Lermontov's Paradox: An Analysis of Pechorin Anonymous College

In Mikhail Lermontov's novel A Hero of Our Time, the author brings out the irony surrounding various characters with Pechorin being at the center stage. The portrayal of Pechorin is viewed in the book as an exemplary Byronic anti-hero and Lermontov describes him as a typical man of his age. The author creates a hero who is both cynical and intelligent, who is honest but violent, not alive in an absolute meaning of this world, but also not dead yet, at least, not physical. In other words, Pechorin is a complex character full of contradictions. However, it is precisely with these contradictions that he appears as a human being whose life is a fight for the meaning. Pechorin is a very existential character. He understands his life as a senseless event. He wants to love women, but he spent life without giving them respect, and only taking love from them never giving anything back.

In one stage of the book, Pechorin clearly states that he does not know what he lives for, and this feeling of pointlessness is a source of his inner personal melancholia. Pechorin is doomed to die from the beginning because living a life of sensual pleasure and cynical self-reflection never actually experiencing a feeling of real unity with someone, and...