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A Triptych of Happiness - Appearance, Continuance and Suspension

Chan-Woong Lee 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article aims to examine the condition of happiness by intersecting a short story of Anton Chekhov and the history of philosophy, or rather it is to review the landscape of being unhappy and then sketch an alternative portrait of happiness beyond it. In “Terror”, a short story of Chekhov, we find three characters who feel unhappy, each in a different way: Gavryushka is miserable due to the lack of moderation and his loss of human dignity; “I” and Marya Sergeyevna does not know the ways in which she can reach a plateau existing beyond love and passion; Dmitri Petrovitch suffers from a metaphysical nihilism stemming from the banality and meaningless of the world. These portraits of unhappiness remind us of some principal philosophical thoughts on the nature of happiness, that is, enjoying the pleasure of the noble human (Aristotle), augmenting one’s joy through multiple and external relations (Epicurus, Russell), and laying a wager of one’s life on the ultimate meaning of the world. Each happiness may be named as ‘humanistic’, ‘naturalistic’, and ‘romanticistic’ respectively. These three conditions of happiness, sometimes being superposed and at other times in conflict, steer our lives into different and diverse directions. We may not prevent the boundary lines dividing happiness and unhappiness from invading suddenly and abruptly into our lives. However, our comprehension of the nature of these lines may provide us with the practical wisdom (phronesis) which is necessary for us to ride the waves of the lines.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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