Synopsis of the Story

The story is a comedy-drama where three people get involved in heated arguments over a disputed
property. Lomov comes to Chubukovs with a proposal of marrying her 25-year-old daughter. During
the proposal, all three of them end up arguing with each other. Know the complete story by reading
the summary presented below.

Theme of the story

The story indirectly talks about an important issue related to wealthy families and greedy people
where they have the tradition of marrying another wealthier family to extend their riches and expand
their economic situations.

Summary of A Proposal
The story has three characters, Ivan Vassilevitch from the Lomov clan, Stepan Stepanovitch from the
Chubukovs clan and his daughter Natalya Stepanovitch. It begins with Ivan visiting Stepan at his house
with a proposal in his mind. They greet each others and extend warm welcome and nostalgic
moments of their neighbourhood. On being asked about the reason of visit, Ivan hesitates which
makes Stepan think that he must have come to take money which he would not return. After
gathering some courage, Ivan tells Stepan that he wants to marry his daughter Natalya. Stepans sheds
tears in excitement and embraces Ivan for his proposal. He takes am exit from the hall to call his
daughter.

By the time Ivan thinks that Natalya’s entry into his life can change for good. He will have somebody
beside him during his palpitation attacks and to help him whenever he gets upset. Additionally,
Natalya was a 25 year old, educated, not- so bad looking girl, who was appropriate to be her wife.
Natalya arrives and both Ivan and her get engaged in conversations. Ivan starts talking about their
neighbourhood while making the proposal and says that Oxen Meadows belongs to his family. To this,
she replies that the land belongs to her family. Both started arguing over this topic and Stepan enters
the hall hearing them shouting. Natalya tells her that Ivan claims the Oxen Meadows to be a property
of their family to which Stepan replies that it belongs to them. Soon, all three of them start arguing
and abusing ach other’s family. Meanwhile, Ivan gets a palpitation attack and leaves the house.

The father-daughter duo keep abusing the Lomovs and arguing over the same topic. During the
argument, Stepan reveals that Ivan was here to make a marriage proposal to Natalya. She gets excited
and shocked at the same time and asks her dad to call Ivan back. He does as his daughter asks him to
do and Ivan comes back. After exchanging a few words, Natalya says that her dog Squeezer was
better than his Guess. This starts another heated argument between the two which is soon joined by
Stepan. This time, Ivan ends up fainting during the argument because of his palpitation attack.

Natalya asks her father to wake him up as she likes him to and wants to get married to him. Ivan
wakes up and expresses her feelings to him but their argument about their dogs continues. The
curtain fells down but they keep arguing with each other.