안톤 체홉의 『살인』에 나타난 종교적 신앙의 문제

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the problem of religiosity in A. Chekhov's Murder in which the experiences of Sakhalin island by the writer are directly reflected. Throughout this text, the writer scrutinizes the problems between the two characters having contradictory beliefs as well as the murder itself caused by their conflicts, thereby exploring what the religious means to the common Russian and what the religious rightness is. Matvei Terekhov and Iakov Terekhov, the two main protagonists in this text, are cousins each other, and their family has historically been making an unreligious life. Worked for a tile-factory onetime, Matvei has made a faithful religious life, but dismayed at the priests who did not observe the veliki post, the Great Fast in Russian, then he became indulged in his own religious life aside from the church. Now that Matvei has acclaimed a saint, he is visited by people who want to have comfort. The owner of the tile-factory, however, instructs Matvei to lead a common religious life, and at last the protagonist returns to his routine life again. Since Matvei lost his health for the previous ascetic life, he comes back to his cousin Iakov. Matvei, who forcibly insists his own religious life to Iakov and Aglaya, but an disharmony emerges between them. For Matvei, Iakov's way of religious life is no other than a profane one, which is replete with vanity. Although Iakov is leading a faithful life of reading the Bible, while setting up a room for prayer in his tavern, his daily life is not free from the false and conceit. Due to Matvei's arrival, Iakov's life is broken. For this reason, Iakov could have an opportunity to realize the reality around himself for the first time. As far as the religious life is concerned, however, the relation between the protagonist becomes much more deteriorated gradually, and this conflict rends itself a murder of Matvei by Iakov. Failed to uncover this unexpected murder, Iakov and his family have been sentenced to an exile to Siberia. Paradoxically, however, the exiler in turn looks into himself in this harsh circumstance, and becomes awakened to a true religious life again. Chekhov, through this text, displays a tragic denouement brought by an unreligious life. At the same time, this tale delivers a message saying that a belief having no ethical foundation is nothing but atheism itself, and for this very reason, it might be an instrument unavoidably bringing in a hate and disharmony.