“Eugene Onegin” is the first realistic novel in Russian literature, in which “the century is reflected and modern man is depicted quite correctly.” A. S. Pushkin worked on the novel from 1823 to 1831. “Now I’m not writing a novel, but a novel in verse - a devilish difference,” he wrote in a letter to P. Vyazemsky. “Eugene Onegin” is a lyric-epic work in which both principles appear as equal. The author freely moves from the plot narrative to lyrical digressions that interrupt the flow of the “free novel”.
What makes this novel unique is that the breadth of reality, the multiplicity of plots, the description of the distinctive features of the era, its color acquired such significance and authenticity that the novel became an encyclopedia of Russian life of the 20s of the last century. By reading the novel, we, as in an encyclopedia, can learn everything about that era: how they dressed and what was in fashion (Onegin’s “wide bolivar” and Tatiana’s crimson beret), the menu of prestigious restaurants, what was shown in the theater (Didelot’s ballets).
Throughout the action of the novel and in lyrical digressions, the poet shows all layers of Russian society of that time: the high society of St. Petersburg, noble Moscow, the local nobility, the peasantry. This allows us to talk about “Eugene Onegin” as a truly folk work. Petersburg at that time gathered the best minds in Russia. Fonvizin “shone there”, people of art - Knyazhin, Istomina. The author knew and loved St. Petersburg well, he is accurate in his descriptions, not forgetting either the “salt of secular anger” or “the necessary impudence.” Through the eyes of a capital resident, Moscow is also shown to us - the “bride fair”. Describing the Moscow nobility, Pushkin is often sarcastic: in the living rooms he notices “incoherent, vulgar nonsense.” But at the same time, the poet loves Moscow, the heart of Russia: “Moscow... how much has merged in this sound for the Russian heart” (it should be doubly pleasant for a Muscovite to read such lines).
The image of Eugene Onegin is another feature of the novel. It opens up a whole gallery of “extra people.” Following Pushkin, the images of Pechorin, Oblomov, Rudin, and Laevsky were created. All these images are an artistic reflection of Russian reality.
“Eugene Onegin” is a realistic novel in verse, since it presented the reader with truly living images of Russian people of the early 19th century. The novel provides a broad artistic generalization of the main trends in Russian social development. One can say about the novel in the words of the poet himself - this is a work in which “the century and modern man are reflected.” V. G. Belinsky called Pushkin’s novel “The Encyclopedia of Russian Life.”
In this novel, as in an encyclopedia, you can learn everything about the era, about the culture of that time: about how they dressed and what was in fashion (“wide bolivar”, tailcoat, Onegin’s vest, Tatiana’s crimson beret), menus of prestigious restaurants (“ bloody steak”, cheese, fizzy ai, champagne, Strasbourg pie), what was on in the theater (Diderot’s ballets), who performed (dancer Istomina). You can even create the exact daily routine of a young man. No wonder P. A. Pletnev, a friend of Pushkin, wrote about the first chapter of “Eugene Onegin”: “Your Onegin will be a pocket mirror of Russian youth.”
Throughout the action of the novel and in lyrical digressions, the poet shows all layers of Russian society of that time: the high society of St. Petersburg, noble Moscow, the local nobility, the peasantry - that is, the whole people. This allows us to talk about “Eugene Onegin” as a truly folk work.
Petersburg at that time was the habitat of the best people in Russia - the Decembrists, writers. There “shone Fonvizin, a friend of freedom,” people of art - Knyazhnin, Istomina. The author knew and loved St. Petersburg well, he is precise in his descriptions, not forgetting “the salt of secular anger,” “nor the necessary fools,” “starched impudents,” and the like.
Through the eyes of a capital resident, Moscow is shown to us - the “bride fair”. Moscow is provincial, somewhat patriarchal. Describing the Moscow nobility, Pushkin is often sarcastic: in the living rooms he notices “incoherent vulgar nonsense.” But at the same time, the poet loves Moscow, the heart of Russia: “Moscow... How much has merged in this sound for the Russian heart.” He is proud of Moscow in 12: “In vain did Napoleon, intoxicated with his last happiness, wait for Moscow on its knees with the keys of the old Kremlin.”
The poet's contemporary Russia is rural, and he emphasizes this with a play on words in the epigraph to the second chapter. This is probably why the gallery of characters from the landed nobility in the novel is the most representative. Let's try to consider the main types of landowners shown by Pushkin. As a comparison immediately suggests itself with another great study of Russian life of the 19th century - Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”.
Handsome Lensky, “with a soul straight from Gottingham,” a romantic of the German type, “an admirer of Kant,” if he had not died in a duel, could, in the author’s opinion, have the future of a great poet, or in twenty years turn into a kind of Manilov and end his life as old Larin or Uncle Onegin.
The tenth chapter of Onegin is entirely devoted to the Decembrists. Pushkin unites himself with the Decembrists Lunin and Yakushkin, foreseeing “in this crowd of nobles the liberators of the peasants.” The appearance of Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” had a huge impact on the further development of Russian literature. The soulful lyricism inherent in the novel became an integral feature of “The Noble Nest”, “War and Peace”, “The Cherry Orchard”. It is also important that the main character of the novel, as it were, opens a whole gallery of “superfluous people” in Russian literature: Pechorin, Rudin, Oblomov.
It should also be noted that an important compositional feature of the novel is the openness of the ending. There is no clear certainty in the outcome of both the first and, partly, the second storylines. Thus, the author suggests two possible paths for Lensky if he had remained alive and not been killed in a duel:
Perhaps he is for the good of the world
Or at least he was born for glory...
Or maybe even that: a poet
The ordinary one was waiting for his fate...
The author leaves Onegin at the most difficult moment for him, after an explanation with Tatyana:In a moment that is evil for him,
Reader, we will now leave,
For a long time... forever.
In addition to the unusual ending, one can note the way the novel “Eugene Onegin” is structured. The main principle of its organization is symmetry and parallelism.The author's compositional intent clearly appears in the combination of images in the novel. The disappointed metropolitan dandy Onegin and the dreamy “district young lady” Tatyana, the skeptic Onegin and the romantic Lensky - such an antithesis of characters inevitably entailed a clash of heroes and a tragic denouement. The clash of characters is complicated in the novel by the deepest conflict between the characters and reality.
Lensky dies, Onegin does not find happiness in life, Tatyana is left with a broken heart. Thus, the depth of the author’s ideological plan was embodied in the combination of images in the novel.
The everyday background, plot and combination of images are the thematic composition of the novel. As for the novel's architectonics, it is extremely unique. The peculiarity of the compositional structure of “Eugene Onegin” is that it is a “free novel”, “a collection of colorful chapters”, as defined by Pushkin himself. The compositional “freedom” and flexibility of the novel “Eugene Onegin” were expressed in numerous deviations from the epic narrative line.
Narrative material takes up only about a third of the novel. The outline of the narrative is constantly interrupted by various digressions: lyrical statements of the author, descriptions of nature, pictures of everyday life, characteristics of the characters - either individual or group.
Among these digressions, usually closely intertwined with the outline of the narrative, a particularly large place (more than a quarter of the text of the novel) is occupied by the so-called lyrical digressions. These include 27, significant in volume, statements by the author and about 50 small comments and insertions, often expressed in one or two phrases (“I once walked there, but the north is harmful to me”; “A habit has been given to us from above - it is a substitute for happiness”; “The reader is already waiting for the rhyme of the rose; here, take it quickly!”, etc.).
The themes of major lyrical digressions in the novel are very diverse. These include:
I sing to my young friend
And many of his quirks.
Bless my long work,
O you epic muse!
And, handing me the faithful staff,
Don't let me wander at random and crookedly.
Enough. Down with the burden!
I salute classicism:
Even though it’s late, there’s an introduction.
Here is an ironic characterization of romanticism:
So he wrote darkly and languidly
(What we call romanticism,
Although there is no romanticism here
I don't see; what's in it for us?)
Here is a description of the poet’s muse, depicted in the image of Tatiana:
And here she is in my garden
She appeared as a district young lady,
With a sad thought in my eyes,
With a French book in hand.
The role of lyrical digressions in the novel “Eugene Onegin” is very important. Firstly, they directly include the author in the flow of events depicted. Pushkin appears in the novel not just as a narrator, but as a participant in events, writing his own biography.
We learn from the novel about the poet’s lyceum years (“In those days when in the gardens of Picea”), and about his exile (“But the north is harmful to me”), and about plans to escape abroad (“Will the hour of my freedom come? "), and about his love for village life ("I was born for a peaceful life"), etc. All these autobiographical remarks of the poet captivate with their sincerity and frankness.
Another significance of the author's digressions in the novel is that they provide the author's excellent lyrical commentary on events. In them one can feel the living social thought of the poet, one can hear the beating of his heart. This is the result of his life experience, the fruit of “a mind of cold observations and a heart of sorrowful observations.” Finally, numerous lyrical digressions in the novel give the narrative the character of a casual conversation between the author and the reader.
The realistic, everyday background of the novel is greatly enlivened by excellent descriptions of nature. We find in the work a landscape of all seasons: winter, autumn, spring, summer. The peculiarity of Pushkin's landscape lies in the expressiveness and precision of its colors. The Russian winter with its deep snows, with its “trees in winter silver” is especially well presented in the novel.
A feature of the novel's architectonics is the missing stanzas. How can we explain the absence of these stanzas? In most cases, they indicate the omission of such details (“transitional places”) in the presentation of events, the absence of which could not affect the clarity of the characteristics and narrative line of the novel.
Thus, in the stanzas of the first chapter, the description of the mental process that led Onegin to escape from secular society is omitted. In other cases, Roman numerals indicate stanzas that were in the first edition but were released by the poet himself in the second edition of the novel.
Pushkin created his novel for many years, periodically publishing individual chapters. At first glance, the narrative appears to be chaotic. Critics of those years considered the work lacking integrity. The author himself does not hide the fact that his work lacks a plan, so contradictions are inevitable. He defines his work as a collection of colorful chapters.
Taking a closer look at the novel, it becomes clear that this is a deeply holistic work, characterized by harmony and completeness.
The novel has a plot that is simple to the point of banality. It traces two lines of relationship between the main character Onegin: with Tatyana and with Lensky. The work does not have the usual ending. The author does not lead the hero either to death or to marriage. He leaves him in a difficult moment. The lack of an ending turns the plot into a real story. Understatement is one of Pushkin’s techniques, according to which emptiness has a deep meaning and cannot be expressed in words.
To construct the composition of the novel, Pushkin chose the method of symmetry, according to which the characters must change the positions they occupy in the work. Tatyana meets Evgeny, unrequited love breaks out, accompanied by suffering. The author follows the heroine’s experiences and sympathizes with her. Following a harsh conversation with Onegin, a duel with Lensky occurs, which became the denouement of one direction of the plot and allowed a new one to develop.
The next time Tatyana meets Evgeny, he changes places with her, and everything that happened is repeated. But now the author is going through everything with Onegin. This circular technique makes it possible to look back again, which leaves the reading feeling of coherence.
The ring composition shows the crisis of the hero's soul. He managed to change by looking at the world through Tatyana's eyes. In the last chapter, he emerges from seclusion almost like a poet, reading with “spiritual eyes.”
A return to the past makes it possible to observe Tatyana’s evolution, her maturation and acquisition of unshakable endurance. At the same time, the poverty of her character does not change. The new Tatyana still does not understand Evgeniy. In the past, she associated her beloved with literary images to which he did not correspond. Now Tatyana does not believe the truthfulness and importance of his experiences.
It is obvious that the work is built on a combination of spontaneity of presentation, diversity of images, natural continuation of the theme and extraordinary harmony, which made the novel complete. The author brought his work closer to life, making it just as unique and original.
The work is in the form of a free novel, the central figure of which is the narrator, who builds the relationships of the characters, and also talks with readers invited to the role of direct witnesses to the events taking place.
The poet chooses a novel in verse as the genre of the work, which makes it possible to reveal the dynamic development of the characters' characters, which is impossible in a romantic poem, where the hero is presented in a static state.
The novel is written in the form of a fully formed, holistic, closed, finished work of art, expressed in a compositional structure that combines lyrical and epic literary principles.
The compositional core of the work is the bright poetic look of the novel, as well as the use of the author's image. The use of poetic form in a novel determines the features of the plot line and compositional structure, which combines the constructive principles of prose and poetry. In the novel, the poet uses his new invention in the form of the Onegin stanza, which is a modification of the sonnet structure, representing iambic tetrameter of fourteen lines in a special rhyme scheme: cross, pair and encircling.
A distinctive feature of the compositional structure of the work is its symmetry, manifested in the central event of the novel, the dream of the main character, as well as territorial isolation, expressed by the beginning of the action in St. Petersburg and the end in the same place.
The plot line of the novel is presented in two expressions: a love line and a friendship line, while the love plot is a mirror one, since in the finale of the work the main character Tatyana changes the role of a person tormented by unrequited love with the main character Onegin. The use of mirror-inverted symmetry is reinforced by the author through the demonstration of intentional textual coincidences and proportionality of parts that make up the architectural precision of the novel's drawings and perform clear expressive functions.
In order to more deeply reveal the composition of the novel, the poet uses an artistic technique in the form of landscape sketches, which makes it possible to demonstrate the distinctiveness of the characters, the brightness of their experiences, as well as the opposite attitude of Onegin and Tatyana to various social and natural phenomena. Throughout the narrative, the readers are exposed to manifestations of all seasons: sad summer noise, naked autumn forests, frosty winter, blooming spring.
The poetic novel exhibits organic integrity and unity, filling it with real life content. In the images of the main characters of the work, generalized, typified characters are presented, allowing the poet to build a plot using the relationships between the main characters Onegin and Tatyana, Olga and Lensky.
The compositional units of the work are eight chapters, each of which describes a new plot event, while the first chapter sets out an exposition telling about Onegin, the second begins the beginning of the relationship between Onegin and Lensky, the third chapter is devoted to Tatyana’s feelings for Onegin, the fourth and fifth chapters describe main events, and from the sixth the climax increases, leading in the subsequent seventh and eighth chapters to the finale of the storylines between Onegin and Lensky and, accordingly, Onegin and Tatyana.
A striking feature of the novel is the author’s use of architectonics in the form of omitted stanzas, which indicate transitional places in the narrative that do not affect the storyline of the work.
The unique compositional structure of the novel, expressed in poetic freedom and flexibility, gives the work the author's genius in the narrative material, and the diversity of the collection of chapters brings unique freshness and a sense of touching the sublime and beautiful.
Plot and features of the work
People who purposefully go towards their goal, for whom there are no barriers to what they strive for, are very dangerous, because for them the motto and credo in life is “The end justifies the means.”
Kutuzov always spoke about the Russian soldiers of the Battle of Borodino as brave, courageous and loyal defenders of their country, their family. I can say that it is precisely these main qualities of soldiers that are the main victorious force of our army.
A special place in the works of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is occupied by the image of a man endowed with such qualities as excessive respect for rank, cowardice and helpfulness to a wealthy person. The theme of inequality between people of different social statuses is developing
Fedulova Ilona, student of class 9 A, MBOU Secondary School No. 37, Khabarovsk
A.S. Pushkin used the technique of mirror composition in the novel “Eugene Onegin”.
The mirror composition reveals to the reader the spiritual evolution of Onegin and Tatiana.
At the beginning of the novel, Tatyana is in love with Onegin and suffers from unrequited love, and the author sympathizes with Tatyana, sympathizes and empathizes with his heroine. And then, at the end of the novel, Onegin unexpectedly falls in love with Tatyana, when she has already married someone else, and all events are repeated in the same sequence, only now the author is next to Onegin.
Two letters: Tatiana's letter to Onegin and Onegin's to Tatiana are also examples of mirror symmetry.
Another example of a mirror composition is Tatiana's dream and Tatiana's marriage. In a dream, Tatyana saw a bear, symbolizing her future husband.
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Roman A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” mirror composition
Mirror construction of the novel Tatyana writes a letter to Onegin Onegin writes a letter to Tatyana Two letters
Onegin's explanation with Tatiana on the alley. Onegin is not yet in love with Tatyana Onegin confesses his love to Tatyana when she has already married someone else
Friendship of Onegin and Lensky Duel of Onegin and Lensky
Onegin's life in high society Onegin's life in the village
Tatyana's dream Tatyana's marriage
Mirror construction of the novel Eugene Onegin
A.S. Pushkin used the technique of mirror composition in the novel “Eugene Onegin”.
The mirror composition reveals to the reader the spiritual evolution of Onegin and Tatiana.
At the beginning of the novel, Tatyana is in love with Onegin and suffers from unrequited love, and throughout this period the author seems to be on Tatyana’s side, sympathizes and mentally empathizes with his heroine. And then at the end of the novel, Onegin unexpectedly falls in love with Tatyana, when she has already married someone else, and all the events are repeated in the same sequence, only now the author is next to Onegin.
Two letters: Tatiana's letter to Onegin, and Onegin's to Tatiana, are also examples of mirror symmetry.
Also another example of a mirror composition is Tatiana’s dream and Tatiana’s marriage. In a dream, Tatyana saw a bear symbolizing her future husband.
The theme of the novel “Eugene Onegin” (1831) is a depiction of Russian life in the first quarter of the 19th century. V.G. Belinsky called this work “an encyclopedia of Russian life” (V.G. Belinsky “Works of A. Pushkin”, article 9), because Pushkin in his novel “knew how to touch on so much, hint about so much that belongs exclusively to the world of Russian nature, to the world of Russian society” (ibid.). The idea of “Eugene Onegin” is to evaluate the type of modern young man common in noble society, who cannot find a worthy application for his abilities in the life around him, since the life goals familiar to the noble circle do not suit him, they seem unworthy and petty. For this reason, such young people find themselves “superfluous” in society.
The plot of the novel is based on the love story of Evgeny Onegin and Tatyana Larina. Consequently, the plot of the plot will be their first meeting in the Larins’ house, where Onegin ends up by chance: he wanted to look at Olga, Lensky’s “object of love”. Moreover, the very scene of the first meeting of the main characters is not described in the novel: Onegin and Lensky talk about it, returning home from guests. From their conversation it is clear the impression that Tatyana made on the title character. Of the two sisters, he singled out Tatyana, noting the unusualness of her appearance and the mediocrity of Olga:
Olga has no life in her features.
Exactly like Vandice's Madonna.
She's round and red-faced... (3, V)
Tatyana fell in love with Onegin at first sight, as she admitted in her letter:
You barely walked in, I instantly recognized
Everything was stupefied, on fire
And in my thoughts I said: here he is! (3, XXXI)
The first meeting of Onegin and Tatyana occurs in the third chapter. This means that the first two chapters of the novel are an exposition of the plot, where the author talks in detail about the two main characters: their parents, relatives, teachers, their favorite activities, characters, habits. The climax of the plot is the explanation between Onegin and Tatyana in the garden, when the hero indifferently refuses the love of an extraordinary girl, and Tatyana loses all hopes of happiness. Later, having gained rich experience in the “whirlwind” of social life, the heroine realized that Eugene treated her nobly, and appreciated this act:
But you
I don't blame; at that terrible hour
You acted nobly
You were right with me. (8, ХLIII)
The second climax is the explanation of the main characters in St. Petersburg several years after the first. Now Tatyana, a brilliant society lady, continuing to love Onegin, refuses to respond to his fiery passion and scandalous proposal, and now Onegin, in turn, loses hope for happiness.
In addition to the main storyline - the love story of Onegin and Tatyana - Pushkin develops a side storyline - the story of the friendship of Onegin and Lensky. There is a plot here: two young educated noblemen, finding themselves in the wilderness of the village, quickly become acquainted, as Lensky
With Onegin I wished cordially
Let's make the acquaintance shorter.
They got along. (2, XIII)
The plot scheme of the friendship story can be built like this: the climax is Onegin’s behavior at Tatyana’s name day (his flirtation with Olga), the denouement is the duel of friends and the death of Lensky. The last event is at the same time a culmination, as it made Onegin, it seems for the first time in his life, “shudder” (6, XXXV).
The novel contains another side storyline - the love story of Lensky and Olga. In it, the author omits the plot, only mentioning in passing that a tender feeling was born in the hearts of young people a long time ago:
A little boy, captivated by Olga,
Having not yet known heartache,
He was a touched witness
Her infantile fun... (2, XXXI)
The culmination of this love story is the ball at Tatiana's name day, when Olga's character is fully revealed: a vain, proud and empty coquette, she does not understand that she is offending her groom with her behavior. Lensky's death unleashes not only the friendship storyline, but also the story of his short love.
From all that has been said above, it is clear that both the main and secondary storylines are constructed quite simply, but the composition of the novel itself is extremely complex.
Analyzing the main storyline, several features should be noted. The first of them is a rather lengthy exposition: it consists of two chapters out of eight. Why does Pushkin describe in such detail the development of the characters of the main characters - Onegin and Tatyana? It can be assumed that the actions of both heroes were understandable to readers, in order to most fully express the idea of the novel - the image of an intelligent but useless person who is wasting his life.
The second feature is that the main storyline has no resolution. After all, after the final stormy explanation with Onegin, Tatyana leaves her room, and the hero remains in place, shocked by her words. So
Spurs suddenly rang out,
And Tatyana’s husband showed up... (8, ХLVIII)
Thus, the action ends mid-sentence: the husband finds Onegin at an inopportune hour in his wife’s room. What might he think? How will the plot turn next? Pushkin does not explain anything, but states:
And here is my hero
In a moment that is evil for him,
Reader, we will now leave,
For a long time... forever. (8, ХLVIII)
Contemporaries often reproached the author for such an ending and considered the lack of a definite outcome a disadvantage. Pushkin responded to this criticism in a humorous passage “In my autumn leisure time...” (1835):
What you say is true
Which is strange, even discourteous
Don't stop interrupting the romance,
Having already sent it to print,
What should your hero
Anyway, get married,
At least kill...
From the above lines it follows that Pushkin’s decision to interrupt the affair was quite conscious. What does such an unusual ending provide for understanding the content of the work?
Onegin's husband, relative and friend, seeing the hero in his wife's room, can challenge him to a duel, and Onegin already had a duel that turned his whole life upside down. In other words, Onegin literally finds himself in a vicious circle of events; not only his love story is built on the principle of “mirror reflection” (G.A. Gukovsky), but also his relationships with friends. The novel has no end, that is, it is built according to a circular composition: the action begins and ends in St. Petersburg, in the spring, the hero never finds love, and once again neglects friendship (caring for his friend’s wife). This compositional structure successfully corresponds to the main idea of the novel: to show the hopeless, worthless life of the title character, who himself suffers from his uselessness, but cannot get out of the vicious circle of an empty life and find himself a serious occupation. V.G. Belinsky completely agreed with this end of the novel, asking the question: “What happened to Onegin later?” And he himself answers: “We don’t know, and why should we know this when we know that the powers of this rich nature are left without application, life without meaning, and the novel without end?” (V.G. Belinsky “Works of A. Pushkin”, article 8).
The third feature of the composition is the presence of several plot lines in the novel. The love story of Lensky and Olga gives the author the opportunity to compare the main characters with the secondary ones. Tatyana knows how to love “in earnest” (3, XXV), and Olga quickly consoled herself after Lensky’s death and married a lancer. The disappointed Onegin is depicted next to the dreamy, loving Lensky, who has not yet lost interest in life.
All three storylines are successfully intertwined: the climax-denouement in the story of friendship (duel) becomes at the same time the denouement in the love story of the young poet and Olga. Thus, in three storylines there are only two beginnings (in the main and in the friendship story), three climaxes (two in the main and one (ball) for two side) and one denouement (the same in the side storylines).
The fourth feature of the composition is the presence of inserted episodes that are not directly related to the development of the plot: Tatyana’s dream, Lensky’s poems, the girls’ song and, of course, numerous lyrical digressions. These episodes further complicate the composition, but do not drag out the action of the novel too much. It should be especially noted that lyrical digressions are the most important component of the work, because it is thanks to them that the novel creates the broadest picture of Russian life of the specified historical period and the image of the author, the third main character of the novel, is formed.
To summarize, we note that the novel “Eugene Onegin” in the history of Russian literature was innovative both from the point of view of describing life (a realistic depiction of reality) and from the point of view of creating the character of the title character (the image of Pushkin’s contemporary, the “superfluous man”). The deep ideological content was expressed in an original form: Pushkin used a ring composition, a “mirror reflection” - repetition of the main plot episodes, and omitted the final denouement. In other words, the result is a “free novel” (8, L), in which several plot lines are skillfully intertwined and there are digressions of various types (inserted episodes more or less closely related to the plot; humorous and serious discussions of the author about everything in the world).
The construction of “Eugene Onegin” cannot be called logically flawless. This applies not only to the lack of a formal resolution in the novel. Strictly speaking, several years must pass between the events described in the seventh and eighth chapters until Tatyana turns from a provincial young lady into a society lady. Initially, Pushkin decided to fill these few years with Onegin’s travels around Russia (chapter “Onegin’s Travels”), but later placed them in an appendix to the novel, as a result of which the logic of the plot was broken. Both friends and critics pointed out this formal shortcoming to the author, but Pushkin ignored these comments:
There are a lot of contradictions
But I don’t want to fix them. (1, LX)
The author very accurately called his work “a collection of motley chapters” (introduction): it reflected real life, organized not according to the strict laws of logic, but rather according to the theory of probability. However, the novel, following real life, has lost neither dynamism, nor artistic integrity, nor completeness.
