Listed high among the masters of short story is Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Even if you haven’t read his work, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of his technique in Chekhov’s gun. Instead of living in mystery, I have decided to finally dig into the author’s work and understand just what makes him an essential voice in the written word. Is he more than a simple gimmick and, if so, what does he have to say about the larger world around him? Like everything I’ve covered in the Short Stop column, his is a series defined by searching bookstores to find whatever speaks to me. At long last, I hope to better understand a name I’ve known seemingly since before I was a writing major but never had context for. Is Chekhov as great as they say? Follow along as I try to see if the payoff is worth the set-up.
As an introduction, I’d like to admit that I don’t know that much about Chekhov’s writing. I couldn’t tell you his life story nor name any actual work he created. To me, he’s one of those renowned names that I grew up hearing about thinking that one day I’d eventually get around to reading. I’m happy to say that 2025 is the year when I finally tackle an anthology made up of 23 short stories. Following a series based around David Foster Wallace, I’m relieved to be tackling something a bit on the shorter side.
That may be why “The Cook’s Wedding” caught me off guard. Upon completing the six page story, I was left not entirely sure what I had read. I understood the larger plot, but what was the richer symbolism? It’s here that I admit that my critical analysis skills has dulled over the winter break and I needed to take my time working through the text and realize that for a story centered around a wedding, it was much more clever than it appeared.
The plot itself has a conventionality that isn’t that thrilling to recount. A cook named Pelageya meets a cabman named Danillo and, reluctantly, marries him. By the end Danillo leaves a married man with acknowledged ownership over Pelageya. The precision makes the final page feel especially abrupt and leaves the reader questioning what Chekhov’s greater point was. Neither character is necessarily that well off nor are their lives changed that much by the final page. All that’s changed is this marriage means nothing to either of them. What gives?
Given that this is among Chekhov’s earliest work, it makes sense that it’s not as labyrinthian as his reputation would suggest. This is a story that revels in mundanity to the extent that it becomes much more compelling when breaking down why it lacks spectacle. Given that everybody is defined first by their job, it makes sense that this is a story of the working class trying to find any semblance of power in the hierarchy. Nobody that Chekhov writes about would be considered a person of influence. Danillo may earn that honor solely because of a wife’s subservience, but even he is at the hands of rich clientele that he drives around. He refuses to drink vodka in large part because his sobriety guarantees that he’ll be best at his job and avoid any criticism that could knock him down the social ladder. In fact the mention of driving into a pothole comically alludes to how easy it is for him to be taken down a peg.
Before Chekhov even gets to this section of the story, he establishes the perspective that elevates the elements of melancholy into something more comic. Protagonist Grisha is described as a “fat, solemn little person of seven.” In theory, his story changes the least between the first and last word, and yet he’s the one who makes everything land better. His immature analysis clearly hasn’t been shaped yet by social structuring. He gets to contemplate whether marriage is a valid institution, especially if Pelageya is clearly not in love with Danillo. Even as Grisha recalls family members who have been married, there isn’t this sense of happiness. They are following something more akin to requirement than passion. Chekhov doesn’t let Grisha have a hackneyed interpretation of events. This isn’t a Hollywood ending. It’s more ironic and muted. The small gesture that Grisha ends the story with is described as being stolen, suggesting how easy it is for the characters to remove value from others.
Despite Chekhov’s ability to make the characters feel sympathetic, it’s interesting to note that Grisha isn’t a character of large merit. His relationship with Pelageya isn’t strong. In fact, he first witnesses her through a keyhole. He’s peering into the working quarters where everybody is sweating and doing what they can to keep the machine operating. There is a distance between a child and the adults whose lives he observes with curiosity. There is no study of a manager or boss who is controlling them. Instead there is this acceptance that everyone is following their career roles. Nobody expects anything greater to happen.
This is a story that centers around a cook and a cabman getting married. Along with them is a nurse named Aksinya Stepanova, Grisha’s mother, and a soldier who marries the newlyweds. There’s other characters symbolizing staff members (and a child named Filka mostly known for playing with a dog), but they all fit within the same social class. Their function is to keep everything running without benefiting from the larger system. At no point does Aksinya get to do more than nurture Danillo while trying to persuade Pelageya to marry him. There is something inevitable about Pelageya’s fate even as she wishes a plague on him. The reluctance is the only sign of independence ever expressed in the story, and it helps to make the story a tragedy. At least it would be if the marriage was more than an empty honor.
Aksinya loves Danillo because of how he treats his job. Unlike other coworkers who are quick to drown their miseries in vodka, he chooses to visit this establishment with a sober mindset. He’ll drink water and continue his day. It helps to establish him as a man who envisions the potential to become so respected by his clientele that he’d break into the upper class. He’s in his 40s and seems to have enough figured out for a stable living. In a clever nod by Chekhov, the cabman role also pits him in symbolic control of the wealthy by placing him not only at the front of the cab, but also seated at higher elevation. There is a sense of control that every other character lacks, especially as services like nursing and cooking are more interchangeable roles.
It also helps that Danillo is one of the only men in the story. Along with characters discussing what control they have over their own lives, Chekhov slowly unravels a concept that’s recognizable to modern audiences but might’ve seemed radical in 1885 when the story was published. Even if Danillo is not a powerful figure outside of the story, he earns that honor in “The Cook’s Wedding” because men are deemed more useful in society. Women play the role of servants and thus will struggle to earn similar stature their entire lives. Grisha is a fascinating figure to place perspective on not only because he’s naïve, but because he’s one of the only masculine roles that could perceptively be ranked below the women. A child lacks the responsibilities and influence of adults, and thus reflects the bottom of the social ladder. He’s being exposed to how easily he’ll eventually outrank everybody in his proximity in a matter of years. The world is set up to benefit him, even if he’ll likely continue to struggle in the lower class.
Pelageya’s reluctance to get married is the small radical tool that makes the larger text work. Despite her willingness to play along with cooking food, she recognizes self-worth. She deserves to be happy. Nothing in the short story ever suggests that she has an emotional connection to Danillo outside of having careers that benefit higher powers. It’s not enough to base happiness on, and yet everyone’s convinced that it would. The flimsiness of Chekhov’s prose that allows the marriage to come and go with unceremonious brevity is brilliant. There’s no processing of what has just transpired. Instead it feels like a return to business as usual. Everyone felt helpless to change Pelageya’s course, and that becomes the irony of Russian society as a larger concept.
Everybody in this story lacks agency. It’s only through his cunning skill that Danillo earns any. Chekhov is suggesting that the lower class will always struggle to move upward or gain momentum because of their need to steal from each other. Danillo’s sense of power is shallow, mostly existing as control over a woman who doesn’t love him back. One has to ask what any of this story was for. The difference between a writer who is simply saying “nothing matters” and what Chekhov does in “The Cook’s Wedding” is that he paints an image of each character that may be broad but reflects the recognizable limits each role plays. For a cook, her clientele will eventually become full. For a nurse, her patient will eventually heal. For a mother, her child will eventually age out of codependence. There is no permanence. They will keep falling downward, looking for some way to fill another person’s need. The fact that Chekhov paints the worst victims as women is very intentional.
As far as introductions to Anton Chekhov’s work, this is a satisfying ice breaker. I’m unsure that it ranks among my favorite short stories, but it reflects a cleverness that I imagine he’ll continue to improve upon as he becomes a stronger writer. For now, he’s able to take something so trivial and add greater meaning just by altering the angles by which they’re looked at. The marriage itself isn’t exceptional. One would be forgiven for thinking that the story is slight or even meaningless. Chekhov has proven that you need to consider everything about the story and question why roles and actions matter. This may be a bit of a beginner’s take, but it’s a far more accomplished way to start this journey than I would’ve done.
Coming Up Next: “The Witch”
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