Character Authenticity in Literature: Three Classic Stories

Introduction: The Struggle for Authenticity

The state of being authentic in our lives, in our personalities, and in our actions can be a difficult but important concept to come to terms with. As we grow, events and people in life shape who we are, and we can choose to be true to ourselves or succumb to pressures and assume an inauthentic identity. In the stories "Signs and Symbols," "The Lady with the Dog," and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (by Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Chekhov, and Leo Tolstoy, respectively), we can examine characters influenced into inauthenticity. The realization of their example can help us reflect upon the authenticity of our own lives.

Character Motivations and Inauthentic Choices

Each of the characters in these stories is influenced by a different motivator. Through their judgment of their circumstances, they choose to react in the way they see fit. In "Signs and Symbols," for example, a couple's son has a frightening mental disorder, and they accept it and allow physicians to help him. Throughout the story there are little omens foreboding sinister events, like their bad luck on the way to visiting their son in the hospital and the depiction of the "half-dead unfledged bird" in the puddle (Nabokov). At the end of this story, however, the father chooses to ignore these signs and react lightheartedly, thinking instead that they would be better off bringing their son back home. The father becomes inauthentic in his response to his son's suicide attempt, looking toward a brighter future which all but crumbles with the implied meaning of the telephone call that ends the story.

"The Lady with the Dog" also includes a character, Dmitri, who seems constantly inauthentic. He has become accustomed to cheating on his wife with numerous women, all of whom he thinks nothing of, until he meets Anna Sergeyevna (Chekhov). When they part, he becomes inauthentic in his attempt to dismiss her from his mind as though she means nothing. When they begin to see each other again, together they put on a façade of inauthenticity to their spouses, so that their real, authentic lives struggle to continue under the surface of their proper, acceptable lives.

In "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," the main character, Ivan, lives his life according to what he thinks society deems proper, losing his ability to judge his actions as good or bad. He goes to law school, works in prestigious offices, and gets married because society seems to approve of this (Tolstoy). When Ivan is on his deathbed, however, he realizes how much of his life has been inauthentic, unhappy, and so far from what is ideal and what is good to him.

The Personal Cost of Living Inauthentically

Inauthenticity is not a state in which we desire to be; it is a state that happens to us out of our pride or our desire for normalcy. It is our duty as humans who reside, interact with, and care for others around us to check ourselves to ensure we have not slipped into a life we do not really want or make others uncomfortable with. Frequently, people tend to become inauthentic when in the presence of a person they wish to impress, or who they desire to like their personality. One may become more enthusiastic, talkative, and silly than usual. Unfortunately, this approach overlooks a critical reality: those people whom we wish to impress are also people we want to like us as we really are, and who may, sooner or later, figure out who we really are. Therefore it is important to keep oneself accountable for the attitude with which one approaches every new social situation, so as to avoid the danger of presenting a side of oneself that is inauthentic.