[World Lit.] Ivan the student, and Vasilisa the Azumma

Jane Park

WorldLiterature

Mr. Garrioch

1^st Reading Journal on “The Student” 

             The first time reading “The Student” by Anton Chekhov was frankly a frustration for me. I couldn’t easily overcome my ignorance in literature to interpret the story as to be a truly realistic piece or not. The setting and the characters seemed to be realistic, but the essence of its message seemed rather romantic. When I read it several more times without the pressure to analyze in detail, I could eventually get to the tip of its core. “The Student” by Anton Chekhov is neither perfectly realistic nor romantic; it is more likely to be on the verge of realism and sensationalism. There is, however, more about the story itself apart from the issue of realism. I believe literature, regardless of any genre, has to tell the "truth" about reality.

             According to The American Novel and Its Tradition by Richard Chase, realistic literature (1) renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail, (2) is a selective presentation of reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude, even at the expense of a well-made plot, (3) has its character more important than action and plot, where complex ethical choices are often the subject, and (4) makes the characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive, in which they are in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past. In this sense, “The Student” is a perfect piece of literature that embodies realistic characteristics.

This story depicts the environment with great amount of details: “Needles of ice stretched across the pools, and it felt cheerless, remote, and lonely in the forest”; “A camp fire was burning with a crackling sound, throwing out light far around on the ploughed earth.” It also focuses on the development of characters rather than the plot itself, in which they are likely to exist in real life. Ivan Velikopolsky, the main character, resembles a common student who is concerned about both zeitgeist and his life. Both Vasilisa and her daughter Lukerya are as well likely characters in reality: Vasilisa is epitomized as “a tall, fat widow”; Lukerya as “a little pock-marked woman with a stupid looking face.” Although the inner part of this metafiction, in which Ivan tells an episode in Bible, is rather romantic, the overall story focuses more on each character’s development of ideas than on that of the plot.

             On the other hand, there are several aspects of the story that do not fall into the category of realism. Unlike in typical realistic literature where events are usually plausible, avoiding the sensational and dramatic elements, in “The Student,” characters suddenly realize the remorse and the eternal cycle of life. Especially Vasilisa dramatically reacts to Ivan’s story of Peter while listening quietly. She, in a sudden, “[gives] a gulp, and screens her face from the fire with her sleeve as though ashamed of her tears.” In realistic perspective, this abrupt outburst of emotions, in other words catharsis, is not at all considered banal. This extreme, rather romantic, contingency does not seem to be elastically allowed in Realism.

Furthermore, the message of “The Student” vacillates between realism and sentimentalism. In Black and White Strangers, Kenneth Warren suggests that a basic difference between realism and sentimentalism is that in realism, "the redemption of the individual lay within the social world," whereas in sentimental fiction, "the redemption of the social world lay with the individual.” This story, however, does not seem to fit in either category, but rather reside somewhere between the two. To certain extent, the recognition of the “cycle of life” that leads Ivan and Vasilisa to the new lives is tangent to both the real society, in which they have previously been trapped, and themselves as individuals. There seems to be no distinguishable boundary between the two factors. 

People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.

-Anton Checkov

             The most personally intriguing facet of the story was Vasilisa. Whereas the focus of the story is mainly on Ivan and his realizations of life through the time he spends with her, I was strangely more interested in Vasilisa than in Ivan. Although her moment of enlightenment is the most unrealistic part of the story, I can certainly sympathize with her flood of sudden remorse. With the detailed description of the character Vasilisa, it is easy to speculate that she has been living a tough life. “A fat woman in a man’s coat,” Vasilisa has been a woman of experience, first as a wet-nurse, and afterwards as a children’s nurse. She now lives with her daughter who was beaten by her husband. Considering her past and present, something amassed inside her is likely to have made her cry in a sudden.

One uncomfortable fact that I had to admit was that Vasilisa so much resembled the Korean concept of Azumma, who has packed a lot of stories in her heart, without having any opportunity to reach the moment of catharsis. It shows that this certain depiction of woman is present in any kind of society, no matter how distinct the cultures are. In other words, Vasilisa’s whole life can be represented as Han. This Han inside her can be understood as the instigating factor that leads her to react so dramatically to the well-known story of Peter. This is why I thought judging how realistic “The Student” was no longer an issue of great importance for me. The emotional outburst of Vasilisa, whether or not realistic, was the most meaningful part, for it truly portrayed the inner concern, at last completing the whole character. It was not about logic but Han.

Man will become better when you show him what he is like. The more reality they are provided with, the better people will become at understanding it. Reality, in my point of view, is not necessarily the “exact depiction” of the world. It is, however, the essence of that depiction. Only when people seek for something truly true-if such a thing exists-, will they eventually be able to interpret the world clearly.