~The Lady and the Pet Dog~
By Anton Chekhov
Yalta , Russia
About the Author:
Anton Chekhov was born in the small town of Taganrog, Russia in 1860. Planning to be a doctor, Chekhov studied medicine at University of Moscow, graduating in 1884. However, Chekhov found himself partial to writing short stories rather than diagnosing illnesses, and gave up a career as a doctor to become a serious writer. Chekhov mastered the art of the one act play, and soon moved on to write full-length plays, but was met with failure until his production of The Seagull (1896), an overwhelming success. Chekhov went on to write other classics, including the dramas Uncle Vanya (1899), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904), and countless short stories, including The Lady with the Pet Dog and In the Ravine. His focus on realistic detail, and man’s struggle to make the best of life helped earn Chekhov the title of the best Russian dramatist and storyteller of modern times. In 1904, at only 44 years old, Chekhov died from tuberculosis. His works greatly influenced modern drama, and are still popular to this day.
Synopsis:
“The Lady with the Pet Dog” by Anton Chekhov is a short story about a man named Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov, who believes women to be the “inferior race.” He is unhappily married and as a result is very unfaithful to his wife. One day while walking taking a walk on a trip, Gurov meets a woman who walks everyday with her little pet dog. Gurov befriends this woman, named Anna Sergeyevna, and they have a short relationship while staying in Yalta. Upon returning home, Gurov realizes that he is in love with Anna Sergeyevna and goes to see her, confessing his love for her. She admits to her love for him as well, and they resolve to meet each other every two or three months in Moscow, keeping their relationship a secret.
Definitions:
Point of view- Refers to who tells us a story and how it is told. What we know and how we feel about the events in a work are shaped by the author’s choice of point of view. The teller of the story, the narrator, inevitably affects our understanding of the characters’ actions by filtering what is told through his or her own perspective.
Narrator- The voice of the person telling the story, not to be confused with the author’s voice. With a first-person narrator, the I in the story presents the point of view of only one character. The reader is restricted to the perceptions, thoughts, and feelings of that single character.
Omniscient narrator-All-knowing narrator who is not a character in the story and who can move from place to place and pass back and forth through time, slipping into and out of characters as no human being possibly could in real life. Omniscient narrators can report the thoughts and feelings of the characters, as well as their words and actions.
Ex. The narrator of The Scarlet Letter
Editorial omniscience- Intrusion by the narrator in order to evaluate a character f evaluate a character for the reader.
Neutral omniscience- Narration that allows the characters’ actions and thoughts actions and thoughts to speak for themselves.
Limited omniscient narrator- Type of third person narrator that is often restricted to a single character’s perspective.
Stream-of-consciousness technique- Technique that takes a reader inside a character’s mind, revealing the character’s thoughts, perceptions, and feelings on both a conscious and unconscious level.
Objective point of view- Detached perspective where the narrator does not see into the mind of any character. The narrator doesn’t provide any analysis or interpretation; the reader must rely on actions and dialogue to learn details about the characters.
First-person narrator- The narrator is a character in
the story, making the point of view limited to only one
character’s conscious perceptions, thoughts, and feelings.
Unreliable narrator- A narrator whose
interpretation of the events is different from the author’s.
Ex. The lawyer in Bartlby, the Scrivener
Naïve narrator- A type of unreliable narrator that lacks the sophistication to accurately interpret what they see. The reader must go beyond this type of narrator’s interpretations to fully understand the situation.
Ex. Holden Caulfield in The Catcher and the Rye
Noteworthy Quotes:
"He had begun being unfaithful to her long ago- had been unfaithful to her often and, probably for that reason, almost always spoke ill of women, and when they were talked of in his presence used to call them 'the inferior race'" (179)
“ He had two lives: an open one, seen and known by all who needed to know it, full of conventional truth and conventional falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life that went on in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, combination of circumstances, everything that was of interest and importance to him, everything that was essential to him, everything about which he felt sincerely and did not deceive himself, everything that constituted the core of his life, was going on concealed from others; while all that was false, the shell in which he hid to cover the truth- his work at the bank for instance, his discussions at the club, his references to the “inferior race”, his appearances at anniversary celebrations with his wife-all that went on in the open (188).
“These words, so commonplace, for some reason moved Gurov to indignation, and stuck him as degrading and unclean. What savage manners, what mugs! What stupid nights, what dull, humdrum days! Frenzied gambling, gluttony, drunkenness, continual talk always about the same things! Futile pursuits and conversations always about the same topics take up the better part of one’s time, the better part of one’s strength, and in the end there is left a life clipped and wingless, an absurd mess, and here is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison” (185).
“Judging others by himself, he did not believe what he
saw, and always fancied that every man led his real,
most interesting life under cover of secrecy as under
cover of night” (188).
“Anna Sergeyevna, too, came in. She sat down in the
third row, and when Gurov looked at her his heart
contracted, and he understood clearly that in the
whole world there was no human being so near, so precious, and so important to him; she, this little , undistinguished woman, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lorgnette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy, the only happiness that he now desired for himself, and to the sounds of the bad orchestra, of the miserable local violins, he thought how lovely she was. He thought and dreamed” (186).
“What was to be most complicated and difficult for them was only just beginning” (190).
Discussion Questions:
1) Chekhov chooses to tell the story from Gurov’s (masculine) point of view. How does this contribute to the story? What kind of narrator is he using? How might the story differ if it were told from Anna’s (feminine) point of view?
2) Chekhov ends the story leaving the reader uncertain of what will happen with Gurov and Anna. Why do you think he does this? What do you think will happen to Gurov and Anna? Will their relationship continue?
3) How (if any) does your opinion about Gurov change as the story progresses? Do you believe he truly loves Anna Sergeyevna?
4) How do Chekhov’s descriptions of Anna’s husband, Gurov’s wife, and their homes make you feel towards the lovers? Towards their spouses?
5) In On Morality in Fiction, Chekhov says, “You abuse me for objectivity… you would have me, when I describe horse thieves, say: ‘Stealing horses is an evil’…. Let the jury judge them; it’s my job simply to show what sort of people they are. You see, to depict horse-thieves in seven hundred lines I must all the time speak and think in their tone and feel in their spirit, otherwise, if I introduce subjectivity, the image becomes blurred and the story will not be as compact as all short stories ought to be”. How are Gurov and Anna like the horse thieves Chekhov describes? Do you think Chekhov achieves objectivity in The Lady with the Pet Dog? Comment on how you feel about his nonjudgmental approach.