{"id":800,"date":"2020-03-02T22:29:20","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T22:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/?p=800"},"modified":"2020-03-04T12:43:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T12:43:30","slug":"love-and-in-bela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/lmcnett\/love-and-in-bela\/","title":{"rendered":"Love in “Bela”"},"content":{"rendered":"

While reading the \u201cBela\u201d section of <\/span>A Hero of our Time, <\/span><\/i>I was intrigued by the language used to describe love as well as the impact love had on the characters in the story.\u00a0 When Pechorin first sees Bella, he is \u201ccompletely absorbed\u201d (29). However, despite this strong feeling towards Bella, the way he goes about his feelings is peculiar (along with quite problematic) to the modern reader.\u00a0 The blatantly transactional road to love presented in Pechorin\u2019s deal with Bella\u2019s brother–that Pechorin will help him acquire a horse for \u201cBella in return\u201d completely undercuts Bela\u2019s feelings, emotions, and humanity and is quite objectifying (35).\u00a0 But, it is more complex in terms of what the text is saying about love. Could it be (in a twisted way, albeit) considered romantic? Or does it comment on a larger phenomenon of Russian culture? What is love in Russian culture? \u00a0Passion? Transaction? Does one marry for love or power?<\/span><\/p>\n

However, this idea behind love grows increasingly complex and the narrative continues.\u00a0 When Pechorin first tells Bella that he loves her, she comments that she feels as though she is his \u201cslave\u201d and \u201cprisoner\u201d (40).\u00a0 While women being in unhappy, oppressive relationships is, unfortunately, common throughout life and literature, the fact that Lermontov emphasizes Pechorin\u2019s love of Bela is fascinating.\u00a0 That despite <\/span>being <\/span><\/i>loved, Bella does not reciprocate those feelings, at first at least.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But, as seems usual in Russian literature, happiness does not reign for long.\u00a0 Soon after Bela is able to love Pechorin back, she is killed, resulting in Pechorin\u2019s later depressed, ill state the story ends with.\u00a0 All of the heartbreak and tragedy experienced at the end of the story can be traced by Pechorin’s love for Bela and his desire for her to love him too.\u00a0 However, that love results in death and depression–the exact opposite of love. Perhaps \u201cBela\u201d can be considered a precautionary tale of the danger of love, as love in the story lead to anything but in the long run. \u00a0 \u00a0Is falling in love something to look towards or something to fear in Russian culture?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While reading the \u201cBela\u201d section of A Hero of our Time, I was intrigued by the language used to describe love as well as the impact love had on the characters in the story.\u00a0 When Pechorin first sees Bella, he is \u201ccompletely absorbed\u201d (29). However, despite this strong feeling towards Bella, the way he goes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unit-7-romanticism-and-folk-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}