46 pages • 1-hour read
The Captain's Daughter
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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “A Sergeant of the Guards”
Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussion of graphic violence.
Protagonist Pyotr Grinyov grows up on a large country estate as the only child of retired lieutenant colonel Andrey Petrovitch Grinyov. From the age of five, he is tutored by his father’s senior huntsman and serf (indentured servant) Savelich. When he turns 12, his father hires a Frenchman named M. Beaupré to take over his education. Beaupré has an alcohol dependency and teaches Pyotr very little. One day, two of the female servants complain that M. Beaupré had “taken advantage of their inexperience” (4), and so Beaupré is fired.
In 1772, when Pyotr is 16, Pyotr’s father decides it is time for him to join the imperial military under Catherine the Great. Pyotr hoped to go to St. Petersburg, but instead Andrey sends him to Orenburg, “a godforesaken backwater” (6) in southwestern Russia near Kazakhstan. He wants Pyotr to do real military service, and he believes service there will build character. Before he leaves, Pyotr’s mother gives Pyotr a hareskin coat.
Pyotr leaves with Savelich. They stop at the town of Simbirsk. At the inn, Pyotr meets a Hussar captain named Ivan Ivanovich Zurin. Zurin takes Pyotr for a night on the town. Pyotr gets drunk and loses a hundred rubles to Zurin while gambling. The next morning, Zurin demands Pyotr settle his debt. Savelich, who holds Pyotr’s purse, refuses to pay. Pyotr, seeking to assert himself as an adult, argues with Savelich and demands Savelich hand over the money, which he reluctantly does. They leave Simbirsk.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Guide”
In the carriage on the way to Orenburg, Pyotr feels remorseful for having been so rude to Savelich and apologizes. He agrees that Savelich can manage their finances from then on. The carriage driver warns them that a blizzard is approaching and they should return to the inn until the weather clears. Pyotr argues that they should continue on to Orenburg. The party gets caught in the blizzard. They come upon a man in the snow who tells them there is an inn nearby where they can take shelter. As they make their way to the inn, Pyotr falls asleep in the carriage and has a “prophetic” dream. He dreams he arrives back home where his father has fallen ill. When he goes to see his father, he discovers his father has been replaced by a peasant. His mother tells Pyotr that the peasant “is taking Father’s place at your wedding” (14). Then, the peasant jumps out of bed with an axe and begins killing people. Pyotr is horrified, and the peasant says, “Don’t be afraid. Come and receive my blessing” (15).
Pyotr awakes when they arrive at the inn. The innkeeper, Yaik Cossack, has a coded exchange about a recent Cossack uprising with the mysterious man who guided them through the blizzard to the inn.
The next morning, before they leave, Pyotr asks Savelich to tip the man who had guided them through the blizzard. Savelich refuses. Pyotr resolves to give the man his hareskin coat instead.
Pyotr and Savelich arrive in Orenburg where they are greeted by the elderly German general Andrey Karlovich, a former comrade of Pyotr’s father. The general tells Pyotr he will be stationed at Fort Belogorsk to serve under Captain Kuzmich. The next day, Pyotr and Savelich leave for Fort Belogorsk, a rural outpost 25 miles away.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Fortress”
Pyotr and Savelich arrive at Fort Belogorsk on the banks of the Yaik (the modern-day Ural River). They are greeted by captain Ivan Kuzmich’s wife, Vasilia Yegorovna, a dominant personality who effectively runs the Fort. She tells Pyotr that he might learn to like the sleepy outpost just as Aleksey Ivanovich Shvabrin, a murderer who was sent there five years prior, had. The Cossack sergeant Maksimich shows Pyotr to his quarters.
The next day, Shvabrin, a French-speaking soldier, introduces himself to Pyotr. Pyotr is initially charmed by his “witty and entertaining” conversation (22). Shvabrin and Pyotr go to lunch at the captain’s house. When they arrive, Captain Ivan Kuzmich is outside drilling his ragtag company of soldiers. Pyotr meets Maria Ivanovna (“Masha”), the captain’s daughter. Vasilia tells Pyotr that Maria will likely never marry because they are so poor they cannot pay a dowry.
Pyotr asks Kuzmich if he fears the Bashkirs (a Turcic ethnic group) will attack the fort. Kuzmich dismisses Pyotr’s concerns and says he and his wife are not afraid. However, Vasilia notes, Maria is a “coward.”
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Duel”
Over the next few weeks, Pyotr settles into a comfortable routine at the sleepy fort. His affection for Maria grows. He writes a poem for Maria and reads it to Shvabrin for feedback. Shvabrin harshly criticizes Pyotr’s lines. Then, Shvabrin says he knows “from experience” that Maria prefers earrings to poetry. Pyotr calls Shvabrin a liar. Shvabrin is offended and demands a duel.
Pyotr goes to the elderly one-eyed soldier Ivan Ignatich, watch guard, and asks if Ignatich will serve as his second in the duel. Ignatich counsels Pyotr to peaceably resolve the conflict with Shvabrin, as duels are illegal. That evening at dinner, Pyotr and Shvabrin feign a reconciliation. Shvabrin explains to the group that they had fought because Shvabrin had interrupted Pyotr singing a song Pyotr had written by a singing a folk song with the lyrics “Captain’s daughter, stay at home! In the moonlight do not roam” (29). This allusion to Maria makes Pyotr even angrier at Shvabrin.
The next morning, Pyotr and Shvabrin meet for their duel, but they are interrupted by Ignatich and Vasilia, who chastise them for dueling. They are forced to reconcile. Later, Pyotr spends some time alone with Maria. She tells him that she does not like Shvabrin and that she had rejected Shvabrin’s offer of marriage the year prior.
The next day, Shvabrin finds Pyotr and says they should have their duel. They sneak off to the riverbank. Pyotr is sword fighting well when he is distracted by Savelich running toward them, calling Pyotr’s name. Shvabrin cuts Pyotr badly on the right side of his chest and Pyotr passes out.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The Captain’s Daughter is written as a memoir by protagonist Pyotr Grinyov that has been published posthumously after the manuscript was sent by his grandson to an “editor.” This structure provides insight into Pyotr’s development over the course of the novella as he struggles with The Struggle Between Duty and Personal Desire. However, this memoir structure is somewhat flexible and not entirely realistic, as shown in the inclusion of transcripts of letters and notes throughout like the description of Pyotr’s father’s letter to the general, and detailed recreations of dialogue. This lack of verisimilitude reflects other aspects of the work’s structure, most notably its fairy tale, chivalric, and morality tale elements.
The Captain’s Daughter is a Romantic work and, like many works as part of that movement, it incorporates elements of folklore or mythology into the depiction of historical events. The “fairy tale” structure is first introduced when Pyotr is quickly obliged to leave his family home to make his way in the world. His parents wish him well and his mother gives him a parting gift, the hareskin jacket, that later comes to have an essential quasi-magic purpose when it creates a bond between Pyotr and the rebel leader Pugachov. This opening is common to many fairy tales or folklore stories, such as “The Three Brothers” or “The Story of a Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was” (as told by the Brothers Grimm). This folkloric element is then weaved into the real historical conditions of 1770s in Russia based on Alexander Pushkin’s research into the Pugachov Rebellion for his non-fiction work on that topic. Thus, the historical figure of Pugachov is first introduced as a folkloric personage, a mysterious, unnamed figure who provides a service to the protagonist, like Rumpelstiltskin or the witch in “The Little Mermaid.” The driver, when he spots Pugachov, states it must be “either a wolf or a man” (13). This indeterminacy, which suggests Pugachov might be a shape-shifting wolf-man, further adds to the element of folklore. Pyotr emphasizes the hybrid aspect of this narration when, while driving through the blizzard soon after meeting Pugachov, he recounts that “[he] was in that mental and emotional state when reality, yielding to reverie, merges with it in the unclear visions of the beginning of sleep” (14). The Captain’s Daughter itself is similar to a form of reverie where the real and the surreal merge.
The mythic element is further heightened by the morality tale elements of the work. Morality tales are some of the oldest forms of medieval or early modern literature. As the name implies, a morality tale is intended to impart a lesson or moral to the reader. In The Captain’s Daughter, the good, those who choose to act honorably and with duty to country, like Pyotr, are rewarded, while the bad, like Shvabrin, are punished. When Pyotr does act dishonorably or irresponsibly, as when he goes out drinking with Zurin, he receives salutary lessons, such as waking with a hangover. A subset of morality tales are chivalric romances. In a chivalric romance, the hero goes on a quest to prove his manliness and win the heart of a fair maiden through courtly manners and heroic acts. Pushkin employs this chivalric structure throughout The Captain’s Daughter and first emphasizes it in the ode that Pyotr writes for Maria that is deeply sentimental while being chaste: “No thought of love dare I confess, / For never may my heart be free / While I look on her loveliness” (26). Pyotr here is portrayed as a chivalric hero courting a virginal maiden, Maria, and the action prefigures the classic chivalric theme of Romantic Love as a Force of Salvation that will develop later in the work.
Despite the simplistic aspects of the narrative, The Captain’s Daughter is a deceptively complex work, and its hybrid structure—historical fiction, memoir, fairy tale or folklore, morality tale, and chivalric romance—leads to tensions between its themes. For instance, as a morality tale, Pyotr’s decision to fight Shvabrin in a duel is presented as an example of Pyotr giving in to his personal desire rather than upholding his duty to the law and respectful conduct. This view is articulated by the elderly (and therefore respectable) Ivan Ignatich, who chastises Pyotr for acting as a “dunderhead.” Ivan reminds Pyotr that it is better to avoid violence, warning Pyotr that he will inform “the commandant as [his] duty requires” (28). He is presented as a model of duty Pyotr would be well to emulate, and the narrative punishes Pyotr for abdicating his duty by having him gravely injured in the duel. However, within the framework of a chivalric romance, Pyotr acts honorably in fighting Shvabrin to defend Maria’s honor against Shvabrin’s insinuation that Maria is shallow, flirtatious (i.e., unchaste), and materialistic, as implied when Shvabrin states she prefers “jewelry” to poetry. This rash demonstration of romantic love on Pyotr’s part will forge the bond between Pyotr and Maria and ultimately contribute to his salvation.
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