Overall the underlying theme of the story is that some people really are criminally minded and what may be seen a "right of youth" can be quite detrimental over the long run. As such negative behaviors must be dealt with appropriately even if this means that the family of the criminal may be embarrassed. In the case of Sasha reform seemed unlikely only because he had already lost hope. This is evident because he is 25 years old and he refers to life as being insufferably difficult. It seems that the loss of his parent and his lack of education and guidance have made it difficult for him to make good choices in life. As such he has been associating with the wrong elements and this has led to criminal behavior. It is evident that Sasha has deep seated issues related to entitlement and a clear lack of direction and…...
In other words, his transformation was not based on any kind of moral or ethical epiphany regarding the sinfulness of deceit and adultery, but rather on the simple fact that he happened to fall in love with one woman. Gurov had always pursued his desires with a vengeance; it was just that up until this point in time, he had never really experienced true love. He ultimately did not want to lose the 'warm and fuzzy' feelings that true love afforded him, thus in essence, he remained selfish and hedonistic even after his 'internal makeover'.
In considering this, it is important to understand that while Gurov did experience significant changes regarding his views of women, his ridding himself of bitterness and his newfound ability to feel love, an evolution of morality did not occur as readily as many readers might initially assume. This is particularly apparent when he continues to…...
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Works Cited
Chekhov. Anton Pavlovich. "The Lady with the Dog."
Fulford, Robert. "Surprised by Love: Chekhov and 'The Lady with the Dog'." Queen's Quarterly 111:3. (Fall 2004), 331-41
Stanion, Charles "Oafish Behavior in 'The Lady with the Pet Dog'." Studies in Short Fiction. 30.3. (1993). 402-403.
Even with this, he cannot help but criticizing individuals whom he considers to be inexperienced in life in general. "I've never met such frivolous people as you before, or anybody so unbusinesslike and peculiar" (Chekhov 37).
Lopakhin and anevskaya could on the surface be perceived as representatives of the ascending capitalist middle class and the degrading aristocracy, but the characters are far more complex than it appears, overcoming the social class paradigm in favor of roundness and contradiction. We sympathize with noble anevskaya when she feels that the things she holds close to her heart should matter more than money, yet we also understand the endeavors of capitalist Lopakhin as he delights in uprooting the old ways by all means.
Change is the trial that all the characters of the Cherry Orchard undergo. Lopakhin and anevskaya overshadow each other's inner conflicts between past and present, having grown up together in the…...
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References
Rayfield, D. (1994). The cherry orchard: Catastrophe and comedy, Volume 131. New York: Twayne Publishers
Raw, L. The Cherry Orchard. (2000) Theatre Journal vol. 52, 409
Hahn, B. (1977). Chekhov: A study of the major stories and plays. New York: Cambridge University Press
The family hangs on to their memories of what was through the cherry orchard, the direct opposite of the rest of the realism in this novel. They hang on to the orchard for sentimental reasons, something directly opposed to the reality Chekhov promotes, indicating their love of the natural world, and their inability to fit inside the real world of the present.
In conclusion, Chekhov's drama uses reality and naturalistic premises to show a family in decline who cannot face their circumstances or the solution. Living in the past, they insist on remaining there, while their world crumbles around them, and by using real situations and natural surroundings, Chekhov makes the family seem more real, and more pathetic because they refuse to budge from their positions.
Sisters by Anton Chekov
When a child becomes an adult, one of the things they must accept is that the world does not always work the way they want it to. Children often have dreams that go unfulfilled, and when they accept this, it is one of the step to becoming an adult. Acceptance of one's circumstances is also one of the factors in becoming happy and being content with one's own life. Anton Chekov, in his play, Three Sisters, examines how three sisters, disillusioned by their circumstances with life, deal with the fact that their dreams and aspiration will never be fulfilled, and how at least a degree of happiness can be found.
The Prozorov family was originally from the sophisticated and cultured city of Moscow, but had moved to a small provincial village some years in the past. After the death of their father, the three sisters, Olga, Masha,…...
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References
Chekov, Anton. (1901). Three Sisters. Retrieved from
Psychological Impoverishment in "Anyuta"
In Anton Chekhov's short story "Anyuta," the title character is defined by her internal impoverishment. Perhaps drawing on his professional background as a doctor, Chekhov primarily explores Anyuta's psychological impoverishment through her physical behavior and body, and secondarily through her relationship to Stepan Klochkov.
The story opens with an image of Anyuta and Stepan Klochkov in a dirty apartment. The image introduces several pertinent clues about how to interpret Anyuta's character, before the reader even sees her interact with Stepan. First, the narrator has given Stepan a last name but declined to specify Anyuta's. One possible interpretation of this difference is that Stepan's identity in the world is more particular and concrete than Anyuta. A last name is usually a family name. The reader gets the sense that Stepan has a family, comes from somewhere, is grounded by a historical past. Stepan not only has Another possible interpretation…...
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Works Cited
Chekhov, Anton., Stories. Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky, trans., New York: Bantam Books, 2000.
Lady with the Dog" by Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov's short story, entitled, "The Lady with the Dog," is a love story between the two main characters, Dmitri Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna, and the struggle that they experienced as they try to prevent their affair from happening, especially since they are already married and have their own respective families to live with. In addition to their love story, the primary focus of the story is the illustration of the development of Dmitri Gurov's character. Dmitri's development as the main character in the story can be illustrated through a study and analysis of his life and outlook in life before, during, and after he met Anna Sergeyevna, referred to in the story as the 'lady with the dog.'
The first analysis of Dmitri Gurov's character can be seen in his life before he met Anna, and this is found in Chapter 1 of…...
Despite these differences, there are also many similarities between the two. The plot similarities are obvious, including the fact that both have affairs beginning and continuing in similar circumstances. Both have husbands that they do not wish to leave, partly out of habit and partly out of pity. They compartmentalize their lives and are able to think of themselves as somehow different people when with their husbands and with their lovers. In this, as in their inability to choose a partner, to overcome their fear and guilt and shame, or to find something in their lives that makes them truly happy, both of these Annas are very ineffectual and weak. In both cases there is a sense of guilt and shame associated with the affair, even though in the Russian Anna's case this sense of shame is far greater than in the modern Anna's. She obsesses constantly on her shame…...
Chekhov "The Bet"
Anton Chekhov's short story "The Bet" depicts an unusual wager. After a heated discussion about the morality of capital punishment, a pro-capital punishment banker offers the lawyer two million dollars to remain imprisoned for five years. Filled with pride and conviction that a life sentence is preferable to execution does him one better: "If you mean it seriously," the young lawyer states, "then I bet I'll stay not five but fifteen." ith the bet on, the two men agree to the terms of the confinement, during which the lawyer is permitted unlimited access to reading materials, one musical instrument, food, wine, and tobacco. Through the vicissitudes of his imprisonment, the lawyer becomes a worldly, learned man who has mastered six languages and has become well-versed in every subject from religion to politics to history. He passes his fifteen years in this manner, but during this time the banker…...
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Works Cited
Chekhov, Anton. "The Bet." Cultures and Values. Fifth Edition, Volume 2.
The death that occurs at the end of the Cherry Orchard -- that of the serf-turned-servant, Fiers -- is far more comic than the death of Konstantin, however, and that is why this death occurs onstage rather than out of sight of the audience. Much of the Cherry Orchard is focused on the inability of many of the characters to see beyond the ends of their own noses and immediate interests; with better foresight and acknowledgement of others, many of the bad things that befall the characters could have been averted. This is definitely a dark form of comedy, but the repeated nature of this trope throughout the play makes it ultimately comedic. The idea that Fiers decides to curl up on a couch in an old house and die, having been forgotten by his family and former masters, is the final punch-line of the play and must be seen…...
Chekhov Vanka
In Chekhov's story, many details remind the reader of Vanka's limited point-of-view. Vanka's anecdotes are always told from the point-of-view of a child who has been relatively well treated. He is often overdramatic, as is typical of many children. In describing his distress, Vanka writes, "I will always pray for you do take me away from here or I'll die...." His descriptions and memories are childlike, as e describes being fed sweets, playing with Eel (the dog), and being taught to read. Clearly, his Grandfather was in service in the kitchens, and as so likely had very different memories of being servant and required to get a Christmas tree. The story also says little about Pelageva, Vanka's mother, other than that she was in service at the big house. The story also fails to mention the exact circumstances of Vanka's apprenticeship to the shoemaker Alyahin.
The story is consistent in…...
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Works Cited
Chekhov, Anton. Vanka. Translated by Ivy Litvinov, Short Novels and Stories, no date, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. As reprinted in the Norton Critical Edition paperback, Anton Chekhov's Short Stories, selected and edited by Ralph E. Matlaw, New York W.W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-09002-7, PZ3.C3985Cg 1979 [PG3456.A15] 891.7'3'3, 78-17052, pages 49-52. 05 April 2004. Reproduced online at http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/vanka.html
Tolstoy and Chekhov
Death is the only true inevitability in a person's life. Once born, the only thing that is guaranteed is that one day that life will be extinguished. People live their whole lives with a death sentence hanging over their heads. For some people, death is terrifying and they rail against it and do whatever they can to avoid it. Others see death as a kind release, excusing them from the world of men, where they toil. Each person reacts differently to their own impending death and to the deaths of their loved ones. There is no single right or wrong way to react to someone's death or to react around someone who is in the process of dying. In both Anton Chekhov's "Rothschild's Fiddle" and Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych," the authors explore the ways that a man may deal with the death of those around…...
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Works Cited:
Chekhov, Anton. "Rothschild's Fiddle." The Chorus Girls and Other Stories. 1920. Print.
Tolstoy, Leo. "The Death of Ivan Ilych." 1886. Print.
Most of the time he had to beg for food in the villages. One of the most striking and touching descriptions in the whole story is at the end of the Tatar's monologue when he was asking himself about the way to find means of living with his wife in Siberia: "Now, when his whole body was aching and shivering, he ought to go into the hut and lie down to sleep; but he had nothing to cover him there, and it was colder than on the riverbank; here he had nothing to cover him either, but at least he could make up the fire..." (Chekhov, 1892).
The contradiction in views, between the old man and the young Tatar on one hand and the old man and Vassily Sergeyich, the ex-gentleman wit a sick daughter, is not coming to any resolution at all. Everyone remains convinced the other one is…...
Kafka's Joseph K. goes through a confusing and bizarre experience over the course of the novel, learning more and more about the legal bureaucracy surrounding him without ever actually learning anything about it. In a sense, Joseph K.'s experience mirrors the human experience in any society, because it demonstrates how the justification for legal and political authority is ultimately an illusion; there is no inherent justification for human political power, but rather it depends either on the consent of the governed or coercive force, and both of these actually serve to isolate the individual (Panichas 86).
In the case of the former, consent of the governed, the individual is isolated due to the fact that he or she must give up some agency and power to the state, and thus lose some small bit of individuality. The individual essentially becomes a constituent element of the state, and thus, like the…...
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Works Cited
Chekhov, Anton. "The Lady with the Lapdog." An Anthology of Russian Literature From
Earliest Writings to Modern Fiction. Ed. Nicholas Rzhevsky. M.E. Sharpe Inc.: New
York, 2004.
Chekhov, Anton. "The Man in a Case." Trans. Rosamund Bartlett About Love and Other Stories.
Chekhov likened his characters to a child who is just starting to understanding a new concept and meaning of love, leading him to further evaluate himself not just as a lover to Anna, but as a man and individual as he appears to Anna and other people:
He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know…and another life running its course in secret… everything that was essential, of interest and value to him…was hidden from other people; and all that was false in him…all that was open.
While Gurov admitted and acknowledged the hypocritical life he led by carrying on a love affair with Anna while still living with his wife, Anna remained confused and uncertain about herself and her lover in Oates' redevelopment of Chekhov's original short story. Created to complete the missing information on events surrounding Anna and her lover's affair in Chekhov's…...
Oates, J.C. (2006). The Lady with the Pet Dog. In High Lonesome. NY: HarperCollins.
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