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April Capwell
Professor Schur
IHENG-195-03-FA22
20 October 2022
The Imageries of Heat in Sunstroke
One favored topic to write about in Russia during the 19th and 20th centuries were
resort affairs, and two known authors were a product of it: Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin. It
comes as no surprise to find that Chekhov’s “The Lady with a Lapdog” and Bunin’s
“Sunstroke” have a couple of similarities between them as a result. Firstly, they both follow
heteronormative pairings where at least one of them commits infidelity against their unaware
spouse on a vacation. Secondly, the two men involved in the either affair—Gurov and the
lieutenant—fall in love with their respective partner after not expecting to desire them after
the affair ends. While the two stories are similar in those regards, they are also vastly
different in their imagery. In Bunin’s story, he does not write about pursuing the affair and
leaves the focus on the lieutenant as he experiences the conflicting feelings that come with an
affair turned into a one-sided love without advancing the plot. Where Chekhov uses various
imagery in his writing, such as comparing Gurov’s wife’s features as a counterpoint to Anna
and uses the bleakness of their homes to highlight how the two of them felt confined, Bunin
utilizes one descriptor throughout “Sunstroke”, which is heat. Bunin crafts his words expertly
to highlight themes of love and the longing that follows once the affair ends with descriptive
imageries of heat during key moments of the story.
“Sunstroke” begins with the lieutenant and the nameless lady emerging from a ship’s
dining room, and it is after the two engage in conversation that the lieutenant begs her to get
off the ship with him. Although the two characters have only interacted briefly in the eyes of
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the reader, his attraction to her is evident when the author writes, “The lieutenant brought her
hand to his lips: small and tan, it smelled of the sun” (Bunin 189). The mention of the sun is a
crucial detail because it has to do with his association of her to sun because of the warmth
that she brings into his life. The nameless lady brought the lieutenant a sense of joy that he
has not felt in a long time, and it aids in him feeling younger than he already is. In addition,
the association of heat with love is a common theme at the beginning of the story as well. Just
before the two characters engage in intimate acts with one another, Bunin describes the room
as “…terribly stuffy and still sweltering from the day’s sun” (Bunin 190), which helps
enhance the level of romance and tension the lieutenant and the lady are experiencing,
marking this moment of ecstasy a moment neither of them would be forgetting. Lastly, the
day of the nameless lady leaving to return to her husband and daughter, it is described as,
“…cheerful, sunny, and hot…” (Bunin 190). The word ‘cheerful’ in this sentence is notable
because the reader is perceiving the story not only through a third-person narrative, but also
from the lieutenant’s thoughts as well, and it symbolizes the lieutenant’s last joyful, carefree
hours until the reality sets in that he will never see the lady from that day onwards.
The focus of “Sunstroke” after the nameless lady leaves the pier is on the lieutenant as
he deals with the aftermath of the affair and his subsequent longing for her. After the
nameless lady departs, the lieutenant returns to the inn room and is surprised to note that the
room feels different than before; where it was previously full of her presence, is now empty
with faint traces left behind. This revelation causes the lieutenant’s mood to plummet, and he
is overcome with this feeling of longing. The lieutenant talks to himself and exclaims that he
must be suffering a sunstroke. The lieutenant is implying that the summer sun must be
affecting his mood and actions, causing him to behave irrationally. From this point on, the
lieutenant attempts to let go of his feelings for the lady and find solace elsewhere. However,
the lieutenant finally notices how much the sun’s heat as taken a toll on him and Bunin
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describes this by detailing his clothing, “The shoulder straps and buttons of his uniform grew
too hot to touch. The inside of his cap turned wet with sweat. His face began to burn…”
(Bunin 193). Once he returns to the inn, the dining hall is empty and he notes that the room
feels cool, and he experiences a sense of pleasure when he takes off his hat and opens a
window to feel the breeze while he eats dinner. This is a stark contrast to the imageries of
heat written throughout the story. It can be presumed that Bunin wrote it this way to show a
difference between the lieutenant’s association of her and the sun’s heat, and the disconnect
of the affair and moving on with cool imagery. Although this feeling does not last for long as
he is overcome with longing soon after, it briefly brought a period of sweet relief, and it is the
starting point of his acceptance that the lady is gone for good.
The lieutenant decides to try to send the nameless lady a letter, proclaiming that he
was forever hers, except he realizes that she never told him her name and he only knew the
town that she lives in. He catches himself in the mirror and despite being a handsome,
achieving individual, Bunin writes, “How terrible and savage everything mundane and
ordinary becomes when the heart’s been destroyed—yes, he understood that now—destroyed
by sunstroke, destroyed by too much happiness and love” (Bunin 194). The lieutenant’s
perception of himself had dropped significantly due to his broken heart and it became clear
that he would never see the nameless lady ever again, and so he staggers back to the inn
room. Although, he finds that all traces of the nameless lady ever being in the room have
disappeared, aside from a forgotten hairpin. As he laid in bed, Bunin gives the reader more
insight on the lieutenant’s surroundings, “The curtains hung loose before the open windows,
rustling occasionally as a small breeze blew into the room, laden with more heat from the
scorching metal roofs—more heat from all the silent, glaring, lifeless world around him”
(Bunin 195). This sentence is a mirror image to a prior line earlier in story, “The next
morning was cheerful, sunny, and hot” (Bunin 190). Before the nameless lady left him, the
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morning had a cheerful undertone, and the carefree lieutenant was more than willing to fulfil
the lady’s request of leaving on separate ships. However, once the truth settled and he
realizes that intimate night would be the last one they would be together for, his joy seems to
have diminished. He views the world around him as colder and more meaningless without the
lady’s presence, and the reader can see and feel his miserable mood through the consistent
mention of heat throughout the rest of the story. The lieutenant does have an acceptance that
his feelings will never be returned and leaves during the evening when the summer’s heat is
at its lowest at the end of the story, it is left on a bittersweet note.
Ivan Bunin’s unique use of imagery in “Sunstroke” of heat conveys the lieutenant’s
internal feelings about his love and longing for the nameless lady to the readers. At the
beginning of “Sunstroke”, heat is used in a positive light to reflect how joyful he is after
spending the night with her, although it quickly begins to have a negative connotation after
she departs. His sense of longing and his inability to let her go is displayed through how
uncomfortable the sun and its heat makes him, and Bunin’s use of cool weather to show how
much pleasure he gets from not thinking about her is a stark contrast. At the end of the story,
the lieutenant must accept that he will not see the lady ever again since he does not even
know her name and departs on the same boat that carried her off earlier in the day, leaving
the ending inconclusive yet bittersweet, nonetheless.
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Work Cited
Bunin, Ivan Alekseevich, and Graham Hettlinger. Sunstroke: Selected Stories of Ivan
Bunin. Ivan R. Dee, 2002.