Category: The Bet

Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Bet’ is a short story that starts out as a conversation between a few people at a dinner, which then turns to an argument between two young and enthusiastic people. The banker and lawyer disagree on the form of punishments, capital and life imprisonment. The banker says capital punishment is more humane than life imprisonment, the lawyer disagrees. Their argument takes a turn when the banker bets two million that the lawyer cannot go through with imprisonment. The lawyer agrees to the bet.

The banker, fifteen years ago hosts a dinner where the conversation takes place. He claimed to have a lot of money and told the lawyer that two millions less wouldn’t bother him while the lawyer would be losing his freedom, and the thought that he can regain his freedom anytime would make it harder for him.

The lawyer was imprisoned in the banker’s garden house in complete solitude. The rules were that no visitors, letters or newspapers were allowed. However, he could write letters, and he was permitted to read books, allowed a musical instrument, wine, and cigarettes. The only communication with the outside world for him would be through a small window through which he could write notes and ask for things.

The first year was tough on the lawyer, he refused to drink wine as wine would lead to desire and according to him desire is a man’s worst enemy. Also he didn’t want to smoke as he’d be polluting the little space he was trapped inside. He mainly read light books and played the piano though he was depressed. By the second year he left music and turned toward literature. For the next four years he studied languages, philosophy, history and theology.

In the passing years, the banker’s wealth keeps declining and in the end he is left rubbles and has debts. The fifteen year deadline finishes in a day’s time and the banker doesn’t have money to pay to the lawyer, if he does he would go bankrupt. The banker decides to ill the lawyer so he wouldn’t have to pay him any money and he could put the blame on the watchman. When he enters the room, he sees an emaciated man, asleep at his table. Beside him was kept a note, in the note the lawyer had written that he has no wish to take the two million as his desire for money no longer existed, he stated that he despises everything in human life. The lawyer was going to leave five hours before the bet was over, thus forfeiting the bet.

With this scenario as the end, it comes to notice that both the characters had an interchange in personality, the banker now was in desire of money while the lawyer didn’t care about the money. The baker realises that the bet actually proved no point, it didn’t prove whether capital punishment is better or worst.

The irony of the story was that the lawyer had reached victory but now his desire for it no longer existed so he purposely lost the bet. His behaviour in the end was unpredictable.

Would you accept the offer of two million dollars in exchange for fifteen years of your life? Despite what you may think, some people would accept the offer without thinking twice. The short story “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov perfectly demonstrates that wealth delivers a happiness that only lasts for a fraction of time, while wisdom could last a lifetime. The symbolism employed by the author creates a vivid understanding that wealth is not everything; money without freedom is wealth acquired in vain.

“The Bet” mainly focuses on two characters, the old banker, and the young man. The banker was rich, while the young man was poor, so that each character could serve as a representative of a broad group. During a debate focusing on whether capital punishment is more just than imprisonment for life, the banker bets that the young man cannot stay imprisoned for more than five years in solitary confinement, for two millions, but the young man offers that he could “stay not five, but fifteen years”. The man was young, and prideful. He thought that he had found a way to get rich fast without putting worth effort, a decision he would later regret. He of course accepted the bet, believing that “to live anyhow is better than not at all”. Yet the young man soon leans that living anyhow is not always better than death, because he is even driven to the verge of insanity from the imprisonment. The young man goes through countless books during the imprisonment, and gains incredible wisdom for free, since the banker had to purchase all the books. After almost fifteen years, the young man has grown old, and the banker has grown much less wealthy than he once was. Since it seemed that the young man was going to win the two millions, the desperate banker tries to murder the young man and thus retain his money, only to find that the young man is not going to accept any new arrangement. So, the next day, upon finally reaching fifteen years, the young man (who is not so young anymore) breaks the contract and escapes. When the old banker learns of this fact, he is delighted, yet also painfully aware of what he has done. While the banker kept his money, and the young man gained knowledge, both lost something they would never regain: time (Chekhov 93). While you may think that only the young man wasted fifteen years of his life, the banker also did. The hard-earned money that the banker made from his job, which took time, had to be used to support the prisoner and his books.

Throughout the story, the game of Russian roulette holds out strong as the main symbol. By the rules of this deadly game, only one of the two players will emerge victorious, and wholly intact. Both of the players stake not only wealth but also the most prized possessions of all; their lives and freedom. In the game, two people sit across from each other at a table, and after they bet all their money, they take turns shooting themselves in the head with a revolver. There is only one bullet loaded in the gun, and if you happen to be unlucky and shoot the chamber with the bullet, you die, and of course the winner takes all the spoils. But just as importantly, the two people who play Russian roulette constantly torture each other indirectly. While “capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly,” in Russian roulette, the person with the gun may be killed quickly with the pull of a trigger, but the other man will be imprisoned in a cage of shock and realization, hoping that the other man will die, but also thinking of when his own time will come. The revolver is not merely the “leech of freedom”; it is also the “bringer of death”. Thus, the simple revolver in Russian roulette has a chance of killing someone, and therefore of stripping him or her of the freedom to live, but also the freedom to possess wealth. People who play Russian roulette are either desperate or lazy and want an easy alternative to making money. But, they are overlooking the fact that making money fast could also fast forward your life, and cut it short by a great amount. While money and wealth can easily be replaced or regained, three or four years of your life cannot ever be replaced, let alone fifteen. Yet, the years of your life also have wealth, more than money or jewels could ever buy; as indicated by “The Bet,” the years contain experiences, some which only happen once in a lifetime.

Experiences are eternal, while wealth only aids you for a short while, and is worth absolutely nothing if you are dead or denied the freedom to use it. Either way, if you attempt to get wealthy and live a good life, remember that there are more important concepts in life to carry to the grave, concepts which only time can supply. These are the messages that Chekhov’s “The Bet,” part parable and part psychological study, conveys.

The story opens on a dark autumn night. An old banker was quite restless in his study recollecting a party that happened fifteen years ago. In that party, the guests were having a discussion regarding capital punishment. While most of the guest disapproved of the death penalty, the banker was of the opinion that if capital punishment kills a man at once, life-long imprisonment kills him slowly. Then a young lawyer of twenty-five years of age, who was amoung the guests was asked to comment, who preferred life imprisonment to the death penalty because he felt that living anyhow is better than not at all. The discussion heated up and the banker betted two millions for the lawyer to stay in solitary confinement for five years. The lawyer accepted the bet not for five years but for fifteen years. And accordingly he was lodge in an outhouse in the garden of the banker. The conditions were that he would not see any human beings, hear human voices nor receive letters or newspapers.

But he was allowed to have musical instrument and books. He was also allowed to drink wine and smoke. Any slightest attempt on his part to violate these conditions would release the banker from paying the money. During the first year of confinement, the lawyer suffered from severe loneliness and depression. He gradually stopped drinking and smoking. His reading materials in the first year included novels with complicated love stories, sensational and fantastic stories. In the second year, he stopped playing the piano. But during the fifth year, he again asked for wine. In the sixth year, he started reading language, philosophy and history. At the tenth year, the lawyer read only the gospels of The New Testament of The Bible. In the last two years, he would ask for books on natural sciences, sometimes Byron or Shakespeare; sometimes chemistry or a manual of medicine or philosophy or theology. All these came to the banker’s mind that is not very successful in his business now after fifteen years.

He was terrified with the thought that next morning, the lawyer would be a free man and he would have to give the lawyer a sum of two millions and be ruined himself. There upon he thought of a treacherous plan. He took the key and went to the lodge with the intention of killing his lawyer prisoner. But to his utter surprise, he saw a note on the table as the lawyer was coolly sleeping which read amoung other things that he had renounced the two millions and he would break the contract by feeling out of the room before the stipulated time. This shocked the banker to his bones and he returned to his room crying only to get the news from the watchman that the lawyer had fled.