Volodia by Anton Chekhov (1903)

Name: Volodia
Author: Anton Chekhov

The play revolves around the character of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who becomes obsessed with a woman named Liza Mniszech. He believes she is in love with him, but she rejects his advances. The story explores themes of love, obsession, and social class.

By Anton Chekhov · First published 1903 · Genre: Drama, Literature, Psychological Fiction · 5,745 words

First lines

One Sunday evening in spring Volodia, a plain, shy, sickly lad of seventeen, was sitting, a prey to melancholy, in a summer-house on the country place of the Shumikins. His gloomy reflections flowed in three different channels. In the first place, to-morrow, Monday, he would have to take an examination in mathematics. He knew that if he did not pass he would be expelled from school, as he had already been two years in the sixth grade. In the second place, his pride suffered constant agony during his visits to the Shumikins, who were rich people with aristocratic pretensions. He imagined that Madame Shumikin and her nieces looked down upon his mother and himself as poor relations and dependents, and that they made fun of his mother and did not respect her. He had once overheard Madame Shumikin saying on the terrace to her cousin Anna Feodorovna that she was still pretending to be young, and that she never paid her debts and had a great hankering after other people's shoes and cigarettes. Every day Volodia would implore his mother not to go to the Shumikins' again. He painted for her the humiliating rôle which she played among these people, he entreated her and spoke rudely to her, but the spoiled, frivolous woman, who had wasted two fortunes in her day, her own and her husband's, yearned for high life and refused to understand him, so that twice every week Volodia was obliged to accompany her to the hated house.

What this Textopian page supports

Volodia is listed on Textopian as a novella by Anton Chekhov, dated 1903 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Work type: Novella
Author: Anton Chekhov
Date: 1903 CE
Language: English
Genres: Drama, Literature, Psychological Fiction, Realist Fiction
Length: 5,745 words
Structure: 1 section, 118 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

Good citation fit

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Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Discussion starters

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Similar titles

Genres

Drama — The book revolves around the complex relationships and emotional struggles of its characters, placing the focus on internal conflict rather than external action.
Literature — The book is written by Anton Checkov, a classic author in Russian literature, offering deep insight into human emotions and societal norms.
Psychological Fiction — The book delves deeply into the psychological states of its characters, analyzing their thoughts, emotions, and motivations.
Realist Fiction — The narrative is grounded in reality, with believable characters and situations, following the principles of literary realism.