The novel by M. Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time" was released in 1840. The writer wrote the main work of his life for two years, publishing it on the pages of the popular magazine Otechestvennye zapiski. This essay became significant not only in his work, but also in Russian literature as a whole, because this book became the first bold and at the same time successful experience of a detailed psychological analysis of the main character. The composition of the narrative itself was also unusual, which turned out to be torn. All these features of the work attracted the attention of critics, readers, and also made it a standard in its genre.
Design
Lermontov's novel did not arise from scratch. The author relied on both foreign and domestic sources, which inspired him to create an ambiguous character and an unusual plot. Mikhail Yuryevich's book is very similar in concept to Eugene Onegin by Pushkin, although it is written in a more dramatic style. In addition, the writer relied on foreign experience in creating the hero's inner world. The psychological novel was already known in Europe. "A Hero of Our Time" can be defined as a psychological novel due to the author's close attention to the behavior and mood of Pechorin.
Such features were especially vividly manifested in the work of the French enlightener Rousseau. You can also draw parallels between the author's composition and the works of Byron, Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. Creating his original composition, the author was guided primarily by the realities of his time, which is reflected in the title. According to the writer himself, he strove to create a general portrait of his generation - young intelligent people who cannot occupy themselves with anything and spend their energy on useless activities that harm both themselves and those around them.
Features of the composition
Lermontov's novel has an unusual construction in comparison with other works of a similar kind. Firstly, the chronological sequence of the events taking place is violated in it; secondly, the story is told by several characters, including the protagonist himself. This technique was not chosen by the author by chance. He deliberately began the story from the middle of Pechorin's life. The reader gets an idea about him from the words of a stranger, his former colleague Maksim Maksimych. Then the writer shows him through the eyes of the narrator, who saw him briefly, but nevertheless managed to form a generally correct idea about him.
Hero image
Since the psychological novel involves a detailed analysis of the character's inner world, the last two parts are written on behalf of Pechorin himself in the form of diary entries. Thus, the reader sees the character at different moments in his life, which outwardly seem to be in no way connected with each other. So Lermontov achieved the effect of the disruption of time, trying to show the purposelessness of the existence of his character, who at different periods of his life demonstrates himself not from the best sides.
Comparison with Onegin
The genre of the work "A Hero of Our Time" is a psychological novel. This essay, as mentioned above, was the first experience in Russian literature in creating a new type of character - the so-called superfluous person. However, even before Lermontov, some writers created a character who did not fit into the established socio-political framework of Russian reality in the first half of the 19th century. The most striking example is Eugene Onegin, who, like Pechorin, was a nobleman and just as unsuccessfully tried to find at least some use of his powers and abilities. However, if Pushkin portrayed his character with good-natured humor, then Lermontov emphasized the dramatic component. The psychological novel by Mikhail Yuryevich became one of the most significant works of that time.
Feature of the image of Pechorin
Through the lips of his hero, he angrily criticizes the vices of his contemporary society, bitterly ridicules the shortcomings of the world around him. This is a characteristic feature of Pechorin's image - he does not spend idle time like Onegin in the village, his attitude to life is quite active, he not only criticizes the negative aspects of the society in which he rotates, but also acts, subjecting those around him to a kind of psychological tests.
First part
The genre of the work "A Hero of Our Time" also determined the peculiarity of the construction of the text of the novel. The author set himself the goal of breaking the tradition of Russian literature, founded by Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, which assumed an adventurous plot and a dynamic narration. Lermontov focused on a detailed analysis of the inner state of his hero. First of all, he was interested in explaining the reasons for the strange, unusual, contradictory behavior of Pechorin. The first attempt to clarify the character of the young officer was made by Maxim Maksimych, the commander of the Caucasian fortress, where Pechorin served.
The good captain sincerely tried to give at least some explanation for the eccentric actions of his colleague: the abduction of Bela, his love for her and the rapid cooling of feelings, his apparent, seeming indifference to her terrible death. However, Maxim Maksimych, a very simple and ingenuous person, could not understand the reason for Pechorin's emotional throwings. He only says to the narrator that the latter seemed to him a very strange person, since his appearance was followed by a whole chain of strange and tragic events.
Portrait
At school literature lessons, it is very important that students understand the genre of the work "A Hero of Our Time". This book is a psychological portrait of Pechorin, which, in turn, is a collective portrait of the modern writer of the younger generation. The second part of the work is interesting in that in it the reader sees Pechorin through the eyes of a person of the same social status, age, education and upbringing. Therefore, the narrator's description of this character deserves special attention, because, despite the fluency of the inspection and the brevity of the meeting, it is more correct than the captain's explanations. An important fact is that the narrator describes not only the appearance, but also tries to guess the state of mind of Pechorin, and he partly succeeds in this. This is what explains the fact why the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is called psychological. The narrator notices in the character of Pechorin such traits as thoughtfulness, relaxation and fatigue. Moreover, he notes that it was not physical, but mental decline. The author pays special attention to the expression of his eyes, which shone with some kind of phosphoric light and did not smile when he himself laughed.
Meeting
The culmination of this part is the description of Pechorin's meeting with the captain. The latter longed for this meeting, he hurried to the young officer as to an old friend, but he met with a rather cool welcome. The old captain was very offended. However, the author, who later published Pechorin's diary entries, noted that after reading them, he understood a lot in the character of the character, who analyzed in detail his own actions and shortcomings. This is what makes it possible to understand why the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is called psychological. However, in the scene of the meeting with Maxim Maksimych, the reader may be surprised and even reproach the character for such indifference. In this episode, the sympathy is entirely on the side of the old captain.
The story "Taman"
This work opens the beginning of Pechorin's diary entries. In it, a young officer not only tells about an eccentric adventure in a small sea town, but also analyzes his behavior. He himself is surprised at his irrepressible thirst for life, noting that he has purposely and senselessly intervened in the life of smugglers.
The character's desire to participate in the lives of the people around him, even if against their will, is the main theme in this case. "A Hero of Our Time" is a novel that focuses not so much on the description of external events as on a detailed analysis of the internal state of the characters. In the second part, Pechorin witnesses the machinations of the smugglers and rather inadvertently reveals his secret. As a result, he was almost drowned, and the gang was forced to flee from their homes. Thus, the Pechorins' attempt to understand their own inappropriate behavior is the main theme in the second part. "A Hero of Our Time" is interesting in that it consistently reveals the image of the character from the most different and unexpected sides.
"Princess Mary"
This is perhaps the most important and interesting part in the work. It is in this part that the character is fully revealed. The action takes place on the medicinal Caucasian waters.
A young officer, in order to tease his friend Grushnitsky, falls in love with the young princess Mary. Despite the fact that he himself is not indifferent to her, nevertheless he is not able to really love her. Pechorin in the novel "A Hero of Our Time" in this story shows himself from the most disadvantageous side. He not only deceives the girl, but also kills Grushnitsky in a duel. At the same time, it is in this part that Grigory Alexandrovich most mercilessly exposes his shortcomings. Here he explains his character: according to him, aimless pastime, lack of friends, sympathy and understanding led to the fact that he became bitter, spiteful and unsociable. At the same time, he concludes that "the human heart is strange in general." He relates his statement not only to those around him, but also to himself.
Pechorin in the novel "A Hero of Our Time" in this story is fully revealed. The most interesting is his record of reflections on the eve of the duel with Grushnitsky, in which he sums up his life. The young officer claims that his life undoubtedly made sense, but that he never managed to understand it.
Love line
Better understanding of the hero is helped by his relationship with women. There are three love stories in the novel, each of which reveals the personality of a young officer from different angles. The first one is associated with the Bela line. By nature, she was a freedom-loving girl, as she grew up in the mountains among the Caucasian tribes.
Therefore, Pechorin's rapid cooling to her actually killed her. The novel "A Hero of Our Time", the female characters of which make it possible to better understand the psychological portrait of the character, is devoted to a detailed explanation of the behavior of a young officer. In the second part, there is also a love line, but it is rather superficial.
Nevertheless, it was this plot that served as the basis for the intrigue in the second story. The hero himself does not know how to evaluate his own actions: “I am a fool or a villain, I don’t know,” he says about himself. The reader sees that Pechorin is well versed in the psychology of the people around him: he immediately guesses the character of the stranger. At the same time, he is prone to adventurous adventures, which he himself admits, which led to a strange denouement.
The work "A Hero of Our Time", whose female characters are interesting in that they somehow influenced the fate of Pechorin, ends with the last love line of the officer and the princess. The latter became interested in the original character of Pechorin, but did not manage to fully understand him. In the same story, there is a description of the relationship between Grigory Alexandrovich and Princess Vera, who understood his character better than anyone else. So, the first psychological novel in Russian literature was the work "A Hero of Our Time". The main character's quotes show him as a complex and ambiguous person.
The great literary genius M. Yu. Lermontov is known not only as an outstanding poet, but also as a genius writer who created many prose works. One of the author's greatest works is his novel, which reflects the historical events of that time, the psychologism of the hero, who became a truly outstanding representative of that era. We offer a brief analysis of the work according to the plan, the material of which can be useful for working in literature lessons in grade 9, and in preparation for the exam.
Brief analysis
Year of writing- 1838 - 1840
History of creation- The very history of the creation of this work is interesting. When the author, having read "Eugene Onegin" by A.S. Pushkin, inspired by his ideas, decided to write something like that, striking the minds of his contemporaries, Lermontov created "A Hero of Our Time."
Composition- The peculiarities of the composition of the novel are that it is created from several stories, the events of which are not observed in chronological order.
genre- The genre "Hero of Our Time" can be attributed to a psychologically - social novel, in which several genres are combined - this is an essay, a story, a story, a short story, combined into one whole.
Direction- Romanticism.
History of creation
The very history of the creation of "A Hero of Our Time" does not store the exact documentary date when this novel was started.
The author thought about creating a novel for a long time, and worked on it for a long time. He wanted to establish himself in the literary field, creating a work that could surprise his contemporaries. The impressions made on the writer from reading "Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin, gave confidence in their own abilities, and tuned in to a creative mood.
While in exile in the Caucasus, having visited many Cossack villages, villages of the mountaineers, the writer determined the storyline of his plan and began work. The created parts of the novel were published as separate works; the entire novel was published in print in 1840, which was the year of writing.
Topic
The author made the title of the book to say - "A Hero of Our Time" In the image of Grigory Pechorin, Lermontov wanted to show the thoughts and feelings of that generation, collecting in it the characteristics of young people of that era - this is the meaning of the title of the book!
Each of his contemporary can be Pechorin!
Main theme“The hero of our time” is an extra person. Pechorin is much smarter and more far-sighted than the others, but this is his trouble. The people around him may not be so smart and far-sighted, but they live with real feelings: they love, suffer, sympathize. Pechorin considers himself above all this: he is a cold, calculating and cynical young man, not subject to emotions.
Lermontov's work "A Hero of Our Time" was created in the era of "timelessness". The socio-political background of this novel makes it clear that the state, which destroyed active and progressive young people striving to change the outdated way of life, killed all aspirations in the next generation.
The active Decembrists, appealing to bright ideals, were replaced by a new, lost generation, disillusioned with high aspirations in serving the motherland, and satiated with secular life.
Meaning"A Hero of Our Time" is a revealing display of the era, a warning to future generations. This is a vivid example of how you can be an intelligent, educated person, but lose yourself, the essence of your existence.
Relationship issues Pechorin with society reveals different facets of his character, the hero evokes both antipathies and sympathy for his personality, this is where the psychologism of the entire work as a whole manifested itself.
Composition
Analyzing the work in A Hero of Our Time, it is necessary to disassemble the composition of the novel. Its main feature is the chronological inconsistency of episodes. The parts of the novel follow out of order, the actions that take place in them are completely inconsistent. In such an expressive way, the author expresses the main idea of the novel. Such an extraordinary idea of the author leads the reader to the conclusion that the fate of a person does not depend on the surrounding events and their sequence, but depends only on his mind.
The inconsistent arrangement of each chapter leads to the fact that the reader reveals the hidden corners of Pechorin's soul, is imbued with his consciousness, and the depth of his problems.
In the construction of the plot of the novel there is no exposition, as well as a general climax. Each of the chapters lives its own life, having its own structure. Each individual story has its own culmination, only the denouement, that is, the death of the protagonist, is common.
The composition of the novel is very complex in its construction, the combination of different genres of narration under one "heading" has become a new step in literary creativity. It was this construction of the novel, a deep and gradual understanding of Pechorin's essence, which caused genuine delight of the reading public.
Critics noted the similarity of the heroes of Pechorin and Onegin. What the poet's work teaches remains always relevant - to find the meaning of life and purposefully follow the goal.
main characters
genre
The romantic direction is present in all stories, its genre originality, including the inconsistency of chronology, the characterization of the hero, given from different positions - all this defines the work of the writer as a socio-psychological novel. The novel includes stories of different genres of literature, such as: a travel sketch, where elements of the novel are present, and a story in the form of a diary, and a secular story. Earlier in Russian literature, this method was used - the creation of several stories included in the collection under the authorship of one storyteller, Lermontov transformed and supplemented this method, transforming the cycle of several stories into one common work. This is how a psychological romance arose.
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The novel consists of several parts, the chronological order of which is violated. This arrangement serves special artistic purposes: in particular, at first Pechorin is shown through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych, and only then we see him from the inside, according to entries from the diary
- Foreword
- PART ONE
- I. Bela
- II. Maxim Maksimych
- Pechorin's Journal
- Foreword
- I. Taman
- PART TWO ( The end of Pechorin's journal)
- II. Princess Mary
- III. Fatalist
Chronological order of parts
- Taman
- Princess Mary
- Fatalist
- Maxim Maksimych
- Preface to "Pechorin's Journal"
Five years pass between the events of Bela and Pechorin's meeting with Maksim Maksimych in front of the narrator in Maksim Maksimych.
Also in some scientific publications "Bela" and "Fatalist" change places.
Plot
Bela
It is an embedded story: the story is led by Maxim Maksimych, who tells his story to an unnamed officer he met in the Caucasus. Pechorin, bored in the mountainous wilderness, begins his service by stealing someone else's horse (thanks to Azamat's help) and kidnapping Bela, the beloved daughter of the local prince (also with the help of Azamat in exchange for Kazbich's horse), which causes a corresponding reaction from the highlanders. But Pechorin does not care about this. The imprudent act of the young officer is followed by a collapse of dramatic events: Azamat leaves the family forever, Bela and her father are killed by Kazbich.
"Maxim Maksimych"
This part is adjacent to "Bela", has no independent novelistic significance, but for the composition of the novel it is entirely important. Here the reader only meets Pechorin face to face. The meeting of old friends did not take place: it is rather a fleeting conversation with the desire of one of the interlocutors to end it as soon as possible.
The story is based on the contrast of two opposite characters - Pechorin and Maksim Maksimych. The portrait is given through the eyes of an officer-storyteller. In this chapter, an attempt is made to unravel the "inner" Pechorin through the external "speaking" features.
"Taman"
The story tells not about Pechorin's reflection, but shows him from an active, active side. Here Pechorin unexpectedly becomes a witness of gangster activity. At first, he thinks that a person who sailed from the other side is risking his life for something really valuable, but in reality he is just a smuggler. Pechorin is very disappointed with this. But all the same, leaving, he does not regret that he visited this place.
The main meaning in the final words of the hero: “And why was fate to throw me into a peaceful circle honest smugglers? Like a stone thrown into a smooth spring, I disturbed their calmness and, like a stone, I almost sank myself! "
"Princess Mary"
The story is written in the form of a diary. In terms of life material, "Princess Mary" is closest to the so-called "secular story" of the 1830s, but Lermontov filled it with a different meaning.
The story begins with Pechorin's arrival in Pyatigorsk at the healing waters, where he meets Princess Ligovskaya and her daughter, called Mary in the English manner. In addition, here he meets his former love Vera and friend Grushnitsky. Juncker Grushnitsky, a poser and secret careerist, acts as a contrasting character to Pechorin.
During his stay in Kislovodsk and Pyatigorsk, Pechorin falls in love with Princess Mary and quarrels with Grushnitsky. He kills Grushnitsky in a duel and refuses Princess Mary. On suspicion of a duel, he is exiled again, this time to the fortress. There he meets Maxim Maksimych.
"Fatalist"
It takes place in the Cossack village where Pechorin comes. He sits at a party, the company plays cards. Soon they get tired of it and start a conversation about predestination and fatalism, in which some believe, some do not. A dispute ensues between Vulich and Pechorin: Pechorin says that he sees obvious death on Vulich's face. As a result of the argument, Vulich takes a pistol and shoots himself, but a misfire occurs. Everyone goes home. Soon Pechorin learns about Vulich's death: he was hacked to death with a saber by a drunken Cossack. Then Pechorin decides to try fate and catch the Cossack. He breaks into his house, the Cossack shoots, but by. Pechorin grabs the Cossack, comes to Maxim Maksimych and tells him everything.
Main characters
Pechorin
Pechorin is a Petersburg resident. Military, both in rank and in soul. He comes to Pyatigorsk from the capital. His departure to the Caucasus is connected with "some adventures." In the fortress, where the action of "Bela" takes place, he ends up after a duel with Grushnitsky, at the age of twenty-three. There he is in the rank of ensign. He was probably transferred from the guard to the army infantry or army dragoons.
The meeting with Maxim Maksimych takes place five years after the story with Bela, when Pechorin is already 28.
The surname Pechorin, derived from the name of the Pechora river, has a semantic affinity with the surname Onegin. Pechorin is a natural successor of Onegin, but Lermontov goes further: as r. Pechora north of the river. Onega, and the character of Pechorin is more individualistic than the character of Onegin.
The image of Pechorin
The image of Pechorin is one of Lermontov's artistic discoveries. The Pechorin type is truly epoch-making, and above all because in it they received a concentrated expression of the peculiarities of the post-Kabrist era, when on the surface "only losses, a cruel reaction were visible," while inside, "great work was being done ... deaf and silent, but active and uninterrupted ..." (Herzen, VII, 209-211). Pechorin is an extraordinary and controversial personality. He may complain of a draft, and after a while he will jump with a saber head on at the enemy. The image of Pechorin according to the chapter “Maksim Maksimych”: “He was of average height; his slender, slender stature and broad shoulders proved his strong build, capable of enduring all the difficulties of nomadic life and climate change, not defeated by the debauchery of metropolitan life, nor by spiritual storms ... ”.
Publication
- Bela was written in the city. The first publication was in Otechestvennye zapiski, March, vol. 2, no. 3.
- The Fatalist was first published in Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1839, v. 6, no. 11.
- Taman was first published in Otechestvennye zapiski in 1840, v. 8, No. 2.
- "Maxim Maksimych" first appeared in print in the 1st separate edition of the novel in g.
- "Princess Mary" first appeared in the 1st edition of the novel.
- The "Preface" was written in St. Petersburg in the spring of the year and first appeared in the second edition of the novel.
Illustrations
The book has been illustrated many times by famous artists, including Mikhail Vrubel (1890-1891), Ilya Repin, Eugene Lansere, Valentin Serov (1891), Leonid Feinberg, Mikhail Zichy (), Pyotr Boklevsky, Dementy Shmarinov (1941), Nikolai Dubovsky (1890 ) and Vladimir Bekhteev (1939).
Origins and predecessors
- Lermontov deliberately overcame the adventurous romantic tradition of novels on the Caucasian theme, set by Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky.
- Alfred de Musset's novel "Confessions of the Son of the Century" was published in 1836 and also tells about "illness", meaning "the vices of a generation."
- Rousseau tradition and the development of a motive for the love of a European for the "savage". For example, by Byron, as well as Pushkin's "Gypsies" and "Prisoner of the Caucasus".
- Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", "Prisoner of the Caucasus", "The Captain's Daughter" and so on.
Adjacent works of Lermontov
Geography of the novel
The novel is set in the Caucasus. The main place is Pyatigorsk.
Caucasian peoples in the novel
Lermontov, being an officer of the Russian army, which was fighting in the Caucasus, was very familiar with both army life and the way of life and customs of the local population. When writing the novel, this knowledge was widely used by the writer; the picture of life in the Caucasus in the 1830s was reproduced in great detail, both by describing the traditions of the local population and the relationship between Russians and Caucasians. Already at the beginning of "Bela" Maksim Maksimych shows the characteristic look of the Russian officer at the local population, as at "Asians-rogues who tear money for vodka from passers-by." Kabardians and Chechens are defined by Maksim Maksimych as "robbers and naked, but desperate heads", while they are opposed to the Ossetians, whom the captain describes as "a stupid people, incapable of any education, in which you will not even see a decent dagger on anyone." ...
In more detail in "Bela" Lermontov dwells on the life of the Circassians, in fact, almost this entire chapter is devoted to this.
Screen adaptations
| Year | Production | Name | Director | Pechorin | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goskinprom of Georgia | Princess Mary | Vladimir Barsky | Nikolay Prozorovsky | ||
| Goskinprom of Georgia | Bela | Vladimir Barsky | Nikolay Prozorovsky | Black and white, silent costume drama based on the chapter of the same name from the novel | |
| Goskinprom of Georgia | Maxim Maksimych | Vladimir Barsky | Nikolay Prozorovsky | Black and white, silent costume drama based on the chapters "Maxim Maksimych", "Taman" and "Fatalist" from the novel | |
| Film studio them. M. Gorky | Princess Mary | Isidor Annensky | Anatoly Verbitsky | Feature Film | |
| Film studio them. M. Gorky | Hero of our time | Stanislav Rostotsky | Vladimir Ivashov (dubbed by Vyacheslav Tikhonov) | Dilogy of two films - "Bela" and "Maksim Maksimych. Taman " | |
| Central Heating System of the USSR | Pechorin magazine pages | Anatoly Efros | Oleg Dal | Film performance | |
| Central Partnership | Hero of our time | Alexander Kott | Igor Petrenko | TV series | |
| Film studio "Globus" | Pechorin | Roman Khrushch | Stanislav Ryadinsky | Feature Film |
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An excerpt characterizing a Hero of our time
Finally, the sovereign stopped beside his last lady (he danced with three), the music stopped; the preoccupied adjutant ran up to the Rostovs, asking them to step aside somewhere else, although they were standing against the wall, and from the chorus came the distinct, cautious and captivatingly measured sounds of a waltz. The Emperor looked at the hall with a smile. A minute has passed - no one has started yet. The adjutant manager approached Countess Bezukhova and invited her. Smiling, she raised her hand and laid it, without looking at him, on the adjutant's shoulder. The adjutant manager, a master of his craft, confidently, unhurriedly and measuredly, hugging his lady tightly, set off with her first glide path, along the edge of the circle, at the corner of the hall, grabbed her left hand, turned it, and from the ever-faster sounds of music, only measured the clicks of the spurs of the adjutant's quick and dexterous feet, and every three beats at the turn the velvet dress of his lady flashed, as it were, fluttering. Natasha looked at them and was ready to cry that it was not she who was dancing this first round of the waltz.Prince Andrey, in his colonel's white (for cavalry) uniform, in stockings and shoes, lively and cheerful, stood in the first rows of the circle, not far from the Rostovs. Baron Firgoff spoke to him about tomorrow's supposed first meeting of the Council of State. Prince Andrey, as a person close to Speransky and participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give correct information about the meeting of tomorrow, about which there were various rumors. But he did not listen to what Firgof was telling him, and looked first at the sovereign, then at the gentlemen who were getting ready to dance, who did not dare to enter the circle.
Prince Andrew watched these gentlemen and ladies who were shy in the presence of the sovereign, and died from the desire to be invited.
Pierre went up to Prince Andrew and grabbed his hand.
- You always dance. There is my protegee [favorite], young Rostova, invite her, ”he said.
- Where? Bolkonsky asked. “I’m sorry,” he said, addressing the baron, “we’ll bring this conversation to the end in another place, but we have to dance at the ball. - He stepped forward, in the direction that Pierre indicated to him. The desperate, dying face of Natasha caught the eye of Prince Andrey. He recognized her, guessed her feelings, realized that she was a beginner, remembered her conversation at the window and with a cheerful expression went up to Countess Rostova.
“Let me introduce you to my daughter,” said the Countess, blushing.
`` I have the pleasure of being familiar, if the Countess remembers me, '' said Prince Andrey with a courteous and low bow, completely contradicting Peronskaya's remarks about his rudeness, going up to Natasha and raising his hand to hug her waist even before he finished the invitation to dance. He offered a waltz tour. That dying expression on Natasha's face, ready for despair and delight, suddenly lit up with a happy, grateful, childish smile.
“I have been waiting for you for a long time,” as if this frightened and happy girl said, with her smile that emerged from ready tears, raising her hand on the shoulder of Prince Andrey. They were the second pair to enter the circle. Prince Andrey was one of the best dancers of his time. Natasha danced beautifully. Her legs in ballroom satin shoes quickly, easily and independently of her did their job, and her face shone with delight of happiness. Her bare neck and arms were thin and ugly. Compared to Helene's, her shoulders were thin, her breasts were indefinite, her arms were thin; but Helen was already as if varnish from all the thousands of glances gliding over her body, and Natasha seemed like a girl who had been naked for the first time, and who would have been very ashamed of it if she had not been assured that it was so necessary.
Prince Andrew loved to dance, and wanting to quickly get rid of the political and intelligent conversations with which everyone turned to him, and wanting to quickly break this annoying circle of embarrassment resulting from the presence of the sovereign, he went to dance and chose Natasha, because Pierre had pointed out her to him. and because she was the first of the pretty women to catch his eye; but as soon as he embraced this thin, mobile body, and she stirred so close to him and smiled so close to him, the wine of her delight hit him in his head: he felt revived and rejuvenated when, taking a breath and leaving her, he stopped and began to look on the dancers.
After Prince Andrei, Boris approached Natasha, inviting her to dance, the dancer, the adjutant who had started the ball, and other young people approached Natasha, and Natasha, passing her unnecessary gentlemen to Sonya, happy and flushed, did not stop dancing the whole evening. She did not notice or see anything that occupied everyone at this ball. She not only did not notice how the sovereign spoke for a long time with the French envoy, how he spoke especially graciously with such and such a lady, how the prince such and such did and said how Helene had great success and received special attention from such and such; she did not even see the sovereign and noticed that he left only because after his departure the ball became more lively. One of the merry cotillions, before supper, Prince Andrey danced again with Natasha. He reminded her of their first meeting in the Otradnenskaya alley and how she could not sleep on a moonlit night, and how he could not help hearing her. Natasha blushed at this reminder and tried to justify herself, as if there was something embarrassing in the feeling in which Prince Andrew had involuntarily overheard her.
Prince Andrew, like all people who grew up in the world, loved to meet in the world that which did not have a common secular imprint. And such was Natasha, with her surprise, joy and timidity, and even mistakes in French. He treated and talked to her especially tenderly and carefully. Sitting beside her, talking to her about the simplest and most insignificant subjects, Prince Andrey admired the joyful sparkle of her eyes and her smile, which was not related to the speeches being spoken, but to her inner happiness. While Natasha was being chosen and she stood up with a smile and danced around the hall, Prince Andrey admired especially her timid grace. In the middle of the cotillion Natasha, having finished her figure, still breathing heavily, approached her place. The new gentleman invited her again. She was tired and out of breath, and apparently thought to refuse, but immediately again gaily raised her hand on the gentleman's shoulder and smiled at Prince Andrey.
“I would be glad to have a rest and sit with you, I am tired; but you see how they choose me, and I am happy about it, and I am happy, and I love everyone, and you and I understand all this, ”and this smile said a lot. When the gentleman left her, Natasha ran across the hall to take two ladies for the figures.
“If she comes up first to her cousin, and then to another lady, then she will be my wife,” Prince Andrew said quite unexpectedly to himself, looking at her. She went first to her cousin.
“What nonsense sometimes comes to mind! thought Prince Andrew; but it is only true that this girl is so sweet, so special that she will not dance here for a month and get married ... This is a rarity here, ”he thought, when Natasha, straightening the rose that had leaned back from the bodice, sat down beside him.
At the end of the cotillion, the old count, in his blue dress coat, walked up to the dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to his place and asked his daughter if she was having fun? Natasha did not answer and only smiled with such a smile, which reproachfully said: "how could you ask about this?"
- As fun as ever! She said, and Prince Andrey noticed how quickly her thin arms rose to hug her father and immediately dropped down. Natasha was as happy as never before in her life. She was at that highest stage of happiness when a person becomes completely trusting and does not believe in the possibility of evil, unhappiness and grief.
Pierre at this ball for the first time felt offended by the position that his wife occupied in the higher spheres. He was sullen and absent-minded. There was a wide fold across his forehead, and he, standing by the window, looked through his glasses, not seeing anyone.
Natasha, heading for dinner, walked past him.
Pierre's gloomy, unhappy face startled her. She stopped opposite him. She wanted to help him, to convey to him the surplus of her happiness.
“How fun, Count,” she said, “isn't it?
Pierre smiled absently, obviously not understanding what was being said to him.
“Yes, I'm very glad,” he said.
“How can they be dissatisfied with something, Natasha thought. Especially as good as this Bezukhov? " In Natasha's eyes, all those who were at the ball were equally kind, sweet, wonderful people who love each other: no one could offend each other, and therefore everyone should be happy.
The next day, Prince Andrei recalled yesterday's ball, but did not dwell on it for long with his thoughts. “Yes, the ball was very brilliant. And yet ... yes, Rostova is very nice. There is something in her that is fresh, special, not Petersburg, that distinguishes her. " That's all he thought about yesterday's ball, and after drinking tea, he sat down to work.
But from fatigue or insomnia (the day was not a good one for studies, and Prince Andrew could not do anything), he kept criticizing his own work, as it often happened to him, and was glad when he heard that someone had arrived.
The newcomer was Bitsky, who served in various commissions, who was in all societies of St. Petersburg, a passionate admirer of new ideas and Speransky and an anxious messenger of St. Petersburg, one of those people who choose a direction like a dress - fashion, but who therefore seem to be the most ardent partisans of the direction ... He anxiously, barely having time to take off his hat, ran to Prince Andrey and immediately began to speak. He had just learned the details of the meeting of the State Council this morning, opened by the sovereign, and was talking about it with enthusiasm. The sovereign's speech was extraordinary. It was one of those speeches that are only given by constitutional monarchs. “The sovereign said bluntly that the council and the senate are the essence of the state estates; he said that government should be based not on arbitrariness, but on firm principles. The sovereign said that finances must be transformed and reports must be made public, ”Bitsky said, striking at famous words and opening his eyes significantly.
“Yes, the current event is an era, the greatest era in our history,” he concluded.
Prince Andrew listened to the story of the opening of the Council of State, which he was looking forward to with such impatience and to which he attributed such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had taken place, not only did not touch him, but seemed to him more than insignificant. He listened with quiet mockery to Bitsky's enthusiastic story. The simplest thought crossed his mind: “What does it matter to me and Bitskoy, what does it matter to us what the sovereign was pleased to say in the council! How can all this make me happier and better? "
And this simple reasoning suddenly destroyed for Prince Andrey all the previous interest in the transformations being carried out. On the same day, Prince Andrey was supposed to dine at Speransky's "en petit comite", [in a small meeting,] as the owner told him, inviting him. This dinner in the family and friendly circle of the man whom he admired so much had previously interested Prince Andrey very much, especially since he had not yet seen Speransky in his home life; but now he did not want to go.
At the appointed hour of dinner, however, Prince Andrey was already entering Speransky's own small house near the Tauride Garden. In the parquet dining room of a small house, distinguished by its extraordinary cleanliness (reminiscent of monastic cleanliness), Prince Andrey, who was somewhat late, had already found at five o'clock the whole society of this petit comite, Speransky's intimate acquaintances, who had gathered. There was no one for the ladies except Speransky's little daughter (with a long face like her father) and her governess. The guests were Gervais, Magnitsky and Stolypin. Even from the hallway, Prince Andrei heard loud voices and a clear, clear laughter - a laughter similar to the one with which one laughs on stage. Someone, in a voice similar to Speransky's, distinctly beat back: ha ... ha ... ha ... Prince Andrei had never heard Speransky's laughter, and this ringing, subtle laughter of a statesman strangely struck him.
Prince Andrew entered the dining room. The whole company stood between two windows at a small table with a snack. Speransky in a gray tailcoat with a star, apparently in that still white waistcoat and high white tie, which he wore at the famous meeting of the State Council, with a cheerful face stood at the table. The guests surrounded him. Magnitsky, referring to Mikhail Mikhailovich, told an anecdote. Speransky listened, laughing forward at what Magnitsky would say. As Prince Andrey entered the room, Magnitsky's words were again drowned out by laughter. Stolypin pounded loudly, chewing on a piece of bread and cheese; Gervais hissed with a quiet laugh, and Speransky laughed subtly, distinctly.
Speransky, still laughing, gave Prince Andrey his white, gentle hand.
“I’m very glad to see you, prince,” he said. - Wait a minute ... he turned to Magnitsky, interrupting his story. - We have an agreement today: a dinner of pleasure, and not a word about business. - And he again turned to the narrator, and again laughed.
Prince Andrey listened to his laughter with surprise and sadness of disappointment and looked at the laughing Speransky. It was not Speransky, but a different person, it seemed to Prince Andrey. Everything that had previously seemed mysterious and attractive to Prince Andrey in Speranskoye suddenly became clear and unattractive to him.
At the table the conversation did not stop for a moment and seemed to consist of a collection of funny anecdotes. Magnitsky had not yet finished his story when someone else declared his readiness to tell something that was even funnier. For the most part, the jokes concerned, if not the service world itself, then the officials. It seemed that in this society the insignificance of these persons was so finally decided that the only attitude towards them could only be good-naturedly comic. Speransky told how, at this morning's council, when a deaf dignitary was asked about his opinion, this dignitary replied that he was of the same opinion. Gervais told the whole case about the audit, remarkable for the nonsense of all the characters. Stolypin stammering intervened in the conversation and with fervor began to talk about abuses of the previous order of things, threatening to impart a serious character to the conversation. Magnitsky began to mock Stolypin's fervor, Gervais put in a joke and the conversation again took its former, cheerful direction.
With his novel, Lermontov created the first Russian realistic, social and psychological novel and thus paved the way for such representatives of this genre as Turgenev and L. Tolstoy.
This also determined the original composition of the novel. Its main feature is compositional inversion, i.e. the arrangement of the chapters of the novel is outside the chronology. The work is divided into five parts, each of which is unique in genre and plot. They are united by one thing - the main character and his life path. His name is Grigory Pechorin, he was transferred to the Caucasus for an unpleasant incident.
On the way to his new destination, he stopped at Taman, then Pechorin kept his way to Pyatigorsk, and was subsequently exiled to the fortress. A few years later, Gregory left the service and went to Persia. The author violated the order of the chapters in order to reveal in detail the soul of Pechorin, using various methods of understanding this complex nature.
In "Bela" the main character is described by Maksim Maksimych - a good-natured, soft captain. From this chapter we can judge how Pechorin perceived his friend. The last three chapters of the novel are the diary of the protagonist, by which we can judge about his mental processes, experiences and his perception of life, Pechorin "mercilessly exposed his own weaknesses and vices."
In order to reveal more fully the psychology of his hero, Lermontov resorts to opposing the protagonist to other characters in the novel: ordinary people such as Maksim Maksimych, Bela and the smugglers; as well as the nobles, the "water society". However, there is one hero that is compared to Pechorin - this is Dr. Werner.
Two author's prefaces, which indicate the genre of chapters, help to understand in more detail the structure of the novel: “Bela” is a story given also in the form of “travel notes” of a passing officer, who himself first meets Pechorin from the story of Maxim Maksimych; "Maksim Maksimych" - a travel sketch; "Taman" - an adventurous novel; "Princess Mary" - a psychological story presented in the form of a diary; "The Fatalist" is an adventurous psychological novel. Each of these stories, according to its genre, draws Pechorin in different life situations and confronts him with different types of people.
The psychological nature of the novel also determines the features of the image and the introduction into the novel of pictures of nature and details of everyday life. Nature is given in a psychological sense, it is closely connected with the inner world of the hero, colored by his moods. The external life of Pechorin is of little interest to the author of the novel, therefore, little details of an everyday character are given.
"Hero of Our Time" is a psychological novel, in which Lermontov's attention is directed to the psychology of the hero, to the "history of the human soul," the soul of Pechorin.
Ostanina Anastasia
Like any classical work, "The Hero of Our Time" has been living an intense artistic life for over a century and a half, constantly renewing itself in the minds of new and new generations. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time" is simple and accessible to every reader, at the same time complex and polysemantic. All this gave rise and continues to generate discussions about him - from the moment of his birth to the present day. The history of its study is characterized not only by inconsistency, but also by the opposite of judgments. Target: In this work, we will try to determine to which genre the work "A Hero of Our Time" gravitates. And although this is known, we want to come to the set goal ourselves with the help of evidence.
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Municipal budgetary educational institution
"Secondary school number 6", Perm
"Hero of Our Time": the formation of the genre
Pupil of grade 10B MBOU "Secondary School No. 6", Perm
Head: Guseva Tatiana Vladimirovna,
Russian language and literature teacher
MBOU "Secondary School No. 6", Perm
Perm 2014
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………… 2
Chapter I. Formation of the genre of the work …………………………………… 3
- Genre sources of Lermontov's "book" ………………………. 3
- The drama of the work ……………………………………………… 9
- The form of the “book” ……. …………………………………………………. nineteen
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………. 21
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………. 22
Introduction
"A hero of our time" for many
remained a secret until now and will remain
a secret for them forever! ..
V.G. Belinsky
Like any classical work, "The Hero of Our Time" has been living an intense artistic life for over a century and a half, constantly renewing itself in the minds of new and new generations. About such works by V.G. Belinsky wrote that they belong to eternally living and moving phenomena ... each epoch pronounces its own judgment about them. And no matter how correctly she understood them, she will always leave the next era to say something new and more true, and no one will ever express everything. Speaking directly about the novel, the great critic argued: "Here is a book that is destined to never be erased, because, at its very birth, it was injected with the living water of poetry."
Roman M.Yu. Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time" is simple and accessible to every reader, at the same time complex and polysemantic. All this gave rise and continues to generate discussions about him - from the moment of his birth to the present day. The history of its study is characterized not only by inconsistency, but also by the opposite of judgments.
The first readers of the novel were struck by the unusualness of its artistic form. V.G. Belinsky was the first critic to establish how, out of several stories, the reader gets “the impression of a whole novel”. He sees the secret of this in the fact that Lermontov's novel "is a biography of one person." About the extraordinary artistic integrity of the novel by V.G. Belinsky says: "There is not a page, not a word that would have been thrown by accident: everything here follows from one main idea and everything comes back to it."
Target: In this work, we will try to determine to which genre the work "A Hero of Our Time" gravitates. And although this is known, we want to come to the set goal ourselves with the help of evidence.
As an object the study puts forward the genre originality of the work of M.Yu. Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time".
Subject studies are the forms through which the poet creates the genre of the work.
The author of the study puts forward hypothesis that the work was going beyond the limits of small forms by combining them in the genre of the novel. It was a complex genre process, the result of which was the “book” by M.Yu. Lermontov.
The proof of the hypothesis will be facilitated by solving the following tasks: 1) get acquainted with the literature on this topic; 2) consider the genre sources of Lermontov's "book"; 3)
Chapter I. Formation of the genre of the work
1.1 Genre sources of Lermontov's "book"
M.Yu. Lermontov calls his work "A Hero of Our Time" a "book" ("This book has experienced on itself ..." or "composition").
Usually "Hero of Our Time" is named after B.M. Eichenbaum "cycle of stories". "Lermontov," wrote this famous researcher, "combined ... such genres characteristic of the 30s as a travel sketch, a story on a bivouac, a secular story, a Caucasian short story", and "A Hero of Our Time" "was a step beyond these genres - on the way to the genre of the novel that unites them ”. Adding to the listed forms "the hero's confession, his diary", B.T. Udodov also believes that Lermontov was carried away by “the possibilities of synthesizing a realistic travel sketch, notes with a top-down romantic story and a short story. The first experience of such "hybrid" ... in their genre and method of works were "Taman" and "Fatalist".
So, Lermontov's “book” is the fruit of the cyclization of various (essay, confessional, etc.), but small forms? The experience of "hybridization" in Russian literature also existed besides Lermontov - for example, in the unfinished novel by A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky "Vadimov", in "Russian Nights" by V. Odoevsky. Neither the one nor the other work did not acquire the deep epic sound and meaning than "A Hero of Our Time". Meanwhile, Lermontov's “composition” is the “epic of the new world” (V. Belinsky), already because, together with the hero of the time, he recreates this time itself. It is present in "Hero ..." as much in the moral and psychological appearance of Pechorin as in the characters of other characters, whose artistic purpose is not at all limited to "an official, subordinate position" to the central figure. "And what, - Belinsky emphasized, are the typical faces of Bela, Azamat, Kazbich, Maksim Maksimych, a girl in Taman!" "These," he adds, "are such persons that will be equally understandable to an Englishman, a German, and a Frenchman, as they are understandable to a Russian."
Are, in fact, Bela, Azamat, Kazbich - “simple” “children of nature”, and not people of their time, struck, like Pechorin, by his common “vices”? The most striking feature of Pechorin - duality ("There are two people in me ...") - is it characteristic of him alone? And Dr. Werner, whose very appearance would have struck a phrenologist with "a strange interweaving of opposing tendencies" really inherent in this man. “He is a skeptic and a materialist, like almost all doctors, and at the same time a poet, and in earnest, although he never wrote two poems in his life. He studied all the living strings of the human heart, as they study the veins of a corpse, but he never knew how to use his knowledge. " And what about the cadet Grushnitsky, draping into a gray soldier's greatcoat and dreaming of becoming a "hero of the novel"? And Lieutenant Vulich? Smuggler Yanko, mountaineer Kazbich - these heroes and individualist robbers rolled into one, fearless and cruel, poetic and prosaic at the same time? Even the smuggling girl, who is very far from Pechorin, is called a "strange creature" in "A Hero of Our Time". “… This,” Belinsky wrote about her, “is some kind of wild, sparkling beauty, seductive like a siren, elusive, like an undine, terrible like a mermaid… You can't love her, you can't even hate her, but you can only love and hate her. together" . And here is Kazbich. “I began to peer,” Maksim Maksimych introduces him, “and recognized my old acquaintance Kazbich. You know, he was not that peaceful, not that not peaceful. They said about him that he loves to drag around the Kuban with abreks, and, to tell the truth, his face was the most robber ... But dexterous, dexterous, he was like a devil! The beshmet is always torn, and the weapon is always in silver. And his horse was famous in the whole Kabarda ... ". Again we have a dual nature: a hero and a robber at the same time. Its first “half” comes to life in the plot and style, in particular, the following praiseworthy word of the faithful horse: “Yes,” Kazbich answered after some silence: “You will not find such a thing in the whole Kabarda. Once, - this was beyond the Terek, - I went with the abreks to fight off the Russian herds; we were not lucky, and we scattered in all directions. Four Cossacks rushed after me; I could already hear the shouts of the giaurs behind me, and in front of me was a dense forest. I lay down on the saddle, entrusted myself to Allah and for the first time in my life I insulted a horse with a blow of a whip. Like a bird he dived between the branches ... My horse jumped over the stumps, tore apart the bushes with his chest. " Everything here - from the name of the Cossacks "gyaurami" and the appeal to Allah to the comparison of a horse friend with a bird and the rhythm of speech - in the spirit of a folk heroic legend. This is understandable, since Kazbich is here a representative of the Muslim Caucasian community, in relation to which Russians are perceived as “infidels” and enemies. But the work also implements another essence of Kazbich, given by the reducing details of his initial portrait: "mug", "drag around", "like a devil." All of them will respond in Maksim Maksimych's story about Kazbich's abduction of Bela: “It was, you know, very hot; she sat down on a rock and dipped her feet into the water. Here Kazbich crept up, - a claw-claw at her, clamped his mouth and dragged her into the bushes, and there he jumped on a horse, and a thrust! " ... This is the style of a story about a robber and a thief. This is how Kazbich appears here: “He shouted something to us in his own way and raised a dagger over her ... We jumped off the horses and rushed to Bela. Poor thing, she lay motionless, and blood poured from the wound in streams ... Such a villain: if only he struck in the heart ... he would have finished everything at once, otherwise in the back ... the most robber blow. "
Another mountaineer - Azamat - is younger than Kazbich and already “terribly greedy for money”. The trait is also modern: after all, Lieutenant Vulich is obsessed with winning. And Azamat is a daring man and at the same time a traitor, who neglected the blood relationship that is sacred for a highlander. However, Pechorin ("Princess Mary") likens his behavior to the "miserable role of an executioner or a traitor".
In the original edition of the preface to the second edition of his "work", Lermontov explained: "The hero of our time" is like a portrait, but not of one person; this is the type - you will tell me that a person cannot be so bad, and I will tell you that you are all almost like that; some are slightly better, many are much worse. " Note: the writer names here as the main person of his "book" not Pechorin, but the Hero of our time, he speaks further about him in general terms. And this is no coincidence. Let's take the liberty to suggest a simple experiment: let's imagine for a moment that Lermontov's “composition” is titled, like Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” with the name of the main character: not “A Hero of Our Time,” but “Grigory Pechorin”. It would seem that there are grounds for this. And yet what a fundamental substantive difference is immediately felt by us! How the potential of the work narrows with this replacement!
Noting the "deepening into the reality of life" inherent in Lermontov's prose, Gogol saw in the author of "A Hero of Our Time" the future great painter of Russian life ... ". "Lermontov," wrote Belinsky, "is a great poet: he objectified modern society and its representatives." It is society, the new era ("our time") of the current "century" and in the person of not the main one, but all the heroes and their not accidentally similar lonely and dramatic destinies that, of course, with certain amendments to the originality of highland or secular life, entered the "book "Lermontov on" modern man ". Its objectification not only did not interfere, but the well-known lyrical animation of the narrative structure of the “book”, in a number of fragments reminiscent of “prose poems” (for example: “No, I would not get along with this share! I, as a sailor, born and raised on the deck of a robber's brig, etc., which has been noted more than once by researchers What is the nature and artistic function of this lyricism?
"A hero of our time," writes A.I. Zhuravlev, - many threads are associated with the poetry of Lermontov ... This similarity could not but be reflected in the style of the work. " Indeed, it is enough to recall at least such poems as "Sail", "Duma", "Both boring and sad", "Testament", "I go out on the road alone" for the connection of Lermontov's poetry with his "book" to become obvious. Let us recall the important fact that the first (or parallel to the concept of "Hero ...") attempt to create the image of "modern man" was undertaken by Lermontov in the genre of the poetic novel (or story) "A Tale for Children", which remained unfinished.
Zhuravleva sees the lyrical "background" of the "Hero of Our Time" in the "repetition of certain verbal and semantic motives that have symbolic meaning. The repetition of the motifs of the sea, mountains, starry sky creates in the reader a sense of unity ”of the work, in particular“ the unity of the hero seeking consciousness ”. Udodov believes that the lyrical beginning organizes in Lermontov's “book” the images of some characters: Vera (“this is the least objectified, lyrical image”), and partly Maxim Maksimych: “The motives of loneliness, a passionate desire to find a“ native soul ”in the world enter in the image of an old campaigner. "
These observations, of course, are not groundless. But do they exhaust the purpose of lyricism in A Hero of Our Time?
I think not. Lermontov the prose writer really does not forget the experience of Lermontov the poet. However, the latter is needed by the former to create a complex word, the internally contradictory character of the heroes, their consciousness, and reality in general. "Poetisms" and "proseisms" do not simply alternate in "A Hero of Our Time", but are constituent components of a single style of the work. This can be seen in the following examples.
The speech of Lermontov's "book" amazed even her ill-wishers. S.P. Shevyrev emphasized "the faithful and the living", i.e. accurate and ambiguous, description of the "road through Good Mountain." But the same can be said about any other piece of the work. Fusion, interweaving of different voices is also characteristic of the characters' speech. Here is the story of Maksim Maksimych about Kazbich at the time of the abduction of his horse by Azamat6 “Urus Yaman, Yaman! - he roared and rushed headlong out like a wild leopard. In two leaps he was already in the yard; at the gates of the fortress, a sentry barred his way with a gun; he jumped over the gun and rushed to run along the road ... Dust curled in the distance - Azamat rode on a dashing Karagez; as he ran, Kazbich grabbed a gun from the case and fired. He remained motionless for a minute, until he was convinced that he had missed; then he screamed, hit the gun on a stone, smashed it to smithereens, fell to the ground and sobbed like a child ... ”.
The captain's speech is a fusion of voices. It has notes of Kazbich ("like a wild leopard") and Azamat, in this case a fearless daredevil: "Dust swirled in the distance - Azamat rode on a dashing Karagez." The last phrase is monostih. The words “fell to the ground and sobbed like a child” foreshadow the tragic state of Pechorin at the moment of his last attempt to see Vera (“He fell on the wet grass and cried like a child”).
In “A Hero of Our Time, you can see the very process of speech formation. Here is Maksim Maksimych's story about a mountain wedding.
“- How do they celebrate their wedding? I asked the staff captain.
Yes, usually. First, the mullah will read them something from the Koran; then they give the young people and all their relatives; eat, drink booze. Girls and young guys stand in two lines, one opposite the other, clap their hands and sing. Here comes one girl and one man in the middle and begin to sing poetry to each other in a chant, whatever ... ".
Here the captain's speech is monophonic. Measuring everything by the usual yardstick, the old campaigner notices only the ordinary side of the event. But Maxim Maksimych explains to the wandering officer what exactly Pechorin sang "the owner's younger daughter (that is, one of the" girls "), a girl of about sixteen": "Yes, it seems like this:" Slender, they say, our young horsemen and the caftans on them are lined with silver, and the young Russian officer is slimmer than them, and the galloons on him are gold. He is like a poplar between them; just not to grow, not to bloom in our garden ”. So another voice arises, expressed by a deep feeling of a pure soul. His poetry, determined by the comparison of the Russian officer with both the poplar and the mountain horsemen, is also justified and therefore no less accurate than the first story of the staff captain. The result of the described “voices” can be heard in the following words of Maxim Maksimych: “And as if she (Bela) was good: tall, thin, black eyes, like a mountain chamois, and looked into your soul. Pechorin, lost in thought, did not take his eyes off her ... ".
The above examples do not allow us to consider lyricism as the basis of the genre unity of the "Hero of Our Time". At the same time, the idea of a penetrating common genre tendency is present. This is a drama that goes back to the tragic confrontation between the hero and fate.
1.2. The drama of the work
Drama is present in Lermontov's "book" in many ways. This can be seen when comparing "A Hero of Our Time" with the work of A.S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin". In Onegin, we see Pushkin's detailed depiction of the circumstances themselves, both in the general historical (contemporary Russian society) and in the class aspects (everyday life, customs, etc.).
In A Hero of Our Time, the situation is different. Almost all of his characters lack, for example, backstory. And nevertheless, this did not become a hindrance to "deepening" into modernity.
“It should be noted,” noted one of the critics of A Hero of Our Time, “that the author is not too fond of dwelling on pictures of nature. He prefers people. " At the beginning of the story "Maksim Maksimych" Lermontov notes the validity of this observation: "I will spare you from describing the mountains, from exclamations that do not express anything, from pictures that do not depict anything ... and from statistical remarks that no one will definitely read." And we see that in the subsequent chapters of the work, the writer will keep his promise: his descriptions will acquire laconicism. For example, we can observe this in the scene with Grushnitsky and Princess Mary who dropped the glass. “I turned and walked away from him. For half an hour I walked along the vineyards, along the limestone rocks, the bushes hanging between them. It was getting hot and I hurried home. Passing an acid-sulfur spring, I stopped at a covered gallery to breathe under its shadow, and this gave me the opportunity to witness a rather curious scene. The characters were in the following position. The princess with the Moscow dandy was sitting on a bench in the covered gallery, and both were apparently engaged in a serious conversation. The princess, probably having finished her last glass, was pacing thoughtfully by the well; Grushnitsky stood at the very well; there was no one else on the site. " As if we are facing a director's work - with a clear indication of the position and posture of each of the "characters" on the stage and the setting of the "stage".
"Taman is the nastiest town of all the seaside towns in Russia." The situation in the story of the same name is limited to one phrase. The next phrase: "I arrived on a transfer cart late at night." She already begins the action itself: a passing officer's search for a place to sleep, who led him "to a small hut on the very shore of the sea." Another set where the drama ensues.
The events of "Fatalist" take place in the Caucasian "Cossack village on the left flank." Here you could talk about an interesting and distant land. But Lermontov gives only the most necessary information in one sentence ("the officers gathered at each other's place one by one, played cards in the evenings").
There are more descriptions in Bela. And they are more detailed. This is understandable: the story opens the entire work. But here, too, the descriptions fall on the part that is set forth by a passing officer (a newcomer in the Caucasus and, moreover, an essayist (“I am not writing a story, but travel notes"). This is, firstly, Secondly, and the action is visible in them. For example , the Ossetian "smoky saklya", which sheltered two travelers, is described without vivid details: here is the inconvenient entrance to the dwelling through the barn, its interior view with a smoking fire and people in rags around it. It happened - and the sakla was forgotten. Another example. The action in Maxim Maksimych's story is also tied in a sakla, where a Circassian wedding is played. But we do not see the wedding, its rite, because it serves as a "stage" for the relationship of several actors: Pechorin, Bela, Maksim Maksimych, Kazbich and Azamat.
Another feature of Lermontov's "book": the way of introducing the characters into the depicted events. If in Pushkin this happens gradually and the heroes are divided by whole chapters (Lensky appears in the second, and Tatyana in the third chapter), then the characters in Lermontov's stories appear in groups. And unlike Pushkin's, the story of which is interrupted by digressions, they immediately interact. For example, Bela's poetic greeting to a “young Russian officer” is followed by the reaction of an admiring Pechorin (“Lovely!” - he answered ”). And then the heroes are already in a state of complex "dialogue": "Pechorin, in thought, did not take his eyes off her, and she often glanced at him from under her brows." “Only,” adds Maksim Maksimych, “Pechorin was not alone in admiring the pretty princess: two other eyes, motionless, fiery, were looking at her from the corner of the room” [ibid.]. This is Kazbich, immediately involved in the situation that has arisen. Half a page later, the girl's brother, Azamat, joins this group. Thus, all the faces entered the action of the story at the same time.
This principle can be observed in any "part" of the work. Together with the foreman and the orderly ("When I was the orderly, the line Cossack") appears Pechorin in "Taman". And then each of his companions will be involved in what will happen to the protagonist. The first morning of Pechorin's stay in Pyatigorsk ("Princess Mary"), or rather even the first walk, brings the hero to Grushnitsky; in "Fatalist", too, swiftly, with the assistance of those who stayed too long at Major C*** officers, a "pair" of Pechorin - Vulich was formed, and then others: Vulich - a drunken Cossack; "Old esaul" and a Cossack murderer; Cossack and Pechorin, etc. even the relationship of two fellow travelers - a passing officer and a staff captain - who appear before us at once ("Bela"), are not limited to a beginner's curiosity about the "adventures" of an experienced Caucasian, but create a conflict as soon as the conversation touches the character of a "modern man". "The captain did not understand these subtleties ...", - states the officer-narrator and later reports: "We parted rather dryly."
These features prove that Lermontov's “book” is imbued with a dramatic beginning. Is it an accident that a number of episodes are presented in direct dispute with the terms of drama? (Almost all relations between Pechorin and Princess Mary, Pechorin and Grushnitsky, as well as the "trial of fate" in "Fatalist"). ("- There is a tie! - I shouted in admiration: - we will bother about the denouement of this comedy"; "This comedy was beginning to bore me," etc. "I was," Pechorin says about himself, "the necessary face of the fifth act ; I involuntarily played the miserable role of an executioner or a traitor. ”Is it a coincidence, finally, that the five stories that made up Lermontov’s“ book ”correspond to the five acts of traditional drama?
Determining the “specificity of the dramatic action” (content, “idea”), the literary theorist emphasizes: it “manifests itself primarily in the fact that the initial situation of the play is completely absorbed” into the action “as an organically inherent“ preceding moment ”. In an epic work, the direction of action is neutral to many aspects of the initial situation, and "the content, pathos and results are not in such a direct relationship with the alignment of forces given at the beginning, as is the case in the drama."
This difference is the main source of the genre line between Eugene Onegin and The Hero of Our Time. The action of the latter is always associated with the initial situation, constantly “looking back” at it and striving to “attract” all its lines, forces and directions. Here are some examples.
There is an overlap between the epithet “the worst town” (“Taman”) and Pechorin’s moral state at the end of this story: “And why would fate have thrown me into a peaceful circle of honest smugglers? Like a stone thrown into an ugly spring, I disturbed their calmness and, like a stone, I almost sank myself! " ...
Researchers (B. Udodov, A.I. Zhuravleva) have recorded the presence in the "Hero of Our Time" stable and common motives: fate, fortress, star. They not only serve the unity of the work (problematic, compositional), but build this unity in a special way. Here we again observe the dramatic "tendency to ... overlapping concentration" of individual events and states of the heroes, while in the epic they can be located side by side.
For example, three fragments with stars from the beginning, end and middle of the piece are in a complex interaction.
“Contrary to the prediction of my companion,” says a passing officer in the Bela, “the weather cleared up and promised us a quiet morning; round dances of stars intertwined in wonderful patterns in the distant sky and faded one after another as the pale gleam of the east spread over the dark purple vault, gradually illuminating the steep echoes of the mountains covered with virgin snow. Everything was quiet in heaven and on earth, as in the heart of a person at the moment of morning prayer. " “You think,” Pechorin reflects on the eve of the duel (“Princess Mary”), “that I will present my forehead to you without a dispute ... but we will cast lots! ... and then ... then ... what if his happiness outweighs? If my star finally cheats on me? .. And no wonder: for so long she served faithfully to my whims; there is no more constancy in heaven than on earth. " “I was returning home,” we read in Fatalist, “through the empty lanes of the village; the moon, full and red like the glow of a fire, began to appear from behind the jagged horizon of the houses; the stars quietly shone on the dark blue vault, and it made me laugh when I remembered that there were once wise people who thought that the heavenly bodies were taking part in our insignificant disputes ....
Each of these landscapes also performs its own individual functions. For example, the "full and red, like the glow of a fire" month in the last passage is a metaphor for the bloody event that just happened in the village. But it is also clear that they are all connected and "work" on a common problem - the relationship between free will and predestination (fate) in human life and behavior. Therefore, in all three landscapes, a person is present along with the sky and the stars.
Present in the "Hero of Our Time" and another of the generic signs of drama - "the richness and variety of components that carry out the action." In Pushkin's novel, its source is represented by the personalities and actions of the central characters. Lermontov's action moves not only Pechorin. The beginning of Bela's story was laid by this girl herself at the moment of her greeting to the Russian officer; Azamat, Kazbich, even the kindest Maksim Maksimych are “to blame” for the development and tragic outcome. In "Taman" the activity of the smuggling girl is not at all less than that of the protagonist. They are equally responsible for what happened, since the heroine, with her attempt to drown the guest, created an insoluble situation. The idea ("conspiracy") of a duel in order to teach Pechorin a lesson, making him a laughingstock, belongs to the dragoon captain, Grushnitsky approved it. In Fatalist, the energy of events comes from Vulich and a drunken Cossack murderer, and only then from Pechorin. In general, there are simply no episodic persons in Lermontov's "book". Here, the blind boy, and the deaf old woman, and the mother of the criminal Cossack ("The Fatalist"), and Vera's husband, herself, etc. are important, because the action in this work is close to "a single, integral movement in itself."
The genre originality of "A Hero of Our Time" lies in the fact that the epic in it is not only dramatized, but also formed on a dramatic basis.
The concept of fate is the leading one among the cross-cutting motives of Lermontov's work. The concept of fate permeates the entire system and conflict of the "Hero of Our Time". Not all the characters in the work throw down a challenge to fate after Pechorin and Vulich (unconsciously, this is done even by Bela, who responded to the love of a foreigner and a non-believer). But from this they are no less in her power. Maksim Maksimych and Kazbich are doomed to homeless wandering, "loneliness together" awaits Vera, untimely death will befall Bela, her father, Azamat, Grushnitsky. The lot of all these people is tragic. The more likely this fate is predetermined for Pechorin, who is opposed to fate.
The dramatization in Lermontov's "book" captures and transforms almost every type of human connection (friendship, friendship, love).
How many reproaches have been expressed against Pechorin, who, in response to the open arms of Maxim Maksimych in the story of the same name, "rather coldly, although with a friendly smile, extended his hand to him." But we see the same result of friendly relations in other situations where Pechorin is not. Here is the scene of the farewell of a passing officer and an experienced Caucasian. “It’s a pity,” I said to him, “it’s a pity, Maxim Maksimych, that we have to leave before the deadline (compare in the above episode with Pechorin:“ Maksim Maksimych began to beg him to stay with him for another two hours ”[ibid.] ). - Where can we, uneducated old people, chase after you! , I have nothing to tell, dear Maksim Maksimych ... However, goodbye, I have to go ... I'm in a hurry ... Thank you for not forgetting ... - he added, taking his hand "[ibid.]). And nevertheless, the recent friends "said goodbye rather dryly," and the main role was played not by a representative of the "proud" youth, but by a warm-hearted man, "worthy of respect." But perhaps the good Maksim Maksimych suddenly "became a stubborn, grumpy staff captain" just because he himself was offended? But we see the same in the final scene of "Taman", where Yanko parted with a blind boy, his faithful and diligent assistant. The result of the episode is the same: “- Listen, blind man! - said Yanko, - you take care of that place ... you know? - After some silence, Yanko continued: - She will go with me; she can't stay here; and tell the old woman that, they say, it's time to die, healed, you need to know and honor. He won't see us again.
What do I need you for? - was the answer. "
The three situations are created by completely different people. They are all outwardly defined, not motivated by discord. And this is everywhere. In the scene of the duel, Pechorin and Grushnitsky, who were "once friends", could not agree. Grushnitsky and the dragoon captain do not understand each other at the last moment either. Pechorin and Doctor Werner, who once distinguished each other in the crowd, will coldly part forever. Such was the friendship between Onegin and Lensky before the fatal duel, where the former loved the young man “with all his heart,” and the latter responded with sincere respect?
According to Vera, Pechorin gave her nothing, "except for suffering." This did not interfere, but, according to the hero, precisely contributed to the strength and constancy of her love. As well as the feelings of Princess Mary, in the intrigue with which Pechorin was guided by the same conviction. On the contrary, Grushnitsky's devotion and adoration aroused the irritation and hatred of his beloved. “Like a father,” Maksim Maksimych loved Bela, but she “before her death never remembered” about him (compare with this and Bela’s reaction to the news of her father’s death: “she cried for two days, and then forgot” -). Vera's final conclusion in her farewell letter is also highly indicative. The only woman who understood Pechorin, "absolutely, with all the minor weaknesses, bad passions." Vera considered the hero's attitude to her as a “norm” of modern love: “I will not blame you - you acted with me, as any other man would have done…”. Now, in the contradictions of love, the reader learns the character of the era.
Lermontov's contradictory ambiguity of “modern man” appears as the paradox of his consciousness and thinking. Conclusions from the reflections of the hero are unproductive already because the question asked ("... did my upbringing make me so, did God create me that way ..."; "Am I a fool or a villain ..."; "... why am I so persistently seeking the love of a young girl ..."; " ... why did I live? For what purpose was I born? "- either sums up the same" I don't know ", or turns into new, unanswered questions.
The paradox of consciousness and thinking in "A Hero of Our Time" is not only Pechorin's property. The work begins with a paradox. “I was driving,” says the narrator in Bela, “on the checkpoints from Tiflis. All the luggage of my cart consisted of one small suitcase, which was half full of travel notes about Georgia. Most of them, fortunately for you, are lost. " “I recently learned that Pechorin had died. This news made me very happy ... ". “I,” Pechorin informs, “always go forward more boldly when I don’t know what awaits me.”
We observe the inconsistency of the characters in their speech, including the monologue: Pechorin's confession, Vera's letter, the statement of Dr. Werner or Grushnitsky. "These monologues ... - notes Udodov, - imperceptibly turn into a conversation with himself ...". We will note that these "dialogues" are aimed at consent and objection, i.e. are dialogues-disputes that do not have a winner. For example, Grushnitsky's French phrase addressed not only to Pechorin, but also to Princess Mary passing by: "My dear, I hate people so as not to despise them, because otherwise life would be too disgusting a farce." As you know, Pechorin answered Grushnitsky in his tone, after which "he turned and walked away from him."
“The composition of a Hero of Our Time,” says the researcher, “is not linear, but concentric. All parts of the novel are not so much separate aspects of a single whole, as closed circles containing the essence of the work in its entirety, but not in its entire depth. The superposition of these circles on each other does not so much expand the scope of the work as it deepens it. " According to Udodov, the successive "circles" of the "Hero of Our Time" are subordinated to the task of deeply revealing the image of the protagonist of the work, the "outline" of which begins in Bela. In "Maxim Maksimovich" and the Preface to the "Pechorin's Journal" Pechorin "makes his second round: again coming from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus ... and further to Persia, then returning to St. Petersburg, which was interrupted by death." “In Princess Mary,” the scientist concludes, “all Pechorin’s“ circles ”receive an in-depth explanation. Departure from Pyatigorsk to Kislovodsk, and from there back to the fortress closes the last circle. The end has merged with the beginning. From "Fatalist" we mentally return to what Maxim Maksimych told us about, as if rereading "Bela" with different eyes. Note that the final chapter is important in the work. In the light of this interpretation, it turns out to be a service one. But we have already noted that the dispute-duel with fate in "A Hero of Our Time" is not led by Pechorin alone. Here Vulich was the first to start it, the drunken Cossack continued in his own way, then the "old esaul", even the unfortunate mother of the murderer, joined him. And only then Pechorin.
"- I have sinned, brother, Efimych, - said the esaul, - there is really nothing to do, submit!" ... This is the position of the "old esaul", a believer, therefore, does not approve of any challenge to God.
“- I will not submit! - shouted the Cossack menacingly, and you could hear how the cocked trigger clicked "(compare the opinion of the esaul about the murderer:" ... he will not surrender - I know him. "- This is the position of the Cossack, challenging people and the Sky.
And here is the "solution" of the murderer's old mother: "She was sitting on a thick log, leaning on her knees and supporting her head with her hands ...". In response to the offer of the esaul “to talk to my son; maybe he will listen to you ... "," the old woman looked at him intently and shook her head. " This is fatalism, complete resignation to fate.
We think that I. Vinogradov is absolutely right, considering in his article "The Philosophical Novel of Lermontov" the story "Fatalist" as not just the final, but the final "part" of the "Hero of Our Time". The part, which would be more accurate to name the last act by analogy with the drama, because The Fatalist does not just return us to Bela, but, as in the drama, “absorbs” the “initial situation” outlined in the first story of the “book” and deepens it. Time is filmed, as in a drama, in space, and space - in time, which allowed the author not only to disrupt the chronological sequence of events, but also to turn it from an epic factor into one that works for a creative whole.
- The form of the work
So, the epic beginning in A Hero of Our Time is dramatized. But in what form? Ultimately, the "book" becomes a novel. This happens due to the law fixed by M. Bakhtin, according to which “in the era of the dominance of the novel,” after other genres, drama is also romanized.
In Lermontov's "book" irony is realized over the characters, over the meaning of their actions and motives. The most important of these is the motive of the game.
We see this in "Princess Mary" and "Fatalist". This does not mean that characters in other stories are not players. On the contrary, Kazbich acts under the guise of (either a peaceful or not a peaceful mountaineer), against whom, according to the captain, there were many suspicions. There is, in our opinion, meaning in the consonance of the names of Kazbich, Vulich and Pechorin. They are players everywhere. In actor's vestments, the smugglers in "Taman" perform, leading a double life: an imaginary deaf old woman, a blind woman, Ondine. Bela herself is not devoid of a penchant for the game. "Princess Mary". Everyone always plays here: from the poseur Grushnitsky and the actor Pechorin to Doctor Werner, the dragoon captain, Princess Mary, Vera and her husband. The concept of "play" permeates the story. “You won the bet” (Grushnitsky); “I'm not your toy” (Pechorin); "... your hoax you will not succeed", "... how many times have I already played the role of an ax in the hands of fate"; "... I play the most pitiful and disgusting role in your eyes" (Pechorin). This is not a complete list of only direct references to this word in episodes of the story. As in Fatalist, play appears here as the main principle of life, its way. An indicative detail: one of Pechorin's meetings with Vera is involuntarily, but not accidentally, “facilitated” by the “magician Apfelbaum,” whose presentation allowed Pechorin to deceive the ill-wishers watching him. Introducing the readers ("Fatalist") to Lieutenant Vulich, Lermontov immediately calls his main feature - "passion for the game." And this passion will not only not be forgotten, but will also be the key to the next action.
But this is not enough. The fact is that modernity, even in its playful nature, excludes the possibility of an unambiguous genre definition in The Hero of Our Time.
How did the events that made up "Princess Mary" begin? "Comedy" (remember: "... we will bother about the denouement of this comedy") or even a "ridiculous melodrama", as Pechorin believes, "a disgusting farce," as Grushnitsky, who had lost to his rival (who, by the way, at the time of this statement, pose ").
And they develop in a farce, because this is how Grushnitsky's "friends" intended his duel with Pechorin. And how do they end? A tragedy, as their consequence was the "bloody corpse" of one of the players-participants and the broken soul of the player (Princess Mary). (“God!” Pechorin exclaimed on the last date with the girl, “how she has changed since I didn’t see her…”). All plot lines either come to a dead end, or, if they are resolved, then in some distorted way that does not bring victory and satisfaction to any of the participants. In the final story of "A Hero of Our Time" there is a thought: "... what a desire to joke!"
Silly joke! - picked up another. " In the novel, it is synonymous with modern reality, society and the historical era.
Conclusion
"A Hero of Our Time" is the first socio-psychological and moral-philosophical novel in Russian prose about the tragedy of an outstanding personality in the conditions of Russia in the 30s of the XIX century. Due to the fact that "A Hero of Our Time" was written at a time when the novel as a genre in Russian literature was not yet fully formed. M.Yu. Lermontov relied mainly on the experience of A.S. Pushkin and Western European literary traditions.
"A Hero of Our Time" is a novel consisting of five stories, united by the main character - Pechorin. The genre of "A Hero of Our Time" - a novel in the form of a "chain of stories" - was prepared by cycles of stories common in Russian prose of the 1930s, which were often attributed to a special storyteller or author ("Belkin's Tale" by A.S. Pushkin, "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka "NV Gogol and others). M.Yu. Lermontov updated this genre by moving on to describing the inner life of a person and combining all the stories with the personality of the hero. The cycle of stories turned into a socio-psychological novel. Lermontov combined such genres characteristic of the 30s as a travel sketch, a secular story, and a short story. A Hero of Our Time went beyond these small forms by combining them into the genre of the novel.
As a result of a complex genre process, the result of which was the "book," "A Hero of Our Time" has become a novel as unique as Pushkin's "Onegin". Lermontov's "book" is the sum of all the writer's work. The epic, lyrical and dramatic are organically merged and "flow" into each other. This allows the work to live forever, forcing each new generation of readers not only to discuss it in a new way, but to hope for new discoveries both in the artistic world of the work and in themselves.
Literature
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