Short Fiction · Chapter
The Darling explained
Olenka, a gentle and loving woman, cannot exist without someone to adore.
What happens
Olenka, a gentle and loving woman, cannot exist without someone to adore. She first marries Kukin, a gloomy theatre manager, and absorbs his opinions and worries. After his sudden death, she transfers her devotion to the timber merchant Pustovalov, adopting his views and habits. When he too dies, she finds a new attachment in the veterinary surgeon Smirnin, echoing his concerns about animal health. The chapter illustrates her need to love and her tendency to lose her own identity in the men she loves.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Marriage
Olenka's need to love drives her into successive marriages and attachments, each time losing her own personality in her partner's.
Isolation and Loneliness
Olenka cannot bear to be alone; after each loss she quickly seeks a new attachment to fill the void.
Suffering and Compassion
Olenka is deeply compassionate, crying over Kukin's misfortunes and sympathizing with Smirnin's marital troubles.
Characters to notice
- Olenka
The protagonist, a soft-hearted woman who constantly needs someone to love. She marries Kukin, then Pustovalov, and later attaches herself to Smirnin, adopting each man's interests and opinions.
- Ivan Petrovitch
Kukin, the manager of the Tivoli theatre. He is perpetually despairing about the weather and public taste, and marries Olenka. He dies suddenly in Moscow.
- Smirnov
A veterinary surgeon who rents Olenka's lodge. He is separated from his wife and has a son. Olenka later becomes attached to him and repeats his views on veterinary matters.
Key passages
“She was always fond of someone, and could not exist without loving.”
Olenka had a constant need to love someone and felt she could not live without an object of affection.
This sentence encapsulates Olenka's defining trait: her dependence on loving others for her own existence.
“And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated.”
She echoed everything Kukin said about the theatre and performers.
Illustrates Olenka's tendency to adopt her husband's opinions as her own.
“She repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same opinion as he about everything.”
She parroted the veterinary surgeon's statements and agreed with him on all matters.
Shows how Olenka's identity shifts to mirror each new man in her life.