Love in Anton Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog

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 which represents an escape from their unhappy lives. Chekhov tells the readers about the forbidden love between two people during vacation through evaluation of the point of view, the setting, and the characters of “The Lady with the Pet Dog.”

The definition of point of view is the vantage point from which the story is told. The narrator of “The Lady with the Pet Dog” uses many third person pronouns by using man’s point of view on an affair and also demonstrates “Chekhov’s disembodied narrating persona” (76). The usage of many third person pronouns refers to the readers that the story is told by the main character, Dmitri Gurov, who begins the narrative by describing a new arrival on the sea-front. That person happens to be a lady with a dog who captures his attention and makes him wonder if he can “make her acquaintance” (6). Then, the narrator shifts the readers’ attention away from this woman with the dog and provides detailed information about Gurov’s past and his social status. Besides...

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...ation to emotions which Chekhov wanted to change.

Works Cited

Eewkman, Thomas A. “The Lady with the Dog.” Critical Essay on Anton Chekhov. Boston,

Massachusetts: G.K. Hall & Co, 1989. 118-123. Print.

Huber, Erik. “An overview of “The Lady with the Pet Dog”.” Gale Online Encyclopedia: 1-3. Literature Resource Center. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

Johnson, Ronald L. “The Master, 1895-1903: Stories of Love and the Authentic Life.”

Anton Chekhov: A Study of the Short Fiction.” New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. 76-78. Print.

Loeb, Monica. “Useless as Moths’ Wings’ Oates’s Revision of Chekhov’s: “The Lady with the Pet Dog”.” Contemporary Literary Criticism Select: 1-9. Literature Resource Center. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

Newton, K.M. “The Lady with the Little Dog: Overview.” Reference Guide to Short Fiction: 1-2. Literature Resource Center. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.