Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is one of the brightest representatives of Russian literature. His works are distinguished by their brevity, incredible capacity and richness of philosophical content, which confirms Chekhov's analysis. “On Love” fully reflects the writing style and contains all the main
artistic techniques of the author.
What is a story?
Before you start analyzing Chekhov’s story “On Love”, you need to understand what the genre of this work is.
The story is an epic genre characterized by a small volume and unity of events. Most often, the story does not tell about the whole life of a person, but about some specific moment of it that influenced the fate of the hero. Also, the author in this genre is always aimed at the maximum brevity of his idea.
Summary of the work
It is impossible to begin the creative analysis of Chekhov without a description of the content of the work. “About Love”, like all the stories of the writer, is distinguished by a fascinating and unusual story.
The main character Alekhine is served by the maid Pelagia, in love with the bully and drunkard Nikanor - the cook. The girl does not want to marry, and her lover cannot live with her in sin because of her piety. This often causes quarrels between them.
As a direct witness to what is happening, Alekhine embarks on a discussion of love. In his opinion, this feeling does not tolerate any laws and is manifested in its own way in each person. However, the Russian people are constantly striving to complicate everything, therefore they cannot just love and make attempts to introduce some kind of rules.
Then Alekhine talks about his love. His story began on the estate of Sofino, where he came after graduation. However, his father left a considerable debt with his property after his death, so Alekhine has to start working.
The hero’s affairs are gradually improving, and he is elected as magistrate. Now Alekhine often travels to the city, which gives him considerable pleasure: communication with society attracts him. Alekhine even makes a friend - Luganovich, whose wife, Anna Alekseevna, the hero falls in love with. In the Luganovich family, a young man is welcomed; he is close to a married couple. Spouses show concern and care for him, even offer to lend money in order to return to creditors. However, Alekhine refuses.
The hero is tormented by thoughts about how Anna Alekseevna could marry such an ordinary person like Luganovich. Anna herself falls in love with a young man, but both of them are forced to hide their feelings. Over time, the seed couple has children, Alekhine continues to visit friends, goes with Anna Alekseevna to go to the theater, which causes unpleasant gossip.
Anna’s character begins to change, the woman becomes irritable, nervous, ironic and sarcastic, she realizes that she is doomed to further unhappy life. Soon, the Luganovichi decided to move to the western province. Anna goes first, and Alekhine volunteers to conduct her. When a woman gets on a train, the hero realizes that she forgot the basket. He goes in the compartment to return the thing left, and then Anna kisses him. Heroes hug, cry and confess their feelings, they finally understand that all the obstacles that prevent them from being together are ridiculous. Alekhine passes one station with Anna, then gets off the train and returns home. From this moment the hero lives on, works hard and does not try to make his existence happy.
The main character
It is also necessary to consider the image of the hero before starting Chekhov's analysis. “About Love” is a monologue story. We hear only the voice of the protagonist, but the author does not show himself at all.
The main character of the story is Pavel Konstantinovich Alekhine. He is a smart, decent and intelligent person. His life is joyless and lonely. In support of his reasoning that love has no laws, the hero tells the story of his love. It was moral laws and doubts about the correctness of their actions that prevented him and Anna from being together. But all the while the couple lived in the city, the beloved was unbearably tormented and suffering. And the understanding that love has no barriers came too late and brought only new pain.
In this story, life realism is tragic, as in many others that Chekhov wrote. The work “On Love” is filled not with joy and happiness, as the name suggests, but with loneliness, pain and hopelessness.
Analysis of the work
Chekhov ’s creative analysis is complicated and ambiguous in understanding the author’s position . “About Love” is a story filled with incredible psychologism. His hero, having experienced the pain of loss, realizes his guilt that everything ended so sadly.
Love does not give in to any rules, and here human experience is completely useless. And as always, Chekhov remains true to himself, he does not teach anyone anything. The writer dispassionately tells the stories of human lives, and the reader has the right to draw a conclusion. Therefore, his author's position is so difficult to determine.
The story we are considering is part of the whole, which is the Chekhov trilogy. “About Love”, along with the works “Gooseberry” and “A Man in a Case”, is included in the cycle, united by three heroes-storytellers.
Conclusion
Thus, Chekhov's story “On Love” is a complex philosophical work that reveals the meaning of human feelings, but does not give a clear answer to the question of what love is.