The proposal

• 'The Proposal' is a one-act play, a farce, by the Russian short story writer and dramatist Anton Chekhov
• The play was written in 1888-89
• The play is about wealthy families seeking ties with other wealthy families to increase their estates through marriages that make economic sense
• The main characters are:

  • Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov: a landowner
  • Natalya Stepanovna: his twenty-five-year-old daughter
  • Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov: a neighbour of Chubukov, a large and hearty, but very suspicious, landowner
• The play is set in a drawing-room in Chubukov's house
• Lomov enters wearing a dress-jacket and white gloves to seek the hand of Natalya in marriage
• Chubukov is joyfully surprised by Lomov's proposal and embraces him
• Natalya is described as an excellent housekeeper, not bad-looking, and well-educated
• Lomov explains his long-standing connection with Natalya's family and claims ownership of the Oxen Meadows, which leads to a dispute with Natalya
• The play revolves around the proposal amidst quarrels and misunderstandings between the characters
• Oxen Meadows were once the subject of dispute, but now everybody knows that they are mine
• The peasants belonging to Natalya's father's grandfather had the free use of the Meadows for forty years and had got into the habit of regarding them as their own
• Natalya believes that Oxen Meadows are theirs because both her grandfather and great-grandfather reckoned that their land extended to Burnt Marsh, which means that Oxen Meadows were theirs
• Natalya refuses to believe that the Meadows are not theirs, even though Lomov shows her documents proving otherwise
• Lomov offers to make a present of the Meadows to Natalya, but she insists that they are already hers
• Natalya's father, Chubukov, confirms that the Meadows are theirs and not Lomov's
• Lomov insists that the Meadows are his and threatens to take the matter to court
• After a heated argument, Natalya finally admits that Oxen Meadows are indeed Lomov's
• Natalya and Lomov reconcile and decide to talk about something else
• Lomov is thinking of shooting blackcock after the harvest
• Lomov's dog, Guess, has gone lame
• Lomov gave Mironov 125 roubles for Guess
• Natalya thinks Squeezer is better than Guess
• Lomov argues that Guess is better than Squeezer
• Chubukov believes Squeezer is the best dog in the district
• Lomov and Natalya end up getting engaged
• Natalya insists that Squeezer is better than Guess, while Lomov disagrees
• The play ends with a disagreement over whether Guess or Squeezer is better
• In reported speech, a sentence consists of a reporting clause and a reported clause
• Direct speech presents the exact words spoken by someone
• Indirect speech or reported speech involves reporting what someone else said
• A reporting clause contains the reporting verb, while the reported clause contains the reported information
• When reporting someone's exact words, changes in sentence structure are necessary
• To report a question, use the reporting verb as in Sentence Set 1
• To report a statement, use the reporting verb
• The adverb of place "here" changes to
• When the verb in direct speech is in the present tense, the verb in reported speech is in the tense
• If the verb in direct speech is in the present continuous tense, the verb in reported speech changes to tense
• When the sentence in direct speech contains a word denoting respect, add the adverb in the reporting clause
• The pronouns I, me, our, and mine change according to the subject or object of the reporting verb in reported speech