In The Bet by Anton Chekhov there are many lessons to be learned. For example, even when you are rich you have to spend your money wisely. Another lesson to be learned through this story is that we have bigger need and values than we think we do.
The banker was young and rich when he made the bet. Both the lawyer and the banker sacrificed important things over that bet. The banker staked his millions and the lawyer staked his freedom. For the banker two millions were nothing near his fortune, but that changed as the years passed. "The confident millionaire had become a banker of middling rank, trembling at every rise and fall in his investments". He lost almost all his fortune gambling in the Stock Exchange. The banker was afraid of becoming poor so he decided to kill the lawyer a day before the end of the bet.
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Oil on canvas. From the c...
BankWhen he got in the lodge, where the lawyer had lived for the last fifteen years he saw a letter, in which the lawyer was renouncing the two millions.
In this short story the banker and the lawyer also learned a lesson: that our needs and values are bigger than we think. "I despise wisdom and blessings... It is all worthless, fleeting..." those words were written in the letter the lawyer left for the banker. That was what the lawyer learned through his life in solitude. When the banker read that he was touched, and he also learned the same lesson.
In conclusion, many lessons were learned in this short story. The lawyer found the "truth" to life. He passes it onto the banker through the letter he left. The banker also learned that money is important and it's also good to have, but it is not everything.