Character Analysis Of Anton Chekhov's 'The Darling'

“The Darling” by Anton Chekhov follows the story of Olga, a woman who gets attached to various people in her life, moving from one to the next. She falls into love with a man named Kukin who was an avid participant in the town’s theater program. Olga gets entranced by both Kukin and his work. After he dies, Olga then meets a woodworker by the name of Pustovalov. After meeting him, Olga completely forgets about Kukin and the theater and replaces him with Pustovalov. Pustovalov eventually dies, and Olga meets a married soldier named Vladimir Platonich. After he is forced to leave, Olga slowly withers away without anyone to have affection for. Soon, Platonich returns and Olga learns of his son, Sasha. She then assumes the role of his mother,

When one dies off, another takes his place. With these men, Olga is happy, or rather, she thinks she is. Her happiness stems from the fact that someone is in her life to give her meaning and purpose. After the Platonich left, she was alone and began to wither away. Chekhov described her as growing, “thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile to her,” (Chekhov 194). This is the only time in the story we get a glimpse as to what Olga would be like if she was stripped away of everything that gives her life and vibrance. Without a man in her life, whether it be a husband or other kind of man to give her affection to, she slowly wastes away until she’s a shell of a human being. That’s what Chekhov is trying to convey. He thinks that without a man in her life, a woman ceases to become a functioning member of society and therefore is essentially

Sasha’s words, “I’ll give it to you! Get away! Shut up!” are very vague and, since they’re the final words of the story, are never fully explained and left to the reader to interpret. To me, I think Sasha is not really addressing anyone, but simply repeating something he has heard. I think that what he says in his sleep, is something that Olga has said before. Right before this scene, Olga receives word from Sasha’s mother, asking her to send Sasha to her to Kharkov. Now, there isn’t much description of what happens from the time she receives the telegram to when Sasha says those words. So it could be that Olga says “I’ll give it to you! Get away! Shut up!” either privately or even to Sasha’s mother herself. But either way, I think she says those words, in some way. If Olga did say this, her word choice by describing Sasha as “it” is particularly interesting because it shows that she thinks of Sasha as an item rather than a person. After all, this is reminiscent of how she treated the other men in her life, as purely items of immediate interest, until someone else comes along. And since Olga is sort of like a parrot, in the way that a parrot simply utters what they hear, rather than saying it because of rational thought, the way she would say “Get away!” and “Shut up!”