You Are Mad, And Gone The Wrong Way You Take

“You are mad, and gone the wrong way. You take
falsehood for truth and ugliness for beauty.”

- lawyer from A.C.’s “The Bet”

Through analyzing this excerpt from the story of “The Bet” by
Anton Chekhov, one can sense the imprisoned lawyer criticizing the
banker of being ignorant and insane. What exactly does it mean to be
insane or ignorant? By definition, for one to be classified as
insane, they would have the inability to mediate with reality at
will. The definition of ignorance can be grasped by analyzing
Plato’s concept of “Simile of the Cave”. Ignorance is depicted as
the lowest level or form of knowledge one can obtain. If one would
want to deepen their understanding of “The Bet”, “Simile of the Cave”
would smoothly coincide and explain the concepts of ignorance and
insanity present in this story.
Before comparing the two stories, we must comprehend “Simile of
the Cave”. The journey of the prisoner from ignorance to the truth,
holds deep and significant meanings. Recalling from the story, the
prisoner is forced from the realm of ignorance to guesswork, zoa,
mathematica, and finally to archai. As the journey through the cave
to the outside world is analyzed, one can evidently see the prisoner
rise above ignorance by trying to seek the truth (in the world of
archai). Knowing that the prisoner learned many truths, it is valid
to say that he is becoming wiser. By the time the emancipated
prisoner reaches and becomes content in the world of archai (truth),
the guards struggle to take him back to the benches in the world of
guesswork. When the prisoner is seated back in guesswork, he
explains of his findings to the other prisoners that remained on the
benches during his voyage. We find that after he explains of his new
findings and theories, he is classified as insane by the rest of the
prisoners. The other prisoners do not believe him, due to that they
have not experienced it for themselves. The question of who the real
insane and ignorant man is, now remains. Through the eyes of the
prisoner-philosopher, it is the other prisoners that are insane and
ignorant. Why? It is because the prisoners are taking “falsehood
for truth” (Chekhov, 375). They fail to believe that there is
actually more to the world besides mere shadows upon a cave wall.
Yet, the other prisoners probably classified the prisoner-philosopher
as insane, due to him jabber of concepts that they have never heard
of within their lifetime on the bench. Clearly, ignorance and
insanity play a critical part of the voyage through the cave.
The voyage of the young lawyer versus the journey of the
prisoner-philosopher are very similar. Within the first year of the
lawyer’s imprisonment he does not accept any fine wines or tabacco,
and finds entertainment by playing the piano. During the times he
does not play the piano, the guards would bring him books to read.
At first he was sent novels of comedy, mystery, romance, and fantasy.
By the end of the 4 year, he does not play the piano, yet he decides
to start reading classics. Just as the prisoner repeatedly named
shadows on the wall, the lawyer frequently read of fictional books
with the same plot. The repetitive plots may be due to the selection
of the guards. Therefore, these guards are similar to the parade of
men that force the prisoners to see the same shadows constantly.
Yet, with the amount of books that the lawyer read, the plots were
bound to be repetitive. After examining the lawyer’s status, we can
figuratively say that the lawyer is still chained to the bench in the
realm of guesswork.
By the turn of the lawyer’s fifth year, the lawyer has gone
through a dramatic change. It is through the truth test of
correspondence that makes the lawyer not want to read any more books.
The lawyer is bored of reading novels and classics because the plots
of each book became predictable. At this point the lawyer is found
constantly crying, arguing and destroying letters that he wrote.
There are many explanations to the lawyer’s frustration. A few
reasons is that the original length of time the bet was suppose to
last was five years and not fifteen. Plus the bet was senseless since
he could only try the alternative punishment and live to talk about
it afterwards. The reason that probably devastated the lawyer the
most was that he was imprisoned for not committing a crime. In
relating the two journeys the lawyer is finally in the realm of zoa.
Like the prisoner that saw the light from the fire, the lawyer
finally looks towards the fire and recognizes that he was an ignorant
fool before he was ever imprisoned.
During the next three years the lawyer starts to read books that
contain meaning, and universal ideas. The genre of the massive
volume of literary pieces he later obtained, consisted of the
subjects of philosophy and history. Through coherence, the lawyer
evaluates what he has read in comparison to the new works he recently
examined, and decides what is the truth. By his tenth year, the
lawyer begins to read passages only from the New Testament chapter of
the Bible. Through coherence, the lawyer once again finds many
contradictions within the passages, and by pragmatic reasoning he
concludes that the logic of the Bible does not work, and therefore is
false. It is reasonable to state that the lawyer has reached the
outer world labeled mathematica, because just he has been trying to
search for genuine universal truths alike the emancipated prisoner.
Later within the lawyer’s eleventh and twelfth year he asks for
books based on the history of religion and theology, and within his
last years (thirteenth through fifteenth year), he requests for books
on natural sciences. Once again the lawyer tests the ideas through
coherence, correspondence, and pragmatic reasoning. He then
investigates what he has learned to find truth to form a synoptic
view on issues such as life itself. As the fifteenth year ends we
find that the lawyer has found happiness through seeking truth. Now
we must remember what happened to the prisoner-philosopher when he
returned to the prisoners back in guesswork. Analogous to the
prisoner trying to tell of his discoveries, the lawyer writes a
letter to the banker of his “experiences”. The letter had lines
reading the following:

“For fifteen years I have diligently
studied earthly life... I saw from there
how above me lightning glimmered, cleaving
clouds... I touched the wings of beautiful
devils... preached new religions, conquered
whole countries...” (Chekhov, 375)
The banker probably considered the lawyer as an insane man from
reading those few outrageous lines.

Yet let us refer back to the beginning excerpt (which is found in the
letter) which reads:

“You are mad, and gone the wrong way. You take
falsehood for truth and ugliness for beauty.”
(Chekhov, 375)
This statement can easily defend the lawyer from being classified as
insane, due to the irregular ideas written in the letter. What the
lawyer was most likely trying to show is that the banker is ignorant,
and maybe even insane. How did the lawyer prove this? Among the
description of the strange voyages that he supposedly experienced, we
find that it is full of contradictions. An example of a discrepancy
found within the letter is when the lawyer seemed to love the books
for giving him wisdom, yet later we find that he completely despises
them. The lawyer may have purposely inserted many contradictions and
bizarre tales to prove to us that the banker is ignorant for
believing everything in the letter makes complete sense. The lawyer
also proves to us that the banker is insane, by means that the banker
will accept being ignorant in order to keep his material possessions
which in this case is the money.
In conclusion, from comparing the two journeys we find that
ignorance comes hand in hand with insanity. The concept behind the
letter the lawyer wrote is significant to the story and should be
applied to our own lives. The idea that should be applied is: We
should always seek the truth to prevent being fooled, therefore we
must rise above ignorance. Finally, the question of who the insane
and ignorant man really is, can be answered. Those that are insane
are the ones that accept living stationary in ignorance, instead of
going on the quest of seeking for the truth.

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