Pechorin - "a hero of our time"? "A Hero of Our Time", Pechorin: characteristics. Why is Pechorin a "hero of the time"? Boredom as a characteristic condition of representatives of high society
How the author explains the title of the novel
The central image of Mikhail Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time" is Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin. According to the reviews of another hero, Maksim Maksimych, who knew him personally, he "was very strange." So why is Pechorin a "hero of our time"? What outstanding services prompted the author to award him such a high title? Lermontov explains his decision in the preface.
It turns out that this name should not be taken literally. Pechorin is not an example to follow, not someone to look up to. This is a portrait, but not of one person. It is made up of the vices of "the whole ... generation, in their full development." And the author's goal is simply to draw it, so that readers, looking at this phenomenon from the outside and being horrified, can do something to improve the health of society in which the appearance of such ugly characters has become possible.
Pechorin is a typical representative of his generation
Public environment
The novel was written at the time of the so-called "Nikolaev reaction".
Tsar Nicholas I, whose ascension to the throne could disrupt the Decembrist uprising, subsequently suppressed any manifestations of free thought and kept all aspects of public, cultural and private life under strict control. His era was characterized by stagnation in the economy and education. It was impossible to express oneself as a person at that time, which we observe in the novel on the example of Pechorin.
Inability to realize oneself
He rushes about, not finding his place, his vocation: “Why did I live? for what purpose was I born? .. And, surely, it existed, and, probably, 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 empty and ungrateful passions. "
Studying the sciences brought him one disappointment: he saw that only the ability to adapt brings success, not knowledge and ability. He also did not find himself in the monotonous military service. Family life does not appeal to him. He has only one thing left - to look for more and more new entertainment, often very dangerous for himself and for others, so as not to get bored.
Boredom as a characteristic condition of representatives of high society
Boredom is Pechorin's habitual state. "... what were you doing?" - Maxim Maksimych asks him when they had a chance to meet again after a long time. "I missed you!" - Pechorin answers. But he is not alone in this state. And this is one of the reasons why Lermontov called Pechorin "a hero of our time." “You, it seems, have been to the capital, and recently: is it really all the youth there?
"- Maksim Maksimych is perplexed, referring to his fellow traveler (the author is in his role). And he confirms: "... there are many people who say the same thing ... there are probably those who speak the truth ... now those who are the most bored, try to hide this misfortune as a vice."
Can Pechorin be considered a hero of his time?
Can Pechorin be called a "hero of our time"? Even taking into account the caricatured meaning that Lermontov put into this definition, this is not easy to do. Pechorin's unseemly actions, the way he dealt with Bela, Princess Mary, an unfortunate old woman and a blind boy from the chapter "Taman", raise the question: were there really many such people in Lermontov's time, and Pechorin was just a reflection of a general tendency? It is possible that by no means everyone has experienced a change in character to such an extent. But the fact of the matter is that in Pechorin this process manifested itself most vividly, he took a little from everyone, and therefore he fully deserved this title (but only with an ironic tinge).
Mikhail Lermontov himself is from that generation of “superfluous people”. It is he who owns the lines reflecting the state of mind of his contemporaries:
“And it's boring and sad, and there is no one to give a hand to
In a moment of mental adversity ...
Desires! .. What is the use of wanting in vain and forever? ..
And the years go by, all the best years "
Therefore, he knows well what he is talking about.
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Why M. Lermontov called Pechorin "a hero of the time"
The novel "Hero of Our Time" is one of the masterpieces of Russian literature... It continues to remain modern today, although more than one hundred and sixty years have passed since its writing. But the role of this work was especially great in the Lermontov era. And in order to better understand this, you need to have a good idea of the socio-political situation in Russia in the thirties of the nineteenth century.
The uprising of the Decembrists, as it were, divided the life of the former Russia into "before" and "after" it. The time after 1825 was gloomy and cruel, and this was due to the intensification of the reaction on the part of the tsarist government. The existing barracks routine of life in the country took away any hope of the majority of young educated people for the possibility of any changes for the better, destroyed the belief in the need to serve good, in its obligatory triumph. Russia seemed to be numb, living thought was mercilessly persecuted. That is why the era we are considering has become a time of deep doubts about all moral values. It is not surprising that the fate of the majority of thinking people of the state turned out to be extremely similar. Each time gives birth to its own dominant personality type. A distinctive feature of the eras of timelessness, especially those that lasted a long time and were distinguished by severe gloom, has always been the type of human personality, which in the history of Russian social thought has received the sad name of “an extra person”.
Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin is a prominent representative of this category of people. Before us is a young twenty-five-year-old man, a nobleman by birth. But he is not at all proud of his family name and belonging to the high society, he is little attracted by the privileged position in society, characteristic of the aristocracy. Pechorin is “a man who has taken the path of breaking away from his social environment. For his fate and life situation, there is a characteristic discrepancy between what he is according to formal signs and what he really is, ”notes the literary critic E. Mikhailova. He is rich, generous and wasteful, wastes his life aimlessly in “passions empty and ignoble”, asking himself one painful question: “... why did I live? for what purpose was I born? .. Ah, it is true, it existed, and, it is true, there was a high purpose for me, because I feel in my soul incomprehensible forces; but I did not guess this appointment ... "
Lermontov sends his hero to the Caucasus. This was a typical path for a quarrelsome noble youth of that time. E. Mikhailova, in a critical article devoted to this novel, notes that “it was, as it were, a double test: will this new, real Caucasus ... withstand the test of reality, not put on stilts“ hero of the time ”. And vice versa, the hero himself, devoid of romantic makeup, who will he be in comparison with the "children of nature", what aspects of the personality will come out clearer in him from this neighborhood? ".
Pechorin always remains true to himself. He is an officer, serves, but does not curry favor. The modest rank of ensign does not at all weigh him down and testifies to the attitude of our hero to military service. And he came to the Caucasus in the hope that "boredom does not live under the Chechen bullets."
"Superfluous" people could not find a worthy use of their strengths, their abilities. M. Yu. Lermontov set himself the task of showing in the novel the person of his day as he really is, without hiding his vices and shortcomings. At the same time, the author himself counts among those whom he is going to subject to careful analysis and discussion: “Enough people were fed with sweets; their stomachs deteriorated from this: they need bitter medicines, caustic truths. But do not think ... that the author of this book had ... the dream of becoming a corrector of human vices. God save him from such ignorance! He just had fun drawing a modern person as he understands him, and ... he met too often. There will also be the fact that the disease is indicated, but how to cure it - God knows! "
Pechorin is the true son of his era - the time of doubts and searches, the intense work of thought, subjecting everything to careful analysis, trying to penetrate into the origins of good and evil. He is constantly in a state of duality of spirit, his every step is accompanied by careful introspection: "There are two people in me: one lives in the full sense of the word, the other thinks and judges him ...".
Pechorin is always aware of his actions, and he formulates the program of his life behavior: "... I look at the sufferings and joys of others only in relation to myself, as food that supports my mental strength." He quite consciously follows this path only in order to forget, at least for a while, about the boredom that overwhelms him, about the oppressive emptiness of his existence. Pechorin “sacrifices nothing” for the sake of other people, even for those he loves, because he also loves for himself, for his own pleasure. Our hero laughs at everything in the world, for him there are no shrines, no faith, no ideal. But let's not forget that Pechorin himself suffers from this. And no matter how immoral his deeds are, in them one cannot fail to notice the consistency of the principle he has chosen. He will not hide from himself or from others the true nature of his actions, he will not humiliate himself with hypocrisy, he will not blame anyone or unfortunate circumstances. There is something really heroic in this, making you feel respect for the hero.
Why does M. Yu. Lermontov call Pechorin "a hero of our time"? The author of the novel himself gives the answer to this question: “ This book has experienced ... the unhappy gullibility of some readers ... to the literal meaning of words. Some were terribly offended ... that they were given an example of such an immoral person ... others ... noticed that the writer had painted his own portrait ...
A Hero of Our Time ... a portrait, but not of one person: this is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development».
Thus, the author himself leads us to a true understanding of the "heroism" of his character: Pecho-rin is not at all a role model, he is only a bright representative of his difficult era, in this sense, perhaps, he is a real hero of his time.
"A Hero of Our Time" is the last great work of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, which was published in full in the year of his death. However, taking into account the entire logic of the development of the writer's genius, it can be assumed that if his life had not been cut short so early, this would have been only the beginning. Lermontov promised to grow into a major Russian prose writer, since nothing equal to this work then existed in Russian literature.
Preface that changed the perception of the work
Lermontov began to think about prose in the late thirties. In 1940 the first edition of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" was published, and a year later - the second. They were distinguished by the preface, which Mikhail Yurievich added in the second version. In it, he expressed several important thoughts. First of all, all suspicions about the identification of the author with the character of the work that Lermontov wrote - "A Hero of Our Time" are swept aside here. "Pechorin is not me!" - says Mikhail Yurievich. He emphasizes that he is writing the novel not about himself, but about the hero of his time.
The second comment, contained in the preface, also shifted many of the accents of the work's perception. Lermontov mentions the naivety of the public, which is always waiting for direct conclusions or morality. Who is the "hero of our time"? Pechorin or someone else? Here Mikhail Yuryevich openly mocks those who hope to see answers to their questions at the end of the work.
"Hero of our time". Pechorin's analysis and his understanding of the meaning of life
In this work, Lermontov makes an attempt - consistent, clear and very large-scale - to answer the question of what type of personality, character is the bearer of the key properties of time. And how are such qualities motivated by external conditions? Why is Pechorin a "hero of our time" and why does he live during this period?
The work contains a very complex meaning. The fact is that the "hero of our time" Pechorin is not so much motivated by external conditions as, on the contrary, opposed to them. The novel contains a minimum of facts, references to history, to a large state scale of events.
The character seems to exist separately from the events taking place at this time. And he lives a very incomprehensible life. It is not clear what he is striving for. Does he make a career, does he want to get another rank, to meet true love. There are no answers to these questions.
The image of the main character created by others
How the personality of this character differs from other images of the work "A Hero of Our Time" shows him as a person who constantly contradicts himself. And nevertheless, the reader still understands his logic, and what kind of person he is, in principle. The difficulties of the character of the main character, this elusive "hero of the time", correspond to the complexity of looking at him.
Mikhail Yuryevich creates a very complex system that combines different storytellers and witnesses who describe events. As a result, the reader does not approach the answers to his questions, but as if, on the contrary, moves away from them.
There are descriptions of the events seen by Maksim Maksimovich, a rather simple-minded officer. He lives next to Pechorin and treats him with deep sympathy, but sees in him not the person he really is. The complex contradictory image of the main character is presented throughout the entire novel through the eyes of various characters, including himself.
The personality is lonely and deep in itself
Not only the main, but also a rather complex character in the work "A Hero of Our Time" - Pechorin. The characteristic of his personality is created with the help of the people around him. And when they analyze this person from the outside, sometimes their opinions do not coincide with his own point of view. Since, for example, Maxim notices in him much more than he himself. Observes those properties that are not visible to him.
And so it happens with every person who, like the character of the novel "Hero of Our Time" Pechorin, is deep in himself. He has almost no friends, with the exception of Dr. Werner. And it is very important that just an outside observer can see the main thing in this personality, its best qualities.
Riddle of the character of the main character
What is the chief Pechorin constantly busy with? He is absorbed in a constant search for himself. And in most cases they turn out to be a search for love, passion, truly close, cordial, friendly relations with a woman.
Alone with himself, this is very Any of his actions gives rise to opposition. Any action turns out to be not the result that he expected. He is like a director who builds his life and sees himself constantly from the outside. And all this is painful and destructive for the individual. After all, it is unnatural to constantly think about yourself.
The author's special intention in the work
Mikhail Yurievich is absolutely original. Drawing on familiar literary schemes, he offers the reader something completely different. Each event in the novel is seen from different points of view, and none is dominant.
To understand Lermontov's work, it is necessary to arrange the stories included in the novel "A Hero of Our Time" in the sequence of real events. Mikhail Yurievich is building his own author's chronology, which is different from the reality of what is happening. This sets a special artistic logic for the development of the concept of depicting a "hero of our time" - a person who embodies the essence of that period.
What else is characteristic of the work "A Hero of Our Time"? Pechorin's quotes, present throughout the novel, are filled with deep meaning and reveal the essence of the character's character. Not being able to apply his energy and talent outside, to direct his aspirations to some external object, he closes them in on himself. And every time he acts as the executioner of those people whom he loves.
The key to the character of the protagonist
The reader analyzes why Pechorin is a "hero of our time" throughout the entire work, but the philosophical key to his image is in the story "The Fatalist". It is no coincidence that it encompasses the entire novel. Here lies the confidence that fate cannot be contradicted, everything is predetermined in advance. And the predictions in the story come true in a strange way. And at the same time, Pechorin every time, being sure of the fatality of the events taking place, confronts them.
This is a person who intervenes in events, tries to change them, while at the same time convinced that this is an absolutely useless activity. A completely incomprehensible person, whose every act guarantees the opposite result, and the desire for activity ultimately contains powerlessness.
The author's invisible presence in the novel
Contemporaries could rethink situations, facts, details of everyday life thanks to the novel. For example, the duel with Grushnitsky, which is of great importance in the context of the work. Such a duel for the nineteenth century is a significant attribute of noble life. And it is very important to rethink the dueling code, which is given in the novel "A Hero of Our Time".
This wonderful work was written a year before the death of the poet, but involuntarily it seems that it describes the story of an impending duel. The author himself is invisibly present in the image of the hero, but he also endowed Grushnitsky with the character and appearance of Nikolai Solomonovich Martynov.
The novel "A Hero of Our Time" became the beginning of an entire literary tradition. Without this work and those artistic discoveries that Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov came to, perhaps there would not have been the best novels of Turgenev, Tolstoy. It is this work that begins a new era in Russian literature, where prose and especially the genre of the novel dominate.
It is always interesting to think about why the author named his work in a particular way. For example, Mikhail Lermontov decided to name his work "A Hero of Our Time", it is quite clear that by the hero of all the time that he described, the writer understands the main character of the whole work - a young man named Pechorin. It is worth noting that not all of those , who even carefully read this work, really understand why Pechorin can be called the hero of the time described. Therefore, this requires additional research and analysis.
However, for me personally, such an analysis is not at all difficult to do. It should be firmly aware that the hero is not always a popular and well-known person who enjoys universal love, respect and understanding. Very often a person can be considered a hero, she opposed herself to the time of her life, really, really stood out from the crowd and was not like anyone else. This can be said with confidence about Pechorin. So what was it about the main character of the work of Mikhail Lermontov? What qualities should he have and of these qualities became the main one?
It should be noted right away that Pechorin was a very talented person. Whatever he conceived, almost everything he succeeded. Such people sometimes exist, but not always they can be called a hero of a certain era. Pechorin could well have become a respected person recognized in society, but society rejected him. Instead of virtue, society found in him deceit, traits that were not really characteristic of this young man. Then he changed, he became what was previously seen in him - he became soulless, insidious and vindictive. He neglected that society, in where he was and lived. One could even say that he threw this society a bold challenge to a brave man. Of course, society simply does not let anyone down, and therefore Pechorin faced an angry reaction from many people, he had to overcome this reaction. It is worth saying that very often he succeeded in full measure. Despite the tragic outcome, the fate of Pechorin can be called outstanding, deserves every interest and attention.
Each time has its own heroes. Heroes can be both positive and negative, and it also happens that the quality of the hero cannot be determined at all. A similar situation is typical for the main character of Mikhail Lermontov's work "A Hero of Our Time" Pechorin. On the one hand, this person was neglected and not recognized in society. On the other hand, he has achieved real success, which is almost impossible to challenge or question in any way. All this allows us to conclude that Pechorin is indeed a hero of our time.
Of course, I will not be original if I say that M.Yu. Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time" is one of the masterpieces of Russian literature. The thoughts expressed by the author and the images created by him interested me unusually. In my opinion, Lermontov's novel continues to be modern today, despite the fact that more than one hundred and fifty years have passed since its writing. But the role of the novel was especially great in the Lermontov era. To better understand this, it is necessary to have a good idea of the socio-political situation in Russia in the 30s of the XIX century.
The time of the 30s of the XIX century is traditionally associated with the strengthening of the reaction on the part of the tsarist government. Indeed, the failed Decembrist uprising divided Russia into "before" and "after". Together with him, the hopes of most of the young people for the possibility of any changes perished, and the very need for them was no longer as clear as it was in the 1920s. That is why the entire Lermontov era is an era of deepest doubt in all moral values. Of course, this could not but affect the work of M.Yu. Lermontov. The proof of this is the poem Duma, written in 1838, which can be called the preface to the novel. This poem breathes with complete disappointment in life, in all the spiritual values of a person, and it ends with terrible lines that have become, in fact, a sentence to the entire generation:
In a crowd gloomy and soon forgotten
We will pass over the world without noise or trace,
Without abandoning for centuries a fertile thought.
Not the genius of the work begun.
So, the novel "A Hero of Our Time" was completed in 1841, that is, just before Lermontov's death. The merit and innovation of the author lies in the fact that his work was the first Russian psychological novel. The main goal is clearly formulated in the preface: to show a modern person as he really is, to highlight all his vices and shortcomings. This intention may seem too impudent at first glance. Indeed, talking about the shortcomings of others is not an occupation worthy of a great artist, but the fact of the matter is that the author counts himself as one of those whom he wants to subject to merciless condemnation. Consequently, he has every right to point out the “illness” of the generation, especially since no one but him dared to do this.
The author himself defines that "The hero of our time ... is a portrait made up of the vices of the whole ... generation, in their full development."
The main character of the novel, Pechorin, seemed to me the most interesting, and I would like to dwell on him. As for the other characters in the novel, all of them, in my opinion, have a very specific purpose - to help reveal more fully the character of the protagonist. The composition of the novel serves the same purpose. The fact is that the short stories are shifted in time, that is, they do not correspond to the chronology of the development of events in Pechorin's life. However, their order in the novel contributes to the gradual acquaintance of the reader with the hero, and, consequently, to a better understanding of his personality.
Pechorin is a typical son of his time. Like many young people of the 30s, he bears the heavy stamp of reflection, which has become the main feature of his nature. I think that no one will doubt that it is Pechorin who is the hero of the time. In my opinion, this is a very honorable "title", because the word "hero" itself already implies unusualness, exclusivity. Indeed, Pechorin is the best representative of his era, but the price for this is his loneliness.
There are many techniques for revealing a literary image. Lermontov resorts to diaries. The benefit of this technique is in the sincerity of the hero, who reveals the most secret corners of his soul in his diaries. This is precisely what is said in the preface to Pechorin's journal. The novel reveals the "history of the human soul", which, according to the author, "is almost more curious and not more useful than the history of an entire people."
In the first chapter of the novel, the reader sees Pechorin through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych, that is, in a somewhat simplified form. Maxim Maksimych himself is a surprisingly kind and open person, who, according to V.G. Belinsky, a typical representative of the Russian people. However, he is not able to fully understand the complex character of Pechorin, whom, despite this, he loves very much and considers his friend. The role of Maxim Maksimych is significant, because he concentrates in himself those qualities that are completely absent in Pechorin.
In "Bela" the fundamental detail of Pechorin's personality is manifested - his inconsistency. It seems to me that this testifies to the extraordinary breadth of the hero's nature. Here, for the first time, his selfishness is also noticeable, however, in my opinion, it does not resemble the selfishness of small children. Pechorin makes the people around him do as he wants, suppressing them with his superiority. It is this superiority that they often cannot forgive Pechorin, which is why he is alone.
In the following parts of the novel, the complexity of the image of Pechorin increases, but I will allow myself to analyze in detail each of them, moving on to a more detailed examination of the character of the protagonist as a whole. I would like to cite some of the positive features of Pechorin, revealing, in my opinion, an exceptional person in him, with a sharp and critical mind. I will make a reservation right away that the identification of both positive and negative aspects in the character of the hero is very conditional, but this can help to clarify it more fully.
So, firstly, Pechorin is an intelligent and educated person. Condemning others, he is critical of himself. In his notes, he confesses such properties of his soul that no one knows about. Secondly, in favor of the hero is also the fact that he is a poetic nature, subtly feeling nature. This is evidenced by the remarkable description of the landscape at the beginning of the short story "Princess Mary": "The air is clean and fresh, like the kiss of a child; the sun is bright, the sky is blue - what would seem to be more? Why are there passions, desires, regrets? .. ”Isn't it true that only a person with the soul of a poet is capable of such a comparison?
The positive qualities of Pechorin include his remarkable ability to feel people. He instantly guesses what is happening in the soul of each person. Proof of this is his acquaintance with Werner, a man also unusually perceptive, in many ways similar to Pechorin.
There is no doubt that Pechorin is a brave man, which manifested itself during the duel. Maybe his courage is partly due to the lack of purpose in life, but that's another story.
What attracted me the most was the honesty and decency of the protagonist. Despite the unpleasant story with Princess Mary, Pechorin told the truth at the most decisive moment, although it was not easy. By the way, in the same episode, his willpower was unusually manifested.
For a more vivid depiction of Pechorin's positive qualities, such a character as G "rushnitsky was introduced into the novel. With his obviously dishonest actions, he sets off the most attractive features of the protagonist.
As for the negative aspects in the image of Pechorin, this is primarily his individualism, which develops into egocentrism. Of course, you can blame Pechorin himself for it, but if you think about it, where are its origins hidden?
In my opinion, the reasons for Pechorin's egoism are both the sterility of education, which is not aimed at useful goals, and the lack of real opportunities to apply enormous mental strength to something. However, it seems to me that the main reason is the doubt that was the hallmark of the generation of the 30s.
I had to doubt everything, and the only measure of what was happening was only my own "I". That is why Pechorin approached absolutely everything in life only through his ego.
In my opinion, Pechorin cannot be blamed for becoming what we see him in the novel. I believe that he is rather worthy of pity and compassion. Pechorin lacks understanding and love, and with his idea of happiness, which, by the way, was formed under the influence of light, he would never be happy. The "extinct" half of his soul appears only once in the novel, when Pechorin, having lost Vera, realized that the last ray of light in his life had gone out. But even after that, Pechorin did not break down. He continued to consider himself the master of his destiny, he wanted to take it in hand, and this is noticeable in the final novel of the novel - "Fatalist".
In conclusion, I would like to say that V.G. Belinsky compared the soul of Pechorin with the earth dried up by the heat, which, after the "blessed rains", could give birth to beautiful flowers. I dare not agree with the opinion of the great critic. In my opinion, Pechorin's soul was completely deformed and it is impossible to make him fall in love.