Essay Assignment for "The Bet"

Illustrations for "The Bet" 

This is a shameless steal from the website "Towards the Examined Life" by Mr. Thomas Trevenen, the English teacher from Masconomet High School in Massachusetts.

The Essay Topic: 

The topic of your essay is the theme of Anton Chekhov's "The Bet". When explaining the theme please indicate three techniques the author uses in order to expose or show his theme.

Class Notes: 

Some people need material things and don't understand other ways of thinking. These people will not try to understand how someone could live without material goods. Other do not need materials or money and think that there are things more important to life than just money. These people might despise people's obsession with materialism.

Two people can be the same and totally different at the same time. These people can pursue opposite goals, but the way they pursue these goals may be the same.

A person does not have to be one extreme or the other, as the banker and the lawyer are.  He or she can be somewhere in the middle. In this theme, the two characters represent the two extremes.

Chekhov seems to be using his characters to show a contrast between the Eastern and Western philosophies. Chekhov is trying to show a conflict between capitalism, symbolized by the Banker, and anarchy, symbolized by the Lawyer.

Some people can do more confined with their imagination than others can do when they are free and in the world.

Techniques for Revealing the Theme: 

Anonymity: Note that the characters are anonymous - that neither of the characters are ever named and are simply called by his profession.  This tends to lend a universality to the characters. It is as if either one or both could be someone the reader knows or maybe even the reader herself. Therefore, what Chekhov says about the character or how he as the character behaves, may reveal the theme of his story. 

In a possible paragraph about the use of anonymous characters in the story, one may write: 

Chekhov uses anonymous characters to make it seem as if it is not just one person he is writing about but he is writing about people in general. 

Readers can relate to anonymous characters.

By using anonymous characters, Chekhov makes the readers see the whole picture and not the individuals, for he wants us to focus on the conflict and not on the personalities of the characters. 

Symbols: Both the Banker and the Lawyer seem to represent much more complicated ideas. One of the keys to what each represents is the title each is given. The Banker is materialistic and sees the world in terms of what he can acquire or what he can keep. The Lawyer is not materialistic and prefers to follow a path of discovery rather than acquisition, but his fault is that he lives by rules or laws: Either believe in what he believes or he will despise you.  Each symbolizes a way of thinking.  The Lawyer is the foil to the Banker, as is the Banker to the Lawyer - they are the opposites of each other. It is the contrast between the two which makes each character clearer and more distinct. 

Static and Dynamic Characters: Chekhov contrasts his characters by making one static (or flat and unchanging) and the other dynamic. The Banker never changes because he is unwilling to give up the material possessions with which he has surrounded himself.  He is so unwilling to change that he even contemplates having the Lawyer killed in order to keep what he has.  In contrast, the Lawyer changes through out the story.  In the beginning, he wants the two million rubles, but at the end, he despises anyone who would seek to acquire mere money. 

Conflict: If the two characters of the Lawyer and the Banker are meant to symbolize two sides to one personality, then Chekhov adds the conflict to indicate the choices and decisions that have to be made in order to live a life.

The characters represent two extremes: The Banker is overly concerned with material things and not concerned at all with the intellectual and spiritual, which leads to an empty, superficial life; the Lawyer is not concerned enough about the physical, and his angry and bitter mental state and wretched physical state reflect that lack of concern.  There is no balance in either man's life, and the Banker's bankrupt morality (he contemplates murder at one point to keep his money) and the Lawyer's decrepit physical and mental state reflect that imbalance.

 Furthermore, one learns whom one is through one's interactions and relationships with others, and by moving through life and its obstacles. It is not enough to simply read about Odysseus' encounters with beautiful, dangerous, helpful women, one must interact with them too (or with men, for that matter). It is not enough to simply read about climbing mountains, but one should climb the mountains to glimpse the sun burst white peaks of distant vistas, and feel the salt water in one's hair as one plies the dipping waves of the vast ocean to truly discover and know who one is and what life is. Or simply walking through the streets and brushing shoulders with people, that will reveal much about oneself and about others and about life.  Reading about it is not enough. But neither is all experience enough - both should be tempered with the other. One can never experience all there is in the world by experience alone - we are too small, our time is too short and the universe is too immense and time is too deep.  We must commune with others who are wiser, smarter,  and we must listen to the voices of others who come from distant times and places  to gain a richer robust understanding of what it means to be human.   And that is the Lawyer's mistake - thinking that the knowledge gained from reading is all he needs to understand the world.  Reading without experience is only half knowledge just like experience without understanding and wisdom is useless and dangerous.  

Model for Essay Construction: 

Paragraph One: 

• INTRODUCTION: include the name of the author and the title of the work in a sentence that conveys something substantial about the story. 
• Include what the theme of the story is. Be explicit. Be very clear. Explain it fully in several sentences. If you take only one sentence to state the theme of the story, you may not have included important details.  The theme must be stated in completed sentences. Love or war or loss is not a theme;  each one is a topic but is not a theme. The theme expresses what the author feels is a universal truth. 
• List the techniques the writer uses to show the theme. Use at least three. Mention the techniques briefly in no more than a sentence or two. 
• Try to have a sentence that logically makes a transition into the next paragraph. 

Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4

• These are your body paragraphs. In the following paragraphs you should: 
• Discuss the techniques used by Chekhov. One technique per paragraph.
• Write the essay as if you are addressing someone who is familiar with the story but may not be familiar with the themes or techniques used by Chekhov. 
• You must use quotations and examples from the story to support your writing. If you write that a character is static, you must give a quotation from the story to support that. (Give the page number in parenthesis at the end of the quotation.) Then explain how that quotation supports your thesis. 
• Try to create a good sentence which transitions to the next paragraph. 

Conclusion: 

• Here are some examples of topics for a conclusion: 
• Based on what you read, think and wrote, why do  you think the author wrote the story?
• Based on what you read, think and wrote, do you agree with the author? 
• Based on what you read, think and wrote, do you think the theme could teach someone an important idea?
• Based on what you read, think and wrote, do you think the theme is important enough to read about?
• Based on what you read, think and wrote, does the story successfully reveal the theme?