The Lady with the Pet Dog - CHEKHOV

1. Summary
The story begins at a resort in Yalta. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov is a married Moscow banker on
holiday. He notices a younger, attractive woman with a Pomeranian; she, too is a solo traveler on
vacation.
Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov approaches the woman to begin an affair, something he has done
many times. He and his wife have children, but he is unfulfilled in the marriage and suffers no guilt
as a philanderer.
Anna Sergeyevna, the woman with the pet dog, is also in an unfulfilling marriage; hers is to a
much older man. However, once she begins the affair with Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, she is troubled
with complicated feelings of guilt and shame mixed with love and desire for Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov.
When she is called home because her husband is having health problems, the lovers part company,
and Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov writes off their affair as another ordinary dalliance.
However, Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov finds that upon his return to Moscow, he often thinks
about Anna Sergeyevna. He travels to her city, stakes out her home, and finds a way to run into her
in a theater. Their connection is still strong, and Anna Sergeyevna soon begins traveling to meet him
in secret in Moscow.
The lovers become devoted to one another, and their affair turns into a genuinely loving
relationship. As the story ends, they are in a conversation about how they need to find a way to be
together permanently, but is clear that they understand that, in 19th-century Russia, this will be
difficult.

The story involves a love affair between two married people: Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov and
Anna Sergeyevna. Both are unhappily married, and a chance meeting inspires an unlikely romance
between the two.
Gurov is married to a woman he considers unintelligent, narrow-minded, and dogmatic; he
and his wife have a twelve-year-old daughter and two school-aged sons. Meanwhile, Anna is married
to a man who shares little of his life with her. She feels trapped and unhappy.
At the beginning of the story, we learn that Gurov and Anna are both vacationing in Yalta
without their spouses. Gurov first notices Anna because of her white Pomeranian dog, who follows
closely behind her.
Gurov has always been fascinated by young, vibrant women who are grateful for their brief,
passionate affairs with him. By all indications, Gurov has little respect for his transient lovers; they
are merely an entertaining distraction in his otherwise dull life.
However, Anna seems to affect him differently. After both of them consummate their love
affair, Anna feels guilty. She is grief-stricken that she has betrayed her husband and conscience.
Above all else, she fears that Gurov will cease to respect her.
Gurov is amused by Anna's puritan outlook, but he does not relinquish his time with her.
Both of them continue to spend time in each other's company until Anna's husband sends a letter
beseeching her to return home.
Anna is grateful for her husband's summons, and she bids an emotional farewell to Gurov,
believing that she will never see him again.
 In due time, Gurov returns to Moscow, where he lives with his family. He throws himself
into his work duties and revels in everything the cosmopolitan city has to offer. However, Gurov
soon realizes that he is deeply unhappy. He is tormented by memories of Anna, and as the days
progress, he begins to despise the coarseness of the city and the dullness of his family life.
Gurov soon comes to the realization that he must see Anna. He makes an excuse to his wife
and tells her that he has business to attend to in St. Petersburg.
In reality, Gurov is planning to see Anna again. To his surprise, Gurov realizes that he is in
love with her. He is flabbergasted that he has actually fallen in love, for the first time in his life.
When Gurov tracks Anna down at a theater in St. Petersburg, Anna is horrified. She fears that
her affair will be discovered and her reputation tarnished. Distraught, she begs Gurov to return to
Moscow and promises to visit him periodically.
So, the two continue their assignations in Moscow. The story ends without a resolution to the
lovers' predicament. However, the author hints that Gurov and Anna aim to continue their
relationship and that this decision alone will bring new challenges into their lives.

Alternately titled “The Lady with the Dog” or “The Lady with the Little Dog,” this story
treats the theme of adultery, akin to Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1875-1877; English translation,
1886), and has a heroine with the same first name. Yet whereas Tolstoy pursues and punishes his
Anna for having violated a social and moral law, Chekhov treats his Anna gently and
compassionately in one of his most accomplished tales.
The plot can be briefly summarized. The banker Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov, a married but
philandering man of almost forty, spends a vacation alone in the seaside resort of Yalta, where he
meets and skillfully seduces a much younger lady, Anna Sergeyevna, who is also on holiday without
her spouse. Their first encounter leads to a furtive and sporadic liaison, with Anna, who lives in a
provincial town, having trysts with him in Moscow once every two or three months. Now deeply in
love, the couple faces an unpredictable future. Chekhov ends the story on this indeterminate note.
Like a play, the narrative is divided into four parts, each of which deftly dramatizes a
different phase of Anna and Dmitry’s romance. The first, of course, deals with their meeting in
Yalta. The reader makes Dmitry’s acquaintance as a type: He is a cold-blooded roué, contemptuous
of women as easy conquests yet compulsively erotic. He approaches Anna by fondling her dog,
discovers that Anna is a gentlewoman who, like himself, is bored on holiday, and finds himself
charmed by her shyness, slimness, and “lovely gray eyes.”
In part 2, they walk on the pier, Dmitry kisses her passionately, they have sex back at the
hotel, and Anna is immediately remorseful, while he calmly cuts himself a section of watermelon.
The alternation of Dmitry’s feelings between cynicism and lyricism recurs rhythmically. Chekhov
treats Anna tenderly, rendering her shame and penitence as genuine, with her unconsciously
assuming the posture of a classical Magdalen. When she leaves for home, both lovers assume that the
brief affair has ended. He reflects that she overestimated his character in calling him “kind,
exceptional, high-minded,” while his treatment of her was arrogantly condescending.
Part 3 starts with Dmitry busily immersed in his Moscow life and expecting Anna’s image to
have filtered out of his memories within a month. Not so. He discovers himself in love with her and
finds life without her “clipped and wingless.” He travels to Anna’s town to see her, only to find her
house virtually sealed off by “a long gray fence studded with nails.” That is the first of a series of
images of hardness, constriction, and enclosure. They symbolize the difficulty and sadness of a love
between people both married to others. Anna’s town is the apotheosis of grayness: the fence, a gray
carpet in the hotel room, a gray cloth covering the bed, the inkwell on the desk gray with dust.
Dmitry finds Anna attending a first night performance in the local theater. In the scene
describing their reunion there, the tone of the tale assumes dramatic tension. Both speak in anxious,
short, urgent exclamatory phrases. Dmitry, now realizing that his heart belongs to Anna, treats her
deferentially and no longer worries whether onlookers can see them embracing. The best that they
can do, however, is to meet on the theater’s narrow and gloomy staircase. She swears that she will
visit him in Moscow and does so in part 4.
In Moscow, Anna and Dmitry find a pathetically marginal happiness together. Chekhov
contrasts the scene in her hotel room there with that in part 2. Dmitry is now soft and considerate
with Anna, no longer slightly bored and irritated. For the first time, he finds himself loving a woman
unselfishly. The story’s concluding mood is one of gentle melancholia, of mingled joy and pain and
sadness.

The story begins with a description of a bored banker, Dmitrii Gurov, on vacation in the
southern Russian city of Yalta. Idly attentive toward the other vacationers, Gurov takes special
interest in a recent arrival to the resort town, a young woman named Anna Sergeevna von Diederitz,
who strolls along the embankment with her little dog. Judging from her appearance, Gurov decides
that she is a married woman alone and bored on her vacation. Although he too is married, he has had
many affairs, and he becomes excited by the prospect of having a brief affair with this stranger.
Beckoning her dog toward him, he uses the pet as an excuse to strike up a conversation with her, and
within a short time they develop an easy air of companionship.
Anton Chekhov next depicts the pair after a week has passed. It is a warm, windy day, and
the two go down to the pier to watch a ship come in. As the crowd around the ship gradually
dissipates, Gurov asks Anna Sergeevna if she wishes to go for a ride. Suddenly, on an impulse, he
embraces her and kisses her. He then suggests that they go to her room. The next scene portrays
Anna Sergeevna and Gurov in her room; they have just made love for the first time. She is distraught
because she feels guilty, not only because she has deceived her husband but also because she has
discovered that she has been deceiving herself for a long time. She tells Gurov that she was twenty
when she married her husband and has since realized that he is nothing but a flunky. Anna
Sergeevna, on the other hand, wants to live, to experience life. Now she believes that her infidelity
has proved her to be a petty, vulgar woman and that Gurov will not respect her. Gurov listens to this
confession with an attitude of boredom and irritation. He feels that her repentance is unexpected and
out of place. Nevertheless, he comforts her, and within a short time her gaiety returns.
They leave the hotel and drive to Oreanda, a scenic spot outside Yalta. There they gaze in
silence at the sea and listen to its incessant, muffled sound. Chekhov writes that in the constancy of
this noise and in the sea’s calm indifference to human life and death there perhaps lies a pledge of
eternal salvation, of uninterrupted perfection. Listening to this sound in the company of an attractive
woman, Gurov gains a new insight into life. He perceives that everything in this world is beautiful
except that which people themselves do when they forget about the highest goals of existence and
their own human worth.
After this moment of transcendent reflection, the two return to Yalta, and for the next several
days they spend all of their time together, indulging in the sensual pleasures of Yalta and the joys of
their new relationship. At last, however, Anna Sergeevna receives a letter from her husband asking
her to return home. After she bids Gurov farewell at the railroad station, presumably forever, he, too,
thinks that it is time for him to return home to Moscow.
Back in Moscow, Gurov tries to return to his familiar routine of work, family life, and
entertainment. He assumes that his memories of Anna Sergeevna will fade, just as the memories of
his other lovers always have. He discovers, though, that he cannot stop thinking about Anna
Sergeevna, and soon he begins to regard his present life as nonsensical, empty, and dull. Impulsively
he decides to travel to Anna Sergeevna’s hometown, hoping to see her and to arrange a meeting with
her. After arriving in her town, he seeks out her house but does not enter it. Instead he decides to
attend a premiere at the local theater that night in the hope of seeing her there. When he confronts her
at the theater, she is shocked yet thrilled, and she agrees to meet with him in Moscow.
Now begins an agonizing time for Gurov. Meeting with Anna Sergeevna once every two or
three months, he finds that he is living a double life. His everyday life is routine and conventional,
but he regards it as being full of lies and deception. His other life, the one involving Anna Sergeevna,
is of necessity kept secret, but it contains all that is important to him, and indeed it represents the
core of his being. In the final scene of the story, Chekhov depicts the two lovers trying to come to
terms with their difficult situation. Anna Sergeevna is in tears; she believes that their lives have been
shattered by their love and the deceit that it requires to survive. He too recognizes that he cannot tear
himself away from her, and he perceives a fearful irony in the fact that only now, when he has begun
to turn gray and to lose his good looks, has he found true love. The anguished pair talk about the
necessity of changing their lives, of breaking through the walls of deception around them, but they
cannot see a solution to their dilemma. Chekhov concludes his tale with the comment that it seemed
as though a solution would be found shortly and that a new, beautiful life would then begin but that it
was also clear to the couple that the end was still a long way off, and that the most complex and
difficult part was just beginning. With this moment of unresolved uncertainty, Chekhov brings to a
close his penetrating study of human love and human destiny.

2. Themes and Meanings

In “The Lady with the Dog,” Chekhov provides a masterly portrayal of human psychology,
demonstrating how one’s expectations of life can be overturned by unpredictable reality. At the
outset of the tale, Gurov is shown to be rather cynical and an egocentric opportunist in his attitude
toward women. Coldly analytical about his own emotions and his numerous relationships, he has
categorized his lovers into three types—the carefree, the intellectual, and the predatory. However, he
discovers in his relationship with Anna Sergeevna something new and unexpected. Love for the first
time becomes an emotional experience that is deep, sincere, and touching. Significantly, the woman
who created this effect on him is not depicted as being a dazzling beauty; he himself realizes how
strange it is that this small woman, not distinguished in any way, has become the center of his life.
Love, Chekhov suggests in this story, can transform even the most ordinary people and lives into
something unique and extraordinary.
Chekhov’s exploration of the process by which Gurov discovers that his preconceived
notions about women are illusory illustrates one of the writer’s broader concerns. Throughout his
career, Chekhov emphasized the necessity of exposing falsehood or hypocrisy in society and of
espousing the truth, honest and unconditional. Thus, he highlights Anna Sergeevna’s despair over the
hypocrisy of her marriage to her husband and Gurov’s indignation over the falsehood permeating his
regular existence in Moscow. Chekhov often articulated his belief in humanity’s inalienable right to
absolute freedom, and he has instilled this ideal into his two protagonists. In their longing to break
free from the fetters of deceit marring their relationship, Chekhov’s characters aspire to the kind of
beauty and dignity glimpsed by Gurov as he sat with Anna Sergeevna by the sea outside Yalta.
Chekhov’s narrative illuminates both the value of this ideal and the difficulty of attaining it.

Morals and the Meaning of Life

Although Gurov lightly enters into an adulterous love affair with Anna that soon turns painful
and complicated, it would be misleading to say that the main theme of ''The Lady with the Pet Dog''
is one of moral corruption or sin. In fact, it is through this adulterous affair that Gurov discovers his
humanity and even his moral center. Gurov has always taken women for granted and has treated
them without compassion or respect. During the course of his affair with Anna, however, he becomes
more and more concerned about the consequences of his actions. Chekhov's treatment of morality is
complex; he is not conventionally moralistic, yet his story suggests a strong personal morality. Gurov
and Anna truly love each other, and their bad marriages are unfortunate aspects of their lives. Little
sympathy or consideration is offered to the respective spouses of the adulterous couple. Anna grieves
as soon as they have made love, but more because she is worried about what Gurov will think of her
than because she feels that she has betrayed her husband: ‘‘It is not my husband I have deceived,’’
she believes, ‘‘but myself.’’ Gurov errs in thinking that their affair is unimportant, but this is not so
much a moral error as an underestimation of his own moral character. He learns that he is not the
cynical lover that he thought he was and suffers terribly for having placed Anna in an unhappy
situation.
If Chekhov posits moral values here, they are such values as honesty, seriousness, and true
love. Deception more than infidelity causes Anna and Gurov to suffer, and at the end of the story
they know that they must make painful and difficult decisions which will allow them to live together
openly and honestly. After he becomes involved with Anna, Gurov discovers that ''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 ... was going on concealed from others; while all that
was false... went on in the open.’’ Gurov learns that he cannot tolerate living a lie and that it was
wrong to engage in a superficial relationship with Anna. Similarly, Gurov has learned a moral lesson
regarding his attitude towards women in general. He has always belittled women, regarding them as
the ‘‘inferior race,’’ but throughout the story gains a certain respect for Anna, and regards her as a
friend.
True love appears to be the highest good in ‘‘The Lady with the Pet Dog.’’ Anna and Gurov
must extricate themselves from false marriages and together create a genuine one, as they already
love each other ''like man and wife, like tender friends.’’ Once Gurov has discovered true love, he
finds himself intolerant of the Moscow social life, a life ‘‘clipped and wingless, an absurd mess.’’
This allusion to the possibility of a more meaningful, dignified, and fulfilled life refers back to his
revelation when he sat with Anna watching the sea at Oreanda and was struck by the beauty of
''everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget the higher aims of life and our own
human dignity.’’ The ‘‘higher aims’’ are not spelled out, but if the story is an indication, they lie in
the pursuit of love, truth, and beauty. In this case, truth and beauty appear to reside in nature.

Nature and Its Meaning

 Gurov and Anna are united by their appreciation of natural beauty, and beauty which brings
out the best in both of them. After they first make love, there is a somewhat painful scene in Anna's
hotel room in which she frets about her bad marriage while Gurov, callous and impatient, munches
on watermelon. They later go to the beach to watch the sun rise, and Gurov is ' 'soothed and
spellbound'' by nature's beauty. Listening to the timeless surf, he contemplates the scenery as a
moral, even mystical reverie that reminds him of the ‘‘higher aims of life.’’ This is the most lyrical,
intense, and deeply felt moment in their early love affair. The fact that they are looking at the sea
rather than at each other binds their deep love for each other into the timeless natural order of things.
The Greek philosopher Plato believed that beautiful things were a physical manifestation of spiritual
‘‘eternal forms,’’ of God, and Gurov thinks that the constancy of the surf is perhaps ‘‘a pledge of our
eternal salvation.’’
In ‘‘The Lady with the Pet Dog’’ that which is false, difficult, and painful is described in the
context of human civilization, and that which is beautiful and true is described in the context of
nature. The most terrible and painful moment of the story occurs in a second-rate opera house, a
theater of man-made illusions. Moreover, Gurov and Anna often find themselves confined in
depressing, impersonal hotel rooms. Gurov tries to speak of love at his men's club, but his
companion is more interested in his dinner. Anna lives in a house that faces a long gray fence
studded with nails. Gurov is only happy away from Anna when admiring trees or snow. Civilization
is a prison for them, but nature is a place of refuge and spiritual significance.

3. Characters
The characters in Anton Chekhov's 1899 short story are Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, his wife, his
daughter, an official from the doctor's club in Moscow, Anna Sergeyevna Von Diderits, and Anna's
husband.
Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna Von Diderits are developed characters; the
others do little to further the plot. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov is a Moscow banker in his late thirties who
has been a serial philanderer. He is unfaithful to a wife he considers "unintelligent, narrow, [and]
inelegant." When he meets Anna Sergeyevna Von Diderits while on holiday in Yalta, he gradually
falls in love with her.
Anna Sergeyevna Von Diderits is a young woman from an unnamed city who is married to an
older man. She is unhappy in her marriage and considers her husband a "flunkey." She is plagued
with shame because of the affair with Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov but also falls in love with him.

"The Lady with the Pet Dog" by Anton Chekov includes two main characters: Dmitri Gurov
and Anna Sergeyevna.
On his vacation in Yalta, Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, a banker who is dissatisfied and bored
with his marriage, meets Anna. He has a history of being a womanizer, and it does not take long for
him and Anna to begin an affair. Most of the story is from Gurov’s perspective, allowing the reader
to see the transformation of his feelings toward Anna. At first, Gurov refers to Anna as “the lady
with the little dog,” because he has lost faith in love and come to view women as inferior, only
remaining interested in them for the purpose of sexual fulfillment. Later, Gurov realizes how
different his affair with Anna is from the ones he has had before—the love between them is true and
transcends what he has known before. The following quote illustrates this transformation:
 Repeated experience, and bitter experience indeed, had long since taught him that every
intimacy, which in the beginning lends life such pleasant diversity and presents itself as a nice and
light adventure, inevitably, with decent people—especially Muscovites, who are slow starters—
grows into a major task, extremely complicated, and the situation finally becomes burdensome. But
at every new meeting with an interesting woman, this experience somehow slipped from his
memory, and he wanted to live, and everything seemed quite simple and amusing.
After leaving Anna and returning home to Moscow, thoughts of her torment him, and Gurov
attempts to devise a plan so that they can be together. The following quote reveals how he is unable
to forget her:
Anna Sergeyevna was not a dream, she followed him everywhere like a shadow and watched
him. Closing his eyes, he saw her as if alive, and she seemed younger, more beautiful, more tender
than she was; and he also seemed better to himself than he had been then, in Yalta.
Anna Sergeyevna Von Diderits, “the lady with the little dog,” is in Yalta awaiting the arrival
of her husband. She is depicted as a charming woman, presumably in her twenties, who was married
at a young age (note the age difference: Gurov has two kids and is suspected to be around forty). She
easily falls into her affair with Gurov, thinking it the most exciting thing to happen in years. She is
consumed with how Gurov views her, because she is hungry for the true love she has not
experienced before. Anna is plagued by worries that her feelings for Gurov are impulses of the devil.
Nonetheless, by the end of the story, she is emboldened and travels to Moscow to find Gurov and
work things out so that they can be together without the secrecy. The following quote displays how
Anna and Gurov’s love was significant for both of them:
He and Anna Sergeyevna loved each other like very close, dear people, like husband and
wife, like tender friends; it seemed to them that fate itself had destined them for each other, and they
could not understand why he had a wife and she a husband; and it was as if they were two birds of
passage, a male and a female, who had been caught and forced to live in separate cages. They had
forgiven each other the things they were ashamed of in the past, they forgave everything in the
present, and they felt that this love of theirs had changed them both.

Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov

While staying at a seaside resort, Gurov engages himself in an adulterous affair that changes his life.
He is under forty, married, and has children. His parents ''found a wife for him'' when he was only in
his second year of college, but he feels that she is unintelligent and severe. When he tries to hint that
he is in love with another, she tells him that the part of a lover ''doesn't suit him.'' Although Gurov
attracts women easily, he regards them as ‘‘the inferior race,’’ but ‘‘couldn't live a day without
them.’’ When he meets Anna, he wants only a casual dalliance. He knows from ‘‘really bitter
experience'' that love affairs always become complex and painful, but he tries this time to believe
that an affair between he and Anna can be simply a charming diversion. During the affair, Gurov
remains somewhat aloof, as evidenced by his munching on watermelon as Anna weeps. But back in
Moscow, he cannot forget her. He is disgusted by Moscow society and goes to Anna's city to find
her. It is unlike Gurov to behave in such an impulsive, romantic way, but he realizes that he has
finally found true love. He resolves to live openly with Anna, though this means sacrificing
everything. He has come a long way from being a casual seducer.

Anna Sergeyevna
Anna Sergeyevna is a young woman of twenty, unhappily married to a minor, small-town official
whom she refers to as a ''flunkey.'' She is timid and soft-spoken and feels remorse as soon as she and
Gurov have made love. She says that it is not her husband she has deceived but herself, for she
persuaded herself that she loved her husband when she did not, and she married too young because
she was driven by a passionate curiosity and a desire ‘‘to live.’’ Anna loves Gurov, and recognizes
good qualities in him which he fails to see himself, but the affair makes her unhappy because she
feels guilty and knows that their love is impossible. When Gurov comes to visit her in her small
town, she is horrified, and instead visits him in Moscow, waiting miserably in her hotel room for
long stretches at a time. She is often miserable and feels hopelessly trapped by her situation.

Dmitrii Dmitrich Gurov (DMIH-tree DMIH-trihch GEW-rov), a Moscow banker. A married

man approaching middle age, Dmitrii is a property owner, the father of three children, and an
amateur singer who once had aspirations to join a private opera company. He is also a veteran
adulterer. While vacationing by himself at Yalta, he intends to continue his infidelity if the
opportunity presents itself. He is, however, clearly aware that each new affair soon palls, although
the prospect of inevitable boredom over his conquests and his disgust over each affair’s messy
ending do not dissuade him from striking up an acquaintance with Anna, who seems to be easy prey.
His shallow and cynical attitude toward women (to whom he refers as the “lower breed”) is in part
the result of his bitterness over marriage to a severe, intellectual woman whom he wed while still at
the university. His round of activities, both at the seaside resort and in Moscow, is characterized by
cynicism and boredom and by the spurious pleasures of card games at his clubs and sophisticated
chatter at social gatherings. His immersion in the old pleasures proves useless, however, in
disguising the fact that he has fallen deeply in love with Anna. As their affair lengthens and becomes
increasingly serious, Dmitrii’s trifling, pleasure-obsessed existence grows tragic.

Anna Sergeevna von Diederitz (AHN-nah sehr-GEH-yehv-nah von DIH-deh-rihtz), a young

married woman. Anna, a sensitive and morally conscientious but inexperienced young woman, has
been married for two years to a minor provincial official whom she detests. Her affair with Dmitrii is
cataclysmic for her; she sees herself as a “fallen woman” and becomes despondent. She feels,
moreover, that she has deceived not only her husband but herself as well. Her visit to Yalta is the
result of frustration occasioned by the sameness of her life. Driven by curiosity, by the urge “to live,”
she has convinced her husband that she suffers from an undefined illness and thus needs the rest that
Yalta affords. Initially, her lovemaking with Dmitrii prompts her to self-disgust, a disgust she feels
that Dmitrii shares; in her own eyes, she has become petty and despicable. At the same time, her love
for Dmitrii deepens, and when he later appears in her provincial town, she recognizes that she and
Dmitrii are doomed by their emotions. Anna perceives her own ambivalence; she realizes that even
while she despises herself for her infidelity and is made miserable by a potentially tragic future, she
is thrilled by the richer life she secretly shares with Dmitrii.

4. Analysis
Anton Chekhov’s "The Lady with the Little Dog" was a pivotal piece of literature, comprised
of elements from both 19th-century and modern realism. The former is a sort of anti-romantic
realism, while the latter is psychological realism. The anti-romantic aspect is conveyed in this story
through a streamlined plot that distinctly observes external social conditions and human behavior. It
is a romantic tale in the midst of sharp social criticisms: both characters are ensnared in loveless
marriages, and their own love is oppressed by societal expectations. The psychological realism
comes from the fact that much of the action is internal—the thoughts of Gurov progress the story.
The point of view in The Lady with the Little Dog is third person limited. We only know
Gurov’s thoughts, and we learn about Anna through him.
At the beginning of The Lady with the Little Dog, Gurov is portrayed as an amoral
misogynist. His unhappy marriage has left him bitter and longing for pleasure. Upon meeting Anna,
he simply refers to her as “the lady with the little dog” because he views women as inferior.
However, midway through the story, the affair stirs emotions within Gurov that he has never felt
before. This is major turning point for the character. Anna, who is also trapped in a boring marriage,
is enraptured by this man who is many years her senior, and she recognizes this affair as the most
exciting thing to occur since her marriage.
Once Gurov returns to Moscow, both of them are tormented by the memory of the other.
Gurov thought that the memory of Anna would fade, but contrary to this, her “ghost” constantly
follows him around. He starts contemplating how Anna and he can be together. Anna decides to go
to Moscow and find Gurov because she, too, believes that they can develop a plan for them to be
together without the secrecy.
The two main settings of the story, Yalta and Moscow, are important representations of the
characters' lives. Yalta provides an escape for both Anna and Gurov; here, they can be anonymous
and engage in pleasures that are not present in their home lives. Conversely, Moscow is a prison;
Gurov is trapped there in his false marriage. In the end, the characters conceal themselves in a hotel
in Moscow. The impression of this scene is that their romance cannot be leaked into the outside
Moscovian world.
A couple examples of literary devices utilized include symbolism (the fence confines Anna,
just as her marriage does) and allusion (to The Geisha, which is significant because this opera is
about an engaged man who falls in love with another woman, mirroring the plot in "The Lady with
the Little Dog").

5. Style and Technique

Like most of Chekhov’s late tales, “The Lady with the Dog” reveals the careful touch of a
consummate craftsman. Constructing his story out of a small number of selected vignettes, Chekhov
managed to evoke the full complexity of an intimate relationship between two sensitive human
beings in a concise, almost laconic fashion. One technique that helped the writer achieve such
conciseness is the use of minor yet significant detail to suggest emotional states. For example, as
Gurov listens to Anna Sergeevna lament her situation when they first become lovers, Chekhov
indicates the man’s insensitivity to her agitation by depicting him slicing a watermelon and eating it
without haste. Similarly, Chekhov’s nature descriptions echo or shape a character’s emotions: The
sensuous sound of the Black Sea at night facilitates Gurov’s recognition of the timeless beauty
present in the world around him.
To underscore the subjective nature of his characters’ perception of events, Chekhov often
uses such passive and impersonal constructions as “it seemed” and “it appeared.” Perhaps the most
striking feature of the structure of “The Lady with the Dog” is the air of uncertainty with which it
ends: Chekhov provides no definitive resolution to his lovers’ problem. Such an inconclusive ending
was not typical for nineteenth century Russian literature. Chekhov seems to imply here that life,
unlike the tidy fiction that his predecessors liked to create, does not conform to neat patterns or
boundaries but rather continues in a way that defies human control or manipulation. Chekhov
pioneered the use of this kind of “zero ending” in his fiction, and it has since become a staple of the
modern short story.

6. Historical Context
Marital Infidelity
''The Lady with the Pet Dog'' was published in 1899 and heralded the moral dilemmas of the
coming century. Marital infidelity was not exactly new in literature at the time. In fact, it was the
central subject of three of the greatest novels of the latter half of the nineteenth century—
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Marriages
were often arranged at this time, and people married very young and often for social or economic
advancement. Consequently many marriages were unhappy, and divorce was not usually an option.
Love affairs, then, were something of a preoccupation among the upper classes though they occurred
far less frequently than literature, and the gossip of the time, led one to believe. Chekhov himself
complained that the seaside resort of Yalta had a greatly exaggerated reputation for immorality, but
in ''The Lady with the Pet Dog’’ he did nothing to discourage Yalta's reputation.
In any case, adultery was very much on the minds of the literate class, particularly women
who lacked the economic power and freedom to keep men as men kept mistresses and could not
resort, as men did, to the houses of prostitution which were common in major cities. The fiction of
the popular French author Guy De Maupassant is filled with blithe love affairs, and it was a common
complication in French theatrical farces. The darker side of infidelity was depicted in countless
''women's novels'' of the time, a genre in which a woman must often struggle against a predatory
male to preserve her virtue.
Though talk of love affairs was increasingly commonplace, it was disastrous for a woman to
be caught in an act of infidelity. She would lose her reputation, her social standing, the custody of
her children (as in the case of Anna Karenina), and she could find herself cast out of society, even by
her own parents. If her husband divorced her, he could leave her penniless, with little hope of finding
respectable employment. Such cold facts of women's lives led such literary characters as Anna
Karenina and Emma Bovary, for example, to take their own lives when their adultery was
discovered. This may even have reflected the attitudes toward unfaithful women of Flaubert and
Tolstoy themselves (though the degree to which these authors ''punish'' their adulterous heroines is
greatly debated; Flaubert himself said, ‘‘I am Madame Bovary.’’). The punishments meted out to
men who engaged in such affairs were not comparable, which is perhaps one reason why Gurov is
more concerned about Anna's plight than his own and why it is better for them to meet in Moscow,
where Gurov is known but Anna is not. Better he be caught than she.
In ''The Lady with the Pet Dog,'' the characters do not consider suicide. Gurov and Anna hope
to someday be together, which reflects the lessening severity of the public attitude towards marital
infidelity, but they are not terribly hopeful, either. The story ends on a powerfully uncertain note: it
seems that the solution which will permit them ''a glorious life’’ will be found in ‘‘a little while.’’ At
the same time, however, they both know ''the end was still far off,’’ and the most ‘‘complicated and
difficult’’ phase of their life is just beginning.

A Climate of Uncertainty
 The uncertain note upon which the story ends is fitting, for it reflects the uncertainty that was
prevalent in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century. Acceptable morality was changing, religious
beliefs were weakening, and the very legal and social fabric of the society was unraveling, as the
serfs were granted more freedom and the Tsar, an absolute ruler, was surrendering more power to the
people. The entire political structure was filled with liberal reforms and reactionary countermeasures.
Artists like Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky were uncertain of what path the country should take.
All of them were compassionate towards the suffering endured by the poor and, to varying degrees,
were hostile towards the Tsar and to the current system of land ownership. All were suspicious,
however, of the Bolshevik revolutionaries who would eventually overthrow the government and
institute a Communist regime in 1918. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy had fervent, even mystical religious
beliefs which made them dislike the atheism of the revolutionaries. Chekhov was much more
concerned with social injustice and had no patience for the Russian church or other national
institutions. Chekhov's characters, particularly in his plays, are unable to think or act decisively.
Gurov and Anna, at the end of ‘‘The Lady with the Pet Dog,'' are hopeful, but they are gripped with
uncertainty.

Health Resorts
Perhaps due to the spiritual malaise, and the social and moral uncertainty experienced by
Europe's middle and upper classes, many people were sent to ‘‘health resorts’’ or "spas" around the
end of the nineteenth century to cure their mysterious ailments. Lassitude or depression was often
interpreted as an early sign of tuberculosis, a very real disease that gradually killed a large number of
people during that period, including Chekhov himself. These health spas were generally located in
dry regions, high in the mountains or along the sea shore. Gurov and Anna were at the seaside resort
town of Yalta, perhaps for health reasons. Although these are never specified, it would be one way to
explain why they are able to vacation without their families. Perhaps they were suffering from some
kind of ''neurasthenic disorder'' (a popular term at the time for what were perhaps a variety of
physical and mental ailments today classified as ‘‘chronic fatigue syndrome," "depression," "nerves,"
or in extreme cases a ''nervous breakdown''), or perhaps they feigned ill health in order to remove
themselves from their unhappy family situations, as people sometimes did at the time. The
widespread concern about tuberculosis made such an excuse persuasive. Other great novels and
stories have been set in health resorts, most famously Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain. The
distinction in such places between the truly sick and those merely relaxing was, like so many things
at that time, uncertain.

7. Literary Style
Point of View
The narrative style used by Chekhov in ''The Lady with the Pet Dog'' is third-person,
somewhat cool and detached like the character of Gurov himself. In this story, however, the third-
person point of view is not entirely omniscient (in which one knows everything and can go
anywhere) because the reader never directly perceives the thoughts of Anna Sergeyevna. It is a
limited third-person, through which the reader can understand Gurov's thoughts and feelings, and it
is through Gurov's thoughts and perceptions that we learn about Anna. In the very first sentence, for
example, the third-person narrative is subtly limited to Gurov's point of view: ‘‘A new person, it was
said, had appeared on the esplanade...’’ An omniscient narrator knows everything, and would simply
know there was a new person; he would not need to hear about it. It is Gurov, then, who hears things
said about a new female arrival. Moreover, the title of the story itself advertises Gurov's point of
view, for an omniscient narrator would know the lady's name. All that Gurov knows at first is that
there is a lady with a pet dog. Chekhov explores at length Gurov's shifting thoughts and feelings
about Anna. Interestingly, Gurov never thinks about how his family will be affected by his infidelity;
his thoughts are only of Anna. To the extent that the story has a ‘‘rising action’’ and a "climax,"
these are largely internal, as Gurov goes from viewing himself as a casual seducer of a ''lady with a
pet dog'' whose name he does not know to the true and responsible lover of Anna Sergeyevna, whose
name means more to him than any words in the language.
At the very end of the story, the third-person point of view becomes fully omniscient as
Chekhov reads the thoughts of both his lovers at once: "it was clear to both of them that the end was
still far off...’’ By breaking the rule and entering Anna's head as well as Gurov's, he underscores their
love by having them now, at last, thinking with one mind and feeling with one heart.

8. Setting
Chekhov sets the scene in this story with great economy, yet certain unforgettable settings
powerfully enhance a given mood or effect. Little is known about Yalta save for the sultry heat, the
wind, which makes people restless, and the effect of various lights, including moonlight and dawn,
upon the sea. These details create an erotic and dreamy atmosphere in which the reader may
understand that Anna and Gurov would have difficulty thinking clearly. There is also a timeless,
eternal quality to the sleepy landscape, marked by the rhythm of the sea and the clouds which sit
motionless on mountain peaks.
Another memorable setting is the town where Anna lives. Chekhov gives the reader a feeling
for the whole town when he describes the best room at the hotel in which Gurov stayed: ‘‘the floor
was covered with gray army cloth, and on the table there was an inkstand, gray with dust and topped
by a figure on horseback, its hat raised in its hand and its head broken off.’’ Not only does this
description convey the depressed and provincial nature of the place, and suggest how Anna must feel
trapped here and thirsty for romance, but the headless figure with the raised hat can be seen as a
symbol of Gurov himself, who has come to town to be the heroic lover but has little in the way of
youthful heroism to offer. The fence studded with nails across from Anna's house increases the sense
of her being confined and unhappy, though the reader has yet to see her. Finally, the noisy local
musical theater is a suitably second-rate and depressing place for Gurov and Anna to confront the
unhappiness of their circumstances. Chekhov selects details of setting to convey a particular mood
and illuminate the emotional lives of his characters.