Before answering the question about what qualities of Erast’s character attracted Lisa, it is necessary to realize that it is human nature to idealize those things, traits, qualities that he does not possess. Recall that Lisa had a father who died very early, and from childhood she began to work in a truly adult way, trying to support her mother.
And so, when Lisa, poor in every sense, saw Erast, her world was transformed. Whom did she see? He was a handsome young man with exquisite manners, courteous and pleasant. Of course, he turned her head (let's not forget that she was very young and did not know life at all when she met Erast).
Everyone knows that young girls tend to deify their first boys, often without seeing their obvious flaws. And how could Lisa examine them? After all, we are talking about a peasant uneducated girl of the XIX century, albeit with a warm heart. Therefore, it is naive to ask what qualities of Erast’s character attracted Lisa, because she was not thinking at all about that. She did not see the real Erast. Lisa created her own image of a gentleman and fell in love with him without a memory.
Why is Lisa so poor?
It is human nature to dream - this is his eternal and inescapable trait. Lisa just became a victim of her fantasies. Of course, such a life oppressed her: hard work, early rising, and general hopelessness. After all, if Lisa had not met Erast, she would have lived her whole life. Only circumstances would change insignificantly. And Erast became for her the embodiment of a dream, a living personification of the idea of getting rid of a dull peasant share. Of course, with her mind she understood that they should not be together, but the dream was so sweet and so close, so she preferred not to think about sad things. Now it’s clear what qualities of Erast’s character attracted Lisa. She was seduced by the features of the cavalier that she herself had invested in him.
Images of Erast: Real and Imaginary
Everything is clear with the imagined Erast: he is the embodiment of sensitivity, understanding, care, courtesy, passion and disinterestedness. When the reader looks at this portrait of the hero, he does not have a question about what qualities of Erast’s character attracted Lisa. Because all people would sympathize with such a guy if he existed in reality. But Karamzin from the first lines of the story makes it clear that "something has rotted in the Danish kingdom," and everything will end badly in the end. Hemingway's prose in this sense is very reminiscent of the work of N.M. Karamzin. You read an American classic with the same apocalyptic feeling.
The real image of Erast is only disgusted in the reader: he is a completely insignificant and mediocre person, thinking only of his pleasures and pleasures. Perhaps he was educated, but most likely he received his education only from boredom: he learned to read, because books entertained him.
Someone will say: “Do not underestimate him, he fought for the Fatherland!” Indeed, he was at war, but all his free time he drank and played cards. During the war, he managed to lose his estate in this way. It is thought that there is no benefit to the Motherland from its “exploits”.
After the war, he returned and married an old and ugly, but rich widow, solely for the sake of paying off his debts. A wonderful image of a Russian nobleman, and most importantly - a true one.
It doesn’t come to mind to ask what qualities of Erast’s character attracted Lisa, because such a character does not cause sympathy. In this sense, the motives of “Poor Lisa” by Karamzin have something in common with the main intentions of O. Wilde's “Dorian Gray” . There, too, the young man was very presentable and pleasant in appearance, but completely disgusting and vile inside. The theme of duality is revealed by Robert Lewis Stevenson in his “Strange Story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” where the main character consists of two characters who together form the whole essence of Dr. Jekyll. Of domestic authors who are not alien to the topic of duality, Dostoevsky is immediately recalled.
What ruined Lisa?
The main character of the story N.M. Karamzin was ruined by excessive faith in her beloved. How did she know that most of the nobles were empty chimes and villains? A subservience to the tsar-priest and all his superiors is literally “mounted” into the Russian man. An ordinary citizen (both in the 19th century and now) thinks that a high post, origin, or some other random circumstances that are not dependent on a person give him a moral advantage. And there is no way to eradicate this myth from the minds and hearts of Russians.
Of course, now it became clear what qualities of Erast’s character attracted Lisa in Karamzin’s novel “Poor Lisa”, but for some reason it didn’t become easier. Probably because many more girls, fascinated by morally unreliable young people, will disappear in the passionate fire of love.