The Captain's Daughter

Pyotr Grinyov is the protagonist and point-of-view character of The Captain’s Daughter. The Captain’s Daughter is in part a bildungsroman that covers Pyotr’s growth as he changes from an irresponsible innocent into someone who accepts and fulfills his duties as a member of the noble class. Pyotr’s development is characterized by the theme of The Struggle Between Duty and Personal Desire; multiple times throughout the work he is forced to choose between his love interest, Maria Ivanova, and his obligations as a soldier in the imperial army.

As a child, Pyotr is the epitome of the footloose and carefree son of an extremely wealthy landowner. He lives “the life of a young ignoramus, chasing pigeons and playing leapfrog with the sons of the house serfs” (5). His education is desultory at best. From age five, he is “tutored” by his father’s huntsman Savelich who taught him to “read and write in Russian, as well as becom[e] a sound judge of the points of a male wolfhound” (3). When he is 12, his father brings in a Frenchman with an alcohol dependency named M. Beaupré for a quickly aborted attempt at refining his son’s education.