Can one truly suggest there is no such thing as pain or that pain is just a facet of the mind, like the Stoic does, without having endured true pain? And what is true pain? What makes the pain of one person more severe than that of another? Is it solely extant in the beholder’s mind, or can pain exist alone? If one dog feels pain from eating once per day, but another feels that eating once per day is a luxury, where can one determine the source of pain? Surely it must not come from the action of lacking food but rather from some internal condition within the first dog?

These questions race through the probing minds of Dr. Ragin and Gromov in Anton Chekhov’s Ward Number Six. Gromov is a patient (or inmate) in the decrepit nineteenth-century Russian insane asylum known as Ward Number Six. Dr. Ragin, who opens the story as a doctor interested in serving the patients in this ward, eventually finds himself, too, locked in the ward. He is trapped in an unending circle of the struggle to prove life has meaning and that meaning can be found internally. However, the deeper he looks for this meaning, the less meaning he finds. This spiral eventually leads him to the point of mental collapse and death shortly after by stroke.

Before his demise, Ragin attempts to teach Gromov the doctrines of Stoicism and the meaning it can offer to one’s life. By accepting all as vanity and pain as just a facet of the mind, one can, Ragin suggests, truly achieve internal peace and understand one’s purpose in life. Gromov sees this as an absurd attempt to impart meaning where there is none. He sees Ragin’s teaching as parochial and patriarchal. Ragin has never experienced true pain like Gromov has.

It is only in the end of the story when Ragin, trapped in the ward, feels the pain that Gromov suggests. The ward guard, Nikita, formerly Dr. Ragin’s colleague, beats Ragin into submission to stay inside the ward when Ragin attempts to leave. Ragin, blood dripping from his mouth, finally realizes that this is what Gromov experiences daily. Gromov's life is pain. To do away with Gromov's pain would be to do away with his life. With this undersatnding, Ragin relinquishes his final grasp on a desire to find internal meaning in life and dies.

In Ward Number Six, Chekhov explores man’s search for meaning and the understanding of human suffering. However, this might not be the traditional “search for meaning” tale. Ragin truly loses himself, it appears, only once he allows his pursuit of something greater than true humanity to overtake his desire to be human and love his fellow humans. For him, everyone is an idiot, but Gromov represents something greater than a regular human. It is only when he “becomes” Gromov in the asylum that he understands the horrible decision he has made. He is trapped, but he has also trapped himself mentally in a circle of despair. Yes, he sought meaning, but did he allow his pursuit of something beyond the beauty of life to destroy his ability to understand the beauty around him? Or is this the true way, and is he a martyr in the pursuit of truth? Like the spinning, frenetic questions of Gromov and Ragin, these questions will inevitably continue to race in the heads of readers of Anton Chekhov’s Ward Number Six.

-Charlie, March 2024