Great Expectations Unfulfilled: “High Art” as a Warning against putting Pressure on Prodigies
In many ways Kostya embodies Zoya’s pessimistic attitudes to success in the arts due to his financial struggles and so he fuels her famed enthusiasm on the subject (Kuzmin 205-206). This idea of lofty expectations leading to dire consequences is one that has stayed relevant throughout history and mostly manifests itself in popular media today in the form of "child stars" who rise to fame very early on. It is no surprise to many nowadays when they hear about a child star whom they grew up loving turn to drug addiction and various other deteriorations of a what is generally accepted as a healthy life. Like Kostya, these child stars receive many plaudits in the media and are not prepared for what it means to be in the public eye. This short story follows the first-person narrator’s friendship with an up-and-coming poet, Kostya Shchetinkin, whom the narrator had known since they were a child. The story takes an investigatory tone throughout, as the narrator tries to understand the marriage of the young poet to a daughter of both a former vice-governor. This tone continues after he discovers that the pair are struggling financially despite how it may look superficially (205) as well as how easy he theorises the remedy to their situation to be (207).
The narrator begins with an introduction of his existing relationship with Kostya (195) but quickly turns to his present where he discovers that Kostya is being lauded as a “promising young poet” (196). These early pages serve to describe the level of hype surrounding Kostya even going so far as to explicitly mention the splitting of opinion (196) that coincides with significant persons in a field. This phenomenon has stood the test of time as we see it clearly today in the form of "haters" of excelling professionals in most occupations today. To make the reader aware of such an age-old indicator of notoriety is to convince the reader of the presence of some historically special talent or potential. Kuzmin reinforces this idea of opinion-splitting when the narrator mentions that, after reacquainting with Kostya, he “willingly joined a company of cautious, not unduly skeptical bystanders not too young to dismiss the visibly developing talent of Konstantin Petrovich” (196). It is evident from his hesitation to laud Kostya as much as his potential suggests that the narrator is aware of the effects of lofty expectations and wishes to simply follow Kostya’s career with interest rather than sabotage it with illusions of grandeur. The bystanders being both "skeptical" and unwilling to "dismiss" Kostya’s "visibly developing talent" indicate that they have some experience with phenomenal young artists suggesting they are aware of the multitude of possibilities that his career trajectory could take as well as some of the pitfalls that young artists get themselves into. However—through Zoya’s unrelenting enthusiasm for Kostya’s work (203)—illusions of grandeur are in part a reason for his eventual suicide.
The narrator began to have a closer relationship with Kostya after becoming reacquainted by chance years later at one of his friend’s plays (198) where he finally met Kostya’s wife, Zoya. To his surprise, Zoya is of much higher social standing than Kostya—being the rebellious daughter of a former vice-governor (198)—which is what piqued the narrator’s suspicion of her in the first place (199). The narrator’s resulting interactions with the couple are revealing of the pressure that Zoya is willing to put on Kostya to fulfil the expectations of him. There is an instance in the Shchetinkin residence where Zoya recites part of a piece that Kostya is working on. The narrator is moved but refrains from overtly showing it as he is still cognisant of the effect of expectations on an obviously underachieving Kostya. Kostya sits embarrassed as Zoya “started to demand greater enthusiasm” (203) from him. Here is one of the best examples in the short story of the pressure Zoya puts Kostya under to achieve “high art.” Kostya clearly already knows that he could’ve done much more in the years between the plaudits and the mediocrity and it in no way helps him to be reminded of his potential as he continues to miss the mark.
Zoya’s pessimism about the state of artistic appreciation is also a vector for Kostya’s frustrations with himself as an artist. She holds her husband’s work in such high regard that he seems to be the root of, or at least reinforce, her attitudes towards how artists are appreciated in society. She believes that no matter what great works artists conjure up, they will never be the subject of the amount of interest they deserve (202). This belief is brought up again when Zoya argues with the narrator about him having Kostya do some translating for money (204) as she feels vindicated by the fact that Kostya must translate on the side to make enough money just like the narrator composes music for plays although that is not his true profession. Zoya inspires a sense of hopelessness in Kostya as she seems to hold the opinion that even if he becomes as great as people once said he could be, still no one would care. One could argue that Zoya’s pessimism stems from the inability of Kostya’s work to generate a stable income for them. She thought that marrying the next great poet would allow her to continue to live her lavish lifestyle and became disillusioned with the way artists are treated in society when she discovers that she couldn’t. If this were true, Kostya perhaps feels some responsibility for not being able to live up to his wife’s expectations and her subsequent rocky relationship with her passion for art.
High Art is a story of regret. Regret of what could have been egged on by immense expectations and a wife disenchanted with that which she used to love. Kostya, having already buckled under the weight of expectations of plaudits, buckles under those of his wife in a much more fatal way. Kostya is a young talented man with the world at his feet and ready to cement himself as a great Russian poet but great expectations, a prideful wife, and financial hardships were ultimately too much for him.
Bibliography
Kuzmin, M. A. (Mikhail Alekseevich). High Art. Selected Writings. Stanislav Shvabrin and Michael A. Green. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2005.
