The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin: Summary

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The novella The Queen of Spades was written by A. S. Pushkin in 1833 in Boldino and published in 1834 in the journal Biblioteka dlya Chteniya (Library for Reading). The work was created during the poet’s period of creative maturity when he was actively working in prose.

The plot is based on a true story told to Pushkin by Prince Golitsyn about his grandmother, Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna, who knew the secret of three winning cards. The novella reflects the atmosphere of St. Petersburg society in the 1830s with its passion for card games. Pushkin created a psychological portrait of a person obsessed with the idea of enrichment, which was relevant for the era of nascent capitalist relations in Russia.

Setting and Time

The events of the novella take place in St. Petersburg in the 1830s. The main locations are the Countess’s house, Hermann’s apartment, the card salons of the St. Petersburg nobility, and the Obukhov Hospital (a home for the mentally ill). The timeframe is several months, from winter to spring.

List of Characters

Hermann — The protagonist, a young engineer, the son of a Russified German

Old Countess Anna Fedotovna — An 87-year-old aristocrat who knows the secret of the three cards

Elizaveta Ivanovna (Liza) — The Countess’s ward, a poor girl

Tomsky — The Countess’s grandson, who tells the story of the three cards

Narumov — Hermann’s acquaintance, in whose house they play cards

Chekalinsky — A wealthy gambler, the banker

Chaplitsky — A young officer mentioned in Tomsky’s story

Count Saint-Germain — A mysterious historical figure, the man who revealed the secret to the Countess

Content of the Novella

The novella begins with a card game at Narumov’s, where the young Tomsky tells a story about his grandmother—the old Countess. In her youth in Paris, she lost a large sum to the Duke of Orléans, but the mysterious Count Saint-Germain revealed to her the secret of three cards that always win. Since then, the Countess never played again and never revealed the secret to anyone.

Hermann, a young engineer of German descent who never gambles but watches others play eagerly, becomes obsessed with the idea of learning the secret. He is consumed by the thought of the three cards and decides to use any means to extract the secret from the Countess.

Hermann begins to court the Countess’s ward, Elizaveta Ivanovna, a poor girl who falls in love with him. Using her feelings, he gains entry to the Countess’s house. At night, Hermann sneaks into the old woman’s bedroom and demands she reveal the secret of the three cards, threatening her with a pistol.

The Countess dies from fright. Hermann does not get the desired secret, but at the funeral, it seems to him that the deceased woman winked at him. That same night, the Countess’s ghost appears to Hermann and names the three cards: the Three, the Seven, the Ace, but warns that he may play only once a day and that after this, she will no longer appear to him.

Hermann goes to Chekalinsky and begins to play. On the first day, he bets on the Three and wins. On the second day, he bets on the Seven and wins again, doubling his capital. On the third day, having placed a huge sum on the Ace, Hermann is horrified to discover that he holds the Queen of Spades, which seems to wink at him, reminding him of the dead Countess.

Hermann loses everything and goes mad. He is placed in the Obukhov Hospital, where he constantly repeats: “Three, Seven, Ace! Three, Seven, Queen!” Elizaveta Ivanovna marries a young man, Tomsky gets a promotion and marries Princess Polina.

The Meaning of the Work

Pushkin created a psychological novella about the destructive power of the passion for gain. The Queen of Spades is a work about how greed turns a person into an obsessed maniac, ready for crime for the sake of enrichment.

The central theme of the novella is the ruinous nature of material passions for the human soul. Hermann represents a new type of hero in Russian literature—a calculating, cold pragmatist for whom the end justifies the means. He is willing to use the feelings of an innocent girl and drive an old woman to death for money.

Pushkin shows the conflict between the old aristocratic world (the Countess) and the new bourgeois consciousness (Hermann). The Countess belongs to a fading era when money was spent easily and beautifully, while Hermann embodies the bourgeois psychology of accumulation and calculation.

The author explores the theme of fate and retribution. The mystical element of the novella (the Countess’s ghost, the magic cards) can be interpreted as a symbol of the inevitable punishment for the crime. The Queen of Spades becomes a symbol of retribution—she “winks” at Hermann both in the coffin and on the fateful card.

Pushkin also touches upon the theme of social inequality. Elizaveta Ivanovna is a victim of her dependent position; she becomes a pawn in Hermann’s game precisely because of her poverty and vulnerability. The author empathizes with her fate, showing how social injustice makes people vulnerable.

The novella became a precursor to the theme of the “little man” in Russian literature and, at the same time, showed the emergence of a new type of hero—the entrepreneur, ready for anything for success. Pushkin captured the spirit of the era with striking accuracy and created a work that remains relevant as a warning about the danger of spiritual impoverishment in the pursuit of material wealth.