The story has two principal characters: an illiterate peasant (who is accused of

unscrewing a nut on the railway track, a vital nut which secures the rails to the
sleepers) and a learned magistrate (before whom the peasant is brought for
trial). 

The peasant does not comprehend the enormity and consequences of his action
and the disaster it can cause and readily confesses to removing the nut to use as
sinker weight for bait for his fishing line. 

As the flabbergasted magistrate questions him, the peasant keeps blabbering

about fishing and types of fish. 

There is a total mismatch in communication between the peasant and the

magistrate which is beautifully portrayed by the witty dialogue. 

Anton Chekhov gives us an illuminating insight into the deep divide in Russian
Society of his time.

The nut (symbol)

It would seem there is no special aim of the poor peasant Denis Grigoryev, who
unscrews the nuts from the rails. What is the significance of these nuts? However,
it is not that easy. For Denis Grigoryev, it is a great way to earn money and feed.
The peasants use the nuts for making of weights for fishing. Nuts are a symbol of
prosperity and profit.

Crime, punishment (motifs)

This short story is not a big novel or a play, in which there are many main
characters and an interesting development of the plot. Nevertheless, this story
remains interesting and instructive despite its small plot. The situation between
the magistrate and Denis Grigoryev is comic, but here it is obvious what will
happen, when you commit a crime. There is a matter of morality here: you will
always be responsible for your mistakes, even if you confess to your actions in a
timely manner.

Prison (symbol)

Having committed a crime, a person will necessarily be punished. Having

committed a crime, Denis Grigoryev will go to jail. Of course, this place is terrible,
because there the person loses himself, becomes cruel but strong. Prison is a
symbol of survival and loss, where Denis Grigoryev must struggle for his life.

n A Malefactor by Anton Chekhov we have the theme of justice, poverty,

responsibility, control and hardship. Taken from his The Complete Short Stories
collection the story is narrated in third person by an unnamed narrator and after
reading the story the reader realises that Chekhov may be exploring the theme of
justice. There is a sense that the magistrate is not taking into consideration
Grigoriev’s position in life, a life that is filled with poverty. He appears to be
dispensing justice incorrectly without taking in the full facts or having a care for
the facts. Though it is true that Grigoriev robbed the nut from the railroad he has
done so because fishing is his livelihood. He needs to fish in order to survive. So
petty is Grigoriev’s crime the magistrate cannot see it fit to be lenient on him.
Imposing a harsh sentence instead. Though it is true that Grigoriev’s actions may
cause an accident to date this has not happened due to Grigoriev’s consideration
as to where he takes the nuts from. It is also possible that Chekhov is suggesting
that though Grigoriev is technically a thief he is a conscientious one. The fact that
he was also mistreated by the guardsman who hit him twice suggests that there
may be two laws one for Grigoriev and one for others. In essence a law for the
poor and a law for those who have the good fortune to have money.

It is also difficult to say as to whether Grigoriev is taking proceedings seriously

which may be important as it might suggest that Grigoriev has no respect for the
judicial system that is in place. He doesn’t really view his actions as being criminal
and definitely does not consider his sentence to be fair. Such a severe sentence
may also suggest that the magistrate is out of touch. Though he knows that
Grigoriev was being practical (out of necessity) he does not take this into
consideration. Chekhov may also be exploring the theme of responsibility. Though
Grigoriev freely admits to his actions he is also quick to remind the judge that he
is not responsible for the actions of his two brothers. That it is his brother
Kuzma’s responsibility to ensure that the rent is paid. If anything throughout the
story there is a sense of hardship when it comes to Grigoriev’s life. Though he is
humorous in front of the magistrate he still nonetheless lives a life of poverty. At
no stage while Grigoriev is in the courtroom is he in control. He only appears to
be in control when he is fishing and selling his fish.

It is also possible that Chekhov is placing a spotlight on the hardships that existed
at the time the story was published (1885). With many Russians having to break
the law in order to make a living and survive. It is also noticeable that Chekhov on
several occasions in the story refers to some of the characters (including
Grigoriev) as being peasants. This may be important as Chekhov may be
highlighting the lowly social position of each character. Which suggests that at the
time there was a hierarchy with individuals like Grigoriev at the bottom of the
hierarchy and the magistrate and the guardsman being of a higher social class. At
no stage in the story is anything that Grigoriev says taken into consideration
rather the magistrate feels as though Grigoriev is making a mockery of the court.
Which may suggest that the magistrate is out of touch with how people live their
lives and is unbending in his sentencing. He cannot see above the law and fails to
show any type of practicality when it comes to dealing with Grigoriev.

The ending of the story is also interesting as despite being sentenced to hard
labour, Grigoriev nonetheless accepts his position. He doesn’t challenge the
magistrate as one would expect an individual to do. Which may suggest that
Grigoriev accepts that he has no option but to accept the magistrate’s ruling. He
possibly knows that there is one law for peasants and one law for those who have
money. The final line in the story may also be important as Grigoriev is being
critical of the magistrate even though he accepts his ruling. It would appear that
Grigoriev is attempting to change the magistrate’s outlook on life and asking him
to be more practical. To live his life as Grigoriev lives his (in poverty). To judge an
individual on all the facts, guilty or not, and to be fair in their sentencing of an
individual. Something that has not happened in the story. The magistrate at no
stage has attempted to imagine how Grigoriev has lived his life. He has shown him
no compassion or understanding for the difficulties that Grigoriev incurs in life. All
due to his circumstances of being poor and being a peasant. Unlike the magistrate
who has judged the case with middle class eyes and with no understanding as to
how others might live their lives. Though Grigoriev is guilty he has not been given
a second chance by the magistrate again possibly due to the fact that he is of a
low social class and as such is being treated differently.

The story-miniature raises the issue of negligence, which always has been in
Russia. The story is written in a realistic direction, as it specifically draws a picture
of Russian reality at the end of the nineteenth century. Very short in its content
but capacious in terms of ideas, Anton Chekhov’s story Malefactor makes the
reader reflect on the theme of negligence in Russia and its true culprits. 

The Effect of Russia on Chekhov’s Themes

      To define a man, one must consider all influences acting upon him. This
includes the man’s predetermined genetic makeup and his ability to create his
own values based on external influences and his environment. In its most basic
form, this is where the nature versus nurture argument derives from. A very
important element influencing man is the society he lives in and its political
structure. As an author, a playwright and a physician, Anton Chekhov lived
throughout the early revolutionary phase of Russia in the late nineteenth century,
it should then follow that his nature is partially embodied by a reaction to the
characteristics of the society in which he lived. Therefore, an eminent presence of
political and philosophical themes from before, during, and beyond Chekhov’s
time should be evident in his literature. The socialist idea that progress comes
from struggle is explored in the lives of artists in his play The Sea Gull, while his
final play The Cherry Orchard examines the repercussions of the emancipation of
the serfs in 1861. Chekhov explicitly states his political views on freedom in his
nonfiction compilation of letters, Letters of Anton Chekhov.

Chekhov lived in the time of the Russian Empire, ruled by Alexander II, the period
before the revolution and Lenin’s communist government. However, the socialist
ideas of Karl Marx and his contemporary Friedrich Engels had already developed
or were in the process of developing. Marx’s ideas acted in conjunction with many
of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Hegel’s and had then evolved into the
founding elements of Marxism. One principal socialist idea accredited to Hegel is
the view of “history as the story of human labour and struggle” and that from this
struggle progress arises (Ball et al). The discrepancy between the two, however,
lies in the details of the struggle; where Hegel saw it as a spiritual struggle, Marx
viewed it as a struggle against a hostile world. Where Hegel saw personal
struggle, leading to growth, Marx saw a class struggle leading to economic
equality. In The Sea Gull, Chekhov embodies this socialist theme in his protagonist
Nina, an aspiring actress from the Russian countryside. Throughout the play Nina
evolves from a rural farm girl to a dedicated traveling actress. Nina’s situation at
home is representative of the oppression of the Russian people under the Russian
Empire and its emperors as “her father and stepmother watch her so closely”
that, for her lover Constantine it is as if he is “stealing her from a prison to get her
away from her home” (Chekhov, The Sea Gull, 1.3). According to Marx and Hegel’s
philosophy, employed here by Chekhov, to make this transition and thus, to
progress, Nina must go through a conflict. In the second act of the play, Nina falls
for famous writer, Boris Trigorin, ending her relationship with Constantine and
thereby causing him to fall into a deep depression, from which even great success
cannot release him. In between the third and fourth act is where Nina is truly
tested; she moves to the city to pursue her acting career, has a love affair with
Trigorin, becomes pregnant, and following the birth, her baby dies. As Marx and
Hegel would have proposed, Nina has progressed due to her hardships. She has
developed insofar that, in the final act, she comes back to find closure with
Constantine, and despite his struggle he has not progressed (demonstrated by his
suicide contrary to his success), which establishes Nina’s evolution. As she
attempts to find closure with her former lover, the fact that she knows she “shall
feel better after this” confirms once and for all her progress after her struggle
(4.53).

Whereas the ideas of Marxism and communism were expressed in The Sea Gull,
their application and consequences are explored in The Cherry Orchard. The last
play Anton Chekhov wrote before his death in 1904, follows Lyuba Ranevsky on
her trip back to her native Russia.  Once home, she finds out that she has a large
debt to clear and the sale of her estate, the biggest cherry orchard in Russia, is the
only way to pay it off. A businessman and former peasant, Yermolay Lopakhin, is
engaged to help save her from having to sell the property. At the end of the play,
Lopakhin purchases the estate in an auction, rising from peasantry to bourgeoisie.
Peter Trofimov, a student of thirty years is utilized in the play as a mouthpiece for
the expression of socialist ideas. Trofimov does not look back with longing at
Russia’s earlier days, as Ranevsky does in a conservative fashion, but instead looks
ahead towards progress. Trofimov is sympathetic towards the serfs who he sees
as oppressed, even after their emancipation in 1861. He expresses a socialist view
as he condemns the Russian intelligentsia for “[they are] rude to servants [and]
they treat peasants like animals” (Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, 2.312). This
desire for equality and loathing for capitalism expresses Marx’s view of economic
progress. Marx believed that just as feudalism progressed to capitalism,
capitalism would progress to socialism. This belief was heavily idealistic and
placed too much faith in the innate moral sense of human beings. This can be
seen in the play in Trofimov’s view of Lopakhin: he sees a man who became rich
as a result of the emancipation of the serfs, a product of socialism, but who has
become a capitalist, “a predator, gobbling up everything in its path” (2.311). As
Lopakhin purchases the cherry orchard in the auction, his regression from socialist
to capitalist is clearly confirmed as Chekhov implicitly predicts communism’s
greatest flaw.

While Chekhov subtly implies the socialist and communist ideas present in Russia
in The Sea Gull  and more extensively in The Cherry Orchard, the most explicit
references to the oppression of the Russian empire on its citizens and the socialist
reaction to its tyranny are made in his nonfiction compilation of letters
entitled: Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends. Chekhov gives us a
sense of Russia at the time as he writes in one letter, to his dear friend A.S.
Suvorin, as he travels to the Sakhalin Islands through the Amur River, “The lowest
convict breathes more freely on the Amur than the highest general in Russia”
(Chekhov, Letters, 211). As Chekhov makes a comparison of Russian civilization to
that of the Amur, it is clear he has recognized the empirical presence of his native
country and the lack of freedom held by its citizens. However, Chekhov does not
only recognize the situation in Russia, he longs for something more, seeing that
the “people on the Amur are original, their life is interesting, unlike ours”
(Chekhov, Letters, 211). On his journey he observes a liberal society and almost
embraces it, counter to his Russian roots. He truly sets the context and
demonstrates the need for change in Russia when he writes in another letter,
“People are not afraid to talk aloud here. There’s no one to arrest them and
nowhere to exile them to, so you can be as liberal as you like” (Chekhov, Letters,
209). Chekhov acts as a sociologist as he examines the Amur countries and sees
their populations as “independent, self reliant and logical” and writes with a
yearning tone. Chekhov criticizes the Russian government for its “distrust of the
natural sciences […] and desire to make university education, and even secondary
education, a privilege of the wealthier classes” (Bruford 144). It follows that after
seeing these other liberal societies in his travels, the oppressive society in which
Chekhov lived would seem even more tyrannical. It was only on his voyage that
he saw so much beauty and “so much enjoyment that death would have no
terrors now” (Chekhov, Letters, 211).

While Anton Chekhov did not consider himself a socialist, and is viewed by many
of his readers as a non political writer, it is apparent that there are many political
themes in his works. Living in Russia during the time of the empire, one would
indisputably be shaped by its culture, characterized by an oppressive government
and revolutionary socialist ideas. Chekhov contributes to this pattern as he writes
with implicit socialist themes, sometimes in historical context, and sociological
nonfiction, which demonstrates the effect of his country on his philosophy as he
longs for a more liberal lifestyle.

Anton Chekhov's lifetime is bounded by two singular events in Russian history. His
life began a year before the 1861 Russian emancipation, saw the rein of three
Tsars, and ended within months of the Bloody Sunday event. The forces at work
within Russia shaped the outlook of all citizens of the Empire, including this
brilliant writer.

This chapter presents an excerpt from Rabindranath Tagore's 1917 essay

“Nationalism in India,” in which he considers the specific challenges faced by India
in developing a national self-consciousness as well as the need for that
consciousness to be grounded in Indian cultural sensibilities. Tagore was a prolific
and accomplished poet, novelist, and playwright and is perhaps best known for
his literary output, a massive corpus comprising remarkable writing in both
Bengali and English. Tagore is less well known as a philosopher but made
significant contributions to the development of Indian philosophy in the early
twentieth century. In his essay, Tagore argues that the real problem in India is not
political but social, a condition that he says prevails not only in India but among all
nations. He also notes a parallelism between America and India—the parallelism
of welding together various races into one body. In the end, he claims that India
has never had a real sense of nationalism, and that nationalism has for years been
at the bottom of India's troubles.