The Bet Chekhov Analysis

In their work, both Nietzsche and Chekhov establish a rather complex theme about life and human beliefs. They question the construction of the meaning of life which capitalism has created and leave the readers to reconsider life.

In the following paragraphs, a brief summary of both stories will be given. I will be discussing why the lawyer renounces the money. Then, I will be analyzing what this abandonment tells us about the lawyer’s worldview in comparison to that of the Madman.

In his short story, “The bet”, Chekhov veils a pessimistic worldview with the uprise of wisdom of a lawyer whom makes a bet with a banker to prove that life imprisonment is better than death penalty. The bet conducted involved the lawyer to be imprisoned for 15

After 6 years, he sends a letter to the banker revealing how he presumes that he is divine and beyond the earthly; he considers himself as a figure of god. The following years, he was seeking the meaning of life through any type of book from natural sciences to Shakespeare, in vain. In his final year, he writes a letter to the banker and declares that he “[despises] freedom and life and health, and all that in [the banker’s books calls] the good things of the world” (page 3 and 4, Chekhov). In that matter, he renounces the two million that he once dreamt

Through his heavy readings, he has gained all the knowledge required to comprehend that all “the wisdom and blessings of this world [are all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage” (Page 4, Chekhov). The idea here is that one might be wise, proud and wealthy, but it will not prevent their death. “Death will wipe you off the face of earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe” (page 4, Chekhov). Essentially, all that society calls the good things in the world are, in fact, meaningless and all the history of the human race is like a drop of water in the ocean, nothingness. Human have “lost [their] reason and taken the wrong path. [They] have taken lies for truth, and hideous for beauty” (page 4, Chekhov). Humans have destroyed the catholic god with capitalism and replaced his figure by money, which they worship. Hence, they have destroyed the meaning of life and have replaced it by lies; lies conceived to blind society into consumerism and profit making. For that matter, the lawyer refuses to accept something worthless in the human race,