Psychological Analysis of Anton Chekhov's the Lady with the Pet Dog
Psychological Analysis of Anton Chekhov’s The Lady with the Pet Dog
In Anton Chekhov’s short story, The Lady with the pet Dog, Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna are bound together, not by love, but by their psychological needs. Both need to believe in a phenomenon deeper and more meaningful than each of their despised lives and for this reason; they think the intimacy between them, fueled by desperation, is love. . In reality, the relationship between Gurov and Anna is characterized by lies, boredom with reality, and a desire for self-satisfaction. Physiologically, neither Gurov nor Anna posses the qualities needed to genuinely love another person. In order to do so, one must love themselves, an attribute neither one attains. Gurov, upon returning to Moscow after vacationing in Yalta, where he met the young, lonely, newlywed Anna, decides to seek her out after Moscow life seems intolerable to him. Thus, a frustrated boredom with life sends him to her, not love. The setting reflects the charade, as their rendezvous takes place at a provincial theater where The Geishsa is showing. While the plot line shows parallels to The Lady with the Pet Dog, more importantly, it takes place in an arena where acting and fantasy thrive, the theater. Together, Anna and Gurov act out their own performance in which they love one another, and although their love is nonexistent, in the end, they make believe that it is.
They are incapable of love because they do not love themselves. In saying he hates women, Gurov subconsciously admits that he despises himself. Long ago, Gurov began frequently cheating on his wife, “and for that reason, [he] almost always spoke ill of women…and used to call them “the inferior race.”” Yet, “when he was among women he felt free” and could “not have lived without “the inferior race” for two days,” but he also knows, “every affair…inevitably grows into a whole problem of extreme complexity, and in the end a painful situation
In Anton Chekhov’s short story, The Lady with the pet Dog, Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna are bound together, not by love, but by their psychological needs. Both need to believe in a phenomenon deeper and more meaningful than each of their despised lives and for this reason; they think the intimacy between them, fueled by desperation, is love. . In reality, the relationship between Gurov and Anna is characterized by lies, boredom with reality, and a desire for self-satisfaction. Physiologically, neither Gurov nor Anna posses the qualities needed to genuinely love another person. In order to do so, one must love themselves, an attribute neither one attains. Gurov, upon returning to Moscow after vacationing in Yalta, where he met the young, lonely, newlywed Anna, decides to seek her out after Moscow life seems intolerable to him. Thus, a frustrated boredom with life sends him to her, not love. The setting reflects the charade, as their rendezvous takes place at a provincial theater where The Geishsa is showing. While the plot line shows parallels to The Lady with the Pet Dog, more importantly, it takes place in an arena where acting and fantasy thrive, the theater. Together, Anna and Gurov act out their own performance in which they love one another, and although their love is nonexistent, in the end, they make believe that it is.
They are incapable of love because they do not love themselves. In saying he hates women, Gurov subconsciously admits that he despises himself. Long ago, Gurov began frequently cheating on his wife, “and for that reason, [he] almost always spoke ill of women…and used to call them “the inferior race.”” Yet, “when he was among women he felt free” and could “not have lived without “the inferior race” for two days,” but he also knows, “every affair…inevitably grows into a whole problem of extreme complexity, and in the end a painful situation