Aurelia Puti Imani

D Class/19320172
The Realistic Short Story “Fat and Thin” by Anton Chekhov

Fat and Thin is a short story written by Anton Chekhov in the 19 th century. I found that
this short story is realistic compared to our real life. It generally talked about friendship and
pride, when old friends were meeting each other from nowhere and had a conversation about
their life. Then, like usual, in our real life, there must be a great and greater person to meet.
When some people are greater than us, it is either we envy them or they are overproud
themselves, as well as in this story, a moment that was used to be a warm meeting from old
friends, turned out to be a not fun meeting. I love how the author described the theme, plot, and
the character in this story because it related to our real life.

At first, the theme is about friendship, when the fat man, Misha, met his childhood friend,
the thin man, Porfiry. At the first, the friendship is shown when they accidently met at station
and interacted like friends that missed each other, as in the “The friends kissed each other three
times, and gazed at each other with eyes full of tears. Both were agreeably astounded.” However,
it turned out to be not fun when one of them was overproud, he talked about his grant occupation
even talked about his stars/appointment as in the “No dear boy, go higher than that,I have risen
to privy councillor already… I have two stars." Then the sarcasm came to the thin man, as he
over praised the fat man until he felt uncomfortable and left.

The plot is so sharp yet so understandable, since it related that much to our real life.
During the exposition, Anton introduced both of the main characters, the fat man, Misha, and the
thin man, Porfiriy. The setting was at Nikolaevsky station, as in “Two friends -- one a fat man
and the other a thin man -- met at the Nikolaevsky station.” The inciting incident occurs when
the thin man asked about how Misha’s life and asked if he had already married, when he said
that he was married and introduced his wife and son. The action rises when the fat man asked
about the thin man’s grade in his job as in “Well, how are you doing my friend?" the fat man
asked, looking enthusiastically at his friend. "Are you in the service? What grade have you
reached?". The climax is when the fat man talked about his grant job, and was even overproud
himself that he already had two stars in a wrong timing, since he talked about it after the thin
man’s talked about his poor salary. The falling action happens when the thin man The thin man
turned pale and rigid all at once, but soon he began to over praise the fat man by saying such a
official obsequiousness. Then finally the denouement is that because of the thin man’s
overpraises, they made the fat man was sickened, so he decided to turn away and said a good bye
to thin man and his family.

The characters are also relatable with our life. We can easily find someone with the same
characters, even we become familiar with them. The fat man, Misha, at the first he was friendly
yet he could not look at situation, he was a little bit arrogant as he brought up his job and his
level or position, he even added about the stars out of nowhere. However, in the end, he could
know the situation and was being sickened after his friend’s praises or sarcasm. The thin man,
Porfiry was humble and grateful, we can see that by the way he described his job or his life as in
“I have been a collegiate assessor for the last two years and I have the Stanislav. The salary is
poor, but that's no great matter!”. However, he was a little bit sarcastic in the end as the way he
over praised the fat man and made him sickened of it.

In conclusion, this short story mainly tells us about a friendship along with proudness, we
can know that just by seeing its theme, plot and characters. I agree with this story because as I
said before, it is so related to our real life. Just like the old friends reunited, they talked about
how was their life, until one of them became over proud, and there was an envy or sarcasm
appeared after that. Then the friendship would not be the same anymore, either one or both of
them would be sickened just like the way Misha and Porfiry reunited in this story. We can learn
to not be over proud and think about the situation before we talk also not to be too sarcastic and
always be positive wherever we are, friendship is a bond that is too crucial to be destroyed just
because our proud.