The superfluous man is a 1840s and 1850s Russian literary
concept derived from the Byronic hero. It refers to an individual, perhaps
talented and capable, who does not fit into social norms. In most cases this
person is born into wealth and privilege. Typical characteristics are disregard
for social values, cynicism, and existential boredom. Typical behaviors are
gambling, romantic intrigues, and duels. He is often unempathic and carelessly
distresses others with his actions.
This term was popularized by Ivan Turgenev's novella The
Diary of a Superfluous Man and was thereafter applied to characters from
earlier novels. The character type originates in Alexander Pushkin's
verse-novel Eugene Onegin. Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time depicted
another Superfluous Man Pechorin as its protagonist.
He can be seen as a nihilist and fatalist. Later examples
include Alexander Herzen's Beltov and the titular character of Ivan Goncharov's
Oblomov. The Russian critics such as Vissarion Lewinsky viewed the superfluous
man as a by-product of Nicholas I's reactionary reign when the best educated
men would not enter the discredited government service and, lacking other
options for self-realization, doomed themselves to live out their life in
passivity. Scholar David Patterson describes the superfluous man as "not
just...another literary type but...a paradigm of a person who has lost a point,
a place, a presence in life" before concluding that "the superfluous
man is a homeless man"
