As I was reading Anton Chekov’s “The Lady with the Dog”, I was trying to figure out what the idea of the story was. After finishing it, I think that the idea overall is love. This is because, at the root of the story, it is about two people who are “in love’ but should not be. I did not really like this story much, I was disappointed in how it portrayed gender roles. The protagonist, Gurov, is openly sexist at the beginning of the story. It says, “[He] almost always spoke ill of women, and when they were talked about in his presence, used to call them ‘the lower race’” (Chekov 214). He openly does not have respect for his wife and women in general, thinking them less than men. When he meets Ana, he openly patronizes her as well. He compares her to his 12-year-old daughter, “As he got into bed he thought how lately she had been a girl at school, doing lessons like his own daughter” (215). I just think that this comparison is disgusting, especially considering how he has sex with her a page later. He also calls her pathetic for speaking to him while alone on her vacation, despite the fact that he pursued her. This feeds into the sexist idea that men should be the only people who want to have sex, women who want to have sex are portrayed as dirty. This is also reinforced by Anna’s meltdown post sex where she says, “No, I am a bad, low woman; I despise myself and don't attempt to justify myself” (217). Obviously, this self slut-shaming moment would not be uncommon in the time, or even now, but I still found it disappointing, considering how the male character is allowed to speak openly about his multiple affairs with no shame.

 Another thing I found interesting was how Anna wants to be loved. It reminded me of Terri in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, Anna also feeds off of a sort of abuse, probably because she was written by a man. He writes, “she was often pensive and continually urged him to confess that he did not respect her, did not love her the least, and thought of her as nothing but a common woman” (218). While I initially believed it was because she fed off cruel words, I think it is possible she asked him to say these things so she could stop loving him. Near the end of the story, when he goes to where she lives, I was hoping she would reject him, to show that he needed her more than she ever needed him, but of course, that is not the case. I think that Chekhov made this decision to show that we cannot pick who we fall in love with and that love tends to be inconvenient and messy. Yet, I still do not believe that the man and the woman are actually in love. I think that anyone who meets someone “niceish” on vacation and has a horrible spouse, will fall in love. When they meet up after the vacation, it simply reminds them of the safety of Yalta and how they felt there. They’re seeking refuge in each other, and they confuse that for love. 

Essentially this is a story about a man who fucks a younger girl on vacation and then slut shames her for having sex with him?? And Chekhov is like yeah she’s bad and she should feel bad!! As a guy that looooooooves to say he has female protagonists, it’s disappointing.