"The Lady With the
Dog"
By Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
A century has passed since he died, yet he
remains close to us--his stories never out
of print, his plays often in production and
frequently quarried for movie scripts (two
films of the play Uncle Vanya alone in the
last decade), and his sensibility in the air
around us at every moment. He's the
supreme modernist in drama and fiction,
omnipresent like no other writer. Taken
from "Surprised by Love: Chekhove and
"The Lady with the Dog."
Those who knew Chekhov did not guess that
their doctor friend was to be the father of both
the modern theatre and the modern short story,
but they knew they were dealing with someone
exceptional. When Maxim Gorky read
Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog" in the
December 1899 issue of the journal Russian
Thought, he wrote to the author: "You are
doing a great thing with your stories, arousing
in people a feeling of disgust with their sleepy,
half-dead existence ..."
(Qtd. in “Surprised. . .”).
• Gorky's words suggest how
variously Chekhov can be read.
No one today makes a point of
expressing disgust at the people
depicted in "The Lady with the
Gorky was a founder of the Socialist Realism
Dog." literary
method and a political activist
• On the contrary, we are more
likely to notice Chekhov's greatheartedness and the generous
treatment of his characters.
• For Gorky, however, it was
natural to consider them symbols
of decadent old. . .
• . . .Russia and to see Chekhov as a potential
supporter of the new politics. Gorky's name,
which he chose, means "The Bitter."
• He was on his way to becoming the founder of
Soviet socialist realism, driving Russian
literature down a blind alley.
• Chekhov, on the other hand, was striding onto
the bright plains of modernity, shaping a
literature without limits.
Some Thoughts
• “The Lady with the Dog” is perhaps
Chekhov's best known and certainly one
of his best-loved stories.
• It exemplifies the author's subtle yet
powerful style, as Chekhov is
economical with language and never
says more than he needs.
• The author writes as though he is
painting a canvas, producing a work
that is “grand in scope” yet “intimate in
feel.”
• The author uses colors to convey
both the changing spirits and
feelings of the characters, as they
veer from the grandly impressive
to the muted and prosaic.
• For example, the aging Dmitri's
hair is described as graying, and
he often wears gray suits, whereas
the sea at Yalta is suffused with
color as "the water was of a soft
warm lilac hue, and there was a
golden streak from the moon upon
it."
Images of Yalta
Yalta is a resort city in
Crimea, southern Ukraine, on
the north coast of the Black
Sea.
The
Awakening
Conscience
William
Holman Hunt
1851-53
Sites Cited
• “The Lady with the Dog” Wikipedia. 6 Apirl 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_with_the_Dog
• “SparkNote on Chekhov Stories.” SparkNotes.com.
SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 15 Mar. 2010.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/chekhov/section1.html
• "Surprised by love: Chekhov and `The Lady with the
Dog.'" Queen's Quarterly. 22-SEP-04
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_01993537052/Surprised-by-love-Chekhov-and.html