Analysis on Minefields in Pakistan

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Recommended: How is fate presented in macbeth

Throughout history, many authors established fate as a prominent motif in various works of literature to help present their purposes. Take for instance Macbeth. In Macbeth, Shakespeare establishes fate as a motif as Macbeth constantly seeks to know his fate, and uses it to help establish his purpose that humans have the free will to choose their actions, unlike Macbeth had. In A Hero of our Time, Mikhail Lermontov uses the motif of fate to examine issues of his society. He first uses fate to explore the flawed character of Pechorin, then compares it to the vices of his society. Ultimately, the flawed characteristics of Pechorin and Lermontov's examination of issues in society, in conjunction with the motif of fate, are utilized to present his purpose. In A Hero of our Time, Mikhail Lermontov uses the motif of fate to demonstrate how the motif represents the stratified Russian society, and how it accentuates the flawed characteristics of Pechorin, such as egocentricity and irresponsibility, in order to help convey his purpose in writing this work.

Lermontov represents various elements within Russian society, such as the absolutist tsarist government and the stratified social structure with fate. Throughout the novel, Pechorin views fate as a higher power. In perspective of Russian society, this higher power is the absolutist government. Lermontov perhaps intended to emphasize the absolutist government through describing fate as "some high object in life" (131). Moreover, the motif of fate represents the highly stratified society of Russia in the 1840s. After the death of Grushnitsky, Pechorin describes himself as being like "a sailor born and bred on the deck of a privateer" (147). The word privateer has a strict connotation imp...

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...use of the fate motif, are akin to the features of the Russian archetype of the superfluous man. Lermontov then probes the flaws in his society through the fate motif. He establishes fate as a representation of his society. Fundamentally, he intermingles the flawed traits of Pechorin and his representation of Russian society with the motif of fate to present his purpose to his audience. He sought to criticize the absolutist government, evident by his analogies of Pechorin's flawed characteristics of his belief in fate to loyalty to the government, and how fate oppresses Pechorin to take malicious actions to how the Tsar exerts absolute rule over his people. In essence, Lermontov uses fate to passively criticize the Tsarist government of that time due to its absolutist regime and to call for his audience of aristocrats to take action by reforming the government.

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