Some Particularities in the Structure of A.P. Chekhov's Little Trilogy

Placed at the border between the 19th and the 20th century, Chekhov's writing style transformed in an innovating way the structure of the short story and the principles of characters' representation, dividing the Russian literature into the "old" and the "new" one. Everything that had been written prior to Chekhov, as B. Einhenbaum mentions, was perceived as old fashioned with respect to method, not themes or topics. Among A.P. Chekhov's works three short stories are very important - The Man in the Shell, The Gooseberry Bush and About Love. The article analyses the innovative principles of these closely related short stories' structure which were plastically named by researcher Z. Papernii "the little trilogy".