Respect and effective communication are important in any relationship. When these important values and skills are missing in relationships, there's bound to be confusion, misunderstanding and chaos. This is what we see in the play, The Proposal, by Anton Chekov. The major theme in The Proposal  is satire of the landowning class in 19th-century Russia. As mentioned in the context section of the play, the landowners were a small, privileged class who were notoriously conservative in clinging to old values that defined them. Let's understand what was wrong in the way the characters look at marriage and relationships and what can we learn from their mistakes.