There is an old saying in china says: When a man is near death he speaks from the heart. It means when you really face the death, your words became soft and kind-hearted. It is the kind of phenomenon that people regret after they lose something wonderful. The selfish person donates all their belongings to the charity. The mean person treats others well and show them kindness. The mad man becomes gentler. In Chekhov’s” Rothschild’s Fiddle”, he illustrates a selfish and greedy man becomes soft-hearted and regrets his choices when he faces the death directly.
Yakov, the greedy and selfish old man may never realizes how mean he really is. Yakov wants more and more money and he is mad at losing money: “Yakov was never in good spirits, because he always had to suffer terrible losses” (Chekhov, 254). When telling about losing money, Yakov is crazy because he blames people do not die sooner; for instance, there is a sick person” Yakov had been waiting impatiently for him” (Chekhov, 254). In “Nature of Chekhov’s Fiction”, he is described as follows: ”the heartless Yakov is totally absorbed in his business of making coffins and money and the fear of financial loss if an anticipated order for a coffin does not come through. Is forever uppermost in his mind” (Bill, 162). Money seems more important than his life. We have another old saying: that the man is fallen in the square hole in the center of coins. This saying describes my feeling every time I read the fragments of how unhappy Yakov is because of losing profit. Yakov is not only greedy about money, but he is also mean to his wife and others. He treats his wife so badly. This makes him a terrible husband: “he had frightened her, and each time she was frozen with fear” (Chekhov, 255). I never expected Yakov to be excessively nice to Marfa, but his meanness is further revealed when he thinks it is “Fine work” when expressing satisfaction at Marfa’s funeral. I feel pity for Marfa who only gets better treatment after death.
Yakov faces the death of his wife who was patient and carried the entire burden of the household. The first change to Yakov was when he heard his wife say she was dying. The description about this scenery is touchable. If your wife of fifty years told you that she was dying, your first reaction might be shock and compassion. But Yakov ”had never once been gentle with her, or sorry for her, have never once thought of buying her a little shawl or bringing her something sweet about a wedding” (Chekhov, 255). Yakov is doing amends to his wife. Yakov has memorized a lot old things. For example, Jackson describes in his article that “Marfa's death will shake up Yakov's memory and conscience” (Jackson, par. 7). Then, suddenly, Yakov wanted to cry: ”Yakov could not be bothered with that. He wanted to cry” (Chekhov, 258).
Yakov finally finds his soft heart and other emotions. He is confused and feels lost when it sinks in that his wife is dying. Yakov witnesses his wife’s deterioration, from getting weak to death. Yakov sees Marfa’s condition, and he unndertands ”why she had such strange, joyful face now, and it gave him an eerie feeling”(Chekov, 255). This feeling shakes Yakov’s inner world, and “Iakov begins to reexamine his life—especially his mistreatment of his wife and then more generally man’s cruel behavior to his fellow man—he ends with the image of Rothschild” (Rosenshield, 497). Death comes so fast that Yakov only has time to feel lost soon after his wife died. He waited too long. He was too self-interested. He never examined his own life and his own feelings enough to realize how much he truly loved his wife, despite his mistreatment of her.
When death finally comes to Yakov, he really reflects on his life and his bad behaviours, and he has regrets. He suffers from the weakness that dying brings. Yakov thinks” there is something wrong with him. His breath was hot and heavy. His legs are weak, and he feels thirsty. And then all sorts of strange thoughts begin coming into his head. The pains are like to a zombie who previously had no emotions, and who is then suddenly brought to life. I think Yakov begins to feel more human when he is sick. During his illness, he looks back upon his life. Yakov recalls memories like the dead people’s marquee. I thought he might have thought of something more recent, something sweeter, but Chekhov gave this petty man a poor great memory. The question arises, why was Yakov spending his whole life abusing people, growling at them, threatening them with his fists, and offending his wife. It seems like he is an excessively mean person. But then, confronted with illness, Yakov comes to a realization. In the face of death, he examines his life. He begins to see the errors of his ways, and then he recognizes how much he has missed out on and lost lost, like the full enjoyment of a life with his wife.
Chekhov gives this old man a few days to recall his life and refresh himself. Indeed Yakov changes from the attitude towards others. Yakov seems really soft when he sees his fiddle; he realizes that” he could not take the fiddle with him into the grave, and it would now be orphaned.” The fiddle seems like his baby or a symbol of his potential kindness. Sabine explains that the “fiddle was the quintessential image of the klezmer.”Rothschild’s fiddle makes use of this symbol. ” (Slobin, 39). I am not in complete agreement with this interpretation of the fiddle is the symbol of klezmer. But I do believe that the fiddle can be treated as a symbol of Yakov’s kindness. Yakov treats this fiddle better than neighbors or his wife. I am more sympathetic to Rosenshield’s description for Yakov’s violin: ”Yakov looked upon the violin, like his coffins,as a box for making money. But with Yakov’s spiritual rebirth, the violin also comes to life” (Rosenshield, 496). With all his soft feeling and hearts, Yakov shows his regret. Rothschild expresses it as “regretting his vie manqué, he expresses compassion for those he has insulted, and in, a grand gesture of magnanimity before he dies” (497).
All of Yakov’s newfound kindness leaves him once he realizes his days are numbered and how futility he has spent them blaming and complaining. Chekov demonstrates this change in attitude by describing the difference of Yakov’s attitude on one person—his entire life’s enemy, Rothschild. Rothschild has been treated as his enemy “for no apparent reason. Yakov gradually began to be filled with hatred and contempt for Jews, and especially for Rothschild” (Chekhov, 254). His character plays innocent and shows how mean Yakov is. We can see bunch of the abuse like shouting, yelling, and saying cruel words. Chekhov vividly describes Rothschild as frightened by Yakov: ”Rothschil went dead with fear, cowered, and waved his arms over his head as if protecting himself from blows, then jumped up and ran away as fast as he could”( 258). Such a cowered! Such pity! For all these sites become important when compared to Yakov’s later behavior.
Kind Yakov becomes soft-hearted and nice to others. He starts to be nice to Rothschild. The change begins when he sees Rothschild. Instead of yelling at him, he waves and says:” ‘Come on, it’s all right,’Yakov said gently and beckoned to him, come on” (Chekhov, 261). This gentle behavior shows a change in Yakov’s inner world. He is no longer the angry. He now a gracious grandpa calling people to come closer and do not be afraid of him. Yakov addresses him as “brother” when he used to call him “piece of garlic”. His friendliness shows an important transformation from meanness to kindness; from self-centeredness to self-reflection, and eventually cooperation. A touching moment is when he asks Rothschild to listen to the final performance. Two formerly sworn enemies now staying together peacefully and enjoying a piece of music. That music is the peak of poetic perfection for Yakov.
When the mean old man faces death, he leaves his treasure to his enemy. Rosenshield describes this action as follows: “Yakov understands the meaning of Rothchild’s music and he reproduces it himself to suppress the sorrow in his own soul. Yakov, the best of Yakov, will live on in the music played by his once greatest enemy.” (Rosenshield, 497) Yakov is dead in body, but he earns new life in music by his favorite fiddle. Rothschild brings Yakov’s fiddle everywhere and plays it with soul to commemorate Yakov. All of differences between mean Yakov kind Yakov show a significant change in the character’s inner world. When Yakov treats death as the way of earning money, he hopes people die more often. When Yakov comes to terms with death of his wife, he is touched; he begins to feel something change in his mind and in his body. For the first time, he sees his life as a whole, as a mistake. The loss of his wife and his recollections of his daily mistreatment of her makes his heart soft. He lost the people who took care of him every day. And he lost the normality of his life. When he finds himself, he is already close to death. His heart finally becomes softer. His language changes; his behavior changes; and so do his thoughts. These three main changes make the greedy miser a kind old man who gives out his fiddle to his enemy to carry on the dream of music.
The old miser dies with one sentence on his breadth: “give the fiddle to Rothschild”. The fiddle has transformed him. Freedman describes Yakov’s life as “[a]t the same time, it is a tale about a man who is redeemed at least in part by his devotion to the work (making coffins) and the craft (playing the fiddle in a Jewish orchestra) that frame his existence.” (Freedman, 74) Yakov who treats money as the most highly valued part of his life for all those years, gives it all up and re-examines his life. In the end, he becomes a better man who dies in love with his music.
Works Cited
Bill, Valentine T. Nature in Chekhov's Fiction. Moscow: Poetica Chekhova, 1971. Print.
Finke, Michael C., De Sherbinin Julie W., and Robert Coles. Chekhov the Immigrant: Translating a Cultural Icon. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2007. Print.
Gary, Rosenshield. Dostoevskii's 'The Funeral of the Universal Man' and 'An Isolated Case' and Chekhov's 'Rothschild's Fiddle': The Jewish Question. 4th ed. Vol. 56. N.p.: Wiley Subscription Services, 1997. Print.
Slobin, Mark. Klezmer Music: An American Ethnic Genre. Vol. 16. New York: International Council for Traditional Music, 1984. Print.
John, Freedman. ""Translating Ginkas Transforming Chekhov"" "" by Freedman, John. N.p., 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.
