Allegories in the story of the gentleman from San Francisco. Images-symbols in the work of I.A. Bunin "Mr. from San Francisco". Essay on literature on the topic: Symbols in the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”

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 of morally dead, soulless people who think 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.

*In 1776, the Spaniards settled on the coast of the peninsula, building a fort near the Golden Gate and establishing a mission named after St. Francis. A small town that sprang up nearby was called Yerba Yuuena. In 1848, thanks to the California Gold Rush, the city began to grow rapidly. In the same year it was renamed San Francisco.
The history of San Francisco was greatly influenced by its unique geographical location and made it an important center of maritime trade and a very convenient defensive redoubt.

Reviews

Sudden and unexpected. I love such topics, dear author) Let me help you in this matter with a couple of additions regarding the images of this well-known story)

Regarding the title of the work, as well as the figure of the main character himself:

No wonder Bunin called him Mister, and that’s all. Throughout the entire story, we do not see a single hint of the first name, last name or any other element of the hero’s personification. He is just a blur, an inconspicuous silhouette, a nameless shadow. Well, that’s what happened, because after his death everyone immediately forgot about him. Thus, the author shows us what is the fate of people who spend their whole lives (sic) for the sake of money, power and prestige. They are just wallets with legs. And they are surrounded, as you noticed, by dead people, corrupt and soulless. And they surround not the people themselves, but their money and their status. So the world remembers this man as a certain gentleman. Really, do you remember it? A moment ago, specks of dust were blown off him - all at his expense, and now his body was being transported on the same "Atlantis" in a box. The box is also a symbolic detail. Initially there was no trace of any respect for this “Mister” - only for money.

And you, dear author, should also remember, against the background of the above, a certain Lorenzo, a poor, lazy boatman, whose name is known throughout Italy. Italian artists adore this Lorenzo, which is expressed in paintings with his direct participation. He never thought about material wealth, he did not flush most of his life down the drain to enjoy the rest of it surrounded by those who want his money. He simply enjoyed life as it was. And his name is Bunin. His name is known and remembered through the pictures described above.

The name is the main symbol of the story. The main character's life is so empty and worthless that the author did not even give him a name. Everyone will forget him after his death anyway. And no one needed to know this, the main thing for them was that he was a master.

A similar moment with a name can be found in the story “Ionych” by Anton Palych. There was Dmitry Startsev, a spiritually rich uncle. And in the end he became just Ionych. Wallet man. So they called him without respect, carelessly.

I hope my verbiage didn’t bore you, I just love discussing works)

It seems to me that the boatman Lorenzo was invented by Bunin himself as a contrast to the main character) Although, who knows, I’m not so thoroughly informed...

“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 withstand world upheavals, cannot resist the flow of life that carries him like a river carries a chip. 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. This is the eternal tragedy of 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 presented in a few sentences in the most general form; there is no detailed portrait of him in the story, his name is never mentioned. Thus, the main character is a typical character in a parable: 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 violates these rules of the parable genre and uses one bright detail after another, realizing his artistic principle of 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. The combination of a verse from the Apocalypse with the image of modern heroes and the circumstances of modern life already sets the reader in a philosophical mood. Babylon in the Bible is not just a big city, it 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 inhuman conditions - in the roar, in the hellish heat and stuffiness - 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 stormy 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 the story reveals Bunin’s philosophical idea about man’s powerlessness 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. In 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 - the highest point of the ship, where passengers are prohibited from entering, he is rarely shown in public, but 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, which attracts 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 was 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 “The Mister from San Francisco” is considered one of Bunin’s best stories both in terms of its idea and its 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 his 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; 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.

Questions for the lesson

2. Find the symbols in the story. Think about what specific and general meaning they have in the story.

3. For what purpose did Bunin give his ship the name “Atlantis”?

From December 1913, Bunin spent six months in Capri. Before that, he traveled to France and other European cities, visited Egypt, Algeria, and Ceylon. The impressions from these travels were reflected in the stories and stories that made up the collections “Sukhodol” (1912), “John the Weeper” (1913), “The Cup of Life” (1915), “The Master from San Francisco” (1916).

The story “Mr. from San Francisco” continued the tradition of L.N. Tolstoy, who portrayed illness and death as the most important events that reveal the true value of an individual. Along with the philosophical line, Bunin’s story developed social issues associated with a critical attitude towards lack of spirituality, towards the exaltation of technical progress to the detriment of internal improvement.

The creative impetus for writing this work was given by the news of the death of a millionaire who came to Capri and stayed at a local hotel. Therefore, the story was originally called “Death on Capri.” The change of title emphasizes that the author’s focus is on the figure of a nameless millionaire, fifty-eight years old, sailing from America on vacation to blessed Italy.

He devoted his entire life to the unbridled accumulation of wealth, never allowing himself relaxation or rest. And only now, a person who neglects nature and despises people, having become “decrepit”, “dry”, unhealthy, decides to spend time among his own kind, surrounded by the sea and pine trees.

It seemed to him, the author sarcastically notes, that he “had just started life.” The rich man does not suspect that all that vain, meaningless time of his existence, which he has taken beyond the brackets of life, must suddenly end, end in nothing, so that he is never given the opportunity to know life itself in its true meaning.

Question

What is the significance of the main setting of the story?

Answer

The main action of the story takes place on the huge steamship Atlantis. This is a kind of model of bourgeois society, in which there are upper “floors” and “basements”. Upstairs, life goes on as in a “hotel with all the amenities,” measured, calm and idle. There are “many” “passengers” who live “prosperously”, but there are much more – “a great multitude” – of those who work for them.

Question

What technique does Bunin use to depict the division of society?

Answer

The division has the character of an antithesis: rest, carelessness, dancing and work, “unbearable tension” are opposed; “the radiance… of the palace” and the dark and sultry depths of the underworld”; “gentlemen” in tailcoats and tuxedos, ladies in “rich” “charming” “toilets” and drenched in acrid, dirty sweat and naked people to the waist, crimson from the flames.” Gradually a picture of heaven and hell is being built.

Question

How do “tops” and “bottoms” relate to each other?

Answer

They are strangely connected to each other. “Good money” helps to get to the top, and those who, like “the gentleman from San Francisco,” were “quite generous” to people from the “underworld”, they “fed and watered... from morning to evening they served him, warning him of the slightest desire, protected his cleanliness and peace, carried his things...".

Question

Drawing a unique model of bourgeois society, Bunin operates with a number of magnificent symbols. What images in the story have symbolic meaning?

Answer

Firstly, the ocean steamer with a significant name is perceived as a symbol of society "Atlantis", on which a nameless millionaire is sailing to Europe. Atlantis is a sunken legendary, mythical continent, a symbol of a lost civilization that could not resist the onslaught of the elements. Associations also arise with the Titanic, which sank in 1912.

« Ocean, who walked behind the walls of the ship, is a symbol of the elements, nature, opposing civilization.

It is also symbolic captain's image, “a red-haired man of monstrous size and bulk, resembling... a huge idol and very rarely appearing to people from his mysterious chambers.”

Symbolic image of the title character(the title character is the one whose name is in the title of the work; he may not be the main character). The gentleman from San Francisco is the personification of a man of bourgeois civilization.

He uses the underwater “womb” of the ship to the “ninth circle”, speaks of the “hot throats” of gigantic furnaces, makes the captain appear, a “red worm of monstrous size”, similar “to a huge idol”, and then the Devil on the rocks of Gibraltar; The author reproduces the “shuttle”, meaningless cruising of the ship, the formidable ocean and the storms on it. The epigraph of the story, given in one of the editions, is also artistically capacious: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!”

The richest symbolism, the rhythm of repetition, the system of allusions, the ring composition, the condensation of tropes, the most complex syntax with numerous periods - everything speaks of possibility, of the approach, finally, of inevitable death. Even the familiar name Gibraltar takes on its ominous meaning in this context.

Question

Why is the main character deprived of a name?

Answer

The hero is simply called “master” because that is his essence. At least he considers himself a master and revels in his position. He can allow himself “solely for the sake of entertainment” to go “to the Old World for two whole years”, can enjoy all the benefits guaranteed by his status, believes “in the care of all those who fed and watered him, served him from morning to evening, warning his slightest desire,” can contemptuously throw at the ragamuffins through clenched teeth: “Get out!”

Question

Answer

Describing the gentleman’s appearance, Bunin uses epithets that emphasize his wealth and his unnaturalness: “silver mustache”, “golden fillings” of teeth, “strong bald head” is compared to “old ivory”. There is nothing spiritual about the gentleman, his goal - to become rich and reap the fruits of this wealth - was realized, but he did not become happier because of it. The description of the gentleman from San Francisco is constantly accompanied by the author's irony.

In depicting his hero, the author masterfully uses the ability to notice details(I especially remember the episode with the cufflink) and using contrast, contrasting the external respectability and significance of the master with his internal emptiness and squalor. The writer emphasizes the deadness of the hero, the likeness of a thing (his bald head shone like “old ivory”), a mechanical doll, a robot. That is why he fiddles with the notorious cufflink for so long, awkwardly and slowly. That’s why he doesn’t utter a single monologue, and his two or three short, thoughtless remarks are more like the creaking and crackling of a wind-up toy.

Question

When does the hero begin to change and lose his self-confidence?

Answer

“Mister” changes only in the face of death, humanity begins to appear in him: “It was no longer the gentleman from San Francisco who was wheezing - he was no longer there, but someone else.” Death makes him human: his features began to become thinner and brighter...” “Deceased”, “deceased”, “dead” - this is what the author now calls the hero.

The attitude of those around him changes sharply: the corpse must be removed from the hotel so as not to spoil the mood of other guests, they cannot provide a coffin - only a soda box (“soda” is also one of the signs of civilization), the servants, who fawned over the living, laugh mockingly over the dead. At the end of the story there is a mention of “the body of the dead old man from San Francisco returning home to his grave on the shores of the New World” in a black hold. The power of the “master” turned out to be illusory.

Question

How are the other characters in the story described?

Answer

Equally silent, nameless, mechanized are those who surround the gentleman on the ship. In their characteristics, Bunin also conveys lack of spirituality: tourists are busy only with eating, drinking cognacs and liqueurs, and swimming “in the waves of spicy smoke.” The author again resorts to contrast, comparing their carefree, measured, regulated, carefree and festive lifestyle with the hellishly intense work of the watchmen and workers. And in order to reveal the falsehood of an ostensibly beautiful vacation, the writer depicts a hired young couple who imitate love and tenderness for the joyful contemplation of an idle public. In this pair there was a “sinfully modest girl” and “a young man with black, as if glued-on hair, pale with powder,” “resembling a huge leech.”

Question

Why are such episodic characters as Lorenzo and the Abruzzese mountaineers introduced into the story?

Answer

These characters appear at the end of the story and are outwardly in no way connected with its action. Lorenzo is “a tall old boatman, a carefree reveler and a handsome man,” probably the same age as the gentleman from San Francisco. Only a few lines are dedicated to him, but he is given a sonorous name, unlike the title character. He is famous throughout Italy and has repeatedly served as a model for many painters.

“With a regal demeanor” he looks around, feeling truly “royal”, enjoying life, “showing off with his rags, a clay pipe and a red wool beret lowered over one ear.” The picturesque poor man, old Lorenzo, will live forever on the canvases of artists, but the rich old man from San Francisco was erased from life and forgotten before he could die.

The Abruzzese highlanders, like Lorenzo, personify the naturalness and joy of being. They live in harmony, in harmony with the world, with nature. The mountaineers give praise to the sun and morning with their lively, artless music. These are the true values ​​of life, in contrast to the brilliant, expensive, but artificial imaginary values ​​of the “masters”.

Question

What image summarizes the insignificance and perishability of earthly wealth and glory?

Answer

This is also an unnamed image, in which one recognizes the once powerful Roman emperor Tiberius, who lived the last years of his life in Capri. Many “come to look at the remains of the stone house where he lived.” “Humanity will forever remember him,” but this is the glory of Herostratus: “a man who was unspeakably vile in satisfying his lust and for some reason had power over millions of people, inflicting cruelties on them beyond all measure.” In the word “for some reason” there is an exposure of fictitious power and pride; time puts everything in its place: it gives immortality to the true and plunges the false into oblivion.

The story gradually develops the theme of the end of the existing world order, the inevitability of the death of a soulless and spiritual civilization. It is contained in the epigraph, which was removed by Bunin only in the last edition in 1951: “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city!” This biblical phrase, reminiscent of Belshazzar's feast before the fall of the Chaldean kingdom, sounds like a harbinger of great disasters to come. The mention in the text of Vesuvius, the eruption of which destroyed Pompeii, reinforces the ominous prediction. An acute sense of the crisis of a civilization doomed to oblivion is coupled with philosophical reflections on life, man, death and immortality.

Bunin's story does not evoke a feeling of hopelessness. In contrast to the world of the ugly, alien to beauty (Neapolitan museums and songs dedicated to Capri nature and life itself), the writer conveys the world of beauty. The author's ideal is embodied in the images of the cheerful Abruzzese highlanders, in the beauty of Mount Solaro, it is reflected in the Madonna who decorated the grotto, in the sunniest, fabulously beautiful Italy, which rejected the gentleman from San Francisco.

And then it happens, this expected, inevitable death. In Capri, a gentleman from San Francisco dies suddenly. Our premonition and the epigraph of the story are justified. The story of placing the gentleman in a soda box and then in a coffin shows all the futility and meaninglessness of those accumulations, lusts, and self-delusion with which the main character existed until that moment.

A new reference point for time and events arises. The death of the master, as it were, cuts the narrative into two parts, and this determines the originality of the composition. The attitude towards the deceased and his wife changes dramatically. Before our eyes, the hotel owner and the bellboy Luigi become indifferently callous. The pitifulness and absolute uselessness of the one who considered himself the center of the universe is revealed.

Bunin raises questions about the meaning and essence of existence, about life and death, about the value of human existence, about sin and guilt, about God's judgment for the criminality of acts. The hero of the story does not receive justification or forgiveness from the author, and the ocean rumbles angrily as the steamer returns with the coffin of the deceased.

Teacher's final words

Once upon a time, Pushkin, in a poem from the period of southern exile, romantically glorified the free sea and, changing its name, called it “ocean”. He also painted two deaths at sea, turning his gaze to the rock, “the tomb of glory,” and ended the poems with a reflection on goodness and the tyrant. Essentially, Bunin proposed a similar structure: the ocean - a ship, “kept by whim,” “a feast during the plague” - two deaths (of a millionaire and Tiberius), a rock with the ruins of a palace - a reflection on the good and the tyrant. But how everything was rethought by the writer of the “iron” twentieth century!

With epic thoroughness, accessible to prose, Bunin paints the sea not as a free, beautiful and capricious element, but as a formidable, ferocious and disastrous element. Pushkin's “feast during the plague” loses its tragedy and takes on a parodic and grotesque character. The death of the hero of the story turns out to be unmourned by people. And the rock on the island, the emperor’s refuge, this time becomes not a “tomb of glory”, but a parody monument, an object of tourism: people dragged themselves across the ocean here, Bunin writes with bitter irony, climbed the steep cliff on which lived a vile and depraved monster, dooming people to countless deaths. Such a rethinking conveys the disastrous and catastrophic nature of the world, which finds itself, like the steamship, on the edge of the abyss.

Literature

Dmitry Bykov. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. // Encyclopedia for children “Avanta+”. Volume 9. Russian literature. Part two. XX century M., 1999

Vera Muromtseva-Bunina. Bunin's life. Conversations with memory. M.: Vagrius, 2007

Galina Kuznetsova. Grasse diary. M.: Moscow worker, 1995

N.V. Egorova. Lesson developments in Russian literature. Grade 11. I half of the year. M.: VAKO, 2005

D.N. Murin, E.D. Kononova, E.V. Minenko. Russian literature of the 20th century. 11th grade program. Thematic lesson planning. St. Petersburg: SMIO Press, 2001

E.S. Rogover. Russian literature of the 20th century. SP.: Parity, 2002

“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 withstand world upheavals, cannot resist the flow of life that carries him like a river carries a chip. 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. This is the eternal tragedy of 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 presented in a few sentences in the most general form; there is no detailed portrait of him in the story, his name is never mentioned. Thus, the main character is a typical character in a parable: 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 violates these rules of the parable genre and uses one bright detail after another, realizing his artistic principle of 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. The combination of a verse from the Apocalypse with the image of modern heroes and the circumstances of modern life already sets the reader in a philosophical mood. Babylon in the Bible is not just a big city, it 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 inhuman conditions - in the roar, in the hellish heat and stuffiness - 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 stormy 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 the story reveals Bunin’s philosophical idea about man’s powerlessness 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. In 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 - the highest point of the ship, where passengers are prohibited from entering, he is rarely shown in public, but 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, which attracts 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 was 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 “The Mister from San Francisco” is considered one of Bunin’s best stories both in terms of its idea and its 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 his 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; 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.

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 issues addressed in the story, social issues are also developed here. 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, or 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.

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