Gooseberries, Anton Chekhov - Milton A. Mays (essay date 1972)
Milton A. Mays (essay date 1972)
SOURCE: "'Gooseberries' and Chekhov's Concreteness," in Southern Humanities Review, Vol. 6, No. 1, Winter, 1972, pp. 63-7.
[In the essay below, Mays argues that Ivan Ivanych's diatribe against human contentment in "Gooseberries" is undermined by his "obsessive" tone as well as the contrasting motif of the story's luxurious setting.]
The readings of Chekhov's "Gooseberries" all seem to run one way: Ivan Ivanych, who tells the "story within a story," and who points its moral, speaks for the author. "'Man needs not six feet of earth, not a farm, but the whole globe, all of Nature, where unhindered he can display all the capacities and peculiarities of his free spirit,'" says Ivan, passing judgment on the sordid life of his brother Nikolay, who has sacrificed everything for the country estate with the symbolic gooseberry bush. Professor Ernest J. Simmons, in his excellent life of Chekhov [Chekhov,...
[The entire page is 2213 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
Related Topics
