Blog Question #3

I chose Anton Chekhov's "Misery" for a setting discussion.

This story is set in a time when horse-drawn carriages (or sledges) were vehicles to convey passengers--probably late 1800's.  Since Chekhov died in 1904, this would be a time he'd be very familiar with.  The time of day is the "twilight of evening."

The scene is an urban city in Russia.  It's one "full of monstrous lights, of unceasing uproar and hurrying people."  Large snowflakes "are whirling lazily about street lamps...and lying in a thin soft layer on roofs, horses' backs, shoulders, caps."  It makes Iona looks "all white like a ghost."  There is much traffic and pedestrians on the road.  At one point, "A coachman driving a carriage swears at him, a pedestrian crossing the road and brushing the horse's nose with his shoulder looks at him angrily..." because Iona is having trouble negotiating the streets with so much traffic and heavy snow falling.