The Lady
In 1899, famed Russian author, Anton Chekhov, penned The Lady with a Pet Dog, a short story chronicling a time in the life of the fictional Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov. In the story, Gurov, while on a holiday in Yalta, meets Anna Sergeyevna, a lady who's vacationing from her husband and life with her Pomeranian. It is in the swinging resort of Yalta that the two would start their adulterous love life, only to have it continue in secrecy on the streets of Moscow later, once Gurov catches up with the only woman who left him on her own terms. Essentially a love story, The Lady with the Pet Dog follows the two lovers as they meet, depart, and meet each other again, only to run away together at the very end. Chekhov delights the reader's palette with his powerful characters that are entwined in the realistic backings of the Russian landscape. The narration follows Gurov, as he visits various locales in three Russian cities. The tale ends with business unfinished, as the two are determined to make their relationship work out, only the how is left open to the reader.
To understand The Lady with a Pet Dog, one must attempt to understand Gurov, the affluent, adulterous businessman. Gurov lives in the Russian city of Moscow and vacations often in the warm climate and relaxed temperament of Yalta, which sits in the Crimean Peninsula on the coast of the Black Sea. Chekhov makes it known that Gurov is not the happiest in his current situation, pointing out that "He was under forty, but he already had a daughter twelve years old, and two sons at school. They had found a wife for him when he was very young."1 This makes it seem as if it was not Gurov's intention to get married to his wife, and that she had become pregnant and it was the only option left. This, in turn, could also have caused the chauvinistic feelings he had while he was younger, often referring to women as "The inferior race." Physically, Gurov is attractive to women, "In his appearance, in his character, in his...
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