Love in Lady with the Pet Dog, Anna Karenina, and Pride and Prejudice

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Topic: Human nature and relationships between people –focusing on the idea of love in literary works: “Lady with the Pet Dog”, Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice. Love has always been a controversial issue throughout centuries. However, it was, and is, still one of the most popular topics in literature. One cannot help but be reminded of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet when that particular topic is brought up, which is one of the finest examples on this topic. Despite all the literary works written about love, love itself remains unexplained. The questions “why” and “when” is often asked –it can usually be answered vaguely or deeply, but sometimes it remains unanswered. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen makes Mr Darcy, who has captured young girls’ hearts for decades, say “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” which is both very informative and a vague answer, when asked by the love of his life. It is vague, because it doesn’t exactly answer the question “when”. On the other hand, it is a perfect answer to describe the mysterious nature of love. It proves that in order to be in love, some time for each part to contemplate on the nature of the emotion must pass after two people meet. In other words, if it is described as that romantic “love at first sight” it’s not the love that brings a happily ever after, but merely a form of cursed obsession that leads to disappointing endings. This work will particularly focus on the adulterous love in Checkov’s “The Lady with the Pet Dog”, and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina by taking Pride and Prejudice’s love story as a model. The theory that love at first sight is ... ... middle of paper ... .... Print. Chekhov’s Lady With the Pet Dog. 16 November 2010. Web. 17 November 2013. < http://may-on-the-short-story.blogspot.com/2010/11/chekhovs-lady-with-pet-dog.html/ >. Creasman, Boyd. "Gurov's Flights Of Emotion In Chekov's `The Lady With The.." Studies In Short Fiction 27.2 (1990): 257. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2013. Fulford, Robert.“Surprised by love: Chekhov and ‘The Lady with the Dog’.” Queen’s Quarterly. n.d. Web. 17 November 2013. Greenberg, Yael. "The Presentation Of The Unconscious In Chekhov's Lady With Lapdog." Modern Language Review 86.1 (1991): 126-130. Humanities International Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2013. Morson, Gary. "Marriage, Love, And Time In Tolstoy's Anna Karenina." Journal Of Family Theory & Review 2.4 (2010): 353-369. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 6 Nov. 2013. Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Moscow, 1877. E-book.

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