Exploring the Notion of Poshlost

Humanity in this falsehood is reduced to creatures whose single concern, indeed, obsession, is the poshlost pleasure of stuffing one's face and plectron one's gullet with the richest and among the most unhealthy foods possible:

"When you've eaten a infinitesimal bite of [herring] with

. . . onion and with mustard sauce, immediately . . . have some caviar by itself . . . , then a raw daikon with salt, then herring once more, nevertheless best of all

. . . argon salted pink mushrooms, if they're minced with caviar . . . and onion, with olive oil color . . . delicious! But eelpout liver--that's Tragedy!" (Chekhov Short Stories 61).

If much(prenominal) a poshlost obsession were merely a part of a clement tapestry of diverse interests, one might yet laugh, merely this composition has nothing but fixation with food. These argon the men who decide the fates of human beings in the court of law, but their passions lie not with justice but with the bliss of alimentation and its sated subsequentlymath. These men may be intelligent, educated, powerful, well-respected and important, but in this story they are nevertheless without higher purpose and shown to be have it a focussing slaves to poshlost. They might believe themselves to be connoisseurs, but Chekhov shows them to be itty-bitty more than talking pigs, without redeeming features.

The longer story "In the Ravine" offers a significance and a contrast missing from "The Siren's Song.

Similarly, in the midst of wholesale selfishness, vainglory and corruption in their town, Lipa and her mother maintain a credit which puts to shame the lives of those who look down on the two. Lipa and her mother are unhappy in their life with the Tsybukins: But they felt person watching from the heights of heaven, from the deep blue where the stars are, seeing everything that happened . . . and tutelage guard. And however great the evil, the night was calm and splendid, and in paragon's solid ground there still was and would be truth . . . . And the two, soothed, huddled closure to one another and fell asleep (Chekhov Short Novels 419).

demolition was only feared by the rich peasants, who believed less in God and in the salvation of the soul the richer they became, and lit candles and had Masses utter only from fear of their earthly end, just in event (Chekhov Short Novels 391).

thought that truth and beauty which had guided human life there in the garden and in the universal gravitational constant of the high priest had continued without interruption to his day, and had evidently evermore been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life (Chekhov Short Stories 108).

Unlike experient Tsybukin, Nikitin still has a chance to experience more evaluate of the defects in others and in himself, and he may even become a good and humble person like Lipa. These defects, after all, certainly include all of the features which Nikitin and Tsybukin would name as elements of the poshlost way of life. Chekhov presents Lipa and her mother as examples of the kinds of people which Nikitin and Tsybukin would describe as poshlost, but the author himself clearly sees the two peasants' simple and humble trust and charity as qualities marking the highest state of being for humanity.

Nabokov, Vladimir. "A Definition of Poshlost." Anton Chekhov's Plays. Ed. Eugene Bristow. New York: W.W. Norton, 1977. 322-325.

However, Olga is one character who stands in spartan contrast to the rest in her commitment to God, religious combine and
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