“Vanka” by Anton Chekhov

This paper is a review of “Vanka” by Anton Chekhov. Chekhov was a nineteenth-century Russian writer whose grandfather had been a serf and became famous as a playwright ans as a writer of short stories. The short story “Vanka” is about youth and adolescence and adopts a limited point of view, because the nine-year old Vanka sees the world through the eyes of a child; less experienced and less knowing.

This young boy, Vanka had been apprenticed to Alyahin the shoemaker for the past three months. This story seems to take place in a town near Moscow, Russia. The writer looks through the eyes of Vanka and therefore has a limited point of view. The central character’s perception of the world he is living in is limited. This is a child who is exhausted and abused; he is making a desperate cry for help on Christmas Eve as he writes his grandfather and pleads, “Do come, dear Grandaddy…for Christ’s sake, I beg you, take me away from here (para ).” He has a perception of the life he came from living in the master’s house when his mother was alive and he really has a limited understanding or knowledge of why his life had to make such a dramatic change.

Vanka’s master and mistress and the journeymen have gone to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve so he decides to write his grandfather, Konstantin Makarych a letter. In this letter, the boy explains the dreary conditions in which he lives and begs the grandfather to come and rescue him.