Chekhov’s Use of Grief What is the fascination with grief and suffering that caused Anton Chekhov to entwine these two sad emotional states into everything he wrote? “Reading Anton Chekhov’s stories, one feels oneself in a melancholy state. Everything is strange, sharp, lonely, motionless, helpless” (Nebraska 1). Further, according to William Gerharde, Chekhov answered this very question with the following: “When you depict sad or unlucky people, and want to touch the reader’s …showed first 75 words of 2243 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2243 total…Chekhov’s ‘Misery’”. Danworld Network, 1998; 3 pages. Online. Internet. Available: http://danworld.com/info/chekhov/misery.shtml Hellman, Lillian. The Chekhov Papers. University of Pudget Sound, Dramaturgical Publication, 1996. Nebraska Center for Writers.”What the Critics Say About Anton Chekhov” Creighton, 1998; 6 pages. Online. Internet. Available: http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/NCW/chekwrit.ht Reynolds, Richard and John Stone. eds. Misery Annotated. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1993. Winner, Thomas. Chekhov and His Prose. New York, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston,1966.