Pushkin's famous novel in verse not only fascinated lovers of Russian literature with its high poetic skill, but also caused controversy over the ideas that the author wanted to express here. These disputes did not spare the main character, Eugene Onegin. The definition “ extra person" However, even today it is interpreted differently. And this image is so multifaceted that it provides material for a wide variety of readings. Let’s try to answer the question: in what sense can Onegin be considered a “superfluous person,” and were there any spiritual aspirations in his life?
In one of the drafts for “Eugene Onegin,” Pushkin noted: “Hero, be first a man.” And his Onegin, of course, is first and foremost a man. Not superfluous, just a person. A representative of a certain era - the 1810s, a certain class group - the St. Petersburg secular nobility, a certain way of life, when it was necessary to painfully invent activities and entertainment for oneself in order to kill the all-consuming boredom. The poet draws us a circle of Onegin’s interests:
A small scientist, but a pedant:
He had a lucky talent
No coercion in conversation
Touch everything lightly
With the learned air of a connoisseur
To remain silent in an important dispute,
And make the ladies smile
Fire of unexpected epigrams.
He had no desire to rummage
In chronological dust
History of the earth;
But jokes of days gone by
From Romulus to the present day
He kept it in his memory.
Having no high passion
No mercy for the sounds of life,
He could not iambic from trochee;
No matter how hard we tried, we could tell the difference.
Scolded Homer, Theocritus;
But I read Adam Smith,
And there was a deep economy,
That is, he knew how to judge
How does the state get rich?
And how does he live, and why?
He doesn't need gold
When a simple product has.
A certain scatteredness and superficiality of Eugene’s intellectual demands is striking, especially since he particularly excelled in the “science of tender passion” glorified by Ovid Naso. And Onegin was not educated very systematically, not differing, however, in this respect from most people of his generation. As Pushkin emphasized: “We all learned a little something and somehow...” However, one should not judge Pushkin’s hero too harshly. Although Onegin never mastered the basics of poetic theory, this did not stop him from creating sharp and untalented epigrams that were popular in society. And interest in the works of the English political economist Adam Smith, advanced for that time, testifies to the desire young man to practical knowledge, which he then tries to apply in practice. Let us remember how Onegin on his estate “replaced the yoke ... the ancient corvée with an easy quitrent, and the slave blessed his fate.” The hero is clearly not alien to the spirit of the times and is ready to alleviate the situation of the people even in the smallest way. But you shouldn’t make him a Decembrist either - political issues for Onegin are not as significant as successes on the love front.
The content of “Eugene Onegin” is well known. Fed up with social life, Eugene retires to the village, where he soon becomes equally bored. Onegin first rejects Tatiana's love, and then unsuccessfully tries to unite with her. In the meantime, he kills a friend in a duel, goes to travel, returns, and again meets Tatyana, now the wife of a familiar general, at a St. Petersburg ball. He declares his love to her, receives recognition of reciprocity along with his renunciation of adultery. The heroine now puts marital duty above love. Onegin is severely punished. But is it only secular vices that Pushkin exposes in him? No, the poet himself admitted in one of his letters that in “Eugene Onegin” there is “no mention” of satire. And in another letter, in October 1824, he reported that among his neighbors in Mikhailovskoye he enjoys “the reputation of Onegin,” and at the same time is subject to a completely Onegin-like mood: “I am in the best position imaginable to complete my poetic a novel, but boredom is a cold muse, and my poem is not progressing at all...” In letters to friends, Pushkin more than once emphasized that in Eugene Onegin the word “satirical” itself should not be mentioned, in particular, so as not to interfere with the passage of the novel through censorship. However, here it was the poet’s intention, and not the fear of censorship, that relegated the satirical principle to the background.
Onegin, unlike Pushkin, is not a poet. His boredom is not illuminated by glimmers of genuine poetic inspiration. We can say, of course, that Evgeny is a “superfluous person” in the sense that he does not perform any obvious socially useful function and is not in demand by society. Pushkin knew that he himself, like many of his comrades in St. Petersburg, could have found himself in the same position if he had not possessed God’s gift of creativity. However, Onegin is always looking for something, he is possessed by “wanderlust.” Now Evgeniy has returned from his wanderings, and the author asks the question:
Is he still the same, or has he pacified himself?
Or is he acting like an eccentric?
Tell me, what did he come back with?
What will he present to us so far?
What will it appear now?
Melmoth,
Cosmopolitan, patriot,
Harold, the Quaker, the bigot,
Or someone else will flaunt a mask,
Or he will just be a kind fellow,
How are you and me, how is the whole world?
Onegin has many masks in the novel, and he brings evil to many, absurdly killing Lensky and ultimately making Tatyana unhappy, but in essence, as Pushkin hints, he is a kind person at heart and does not consciously cause harm to anyone. What motivates Onegin? I think, by and large, - the desire for spiritual freedom, for “freedom of dreams,” for the unattainable ideal of beauty. And in the finale he turns out to be even more unhappy than the beloved who left him. The hero, together with Pushkin himself, admits:
I thought: freedom and peace -
Substitute for happiness. Oh my God!
How wrong I was, how I was punished!
This is the disappointing result of Onegin’s spiritual quest. But not Pushkin. Indeed, in 1836, shortly before his death, Alexander Sergeevich wrote the famous: “There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and will.” For a brilliant poet, creative peace and creative freedom can be the highest value, while for a mere mortal like Eugene, happiness still remains such.
Lesson 1
Objective of the lessons: help students understand the image of Eugene Onegin, his place in revealing the ideological content of the novel.
Methodical techniques: repetition, asking questions on the topic of the lesson, student reports, reading.
During the classes
I. Reading several miniature essays and discussing them
II. Student's report about the plot of the novel
Teacher's word.
So, the plot of the novel is structured in such a way that the characters seem to go beyond its scope. They clearly live in two spheres - the author's imagination and in the real environment, where they become acquaintances of the author. Next to the “novel of heroes” there is also a “novel of life”, in which characters meet with the author, Pushkin. And if the “romance of heroes” ends tragically, then the “romance of life” is not yet completed. An artistic illusion arises as if the events in the novel were not invented by Pushkin, but only observed in reality itself. And this proves the deep vitality of the plot of “Eugene Onegin”.
III. Conversation on the content of the novel
Where does Pushkin begin his novel and what is unique about such a beginning?
(The novel has a peculiar beginning: an artistic device new to the literature of that time: without any introduction, without a single preparatory word, the poet introduces the reader into the life of his hero, and only then introduces him to him, friendly, confidentially and simply.)
How can this beginning of a novel be correlated with the requirements of classicism?
Let us find and read with our students the “introduction” to “Onegin” at the end of the seventh chapter and draw a conclusion: Pushkin is ironizing one of the rules of classicism.
How does Onegin relate to the world around him?
Students read the corresponding stanzas, analyze and come to a conclusion. Onegin is alien to the connection with the national, native. “A child of fun and luxury,” Onegin received a life typical of that time: balls, restaurants, walks along Nevsky Prospekt, visits to theaters.
What is theater for Onegin? What attracts him there?
(The theater for him is only a tribute to a certain ritual of social life, a place where, as Pushkin ironically notes:
Everyone, breathing freely,
Ready to clap eenterchat,
To flog Phaedra, Cleopatra,
Call Monna (in order to
Just so they can hear him).
Onegin (“honorary citizen of the scenes”) is more interested in meetings and affairs with charming actresses than in the stage and art. He is deeply indifferent to both the inimitable “brilliant” Istomina and Didelot’s magnificent productions.
With men on all sides
He bowed, then went on stage.
He looked in great absentmindedness,
He turned away and yawned.
And he said: “It’s time for everyone to change;
I endured ballets for a long time,
But I’m tired of Didelot too.)
What comment does Pushkin give to the last line?
(Expressive note: A trait of chilled feeling worthy of Childe Harold. Mr. Didelot’s ballets are filled with vivid imagination and extraordinary charm...")
What does art and theater mean for a poet?
(For Pushkin, theater is a magical land. In a lyrical digression, filled with enormous enthusiasm and high inspiration, the author recalls the theatrical hobbies of his youth, gives brief but apt descriptions of outstanding playwrights and actors. Here Fonvizin is “the brave ruler of the satires,” “friend freedom”, and “the overbearing Prince”, and V. A. Ozerov, who won “tears and applause”, and P. A. Katenin, who resurrected “Corneille’s majestic genius” and “Caustic Shakhovsky” on the Russian stage, the wonderful Russian actress E. S. Semenova, who shared with V. A. Ozerov the success of his tragedies, and the choreographer of the square Didelot, crowned with glory.)
What is your attitude towards the art of E. Onegin? How does the author show this?
(Lyrical digressions in many ways deepened our understanding of the hero’s unacceptable deafness to beauty. The author's rejection of Onegin's indifference to art is obvious. However, there is no direct assessment of this phenomenon in the novel. But there is an immensely rich world of theater. Showing his mysterious power allows the reader to feel the aesthetic and emotional inferiority of Onegin.)
So, who is Onegin?
(Onegin is a typical young St. Petersburg dandy. He is smart, fairly educated, he vaguely feels that it is impossible to live as is customary in secular society.)
What is Onegin's environment like? How does the hero differ from his environment?
(In addition to Pushkin himself, who considers Onegin to be his good friend, one of the progressive, thinking people - Kaverin - belongs to his friends, and then another name appears in the novel - Chaadaev, although the hero meets Kaverin in a fashionable restaurant, and is similar to Chaadaev in that he was a pedant in his clothes and what we called a “dandy.”)
Is Onegin's circle of acquaintances, described by the author, accidental?
(These names are not given by chance; this is already a hint at the hero’s deeper needs than those of ordinary St. Petersburg dandies.)
How does Onegin stand out from the general mass of aristocratic youth?
(The author notes his “involuntary devotion to swords, inimitable strangeness and a sharp, chilled mind,” a sense of honor, nobility of soul. This could not lead Onegin to disappointment in life and interests secular society, to dissatisfaction with the political and social situation, expressed in a break with society and departure to the village.)
What is Onegin trying to do after leaving secular society?
(Students read the corresponding verses 43-44).
Conclusion:
“But he was sick of hard work...”
Having broken with secular society, in which he found neither high morals nor real feelings, but only a parody of them. And being cut off from the life of the people, Onegin loses touch with people.
1. How does the epigraph to the first chapter of the novel reveal Onegin’s personality?
2. Prepare a coherent story based on the text about Onegin’s life in the village.
3. Individual message tasks:
The crisis stages in Onegin's life are a test of love and friendship.
Onegin and Lensky. What brings them together and what separates them?
Larin family.
Tasks for the future by subgroups:
1. Compare the St. Petersburg nobility with the local nobility (Chapters VIII and II).
2. Compare chapter VII with chapter IV.
3. Compare the St. Petersburg nobility (Chapter VIII) with the Moscow nobility (Chapter VII).
4. Prepare a speech on the topic “Belinsky about Onegin.”
5. Prepare a speech on the topic “Belinsky about Tatyana.”
Lesson 2
Let's start the lesson with students' answers to the questions posed in their homework. Listening to the answers, the students make their own additions and come to the conclusion that in the village all his activities were that of a landowner who tried to organize the life of the peasants on the estate that he inherited from his uncle:
He is the yoke of the ancient corvée
I replaced it with a light quitrent...
does not bring him satisfaction, and his activities are limited to this. The old moods, although somewhat softened by life in the lap of nature, continue to possess him. Onegin's extraordinary mind, his freedom-loving sentiments and critical attitude to reality placed him high above the crowd of nobles, especially among the landed gentry, and doomed him to complete loneliness in the absence of social activities.
II. Design of notebooks
A work plan on the topic of the lesson is proposed (written on the board and in students’ notebooks).
1. Crisis stages of testing love and friendship.
2. Duel and murder of Lensky. The countdown begins, the return to your true self begins.
3. Travel. Knowledge of the real homeland and its people. A change in worldview, a resurrection of the truly human in the soul.
4. Love for Tatyana - finding your true self, blossoming of the soul.
III. Student reports on the proposed plan
The messages are accompanied by reading the corresponding stanzas of the novel. Students write down the main ideas from the messages.
After student reports, questions are posed to the class.
Why did Onegin make acquaintance with Lensky and how did Pushkin feel about their friendship?
(Saying that Onegin and Lensky are getting together there is nothing to do, Pushkin warns the reader and emphasizes the fragility of this friendship.)
(Onegin and Lensky are completely different people, But it's not only that. Onegin does not have a feeling of friendship. His rule is aloofness. Lensky is only a temporary “exception”.)
In the draft manuscript there was a stanza where Eugene was revealed as a person more open to goodness and higher concepts. In the white manuscript these qualities are narrowed, and in the final text (XIV stanza of Chapter II) they almost disappear.
What's it like external environment Onegin's conversations with Lensky?
(The interior with which Pushkin accompanies Onegin’s conversations with Lensky (XVII stanza of the 4th chapter) constantly indicates the state of Onegin’s chilled, fading soul, “barely” warmed by the presence of the young poet.)
What are the results of these conversations? What is the main difference between Lensky and Onegin?
(Onegin killed... eight years of his life, but his soul is still not dead. He does not believe feelings, although he yearns for them. Therefore, communication with Lensky strengthens Onegin’s need to animate feelings. In young Lensky, “Everything was new to Onegin.” From Cold Onegin Lensky is distinguished primarily by the fact that “his soul was warmed”; he is not disappointed by the outside world.)
Why do Lensky’s ardent feelings cause Onegin to “involuntarily sigh of regret”?
(Changes also occur in Onegin, since he, who had previously scolded Homer and Theocritus, carefully listens to excerpts from Lensky’s northern poems. This, albeit a very timid, but obvious approach to art. And it is possible because the need to feel awakens in Onegin:
But more often they were occupied by passions
The minds of my hermits.
Having left their rebellious power,
Onegin spoke about them
With an involuntary sigh of regret.)
What in Lensky’s appearance, behavior and feelings makes it possible to assume his high destiny; What prevented him from realizing his dreams in life?
Students note not only romantic dreaminess, but also enthusiasm, integrity of feeling, devotion to their beliefs, and the ability to defend them at the cost of their lives. In the portrait of Lensky (VI stanza of the 2nd chapter) signs of freedom-loving animation and naivety coexist. Next to each other are “freedom-loving dreams” and “shoulder-length black curls,” which, according to the fashion of that time, do not oppose each other, but create a hint of irony. But Lensky “from foggy Germany” brought not only “shoulder-length black curls” and an ardent way of thinking. He is a “messenger of glory and freedom”, he is ardent and impetuous, he is ready to write odes (a genre very beloved by the Decembrists). Lensky's ideals are not concrete, but abstract, so Vladimir in the novel turns out to be only a foggy mirror of a man of the Decembrist type, a freedom-loving romantic heading towards a tragic ending. The desire for a heroic deed lives in Lensky, but the life around him gives almost no reason for this. And the hero rushes into a duel to protect love from deceit, gullibility from cunning temptations, and finally, his romanticism from Onegin’s skepticism.
What did Onegin and Lensky argue about?
What is the reason for the heroes' quarrel? How did the characters' characters appear in it?
The 6th chapter, in which Lensky dies and Pushkin says goodbye to his youth, was written after the news of the death of the Decembrists. This coincidence of the fate of the hero of the novel and the heroes of Russian reality can hardly be considered a simple coincidence. Lensky's death is depicted in such solemn and majestic images that it makes one think of a huge catastrophe, a real tragedy:
So slowly along the slope of the mountains,
Sparkling in the sun,
A block of snow is sliding.
IV. Lesson summary
The significance of Lensky's death is also emphasized by the structure of the work. Chapter 6 turns out to be the climax in the overall composition of the novel. It is here that a deep, dramatic change occurs in the destinies of all the heroes. Onegin understands that the feeling of superiority that he was so proud of and which was the basis of his life turned out to be “imaginary.” And Onegin is “struck” by this discovery. “By killing a friend in a duel,” he violated, according to Pushkin, the moral nature of things. Pushkin knew that it is not difficult to despise - brafer - the judgment of people; It is impossible to despise your own court. Onegin’s equanimity (the word “cold-blooded” is repeated more than once in the duel scene) turned into a deadly cold of horror in front of what had happened, in front of himself:
Doused with instant cold,
Onegin hurries to the young man,
He looks and calls him... in vain:
He's no longer there.
In stanza XXXIV, Pushkin calls on us, readers, to experience this horror in order to feel Onegin’s spiritual turmoil.
The hero cannot stand the test of love. In the first chapters, the author shows that love passed Onegin by, because Eugene was deprived of the very ability to love. His attitude towards love is entirely rational and feigned. It is designed in the spirit of acquired secular “truths,” the main goal of which is to charm and seduce, to appear to be in love, and not to actually be one.
Homework
1. Learn by heart an excerpt from the novel “Onegin’s Letter to Tatiana” and “Tatyana to Onegin” (optional).
What event became a turning point in Onegin’s spiritual quest?
How and why did Onegin's journey change his worldview?
Lesson 3
I. Checking homework
We begin the lesson by reading selected passages by heart (some of the students read them, and the rest are handed over to the assistants) and answering homework questions. Students listen and complement their friends’ answers.
II. Conversation on issues
So, what new character traits are revealed in Onegin after his break with society?
Why did Pushkin exclude the chapter about Onegin’s journey from the novel and all the readers’ attention, starting from Chapter VII, went to Tatyana?
(“In the anguish of heartfelt remorse,” Onegin leaves the estate, hoping to understand himself, to understand everything that happened. We, the readers, do not know with whom fate brought him together, or about his activities, but we vaguely guess that deep changes have occurred in him. Yes. and Pushkin did not set himself the goal of describing the rebirth of Onegin, since the dream of the ideal of the Russian man was connected with Tatyana. In Chapter VII, she was destined to open the intellectual world of Onegin. Tatyana not only understands him, but also rises above him, giving a precise definition of one. from the fundamental weaknesses of Onegin’s mind).
Is Onegin a victim of society and circumstances?
(No. Having changed his lifestyle, he accepted responsibility for his destiny. However, having abandoned the light, Onegin became not an activist, but a contemplator. The pursuit of pleasure was replaced by solitary reflections.)
What trials demonstrate Onegin’s dependence on secular society?
(The test of love and the test of friendship have shown that external freedom does not mean freedom from false prejudices and opinions of society.)
How did Onegin prove himself in the test of love?
(Like a noble and mentally sensitive person. I was able to see sincere feelings in Tatyana, living, and not bookish passions. But the hero did not listen to the voice of his heart, but acted judiciously. The “sharp, chilled mind” and the inability to strong feelings, noticed by the Author, became the cause of the drama of failed love.)
How does the test of friendship characterize the hero?
(In the test of friendship (a quarrel and a duel with Lensky), Onegin showed himself to be a “ball of prejudice”, deaf to the voice of his heart and to the feelings of Lensky. His behavior is the usual “secular anger”, and the duel is a consequence of the fear of Zaretsky’s evil tongue, and, ultimately, of society .)
So, what situation did Onegin find himself in?
(He became a prisoner of his old idol - “public opinion”.)
What led the hero to a previously inaccessible world of feelings?
(Tragedy (murder of a friend) and the overwhelming “anguish of heart remorse”)
What spiritual changes did Onegin’s love for Tatyana bring?
III. Summarizing
Onegin is not limited to the books he has read. “Lord Byron's portrait” and “a column with a cast-iron doll” (Napoleon), of course, are symbols of Onegin’s faith, but not the gods he worships. Onegin has no gods at all, he is too skeptical to worship and respects himself too much to subordinate his life to someone else's rules. But Tatyana did not understand this and lost faith in love and her hero.
At the same time, Onegin undergoes new stage V spiritual development. He is transformed. There is nothing left in him of the former cold and rational person - he is an ardent lover. For the first time he experiences a real feeling, but it turns into a drama for him.
Homework
1. Make a plan to answer the question: “What are the reasons for the tragic outcome of Eugene Onegin’s life?”
2. Write miniature essays on the following topics:
Is Onegin capable of love?
What awaits Onegin in the future?
3. Messages on topics:
Larina's sisters
Tatyana is Pushkin’s “sweet ideal”.
4. Compare Tatiana’s letter with Onegin’s letter.
Here is an essay based on the work of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”, dedicated to the analysis of the moral quest of the heroes.
Moral quests of heroes in the novel “Eugene Onegin”
Pushkin worked on the main text of his imperishable novel in verse for more than 7 years; during these years, much has changed in the fate of the author himself, in the socio-political life of the country and abroad. “Cold observations of the mind and sad notes of the heart” , the loss of friends, the tragedy of the Decembrist uprising, the maturation of the author himself - all this was gradually reflected in the novel. The mental life and moral quests of advanced noble youth were reflected in the novel through the narrative of the main characters - Onegin, Tatyana and Lensky.
Evgeny Onegin represents the high society of St. Petersburg in the novel. His fate is the fate of many of his contemporaries, who received a secular upbringing and superficial education under the guidance of foreign tutors. This was a tradition of ancient noble families, determined by the desire to keep up with the West in fashions and opinions. Upbringing and education among the St. Petersburg nobility determined the qualities young nobleman Onegin: distance from the people, ignorance national culture, a dormant sense of duty and lack of habit of work.
Possessing an extraordinary mind, Onegin inquisitively peered into the life of the capital, read a lot, thought, and wanted to understand the origins of the prevailing social conditions of life of the Russian nobility.
Onegin’s serious interests pitted him against the aristocracy; he became disillusioned with the empty life of the “golden youth”, with himself, having realized the worthlessness of all eight years spent in this environment.
But, talking about Onegin, Pushkin notes another personality trait determined by both the environment and the era - egoism, bordering on individualism, so typical of the noble class. Speaking about the noble intelligentsia, the author notes: “We all look at Napoleons... We consider everyone as zeros, and ourselves as ones” . The social environment, its material advantages and benefits, historically enshrined in state laws, helped to establish a sense of exclusivity and superiority in gentlemen, and especially in aristocrats. This moral trait of Onegin determined his personal tragedy: he was left alone, unable to appreciate Tatyana’s feelings in time, to be attentive and sensitive to her, and even to Lensky.
The fate of Tatyana, Pushkin’s beloved heroine, is also sad. The Larin family represents a different environment of the nobility in the novel - the local one. These people say “about haymaking, about wine, about the kennel, about my relatives” . Tatyana is a stranger in their midst. But growing up in an environment landed nobility, closest to the people, gave Tatyana those wonderful qualities that made her the “sweet ideal” of the author and many readers: naturalness and sincerity of behavior and manifestations of feelings, love for native nature, to the rituals of the “dear old days”, to the nanny. Folk traditions determined her moral ideas about duty and morality, so Tatyana breaks up with Onegin in the name of duty to her husband. But her suffering is deep and tragic: she dooms herself to life with an unloved person.
The landowner Vladimir Lensky was far from not only the life of the peasants of his village, but also from specific aspects of Russian reality in general. In terms of his costume, hairstyle, habits, and interests, he is further from Russian life than Onegin, who, if only out of boredom, replaced corvée with quitrent. Lensky is a dreamer and a romantic, so much so that Pushkin laughs at him as a landowner, a man, a poet. The historically established desire of the nobility to gain knowledge abroad determined the complete worthlessness of the sublime dreamer, his moral blindness, and inability to correctly evaluate either people or circumstances.
Looking into Lensky's possible future, the poet wrote: “... in the village, happy and horny, would wear a quilted robe, would really know life” , that is, if Lensky had remained alive, his lot would have been the life of an ordinary man.
A.S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” was a work of greatest significance for his contemporaries, as it taught them to live, evaluate and choose correctly life paths, taught morality, reason, identity and citizenship. (V.G. Belinsky).
I hope you liked the essay Moral quest characters in the novel "Eugene Onegin"
Onegin's theme in the novel is the theme of spiritual awakening, growing up, spiritual evolution.
The world of Onegin in the first chapter is secular Petersburg, brilliant, festive, but still somewhat artificial, far from true Russianness. It is no coincidence that Pushkin describes in such detail the everyday culture of noble St. Petersburg: Onegin’s office, his clothes, his lifestyle, and then in equal detail he describes Onegin’s office on his estate - a portrait of Lord Byron, a figurine of Napoleon. Onegin of the first chapter reflects a “Byronic hero” quite typical for the first half of the 19th century, endowed, however, with individual traits, even in his very skepticism, reflecting the eternal Russian longing for a more meaningful, spiritualized life.
Onegin at the beginning of the novel is a man who does not know all the complexity of life, but simplifies it. There is neither true love nor true friendship in Onegin's world. Emphasizing the typicality of his hero, Pushkin recreates in detail one day of his life: the morning began with reading notes with an invitation to a ball, then a walk along the boulevard, lunch in a fashionable restaurant, in the evening - a theater, a ball, and only at dawn Onegin returns home. It is no coincidence that the author uses verbs of movement - swift, but meaningless: “jumped”, “rushed”, “flew”, “galloped headlong”, “took off like an arrow”. Onegin is not able to belong to anything deeply, his life rushes, but rushes aimlessly, its diversity and completeness are replaced by diversity, flickering:
He will wake up at noon. And again
Until the morning his life is ready,
Monotonous and colorful.
And tomorrow is the same as yesterday.
For all the richness of Onegin’s external life, his inner life was empty; it is no coincidence that Pushkin emphasizes: “languishing with spiritual emptiness.” It is this “spiritual emptiness,” the unawakenedness of spiritual life that is the reason for Onegin’s indifference to poetry and reading books (“he wanted to write, but he was sick of persistent work; nothing came of his pen,” “he read and read, but to no avail”). .
One of the central motifs in the first chapter of the novel is the mask motif: the author compares his hero either with Chaadayev or with the windy Venus, but Onegin’s main mask is disappointment, which Pushkin calls in the English manner “spleen”, but the following Russian translation immediately reveals the author’s irony : “The Russian melancholy took possession of him little by little.” On the one hand, “spleen” is a mask that Onegin wears even not without some pleasure, on the other hand, it is true, deep disappointment in the life that was destined for him.
Onegin would have been of little interest to Pushkin if this aimless life had satisfied the hero. Onegin coexists, on the one hand, dependence on the opinion of the world, subordination to the general style of life, and on the other hand, “inimitable strangeness, involuntary before dreams.” A ity and a sharp, cool mind.” Onegin is not satisfied with what satisfied many; he is indifferent to the pleasures of social life, he knows the value of momentary affections of the heart. Onegin, "free, in color best years, among brilliant victories, among everyday pleasures,” still was not happy. The reason is that he could not consider “brilliant victories” and “everyday pleasures” the meaning of life; his soul was waiting for something more.
The first impetus for Onegin’s spiritual awakening was a meeting with Lensky: the sincerity and inspiration of the young poet reminded Onegin of his true feelings. Onegin responded with a slight smile to the enthusiasm and some naivety of Lensky, who “was ignorant at heart,” but Onegin’s nobility was reflected in the fact that he “tried to keep the cool word in his mouth” and did not destroy Lensky’s dreams with the coldness of his skepticism.
However, Onegin was more struck by the completely unusual spiritual world for him and the appearance of Tatyana Larina. Tatiana's letter surprised Onegin with the depth of thought and feeling, sincerity, openness and at the same time simplicity and naivety: “But, having received Tanya’s message, Onegin was keenly touched,” “perhaps the old ardor of feelings took possession of him for a minute.” Pushkin emphasizes that in relation to Tatyana, Onegin acted nobly; he did not allow himself to play with sincere feelings: “But he did not want to deceive the gullibility of an innocent soul.”
At first glance, having distinguished Tatiana from Olga, Onegin still did not fully understand Tatiana’s love. Onegin was so accustomed to loneliness and unhappiness that he passed by his real happiness, which was sent to him in Tatyana’s love. “Accept my confession,” Onegin says to Tatyana during their explanation in the garden, but the author will call Onegin’s words more accurately – not a confession, but a sermon (“this is how Eugene preached”). Onegin will reveal the true reason for his “sermon” later, in a letter to Tatyana: “I did not want to exchange my hateful freedom.” And he adds bitterly:
I thought: freedom and peace
Substitute for happiness. My God!
How wrong I was, how I was punished!
“Liberty”, “peace”, “hateful freedom” - such an understanding of the meaning of life turned out to be erroneous, and this error destroyed possible happiness.
The situation that destroyed Onegin’s previous worldview was the duel with Lensky. Onegin, not sharing the morality of secular society, still could not oppose anything to it, he turned out to be a slave of public opinion, the only thing he was enough for was that he neglected some of the rules of the duel (he was late, invited his servant as a second), thereby revealing his attitude towards her. Onegin understood the absurdity of this duel, but still, unlike the author, he was unable to rise above this situation, to overcome himself. The murder of Lensky in a duel was a shock, after which Onegin perceives the world and himself differently. Unable to go where he was with the friend he killed, Onegin leaves to wander. The chapter about Onegin’s journey was not included in the final version of the novel, but it can be assumed that Pushkin’s hero is looking at the world in a new way, trying to understand his place in it, to discover true human values.
In the last chapter, we are confronted with a different person in many ways: Pushkin speaks with particular warmth about the new, changed Onegin. Now the hero understands that “freedom” and “peace” cannot replace happiness, that you need to live for the sake of love, mutual understanding, you need to appreciate those who love and understand you, which is why the whole meaning of life for Onegin was concentrated in love for Tatyana. The drama of unattainable happiness that Onegin lives through makes him suffering, but also more spiritual. It is impossible to imagine that Pushkin would say about his hero in the first chapter: “gloomy, awkward”, “enters the princess with trepidation.” Now “dreams, desires, sorrows were pressing deep into the soul.” Onegin would never have given up these “sorrows,” because this is a full-blooded life, which has only now opened up to him.
Now Onegin is no longer attracted by secular pleasures, he is in no hurry to join the motley carousel of the life of noble Petersburg, which is why he becomes a “stranger”, an “eccentric” for everyone: having met Tatyana at the ball and seeing her coldness, Onegin locks himself in his office for the whole winter, immerses himself in reading books, discovers a special world of love and suffering, his feelings are ready to pour out in poetic creativity:
And exactly: by the power of magnetism
Poems of Russian mechanism
I almost realized at that time
My stupid student.
However, Tatyana cannot change her ideas about duty and honor, because even in a letter to Onegin she dreamed of “being a faithful wife and virtuous mother.” Onegin loves and is loved, but this, it turns out, can no longer change anything in his fate. Last explanation The characters end with Tatyana’s words: “I ask you to leave me; I know: in your heart there is both pride and direct honor.” There is honor in Onegin’s heart, and she will not allow him to remind Tatyana of himself anymore. This is truly a separation forever. Loving and beloved, Onegin remains a lonely eccentric, strange and alien to everyone. The purpose of life, its meaning, acquired at the cost of hard thinking, mistakes, and search, turned out to be unattainable. Duty and honor close the path to happiness; in “an evil moment for him,” we, together with the author, part with Onegin.
The novel was completed in 1831 - after the Decembrist uprising, which became a life-changing era for Pushkin’s generation, and the fate of Onegin on the pages of the novel was not brought to the fatal point of the twenty-fifth year - the hero still has to do this. So history itself separated the author and his hero. It is not so significant whether Onegin will come to Senate Square or not, what is important is that his personality has taken shape. Pushkin, with his characteristic harmony of worldview, does not limit himself to one side of life: the heroes are given not only losses, but also gains, not only sadness, but also joy. Tatiana and Onegin were not given happiness, but they were given love - this is already a lot. Both Tatyana and Onegin remained true to themselves, did not change their idea of duty and honor - this is what is associated with the special enlightenment of the novel, the fate of the main characters of which develops dramatically. This enlightenment is based on faith in man, in the good beginning in him, on faith in “independence,” which, according to Pushkin, is “the key to greatness.”
Onegin and Lensky
One of the main principles of creating a system of images in Pushkin’s novel is the principle of antithesis: in the contrast of Onegin and Lensky, not only their personal individuality, but also the author’s ideas associated with these images are revealed more clearly.
Pushkin’s attitude towards Lensky is sympathetic, but still ironic: the personality and fate of this hero reflected the crisis of Pushkin’s own romantic worldview, his farewell to youthful romanticism. You can feel the author’s smile in the description, for example, romantic creativity Lensky:
He sang separation and sadness,
And something, and a foggy distance,
And romantic roses...
He sang the faded color of life
Almost eighteen years old.
Lensky is a romantic not only by the nature of his work, but also by the nature of his soul, by the type of worldview. “He believed in the world’s perfection,” it is said about Lensky, whose soul was “warmed” by the expectation of a miracle. The young poet is open to the world and people; for him, the world is populated by people with strong passions, who know how to love truly and are ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a friend or beloved.
Onegin and Lensky are representatives of the same generation, even if they have “nothing to do,” but they are still friends, but they are strikingly dissimilar:
Water and stone
Ice and fire
Not so different from each other.
If Onegin’s main traits are skepticism, disappointment, and a cold mind, then Lensky, on the contrary, is enthusiastic and dreamy. The attitudes of Onegin and Lensky to love are different. Onegin has already lost faith in the very possibility of happiness. Non-binding secular hobbies, the “science of tender passion” replaced love in his life, but still, in Onegin’s soul, in contrast to his skeptical mind, he was waiting for something different, real. Love for Lensky is absolutely uncompromising, high feeling. However, in Olga, Lensky, like many romantics, loved his dream, the creation of his imagination, not noticing how different his ideal was from reality. The first encounter with real life turned into a disaster for Lensky's romantic world: Olga's frivolity in the eyes of the young poet takes on universal proportions, turns into betrayal, deceit, Onegin's thoughtless joke - the collapse of faith in friendship, the duel - a fight against world evil in defense of love. Lensky's romantic love turned out to be fragile, largely fictional, bookish.
Despite all the differences in their worldview, neither Onegin nor Lensky understood the full complexity of life. Lensky built his life and treated it like a romantic, with the uncompromisingness characteristic of the romantic worldview: the world of dreams and the world of reality did not find agreement in the fate of the young poet. Lensky believed in “perfection of the world”, idealized life, so the slightest disharmony shattered this invented world. Onegin judged life too simplistically; Onegin’s path is the way to comprehend the complexity of life, its multi-problem nature, but also its many colors. Onegin's tragedy is that he realized too late that love and friendship, mutual understanding are the greatest values that need to be treasured, he realized so late that no one could take his loneliness away from him - neither his beloved nor his friend.
Pushkin's famous novel in verse not only fascinated lovers of Russian literature with its high poetic skill, but also caused controversy over the ideas that the author wanted to express here. These disputes did not spare the main character, Eugene Onegin. The definition of “superfluous person” has long been attached to him. However, even today it is interpreted differently. And this image is so multifaceted that it provides material for a wide variety of readings. Let’s try to answer the question: in what sense can Onegin be considered a “superfluous person,” and were there any spiritual aspirations in his life? In one of the drafts for “Eugene Onegin,” Pushkin noted: “Hero, be first a man.” And his Onegin, of course, is first and foremost a man.
Not superfluous, just a person. A representative of a certain era - the 1810s, a certain class group - the St. Petersburg secular nobility, a certain way of life, when it was necessary to painfully invent activities and entertainment for oneself in order to kill the all-consuming boredom. The poet draws us a circle of Onegin’s interests:
A learned fellow, but a pedant: He had a happy talent, Without coercion in conversation, To touch everything lightly, With the learned air of a connoisseur To remain silent in an important dispute, And to arouse the smile of ladies With the fire of unexpected epigrams. He had no desire to rummage In the chronological dust of the Genesis of the earth; But he kept in his memory the anecdotes of bygone days From Romulus to the present day. Not having high passion For the sounds of life, he could not spare iambic from trochee; No matter how hard we tried, we could tell the difference. Scolded Homer, Theocritus; But he read Adam Smith, And he was a deep economist, That is, he knew how to judge how the state grows rich, And how it lives, and why He doesn’t need gold, When he has a simple product.A certain scatteredness and superficiality of Eugene’s intellectual demands is striking, especially since he particularly excelled in the “science of tender passion” glorified by Ovid Naso. And Onegin was not educated very systematically, not differing, however, in this respect from most people of his generation. As Pushkin emphasized: “We all learned a little something and somehow...” However, one should not judge Pushkin’s hero too harshly. Although Onegin never mastered the basics of poetic theory, this did not stop him from creating sharp and untalented epigrams that were popular in society. And the interest in the works of the English political economist Adam Smith, advanced for that time, testifies to the young man’s desire for practical knowledge, which he then tries to apply in practice. Let us remember how Onegin on his estate “replaced the yoke ... the ancient corvée with an easy quitrent, and the slave blessed his fate.” The hero is clearly not alien to the spirit of the times and is ready to alleviate the situation of the people even in the smallest way. But you shouldn’t make him a Decembrist either - political issues for Onegin are not as significant as successes on the love front. The content of “Eugene Onegin” is well known. Fed up with social life, Eugene retires to the village, where he soon becomes equally bored. Onegin first rejects Tatiana's love, and then unsuccessfully tries to unite with her. In the meantime, he kills a friend in a duel, goes to travel, returns, and again meets Tatyana, now the wife of a familiar general, at a St. Petersburg ball. He declares his love to her, receives recognition of reciprocity along with his renunciation of adultery. The heroine now puts marital duty above love. Onegin is severely punished. But is it only secular vices that Pushkin exposes in him? No, the poet himself admitted in one of his letters that in “Eugene Onegin” there is “no mention” of satire. And in another letter, in October 1824, he reported that among his neighbors in Mikhailovskoye he enjoys “the reputation of Onegin,” and at the same time is subject to a completely Onegin-like mood: “I am in the best position imaginable to complete my poetic a novel, but boredom is a cold muse, and my poem is not progressing at all...” In letters to friends, Pushkin more than once emphasized that in Eugene Onegin the word “satirical” itself should not be mentioned, in particular, so as not to interfere with the passage of the novel through censorship. However, here it was the poet’s intention, and not the fear of censorship, that relegated the satirical principle to the background. Onegin, unlike Pushkin, is not a poet. His boredom is not illuminated by glimmers of genuine poetic inspiration. We can say, of course, that Evgeny is a “superfluous person” in the sense that he does not perform any obvious socially useful function and is not in demand by society. Pushkin knew that he himself, like many of his comrades in St. Petersburg, could have found himself in the same position if he had not possessed God’s gift of creativity. However, Onegin is always looking for something, he is possessed by “wanderlust.” Now Evgeniy has returned from his wanderings, and the author asks the question:
Is he still the same, or has he pacified himself? Or is he acting like an eccentric? Tell me, what did he come back with? What will he present to us so far? What will it appear now? Melmoth, Cosmopolitan, patriot, Harold, Quaker, hypocrite, Or will another person sport a mask, Or will he simply be a kind fellow, Like you and me, like the whole world?Onegin has many masks in the novel, and he brings evil to many, absurdly killing Lensky and ultimately making Tatyana unhappy, but in essence, as Pushkin hints, he is a kind person at heart and does not consciously cause harm to anyone. What motivates Onegin? I think, by and large, - the desire for spiritual freedom, for “freedom of dreams,” for the unattainable ideal of beauty. And in the finale he turns out to be even more unhappy than the beloved who left him. The hero, together with Pushkin himself, admits:
I thought: freedom and peace are a substitute for happiness. My God! How wrong I was, how I was punished!This is the disappointing result of Onegin’s spiritual quest. But not Pushkin. Indeed, in 1836, shortly before his death, Alexander Sergeevich wrote the famous: “There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and will.” For a brilliant poet, creative peace and creative freedom can be the highest value, while for a mere mortal like Eugene, happiness still remains such.