You can read Bunin’s story “Lapti” in full on our website. It was written in 1924, when the writer lived abroad. In the work, the author raises vital themes of humanity, morality, sense of duty and self-sacrifice.
The story introduces a story that happened in one of the villages. A little boy, the master's son, becomes seriously ill. In a feverish delirium, he asks to bring him the red bast shoes that he has dreamed of for so long. The weather outside is inclement - a snowstorm is blowing, a strong wind is blowing. But Nefed, the master's servant, decides to fulfill the boy's request and goes to the neighboring village. Along with the bast shoes, he was supposed to bring medicine that could help the child recover. But on the way back, Nefed got lost in an impenetrable snowstorm and dies before reaching home. In his bosom he had bast shoes and magenta, which may have saved the boy. The ending of the story remains open; the reader himself comes up with the ending of the story. But Nefyod’s death helps save the Novosel men, who also got lost during bad weather. They found dead Nefyod near the road, which became their salvation. In his work, Bunin shows the selfless act of an ordinary person for the sake of saving a child. In the story “Lapti” only Nefed has a name, he is the main character who sacrificed his life. The writer pays attention to all the little things, sounds, colors. By reading the work, the reader becomes a participant in the events. He can easily imagine what is happening. The use of color contrasts (white blizzard, red sandals) enhances the perception of the picture. With his story, the author showed that, despite their social status, every person should help each other.
You can download the full text for free on our website.
Bunin Ivan Alekseevich
Ivan Bunin
On the fifth day there was an impenetrable blizzard. In the snow-white and cold farmhouse there was a pale twilight and there was great grief: a child was seriously ill. And in the heat, in delirium, he often cried and kept asking for some red bast shoes. And his mother, who did not leave the bed where he lay, also cried bitter tears - from fear and from her helplessness. What to do, how to help? The husband is away, the horses are bad, and the hospital and the doctor are thirty miles away, and no doctor would go in such a passion...
There was a knock in the hallway - Nefed brought straw to the firebox, dumped it on the floor, puffing, wiping himself, breathing cold and blizzard freshness, opened the door and looked in:
Well, lady, how are you? Don't you feel any better?
Where there, Nefedushka! That's right, and he won't survive! Everyone is asking for some red bast shoes...
Bast shoes? What kind of bast shoes are these?
And God knows. He's delirious, he's on fire. He shook his cap and thought. A hat, a beard, an old sheepskin coat, broken felt boots - everything is covered in snow, everything is frozen... And suddenly firmly:
So, we need to extract it. This means the soul desires. We have to get it.
How to mine?
Go to Novoselki. To the shop. Painting it with magenta is a simple matter.
God be with you, it’s six miles to Novoselki! Where can one get into such horror!
I thought some more.
No, I'll go. It's okay, I'll go. You won’t be able to get there, but on foot, maybe nothing. It will be in my ass, dust...
And, closing the door, he left. And in the kitchen, without saying a word, he pulled his coat over his sheepskin coat, belted himself tightly with an old girdle, took a whip in his hands and went out, walked, drowning in the snowdrifts, across the yard, got out of the gate and drowned in the white steppe rushing somewhere madly sea.
We had lunch, it began to get dark, and it got dark - Nefed was gone. We decided that it means we stayed the night if God told us. You won't be able to go back to normal in this weather. We must wait until lunchtime tomorrow. But because he was still not there, the night was even more terrible. The whole house was buzzing, the thought that now there, in the field, in the abyss of a snow hurricane and darkness, was terrifying. The tallow candle burned with a trembling, gloomy flame. Her mother put her on the floor, behind the side of the bed. The child lay in the shadows, but the wall seemed to him to be fiery and was all running with bizarre, unspeakably magnificent and menacing visions. And sometimes he seemed to come to his senses and immediately began to cry bitterly and pitifully, begging (and as if quite reasonably) to give him red bast shoes:
Mommy, give it! Mommy dear, what are you doing!
And the mother threw herself on her knees and beat her chest:
Lord help me! Lord, protect!
And when it finally dawned, under the windows, through the roar and roar of the blizzard, I could hear quite clearly, not at all like I had been imagining all night, that someone was driving up, that someone’s muffled voices were being heard, and then a hasty, ominous knock on the window.
These were the Novosel men who brought the dead body of Nefed, white, frozen, completely covered in snow, lying on his back in the sledges. The men were traveling from the city, they themselves got lost all night, and at dawn they fell into some meadows, drowned along with their horse in terrible snow and were completely desperate, they decided to disappear, when suddenly they saw someone’s feet in felt boots sticking out of the snow. They rushed to shovel the snow, picked up the body, it turned out to be a familiar person. “That’s the only way we were saved when we realized that these meadows were farmsteads, Protasovskie, and that there was housing on the mountain, two steps away...
In Nefed's bosom lay brand new baby shoes and a bottle of magenta.
Ivan Bunin, “Lapti” (a brief summary follows) is a short story with a seemingly simple plot. However, Bunin’s talent lies in the fact that when you read his works, you guess yourself or a story you heard just now with a tragic ending...
Sometimes late in the evening, when it’s completely dark, you go to the window, look out onto the street, and there are hundreds of thousands of windows. Some glow with a bright yellow light, others are dark, but behind each of them you can read its own story, its own story, its own plot develops...
So in Bunin's prose - gray everyday life with its curiosities and incidents. However, there is one “but” that cannot be expressed in one word, or even words. It reaches to the very depths of the human soul and brings out something truly living, real, something that you are afraid to miss, to lose again in this thickness of misunderstanding, in an endless string of words and actions. So..
Winter. The fifth day is an impenetrable blizzard and blizzard. Not a soul around. Outside the windows of one farm house there is grief - a child is seriously ill. Despair, fear and helplessness took over the mother's heart. My husband is away, he can’t get to the doctor, and he himself won’t be able to get there in this weather. What to do?
There was a knock in the hallway. It was Nefed who brought straw for the stove. A minute or two later he looked into the room to ask about the child's health. It turned out that the boy was very weak, he was on fire, most likely he would not survive, but the main thing was that in his delirium he kept mentioning some red bast shoes, asking for them...
Without hesitation, Nefed goes to the neighboring village for new bast shoes and for magenta - red paint: if he asks, it means his soul desires it, and he must definitely go and get it...
The night passed in anxious anticipation.
In the morning there was an ominous knock on the window. These were men from a neighboring village. They brought Nefed's frozen body. We discovered it by accident when we ourselves fell into a snow hole and were already desperate to escape. But when they saw the frozen body of Nefed, whom they knew, they realized that the farm was very close. They strained their last strength and reached the people.
In his belt, under the man's sheepskin coat, lay new children's bast shoes and a bottle of magenta. This is how the story (I.A. Bunin) “Lapti” ends, a brief summary of which was outlined above.
Last sentence, period, end of story. While reading a particular work, we are more captivated by the plot than by what is hidden behind the words and actions of the main characters. However, then hundreds of thoughts come: why, for what, why... The story that Ivan Bunin wrote - “Lapti” - is, first of all, an ode to extraordinary kindness and readiness for self-sacrifice. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, the first layer that invites you to dig further and discover new and unexpected riches. What else is hidden behind the “scenery” of the unfolding drama?
A merciless element rules outside the window, ready to destroy anyone who dares to resist it. Death is on the threshold, waiting in the wings without pity and unnecessary doubts. The inconsolable mother humbly freezes before her. And only Nefed shows the determination to resist these two inevitabilities and follow the dictates of the soul.
And at this moment the reader is overcome with feelings that are difficult to convey in words. It’s as if a thin thread of light, something inexplicable, and at the same time painfully familiar, penetrates, passes through and connects souls, destinies and circumstances. Nefed does not try to explain his, at first glance, extravagant desire to go for bast shoes in an impenetrable blizzard and blizzard. He knows one thing - the soul desires, and here it is sinful to reason and argue. The question arises: whose soul called him on the road: a dying boy, an inconsolable mother, himself, or those lost men? The seemingly absurd, and sometimes even stupid, death of Nefed becomes significant, and, one might say, a necessary sacrifice. She gave the right to life to those lost men from the neighboring village, and perhaps even to a child.
Once again I would like to remind you that this story, written by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, is called “Lapti”. A summary, of course, cannot convey all the subtlety and depth of feelings of the main characters, so reading the original is simply necessary.
Bunin wrote the story “Lapti” in 1924, while in exile. The idea of this story is to show not only the Russian character and mentality, but also the soul of the Russian person. Analysis of the story “Lapti” confirms this. The genre of the work is a two-page story, in which there is no place for detailed experiences; it seems that Bunin conveyed the events concisely, in fragments, as if they were entries from a diary. This method of narration allows the reader to imagine more clearly the tragedy of the situation, the moral state of the grief-stricken mother and the heroic deed of the servant.
It is impossible to identify any main theme in this work. Bunin also writes about duty, honor, and morality. But still, the central theme of the story is humanity, it shapes a person’s position in relation to society. Moral order and humanism.
When analyzing the story “Lapti” by Bunin, the simple plot becomes clear. During bad weather, the master's boy is unwell and, delirious, asks for red bast shoes. This is his last request, his dream. Bast shoes are the last thing he wants before the death he foresees. The mother is sure that the bast shoes will help her son get better. But weather conditions prevent us from going after them; my husband is not at home, because we need to go to the neighboring village. Bunin describes in detail the state of nature, landscape snow sketches - we can assume that nature and the boy are a single whole. But the weather also seemed to be worried about the servant. In this story, weather and people are equivalent. Let us continue the analysis of the story “Lapti” by Bunin.
It is not clear to the reader whether the boy recovered; they brought him bast shoes, although Nefed went to get them. The mother sent a servant into the snowstorm to get the desired shoes. Nefed froze on the way back. But the climax occurs at the end of the story, since Bunin did not reveal all the intrigue. There is some special tragedy in this. The reader can complete the story himself. Think about the question: did the boy see bast shoes before his death? Did he miss his servant? Did he recover or die?
Nefed is a servant in the manor's house. He makes the fateful decision to go get bast shoes. He sees in them healing for the boy. He is the only one who is capable of such an act. Nefed does not think about the consequences, the difficult and long road, or the bad weather. This is the key image in the story. Nefed is a symbol of humanity and compassion. He sacrifices his life for the sake of another person's recovery. The servant left during the night and was found dead the next day. By finding him with the find, the men saved their own lives. Nefed committed a highly moral act, selfless and humane.
An analysis of the story “Lapti” by Bunin allows us to conclude that by sacrificing your life you can save others. We need to treat people with care, respect and love.
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Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The era of revolutionary changes in which he lived and forced emigration left their mark on his work. One of the works written in a foreign land and filled with love for the homeland is the story “Lapti”.
In 1920, Bunin moved to France because he categorically did not accept Soviet power. In the October Revolution he saw the destruction of the country. He could not stay, as government repressions against “class enemies” began.
The story "Lapti" was written in 1924. The writer expressed in it his vision of the Russian national character. Ivan Alekseevich loved his native Russia with all his heart, and revolutionary events and life in a foreign country had a depressing effect on him. The work recreates the pre-revolutionary life and original character of the Russian people, which they liked.
The genre of the work “Lapti” is a classic story. It is small in volume and contains one storyline: a delirious child asks for red bast shoes, and the wise and kind servant Nefed goes after them, despite the blizzard.
The direction of the story is realism, but at the same time, symbols that are not obvious at first glance are aptly used. Only by considering the story against the background of the time when it was written, and the writer’s life in exile, can one understand what symbols are used and what they mean.
Can the story be called a parable? In a sense it is possible. Because, as in the parable, the specific characters of specific characters are not shown here. Only one hero has a name - Nefed, but he is not an individual hero with his own special character, but a collective image of “bast shoes” - ordinary Russian men. It symbolizes mercy and self-sacrifice. But still, I think that despite all the similarities, the story is not a parable in the full sense. Because here the moral message of the work lies deeper, while the meaning of the parable is never veiled, it is always on the surface.
Lapti are straw shoes worn by peasants in Rus'. Rural boys were taught to weave these simple shoes from childhood. Thus, bast shoes denote Russian traditions, the character of the Russian people.
But also a simple, uneducated person was called “laptem”. Such as Nefed. Therefore, the title of the story personifies not only the shoes that the child asks for, but also simple, simple Russian men.
The problematic nature of the work “Lapti” is expressed in the writer’s heightened sense of revolutionary realities. He is much closer to the Russian life that existed before the revolution. Sacrifice and mercy, as a distinctive feature of the national mentality, are expressed in the image of Nefed.
It is symbolic that the Novosel men were saved only thanks to Nefedushka’s sacrifice. The Novosel men are also simple people with Russian character. And Nefed’s sacrifice was not in vain in any case. In my opinion, this means that a kind, sacrificial act always brings benefits.
The idea of the work is revealed through symbols. It is no coincidence that in the work it is the child who is sick, and it is no coincidence that he asks not for anything, but for bast shoes. The child symbolizes the future of the Russian people, their destiny. The impenetrable blizzard can be compared to revolutionary upheavals. It is unknown whether the Russian people will survive or die in this cruel storm. And bast shoes are a symbol of the merciful and sacrificial Russian character, which is becoming a thing of the past along with the tsarist regime. But it is in them that there is hope for salvation.
The moral meaning of the story is expressed in Nefedushka’s action. Bunin wanted to show that the Russian people have a future only if people retain their humanity, kindness and mercy.
In my opinion, the main idea of the work is that the key to the salvation of Russia lies in the continuity of generations. You cannot simply take and cut off the traditions and customs of your ancestors, the experience they have accumulated, the old way of life that has been formed over centuries. Only passing on the best of the legacy of older generations to new generations can ensure the successful development of the country. If you look at the horrors of mass repressions that Soviet power brought, you can understand that the writer was right in many ways. Revolutions, no matter how tempting they may be, bring suffering to the common people.
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