Mistakes

Schuyler Strauss October 14, 2005 Advanced Freshmen English

Mistakes We Knew We Were Making

Alone in Yalta, Chekhov writes what was to become the best-known of his love stories, "The Lady with the Little Dog", in which a chance love affair takes control of two people and transforms them against their will. The story is perceived through Gurov's eyes, as well as Chekhov's intention to show him as a maturing and emotional man in conflict with himself about the unanticipated circumstances.

Gurov endures a bizarre and meandering path of poignant and moral growth that few readers would guess. In the opening section of this story, we first meet Gurov on the boardwalk at Yalta where he is taking a holiday alone. An alluring man from the upper class, he has been ensnared for years in a loveless arranged matrimony. Not yet forty, he has already become a practiced seducer. His affairs continually end unfavorably, but he cannot keep from starting new ones. His ill-fated adulteries have left him contemptuous and resentful.

Chekhov portrays Gurov in a frequently critical light, calling attention to his manipulation of women, misogyny, and amorality in love. Gurov possesses paradoxical urges. His low view of women, for instance, is an adjunct to a bizarre penchant for their companionship. Nothing in the story's opening indicates the personal change that Gurov will endure -more or less against his will-and the original unflattering view of his character guarantees that the reader's attitude of him changes as well.

Anna Sergeyevna, the lady with the pet dog, is a mysterious character, until her seduction. Before that decisive moment she is seen mostly from the outside. She is little more than a series of gestures, remarks, and generally understated reactions. She is a young, bored, upper-class married woman in Yalta for the first time. After "her fall," she bursts out with a passionate fit of penitence. Only then does the reader get a glimpse of her inner life. Although still quite young, she-like Gurov-is also a creature of paradox. She, too, is trapped in an overpowering marriage. Anna has even faked an illness to escape on a holiday to the Black Sea resort. By the norm of Chekhov's day, she is hardly a model superwoman.

When Anna Sergeyevna leaves Yalta, her affair has outwardly done. The author, though, then clearly shows the reader what was suggested all along-to Gurov the romance had little emotive profundity. He had not sought after love but only the emotional excitement of a fascination. He was not even