"The Lady With The Dog" Response

Anton Chekov's short story, "The Lady With The Dog" tells the tale of an adulterous love affair between Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna.  It starts out innocently enough, with him catching sight of her and her little dog by the sea and desiring her acquaintance.  Their relationship then grows to an ongoing romance, until Anna's husband's failing health summons her home.  Years pass by without each other until, Dmitri can no longer bear his intense longing and travels to Petersburg to find her.  She agrees to meet with him regularly in Moscow, but resents the life of secrecy they both must lead.  As the plot wraps up, the couple vow to find a way to be together always.

The writing is incredibly detail-oriented.  Chekov sets the scene in his story with sentences such as, "The leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us," (Chekov).  This excerpt provides a tone of waiting.  He gives to impression that there is something big looming on the horizon, just awaiting the tipping point.  This is a fitting tone because the sentence describes one of the last moments the couple spends together before fate pulls them apart.  Chekov uses the words "monotonous" and "hollow" to foreshadow the lives that await the star-crossed lovers when they are parted.  Their separation can be viewed as something akin to death, to "the eternal sleep awaiting us."  The way that Chekov can imply so much simply by describing the scenery is very impressive.

Additionally, the author uses Anna's little Pomeranian as a reoccurring motif. Dmitri notices the dog running along behind his owner when first day he spots her on the beach.  Then, later, when he is in Petersburg searching for his lost love, the dog is the first familiar face he sees in the unfamiliar town.  The dog becomes, in some ways, an extension of Anna.  Dmitri first thinks nothing of it, as he does of her; then, when his passion burns high, he is gripped with desire to call out to the dog as if Anna would hear.

Overall, the writing is clearly carefully thought out and Chekov obviously knows how to manipulate his language to serve his purposes.