Pechorin is a hero of the transitional time, a representative of noble youth. Essay “Pechorin - a hero of his time”
The novel “A Hero of Our Time” was begun in 1837-38 and completed in 1839. This is the first Russian social psychological novel in prose.
In the preface to the novel, the author talks about the purpose of his work - to create a portrait of the hero of his time: “... this is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.” In the preface to Pechorin’s magazine, Lermontov calls his work “the history of the human soul.”
The main problem of this novel is the fate of the thinker, talented person, which could not find application in the living conditions of that society. The main character of M. Yu. Lermontov's novel “A Hero of Our Time” lived in the thirties of the nineteenth century. These years can be characterized as the years of gloomy reaction that came after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising of 1825. At this time, a man of progressive thought could not find an application for his strength. Disbelief, doubt, denial have become features of the consciousness of the younger generation.
Pechorin comes from a noble family. He received a typical upbringing and education for aristocratic youth of that time under the guidance of foreign teachers and tutors. Having left the care of his relatives, he began to madly enjoy all the pleasures that could be obtained for money. Then he set out into the big world: he fell in love with secular beauties and was loved. We learn about these events in the hero’s life from his confession to Maxim Maksimych in the chapter “Bela”.
Pechorin has a “sharp, cooled mind,” which allows him to correctly judge people, about life, and be critical of himself and those around him. Pechorin has already experienced everything; even in his youth he was disgusted with all pleasures. This could not but lead him to disappointment in life. Pechorin sees that the most happy people- ignoramuses, and fame is luck. Boredom quickly takes possession of Pechorin.
The main character understands that in the society where he is, he will never find friends, that no one there will be able to understand him. Therefore, Pechorin breaks with secular society. He goes to the Caucasus, hoping that “boredom does not live under Chechen bullets.”
Pechorin seeks danger, strives for an active life and “suffers deeply” because he cannot find his like-minded people.
On the one hand, Pechorin is a skeptic, a disappointed person who lives “out of curiosity”; on the other hand, he has a huge thirst for life and activity. In Pechorin, the mind and heart, rationality and feeling struggle. “For a long time now I have been living not with my heart, but with my head. I weigh and examine my own passions and actions with strict curiosity, but without participation,” says the hero.
The composition of the novel is structured in such a way as to better reveal the image of the main character. The chapters are not located in chronological order, and all the characters in the novel help to better reveal Pechorin’s character.
The image of Pechorin “as a hero of his time” is revealed in relationships with other characters who are not similar either in character or in position to Pechorin. Special meaning There is also a change of persons leading the narrative. First, Maxim Maksimych, a “traveling officer,” talks about Pechorin. Then the author-narrator talks about him, and then Pechorin reveals himself in his diaries. The portrait of Pechorin itself characterizes him as an extraordinary personality. His eyes “did not laugh when he laughed.” He is contradictory: sometimes he is brave, energetic, persistent, sometimes he is quiet and meek, deep in himself. He is also uneven in his relationships with people, and these relationships further emphasize the contradictory nature of Pechorin. There are qualities in Pechorin that attract people with whom he has to communicate. Maxim Maksimych is a simple, kind, sentimental person. One of the unwitting victims of friendship with Pechorin. He liked Pechorin, he sincerely believed in the sincerity of Pechorin’s attitude towards him, considered him his best friend, waited after a long separation to meet him, believing that they had a lot in common, but Pechorin, when meeting him, did not find even two kind words, not realizing that with such an attitude he offended the old man, who did not sleep all night preparing to meet him.
All of Pechorin’s actions are woven from contradictions. Pechorin says about himself: “My whole life has been just a chain of sad contradictions to my heart or mind.” Pechorin's tragedy is that all his abilities, which he could use to achieve some high goal, he spends on adventures. He himself does not understand what to do with his strength. He interferes in other people's affairs of the heart, destroys the lives of “honest” smugglers, guided only by his own interest and curiosity. The search for thrills leads him to a duel with Grushnitsky, the result of which pushes Werner, the only person who understood Pechorin, away from him. He is smart and insightful, like Pechorin, he has an ironic mindset. Werner is a person with whom it is easy and simple for Pechorin. They understand each other perfectly and Pechorin values the doctor’s opinion. In Pechorin's duel with Grushnitsky, Werner acts as a second, but the outcome of the duel frightens him, and Werner decides to say goodbye to Pechorin.
The contradictions in Pechorin’s character are especially evident in his relationships with women. Love must reveal true essence person. Pechorin turned out to be incapable of this feeling. Pechorin's love brings misfortune to everyone he loves. Bela and her parents die, Mary falls ill, her mother is deeply unhappy, seeing her daughter’s suffering. In relation to the princess, Pechorin looks extremely unsympathetic and repulsive. If he was sincerely attracted to Bela, then he seeks the princess’s love only in order to annoy Grushnitsky. Is Pechorin even capable of love? I think that Pechorin loved Vera, and he himself said that she was “the woman I have ever loved.” This feeling manifests itself most strongly at the moment when there is a danger of losing Faith: “...I prayed, cursed, cried, laughed... no, nothing will express my anxiety, despair!.. Faith has become dearer to me than anything in the world ...” But this state does not last long for Pechorin. He began to be overcome by questions, why should he “chase after lost happiness,” what would give him last meeting, but most of all he was afraid that he might be seen crying. And Pechorin returns home. One of the researchers of the work wrote that Pechorin loved Vera, felt true passion for Bela, and Mary was one of his experiences in mastering a woman’s heart.
The novel covers only individual episodes of Pechorin's life. This life story is the story of an extraordinary person’s futile attempts to realize himself, to find at least some satisfaction to his needs, attempts that invariably turn into suffering and losses for him and those around him. Pechorin is not only a hero of his time, but also its victim.
"A Hero of Our Time" is the first Russian psychological novel. With this work Lermontov made a huge contribution to literature.
The main character of the novel, Pechorin, is a young man who combines selfishness, immorality, and noble and good intentions. This full of contradictions, psychologically complex character cannot be assessed only from one side of his multifaceted soul. Lermontov speaks about him this way: “Perhaps some readers will want to know my opinion about Pechorin’s character? - My answer is the title of this book. “Yes, this is evil irony!” - they will say. - I don’t know.” These lines tell us about the writer’s contradictory, incomprehensible attitude towards his character. So what is this “hero”? Is there irony in the title of the novel or does Pechorin really deserve such words?
Pechorin, surrounded by many different people, at first glance, is no different from them.
He does not try to separate himself from society, he lives the way all young people live - freely and carefree. His worries and experiences are barely noticeable outwardly, but starting to read “Pechorin’s Journal,” we can absolutely say that the hero is in extreme anxiety, confusion, and despondency. Despite this, he continues to live his life ordinary life. While talking about the world and people, drawing the right conclusions, he does not learn any lessons for himself. He also plays with the destinies of other people, bringing pleasure only to himself, and “mocks” the feelings of those who love him. The character evokes disgust, but at the same time pity and compassion. After all, on the one hand, Pechorin is trying to change his life, realizing that he is destined for something more.
On the other hand, he does not take decisive action to correct himself. After all, it is vile to seek love without loving, to play with a person’s feelings out of boredom, and Pechorin understands this. But despite all this, the character in Lermontov’s novel can truly be called a hero of his time.
The world around Pechorin is monotonous and boring, because everyone, without betraying the principles of society, lives according to a certain pattern. The hero grew up in this society, and perhaps it is not his fault at all that he became the way he appears on the pages of the novel. All the youth around him are not distinguished by any particular nobility of soul, this can be judged by the example of Grushnitsky. But why is Pechorin not like him? Why, despite all the similar qualities, main character Is the novel different from the others? There is only one answer - having forgotten about the monotonous, feigned norms of society, he fights against it in his soul. Pechorin is looking for an answer, trying to understand the course of his life, to understand the meaning of his existence. Isn’t a hero a person who tries not to succumb to the enormous onslaught of lies, passions, and gossip? Yes, he can't resist this, but at least he's trying...
I think that Pechorin is a very complex character. And treats him simply as good or bad person wrong. It consists of many circumstances, thoughts, situations that made it this way. It seems to me that Pechorin is an unhappy person, subject to many mental trials, and in any case, he can well be called a hero of his time.
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Updated: 2018-03-21
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Plan:
1) Pechorin is a hero of the transitional time. (“Pechorin is a representative of the noble youth who entered life after the defeat of the Decembrists”, “The absence of high social ideals - bright line historical period».)
2) The tragedy of Pechorin’s fate and life.
3) Origin and social status.
4) The discrepancy between Pechorin’s life and his internal capabilities and needs:
a) the originality of his nature, manifested in a wealth of interests, complexity spiritual world, critical mind;
b) thirst for action and constant search for the use of one’s strengths - distinctive feature Pechorina;
c) his inconsistency and discord with himself;
d) an increase in selfishness, individualism, and indifference in the character of the hero.
5) Pechorin is one of the representatives of the advanced noble intelligentsia 30s of the nineteenth century.
a) his closeness to the people of the 30s and Lermontov;
b) features that make Pechorin similar to the heroes of Duma.
6) Causes of Pechorin’s death:
a) lack of public demands and a sense of homeland;
b) education and influence of light.
7) The significance of the image of Pechorin in the socio-political struggle of the 30-40s.
Explanations. The novel “A Hero of Our Time” is the first Russian psychological and realistic novel in prose. In the preface to the magazine, Lermontov writes: “The history of the human soul, at least petty soul almost more curious and not more useful than history a whole people." And Pechorin, according to the author, is “a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation in their full development,” that is, Lermontov points to Pechorin’s typicality, to the vital truth of character.
Mental tragedy Lermontov's hero reflected the tragic state of Russian society. Thus, according to Belinsky, they decided important issues time, why smart people do not find use for their remarkable abilities, why they become “superfluous”, “smart useless things”.
II. Onegin and Pechorin are “heroes of their time.”
Plan:
1) Reasons for the appearance of " extra people"in Russian literature of the first half of the nineteenth century.
2) Onegin and Pechorin are “heroes of their time.”
a) similarities:
Secular education and upbringing;
Idle existence, lack of high goals and ideals in life;
Understanding people;
Dissatisfaction with life.
b) differences between them:
The depth of Pechorin's suffering, Onegin's superficial experience;
Neglect of the laws of “light” in Pechorin and fear of secular rumor in Onegin;
Onegin's lack of will and Pechorin's willpower;
Contradiction, duality of nature, Pechorin’s skepticism, Onegin’s “sharp, chilled mind.”
3) The place of Pechorin and Onegin in the gallery of “extra people” of the 19th century.
Explanations. In an essay on this topic you must give comparative characteristics Onegin and Pechorin. This topic requires consideration first of the general ones, and then individual traits character of the heroes. Explain how smart people educated people, who understand life and people, gradually turned into “smart useless people”, “suffering egoists”, doomed to a meaningless existence.
In your work you should proceed from Belinsky’s assessment of the heroes, but at the same time remember that the heroes live in different time: the first in the twenties, during the period of social upsurge caused by the War of 1812 and the Decembrist movement, and the second in the thirties, during the defeat of the Decembrists, harsh government reaction. This left an imprint on the personality of Pechorin, who, unlike Onegin, experiences great tragedy uselessness, hopelessness of life.
It must be proven that Pechorin is more interesting, deeper, that he attracts and repels us, readers.
III “Strange love” for the homeland in the lyrics of M. Yu. Lermontov
Plan:
1) Love for the Motherland is ambiguous and sometimes painful.
2) Lermontov is a patriot of his Fatherland.
3) Slavishly submissive Russia is hated by the poet:
a) “... unwashed Russia, a country of slaves, a country of masters...” (“Farewell, unwashed Russia”);
b) A country where “man groans from slavery and chains” (“Complaints of the Turk”).
4) What Lermontov contrasts with modernity:
a) the glorious past of Russia (“Song about the merchant Kalashnikov”);
b) the generation of “children of the twelfth year” (“Borodino”).
5) Image of the generation of the 30s of the 19th century (“Duma”).
6) “I love the Fatherland, but with a strange love...” (“Motherland”).
7) Native spaces, nature heals the wounded soul of a person (“How often surrounded by a motley crowd”).
8) Lermontov’s poetry is a new link in the chain historical development society.
Explanations. Lermontov, as a man of his generation, strives to analyze reality. Alas, what he sees is “either empty or dark.”
The poet was alien to ostentatious patriotism and therefore he does not accept the official point of view, according to which contemporary Russia is an almost ideal state. Lermontov's Russia appears in a different form, this is country of slaves, country of masters...
Lermontov contrasts Russia's glorious past with modernity. This is how he thinks about the problem of the positive hero.
The poet also calls the generation of “children of the twelfth year” who won the War of 1812 heroic.
Then it would be appropriate to contrast the heroic generation of the 30s of the nineteenth century. The inability, and more often the unwillingness, to find the use of forces in life is the main misfortune of man in Russia at that time.
In the poem “Motherland,” the poet sums up his thoughts about what the Fatherland is for him.
IV. Topics to choose from:
The fate of a generation in the lyrics of M. Yu. Lermontov.
Lyrical hero poetry of M. Yu. Lermontov.
Landscape lyrics by M. Yu. Lermontov.
The problem of personality and its reflection in the lyrics of M. Yu. Lermontov.
The tragedy of loneliness (based on the works of M. Yu. Lermontov).
Women's images in the novel by M. Yu. Lermontov “Hero of Our Time”.
Analysis human soul as the basis of M. Yu. Lermontov’s novel “A Hero of Our Time”.
The main task that Lermontov set for himself was to create an image of a contemporary young man. This creative task was largely suggested to him Pushkin's Onegin. But Lermontov painted a hero of the time that came after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising. It is not for nothing that he wrote in the preface to his novel: “A Hero of Our Time... is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.”
Who is Pechorin? Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin is an officer exiled from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus because of some story; he was demoted, then again ended up in the Caucasus; He traveled for some time and, returning home from Persia, died. It seems that we know very little about human life. But Lermontov does not strive to show exhaustively life path of his hero, his soul, actions and motives for these actions are important to him. Pechorin comes from an aristocratic family. Nature generously gifted this man. He is different from many people of his time high culture, a deep mind, philosophy is not alien to him, and his memory is full of facts from literature and history. Pechorin thinks about good and evil, about the purpose of man, about death and religion. His aphoristic statements indicate wit. Two people live in Pechorin: cold and calculating and deeply loving art and poetry.
A man of deep intelligence, Pechorin feels his rich possibilities, he guesses about his high purpose, but lives without a goal in life. The awareness of lost opportunities constantly haunts him. It is not for nothing that in his diary he asks himself so tragically: “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?.. And, it’s true, I had a high purpose, because I feel immense strength in my soul...”
The complexity and richness of Pechorin's personality is reflected in the complexity and diversity of his language. Pechorin owns poetic speech, often using literary quotes.
Lermontov takes a critical approach to his hero. Pechorin wastes his money on little things. His whole life is a chain of Don Juan exploits, spectacular gestures, external brilliance. Pechorin's love does not bring happiness to anyone; meeting him only generates suffering. Outwardly reserved and cold, he tries to hide feelings of love and friendship from others, and sometimes from himself. All best qualities this person remained unclaimed by his contemporary society. Pechorin tried to engage in science, but realized that this would not bring him either fame or happiness. Pechorin lost faith in the possibility of realizing great ideas. “We're pretty indifferent to everything except ourselves,” he says. His disbelief and skepticism are the result of the reaction that occurred after December 14th.
Pechorin remembers the past. His confession to Princess Mary reflects the history of the withering of the human soul, he reflects on the reasons for the disappearance of purity and his betrayal of moral principles. Best Feelings mocked by the world, had to be hidden. “Everyone read on my face signs of bad qualities that were not there; but they were expected - and they were born... I became secretive... vindictive... I became envious... I was ready to love the whole world - no one understood me: and I learned to hate...”
Now that his best qualities were killed, Pechorin became gloomy and lonely. He gets bored in society, but his vital nature cannot remain idle. In the hope that “boredom does not live under Chechen bullets,” he goes to the Caucasus. Pechorin cripples the destinies of people, brings them suffering, but he himself becomes a blind instrument in the hands of fate. He was bored - he forced the mountain girl Bela to fall in love with him. Pechorin did not love her, he was interested in conquering this pure, wild creature, which at first glance was so different from society ladies. When the girl fell in love with him and submitted to him, Pechorin lost interest in her. He doesn’t need slavish admiration; Bela has become boring and uninteresting to him. The same thing happens with the heroes of the story “Princess Mary”. Pechorin seeks Mary's love and refuses her, killing his former friend Grushnitsky in a duel. To her confession, Mary hears a cold answer: “I don’t love you.” But the suffering of the unfortunate girl deeply touches Pechorin: “Another minute and I would have fallen at her feet.” Pechorin does not love Mary, just as he did not love Bela, he is not going to marry her, as the girl wanted. This person is not capable of love, he cannot make someone else happy, just as he cannot be happy himself. Even his pity is cruel: “Princess... do you know that I laughed at you?.. You should despise me - Therefore, you cannot love me... Isn’t it true, even if you loved me, it was with this do you despise minutes?..”
His relationship with Vera is also tragic. Vera is the only woman who loved him for who he is, she understood what was hidden behind the mask of indifference kind heart and a courageous soul. Pechorin lacked precisely human understanding. Let us remember the bitter words: “I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me...” Perhaps that is why Vera is far from indifferent to Pechorin. But there is a gap between them - she is married.
Having received last letter Vera, Pechorin gives chase. And when the driven horse fell under him, he fell on the wet ground and cried for a long time. It is unlikely that a complete egoist can cry. Pechorin is so used to hiding his true feelings from those around him that as soon as something real wakes up in his soul, he immediately looks around to see if anyone saw him. He really wanted to kill the better half of his soul, but he didn’t kill it, but hid it deep - as soon as it looked out for just a second, he immediately buried it deeper. There are two people in Pechorin: one lives, the other thinks and judges, and the one who judges is mercilessly harsh.
The present Pechorin is lonely, he does not believe his friends: “... of two friends, one is always the slave of the other,” he does not believe his lovers; believed that love is the pleasure of picking a flower; after inhaling it, you should “throw it on the road: maybe someone will pick it up.” Lack of faith in friendship and love deprive his life of any value.
The only person with whom Pechorin was friends was Doctor Werner. It was to him that Pechorin wanted to reveal his soul, but did not do so, fearing that he would remain misunderstood.
Lermontov did not try to condemn his hero, nor to show him better than he is. Pechorin was unlucky; perhaps if this person had been born in a different era, he would have been able to realize himself and his talents.
If everyone's shortcomings individual person inherent only to him, they can still be corrected. But when shortcomings or vices are characteristic of an entire generation, the blame falls not on individuals, but on society as a whole. It is not Pechorin who needs to be corrected, but first of all society. “Hero of his time” Pechorin is at the same time a victim of this time.
In his era, it was impossible to overcome the alienation from time, or rather, from the timelessness of the 30s.
Lermontov saw the tragedy of his generation. This was already reflected in the poem “Duma”:
I look sadly at our generation!
His future is either empty or dark,
Meanwhile, under the burden of knowledge and doubt,
It will grow old in inaction...
This topic was continued by M.Yu. Lermontov in the novel "Hero of Our Time".
Pechorin is a hero of the transitional time, a representative of the noble youth, who entered into life after the defeat of the Decembrists. The absence of high social ideals is a striking feature of this historical period. The image of Pechorin is one of Lermontov's main artistic discoveries. The Pechorinsky type is truly epoch-making. In it we got our concentrated artistic expression fundamental features of the post-Decembrist era, in which, according to Herzen, on the surface, “only losses are visible,” but inside “the great work.... deaf and silent, but active and continuous." This striking discrepancy between the internal and external and at the same time the conditionality of the intensive development of spiritual life is captured in image-type Pechorina. However, his image is much broader than what is contained within him into the universal, the national into the universal, the socio-psychological into the moral and philosophical. Pechorin in his journal repeatedly talks about his contradictory duality. Usually this duality is considered as a result of the secular upbringing Pechorin received, the destructive influence of the noble-aristocratic sphere on him, and the transitional nature of his era.
Explaining the purpose of creating “A Hero of Our Time,” M.Yu. Lermontov, in the preface to it, makes it quite clear what the image of the main character is for him: “A hero of our time, my dear sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: it is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.” . The author set himself an important and difficult task, wanting to depict the hero of his time on the pages of his novel. And here before us is Pechorin - truly tragic figure, a young man suffering from his restlessness, in despair asking himself a painful question: “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?” In Lermontov's portrayal, Pechorin is a man of a very specific time, position, socio-cultural environment, with all the ensuing contradictions, which are explored by the author with full artistic objectivity. This is a nobleman - an intellectual of the Nicholas era, its victim and hero in one person, whose “soul is spoiled by the light.” But there is something more in him that makes him a representative not only of a certain era and social environment. Pechorin's personality appears in Lermontov's novel as unique - an individual manifestation in it of the specific historical and universal, specific and generic. Pechorin differs from his predecessor Onegin not only in temperament, depth of thought and feeling, willpower, but also in the degree of awareness of himself and his attitude to the world. Pechorin in to a greater extent than Onegin, thinker, ideologist. He is organically philosophical. And in this sense, he is the most characteristic phenomenon of his time, in the words of Belinsky, “the century of the philosophizing spirit.” Pechorin's intense thoughts, his constant analysis and self-examination, in their significance, go beyond the boundaries of the era that gave birth to him; they also have universal significance as a necessary stage in the self-construction of a person, in the formation of an individual-tribal, that is, personal, principle in him.
Pechorin's indomitable efficiency reflected another important aspect of Lermontov's concept of man - as a being not only rational, but also active.
Pechorin embodies such qualities as developed consciousness and self-awareness, “fullness of feelings and depth of thoughts,” perception of oneself as a representative not only of the current society, but also of the entire history of mankind, spiritual and moral freedom, active self-affirmation of an integral being, etc. But, being a son of his time and society, he bears their indelible mark on himself, which is reflected in the specific, limited, and sometimes distorted manifestation of the generic in him. In Pechorin’s personality there is a contradiction, especially characteristic of a socially unsettled society, between his human essence and existence, “between the depth of nature and the pitifulness of the actions of the same person.” (Belinsky) However, in life position and the activities of Pechorin more meaning than it seems at first glance. The stamp of masculinity, even heroism, is marked by his never-stopping denial of a reality unacceptable to him; in protest against which he relies only on own strength. He dies, without sacrificing his principles and convictions, although without having accomplished what he could have done under other conditions. Deprived of the possibility of direct social action, Pechorin nevertheless strives to resist circumstances, to assert his will, his “own need”, contrary to the prevailing “official need”. For the first time in Russian literature, Lermontov brought to the pages of his novel a hero who directly posed the most important, “last” questions. human existence- about the purpose and meaning of a person’s life, about his purpose. On the night before the duel with Grushnitsky, he reflects: “I run through my memory in
