Tuberculosis - A Dreadful Disease Of The Victorian Era

There is a dread disease. . .which medicine never cured, wealth never warded off or poverty could boast exemption from; which sometimes moves in giant strides and sometimes at a tardy sluggish pace, but, slow or quick, is ever sure and certain.” (Dormandy 92). That quote could apply to a plethora of illnesses that exist now or have existed over the course of history. However, the scourge that is referred to is the disease formerly known as 'consumption' and now called by its medical name: Tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was rampant during the Victorian era in both America and large parts of Europe, and still runs roughshod over many countries today. In fact, "the magnitude of the global TB problem is enormous" with a projected 11.9 million cases worldwide by the year 2005 (Frequently Asked, 6). During the late nineteenth century, Tuberculosis was a disease considered almost chic by many members of the upper class of society. Writers, actors, people who wanted to make impressions on others, often dressed in a manner befitting that of a consumption addled patient. "Young men of fashion had developed or professed to have developed a passion for pale young women apparently dying of consumption" (Dormandy 91).

This obsession with the disease also manifested itself in the lives of artists and writers from the Victorian era. One such man who became afflicted with the dread disease but did not react in quite the traditional 'romantic' way was Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Chekhov was diagnosed with the disease in 1897 at the age of thirty-seven but knew that he was sick long before any doctor told him so (Koteliansky 16). After all, Chekhov was himself a practicing Russian physician before turning full time to the world of writing fiction and plays. Chekhov might actually lend some credit to the idea that one was burning from passion when afflicted with the disease as he wrote the four plays he is most famous, and most heralded for, at the end of his life as he was withering away from the disease. However, Chekhov did not go the same route as other 'inspired' poets and authors who shared his consumptive affliction, and rarely mentioned his own disease. He speaks of it as if he were relaying particularly boring details regarding the weather or pesky neighbors. This avoidance of the disease's name in his letters to loved ones is mirrored extensively in his fiction and plays. In his last four plays, written after he was formally diagnosed with Tuberculosis, Chekhov does not once mention the disease by name, though several of his characters are suffering from illnesses that look profoundly like Tuberculosis.

Thomas Dormandy would argue that Chekhov did not name the disease in these plays simply because "The tuberculous in real life rarely referred to their illness to outsiders, hardly ever by name"(189). While this certainly may hold a grain of truth, it is of this researcher's opinion that there is more to Chekhov's omission than that. Anton Chekhov neglected to name 'Tuberculosis' as the disease in his final four plays not because Tuberculosis infected patients rarely spoke of their infection, but rather, because it would have undermined his ideals and goals as an author. On the top of Chekhov's list of things not to do in literature, being obvious was the king. His stories and his plays often feature a surprise ending that the reader was not expecting. This usually happens because Chekhov has refused to lead them by hand over the course of the narrative, explaining everything to them as they progressed. In addition to this, his characters are often suffering, not physically, but mentally.

Thomas Winner, referring to three of Chekhov's late stories writes, "The chief protagonists of the stories are constrained by a shell, a mental "six feet of soil," which prevents each from living a full satisfactory life"(192). Creating mental or emotional conflicts for his characters instead of obvious physical confrontation lent the reader even more space to draw individual conclusions in Chekhov's fiction. To simply state that a character was dying of Tuberculosis or had already died would have immediately attached emotional connotations to that character for the reader. Instead, Chekhov leaves the scourge that is affecting a character unnamed so that the reader may draw whatever conclusion he or she likes. To Chekhov, perhaps the character is suffering from the consumption that rattled his own chest but to a given reader the possibilities become endless.

Anton Chekhov as an author and playwright did not aim to explain everything for his readers. He did not sit down with pen and paper to tell them every single detail of every character's life. Through his plays and writings, it is possible to infer that Chekhov felt his audience would take more out of a work if they were forced to make the interpretations instead of him. He molded his characters realistically and spared them the melodrama created by foisting a pre-fabricated illness or disability upon them. This realism that comes about as a result of Chekhov's desire to create realistic barriers and antagonists for his fictitious characters is a second aim in his writing. Chekhov, while maybe not fitting the 'book definition' of the word, was a realist. In everything he wrote, Anton Chekhov attempted to portray his characters, their lives, and their emotional reactions to the things that occur within their lives as realistically as possible.

Looking specifically at Chekhov's play “The Bear, the reader learns that the husband died 7 months, leading to the wife living in despair and mourning. While the author did not come right out and name Tuberculosis, he was centering his work around it nonetheless, as it would be nearly impossible not to for a man who was being consumed by the disease himself. Naming Tuberculosis as a disease in Chekhov's last four plays could have had strong ramifications. Readers of the work would have been in jeopardy of assuming that Chekhov was attaching a statement regarding TB or the tuberculous patients to his plays. Instead, Chekhov creates four studies of moods, studies of human reaction to adversity in which the reader is left to draw conclusions, agree with, or disagree with the author as they see fit.

Anton Chekhov had many identities throughout his life. He was first a Doctor, then a Writer, then a patient suffering with Tuberculosis, an exile as a result of his disease, an acclaimed Russian playwright whose dramas could be seen throughout the country, but Chekhov inserted none of this grandeur into his fiction. Instead of being obvious about a message and holding his reader's hand as he guided them through concepts and ideas, statements and meanings, Anton Chekhov shrugged off stereotypes and created studies of humanity and human emotions with his stories and dramas. Chekhov himself did not like to draw conclusions, but when reflecting upon his body of work, it is possible to say this: Anton Chekhov's fiction, while rooted very much in his own life and times, becomes timeless because of his ability to transcend the predetermined and write fiction that acts as a study of humankind. He did not compromise his art by inserting easily misinterpreted meanings into his writing, but rather, let the reader use his work as a vehicle for original thought and reflection.