Onegin and Lensky: Do Opposites Really Attract? Jeff Strong

Alexander Pushkin's novel, Eugene Onegin, gives the reader an excellent insight into his thoughts and beliefs regarding different types of human behavior. Throughout the novel Pushkin illustrates many of his own characteristics via the two main male figures, Eugene Onegin and Vladimir Lensky, despite them being quite different from one another. However, an interesting distinction can be made between the ways that he approaches the two characters by comparing two stanzas from the novel. Stanza 45 in chapter 1 describes the hero of the novel, Eugene Onegin, and depicts his disenchantment with life, and with humans in general. This is also an excellent example of Pushkin showing parallels between himself and Onegin, whom Pushkin seems to take very seriously throughout the novel. On the other hand, in stanza 10 in chapter 2, we meet young Vladimir Lensky, described in a much more sarcastic manner. Lensky's appreciation of poetry and nature are obvious here, although Pushkin's tone is clearly mocking the young poet. Despite drawing characteristics of both characters from himself, they are extremely different and the narrator addresses them both in extremely distinctive tones.

The first stanza comes towards the end of the...