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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
Hi Suzanne. I started to re-read Ward No 6. I have read like 10 pages so far, and I am amazed again by the skills and sensitivity of Chekhov describing the world full of injustice that was the Czarist Russia (after 1917 the type of injustice and the executors of it changed. One of those changes was that all levels of society became victims). I have the impression that the narrator and of course the writer have some bias in their observation and interpretation of such institutionalized injustice, in the sense that the story of the educated, or the better positioned victim is more deserving of being told. Nobody would expect Anton to have a more liberal mentality proper of future periods.
Chekhov's and Dostoevsky's narratives have tremendous similarities, no wonder they experienced the same town and the same environment of extremes. I'll continue reading and come back with more comments. Justareader
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
justareader wrote:
One of those changes was that all levels of society became victims). I have the impression that the narrator and of course the writer have some bias in their observation and interpretation of such institutionalized injustice, in the sense that the story of the educated, or the better positioned victim is more deserving of being told. Nobody would expect Anton to have a more liberal mentality proper of future periods.
Society, was a very important concept in Russian living. It is similar to the “good society” that is oftentimes described in many of Jane Austen’s novels. The rich and powerful are to be envied, their position is one that many inspired to achieve. By choosing the more affluent and educated victim to tell the story may bring out the point that even those of “good society” can fall victim to the same suffering as those who are considered less than desirable. I think it may show that at the end of the day, all people fall into the same class, this would be the class of humanity.
I am glad you are enjoying the story, I look forward to more of your insights.
_________________ I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth. --William Faulkner
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
Suzanne wrote:
geo wrote:
But yes, I'll read it. Darn tootin'.
Well howdy there Geo, wondered what happened to you, thought maybe you were backing out of the Russian Lit. bender!
I wouldn't miss it for the world. I think I read this a long time ago, but I don't remember anything about it. Anyway, who else is on board? Short stories are great for discussion.
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
I'm about halfway through Ward 6 and enjoying it very much. I mentioned previously that I might have read this story, but this isn't true. I must have been thinking of something else, probably something by Tolstoy.
Anyway, not sure where Chekhov is going with it yet. I pretty much just wanted to post something to keep this thread on top and try to generate some interest in reading it. Maybe this will be the start of our Russian literature bender.
Anyway, Ward 6 is about a 50-page story. It centers around the five patients and staff of a mental ward. One of the patients is a nobleman named Ivan Dmitrich who suffers from a prosecution complex of some sort. He muses about how easy it would be to be wrongly accused and convicted of a crime. Those who work in the justice system become so matter of fact about what they do that it is easy to disregard the people whose lives are so greatly affected, even to the point where exoneration is seen as more trouble than conviction. This is a very interesting passage here.
Not for nothing has age-old popular experience taught us that against poverty and prison there is no guarantee. And a judicial error, given present-day court procedures was very possible, and it would be no wonder if it happened. Those who take an official, business-like attitude towards other people's suffering, like judges, policemen, doctors, from force of habit, as time goes by, become callous to such a degree that they would be unable to treat their clients otherwise than formally even if they wanted to; in this respect they are no different from the peasant who slaughters sheep and calves in his backyard without noticing the blood. With this formal, heartless attitude towards the person, a judge needs only one thing to deprive an innocent man of all his property rights and sentence him to hard labor: time. Only the time to observe such formalities, for which the judge is paid a salary, and after that—it is all over.
This particular character reminds of Kafka's character K. in The Trial who is arrested but never told the crime he's being charged with. The cold, heartless system of bureaucracy. Again I haven't figured out where Chekhov is going with this story, but I do love this passage.
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
geo wrote:
By the way, as chance would have it, I'm currently reading Shutter island by Dennis LeHane, also a story that takes place in a mental institution.
Do you think this would make for a good suggestion for the next fiction discussion? I've seen the trailers for the movie, looks good.
I know, OFF TOPIC, but, would you like to see a Russian Lit. book for our next discussion starting in March?
I have started my bender allright, I am reading "War and Peace", Leo Tolstoy. Have to say, it's a page turner! No kidding! It's on my, "must read before I no longer can" list.
_________________ I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth. --William Faulkner
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
Suzanne wrote:
geo wrote:
By the way, as chance would have it, I'm currently reading Shutter island by Dennis LeHane, also a story that takes place in a mental institution.
Do you think this would make for a good suggestion for the next fiction discussion? I've seen the trailers for the movie, looks good.
I know, OFF TOPIC, but, would you like to see a Russian Lit. book for our next discussion starting in March?
I have started my bender allright, I am reading "War and Peace", Leo Tolstoy. Have to say, it's a page turner! No kidding! It's on my, "must read before I no longer can" list.
Goodness you are an erudite one, Suzanne. Tackling War and Peace. I bet you'll build up some arm muscles lifting that tome. I would love to read it too. That and The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.
Shutter Island is very good, quite a page turner. I have always enjoyed LeHane. I don't know if it's the kind of book that's conducive to discussion though.
I would love to read a collection of short stories for a fiction discussion. We could do Chekhov's short stories or Turgenev? Or does the fiction discussion have to be a novel?
Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky's translations are supposed to be quite good.
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
geo wrote:
I bet you'll build up some arm muscles lifting that tome.
HA! Imagine the comments I get when I bring it to my hairdressers!
geo wrote:
I would love to read a collection of short stories for a fiction discussion. We could do Chekhov's short stories or Turgenev? Or does the fiction discussion have to be a novel?
We have done a collection of short stories before, instead of chapter threads, there will be story threads, people can jump in where ever they happen to be. I certainly would be up for anything by Turgenev. I've never heard of him! Please, if you know of a good collection of Turgenev stories, add it to the fiction suggestion forum.
Thanks Geo!
_________________ I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth. --William Faulkner
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
Hello, I have covered more terrain in Ward 6. I'll make a short comment now. Dr. Andrei Yefimich is one of Chekhov's typical characters developed with such depth and detail that we may encounter them in real life. This Dr. is directly responsible for the suffering of many of the patients in the hospital where he is in charge, his negligence is not motivated by greed and/or laziness (like many other officials of the time and place) but by his scorn for poor and ignorant people. Intellect suppose to be the driving force of his life but ironically he does not use it to favor his patients with the scientific medical advances that were emerging in those days. Chekhov himself was an MD, and ended neglecting his profession because his dedication to literature, he used to say that medicine was his wife and literature his mistress. At the end, we are lucky that he ended paying more attention to his mistress, otherwise we wouldn't have heard of him. Dr. Andrei Yefimich may be the result of some little guilt experienced by Chekhov. Among the scientific advances of the time admired (but not used) by Dr. Andrei Yefimich was not antibiotics, for that reason TB was so lethal and ended killing the author at age 44.
I think that continuing discussion with other Chekhov's short stories would be an excellent idea.
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
justareader wrote:
Hello, I have covered more terrain in Ward 6. I'll make a short comment now. Dr. Andrei Yefimich is one of Chekhov's typical characters developed with such depth and detail that we may encounter them in real life. This Dr. is directly responsible for the suffering of many of the patients in the hospital where he is in charge, his negligence is not motivated by greed and/or laziness (like many other officials of the time and place) but by his scorn for poor and ignorant people. Intellect suppose to be the driving force of his life but ironically he does not use it to favor his patients with the scientific medical advances that were emerging in those days. Chekhov himself was an MD, and ended neglecting his profession because his dedication to literature, he used to say that medicine was his wife and literature his mistress. At the end, we are lucky that he ended paying more attention to his mistress, otherwise we wouldn't have heard of him. Dr. Andrei Yefimich may be the result of some little guilt experienced by Chekhov. Among the scientific advances of the time admired (but not used) by Dr. Andrei Yefimich was not antibiotics, for that reason TB was so lethal and ended killing the author at age 44.
I think that continuing discussion with other Chekhov's short stories would be an excellent idea.
Justareader
Thanks Justareader. I've been meaning to get back to this thread, but I keep getting distracted by other things. Here are just a few random thoughts so far.
I would describe Dr. Andrei Yefimich as something of a nihilist. He withdraws from the world to the point that he just doesn't care about anything. It's really quite devastating. You see he has the power to help others, but out of sheer apathy does nothing. We see this apathy in his conversations with his friend, the postmaster. The two of them sit around and talk about how stupid the town's residents are, but they are never motivated enough to do anything about it.
Chekhov paints the doctor's shortcomings as sort of a fatal flaw in character:
Andrey Yefimitch is extremely fond of intelligence and honesty, but he lacks character and faith in his right to organize an intelligent and honest life around him. he is positively incapable of ordering, prohibiting, or insisting. it looks as if he has taken a vow never to raise his voice or speak in the imperative.
This apathy or tendency towards inaction is apparent even when the doctor is at home and is reluctant to give orders to his cook. "When he wants something to eat, he coughs irresolutely and says to his cook: 'how about some tea?'"
The doctor does see the shabby conditions of the hospital when he first comes to town, but his efforts to effect change are pathetic. And yet he's a good doctor at first and attentive to his patients.
"But as time went on he became noticeably bored with the monotony and obvious uselessness of the work. Today you receive thirty patients, and tomorrow, lo and behold, thirty-five come pouring in, and the next day forty, and so it goes, day after day, year after year, and the town mortality rate does not go down, and the patients do not stop coming."
So Dr. Yefimich comes to consider himself something of a fraud with respect to his patients because his the medical practice is so busy that proper attention cannot be devoted to them. This apathy is not limited to the doctor alone. We can see in this next passage that even the townspeople seem to not care much for the shoddy conditions of the hospital which they justify by saying that the patients' lives are much worse at home.
Quote:
When Andrey Yefimitch came to the town to take up his duties the "institution founded to the glory of God" was in a terrible condition. One could hardly breathe for the stench in the wards, in the passages, and in the courtyards of the hospital. The hospital servants, the nurses, and their children slept in the wards together with the patients. They complained that there was no living for beetles, bugs, and mice. The surgical wards were never free from erysipelas. There were only two scalpels and not one thermometer in the whole hospital; potatoes were kept in the baths. The superintendent, the housekeeper, and the medical assistant robbed the patients, and of the old doctor, Andrey Yefimitch's predecessor, people declared that he secretly sold the hospital alcohol, and that he kept a regular harem consisting of nurses and female patients. These disorderly proceedings were perfectly well known in the town, and were even exaggerated, but people took them calmly; some justified them on the ground that there were only peasants and working men in the hospital, who could not be dissatisfied, since they were much worse off at home than in the hospital -- they couldn't be fed on woodcocks! Others said in excuse that the town alone, without help from the Zemstvo, was not equal to maintaining a good hospital; thank God for having one at all, even a poor one. And the newly formed Zemstvo did not open infirmaries either in the town or the neighbourhood, relying on the fact that the town already had its hospital.
It's interesting to see things from Ivan Dmitrich's perspective. He's the mental patient with the prosecution complex. I quoted this passage earlier:
Those who take an official, business-like attitude towards other people's suffering, like judges, policemen, doctors, from force of habit, as time goes by, become callous to such a degree that they would be unable to treat their clients otherwise than formally even if they wanted to; in this respect they are no different from the peasant who slaughters sheep and calves in his backyard without noticing the blood. With this formal, heartless attitude towards the person, a judge needs only one thing to deprive an innocent man of all his property rights and sentence him to hard labor: time. Only the time to observe such formalities, for which the judge is paid a salary, and after that—it is all over.
So it seems some of the doctor's apathy stems from the institutionalization of health care, just as those affected through the institutionalization of the legal system? Is that what Chekhov is saying here?
In the end, Dmitrich has a lot of contempt for the doctor for this this same kind of apathy towards his fellow human beings and suggests that his morose outlook on life comes from watching others suffer.
"We'll never see eye to eye, and you won't succeed in converting me to your faith," Ivan Dmitrich was saying vexedly. "You're totally unacquainted with reality, and you've never suffered, but like a leech, have only fed on the sufferings of others."
Somehow I think we can muster up some sympathy for Yefimitch because he suffers so greatly in the end. It does seem he's fatally flawed almost through no fault of his own. Great story. I'm still thinking about it though. These are just some random thoughts to start with.
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
Yes, Geo. One of the main points in the story is that collective apathy that most of the Russian population of the time experinced. It's a complete lost of hope and trust in the social-political system of the Tsarist regime. Chekhov in all his stories is highly political without addressing politics directly, I Imagine that his lack of direct criticism to the political establishment of the period was one of the reasons why the later Bolshevik regime ostracized his literary work for some time.
As you say, Ivan Dmitrich is another of the key characters in the story. He is like the conscience's voice for those in positions of power. We will talk more about him.
Thank you for your comments I enjoyed and learned from them. I'll come back with other ideas that I have found in the story.
Justareader
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Re: Ward No. 6, Anton Chekhov
It's evident that nobody believed that Andrey Yefimitch was actually crazy to be locked in Ward 6. I guess the only one with strong interest in taking him out of the way was the other Dr. that took his position in the hospital, and he got a lot of cooperation from the town officials to do that. Obviously the new hospital director was not interested in the position to improve the conditions of the hospital and the patients. The postmaster probably had some interest in getting rid of his friend and the 500 Rubles at the same time. I may need to go back and read some parts again to search for possible reasons that the politicians of the town had to change the hospital director.
Ivan Dimitrich is the type of individual that does not give up, he uses his articulate mouth as the only weapon at his reach. He may represent that sector of the population that with good intentions became Bolshevik or Bolshevik followers few years later.
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