Chekhov Gymnasium

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” to mirror her own experience coping with the improper treatment of her postpartum depression. In the story, the protagonist (who will be henceforth referenced as the narrator) believes engaging in intellectually and socially stimulating activities will be the best course of treatment for her depression. However, her husband, John, disagrees and forces her to follow Dr. Mitchell Weir’s famous “rest cure” regimen: “Mitchell’s…

In Cathedral, a short story written by Raymond Carver, the narrator seems to have a kind of dysfunctional type of relationship with his wife. The wife seems like a kind and emotional person while the narrator is kind of closed off emotionally. This differences can sometimes lead to small arguments like the one they had when he offered to take the blind man to bowling “God dam it, his wife just died! Don’t you understand that? The man just lost his wife! (Carver, 1983)”. Even though, the man is…

Marlee Whittington Antley Ap Lit & Comp-4 26 August 2016 Characterization Essay #1 (Miss Brill) In her short story, “Miss Brill,” Katherine Mansfield uses a variety of techniques such as descriptions, thoughts, and actions to fully characterize Miss Brill. She does so in a way to convey Miss Brill’s behaviors that “help” her to cope with her loneliness. One behavior Miss Brill has is that she wears a beloved old fur that is her “prized possession” every Sunday to the…

“Little Things” written by Raymond Carver demonstrates how lost hope in a family develops regularly throughout the world today. This is significant, for Carver creates a short story with minimal usage of explanations to inform readers of how couples take the road to hell. You can describe his writing as an unspoken story; stories where much of the author’s writing is implied or understood without being spoken. Our minds take in information and create scenarios from his writing with what was…

In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Ivan could be considered as one who takes things for granted especially life. Ivan is known for his working and quest to get higher on the social hierarchy because that is the most important thing to Ivan. He was caught in being the best, that he forgot how to live life respectively. Ivan also went into marriage with his wife without truly loving her. Therefore at the end of the day Ivan realizes that he had spent his entire life doing everything wrong and because…

Short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver is about how the blind man, Robert, inspires the narrator, the husband of Robert’s friend, to really see the world despite being blind. "Cathedral" is narrated by a man whose wife has an old friend who is coming to visit from Seattle. The friend is blind and his wife has just passed away. The narrator identifies Robert's blindness as his defining characteristic. Though Robert is blind, he can perceive the world in ways the narrator cannot understand and…

In Raymond Carver's short story, "Cathedral”, the narrator goes through a major personal transformation. At the beginning of the story, the narrator lacks insight and awareness about the things around him. The struggles and failures he faces limits his social life which leads him to being isolated from society. His wife's blind friend, Robert, pulls him out of his comfort zone, which allows his attitude and outlook on life to change. The narrator in Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" develops from…

“Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield is a story about a woman who is emotionally and socially isolated, and is desperate to be a part of the world around her. Miss Brill, for some reason, cannot seem to connect with people in the real world. She lives in a fantasy world she has created where she is an important part of society. When the fantasy is destroyed by a young couple making fun of her, she realizes just how solitary and empty her life is. Mansfield’s central idea is that when people…

There is a fundamental bittersweetness about life that those attuned to it can find in varying degrees in all worthwhile works of art. This feature is readily apparent in Alexei Ratmansky’s Odessa. Considering its limited time frame, this work persuasively evokes a bygone place and era (the eponymous city in early post-Revolutionary Russia). On the one hand, its mood is somber and disquieting, some of its “action” is distressing, and its male “characters” appear ruffianly and menacing. On the…

In the short story by Raymond Carver, known as “Cathedral,” the narrator is shown by Robert the blind man that he is blind figuratively as much as Robert who is literally blind. The story seeks to demonstrate how there are different aspects of blindness. The narrator shows his blindness to the world through his stereotypical ideas and assumptions before he truly meets Robert. “In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed” (76). “Sometimes they were led by seeing eye dogs” (76). The…