History of creation
From 1937 to 1945 Ivan Bunin writes an intriguing work, which will later be included in the collection “Dark Alleys”. While writing the book, the author emigrated to France. Thanks to the work on the story, the writer was to some extent distracted from the dark streak that was going on in his life.
Bunin said that “Clean Monday” is the best work that he wrote:
I thank God for giving me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.”
Story Analysis
The action takes place in pre-revolutionary Russia, but the story itself was written much later, in May 1944. Bunin, who had long ago emigrated from Russia, lived during World War II in the city of Grasse in southern France, under Nazi occupation. According to his wife, the writer said: “I thank God that he gave me the opportunity to write “Clean Monday.”
Topic and issues
Like Bunin’s other stories, “Clean Monday” is a mysterious work. There is no obvious morality, no author's assessments, no positive and negative characters. This is a reflection on love, on youth, on the soul. And at the same time - the memory of a 73-year-old emigrant writer about Moscow, which has long been gone, about lost youth.
The theme of the story can be called love, or it can be the mystery of the human soul. In “Clean Monday” you can see the problem of loneliness, the inability to look into someone else’s soul, and the problem of searching for the meaning of life, and Christian issues.
Main characters
The characters in the story are not named. We only know that they are a young man and woman, beautiful, rich and idle.
He is a very wealthy young man originally from the Penza province. “Indecently handsome” and looking like a fiery Italian. The hero has a lively character: he is active, talkative, jokes a lot and enjoys life. Thanks to this, he met the heroine, managing to make her laugh at Andrei Bely’s lecture.
Love for him is pleasure. Although the girl does not fully reciprocate, he is happy to just be there, kiss her, admire her on a walk. On the eve of separation, it seems to him that his beloved has finally given herself completely to him. But the very next day he realizes that he was mistaken: she disappears from his life forever, breaking his heart.
Genre, direction
“Clean Monday” was written in the direction of realism. But before Bunin they didn’t write about love like that. The writer finds those only words that do not trivialize feelings, but each time rediscover emotions familiar to everyone.
The work “Clean Monday” is a short story, a small everyday work, somewhat similar to a short story. The difference can only be found in the plot and compositional structure. The short story genre, unlike the short story, is characterized by the presence of a certain turn of events. In this book, such a turn is a change in the heroine’s outlook on life and a sharp change in her lifestyle.
Main characters
Young man | A handsome, young rich nobleman. He sincerely loves the girl, patiently fulfills her requests and whims, gives flowers, chocolate, books. She reciprocates his feelings, but does not agree to marriage, does not talk about love and a future together. He tries to understand her, suffers from incompleteness of reciprocal feelings, uncertainty. These relationships become the meaning of his life; he is afraid to look into tomorrow. After parting with his beloved, he suffers, finds no peace, visits temples, and drinks a lot. One day he meets her among the nuns, she does not recognize him. |
Young woman | The daughter of a rich father, she lives alone in the center of Moscow. Beautiful, slim, everyone admires her. He loves social life, considers many things vulgar, but does not give up on it. Material wealth is not alien to her, but wealth does not allow her to feel the taste of life. She is strange, unlike others, and reveals a deep inner world to the young man shortly before parting. She suffers from searching for herself and believes that family life is not for her. He has enormous willpower and strong character. Allows the soul to make its choice, drowning out feelings and desires for secular pleasures. |
Meaning of the name
Ivan Bunin clearly draws a parallel with the title of the work, making the main character a girl who rushes between opposites and does not yet know what she needs in life. She changes for the better on Monday, and not just the first day of the new week, but a religious celebration, that turning point, which is marked by the church itself, where the heroine goes to cleanse herself of the luxury, idleness and bustle of her former life.
Clean Monday is the first holiday of Lent in the calendar, leading to Forgiveness Sunday. The author draws the thread of the turning point in the heroine’s life: from various amusements and unnecessary fun, to the adoption of religion, and leaving for a monastery.
Essay 3
Literary work by I.A. Bunin's "Clean Monday" is an expression of the emotionality of the writer's prose. It shows the Moscow way of life at the very beginning of the twentieth century. Ivan Alekseevich describes objects of that time very well. Specially emphasizes the ancient churches of the capital, temples, and at the same time the journalism of current writers and restaurants.
Two people appear in the spotlight: a man and a woman; the writer does not give them names because they are not essential to the story. The man is rich, young, good-looking. The hero is truly crazy about the heroine and is able to do any act so that they will always be inseparable. At the same time, he doesn’t even try to understand what the heroine wants.
The main character seems to be a mysterious person. Her reasoning, love and preferences are unclear to readers, vague and mysterious. The appearance and daily life of the lady are shown in detail, however, due to omissions, it is impossible to create a complete description. The heroine’s actions resemble herself; they are also incomprehensible, uncontrollable and contradictory.
Before Clean Monday, at night the girl was with the main character, and in the morning she ran to church. Throughout the story, the writer emphasizes that she is uncomfortable in any place, wherever she is, how poor and unhappy she is and does not understand the joys of people’s lives.
The essence
The story is told in the first person. The main events are as follows: every evening the narrator visits a girl who lives opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, for whom he has strong feelings. He is extremely talkative, she is very silent. There was no intimacy between them, and this keeps him in bewilderment and some kind of expectation.
For some time they continue to go to theaters and spend evenings together. Forgiveness Sunday is approaching, and they go to the Novodevichy Convent. Along the way, the heroine talks about how yesterday she was at the schismatic cemetery, and with admiration describes the burial ceremony of the archbishop. The narrator had not previously noticed any religiosity in her, and therefore listened attentively, with glowing, loving eyes. The heroine notices this and is amazed at how much he loves her.
In the evening they go to a skit party, after which the narrator accompanies her home. The girl asks to let the coachmen go, which she hasn’t done before, and come up to her. It was just their evening.
In the morning, the heroine says that she is leaving for Tver, to the monastery - there is no need to wait or look for her.
The hero wanders into taverns, and only two years later comes to his senses. It was Forgiveness Sunday. He approaches the Marfo-Mary Convent, where at that time there was a religious procession, in which he saw his beloved woman. Their gazes crossed. But the hero turned and calmly walked out of the gate. The plot is revealed in more detail in our summary .
The main characters and their characteristics
The image of the main character can be viewed from several angles of the narrator: a young man in love evaluates his chosen one as a participant in the events, and he also sees her in the role of a person who only remembers the past. His views on life after falling in love, after passion, change. By the end of the story, the reader now sees his maturity and depth of thoughts, but at the beginning the hero was blinded by his passion and did not see the character of his beloved behind it, did not feel her soul. This is the reason for his loss and the despair into which he plunged after the disappearance of the lady of his heart.
The girl's name cannot be found in the work. For the storyteller, this is simply the same one - unique. The heroine is an ambiguous nature. She has education, sophistication, intelligence, but at the same time she is withdrawn from the world. She is attracted by an unattainable ideal, to which she can only strive within the walls of the monastery. But at the same time, she fell in love with a man and cannot just leave him. The contrast of feelings leads to an internal conflict, which we can glimpse in her tense silence, in her desire for quiet and secluded corners, for reflection and solitude. The girl still cannot understand what she needs. She is seduced by a luxurious life, but at the same time, she resists it and tries to find something else that will illuminate her path with meaning. And in this honest choice, in this loyalty to oneself lies great strength, there is great happiness, which Bunin described with such pleasure.
Topics and issues
- The main theme is love . It is she who gives a person meaning in life. For the girl, the guiding star was divine revelation, she found herself, but her chosen one, having lost the woman of his dreams, lost his way.
- The problem of misunderstanding. The whole essence of the tragedy of heroes lies in misunderstanding each other. The girl, feeling love for the narrator, does not see anything good in this - for her this is a problem, and not a way out of a confusing situation. She is looking for herself not in the family, but in service and spiritual calling. He sincerely does not see this and tries to impose on her his vision of the future - the creation of marriage bonds.
- The theme of choice is also present in the novella. Every person has a choice, and everyone decides for themselves what to do right. The main character chose her own path - entering a monastery. The hero continued to love her, and could not come to terms with her choice, because of this he could not find inner harmony, find himself.
- I. A. Bunin also traces the theme of a person’s purpose in life . The main character does not know what she wants, but she feels her calling. It is very difficult for her to understand herself, and because of this, the narrator also cannot fully understand her. However, she follows the call of her soul, vaguely guessing her destiny - the destiny of higher powers. And this is very good for both of them. If a woman made a mistake and got married, she would remain unhappy forever and blame the one who led her astray. And the man would suffer from unrequited happiness.
- The problem of happiness. The hero sees him in love with the lady, but the lady moves along a different coordinate system. She will find harmony only alone with God.
Essay on the story Clean Monday by Bunin
Bunin writes the story in 1944, during the Second World War. As you know, during the war, the Soviet government opened many churches and flew around Moscow with icons in order to protect the city. People could turn to faith again.
The story is set in 1912-14, a period also difficult for Russia, the pre-revolutionary years, the proximity of war. The period when turning to faith is relevant and very urgent.
The main character is like a reflection of the era, she has fun, but is not seduced or carried away by these entertainments, she seems to see the ephemerality of all existence and feels the precarious nature of her time. At the same time, Bunin specifically introduces genuine historical figures into the narrative: Stanislavsky, Moskvin, Sulerzhitsky, Bely, Kachalov - to some extent, they are the faces of their time. The main characters also enter into this world; moreover, they attract admiring glances, often find themselves in the center of attention, and attract with their beauty and independence.
So, she is no stranger to entertainment, but when she has a free evening or morning, she visits cathedrals and temples. She studies history and in this Bunin emphasizes the desire for the roots, for the search for the true face and essence of the people. Also, the main character understands the Orthodox tradition, but does not call herself religious. This is an interesting detail, the main character seems to be more of a seeker and analyst than just a believer. She has warm feelings about religious themes, but also has deep feelings.
The same deep, but slightly peculiar feelings for the main character, to whom she allows affection, but does not give herself completely. This shows a certain chastity, which is not something feigned, because for her he is “the first and the last” and she has no one else. Therefore, here we see a greater desire to save our own soul and the soul of our beloved. He often asks if she loves him and demands confirmation, doubts. However, in the final scene of the story we see how she recognizes her lover in complete darkness, already being a nun.
Bunin describes the connection between these people as incredibly strong and rising above the everyday life of the world. The main character is passionate and literally sings of every detail of the heroine, admiring everything down to the footprints in the snow from her shoes. The main character is more silent and thoughtful, she reflects on books and on this world. As a result, the only way out that she chooses is to go to the monastery as a search for something real, something genuine in this world.
the main idea
The writer writes about true love, which ultimately ends in breakup. The heroes make such decisions themselves; they have complete freedom of choice. And the meaning of their actions is the idea of the entire book. Each of us must choose exactly that love that we can worship without complaint throughout our lives. A person must be true to himself and the passion that lives in his heart. The heroine found the strength to go to the end and, despite all doubts and temptations, to reach her cherished goal.
The main idea of the novel is an ardent call for honest self-determination. There is no need to be afraid that someone will not understand or judge your decision if you are sure that this is your calling. In addition, a person must be able to resist those obstacles and temptations that prevent him from hearing his own voice. Fate depends on whether we are able to hear him, both our own fate and the position of those to whom we are dear.
Author: Victoria Arfano
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