Eugene Onegin by Pushkin. Tatiana as a coauthor

"Eugene Onegin" is an existentialist novel. From existentialist point of view, as Berdyaev said:

—-------------------------
Spiritual states do not correspond to anything. They exist. They are original reality, they are more existential than everything that reflects an objective world.
From: Николай Бердяев, Дух и Реальность. 1 Реальность духа (My translation)
—---------------------------

And, indeed,  all the "reality" in the  novel is subjective, it is shown as a perception by one or another of the characters of the novel (including the author, who tends to have some wild fantasies as well).

Let us look at some of the  parts of the narrative we are given through the perception of Tatiana.

1. Tatiana's love for Onegin

The story is told in Chapter 3.

In stanza 5, we have Lensky's perception  of  the sighting of Tatiana during Onegin and Lensky's visit to Larins:   Tatiana was sad, silently got to the room and sat near the window.  That is it.

Yet, we are told that the neighbors saw it as a sign of impending marriage of Tatiana with Onegin.

This gossip made a strong impression on Tatiana ( Stanza 7):  the gossip made her think, the thought borne in her heart, and this is it: "She was in love" 

A critical reader will say that Tatiana ignored the facts of actual non-meeting,  she "lulled her mind".  Instead of ignoring absurd gossip, she ignored reality. For Tatiana, having high esteem of her neighbors is more important than being true to herself.    Her high tolerance of contradictions ("lulled her cold mind") helped her. And the feeling of being  in agreement with the expectations of the society made her happy, for a while. 

However, a non-critical reader has the same option to ignore the descritption of the non-meetings as well. Tatiana is very emotional, and a reader may perceive that this emotional perception has higher reality. 

From the critical reader's point of view, Tatiana is a conformist. She prefers to confirm, rather than being authentic. Non-sritical reader is charmed by the sudden feelings of Tatiana for Onegin.

2. Tatiana tour of Onegin's manor

The story is told in Chapter 7.

The story is wild from the beginning. Tatiana wanders alone during late hours in the field and in the woods. Suddenly, she sees Onegin's house. The  view of the house conspicuously looks like the Pemberly house Lizabeth visited in Jane Austen's novel "Pride and prejudice".  Tatiana decides to visit the house, and a servant invites her in and gives her a tour of the house,  similar to the way Lizabeth toured the Pemberly.  Tatiana enjoys the visit, then she walks home in total darkness through the same woods where she has never been before.

A reader has an option to "lull his mind"  and take this story literally. On another hand, he  can take into account that Tatiana's subjective world may have contradictions with facts she knows.  He may also notice that the story was impossible in Pushkin's time. For example, there was no tourism, nobody would allow a stranger into a manor, let alone make her a tour.

 The story does not end there. Tatiana is invited to see Onegin's library. As a spy, she went through his books, looked at his marks on the books.  And she suddenly realized: Onegin does not have a personality, he is nobody, he is just a parody.

If a reader seriously  "lulled his mind", he can swallow even this story. Otherwise, he knows that the visit did not happen, so she did not read Onegin's books. And, by the way, reading personal correspondence without permission of the owner was a crime in Russia. So, the reader may conclude that Tatiana made up this story to explain why she hates and despises Onegin so much.

The critical reader may notice that there is another explanation of her change of heart: Onegin rejected her publicly, during her name - day party. She looked at Onegin as a fashionable commodity, which could deliver her high status in society. By rejecting her, he lost all his value for her. Even worse, he broke her nice illusions and might have made her look funny in front of her neighbors.

From the critical reader's point of view, this was her first revenge fantasy,  but not the last.

3. The last chapter

Chapter 8 is a serious test for a reader. One may say it is a Rorschach test.

 Let us look closely.

The Author tells us that his muse changed her appearance every time when the content of his writing changed. And now, his muse looks like Tatiana. He lets his muse describe a high society ball in Petersburg. The muse opinion of the society is very favorable. She notices Onegin on the ball and speaks about him with the same contempt  as Tatiana  in Chapter 7.

Here we are. The muse looks like Tatiana and speaks like Tatiana. We can guess that it is Tatiana's view of reality. From our previous encounters with her subjective world a critical reader can  expect it to be very different from the facts she knows. 

Here is the story the muse told the author.  Tatiana married some unnamed prince - general. She is very successful as a society dame. She has her own salon, very popular among important people. Tatiana and her husband  are accepted in the tsar's court; the tsar loves them.  Onegin sees her and falls in love immediately. He suffers from his  love, writes her love letters one after another, she does not pay attention. He suffers some more. Then he decides to visit her. He comes to their house, finds the door  unlocked, does  not encounter any servants, and opens some random door.  It was Tatiana's room (such a luck).  Tatiana was not surprised to see him uninvited. She said to him that  this is her turn to speak. And, indeed, she does speak.  She blames Onegin for his selfishness, the desire to make a profit of notoriety  out of her shame.  She explains to him how high her position is in society. How she suffers from needing to attend the society. Then she surprises him saying she still loves him, but will  be true to her husband.

Onegin left motionless, while Tatiana left the room. He hears her husband is coming.

If a reader believed two previous Tatiana's stories  he will be happy to believe this one: the reader feels compassion for the country girl Tatiana, is angry at  Onegin, who did not understand and did not appreciate her. He will be happy to learn about Tatiana's triumph over him.

But suppose, some reader has his "cold mind" awake. He will start thinking.

The story is not related with the rest of the novel. We are not ever told about any Tatianas's suitors (except of her mother saying about some interest of her neighbors to her).  It appears she has not ever been to Petersburg.  How did this marriage happen? In addition, we can notice that historically, this type of marriage of a famous prince-general to a poor provincial girl without connections, without dowry, without ability to speak freely and be welcoming, as was required from an aristocrat woman in Pushkin's time - it was virtually impossible.

Of course, this historical argument is not relevant to a non-critical reader: this is a novel, not a historical document after all.


Yet, the critical reader may also observe, that Pushkin is true to the historical facts when to narrative does not belong to Tatiana. He will need to conclude that this story was made up by Tatiana, the same as she made up two previous stories. From his point of view, this is another   revenge fantasy for her. She did not marry or go to live in Petersburg. So, she did not meet Onegin there. Then, Onegin's love is her fantasy as well. And so is her rejection of Onegin and  fidelity to her unexisting husband.


Conclusion.

Pushkin does not say what happened in "reality". Which reality? The novel speaks about perception of the world by various  characters. Some characters "lulled their cold mind" and believe fantasies  which contradict the facts they know. They are very tolerant of contradictions. If a reader has his "mind lilled" as well he will believe these fantasies. Otherwise he sees the roles the characters play with themselves to reduce the feeling of the pain from the reality, to reduce an existential angst of making their own choices. .