s, and even my honor---but I will not sell my freedom. Why do I treasure it so? What good is it to me? What do I prepare myself for? What do I expect from the future? . . . Indeed, nothing whatever (148-149).
There is suspense in the book up until the point that we fully come to know Pechorin as he is. We want to meet him, with all the build-up of the first two sections of the book. But once we come to know him, it seems inevitable that he will die a violent death, as he does. The only suspense from that point on is when Pechorin will die that violent death.
The intricate stories and their confusing chronology, the various narrators and forms of the stories, even the beauty of the writing itself---all these artistic elements contribute to the portrait of the twisted character of Pechorin. The book is successful because Pechorin is fascinating as a man who is evil but who knows he is evil and cannot behave in any other way. He is a tormented man, and although we may be "gladdened" with the narrator at the news of the death of Pechorin (63), we also cannot help but
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