By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Student’ is a short story by Anton Chekhov, published in 1894. It’s one of his shortest stories, running to just a few pages, and – in keeping with many of Chekhov’s best short stories, very little happens in the way of plot. Yet Chekhov himself considered ‘The Student’ his favourite of all his short stories. ‘The Student’, then, is a nice place to start exploring Chekhov’s distinctive style.