The superfluous man had inserted in people believing of a man who is a nobleman also a narcissist. Narcissism in the 19th century Russia greatly influenced the love we perceive. Both genders at that period have a distinct status which men always appear as a superior while women seem to be the inferior. However, from Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time, Alexander Pushkin’s verse-novel Eugene Onegin (1825–32) and Ivan Turgenev’s The Torrent Of Spring, proved that superfluous man is also regarded being submissive too. It consisted of many factors such as the interpretation between seduction and love when superfluous man eccentrics jealousy, protect their honor and they could seduce a woman at any cost. Conversely, they follow others command to avoid any comment. In the Late Romanticism, Sentimentalism Seductions and Byronic heroes created the protagonist as a superfluous man too. The style of Russia superfluous man is deduced as a reader who read a lot and follows the belief of the Byronic heroes, a narcissist who worries a lot about their appearance in others eyes and the fear of judgment led them unable to reject peoples.

Russia had it own magnificent culture which my secondary source author Lesic-Thomas elaborated “The imaginary exoticism of the Caucasus, the notion of attractive evil, the mixture of cynicism and passion” affect and form the Byronic superfluous type man. Lesic-Thomas was curious about how the characters could distinguish ideological-literary point of view from a psychological situation without any confusion. He then explores the theme of seduction by investigating the role of literariness and ambiguity in the processes of focus A Hero of Our Time and Eugene Onegin. It shows “the seducers are both self-fashioned and perceived as incarnations of novelistic anti-heroes”(Lesic-Thomas 72). Due to their high self-recognition, they practice their perfectionism though the protagonist of the story. They follow the ideal of literature and those affected them to view the imaginable character as their role model. This draws them in seducing women as the enigmatic novel does, and these two novels seduce their readers. He concluded that the Byronic heroes reading habit has evolved from literary to a real-life situation.

The two superfluous men in Eugene Onegin and A Hero of Our Time, Onegin and Pechorin have the same tactic in seducing women. Both of them were strongly misled by the heroes they read in the novels, Lesic-Thomas mentioned: “Princess Mary in A Hero of Our Time has to choose between two potential Byronic heroes, not realizing that a love affair in that genre could never bring her happiness or result in a marriage.” Princess Mary encountered wheelchair Grushnitsky, helped him to pick up glasses which evoked the jealousy of Pechorin. Pechorin began his revenge by “attracts and holds Mary’s attention by presenting himself as a puzzle to be solved and by piling ambiguity on top of ambiguity in his behavior, betraying her expectations and challenging her to keep reinterpreting him over and over again.” He played his trick on Princess Mary to win his ego back and left Princess Mary with a broken heart. This is how superfluous men treated women. On the other side, from Eugene Onegin, Lesic-Thomas stated that “Onegin unwittingly seduces Tatiana by appearing as a blank canvas onto which she can project her desires, and (potentially as unintentionally) maintains his hold on her by presenting her with the puzzle of his ambiguous refusal.” The superfluous man contains confidence that could attract females easily but they will only seduce a woman that he feels a competition. Hence, Onegin rather duels for a woman that he doesn’t love but selfishly just to protect his pride. Superfluous man will always desire others to adore them but they do not love back.

In Torrent of Spring by Ivan Turgenev, Sanin possesses a submissive personality which connects to the superfluous man incompatibility. Similarly, Pechorin targets his aim, Princess Mary, seduced her with numerous psychological tactics to redeem his ego from Grushnitsky. On the other hand Sanin, he didn’t have any motive to betray his betrothed but physically get affected by Maria, the buyer of his estate initially. He is going to sell his estate from his country to prepare his wedding but within the short three days, his obedient behavior misleads his heart. Due to the high self-consciousness of the superfluous man, being submissive and indecisive about one’s movement was a normal phenomenon. Sanin‘s mind swept along with others command when Gemma asks him to stay for an afternoon tea and eventually he stays for a few more days. He states  “But I’m leaving for Berlin today’’(Turgenev 16). He did not reject her directly because he is concerned with others’ criticism. When Maria seductively request his arm and ironically mentions Gemma was not there he remains ambivalent but follows what Maria demand “give me your arm then; don’t be afraid: your betrothed is not here–she won’t see you.” (Turgenev 106) He is different than Pechorin, both of them act in opposite manners when in relationships. Pechorin was always an ignorant and self-centered character, who controls the power while Sanin’s obedience led him to suffer a great pain of being a slave of Maria afterward.

Sanin was a different type of superfluous men then usually encountered. His betray just happen through the flow, he follows the words of others and shapes his path abruptly. He gets affected easily like when Maria express her feelings of excitement and joy, it affects him as well. “Maria associates their sexual adventure with freedom and exclaims: “Well, now we’re free as the birds! … Where shall we go–north, south, east, west? … It’s all ours!” (Turgenev 127) Sanin eventually becomes influenced by the intense feeling from Maria, “He enjoys the pleasure of passion, but loses his freedom by submitting to degradation with Maria. By doing so, he also loses his true love, Gemma Roselli” (Meyers 42). The intimacy interaction that Sanin never experienced with Gemma made him start to forget his love for her and transfer this attention to Maria and think about Maria more although he recollects Gemma’s image in his subconscious initially.

The reason Sanin and Pechorin considered as a superfluous man was the ego and self-image they possess. Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time proposed the superfluous man Pechorin cheated on Princess Mary to obtain his meaningless ego. In Turgenev’s The Torrent Of Spring, his novel express that “actions and the psychology of the characters by means of metaphor: highlighting details of the natural setting in such a way as to suggest not biological/causal relations, but metaphorical equivalences.” (Bouwer 84) From Bouwer studies, Romanticism and Realism in Turgenev’s short stories showed the tension between these two styles of literary movements. Sanin proved that in reality, the intimacy interaction caused his betrayal additionally his personality made him a superfluous man. Nevertheless, the superfluous man exaggerated self-awareness caused them to live under the people’s comment, although they are arrogant they still need to be fed by the compliment of others.     

Work Cited

Brouwer, Sander. “Literary Character in Turgenev’s Prose.” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, edited by Lynn M. Zott, vol. 122, Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center, https://link-galegroup-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/H1420049669/LitRC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=LitRC&xid=80263094. Accessed 19 Nov. 2018. Originally published in Character in the Short Prose of Ivan Sergeevic Turgenev, Rodopi, 1996, pp. 31-73.

Freeborn, Richard. “The Slavonic and East European Review.” The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 81, no. 2, 2003, pp. 306–307. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4213690.

Lesic-Thomas, Andrea. “Focalization in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time: loving the semantic void and the dizziness of interpretation.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 103, no. 4, 2008, p. 1067+. Literature Resource Center, https://link-galegroup-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A188159649/GLS?u=cuny_ccny&sid=GLS&xid=ffd441b7.

Meyers, Jeffrey. “Turgenev’s The Torrents of Spring and Eliot’s The Waste Land.” Notes on Contemporary Literature, vol. 40, no. 1, 2010. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A231714514/LitRC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=LitRC&xid=24a28823.

Turgenev, Ivan. Torrents of Spring
    London: W. Heinemann, 1897. 21 Jan. 2000.
    <http://www.eldritchpress.org/ist/torrents.htm>