Kyle Sutton - Part I

First off, I found "Misery" quite a sad story. Not so much in the plot of Iona's son having died but the idea that he had no one to talk to. The way that Chekhov sets the mood paralleling the setting of the story, very cold and bleak, with the feelings of Iona. It was as though all he wanted to do was to let his emotions be told and to share his feeling with someone, anyone. The responses from his clients and then his fellow Cabman were not the emotion that he needed to relieve his misery.

The title specifically is interesting. I'm not sure if the misery referred to by Chekhov is the misery the man feels over losing his son or the misery of not being able to share it with anyone. The man is desolate and alone, not being able to cope or feel connected at all. I truly feel for the man when I read this story. His pain at losing his son, but more so his pain at not being connected to anyone in the world other than his mare. He has no one to show that he is sad or that he cares for his son.

This story was very interesting and Chekhov's very descriptive language really makes the reader internalize the misery and pain Iona feels. I don't know what it is yet but there seems to be a connection between Iona being a cabman and his feelings and current state. I'm not sure what it is but there is a question in my mind as to the significance.

One of the other notable things I found while reading this was that there seemed to be a symbolic connotation when Iona starts talking to his mare at the end of the story. It is almost as though the mare listens better or just as well as anyone else he has tried to talk to. I think this correlates and further accentuates the concept that him trying to talk to someone about his son is as though he might as well be talking to a horse. He may be heard but no one really listens to him.

Edit 1:
Another gap that Nick and I discussed was the significance of how much the narrator humanizes the horse. There is a lot of emphasis put on personifying the horse like when Chekhov writes, "She is probably lost in thought," referring to the horse's stillness, it would seem odd that one would assume that a horse would be capable of thought just for the sake of thinking. This is compounded further by the fact that the narrator goes on to postulate why or what the horse might be thinking about saying, "anyone who has been torn away from the plough, from the familiar gray landscapes, and cast into this slough..." This is something I'm still unsure about and will re-visit after another reading and some more reading of comments. Maybe this s Chekhov drawing a parallel between Iona and the horse. Connecting the two of them with a feeling of alienation.

Edit 2:
When Nick and I got together to discuss the story he posed an interesting question. Who is Chekhov writing for? I would argue that Chekhov is writing for the world rather than to tell Iona's story or just for himself. Chekhov, characteristically, writes to
point out some social concept or pose a question about people and their interactions. This story is no different. I believe that Chekhov's intent in writing the story is to show to the world the cruelty of others and how the concepts of grief and misery really work. In the sense of Realist vs. Allegorical Nick and I thought that this story would fall flat in the middle. While the story itself and how the people interact is very realistic, that is only in style the message of the story is what really appears as allegorical or maybe rather socially aware or a critique of the world. Chekhov doesn't have some lesson to teach per say but there is definitely the concept of how people interact and how they deal with misery that he wants the world to be aware of.

From a Psychological standpoint the story itself offers an interesting insight into the way people deal with grief. As is evident by a lot of the responses here and comments, one of the overarching ideas is that Iona is not preoccupied with the loss of his son but rather with the grief itself and not being able to deal with it. The main idea of grief does not lie within the event that has happened which, in this case, is the passing of Iona's son. Grief is something that is separate, it is its own entity that people deal with. Regardless of what has happened grief exists in a vacuum and must be dealt with in a certain way in order to be overcome. Iona needs to talk to people; most humans need to talk to people to be able to cope with grief and misery. Chekhov is pointing out that there is a fundamental flaw in the world, where the grief of some goes completed ignored. There is nothing different about this grief versus others'. This is made evident by the metaphor that many of us pointed out regarding the misery "flooding the world" as Chekhov puts it. If anything Iona's grief is greater than "average" misery and the only way he can cope is by talking to a horse.