Even if the banker doesn't like the lawyer, I believe that he respects the lawyer's intelligence and education base. I believe that much of the same could be said about the lawyer's attitude ...
Oct 02, 2016 · The lawyer in Anton Chekhov's story "The Bet" is forced to compensate for his confinement by trying to improve his mind through reading, thinking, and writing. He even teaches himself foreign ...
The Lawyer. Just 25 years old when he attends the banker’s party at the beginning of the story, the lawyer initially asserts that life-imprisonment is far preferable to capital punishment. He proves as reckless as the banker in agreeing to the bet and foolish in lengthening his sentence for the sake of some misplaced pride.
The lawyer doesn't seem to be one of those people, because he is willing to take the bet in the first place. He also remains there for the entire 15 years without human contact. He studies the ...
The lawyer in Anton Chekhov 's story " The Bet " is forced to compensate for his confinement by trying to improve his mind through reading, thinking, and writing. He even teaches himself foreign languages. As a result he changes dramatically from being just another professional man motivated by greed and vanity into a sort of holy man who despises material things. Initially the lawyer only had potential. The intelligent reader can’t help thinking that he would do the same thing himself if he had to spend fifteen years in solitary confinement. Naturally he would do a lot of reading, and naturally this would improve his mind and change his character—providing he chose good books. It is reading that changes all of us. If we read great writers we acquire some of their greatness. That would seem to be the main reason for reading the works of writers like Plato and Aristotle. “The Bet” proves that if a person achieved the highest human wisdom he wouldn’t care about money or material things at all. He would be like Buddha or Jesus or Gandhi or Socrates, all of whom owned nothing and wanted nothing.
If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, but kills the owner.
The banker further goads the lawyer over dinner, telling him to back out before it is too late. He points out... (full context)
The banker notes that the lawyer is so emaciated by the end of his sentence that he is hard to look at, prematurely aged, and appears ill. This outward appearance contrasts with the lawyer’s own belief that he has bettered himself.
Part 2. It is fifteen years later and the eve of the lawyer ’s release. The banker is distraught because he cannot afford to pay the two million rubles. ... (full context) The old banker fears that the lawyer will, having won the bet, become wealthy, marry, and enjoy life the same way he... (full context)
In the second year, the lawyer stops playing piano and starts reading classic books. By the fifth year, he is playing... (full context)
The Lawyer Character Analysis. The Lawyer. Just 25 years old when he attends the banker’s party at the beginning of the story, the lawyer initially asserts that life-imprisonment is far preferable to capital punishment.
All the wisdom from the books, writes the lawyer, is condensed into a little lump in his skull. He has become cleverer than almost... (full context) The lawyer has come to hold people who appreciate earthly things in contempt, and as such he... (full context) The banker has begun to cry.
The lawyer doesn't seem to be one of those people, because he is willing to take the bet in the first place. He also remains there for the entire 15 years without human contact. He studies the human society that he's left and only finds flaws in it. In the end, he decides that he doesn't want the money and flees their society. Maybe this reflects a mental disorder that he's developed from being in isolation for so long, or maybe he truly has developed an utter distaste for the human society he was so quick to leave in the first place.
He's has an intellectual mind. Instead of napping his 15 years away, the lawyer absorbs languages, religion, philosophy, and more and deeply processes his own thoughts about all he reads. Not everyone has this capability. Regardless of the decision he ultimately arrives at, his ability to understand this many topics (self-teaching himself six languages and with perfect fluency alone is quite a feat) and to develop his own perspectives on them without any tutors or training reflects an intelligent mind.
Since " The Bet " is told from a third-person, limited point-of-view, we never fully understand the thoughts of the lawyer. And that is likely intentional, since his actions from within confinement seem to bewilder those around him over the span of 15 years. Here's what we do know:
However here we see that he hides the letter because he is ashamed. Also, preserving the letter makes it even worse as it suggests that he wants to keep it for evidence, because he does not trust the lawyer's declaration to give up the money that he could have earned . This demonstrates that the banker, in sharp contrast to the lawyer, has not evolved beyond his greed and self-interest.
When the bet is due to be finished, the watchmen rush in and tell the banker that the lawyer has been seen leaving the lodge leave and disappear. We are told the following:
In Chekhov's " The Bet ," the banker and the lawyer both learn the futility of their wager, as they have found that life and its conditions differ greatly from their more youthful perceptions. The lawyer learns that his sweeping statement that life on any terms is better than death is not true. In his isolation, he finds ...
The banker having gone into debt over the years seems to have become a slave to money. He was willing to commit murder to save himself from having to pay the money. The banker has lost his connection with humanity over the course of the bet, now only placing value on money.
The banker has lost much of his arrogance because his financial state finds his pride greatly diminished from that of fifteen years ago when he made the bet. Now, having secretly read the lawyer's letter, he realizes the arrogance of his wager as well as the selfish cruelty of his plan to murder the lawyer in order to save himself ...
Like the everyday people that the lawyer grows to despise, the banker is ruled by his need to maintain his wealth no matter the cost. He decides to kill the lawyer the night before the bet is completed because he fears that the lawyer will become rich and successful with his money while he himself becomes a beggar. Upon finding the lawyer’s note and discovering what he has been through physically and psychologically, however, the banker is racked with guilt and self-hatred for making the bet in the first place. Nevertheless, he ultimately decides to protect himself from possible retribution on the part of the lawyer by hiding the letter in his safe. A complex character, the banker reveals both undesirable truths and redeemable realities of the human condition.
He decides to kill the lawyer the night before the bet is completed because he fears that the lawyer will become rich and successful with his money while he himself becomes a beggar.
The banker is distraught because he cannot afford to pay the two million rubles. At the time... (full context) The old banker fears that the lawyer will, having won the bet, become wealthy, marry, and enjoy life... (full context) ...the morning and everyone is asleep. The wind howls and it is pouring rain.
The average lawyer doesn’t have time to drive around in that fancy car or to take a luxurious vacation because he or she is working like crazy.
If you have ever had to study for and pass a bar exam, you’ll have a new found appreciation for lawyers (particularly the New York and California bar exams). It’s a tremendous task requiring intensive concentration, calmness under pressure and critical thinking. There probably are lawyers who have gotten where they are from the help of connections, but the majority of lawyers have had to work their way through the system with loans, hard work and mental marathon skills.
Yes, I know there are some loud mouth lawyer types out there who like to make themselves known. These are the ones that make all lawyers seem unbearably obnoxious. I promise we’re not all like that. If being argumentative is part of our day job, you can be assured, it’s the last thing we want to do in our free time. In fact, we’ve likely gotten all the fight out of us that we’ve cared to stomach. Once we get to our loved ones, we want peace, harmony and some good old-fashioned love.