Story Time with Anton Chekhov "The Lady with the Dog"

The Lady with the Dog | Anton Chekhov | Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought) | short

old postcard of Yalta

IT was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at Yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new arrivals. Sitting in Verney's pavilion, he saw, walking on the sea-front, a fair-haired young lady of medium height, wearing a beret; a white Pomeranian dog was running behind her. 

And afterwards he met her in the public gardens and in the square several times a day. She was walking alone, always wearing the same beret, and always with the same white dog; no one knew who she was, and every one called her simply "the lady with the dog." 

"If she is here alone without a husband or friends, it wouldn't be amiss to make her acquaintance," Gurov reflected. 

...Finish it here.

Read the story for lessons on presenting and following through on a theme for your story.  Also, to learn how to tell a love story that carries emotional heft with a proper balance of melodrama and intellectualism.  I was left wondering: What does it say about love and lovers?  More specifically, how does this story speak to us in an age where we don't have arranged marriages (at least in the Western world) and can choose who to marry?  Would a modern couple in Dmitri's and Anna's shoes still have a case to make for love or would only they just be indulging their sexual and romantic desires? What does it say about our deep need for privacy and how little we think of it nowadays until we are exposed?

I'm shamelessly borrowing from Richard Pevear’s introduction to Anton Chekhov’s Stories in articulating here what was so novel about Chekhov’s approach. Pevear notes that in his own time Chekhov’s writing technique was compared to impressionist painting. He elaborates: “The most ordinary events, a few trivial details, a few words spoken, no plot, a focus on single gestures, minor features, the creation of a mood that is both precise and somehow elusive—such is Chekhov’s impressionism.” Chekhov’s writerly stance was that of a detached observer who presented characters and situations without moralising or judging. His subject matter was “the common stuff of humanity” rather than “monumental personalities dramatically portrayed.” He offered no clear conclusions. All of these factors are at play in “The Lady With the Dog” - Kate's Book Blog