Analysis of Anton Chekov's "Sleepy”

In Chekhov's “Sleepy” (1888), a 13-year-old “little nurse” named Varka strangles to death the infant in her charge. The brutal and rather unexpected ending exemplifies Chekhov's approach to story writing—that is, as he once admitted in a letter, he “conduct[s] the entire action peacefully and quietly,” then “bashes the reader in the snout.” But what is most remarkable about this story is the suspension of conventional morality Chekhov demands and receives from his reader. In the space of five short pages, the reader is lulled along, much like the main character, by recurrent dream imagery. What results is a reader who finds herself defending the act of murder. (Holquist, 424)

The first of the dream images, a lamp's green reflection, appears and reappears to draw Varka into sleep. The lamp makes its first appearance to set the scene: “When the lamp begins to flicker, the green patch and the shadows come to life, and are set in motion, as though by the wind.” Later, the same images lead Varka irresistibly into half-slumber as she rocks her mistress's baby:

The lamp flickers. The patch of green and the shadows are set in motion, forcing themselves on Varka's fixed, half-open eyes, and in her half slumbering brain are fashioned into misty visions.

Beyond the lulling cadence of dream imagery, the reader is rapt by Varka's sorry history. Her father has died an agonizing death. She longs for her mother. She has been born into subservience. It is through her dreams that the reader is delivered the girl's exposition, and it is through the details revealed by this exposition that the reader develops sympathy for the girl. (Chekhov, 494)

Her dreams, however dismal in content, act as a hopeful alternate setting for both reader and protagonist. Perhaps not accidentally, she dreams of a “broad high road” that symbolizes possibility or a substitute reality wherein this duty-shackled girl might have access to opportunities offered by the wider world. And even though that road is one of “liquid mud,” the reader is invited to wonder whether Varka's fate might lead her down a freer path than the one that binds her to a baby's cradle. (Christopher, 227)

Chekhov further earns his readers' sympathy for the little nurse by illustrating a pattern of mistreatment. The first time she falls asleep she is called a “scabby slut” by her master and is administered a hit so hard to the back ...