The Lady With the Dog Themes

Anton Chekhov’s short story “The Lady with the Dog” centers on the passionate affair between Dmitri Gurov and Anna Sergeevna. The two meet while on vacation in the city of Yalta, and what begins as a lovely yet ostensibly fleeting romance turns into a deeply meaningful relationship—one that, because both parties are married, must be maintained in secret. As Gurov in particular navigates his feelings in society beyond Yalta, he comes to feel that…

Despite the illicit nature of Gurov and Anna’s affair, Chekhov refuses to pass clear moral judgment on his characters’ actions. Instead, he makes a distinction between the social expectations placed on the lovers—which the story presents as petty and deeply hypocritical—and the actual, positive change that the Gurov and Anna have on each other through the deepening of their allegedly immoral relationship. In doing so, “The Lady with the Dog” suggests the arbitrary nature…

Both Anna and Gurov interpret their initial affair in Yalta as a bout of madness—Gurov approaches Anna when the thought of a romance with an unknown woman “suddenly [takes] possession of him,” and Anna outright says to Gurov before they sleep together that she “couldn’t control [herself] any longer” and that she is going “about as if in a daze, as if I’m out of my mind.” Each character initially views the affair with a…