The Dmitry in Lady With The Pet Dog Essay

Analysis of Anton Chekhovs, The Lady with the Pet Dog

In the beginning of Anton Chekhovs story, The Lady with the Pet Dog, Chekhov begins with the simple line, A new person, it was said, had appeared on the esplanade (192). This passage shows that the local residents of Yalta, Russia have discovered an outsider, a person they know nothing about. Chekhov asks the reader to consider who she is with and why is she there? The character of the sly womanizer, Dmitry Gurov, also asks these questions. When first reading the story, the reader can form a certain opinion of Dmitry. We know he is a married man and has children. He also admits to being unfaithful to his wife on numerous occasions. He appears to now like women as he referrers to them as, the inferior race (192). This characteristic of his personality leads to the encounter between himself, and the young mysterious Anna Serveyevna, in the gardens of Yalta. Dmitry Gurov, Anna Serveyevna and how these two characters play off of one another will now be discussed in further detail.

In the character of Dmitry Gurov, Chekhov gives a man who seems to despise women, he, almost always spoke ill of women (192). However, I believe that this was an act that he showed. Chekhov says, but when he was among women he felt free, and knew what to speak to them about and how to comport himselfeven to be silent (192). If Dmitry regarded women as the inferior race, then why was he only at rest when in their company? In truth I think that he liked women and he needed them around. The reason he puts on this macho act is because he has never found a woman that he truly loved. Every time he had met a new woman, he was eager for life, and everything seemed so simple and diverting (192). However, every affair which at first seems light and charming adventure inevitably grows into a whole problem of extreme complexity, and in the end a painful situation is created (192). Dmitry did not know how to handle long complicated relationships that took work to maintain. That is why his marriage was a disaster and he was unhappy with it. That is also the reason why he always became frustrated and used women as a scapegoat. Dmitry is excited when he sees the new mysterious woman he sees a new opportunity to escape the dull marriage he is trapped in. Even though everything always failed him before he was unconsciously compelled to try and find something that worked. After meeting, the lady with the pet dog (192), he thought of, her slim, delicate throat, her lovely gray eyes (193). Before he fell asleep though, he thought, Theres something pathetic about her, though (193), as a reaction to what always seemed to certainly always happen to him.

As Dmitry and Anna continued to meet, Annas apathy continued to be reflected in the way she operated. He asked her, Where shall we go now? Shall we drive somewhere? (194), to which her replies were plain silence. Again later he drew his arm about her and kissed her and requested that they traveled to her hotel. Nowhere in the text does Anna propose anything. She never appears to be the flirtatious one attracted to Dmitry. Instead, she thinks of her high ethics and standards. After their first sexual encounter with one another, she defined herself, I am a bad, low woman (195). Anna stated, I despise myself and I have no thought of exonerating myself (195). However, her apathy overcome and she continued to care for Dmitry, which is not her husband. She also did not think highly of her husband as much as she had believed she had when he took her as his wife. I was twenty when I married him. I was tormented by curiosity; I wanted something better (195), she stated. She may have been an easily controlled woman but she had found Dmitry, a man to control her who was interesting and fun to be with. Even though her beliefs pointed towards her husband, Dmitry was able to sway her feelings and convince her that she wanted to be with him.

Dmitry decides that he cannot live without Anna in his life. Prior to this thought, he became immersed in Moscow lifelonging for restaurants, clubs, formal dinners, anniversary celebrations (197). Dmitry attempted to forget Anna in a mist of memories. A month or so would pass and the image of Anna Sergeyevnawould become misty in his memory (197). Everything in his life became meaningless without Anna, He was fed up with his children, fed up with the bank; he had no desire to go anywhere or to talk of anything (198). He then realized that there was nothing that could take the place of Anna. Then as these thoughts consumed him, he decides to go to her, in a strange place where Dmitry feels as if in a foreign land. In the end the reader realizes that Anna is just as miserable without Dmitry in her life, with her bland and boring life. Her husband is described as, A young man with small side-whiskers, very tall and stoopednodded his head at every step and seemed to be bowing continually (199). This description reminds me of a new born baby with not enough strength to hold their head up. All descriptions of Annas husband make her picture of a flunkey (199), seem more pliable.

Yalta is a beautiful city in Russia to visit and relax as the story starts there with Dmitry and Anna meeting for the first time. This love story is also full of adultery and forbidden passion, even for todays loose standards, but is set in the late eighteenth century when cheating was almost as bad as murder.