The Banker: The banker is a greedy businessman who uses his power and wealth to manipulate others. Initially, he freely risks two million rubles in the bet with the lawyer. However, as the story progresses, the banker falls into destitution and considers murdering the lawyer so as not to pay him back. His choices are always financially or materialistically driven.
The Lawyer: The lawyer, like the banker, goes through a transformation during the fifteen year period. At the start of the story, the lawyer is young and impulsive, willfully throwing himself into the bet. The lawyer, however, is intelligent and uses his solitary confinement to read poetry and to study the natural sciences. By the time the lawyer emerges from his confinement, he has lived vicariously through his literature. At forty years old, he has matured and learned about the pitfalls of the human condition.
"In the course of four years some six hundred volumes were procured at his request...."See in text(Part I)
The description of the lawyer’s time in solitary confinement speak to his intelligence and curiosity. As he sits in the room alone for the first several years, he plays the piano and reads voraciously. He learns to speak six different languages and later studies religion and theology. Despite the torturous nature of solitary confinement, the lawyer finds ways to use his time to learn and to grow.
"“I’ll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen years.”..."See in text(Part I)
Although the banker’s original bet was set to a five-year span, the lawyer extends it further to a fifteen-year span. His decision to extend the bet and his potential suffering demonstrates his reckless and impulsive nature. Due to this one rash decision, the lawyer must now reside in the banker’s garden lodge for an additional decade.
"To live anyhow is better than not at all...."See in text(Part I)
In contrast to the banker, the lawyer is an intelligent young man whose tenacity drives him to pursue the bet. At the start of the story, the lawyer is 25 years old. He is heedless and impatient and wants to prove to the banker that living under any circumstance is better than dying. Readers should notice the lawyer’s behavioral changes as the story progresses.
"Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly...."See in text(Part I)
The banker is an authoritarian, materially-obsessed businessman who uses his power and wealth to control others. His egotism, combined with his belief that life imprisonment is inferior to capital punishment, drives the plot of the short story forward. As the story unfolds, the banker will forge the bet and use his power and wealth to prove his point.
"as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor..."See in text(Part II)
Throughout the letter, the lawyer eviscerates all of the things and ideas people hold true. He says that all humans will perish from the earth as if they were only rodents. After all these years in solitary confinement, the lawyer clearly does not value human life. To him, all material possessions and earthly desires are ultimately futile.
"most likely dreaming of the millions...."See in text(Part II)
Again, the banker makes an assumption about what the lawyer is thinking. He imagines that the lawyer is sleeping soundly because he is “dreaming of the millions.” However, as he delves further into the letter and discovers the lawyer’s true thoughts, his assumptions are shattered.
"will gamble on the Exchange..."See in text(Part II)
The banker has not seen the lawyer for almost fifteen years. His assumption—that the lawyer will walk away from solitary confinement only to gamble all of his money on the stock exchange—says more about the banker than the lawyer. It highlights his priorities and how he is still money-hungry and materialistic after all these years.
The word “reckoning” refers to the process of calculating something. At the time the bet was made, the banker was wealthy beyond comprehension. However, fifteen years later, he has lost all of his money to “desperate gambling on the Stock Exchange.” Now that he has lost all of his money, he is no longer as powerful or authoritarian as before. Instead, he has become insecure and fearful, and he will go to any length to avoid repaying the bet.
