1. Drama
The Analysis of
“The Man in a Case”

2. The Man in a Case The function of The Dialogue
To reminisce: In this play, there is dialogue that remind the reader to something in the real world. In this case Varinka says something to Byelinkov.
Varinka: “My sweetest dancing bear with galoshes, my little stale babka. " Byelinkov: “a stale babka”?
Varinka: I am not Pushkin
From the dialogue Varinka shows her feeling that she adores or likes him as if byelinkov is her stale babka (a kind of cake), of course the man surprises, how could she resembles him with a cake. Varinka knows that she can’t compose some better words or romantic expressions like a poet. That’s why she says “I am not Pushkin” which mean she is not a poet like Pushkin.

3. The Man in a Case The function of The Dialogue: To characterize
The function of language to characterize means to highlight the characterization of a character or some characters. For example I will highlight Varinka in which she is a kind of expressible woman, slight agresive and demanded one. This characterization could be portrayed from the following dialogue
Varinka: Will you remember me.
Byelinkov:….
Varinka: I love you  expressible and agresive
Byelinkov: You are a girl
Varinka: I am thirty
Byelinkov: But you think like a girl…
Varinka: Do you love me?  demanded

4. The Man in a Case The function of The Dialogue: To characterize
In another dialogue we also can see how demanding woman Varinka is
VARINKA. “Dance with me!” 　 　　BYELINKOV. “You are a demanding woman.”

5. The Man in a Case Conflicts:
Personality problem between two couples; Byelinkov and varinka.
 Internal Conflict: each of them has internal problem which has already become their own personality that is a smart but introvert personality i.e Byelinkov and a talkative and expressible/extrovert personality i.e Varinka
The two contrast personality of the couple create two different views in searching their world or their future.
 External Conflict: the different personality is shown through their view or opinion which contrast each other.

6. The Man in a Case Setting:
The scene of the one act play is in a small garden in the village of Mironitch in 1898.
The function of the setting in “The Man in a Case” is as the background. The conflict of the Play doesn’t have a significant relationship with the setting for it is about the problem between a man and his fiancé. Since there is no significant relation between the setting and the story (look at the conflict session) the function of the setting is as the background.

7. The Characters: Exploring…
1. Byelinkov:
He is a young intellectual teacher. He is a sort of realistic person, but rather conservative in thinking. In social life he is a little passive man and he always doesn’t care to what people said or at least pay a little attention to what people think about him or his relationship with his fiancée.
Actually, he has tried to escape from the shadow of his girl but he fails.

8. The kinds of Character:
1. Byelinkov: From the personality and the way of thinking Byelinkov is an interesting character. He is intelligent that make him know everything in the world but to face his fiancée, he can’t do anything, he gives up. He cannot face his problem or cannot learn something from a sort of repeated behavior of his girl. For this capacity we can categorize this character as a Flat one. He is too afraid to make up his mind, scare to “rock the boat” (take a risk).

9. The kinds of Character:
1. Byelinkov: He is a static one for he has failed to change his opinion and his behavior toward Varinka even thought he has tried to but he gives up at the end by taking back the tear up paper of their agreement that he has thrown before.

10. The kinds of Character: Exploring…
2. Varinka:
She is a young nice girl which is very optimistic in thinking. She is charm, attractive, aggressive and always happy, but a sort of naïf in deciding or giving an opinion. Most of all she always shows her capability to motivate her fiancée that make him happy when they are together.
However, her personality is too dominant over her fiancée that make her as a demanded girl and as a result she always make him speechless before her.

11. The kinds of Character:
2. Varinka: For another different reason we also can categorize this character as a flat. She is a charm and attractive girl, but with a little consciousness she only forces her opinion to somebody else; her fiancée. She just looks at the world from her own perspective and she refuses to consider byelinkov. Those are some reasons why she is a sort of flat character.

12. The kinds of Character:
2. Varinka:
This character is also static one. She almost stick for every issues that they make. All the matters are for her fiancée and that should be followed by him. All the world seem to be the matters by her that automatically should be the concern of byelinkov. That is the character of Varinka from the beginning until the end

13. The Theme
Before stating the theme of this story we should consider that this play portrayed a contradiction of two people which are about to married. The contrast personality as well as behavior between them could not be solved by their discussion in the garden. The man which his own characterization and the woman with hers. Here the writer wants to show us, and this is probably as the theme of this play, that “sometime people are stick to what they are”. Even an institution like “marriage” which will unite two different people to becoming one, can not make these two characters having the same opinion about the world.

14. The Theme
In another case, we can ask a question about the title, “The Man in a Case”. What’s the meaning of the man in a case? What case is it?
From the story of the play we consider that the man here is Byelinkov is about to have “a case” if he marry her finace Varinka who is aggressive and too expressible woman.
The case here probably also derived from him self in which he can’t ‘tame’ the woman; Varinka.
Another probably theme of this play could be, “The man with no strong personality would may have problems to handle his marriage/woman”