"An Upheaval" by Anton Chekhov is a story about a young girl, Mashenka Pavletsky, who works as a governess for an upper-class household. Mashenka, who once felt herself superior to the lady of the house, has had her room searched because her boss, Fedosya Vassilyevna Kushkin, had lost a brooch. Mashenka was so offended by this act of having her room searched, that she packed up her things and left the house and her job in indignation.
[...] To prove how highly Mashenka thought of herself, after she had found out that her room was searched, she collapsed on her bed and started to cry, thinking to herself, “never in her life had she been subjected to such an outrage, never had she been so deeply insulted She, well-educated, refined, the daughter of a teacher, was suspected of theft; she had been searched like a street-walker!” This is a difference in perception between Mashenka and Fedosya. While Fedosya was at a higher rank, she was allowed to mistreat her servants all she wanted, seeing them all as nothing but “street-walkers.” Similarly, Mashenka has the same idea about everyone else, the only difference being that Mashenka is not in the position to judge. [...]
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