25 pages • 50 minutes read
Alexander PushkinThe Queen Of Spades
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1834A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Hermann
Hermann is the protagonist of “The Queen of Spades.” He is a young officer in the Russian military but, unlike his friends, he was not born into wealth. His friends and fellow officers, such as Tomsky and Narumov, come from aristocratic families and, accordingly, are not worried about the money they lose when playing cards. Hermann is different. Not only is he ethnically German rather than Russian, but he also saves as much money as he can. After inheriting a modest amount from his parents, he lives only on his salary, and he refuses to indulge in his natural tendency towards gambling as he wants to elevate his status in society. He denies himself the indulgence of gambling so that he can dedicate his life to acquiring a fraction of the wealth that his friends take for granted.
The story of the countess’s card trick changes Hermann. It needles at his character, tempting him with the idea that he can gamble his way to wealth without risk. He can both indulge himself and become as wealthy as his friends. The trick offers Hermann everything he has ever wanted, but it demands that he sacrifice his morality to obtain its secret. He stalks and manipulates Lizaveta; he sneaks into a house; and he is responsible for the death of an old woman. Hermann is so captivated by the prospect of getting everything he has ever wanted that he turns his life into a bet. After a lifetime spent monastically denying his whims, he wagers everything on obtaining a trick that may or may not be real.
After his apparent failure, Hermann is visited by the countess. She offers him her secret but imposes the conditions that he may only use the trick only once. The countess only demands that Hermann return to his previous state of self-control, but this proves impossible. Once he knows the trick, he becomes obsessed with winning money, and as a result he loses his grip on himself and his sanity. Hermann’s downfall is a warning to others not to indulge their basest habits, especially when restrictions are imposed on them by supernatural powers. Hermann learns that he must operate by the laws of man and God or suffer the consequences.
Lizaveta Ivanovna
Lizaveta Ivanovna is the ward of Countess Anna Fedotovna. Without wealth or opportunities of her own, she is at the mercy of the countess. She lives on the boundary between social classes in that she is too poor to be a true aristocrat and too aristocratic to be a servant. No aristocrat truly pays attention to Lizaveta at the balls she attends with the countess unless she is being used to manipulate the feelings of another person. She is a pawn in the lives of the rich. She fills a strange and uncomfortable niche in the life of the countess, whose disappointing children have grown up and left her alone. Lizaveta lives her life at the whim of an old woman who is bored and alienated from the world. Lizaveta begins to think that marriage and money may be her only way to escape.
When she notices a young army officer staring at her through a window, she is initially afraid. The man could be the latest in a long line of people who wish to exploit or bully her. But as the man lingers outside, Lizaveta allows her desperation to project her dreams onto him. She begins to welcome his attention in the hope that he can help her to escape her predicament. She allows herself to believe that he is sincere because no man has shown sincere interest in her before, so she does not know how to discern sincerity. Lizaveta becomes as obsessed with escape as Hermann becomes obsessed with the countess’s trick. Just as the trick may allow Hermann to achieve his desires, Hermann may allow Lizaveta to achieve hers.
When Lizaveta returns from the ball and finds that Hermann is not in her room, she is relieved. In this moment, her obsession is punctured, allowing her to see the reality of her situation. She is shocked by what she has done, and she is instantly contrite, making Hermann’s appearance and the death of the countess even more distressing for her. She feels responsible, and she learns the only lesson that she can learn—not to allow her desires to compromise her morality. In the end, she is rewarded with something close to what she wants, as she marries a man who helps her to escape from her suffering. Furthermore, Lizaveta learns from her mistakes; she adopts a ward of her own as atonement for her sins, allowing her to provide for a young girl in a way that the countess never did.
Countess Anna Fedotovna
Countess Anna Fedotovna is a rich, elderly aristocrat. She is now a widow and alienated from her friends to the extent that she is not aware which friends are dead and which are still alive. At balls, she sits to the side and watches younger people enjoying the activities she once enjoyed. Her crumbling mental state results in a passive-aggressive treatment of her young ward Lizaveta which borders on bullying. The countess seems exhausted by life. She has nothing left to see or do other than guard the secret which has come to define her existence.
The countess knows the secret of how to win at the card game faro. As she tells Hermann, however, the trick must be used only once by each person. The countess lives by this rule and, once she used the trick, never used it again. Her boredom and alienation can be traced back to her obedience. Her knowledge of the trick shows her the potential of the supernatural world but also limits her ability to enjoy this knowledge. Her greatest achievement becomes a limitation, preventing the countess from enjoying the lifestyle granted by the supernatural card trick.
After the countess dies, she returns as a ghost. She is freed from her corporeal form, but she still must adhere to the rules which are placed upon her. She does not return to Hermann willingly, for example. Instead, she was ordered to teach him her trick. The subtle implication is that the countess comes to Hermann as a harbinger, bringing a warning and a lesson for him. She becomes an embodiment of the supernatural order, gifting Hermann the trick that will benefit him so long as he obeys the same rule that governed her existence. Her offer is tainted as she knows the alienation of those who live by the rule. The countess returns to issue a challenge to Hermann and, in her role as a ghost, she is required to police moral boundaries, issuing a challenge to the man who killed her as a way to redeem himself. Whereas death released the countess from her alienation, Hermann loses his mind rather than his life. He is locked away in a mental health hospital, alone and obsessive, while the countess was able to live out her life in luxury. The trick brings alienation but, as the countess’s life shows, this alienation comes in many forms.
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By Alexander Pushkin
