Arguments from a garnet bracelet on the topic of fidelity. Loyalty in Kuprin's work garnet bracelet. “Garnet Bracelet”: the theme of love in Kuprin’s work. Images of the main characters

30.10.2019

Loyalty, trust, love, respect, support are the basic concepts that make up the majority of eternal human values. But even in such a seemingly fairly indisputable issue, depending on the conditions and prevailing circumstances, certain contradictions may arise.

Is loyalty always good? The question would seem obvious, and in certain periods of our history, the concept of “loyalty” as an exceptional value and the main component of human relationships was never questioned and was always elevated to a cult. But “desperate times call for desperate measures,” and the more unhappy a person becomes, the more often he looks back and thinks about the meaning of his life, the more sensitive he is to his own choices and what may or may not make him happy. If we take, for example, the heroes of the novel by A.S. Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” and analyze the love story of Eugene and Tatiana, we can come to the conclusion that it was Tatiana’s loyalty to her husband that became one of the reasons for the unhappiness of the two heroes. We learn about Tatyana’s love for Evgeniy at the beginning of the novel, but Evgeniy’s willingness to give all of himself into the hands of this girl arose too late and very suddenly. At the moment when, after a long absence, Evgeniy returns to Tatiana and confesses his feelings to her, the girl was already the general’s wife. Of course, Tatyana would not have lost her feelings for Evgeniy even after a year or decades, but respect, love and loyalty to her husband did not allow the girl to reciprocate Evgeniy’s feelings. The result: two unfortunate souls doomed to mental suffering. Did Tatyana love her husband? Of course not, she felt only gratitude towards him and was faithful to him out of respect, because betrayal in those years was equivalent to a stigma for the rest of her life. Would Tatyana be happy if she decided to stay with Evgeniy, accepting his love? I think so, and this is precisely the case where fidelity interfered with human happiness.

A similar situation is described in his story “Garnet Bracelet” by A.I. Kuprin. The reader becomes aware of a story about a very happy, sincere, true love that was not destined to be mutual. The main character, Zheltkov, made love for a married woman the meaning of his life, he enjoyed this feeling to the full, lived by it and was happy, while realizing that it was quite possible that it would remain non-reciprocal. In turn, Vera Nikolaevna, reading Zheltkov’s letters, understood perfectly well that she was the object of sincere love, and, it seems to me, looking back at her relationship with her husband, at this ordinary affection, deep down in her soul she wanted to experience something brighter and intense, wanted to love just as the author of the letter sent to her loves. After Zheltkova’s suicide, Vera Nikolaevna, realizing that “great love, which is repeated only once in a thousand years,” had passed her by, sheds bitter tears, because she, being faithful to her husband, missed the only opportunity to be happy.

A person is happy when he feels complete satisfaction from life. A wonderful family is one in which love and mutual understanding reign, in which the word “loyalty” is at the basis of everything and at the same time does not appear on the surface of the things being discussed. However, if this concept itself serves as a connecting link and almost the only thing that can hold two people, it loses its true purpose and any meaning. It seems to me that loyalty and love should always be nearby, in other words, there is nothing worse than loyalty to an unloved person.

The works of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin were included in the classics of Russian literature of the 20th century. The spiritual world of this writer is based on faith in man, natural energy, and beauty. One of the cherished themes in his work was the theme of love; it sounds in most of his works, starting from the first stories. According to Kuprin, love is a feeling of high moral content that ennobles a person, giving beautiful moments full of tragedy.

The writer considered love to be a test of a person’s compliance with the high rank. He subjected, for example, the heroes of the story “Olesya” to this test, connecting with the heroine dreams of a wonderful person, of a free and free life, of merging with nature. One of Kuprin’s most striking stories about love is also “The Garnet Bracelet.”

The main character of the story, petty official Georgy Zheltkov, has been in love with Princess Vera Sheina for several years. At first, he wrote her “bold” letters, expecting an answer, but over time his feelings turned into reverent, selfless love. Vera got married, but Zheltkov continued to write to her, congratulating her on the holidays. He did not expect reciprocal feelings; his love for Vera was enough for the hero: “I am endlessly grateful to you just for the fact that you exist.”

On her name day, he gives her the most precious thing he had - a family heirloom, a garnet bracelet. In the story, the bracelet is a symbol of hopeless, enthusiastic love that does not expect anything in return. In a note sent along with the decoration, he explains that Vera is free to “throw away this funny toy,” but the fact that her hands touched the bracelet is already happiness for the hero. The gift worried and excited Vera, something in her became ready to change.

There was a legend in the Zheltkov family that the bracelet protected men from violent death. George gives this protection to Vera. But the heroine is not yet able to understand that true love has touched her. Vera asks Zheltkov to leave her. Realizing that there can be no relationship between them, not wanting to bother Vera with his existence, he sacrifices himself in the name of her happiness.

Finally meeting with George, no longer alive, saying goodbye to him, to the sounds of a Beethoven sonata, Vera realizes that her life was touched by “exactly the kind of love that women dream about and that men are no longer capable of.” George's feelings awakened the heroine, revealed in her the ability to compassion and empathy, remaining in Vera's mind a memory of the eternal, the great, of what she understood too late.

“Love must be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world! - says Kuprin through the mouth of General Anosov. The author considered love to be a gift from God, a feeling that few are capable of. In the story, this ability is granted to Georgy Zheltkov. The author endowed the hero with the talent of “selfless”, “selfless”, “not waiting for reward” love, “for which to accomplish any feat, to give one’s life, to go to torment is not work at all, but one joy.”

A.I. Kuprin has one cherished theme. He touches her chastely and reverently. This is the theme of love. He created many bright works of art, remaining faithful to the heroes and high, romantic and boundless love. One of the most beautiful and sad stories about love is “The Garnet Bracelet.” The great gift of love will be revealed in the most ordinary surroundings, in the heart of a simple, unremarkable-looking person. And the world of well-fed complacency will be shaken by that wonderful and all-consuming, albeit unrequited feeling, which the poor official Zheltkov, the hero of this story, experienced as enormous.

What gives “The Pomegranate Bracelet” a special power is that in it love exists as an unexpected gift among everyday life, among sober reality and established everyday life. The unprecedented gift of high and unrequited love became Zheltkov’s “tremendous happiness.” This raises him above other heroes: the rude Tuganovsky, the frivolous Anna, the conscientious Shein and the wise Anosov. The beautiful Vera Nikolaevna herself leads a familiar, seemingly drowsy existence, expressively shaded by the chilly autumn landscape of falling asleep nature. Faith is “independent and royally calm.” This calmness destroys Zheltkov. not about the emergence of Vera’s love, but precisely about her spiritual awakening, which occurs first in the sphere of premonitions, and then of internal contradictions.

The letter and gift already sent by Zheltkov - a bracelet with five deep red (“like blood”) grenades - cause “unexpected” anxiety in the heroine. From this moment on, her painful expectation of misfortune increases, right up to the premonition of Zheltkov’s death. At Tuganovsky’s demand to disappear, Zheltkov actually cuts off his own. Vera's farewell to the young man's ashes, their only "date" is a turning point in her inner state. On the face of the deceased she read “the same peaceful expression” as “on the masks of the great sufferers - Pushkin and Napoleon.” “At that second she realized that the love that every woman dreams of had passed her by.”

The writer endowed his heroine with much greater possibilities than just a person’s disappointment in himself. In the finale, Vera's excitement reaches its limit. To the sounds of a Beethoven sonata - Zheltkov bequeathed to listen to it - Vera, in tears of pain, repentance, enlightenment, comprehends “a life that has humbly and joyfully doomed itself to torment... and death.” Now this life will forever remain with her and for her under the final refrain of the story: “Hallowed be thy name!” Kuprin cried over the manuscript of the “Garnet Bracelet”.

He said that he had never written anything more chaste. The writer surprisingly sensitively included a story about a tragic and only love in the setting of a southern coastal autumn. The brilliant and farewell state of nature, transparent days, the silent sea, dry stalks of corn, the emptiness of dachas abandoned for the winter - all this imparts a special bitterness and strength to the story. And the gentle whisper of the trees, the light breeze brightens the bitterness of the heroine, as if blessing her with a faithful memory of Zheltkov, with sensitivity to true beauty, imperishable love.

The theme of love never dried up in Kuprin’s prose. He has many subtle and excellent stories about love, about the expectation of love, about its tragic outcomes, about its poetry, longing and eternal youth. Kuprin always and everywhere blessed love. He sent "a great blessing to everything: the earth, the waters, the trees, the flowers, the skies, the smells, the people, the animals and the eternal goodness and eternal beauty contained in a woman."

Need a cheat sheet? Then save - "The theme of love in the story "Garnet Bracelet". Literary essays!

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is an outstanding Russian writer of the early twentieth century. In his works, he sang love: genuine, sincere and real, not demanding anything in return. Not every person is given the opportunity to experience such feelings, and only a few are capable of discerning them, accepting them and surrendering to them among the abyss of life events.

A. I. Kuprin - biography and creativity

Little Alexander Kuprin lost his father when he was only a year old. His mother, a representative of an old family of Tatar princes, made a fateful decision for the boy to move to Moscow. At the age of 10, he entered the Moscow Military Academy; the education he received played a significant role in the writer’s work.

Later, he would create more than one work dedicated to his military youth: the writer’s memories can be found in the stories “At the Turning Point (Cadets)”, “Army Ensign”, in the novel “Junker”. For 4 years, Kuprin remained an officer in an infantry regiment, but the desire to become a novelist never left him: Kuprin wrote his first known work, the story “In the Dark,” at the age of 22. The life of the army will be reflected more than once in his work, including in his most significant work, the story “The Duel.” One of the important themes that made the writer’s works classics of Russian literature was love. Kuprin, masterfully wielding the pen, creating incredibly realistic, detailed and thoughtful images, was not afraid to demonstrate the realities of society, exposing its most immoral sides, as, for example, in the story “The Pit”.

The story “Garnet Bracelet”: history of creation

Kuprin began working on the story in difficult times for the country: one revolution ended, the funnel of another began to spin. The theme of love in Kuprin’s work “The Garnet Bracelet” is created in opposition to the mood of society; it becomes sincere, honest, and selfless. “The Garnet Bracelet” became an ode to such love, a prayer and a requiem for it.

The story was published in 1911. It was based on a real story, which made a deep impression on the writer; Kuprin almost completely preserved it in his work. Only the ending was changed: in the original, Zheltkov’s prototype abandoned his love, but remained alive. The suicide that ended Zheltkov’s love in the story is just another interpretation of the tragic ending of incredible feelings, allowing us to fully demonstrate the destructive power of the callousness and lack of will of the people of that time, which is what “Garnet Bracelet” is about. The theme of love in the work is one of the key ones; it is worked out in detail, and the fact that the story was created based on real events makes it even more expressive.

The theme of love in Kuprin’s work “The Garnet Bracelet” is at the center of the plot. The main character of the work is Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the prince’s wife. She constantly receives letters from a secret admirer, but one day an admirer gives her an expensive gift - a garnet bracelet. The theme of love in the work begins here. Considering such a gift indecent and compromising, she told her husband and brother about it. Using their connections, they can easily find the sender of the gift.

He turns out to be a modest and petty official Georgy Zheltkov, who, having accidentally seen Sheina, fell in love with her with all his heart and soul. He was content with allowing himself to write letters occasionally. The prince came to him with a conversation, after which Zheltkov felt that he had failed his pure and immaculate love, betrayed Vera Nikolaevna, compromising her with his gift. He wrote a farewell letter, where he asked his beloved to forgive him and listen to Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 2 goodbye, and then shot himself. This story alarmed and interested Sheina; she, having received permission from her husband, went to the apartment of the late Zheltkov. There, for the first time in her life, she experienced those feelings that she had not recognized throughout the eight years of the existence of this love. Already at home, listening to that same melody, she realizes that she has lost her chance at happiness. This is how the theme of love is revealed in the work “Garnet Bracelet”.

Images of the main characters

The images of the main characters reflect the social realities not only of that time. These roles are characteristic of humanity as a whole. In pursuit of status and material well-being, a person again and again abandons the most important thing - a bright and pure feeling that does not need expensive gifts and loud words.
The image of Georgy Zheltkov is the main confirmation of this. He is not rich, unremarkable. This is a modest person who does not demand anything in return for his love. Even in his suicide note, he indicates a false reason for his action, so as not to bring trouble to his beloved, who indifferently abandoned him.

Vera Nikolaevna is a young woman accustomed to living exclusively in accordance with the principles of society. She does not shy away from love, but does not consider it a vital necessity. She has a husband who was able to give her everything she needed, and she does not consider the existence of other feelings possible. This happens until she encounters the abyss after the death of Zheltkov - the only thing that can excite the heart and inspire turned out to be hopelessly missed.

The main theme of the story “Garnet Bracelet” is the theme of love in the work

Love in the story is a symbol of the nobility of the soul. This is not the case with the callous Prince Shein or Nikolai; Vera Nikolaevna herself can be called callous - until the moment of her trip to the apartment of the deceased. Love was the highest manifestation of happiness for Zheltkov, he did not need anything else, he found the bliss and splendor of life in his feelings. Vera Nikolaevna saw only tragedy in this unrequited love, her admirer evoked only pity in her, and this is the main drama of the heroine - she was unable to appreciate the beauty and purity of these feelings, this is noted in every essay on the work “Garnet Bracelet”. The theme of love, interpreted differently, will invariably appear in every text.

Vera Nikolaevna herself committed a betrayal of love when she took the bracelet to her husband and brother - the foundations of society turned out to be more important to her than the only bright and selfless feeling that took place in her emotionally meager life. She realizes this too late: that feeling that occurs once every few hundred years has disappeared. It touched her lightly, but she could not see the touch.

Love that leads to self-destruction

Kuprin himself earlier in his essays once expressed the idea that love is always a tragedy, it contains equally all emotions and joys, pain, happiness, joy and death. All these feelings were contained in one little man, Georgy Zheltkov, who saw sincere happiness in unrequited feelings for a cold and inaccessible woman. His love had no ups and downs until brute force in the person of Vasily Shein intervened. The resurrection of love and the resurrection of Zheltkov himself symbolically occurs at the moment of Vera Nikolaevna’s epiphany, when she listens to the very music of Beethoven and cries by the acacia tree. This is the “Garnet Bracelet” - the theme of love in the work is full of sadness and bitterness.

Main conclusions from the work

Perhaps the main line is the theme of love in the work. Kuprin demonstrates a depth of feelings that not every soul is able to understand and accept.

Kuprin's love requires a rejection of morals and norms forcibly imposed by society. Love does not require money or a high position in society, but it requires much more from a person: unselfishness, sincerity, complete dedication and selflessness. I would like to note the following, concluding the analysis of the work “Garnet Bracelet”: the theme of love in it forces one to renounce all social values, but in return bestows true happiness.

Cultural heritage of the work

Kuprin made a huge contribution to the development of love lyrics: “The Garnet Bracelet,” analysis of the work, the theme of love and its study became mandatory in the school curriculum. This work has also been filmed several times. The first film based on the story was released 4 years after publication, in 1914.

Them. N. M. Zagursky staged the ballet of the same name in 2013.

“Love must be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world! »

One of the eternal themes of art was love. In the works of A. I. Kuprin, the theme of love is embodied in many human destinies and experiences. Sometimes love, having given us a moment of true happiness, takes away the most precious thing - our life. An example of such real, pure, selfless love can be found in A. Kuprin’s story “The Garnet Bracelet,” where love appears as a great and natural, all-conquering power over a person.
The writer glorifies sublime love, contrasting it with hatred, enmity, mistrust, antipathy, and indifference. Through the mouth of General Anosov, he says that this feeling should not be frivolous, nor primitive, and, moreover, based on profit and selfishness: “Love should be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world! No life conveniences, calculations and compromises should touch". Love, according to Kuprin, should be based on sublime feelings, mutual respect, honesty and truthfulness. She must strive for the ideal.
This is exactly what Zheltkov’s love was like. A petty official, a lonely and timid dreamer, falls in love with a young society lady, a representative of the upper class. Unrequited and hopeless love continues for many years. The lover's letters are the subject of ridicule and mockery from family members. Princess Vera Nikolaevna, the recipient of these love revelations, does not take them seriously either. And a gift sent by an unknown lover - a garnet bracelet - causes a storm of indignation. People close to the princess consider the poor telegraph operator to be abnormal, a maniac. And only the same General Anosov guesses about the true motives for such risky actions of an unknown lover: “... maybe your path in life, Verochka, was crossed by exactly the kind of love that women dream about and which men are no longer capable of.”
But everything comes to an end someday, and fate does not always ask us what outcome we want. Zheltkov's love was not given a way out. The stronger the fire of his feelings burned, the more it was extinguished. Unfortunately, Vera Nikolaevna understood the meaning of the donated bracelet too late. And Zheltkov’s last letter puts everything in its place. He loves. He loves hopelessly, passionately and follows his love to the end. He accepts his feeling as God’s gift, as great happiness: “It’s not my fault, Vera Nikolaevna, that God was pleased to send me love for you as a great happiness.” And he does not curse fate, but leaves life, leaves with great love in his heart, taking it with him and saying to his beloved: “Hallowed be Thy name!” He places Her above everything and everyone. For him, She is a saint, the most precious thing he has in his life. Such selfless love, having become mutual, can rule the world, overcome any difficulties, but, remaining unrequited, it can destroy everything... And even human life... And only the symbol of this beautiful love of a beautiful person remains for people - a garnet bracelet.
You can talk a lot about love, citing as examples different stories of happy and unhappy love. But it is so multifaceted that we will never be able to fully understand lovers... But only until we ourselves fall in love, and even in this case, it will be our love, individual and unlike anything else.

The theme of love has been one of the most important in world and Russian literature since its inception. This feeling has a variety of definitions, but perhaps the most comprehensive is the definition from the Gospel: “This mystery is great.” Kuprin leads the reader to an understanding of the great secret with the entire system of images of the short story “Garnet Bracelet”.

The author embodied the mystery of God's gift of love, pure and unique, high to the point of self-sacrifice, creating a high atmosphere of morality, in the image of the “little man” Zheltkov.

The novella opens with a description of the coming autumn based on the principle of contrast. In the middle of August the weather is “disgusting”. It is accompanied by “thick fog, fine rain like water dust, turning clay roads and paths into solid thick mud”, a fierce hurricane, “the siren at the lighthouse roared like a mad bull”... The trees swayed..., “like waves in a storm.”

By the beginning of September the weather changes dramatically. “Quiet cloudless days, so clear, sunny and warm, which were not even in July. On the dry, compressed fields, on the prickly yellow stubble, an autumn cobweb glistened with a mica sheen. The calmed trees silently and obediently dropped their yellow leaves.”

This contrasting landscape, depressing and joyful, seems to precede a natural change in the life of Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina and the official of the control chamber Zheltkov, where Divine purity and tragedy, insight and faith in eternal, unearthly love will harmoniously merge together. The author gives Vera Nikolaevna’s state of mind through the prism of her attitude to natural beauty, dissolved in the vast world of existence.

“She was very happy about the wonderful days that had come, the silence, solitude, clean air, the chirping of swallows on the telegraph wires...”

Naturally sensitive, she “long ago” lost the feeling of love for her husband. They were friends and cared about each other.

Faith intuitively seeks the answer to the question of whether love exists and how it manifests itself.

The author explains the thirst for love and naivety of married sisters by the established stereotype in many generations, where love is replaced by habit and convenience. The author will lead his heroine, together with the reader, to true love, to the throne, on the altar of which life is laid.

Throughout the entire narrative, Zheltkov is Vera Nikolaevna’s secret lover.

Sheina, who rarely reminds of himself by letters. For Vera's relatives, he seems funny and insignificant. Vasily Lvovich, Vera’s husband, is intelligent, merciful, devotes a lot of space to Zheltkov in his home humor magazine, depicts his caricatured imaginary portrait. Either Zheltkov is a chimney sweep, or a monk, or a village woman, or he sends Vera a perfume bottle filled with tears. In such a reduced manner, Shein portrayed the inferiority of the “little man” who dared to fall in love with a woman not of his circle.

Probably, Prince Shein, at the moment of his meeting with Zheltkov, realized his clowning, since even Nikolai Nikolaevich Tuganovsky instantly saw Zheltkov’s nobility. He peers into the unusual appearance of a man, sees in him the inner workings of the soul: “thin, nervous fingers, a pale, gentle face, a childish chin.”

These external features of a person who subtly perceives the world are complemented by the touches of his psychological experiences in front of Vasily Lvovich and Nikolai Nikolaevich. Zheltkov was confused, his lips became dead, he jumped up, his trembling hands ran around, etc.

All this characterizes a lonely person who is not accustomed to such communication.

In the novella, the word “cliff” has a direct meaning and takes on the meaning of an image - a symbol. Vera lives on a cliff, in front of which the sea rages. She is afraid to look from the cliff. Zheltkov is constantly mentally there, on the cliff.

His speech to the guests who came to deprive him of what he lives on was a leap into the abyss from a cliff. With childish frankness, he will say what fills his soul: “Sending the bracelet was even more stupid. But...I can never stop loving her...Should I be imprisoned? But even there I will find a way to let her know about my existence. There is only one thing left - death..."

Zheltkov rushes off the “cliff” into oblivion when he hears Vera on the phone: “Oh, if you only knew how tired I am of this story.”

Zheltkov’s appearance, speech, and behavior stirred up Shein. He suddenly saw in front of him a living person “with unshed tears”, with “an enormous tragedy of the soul.” Shein realized that he was not crazy, but a loving person, for whom life without Faith did not exist.

Vera hears from the landlady words full of maternal love and sorrow: “If only you knew, lady, what a wonderful man he was.” From her, Vera learns that he asked to hang the garnet bracelet on the icon of the Mother of God. And cold Vera takes Zheltkov’s last letter written for her from the hands of the landlady with tenderness, reads the lines addressed to her, the only one: “It’s not my fault, Vera Nikolaevna, that God was pleased to send me, as great happiness, love for you. If you remember me, then play or ask me to play the Sonata in D major No. 2. op.2.”

So, Zheltkov’s love, eternal and unique, selfless and selfless, a gift from the Creator, for which he joyfully goes to death. Zheltkova’s love heals Vera and two men from pride, spiritual dryness, and gives birth to mercy in the souls of these people.

In Vera’s family there was no love between the spouses, although they felt comfortable and confident. There was no demand for love, as evidenced by Vera’s conversation with Yakov Mikhailovich Anosov.

People nowadays have forgotten how to love. I don't see true love. And in my time I didn’t see it.

Well, how can it be, grandfather? Why slander? You yourself were married. So they still loved you?

It means absolutely nothing, dear Verochka.

Take Vasya and me for example. Can we call our marriage unhappy? Anosov was silent for a long time. Then he said reluctantly:

Well, okay... let's say - an exception...

Smart Anosov, who loves both Vera and Anna, very doubtfully agrees with Verochkin’s concept of happiness. Sister Anna couldn’t stand her husband at all, although she gave birth to two children.

He alone among the heroes of the story smells roses on this autumn evening: “How roses smell... I hear it from here.” Vera put two roses in the buttonhole of the general’s coat. General Anosov's first love is connected with a girl who was sorting dry rose petals.

The subtle smell of roses reminded him of an incident from his life - funny and sad. This is an insert story in the short story “Garnet Bracelet”, with a beginning and an end.

“Here I am walking down the street in Bucharest. Suddenly a strong pink smell wafted over me... Between two soldiers there is a beautiful crystal bottle with rose oil. They lubricated their boots and also their weapon locks.

What do you have?

Some kind of oil, Your Honor, was put into the porridge, but it’s not good, it hurts your mouth, but it smells good.”

Consequently, soldiers do not need a subtle scent, their horizons are not the same, and there is no need for beauty. The path to the pinnacle of spirit, beauty, the pinnacle of nobility is difficult and long.

The image of a rose, a symbol of love and tragedy, permeates the fabric of the story from beginning to end. They, both in the form of dry petals and in the form of already prepared oil, are undoubtedly a parallel to all those love stories that the grandfather tells, those that the reader himself observes among the acting characters.

The image of a living rose, red as blood, appears as an impossible phenomenon in the fall in the hands of Vera Nikolaevna. She placed it at the head of the deceased in recognition of his unearthly love. The same color is in the garnet bracelet, only it is a different symbol, a symbol of tragedy, “like blood.”

Having understood the power of Zheltkov’s love, Vera is chained to Beethoven’s music. And the magical sounds of the words of enthusiastic love whispered to her: “Let your name shine.” The conscious guilt dissolves in her copious tears. The soul is filled with sounds equivalent to words:

“Calm down, darling, calm down. Do you remember about me? You are my only and last love. Calm down, I’m with you.”

And she felt his forgiveness. It was music that united them on this mournful day of their first meeting and farewell, just as it united Vera and Zheltkov for all eight years when he first saw her at a concert where Beethoven’s music was played. Beethoven's music and Zheltkov's love is an artistic parallel to the short story, which is prefaced by the epigraph to the short story.

L. Von Bethoven. 2 Son. (op.2, no. 2)
Largo Appassionato

Thus, all artistic means: live speech, inserted narratives, psychological portraits, sounds and smells, details, symbols - make the author’s narrative a vivid picture, where love is the main motive.

Kuprin convinces that everyone has their own love. Now it is like autumn roses, now it is like dry petals, now love has taken on vulgar forms and has descended to everyday convenience and little entertainment. Kuprin focused the love that women dream about on the image of Zheltkov. His love is God's gift. His love transforms the world. Kuprin convinces the reader that a “little man” can have a very rich soul, capable of making a beneficial contribution to the improvement of human morality. How important it is to understand this before the tragedy occurs.

Essay-reasoning “Garnet bracelet: love or madness.” Love in Kuprin's story

Kuprin's story “The Garnet Bracelet” reveals the secret riches of the human soul, which is why it is traditionally loved by young readers. It shows what the power of sincere feeling is capable of, and each of us hopes that we are also capable of feeling so nobly. However, the most valuable quality of this book lies in the main theme, which the author covers masterfully from work to work. This is the theme of love between a man and a woman, a dangerous and slippery road for a writer. It's hard not to be banal when describing the same thing for the thousandth time. However, Kuprin invariably manages to surprise and touch even the most experienced reader.

In this story, the author tells the story of unrequited and forbidden love: Zheltkov loves Vera, but cannot be with her, if only because she does not love him. In addition, all circumstances are against this couple. Firstly, their situation differs significantly, he is too poor and is a representative of a different class. Secondly, Vera is married. Thirdly, she is attached to her husband and would never agree to cheat on him. These are just the main reasons why the heroes cannot be together. It would seem that with such hopelessness it is hardly possible to continue to believe in something. And if you don’t believe, how can you nourish a feeling of love that is devoid of even hope for reciprocity? Zheltkov did it. His feeling was phenomenal, it did not demand anything in return, but gave its all.

Zheltkov’s love for Vera was precisely a Christian feeling. The hero accepted his fate, did not complain about it and did not rebel. He did not expect reward for his love in the form of a response; this feeling is selfless, not tied to selfish motives. Zheltkov renounces himself; his neighbor has become more important and dearer to him. He loved Vera as he loved himself, and even more. In addition, the hero turned out to be extremely honest in relation to the personal life of his chosen one. In response to the claims of her relatives, he humbly laid down his arms and did not persist and impose his right to feelings on them. He recognized the rights of Prince Vasily and understood that his passion was in some sense sinful. Not once over the years did he cross the line and did not dare to come to Vera with a proposal or to compromise her in any way. That is, he cared about her and her well-being more than about himself, and this is a spiritual feat - self-denial.

The greatness of this feeling is that the hero managed to let go of his beloved so that she would not feel the slightest discomfort from his existence. He did this at the cost of his life. He knew what he would do with himself after wasting government money, but he did it deliberately. At the same time, Zheltkov did not give Vera a single reason to consider herself guilty of what happened. The official committed suicide because of his crime. Desperate debtors in those days shot themselves in order to wash away their shame and not shift financial obligations to relatives. His action seemed logical to everyone and had nothing to do with his feelings for Vera. This fact speaks of an unusually tender attitude towards a loved one, who is the rarest treasure of the soul. Zheltkov proved that love is stronger than death.

In conclusion, I want to say that the noble feeling of Zheltkov is depicted by the author not by chance. Here are my thoughts on this matter: in a world where comfort and routine obligations are crowding out genuine and sublime passion, it is necessary to sober up and not take your loved one for granted and everyday life. You need to be able to value a loved one as much as yourself, as Zheltkov did. It is precisely this kind of reverent attitude that the story “The Garnet Bracelet” teaches.

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