A Hero of Our Time
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| Author | Mikhail Lermontov |
|---|---|
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1839 |
A Hero of Our Time (Russian: Герой нашего времени) is a short novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839 and revised in 1841. It is an example of the superfluous man novel, noted for its compelling Byronic hero (or anti-hero) Pechorin and for the beautiful descriptions of the Caucasus.
Contents |
[edit] Plot Structure
The book is divided into five short stories or novellas, plus (in the second edition) an authorial preface. There are three major narrators: an unnamed young army officer who has received Pechorin's diaries after his death and who is implied to be Lermontov himself; Maxim Maximytch, an old staff-captain who served with Pechorin for some time during the Caucasian War; and Pechorin himself via his diaries. The stories depict Pechorin as impulsive, emotionally distant and manipulative, capable of extreme bravery but generally bored by his life.
In the longest novella, Princess Mary, Pechorin flirts with the Princess of the title, while conducting an affair with his ex-lover Vera, and kills his friend Grushnitsky (of whom he is secretly contemptuous) in a duel in which the participants stand in turn on the edge of a cliff so that the loser's death can be explained as an accidental fall. Eventually he rejects both women.
The preface explains the author's idea of his character: "A Hero of Our Time, my dear readers, is indeed a portrait, but not of one man. It is a portrait built up of all our generation's vices in full bloom. You will again tell me that a human being cannot be so wicked, and I will reply that if you can believe in the existence of all the villains of tragedy and romance, why wouldn't believe that there was a Pechorin? If you could admire far more terrifying and repulsive types, why aren't you more merciful to this character, even if it is fictitious? Isn't it because there's more truth in it than you might wish?"
[edit] Grigoriy Aleksandrovich Pechorin
Pechorin is the embodiment of the Byronic hero. Byron’s works were of international repute and Lermontov mentions his name several times throughout the novel. According to the Byronic tradition, Pechorin is a character of contradiction. He is both sensitive and cynical. He is possessed of extreme arrogance, yet has a deep insight into his own character and epitomizes the melancholy of the Romantic hero who broods on the futility of existence and the certainty of death. Pechorin’s whole philosophy concerning existence is oriented towards the nihilistic, creating in him somewhat of a distanced, alienated personality.
Pechorin, similarly to Byron, treats women as an incentive for endless conquests and does not consider them worthy of any particular respect. He considers women such as Bela and Princess Mary to be little more than pawns in his games of romantic conquest, which in effect hold no meaning in his listless pursuit of pleasure. This is shown in his comment on Princess Mary: “I often wonder why I’m trying so hard to win the love of a girl I have no desire to seduce and whom I’d never marry.”
The only contradiction in Pechorin’s attitude to women is the memory of his genuine feelings for Vera, who loves him despite, and perhaps due to, all his faults. Having genuinely loved her once, and regarding the strong bond that still remains between them, Pechorin’s feelings for another can never reach the depth of his for Vera.
At the end of “Princess Mary” one is presented with a moment of hope as Pechorin gallops after Vera. The reader almost assumes that a meaning to his existence may be attained and that Pechorin can finally realise that true feelings are possible. Yet a lifetime of superficiality and cynicism cannot be so easily eradicated and when fate intervenes and Pechorin’s horse collapses, he undertakes no further effort to reach his one hope of redemption: “I saw how futile and senseless it was to pursue lost happiness. What more did I want? To see her again? For what?”
[edit] Trivia
- The name Pechorin is drawn from that of the Pechora River, in the far north, as a homage to Aleksandr Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, named after the Onega River.
- A notable translation from Russian to English was produced in 1958 by Vladimir Nabokov.
- A Caucasian, a short essay published by Lermontov in 1841, describes the personality of generic Russian officer who has served on Caucasus for many years, similar to Maxim Maximytch in A Hero of Our Time, therefore these two works are sometimes published together.
[edit] Quotes
- My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason.
- ...I am not capable of close friendship: of two close friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither of them will admit it. I cannot be a slave, and to command in such circumstances is a tiresome business, because one must deceive at the same time.
- Afraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there.
- It is difficult to convince women of something; one must lead them to believe that they have convinced themselves.
- What of it? If I die, I die. It will be no great loss to the world, and I am thoroughly bored with life. I am like a man yawning at a ball; the only reason he does not go home to bed is that his carriage has not arrived yet.
- When I think about near and probable death, I think only of me: other people don't do this. Friends who'll forget me tomorrow-or worse, ascribe God knows what cock and bull stories to me; women who'll laugh at me while they are embracing another man, so as not to make him jealous of the deceased-the devil take the lot of them!
- Women! Women! Who will understand them? Their smiles contradict their glances, their words promise and lure, while the sound of their voices drives us away. One minute they comprehend and divine our most secret thoughts, and the next, they do not understand the clearest hints.
- There are two men within me - one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reflects and judges him. In an hour's time the first may be leaving you and the world for ever, and the second? ... the second? ...
- To cause another person suffering or joy, having no right to so-- isn't that the sweetest food of our pride? What is happiness but gratified pride?
- I'll hazard my life, even my honour, twenty times, but I will not sell my freedom. Why do I value it so much? What am I preparing myself for? What do I expect from the future? in fact, nothing at all.
