echorin showered the women he loves with affection until they reciprocated his feelings. He also believed in a theory that “love is like fire——if not fed it dies out. Jealousy will accomplish what my entreaties have failed to do.”(141). When Pechorin witnessed Grushnitski made acquaintance with Princess Mary, he admitted that “an unpleasant but familiar sensation” (98) emerged his heart —— “envy”. Jealousy prompts the notion of competition, which is an integral part of this novel. In the first section, both Kazbich and Pechorin admire Bela, but Pechorin does not play fair by kidnapping Bela, giving Kazbich no chance to win her heart; he also competed with Grushnitski for princess Mary, and skillfully manipulated the whole situation in order…show more content… He said, “ambition is nothing more nor less than a thirst for power, and my chief pleasure is to make everything that surrounds me subject to my will.”(129) His irresponsibility and incapability of commitment cause pain and despair, and sometimes he reflected if his “sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others.”(137) Making melodramatic confessions of misery and boredom, and questioning his position in the world and the purpose of a life centered only on self, he hoped to relieve the mental anguish by turning to seek consolations from nature. Immersing himself in the fragrant mist, he exclaimed, “Whatever grief oppress my heart, whatever disquietudes torture my thoughts— all are dispersed in a moment.” He also claimed that there was no feminine gaze that he would not forget “at the sight of mountains covered with curly vegetation, and illumined by the southern sun, at the sight of the blue sky, or at the sound of a torrent that falls from crag to crag."(113) Pechorin’s most defining characteristic is this exaggerated wanderlust: "I have a restless fancy, an insatiable heart...there is only one remedy left for me: to travel."(41) His self-imposed exile from society to natural world makes him a self-styled romantic figure, seemingly larger-than-life and adrift in a world too small for his
