Literature Annotations
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Chekhov, Anton P. |
 | On-Line Text |
| Genre | Short Story (31 pp.) |
| Keywords | Alcoholism, Cross-Cultural Issues, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Empathy, Human Worth, Mental Illness, Obsession, Ordinary Life, Pain, Patient Experience, Poverty, Religion, Sexuality, Society, Suffering, Suicide, Women's Health |
| Summary | A night on the town with two friends turns into "an attack of nerves" for Vasilyev, a law student. The three students spend the night drinking and visiting houses of prostitution; Vasilyev is horrified and repulsed by the women, who he thinks are "more like animals than human beings." The social problem of prostitution becomes an obsession; he is so fixated on finding a solution that he is in moral agony. His friends, among whom is a medical student, are concerned only with his health; they take him to a psychiatrist who "cures" Vasilyev with bromide and morphine. |
| Commentary | Chekhov considers the dilemma posed by the recognition that there is large scale human suffering in the world which the individual is powerless to alter. The medical student and the psychiatrist (as well as the artist) view the situation with clinical detachment, but the law student cannot. Physicians must strike a balance between concern and detachment, in order to best serve individuals, but perhaps the larger ills of society become at times overwhelming.
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| Source | The Portable Chekhov |
| Publisher | Viking: Penguin |
| Edition | 1988 (paperback) |
| Editors | Avrahm Yarmolinsky |
| Place Published | New York |
| Alternate Source | Chekhov's Doctors |
| Alternate Publisher | Kent State Univ. Press |
| Alternate Edition | 2003 |
| Alternate Editors | Jack Coulehan |
| Place Published | Kent, Ohio & London |
| Miscellaneous | First published: 1888 |
| Annotated by | Chen, Irene and Aull, Felice |
| Date of Entry | 08/01/93 |
| Last Revised | 12/01/06 |