SOURCE: "Dramatic Genre as a Tool of Characterization in Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time," in Russian Literature, Vol. XI, No. II, February 15, 1982, pp. 163-72.

The question of genre is one of the most intriguing puzzles of Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time. The work is presented to us as a series of short pieces, each representing a different prose genre typical of Romantic literature, and yet the sum of these short pieces is a more complete picture of events and characters, a novel. Herbert Eagle has noted that in each of the shorter components, the reader's Romantic genre expectations are overturned. Thus, by beginning with Romantic genres and types and then restructuring their elements, the work leads out of Romanticism into a new understanding of human psychology.

In the "Princess Mary" section of the novel, another set of genre distinctions becomes important. Imagery dealing with dramatic genre is used extensively in that novella as a way of characterizing the attitudes and personalities of the major characters. And once again these genre distinctions are used in a way which outlines the tension between Romanticism and nascent realism in the novel. This tension has been the subject of much debate among Lermontov critics … but the use of dramatic imagery in "Princess Mary" clarifies the way in which Lermontov restructures Romantic elements in a new, realistic way.

The dramatic imagery of "Princess Mary" revolves around the opposing concepts of melodrama and comedy. Most of the characters view events with the exaggerated passions characteristic of melodrama, while Pečorin, who stands at the center of the melodrama, views it as a comic play and describes the characters who surround him as actors. This distinction is Pečorin's own, for he is the narrator as well as the protagonist of the novella. "Finita la commedia", he exclaims after killing his opponent in a duel. Of course this is not the standard meaning of the word "comedy". By using it repeatedly Pečorin is referring to his attempt to view himself and the world around him dispassionately. A melodramatic plot viewed without melodramatic passion becomes a comedy. The dispassionate introspection which produces Pečorin's "comic" outlook is precisely the element of this novel which forms a basis for the later development of psychological realism. Thus the distinction between melodrama and comedy in the imagery of "Princess Mary" becomes a tool for understanding Lermontov's restructuring of Romantic elements in a new, realistic way.

The first conversation between Pečorin and Grušnickij sets forth this distinction clearly. The encounter is staged as a dramatic scene; Grušnickij in particular is weighing his words for their effect on the spectators, Princess Mary and her mother. He assumes a "dramatic pose" and exclaims loudly in French:

My dear man, I hate men so as not to despise them, for otherwise life would be too disgusting a comedy.

Pečorin, in the same dramatic manner, replies:

My dear man, I despise women so as not to love them, for otherwise life would be too ridiculous a melodrama.

This exchange, underlined by the use of French, sets up the basic contrast between the two men. Farce and melodrama are presented as opposites, as are Grušnickij and Pečorin. Each man embraces what the other shuns. Grušnickij takes up a melodramatic attitude toward the world, while Pečorin takes the comic view. These opposing world views are centered around the emotions of love, hate, and contempt, not only in the French aphorisms, but at crucial points elsewhere in the text as well.

Dramatic imagery pervades the scene in which Pečorin and Grušnickij exchange these witticisms. The mountains rising in the distance are described as an "amphitheater". Costume plays an important role, Pečorin tells us, in the relations among the vacationers. The women in their "elaborate costumes" looked upon him at first:

… with kind curiosity. The Petersburg cut of the military coat confused them, but soon, recognizing the army epaulets, they turned away in disgust.

The Moscow dandy Raevi6 is also costumed in accordance with his assumed role, as Grušnickij describes him:

He is a gambler. That's immediately obvious by the huge gold chain winding across his blue waistcoat. And what a thick walking stick—just like Robinson Crusoe's. And his beard and hair are trimmed d la moujik

Immediately after the all important aphorisms are declaimed, Pečorin

observes a "curious scene" from his hiding place in "the gallery". He even refers to its participants as "dramatis personae" (dejstvujuMcie lica.) At the close of this mime in which Mary picks up Grušnickij's glass, she

… assumed a dignified (…) pose, and did not even turn her head (..) until she had disappeared behind the lindens.

The characters behave in every way as though on stage. Throughout the "Princess Mary" section, words like "role", "drama", "the fifth act", "dramatic plot" (zavjazka), "dramatic denouement" (rezvjazka), and the like are used to keep the reader constantly aware of the theatrical nature of the characters' behavior.

Grušnickij is first described by Pečorin in terms of his melodramatic inclinations. He loves to "drape himself in extraordinary feelings, elevated passions, and exceptional sufferings". "To produce an effect is his delight". He has a passion for "declamation". Central to his melodramatic personality is his failure to realize or admit that he is playing a role. Pečorin counsels him:

"You simply don't know how to make use of your advantageous position. Your soldier's coat makes you a hero and a sufferer in the eyes of any sensitive young lady".

Grušnickij smiled with self-satisfaction.

"What nonsense!" he said.

As a result, he calculates incorrectly, and the costume change which is to insure his position with the princess turns out to be his undoing. The lack of self-awareness is fundamental to the melodramatic personality as Pe6orin presents it here.

Pečorin's self-consciousness, by contrast, is the source of the dispassionate irony which produces his "comic" outlook. Observing the world with cold and meticulous precision, he ridicules its absurdities. He tells Dr. Werner:

For a long time I have lived by my head rather than by my heart. I weigh and analyze my own passions and acts with stern curiosity, but without participation. There are two men within me: the one lives in the full sense of that word, the other meditates and judges him.…

Pečorin's friend Dr. Werner shares this "comic" outlook. Werner's medical colleagues once circulated the rumor that he drew cartoons of his patients. Their friendship is described thus by Pečorin:

We would talk together very seriously on abstract matters until we both realized that we were putting each other on. Then (…) we would burst out laughing, and having laughed our fill, we would separate well-content with our evening.

Pečorin later remarks to Dr. Werner: "Sad things are funny to us; funny things are sad". Their similarity in outlook is the basis of their friendship.

The exchange of French aphorisms quoted earlier revolves around three verbs: hair, mepriser and aimer. A close examination of the use of the corresponding Russian verbs (nenavidet 'to hate', prezirat 'to despise', and Ijubit 'to love') later in the work shows an even closer connection between these aphorisms and the events and personalities of the story. Love and hatred are the melodramatic passions, while contempt is allied with the comic view. Grušnickij's last words are "I despise myself, and I hate you!". While he retains the melodramatic passion of hatred toward Pe6orin, he has lost his romantic illusions concerning himself and holds himself in contempt. This parallels a development earlier in the novel, when Pečorin occasions Maksim Maksimyc's loss of romantic illusions. Witness the editor/narrator's comments about Maksim Maksimyc at the end of his chapter: "These words were pronounced with an ironic smile …"; "… here he pulled out one notebook and threw it with contempt (prezrenie) on the floor"; "He had a cold and constrained look". Pečorin's attitude is infectious.

Princess Mary, who has heard Pečorin's declaration of contempt for women, constantly fears that he despises her. As their affair becomes more serious, she broaches the subject:

Either you despise me or you love me very much. (..) Perhaps you want to laugh at me, to stir my soul and then leave me (..) Isn't it true that there is nothing in me which would preclude respect? (..) Perhaps you wish that I should be the first to say that I love you?

Pečorin staunchly refuses to say which of the two emotions he feels. Later on he tells her part of the truth, from which she, having heard his earlier dictum, should be able to infer the rest. She asks:

"You don't despise me, do you?"

"I will tell you the whole truth. I won't justify myself or explain my actions. I do not love you".

Their final conversation again revolves around these three verbs. Pečorin begins:

"Princess (…) you know that I have been laughing at you. You must despise me. (..) Consequently you cannot love me. (..) Isn't it true that, even if you did love me, from this moment you despise me?"

(…)

"I hate you!" she replied.

Here the shoe is on the other foot; it is Pečorin who is asking Princess Mary if she despises him. But he does not fear her contempt; on the contrary, he seems to be begging for it. She refuses to bestow it, but returns hatred instead. Again Pe6orin is attempting to tear the romantic illusions from the eyes of his interlocutor; he wants her to take up the contemptuous attitude so characteristic of himself. She will not do so; instead she replies with the melodramatic passion of hatred.

The use of such imagery provides an important key to understanding the work's place in the history of Russian literature. There has been much critical discussion of the relative weight of Romantic and realistic elements in Lermontov's novel. All agree that the work is on the borderline of the two periods and partakes of both to some degree. Boris Ejchenbaum and Lidija Ginzburg have stressed the reflection of the post-Decembrist Russian intelligentsia in the character of Pečorin. Both of them, along with John Mersereau Jr., have noted the way in which Lermontov's novel combines Byronic conventions with the introspective French Romanticism of Constant and others, thus laying the groundwork for the future development of psychological realism. Mersereau stresses Lovelace more than Byron in the delineation of Lermontov's demonism.

Recent Soviet critics have divided more sharply in classifying the work. V. M. Markovic has stressed the psychological determinism which makes the work fundamentally realistic, while K. N. Grigorjan has emphasized the preoccupation with the self (li6nost) which defines the work as lyrical and Romantic. Both critics argue convincingly, but in the final analysis it is impossible to draw a hard and fast boundary between Romanticism and Realism and to decide on which side of that boundary to place A Hero of Our Time. The critic cannot alter the fact that the work straddles that boundary, but he can clarify the way in which it straddles it. By doing so he truly elucidates the work, rather than merely attempting to pigeonhole it. Mersereau, Ginzburg and Ejchenbaum have done this admirably by showing how Lermontov's novel combines the previously separate strains of demonic and introspective Romanticism and by showing how the dispassionate self-analysis became a model for later realistic writing.

The character types outlined by Pečorin's dramatic imagery in "Princess Mary" clarify the nature of this combination. First we have the melodramatic character, the unreflective Grušnickij, playing a Byronic role but unwilling to admit it, a character totally lacking in self-awareness. Over against the unreflective melodramatic character we have a genuine Byronic hero, Pečorin himself, but with a crucial difference. Pečorin has a reflective second self who exposes all of his melodramatic actions to

ridicule. "Comedy" here is not the opposite of melodrama but rather a transformation of it. Pečorin's commedia is melodrama transfigured by self-consciousness, just as Lermontov's "realism" is Romanticism transfigured by self-analysis.

Pečorin stands at the center of a stormy melodramatic plot, but he views that melodrama as comedy. The characters who surround him persist in viewing him as a melodramatic figure. He tries to infect them with comedic outlook; he has partial success with Grušnickij, none at all with Princess Mary. But Pečorin's ironic pose is not altogether consistent, and the lapses are deviations within the system of dramatic imagery already described. He is involved in a subplot as well. It is equally melodramatic, but here he reacts differently. He refers to his affair with Vera as a "dramatic story (..) of love" and with her he sheds his contemptuous attitude.

A long forgotten tremor ran through my veins at the sound of that dear voice …

he tells us, and later:

I did not allow myself a single jest at [her husband].

Their conversation is reminiscent of Italian opera:

Between us began one of those conversations which have no sense on paper, which cannot be repeated, and cannot even be remembered. The meaning of sounds replaces and supplements the meaning of words, as in Italian opera.

There are few art forms more melodramatic than Italian opera, and even the word melodrama suggests a combination of the musical and the dramatic. After receiving her letter, Pečorin suddenly gives free rein to a burst of melodramatic feeling, quite unprecedented for him:

… I prayed, cursed, wept, laughed. (..) No, nothing can express my emotion, my despair. In the face of the possibility of losing Vera forever, she became dearer than anything in the world—dearer than life, honor, happiness!

And later:

For a long time I lay motionless and wept bitterly, making no attempt to restrain my tears and wailing. I thought my heart would burst. All my firmness, all my indifference vanished like smoke. My soul became powerless, my reason fell silent, and if anyone had seen me at that moment, he would have turned away with contempt [prezrenie].

Here the "second Pečorin", the cold-blooded observer, becomes a hypothetical outsider, and he views Pečorin's emotional outburst with the same contempt that Pečorin showers upon others. At the heart of Pečorin's mocking attitude toward the rest of the world lies contempt for himself and the fear that others will share that contempt. Elsewhere he makes this explicit:

I sometimes despise myself … Is not this the source of my contempt for others? …

It is revealing that in the scene immediately following his emotional outburst, perhaps as a gesture of self-punishment, he begs Princess Mary to declare that she despises him.

One of the troublesome questions concerning A Hero of Our Time is the unity of the work. The two shorter sections included in Pečorin's diary, "Taman" and "The Fatalist", are particularly suspect in this regard. They shed little new light on Pečorin's character, and they seem to be simply tossed in for good measure. But perhaps the scheme presented above for "Princess Mary" provides the connecting link. In "Princess Mary" we have a melodramatic plot centered around a character who views that melodrama as farce. In these two shorter stories we find a similar situation, the central figure being, not Pečorin, but Vulič and the strange "water-nymph" of Taman.

Vuličc, a central figure in "The Fatalist", has many traits in common with Pečorin:

He revealed to no one his spiritual or domestic secrets.

A cold and mournful smile, always wandering about his lips (…) [gave] him the aspect of a special being, unable to share the thoughts and passions of those whom fate had given him as comrades.

His only passion is gambling, and his duel with fate is the ultimate gamble for him, a cold-blooded experiment which affords him a good deal of pleasure: "This is better than faro or stoss!" While others are crying out in the extremities of fear or amazement, he is coldly indifferent and even smiling. We are told that "he acquired at that moment some sort of mysterious power over his comrades". This recalls the power Pečorin acquired over the other characters in "Princess Mary":

I have always acquired an invincible power over the hearts and wills of women, without even trying (…) Is this because of the fact that I value nothing (..)

In both cases, then, the power results from the central character's ability to laugh at the drama of which he is the central figure.

In the story "Taman", Peorin meets his match. The unnamed heroine may be the woman of whom he speaks in "Princess Mary": "Once, only once, I loved a woman with a strong will which I could not vanquish". She stands at the center of a whole series of vaguely exotic and potentially tragic goings on, yet she is always laughing and smiling. The following exchange exhibits her unflagging lightheartedness and indifference. Pečorin asks her why she sings:

"Where there are songs, there is happiness also".—"And what if you happen to sing yourself sorrow?"—"So what! If it does not get better it will get worse, but it's not far from bad to good either". (…) "… I've found out something about you!". (Her face did not change; her lips did not move, as though it had nothing to do with her.) "I've found out that you were walking on the shore last night".—And here I quite seriously related to her all that I had seen, thinking it would upset her—not at all! (…) "You've seen much, but you know little" (…) "And what if I should decide, for instance, to inform the commandant?"—and here I took up a very serious, even stern pose. She suddenly hopped off with a song, and disappeared like a bird …

Here Pečorin is the one who takes it all seriously. When she later embraces him, he tells us:

Everything went black before my eyes, my head swam, I grasped her in my embrace with all the strength of youthful passion.

But his strength and passion are useless; she tries to kill him and then runs off with her smuggler. This story is the earliest in the book in actual chronology, and here Pečorin seems not to have fully worked out his ironic pose. But by the end of the story he begins to sound like the Pe6orin we know: "And what, after all, are human joys and sorrows to me, a wandering officer …". The young woman has torn away his illusions, much as he will later tear away those of other characters, by her ability to laugh at the drama of her life, by her view of the world as a great comedy.

The experiences in "Taman", "The Fatalist", and with Vera may be lapses in Pečorin's highly prized equanimity, but they fit into the system of dramatic imagery presented by the work as a whole. They show us the division of Pečorin's character into an analytical self and a melodramatic self, and they show us the attitude of the former toward the latter. Thus they clarify the changes which have been wrought upon conventional Romantic types in Lermontov's novel. Pe6orin's constant introspection and overdeveloped self-consciousness presage the direction Russian realism was to take in the latter half of the century—toward a penetrating analysis of psychological states. N. A. Dobroljubov, in his article on "Oblomovism", sees Pečorin as a fore-runner of Rudin and Oblomov. Dostoevskij's Underground Man, with his morbid self-examination and bitter self-hatred, is in many respects an inverted Pečorin. Pečorin's peculiar combination of Byronic Romanticism with reflective Romanticism provided an important model for later writers in the realistic tradition.