BLOG 14: Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov’s “The Darling” is a story of an ignorant woman who cannot think for herself, so she incessantly falls in love and relies on men for opinions and ideas in a patriarchal society. The story seems misogynistic in nature like when Olenka, the main character, says something and the current husband retorts: “Haven’t I told you before not to talk about things you don’t understand. When we vets are talking shop, please don’t butt in. It’s extremely tedious” (Chekhov 562). Olenka is continually giving women a bad name. Her ignorance and conceited arrogance make a strange combination; she says that there is nothing as important as theatre and that people need to watch it and appreciate it more, but, not too soon after, she is too focused on timber and says: “We’re working folk, we can’t be bothered with trifles. What do people see in those theatres, anyway?” (Chekhov 561).Very rarely do people actually change their opinions on things they are passionate about so carelessly, which can make Olenka seem more fictional or make people think less highly of women. Ultimately, though, Chekhov was not a misogynist because he wrote this story to “show what women ought not to be”, and to reassert that women deserve the right to a mind and soul of their own (Poggioli).

As Henry David Thoreau said, “A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority.” Olenka represents feebleness in women being a minority, and a dependence on men. Men are almost always the majority or at least leaders, matriarchies being somewhat rare, so women, as Thoreau says, are powerless. In Chekhov’s story, she seems to be more dependent than powerless because she has power when she has love or a man, but when she is alone she cannot even form a basic opinion on something as simple as rain.

Emerson believes something quite similar to Chekhov, but contrary to the plot of the story. Dependence being the antithesis of self-reliance, Emerson was teaching independence, and, since Chekhov was warning women not to be like Olenka, he really had the same message. Emerson said that “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts”, but this presents an interesting perception. Olenka either recognizes her rejected thoughts in every man, or she has no thoughts to recognize or even reject.

Chekhov, Anton. “The Darling.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 557-565. Print.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self-Reliance." Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.

Poggioli, Renatto. "Storytelling in a Double Key" in Anton Chekhov's Short Stories, Ralph E. Matlaw, ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979): pp. 324–26, 327–28. Quoted as "Love in the Story" in Harold Bloom, ed. Anton Chekhov, Bloom's Major Short Story Writers. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2001. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMSSAC34&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 6, 2012).

Thoreau, Henry David. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.