Gooseberries, Anton Chekhov - Sean O'Faolain (essay date 1951)
Sean O'Faolain (essay date 1951)
SOURCE: "The Technical Struggle: On Subject," in The Short Story, The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, pp. 171-92.
[In the excerpt below, O'Faolain praises the irony, humor, and double-edged meaning of "Gooseberries."]
[In Chekov's "Gooseberries"] a civil servant dreams of the day when he will retire—as so many civil servants do. He will have a farm, a very little farm, just three or four acres, and a little cottage, and a gooseberry bush. The gooseberries become to him the symbol of the Simple Life. Time goes on, as time does, and he begins to amass rouble after rouble, as men do. But, then—and this is one of those unexpected touches with which human nature always surprises us—as the roubles accumulate the idealistic civil servant begins to get avaricious and ambitious. There is the first sly comment. Do not the dreams of youth always harden a little as we grow old? Lose their urgency, become in fact mere...
[The entire page is 605 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
Related Topics
