Iona Potapov

The imagery (Barnet 1374) which sets the mood for this story consists of white snow: “gray, toneless...” (Jackson 12). He describes “…the twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer on the roofs, horses' backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the sledgedriver, is all white like a ghost” (Chekhov 208). From this description the reader can pictures the colorless setting, toned down and dull. The scene looks very shadowy and bare from all the white snow. When Chekhov describes, “The misery…comes back again and teas his heart more cruelly than ever” (210). Iona Potapov’s feelings in this description are so real

that the reader can actually feels it too. The thoughts of his son is so unbearable to him that he wish to shares it with someone; however, “among these thousands someone,” (210) “no one is willing to make contact with him” (Coulehan 1). To shows Iona Potapov’s deeper depression, the author uses a metaphor: “If Iona’s heart were to burst and his misery to flow out, it would flood the whole world...”(Chekhov 211). He use this metaphor to emphasis how that Iona grief, which has caused great misery in his life. In another description when, “Iona fidgets on the box as though he were sitting on thorns, jerks his elbows, and turns his eyes about like one possessed, as though he did not know where he was or why he was there” (109). This illustrates that his grief and sorrows has take him away from the reality. He forgets where he is and the feeling make him very uncomfortable.

The mood (Barnet 1376) in this story is depressing but also unsympathetic. Iona “cannot think about his son when he is alone... To talk about him with someone is possible, but to think of him and picture him is insufferable anguish” (211). The tone in these sentences suggests that Iona is very miserable when thinking about his son. We ca

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