On The Motif "Path" In The Collection Of Short Stories Dark Avenues By Bunin

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin(1870-1953)was not only the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature,but also a recognized Master of Language in the Russian literature history of the 20th century.The book of short stories Dark Avenues was created by Bunin when he resided abroad from 1937 to 1944.There are 38 works(later increased to 40)included in the collection which is praised as the "Encyclopedia of Love".Each story in the collection is independent and complete,with different protagonists and plots.However,these independent stories were skillfully combined through the motif "path",reflecting the author's original conception and creative characteristics.The concept of motif was originally produced in musicology,used for describing the smallest repetitive music unit of compositions.The literary research on motifs in Russia began in the early 1800s,and was mainly used to analyze folk literature in that period,In the Russian culture and literature,path is a significant classic motif,which frequently appears in literary classics,such as Letters of a Russian Traveler by Karamzin,Dead Souls by Gogol and Journey from St.Petersburg to Moscow by Radishchev.A lot of literary critics used the motif "path" as a point of penetration to analyze classic works.Bunin was known as the "last writer of classicism" in the Silver Age of Russia.His creation inherited the literary tradition of Russia in both contents and forms.Besides,"path" is a significant motif in Bunin's creation,and is manifested in his works in each period.Bunin likened his life to a path,which started from and ended in darkness.According to the viewpoint of Boris Tomashevsky,Russian Formalist literary scholar,"A motif is a part of a theme,i.e.,the intention of a work".Taking Dark Avenues as the analysis text,and the "path" as a red line,this paper tries to probe deeply into the main idea of a short story,and plans to make an overall view and contrast on the interrelation among short stories therein and the contents and forms thereof so as to reveal the author's contradictory world outlook and personalized creative characteristics,and to summarize the philosophy,aesthetics,and even the deep source of physiology contained in the author's later works.Regarding the motif "path" as a point of penetration,this paper aims to summarize the direct and indirect manifestations of the motif "path" in the collection Dark Avenues,and interpret the literature features of the "Path of Bunin" on the basis of the path view in the Russian language and culture.The "motif study method" in thematology is mainly applied,with the addition of such methods as description and classification.In Chapter ?,it describes the concept of motif and the motif analysis approach,and sorts out the motif "path" in each creation period of Bunin.In Chapter ?,based on the core concept in the "path view" of Russian culture,it sorts out and generalizes the direct manifestation of the motif "path" in Dark Avenues,and reveals the characteristics and philosophical connotation of paths in Bunin's works.The motif path in the collection is mainly manifested by two modes:first,path-related words directly appear;second,the "variant" within the irradiation scope of the path concept manifests the motif path.The author held that the direct description of paths is first directed to different "paths":avenues,streets,railways,village roads,highways,underground railways,mountain roads;second,it is related to another type of paths such as corridors,bridges and the trace routes of a figure.In Chapter ?,starting with the three radiation aspects of the "path view" in Russian culture-the main body,obstacle and infrastructure of a path,it analyzes the indirect manifestation of the motif path in the collection,and reveals its effect in the collection.This chapter mainly summarizes the reproduction of the motif path in the collection in a variant form,and combines other concepts within the radiation scope of the path concept with the contents of Dark Avenues for investigation.Such concepts include humans(travelers,pedestrians,guests),things(vehicles),objective factors(e.g.weather,distance,time),subjective factors(waiting,fatigue,fear),etc..In the Conclusion,it summarizes the basic viewpoints of this paper,and generalizes the characteristics of the motif "path" in the collection.Through the extraction and analysis of the motif "path" and its variants in the collection,this paper reveals the author's original views on such classical propositions as love,death,life and hometown.Such views are concentrated in the "Path of Life" and the "Path of Spirit",allowing the entire collection to be enveloped in a "dark" atmosphere.