Forbidden Love in the Story "The Lady with the Pet Dog" by Anton Chekhov (Essay Sample)

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Forbidden Love in The Lady with the Pet Dog
One of the most famous sayings about the nature of love is, ‘Love is blind.’ The saying connotes a myriad of ideas. Mostly, when used, the saying means that a person who falls in love is blind to everyone else around, or does not find other people attractive. The saying is also used to depict how a person that was once focused on a given kind of lifestyle changes it because of love, which in a way shows that one becomes blinded by intense feelings of attraction toward another person that he or she is ready to give up a familiar lifestyle when pursuing the other person. Even more extraordinary is forbidden-love. Due to the effect that (forbidden) love has on people, many authors have taken it upon themselves to address it in their writings. One of the authors is Anton Chekhov, who wrote “The Lady with the Pet Dog”. This essay seeks to show how Chekhov depicts the theme of forbidden love in his story by investigating the historical context of the story, symbolism, and setting used by the author.
Chekhov wrote The Lady with the Pet Dog during a period characterized by unequal rights and opportunities between men and women. The piece was published in 1899 when Chekhov had retreated to a seaside health resort in Yalta (Smith 198). During this period, men regarded themselves as special, but they treated women as second-class citizens. Dmitry Gurov, is not different from the rest of the male population, as he views women as objects to be used. Chekhov writes, “When they were talked about in his presence, he used to call them ‘the lower race’” (Chekhov 2). The