Chekhov’s four-part story, The Lady with the Little Dog, details one man’s introduction, seduction, and obsession with an inexperienced youth in an unfamiliar place. Dmitri Gurov, a man approaching his forties with three children and a wife whom he considers of the ‘inferior race’, finds himself reclining for dinner in the ocean-side town of Yalta. Upon first sight of Anna, whom Gurov describes with simple comprehension as “a young woman, not very tall, blond, in a beret,” he sets his sights, noting that “If she’s here with no husband of friends, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make her acquaintance. Chekhov proceeds to ping-pong with how he qualifies Gurov’s interests. Gurov, when reflecting upon their first interactions, acknowledges her youth and “how much timorousness and angularity there was in her laughter”;
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Oates, following similar general guidelines that Chekhov had used nearly a century before, places Chekhov’s realization of destiny ending as Anna’s frustrated beginning to her story. Anna, like Chekhov’s depiction, is torn between a sense of loyalty for the life she had already created, and an exhilaration stemming from the purpose this affair had brought to her life. She remarks, “To be here and not there, to be one person and not another, a certain man’s wife and the wife of another man.”
Amidst both writers, Anna’s self-demotions into her youth and inexperience was a common thread. At her first opportunity to reveal her insecurities, Anna exhibits her discontent with her personal worth, with her constant desire for Gurov’s approval. In a dejected pose, she sat and complained, “You’ll be the first not to respect me now.” By focusing from the perspective of Anna, Oates expanded Anna’s quips, and stretched them into suicidal
Oates, following similar general guidelines that Chekhov had used nearly a century before, places Chekhov’s realization of destiny ending as Anna’s frustrated beginning to her story. Anna, like Chekhov’s depiction, is torn between a sense of loyalty for the life she had already created, and an exhilaration stemming from the purpose this affair had brought to her life. She remarks, “To be here and not there, to be one person and not another, a certain man’s wife and the wife of another man.”
Amidst both writers, Anna’s self-demotions into her youth and inexperience was a common thread. At her first opportunity to reveal her insecurities, Anna exhibits her discontent with her personal worth, with her constant desire for Gurov’s approval. In a dejected pose, she sat and complained, “You’ll be the first not to respect me now.” By focusing from the perspective of Anna, Oates expanded Anna’s quips, and stretched them into suicidal