How Pechorin's meaning of life develops. Essay on the topic: Purpose in life in the novel Hero of Our Time, Lermontov

- We examined the image of Pechorin when meeting with danger. Further, in the hero’s reasoning, his life philosophy emerges.
- What does he consider to be perhaps the only pleasure in life?
("...my first pleasure is to subordinate to my will everything that surrounds me; to arouse for myself a feeling of love, devotion and fear - isn't this the first sign and the greatest triumph of power...")
- What assessment does he give of himself in his diary?
(Pechorin does not spare himself, first of all it is honesty with himself, self-criticism, but at the same time he does not strive to change anything.)
- Reflecting on the eternal question, what is happiness, what answer does the hero offer?
("What is happiness? Saturated pride?")
- What does pride nurtured in a person lead to?
(There will be no real friends nearby who understand people.)
- What is friendship in Pechorin’s understanding?
("... I am not capable of friendship: of two friends, one is always the slave of the other; I cannot be a slave, and in this case, commanding is tedious work..." Pechorin has no real friends.)
- What can pride and lack of friends lead to?
(Of course, to loneliness. Pechorin seems to us not just a hero of his time, but a tragic hero.")
- A few days before the duel, the hero is occupied with the question of the meaning of life. What does he see as the purpose of his own existence?
("... why did I live? For what purpose was I born? And, it is true, it existed, and, it is true, I had a high purpose, because I feel immense strength in my soul... But I did not guess this purpose, I was carried away by the lures of passions empty and ungrateful; from their crucible I came out hard and cold as iron, but I lost forever the ardor of noble aspirations - the best color of life." Noble aspirations, according to the hero, are the most significant thing in a person’s life.)
- Why can’t Pechorin find meaning in life?
(“This man does not indifferently, not apathetically, bear his suffering: he madly chases after life, looking for it everywhere; he bitterly accuses himself of his delusions. Internal questions are incessantly heard within him, they disturb him, torment him, and in reflection he seeks their resolution : spies every movement of his heart, examines his every thought,” notes V. G. Belinsky. An extraordinary personality, endowed with intelligence and willpower, a desire for active activity, cannot manifest himself in the life around him. Pechorin cannot be happy and not can give happiness to anyone. This is his tragedy.)
- What are such people called in literature?
(Pechorin can be called a “superfluous” person. He has a lot of vital energy, a need for action, a desire to fight and win. Under favorable conditions, these qualities of his could have been socially useful, but life itself prevented this. Pechorin is a hero of the post-December, tragic era. Reality did not offer him real business; people like Pechorin were “seething in empty action.”)
- This is a hero of that time, what would we take in our time? What character traits are necessary for a hero of our time?

In the famous work of the Russian writer M.Yu. Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time” describes the tragic fate of Grigory Pechorin, who all his life tried to understand “for what purpose he was born” and what the true meaning of existence is in general. Trying to answer these eternal questions, he wandered around the world, meeting different people and ultimately disappointing them with his behavior and actions.

The hero was never able to understand his true purpose, because he did not see real happiness in life. Pechorin did not have the ability to sincerely and unrequitedly love another person, could not maintain friendly relationships for a long time, and thereby constantly doomed himself to loneliness and reflection on the meaning of life.

Gregory was born into a noble family and always commanded respect from women and enjoyed public popularity. However, he himself chose the path of an exile, showing hatred for the structure of life and not knowing how to communicate with people. So, for example, at first he tries with all his might to woo Bela, and then, when he gets bored with the girl, Grigory leaves her. In this regard, Bela subsequently dies, and the main character moves on, since he no longer sees the point in this relationship. This also reveals Pechorin’s ambiguity, because on the one hand, he wanted to find true happiness with Bela, and on the other, he realized that he could not live according to ordinary human laws.

Pechorin saw his meaning of life in something lofty, inaccessible to the understanding of others. By harming people, he created problems in his own life, suffering no less than his victims. But he did not sympathize with them, but only grieved that he could not find his purpose. On the way to finding himself and true life values, the hero kills Grushnitsky in a duel, makes Vera and Princess Mary unhappy, disappoints Maxim Maksimych, travels a lot around the world, exposing himself to risk and danger, but is never able to fully express himself.

Thus, Pechorin’s tragedy lies in the fact that he was an extraordinary personality, unable to prove himself in the conditions of his contemporary society. In it, he seemed like an extra person, bringing only harm and cruelty. Perhaps if the hero had been born at a different time, he would have been able to fully live and develop. But, unfortunately, he received a different fate, in which he was unable to fully open up to this world and show all his positive qualities.

Updated: 2018-06-19

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Pechorin is a secular young man, an officer, exiled to the Caucasus after “a sensational story in St. Petersburg.” From the story about his life, which Pechorin shared with Maxim Maksimych, we learn that Pechorin, as soon as he left the care of his “relatives,” began to enjoy “mad pleasures,” which soon became “repulsive” to him. Then he “entered the big world,” but he soon became tired of secular society. The love of secular beauties did not satisfy him either. He studied and read, but science did not fully reveal him. He got bored. When he was transferred to the Caucasus, he thought that “boredom does not live under Chechen bullets,” but he soon got used to the buzz of bullets, and he became more bored than before.

So, in his early youth, Pechorin quickly became fed up with secular pleasures and tries to find the meaning of life in reading books, which also quickly bore him. Pechorin searches for the meaning of life, becomes disappointed and suffers deeply. Pechorin's fate and mood are determined by the dark era in which he lives. After the defeat of Decembrism in Russia, the dark time of the Nikolaev reaction came. Any social activity has become even more inaccessible to a cultured person. Any manifestation of living, free thought was persecuted. People endowed with intelligence, abilities, people with serious interests could not find use for their spiritual powers... At the same time, an empty social life did not satisfy them. The realization of the complete impossibility of finding a use for their strength was especially painful for people of the 30s and 40s because after the defeat of the uprising on December 14, they had no hope of an imminent change for the better.

Pechorin is an intelligent, gifted, courageous, cultured person, critical of the surrounding society, loving and sensitive to nature.
He understands people well, gives them accurate and accurate characteristics. He understood Grushnitsky and Dr. Werner very well. He knows in advance how Princess Mary will behave in this or that case.

Pechorin is very brave and has exceptional self-control. During the duel, only by his feverish pulse was Doctor Werner able to make sure that Pechorin was worried. Knowing that there is no bullet in his pistol, while his opponent fired from a loaded one, Pechorin does not reveal to his enemies that he knows their “cunning” (“Princess Mary”). He boldly rushes into the hut, where with a pistol in his hand Vulich’s killer sits, ready to kill everyone who dares to touch him (“Fatalist”).

In Pechorin’s “Journal” (diary) we find, by the way, quotes from the classical works of Griboedov, Pushkin, the names of writers, titles of works, names of heroes of Russian and foreign works. All this testifies not only to Pechorin’s erudition, but also to his deep knowledge of literature.

The cursory remarks of the author of the Journal about representatives of the noble society give a devastating description of the pathetic and vulgar people surrounding Pechorin.
Pechorin's sharply critical attitude towards himself evokes sympathy. We see that the bad deeds he commits cause suffering, first of all, to himself.
Pechorin deeply feels and understands nature. Communication with nature has a beneficial effect on Pechorin. “No matter what grief lies in the heart, no matter what anxiety torments the thought, everything will dissipate in a minute, the soul will become light, the fatigue of the body will overcome the anxiety of the mind.”

On the eve of the duel, Pechorin reflects on himself with sadness and bitterness. He is sure that he was born for a high purpose, because, he writes, “I feel immense strength in my soul. But I did not guess this purpose, but was carried away by the lures of empty and ungrateful passions...”

And such a spiritually gifted person, “born for a high purpose,” is forced to live in inaction, in search of adventure, wasting his “immense strength” on trifles. He seeks pleasure in female love, but love brings him only disappointment and grief. With whomever Pechorin connects his fate, this connection, no matter how short-lived it may be, brings grief (and sometimes death) to both him and other people. His love brought the death of Bela; his love made Vera, devoted to him, unhappy; his relationship with Princess Mary ended tragically - the wound inflicted by Pechorin on the sensitive, tender, sincere Mary will not heal for a long time in the heart of the young girl; with his appearance, Pechorin destroyed the peaceful life of “honest smugglers” (“Taman”). Pechorin killed Grushnitsky, Pechorin deeply upset the kind Maxim Maksimych, who sincerely considered him his friend.
A deep and terrible contradiction: smart, capable of a hot impulse, able to appreciate people, brave, strong Pechorin finds himself out of work in life, and closeness with him only causes misfortune to other people! Who is to blame for this? Is it Pechorin himself? And is it his fault that he “didn’t guess” his high purpose?

No, he is not to blame for his misfortune. The contradiction of his nature is explained by the fact that in Pechorin’s time gifted people, seekers, people with deep interests, with serious needs, not content with the empty, meaningless life that they were forced to lead, did not find use for their “immense powers” and “grew old in inaction.” " An intelligent, gifted person, deprived of a living, exciting thing, inevitably turns to his inner world. He, as they say, “delves into himself,” analyzes his every action, every emotional movement.

This is how Pechorin behaves. He says about himself: “I have long lived not with my heart, but with my head. I weigh and examine my own actions and passions with strict curiosity, but without participation. There are two people in me, one lives in the full sense of the word, the other thinks and judges it...”
For all his positive qualities, Pechorin cannot be perceived as a positive hero. The very word “hero” in the title of the novel, when applied to Pechorin, sounds ironic. Pechorin is a representative of the generation ridiculed in the Duma. Not only does he lack the ability to act, he lacks faith, effective love for people, and the willingness to sacrifice himself for them; Pechorin is burdened by inaction, but mainly because it makes him suffer, and not because he cannot bring relief to the people suffering around him... He is, in Herzen’s words, “smart uselessness.” A man living during the years of the Nikolaev reaction, he does not belong to those people of the 40s about whom Herzen proudly spoke: “I have never met such a circle of people, talented, versatile and pure, anywhere else...”

In order to better understand Pechorin, Lermontov shows him in different settings, and different conditions, in clashes with different people.
A detailed description of his appearance (“Maksim Maksimych”) is of great importance. Pechorin’s external appearance reflects his character. Pechorin's internal contradictions are emphasized in his portrait.
On the one hand, “a slender, thin figure and broad shoulders...”

On the other hand, “... the position of his entire body depicted some kind of nervous weakness.” Another strange feature is highlighted by Lermontov in the portrait of the hero: Pechorin’s eyes “did not laugh when he laughed.” This, according to the author, is “a sign of either an evil disposition or deep, constant sadness.” When all parts of the novel are read, this feature of Pechorin becomes clear.

Human life is nothing more than movement in time: its beginning is birth, death is its end. Even someone who apparently remains motionless, for example, a prisoner in a prison, still moves through life towards its end. This movement does not depend on our desire or unwillingness, it is objective. The ancients said: “Volentem ducunt fata, nolentem trahunt; tertium non datur” (Fate leads the one who wants, and drags the unwilling; but the third is not given).
And they were absolutely right.
We have no choice: to go or not to go.
The choice is different: whether to walk freely (remembering that freedom is just a conscious necessity) or to be dragged along like a stubborn donkey.
These two options demonstrate conscious and unconscious approaches to life; there really is no third option.
If you ask any person about his choice, he, of course, will say that he chooses conscious, that is, free movement.
He will also be surprised: would anyone willingly wish to be dragged? It is no coincidence that people have assigned their biological species the proud title: “Homo sapiens” - “Homo sapiens”!
But don't rush to conclusions.
Ask another question: what does he see as the purpose of the movement, the meaning of life? Everyone will answer this question in their own way.
One will say that his goal is to raise a child, another - to build a house, a third - to become famous, a fourth - to make a discovery, a fifth - to provide for his old age, and so on ad infinitum...
Stop, stop!
Can one road have so many ends?
What would you think if ten people gave you ten different answers to a simple question: where does the road lead?
You'll either think they're liars, or crazy, or decide that none of them know the right answer, right?
This is exactly the situation with choosing a way to go through life: it turns out that none of those you asked knows the real goal, no one walks consciously, they are all “dragged” by fate!
The road of life is the same for everyone, since it has the same beginning and the same end. Only the way to walk along it can be different.
So, do all people wander through life unconsciously?
No, and such a conclusion would be hasty.
If two choices are possible, then both of them must be implemented.
The only question is how many people will choose the first and how many will choose the second.
If you want to establish the ratio of the number of people walking consciously to the number of people dragging, keep asking about the purpose of life until you hear the correct answer. The required ratio will be defined as the ratio of one correct answer to as many incorrect ones. Everything is very simple.
How? It turns out that you yourself don’t know which answer is considered correct?
Try a tried and tested method: analogies.
Imagine that you have a companion on the road leading to Rome.
You ask him where he is going.
If he says that he is going to Baghdad or Lisbon, then he is mistaken, but if he calls Rome his goal, then he really knows where he is going.
In the same way, to the question about the purpose of life’s journey, the correct answer will be: “I live in order to die.” The one who answers you like this really knows where he is going.
Are there many people like that?

What is the reason that people prefer to be “dragged” through life instead of consciously walking through it?
Maybe they don't know the end point of life?

No, the reason is that in order to do something consciously, you need to have consciousness, and this is precisely what people lack.
This may seem strange and offensive to people, but it is true: an ordinary person is not conscious, he is not even aware of himself.
But what about the loud title of “Homo sapiens”?
Alas, this is just a chimera.
A person by nature can be reasonable, and should be reasonable, and he calls himself reasonable, but... in reality he is not.
He tends to have a rather different property: wishful thinking.
If you tell people about this, they will never agree with you and will provide dozens of proofs of their rationality (try to find evidence yourself sometime in your spare time).
People will never agree to consider themselves unreasonable, and this is evidence of their actual unreason, evidence that they do not want to become reasonable.
The ancients said: “He who does not know, but thinks he knows, is sick. He who does not know, but knows that he does not know, recovers.”
In order to recover, you must first admit that you are sick.
Recognition of one's unreasonableness is the first glimpse of reason; the one who considers himself reasonable is mistaken.
This suggests that people are dishonest with themselves, they deceive themselves.
Moreover, they insist on their deception even when they feel this deception.
Why?
Yes, because if they are honest with themselves, they will have to admit that they are not at all what they think they are.
Besides, you have to face the truth. And the truth, as we know, is that the result of life is death.
This is one of the reasons for the lies that people pile up around themselves and do not want to give up.
This reason is fear, fear of the truth.
They invent all sorts of things, all sorts of excuses, to disguise the fear of death!
Fame, wealth, pleasure, public good, and other fictitious things cannot actually be the goal of life, because you cannot take any of this with you to the grave.
All these inventions are like bright paper flowers that are used to cover up the unpleasant reality of death.
They can also be likened to drugs, deliberately used to lull the mind and hide one’s fears away.
Because of this fear, people do not want to become intelligent, and the best way not to acquire this or that quality is to convince yourself and others that you already possess it.
Thus, the effect closes with the cause and a vicious circle is formed, within which it is useless to seek the truth.
You can talk as much as you like about progress, development, moving forward - but all this is nothing more than wandering in a vicious circle. From the point of view of real life, man today is in the same state as he was thousands of years ago; only the external forms of illusions with which he surrounds himself change.
If all people were the same and equally unwilling to lose their illusions and become rational, they should be left alone.
Forcibly awakening reason in people is as futile as it is thankless.
After all, are there really very few non-intelligent living organisms on our planet? Bees, termites and ants even create entire civilizations - and are quite happy with their unconscious instinctive existence.
However, among people, although not often, there are individuals who prefer the truth, even bitter, to elevating deception.
And if one should not forcibly open the eyes of those who do not want to see, then it is cruel to refuse help to those who are trying to take the first step towards the truth.
After all, it is these people who give value to the entire human species, because of them the existence of this species on earth means more than other species that appear and disappear, for only among people are there truly thinking beings.
Knowledge is not only a privilege, but also a serious duty and responsibility.
What should someone do who wants to become intelligent, but is inside a vicious circle of illusions, fear and mental laziness? The only way to escape the circle is to blow it up! You need to break through the constricting shell, just like a chicken does when it hatches from an egg. At the same time, the comfort of life that exists inside the egg will also be destroyed, you need to be prepared for this. Is it worth regretting about this: after all, this is the comfort of a blind, unreasonable creature incapable of action!
How can you break a vicious circle? You need to admit to yourself that you do not have consciousness, will, that your life proceeds unconsciously.
It must be understood that there is not, and cannot be, any reasonable evidence of unreasonableness for someone who is unreasonable. You just need to admit to yourself your unreasonableness.
When a person admits to himself that he is unreasonable, that is, he makes a diagnosis of his illness, he can begin to look for remedies.
“I know that I know nothing” is the first real knowledge that can be acquired.
The task of finding means or methods of treating a disease is an extremely difficult task and is beyond the power of one individual. After all, you have to act by trial and error, and this method requires working out each of the many possible versions.
If you start this work from scratch, neither the person himself, nor his successors, nor the successors of his successors will yet achieve the goal.
Fortunately, efforts in this direction have been made for many thousands of years and there is no need to start from scratch: it is enough to use existing experience.
In order to rise high, it is enough to stand on the shoulders of giants.
Over thousands of years of searching, people have found three different ways of liberation.
Let's call them the way of acting, the way of emotions and the way of thinking.
Why are there three of these methods?
Apparently this is no coincidence.
In order to understand this, you need to get at least the most superficial understanding of the human being.
In the most general form, three active centers can be distinguished in the human body: motor, emotional and intellectual. Let us take this statement as an axiom, especially since the presence of these three centers guiding the work of a human being seems obvious and can hardly be questioned. We are not talking about the localization of these centers, nor about their origin, nor about interaction: now we only need to understand that they really exist and govern all human functions. It is obvious that the cognitive function is carried out through these three centers.
Now let us assume that in different people the development of these centers may be unequal and one of the centers may predominate over the others. After all, people differ from each other in height, obesity, hair color; why not admit that they differ in terms of the development of centers. Moreover, among people there are really groups that have the same development, such as athletes, people of art and intellectuals: it is difficult not to admit that in the first the leading role is played by the motor center, in the second - the emotional, in the third - the intellectual. Other people obviously combine various combinations of these three abilities.
You can try to assume the existence of some fourth group of people, not reducible to these three: this experiment will prove that three are quite enough.
So, if people can be conditionally divided into those in whom the motor center predominates, then into those in whom the emotional center is better developed, as well as into those in whom both of these centers are inferior to the intellectual, then it would be quite logical to assume that each of These three groups of people may have their own special way of overcoming the path of life and their own special way of transitioning from a “dragged” state to a free one. It follows from this that there must be three main ways of liberation, which are usually called the three paths.
We can indeed find these three trends among all the diversity in the history of human thought, and this confirms the correctness of our reasoning.

The first path is the path of action. This is the path of improving the body and physical exercises, through which a person acquires the ability to control his being by establishing control over the moving center. These exercises allow you to subjugate your body, that is, learn to voluntarily contract muscles, increase or decrease your heart rate, control your breathing, become insensitive to pain, etc. We find complexes of such exercises in Hatha yoga, in various schools of the so-called eastern martial arts. Their original meaning is to achieve liberation by establishing control over the motor center, i.e. over 1/3 of a human being. Control of the body is thus not a goal, but a means of liberation.
The second path is the path of emotions, which is also called the path of feelings. Its essence is to “extinguish” feelings and desires, to establish control over emotions. This path is reflected in the Vedas; the classical teaching on the path of the senses is contained in the Bhagavad Gita. This path is also practiced in orthodox Christianity, especially in the monastic movement.
The third path, or the path of reflection, involves establishing control over the intellectual center, achieving special states of consciousness in which penetration into the inner essence of things is possible.
The main method on this path is deep concentration. By concentrating your thought on any object or phenomenon, you can experience what is called illumination, insight, enlightenment, which changes the very being of a person. We find the classic expression of this path in Buddhism, in the teachings of Yajna Yoga. Its elements are present in all religions and occult teachings. In Eastern Christianity, this path is known as hesychasm, and the concentrated state of thought is called mental prayer.
These three methods were invented by human wisdom to improve human nature.

To choose one of these three paths that is right for you, and to follow it to the best of your strength and abilities, and ultimately achieve liberation - this is the goal of human life.

Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although often neither of them admits it to himself.

The love that we read in the eyes does not oblige a woman to anything, while words...

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

A strange thing is the human heart in general, and the female heart in particular!

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

Breed in women, as in horses, is a great thing; this discovery belongs to Young France. She, that is, the breed, and not Young France, is mostly revealed in her step, in her arms and legs; especially the nose means a lot. A correct nose in Russia is less common than a small leg.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

We must give justice to women: they have an instinct for spiritual beauty.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

This has been my lot since childhood. Everyone read on my face signs of bad feelings that were not there; but they were anticipated - and they were born. I was modest - I was accused of guile: I became secretive. I felt good and evil deeply; no one caressed me, everyone insulted me: I became vindictive; I was gloomy, - other children were cheerful and talkative; I felt superior to them - they put me lower. I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me: and I learned to hate. My colorless youth passed in a struggle with myself and the world; Fearing ridicule, I buried my best feelings in the depths of my heart: they died there. I told the truth - they didn’t believe me: I began to deceive; Having learned well the light and springs of society, I became skilled in the science of life and saw how others were happy without art, freely enjoying the benefits that I so tirelessly sought. And then despair was born in my chest - not the despair that is treated with the barrel of a pistol, but cold, powerless despair, covered with courtesy and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple: one half of my soul did not exist, it dried up, evaporated, died, I cut it off and threw it away - while the other moved and lived at the service of everyone, and no one noticed this, because no one knew about the existence of the deceased half of it.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

My love did not bring happiness to anyone, because I did not sacrifice anything for those I loved: I loved for myself, for my own pleasure: I only satisfied the strange need of my heart, greedily absorbing their feelings, their joys and sufferings - and never could get enough.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

I love my enemies, although not in a Christian way. They amuse me, they stir my blood. To be always on the alert, to catch every glance, the meaning of every word, to guess intentions, to destroy conspiracies, to pretend to be deceived, and suddenly with one push to overturn the entire huge and laborious edifice of their cunning and plans - this is what I call life.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

Some consider me worse, others better than I really am... Some will say: he was a kind fellow, others - a scoundrel. Both will be false. After this, is life worth the trouble? but you live out of curiosity: you expect something new... It’s funny and annoying!

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

I have already passed that period of spiritual life when one seeks only happiness, when the heart feels the need to love someone strongly and passionately - now I only want to be loved, and then by very few; Even it seems to me that one constant attachment would be enough for me: a pathetic habit of the heart!..

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

The restless need for love, which torments us in the first years of youth, throws us from one woman to another, until we find one who cannot stand us: here our constancy begins - a true endless passion, which can be mathematically expressed by a line falling from a point to space; the secret of this infinity lies only in the impossibility of reaching the goal, that is, the end.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

The princess seems to be one of those women who wants to be amused; if she feels bored around you for two minutes in a row, you are lost irrevocably: your silence should arouse her curiosity, your conversation should never fully satisfy it; you must disturb her every minute; she will publicly neglect your opinion ten times and call it a sacrifice and, in order to reward herself for this, she will begin to torment you - and then she will simply say that she cannot stand you. If you do not gain power over her, then even her first kiss will not give you the right to a second; she flirts with you to her heart's content, and in two years she will marry a freak, out of obedience to her mother, and will begin to convince herself that she is unhappy, that she loved only one person, that is, you, but that heaven did not want to unite her with him , because he was wearing a soldier’s overcoat, although under this thick gray overcoat a passionate and noble heart was beating...

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

And it was only at two o’clock in the morning that we remembered that the doctors told us to go to bed at eleven.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

Sad things are funny to us, funny things are sad, but in general, to be honest, we are quite indifferent to everything except ourselves.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

I never reveal my secrets myself, but I really love them to be guessed, because in this way I can always deny them on occasion.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov. Hero of our time

To be the cause of suffering and joy for someone, without having any positive right to do so - isn’t this the sweetest food of our pride? What is happiness? Intense pride.