Short stories “The man who lived in A shell"

                                                                       “The man who lived in A shell"

“The man who lived in A shell or The man in a case" is a thought-provoking story written by
"Anton Chekhov", the Russian writer (1860-1904) and the founder of modern short stories. With a wide contribution of 201 short stories and 11 plays, he is recognized as the most significant writer
whose writings provide a deep insight into Russian Society of his time. He is the master of creating
suspense, mystery and emotional situations in his stories. He is also an autobiographical writer and
he added some events from his life in his stories as Chekhov himself was a doctor and the major
character of the story "Enemies" is a doctor and his mother was Ukrainian and the two characters in the story (The man in a case) are Ukrainians. His major works are The Bear (1888), The Man in a case (1898), The Lady with a dog (1889), The Black monk (1894) and enemies.

The title of the story "The man in a case", is the ironic and symbolic so to represent the idea that
there are a lot of people who are isolated by temperament and try to live into their cases. Belikov is the central character of the story "The man in a case". He is a 40 years old school teacher of Greek language who remains cautious in every aspect of life even in his minor activities. He always had an
umbrella even in the pleasant weather; he wears overshoes of rubber and a coat. For everything he
had a case to keep the thing in the case.

The reason for his appearance is that he needs a case which can isolate him from the world as he
wants to escape from reality and so to justify his timidity, he always praised the past. He was of the
view that his galoshes and umbrella can provide shelter himself from real life. Another aspect of his
personality was that he had a strange habit of visiting his colleagues. He used to visit a teacher's
lodging, sits down and remains silent all the time. After sitting in silence for one or two hour he
departs. This he called "Maintaining good relations with his colleagues”. All the teachers even
the principal and the priest were afraid of him and his personality. The narrator remarks;

   "With galoshes and an umbrella, had the whole high-school under his thumb for fifteen long years."
 
The turning point comes when Koyalenko, a new Ukrainian teacher for history and geography, with
his sister Varya is appointed in the school. Koyalenko is 35 years old and the Varya is 30 years old,
both were dark complexed and tall but were lively and noisy. Especially, Varya was much noisy and
all the time she used to laugh and sing the song. Through her the people start thinking as the
possibility of marriage bond between Belikov and the varya. As a Russian girl, she also shows liking
for Belikov. Through this Anton Chekhov criticizes the Russian society where girls would marry
anyone simply for the sake of getting married so that they may have their own house.

Unfortunately, a Joker draws a cartoon of Belikov and Varya, walking arm-in-arm with an
inscription: “The Anthropos”. This drawing is distributed throughout the town. This insult and
mocking depresses Belikov and his condition becomes miserable. Later, when he sees both brother
and sister riding a bicycle, he gets frustrated as he thinks it as the deviation of rules. He says;

                                        “Is it proper for school teachers and women to ride bicycle?”

He goes to Kovalenkos but he only finds Kovalenko there while Varya is not present. He forbids the
brother not to ride bicycle as it is not proper for a teacher to ride bicycle. He also complains about
the caricature that had brought a lot of trouble for him. But Kovalenko rebukes him and even he
pushes him towards stairs. While Belikov fells down the stairs, at the same time Varya enters and
seeing this she starts laughing. Such kind of humiliation for a self-centered person like Belikov is
unbearable. He prefers to be died instead of this embarrassment. For him, now there is no motive to
live. Finally, this assault and offense takes his life.

To sum up the whole discussion, we can say that through character of Belikov, Chekhov wants to
draw our attention by saying that there are a lot of people like Belikov around us. They remain in a
state of fear of society. They remain conservative and silent all over the time to hide their timidity.
Anton Chekhov says;

                                     “There are still plenty of men like Belikov who live in a shell,
                                                            and there are plenty as yet unborn.”