Narrative Strategies in Čechov’s The Steppe. Cohesion, Grounding and Point of View

This book is both an inquiry into Čechov’s narrative technique and a contribution to the theory of narrative. 

The analysis of The Steppe reveals the omnipresent interpaly of opposing patterns and strategies. Čechov’s composition is shown to be simultaneously closed and open, tripartite and bipartite, intensely cohesive and fragmentary: The general principle underlying Čechov’s technique turns out to be one of confusing strategies; and its effects are found to derive, in the main, from series of authorial choices which render the narrative voice unstable and fluctuating - particularly with regard to its presentation of point of view.

The main theoretical implication of the analysis concerns the decisive role of point of view in narrative. The strategies of point of view are shown to lie above most others in a hierarchy of text strategies. The pervading subjectivity of language in use is stressed and a systematization of the linguistic realizations of subjectivity is outlined.