True love always has tragic pros and cons. True love

Composition

Love is one of the main themes in Kuprin's work. The heroes of his works, “illuminated” by this bright feeling, are more fully revealed. In the stories of this wonderful author, love is, as a rule, unselfish and selfless. Having read a large number of his works, one can understand that his life is always tragic, and it is obviously doomed to suffering.

The poetic and tragic story of a young girl in the story “Olesya” sounds in this vein. Olesya's world is a world of spiritual harmony, a world of nature. He is alien to Ivan Timofeevich, a representative of a cruel, big city. Olesya attracts him with her “unusuality”, “there was nothing like the local girls in her”, the naturalness, simplicity and some kind of elusive inner freedom characteristic of her image attracted him to her like a magnet.

Olesya grew up in the forest. She could not read or write, but she had great spiritual wealth and a strong character. Ivan Timofeevich is educated, but not decisive, and his kindness is more like cowardice. These two completely different people fell in love with each other, but this love does not bring happiness to the heroes, its outcome is tragic.

Ivan Timofeevich feels that he has fallen in love with Olesya, he would even like to marry her, but he is stopped by doubt: “I didn’t even dare to imagine what Olesya would be like, dressed in a fashionable dress, talking in the living room with the wives of my colleagues, torn from the charming the framework of an old forest full of legends and mysterious powers." He realizes that Olesya will not be able to change, become different, and he himself does not want her to change. After all, to become different means to become like everyone else, and this is impossible.

Poetizing life not limited by modern social and cultural frameworks, Kuprin sought to show the clear advantages of a “natural” person, in whom he saw spiritual qualities lost in civilized society. The meaning of the story is to affirm the high standard of man. Kuprin is looking for people in real, everyday life who are obsessed with a high feeling of love, who are able to rise, at least in their dreams, above the prose of life. As always, he turns his gaze to the “little” man. This is how the story “The Garnet Bracelet” arises, which tells about a refined all-encompassing love. This story is about hopeless and touching love. Kuprin himself understands love as a miracle, as a wonderful gift. The death of the official brought back to life a woman who did not believe in love, which means that love still conquers death.

In general, the story is dedicated to the inner awakening of Vera, her gradual awareness of the true role of love. To the sound of music, the heroine's soul is reborn. From cold contemplation to a hot, reverent feeling of oneself, a person in general, the world - such is the path of the heroine, who once came into contact with a rare guest of the earth - love.

For Kuprin, love is a hopeless platonic feeling, and also a tragic one. Moreover, there is something hysterical in the chastity of Kuprin’s heroes, and in their attitude towards a loved one, what is striking is that the man and woman seem to have swapped their roles. This is characteristic of the energetic, strong-willed “Polesie sorceress” Olesya in her relationship with the “kind, but only weak Ivan Timofeevich,” and the smart, calculating Shurochka with the “pure and kind Romashov” (“The Duel”). Underestimation of oneself, disbelief in one’s right to own a woman, a convulsive desire to withdraw - these traits complete the picture of Kuprin’s hero with a fragile soul caught in a cruel world.

Closed in itself, such love has creative creative power. “It so happened that I am not interested in anything in life: neither politics, nor science, nor philosophy, nor concern for the future happiness of people,” Zheltkov writes before his death to the subject of his generation, “...for me, all life consists only in you". Zheltkov leaves this life without complaints, without reproaches, saying like a prayer: “Hallowed be Thy name.”

Kuprin's works, despite the complexity of situations and often dramatic endings, are filled with optimism and love of life. You close the book, and a feeling of something bright remains in your soul for a long time.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Russian literature experienced a period of special prosperity. In poetry it was called the “Silver Age”. But prose has also been enriched with many masterpieces. In my opinion, A.I. Kuprin also contributed a lot to this. His work strangely combines the harshest life realism and amazing airiness and transparency. He is the author of some of the most heartfelt works about love in Russian literature.

I would like to focus on two of them: “Duel” and “Garnet Bracelet”. They are very different, but upon closer examination, even in the plot you can find a similarity. In both stories, the basis of the plot is a story of unhappy love, and both main characters die tragically, and the reason for this is the attitude of the woman they love towards them.

Georgy Romashov, “Romochka”, from “The Duel” - a young officer. His character does not at all correspond to his chosen field. He is shy, blushes like a young lady, and is ready to respect the dignity of any person, but the results are disastrous. His soldiers are the worst marchers. He himself constantly makes mistakes. His idealistic ideas constantly come into conflict with reality, and his life is painful. His only joy is his love for Shurochka. For him, she personifies beauty, grace, education, and culture in general in the atmosphere of a provincial garrison. In her house he feels like a human being. Shurochka also appreciates Romashov’s difference, his difference from others. She is proud and ambitious, her dream is to escape from here. To do this, she forces her husband to prepare for the academy. She herself teaches military disciplines, so as not to get bogged down in idleness, not to become dull in the surrounding lack of spirituality. Romashov and Shurochka found each other, opposites met. But if for Romashov love consumed his entire soul and became the meaning and justification of life, then it bothers Shurochka. Achieving the intended goal is impossible for her with the weak-willed, gentle “Roma”. Therefore, she only allows herself this weakness for a moment, and then prefers to stay with her unloved, untalented, but persistent and stubborn husband. Once upon a time, Shurochka already refused Nazansky’s love (and now he is a drunken, desperate man).

In Shurochka’s understanding, a lover must make sacrifices. After all, she herself, without thinking twice, sacrifices both her own and someone else’s love for the sake of well-being and social status. Nazansky was unable to adapt to her demands - and he was removed. Shura will demand even more from Romashov - for the sake of her reputation, for the sake of gossips and talkers, he must sacrifice his life. For George himself, this may even be salvation. After all, if he had not died, at best, he would have suffered the fate of Nazansky. The environment would have swallowed him up and destroyed him.

In "Garnet Bracelet" the situation is similar, but not quite. The heroine is also married, but she loves her husband, and, on the contrary, she does not feel any feelings towards Mr. Zheltkov except annoyance. And Zheltkov himself seems to us at first to be just a vulgar suitor. This is how both Vera and her family perceive him. But in the story about a calm and happy life, disturbing notes flash: this is the fatal love of Vera’s husband’s brother; the love and adoration that her husband has for Vera’s sister; the failed love of Vera’s grandfather, it is this general who says that true love should be a tragedy, but in life it is vulgarized, everyday life and various kinds of conventions interfere. He tells two stories (one of them even somewhat resembles the plot of “The Duel”), where true love turns into a farce. Vera, listening to this story, has already received a garnet bracelet with a bloody stone, which should protect her from misfortune, and could save her former owner from violent death. It is with this gift that the reader’s attitude towards Zheltkov changes. He sacrifices everything for his love: career, money, peace of mind. And doesn't require anything in return.

But again, empty secular conventions destroy even this illusory happiness. Nikolai, Vera’s brother-in-law, who once surrendered his love to these prejudices, now demands the same from Zheltkov, he threatens him with prison, the court of society, and his connections. But Zheltkov reasonably objects: what can all these threats do to his love? Unlike Nikolai (and Romashov), he is ready to fight and defend his feelings. The barriers put up by society mean nothing to him. Just for the sake of the peace of his beloved, he is ready to give up love, but along with his life: he commits suicide.

Now Vera understands what she has lost. If Shurochka gave up feeling for the sake of well-being and did it consciously, then Vera simply did not see the big feeling. But in the end, she didn’t want to see him, she preferred peace and a familiar life (although nothing was demanded of her) and by this she seemed to have betrayed the man who loved her. But true love is generous - it was forgiven.

Why does love usually have a sad outcome in Kuprin’s works? Maybe he himself believed that true love should be tragic? I think it's about people and the world in which they live. This world doesn't need love. And people themselves betray it, abandon it for the sake of more understandable, material things. Not many are given the opportunity to understand what they are losing, and it is these people who are given love. It becomes the meaning of life for them. And life always ends in death.

When does love become tragedy?

Love is self-legislative and free, and that is why it is tragic. This tragedy is generated by the conflict of the moral requirements prevailing in society and the impossibility of fulfilling them within the framework of love (more precisely, it would be said that it is the moral requirements that impose a sense of limitation on this beautiful and inherently limitless feeling of limitation).
Many stories by I.A. Bunina based on unhappy love, death of people. Many of us shudder at the irreparable fate of the main characters, even fictional ones, whose souls were permeated with reverent love, real insight into life...
But their dreams and hopes were not destined to come true. Sometimes truly ridiculous, stupid and therefore terrible circumstances got in their way.
So in “Easy Breathing” the girl, whose beauty the author admires, is killed by a Cossack officer.
In "Gala Ganskaya" an absurd quarrel caused the suicide of the heroine of the story and, almost, the complete insanity of the main character. When the most absurd accident leads to the death of a loved one, it is a tragedy.
Many more stories by this writer fill the reader’s soul with sadness about unhappy love. But in Bunin’s short story “Natalie,” the main character is “punished” by two different feelings at once: “two loves at once, so different and so passionate,” such “the amazing beauty of Natalie’s adoration” and such “physical rapture by Sonya.” But this lyrical short story, although full of drama, is not tragic.

The idea of ​​tragedy in love is perfectly reflected in the works of another wonderful writer - Kuprina. A.I. Kuprin's story "Olesya" shows mutual love, striking in its purity and sincerity, doomed due to the impossibility of compromise. So great is the gap between the two worlds of two people - a man and a woman. He belongs to the society of people, she is completely given to nature. Love took me by surprise and left just as unexpectedly. The only thing that remains of their tender and generous feelings are only bright memories.
One happy moment and eternal separation is a tragedy. Having once experienced a real feeling, you will never be able to forget it, you will never be able to enjoy something less, for the rest of your life you will feel the need to fill the bottomless void of your heart - this is a tragedy.
The story shows that not only unhappy, but also happy mutual love carries a tragic beginning, which with even greater force pushes those who love beyond the boundaries of everyday life and generally accepted norms.
In another story by Kuprin - “The Garnet Bracelet” - a man is accused of... love! But was he to blame for love, and is it really possible to control such feelings? The main character's husband admitted that he was present at a "tremendous tragedy of the soul." A woman’s life path was crossed by real, selfless, true love, “but the love that every woman dreams of passed her by,” eternal exclusive love. He considers love to be an absolute value, the pinnacle of moral relations, not constrained by any moral assessments, and thanks God for this “enormous happiness,” for “the only joy in life, the only consolation, the only thought.” She renounces the love of the one who idolizes her, and only after his death does she realize what she has lost.
Love is a free manifestation of human essence. It cannot be prescribed or forcibly overcome. Rules of behavior and assessment lose their indisputability here. Love, as the highest emotional and spiritual tension, removes all one-sidedness, all exceptions, all boundaries of virtues...
But love without any hope, the desire only to love, even if not to be loved, to love without response and faith in reciprocity, “a life that obediently and joyfully doomed itself to torment, suffering and death” is a tragedy.

• The power of love makes a person change for the sake of the one he loves
• Love is not always beautiful on the outside, it is expressed in happiness inside a person
• Love can make a person do rash, fearless and even immoral things
• The essence of love lies in the fact that a loving person will never hurt his beloved
• Love for people is the ability to sacrifice oneself for their happiness
• Love brings out the best feelings in a person

Arguments

L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”. Pierre Bezukhov's love for Natasha Rostova can be called real. He knew that Natasha was the fiancée of Andrei Bolkonsky, his friend, so he did not allow himself too much. Pierre's best feelings were manifested in his readiness to help and support in a difficult situation. He respected the man he loved. Pierre had the opportunity to look after Natasha when Prince Andrei was away, but he considered it low to interfere with someone else's happiness and ruin the relationships of people close to him. This is true love: it lives inside a person, manifests itself in noble deeds.

A. Kuprin “Garnet Bracelet”. Zheltkov, an ordinary official, turns out to be capable of true love. Love for Vera Sheina is the basis of his life. Zheltkov dedicated his entire existence to this woman. He understood that they could not be together: the social status of these two people was very different. Zheltkov did not interfere with Vera Nikolaevna’s life, did not dream of winning her, but simply loved her - this was the highest happiness for him. The hero’s suicide is not cowardice, because he died so as not to disturb Vera Sheina. Zheltkov gave her the most expensive thing he had - a garnet bracelet. He said goodbye to life with a feeling of gratitude for everything that love gave him.

M. Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita”. Margarita’s love for the Master can be called real, incredibly strong. Margarita is ready to do anything that will allow her to be with her loved one again. She makes a deal with the devil and becomes queen at Satan's ball. And all for the sake of one person - the Master, without whom she cannot live. Love motivates a person to do the craziest things. The power of love is greater than the feeling of fear. Margarita proves this, for which she receives a reward - eternal peace with the Master.

Jack London "Martin Eden". Coming from the working class, poor young sailor Martin Eden falls in love with Ruth Morse, a girl belonging to the upper class. Love encourages a poorly educated young man to develop himself in order to overcome the abyss that separates him and Ruth. Martin Eden reads a lot and begins to write his own works. Soon he becomes one of the most educated people, having his own opinion on everything, most often different from the prevailing opinions in society. Martin Eden and Ruth Morse are engaged, but this is kept secret, because the young man is still trying to become a writer, but still has no money in his pocket. Nobody believes in Martin Eden: neither the sisters, nor Ruth, nor the Morse family. He works hard in the name of love: he writes, sleeps for four hours, reads, writes again, because he truly loves Ruth and wants to ensure their happiness. After a scandal surrounding the personality of Martin Eden, caused by a young reporter, the engagement is broken off. Ruth doesn't even want to talk to him. But when he becomes popular, rich, receives recognition, then they begin to love him. Ruth is no longer against marrying him: she says that she has always loved him, that she made a terrible mistake. But Martin Eden does not believe these words. He realizes that he has not changed a bit during this time. When the engagement was broken off, works that received recognition had already been written. This means that since Ruth broke up with him then, she didn’t really love him. But Martin Eden's love was true, real, pure.

M. Gorky “Old Woman Izergil”. Not only love between two hearts can be real, but also love for people in general. Danko, the hero of the work, sacrifices his life in the name of saving people. His goal is noble. Danko rips the heart out of his chest and lights the way for them. People come out of the forest and are saved. But no one remembers the hero’s feat, and yet he gave his life for the happiness of those around him.

Many works by I.A. Bunin is devoted to the theme of love, in particular the cycle of stories “Dark Alleys”, rightfully called the pinnacle of the writer’s work. But a strange feeling remains after reading these works of his - sadness, sympathy for the heroes, their tragic, unfulfilled fate. The heroes die, break up, commit suicide - they are all unhappy. Why is this happening? Love is shown by the writer as a powerful, formidable force that can turn a person’s life upside down. The lieutenant, the hero of the story “Sunstroke,” did not think about this at all, starting, as it seemed to him, a light affair with an attractive fellow traveler. But, having parted with her, he suddenly realizes that he cannot forget her, that seeing the heroine again is “more necessary than life” for him. With deep psychologism, the writer reveals the hero’s inner experiences, his spiritual maturation. The lieutenant feels the peace and serenity of the surrounding life - and this only intensifies his suffering: “Probably, I’m the only one so terribly unhappy in this city.” Bunin often resorts to such techniques as antithesis (contrast) and oxymoron (a combination of incompatible concepts) in order to more clearly reveal the inner world of the hero, who feels extraordinary joy in everything and at the same time torment, tearing his heart, happiness in his soul and tears in his eyes . With tears in his eyes, he fell asleep, and in the evening, sitting on the deck of the ship, he felt ten years older. The hero is in the power of love, his feelings do not depend on him, but they transform him spiritually - this is Pushkin’s awakening of the soul, a change in a person’s entire worldview. Mitya, the hero of the story “Mitya’s Love,” is jealous and suffers, feeling Katya’s disdain for him, some kind of falseness in her behavior, which she herself does not even realize yet. He is waiting for a letter from her, and how painfully the author shows this expectation, and how quickly Mitya’s joy gives way to the expectation of the next message, even more painful. Moreover, physiology does not replace love, and the episode with Alenka convincingly proves this - the power of love is in the harmony of the carnal and spiritual, in its spiritual significance. And so vivid, so painful is Mitya’s suffering, having received the news of Katya’s betrayal and their inevitable breakup, that he shoots himself “with pleasure” just to stop this pain that is tearing his heart apart. Of course, such intensity of passions is incompatible with ordinary life, because in life there is often so much dirt, rough prose of everyday life, petty calculations, lust that kill love. The victim of this was Olya Meshcherskaya, the heroine of the story “Easy Breathing,” whose pure soul was ready for love and was waiting for extraordinary happiness. Submitting to social prejudices, the heroes of the story “Dark Alleys” abandon Nadezhda, and he himself does not see happiness in his future fate. The heroine of the story “Cold Autumn” will remember for the rest of her life the evening of farewell to her groom, who was later killed in the war. And her entire future life is simply existence, everyday prose, and in her soul there is only that cold farewell evening and the poems that her beloved read to her. Therefore, I think it can be argued that in the image of I.A. Bunin's love is such a soaring of the soul, which is not given to everyone, but which everyone who experienced it will never forget.

Love... Perhaps there is no person who has not thought about it at least once. What is this? What does a person live by? Or a trifle that makes you vulnerable? Deep and strong feeling or fleeting affection? Love at first sight? Happy? Undivided? These questions make my head spin. But there are no answers to them. People have been looking for these answers for centuries, but if they find them, they are different for everyone. That's why they say that love is something eternal, imperishable. She has, is, and will continue to excite the hearts and souls of people.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the treasury of Russian literature was replenished with the works of two writers: Ivan Bunin and Alexander Kuprin, who found their answers to “eternal” questions. And they told the world about it. It would seem that these two writers are not at all similar to each other. Even outwardly, their differences are so great that it seems as if they could not have anything in common. Pushkin called Kuchelbecker “a brother in muse, in destinies.” One can hardly say this about Bunin and Kuprin, because their fates were noticeably different. But the muse, it seems, was the same...

Love is like sunstroke and love is like death - the thoughts of the two great writers are very similar. What is sunstroke if not a tiny death? The gentle sun warms, hugs your shoulders... It seems that you can no longer live without it. And then what has brought you only joy for so long “hits you over the head,” clouds your heart and mind, and leaves behind a lot more pain and unpleasant heaviness in your head and weakness in your body.

Bunin’s “sunstroke” throws the nameless lieutenant and his equally nameless companion into the abyss of passion. Having known each other for only three hours, drunk either from the sun, or from hops, or from each other, they get off the ship somewhere, in some small town, and spend several unforgettable hours together. And here “unforgettable” is not a pompous or vulgar word, no. It is sincere: “... as soon as they entered and the footman closed the door, the lieutenant rushed to her so impulsively and both of them suffocated so frantically in the kiss that for many years later they remembered this moment: neither one nor the other had ever experienced anything like this in their entire lives.”

The feeling that overwhelmed the two people did not last long: only night and a little morning. But it left an indelible mark in the souls of both.

They parted easily, only “in front of everyone” they kissed on the pier. But after this parting, the same torment began that always happens when you come to your senses after a sunstroke.

The lieutenant was tormented. Even one single day without Her seemed unbearable, endlessly long and empty. The room in which everything breathed Her was empty. Along with him, the lieutenant’s heart also became empty, deprived of happiness.

Only the next morning he felt better. But the world has changed for this man, and the gentle sun that brought him together with perhaps the greatest love of his life became “aimless.” The soul of the lieutenant hardly died, but, having fallen in love, he still died.

Having fallen in love, the hero of A. Kuprin’s story “Garnet Bracelet” Zheltkov also died. For many years he passionately and secretly loved one single woman, an unattainable woman, without paying attention to others. He loved selflessly, with the kind of love “that women dream of and that men are no longer capable of.”

But Vera, the beloved “G.S.Zh.”, was unable to see that same love in this feeling. She walked past Anosova, barely touching her.

Zheltkov accomplished a feat in the name of this love. By taking his own life, he saved Vera Nikolaevna from suffering, who was burdened by the feeling of a secret admirer.

How much do you have to love a person to do something like this?..

Love that is “strong as death.” Yes, this is not Bunin’s “sunstroke”. But both confirm the idea that true love is always tragic, sacrificial, selfless. And, of course, it doesn’t come to everyone. It can appear and disappear, like a sunstroke, like lightning in a stormy sky, and leave behind a mark that nothing can ever erase. When you fall in love, you give something to someone else. And first of all - the soul. This kind of love doesn't just disappear. Probably only with a person. You can sprinkle it with some passions, other feelings, but it will live as long as you live.

Great love - great works. Two different writers, even outwardly so different that it seems as if they could not have anything in common. But they have the same muse.