Irony in the Lady with The Dog

In ‘The Lady with the Dog,’ Anton Chekhov provides a portrayal of the human mind by showing how one’s expectations of life change abruptly by the unpredictable. Chekhov’s narration is limited to Gurov’s perception, and we are given access to his thoughts, feelings, and expectations to some extent. Chekhov’s text reflects how unpredictable experiences or reality can overturn an individual's expectations of life. Simply put, life is ironical. An individual can expect life to take a certain course, but it is unpredictable and does not guarantee certain anticipated outcomes. The paper's aim is to analyze and bring out the use of irony in the text and how characters’ expectations of life are changed abruptly by the unpredictable.

Irony can be applied to a situation that may end up in a different way other than what is usually expected. The short story ‘Lady with a Dog’, which was written by Anton Chekhov, has an ironic turn of events. To show the unexpected changes and the use of irony in the short story, one needs a brief summary of how the main characters, Gurov and Anna, met. Anton Chekhov’s short story is about two promiscuous couples. These two are married to their partners but are leading a sad life. They meet one day and link up. Through their interaction, they realize that they are compatible and easily get along. The compatibility leads them to fall in love gradually.

The plot of the text is about a bank clerk called Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov. He is married. Gurov also has kids. He frequently enters into casual sexual relationships with other women. He is almost forty years old and likes spending a vacation alone in the seaside resort of Yalta. It is during one of these vacations in Yalta that he meets a young woman called Anna Sergeyevna. He expertly seduces her. Anna is also on holiday in Yalta without her spouse (Chekhov 1). Their first encounter leads to a secretive and infrequent relationship. Anna lives in a provincial township, having trysts with Gurov in Moscow at least once every two or three months (2). Their first meeting is in Yalta. The reader makes Dmitry’s acquaintance as contemptuous of women. Gurov takes them as easy conquests yet spontaneously erotic (Chekhov 2). He approaches Anna by fondling her dog. He discovers that Anna is a lady who is bored on holiday. He finds himself enchanted by her shyness, slimness, and her lovely gray eyes (2). They stroll on the dock, Dmitry kissing her passionately.

Dmitry and Anna proceed to have sex back at the hotel room, and she is instantaneously regretful while he serenely cuts himself a piece of watermelon (Chekhov 6). Anna had expected to be loved. She wanted attention, honesty, and openness. But instead, she feels used. Her expectations of life change abruptly by the unpredictable turn of events. She realizes her mistake and decides to go home. Chekhov happens to treat Anna tenderly, rendering her disgrace and contrition authentic. When she leaves him for home, both lovers think that the brief affair has ended (Chekhov 10). He thinks that she overestimated his personality in calling him kind, exceptional, and high-minded, whereas his handling of her was conceitedly condescending. Dmitry is vehemently engrossed in his Moscow life and expects Anna’s image to have disappeared from his memories within a few months, but that does not happen. The portrayal of the human mind, as shown by Gurov, is evident here. Gurov expects to move on and forget Anna, but his expectations change because of love. The love is unexpected. Dmitry expectations of life were changed unexpectedly by the unpredictable unfolding of events. He discovers himself in love with Anna and finds life without her “clipped and wingless” (Chekhov 14). The irony, in the beginning, is in the fact that Gurov started an affair with Anna purely to satisfy physical needs with no emotional attachments. At first, he lacks respect for women and thinks that they exist to satisfy men’s pleasures (Cornwell and Christian 221). When he happens to meet Anna, he seeks to have an affair just to satisfy his pleasure. Once he gets to discover true love and shares his feelings, he finds himself obsessed with Anna (Merriam-Webster’s 345). He is always thinking about her. Gurov realizes that he cannot keep on living a lie. It was impossible and wrong to engage Anna in a superficial relationship. Gurov’s expectations of extramarital affairs change abruptly because of the unpredictable connection he shares with Anna.

More than a month after he returns home to his wife and children, Gurov finds himself obsessed with thoughts of Anna and their time together. He had assumed that the memory of their brief fling would fade away with time, but he finds that to be precisely the opposite. His feelings and expectations had changed. Gurov's thoughts were haunted by Anna. She occupies his mind most of the time. She is also unhappy, wishing she would go back and be with him (Oates et al. 12). Gurov sets out looking for Anna, only to find her house virtually sealed off by long gray fences studded with nails (Chekhov 15). That is the initial of a series of images of hardship and enclosure. They symbolize the sadness of love between two people who are both married to others. She had almost given up the thought of seeing him again. In the scene unfolding their reunion in the local theatre, both converse in anxious and exclamatory phrases. Dmitry realizes that his heart belongs to Anna and starts treating her respectfully. He holds her with no worries about onlookers seeing them embracing. His expectations of life changed. He wants to treat her better. He wants to feel and express love. The love was unpredictable to him from the start. The incident shows how Gurov’s expectations of life changed abruptly by the unpredictable. They long for each other’s company. She promises to visit him in Moscow and does so (Chekhov 17). In Moscow, Anna and Dmitry find a pitifully trivial happiness mutually. Dmitry is now soft and understanding with Anna. He is no longer bored or irritated. Dmitry finds himself loving a woman unselfishly for the first time. The story’s closing mood is that of calm melancholia, entangled with joy, pain, and sadness. Throughout the short story, Gurov gains admiration for Anna and starts regarding her as a companion. Dmitri is expected to go on with his life usually, as a womanizer with no attachment whatsoever to Anna. He is supposed to keep on pursuing the simple life he treasured so much. The reader also expects Anna to stay with her husband and assumes she has indeed not betrayed him. But the two instead chose to be with the ones they love. The turn of events is ironic. It also seemed as though the two secret couples would find a solution and then start a new life together, but it was evident to both of them that they still had a long way to go. In fact, the complications had only just begun. Now profoundly in love, the pair faces an unpredictable future, and Chekhov ends the short story on this uncertain note.

In the text, Chekhov offers a masterly portrayal of the human mind, representing how unpredictable reality can overturn an individual's expectations of life. At the start of the short story, Gurov is exposed to be rather cynical. He is an egocentric opportunist in his approach toward women (Chekhov 1). Heartlessly analytical about his feelings and his frequent relationships, he has branded his women. However, he realizes that his relationship with Anna is something new and unexpected. For the first time, love becomes an emotional experience that is profound and sincere. Gurov realizes how odd it is that the young woman has become the center of his life. Logistically, the relationship is rather unexpected. One’s mind expects the two to end their fling and lead their separate miserable lives, but instead, they decide to start an open relationship. The expectations are changed by the unpredictable change of events. It is also unexpected for Gurov to carry on with the secretive relationship since he previously got bored with women quickly. Similarly, he learns an ethical lesson concerning his attitude towards all women in general. In the beginning, he objectified women but after meeting Anna, he learns to respect them. In conclusion, Chekhov’s text reflects how unpredictable experiences or reality can overturn an individual's expectations of life.

Works Cited

Cheuse, Alan, and Joyce Carol Oates. "High Lonesome: New And Selected Stories, 1966-2006." World Literature Today 80.5 (2006): 33. Web.

Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia Of Literature. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1995. Print.

"The Lady With The Dog And Other Stories, By Anton Chekhov: The Lady With The Dog." Ebooks.adelaide.edu.au. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

Cornwell, Neil and Nicole Christian. Reference Guide To Russian Literature. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998. Print.