Anton Chekhov has a unique writing style. He goes to the extreme to prove a point, in this story capital punishment. In true life, I doubt that a person who would stay imprisoned for fifteen years voluntarily. Also, a bet like this one would have been considered as not authentic, because these gentlemen were having a heated discussion where violence could have possibly taken place. Also both men were young and hot tempered, they made their decisions irrationally without much thought of the consequences this bet does. The banker underestimates his fortune, and is too proud to rethink his offer. The lawyer is also a senseless young man who is a zealot and does not value life as much as his cause.
             Another style Chekhov's writing's have is the intense physiological transformations each character was going through. One moment, which was very apparent, was the banker thinking of the ways of killing the lawyer. He debates in his mind whether to kill him. Slowly he agrees to kill the lawyer and premeditates the murder. The banker believes that the murder would be blamed on the watch and that the lawyer had become so weak that he could easily killed him without struggle. Chekhov was able to weave the thoughts of a character into something dark and evil. He discovers the human personality at its worst.
             As in the story the lawyer had many physical and mental changes that he would never recover from. "He was a skeleton with the skin drawn tight over his bones . . ." He has suffered mental anguish from not having any human contract. Anton Chekhov's believes in capital punishment. "It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor . . ." The lawyer has turned into a hopeful person into a pessimistic person, having no more pleasu...