Comparing and Contrasting "the Lady with the Pet Dog"

The story of "The Lady with the Pet Dog," a romantic short story, is presented in two versions from different authors; Chekhov and Oates. The overall plot of the story describes the struggles that two lovers, Anna and Dmitry, have to face in order to keep their relationship going, even if it's in secret. Both stories are using a third person narrator to tell the story. However, there are certain differences one might notice when reading the two stories. The sequence each story follows, the different places and time periods, the two perspectives presented; and each story's reasoning for their titles are the differences that build the story of two lovers struggling with their emotions, morale and guilt.

Another difference is the way each author takes one character to narrate the story through their feelings. In Chekhov's version, the story is told from the male's perspective. The author introduces Dmitry as the main character in the story describing who he is "He was under forty, but he already had a daughter twelve years old and two sons at school" (Chekhov 223), typical characteristics for a middle aged man. However what makes him a singular character is the unfaithfulness and lack of love for his wife. Dmitry "privately considered her of limited intelligence, narrow-minded, dowdy, was afraid of her, and did not like to be at home" (223). Little appreciation is perceived from Gurov towards his wife. This relationship had taken Dmitry to have a very particular opinion about woman calling them "inferior race" (223), yet he knew he couldn't live without them and felt more comfortable around them (223). This perception of him transmits a feeling of emptiness in his life. Nonetheless, once he is captured with Anna's beauty and their relationship deepens, Dmitry realizes he had wrongly categorized women. Nevertheless, Gurov never shows any signs of guilty or shame for his actions.

Oates takes Anna as his main character; who in contrast with Dmitry, experiences more of a guilty conscience and clearly knows their actions are morally wrong, making noticeable the female's perspective. "She shut her eyes and thought of that other man, as if betraying him would give her life a center" (Oates 238). A guilt that wouldn't let her rest, but guilt she wasn't willing to let go because of the love she had for Dmitry. Anna experiences moments of desperation that take her to the point of hurting herself physically; this in consequence of the remorse Anna has for the fact that she can't be with the man she loves and at the same time, she is being unfaithful to her husband. "She would rush home and strike a razor across the inside of her arm and free that pressure, that fever" (248), somehow she thought that could bring her up to reality.

A particular characteristic in each story is that each starts in different order. In Chekhov's story, the narrator tells everything as it happens. He starts by describing how Dmitry notices Anna and instantly becomes interested in her. "'If she is here alone without husband or friends,' Gurov reflected, 'it wouldn't be a bad thing to make her acquaintance'" (Chekhov 223). Recalling the way he felt about woman, this one might have made the difference right away when he first noticed her because of Gurov's instant curiosity towards her. In the story by Oates, the narrator starts with a part of the climax in the story when Dmitry attends to the concert where Anna is with her husband. "Now she saw him again, clearly. He was standing there. He was staring