Pushkin's short story, "The Stationmaster" is a story told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator. The story is prefaced with the narrator's observations on the lives of all stationmasters while its remainder centers largely on the events in the life of one particular stationmaster he had met several years earlier. This is an effective tool, because it allows the reader to become acquainted with the life of the typical stationmaster which, in turn, helps to better understand the stationmaster's plight, thus casting him in a sympathetic light.

On the surface, Pushkin's "The Stationmaster" appears to be a story that mirrors the parable of The Prodigal Son. Indeed, Pushkin goes to great lengths to keep this parable in the forefront of the readers mind. First, there is the description of the photos in the stationmaster's home that depict the story. Then, after Dunia...