Psychological Analysis of Anton Chekhov’s The Lady with the Pet Dog
In Anton Chekhov’s short story, The Lady with the pet Dog, Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna are bound together, not by love, but by their psychological needs. Both need to believe in a phenomenon deeper and more meaningful than each of their despised lives and for this reason; they think the intimacy between them, fueled by desperation, is love. . In reality, the relationship between Gurov and Anna is characterized by lies, boredom with reality, and a desire for self-satisfaction. Physiologically, neither Gurov nor Anna posses the qualities needed to genuinely love another person. In order to do so, one must love themselves, an attribute neither one
At the theater, Gurov and Anna begin their own dramatic charade. The play being showed, The Geisha, is actually about an army personal who falls in love with a geisha even though he is engaged, and ends with him reunited to his original fiancée. The parallels in the plot line to Anna and Gurov’s immoral decisions are surely intentional on Chekhov’s behalf, as well as his decision to place their meeting in a theater. Suddenly, in the intermission, Anna and Gurov are the actors. “All the people in the boxes were looking at them…on the landing above them two high school boys were looking down and smoking, but it was all the same to Gurov; he drew Anna to him and began kissing her face and her hands” (p. 231). Gurov is acting; performing gestures of love in order to achieve the psychological satisfaction he attains from being with women. With people watching, similar to an audience, their chance of discovery is plausible, which would result in ruin for both their lives. Gurov also craves excitement and as the severity of their scandal increases, so does his ability to play the part as the high he experiences intensifies. Gurov confuses these feelings of excitement with love. Meanwhile, Anna craves attention and approval, giving Gurov the feeling of superiority and being needed. Between this false love and Gurov’s superiority complex, the two of them create a