Bunin is a great master of words, who accurately and correctly depicts in his beautiful works the world of love, landscape sketches, the world of village life, but still he always returns to the problems of humanity, which cannot but excite him. His life is a journey, being in which, he observed how people manifest themselves under the capitalist system, and under colonial conditions of life. His trips to the East and Europe, analysis of the conditions for the existence of obleys in these states gave him the richest material for writing stories.

Ivan Alekseevich shows in his works that there is absolutely no morality in the capitalist world, because the power of money kills it. Each member of such a society has only one goal in life - to increase their savings by any means.

But Bunin creates his stories special, lyrical, reflecting all the bright and sensual movements of the human soul. Therefore, among the rest of Bunin's works, which have lyricism and poetic narration, the plot of the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" stands out, which has a simple and simple plot and a complete absence of any lyricism or movements of the human soul.

Opens to readers terrible world soulless people who simply create the illusion of life, but still they do not live, but exist. This is how they earn money, even travel and can fall in love, like the daughter of the protagonist, but they do it dryly, and their soul does not come to life, does not respond to these feelings. Main character The story has neither a name nor any roots. Thus, Bunin shows that this image is collective, he is a bright representative of the society in which he and his family exist.

The writer shows a hero who does not have his inner world at all, there are no experiences and any movements of the soul. This is such an everyday person, about whom the author does not say anything, since everything can be understood from those everyday details, of which there are many in the story.

Bunin begins his work with a description of the deck where bourgeois society is having fun. He shows that this fun goes on all the time, but none of them even tries to think about those people and their overwork that are on the lower deck. They are not interested, and even if they knew, they were completely indifferent.

The author specifically in his story uses a literary device - contrast. The reader sees how the cheerful and unrestrained life of bourgeois society is contrasted with the life of people who work day and night in a dark and dirty hold.

The writer also shows that even love does not exist in this world. They do not know these real feelings that excite the soul. Therefore, a couple was hired on the ship for money, which showed love, showed feelings, but they were also not real. And the author constantly emphasizes this to show that human feelings are absent in this indifferent world.

The rich gentleman from Bunin's story is a bright representative of his society, he is empty and worthless. In his life there is no other goal than enrichment. Therefore, throughout the whole story, he has no thoughts about anything, much less experiences. He is shown by Ivan Alekseevich as a thing, as some kind of inanimate object. Bunin raises and touches on the eternal problems of the human world with the plot of his story: about spirituality, about the movements of the human soul, and about his purpose in this world, but about God.

From birth, a person is among people. He grows, matures, becomes part of this very society. Since a person constantly communicates with people, rotates in his circle, he depends on society, which forms his character, worldview, lifestyle, habits. No wonder the people say: “Whoever you behave with, that’s what you will get.”

Russian writers often reflected on this topic in their works.

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The interaction of man and society is vividly shown in the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” by I.A. Bunin

Events begin on a huge white steamer with the catchy name "Atlantis", which sets off to travel from America to Europe. The rich have fun, sleep, eat, pretend to live. The whole narrative is based on contrast: a sparkling festive deck and a black, rumbling hold. Thanks to this technique, the writer shows a striking gap between those who work and those who use these works. There is practically no plot. During the trip, a rich tourist dies, who would live and live. A gentleman from San Francisco has died. The author does not give him a name, the reader knows little about his past. The goal of his entire former life: to become as rich as possible, did not spare either his strength or the strength of his many workers. Even going to Europe for two years, he cannot make a travel plan himself. He simply borrows from those with whom he wants to take an example. Voyage does not bring much pleasure. But a wealthy tourist follows a well-defined plan. Only life makes its own adjustments. The American has never thought about the transience of being, and therefore death comes at the most inopportune moment. At the same time when the master dreams of earthly things: of a delicious dinner, of beautiful girl, about money.

And what about the people surrounding him on this luxurious journey? For them, this millionaire is no longer a person from their circle. This is just an unfortunate incident that spoiled their long-awaited vacation. A soulless society, for which only money has value, is not capable of empathy. The way back home is far from the pomposity with which the gentleman set off on a long journey. He is secretly sent from the island not in a coffin, but in an ordinary soda box. We need to get out of trouble as soon as possible. Thus, the author shows that from false power to insignificance is one moment.

If people are obsessed with ideas of enrichment and power, then society becomes unhealthy. Therefore, only through self-improvement can one make the world it is better

Updated: 2018-10-07

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There is a tradition - for every classic writer to define the so-called program works, that is, such things of his that are like the quintessence, a squeeze of his vision of the world, attitudes to the problems of eternity and modernity, and finally, the manner of writing. Mayakovsky usually refers to such works as "A Cloud in Trousers" and "Out loud", and Andrei Bely's novel "Petersburg". In the summer of 1915, I.A. Bunin wrote the short story "The Gentleman from San Francisco". It so happened that this story became a program for the writer. Since that time, many events have happened, many other works have been written, but so far this short story has attracted the attention of researchers and ordinary readers. This happened, probably, because the story raises questions that have always worried people, including the problem of the precariousness and fragility of human existence in the bourgeois world.

The hero of the story, already almost an old American, sails around the world with his family on a large comfortable ship. A businesslike, prosperous, rich man, all his life he only worked, made a fortune, not knowing peace and rest. Finally, having reached a prestigious position in society, he decided to rest, see the world, have fun and made a detailed travel plan in order to provide for any accident, but died quite suddenly. Bunin chooses a plot that reflects a typical life path Europeans of that, and not only that time. A person devotes his whole life to acquisitiveness, and then fate maliciously and mockingly throws him overboard. The one who lives for profit, lives exclusively for himself, in the end turns out to be lonely and useless to anyone. Money is the only result of the life of such a person, but they could not save him from death.

"Mister" is not in vain left by Bunin nameless. This symbolizes, on the one hand, the typical nature of the hero, and on the other, his facelessness. He is precisely the “master” for those who are next to him, fulfills his desires and receives money for this, but the dead man has no more desires, which means that he can no longer take money from him. Wealth as if replaces the personality, becomes its only expression and embodiment. After death, the former master becomes just a corpse, which, in order not to disturb the vacationers and not interfere with the ongoing rest, is carried into the hold, as if to the underworld, and the very form of moving the deceased is humiliating - a box, and not even from expensive wine, but only from under the soda.

In general, the story, realistic in form and content, is filled with symbolic, sometimes terrible details. In addition to the hold, which symbolizes, as we have already said, a certain existential bottom, it is worth pointing out the name of the ship - "Atlantis", leading to a terrible thought: everyone sailing there, everyone who devotes himself only to making money, are doomed. For the contemporaries of the writer, this idea was even more obvious, because in 1912 the Titanic sank. Whether this catastrophe served as an impetus for writing the story, we cannot say, but it is clear that the figurative parallel is undeniable. An expensive, respectable ship becomes a metonymic embodiment of the entire bourgeois world. Atlantis sunk? Was there such a thing at all? Maybe it's all just myths? Such associations usually arise in a person who has heard this mysterious word.

“I always looked with true fear at any well-being, the acquisition of which and the possession of which consumed a person, and the excess and the usual meanness of this well-being aroused hatred in me,” Bunin later wrote about the problem raised in the story.

The namelessness of the gentleman San Francisco, in my opinion, pursues another goal. The writer wants to show us that the place of the master is always free and any gentleman from New York, Paris, Berlin, Moscow can take it quite calmly. You can also earn a fortune all your life and die suddenly, bringing people only anxiety. This system of values, which developed in America and Europe during the period of "wild capitalism", has firmly entered our consciousness, and even if in a slightly modified form, it still exists. But Bunin, by raising this issue, wants to make us think about whether it is worth living just for the sake of money. Sooner or later, life will put everything in its place, and someone is doomed anyway. If a person dies first, then it seems that a society based on money-grubbing will survive. What does one life mean compared to the rest? But the fate of Atlantis is unknown, and if something suddenly happens, then everyone will go to the bottom, like a gentleman from San Francisco.

Bunin's story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" has an acute social orientation, but the meaning of these stories is not limited to criticism of capitalism and colonialism. Social problems capitalist society are only a background that allows Bunin to show the aggravation of the "eternal" problems of mankind in the development of civilization.

In the 1900s, Bunin traveled around Europe and the East, observing the life and order of capitalist society in Europe and the colonial countries of Asia. Bunin is aware of the whole immorality of the order that prevails in an imperialist society, where everyone works only to enrich the monopolies. Wealthy capitalists are not ashamed of any means to increase their capital.

This story reflects all the features of Bunin's poetics, and at the same time it is unusual for him, its meaning is too prosaic.

The story has almost no plot. People travel, fall in love, earn money, that is, they create the appearance of activity, but the plot can be told in a nutshell: "A man died." Bunin generalizes the image of the gentleman from San Francisco to such an extent that he does not even give him any specific name. We don't know much about his spiritual life. Actually, this life did not exist, it was lost behind the thousands of everyday details that Bunin lists to the smallest detail. Already at the very beginning, we see the contrast between the cheerful and easy life in the cabins of the ship and the horror that reigns in its depths: orchestra...”

The description of life on the ship is given in a contrasting image of the upper deck and hold of the ship: “Giant fireboxes rumbled muffledly, devouring piles of red-hot coal, with a roar thrown into them by people covered in caustic, dirty sweat and waist-deep naked people, purple from the flame; and here, in the bar, they carelessly threw their legs on the arms of their chairs, smoked, sipped cognac and liqueurs ... ”With this abrupt transition, Bunin emphasizes that luxury upper decks, that is, a higher capitalist society, is achieved only through the exploitation, enslavement of people who are constantly working in hellish conditions in the hold of a ship. And their pleasure is empty and false, symbolic meaning is played in the story by a couple hired by Lloyd "to play love for good money."

On the example of the fate of the gentleman from San Francisco, Bunin writes about the aimlessness, emptiness, worthlessness of the life of a typical representative of capitalist society. The thought of death, repentance, sins, God never came to the gentleman from San Francisco. All his life he strove to compare himself with those "whom he once took as a model." By old age, there was nothing human left in him. He became like an expensive thing made of gold and ivory, one of those that always surrounded him: “his large teeth shone with gold fillings, his strong bald head was old ivory.”

Bunin's idea is clear. He talks about the eternal problems of mankind. About the meaning of life, about the spirituality of life, about the relationship of man to God.

Writing

This year, at the lesson of Russian literature, I got acquainted with the story of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin "The Gentleman from San Francisco", in which the writer describes tragic fate a gentleman whose name no one remembers. The author in the story shows the world of heartlessness, vulgarity, lies, the world of wealth for some and the humiliation of others. Bunin describes pictures of people's lives as they really are. Using the example of a gentleman from San Francisco, the writer wants to show that those people are insignificant who strive only for wealth, for the acquisition of capital, who want everyone to obey them, who do not care about the poor who serve them, and the whole world. Bunin has a negative attitude towards his main character. This can be seen from the very first lines, from the fact that the hero has no name. "A gentleman from San Francisco - no one remembered his name either in Naples or in Capri ..." - the author writes. This man devoted his whole life to the accumulation of money, without stopping working until old age. And only at the age of fifty-eight he decided to go on a trip for fun. Outwardly, he looks very significant, rich, but inside, in his soul, he has emptiness.

The wealthy gentleman travels on the steamship Atlantis, where “the most selective society is located, the very one on which all the benefits of civilization depend: the style of tuxedos, and the strength of thrones, and the declaration of war, and the well-being of hotels.” These people are carefree, they have fun, dance, eat, drink, smoke, dress beautifully, but their life is boring, sketchy, uninteresting. Every day is like the previous one. Their life is like a scheme where hours and minutes are planned and scheduled. Bunin's heroes are spiritually poor, narrow-minded. They are created only to enjoy food, dress, celebrate, have fun. Their world is artificial, but they like it and enjoy living in it. Even a special pair of young people was hired on the ship for a very large sum of money, who played lovers in order to amuse and surprise rich gentlemen, and who had long been tired of this game. “And no one knew that this couple had long been bored with pretending to suffer their blissful torment to shamelessly sad music ...”

The only real thing in the artificial world was the nascent feeling of love for the young prince in the daughter of a gentleman from San Francisco.

The steamboat on which these people are sailing consists of two floors. The upper floor is dominated by the rich, who think they have a right to everything that they are allowed to do, and the lower floor is worked to exhaustion by stokers, dirty, bare to the waist, crimson from the flames. Bunin shows us the split of the world into two parts, where one is allowed everything, and the other nothing, and the symbol of this world is the steamer "Atlantis".

The world of millionaires is insignificant and selfish. These people are always looking for their own benefit, so that they alone feel good, but they never think about the people who surround them. They are arrogant and try to avoid people of lower rank, treat them with disdain, although ragamuffins will faithfully serve them for pennies. Here is how Bunin describes the cynicism of a gentleman from San Francisco: “And when the Atlantis finally entered the harbor, rolled up to the embankment with its multi-story bulk, dotted with people, and the gangway rumbled - how many porters and their assistants in caps with gold galloons, how many commission agents, whistling boys and hefty ragamuffins with bundles of colored postcards in their hands rushed to meet him with an offer of services! And he grinned at these ragamuffins, and calmly spoke through his teeth now in English, now in Italian: “Get out! Away!"".

A gentleman from San Francisco travels across different countries, but he does not have a sense of admiration for beauty, he is not interested in seeing the sights, museums, churches. All his senses are reduced to eating well and relaxing, leaning back in his chair.

When a gentleman from San Francisco dies, suddenly feeling some kind of illness, then the whole society of millionaires became agitated, feeling disgust for the deceased, because he violated their peace, their constant state of celebration. People like them never think about human life, about death, about the world, about some global issues. They just live without thinking about anything, doing nothing for the sake of humanity. Their life passes aimlessly, and when they die, no one will remember that these people existed. In life, they have not done anything significant, worthwhile, therefore they are useless to society.

This is very well illustrated by the example of a gentleman from San Francisco. When the wife of the deceased asked to be moved to her husband's room, the owner of the hotel refused, as he had no benefit from this. The dead old man was not even placed in a coffin, but in a box of English soda water. Bunin contrasts: how respectfully they treated a wealthy gentleman from San Francisco and how disrespectfully they treated a dead old man.

The writer denies the kind of life that the gentleman from San Francisco and the rich gentlemen from the steamer Atlantis led. He shows in the story how insignificant power, money before death. The main idea of ​​the story is that everyone is equal before death, that some class, property lines that separate people are not important before death, so you need to live your life in such a way that after death a long memory of you remains.

Other writings on this work