Pechorin and Grushnitsky: Characteristics of Heroes

In the spring of 1940 a separate edition of the work "Hero of Our Time", written by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov, was published. This novel has become one of the most interesting and extraordinary phenomena in Russian literature. This book has been the object of numerous studies and disputes for more than a century and a half. She does not lose her acuteness and urgency in our day. Still Belinsky wrote about this book that she was never destined to grow old. We also decided to turn to her and write her own composition. Grushnitsky and Pechorin are very interesting characters.

Feature generation

Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin, the protagonist of the novel in question, lived in the times of Lermontov, that is, approximately in the thirties of the nineteenth century. This time was a period of gloomy reaction, which came after the Decembrist uprising in 1825 and its defeat. A man of advanced thinking could not at that time find an application for his talents and powers. Doubt, unbelief, denial were the features of the consciousness of the younger generation of those years. The ideals of the fathers were rejected by them "from the cradle," and then these people questioned and in moral norms and values as such. Therefore, VG Belinsky wrote that "Pechorin is deeply afflicted," since he can not apply the mighty powers of his soul.

New artistic means

Lermontov, creating his work, portrayed life as it really is. This required new artistic means, and he found them. These means did not know either Western or Russian literature, and they still cause our admiration for us by combining a wide and free image of characters with the ability to objectively show them, to reveal one hero through the prism of the perception of the other.

Let us consider in more detail the two main characters of this novel. This Pechorin and Grushnitsky.

The image of Pechorin

Pechorin was an aristocrat in origin, he received a standard secular education. Out of the parental care, he went "in great light" in order to enjoy all the pleasures. However, soon such a frivolous life bored him, bored the hero and reading books. Pechorin after some history, sensational in St. Petersburg, refer to the Caucasus.

Representing the appearance of the hero, the author points out several strokes on his origin: "noble forehead," "pale," "small" hand. This character is a hardy and physically strong person. He is endowed with a mind that assesses critically the world around him.

The character of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin

Pechorin thinks about the problems of good and evil, friendship and love, about the meaning of our life. He is self-critical in assessing his contemporaries, saying that his generation is incapable of sacrifice, not only for the good of mankind, but also for his own happiness. The hero is well versed in people, he is not satisfied with the sluggish life of the "water society", he evaluates the capital's aristocrats, giving them destructive characteristics. The deepest and most complete inner world of Pechorin is revealed in the story "Princess Mary", during the meeting with Grushnitsky. The characteristics of Pechorin and Grushnitsky in their confrontation are an example of profound psychological analysis by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov.

Grushnitsky

The author of the work "The Hero of Our Time" did not give the name and patronymic to this character, calling him simply by the name - Grushnitsky. This is an ordinary young man, a cadet, dreaming of great love and asterisks on his epaulets. His passion is to produce an effect. Grushnitsky goes to Princess Mary in a new uniform, smelling of perfume, crushed. This hero is a mediocrity with weakness, forgiveness, true, at his age, a "passion to recite" and "drape" into some unusual feelings. Grushnitsky wants to play the role of a disappointed hero, fashionable at the time, portraying himself as a creature endowed with "secret suffering." This hero - a parody of Pechorin, and quite successful, because it's not for nothing that the young cadet is so unpleasant about the latter.

Confrontation: Pechorin and Grushnitsky

Grushnitsky, by his conduct, emphasizes the nobility of Grigory Alexandrovich, but, on the other hand, as if erasing any differences between them. Pechorin himself had been spying on Princess Mary and Grushnitsky, which, of course, is not a noble act. Princess he, I must say, never loved, but only used her love and gullibility to fight her enemy - Grushnitsky.

The latter, like a narrow-minded person, does not first understand Pechorin's attitude to himself. He seems to himself to be a self-confident person, very significant and perceptive. Grushnitsky says condescendingly: "I'm sorry for you, Pechorin." However, events do not develop according to the plan of Grigory Alexandrovich. Now the young man, overwhelmed by jealousy, indignation and passion, appears before the reader in a completely different light, being far less harmless. He is capable of meanness, dishonesty and revenge. The hero who has played recently in nobility is capable to start today a bullet in the unarmed person. Duel Grushnitsky and Pechorin reveals the true essence of the first, which rejects reconciliation, and Grigory Alexandrovich coldly shoots at him and kills him. The hero dies, having drunk a cup of hatred and shame of repentance to the end. This is a brief confrontation, which led the two main characters - Pechorin and Grushnitsky. Comparative characteristics of their images form the basis of the whole work.

Reflections of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin

Before going to a duel (Pechorin with Grushnitsky), Grigory Alexandrovich, remembering his life, asks himself questions about what he lived for, why he was born. And he answers himself that he feels "an appointment high," immense forces in himself. Then Grigory Alexandrovich realizes that he has long been only an "ax" in the hands of fate. There is a contrast between the spiritual forces and the unworthy hero of small acts. He wants to "love the whole world," but brings only misery and evil to people. High, noble aspirations degenerate into petty feelings, and the desire to live a full life is hopelessness and a consciousness of doom. The position of this hero is tragic, he is lonely. Duel Pechorin with Grushnitsky clearly showed it.

Lermontov called his novel so because the hero for him is not a role model, but only a portrait that constitutes the vices of the modern author of the generation in their full development.

Conclusion

The character of Grushnitsky thus helps to reveal the main qualities of his nature in Pechorin. This is a crooked mirror of Grigory Alexandrovich, which emphasizes the significance and truth of the experiences of the "suffering egoist," the exclusiveness and depth of his personality. With special power in the situation with Grushnitsky, the whole danger, hidden in the depth of this type, is also revealed, the destructive force inherent in individualistic philosophy, which is inherent in Romanticism. Lermontov showed all the abysses of the human soul, not seeking to make a moral judgment. Pechorin and Grushnitsky, thus, is not a positive and negative hero. Psychology Pechorin is far from unambiguous, as in the character Grushnitsky you can find some positive qualities.