How Onegin's personality is revealed. As revealed in novel A

1. Eugene Onegin is an exponent of the peculiarities of the content of the life of Russian society in the 20s of the 19th century.

2. Statement of thoughts about the influence of the mind, level of education on the character of the main character.

3. The ability to distinguish between true and imaginary values ​​as an indicator of the depth of personality and its ability to further develop.

4. The problem of personality and environment in the novel. The scale of personality, defined as the ability to rise above the environment, to resist routine and inertia.

5. The artistic function of plot elements aimed at solving the problem of the hero’s personality.

Everything is invested in this book: mind, heart, youth, wise maturity, moments of joy and bitter hours without sleep - the whole life of a beautiful, brilliant and cheerful person. That's why I always, every time, open its pages with trepidation.

Who is the main character of the novel "Eugene Onegin"? The answer to this question seems quite clear: of course, the one whose name Pushkin named his book; Of course, Evgeniy - who else? Dasha Tatyana, even Lensky play a less important role in the novel, and even more so Olga, the old Larins, landowner neighbors, secular dandies, peasants... And in school textbooks we read: the main character of the novel is Eugene Onegin, a typical young nobleman of the beginning XIX century. This, of course, is correct: without Onegin the novel would not have existed.

The entire first chapter, it would seem, talks about Onegin: his childhood, youth, habits, entertainment, friends.

Epigraph to this chapter: “And he is in a hurry to live and in a hurry to feel” (Prince Vyazemsky) - also about Onegin, it is he who is “in a hurry to live”

But, if we read the chapter more carefully, we will see that there is not one, but two heroes: Onegin and Pushkin. Not only are they given almost an equal number of stanzas, we learn a lot about each of them - almost as much about the author as about the hero. They are similar in many ways; it is not for nothing that Pushkin will immediately say about Onegin: “my good friend.” But they also have a lot of different things. It is difficult, of course, to compare a great man who actually lived with another created by his imagination, but still, every time I read a novel, I think: how much brighter, smarter, more significant is Pushkin than the man whom we call the “typical representative” of his era !

At the time when he began to write Onegin, it was customary to begin a large poetic work with a solemn introduction, addressing the gods. As Homer began his Iliad:

Wrath, goddess, sing to Achilles, son of Peleus...

Or as Pushkin began his ode “Liberty”:

Run, hide from sight,

Cytheras are a weak queen!

Where are you, where are you, thunderstorm of kings,

Freedom's proud singer?..

That's how it was supposed to be. And Pushkin begins his novel

In poetry it is completely different. He takes a line from Krylov’s fable “The Donkey and the Peasant”, familiar to every one of his contemporaries:

The donkey had the most honest rules... -

And he reworks this line in his own way. Immediately, from the very first line, he boldly, cheerfully, youthfully rushes into battle against what is outdated, what hinders the development of literature, what he hates: against the rules and laws that constrain the writer - for freedom of thought, freedom of creativity. He is not afraid of anyone: neither critics, nor scientists, nor even fellow writers, who, of course, will be angry with him for such a beginning.

So, the novel begins without any introduction - with the thoughts of the hero going to see his sick uncle, whom he does not know and does not like, so that

Adjust the pillows for him.

It's sad to bring medicine,

Sigh and think to yourself:

When will the devil take you!

Does Pushkin approve of this behavior of Onegin? We cannot yet answer this question. But then, reading the novel, we will learn everything: what Pushkin thinks about Onegin, and how he looks at family relationships accepted in the world, and what kind of people he likes, whom he hates and why, what he laughs at, what he loves, with who fights...

The poet finds the most precise, most convincing words to explain how unhappily Eugene was raised: he does not know how to feel, suffer, or rejoice. But he knows how to “dissemble, appear, appear”; but, like many secular people, he knows how to be bored, languish...

Bot how differently Pushkin and Onegin perceive, for example, theater. For Pushkin, the St. Petersburg theater is a “magical land” that he dreams of in exile:

Will I hear your choirs again?

Will I see the Russian Terpsichore

Soul-filled flight?

And Onegin “enters, walks between the chairs along the legs, the double lorgnette, squinting, points at the boxes of unfamiliar ladies...”, barely glancing at the stage “in great absentmindedness”, already

"turned away and yawned."

Why is that? Why is Pushkin able to rejoice in what Onegin is bored and disgusted with? We will still come to an answer to this question. Now Evgeniy and I have returned from the theater and entered his office.

Belinsky called Pushkin's novel "an encyclopedia of Russian life and an eminently folk work." What is an encyclopedia? We are used to imagining a multi-volume reference publication when we use this word - and suddenly: a thin book in verse! But still, Belinsky is right: the fact is that Pushkin’s novel says so much, so comprehensively about the life of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, that if we knew nothing about this era and only read “Eugene Onegin”, we would all - they called a lot.

In fact, after reading only twenty stanzas, we have already learned how young nobles were raised, where they walked as children, where they went to have fun as adults, what they ate and what they drank; what plays were performed in the theater, who was the most famous ballerina and who was the most famous choreographer. Now we want to know what Russia of the 19th century bought abroad and what it exported abroad. Please: “for timber and lard” luxury goods were imported: “amber on Constantinople pipes, porcelain and bronze... perfume in cut crystal” and much more necessary “for fun, ... for fashionable bliss.” We want to know how the young people dressed, how they joked, what they thought and talked about - we will soon find out all this. Pushkin will tell you everything in detail and accurately.

Another question: why are there so many foreign words in the first chapter? Some are even written in Latin script: Madame, Monsieur I "Abbe, dandy, vale, roast-beef, entrechat... And words from different languages: French, English, Latin, again English, French... Maybe It is difficult for Pushkin to do without these words, he is too used to them, always uses them? In stanza XXVI he himself writes:

And I see, I apologize to you,

Well, my poor syllable is already

I could have been much less colorful

In foreign words...

When we start reading the second, third and other chapters, we will be convinced: Pushkin does not need “foreign words” at all; he gets along perfectly well without them. But Onegin needs it. Pushkin can speak Russian brilliantly, witty, richly - and his hero speaks in a secular mixed language, where English is intertwined with French and where you cannot understand the same native language of your interlocutor. Moreover, Pushkin consciously, deliberately apologizes to the reader - what if the reader does not notice Onegin’s “foreign” verbal environment! We need to draw his attention to these words.

Evgeny Onegin is a certain stage in the development of Russian social consciousness.

Onegin is the embodiment of European consciousness: European culture, education, the priority of rationalistic consciousness. His alienation from national life is emphasized: he is without a family, raised by a foreign tutor, the dominance of foreign words in the first chapter.

Pushkin does not give unambiguous assessments, but he also sees strengths, first of all, the need to understand oneself as an individual.

While working on the second chapter in Odessa, Pushkin did not yet know that soon - not even a year would pass - he would be forced to settle in this “lovely corner”, exiled, under surveillance. But he had long known that the Russian village was not nearly as beautiful as it seemed to the uninitiated eye. Back in 1819, having arrived in Mikhailovskoye for the second time in his life, twenty-year-old Pushkin saw not only the beauty of Russian nature:

But a terrible thought here darkens the soul:

Among flowering fields and mountains

A friend of humanity sadly remarks

Everywhere ignorance is a disastrous shame.

Without seeing the tears, without listening to the groan,

Chosen by fate for the destruction of people,

Here the nobility is wild, without feeling, without law,

Appropriated by a violent vine

And labor, and property, and the time of the farmer...

("Village". 1819)

These terrible contrasts of the Russian village of the 19th century were preserved in the mind and heart of the poet. It is no coincidence that already in the first stanza a barely noticeable irony is heard - when Pushkin talks about a “lovely corner”. The further he describes the village, the more audible the irony. Uncle Onegin's house is called a "venerable castle", although it is furnished very modestly: "two wardrobes, a table, a feather sofa..." The word "castle" evokes thoughts of a feudal lord to whom uncomplaining vassals are subordinate, of the injustice that reigns where he rules " wild nobility."

After reading just two stanzas, the reader begins to understand the bitterness of the epigraph: “O Rus'!” It is difficult for a thinking, noble person to live in Rus' in the Pushkin era.

It is difficult for Onegin in the village - because it is difficult because he is smarter, more honest than the people who surround him. And these people are disgusting to him, and he is hostile to them; they speak evil of him:

“Our neighbor is ignorant; they are crazy;

He is a pharmacist; he drinks one

A glass of red wine;

He doesn't suit ladies' arms;

Everything is yes and no; won't say yes

Or not, sir." Such was the general voice.

These accusations are familiar to us: “I drank champagne in glasses. - Bottles, sir, and big ones. - No, sir, forty-size barrels.” This is how Famusov’s guests talked about Chatsky. In “Woe from Wit,” the deaf old woman countess-grandmother did not hear a sound from what Zagoretsky told her about Chatsky, but she found the same words as Onegin’s neighbors: “What? To the farmers for bread? Has he become an infidel?” During his southern exile, Pushkin himself joined the Chisinau Masonic organization. Among the Freemasons there were many progressive people, future Decembrists, which is why Famusov’s guests and Onegin’s neighbors hated them so much.

Reading the first chapter, we compared Onegin with Pushkin, Chaadaev, Kaverin - with the smartest, outstanding people of their era. Evgeny is not like these people; their knowledge, their talents, their ability to understand life and act are inaccessible to him. But he is much higher than the average person in his circle - we are convinced of this when reading the second chapter. And this is something his circle does not forgive him for.

A week before finishing the second chapter, Pushkin wrote to A.I. Turgenev: “... In my spare time I am writing a new poem, Eugene Onegin, in which I am choking on bile.” (Pushkin’s discharge.) A month before, in the midst of work on the second chapter, Pushkin wrote in another letter to P. A. Vyazemsky: “... There’s nothing to think about the press, I’m writing carelessly. Our censorship is so capricious that with It’s impossible to measure the circle of your action with it - it’s better to think about it.”

When Lenskny appears on the stage, we are introduced to another type of Russian young man of Pushkin’s era.

With a soul straight from Göttingen,

Handsome man, in full bloom,

Kant's admirer and poet.

He's from foggy Germany

He brought the fruits of learning:

Freedom-loving dreams

The spirit is ardent and rather strange...

At the University of Göttingen in Germany, many Russian youths were brought up - and all of them were known for their “freedom-loving dreams.”

So, Onegin and Lensky became friends. But they are so different:

Wave and stone

Poetry and prose, ice and fire

Not so different from each other.

They became friends because everyone else was not at all suitable for friendship, because each was bored in his village, having no serious activities, no real business, because the lives of both of them, in essence, were not filled with anything.

So people (I am the first to repent)

There's nothing to do, friends.

This “I am the first to repent” is characteristic of Pushkin. Yes, and in his life there were such friendly relations - there was nothing to do - which he later had to bitterly repent of: with Fyodor Tolstoy - the “American”, the same one about whom Griboyedov says: “He was exiled to Kamchatka, returned as an Aleut, and firmly an unclean hand; yes, an intelligent person cannot be a cheat." Perhaps Pushkin, when he wrote these lines, was also thinking about Alexander Raevsky, his “demon,” - this friend brought him a lot of grief.

The range of their conversations is serious, this is not idle chatter:

Tribes of past treaties,

The fruits of science, good and evil,

And age-old prejudices,

And the grave secrets are fatal,

Fate and life in their turn,

Everything was subject to their judgment.

These are the topics of conversation among thinking people. The same problems were discussed by future Decembrists: they read “The Social Contract” by the French educator Jean-Jacques Rousseau; problems of practical application of sciences in agriculture were solved; Pushkin himself spoke a lot about “good and evil” with Raevsky, and in his lyceum years with Kuchelbecker. In 1821, Pushkin wrote in his diary: “I spent the morning with Pestel; an intelligent man in every sense of the word... We had a metaphysical, political, moral, etc. conversation.” It may well be that Pushkin talked with Pestel about good and evil, that they were preoccupied with “age-old prejudices and fatal mysteries.”

In Pushkin’s draft, instead of the words “fate and life,” it was written “the fate of kings,” which means that Onegin and Lensky could have political conversations.

Everyone reads Onegin in their own way, and I do not at all consider my reading to be correct. But for myself I know: this is where Onegin’s tragedy begins to take shape.

"Tell me, which one is Tatyana?"

After all, Evgeniy went to meet Olga. He was interested in Olga, his friend's beloved. Why does he ask not about her, but about her sister? Why does he say: “I would choose someone else...” and immediately remembers: “If only I were like you, a poet...”

Two people have met who can give each other happiness. They met - and noticed each other, and could fall in love... But Onegin pushes this possibility away from himself: he doesn’t believe in love, doesn’t believe in happiness, doesn’t believe in anything, doesn’t know how to believe...

Pushkin knows that a person can and should be happy and bring happiness to others. In his novel he shows how unhappy and bitter the lot of a hopeless egoist is; he argues with Byron, looking for new paths both in life and in literature.

At the beginning of the fourth chapter, Pushkin again returns to Onegin’s St. Petersburg life. What will happen now between Evgeny and Tatiana is not accidental, but was prepared by Onegin’s entire previous life. Once in his youth, barely entering the world, Evgeniy was sincere and knew true feelings:

He is in his first youth

Was a victim of stormy delusions

And unbridled passions.

But the years lived in a false world were not in vain. The “eternal murmur of the soul” was replaced by indifference to both people and feelings:

He no longer fell in love with beauties,

And somehow he was dragging his feet;

If they refused, I was instantly consoled;

They will change - I was glad to relax.

Sincere hobbies gave way to games; the hopes and dreams of youth seemed naive and unrealizable; disbelief came, and with it indifference to life:

So definitely an indifferent guest

Comes to evening whist,

sits down; game over:

He leaves the yard

Sleeps peacefully at home

And he himself doesn’t know in the morning,

Where will he go in the evening?

Life is whist, a card game; it is carried out to occupy time - and only to somehow stretch out the days, “suppressing yawns with laughter”; and so Onegin lived his best years: from sixteen to twenty-four years old.

This is how he killed eight years old

Losing life's best color.

Killed! This is not a random word - Pushkin does not have random words. Of course, after such eight years, Evgeny is not prepared for real feeling, he does not know how to indulge in it. This explains his tragic misunderstanding of Tatyana. After all

Having received Tanya's message,

Onegin was deeply touched...

And into a sweet, sinless sleep

He was immersed in his soul.

Perhaps the feeling is an ancient ardor

He took possession of it for a minute;

But... What prevented Onegin from surrendering to feelings? Why does he push away, shake off the “sweet, sinless dream”? Yes, because he doesn’t believe himself, because, while killing eight years of his life, he himself didn’t notice how he killed the high in himself and left only the low, and now, when this high is ready to resurrect, he was afraid. He was frightened by the excitement of love, shocks, suffering, and even too much joy, he was frightened - he preferred cold peace... Of course, he does not want to admit this to himself and explains his actions to himself by caring for the young, inexperienced, sincere Tatyana.

Onegin's sermon, at first glance, is very noble. If an ordinary secular dandy were in his place, he would not fail to “deceive... the gullibility of an innocent soul,” have fun in the wilderness with a naive rural young lady - and, parting with her, as soon as he gets tired of her, doom her to torment and misfortune. .. Onegin did not do this - but he is not an ordinary secular dandy! He is, after all, a good friend of Pushkin. He knows the value of the world and its “important amusements”, Pushkin himself loves in him “involuntary devotion to dreams” - and these dreams are ready to come true: a beautiful, proud, spiritually rich, exalted girl offers him her love, and he runs from her, runs from your dream. In the name of what?

Whenever life around home

I wanted to limit...

That would be true except for you alone

I was looking for no other bride...

But I am not made for bliss;

My soul is alien to him...

It is not true! How can a person say about himself: “I was not created for bliss”?! All people are created for happiness, but not everyone knows how to be happy - Onegin doesn’t know how, he’s afraid. He blurts out:

I will say without madrigal sparkles:

Found my old ideal

I would definitely choose you alone

To the friends of my sad days...

This means that a girl like Tatyana was once Onegin’s ideal! But this ideal is “the same,” Onegin no longer believes in it; late, as it seems to him, he met Tatyana... Hating and despising the world, he is nevertheless infected with its views, its prejudices:

No matter how much I love you,

Having gotten used to it, I immediately stop loving it;

You start crying: your tears

My heart will not be touched

And they will only infuriate him...

Why is Onegin so sure that there can be no other “family happiness”? Because he saw too many similar examples in the world:

What could be worse in the world?

Families where the poor wife

Sad about an unworthy husband

Alone both day and evening;

Where is the boring husband, knowing her worth

(However, cursing fate),

Always frowning, silent,

Angry and coldly jealous!

Once upon a time, in his early youth, Onegin probably believed in the possibility of high love for life. But the light killed this faith - and even the hope of its return:

There is no return to dreams and years;

I will not renew my soul...

Here it is - Onegin’s main tragedy: “I will not renew my soul”! Of course, from his point of view, he is right, he acts nobly: not believing in the possibility of love, he refuses it, and at the same time educates the naive Tatyana.

At night, in a dream, an episode unfolds in Eugene Onegin that is usually difficult to comment on. In fact, why did the completely realistic “encyclopedia of Russian life” (V. Belinsky) require such a strange “Tatyana’s dream”, so clearly and sharply falling out of the “normal” narrative?

This dream is read both according to pagan and Christian symbolic dictionaries, but not in the same way. From the point of view of paganism, a dream is always a movement into another world. In this sense, for paganism, dreams are no less real than everyday reality - rather, more so, because they are necessarily prophetic, prophetic: precisely because they transport the heroes into a highly significant space. According to all the laws of pagan spatial symbolism, the other world in Tatiana’s dream is represented by a dense forest, its center (the focus of its forces) is a forest hut (see Baba Yaga’s hut), its border is a stream (a river as the border of two worlds). Tatiana’s “guide” to this other world, the bear, is also the traditional owner of the forest kingdom not only in Slavic, but throughout Indo-European mythology.

For Christianity - in the highest, absolute understanding - there is no other world of evil, and there are no people from this other world of evil in the Christian sense - only spiritual emptiness, a zone of absence of light and goodness, its universal “shadow”. Evil does not and cannot have its own, legitimate, permanent place in the universe: evil is rooted in the spiritual world, in the human soul. Moreover, not a single person has an “evil soul” (as Pushkin will say even about the old countess from “The Queen of Spades”). But a person can distort and pervert the nature of his soul if he makes it a “playground” of passions and egoism.

The dark forest of Tatyana’s dream becomes the symbolic “landscape of Onegin’s soul”: its hidden “dark abysses”, its moral chaos with demonic monsters-passions, its selfish coldness. Outwardly, in everyday life, in life, Onegin, a social dandy, a metropolitan resident bored in the village, may seem “very nice.” The spiritual dangers that await the hero are inexpressible in everyday language and invisible to everyday vision. And the erotic obsession, the “nightly melancholy” that invades Tatiana’s life through Onegin, is also not a simple girlish love, but a deadly temptation of the spirit. And this, too, cannot yet be seen or directly expressed in a plot, “realistic”, everyday way. Only Tatiana's dream makes possible the "descent into hell" of Onegin's spiritual state; only a dream brings out the inner monstrosity of this state, its threat not only to the hero, not only to his friend, but also to the heroine. In Old Russian literature there was such a popular genre: lifetime “walking through the torment” of the afterlife. Tatyana's dream precisely introduces the ancient semi-folklore genre into the new European, completely “civilized” novel in verse, and thereby the Christian spiritual tradition that gave birth to this genre.

Now it is clear why compositionally another world appears in literary texts most often in strong, especially marked positions: the beginning of an action or its culmination. No matter how intricately the plot of the work develops, its real purpose and meaning, the purpose of all events, the essence and arrangement of all its main participants appear precisely there, in the other world: the place of meeting with fate, which is determined by centuries-old symbolic traditions and which truly “cannot be changed” ".

There is no date in the novel, but if you read it carefully, you can accurately determine when the events take place. Onegin went to the village to visit his uncle at the very time when Pushkin was expelled from St. Petersburg. Remember:

Onegin was ready with me

See foreign countries;

But soon we were destined

Divorced for a long time.

His father then died...

Suddenly he really got

Report from the manager

That uncle is dying in bed...

Pushkin was exiled to the south in the spring of 1820. Onegin left St. Petersburg at the same time. Before that, “he killed for eight years” in the world, which means he appeared in society around the end of 1812. How old could Onegin be at this time? In Pushkin's drafts, a direct indication on this matter has been preserved: Onegin, “no more than sixteen years old,” appeared in the world. This means that Onegin was born in 1796, he is three goals older than Pushkin. The meeting with Tatyana and acquaintance with Lensky take place in the spring and summer of 1820 - Onegin is already 24 years old, he is not a boy, but an adult man, especially in comparison with the eighteen-year-old Lensky. It is not surprising because he treats Lensky a little patronizingly, looking at his “youthful heat and youthful delirium” like an adult.

Where the days are cloudy and short,

A tribe will be born that will not die

Petrarch

The epigraph to the sixth chapter shatters all our hopes. The quarrel between Onegin and Lensky is so absurd and - outwardly, at least - insignificant that we want to believe: everything will work out, friends will make peace, Lensky will marry his Olga... The epigraph excludes a successful outcome. The duel will take place, one of the friends will die. But who? It is clear to even the most inexperienced reader: Lensky will die. Pushkin imperceptibly, gradually prepared us for this thought.

A random quarrel is only a pretext for a duel, but the reason for it, the reason for Lensky’s death, is much deeper.

A force enters into the quarrel between Onegin and Lensky that can no longer be reversed - the force of “public opinion.” The bearer of this power is hated by Pushkin more than Pustyakov, Gvozdin, even Flyanov - they are only nonentities, oppressors, bribe-takers, buffoons, and now before us is a murderer, an executioner:

Zaretsky, once a brawler,

Ataman of the gambling gang,

The head is a rake, a tavern tribune,

Now kind and simple

The father of the family is single,

Reliable friend, peaceful landowner

And even an honest person:

This is how our century is corrected!

The world of the Petushkovs and Flyanovs stands on people like Zaretsky; he is the support and legislator of this world, the guardian of its laws and the executor of sentences. Every word of Pushkin about Zaretsky rings with hatred, and we cannot help but share it.

But Onegin! He knows life, he understands everything perfectly. He tells himself that he

Had to prove myself

Not a ball of prejudice,

Not an ardent boy, a fighter,

But a husband with honor and intelligence.

Pushkin selects verbs that very fully depict Onegin’s state: “blamed himself,” “should have,” “he could have,” “he should have disarmed the young heart...” But why are all these verbs in the past tense? After all, you can still go to Lensky, explain yourself, forget the enmity - it’s not too late... No, it’s too late! Here are Onegin’s thoughts:

"...into this matter

The old duelist intervened;

He is angry, he is a gossip, he is loud...

Of course there must be contempt

At the cost of his funny words,

But the whispers, the laughter of fools..."

Onegin thinks so. And Pushkin explains with pain and hatred:

And here is public opinion!

Spring of honor, our idol!

And this is what the world revolves on!

Pushkin does not like a bunch of exclamation marks. But here he crowns three lines in a row with them: all his torment, all his indignation is in these three exclamation marks in a row. This is what guides people: the whisper, the laughter of fools - a person’s life depends on it! It's terrible to live in a world that revolves around evil chatter!

“Alone with his soul” Onegin understood everything. But the trouble is that the ability to remain alone with one’s conscience, “summoning oneself to a secret judgment,” and to act as one’s conscience dictates, is a rare skill. It requires courage, which Evgeniy does not have. The judges turn out to be the Pustyakovs and Buyanovs with their low morality, which Onegin does not dare to oppose.

Onegin is amazing in this scene. Yesterday he did not have the courage to refuse the duel. His conscience tormented him - after all, he obeyed the very “strict rules of art” that Zaretsky loves so much. Today he rebels against the “classic and pedant,” but how pitiful this rebellion is! Onegin violates all rules of decency by taking a lackey as his seconds. “Zaretsky bit his lip” when he heard Onegin’s “performance,” and Evgeny is completely satisfied with this. He has enough courage for such a small violation of the laws of the world.

And so the duel begins. Pushkin plays terribly on the words “enemy” and “friend”. In fact, what are they now, Onegin and Lensky? Already enemies or still friends? They don't know it themselves.

The enemy stands with their eyes downcast.

Enemies! How long have we been apart?

Has their bloodlust gone?

How long have they been leisure hours,

Meal, thoughts and deeds

Did you share together? Now it's evil

Like hereditary enemies,

Like in a terrible, incomprehensible dream,

They are in silence to each other

They are preparing death in cold blood...

Shouldn't they laugh while

Their hand is not stained,

Shouldn't we part ways amicably?..

But wildly secular enmity

Afraid of false shame.

Cloaks are thrown by two enemies.

Zaretsky thirty-two steps

Measured with excellent accuracy,

Friends separated but the last trace,

And everyone took their pistol.

The idea to which Pushkin led us with the entire course of events is now formulated briefly and precisely:

But wildly secular enmity

Afraid of false shame.

Pushkin does not accuse Onegin, but explains him to us. The inability and unwillingness to think about other people turned into such a fatal mistake that now Evgeniy is executing himself. And he can no longer help but think about what he did. He cannot help but learn what he did not know how to do before: to suffer, to repent, to think... Thus, Lensky’s death turns out to be the impetus for Onegin’s rebirth. But it is yet to come. While Pushkin leaves Onegin at a crossroads.

It seems to Tatyana that the books of Byron and French writers that she found in Onegin’s office completely exhaust and explain the character of their owner,

What is he? Is it really imitation?

An insignificant ghost, or else

Muscovite in Harold's cloak,

interpretation of other people's whims,

A complete vocabulary of fashion words?...

Isn't he a parody? These are very sad thoughts.

In the first chapter, we saw the St. Petersburg ball through the eyes of Pushkin - but only briefly, essentially from the street, through the window: “Shadows walk along the solid windows...” We managed to see how Onegin entered, how “the legs of lovely ladies fly,” but not They saw the St. Petersburg light up close and did not hear its judgments. Now, in the eighth chapter, we are brought to a “social event” with the muse and forced to look around with her curious and pure gaze. But this look is also Pushkin’s! Onegin of the first chapter was bored and disgusted with the world, but he belonged there. And now he is a stranger, and familiar faces seem to him like “a series of annoying ghosts.”

The light is trying to fit Onegin into the usual stereotyped type - the fact that a person can be different from everyone else, and at the same time himself, is incomprehensible to the light. Everything that is not similar to the general level is declared a mask, and it does not occur to anyone that it is the people of the general level who are masks, and those who are not like them are alive...

And of course, like any limited soul, the man of light considers himself omniscient and gives instructions:

Or he will just be a kind fellow,

How are you and me, how is the whole world?

There is fear of mediocrity as they do not like those who stand out. She definitely needs everyone to be similar to each other, so that everyone is “average”, ordinary, and does not “jump out”... So they advise Onegin to be a “kind fellow”, like everyone else...

Having intervened in the small talk about Onegin, Pushkin in stanza IX laughs bitterly at the ideal that “important people” have created for themselves. Mediocrity, self-loving insignificance - that's who is happy, that's who doesn't cause surprise or dissatisfaction. “The silent are blissful in the world!”

In the first chapter, Pushkin and Onegin were very different. What are they like now? Both have experienced a lot over the past years, both have known the bitterness of loss and disappointment... Have they become closer to each other than before, or have they completely separated?

The final text of the novel - eight chapters - does not give us an answer to the question of where Onegin was for three whole years. But excerpts from Onegin’s journey have been preserved: after all, Pushkin at first assumed that the novel would consist of nine chapters: the eighth would tell about Onegin’s wanderings, and the ninth would tell about his meeting with Tatyana in St. Petersburg. Excerpts from Onegin’s journey help to understand what he experienced, what he came to, and with what emotional burden he came into the world in the fall of 1824.

Throughout his entire journey there runs a bitter exclamation: “Melancholy!” It’s scary when you delve into the thoughts of a young healthy person:

Why wasn’t I wounded by a bullet in the chest?

Why am I not a frail old man?

How is this poor tax farmer?

Why, as the Tula assessor,

Am I not lying in paralysis?

Why can’t I feel it in my shoulder?

Even rheumatism? - Ah, creator!

I am young, the life in me is strong;

What should I expect? Yearning! Yearning!

After three years of wandering

He returned and hit

Like Chatsky, from the ship to the ball.

Why - like Chatsky? Why was it necessary to compare Onegin with Chatsky? Obviously, because with the name Chatsky, first of all, the thought arises of irreconcilable hostility towards society, of a deep inner life that Onegin did not have before...

The eighth chapter causes the most controversy and varied interpretations. It `s naturally; This is the peculiarity of Pushkin’s novel: it informs the reader of facts, events, actions of the heroes and gives almost no psychological justification for these events, actions, facts. Has Tatyana changed only externally or internally too? What kind of person is her husband? Why is Onegin, who did not fall in love with Tatiana in the village, now overwhelmed by such an all-consuming passion? Yes, Pushkin does not give an unambiguous, final answer to all these questions; he gives the reader the right to figure it out for himself...

Pushkin does not embellish his hero at all. He admits that Eugene was thinking about the indifferent princess, and not about the “timid girl.” And yet, Tatyana attracted him not with her magnificent position, but with the spiritual strength that Onegin saw and felt in her.

Tatyana does not believe Onegin. What does she know about him? How does he represent it? The same one I saw in the “empty office” three years ago, on the pages of his books; in the garden, when the girls sang and her heart trembled, and Onegin was cold and verbose... Now she reads his letters - and does not believe them. (After all, Onegin wrote more than one letter to Tatiana: “There is no answer. He is a message again. There is no answer to the second, third letter.”). Why do we, reading Onegin’s letter, see in it genuine torment, true love, but Tatyana does not see or does not want to see?

Maybe her life in the world gave her a sad experience of knowing people: she already knows that small feelings can outwardly look the same as true ones... Maybe life in the world taught her not to trust people - this is what some researchers of Pushkin’s work think .

Outwardly, Onegin returns to the lifestyle that he led at the beginning of the novel, when we first met him:

And in a silent office

He remembered the time

When the blues are cruel

She was chasing him in the noisy light...

These are very important lines. “I remembered it’s time”! This means that then there was a different time, a different state of mind, and Onegin himself was different! What is he like now?

Even the circle of his reading says a lot and very definitely to the reader-friend, Pushkin’s contemporary. Gibbon, Rousseau, Herder, Madame de Staël, Belle and Fontenelle - philosophers, educators, scientists... These are not “two or three novels in which the century is reflected”, beloved by Onegin before. This is the reading circle of the Decembrists, free-thinking people striving for action...

But this is not enough. Everything that was inaccessible to him three years ago is now revealed to Onegin.

It's between the printed lines

Read with spiritual eyes

Other lines.

The former Onegin, the one Tatyana knew before, could have courted the princess out of such petty, unworthy motives. The old - but not the new Onegin, whom Tatyana does not know. It seems to her: “But happiness was so possible, so close,” - this is not true. Previously, happiness was not possible because Onegin did not know how to love. Happiness is possible only now, with the renewed Onegin, but... it’s too late.

Tatyana can only suffer. The old Eugene, indifferent and selfish, would not have understood her torment. Now he understands everything - Onegin is neither able to continue to pursue the princess nor to abandon her completely. At such a “minute, evil for him,” Pushkin leaves his hero.

Brief conclusions.

1. Evgeny Onegin is an exponent of the peculiarities of the content of life of the entire Russian society in the 20s of the 19th century. The hero's lifestyle expresses the external forms of life of a Russian aristocrat: upbringing, description of the hero's social life, which largely determine his character, the ability to hide behind a mask of lies - coldness, arrogance, mockery, pragmatism.

2. The moral and artistic function of everyday life is the revelation of the high intellectual level of the hero, the affirmation of thoughts about the influence of the mind, the level of education on the character of a person, his consciousness.

3. The high level of mental and cultural development of Eugene Onegin allows him to rise above his environment, to doubt the truth of some life values ​​​​affirmed by this environment, a problem arises: can a person resist the environment, i.e. the problem of internal freedom. But was Onegin free from his environment?

It is the idea of ​​the lack of inner freedom that runs through the entire narrative of his youth.

4. But is the resurrection of the soul possible? In subsequent lavas (2-4) a different environment is depicted - the environment of the local nobles; the spiritual and mental superiority of Eugene Onegin over those around him and his alienness to this environment are emphasized. On the other hand, this is life against the backdrop of nature, in unity with living, real, natural life, and this has a beneficial effect on the hero: the need for live communication increases, a feeling of attachment to Lensky arises; the village formed the need to reflect, to live life, enjoying its greatness and beauty.

5. In the scene of the Larenykh’s ball, it is shown that the hero was unable to enter the world of patriarchal life, steeped in centuries-old folk patriarchal traditions. Events escape from Onegin’s control, setting up the usual networks for his “victims.” The easy, witty prank did not work out; a disaster happened. For the same reasons, in the usual situation of a duel, Onegin accepts the challenge to a duel.

6. The hero treated the duel not as a form of defending noble honor, that is, without formally thinking about it, but as a violation of the moral basis of life - this is an indicator of the possibility of further development of Onegin’s character.

7.Love, according to A.S. Pushkin, can awaken to a new life. But does this apply to Onegin? - I would like to believe that this will happen.

In the novel "Eugene Onegin" by A.S. Pushkin reveals the problem of unrealized individual potential, creating the image of a “superfluous” person. Evgeniy is the main character - a person who misses the chance to bring his best qualities into reality. He lives an empty life, wastes his own potential in meaningless entertainment and grows cold towards life.

But is Onegin really a “superfluous man”?

One of the characteristic types of people in Russian literature of the 19th century is the type of superfluous person. An “extra person” is a hero who is smart, educated and gifted, but for some reason is not able to realize himself in society. This type of person is in search of his purpose and meaning in life, but he fails to find the true ones. Consequently, the “superfluous person” becomes disappointed in life and in people. Nothing seems real and beautiful to him anymore; he loses his former opportunities, spending time on empty entertainment. The reason for calling such a hero “superfluous” is his complete uselessness for society: he either causes harm or is inactive and lives his life in vain, often finding himself in suffering.

The founder of the superfluous person type is A.S.

Pushkin. For the first time, an “extra” person appears in Russian literature in the novel “Eugene Onegin,” where a representative of this type is the main character. Onegin, of course, has a number of positive qualities, but they all somewhat fade against the background of his selfishness, pride, vanity and indifference. Despite possessing qualities that provide him with the opportunity to realize himself, changes in character and rethinking of his own feelings at the end of the novel, Onegin, as is typical for a “superfluous person,” having missed opportunities, does not realize himself in society and remains alone with his suffering.

Undoubtedly, Onegin is smart. “He could express himself perfectly in French and wrote,” “Onegin was, in the opinion of many...a learned fellow,” “He knew quite a bit of Latin.” But then his vanity also manifests itself.

He had a lucky talent

No coercion in conversation

Touch everything lightly

With the learned air of an expert.

This suggests that Onegin, although he knew quite enough, tried to seem smarter than he actually was. If we talk about his action towards Tatyana, when she confesses her love to him, the hero shows nobility. Despite the fact that Onegin does not believe in the seriousness of both her (“The young maid will more than once replace light dreams with dreams”) and his feelings (“But I am not created for bliss”), at that moment he cares about Tatyana, about her feelings . He doesn’t want to break her heart, but he doesn’t want to make her suffer in a relationship with him either.

Believe me (conscience is a guarantee),

Marriage will be torment for us.

But some of Evgeniy’s indifference is also evident here. This disbelief in real, sincere feelings is present in the character of the hero because he “has completely lost interest in life.” Honor is not an empty phrase for Onegin. The main confirmation is the hero’s attitude towards the duel. Despite the fact that Evgeniy is challenged to a duel by Lensky, his friend, he, guided by the concept of honor, does not refuse the challenge.

Lensky invited his friend to a duel.

Onegin from the first movement,

To the ambassador of such an order

Turning around, without further ado

Said he's always ready.

But even in this incident, Onegin shows the negative side of his character - pride. The hero, “loving the young man with all his heart,” accepts Lensky’s challenge and kills him. Pride, like honor, does not allow Evgeniy to retreat. Onegin is also characterized by selfishness. Throughout the novel, for the most part, he cares only about his own feelings. All he needed from his dying uncle was an inheritance; Eugene was bored “sighing and thinking to himself: when will the devil take you!” At the end of the novel, he shows selfishness towards Tatyana. When he meets Tatyana again, he only thinks about how much he suffers, not being able to achieve the girl. He doesn’t think about how difficult it is for her in this situation, how her heart hurts.

Onegin is a promising person, his character speaks of this. He could achieve a lot, he could be happy and successful, but, unfortunately, as a person belonging to the “extra” type, he does not realize his potential. It is this hero in the novel by A.S. Pushkin reveals the problem of unrealized individual potential. For Onegin, society is an obstacle to self-realization. He is tired of social life, nothing touches him, does not evoke any emotions or deep feelings.

His feelings cooled off early;

He was tired of the noise of the world;

The beauties didn't last long

The subject of his usual thoughts;

The betrayals have become tiresome;

I'm tired of friends and friendship.

Unrealized opportunities are the cause of his unhappiness. He does not find his goal, the meaning of life and remains completely alone, disappointed in life, which is also typical for the type of superfluous person.

"Eugene Onegin" is a novel of unrealized possibilities. The main character does not find a place in society, gets tired of his lifestyle and becomes disappointed. Despite his potential, Evgeniy fails to realize himself in society, which characterizes him as a type of superfluous person.

As revealed in the novel by A.S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" - the problem of unrealized personal potential?

“Eugene Onegin” is one of the greatest and most significant works of Russian literature, in which Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin brilliantly and vividly reflected the nobleman of that time. He captured that fleeting spirit of the era, which exists for only a few moments, and then quickly disappears and never returns. This is one of the main merits of any writer - to capture a certain moment in time with irresistible ease and accuracy.
The main character of the novel is a rather interesting person, whose character is unusual: Evgeny was disappointed in life early, the whole world around him does not interest him, he is bored, and most of his actions are performed with only one purpose - to entertain himself from boredom, to drive away the oppressive and exhausting young man's melancholy. However, there is no doubt that Onegin is a promising person, but he was unable to realize himself in the circumstances in which he found himself.
Firstly, the society around the hero does not give him the opportunity to fully reveal himself. He finds himself in an environment alien to him (in the village), which he does not like at all, in which he cannot find application for his talents and abilities. Evgeniy does not accept the rules that exist in the environment where he finds himself: he establishes his own laws (“...he replaced the ancient corvée with a light rent with a yoke…”), however, this is instantly perceived by other people as the most dangerous eccentricity and stupidity:
...And everyone decided out loud,
That he is a most dangerous weirdo.

He is forced to exist within the society of landowners, to which he is alien and unadapted, which is why everyone immediately turns against him:

... "Our neighbor is ignorant; crazy;
He is a pharmacist; he drinks one
A glass of red wine...

Thus, the environment in which Evgeniy finds himself does not give him the opportunity to realize himself to the fullest. Any of his impulses does not give him freedom, but only strengthens his conviction of his uselessness, convinces him that he is, indeed, an “extra” person at this “celebration of life.”
Secondly, the dry and programmed circle of noble life, which Onegin cannot change, bores him early: having tried all the joys, all the entertainment, he becomes despondent, he is visited by melancholy, and he is doomed to a kind of melancholy, which now relentlessly follows him wherever he goes. Thus, having learned life early, he soon learns its other side - boredom, from which he now cannot hide. Onegin is much smarter than the entire secular society, and this cannot but lead him to disappointment. Seeing the meaninglessness of everything around him, he cannot realize himself, because no one needs this in a society where everyone lives according to previously established orders:
...No: his feelings cooled down early;
He was tired of the noise of the world;
The beauties didn't last long
The subject of his usual thoughts;
The betrayals have become tiresome;
I'm tired of friends and friendship...
We can say that the reader, gradually getting acquainted with the fate of Eugene, comprehends his nature, crushed by unfavorable circumstances; the character of an “extra” person in that society, in the environment in which he found himself placed against his will.
It is the environment and the people around that prevent the realization of Eugene’s potential, which would probably have been revealed if Onegin had been in a different light. He was a man of a new era, who did not want to support tsarism and the old foundations of the state; he did not want to join the camp of the Silents, which is why he was doomed to inaction in the society that he had overtaken in development.
A.S. Pushkin very accurately showed not only the tragedy of “superfluous” people in noble society, but also clearly outlined its main causes.

Main character Romana - young landowner Eugene Onegin, this is a person with a complex, contradictory character. The upbringing that Onegin received was disastrous. He grew up without a mother. The father, a frivolous St. Petersburg gentleman, did not pay attention to his son, entrusting him to “poor” tutors. Consequently Onegin I grew up as an egoist, a person who cares only about himself, about his desires and who does not know how to pay attention to the feelings, interests, and suffering of other people. He is capable of offending, offending a person without even noticing it. Everything beautiful that was in the young man’s soul remained undeveloped. - boredom and laziness, monotonous satisfaction in the absence of real, living work.

Image of Onegin not made up. In it, the poet summarized the features typical of young people of that time. These are people who are provided for through work and serfs who received a disorderly upbringing. But unlike most representatives of the ruling class, these young men are smarter, more sensitive, more conscientious, more noble. They are dissatisfied with themselves, their environment, and the social order.

Onegin In terms of views and requirements for life, he stands above not only his rural landowner neighbors, but also representatives of St. Petersburg high society. Having met Lensky, who received a higher education at the best university in Germany, Onegin could argue with him on any topic, as with an equal. with Lensky reveals in Onegin's soul the possibilities of faithful, friendly relations between people hidden behind the mask of cold egoism and indifference.

Seeing Tatyana for the first time, without even talking to her, without hearing her voice, he immediately felt the poetry of this girl’s soul. In his attitude towards Tatyana, as well as towards Lensky, such a trait as goodwill was revealed. Under the influence of the events depicted in the novel, an evolution takes place in Eugene’s soul, and in the last chapter of the novel, Onegin is no longer the same as we saw him before. He fell in love with Tatiana. But his love does not bring either him or her.

In the novel “Eugene Onegin” Pushkin portrayed a frivolous young man who, even in love, cannot give himself advice. Running away from the world, Onegin could not escape from himself. By the time he realized this, it was already too late. Tatyana doesn't believe him now. And it opens Onegin eyes on yourself, but nothing can change.

Brief description of Evgeny Onegin | December 2014

Image and characteristics Evgenia Onegina in Pushkin's novel of the same name

Onegin. The hero of the novel appears before the reader as both an ordinary person (similar to many others) and an extraordinary person, simple and complex. This complexity and even inconsistency were a reflection of that complex, contradictory era, which gave rise to such characters. At the beginning of the novel, we have before us a young man living according to the laws and customs of secular society. He leaves St. Petersburg not in a fit of love for freedom to the exotic Caucasus, but to an ordinary village for the prosaic inheritance of his uncle. There is nothing exceptional or mysterious about him, like the heroes of romantic poems. It is significant that the romantics did not understand Pushkin’s plan and were unable to appreciate the new, realistic principles of depicting reality. A. A. Bestuzhev, having read the first chapter of the novel, wrote to the poet with bewilderment in March 1825: “I see a person whom I meet thousands of in reality.” He believed that this is why Onegin is not worthy of becoming the hero of a work of art.

However Onegin for all his typicality, he has such individual, unique features that make him “superfluous” to the society of the Buyanovs, Petushkovs, and Skotinins. The widespread term “superfluous person” (Onegin was the first in this typological series) should be perceived as a negative characteristic, first of all, not of the hero, but of the environment for which extraordinary people turn out to be inconvenient, unnecessary, superfluous. There can be no fullness of human existence in this society. Onegin’s disappointment in social life, in the people around him, in himself, finally, testifies to his extraordinary inner, spiritual qualities, which, unfortunately, he was never able to demonstrate anywhere. Onegin’s extraordinary personality is also evidenced by his circle of friends, which include Kavelin, Chaadaev (Pushkin mentions this in Chapter 1) and, most importantly, the author himself, who called Onegin his good friend. And the fact that in Onegin’s office there is a portrait of Byron, a bust of Napoleon, is also filled with a certain meaning, was a kind of “signal” for the reader, helping him to better understand the worldview of the hero of the novel.

Belinsky conveyed his impression of Onegin as follows:

“...The inactivity and vulgarity of life choke him; he doesn’t even know what he needs, what he wants; but he knows, and knows very well, that he does not need, that he does not want, what self-loving mediocrity is so happy with, so happy.”

And precisely because secular society killed “the passion of the heart and the warmth of the soul” in him, he could not understand Tatyana, her trusting love. In modern literary criticism, the debate about the possibility of a moral revival of Onegin continues. The opinion is expressed that the love that flared up in Onegin for Tatyana has only a “petty feeling of secular pride and vanity” as its source. Researchers who adhere to this point of view proceed from the concept according to which in the person of Onegin “the historical doom of the noble class is typified,” due to which there can be no talk of any revival of Pushkin’s hero. The meaning of the relationship between the images of Onegin and Tatyana in this case is determined by the concepts: on the one hand, “emptiness” and on the other, “internal integrity.” There is another concept, according to which the evolution of Onegin’s character seems undeniable, especially if we take into account the impact on the hero of the novel of the journey he undertook after the murder of Lensky. According to G.P. Makogonenko, after the defeat of the Decembrists, the path to combat the autocratic-serf system was completely unclear. That's why Pushkin showed moral revival of Onegin's personality through love.

Pushkin’s discovery enriched literature: the moral value of a person, his social position began to be revealed in the sphere of private, intimate life, “tested by love,” as the researcher writes. In his time, Belinsky approached the solution of this truly very complex issue most objectively, taking into account the specifics of Pushkin’s assessments, his dialectical approach in depicting human characters and the prospects for their development: “What happened to Onegin later? - asked the critic. - Has his passion resurrected him for a new suffering, more consistent with human dignity? Or did she kill all the strength of his soul, and his joyless melancholy turned into dead, cold apathy? “We don’t know, and what do we need to know this when we know that the powers of this rich nature are left without application, life without meaning, and the novel without end?”

Characteristics of Evgeny Onegin | November 2015

Characteristics and image of Evgeny Onegin

The hero of Pushkin's novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, appears before us at different periods of his life. The entire first chapter is devoted to a description of his youth.

Onegin's youth

“Young rake” - these words can briefly describe Evgeniy at this time. He does not serve anywhere, leads a social life, attends balls and dinners, and pays a lot of attention to his appearance. He knows how to seem smart and subtle, but in fact his knowledge is superficial, and he uses it only to impress.

He loves women, but his hobbies are superficial. Using his charm, he conquers women, and then quickly cools down.

Eugene Onegin in the village

In the end, Evgeny cools down to this lifestyle. Fed up with both balls and female attention, he plans to travel, but then his uncle dies, and Eugene remains the heir to the estate.

Here we recognize Onegin on the other side. Not afraid to cause the displeasure of the local landowners, he replaces corvee for the serfs with a light quitrent. Having escaped from the entertainment of the capital, he does not visit his neighbors even in the village, but he becomes close to the naive but sincere Lensky.

Killing a friend and rejected love

This friendship ends tragically. The ardent young man sends a challenge to Evgeniy. Onegin realizes that it is better to apologize to his friend, but narcissism forces him to put on his usual mask of indifference and accept the challenge. Lensky dies at the hands of Onegin.

Having received Tatiana's letter, Evgeniy was touched. He sympathizes with Tatyana, but does not love her yet. Having never experienced true love for a woman, using her as a bargaining chip, he is generally not able to take this feeling seriously. Therefore, Evgeniy, as usual, plays the role of an experienced, cold-hearted person, while at the same time showing nobility. Evgeny did not take advantage of Tatyana’s feelings, but did not escape the temptation to lecture the girl in love.

Know how to control yourself:
not everyone will understand you like I do,
Inexperience leads to trouble.

Epiphany Onegin

Several years passed and he had to cruelly regret his coldness. In adulthood, he is no longer interested in spectacular poses, he is less focused on himself. Having met Tatyana, a married lady who has perfectly studied the art of “ruling oneself,” Evgeny selflessly falls in love with her. Time does not heal him, months pass, and he still thinks only about her, driving himself almost to madness.

An explanation occurs; he learns that Tatyana still loves him, but is not going to break fidelity to her husband.

Pushkin hero capable of real feelings, but his early commitment to the world spoils him, forcing him to sacrifice love and friendship in favor of posing. When Onegin finally begins to “be” and not “seem,” many mistakes can no longer be corrected.

Characteristics of Evgeny Onegin - | December 2014

Generalization on the topic “A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”” Preparation for the essay

As in the novel by A.S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" reveals the problem of unrealized individual potential?

Can we say that Onegin is an extraordinary person, an extraordinary person?

Why didn't Onegin realize himself as a person?

Now let's make an essay plan

Why V.G. Belinsky called Evgeny Onegin a “reluctant egoist”?

What are the reasons that Onegin is like this?

How does Onegin try to escape boredom? Find quotes

10. Belinsky also called Onegin a “suffering egoist”

11.