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. For what? 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 shine 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.
Episode analysis.
Mary's last meeting with Pechorin (M. Yu. Lermontov, “A Hero of Our Time”)
The episode in which both literary heroes meet for the last time begins with the words: “... I went to the princess to say goodbye ...”, and ends with the following sentence: “I thanked, bowed respectfully and left.”
This passage is extremely important for understanding the author's intention. Main character－ Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin－ opens up to the reader in a slightly different light than, for example, in the short story "Bela"...
So in this episode－ two: Princess Mary and Pechorin. (Third character－ old princess Ligovskaya－ “participates” only at the beginning of the passage we have chosen, and her speech addressed to the main character serves as proof of Pechorin’s nobility: “－ Listen, Monsieur Pechorin! I think that you are a noble person...” And although this heroine－ the character is secondary, he is important: thanks to the assessment of the wise princess, you believe that she is not mistaken).
Who are the main characters of the episode? Princess Mary－ a young, inexperienced girl who fell in love with a secular seducer; Pechorin, a young officer, but already fed up with salon evenings and coquettish women, an officer who, out of boredom, ruins other people's destinies.
The narration is in the first person, and this author's technique allows the reader to “see”, feel the state of the protagonist: “Five minutes have passed; my heart was beating fast, but my thoughts were calm, my head was cold; no matter how I searched in my chest for at least a spark of love for dear Mary ... ”The description of the girl’s appearance given by the hero is touching:“ ... her large eyes, filled with inexplicable sadness, they seemed to be looking for something resembling hope in mine; her pale lips tried in vain to smile; her tender hands, folded in her lap, were so thin and transparent that I felt sorry for her.”
Pechorin, with his characteristic directness, immediately puts all the dots over the “i” in an explanation with Mary: “... you know that I laughed at you? .. You should despise me.” (He is deliberately cruel to the girl so that she does not even have a ghost of hope for reciprocity; he is like a surgeon who amputates a leg or arm so that the whole body does not become infected). But, speaking such terrible words, he himself is in agitation and confusion: “It became unbearable: another minute, and I would have fallen at her feet ...” This is a noble act, despite its seeming cruelty (how can one not remember the “rebuke” Onegin to Tatyana?) The hero is not afraid to slander himself (“... you see, I play the most pathetic and vile role in your eyes ...”) One can be absolutely sure that he commits violence against himself! ..
Pechorin is amazing, beautiful in this episode, how much this person can see and feel! “She turned to me pale as marble, only her eyes sparkled wonderfully...”
Mary adequately comes out of an unbearably painful situation for her. "I hate you...- she said."
This episode complements the portrait of the protagonist, proving that he is capable of deep feelings and noble deeds.
On the topic: methodological developments, presentations and notes
M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of our time" mind map
The mind map was developed by a student of grade 10 "A" Pelymskaya Anastasia. It makes it possible to recall all the main characters of the work, traces the connection between them, gives a brief description of...
summary of a literature lesson in grade 10 "Analysis of the chapter "Princess Mary" from M.Yu. Lermontov's novel" A Hero of Our Time ".
This lesson makes it possible, after analyzing the chapter, to answer the questions: who is Pechorin, why exactly this chapter is central in the novel ...
Synopsis of the literature lesson "Literary trial of G.A. Pechorin - the main character of the novel" A Hero of Our Time "
Lesson type: knowledge generalization lesson. Lesson form: lesson - court. Each of the students during the lesson will visit the place of one of the heroes of the novel or act as witnesses and jurors, as a result ...
In "Princess Mary" the human soul is revealed to us. We see that Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin is a contradictory, ambiguous person. He himself says before the duel: “Some will say: he was a good fellow, others - a bastard. Both will be false." And indeed, this story shows us both the good qualities of a young man (poetic nature, extraordinary mind, insight) and the bad traits of his character (terrible selfishness). Indeed, a real person is not exclusively good or bad.
The chapter "Princess Mary" shows the confrontation between Pechorin and Grushnitsky.
Both characters meet like old friends. Pechorin is self-confident, reasonable, selfish, mercilessly caustic (sometimes beyond measure). At the same time, he sees Grushnitsky through and through, and laughs at him. Their dissimilarity and rejection of each other do not prevent them from communicating and spending a lot of time together.
Almost simultaneously they saw Princess Mary for the first time. From that moment, a thin crack lay between them, which eventually turned into an abyss. Grushnitsky - a provincial romantic - is seriously fond of the princess. Pechorin's eternal enemy - boredom - makes him infuriate the princess with various petty antics. All this is done without a shadow of hostility, but solely out of a desire to entertain oneself.
Pechorin makes the princess fall in love with him out of a desire to dispel boredom, to annoy Grushnitsky, or God knows from what else. After all, even he himself does not understand why he does this: Mary, Pechorin believes, he does not love. The protagonist is true to himself: for the sake of entertainment, he invades the life of another person.
“What am I fussing about? "- he asks himself and answers:" There is an immense pleasure in the possession of a young, barely blossoming soul! "That's selfishness! And besides suffering, he can bring nothing to either Pechorin or others.
The more the princess becomes interested in Pechorin (after all, she is much more interested in him than with an ingenuous boy), the wider the gap between him and Grushnitsky becomes. The situation is heating up, mutual hostility is growing. Pechorin's prophecy that they will someday "collide on the narrow road" is beginning to come true.
A duel is the denouement of the relationship between two heroes. She approached inexorably as the road became too narrow for two.
On the day of the duel, Pechorin experiences cold anger. They tried to deceive him, but he cannot forgive this. Grushnitsky, on the contrary, is very nervous and tries with all his might to avert the inevitable. He has behaved unworthily lately, spreading rumors about Pechorin, and tried in every possible way to put him in a black light. You can hate a person for this, you can punish him, despise him, but you cannot deprive him of his life. But this does not bother Pechorin. He kills Grushnitsky and leaves without looking back. The death of a former friend does not awaken any emotions in him.
Pechorin admits to Mary that such a society of the Grushnitskys made him a "moral cripple". It can be seen that this "disease" is progressing: the debilitating feeling of emptiness, boredom, loneliness is increasingly taking over the main character. At the end of the story, already in the fortress, he no longer sees those bright colors that pleased him so much in the Caucasus. "Boring," he concludes.
"Princess Mary" shows us the true tragedy of Grigory Pechorin. After all, he spends such a remarkable nature, enormous energy on trifles, on petty intrigues.
The story "Princess Mary" follows "Taman", it tells about the events of Pechorin's forty-day stay at the healing waters in Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk. Interestingly, if the main events in "Taman" took place at night, then the story "Princess Mary" begins at five in the morning (by the way, at five in the morning the hero returns home and at the end of the story, without catching up with his beloved - Vera). Thus, the beginning of the story “Princess Mary” is connected with the morning and the hope for renewal, which Pechorin expects to find in love and friendship, the end with disappointment and losses, in which, according to Lermontov, not only the hero himself is guilty, but also mistakes, common to all people.
There are five main characters in the work: Pechorin, Grushnitsky and Dr. Werner, Princess Mary and Vera. The relationship between them is distributed as follows: Pechorin has developed a trusting relationship with two heroes, these are “confidants” - Vera and Dr. Werner (it is they who leave Pechorin at the end of the story), the other two act as opponents of the hero, “opponents” - Princess Mary, love which Pechorin seeks, and Grushnitsky, who competes with him and is capable of killing (in the final, Pechorin leaves Princess Mary and kills Grushnitsky in a duel). Thus, the plot of the story forms a love conflict as rivalry (Pechorin - Princess), subordination (Pechorin - Vera), hostility-friendship conflict as hatred (Pechorin - Grushnitsky) and compliance (Pechorin - Dr. Werner).
The central intrigue of the story "Princess Mary" is Pechorin's desire to seduce Princess Mary, to fall in love with her. Pechorin's behavior towards the girl is traditionally considered selfish and immoral, and the attitude towards Vera is the use of her love for him. At the usual, everyday and partly psychological level of approach to the plot, this point of view is justified. However, since Lermontov, through this plot, solves not only questions of everyday morality, but also deep problems associated with understanding the essence of love, then when comprehending the story, one should not blame the hero or justify him, but try to understand exactly what problems the author raises and what idea he seeks to express. . So, in Pechorin’s entry of June 3, we read: “Vera loves me more than Princess Mary will ever love,” and this remark of the hero speaks of his doubts about true love.
Attention is drawn to the similarity of the last phrases of Grushnitsky and Princess Mary, addressed to Pechorin. Grushnitsky says: “I despise myself, but I hate you,” and Princess Mary: “I hate you.” One gets the impression that the purpose of Pechorin's intrigue in relation to the former cadet and the young princess was to hear words of hatred. The ending of the story, of course, is connected with the phrases uttered by Grushnitsky and Pechorin at its beginning. Grushnitsky, assuming a pictorial pose, speaks loudly in French so that the princess can hear him: “My dear, I hate people in order not to despise them, otherwise life would be too disgusting farce”; Pechorin answers him also in French with a similar phrase: "My dear, I despise women so as not to love them, because otherwise life would be too ridiculous a melodrama." From these statements it follows that the main feelings that denote relationships between people in the story are contempt, hatred, love.
Lermontov's story "Princess Mary" is written according to the laws of drama, as if it were intended to be staged. The diary entries that the hero keeps are reminiscent of theatrical phenomena, the natural landscape is a theater, the key places of action (a well, Pechorin's apartment, mountains) are scenery. The genres of the performances are also named: comedy, farce, melodrama. The text of the story is made in two literary forms: diary and memoirs. The diary entries cover all the days of the story, and only the last three days are given in the form of memoirs, presenting the events as the tragedy of Pechorin's life: he loses everything he hoped for - love and friendship.
The novel "A Hero of Our Time" by M.Yu. Lermontov is considered one of the best works of classical Russian literature. You can talk about it for a very long time - there are more than enough interesting topics for discussion. Today we will focus on one of them - we will try to understand what Pechorin's attitude towards Mary was.
The character of Pechorin
First you need to understand the character of the main character. It is impossible not to admit that this is a man, in his development higher than the society surrounding him. However, he failed to find application for his talents and abilities. The 1830s is a difficult period in Russian history. The future of young people of that time was either "empty or dark." Lermontov in Pechorin captured the features of the younger generation of those years. The portrait of his hero is made up of the vices of all time. It looks like there are two people in it. The first of them acts, and the second observes his actions and discusses them, or rather condemns them.
Negative character traits of Pechorin
In Pechorin, you can notice many negative traits, including selfishness. Although Belinsky could not agree with this. He said that egoism "does not blame itself", "does not suffer." Indeed, Pechorin suffers because he is bored among people belonging to the "water society". The desire to break out of it lies in the fact that the hero wastes himself on various petty things. Pechorin risks his life, seeking oblivion in love, substituting Chechen bullets for himself. He suffers greatly from boredom and realizes that it is wrong to live the way he lives. The hero is ambitious and vindictive. Wherever he appears, misfortunes happen everywhere.
Why did the hero deceive Mary?
This hero inflicted a deep spiritual wound on Princess Mary. He deceived this girl, betrayed her love for him. What was his goal? Exceptional satisfaction. In this, Pechorin and Princess Mary were completely different. The relationship between the characters is characterized by the fact that the princess seeks to make her lover happy, and he thinks only of himself. However, Pechorin is well aware of the ungrateful role he played in the life of this girl.
The development of relations between Pechorin and Mary
In order to understand what Pechorin's true attitude towards Mary was, let us briefly trace the history of the development of their very unusual novel. Mary is the young and beautiful daughter of Princess Ligovskaya. However, she is too naive, and also overly trusting of other people, including Pechorin. At first, the girl did not pay attention to the main character, but he did everything to interest her. He lured Mary's fans over to him by telling them funny stories. After Pechorin won her attention, he tried to make a good impression on the princess with stories and stories from his life. His goal was for the girl to begin to see him as an extraordinary person, and he achieved his goal. Pechorin gradually conquered the girl. During the ball, he "saved" the princess from a drunken impudent molester who molested her. Pechorin's caring attitude towards Princess Mary did not go unnoticed by the girl. She believed that the hero is sincere in his actions. However, the girl was cruelly mistaken. He just wanted to conquer her, she was just another toy for him. One evening, Pechorin and Mary went for a walk. Their relationship by that time had already developed enough for what happened during it. The princess felt ill as she crossed the river. Pechorin hugged her, the girl leaned on him, and then he kissed her.
Was Pechorin in love with Mary?
Pechorin argued and tried to convince himself that Mary's passion for him did not mean anything to him, that he was seeking the love of this girl only for his own pleasure. However, in reality, Pechorin's attitude towards Mary was somewhat different. The soul of the hero longed for true love. Pechorin begins to doubt: "Have I really fallen in love?" However, he immediately catches himself thinking that attachment to this girl is "a miserable habit of the heart." Pechorin's love for Mary died in the bud, because the hero did not allow her to develop. It's a pity - perhaps he would have found happiness by falling in love.
Thus, Pechorin's attitude towards Mary is contradictory. The hero assures himself that he does not love her. Before the duel, he tells Werner that he took out only a few ideas from the storm of life, but did not take out a single feeling. He admits that he has long lived with his head, and not with his heart. He weighs his own actions and passions, analyzes them "with strict curiosity", but "without participation". At first glance, the way Pechorin treats Mary confirms this idea of \u200b\u200bthe main character about himself, which testifies to the cruelty, ruthless coldness of his game. However, the main character is not as impassive as he tries to appear. Several times he feels carried away, even becomes agitated. The protagonist reproaches himself for his ability to feel: after all, he assured himself that for him happiness lies not in love, but in "saturated pride." His nature is distorted by the inability to find a high goal in life and eternal discord with others. However, Pechorin vainly believes that this "saturated pride" will bring him happiness. Both Mary and Vera love him, but this does not bring him satisfaction. And relations with these heroines develop not only at the behest of Pechorin.
While the hero sees in the princess a secular young lady spoiled by worship, he takes pleasure in insulting the girl's pride. However, after the soul emerges in it, the ability to sincerely suffer, and not just play love, comes to light, the main character changes his mind. However, the author does not end the story with a happy ending - Pechorin and Princess Mary remain lonely. The relationship between these two characters did not lead to anything. It is fear, not indifference, that makes him reject Mary's feelings.
How should one treat Pechorin?
Probably Pechorin ruined the life of this girl forever. He disappointed her in love. Now Mary will not trust anyone. Pechorin can be treated differently. Of course, he is a scoundrel, unworthy of the love of another person and even respect for himself. However, he is justified by the fact that he is a product of society. He was brought up in an environment where it was customary to hide true feelings under the guise of indifference.
Did Mary deserve her fate?
And what about Mary? It can also be treated differently. The girl saw the perseverance of the protagonist. And from this she concluded that he loves her. Mary heard what strange speeches this hero made, and realized that this was an extraordinary person. And she fell in love with him, ignoring the laws of society. After all, Mary was the first to dare to speak about her love. This means that she believed that the hero would reciprocate her feelings. However, he was silent.
What was Mary's fault?
We can assume that Mary herself is to blame for everything, since she was both naive and arrogant, self-confident and blind. There is no reckless devotion inherent in the Faith in it, there is no sincerity and passionate power of Bela's love. But the main thing is that she does not understand Pechorin. The girl did not fall in love with him at all, but with a fashionable hero. Her feeling for him can be compared with the feeling for Grushnitsky - Mary sees the same thing in such different people: the tragedy of Pechorin's disappointment does not differ for her from the mask of Grushnitsky's disappointment. If the main character had not come to the waters, most likely, the girl would have fallen in love with Grushnitsky, married him, despite the resistance of her mother, and would have been happy with him.
What justifies Mary
However, is it possible to blame the heroine so unconditionally? After all, it is not her fault that she is young, that she is looking for a hero and is ready to find him in the first person she meets. Like any woman, Mary dreams of being loved by a lonely and strong man, for whom she is ready to become the whole world, warm him and console him, bring him peace and joy. In this sense, Pechorin and Princess Mary were products of their environment and time. The relationship between them is characterized by the fact that each played a role. And if the hero invented her himself, then the heroine played the natural role of a woman whose destiny is to love.
Perhaps if Pechorin had not appeared in her life, she would have found her happiness. The girl would live her whole life with the illusion that Grushnitsky is a special being, that she saved him from loneliness and misfortune with her love.
The complexity of human relationships
The complexity of human relationships lies in the fact that even in love, which is the greatest spiritual intimacy, people are often unable to fully understand each other. In order to maintain calm and confidence, illusions are needed. Mary and Grushnitsky could have retained the illusion of the need for a loved one, and that would have been enough for a quiet home, the love and devotion of the princess. Something similar might have happened if Pechorin and Mary had not parted. The relationship between them, of course, would hardly have lasted for a long time due to the nature of the protagonist, but misunderstanding in this pair, of course, would also have taken place.
