ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the representations of medical practitioners in fiction, encompassing classic and contemporary literature. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in Taganrog, Russia, in 1860 and died of pulmonary TB in 1904. His great plays, such as The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard started a new movement of subtle psycho logical drama that influenced George Bernard Shaw and other playwrights. In most of Chekhov's plays there is a doctor in the cast but not in a leading role. In The Seagull, Dr. Dorn, a 55-year-old, well preserved, womanizing bachelor, takes care of the State Councilor Sorin, dispensing aspirin for everything that ails the old man. In light of the portraits Chekhov paints of these medical men, one is relieved that there is no doctor in the cast of his last and most often performed play, The Cherry Orchard.
