The Lady with the Dog

In Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog,” Dmitry Gurov is the protagonist. He is not yet forty and has three children and a wife. He had been talked into marrying his wife in his third year at college, and now she looked twice as old as he did. Because he disliked being at home so much, Dmitry went on a vacation at a resort in Yalta. During his stay, he keeps seeing a lady walking around with a white Pomeranian. Eventually the two of them meet and start having an affair, even though both of them were married. Anna is Dmitry’s lover in the story. She is a young woman in her twenties who has also ventured to Yalta to get away from her dissatisfying life. When Anna and Dmitry first meet, readers learn that she grew up in Petersburg, but had gotten married in the town of S., where she had been living for two years. Once the affair began between Anna and Dmitry, she feels a great deal of remorse and fears that Dmitry will no longer respect her. She expressed to Dmitry that she has been deceiving herself for so long. She is married to an honest man, but claims he’s a “flunky.” The only reason she married him was to cure the curiosity that was burning within.

Dmitry’s character changes drastically from the beginning of the story to the end. Despite the fact he is a married man, Dmitry has been deceiving and unfaithful to his wife for a long time now. Because of this, he referred to women as the lower race. However, without women, he couldn’t exist simply because he was bored in the presence of men. In the company of women he felt more comfortable and at ease. When he first started the affair with Anna, he assumed it would be more of a casual acquaintance. He had learned from previous love affair experiences not to get involved because they always end badly. However, once the two had gone back to their separate cities, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. His character starts to change when he then goes to Anna’s city to find her. It was very unlike Dmitry to behave in such an spontaneous, romantic way, but he has finally realized that he has found true love and can’t live without her. In the end, he is willing to sacrifice everything in order to live openly with Anna. From beginning to end, Dmitry’s character transformed from a casual seducer to a man who is happily in love.