Two Heroes in the Cossacks and Hero of Our Times

Two novels illustrate the role of a hero in different ways, as this paper will explain. Both are about Russian gentlemen who find themselves in the Caucasus Mountain area of Russia in the 1800's, but who live the experience quite differently and see life in opposite ways. In the first, the "hero" is not an admirable character, but he is the main character in the stories that make up the novel. In the second, the "hero" is a selfless young man who wants to help people in order to find happiness.

A Hero of Our Times

The main character in this novel is a Russian man named Grigori Pechorin

who was bored with his life in Moscow and decided to travel to the Caucasus Mountains when he was sent to the area as part of his military duty. The novel consists of several separate stories that all feature Pechorin as the main character, and the reader learns that he had a very self-centered outlook on life. He admitted that he was bored with his existence and that he liked to steal women away from other men just to prove that he could do it, but with no intention of actually falling in love. While he was in the Caucasus he spent most of his time with a traveling companion, another Russian, named Maksim Maksimich, and socialized with Russian society members who were in the area for vacations.

In the story entitled "Princess Mary", Pechorin killed her beloved Grushnitsky in a duel when he easily could have won the honor of letting the man live. In "Bela", Pechorin decided to take a girl away from a Cossack warrior even though he had no thought of loving the girl, and he did it in a very underhanded manner. Basically he made a deal with the girl's brother to kidnap her and bring her to Pechorin in return for Pechorin's getting the warrior's horse for the brother. Cossack men love their horses and pride themselves on their horsemanship skills, so this was the cruelest way to hurt this man, but Pechorin did not care about anyone's feelings but his own.

He also showed himself to be a very shallow friend to Maksim. They had traveled together through the mountains and talked of many things, but when they met again after a long time apart, Pechorin did not even want to spend an evening talking to his old friend. He had to be on his way to his next adventure in Persia, leaving Maksim feeling betrayed and used. Pechorin considered the Cossacks and the Chechens to be beneath him in their customs and their education and their lifestyles; the only thing he admired about them was their bravery as warriors and their horsemanship skills.

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