A letter as the communication mode: two Chekhov's short stories correspondence plots (the Letter and On Christmastide)

Purpose: A. P. Chekhov's poetics is generally constructed as a constellation of different and interrelated themes on mutual understanding problems. Human communication difficulties are an important part of these problems. The objective of the article is to analyze the communication act and channel between characters. The plot is the following: a person wishes to say something to his faraway adult children. Communication is hardly possible because of a medium person, who retranslates the initial intent in a wrong way and composes his own letter instead of the original. Thus, communication nearly fails. But contrary to irrelevant content of letters, it turns on to be probably (in The Letter) or actually (in On Christmastide) comprehensible to the receiver. The difference between two addressees of the letters is that it is unclear whether the deacon's son in the first short story receives the letter or not, while it is confirmed that the daughter of old peasant couple in the second story does receive it. Results: The peculiarity of these works stems from their genre genesis. They are defined as so-called calendar short stories in their Easter and Christmastide variants. Easter plot means an event of personal spiritual rebirth, and Christmastide plot is about family gathering together. So we investigate how the “epistolary” subject of a story interferes with the base calendar plot. Studying the 1st short story, we find out that the least becomes the wiser here. While archpriest Fyodor is teaching to the deacon's son in a letter, miserable pater Anastasy falls in doubt this is true way to improve a young man. Later on, he begs the deacon not to send the didactic letter, because the Lord teaches us to forgive a sinner. The paradox of the situation is that archpriest Fyodor is not able to forgive a person's trespasses, but the rural priest is. Easter context in the short story manifests itself in a wish for revival for every character. At least, the deacon adds a few words in a PS to an official letter composed by pater Fyodor, so the whole letter loses its actual message. Thus, communication between father and son (assuming the son receives the letter) can be admitted successful. In the 2nd short story, elderly parents try to explain that they miss their daughter Euphemia much, but the scriptor composes his own text instead. Euphemia, who lives in the distant St. Petersburg, is able to comprehend the main message of the letter. This character doesn't feel happy, and a massage from her parents overfills her with country sickness. She remembers winter in the village, sledging, white trees and various animals. Gradually, she is becoming enveloped in the mood of her childhood carelessness. Thus, the purpose of communication is attained - the sender and the receiver are involved in a dialogue and understand each other. Conclusion: To sum up, both short stories deal with problems of hearing and understanding. Inner feelings of correspondents covered over by ritual compliments, distorted by rewriters, could be revealed. Therefore, this type of contact is successful in both short stories.