A comparison between The Proposal by Anton Chekhov and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber - Essay Example

? A comparison between The Proposal by Anton Chekhov and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber Your First Your Instructor’s Name Date Submitted A comparison between The Proposal by Anton Chekhov and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber The works of Anton Chekhov and James Thurber are well known for their ability to understand the social realities of their respective societies. Their works also are able to analyze the intricacies and nuances of the human mind. This ability derives from their characters that are able to straddle the worlds of the everyday and the unreal. The central figures are able to speak to the readers of the disturbing social environments that they live in; and the effects that are produced on the human minds as a result of such influences. Chekhov’s plays are known to have revolutionized the stage not only during his time, but also for the future generations of European playwrights who looked to his plays as a source of inspiration. Modern European playwrights of the twentieth century owe a lot to the plays of Chekhov, as it seen in their urge to unravel the mysteries of the human mind. Chekhov’s plays also critique the roles that women are expected to play in the society and, thus, are vehicles of early feminist thought that revealed the plight of women in patriarchal societies where they had to depend on men and patriarchal wealth for survival and sustenance. The nexus between the economic and the sexual order of the society is sought to be exposed in a rather daring and open manner in the plays of Anton Chekhov. The stories of James Thurber also are famous for their portrayal of the minds of the characters, the most of who are representatives of a sickness that lies outside them, in the society, even though at a superficial reading of the story, one may feel that the character’s sickness lies within. The social understanding of deviance is something that Thurber seeks to accomplish through his short stories. He seeks to understand the causes of deviance in society. The seeds of deviance, according to Thurber, are sown by the society in many cases and are not just the results of individual failures of normal functioning. His stories show that an individual mental failure in many situations points to a malaise that has its roots in the society. His stories also explore the commonness of what is usually considered to be deviant. What is commonly considered to be abnormal is present in most members of the society in small amounts, says Thurber, through the medium of his stories. The two works that are under discussion in this paper have many points of similarity and also have many factors that serve to differentiate them from each other. The Proposal and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty are both like the most works of their authors reveal much regarding the working of the minds of the characters and the people of societies in general. The position of men and women in relation to each other is discussed in both works and there is a deep understanding of gender relations that serves as a subtext to the stories of fiction. The understanding if the mental aspects of the characters serve as a means to perceptive the gender roles that are to be executed by people of either sex. After the discussion of the differences between sex and gender that was initiated by Simone de Beauvoir in her book, The Second Sex, there has been an explosion of works regarding the roles that were played by the men and women in society. Chekhov’s play shows remarkable ability to understand many of the differences between sex and gender, many years before Beauvoir came up with her seminal theories that made it easier for people to critique gender relations the way they existed in the society (Beauvoir, 2005). Accordingly, in the works of Thurber there is an understanding of how gender and sex are mixed up in society and, thus, there are many expectations that exist from people of each sex. People, thus, get trapped in gender roles that they may not be comfortable in individually but have to follow as a result of the compulsions that are placed upon them by the society. The story by Thurber, that is under discussion in this paper, explores the extent to which these gender roles can influence the workings of the mind of a person. The character of Walter Mitty is trapped in the role of a man that he can barely fulfill and, thus, his mind plays out the roles that he expects himself to suit as fantasies. These fantasies include roles and expectations that are laid out for the protagonist by him. They are impossible to fulfill and are based on popular representations of men as macho and flamboyant. The roles that Walter Mitty visualizes for himself are extremely macho and they do not have any relation to his real life. The roles are, in fact, extremely incongruous with the life that he leads, which is a quiet man who obeys most of the commands that are given by his wife. He is not, thus, a person who fits the conventional role of a macho man. Some of the institutions that serve to preserve the roles that are to be played by men and women in a society are religion and marriage. The kinship ties that are forged through marriage are responsible for the perpetuation of patriarchal mores and patriarchal forms of oppression that cause women to accept an inferior position in the society. This model of the society was proposed by the structuralist thinker, Claude Levi-Strauss who thought of marriage as one of the major social institutions that worked in favor of existing power structures in the society (Levi-Strauss, 1976). We see in both The Proposal and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty that marriage causes men and women to take up roles that are recommended by the society. These roles are accepted unconditionally by the protagonists of the works. Walter Mitty accepts the fact that he is supposed to live life in a particular way and has no problems with it. Lomov also believes that he is supposed to uphold the honor of his family in a particular manner that shall enhance the patriarchal wealth of his family. He is unable to live up to the conventional ideals of masculinity and this manifests itself in physical signs, in Lomov. This is seen in the way he reacts after he is challenged by Natalya Stepanovna and her father, Chubukov about certain matters that both parties agree are trivial and unsuitable for serious discussion. Critics have noted how Chekhov’s knowledge of the human body and mind led him to present a critical analysis of his characters and their mental and physical health (Mirkovic, 1976). The fact that Chekhov was a practicing doctor before he finally took up writing as a full-time occupation can be seen in most of his works and, especially, the play that is under consideration, The Proposal. The description of the mental conditions of his characters is given in great detail and with as much of a medical precision as is possible in drama. This is one of the reasons as why the plays of Anton Chekhov set great demands on actors. In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty we also see descriptions of the mental states that Walter Mitty passes through. These stages can be related to even by a common man but however, they are, like the works of Chekhov, written with a great deal of care. Care is taken to make the medical details correct and the social significance behind the existence of the disease or condition prominent. One of the similarities between the two works is that they are able to show that mental illness is not a condition that is particular to those that the society dubs as mentally ill. People who live in societies that are passing through periods of great turmoil or a period of transition may exhibit similar characteristics and this is exactly what the characters Chubukov, Lomov, Natalya Stepanovna and Walter Mitty show. Their apparent sanity is revealed to be not so by the authors of these works and the results of societies those do not encourage sane behavior. This is seen even in the gender roles that are shown by the people in the play and the short story. In fact, it is the social conceptions of gender that cause mental conditions in these people. These, in turn, are contingent upon the historical positions of the societies that they were a part of. To make this point clear, one may need to take a look at the societies in which these stories are set in. The story that Chekhov articulates in his play is set in the Russia of the nineteenth century when the countryside and the city were undergoing great changes that were related to the emancipation of the serfs. This had led to great changes in the feudal economy that had persisted till then and till a very long time; Russia had not adjusted to its new form of government and social structure. The pressure on the landlords to keep up the agricultural produce was immense and many tended to equate their abilities as farmers to their masculinity and their position in society. The debate surrounding the Oxen Meadows is an indication of this need for land and its associations with the stature of Lomov in the society. Land in this case becomes a phallic symbol which Lomov is unable to let go of in a situation when he is about to ask for the hand of Natalya Stepanov. Natalya Stepanov too, is unable to let go of the land, but she is more concerned about the prospect of getting married and this shows how, in any society which is going through a period of turmoil, the section which is the most affected are the women because they are oppressed by the very community which is suffering. They, thus, suffer from an internal and external oppression. Also the attitude of Chubukov, Natalya’s father is interesting. He wants nothing more than to marry his daughter off whom he perceives to be nothing more than a burden. Chekhov’s story, thus, manages to make a clear portrait of the society in which the gender roles and the oppression that is cause due to them is revealed. This follows the tradition of the realist authors of the nineteenth centuries who viewed an age as the product of the historical forces that acted during that period. The characters in this play are the products of the specific historical forces that shaped the countryside of Russia during the nineteenth century. The gender roles that the characters abide by and follow are also the result of the effects of the economic and political forces that were characteristic of this age and society. It is, thus, appropriate to call Chekhov a “realist”, according to Alexander Werth (Werth, 1925). Thurber’s story is set in the period when the Second World War was going on. The fantasies that are played out in the mind of the protagonist, Walter Mitty are mostly those of a flamboyant soldier who is about to take on his enemies in a daring and fearless manner. This is again representative of the fears regarding masculinity that prevailed amongst people during the Second World War as a result of the emasculating trench warfare. This was different from forms of warfare where the two combatants fought each other face-to-face. Such a fight would be able to satisfy the cruder patriarchal notions that men have and could satisfy their masculine ego better than trench warfare where one would have to die a death that is not accompanied by the notions of heroism, since one does not even meet the person who is responsible for one’s own death. This was a terrifying prospect for people who were to fight in the Second World War since the stories of trench warfare that people got to hear were hardly awe-inspiring. The fantasies that Walter Mitty conjures up are those that manage to place him in situations that stroke his masculine ego and at the same time, reveal his insecurities in a world where the definitions of masculine heroism were changing very quickly. The stories of Thurber are, thus, according to David S. Adams, forms of art that enable one to learn about the society (Adams, 1980). It is critical and precise assessment of the almost comic forms of fantasies that prevailed during the modern age as a result of the forces of war has earned Thurber the epithet of the “Comic Prufrock” (P.D., 1943). A play because of its very form, as it existed in the times of Chekhov, did not capture the internal world of people but allowed the audience to understand the mental states of people through their actions. The soliloquies of the Renaissance had disappeared from the stage and the internal world of the characters could only be guessed at. This is exactly what happens in The Proposal. As opposed to this, there is an analysis of the mental states of Walter Mitty that are an effect of the gender roles that he is expected to play. The fact that the story is to be read and not to be played out plays a great role in making the reader aware of the effects of gender roles on the society. The reading of the work makes it necessary for the reader to visualize for himself or herself the situations that are described in the story. This makes the reader a part of the creation of the story but tells him or her in a rather direct manner as to the thoughts that are present in the mind of the characters that are present in the story. Characters that are played by actors on a stage, however, have to convey their thoughts and emotions through the actions that they perform. These actions do form a part of the story of the play. However, since the plays involve physical manifestations of the characters in a tangible way that the audience can see and understand, the mind is articulated only through the actions of the body. The body, thus, becomes the medium through which the state of the mind and the society are revealed to the audience. The importance of gender roles can be understood from the works of fiction that have been discusses in this paper. The fact that these stories are situated in locations that are very far from each other proves the universality of the patriarchal notions of gender that have managed to place women and people of non-normative society in a position of inferiority. The need for positive change in the society is articulated strongly in these works of art by their authors. References Levi-Strauss, Claude. (1976). Structural anthropology, Volume 2. USA: Basic Books. Beauvoir, Simone De. (2005). The Second Sex. New York: Viking. Chekhov, Anton. (n.d.). The Proposal. Retrieved from http://www.one-act- plays.com/comedies/proposal.html Thurber, James. (n.d.). The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Retrieved from http://bnrg.cs.berkeley.edu/~randy/mitty.html Werth, Alexander. Anton Chekhov. The Slavonic Review, 3 (9). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4201893 Mirkovic, Damir. (1976). Anton Pavlovich Chekhov and the Modern Sociology of Deviance. Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, 18 (1). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40867038 Adams, David S. (1980). Teaching Stories for Sociology: The Fables of James Thurber. Teaching Sociology, 7 (4). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316972. P.D. (1943). James Thurber: The Comic Prufrock. Poetry, 63 (3). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20583680 Read More