The compositional structure of the novel is a hero of our time. What is unique about the composition of the novel “Fathers and Sons”?1. The structure of the novel is built on repetition and cyclicity2. Ring composition3. Mirror composition4. It is based on the genre of "travel"

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov began work on his most famous novel, “A Hero of Our Time,” in 1838, and initially published parts of this work as separate stories. It was not until 1840 that A Hero of Our Time was published as a full-length novel.

And it is this novel that can be called the first full-fledged socio-psychological work for Russian literature. This is due not only to the writer’s desire to depict the tragic side of the 30s of the 19th century, but also to those artistic, innovative features that Lermontov’s novel is rich in and the complexity of the composition.

Features of the novel

A distinctive feature of “A Hero of Our Time” is the unusual composition with which the novel is presented to readers. (). The narrators change throughout the work, and we see the complex and amazing nature of the main character through different eyes.

This allows us to understand the character and personality of Pechorin at a high psychological level, and to unravel his thoughts and the content of his inner world. This artistic feature makes the novel not only instructive and deep, but interesting and exciting.

Also in “A Hero of Our Time” the chronological sequence of events is disrupted, which cannot but be called a special artistic technique of Lermontov. First, the author shows us the later period of Pechorin’s life, then the reader learns about his death, and after Lermontov gives the words to Pechorin himself.

The title of the work speaks for itself; it fully reveals the intention of the talented writer. (). Lermontov wanted to create a full-fledged and detailed image of the hero of that time; in the history of one human soul, he included all the typical features, character traits and vices that were inherent in the people of the post-Decembrist era.

For this reason, Pechorin’s personality is so complex and contradictory; he can be selfish, cold and cruel, but for him there is no stricter judge than himself.

The complex and slightly confusing composition of the novel allows you to delve deeper and deeper into the life of the main character and understand his state of mind. And the change of narrators allows us to see his psychological portrait brighter and broader.

After all, the complexity of composition and artistic narrative created by Lermontov fully corresponds to the complexity of the character of his hero, who is the key person in the entire novel.

The way the work is artistically constructed personifies Pechorin’s logic; this is also the key to understanding his fate and personality.

The versatility of “A Hero of Our Time”

The versatility of “A Hero of Our Time” lies in the fact that, using the example of Pechorin’s controversial and unique personality, the author reveals many life-affirming themes.

Pechorin's life, the choices he made, his actions and behavior are a richly colored picture of the lives of many people of that time.

And Lermontov’s skill lies in the fact that he does not just outline reality, he psychologically reveals the causes and consequences of Pechorin’s character traits, he raises important and pressing problems of society through the personality of such a unique hero.

The theme of individual freedom sounds tirelessly in Pechorin’s thoughts, and by his example the author argues that the struggle for freedom must continue regardless of the circumstances.

But Pechorin’s contradiction lies in the fact that he continues this tough struggle without any humanistic ideals that could calm and please his heart.

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The compositional features of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” come from the fact that the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov became a leading work of its time: in it the author used a new genre of psychologically oriented novel, a new image of the main character and, accordingly, a new compositional division of the work.

The author himself, after the publication of his novel in its finished form, admitted that not a single word, not a single line in it arose by chance, everything written was subordinated to one main goal - to show readers their contemporary - a man with noble and evil inclinations, who, obeying his feelings selfishness, was able to realize in life only his vices, and his virtues remained only good desires.

When the novel was first published, critics and ordinary readers had many questions regarding the compositional division of this work. Let us try to consider the main of these issues.

Why was the chronology of the presentation of episodes in the life of the main character disrupted?

The peculiarities of the composition of “A Hero of Our Time” are related to the fact that we learn about the life of the main character in a very inconsistent way. The first part of the novel tells how Pechorin kidnapped the Circassian Bela from his own father, made her his mistress, and later lost interest in this girl. As a result of a tragic accident, Bela was killed by the Circassian Kazbich, who was in love with her.

In the second part, entitled “Maxim Maksimovich,” readers learn that several years have passed since Bela’s death; Pechorin decided to go to Persia and died on the way there. From Pechorin's diary we learn about the events that happened to the main character before he met Bela: Pechorin got into a funny adventure with smugglers in Taman and in the city of Kislovodsk he met the young princess Mary Ligovskaya, whom, without meaning to, he fell in love with him, and then he refused to share her feelings. A duel took place there between Pechorin and Grushnitsky, as a result of which the latter was killed.

The novel "A Hero of Our Time" ends with the part "Fatalist", which tells about a private episode from the life of Pechorin.

Studying the plot and composition of “A Hero of Our Time,” literary scholars agree that the author violated the chronological presentation of the main character’s life in order, on the one hand, to emphasize the confusion of Pechorin’s life, his inability to subordinate his fate to one main idea; on the other hand, Lermontov tried to reveal the image of his main character gradually: first, readers saw him from the outside through the eyes of Maxim Maksimovich and the narrator-officer, and then only became acquainted with Pechorin’s personal diary, in which he was extremely frank.

How do plot and plot relate in a novel?

The innovation of Lermontov the prose writer contributed to the fact that the plot and plot of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” do not coincide with each other. This leads to the fact that the reader pays more attention not to the external outline of events in the life of the main character, but to his internal experiences. Literary scholars have dubbed this method of constructing a work “intense composition,” when readers see the heroes of the novel at the peak moments of their fate.

Therefore, the composition of “A Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov represents a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian literature: the author talks about key episodes from the life of his hero, characterizing him precisely at the moments of the highest trials in life: these are Pechorin’s love experiences, his duel with Grushnitsky, his clash with a drunken Cossack, his dangerous adventure with smugglers on Taman.

In addition, Lermontov resorts to the technique of a ring composition: for the first time we meet Pechorin in the fortress in which he serves with Maxim Maksimovich, the last time we see the hero in the same fortress, before he leaves for Persia.

How does the compositional division of the work help reveal the image of the main character?

According to most literary scholars, the unique compositional solution of the novel helps to examine the image of Pechorin in detail.
In the first part of “Bel,” Pechorin’s personality is shown through the eyes of his commander, the kind and honest Maxim Maksimovich. The author debunks the myth existing in the literature of that time about the beautiful love between a savage woman and a young educated nobleman. Pechorin in no way corresponds to the image of the young romantic hero that was created in the works of the writer’s contemporaries.

In the second part of “Maxim Maksimovich” we find a more detailed description of the personality of the main character. Pechorin is described through the eyes of the narrator. Readers get an idea of ​​the hero's appearance and behavior. The romantic aura around Grigory Alexandrovich is completely dissipated.

In Taman, Lermontov refutes the myth of romantic love between a girl engaged in smuggling activities and a young officer. The young smuggler with the romantic name Ondine does not behave at all sublimely; she is ready to kill Pechorin only because he turned out to be an unwitting witness to her crime. Pechorin is also characterized in this part as an adventurous person, ready to do anything to satisfy his own desires.

The part “Princess Mary” is built on the principle of a secular story: it contains a love story and a conflict between two officers for the possession of a girl’s heart, which ends tragically. In this part, the image of Pechorin receives a complete realistic description: readers see all the external actions of the hero and the secret movements of his soul.

In the last part of the novel “Fatalist,” Lermontov poses the most important questions for him about the meaning of human life on earth: is a person the master of his destiny or is he being led by some kind of evil fate; Is it possible to cheat your fate or is it impossible, etc.? In the last part, Pechorin appears before us in the image of a man who is ready to fight fate. However, readers understand that this struggle will ultimately lead him to an early death.

The role of composition in the novel “A Hero of Our Time” is very important. It is thanks to the unusual compositional division of the work that the author manages to achieve the full embodiment of his creative plan - the creation of a new psychologically oriented genre of the novel.

The presented compositional features of the work can be used by 9th grade students when preparing material for an essay on the topic “Features of the composition of the novel “A Hero of Our Time”.”

Work test

“A Hero of Our Time” can be described as a socio-psychological novel. M.Yu. Lermontov in his work shows the reader the era of changing ideals in Russian history. Grigory Pechorin (like the author himself) can be attributed to the so-called “lost generation”, since after the Decembrist uprising, which failed, society has not yet acquired new ideals and goals.

Throughout the entire work, the character of Pechorin is revealed to the reader, and the composition of the novel serves to solve this artistic problem.

In “A Hero of Our Time” there is no traditional compositional division of the text. There is no exposition, since the reader knows little about the life of the main character before his arrival in the Caucasus. There is also no plot, and the action is represented by a series of episodes telling about the life of Pechorin. The combination of several plot lines forms the polyphonic structure of the novel, which consists of five separate stories. That is why the reader sees five climaxes in the work at the same time. The denouement of the novel can be considered the moment of Pechorin’s death, when the main character dies while returning from Persia. Thus, it can be noted that the overall storyline consists only of climaxes and denouement. But an interesting fact is that in each story individually one can note the presence of a traditional compositional division of the text. Take, for example, the first part of the novel “Bela”, in which the plot of the story is a conversation between Bela’s brother and Kazbich, which Pechorin accidentally learns about. The direct exposition is the moment the officer-narrator meets retired staff captain Maxim Maksimovich. The climax is the scene of Pechorin's abduction of Bela. And the denouement is the death of Bela at the hands of Kazbich, who was in love with her, whose mind was clouded by jealousy and the desire for revenge.

The first thing that catches the reader's eye is the violation of the chronological sequence during the narrative. That is why the denouement is in the middle of the text. Thus, the author gradually revealed the character of the main character. First, readers saw him through the eyes of the officer-narrator and Maxim Maksimovich, and then became acquainted with Pechorin’s diary, in which he was extremely frank.

The composition of “A Hero of Our Time” is also unique in that Lermontov characterizes his hero at moments of peak life experiences, such as an incident with smugglers, a duel with a former comrade Grushnitsky, a fight with the drunken Cossack killer Vulich.

In the novel “A Hero of Our Time,” the technique of a ring composition can be traced, since we meet Pechorin in the fortress where he served with Maxim Maksimovich, and there we see the hero for the last time before leaving for Persia. It is also characteristic that at the beginning and at the end of the novel there are two heroes - Pechorin and Maxim Maksimovich. Also in the work we encounter other compositional techniques, such as a novel within a novel - this is the diary of the main character. Another technique is silence, namely, a story about a certain story, after which Pechorin was exiled to the Caucasus. There is also a flashback when the main character meets his old beloved Vera.

It is worth noting that the composition of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” is interesting, unusual and contains a lot of innovation.

Introduction

Composition is one of the most important means by which a writer invents the phenomena of life that interests him as he understands them, and characterizes the characters in the work.

The author's ideological task also determined the unique construction of the novel. Its peculiarity is the violation of the chronological sequence of events, which is described in the novel. The novel consists of five parts, five stories, each with its own genre, its own plot and its own title.

"Maksim Maksimych"

"Taman"

"Princess Mary"

"Fatalist"

The hero who unites all these stories into something whole, into a single novel, is Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin. If you arrange the story of his life, invented in the novel, in a certain sequence, you get the following.

A former guards officer, transferred to the Caucasus for something, Pechorin goes to the place of his punishment. On the way he stops in Taman. Here an adventure happened to him, which is described in the story “Taman”.

From here he comes to Pyatigorsk (“Princess Mary”). For a duel with Grushnitsky, he was exiled to serve in the fortress. During his service in the fortress, the events told in the stories “Bela” and “Fatalist” take place. Several years pass. Pechorin, who retired, leaves for Persia. On the way there, he meets for the last time with Maxim Maksimych (“Maksim Maksimych”).

The layout of the parts of the novel should be like this:

"Taman"

"Princess Mary"

"Fatalist"

"Maksim Maksimych"

And I wanted to figure out why M.Yu. Lermontov structured his novel in a completely different way, why he arranged the chapters in a completely different order, what goals the author set for himself, what is the idea of ​​the novel.

Compositional and artistic originality of the novel "A Hero of Our Time"

In 1839, Mikhail Lermontov’s story “Bela” was published in the third issue of the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. Then, in the eleventh issue, the story “Fatalist” appeared, and in the second book of the magazine for 1840, “Taman”. In the same 1840, three short stories already known to the reader, telling about various episodes in the life of a certain Pechorin, were published in print as chapters of the novel “A Hero of Our Time.” Criticism greeted the new work ambiguously: a heated controversy ensued. Along with the stormy enthusiasm of the “frantic Vissarion” - Belinsky, who called Lermontov’s novel a work representing “a completely new world of art”, who saw in it “a deep knowledge of the human heart and modern society”, “richness of content and originality”, the voices of critics were heard in the press, who absolutely did not accept the novel. The image of Pechorin seemed to them a slanderous caricature, an imitation of Western models. Lermontov's opponents liked only the “truly Russian” Maxim Maksimych. It is significant that Emperor Nicholas I assessed “Hero...” in absolutely the same way. He himself explained that, having started reading the novel, he was delighted, deciding that Maxim Maksimych was the “hero of our time.” However, having later discovered his mistake, he was very indignant with the author. The reaction of critics forced Lermontov, during the re-release, to supplement the novel with the author's preface and a preface to Pechorin's Journal. Both of these prefaces play an important, determining role in the work: they reveal the author’s position as comprehensively as possible and provide the key to unraveling Lermontov’s method of understanding reality. The compositional complexity of the novel is inextricably linked with the psychological complexity of the image of the main character.

The ambiguity of Pechorin's character, the inconsistency of this image, was revealed not only in the study of his very spiritual world, but also in the correlation of the hero with other characters. The author forces the reader to constantly compare the main character with those around him. Thus, a compositional solution for the novel was found, according to which the reader gradually approaches the hero.

Having first published three stories separately, which in the final version of the novel were not even chapters of one part, Lermontov “made an application” for a work related in genre to “Eugene Onegin”. In "Dedication" Pushkin called his novel "a collection of motley chapters." This emphasized the dominance of the author’s will in the presentation of events: the narration is subject not only and not so much to the sequence of what is happening, but to its significance; Episodes are selected not according to the severity of plot collisions, but according to psychological richness. Conceived by Lermontov as a “long chain of stories,” the novel assumed the same artistic task as Pushkin’s. And at the same time, “A Hero of Our Time” creates a special, completely new type of novel in Russian literature, easily and organically combining the features of traditional novel genres (moral, adventurous, personal) and the features of “small genres” that are widespread in Russian literature in 30s: travel sketch, bivouac story, secular story, Caucasian short story. As B. Eikhenbaum noted, ““A Hero of Our Time” was a way out of these small genres on the way to the genre of the novel that unites them.”

The composition of the novel is subject to the logic of revealing the image of the main character. V. Nabokov in the “Preface to “A Hero of Our Time” wrote about the arrangement of the short stories: “In the first two - “Bela” and “Maksim Maksimych” - the author, or, more precisely, the hero-storyteller, an inquisitive traveler, describes his trip to the Caucasus along the Georgian Military Road in 1837 or so. This is Narrator 1. Having left Tiflis in a northern direction, he meets an old warrior named Maxim Maksimych on the way. They travel together for some time, and Maxim Maksimych informs Narrator 1 about a certain Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin, who, five years old, while serving in Chechnya, north of Dagestan, once kidnapped a Circassian woman. Maxim Maksimych is Narrator 2, and his story is called “Bela”. At their next road date (“Maksim Maksimych”), Narrator 1 and Narrator 2 meet Pechorin himself. The latter becomes Narrator 3 - after all, three more stories will be taken from Pechorin's journal, which Narrator 1 will publish posthumously. The attentive reader will note that the whole trick of such a composition is to bring Pechorin closer to us over and over again, until, finally, he himself speaks to us, but by that time he will no longer be alive. In the first story, Pechorin is at a “second cousin” distance from the reader, since we learn about him from the words of Maxim Maksimych and even in the broadcast of Narrator 1. In the second story, Narrator 2 seems to distance himself, and Narrator 1 gets the opportunity to see Pechorin with his own eyes. With what touching impatience Maxim Maksimych hurried to present his hero in real life. And here we have the last three stories; Now that Narrator 1 and Narrator 2 have stepped aside, we find ourselves face to face with Pechorin.

Because of this spiral composition, the time sequence appears to be blurred. The stories float, unfold before us, sometimes everything is in full view, sometimes as if in a haze, and sometimes, having retreated, they will appear again in a different perspective or lighting, just as a traveler has a view of the five peaks of the Caucasus ridge from a gorge. This traveler is Lermontov, not Pechorin. The five stories are arranged one after another in the order in which the events become the property of Narrator 1, but their chronology is different; in general terms it looks like this:

Around 1830, officer Pechorin, following official needs from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus to join an active detachment, stopped in the seaside town of Taman (a port separated from the northeastern tip of the Crimean peninsula by a narrow strait). The story that happened to him there forms the plot of “Tamani,” the third story in the novel.

In the active detachment, Pechorin takes part in skirmishes with mountain tribes and after some time, on May 10, 1832, he comes to rest on the waters in Pyatigorsk. In Pyatigorsk, as well as in Kislovodsk, a nearby resort, he becomes involved in dramatic events that lead to him killing an officer in a duel on June 17. He talks about all this in the fourth story - “Princess Mary”.

On June 19, by order of the military command, Pechorin was transferred to a fortress located in the Chechen region, in the northeastern part of the Caucasus, where he arrived only in the fall (the reasons for the delay are not explained). There he meets staff captain Maxim Maksimych. Narrator 1 learns about this from Narrator 2 in “Bela,” with which the novel begins.

In December of the same year (1832), Pechorin left the fortress for two weeks for a Cossack village north of the Terek, where the story he described in his fifth and last story, “Fatalist,” happened.

In the spring of 1833, he kidnaps a Circassian girl, who four and a half months later is killed by the robber Kazbich. In December of the same year, Pechorin left for Georgia and soon returned to St. Petersburg. We will learn about this in Bel.

About four years pass, and in the fall of 1837, Narrator 1 and Narrator 2, heading north, make a stop in Vladikavkaz and there they meet Pechorin, who is already back in the Caucasus, on his way to Persia. Narrator 1 talks about this in “Maxim Maksimych,” the second story in the cycle.

In 1838 or 1839, returning from Persia, Pechorin dies under circumstances that may have confirmed the prediction that he would die as a result of an unhappy marriage.

Narrator 1 posthumously publishes his journal, received from Narrator 2. Narrator 1 mentions the death of the hero in his preface (1841) to "Pechorin's Journal", containing "Taman", "Princess Mary" and "Fatalist". Thus, the chronological sequence of the five stories, if we talk about their connection with Pechorin’s biography, is as follows: “Taman”, “Princess Mary”, “Fatalist”, “Bela”, “Maksim Maksimych”. It is unlikely that in the process of working on Bela, Lermontov already had an established plan for Princess Mary. The details of Pechorin's arrival at the Kamenny Brod fortress, reported by Maxim Maksimych in "Bel", do not quite coincide with the details mentioned by Pechorin himself in "Princess Mary." In the first part, we see Pechorin through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych. This man is sincerely attached to Pechorin, but spiritually deeply alien to him. They are separated not only by the difference in social status and age. They are people of fundamentally different types of consciousness and children of different eras. For the staff captain, an old Caucasian who began his service under General Ermolov and forever retained the “Ermolov” view of life, his young a friend is an alien, strange and inexplicable phenomenon. Therefore, in the story of Maxim Maksimych, Pechorin appears as a mysterious, enigmatic person: “After all, there are, really, such people who are written in their nature that various extraordinary things should happen to them!” What can explain What is this maxim for the reader? Nothing, except that Maxim Maksimych Pechorina does not understand and does not particularly strive to understand, loving him simply as a “nice fellow.”

Maxim Maksimych was not chosen as the first storyteller by chance. His image is one of the most important in the novel, for this human type is very characteristic of Russia in the first half of the last century. In the conditions of the Caucasian war, a new type of “Russian Caucasian” was formed - most often these were people like Ermolov, who put the law of force and authority above all else, and their subordinates were kind, sincere and non-judgmental warriors. This type is embodied in the image of Maxim Maksimych. We must not forget that the Caucasus was called “warm Siberia”; undesirables, in particular, many Decembrists, were exiled there to serve in the active army. Young people also went to the Caucasus in a thirst to visit the “real deal”; they also gravitated there as if to an exotic wonderland, to the land of freedom...

All these features of the Caucasus are present in Lermontov’s novel: we see both everyday pictures and exotic ones; Before us flash images of “fairy-tale” highlanders and ordinary, familiar to everyone, regulars of secular drawing rooms. One way or another, they are all akin to Pechorin: there is something of the Circassian in him (remember his crazy horse ride through the mountains without a road after his first date with Vera!); he is natural in the circle of Princess Ligovskaya. The only person with whom Pechorin has nothing in common is Maxim Maksimych. People of different generations, different eras and different types of consciousness; The staff captain and Pechorin are completely alien to each other. That’s why Maxim Maksimych remembered his longtime subordinate, because he was never able to understand or unravel him. In the story of Maxim Maksimych, Pechorin appears as a romantic hero, meeting whom became one of the brightest events in his life; whereas for Pechorin both the staff captain himself and the story with Bela are just an episode among others. Even in a chance meeting, when Maxim Maksimych is ready to rush into his arms, Pechorin has nothing to talk to him about: remembering Bela is painful, telling an old friend is nothing... “I have to go, Maksim Maksimych.” So, from the short story “Bela” (by the way, written later than others) we learn about the existence of a certain Pechorin - the hero of a romantic story with a Circassian woman. Why did Pechorin need Bela? why, having barely achieved her love, he is bored and languishing; why did he rush to take her away from Kazbich (after all, he stopped loving her!); what tormented him at the bedside of dying Bela and why did he laugh when the kindest Maxim Maksimych tried to console him? All these questions remain unanswered; in Pechorin everything is a mystery; the reader is free to explain the hero’s behavior to the best of his own imagination. In the chapter "Maksim Maksimych" the veil of secrecy begins to lift.

The narrator's place is taken by the staff captain's former listener, a traveling officer. And the mysterious hero of the “Caucasian short story” is given some living features, his airy and mysterious image begins to take on flesh and blood. The wandering officer not only describes Pechorin, he gives a psychological portrait. He is a person of the same generation and probably close circle. If Maxim Maksimych was horrified when he heard from Pechorin about the boredom tormenting him: “...my life is becoming emptier day by day...”, then his listener accepted these words without horror, as completely natural: “I answered that there are many people who say the same thing; that there are probably others who tell the truth..." And therefore, for the officer-storyteller, Pechorin is much closer and more understandable; he can explain a lot about the hero: “spiritual storms”, and “some secrecy”, and “nervous weakness”. Thus, the mysterious Pechorin, unlike anyone else, becomes a more or less typical person of his time; general patterns are revealed in his appearance and behavior. And yet the mystery does not disappear, the “oddities” remain. The narrator will note Pechorin’s eyes: “they didn’t laugh when he laughed!” In them the narrator will try to guess “a sign of either evil right, or deep, constant sadness”; and will be amazed at their brilliance: “it was a brilliance, like the brilliance of smooth steel, dazzling, but cold... That is why the traveler was so happy when he received Pechorin’s notes: “I grabbed the papers and quickly took them away, fearing that the staff captain would not repent. The preface to Pechorin's Journal, written on behalf of the narrator, explains his interest in this person.

He talks about the endless importance of studying the “history of the human soul”, the need to understand the true reasons for a person’s motives, actions, and character: “... and maybe they will find justification for the actions that they have hitherto accused of...” All this is the preface confirms the spiritual closeness of the narrator and the hero, their belonging to the same generation and the same human type: remember, for example, the narrator’s reasoning about “the insidious insincerity of a true friend,” which turns into “inexplicable hatred, which, lurking under the guise of friendship, awaits only the death or misfortune of the beloved object , so that a hail of reproaches, advice, ridicule and regrets would burst over his head.” How close these words are to Pechorin’s own bitter thoughts about friendship, how they explain his conviction “I am not capable of friendship”!

The narrator's opinion about Pechorin is expressed unambiguously: “My answer is the title of this book.” This is also the explanation for his intense interest in the hero: before us is not only a unique person, typical of his era. A hero of time is a personality formed by a given century, and such a person could not have appeared in any other era. All the features, all the advantages and disadvantages of his time are concentrated in him. In the preface to the novel, Lermontov polemically states: “The hero of our time, my dear sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: it is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development.” But he does not create his novel of “caustic truths” in order to castigate vices: he holds up a mirror to society so that people can see themselves, look into their own faces, and try to understand themselves. This is the main task of Lermontov's novel. No matter how close Pechorin is to the narrator, he cannot fully understand him. For a complete, deep understanding, Pechorin must speak about himself. And two-thirds of the novel is his confession.

It is important that Pechorin, while in no way being a self-portrait of Lermontov (“An old and ridiculous joke!” says the preface about such an interpretation), is often infinitely close to the author in his assessments, emotions, and reasoning. This creates a special feeling of the common destiny of people of Lermontov’s generation. As in “Duma,” the poet, feeling himself within a generation, sharing its guilt and fate, with his understanding of the common tragedy, furious indignation and all the bitterness of reflection, emerges from the general mass, rises above it - to unattainable heights of spirit.

The composition of "Pechorin's Journal" is very unique. It's like a "novel within a novel."

The first short story "Taman" is a single story about an incident that happened to the hero. It outlines the main motives of the entire “magazine”: Pechorin’s desire for active action; “curiosity” that pushes him to conduct “experiments” on himself and those around him, to interfere in matters that do not concern him; his reckless courage and romantic outlook. And - most importantly! - the desire to understand what motivates people, to identify the motives of their actions, to comprehend their psychology. We don’t yet understand why he needs this, but his behavior in the story with Bela is already becoming clearer to us.

"Princess Mary" is built from diary entries - this is an almost daily chronicle of Pechorin's life. He describes the events of the day. But not only and not so many of them. Please note: Pechorin is not at all interested in “general issues”. We learn little about Pyatigorsk, about the public, about events in the country, in the town itself, about the course of military operations (and newbies probably arrive every day and talk!). Pechorin writes about his thoughts, feelings, his behavior and actions. If Grushnitsky had not been his former acquaintance, Pechorin would not have paid attention to him, but, forced to renew his acquaintance, he bursts out in the magazine with a caustic epigram on Grushnitsky himself and others like him. But Dr. Werner is interesting to Pechorin: this is a special human type, close to him in some ways, alien in many ways. At the sight of the lovely princess Mary, Pechorin begins to talk about legs and teeth, and the appearance of Vera, with her deep, tragic love, makes him suffer. See the pattern? Pechorin is not interested in the completely imitative Grushnitsky, who plays the role of the “disappointed”; at first, the ordinary Moscow young lady Mary Ligovskaya is also uninteresting. He looks for original, natural and deep natures, exploring and analyzing them, just as he explores his own soul. For Pechorin, like the officer-narrator, like the author of the novel himself, believes that “the history of the human soul... is perhaps more interesting and useful than the history of an entire people...”

But it is not enough for Pechorin to simply observe characters: life in its everyday, leisurely flow provides insufficient food for thought. Was the naive Maxim Maksimych right when he considered Pechorin a “sort of” person, for whom “it was written in his family that various extraordinary things should happen to him”? Of course no. The point is not that Pechorin is destined for different adventures - he creates them for himself, constantly actively interfering in his destiny and in the lives of those around him, changing the course of things in such a way that it leads to an explosion, to a collision. This is what happened in “Bel”, when he radically changed the fate of the girl, Aromat, their father, Kazbich, weaving their paths into an unimaginable tangle. This was the case in “Taman”, where he intervened in the lives of “honest smugglers”, in “Princess Mary”...

Everywhere Pechorin not only changes and complicates the lives of those around him. He introduces into their destinies his unpleasantness, his thoughtlessness and craving for the destruction of the House - a symbol of peaceful life, non-participation in the common fate, shelter from the winds of the era. Deprives Bela of her home - her love does not allow her to return to her father; makes you run away from home, fearing parental anger, Aroma; forces “honest smugglers” to give up their shelter and sail into the unknown; destroys the possible houses of Grushnitsky and Mary... Spiritual restlessness, eternal search, thirst for true life and true activity lead Pechorin forward and forward, do not allow him to stop, withdraw into the circle of family and loved ones, doom him to thoughtlessness and eternal wandering. The motive for the destruction of the House is one of the main ones in the novel: the appearance of a “hero of the time,” a man who embodied all the features of the era, creates an “explosion situation” - makes people feel the full tragedy of the century, because in the face of the general laws of time, a person is defenseless. Pechorin tests these laws on himself and those around him. By pitting people against each other and with their destinies, he forces their souls to manifest themselves fully, to open up absolutely: to love, to hate, to suffer - to live, and not to run away from life. And in these people, in their souls and destinies, Pechorin strives to unravel their true purpose.

The story "Fatalist", which concludes "Pechorin's Journal", concentrates the main philosophical problems of the novel: the role of fate in human life and the opposition of individual human will to it. But “the main task of the chapter is not the philosophical discussion in itself, but the determination of Pechorin’s character during this discussion.”

In conclusion, I would like to quote the words of V. G. Belinsky from the article “Hero of Our Time”

I included in this book only what related to Pechorin’s stay in the Caucasus; I still have a thick notebook in my hands, where he tells his whole life. Someday she too will appear at the judgment of the world; but now I dare not take upon myself this responsibility for many important reasons.

We thank the author for the pleasant promise, but we doubt that he will fulfill it: we are firmly convinced that he parted with his Pechorin forever. This conviction is confirmed by the confession of Goethe, who says in his notes that by writing “Werther,” which was the fruit of a difficult state of his spirit, he freed himself from it and was so far from the hero of his novel that it was funny for him to see how he left him. he is driven crazy by the ardent youth... such is the noble nature of the poet, by his own strength he breaks out of every moment of limitation and flies to new, living phenomena of the world, into a creation full of glory... by objectifying his own suffering, he frees himself from it; translating the dissonances of his spirit into poetic sounds, he again enters his native sphere of eternal harmony... if Mr. Lermontov fulfills his promise, then we are sure that he will no longer present the old and familiar Pechorin, about whom much can still be said. Maybe he will show him to us as reformed, recognizing the laws of morality, but, probably, no longer as a consolation, but to the greater chagrin of the moralists; maybe he will force him to recognize the rationality and bliss of life, but in order to be convinced that this is not for him, that he has lost a lot of strength in a terrible struggle, has become embittered in it and cannot make this rationality and bliss his property... And maybe this: he will make him a participant in the joys of life, a triumphant winner over the evil genius of life... But one or the other, and, in any case, redemption will be complete through one of those women whose existence Pechorin so stubbornly did not want to believe, based not on his inner contemplation, but on the poor experiences of his life... This is what Pushkin did with his Onegin: the woman rejected by him resurrected him from mortal sleep for a wonderful life, but not in order to give him happiness, but in order to to punish him for his lack of faith in the mystery of love and life and in the dignity of a woman.

List of used literature

1. Belinsky V.G. “Hero of Our Time”: Works by M. Lermontov. Belinsky V.G. Articles about Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol - M. 1983.

2. Gershtein E. The fate of Lermontov M. 1986

3. Korovin V.I. The creative path of Lermontov M 1973

4. Manuilov V.A. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov “Hero of Our Time”: Commentary. 2nd ed. additional - L., 1975.

5. Mikhailova E. Prose of Lermontov. - M., 1975

6. Udodova V.T. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time". - M., 1989.

Critics have defined the genre of A Hero of Our Time as psychological novel. When writing this work, M. Yu. Lermontov set out to show “the history of the human soul”, to reveal the inner world of the main character. M. Yu. Lermontov began work on the novel under the impression of his first exile to the Caucasus. At first, separate stories were written, which were published as they were written: “Bela”, “Fatalist” were published in the journal “Otechestvennye zapiski” in 1839, followed by the story “Taman”. Later, all five stories: “Bela”, “Maksim Maksimych”, “Taman”, “Princess Mary”, “Fatalist” - were combined into a novel entitled “Hero of Our Time”.

Critics and readers had mixed reactions to the image of the main character: some considered Pechorin a caricature of a modern man, and the novel itself as immoral; others - that the image of Pechorin is a portrait of the author himself. M. Yu. Lermontov was forced to write a preface to the second edition, in which he commented on his perception of the hero and explained his creative principles. The author writes that his main principle when writing a novel is following the truth of life and critical assessment of the hero.

The stories that make up “A Hero of Our Time” are arranged in a certain sequence. This was done for a specific purpose: the author gradually immerses the reader into the inner world of the main character, revealing his character.

The work has three narrators. In the story “Bela” we see Pechorin through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych, a staff captain, who notes the “oddities” in Grigory Alexandrovich’s behavior, selfishness, and mystery. In “Maxim Maksimych” the role of the narrator is given to a traveling officer - a person closer in attitude and social status to the hero. He notes in Pechorin’s appearance the features of a strong, but internally lonely personality. In the next three stories - “Taman”, “Princess Mary”, “Fatalist” - Pechorin himself plays the role of narrator, who tells about his adventures in a seaside town, about his stay in Pyatigorsk, about an incident in a Cossack village. The reader learns about the hero’s feelings and experiences from the lips of the hero himself, who impartially analyzes his actions, his behavior, and motives. For the first time in Russian literature, much attention was paid not to events, but specifically to the “dialectics of the soul,” and the form of a diary confession allows one to show all the “movements of the soul” of Pechorin. The hero himself admits that his soul is familiar with such feelings as envy, pity, love, hatred. But reason still prevails over feelings: we see this in the scene of the pursuit of Vera.

The author shows the hero in various life situations, surrounds him with a variety of characters (Pechorin among the mountaineers, in the circle of “honest smugglers” and the “water society”). I believe that this is an exceptional and at the same time typical hero of that time: he seeks love, but he himself only brings suffering and even death; this is a person who lives a complex spiritual life, but is absolutely inactive or wastes energy on trifles; aware of his own vices and mercilessly condemning them in other people; a person who, according to V. G. Belinsky, “frantically chases... life, looking for it everywhere” and at the same time seeks death.

“A Hero of Our Time”: a novel or a collection of short stories?

Lermontov's novel “A Hero of Our Time” was created at the intersection of two artistic methods: romanticism and realism. According to romantic canons, the image of the main character is developed deeply and is opposed to all other characters. The entire system of images is built in such a way that the central character is highlighted from different angles of view. Each hero is endowed with a complex character. These are completely realistic images.

The very title of the novel, “A Hero of Our Time,” suggests that the author considers personality in the context of society and era. “A Hero of Our Time” is a socio-psychological, philosophical novel. The conflict between the individual and society is more acute here than in Eugene Onegin. Pechorin “frantically chases after life,” but gets nothing from it. The conflict was embodied not only in a typical display of personality, but also in the depiction of representatives of the “water society”, their life and entertainment.

Pechorin has his own relationship with each hero. He strives by any means to break through the external mask of the heroes, to see their true faces, to understand what each of them is capable of." Pechorin confronts the "water society" that hates him, shoots with Grushnitsky, interferes in the lives of "peaceful smugglers", falls in love with young Bela , daughter of a peaceful prince.

The history of the relationship between Pechorin and Werner is full of drama. This is the story of a failed friendship between people who are spiritually and intellectually close.

In relations with Vera, Pechorin is most contradictory; here the forces that determine all his connections with people are brought to the maximum, to the highest intensity.

The problem of personality is revealed in psychological terms through a psychological portrait built on antitheses and oxymorons (“... his dusty velvet frock coat made it possible to see his dazzlingly clean linen,” his eyes “did not laugh when he laughed”), through introspection, through internal monologues (“ I sometimes despise myself... isn’t that why I despise others?..”, “...why did I live? For what purpose was I born?.. And, it’s true, it existed, and, it’s true, I had a high purpose ...")

Without the philosophical aspect of the novel, it is impossible to understand either the meaning of the era or the essence of the image of the main character. “Pechorin’s Journal” is filled with reflections on the meaning of life, on the relationship between the individual and society, on man’s place in the succession of generations, on faith and unbelief, and on fate. Compositionally, this topic is completed by the chapter “Fatalist”, rich in philosophical issues.

The main character trait of Pechorin is reflection. He constantly analyzes his thoughts, actions, desires, trying to uncover the roots of good and evil in one person. But Pechorin’s reflection is hypertrophied, it disfigures the soul, distorts the development of personality, makes both the hero and those with whom fate brings him unhappy.

The originality of the novel lies in that, despite the fact that the parts differ in genre, the novel does not fall apart and does not represent a collection of short stories, since all parts are united by one main character; the characters' characters are revealed from external to internal, from effect to cause, from epic through psychological to philosophical.