The role of symbolism in the story The Gentleman from San Francisco (I. A. Bunin)

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin depicted the real life of Russia, therefore, reading his works, one can easily imagine how the Russian people lived on the eve of the revolution. Bunin picturesquely depicts the life of noble estates and common people, the culture of nobles and the lopsided huts of peasants, and the thick layer of black soil on our roads. But still, what interests the author most of all is the soul of the Russian person, which is impossible to comprehend and understand completely.

Bunin feels that big changes will soon occur in society, which will lead to a catastrophe of existence and a catastrophe of the social structure of life. Almost all the stories he wrote in 1913-1914 are devoted to this topic. But in order to convey the approach of a catastrophe, to express all his feelings, Bunin, like many writers, uses symbolic images. One of the most striking such symbols is the image of a steamboat from the story “Mr. from San Francisco,” written by the author in 1915.

On the steamship with the self-explanatory name “Atlantis” the main character of the work sets off on a long journey. He worked hard and for a long time, earning his millions. And now he has reached the level where he can afford to go and see the Old World, rewarding himself in a similar way for his efforts. Bunin gives an accurate and detailed description of the ship on which his hero boards. It was a huge hotel, which had all the amenities: the bar was open around the clock, there were oriental baths, and even published its own newspaper.

"Atlantis" in the story is not only the place where most of the events take place. This is a kind of model of the world in which both the writer and his characters live. But this world is bourgeois. The reader is convinced of this when he reads how this ship is divided. The second deck of the ship is given over to the ship's passengers, where fun takes place all day long on the snow-white deck. But the lower tier of the ship looks completely different, where people work around the clock in the heat and dust; this is a kind of ninth circle of hell. These people, standing near the huge stoves, set the steamship in motion.

There are many servants and dishwashers on the ship who serve the second tier of the ship and provide them with a well-fed life. The inhabitants of the second and last deck of the ship never meet each other, there is no relationship between them, although they are sailing on the same ship in terrible weather, and huge waves of the ocean are boiling and raging overboard. Even the reader feels the trembling of the ship, which is trying to fight the elements, but bourgeois society does not pay any attention to this.

It is known that Atlantis is a civilization that strangely disappeared into the ocean. This legend about a lost civilization is included in the name of the ship. And only the author hears and feels that the time of disappearance of the world that exists on the ship is approaching. But time will stop on the ship only for a rich gentleman from San Francisco, whose name no one remembers. This death of one hero indicates that very soon the death of the whole world will come. But no one pays attention to this, since the bourgeois world is indifferent and cruel.

Ivan Bunin knows that there is a lot of injustice and cruelty in the world. He had seen a lot, so he was anxiously waiting for the Russian state to collapse. This also influenced his subsequent life: he was never able to understand and accept the revolution and spent the rest of his life, almost thirty years in exile. In Bunin's story, the steamship is a fragile world where a person is helpless and no one is interested in his fate. A civilization is moving in a vast ocean that does not know its future, but it does not want to remember the past.

Sorrowful, wise, harsh paintings by Bunin. A completely different, frenzied, frightening world of Andreev’s world. And yet all this was, appeared in one era, with an equally powerful attraction to its upheavals and conflicts. It’s no wonder that deep contacts existed. Everywhere there is a seal - let’s use Kuprin’s definition - “a confused, oppressed consciousness.”

Bunin’s sober, searching gaze not only in his homeland (the story “The Village”), but all over the world found signs of not just decay, but of imminent catastrophe. Such a broad generalization is striking - a calmer definition simply will not convey the power of impressions - the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”.

Already in the first phrase a lot is concentrated: the consumer philosophy of the Master and other rich rulers, the essence of an inhumane bourgeois civilization, the image of a beautiful but suppressed nature. The narrative's leisurely tone seems to be due to the abundance of everyday information. Their connections and coloring lead us, however, into the author’s thoughts about the general order of things. How are specific observations combined with the interpretation of their essence? The skill of symbolizing details and motifs has been brought to perfection. The name of the ship on which the Master travels, “Atlantis,” immediately gives an idea of ​​the approaching death. Accurate sketches of brilliant salons, servants, dirty stokers of the “hellish furnace” - about the social hierarchy of society. A mechanically cruising ship, taking the Master for entertainment to Europe and delivering his dead body back to America, reveals the ultimate nonsense of human existence.

This is the main conclusion - the inevitability and lack of understanding by travelers of the retribution that awaits them. The Master’s preoccupation with momentary pleasures on the path to oblivion conveys the complete spiritual blindness of this “New Man with the Old.” And all the entertaining passengers of the Atlantis don’t even suspect anything wrong: “The ocean that walked outside the walls was terrible, but they didn’t think about it, firmly believing in the power of the commander over it.” At the end of the story, the threatening darkness thickens to hopelessness. But “again, in the midst of a frenzied blizzard, sweeping over the ocean that roared like a funeral mass and walked with mountains mourning from silver foam,” ballroom music thundered. There is no limit to ignorance and narcissistic confidence, as Bunin put it, “senseless power”, and unconsciousness among disadvantaged people. The writer captured the “cosmic” stage of spiritual decay by making a huge Devil, similar to the rocks of Gibraltar, an observer of a ship leaving into the night and blizzard.

Bunin's emotions were painful. The greedy search for an enlightening beginning is endless. But as before, they were crowned with penetration into the natural, natural values ​​of life. This is the image of the Abruzzese peasants in “The Gentleman from San Francisco”, merged with the beauty of the mountains and sky.

Nobel Prize laureate Bunin began his creative career as a poet. He was greatly influenced by poets such as Nikitin, Koltsov, and partly Nekrasov. They glorified Russian nature, the countryside, poeticized the peasantry, and in this way they were close to Bunin....

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The ocean liner Atlantis plays a huge role in Bunin’s story “.” It was a ship equipped with the latest technology. The richest people traveled on it from America to Europe and back. There was everything a person could need here: a night bar with expensive alcohol and cigars, an oriental bathhouse, a live orchestra playing on the deck, even a newspaper. There was luxury and tranquility all around. Thousands of people worked on the ship, creating this comfort and coziness.

The Atlantis passengers led a very measured life. They were not bothered by the raging ocean; everyone relied on the experienced captain and the ship itself.

Bunin is trying to show us that such carelessness can be very dangerous. It is enough to pay attention to the name of the liner and remember how the depths of the sea once swallowed up an entire country called Atlantis, in comparison with which the ship is a small sliver in a raging ocean.

It is worth noting that when reading a story, you involuntarily prepare yourself for something terrible, for some kind of catastrophe; the work constantly keeps you in suspense. And, indeed, a disaster occurs. True, it has the scale of one person, but that makes it no less tragic. The author showed us that death is a natural process that will affect us all. And no matter how we try to delay this moment, it will certainly come.

But don’t be discouraged, because life goes on, and “Atlantis” sails on with its joy, care and pleasure.