Anton Chekhov Case

To begin with I should say, that Anton Chekhov in his creative work paid a lot of attention to unpredictability of people's actions, to unusual even absurd people's feelings and especially to love. Anton Chekhov can be surely called "the descriptor of daily routine". But although his works are realistic and truthful, they make you think a lot about the unpredictability and sometimes cruelty of real life.

"The Lady with the Dog" is one of Chekhov's best known love stories. It is interesting to read this story because it tells us about everyday life occurrence: two married people fall in love and don't know what to do with it. The main characters are Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna Von Diderits. And what is interesting is that neither of them is very remarkable. Gurov "was under forty, but he had a daughter already twelve years old, and two sons at school". Anna Sergeyevna was a "fair-haired young lady of medium height". As we can see, they were simple people. And how could it happen that these people fall in love? Of course conditions play here a very big role. Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna were having rest in such a romantic place like Yalta. They had no worries, no problems; they were just enjoying the surrounding harmony: "the leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace..."(222). In such an atmosphere it is hard not to fall in love.

Neither Gurov nor Anna Sergeyevna thinks that their love has continuation: "We are parting forever - it must be so, for we ought never to have met... "(223) And really! Their love has no "happy end". Don't forget that Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna are married people. Of course, it is obvious that they are unhappy in their marriages. For example: "... he (Gurov) secretly considered her (his wife) unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was afraid of her, and did not like to be at home." But why is it so? The problem is that there were strong patriarchal attitude to love and marriage in Russia of 19th century. It was normal and usual to get married not because of love, but because of profit or parent's agreement. People got married only to get profit, but not to be happy with the lovely person.

In "The Lady with the Dog" there is no any elevation and sweetness of love, everything is real.