Katelin Villarreal
English 102
Dr. McPherson
3 January 2016
ROUGH DRAFT
Marriage and Infidelity Theme Analysis
In Chekhov’s story “The Lady with the Pet Dog”, marriage and infidelity plays a large role in the plot and theme. Marriage has the meaning of commitment and love whereas infidelity is the love affairs between married couples. The story describes the main character, Dmitri Gurov, as a middle aged man who is married. And although his wife is an intelligent woman, he finds her boring, so he has multiple love affairs with other woman. Until one day he meets a woman walking her dog, named Anna Sergeyevna. He noticed she was new her and began talking to her. She immediately told him that she was a married woman and was only visiting Yalta for a few weeks, yet he still persisted to have an affair with her. He was intrigued by her ambition and her youthful appearance. Once she went back to her husband she cut off all ties with Dmitri. Chekhov then goes to describing Dmtiris old habits and explaining how Dmitri believes his memories of Anna will soon disappear. His memories do not fade away; he comes to the solution of visiting Anna in her homeland, which was not specified in the story. He attends a play hoping to see his love and reconnect with her, but when he sees her she is with her husband. Anna and Dmitri begin seeing each other behind their spouses back once more. In the end they both realize that the age gap between them has interfered with their love affair causing them to have possible future problems. Chekhov writes the theme extremely well about love overcoming all. The theme of infidelity and marriage the story is twisted; infidelity would usually be looked down on, however both characters are unhappy with their spouses and find happiness with each other.
The infidelity between these characters affected the both of them in different yet similar ways. Anna admitted to Dmitir that she was not happy with her marriage; this related to his marital situation too. Anna knew she was not his first affair but she believed she can change him and his thoughts of women. This is what Dmitir admired her most for, her naïve and fresh personality, (add citation #2 ). However, unlike Anna, Dmitir has had many affairs with women, and he also refers to women as the “lower race”. Throughout the story Chekhov shows the changes in Dmitirs perspectives of love and women. He admitted that he was longing for love since he never had love with the other women, including his wife, (citation 2)“…he had made their acquaintance, got on with them, parted, but he had never once loved; it was anything you like, but not love.”, but with Anna it was different. Although infidelity opposed in many religions and countries, Chekhov makes the lovers quarrel ironic yet romantic. Neither of the characters have had love, even though they are both married; yet they find love with each other. Even knowing the circumstances with each other’s marriages, “…it seemed to them that fate itself had meant them for one another, and they could not understand why he had a wife and she a husband…”(citation 1) The romantic theme of this story is that the characters found love in their life and now know what it is like to love and to be loved.