Kwame Nkrumah University of

Science & Technology, Kumasi,

Ghana

A MISFORTUNE
by ANTON PAVLOVICH
CHEKHOV

Naa Julius P. Kuutiero II

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 THE AUTHOR
• This author, better known as Anthon Chekhov, was of
Russian nationality and lived between 1860 and 1904.
• He trained as a physician at the First Moscow State
Medical University and while practicing medicine was also
a playwright, and short story author.
• As a playwright, he produced four classics and his best
short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics.
• He is said to rank with August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen
as one of the best seminal figures in the birth of early
modernism in the theatre.
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 THE AUTHOR
• His four great plays are The Seagull, Uncle Vanya,
Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.

• He is claimed to have said that “Medicine is my lawful

wife, and literature is my mistress”

• Chekhov initially authored stories to make some

money but as his artistic ambition grew, he made
formal innovations that influenced the evolution of the
modern short story.
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 SETTING
• The story is set in a neighbourhood were
Lubyantseve Andrey and his wife, Petrovna
Sofya live.

• No particular name is given but, it appears to be

a location that attracts holidaymakers in summer
somewhere in Russia.

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 PLOT
• Lawyer Ilyin, a holidaymaker runs into a lady, an old
acquaintance Sofya who is already married to a notary,
Andrey Lubyantseve and falls in love with her.

• Ilyin’s persistent pursuit of Sofya eventually yielded

fruit when she leaves home in the middle of the night
and walks apparently to her admirer while the husband
and daughter sleep.

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 CHARACTERS

• The chief characters are Andrey

Lubyantseve Sofya Petrovna and
Ilyin also called Ivan Mihalovitch.

• However, Sofya Petrovna is the

protagonist.
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 LITERARY TECHNIQUE
• The third person narrative technique is employed in
the story.
• It is also made conversational as an appreciable level
of the dialogue between characters may be found.
• As a realistic writer, the author has taken time in the
description of the environment where the actions of
the story are enacted.
• Though no personal descriptions of the actions are
made, their respective actions and attitudes tend to
define who they are.
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 LITERARY TECHNIQUE CONT’D
• Sofya is presented as a 25-year-old handsome lady, who
appears to abide by “sanctity of marriage” only when that is
not compromised by flattery of a pathetic aggressive lover.
• Ilyin is depicted as a learned professional of some esteem
who is contemptuous of the so called “sanctity of marriage”
Sofya claims to espouse and would do all he can to
demolish it to his advantage.
• Andrey on the other hand is portrayed as a rather laid-back
husband who fails to take his wife’s warning seriously that
she believes she is in love with another person and would
go back to sleep leaving the wife to carry out her threat.
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 LITERARY TECHNIQUE CONT’D
• A very simple language is applied in the narrative
that is chronological.
• One literary device quite obvious in the narrative is
foreshadowing, which stipulates later events leading
to an end very much defined by the title of the story,
“Misfortune”. The question posed by Sofya “What
can come of it?” and Ilyin’s response “I don’t
know” suggest that mishaps would eventually affect
the two lovers as well as Sofya’s husband and
young daughter. www.knust.edu.gh

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 THEMATIC CONCERNS
Sexual enthrallment: Ilyin is sexually enthralled by the
young Sofya. He follows her wherever she goes declaring
his love for her even though he is aware that the lady is
married and with a young child.
Feminine Control: With the abject declaration of love for
her, Sofya begins to exercise control over Ilyin. She
begins to get overly excited that she a young woman
would have so much power over an intellectual, a lawyer
like Ilyn in an age when women play second fiddle to
men.
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 THEMATIC CONCERNS
Egoism and Selfishness: As she enjoys the attention on her
by her lover, she appears too blinded to feel the pain of
Ilyin.
Guilt and Conflict: With time, the antics of Ilyin begin to
tell on Sofya when she realises that she has fallen in love
with Ilyin and finds it difficult to pretend she is not in love.
She becomes so restless and has to confess it to the husband
who sees it as a mere fancy. Helpless of her situation, she
abandons husband and child to seek the lover at mid-night
now indifferent to what the future holds in her new
relationship.
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 CONCLUSION

The overbearing internal conflict within her which

include guilt feeling, confusion, fear, anger,
sadness and desperation, resulting from the
aggressive love pursuit of Ilyin and passivity of
Andrey, gives rise to the unfortunate abandonment
of her so-called “Sanctity of marriage”.

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THANK YOU

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