Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Chekhov Short Stories
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The Darling
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David wrote: "Sartre offered a clarification about his much misunderstood phrase:"Hell is other people" has always been misun..."
Except for a few short plays, I haven’t read anything by Sartre. But, from some popular lectures I learned about a model for a human being that he developed in one of his major philosophical works. The model suggests that a human being is a triplet, that is, consists of three parts:
Being-in-itself, Being-for-itself, and Being-for-others.
Without exploring further Sartre’s theory I found the model to be very interesting. I thought that just playing with it should be a lot of fun. Indeed, you can see this trio dancing around potential points of stability, tugging at and influencing each other. In some tragic cases one component may degenerate, or the three simply may develop disproportionately. In this sense, ‘Hell is other people’ can be regarded merely as a particular mode of the trio dynamics. There might be legion of others. An opposite to the ‘Hell is other people’ mode could give a sociopath, for instance. Keeping playing this way, I guess it’s possible to discover in this model ‘Darlings’, ‘Belikovs’, and others. Like ourselves, for example.
Tamara wrote: "In fact, I don't think there is anything more important in life than creating a peaceful and loving home and raising healthy, happy, productive children who are respectful of the rights of others.."Surely you're not suggesting that every woman should be a Darling? Or are you?
Everyman wrote: "Surely you're not suggesting that every woman should be a Darling? Or are you? ..."No, of course not. I don’t condone anyone—male or female—being a Darling. I was merely reacting to an observation made in one of Patrice’s posts that “feminists would mock a traditional wife today.”
For me, the issue is all about choice and opportunity. It is not about the choice one makes. It is about the economic, social, and cultural support you receive when you exercise that choice. Some women can choose to be homemakers because they have the support they need to exercise that choice; some choose to have careers; and some (like me) choose to juggle both. All choices are deserving of respect.
The point I was making about Olenka is that I don’t see her as exercising choice. She is not even aware that there is a choice to be made. She blindly follows the path that has been laid out for her whether it is by her husbands, by society at large, or both.
And, yes, I happen to believe that raising happy, productive children who respect the rights of others is one of the most important things we can do in life. But that doesn’t necessitate being a Darling. In fact, I think it is the exact opposite. We have to model constructive behaviors for our children, and part of that involves their witnessing us critically debating options, formulating our own opinions, exercising choice, and being respectful of the choices of others.
Tamara wrote: "The point I was making about Olenka is that I don’t see her as exercising choice. "I agree with you there, up to a point. The point being that I believe that everyone has the option to exercise choice, so she wasn't exercising choice, but she was exercising the choice not to choose, if that makes sense. She chose the easy way of being whomever the man in her life wanted her to be. But isn't that a choice?
Tamara wrote: "And, yes, I happen to believe that raising happy, productive children who respect the rights of others is one of the most important things we can do in life. But that doesn’t necessitate being a Darling. In fact, I think it is the exact opposite. We have to model constructive behaviors for our children, and part of that involves their witnessing us critically debating options, formulating our own opinions, exercising choice, and being respectful of the choices of others."But doesn't it also sometimes require not respecting the rights of others? I think, for just one example, of Rosa Parks, who didn't respect the rights, or at least the legal rights, of others. She demanded a right which at that point in time was not lawfully hers to demand.
In a different scenario, our nation was founded and flourished in considerable part on the violation of the rights of others. Had we respected those rights, there would probably be no United States today.
I realize that this argument goes beyond the scope of the story, but perhaps it is linked in the fact that The Darling avoided all of this by deferring not only to the rights but to the desires of others. Her life was one which avoided almost all conflict, both internal and external. She was an almost perfect example of respecting and encouraging the self-esteem of others, a value which many today would place as near the top of importance in human values. If we were all Darlings, there would be no war, would there? But would the price society would pay for that be too high?
On the surface, she seems to be a model of cooperation and peacefulness. But . . .
Everyman wrote: "Tamara wrote: "The point I was making about Olenka is that I don’t see her as exercising choice. "I agree with you there, up to a point. The point being that I believe that everyone has the optio..."
If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting Olenka exercised choice by being whatever the man in her life wanted her to be, i.e. she chose to be that way because everyone has the option to exercise choice.
Everyone should have the option to exercise choice. But the reality is not everyone is aware a choice can be made. In order to exercise choice, you have to be aware of the existence of all the options available to you. There may be dozens of options available, but if you are cognizant of only one option and oblivious of the existence of others, are you exercising choice? Or are you just going down the only path you see in front of you?
Everyman wrote: "She chose the easy way of being whomever the man in her life wanted her to be."
Was she aware of an alternative way of being with the man in her life?
I am suggesting Olenka wasn’t even aware that a choice could be made. I see no evidence in the story she was ever capable of thinking anything through for herself or of formulating her own opinion on any subject. But if you find evidence to the contrary, i.e. evidence to demonstrate Olenka is aware of the choices available to her and intentionally chose to be the way she is, I’d appreciate it if you could point it out.
Everyman wrote: "She was an almost perfect example of respecting and encouraging the self-esteem of others, a value which many today would place as near the top of importance in human values. If we were all Darlings, there would be no war, would there? But would the price society would pay for that be too high? On the surface, she seems to be a model of cooperation and peacefulness. But ..."
But the reality is we don’t live in a perfect world. The reality is the Darlings of this world are easily subject to manipulation and control because they don’t question or challenge. They blindly go along in life, parroting what they’ve been told, and espousing the opinions of those they desire to please.
Respecting the choices of others does not mean we abdicate our right to live in a just society where all treated equally under the law. We have an obligation to challenge behaviors or laws that are discriminatory. Unlike Rosa Parks who challenged an unjust law, the Darling would have willingly given up her seat on the bus, and she would have probably done so with a charming smile. That’s why the Darlings of this world can be so dangerous.
Rosa Parks had a choice to make. And she chose to challenge an injustice. She did not take the easy way out. As she put it, “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
If we had more Rosa Parks in this world and less Darlings, perhaps the world wouldn’t be in such a mess.
Tamara wrote: "Whether it is a "centripetal" reading or a "centrifugal" reading or a combination of both, don't all readings have to be supported by the actual words in the text? ."Yes, of course! But "the actual words" are always slippery. Language is never as transparent as we make it out to be. While words have agreed-upon denotations, they also have connotations, and everyone reads those connotations differently, according to his/her experiences. If it were true that simply reading carefully enough would lead to a "correct" reading, then there would be no such thing as learned critics offering up wildly different readings of the same text. That said, I do believe there's such a thing as misreading--for example, when students misunderstand the definition of a vocabulary word or don't have the historical context for understanding something. But I think Patrice is right when she says the author isn't always aware of what he/she is doing either. Writers have their own biases and lenses as well, which unavoidably come into play when they write, whether they mean them to or not! Many writers would acknowledge this and wouldn't ask that their work be limited to their own intentions. Norman Mailer was once asked by a high school student about the symbols he placed in his work. He wrote back, “Generally, the best symbols in a novel are those you become aware of only after you finish the work." In any case, the strongest reading, to go back to Scholes' "centripetal and centrifugal," is one that can do both. And the "centripetal" part means hewing closely to the text itself and what appears to be the author's intention.
Tamara wrote: " The reality is the Darlings of this world are easily subject to manipulation and control because they don’t question or challenge. They blindly go along in life, parroting what they’ve been told, and espousing the opinions of those they desire to please. "I agree with Tamara that Olenka doesn't seem to be exercising a choice to not choose. If Karlinsky's introduction to Chekhov's letters is to be believed, Chekhov didn't think so either (though, as I just argued above, Chekhov's word isn't the last word!). Karlinsky claims Chekhov meant her to be "laughable." That word really struck me as I was typing out his excerpt above. I don't imagine he meant "funny," but rather someone we should have little respect for, maybe rather pity. Yet at the same time, I couldn't help feeling she's got a good thing going. It's tempting to think how great it would be not to care what I thought and to be content to go along with what everyone else thinks. It would be a lot less stressful! So here's Chekhov messing with us again, because we can see that she seems content, yet it's hard to praise her behavior.
Kathy wrote: " If it were true that simply reading carefully enough would lead to a "correct" reading, then there would be no such thing as learned critics offering up wildly different readings of the same text..."Thank you, Kathy, for your great post. I agree 100% with everything you said.
I used to begin every literature class I ever taught by announcing to my students there is no "one" way or "correct" way of interpreting a text. There can be as many interpretations as there are people in the room with one very important caveat: you must be able to demonstrate how you arrived at your interpretation by citing words from the text.
That's one of the reasons I enjoy reading with this group: there's a rigorous attention to the text that's missing from so many book discussions. Yet people come up with such interesting readings and comments that had never occurred to me--or, in the case of Bigollo's translations, for example, that I couldn't even look up if I wanted to!
Tamara wrote: "Everyone should have the option to exercise choice. But the reality is not everyone is aware a choice can be made. In order to exercise choice, you have to be aware of the existence of all the options available to you."I agree. I think this is the reason Socrates identified knowledge as the greatest or most essential virtue. The individual is the only one that can be held accountable to seek out their own options, so if Olenka does not know them, it is her own fault. Also if she does not take them, that is her choice.
My problem with this angle of criticism is that it seems more appropriate to charge Chekhov with with this deficiency than Olenka. Chekhov never gives us any hints for all of the options she might have turned down, opportunities she passed up, or her reasons why she did. For example, Chekhov neither discuss any possibility that Olenka take over the theater or the wood business, even after gaining some business experience with them both, nor that she turned down any such opportunities. He also does not list the options and opportunities that are closed to her.
I also sympathized with her cessation of being a theater patron as a widow not wanting to relive the grief of the loss of her first husband and used her busy schedule as an excuse.
I am interested in how those who have read The Brothers Karamozov think Olenka compares to Grushenka.
Tamara wrote: "Everyone should have the option to exercise choice. But the reality is not everyone is aware a choice can be made. In order to exercise choice, you have to be aware of the existence of all the options available to you. There may be dozens of options available, but if you are cognizant of only one option and oblivious of the existence of others, are you exercising choice? Or are you just going down the only path you see in front of you? "That's a fair point. I don't think Chekhov make it clear. But I think it more likely than not that she had many alternative examples before her (her parents, friends, books she had read, teachers in school, other couples she knew, etc.) that would have shown her that there were various ways for men and women to interact. I don't think it's clear from the text why she was the way she was, just that she was.
Tamara wrote: "There can be as many interpretations as there are people in the room with one very important caveat: you must be able to demonstrate how you arrived at your interpretation by citing words from the text. ."Absolutely.
Of course, sometimes there just isn't enough information from the text to know, so we're left with speculation.
In her Introduction to The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov, Maria Bloshteyn makes the following observation:"In The Prank, as in his later works, Chekhov records life's quirks without moralizing commentary, leaving the reader to reach his own conclusions, the very quality that sets him apart from his great predecessors. Where Dostoyevsky is passionately questioning and Tolstoy passionately lecturing, Chekhov is dispassionately, almost clinically, observant. Shortly before his death, Chekhov wrote with wry humor to his wife, Olga Knipper-Chekhova: 'You ask, what is life? This is the same as asking, 'What is a carrot?' A carrot is a carrot and nothing more is known about it."
Hmm. Perhaps it is that Olenka has lack of self worth and thus a flatness of being that only blossoms with relationships. It seems for Olenka it is a need of sorts and less an active decision to assume another's opinions. Perhaps a lack of self initiative or creativity or perhaps she perceives her ego only as a reflection. Whatever it is, her being is difficult to decipher. As in the Introduction in my copy of Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov, Richard Pevear states: "Tolstoy saw it at once, .'..Chekhov has his own special form, like the impressionists.' Tolstoy was not alone in using the term 'impressionism' to describe Chekhov's art." And as Chekhov himself said, "You are right to demand that an author take conscious stock of what he is doing, but you are confusing two concepts: answering the questions and formulating them correctly. Only the latter is required of the author" Appears Chekhov does the latter well.
Patrice wrote: "throughout this conversation i have been amazed by how differently and yet how strongly we interpret this story. just as you say we each create our own story from our own experiences. interestingly were all committed to our own judgments..."Just so!
Olenka is the Daughter of an assessor as we are assessing her, or should we assess ourselves as we empathy or not with her?
1. Tivoli, fantasy garden, nature, the theater so as stated later the world can be turned inside out.
2. Kukin translates as: each of the… as in “everyone “?
Kukin is fighting with the natural elements, raising his hand up to Gd but to no avail. A Noah character. Being descended from Noah are we all just obeying our fate?
Kukin also has some meaning of A silly pitiful, someone to laugh about.
3. From Goethe “faithfully to serve is to serve them too well.” P.140. So Kurkin complains about his audience, Olenka serves him. The story serves us.
4. Faust everything is turned “inside out “. Are the characters the subject of the story or are we?
5. Pustovalov states: “Everything happens as it is ordained.”
Again, this relates to the biblical story and humanity as a whole. Are we really living with free will?
6. Everyone becomes a diminutive, endearment.
No one has yet mentioned that every character has been reduced to a sweet diminutive. So, dearie, are we all after the same thing without being aware of our dependence on human contact? During this past election year there seemed to be only two dominant views, were we two sets of sheep?
7. We were put on this earth to love but love makes us less than we might be because you must give up some of yourself to join with the object of your love. Two souls become as one. One and one makes less than two so each must become less then one to form a union, whether between two adults or between parent and child. The characters become diminutives of themselves, but is that so bad? Isn’t happiness the goal? Or is it?
8. Second husband is in lumber as Noah built the ark.
9. Last lover was busy with animals.
10. Smirnin: Smirn translates: to forge as in creating a relationship; to copy as in creating a forgery. So is it as copying another for the sake of a relationship?
11. Without love, without some happiness what does anything mean? Our purpose is bound in the other, in another human being.
12. Sasha, the boy, comes and “An island is a piece of land,” like the ark, her soul has landed; there is love and purpose to life.
13. Sashenka: “I can go the rest of the way alone." You have children, pour your whole heart and self into making good persons out of them, and then they leave. That is your purpose of every parent. That is one relationship that will end in separation if it takes its natural course.
14. "I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!" Glad the translator left it ‘give it you” instead of “fix you”, because as the child becomes an adult there is an exchange of love, of understanding and of roles as the child becomes an adult and the adult grows old. A give and get takes place, not a remedy. But Bigollo clarified that Sasha is talking to a singular male, so, I guess Sasha will have his own issues that do not involve auntie. But she is looking forward to his leaving strong, as a doctor or engineer. She is being a mother at heart.
15. “Product of our socialization.”
16. “How awful it is to not have any opinions” but maybe the opposite?
17. “Even aware of an alternative way of being.”
In response to 15, 16 and 17, whether you call it acculturation or socialization or group faith, aren’t we all more like Noah who accepted his lot, did as he was told by Gd, didn’t question the authority of Gd. Who didn’t think it necessary to go to college? Who doesn’t think you must have pride in yourself as an individual?
Every culture inculcates norms and taboos, that the group takes for granted. As we in the United States were taught to question authority and our group rewards the individual who strikes out on her own, many other nations think they are free from having to question, and reward the woman who cares for her mother-in-law and is proud to hide her individuality from the outside world.
Chekov seems to put us in a much larger context and it isn’t just a woman’s issue and maybe it isn’t simply between people but between each of us and Gd.
Patrice wrote: "i found an interesting article on chekov written by thomas mann for the new republic. article78215. i tried to post it but it wouldnt work. In it he quotes Lenin as saying Chekov haunts him. Who do..."Here is the link: https://newrepublic.com/article/78215...
I was happy to read how much Mann liked "A Tedious Tale" (translated by P&V as "A Boring Story.") It's one of my favorites.
Yes, I mistakenly thought it was "Lady and a Dog" that Thomas Mann favored and so I read that story and thought..huh..I am surprised that was one of Thomas Mann's fav (albeit it is a famous one)...but then I realized it was Nabokov who favored that one and Mann liked "Boring Story"...which I am reading now (and am favoring thus far)..and now it all makes much more sense as to who favored what! Also read "Ward 6" as read that it haunted Lenin (in the above posted article)...it is haunting!
I just stumbled across a description for a 1965 movie called "Darling," directed by John Schlesinger and starring Julie Christie (who won the Oscar for best actress that year for the role.) This is the brief plot description in our library catalog: "A London photographer's model proceeds from an immature marriage into a series of shady affairs-- first with a television talker, then with a slick promotion man, and ultimately in a palazzo as the loveless wife of an Italian prince. After becoming a prisoner of her own success through these disastrous affairs, she realizes the awful price she has paid for happiness. This is a slashing social satire and a devastating spoof of the television-advertising age."
I did a quick search to see if the script (by Frederic Raphael) was based on the Chekhov story and couldn't confirm that, but I suspect it must be. Have any of you seen the movie?
(Raphael wrote a novel called "The Hidden Eye" based on the Gyges story, which is how I stumbled across this...)
Thanks, Patrice. It sounds like the title is just coincidental.
Yes, I jonly know that "Darling" was up for best picture for the 38th Oscars...along with "Dr. Zhivago" and "Sound of Music" (the winner) etc.. Interestingly (at least to me), Julie Christie who was also in Dr. Zhivago, was not nominated for best actress for that film but for her role in "Darling"...of course, if this has nothing to do with Chekhov, this is neither here nor there. But as to Chekhov, I understand in Broadway, "The Present" which is a little known play by Chekhov grossed more than a million dollars this last week ( It opened on January 8 and is an adaptation of Chekhov's fist play which is most oft produced under the title "Plantanov". Cate Blanchard stars in it; adaptation written by her husband Upton) Also playing on Broadway is "The Cherry Orchard". So Chekhov's writings are alive and well....which per Chekhov's story "The Student", Chekhov would be gratified to see his stories are still moving people long after he has passed.
Whether it is a "centripetal" reading or a "centrifugal" reading or a combination of both, don't all readings have to be supported by the actual words in the text?
Some of my students used to go off on left field when they "interpreted" a text. And when I would ask them to locate the words in the text that supported their reading, they would struggle."
I agree, that is, if we study a text seriously, like in a class. But literature is such a borderline subject. It is possible to consume it as a sheer entertainment, say, as music. I guess nobody should care what fantasies are running through our heads when we listen to the music. I, personally, can read that way too. :)