Princess Mary

Women's images in the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time" play a big role in revealing the image of the main character - Grigory Pechorin. The novel features 4 women who in one way or another influenced fate young man: Bela, Ondine, Princess Mary, Vera.

Each of them is beautiful in its own way and each represents its own world.

Bela

Bela is a sixteen-year-old Circassian girl, a child of nature. She is capable of deep and sincere feelings, she is loyal to the extreme. It takes Pechorin a long time to win her favor by kidnapping her from family of origin. Her actions are imbued with pride and dignity. Even having bestowed her love on Gregory and subsequently receiving alienation and indifference from him, she says: “I am not a slave, I am a prince’s daughter!” We do not find any description of appearance in the story. The author notes only her eyes - capable of looking into the very soul. The image of Bela is intended to emphasize Pechorin’s indifference and inability to live. Even such sincere love is not able to evoke a reciprocal feeling in him.

Undine

Ondine, a smuggler girl living in a free and romantic world of risk and danger, in the world that Pechorin always dreamed of. Her appearance really resembles a mermaid - long blonde hair flowing in the wind, thin waist and deep eyes - all this incredibly attracts Pechorin. She is cheerful, sings folk tunes, speaks in riddles. However, the hero, trying to break into her world of freedom, destroys it.

Princess Mary

Princess Mary is a young noblewoman, educated and well-read, sensitive and well-mannered. She is equal to Pechorin in terms of social class. Pechorin begins to court her in order to create an alibi for meetings with another woman - Vera. After listening to the young man's stories about his difficult life, Mary begins to feel sorry for him, and subsequently falls in love. This love brings her to suffering and humiliation. The story with Princess Mary reflects Pechorin’s thirst to own someone’s soul, and, having enjoyed it to his heart’s content, throw it somewhere on the road.

Faith

Faith is the most superficially constructed image in the novel. We only know that the heroes have loved each other for a long time. At the same time, Vera is married and understands that she and Gregory can never be together. Perhaps, of all, it is Vera who is truly dear to Pechorin, since only she understood and accepted him for who he is, and forgave him all the pain that he caused. The main quality of Faith is sacrifice.

Conclusion

The female images in the work emphasize how lonely Pechorin is, he cannot be happy with anyone, love is not an ideal or dream for him. This feeling can captivate him only for a moment, and when the impulse passes, he leaves those he loved aside without regret. This, in my opinion, is one of the main tragedies of the hero.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time" was published in 1840, but it is still read and loved by people of different age categories. What attracts a modern reader to a novel written in the century before last?

Composition of the work

The composition of the work is unusual.

The novel consists of several parts, including the story of an officer traveling around the Caucasus ("Bela" and "Maksim Maksimych") and the notes of Pechorin himself, which fell into the hands of this officer: "Taman", "Princess Mary" and "Fatalist".

But the order of the stories does not coincide with the chronology of events. The author deliberately violates the sequence of events in the description of the biography of Grigory Alexandrovich. This helps the writer to attract the attention of readers to the hero, to his personality and fate. Thus, at the beginning of the novel we meet the hero, in the middle we learn about his death, and then he himself tells his story. This gives the novel a special intrigue, romance and deep psychologism, and helps to comprehensively and completely reveal the personality of the main character.

Eternal questions in the novel

Magnificent landscape sketches, the language of the novel, which delighted such masters of words as Gogol and Chekhov, an interesting composition - all this gives the novel its originality.

But the most important thing in the novel is its penetration into human hearts and souls and the search for answers to eternal questions about the purpose of man. Why does a person come into this world? What is friendship, love, life and death? What is fate? Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin is looking for answers to all these questions.

The main character of the novel

Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin - main character works. He is a complex and contradictory person. In his own words, it is as if two people live in him, one of whom commits actions, and the second is the strictest judge.

The hero feels his high destiny, but wastes himself on trifles. He is bored, and out of boredom he plays with his life and the lives of other people. He brings suffering, but at the same time he suffers. We best understand the depth and versatility of Pechorin’s nature through his thoughts, described by him in his diary, through his actions, through his relationships with other main characters of the novel.

Female images of the novel

The main characters, or rather heroines, who help to better understand the essence of Pechorin, are four female characters who, by the will of fate, were destined to meet Grigory Alexandrovich. Women are the hero’s strongest passion; he honestly admits that “he has never loved anything in the world except them.”

The women who attract him are young, beautiful, bright, original, strong, to match the hero of the novel. And most importantly, they have something that Pechorin himself does not have and that he is so greedily trying to find - the ability to love truly, devotedly, selflessly. The heroines do not find happiness in love, but the suffering they endure fully reveals all the qualities of their soul. They love, they hate, they are jealous, they have compassion. They live, and do not run away from life. Each female image presented in the novel is one of the faces of the Eternal Femininity, ennobling a person and raising him above the vanity of existence.

Bela

The first to appear on the pages of the novel “Hero of Our Time” is the poetic image of the Circassian woman Bela. The sixteen-year-old daughter of a Circassian prince attracts the hero’s heart with her dissimilarity from the secular women of his circle. She is spontaneous and open.

Although Bela is very young and inexperienced, winning her heart is not easy: neither gifts nor beautiful words help Pechorin. She ingenuously shows her feelings for Pechorin only after he says that he is going to go to war to lay down his head there. Having fallen in love with the hero, the girl completely indulges in passion, she shows the best qualities of her nature: loyalty, devotion, sensitivity.

The sensitive heart of the maiden of the mountains senses Pechorin’s cooling, and she herself begins to wither and fade away. But even suffering from indifference, she does not reproach the hero for anything, does not beg for his attention, does not impose herself on him, and retains her self-esteem and pride. Love brings Bela nothing but suffering: two men love her, one torments her with his indifference, and the other deals a fatal blow with a dagger. Before her death, all the girl’s thoughts are turned to her beloved - she worries that different faiths will not allow them to meet in heaven, that another woman will be next to him in heaven. She kisses him as if in a kiss she is trying to convey her soul to him. No complaints, no accusations, no reproaches. Strong, proud, passionate, tender, reverent - femininity incarnate! Bela is the most tragic female character in the novel "A Hero of Our Time".

Faith

The next female image in the novel “A Hero of Our Time” is the image of Vera. The background of the relationship between Pechorin and Vera is little known to us, but we understand that her love for the hero has passed the test of separation and time. Clever Vera is the only woman in “Hero of Our Time” who understood the essence of Pechorin’s soul, understood and accepted him with all his advantages and disadvantages.

She submitted to her fate and continues to love him despite the voice of reason, which tells her to hate the source of suffering. As the heroine herself says, her love “fused” with her soul, “darkened, but did not fade away.” She suffers, hides her passion from her husband, and is tormented by jealousy. All the depth and strength of her feelings are most fully revealed in her last letter, a letter of farewell, a letter of confession. She understands that she will never see her lover again and asks the hero to always remember her, not to love her, but only to remember her. But jealousy haunts Vera’s heart; in the last lines of the letter she begs Pechorin not to marry Mary.

Princess Mary

Mary Ligovskaya is a young aristocrat raised in secular society. She is well educated and smart. There is always a crowd of admirers around her, but Mary's heart is free while she life path Pechorin does not appear, for whom the young inexperienced girl becomes a toy out of boredom. It costs Pechorin nothing to make the princess fall in love with him. Love transforms a girl, awakening best qualities her heart, the worldly gloss flies away from her, it opens before us alive soul capable of strong feelings. She is sincerely grateful to the hero for his help at the ball; with tears in her eyes she listens to the words about his sad fate of being misunderstood and lonely in the crowd.

Mary herself confesses her love for Pechorin, neglecting the conventions of the world. At last meeting The sight of a suffering girl evokes pity for the hero. To end her hopes, he admits that everything was a game for him. Her pride is dealt a crushing blow, and she turns all the strength of her unrequited feelings into hatred. Will Mary be able to love again with the same intensity? Will her soul harden? Will her heart become cold and indifferent?

Undine

There is another unusual female character in “A Hero of Our Time” - a smuggler girl. Ondine - that’s what the hero called her for her resemblance to a mermaid. Her charming appearance and unusual behavior immediately attract Pechorin's attention and promise him an interesting adventure.

Flexible, slender, long-haired, with magnetic power in her eyes, the girl charmed the hero and lured him into a trap, almost drowning him in the sea, while showing remarkable dexterity and strength. What pushes her to commit a crime? The fear that the officer will report to the commandant about what he saw at night forces her to act boldly and decisively. She also has a lot of cunning and ingenuity: she knows how to interest a man by playing on male vanity. Two opponents met, worthy of each other in terms of fortitude. And if Pechorin indulges his curiosity and seeks entertainment, fighting boredom, then the girl defends her love, her happiness, her usual life. Cruelty, commercialism and love for Yanko coexist in her soul. The girl yearns for him, waits impatiently, anxiously peering into the raging distance of the sea. She herself is like the sea, just as wild and rebellious.

Lermontov's novel shows images of his contemporaries; they are very different both in faith and social status, but each of them is beautiful in its own way thanks to a heart capable of true and faithful love.

All poets at all times praised women, composed hymns to them, dedicated poems to them, and went to great deeds in the name of women. Women are called the beautiful half of humanity. They can inspire heroism and push them to commit crime. In Russian literature, many female images have been created, bright and memorable. They attract us with their poetry, kindness, tenderness and purity. This is Pushkin's Tatyana, and Turgenev's girls, and Nekrasov's heroines, and many other women. Each of them has its own world, complex or simple, but necessarily unique.

In the novel “Hero of Our Time,” Lermontov described several women who were completely different from each other. They have one thing in common: they love the main character of the novel - Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin. This is a typical young man of the 30s of the 19th century. He is smart, not without charm, witty, his speech is correct and literary. Pechorin is well versed in history, philosophy, and is capable of deep analysis. At the same time, he is selfish, mocking, cruel, cold and, as a result, lonely.

We meet Pechorin in the story “Bela”. Pechorin met Bela at her sister’s wedding, where he liked this sixteen-year-old girl. “...She was beautiful: tall, thin, black eyes, like those of a mountain chamois, and looked into your soul.” Bela falls in love with Pechorin with all her heart. Two passions collide in her soul - faith and love for Pechorin. The second one wins, and Bela gives herself entirely to love. Pechorin is the only person on earth for her. In essence, that’s how it was. Bela left her home, abandoned the people of her faith, her father died, and her brother disappeared. She is kind, gentle, selfless, but she is only a drop from the sea that can satisfy Pechorin. Pechorin was attached to the girl for some time, but then he got bored with it, Bela’s love was not enough for him, his active nature was looking for new entertainment. Bela did not bring him the novelty that he expected from her; she turned out to be the same as everyone else. For Pechorin, “the love of a savage is a little better than love noble lady." The girl suffers deeply, her death is natural, it becomes a deliverance for an abandoned soul. And yet we sincerely feel sorry for this wild and beautiful mountain girl. In the story about Bela, the character of the hero is just beginning to be revealed, but we can already draw some conclusions.

Another girl, a young smuggler, is a little like Bela. But it seems so only at first glance. This similarity between the girls is that both of them are not from Pechorin’s circle, not young ladies secular society, so they seem charming and mysterious to him. There is something unknown and mysterious about the smuggler girl, which Pechorin strives for in the hope of getting rid of boredom. She is like a boat in the sea about which she sings a song.

Lermontov pays great attention to the eyes of the “undine,” and they attract Pechorin’s attention. The girl’s eyes emit an unusual light and have “some kind of magnetic power.” “The extraordinary flexibility of her figure, the special, only characteristic tilt of her head, long brown hair, some kind of golden tint of her slightly tanned skin on her neck and shoulders, and especially her correct nose” - all this was, according to Pechorin, charming for him. The savage attracts Pechorin with its novelty and uniqueness, but for him the main thing is another adventure, an escape from boredom. Pechorin feels strength in himself, the ability for real feats, but wastes himself on trifles. Having alarmed the “honest smugglers,” he himself regrets it.

Princess Mary is not at all like Bela. She is a social coquette, but she is still young and inexperienced, she doesn’t understand people well, she is attracted by external shine social life. At the same time, Princess Mary is a gentle, romantic, dreamy person. Let us remember how Lermontov describes her: velvet eyes, long eyelashes blocking the path of the sun, delicate pink skin, a pretty little leg. She has girlish charm, a kind soul, and intelligence. What attracts her to Pechorin? She creates for herself the image of her beloved, relying not on life experiences, but on books she has read. Mary is looking for a hero and is ready to see him in the first person she meets. At first she likes Grushnitsky, whose “gray overcoat” created an aura of romance and mystery, then Pechorin appears. But Pechorin is not like Grushnitsky and others like him, he has a more complex nature. The girl takes Pechorin's advances at face value. She sees Pechorin's persistence and naturally concludes that he fell in love with her. This is customary in her society, where a set of book words: “my angel”, “my princess”, “your divine
“real image” - replaces true feelings. Pechorin is different. The girl hears his strange speeches, understands that he is an extraordinary person, not like everyone else, and therefore falls in love with him. In love, she is even ready for self-sacrifice, to disregard the laws of society, she is ready to be the first to open up in her love. She hopes to hear response words from Pechorin, but he remains silent. Did she love Pechorin? Yes, she loved, but she loved the image she created, and not the real Pechorin. She did not know the real Pechorin, did not understand, and did not strive to understand. For Pechorin she was just another hobby, new game, which he was interested in until he got bored with it. Mary could not understand that Pechorin was real and Grushnitsky was a fake; she tried to give Pechorin the happiness that would only be enough for Grushnitsky. This is her problem. But we sincerely feel sorry for Mary and condemn Pechorin, condemn him for having fun playing with Mary. Pechorin understands perfectly well what suffering he brings to the girl, but does not feel sorry for her, but enjoys what is happening: “... she will spend the night without sleep and will cry. This thought gives me immense pleasure: there are moments when I understand the Vampire...”

And finally, Vera, whom Pechorin loves. For what? He himself says that she is the only woman who could understand him and accept him with all his advantages and disadvantages. Yes, Vera managed to love Pechorin for who he is. But the relationship between Pechorin and Vera is much more complex than the relationship between Pechorin and Bela or Pechorin and Mary. Lermontov's hero is a dual and contradictory nature. On the one hand, he is tired of loving, has lost faith in women and now demands only love for himself. Faith gives him this love. On the other hand, Pechorin is an egoist, an adventure hunter, for whom the main thing is to achieve his goal. Vera is married, and he is interested in winning the love of a married woman.

Pechorin sincerely suffers when he receives the last letter from Vera. He drives his horse and cries on the wet ground. But his feelings are fleeting. Another moment - and before us again is a cold, calculating man, whose reason takes over.

He brings nothing but suffering to all the women Pechorin encounters. However, Pechorin himself suffers from loneliness and misunderstanding. Lermontov replenished the gallery of female images of Russian literature with his heroines. The tenderness of Mary, the sadness of Vera, the charm, plasticity of Bela and the mystery of the “undine” smuggler add a unique charm to Lermontov’s prose.

A short essay on literature on the topic: Female images in the novel “A Hero of Our Time.” Characteristics of Bela, Princess Mary, Ondine, Vera

M.Yu. Lermontov created one of the first Russian psychological novels, in which the main role is played not by the plot, but by the revelation of the soul. The narration is aimed at showing all the facets of the character of the main character, Grigory Pechorin. Meeting different people, communicating and interacting with them also conveys his personal qualities. What are the female characters like in the novel?

The first to appear before the readers is Bela, the most exotic of all the girls. She, the daughter of a Caucasian prince, a “Circassian”, captivated the protagonist with her captivating, pure appearance, huge eyes and “wild” behavior, unspoiled by secular conventions. Pechorin stole Bela from her father's house; the proud girl first rejected the kidnapper, and then fell passionately in love. The heroine lived and burned with this first love. Pechorin became everything to her, she did not try to attract him or deliberately reject him in order to kindle interest, as secular beauties did, Bela simply loved and gave all of herself. But the hero got bored with these real feelings, he lost interest in the Circassian woman, leaving her alone, although her admirer was hunting for her. On one of these lonely days, the girl was killed. Dying, she remains selflessly loving, does not blame Pechorin, but worries about something else: “She began to grieve that she was not a Christian, and that in the next world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigory Alexandrovich.” Bela is an example of moral purity and self-sacrifice; she is Pechorin’s lost hope for the resurrection of his soul.

In the next chapter, we are waiting for “undine” - the most mysterious heroine, nothing is known about her, not even her name. She attracted the hero with her mystery and beauty; she smelled of some kind of adventure. Dexterity, insight, cunning, mobility - these qualities make a girl similar to a snake. And she’s not doing anything honest: together with the boatman Yanko, they are engaged in smuggling. “Ondine” dispelled Pechorin’s boredom for a while when he revealed her secret. However, the moment when the hero found out that the girl was a smuggler almost became fatal: the cunning “mermaid” (as Pechorin also calls her) invited a curious man on a date and almost drowned him. “Ondine” expresses the changeable fate, but she herself becomes its victim: after exposure, she and Yanko go into hiding.

Princess Mary is the most noble of the girls, a representative of the “water society”. The heroine is already poisoned by the light: superficial, flighty, false: “The princess also wanted to laugh more than once, but she restrained herself so as not to leave the accepted role: she finds that languor is coming to her - and, perhaps, she is not mistaken.” However, this beautiful girl with an expressive face and “velvet eyes” attracts not only his appearance. The princess is smart, educated, and still capable of strong feelings, because she is inexperienced, she has not yet had to be deceived. But with Pechorin I had to. The hero played on the girl’s romantic feelings and seduced her out of boredom, from a desire to annoy her “sworn friend” Grushnitsky, for reasons of the princess’s closeness to her long-beloved Vera. Pechorin broke Mary’s heart, perhaps after him she will find that coldness and insensitivity familiar to the world, which she so lacked.

Vera is the most significant woman for the hero. She is no longer young, she has experienced a lot, just like the hero. They loved each other before, and the feeling did not fade away when they met again. Vera is the only one who truly knows Pechorin; there is no need to play roles in front of her, she does not need to lie. But this understanding does not make the heroine happy. She is married to someone she doesn’t love and is slowly dying: “Very pretty, but she seems to be very sick... Didn’t you meet her at the well? “She is of average height, blonde, with regular features, consumptive complexion, and on her right cheek there is a black mole: her face struck me with its expressiveness,” says Dr. Werner about her. Vera is ready to do anything for the sake of love, she sacrifices herself, accepts Pechorin with all his shortcomings, and he, in turn, cannot deceive her and forget her. A brief moment of meeting gives way to a tragic parting: Vera is forced to leave. Both she and he understand that there is no future, which is why their separation is bitter and their hopeless love sweeter.

There is nothing in the world more beautiful than a woman Tyutchev Dedicated poems, stories, novels, stories to the Russian woman! They dedicate music to her, in her name they perform feats, make discoveries, shoot themselves, go crazy. They sing about her. The earth rests on it. In Russian literature, women are glorified especially impressively. Writers, portraying their best heroines in their works, expressed their life philosophy. And, in my opinion, the role of women in society is the most important. It is customary to speak of female images of the nineteenth century as “captivating.” And it is true. A woman is a source of joy, strength and inspiration. Lermontov wrote: “We both hate and we love by chance, sacrificing nothing to either anger or love, and a kind of secret cold reigns in the soul, when fire boils in the blood.” These words perfectly reveal the character of the main character Pechorin and his attitude towards women. There are three of them in the novel: Bela, Princess Mary and Vera.

Bela is a young Circassian woman, about whom we learn from the story of Maxim Maksimych. Pechorin, seeing her at the wedding, was captivated by her appearance and some kind of unusualness. She seemed to him the embodiment of spontaneity, naturalness, that is, everything that Pechorin had not met in the society ladies he knew. He was very fascinated by the fight for Bela, but when all the barriers were destroyed and Bela joyfully accepted her fate, Pechorin realized that he had been deceived: “... the love of a savage is little better than the love of a noble young lady, ignorance and innocence alone are as annoying as coquetry another". We should not forget that this is the opinion not of the author, but of Pechorin, who, as is known from the content of the novel, quickly became disillusioned with everything.

Bela has a strong, integral character, in which there is firmness, pride, and constancy, because she was brought up in the traditions of the Caucasus.

Princess Mary looks completely different. We learn about it from Pechorin’s diary, which describes in detail the “water society” of Pyatigorsk, where the hero stayed. Already in the first conversation with Grushnitsky about Princess Mary, an ironic, somewhat mocking tone of the narrative sounds.

Mary Ligovskaya is very young, pretty, inexperienced, and flirtatious.

She, naturally, is not particularly good at understanding people, does not see Grushnitsky’s farcical nature, and misunderstands the calculatedness of Pechorin’s play. She wants to live as is customary in their noble circle, with some vanity and splendor. Mary becomes the subject of rivalry between Grushnitsky and Pechorin. This unworthy game ruins one and amuses another. Pechorin, however, also has his own goal: when he visits the Ligovskys, he has the opportunity to see Vera there.

I think that in such an environment it was very difficult for Princess Mary to become herself and, perhaps, to show her best qualities.

Why is Pechorin so bored and lonely? To answer this question means to reveal the cause of his sorrows. Pechorin is an extraordinary person, therefore, he looked for this in women in his own way, looking for one that could completely capture his soul. But there was none. And, in my opinion, Lermontov set himself a broader task than showing young, inexperienced, unhappy girls crushed by Pechorin’s egoism.

Pechorin's love is given in sketches. Lermontov did not fully show this feeling. Pechorin cried when he drove his horse, but did not catch up with Vera.

However, this was just a temporary impulse of the soul, but nothing more.

In the morning he became himself again. Faith is just Pechorin's sick past. He was not happy with her because she was someone else’s wife, which, of course, was unbearable for Gregory’s pride. No! This is not for Pechorin! Maybe that’s why, to compensate for the lost balance, he is so cold with young women who are in love with him.

Lermontov denies his involvement with Pechorin, stating that the portrait of the hero is made up of the vices of the entire society. However, I am sure that the relationship between Pechorin and Vera is a reflection of the tragic unrequited love Lermontov to Varenka Bakhmetyeva. Lermontov loved Varenka all his life short life. He wrote about her: “At the feet of others I did not forget the gaze of your eyes, loving others, I only suffered from the love of former days.” How similar is Lermontov’s own loving handwriting to Pechorin’s. Lermontov was handsome, many women loved him, but he constantly returned to the image of his beloved.

About the life of M.Yu. Lermontov, Novikov’s wonderful book “On the Souls of the Living and the Dead” was written, many critical articles and notes were written about him. If Pushkin is the creator of the first realistic novel about modernity, then Lermontov is the author of the first realistic novel in prose. His novel is distinguished by its depth psychological analysis, which allowed Chernyshevsky to see in Lermontov the immediate predecessor of Tolstoy. M.Yu.

Lermontov, in my opinion, did not by chance pay great attention to female images in his novel. Not a single serious problem, especially the problem of the hero and time, can be considered outside of the beautiful and better half of humanity, outside of its interests, experiences and feelings. One of the discoveries made by the writer was the use of the principle: tell me who loves this person, and I will form an idea about him. It seems to me that the image female characters in the novel gave the main character and the novel itself uniqueness, freshness and clarity of his perception, as well as that complex of experiences that penetrates deeply into the soul and remains there forever.

Bibliography

To prepare this work, materials were used from the site http://sochinenia1.narod.ru/


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