Showing results for "The Duel" in Drama & Plays

The Duel is a novella by Anton Chekhov and was published in 1891. It tells the story of the debates between a scientist, a government worker, his mistress, a deacon, and a physician about wits and ethics. This verbal battle leads to a violent contest: the duel. The story begins with Ivan Andreitch Laevsky - a government worker - who has run off with a married woman, Nadyezyhda Fyodorovna to a small town in the Caucasus. While there, he forms several acquaintanceships with a colorful array of characters.

In this gripping tale, Laevsky finds himself in a small seaside town in the Caucasus after abandoning his old life for Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, another man’s wife. However, the dreams of a fresh start quickly fade as Laevsky succumbs to a life of idleness, filled with drinking and card games, while Nadyezhda seeks solace in other affairs. As Laevsky devises a plan to escape once more—this time without his mistress—he crosses paths with the rationalist Von Koren, who is a staunch believer in Darwinian principles of natural selection. When tensions rise and Laevskys frustrations boil over, ...