Character of Chubukov - The Proposal by Anton Chekhov

Character of Chubukov:

            

    

        Chubukov is a neighbour of Lomov. He is living with his twenty-five years old unmarried daughter Natalya. Chubukov and Lomov both have similarities in their nature because both have possession in their nature. Chubukov should behave with maturity as he is the only elder man in both the houses, but he is quite immature and always supports Natalya in the quarrel. He also starts abusing his future son-in-law. Chubukov can be the reason of Natalya’s bad behaviour and arrogance because he has pampered her a lot and he always supports her in quarrelling with Lomov. At the end of the play he has became the man who helped both Lomov and Natalya to get married.

            

        Chubukov has a good control over his speech when he talks with Lomov. He time and again shows artificial love towards Lomov by saying,

“My precious...

My beauty...

Darling...”

But when he started abusing Lomov he said,

“Your father was a drunkard, and your younger aunt, Nastasya Mihailovna, ran away with an architect, and soon....”

At the end when Natalya and Lomov got married, he said in a very typical way that,

“What a weight off my shoulders ..... ouf!” 

Questions:

1. Judge the character of Chubukov - is he mature enough according to his age or not? Why?
2. Which faults you can find in the character of Chubukov? are there any faults? is he the perfect father ?

Introduction and Background of the play

Character of Lomov

Character of Natalya

Critical views

Character of Natalya - The Proposal by Anton Chekhov

Character of Natalya:

             

           Natalya is a good house keeper and an educated girl with good looks. She is the lead female character of the play and the daughter of Chubukov. She is short tempered and a greedy natured girl. She has no such respect for Lomov till she came to know that he wants to marry her. Lomov is a rich man and Natalya is interested in his money.

When Lomov first came to Natallya’s house she made fun of him by saying,

“Well there! it’s you; and papa said, “Go; there’s a merchant come for his goods.”

             

          During the conversation she abuses Lomov a lot and insults him. But when she came to know that he wants to marry her, she was surprised and as per her greedy nature she accepted in the quarrel that the meadows belong to Lomov. In the next fight her short tempered nature can be observed and again she stared fighting with Lomov. She claims that meadows belong to her and she can’t bear the injustice at any cost. She refuses to take meadows as the gift from Lomov and said,

“I can make you a present of the meadows myself, because they are mine!”

           She is seen as the quarrel loving girl as she has not only abused Lomov but also his relatives. First she was not ready to see Lomov in her house but when she came to know the reality about marriage proposal she screamed to her father and told him to bring Lomov back in the house for further marriage discussion. She has understood the fact that though she is twenty-five, she cannot get better husband than Lomov.

            

          When Lomov came back, she again started quarrelling about the superiority of her dog. She was badly abusing Lomov without thinking that he is her future husband. She was only interested in proving her point right. She fought till she got the control over Lomov.

          

           Natalya is the perfect match for Lomov. Both have seminaries in their nature. Lomov and Natalya both are short tempered, funny, and like Lomov she is the master in a matter of quarrelling. If Lomov can’t be taken as a perfect hero, Natalya can’t be taken as the perfect heroine. 

Questions:

1. Judge the character of Natalya - Heroine or not? Why?  
2. Can we consider the character of Natalya as 'true to life'.
3. Explain - Humour and artificiality in the character of Natalya
  

Introduction and Background of the play

Character of Lomov
Character of Chubukov 
Critical views

Character of Lomov - The Proposal by Anton Chekhov

Character of Lomov:

          

           Lomov is the protagonist of the play. He is a wealthy thirty-five years old unmarried man. He wants to marry Natalya, who is the daughter of his neighbour Chubukov. He visits Chubukov’s house but it turned into a bad experience for him. His proposal converted into a quarrel and it became the hurdle in his marriage. 

         Lomov is the hero of the play but he lacks heroic qualities. He has very weak heart which can be observed in the play. He time and again says that,

“Oh, my heart...! I can see stars.....”

“My heart is going to pieces.....”

         He is physically very weak. He starts getting nervous when Natalya and Chubukov started fighting and shouting. He continuously repeats,

“I think I am dying..... My foot’s quite numb....”

          Lomov frequently gets upset and he has a very sensitive heart. He often feels that he is about to die and he needs doctor time and again for the treatment. It represents his possessiveness.

         When he went to Chubukov’s house with marriage proposal, the marriage proposal was forgotten and they start quarrelled. In the first quarrel Natalya claimed that the meadows belong to her and Lomov was ready to accept that he was sure that the meadows has his ownership. He believes that it is the matter of justice and principles. He said,

“I don’t want the meadows, but I am acting on principles. If you like, I’ll make you the present of them.”

         He was ready to gift those meadows to Natalya but he only wanted to prove that the meadows belong to him. He was getting so excited during the quarrel and also getting physically effected by the shouting and aggressive behaviour of Natalya and Chubukov. Though he was not ready to let go his meadows ownership, he was arguing continuously and ready to drag his neighbours to court.

        The second quarrel was about their dogs. Lomov deeply loves his dog. He is highly conscious about Natalya’s comments about his dog. He feels that his Dog “Guess” (Ugadi) is superior to Natalya’s dog “Squeezer” (Utkatai). He refuses Natalya’s claim that Squeezer is better than Guess. He is not ready to tolerate his dog’s insult.

Lomov can be considered as the comic figure of the play. His weak physic, greed, possessiveness, and excited nature provides comic element in the play. He has a weak heart and though he tries to fight with his two aggressive neighbours and during that he also feels palpitation and numbness but he continues the fight which creates humour. 

Lomov: 

     ®   Hero – lacks heroic quality

     ®  Lover – Fights with beloved

     ®  Comic figure of the play

     ®  More human than Hero
        
    Questions:
      
     1. Judge the character of Lomov- Hero or not? Why? 
     2. Can we consider the character of Lomov as 'true to life'.
     3. Explain - Humour in the character of Lomov
      
 Introduction and Background of the play
 Character of Natalya 

      Character of Chubukov

     Critical views

   
    

 

The Proposal by Anton Chekhov

The Proposal by Anton Chekhov

Introduction: 

          The Proposal is written by Anton Chekhov, a Russian writer. He selected his career as a doctor and also practiced medicine. He was interested in literature and that made him write short stories and he contributed in the world of literature. He finally got huge fame in literary world and became the greatest writer of the age.

      He has written short stories with funny and witty styles which mostly arises various issues. He used underline satire by the funny dialogues of characters and by their level of thinking and understanding the situations he presented wit. All these interesting construction of the play makes reading even more interesting.

      By this play Anton has arose the issue of accepting the people around us and the negative aspects of treating other people. He has depicted the inner feeling of people in which, he expressed that how an individual contains the feeling of “Otherness” about other people.

He said,

“Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress”

Characters: (click on the characters to read more)

Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov – Hero of the play, Neighbour of Chubukov, a large and hearty, but very suspicious landowner.

Natalya Stepanovna – Chubukov’s 25 years old daughter. 

Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov – Father of Nataliya and a landowner.

Background of the play:

                  

              Chubukov and Lomov are neighbours. Lomov is very rich and handsome. He likes Natalya and wants to marry her. He went with a proposal of marriage to Chubukov’s house but the meeting converted in a quarrel. First they quarrelled on the ownership of Meadows and then they started fighting on the superiority of their  dog. Natalya is ready to marry Lomov but just for his wealth. At the end they get married and again starts fighting. 

Character of Lomov

Character of Natalya 

Character of Chubukov

Critical views