The Queen Of Spades Pushkin Analysis

“The Queen of Spades”

The Queen of Spades is a story of literature that refers as a reflecting couple of men gambling to illustrate the theme of corruption, violence, and death. Furthermore, in The Queen Of Spades, Hermann’s a Russian officer has a fondness of passion for gambling sits anxiously with a couple of German greediness, which initiates his attempts to avoid the power of chance for him playing a card game. Pushkin's literary it frames a relationship within a discussion of gambling as a social practice in Pushkin's day and other writers' use of gambling to express their social allegiances.

Pushkin was the first one to receive a position while he was working in Russia; he had fame above the boundary from Russia came later. For

some of the others who would follow him they gained a great deal to Pushkin as their literary father, he was known throughout the region before Alexander Pushkin’s works was spread across the homelands of Russian. In Pushkin’s the Queen of Spades the Bible states that a man can have his free will, but for men now a days just take the Bible and comprise on what they want and some men consider that there is a chance for conscription. These people believe that luck is a lack of confidence for their own good and their own choices.
The ostensible basis for Hermann’s obsessive behavior is a repressed predilection for gambling and a consequent fixation on the old Countess: she reputedly knows a fantastic secret for winning at cards. The fundamental psychology of Hermann’s compulsions is embodied not in the Countess or the cards, but in the Countess’s young ward, Lizaveta Ivanovna. Thus it seems outwardly that Hermann loses himself in a quest to learn the Countess’s secret, and finally snaps when he unexpectedly fails to translate that arcane knowledge into material wealth. However, the narrative contains a deeper
psychological layer beneath the fantastic storyline of the Countess and the cards.
Lizaveta is a strangely passive character, but it is what she represents, rather than her outward personality, that is vital to understanding Hermann’s psychosis.

Although on a superficial level it appears that Hermann merely takes advantage of Liza in order to get close to the Countess, Pushkin subtly undermines this interpretation by revealing in his hero a persistent ambivalence between pursuit of the old woman’s secret and possession of the young ward. By declaring the initial appearance of Liza as the moment that seals Hermann’s fate, Pushkin establishes the desire for romantic and sexual possession of Liza as the true catalyst for Hermann’s madness. The idea that Liza, or rather what she represents, is Hermann’s true goal implies that the outward obsession and frustration surrounding the cards is merely displacement of deeper, interpersonal frustration or discomfort.

This displacement is represented explicitly in Hermann’s interview with the Countess, while his aberrant, bizarrely sexual thoughts about the old woman suggest a possible pathology behind his discomfiture. Hermann, the anti-hero of Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades, suffers from an unspecified romantic impotence or frustration, which he tries to deflect into an obsession with cards, but which ultimately drives him

mad.
Hermann initially appears enthusiastic in courting Lizaveta, yet he is strangely paralyzed by the prospect of consummating the relationship. He readily takes up the part of a smitten lover when he comes daily to stare at her through the window. He becomes quite passionate in his correspondence; although his first letter is tender and respectful, he quickly becomes caught up in his role and writes more expressing both the uncompromising nature of his desires and the confusion of his unbridled imagination. Yet when he finally earns an invitation into Liza’s bedchamber, when the intervening barrier of the windowpanes is removed and the opportunity for consummation arrives, he balks.
The simplest explanation is that Hermann is simply using Lizaveta the whole time and has no real interest in her outside of a means to get to the Countess. But this suggestion is brought into question when Hermann must actually choose between proceeding to Liza’s room for a midnight rendezvous, and lying in wait in the Countess’s chambers to interrogate her about the secret of the cards. The outcome that the reader expects, and the one that Hermann ultimately chooses, is to pursue the Countess and the fantastic promise of wealth. However, Hermann’s underlying feelings are confused.
We can assume that Hermann has studied Lizaveta’s letter carefully enough to be aware of where each door leads. After all, he is meticulous enough to follow her other instructions fanatically. Therefore, his hesitation represents not simply confusion over what lies behind each door, but a deeper psychological ambivalence. Although his ostensible plan is to confront the Countess, and he has the premeditation to bring a pistol with him to intimidate her, he nevertheless falters and opens the door leading to Lizaveta’s room first. Moreover, the ellipses imply that he contemplates the hallway leading to her spiral staircase for some time.
Hermann’s initial consideration of Liza’s doorway indicates that on some psychological level he is truly interested in her as more than just a means to reach the Countess. Furthermore, his long hesitation before the corridor suggests that his ultimate decision to abandon Liza is hardly a forgone conclusion. If Lizaveta does have more significance than simply a means to Hermann’s ends with the Countess, it is still tempting to propose that perhaps the narrative merely uses her as a way of illustrating Hermann’s pathological obsessions.
Perhaps Pushkin is simply driving home the unhealthy nature of Hermann’s gambling fixation by showing that he truly does care about Liza but throws her over nonetheless; he does not care about her as much as he cares about the cards. In fact, however, Pushkin undermines this interpretation in the very first encounter between Hermann and Liza, when Hermann first glimpses her through the window. Then, as he wanders lost in his thoughts of the Countess he suddenly finds himself standing before her house, although he recognizes it as such only after inquiring with a guard. It is not really explicit whether this arrival could be the result of some subconscious will or whether it is pure blind luck.
But regardless, from Hermann’s perspective his sudden inadvertent appearance before the house seems to suggest the action of destiny. Nevertheless, this provocative moment does not seal his fate; he still proves resistant. That night he has a frenzied dream of winning big at cards. He wakes the next day and wanders the streets until he again finds himself before the Countess’s house. This time his arrival before the house no longer seems fortuitous to the reader, but nevertheless Pushkin insists that from Hermann’s perspective some “mysterious force” must be at work. All the events of these two days reflect the buildup of psychological pressure within Hermann, yet despite this pressure he still has not reached the point of action. That instant does not arrive until Lizaveta enters the scene.
As Hermann stands dumbfounded before the house for the second time in two days, he glances up at the windows and notices a “dark-haired young head, bent, evidently, over a book or some work. Then, in a truly cinematic moment, the head is raised and Hermann beholds. This is the point at which Hermann is finally prompted to start down the path that leads to the choice between Liza and the Countess. Under all the pressures of the feverish dream of wealth, the unconscious, almost somnambulant visitations and revisitations to the house, and the fatalistic impression of some mysterious guiding force in action, Hermann still seems willing to watch everything passively from outside. Nothing is able to spur him into action until the appearance of a “fresh young face and dark eyes.
It could be argued that since Lizaveta is so instrumental in Hermann’s later, developed scheme, he is only able to act once her appearance suggests the details of the plan. This explanation is hardly credible though; considering the powerful pressures that affect Hermann from the outset, it would take something very specific to hold him in check, not the lack of a few technical details. But for some reason Lizaveta, or at least something particular in her aspect, turns out to be just the specific key needed to release him.
The small, submissive Lizaveta ultimately determines Hermann’s fate, not the fantastic, dramatic urgings of the Countess and the cards. The implication is that Hermann does not in fact marginalize the potential relationship with Liza in order to pursue the Countess’s lucrative secret. Rather, he pursues the Countess in order to marginalize the potential for a true romantic or sexual relationship with Liza.
In conclusion, The Queen of Spades is a narrative on the frustration of trying to control or predict, to impose rigid rules on, systems that cannot be predetermined. The central tragedy of Hermann’s character is his unwillingness, or inability, to submit to uncertainty, and his fatal choice to replace the potential stress of exploring a romantic relationship with the perceived security of ensured winnings in the fantasy of the cards.