« The bet »  story analysis

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Plot• A banker and a young lawyer make a bet with each other based on capital punishment and

whether the death penalty is better or worse than life in prison. The banker puts on the line two million dollars compared to the lawyer’s life worth of fifteen years.

• For the next fifteen years the lawyer was placed in the lodge of banker’s backyard without the knowledge of the outside world. The lawyer spends his time in confinement reading books. In the meantime, the banker's fortune declines and he realizes that he will be unable to pay off the bet, because he is near bankruptcy from gambling. His only escape from his tragedy would be to kill the lawyer. The day before the bet is up, the banker resolves to kill the lawyer so as to not owe him the money. So when the banker opens the door of lodge, he discovers the lawyer now looking like a skeleton. However, the banker finds a note written by him and realizes that the lawyer plans to lose, because the note declares that in his time in confinement the lawyer has learned to hate material goods and understood that they are fleeting things. Therefore, to prove his decision, he intends to leave confinement five hours before when the bet would be up. He loses the bet unwittingly and saves his own life.

• Exposition - Banker’s house, description of the party given fifteen years ago. Guests discuss capital punishment.

Conflict – Man vs. man Man vs. Himself

• Complication – The lawyer and the banker make a bet, the lawyer’s captive life begins, the banker loses much money because of gambling.

• Climax – The banker comes to lodge to kill the lawyer.

• Falling action – The banker reads the lawyer’s note.

• Resolution – Next morning the lawyer escapes, the banker hides his note.

Theme

Value of human’s lifeResults of greed

Characterization• The lawyer – (protagonist, round) The Lawyer grows throughout the story.

His character completely transforms from being an arrogant, young man, in to an intelligent man. In the beginning he is 25 years old young man who wants the two million rubles, but at the end he hates anyone who thinks that meaning of life is just getting money.

• The banker – (antagonist, flat) The banker, a spoiled and pampered man, with very nervous and arrogant character. He has never changed because he is unwilling to give up the material possession with which he surrounds himself. He is so unwilling to change that he is ready to kill the lawyer in order to keep what he has.

• Guests – (flat) took part in discussion.• Watchmen – (flat) guard the lodge the lawyer stays.

Setting

• Place – Russia, the banker’s house, backyard lodge

• Time – November 14, 1885• Mood – 1)tense 2)desperate, sad.

• Irony – The lawyer stays fifteen years, but in the end when he is so close to victory he refuses it.

• Symbols – The lawyer, the banker, the Gospel• Point of view – Third person omniscient• Foreshadowing – The banker loses money

gradually, gets close to bankruptcy each passing day and it shows that he will devitate from giving money.

• Flashback – The banker remembers the day they bet and all following years.

Prepared byAytekin Aliyeva