Discussion Topic

Conflict and Resolution in "The Bet"

Summary:

"The Bet" by Anton Chekhov explores the dual conflicts of man vs. man and man vs. self. Initially, the banker and the lawyer engage in a debate over capital punishment, leading to a bet that tests the lawyer's endurance in solitary confinement for 15 years. As the story unfolds, both characters face internal struggles. The lawyer, through extensive reading, becomes disillusioned with material wealth, while the banker fears financial ruin. Ultimately, the bet resolves neither the original moral question nor provides a clear winner, as the lawyer forfeits the bet, and the banker avoids paying the wager.

Expert Answers

An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

What is the main conflict in "The Bet"?

There are two equally important conflicts in this story.

The first conflict is man vs. man as the banker and the lawyer become engrossed in a discussion about capital punishment at a party. This conflict establishes the circumstances for the rest of the story; the two men are each so determined to prove themselves right that they wager two million rubles to prove a point. The banker believes that capital punishment is more "humane," while the lawyer believes that life imprisonment is the better option. The men grow passionately more determined to be correct, and when the banker bets the lawyer that he wouldn't be able to live in solitary confinement for five years, the lawyer increases the terms of the bet to fifteen years—for no additional money. This conflict between the two men creates the context for the second conflict.

As the lawyer spends his years in confinement, both...

Unlock
This Answer Now

Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.

Get 48 Hours Free Access

he and the banker face internal conflict. The lawyer studies literature, histories, science, and religion and becomes increasingly disgusted with the society he has left. He ultimately rejects the money he is duly owed, because he no longer finds value in worldly possessions; over fifteen years, his character transforms to a man who sees society as trading "heaven for earth."

The banker, likewise, faces internal conflict. As the years pass, he makes reckless choices in the stock market and loses almost all of his wealth. He can no longer afford to pay the lawyer the two million rubles and even plans to murder him in order to escape the bet and avoid public disgrace.

After struggling with their internal conflicts, both the lawyer and the banker are drastically changed by the end of the story.

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

In "The Bet," do the protagonist and antagonist conflict after making the wager?

Interesting question.  Most teachers stress the basic conflict types.  Man vs man, man vs. society, man vs. nature, and man vs. self are the most basic conflict forms.  

At the beginning of the story, I would definitely agree that the banker and the lawyer are in a man vs man conflict.  The two gentleman are having a civilized discussion about the best way to end a man's life.  I'm not sure why discussing that is civilized, but I digress.  The lawyer says that capital punishment is horrible because any life is better than no life.  The banker disagrees, and says that life in prison is way less humane.  

"The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is better than not at all."

The banker then suggests a friendly little bet.  

"It's not true! I'll bet you two millions you wouldn't stay in solitary confinement for five years."

The lawyer not only says yes, but ups the ante to 15 years . . . for no more money.  What? I don't get it either.

The story makes it appear that the bet began in earnest the next day at noon.  From this point forward, I can't positively say that the lawyer and banker are in conflict with each other anymore.  They don't have any contact with each other and their actions in no way affect each other.  

However, I don't mean to say that the banker and lawyer are free from conflict.  It just isn't man vs. man anymore.  Both men are in the man vs. self conflict.  The lawyer goes through tremendous mood swings throughout his time.  

. . . the prisoner suffered severely from loneliness and depression.

Depression was followed by contentment, then insatiable learning, then a sort of frantic learning, followed finally by a completely jaded attitude with humanity in general.  

"To prove to you in action how I despise all that you live by, I renounce the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise and which now I despise."

The lawyer decides to forfeit the bet 5 hours early and lose everything, because he just doesn't see the point anymore. 

The banker is also not free from conflict.  Early on, he doesn't have a care in the world.  He's rich.  But as time passes, his wealth dries up and he realizes that he will be broke if the lawyer wins the bet. 

"To-morrow at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom. By our agreement I ought to pay him two millions. If I do pay him, it is all over with me: I shall be utterly ruined."

That fact introduces the man vs self struggle within the banker.  He can honor his bet and be poor.  Or he can secretly murder the lawyer and stay semi-wealthy.  The banker opts to kill the lawyer.  

So to answer your question in a short, direct manner.  Yes, once the bet begins, the two men have conflicts.  The conflict is with their inner self though and no longer with each other. 

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

In "The Bet," does the wager resolve the issue it was made for?

The original issue was whether the death penalty was better or worse, more or less humane, than imprisonment for life. It somehow got confused with solitary confinement, which had not previously been discussed at all. This was evidently because the lawyer could hardly agree to be imprisoned for the rest of his life, and the banker could hardly be expected to propose such a thing. It might mean keeping the lawyer locked up somewhere for as long as fifty years. He would have to be dead to win the bet. Meanwhile, the banker, a middle-aged man, would certainly have died. A dead man would be collecting from a dead man! So the original issue was never resolved from the very beginning. For plot purposes, Chekhov had to change the terms of the bet, without any explanation, into solitary confinement for fifteen years. That in itself seems questionable, since the banker had only specified a term of five years.

"It's not true! I'll bet you two million you wouldn't stay in solitary confinement for five years."

"If you mean that in earnest," said the young man, "I'll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen years."

No one has been able to explain why the lawyer should have gratuitously added ten years to his ordeal. It was a big all-male party and no doubt a lot of vodka was being drunk. The quoted dialogue sounds as if the two men were showing off for the others and then were too proud to call the bet off when they were sober. The story opens the night before the fifteen years is up, and the banker himself is reflecting that the bet was senseless and proved nothing.

"What was the object of that bet? What is the good of that man's losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two million? Can it prove that the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all nonsensical and meaningless."

Technically, the banker wins the bet because the lawyer deliberately loses it by leaving his confinement before the full fifteen years is up. Morally, the lawyer has won the bet because he could easily have remained imprisoned for a few more hours. However, he would never have collected the two million rubles because the banker intended to kill him. So the unforeseeable ending has the winner losing and the loser winning. And the issue for which the bet had been made is left unresolved. 

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

What is the conflict in "The Bet" and how is it resolved?

Since the story is told entirely from the banker's point of view, both in the present and in flashbacks, the problem must be his. Obviously, the lawyer has a big problem keeping his mind occupied for fifteen years while remaining in solitary confinement; but the fact that the prisoner actually does manage to stick it out for all those years makes the banker's problem more and more serious.

When the story opens the banker's problem has reached the critical stage. The first part of the story is taken up with flashbacks telling how the bet originated and how the prisoner has apparently been existing in his confinement. The banker made the bet in complete confidence because he was positive that the young lawyer could not endure solitary confinement for more than a few years at most, and that he would voluntary forfeit the bet by breaking the seal on the door, as he was free to do at any time, and walking out of the lodge.

The old man remembered all this, and thought:

"To-morrow at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom. By our agreement I ought to pay him two million. If I do pay him, it is all over with me: I shall be utterly ruined."

This quote expresses the story's problem succinctly. The banker is appalled at the tenacity of his prisoner. The young lawyer has been making the best of his captivity for fifteen years. He has read over six hundred of the world's best books in many different languages which he taught himself to understand. He has not been able to see or talk to any human being, but he has had a comfortable life at the banker's expense. He can even have wine with his meals. He is not like the Count of Monte Cristo but more like a gentleman of leisure. Meanwhile the banker has been growing older and losing his self-assurance along with a lot of his money.

Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his reckoning; now he was afraid to ask himself which were greater, his debts or his assets.

The banker's problem is that if he pays the prisoner two million rubles he will be bankrupt. His estate will be confiscated. He will have nothing to live on. His only solution to this terrible problem is to murder the prisoner before twelve o'clock noon tomorrow. An alternative would be simply to refuse to pay the debt. This, of course, would be disgraceful and dastardly after keeping a man imprisoned for fifteen years.

Chekhov was clever in designating the young man as a lawyer, because he would have realized even when he first made the bet that he could have legal recourse if the banker defaulted. If the banker refused to pay voluntarily, the court would award it to the prisoner anyway. There could be no denying that the agreement was made, because Chekhov specifies that it was made in front of a large assembly of men at a party. And there could be no denying that the lawyer had been kept prisoner for fifteen years in accordance with the agreement.

The story has a surprise ending. The prisoner voluntarily defaults by leaving before the deadline. The banker is seriously considering committing a murder to save his fortune, but he has not definitely decided to do it. Chances are that he would have gone through with the crime by suffocating the weakened prisoner with a pillow.

At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the Stock Exchange, had he felt so great a contempt for himself. When he got home he lay on his bed, but his tears and emotion kept him for hours from sleeping.

Approved by eNotes Editorial
An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

What is the main concern of "The Bet"?

The main concern of "The Bet" is whether any man can stand to spend fifteen years in solitary confinement, and if so, how he can manage to do it. Some people could not stand to spend more than a few days in solitary confinement. It is used as a severe form of punishment in some prisons, but the maximum time this punishment is imposed is usually not more than a month. The warden does not want to have insane prisoners to cope with, and if they should go insane they might no longer understand that they were being punished. 

The lawyer is an exceptional man. He jumps at the bet because he apparently likes the idea of being able to study without having to work for a living. The banker makes his life comfortable. The lawyer is not imprisoned in a solitary cells but in one of the lodges in which the banker accommodates his guests. No doubt it is spacious and comfortably furnished. The lawyer has all his meals brought to him by a servant and can have wine if he so desires. No doubt he is getting the same meals that the banker eats.

It seems perfectly natural that the lawyer should immediately start reading books. Books are a lot like people talking to you, and they can serve as a substitute for real human companionship. No doubt the lawyer looks for the kind of books that seem "companionable." In J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield, who is a very lonely young man, does a lot of reading and talks about the kind of books he likes.

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. 

The banker probably does not realize that in procuring some six hundred books for his prisoner he is helping him win the bet. Without books, the lawyer could never have endured fifteen years of solitary confinement, and without books the prisoner's character would not have changed as dramatically as it did. He seems to have become something like a religious mystic as a result of reading such serious literature over the years. The narrator does not mention the titles of any of the six hundred books but only tells us that the lawyer spent a long time studying the gospels in the New Testament. They would appeal to a solitary man because they seem to be addressed to the reader personally, offering advice, comfort, and reassurance. 

An interesting book about a man who spends years in solitary confinement and how he manages to do it is The Star Rover (1915), a little-known novel by Jack London. In the well-known French novel The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), by Alexandre Dumas, the protagonist spends years in wretched solitary confinement in the infamous Chateau d'If.

Readers remember Chekhov's story "The Bet" because they identify with the lawyer and wonder whether they themselves would be able to tolerate such a long term of solitary confinement and, if so, how they would spend their time. 

Approved by eNotes Editorial