Conceptual Field of the Impossible in A. P. Chekhov’s Short Stories
“Dreams” and “Happiness”

The article examines conceptual field of the Impossible in
A. P. Chekhov’s two short stories, “Dreams” (1886) and “Happiness” (1887),
which are arranged by the common plot. Conceptual representations of happenings
are quite opposite in these stories. The characters dream of something impossible
to get some psychological revival in bright dreams. But returning to
reality is a deeply disgusting trial to them.
In the 1st short story, “Dreams”, two village policemen follows the tramp to
the city court. Exile in Siberia seems to him to be the greatest luck. Ontological
and anthropological appearance of the main hero is miserable, but dreaming of
the better life in Siberia changes him essentially. He wants to own a little piece
of land, to build a house for his future family and to overcome any difficulties.
The trump’s description of Siberian spaces involves his two followers into the
process of dreaming. They dream of faraway freedom, because they suddenly
realize they are chained in their duties and bored by monotonous life they lead
on. Conceptual opposition of the short story is the Impossible / the Inevitable.
Other variants of this main opposition are: Freedom / Necessity, rich Siberian
Nature / poor autumn landscape, Sunny weather there / cloudy darkness here,
and, at last, a Strong Man there / a Weak Man here, in the narrated situation and
in actual lifetime in general.
In the 2nd story two old men, the shepherd and his acquaintance, are talking
about treasures hidden under their feet in the ancient ground of South Russia.
And while they are discussing how could they get the hoard, the young shepherd,
one more hero of the story, thinks over what is happiness itself. He comes
to conclusion that happiness is something correlated with old age and illness.
So, two positions are revealed in interpretation of the basic concept HAPPINESS
inside the conceptual structure of the investigated text: treasures and material
comfort, on one hand, and some excessive idea, on another.
Then the description of endless landscape widens the area of narrated story.
Happiness imagined by the old men seems to be eliminated in comparison with
this vision. It means that the true existence values are out of things that two
old men consider to be happiness. The process of living itself is much more valuable
in the author’s outlook, than any treasures. There reveals two pairs
of oppositions in this short story: HAPPINESS in TREASURES / HAPPINESS
in VITALITY.
The narrator’s vision in the later short story spreads over everywhere. It
means, in fact, the author’s creation of sense of endless variability of life.