Anton Chekhov

There is something about Chekhov’s stories that draws you along, some difference to his fiction that, seemingly mundane, has a darkness running through it. In these three short stories Chekhov explores human nature by exposing his characters as weak, dissatisfied, greedy and selfish: typical human beings in other words.

Chekhov heavily influenced the modern short story, delivering snapshots of situations with an open-endedness that frustrates some readers but opens the imaginations of as many more. He is attributed with the quote, “The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.”

In the titular story, a student is taken out on the town in nineteenth-century Moscow, visiting brothels in the red-light district. He is morally outraged and becomes angry and depressed as he considers the welfare of the sex-workers (symbolic of the oppressed Russian people), which sets the tone of the book.

‘The Black Monk’ explores mental health within a supernatural tale. The protagonist marries the daughter of an orchard owner, the health and fruitfulness of whom becomes symbolic of his marriage.

‘Anna Round the Neck’, the bluntest of the three tales is about a poor woman that marries for money. As she manipulates her husband and establishes herself in society, it seems she has forgotten where she came from. Chekhov is asking you to reflect how you would behave in these circumstances. The final question he asks is, ‘Would you be a better person?’