Class: Degree 2nd Year
Sem: Degree 4th Sem
Subject: English
Unit 1; Prose - The Lottery Ticket
State: Telangana
The Lottery Ticket Author: Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov was a Russian writer, who was born on the 29th January 1860 in Taganga, a port city in southern Russia. who is recognised as a famous short story writer in English literature. By profession, Anton was a doctor, who had contacts with all classes of Russian people. Chekhov sets the stage for a tale that explores the complexities of desire, greed, and the unpredictability of fate in Human nature. In this poem, he invites readers into a world where the pursuit of wealth reveals deeper truths about the characters' relationships.
The Lottery Ticket Summary
The "Lottery Ticket" involves the life of the Ivan Dmitritch family, which consists of him and his wife, Masha, along with three children. They live in Russia. The family is of the lower middle class and experiences many troubling aspects of life. This tale begins with the casual purchase of a lottery ticket for fun, an incident that looks to be just a prop in a story which, due to further events, gains a deep philosophical meaning and touches on the subject of money fixation.
Ivan's impulsive daydreaming regarding premature assumptions of the probable way of spending the potential winnings between them. Their imaginations call forth varied hallucinations of being with the most amazing journeys, the most expensive purchases, and enjoying the most enjoyable life which is free from financial constraints.
During the coming days, the tale keeps on swinging from moments of mind-boggling clarity to vexing disbelief as the lottery day is getting closer. Ivan and Masha lose themselves in a thick cloud of anxiety and anticipation, their hearts beating fast and their fingers shaking to read the announced numbers. When the results finally came out in the paper, he would have already had his hopes dashed and be depressed because they did not manage to win the grand prize of 75,000 rubles.
On the other hand, the situation may seem to have no solution, and then suddenly the sign that a number matches appears on the ticket, and they win 4500 rubles. Initially, throughout, the sudden change into hiding their money wage brings no joy to both Ivan and Masha due to their constant conflicts and emotions.
The harmony of the couple at the beginning of the play deteriorates to egotism consuming them and they start to fight as they cannot see each other's point of view on the way to spend the money. In this quest, they each have their own ideas and wishes about what they hope to gain, and their personalities start to diverge and clash. Their past genuine relationship and the once solid one, that they once had, is under the shade and diminished as envy and distrust take over, they succumb to the weight and their love of each other is no longer the feeling that it was.
The sad ending of the story is the protagonist’s realization that happiness is wrapping fool’s gold around the spirit and that the destroyer of the spirit is materialism. Through his misery, he attempts to create an imaginary world in which they would have won the grand prize and lament the way they have spoilt the purity of their feelings and happiness by that meagre hope. Chekhov uses Ivan and Masha's travel to portray a biting critique of humankind, money's corrupting nature, and the fragile bonds within interpersonal relationships knowing their sudden riches.
