Discussion Topic
The Lawyer's Transformation in "The Bet"
Summary:
In Anton Chekhov's "The Bet," the lawyer undergoes a profound transformation during his 15-year confinement, initially driven by pride and a desire to prove a point against capital punishment. Over time, through extensive self-education in various disciplines, he becomes disillusioned with societal values, ultimately rejecting the two million prize he was to win. His experience suggests that true happiness and meaning are not found in wealth or societal approval but rather in personal enlightenment and social connections.
Analyze the lawyer's role in "The Bet."
The lawyer is a central character in Anton Chekhov's short story “The Bet,” and we can argue that his arrogant confidence leads to his downfall.
At the beginning of the story, we witness a debate between the young lawyer, who is about twenty-five at the time, and a banker. The lawyer claims that both the death penalty and life imprisonment are immoral, but he would rather have life imprisonment, arguing that life is always better than death. The banker exclaims that the young man would not last five years in solitary confinement, and if he did, the banker would pay him two million. The lawyer now gets rather cocky and quite overconfident, for he brags that he can handle “not five but fifteen years.”
Perhaps the lawyer wants the two million. Perhaps he thinks he is up for a challenge. Perhaps he wants to show how strong...
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he is. In any case, in an instant, he has just committed fifteen years of his life to solitary confinement on nothing more than a debate and a whim. To give the man credit, though, he holds out. He nearly despairs at times. Then he plays the piano for hours. He studies voraciously, everything from science to Shakespeare to theology.
As the fifteen-year deadline approaches, the banker himself is almost at the point of despair, for he no longer has the two million to pay the lawyer, and if he must honor the bet, he will be plunged into poverty. On the night before the deadline, the banker slips into the room where the lawyer has stayed alone for fifteen years. He isn't quite sure what he is going to do, but he is desperate. He finds the lawyer asleep at a table, only a shadow of the man he once was. Before him lies a piece of paper on which he has written about how much he has studied and how wise he feels he now is. His arrogance asserts itself when he declares how much he now despises the world and human life. He no longer wants the two million and claims that he will leave five minutes before the deadline. This new manifestation of arrogance, however, leads to great relief for the banker, who goes out weeping. The lawyer keeps his promise and disappears, never to be seen again, and we are left wondering if the biggest thing he has lost during his confinement is himself.
What is the lawyer's role and struggle in "The Bet"?
The lawyer is a dynamic character who initially agrees to a bet because of his own prideful determination to prove a point to the banker and others at their dinner party. When the attendees begin debating capital punishment, the lawyer comments that "it's better to live somehow than not to live at all." When the banker asserts that the lawyer could not even live for five years in solitary confinement, the lawyer raises the length of his voluntary confinement to fifteen years, and for no additional money. This demonstrates that he is equally as reckless as the banker.
Yet through his voluntary confinement, the lawyer changes. He reads a great number of books spanning a wide range of subjects. He plays piano and learns various languages. At the end of his confinement, he finds that the values of society are ultimately meaningless, and he intentionally gives up the millions because he no longer wishes to be a part of the world which he has grown to hate while in confinement.
Your thesis based on this internal conflict might look like something like this:
The lawyer is a dynamic character who ultimately finds society's values meaningless, who believes that humans ignore things of eternal significance, and who willingly forfeits millions of dollars because he prefers a life of solitude.
You could then use each of those three key points to explain how the lawyer changes during his confinement, particularly using the letter he writes and contrasting that with his earlier actions in the story.
I hope you find this helpful in organizing your thoughts. Good luck!
What is the lawyer's role in "The Bet"?
Writing thesis statements is definitely a learned skill. It takes practice, and that is sometimes why beginning writers struggle so much with crafting a thesis statement. They simply haven't had enough practice with them, but that doesn't mean the basics of a thesis statement are difficult. A thesis statement makes an argument that you intend to prove. This means that there isn't a definitively correct thesis statement about any story or character. The thesis statement is your argument about the lawyer's role in the short story "The Bet."
You could probably go two different directions with your thesis statement. You could create a thesis that makes an argument about the role the lawyer plays in the overall plot structure of the story or you could make an argument about the role the lawyer plays in regards to the message being sent to the story's readers. My suggestion is to go with the second option, because it allows you to explore possible morals of the story and/or Chekhov's goal with writing the story.
One direction to explore is how the lawyer casts away the financial winnings he stood to make. Perhaps the lawyer's role is to teach readers that true happiness isn't found in money. It's also possible that the lawyer's role is to teach readers the importance of social interactions. The lawyer didn't have any of that during his time in confinement, and it could be argued that the lack of social interactions destroyed him. Personally, I don't believe the lawyer left his prison a better and happier man than he was when he went in, so I would argue that the lawyer's role is to teach readers about the importance of social interactions and social health. A possible thesis statement could be something like the following statement:
"Although the lawyer's initial goal was to teach about the morality and ethics of capital punishment, he really teaches readers about the importance of social health."
Which activity most changed the lawyer in "The Bet"?
No single activity changed the lawyer. The cumulative experience of his imprisonment over the fifteen years, all the things he read and studied, they all changed him.
It was not just the study of the piano, the novels, the languages, the philosophy, the histories, the Bible, the theology, and not even the Byron or the Shakespeare. No, that is the point: together they changed him. He absorbed all of it; he became smarted than everyone through all those years of study and reading and came to the conclusion that it all amounted to nothing. Here: he says it right here:
And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.
You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you.