Home Anton Chekhov Analysis

Have you ever wanted to truly understand how the mind of a seven year old functions or the thoughts that run through it? In the story “Home” by Anton Chekhov, Seryozha is a little boy who got caught smoking by Natalya, the governess. Natalya told Yevgeny, Seryozha’s father; that he was smoking. Seryozha learned from his father just how dangerous it is to smoke as a seven year old boy and realized he needed to stop. After meticulously analyzing, “Home” by Anton Chekhov, the use of psychoanalytic criticism represents Seryozha as a flamboyant character because of his repression, conscious/unconscious mind and symbolic behavior. Repression is simply trying to forget something bad. Seryozha was caught smoking his father’s tobacco and simply could

Within the story “Home,” Seryozha explained, “Natalya Semyonovna told her to dip her finger in cold water, but she sucked it… And how could she put a dirty finger in her mouth!” In this moment, his father was explaining how monstrous it was to smoke and take things without permission. Seryozha decided to drift off and think about what happened during the day that was terrible. Thus, trying to dodge the issue without intentionally meaning to. He was just going with the first thing that fell into his mind and unconsciously changed the subject. Most children cannot stand still and their brains will run millions of miles before they are tired. In other words, children can become one big puzzle piece to solve. This puzzle piece can be filled with symbolic

As the story progressed, Yevgeny Petrovitch Bykovsky (Seryozha’s father) was trying to figure out why his son was unable to concentrate. His thoughts were drifting off and Yevgeny was certain his son was like most children, “the prosecutor [Yevgeny Bykovsky] had become convinced that children, like savages, have their own artistic standpoints…To his mind [Seryozha’s mind] sound was closely connected with form and colour, so that when he painted letters he invariably painted the letter L yellow, M red, A black…” Seryozha drifted off so far that he had drawn a picture for his father. Noticeably, the picture had letters connected to certain colors and how they connected to one another symbolizes a piece of Seryozha’s mind. Yevgeny expressed his son’s mind as if, “He thought it was possible and reasonable to draw men taller than houses, and to represent in pencil, not only objects, but even his sensations.” Clearly, Seryozha had a mind of his own. He was able to depict things and create things that were difficult to understand to his father’s eye. Overall, it continues to symbolize the type of child Seryozha was and how he perceived the world around him. Sometimes, people are unable to comprehend how symbolic certain objects or drawings can be. Symbols can always be consciously solved in all sorts of