In The Cart by Anton Chekhov, 1897
The magic trick:
Understanding the reader’s expectations even better than the reader does
Chekhov reaches back for some Dickensian social justice storytelling here. “In The Cart” introduces us to a teacher living a miserably difficult and lonely life. But it’s clear that this isn’t simply the story of a teacher; it’s representative of the plight of the teacher in Russian society.
In that way, it’s probably a little too obviously trying to make a point. But hey, whatever. It’s a beautiful story.
The thing is, because you don’t necessarily know the point going in, you’re prepared to be surprised. For instance, fairly early into our teacher’s ride in the cart, she meets up with a wealthy neighbor. Maybe this is going to be her ticket out of this terrible life? Maybe this will be romance? Maybe this will be our story’s pivot point?
But it’s none of those things. It’s not romance at all. But it’s not even a dramatic, tragic love lost. The neighbor isn’t particularly interesting, and our teacher isn’t particularly interested. It’s just another mostly pointless interaction that fills her days.
The story plays beautifully off our expectations. Chekhov knows exactly how we’ll respond to the appearance of the neighbor, and he uses it to accentuate his message. He recognizes even before we do that our expectation wasn’t really that this might be romance, as we may have thought. He’s one step ahead of us. He knows the truth is that we were hoping for drama – good or bad.
So if he had delivered something tragic, it would only fit what we guessed. The true surprise is that it’s a lackluster, pointless exchange. It catches us off guard, forcing us to look for clarification. It’s in that search for clarity that we notice the story directing us at the dreary monotony of the teacher’s life. Perhaps, we start to think, this isn’t going to something that ever gets a pivot point. Perhaps it’s this in itself that is the story.
And that’s quite a trick on Chekhov’s part.
The selection:
And again they were silent for a long time. Marya Vassilyevna thought of her school, of the examination that was coming soon, and of the girl and four boys she was sending up for it. And just as she was thinking about the examination, she was overtaken by a neighboring landowner called Hanov in a carriage with four horses, the very man who had been examiner in her school the year before. When he came up to her he recognized her and bowed.
“Good-morning,” he said to her. “You are driving home, I suppose.”
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