Anton Chekhov develops Olenka’s character through events reoccurring throughout her life. In the beginning of the story, we see Olanka as a young prosperous woman who falls in love with Kukin, A man who seems quite sporadic, dramatic, and sarcastic as he cannot stop highlighting his “heavy losses every day!” (p,1) which seem to convey him as a kind of perfectionist who’s constantly chasing something intangible. despite this “she fell in love with him” (P, 1) this seems to contradict the description of Olanka as “she was a quiet, kind-hearted, compassionate girl, with a soft gentle way about her.” (p,2) we learn that Olanka has had a hard life as she has lost both her dad and mom and is alone in the world, yet the only thing she longs for is to care for someone as “she always loved someone body” (P,2) this may come to surprise to some people because the author including that both off her parents have passed away may convey that Olanka may not be stable and makes it hard for readers to dislike her character.
We learn that Olanka seems to depend on the one factor in her life is being able to love and care for somebody. It was to the extent that “she could not exist a single year without an attachment,” (p,7) which to the reader may come off as Olanka being a player with low morals jumping from one relationship to the next without trying to step back and understand what she was looking for. This raises the question of if Olanka loves these people she is marrying for who they are or if she loves the feeling of caring for someone. We find that in these relationships she would conform to whatever opinion her partner had, as it says” her husbands’ opinions were all hers. If he thought the room was too hot she thought so too.” This seems to limit her independence as a person constantly agreeing with whatever another person says and never having her own opinion about subjects. But this becomes very clear and understandable as to why she was doing this, with every husband she has had she had never done anything wrong to make a reason as to why the marriage should end it always ended because of some tragedy. This makes the reader have sympathy for Olanka and again hard to dislike her. We may want her to be herself and not conform to the opinions of her husbands, but Olanka’s intentions are so focused on only wanting to care and love somebody that her opinions are put second. The result of this can be shown when the surgeon says “didn’t I ask you not to talk about what you don’t understand? When we doctors discuss things” This makes the reader want Olanka to retaliate and stand up for herself, but we also have to understand where the intentions are after repetitively losing people in her life.
Olanka seems to only know how to be someone’s partner or “Darling” and does not know herself. Any person can play that role. Understanding yourself should be the number one priority but it is hard to criticize Olanka with how hard her life has been and how positive she seems to be when she is caring for someone, we see this at the end of the book when she’s caring for Sasha who is not related to her in any way, yet she stays with him. This makes it hard for us to criticize her lifestyle but instead makes us want to route for her to live happily.