A review of "Selected Short Stories by Chekhov - The Death of a Civil Service Official"

"Selected Short Stories of Chekhov" is a work of great satirical significance. Among them, "Death of a Civil Service" is about a young civil servant who sneezed while watching a play and sprayed saliva into the air. It splashed on the bald head of a general sitting in front of him. After the spitting incident, the young civil servant had been trembling with fear and apologized to the officer over and over again. What he was most afraid of was that the officer would do something to him and put him into a state of eternal damnation. However, this little civil servant had been living in fear, and his nerves were so tense that he gave up soon.

In that dark society, it was the domineering high-ranking officials that caused the fear and servility of the humble people. The novel uses an interesting and representative story and humorous language to reflect the ignorance and ignorance of Russian officials under the tsar's rule at that time. The society at that time, such as this civil servant, always lived in these conditions. Under the shadow of high officials, they can only tighten their nerves all the time, fearing that one day they will be punished if they do something wrong. In the end, they will be punished just because of a small mistake that cannot be corrected. Entering death, it was because of the social situation at that time that these little people felt that the high official was the heaven and they should not be offended. This kind of thinking was the initiator of this tragedy.

This story seems like a joke, insignificant, but it does reflect the social situation at that time. The author also describes the protagonist very carefully. The protagonist Cerviako has a strong slave mentality. The husband highlights the humbleness of the slave. This humble mentality comes not only from the fear of those big men, but also from the deep-rooted idea of ??obedience, which prompted Chervyakov to kneel to his superiors in the officialdom. There is also the irritable and angry general who absolutely obeys because of his deep-seated servility and humility.

After reading this story, you can actually find that the author did not position the protagonist as a villain or a timid pleaser. In other words, this character is not actually in a derogatory sense in the article. In this position, the author adopts a side-contrast method, borrowing the protagonist's fear of his boss to satirize the boss's dictatorial methods. The protagonist has to be said to be a very thoughtful, timid and cowardly person. Let’s talk about the protagonist’s wife. The description of his wife in the article is “He was shocked at first when he heard about this incident, but then he knew that Chervyakov was working elsewhere, so she felt relieved.” It’s simple here The words and reactions of the protagonist's wife are used to highlight the faces of those officers at that time. Even a housewife who is far away from political officialdom can be shocked by such a small thing, so the arrogance and domineeringness of those officers It can be seen.

Generally speaking, the protagonist Chervyakov is a cowardly person with no courage, but he is also a very sad person. The era he lives in is a dark era, and his emotions and anger Sadness and joy are all controlled by his superiors. He seems to be a soulless walking corpse, living under the shadow of those tyrannical and hegemonic superiors every day. Chervyakov is the epitome of an era, and even more a representative of that era. Sadly, his eventual death was also foreshadowed, because he was just a pitiful and miserable victim living in that era.