Part III: Group Interpretation

“Misery” was indisputably defined by its title. While the opening line, “To whom shall I tell my grief?” was added by soviet editors, it does a good job hinting at what the main themes of the story will be; despair and loneliness. Iona is on a quest to find someone who will listen to his “misery” due to the death of his son. Iona’s emotions of grief, sorrow, anguish, and loneliness were conveyed through powerful imagery and metaphors. This makes the emotions that are hidden deep within the character tangible and prominent in the environment. The story’s succinct sentences and vivid scenes cause the reader to feel very deeply for the character.

We get a sense of the despair that the main character, Iona Potapov, is feeling right at the start of the story. Chekhov uses the physical description of Iona, “bent as double as the living body can be bent,” as a metaphor for how bent and twisted Iona feels inside (12). Chekhov continues, “If a regular snowdrift fell on him it seems as though even then he would not think it necessary to shake it off” (12-13). The layer of snow accumulating on everything is a metaphor for the accumulation of his suffering. The snow can also be symbolic of the harshness and hostility of the pain from the absence of his dead son, represented by the harshness of the environment. The frigid winter weather is also a metaphor for death, being a brutally cold time when organisms die.

Charles May points out that the story, "maintains a strictly objective point of view to communicate the latent significance of the protagonist's emotional state" (16). This is part of what defines Chekhov as a realist writer. This story simply describes the setting and action that is used to express the inner feelings of Iona. May enforces this point by saying Chekhov is "creating the illusion of inner reality by focusing on externals only" (53). While we agree with May that Chekhov is a realist writer we also believe that this particular story is laced with allegory. The descriptions of the scenery and characters were indicative of realism while the actions of Iona and the outcome with his horse we more allegorical.

“Misery” also contains a common thread found in many of Chekhov’s stories. The characters in this story are not on the same page. They are physically close to one another but mentally very far apart. Iona is only concerned with his son’s death and the riders are only concerned with getting to their destination quickly. “He hears abuse addressed to him, he sees people, and the feeling of loneliness begins little by little to be less heavy on his heart” (13). Iona was so desperate to alleviate his grief and loneliness, that he even enjoyed the company of the three rude and abusive men in his cab. Chekhov is illustrating the characters’ inability to connect with one another as we also discovered when we previously read his other story, "Gooseberries". We see this same Chekovian style later in the story when Iona tries to talk to another sleigh driver about his son’s death, but that man only has concerns for sleeping and very quickly falls asleep as Iona is trying to engage him. In the end, Iona is only able to make a connection with his mare.

Chekhov humanized Iona’s horse, giving her the ability to think and show emotion. Chekhov wrote, “Anyone who has been torn away from the plough, from the familiar gray landscapes, and case into this slough, full of monstrous light, of unceasing uproar and hurrying people is bound to think” (13). Chekhov foreshadows Iona’s relationship with the mare saying, “And his little mare, as though she knew his thoughts, falls to trotting” (15). The ending of the story brings us full circle back to the opening companions of the mare and the sleigh driver. Failing to achieve any human compassion, Iona began talking to his mare. Chekhov wrote, “The little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master’s hands. Iona is carried away and tells her all about it” (15). Similarly, Iona and the mare were both overlooked, until now. She was what he was looking to talk too. Finally, Iona finds solace in his horse which is perhaps the least interested creature in the story, yet has been attributed an equal amount of 'humaneness' by the narrator whom we believe to be third person limited omniscient. He relates to the horse, the horse listens, breathes on him, and Iona relieves his loneliness, if only temporarily.


There was some disagreement or misunderstanding as to exactly what Iona's misery was in the story. Some thought it was the loss of his son, some thought it was his loneliness, and some thought it was due to his inability to connect with anyone. The truth is that all these things amounted to Iona's all encompassing misery, and the entire story is about miserable scenes and events. It is miserable to sit in the wet snow in the freezing cold, and it is also miserable to need companionship when there is none. The tale is realistic but metaphors in the story supply an allegorical phenomenon so the metaphors are allegorical components in a realistic story.