Grigory Stepanovich Smirnov

Reading notes

• The Bear §86 That's exactly why I've never loved

  The first note of what becomes an extended and increasingly excessive misogynistic tirade running through section 86, 91, 144, 146, 148, and 157 -- Smirnov's blanket claims that women's reasoning is inherently illogical, that all women (with the sardonic exception of "old women and monsters") are incapable of sincerity or constancy, and, at its ugliest, that a woman's inner nature is "the most ordinary crocodile" beneath a decorative surface. The tirade is a load-bearing comic device, not authorial editorializing: Chekhov stages it so that within minutes of finishing it, Smirnov is on his knees proposing marriage to the very woman he has just finished insulting, and the play's whole structure depends on the reader/audience recognizing the speech as blustering, immediately self-refuting bravado rather than the play's own verdict on women. Popova is given an equally extended counter-tirade (section 155) defending men's constancy using her own late husband as an ironic example -- Chekhov distributes the same rhetorical excess to both sides rather than only to Smirnov. Translated in full and without softening, since the humor and the character both depend on the speech's excess being visible rather than trimmed or euphemized.

• The Bear §146 the most ordinary crocodile

  The tirade's ugliest single image: Smirnov claims that any "poetic creature" of a woman, examined closely, reveals herself to be "the most ordinary crocodile" beneath her decorative surface -- i.e., calculating and reptilian rather than tender. Kept as a direct, unsoftened translation of "крокодил" per the general note at section 86: the line is characterization of Smirnov's blustering misogyny, not an editorial claim, and the play immediately begins undercutting it (his own "crocodile" speech is followed within pages by his falling in love).

• The Bear §216 Equal rights, then let it be equal rights

  Smirnov's sudden invocation of "emancipation" and "equal rights" (эмансипация, равноправность) to justify dueling a woman is a piece of situational comic logic rather than earnest political commentary -- he has spent the previous several pages denouncing women's demands for equality (see section 86 onward) and now cites the same idea opportunistically to justify treating Popova as a worthy duel opponent, a contradiction the audience is meant to register as further evidence of his bluster rather than a considered position.

• The Bear §268 I can put a bullet through a coin tossed in the air

  Part of Smirnov's rapid-fire marriage proposal, delivered while still holding the revolver from the aborted duel -- his listing of an income of ten thousand a year, fine horses, and marksmanship as credentials for marriage is played for the same comic excess as his earlier tirades and threats, underscoring that his change of heart is as impulsive and overstated as his fury was minutes before.