From Rags to Riches The notion of young women marrying wealthy men solely for the purpose of gaining wealth is very prevalent in today’s society. This trend hasn’t only recently begun though, it has been around and this is shown in a couple of stories that we have read over the term. Alexander Pushkin’s “The Station Master” and Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” are two stories that involve a young women going off with a man of wealth and changing their lives. Both of these stories have many similar elements and themes throughout their story lines, but since they are both written by very different writers the differences present themselves by default. To begin, I will talk about the similarities between the two works. Starting from the beginning, most evident similarity is the structure of the characters in the stories. “Anna on the Neck” has a young girl (Anna), her father (Leontych) and a man that lures the young girl away (Alexeich). “The Station Master” also has this same setup with the Dunia, the station master and the hussar. Both girls come from a family that is very low on the social class and don’t have a lot of money along with living without a mother at the time the stories take place. Another similarity is the fact that both women in the stories got drawn into the wealthy life style and didn’t want to go back. Dunia did not have the initial motive to go with the hussar in order to take advantage of his wealth and social standing, she was under the impression she was going to church and once she learned that was false she still didn’t choose to come back. She began to dress and take in the wealthy life style. I felt the way Pushkin used the boy to describe Dunia at the end was very key when the boy described her as “A beautiful lady. She was traveling in a carriage with six horses with three little children and a lapdog.” (Proffer 78). This description of how beautiful she was and how she was in an elegant carriage with six horses and so on made me feel like he was trying to show she was very wealthy. She had obviously transformed her life and now she was content in living a wealthy lifestyle. Anna also chose the same path. She decided to marry the man in order to gain the wealth for her family. In the end she didn’t give anything to her family because at the beginning she was like a slave to her husband. Once she went to the ball and got all dressed up she became incensed with the luxurious lifestyle she wanted, everything else didn’t matter to her anymore. Similarly the story also ended with a carriage showing that Anna was in the wealthy class now. Another similarity is between the fathers. Both of them ended up being crushed by the outcome of what had happened to their daughters and they had both turned heavily to alcohol. The station master was not particularly known to be a heavy drinker but at the end it is known that he ends up dying due to drinking. Leontych was already a heavy drinker but that turned even worse when his daughter left. In the end it is showed that he too is practically “dead” due to drinking because now his sons must follow him around everywhere and his drinking had become uncontrollable. Overall both stories had many similarities in the themes and ideas that the authors where trying to convey. They were both written differently but still managed to get the same message across. Since both these stories were written by different people it is inevitable that there would be a lot of difference. For starters, in “Anna on the Neck” the father doesn’t want to let his daughter go. This is shown in the story when the train is departing and Leontych is chasing it. He was drunk but showed he didn’t want her to go as he “[ran] a little after the car… breath in gasps and tears glittered in his eyes.” (Proffer 346). The total opposite was true in “The Station Master”. The station master had trusted the hussar who had in fact been playing ill in order to steal the station master’s daughter. The station master is enthusiastic in telling the daughter to go with the hussar saying, “What are you afraid of? Why his excellency isn’t a wolf, he won’t eat you: ride to the church with him.” (Proffer 73). Although it is unfair to contrast the stories in this way since the station master had no idea his daughter would never come back, it was still one of the biggest differences in the story. Another big difference was the ways in which both women left their families. Anna had left her family because they were very poor and Alexeich was a very wealthy man. It is implied that she was looking to help her family financially but since her husband doesn’t give her any money she couldn’t do that and once she does get the power to do so, she neglects her family. Dunia on the other hand was in essence “taken”. She had no clue of the hussar’s intentions and she had thought she was just going to church. To her defense she was hesitant at first but in the end her father had persuaded her to go. She ended up turning her life in a new direction and becoming wealthy and never going back to her father until it is too late. This brings up the third difference. The two women acted very differently when confronted with their families. Anna was very embarrassed of her father because he was poor and not very well mannered. Once she became wealthy he would go on living her life and not really caring much at all for her family as it is shown in the end when she drives the carriage right passed them. Dunia on the other hand went on to live her life with the hussar, but there is a feeling that she truly misses her father. When the station master follows the hussar and sees Dunia, she faint and falls. At the end when she goes back to sees him, the boy says “She lay down here and remained lying for a long time.” (Proffer 78). This shows that she really did miss him and in a sense may have regretted the life that she chose. As it is shown, both of the stories had many differences but this should be expected since they were written by two different writers with different writing styles. Overall, both of these stories were very similar in theme and main idea but since they were both written by different authors, the way that these ideas were presented were very different. I feel Pushkin made Dunia seem like more of a victim, where Chekhov made Anna seem like the complete opposite. Even though both these authors went with separate routes in telling their stories it is still pretty amazing to see all the similarities that are present in both of their pieces. They were able to tell two completely different stories yet still maintain the same ideas and themes.

Work Cited
-Proffer, Carl R. From Karamzin to Bunin; an Anthology of Russian Short Stories. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1969. Print.