Anton Chekhov
A Nervous Breakdown

1.  Chapter I   What causes women to fall into prostitution what are their lives like according to Vassilyev? What do his description of fallen women and story of the love of a pure and self-sacrificing young man for a prostitute suggest about his ideals and fantasies?  What relationship can you see between the words of the song sung by the medical student and the art student on the one hand, and society’s effects on fallen women according to Vasilyev on the other hand?  What does Vasilyev’s envy of his friends say about him?  When Vassilyev expect to find when he sees a prostitute?

·         2.  Chapter II  When Vassilyev arrives in the red light district of Moscow then enters a house of prostitution does he find what he expected?  Explain.  What does he not understand about the women, the men who buy their favors, about the Madam, and about prostitution itself? What does he not understand about the women, the men who buy their favors, about the Madam, and about prostitution itself?

3.  Chapter III-IV In these chapters, what does Vassilyev discover about the women?  about his story?  What preconceptions are preventing him from accepting and understanding the social world around him?  How does he begin to feel about his relation to this world?  Why?

4.  Chapter V –VI What two possible interpretations of the red light district does Vassilyev come up with?  What is he not taking into account when he poses the problem of prostitution and society in terms of good or evil?   

5.  Chapter VI What happens to Vassilyev’s moral outrage as his mental breakdown develops?   How does this experience affect his very sense of the moral distinction between good and evil?

6.  Chapter VII What happens at the doctors?  What is V’s conclusion about the reaction of others to his moral concern about prostitutes?  What commentary is he making on society?  What commentary is the story making on Vassilyev’s ideal of social justice, his clear distinction between god and evil, and his mental breakdown?   What do the words of the song -- “Against my will an unknown force has led me to these mournful shores”? -- have to say about these commentaries.   Given Vassilyev’s final actions, who wins out, society or himself?  Why do you think?  In your opinion, do A Nervous Breakdown and Ward No. 6 criticize society’s treatment of prostitutes and the mentally ill or do they accept it as an unchangeable reality?  Explain.

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