The Looking Glass - Close Reading

In Anton Chekhov’s “The Looking Glass,” the main character Nellie is described as pale, young, and pretty. As most stories center around one or two specific characters, it seems as though instead of having “minor characters” in the short story, the rest of the characters in “The Looking Glass” seem to be more background characters than minor. Throughout the story, there are only two characters who were given names, Nellie and Dr. Stepan Lukitch, while the other characters are simply referred to as “Nellie’s husband” or “Nellie’s kids.” Even as Nellie goes to Stepan Lukitch’s house to try and get him to come check on her husband, she still manages to make the whole scenario about herself and her feelings, by saying things like “help me” instead of help him, or trying to guilt trip him into helping her by saying “a man is bound to sacrifice his life for his neighbour.” Towards the end of the story, Nellie becomes concerned with how her husband's death would affect her instead of being concerned for his health and the fact that he was on the verge of death, as she also didn’t seem too affected by the fact one of her children was “sure to die.” If in the beginning of the story, Nellie is said to have been “dreaming day and night of being married,” why wasn’t she concerned about her husband’s well being, and was instead only concentrating on how she was going to benefit from the relationship. Only after Stepan Lukitch is revealed to be as “delirious as her husband,” does Nellie finally agree to go to the other doctor as she was instructed to go earlier in the story. This just shows that Nellie is really only concerned with herself and not the actual health status of her husband, as she had previously ignored Stepan Lukitch as he had tried to tell her multiple times that he, himself, was not feeling healthy and that she needed to go to the Zemstovo doctor instead.

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