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The Lady With The Pet Dog Chekhov

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One of the sweet comforts in life is to curl up in a favorite chair with a short story that will briefly carry people away from their everyday lives. On rare occasions, a tale mirrors real life in such a way that one is strangely comforted by the normalcy reflected in the words. A perfect example of a story about ordinary life that will soothe the soul in search for some insight on understanding the human behavior is Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Pet Dog.” This style of writing has such a mass appeal because the characters wear recognizable social masks and reflect an everyday reality. In his simple story of a chance meeting between a middle-aged, chauvinistic, repeat-offender adulterer, unhappily married man, and a young, naïve, …show more content…

After becoming acquainted, Anna and Gurov “walked and talked of the strange light on the sea: the water was a soft, warm, lilac color and there was a golden band of moonlight upon it” (Chekov 507). Later, when he is alone in his hotel room, Gurov reflects on her “slim, delicate throat, her lovely gray eyes” (Chekov 507) and his thoughts reveal that he has determined this young, vulnerable woman to be an ideal candidate for another one of his many affairs that he just cannot help becoming involved in. And as the story unfolds, the color gray reveals itself as an integral component in the sort of comfortable, yet, unresolved feeling that the relationship between Gurov and Anna emanates. Finally, when things are heating up between the two lonely travelers, so is the weather, which “was close indoors, while in the street the wind whirled the dust about” (Chekov 507) and their thirst is unrelenting no matter what they eat or drink to quench it. “One did not know what to do with oneself” (Chekov 507), seemingly, with the desire for one another that is beginning to blossom. On this particular evening, the couple makes way for the pier to watch the incoming ship. A crowd of people have gathered with many bouquets of flowers to greet arrivals. The churning ocean echoes the intensity of their attraction for each other, along with the mess of people surrounding them and Anna’s display of uneasiness and absentmindedness. As the crowd thins out,

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