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 17th 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
