Essays on literary works - 2024
When you need me but don't want me by your side, I will be there. But when you want me to be with you and need me, I will leave. (Based on the novels by A.S. Pushkin's “Eugene Onegin” and O. de Balzac's “Eugénie Grandet”)
Let’s talk about the emotional ghosting multiverse. Yes. That place where love isn’t love unless it stings a little. Or a lot. Where timing is cursed and affection shows up in the wrong costume, at the wrong moment, in the wrong person—and honestly, you start to wonder if love is just a big cosmic prank pulled by some emotionally unavailable deity with a sarcastic streak.
Cue: Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and Honoré de Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet. Two novels that—if they had Tinder bios—would probably say something like:
“Professional at showing up late emotionally. Looking for deep connection I’ll never act on. Fluent in repression.”
These stories are dripping with the emotional paradox we all hate-love-hate:
“When you need me but don’t want me, I will be there. But when you want me and need me, I will leave.”
Yeah. That’s not just literary tragedy—that’s the entire dating landscape post-2012.
Let’s dig into it.
Tatiana and Onegin: Queen of Simping Meets Prince of Ice
First, Pushkin. Eugene Onegin. AKA the OG softboi-slash-emotional-vampire of Russian lit. Onegin walks into Tatiana’s life like a human buzzkill in tailored boots. She’s a bookish, intense, painfully honest soul—let’s just say she’s got Sad Girl Autumn energy before it was cool. Tatiana writes this devastatingly raw love letter to Onegin (like, confesses everything, soul laid bare), and what does this wax statue of a man do?
He gives her a whole TED Talk on why he’s emotionally incapable of loving her.
And then? Then years later—when she’s leveled up, got the glam, the titles, the ice-in-her-veins nobility—Onegin suddenly realizes he’s obsessed with her. So he writes his own letter (too late, babe), shows up at her metaphorical door, and boom. She does what every fanfiction reader lives for: rejects him with dignity so sharp it could slice diamonds.
This is not just a slow-burn. It’s a burn that starts too early, simmers in self-doubt, then roars up from the ashes of regret. It’s heartbreak weaponized.
Tatiana needed Onegin when she was vulnerable. He ghosted. Now he needs her—and she’s untouchable.
That’s not irony. That’s karmic design.
Eugénie Grandet: Late-Stage Capitalism’s Poster Girl for Repressed Passion
Now Balzac, a man who could write about furniture with the erotic intensity of a love affair. But Eugénie Grandet isn’t about sexy sofas—it’s about a girl raised in a house where money is hoarded like dragon gold, and feelings are as locked up as the family vault.
Eugénie is pure. Not in the “chaste and boring” way, but in the “still believes in love letters and human goodness” way. She falls for her cousin Charles (yes, cousin, let’s just scoot past the incest for a sec—this is 19th century France, not Alabama). Charles is everything her world isn’t: soft, dashing, a little tragic. They connect. There’s hope.
But then… Capitalism. Patriarchy. The family inheritance Industrial Complex. Charles peaces out to go “make his fortune” and comes back fully colonized by ambition. He’s no longer the sweet, semi-depressed romantic. He’s got a money wife now. Eugénie? She’s left with her faded dreams and a kind of quiet rage that ages into spiritual nobility.
So again—when Eugénie wants and needs Charles, he evaporates. When she no longer needs him (emotionally matured, self-contained, zero illusions)? He wants her back. Of course.
Ghosting, but Make It Existential
Here’s the thing. Both Eugene Onegin and Eugénie Grandet live on this pivot: timing, emotional asymmetry, the unbearable lag between needing and being needed. And yes, these are 19th century books, written by men with pen names and gout. But the emotional pattern? So modern it hurts.
Swipe culture. Hot-cold texting. That person who was obsessed with you until you finally said “okay”—and then they vanished like a browser tab when your boss walks by.
We live in an age of emotional misfire. Everyone’s either emotionally overclocked or emotionally Bluetooth-disconnected. These characters are our vintage blueprints. Onegin, Charles—men who show up only when they think you’ve forgotten them. Tatiana, Eugénie—women who open their hearts early and are punished for it, but who eventually build a kind of gothic fortress of strength from the ashes.
The Emotional Math of “Too Soon” and “Too Late”
Let’s meme this out.
- Tatiana: writes heartfelt letter
Onegin: “it’s not you, it’s the frozen tundra of my soul” - Eugénie: saves her inheritance, supports Charles
Charles: “thanks, brb gonna marry a banker’s daughter”
The algorithm of these stories is brutal. Vulnerability? Punished. Stoicism? Rewarded (for a while). Romantic timing? Broken clock. But then again—these aren’t just stories. They’re metaphors for how intimacy often functions under patriarchy: women are expected to feel first, risk first, hurt first. Men are allowed to arrive late to their own feelings, like they’re catching a train that’s been waiting for them the whole time.
Pushkin and Balzac didn’t write rom-coms. They wrote emotional survival manuals disguised as novels.
Sad Girls and Late Boys: The Eternal Equation
You know the trope. The “sad girl” who feels too much, too soon. The “late boy” who catches up—but only when the damage is irreversible.
This is the Lana Del Rey meets Bo Burnham quadrant. This is Fleabag Season 2. This is Mitski’s entire discography and the vibe of that one TikTok sound: “Maybe if I say I’m fine, people will finally leave me alone.”
Tatiana is a sad girl turned goddess. Eugénie is a sad girl turned saint. They transcend. Not because they win, but because they outlast. They don’t settle. They stare down the mirror of masculine failure and say: “No, I’m not waiting for you anymore.”
That’s not romantic. That’s power.
Emotional Ghosting as Class Warfare?
Wait, it gets spicier.
Balzac’s novel is lowkey a critique of capitalism in drag. Charles doesn’t just ghost Eugénie because he’s emotionally weak—he does it because class mobility devours sentiment. He trades love for leverage. Money rewires his moral core.
Meanwhile, Onegin’s emotional shutdown is aristocratic nihilism. He’s so bored by the abundance of life that he can’t even feel feelings until it’s too late. His love is aesthetic, not lived. Tatiana becomes desirable only when she’s unattainable. AKA: a trophy, not a person.
So what we’re really seeing? Rejection as a symptom of systems. Love broken by class, by time, by gender scripts older than the French Revolution. This isn’t just “he’s not that into you.” It’s: “he’s been colonized by a system that teaches him love is weakness.”
Why It Hits Hard Now
In 2025, we’re all living through overlapping crises of attention, affection, and authenticity. We want love that’s raw and real—but we’re also terrified of being perceived. Vulnerability feels like handing your heart to someone via Google Doc and watching them leave a comment that just says “lol.”
Tatiana and Eugénie didn’t have dating apps. But they knew the sting of being too much too soon. Of offering love before it’s fashionable. Of being brave in a world that mistakes honesty for emotional messiness.
Pushkin and Balzac weren’t being romantic. They were documenting emotional asymmetry. The pain of waiting for someone to arrive emotionally… and realizing they never will. Or worse: they do, but the version of you who needed them is already gone.
Final Un-summary (No Conclusions Here, Just Vibes)
So yeah. “When you need me but don’t want me, I will be there. But when you want me and need me, I will leave.”
That’s not a quote from a philosopher. It’s the emotional thesis of every great heartbreak story—past, present, and probably post-apocalyptic.
It’s Pushkin’s whole plot twist. Balzac’s passive-aggressive moral. It’s how ghosting, girlhood, and grim maturity intersect in a capitalist, patriarchal emotional ecosystem.
Maybe the lesson is this:
Don’t fall for the ones who only show up when you’ve stopped crying.
Or maybe the lesson is—
We all show up too late sometimes.
And that’s the tragedy.
Or the joke.
Or the poem.
Or maybe—just maybe—it’s a little bit of all three.