The Effect of Relationship’s on Feelings Towards Others in “

Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” is the story of a married man bored by his wife and his relationship with a young woman, who is also married, while on vacation in Yalta. The relationship between the man, Dmitri Gurov, and the young lady, Anna Sergeyevna, is very intriguing when looking at the roles and the development of each character throughout the story. The change in attitude towards women shown by Dmitri shows the role of relationships and love in determining the feelings of one sex towards the other.

Early in “The Lady with the Dog,” it is clear that Dmitri has a negative outlook towards women. His feelings regarding women likely did not initiate in his younger days, but were probably a result of his sour relationship with his wife. In describing Dmitri’s feelings of women, Chekhov writes, “He had begun being unfaithful to her long ago-had been unfaithful to her often, and, probably on that account, almost always spoke ill of women, and when they were talked about in his presence, used to call them ‘the lower race’”(238). This leads the reader to wonder what events may have happene

d to Dmitri which led him to form this opinion of women. It is possible that there is more than one answer. One answer is the present relationship with his wife and also the encounters with other women in his past. Chekhov supports this theory where he writes, “It seemed to him that he had been so schooled by bitter experience that he might call them what he liked”(238). Another explanation for Dmitri’s feelings may be the social norms at the time which this story was written in. In the book Sexuality and Subordination : Interdisciplinary Studies of Gender in the Nineteenth Century, Susan Mendus writes describing marriage during the 19th century by saying, “on marrying, the woman must give up her independence and submit to the domination of her husband”(174). These norms of society and previous experiences with women surely played a large role in Dmitri’s attitude towards women in the beginning of “The Lady with the Dog”.

Dmitri meets Anna Sergeyevna in the town of Yalta, where she is vacationing. Dmitri did not know her true indentity at first though. Chekhov writes, “She was walking alone, always wearing the same béret, and always with the same white dog; no one knew who she was, and everyone called her simply “the lady with the dog” (237). Dmitri says to himself, “If she is alone without a husband or friends, it wouldn’t be amiss to make her acquaintance” (Chekhov 237). It is clear from the beginning that Dmitri has other plans for their relationship than Anna initially. Speaking of Dmitri’s recent encounter with Anna, Chekhov writes, “Afterwards he thought about her in his room at the hotel-thought she would certainly meet him next; it would be sure to happen” (239). Dmitri’s thought to himself, “This must be the first time in her life that she had been alone in surroundings in which she was followed, looked at, and spoken to merely from a secret motive which she could hardly fail to guess” (Chekhov 239). It is inferred that Dmitri takes great pleasure in not only adding another conquest to his résumé, but destroying Anna’s marriage at the same time. Dmitri finally achieves his goal when he proposes that the two venture back to Anna’s hotel room. Afterwards, when thinking about what she had just done, Anna says, “May God forgive me�

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