The Play and Its Characters
Three people, one drawing room.
↳ Two wealthy neighbouring estates, and three quarrelsome people.
📚 Chapter Learning Kit
The Proposal · Class 10 English · First Flight
English 3 topics 135 leveled MCQs 60 flashcards 4 games Free
Shared by a Veda teacher · Generated with Veda AI · Oct 2026
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'He's Come to Borrow Money'
One of the best lines in the play.
Lomov arrives in a dress-jacket and white gloves, gets flustered, speaks of a request, and asks for water.
↳ The endearments and the calculation run side by side.
Chubukov's Joy
The word 'marriage' changes everything.
↳ The affection is for the match, not the man.
'What Proposal?'
He lets it slip while still swearing.
↳ She learns what she has thrown away, from a man still throwing insults.
Hysterics
Nothing about him has changed.
She falls into an easy-chair and wails: "Bring him back! Back! … Quick, quick! I'm ill! Fetch him!"
↳ The clearest evidence in the play that this is a market, not a romance.
A Father's Lament
Even the blame is a quarrel.
↳ Chubukov's whole part in one speech: panic, self-pity, and blame.
📖 Smart notes
What you'll study, topic by topic
1
A Proposal, and a Quarrel About Meadows
Lomov arrives in evening dress and white gloves; Chubukov decides he has come to borrow money, and then weeps with joy when he hears the truth. Left alone, Lomov explains exactly why he must marry. Then Natalya comes in…
- The play is set in a drawing-room in Chubukov's house. Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov is a landowner; Natalya Stepanovna is his daughter, twen…
- Lomov enters wearing a dress-jacket and white gloves, and Chubukov greets him with a torrent of endearments — my darling, my angel, my treas…
- When Lomov becomes nervous and talks of a request, Chubukov says aside, 'the man has come for a loan, and he shall not have one' — and then,…
~28 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
2
Hysterics, Two Dogs, and an Engagement
The moment Natalya learns that the man they have just thrown out came to propose, she collapses in hysterics and screams for him to be fetched back. He returns; she gives him the Meadows; and within a page they are shout…
- Left alone after Lomov staggers out, Chubukov and Natalya abuse him — rascal, villain, scarecrow, monster — until Chubukov lets slip that 't…
- Natalya's reaction is immediate: 'Propose? To her? Why had he said nothing before now?' She falls into an easy-chair, wails, and demands tha…
- Chubukov runs out and returns with Lomov, complaining, 'Oh, what a load it is to be the father of a grown daughter! he will cut his own thro…
~28 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
3
Farce, Character and Theme
Why 'The Proposal' is called a farce and how Chekhov builds one: exaggeration, repetition, asides, physical collapse and a torrent of insults. Then the three characters in full — a suspicious hypochondriac, a quarrelsome…
- 'The Proposal', originally 'A Marriage Proposal', is a one-act farce written in 1888–89 by Anton Chekhov, the Russian short-story writer and…
- The textbook states the theme directly: the play is about rich families marrying into other rich families so that estates grow and the arith…
- Lomov is described in the character list as a big, robust landowner who mistrusts everything. He is thirty-five, wealthy, hypochondriac, for…
~28 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
❓ Leveled MCQ practice
Try the smart MCQs from this kit
135 questions laddered from warm-up to topper-level, each with an explanation. A taste:
What kind of play is 'The Proposal'?
Beginner
A A five-act tragedy by a Russian dramatist
B A one-act farce by Anton Chekhov, written in 1888–89
C A long comedy in three acts written in 1905
D A radio play adapted from a Russian short story
Show answer & explanation
A one-act farce by Anton Chekhov, written in 1888–89
Its original title was 'A Marriage Proposal'.
How is Lomov described in the list of characters?
Intermediate
A A poor neighbour hoping to improve his fortune
B A young lawyer from the nearest town
C A large and hearty, but very suspicious, landowner
D A merchant who deals in land and cattle
Show answer & explanation
A large and hearty, but very suspicious, landowner
The word 'suspicious' explains much of what follows.
What does Chubukov first suspect Lomov has come for?
Beginner
A To buy his daughter's hay
B To complain about the Oxen Meadows
C To invite him to a ball
D To borrow money
Show answer & explanation
To borrow money
'the man has come for a loan, and he shall not have one' — said aside.
What is the effect of Chubukov's aside coming between two endearments?
Advanced
A It shows how little his warm words are worth
B It shows that he disliked Lomov from the start
C It suggests that he was short of money himself
D It proves that he had expected the proposal
Show answer & explanation
It shows how little his warm words are worth
'Shan't give him any!' is followed at once by 'What is it, my beauty?'
🃏 Flashcards
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