In Anton Chekhov's Kashtanka's Vacillation Between Two Worlds

Home , Anton Chekhov, At Home (short story), Home (short story), Kashtanka, Peasants (novella)

A Sense of "Unhomeliness" in Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka's Vacillation between Two Worlds

[PP: 135-142] Faeze Rezazade Department of English Literature Faculty of Humanities, Vali-e-Asr University Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran Esmaeil Zohdi Department of English Literature Faculty of Humanities, Vali-e-Asr University Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran Mohammad Hussein Oroskhan Department of English Literature Faculty of Humanities, Vali-e-Asr University Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran

ABSTRACT Oscillation between two geographical places, the native or ancestral land and a foreign land, causes the feeling of having been displaced for that person. The concept of "home" plays a crucial function in everyone's lives and also gives a sense of one's place in the world. Therefore, “Unhomeliness” emerges when one lives in a place which is not his/her real home. This concept is investigated by Homi K. Bhabha and other theorists of post colonialism as “unhomeliness”. In Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka, a short story written in 1887, Kashtanka as the protagonist is an “unhomed” dog, who has been lost and forced to live in an estranger’s house. This story can be read as the manifestation of the concept of "unhomeliness" and lack of intimacy and warmth in the new place despite of its good life conditions. The protagonist’s imaginations and dreams of her homeland provoke a sense of insecurity and not belonging to the new land. In this research, it is tried to explain the process of identity-making in Chekhov’s Kashtanka through Bhabha’s theories of mimicry, hybridity, and “third space”. Keywords: Unhomeliness, diaspora, homeland, identity, Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka ARTICLE The paper received on: 22/08/2015 , Reviewed on: 20/09/2015, Accepted after revisions on: 19/10/2015 INFO Suggested citation: Rezazade, F., Zohdi, E. & Oroskhan, M. H. (2015). A Sense of "Unhomeliness" in Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka's Vacillation between Two Worlds. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 3(3), 135-142. Retrieved from http://www.eltsjournal.org International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 03 Issue: 03 July-September, 2015

1. Introduction Therefore, the concept of “home” plays a 1.1 The concept of unhomeliness in Post- crucial function in every one’s lives and also colonial theory gives a sense of our place in the world. Home Postcolonial criticism became a major as an indigenous space is schemed as a place force in literary studies when colonial of warmth and security where our identity regimes began to collapse after World War II. and belongingness comes from. According to It is a type of cultural criticism which deals Avtar Brah: with the analysis of literary texts produced in On the one hand, ‘home’ is a mythic place of countries and cultures that have come under desire in the diasporic imagination. In this the control of European colonial powers at sense it is a place of no return, even if it is some point in their history. Since the end of possible to visit the geographical territory that the Second World War, the former colonizing is seen as the place of ‘origin’. On the other hand, home is also a lived experience of a nations have experienced the arrival of many locality. Its sounds and smells, its heat and migrants from once-colonized countries. dust, balmy summer evenings, or the Migrants were groups of people who due to excitement of the first snowfall, shivering the several reasons were forced to leave their winter evenings, somber grey skies in the countries and settle in the others’. middle of the day… all this, as mediated by In British, colonial peoples were specifically the historically specific everyday of social recruited by the Government to cope with relations (1996, p. 192). labor shortages, such as the drive after the As a result, “unhomeliness” emerges Second World War to employ Caribbean’s in when one lives in a place which is not his/her public services like health and transport. real home. “Unhomeliness”, investigated by Others arrived to study, or to escape political Homi K. Bhabha and other postcolonial and economic difficulties in their native lands. theorists, is the sense of displacement and Some followed family members who migrated before them (McLeod, 2000, p. 206). oscillation between two geographical places Diasporas are those dispersed populations when people are not in their real homes. It who have left their homelands deliberately or can be explicated that “‘home’ as an idea by force and have settled in foreign countries. stands for shelter, stability, security and Robin Cohen in his book Global Diasporas: comfort. To be ‘at home’ is to occupy a An Introduction (1997) describes Diasporas location where we are welcome, where we as communities of people living together in can be with people very much like ourselves” one country who “acknowledge that ‘the old (McLeod, 2000, p. 210). Thus, having been country’- a notion often buried deep in ghettoized and excluded from feeling of language, religion, custom or folklore- belonging to the new countries or the host always has some claim on their loyalty and lands, Diasporas or migrants feel “unhomed” emotions” (p. 4). Indeed, these peoples are and wish to return to their native homelands. viewed as the groups of migrants who do not Home for these populations can be defined as belong to the new lands and a sense of “a space of privacy and intimacy, alienation has encompassed them in the intrinsically associated with family and loved foreign soil. ones, with warmth, affection, security, Consequently, a feeling of freedom and assured belonging” (Roy, 2014, “unhomeliness” is evoked among the p. 99). The sense of not belonging to the new diasporic communities which differ from the lands is examined to provoke the feeling of feeling of not having a place to live in. insecurity and anxiety there. Diasporas or Cite this article as: Rezazade, F., Zohdi, E. & Oroskhan, M. H. (2015). A Sense of "Unhomeliness" in Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka's Vacillation between Two Worlds. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 3(3), 135-142. Retrieved from http://www.eltsjournal.org Page | 136

A Sense of "Unhomeliness" in Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka's….. Rezazade, F., Zohdi, E. & Oroskhan, M. H. people living in foreign countries, though 1.2 Anton Chekhov's Kashtanka living at the present time in foreign lands, Anton Chekhov’s short story Kashtanka, think about their native lands in the past. written in 1887, can be read as the “This disjunction between past and present, manifestation of the concept of between here and there, makes ‘home’ seem “unhomeliness” and lack of intimacy and far-removed in time and space, available for warmth in the new place despite its good life return only through an act of the imagination” conditions. Chekhov has written many short (McLeod, 2000, p. 211). Imagination, stories among which Kashtanka is an therefore, is seemed to be an important allegorical story in which he has portrayed element for unhomed individuals. Since the the life of the desperate modern man in the Diasporas are not able to precisely reclaim form of a dog. the past things, they construct a mental home Anton Pavlovitch Chekhov (1860- 1904) for themselves based on some scraps and was born into a family whose father was a fragments of the past remained in their slave. Nevertheless, the son of this slave memories. These scarps and patches, occupied a literary position whose prose and therefore, whether present in front of them or drama opened a way of new thinking about imagined in their memories, remind the the art of short story and drama. He was a migrants of their real and original identities. sensitive and talented Russian intellectual at Homi K. Bhabha, himself a migrant from the end of the nineteen century and is Bombay to Britain who now lives in considered to be among the greatest short America, in his book The Location of Culture story writers of all time. He was educated as (1994) speaks about the ‘border lives’ and the a doctor and he practiced medicine for a good hybrid identities of those who live at the in- part of his life. Therefore, one can notice between. “For Bhabha, the border is the place detached and observant eyes of a medical where the conventional patterns of thought examiner in his writings. Chekhov used are disturbed by the possibility of crossing. It humor, in hundreds of his short stories and in is argued that imaginative border crossings several of his plays, as a way of coping with are as much a consequence of migration as the unpleasantness that he saw around him. the physical crossing of borders” (McLeod, Meanwhile, from 1886 he started to write 2000, p.217). Thus, by imagination and more serious stories. Therefore, he wrote bringing the past to the present, or as Bhabha Kashtanka in 1887, when Russia was in its says by ‘restaging the past’, migrants live in reformation time. a ‘third space’ which does not belong nor to Chekhov lived during a silver age of the past neither to the present. By living in Russian literature which coincided with the this space, which reminds them of their reign of Alexander II and his son Alexander origin, migrants or Diasporas try to reduce III, and his stories and plays reveal the social their sense of melancholy. On the other hand, and political issues of that era, from hybrid identity which is examined to be the Reformation time to the Revolution. The consequence of catching between two reformation time is the latter part of the 19th different cultures, gives a feeling of century, when Russia was involved in its frustration, anger, and isolation to the modernization time and cultural and migrant peoples and therefore pulls them economic improvement. Throughout these back to their countries, or at least makes them years, until the Revolution of 1905- 1917, the wish to return to their real homelands and society of Russia was divided between the identities. aspirations for the landowning past and International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 03 Issue: 03 July-September, 2015 Page | 137

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 03 Issue: 03 July-September, 2015 credence to the social revolutions’ growth. unhomed and not belonging to the new place These times of growth and stagnation formed gives her a sense of isolation and depression the heart of Chekhov’s stories. Likewise, the and makes her imagine her real home all the main character of Chekhov’s Kashtanka is days. Even in her dreams the trace of often torn between nostalgia for the past and melancholy and longing for her real home the struggle for modernity. Chekhov’s and root could be seen obviously. Through Kashtanka has been written to show the this loyal animal, Chekhov has beautifully disappointment of migrant intellectuals, who expressed the situations of migrants in left their country to the western world and foreign lands who are faithful to their their decision to come back and explore their homelands but have been forced to leave their own arts. countries. As a result, in this article, it is tried Kashtanka is the story of a mongrel dog to explore unhomely moments of that belongs to a drunken carpenter but has Kashtanka’s protagonist as a dislocated been lost and forced to live in an estranger’s individual and her hybrid identity in those house. The stranger is an animal trainer who moments. works for a circus. He feeds Kashtanka well, 2. The Concept of “home” in Chekhov’s renames her “Auntie”, and treats her kindly Kashtanka until she becomes a well-groomed dog. The One of the concepts of postcolonialism estranger, who had rescued Kashtanka for the which has been introduced by Bhabha is purpose that she “will be of use for “hybridity”. As Bhabha says, “[The] something” (Chekhov, 1887, p. 3), decides to importance of hybridity is not to be able to train her for animal act in the circus. On the trace two original moments from which the first day of Kashtanka’s debut in the circus, third emerges, rather hybridity to me is the her master (the carpenter) sees her and calls ‘third space’ which enables other positions to her. As soon as Kashtanka notices her master emerge” (Bhabha, 1991, p. 211). It can be she leaves everything and happily goes to the argued that hybridity is the result of catching carpenter and his son. She follows behind between two different spaces and them and tries to fade away all her memories constructing a “third space” full of when living in the estranger’s house. contradictory and ambivalence. The relation Kashtanka as an unhomed dog encounters between diaspora and the native place of with the feeling of insecurity in the origin is represented by equivocation and estranger’s house even though he knows the psychological uneasiness because the estranger is more kind to her than her master diasporic subject is situated between two and the life conditions are good there in the different homes. Moreover, this ambivalence new house. Here, being “unhomed” does not toward the concept of home is continued until mean being homeless. To be unhomed, as “a fundamental ambivalence is embedded in Lois Tyson states in Critical Theory Today, the term diaspora: a dual ontology in which “is to feel not at home even in one’s own the diasporic subject is seen to look in two home because you are not at home in directions—towards a historical cultural yourself; that is, your cultural identity crisis identity on one hand, and the society of has made you a psychological refugee” relocation on the other” (Ashcroft et al, 1995, (2006, p. 421). Although the estranger’s p. 425). Thus, unhomed people living in house is not Kashtanka’s home, she is not a another lands are encountered hybrid homeless dog. But the feeling of being identities because they unconsciously imitate

Cite this article as: Rezazade, F., Zohdi, E. & Oroskhan, M. H. (2015). A Sense of "Unhomeliness" in Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka's Vacillation between Two Worlds. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 3(3), 135-142. Retrieved from http://www.eltsjournal.org Page | 138

A Sense of "Unhomeliness" in Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka's….. Rezazade, F., Zohdi, E. & Oroskhan, M. H. those lands’ cultures and accordingly are Although the estranger gives her a great meal caught between two different cultures. and speaks to her softly, Kashtanka begins to Pursuant to the hybrid identity, a strange compare her master’s home and the feeling of uneasiness evokes which pull the estranger’s house in her mind: Diasporas back to their homes or at least The stranger's surroundings were poor and make them imagine their homes. Bhabha has ugly; besides the easy-chairs, the sofa, the described this state of one’s feeling as the lamps and the rugs, there was nothing, and the “unhomely” moment. He has extensively room seemed empty. At the carpenter's the pondered upon this notion and explicated the whole place was stuffed full of things: he had a table, a bench, a heap of shavings, planes, terror affiliated with the loss of the one’s chisels, saws, a cage with a goldfinch, a basin. recognizable self. He believes that “The . . . The stranger's room smelt of nothing, unhomely moment creeps up on you while there was always a thick fog in the stealthily as your own shadow and suddenly carpenter’s room, and a glorious smell of glue, you find yourself taking the measure of your varnish, and shavings (Chekhov, 1887, p. 3). dwelling in a state of 'incredulous terror'” Moreover, this kind of comparing poses a (Bhabha, 1994, p. 15). This traumatic cultural difficult dilemma for Kashtanka as she experience which one resides within oneself rapidly begins to think of the kindness of the is referred to by Bhabha as “unhomeliness” estranger and the carpenter’s misbehavior (Bhabha, 1994). toward her. Anton Chekhov in Kashtanka depicts the …the stranger had one great superiority -- he unhomely moments of an unhomed dog, who gave her a great deal to eat and, to do him full has been lost in the street, and her inevitable justice, when Kashtanka sat facing the table sojourn in an estranger’s house. He and looking wistfully at him, he did not once beautifully portrays the protagonist’s sense of hit or kick her, and did not once shout: "Go melancholy as a diasporic subject and her away, damned brute! (Chekhov, 1887, p. 3). wistful longings for her real home. In fact, As the diasporic subject is torn-between Chekhov in this allegorical story tries to show two different homes, a sense of traumatic the imbroglio situations of migrants trapped ambivalence embraces her. Therefore, in diaspora deliberately or by force and their regardless of having been settled in a home, desire to return to their real origins and the diasporic person looks for her real home. homes. It can be claimed that “a constant Kashtanka begins with the description of apprehension arises between where you are the moments of a lost dog’s consternation and from and where you are at which leads the her wandering in the street in search of her diasporic subjects to form their own space” master. From the first lines of the story, the (Elmo Raj, 2014, p. 88). The diasporic unhomely moments initiate and the dog, subject, consequently, is caught between two whose name is “Kashtanka”, experiences a different choices, the host land and the sense of unhomeliness. The story happens in homeland. Thus, Kashtanka begins to a snowy and cold weather to foreshadow the compare her two homes to choose which one gloomy atmosphere of diasporic society. As is better. “…she wagged her tail and it gets quite dark, Kashtanka huddles up in an considered the question, whether it was better entrance and feels hungry. When he is at the stranger's or at the carpenter's” exhausted and helpless, he is forced to go (Chekhov, 1887, p.3). along with an estranger who treats her Home can be considered as a warm place graciously and takes her to his house. for relationship, “a place of relationships, International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 03 Issue: 03 July-September, 2015 Page | 139

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 03 Issue: 03 July-September, 2015 bonding and a pool of collective memories she is at which causes the diasporic subject that assume identity and natively formulating (‘Kashtanka’) to form her own space. a longing when dispersed” (Elmo Raj, 2014, Kashtanka like a pendulum vacillates p. 90). Likewise, in the story, it is described between two worlds, her new house and her that Kashtanka is sit in a “snug little place real home, and through the act of imagination under the bench” (Chekhov, 1887, p. 4) at the she makes a new world for herself which carpenter’s home. Thus, Diasporas who are reminds her of the real identity of herself, far from their homes feel homesick and try to though her new master has given her a new evoke their origins. Indeed, their minds are identity and name, Auntie. In fact, she neither always preoccupied with the lovable or even lives in the present nor in the past. She feels somehow painful memories of the past. It is not belonging to the new place and does not the unhomely memory of home, or the feel safe there. When Ivan Ivanitch, a gander remembrance of loss that is further disrupted in the estranger’s house, dies, “It seemed to by strange narrations of recent events. “It Auntie that the same thing would happen to signifies that one can forget all, but not the her, that is, that she too, there was no indigenous roots and real belonging” (Bhat knowing why, would close her eyes, stretch and Mir, 2014, p. 124). Kashtanka in her first out her paws, open her mouth, and everyone night staying in the new house, would look at her with horror” (Chekhov, notwithstanding the sense of exhaustion and 1887, p. 13). weariness, remembers Luka Alexandritch As it has been debated before and through and Fedyushka, her master and his son, and the words of James Clifford, one of the her good and bad times living with them. important features of diasporic experience is Even the dreadful experiences of “a strong attachment to and desire for literal Fedyushka’s mischief toward her were return to a well-preserved homeland” dolorous for Kashtanka and made her (Clifford, 1994, p. 305). Clearly, when you homesick. experience a loss of home, it compels you to Fedyushka would tie a piece of meat to a search for a location where the self could thread and give it to Kashtanka, and then, belong, a secure socio-political, cultural and when she had swallowed it he would, with a intellectual space one could describe it as loud laugh, pull it back again from her home. But there is not always possible to visit stomach, and the more lurid were her the geographical territory of homeland. Here memories the more loudly and miserably imaginative border-crossings make the Kashtanka whined (Chekhov, 1887, p. 4). Kashtanka’s “unhomeliness” can be seen diasporic individuals romanticize their through the above lines. As Bhabha says in homelands and alleviate their pains of his The World and The Home, “…to be homesickness. Kashtanka also begins to unhomed is not to be homeless, nor can imagine and romanticize her past living in the 'unhomely' be easily accommodated in the carpenter’s house, which is regarded as her familiar division of social life into private and real home, through some scraps and the public spheres… in the stirrings of fragments which are remained in her unhomely, another world becomes visible” memory. “…A table, a bench, a heap of (Bhabha, 1997, p. 141). This "another world" shavings, planes, chisels, saws, a cage with a is what Bhabha calls it the “third space”. As goldfinch, a basin…” (Chekhov, 1887, p. 3) the time goes, a constant apprehension is and also the smell of “glue, shavings, and grown between where she is from and where varnish” (Chekhov, 1887, p. 9) were those Cite this article as: Rezazade, F., Zohdi, E. & Oroskhan, M. H. (2015). A Sense of "Unhomeliness" in Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka's Vacillation between Two Worlds. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 3(3), 135-142. Retrieved from http://www.eltsjournal.org Page | 140

A Sense of "Unhomeliness" in Anton Chekhov’s Kashtanka's….. Rezazade, F., Zohdi, E. & Oroskhan, M. H. odds and scraps which reminded Kashtanka introduced and coined by Bhabha and of her home. Reminiscence of the native soil, developed by other postcolonial critics. indeed, is considered to be evocative of the Diasporas or migrants in the foreign lands are lost home because the new land is not easy to involved in these two concepts for they are cope up with. As William Safran says, the unhomed and away from their origins. Diasporas “retain a collective memory, Therefore, a sense of insecurity and not vision, or myth about their original homeland belonging to the alien culture envelopes them – its physical location, history, and and leaves them alone with a hybrid identity achievements” (Safran, 1991, p. 83). in diaspora. Anton Chekhov, who is among The word which can come with the best short story writers, lived during the “unhomeliness” is “loneliness”. People in Reformation and Revolution periods in diaspora despite of having home are Russia. In those days, Russia was in a terrible “unhomed” and despite of being with others time and most of its people, especially are “alone”. This loneliness and feeling of not peasants and intellectuals, were unsatisfied belonging to the new place and not having the and disappointed about the social and sense of warmth, security, and serenity political situations of Russia. Thus, the among the foreign land’s population, will difficult situation of Russia forced some of make the diasporic subjects soak themselves the intellectuals to immigrate to foreign into the world of imagination and memories lands. Chekhov has elegantly portrayed the of their past life in order to be rescued from unhomely moments of migrants in his the melancholy which has encompassed Kashtanka through the character of a dog them. “Left alone, Auntie lay down on her with the same name. Kashtanka as a diasporic little mattress and began to feel sad” subject vacillates between her original (Chekhov, 1887, p. 9) and let her imagination homeland and her new house like a pendulum embrace her. and consequently makes a world in her …then vague figures, half dogs, half human imagination which reminds her of her origin. beings, with countenances attractive, pleasant, As a result, the concept of home, which is but incomprehensible, would appear in her defined by warmness and security, is never imagination; when they came Auntie wagged achievable for her. And at the end of the her tail, and it seemed to her that she had story, she cannot tolerate this situation somewhere, at some time, seen them and anymore and grasps the opportunity of going loved them. (Chekhov, 1887, p. 9). People living in diaspora cannot back to her original home when her name is acknowledge the new lands as their perpetual called by the master and his son. Hence, in homes, even though the life conditions are this study, our focus was to discover the good there. It is obvious that home is where consequent result of vacillating between two one’s heart is. In this case, they feel unhomed worlds, the original homeland and the new and want to return to their origins. As home, and the resultant feelings of Kashtanka left everything and went to her "unhomeliness" caused in such a bewildering real master as soon as she heard his voice and confusing situation. calling her, and then she accounted all her life experience in the estranger’s house as an About the Authors Faeze Rezazade is currently a M.A student of “oppressive dream” (Chekhov, 1887, p. 18). English literature in Vali-e-Asr University. She 3. Conclusion got her B.A in English Literature from Vali-e-Asr Unhomeliness and hybridity are two University. concepts of postcolonial studies which are International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 03 Issue: 03 July-September, 2015 Page | 141

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies ISSN:2308-5460 Volume: 03 Issue: 03 July-September, 2015

Esmaeil Zohdi got his PhD from Calcutta (Eds), Dangerous Liaisons: Genclel: lIation, & University in 2000. He is a faculty member of postcolonial perspectives. Minneapolis: Vali-e-Asr University since 2000. He is an University of Minnesota Press. assistant professor of English Literature Bhat, Altaf Ahmad, and Mir, Shabir Ahmad. majoring in political fiction. Moreover, he has (2014). “An Appraisal of ‘home’ as a been a member of Psyart Foundation from 2008 Psychological space in Interpreter of Maladies”. until now. He has translated two books from Lapis Lazuli: An International Literary Journal English to Persian, one related to Psyart (LLILJ). Foundation and one related to writing academic Brah, Avtar. (1996). “Cartographies of papers. He has also published a good number of Diaspora: Contesting Identities”. Oxford. articles on a variety of subjects such as poetry, Routledge. Print. novel and comparative literature. He is presently Chekhov, Anton. (1887). “Kashtanka”. more involved in a number of projects http://www.online- concerning film studies as well as comparative literature.com/anton_chekhov/1245/ literature. Clifford, James. (1994). “Further Inflections: Mohammad Hussein Oroskhan is currently a Toward Ethnographies of the Future.” Cultural M.A student of English literature in Vali-e-Asr Anthropology 9. Print. University. He got his B.A in English Literature Cohen, Robin. (1997). “Global Diasporas: An from Yazd University. His main field is film Introduction”. UCL Press. studies and comparative literature. Until now, he Elmo raj, P. Prayer. (2014). “The Concept of has written several articles on these subjects. Home in Diaspora”. Lapis Lazuli: An International Literary Journal (LLILJ). P. 88- 90. References: McLeod, John. (2000). “Beginning Ashcroft, Bill et al. Ed. (1995). “The Post Postcolonialism”. Manchester University Press. colonial studies reader”. London: Routledge. P. 206- 217. Print. Roy, Basudhara. (2014). “Blending Worlds: Bhabha, Homi K. (1991). “The Third Space”: Mapping Home and Belonging in the Short Interview with Homi K. Bhabha.‖ Interview by Fiction of Chitta Banerjee Divakaruni”. Lapis Jonathan Rutherford. Identity: Community, Lazuli: An International Literary Journal Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & (LLILJ). Wishart. Print. Safran, William. (1991). “Diasporas in Modern Bhabha, Homi. K. (1994). “The Location of Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return”. Culture”. London and New York: Routledge. Diaspora 1.1. Print. Bhabha, Homi K. (1997). “The World and the Tyson, Lois. (2006). “Critical Theory Today: A Home”. In A. McClintock, A. Mufti & E. Shohat User Friendly Guide”. New York: Routledge.