At the beginning of the story, the young lawyer is bold, daring, determined and impulsive. Towards the end, he is a completely changed person. He has grown into a self-contented and calm middle aged man, who has no more desire for wealth or luxury.
Full Answer
In the end of the story, "The Bet," the lawyer despairs of life, and he reneges on the wager with banker. In their bet about which is crueler, live-long imprisonment or capital punishment, the banker and the lawyer wager their futures.
The lawyer in the story does indeed change over the course of his 15 years in "prison." When readers... Who are the characters in the short story "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov?
The lawyer writes this letter on the night before he is due to win the bet and win back his freedom. According to the lawyer, before he is free to enjoy his life again, there are a couple of points... What are the different types of irony and what they are in "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov?
The terms of the bet are that the lawyer must live in isolation for fifteen years. At the end of that time, if he fulfills his bet of having no human contact for this period, the banker will pay... In the story "The Bet," the lawyer looks terrible, much older than his forty years.
What is one way the lawyer has changed from the beginning of the story to the end? He has lost his wealth. He has learned how to do complex math equations. He does not change in the story.
In Anton Chekhov's short story “The Bet” a lawyer and a banker make a bet about which penalty is more humane. The lawyer says that life imprisonment is more humane. In saying this, the lawyer bets he can stayed locked up in a cell for 15 years without any human contact and it will show it's more humane.
Show activity on this post. In The Bet by Anton Chekhov, the lawyer voluntarily accepts to stay in prison for 15 years, instead of the original agreed upon 5 years.
Answer: The lawyer renounced the two million because in prison, he read a lot and reading of philosophical and religious books gave him wisdom. He realised the futility of money. It was as illusory and deceptive as mirage.
In the end of the story, " The Bet ," the lawyer despairs of life, and he reneges on the wager with banker.
From all his readings, the lawyer has learned the vanity of human desires; certainly, the desire for material gain corrupts the soul. The lawyer has spent the last fifteen years searching for meaning in life and not found it. Moreover, he feels life is beyond comprehension.
By the sixth year, the lawyer begins to study languages. He also reads the works of many of the great minds of the world, only to find that "the same flame burns in all of them.". Some years he reads, then others he does not. Then, in the last two years, he reads books of all kinds indiscriminately.
The young lawyer argues that life on any terms is better than death. In his hubris, the lawyer raises the bet that he can stay in isolation from five years to fifteen. And, so, the banker, who reminds his young foe that "voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than compulsory," arranges for the lawyer to dwell in a small lodging in ...
Fifteen years later, the banker realizes that he will be ruined if the lawyer collects on the bet. He decides to kill the lawyer. However, the mentally broken lawyer has lost his faith in humanity and gives up on the bet, walking out of his cell five minutes before his sentence ends.
It proves nothing. He remembers when it was decided that the lawyer would actually be imprisoned in one of the lodges in the banker's garden.
The banker is thrilled with the bet and has plenty of money to spend in such a frivolous way, but, over dinner, he tries to talk the lawyer out of it because the lawyer will lose years of his life. He also feels that submitting to voluntary imprisonment will be more difficult than mandatory imprisonment.
An idealistic lawyer and a prominent banker bet that the lawyer can't survive fifteen years in prison. His prize if he wins will be two million rubles. The lawyer is imprisoned in the banker's garden house. Fifteen years later, the banker realizes that he will be ruined if the lawyer collects on the bet. He decides to kill the lawyer.
To prove it, he says that he will renounce the money he once dreamed of because he now despises it too , and he says that he will leave his prison five hours early, so as to officially lose the bet. The banker weeps with relief, but he feels contempt for himself.
In the letter, the lawyer says that he has acquired great wisdom in these years and that he has learned to despise everything that others think is great about the world.
It was agreed that the lawyer could have books and wine and music but no human interaction, and he could pass notes out a small window, asking for whatever he wanted. From his notes, he seemed to have been very depressed during the first year, and he played the piano a lot. He read books of a "light character.".
The banker thought that the lawyer was asleep, dreaming about the 2 million dollars, and he only has to throw him on the bed, suffocate him a little with the pillow, and the most conscientious expert would find no sign of a violent death, but he should first read the letter on the table.
The lawyer sat immovably at the table and read nothing but the Gospel. Theological and histories of religion followed the Gospels. (Need theology and history of religion to understand the Gospel)
The lawyer suffered severely from loneliness and depression. The sounds of his piano could be heard continually day and night from his lodge. He refused wine and tobacco. He wrote that wine excites the desires, and desires are the worst foes of the prisoner; and besides, nothing could be dreamier than drinking good wine and seeing no one. The books he sent for were principally of a light character; novels with a complicated love plot, sensational and fantastic stories, and so on.
The lawyer read an immense quantity of books quite indiscriminately. At one time, he was busy with natural sciences, then he would ask for Byron or Shakespeare. There were notes in which we demanded at the same time chemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology.
Six hundred volumes; a letter stating that the lawyer wrote it in six different languages. The banker was to go to people who speak the languages. If he was right, a shot was to be fired in the garden.
the lawyer is being compared to the man struggling to find something to save himself. The pole is salvation and he is looking for that.
The Banker probably doesn't have any knowledge of the Gospels.