My Life

My Life by Anton Chekhov (1906)

My Life is narrated by Misail Poloznev, a nobleman's son in a provincial Russian town who repeatedly loses clerical jobs and is scorned by his architect father for refusing to pursue "intellectual" work and a respectable social position. After a violent confrontation with his father, Misail resolves to live by manual labor, becoming a house painter under the sickly, devout contractor Radish. He endures the town's ridicule, poverty, and hunger, while his gentle sister Kleopatra secretly supports him and eventually begins seeing the married Dr. Blagovo, a lively idealist who debates Misail about progress, labor, and civilization. Misail briefly works for the engineer Dolzhikov at the Dubetchnya estate alongside the feckless Ivan Tcheprakov and his mother, encountering swindling laborers, the philosophizing millworker Stepan, and the sly clerk Moisey. He falls in love with Dolzhikov's daughter, Mariya Viktorovna (Masha), a wealthy, cultured, restless woman drawn to his simplicity. They marry and settle at Dubetchnya, attempting an idealistic rural life—building a school, farming, mixing with peasants—but are worn down by peasant theft, dishonesty, bad weather, and mutual disillusionment. Masha grows increasingly detached, resumes singing in society, and eventually leaves for Petersburg and then abroad, writing to dissolve their marriage and declaring her need for freedom. Meanwhile Kleopatra, pregnant and unmarried, breaks down publicly at an amateur theatrical rehearsal at the Azhogins' and is forced to leave home permanently, moving in with Misail. She embraces her fall as liberation, dreaming of her child and Blagovo, though he shows no intention of marrying her. Misail's father disowns him further, delivering a bitter final confrontation in which Misail denounces the town's hypocrisy, corruption, and spiritual sterility. Kleopatra dies (implied, since Misail later visits "the grave that is so dear to me" with her small daughter), leaving Misail to raise his niece. The novella closes with Misail settled into permanent, respected work as a foreman-painter, visiting his sister's grave on holidays with the little girl, sometimes joined in silence by Anyuta Blagovo—who loves him but keeps her distance—while Masha and Dr. Blagovo live abroad, and the provincial town's petty, corrupt life continues unchanged around him.

By Anton Chekhov · First published 1906 · Genre: Literary Fiction, Autobiographical Fiction, Realism · 20 chapters · 44,513 words

First lines

The Superintendent said to me: "I only keep you out of regard for your worthy father; but for that you would have been sent flying long ago. " I replied to him: "You flatter me too much, your Excellency, in assuming that I am capable of flying. " And then I heard him say: "Take that gentleman away; he gets upon my nerves."

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Autobiographical · Memoir · Russian Literature · Short Stories · Literary Fiction · Biographical · Personal Narrative · Humorous · Satirical · Social Commentary · Class Consciousness · Marriage

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