best, immaculate side, as something sublime, light, not base and vicious.(Shcherbina Slava)
What is important here is not “the death of a schoolgirl”, but “easy breathing” - what the reader associates with these words.(Lyapunov Sergey)
Undoubtedly, the title prepares us for reading, creates such an attitude among readers that the author needs. Therefore, if the name is changed, then perception can change dramatically.(Novikov Egor)
5. What, in your opinion, is the main idea of this story by Bunin? What exactly did he “want to tell us”?
Like Chekhov, it is also difficult for Bunin to understand his attitude towards the main character. It is not clear whether he condemns her or not.(Kurilyuk Natasha)
Maybe he wanted to say that life is “light breathing”, one moment - and there is no life?(Viktor Lozanov)
“During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it is easy and pleasant to walk along them ...” Without her (without Olya), the city has changed. Became calmer, quieter deader. Maybe Bunin wanted to say how the world changes after the departure of bright personalities?(Kuzmin Stas)
Nothing is eternal? Olya looks like a butterfly. So big, beautiful, rare. On the machaon. Butterflies do not live long, but they deliver indescribable pleasure to people who look at them. And even “light breathing” is associated with the flight of a butterfly. (Postupaeva Sveta)
Having worked with these children for more than one year, I know that if I had asked them the same questions orally in class, I probably would not have received such a range of options. Only when they were left alone with Bunin's text and with a blank sheet of paper did some of them manage to catch, formulate (more or less successfully) their own, unique reader's reaction. By the way, for the majority - judging by the expressions on their faces - it was not at all unpleasant to hear their note, their voice in the “score” created by joint efforts.
In conclusion, I would add that in almost every class with which we did this work, there were two or three people who asked permission to combine the answers to the questions into one, coherent text. Of course, these were quite strong students, and in 40-45 minutes they managed to write, for example, this:
I cannot call this story difficult or easy to understand, because although it is written quite plain language, there is a lot of meaning in it. The plot involves the reader in itself and surrounds with its atmosphere, so that the story may be liked or disliked, but left indifferent - no. Yes, and his mood is special, which is difficult to define in one word - it seems that there is nothing pleasant and bright, except for Olya herself, in the story, but he does not leave a depressing impression, but rather something light, like breathing, elusive, but very strong . But at the same time, the idea - as it seems to me, the main one - is also far from optimistic: that the brightest, lightest, most life-filled people burn out the fastest. One shot - and there is no Olya, whom everyone loved and who loved everything around, who shone with happiness at any moment.
But in fact, everything happened precisely because of her very lightness, the eternal game with life, carelessness in everything. Perhaps this is what the cool lady, who regularly comes to Olya's grave, thinks about - it's so hard to believe that the girl who breathed life is no more in the world, and it's forever - irrecoverable - like the most beautiful and bright moths are the first to burn in the fire. And there is also some lightness and carelessness in this, as in breathing.
The title of the story reflects all the ease with which Olya lived and enjoyed her life. Change the name - and the story of the girl will become mundane, depressing, no different from many others. The composition of the story is also unusual - these are constant changes in the time of action. It begins with a description in the present, then a long story in the past with an even deeper departure to Olya's “last summer”, and then the action moves back to the present. Perhaps the story begins and ends with the present, because the author wants to show that Olya's life is in the past, that she no longer exists and will never be. In addition, part of the story is written on behalf of Olya - in her diary. All these details together create that unique mood of the story, which is difficult to describe in one word, but it is very subtly conveyed by the author in nuances.
Antonenko Katya. Lyceum No. 130, 2008
This story got me thinking. In general, everything in the story is clear, it is not clear only what it is about. This story almost did not change my mood, but only because it was already sad and thoughtful. If I'm in a different mood, Bunin for sure forced I would have to think, but it just turned my thoughts in a different direction.
"Easy breathing", as, in general, and all the texts of Bunin, is easily perceived, but understood with difficulty. Even the chronological inconsistency of events does not interfere with perception, although it is logical in its own way: they mentioned the diary - and here are the episodes related to it from Olya's life. One gets the feeling that in the story “everything is in its place” - including the classy lady, for example. Without her, the story would not touch the reader so much. And with this grieving lady, the story is imprinted in the memory, as the schoolgirl Olya Meshcherskaya was imprinted in the memory of the class lady.
And the title “Light Breathing” makes you think, to read the text more carefully, which in places simply breathes with this very lightness of Olya Meshcherskaya, the lightness of nature. “Newspaper” headlines like “The Death of a Schoolgirl” or “Murder at the Train Station” would draw attention to the plot, and not to the meaning of the story. And the plot does not require additional attention, it is, like a typical plot of a short story, unusual and not always predictable.
In my opinion, one of the themes of this story is the primacy of inner beauty over outer beauty. This “easy breathing” does not come with upbringing, with biological development (although it can go away). This breath comes from nature and gives a person naturalness (it was not for nothing that Olya went for everything, including even ink spots on her fingers). This naturalness fascinates everyone, as nature fascinates everyone, and remains close after the death of its happy owner. A light breath dissipated in the world, it reminds everyone and everywhere of Olya, who did not die, no matter what - despite the heavy cross over her grave, the cold wind and the lifelessness of the cemetery, the despondency of the gray days of April ... Olya's eyes are joyful and alive, despite a soulless porcelain medallion and a dead, porcelain wreath, in which the wind constantly, without ceasing for a moment, mournfully rings ... Olya was the soul - the soul of the entire gymnasium, the soul of this world. She lived the way she lived, despite the disgust for Malyutin that poisoned her existence, she remained the same, natural, and behaved absolutely naturally in the story with the officer. It is unlikely that she could behave differently at all. But a person does not always appreciate natural beauty nature (as a person does not always understand this beauty). And then this beauty returns to nature and scatters all over the world, delighting him - just as Olya delighted everyone in the gymnasium, because it was not in vain that “the lower grades did not love anyone like her.”
Maslov Alexey. Lyceum № 130, 2008.
Notes
Vygotsky L.S. Psychology of art. Analysis of aesthetic response. M., 1997 (or other editions). Ch. 7.
"Easy Breath" by Bunin-Vygotsky seventy years later // Zholkovsky A.K.. Wandering dreams and other works. M., 1994. S. 103–122.
Russian literature of the twentieth century. Workshop textbook edited by Yu.I. Lysky. Moscow, 2001, pp. 138–142.
Lyapina A.V.. High school students read Bunin's poetic prose with interest // Literature at school. 2006. No. 11. S. 34–35.
There. S. 35.
Composition
The story "Light Breath", written in 1916, is deservedly considered one of the pearls of Bunin's prose - the image of the heroine is so concisely and vividly captured in it, the feeling of beauty is so reverently conveyed. What is “light breathing”, why has this phrase become a common noun for a long time to denote human talent - the talent to live? To understand this, let's analyze the story "Easy breathing".
Bunin's narrative builds on contrasts. Already from the first lines, the reader has some kind of dual feeling: a sad, deserted cemetery, a gray April day, a cold wind that “rings and rings a porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.” Here is the beginning of the story: “In the cemetery, over a fresh clay embankment, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth ... A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the very cross, and in the medallion there is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes " . Olya Meshcherskaya's whole life is described by the principle of contrast: a cloudless childhood and adolescence are contrasted with the tragic events of Olya's last year. The author everywhere emphasizes the gap between the apparent and the real, external and internal state heroines. The plot of the story is extremely simple. The young, recklessly happy beauty high school student Olya Meshcherskaya becomes first the prey of an elderly voluptuary, and then a living target for the Cossack officer deceived by her. The tragic death of Meshcherskaya inspires a frenzied, withering "service" to her memory a lonely little woman - a classy lady. The apparent simplicity of the plot of the story is violated by the opposition: heavy cross and joyful, lively eyes that make the reader's heart twitch in alarm. It will haunt us throughout the story of short life Olya Meshcherskaya. The simplicity of the plot is deceptive: after all, this is a story not only about the fate of a young girl, but also about the bleak fate of a classy lady who is used to living someone else's life, shining with reflected light - the light of Olya Meshcherskaya's "living eyes".
Bunin believed that the birth of a person is not his beginning, which means that death is not the end of the existence of his soul. The soul - its symbol and is "light breathing" - does not disappear forever. She is the best, real part of life. The heroine of the story, Olya Meshcherskaya, became the embodiment of this life. The girl is so natural that even the outward manifestations of her existence cause rejection by some and admiration by others: “But she was not afraid of anything - no ink spots on her fingers, no flushed face, no disheveled hair, no knee that got naked when she fell on the run. Without any of her worries and efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her so much in the last two years from the whole gymnasium came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear gleam in her eyes ... ”At first glance, we have before us an ordinary schoolgirl - a beautiful, prosperous and a little windy girl, the daughter of wealthy parents, who expects a brilliant party.
But our attention is constantly and persistently directed to some hidden springs of Olya's life. To do this, the author drags out the explanation of the reasons for the death of the heroine, as if generated by the very logic of the girl's behavior. Maybe she herself is to blame? After all, she flirts with high school student Shenshin, flirts, albeit unconsciously, with Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, who seduces her, for some reason promises a Cossack officer to marry him. For what? Why does she need all this? And gradually we understand that Olya Meshcherskaya is beautiful, as the elements are beautiful. And just as immoral as she is. She wants to reach the limit in everything, to the depth, to the innermost essence, regardless of the opinions of others. In Olya's actions there is no meaningful vice, no sense of revenge, no pain of repentance, no firmness of decisions. It turns out that a wonderful feeling of fullness of life can be fatal. Even the unconscious longing for her (like a classy lady) is tragic. Therefore, every detail, every step of Olya's life threatens with disaster: curiosity and prank can lead to violence, a frivolous game with other people's feelings - to murder. Olya Meshcherskaya lives, and does not play the role of a living being. This is her essence. This is her fault. To be maximally alive without observing the rules of the game means to be maximally doomed. After all, the environment in which Meshcherskaya was destined to appear is completely devoid of an organic, integral sense of beauty. Here life is subject strict rules, for the violation of which you have to pay. Olya, accustomed not only to teasing fate, but simply to bravely go towards new sensations and impressions in their entirety, did not have a chance to meet a person who would appreciate not only her bodily beauty, but also spiritual generosity and brightness. After all, Olya really possessed " easy breathing- a thirst for some special, unique fate, worthy only of the elect. The teacher, unable to save her student, recalls her words, accidentally overheard during the break. Among detailed description female beauty and semi-childish “fitting” of this description to her own appearance, the phrase about “easy breathing” sounds so unexpectedly, understood by the girl literally: “... But do you know the main thing? - easy breath! But I have it - you listen to me sigh ... ”The author leaves the world not the beauty of the girl, not her experience, but only this never-opened opportunity. She, according to Bunin, cannot completely disappear, just as the craving for beauty, fortunately, for perfection cannot disappear: “Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.”
"Easy breathing" in Bunin's view is the ability to enjoy life, to accept it as a bright gift. Olya Meshcherskaya captivated those around her with her generous and furious love of life, but in a meager world small town, unfortunately for her, there was no person able to protect her "light breath" from the "cold spring wind".
