The Lady with the Little Dog Study Guide
One of the short stories by Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Little Dog” is considered one of the most famous and most brilliant. Like the majority of Chekhov’s works, this one tells us the story about relationships between the people, shortly but very precisely showing us the typical personalities and situations from the new angle. The plot of it seems trivial: the adultery of the two married people who are spending time in the resort and are very tired of their average life. But still, the situation that was described countless times is now described by Chekhov. The author draws our attention to the smallest details and to the slightest shifts of mood, the thoughts and desires of character. Even if our moral values resist, we still, involuntarily, relate to the feelings and struggles of two average people who are just like us.
The story doesn’t follow traditional pace with the climax and resolution. Like in our real life, where miracles happen only rarely, there is no easy solution for both lovers, whose affair, started just as a way to spend their time with joy, grows into a real, passionate love that can’t be forgotten or put aside live like nothing has happened. They are tormented themselves and torment their spouses, who clearly see that something is wrong - but the story ends with no clear solution. Actually, the story just doesn’t end, the heroes have a long way to go before the final decision can be made.
This short story is both very realistic and very heartbreaking. The traditions of Chekhov’s time made the life of such star-crossed lovers much more complicated than it is in the modern days, but their feelings, their all-consuming love and passion, their shame and fear to be discovered, the guilt they feel before their spouses stay the same even in modern times. There is also no aesop in this story: the author doesn’t show either approval or disapproval. Sudden love is just the thing that happens, equally beautiful and devastating. It’s up to people to build their own attitude to it and discover a way to deal with it and live further.
Author: David Sutton
New Essays
Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” demonstrates the author’s unmatched ability to guide the audience’s sympathies without directly providing an opinion of his characters. With incredible competence, Chekhov manages to paint scenes that while on the surface retain subjective tones, influence...
Anton Chekhov in “the Lady with the Dog,” brilliantly displays the quest of one man to find happiness. Anton Chekhov’s short story, The Lady with the Little Dog, is the simple story of a philandering married man who finally falls in love with an unhappily married woman with whom he has an affair...
The Lady with the Pet Dog The same story two different points of view “The Lady with the Pet Dog” initially written by Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) and later on written by Joyce Carol Oats (B. 1938). The story of two lovers, seen by a man with a Romanticism style, and 100 years later written by a...
Comparison of two stories of the same name A story of two lovers in an affair is never a simple thing to understand. Anton Chekhov original and Joyce Carol Oates’s updated version of “The Lady with the Pet Dog” tells the story of two unhappy individuals trying to find love in a long lasting affair...