The Lady With The Dog by Anton Chekhov

In the beginning of the story, Chekhov begins with the simple line, 'It was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front…'; This passage shows that the local residents of Yalta have discovered an outsider, a person they know nothing about. Chekhov asks the reader to consider who is she with and why is she there? The character of the sly womanizer, Dmitri Gurov, also asks these questions. When first reading I began to form a certain opinion of Dmitri. We know he is married and has children. He also admits to being unfaithful to his wife on numerous occasions. He appears to not like women as he referred to them as the 'lower race.'; This characteristic of his personality leads to the encounter between himself, the unfaithful husband, and the young mysterious Anna, in the gardens. 'If she is here alone without a husband or friends, it wouldn't be amiss to make her acquaintance.'; He stated of her.

In the character of Dmitri, Chekhov gives a man who seems to despise women; 'he almost always spoke ill of women…'; However, I believe that this was an act that he showed. 'When he was in the company of women he felt free, and knew what to say to them and how to behave; and he was at ease with them even when he was silent.'; If Gurov regarded women as the 'lower race'; than why was he only at rest when in their company? In truth I think that he liked women, he needed women. The reason he puts on this 'tough guy'; act is because he has never found a woman that he truly loved. Every time he had met a new woman, 'he was eager for life, and everything seemed simple and amusing.'; However, 'Every intimacy inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes unbearable.'; Gurov did not know how to handle long complicated relationships that took work to maintain. That is why his marriage was a failure and unhappy. That is also the reason why he always became frustrated and used women as a scapegoat. Dmitri is excited when he sees the new mysterious woman; he sees a new opportunity to escape the monotonous marriage he is trapped in. Even though everything always failed him before he was unconsciously compelled to try and find something that worked.