Queen of Spades: Ashley's Thoughts:

A man romances an old woman's companion in order to learn the secret three winning cards, but winds up killing the woman instead and the cards don't even work. In "The Queen of Spades" Pushkin once again breaks down the romantic ideal. Lizaveta is a classic Cinderella figure; she is poor but beautiful and quietly endures all manner of thankless tasks and social slights. Pushkin might as well include birds that help her get dressed in the morning. The courtship between Lizaveta and Hermann is first showed to the reader from Lizaveta's point of view thus emphasizing the romantic nature of it. By all normal conventions Lizaveta deserves a happily ever after. Of course, since this is Pushkin, normal conventions do not apply and Lizaveta winds up an unwitting accomplice in murder, and she is forced to admit that "all this was not love! Money - that was all his soul yearned for!"(18). At this moment one could still expect a dramatic turnaround in a traditional romantic narrative. Lizaveta's beauty and inherent goodness could redeem Hermann, as is hinted by the Countess's qualification in the dream the Hermann can have the secret of the three cards if he agrees to marry Lizaveta. But the key difference between this story and the expected romantic redemption story lies in the revelation that, "neither the tears of the poor girl, nor the wonderful charm of her beauty, enhanced by her grief, could produce any impression upon his hardened soul. He felt no pricking of conscience at the thought of the dead old woman.