A Slander Analysis 3v143

Melissa Valenzuela Aldana, A01112574 José Pablo Alvarez Advanced English II (300-1) October 8th, 2012 A slander Ahineev was a writing master whose daughter was getting married and he organized a party for her. The party guests were having a good time, he was a nice host, and everything was going just as he had planned. Several teachers, his colleagues, had come to the party and they were having serious conversations. At midnight, he went to the kitchen to that everything was ready for supper, when he arrived at the kitchen he smelled a great aroma, and saw everything put together on the table. Then, he said to Marfa, the cook, to show him the “sturgeon” which was the main dish, when she showed him the sturgeon his mouth watered and he smacked his lips making a kissing sound. Just when he made that sound, Vankin entered the room and heard him. Ahineev got really nervous about Vankin telling his guts out to everyone in the party, and was afraid they might take it in the wrong way, so he decided to beat Vankin and tell everyone his little tale. So, now that everyone knew his tale, he went quietly to bed without a worry in the world. The next day, his heaster called him announcing him that there were rumors about him and his cook, which he dismissed and blamed Vankin. When he arrived home his wife slapped him, and then he blamed Vankin again, so he decided to confront him. When he talked to him, Vankin affirmed with sincerity that he hadn’t done such thing, which he believed, and left him wondering, who could’ve invented the slander? The rumor that Ahineev was having a romance with his cook rapidly came know to everyone who had met him. Ahineev blamed Vankin, because he was seriously embarrassed about his situation, but when Vankin affirmed that he wasn’t the one to tell on anybody, Ahineev started wondering who could be held responsible. The answer: himself. When he got scared about Vankin telling everyone, he guesses that the better way to skip the blow was to tell everyone the tale himself. So, when he told everyone at the party, it quickly became juicy gossip. The writing master having an affair with the cook, he made that to himself. He wasn’t able to notice that, he was way to occupied with telling everyone that he didn’t stop to considerate if Vankin had even told anyone his tale. He made a mistake out of a misunderstanding, and now he’ll have to live with it. Serge Kapitonich Ahineev is an unique character that can be summed up in a word: Paranoid. Everything was going fine, until he decided that it wasn’t when Vankin made up the joke about him kissing Marfa, a normal person wouldn’t react

like that. A normal person would talk to him, and ask him to keep a secret, or explain the situation without getting so scared. In fact, getting so scared might have been the reason to which people believed the gossip, his being afraid was what gave him away. He was so paranoid about Vankin telling people that he decided it was better if he told them themselves, he was very paranoid when he heard Vankin talking to another person, swearing that their conversation topic was him and his alleged affair. He was incapable of thinking there were more topics for conversation apart from himself, which was what made him spread the gossip and made him look bad in front of everyone, which was what he wanted to avoid from the beginning. A slander may appear as a comedy, but it does have a hidden meaning about human behavior. Ahineev was a very paranoid person, who was a little selfcentered in the way that he thinks that everyone is thinking or talking about him. Humans are like that for nature. We all want to be noticed, it is a human treat, being human means that you want to be loved, cherished, and noted. For that reason, the author made it clear in the way that he made his character and his weird personality. People can be really self-centered when they want to, they can believe people are talking about them even when they are not, and that makes them afraid of people not liking them. People like to fit in, for that reason, rumors and gossip threaten that possibility if affects their own status. In the story that concept was really clear, he was so afraid of what Vankin could say that he said everything by himself hoping that things wouldn’t get out of his hands, but of course they did.