How Chekhov Ends
Four SessionsA literary course for adult readers and writers · taught by James F. Mulhern
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Important Information & Course Materials▾
An Invitation▾
Anton Chekhov did not invent the modern short story, but he did teach it how to end. Before Chekhov, a story reached a moral. After Chekhov, a story opens a room and lets the reader stand in it. The last paragraph became the paragraph the whole story was written for — the one that does not resolve, but places.
This four-session workshop reads four of Chekhov’s finest late stories with a single question in front of us: what does the last paragraph do? We read the story once for its own sake, then we read the ending again — three or four times — and we talk about what Chekhov made possible for every writer who followed him.
The workshop is for adult readers who love short fiction, for writers who want their own stories to end more truthfully, and for anyone who has ever finished a Chekhov story and sat still for a long minute before putting the book down.
What This Course Is▾
- A four-session close-reading workshop
- One story per session, all by Chekhov, all available free online
- Ninety minutes per session, discussion-based, no lecture
- Non-graded, non-competitive, open to any adult reader
- In person or on Zoom, adaptable to any partner venue’s calendar
What This Course Is Not▾
- Not a survey of Chekhov’s life or his plays
- Not a Russian-language course (all readings are in the best English translations)
- Not a writing workshop (though writers are especially welcome)
- Not a book club (we read closely, sentence by sentence, at the end)
About the Instructor▾
James F. Mulhern is a Kirkus-starred novelist, Oxford Writing Fellow, and Professor Emeritus of English with more than thirty years of teaching experience. He has taught Chekhov at the college and graduate levels and has taught weekend Chekhov intensives for adult reading groups. His novel Give Them Unquiet Dreams received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and was named a Kirkus Best Book of 2019.
Course Details▾
- Instructor: James F. Mulhern
- Location: in person or on Zoom
- Format: Weekly, 90 minutes per session
- Duration: 4 weeks
- Cost: Contact for current terms
- Enrollment: Open to all adults; no application required
- Grading: None
- Required texts: None to purchase. All readings are free and linked in this document.
- Materials to bring: This document (printed or on your phone/tablet), something to write with, and something to write on
What to Expect Each Week▾
Each session follows the same shape:
- Read aloud — we begin with someone reading the story aloud, or the ending aloud if the story is long
- First response — we talk about what struck each of us on first reading
- Close reading of the ending — the final paragraph, sentence by sentence, three or four passes
- The Chekhov question — what did the ending make possible? What did it foreclose?
- Craft takeaway — one thing writers can learn from this ending
Readings▾
All texts are available free online. Every session page links to a public-domain or open-access version of the reading. No book purchase is required.
A Companion Volume▾
Coming soon — a companion volume of Chekhov’s endings, side-by-side, with James F. Mulhern’s marginal notes.
A Few Promises▾
- Every session begins on time and ends on time.
- Every discussion is generous. Nothing anyone says in the room is repeated outside it.
- No one is asked to speak. Silence is a legitimate contribution.
- The reading is short enough for anyone with a busy life to finish before the session.
A Few Asks▾
- Read the story before the session. Ninety minutes is not enough to read and discuss.
- Bring the printed or digital story with you. We refer to it constantly.
- Come to as many sessions as you can, but come when you can. A missed session is not a lost seat.
Registration▾
To register or to bring this course to a partner venue, please email jamesfmulhern@gmail.com. The course can be delivered as a four-session workshop, a single weekend intensive (two half-day sessions), or four evening lectures in a row.
About the Use of These Materials▾
These materials — course descriptions, reading lists, syllabi, discussion questions, session pages, and prompts — were written and designed by James F. Mulhern for Silver Current Press. Readers are welcome to read, print, share, and quote them for personal use and study.
Teachers, program directors, and institutions who would like to use any of this material in a classroom, syllabus, publication, or paid program are asked to write first — a short email is enough. The answer will almost always be a warm yes, with a note on attribution. Please contact Professor Mulhern at [email protected].
The Sessions▾
Session 1 — "The Lady with the Dog"
Focus: The story often cited as the founding text of the modern short story. Two people who cannot admit they love each other. Chekhov ends where the difficult work begins.
Main Points of the Lesson
- The Chekhov ending does not resolve — it opens. The story stops where the next chapter of the characters’ lives would begin.
- The reader is trusted. Chekhov gives us what we need to imagine the rest, and no more.
- The last image carries the emotional weight. In this story, it is the “long, long way still to go.”
- The ending validates every ambiguity the story built. Every uncertainty in the middle is answered, in a Chekhov ending, not by resolution but by acceptance.
- Compare with the traditional Victorian ending. Where Dickens closes the door, Chekhov opens the window.
Reading
- Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Dog” (1899) — Project Gutenberg
Critical Reception
- Anton Chekhov — Poetry Foundation biographical entry — a portrait of the writer widely credited with inventing the modern short story.
In-Class Practice
Read the last paragraph aloud. Now change the very last sentence — write any alternate ending. Read both aloud. What breaks? What is preserved? (10 minutes.)
Discussion Questions
- Read the final paragraph. What is Chekhov not saying?
- Compare Gurov at the beginning of the story to Gurov at the end. What has changed? Which sentence marks the change?
- What does the dog do in the ending? Why does Chekhov not mention it?
- Is this a story about love, about age, or about self-knowledge? Or all three?
- If you were told this story ended in a marriage, would you believe the story? Why or why not?
Homework
Read the last paragraphs of two other Chekhov stories you know or find. Bring your favorite closing sentence next week.
Session 2 — "The Bishop"
Focus: A dying bishop remembers his mother. Chekhov’s most tender ending — a story that ends in the moment after death without ever describing it.
Main Points of the Lesson
- Chekhov’s endings hold suffering without dramatizing it. The bishop’s death is a fact, not a scene.
- Time expands in the last paragraph. What took the whole story to earn takes one paragraph to release.
- The ending shifts perspective. We leave the bishop and see the world after him — the peasants gathering, the ordinary morning. This is one of Chekhov’s most powerful moves.
- A great ending redistributes the weight of the story. Every detail earlier — the mother’s visit, the bishop’s uncertainty, his exhaustion — is repaid.
- The ending affirms the reader. After a Chekhov ending, the reader is different.
Reading
- Anton Chekhov, “The Bishop” (1902) — Project Gutenberg (in the collection The Bishop and Other Stories)
In-Class Practice
Rewrite the last paragraph so that the bishop’s death is shown rather than passed over. What does the story lose? What might it gain? (10 minutes.)
Discussion Questions
- Chekhov ends the story with the bishop’s mother telling the story of her son. What does that do?
- Notice the passage of time in the last two paragraphs. How much time passes? How does Chekhov compress it?
- Read the story’s opening sentence and its closing sentence. What is the relationship between them?
- This story is often called Chekhov’s most religious. Is it religious? What does “religious” mean here?
- If you were writing an obituary for the bishop, what would you include that Chekhov leaves out?
Homework
Write a short piece (a page) whose final paragraph moves the point of view from a single character to the world around them. Bring it in.
Session 3 — "Gooseberries"
Focus: A story-within-a-story about a man who spent his life pursuing his idea of happiness. Chekhov’s most morally charged ending — a story that turns the reader into the subject of the story.
Main Points of the Lesson
- The Chekhov ending can implicate the reader. By the last paragraph of “Gooseberries,” the frame narrator is no longer sure of anything, and neither are we.
- A story can end with a question. Not a rhetorical one — a real one that the reader is left to answer.
- The ending can reveal the story was about something else. We think this is a story about the brother in the country; we discover it is a story about all of us.
- Chekhov’s morality is never a moral. He refuses to tell us what to think but insists that we think.
- Contrast this with a Tolstoyan ending. Tolstoy tells us what the story means. Chekhov trusts us to find it.
Reading
- Anton Chekhov, “Gooseberries” (1898) — Project Gutenberg (in The Wife and Other Stories)
In-Class Practice
Underline every sentence in the last two pages that could be a moral. What does Chekhov do with each? (5 minutes.)
Discussion Questions
- Who is speaking in the last paragraph? Ivan Ivanich or the frame narrator? Or someone else?
- What is the “gooseberries” of the title? What does the fruit represent by the last paragraph?
- The story ends with rain. What does the rain do?
- Is this a story about a bad man (the brother)? Or about a whole class of people? Or about the whole species? Chekhov leaves all three doors open. Which one do you walk through?
- Write down the last sentence. Read it three times. What does it ask of you?
Homework
Take a story of your own that ends with a resolution. Rewrite the ending so it ends with a question the reader must answer.
Session 4 — "A Day in the Country" and Reflection
Focus: A shorter, less anthologized Chekhov story about a shoemaker and two children in a summer thunderstorm. Chekhov at his most compressed and generous. We end the workshop with this story and then a group reflection on what we have learned about endings.
Main Points of the Lesson
- A Chekhov ending can be joyful. Not every one is a farewell.
- The shortest Chekhov stories often carry the longest afterlives. Compression is a positive craft choice.
- The ending returns us to the ordinary world with new eyes. This is what many great endings do — return us, changed.
- All four endings we have read share one gesture: they place the reader inside the story rather than outside it looking in.
- A writer’s endings are the writer’s signature. Chekhov’s signature is trust — in the material, in the reader, in silence.
Reading
- Anton Chekhov, “A Day in the Country” (1886) — Eldritch Press full text
In-Class Practice
Group exercise: each person shares one sentence — the closing sentence — from a favorite short story (Chekhov or not). We read them aloud. What do they share? What do they refuse to share? (15 minutes.)
Discussion Questions
- What does the thunderstorm do at the end?
- This is a shorter and sunnier story than the others. What Chekhovian gesture does it still make?
- Compare the last paragraphs of the four stories we have read. What is the same? What is different?
- If Chekhov taught you one thing about how to end a story, what would you say it is?
- Which of the four endings will you remember longest? Why?
Homework
None. Instead: read a Chekhov story you have never read before — there are more than three hundred — and see if the ending does what we have been discussing.