The Lady With a Dog - Essay Sample

This is a story about two people Anna Segreyevna and Dmitri Gurov who had a romantic relationship yet they were both married to other people. This had become Dmitri's lifestyle because he disliked his wife's intelligence. He looks down on women and refers to them as the "lower race "but admits that he enjoys their company more than that of the men. Anna had visited Yalta for vacation, and they continued seeing each other frequently and eventually grew close. Dmitri is excited by the naivete of his partner, fresh and uncontaminated nature. She is different from the older women he's been seeing, but he can tell she is sad. Anna's thought of her husband makes her makes her sad, it takes away her happiness.

Gurov is a man who seemed to despise women from the way he belittled them in his speech but at the same time enjoys their company so much, he knows what to say to say to them, he liked them and needed them but did not want to admit his weakness. He put up the act of being a tough guy because he had never met a woman he loved and never learned to love the one he had. Every time he started a new relationship he looked forward to making it works and seeing how it went but was not patient enough for relationships that were complicated and took work to maintain hence his unhappy and failed marriage. Eventually, he was frustrated and used women as victims. He sees Anna as a golden opportunity to get away from his failed and unhappy marriage. He always gets compelled to try something new with the hope that it works even when he knows he had tried before and failed.

Anna goes back to her hometown, and Dmitri hopes that with his work routine memories of her will eventually fade away but they don't. He longs to see her, and so he visits her hometown with the hope of seeing her, but he doesn't. He goes to the theatre to watch a play hoping and praying that Anna will be there and he sees her with her husband. When Anna's husband goes out to smoke, Dmitri approaches and confesses his love for her. Anna visit Dmitri in his hometown, and the story concludes with Dmitri being happy to fall in love for the first time, but Anna can't help but feel guilty for living a lie. They both know that it will be a long journey but hope they'll one day live a splendid and happy life together.

Cathedral

This story is narrated by a man whose wife is very sensitive, and he seems to be a man living with no sense of existence. He doesn't seem interested in anything his wife does and is jealous of other people who are close to her. The wife invites her blind friend to their home, and he is extremely resentful when she opens up to him and speaks freely of her feelings and fears to him, things that he is not even aware of. The wife goes to bed, and the two men are left in the living room smoking cannabis Sativa and watching television on which the only thing is a documentary about cathedrals. Robert asks him to try and describe a cathedral for him, but he doesn't find the right words to do so. I stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I even begin to describe it? But say my life depended on it." Robert asks him to find a pen and paper which the narrator does and reruns to Robert. They sit on the floor and start drawing with Roberts' hand on the narrator's hand with the pen. Robert with his fingers examines the drawing and tells him that he is on the right track. They resume but this time Robert asks him to close his eyes, and he completes the drawing with his eyes closed. He doesn't want to open the eyes because he enjoys the feeling. He feels like he's not even inside himself. This show of trust by the blind man becomes the beginning of a special friendship between the two and also gives a new meaning to the life of the narrator.

I stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I even begin to describe it? But say my life depended on it."

The Lady with a Pet Dog

i)Cathedral

This story is about getting enlightened and finding a new meaning to life and one's self. When the blind man assists the narrator to draw, he is opened up to a new world of imagination and vision, one that he never knew existed. This leaves a long life change in him. The narrator uses a sneaky and secretive tone to put across his thoughts and experiences. The narrator uses this tone to pass across various happenings in clear terms. He does not hide the desperation in him. On her last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her noseeven her neck! She never forgot it."

ii)The Lady with a Pet Dog

The writer puts across emotional complexity by use of very few words thereby keeping his true feelings away from the reader. When Dmitri sees Anna in the home theatre, he expresses his yearning for her romantically. The author paints pictures with his writing. He makes use of colors to show changing of their characters and feelings. Like when he talks about Dmitri's gray hair and his gray suits, the sea ta Yalta has a warm lilac hue.

The lovers are worried about what they mean to each other, Dmitri thinks Anna sees him as a lofty, kind and exceptional man while Anna is worried that Dmitri sees her as a common woman. This is basically because they are not sure of the foundation of their relationship. It is based on a past of disappointments and a future full of hope. The author implies that Dmitri's love life is messed and confused not straightforward and his devotion to it is rewarded by a ray of hope in the future and a bit of confusion. Anna Sergeyevna did not come to him in his dreams, she accompanied him everywhere, like his shadow following him everywhere he went. When he closed his eyes, she seemed to stand before him in the flesh, still lovelier, younger, tenderer than she had really been, and looking back, he saw himself, too, as better than he had been in Yalta"

TONE

i)The Lady with a Pet Dog

The tone of this story could be said to be objective. It is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions. The author says it as it is. He is unbiased and non-partisan. He talks about what the two lovers think and what they do without any moral judgment. Gurov is portrayed as a chauvinistic man, and we might want to judge him, but the narrator doesn't.

And yet theres something pathetic about her, he thought to himself as he fell asleep" (258).

ii)Cathedral

The narrator uses clear and straight to the point terms. It can be amusing when he tells us about he feels about getting all sensitive or trying to get us to be like he is. He shares the moments as they are and does it without telling us how to feel about it. In the midst of cracking jokes, there is a hint of sincerity in him and giving us the truth intentionally. He never thought that a blind man would change his perception that much and leave him with a lasting effect.

My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to." (2533).

STYLE OF WRITING

i)The Lady with a Pet Dog

Chekhov writes without wasting his words, he is straightforward and says what he wants the way he wants it said. In a paragraph, we get to know about how chauvinistic Gurov is, what he thinks of women, his lifestyle, what his marriage is like and how he is so into Anna. We get to know about his past, what motivates him psychologically when he chooses to go after affairs and how he is going to have a problem in the future with Anna(McInerney's, JayPg 69).

He had first begun deceiving her long ago and he was now constantly unfaithful to her, and this was no doubt why he spoke slightingly of women, to whom he referred as the lower race"

ii) Cathedral

According to Bernardo Blanco, (Pg88) The author of this book gives us minimum information which is otherwise known as Hemingway-esque. He gives just enough information for the reader to be able to uncover what is underneath according to their unique position. There is a series of various simply constructed sentenced that build up to express something mysterious. In some phrases we can have the layman's understanding they it has an even more hidden meaning in the story.

Ive had a real nice time. This beats tapes, doesnt it?"

CATEGORY

i)The Lady with a Pet Dog

Romance

This is a realistic story of two people having an affair, and the narration has been put in a simple and straightforward way. It reflects what the real life is like. Since the topic is a love affair, the genre is typical romance, and the author even uses a few quotes on love and romance.

And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life" (267).

ii)Cathedral

Comedy, Realism

At the end of the story, one can feel like something symbolical just happened. It is built in a familiar scenario. It is also very humorous and therefore falls into the comedy category. As the narrator connects the blind man, he makes a few jokes that might be offensive to some readers depending on how they take.

NARRATOR POINT OF VIEW

i)The Lady with a Pet Dog

The narrator in this story is the third person who is portrayed as omniscient. The story largely focuses on Gurov his perspective and lifestyle and also his thoughts. The narrator also gives us access to Anna's thoughts and then jumps back to Gurov's thoughts. The narrator also gives commentaries in some of the passages outside of both characters.

His hair was already beginning to turn gray. It struck him as strange that he should have aged so much in the last few years, have lost so much of his looks"

ii)Cathedral

In this story the narrator is central. He takes us through his experiences in one evening when a visitor comes to his house and through a single act of friendship and trust his life changes completely. He tells jokes of the blind man and also of himself which might be offensive to others.

Theyd married, lived and worked together, slept togetherhad sex, sureand then the blind man had to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman looked like. It was beyond my understanding."

SETTING

i)The Lady with a Pet Dog

The story has a dual setting. There is a change in mood and atmosphere when Anna and Gurov leave Yalta.Gurov knows all the dirty and immoral stories of Yalta. There isn't much to do in Yalata, and Gurov notices Anna who looks dull and apparently doesn't know what to do with her. It is a romantic place with colors sounds and scents of love. The place they take the evening strolls is described as grand and beautiful. When Anna leaves, Gurov doesn't feel comfortable anymore. In Moscow, his hometown, Gurov is cold and lonely and is not happy with his life anymore. The setting goes hand in hand with the atmosphere.

Anna says: The days pass quickly, and yet one is so bored here People never complain of boredom in godforsaken holes like Belyev or Zhizdra, but when they get here its: Oh, the dullness! Oh, the dust!""

ii)Cathedral

The story is in a setting of a middle-class home in NewYork one evening in the 1970s. It was in the early stages when people still used cassette tapes, and the televisions were in black and white. There is a meal shared, drinks and some cannabis sativa in a basic living room. This is where the narrator and the blind man (Robert) together draw the cathedral which in turn changes the narrator's life and has a lasting effect on him. His wife does not believe what she saw. The narrator is fixed in his daily routine and limited perception and feels like he isn't inside himself.

I stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I even begin to describe it? But say my life de...