Bunin, "Mitin Love": a summary of chapters and analysis

The story of IA Bunin's "Mitya's Love" caused contradictory assessments of the writer's contemporaries. The description of the experiences of a person who met his first love and irretrievably lost it, someone perceived as a revelation, and someone - as a chronicle of growing and not finding a way out of lust. The reader is free to assess the novel "Mitin's Love". A brief outline and analysis of this work will be outlined in this article.

main characters

Almost entirely from the description of the inner experiences of the protagonist and the pictures of nature that echo with them, the story of the story "Mitya's love" is composed. The summary of the chapters in this case will be difficult to convey. Therefore, let us begin with the characteristics of the main characters in the story. Mitya is a tall, lean young man with black, eternally slightly expanded "Byzantine" eyes. He is at the age when the childish features are still slipping, although the masculinity, albeit uncertainly, begins to assert itself. Mitya does everything with a boyish awkwardness. In his native village he is called the "greyhound". His beloved, Katya, is a pretty little creature with a pretty pretty face and manners, in which femininity also interferes with childish immediacy. The girl attends a private theater studio and dreams of becoming an actress. Her feelings for Mitya are shallow, but sincere. However, the fake world of bohemia attracts Katenka with irresistible force.

The main themes of the work

The narrative about the death and life of the student covers the period from December (time to get to know Katya) until the middle of summer. About the past of Mitya the reader can learn only from the fragmentary memories of the hero. All-embracing love and death are the two main themes that rise in the story. Bunin described the most painful and beautiful time in the life of the young man, which resulted in his unexpected suicide. The feelings of the young man - the main motive of the work. The writer sets out a detailed psychological analysis. Mitya's love is an independent "hero" of the story. She was born almost with him. The first vague feelings the young man experienced in infancy to the nurse caring for him. Then followed a series of fleeting passions charming young ladies of different ages. Attraction to a nice schoolgirl living in the neighborhood, lasted a little longer. Then there were dizzy sensations on school balls. In the student body, Mitya met Katya and in her person found the material embodiment of her unclear dreams. For the main character, love is the essence of existence. It is no accident that Mitya's life turned out to be so short. She broke off with a lost hope for mutual feelings.

Lovers in Moscow

March 9 is the last day when Mitya felt happy in Moscow. Then Katya informed him that she loved him, despite her youthful awkwardness, but she made it clear that she would never leave art for him. This offended the guy who sustained a strong aversion to the artistic bohemia surrounding her beloved. Mitya met Katya in December. And almost immediately was conquered by her. January and February were for him in the "dope kisses" and a whirlwind of inexpressible happiness. However, even then there appeared the harbingers of Mitya's mental disorder. It began to seem to him that there were two Katies: one - the one he insistently wanted, the other - "genuine and ordinary", not at all like the first. In early spring, the young man first begins to feel the inner carelessness of his beloved. It was at this time that Mitya felt painful jealousy. This feeling almost replaced his love. They were with Katya in a fairly close relationship, but have not yet crossed the line of what is permissible. Everything that seemed to Mitya the embodiment of charm and chastity, turned for him into disgusting shamelessness when he represents another person in his place.

Day of the exam

This is the key moment in the story "Mitya Love." Bunin demonstrates here his attitude towards decadent art. As in many other works of the writer, significant events in the life of heroes occur during Lent. For the main character, this day was a confirmation of his tormenting suspicions. In a white dress, like a bride, which again underscores the ambiguity of the situation, Katya recites a poem "A girl sang in a church choir." She does this, according to Mitya, false and strained (does not speak, but constantly exclaims). Director of the school - "a self-satisfied actor with impassive and sad eyes" - only for the mind makes Kate remarks quiet, but audible to the whole audience in a voice. He acts like he has special rights to a girl. This person is known for the fact that he annually seduces one of his pupils and takes her with him to the sea. The torments of jealousy become intolerable for Mitya. On that day, he strongly quarrels with his beloved. At the reproach of the girl that he loves her body, and not the soul, the guy does not know what to say. Mitya can not determine what exactly brings him to Katya to a half-unconscious state, only knows that this feeling absorbs him completely.

Departure of Mitya

After the examinations, Katya completely changed. They were constantly late and shortened their dates. Her passion seemed feigned. The guy constantly tormented herself and the girl with different suspicions and finally decided to leave. Katya immediately became more attentive, and once she even cried. Mitya still began to sit out at her on Kislovka until two in the morning. The girl became tender and caring, even helped him to choose road belts, as if he were already his wife. Lovers agreed to meet in the summer in the Crimea, in Miskhor. Despite his early separation, Mitya felt almost happy. Before leaving, he looked at a friend, a student of Protasov. He called Mitya "Werther from Tambov" and said that the light on Katya did not come together with a wedge. The comrade wished the lover in the heat of his soul's pains "not to roll his neck". Before leaving the house, Mitya hears the song "Azra", which tells about love and death. She seems to foretell the events that will soon happen to him.

Parting

Mitya bids farewell to Katya on the platform before the train. She came before him and waited, shining with beauty and freshness amid the ugly and huge crowd. At parting, the young man fell to the glove of his beloved. Her scent accompanied him all the way. This is a very important point in the story "Mitin love." Bunin follows the laws of melodic composition and interlaces the opposite leitmotifs: the fragrance of love (gloves) is accompanied in the work by the smell of death (Mitya recalled the "terrible, nasty, sweetish" spirit that lived in his home after his father's death).

The Flesh Thickening

In his native village, the young man seems to be relieved of the suspicions that torment him. However, immediately there is a new topic in the story "Mitin Love." It is the motive of love, devoid of spiritual component. As Mitya moves away from Katya, he begins to embrace pure lust. He is fascinated by the washing window by a day-laborer from the village, the maid Parasha, the girls Sonya and Glasha who work in the garden and flirt with him. According to Bunin, the theme of the village, proximity to land, soil, natural nature is connected with longing and sensuality. Therefore, all the inhabitants of the village, one way or another, take part in the seduction of the main character of the story "Mitya Love." The summary and analysis of the work testify to this.

Longing for the beloved

The only way to combat the carnal temptation is to feel Katya. Mother Mitya - Olga Petrovna - is busy all the time with her household. Brother Kostya and sister Anya have not yet arrived from the gymnasium. The student is absorbed in his thoughts about his beloved. He writes her fervent messages, looks at her photo. However, Katya, contrary to her promises, writes very rarely. The beauty and charm of every new summer day seem to Mitya meaningless without a lover. He remembers their acquaintance, winter, concert. Now, even with Katya's tape, hidden in a closet, he thinks with a shudder. Mitya goes to the post office every day to speed up the receipt of the letter. Once he decides to himself that if in a week he does not receive news from his beloved - he will shoot himself. In separation from Katya, Mitya's love becomes stronger and more obsessive. The brief content of the Bunin story, in such a shortened version, can not convey the full force of desperation that seized the young man.

Temptation

It was at the moment when the young man was completely depressed that the elder invited him to have some fun for a small reward. First, Mitya refuses. Everywhere - in the surrounding beauty of nature, dreams, dreams - he imagines his beloved. It is not only in reality. When the elder voices his proposal again, the student suddenly agrees. Minte Alenka is invited to conduct the project. The peasant characterizes it as a poisonous, young and ... a married woman. Her husband works in the mines, Alenka herself also likes to earn some money. A young man looks at the girl and finds in it much in common with Katya. She, too, is small in height, mobile, she also has "a woman, mixed with something childish." The guy sees the youngster as she passes him, "wagging backwards," on the way to the Temple. He understands that you can not look at a woman in a church. The youth is still able to stop the sense of sin. But he can not refrain from taking a reckless step. The story "Mitin's Love," a summary, the analysis of which is set forth in this article, shows us an example of substituting an imaginary object of lust for the real. But how will this desperate attempt at self-forgetfulness end? This is the subject of discussion.

The Fall

"Mitya's love" is a story about the extent to which despair can bring a young, fragile soul. The next evening the headman brings Mitya to visit Alenka's father-in-law, from whom she resides. While the men are talking, the young man meets a woman in the woods and negotiates with her about a date in the hut. At night, Mitya dreams that he is hanging over a huge, poorly lit abyss. The whole next day the guy pursues the signs of death: then he imagines that in his house "terribly empty", then Antares (a star from the constellation of Scorpio) is clearly seen in the darkening sky, etc. In the evening he comes to the hut. After a while, Alenka appears. The guy puts her rumpled five-ruble mark. He embraces a terrible bodily desire, not burdened by any spiritual anguish. However, what happened struck Mitya with its mundane and mundane nature. No miracle happened. The author's opinion that bodily languor, not inspired by love, leads a person to moral collapse, is demonstrated in the story "Mitya's Love". The brief content of the Bunin story is drawing to its logical conclusion.

The tragic ending

On the same week, on Saturday, it rains all day. Mitya wanders in tears in the garden and all the time re-reading the letter received on the eve of Katya. In it, the girl reports that she is leaving for the Crimea with the director. Towards evening a strong thunder strikes Mitya into the house. He climbs into his room through the window, locked himself from the inside tightly and in the half-sleep sees in the long corridor a young nurse carrying a child with a white and big face. So the memories of a distant childhood return to the boy. Nurse suddenly turns out to be Katya. The girl hides the kid in the drawer of the chest. A shaved man in a tuxedo enters the room. This is the director with whom Mitya was changed by her beloved. The boy imagines that he sees the girl giving herself to this hateful person. The young man suddenly comes to his senses. The feeling of unbearable pain pierces his whole being. Mitya understands that there will never be a return to what was "like paradise". He takes the revolver out of the box and, "sighing joyfully," kills himself with pleasure. This is the sad ending of the story "Mitya's Love". The brief content of this work will help to make only a remote impression of its true artistic value.

Estimates of the story

RM Rilke described the main cause of the tragedy, described in the story "Mitin love". The content of the work is the story of a young man who has lost the ability to wait for the future development of events due to unbearable circumstances that he fell into. He simply did not believe that the suffering that fell on his head could be followed by something else, a lighter and more positive. Perhaps, this is the most perceptive evaluation of the work "Mitin love". A brief description of the events and heroes of the tragedy can not convey the entire psychological accuracy with which Bunin describes the approach of the inevitable end.

As already mentioned above, the story was awarded a variety of assessments. Z. Gippius put this work on a par with "The Suffering of a Young Werther", but saw in the experiences of the main character only "grimacing Lust with white eyes." MV Karamzin (poetess) described the "sacrament of love" in the work of Budin as "a miracle of grace." In his article "Notes on Tolstoy: Bunin and Tolstoy" RM Bitsilli offers his own analysis. "Mitya's love" in the interpretation of the critic echoes the unfinished story "Devil" by Leo Tolstoy.

Prototype of the main character

Bunin claimed that he used the story of the "fall" of his nephew. Names the prototype - VN Muromtsev-Bunin. It testifies that in the story it is a question of the unfortunate novel of Nikolai Pusheshnikov, a close relative of the writer. V. Yanovsky in his memoirs "Fields of the Champs Elysees" says that the main character of the story is written off from a real person. V. Nabokov in a letter to Shakhovskaya indicates that Bunin wrote a novel inspired by the image of Misha Shakhovsky. However, in reality, the young man was able to restrain himself from the fateful step. He became a monk and subsequently became an outstanding priest.

Conclusion

That's such a difficult, exciting and tragic story is "Mitya's love." The summary of the chapters gives a more complete picture of this story. The dynamics of Mitya's experiences, his longing and pain in contrast with the splendor of the surrounding nature, amazes the reader's imagination. We strongly recommend that you read this work in the original.