Analysis of the meeting between Pechorin and Vera. Pechorin's last conversation with Princess Mary

The chapter “Princess Mary” is the central one in the “Pechorin Journal”, where the hero reveals his soul in diary entries. Their last conversation - Pechorin and Princess Mary - logically completes the storyline of a complex relationship, drawing a line over this intrigue. Pechorin consciously and prudently achieves the love of the princess, having built his behavior with knowledge of the matter. What for? Just so he doesn't get bored. The main thing for Pechorin is to subordinate everything to his will, to show power over people. After a number of calculated actions, he achieved that the girl was the first to confess her love to him, but now she is not interesting to him. After a duel with Grushnitsky, he received an order to go to fortress N and went to the princess to say goodbye. The princess learns that Pechorin defended the honor of Mary and considers him a noble person, she is most concerned about the condition of her daughter, because Mary is sick from experiences, so the princess openly invites Pechorin to marry her daughter. She can be understood: she wants Mary to be happy. But Pechorin cannot answer her anything: he asks permission to explain himself to Mary herself. The princess is forced to yield. Pechorin has already said how afraid he is to part with his freedom, and after a conversation with the princess, he can no longer find in his heart a spark of love for Mary. When he saw Mary, pale, emaciated, he was shocked by the change that had taken place in her. The girl looked in his eyes for at least "something like hope", tried to smile with pale lips, but Pechorin is stern and implacable. He says that he laughed at her and Mary should despise him, making a logical, but such a cruel conclusion: “Consequently, you cannot love me ...” The girl suffers, tears sparkle in her eyes, and everything she can barely whisper clearly, “Oh my God!” In this scene, Pechorin's reflection is especially clearly revealed - the bifurcation of his consciousness, which he spoke about earlier, that two people live in him - one acts, "the other thinks and judges him." The acting Pechorin is cruel and deprives the girl of any hope for happiness, and the one who analyzes his words and actions admits: “It became unbearable: another minute, and I would have fallen at her feet.” He explains in a "firm voice" that he cannot marry Mary, and hopes that she will change her love for contempt for him - after all, he himself is aware of the baseness of his act. Mary, "pale as marble", with sparkling eyes, says that she hates him.

The consciousness that Pechorin played with her feelings, wounded pride turned Mary's love into hatred. Offended in her first deep and pure feeling, Mary is now unlikely to be able to trust people again and regain her former peace of mind. The cruelty and immorality of Pechorin in this scene are revealed quite clearly, but it also reveals how hard it is for this person to live according to the principles imposed on himself, how hard it is not to succumb to natural human feelings - compassion, mercy, repentance. This is the tragedy of a hero who himself admits that he will not be able to live in a quiet peaceful harbor. He compares himself to a sailor of a robber brig who languishes on the shore and dreams of storms and wrecks, because for him life is a struggle, overcoming dangers, storms and battles, and, unfortunately, Mary becomes a victim of such an understanding of life.

The novel "A Hero of Our Time" shows a portrait of not one person, but a whole generation, made up of vices. The main role is assigned to Pechorin, but it is the other characters of the novel, with whom he had to intersect in life, that make it possible to better understand the inner world of this person, the depth of the soul.

The relationship between Pechorin and Princess Mary is one of the brightest plot lines of the novel. They began at ease, ending swiftly and tragically. Once again, showing Pechorin as a man with a callous soul and a cold heart.

Acquaintance

The first meeting between Pechorin and Princess Mary took place in Pyatigorsk, where Grigory was sent after completing another military assignment. The princess, together with her mother, underwent a course of treatment with the mineral waters of Pyatigorsk.

Princess and Pechorin constantly rotated in secular society. A common circle of friends brought them together at one of the meetings. Grigory stirred up interest in his person, deliberately teasing the girl, ignoring her presence. He saw that she paid attention to him, but Pechorin is much more interested in watching how she behaves further. He knew women very well and could calculate a few steps ahead of how the acquaintance would end.

He took the first step. Pechorin invited Mary to dance, and then everything had to go according to the scenario he had developed. It gave him unprecedented pleasure to lure another victim, allowing her to get carried away. The girls fell in love with a handsome military man, but quickly got bored and he, pleased with himself, with a feeling of complete self-satisfaction, put another tick in the track record of love affairs, safely forgetting about them.

Love

Mary fell in love for real. The girl did not understand that the toy was in his hands. Part of an insidious heartthrob's plan. It was beneficial for Pechorin to get to know her. New emotions, sensations, a reason to distract the public from an affair with Vera, a married woman. He loved faith, but they could not be together. Another reason to hit Mary, to make Grushnitsky jealous. He was in love with the girl for real, but the feelings remained unanswered. Mary did not love him and could hardly love him. In the current love triangle, he is clearly superfluous. In retaliation for unrequited feelings, Grushnitsky spread dirty rumors about the affair of Pechorin and Mary, ruining her reputation. He soon paid the price for his wicked deed. Pechorin challenged him to a duel, where the bullet hit the target, killing the liar on the spot.

The final

After what happened, Mary began to love Pechorin even more. She believed that his act was noble. After all, he defended her honor, making it clear that she was slandered. The girl was waiting for confessions from Gregory, tormented by love and the feelings that gripped her. Instead, he hears the bitter truth that he never loved her, much less intended to marry her. He achieved his goal by breaking the heart of another victim of his love charms. She hated him. The last thing I heard from her was

"…I hate you…".

Once again, Pechorin acted cruelly towards loved ones, stepping over their feelings and trampling on love.

Answer left Guest

Pechorin's love for Vera is a great and sincere feeling. The consciousness that he is losing Verun forever causes an irresistible desire to keep "lost happiness". Pechorin's sincere impulse, his excitement, forcing the hero to furiously drive his horse, determines the nature of the story. Everything here is movement! Pechorin is in a hurry, worried, he is not up to the pictures passing before his eyes, he does not write about them, because he does not notice the surrounding nature. One thought dominates him: by all means to catch up with Vera. The choice of words and the nature of the sentences express this desire. Pechorin acts, moves and does not describe anything, and therefore there are no adjective definitions in the text, but it is maximally saturated with verbs (there are thirteen verbs for five sentences).
Since the hero has no time to think, the general syntactic structure of the passage being parsed turns out to be natural: simple and laconic sentences, often interrupted by dots, as if Pechorin, in a hurry, does not have time to think out and finish the thought. The excitement of the hero determines the emotionality of intonations, many sentences end with exclamation marks. There are repetitions that emphasize the power of Pechorin’s experiences: “one minute, one more minute to see her ...”, “... Faith has become dearer to me than anything in the world, dearer than life, honor, happiness.” Emotionality is manifested not only in exclamatory intonations, but also in the choice of words. Most of them denote human feelings and experiences. Such are the nouns "impatience", "anxiety", "despair", "happiness" and the verbs "cursed", "weeping", "laughing", "jumping, panting".
The expressiveness of this passage is great, although there are almost no epithets, metaphors, comparisons, except for a very convincing and weighty metaphorical comparison: “The thought ... hit my heart like a hammer.” The description of the hero's gallop, despair, and tears is one of the most exciting places in the story. And how much this scene means for understanding Pechorin! Not a cold and prudent egoist, not a skeptic indifferent to himself and others, but a living, deeply feeling, endlessly suffering from loneliness and the inability to keep happiness - such is the hero here.
The episode of farewell to Mary is also important for understanding Pechorin. Often it is considered incorrectly, believing that here the hero consistently brings a cruel game to the end, enjoys the opportunity to torture his victim again. Indeed, Pechorin says merciless words to Mary, explains "frankly and rudely." But, if you think about it, would it be better for Mary if, not considering it possible to marry, he left the girl in doubt as to whether she was loved. In this case, it would be much more difficult for Mary to overcome her love for Pechorin, because in her eyes it would remain a mystery, a noble hero who stood up for her honor, but for some reason unknown to her refused her hand. The cruel truth is more likely to heal her than a good lie. Maybe Pechorin understands this? His words are hardly accidental: “You see, I play the most miserable and vile role in your eyes, and I even admit it; that's all I can do for you." Is it possible with full faith to relate to the phrase of the hero: “Princess ... you know,. that I laughed at you! .."
After all, he laughed at Grushnitsky, but in relations with Mary there was a conscious game, which often captivated Pechorin himself, but not ridicule. This external cruelty is contradicted by the feeling of pity and excitement that took possession of Pechorin when he saw the pale, emaciated Mary. “... Another minute, and I would have fallen at her feet,” the hero writes.

"I shook her hand twice... the second time she pulled it out without saying a word.

I will sleep badly tonight,” she told me when the mazurka was over.

Grushnitsky is to blame for this.

Oh no! - And her face became so thoughtful, so sad that I promised myself that evening I would certainly kiss her hand.

They began to leave. Putting the princess into the carriage, I quickly pressed her little hand to my lips. It was dark and no one could see it.

I returned to the hall very pleased with myself."

In this scene, as in a drop of water, Pechorin's whole plan for Princess Mary and Grushnitsky was reflected. Here, the flying psychologism of M. Yu. Lermontov himself was magnificently expressed. Each phrase, despite their outward emptiness, implies a whole line of thought and hidden desires. Before our eyes there is an interweaving of secular game with real feelings. Pechorin directs the thoughts and feelings of the princess "from the contrary", forcing her to first pull out her hand, and then deny her words. By this, he disguises his own leadership of events, finds out the extent to which the princess is immersed in the game he proposed, and emphasizes, as undesirable, the name of Grushnitsky. At the same time, it doesn’t matter at all that the princess did not agree with his statement, it was important to indirectly point out Pechorin’s rivalry with Grushnitsky, to convince the girl at the level of almost NLP programming that Pechorin actually joined the fight for her heart.

Pechorin's love for Vera is a great and sincere feeling. The consciousness that he is losing Faith forever causes an irresistible desire to hold on to "lost happiness." Pechorin's sincere impulse, his excitement, forcing the hero to furiously drive his horse, determines the nature of the story. Everything here is movement! Pechorin is in a hurry, worried, he is not up to the pictures flashing before his eyes, he does not write about them, because he does not notice the surrounding nature. One thought possesses him: by all means to catch up with Vera. The choice of words and the nature of the sentences express this desire. Pechorin acts, moves and does not describe anything, and therefore there are no adjective definitions in the text, but he is maximally saturated with verbs (there are thirteen verbs for five sentences).
Since the hero has no time to think, the general syntactic structure of the passage being analyzed turns out to be natural: simple and laconic sentences, often interrupted by dots, as if Pechorin, in a hurry, does not have time to think out, finish the thought. The emotion of the hero determines the emotionality of intonations, many sentences end with exclamation marks. There are repetitions that emphasize the strength of Pechorin's experiences: "one minute, one more minute to see her ...", "... Faith has become dearer to me than anything in the world, dearer than life, honor, happiness." Emotionality is manifested not only in exclamatory intonations, but also in the choice of words. Most of them denote human feelings and experiences. Such are the nouns "impatience", "anxiety", "despair", "happiness" and the verbs "cursed", "cried", "laughed", "jumped, panting".
The expressiveness of this passage is great, although there are almost no epithets, metaphors, comparisons, except for a very convincing and weighty metaphorical comparison: “The thought ... hit my heart with a hammer.” The description of the hero's leap, despair, and tears is one of the most exciting passages in the story. And how much this scene means for understanding Pechorin! Not a cold and prudent egoist, not a skeptic indifferent to himself and others, but a living, deeply feeling, endlessly suffering from loneliness and the inability to keep happiness - such is the hero here.
The episode of farewell to Mary is also important for understanding Pechorin. Often it is considered incorrectly, believing that here the hero consistently brings a cruel game to the end, enjoys the opportunity to torture his victim once again. Indeed, Pechorin says ruthless words to Mary, explains "frankly and rudely." But, if you think about it, would it be better for Mary if, apart from considering it possible to marry, he left the girl in doubt as to whether she was loved. In this case, it would be much more difficult for Mary to overcome her love for Pechorin, because he would remain in her eyes a mystery, a noble hero who stood up for her honor, but for some reason unknown to her refused her hand. A cruel truth is more likely to heal her than a good lie. Maybe Pechorin understands this? His words are hardly accidental: “You see, I play the most miserable and vile role in your eyes, and I even admit it; that's all I can do for you." Is it possible to treat the hero’s phrase with complete faith: “Princess ... you know,. that I laughed at you! .."
After all, he laughed at Grushnitsky, but in relations with Mary there was a conscious game, which often captivated Pechorin himself, but not ridicule. Contrary to this external cruelty is the feeling of pity and excitement that took possession of Pechorin when he saw the pale, emaciated Mary. “... Another minute, and I would have fallen at her feet,” the hero writes.