A Drama : A Marriage Proposal -- Anton Chekhov

               “A Marriage Proposal” -- Anton Chekhov           

             In the short play “A Marriage Proposal,” Anton Chekhov. The play is set in the rural countryside of Russia during the late 1800s. Lomov, aged 35, is a long time neighbor of Chubukov. He is a landowner who has inherited property from his aunt. Though he is well fed and healthy, he is a health nut. He suffers from palpitations. He now knows that if he will search for an ideal woman or true love, he will never marry. So he is now desperate to marry Natalia. He thinks that she is not bad-looking and has some education. He wants to lead a steady and regular life. So, he visits the house of his neighbor Chubukov early morning dressed in formal suit.

      When Lomov arrives at the home of the Chubukov family, the elderly Chubukov assumes that the well-dressed young man has come to borrow money. Lomov asks him Natalia’s hand in marriage. Chubukov is also desperately looking for a suitable man for his 25-year-old daughter, Natalia. As a father of a grown-up daughter, he immediately gives joyful permission to marry Natalia.

       She is invited into the room. Lomov becomes nervous and instead of putting his proposal, he begins to beat about the bush. When he says that his Oxen Meadows touch her birch woods, she begins to argue with him about the ownership of that piece of land. After her father notices they are arguing, he joins in, and then sends Lomov out of the house. Chubukov then tells his daughter that Lomov was there to propose her.

      Natalia repents and asks her father to call him back. Lomov comes and she asks him about his hunting program. He says that he will start hunting after harvest because his best dog has gone lame. At this point, Natalia contradicts him again and claims that her dog Squeezer is better than his dog Guess. Thus the quarrel begins again till over-excitement makes Lomov faint in a chair. Seeing him quiet and unmoving, Natalia thinks that he is dead and becomes hysterical.

       At last Lomov comes into senses and Chubukov forces them to kiss each other and accept the marriage proposal. Immediately following the kiss, Natalia and Lomov start quarrelling. Chubukov shouts for Champagne because he wants to celebrate their marriage and at the same time he feels free by the burden of his grown-up daughter.