Features of the composition of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" come from the fact that the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov became an advanced work of its time: in it the author used a new genre of a psychologically oriented novel, a new image of the protagonist and, accordingly, a new compositional articulation of the work.
The author himself, after the publication of his novel in its finished form, admitted that not a single word, not a single line in it arose by chance, everything written was subordinated to one main goal - to show readers their contemporary - a man with noble and bad inclinations, who, obeying the feeling self-love, he was able to realize in life only his vices, and his virtues remained only good desires.
When the novel was just published, critics and ordinary readers had a lot of questions that related to the compositional division of this work. We will try to consider the main of these issues.
Why was the chronology of the presentation of the episodes of the main character's life broken?
The features of the composition of "A Hero of Our Time" are related to the fact that we learn about the life of the protagonist in a very inconsistent way. The first part of the novel tells how Pechorin kidnapped the Circassian Bela from his own father, made her his mistress, and later lost interest in this girl. As a result of a tragic accident, Bela was killed by the Circassian Kazbich, who was in love with her.
In the second part, entitled "Maxim Maksimovich", readers will learn that several years have passed since the death of Bela, Pechorin decided to go to Persia and died on the way there. From Pechorin's diary, it becomes known about the events that happened to the main character before meeting Bela: Pechorin got into a funny adventure with smugglers on Taman and in the city of Kislovodsk he met the young Princess Mary Ligovskaya, whom, unwittingly, fell in love with himself, and then refused to share her feelings. There was also a duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky, as a result of which the latter was killed.
The novel "A Hero of Our Time" ends with the part "Fatalist", which tells about a private episode from the life of Pechorin.
Studying the plot and composition of "A Hero of Our Time", literary critics agree that the author violated the chronological presentation of the main character's life in order, on the one hand, to emphasize the chaotic life of Pechorin, his inability to subordinate his fate to one main idea, on the other hand, Lermontov tried to reveal the image of his main character gradually: at first, readers saw him from the side through the eyes of Maxim Maksimovich and the narrator-officer, and then only got acquainted with Pechorin’s personal diary, in which he was extremely frank.
What is the relationship between plot and plot in a novel?
The innovation of Lermontov as a prose writer contributed to the fact that the plot and plot of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" do not coincide with each other. This leads to the fact that the reader pays more attention not to the external outline of events from the life of the protagonist, but to his inner experiences. Literary critics have dubbed this method of constructing a work “tense composition”, when readers see the heroes of the novel at the peak moments of their fate.
Therefore, the composition of Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time" is a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian literature: the author talks about key episodes from the life of his hero, giving him a description precisely at the moments of the highest life trials: these are Pechorin's love experiences, his duel with Grushnitsky, his skirmish with drunken Cossack, his dangerous adventure with smugglers on Taman.
In addition, Lermontov resorts to the reception of a ring composition: for the first time we meet Pechorin in the fortress in which he serves with Maxim Maksimovich, the last time we see the hero in the same fortress, before he leaves for Persia.
How does the compositional division of a work help to reveal the image of the protagonist?
According to most literary critics, the originality of the compositional solution of the novel helps to consider in detail the image of Pechorin.
In the first part of Bela, Pechorin's personality is shown through the eyes of his commander, the kind and honest Maxim Maksimovich. The author debunks the myth of beautiful love between a savage woman and a young educated nobleman that existed in the literature of that time. Pechorin does not in any way correspond to the image of a young romantic hero, which was created in the works of the writer's contemporaries.
In the second part of "Maxim Maksimovich" we meet a more detailed description of the personality of the protagonist. Pechorin is described through the eyes of the narrator. Readers get an idea of the character's appearance and behavior. The romantic halo around Grigory Alexandrovich flutters completely.
In "Taman" Lermontov refutes the myth of romantic love between a girl engaged in smuggling activities and a young officer. A young smuggler with the romantic name Ondine does not behave at all sublimely, she is ready to kill Pechorin only because he turned out to be an unwitting witness to her crime. Pechorin is also characterized in this part as a man of an adventurous warehouse, ready for anything to satisfy his own desires.
Part "Princess Mary" is built on the principle of a secular story: it has a love story and a conflict between two officers for possession of the girl's heart, which ends tragically. In this part, the image of Pechorin receives a complete realistic characterization: readers see all the external actions of the hero and the secret movements of his soul.
In the last part of the novel The Fatalist, Lermontov poses the most important questions for him about the meaning of human life on earth: is a person the master of his own destiny or is he led by some kind of evil fate; is it possible to cheat one's fate or is it impossible, etc.? In the last part, Pechorin appears before us in the form of a man who is ready to fight fate. However, readers understand that this struggle will eventually lead him to an early death.
The role of composition in the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is very important. It is thanks to the unusual compositional division of the work that the author manages to achieve the full realization of his creative idea - the creation of a new psychologically oriented genre of the novel.
The presented compositional features of the work can be used by students of grade 9 when preparing material for an essay on the topic “Features of the composition of the novel“ A Hero of Our Time ””.
Artwork test
The novel "A Hero of Our Time" is the first psychological novel in Russian literature, and one of the perfect examples of this genre. The psychological analysis of the character of the protagonist is carried out in the complex compositional construction of the novel, the composition of which is bizarre by the violation of the chronological sequence of its main parts. In the novel A Hero of Our Time, composition and style are subordinated to one task: to reveal the image of the hero of his time as deeply and comprehensively as possible, to trace the history of his inner life, since "the history of the human soul,- as the author states in the Preface to Pechorin's Journal, - even the smallest soul, is perhaps more interesting and useful than the history of an entire people, especially ... when it ... is written without a vain desire to arouse interest or surprise. Consequently, the composition of this novel is one of its most important artistic features.
According to the true chronology, the stories should have been arranged as follows: “Taman”, “Princess Mary”, “Fatalist”, “Bela”, “Maxim Maksimych”, Preface to the “Pechorin Journal”. Lermontov breaks the order of events and tells about them not in chronological order: "Bela", "Maxim Maksimych", Preface to "Pechorin's Journal", "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist". Such an arrangement of the parts of the novel, which breaks the chronological order, increases the plot tension, makes it possible to interest the reader as much as possible in Pechorin and his fate, gradually revealing his character in all the inconsistency and complexity.
The story is told on behalf of three narrators: a certain wandering officer, staff captain Maxim Maksimych, and, finally, Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin himself. The author resorted to this technique to highlight the events and the character of the protagonist from different points of view, and as fully as possible. For Lermontov, these are not just three narrators, but three types of narrator: an outside observer of what is happening, a secondary character and participant in the events, as well as the main character himself. All three are dominated by the creator of the entire work - the author. We are presented with not just three points of view, but three levels of comprehension of character, psychological disclosure of the nature of the “hero of time”, three measures of comprehending the complex inner world of an outstanding individuality. The presence of three types of narrators, their location in the course of the narrative is closely linked to the overall composition of the novel, and determines the chronological rearrangement of events, while at the same time being in a complex dependence on such a rearrangement.
In the story “Bela”, Maxim Maksimych begins the story about Pechorin: “ He was a nice fellow, I dare to assure you; just a little weird. After all, for example, in the rain, in the cold all day hunting; everyone will get cold, tired, but nothing to him. And another time he sits in his room, the wind smells, he assures that he has caught a cold; the shutter will knock, he will shudder and turn pale; and with me he went to the boar one on one; it happened that for whole hours you couldn’t get a word, but sometimes, as soon as he starts talking, his tummies break with laughter ... Yes, sir, he was very strange.
Lermontov avoids local, dialect or Caucasian foreign words, deliberately using general literary vocabulary. The simplicity and accuracy of Lermontov's prose language were developed under the direct influence of Pushkin's prose.
The central story in the story "Bela" is the story of Maxim Maksimych, included in the notes of a wandering officer. Having put the story about the history of Pechorin and Bela into the mouth of the old Caucasian Maxim Maksimych, Lermontov set off the tragic emptiness of Pechorin and at the same time contrasted him with the whole character of the Russian person.
In the next story, "Maxim Maksimych", the staff captain turns into a character. The story continues on behalf of the author of the novel. Here, for the only time in the entire book, the author meets the hero, Pechorin. This is necessary in order to realistically motivate the detailed psychological portrait of Pechorin included in the second story. The introduction of a second narrator into the fabric of the novel corrects the focus of the image. If Maksim Maksimych examines the events as if through inverted binoculars, so that everything is in his field of vision, but everything is too general, then the storyteller officer zooms in on the image, transfers it from a general plan to a larger one. However, as a narrator, he has a drawback in comparison with the staff captain: he knows too little, being content with only passing observations. The second story, therefore, basically confirms the impression made after acquaintance with the beginning of the novel: Pechorin is too indifferent to people, otherwise his coldness would not have offended Maxim Maksimych, who was so devoted to his friendship with him.
Pechorin is indifferent not only to Maxim Maksimych, but also to himself, giving the Journal to the staff captain. The narrator, observing Pechorin's appearance, notes: “... I must say a few more words about his eyes. First, they didn't laugh when he laughed! Have you ever noticed such strangeness in some people? .. This is a sign - either an evil disposition, or a deep constant sadness. Their half-drooped eyelashes shone with a kind of phosphorescent sheen, so to speak. It was not a reflection of the heat of the soul or a playful imagination: it was a brilliance, like the brilliance of smooth steel, dazzling, but cold; his glance - short, but penetrating and heavy, left an unpleasant impression of an indiscreet question and could have seemed impudent if it had not been so indifferently calm. In the second story, the author, as it were, prepares the reader for the further Pechorin's Journal, because he learns how Pechorin's notes fell into the author's hands.
The second story is able to tease the reader's imagination: what is true in Pechorin - is it an evil temper or a deep constant sadness? Only after that, having aroused an inquisitive interest in such an unusual character, forcing the reader, who is looking for an answer, to be attentive to every detail of the further story, the author changes the narrator, giving the floor to the most central character: as a narrator, he has undoubted advantages over his two predecessors, so it’s not easy knows about himself more than others, but is also able to comprehend his actions, motives, emotions, the subtlest movements of the soul - how rarely does anyone know how. In self-analysis - the strength and weakness of Pechorin, hence his superiority over people and this is one of the reasons for his skepticism, disappointment.
In the Preface to Pechorin's Journal, the author reports something that Pechorin himself could not say: Pechorin died on his way back from a trip to Persia. This is how the author's right to publish the Pechorin's Journal, which consists of three stories: "Taman", "Princess Mary" and "The Fatalist", is justified.
"Taman" is an action-packed story. In this story, everything is explained and unleashed in the most ordinary and prosaic way, although Pechorin is initially perceived somewhat romantically and truly poetically, which is not surprising: Pechorin finds himself in an unusual and atypical environment for a noble hero. It seems to him a mystery poor hut with its inhospitable inhabitants on a high cliff near the Black Sea. And Pechorin invades this strange life of smugglers, incomprehensible to him, "like a stone thrown into a smooth spring" and "I almost went down on my own." Pechorin's sadly ironic exclamation sums up the truthful and bitter conclusion to the whole incident: “Yes, and what do I care about the joys and misfortunes of people, me, a wandering officer, and even with a traveler on official business! ..” .
The second story, included in Pechorin's Journal, "Princess Mary", develops the theme of the hero of time surrounded by a "water society", surrounded by and in a collision with which Pechorin is shown.
In the story "Princess Mary" Pechorin speaks to the reader not only as a memoirist-narrator, but also as the author of a diary, a journal in which his thoughts and impressions are accurately recorded. This allows Lermontov to reveal the inner world of his hero with great depth. Pechorin's diary opens with an entry made on May 11, the day after his arrival in Pyatigorsk. Detailed descriptions of subsequent events constitute, as it were, the first, “Pyatigorsk” part of the story. The entry dated June 10 opens the second, “Kislovodsk” part of his diary. In the second part, events develop more rapidly, consistently leading to the culmination of the story and the entire novel - to the duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky. For a duel with Grushnitsky, Pechorin ends up in a fortress with Maxim Maksimych. This is where the story ends. Thus, all the events of "Princess Mary" fit into a period of a little more than a month and a half. But the story of these few days gives Lermontov the opportunity to reveal the contradictory image of Pechorin from within with exceptional depth and completeness.
It is in "Princess Mary" that the hopeless despair, the tragic hopelessness of Pechorin, an intelligent and gifted person, crippled by his environment and upbringing, are most deeply shown.
Pechorin's past within the "Hero of Our Time" is of little interest to Lermontov. The author is almost not busy with the question of the formation of his hero. Lermontov does not even consider it necessary to tell the reader what Pechorin did in St. Petersburg during the five years that passed after his return from the Caucasus and until his reappearance in Vladikavkaz ("Maxim Maksimych") on his way to Persia. All Lermontov's attention is drawn to the disclosure of the inner life of his hero.
Not only in Russian, but also in world literature, Lermontov was one of the first to master the ability to capture and depict the “mental process of the emergence of thoughts,” as Chernyshevsky put it in an article about the early novels and stories of Leo Tolstoy.
Pechorin consistently and convincingly reveals in his diary not only his thoughts and moods, but also the spiritual world and spiritual appearance of those with whom he has to meet. Neither the intonation of the interlocutor's voice, nor the movements of his eyes, nor facial expressions escape his observation. Every word spoken, every gesture reveals to Pechorin the state of mind of the interlocutor. Pechorin is not only smart, but also observant and sensitive. This explains his ability to understand people well. The portrait characteristics in Pechorin's Journal are striking in their depth and accuracy.
Nature and landscape in A Hero of Our Time, especially in Pechorin's Journal, are very often not only a background for human experiences. The landscape directly clarifies the state of a person, and sometimes emphasizes in contrast the discrepancy between the experiences of the hero and the environment.
The very first meeting between Pechorin and Vera is preceded by a thunderous landscape saturated with electricity: “It was getting hot; white shaggy clouds quickly fled from the snowy mountains, promising a thunderstorm; Mashuk's head was smoking like an extinguished torch; around it, gray wisps of clouds curled and crawled like snakes, held back in their striving and seemed to be clinging to its thorny bush. The air was filled with electricity." .
The contradictory state of Pechorin before the duel is characterized by the duality of images and colors of the morning landscape around Kislovodsk: “I don’t remember a bluer and fresher morning! The sun barely emerged from behind the green peaks, and the merging of the first warmth of its rays with the dying coolness of the night brought some kind of sweet languor to all feelings. .
The same method of contrasting lighting is used in the description of the mountain landscape that surrounded the duelists who climbed to the top of the cliff: “All around, lost in the golden mist of the morning, the tops of the mountains crowded like an innumerable herd, and Elbrus in the south rose in a white bulk, closing the chain of icy peaks, between which fibrous clouds that had come from the east were already wandering, and went to the edge of the platform and looked down, I felt a little dizzy; down there, it seemed dark and cold, as in a coffin: mossy teeth of rocks, thrown down by a thunderstorm and time, were waiting for their prey. .
Pechorin, who knows how to accurately determine his every thought, every state of mind, restrainedly and sparingly reports on his return from the duel in which Grushnitsky was killed. A brief, expressive description of nature reveals to the reader the grave condition of Pechorin: “The sun seemed dim to me, its rays did not warm me” .
The last story of the "Journal of Pechorin" is "The Fatalist". The tragic death of Vulich, as it were, prepares the reader of The Fatalist for the inevitable and imminent death of Pechorin, which the author has already reported in the Preface to Pechorin's Journal.
In this story, the question of fate and predestination is posed by Lermontov on completely real, even everyday material. In the idealistic philosophical literature, in the stories, short stories and novels of the 1920s and especially of the 1930s, during the period of intensified European reaction, much attention was paid to this issue. The key to the ideological concept of "The Fatalist" is Pechorin's monologue, which combines the first part of the short story with its second part, which deals with the death of Vulich. Pechorin's reflections in this monologue, as it were, sum up the entire Pechorin's Journal and even the novel A Hero of Our Time as a whole.
It was in The Fatalist that Pechorin soberly and courageously discerned the source of many of his troubles, saw the cause of evil, but not the nature of temptation: “In my early youth I was a dreamer; I loved to caress alternately now gloomy, now rosy images that my restless and greedy imagination painted for me. But what is left of this for me? only fatigue, as after a night of fighting with ghosts, and a vague memory full of regrets. In this futile struggle, I exhausted both the heat of the soul and the constancy of the will necessary for real life; I entered this life, having already experienced it mentally, and I became bored and disgusted, like someone who reads a bad imitation of a book he has known for a long time.
Critics have defined the genre "Hero of our time" as psychological novel. When writing this work, M. Yu. Lermontov aimed to show the “history of the human soul”, to reveal the inner world of the protagonist. M. Yu. Lermontov began work on the novel under the impression of his first exile to the Caucasus. First, separate stories were written, which were published as they were written: “Bela”, “Fatalist” were published in the journal “Notes of the Fatherland” in 1839, followed by the story “Taman”. Later, all five stories: "Bela", "Maxim Maksimych", "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist" - were combined into a novel under the title "A Hero of Our Time".
Critics, readers ambiguously perceived the image of the protagonist: some considered Pechorin a caricature of a modern person, and the novel itself was immoral; others - that the image of Pechorin is a portrait of the author himself. M. Yu. Lermontov was forced to write a preface to the second edition, in which he commented on his perception of the hero and explained his creative principles. The author writes that his main principle when writing a novel is following the truth of life and critical evaluation of the hero.
The stories that make up the "Hero of Our Time" are arranged in a certain sequence. This was done with a specific purpose: the author gradually immerses the reader into the inner world of the protagonist, reveals his character.
There are three narrators in the story. In the story "Bela" we see Pechorin through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych, the staff captain, who notes "strangeness" in the behavior of Grigory Alexandrovich, selfishness, mystery. In "Maxim Maksimych" the role of the narrator is given to a wandering officer - a person who is closer in attitude and social position to the hero. He notes in the appearance of Pechorin the features of a strong, but internally lonely personality. In the next three stories - "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist" - Pechorin himself is the narrator, who tells about his adventures in the seaside town, about his stay in Pyatigorsk, about the incident in the Cossack village. The reader learns about the feelings, experiences of the hero from the lips of the hero himself, who impartially analyzes his actions, his behavior, and motives. For the first time in Russian literature, much attention was paid not to events, but to the “dialectics of the soul”, and the form of a diary confession allows to show all the “movements of the soul” of Pechorin. The hero himself admits that his soul knows such feelings as envy, pity, love, hatred. But reason still prevails over feelings: we see this in the scene of the pursuit of Vera.
The author shows the hero in various life situations, surrounds him with a variety of characters (Pechorin among the highlanders, in the circle of "honest smugglers" and "water society"). I believe that this is an exceptional and at the same time typical hero of that time: he is looking for love, but he himself only bears suffering and even death; this is a person living a complex spiritual life, but absolutely inactive or wasting energy on trifles; aware of his vices and ruthlessly condemning them in other people; a person who, according to V. G. Belinsky, “furiously chases ... after life, looking for it everywhere” and at the same time looking for death.
Critics have defined the genre of A Hero of Our Time as psychological novel. When writing this work, M. Yu. Lermontov aimed to show the "history of the human soul", to reveal the inner world of the protagonist. M. Yu. Lermontov began work on the novel under the impression of his first exile to the Caucasus. First, separate stories were written, which were published as they were written: “Bela”, “Fatalist” were published in the journal “Notes of the Fatherland” in 1839, followed by the story “Taman”. Later, all five stories: "Bela", "Maxim Maksimych", "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist" - were combined into a novel under the title "Hero of Our Time".
Critics, readers ambiguously perceived the image of the protagonist: some considered Pechorin a caricature of a modern person, and the novel itself was immoral; others - that the image of Pechorin is a portrait of the author himself. M. Yu. Lermontov was forced to write a preface to the second edition, in which he commented on his perception of the hero and explained his creative principles. The author writes that his main principle when writing a novel is following the truth of life and critical evaluation of the hero.
The stories that make up the "Hero of Our Time" are arranged in a certain sequence. This was done with a specific purpose: the author gradually immerses the reader into the inner world of the protagonist, reveals his character.
There are three narrators in the story. In the story "Bela" we see Pechorin through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych, the staff captain, who notes "strangeness" in the behavior of Grigory Alexandrovich, selfishness, mystery. In "Maxim Maksimych" the role of the narrator is given to a wandering officer - a person who is closer in attitude and social status to the hero. He notes in the appearance of Pechorin the features of a strong, but internally lonely personality. In the next three stories - "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist" - Pechorin himself is the narrator, who tells about his adventures in the seaside town, about his stay in Pyatigorsk, about the incident in the Cossack village. The reader learns about the feelings, experiences of the hero from the lips of the hero himself, who impartially analyzes his actions, his behavior, and motives. For the first time in Russian literature, much attention was paid not to events, but to the “dialectics of the soul”, and the form of a diary confession allows to show all the “movements of the soul” of Pechorin. The hero himself admits that his soul knows such feelings as envy, pity, love, hatred. But reason nevertheless prevails over feelings: we see this in the scene of the pursuit of Vera.
The author shows the hero in various life situations, surrounds him with a variety of characters (Pechorin among the highlanders, in the circle of "honest smugglers" and "water society"). I believe that this is an exceptional and at the same time typical hero of that time: he is looking for love, but he himself only bears suffering and even death; this is a person living a complex spiritual life, but absolutely inactive or wasting energy on trifles; conscious of his vices and mercilessly condemning them in other people; a person who, according to V. G. Belinsky, “furiously chases ... after life, looking for it everywhere” and at the same time looking for death.
"A Hero of Our Time": a novel or a collection of short stories?
Lermontov's novel "A Hero of Our Time" was created at the intersection of two artistic methods: romanticism and realism. According to romantic canons, the image of the protagonist is developed deeply and opposes all other characters. The whole system of images is built in such a way that the central character is highlighted from different angles of view. Each character is endowed with a complex character. These are very realistic images.
The very title of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" suggests that the author considers the individual in the context of society and era. "A Hero of Our Time" is a socio-psychological, philosophical novel. The conflict between the individual and society is sharper here than in Eugene Onegin. Pechorin "chases furiously for life," but gets nothing from it. The conflict was embodied not only in a typical display of personality, but also in the depiction of representatives of the "water society", their life, entertainment.
With each hero, Pechorin develops his own relationship. He seeks by any means to break through the outer mask of the heroes, to see their true faces, to understand what each of them is capable of" Pechorin confronts the "water society" that hates him, shoots with Grushnitsky, interferes in the life of "peaceful smugglers", falls in love with young Bela , daughter of a peaceful prince.
The history of the relationship between Pechorin and Werner is full of drama. This is the story of the failed friendship of people who are spiritually and intellectually close.
In relations with Vera, Pechorin is the most controversial; here, those forces that determine all his connections with people are brought to the maximum, to the highest intensity.
The problem of personality is revealed psychologically through a psychological portrait built on antitheses and oxymorons (“... his dusty velvet coat made it possible to see dazzlingly clean underwear”, his eyes “did not laugh when he laughed”), through introspection, through internal monologues (“ I sometimes despise myself... isn't that why I despise others too?..", "... why did I live? For what purpose was I born? ...")
Without the philosophical aspect of the novel, it is impossible to understand either the meaning of the era or the essence of the image of the protagonist. "Pechorin's Journal" is filled with thoughts about the meaning of life, about the relationship between the individual and society, about the place of a person in a series of generations, about faith and unbelief, about fate. Compositionally, this theme is completed by the chapter "The Fatalist", saturated with philosophical problems.
The main character trait of Pechorin is reflection. He constantly analyzes his thoughts, actions, desires, tries to reveal the roots of good and evil in one person. But Pechorin's reflection is hypertrophied, it disfigures the soul, distorts the development of the personality, makes both the hero and those with whom fate brings him unhappy.
The peculiarity of the novel is that, despite the fact that the parts differ in terms of genre, the novel does not fall apart and is not a collection of short stories, since all parts are united by one main character; the characters of the heroes are revealed from the external to the internal, from the effect to the cause, from the epic through the psychological to the philosophical.
The plot of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is based on the main themes that unite the entire work: the themes of the homeland, the human soul, love, society, fate, history, war. In each of the stories of the novel, these themes are intertwined in one way or another.
The main component of the plot of the stories and the whole novel is the scene of action, the social and national environment, and the historical setting. The conflicts of the stories are born in close connection with the reality of the created artistic world. So, a love conflict - the love story of Pechorin and Bela, no matter how highly and abstractly we talk about it, is depicted in all historical and national concreteness, psychologically correct, with attention to the social nuances of the characters' relationship. The story "Taman" presents an accurate artistic picture of the mores of a seaside town, the cruelty and deceit of the underworld, the sleepy stupidity of garrison employees. In the story "Princess Mary", in addition to the subtle depiction of the theme of love and friendship, Lermontov's remarkable find was the choice of the social environment and the place where events unfold. The conflict between Pechorin and the "water society" turned out to be the intersection point of many plot motifs of the story - social, moral, spiritual and moral. The theme of "The Fatalist" and the hero's temporary stay at the forefront of hostilities, in a remote province, where he so sharply and clearly feels his loneliness and restlessness, correlate very accurately.
The composition of the novel "A Hero of Our Time" is particularly complex. First of all, it must be said that the novel consists of autonomous parts - stories, which nevertheless represent an artistic whole. The stories are united by a common hero, but a well-known difficulty in understanding the integrity of the novel is the question: why does the author choose these, and not some other events in Pechorin's life, and why does he arrange them in that order?
The idea of the novel is presented through the disclosure of the image of Pechorin. The leading constructive technique in this regard is the depiction of the hero from two main angles: in the first two stories and the preface, the story about the hero is conducted from the outside, at first we learn about him from Maxim Maksimych. Then we read Pechorin's notes about his adventures in the Caucasus in Pechorin's Journal, that is, using Belinsky's words, we meet on the pages of the magazine with the "inner man". The story "Taman", the first in Pechorin's Journal, connects two perspectives of the hero's image - "from the side" and "from himself", it is important that the hero in it is never named by name.
The next feature of the composition is that the chronology of events in the life of the hero does not coincide with the chronology of the story about them. So, Pechorin's path outside the novel sequence is as follows: arrival in the Caucasus ("Taman"), vacation after hostilities ("Princess Mary"), a two-week military mission while serving in the fortress ("Fatalist"), the love story of Pechorin and Bela during service in the fortress ("Bela"), meeting with Pechorin four years later ("Maxim Maksimych"), Pechorin's death (preface to Pechorin's Journal). These events are arranged in the novel in a different order: "Bela", "Maxim Maksimych", the preface to the "Pechorin's Journal", "Taman", "Princess Mary", "Fatalist". This principle of constructing the novel is called "double chronology". There are many explanations for the "double chronology". Two main ones can be distinguished. From the point of view of the plot, such a sequence can be explained by the fact that the wandering writer, publishing a novel about Pechorin, compiled a book in the sequence in which he himself learned about the life of her hero. From the point of view of the meaning of the composition, the fact that the stories before being combined into a novel were scattered episodes from the life of an individual, after the unification they began to represent the stages of his life destiny and spiritual development.
The principle of “reverse chronology” is becoming important, which manifests itself in the fact that the earlier events of Pechorin’s life are assigned to the second half of the novel - in the “Pechorin Journal”, and they are preceded in the narrative by later events. With this technique, the author seeks to avoid the prejudiced attitude towards the hero, which occurs when we learn about a person "from the outside". The author pursues the same goal by successively changing narrators-narrators who represent the hero from different angles. The wandering writer, later the publisher of a book about Pechorin, acts as an observer, Maxim Maksimych is a direct witness and participant in the events, Pechorin experiences them in his life.
The image of Pechorin becomes clearer, more real and deeper as the story develops. The logic of the sequence of stories is such that in each of them a question arises, the answer to which is expected in the next one. So, in "Bel" we learn about Pechorin from the story of Maxim Maksimych, but we do not see him with our own eyes.
At the end of the story, interest in the personality of the hero awakens in the question: who is he? And in "Maxim Maksimych" we seem to get an answer to it. Pechorin appears in the story physically, it even provides a detailed portrait of the hero with elements of psychologization. However, Pechorin's unusual behavior raises the following question: why is he like that? "Pechorin's Journal" is intended to explain the state of the hero, but the events of "Taman" cause us another bewilderment: what does he need? From the story "Princess Mary" we get a clear explanation: Pechorin needs love and friendship, but at the end of the story a disaster occurs. Pechorin loses everything that binds a person to life, then the problem of choice naturally arises: what should the hero do, should he not give up further struggle in life? The story "The Fatalist" ends with Pechorin's positive choice in favor of life, it ends optimistically: "The officers congratulated me - and for sure, there was something!" It is in this that the ring composition of the novel plays its decisive role: Pechorin returns to the fortress to Maxim Maksimych, and the novel seems to begin again - Pechorin will kidnap Bela, everything will repeat itself, but the meaning of events will be different, new.
The motive of wandering connects the whole work, its characters are constantly on the road, outside the home. Such is Pechorin, such is the lonely staff captain Maxim Maksimych, who has neither a family nor a permanent home, such is the wandering writer.
Finally, another compositional device of the novel plays the deepest ideological role: the hero dies in the middle of the work and immediately “resurrects” in Pechorin’s Journal. This effect makes it possible to show the eternal moral rebirth of man.