The Lady with the Little Dog Flashcards
by Anton Chekhov — tap or click to flip
Flashcard Review
Flashcards: The Lady with the Little Dog
Where does Gurov first meet Anna Sergeyevna?
Gurov meets Anna Sergeyevna at the seaside resort of Yalta, where she is staying alone and walks daily on the sea-front with her white Pomeranian dog.
How does Gurov initially strike up a conversation with Anna?
Gurov uses Anna's Pomeranian dog as a pretext, beckoning to it and asking if he may give it a bone, which leads to a brief exchange about how long she has been in Yalta.
What happens between Gurov and Anna after the steamer arrives at the harbour?
After watching the steamer come in at dusk, Gurov kisses Anna on the lips and they go to her hotel room, where they begin their affair.
How does Anna react immediately after she and Gurov sleep together?
Anna is overcome with guilt and remorse, calling herself a "bad, low woman" who has deceived herself and declaring that she despises herself, while Gurov listens with irritated boredom.
Why does Anna leave Yalta, and how do she and Gurov part?
Anna leaves because her husband writes that his eyesight is failing and she must come home. She and Gurov part at the train station with Anna declaring it is the "finger of destiny" and that they must never meet again.
What happens to Gurov when he returns to Moscow after Yalta?
Gurov expects his memories of Anna to fade, but instead they intensify over the winter months until he is haunted by her image everywhere he goes and cannot stop thinking about her.
How does Gurov find Anna when he travels to the town of S----?
Gurov locates Anna's house by asking the hotel porter for Von Diderits' address, but is unable to approach her there; he later spots her at the theatre during the first performance of "The Geisha."
Where does Gurov speak to Anna at the theatre, and what does she tell him?
Gurov finds Anna alone in her stall during the interval and follows her to a narrow staircase, where she tells him she is miserable, that she thinks of nothing but him, and that she will come to him in Moscow.
How do Gurov and Anna arrange their secret meetings in Moscow?
Anna visits Moscow every two or three months under the pretense of consulting a doctor, stays at the Slaviansky Bazaar hotel, and sends a messenger in a red cap to Gurov.
What does Gurov realise when he sees himself in the mirror during a Moscow meeting?
Gurov sees that his hair has gone grey and that he has grown older and plainer, and he reflects that, for the first time in his life, he has fallen genuinely in love.
Who is Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov?
Gurov is a Moscow banker in his late thirties, married with three children, who has a long history of brief affairs with women and privately holds women in contempt, though he is irresistibly drawn to their company.
Who is Anna Sergeyevna, and what is her situation when she arrives in Yalta?
Anna Sergeyevna (nÊe Von Diderits by marriage) is a young woman in her twenties who has been married for two years to a provincial official she regards as a dull "flunkey," and she has come to Yalta alone seeking something more from life.
How is Gurov's wife described, and what is their relationship like?
Gurov's wife is portrayed as tall, stern, and self-consciously intellectual; Gurov finds her unintelligent and narrow, fears her, and has been unfaithful to her many times throughout their marriage.
How does Chekhov characterise Anna's husband?
Anna's husband Von Diderits is depicted briefly but pointedly: he is stooping and obsequious, with side-whiskers and a small bald patch, and his manner carries "something of the flunkey's obsequiousness" that confirms Anna's own harsh judgment of him.
What is the central theme of "The Lady with the Little Dog"?
The central theme is the transformative and redemptive power of genuine love: a jaded womaniser discovers, late in life, that one affair is not a fleeting amusement but a deep and permanent love that gives his existence real meaning.
How does Chekhov use the idea of a "double life" as a theme?
Gurov reflects that every respectable person lives two lives: the outer, visible life of social obligation and falsehood, and the hidden inner life where what is truly essential and sincere resides. His love for Anna belongs entirely to this secret inner life.
What does the story suggest about the relationship between love and social convention?
The story presents social convention â marriage, respectability, provincial life â as a cage that traps genuine feeling. Gurov and Anna's love is real and deep precisely because it exists outside and against the constraints of their official lives.
How does the theme of time and change operate in the story?
Time is a persistent undercurrent: Gurov ages visibly, the seasons shift from Yalta's summer through Moscow's winter, and what begins as a casual holiday affair deepens over months into something neither character can escape or resolve.
What is the significance of Chekhov's open ending?
The story ends with Gurov and Anna recognising that the most difficult part of their situation is only just beginning, with no solution in sight. Chekhov deliberately refuses resolution to suggest that genuine love does not offer tidy answers.
What is the symbolic role of the white Pomeranian dog?
The little white dog first identifies Anna to Gurov and serves as the innocent pretext for their meeting; it recurs at his moment of near-contact outside her house in S----, linking his obsessive return to the innocence of their original encounter.
How does Chekhov use the sea at Oreanda as a literary device?
The midnight scene at Oreanda â where Gurov and Anna sit silently above the sea in the pre-dawn stillness â functions as a moment of lyrical epiphany, suggesting the indifference of nature to human lives and hinting that beauty and eternity lie beyond social convention.
How does Chekhov use irony in the scene where Gurov tries to confide his love to a friend?
When Gurov mentions meeting a "fascinating woman" in Yalta, his companion responds only that the sturgeon at dinner was "a bit too strong" â a moment of bleak comic irony that underscores how completely isolated Gurov is with his new, genuine feeling.
What is the narrative technique Chekhov uses to convey Gurov's inner transformation?
Chekhov employs close third-person free indirect discourse, moving seamlessly into Gurov's thoughts and memories to show, from the inside, how his contemptuous attitude toward women is slowly dismantled by his deepening feeling for Anna.
What does the grey fence outside Anna's house in S---- symbolise?
The long grey fence represents the dreary confinement of provincial married life and the barrier between Gurov and Anna; he grows to loathe it, and it reinforces his fear that she has already forgotten him and is trapped in a stifling routine.
What does the word "lorgnette" suggest about Anna's social position?
A lorgnette is a pair of spectacles on a handle, associated with fashionable society; when Gurov sees Anna using a "vulgar lorgnette" in the provincial theatre, the detail captures her ordinariness and her misfit status in the small town.
What does Chekhov mean when he calls Gurov's view of women the "lower race"?
It is Gurov's private, cynical label for women, used to rationalise his serial infidelities and emotional detachment; the story ironises this contempt by showing that a woman is the only person capable of awakening genuine humanity in him.
What does Anna mean when she calls her departure the "finger of destiny"?
Anna uses the phrase to suggest that fate or providence is intervening to end the affair before it causes further harm; it reflects her mixture of religious guilt and romantic fatalism, and Gurov later realises how wrong the finality of that parting turned out to be.
What famous line closes the story's penultimate paragraph?
Chekhov writes: "And only now when his head was grey he had fallen properly, really in love -- for the first time in his life." The line marks Gurov's complete inner reversal from cynical seducer to a man capable of true feeling.
What does Gurov think when he sees Anna in the theatre in S----?
Chekhov writes that Gurov understood "clearly that for him there was in the whole world no creature so near, so precious, and so important to him," recognising for the first time the depth and irreversibility of his love.
How does Anna describe herself to Gurov after their first night together?
Anna tells Gurov: "I am a bad, low woman; I despise myself and don't attempt to justify myself. It's not my husband but myself I have deceived." Her self-condemnation reveals her moral seriousness and distinguishes her from the casual women in Gurov's past.