The theme of love is the most frequently touched upon in literature, and in art in general. It was love that inspired the greatest creators of all time to create immortal works.

Each person's love has its own light, its own sadness, its own happiness, its own fragrance. Favorite heroes of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin strive for love and beauty, but they cannot find beauty in life, where vulgarity and spiritual slavery reign. Many of them do not find happiness or perish in a collision with a hostile world, but with all their existence, with all their dreams, they affirm the idea of ​​the possibility of happiness on earth.

Love is a cherished theme for Kuprin. The pages of Olesya and Shulamith are filled with majestic and all-penetrating love, eternal tragedy and eternal mystery. Love, reviving a person, revealing all human abilities, penetrating into the most hidden corners of the soul, enters the heart from the pages of the Garnet Bracelet. In this work, amazing in its poetry, the author sings the gift of unearthly love, equating it with high art.
Undoubtedly, every person in his life meets people who in one way or another influence the course of thoughts, actions. Events, phenomena that happen to us, with loved ones, and even just in the country, also have a certain impact. And each of us tries to express his feelings and experiences in his own way.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin expressed his feelings in his works. Almost all of the author's works can be called autobiographical. And all because from childhood Kuprin was an impressionable person. Through each event of his life, the author forced his heroes to go through, Kuprin's experiences were also experienced by his heroes.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin devoted many works and a huge number of lines to love, very different, unexpected, but never indifferent. Kuprin thinks about love himself, makes his heroes think about it and talk about it. He writes about her in lyrical and pathetic tones, tender and frenzied, angry and blessing. And yet, most often, love in Kuprin's works is "strong as death", "disinterested, selfless, not waiting for a reward." For many heroes, it remains "the greatest mystery in the world, a tragedy."

The best works of Kuprin dedicated to the theme of love are Olesya, Shulamith, Garnet Bracelet. Written in different years, they vividly reveal not only the talent of the writer, but also the development of his philosophical and moral outlook: in these works, Kuprin comprehends the theme of affirming the human personality in the form of love.
Probably, there is no more mysterious, beautiful and all-consuming feeling, familiar to everyone without exception, than love, because from birth a person is already loved by his parents and he himself experiences, albeit unconsciously, reciprocal feelings. However, for everyone, love has its own special meaning, in each of its manifestations it is not the same, it is unique.

The works of the remarkable writer A. I. Kuprin are destined for a long life. His novels and stories continue to excite people of different generations. What is their inexhaustible enchanting charm? Probably, in the fact that they sing the brightest and most beautiful human feelings, call to beauty, goodness, humanity. The most touching and heartfelt works of Kuprin are his love stories "Garnet Bracelet", "Olesya", "Shulamith". It is love that inspires the heroes, gives them a feeling of the highest fullness of life, elevates them above the gray, bleak life.

Love is revealed by the writer as a strong, passionate, all-consuming feeling that completely took possession of a person. It allows the heroes to reveal the best qualities of the soul, illuminates life with the light of kindness and self-sacrifice.

1. A sad love story in the story "Olesya"

In the remarkable work "Olesya" (1898), imbued with genuine humanism, Kuprin sings of people living in the midst of nature, untouched by money-grubbing and corrupting bourgeois civilization. Against the backdrop of wild, majestic, beautiful nature, strong, original people live - “children of nature”. Such is Olesya, who is as simple, natural and beautiful as nature itself. The author clearly romanticizes the image of the “daughter of the forests”. But her behavior, psychologically subtly motivated, allows you to see the real prospects of life.

Kuprin describes a remote village in the Volyn province, the outskirts of Polissya, where fate has thrown Ivan Timofeevich, a "master", an urban intellectual. Fate brings him together with the granddaughter of the local sorceress Manuilikha, Olesya, who fascinates him with her extraordinary beauty. This is the beauty of not a secular lady, but a wild fallow deer living in the bosom of nature.

However, not only the appearance attracts Ivan Timofeevich in Oles: the young man is delighted with the self-confidence, pride and audacity of the girl. Growing up in the depths of the forests and almost not communicating with people, she is used to treating strangers with great caution, but when she meets Ivan Timofeevich, she gradually falls in love with him. He bribes the girl with his ease, kindness, intelligence, because for Olesya all this is unusual, new. The girl is very happy when a young guest often visits her. On one of these visits, she, guessing by his hand, characterizes the reader of the protagonist as a person “although kind, but only weak”, admits that his kindness is “not cordial”. That his heart is “cold, lazy”, and that he will bring “a lot of evil” to the one who “loves him”, albeit unwittingly. Thus, according to the young fortune-teller, Ivan Timofeevich appears before us as an egoist, a person incapable of deep emotional experiences. However, in spite of everything, young people fall in love with each other, completely surrendering to this all-consuming feeling.

Endowed with unprecedented strength, the soul brings harmony into the obviously contradictory relationships of people. Such a rare gift is expressed in love for Ivan Timofeevich. Olesya, as it were, returns the naturalness of experiences that he had briefly lost. Thus, the story describes the love of a realist man and a romantic heroine. Ivan Timofeevich falls into the romantic world of the heroine, and she - into his reality.

Falling in love, Olesya shows sensitive delicacy, innate intelligence, observation and tact, instinctive knowledge of the secrets of life. Moreover, her love reveals the enormous power of passion and selflessness, reveals in her the great human talent of understanding and generosity. Olesya is ready to do anything for the sake of her love: to go to church, enduring the bullying of the villagers, to find the strength to leave, leaving behind only a string of cheap red beads, which are a symbol of eternal love and devotion.

Love in the works of Kuprin often ends in tragedy. Such is the sad and poetic story of the pure, direct and wise "daughter of nature" from the story "Olesya". This amazing character combines intelligence, beauty, responsiveness, disinterestedness and willpower. The image of the forest sorceress is shrouded in mystery. Her fate is unusual, life away from people in an abandoned forest hut. The poetic nature of Polissya has a beneficial effect on the girl. Isolation from civilization allows it to preserve the integrity and purity of nature. On the one hand, she is naive, because she does not know elementary things, yielding in this to the intelligent and educated Ivan Timofeevich. But, on the other hand, Olesya has some kind of higher knowledge, which is inaccessible to an ordinary intelligent person.

The image of Olesya for Kuprin is the ideal of an open, selfless, deep character. Love elevates her above those around her, giving her joy, but at the same time, making her defenseless, leads to inevitable death. In comparison with Olesya's great love, even Ivan Timofeevich's feeling for her loses in many ways. His love is more like a fleeting infatuation at times. He understands that the girl will not be able to live outside the nature surrounding her here, but, nevertheless, offering her a hand and heart, he implies that she will live with him in the city. At the same time, he does not think about the possibility of abandoning civilization, remaining to live for the sake of Olesya here, in the wilderness. He resigns himself to the situation, without even making an attempt to change anything, challenging the circumstances. Probably, if it were true love, Ivan Timofeevich would have found his beloved, having done everything possible for this, but, unfortunately, he did not understand what he had missed.

In the story "Olesya" Kuprin depicted just such a rebirth of the soul, or rather an attempt to rebirth it.

All, except for the main character, the participants in the events: “stubbornly unsociable peasants”, the woodsman Yarmola, Babka Manuilikha, and the narrator Ivan Timofeevich himself (the narration is being conducted on his behalf) - are connected with a certain social environment, are bound by its laws and are very far from perfect.

At first, the spiritual limitations of Ivan Timofeevich are imperceptible, veiled. He seems to be soft, responsive, sincere. Olesya, nevertheless, correctly speaks of her lover: “... although you are kind, you are only weak. Your kindness is not good, not cordial ... ”But Ivan Timofeevich’s weakness lies in the fact that he lacks integrity and depth of feelings. Ivan Timofeevich does not experience pain himself, but hurts others.

And only earth and sky adorn the meetings of lovers: the radiance of the month “mysteriously colors the forest”, birch trees are dressed in “silver, transparent covers”, the path is covered with a “plush carpet” of moss ... Only merging with nature gives purity and fullness to the spiritual world.

In the love of the "savage" and the civilized hero, from the very beginning, doom is felt, which permeates the narrative with sadness and hopelessness. The ideas and views of lovers turn out to be too different, which lead to separation, despite the strength and sincerity of their feelings. When the urban intellectual Ivan Timofeevich, who got lost in the forest while hunting, saw Olesya for the first time, he was struck not only by the bright and original beauty of the girl. He unconsciously felt her unusualness, her dissimilarity to ordinary village "girls". In the appearance of Olesya, her speech, her behavior, there is something witchcraft, not subject to logical explanation. This is probably what captivates Ivan Timofeevich in her, in which admiration imperceptibly develops into love.

Olesya's tragic prophecy comes true at the end of the story. No, Ivan Timofeevich does not commit any meanness or betrayal. He sincerely and seriously wants to connect his fate with Olesya. But at the same time, the hero shows insensitivity and tactlessness, which condemn the girl to shame and persecution. Ivan Timofeevich inspires her with the idea that a woman should be pious, although she knows perfectly well that Olesya is considered a sorceress in the village, and, therefore, going to church can cost her her life. Possessing a rare gift of foresight, the heroine goes to a church service for the sake of a loved one, feeling malicious looks on herself, hearing mocking remarks and abuse. This selfless act of Olesya especially emphasizes her bold, free nature, which contrasts with the darkness and wildness of the villagers. Beaten by local peasant women, Olesya leaves her home not only because she fears their even more cruel revenge, but also because she perfectly understands the unfulfillment of her dream, the impossibility of happiness.

Love was ruined, and lovers were separated. A cruel thunderstorm at the end of the story intensifies the aching feeling of grief that grips the shocked reader. Olesya disappears, and only a string of simple red beads remains for the hero as a reminder of the magical feeling of love and the infinitely beautiful girl he once met in Polissya, Rovno district.

Olesya's love is perceived by the hero as a reward, as the highest gift sent to him by God. When you read this amazing story about love, you experience a real shock, which gives rise to the desire to become truly sensitive, gentle, generous, gives the ability to see the world in a new way.

1. Mutual and happy love in the story "Sulamith"

In an interview in 1913, Kuprin said: “We need to write not about how people have become impoverished in spirit and vulgarized, but about the triumph of man, about his strength and power.” And he deciphered his call as a desire to reflect "contempt for death, adoration of a woman with a single, eternal love." The writer has been looking for an image of such content for many years. On this path, a number of works were created, one way or another covering individual approaches to an exciting topic. Only a few have been implemented. Among them is the story "Shulamith" (1908), where love has no boundaries in its free, all-consuming spill.

AI Kuprin revealed the theme of mutual and happy love between the richest king Solomon and the poor slave Shulamith, who works in the vineyards. An unshakably strong and passionate feeling raises them above material differences, erasing the boundaries that separate lovers, once again proving the strength and power of love. The writer glorifies a joyful, bright feeling, devoid of jealousy, prejudice, self-interest. He sings a true hymn to youth, flowering of feelings and beauty. The author is convinced that the love of “a poor girl from a vineyard and a great king will never pass away, will never be forgotten, because it is strong, because every woman who loves is a queen, because love is beautiful!”

However, at the end of the work, the author destroys the well-being of his heroes by killing Shulamith and leaving Solomon alone. According to Kuprin, love is a bright flash that reveals the spiritual value of the human personality, awakening in it all the best that is hidden for the time being in the depths of the soul.
You can treat the story in different ways: you can look for shortcomings and inaccuracies in it, distortion of biblical material, see the author’s excessive passion for the Song of Songs (already in the late 90s, Kuprin often quotes the Song of Songs, takes epigraphs from it for his works, lecture articles). But in the story "Shulamith" it is impossible not to see "songs of triumphant love."

This biblical legend is perceived as a hymn to love, youth and beauty. Love helps the heroine overcome the fear of death. Bleeding, she calls herself the happiest woman in the world and thanks her lover for his love, beauty and wisdom, to which "she clung like a sweet spring." The jealousy of Queen Astis was able to destroy the young rival, but she is powerless to kill love, the bright memory of King Solomon about "Sulamith burned by the sun." The tragic reflection of love that illuminated the life of the sage makes him dictate deeply suffered lines: “Love is strong as death, and jealousy is cruel as hell: its arrows are fiery arrows.”

Much in this ancient source captivated Kuprin: the "touching and poetic" experiences, the oriental multicoloredness of their embodiment. The story has inherited all these qualities.

The author gave equal importance to the two main characters of the story. Solomon, even before meeting with Shulamith, surpassed everyone in wealth, exploits, intelligence, but experienced bitter disappointment: "... in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and whoever increases knowledge - increases grief." Love for Shulamith gives the king unprecedented joy and new knowledge of being, his personal capabilities, opens up the previously unknown happiness of self-sacrifice: "Ask me for my life - I will gladly give it," he says to his beloved. And for her, the time comes for the first, genuine comprehension of everything around and the person in herself. The confluence of loving souls transforms the former existence of Solomon and Shulamith. Therefore, her death, accepted for the salvation of Solomon, is so beautiful and natural.

Kuprin found in the "Song of Songs" "the liberation of love." The power of self-sacrifice of Solomon and Shulamith, their highest unity, surpassing unions known on earth, ascends to this idea in the story. To Solomon's proposal to ascend the throne with him, Shulamith replies: "I want to be only your slave," and becomes "the queen of Solomon's soul." "Shulamith" became the anthem of feelings reviving the personality.

The writer, depicting the wisdom of King Solomon, emphasizes the motive of everyday searches, discoveries and knowledge inherent in man. It is given to the king to know the beauty of a simple man, the strength of the passions available to him. The dramatic finale itself also acquires its high universal human meaning in the eyes of the sage.

Kuprin in Pushkin's way connects love with the need for creativity. He sings a hymn not only to a woman and a high feeling, but also to poetic inspiration. Not without reason, in the finale, after the tragic denouement, the wise tsar proceeds to create his illustrious creation, the very one that formed the basis of Kuprin's story.

1. Unrequited love in the story "Garnet Bracelet"

The story "Garnet Bracelet" (1911) picks up the theme of "Sulamith", again returning to the glorification of the great and eternal spiritual value of man - love. However, in the new work, a man turns out to be a simple and rootless character, the role of a noble and titled hero goes to a woman. The same social barriers, partitions of class inequality, which were initially - resolutely and naturally - overcome by those who love in "Sulamifi", now, when the author has transferred the events to modern reality, have grown between the heroes as a huge wall. The difference in social status and the marriage of Princess Sheina made Zheltkov's love unrequited, unrequited. The lot of the lover falls "only reverence, eternal admiration and slavish devotion," as he himself admits in his letter.

The deep feeling of the protagonist Zheltkov, a petty employee, a “little man” for a secular lady, Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, brings him so much suffering and torment, since his love is unrequited and hopeless, as well as pleasure, because it exalts him, exciting his soul and giving joy. Rather, not even love, but adoration, it is so strong and unconscious that even ridicule does not detract from it. In the end, realizing the unfulfillment of his beautiful dream and having lost hope for reciprocity in his love, and also largely under the pressure of those around him, Zheltkov decides to commit suicide, but even at the last moment all his thoughts are only about his beloved, and even passing away, he continues to idolize Vera Nikolaevna, addressing her as if to a deity: "Hallowed be thy name." Only after the death of the hero, the one with whom he was so hopelessly in love, realizes "that the love that every woman dreams of has passed her by", it's a pity that it's too late. The work is deeply tragic, the author shows how important it is not only to understand the other in time, but also, looking into your soul, perhaps you can find reciprocal feelings there. In the "Garnet Bracelet" there are words that "love must be a tragedy" it seems that the author wanted to say that before a person realizes, spiritually reaches the level where love is happiness, pleasure, he must go through all those difficulties and hardships that are somehow associated with it.

To understand Kuprin's attitude to love, it is enough to understand whether love was happiness for the hero in the writer's most powerful work, The Garnet Bracelet. It is based on a real event - the love of a telegraph operator Zheltoy P.P. to the wife of an important official, a member of the State Council - Lyubimov. In life, everything ended differently than in Kuprin's story - the official accepted the bracelet and stopped writing letters, nothing more is known about him. Under the writer's pen, this is the case of a morally great man who was exalted and destroyed by love. Ruined - yes, but was this love unhappy for Zheltkov? The rarest gift of lofty and unrequited love has become "huge happiness", the only content, the poetry of Zheltkov's life. Zheltkov died without pain and disappointment, but with the feeling that this love was still in his life, and this calmed him. The joy of pure and noble love was imprinted in his eyes forever: "Deep importance was in his closed eyes, and his lips smiled blissfully and serenely." For the hero, love, although it was not mutual, was the only happiness. He writes about this in his last message to Vera Nikolaevna: “From the bottom of my heart I thank you for being my only joy in life, my only consolation, my only thought.”

Many will say: “If this love brought so much happiness to Zheltkov, why did he commit suicide? Why didn’t he want to live on and enjoy his love? This is because high, noble love is always tragic. Zheltkov himself can be called "a noble knight in a small post." After all, he did not annoy Vera Nikolaevna with his letters, did not pursue her, but gave her happiness with another person. But with this act, Zheltkov aroused withered feelings in the souls of the Shein spouses, especially Vera Nikolaevna, because it was her "life path that was crossed by real, selfless, true love."

The phenomenal nature of his experiences raises the image of a young man above all other characters in the story. Not only the rude, narrow-minded Tuganovsky, the frivolous coquette Anna, but also the smart, conscientious Shein, who reveres love as the “greatest secret,” the beautiful and pure Vera Nikolaevna herself is in a clearly reduced household environment. However, it is not in this contrast that the main nerve of the story lies.

From the first lines there is a feeling of withering. It is read in the autumn landscape, in the sad form of empty dachas with broken windows, empty flower beds, with “as if degenerate”, small roses, in the “grassy, ​​sad smell” of winter. Similar to autumn nature is the monotonous, as it were, drowsy existence of Vera Sheina, where habitual relationships, convenient connections and skills have strengthened. The beautiful is not at all alien to Vera, but the desire for it has long been blunted. She "was strictly simple, cold with everyone and a little condescendingly kind, independent and regally calm." Royal calm and destroys Zheltkov.

Kuprin writes not about the birth of Vera's love, but about the awakening of her soul. It flows in a refined sphere of forebodings, acute experiences. The external flow of days goes on as usual: guests come to Vera's name day, her husband with irony tells them about his wife's strange admirer, matures and then the plan of visiting Shein and Vera's brother, Tuganovsky, Zheltkov is carried out, at this meeting the young man is invited to leave the city where he lives Faith, and he decides to completely leave this life and leaves. All events respond with the growing spiritual tension of the heroine.

The psychological climax of the story is Vera's farewell to the deceased Zheltkov, their only "date" - a turning point in her inner state. On the face of the deceased, she read "deep importance", a "blissful and serene" smile, "the same peaceful expression", as "on the masks of the great sufferers - Pushkin and Napoleon." The greatness of suffering and peace in the feeling that caused them - this has never been experienced by Vera herself. “At that moment, she realized that the love that every woman dreams of has passed her by.” Former complacency is perceived as a mistake, an illness.

Kuprin endows his beloved heroine with much greater spiritual powers than those that caused her disappointment in herself. In the final chapter, Faith's excitement reaches its limit. To the sounds of Beethoven's sonata - Zheltkov bequeathed to listen to it - Vera, as it were, takes into her heart everything that he endured. He accepts and anew, in tears of repentance and enlightenment, he experiences "a life that humbly and joyfully doomed itself to torment, suffering and death." Now this life will forever remain with her and for her.

Surprisingly chaste, the author touches the refined human soul and at the same time conveys in detail the appearance and behavior of other characters in the story. And yet, from the first words, the approaching shocks of Vera Sheyna are foreseen. "Disgusting weather" brings cold, hurricane winds, and then lovely sunny days come, delighting Vera Sheina. Summer returned for a short time, which will again retreat before a formidable hurricane. And the calm joy of Vera is no less fleeting. “The infinity and grandeur of the sea”, which attracts the eyes of Vera and her sister Anna, are separated from them by a terrible cliff, frightening both. So the "cliff" of the quiet family well-being of the Sheins is predicted.

The writer tells in detail about Vera's birthday chores, Anna's gift, the arrival of guests, conveys Shein's humorous stories with which he entertains the audience ... The unhurried narration is often interrupted by warning signs. Vera, with an unpleasant sensation, is convinced that thirteen people are sitting at the table - an unlucky number. At the height of the card game, the maid brings Zheltkov's letter and a bracelet with five grenades - five "thick red living lights." “Just like blood,” Vera thinks, “with unexpected anxiety.” Gradually, the author prepares for the main theme of the story, for the tragedy provoked by the greatest mystery of love.

Love is perceived by the hero as a reward, as the highest gift sent to him by God. For the sake of the well-being and tranquility of the beloved woman, he, without hesitation, sacrifices his life, thanking her only for the fact that she is, because all the beauty of the earth is embodied in her.

The name of the heroine Kuprin is not chosen by chance - Vera. Vera remains in this vain world, when Zheltkov dies, she knows what true love is. But the belief remains in the world that Zheltkov was not the only person endowed with such an unearthly feeling.

The emotional wave, growing throughout the story, reaches its maximum intensity. The theme of great and purifying love is fully revealed in the majestic chords of Beethoven's brilliant sonata. Music powerfully takes possession of the heroine, and in her soul words are composed that seem to be whispered by a person who loved her more than life: “Hallowed be thy name! ..” In these last words there is both a plea for love and deep sorrow for its unattainability. This is where that great contact of souls takes place, of which one understood the other too late.

Conclusion

The connection between the stories "Garnet Bracelet", "Olesya" and "Shulamith" is obvious. All together they are a hymn to female beauty and love, a hymn to a woman who is spiritually pure and wise, a hymn to a sublime primordial feeling. All three stories have a deeply universal character. They raise issues that will trouble humanity forever.

Love in the works of Kuprin is sincere, devoted and disinterested. This is the kind of love that everyone dreams of finding one day. Love, in the name and for which you can sacrifice anything, even your own life. Love, which will pass through any obstacles and barriers that separate those who sincerely love, It will overcome evil, transforming the world and filling it with bright colors, and, most importantly, will make people happy.
Love... It is difficult to name a writer or a poet who would not pay tribute to this amazing feeling in his creations. But from the pen of A. Kuprin came out special stories and stories about love. Love as an all-consuming feeling, hopeless love, tragic love... How many vicissitudes of love we encounter in his works! They make you think, reflect on the essence of this magical state of mind, and maybe even check your feelings. How often we, modern young people, lack a good adviser, a wise assistant who would help to understand the truth of that feeling that we sometimes mistake for love, and then experience deep disappointment. Perhaps that is why many young contemporaries take for love something completely different from what A. I. Kuprin wrote about with inspiration.

In his works, the writer tells the reader about tender and fiery, devoted and beautiful, lofty and tragic love, “which, according to the writer, alone is more precious than wealth, fame and wisdom, which is more precious than life itself, because it does not even value life and is not afraid of of death". Such love elevates a person above all mortals. Makes him like God. This love turns into poetry, music, into the universe, into eternity.

"All love is terrible. All love is a tragedy," wrote the famous

Irish poet Oscar Wilde. Indeed, love is not always a bright and disinterested feeling, but sometimes real grief. She inspires some, makes them happy, while others suffer and suffer because of her. In the work of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, the theme of love is one of the most important. However, in most cases, this feeling destroys the lives of the heroes.

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The theme of tragic love is vividly reflected in such works as "Olesya" and "Garnet Bracelet". Let's take a closer look at them.

"Olesya" is one of the very first and favorite works of the writer. The plot of this story is based on a love story between Ivan Timofeevich, a young master, and Olesya, a young sorceress. The characters met quite by accident. It was then that Ivan was attracted by the “whole, original nature, mind” in a young girl, so the master begins to visit her more and more often and eventually falls in love. Olesya shared the hero's sympathy, although she knew that she was dooming herself to misfortune. The romantic feelings that flared up in the souls of young people were doomed from the very beginning. I believe that the reason for this is the different social statuses of the heroes. Ivan Timofeevich is an educated nobleman who lived in the city. Olesya was brought up by nature itself, she was not adapted to society. The heroine was ready for any sacrifice for the sake of her beloved. Overcoming fear, she decided to join society. The girl goes to church, but the peasants took her act for blasphemy, because they considered her a witch, and after the service they beat her badly. So at the end of the work, the love of the characters turns into tragedy: the humiliated Olesya, together with Manuilikha, leaves the village forever. A.I. beloved, which is why their relationship was so tragic.

According to K. Paustovsky, "Garnet Bracelet" is one of the most fragrant and sad stories about love. In this work, we are talking about the unrequited feelings of Georgy Zheltkov for the married Vera Shein. The hero was not interested in anything in life, he existed only in love for the princess. Sometimes Zheltkov sent her anonymous letters in which he described all his feelings. On the name day of Vera Nikolaevna, Georgy gives her a gift - a chic garnet bracelet, which he inherited from his great-grandmother. The brother and husband of the princess are afraid for her reputation, so they ask Zheltkov not to appear in the life of the princess again. When George is deprived of his only joy, he decides to commit suicide, because his existence no longer makes sense. Zheltkov's love was pure and sincere, did not demand anything in return. But closed in itself, this feeling can only destroy. Only after the death of the hero, Vera realizes that "the love that every woman dreams of has passed her by." The story ends on this tragic note. The writer depicts true love, which happens “once in a thousand years.” A person gifted with such a feeling is ready for anything, even for self-denial. A.I. Kuprin shows readers that love can lead to such terrible consequences, as in the case of Zheltkov.

In conclusion, we can say that love is indeed one of the most amazing feelings that a person has. It can make people happy or kill them, bring happiness or suffering. The theme of tragic love is very relevant in modern society. Unrequited love is very common, which causes people a lot of pain. It happens that people who love each other cannot be together for some reason.

Updated: 2019-04-22

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The theme of love is often touched upon in the work of A.I. Kuprin. This feeling is revealed in his works in different ways, but, as a rule, it is tragic. We can see the tragedy of love especially vividly in two of his works: "Olesya" and "Garnet Bracelet".
The story "Olesya" is an early work by Kuprin, written in 1898. Here you can see the features of romanticism, because the writer shows his heroine outside the influence of society and civilizations.
Olesya is a person of pure soul. She grew up in the forest, she is characterized by natural naturalness, kindness, sincerity. The heroine lives only according to the dictates of her heart, pretense, insincerity are alien to her, she does not know how to step over her true desires.
Olesya meets in her life a person from a completely different world. Ivan Timofeevich is an aspiring writer, urban intellectual. A feeling is born between the characters, which later helps to reveal the essence of their characters. Before us appears the drama of unequal love of characters. Olesya is a sincere girl, she loves Ivan Timofeevich with all her heart. A sincere feeling makes a girl stronger, she is ready to overcome all obstacles for the sake of her lover. Ivan Timofeevich, despite his positive qualities, is spoiled by civilization, corrupted by society. This kind but weak man with a "lazy" heart, indecisive and cautious, cannot rise above the prejudices of his environment. There is some kind of flaw in his soul, he cannot give himself up to that strong feeling that captured him. Ivan Timofeevich is not capable of nobility, he does not know how to take care of others, his soul is full of selfishness. This is especially noticeable at the moment when he puts Olesya before a choice. Ivan Timofeevich is ready to force Olesya to choose between himself and his grandmother, he did not think how Olesya's desire to go to church could end, the hero gives his beloved the opportunity to convince himself of the need for their separation, and so on.
Such selfish behavior of the hero becomes the cause of a real tragedy in the life of a girl, and even Ivan Timofeevich himself. Olesya and her grandmother are forced to leave the village because they are in real danger from the locals. The life of these heroes is largely destroyed, not to mention the heart of Olesya, who sincerely loved Ivan Timofeevich.
In this story, we see the tragedy of the divergence of a genuine, natural feeling and a feeling that has absorbed the features of civilization.
The story "Garnet Bracelet", written in 1907, tells us about true, strong, unconditional, but unrequited love. It is worth noting that this work is based on real events from the family chronicles of the princes Tugan-Baranovsky. This story has become one of the most famous and profound works about love in Russian literature.
Before us are typical representatives of the aristocracy of the early 20th century, the Shein family. Vera Nikolaevna Sheina is a beautiful secular lady, moderately happy in marriage, lives a calm, dignified life. Her husband, Prince Shein, is a rather pleasant person, Vera respects him, she is comfortable with him, but from the very beginning the reader gets the impression that the heroine does not love him.
The calm course of life of these characters is broken only by letters from an anonymous admirer of Vera Nikolaevna, a certain G.S.Zh. The heroine's brother is contemptuous of marriage, does not believe in love, so he is ready to publicly ridicule this unlucky H.S.J. But, looking more closely, the reader understands that only this secret admirer of Princess Vera is a true treasure among vulgar people who have forgotten how to love. “.. love among people has taken such vulgar forms and has descended simply to some kind of everyday convenience, to a little entertainment,” - with these words of General Anosov, Kuprin conveys the current state of affairs to him.
An admirer of Vera Nikolaevna turns out to be a petty official Zheltkov. Once in his life there was a fatal meeting - Zheltkov saw Vera Nikolaevna Sheina. He did not even talk to this young lady, who was still unmarried at that time. Yes, and how would he dare - their social position was too unequal. But a person is not subject to feelings of such power, he is not able to control the life of his heart. Love captured Zheltkov so much that it became the meaning of his entire existence. From the man's farewell letter, we learn that his feeling is "reverence, eternal admiration and slavish devotion."
From the hero himself, we learn that this feeling is not a consequence of mental illness. After all, in response to his emotions, he did not need anything. Perhaps this is absolute, unconditional love. Zheltkov's feelings are so strong that he voluntarily passes away, so as not to interfere with Vera Nikolaevna. Already after the death of the hero, at the very end of the work, the princess begins to vaguely realize that she failed to discern something very important in her life in time. Not without reason, at the end of the story, listening to Beethoven's sonata, the heroine cries: "Princess Vera hugged the trunk of an acacia tree, clung to it and cried." It seems to me that these tears are the longing of the heroine for true love, which people so often forget about.
Love in the perception of Kuprin is often tragic. But, perhaps, only this feeling can give meaning to human existence. We can say that the writer tests the love of his characters. Strong people (such as Zheltkov, Olesya), thanks to this feeling, begin to glow from the inside, they are able to carry love in their hearts, no matter what.

Search activity of students in the study of the works of A.I. Kuprin "Olesya", "Pomegranate Bracelet"

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Olga SUKHARINA

Olga Nikolaevna SUKHARINA (1965) - teacher of the Russian language and literature at school No. 71 in Yekaterinburg.

Search activity of students in the study of the works of A.I. Kuprin "Olesya", "Pomegranate Bracelet"

Lessons on the creativity of A.I. Kuprin, you can start with a lecture presentation of the material. The teacher gives an overview of the writer's creative path, comparing it with the work of I.A. Bunin. The purpose of matching is to invite students to search. A problematic question can be raised both at the beginning of a conversation about Kuprin and at the end of the presentation of material about the writer's work.

In subsequent lessons, I pay a lot of attention search activity of students. To do this, I think over a system of problematic questions, the answers to which are based on the existing knowledge base, but are not contained in the previous knowledge, the questions should cause intellectual difficulties for students and a purposeful mental search. The teacher can come up with indirect clues and leading questions, he can sum up the main thing himself, based on the answers of the students. It is possible that the teacher does not give a ready answer, the task of the mentor is to attract the student to cooperation.

Sample questions and tasks of problematic search when studying the story "Garnet Bracelet":

How does the landscape help to understand the mood and inner world of Vera Nikolaevna?

How important is the image of General Anosov in the work?

Give a comparative analysis of the description of Vera's name day and the description of Zheltkov's little room.

Compare the guests' gifts with Zheltkov's. Meaning of comparison?

What is the mood of the finale of the story? What role does music play in creating this mood?

The search method is based on the following forms of activity:

Work with text;

Choice of quotes;

Text analysis:

holistic analysis,

episode analysis,

comparative analysis;

Identification of artistic features of the text.

For each question, I advise students to collect material, we draw up the collected information in the form of diagrams.

When analyzing the story “Olesya”, we reflected on the following question: “Ivan Timofeevich is a kind man, but weak. Is this statement true?" I give examples of such reasoning, drawn up in the form of diagrams.

Conclusion. Ivan Timofeevich's feelings turned out to be too weak. Failed to protect his love. Maybe there was no true love that would overshadow doubts and help to survive all the troubles and sorrows.

Conclusion. Olesya is capable of feelings stronger than her chosen one. For the heroine, love became life; Ivan Timofeevich could not and did not want to preserve this feeling.

General Anosov about Zheltkov: “ Madman ... Maybe Verochka crossed your life path, just the kind of love that women dream of and that men are no longer capable of.

Prince Shein about Zheltkov:“I feel that this person is not capable of deceiving and lying… I feel that I am present at some huge tragedy of the soul…”

Conclusion. Kuprin shows the nobility of the soul of a simple person, his ability for a deep, sublime feeling. Love elevates a person, transforms his soul. Lyubov Zheltkova, the one that happens “once in a thousand years”, remained immortal. It is this kind of love that Kuprin sang.

Associative series: cold - arrogant - proud - haughty - aristocratic

2. If the cold from the very beginning is concentrated around the main character, as it characterizes features of her perception of life?

Bad weather turns to warm days

Summer turns into autumn

Youth - old age

The most beautiful flowers are doomed to wither and die

Is Princess Vera able to feel the elusive passage of time?

3. Relation of Faith to nature:

sea- “When I see the sea for the first time, it pleases and amazes me”

“When I get used to it, I miss looking at it…”;

forest (pines, mosses, fly agarics) - comparison:

Conclusion. Kuprin draws a parallel between the description of the autumn garden and the inner state of the heroine. “The trees calmed down, meekly dropping their yellow leaves.” The heroine is in such an indifferent state: with everyone she is strictly simple, coldly kind.

End of the story:“Princess Vera hugged the trunk of an acacia tree, clung to it and began to cry. The trees shook gently. A light wind came up and, as if sympathizing with her, rustled the leaves ... "

Olesya's love is a strong, deep, selfless feeling

According to the story by A.I. Kuprin "Olesya"

Love test:

Olesya is a stranger to others;

Bold, free;

Strives for good;

She is not afraid to live in harmony with her heart, therefore she is destined to see further, to feel more subtle than her cautious chosen one;

Strives for good;

Love is the main meaning of life.

Olesya and Ivan Timofeevich

Through comparison with Ivan Timofeevich, an aspiring writer, Kuprin will allow you to see the main thing in Oles:

Ivan admires not only the outer beauty of Olesya, but also the inner one;

It is important not only to be able to see, but also the desire to see;

Conclusion. Life taught Ivan Timofeevich to constantly control his spiritual impulses, did not teach him to think about the consequences. “A kind man, but weak”, he is not capable of true love. Olesya turned out to be right: “You won’t love anyone with your heart, but you will bring a lot of grief to those who love you.”

Only in unity with nature is a person able to achieve spiritual beauty and nobility.

A string of red beads Olesya:

This is the memory of love;

This is a symbol of her pure feeling;

This is the power of her undying love;

Each bead is a spark of love.

Search activity prepares the transition to independent research activity.

Students independently formulate the problem and solve it in writing creative works (essays) or in essays. What is important is the material that the children themselves have collected as a result of search activities. It is important not to lose this material, to accumulate it, to systematize it. The result of the work on the work is the writing of the essay. At the heart of the essay will be that material, reference schemes that reflect the work during the search activity of students. Each scheme is the basis of the composition, the disclosure of thought, the result of the work done, it is the personality of the student, his perception of what he read.

In literature in general, and in Russian literature in particular, the problem of the relationship of a person with 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 is over." Interest in this topic noticeably intensified at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, in an era that was 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 became the achievement of the turn of the century.

The work of this writer was for a long time, as it were, in the shadows, he was overshadowed by the bright representatives of his contemporaries. Today, the works of A. Kuprin are of great interest. They attract the reader with their simplicity, humanity, democracy in the noblest sense of the word. The world of A. Kuprin's heroes is colorful and varied. 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 in nature and people than themselves. The writer is very interested in human destinies, while the heroes of his works are most often not successful, successful, satisfied with themselves and life people, but rather the opposite. But A. Kuprin treats his outwardly unsightly and unlucky heroes with that 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 guessed, but the writer does not just reproduce this type, but rethinks it.

Let's reveal a very famous story by Kuprina "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, a member of the State Council, Lyubimov. This story is mentioned by the son of Lyubimov, the author of famous memoirs, Lev Lyubimov. In life, everything ended differently than in the story of A. Kuprin, -. the official accepted the bracelet and stopped writing letters, nothing more was known about him. In the Lyubimov family, this incident was remembered as strange and curious. Under the writer's pen, the story turned into a sad and tragic story about the life of a little man, who was exalted and destroyed by love. This is transmitted through the composition of the work. It gives an extensive, unhurried introduction, which introduces us to the exposition of the Scheny's house. The very story of extraordinary love, 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 is seen as offensive and suspicious. Vera Nikolaevna herself and, finally, General Anosov, who was the first to suggest that here, perhaps, lies true love, “which women dream about and which men are no longer capable of.” The circle to which Vera Nikolaevna belongs cannot admit that this is a real feeling, not so much because of the strange behavior of Zheltkov, but because of the prejudices that rule them. Kuprin, wishing to convince us readers of the authenticity of Zheltkov's love, resorts to the most irrefutable argument - the hero's suicide. Thus, the right of the little man to happiness is affirmed, while the motive of his moral superiority over the people who so cruelly offended him, who failed to understand the strength of the feeling that made up the whole meaning of his life, arises.

Kuprin's story is both sad and bright. It is permeated with 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 enlightenment for her. The text of the work includes the theme of the inevitability of the death of the protagonist - it is conveyed through the symbolism of light: at the moment of receiving the bracelet, Vera Nikolaevna sees red stones in it and anxiously thinks that they look like blood. Finally, the theme of the collision of various 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 the theme of love-passion, recklessness into the story; the mention that the mother of the sisters is an Englishwoman introduces the theme of rationality, impassibility in the sphere of feelings, 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-worship, which in Catholicism surrounds the Mother of God, love-self-sacrifice.

The hero of A. Kuprin, a small man, faces the world of non-understanding around him, the world of people for whom love is a kind of madness, and, having faced it, dies.

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

In the works of Kuprin, many heroes have similar features - this is spiritual purity, dreaminess, ardent imagination, combined with impracticality and lack of will. And they are most clearly revealed in love. All the heroes treat the woman with her sons pure and reverent. Readiness to fight for the sake of a beloved woman, romantic worship, chivalrous service to her - and at the same time underestimating oneself, disbelief in one's own strengths. Men in Kuprin's stories seem to change places with women. These are the energetic, strong-willed "Polesye witch" Olesya and the "kind, but only weak" Ivan Timofeevich, the smart, prudent Shurochka Nikolaevna and the "pure, sweet, but weak and pathetic" Lieutenant Romashov. All these are Kuprin's heroes with a fragile soul, caught in a cruel world.

The atmosphere of revolutionary days breathes in Kuprin's excellent story "Gambrinus", created in the alarming year 1907. The theme of all-conquering art is woven 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 outstanding talent as a violinist and sincerity, attracts a diverse crowd of port loaders, fishermen, and smugglers to the Odessa tavern. They enthusiastically meet the melodies, which, as it were, are a background, as if reflecting public moods and events - from the Russo-Japanese war to the rebellious days of the revolution, when Sasha's violin sounds with the cheerful rhythms of Marseilles. In the days of the onset of terror, Sashka challenges disguised detectives and black-hundred "scoundrels in a hat", refusing to play the monarchist anthem at their request, openly denouncing them for murders and pogroms.

Crippled by the tsarist secret police, he returns to his port friends to play for them on the outskirts of the melody of the deafeningly cheerful "Shepherd". Free creativity, the strength of the national 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 beginning of the 20th century a wide range of answers to it is presented. We have considered only one of the options - the tragic collision of the individual with the world around him, his insight and death, but the death is not meaningless, but contains an element of purification and high meaning.