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    Ebejot 2

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    The document provides instructions for a graded assignment to write a two-paragraph character analysis of a character from the story "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov. It describes the banker character from the story, who goes through a change from being young, rich, and reckless at the beginning to feeling guilty and desperate by the end. At first, the banker confidently makes an impulsive bet with a young lawyer, but over 15 years of the lawyer being in solitary confinement, the banker grows worried about losing his money and wants to kill the lawyer. By the end, reading the lawyer's note, the banker is racked with guilt over making the bet. The document analyzes the banker as a complex changing character the reader can

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    Ebejot 2

    Uploaded by

    api-537679998
    97 views2 pages
    The document provides instructions for a graded assignment to write a two-paragraph character analysis of a character from the story "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov. It describes the banker character from the story, who goes through a change from being young, rich, and reckless at the beginning to feeling guilty and desperate by the end. At first, the banker confidently makes an impulsive bet with a young lawyer, but over 15 years of the lawyer being in solitary confinement, the banker grows worried about losing his money and wants to kill the lawyer. By the end, reading the lawyer's note, the banker is racked with guilt over making the bet. The document analyzes the banker as a complex changing character the reader can

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    ebejot 2

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    The document provides instructions for a graded assignment to write a two-paragraph character analysis of a character from the story "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov. It describes the banker character from the story, who goes through a change from being young, rich, and reckless at the beginning to feeling guilty and desperate by the end. At first, the banker confidently makes an impulsive bet with a young lawyer, but over 15 years of the lawyer being in solitary confinement, the banker grows worried about losing his money and wants to kill the lawyer. By the end, reading the lawyer's note, the banker is racked with guilt over making the bet. The document analyzes the banker as a complex changing character the reader can

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    97 views2 pages

    Ebejot 2

    Uploaded by

    api-537679998
    The document provides instructions for a graded assignment to write a two-paragraph character analysis of a character from the story "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov. It describes the banker character from the story, who goes through a change from being young, rich, and reckless at the beginning to feeling guilty and desperate by the end. At first, the banker confidently makes an impulsive bet with a young lawyer, but over 15 years of the lawyer being in solitary confinement, the banker grows worried about losing his money and wants to kill the lawyer. By the end, reading the lawyer's note, the banker is racked with guilt over making the bet. The document analyzes the banker as a complex changing character the reader can

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Graded Assignment

    Write a Character Analysis


    Write a two-paragraph analysis of the character you chose.
    Refer to the Write a Character Analysis Notebook document and follow the steps to complete the assignment.
    Total score: ____ of 30 points

    At the beginning of the story The Bet, by Anton Chekhov, the banker was young, rich,
    reckless, and impulsive. He insisted that immediate death was preferable over life in prison: “I
    have not tried either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if one may judge à priori, the
    death penalty is more moral and more humane than imprisonment for life. Capital punishment
    kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly.” He was the one who bet the
    young lawyer 2 million that he couldn’t stay in solitary for 15 years. He was so confident that he
    would win: “Think better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me two millions are a trifle,
    but you are losing three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you
    won’t stay longer. Don’t forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great
    deal harder to bear than compulsory”. But towards the end of the 15 years that the lawyer was
    in solitary, the banker starts to realize that he will lose the bet. He becomes desperate not to
    lose all his money and makes the decision to kill the lawyer right before the bet ends. He is
    destroyed by the fact that the lawyer could be richer than him and could live out a better life: “He
    will take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy life, gamble on the Exchange, and I will look on like
    an envious beggar and hear the same words from him every day: 'I'm obliged to you for the
    happiness of my life. Let me help you.' No, it's too much! The only escape from bankruptcy and
    disgrace—is that the man should die.” When the banker reads the note that the lawyer wrote, he
    becomes racked with guilt and he hates himself for making the bet. For his own good, the story
    ends with the banker placing the note in a safe to protect himself from possible retribution later
    on.
    Throughout the story, the banker can be described two ways; young, rich, reckless, and
    impulsive, or guilty and desperate. It just depends on what part of the story the narrator is
    talking about. The banker goes through a change in attitude from beginning to end of the story.
    “Think better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me two millions are a trifle, but you are
    losing three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you won’t stay
    longer. Don’t forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal harder
    to bear than compulsory.”(beginning of the story)“Cursed bet!’ muttered the old man, clutching
    his head in despair. “Why didn’t the man die? He is only forty now. He will take my last penny
    from me, he will marry, will enjoy life, will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look at him with
    envy like a beggar, and hear from him every day the same sentence: ‘I am indebted to you for
    the happiness of my life, let me help you!’ No, it is too much! The one means of being saved
    from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that man!” (end of the story). The change that the
    banker has makes him a complex character. He has thoughts and feelings like someone the
    reader can relate to, with undesirable truths and realities. There is no antagonist and protagonist
    in this story because the lawyer and the banker are both protagonists. They are both main
    characters in the story, and neither of them are each other's antagonists. Even though the
    banker is the narrator, readers can relate to both of them on a human level. To sum it up, the
    banker is a complex changing protagonist in the story The Bet by Anton Chekhov.

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