The Proposal: Class 10 First Flight · Chapter 9

9.1 Before you read

Picture two farming families in a Punjab village whose fields share a boundary. Their children grew up together, and now one family arrives with a proposal of marriage. Everyone expects tea, sweets and smiles. But what if, halfway through the visit, someone mentions a strip of land that both families believe they own? Anton Chekhov built a whole play on that question, and the answer is hilarious.

• Vykup, the ‘ransom’. The groom has to win his way to the bride. Her friends block his path with puzzles and silly tasks, and every wrong answer costs him a ‘fine’.
• Signing the register. A marriage becomes legal when the couple signs at a government registry office, often called ZAGS.
• A photo tour. After the signing, the couple and their friends drive around the city to pose at famous monuments and bridges.
• Toasts and gorko! At the reception, guests shout gorko (‘bitter’), and the couple must kiss to make the drink ‘sweet’ again.
• Pranks. Friends may ‘kidnap’ the bride or hide one of her shoes, and the groom pays to get them back.

Several of these will sound familiar. In many North Indian weddings, the baraat arrives with music and the bride's sisters block the door until the groom ‘pays’. During joota chupai they hide his shoes and bargain hard before returning them. Other customs are our own, such as the seven rounds of the sacred fire, mehendi and the exchange of garlands.

About the play. The Proposal, first called A Marriage Proposal, is a one-act comedy that Chekhov wrote in 1888–89. It is a farce. Its target is a habit of the Russian landowning class: choosing a husband or wife much as one might buy the field next door. As you read, watch for three things: how little anyone says about love, how quickly tempers flare over nothing, and how self-interest keeps pulling the couple back together.

9.2 The play and its people

A one-act play tells its whole story in a single act, usually in one place and without jumps in time. The Proposal never leaves one room: the drawing-room of Chubukov's country house in rural Russia, in the late nineteenth century. Its people belong to the landowning gentry, whose wealth and pride came from their estates. Russia had freed its serfs in 1861, but these landowners still measure a family's worth in fields, woods and meadows. That is why a narrow strip of grass can start a war.

Reading Russian names. The long names confuse many readers, but they follow a pattern. A Russian has a first name, a patronymic made from the father's first name, and a surname. Chubukov is Stepan Stepanovitch: Stepan, son of Stepan. His daughter is Natalya Stepanovna: Natalya, daughter of Stepan. Lomov is Ivan Vassilevitch: Ivan, son of Vassili. Polite speakers use the first name and patronymic together, which is why Lomov keeps saying ‘Natalya Stepanovna’. It works a little like Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar's middle name, which is his father's name.

How to read a play. A play is written to be performed, so the text is mostly dialogue. The name before each speech tells you who is talking. Words in square brackets are stage directions: notes for actors about actions, tone and movement, such as gulping water or clutching the heart. Watch for the word aside. An aside is a remark that the audience hears but the other characters on stage do not. Chekhov uses one in the very first minutes, when Chubukov privately guesses why Lomov has come.

Out loud, Chubukov is all honey: my angel, my treasure. Under his breath, he is a careful old miser. That single aside tells us more about him than all his sweet words, and it sets up the first question in the textbook's exercises.

9.3 The story, scene by scene

The play is one continuous act, but it falls naturally into five movements. Two of them are quarrels, and the second quarrel is even louder than the first. Fig. 9.4 tracks the temperature in the room, from the first nervous greeting to the final shouting match. Read each part below with the play open in your NCERT book.

9.3.1 The visitor in evening dress

What happens. Lomov turns up in formal evening clothes and white gloves, far too smart for a neighbour's visit. Chubukov greets him with a stream of pet names and teases him about the outfit. Lomov is a bundle of nerves: he gulps water, muddles his host's name and circles round his request. Chubukov privately decides that the young man wants a loan. When Lomov at last asks to marry Natalya, the old man's mood leaps from suspicion to delight. He hugs Lomov, sheds a tear, claims he has wished for this for years, promises that Natalya is in love, and hurries off to call her.

Alone on stage. Lomov's speech to himself is a window into his mind. He is as jittery as a student outside an exam hall. His logic is upside down: thinking is dangerous, so he must decide fast, before any doubts about ideals or true love can stop him. Natalya's plus points, in his list, are practical ones: she runs a house well, her looks will do, and she has had an education. Then come his real reasons. He is thirty-five, and a man with his nerves needs a calm, orderly life. He lists his complaints: a racing heart, twitching lips and eyebrow, and nights ruined by sudden ‘pulls’ in his side.

9.3.2 The first quarrel: Oxen Meadows

What happens. Natalya walks in wearing her apron; her father has told her only that a merchant has called for some goods. She chats about the weather, the hay and the farm, and wonders why Lomov is so dressed up. He begins a long, formal speech about the friendship between their families over the generations. His land, inherited from his aunt, lies right next to theirs, where his Oxen Meadows meet her birchwoods. That is as far as he gets. Natalya cuts in: the Meadows are not his, they belong to the Chubukovs.

The two claims. Lomov's version is a tangled family history. Long ago, his aunt's grandmother let the peasants of Natalya's great-grandfather use the Meadows free of charge, in return for making bricks. After forty years of use, those peasants began to treat the land as their own. Natalya refuses to follow all these aunts and grandfathers. Her family has always believed that its land runs right up to the Burnt Marsh, and for her that settles it. Fig. 9.5 shows the strip they are fighting over.

How it gets worse. Natalya admits that the Meadows are small and worth very little; what she cannot bear, she says, is unfairness. Lomov offers to give her the land as a present, which insults her even more: how dare he gift her what is already hers? She reminds him that her family once lent him its threshing-machine. He is outraged at being called a land-grabber. She threatens to send her mowers to the Meadows that very day, and he threatens to deal with them. Soon the conversation shrinks to two words shouted back and forth: ‘Mine!’ ‘Ours!’

Chubukov comes in to calm things down and instead joins in on his daughter's side. He even declares that the peasants would get the Meadows before Lomov ever did. The two men trade threats of a court case, then insults about each other's families. Out come an ancestor accused of fraud, madness in the family, a drunken grandfather, an aunt who eloped and a mother with a hunched back. Lomov's heart pounds, his foot goes numb, and he staggers out of the house. Father and daughter go on calling him names after he has gone.

9.3.3 ‘A proposal?’

The turn. Still fuming, Chubukov lets slip why Lomov had dressed up: he had come to propose. Natalya's anger collapses in a second. She drops into a chair, wails and demands that Lomov be brought back at once. Her flustered father makes wild threats against himself and runs to fetch him. Back in the room, he blames her for driving the suitor away, and she blames him right back. This is the play's big reversal: the land that mattered so much a minute ago now matters less than a husband.

When the exhausted Lomov returns, Natalya is all sweetness. She apologises and agrees that the Meadows really are his. Lomov, still holding his chest, explains that he argued only ‘on principle’ and starts to repeat his evidence. She waves that away and, in an aside, wonders how to steer him back to the proposal. To change the subject, she asks him about the hunting season.

9.3.4 The second quarrel: Guess and Squeezer

What happens. Lomov mentions that he means to go shooting after the harvest, and that his best hunting dog, Guess, has gone lame. That innocent remark starts round two. Natalya thinks he paid far too much for Guess; Lomov thinks the dog was a bargain. She declares that her family's dog, Squeezer, is far better. Lomov laughs: Squeezer is overshot, with a lower jaw shorter than the upper, and such a dog cannot grip its prey. Natalya replies that Squeezer has a fine pedigree, while Guess is old and ugly. Lomov sneers that dogs like Squeezer are two a penny.

Lomov's heart starts to protest again, but Natalya refuses to back down. When Chubukov comes in, he takes Squeezer's side too, though more slyly. He admits the dog may be overshot, but insists it is the best in the district, and finds two faults with Guess. Lomov recalls a hunt in which Guess kept pace with a count's dog while Squeezer fell far behind. Chubukov blames a servant's whip, and Lomov blames Squeezer for chasing a sheep instead of the fox. Father and daughter mock his weak heart and laugh at him as a hunter who can hardly stay on a horse, and the insults turn personal once more. Lomov collapses into an armchair, and Natalya screams that he is dead.

9.3.5 Engaged, and still arguing

What happens. Chubukov panics, calls for water and a doctor, and moans melodramatically about his own fate. Then Lomov stirs. Seizing his chance, Chubukov places Lomov's hand in Natalya's, announces that she accepts, gives his blessing and begs to be left in peace. Lomov, still dazed, takes a moment to understand what has happened. Then he declares that he is happy, and so does Natalya.

The peace lasts a few seconds. Natalya asks him to admit that Squeezer is the better dog. He refuses, and the old argument flares up again. As the curtain falls, Chubukov is calling for champagne at the top of his voice, trying to drown out the couple's shouting. It is a perfect comic ending: the marriage is settled, but nothing else is.

9.4 Characters, themes and humour

Chekhov's three characters are exaggerated on purpose, yet each is recognisable: we all know someone who cannot let an argument go. Use the compare block for character sketches, and remember that every trait needs a piece of evidence from the play.

Lomov wants marriage to cure his nerves, not to find love. He is a hypochondriac, always reporting palpitations, numb feet and twitching eyebrows, yet every few minutes he starts or prolongs a quarrel that makes them worse. He is prickly about his honour, insisting that he argues only ‘on principle’ and that the Lomovs are honest people.

Natalya is no shy bride. She manages the farm work, talks confidently about hay and mowers, and gives as good as she gets. The moment she learns about the proposal, however, she drops her claim to the Meadows. Her quick change shows that a good marriage outranks land for her. Her final demand about the dogs shows that her pride has not changed at all.

Chubukov calls Lomov my angel in one breath and a pettifogger in the next. His aside shows he was ready to refuse Lomov a loan, and his joy at the proposal is really joy at landing a rich son-in-law next door. He is quick-tempered, insulting and theatrical, yet he is the one who rushes the engagement through.

9.4.1 Themes and message

• Marriage as a property deal. Nobody in the play talks about love. The match makes sense because it joins two neighbouring estates. Chekhov laughs at a class that treated marriage as business.
• Quarrelling over trifles. A meadow worth little and a dog's jaw nearly wreck the proposal. Pride, not the issue itself, drives every fight.
• Hypocrisy. Sweet words hide selfish motives. Chubukov's fatherly affection and Natalya's sudden agreement change with their interests.
• Anger and health. Lomov's temper and his body are linked: each outburst brings on palpitations and numbness, until he collapses.
• Human nature does not change easily. The ending suggests the couple will quarrel all their married lives.

The message. Pride and greed make people ridiculous. A marriage built on property and ego, with no patience or respect, promises a stormy future. Chekhov makes this point through laughter, not a lecture.

9.4.2 What makes it a farce

Two of these terms often appear in board questions. Dramatic irony is the gap between what we know and what a character knows; it makes Natalya's furious defence of the Meadows even funnier. An anticlimax is a let-down after a build-up: the long-awaited engagement is followed, within seconds, by a squabble about dogs.

9.4.3 Thinking about the play

Is Chubukov sincere? His first thought, in his aside, is that Lomov wants money and must be refused. Minutes later he gushes that he has always loved Lomov ‘as if you were my own son’. The speed of the change gives him away. Once the quarrel starts, he insults Lomov and his whole family, and after the engagement he simply wants to be left in peace. His warmth lasts only as long as Lomov is useful: a rich neighbour who will marry his daughter.

Is Natalya ‘like a lovesick cat’, as her father claims? Not in the way he means. Before she knows why Lomov came, she fights him fiercely, and nothing suggests she is pining for him. Yet the moment she hears the word proposal, she becomes desperate to get him back and gives up the Meadows. That shows she wants to be married, perhaps for security and status, more than she loves Lomov. You can argue either way, as long as you use this evidence.

For the textbook's last question, imagine the next quarrel. Good guesses come from the characters' obsessions: where the couple will live, what the wedding should cost, or which family's horses are better. Chekhov's point is that the subject hardly matters; the pride behind it is what fuels the fight.

9.5 Thinking about language

The Proposal was written in Russian and reaches us in an English translation. The language work asks you to notice how translated speech sounds, how English words are stressed, and how three everyday phrases from the play are used.

9.5.1 Translated and old-fashioned expressions

Some lines sound odd in English because they keep Russian habits. In Chekhov's Russia, an older man could call a younger one my angel or my precious as warm, rather fussy politeness. No English speaker would greet a grown man like that today. Other phrases are simply old-fashioned English chosen by the translator, while a few lines are as blunt as anything you might hear now.

Look for the modern-sounding lines too. When Chubukov tells Lomov to stop going round in circles and spit it out, or when the characters yell ‘Shut up!’, the English is as current as any film dialogue. The mix of old and new gives the translation its slightly comic, slightly foreign flavour.

9.5.2 Syllables and word stress

A syllable is a beat of sound with one vowel sound at its centre: peas has one, mea-dows has two, ar-gu-ment has three. In an English word of two or more syllables, one syllable carries word stress: it is said a little louder, longer and higher. Dictionaries mark it with a small raised stroke (ˈ) before the stressed syllable. Stress in the wrong place can make a word hard to recognise.

The table groups the words by pattern: the first eight are stressed on the first syllable, the next six on the second, and the last two on the third. Notice that principle sounds exactly like principal, and that the -ate- sound in palpitations gets the stress, as in education and examination.

9.5.3 Three useful phrases

• You may take it that… means ‘you can be sure that’ or ‘accept this as a fact’. You may take it that the results will be out by Friday; the notice is already on the board.
• (He) seems to be coming round means ‘he appears to be waking up after fainting’. The goalkeeper was knocked out by the ball, but after a splash of water he seems to be coming round. (Come round can also mean ‘change your opinion’ or ‘visit someone’s home’.)
• My foot's gone to sleep means ‘my foot has gone numb’, usually with a prickly feeling of pins and needles, after sitting still too long. After the long puja on the floor, my foot had gone to sleep and I hobbled to the door.

9.6 Reported speech

When we repeat someone's exact words inside quotation marks, we use direct speech. When we pass on the message in our own sentence, without quotation marks, we use reported speech, also called indirect speech. A reported sentence has two parts: the reporting clause, which contains a reporting verb such as said, asked or told, and the reported clause, which carries the message.

• Direct: Arjun said, “I am packing my bag now.”
• Reported: Arjun said that he was packing his bag then.

Because we report the words later, from a different point of view, several things shift. Fig. 9.9 shows the main changes one at a time.

• Statements: use said or told (+ the listener) and often that: Riya told me that she had won.
• Yes/no questions: use asked + if or whether, with ordinary word order: “Are you coming?” → He asked if I was coming.
• Wh- questions: keep the question word and use statement order, with no question mark: “Where do you live?” → She asked where I lived.
• Commands and requests: use told, ordered or requested + to: “Please sit down.” → He requested me to sit down.
• Exclamations and strong statements: pick a verb that shows the feeling, such as exclaimed, declared, insisted or shouted.
• Tone: if the speaker shows respect (‘Sir’, ‘honoured…’) or emotion, add an adverb: asked respectfully, said angrily.
• No backshift when the reporting verb is in the present (She says she is tired) or the statement is always true (The teacher said that the Earth goes round the Sun).

The textbook asks you to complete a list of rules from its examples. Here are the answers in short:

• A question is reported with asked; a statement with said.
• Here becomes there.
• A present-tense verb moves into the past tense.
• The present continuous becomes the past continuous: am getting becomes was getting.
• A respectful form of address becomes the adverb respectfully in the reporting clause.
• First-person pronouns change to he, she, him, her, his or their, whichever fits the speaker.

9.7 Speaking and writing

9.7.1 Speaking: managing anger

Task. In a group, discuss anger: three harmful effects, ways to keep your temper, and whether anger ever does any good. The play is a perfect case study: anger nearly wrecks a marriage proposal and almost kills Lomov.

9.7.2 Writing: a play script

Task. In pairs, turn a short prose passage into a scene of about five exchanges, adding stage directions for movement and tone. The textbook's passage comes from Rabindranath Tagore's novel The Home and the World. In it, a wife urges her husband, a landowner, to clear foreign goods out of the market he owns, and he refuses to force the traders.

9.7.3 Discussion: qualities in a life partner

Task. In groups, discuss what qualities matter most in a marriage partner: personal qualities, values, and education or work. Lomov chose Natalya with a checklist about housekeeping and land; your group can do better.

9.7.4 Talking about films: the quarrelling couple

Task. Do parts of the play remind you of romantic comedies? A favourite film pattern is the couple who quarrel every time they meet and still end up together. The pattern is old: in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice and Benedick trade insults in a ‘merry war’ of words before admitting their love. When you retell a film scene to the class, say who the characters are, what sparks the quarrel, how it grows and how it ends. Then compare it with Lomov and Natalya: is the film couple in love, or, like Chekhov's pair, simply stubborn?

9.8 Homographs, and a guessing game

The textbook ends with a box on words that look alike but differ in sound or meaning. Words that sound the same but are spelt differently are homophones (peace, piece). Words that are spelt the same but differ in meaning, and sometimes in sound, are homographs. Many two-syllable homographs change their stress: as a noun or adjective, the first syllable is stressed; as a verb, the second.

• close: with an /s/ sound it means ‘near’ (a close friend); with a /z/ sound it means ‘shut’ (close the gate).
• minute: MIN-ute is sixty seconds; my-NUTE means very tiny.
• tear: a tear (rhymes with ear) falls from the eye; to tear (rhymes with air) paper is to rip it.
• lead: to lead (rhymes with need) a team; lead (rhymes with bed) is a heavy metal.
• wind: the wind (short i) blows; you wind (rhymes with kind) a watch or a rope.

9.9 Revision and board practice

Character sketches are easiest to write, and to mark, when every trait follows the same four moves. Fig. 9.12 shows them with one of Lomov's traits; repeat the moves for two or three traits and end with a one-line conclusion.