blog 15

Anton Chekov’s short story “The Darling” is a story about a girl named Olga. The story talks about a young girl, who is always looking for a new man to fall in love with. Throughout the story, Olga falls in love with many different men. The first man that Olga falls in love with is her father. After her father passes away, he leaves her their house and she marries a man named Kukin. Kukin is a theater owner. Him and Olga get married and they are both very happy but they both know that there is something wrong with their marriage. Olga helps Kukin with his business while they are married until one night when Kukin was gone on a business trip, Olga is awoken in the middle of the night with news that Kukin had died. After only three months, Olga gets over Kukin and marries another man, Vasily Pustovalov who is a merchant at a local timber yard. Olga works in her new husband’s office and starts to think and act like him. She even begins to share all of the same opinions as him and she completely forgets about her old husband, Kukin. Olga and Vasily lived married very happily until one day, Vasily got sick and died. Soon after, Olga forms a friendship with a man named Smirnin, who, earlier in the story, Olga had advised him to forgive his adulterous wife for the sake of his son. Olga and Smirnin quickly become lovers, until Smirnin decides to reunite with his wife. Olga invites Smirnin and his wife to move in with her in her home. When the couple and their son are living with Olga, Olga falls in love with the son, Sasha.

I think it is very sad that Olga goes her whole life never thinking for herself, always just adopting the thoughts and opinions of the men that she falls in love with. I think that the author, Chekov was trying to express the importance of thinking for yourself and trying to be an individual when he wrote this. Olga was never truly happy with herself and therefore, she always had to have somebody else telling her how to feel. I think that this goes along with Emerson’s philosophy of individualism. Emerson valued being an individual a lot. He thought it was very important to think for yourself. “Emerson states that the strong individual is the result of strong, personal truths, and that strong individuals are necessary for a strong society. The danger, he warns, is in conformity because through conformity, the individual is lost.” (Brugman). I think the importance of individualism is a value that both Emerson and Chekov share.

Bibliography

Brugman, Patricia. "Individual and Society in 'Self-Reliance'." McClinton-Temple, Jennifer ed.

Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. (accessed March 6, 2012).

Chekov, Anton. "Short Stories: The Darling by Anton Chekhov." East of the Web. Web. 06 Mar. 2012.