Literary Anlysis

The setting shows the time and place in which a situation occurs. In story “The Lady with the Pet Dog”, the situations take different places throughout the narrative. The story begins with Gurov sitting in a café in Yalta when he first sees the character Anna Sergeevna with whom he becomes fascinated. Yalta is a vacation spot and Gurov is already well known of his adventures and immoral behavior. While on vacation there, he realizes that this place does not have too much to do other than meet new people. Since he has already known many women vacationing on this resort, he decides to switch his interests on the new arrivals. Once he meets Anna Sergeyevna, the setting takes place again in Yalta near the sea. Chekhov provides a detailed description of the sea and the romance of the location including "the chirrup of the grasshoppers," "the heat," and "the smell of the sea.” Chekhov describes a stroll Anna and Gurov take as "the scenery

This story’s general setting takes place in nineteenth century Russia. But, there are also many particular settings throughout this narrative that largely affect the characters and create many problems the narrator and Anna Sergeyevna have to face. In the beginning of the story Gurov and Anna find themselves taking vacations in the same city to get away from their other lives. But, when they have to part they realize how much they actually mean to each other. This can be seen in the following excerpt when Gurov realizes that Anna has not left his mind ever since they went home, “He would pace a long time about in his room, remembering it all and smiling; then his memories passed into dreams, and in his fancy the past was mingled with what was to come. Anna Sergeyevna did not visit him in his dreams, but followed him about everywhere like a shadow” (Chekhov 172). Therefore, the conflict that the setting creates is the distance between Gurov and

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in the small seaport of Taganrog, Ukraine on January 17th in the year 1860. Today he is remembered as a playwright and one of the masters of the modern short story. He was the son of a grocer and the grandson of a serf who had bought his freedom, that and that his

Moreover, Chekhov’s overall goal of “Anna on the Neck” is not aimed at a concluding idea of what it means to hold power or wealth, but rather to portray what it means to be human by presenting the shift in moral values of Anna. In addition, Chekhov uses distinct images and motifs to establish Anna’s initial position in the beginning of the story as being submissive, powerless, and weak and shift’s this image of Anna to be one of strength, authority, power, and pride, after she became aware of her influence. By Anna not helping her family like she wanted to in the beginning of the story, she now holds a false sense of values since she became the high class superficial woman who did not achieve the goals she wished to accomplish through

Gurov, dissatisfied with his monotonous life, goes to Anna because he needs the scandal to relieve a numbness that has taken effect, not because he loves her. She merely reciprocates his affection, not out of love, but to escape the entrapment she feels from her marriage. In a subtle climax during his return home to Moscow, Gurov feels the agonizing absence of anyone he can talk to meaningfully about the personal secrecies of his life, specifically Anna. This intolerable sensation sends him to “S—,“ to find her. Only when Gurov is standing outside Anna’s house does he actually relate to her situation and form some genuine connection. “Just opposite the house stretched a long grey fence adorned with nails…One would run away from a fence like that," thought Gurov, looking from the fence to the windows of the house and back again…He loathed the grey fence more and more, and by now he thought irritably that Anna Sergeyevna had forgotten him, and was perhaps already amusing herself with some one else, and that that was very natural in a young woman who had nothing to look at from morning till night but that confounded fence” (p.230). With Gurov’s realization, he actually escapes his fenced in world and partially enters her miserable one. In sharing a connection, their emotions and psychological needs start to blend together and they become entrapped by the same fence, where inside, the two of them are alone and vulnerable in a shared arena. This isolation

Affairs, gambling, lust, duals; all attributes can be seen through Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Chekhov uses this play to channel his true thoughts on many different subjects such as different working classes and love. Throughout the play many characters often arrive and show up but it is through the characters we do not see that have the most profound effect on the story. The unseen characters affect others thoughts and actions through exposing their true motives, contribute to the meaning of the play by each representing a working class, and drastically altering the plot through minuscule events.

The lawyer was depicted by Chekhov as a dynamic character who once allowed greed to dominate his life, despite its obvious destructive tendency. He changed his ways as he experienced the repercussions of greed. “If you mean that seriously,” the lawyer replied, “then I bet I could stay locked up for fifteen years, not five” (960). This use of dialogue showed that the lawyer was willing to give up his youth for money because he thought it was more important. His greed resulted in the waste of his prime years in solitary confinement all for money. The author conveyed through the dialogue between the two characters that the lawyer was just as greedy as the banker; he showed this when the lawyer upped the ante as a response to the banker’s proposition. After years of being locked up all because of a wager the lawyer realized how idiotic he had been. “To show in actual practice how much I despise what you live by, I renounce the two million I once dreamed of, as though of paradise, but for which I feel only contempt now. To forfeit my right to them I shall leave this place five hours before the stipulated time and thus break the agreement” (964).Through the author’s use of characterization and through the thoughts of the lawyer the reader saw how the lawyer changed his entire

Anton Chekhov hardly restrained from writing the dreary aspects of life during his writing career. Noted as one of Russia’s most prominent realist writers of the late 19th century, Chekhov’s work ranged from critical issues concerning the mental health system in “Ward No.6” to illustrating the tiresome cycle occurring for ordinary people sensing they are incomplete with their dull, normal life in “The Lady with the Dog.” “The Lady with the Dog,” in particular portrays characters of Chekhov’s facing an unreachable desire; Gurov and Anna. This desire emulates two contrasting forces represented by the double-lives the couple lives, one being that of realism and boredom, and the other of strict passion and romanticism. Gurov and “the lady with

The stories of Anton Chekhov mark a focal moment in European fiction. This is the point where 19th realist caucus of the short stories started their transformation into modern form. As such, his work straddles two traditions. The first is that of the anti-romantic realism which has a sharp observation of external social detail. It has human behavior conveyed within tight plot. The second is the modern psychological realism in which the action in typically internal and expressed in associative narrative that is built on epiphanic moments. In consideration of the two sides, Chekhov developed powerful personal styles that presage modernism without losing traditional frills of the form. This essay will discuss the Chekhov's portrayal of women.

One of the sweet comforts in life is to curl up in a favorite chair with a short story that will briefly carry people away from their everyday lives. On rare occasions, a tale mirrors real life in such a way that one is strangely comforted by the normalcy reflected in the words. A perfect example of a story about ordinary life that will soothe the soul in search for some insight on understanding the human behavior is Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Pet Dog.” This style of writing has such a mass appeal because the characters wear recognizable social masks and reflect an everyday reality. In his simple story of a chance meeting between a middle-aged, chauvinistic, repeat-offender adulterer, unhappily married man, and a young, naïve,

In the short story, ‘The Lady With A Dog’, Chekhov sets the story in several different locations, of which two are Yalta and Moscow. Chekhov begins the story in Yalta, where Dmitri and Anna first meet during the Summer season, later transitioning to Moscow, Dmitri’s hometown, during the Winter. The use of these two different settings, not only provides a change in the physical scenery, but also reflects Anna and Dmitri's relationship. The town of Yalta, the initial setting, is a seaside town on the coast of the Crimea, almost directly South from Moscow, and had a reputation for casual affairs.

However, in Oates’ version, she utilizes the female character, Anna, to develop the story. In Chekhov’s story, the reader is more aware of the masculinity present in the story. Gurov is manipulative of women, and he uses them as a device to remove himself from his marriage. In the story, he speaks of women by saying, “It seemed to him that he had been sufficiently tutored by bitter experience to call them what he pleased…” (Chekhov 2014). He believes that all women are the same and are the inferior race compared to men. Anna’s actions in the Oates’ story contrast greatly compared to Gurov’s. Anna displays the feminine side of the relationship between the couple. Anna is not accustomed to being involved in several affairs, which can be seen through the emotional toll that it takes on her. Following the stereotypical female

Later in the story, during one of Anna's Moscow visits, she cries again and as Chekhov foreshadows, Gurov reacts similarly. This time Gurov slips off the bed, out from beneath Anna and sits in an armchair. Paying no attention to her sorrows he then, ". . . rang and ordered tea; and then, while he drank tea, she went on . . ." (309-310). Not only is Chekhov's foreshadowing similar in both stories, he also uses magnificent details in the setting that intensify the reader's interest.

In 19th century Russian literature there was often a gender inequality depicted between the male and female characters. Women were expected to get married, start a family, and obey their husbands. Women often made sacrifices and married men they weren’t fond of in order to support their families. Anton Chekhov’s writing questions these gender relationships. The female characters have a strong presence within Chekhov’s works, and they transcend typical gender roles.

    Anton Chekhov uses The Cherry Orchard, to openly present the decline of an aristocratic Russian family as a microcosm of the rapid decline of the old Russia at the end of the nineteenth century--but also provides an ominous foreshadowing of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in the disparate ideals of his characters, Trofimov and Lopakhin, however unintentionally. The Gayev family and their plight is intended as a symbolic microcosm of the fall of the aristocracy in society at large. Though the merchant Lopakhin is presented as the character who holds values of the new, post-aristocratic age, the student Trofimov espouses the political sentiments that will ultimately replace both the