Pechorin and Grushnitsky: characteristics of heroes

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In the spring of 1940, a separate edition of the work "A Hero of Our Time", written by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, was published. This novel has become one of the most interesting and extraordinary phenomena in Russian literature. This book has been the object of numerous studies and disputes for more than a century and a half. It does not lose its sharpness and relevance in our days. Belinsky also wrote about this book that she was never destined to grow old. We also decided to contact her and write our essay. Grushnitsky and Pechorin are very interesting characters.

Generation feature

Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin, the protagonist of the novel in question, lived during the time of Lermontov, that is, approximately in the thirties of the nineteenth century. This time was a period of gloomy reaction, which came after the Decembrist uprising in 1825 and its defeat. A man of advanced thinking could not at that time find application for his talents and strengths. Doubt, disbelief, denial were features of the consciousness of the younggenerations of those years. The ideals of the fathers were rejected by them "from the cradle", and then these people questioned the moral norms and values as such. Therefore, V. G. Belinsky wrote that "Pechorin suffers deeply" because he cannot use the mighty forces of his soul.

New Art Media

Lermontov, creating his work, portrayed life as it really is. This required new artistic means, and he found them. Neither Western nor Russian literature knew these means, and to this day they arouse our admiration due to the combination of a wide and free depiction of characters with the ability to objectively show them, to reveal one character through the prism of perception of another.

Let's take a closer look at the two main characters in this novel. This is Pechorin and Grushnitsky.

The image of Pechorin

Pechorin was an aristocrat by birth, received a standard secular upbringing. Leaving parental care, he went "to the big world" in order to enjoy all the pleasures. However, he soon got tired of such a frivolous life, the hero got bored with reading books. Pechorin, after some story that made a sensation in St. Petersburg, is exiled to the Caucasus.

Depicting the appearance of the hero, the author indicates with a few strokes his origin: "noble forehead", "pale", "small" hand. This character is a hardy and physically strong person. He is endowed with intelligencecritically evaluating the world around.

Character of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin

Pechorin thinks about the problems of good and evil, friendship and love, about the meaning of our life. He is self-critical in assessing his contemporaries, saying that his generation is incapable of making sacrifices not only for the good of mankind, but also for their own personal happiness. The hero is well versed in people, he is not satisfied with the sluggish life of the "water society", he evaluates the capital's aristocrats, giving them destructive characteristics. Pechorin's inner world is most deeply and fully revealed in the inserted story "Princess Mary", during a meeting with Grushnitsky. The characterization of Pechorin and Grushnitsky in their confrontation is an example of Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov's deep psychological analysis.

Grushnitsky

The author of the work "A Hero of Our Time" did not give a name and patronymic to this character, calling him simply by his last name - Grushnitsky. This is an ordinary young man, a cadet, who dreams of great love and stars on his shoulder straps. His passion is to produce an effect. Grushnitsky goes to Princess Mary in a new uniform, smelling of perfume, dressed up. This hero is mediocrity, which is characterized by weakness, forgivable, however, at his age - "passion to recite" and "drape" in some kind of extraordinary feelings. Grushnitsky aspires to play the role of a disillusioned hero, fashionable at the time, posing as a being endowed with "secret suffering". This hero is a parody of Pechorin, andquite successful, because it is not for nothing that the young junker is so unpleasant to the latter.

Confrontation: Pechorin and Grushnitsky

Grushnitsky by his behavior emphasizes the nobility of Grigory Alexandrovich, but, on the other hand, seems to erase any differences between them. After all, Pechorin himself spied on Princess Mary and Grushnitsky, which, of course, is not a noble act. It must be said that he never loved the princess, but only used her love and gullibility to fight his enemy, Grushnitsky.

The latter, as a narrow-minded person, does not understand Pechorin's attitude towards himself at first. He seems to himself a self-confident person, very significant and insightful. Grushnitsky says condescendingly: "I feel sorry for you, Pechorin." However, events are not developing according to the plan of Grigory Alexandrovich. Now, overwhelmed by jealousy, indignation and passion, the junker appears before the reader in a completely different light, turning out to be far from so harmless. He is capable of meanness, dishonesty and revenge. The hero, who recently played nobility, is now able to put a bullet into an unarmed person. The duel between Grushnitsky and Pechorin reveals the true nature of the former, who rejects reconciliation, and Grigory Alexandrovich shoots and kills him in cold blood. The hero dies, having drunk the cup of hatred and shame of repentance to the end. This is, in brief, the confrontation that was waged by the two main characters - Pechorin and Grushnitsky. Comparative characteristics of their images form the basis of the entire work.

Reflections of Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin

Beforehow to go to a duel (Pechorina with Grushnitsky), Grigory Alexandrovich, remembering his life, asks questions about why he lived, why he was born. And he answers it himself, that he feels "a high appointment", immense forces in himself. Then Grigory Aleksandrovich understands that he has long been just an "axe" in the hands of fate. There is a contrast of spiritual strength and unworthy hero of small deeds. He wants to "love the whole world", but brings only misfortune and evil to people. High, noble aspirations are reborn into petty feelings, and the desire to live a full life - into hopelessness and a sense of doom. The position of this hero is tragic, he is lonely. The duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky clearly showed this.

Lermontov called his novel so because the hero for him is not a role model, but only a portrait, which is the vices of the modern generation of the author in their full development.

Conclusion

Grushnitsky's character thus helps to reveal in Pechorin the main qualities of his nature. This is a crooked mirror of Grigory Alexandrovich, shading the significance and truth of the experiences of the "suffering egoist", the exclusivity and depth of his personality. With special force in the situation with Grushnitsky, all the danger lurking in the depths of this type is revealed, the destructive force inherent in the individualistic philosophy that is inherent in romanticism. Lermontov showed all the abysses of the human soul, nottrying to make a moral judgment. Pechorin and Grushnitsky, therefore, are not a positive and negative hero. Pechorin's psychology is by no means unambiguous, as well as some positive qualities can be found in the character of Grushnitsky.