Hayley Rathburn’s Blog

The short story “Gooseberries”, by Anton Chekhov, deals mostly with the belief in going after one’s dream and doing whatever it takes to achieve that. However, it seems to me that the author’s purpose in telling this story was to show that sometimes people strive so much for a certain goal that they end up hurting people along the way. For example, the main character Ivan tells a story about his brother’s pursuit of his own land and farm. He tells about when his brother got married, “He went on living frugally after marrying her, and kept her short of food, while he put her money in the bank in his name” (pg. 207). Clearly, Ivan’s brother was not treating his wife properly at all. But, even so, he still achieved his dream and became the owner of his very own farm. This brings up the point that although it isn’t fair or just sometimes, people can become what they want to be even if they aren’t “good” people.