Analyzing The Bet
The short story The Bet, by Anton Chekhov begins with a banker reminiscing about a party he hosted 15 years ago, where an argument, which debated whether capital punishment or life imprisonment was more humane, sparked a foolish and rash bet. Going along with the topic of the discussion, the young banker decided to cede 2 million dollars of his money to whoever could live in solitary confinement for 5 years. A lawyer accepts this bet but raises the stakes: 15 years of solitary confinement. He would spend those years under the strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the bankers garden. During those 15 years, the lawyer was given anything that he asked for, which included books, wine, food, music, and so on. The only things that were dispossessed from him were access and direct communication to the outside world. As the 15 years pass, the lawyer discovers the importance of human life and how it is easily taken for granted. Chekhovs The Bet emphasizes that a human life is more valuable than money through the use of irony and underlying connections to human greed.
The value of money has many misconceptions. As depicted in the story, people can look too highly upon money. The banker, filled with pride and very high self esteem, taunts the lawyer by presenting to him that 2 million dollars [was] a trifle, which was not enough to pay off the three or four years of the best years of [his] life (Chekhov 767). The banker praises and flaunts his money in hopes of scaring the lawyer away from following through with the arrangement. He shows his true cockiness when he predicts the lawyer to only last three to four years out of the total 15.
Most of the time, someones flippancy goes hand in hand with greed. After the dredged fifteen years had almost passed, the banker asked himself What was the object of that bet? What is the good of that mans losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two million? Can it prove that the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment? and realizes that, on his part, the bet was simple greed for money (Chekhov 768). At the time, when he was questioning himself, the banker was in a financial crisis. He was no longer as wealthy and if he paid the money, he would be utterly ruined for the rest of his life. This panicked desperation causes the banker to fret over the day he has to pay the lawyer the two million dollars. Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his reckoning; now he was afraid of which were greater, his debts or his assets. Through this despair, the banker entered the lawyers room right before the time expired, and was only seconds away from killing him, which would result in the banker getting all the money. The despair displayed by the banker was merely a reflection of his guilt. When entering the room, the banker was trembling with despair as he caught a glimpse of the physical state of the lawyer; the thought Poor creature! (771). Not knowing that the bet would turn out this way allowed the banker to realize his fault and his overpowering greed. In addition, the instigator of the bet hesitated to give up his money; therefore, the banker is willing to kill the lawyer so that the contract is annulled and he wouldn't have to pay anything to the lawyer. In addition, the banker initiated the bet with malicious intentions from the beginning, demonstrating that greedy humans change personalities when something they love is involved. After the first couple of years have passed, the banker begins to "[worry] about money" and instead of worrying about paying the bet, he was focused on "his resolution to kill the prisoner" (Reisman). The banker lost sight of what was important in life because his conscience was veiled by the power of greed.
Another form of greed mentioned in the story is greed for knowledge. The lawyer, being stuck in a cell-like environment had to find ways to entertain himself, so he asked for as many books as possible from every topic known to mankind. During the second half of the sixth year, the lawyer begins his obsession with books; so obsessed that he was able to complete over 600 books in the course of four years. After the lawyer was done with all the learning, he wrote a gloating letter to the banker in six different languages, which asked the banker to "show them to people" and that demonstrated how "unearthly [happy] his soul [felt] from being able to understand [the languages]" (Chekhov 770). The lawyer is going through the competitive stage of solitary confinement. He wants the banker to know that he is not moping around; instead, he is taking advantage of the resources given to him to better his own life. Rosemary Reisman, a literary critic defines this gloating period as an "[alternation] between self-indulgence and disciplined study". Her assertions on the hints of disciplined studies are correct, but his time in solitary confinement was far from being a self-indulgence period. The lawyers was merely benefitting from the resources that were given to him.
Although he was not limited to what he received, with the passing of the years, the lawyer began to feel cold and bitter. With intentions of giving up on the bet, the lawyer wrote a letter which stated that he "[despises] freedom and life and health" and that all he learned was "worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive" (Chekhov 772). The inferred happiness at the beginning of the lawyer's adventure crashed miserably after he realized that he had wasted away fifteen years of his life for an insensible bet. His bitterness in the letter emphasizes the dangerous and life-altering consequences that come from greed. In the lawyer's defense, he did not accept the bet with the malevolent greed, but he did continue his disciplined studies because he was eager to know everything; an eagerness that ended his life. Reisman agrees with this assertion; she believes that the lawyer disrespects life itself. One of the lawyer's greatest revelations was that "various interests last for various lengths of time, but none can justify a life" (Reisman). The captive experiences this first hand; he understands that he could possess every material thing in the world, but nothing would amount to the joys in life.
The value of human life is contemplated but justified in Chekhov's short story. From allowing a man to waste fifteen years of his life in solitary confinement, "The Bet" begins with the common misconception that money can bring happiness to those who posses a colossal amount. However, as the story develops, the readers come to realize that there is no dollar amount that could replace the significance of a human life and that human life outweighs materialistic values. Through the underlying connections to human greed, Chekhov successfully portrays the pricelessness of a person's life.
Works Cited
Chekhov, Anton. "The Bet." Elements of Literature. Ed Kylene Beers and Lee Odell. Orlando: Hort, Rinehart, Winston. 2005.
Reisman, Rosemary. "EBSCOhost: The Bet." EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. Jan. 2004. Web. 5 Mar. 2011. .
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