Pechorin – Bela’s irresistible beauty arouses me. Her big soul gazing eyes gleam with somewhat of a phosphate glitter. However, I was not the only one with my eyes fixed on Bela. Kazbich’s fiery eyes never failed to deter away from the sight of Bela. I will have her. Perhaps an exchange of a noble Stallion to the father of this beauty will suffice…
Princess Mary
Pechorin – I have seemingly become infatuated with the Princess Mary. Only to my demise, Grushnitski has made it apparent to present himself as my opposing contender for heroine in the eyes of the Princess. However he is impendent in comparison to me. I will win over the Princess and challenge the ignorant bastard Grushnitski to a duel!
However more importantly, Vera has returned to me. It must be sign should it not? My love for her has since never faded. My first meeting with Vera left me on cloud 9. For some odd reason the love I felt for this woman was much reminiscent to the love I express for my horses. I love to gallop through the tall grass on a lively horse, against the wind of the wilderness.
There was one other young girl I met who had a lot of breeding…and breeding in women, as in horses, is a great thing.
Analysis of facebook status updates
Book opens with Bela. Scene between Kazbich and his horse, Karagyoz.
Six slow moving oxen replaced by fresh team of horses. Shows the significance and respect to the horse from male characters.
“Suspicious of high morality” evokes a sense of uneasiness with little security and importance of these horses to the male race.
Bela the daughter of the chief is introduced. Sparks conflict between Pechorin and Kazbich.
Bela is described very closely to a horses description. Maxim compares Karagyoz with Bela beautiful eyes.
They also note the blackness of her eyes te significance ‘black eyes’ is the literal translation of Karagyoz’s name. They’re said to resemble that of a “regular gazelle”. Azamat describes his dream horse as one would describe a loved woman. Lermentov effectively interweaves woman vs. equine theme into the penultimate moments in ‘Bela’.
During the initial sections of HOOT - The juxtaposition of women and horses turns into a contest where the horses generally tend to win. In Bela, Pechorin’s attraction towards Bela is implicitly paired alongside Azamat’s description of Karagyoz.
Azamat eventually trades Bela, his sister, for Karagyoz. Kazbich responds with an open explicit song mentioning “Gold will buy four wives” and “a fiery steed is beyond price”. “gold will buy four wives” in Russian translates to “золото купит четыре жены” which is grammatically wrong as it refers to ‘wives’ as inanimate objects. From this the audience gains insight into what the male characters truly perceive women as in HOOT - -their horses are perceived as animate objects whereas women are objectified.
The encounter with Vera leaves Pechorin reevaluating his attitude towards woman. Recall that Kasbich stole Bela’s father’s steed as an act of vengeance and Pechorin and Maxim went after to overpower him. However Kasbich remains disappointed in the steed - “whether Kasbich’s horse was worn out…”.
When Pechorin returns from the duel with Grushnitski, he too is “worn out, on a worn out horse”. After proceeding to read Vera’s letter, his thoughts centralized onto nothing but her. With the possibility of losing her, Pechorin towards Pyatigorsk. However his horse soon dies due to extreme fatigue and leaves Pechorin in deep depression. Once he realizes that he may have lost Vera forever, Pechorin comes to seemingly realize that convention that woman are valued. This further illustrates the prominent theme of woman vs. equine after.
However Pechorin remains the nihilistic character that is present in the start of the novel, at the end. This may have been due to the chronological order of the book. If princess mary had the final chapter of the book, the novel would conclude with Pechorin realized stuff!!
All these events that occur in the book to some extent, help depict Lermentovs views and standpoints in life. Women are more objectified within the novel, evoking the hatred Lermentov ceased for women due to the bumps in the road Lermentov faced with women. Steeds, or horses, are prized valuable possessions throughout the novel. Lermentov lived in a period where a power struggle of the men of the 1830s in Russia was evident. Little individualism/ expressionism could be apparent in Russia’s society and this frustrated Lermentov. The horses may have represented Lermentoves fixed sensation on the freedom to express his works and so forth. However, as the coveted steed karagyoz is coincidently his rivals horse, the idea that Pechorin, or Lermentov suggests that the freedom to express will practically be rendered impossible to achieve just as Karagyoz is equally as hard to do so.
by
sachin3005 (student)
