“Antonov apples”: analysis and summary of the story by I.A. Bunina

Prose masterpiece

As you know, at the beginning of his work, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin created works in poetic form. In the story “Antonov Apples,” the analysis of which you will soon read, the author conveys his love for his native land, the people living here, through prose, but by means of poetic expression.

This is the writer’s first work in which he talks in detail about the life of rural landowners. With particular delight, the author also talks about ordinary people, writing that he would like, like a village peasant, to get up at dawn, wash himself with cool water from a barrel and go on a visit.

The work clearly senses the movement of time in three forms. This is the period from autumn to winter, from a person’s childhood to his maturity, from the heyday of estate culture to its extinction. The reader witnesses this by studying the story “Antonov Apples.” Analysis of this work also helps to understand this. We can conclude that we see a temporary movement of the earth, human life and local culture. To understand the above, familiarization with the summary of the prose work and its analysis will help.

History of creation

The history of the creation of the work is connected with the writer’s trip to his brother Eugene. In a country estate, I. Bunin caught the smell of Antonov apples. The aroma reminded Ivan Alekseevich of the life of landowners. This is how the idea for the story arose, which the writer realized only nine years later, in 1900. “Antonov Apples” became part of the cycle of epitaphs.

The story was first seen by the world in the year it was written in the magazine “Life”, published in St. Petersburg. Critics received it positively. But the publication did not mark the end of the work. I. Bunin continued to polish his creation for twenty years, so there are several versions of “Antonov Apples”.

To capture the essence of the story “Antonov Apples,” its analysis should begin with a description of the main problem.

The entire piece has an autumn theme . The author reveals the beauty of nature at this time and the changes that autumn brings to human life. A. Bunin proceeds to describe the life of the landowner. The image of Antonov apples plays an important role in revealing both themes. These fruits symbolize childhood, antiquity, and nostalgia. The meaning of the title is also hidden in the symbolic meaning .

The peculiarities of the work are related to the fact that the lyrical component plays a leading role in it. It is not for nothing that the author chooses the narration form in the first person singular. This way the reader can get as close as possible to the narrator, see the world through his eyes, observe his feelings and emotions. The narrator of the work resembles the lyrical hero whom we are accustomed to seeing in poems.

First, the narrator describes early autumn, generously “sprinkling” the landscape with folk signs. This technique helps to recreate a rustic atmosphere. The image of Antonov apples appears in the initial landscape. They are collected by peasants in the gardens of bourgeois gardeners. Gradually, the author moves on to a description of a bourgeois hut and a fair near it. This allows you to introduce colorful peasant images into the work. The first part ends with a description of an autumn night.

The second part begins again with landscape and folk signs. In it. I. Bunin talks about long-lived old people, as if hinting at how much weaker his generation is. In this part the reader can find out how rich peasants lived. The narrator describes their life with delight, not hiding the fact that he himself would like to live like that.

Memories take the narrator back to the times when his landowner aunt was alive. He enthusiastically tells how he came to visit Anna Gerasimovna. Her estate was surrounded by a garden in which apples grew. The hero describes in detail the interior of his aunt’s house, paying special attention to the smells, the main one being the aroma of apples.

The third part of I. Bunin’s work “Antonov Apples” is a story about a hunt, this is the only thing that “supported the fading spirit of the landowners.” The narrator describes everything: getting ready for the hunt, the process itself and the evening feast. In this part, another hero appears - the landowner Arseny Semenovich, who pleasantly surprises with his appearance and cheerful disposition.

In the concluding part, the author talks about the death of landowner Anna Gerasimovna, landowner Arseny Semenych and the elderly. The spirit of antiquity seems to have died along with them. All that was left was nostalgia and “small-scale life.” Nevertheless, I. Bunin concludes that she is also good, proving this with a description of small-scale life.

The problematics of the work are concentrated around the motif of the extinction of the landowner spirit and the death of antiquity.

The idea of ​​the story is to show that the old days had a special charm, so descendants should preserve it at least in memory.

The main idea is that a person cherishes those memories that are treasured in his heart from childhood and youth.

“Antonov Apples”, Bunin: first chapter

In the first lines, the author writes that he remembers early autumn, the smell of Antonov apples. It was at that time that bourgeois gardeners hired men to sort and fill apples, which they then took to the city for sale. The workers did not miss the opportunity to enjoy the fragrant fruits. During the preparation of the mash drink, when it was filtered (“for draining”), everyone drank honey. Even the blackbirds sit here, well-fed and contented, near the coral rowan trees.

The story “Antonov Apples” by Bunin is very positive. The author describes a prosperous village in which there are excellent harvests and people live long. Everything here is famous for its fertility. Even the elder woman looks like a Kholmogory cow. And, as you know, this animal was a symbol of prosperity. The author, describing this woman, says that she seemed to have horns on her head. This association is caused by the braids, which the elder woman styled in a special way. Several tied scarves make the head huge, which makes the woman even more like a cow. The elder is pregnant - this is another technique that helps to see the fertility and prosperity that reigns in these prosperous places. You are convinced of this by reading the beginning of the story “Antonov Apples.” Analysis of these rows confirms these conclusions.

The narrator likes everything here: the fresh air, the smell of straw, the starry night sky. We learn all this from the first chapter, as well as the fact that the story is told on behalf of the barchuk Nikolai.

Description of the garden in the story “Antonov Apples”

...I remember an early fine autumn. August was full of warm rains, as if falling on purpose for sowing, with rains right at the right time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And “autumn and winter live well if the water is calm and there is rain on Laurentia.” Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled in the fields. This is also a good sign: “There is a lot of shading in the Indian summer - autumn is vigorous”... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, it’s as if there is no air at all; voices and the creaking of carts can be heard throughout the garden.

By nightfall the weather becomes very cold and dewy. Having inhaled the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home for dinner past the garden rampart. Voices in the village or the creaking of gates can be heard unusually clearly in the chilly dawn. It's getting dark. And here’s another smell: there’s a fire in the garden, and there’s a strong wafting of fragrant smoke from cherry branches. In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: as if in a corner of hell, a crimson flame, surrounded by darkness, is burning near the hut, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk across the apple trees . Either a black hand several arshins in size will fall across the entire tree, then two legs will clearly appear - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slide from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the gate itself...

Late at night, when the lights in the village go out, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will run into the garden again.

Rustle through the dry leaves, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. There in the clearing it is a little lighter, and the Milky Way is white above your head.

And the black sky is lined with fiery stripes of falling stars. You look for a long time into its dark blue depths, overflowing with constellations, until the earth begins to float under your feet. Then you will wake up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, quickly run along the alley to the house... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world! (...)

At early dawn, when the roosters were still crowing and the huts were smoking black, you would open the window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog, through which the morning sun shines brightly here and there, and you couldn’t resist - you ordered to quickly saddle the horse, and you yourself ran wash.on the pond. Almost all of the small foliage has flown off the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky. The water under the vines became clear, icy, and seemingly heavy. It instantly drives away the laziness of the night, and, having washed and had breakfast in the common room with the workers, hot potatoes and black bread with coarse raw salt, you enjoy feeling the slippery leather of the saddle under you as you ride through Vyselki to hunt. Autumn is the time for patronal feasts, and at this time the people are tidy and happy, the appearance of the village is not at all the same as at other times. If the year is fruitful and a whole golden city rises on the threshing floors, and geese cackle loudly and sharply on the river in the morning, then it’s not bad at all in the village.

Since the end of September, our gardens and threshing floors have been empty, and the weather, as usual, has changed dramatically. The wind tore and tore the trees for days on end, and the rains watered them from morning to night. Sometimes in the evening, between the gloomy low clouds, the flickering golden light of the low sun made its way in the west; the air became clean and clear, and the sunlight sparkled dazzlingly between the foliage, between the branches, which moved like a living net and were agitated by the wind. The liquid blue sky shone coldly and brightly in the north above the heavy lead clouds, and from behind these clouds ridges of snowy mountain-clouds slowly floated out. You stand at the window and think: “Maybe, God willing, the weather will clear up.” But the wind did not subside. It disturbed the garden, tore up the continuously flowing stream of human smoke from the chimney, and again drove up the ominous strands of ash clouds. They ran low and fast - and soon, like smoke, they clouded the sun. Its shine faded, the window into the blue sky closed, and the garden became deserted and boring, and the rain began to fall again... at first quietly, carefully, then more and more thickly and, finally, it turned into a downpour with storm and darkness. A long, anxious night was coming...

After such a scolding, the garden emerged almost completely naked, covered with wet leaves and somehow quiet and resigned. But how beautiful it was when clear weather came again, clear and cold days of early October, the farewell holiday of autumn! The preserved foliage will now hang on the trees until the first winter. The black garden will shine through the cold turquoise sky and dutifully wait for winter, warming itself in the sunshine. And the fields are already turning sharply black with arable land and brightly green with overgrown winter crops...

I looked around: ...Countless golden stars seemed to be flowing quietly, twinkling in competition, in the direction of the Milky Way, and, really, looking at them, you seemed to vaguely feel the rapid, non-stop running of the earth...

3



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Chapter 2

Bunin also begins the next part of the work with a mention of Antonov apples. He talks about folk wisdom. It is believed that if the Antonovka crop is cropped, then the bread will be cropped too.

The writer shares his pleasant impressions of the early morning. Ivan Alekseevich so clearly describes how pleasant it is to wash your face by the pond, look into the turquoise sky, that these wonderful sensations are also conveyed to the reader.

Then the narrator says how good it is after washing to have breakfast with the workers, potatoes and black bread, climb on a horse and ride into the distance. We will learn about this by reading the work “Antonov Apples”. The content of the second chapter reveals the name of that wonderful village - Vyselki. It is here that old people live for 100 years or more, like, for example, Pankrat, who no longer remembers how far over a hundred he has passed.

In this chapter, the narrator remembers the estate of his aunt Anna Gerasimovna. She had a garden, and, of course, Antonov apples grew in it. Bunin talks about his aunt’s beautiful house with columns and a rich household. And the smell of apples hung even in the rooms. The author associated this aroma with pleasant associations. You come to this conclusion by analyzing this work.

Open lesson Bunin Antonov apples

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I have been working as a primary school teacher for over 20 years.

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Chapter 3

From it we learn about the writer's passion for hunting. After all, it was a popular entertainment for the landowners of those years. Hunting wolves made it possible to reduce the number of this dangerous predator, which killed livestock and could attack humans. In the company of fellow hunting enthusiasts, the author shot wolves or other animals and returned home with the trophies to his aunt or stayed for several days with a landowner he knew.

Final chapter

So, our analysis comes to an end. “Antonov Apples” by Bunin in the final chapter conveys the author’s anxiety; his impressions are no longer as rosy as at the beginning. He writes that the aroma of these fruits disappears from landowners' estates. Centenarians died, one old man shot himself. And the narrator no longer hunts in the company of people, but alone. But life in Vyselki is still in full swing: village girls bustle about, threshing grain.

The first snow has fallen. This ends the story “Antonov Apples” by Bunin. At the end, as at the beginning of the work, the author puts an ellipsis, since in the form of an essay he spoke about a short period of time, which, thanks to him, the readers were lucky enough to witness.