The Lady with the Dog-Visual Depiction

February 24^th, 2013

The Lady with the Dog- Visual Depiction

Mr. Garrioch / World Lit.

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  The Lady with the Dog, by Anton Chekhov, contains a lot of detailed descriptions of the backgrounds of the novella. It delineates the world protagonist Dmitri Dmitritch sees with faithful portrayals rather than figurative expressions. I could explain some (apparent) ways this story qualifies as a Realism literature, but this time I’d like to give the image I picturized as reading the story, focusing on detailed depictions in it.

1.     Vivid Yalta

Yalta, where Anna and Dmitri met and spent their time together, is described as colorful and peaceful. They have some honest talk (or at least Anna thinks so) and kiss trying to avoid prying eyes. These rather blissful moments in Yalta can be seen in the way Yalta is described in the story. Yalta is depicted as a vibrant place with a lot of people, with its beautiful scene.

“Strange light on the sea: the water was of a soft warm lilac hue, and there was a golden streak from the moon upon it.”

2.     Colorless S----

The city Anna Sergeyevna lives is never revealed in the story-it is merely known as S----. This diffident woman’s hometown is the place where Anna is suppressed by her husband, where she is always anxious. S---- can also be seen as ‘reality’; whereas Yalta is a dreamy place where Anna and Dmitri coincidently meet each other and share love, closing eyes to the exhausting reality, as Anna returns to where her husband is, both undergo separation and return to their usuality. Gurov goes back to Moscow in its dreary winter and Sergeyevna to S---- to live with her husband instead of Gurov. So S----, whatever the place is actually like, is a romanceless place for both Gurov and Sergeyevna. This view would go along with the notable shift in the color described in story, as Sergeyevna’s hometown is portrayed as mainly grey, a murky color contrasting with the cheerful ‘lilac’ and ‘golden’ colors filling Yalta.

“The hotel, in which the floor was covered with grey army cloth, and on the table was an inkstand, grey with dust and adorned with a figure on horseback.”

“A long grey fence adorned with nails”

“Fog above the chandelier”

3.     Dreary Moscow

As mentioned above, Moscow to Dmitri Gurov is a monotonous place that he lived for his entire life. Thus Moscow is described as a dull, mono-colored place with no aberration.

“At home in Moscow everything as in its winter routine”

“The white earth, the white roofs”

“White with hoar-frost”

                   
I will later post a more journal-like journal that sticks more strictly to the story itself :)