World Literature #1/ The Student/ Night after the Crucifixion

Night after the Crucifixion

It has been agreed that Anton Chekhov’s The Student is a realist short story, depicting the everyday life of Russians. I think differently. The constant Biblical allusions dictate that the subtext beneath the seemingly realist story endows much meaning to the story. In order to trace the clues that Chekhov laid for the readers to follow, one should notice the straightforwardly spoken generalization in the conclusion of the story.

Now the student was thinking about Vasilisa: since she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter the night before the Crucifixion must have some relation to her. . . .

He looked round. The solitary light was still gleaming in the darkness and no figures could be seen near it now. The student thought again that if Vasilisa had shed tears, and her daughter had been troubled, it was evident that what he had just been telling them about, which had happened nineteen centuries ago, had a relation to the present -- to both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people. The old woman had wept, not because he could tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was near to her, because her whole being was interested in what was passing in Peter's soul.

The excerpt above gives two useful guides in interpreting this short story. (1) It explicitly suggests that the story of Vasilisa and her daughter bears a relationship with the Twelve Gospels (referred to as “which had happened nineteen centuries ago” in the excerpt above). (2) The concept of past and present had played an important role in the story. Therefore, in this essay, I will show (1) how related the two stories are and (2) what the timeline linked from past and present foreshadows future events.

The description of timeline in the story is something to note. The narrator, Ivan Velikopolky, conjectures that during “the days of Rurik” and “in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter,” there would have been “same desperate poverty and hunger” as it is right now. He compares such status to the atmosphere with “cold penetrating wind” and “needles of ice.” However, he states that in a closer past (“[a]t first”), “the weather was fine and still,” there even was a “gay, resounding note in the spring air.” To sum up, “same darkness, the same feeling of oppression” has been existent for a very long time, but with a small aberration in the distant past.

Another notion to take in regard is that the time setting in the story is Good Friday, when “nothing has[d] been cooked.” Good Friday is a Christian holiday that commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus. In memoir of his sacrifice, Christians fast during the day Christ had been in pain. For a long time, the Jews had been under foreign oppression until Jesus has come to enlighten them and lessen their burdens. However, on Good Friday, he was caught by Roman and dissident rabies and later crucified. The atmosphere changing from the super pastàdistant pastà present in the story pretty much matches with the Bible.

But of course, this coinciding change of atmosphere is not sufficient enough to show a link between the short story and the biblical tale. Nonetheless, the concatenation of events and their settings in The Student are identical with that in the Gospels.

The characteristics of Vasilisa and her daughter Lukerya links to the tale of Peter and Jesus. When Jesus was dragged off by the Jewish dissidents, Peter warmed himself by the fire after having slept. Similarly, Vasilisa stands by “the fire” and has spent time “with the gentry” and could express “herself in refinement” while Lukerya was “beaten by her husband” as a village peasant. The expression that Lukerya was “beaten” is noteworthy. Chekhov uses the same word (“beat”) when describing the ordeal Jesus had to go through, hence “beat Him” and “…He was beaten.” Also, it is suggestive that Vasilisa and Lukerya had “just had supper” by the time Velikopolsky arrives to the campfire. When he tells the tale that Peter wept bitterly after the crow crowed, Vasilisa starts making “big tears” flow “freely down her cheeks.”

By now, it is reasonable to assume that Lukerya is being compared to Jesus while Vasilisa to Peter. However, there is one doubt that lingers in the story; Velikopolsky describes Lukerya as “a little pock-marked woman with a stupid-looking face.” Not only that, Peter, though finding meaning of life, does not “feel as though Easter would be the day after to-morrow.” It is absurd that Peter is joyful when the widows are either weeping or in “enduring intense pain.” The sudden lesson at the end of the story hints that there might be a deviation from the original ending in the Gospel, resurrection.