The Bet
Theme: Meaning of life
Voice: Narrators voice
Mood: lacking any sort of overriding emotional register that the reader can latch onto as a means of discovering keys to any secret meaning.
Tone: Presented with limited literary flourishes.
Conflicts
Inner Conflict: The lawyer who carelessly sacrificed his life for 15 years.
Man vs nature: The lawyer against human nature by depriving himself of human interaction for 15 years.
Man vs Man: Banker vs Lawyer, since the beginning they disagreed and made the bet
Man vs Society: After those 15 years the lawyer hated society.
Man vs Superpower: The lawyer live plus than 1000 lives through books
Climax: The banker enters the prisoner's lodge with the intent to murder the lawyer. Just in time, he discovers a letter in which the lawyer announces his decision to renounce the world of material wealth and forfeit the bet that has ultimately driven the banker nearly to the point of homicide.
Resolution: The lawyer leaves and doesn`t take the money because he doesn`t want it anymore.
New Ending: The Banker doesn’t kill the Lawyer and the Lawyer gets all the money from the Bet
Irony
Dramatic: “Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his reckoning; now he was afraid to ask himself which were greater, his debts or his assets”.
Verbal: “Poor creature!.. he is asleep and most likely dreaming of the millions”.
Situational: “I renounce the two million of which I once dreamed as of paradise and which now I despise”.
Symbols
Money: The 15 years that the Lawyer spend just for money
Books: The books are the life of the lawyer during the 15 years
Questions
Who are the protagonist and antagonist of this short story?
The protagonist is the lawyer and the antagonist is the banker
Describe them according to next requirements regarding traits:
Lawyer:
A. Positive: He was determined, he decided to learn from the confinement
B. Negative: He was crazy for money, and an impulsive person with no word
C. Motivations: He was motivated by the money till some point in the story
Banker:
A. Positive: He stopped and realized how crazy the bet was, but either way he continued with it.
B. Negative: He was arrogant, he felt the best because he had money, and he was also really crazy.
C. Motivations: Money.
Who began the wager?
The banker.
Why and how did the lawyer’s reading habits change over the years?
Because he challenged himself to read hard comprehension books.
How does the lawyer help depict the theme?
Because we see a man growing out of an immature guy and becoming a real man that notice that he was going nuts for money and that’s not what life is about.
Does the banker’s perspective ever change throughout the story?
I think that he changes as every person who has a lot of money and then loses it.
What is the banker’s reason for thinking that the death penalty is better than life imprisonment?
Because for him life imprisonment is like killing slowly and he thinks that capital punishment is a more moral way of punishment.
How does the banker’s financial status change through the years?
He lost his fortune due to gambling.
Why do you think that Chekhov chose to leave his characters and settings unnamed?
Because of the stereotypes of the professions that they had speak for themself.
