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.
For the second time in three stories, I came to the final words and asked myself, “Is that it?” Unlike “The Cook’s Wedding” where I totally missed the point, “A Dead Body” veers closer to an obviousness that left me unsatisfied. From the first page, I was questioning whether or not the dead body in question was the literal one or a metaphorical entity that would slowly morph as the story progressed. Given that it’s a small character drama with three (living) individuals, I had to ask what was so great about dropping in on them as they performed the duty of watching a dead body in the time before it ascends to a higher plain. Given the spiritual subtext throughout – including allusions to Lazarus – my hope was that something unpredictable would happen. Alas, it didn’t.
What I’m realizing about Chekhov so far is that you can’t stop at the literal read. Like the best subversive artists, you have to dig deep into the symbolism to find a greater point and, even then, you may be only getting a cryptic tease. This may not be as playful as “The Cook’s Wedding,” but I think the inaugural entry provides clues on how to read every story that has come since. Even if “A Dead Body” remains the least satisfying work in this column’s short existence, it is not without a fun sense of irony. Like “The Witch,” this is best read as a dark comedy where humanity is revealed somewhere in the background. It’s as much a study of mortality as it is social class and the value that faith brings to the community.
The premise centers around “the most disagreeable and uninviting of peasants duties.” The choice for Chekhov to place the job description in quotation marks also suggests an implied sarcasm that what the two men are doing is ultimately pointless. At no point does the reader understand these men’s relationship to the deceased. Instead, it’s a philosophical debate on whether the body in question is bound for heaven. A hypothetical suicide would be enough to contradict the whole order and make the men’s job a total waste of time. Instead, they wait with the faith that what they’re doing is right without any sense of greater reward. There might be a nobility or honor that comes with this job, but Chekhov’s not quick to suggest what it is.
If anything, the first paragraph reveals the darkest reality of being a peasant. The position within itself is frowned upon, reflective of the bottom rung of society that is forced to take work that they don’t want to survive. They are the closest to death and, ironically, are forced to confront it on a daily basis. In this case, the two peasants are surveying a body on the “bye-road.” There’s a sense of discomfort as they sit on wet grass and keep warm from a flimsy fire. Even the nature of giving the dead body a white linen for modesty suggests a level of respect that the living don’t have. All they can do is sit and wait for their watch to end.
Another piece of amusing imagery is how the surroundings can be symbolic of the two living. The dead body is placed alongside a “young oak-tree,” suggesting a passage of time. In a literal sense, it’s a tree of life that contains the sustenance for survival. There’s youth that can outlast the harsh conditions, presumably seeing many summers as the world passes by and they await their demise.
By comparison, the peasants have a quaintly designed pairing of a young man and an older one named Syoma. He is the only one named in the story, suggesting a larger importance to the bigger subject. It can be assumed that he’s done this duty a handful of times and, in some ways, has accepted his position of growing irrelevance. Even the first line of dialogue suggesting that he doesn’t fall asleep hints at a winking morbidity that Chekhov does well. His opening paragraphs so far have been some of the finest prose in short story history and really drops the reader into the world with wordplay and allusions to ideas that will be discussed over the remaining pages. In this case, it’s hard not to see the flickering light of a fire symbolizing something spiritual. Is Syoma’s inner light about to extinguish?
While there is the sense that youth is tied more directly with the earth, Syoma is treated like a mentor, an icon, whose sage advice could help the young man live a more fulfilling life. Given the miserable state that both are in, it’s hard to say that either are happy. Despite being only six pages, Chekhov’s pacing has a slowness that makes the eeriness settle in. The reader is forced to take in the small conversations, themselves filled with melancholy as even the acts of birds migrating can allude to Syoma’s acceptance of death. He is not the one being watched, and yet there is this sense that he’s counting the hours until it finally happens. His wisdom is more implicit, hidden away from the outside world as he finds himself more in tune with an ethereal force akin to the spiritual component of the story.
By the third page, Chekhov introduces the third character. He is described as wearing a “short monkish cassock” that in itself suggests a spirituality that is quickly confirmed. He compares his encounter with the two men to the story of Lazarus, joking that they’re waiting to rob a wealthy man. Given that they’re peasants, it feels like another commentary from Chekhov on the desperation of the lower class. Whereas the protagonists are downtrodden, this new man has the comfort of luxury. He is allowed to look down on them. The philosophical jab gets worse if one considers that this stranger sees the peasants as being equal to the dead body in terms of greater value. Given that Lazarus was a story about Jesus raising a man from the dead, it can suggest something not dissimilar from a zombie narrative. The only doubt is that Chekhov has yet to really use elements of the supernatural in his prose. Still, the embrace of the uncertain exists within the text in ways that remain engrossing.
Similarly, I’m getting the impression that Chekhov is critical of religion as a larger concept. Much like how “The Witch” found a sexton refusing to do his job, it feels like this stranger reflects some greater commentary on how helpless the church is to help. As natural as it is for the man to be shocked by the dead body, there is an implicit repulsion to the peasants. Despite being a man who travels from monastery to monastery, he seems reluctant to immediately trust the world around him. It could be caution, especially given that he would have further to fall if he were to die in this story.
The remaining pages dedicate a ridiculous amount of time defiling the body. This is not in any physical sense, but more an ideological one. The stranger is quick to unravel the ways that a man can become corrupt without care for the man being possibly kind. Even the dated concept of a suicide meaning he was a sinner comes up, suggesting a cynicism that the man expects the worst of peasants. While the peasants are more willing to believe in the good of their fallen comrade, the stranger departs with nothing but paranoia. Maybe he’s afraid of losing his money, but maybe he’s more concerned about being associated with a lower class. These men are below the clergy and are, therefore, heathens.
That, and Chekhov lays the intentions on thick as the final page emerges. His wonderful descriptions of nature create an ominous conclusion. Daybreak is on the way and the fire is starting to crackle. Is Syoma about to “see the light”? The stranger admits that he’s scared of dead bodies, and that may be an on the nose way of describing him. However, there is something brilliant about the way Syoma’s final resting overlaps with nature consuming the dead body in shadows. Together they wait as the young man and the stranger’s talk “dies away.” Again, Chekhov is gifted at wordplay as the implicit mortality swiftly concludes the story without getting too fussy.
Upon the first read, my confusion was in how simple the story was. While the Lazarus reference had me hopeful that the dead body would arise, the results have a familiar simplicity that forces to reader to sit in bafflement for a minute before reconstructing what they have just read. Somewhere in the spiritual references and nature imagery is a story about the lingering dread of one’s final moments of life. The fact that it’s done very sympathetically for a peasant adds tragedy to the formula, suggesting that everyone, even the young, are watching their class die away as they’re forced to sacrifice their health for trivial causes.
For as somber as the text is, the ending does have a flippancy at first that is fairly amusing. Why would the young man so willingly abandon Syoma for the clergy? The obvious answer is that he has a life ahead of him. Syoma meanwhile will ascend in a few days to his final resting place and become just as unknown as the dead body. Is the young man heartless for abandoning him, or is this some greater poignancy? When you’re forced to grow up a peasant taking offers where you can, it makes sense to take the better opportunity. The irony may not be the funniest that Chekhov has written so far, but it’s a very rich blending of how nature and humanity overlap, doing their best to make sense of some great unknown.
As mentioned towards the start, this may be my least favorite so far. It’s by no means a lazy or misguided entry. If anything, it’s a bit too simple for my tastes and doesn’t develop enough of a clever idea to make me care. I think it works on a primitive level of exploring themes beneficial to Chekhov, but I have to hope he gets a little more playful as everything advances. For now, he’s great at making me second guess what I’ve just read. He finds meaning in the invisible details of everyday life and forces me to stop and think about the larger meaning of existence. For that, I’ll say this is anything but dead weight.
Coming Up Next: “Easter Eve”
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