My Life (Annotated)

Anton Chekhov's My Life (1896) is a searching novella of provincial Russia, narrated by Misail Poloznev, a young gentleman who rejects bureaucratic respectability to become a house-painter and laborer. Through his defiance of class expectations, Chekhov examines work, conscience, marriage, philanthropy, and the moral emptiness of social prestige. Written in his characteristic style of lucid restra...