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Anton Chekhov was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the history of world literature. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Chekhov practised as a doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress." Chekhov renounced the theater after the disastrous reception of The Seagull in 1896; but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theater, which subsequently also produced Uncle Vanya and premiered Chekhov’s last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.
These four works present a challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a "theatre of mood" and a "submerged life in the text." Chekhov had at first written stories only for the money, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story.
His originality consists in an early use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, later adopted by James Joyce and other modernists, combined with a disavowal of the moral finality of traditional story structure.
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He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.
The story is about a family man named IVAN DMITRITCH. He and his family were living a middle-class life and was very well satisfied with their life.
Not until one day, his wife asked her to check the list of lottery drawings in the newspaper. His wife''s number got series 9,499, number 26. To his shock and amazement, he saw the series 9,499. Without checking the ticket number yet, he and his wife already started dreaming of a good life. Wanting to put excitement whether they got the correct ticket number or not, they first thought of several possibilities on what to do with the large amount of prize money. They dreamed of a big property, new furnishings, travelling and paying debts. Pictures continuously crawl in their minds, each more selfish than the last. Greed is eating up their imaginations.
When reading the short story, “A Lottery Ticket,” by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, drastic and fast changes in attitude can be seen in the main character, Ivan Dmitich. These changes are a clear window through which one may understand and observe Ivan's character and values as a person. The author of the story makes these changes, regarding Ivan's spouse and lifestyle, easy to see by the writing techniques he employs in order to build suspense as to where the story is going, and curiosity in the fate of Ivan and his wife. We can see how the concept of vulnerability in Ivan is also shown clearly by his attitudes towards the end of the story.
The story does not begin with any hint of vulnerability in Ivan's personality. He is quite content with his middle-class lifestyle. The author proves this by writing,“Ivan Dmitrich, a middle-class man who lived with his family on the income of twelve hundred a year and was very well satisfied with his lot, sat down on the sofa after supper and...” (Chekhov 476). The first small change in his seemingly laid back, relaxed demeanor was after his wife asked him to tell her the winning numbers of the lottery that week.
They have now seemed to realize that their kind of life is no appropriate for a wealthy and powerly people like them who has just won the lottery. Ivan and his wife soon to annoy each other''s company and felt anger against each other, thinking to one another that they are just pain in the head on their plans. Seeing his wife''s hatred, he quickly glanced at the newspaper to check the correct ticket number. Unfortunately, it was number 46, not 26! Hatred and anger immediately disappeared, but they immediately seem to realize how small and dark their rooms were, how their supper is not doing them good, and that the evenings were long and wearisome. Their previous simple and contented life are now changed with more longing for a better life, after having false thoughts that they won the lottery.
He turns slightly cold and skeptical towards his wife for even getting a ticket, but since he had nothing to do, he checked the numbers for her. All of these content feelings immediately disappeared when Ivan realized that they had the same series number as the winning ticket.
At this point in the story, the tone quickly changes from relaxed and content to paced, fast, and excited. He tells his wife in quick, fast words that they have the winning series, but tells her to “wait a little, as we have plenty of time to be disappointed.” (Checkhov 476) From here he goes on a wild train of thought imagining the many exotic and exciting things he would do if they had actually won that ticket.
However, his conversation, talking about buying an estate, paying debts, and going traveling is quite one-sided. Eventually Ivan's wife does join in, to support his spending ideas, until she begins to see the change in her husband from a once relaxed, satisfied man to a man slowly letting the power of money take hold of him, money that was not even his. The money was hers. The happiness they once had with one another began to slowly fade away as resentment and frustration towards one another moved in to replace it. Ivan's attitude here begins to change quite dramatically.
The dramatic attitude change begins with these words,“She would only be in my way, she would begrudge me every farthing...She knows nothing about money, and so she is stingy. If she won it she would give me a hundred roubles and put the rest away under lock and key...” (Chekhov, 477,478) These are the thoughts of Ivan as he begins to feel bitter towards his wife regarding the money, not even won yet. She starts to realize his feelings towards her.
Ivan begins to look at her relatives as “oily, hypocritical beggars, wretched, detestable people” (Chekhov, 477) who would come crawling to them as soon as they won the money. It can be easily seen how Ivan's true character and attitude comes out at the thought of sudden riches. His feeling of vulnerability is also expressed here.
Ivan begins to feel vulnerable towards his wife. To him, money equaled power. “That's not money, but power, capital!” (Checkhov, 476) He starts to realize, after his dreams, that the ticket was, in fact, his wife's. Therefore, in his mind, his wife had power over him. She had the money, and could keep it, give it to whom she wanted, and do what she wanted with it. Ivan did not like this feeling of vulnerability, and this is what sparks the resentment towards his wife. He started to realize that “she had grown elderly and plain, and that she was saturated through and through with the smell of cooking, while he was still young, and healthy, and might well have got married again.” (Checkhov 478) Ivan's real personality emerged completely by this point and so comes the climax of the story.
The climax occurs when Ivan's hatred and feelings of vulnerability come to an apex, and he wants to dash his wife’s dreams to the ground. He pulls out the paper and “read out triumphantly” (Checkhov 479) that they did not have the right ticket. The author immediately changes the tense, angry tone of the story to one of depression and despair. Ivan's hatred and hope disappears and he begins to realize the reality of his life. The author sets this tone by describing the dark, low pitched rooms, the supper they had ate was not doing them good, and the evenings were long and wearisome. At this point Ivan loses his calm completely and ejaculates a declaration of despair. “Damnation take my soul entirely! I shall go and hang myself on the first aspen tree!” (Checkhov 479)
Through Ivan's feeling of despair, hatred, and vulnerability to his wife's “power” over him, although nothing had changed in his life financially, he had successfully damaged his relationship with his wife, and she had seen his true character. Ivan's vulnerability and attitude was his major downfall in the end of the story. The author's use of wording and plot pace enforces the reader's perception of Ivan's attitude change and eventual downfall. In summary, one can easily follow the various changing attitudes of Ivan, and his overall vulnerability.
Urban setting.
The setting of the story is the house of the couple. In the statement, “…was very well satisfied with his lot, sat down on the sofa after supper and began reading the newspaper…” it connotes that Ivan is comfortable with the house he is living in but at the end of the story, after the fall of the high hopes and daydreams, the house was revealed to be dark and low-pitched. It does not necessarily mean that the house is indeed as bad as how they described it; probably the huge disappointment, paranoia, and hatred towards each other have wiped off their optimism toward their current living condition.
-Irony:
irony in this story is how the once loving family is now resentful towards each other .
-The end of the story :
“The Lottery Ticket” is an open-ended story because the conflict was not really resolved in the ending. I wonder what happened next: did they just disregard or ignored all the pessimistic notions they had for each other? Were they able to really share to one another all of it? In any relationships there are contributory factors that may better or worsen it. People involve are still in control of how and in what way they will allow these factors to affect their relationship. Anton Chekhov could have ended the story in such a way that will edify openness, respect, and selflessness to the readers, especially to married people.
The climax of the story is where Ivan and Masha’s hatred towards each other stirred up in their hearts, and for Ivan to annoy Masha he quickly checked on the newspaper and disappointed her by reading out triumphantly that the winning combination was not alike to hers. The conflict was not actually resolved for though it was stated that, “…hope and hatred both disappeared at once…,” Ivan’s emotions was still in heat that he spoken out complaints which did dispute the statement that he is, “…very well satisfied with his lot.”
1- IVAN DMITRITCH
He is a round character, he is a “middle-class man who lived with his family on an income of twelve hundred a year and was very well satisfied with his lot” 2-masha:
She is a round character,masha his wife is a middle class woman, The characters are multi-dimensional or dynamic because they both developed in the course of the narrative Theme:
*disappointment.
* *Money does not buy love;
* it destroys it. Before and in the beginning of the couple’s exciting moments of anticipation regarding the possible fortune, it was somehow pictured in the line, “…she clears the table while he reads the newspaper on the sofa…” that they are married long enough to have fallen into their respective routines and there was respect and love amidst the relationship. However, in the course of their daydreaming, because of Masha’s hope to travel too, Ivan’s feelings diverted into resentment towards her.
The Lottery Ticket. (2016, Nov 22). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-lottary-ticket-essay
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