In his stories, Ivan Bunin often showcases the inability to achieve earthly happiness. This reality often manifests itself in his characters' attempts to return to the past, when the evanescence of joy was still a mystery to the insensitive conscience of the protagonists. In the story "Sunstroke" the repeated contrasts between light and darkness manage to parallel the psychological struggle of the protagonist. "Kasimir Stanislavovitch", on the other hand, exemplifies a man's attempt to rediscover happiness by delving into the habits of his youth, as well as his inevitable destruction due to the realization that he has no power to manipulate both the unassailable passage of time that happiness. capricious nature. In the story "The First Monday of Lent" this theme is reverberated again through the juxtaposition of two very different attempts at happiness, but nevertheless linked by a common failure. And so, the message that happiness can only be transitory is exemplified by the return to a past filled with joy, both in thought and literal action. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In the short story "Sunstroke", Bunin's impressionistic tendencies, which lead him to qualify some of his characters with a single event rather than social or historical contexts and temporal references introduce the universal impossibility of happiness earthly and describe as useless all efforts to believe the opposite. The simplicity of the structural system, hinged on only three events: the characters' infatuation, their night together and their separation, as well as the anonymity of the lieutenant and the woman he meets, reflects the generality of this concept (Woodward 182) . . No information is given about either their separate pasts or their divergent futures, and there are no details about their physical appearance, even their names are excluded; in turn, this depersonalization clearly and sharply describes the ineffable logic that makes happiness ultimately unattainable (184). The dark symbolism that pervades the piece revolves around the reverberating juxtapositions between dark and light and the extended metaphor of "sunstroke". These transitions parallel the lieutenant's gradual realizations about the transitory and inconsistent nature of happiness, his attempt to forget them by reliving the previous day, and his final triumph over the irrational delusions that Bunin condemns. From the beginning, when the couple emerges from the "brightly lit dining room" and finds "darkness and lights" before them, the tension between the rational and the irrational is evident. As the narrative progresses, sentences mentioning the smell of sunburn, "the dimly lit dock" in the night, the "rapid street lamps" of the streets, and the protagonists' ascent through the "illuminated door", culminate in the consummation of the wish. in a "room still warm from the day's sun" and "decorated with two unused candles". It is only in the midst of such thick darkness that man can allow himself to believe that happiness is an achievable goal, because only when he is blinded by the deafening heat can he delude himself into having faith in the permanence of such a feeling. Bunin, introducing light as a symbol of man's awareness of the inevitable decline of joy, at the same time presents darkness as the denial of such truths, a denial that can even lead to great despair. Although “sunstroke” itself is, as James Woodward states, “a force capable of usurping the authority of reason,” its juxtaposition with darkness simultaneously develops the irony that is precisely this exaggeration of lightand heat, which induces the lieutenant's tragic fall from reason, a state which in all other cases is symbolized by the presence of light. Darkness victorious, the protagonist falls into a state of despondency, one in which his discovery of the uncontrollable and inevitable decline of human enjoyment pushes him to seek refuge in the past. However, now that the sun has evolved into a "wild furnace", the river seems made of "glittering steel", explicit clues to the metamorphosis of light in a searing and mocking reminder of its disillusionment. “Everything was bathed in the hot, blazing, joyous, seemingly aimless sun” as he wandered defeated and pondered whether to return to the simple, seemingly rational hours before she left him. Faced with what to do when tormented by the idea that a day of exquisite and incomparable happiness has passed, has fled forever, the lieutenant reiterates a frequent theme in Bunin's writings: awakening to reality pushes the protagonist to delve into his memories of ignorant times. In the case of the lieutenant, however, the light, and consequently the reason, win, because he undertakes a literal and metaphorical journey as a changed man, one who, "having aged ten years", has acquired a precious vision of the human being . soul and one's psychological reality. Woodland agrees: "When the lieutenant boards his boat the next night, the symbolic sequence of the opening scenes is reversed. From the darkness of the irrational he passes to the comforting light of reason." Once again, the allusion to the contrast between light and darkness, reason and irrational denial, is presented this time in the image of the "steamer, flaming with light", as it approaches through the darkness thus dramatizing the touching moment in evolution of the human being. consciousness when the uselessness of enjoyment is internalized and transfigured into wisdom. The story "Kasimir Stanislavovitch" includes elements similar to those of "Sunstroke", the search for happiness, the failure to obtain it but unlike the previous story, the protagonist is incapable of rising from the depths of his misery. The detailed descriptions of Kasimir Stanislavovitch's behavior, his incommunicability and his dilapidated appearance, as well as the contrasts drawn between his current surroundings and the life that enveloped him in his youth, demonstrate the impossibility of achieving his goal, because he tries, above all, to find a link between himself and the past (Dunaev 839). Bunin explicitly lays out Kasimir Stanislavovitch's plan to revive his spirit by merging the past with the present, hoping to restore some of that long-lost happiness. For example, he does not take into account his monetary status and revisits restaurants, cafes, even brothels: "From the cinema he went to a restaurant on the boulevard that he had also known when he was a student." Yet, as Woodward states, "the pathos of the struggle is consistently less surprising than its utter futility." From the beginning, examples of the irreconcilable nature of past and present are evident, as the very beginning of the narrative introduces Kasimir as someone living in the succession of memories of his mind, trapped by the desire to relive such moments. He shows up at the "Versailles" hotel with an identity card from his youth, the one with a "noble's crown". When compared with detailed descriptions of his physical appearance, which characterize him as wearing a worn overcoat, "cheap boots...an old black top hat" and having the hands of "a habitual drunkard and an old cellar dweller," the current value of the identity card is denied. The diction is controlled, meticulously expressive and hints at Kasimir Stanislavovitch's impending failure. Nello"grey and dark" compartment of his train, he is pervaded by a "feeling of comfort and luxury", and once in Moscow, on the morning of his daughter's wedding, he rejoices as if "once again there was somewhere in the world joy, youth, happiness." He was evidently "overwhelmed by the idea of ​​being in Moscow", but it is the underlying and imminent threat of inevitable failure looming before the delirious old man that introduces a sense of irony into the narrative. Moscow is full of signs of spring, and yet, as the new season approaches, the protagonist embarks on a parallel journey of discovery and rebirth, a quest that undeniably and ironically leads him to despair (Woodward 21). Kasimir Stanislavovitch arrives in Moscow a poor drunkard, but leaves destroyed by the reality that his attempts to reconcile his present state with a past in which he was young, rich, lively, are a colossal failure; his efforts to produce an amalgam from two very different moments in time, to reconstruct past happiness, leave him cold and aware of his stupidity in believing that such a conglomerate was possible. Woodward supports this claim in his analysis of Bunin's treatment of the nature of man: "By reducing the concept of individuality to a complex of irrational drives and instincts, he methodically strips from his characters the outer layers of culture, nationality and professional competence and reveals the savage lurking behind the facade, always ready to explode our personality and transport the personality to the heights of bliss or the depths of despair… Their deceptions are starkly exposed.” The change in the protagonist's diction exemplifies this transition, for the elegance and kindness of his manner when addressing the taxi driver: "I have known that hotel, my dear friend, since my student days" provides a striking contrast with his subsequent pleas, "For God's sake... I'm in a desperate position." Bunin thus successfully showed a man buckling under the weight of reality. The central theme of inevitable failure and the escape into the past that it generates is also present in one of Bunin's most famous stories, "The First Monday of Lent"; in this case the delivery is on two fronts. This dualism generates an equally important connection between the futility of happiness and those features of reality that seem irreconcilable spirituality, history, and failure (Dunaev 837). The anonymous male protagonist confides that he is in one of the most exciting moments of his existence and stubbornly denies the possibility that happiness does not prevail, admitting that "Something has held me all the time in an uninterrupted tension, in a painful state of foreboding and yet I felt an indescribable joy in every hour I spent with her." Yet, amidst the monotonous comings and goings, the habitual outings of the Moscow upper class, his hope is attenuated; however, although years later he tries to re-establish a spiritual connection with his lost love by reliving one of their nights together, the narrative's conclusion once again determines his failure. He finds her but "turned and walked silently out of the gates." On the other hand, according to Woodward, "disenchantment with the present pushes the enigmatic heroine to seek refuge in a convent and regain spiritual contact with Russia's ancient past." She too attempts to ease the burden of realizing that happiness is unattainable and, for a while, he succeeds. However, when his presence in the Convent of Martha-Mary is examined in the context of the only historical reference in the story, the one that alludes to the year 1914, his claim to happiness is also defeated, although certainly more spiritual and substantial than that of the his partner;, 1922.