Chekhov recap

"Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other"

So said Anton Chekhov. Many thanks to all who came along and participated in last night’s fascinating discussion of ‘Anyuta’ and ‘A Doctor’s Visit’ – a wonderful way to start the term! A warm welcome to the new faces, too – we hope you’ll be able to join us again next time.

Daniel Friesner gave a fabulous introduction to Chekhov’s life and the two short stories, and by summarising a series of critical responses to the texts provided a great basis for the following wide-ranging discussion.

Particular points of interest that were raised, and possible themes to thread throughout the term's reading, included:

-the suitability of the short story genre for writings about medicine: stories are ranged in volumes of prose like patients in a waiting room; they also share the necessity of coming to understand character, history and ailments in a very limited time-span, and of achieving some sort of resolution.

-ideas of empathy and sympathy in the doctor-patient relationship - the detachment of the medical gaze contrasted with the necessity of sharing the patient's perspective. We also discussed how literature such as these stories are used in medical education in part to impart these qualities to students.

-the use of mythic structures and allusion in the stories: Psyche in ‘Anuyta’; ‘A Doctor’s Visit’ as a journey to the underworld; Liza’s conception of herself as a figure in a well-known contemporary poem.

-the narrative structure of illness itself.

See you next time for Kafka!