And again about love ... And if about love, then it is obligatory about Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, because for the time being there is no equal in literature in the ability so deeply, precisely,
From the first lines the author introduces the reader to the mainthe heroine of the narration is Olya Mescherskaya. But what is this acquaintance? The analysis of the story “Light Breath” draws attention to the scene — a cemetery, a fresh earthen mound on the grave, and a heavy, smooth cross made of oak. Time - cold, gray days of April, still bare trees, icy wind. A medallion is inserted into the very cross, and in the medallion there is a portrait of a young girl, a high-school student, with happy, “amazingly lively eyes”. As you can see, the story is built on contrasts, hence the dual feelings: life and death - spring, April, month, but still bare trees; sturdy nadmogilny cross with a portrait of a young girl, in the heyday of awakening femininity. One cannot help thinking about what this earthly life is, and what death is, and one is struck by how closely the atoms of life and death adjoin each other, and with them beauty and deformity, simplicity and slyness, stunning success and tragedy ...
The principle of contrast is used as in the image itselfOlya Meshcherskaya, and in the description of her short, but brilliant life. As a girl, she did not pay attention to herself. The only thing that could be said was that she was one of many cute, rich and absolutely happy girls who, due to their age, are naughty and careless. However, soon she began to grow rapidly and become beautiful, and in her incomplete fifteen was considered a real beauty. She was not afraid and did not hesitate, but at the same time her ink spots on her fingers or disheveled hair looked much more natural, neat and elegant, than the deliberate neatness or thoroughness of her friends' styled hair. No one danced so gracefully on balls like her. Nobody skated so skilfully as she did. Nobody had so many admirers as Olya Meshcherskaya ... Analysis of the story “Light breathing” does not end there.
As they said in the gymnasium, “Olya’s last winterMeshcherskaya completely mad with fun. " Everywhere she puts herself on display: combed defiantly, wears expensive combs, ruins parents for shoes "at twenty rubles." Openly and simply declares to the director that she is no longer a girl, but a woman ... Flirting with the high school student Shenshin, promising him to be faithful and loving and at the same time so fickle and capricious in his treatment, bringing him once to an attempt on suicide. She, in fact, lures and seduces Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, an adult solid man of fifty-six, and then, realizing his disadvantage, as an excuse for his dissolute behavior, evokes a feeling of disgust for him. Further - more ... Olya enters into relations with a Cossack officer, an ugly, plebeian type, who had nothing to do with the society in which she rotated, and promises him to marry him. And at the train station, seeing him off to Novocherkassk, he says that there can be no love between them, and all these conversations are only mockery and mockery of him. As proof of her words, she lets him read that diary page, where she spoke about her first connection with Malyutin. Without bearing insults, the officer shoots her right there on the platform ... The question arises: why, for what does she need all this? What corners of the human soul is trying to reveal to us the work “Light Breath” (Bunin)? Analysis of the sequence of actions of the main character will allow the reader to answer these and other questions.
И здесь невольно напрашивается образ порхающего a moth, frivolous, reckless, but with an incredible thirst for life, a desire to find some kind of his own, special, fascinating and beautiful destiny, worthy only of the elect. But life is subject to other laws and rules, for the violation of which you have to pay. Therefore, Olya Mescherskaya, like a moth, bravely, without feeling fear, and at the same time easily and naturally, ignoring the feelings of others, flies to fire, to the light of life, to meet new sensations, to burn to the ground: smooth the lined notebooks, not knowing about the fate of their line, where wisdom, heresy mixed ... "(Brodsky)
Indeed, in Ole Meshcherskaya everything is mixed up.“Easy breathing”, the analysis of the story, allows you to highlight such a stylistic device in the work as the antithesis is a sharp opposition of concepts, images, states. She is beautiful and immoral at the same time. She can not be called stupid, she was capable, but at the same time superficial and thoughtless. There was no cruelty in her, “for some reason, no one loved so much the younger classes as her.” Her ruthless attitude to the feelings of others was not meaningful. She, like a raging element, demolished everything in her path, but not because she wanted to destroy and suppress, but only because she could not otherwise: “... how to combine with this clean look that horrible thing, which is now connected with the name of Oli Mescherskaya?” Both beauty and this frenzy were her essence, and she did not fear to exercise both to the fullest extent. Therefore, they loved her so much, they admired her, they stretched to her, and therefore her life was so bright, but fleeting. It could not have been otherwise, which is proved by the story “Light breathing” (Bunin). Analysis of the work gives a deeper understanding of the life of the main character.
The antithetic composition (antithesis) is observedand in the description of the very image of the classroom lady Olechka Meshcherskaya, and in the indirect, but so guessed comparison of her with her student high school student. For the first time I. Bunin (“Light breathing”) introduces the reader to a new character - the head of the gymnasium, in the conversation between her and Mademoiselle Mescherskaya regarding the latter’s defiant behavior. And what do we see? Two absolute opposites - youthful, but gray-haired madame with a smooth parting in neatly corrugated hair and light, graceful Olya with a beautifully decorated, if not over the years, hairstyle with an expensive comb. One behaves simply, clearly and vividly, without being afraid of anything and boldly responding to reproaches, in spite of so young age and unequal position. The other - does not take his eyes off the endless knitting and secretly begins to get annoyed.
We remind you that we are talking about the story "Easybreath". The analysis of the work follows. The second and last time the reader is confronted with the image of a cool lady after Oli’s death, at the cemetery. And again we have a sharp but bright clarity of antithesis. The “middle-aged girl” in black kid gloves and in mourning walks every Sunday to Olya's grave, keeping her eyes on the oak cross for hours. She devoted her life to some "ethereal" feat. At first, she was concerned about the fate of her brother, Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, the most remarkable warrant officer who seduced an excellent high school girl. After his death, she devoted herself to work, merging entirely with the image of the “ideological worker”. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the main theme of all her thoughts and feelings, one can say, a new dream, a new meaning of life. But can her life be called life? Yes and no. On the one hand, everything that is in the world is necessary and has the right to be, despite the seeming worthlessness and uselessness. And on the other hand, in comparison with the magnificence, brilliance and boldness of the colors of Olya’s short life, it’s rather a “slow death”. But, as they say, the truth is somewhere in the middle, because the colorful picture of a young girl's life is also an illusion, behind which lies emptiness.
The story “Light Breath” does not end there.A cool lady sits for a long time near her grave and endlessly recalls the same overheard conversation of two girls once ... Olga talked to her friend at a long break and mentioned one book from her father’s library. It talked about how a woman should be. First of all, with large black, boiling resin, eyes, with thick eyelashes, a gentle flush, longer than usual with hands, a thin mill ... But the main thing - a woman should have a light breath. Olya understood literally - she sighed and listened to her breathing, the expression "light breathing" all reflects the essence of her soul, longing for life, striving for its fullness and alluring infinity. However, “light breathing” (the analysis of the story of the same name comes to an end) cannot be eternal. Like everything mundane, like the life of any person and like the life of Oli Mescherskaya, it sooner or later disappears, dissipates, perhaps becoming a part of this world, the cold spring wind or the leaden sky.
What can I say in conclusion about the story "Easybreath ", the analysis of which was carried out above? Written in 1916, long before the publication of the collection “Dark Alley”, the novel “Light Breath” can be called without exaggeration one of the pearls of I. Bunin's creative work.
