In The Darling, Anton Chekhov tells the story of Olga Semyonovna, a woman who is empty without love in her life. Olga is widowed twice, takes a lover who leaves her, and eventually focuses on her old lover's child as the object of her obsession. In all these relationships, she takes on the ideas and emotions of her companion. She smothers the boy, Sasha, with so much attention that he cries out in his sleep. Olga's capacity to love is infinite, but that love is a parasitical and debilitating one.

Chekhov uses the symbolism of emptiness and fullness throughout his story to emphasize Olga's state in various stages of her life. After marrying her first husband, Kukin, a theater manager, Olga "grew stouter." Chekhov doesn't refer to a sense of fullness or emptiness again until after her lover, a veterinarian surgeon named Smirnin, leaves her. Then, "She got...