Home

In “Home,” Anton Chekhov offers a glimpse into a tender moment between father and son. Yevgeny Petrovitch, a prosecutor for a Russian circuit court, has just returned home from work to find out that his seven-year-old son, Seryozha, has taken up smoking. Yevgeny expresses his disappointment and chastises his son using the calculated, methodical language of the court. When this fails, and Seryozha remains unfazed, Yevgeny realizes that he must resort to storytelling in order to properly convey the dangers of smoking to his naive and imaginative young son. “Home” endures as one of Chekhov’s most recognized short stories for its depiction of a father-son relationship and its consideration of the convergence between logic and imagination.