Peasant Wives by Anton Chekhov is a story that is set in the village of Reybuzh. Dyudya is a peasant who owns land and trades in tar, honey, cattle and jackdaws. He lives with his wife, a hunchback son and two of his daughters in law. Also, Chekhov introduces Matvey Savitch, a traveler who has put up at Dyudya’s home for a night with his adopted son Kuzka. In this story, Chekhov portrays the various ways in which women are oppressed and yet they remain helpless in their situation. The plot, characters, symbolism and the language use in Peasant Wives emphasize the theme of women oppression.
In this story, Savitch explains to Dyudya and some of his family members how he ended up adopting Kuzka as his son. He recounts how he seduced Mashenka and started living with her and her son as a family. Mashenka was his neighbor’s wife, Vasya, who was shortlisted as a soldier and forced to go to Poland on duty leaving behind his young wife and new born son. Initially, Savitch would assist Mashenka in performing duties such as seeing to the horses and mending the broken fence which were considered to be masculine roles. He started coming up with more duties like counting Vasya’s pigeons in order to spend more time with her Eventually, he declared his love for her and she welcomed him into her home and they started living together. Savitch realizes that he is wrong to seduce another man’s wife and yet he justifies his actions. To him, women possess some evil that can cause men to commit wrong actions against their will (Chekhov, 2015) In his view, Mashenka fully bears the responsibility for their illicit relationship while he is the victim of her evil nature.
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As time went by, Savitch loses his interest in Mashenka but remains with her because he is afraid of her reaction if he decides to tell her of his feelings. When Vasya sends a letter to his wife informing her that he will be sent back home from Warsaw following an illness, Savitch sees this as an opportunity to free himself from her. On Vasya’s arrival, he forces her to confess of their sin and seek his forgiveness. He forgives them and Mashenka is forced to live with him despite the fact that she does not consider herself as his wife and does not want to live with him (Chekhov,2015). Both men are ignorant of Mashenka’s feelings and force her to go against them in order to fulfil their own desires. Vasya ignores her resentment towards him because he wants to have his family back while Savitch ignores her love for him as he is no longer interested in her. Consequently, these men represent the oppressors while Mashenka represents the oppressed.
In this section of the story, Chekhov also emphasizes the oppression of women through the use of language. Dyudya describes Mashenka as a vile hussy as she attempts to plead with Savitch not to leave her (Chekhov,2015). To him, her feelings of love towards Savitch did not matter. He viewed her actions as wrong and disgraceful. This reinforces the theme of women oppression in the story as the men choose to disregard their emotions.
Despite living with Vasya, Mashenka does not stop loving Savitch and even goes to his home to express the same. Her husband follows her there and brutally beats her up. It takes the intervention of three men to stop him from inflicting more beatings on her. When Savitch goes to see her in the evening, he finds her wrapped up in bandages with the exception of her eyes and nose. He asks her to seek forgiveness from her husband in order to avoid going to a Gehenna of fire as all adulteresses (Chekhov,2015). This reinforces the belief that men are justified in beating their wives despite the pain and injuries that the women suffer. Additionally, women are portrayed as the ones to suffer the consequences of wrong actions as opposed to the men. In this instance, they will suffer Gehenna fire due to adultery as opposed to the men who are their partners.
On learning about Mashenka’s beatings, Varvara- Dyudya’s daughter in law- protests that these beatings could lead to Mashenka’s death. Furthermore, she would have fought back if she was in the same situation. Dyudya shouted at her and asks her to hold her tongue (Chekhov,2015). This portrays how women were prevented from expressing their views and supporting each other against actions that caused them harm. Additionally, Dyudya language shows no respect for his daughter in law by referring to her as a jade which represents an ornamental stone as opposed to seeing her as a person.
The story further progresses to portray the oppression that the women faced from the justice system. Following the death of her husband, Mashenka was imprisoned together with her son for eight months before facing judgement. They did not consider the hardships that they both faced during imprisonment hence fasten the judgement process. However, the judgement process took approximately one day as the trial began in the morning and the sentence was passed in the night (Chekhov,2015 ). Savitch who was one of the witnesses, told the court that she did not love her husband and had her own will. Based on this evidence and other witness accounts, the court sentenced her to hard labor in Siberia for thirteen years. The court did not take into consideration the proposal that Vasya suffered from an illness that resembled cholera. On the other hand, some people proposed that he had poisoned himself because of grief. To them Mashenka was responsible for his death as she did not love him and wanted to leave in order to be with Savitch.
In conclusion, Chekhov portrays the oppression of women in Peasant Wives. The plot of the story portrays how Mashenka fell in love with Savitch and the suffering she experienced as a result. She suffers in the hands of Savitch, her husband and the justice system. Furthermore, Chekhov uses language that demeans women in order to show their oppression. Additionally, both Mashenka and Varvara represent women who are oppressed while Savitch, Vasya and Dyudya represent the oppressors.
References
Chekhov, A. (2015). Peasant Wives and Other Short Stories.
