The Lady with the Dog, By Anton Chekhov (1899)
Yuna Song
Rating: 6.5/10
The biggest concern of this book that I thought of was the contradiction of whether to accept late love as true love or just as an unethical desire. Moreover, "To be happy, reveal your true self" was the impressive message I could get from this book.
The scene where Dmitri explains why it snowed to her daughter was one of the impressive scenes seeming to denote symbolic meanings. Different temperatures, meaning a difference of Gurov’s life seen and not seen by others, snow, representing the unsatisfactory of life, and relationship with Anna that could melt away.
I also thought about the reason why the title was “The Lady with the Dog”. I could guess that Anna was not the only “lady with the dog” in Yalta. Thus, the reason why nevertheless Gurov called her “the lady with the dog” was maybe because Anna seemed already so special to Gurov that the common behavior also seemed to be characteristic.
Overall, I loved the message, symbolic meanings, and conclusion allowing readers to come up with many thoughts. However, not enough information about characters made me difficult to make a convincing valuation of rather to encourage their public or private life after all. (200 words)
Good details and analysis. The title is simple and yet not simple. We can describe people in simple ways like "the man with the BMW" or the "the girl with the dragon tatoo" but there is always more to them than the identifier we choose. Keep up the good work.
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