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Ib English Paper

Decent Essays

Nouchee Lor
Mrs. Kottke
IB HL English
11 October 2012
Reflective Statement
“He was of medium height. His shapely, slim figure and broad shoulders gave evidence of a strong constitution, capable of enduring all the hardships of a nomad life and changes of climates, and of resisting with success both the demoralizing effects of life in the Capital and tempests of the soul” (Lermontov pg. 50).
A true man is a man who takes responsibility. He is a man who takes responsibility for himself, his family, his influence, his actions, and his accountability. What do you think defines a true man? If a man takes responsibility for what he does, what he is, and who he is he would not have to blame the society, his …show more content…

His boredom with life, feeling of emptiness, forces him to indulge in all possible pleasures and experiences, which soon, cause the downfall of those closest to him. He starts to realize this with Vera and Grushnitsky, while the tragedy with Bela soon leads to his complete emotional collapse.
Pechorin treats women as a reason for endless conquests and does not consider them worthy of any particular respect. He considers women such as Princess Mary to be little more than pawns in his games of romantic issues, which in effect hold no meaning in his pleasure. This is shown in his comment on Princess Mary: “I often wonder why I’m trying so hard to win the love of a girl I have no desire to seduce and whom I’d never marry.” I believe that Pechorin thinks this way due to the fact that he’s been hurt by his first love, Vera. Vera and Pechorin were deeply in love until she left him because of money issues. From then on, he lost his trust in women. He still had interest in women, but he would not trust them to the point where he would marry them.
Lermontov brings to life and is able to define the Byronic hero by describing him from different angles and framing him with other characters. The reader comes to understand that the hero is a complex entity: his morality is misguided, his motives are inconsistent, he is isolated and he suffers deeply while struggling to understand himself. Though the entire novel is devoted to developing Pechorin as a

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