An Interpretation of Multi-Dimensional Views of the Topic of Love Using Chekhovs Short Story - Essay Example

Whereas love has more often than not been a key component of literature and the short story because it is one of the most nuanced and seemingly incomprehensible of emotions, Chekhov considers the issue of love in his short story “About Love”. As stated, the non-one dimensional nature of the emotion is something that has caused a host of authors to consider the topic; in this way, Chekhov seeks to consider the topic of love by reviewing it in three different forms within his short story.

The first of these is a form of what can only be described as violent love/domestic abuse. The main protagonist of the story, Palegeya, is a young woman who experiences domestic abuse/violence at the hands of her husband – Nikanor; referred to by Chekov as “the Snout”. In this way, Chekhov presents to the reader an example of nonsensical/illogical love that cannot be understood or even defined by anyone in the relationship other than Palegeya (Chekhov 7).

In this way, Chekhov makes a tacit admission that love is of course blind and oftentimes indecipherably difficult to categorize or understand. Although such an admission is of course in line with how many people currently think of love, it should be noted that for the society in which Chekhov lived, to admit that there was such a nonsensical nature that helped to define love and keep two otherwise incompatible people together was not necessarily a stretch of the imagination as much as it was a rather unspoken truth.

In keeping with a very negative view of the world and of love, Chekhov goes on to analyze the second dimension of love that is exhibited within his short story. This second dimension represents the equally deplorable aspect of greed that is oftentimes inexorably tied to the way that love is often exhibited within society. Naturally, greed was also a key determinant of the “love” that was oftentimes attributed to the society of Chekhov’s time as arranged marriages and marriages of convenience and social status was the norms.

In many ways, the story that Chekhov relates with the greedy and self-indulgent woman is only perpetually driven by a concern for money and has little if any regard for the love that her husband so tenderly devotes to her. 

The final segment of the tri-dimensional view of love that Chekhov seeks to relate revolves around a situation of unrequited love. Such a concept of love is of course one of the earliest that has been expressed within written sonnets of the Western world. However, Chekhov has a new take on the old theme in that rather than the two characters being somehow high and noble characters in a fanciful kingdom living the fantasy of a consuming love that cannot be reciprocated, Chekhov’s character is a lowly peasant who falls in love with a girl of what can only be described as a medium status.

As much as Alyohin loves and seeks to woo Anna, his efforts are rebuffed and entirely wasted as she sees little if anything spectacular in such a vaguely boring man as Alyohin. Naturally, the story itself serves as yet another warning to the reader that the happy endings that one might necessarily expect from such a story of initial disappointment and sadness are not always the result. Although there is not a unifying mark of connection between the three stories, they each seek to define and differentiate many often-experienced situations that many describe as love.

Contextually each of these can be understood to not specifically define or describe love but rather to define and/or describe it in merely a one-sided or unreturned manner. Moreover, by describing the unique and particular shortcomings that traditional definitions and experiences of love portend, Chekhov was able to make a somewhat cynical yet relevant commentary on the state of social matters within the society of the time in which he lived.