The Looking Glass and New Years Eve


The Looking Glass by Anton Chekhov was very interesting and had many noteworthy parts. I want to focus on the time of it and how it was dated as New Years Eve.  New Years Eve is often a time for reflection and a time to look in on ourselves. People take the time to do this to see what we can be doing better or at least different than what we are doing now. This time of reflection often leads us to change for the future. We can change little things and large things. I think this connects well into the story because of how Nellie is looking at herself in the mirror, also know as her reflection. She then has this vision where she is looking in at herself and her wants and desires for the future. She looks and watches where her current wants and desires will lead her. After watching her “husband” die she realizes that being a devoted wife is not what she truly wants from life. Her wants and needs are not what they once were and she changes them so they are not set up solely for a man to bring her happiness. Her resolution for the new year, and for her new life.  Similarly New Years Eve marks the end of one time and the beginning of another. She exits her time of wishing, wanting, and waiting for a man to solve all of her problems and enters a totally new time in her life. She has realized that a man will not bring her the undying happiness that she once thought he would. She sighed with relief when she found out that the vision was over and she was unmarried and alone. I think her reflection and change is very similar to those the reflection and change that is represented in New Years Eve.

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