Hero of our time: "Fatalist". Summary

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

Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time" ends with a chapter called "The Fatalist". The summary of the work first requires a description of the scene of the picture. Near the Cossack village, in which Pechorin lived for some time, there was an infantry battalion. In the evenings, officers often gathered at the apartment of one or the other of them to play cards.

Death Bet

One day, taking a break from a boring game, they started a philosophical argument. The subject was the belief of Muslims that the fate of everyone is written in heaven, and, as it turned out, many Christians share this judgment. Among the players there was a man who had a special passion for the game, a Serb, lieutenant Vulich. Being by nature a brave and rather sharp person, he proposes not to argue in vain, but in fact to check whether a person himself can manage his life and destiny. Officer Vulich is a fatalist. The summary of his speech has an unambiguous meaning: if he is not destined to die today, then the gun put to his forehead will not fire. Of all those present, only Pechorin agreed to make a bet with him, believing thatit is impossible to predetermine fate in advance.

The inevitability of fate

The lieutenant removes the first pistol he comes across from the wall, loads it and presents it to his head. At this time, it seems to Pechorin that he sees the seal of death on the face of the Serb, and he warns Vulich that he will die today. To which he hears a philosophical answer: "Maybe yes, maybe no …". A shot sounds, the gun misfires. Raising the trigger again, Vulich fires again at the hat hanging on the wall, and this time, after the smoke clears, a gaping hole opens up to everyone. Pechorin already doubts his visions and, returning home, talks about his ancestors, the arbiters of destinies in heaven, and that perhaps this Serb fatalist is not so wrong. The summary of the chapter will then nevertheless reveal the correctness of Pechorin's visions. In the morning it becomes known about the death of Vulich: he was hacked to death by a drunken Cossack on his way home. Moreover, when the lieutenant asked the runaway Cossack about who he was looking for as a sentence, the answer was mystical: “You!”.

Pechorin's test of his fate

Another, no less revealing, scene will end our summary. A fatalist is a person who is convinced of the inevitability, and when the prospect of trying his own fate opens up before Pechorin, he does not think long. Vulich's killer hid in a house on the outskirts, and it was almost impossible to get him out alive. Then his crazy plan matures in Pechorin's head. Young man behind the shuttersclimbs through the window and disarms the Cossack. But he manages to shoot first, the bullet flies past. After such events, you involuntarily begin to understand that somewhere deep in your soul you are also a bit of a fatalist. The summary continues Pechorin's reasoning that, not knowing what awaits you, you go forward much more boldly, that there is nothing worse than death, and it is inevitable. When he returns to the fortress and talks about what happened with Maxim Maksimych, the staff captain expresses the idea that, apparently, it was written in Vulich's family, but he is still sorry.

Under mysterious circumstances, returning from Persia, the hero of our time himself dies. "The Fatalist", a summary of the chapter, dullly conveys all the thoughts and reasonings of the main characters, in fact, this part is very capacious and deep, making you think that a person is the master of his own destiny.