- What a farce is, and what the headnote says the play is really about
- The three characters, their pet names, their illnesses and their tempers
- The full plot: the proposal, the Oxen Meadows quarrel, the reconciliation, the Guess and Squeezer quarrel, the faint and the engagement
- Every insult and accusation, with the right speaker
- Humour, irony, themes and key lines for extract questions
- Short answers to “Thinking about the Play” and the language exercises, including Reported Speech
1Getting Ready for the Play
1.1 The Playwright and the Headnote
The headnote calls the writer Anton Chekhov, a Russian short story writer and dramatist (the contents page prints the name as “Chekov”). He wrote this play in 1888-89. Its original title was “A Marriage Proposal”. It is a one-act play and a farce.
A comedy that makes us laugh through silly situations, exaggerated characters and absurd quarrels rather than through real events. The Proposal is a farce: three adults nearly ruin a marriage over a small field and two hunting dogs.
Rich families like to link themselves with other rich families, so that their estates grow. Such marriages “make good economic sense”. Lomov, a wealthy neighbour, comes to ask for the hand of Chubukov’s daughter Natalya, who is twenty-five. All three are quarrelsome and fight over petty issues, so the proposal almost gets lost. In the end economic good sense wins and the proposal is made, but the quarrelling probably goes on.
1.2 Before You Read
The first activity gives three meanings of “proposal”: (i) a suggestion or plan for doing something, (ii) an offer for a possible plan or action, (iii) asking for someone’s hand in marriage. The play is about the third meaning.
A short article describes a Russian wedding. Its main points:
| Stage | Russian custom described in the book |
|---|---|
| Planning | Simple: rings, the bride’s dress, cars and a reception. Earlier the bride’s family paid for the reception; today both families usually share the cost. |
| Length | Two days; some weddings go on for a week. |
| Fetching the bride | The groom climbs the stairs of her apartment block. At each landing her friends ask him a question or riddle (for example, picking out his bride from photos of baby girls). A wrong guess means paying cash to move on. |
| After registration | The couple tour the city sights for two or three hours, then reach the reception. |
| Reception | Toasts by close friends or relatives; everyone drinks at the same moment. Later the groom’s friends “steal” the bride and the bride’s friends steal her shoe; the groom pays for both. |
Activity 2 asks you to list customs that are similar to Indian ones (procession, games at the bride’s home, the shoe-stealing fun, families sharing the celebration) and customs that are different (registration followed by a city tour, toasts with wine).
1.3 The Characters and the Setting
| Character (as the book lists them) | Who he or she is |
|---|---|
| Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov | A landowner; Natalya’s father |
| Natalya Stepanovna (called Natasha by her father) | His daughter, twenty-five years old |
| Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov | Chubukov’s neighbour, “a large and hearty, but very suspicious, landowner”; he says he is 35 |
Setting: the whole play happens in one place, the drawing-room of Chubukov’s house.
2The Plot at a Glance
The play keeps swinging between sweetness and fury. This figure shows how the temperature in the room rises and falls.
3The Play Scene by Scene
3.1 Lomov Arrives: A Loan or a Proposal?
Lomov walks in wearing a dress-jacket and white gloves. Chubukov greets him with a flood of pet names: my darling, my angel, my treasure, my precious, my beauty. He teases Lomov for being so formally dressed, “As if you’re paying a New Year’s Eve visit!”
Lomov is so nervous that he stumbles over Chubukov’s name (“Honoured Stepanitch… I beg pardon Stepan Honouritch”) and has to drink water. Meanwhile Chubukov says to himself:
CHUBUKOV: “He’s come to borrow money. Shan’t give him any!”
Right after this he says aloud, “What is it, my beauty?” The gap between what he thinks and what he says is the first joke of the play.
Words a character speaks to himself or to the audience, which the other characters on stage are not supposed to hear. The book marks them [aside].
Chubukov loses patience (“Spit it out!”), and Lomov finally says he has come to ask for the hand of Natalya Stepanovna. Chubukov’s mood flips at once. He hugs and kisses Lomov, sheds a tear, says he has hoped for this a long time, and claims, “I’ve always loved you, my angel, as if you were my own son.” He admits he is “off my balance with joy”. When Lomov asks whether Natalya will agree, Chubukov is sure of it: “She’s in love; egad, she’s like a lovesick cat”. He goes to fetch “Natasha”.
3.2 Lomov’s Speech to Himself
Left alone, Lomov shivers (“It’s cold… I’m trembling all over”) as if facing an examination. He reasons that a man who waits for an ideal or for real love will never marry, so he must decide at once.
Why he wants to marry Natalya
- She is “an excellent housekeeper, not bad-looking, well-educated”
- He is already 35, which he calls “a critical age”
- He needs “a quiet and regular life”
- Love is never mentioned
The ailments he lists
- Palpitations (a racing, pounding heart)
- Excitable, always getting upset
- Trembling lips, a twitch in his right eyebrow, noise in his ears
- Worst of all, his sleep: a “pull” in his left side reaches his shoulder and head, he jumps up “like a lunatic”, and this may happen twenty times a night
3.3 Natalya Enters
Natalya comes in and says her papa told her a merchant had come for his goods. She apologises for her apron and neglige (a loose house dress) because they are shelling peas for drying. She offers lunch and a smoke, then chats about the farm: yesterday’s rain stopped the workmen, and she had a whole field of hay cut and now fears it may rot. She notices his evening dress and asks if he is going to a ball.
Lomov starts a long, roundabout introduction. He has known her family since childhood. He inherited his land from his late aunt and her husband, who greatly respected her father and her late mother. The Lomovs and the Chubukovs have always been friendly. Then comes the fatal sentence: “my Oxen Meadows touch your birchwoods.”
3.4 Quarrel 1: Who Owns Oxen Meadows?
Natalya stops him at once: the Meadows are “ours, not yours!” The land in question lies between her birchwoods and the Burnt Marsh.
| Lomov’s argument | Natalya’s argument |
|---|---|
| He has documents. Long ago a grandmother on his aunt’s side let the peasants belonging to Natalya’s great-grandfather use the land free, in perpetuity, and they paid her back by making bricks. | Her grandfather and great-grandfather both reckoned their land stretched to the Burnt Marsh, so the Meadows were theirs. |
| The peasants used the land for forty years and began to treat it as their own. | Her family has held the land for nearly three hundred years. |
| He does not want the Meadows; he acts “on principle” and even offers them to her as a present. | The Meadows are only five dessiatins, worth perhaps 300 roubles, but “I can’t stand unfairness.” |
Natalya finds his offer insulting: how can he give her her own land? She reminds him that last year they lent him their threshing-machine and had to put off their own threshing till November, yet he treats them “as if we were gypsies”. She calls his behaviour impudent (rude, cheeky). Lomov asks if she thinks him a “landgrabber”. She threatens to send her mowers to the Meadows that very day; he says he will “give it to them in the neck”. The scene ends in a shouting match: “Ours!” “Mine!”
Chubukov joins the fight
Chubukov enters and, in his usual sweet tone, tells Lomov, “Darling, the Meadows are ours!” His point is that the peasants never paid the grandmother because the land was in dispute, and he tells Lomov, “you haven’t seen the plan.” He adds that he would sooner give the Meadows to the peasants than to Lomov, and reminds the “young man” that he is twice his age.
Lomov calls him “a grabber” and threatens to go to court. From here the quarrel turns personal:
| Speaker | Accusation |
|---|---|
| Chubukov | Lomov is a pettifogger (one who loves going to court over trifles); all his people were like that |
| Lomov | Chubukov’s grandfather was tried for embezzlement (stealing money he was trusted with) |
| Chubukov | There is lunacy in the Lomov family; Lomov’s grandfather was a drunkard; his younger aunt, Nastasya Mihailovna, ran away with an architect |
| Lomov | Chubukov’s mother was hump-backed |
| Chubukov | Lomov’s father was “a guzzling gambler” |
| Natalya | Few backbiters equal Lomov’s aunt |
| Chubukov | Lomov is an intriguer, hints at a bribe before the last elections, and calls him a “malicious, doublefaced intriguer” |
Lomov, clutching his heart and complaining of a numb foot, staggers out. Chubukov shouts, “don’t set foot in my house again!” and Natalya adds, “Take it to court! We’ll see!”
3.5 The Secret Comes Out
Father and daughter keep abusing the absent Lomov: rascal, villain, scarecrow, monster. Chubukov then lets slip that this “blind hen”, this “turnip-ghost”, had the cheek to come with a proposal. Natalya is stunned: “To propose? To me? Why didn’t you tell me so before?” She falls into an easy-chair, wails and has hysterics (wild, uncontrolled crying), screaming “Bring him back!”
Chubukov panics, says he will shoot or hang himself, and complains, “what a burden, Lord, to be the father of a grown-up daughter!” Each blames the other for driving Lomov away. Chubukov runs out and fetches him back.
3.6 Peace, and then Quarrel 2: Guess or Squeezer?
Natalya apologises: “we were all a little heated”, the Meadows “really are yours”, “We were wrong.” Lomov says he acted on principle and starts re-explaining his evidence; she quickly cuts him short. Aside, she wishes she knew how to get him started on the proposal, and aloud she asks about his shooting plans. He means to go after blackcock after the harvest, and then mentions his sorrow: his dog Guess has gone lame.
| Point | Guess (Lomov’s dog) | Squeezer (Chubukov’s dog) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 125 roubles, bought from Mironov; Natalya: “too much”; Lomov: “very cheap” | 85 roubles |
| Natalya’s view | “old and as ugly as a worn-out cab-horse”; no known pedigree | A thoroughbred, son of Harness and Chisels, better than anything Volchanetsky has |
| Lomov’s view | Worth more than five Squeezers | Overshot: lower jaw shorter than the upper, so a bad hunter; worth about 25 roubles |
| Chubukov’s view | Purebred, firm on his feet, well-sprung ribs, but old and short in the muzzle | “the best dog in the district” |
| The Marusinsky hunt | Ran neck-and-neck with the Count’s dog | Left a whole verst behind; Chubukov blames the Count’s whipper-in for hitting him; Lomov says Squeezer was worrying a sheep |
Natalya accuses Lomov of a “demon of contradition” (the book’s spelling) and says, “those hunters argue most who know least.” Father and daughter both mock his health, copying his cry of “My heart!” Natalya says he should lie on the kitchen oven catching black beetles instead of hunting foxes. Chubukov says he only goes hunting to argue.
The insults climb again. Lomov: Chubukov hunts only to get in with the Count and to intrigue. Chubukov: “Boy! Pup!” Lomov: “Old rat! Jesuit!” Chubukov threatens to “shoot you like a partridge”. Lomov says Chubukov’s late wife used to beat him; Chubukov retorts that Lomov is “under the slipper of your house-keeper”. Lomov falls into an armchair, crying for a doctor.
3.7 The “Death” and the Engagement
Natalya screams that Lomov is dead and has hysterics again. Chubukov tries to make him drink water and, thinking him dead, asks for a knife and a pistol. Then Lomov moves and mutters, “I see stars… mist… where am I?”
Chubukov seizes the chance. He puts Lomov’s hand in his daughter’s: “She’s willing!”, “Kiss and be damned to you!” Natalya agrees, they kiss, and both say they are happy. Chubukov sighs, “What a weight off my shoulders”. But Natalya immediately asks Lomov to admit that Guess is worse than Squeezer. “Better!” “Worse!” Chubukov calls this “a way to start your family bliss” and tries to drown them out by shouting “Champagne! Champagne!” as the curtain falls.
4The Two Quarrels Side by Side
4.1 Same Pattern, Twice
Quarrel 1: Oxen Meadows
- Starts when Lomov says “my Oxen Meadows”
- Natalya first, then Chubukov joins
- Grows into insults about grandparents, aunts and parents
- Ends with Lomov thrown out
- Natalya gives in only after she learns of the proposal
Quarrel 2: Guess and Squeezer
- Starts when Lomov mentions his lame dog
- Natalya first, then Chubukov joins
- Grows into insults about hunting, wives and housekeepers
- Ends with Lomov fainting
- Never settled: it restarts after the engagement
5The Characters
5.1 The Three Quarrellers
Ivan Lomov
Nervous and fussy about his health (palpitations, numb foot, twitching eyebrows). Suspicious and touchy: he takes small points as matters of “principle”. He proposes for practical reasons, not love. Quick to shout, quick to faint.
Natalya Stepanovna
A capable farm manager (hay, threshing, peas). Proud, stubborn and hot-tempered; she “can’t stand unfairness” but will not listen. She wants to marry: the word “proposal” changes her in a second. Even after the engagement she must win the dog argument.
Stepan Chubukov
A shrewd, money-minded landowner: his first thought is that Lomov wants a loan. Sugary pet names turn into crude insults the moment his land is touched. He is eager to marry off his grown-up daughter and hurries the engagement through.
5.2 Five Words for Each Character (Thinking about the Play, Q3 ii)
| Lomov | Natalya | Chubukov |
|---|---|---|
| nervous, hypersensitive, suspicious, argumentative, practical | quarrelsome, proud, outspoken, possessive, hasty | selfish, two-faced, hot-tempered, calculating, theatrical |
6Humour and Irony
6.1 Where the Laughs Come From
A gap between what is expected or said and what actually happens or is meant. In this play a man who comes to propose ends up being thrown out, and a family that wants him as a son-in-law calls him a “stuffed sausage”.
| Source of humour | Example from the play |
|---|---|
| Sweet words, sour thoughts | Chubukov calls Lomov “my beauty” while thinking he wants money |
| Petty causes, huge fights | A field worth about 300 roubles; two hunting dogs |
| Sudden change of mood | Chubukov goes from “my angel” to “pettifogger”; Natalya from “monster” to “Bring him back!” |
| Exaggerated illness | Lomov’s heart, eyebrows, foot and shoulder; “Where is my shoulder?” |
| Hypocrisy | Natalya says the land is not worth much to her, yet fights for it furiously |
| Comic ending | An engaged couple quarrel at once while the father shouts “Champagne!” |
6.2 Russian-Sounding Expressions (Language I.1)
An older man calling a grown man my darling, my angel, my treasure, my precious, my beauty, my beloved sounds Russian, as do oaths like “egad” and “Tfoo!” and “so to speak”. Idiomatic modern English also appears: “Spit it out!”, “Don’t go round and round it”, “Shut up!”, “want to have me on”, “a weight off my shoulders”.
7Themes and Message
7.1 Four Big Ideas
Marriage as a business deal
Lomov chooses a good housekeeper; Chubukov wants his daughter settled. Land and money matter more than love.
Greed for property
Each family clings to what it owns: “I don’t want anything of yours and I don’t want to give anything of mine.”
Anger over trifles
Small issues grow into family insults. The speaking activity on anger management grows out of this.
Pretence of the rich
Polite manners hide selfishness; good neighbours turn into “grabbers” in seconds.
Message: through laughter the play shows how foolish it is to let ego, greed and temper spoil relationships, and how hollow a marriage can be when it rests on property alone.
8Key Lines with Speakers
| Speaker | Line | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Chubukov (aside) | “He’s come to borrow money. Shan’t give him any!” | His selfishness and suspicion |
| Chubukov | “She’s in love; egad, she’s like a lovesick cat” | He is eager to marry her off |
| Lomov | He is “already 35”, which he calls “a critical age, so to speak” | Practical reason for marrying |
| Natalya | “I can’t stand unfairness.” | Her pride and stubbornness |
| Lomov | “I don’t want the Meadows, but I am acting on principle.” | Ego dressed up as principle |
| Chubukov | “I, young man, am twice your age” | He pulls rank |
| Natalya | “I’ve noticed that those hunters argue most who know least.” | Her sharp tongue |
| Chubukov | “Well, that’s a way to start your family bliss!” | Irony: the quarrels will go on |
9Textbook Questions: Short Answers
9.1 Thinking about the Play and Phrases
- Chubukov’s first suspicion and his sincerity: He suspects Lomov has come to borrow money. He is not sincere when he says he has loved Lomov “as if you were my own son”: a moment earlier he was refusing a loan in his mind, and soon he is calling Lomov a pettifogger and an intriguer. His joy comes from getting a rich husband for his daughter.
- Is Natalya “like a lovesick cat”? Partly. She does not know of the proposal and fights Lomov, so she is not openly in love. But once she hears the word “proposal” she wails and demands he be fetched, and she gives up the Meadows. She is eager to be married, though her love of winning remains.
- Words and insults (i): see the accusations table in Section 3.4 and the lines in 3.5 to 3.7 (pettifogger, blind hen, turnip-ghost, stuffed sausage, wizen-faced frump, Boy! Pup!, Old rat! Jesuit!, milksop). Kind words: Lomov’s “excellent housekeeper, not bad-looking, well-educated” and Chubukov’s pet names. (ii) See the five-word table in Section 5. (iii) They might next quarrel over the wedding costs, the dowry of land, whose house to live in, or Lomov’s illnesses.
- You may take it that = you can be sure that. You may take it that the results will be out on Monday.
- He seems to be coming round = he is regaining consciousness. After a splash of water, the fainted boy seemed to be coming round.
- My foot’s gone to sleep = my foot has gone numb. I sat cross-legged so long that my foot went to sleep.
9.2 Reported Speech (Language II): the Rules Filled In
| Rule | Answer |
|---|---|
| 1. To report a question we use | asked |
| 2. To report a statement we use | said (or declared, told) |
| 3. The adverb of place here changes to | there |
| 4. Present tense in direct speech becomes | past tense |
| 5. Present continuous becomes | past continuous; am getting becomes was getting |
| 6. A word of respect in direct speech adds the adverb | respectfully |
| 7. I, me, our, mine change to | he/she, him/her, their, his/hers |
Exercise III asks you to put the 2006 newspaper excerpt about actor A. K. Hangal into reported speech using these rules. The speaking tasks cover anger management, a script from Tagore’s The Home and the World, the qualities to look for in a marriage partner, and scenes from romantic comedies.
10Words to Know
The play’s pages carry no margin glossary, so these are general meanings that fit the play.
| Word | Meaning here |
|---|---|
| dessiatin | an old Russian measure of land area |
| rouble | Russian money |
| verst | an old Russian measure of distance |
| in perpetuity | for ever |
| overshot | (of a dog) having the upper jaw longer than the lower |
| pettifogger | a person who argues or goes to court over trivial matters |
| embezzlement | stealing money one has been trusted to look after |
| intriguer | a person who makes secret plans to gain something |
| whipper-in | a hunt servant who keeps the hounds together with a whip |
| impudent | rude and disrespectful |
| hysterics | a fit of wild crying or screaming |
| milksop | a weak, timid man |
- Anton Chekhov (contents: Chekov); 1888-89; first called “A Marriage Proposal”; one-act farce
- Theme in the headnote: rich families marry to enlarge estates; petty quarrels nearly kill the proposal
- Chubukov (landowner), Natalya (25), Lomov (35, suspicious); Chubukov’s drawing-room
- Evening dress, white gloves; Chubukov’s aside: he has come to borrow money
- Lomov’s reasons: housekeeper, not bad-looking, well-educated; 35; quiet regular life
- Ailments: palpitations, twitch in right eyebrow, pull in left side, wakes twenty times
- Oxen Meadows: between birchwoods and Burnt Marsh; five dessiatins; 300 roubles; bricks; forty years; nearly 300 years
- Threshing-machine lent, own threshing put off till November
- Insults: pettifogger, embezzlement, lunacy, Nastasya Mihailovna and the architect, hump-backed mother, guzzling gambler
- Proposal revealed; Natalya’s hysterics; “Bring him back!”
- Guess (125 roubles, Mironov) vs Squeezer (85 roubles, overshot); Marusinsky hunt; a verst behind
- Lomov faints; Chubukov joins hands; kiss; dogs again; “Champagne! Champagne!”
- Can I say why the play is called a farce?
- Can I explain Chubukov’s first suspicion and why his affection is not sincere?
- Can I give both sides of the Oxen Meadows argument?
- Can I match each insult to the right speaker?
- Can I compare Guess and Squeezer with prices and faults?
- Can I describe each character in five adjectives?
- Can I explain the irony of the ending?
- Can I fill in the seven Reported Speech rules?