In 1892 Anton Chekhov wrote The Black Monk which described a paranoid psychotic similar to Schreber, whose case Freud used in 1911 to illustrate the psychodynamics of homosexuality. Shengold compares the father-son relationships in Chekhov's life, The Black Monk, and the Schreber case (drawing on Niederland's work on Schreber's father), and finds all three fathers to be grandiose and paranoid, with confused sexual identities and castrative of their sons. He also discusses some significant ideas dealing with dreams and delusions (Chekhov's story developed from a nightmare), the creative process, and the work of the psychoanalyst.