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Good point about being crushed by an implacable and indifferent reality.
I found it odd that Vanka could write so well, but I let that go because the overall story was so nice. What I mainly remember is his belief that the letter would be delivered and this gave him peace.
Just read "A Transgression":http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/124.htm
A very good story with an unexpected ending!
I read "Anna on the neck": http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/180.htm It was about poverty, money and beauty rising above it all but not in a beautiful way.
I agree with you. But I guess at the beginning choices for Anna were limited. Having married a man she didn´t even like because of her family, she learnt to make the best of a bad job, and live the way she liked.
I read A Transgression after you mentioned it. It does have an unusual ending.
The story "Anna on the neck" got me thinking yesterday about groups of people and how they "evolve". In this story the family groupings were shifting as they must with each new generation as members of the groups make their choices. The original family because of the father's alcoholism was at risk. The children tried to keep it together. The daughter was able to escape, but at the price of not being able to solidify a family of her own. Her husband wasn't able to create a family or he would have done so by now. That makes three characters in the story who are not able to support a stable family group. Although the daughter looks like she is in good shape her indifference to her brothers and hostility toward her husband makes me suspect there is tragedy in store for her as well.
It is also interesting how Chekhov used addiction, in particular, alcoholism. Clearly the father was at fault for his inability to control his drinking. This the reader would pick up on easily, but so was his son-in-law who had no alcohol problem at all and explicitly criticized his father-in-law's drinking. His son-in-law's careerism may have been an addiction as bad as alcoholism as far as his new family is concerned. He is paying the price through his trophy wife whom he now can't get rid of. His daughter, also not an alcoholic, was addicted to socializing.
I agree with you, I think one of the things Chekhov depicts in several of his stories are the social relationships. The indifferent ones (those without empathy) are very often the rich and/or powerful ones. The dependents, which often suffer from this indifference are the poor, the children the animals. Anna would be a social climber. She is born in a poor family and has this father, who is addicted to alcohol. By marrying a rich man she doesn´t care for she first intends to provide for her family. But as she discovers her own female power she loses the fear from her husband and learns to provide for herself. But Chekhov stops short of a possible tragedy. In the French realism, which is still harder the story would probably include the tragedy.
Read "Grisha" a portrayal of a very small boy, who is going out for the first time. http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/056.htm
Chekhov's story sets up the tension for even deeper tragedy as you mention. I'll read Grisha tonight.
Yes, sometimes Chekhov seems to suggest another end for the story, one that goes beyond his own end and is born of the imagination of the readers.
Just read "A Trifle from Life" another story with a little boy as protagonist. He was very observant of small creatures, it seems.
http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/083.htm
Taking the perspective of a two-year-old was interesting in Grisha.