“The
student” by Anton Chekhov is a short story which describes the protagonist’s
realization about history and human nature. Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of
sacristan, encounters two widows near a camp fire. Then, he tells the story of
Apostle Peter to them. The widows respond to the story unexpectedly emotionally
and intensely; this respond allows Ivan to find the connection between past and
present and the new perspective of human life.
This
short but strong story leaves numerous interesting features. First of the
features is the insight about human’s nature. Even though the story describes
the setting realistically, it does not explicitly state the actual historical
setting. The readers just can assume it by the era of Anton Chekhov. However, rather
than focusing on historical context, the author explores the human nature. By
observing the responds to the life of Saint Peter, Ivan finds the connection
between the biblical story 1900 years ago and the current reality and the fact
that there is a no big difference between the great saint and ordinary widows.
Ivan’s observation of a human’s fundamental nature such as weakness and anguish
makes an interesting point that all people are basically similar.
Furthermore, “the student” makes readers
interested by revealing the anxiety and despair of Russian People at that time.
There is no specific mention about the era but we can find some clues such as
the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter and the era of Anton Chekhov. Anyway we
can conclude that the historical setting of the story is around late 19th
century to early 20th century which was full of chaos, social
injustice and revolutions. The phrases like ‘the lapse of a thousand years
would make life no better’ show deep despair and defeatism about the future of
Russia. However, not only this threatening ambience but also the bright hopes
about the future by final realization make the short story much more
interesting.
Unfortunately,
we also can find the weak point in the story which makes the story not interesting.
The process of realization is too fast. The lesson of the story is good, and
the biblical analogy is good but the narration is so fast that it even seems
awkward. The link between the event and the realization is not refined.
Moreover, the lesson of the story is too explicit. The protagonist explicitly
states the lesson and this makes me feel that he forces us to accept the
lesson. Maybe this is the limitation of a short story because its length is too
short to plot sufficiently.
Overall, I felt “the student” was a quite
great work. The focus on the fundamental human nature and the scent of anxiety
and despair in 19th century Russia make the story much more rich
despite its short length. However, the abruptly rapid realization of the
protagonist is still too artificial and it hampers the best quality of the
work.
