Essays on Anton Chekhov

Introduction

The nature of "The Cherry Orchard", in terms of the genre has always been controversial. Often the play is defined as a "tragicomedy", or an "an ironic tragicomedy." However, it is vital to understand what genre the play is as it defines the code of reading the play and the characters. What does it mean to see elements of tragedy in the play? This would mean to a certain extent agree with the characters’ originality, their sincere and true suffering. However, it is impossible to see any strong trait in characters that are "weak-willed", "aching", "whining", and have "lost ...

A particular feature of the literature is that it can send the author’s message in various ways and reach a target reader out of the crowd of ignorant ones. This can be often achieved through the hidden meaning inside a literary work or through irony, satire and caricature of the reality described. The aim of the present work is to compare and contrast Anton Chekhov’s play “The Proposal” and Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace”. In this context, the comparison will be conducted in the framework of the depicting of the same theme of gender ...

In the play “The Seagull” Chekhov uses the characters to explore the most effective methodologies of creative writing. Using different abilities of characters, Chekhov can bring a natural feeling to the general understanding about writing and art. In this play, the actors are all seeking to establish their name as renowned persons in the world of writing. However, each of them has different approaches as well as differing motivation towards writing. Nina is inspired by the desire to fulfill her own belief that she is a talented writer and actor and thus has an obligation to utilize her potential. In ...

The Seagull by Anton Chekhov and “Chekhov for Children” by Philip Lopate.

Chekhov's The Seagull is known to reject the conventional dramatic subjects that dominated the theater at that time. The intensely dramatic events are not seen on stage, and The Seagull brought about a fundamental change in not only how the plays were written but also how they were acted. Chekhov for Children by celebrated writer Phillip Lopate is an inspiring reflection about his experience with the child actors and how he teaches them. This is an assessment of the nature of childhood and evokes the question as to how does one demarcate between experimentation and self-indulgence. The choices made by ...

Classic English Literature

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, born in the small seaport of Taganrog, Ukraine in 1860, was a physician who wrote short stories and plays. While he spent his early years under the shadow of his father's religious fanaticism, he managed to support his medical studies by taking tuitions. As a doctor, Chekov spent his daytime caring for the needy while he spent the nights writing. His medical background is clearly evident in much of his plays as evidenced by the apathy many of his characters show towards tragic events. His plays and short stories are influenced by his doctoral research at the penal ...

Introduction

The choices we make in life hugely determine the quality and the nature of life itself. The way that we meet and the affection levels that can be tolerated form these occurrences significantly determines and commands very many aspects of our lives. For example, a police officer is charged with the duty of serving the people. He comes across very many occurrences in his line of duty. As a servant of the society, the officer needs to possess the ability to distinguish legal and criminal activities and make a decent choice when he encounters these situations. The pictures below show police officers ...

Introduction

The choices we make in life hugely determine the quality and the nature of life itself. The way that we meet and the affection levels that can be tolerated form these occurrences significantly determines and commands very many aspects of our lives. For example, a police officer is charged with the duty of serving the people. He comes across very many occurrences in his line of duty. As a servant of the society, the officer needs to possess the ability to distinguish legal and criminal activities and make a decent choice when he encounters these situations. The pictures below show police officers ...

Compare and Contrast Analysis of Proposal by Anton Chekhov and Naomi in the Living Room by Christopher Durang

Anton Chekhov wrote his play in 1888 and Chistophers Durang’s Naomi in the Living Room saw the light in the second half of the twentieth century. Almost a century gap divides these plays, these playwrights let alone the different countries and epochs. However, they both depict conflicts inside families and both are focused on the hysteric and hypochondriac main characters.

The Proposal tells the story of a marriage proposal. Ivan Lomov, a landowner comes to Stepan Spenanovitch Chubukov, a 70-years old man, to make an offer of marriage to Chubukov’s daughter, Nataya. He is very nervous. It takes him some ...

The internal corrosion of the human mind has fascinated writers from many cultures, but there are few cultures that produced such a broad spectrum of works that analyze the psyche during the nineteenth century as did Russia. When one thinks of tortuous conditions in Russia, one often thinks of the pogroms of Joseph Stalin, as he brutally brought the idealism of the Communist takeover to heel, making the country an immense network of fear and betrayal, as no one person wanted to be the one to inform on his neighborhood, but even less desirable than that was the role of ...

“The Lady with the Little Dog” – Anton Chekhov

A Comparative Study of the Presentation of Adultery.

These two stories were both composed towards the end of the nineteenth century, and both present an adulterous relationship. Chopin’s “The Storm” was not published in her life-time because the subject matter was considered too scandalous; Chekhov’s story was published, but, according to Loehlin, Tolstoy “condemned the the lovers in “The Lady with the Little Dog” as “Nietzschian and bestial” (163). Both stories are narrated by an omniscient third person authorial voice, but Chekhov adopts the male point of view, that of the protagonist, Gurov; by contrast, Chopin switches ...