Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov - a poet and prose writer - is often compared with Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. Is such a coincidence random? Not at all, these two lights marked with their creativity the golden age of Russian poetry. Both of them were worried by the question: âWho are they: the heroes of our time?â A brief analysis, you see, will not be able to answer this conceptual question, in which the classics tried to thoroughly understand.
Unfortunately, the life of these talented people was cut short early from the bullet. Fate Both of them were representatives of their time, divided into two parts: before and after the uprising on Senate Square. In addition, as you know, critics compare Pushkin's Onegin and Lermontov's Pechorin, presenting readers with a comparative analysis of the characters. âThe hero of our timeâ, however, was written after the death of Pushkin.
The image of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin
An analysis of the novel âA Hero of Our Timeâ clearly defines its main character, which forms the entire composition of the book. Mikhail Yuryevich reflected in him an educated young nobleman of the post-Decembrist era - a person struck by unbelief - who does not carry good, does not believe in anything, his eyes do not burn with happiness. Fate bears Pechorin, like an autumn leaf, along a disastrous trajectory. He stubbornly "chases ... for life", searches for it "everywhere." However, the noble concept of honor in him is more likely connected with selfishness, but not with decency.
Pechorin would be glad to gain faith by going to the Caucasus to fight. It has a natural spiritual strength. Belinsky, characterizing this hero, writes that he is no longer young, but has not yet found a mature attitude towards life. He rushes from one adventure to another, painfully wanting to find an "inner core", but he does not succeed. Invariably there are dramas around him, people are dying. And he rushes on, like the Eternal Jew, Agasfer. If the word âboredomâ is the key word for Pushkinâs
image of Onegin , then the word âsufferingâ is the key word to understand the image of Lermontovsky Pechorin.
Novel composition
Initially, the plot of the novel brings the author, the officer sent to serve in the Caucasus, with a veteran who went through the Caucasian War, and now as quartermaster Maxim Maximovich. Wise in life, scorched in battle, this man, worthy of all respect, was the first, according to Lermontovâs plan, to begin the analysis of heroes. The hero of our time is his acquaintance. The author of the novel (on whose behalf the narration is being conducted) Maxim Maksimovich tells of the "glorious small" twenty-five-year-old ensign Grigory Alekseevich Pechorin, a former colleague of the narrator. The first is the story of Bel.
Pechorin, having resorted to the help of the brother of the highland princess Azamat, steals this girl from his father. Then she bored him, experienced in women. With Azamat, he pays off with the hot horse of a horseman Kazbich, who, having urchin, kills a poor girl. A scam grows into a tragedy.
Maxim Maximovich, remembering the past, got excited and handed over to the interlocutor the travel diary left by Pechorin. The following chapters of the novel are separate episodes of the life of Pechorin.
The short story "Taman" brings Pechorin with smugglers: a flexible girl, like a cat, a pseudo-blind boy and a "smuggler", a sailor Yanko. Lermontov presented here a romantic and artistically completed analysis of the characters. The âhero of our timeâ introduces us to a simple smuggling: Yanko crosses the sea with a cargo, and the girl sells beads, brocade, ribbons. Fearing that Gregory would reveal them to the police, the girl first tries to drown him, dropping him from the boat. But when she fails, she and Yanko swim away. The boy is left to beggar without a livelihood.
The next fragment of the diary is the story âPrincess Maryâ. Bored Pechorin is treated after being wounded in Pyatigorsk. Here he is friends with the junker Grushnitsky, Dr. Werner. Bored, Gregory finds an object of sympathy - Princess Mary. She is resting here with her mother - Princess Ligovskaya. But the unexpected happens - in Pyatigorsk comes the long-standing sympathy of Pechorin, married lady Vera, together with her aging husband. Vera and Gregory decide to meet on a date. They succeed, because, fortunately for them, the whole city is represented by a visiting magician.
But the junker Grushnitsky, wanting to discredit both Pechorin and Princess Mary, believing that she would be on a date, follows the main character of the novel, enlisting the company of a dragoon officer. Catching no one, the junker and dragoons dissolve gossip. Pechorin âby noble notionsâ challenges Grushnitsky to a duel, where he kills him by firing the second.
Lermontovâs analysis of heroes introduces us to the pseudo-orderliness in the officer environment . The hero of our time upsets Grushnitskyâs despicable plan. Initially, the pistol handed to Pechorin was unloaded. In addition, choosing the condition - to shoot from six steps, the junker was sure that he would shoot Grigory Alexandrovich. But he was disturbed by excitement. By the way, Pechorin suggested that the opponent save his life, but he began to demand a shot.
Verin husband guesses whatâs the matter, and leaves Pyatigorsk with his wife. And Princess Ligovskaya blesses his marriage to Mary, but Pechorin does not even think of a marriage.
The action-packed short story Fatalist brings Pechorin with Lieutenant Vulich in the company of other officers. He is confident in his april and in the argument, heated by philosophical argument and wine, he plays "hussar roulette". Moreover, the gun does not produce a shot. However, Pechorin claims that he has already noticed the sign of death on the lieutenantâs face. He really doesnât die without any reason, returning to stand.
Output
Where did the Pechorins come from in the 19th century Russia? Where did the idealism of youth disappear?
The answer is simple. The 30s marked the era of fear, the era of the suppression of all progressive III (political) gendarme police. Born of Nicholas Iâs fear of the possibility of a remake of the Decembrist uprising, it âreported on all mattersâ, was engaged in censorship, censorship, and possessed the broadest powers.
Hopes for the development of the political system of society became seditious. Dreamers began to be called "troublemakers." Active people aroused suspicion, meetings - repression. It is time for denunciations and arrests. People began to be afraid to have friends, to trust them with their thoughts, dreams. They became individualists and, in a Pechorin manner, painfully tried to gain faith in themselves.