Love in Anton Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – popularly considered by many to be the quintessential love story of all time – is a play that we are all familiar with in one way or another. Whether it be through the plethora of portrayals, adaptations and performances that exist or through your own reading of the play, chances are you have been acquainted with this tale of “tragic love” at some point in your life. Through this universal familiarity an odd occurrence can be noted, one of almost canonical reverence for the themes commonly believed to be central to the plot. The most widely believed theme of Romeo and Juliet is that of the ideal love unable to exist under the harsh social and political strains of this world. Out of this idea emerge two

He does not feel anything toward women and in fact, refers to them as “the lower race” (1) and that “their beauty aroused hatred in him and the lace on their linen reminded him of scales” (118). As the story ends, the readers learn about Gurov’s consciousness and that his feelings towards women have changed. The motive for his alteration begins with Gurov’s love for Anna, and later these feelings makes him “sleepless and restless” because of continuous thinking and dreaming about Anna.

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

My initial observation of Dashkova is her ability to be extraordinary despite her difficult upbringing. Her intelligence was compelling to the Empress Catherine and the men that she had encountered during her traveling. Dashkova portrayed herself as a strong, versatile woman, who’s not only different from most of the women during the time period, but can also outperform her male counterparts in various tasks (e.g. surgery, debate, carpenting, etc.) (pg. 144). She surprised the readers at the first moment when she met Prince Dashkov, a Moscow man. She fell in love with him and got married at the age of 16. The proposal was informal and emotional unlike the traditional arrangement with its strict regulations. Just 5 years after, Prince Dashkov passed away, leaving Dashkova 2 children and his mountainous gambling debt. In the most hopeless scenario, Dashkova managed to raise her 2 children and provided her son a wonderful education while still remaining faithful to the Empress Catherine II. She declared, “My own poverty affected me not at all” (pg. 149).

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

The play Romeo and Juliet has been considered to be the most touching love story of all time, but when you look closer and past all the initial “fantasies”, you see the truth. Romeo and Juliet believed that they were in love because of the mere idea of it, however based on their actions and the short amount of time that the stages of their “love” progressed in, it soon became clear that what they were actually feeling was infatuation.

Gurov and Anna ultimately want to be together. The obvious solution is to divorce their current spouses and remarry. Anton Chekhov could have had them create a plan to divorce their spouses, possibly on the basis of unhappiness if the judge required them to give a reason. He had already established that Gurov and Anna were miserable with their current spouses, so they would have been telling the truth. After an appropriate period of suspenseful waiting, Gurov and Anna learn that the paperwork is approved, the marriages are dissolved, and the couple is free to marry each other.

In the play `Romeo and Juliet` the writer William Shakespeare uses the theme of love as a main feature to push the story along. Presented are a plethora of variations of love including family love, true love and courtly love. This essay aims to analyse these three types of love chosen.

Love is defined as the intense feeling of deep affection. In the play, Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, the attraction between the two protagonists, Romeo and Juliet, does not factually classify as true love. Meanwhile, lust is a concept in which is commonly mistaken for love, which is very apparent throughout this classic “love story” of Romeo and Juliet. While others could debate that Romeo and Juliet’s love, was love at first sight, it is debateable that their feelings towards one another were pure lust. Romeo and Juliet are too immature to fully understand the concept of love as they are too young and hormone-driven, they were both in search for escapism from their present troubles, and they had an excessive amount of

He is married to a woman, whom he describes as, “unintelligent, narrow, inelegant” and even adds that he “was afraid of her, and did not like to be at home” (Chekov). Gurov considers what it would feel like to find a woman who could love the real him and not the “man created by their [own] imagination” (Chekov). One evening, he met a lady at dinner in the gardens and started conversing about her vacation in Yalta. Together they agreed to go back to Anna’s hotel, where she would soon open up about the misery her marriage caused her. Emotionally distraught, Anna Sergeyevna defined herself as a, “bad, low woman…

One can say that Gurov has his own logical reasoning when discussing his emotions and his numerous relationships. He is used to having affairs, and they generally end with his distaste over how a connection so special can become so ordinary every time. When he first meets Anna, he believed it to be just another one of his flings, however, as he waits for the memory of their time together to fade he realizes that he cannot forget her. When he discovers his relationship with Anna Sergeyevna to be different and unexpected, he begins to understand that love is an emotional experience that is deep, sincere, and touching. Gurov realizes how strange it is that Anna has become the center of his life.

Dmitry Gurov is the protagonist in The Lady with the Dog. From the story’s onset, Gurov searches for distractions outside of his unhappy marriage. The narrative summary of Gurov portrays his as a male chauvinist. He speaks very ill of women, especially his wife by referring to her as “unintelligent, narrow,

Soon after Vanya's death, Volodya moves in and the two begin a close relationship. Yet, one must remember Vanya's warning to Olga about Volodya's womanizing habits. Their relationship does not last long as Vanya suggests, Volodya leaves with his regiment and Vanya warns Olga before he passes away, but she does not listen. Gurov in "The Lady with the Little Dog" also treats women poorly, even when he feels he is in love. As Anna cries in her hotel room to Gurov about their love and their sins, Gurov simply unhurriedly slices a watermelon sitting on a table, paying little attention to Anna's concerns, showing his true self. If Anna knows as much as the reader does about Gurov, she may have expected him to react the way he does.

However, the drama began when Nikolay had to go on a business trip, Vladimir and Ludmila went on a ride in the airplane. It was a first-time experience for Ludmila and she loved it. She associated those happy feelings with the presence Vladimir. As for Vladimir, he developed feelings for Ludmila in the absence of Nikolay. However, as described by the film, it is unclear on how far Ludmila and Vladimir’s feelings went for each other, but by the time Nikolay came back, they seemed to already develop a deep connection with each other. When Nikolay came back, Ludmila and Vladimir were so guilty that Vladimir told Nikolay what happened. Nikolay was very upset, which leads to the departure of Vladimir. Fast forward a few months, Vladimir somehow was back at the apartment with Nikolay and Ludmila. In the film, both men acted like they were Ludmila husband. This part of the film was rather confusing as to why exactly Nikolay allowed Vladimir to come back to live with them and even as far as to letting him become the “second” husband in the family. Regardless, the director continues to focus on the emotions of Ludmila, who then found out that she was pregnant with a baby. She was extremely worried. The director, however, did not specify the exact causes of her worries. Her concerns could arise from her incapacity to find out who is the father or simply the fear of childbirth. As result, she went to the hospital for an abortion, where she realized the beauty of

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander of love’s complications in an exchange with Hermia (Shakespeare I.i.136). Although the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream certainly deals with the difficulty of romance, it is not considered a true love story like Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare, as he unfolds the story, intentionally distances the audience from the emotions of the characters so he can caricature the anguish and burdens endured by the lovers. Through his masterful use of figurative language, Shakespeare examines the theme of the capricious and irrational nature of love.