Pechorin says so many things, some clever, some true, some troubling, but is he honest with himself? Choose one of your favorite lines from his diary and comment on it, it as reflected in Pechorin and its relevance to today.
Pechorin says so many things, some clever, some true, some troubling, but is he honest with himself? Choose one of your favorite lines from his diary and comment on it, it as reflected in Pechorin and its relevance to today.
One of my favorite passages is “I have an innate passion for contradiction—my whole life has been nothing but a series of melancholy and vain contradictions of heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast chills me with a twelfth-night cold, and I believe that constant association with a person of a flaccid and phlegmatic temperament would have turned me into an impassioned visionary”(pg. 98). Pechorin states several times that the most reasonable way of looking at things is with doubt because it is impossible to be sure of the truth of an idea. This disdain for visionaries shows that Pechorin does not want to feel strongly about anything. I don’t think that Pechorin is completely honest to himself in saying this, and he contradicts himself by believing in fatalism and by searching for love. It is impossible to doubt everything. Everyone has their convictions and acts on them. Pechorin believes in fatalism and seems to like the twisted way in which things turn out. He acts in accordance to his view of the world. To him, life is an “immense and laboriously constructed edifice of cunning and design”(pg. 140).
Being an impassioned visionary under the tsarist regime would not have made any difference to the state of things. Maybe Pechorin felt so disillusioned by the lack of opportunity, and that is why he acts so unscrupulously. Today, the idea that it is reasonable to look at all your convictions with doubt is still significant. In America, we can feel free to follow our convictions and try to fulfill our dreams, but there are so many examples where blind allegiance to an idea is a problem. I feel like there is something more meaningful about Pechorin’s statement. Being doubtful of what you believe in allows you to open your mind to other people’s points of views, and I think that is a very important trait to have.
I found this line really relevant and important:
“He [Werner] once said to me that he would sooner do a favor for an enemy than for a friend, because for a friend it seemed like selling charity, whereas the generosity of an adversary only gives proportional strength to hatred.” (Beginning entry on May 13- Princess Mary)
When Pechorin said this in his entry, it struck a chord with me and with how many people deal with friends and enemies. It almost goes along the lines with the idiom, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Werner (the Russian doctor) said that he would rather do a favor for an enemy rather than a friend because for a friend it seemed out of pity where as for an adversary it seemed out of the kindness of his heart. Even though Pechorin didn’t say it himself, it’s interesting to connect this to a later event; when Pechorin asks Werner to be his second in the duel. Werner accepts to be his second even though Pechorin is his friend and mentions nothing about ‘selling charity’. Or did Werner simply accept because he felt pity for Pechorin? I really liked this line because it shows that the web of friendship is intricate and can become confusing. Grushnitsky and Pechorin technically were friends but Pechorin later ends up shooting and killing Grushnitsky. Both of them also were seeking love from the same woman, Princess Mary, and tried to take each other down in the process. While Werner, was just a doctor visiting Pechorin and they ended up becoming good friends. Also with friendships today a lot of people do ‘favors’ for their friends but really not as a favor but more as a ‘you see what I did for you, now you owe me…” My mother always told us growing up, roughly translated from Spanish that if you’re not going to do someone a favor out of kindness then just forget it. And looking at a lot of situations, a lot of people shallowly accept to do favors only to call upon them later on.
It’s also interesting to see how the term ‘friendship’ is looked at in different centuries and countries and what constitutes friendship duties.
“I am like a sailor born and bred on battles, and, when cast out on the shore, he feels bored and oppressed, no matter how the shady grove lures him, no matter how the peaceful sun shines on him. All day long he haunts the sand of the shore, hearkens to the monotonous murmur of the surf and peers into the misty distance.”
Pechorin says many witty things like this, where he alludes to his continual boredom and his innate separation from the people around him. Throughout the Princess Mary, Pechorin told a complex story of his tactful manipulation of everyone around him as if everyone is nothing but an object to him. Pechorin dislikes people for no apparent reason, twists their minds and sets them up to fall. He ruined Grushnitsky’s life, and afterwards, when Gurshinsky accused Pechorin rightly of having an affair with Vera, Pechorin killed him. Yet Pechorin still maintains despite all of the obvious effort that he went through to cause the sequence of events, that fate has doomed him with a perpetual and all-encompassing ennui. Pechorin even successfully courts the young princess, only to get bored and refuse her. Pechorin is not a sailor, who is ashore, but instead one that convinces himself that there was never a sea. He himself is the cause of his own problems as if the ever-maintained chip on his shoulder is more important to “hero” than his own happiness. Pechorin also seems to enjoy bringing other people, like Gurshinsky and the Princess to his own level. Pechorin lays the blame for his unhappiness on fate; however, his ego is the only real cause of his problems.
Americans do not embody this sense of hopelessness. The public holds on so dearly to its American dream, whether or not it actually exists anymore. This constant boredom is completely alien to our community, and I honestly cannot get a grasp on it either. For our culture, there is always way, and, although thins many not be amazing, one is expected to make the best of it. Not many people have the luxury of embodying this distanced attitude towards life, and therefore its relevance today has dwindled if not run out.
“Shortly after that, all the officers broke up and went home, discussing Vulich’s freaks from different points of view, and, doubtless, with one voice calling me an egoist for having taken up a wager against a man who wanted to shoot himself, as if he could not have found a convenient opportunity without my intervention.”
This isn’t even strictly Pechorin, or rather it’s Pechorin imagining what other people might be saying, but I think it pinpoints one of the central problems in his character. Pechorin perpetually acts as if he is the crucial player in every single interaction he comes across. He assumes that when the girl invites him down to the beach at Tamañ she has some special purpose and isn’t just using him for her own gain; he takes it upon himself to make Princess Mary fall in love with him, and to be the instrument of justice that kills Grushnitski simply because Grushnitski was almost willing to kill him. Everything must happen to him and because of him. This isn’t so much fatalism as incredible self-centeredness, and the hypothetical officer who criticizes him for meddling in Vulich’s apparent death wish is spot-on. It’s human nature to think we’re special, but Pechorin seems to think that he is the most special, not just in his own eyes but in everyone’s, and in fate’s, if fate exists. I see this tendency in the 21st century, too, with everyone posting their smallest thoughts on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and commenting on the smallest thoughts of everyone else. Now that the world has access to our thoughts, it’s easy to think our thoughts are the most important in the world. And I seem to be perpetually trying to relate what we’re reading to Crime and Punishment, but this egotism of Pechorin’s reminds me of Raskolnikov’s notion that he is an “extraordinary man.” I wish Pechorin had taken it too far and been humbled.
Pechorin says that he is “accustomed to acknowledge everything” to himself (98). He does admit many of his traits, and even flaws, to himself, but although he acknowledges their existence, I don’t think he is honest with himself about their repercussions. Pechorin does not claim any real responsibility for his faults, or how they impact others. He admits that he only sees the passions and sufferings of others in how they relate to him (129), and I think in being so self-centered in his views he cannot truly be honest with himself about his character. He admits that his “chief pleasure is to make everything that surrounds [him] subject to [his] will” (129), but he does not consider the impact of that characteristic on other people. Pechorin asks himself why he is deceiving Mary, acknowledging his immoral actions, but he doesn’t answer his question or actually think about Mary. He proclaims that he only looks inward, which is true, but this trait keeps him from considering others, and therefore being truly honest with himself about what his behaviors do.
My favorite Pechorin quote comes when he is considering his possible death in the duel with Grushnitski: “…surely, mine was an exalted destiny, because I feel that within my soul are powers immeasurable” (162). He admits to being self-centered, but this quote shows that he does not recognize the true depth of his egotism. If Pechorin can say, without irony, that he was born to an exalted destiny, and has been used merely as an axe in the hands of fate (162), his ego goes far beyond what he acknowledges. He admits the truth, but cannot be honest because he does not acknowledge the whole truth; he avoids the truth in how his character impacts other people. In referring to himself as a tool in the hands of fate, Pechorin also tries to absolve himself from responsibility. I think therein lies the applicability of Pechorin to today’s world: in being honest with yourself about your character, both virtues and flaws, there has to be recognition of the impact of those traits on others, and you must take some responsibility. The meaning of life lies in interaction with others; the role of a life in the world is about its impact on others and the effect of other lives in turn. There is no predestination. Pechorin: pretentious.
As Grushnitski dons his new officer’s uniform, Pechorin is overwhelmed by the humor of it all, that his companion is so out of touch with reality, that he takes to introspection: “‘Can it be possible…that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others (pg. 137)?’” This continues for a while, eventually settling on the question of fate. To Pechorin it is not much of a question (that is, until we encounter The Fatalist) based on the language he uses, namely, that he has ‘been appointed by destiny.’ Certainly he plays with the idea somewhat, idly removing his agency from the whole affair before returning to the task at hand – humiliating his ‘friend’ Grushnitski.
It does not look like Pechorin knows how to sacrifice his interests for others. Worse, he does not seem to have interests, and so he finds significance (or humor, anyway) in ruining those of other people. He is certainly right to question his intentions, but he never truly criticizes, merely wonders a moment or two before he returns to the demands of the hour. There is no sense of accountability to his logic.
I think that his condition is certainly a relevant one for today, that a person might be so distant from the world as to play with the fabric of reality (that is, social conventions). To me this speaks of a buried despair that these sort of characters (real or imagined) hold because they do not know how to function within the constraints of their social structure, and so they take some measure of happiness from toying with them, stepping within and without them at will, simply because it gives them some sense of engagement with life. As I have mentioned, I have an older brother much like Pechorin, and am perfectly convinced that his character is not one that will disappear – whether from the literary or the real world.
“Then despair was born within my breast – not that despair which is cured at the muzzle of a pistol but the cold, powerless despair concealed beneath the mask of amiability and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple.” – Pg. 132. I find this line to be particularly emblematic of Pechorin. He adopts a confessionary stance yet all the while makes himself appear the victim. In these lines is the essence of Pechorin’s cunning. He divulges why he should never be loved and in doing so he successfully woos Princess Mary. Throughout the entire novel predestination is a prominent theme and one incorporated intrinsically into Pechorin’s character. While seducing Princess Mary it is as if he is playing a game to which he wrote the rulebook. The process of his amorous conquest has been laid out before him and all he has left to do is follow along complacently as he manipulates both Princess Mary and Grushnitski to throw away their lives (the latter, quite literally.) Pechorin’s genius is encapsulated in his coldness, in his readiness to embrace amorality as a means for the sole dharma of his life. Pechorin is the archetypical anti-hero and this is where his relevance is derived from. He is engrossing and fascinating yet at the same time grotesque in his character flaws and misgivings. Pechorin is the precursor to the Hannibal Lector’s, Kaiser Soze’s, and Col. Hans Landa’s that have dominated popular culture in recent memory.
“And, perhaps tomorrow, I shall die! … And there will not remain, on earth, a single creature that would have understood me completely. Some deem me worse, others better than I actually am. Some will say he was a good fellow; others will say he was a scoundrel. Both this and that will be false.” (approximately pg 159)
I think that Pechorin is quite correct in this assessment of himself. This bit comes after an extended self-analysis that addresses his womanizing tendencies and his continual knack for ruining the lives of those around him. In my opinion, Pechorin’s second sentence here is completely accurate. In the first section of the book, the narrator is clearly ambiguous in his opinion of Pechorin. He tries to understand Pechorin and offers several angles, but recognizes that he hasn’t quite pegged him. Maksim clearly misunderstands him since his opinion toward Pechorin manages to change so much. And I think that Pechorin should be included in that group of people who misunderstand him. Throughout his journal, he contradicts himself and in the passage immediately preceding the one I chose, he mentions his failure to understand why he is the way his is and does what he does.
I think that this passage is certainly relevant today. Many youths of today are likely to identify with this statement. I’m convinced that everyone in my generation thinks that he is terribly misunderstood. Or perhaps this is typical to the teenage years of everyone. In class you once mentioned that one gets different things out of literature depending on the place he is at in his life when he reads it. Pechorin is young like all the students that just read “his journal.” I feel like this is the reason that at least I am able to identify with Pechorin. He’s confused about himself and his motives and this is not a feeling that I myself am not unfamiliar with. When a reader can identify with something that occurs in literature , that literature is relevant today.
My favorite line from Pechorin’s diaries is when he writes: “… And we, their miserable descendants, roaming over the earth, without faith, without pride, without enjoyment, and without terror — except that involuntary awe which makes the heart shrink at the thought of the inevitable end…” (85). In this passage Pechorin is trying to convey that he truly believes himself incapable of feeling anything outside of boredom and disillusionment. Even the love of Princess Mary, the attainment of which is obviously high in Pechorin thought, he pursues despite the fact that it is “tiresome” and predictable. Nothing on this earth can bring him pleasure or excitement and there certainly cannot be anything after death, because that would allow him some sense of change to look forward to. I think that as much as Pechorin tries to come across as having this devil-may-care attitude, his actions throughout Lermontov’s work prove this is just a lie – albeit one that continues to tell even to himself.
If Pechorin is left with one human emotion that has not been twisted by his cynical airs, I believe it is curiosity. He claims that his life has become dull, and often refers to his presentiments for the future (all of which are made in the hindsight narrative of his journal), however I cannot be convinced that Pechorin is completely devoid of interest in his surroundings. If not for curiosity, what reason does he have to follow the girl in “the Fatalist” down to the shore or engage in flirtation with a girl he completely admits to having no attachment to? As much as Pechorin would like us to read his diary as an accurate depiction of his very being, I think his jadedness is just one more thing he tries to act out in order to set him apart from other men.
“You see, it is for myself that I am writing this diary, and, consequently anything that I jot down in it will in time be a valuable reminiscence for me” (130).
This line reminds me that we are not getting an entirely pure glance into Pechorin’s soul, even from his own diary. While some of what he says may be his genuine thoughts and feelings, it is hard for the reader to know. For as he says above, he is writing the diary for himself, not to recall events since past, which have been dulled by the passing of time; but rather, he writes for “reminiscence.” And because this diary is born from a desire for nostalgia, I would argue that he paints not a portrait of himself as he actually is, but as he wishes to appear to himself. Here the distinction should be drawn — it is not how he appears to others, but how he will view himself. Because of the bias inherent in someone reporting themselves, especially someone as self-absorbed as Pechorin, I am inclined to take much of his diary with a grain of salt. All of this being said I do think that Pechorin was as honest with himself as a narcissist can be.
In terms of this statement’s relevance to today, for me it is a reminder that we all see ourselves through our own distorted lenses. It’s much like how characters in the Matrix appear differently in the Matrix and in real life because they assume their mental picture of themselves in the Matrix. But as an application to real life, it’s a reminder to realize that your own assessments of yourself are still biased. Although you can attain more clarity in terms of why you behave a certain way, you lose some perspective of yourself as you try to dress up your own faults.
“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.”
When Pechorin makes this comment about Princess Mary, the reader sees how emotionless Pechorin really is. Just like Bela, Princess Mary is just a pawn to him in his quest for excitement.
Professor Beyer mentioned in class that Pechorin is every teenage boy’s hero. He is clearly charismatic and commands attention but I truly hope that he is not what guys at Middlebury College aspire to be. I can think of a few aggressive, cocky, attractive guys who are not looking to date girls but as far as I can tell they are not having much luck. I hope that statements like Pechorin’s, which could still be uttered in more casual language in 2010, do not represent what men want.
“I look upon the suffering and joys of others only in relation to myself as on the food sustaining the strength of my soul … what is happiness? Sated pride” (123, Nabokov).
This quote represents how honest Pechorin can be at times, especially in light of our knowledge of the events (albeit anachronistic) within “Bela.” In the context of the passage, this quote pertains mainly to Pechorin’s opinions of the young princess, who he claims is a flower that “should be plucked … and after inhaling one’s fill of it, one should throw it away” (123). Of course, such blatant abuse of human emotion strikes the reader as abhorrent, but I would argue that what lies beneath this quote is much more than a proclaimed desire to toy with Mary.
In essence, this quote explains the entire novel. We can see that, despite the fact that Grushnitski and the captain of the Dragoons collaborate later in the story, here Pechorin’s character lays out the means by which he is later able to manipulate Grushnitski’s emotions (via Mary) without much guilt, if any. Perhaps this conclusion comes at the benefit of our long assignment, and may even be tinged with cum hoc fallacy, but I believe that Pechorin applies the same principles to his chasing a woman he does not love (as he later admits to her while taking water) as he does to tinker with Grushnitski’s deepest feelings
Pechorin views his conflict with Grushnitski simply as a game to sate his “thirst for power” (123), but it ultimately comes at the cost of Grushnitski’s life. The murderer’s reaction to seeing his former friend’s carcass among the jagged rocks, not unlike his later reaction upon seeing his dead horse, makes us question if human mortality affects Pechorin at all. For we do have questions left over from “Bela.” As we know, Maksim Maksimich was not supposed to speak of her after her death, however we see that Pechorin abused Bela in the exact same way he had Mary and Grushnitski earlier in his life. He may be a dynamic character, but Pechorin cannot shake his flippant view of life at any point in the book.
Perhaps this can be taken as a symbol of youth in general, as our elders often tell us that we see ourselves as recklessly invincible. To an extent they are right: many people today jeopardize their health and others’ while young without consideration. Pechorin’s facetious attitude is simply a hyperbolized version of this, and that it remains static is a somewhat unrealistic character flaw — unless, of course, he really is a sadist.
And yet we live – out of curiosity! We expect something new…How absurd, and yet how vexatious! “(p. 163)
This quote to me explained a lot of the characteristics in Pechorin and many of the things he has done. Pechorin claims constantly that he has figured out the systems and patterns of life, as well as how to manipulate people to his liking and in that he finds the explanation of why he is so bored with life. And yet he chooses to live. He challenges all that comes with life constantly whether it concerns himself or other is not of his concern, but in that lies the notion that he sticks around out of curiosity. He is going to stick around in the hope of something different, something unpredictable, life changing. And it is this hope for something, I guess, better that makes something in me want to not give up on him.
This theme is ever present, I suppose especially for college or high school seniors, for those who are trying to figure out, what exactly they want to make of their life. In these decisions always hovers the question of what exactly life is and for what end it is and should be lived. Whether it is known or not, the VAST majority of people will go on in their life and try and figure it out as they go, just out of curiosity, with hopes and expectations. Personally I think it is frustrating rather than boring not to know the purpose behind it all. Maybe knowing this purpose would living life be worthless… who knows. But assuming the latter, it is understandable that Pechorin’s thoughts never go very deep, if he is scared of really finding something.
“I am very glad; I love enemies, though not in the Christian sense. They amuse me, stir my blood. To be always on ones guard, to catch every glance, the meaning of every word, to guess intention, to crush conspiracies, to pretend to be deceived and suddenly with one blow to overthrow the whole immense and laboriously constructed edifice of cunning and design — that is what I call life.” p 140
Pechorin’s observation here is very key. There is something so tantalizing, seductive, and real about having enemies. For Pechorin, having enemies, and living the destructive life he leads, is his method of feeling alive. He finds a purpose, a focus, and an intense surge of energy when he manipulates others and lives life on the edge. Of course though, those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and I think his grief is that he understands that he will be alone his entire life but still cannot resist the temptation of the war drums and boiling blood.
People find purpose everywhere, blessed are those who can be happy and complacent with an easy farm life with no memories and no troubles and no changes. But others need to make problems or drama to remind themselves they are alive, they need to constantly challenge themselves, and they will do foolish even self destructive things to prove this to themselves. This aspect of life is very real. I am still too young to judge whether or not the thirst for life can be considered virtuous or not and am trying to figure it out.
I will say that it is too bad that the thirst for life, as generally has it, can not be quenched by “good” deeds.
On page 114, Pechorin says “I keep four horses – one for myself and three for my friends, so that I may not be bored by having to roam the fields all alone; they take my horses with pleasure, and never ride with me.” This line epitomizes the character of Pechorin to me. He is well-off (able to keep four horses) and has at least nominal friends, but people do not actually like him very much. They know he is mean and that many of the nice things he does are a farce. He is actually rather cruel hearted. On page 131 Pechorin and Mary are gossiping and Pechorin notes that he “began in jest, and ended in genuine malice.” He is not a friendly person, but is certainly able to intrigue and charm people. He had an affair with Vera years ago, and she is still in love with him. He is nothing but cruel to Mary, but she sees it as playing hard to get. He comes off as tall, dark and handsome instead of as an ass. As we talked about in class, Pechorin is the literary version of an obnoxious frat guy who knows how to party really hard and can get any girl he wants. Pechorin has friends, or rather people who he would call friends. He keeps extra horses because of them, but not for them. Even with the horses, he is not being nice; he is being self-centered because he does not want to have to go riding alone. Pechorin is deeply flawed, but in a weirdly stylized and somewhat romanticized way. Pechorin is the kind of guy who is fun to have at a party, but you would rather die than see him date your sister.
One of my favorite quotations from the novel is: “Can it be possible… that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and to act, it seems always to have been my fate to play a part in the ending of other people’s dramas, as if, but for me, no one could either die or fall into despair! I have been the indispensable person of the fifth act; unwillingly I have played the pitiful part of an executioner or a traitor,” (137). This excerpt is so valuable in that it reveals a deeply rooted, carefully hidden facet of Pechorin’s character. In this moment, the seemingly fearless protagonist exposes inner vulnerability. Readers catch a glimpse of Pechorin’s potential motivations: instead of a bored hero searching for his next adventure, we witness someone perhaps destined to always feel as if he is the other, someone supplementary—as if his life’s purpose is to play a role in the grand romances and heartbreaking tragedies of stories that are not his own. Yes, he has occasional exploits (ex: Bèla, Vera) but these affairs are transitory, passionate, but contained and apparently have no effect on his succeeding relationships. In A Hero of Our Time, the moments when Pechorin’s persona is questioned and complicated are rare and important, and provide readers with the minute details that necessarily comprise a full character.
After Pechorin’s horse dies at the end of Princess Mary, he writes a passage in his journal that is indicative of the way I view him as a character.
“It is all for the best. That new suffering created within me a fortunate diversion – to speak in military style. To weep is healthy, and then, no doubt, if I had not ridden as I did and had not been obliged to walk fifteen versts on my way back, sleep would not have closed my eyes on that night either,” (178).
Pechorin is a character whose detached outlook feels very real for me, like it comes from a place of immense tragedy. This passage illustrates that because he has just attempted to escape from all of his problems, yet even when he breaks down weeping all he can do is frame it with military language. He is utilitarian because that is the only way that he has learned how to protect himself. In this way, I see Pechorin as anything but pretentious. It is true that he might have taken a deference to predestination too far, but isn’t that a predicament that we can all relate to? All of us live with a wholly egotistical perception of our universe, and when things don’t go our way, sometimes the best thing you can do is just detach yourself from the pain. I think that Pechorin’s unquenchable desires come from that place. It’s still relevant to anyone who finds themselves groundless in a post-modern world – the best that Pechorin can do is hope that he can forget about his subconscious sorrows through sleep.
“On my way home I noticed that something was lacking. I have not seen her! She is ill! Surely I have not fallen in love with her in real earnest? . . . What nonsense!” (141)
Up until this point, Pechorin makes no sign whatsoever that he has any interest in Princess Mary, or that he plans on having an intimate future with her. In fact, his plan all along is to have her fall in love with his irresistible self and to make sure she only notices the driest indifference in him, which at first was quite genuine. Pechorin is obviously not as sure of himself as he thinks he is, since he doubts his feelings multiple times, yet at the same time continues to think that he knows all there is to know about women and “comprehend[s] their little weaknesses” (147). This is the point where I started to dislike Pechorin less. His very human uncertainty of his feelings does not allow even him to believe that he is the great narcissistic hero he prides himself on being. Because of the chronologically last story about Pechorin, which we read about before reading Princess Mary, the reader already knows that he is not as secure as he makes himself seem. The fact that he does not know the true meaning of his life is the cause of his melancholic boredom earlier in the book, and ultimately leads him to collapse emotionally after the death of Bela, whom he probably didn’t love as much as he did Vera.
Pechorin is completely honest with himself when he thinks about his own misfortunes, for example, how he is repulsed when a woman says she loves him completely, or when he admits that he finds joy in contradicting other people.
However, he is not honest with himself when he tries to think about why others hate him so much and why he wrecks so much havoc. He admits that he finds pleasure in stirring trouble, but he does not hold himself accountable for his actions, as he believes that fate governs everything he does, and if anyone should be mad at him, they may as well go sort it out with fate, that he just so happened to be born with the ability to make women fall in love with him and men jealous.
My favorite question is “Why do I bother? … am I possessed by that sordid, irresistible urge which makes us destroy another’s fond illusions…”
The answer is yes. At the center of his existence is a hunger and thirst for power, to be better than others, to be at no one’s mercy, but to have everyone at his mercy. He understands better than anyone else the human relationships that are useful for him: how to manipulate Princess Mary into loving him so that he once again prove to himself that he how to do it, or leading Grushnitsky deeper and deeper down into a trap that he had set up from the early weeks of his stay at the springs.
Having experienced many women and rivalries before, he no longer draws happiness from his advantages that many of us would love to have. The only petty satisfaction that he can still derive from human interaction is ruining others’ lives and knowing that he has the power to do so.
Some say that they would never do things that Pechorin has, that it is immoral. I believe that every man enjoys power, and we all think thoughts as petty as Pechorin’s, but conscience usually kicks in, and stops us from fully carrying out our deepest, darkest, and most frightening desires. However, if we had as much power as Pechorin does, and no one to keep us in check, I would be scared of us.
So…I was thrown for a bit of a loop in reading the translation; for some reason (I haven’t figured out why yet) “The Fatalist” precedes “Princess Mary” in the translation I have, but is the closing section of the Russian text that I own. This seems significant to me because each section develops Pechorin’s character in a different light – sometimes favorably, often not. In “Bela” Pechorin’s heroic archetype is established, in “Maksim” his solipsistic personality is developed, “Taman” again develops his romantic heroism, etc. “Princess Mary” does much to cement Pechorin’s unshakable commitment to principle and his moral vacuity. “The Fatalist” shows him to be truly committed to his belief in predestination and at least ideologically consistent. I think by prefacing “Princess Mary” with “The Fatalist” Pechorin loses some of his redeeming qualities, which may be consistent with Lermontov’s stated attitude (fromt the introduction) towards his protagonist. On the other hand closing with “The Fatalist” confirms that Pechorin fears no reprisals nor consequences and because of that is free to do what other men cannot.
As for Pechorin’s self-honesty, I believe that for the most part he is genuine, but mistakenly so – he seems to not want to be satisfied. His actions are consistent with his appreciation (or lack thereof) for consequences and he seems to question himself little.
As for a particularly revealing line:
“…we are no longer capable of great sacrifices, either for the good of mankind or our own happiness, because we know the impossibility of such happiness; and just as our ancestors used to fling themselves from one decision to another, we pass indifferently from doubt to doubt, without possessing, as they did, either hope or even that vague though, at the same time, keen enjoyment which everyday the soul encounters at every struggle with mankind or with destiny.” I think this quote from “The Fatalist” epitomizes Pechorin’s disillusionment with contemporary iife – it is full of doubt. I believe it’s this doubt that makes him abandon Bela to hunt, play cruelly with Princess Mary, etc. and in turn inspires him to act boldly and without regard for the consequences of his actions – in the case of Grushnitski, the murderous Cossack, etc. Does this have any application to the modern world? To a sentimental or wildly thoughtful individual, most certainly, but to a cooler head or one with more established confidence it’s relevance is less so. That said, the scale at which society operates today with all its information and massive projects, can certainly be intimidating to inspire doubt and reduce a man to pettiness.
Among many excellent quotations from Lermontov’s “A Hero of Our Time” (which I should disclaim has somehow vaulted into the realm of my favorite books), I find Pechorin’s disquisition on p. 85 worth a second look (Sarah has done so before me). Pechorin proclaims that the lack of inspiration present in his day renders us “no longer capable of great sacrifices, either for the good of mankind or even for our own happiness, because we know the impossibility of such happiness; and, just as our ancestors used to fling themselves from one delusion to another, we pass indifferently from doubt to doubt, without possessing, as they did, either hope or even that vague though, at the same time, keen enjoyment which the soul encounters at every struggle with mankind or with destiny.” (85) I think that Sarah is on to something by bringing up “boredom and disillusionment” in life at large, but would take these ideas a step further to include apathy and purposelessness with particular regard to fate and society. Pechorin has the latter two reversed in his last-cited sentence, but in my opinion he uses this section to lash out not against a lack of curiosity (he’d be explicitly dishonest if he denied himself curiosity), but against an apathetic attitude toward “mankind” and “destiny.” By this I mean that Pechorin laments the lack of any feeling about fate in society, one way or the other: when Vulich makes his wager against predestination, he does so for money’s and luck’s sake, rather than faith’s—and everyone else will bet only on facts such as whether or not the gun is loaded. Perhaps those wagers imply a decision about destiny, but Lermontov’s characters seem to “pass indifferently from doubt to doubt” about fate, as the appropriately entitled “The Fatalist” attests, and otherwise distrust society, as the personae of “Princess Mary” do. Pechorin’s point, though, is that they don’t care a dime for these doubts. There is certainly something self-accusatory in Pechorin’s digression on p. 85, but I am therefore the more inclined to claim he is being honest with himself. As for relevance today, I see a similar lack of purpose and, as Pechorin seems to stress, lack of effort or enthusiasm in trying to change this fact; inspiration and imagination, whether these derive from faith or reason, have fallen by the wayside in favor of mediocre fact, which requires far fewer “great sacrifices” to be realized.