Ward No. 6
By Anton Chekhov
Perhaps one of Chekov’s most famous and profound descriptions of human misery,” Ward Six” describes the deplorable conditions of a rundown hospital in the hinterlands of Russia, where the head doctor, Adrey Ragin, while an educated good man, is passive and cynical about the human condition and unable to bring reforms to the hospital. While on his rounds he encounters a young man, Ivan Gromov, committed to the mental ward who suffers from paranoia and obsessive thoughts. This young man is also educated and articulates his own feelings of futility in terms that Dr. Ragin agrees with. He continues to visit Gromov because he is fascinated by his philosophical rants. The story describes the slow and thorough decline of the doctor, who eventually becomes belligerent, socially outcast, and is betrayed by his so-called friends who trick him into becoming the sixth inmate in “Ward Six.”
