A Hero Of Our Time
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English: Book Report:
A Hero Of Our Time
February 17, 1999
There are many ways to tell a story and Mikhail Lermontov was able to employ
the use of narrative voice and itÕs many uses in A Hero of Our Time. With his
uses he is able to paint a picture of the bookÕs anti-hero, Pechorin and
enlighten the reader on the character of a disturbed man. This man is scarred
in some ways from life and does not know how to deal with the scars life has
dealt him. This inability is first shown in the narration of Maxim Maximych.
Maxim recounts his story of meeting Pechorin to the traveler, who is the main
narrator at the beginning of the book. Maxim has many tales of Pechorin but
the main one being about Bela. Bela was acquired from BelaÕs brother,
Azamat for a beautiful horse that didnÕt even belong to Pechorin but to
another man in PechorinÕs post. This trade says a couple things about human
behaviour. On AzamatÕs side there is the fact that his greed has control over
his actions which leads to him giving over family for an animal that in his eyes
is a more valuable friend than his sister. Pechorin sees this and so from the
beginning of the novel we can tell Pechorin is a master manipulator who preys
on the weak of the world. Pechorin from the beginning is persistent in having
Bela love him. She at first is resistant but slowly grows more so. But then a
terrible thing comes to pass. Bela begins to die. Pechorin realizes early on
that he can not do anything to save her but he tries to anyhow. This is in part
because he wants to have a clear conscience about her death since in many
ways he changed her life forever. Maxim makes a comment on this
persistence by saying: ÒHe was like that. HeÕd get something into his head and
not be content till he got it.Ó1 This persistence is a character trait that is in the
end part of his own downfall. When Bela dies Maxim says: ÒHis face showed
me nothing particular, and that annoyed me. If IÕd been in his place IÕd have
died of grief...I wanted to console him, more for decencyÕs sake, you
understand, than anything else. But when I spoke he lifted up his head and
laughed. The laugh sent cold shivers down my spine.Ó2 There are many
reasons why PechorinÕs laugh might have sent shivers down MaximÕs spine.
Maxim would probably think that Pechorin is a cold man with no real emotions.
But I think that the man who could never love has lost someone that he loves
and he might not know how to handle the emotions that are welling up inside
of him. At the same time he is realizing that he can not do everything and that
deep down inside he is only human and that he can not do everything. And for
someone like Pechorin, a master politician it is a hard thing to swallow.
Perhaps Maxim realizes this but from what Maxim tells us he shows Pechorin
as a cold human being in many respects but unknowingly he has shown us a
man with a soul. Of course this soul could be debated with the story of
Princess Mary that is told by Pechorin in his journal. Princess Mary is a
socialite and very popular of course. Along comes Pechorin to steal her
thunder. He tells glorious stories and insults her subtly by stealing away her
audience. She of course wants to know who this man who comes in so bravely
to challenge her popularity is. Gradually they become friends but he still
insults her sometimes by ignoring her when she comes by. This only makes
her want him more. And this is what Pechorin wants because he watches
Grushnitsky, a potential suitor to the princess, fail at playing the game of
romance. Therefore he wants to show Grushnitsky off as a phony who is really
a bumbling idiot and not a suave man. When Grushnitsky is shown off by
Pechorin he is shown as a fool. So to protect his honour he challenges
Pechorin to a duel. Pechorin finds out that the guns in the duel will be rigged
to humiliate him. Pechorin comes up with a plan of his own to defeat
Grushnitsky. What he ends up doing is killing Grushnitsky. This shocks all of
the onlookers. But in reality eliminate the bad player of the group. When
Pechorin returns to the town he finds out what he has assumed. Princess
Mary loves him. He goes to her and tells her that he does not return the love.
Of course we do not ever know if Pechorin really loved her but at the end of
the book you find him to be a dark, mean person without a soul. As Pechorin
shares some of his thoughts throughout the novel as well as the other
characterÕs opinion of him, we are given a picture that does not make sense.
We are never given a full sense of who Pechorin really is. But perhaps that is
what Mikhail Lermontov is trying to say, that we can never really know a
person, know matter how well we know him or her.