Reading Journal 1 - Scope of Realism Toward Romanticism

English Composition Class (Senior)
Reading "The Student" by Anton Chekhov
Reflective Essay #1
Feb. 13, 2013 (revised in Feb. 17, 2013)

"The Student" - Scope of Realism Toward Romanticism

The short story “The Student” by Anton Chekhov is such a renowned piece that it has created several issues and debates about the message and the theme imposed on the writing. Besides from his use of vocabulary, the plot itself is quite a complicated one, yet simple and short in length.

The overall summary of “The Student” is about a pious experience of Ivan, the son of a sacristan, who suddenly perceives the power of his words throughout his storytelling. He, after going out to hunting, visits the house of two widows (a mom and a daughter) on his way to home and tell them the story of Apostle Peter in the Bible. While warming his body by sitting aside to the fire, he unwinds the story of Apostle Peter, who denied his knowing of Jesus three times at the last night before the death of Jesus. By telling this story, Ivan made two widows cry, and as he walks out of the place, he feels great catharsis in that he made two widows share their tears.

Recognizing the fact that the genre, especially on the category of realism, of this writing was on the debate, this essay would like to add a further step on the issue about whether it is appropriate to view this literature as realism literature. Though it may not be correct to define a piece of writing and characterize it certainly as a writing of one genre in a holistic manner, this essay would like to provide opinions and supporting claims on viewing this literal piece as a realism writing by focusing on the theme implied and the plot implanted in the writing.

Part. 1               Stuffs in general: Realism and Romanticism – Depiction of the reality

First time reading this writing makes some readers to wonder the message within this short delineation of man’s storytelling. My first impression of this story was, “so what?” What is the meaning of this writing? What did Anton intend?

As I drilled into this chain of thoughts, at the end I began to question whether there should be any tangible meaning in the writing. And I also started to criticize upon my limited scope of the perception for the word “meaning.”

Meaning

Approaching to the profound analysis of the word “meaning”, two subjects should be involved in order to clarify the definition. Meaning can be created by either a writer or a reader. For the former one, meaning created by a writer is may be called an intention, and the latter one, meaning created by a reader, may be called an interpretation. Among these two, this essay will focus on the meaning intended by the writer.

There can be numerous and various categories for the meaning to be put into, but the category I would like to focus here is about the depiction: Sincerity in portraying the reality.

Depiction

Since what we perceive is from the reality, what we write is inevitably derived from our daily life. Therefore, the consideration about the depiction of our reality on the writing is no doubt a gist to analyzing a piece.

Tragedy and Comedy

Writer with his/her perception of the reality portrays, or sometimes creates the world of his own. Depending on the writer, the world that the writer created could be either honestly portrayed or deluded and distorted, exaggerated differently from the actual reality. The movement of depicting reality in tilted angle had developed from thousands of years ago, from Greeks who enjoyed tragedy and comedy in their plays. Their plays often aroused sympathy and dreadful challenges for protagonists in the branch of tragedy, or often evoked humors and satires among situations generated in their reality by giving a plot of the rise of in the fortune of the main character, in the name of comedy. Though the tone of these two genres seems to mark completely distinguishable area, they had one thing in common: they distorted and exaggerated the reality.

Romanticism

This tendency in the Literature was well descended to the major school of literature in 17^th century, Romanticism. Romanticism literature refers to a literary movement and an array of literature lasted from about 1789 to 1832. Romanticism literature is characterized by its focus on sensational approach to our mundane lives, capturing the sentiments and evoking emotions in an extraordinary manner from our everyday lives. As the notion “romanticism” implies, it embellishes our common experience and uplifts the spirit or delivers a lesson in the writing.

Until the day of Realism to come, it would be appropriate to claim that there was some distance between the literature and the actual reality: Literature did not play a role of an honest portrayal of reality, but instead acted as a distorted depiction.

Realism

Behold, for the most relevant and important notion of this essay has come. Realism in literary term refers to a movement and the ideology of writing in which familiar, ordinary aspects of life are portrayed in a matter of fact, straightforward manner designed to reflect life as it actually is.

Main difference between realism and any other genre [school] of literature is that realism depicts the reality in honest sense, as the notion itself implies. So if any other literary movement was like a [picture of the reality], realism was like a [photograph of the reality].

Part. 2               Realism in “The Student” by Anton Chekhov

           Coming back to the discussion about the piece “The Student”, whether to view this writing as realism writing is controversial, mainly because of its portrayal of religious theme touching the sentiment of two widows in the story and the consequent catharsis that the protagonist feels. Since the sentiment portrayal of ordinary life and transfiguring them to extraordinary experience was a part closely related to Romanticism, some would even go over to claim that this piece is based on the romanticism. Projecting this array of doubts and rebutting them, this essay will confirm that this short story is realism writing.

Q1. Is it legitimate for realism writing to describe unconventional event? (Especially religious catharsis in this story)

           This story is based on the religious catharsis that one student feels in his storytelling. Since realism takes its root on accuracy and honesty of the depiction, this uncommon event and seemingly overdramatizing reaction of the protagonist seem to delude its realism characteristic.

           For my personal opinion, I think even this romanticism-like event come to play a part as a realism element. Just because we live ordinary lives doesn’t mean that we can’t have dramatic or tragic moment. Take for instance, the moment of death or love. Those themes do not obstruct realism to pass on: Though the theme may be dramatic, if the portrayal and description does not go beyond to dramatize the event, it may be still valid as realism writing. Realism may not be about dramatizing, but possibly can be about dramatic moments. The important thing is how and in what manner the story is portrayed, not the theme itself.

          

Q2. Can realism writing be optimistic?

           In the story “The Student”, there is an epic change in the mood and the tone of the protagonist. In the early part of the story, narrator depicts on the gloomy condition of the day: AT first the weather was fine and still. The thrushes were calling, and in the swamps close by something alive droned pitifully with a sound like blowing into an empty bottle. A snipe flew by, and the shot aimed at it rang out with a gay, resounding note in the spring air. But when it began to get dark in the forest a cold, penetrating wind blew inappropriately from the east, and everything sank into silence. Needles of ice stretched across the pools, and it felt cheerless, remote, and lonely in the forest. There was a whiff of winter.

           However, contrary to the tranquil manner of description in the first paragraph, story changes its mood and tone into more bright and cherishing one as the protagonist feels the gayness after he delivered tear-sharing story, as the narrator mentions that “joy stirred in his soul”.

           Change in the tone of the story from pessimistic one to optimistic one lets readers to shake their heads, for it is unconventional to have a cheerful catharsis of the protagonist in the realism writing at the end. This part thus makes people to wonder if this story really is a realism piece.

           Because of its contrasting characteristic compared to Romanticism, Realism writing was often revealed in pessimistic tone. Considering that Realism marked the end to the Romanticism era where people sought values and beauties in everyday life and came out as a counter pulse, inclination of the Realists to use pessimistic tone is not very surprising. However, as long as it accurately with no needless decoration describes the actual reality, I believe that it can still be called realism writing.

          

Difference in protagonist, narrator, and writer

           But if anybody asks me whether the protagonist in the writing is in the category of romanticist, I would agree. There are many evidences that Ivan is a romanticist: the plot that he falls into catharsis by little ordinary experience is an instance. So to conclude, this story can be referred as the “realism writing about a romanticist.” Here, we have to carefully draw the line between the protagonist, narrator, and writer. Protagonist himself is a romanticist, the narrator is in third person omniscient perspective, and writer by utilizing the narrator depicts realism in a romanticist-like character. One reason some would claim this short story to be a romanticism piece lies in this reason- misconception and the fail to recognize the differences upon those three different conceptions.

           Thus, I believe that the short story “The Student” by Anton Chekhov is actually a realism-piece as most people think, and I would like to define this story as a “Scope of Realism Toward Romanticism”.

          

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Other indirect references:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1509265

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/70/anton-chekhov-and-the-development-of-the-modern-character

http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/20CKoreanLit.pdf