278 Chesnutt, Charles W.
ment of Justice for twenty-eight years, but I’ve never
lived, never experienced anything.” Even Dorn, a
successful doctor, is dissatisfied with the ways in
which work has consumed his life, as he tells Med-
vedenko, “After thirty years of practice, an onerous
practice... when day and night I couldn’t call my
soul my own, I managed to save only two thousand
rubles” (Act 3). Devoting their lives to their jobs has
afforded them little financial security and limited
time to pursue other interests.
Thus, the work of the artist, and its attendant
fame and fortune, seems enviable. Sorin notes that
all his life he longed to become a writer, believing it
“must be pleasant”; Nina professes that she would
give up everything for the “happiness of being a
writer or an actress.” Furthermore, creative work is
venerated because it offers spiritual liberation that
ordinary jobs do not. Dorn tells the aspiring writer
Treplev, “[I]f it had ever been my lot to experience
the exaltation that comes to artists in their moments
of creation, I believe I should have despised this
material shell of mine and all that pertains to it, and
I’d have soared to the heights, leaving all earthly
things behind me” (Act 2).
Even for artists, however, work proves to be a
distraction from living. Fawning over the writer
Trigorin, Nina declares, “How I envy you!... Some
can barely drag out their dull, obscure existences, all
very much alike, and all miserable, while others, like
you... are given a life that is brilliant, interesting,
full of meaning” (Act 3). Trigorin’s response—“Oh
what a preposterous life! Here I am talking to you,
I’m excited, yet not for a moment do I forget that
my unfinished novel is waiting for me.... I have no
rest from myself, and I feel that I am consuming my
own life”—challenges this idealization of the artist’s
life. Similarly, Treplev, a published writer by the end
of the play, struggles with his calling and finds the
creative process “agonizing,” suggesting that creative
labor is not as glamorous as it seems; it is, in the end,
still work.
By the end of the play, Nina is no longer enchanted
by romantic notions about the artist’s work, having
“been drawn into the whirlpool” and finding that the
demands of her career as an actress, traveling third
class on a train to work in the provinces, make for
a “coarse life.” Nevertheless, she has found value in
the sacrifices she makes. For her, fame is no longer
important; rather, she finds strength in committing
herself to her work, noting, “[W ]hen I think of my
vocation, I’m not afraid of life” (Act 4). Nina has
come to recognize that meaning is not something one
merely finds, but something one produces, and work
is a fundamental component of that process.
Margaret SavilonisCHESNUTT, CHARLES W. “The
Goophered Grapevine” (1887)
Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932) published the
short story “The Goophered Grapevine,” in the
Atlantic Monthly in 1887. It was the first of many
stories about the nature of slavery as reflected in the
stories eventually collected into The Conjure Woman
(1899). His protagonist, Uncle Julius, is a very cagy
former slave still living on the plantation to which
he had belonged. Chesnutt’s careful and brilliant
characterizations illustrate the dignity of the former
slaves and the ignorance of the slave owners and
carpetbaggers. Uncle Julius tells largely fictitious
stories about supernatural goings-on in his world.
Chesnutt’s stories are humorous and full of dialect,
local folklore, and colorful characters.
In the story, a northerner relocates to North
Carolina and shortly thereafter visits a plantation.
There, he learns that the grapevines on the planta-
tion have been “goophered,” or bewitched. The teller
of this tale, a former slave named Uncle Julius, is
actually trying to scare off the northerner, a potential
buyer of the plantation, with his supernatural story.
The Uncle Julius stories were well received as
they appeared. Chesnutt was successful so long as
he wrote to this formula. He wrote several novels
that moved beyond local color and humor, but top-
ics such as miscegenation and mixed races were
unpopular. Due to poor sales, Chesnutt was unable
to make a living from his writing. He finally aban-
doned his writing career but remained a tireless
activist for interracial understanding.
Elizabeth MaliaetHics in “The Goophered Grapevine”
There are at least three variations in ethics displayed
in “The Goophered Grapevine,” none of which