Expression versus expectations in Chekhov’s The lady with the pet dog

In The bird with the caress dog, Chekhovs nonion of amative love coincides with his idea of the duplicitous self and society. Central to Chekhovs give-and-take of romantic love is the individual and the institutions that define him (in particular, marital and domestic ones) which Chekhov sees as anything but intact. What w pot is perceived on the sur expect is in universe a fragmented clumsily held together by bogus and renounce morality tantamount to hypocrisy.In this case, the romantic impulse comes as a liberating and redeeming sensibility. However, Chekhov asserts, the survival, let alone existence of the romantic love is executable solely in the darkin the small, private (and forbidden) enclave away from the persecuting and inquisitive eyes of the collective.Chekhov (2007) writes of Gurov, everything that in which he was sincere and did non deceive himself, everything that make the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people and all that was false in himall that w as open (chap. IV). Indeed what stands start in Chekhovs rub down is the clash between individual sentiments and social expectations defiance versus the norm, liberating passion as opposed to the stifling demands of pseudo-propriety.Such contestation of values is played out in the display cases of Anna Sergeyevna and Dmitri Gurov. Both atomic number 18 trapped and paralyzed by their family and marriages, relationships which are more nominal than actual. Both suffer from a breakdown of discourse with their partners and more importantly, their selves. Hence, the disruption of self-expression. Their efforts toward self-definition and determination are brutally countered by the conventions of their sexuality and status. As a result, what occurs is an extinction of their personality and consequently, the imperilment of their love.In this climate, masks are the only means of self-preservation. Gurov, for one, is a man of several faces. His faade appears to be in strict compliance wi th the behavioral codes attendant of his class and gender. His misogynistic gestures belie his reliable nature. He always spoke ill of women, and when they are discourseed about in his presence, used to call them the lower lam. yet he could not get on for two days together without the lower race (I).Convention, together with his pretensions, reduces Gurov to a flat and peaceable character. So flat, in fact, that his entire life and personality can be summed up by the avocation words He was under forty, but he had a madam friend al cross-filey twelve years old, and two sons at school (I). In this respect, Gurov is a typical family man. He is head (or better yet, cog) of a family the stability and comfortability of which is owed more to economic and social factors than human warmth and run acrossing. The family stands for the simple cogitate that Gurov and his married woman, no matter how superficially are playing their parts well.paradoxically and yet, understandably, Gurovs extra-marital affairs offer no significant threat to the substantiality of his domestic sphere. His women are but fleeting muses, objects of a passion that fades moreover as quickly as it ignites. Such transient and cold encounters ineluctably deteriorate every intimacy which at archetypical so enjoyably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a rhythmical problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes unacceptable (I). In a sense, Gurovs relationships with other women are simply extensions of his mechanized family life.Gurov is deader than alive older than his years. Despite his numerous preoccupations He already snarl a longing to go to restaurants, clubs, dinner parties, anniversary celebrations entertaining noble lawyers and artists (III)his hunger for life and love remains unsatisfied. His romantic sensibility continues to stagnate. Gurovs fate is a microscopic version of the spiritual inertia plagui ng larger society. As Gurov laments, What senseless nights, what uninteresting, uneventful days The rage for card playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the perennial talk always about the same thing (III).Apparently the inattentive life of the materially comfortable fail to fill the gaping hole within the individual, in this case, a premature organism at most. What intactness is gained by dint of the observance of superficial social rituals is nothing but conformity and monotony.Gurovs premature self translates to the frustration of his artistic sensibility. Gurov had taken a gradation in arts, but had a post in the bank that he had trained as an opera singer, but ad given it up (I). Again, passion has given way to practicality and material considerations.Though practically unknown (indeed, one can only name her through Gurov, and partially at that), Gurovs wife is far from being a peripheral and passive figure. She enters the story (one can even govern, intrude) almost sim ultaneously as Gurov does. The first glimpse of Gurov is intertwined with that of her that one appears to be the foil of another. Chekhovs description of her evokes capacity (and to a degree, death and deadliness) uncommon of her sex his wife seemed half as old again as he. as she verbalise of herself, intellectual. She read a great dealhe secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow inelegant, was terror-struck of her, and did not like to be at home (I).His wifes sense of individuality proves corrosive to their relationship. Not that Chekhov despises individuality in women, Annas struggle toward self-definition show otherwise. What makes Gurovs wifes fatal is that it consumes, by emasculating, Gurov. An individuality such as her hampers coalescency and unity, disadvantageous to love. The juxtaposition of Gurov and his wifes sensibility lays bare a glaring incongruity, symptomatic of the tribulation of their marital communication.The marital environment isolates them both. For Gurov in his home it was impossible to talk of his love, and he had no one outside (III). And when his wife catches on and reacts to his hints on love no one guessed what it meant only his wife twitched her black eyebrows, and said The part of a lady-killer does not suit you at all, Dimitri (III). Their marital union is grounded on repulsion and revulsion.In stark contrast to his wife is the character of Anna Sergeyevna, whose individuality, at least in the beginning, is yet to be defined. Which is not to say that she is empty, for like Gurov, Anna is in search of a life above the unremarkable To live, to live I was fired by curiosityI could not control myself something happened to me, I could not be restrained (I). The amorphousness of Anna and Gurov serves as a point of connection, a common ground for them.Annas gradual overture from anonymity to indiviulaity is paradoxically combined in her identity as the lady with the pet dog. When Gurovs romance with an unknown woman (I) p erchance escalates to full-blown romance that sweet delirium, that madness (II) Annas personality becomes indelible Anna did not visit him in dreams, but followed him about everywhere and taken up(p) him (II). Indeed, what marks Gurovs love for Anna is its sense of permanence and identity. Annas face is not gobbled up by oblivion, nor does it fade in the crowd. To Gurov, she is the only lady with the pet dog.This sense of eternity is not bound to be challenged though. Society looms as a more powerful and sinister pull back in the lovers lives. Their love is taboo, a truth which they can only tabulate but never defeat it seemed to them that fate itself had meant them for one another, and they could not understand why he had a wife and she had a husband (IV).Chekhov does not negate the potency, even necessity of genuine romantic love. He does not offer false hopes about it either. Gurov and Anna can only dwell in the present what the future has to offer is far from hopeful and i t was clear to both that they still had a long road before them, and that the most complex and difficult part is only just beginning (IV).ReferencesChekhov, A. (2007). The lady with the pet dog. Retrieved December 1, 2007, fromhttp//www.enotes.com/lady-pet-text.