Back to the Case!

The style of all of the stories is a story within a story. However, Gooseberries and Man in a Case were both told my men who were witnesses to other people’s lives whereas About Love was about the man who was telling it. Burkin and Ivan tell stories about a colleague and a brother respectively whereas Alehin tells a story about himself (I think….). I think that because Alehin is telling his own story, the story becomes more intimate and we are better able to understand the feelings behind the actions of the main character. In Gooseberries and Man in a Case we are left to wonder about the exact motives behind actions that the main characters take because their stories are told from the perspective of an onlooker. This gives us more of an understanding into Alehin as a character outside of the stories while Burkin and Ivan remain somewhat of a mystery.

The structure of the three stories is also the same. We start out with a description of the setting and what our story tellers are doing, and then we dive into the story. After it is over, we revert back to the setting of our story tellers and we get a chance to see their reactions to the story that was just told.

In Man in a Case, Byelikov puts himself in a case to protect himself from being hurt. He feels a need to control his life because he feels vulnerable or fragile. He also talks a lot about the past, because it is something solid that is 100% certain. The past cannot be re-written whereas the future is so vague. He tries to use the past to control the present. The irony here is that he breaks. The more he tries to incase himself, the more his colleagues try to pull him out. Although he tries, he is unable to control the people around him.

A thought I had was that maybe his colleagues were exaggerating Byelikov’s personality. It is always easier to point out the flaws of other people and I think that they took the way he is very solitary to the extreme in order to take the focus off of themselves. My evidence is at the end of the story where after Byelikov dies, the feeling of having too look over their shoulder was still there. I think that they made Byelikov the scapegoat that kept them in line instead of looking at their own morals and beliefs which were probably holding them back instead. To say that they’re giving themselves freedom to act however they choose but then saying that Byelikov makes them act differently when really it’s their own subconscious that is holding them back.

Of course, one could argue that this is not true because it is made clear how Byelikov feels towards the actions of the other characters, especially when he watches Kovalenko and Varinka riding along on bikes. But there is still something that points me towards thinking that there is something else in play here that makes the other teachers feel the way they do in regards to watching their actions.

I think a lot can be said about happiness and love from this story. Maybe it’s that everyone has his or her own case and that staying inside that case makes one safe and happy. However, to experience love, you must get outside of your box and truly experience it. I think that the idea is that every person can be happy inside their own little world but when love comes along, it tears you out of that box and forces you into new, uncomfortable situations. I think that these were brought into literal action in the story. Byelikov is perfectly happy in his case until his colleagues start trying to bring him out and he falls in love with Varinka. When he encounters Kovalenko and she misinterprets a situation between the two, his world is shattered and he retreats so far back into his box that he eventually dies.

To me, this was a sort of sad story. I was really angered at the other school teachers for butting into Byelikov’s life. It was really no business of their’s, but then again, maybe that says something about the culture at that time. It was unusual for a man like Byelikov to not be married and they were just trying to help him, but I still think it was not any place of their’s to push him so hard towards liking her. I think they should have just left the poor man alone. Ivan is also agitated at the end of the story. He wants to tell a story of his own, but Burkin cuts him off and goes to sleep. But Ivan is unable to sleep and eventually goes back outside to smoke some more.

The story ends back with our story tellers and a description of the town at night. It is described as peaceful, quiet, dark, beautiful, and with no movement. This description gives us the impression that the town is sort of in it’s own case.

I think I’ve rambled on for too long and have made too little sense…