“The theme of love in the story “Garnet Bracelet.” “Garnet Bracelet”: the theme of love in Kuprin’s work. Essay on the work "Garnet Bracelet": the theme of love Main characters: characteristics of key images

Composition

The theme of love is one of the fundamental themes of world literature. Every writer certainly paid tribute to her. The wonderful Russian writer A.I. Kuprin illuminated it in his own way in his story The Garnet Bracelet, which K. Paustovsky called one of the most fragrant stories about love.

The plot of the story was taken by Kuprin from life. But the comic story of the real G.S.Zh. turned under the pen of a talented writer into a touching song of love.

The story begins in a decidedly ordinary way. The life of two spouses, in which the former passionate love... turned into friendship, empty talk about the need to morally raise vicious children. But already at the beginning of the story, some kind of anxiety is felt. The sister gives Princess Vera, the heroine of the story, a lady's notebook, converted from a prayer book of the 17th century, and Vera feels some unusual feeling.

Thirteen people gather at the festive table in connection with Verochka’s name day, and she feels that this is not good. And then General Anosov begins to argue that love, unselfish, selfless, not expecting a reward, has disappeared from modern life. All this is a kind of prologue to the main event: Princess Vera is brought a letter and a garnet bracelet from the unknown G.S.Zh. This is how the theme of love as a tragedy, as the greatest secret in the world, enters into the story.

It is characteristic that this great love flared up in the heart of a simple official Zheltkov. In other words, the eternal theme of love turns out to be connected with the theme of the little man, to which Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoevsky paid tribute in their time.

Kuprin's little man evokes neither pity nor a condescending smile. Zheltkov is beautiful in his pure and great love. This love became his need, the meaning of life. In his suicide letter to Vera, he admits: This is not a disease, not a manic idea, this is love with which God was pleased to reward me for something... Leaving, I say in delight: “Hallowed be thy name.”

The symbol of this love becomes a garnet bracelet, so carelessly given by Zheltkov to Verochka. However, the bracelet is not only a symbol of love, it is also a symbol of fate.

The green pomegranate, according to legend, protects men from violent death, and gives women the gift of foresight. Zheltkov gives the bracelet and dies because his secret love became obvious and encountered the cruelty of people. “Vera, having received the bracelet, learned this greatest secret of love. Standing at Zheltkov’s coffin, she was struck by the peaceful expression on his face, as if before his death he had learned some deep and sweet secret, and remembered that she had seen a similar expression on the death masks of the great sufferers Pushkin and Napoleon.

What an important detail! Great love elevated a little official to the level of a genius!

Two elements occupy a large place in the story: music and nature. The brilliant autumn landscape, the grassy smell of the last flowers, the gray and silent sea - all this, with its farewell chords, conveys the bitterness of parting to the story: It was even sadder to see the abandoned dachas with their sudden spaciousness, with disfigured flower beds... The calmed trees silently and obediently dropped their yellow leaves.

Music appears in the story as a force that helps a person to see clearly. Listening to a sonata by the great Beethoven, Zheltkov’s favorite musical work, given to his beloved woman as a will, Verochka hears the voice of a man in love with her: Think about me, and I will be with you, because you and I love each other only for one moment, but forever.

Princess Vera realized that the love that every woman dreams of had passed her by. But that’s not why she’s crying, she’s simply overwhelmed with admiration for these sublime, almost unearthly feelings. Peru Kuprin wrote many works about love, but in none of them, in my opinion, will we find such psychological depth of comprehension of this feeling as in the Garnet Bracelet

The story by A. I. Kuprin, The Garnet Bracelet, amazes the reader with the depth of feelings of one of the characters, as well as with the question that the author poses in the work, what is love? At all times, people have tried to find an answer to the question of the reasons for the emergence of this ardent feeling. But there is no universal answer. Each person answers the question of love in his own way throughout his life. And the petty official Zheltkov, who dared to love Princess Vera Nikolaevna, seems to be both a victim of fate and an amazing, exalted person, not at all similar to those around him.

Indeed, selfless love is a completely unique phenomenon that is very, very rare. It is no coincidence that Princess Vera Nikolaevna, being at the coffin of Zheltkov, who was in love with her, realized that the love that every woman dreams of had passed her by.

The story says practically nothing about Zheltkov himself. The reader learns about him through small details. But even these minor details used by the author in his narrative indicate a lot. We understand that the inner world of this extraordinary person was very, very rich. This man was not like others, he was not mired in the wretched and dull everyday life, his. the soul strived for the beautiful and sublime.

What could be more beautiful and sublime than love itself. By some whim of fate, Vera Nikolaevna once seemed to Zheltkov to be an amazing, completely unearthly creature. And a strong, bright feeling flared up in his heart. He was always at some distance from his beloved, and, obviously, this distance contributed to the strength of his passion. He could not forget the beautiful image of the princess, and he was not stopped at all by the indifference on the part of his beloved.

Zheltkov did not demand anything for his love; his letters to the princess were just a desire to speak out, to convey his feelings to his beloved being. Otherwise, love was the only treasure of the poor petty official. With all his desire, he could not have power over his soul, in which the image of the princess occupied too large a place. Zheltkov idealized his beloved, he knew nothing about her, so he painted a completely unearthly image in his imagination. And this also reveals the originality of his nature. His love could not be discredited or tarnished precisely because it was too far from real life. Zheltkov never met his beloved, his feelings remained a mirage, they were not connected with reality. And in this regard, the lover N Zheltkov appears before the reader as a dreamer, romantic and idealist, divorced from life.

He endowed the best qualities of a woman about whom he knew absolutely nothing. Perhaps if fate had given Zheltkov at least one meeting with the princess, he would have changed his opinion about her. At the very least, she would not seem to him an ideal creature, absolutely devoid of flaws. But, alas, the meeting turned out to be impossible.

Speaking of love, one cannot help but recall the conversation between General Anosov and Princess Vera Nikolaevna. The conversation concerns precisely this unique phenomenon of love. Anosov says: Love must be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world! No life conveniences, calculations and compromises should concern her!

If you approach love with exactly this yardstick, then it becomes clear that Zheltkov’s love is exactly like that. He easily puts his feelings for the beautiful princess above everything else in the world. In essence, life itself does not have much value for Zheltkov. And, probably, the reason for this is the lack of demand for his love, because Mr. Zheltkov’s life is not decorated with anything except feelings for the princess. At the same time, the princess herself lives a completely different life, in which there is no place for the lover Zheltkov. Moreover, signs of attention on his part, that is, numerous letters, simply anger the lovely Vera Nikolaevna. And she doesn't want the flow of these letters to continue. The princess is not interested in her unknown admirer; she is happy without him. All the more surprising and even strange is Zheltkov, who consciously cultivates his passion for Vera Nikolaevna.

Is it possible to call Zheltkov a sufferer who lived his life uselessly, giving himself up as a sacrifice to some amazing soulless love? On the one hand, he appears exactly like that. He was ready to give the life of his beloved, but no one needed such a sacrifice. The garnet bracelet itself is a detail that even more clearly emphasizes the whole tragedy of this man. He is ready to part with a family heirloom, an ornament passed down by inheritance from the women of his family. Zheltkov is ready to give his only jewel to a completely stranger, and she did not need this gift at all.

The narrative is accompanied by additional illustrations of the love relationships of various people. General Anosov tells Verochka the story of his marriage. At the same time, he admits that his feelings can be called anything but true love. He also talks about situations that he had to face in his own life. In each of these stories, the beautiful human feeling of love appears in some kind of perverted form.

The story of a young warrant officer and the wife of a regimental commander, and also the story of the captain’s wife and Lieutenant Vishnyakov shows love in its most unsightly form. Each time the reader indignantly rejects the idea that such a relationship can be called love.

Love should be creative, not destructive. Love divorced from life evokes admiration, but nothing more. A person who is capable of such sublime feelings can be admired, one can consider him completely special and amazing. You can also feel sorry for him on a purely human level. After all, although his love brightened up his life, shone in the sky like a bright star, it did not allow Zheltkov to become a happy person or at least make the object of his love happy.

That is why the death of the main character at the end of the story seems to be a completely natural outcome. Love dried him up, took away all the best that was in his nature. But she gave nothing in return. Therefore, the unhappy person has nothing else left. Obviously, by the death of the hero, Kuprin wanted to express his attitude towards his love. Zheltkov is, of course, a unique, very special person. Therefore, it is very difficult for him to live among ordinary people. It turns out that there is no place for him on this earth. And this is his tragedy, and not his fault at all. Zheltkov deified his beloved, his prayer was addressed to her: Hallowed be Thy name.

However, with all this, Princess Vera was an ordinary earthly woman who sincerely loved her husband. So her deification is a figment of poor Zheltkov’s imagination. Of course, his love can be called a unique, wonderful, amazingly beautiful phenomenon. When the princess listened to Beethoven's sonata, she simultaneously thought that a great love had passed her by, something that happens only once every thousand years. Yes, such selfless and amazingly pure love is very rare. But it’s still good that it happens this way. After all, such love goes hand in hand with tragedy, it ruins a person’s life. And the beauty of the soul remains unclaimed, no one knows about it or notices it.

Other works on this work

The theme of love in A. I. Kuprin’s story “The Garnet Bracelet”

(“The disease of love is incurable...”)

Love... is stronger than death and the fear of death. Only by her, only by love does life hold and move.

I.S. Turgenev.

Love... A word denoting the most reverent, tender, romantic and inspired feeling inherent in a person. However, people often confuse love with being in love. A real feeling takes possession of a person’s entire being, sets all his forces in motion, inspires the most incredible actions, evokes the best motives, and excites the creative imagination. But love is not always joy, mutual feeling, happiness given to two. It is also disappointment from unrequited love. A person cannot stop loving at will.

Every great artist devoted many pages to this “eternal” topic. A.I. Kuprin did not ignore it either. Throughout his career, the writer showed great interest in everything beautiful, strong, sincere and natural. He considered love to be one of the great joys of life. His stories and stories “Olesya”, “Shulamith”, “Pomegranate Bracelet” tell about ideal love, pure, boundless, beautiful and powerful.

In Russian literature, perhaps, there is no work that has a stronger emotional impact on the reader than “The Garnet Bracelet.” Kuprin touches on the theme of love chastely, reverently and at the same time nervously. Otherwise, you can’t touch her.

Sometimes it seems that everything has been said about love in world literature. Is it possible to talk about love after “Tristan and Isolde”, after the sonnets of Petrarch and “Romeo and Juliet” by Shakespeare, after Pushkin’s poem “For the Shores of the Distant Fatherland”, Lermontov’s “Don’t Laugh at My Prophetic Melancholy”, after Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” and Chekhov's "Lady with a Dog"? But love has thousands of aspects, and each of them has its own light, its own joy, its own happiness, its own sadness and pain, and its own fragrance.

The story “The Garnet Bracelet” is one of the saddest works about love. Kuprin admitted that he cried over the manuscript. And if a work makes the author and reader cry, then this speaks of the deep vitality of what the writer created and his great talent. Kuprin has many works about love, about the expectation of love, about its touching outcomes, about its poetry, longing and eternal youth. He always and everywhere blessed love. The theme of the story “The Garnet Bracelet” is love to the point of self-abasement, to the point of self-denial. But the interesting thing is that love strikes the most ordinary person - the office official Zheltkov. Such love, it seems to me, was given to him from above as a reward for a joyless existence. The hero of the story is no longer young, and his love for Princess Vera Sheina gave meaning to his life, filled it with inspiration and joy. This love was meaning and happiness only for Zheltkov. Princess Vera considered him crazy. She did not know his last name and had never seen this man. He only sent her greeting cards and wrote letters signed G.S.Zh.

But one day, on the princess’s name day, Zheltkov decided to be bold: he sent her an antique bracelet with beautiful garnets as a gift. Fearing that her name may be compromised, Vera's brother insists on returning the bracelet to its owner, and her husband and Vera agree.

In a fit of nervous excitement, Zheltkov confesses to Prince Shein his love for his wife. This confession touches to the depths of the soul: “I know that I can never stop loving her. What would you do to end this feeling? Send me to another city? All the same, I will love Vera Nikolaevna there just as much as I do here. Put me in jail? But even there I will find a way to let her know about my existence. There is only one thing left - death...” Over the years, love has become a disease, an incurable disease. She absorbed his entire essence without a trace. Zheltkov lived only by this love. Even if Princess Vera didn’t know him, even if he couldn’t reveal his feelings to her, couldn’t possess her... That’s not the main thing. The main thing is that he loved her with a sublime, platonic, pure love. It was enough for him to just see her sometimes and know that she was doing well.

Zheltkov wrote his last words of love for the one who had been the meaning of his life for many years in his suicide letter. It is impossible to read this letter without heavy emotional excitement, in which the refrain sounds hysterically and amazingly: “Hallowed be thy name!” What gives the story special power is that love appears in it as an unexpected gift of fate, poeticized and illuminating life. Lyubov Zheltkova is like a ray of light among everyday life, among sober reality and established life. There is no cure for such love, it is incurable. Only death can serve as deliverance. This love is confined to one person and carries destructive power. “It so happened that I am not interested in anything in life: neither politics, nor science, nor philosophy, nor concerns about the future happiness of people,” Zheltkov writes in a letter, “for me, all life lies in you.” This feeling crowds out all other thoughts from the hero’s consciousness.

The autumn landscape, the silent sea, empty dachas, and the grassy smell of the last flowers add special strength and bitterness to the story.

Love, according to Kuprin, is passion, it is a strong and real feeling that elevates a person, awakening the best qualities of his soul; it is truthfulness and honesty in relationships. The writer put his thoughts about love into the mouth of General Anosov: “Love should be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world. No life conveniences, calculations or compromises should concern her.”

It seems to me that today it is almost impossible to find such love. Lyubov Zheltkova - romantic worship of a woman, knightly service to her. Princess Vera realized that true love, which is given to a person only once in a lifetime and which every woman dreams of, passed her by.

Composition

The theme of love in the works of Kuprin (based on the story The Garnet Bracelet) Love has thousands of aspects and each of them has its own light, its own sadness, its own happiness and its own fragrance. K. Paustovsky. Among the stories of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, the Garnet Bracelet occupies a special place. Paustovsky called it one of the most fragrant, languid and saddest stories about love.

One of the main characters, the poor shy official Zheltkov, fell in love with Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the leader of the nobility Vasily Shein. He considered her unavailable and then did not even try to meet with her. Zheltkov wrote letters to her, collected forgotten things and watched her at various exhibitions and meetings. And so, eight years after Zheltkov first saw and fell in love with Vera, he sends her a gift with a letter in which he presents a garnet bracelet and bows before her. I mentally bow to the ground of the furniture on which you sit, the parquet floor on which you walk, the trees that you touch in passing, the servants with whom you speak. Vera told her husband about this gift and, in order not to get into a funny situation, they decided to return the garnet bracelet. Vasily Shein and his wife’s brother asked Zheltkov not to send Vera letters and gifts anymore, but they allowed him to write a final letter in which he apologizes and says goodbye to Vera. Let me be ridiculous in your eyes and in the eyes of your brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich.

As I leave, I say in delight: Hallowed be thy name. Zheltkov had no goal in life, he was not interested in anything, he did not go to theaters, did not read books, he lived only by love for Vera. She was the only joy in life, the only consolation, the only thought. And so, when the last joy in life is taken away from him, Zheltkov commits suicide. The modest clerk Zheltkov is better and cleaner than people of secular society, such as Vasily Shein and Nikolai. The nobility of the soul of a simple person, his ability for deep experiences is contrasted with the callous, soulless powers of this world.

As you know, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, a writer, was a psychologist. He transferred his observations of human character into literature, thereby enriching and diversifying it. Reading his works, you feel a particularly subtle, deep and sensitive awareness of everything. It seems that the writer knows what you are worried about and is trying to help you, guiding you on the right path. After all, the world in which we live is sometimes so polluted with lies, meanness and vulgarity that we sometimes need a charge of positive energy to resist the sucking quagmire. Who will show us the source of purity? In my opinion, Kuprin has such a talent. He, like a master polishing a stone, reveals in our souls a wealth that we ourselves did not know about. In his works, to reveal the characters of the characters, he uses the technique of psychological analysis, portraying the main character as a spiritually liberated person, trying to endow him with all those wonderful qualities that we admire in people. In particular, sensitivity, understanding towards others and a demanding, strict attitude towards oneself. There are many examples of this: engineer Bobrov, Olesya, G.S. Zheltkov. All of them carry within themselves what we call high moral perfection. They all love selflessly, forgetting themselves.

In the story The Garnet Bracelet, Kuprin, with all the power of his skill, develops the idea of ​​true love. He does not want to come to terms with vulgar, practical views on love and marriage, drawing our attention to these problems in a rather unusual way, equating to an ideal feeling. Through the mouth of General Anosov, he says: ...People in our time have forgotten how to love! I don't see true love. And in my time I didn’t see it. What is this Challenge? Is it really that what we feel is not the truth? We have calm, moderate happiness with the person we need. What's more? According to Kuprin, Love must be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world! No life conveniences, calculations and compromises should concern her. Only then can love be called a real feeling, completely true and moral.

I still cannot forget what an impression Zheltkov’s feelings made on me. How much he loved Vera Nikolaevna that he could commit suicide! This is crazy! Loving Princess Sheina for seven years with a hopeless and polite love, he, without ever meeting her, talking about his love only in letters, suddenly commits suicide! Not because Vera Nikolaevna’s brother is going to turn to the authorities, and not because his gift of a garnet bracelet was returned. (It is a symbol of deep fiery love and at the same time a terrible bloody sign of death.) And, probably, not because he squandered government money. For Zheltkov there was simply no other choice. He loved a married woman so much that he could not help but think about her for a minute, and exist without remembering her smile, her look, the sound of her walk. He himself says to Vera’s husband: There is only one thing left: death... You want me to accept it in any form. The terrible thing is that he was pushed to this decision by Vera Nikolaevna’s brother and husband, who came to demand that their family be left alone. They turned out to be indirectly responsible for his death. They had the right to demand peace, but Nikolai Nikolayevich’s threat to turn to the authorities was unacceptable, even ridiculous. How can the government prohibit a person from loving?

Kuprin’s ideal is selfless love, self-sacrificing, not expecting a reward, one for which you can give your life and endure anything. It was with this kind of love that happens once every thousand years that Zheltkov loved. This was his need, the meaning of life, and he proved this: I knew neither complaint, nor reproach, nor the pain of pride, I have only one prayer before you: Hallowed be Thy name. These words, with which his soul was filled, are felt by Princess Vera in the sounds of Beethoven’s immortal sonata. They cannot leave us indifferent and instill in us an unbridled desire to strive for the same incomparably pure feeling. Its roots go back to morality and spiritual harmony in man.

Princess Vera did not regret that this love, which every woman dreams of, passed her by. She cries because her soul is filled with admiration for sublime, almost unearthly feelings.

A person who could love so much must have some kind of special worldview. Although Zheltkov was just a small official, he turned out to be above social norms and standards. People like them are elevated by people's rumors to the rank of saints, and the bright memory of them lives on for a long time.

Other works on this work

In the life of every person, love always occupies a special place. Poets and writers glorify this feeling. After all, it is precisely this that makes one feel the joy of being, and elevates a person above circumstances and obstacles, even if love is unrequited. A.I. Kuprin is no exception. His story “The Garnet Bracelet” is a masterpiece of world literary heritage.

An unusual story on an ordinary topic

The theme of love in the work “Garnet Bracelet” occupies the main place. The story reveals the most secret corners of the human soul, which is why it is loved by readers of various age groups. In the work, the author shows what a person is really capable of for the sake of true love. Every reader hopes that he will be able to feel exactly the same as the main character of this story. The theme of love in the work “The Garnet Bracelet” is, first of all, the theme of relationships between the sexes, dangerous and ambiguous for any writer. After all, it is very difficult to avoid banality when describing something that has already been said a thousand times. However, the writer manages to touch even the most experienced reader with his story.

Impossibility of happiness

Kuprin in his story talks about beautiful and unrequited love - this must be mentioned when analyzing the work “Garnet Bracelet”. The theme of love in the story occupies a central place, because its main character, Zheltkov, experiences unrequited feelings. He loves Vera, but cannot be with her because she is completely indifferent to him. Besides this, all circumstances are against them being together. Firstly, they occupy different positions on the social ladder. Zheltkov is poor, he is a representative of a completely different class. Secondly, Vera is bound by marriage. She would never agree to cheat on her husband, because she is attached to him with all her soul. And these are just two reasons why Zheltkov cannot be with Vera.

Christian feelings

With such hopelessness it is hardly possible to believe in anything. However, the main character does not lose hope. His love was absolutely phenomenal, he could only give without demanding anything in return. The theme of love in the work “Garnet Bracelet” is at the center of the storyline. And the feelings that Zheltkov experiences for Vera are tinged with the sacrifice inherent in Christianity. After all, the main character did not rebel, he came to terms with his situation. Nor did he expect any reward for his patience in the form of a response. His love had no selfish motives. Zheltkov managed to renounce himself, putting his feelings for his beloved first.

Caring for your loved one

At the same time, the main character turns out to be honest towards Vera and her husband. He admits the sinfulness of his passion. Not once in all the years that he loved Vera did Zheltkov cross the threshold of her house with a proposal or compromise the woman in any way. That is, he cared about her personal happiness and well-being more than about himself, and this is true self-denial.

The greatness of the feelings that Zheltkov experienced lies in the fact that he was able to let Vera go for the sake of her happiness. And he did this at the cost of his own life. He knew what he would do to himself after he squandered government money, but he took this step deliberately. And at the same time, the main character did not give Vera a single reason to believe that she could be guilty of anything. An official commits suicide because of a crime he committed.

In those days, desperate people took their own lives so that their obligations would not be transferred to loved ones. And therefore, Zheltkov’s action seemed logical and had nothing to do with Vera. This fact testifies to the unusual tenderness of the feeling that Zheltkov had for her. This is the rarest treasure of the human soul. The official proved that love can be stronger than death itself.

A turning point

In an essay on the work “Garnet Bracelet. Theme of Love" you can indicate what the plot of the story was. The main character - Vera - is the wife of the prince. She constantly receives letters from a secret admirer. However, one day, instead of letters, a rather expensive gift arrives - a garnet bracelet. The theme of love in Kuprin’s work originates here. Vera regarded such a gift as compromising and told everything to her husband and brother, who easily found who sent it.

It turned out to be a modest civil servant Georgy Zheltkov. He accidentally saw Vera and fell in love with her with all his being. At the same time, Zheltkov was quite pleased with the fact that love was unrequited. The prince appears to him, after which the official feels that he has let Vera down, because he compromised her with an expensive garnet bracelet. The theme of tragic love in the work sounds like a leitmotif. Zheltkov asked Vera for forgiveness in a letter, asked her to listen to a Beethoven sonata and committed suicide - he shot himself.

Tragedy of Vera

This story interested Vera, she asked her husband for permission to visit the deceased’s apartment. In the analysis of the work “Garnet Bracelet” by Kuprin, the theme of love should be considered in detail. The student should point out that it was in Zheltkov’s apartment that she felt all those feelings that she had never experienced during the entire 8 years that Zheltkov loved her. At home, listening to that same sonata, she realized that Zheltkov could make her happy.

Images of heroes

You can briefly describe the images of the heroes in the analysis of the work “Garnet Bracelet”. The theme of love, chosen by Kuprin, helped him create characters that reflect the social realities not only of his era. Their roles apply to all of humanity. The image of the official Zheltkov is proof of this. He is not rich, he has no special merits. Zheltkov is a completely modest person. He does not demand anything in return for his feelings.

Vera is a woman who is accustomed to obeying the rules of society. Of course, she does not give up love, but she does not consider it a vital necessity. After all, she has a husband who can give her everything she needs, so she doesn’t need feelings. But this happens only until she finds out about Zheltkov’s death. Love in Kuprin's work symbolizes the nobility of the human soul. Neither Prince Shein nor Vera herself can boast of this feeling. Love was the highest manifestation of Zheltkov’s soul. Without demanding anything, he knew how to enjoy the splendor of his experiences.

Moral that the reader can take away

It also needs to be said that the theme of love in the work “Garnet Bracelet” was not chosen by chance by Kuprin. The reader can conclude this: in a world where comfort and daily obligations come to the fore, under no circumstances should you take your loved one for granted. We need to value him as much as ourselves, which is what the main character of the story Zheltkov teaches us.

In literature in general, and in Russian literature in particular, the problem of the relationship between man and the world around him occupies a significant place. Personality and environment, individual and society - many Russian writers of the 19th century thought about this. The fruits of these reflections were reflected in many stable formulations, for example in the well-known phrase “Wednesday has eaten.” Interest in this topic intensified noticeably at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, during a turning point for Russia. In the spirit of humanistic traditions inherited from the past, Alexander Kuprin considers this issue, using all the artistic means that have become an achievement of the turn of the century.

The work of this writer was for a long time, as it were, in the shadows, overshadowed by bright representatives of his contemporaries. Today, the works of A. Kuprin are of great interest. They attract the reader with their simplicity, humanity, and democracy in the noblest sense of the word. The world of A. Kuprin’s heroes is motley and diverse. He himself lived a bright life, filled with diverse impressions - he was a military man, a clerk, a land surveyor, and an actor in a traveling circus troupe. A. Kuprin said many times that he does not understand writers who do not find anything more interesting than themselves in nature and people. The writer is very interested in human destinies, while the heroes of his works are most often not successful, successful people, satisfied with themselves and life, but rather the opposite. But A. Kuprin treats his outwardly unsightly and unlucky heroes with the warmth and humanity that has always distinguished Russian writers. In the characters of the stories “White Poodle”, “Taper”, “Gambrinus”, as well as many others, the features of a “little man” are discernible, but the writer not only reproduces this type, but reinterprets it anew.

Let's reveal Kupri's very famous story "The Garnet Bracelet", written in 1911. Its plot is based on a real event - the love of telegraph official P. P. Zheltkov for the wife of an important official, member of the State Council Lyubimov. This story is mentioned by Lyubimov’s son, the author of famous memoirs Lev Lyubimov. In life, everything ended differently than in A. Kuprin’s story -. the official accepted the bracelet and stopped writing letters; nothing more was known about him. The Lyubimov family remembered this incident as strange and curious. Under the pen of the writer, the story turned into a sad and tragic story about the life of a little man who was elevated and destroyed by love. This is conveyed through the composition of the work. It gives an extensive, leisurely introduction, which introduces us to the exposition of the Sheyny house. The story of extraordinary love itself, the story of the garnet bracelet, is told in such a way that we see it through the eyes of different people: Prince Vasily, who tells it as an anecdotal incident, brother Nikolai, for whom everything in this story seems offensive and suspicious. important, Vera Nikolaevna herself and, finally, General Anosov, who was the first to suggest that here, perhaps, lies true love, “of which women dream and of which men are no longer capable.” The circle to which Vera Nikolaevna belongs cannot admit that this is a real feeling, not so much because of the strangeness of Zheltkov’s behavior, but because of the prejudices that control them. Kuprin, wanting to convince us, the readers, of the authenticity of Zheltkov’s love, resorts to the most irrefutable argument - the hero’s suicide. In this way, the little man’s right to happiness is affirmed, and the motive of his moral superiority over the people who so cruelly insulted him, who failed to understand the strength of the feeling that was the whole meaning of his life, arises.

Kuprin's story is both sad and bright. It is permeated by a musical beginning - a piece of music is indicated as an epigraph - and the story ends with a scene when the heroine listens to music at a tragic moment of moral insight for her. The text of the work includes the theme of the inevitability of the death of the main character - it is conveyed through the symbolism of light: at the moment of receiving the bracelet, Vera Nikolaevna sees red stones in it and thinks with alarm that they look like blood. Finally, the theme of the clash of different cultural traditions arises in the story: the theme of the east - the Mongolian blood of the father of Vera and Anna, the Tatar prince, introduces into the story the theme of love-passion, recklessness; the mention that the sisters’ mother is English introduces the theme of rationality, dispassion in the sphere of feelings, and the power of the mind over the heart. In the final part of the story, a third line appears: it is no coincidence that the landlady turns out to be a Catholic. This introduces into the work the theme of love-admiration, which in Catholicism surrounds the Mother of God, love-self-sacrifice.

A. Kuprin's hero, a little man, faces the world of misunderstanding around him, the world of people for whom love is a kind of madness, and, faced with it, dies.

In the wonderful story “Olesya,” we are presented with a poetic image of a girl who grew up in the hut of an old “witch,” outside the usual norms of a peasant family. Olesya’s love for the intellectual Ivan Timofeevich, who accidentally visited a remote forest village, is a free, simple and strong feeling, without looking back or obligations, among tall pines, painted with the crimson glow of the dying dawn. The girl's story ends tragically. Olesya’s free life is invaded by the selfish calculations of village officials and the superstitions of ignorant peasants. Beaten and molested, Olesya and Manuilikha are forced to flee from the forest nest.

In Kuprin's works, many heroes have similar traits - spiritual purity, dreaminess, ardent imagination, combined with impracticality and lack of will. And they reveal themselves most clearly in love. All heroes treat women with filial purity and reverence. Willingness to give in for the sake of the woman you love, romantic worship, knightly service to her - and at the same time underestimating yourself, lacking faith in your own strengths. Men in Kuprin's stories seem to change places with women. These are the energetic, strong-willed “Polessia sorceress” Olesya and the “kind, but only weak” Ivan Timofeevich, the smart, calculating Shurochka Nikolaevna and the “pure, sweet, but weak and pitiful” second lieutenant Romashov. All these are Kuprin’s heroes with a fragile soul, caught in a cruel world.

Kuprin’s excellent story “Gambrinus,” created in the troubled year of 1907, breathes the atmosphere of revolutionary days. The theme of all-conquering art is intertwined here with the idea of ​​democracy, the bold protest of the “little man” against the black forces of arbitrariness and reaction. Meek and cheerful Sashka, with his extraordinary talent as a violinist and sincerity, attracts a diverse crowd of longshoremen, fishermen, and smugglers to the Odessa tavern. They greet with delight the melodies, which seem to be the background, as if reflecting public moods and events - from the Russo-Japanese War to the rebellious days of the revolution, when Sashka’s violin sounds with the cheerful rhythms of “La Marseilles”. In the days of the onset of terror, Sashka challenges the disguised detectives and the black-hundred “scoundrels in a fur hat,” refusing to play the monarchist anthem at their request, openly denouncing them of murders and pogroms.

Crippled by the tsarist secret police, he returns to his port friends to play for them on the outskirts the tunes of the deafeningly cheerful “Shepherd.” Free creativity and the power of the people's spirit, according to Kuprin, are invincible.

Returning to the question posed at the beginning - “man and the world around him” - we note that in Russian prose of the early 20th century a wide range of answers to it is presented. We have considered only one of the options - the tragic collision of a person with the world around him, his insight and death, but not a meaningless death, but containing an element of purification and high meaning.