46 pages • 1-hour read
The Captain's Daughter
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Symbols & Motifs
The Hareskin Coat
The hareskin coat is the most important symbol in The Captain’s Daughter. As translator Robert Chandler writes in his Introduction, “the entire story turns on this coat, on Pugachov’s return gift of a second coat, and on the ensuing allegation that Pyotr is a turncoat” (xv). The coat is representative of the bond between Pyotr and Pugachov, as well as Pugachov’s attempt to assume the trappings of the nobility despite his origins as a serf. When Pyotr leaves home for the first time, his mother gifts him a hareskin coat. This is a fine object appropriate to Pyotr’s class as a nobleman. When Pugachov assists Pyotr and his party through the blizzard, Pyotr insists on giving the hareskin coat to him in thanks. Pugachov replies, “His Honour is minded to favour me with a fur coat from off his own back. That is his gentle pleasure” (17). In this moment, Pyotr and Pugachov are bonded through mutual assistance, a bond that persists even as they find themselves on opposite sides of a battle.
Savelich objects to the gift as “a nobleman’s coat […] won’t even stretch across your hulking great shoulders” (17). Indeed, when Pugachov dons the coat, it rips at the seams. This represents how Pugachov is ill-suited to the role of a nobleman; although he can take on the trappings of a noble like Czar Peter III, it will never fit him correctly.
Later, Pugachov gifts Pyotr a sheepskin coat in return. A sheepskin coat is the typical garb of a serf or peasant. This represents Pyotr’s connection to and association with the lower classes despite his noble status.
Letters
To some extent, The Captain’s Daughter is an epistolary novella. The plot is often driven by notes and letters sent between the characters and many of these are printed verbatim in the text. This motif gives a realistic texture to a work that stands out against the fairy-tale or otherwise folkloric elements. The letters that are reproduced include the first letter Pyotr’s father writes to the German general that is read out with great humor and commentary to Pyotr by the recipient, the note from Zurin requesting his gambling debt be honored, which leads to the first conflict between Savelich and Pyotr, and the letters Pyotr and Savelich receive from Pyotr’s father following the dueling injury and Pyotr’s request to marry Maria. The most critical of the documented letters is the one Maria writes to Pyotr in the midst of the rebellion. In it, she writes, “I have no protector left in this world. I turn to you, knowing that you wish me well and that you are already ready to be of help to people” (70). This letter, more so than any of the others, acts as a catalyst for the plot as it compels Pyotr to abandon his duty to save Maria from Shvabrin’s clutches.
Some of the letters are left undocumented in the work. These letters often serve an opposite purpose of those reprinted verbatim. Instead of functioning in the realm of realism, these letters operate within the fantasy or mythic world of the novella. For instance, Pyotr’s letter to his father requesting Maria’s hand in marriage is only described as Pyotr writing “as eloquently as [he] could [to] ask for his blessing” (34). He reports that Maria “found it so deeply moving that she was unable to doubt its success” (34). This is fantastic: It is highly unlikely a wealthy nobleman like Pyotr would ever propose to Maria, no matter how strong his feelings. It also serves to reinforce the image of Maria as an ideal naïve damsel. The most important of these imagined letters is the one that closes out the novella: the letter “framed and glazed, in the hand of Catherine II” that “exonerates [Pyotr] and praises the mind and heart of Captain Mironov’s daughter” (104). As discussed in the Analysis of Chapters 12-14, Empress Catherine’s pardon of Pyotr is highly symbolic and imbued with fairy-tale logic, and this imagined letter is representative of that dynamic.
Faith
A motif throughout the work is the tension between destiny and individual choices. Alexander Pushkin was a liberal, a Romantic, and a proponent of the Enlightenment. As such, he believed that heroic people were able to shape their own destinies through their actions, values, and choices. This is most clearly represented in the character of Pyotr, whose choices shape the plot of The Captain’s Daughter. This understanding contrasts with a belief in predestination or fate, or the notion that one’s life path is predetermined or controlled by a higher power. In the novella, this is represented through expressions of faith in God. Notably within this dynamic, Pyotr only actively prays once, when he is being held in pretrial detention. He writes, “I had recourse to the consolation of all who suffer and, after tasting for the first time the sweetness of prayer poured out from a guiltless but anguished heart, fell into a deep sleep” (95). Apart from this moment, Pyotr himself and those around them refer to God’s will as a guiding force. For instance, upon their parting when Pyotr returns to the front, Maria states, “Only God knows if we shall see each other again” (92). This view is deeply ironic as it is, in fact, Maria’s interventions that later liberate Pyotr. Here and elsewhere Pushkin includes references to “God’s will” only to craft a plot that seemingly undermines it.
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