The theme of love in the works of Bunin for the first time inthe history of Russian literature reveals not only the platonic, but also the bodily aspect of love relationships. The writer tries to correlate in his work what is happening in the heart of a person, to those requirements that the society, whose life is built on the relations of sale and purchase, and in which dark wild instincts often come to the fore. Nevertheless, the author deals with the intimate aspect of relations between people with an unusual tact.
The theme of love in the works of Bunin is the firstbold statement that not always bodily passion comes after a soul rush, which in life sometimes happens and vice versa. For example, this happens with the heroes of his story "Sunstroke." Ivan Alekseevich in his works describes love in all its versatility - it appears in the guise of great joy, it turns into a cruel disappointment, it is both in spring and autumn in the life of a person.
In the 1920s, during the emigration of the writer, the themelove in the works of Bunin is enriched with new shades. In his novel "Mitin Love" (1924), the author successively talks about how the spiritual development of the main character is gradually realized, how life leads him from love of collapse. Sublime feelings in this narrative closely intertwine with reality. Mitya's love for Katya and his bright hopes are like a vague sense of anxiety. Dreaming of the career of a great actress, the girl is in the epicenter of a false metropolitan life and cheating on her lover. Even the connection with another woman - a mild, though prominent Alyonka - was not able to alleviate Mitya's spiritual torments. As a result, the hero, unprotected, unprepared for a clash with a brutal reality, decides to put his hands on himself.
Sometimes the theme of love in the works of Buninis revealed on the other hand, they show the perennial problem of love triangles (husband-wife-lover). Bright examples of such stories can serve as "Caucasus", "Ida", "The Most Beautiful Sun". Marriage in these creations becomes an insurmountable barrier to the desired happiness. It is in these stories that the image of love for the first time arises as a "sun stroke", which finds its further development in the cycle "Dark alleys".
The theme of love in Bunin's stories of this cycle("Dark alleys", "Tanya", "Late Hour", "Rusya", "Business cards", etc.) is an instant flash, bodily pleasures, to which heroes are pushed by a genuine hot passion. But this does not end there. "Sunstroke" gradually leads the characters to unspeakable self-effacement tenderness, and then to true love. The author refers to the images of single people and ordinary life. And therefore the recollections of the past, covered with romantic impressions, seem so wonderful to his heroes. However, even here, after people come together in spiritual and bodily terms, as if nature itself leads them to inevitable parting, and sometimes to death.
The mastery of describing the details of everyday life, as well aswhich grasps the living description of love, inherent in all the stories of the cycle, reaches its apogee in 1944, when Bunin finishes work on the story "Net Monday", narrating about the fate of a woman who has left life and love in a monastery.
And especially brightly the theme of love in the understanding of Buninwas revealed with the help of the story "Sir from San Francisco." It is a narration about the lowest and ugliest manifestations of a warped great feeling. Falsity, deceit, automatism and lifelessness, which became the cause of the inability to love, are especially strongly emphasized in the images of the "Lord of San Francisco."
Bunin himself considered love to be the feeling that frees a man from the captivity of everything that is superficial, makes him unusually natural and brings him closer to nature.
