The novel “Eugene Onegin” is the great creation of the brilliant Pushkin. The immortal work reflects Russian life in the first decades of the 19th century with all the force of the author’s realism. The poet describes all aspects of Russian reality, all layers of the nation, and shows typical representatives of the noble society of that era. This typical image in the novel is the main character - Eugene Onegin, in whom the features of a “suffering egoist”, “superfluous person” are clearly visible.
Onegin is a child of secular society; he received the upbringing and education typical of a young nobleman. The main character of the novel speaks perfect French, dances well and bows gracefully, which is quite enough in high society. Onegin is considered an intelligent and sweet person. Pushkin ironically remarks:
We all learned a little bit
Something and somehow
So upbringing, thank God,
It's no wonder for us to shine.
Evgeniy leads the life of a darling of fate, a sybarite. He spends time at endless balls, evenings, visits restaurants, theaters. The young nobleman perfectly mastered the “science of tender passion,” but the author notes that love intrigues occupied Onegin’s “yearning laziness.” The monotony and diversity of life in secular society gradually bores the main character. He becomes disillusioned with the emptiness and purposelessness of such an existence:
But early his feelings cooled down,
He was tired of the noise of the world...
Onegin differs from other representatives of secular Petersburg. He is smart and talented, capable of correctly assessing life and the people who surround him. No wonder Pushkin speaks with great sympathy about his hero. Evgeniy is the author’s “good... friend”. What is so sweet to Pushkin about the nature of the main character? The poet writes:
I liked his features
Involuntary devotion to dreams,
Inimitable strangeness
And a sharp, chilled mind.
It is these qualities that do not allow Onegin to continue to lead an idle life. However, the tragedy of the hero is that he well understands the wrongness of such a life, but does not know how to live. Evgeniy is trying to change the sluggish passage of time, he is trying to engage in useful activities in order to somehow shake himself up. The main character begins to read books and engages in writing, but this does not lead to anything good. Pushkin reveals the truth to us:
... but persistent work was sickening to him...
Life in high society destroys in a person the habit of work, the desire to act. This is what happens with Onegin. His soul simply withered under the influence of the light. Evgeniy is frankly bored in any company. He does everything “out of boredom,” “just to pass the time.” This is what explains Onegin’s friendship with Lensky and the implementation of reforms on the protagonist’s estate. Evgeny values his peace most of all, so he does not want to reciprocate Tatyana Larina when the girl herself confesses her love to the hero. Onegin sees that Tatyana is an original and deep nature, but the egoist in Eugene is stronger than Pushkin’s “good friend”. Onegin inflicts a spiritual wound on “sweet Tanya”, he arouses the jealousy of the naive and ardent Lensky, and the reason for everything is the “longing laziness” of the protagonist. He is an egoist, but a suffering egoist. Onegin's actions and behavior bring misfortune not only to those around him, but also to himself. He lived too long in high society and absorbed all the vices of that society, “living without a goal, without work until he was twenty-six years old.” Evgeny tried to leave, to break with secular Petersburg, but he failed to achieve this. A child of light, he cannot rise above the wretched landed nobility surrounding the hero and prefers to shoot with Lensky so as not to become an object of ridicule. Realizing that he needs to make peace with Vladimir, Evgeniy nevertheless fires a fatal shot for the young poet. After the murder of Lensky, Evgeny suffers, but the fear of gossip and slander turned out to be stronger than the feeling of his own wrong. Onegin was afraid of the opinions of those people whom he himself despised, at whom he laughed in conversations with Lensky. Selfishness also lies at the basis of Evgeny’s attitude towards Tatyana Larina. The hero of Pushkin's novel did not want to respond to the feelings of the naive girl, even realizing that she was worthy of love. Onegin did not want to change his habits:
No matter how much I love you,
Once I get used to it, I’ll stop loving it immediately.
However, Evgeny falls passionately in love with Tatiana when she becomes a noble lady, a representative of the capital's society, and Larina understands well what is the reason for Onegin's feelings for her. This is the love of an egoist, brought up in secular St. Petersburg and well aware of the “science of tender passion.”
The image of Onegin opens a gallery of “superfluous people” in Russian literature of the 19th century. Without him, Pechorin, rightly called the “younger brother” of Pushkin’s hero, would have been impossible; Evgeniy’s traits are present in Oblomov and Rudin. Eugene Onegin is a typical hero of the era of the twenties, a “suffering egoist” that society made him that way.
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From the first pages of the novel, the reader learns about Onegin that he is a “young rake” born on the banks of the Neva. He grew up as a carefree boy and studied in “greenhouse” conditions, because his teacher “taught him everything jokingly.” When Evgeny reached adolescence, his teachers were “banished from the yard” and Onegin ceased to be burdened with any activities at all:
Here is my Onegin free;
Haircut in the latest fashion,
How dandy London is dressed -
And finally saw the light.
From these lines it is clear that Onegin follows fashion and looks attractive, besides, he speaks good French and knows how to dance, so the world decides “that he is smart and very nice.”
But still, in the opinion of many “decisive and strict judges”,
Onegin was “a learned fellow, but a pedant.” He touched only superficially on the topics discussed, but did so “with the learned air of an expert.” Of all Onegin’s knowledge, Pushkin singles out the “science of tender passion,” thanks to which he easily drove beauties crazy. His excellent knowledge of this science made him a favorite among women, so he always received many invitations from important people.
Onegin was a fashionista and was very pedantic about his appearance and the choice of his outfits. Onegin's idle life bores him, because it is “monotonous and motley.” Onegin is tired of betrayals, and “friends and friendship are tired” of him. Pushkin calls his condition “Russian blues.”
Onegin tries himself as a writer, but “nothing came from his pen,” then he began to read, but books did not captivate him either. At this time, Onegin’s uncle dies, to whom he goes, “preparing, for the sake of money, for sighs, boredom and deception,” which characterizes Onegin as a hypocritical person pursuing his own benefit.
2. The uncle leaves his nephew a good inheritance, and Onegin remains to live in the village, where he decided to “establish a new order”, and instead of corvée he introduced quitrent, because of these innovations he became known as “the most dangerous eccentric.” The general impression of the villagers about Onegin was: “Our neighbor is ignorant; crazy; he is a pharmacist; he drinks one glass of red wine...” At the same time, Lensky, a romantic and ardent young poet, returns to the neighboring estate from Germany, and soon begins a friendship with Onegin. And although Lensky was, in Onegin’s opinion, a naive idealist, still “Eugene was more tolerable than many; although he, of course, knew people and generally despised them, but (there are no rules without exceptions) he distinguished others very much and respected the feelings of others.” That is, Onegin treated Lensky kindly, listening carefully to his reasoning, without inserting his “cooling word.”
3. Lensky introduces Onegin to the Larin family, where the older sister Tatyana falls in love with Onegin. In her eyes, he represents more of an image she invented than a real person, because she did not know him at all, and “drew” her love from the pages of the novels she read, endowing Onegin with the qualities of book heroes.
4. Tatyana’s spiritual purity and inexperience touched Eugene, and he did not dare to mock the girls’ feelings, deciding to have a serious conversation with her. In this conversation, Onegin’s character is revealed to the greatest extent, because he, one might say, confesses to Tatyana, honestly telling her about himself and his way of life. Onegin admits that he is not ready to start a family, but if he decided to get married, he would certainly choose Tatyana, however, as Onegin himself says, he is “not created for bliss,” so he wishes Tatyana a more worthy spouse, claiming, that his union with her will be unhappy: “Believe me (conscience is a guarantee), marriage will be torment for us,” then Onegin declares: “No matter how much I love you, having gotten used to it, I will stop loving you immediately.” Here Evgeny is honest with Tatiana, because he is spoiled and corrupted by high society, a quiet family life and an obedient timid wife are not interesting to him. Onegin also asks Tatyana to learn to be more restrained in her feelings, because her inexperience can lead to trouble. In relation to Tatyana, Evgeniy showed “direct nobility of soul,” which still characterizes him on the positive side.
5. In chapter five, Onegin finds himself on Tatiana’s name day, where Lensky invited Onegin, saying that they would be held in a close family circle. But, contrary to Lensky’s words, a lot of people had gathered, and Tatyana was very worried, and since Evgeny could not stand women’s tears and hysterics, he became angry at Lensky and he began to take revenge on him that same evening, flirting with his beloved, inviting to dance: “Onegin went with Olga; leads her, gliding casually, and, bending down, gently whispers to her some vulgar madrigal.”
6. Of course, this really hurt Lensky, so he challenges Onegin to a duel. Having accepted this challenge, Onegin experiences a feeling of guilt for the fact that “he casually played a joke on timid, tender love in the evening,” and for the fact that he did not stop Lensky, realizing that Vladimir was forgiven for his temper at the age of 18, but Onegin, with his life experience, no. All this characterizes Onegin as a hot-tempered and touchy, but still quick-witted person who knows how to admit his guilt. But his pride did not allow him to refuse the duel, and besides, he did not want to hear the “laughter of fools” who could perceive his refusal to duel as cowardice. Onegin won the duel, but at the same time he experienced “anguish of heartfelt remorse”, he “moves away with a shudder and calls people,” but it is impossible to return the life of the young poet.
7. In the seventh chapter, Tatyana gets acquainted with the books that Eugene read, in them “modern man is depicted quite correctly with his immoral soul, selfish and dry”; the girl sees Onegin’s notes on the pages and begins to understand him better, calling Onegin “a sad and dangerous eccentric.” But still, Tatyana cannot fully understand him: “What is he? Is it really imitation...", "An interpretation of other people's whims, a complete vocabulary of fashionable words? Isn’t he a parody?”
8. In the eighth chapter, Onegin returns to Moscow, where he will meet with Tatyana. Onegin is as lonely and careless as before, “having lived without a goal, without work until he was twenty-six years old, languishing in the inactivity of leisure without service, without a wife, without business, he did not know how to do anything.”
When he meets Tatyana, he is surprised by her transformation, because she has become different, inaccessible and indifferent. Of course, this meeting cannot pass without leaving a trace for Onegin:
What about him? what a strange dream he is in!
What moved in the depths
A cold and lazy soul?
Evgeniy cannot find a place for himself, he constantly thinks about Tatyana and is waiting for a new meeting with her. But his heart was still touched not by the modest and timid Tatyana whom he knew before, but by this “indifferent princess,” “impregnable goddess,” which Tatyana has now become. And so he writes her a letter in which he talks about his love. Onegin is no longer that narcissistic “dandy”, he is experiencing real pangs of love, at least one woman was finally able to take possession of his heart. Onegin is now a devoted admirer of the princess and before her “to freeze in agony, turn pale and fade away... this is bliss.” Onegin is like a submissive slave in front of Tatyana, anxiously waiting for her answer, afraid of her “angry reproach”:
...I'm on my own
I can no longer resist;
Everything is decided: I am in your will
And I surrender to my fate.
All Onegin’s words confirm that he is a contradictory person who is interested in the “forbidden fruit”, he is capable of love, but to love an inaccessible, unattainable woman, perhaps in order to, having achieved her, once again flatter his pride, because Onegin is all- He is still a vain man, and to gain the favor of a princess who occupies a high position in society is an honor for him.
The main character of the novel is the young landowner Evgeny Onegin, a man with a complex, contradictory character. The upbringing that Onegin received was disastrous. He grew up without a mother. The father, a frivolous St. Petersburg gentleman, did not pay attention to his son, entrusting him to “poor” tutors. As a result of this, Onegin grew up to be an egoist, a person who cares only about himself, about his desires and who does not know how to pay attention to the feelings, interests, and suffering of other people. He is capable of offending, offending a person without even noticing it. Everything beautiful that was in the young man’s soul remained undeveloped. Onegin's life is boredom and laziness, monotonous satisfaction in the absence of real, living work.
The image of Onegin is not invented. In it, the poet summarized the features typical of young people of that time. These are people who are provided for through work and serfs who received a disorderly upbringing. But unlike most representatives of the ruling class, these young men are smarter, more sensitive, more conscientious, more noble. They are dissatisfied with themselves, their environment, and the social order.
In his views and requirements for life, Onegin is superior not only to his rural landowner neighbors, but also to representatives of St. Petersburg high society. Having met Lensky, who received a higher education at the best university in Germany, Onegin could argue with him on any topic, as with an equal. Friendship with Lensky reveals in Onegin’s soul the possibilities of faithful, friendly relationships between people hidden behind a mask of cold egoism and indifference.
Seeing Tatyana for the first time, without even talking to her, without hearing her voice, he immediately felt the poetry of this girl’s soul. In his attitude towards Tatyana, as well as towards Lensky, such a trait as goodwill was revealed. Under the influence of the events depicted in the novel, an evolution takes place in Eugene’s soul, and in the last chapter of the novel, Onegin is no longer the same as we saw him before. He fell in love with Tatiana. But his love does not bring happiness, neither to him nor to her.
In the novel “Eugene Onegin,” Pushkin portrayed a frivolous young man who, even in love, cannot give himself advice. Running away from the world, Onegin could not escape from himself. By the time he realized this, it was already too late. Tatyana doesn't believe him now. And this opens Onegin’s eyes to himself, but nothing can change.
The image of Lensky in the novel "Eugene Onegin"
Another path followed by the noble intelligentsia of the 20s of the 19th century is revealed in the image of Lensky. This is the path of fascination with philosophical teachings that were fashionable at that time and dreamy romantic poetry, divorced from life:
Lenskoye has many excellent qualities. Pushkin points to Lensky’s inherent “noble aspirations and feelings and thoughts of the young, tall, gentle, daring,” “thirst for knowledge and labor and fear of vice and shame.”
But Lensky lacks knowledge and understanding of reality. “A dear ignoramus at heart,” he perceives people and life as a romantic dreamer. Like Onegin, the society of the provincial nobility with its narrow interests is alien to him, but he idealizes Olga, an ordinary girl. Lack of understanding of people, enthusiastic daydreaming lead Lensky to a tragic end at his first encounter with reality.
Lensky is an educated, cultured person. His conversations with Onegin touch on philosophical, social, and scientific issues. Pushkin notes his “freedom-loving dreams.” Lensky is a poet, a sentimental romantic. In stanza X of the second chapter, Pushkin lists the main motives of Lensky’s poetry, and in stanzas XXI and XXII of the sixth chapter he cites his elegy as an example of romantic poetry.
The motives that Pushkin notes in Lensky’s poetry are close to Zhukovsky and other sentimental romantic poets of that time. The motifs of “love, sadness, separation”, a mysterious “something”, glorification of the “faded color of life”, “foggy distance” and “romantic roses” are typical of Zhukovsky’s poetry.
Romantics like Lensky cannot withstand the blows of life: they either reconcile themselves with the reigning way of life, or die at the first collision with reality. Lensky died. But if he had remained alive, he most likely would have turned into an ordinary landowner. He would hardly have become a major poet: Lensky’s “languid and sluggish” poetry did not promise this.
Tatiana is the embodiment of everything Russian and national. This is a discreet and pure, but deep nature. She is not like all the secular girls. Her characterization is given as if from the opposite, Pushkin says what is not in her - there is no coquetry, affectation, or insincerity in her. Pushkin explains how such two dissimilar sisters were born in the same family. It turns out that Tatyana has been different from her peers since childhood. She preferred solitude to games, reading to dolls, and she also amazingly feels and understands nature. This sensitivity makes Tatyana closer to the common people than to secular society. The basis of her world is folk culture. The episode with Tatiana's fortune telling and dream shows how much is intuitive in her. At the same time, Tatyana is somewhat similar to Onegin - the desire for loneliness, the desire to understand herself and understand life. But she also has Lensky’s traits - belief in ideal happiness, love, creating a sweet image.
Let us pay attention to the epigraph to Chapter I: “And he is in a hurry to live, and he is in a hurry to feel” - from P.A. Vyazemsky’s poem “The First Snow”. The epigraph notes the essential side of the hero’s personality and his youth.
Without an introduction, Pushkin immediately gives an episode from the hero’s life: Onegin goes to the village to visit his sick uncle. The author calls Onegin a “young rake,” but immediately speaks of him as his “kind” friend.
The following stanzas talk about Onegin's education and his range of interests.
We all learned a little bit
Something and somehow...
Pushkin notes the randomness and unsystematic nature of ordinary noble upbringing. From further poems it becomes clear, indeed, that Onegin had no systematic education, but Onegin’s range of interests was very wide.
We turn to the following lines:
He had a lucky talent
With the learned air of a connoisseur
No coercion in conversation
remain silent in an important dispute
Touch everything lightly
And make the ladies smile
Fire of unexpected epigrams...
These lines speak of the lack of depth in Onegin’s education. But the mention of “unexpected epigrams” at the same time characterizes the ironic, caustic orientation of Onegin’s conversations. The epigram was often a manifestation of oppositional sentiments and thoughts.
The historical anecdotes that attracted Onegin - stories about incidents from the lives of historical figures - to a certain extent indicate Onegin's interest in history.
As you can see, despite the unsystematic nature of Onegin’s education, he does not remain aloof from cultural, historical and political interests. He has a wide range of interests, and the selection of names of authors read by Onegin is such that one can say about the oppositional, critical mood of the young Onegin.
Next, we turn to the stanzas depicting Onegin’s ordinary day.
Onegin goes to the boulevard
And there he walks in the open space,
Three houses are calling for the evening...
While the watchful Breget
While in morning dress,
Dinner won't ring his bell.
In the depiction of the dinner, what attracts attention is the list of dishes that are entirely non-Russian cuisine, characterizing a passion for everything foreign.
Next, we read the stanzas devoted to the description of Onegin’s office and his toilet. The list of things decorating Onegin's office (amber, bronze, porcelain, perfume in cut crystal, combs, nail files, etc.) recreates the typical atmosphere of the life of a young man of St. Petersburg society. In stanza XXVI, Pushkin, listing Onegin's clothing items, uses foreign names. In an ironic form, he motivates the need to include foreign words in the Russian literary language:
But trousers, a tailcoat, a vest,
All these words are not in Russian.
Stanza XXXV ends the description of the ordinary, ordinary day of a young man of St. Petersburg society. Onegin returns home in the morning,
And St. Petersburg is restless
Already awakened by the drum... -
those. the guards began to be sent out in the military capital. People appear on the streets representing a completely different part of the population: a merchant, a peddler, a cab driver, a milkmaid. The working day of the big city begins.
Stanza XXXVI, as it were, summarizes a number of paintings that have passed before us, indicating that Onegin’s day depicted was an ordinary day for him:
Wake up at noon, and again
Monotonous and colorful.
Until the morning his life is ready,
And tomorrow is the same as yesterday...
And in this stanza the poet moves on to illuminate Onegin’s inner world, posing the question:
But was my Eugene happy?
Free, in the color of the best years,
Among everyday pleasures?
Hundreds, maybe thousands of young nobles were satisfied with this empty life. And Onegin?
Evgeniy is not satisfied with life, he is bored, and he is overcome by the blues. This state of Onegin distinguishes him among young people who were satisfied with the described existence. He is taller and more meaningful than ordinary young people of St. Petersburg society. Some great demands live within him, and an empty social life does not bring him happiness. Involuntary devotion to dreams,
Inimitable strangeness
And a sharp, chilled mind...
This author's characteristic is very important. All these qualities sharply distinguish Onegin from the environment that surrounded him; here Pushkin highly values his hero. The noble secular society was heterogeneous, and along with the mass of empty mediocrity, there were also people of a different type. And Onegin is close to them in some of his personality traits. The poet emphasizes Onegin’s dissatisfaction with those around him in XIV! stanza.
First Onegin's language
And as a joke, with bile in half,
I was embarrassed; but I'm used to it
And to the anger of gloomy epigrams.
To his caustic argument,
So, from Chapter I of the novel we learned about Onegin’s origin, upbringing and education. We found out what environment surrounded him and shaped his views and tastes. We got to know his range of interests. We found out some negative aspects of his life, which could not but leave an imprint on his personality: Onegin lives without work and a specific occupation; he is not connected either with his native nature or with the life of his people. Starting from his French upbringing and ending with reading mainly foreign books, everything in his life deprives Onegin of the opportunity to get closer to his own, national, Russian. Onegin begins to feel dissatisfied with life and melancholy. He feels the purposelessness of his existence.
In further chapters of the novel, the image of Onegin develops and undergoes some changes. The author puts Onegin in new situations, confronts him with new people, and in these collisions in a number of new circumstances, the essence of the image, its social meaning, typical of some of the youth of the 20s, reflected in the image of Onegin, is fully revealed.
At the end of Chapter I and Chapter II, Onegin’s life in
village.
Two days seemed new to him
Then they induced sleep;
Secluded fields...
Then he saw clearly
That in the village there is the same boredom...
...On the third grove, hill and field
He was no longer occupied;
“Boredom” and “blueness” do not leave Onegin even in new living conditions. Nature does not attract him, he is not involved in farming. As a landowner, Onegin must enter into some kind of relationship with the peasants. There is only one message about this in the novel:
In his wilderness the desert sage,
I replaced it with easy quitrent;
He is the yoke of the ancient corvée
and the slave blessed fate.
However, this was done “just to pass the time.” How did the surrounding landowners react to Onegin’s “reform”:
...sulked in his corner,
The other smiled slyly
Seeing this as terrible harm,
And everyone decided out loud,
His calculating neighbor:
That he is a most dangerous weirdo.
What kind of relationship was established between Onegin and his neighboring landowners? Onegin closed in on himself and clearly separated himself from his neighbors.
And they, in turn, considered him an “eccentric,” a “farmazon,” and “they stopped their friendship with him.”
In Chapter I, Onegin was singled out by the author from among the secular metropolitan nobility. In Chapter II he is sharply distinguished from the usual circle of landowners, into whose midst he fell by the will of fate.
It is worth paying attention to Onegin’s friendship with Lensky. With all the differences in characters and temperaments, they nevertheless contain something in common: they are both opposed to the Buyanovs, Petushkovs, Prostakovs, Mizinchikovs, Durins. What they have in common is great demands for life, broad mental interests. There is history, philosophical and moral issues, and reading literary works.
In Chapter III - Onegin's first meeting with Tatyana. Let us pay attention to the dialogue between two friends when they are “flying at full speed on the shortest route home.” From the conversation it is clear that Onegin did not pay attention to Olga: “I would choose another,” i.e. Tatyana. Onegin knows how to understand people; he was not attracted to the meaningless, empty Olga. And the fact that Onegin immediately made an extraordinary impression on Tatyana cannot be attributed only to her dreamy imagination, brought up on reading sentimental novels.
However, along with all this, as if elevating the hero, we should not forget about his selfishness and coldness - a consequence of the conditions of his upbringing and social life.
In Chapter IV, our attention will be drawn to the stanza about the first impression that the received letter made on Onegin: But, having received Tanya’s message,
Onegin was deeply touched...
These and subsequent lines indicate that the soul of the “fashionable tyrant” is not completely devastated and has not completely become calloused. However, Onegin is unable to respond to Tatiana’s love, and his decency does not allow him to “drag around” or “flirt.” Of course, Eugene’s problem is that, despite his intelligence and dissatisfaction with the entire structure of life of the people in his circle, he cannot break with it and look for the meaning of life in something else, or set himself some significant task. However, a vague awareness that it is not a narrow circle of “domestic” interests, but some other life that could give meaning to his existence, lives in him.
“But I am not created for bliss...” - and Onegin ironically unfolds a picture of family life, for which he is incapable. In this “sermon,” despite its thoughtfulness and some arrogance, there is, however, a certain sadness. Onegin feels sorry for Tatyana, but he also feels sorry for himself.
Living in the wilderness of the village, bored and languishing, Onegin shows the ability to respect the provincial girl who fell in love with him, and does not want to play with serious and great feelings.
Onegin's behavior at Tatiana's name day does not add anything new to his image. However, Onegin’s disdain for people and his selfishness appear again.
The eccentric, having found himself at a huge feast,
I was really angry...
Although he had nothing to be angry about, both Lensky and the Larins were disposed towards him. And Onegin not only “began to draw caricatures of all the guests in his soul,” but frivolously offends his friend while courting Olga. In Chapter VI, the episode of challenge and duel eloquently characterizes Onegin.
Having accepted the challenge “without further ado,” Onegin
Alone with your soul
And rightly so: in strict analysis,
He was unhappy with himself.
Having summoned himself to a secret trial,
He blamed himself for many things...
And then - honest, true thoughts about being wrong. So, a high and noble idea of human relations and harsh self-condemnation. Suddenly, honor again turns out to be the reason that the hero gives up his humane, noble positions and floats with the flow of events. But this is a different honor, not the one Onegin thought about before. This is a false honor, regulated by the “public opinion” of noble society. And she defeats Onegin: he, with all his contempt for the noble-secular circle, is himself its product and cannot break beyond its boundaries, break with it. Onegin yields to “public opinion” on an important issue. This does not prevent him from laughing at the traditions of his circle in matters of small scale.
And he takes with him a French footman as a second:
Even though he is an unknown person,
But of course the guy is honest.
In the picture of the duel, we note Onegin’s restraint and composure, and after the murder of Lensky, the remorse and shock he experienced:
In the anguish of heart remorse,
Hand clutching the pistol,
Evgeniy looks at Lensky...
Such is the age-old litigation, the duality of consciousness, typical of the noble intellectual of that time.
The next episode, “Tatyana in Onegin’s office,” raises a whole series of literary and life associations that speak of the complexity and inconsistency of the hero’s image, of the reflection of the “spirit of the times” in his personality. Again and again Tatyana comes to Onegin’s office. She sorts through books, “with a greedy soul” she “indulges” in reading. Onegin’s selection of books and the marks in the margins reveal to her much about the hero’s personality.
The eccentric is sad and dangerous,
It's clearer now - thank God -
The creation of hell or heaven,
The one for whom she sighs
This angel, this arrogant demon,
What is he? Is it really imitation?
interpretation of other people's whims,
An insignificant ghost, or else
A complete vocabulary of fashionable words?..
Muscovite in Harold's cloak,
Isn't he a parody?
There are no answers to the questions.
Let us turn to Onegin in Chapter VIII. It contains a new cycle of events in Onegin’s life, opening with a meeting in St. Petersburg with Tatyana. Onegin at a social event:
But who is this in the chosen crowd?
Stands silent and foggy?
He seems alien to everyone.
Onegin therefore turned out to be superfluous, a stranger among the social gathering.
Pushkin sincerely feels sorry for his hero, with all his wealth
personality who turned out to be superfluous, alien, who has not found his place in life. His fate is deeply tragic.
The meeting with Tatyana awakens Onegin. Many years have passed, he has experienced a lot, he has changed his mind since he “read instructions” to the district young lady. Eugene has changed, his worldview has become more serious, but the hero is still not happy with life. Finally, a meeting with Tatyana awakens an unknown feeling in him.
Onegin's love story is in its own way a repetition of Tatiana's love story, but only the roles have changed. Eugene’s letter was written sincerely, with passion, without social etiquette. Finally, the last date, but now Onegin listens to Tatyana’s rebuke. There is a whole “storm of sensations” in Onegin’s soul. The novel ends.
And here is my hero,
Reader, we will now leave,
In a moment that is evil for him,
For a long time... forever...
Pushkin understood that the denouement in Chapter VIII leaves the question of the hero’s fate open. With this denouement, he seemed to point to the endless variety of options for this fate in a complex and contradictory reality.
Composition. THE IMAGE OF EUGENE ONEGIN IN A. S. PUSHKIN’S NOVEL “EVGENE ONEGIN”:
Evgeny Onegin is a very extraordinary hero. He is interesting to me as a person who stands out sharply from the rest of the crowd. Pushkin creates the image of a “superfluous man.” The poet portrays Onegin as being very similar to himself in his childhood upbringing (Pushkin was raised by a nanny, and Onegin was not raised by his parents), but very often their views on life did not coincide. Pushkin writes the novel in such a way that, although he is not a hero, he is constantly present next to Onegin and compares him with himself.
As a child, Onegin’s father was reluctant to educate him, and he hired “poor” madames and monseirs, who did not teach the boy anything, but only slightly scolded him for “slightly pranks.” How are the stages of the hero’s life shown in the work? Onegin is a secular young man, a metropolitan aristocrat, who received a typical education for that time under the guidance of a French tutor in the spirit of literature, divorced from the people's soil.
We all learned a little Something and somehow...
And it’s no wonder that Onegin grew into an egoist, thinking only about his desires and pleasures. Thanks to his upbringing and society, the good in his soul remained in him. He received a superficial education, but he himself, although without any pleasure, delved into reading books. As it turns out later, he reads not only fiction, but also philosophical books. And this was very beneficial for him, because, having met with Lensky, who graduated from one of the best universities in the world at that time, he could argue even with him on such serious topics as philosophy and politics.
Onegin moves in high society. At first he lives like all secular people: he goes to balls, goes to theaters, but he does this without pleasure, as something obligatory, he even ceased to be interested in what is happening on stage:
“...then on stage
He looked in great absentmindedness,
He turned away and yawned.”
(Although Pushkin calls the theater a “magical land.”)
But in his views and demands for life, he stands much higher not only than his neighboring landowners in the village, but also representatives of the St. Petersburg society, and therefore he was soon tired of this meaningless, empty life:
But he completely lost interest in life.
Like Child Harold, gloomy, languid
He appeared in living rooms... In the village, Onegin behaves humanely towards the peasants, but he does not think about their fate, he is more tormented by his own moods, the feeling of the emptiness of life
Onegin would like to part with such a life, but he has neither the strength nor the desire to do so. At the same time, his selfishness and inattention to the feelings of others constantly lead to the fact that, without wanting it, he causes harm to those people with whom fate confronts him. Having received Tatyana's love letter, he feels that he cannot answer her in kind and refuses her, but refuses politely in a soft form, regardless of her feelings. But, in my opinion, it was better than if he had reassured her, promising her to respond in kind, knowingly not loving her. He decides to take revenge on Lensky because Vladimir told Onegin that at Tatyana’s name day there would be no one except her family and friends. he hurts Tatiana and Lensky on Tatiana's name day by openly courting Olga. Pushkin shows Onegin as an egoist, but he is a “suffering egoist,” and not smug and in love with himself. He apparently understands that the main source of his melancholy is the lack of work and social activity. But his mind does not allow him to follow the paved road along which many young nobles walked, wanting to find a “useful” occupation for themselves. He could not go to serve as an officer or official, because he understood that this meant supporting the system, because of which he felt sad. And the only work for him remains the fight against the evil of Russian life at that time - serfdom and tsarist autocracy. But this is precisely what he was not capable of due to his upbringing and living conditions, which killed all interest in work in him:
“He was sick of persistent work.” Onegin did not belong to the noble revolutionaries, but the fact that he felt uncomfortable in the then situation suggests that he stood significantly higher than the noble youth. Pushkin says that Onegin was “more tolerable than others.”
Although he knew people, of course
And in general he despised them -
But (there are no rules without exceptions)
He distinguished others very much
And I respected someone else’s feelings,
That is, he saw in others and appreciated that living thing that no longer remained in him.
Almost throughout the entire novel, Onegin’s actions, thoughts, and speeches remain unchanged, belonging to an intelligent man, embittered by society (he has an evil, sharp tongue, he speaks evilly of everything around him), disappointed in everything and incapable of any strong feelings and experiences. . But the events that Pushkin talks about in the last chapters make a strong impression on Onegin. And we see that he reveals character traits that he did not even suspect in himself. The duel with Lensky gives him the opportunity to understand what his selfishness has led him to, his inattention to people, his concern only for himself. Onegin kills his friend Lensky, succumbing to class prejudices, frightened by the “whispers, the laughter of fools.” He is no longer so arrogant, not an egoist, standing above all life’s impressions, he is horrified by his senseless act:
Doused with instant cold,
In the anguish of heart remorse...
The murder of Lensky turned his whole life upside down. In a depressed state of mind, Onegin leaves the village and begins wandering around Russia. These wanderings give him the opportunity to take a more complete look at life, reevaluate his attitude to the surrounding reality, and understand how fruitlessly he wasted his life. Now Onegin can no longer ignore the feelings and experiences of the people he encounters. Now he can feel and love. He was influenced by the reality of life of the Russian people, which he saw during his travels. After his experience, Onegin changes, becoming a completely different person. But, despite the wanderings, egoism and pride in Onegin did not diminish. This is “rebirth.” Onegin returns to the Capital and encounters the same picture of the life of secular society. His love for Tatyana, now a married woman, flares up in him. Having written a letter to Tatyana, Onegin does not think about her feelings, he thinks only about himself. But Tatyana unraveled the selfishness and selfishness underlying feelings for her, and rejects Onegin’s love.
The image of Onegin is an image that incorporates common features typical of a whole layer of youth of that time. These are young people, provided with work, but who received a poor, disorderly education and upbringing, who lead an empty, meaningless life with entertainment at balls, at parties, and on holidays. But unlike the rest of the strata, that is, the ruling class, which takes its idleness calmly, these young people are more intelligent, they have at least some share of conscience, they experience dissatisfaction with the environment, with that social system, and are dissatisfied with themselves, but after all, they, just like Onegin, thanks to their upbringing, cannot break with such a life. Pushkin characterizes very well the boredom and feelings characteristic of these people:
It's unbearable to see in front of you
There's a long row of dinners alone,
Look at life as a ritual
And after the decorous crowd
Go without sharing with her
No common opinions, no passions.
Although the entire novel is a story about Eugene Onegin as an individual, here he is shown as a typical representative of the noble youth of that time.