Anton Chekhov's "The Lady with the dog" is a story of a bored, married banker from Moscow, Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who meets a young married woman, Anna Sergeyevna, while on vacation in Yalta at the beginning of the century. They drift into an affair that turns into true love, yet the conventions of society and the couple's need to feel respectable force them to return to their old lives. Over the years they meet, but they cannot find the strength to break with their past. In this story the theme of the effect of society on personal freedom can be examined with reference to Gurov, Anna and their situation.

Gurov's life is unhappy. His marriage does not fulfil his expectations and that is why he does not respect his wife. He finds in her many disadvantages and he does not appreciate her as a person ("he secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant." P.123). Due to these thoughts he has began being unfaithful to her. His looking for sexual experiences is also apparent from the thoughts he makes when he sees Anna for the first time ("If she is here alone without a husband or friends, it

Through this story we understand how society was at the time Gurov and Anna lived and at what extend the moral rules were oppressing each individual's personal freedom. In that short story Chekhov tries to show that for some things, which are very important for us, and from which our happiness is depended, it is better to ignore society's moral rules.

When Anna goes to the hotel with Gurov, it is the first time during her marriage that she stays in a room, alone with another man (" You will be the first to despise me now," she said) and because of the fact that she is a very decent woman ("I love a pure, honest life, and sin is loathsome to me."P.126), she feels really bad ("Her face dropped and faded, and on both sides of it, her long hair hung down mournfully; she mused in a dejected attitude like "the woman who was a sinner" in an old fashioned picture" p126). For Gurov, on the other hand, it is the first time he has so strange and unique feelings for a woman. He feels that Anna is not like all the other women he had met ("But in this case there was still the difference, the angularity of inexperienced youth, an awkward feeling"p.126). Gurov and Anna have a passionate relationship and many times the idea of leaving their families and li

Some common words found in the essay are:
P123 Due, Gurov Anna, Anna Sergeyevna, , Chekhov's Lady, Dmitritch Gurov, gurov anna, personal freedom, lady dog, moral rules, respect wife, sexual experiences,
Approximate Word count = 861
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)