Critical response to ‘‘Gooseberries’’ has been overwhelmingly positive. The story is praised for its complexity in content and form and for Chekhov’s controlled presentation of his characters and themes. Relating the story to Chekhov’s fiction in general, Milton A. Mays of Southern Humanities Review notes that it is ‘‘one of Chekhov’s finest stories, and one which is central to an important thematic pattern in the author’s work as a whole.’’ Sean O’Faolain of Short Story remarks that ‘‘Gooseberries’’ is

one of the loveliest of stories. So much irony; so much humor; so kind and understanding; and wrapped up in the most delicate poetic mood. It is probably one of the most perfect stories in the whole of the world’s literature.

As one of Chekhov’s mature works, ‘‘Gooseberries’’ demonstrates his ability to address complex subject matters in subtle, realistic ways. Simon Baker in Reference Guide to Short Fiction praises Chekhov for this: Baker writes, ‘‘The lack of any overt didactic purpose, other than the fallible and ignored assertions of Ivan Ivanich, makes ‘Gooseberries’ all the more remarkable for its effect on the reader.’’ Baker adds, ‘‘If a great story is not what it says, but what it whispers, ‘Gooseberries’ stands alongside the finest of Chekhov’s achievements.’’

The character of Ivan has drawn comments because of the range of readers’ responses to him. Mays finds that Ivan’s underlying inconsistencies undermine the character’s impassioned speech against oblivious contentment. In The Look of Distance: Reflections on Suffering and Sympathy in Modern Literature—Auden to Agee, Whitman to Woolf, Walter J. Slatoff observes that Ivan is a complex character who is at times amusing, absurd, lively, harsh, cynical, and paradoxical. He is also a gifted storyteller, despite his audience’s lack of interest in the story about his brother. In Twayne’s World Authors Series Online, Irina Kirk writes, ‘‘Ivan’s description of Nicholai’s life is one of Chekhov’s most powerful portraits of the blind and sometimes destructive powers of banal romanticism.’’ Many critics, such as Carl R. Proffer in From Karamzin to Bunin: An Anthology of Russian Short Stories, note that Ivan can be safely assumed to be Chekhov’s own mouthpiece in the story, based on ideas and feelings expressed in his correspondence and other writings. In addition, Proffer notes, Ivan and Chekhov are both members of the medical community. In this light, then, it is not surprising that Ivan would be able to so eloquently express his views on Nicholai and his decisions.

Scholars continue to be drawn to Chekhov’s innovative structural techniques, and the framing device used in ‘‘Gooseberries’’ has received its share of critical comment. Baker notes, ‘‘The subtleties of this fine story are barely explicable in so short a space [as his essay]: the ‘story within a story’ technique giving Chekhov a control that is barely visible.’’ In Studies in Short Fiction, Thomas H. Gullason writes,

This story has layer and layer of meanings and plenty of contradiction in these meanings. . . . This story seems as artless, as unplanned, as unmechanical as any story can be; it seems to be going nowhere, but it is going everywhere. There is no beginning, middle, and end; it is just an episode that dangles. Here Chekhov demonstrates how flexible the form of the short story can be.