Love and Morality in the “the Lady with the Lapdog” by Anton Chekhov

The Russian attitude toward love during Chekhov’s time is very patriarchal and is considered normal to marry for practical reasons, parental pressures or other considerations rather than for love. The feelings that accompany love, such as passion and spirituality, are not a societal consideration and this institutional attitude toward human emotion is the catalyst for Chekhov’s story. When a person is deprived of love, he or she builds up a futility of life which consumes the human soul. In Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog”, the readers are placed in a setting where the main character Gurov, and his love interest Anna, are given the emotional freedom to feel love toward one another. This freedom is the driving force in the story

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

The next silence comes after a week of continued daily meetings and foretells the relationship’s passage from casual to physically intimate.  Before the silence is noted, Dmitri and Anna are at a jetty admiring the sea and watching the boats come and go, and Dmitri is watching Anna closely; as she chatters aimlessly, he notices her movements and the shining in her eyes, all of which are the backdrop for the rising tension that peaks during a moment of silence:  ‘“The weather’s improved towards evening,” he said.  “Where shall we go now?  Shall we take a drive somewhere?”  She made no answer.’  Anna’s failure to respond (her silence) marks the height of the tension and is immediately followed by a sudden embrace, a passionate and romantic kiss, laden with the nervousness that comes with public indiscretion, and finally, the suggestion from Dmitri that the two go to a private place to consummate the relationship:  “Let’s go to your place…” he said softly.  And they both walked quickly’.  Once again, after a silence, the relationship escalates.  Chekhov uses the device repeatedly as the two fracture over Anna’s guilt and go their separate ways; the extended

Although Chekhov emphasized in the beginning of the text that money holds power as shown by Anna and Modest Alexeich’s relationship, Chekhov shifts the power dynamic by introducing Anna’s beauty and sense of empowerment and now Anna has a new sense of awareness and power. Following the ball, His Excellency “[thanks Anna] for her part in the bazaar” and asked her permission to come again (283). After establishing herself and her influence at the ball, His Excellency’s visit to Anna truly places emphasis on her role at the ball. Having one of the highest member of society personally visit and thank Anna gave her the highest sense of empowerment as this moment proves to be significant. Most notably when her husband looks at her with the “cringingly respectful expression that she was accustomed to see on his face in the presence of the illustrious and the powerful,” and she confidently and clearly articulated the following statement, “Get out, you blockhead!” (283). Compared to the confined and powerless young lady Chekhov presented in the beginning of the plot,

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

Although love is about sacrifice for the significant other, it can also a very selfish emotion. During the story the when Gurov and Anna are in their affair she starts to complain and he, “could not help feeling bored as he listened to her...she buried her face on his chest and clung close to him,” (Chekhov 269), showing that he is not willing to listen to her when

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.

The character that are talking in this section are Vronsky and Ambassador’s wife. This passage is about if marriage should happen through two of the people falling in love or if it should be with reason (getting married because of politics). Before this passage was said the group of society elites were discussing the marriage between Vlasyeva and Topov. After this passage was spoken Anna Karenia and Vronsky discuss their feelings between each other. Anna feels that Vronsky should go back to Kitty and apologize to her for leaving her. Anna is conflicted with her feelings towards Vronsky but feels that he should do right by Kitty.

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,

As the story unfolds, Gurov at first changes subtly. First of all he meets Mrs. Anna Sergeyevna. His attitude at first is still the same, he finds her as another victim of his little game that he plays. He sits and watches, searching his mind for a ways to get her attention like he does for every woman. He still looks at women in the same sort of fashion. Anna and Gurov start spending time with each other more and more, he still plays his game. Each time that he meets her and tries to coax her into have an ice or syrup, yet he still looks at her as “pathetic.” After their first kiss he begins to realize that there is something different about this girl. Unlike the usual women he messes around with, she feels guilty about engaging in this affair with him. Anna does not give him the satisfaction of playing the game along with him. As he spends more time with Anna he becomes fond of her presence. He starts learning more about her, when she talks him listens intently instead of getting bored and rolling his eyes. When Anna gets a letter from her husband asking for her to come home, Gurov acts like it isn’t a big deal, he still believes he is playing his game. At first he forces himself to believe he is ok, but after they are apart for a while he realizes that Anna isn’t leaving him. She follows him everywhere, not just in his dreams. He feels something that he has never felt before, he

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.

Gurov has found a woman he can love for the rest of his life, and he hates the fact that she is not with him. She has left him just as the way he would leave the women he has had affairs with. He feels that she is the only woman to make him happy in the world. His own past has doomed him; He knows he can never be with Anna but trys to make a effort to see her again in S--. He arrives at her home to see that she is enclosed by a long fence, slammed in with nails, a prison he imagines it to be. Desperately seeking to find her he attends a theater at night. He sees her there with her tall husband, wearing a uniform. While her husband is gone, Gurov approaches her to speak with him, as she leaves the auditorium to avoid him. Gurov catches up to her and they speak for a short while and Anna promises to him that she will come to Moscow to visit him.

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.