The Man in a Case

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Synopsis:

The Man in a Case is a classic frame story told by Burkin, a high school teacher, to his friend Ivan Ivanych, a veterinarian. The pair have been hunting near the village of Mironositskoe and have rested for the night in the shed of the headman Prokofy. As the two settle in for the night, Burkin begins to tell the story Belikov, a solitary and eccentric Greek teacher at the same high school, who had recently passed away.

Belikov, who taught Greek, never went anywhere without his galoshes and umbrella, which served as a sort of physical protection from the world. “The ancient languages he taught were for him essentially the same galoshes and umbrella, in which he hid from real life”. He was afraid of change; “Any sort of violation, deviation, departure from the rules threw him into dejection” and he vocalized this worry as a fear that if anything different happened, “something might come of it”. As a result, the town itself developed a fear of everything as an extension of their fear of Belikov’s judgement.

The community, namely the wife of the school principle, then decides Belikov must get married. The narrator discusses marriage itself as a societal convention, explaining that for most young women, it “didn’t matter whom they married, as long as they got married” and postulates that Belikov’s marriage would probably be one of those “needless, stupid marriages” made out of “boredom and idleness”. Belikov is set up with one such woman, Varvara Savvishna, whom he claims that he likes but cannot get up the courage to propose to.

One day Belikov sees Varvara riding a bicycle with her brother Kovalenko and believes it to be improper. When he goes to talk to Kovalenko, Belikov offends him with his archaic conventions and notions of what is “proper” and is pushed down the stairs. Varvara witnesses his fall and laughs at him; Belikov is humiliated. This episode “put an end to everything: both the engagement and the earthly existence of Belikov”. He returns to his bed and dies a month later. As Burkin finishes the story of Belikov, he admits that the town felt free upon burying him, since he could no longer pass judgment on them. This happiness only lasted a short time before the same “grim, wearisome, witless life” returned. Burkin muses, “indeed, we had buried Belikov, but how many more men in cases there still are, and how many more there will be”. This dark thought seems to argue that individual lives are not important or unique. Belikov’s death will not effect anyone else in the long term.

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9 thoughts on “The Man in a Case”

  1. I believe that this fear of the outside world, which Belikov represents, can be found in every one of us. We all have our own metaphorical umbrella and galoshes which shield us from the unknown or alien. Yes, Belikov is backwards in his views about women and bicycles, and yes perhaps he was a “killjoy” for the rest of the town, but I think he is actually a sympathetic character. His fear of change is universal. In some ways, the idea that there will always be men to fill cases might actually comfort Belikov, as it is a promise of continuity and familiarity.

  2. Conrad Aiken wrote (in the aforementioned 1968 essay) that “Chekhov’s tone seems bereft of any desire to convince”. Therefore, we sense something starkly different in Burkin’s tale of Belikov. Burkin clearly has an unflattering opinion of Belikov, and he tries his darndest to thrust this opinion on Ivan Ivanych. He even goes so far as to adopt an omniscient narrational mode, making unsubstantiated claims like, “[Belikov] was afraid under his blanket” (302). These trespasses call into question the truthfulness of the entire story.

    1. John Freedman explores Belikov’s narration in more detail in his essay, “Narrative Technique and the Art of Story-telling in Anton Chekhov’s ‘Little Trilogy'” (1988).

  3. Of course, Belikov is not the only one stuck in a case. Burkin’s narrative is probably spurred by gossip of Mavra (perhaps the woman in the case), the headman’s wife who hasn’t left the village her entire life. Ivan Ivanych later suggests that the obedience to the general rigamarole of life and society, as well as meaningless pastimes (cards, drinking, etc.), trap people in a narrow-minded routine. We also remember at the end–as Ivan emerges into the moonlight (aside: curious how Ivan is always moonlit and Burkin is shrouded in darkness in this story, eh?)–that Burkin’s narration took place in an enclosed shed.

    1. A somewhat related question to which I could not elucidate an answer: Why does Belikov so long for anonymity? Also, what does he mean when he repeats, “something might come of it” (301).

  4. This story appears with “Gooseberries” and “About Love” as part of “The Little Trilogy”. All three short stories feature the same characters (Burkin, Ivan Ivanych, and Alekhin) telling his own more-or-less elaborated/fabricated tale. My question: why couldn’t Chekhov just expand these into a novel?

    1. Vladimir Nabokov provided an answer to that question with, “Chekhov could never write a good long novel–he was a sprinter, not a stayer”.

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