Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Zolotoreva - teacher at the Suzuki Lyceum, Barnaul.

Lesson - miniature analysis

Bunin's cycle of short stories "Dark Alleys" is studied as an overview in the 11th grade. However, the final miniature short story “The Chapel” can be discussed much earlier - in the 9th or 10th grade. The meanings that are revealed during the analysis make it possible to connect Bunin’s miniature with the main works of the program - for example, read it after analyzing Pushkin’s poem “Do I wander along the noisy streets...” (9th grade) or after studying the novels of Goncharov and Turgenev (10th grade) th class).

You can write two or three lines about human life.
I.A. Bunin

...Love and death are inextricably linked.
I.A. Bunin

At the beginning of the lesson, students receive the text of the novel.

Teacher's opening speech. A story about the circumstances of I.A.’s work. Bunin on the cycle “Dark Alleys”. Then the teacher reads a miniature story.

After listening to the story, students talk about the mood this work evoked in them - sad, elegiac, minor. They noticed that the miniature resembles a prose poem and contains many of the characteristics of a lyrical work: emotional coloring, concentration of thoughts and feelings, special rhythm, and melody.

What associations does the word “chapel” evoke in us? Peace, silence, prayer. This is a symbol of eternity, a place that separates the world of the living and the dead. This is an hour of memories, revelation, communication with God, eternity, an hour of departure from external vanity, detachment from the world - the moment of truth for a person.

Let's turn to composition analysis. It is easy to see that it is based on an antithesis: cold and heat, darkness and light, old and new, youth and old age, day and night, children and adults are contrasted... Children are both creepy and happy, they experience both surprise and fear, being in the earthly, bright, sunny world and wanting to look into the other world... There is lush growth of grass around and at the same time, the chapel is “collapsing”. So, we are convinced that the work is permeated with contrasts. Summarizing all that has been said, we highlight the dominant antithesis: life death.

At the beginning of the work there is a picture of an old, dying manor, a collapsing chapel. It seems that death triumphs over life: very expressive epithets speak about this (old, abandoned, lonely, crumbling, broken...). The surrounding nature is struggling with destruction, but time is omnipotent and invincible. The “River of Times” seems to destroy everything that gets in its way. But does it have power over human memory and love?

We note that there is more than one narrator here: we see what is happening not only through the eyes of an adult, but also through the eyes of children. The style becomes different with the advent of children: “You can’t see anything there, it’s just cold blowing from there.” This is children's speech with a special vocabulary, the construction of sentences: “it blows coldly”, “they shoot themselves”, “grandfathers and grandmothers”, “creepy and fun”, etc. Little heroes ask childish questions (“Why did he shoot himself?”), follow childish logic (“...and when you are very much in love...”) and, childishly, as in fairy tales, divide the world into “theirs” (these are flowers, herbs, sun) and “stranger” (iron boxes, cold, someone else’s death).

They do not try to cross the border: the secret for which they look where the “cold blows” comes from will disappear. The children's story ends with the remark: “...they always shoot themselves...”.

If we turn to the analysis of artistic time, we can see that these are two different worlds: summer, day, sun (present time) and night, cold, darkness (past). As we can see, the miniature is again based on an antithesis. But two more “forms” of time are also contrasted: “always” (it is significant that this word frames the work) and “long ago,” “young” and “old” (the last epithet also applies to a crumbling, abandoned estate). We come to the conclusion that all three times coexist in miniature: present, past and future, associated with images of children. In addition, all the verbs in the story are in the present tense. One gets the amazing feeling that this story is being told by an elderly man remembering his childhood. But how harmoniously intertwined are memories and seemingly today’s experiences!

So, in miniature, there is a movement from life to death, from the past to the future through the present, from the temporary to the eternal. And everything returns to normal again and again.

At the beginning of the lesson, I give two students the task of writing down words - signs of artistic space. The guys come to the conclusion that opposition reigns here too. Field, garden, estate, “blue sea of ​​​​sky” - here. Here- sun, flowers, heat. There- dark and cold, there are “iron boxes” there. The border between the two worlds is the image of a window, characteristic of Bunin’s artistic world. In addition, in miniature there is a uniform alternation of darkness and light, cold and sun, “one’s own” and “alien” world, past and present, life and death. Thus, everything in life and nature is interconnected and is in harmony and balance. And the last sentence serves as confirmation of this (we write it down): “And the hotter and more joyfully the sun bakes, the colder it blows from the darkness, from the window.” It is all built on oppositions: hotter - colder, sun - darkness, bakes - blows, what - the. And if you combine these words with each other, then scales and swings will “appear”, symbolizing balance, harmony of life.

This is how the story brilliantly combines French old age and Russian childhood - two spaces and two times. In one memory, in one small episode - a moment and an eternity.

We come to the conclusion that a work built on oppositions speaks of the eternity of the unshakable laws of life, the natural progressive passage of time, memory and oblivion.

After commenting on the epigraphs for the lesson, students receive homework assignment: answer in writing the question: “What is the meaning of the title of Bunin’s story “Chapel”?”

I.A. Bunin Chapel A hot summer day, in a field, behind the garden of an old estate, a long-abandoned cemetery - mounds of tall flowers and a lonely, all wildly overgrown with flowers and herbs, nettles and tartar, a crumbling brick chapel. Children from the estate, squatting under the chapel, look with keen eyes into the narrow and long broken window at ground level. You can’t see anything there, it’s just cold air blowing from there. Everywhere it is light and hot, but there it is dark and cold; there, in iron boxes, lie some grandfathers and grandmothers and some other uncle who shot himself. All this is very interesting and surprising: we have the sun, flowers, grass, flies, bumblebees, butterflies, we can play, run, we are scared, but it’s also fun to squat, and they always lie there in the dark, like at night, in thick and cold iron boxes; Grandfathers and grandmothers are all old, and uncle is still young... Why did he shoot himself? He was very in love, and when you are very in love, you always shoot yourself...

In the blue sea of ​​the sky there are islands here and there of beautiful white clouds, a warm wind from the field carries the sweet smell of blooming rye. And the hotter and more joyful the sun bakes, the colder it blows from the darkness, from the window.

On July 2, 1944, in distant France, I. A. Bunin, aging far from Russia, wrote the final short story of the “Dark Alleys” cycle - “The Chapel”.

Its plot is extremely simple: children from an old estate, who ran away to a field on a hot summer day, find themselves in an abandoned cemetery near a crumbling brick chapel and are trying to connect this world and the other world in their minds. All this is “very interesting and surprising” to them. Children, trying to understand the connection between the present and the past (“they are scared, but also having fun”), involuntarily think about their future, and in a way incomprehensible to them (and perhaps only to them?) their future and someone else’s past... connect.

L.A. Smirnova is absolutely right when she asserts that Bunin, as a writer, was worried about the human worldview, born of the hustle and bustle of current life, but directed towards the eternal questions of existence.” 1 . The writer himself defined the genre of this work as a short story. It is significant that it is not short, but rather short. Perhaps, as a moment of a person’s insight, the moment he finds the truth?

The trajectory of the children’s path in the artistic world of this work is very interesting: from the confined space of the old estate they end up in the field. There is a horizontal expansion of space. “With keen eyes,” children peer into the world that has opened up before them and see a long-abandoned cemetery, a crumbling chapel... Boring life in the estate and free life outside it, in the lap of nature, suddenly unite into one: here . And all because it appears there , below ground level, where they look through the “narrow and long broken window” of the chapel. The space explored by the heroes expands again, only now vertically. (This creates a kind of cross. The cross of fate, its destiny, the impossibility of escaping questions about life and death? Maybe...)

The basis of the story's composition is thus obvious. This is the antithesis. Here - there, one's own - someone else's. It’s light, hot, understandable and close to the smallest details (flowers, grass, flies, bumblebees, butterflies), you can play and run... There it’s dark, cold, you can’t see anything, “some grandfathers and grandmothers” lie in iron boxes some other uncle." And the more children think about this alien there, the more terrible it is for them: after all, they “ Always they lie there in the dark, as if at night.” And the boxes in which they lie are now not only iron, but also “thick” (you can’t get out!), and “cold”... Some grandparents are “all old”, and this is understandable... But uncle - “ Uncle is still young”...

With this ellipsis, I.A. Bunin masterfully shows how the building of a justly organized world that they erected is collapsing in the minds of children: the old are there, the young are here.

It turns out that this is not always the case! “Why did he shoot himself?” Exactly not why and why … It should not be! But - alas! – it happens... Maybe that’s why the window (this kind of boundary between here and there ), through which children “look with keen eyes”, broken and from thereis one blowing? Oh my God! The gaze, searching for the Savior, involuntarily rises up...

“In the blue sea of ​​the sky there are islands here and there of beautiful white clouds...” Good! “... the warm wind from the field carries the sweet smell of blooming rye.”Amazing! This is Life. You need to appreciate it, enjoy every moment of it, but also not forget that the window is open...

After all, “the hotter and more joyful the sun bakes, the colder it blows from the darkness, from the window.”

I just feel it physically! Bravo, Ivan Alekseevich!

1 – page 28 “Russian literature. XX century Reference materials". A book for high school students. Compiled by L.A. Smirnova. Moscow "Enlightenment", 1995.

Story by I.A. Bunin’s “Chapel” is part of the famous “Dark Alleys” cycle. All the stories in this series are devoted to one theme - they describe various manifestations of love between a man and a woman. It was in “Dark Alleys” that Bunin expressed his attitude to this feeling and outlined his “philosophy of love.” To some extent, Bunin’s view is already reflected by the name of the cycle. The “dark alleys” of love are what are deeply hidden inside every person, these are his instincts and desires, his emotions, which he sometimes does not understand and cannot control, but which largely determine his life.

The story “Chapel,” dated July 2, 1944, is one of the shortest in the cycle. But, at the same time, one of the most philosophical and deep, in my opinion. Just a few lines, but there are so many author’s thoughts behind it, the thoughts of a mature person... The writer’s thoughts here are not only and not so much about love, but about the essence of human existence, about the meaning of life, about the laws of the universe.

“Chapel” is a story-memory. Although the story is told in the present tense, we understand that the narrator is recalling an incident from his childhood. It is interesting that it is important for Bunin to convey precisely the “childish” perception of everything described. Perhaps this is explained by the fact that children feel more acutely and subtly, their minds and souls are not yet as blinkered and blind as those of adults?

The children's eyes in the story reveal a strange, but very bright contrast. On the one hand, they see the triumph of life. The narrator remembers a sunny summer day, full of light, colors, warmth and light. On the other hand, children are interested in something else - they are attracted by an abandoned cemetery and the windows of a dilapidated chapel.

From the very first lines of the work, Bunin shows that life is a combination of contrasts, opposites, a compromise between light and darkness, good and evil. And it is impossible to say unambiguously where one ends and the other begins.

So, the entire cemetery is overgrown with flowers and herbs: “mounds of tall flowers and herbs.” Against this background of the triumph of life, the dilapidated chapel looks even more lonely. Children, like a magnet, are attracted to it, or rather to what is inside, behind the narrow broken window. The narrator says that he and his friends cannot see anything, they only feel a cold breath - the touch of another world. Children cannot yet rationally explain their curiosity, but at the level of feelings they understand that they are touching something very important, otherworldly, hidden - some great secret: “Everywhere is light and hot, but there it is dark and cold...”

Their reverent interest is enhanced by the fact that inside the chapel are the bodies of long-dead people. Perhaps at this moment the children first touched upon one of the most important issues of humanity - the issue of death. Of course, they still do not understand all its depth and tragedy, but something makes them continue to peer deep into the chapel, where “cold boxes lie” with bodies.

And again we are faced with a contrast - approaching death, children learn to experience life, its very basis - love: “...we have the sun, flowers, grass, flies, bumblebees, butterflies, we can play, run, we are scared, but also It's fun to squat, and they always lie there in the dark..."

The author emphasizes that among the coffins with “grandparents” there was a coffin with a young uncle, “who shot himself.” Why did he do this? The narrator conveys a brief dialogue that apparently took place between the children. One of them explains that this man was very much in love, and “when you are very much in love, you always shoot yourself...” Just a few words, childishly naive and simple, and no more explanations or comments. But nothing more is needed - behind these words lies a huge life of the soul, a deep human tragedy, a very strong and vivid feeling.

These words, in essence, can explain Bunin’s understanding of love. This feeling, the writer believes, is always associated with tragedy, with the dark and unconscious, it is built on contrasts, just like life itself. Contrast, the combination of the incongruous - this is the universal law of human existence in general and in all its particulars, Bunin the philosopher and writer tells us. This is confirmed by the final lines of the work: “And the hotter and more joyfully the sun bakes, the colder it blows from the darkness, from the window.”

The title of the story - “Chapel” - is, of course, no coincidence. This dilapidated building stands as if on the verge of two worlds, life and death, light and darkness. The chapel is designed to remind you of the eternal, the lofty, the secret - the most important thing in life. The author also tells us about this, urging the reader to stop, think, reflect...

List of used literature:

1. All Russian literature: Textbook / Author-compiler I.L. Kopylov. – Minsk: Modern writer, 2003. – P. 404-412.

2. Literature: Textbook for applicants to universities / Under the general editorship of V.E. Krasovsky. – M.: Eksmo, 2005. – P. 430 -435.

3. Russian literature. 20th century: Reference materials / comp. L.A. Smirnova. – M.: Education, 1995. – P. 16 – 40.

“Dark Alleys” by Bunin is a series of stories that are devoted to one topic. Love is the main theme of these works. Here we see a deep feeling between a man and a woman. Emotions overwhelm everyone who participates in the role of a lover. In each person we see our own “Dark Alleys” that pass through life. Every person has a hidden desire and passion.

The very first story from this collection is “The Chapel,” which was written in 1944. It is small in volume, but reveals its philosophical and social worldviews more deeply.

Here we don’t see any special love affairs and the story is more rational than the subsequent ones. You can immediately feel the author's deep insight into the nature of human existence. The author here gives a description of the meaning of human life.

This story describes a certain past and childhood, although the story is told in the present tense. It is childhood that is the period when the soul is purer and free from sins. The only strange thing is that the children were interested in the windows of the “Chapel”, as well as the cemetery. On the one hand, it is a bright sunny day, where there is love, light and kindness.

Judging by this description, the author tried to convey to the reader the vital contrast between good and evil. Evil is opposed to good, and light is opposed to darkness. The author describes the cemetery in bright colors. This is grass, these are flowers. And the chapel is almost collapsed and lonely. But for some reason children are drawn to her. They wonder what might be behind the windows. This is not only curiosity, but also a kind of premonition of something unusual and unknown.

Children are more susceptible to everything happening around them. They subtly feel that there is something there that will interest them. Everywhere is hot, sunny and fun, but there it is dark, scary and cold. Children are interested in what is forbidden and inaccessible. They want to see some hidden and otherworldly world.

Children begin to think about life and death. They start to wonder how this is possible? We walk here, we feel warm and happy. And they lie there in the cold and darkness.
Children think the same way about their uncle lying in a coffin, who shot himself because he was in love. Here we see how children think about love and feelings. They ask themselves: “Why do uncles always shoot themselves when they love?”

The author shows us the contrast of love. Love is good and evil. It is always suffering and passion. What goes together turns out to be incompatible, and here is the philosophy of life. The hotter the sun, the colder the darkness. Therefore, the author stops his reader at the chapel to make him think between good and evil, between light and darkness.

Sections: Literature

Goals: identifying the peculiarities of Bunin’s understanding of love, the author’s position, and the writer’s artistic style; intensification of students' research activities, development of creative reading skills, deepening understanding and experience of the events of the story.

Equipment: PC, m/m projector, interactive whiteboard.

Writing on the board: “The mental structure of a true poet is expressed in everything, even down to punctuation marks.” A.A.Blok

During the classes

1. Organizational moment.

2. Teacher's opening speech: Today in class we will do a holistic analysis of the text of a work of art. This is the story of I.A. Bunin from his famous cycle “Dark Alleys”. All the stories in this series are devoted to one theme - they describe various manifestations of love between a man and a woman. It was in “Dark Alleys” that Bunin expressed his attitude to this feeling and outlined his “philosophy of love.” To some extent, Bunin’s view is already reflected by the name of the cycle.

The “dark alleys” of love are what are deeply hidden inside every person, these are his instincts and desires, his emotions, which he sometimes does not understand and cannot control, but which largely determine his life.

The story is dated July 2, 1944, and is one of the shortest in the series. But, at the same time, one of the most philosophical and deep. Just a few lines, but there are so many author’s thoughts behind it, the thoughts of a mature person... The writer’s thoughts here are not only and not so much about love, but about the essence of human existence, about the meaning of life, about the laws of the universe.

3. Reading a story (read by a prepared student, each student has the text on his desk)

4. Analysis of the story by questions:

Determine the artistic time and artistic space of the story.

Let's recreate the picture painted by Bunin.

On the board, a sheet of Whatman paper is divided into two halves, blue and green. We glue pre-prepared layouts onto whatman paper (chapel, clouds, sun, flowers, crosses, children, chapel window).

The scene is an abandoned cemetery. Why is the cemetery abandoned?

The cemetery is family, most likely belonged to the gentlemen from the estate: either everyone died or went abroad)

Along with the word “abandoned,” the story includes the theme of oblivion. Everything froze. Like in a movie - a still frame. How does the author use syntactic means to show that time has stopped? Let's look at the first sentence of the text. Describe him.

The sentence has four subjects (day, field, cemetery, chapel), the sentence is one-part, nominative.

Why is there no predicate?

There is no movement, time has stopped.

Through children's perception, children came to the cemetery.

This story is a story-memory. Although the story is told in the present tense, we understand that the narrator is recalling an incident from his childhood. Why do you think?

It is interesting that it is important for Bunin to convey precisely the “childish” perception of everything described. Perhaps this is explained by the fact that children feel more acutely and subtly. The child's gaze is not clouded, natural. Children feel more acutely and subtly, their minds and souls are not yet as blind as those of adults. Adults have an unnatural, stereotypical view of life; they do not see the severity of existence.

What does the children see? To answer this question, you need to carefully re-read the text and divide it into two parts, because children see two pictures.

Contrast, antithesis.

What is antithesis?

The children's eyes in the story reveal a strange, but very bright contrast. On the one hand, they see the triumph of life. The narrator remembers a sunny summer day, full of light, colors, warmth and light. On the other hand - an abandoned cemetery, darkness, uncertainty, mystery.

Let's continue filling out the table.

What lies between these two worlds?

A chapel, or rather a broken window at ground level, which divides the children’s space into “theirs” and “theirs,” which is always fraught with some kind of danger. The window is the border between two worlds.

And by the window, the cemetery is also a border connecting the present and the past.

When enemies came, people first of all guarded the cemetery, because this is the memory of family, ancestors, because the cemetery is the history of a whole family.

V. Kataev, a famous Soviet writer, said: “Who am I? A grain of sand on the face of the Universe.” And, indeed, a person is just a small grain of sand in a huge accumulation of people inhabiting the Universe.

How do children evaluate what they see in the window?

Creepy and fun

What indicates that children are interested?

They look with CLEAR eyes, i.e. peering.

ZORKY –

1) good vision of distant and small objects;

2) close, insightful.

Which of the two meanings corresponds to the word from the given text? (2)

What attracts children? Why are they creepy, fun, interesting and surprising at the same time?

Creepy, p.ch. The word death scares me, but in all of this there is some kind of mystery, an unknown that I want to solve. The interest is enhanced by the fact that inside the chapel there are bodies of long-dead people. Of course, they still do not understand all its depth and tragedy, but something makes them continue to peer deep into the chapel, where “cold boxes lie” with bodies.

What do children discover there, in the unknown world outside the window, in the depths of the chapel?

1. Death is next to life (according to Bunin, the first step to death is a cry at birth).

2. Not only old people die, but also young people.

3. You can die from love.

Approaching death, children learn to understand life, its basis is love. The author emphasizes that among the coffins with “grandparents” there was a coffin with a young uncle, “who shot himself.”

Why did he do this?

One of the children explains that this man was very much in love, and “when you are very much in love, you always shoot yourself...”. Just a few words, childishly naive and simple, and no more explanations or comments. Behind these words lies a huge life of the soul, a deep human tragedy, a very strong and vivid feeling.

They can also explain Bunin’s understanding of love. This feeling, the writer believes, is always associated with tragedy, with the dark and unconscious, it is built on contrasts, just like life itself. Contrast is the universal law of human existence in general and in all its particulars.

What connects life and death? What images connect artistic time and space in this story? Analyze everything we talked about today and give the story a title. Be prepared to justify your opinion.

A chapel is a house of prayer, a temple without an altar, where prayers can be read.

The chapel connects two spaces: temporary and eternal – life and death. Coming to the cemetery, relatives remember those who have passed away in the chapel, read prayers, and light candles.

The collapsing chapel suggests that earthly existence is not eternal. Death is terrible, but you need to value life and what it gives. Cherish every hour of your life and live with dignity.

5. Homework: Write an essay - an argument based on the statement of D. Granin: “Compare the hour of earth with the hour of death”