Selected Short Stories of Chekhov

Author: Zhong Lei, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-12-01
Features: Chekhov was a short story writer with a unique style. Leo Tolstoy said: "Chekhov is an 'incomparable artist.'" Thomas Mann asserted: "Without a doubt, Chekhov's art belongs to the most powerful and excellent in European literature." Hemingway also highly praised Chekhov's art: "People tell me that Katherine Mansfield wrote some good short stories, even some very good ones; but after reading Chekhov, her works seem like stories told by a wise and learned doctor, compared to the tales of a young, unmarried spinster trying desperately to make them up." More interestingly, Katherine Mansfield, known as the "English Chekhov," was also deeply impressed by Chekhov. In a letter to her husband, she wrote: "I would trade all of Maupassant's works for one short story by Chekhov." In a note, she wrote: "If all of France's short stories were burned to the ground, and only this short story ('Sufferings') remained, I would not regret it." In China, Chekhov was also highly revered. Mao Dun once called on writers to learn from Chekhov's "sharp observational skills," "highly concentrated and concise artistic expression," and "refined language." On January 29, 1860, Chekhov was born in Taganrog, and he passed away on July 15, 1904, in a sanatorium in Badenweiler, Germany. His ancestors were serfs; his grandfather redeemed himself and his family's personal freedom in 1841. His father ran a grocery store, but after going bankrupt in 1876, he worked as a clerk. Chekhov experienced the hardships of life from a young age, and he himself said he "had no childhood." In 1879, the diligent Chekhov studied medicine at Moscow University with a scholarship. In 1884, after graduating, he began practicing medicine in the suburbs of Moscow. This gave him the opportunity to interact with various people—farmers, landowners, officials, and teachers—and broadened his horizons. Chekhov's literary career began in 1880. The 1880s in Russian history was a period of rampant reaction, with an oppressive social atmosphere and the emergence of humorous publications catering to the petty bourgeoisie. At that time, young Chekhov, under financial pressure, often used the pseudonym Chekhontsev to contribute to popular humorous journals, publishing numerous trivial and comical pieces, such as "A Mirror of Injustice" and "Mysterious Characters." However, compared to the many contributors to these petty-bourgeois publications, the young Chekhov had a sharper eye and a healthier sense of humor. "The Death of a Government Clerk" exposed the bureaucratic culture of Tsarist Russia: the arrogant and domineering strong, and the submissive weak. The worm-like Chervyakov and his servile mentality were products of such bureaucratic life. The humorous short story "The Fat Man and the Thin Man" begins with two childhood friends meeting at a train station. Hugs, kisses, and tears of joy—all natural human emotions. However, when the thin man, who had been a "seventh-class clerk for two years," learns that the fat man is now a "third-class clerk with two stars," he suddenly turns pale, shrugs, bends over, and curls up, and when the fat man shakes his hand, he dares to extend only three fingers and bows his whole body. Written in 1884, "The" (The) continues and develops the themes of the two previous works. In Tsarist Russia, even the dogs of generals were more important than ordinary people. Figures like the police officer Akhremovich kowtowed before the dogs of the powerful, while they bit and growled at the common people. "The" is a mirror Chekhov presented to the world, and it is not difficult to see the shadow of "The" in some "modern" people a hundred years later. "The Dowry" reveals another absurd social phenomenon: materialism over people. The daughter of Chikamatsova, Manechka, is about to marry, and her mother and daughter have sewn many clothes. But unfortunately, Manechka passes away, and her lonely, grieving mother continues to sew and prepare "dowry." Poverty, emptiness of the heart! Between 1884 and 1886, Chekhontsev turned his attention to the hardships of the working class. "Sufferings" marked a leap in Chekhov's early creative thinking. The ending of this short story (a person complaining to a horse) powerfully depicts the indifference of Tsarist Russia. "Vanka" can be considered a sister piece to "Sufferings." The innocent heart of a nine-year-old apprentice, his hardships, his longing for his grandfather and homeland—all are skillfully intertwined, evoking deep sympathy for little Vanka. Similar in theme to "Vanka" and "Sufferings" is the short story "Drowsiness." It was in these works that the playful Chekhontsev gradually grew into the serious and profound Chekhov. At this time, Chekhov's reputation was rising. In October 1888, the Imperial Academy of Sciences awarded him the Pushkin Prize. What is valuable is that Chekhov did not become intoxicated with his growing fame and status; instead, he increasingly realized the weight of the writer's responsibility. He urgently sought a "clear worldview," deeply feeling that without a clear worldview, "conscious life is not life, but a burden, a terrible thing." The novella "A Boring Story" is a product of Chekhov's inner torment, with the protagonist embodying the suffering of intellectuals in their intellectual exploration and reflecting the author's own search for a "clear worldview." It was this sentiment that drove Chekhov to travel to Sakhalin in the spring of 1890. His experiences in this human hell raised his ideological awareness and made him realize that his contributions to "The New Times" were only "harm." The Sakhalin trip also broadened and deepened his creative perspective, leading him to write "The Sixth Ward," which negated Tolstoy's doctrine of "non-resistance to evil" and condemned the prison-like Tsarist rule in Russia, where the thoughtful were deemed "insane," while it was these "insane" and "madmen" who saw through the evils of the autocratic system. It should be said that the character of Gromov, the "insane" in "The Sixth Ward," is a remarkable artistic achievement by Chekhov under the harsh censorship system. The scenes in "The Sixth Ward" are heart-stirring. When young Lenin read this work, he found it "terrible" and felt as if he himself were locked in the Sixth Ward. "The Sixth Ward" marked a turning point in Chekhov's creative career. From then on, his short stories and novellas became more socially conscious, critical, and democratic, with their artistic forms becoming increasingly perfect, achieving a perfect unity of content and form: realistic, simple, profound, and moving. In the 1890s, the Russian liberation movement entered the period of proletarian revolution, facing a dual historical task: to complete a democratic revolution against autocracy, feudal remnants, and to develop the economy, culture, and science, while also overthrowing capitalist exploitation and establishing a socialist system. Under these new historical conditions, Chekhov stood on the side of democratic forces. In the winter of 1897 and spring of 1898, he opposed the French reactionary forces' slander against the Jewish officer Dreyfus and accused Suvorin and "The New Times" of aiding and abetting the injustice. In the spring of 1900, he helped arrange for the political exile, the Socialist Democrat Larin, to receive treatment at the Yalta tuberculosis sanatorium. In the spring of 1902, he protested with Korolenko against the Imperial Academy of Sciences' revocation of Maxim Gorky's title of honor. Between 1902 and 1904, he repeatedly provided material support to young students who suffered for democracy. These facts show that Chekhov's democratic thoughts and stance became more in his later years, which was the ideological premise for his later novelistic creation. In his later works, Chekhov depicted the daily lives of the rural, industrial, petty-bourgeois, and intellectual classes with delicate brushstrokes. These works show the poverty, backwardness, ignorance, and contradictions of Russian rural life ("The Peasants," etc.); expose and negate capitalism, pointing out its irrationality and immorality ("A House Call"); analyze the of vulgarity, selfishness, and greed on the human soul ("Anna on the Neck," "The Cherry Orchard," "Yonch"); reflect the typical social psychology "We can no longer live like this!" ("The Man Who Was in Love with a Chair," "The Cherry Orchard"); and depict intellectuals who have begun to awaken, breaking away from parasitic lives and yearning for "a new life" ("The Cherry Orchard" and "The Bride"). These works are filled with a strong sense of the times and moral passion, both showing the life scenes of the rural, industrial, and other social strata and reflecting the awakening of progressive intellectuals and the social mood of "We can no longer live like this!" Chekhov's outstanding feature was his ability to reveal the essence of life from the most ordinary phenomena. He highly diluted the plot, merely cutting snippets of ordinary daily life, and used exquisite artistic details to portray and depict life and characters, revealing important social phenomena. But he did not sink into the "mire" of daily life; on the contrary, his profound realistic images often rose to philosophical symbols. In depicting the inner world of characters, Chekhov did not focus on detailing their psychological processes, but rather sought to reveal their inner thoughts and changes through their actions and behavior. Chekhov possessed exceptional lyrical talent, skillfully finding the right time and occasion to subtly and diversely express his sympathy and praise for the awakened, his condemnation and disgust for the fallen, his yearning for a better future, and his criticism of the ugly reality, often with a rich lyrical tone carried by an "objective" and implicit narrative style. Chekhov was a writer with a strong sense of humor, and in his novels, based on the nature of the characters and events he depicted, he skillfully conveyed laughter with subtly different emotional tones, often intertwining faint humor with sharp satire. Chekhov's novels are concise and to the point, leaving readers with room for independent thought. Whether as a writer or as a historical figure, Chekhov's path of growth and development holds profound educational significance, and the social and artistic value of his works is timeless. Chekhov was a people's writer, and his outstanding works are a precious treasure of the people.