Gooseberries

Plot: The story begins with two men wandering outside and due to heavy rain, taking shelter in a farm house. Ivan begins telling the story of his brother who is supposed to be greedy and ignorant man. Then,there seems to be a change of opinion in Ivan’s mind too.

Summary: There were two friends walking, talking to one another and observing the gloominess of the weather(society) and boredom, seeing the heavy rain, they decide to go Alehin’s house. Ivan tries to tell the story of his brother whom, at this phase of the story, he regards him a self-obsessed and conceed person. He goes on talking about who he was and what he did as an Ivanovitch(Nicolay, his brother). He longed for a country life and had an obsession for gooseberries. No attention left even to his wife, he kept on saving money to buy an estate. Then his ruling and looking down on peasants were described clearly. Leading to the end of the story, there seemed a change to take place in Ivan’s attitude toward lifestyle(youth endeavor). However, there was no strength left in him to reverse what he thought was true.

Theme: I suppose the general idea presented in the story was ignorance and taking only oneself into consideration regardless of how horrible one’s traits (dearer to us the falsehood…”), selfishness and the base truths could be. Subthemes could be long-lasting achievement or desire (making it(life) tough in one’s youth) or false impression of happiness all of which refer to being ignorant of the fact there also are other people living whether family or others.

Characterization:
Nicolay: Had a flat character due to his inclination to greediness and supposition that he was the only important living person. Flatness, also, clear in a sense that he yeaed for living as a countryman.
Ivan: supposedly had a round ch. Based on the fact that he had an idea of his brother claiming that he was to a reasonable extent an unpleasant and self-conceed identity. However, conflicting himself when he met him years after, there seemed to be a change in his thoughts declaring that youth endeavor and one only being conceed about himself would DO GOOD.