In the short story “The Ninny”, the author Anton Chekhov uses the point of view from the employer to describe the sense, control and power the man has and how easy it is to manipulate his governess. The story begins with the boss settling his account with the governess. By using the point of view of the employer the reader can see how the employer plays a trick on her by cheating her out of the money she had earned. He makes up silly reasons for not paying the right amount of forty rubles. Yulia Vassilyevna knows that her employer is mistreating her but she does not complain. In the end the employer gets upset with her because she did not stand up for herself and pays her the eighty rubles that he had owed her. The conflict in the story is character vs. character in which the employer is tricking the governess, Yulia. There is also an element of character vs. self for both the employer and the governess in which the employer thinks he is a very clever man because of the trick he was playing on his governess. The governess inner struggle was if she should stand up for herself or risk losing her job. There is also character vs. society. It shows the social injustice in which the employer demonstrates his insensitivity to the governess’ hardships. The setting of the story is in northeast Europe around the late 1800’s in the employer’s study. The theme of the story is one should not be blinded by power. In other words, don’t judge a book by its cover because something very powerful can be inside them such as intelligence. Taking advantage of nice people has become the social norm these days. For this reason, parents today have given up on raising their children to be nice, but there still remain some exceptions. Yulia Vasilyevna is one of those few exceptions. She is one of the main characters in Anton Chekhov's short story "The Ninny". The main theme this story speaks about is how many people are taken advantage of these days. The story begins with the master of the house meeting with the governess of his children, Yulia Vasilyevna, to discuss her paycheck. He then begins to list wrong accusations at the governess, all the while subtracting money from her salary, until her money is reduced from eighty rubles to eleven. The interesting thing is that Yulia barely spoke throughout the whole ordeal, tears sitting still in her eyes, and when he handed her the money, she took it and uttered a single word of thank you. The ending to the story was quite surprising, because it turned out that the master was acting all the time, trying to test her patience. He was outraged when the governess thanked him, and when he asked "is it possible that there is anyone in this world who is so spineless?" she replied back with an embarrassed smile. The message that is conveyed in this story is a very profound and contemporary one.
Instead, Yulia lets him take her money again and again, whether it is for broken heirlooms, ripped clothing, or holidays (Chekhov). This is bad because she doesn’t deserve to lose the money. He is being greedy and bullying her for her own amusement. At the end, he tells Yulia that he is just playing a trick on her. Incredulous at her lack of protest, he asks if there “is anyone in this world who is so spineless?” (Chekhov). As a powerful man, a man with money, he cannot understand that people would simply accept their fate. He controls his own destiny because of his high status in society, whereas Yulia has no control over hers.
Consequently, he cannot even see the world from her perspective. What he views as weakness, the audience realizes is actually submission and slavery.