At 25, M. Yu. Lermontov is in St. Petersburg in the circle of the best poets. He finally got into the high society, which had not previously received him. At this time, he was very highly regarded as a poet, but his prose works do not find a response among his contemporaries.
It was at this time that M. Yu. Lermontov wrote the poem “Mtsyri”, full of bitter romance. To understand the author’s attitude towards Mtsyri, the young hero of the poem, it is necessary to analyze its content.
Life in the monastery
Case, fatum, evil rock deprived a child of childhood. This topic is close to Lermontov, and in many works he returns to it one way or another. But here it is revealed in full force. A six-year-old artificially torn from his native natural environment is a little man, already capable of a little analysis and able to remember his past, he suffers among the old hermits who voluntarily chose this path. The author’s attitude towards Mtsyri is full of sympathy for the child, who is forced to spend days not in games on the street or listening to the stories of old mountaineers about the glory of their ancestors, but in the closed walls of the monastery, where everything is subject to strict ritualism and prayer.
The escape
And now the grown youth decides to break out of captivity. On an autumn night, he escapes from the monastery, where they force him to take tonsure and renounce life forever. His rebellious free nature vehemently protests against the shackles of the prison in which he accidentally ended up. As he himself says, he is ready to exchange at least two such quiet lives in captivity for one, but filled with anxieties and battles.
Where people are like free eagles. Such a flaming passion for freedom is understandable and close to Lermontov, and his author's attitude to Mtsyri is to some extent autobiographical - the poet is forced to live a non-free life, he serves, obeys orders, spends part of his life in exile, in isolation from people close to him.
The longing of a young man
He is an unfortunate child, and fate assigned him the role of a monk, when by nature he is a warrior, a fighter. Within the walls of the monastery, he feels like a leaf that has come off the branch and which the wind brought here, under the gloomy cramped walls. He flees to his homeland, about which he has vague memories - aul, proud father, tunes of the sisters. He longs to return to his natural life, and the author’s attitude towards Mtsyri shows how this impulse was mercilessly stopped, although the young man was endowed with the fullness of spiritual possibilities.
Death
Therefore, the death of the hero is so natural. It doesn’t matter that the leopard inflicted these wounds in a wild battle. The young man would simply fade away from the monastic silence and silence. Either a successful escape, or death - there is no other way for the hero.
Instinct calls him to act actively. He is all - the embodiment of unrealized forces. And in the monastery they have nowhere to attach. These are the above copyright relations to the character of Mtsyri.