Why The Darling is not Chekhov's most anti-feminist story

The Darling is easy to read as Anton Chekhov's most anti-feminist story, but such a reading may not be accurate of fair. On the surface, yes - it is completely anti-feminist: the title character is a cute youngish woman whom everyone refers to as a "darling" (in more common parlance, she's a sweetie-pie or a cutie?); she lives in a house inherited from her father, with some tenants - and she falls in love with one of tenants, who runs a small theater - he complains about how the public prefers crass entertainment to serious art, and she picks this up; after they're married, the Darling has a expresses very strong and well-articulated views, which are his. He dies, she remarries, this time a lumber merchant - and soon she's dreaming of lumber, managing his accounts, and she talks about: some people have time for frivolities like the theater, but we don't. And this goes on through a 3rd relationship, and then her mothering relationship to a young boy: when she's without a man, she has no opinions whatsoever, and she's miserable; when she's with a man, she blossoms, and becomes a acolyte and true believer, espousing her espouses opinions. In other words, a woman is an empty shell without a man to fill her with (his) ideas - or so it seems. But I think there's a deeper level to this story: story ends with her devotion to a young boy, the son of the 3rd in her series of relationships, whom she takes into her household and mothers him, as his dad spends time traveling on business. We see her getting him ready for school, and finally actually following him to school, to his embarrassment. He assures her he can get to school on is own. I see an image or metaphor here: she is pursuing the opportunities that she never had; it's obvious that she is very bright and eager to learn, but she had no opportunity in 19th-century Russian society to have a life, a career, even a set of ideas on her own. At the end, her following the son to school is a poignant image of what's actually missing in her life: not a man, but the opportunities and education that was afforded to men only, at that time. The Darling is in that sense almost a tragic story - not her tragedy, but the tragedy of an entire half of humanity, subjugated, wasted.

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