LITERATURE LESSON IN 11TH GRADE
Morozova Elena Ivanovna, MOAU Secondary School No. 5
Linguistic means of expression in a literary text (using the example of I.A. Bunin’s story “Cold Autumn”)
Goals:
Improve your skills in analyzing a work of art, paying attention to the features of Bunin’s style;
Develop the ability to compare, generalize, draw conclusions, and argue your point of view;
Find out how speech means work to express the author's idea.
Methods: analytical conversation; analysis.
Epigraphs:
The better, the deeper a person knows the language, the richer, deeper and more accurate
his thoughts will be expressed. The richness of language is the richness of thoughts.
M. Isakovsky.
There is no word that is so sweeping
smartly, it would burst out from under the very heart, it would boil and vibrate, like an aptly spoken Russian word.
N.V.Gogol.
“...elusive artistic precision, amazing figurativeness...how can one manage in music without sounds, in painting without colors, images...of objects, and in literature without words, things, as we know, but completely ethereal »
I.A. Bunin
1.. Against the background of “music by P. I. Tchaikovsky “Sweet Dream” (the student reads the 1st part of the story.)
Teacher.The opinion of Bunin as one of the greatest stylists in Russian literature has long been firmly established. His work clearly revealed those features of Russian literature that the writer himself considered “the most precious” - elusive artistic precision, amazing figurativeness... how can one manage in music without sounds, in painting without paints and without images, and in literature without a word, things, as we know, are not entirely incorporeal.
It was figurativeness that Bunin considered to be the hallmark of a truly artistic work.
It is about the expressiveness of Bunin’s word, about linguistic means that will be discussed in today’s lesson.
4.0let's turn to the epigraphs.Let's read the epigraphs.
- What is the main idea of these statements?Write down the topic of the lesson, choose an epigraph.
- What a story?(0 love.)
- What do you know about the history of writing, time?
( The story was written in 1944. Part of the “Dark Alleys” cycle. This cycle
is central to Bunin’s work. It is noteworthy that all the stories in this series are about love. All 38 short stories are united by one theme - the themelove. Love makes the life of Bunin's heroes significant.
- Let's look at the title of the story.
( This is an inaccurate reproduction of a line from Fetov's poem without
names.)
A student reads a poem.
What a cold autumn!
Put on your shawl and hood;
Look: because of the slumbering pines
It's like a fire is rising.
Northern night glow
I remember always being near you,
And the phosphorescent eyes shine,
They just don’t keep me warm.
- If the story is about love, then why didn’t Bunin call it differently?
title with the word "love"?
( The title of the story is a metaphor for the loneliness of the middle-aged heroine (“autumn
life"), but at the same time - this is the time she desired, the ideal situation:
return to the autumn of 1914, departure toeternity.
Find in the textconfirmation of this... .yes, but what happened in my life? And I answerto myself: just that cold evening.
.. . And that’s all that happened in my life - the rest is an unnecessary dream.)
- Now prove in your own words thatAllthe rest is an unnecessary dream.
The words of the heroine’s fiancé sound like a sad refrain, a repeated phrase. “Just live, enjoy...” And we see that the heroine lives only one evening.
- What is the composition of the story?
Exposition about one and a half months: first half of June until19 July 1913. The events leading up to the beginning are shown.
Main Part Evening in September, the morning of the hero’s departure (pause-me-
syats). The death of the hero is his departure from life and the “interruption” of the heroine’s life.
The final thirty years of the heroine’s painful existence.
Return from the plot present (1944) to the “beginning” - a memory of Nice 1912.
Let's turn to the exhibition.
- What did you find strange at the beginning of the story?
( Bunin deliberately does not name the names of the heroes.)
- In the first part of the story, too,Howand throughout the story the author uses
realities. Findtheir.
( The beginning of the war, ... lived in Moscow, went to Ekaterinodar, sailed from
Novorossiysk to Turkey...Bulgaria, Serbia, Czech Republic, Belgium, Paris,
Nice...)
-You can draw a parallel between the heroine and the writer himself, on
whose share was a lot of hardships: wanderings, loss of homeland, melancholy.
- Find more realities.(War with Germany, assassination of Ferdinand...)
Student. The word in the storywar brings anxiety. Although we don't see the military
actions, but events dictate another topic for us - the topic of world war.
There is no scale of war, but its destructive power is palpable.
Confirm with text. (... arrived for just a day - to say goodbye to
leaving forfront, our time has comefarewell evening; If mewill kill...,
Killed him in a month...)
Name the linguistic means in the 1st part of the story.
Students find expressive means and draw conclusions.
( Bunin's language is characterized by the stable nature of paths. Crystal ringing, candy face, mourning. In the story, this is the fatal bag, secret thoughts, a farewell party, a chocolate shop. Based on the use of precious stones and gems, the words silver, gold - sprinkled with shining stars, how the eyes sparkle! A golden icon, sparkling frost, handles with silver nails, gold laces.)
This story is characterized by the use of figurative means to designate the “material world,” the world of sensations that create the eternal plan.(Confirm this with text.)
(That evening we sat quietly..., hiding oursecret thoughts and feelings; Well, what if they kill you?I'll be waiting for you there... ...somewhere there he is waiting for me with the same love and youth.
-Yes, these images interact with images of the eternal world, existence, incomprehensible to man.
In order to make sure that many of Bunin’s works are characterized by the image of the eternal world, let’s compare the poem “Through the Window from a Dark Cabin...” and the story “Cold Autumn.”
Only one starry sky,
One firmament is motionless,
Calm and blissful, alien to Everything that is so dark beneath him.
“...In the garden, in the black sky, bright...
“Then they began to appear in the light
in the glowing sky, black branches sprinkled with mineral glitter
stars."
In the story, the divine splendor of the world is contrasted with chaos, the merciless power of fate. Repetitions are used (If Iwill kill. . .What if it’s true?will kill? Well what ifwill kill...
-What is the connection between parts 1 and 2 of the story?
(2- I part begins with the wordkilled. Those. the power of rock is merciless.)
-Name epithets that confirm this. (cold, black, indifferent)
1. Analyzing nature and man, we say that the landscape repeats the state of the lyrical hero. Confirm this with text.
(Surprisingly early andcold autumn. - Younot cold? Cold, a cold evening is associated with cold in the souls of the heroes, a premonition of trouble. Winter evening - the death of a lover.
The variety of shades is fixed using epithets, a combination of adverbs and adjectives(color adverbs). Find them.
Pure icy stars, hot lamp, autumn charm, minerally shining stars, autumn-like.
Teacher. The story is built on associative connections between the present and the past, therefore, it has a space-time perspective. Its peculiarity is that in emotional and evaluative terms, the present and past are colored by a general tone of excitement.(Could I have thought in those happy days what she (Nice) would one day become for me!). The heroine is immersed in herself - in her inner world the past and the present coexist equally, equally vividly experienced now and then.The idea of Bunin's style would be far from complete if we limited ourselves to only characterizing figurative means. After all, Bunin is one of the finest Russian stylists.
- So, let's draw a conclusion about what expressive means of language, what techniques uses I.A.Bunin.
The arsenal of figurative and expressive language in the story “Cold Autumn” is extremely rich and varied. Here are both tropes and stylistic figures designed to embellish speech, make it precise, clear, expressive, containing untold treasures and values. But he reveals his wealth only to those who have a true love for language, for words.
Music is playing. "Sweet Dream"
Homework. Write a review of the story “Cold Autumn.”
Approximate review plan:
1. Date of publication of the work (when it was written or published). 2. History of creation, concept of the work. 3. Genre originality of the work. 4. The plot and composition of the work (what is this work about, name its main events, note the plot, climax, denouement, the role of the epilogue and epigraph (if any). 5. Topic (what is said in the work), what topics are touched upon in the work. 6. Issues (what problems, issues) are addressed in the work, are they important, why are they considered by the author. 7. Characteristics of the main artistic images (names, striking features of appearance, social status, philosophy of life, views on the world, relationships with other characters, experiences, emotions, what problem/problems are associated with this character). 8. The idea and pathos of the work (what the author wanted to say, the author’s view of the issues raised, what he calls for). 9. The place of the work in the writer’s work (is this work important for understanding the writer’s work, does it reflect the main themes and problems in his work, is it possible to judge the writer’s style and worldview from this work). 10. The place of the work in the history of literature (is this work significant for Russian literature and world literature, why). 11. Your impression of the work (liked/disliked, why).
I. A. Bunin's story “Cold Autumn” was written on May 3, 1944. In this work, the author writes about the theme of love and the theme of time. At first glance, it may seem that the work is written on a historical theme, but in fact, the history in the story acts only as a background, and the most important thing is the feelings of the heroine and her tragic love.
The work poses the problem of memory, the personal reflection of events in the heroine’s mind. Her memory turns out to be stronger than all historical disasters, and, despite the fact that she lived a stormy life, in which there were a lot of events and a lot of wanderings, the only thing that happened in her life was that cold autumn evening that she remembers.
Bunin's characters are presented in a dotted manner. These are not even actual bright characters, individuals, but silhouettes of people, types of that era. The story is narrated in the first person - from the perspective of the main character. The world and history in the work are shown through her eyes. The whole story is essentially her confession. Therefore, everything in the story is imbued with her personal feeling and worldview, her assessments.
During the farewell, the heroine’s fiancé with a feeling of love says to her the words: “You live, enjoy the world, then come to me.” And at the end of the work, the heroine repeats these words, but with bitter irony and as if with an unexpressed reproach: “I lived, I was glad, now I’ll come soon.”
The image of time is very important in the story. The whole story can be divided into two parts, each of which has its own method of temporal organization. The first part is a description of a cold evening and the heroine’s farewell to her groom. The second part is the rest of the heroine’s life after the death of her fiancé. The second part fits into one paragraph, despite its volume of events described in it. In the first part of the story, time has a specific character, and in the text of the work you can find the exact dates and hours of events: “June fifteenth”, “a day later”, “Peter’s Day”, etc. The heroine remembers exactly the sequence of events, and remembers the smallest details that happened to her then, what she did, what her parents and fiancé did. In the second part of the story, time is abstract. These are no longer specific hours and minutes, but 30 years that have flown by unnoticed. If in the first part of the story the amount of time captured is small - just one evening, then in the second it is a huge period of time. If in the first part of the story time passes very slowly, then in the second it flies by like an instant. The intensity of the heroine’s life and her feelings is higher in the first part of the story. About the second part of the story, according to the opinion of the heroine herself, we can say that this is an “unnecessary dream.”
Both parts are unequal in scope of reality. Objectively, more time passed in the second part, but subjectively it seems to the heroine that in the first. Also in the story, two spatial macro-images are contrasted - “home” and “foreign land”.
The space of home is a concrete, narrow, limited space, and a foreign land is an abstract, wide and open space: “Bulgaria, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Paris, Nice...”. The house is described in an exaggeratedly specific manner, with many details that emphasize its comfort and warmth: “samovar”, “hot lamp”, “small silk bag”, “golden icon”. The image of a foreign land, on the contrary, is imbued with a feeling of cold: “in winter, in a hurricane,” “hard, black labor.”
Landscape is very important in the text. This is a description of a cold evening: “What a cold autumn!.. Put on your shawl and hood... Look - between the blackening pines It’s as if a fire is rising...” Bunin uses the technique of psychological parallelism, since the landscape in this passage is a reflection of the feelings of the heroes, their experiences. This landscape also foreshadows the tragic events that will happen to the heroes. It is imbued with contrasts: red (“fire”) and black (“pine trees”). It creates a feeling of burden, melancholy, and sorrow in the characters and the reader. This landscape can also symbolize a global and personal catastrophe that will occur a little later. Time and space in the story are closely interconnected. Local, closed and specific time in the first part corresponds to local, closed space - the image of a house. And the abstract and broad time in the second part corresponds to the same image of a foreign land. Therefore, the reader can come to the conclusion that Bunin draws two opposing chronotopes in his story.
The main conflict in the story is the conflict between the tragic time and the feelings of an individual.
The plot of the story develops linearly: first there is the beginning of the action, then its development, the climax is the death of the hero. And at the end of the story there is a denouement, the heroine’s approach to death. The entire plot of Bunin's work could be unfolded on a broad novel canvas. However, the writer chooses the short story form. The plot is organized more according to the principles of a lyrical rather than a non-epic work: attention is focused on the feelings of the heroine, the intensity of her internal experiences, and not on external events.
The image of “cold autumn” is the leitmotif of the story. This is a very multifaceted image. It stands in the center of the work and is included in the title. On the one hand, this is a specific image of autumn, on the other hand, it is a symbol of tragic existence, an approaching thunderstorm, and, finally, it is a symbol of the old age of the heroine herself, her approaching death.
The genre of the work can be defined as the genre of a lyrical story, because the main thing here is not just a chain of historical events, as in an epic work, but their reflection in the human mind, as is typical for lyricism.
Bunin's story “Cold Autumn” expresses the tragic concept of love and human life. Bunin talks about the fleeting nature of happiness and love in life, that they easily collapse under the influence of external circumstances. These external circumstances, history, even turn out to be unimportant. The heroine managed to survive the death of her fiancé, but she still believes that he is waiting for her and they will see each other someday. The main idea is expressed in the last words of the heroine: “What happened in my life after all? And I answer myself: only that cold autumn evening. Was he really there once? Still, it was. And that’s all that was my life - the rest is an unnecessary dream.”
Preparing for a review of Bunin’s story “Cold Autumn”.
This work from the series “Dark Alleys” was written in May 1944. The plot as such is difficult to see: one evening and compressed events spanning 30 years. The conflict of this story: the love of the heroes and the obstacles in their path. Here love is death. The conflict between love and death begins when the word “war” is heard at the tea table. Development - the engagement of the heroes, which coincides with the father's name day. An engagement is announced - war is declared. The farewell party arrives, the hero comes to say goodbye, the wedding is postponed until spring (the heroes do not expect the war to last long). The culmination of the story is the words of the hero: “You live, enjoy the world, then come to me.” Denouement - the heroine has carried her love through 30 years, she perceives death as a quick meeting with her beloved.
Typical of Bunin's stories is that the heroes have no names. The pronouns HE and SHE imply the destinies of many. There are no portrait characteristics in the story (who else but the heroine would describe her lover, but this is not the case). In addition, the story is full of details: “eyes shining with tears” (of the heroine), “glasses” (of mother), “newspaper”, “cigarette” (of father) - which is typical for Bunin’s stories.
The central episode of the story is the farewell evening. Each of the characters at this moment protects the feelings of the other. Everyone is outwardly calm. The mask of calm disappears at the moment of farewell in the garden.
Bunin reveals the character of the main character through his speech: this young man is educated, delicate, and caring. The heroine in Bunin's portrayal is infantile. At the moment of farewell, HE reads Fet’s poems (the text of which is distorted) in order to emotionally reinforce the general atmosphere. The heroine knows nothing about poetry. In this situation, she has no time for her: a few more minutes and they will part.
This story has the same plot outline, problems, and the short duration of love, but at the same time it is not similar to any of the stories in the “Dark Alleys” series: in 22 stories the narration is told from an impersonal person, and only in “Cold Autumn” is the narration led by the heroine.
The dates are noteworthy, among which one can note the exact dates - 1914 (historical similarity - the murder of Ferdinand), that year is a periphrase, some dates - one can only guess about them (the author does not mention anything about 1917, the years of the Civil War).
The story can be divided into 2 compositional parts: before the death and after the death of the hero.
TIME
Artistic time flies with catastrophic speed, like a carousel of events.Art space
Characters
There are no relatives or friends. The girl being raised is far from the heroine of the story (“she has become completely French”).The heroine is a naive girl.
She lost everything, but saved herself: his will is her journey through torment, which she speaks about calmly, indifferently; she is no more than 50 years old, but her voice sounds like the voice of an old woman, because everything remainsthere in the past .
Artistic details
House, lamp, samovar (comfort)Glasses, newspaper (belong to loved ones)
Silk bag, golden icon (symbolizes the present)
Cape (desire to hug)
Basement, corner of Arbat and market (all of Russia has turned into a market)
There are no details related to loved ones.
The gold cord used to tie the candies and the satin paper are symbols of unreal life and tinsel.
Bast shoes, zipun - the fate of millions.
Conclusion: BEFORE – security, AFTER – universal loneliness.
The memory motif sounds from the beginning to the end of the story. Memory is the only opportunity to preserve the features of a loved one, but at the same time, memory for the heroine is a duty: “I lived, I was happy, now I’ll come back soon.”
The story “Cold Autumn” shows not only the death of the hero, but also the death of Russia, which we lost. Bunin makes the reader think about how early the horror that they had to endure fell on the souls of the heroes.
Having survived two world wars, revolution and emigration, Nobel laureate, Russian writer Ivan Bunin, at seventy-four years old, creates a cycle of stories called “Dark Alleys.” All his works are devoted to one eternal theme - love.
The collection consists of 38 stories; among the rest, a story called “Cold Autumn” stands out. Love is presented here as an invisible ideal, a feeling that the heroine carries throughout her life. The story is read in one breath, leaving behind a feeling of lost love and faith in the immortality of the soul.
Bunin himself singled out this story from the rest. The story begins as if from the middle. A noble family consisting of a father, mother and daughter celebrates the name day of the head of the family on Peter's Day. Among the guests is the future groom of the main character. The girl's father proudly announces his daughter's engagement, but a few days later everything changes: the newspaper publishes sensational news - Crown Prince Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo, the situation in the world has become tense, war is coming.
It’s late, the parents tactfully leave the young couple alone and go to bed. The lovers do not know how to calm down the excitement. For some reason, the girl wants to play solitaire (usually in anxious moments you want to do something ordinary), but the young man cannot sit still. Reciting Fet's poems, they go out into the courtyard. The culmination of this part of the story is the kiss and the words of the groom that if he is killed, let her live, enjoy life, and then come to him...
Dramatic events in the story “Cold Autumn”
If you don’t have enough time to read, check out the summary of “Cold Autumn” by Bunin. The description is short, so it will not be difficult to read it to the end.
A month later he was killed, this “strange word” constantly rings in her ears. The author is abruptly transported to the future and describes the state of the heroine thirty years later. This is a middle-aged woman who was destined to go through all the circles of hell, like many who did not accept the revolution. Like everyone else, she was quietly selling some of her property to soldiers in hats and unbuttoned overcoats (the author emphasizes this important detail), and suddenly she met a retired military man, a man of rare spiritual beauty. He was much older than her, so he soon proposed marriage.
Like many, they emigrated, dressed in peasant clothes, to Yekaterinodar and lived there for two years. After the retreat of the whites, they decided to sail to Turkey, and their husband’s nephew, his young wife and seven-month-old daughter fled with them. On the way, the husband died of typhus, the nephew and his wife joined Wrangel’s army, leaving their daughter and going missing.
The hardships of emigration
Further, the narrative (a summary of Bunin’s “Cold Autumn” is presented in the article) becomes tragic. The heroine had to work hard, wandering all over Europe, to earn a living for herself and the girl. She received nothing in gratitude. The adopted daughter turned out to be a “real Frenchwoman”: she got a job in a Parisian chocolate store, turned into a sleek young woman and completely forgot about the existence of her guardian, who had to beg in Nice. The heroine does not condemn anyone, this is noticeable in her words: at the end of the story she says that she has lived, rejoiced, and all that remains is a meeting with her beloved.
Analysis of Bunin's "Cold Autumn"
For the most part, the writer presents his works according to the usual scheme, in the third person, starting with the protagonist’s memories of tremulous moments in life, outbursts of feelings and inevitable separation.
In the story “Cold Autumn,” Bunin changes the chronology of events.
The narration is told from the perspective of the heroine, this gives the story an emotional overtones. The reader does not know when she met her fiancé, but it is already clear that there are feelings between them, so at the name day her father announces their engagement. Arriving to say goodbye to the bride's house, the hero feels that this is the last meeting. Bunin, in brief but succinct images, describes the heroes’ last moments together. The restraint of the heroes contrasts with the excitement they experienced. The words “responded indifferently,” “feigned a sigh,” “looked absentmindedly,” and so on generally characterize the aristocrats of that time, among whom it was not customary to talk excessively about feelings.
The hero understands that this is his last meeting with his beloved, so he tries to capture in his memory everything connected with his beloved, including nature. He is “sad and good”, “terrible and touching”, he is afraid of the unknown, but bravely goes to lay down his life for “his friends”.
Anthem of love
Bunin touched upon the theme of “Cold Autumn” already in adulthood, having gone through all the hardships of life and receiving international recognition.
The “Dark Alleys” cycle is a hymn to love, not only platonic, but also physical. The works in the collection are more poetry than prose. There are no impressive battle scenes in the story; Bunin considers the problem of “Cold Autumn” - a dramatic story about love - to be war, which destroys the destinies of people, creating unbearable conditions for them, and those who unleash it are responsible for the future. Russian emigrant writer Ivan Bunin writes about this.
The rest of the characters in the story "Cold Autumn"
The love drama develops against the backdrop of the First World War. Time in the story seems to slow down when it comes to the main characters. Most of the description is devoted to young people, rather, to one evening in their lives. The remaining thirty years are contained in one paragraph. The minor characters of the story “Cold Autumn” by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin are described by two or three features. The girl's father, mother, the landlady who sheltered and abused her, the main character's husband, and even her nephew and his young wife are shown in a tragic light. Another characteristic feature of the work is that no one has names.
And this is symbolic. Bunin's heroes are collective images of that time. They are not specific people, but those who suffered during the First World War, and later the Civil War.
Two main parts of the story
Analyzing Bunin’s “Cold Autumn” you understand that the story is divided into two parts: local and historical. The local part involves heroes, their problems, their close circle, and the historical part includes such names and terms as Ferdinand, World War I, European cities and countries, for example, Paris, Nice, Turkey, France, Ekaterinodar, Crimea, Novocherkassk and so on. . This technique immerses the reader in a specific era. Using the example of one family, you can deeply understand the state of people of that time. It is obvious that the writer condemns war and the destructive force it brings. It is no coincidence that the best books and films about war are written and filmed without war scenes. Thus, the film “Belorussky Station” is a film about the fate of people who survived the Great Patriotic War. The film is considered a masterpiece of Russian cinema, although it completely lacks battle scenes.
Final part
Once upon a time, the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy told Ivan Alekseevich Bunin that there is no happiness in life, there are only moments, lightnings of this feeling that should be cherished, appreciated and lived by. The hero of the story “Cold Autumn,” leaving for the front, asked his beloved to live and be happy in the world, even if he was killed. But was there happiness in her life that she saw and experienced? The heroine herself answers this question: there was only one cold autumn day when she was truly happy. The rest seems like an unnecessary dream to her. But this evening happened, the memories of it warmed her soul and gave her strength to live without despair.
No matter what happened in a person’s life, these events were there and gave experience and wisdom. Everyone deserves what they dream of. A woman with a difficult fate was happy because her life was illuminated by the lightning of memories.
During the Great Patriotic War, while in exile at that time and living at the Villa “Jeannette” in Grasse, I.A. Bunin created the best of all that he wrote - the cycle of stories “Dark Alleys”. In it, the writer made an unprecedented attempt: he wrote thirty-eight times “about the same thing” - about love. However, the result of this amazing consistency is amazing: each time Bunin talks about love in a new way, and the severity of the reported “details of feeling” is not dulled, but even intensified.
One of the best stories in the series is “Cold Autumn.” The writer wrote about him: “Cold Autumn really touches me.” It was created on May 3, 1944. This story stands out from the others. Usually Bunin narrates from a third person, into which the hero’s confession is inserted, his memory of some bright moment in his life, of his love. And in describing feelings, Bunin follows a certain pattern: meeting - sudden rapprochement - a dazzling flash of feelings - inevitable separation. And most often the writer talks about a somewhat forbidden love. Here Bunin abandons both the impersonal narrative and the usual scheme. The story is told from the perspective of the heroine, which gives the work a subjective flavor and makes it at the same time unbiased, accurate in expressing the feelings experienced by the characters. But the all-seeing author still exists: he manifests himself in the organization of the material, in the characteristics of the characters, and involuntarily we learn from him in advance about what will happen, we feel it.
The violation of the scheme is that the heroine’s story begins, as it were, from the middle. We learn nothing about how and when love was born. The heroine begins her story with the last meeting in the lives of two loving people. Before us is already a denouement, a reception not typical for “Dark Alleys”: the lovers and their parents have already agreed on the wedding, and the “inevitable separation” is due to the war in which the hero is killed. This suggests that Bunin in this story writes not only about love.
The plot of the work is quite simple. All events are presented sequentially, one after another. The story opens with an extremely brief exposition: here we learn about the time when the main events took place, a little about the characters in the story. The plot is set by the murder of Ferdinand and the moment when the heroine’s father brings newspapers to the house and reports the beginning of the war. Very smoothly, Bunin brings us to the denouement, which is contained in one sentence:
They killed him (what a strange word!) a month later, in Galicia.
The subsequent narration is already an epilogue (a story about the narrator’s future life): time passes, the heroine’s parents pass away, she lives in Moscow, gets married, and moves to Yekaterinodar. After the death of her husband, she wanders around Europe with the daughter of his nephew, who, together with his wife, drove off to Wrangel and went missing. And now, when her story is told, she lives alone in Nice, remembering that cold autumn evening.
The time frame in the work as a whole is preserved. There is only one place where the chronology is disrupted. In general, the internal time of the story can be divided into three groups: “past first” (cold autumn), “past second” (thirty years of later life) and present (living in Nice, time of storytelling). "The First Past" ends with the message of the hero's death. Here time seems to stop and we are transported to the present:
And now thirty years have passed since then.
At this point, the story is divided into two parts, sharply opposed to each other: a cold autumn evening and “life without him,” which seemed so impossible. Then the chronology of time is restored. And the words of the hero “You live, enjoy the world, then come to me...” at the end of the story, as if returning us to that cold autumn, which is spoken of at the beginning.
Another feature of time in “Cold Autumn” is that not all the events that form the plot basis of the work are covered in equal detail. More than half of the story is occupied by the vicissitudes of one evening, while the events of thirty years of life are listed in one paragraph. When the heroine talks about an autumn evening, time seems to slow down. The reader, along with the characters, is immersed in a state of half-asleep, every breath, every rustle is heard. Time seems to be suffocating.
The space of the story combines two planes: local (heroes and their close circle) and historical and geographical background (Ferdinand, Wrangel, Sarajevo, the First World War, cities and countries of Europe, Ekaterinodar, Novocherkassk, etc.). Thanks to this, the space of the story expands to the limits of the world. At the same time, the historical and geographical background is not only a background, it is not just decoration. All of the named historical, cultural and geographical realities are directly related to the characters in the story and what is happening in their lives. The love drama takes place against the backdrop of the First World War, or rather its beginning. Moreover, it is the cause of the ongoing tragedy:
A lot of people came to us on Peter's Day - it was my father's name day, and at dinner he was announced as my fiancé. But on July 19, Germany declared war on Russia...
Bunin's condemnation of the war is obvious. The writer seems to be telling us that this world tragedy is at the same time a general tragedy of love, because it destroys it, hundreds of people suffer from the fact that the war has begun and precisely for the reason that loved ones are separated by it, often forever. This is also confirmed by the fact that Bunin in every possible way draws our attention to the typicality of this situation. This is often stated directly:
I was also engaged in trade, selling, like many sold then...
After, like many wherever I wandered with her!..
There are few characters here, as in any story: the hero, the heroine, her father and mother, her husband and his nephew with his wife and daughter. None of them have names! This confirms the idea expressed above: they are not specific people, they are one of those who suffered first from the First World War, and then from the civil war.
To convey the internal state of the characters, “secret psychologism” is used. Very often Bunin uses words with the meaning of indifference, calmness: “insignificant”, “exaggeratedly calm” words, “feigned simplicity”, “looked absentmindedly”, “sighed lightly”, “responded indifferently” and others. This reveals Bunin's subtle psychologism. The heroes try to hide their excitement, which is growing every minute. We are witnessing a great tragedy. There is silence all around, but it is dead. Everyone understands and feels that this is their last meeting, this evening - and this will never happen again, nothing will happen next. This makes it both “touching and creepy”, “sad and good”. The hero is almost sure that he will never return to this house, which is why he is so sensitive to everything that happens around him: he notices that “the windows of the house shine very specially, like autumn,” the sparkle of her eyes, “the very winter air.” He walks from corner to corner, she decided to play solitaire. The conversation doesn't go well. Emotional tragedy reaches its climax.
The landscape also has a dramatic tone. Approaching the balcony door, the heroine sees how “ice stars” sparkle “brightly and sharply” “in the garden, in the black sky”; going out into the garden - “in the brightening sky there are black branches, showered with minerally shining stars.” On the morning of his departure, everything around is joyful, sunny, sparkling with frost on the grass. And the house remains empty - forever. And one senses an “amazing incompatibility” between them (the characters in the story) and the nature around them. It is no coincidence that the pines from Fet’s poem, which the hero recalls, become “blackening” (For Fet – “dormant”). Bunin condemns the war. I love it. It disrupts the natural order of things, destroys the connections between man and nature, makes the heart blacken and kills love.
But this is not the most important thing in the story “Cold Autumn”.
Leo Tolstoy once said to Bunin: “There is no happiness in life, there are only lightnings of it - appreciate them, live by them.” The hero, leaving for the front, asked the heroine to live and be happy in the world (if he was killed). Was there joy in her life? She herself answers this question: there was “only that cold autumn evening,” and that’s all, “the rest is an unnecessary dream.” And yet this evening “still happened.” And the past years of her life, in spite of everything, seem to her “that magical, incomprehensible, incomprehensible neither to the mind nor to the heart, which is called the past.” That painfully anxious “cold autumn” was the very dawn of happiness that Tolstoy advised to appreciate.
Whatever happened in a person’s life, it “still happened”; It is precisely this that is the magical past; it is precisely this that the memory preserves memories of.