Chekhov The Huntsman

The Huntsman Assess the character of Yegor Vlassitch to show how arrogant he is which ultimately brings in his separation with his wife. “The Huntsman” brillantly conveys the complex texture of two lives during a meeting on a summer day. The characters are Yegor Vlassitch and his wife Pelagea who meet after a decade of separation.

Essay Example on The Huntsman By Anton Chekhov Summary

In their brief conversation both of them appear to be opposite in their ways of life but accidentlaly united by wedlock while Yegor is haughty and proud of being a good huntsman, Pelagea is, as Yegor has said, “a simple peasant woman with no understanding” and hence they are ill-matched and thus the arrogant huntsman of Pelagea goes away from her life once again.

Yegor as he himself admits is “the best shot there is in the whole district” and he says “the gentry feel that and have even printed things about me in a magazine”.

From his very childhood days he never had “any calling apart from guns and dogs”. When he was without guns he went fishing, if he was denied of a fishing hook he caught things with bare hands. Such was his spirit of freedom, which “you will never root it out of him”. Hence to be matched with a simple herd girl is not his cup of tea and thus he is now resolute enough to be away from his nagging wife who pleads with him to come to her hut.

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“To go for an hour or two is only a waste of time” says Yegor who is much habituated to the pampered way of living.

He needed “a bed to sleep and good tea to drink and refined conversation” without which it is impossible for him to endure a rustic life “even for a day”. Hence there is no point for him to return there leaving his job of a huntsman. Such an attitude of Yegor confirms him as a selfish man who cares nothing besides his own comfort. However Yegor’s inhumanity is once more confirmed when Pelagea sobs to ask if there “has never once been love between them in the decade of conjugal life”. Hearing the word ‘love’ Yegor stoically states that “there can’t be any love. It’s only in name we are husband and wife. We aren’t really”.

According to Yegor the key issue which stands as hindrance before their married life is that he is a carefree man “pampered profligate” while Pelagea is a working woman in “bark shoes and never straightening her back”. Such hard words of the huntsman testify him as a rigid man who is neither adjusted to any circumstances nor well-mannered. There is no denying the fact that out of a spell of intoxication he married Pelagea but then it is too much for a decent man to blame it on his wife for consenting to the marriage and insulting her saying that “it was a bit of luck for a herd girl to marry a huntsman”.

Therefore she must suffer according to her wild husband who feels he has nothing to do. Even if Pelagea “beat herself against the wall” for the mistake she did in marrying such a rogue. This attitude of Yegor confirms him as a saddist who feels complacent seeing his wife suffer miserably. Indeed he is a wild man unfit for a conjugal life which acts as a basic factor for his separation from his wife.