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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Eugene Onegin, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Youth, Regrets, and the Passage of Time
Love, Courtship, and Marriage
Poetry vs. Reality
Russian Identity
Summary
Analysis
Although Eugene feels confined when visiting his deceased uncle’s home, the narrator believes it was a beautiful, tranquil place in the country. His uncle, who used to be a squire, had a palatial home, but by this point, Eugene has become so “jaded” that he can’t even appreciate the house he’s inherited. Eugene takes over the property, which affects the lives of the peasants in the area, who are divided in how they feel about Eugene. As gossip spreads that Eugene is a strange man who drinks too much and doesn’t respect the old ways, the general opinion starts to turn against him.
This story takes place during the time when the system of serfdom was still in place in Russia. This system, which was similar to slavery, means that for many of the peasants in the area, Eugene is not just a neighbor but a master—an authority figure they were legally required to obey. The fact that Eugene was popular in the city but is instantly disliked by the peasants shows how the two groups have different values and how the emptiness of Eugene’s partying lifestyle becomes even more apparent outside his city social circle. It also represents a clashing of two cultures: the European culture of the city, and the traditional Russian culture of the country.
Themes
Meanwhile, another squire, Vladimir Lensky, also decides to return to his estate. Lensky is a free-spirited man with dark hair. He’s about to turn 18. Unlike Eugene, he isn’t depressed and still takes pleasure in friendship and romance, and he feels hopeful about life. Lensky seeks fame as a poet and proudly goes around singing about romance. Many families think that the dashing Lensky should marry their daughters, but he isn’t eager to marry. Instead, he ends up getting to know Eugene. Eugene enjoys Lensky’s passionate way of speaking, even though Eugene himself no longer feels that way.
Although Eugene feels that his life of leisure is empty and unfulfilling, in some ways his goal is not to find a new life purpose but instead to find a way to enjoy his old life again. This is why Lensky is so appealing to him—he embodies the passion and romanticism that Eugene lost with age and wishes to regain. As the novel goes on, it becomes clear that Lensky has his own flaws and doesn’t always live up to his own high ideals, but his potential and his passion for life help Eugene to remember these feelings for himself.
Themes
Eugene and Lensky have long conversations about big topics like good and evil, but their favorite topic is past romances. Lensky goes into great detail about his past affairs. His first love was Olga Larin, whom he played with as a child and whom his parents wanted him to marry at one point. Olga also has an older sister, Tatyana Larin. Tatyana is shier but beautiful in her own way. Unlike Olga, Tatyana rarely joined the other girls in playing outside.
Lensky talks as if he’s an expert on big topics like love, but as it turns out, he is inexperienced and still fixated on his first love, Olga. Although Lensky presents his love for Olga as a passionate love story, it is in fact a conventional match that their parents encourage. This passage thus emphasizes a link between youth, naivety, and idealism. Eugene is charmed by Lensky not because the youth is wise, but because he lives life with an idealism Eugene has lost as he’s grown older and desperately longs to regain.
Themes
Tatyana liked to read fiction, including authors like Samuel Richardson and Jean-Jacques Rosseau. Her father, Dmitry Larin, didn’t read but found it harmless enough. Tatyana’s mother, Dame Larin, identified with Richardson’s stories because when she married her husband, she was in love with someone else, but she ultimately came to be content with her husband. Despite her initial disappointment with her own marriage, Tatyana’s mother eventually took pleasure in running a strict household. In spite of her sometimes-harsh personality, Tatyana’s father loved her a lot.
Samuel Richardson was an English author who wrote popular novels like Pamela and Clarissa. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a French writer a philosopher, whose novel Julie was also widely read. Dame Larin’s identification with Samuel Richardson seems to be a reference to the fact that many of his famous works, including Pamela and Clarissa, involve women forced into relationships with men they don’t love.
Themes
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Dmitry Larin died suddenly while working, and many people mourned his death. Lensky in particular was distraught because it was Larin who had promised Olga in marriage to Lensky. Lensky wrote a mourning poem about him. The narrator laments at how fragile life is, saying that although in some sense it is “worthless,” he would be sad to leave, particularly if he doesn’t earn some measure of fame and have something to leave behind. He hopes that “some future dunce” will look at a portrait of him and say, “This was a poet, yes indeed!”
Dmitry Larin’s death in the middle of the workday reflects the difficult and harshness of his life and his family’s relatively low status. Although Lensky eulogizes Dmitry, his motives are selfish because what he’s really grieving isn’t Larin—it’s his opportunity to marry Olga, which now seems to be in jeopardy. The narrator’s aside about how he wants to achieve fame connects him to Lensky, who also wants to be a poet. Although the narrator is older and more cynical than Lensky, he has a poet’s desire to be remembered for his art, and this shows how while Lensky’s romanticism might sometimes seem naïve, there is also something universal about it.
Themes
