45 pages • 1 hour read
Alexander PushkinEugene Onegin
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1832A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
The narrator laments how “love’s high art” (4.7.6) turns people cold and manipulative. Onegin has long been skilled in such games, but he has grown to despise the way love works. Despite this, he can admit to himself that Tatyana’s letter has “profoundly stirred” (4.11.2) him. Meeting Tatyana on the garden path, Onegin releases his pent-up frustrations. He rejects her advances, dismissing the young woman as naive. He rejects the entire institution of marriage, claiming that it is unpleasant, restrictive, and dull. Though he does admire Tatyana, he believes that he is “not worthy” (4.14.4) of her. Tatyana is deeply upset. She becomes “wan and sickly” (4.24.3).
In contrast, Lensky is deeply in love with Olga. He writes poems for her, writing them out in her album. Such albums, the narrator explains, are just another social convention that seems disingenuous to most people. Lensky’s proclamations are sincere as “his pen breathes love” (4.31.3). However, Olga never reads his love poems. Onegin returns to his estate and lapses into an idle lifestyle. The snow falls outside, making the world even colder and more “somber” (4.40.13). Lensky breaks Onegin’s boredom by visiting one evening. As they drink together, Lensky invites Onegin to “Tatyana’s name day celebration” (4.49.1). He assures Onegin that the gathering will just be limited to the nearest family members. The narrator takes a moment to reflect on Lensky’s lack of awareness with regard to marriage and love.
Chapter 5 Summary
Winter arrives in the countryside. In accordance with local traditions, Olga and Tatyana play parlor games with their maids. These games predict when and who they will marry. Tatyana is particularly invested in the games, even planning a spiritual conjuring session to answer her many questions. Before she can carry out the ritual, however, she is filled with “dark forebodings” (5.6.13) and abandons the idea. That same night, she has a terrible nightmare. While crossing a snow-covered field, she is attacked by a “huge and matted bear” (5.12.7). She runs away and the bear chases her. The bear catches her and takes her to a hut. Inside, a group of people is celebrating Christmas. She peers through a crack in a door and sees a “horde of monsters” (5.16.8). The monsters are throwing a festive party. Sat “amid the roar” (5.17.13) is Onegin, who seems to be at the very center of the party. When Tatyana accidentally reveals herself, the monsters leap at her. Onegin stops them, telling the monsters that Tatyana is his. When he ushers her into a private room, she is nearly too scared to talk. He lays her down on the bed. Before anything can happen, Lensky and Olga enter the room. Onegin fights Lensky, stabbing him with a knife. Tatyana wakes up from her dream. She wants to know what the dream means so she seeks out a book about interpreting dreams. The book does not make the meaning of her dream any clearer.
A few days after her nightmare, Tatyana celebrates her name day. Her party is far bigger than Lensky said, so that many people from the surrounding area arrive. Tatyana cannot enjoy her party because she is still lovelorn. She struggles to understand her passion for Onegin and why he would reject her. Onegin arrives at the party. He is immediately annoyed that Lensky lied to him. To him, the rural party seems almost like a terrible parody of the exact events that he tried to leave behind in Saint Petersburg. He is also annoyed that Tatyana is still dwelling on her love for him. He blames Lensky for this situation and decides to seek revenge against his friend. He focuses on Olga, asking her to dance with him rather than Lensky. The guests stare with “mute surprise” (5.41.13). He charms Olga and soon she turns all her attention from Lensky to Onegin. Lensky is overcome with “jealous indignation” (5.44.12). He storms out of the party, determined to challenge Onegin to a duel.
Chapters 4-5 Analysis
After reading Tatyana’s love letter and finding her in the garden, Onegin launches into a diatribe that will have long-reaching ramifications on his future. Tatyana is only a young girl who has fallen in love, yet Onegin uses her to express all his criticisms of naivety and love. In this sense, Tatyana is an innocent bystander who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when Onegin feels frustrated with the world and with Lensky. He systematically dismantles her naive view of the world, criticizing married life as undesirable and criticizing young girls for falling in love so easily. More importantly, Onegin criticizes Tatyana for having the temerity to fall in love with him. Onegin’s cynicism is all-consuming. He views himself as a product of a society he hates and is aware of the false version of himself that he projects into the world, which supports the theme of The Construction of Identity. Onegin’s false identity is a parody of Russian elite society, so the idea that a young girl could fall in love with such a construction is an insult to Onegin. He believes that Tatyana loves the parody version of Onegin he has created to mock society, so the idea that something as honest and sincere as love could be associated with this parody undermines his own beliefs. Onegin is not angry at Tatyana; he is annoyed with himself and horrified that anyone could love someone as unlovable as his public identity. This subtle distinction reveals the true motivation for Onegin’s stinging criticism of Tatyana: His true target is himself; she is merely caught in the crossfire. Later in life, Tatyana will have taken this cynicism to heart and will use it to reject Onegin’s love. In an ironic twist, Onegin’s self-loathing rant at Tatyana will be the reason why he is denied happiness in the future.
Chapter 5 contains one of the most fantastical scenes in Eugene Onegin. Tatyana’s dream sequence is a mixture of horror and absurdity that stands apart from the naturalism and social critique of the rest of the poem. After dabbling in mild superstitious rituals, Tatyana dreams that she is chased by a bear. When the bear catches her, it takes her to a cabin where Onegin is hosting a party for a group of monsters. The inclusion of Onegin among the crowd of monsters demonstrates the effect that his rant has had on Tatyana’s subconscious. Just a short time before, she was convinced that he was the love of her life. She was deeply affectionate toward Onegin and, as demonstrated by the contents of her letter, had no trouble expressing this love. Following his cruel words, however, she has lost her affection. He has become monstrous to her, robbing her of her naivety and forcing her to see the true monstrous nature of the society he embodies.
For Tatyana, however, the dream is confusing. She searches through books and manuals about dream interpretation to find meaning in what she has seen. Her diligent pursuit of meaning suggests that Onegin was wrong. He criticized Tatyana for her naivety, believing that she was just as naive and foolish as the rest of the society that he loathes so much. Whereas most characters are too detached to search for deeper meaning in their thoughts or actions, this is not the case with Tatyana. She craves understanding and knowledge, pursuing a deeper meaning in the seemingly abstract and meaningless. That she should search for meaning in her dream demonstrates that Onegin’s criticism was misplaced and hints at the love he will eventually feel for her. Tatyana is not content to be uninformed, but the devastating nature of Onegin’s criticism means that she will no longer combine this pursuit of knowledge with a childlike innocence and wonder. Like Onegin, she is now cursed to see the world in cynical terms.
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