“Errand” is an altogether surprising short story among the works of
Raymond Carver. The usual characters and themes are not to be found, nor
are the settings, nor even is the so-called minimalist narrative mode
or style. The story initially presents itself as a conventional
biographical narrative (covering the illness and death of Chekhov), but
it is soon transformed by excisions, extensions, and expansions. The
writer’s work on the implicit hypotext fictionalizes the biographical
facts, to which he adds imaginary episodes.1
These episodes become increasingly detailed, and the last part of the
story (there are four parts) has no connection at all with what seemed
to be the subject and its treatment at the beginning. Chekhov is dead,
and the scene the following day that brings together Olga Knipper and
the young bellboy, whom she requests to go fetch a mortician,
constitutes an unlikely development. The episode is a temporal “bubble”
that soon turns spatial when Olga becomes the narrator and develops her
own story within the story. She moves her protagonist, a young bellboy,
through time, from the prospective conditional (“would”), to the
narrative past, and finally to the present. She also moves him in space,
from the hotel bedroom to the street and thence to the mortician’s
house. By shifting from hypotext to hypertext, from one narrative level
to the other, from the imaginary story to the illusion of reality,
Carver for the first time in his career experiments with the richness
and complexity of narrative performance and inscribes into his text the
fragile boundaries that separate the real from the imaginary.2
In this way, he prompts readers to interrogate the very realism that
critics have called the main attribute (or major defect) of his work.
What
did you learn from this story that can help us (people) cope with death and
dying?
Errand is a short story
of Raymond Carvers where the life and the drama of Chekhov’s death take place.
Death is a situation that nobody can avoid, but the way in which it presents
for each one is different. In Errands we have a clear example of this
situation. Chekhov is a man who died of tuberculosis; it is not a natural death.
In the real world, many people have to fight with different diseases that
sometimes they end their lives. In the story we can see that not only the sick
person suffers; the family takes part in this affliction. His wife, Olga, is
affected by his death until she becomes confused, she doesn’t accept that he is
dead, and she enters in a limbo of meditation or trance. She doesn’t want to go
away from his body because she loves him.
It always happens in
the real life when a member of a family dies. We don’t want to leave anyone to
go away. This story teaches us that it is how the life is and we have to accept
the fact of we are dying every day. Of course, it affects to our family members
because they have a very close link to the person who is in this situation.
They are who remember all the things that we do while we live. Sometimes a
member of the family does’t accepts the death of her loved one. It becomes a
serious problem because she can't continue her life normally.
Through the process of
Chekhov's death, Olga is his caregiver and always is present at his side.
Chekhov tries to visit the best doctors, but cannot find a cure. At the end, he
accepts death calmly and his doctor brings a bottle of champagne, but they
didn’t have a good reason to toast for. This way, Chekhov says goodbye and
shares the last minutes of his life with his wife. Many people who suffer from
chronic diseases cling to life. They do not accept this fact and suffer even
more. This teaches us the value of every minute of our lives and shares the
best with our beloved ones.
On the other hand, as
we read Errand, the boy who is with Olga doesn't feel anything for Chekhov’s
death. He doesn't even realize that he is a very important person. He only knows
that he must do his duties in the room and leave. We can also notice this situation
in our real world, while the death affects our closes relatives and friends,
but for the rest of the people is an isolated fact. For example, when someone
hears about a person who has cancer or other disease doesn't feel the same
emotions like the family. Who will be sad, depressed, and sometimes with a lot
of economic problems. Conversely, for other people this will not be so
important and they can go on with their lives normally. It is always our duty,
as human beings, to care for our lives and accept death as part of our life.
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