English (First Flight) · CBSE Class 10 · One-act play (farce) by Anton Chekhov · 25 Quiz
The Proposal — Summary, Author, Theme & Word-Meanings
About the Author
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was a famous Russian short-story writer and dramatist. ‘The Proposal’ (originally ‘A Marriage Proposal’) is a one-act play — a farce — written in 1888–89.
Theme
The play satirises the tendency of wealthy families to seek marriage ties with other wealthy families for economic gain. Through three quarrelsome, petty-minded characters, Chekhov mocks the hollowness of such marriages and the habit of fighting over trivial things — even a marriage proposal is nearly lost amidst the quarrelling.
Characters
• Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov — a wealthy but nervous, hypochondriac and quarrelsome neighbour (aged 35).
• Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov — a wealthy landowner; hypocritical, greedy and short-tempered.
• Natalya Stepanovna — Chubukov’s 25-year-old daughter; a good housekeeper but stubborn and argumentative.
Summary
Lomov, dressed formally, comes to his neighbour Chubukov’s house. Chubukov first suspects he has come to borrow money, but is overjoyed to learn Lomov wants to propose marriage to his daughter Natalya. He calls Natalya in and leaves them alone.
Before Lomov can propose, he happens to mention his land, the ‘Oxen Meadows’. Natalya claims the Meadows belong to her family, and a fierce quarrel breaks out. Chubukov joins in, and all three hurl insults at one another and at each other’s families, until the excited, heart-stricken Lomov storms out.
Only then does Chubukov reveal that Lomov had come to propose. Natalya is horrified and screams for her father to bring Lomov back. Lomov returns, half-dead with palpitations, and Natalya quickly agrees the Meadows are his. But before the proposal can be completed, a second quarrel erupts — this time over whose dog is better, Lomov’s ‘Guess’ or Chubukov’s ‘Squeezer’. Lomov nearly faints; everyone thinks he is dead. To end the matter, Chubukov hastily joins their hands and blesses the marriage. Even as they are declared engaged, Lomov and Natalya are still arguing about the dogs, while Chubukov calls for champagne.
Word-Meanings
farce = a comedy with ridiculous, exaggerated situations; palpitations = rapid, irregular heartbeats; implore = beg earnestly; in perpetuity = forever; dessiatins = a Russian unit of land; roubles = Russian currency; landgrabber = one who seizes others’ land; pettifogger = one who quibbles over trifles / is given to petty disputes; embezzlement = stealing money entrusted to one; intriguer = a scheming person; overshot = (of a dog) having an upper jaw longer than the lower; pedigree = ancestry/breeding of an animal; thoroughbred = of pure breed; coming round = regaining consciousness.
NCERT Textbook Solutions (The Proposal)
TT-1What does Chubukov at first suspect that Lomov has come for? Is he sincere when he later says “And I’ve always loved you… as if you were my own son”? Give reasons.
Chubukov at first suspects Lomov has come to borrow money (aside: ‘He’s come to borrow money. Shan’t give him any!’). No, he is not truly sincere when he says he has always loved Lomov like a son. His sudden affection is driven by the economic benefit of marrying his daughter to a wealthy neighbour. This is proved by the fact that, soon after, he quarrels bitterly with Lomov and hurls insults at him — calling him a grabber, a pettifogger and an intriguer.
TT-2Chubukov says of Natalya: “…as if she won’t consent! She’s in love; egad, she’s like a lovesick cat…” Would you agree? Give reasons.
Not entirely. At that moment Natalya does not even know that Lomov has come to propose, and she soon quarrels furiously with him over the Oxen Meadows — hardly the behaviour of a ‘lovesick cat’. Chubukov is exaggerating. However, when she later learns of the proposal, she becomes hysterical and desperate to bring Lomov back, which shows she is indeed eager to marry him. So Chubukov is partly right, but overstating it.
TT-3(i) Find the words/insults the characters hurl at each other. (ii) Give five adjectives for each character. (iii) What will they quarrel about next?
(i) Insults & names: Lomov calls Chubukov a ‘grabber’, ‘intriguer’, ‘old rat’, ‘Jesuit’; Chubukov calls Lomov a ‘pettifogger’, ‘Boy! Pup!’, ‘fool’, ‘milksop’, ‘malicious, doublefaced intriguer’, ‘villain’, ‘scarecrow’, ‘turnip-ghost’, ‘stuffed sausage’, ‘blind hen’; Natalya calls him a ‘rascal’, ‘monster’, and his conduct ‘low, dishonest and mean’. They also insult each other’s families (a drunkard grandfather, embezzlement, a hump-backed mother, a guzzling-gambler father, a backbiting aunt).
(ii) Adjectives — Lomov: nervous, hypochondriac, argumentative, suspicious, quarrelsome. Natalya: stubborn, short-tempered, quarrelsome, possessive, hysterical. Chubukov: hypocritical, greedy, interfering, bad-tempered, scheming.
(iii) They will probably go on quarrelling — most likely again about whose dog is better (Guess or Squeezer), or about the Oxen Meadows, or some new trifling household matter, since arguing is in their very nature.
TL-1Find expressions that seem more Russian than English (ways of addressing people).
Terms of endearment used by Chubukov to address a grown man — ‘my darling’, ‘my treasure’, ‘my precious’, ‘my angel’, ‘my beauty’, ‘my beloved’ — and exclamations like ‘By Jove!’ and ‘egad’ sound distinctly dated/Russian. An English play today would not have one adult man address another in such affectionate terms. In contrast, phrases like ‘spit it out’, ‘don’t go round and round it’ and ‘coming round’ are idiomatic modern English.
TL-2Pronunciation / syllables and stress of the given words.
palpi-TA-tions (4 syll.), inter-FERE (3), im-PLORE (2), THOR-ough-bred (3), PED-i-gree (3), PRIN-ci-ple (3), EV-i-dence (3), mis-FOR-tune (3), ma-LI-cious (3), em-BEZ-zle-ment (4), AR-chi-tect (3), NEIGH-bours (2), ac-CUS-tomed (3), TEM-po-rar-y (4), be-HAV-iour (3), DOC-u-ments (3). (Capitalised syllable is stressed.)
TL-3Meanings of the phrases and use in sentences.
(i) ‘You may take it that’ = you can be sure/assume that. You may take it that the meeting is cancelled.
(ii) ‘He seems to be coming round’ = regaining consciousness. After a few minutes the fainted man seemed to be coming round.
(iii) ‘My foot’s gone to sleep’ = my foot has become numb from pressure. I sat cross-legged so long that my foot had gone to sleep.
TL-4Reported Speech — fill in the blanks listing the changes.
1. To report a question, we use the reporting verb asked.
2. To report a statement, we use the reporting verb said.
3. The adverb of place here changes to there.
4. Present tense changes to the past tense.
5. Present continuous changes to past continuous — ‘am getting’ changes to ‘was getting’.
6. When there is a word denoting respect, we add the adverb respectfully in the reporting clause.
7. The pronouns I, me, our, mine change to he, him, his (according to the subject/object of the reporting verb).
TL-5Rewrite the A. K. Hangal excerpt, changing direct speech to reported speech.
Ninety-year-old A. K. Hangal, one of Hindi cinema’s most famous character actors, laughingly asked why we wanted to know his age, saying that if people knew he was so old he wouldn’t get work. For his age, he is rather energetic. When we asked what the secret was, he replied that his intake of everything was in small quantities and that he walked a lot. He said that he had joined the industry when people retire, in his forties, so he didn’t miss being called a star; he added that he was still respected and given work, when actors of his age were living in poverty and without work, and that he didn’t have any complaints — but that he had always been underpaid. Recipient of the Padma Bhushan, Hangal never hankered after money. He regretted that, no doubt he was content, but money was important, and that he had been a fool not to understand its value earlier.