Saturday, July 09, 2005
Untranslatable “You” in Chekhov
Tom J. Lewis in the journal Babel:
In what follows I will examine one such instance of untranslatability — that of Russian second-person pronouns into English in the English versions of one of Anton Chekhov’s best known and most accomplished short stories, “Lady with Lapdog.” ... Russian second-person pronouns cannot be translated into English. Th e answer to this is fairly simple: Whereas in English there is only one second-person pronoun — you — in Russian there are two: ty and vy. ...
The import of this one word, ty — one of the most common in the Russian language — which is used only once by Anna in the entire course of the story, is a mark of Chekhov’s supreme mastery of his art. ...
Th e interplay between vy and ty, as shown in the foregoing, occurs in four stages, marking the four stages of Gurov and Anna’s relationship: in the fi rst stage the use of vy by both parties indicates the initial polite distance between the two as they meet and become acquainted in Yalta; in the second stage, the asymmetrical use of ty and vy highlights the personal and social diff erences between the two, in spite of their sexual relationship, suggesting the distance that must be crossed for a true mutual sense of intimacy to occur; in the third stage the symmetrical use of vy clearly shows Gurov shedding all personal and social diff erences and rising to Anna’s level, to the level of a person he had previously considered a member of a “lower breed;” and in the fourth and fi nal stage, the symmetrical use of ty demonstrates how deep and mutual their love has become, how much their love has become like that of an ideal married couple. Th ese four stages in pronominal usage even coincide, with one minor exception, with the four numbered divisions of Chekhov’s story.
Babel
Volume 50, Issue 4, 2004
Untranslatable “You” in Chekhov’s Lady with Lapdog
pp. 289-297(9)
Author: Lewis, Tom J.