Anton Chekhov’s ‘Vanka’ is a story that haunts the reader for long. Vanka is an orphan. He is apprenticed to a cruel shoemaker in Moscow. In the house of the shoemaker, Vanka is seriously mistreated. He is not given sufficient food, he is made to rock the baby of Alyakhin in the night and so he cant sleep properly, the senior apprentices send him to buy vodka and to steal cucumbers from the master. They also make fun of him. Vanka wants to run away to his grandfather in the village, but he has no shoes and he is afraid of the frost. Tired of the life at the shoemaker’s house, Vanka decides to write a letter to his grandfather to come and take him back to the village.

He promises to help his grandfather in different ways if he is taken. But the innocent Vanka does not even know that a letter can be sent only if it has a correct postal address, and the cover is stamped. After writing about his sufferings on a crumpled sheet of paper, he puts it in an envelope. On the envelope he simply writes “To my grandfather Konstantin Makarich in the village”. He innocently thinks that this will reach his grandfather and he will be rescued. He goes to sleep dreaming of the joys he will have when he goes back to his village.

Anton Chekhov’s story touches our heart. His style is simple and straight forward with a message for the readers. He exposes a cruel society that ignores and even mistreats its children. After reading the story nobody would like to mistreat the orphaned children. The imagery is so beautiful that we can read the story as if we are watching an excellent film.