Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

¶ … Alexander Pushkin's work "Eugene (Evgenii) Onegin" could be called a poem, it is most often designated as a novel because of the development of the characters, dialogue and plot. In addition, as the best written novels, the reader is left with many questions at the end and not a total resolution. Each time the literary piece is read, different ideas come to light as well as the way the characters relate to each other and the author, himself. In fact, the novel is even more multifaceted because the narrator/author at times joins the two main male characters in the action.

Briefly, "Eugene Onegin" is love gained/love lost novel. Eugene Onegin, a tired-of-life Petersburg gentleman, visiting his newly inherited estate, somehow becomes the desire of his neighbor's quiet daughter, Tatiana. The latter sends Onegin a love letter, to which he heartlessly responds. Onegin flirts ridiculously with Olga, Tatiana's more brazen sister. Olga's youthful poet fiance Vladimir Lensky, who is an associate of Onegin, challenges Onegin to a duel and is killed. Onegin leaves Petersburg for several years. When returning he once again meets Tatiana, who has become a sophisticated woman and the wife of a well-known society general. Surprisingly, Onegin falls in love with Tatiana, who rejects his desires. She admits to a lingering passion for him and that she would gladly give up her present mundane life immediately, if she did not believe that Onegin cares for her now only because of her place in society.

From the beginning of the novel, Pushkin uses Onegin and Lensky as a means to describe two different individuals found in life. Onegin is a young egotistical "fop," who lives a comfortable life. Yet, despite the fact that most others would envy his life, Onegin is unsatisfied, bored with life. " ... he's seen it all; with looks and fashion he's dreadfully dissatisfied (Chapter 1, XXI)" ... he yawns: "Ballet --they all have richly earned a pension;" he turns away: "I've had enough -- now even Didelot's tedious stuff." His life consists of fashionable clothes and dress, expensive vanity knickknacks and bronzes (Chapter 1, XXIV).

On the other hand, Vladimir Lensky is a young, good-looking poet, "flower of age," and optimistic about his future and what it will bring. "He was too young to have been blighted by the cold world's corrupt finesse; his soul still blossomed out, and lighted at a friend's word, a girl's caress." And "He sweetened up with fancy's icing the uncertainties within his heart; for him, the objective on life's chart was still mysterious and enticing" (Chapter 2, II, VI). It is true, as some critics say, that the characters of Onegin and Lensky are overblown, almost as a parody of themselves. However, this is what endears the readers to them. Are not all humans in reality parodies, as well?

The differences between the two men are clearly seen throughout the novel, especially in the way that they perceive love. Onegin, who is sour on life and himself, cannot accept the love of Tatiana. Whereas Lensky sees love as another one of life's exciting opportunities. Onegin, because of his experiences in life (or, perhaps he was just born this way), is cynical and expects the worst. Lensky, naive and yet to be hurt by the fickleness of life, is still open emotionally and blind.

The comparison of Onegin and Lensky is exemplified well in the ballroom scene and the duel. The first revolves around Onegin's seduction of Olga. Even though Olga is engaged to Lensky, Onegin deceptively decides to steal her from his friend. He whispers ballads, squeezes her hand, makes her face flush with pleasure, and takes her for a turn around the ballroom. Onegin assumes Lensky's romantic character to win Olga, and she is pleased to find a new Romantic hero and to distress her former suitor. After Lensky challenges Onegin to a duel and leaves the ball, Olga becomes tired of Onegin, as he is once again struggling with boredom.

Similarly at the duel the two characters reveal themselves. Dueling advises displaying the identity of two rivals and designs a way of differentiating one. The face-off presents the two competitors as mirror-images of each other, until one stands at the end. Pushkin stresses the symmetrical order of the combatants by recounting how they move the same way to simultaneously fire on one other. When Lensky falls, Pushkin once again notes the loss of youth.

He lay quite still, and strange as dreaming was that calm brow of one who swooned.

Shot through below the chest -- and streaming the blood came smoking from the wound.

A moment earlier, inspiration had filled this heart, and detestation and hope and passion; life had glowed and blood had bubbled as it flowed;

but now the mansion is forsaken;

shutters are up, and all is pale and still within, behind the veil of chalk the window-panes have taken.

Chapter 6, XXXII

It is not difficult to separate Onegin and Lensky, because of their differences. Nor is it a problem recognizing when the narrator of "Eugene Onegin" at times becomes Pushkin by lending autobiographical facts. At other times, he actually spoofs himself by stressing this is a fictional world, so the narrator is Pushkin but as written of by an author -- including both fiction and nonfiction. Regardless, he is interwoven throughout the novel, moving from first-person to third-person narrative, but never completely being divorced from the action. At times, when Pushkin thinks of his own aging, he is Onegin's friend; other times, when he recalls his earlier years, he is a lighthearted support of youth and Lensky. Also, one can sometimes see Pushkin's feelings about the characters, such as Tatayana. In the following stanza, for example, he feels for Onegin:

I was Onegin's friend that season.

I liked his quality, the dream which held him silently subjected, his strangeness, wholly unaffected, his mind, so cold and so precise.

The bitterness was mine -- the ice was his; we'd both drunk passion's chalice:

our lives were flat, and what had fired both hearts to blaze had now expired;

there waited for us both the malice of blind Fortuna and of men in lives that were just dawning then. (Chapter 1, XLV)

Onegin has traits that were characteristic of Pushkin himself. His biography says that in his young years Pushkin passionately attended revelries, balls, masquerades, and the theater and enjoyed many love affairs. The theater attracted him by the beauty of the actresses rather than the performances on stage. The description of Onegin's visits to the theater suggests very much the same attitude. Lensky represents the idealistic part of Pushkin. An admirer of Kant and poet this makes him defenseless in the face of the conventional morals of his milieu and the ambitions of his friend Onegin.