All symbolic images to the gentleman from San Francisco. Mr. from San Francisco: main characters, analysis of the work, problems
“Mr. from San Francisco” is one of the most famous stories Russian prose writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. It was published in 1915 and has long become a textbook; it is taught in schools and universities. Behind the apparent simplicity of this work lies deep meanings and issues that never lose relevance.
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History of creation and plot of the story
According to Bunin himself, the inspiration for writing “Mr...” was Thomas Mann’s story “Death in Venice.” At that time, Ivan Alekseevich had not read the work of his German colleague, but only knew that in it an American was dying on the island of Capri. So “The Mister from San Francisco” and “Death in Venice” are in no way connected, except perhaps by a good idea.
In the story, a certain gentleman from San Francisco, together with his wife and young daughter, set off on a long journey from the New World to the Old World. The gentleman worked all his life and made a substantial fortune. Now, like all people of his status, he can afford a well-deserved rest. The family is sailing on a luxury ship called Atlantis. The ship is more like a luxury mobile hotel, where an eternal holiday lasts and everything works in order to bring pleasure to its obscenely rich passengers.
The first tourist point on the route of our travelers is Naples, which greets them unfavorably - the weather in the city is disgusting. Soon the gentleman from San Francisco leaves the city to go to the shores of sunny Capri. However, there, in the cozy reading room of a fashionable hotel, unexpected death from an attack awaits him. The gentleman is hastily transferred to the cheapest room (so as not to spoil the reputation of the hotel) and in a blind box in the hold of the Atlantis, he is sent home to San Francisco.
Main characters: characteristics of images
Mister from San Francisco
We get to know the gentleman from San Francisco from the first pages of the story, because he is the central character of the work. Surprisingly, the author does not honor his hero with a name. Throughout the entire narrative, he remains “Mister” or “Mr.” Why? The writer honestly admits this to his reader - this faceless man is “in his desire to buy the delights of real life with his existing wealth.”
Before we hang labels, let's get to know this gentleman better. What if he's not so bad? So, our hero worked hard all his life (“the Chinese, whom he hired thousands of to work for him, knew this well”). He turned 58 years old and now he has every financial and moral right to arrange for himself (and his family part-time) great holiday.
“Until this time, he did not live, but only existed, although very well, but still pinning all his hopes on the future.”
Describing the appearance of his nameless master, Bunin, who was distinguished by his ability to notice individual features in everyone, for some reason does not find anything special in this man. He casually draws his portrait - “dry, short, poorly cut, but tightly sewn... a yellowish face with a trimmed silver mustache... large teeth... a strong bald head.” It seems that behind this crude “ammunition”, which is given out along with a solid fortune, it is difficult to discern the thoughts and feelings of a person, and, perhaps, everything sensual simply sours in such storage conditions.
With a closer acquaintance with the gentleman, we still learn little about him. We know that he wears elegant, expensive suits with suffocating collars, we know that at dinner at “Antlantis” he eats his fill, smokes red-hot with cigars and gets drunk on liqueurs, and this brings pleasure, but essentially we know nothing more.
It’s amazing, but during the entire long journey on the ship and stay in Naples, not a single enthusiastic exclamation sounded from the gentleman’s lips; he does not admire anything, is not surprised by anything, does not reason about anything. The trip brings him a lot of inconvenience, but he cannot not go, because this is what all people of his rank do. That’s how it’s supposed to be - first Italy, then France, Spain, Greece, certainly Egypt and the British Isles, on the way back exotic Japan...
Exhausted by seasickness, he sails to the island of Capri (an obligatory point on the route of any self-respecting tourist). In a luxurious room at the best hotel on the island, a gentleman from San Francisco constantly says “Oh, this is terrible!”, without even trying to understand what exactly is terrible. The pricks of cufflinks, the stuffiness of a starched collar, naughty gouty fingers... I’d rather go to the reading room and drink local wine, all respected tourists certainly drink it.
And having reached his “mecca” in the hotel reading room, the gentleman from San Francisco dies, but we don’t feel sorry for him. No, no, we don’t want righteous reprisal, we simply don’t care, as if a chair breaks. We wouldn't shed tears over the chair.
In pursuit of wealth, this deeply limited man did not know how to manage money, and therefore bought what society imposed on him - uncomfortable clothes, unnecessary travel, even the daily routine according to which all travelers were obliged to rest. Early rise, first breakfast, walk along the deck or “enjoying” the sights of the city, second breakfast, voluntary-forced sleep (everyone should be tired at this time!), getting ready and the long-awaited dinner, plentiful, satisfying, drunk. This is what the imaginary “freedom” of a rich man from the New World looks like.
Master's wife
The gentleman's wife from San Francisco, alas, also has no name. The author calls her “Mrs.” and characterizes her as “a large, broad and calm woman.” She, like a faceless shadow, follows her wealthy husband, walks along the deck, has breakfast, dinner, and “enjoys” the sights. The writer admits that she is not very impressionable, but, like all older American women, she is a passionate traveler... At least she is supposed to be one.
The only emotional outburst occurs after the death of a spouse. The Mrs. is indignant that the hotel manager refuses to place the body of the deceased in expensive rooms and leaves him to “spend the night” in a wretched, damp room. And not a word about the loss of their spouse, they have lost respect, status - that’s what occupies the unhappy woman.
Master's daughter
This sweet miss does not evoke negative emotions. She is not capricious, not arrogant, not talkative; on the contrary, she is very reserved and shy.
“Tall, thin, with magnificent hair, perfectly styled, with aromatic breath from violet cakes and with the most delicate pink pimples near the lips and between the shoulder blades.”
At first glance, the author is favorable to this lovely person, but he does not even give his daughter a name, because again there is nothing individual about her. Remember the episode when she is in awe, talking on board the Atlantis with the crown prince, who was traveling incognito. Everyone, of course, knew that this was an oriental prince and knew how fabulously rich he was. The young miss went crazy with excitement when he paid attention to her, she may even have fallen in love with him. Meanwhile, the eastern prince was not at all good-looking - small, like a boy, a thin face with tight dark skin, a sparse mustache, an unattractive European outfit (after all, he was traveling incognito!). You're supposed to fall in love with a prince, even if he's a complete freak.
Other characters
As a contrast to our cold trio, the author intersperses descriptions of characters from the people. This is the boatman Lorenzo (“a carefree reveler and a handsome man”), and two highlanders with bagpipes at the ready, and simple Italians meeting the boat from the shore. All of them are inhabitants of a joyful, cheerful, beautiful country, they are her masters, her sweat and blood. They do not have countless fortunes, tight collars and social duties, but in their poverty they are richer than all the gentlemen from San Francisco, their cold wives and gentle daughters combined.
The gentleman from San Francisco understands this on some subconscious, intuitive level... and hates all these “garlic-smelling people,” because he can’t just run barefoot along the shore - he has a second breakfast on schedule.
Analysis of the work
The story can be roughly divided into two unequal parts - before and after the death of the gentleman from San Francisco. We are witnessing a vibrant metamorphosis that has occurred in literally everything. How suddenly the money and status of this man, this self-proclaimed ruler of life, depreciated. The hotel manager, who just a few hours ago was smiling sweetly in front of a wealthy guest, now allows himself undisguised familiarity in relation to Mrs., Miss and the deceased Mr. Now this is not an honored guest who will leave a substantial sum at the box office, but just a corpse that risks casting a shadow on the high-society hotel.
With expressive strokes, Bunin paints the chilling indifference of everyone around to the death of a person, starting from the guests, whose evening is now overshadowed, and ending with his wife and daughter, whose journey is hopelessly ruined. Fierce selfishness and coldness - everyone thinks only about themselves.
The ship Atlantis becomes a generalized allegory of this thoroughly false bourgeois society. It is also divided into classes by its decks. In luxurious halls, rich people with their companions and families have fun and get drunk, and in the holds, those whom representatives of high society do not even consider to be people work until they sweat. But the world of money and lack of spirituality is doomed, which is why the author calls his allegory ship in honor of the sunken continent “Atlantis”.
Problems of the work
In the story “Mr. from San Francisco,” Ivan Bunin raises the following questions:
- What is the true importance of money in life?
- Is it possible to buy joy and happiness?
- Is it worth enduring constant deprivation for the sake of an illusory reward?
- Who is freer: the rich or the poor?
- What is the purpose of man in this world?
The last question is especially interesting to discuss. It is certainly not new - many writers have thought about the meaning of human existence. Bunin does not go into complex philosophy, his conclusion is simple - a person must live in such a way as to leave a mark behind him. Whether these are works of art, reforms in the lives of millions, or bright memories in the hearts of loved ones, does not matter. The gentleman from San Francisco left nothing behind; no one will sincerely mourn him, not even his wife and daughter.
Place in literature: Literature of the 20th century → Russian literature of the 20th century → The works of Ivan Bunin → The story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” (1915).
We also recommend that you familiarize yourself with the work Clean Monday. Ivan Bunin considered this work his best work.
Mr. from San Francisco: main characters, analysis of the work, problems
5 (100%) 2 votesThe story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is the most famous of the writer’s works. The story is striking in the beauty of its descriptions; we smell cigars in the cabin of the ship and, in contrast, the pungent smell of oil and iron in the engine room; we see clear skies in Capri and rain in Naples. Motive structure of the story. What is she wearing? Epigraph of a story from the Apocalypse. The motive of the story begins with this epigraph - the motive of death, death. It later appears in the name of the giant ship - "Atlantis", the lost mythological continent - thus confirming the imminent death of the steamship. The main event of the story is the death of the gentleman from San Francisco, quick and sudden, in one hour. From the very beginning he is surrounded by details that foreshadow or resemble death. First, he is going to go to Rome to listen to the Catholic prayer of repentance there (it is read before death), then the steamship Atlantis, which is a dual symbol in the story: on the one hand, a symbol of a new civilization, where power is determined by wealth and pride, that is that which destroyed Babylon. Therefore the ship must sink. On the other hand, “Atlantis” is the personification of heaven and hell (a “modernized” paradise - waves of spicy smoke, radiance of light), then the engine room is the underworld (giant furnaces, piles of coal, with the roar of being thrown “into fiery hell”). The hero of the story “the crown prince” is very interesting; he has a dead appearance. The prince is a mummy. The ship is carrying the mummy of a prince from Asia. In 1912, the Titanic steamship, which was carrying, in addition to a thousand passengers, the mummy of the pharaoh, sank. The ship died precisely because this mummy was loaded carelessly, without observing the rituals. Chronology in the story. A gentleman and his family are going to Europe at Christmas, in early December. The family spends a couple of weeks in Naples, then moves to Capri, where the father of the family dies. His death occurs on the twentieth of the month, two or three days before the Nativity of Christ. This is not a random detail. The story has two chronological lines. The first is “mechanical” - the family of a gentleman from San Francisco, ship passengers, and hotel guests live here. They all live according to a strict schedule. Bunin constantly emphasizes this. In the episode that describes the life of passengers on a ship, each phrase begins with a definition of time. The second line is “random”; time in it is divided into seasons, Christian holidays, and time of day. There is no strict daily routine here. All the heroes of this line have names: the fisherman Lorenzo, the bellhop Luigi. And the heroes of the “mechanical” line do not have names. This detail makes it possible to see something new in the composition of the story: the death of the gentleman from San Francisco, who was initially discussed as the main character, is now seen as an ordinary incident. It is impossible to see where the main and secondary characters have swapped places. The chronological motif is the correlation of death and birth: the gentleman from San Francisco dies - Christ is born. This is the ratio of old and new. The narrative constantly emphasizes that the gentleman from San Francisco belongs to a new civilization created by “the pride of a New Man with an old heart.” The new civilization lives strictly according to a schedule. In the middle of the story, the main and minor characters. The main setting becomes the life of Capri, the elements of real existence, invading the breaks in the linear plot. This life is subordinated to another time and space. There is no place in it for schedules and routes, numerical sequences and rationalism, and therefore there is no predictability and “understandability” for the children of the New Civilization. The author's view counts time in its own way: not in hours and minutes, but in historical eras, millennia, that is, it opens time and space to the utmost before us. The church in Naples is described in many ways. The same description contains two different points of view. The first half of the phrase on behalf of the gentleman from San Francisco is “inspection of cold churches, the same thing everywhere,” then the author’s voice: “a majestic entrance, closed with a leather curtain - there is emptiness, silence inside.” In general, a “huge void,” that is, an abyss, is what the gentleman from San Francisco will find after death.
So, there are two main chronological motifs in the story: the relationship between birth and death, the birth of the Savior of the old world and the death of one of the representatives of the artificial new world, and the existence of two time lines - mechanical and genuine. Topography. This motif is connected with the chronology of the story, with Christmas, which is the link between the old and the new. A gentleman's family from San Francisco comes to Capri. The fate of the name of this city is very interesting. The city is named after Francis of Assisi (real name - Giovanno Bernardone), who was born and died in Assisi, a city located next to Capri. Francis preached evangelical poverty and even created a society of minorites (lesser brothers). A city in America, one of the richest cities, is named after Francis, as if by irony of fate. And the gentleman himself - a rich man, a representative of the new world - arrives from a city named after the preacher of poverty, to the homeland of this preacher. A gentleman from San Francisco ends up in Capri. In passing, Bunin tells the legend of Tiberius, the Roman Caesar: There lived on this island a crazy man, always drunk, an old man completely confused in his dirty deeds, who for some reason took power over millions of people.” Both old men (Tiberius and the gentleman from San Francisco), both given over to the vice of fornication, but inside both are absolutely empty, dead. The emptiness of the gentleman from San Francisco: “What was I thinking about that evening? He was very hungry." Only in a dream does he touch real life (a dream about a hotel owner and one of the legends about Tiberius): “A few days before his death, he (Tiberius) saw in a dream a statue of Apollo Temenitsky, a huge and marvelous work.” But a strange dream they immediately forget. “In his soul for a long time there was not even a mustard seed, or any so-called mystical feelings.” The ironic “so-called” characterizes the new world technical civilization, to which the gentleman from San Francisco belongs, a world completely deaf to the mystery of life, but confident in its absolute knowledge of life, without religion, where the place of God was taken by an idol, a ship captain, confident in his power over the ocean, and the place of a temple - restaurant. This world is directed towards a future that is abstract. The gentleman from San Francisco lived his whole life in intense and meaningless work, saving for the future " real life"and all the pleasures. And just at the moment when he finally decides to enjoy life, death overtakes him. Moreover, death triumphs already in life, for the very life of the rich passengers of a luxurious ocean steamer is terrible, like death, it is unnatural and meaningless. The story ends with terrible material details of the earthly life of the corpse and the figure of the Devil, “huge as a cliff,” watching from the rocks of Gibraltar a passing steamship (the real and mystical continent of Atlantis was located and sank near Gibraltar). And yet the gentleman from San Francisco died, his wife and daughter left, taking away the terrible soda box, and the island became bright and sunny again. People became happy again - the Abruzzese shepherds singing songs of praise to the Virgin Mary and the newborn Christ, the fisherman Lorenzo, the bellhop Luigi - all those who live a true worldview, without trying to create a new civilization and without contradicting the laws laid down by nature. Death here, thus, unexpectedly turns out to be an “accomplice” of the beautiful and a rival of the ruthless destroyer of time.
1) Title of the story
itself is symbolic. Master is a man who has reached great heights, is rich, enjoys life, does something for himself every year. The city of San Francisco is a “golden” place, a city inhabited by immoral people who are accustomed to achieving their goals by any means necessary and who do not value others who are less rich or who do not occupy a worthy, honorable place in high society.
The symbol is
2) steamship "Atlantis",
huge, luxurious, comfortable. His fate must correspond to that of the famous sunken Atlantis, whose inhabitants were as immoral as the inhabitants of San Francisco.
3) Couple in love,
hired by Captain Lloyd to “play love for good money”, symbolizes the atmosphere of artificial life, where everything is bought and sold - if only there was money.
4)Weather in December:
dull, deceptive, gray, rainy, damp and dirty - symbolizes the inner state of the souls of the characters in the story, especially the main character - the Gentleman from San Francisco.
5) The behavior of the German in the reading room
is also a symbol. Instead of helping a man who felt bad, who was dying, the German “burst out of the reading room screaming, he alarmed the whole house, the whole dining room.” He is the personification dead people morally, soulless, thinking only about themselves.
The same symbolizes
6) people who shunned the family of the deceased Mr. from San Francisco,
not sympathetic, in some sense even cruel towards his wife and daughter, as well as
7) owner,
who “shrugged his shoulders in impotent and decent irritation, feeling guiltlessly guilty, assuring everyone that he perfectly understood “how unpleasant this is,” and giving his word that he would take “all measures in his power” to eliminate the trouble.”
8)Devil
symbolizes something mystical, terrible, most likely, which will befall all these immoral people in the future, plunging them into the abyss of hell, the symbol of which was
9) black hold,
where the dead and useless gentleman from San Francisco lay.
“The Mister from San Francisco” is a philosophical story-parable about man’s place in the world, about the relationship between man and the world around him. According to Bunin, a person cannot resist the upheavals of the world, cannot resist the flow of life that carries him like a river carries a sliver. This worldview was expressed in the philosophical idea of the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”: man is mortal, and (as Bulgakov’s Woland claims) suddenly mortal, therefore human claims to dominance in nature, to understanding the laws of nature are groundless. All the wonderful scientific and technical achievements of modern man do not save him from death. In that eternal tragedy life: a person is born to die.
The story contains symbolic details, thanks to which the story of the death of an individual becomes a philosophical parable about the death of an entire society, ruled by gentlemen like the main character. Of course, the image of the main character is symbolic, although it cannot be called a detail of Bunin’s story. The backstory of the gentleman from San Francisco is outlined in a few sentences in the very general view, he is not in the story detailed portrait, his name is never mentioned. Thus, main character is typical actor parables: he is not so much a specific person as a type-symbol of a certain social class and moral behavior.
In a parable, the details of the narrative are of exceptional importance: a picture of nature or a thing is mentioned only when necessary, the action takes place without decoration. Bunin breaks these rules of the parable genre and uses one bright detail after another, realizing his artistic principle subject representation. In the story, among various details, repeating details appear that attract the reader’s attention and turn into symbols (“Atlantis,” its captain, the ocean, a couple of young people in love). These repeating details are symbolic simply because they embody the general in the individual.
The epigraph from the Bible: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!”, according to the author’s plan, set the tone for the story. Combining a verse from the Apocalypse with an image modern heroes and circumstances modern life already sets the reader in a philosophical mood. Babylon in the Bible is not just Big city, this is a city-symbol of vile sin, various vices (for example, the Tower of Babel is a symbol of human pride), because of them, according to the Bible, the city died, conquered and destroyed by the Assyrians.
In the story, Bunin draws in detail the modern steamship Atlantis, which looks like a city. The ship in the waves of the Atlantic becomes for the writer a symbol of modern society. In the underwater belly of the ship there are huge fireboxes and an engine room. Here, in inhumane conditions- in the roar, in the hellish heat and stuffiness - the stokers and mechanics work, thanks to them the ship sails across the ocean. On the lower decks there are various service spaces: kitchens, pantries, wine cellars, laundries, etc. Sailors, service personnel and poor passengers live here. But on the upper deck there is a select society (about fifty people in total), who enjoy a luxurious life and unimaginable comfort, because these people are the “masters of life.” The ship (“modern Babylon”) is named symbolically - after the name of a rich, densely populated country, which in an instant was swept away by the waves of the ocean and disappeared without a trace. Thus, a logical connection is established between the biblical Babylon and the semi-legendary Atlantis: both powerful, prosperous states are perishing, and the ship, symbolizing an unjust society and named so significantly, also risks perishing every minute in the raging ocean. Among the ocean's turbulent waves, a huge ship looks like a fragile little vessel that cannot resist the elements. It is not for nothing that the Devil is watching from the rocks of Gibraltar after the steamship leaving for the American shores (it is no coincidence that the author wrote this word with a capital letter). This is how it appears in the story philosophical idea Bunin about the powerlessness of man before nature, incomprehensible to the human mind.
The ocean becomes symbolic at the end of the story. The storm is described as a global catastrophe: in the whistle of the wind, the author hears a “funeral mass” for the former “master of life” and all modern civilization; the mournful blackness of the waves is emphasized by white shreds of foam on the crests.
The image of the ship captain, whom the author compares with a pagan god at the beginning and end of the story, is symbolic. By appearance this man really looks like an idol: red-haired, monstrously large and heavy, in a naval uniform with wide gold stripes. He, as befits God, lives in the captain's cabin - highest point ship, where passengers are prohibited from entering, he is rarely shown in public, but the passengers unconditionally believe in his power and knowledge. The captain himself, being human after all, feels very insecure in the raging ocean and relies on the telegraph apparatus standing in the next cabin-radio room.
At the beginning and at the end of the story, a couple in love appears, who attract the attention of the bored passengers of the Atlantis by the fact that they do not hide their love and their feelings. But only the captain knows that the happy appearance of these young people is a deception, for the couple “breaks the comedy”: in fact, she is hired by the owners of the shipping company to entertain passengers. When these comedians emerge among the glittering society of the upper deck, the falsity of human relationships, which they so persistently demonstrate, spreads to everyone around them. This “sinfully modest” girl and a tall young man, “resembling a huge leech,” become a symbol of high society, in which, according to Bunin, there is no place for sincere feelings, and depravity is hidden behind ostentatious brilliance and prosperity.
To summarize, it should be noted that "Mr. from San Francisco" is considered one of best stories Bunin both in idea and in her artistic embodiment. The story of a nameless American millionaire turns into a philosophical parable with broad symbolic generalizations.
Moreover, Bunin creates symbols in different ways. The gentleman from San Francisco becomes a sign-symbol of bourgeois society: the writer removes all the individual characteristics of this character and emphasizes him social traits: lack of spirituality, passion for profit, boundless complacency. Other symbols in Bunin are based on associative rapprochement (the Atlantic Ocean is a traditional comparison of human life with the sea, and man himself with a fragile boat; the fireboxes in the engine room are the hellish fire of the underworld), on rapprochement in structure (a multi-deck ship is human society in miniature), on rapprochement by function (the captain is a pagan god).
Symbols in the story become an expressive means for revealing the author's position. Through them, the author showed the deceit and depravity of bourgeois society, which has forgotten about moral laws, the true meaning of human life and is approaching a universal catastrophe. It is clear that Bunin’s premonition of a catastrophe became especially acute in connection with the world war, which, as it flared up more and more, turned into a huge human massacre before the author’s eyes.
The finale of the story "Mr. from San Francisco"
The ending of the story takes us back to the description of the famous “Atlantis” - the ship that returns the body of a dead gentleman to America. This compositional repetition not only gives the story a harmonious proportionality of parts and completeness, but also increases the size of the picture created in the work.
Think about how fully the content of the story is summarized in the title? Why do the "master" and his family members remain nameless, while the peripheral characters - Lorenzo, Luigi, Carmella - are given their own names? Are there other unnamed characters in the story? Why does the writer “forget” about the wife and daughter of the deceased rich man in the last pages of the story? What elements of the picture depicted are not motivated by the plot, i.e. are not connected with it in any way? In which fragments of the text does the action develop rapidly, and in which plot time seems to stop? What compositional technique gives completeness to the story and increases the degree of generalization in the work?
Temporal and spatial organization of the story. The character's point of view and the author's point of view. The plot is the most obvious feature of the work, a kind of façade of an artistic building that forms the initial perception of the story. However, in “The Mister from San Francisco” big picture The reproduced world is much wider than the actual plot time and space boundaries.
The events of the story correspond very precisely to the calendar and fit into geographical space. The journey, planned for two years in advance, begins at the end of November (sailing across the Atlantic), and is suddenly interrupted in December, most likely the week before Christmas: at this time in Capri there is a noticeable pre-holiday revival, the Abruzzese mountaineers offer “humbly joyful praises” Mother of God in front of her statue “in the grotto of the rocky wall of Monte Solaro”, and they also pray to “the one born from her womb in the cave of Bethlehem... in the distant land of Judah...”. (Think, what special meaning is contained in this implicit calendar detail and how is the content of the story enriched?) Accuracy and utmost authenticity - the absolute criteria of Bunin's aesthetics - are also manifested in the care with which the daily routine of rich tourists is described in the story. The exact time indications and the list of attractions visited in Italy seem to have been verified according to reliable tourist guides. But the main thing, of course, is not Bunin’s meticulous fidelity to verisimilitude.
The inviolable routine of the master’s life introduces into the story the most important motif for him: artificiality, the automatism of the civilized pseudo-existence of the central character. A methodical presentation of the cruise route, then a measured report on the “daily routine” on the Atlantis, and, finally, a careful description of the order established in the Neapolitan hotel almost stops the plot movement three times. The sequence of actions of the master and his family is mechanically determined: “firstly”, “secondly”, “thirdly”; “at eleven”, “five”, “seven o’clock”. (Find other examples of the monotonous regulation of life in the text.) In general, the punctuality of the lifestyle of the American and his family sets a measured rhythm for the description of everything that comes into his field of vision of the natural and social world.
The element of living life becomes an expressive contrast to this world in the story. This reality, unknown to the gentleman from San Francisco, is subject to a completely different time and spatial scale. There is no place for schedules and routes, number sequence and rational motivations, and therefore there is no predictability and “understanding”. The vague impulses of this life sometimes excite the consciousness of travelers: then the daughter of an American will think that she sees the crown prince of Asia during breakfast; then the owner of the hotel in Capri will turn out to be exactly the gentleman whom the American himself had already seen in a dream the day before. However, the soul of the main character is not affected by “so-called mystical feelings”. (Find other examples of characters’ irrational states in the text.)
The author's narrative perspective constantly corrects the limited perception of the character: thanks to the author, the reader sees and learns much more than what the hero of the story is able to see and understand. The most important difference between the author’s “omniscient” view is its extreme openness to time and space. Time is counted not in hours and days, but in millennia, in historical eras, and the spaces that open to the eye reach the “blue stars of the sky.”
Why does the story not end with the death of the hero and Bunin continues the story with an inserted episode about the Roman tyrant Tiberius (in Bunin’s test he is called Tiberius)? Is it only the associative parallel with the fate of the title character that motivates the introduction of this semi-legendary story?
At the end of the story, the author's assessment of the person depicted reaches limit values, pictures of life are given as broadly as possible. The story about the collapse of life of the self-confident “master of life” develops into a kind of meditation (lyrically rich reflection) about the connection between man and the world, about the greatness of the natural cosmos and its insubordination to human will, about eternity and the unknown mystery of existence. The final sketch of the Atlantis steamship takes on a symbolic meaning. (Atlantis is a semi-legendary island west of Gibraltar, which sank to the bottom of the ocean as a result of an earthquake.)
The frequency of use of symbolic images is increasing: the raging ocean, the “countless fiery eyes” of the ship; the Devil, “as huge as a rock”; captain, looking like a pagan idol. Moreover: in an image projected onto the infinity of time and space, any detail (images of characters, everyday realities, sound scale and light-color palette) acquires a symbolic meaningful meaning. What associations do you think might arise in connection with such details? final scene: “humming like a funeral mass,” the ocean; “mourning mountains of silver foam” waves; “high throated trumpets”, “furious squeals of sirens”; “huge boilers” and “hellish furnaces” in the “underwater womb” of the ship?
Subject detail Bunin's text. Bunin himself called this aspect of writing technique external representation. One of the most striking features of the writer’s skill, which I noticed at the beginning of his creative path and A.P. Chekhov appreciated, emphasizing the density of Bunin’s depiction in words, the density of the reconstructed plastic paintings: “... this is very new, very fresh and very good, only too compact, like a condensed broth.”
It is remarkable that with the sensual richness and “texture” of what is depicted, any detail is fully provided by the exact knowledge of the writer: Bunin was unusually strict about the specificity of the image. Here is just one example: “...until eleven o’clock they were supposed to walk cheerfully along the decks...or play ...” (The name of the game given in the author’s text is deliberately omitted here; can you remember this name in general outline explain the nature of the game?) It would seem that accurate knowledge of the games popular with older Americans on vacation is essential? But for Bunin, absolute accuracy of detail is the basics of the craft of writing, the starting point for creating an artistically convincing picture.
The role of mystical-religious subtext in I. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”
Researchers of I. A. Bunin’s work most often talk about the truthfulness and depth of realistic comprehension of life in his works, emphasizing the philosophical nature of the prose, the mastery of psychologism, and analyze in detail the writer’s visual style, unique in its expressiveness and unexpectedness of artistic solutions. From this angle, the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”, which has long since become a textbook, is usually viewed. And yet, precisely this work, which is traditionally considered one of the “pinnacle” examples of Bunin’s realism, completely unexpectedly ends with the seemingly inappropriate and, however, completely “natural”, and not at all allegorical appearance of the Devil...
To understand the meaning and internal logic of its appearance at the end of the story, we must remember one of the most interesting and, in aesthetic and philosophical terms, very productive branches of Russian modernism - “mystical realism” of the 20th century. For Bunin artistic method“mystical realism” is not as characteristic and all-determining as, say, for F. Sologub, A. Bely, L. Andreev, M. Bulgakov or V. Nabokov. However, “The Mister from San Francisco” is one of the great examples of Russian “mystical realism”. And only from this point of view can the depth, scale of the moral and philosophical generalization contained in this work, the skill, and originality of its artistic form be fully understood.
In April 1912 in Atlantic Ocean The largest passenger ship, the Titanic, sank after colliding with an iceberg, killing about one and a half thousand people. This tragic event, which became the first in a series of great catastrophes of the 20th century, concealed something ominously paradoxical: a ship created with the latest technology and declared “unsinkable” crashed, and many of those who sailed on it, richest people world, met their death in the icy water. Anyone who has more or less carefully read the details of the disaster gets a very definite impression: as if this passenger liner found itself at the epicenter of mystical forces, fatally becoming the focusing point for the application of some invisible but powerful will. It was as if a warning and threatening sign had been given from above to humanity.
Bunin accepted the signal of fate, foreshadowing the death of the old world. Although the known evidence does not say anything about this, it was the sinking of the Titanic, as it seems to me, that was the main impetus for writing “The Gentleman from San Francisco.” The typological similarities between the literary text and its prototype are too obvious here.
The myth of Atlantis and, more broadly, the plot of death in the waves in the art of the early twentieth century. acquired the meaning of an archetype (for example, the poem “The Death of Atlantis” by V. Khlebnikov). However, Bunin’s allusion to the Titanic disaster is specific. Thus, the name of the ship, “Atlantis,” focused two “reminders”: about the place of death - in the Atlantic Ocean - of the mythical island-state mentioned by Plato, and the real Titanic.
In the coincidence of the crash site, Bunin apparently saw mystical sign: in the finale of his story, “Atlantis,” like the “Titanic,” emerges from the Strait of Gibraltar to meet its death, accompanied by the Devil’s gaze fixed on it. And the algorithm of the poetics of the story at all its structural levels is also determined by the logic of the fatal suddenness of the collapse of what seemed powerful and unshakable, hidden in the tragedy of the Titanic.
The real event is comprehended and shown in “The Gentleman from San Francisco” as a fatal omen that has a global social, moral and philosophical meaning. And the “artistic dual world” model, typical of “mystical realism,” connecting the material and transcendental levels of existence, turned out to be optimal for solving this creative problem. It realizes itself both in the narrative model, when the story about “real” events is invariably highlighted by symbolic subtext, and in the genre symbiosis of a realistic story and an allegorical parable.
The logic of understanding a single case as having a global meaning also realizes itself in the plot-compositional model of “expanding circles”: the body of the gentleman from San Francisco returns to New World, having completed his individual “cruise” (1st circle) in the hold of the ship “Atlantis” together with the rest of the passengers (2nd circle), which, apparently, predicts the completion of the circle of modern civilization (3rd circle).
In “The Mister from San Francisco,” the writer’s visionary gift was revealed, embodied in the mystical and religious subtext of the story. Moreover, the allegorical beginning acquires a dominant meaning in the second part of the work, and in the first it seems to highlight the realistic layer of the narrative.
The genre-narrative structure of the story is two-faced. Its plot, at first glance, is extremely simple: a man went to have fun, but instead died overnight. In this sense, the incidents with the gentleman from San Francisco go back to the genre of anecdote. I can't help but remember famous story about how a merchant came into a tavern on Maslenitsa, ordered vodka, pancakes, caviar, salmon and other dishes appropriate for the occasion, poured a glass, carefully wrapped the caviar in a pancake, put it on a fork, brought it to his mouth - and died.
In essence, the same thing happened to the gentleman from San Francisco. Throughout his life, he “worked tirelessly,” and when he finally decided to “reward himself for his years of work” with a magnificent cruise on a luxury ship, he suddenly died. He was just about to begin “to live” (after all, “until that time he had not lived, but only existed, although very well, but still pinning all his hopes on the future”) - and he died. He dressed “just for the crown” for a magnificent evening show(the famous Carmella had to dance her tarantella), not knowing that she was actually preparing herself for her deathbed.
Why does fate (and in its person the author) punish the hero so cruelly, and even with a mocking twist? In the West, the opinion was expressed that the archetype of thinking of the Russian writer with his characteristic elements of moral rigorism was reflected here: “... a strong feeling of antipathy towards wealth... a thirst for ideal social justice, a longing for the equality of people.”
The “guilt” of the hero of Bunin’s story also has a social aspect: he acquired his wealth by mercilessly exploiting the unfortunate Chinese coolies. Bunin's prose is truly distinguished by a clear social-critical orientation. And in this story the theme of social contrasts is outlined very expressively. Pictures-visions of “hell”, “the bottom” of the hold, where slaves work, sweating, covered in soot, in the suffocating heat, so that “above”, “in paradise”, rich people from all over the world can have fun and enjoy all the exquisite pleasures that modern civilization has provided them, truly amaze the imagination. And at the end of the story, the circle of social justice is closed: the corpse of the gentleman from San Francisco is lowered into the same black hold, similar to “the underworld, its last, ninth circle” in the womb of the steamship.
But if the idea of the story boiled down to the fact that it is immoral to enjoy the fruits of the hard labor of workers, or to indignation at the rich who relax and enjoy life, while there are poor people on earth, it would, of course, be too primitive. The superficiality of such a reading is obvious; especially if you take a closer look at those “examples” from world history and culture that shine through the surface layer of an anecdotal “history” that is not without caustic gloating. First of all, this is a parallel with the Roman tyrant Tiberius, who once lived on the island of Capri, where the gentleman from San Francisco was destined to die: “On this island two thousand years ago there lived a man who was unspeakably vile in satisfying his lust and why “he had power over millions of people, inflicted cruelties on them beyond all measure, and humanity remembered him, and many, many from all over the world come to look at the remains of that stone house where he lived on one of the steepest slopes of the island.”
They lived in the world, although in different time, two people, the mighty of this world (each, naturally, on its own scale), before whom everyone trembled and fawned, and nothing remained of them except the ruins of the magnificent palace of one of them. The name of one of them, Tiberius, has been preserved in human memory, thanks to his incredible cruelty and abomination. No one remembered the name of the gentleman from San Francisco. Obviously, because the scale of his abomination and cruelty is much more modest.
Even more significant is the ramified allusion to the great collapse of the pagan stronghold - Babylon. The epigraph to “Mr. from San Francisco” was taken (in an abbreviated version) from the words from “Apocalypse”: “Woe, woe to you, the great city of Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour your judgment will come” (Rev. 18:21). From this epigraph a hidden thread will stretch to the climactic moment of the death of the gentleman from San Francisco: “He quickly ran through the titles of some articles, read a few lines about the never-ending Balkan war, turned the newspaper over with a familiar gesture - when suddenly the lines flashed in front of him with a glassy sheen, his neck tensed, his eyes bulged...” Just as suddenly, in the midst of the feast, fatal letters flashed on the wall and in the luxurious chambers of the Babylonian king Belshazzar, predicting his imminent death. sudden death: “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin” (Dan. 5). In addition, in the reader’s imagination, based on the principle of additional associations, an allusion to the fall of the famous Tower of Babel arises. Moreover, the motif of the multilingualism of the inhabitants of “Atlantis”, like their ancient forefathers - the builders of the Tower of Babel, is dissolved in the stylistic fabric of the story.
The “guilt” of the gentleman from San Francisco is not that he is rich, but that he is confident that he “has the right” to all the best in this life, because he owns what he believes is the main wealth. And the sin of “covetousness” is one of the greatest, since it is a type of idolatry. A person suffering from the “love of money” violates the second commandment: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of it...” (Deut. 5:8). Thus, the theme of wealth, the entire ramified network of images, motifs and symbols, as well as the very stylistic fabric of the narrative in which it is embodied, gives rise in the reader’s imagination to associations with the pagan worship of the golden calf.
The life of the gentleman from San Francisco, as well as the passengers of the Atlantis, is indeed depicted in figurative system pagan world. Like a pagan god made of precious materials, the “rich man” himself from the New World, sitting “in the golden-pearl radiance ... of the palace”: “There was something Mongolian in his yellowish face with a trimmed silver mustache, his large teeth glittered with gold fillings, and his strong bald head was made of old ivory.” They serve him like an idol: “He was quite generous on the way and therefore fully believed in the care of all those who fed and watered him, served him from morning to evening, preventing his slightest desire, protected his cleanliness and peace, carried his things , called porters for him, delivered his chests to hotels. But he, in accordance with the logic of a pagan’s worship of his idol, will be thrown into a landfill as soon as he stops fulfilling the wishes of his priests - giving money.
But the pagan world is dead, because it is devoid of spirituality. And the theme of death is literally dissolved in the stylistic fabric of the narrative. The gentleman from San Francisco is also dead: “In his soul a long time ago there was not even a mustard seed left of any so-called mystical feelings...” - this phrase evokes an allusion to famous words Christ about the “mustard seed of faith” that “moves mountains.” In the soul of the gentleman from San Francisco there was not only faith the size of a “mustard seed” - not even a trace of elementary human intuition remained.
A man without a soul is a corpse. The motif of the deathly existence of the gentleman from San Francisco is dominant in the story. Until he was 58, he “worked hard” and did not live. And to enjoy life for him means getting high on “Havana cigars until your face turns red, getting drunk on “liquors in the bar” and admiring “living pictures in... dens.”
And here is a wonderful phrase: “Reassured by the fact that the dead old man from San Francisco, who was also planning to go with them... had already been sent to Naples, the travelers slept soundly...”. It turns out that a dead old man was planning to go along with the others to see the next sights?!
This motif of mixing the dead with the living will be heard in one of the final paragraphs of the story: “The body of the dead old man from San Francisco was returning home, to the grave, to the shores of the New World. Having experienced a lot of humiliation, a lot of human inattention, having spent a week wandering from one port shed to another, it finally found itself again on the same famous ship on which so recently, with such honor, it was transported to the Old World. But now they were hiding him from the living - they lowered him deep into a black hold in a tarred coffin.”
Bunin does not emphatically distinguish, but, on the contrary, confuses the use of the 3rd person personal pronoun - when it refers to a body, to a corpse, and when to a living person. And then the deep and, admittedly, eerie meaning of this passage will be revealed: it turns out that the gentleman from San Francisco was only a body even when he was traveling on a steamer (still alive!) to the Old World. The only difference is that then he was “carried with honor,” but now with complete neglect. Naked and mystical meaning connection of words in the opening phrase of the paragraph: “the body was returning home to the grave.” If at the level of a realistic reading the phrase home, to the grave is perceived separately (a corpse is a grave, a person is a house; the body will be buried in the person’s homeland, where he lived), then at the allegorical level everything closes in a logically inextricable circle: the corpse’s house is a grave. This is how the individual, smaller circle of the narrative closed: “they were taking him” to have fun, and now they are taking him home, to the grave.
But the gentleman from San Francisco is not an individual - he is one of many. That is why no name was given to him. A society of similar bodies gathered on “Atlantis” - a floating micro-model of modern civilization (“... the steamer... looked like a huge hotel with all the amenities - with a night bar, with oriental baths, with its own newspaper”). And the name of the liner also promises them a return home, to the grave. In the meantime, these bodies live in a world of eternal holiday, in a world flooded bright light- gold and electricity, this double bright yellow lighting is symbolic: gold is a sign of wealth, electricity is scientific technical progress. Wealth and technological progress are what gives power over the world to the inhabitants of Atlantis and ensures their limitless power. In Bunin, these two levers of influence of the modern masters of life on the world around them (the ancient - Mammon, and the modern - scientific and technological progress) take on the meaning of pagan idols.
And life on the ship is depicted in the figurative system of the pagan world. “Atlantis” itself, with its “multi-storey bulk”, shining with “fiery countless eyes”, is like a huge pagan deity. There is here its own high priest and god at the same time - the captain (a red-haired man of “monstrous size and bulk”, similar “in his uniform with wide golden stripes to a huge idol... a giant commander, in full dress uniform, appeared on his bridge and, like a merciful pagan god, shook his hand at the passengers in greeting... an overweight driver, looking like a pagan idol"). Regularly governing this deathly ordered life, “the powerful, imperious hum of a gong sounds throughout all floors.” At a precisely set time, “loudly, as if in a pagan temple,” a gong sounds “throughout the whole house,” calling the inhabitants of “Atlantis” to their sacred rites, to what “was the main goal of this whole existence, the crown of it” - to food.
But the world of idols is dead. And the passengers of the Atlantis live according to the law of a herd controlled by someone: mechanically, as if performing a ritual, visiting the required attractions, having fun, as their kind “had a custom.” This world is soulless. And even “an elegant couple in love, whom everyone watched with curiosity and who did not hide their happiness,” was in fact “hired... to play at love for good money and has been sailing on one or another ship for a long time.” The only living soul here is the daughter of the gentleman from San Francisco. That’s probably why she was “slightly painful” - it’s always hard for a living soul among the dead.
And this world is illuminated by inanimate light - the radiance of gold and electricity (it is symbolic that, having begun to dress for his burial, the gentleman from San Francisco “lit electricity everywhere,” the light and brilliance of which was multiplied many times over by mirrors). For comparison, let us remember the amazing, somehow unearthly sunlight in the story "Sunstroke". It was the light of joy, unearthly bliss and happiness, and the color of passion and inhuman suffering - but it was the light of the sun. The passengers of the Atlantis hardly saw the sun (due to bad weather), and in any case, their main life takes place inside the ship, “in the golden-pearl glow” of the halls of the cabins and hall.
And here is a significant detail: on the pages of the story there is living sunlight (“And at dawn, when the window of number forty-three turned white and the humid wind rustled the torn leaves of a banana, when the blue morning sky rose and spread over the island of Capri and turned golden against the sun rising in the distant blue mountains of Italy, the clean and clear peak of Monte Solaro..." appears immediately after the glow of gold from the teeth of the gentleman from San Francisco, who, by the way, seemed to have outlived his owner, has faded: "The bluish, already dead face gradually froze , the hoarse bubbling sound escaping from the open mouth, illuminated by the reflection of gold, weakened. It was no longer the gentleman from San Francisco - he was no longer there - but someone else.”
At the end of the story, an animated symbol of the power of the modern “rich man” and the entire civilized world appears: “... a ship, multi-tiered, multi-tube, created by the pride of a New Man with an old heart. The blizzard beat against his rigging and wide-necked pipes, white with snow, but he was steadfast, firm, majestic and terrible. On his upper decks there is another ball, and in the dark depths his soul is hidden - “a gigantic shaft, like a living monster.”
Here the main “fault” of the gentleman from San Francisco and others like him is named - this is the pride of the New Man, who, thanks to the fantastic achievements of scientific and technological progress and his wealth, which made him the owner of these achievements, felt himself to be the absolute ruler of the world.
If the ancient rich man nevertheless understood that there are forces beyond his control and more powerful than him - these are, first of all, the elements of nature, then in the twentieth century, thanks to the achievements of civilization, a great illusion of his absolute omnipotence was born, and, accordingly, permissiveness.
But the only thing that remains beyond the control of the modern New Man is death. And every reminder of her causes panic horror here. Remarkable in this sense is the reaction of the Atlantis passengers to the death of the gentleman from San Francisco: “If there had not been a German in the reading room, the hotel would have quickly and deftly managed to hush up this terrible incident... and not a single soul of the guests would have known what he had done He. But the German burst out of the reading room screaming, alarming the whole house, the whole dining room... " After the phrase: “If there weren’t a German in the reading room...”, the reader unconsciously expects a continuation: if the German hadn’t been nearby, the gentleman from San Francisco would have been left without help. But the German, instead of running to the person who has become ill (a natural reaction to the misfortune of a “neighbor”, or at least one of his own kind?!), quickly runs out of the reading room. “Perhaps to call for help?” - the reader continues to hope. But no, of course. The turmoil is not caused by sadness (even if only a little) over the death of the “old man” (and they ate, drank, smoked, walked “together” for a month!), but by something completely different: an animal fear of death, on the one hand, and the desire to hush up this “trouble,” on the other.
It is paradoxical, but at the same time quite logical, that these omnipotent masters of life are afraid of death, although they already exist in a state mental death!
The world of modern civilization is like an ancient pagan temple. It is in this sense, Bunin notes, as if in passing, that the modern New Man has an old heart. This is the same heart, filled with pride and thirst for sensual pleasures, that has been with all the powerful of this world since time immemorial. Only over many millennia has it completely worn out. And the kingdom of the modern New Man faces the same end as ancient Babylon. Punishment will overtake him for his pride and debauchery, as once upon the builders of the Tower of Babel and the Babylonian king Belshazzar. And finally, Babylon will fall before the second coming of Christ, as stated in the Apocalypse - the allegorical stronghold of the kingdom of the Antichrist. This is how the modern parallel, civilization, realizes itself at the subtext level.
And just as the ancient pagan world opposed the One God, so modern world tramples on the values of Christianity. This existential, and not just social and moral, “guilt” of the hero and those others to whom he is similar is indicated on the very first page of the story. The intended route of the gentleman from San Francisco is very significant: “In December and January, he hoped to enjoy the sun of Southern Italy, ancient monuments, tarantella and serenades of wandering singers and what people at his age feel especially subtly - the love of young Neapolitan women, even and not entirely selfless; he thought of holding the carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, where at this time the most selective society flocks, where some enthusiastically indulge in automobile and sailing races, others in roulette, others in what is commonly called flirting, and others in shooting pigeons, which they soar very beautifully from the cages over the emerald lawn, against the backdrop of a sea the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately hit the ground with white lumps; he wanted to devote the beginning of March to Florence, to come to Rome for the Passion of the Lord to listen to “Miserere” there; His plans included Venice, and Paris, and a bullfight in Seville, and swimming in the English islands, and Athens, and Constantinople, and Palestine, and Egypt, and even Japan - of course, already on the way back...”
When planning his trip, the gentleman from San Francisco, as it were, “skims the cream” from everything wonderful that is in the world: a carnival, of course, in Nice, a bullfight in Seville, swimming on the shores of Albion, etc. He is convinced that that has the right to all the best in this life. And now, among the entertainment of the highest class, along with flirting, selfless love of young Neapolitan women, roulette, carnival and pigeon shooting, there is the mass Good Friday... Of course, you have to be in Rome in time for it; the best Good Friday mass is, of course, in Rome. But this is the service of the most tragic day for all humanity and the universe, when the Lord suffered and died for us on the Cross!
In the same way, “someone’s descent from the cross, certainly famous,” will be in the daily routine of the Atlantis passengers between two breakfasts. It’s wonderful that this is “someone’s”! Bunin again emphatically confuses two meanings - who is being filmed or who is the author of the picture? The tourists of Atlantis, apparently, are as indifferent to who painted the picture as they are to Whom they take down from the Cross - what matters is that they were and saw. Anyone, even a relatively religious person, will feel blasphemy in this.
And retribution for this existential blasphemy will not slow down. It is over him, over the all-powerful gentleman from San Francisco that one should sing “Miserere” (“Have mercy”), for he, who planned to be in time for the Mass of the Passion of the Lord in Rome, will not live to see Christmas. And by the time everything good people will offer “naive and humbly joyful praises to the sun, to the morning, to her, the immaculate intercessor of all those who suffer in this evil and wonderful world, and born from her womb in the cave of Bethlehem, in a poor shepherd’s shelter, in the distant land of Judah,” the gentleman from San Francisco will shake “his dead head in a box” from under the soda. He will hear a mass, but not to the Crucified One, but a funeral mass for himself and not in Rome, but when, already in a coffin, in the black hold of a ship, he returns from the Old World to the New. And the mass will be celebrated in a furious ocean blizzard.
The choice of two main Christian holidays, Easter and Christmas, as the temporary limits of the hero’s life and death is symbolic: the system of Christian values seems to push the gentleman from San Francisco out of life.
Images of the history and culture of the Ancient World, from antiquity and the Old Testament (Vesuvius, Tiberius, Atlantis, Babylon), appear quite clearly on the artistic fabric of the story, and they predict the death of the old civilization. This mythological highlight is sarcastic: the passengers of the liner live in an eternal holiday, as if not noticing the name of their ship; they walk happily at the foot of the smoking Vesuvius and Etna, as if forgetting about the countless eruptions that claimed the lives of thousands of people... But the complex of Christian allusions is much less obvious: it seems to highlight the narrative from the depths of the subtext. But it is Christian images and motives that play a leading role in solving moral and philosophical problems.
And both cultural and religious figurative complexes of allusions will unite in the mystical final chord of the story: The Devil will open his face, fixing his fiery gaze on a huge ship - the personification of the dead world of the old civilization, mired in sin: “The countless fiery eyes of the ship were barely visible behind the snow to the Devil, who was watching from the cliffs of Gibraltar, from the rocky gates of two worlds, behind the ship leaving into the night and blizzard. The devil was huge, like a cliff, but the ship was huge too...” Old world, armed with the powerful means of modern scientific and technological progress, desperately resists (just as the gentleman from San Francisco resisted his death with all the animal forces of nature), but in confronting the Devil he is, of course, doomed.
What is the meaning of this terrible mystical-transcendental confrontation?
Let us pay attention, first of all, to the fact that the ship is shown here at the point of intersection of three views. “To one who looked ... from the island” (this is an objective view), “its lights were sad,” and the steamer seemed like a small luminous point in the darkness and gloom, surrounded by a black water mass of the ocean, which was about to swallow it. “But there, on the ship, in the bright halls shining with chandeliers, there was, as usual, a crowded ball,” - from such a (subjective) perspective, the whole world is flooded with the joyful glow of the holiday (gold and electricity), and about the mortal threat, and even more so imminent death, no one suspects.
The overlap of these two perspectives, from the outside and from the inside, gives a meaning that is amazing in terms of the depth of comprehension of the destinies of modern civilization: the mighty of the world This is why they live in a feeling of eternal celebration, not knowing that they are doomed. Moreover, the motive of fatal ignorance about the true meaning of what is happening, a certain secret, ugly and gloomy, reaches its culmination in the final lines: “And no one knew either that this couple had long been bored with pretending to suffer their blissful torment to the shamelessly sad music, or that , which stands deep, deep below them, at the bottom of the dark hold, in the vicinity of the gloomy and sultry bowels of the ship, which was heavily overcome by the darkness, the ocean, the blizzard...” And there stood, as we know, a coffin with a corpse.
In addition to the crossing of two perspectives at the level of “real life,” there is a third, mystical one, the gaze of the Devil directed at “Atlantis,” as if dragging it into a black hole. But here’s the paradox: he destroys his own creation, the stronghold of his own will! Yes exactly. Because the Devil cannot do anything other than put to death. He destroys his own with every right.
It is generally accepted that Bunin is characterized by an atheistic worldview, which was later transformed into a philosophy of pantheism, that is, essentially pagan. However, the story “Mr. from San Francisco”, I think, convincingly refutes this popular opinion. This small masterpiece embodies the concept of history, in which the fate of human civilization is comprehended from the point of view of Christian moral and spiritual values, and the evangelical reminiscent background provides that reference point of truth, from the height of which the author comprehends the meaning of the events taking place.
No. 1. There are many details in the story that indicate the inevitable death of the hero. These details personify fate, which is not only impossible to go against, it is impossible. One of these details is the name of the ship - “Atlantis”. I immediately remember the legend about a civilization that died without leaving a trace, just as the main character will die - no one will remember his name, only the event itself.
There is a feeling of the ghostliness and unreality of the existence of the hero himself - who will remember him when he dies? Will they even remember? Did he exist for them?..
The second detail is a cufflink, which the gentleman from San Francisco could not fasten for a long time. This became another sign that only death awaited him ahead. Fate seems to be giving him a chance, telling him that he needs to give up his goal - going out into the world. After all, if he had not noticed all those events that foreshadowed his death, perhaps it could have been avoided? But he went against it, bringing himself closer to death, as if forcing it to move faster. Maybe he had no other choice anyway.
But who knows - if he had refused such a social role, maybe fate would have been different?
No. 2. If you think about it, the whole story is like one big oxymoron. How can two absolutely coexist on a ship? different concepts- life and death? The life of a ship, the death of its name, the life of people, the death of a master? And what is the life that happens on the ship? The gentleman goes on a sailing trip, for him it is a well-deserved rest and entertainment, but at the same time he immediately feels sick. Is he sick of this rest? If he has seasickness, why go sailing? Why does he continue all this?
An orchestra is playing on the ship, and suddenly a couple appears dancing to it. And suddenly the music becomes shamelessly sad. Why is she like this? But the music also personifies the couple - the couple is not real, they were paid to play at being lovers. And sad music can be romantic, conveying the tender feelings of lovers. That is why this music is shameless - it is false, it lies about its sadness, just like the couple about their feigned love. They're not ashamed of this pretense
Updated: 2018-01-23
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Composition
I. A. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” was written in 1915. At this time, I. A. Bunin was already living in exile. With his own eyes, the writer observed the life of European society at the beginning of the 20th century, saw all its advantages and disadvantages.
It can be said that “The Gentleman from San Francisco” continues the tradition of L.N. Tolstoy, who depicted illness and death as the most important events in a person’s life (“The Death of Ivan Ilyich”). It is they, according to Bunin, who reveal the true value of the individual, as well as the importance of society.
Along with the philosophical questions resolved in the story, it also develops social issues. It is associated with the writer’s critical attitude towards the lack of spirituality of bourgeois society, towards the development of technical progress to the detriment of the spiritual, internal.
With hidden irony and sarcasm, Bunin describes the main character - a gentleman from San Francisco. The writer does not even honor him with a name. This hero becomes a symbol of the soulless bourgeois world. He is a dummy who has no soul and sees the purpose of his existence only in the pleasure of the body.
This gentleman is full of snobbery and self-righteousness. All his life he strived for wealth, trying to achieve greater and greater well-being. Finally, it seems to him that the set goal is close, it’s time to relax and live for his own pleasure. Bunin ironically remarks: “Until that moment, he did not live, but existed.” And the gentleman is already fifty-eight years old...
The hero considers himself the “master” of the situation. Money is a powerful force, but it cannot buy happiness, love, life. When planning to travel around the Old World, a gentleman from San Francisco carefully plans a route. The people to whom he belonged had the custom of beginning the enjoyment of life with a trip to Europe, India, Egypt...
The route developed by the gentleman from San Francisco looked very impressive. In December and January he hoped to enjoy the sun in Southern Italy, the ancient monuments, the tarantella. He thought of holding the carnival in Nice. Then Monte Carlo, Rome, Venice, Paris and even Japan. It seems that everything about the hero was taken into account and verified. But the weather, beyond the control of a mere mortal, lets us down.
Nature, its naturalness, is the opposite force to wealth. With this opposition, Bunin emphasizes the unnaturalness of the bourgeois world, the artificiality and far-fetchedness of its ideals.
For money, you can try not to notice the inconveniences of the elements, but power is always on its side. Moving to the island of Capri becomes a terrible ordeal for all passengers on the Atlantis ship. The fragile steamer barely coped with the storm that hit it.
The ship in the story is a symbol of bourgeois society. On it, just as in life, a sharp separation occurs. On the upper deck, in comfort and coziness, the rich sail. Maintenance personnel are floating on the lower deck. He, according to the gentlemen, is at the lowest stage of development.
The Atlantis ship also contained one more tier - fireboxes, into which tons of coal were thrown, salted from sweat. No attention was paid to these people at all, they were not served, they were not thought about. The lower strata seem to drop out of life; they are called upon only to please the masters.
The doomed world of money and lack of spirituality is clearly symbolized by the name of the ship - Atlantis. The mechanical running of the ship across the ocean with unknown, terrible depths speaks of retribution awaiting. The story pays great attention to the motive of spontaneous movement. The result of this movement is the inglorious return of the master in the hold of the ship.
The gentleman from San Francisco believed that everything around him was created only to fulfill his desires; he firmly believed in the power of the “golden calf”: “He was quite generous on the way and therefore fully believed in the care of all those who fed and watered him , from morning to evening they served him, preventing his slightest desire. ... It was like this everywhere, it was like this in sailing, it should have been like this in Naples.”
Yes, the wealth of the American tourist, like a magic key, opened many doors, but not all. It could not prolong the hero’s life; it did not protect him even after death. How much servility and admiration this man saw during his life, the same amount of humiliation his mortal body experienced after death.
Bunin shows how illusory the power of money is in this world. And the person who bets on them is pathetic. Having created idols for himself, he strives to achieve the same well-being. It seems that the goal has been achieved, he is at the top, for which he worked tirelessly for many years. What did you do that you left for your descendants? No one will even remember this person's name. In the story “Mr. from San Francisco,” Bunin showed the illusory and disastrous nature of such a path for a person.
