The image of Eugene Onegin. The image of Eugene Onegin. Attachment to fashion trends in clothing

Eugene Onegin is portrayed by Pushkin as a "young rake". As a boy, Evgeniy grows up carefree and carefree, because his teacher, a Frenchman by birth, teaches him everything “jokingly” so that “the child would not be exhausted.” Therefore, Evgeniy did not receive a proper education. Having become a young man, he quickly becomes a regular at social events, because he was able to easily fit into the circles of high society, thanks to his command of French and ability to dance.

In communicating with lovely ladies, Onegin quickly masters the “science of tender passion,” deftly winning the hearts of beauties:

How early could he be a hypocrite?
To harbor hope, to be jealous,
To dissuade, to make believe,
Seem gloomy, languish,
Be proud and obedient
Attentive or indifferent.

Onegin, thanks to his ability to charm women, constantly received invitations to various receptions in society, accepting several notes daily in which he was invited to attend some social event.

Onegin is a well-groomed and fashionable young man who carefully monitors his appearance and his clothes; he spent a lot of time in front of the mirror; his arsenal of cosmetics included:

Perfume in cut crystal;
Combs, steel files,
Straight scissors, curved
And brushes of thirty kinds
For both nails and teeth.

Getting ready for the next entertainment event, he spent a very long time preening in front of the mirror and “came out of the restroom looking like a windy Venus...”

Onegin was spoiled by female attention; he was accustomed to a free and free lifestyle, when he easily got all the best. He was not used to responsibility, to obligations; all his connections with women were fleeting and frivolous. The constant carelessness, repeated daily, eventually became disgusting to Onegin and ceased to bring him satisfaction:

No: his feelings cooled down early;
He was tired of the noise of the world;
The beauties didn't last long
The subject of his usual thoughts;
The betrayals have become tiresome;
Friends and friendship are boring.

It was in this state, when he was tired of entertainment, betrayal and intrigue, that Onegin went to the village, where he met Tatyana. And although Onegin was a “rake” and a “dandy,” a narcissistic man spoiled by female attention, a man who knew how to perfectly “play” the strings of a woman’s soul, and could skillfully pretend and be a hypocrite, he was able to treat Tatyana with respect and understanding. After her declaration of love for him, Onegin did not laugh at her, did not spread rumors, he tried to talk frankly with her, wanting her to fall in love with a more worthy man.

Onegin also shows his kind and understanding character towards his friend, Vladimir. He condescendingly and patiently listens to his romantic reasonings, without inserting his “cooling word”, suggesting that with age Lensky’s “bliss” will pass anyway:

And without me the time will come;
Let him live for now
Let the world believe in perfection;
Forgive the fever of youth
And youthful heat and youthful delirium.

Before the duel with Lensky took place, Onegin experiences a feeling of guilt, he is tormented by his conscience that he could not cool the poet’s ardor. He realizes that his friend is too young, too hot. Onegin realizes that it was in vain that he played such a cruel joke with his friend, laughing at his “tender and timid love.” But still, he is too proud to ask Lensky for forgiveness and prevent the duel, and besides, he does not want to hear “the laughter of fools,” because refusal to duel may be accepted by society as cowardice.

Onegin, after all, is a very ambiguous person. Tatyana herself, in reflections about him, says:

The eccentric is sad and dangerous,
The creation of hell or heaven,
This angel, this arrogant demon,
What is he? Is it really imitation?
An insignificant ghost, or else
Muscovite in Harold's cloak,
interpretation of other people's whims,
A complete lexicon of fashion words?
Isn't he a parody?

Such reasoning arose from Tatyana after studying the books she found in Onegin’s house; these were works “in which the century was reflected and modern man was depicted quite correctly...”
Tatyana leafed through the pages and saw on many of them Onegin’s marks, where his soul “involuntarily expresses itself.”

All this suggests that Eugene Onegin was still a thinking person, with a living and feeling soul, not completely corrupted by secular society.

Pushkin's works belong to the history of literature. Each of them contains the imprint of an original thought, an imprint worthy of attention for its novelty, clarity and beauty. The author's mind, by nature unusually insightful and sharp, was expressed in all its strength in his writings.

The novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” is an encyclopedia of the morals of Russian society, a work of a new type. Before “Eugene Onegin,” Russian society had not encountered novels in verse.

According to the apt remark of V.G. Belinsky, Pushkin took up a novel in verse, “when there was not a single decent novel in prose in the Russian language.”

Let's meet the main character, Evgeny Onegin. We first meet him in the first chapter of the novel:

"With the hero of my novel
Without preamble, right now
Let me introduce you."

What is he like, the hero of Alexander Pushkin's novel?

The author introduces us to his character, disposition, thoughts and feelings gradually, throughout the entire narrative.

Onegin is a young nobleman, an aristocrat. He was brought up in the classical traditions of those times: French teachers, tutors. Learning “a little something and somehow,” Onegin mastered a rather small amount of true knowledge. In a conversation he could “touch everything lightly, with the learned air of an expert.”

“The time of hope and tender sadness” came quite quickly. Evgeniy began to appear in the world. He was dressed appropriately, with his hair cut in the latest fashion. He spoke French easily, danced excellently, knew how to make ladies smile “with the fire of unexpected epigrams,” kept jokes in his memory, read Adam Smith...

“What do you want more? The light has decided
That he is smart and very nice."

But Onegin is a contradictory type. Having studied early “the science of tender passion,” he also lost his feelings early, became indifferent to the great world, and the blues gradually began to take possession of him.

Under the influence of this melancholy, Onegin locks himself in his office and begins to write. But nothing comes of this writing, because he is sick of hard work. Then he starts reading, but no sense comes out of reading either, and he is forced to give up the books.

Onegin manages to become embittered against the world and begins to despise people. In such a spiritual mood, he finds himself in a village where his uncle fell ill. Here Onegin meets the romantic Lensky and, despite the contrast of characters, becomes close to him. Here, in the village, in the Larin family, Onegin meets the thoughtful and dreamy Tatyana, who soon falls in love with him, and, following the attraction of her heart, openly confesses her love to him in a letter. Onegin responds to the girl’s sincere confession with the assurance that he has survived the play of passions and ends his long sermon with a dry moral lesson:

“Learn to control yourself;
Not everyone will understand you, as I understand...”

After a quarrel, Onegin kills his friend Lensky in a duel.

Continuing to languish in the “inactivity of leisure,” he leaves the village and begins “wandering without a goal.” After two years of wandering, Onegin ends up in Moscow, where he meets the same Tatiana, but finds her already an indifferent princess, an unapproachable lady. This change that happened to her struck Onegin so much that he “falls in love with Tatyana like a child” and begins to pursue her with his love. In response to his love confession, he receives the same sensitive lesson that he once taught Tatyana. She tells him that although she loves him, she is given to someone else and will remain faithful to him forever.

In Russian literature, types such as Onegin are classified as “superfluous people.” Onegin's path is long and thorny. On this path he finds no use for his powers anywhere. Onegin's inability to work effectively, to do real work - this is the main reason for his mental discomfort, endless blues and incessant boredom.

Onegin is not able to look at life from the other side, to understand the principles of life on other spiritual principles.

Conclusion

Pushkin was ahead of his time. He created a completely unique novel. A novel in verse. In it we follow the narrative and, at the same time, enjoy the crystal purity of Pushkin’s poems.

The author introduced us to Onegin, a man with a complex and contradictory character. The image of this hero, according to A.I. Herzen, “is so national that it is found in all novels and poems that receive any recognition in Russia.”

Eugene Onegin is a young nobleman and aristocrat, the main character of the greatest novel in verse by A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin,” which was created by the Russian genius over the course of eight years. In this work, named by the outstanding literary critic of the 19th century V.G. Belinsky's "encyclopedia of Russian life", Pushkin reflected all his thoughts, feelings, concepts and ideals, his life, soul and love.

In the image of the main character, the author embodied the type of modern man of his era, who throughout the novel, like Pushkin, grows up, gets smarter, gains experience, loses and gains friends, makes mistakes, suffers and is mistaken, makes decisions that radically change his life. The very title of the novel shows the central place of the hero in the work and Pushkin’s special attitude towards him, and although he has no prototypes in real life, he is familiar with the author, has mutual friends with him and is really connected with the real life of that time.

Characteristics of the main character

(Evgeniy and Tatiana, meeting in the garden)

The personality of Evgeny Onegin can be called quite complex, ambiguous and contradictory. His egoism, vanity and high demands both for the surrounding reality and for himself - on the one hand, a subtle and vulnerable mental organization, a rebellious spirit striving for freedom - on the other. The explosive mixture of these qualities makes him an extraordinary person and immediately attracts the attention of readers to his person. We meet the main character at the age of 26, he is described to us as a representative of the golden youth of St. Petersburg, indifferent and filled with anger and bilious irony, seeing no meaning in anything, tired of luxury, idleness and other earthly entertainments. To show the origins of his disappointment in life, Pushkin tells us about his origin, childhood and adolescence.

Onegin was born into an aristocratic, rich, but later bankrupt family, received a rather superficial education, divorced from the realities of Russian life, but quite typical for that time, which allowed him to easily speak French, dance the mazurka, bow naturally and have pleasant manners for going out into the world. .

Plunging into a carefree social life with its entertainment (visiting theaters, balls, restaurants), love affairs, a complete lack of responsibilities and the need to earn a living, Onegin quickly becomes fed up and feels a real disgust for the empty and idle metropolitan tinsel. He falls into depression (or, as it was called then, “Russian blues”) and tries to distract himself by finding something to do. First, this is a literary attempt at writing, which ended in complete failure, then binge reading books, which quickly bored him, and finally escape and voluntary seclusion in the wilderness of the village. His pampered lordly upbringing, which did not instill in him a love of work and a lack of willpower, led to the fact that he could not bring a single task to its logical conclusion; he spent too much time in idleness and laziness, and such a life completely ruined him.

Arriving in the village, Onegin avoids the company of neighbors, lives alone and apart. At first, he even tries to make life easier for the peasants in some way, replacing corvee with “light quitrent,” but old habits take their toll and after carrying out one single reform, he becomes bored and despondent and gives up everything.

(Painting by I. E. Repin "Duel of Onegin with Lensky" 1899)

The real gifts of fate (which Onegin selfishly did not appreciate and carelessly discarded) were sincere friendship with Lensky, whom Evgeni killed in a duel, and the sublime, bright love of the beautiful girl Tatyana Larina (also rejected). Having become a hostage of public opinion, which he really despised so much, Onegin agrees to a duel with Lensky, who has become a truly congenial person to him, and mortally wounds him in a duel.

Selfishness, indifference, indifference to life and spiritual callousness did not allow him to appreciate the great gift of love offered by fate, and for the rest of his life he remains a lonely and restless seeker of the meaning of life. Having matured and wiser, he meets Tatiana again in St. Petersburg and falls madly in love with the luxurious and brilliant society lady she has become. But it’s too late to change anything, his love is rejected out of a sense of duty and Onegin is left with nothing.

The image of the hero in the work

(Painting by Yu. M. Ignatiev based on the novel "Eugene Onegin")

The image of Onegin in Russian literature opens up a whole galaxy of heroes, the so-called “superfluous people” (Pechorin, Oblomov, Rudin, Laevsky), who suffer in the reality around them and are in search of new moral and spiritual values. But they are too weak-willed, lazy or selfish to take any real action that can change their life for the better. The ending of the work is ambiguous, Onegin remains at a crossroads and can still find himself and perform actions and deeds that will benefit society.

Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” (see its full text and summary by chapter) is of great importance not only in the history of the Russian novel, but also as a work of autobiographical significance. The image of the hero took shape in the author’s imagination when he already had a completely negative attitude towards Byronism. But Pushkin still had fresh memories of his recent passion for the English poet. And so, according to his confession, he writes a “satirical work” in which he aims to ridicule “Muscovites in Harold’s cloaks,” that is, the young men of his time who pretended to be disappointed Byronic heroes. Pushkin himself sinned with this not long ago, and did not hide this weakness in his novel.

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.

It was “fashionable”, it was a sign of “good form”...

But this was not what filled his social life. Catching women's hearts, that's what Evgeniy did especially diligently. And here success awaited him. Pushkin helps us understand where Onegin received his knowledge:

It is not nature that teaches us love...
We are hungry to know life in advance
And we recognize her in the novel...
Onegin experienced this.

And Pushkin points out which romantic hero was the model of Onegin: this Richardsonian Lovelace, "winner of women's hearts." The goal of his life is “to conquer women’s hearts.” For this, Onegin developed a special tactic, studied the psychology of the female heart: easy victories are not interesting to him; he loved the "hard fight"; This is a kind of “sport” for him...

How early could he be a hypocrite?
To harbor hope, to be jealous,
To dissuade, to make believe,
Seem gloomy, languish,
Be proud and obedient
Attentive or indifferent!
How languidly silent he was,
How fieryly eloquent
How careless in heartfelt letters!

Handra Onegina

Onegin's life rolled on, cloudless and calm, an environment of all kinds of pleasures: theaters, balls, dinners in a fashionable restaurant, worries about appearance and costume filled his empty and vulgar existence. Fate endowed Onegin with “mind” and “heart”, without giving him any education or upbringing, without indicating the outcome of his spiritual powers. From such a discrepancy between the wealth of his strength and the poverty of his soul, discord arose in him, and it is no wonder that he soon became tired and bored:

His feelings cooled down early,
He was tired of the noise of the world,
The beauties didn't last long
The subject of his usual thoughts.
We've had time to tire of the betrayals,
Friends and friendship are boring
And, although he was an ardent rake,
But he finally fell out of love
And scolding, and saber, and lead.

And so, the “English spleen”, or Russian melancholy, took possession of him, and besides, fashion in high society changed, and “Lovelace’s fame became dilapidated.” Then he replaced the imitation of Lovelace with the imitation of Childe Harold, and began to “act like an eccentric.”

He will shoot himself, thank God,
I didn't want to try
But he completely lost interest in life.
Like Child-Harold, gloomy, languid
He appeared in living rooms;
Neither the gossip of the world, nor Boston,
Not a sweet look, not an immodest sigh,
Nothing touched him
He didn't notice anything.

The heart was empty, the mind was idle. Onegin tried to take up literature, but he was sick of the persistent work, and he gave up his pen. Onegin took up the book, but he was not accustomed to “reading” either, and besides, when he had lost faith in life, he could not believe the book.

He lined the shelf with a group of books,
I read and read, but to no avail:
There is boredom, there is deception or delirium;
There is no conscience in that, there is no meaning in that;
Everyone is wearing different chains;
And the old thing is outdated,
And the old are delirious of the newness.
Like women, he left books,
And a shelf with their dusty family,
Covered it with mourning taffeta.

Onegin considered his “blues” and “apathy”, the result of fatigue and spiritual emptiness, to be “disappointment” and willingly covered himself with the then fashionable Childe Harold cloak. It is not for nothing that out of all the books he read only the works of Byron:

Yes, there are two or three more novels with him,
In which the century is reflected,
And modern man
Depicted quite accurately
With his immoral soul,
Selfish and dry,
Immensely devoted to a dream;
With his embittered mind
Seething in empty action.

Onegin was a prominent representative of that “half-education” that was so characteristic of Russian society of that time. The mind did not allow Onegin to merge with this society for the rest of his life, but he did not know how to look for the goals of existence outside of this society. And, as a result, in his person the first example of a “superfluous person” appeared in Russian literature.

The book was discarded, and Eugene remained helpless in life, “without a rudder” and “without sails,” with a “sharp, chilled mind,” a strange dreamer without a goal in life, gloomy with complaints about the malice of blind fortune, with contempt for people, with sarcastic speeches.

He who lived and thought cannot
Do not despise people in your heart;
Who felt it, is worried
Ghost of irrevocable days:
There's no charm for that
That serpent of memories
He is gnawing at remorse.

He almost went to travel, but the news of the fatal illness of a village uncle called him to the village.

Suddenly he really got
Report from the manager
That uncle is dying in bed
And I would be glad to say goodbye to him.
After reading the sad message,
Evgeniy on a date right away
Swiftly galloped through the mail
And I already yawned...

In the village, Onegin was at first interested in the novelty of life, the unusual beauties of quiet nature for him. He became interested in the plight of his serfs, and made their existence easier, replacing the “yoke of ancient corvée” with “light quitrent,” but soon he got bored here too and led a solitary life, alienating his neighbors with misanthropy. The naive villagers in their assessment of the hero were not as lenient as the St. Petersburg “society”; they recognized Onegin as both a freethinker (“farmazon,” i.e., a Frank Freemason) and an “ignoramus.”

Read about the future fate of Onegin in the articles