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About Love
Historical, Biographical and Literary Depiction on
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Historical Background

• Chekhov lived during a fascinating period of
  Russian history, and his stories and plays reveal
  much about this era.

The year after his birth in the small Azov Sea
town of Taganrog, Tsar Alexander II declared the
emancipation of the Russian serfs.
Taganrog
Tsar Alexander II
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• The serf emancipation was part of a larger
  program of economic modernization undertaken by
  Tsar Alexander II after Russias defeat in the
  Crimean War.

Crimean War, (October 1853 February 1856),
The Crimean War, also known in Russian
historiography as the Eastern War of 18531856,
was a conflict in which Russia lost.
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In 1881, while Chekhov was studying medicine at
Moscow University, Alexander II was assassinated,
March 13, 1881, Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg,
Russia
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After Alexander II
Alexander III Nicholas II tried to reform with
economic progress.

• Alexander III, peace maker

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• The year of Chekhov death, 1904 marked the
  beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, which Russia
  lost.

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It was a time of no great hope but time of
struggle for modernized economy.

• The Russian Empire was still an economically and
  socially backward country. Four-fifths of its
  people were still peasants, most of them still
  poor and illiterate.

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So, Anton Chekhov has an attitudewhich he
exposes in his stories as he confirms that
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• Chekhov's grandfather was a serf who bought his
  freedom and Chekhov's father was a grocer in
  Taganrog, the village where Chekhov was born.

Anton remained in Taganrog until 1879, where he
completed his education and earned a scholarship
to Moscow University to study medicine. After
graduation in 1884, Chekhov went into medical
practice.
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The patterns in his literary works

• Chekhovs stories are often called having zero
  ending. So, we cannot study them with beginning,
  rising and ending action pattern.
• His most of the short stories are open ended as
  well.
• Chekhov is often considered to be a master of the
  modern short story and is perhaps the most
  important short story writer of all time. 
• His stories normally depicts the predicament of
  little man in this material world.

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About Love

• About Love considers characters who insulate
  themselves from others and warns of man's
  inclination for social withdrawal and the
  spiritual stricture individuals place on
  themselves. 

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It depicts three social layers exhibiting human
conditions

• Under class people
• People from serfdom, living for survival as
  Nikanor works as a cook.
• Life has no fantasies as everything gets blurred
  within quarrels that he makes with Pelageya.
• The personal life with emotional human bonding
  is defined with religious faith about marriage.
• They have the limitations of economy and
  spiritual decisions which keeps them quarrel.

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• 2. Upper class People
• They have material sophestication with works and
  good family composition.
• They can show humanity being ready to offer
  dinner or support to nice fellows.
• Their limitation is that they cannot combine
  outer world in inner world of their life.
• It is suggestive that their inner world is
  restricted as they have to keep outer position in
  society.
• Mrs. Luganovich feels being ruined in such life
  patterns when she remains unable to confess her
  love towards Alyohin.

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• 3. Middle Class People
• They have a lot of dissatisfaction and irritation
  in life as they have to undergo with situational
  needs rather than with their personal needs.
• Alyohin tries to keep his educated personality
  with life of toil where he fails as he had a
  responsibility to free father from debt.
• Alyohin becomes like a caged squirrel when he
  tries to run from village to town with a hope to
  maintain the personal life.
• This life suffers from unexpressive love values
  which they gets at ending point where is no use
  of expression.
• The reason is that they have more important
  things in society as their duties and their
  spiritual virtues do not allow them to be so
  personalized. Their life is conditioned with
  social and spiritual values.
• So, it is a social realistic story reflecting a
  life under material needs where human bonding is
  regulated with economic values.

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Questions to be Discussed

• Short Questions
• How did Alyohin define love?
• Sketch the character of Mrs. Lugnovich.
• What kind of love experiences are suggested by
  Alyohin in About Love?
• How is violent love described? How is such
  account related to the whole context of the
  story?
• Long Questions
• Sketch the character of Alyohin.
• Alyohin is said to rush around like a squirrel in
  a cage and this judgement is echoed in the final
  paragraph of the story. What is the significance
  of this repetition.