“The Lady with the Little Dog” – Anton Chekhov
A Comparative Study of the Presentation of Adultery.
These two stories were both composed towards the end of the nineteenth century, and both present an adulterous relationship. Chopin’s “The Storm” was not published in her life-time because the subject matter was considered too scandalous; Chekhov’s story was published, but, according to Loehlin, Tolstoy “condemned the the lovers in “The Lady with the Little Dog” as “Nietzschian and bestial” (163). Both stories are narrated by an omniscient third person authorial voice, but Chekhov adopts the male point of view, that of the protagonist, Gurov; by contrast, Chopin switches her narrative between Calixta, the wife, and her husband, Bobinôt who, with their son, Bibi, is caught away from their house during a ferocious storm. Chopin’s story is very succinct, the action taking place over one evening and the following morning; Chekhov’s story develops over several months. Despite their common subject matter and the surprising, yet contrasting ways the stories end, the presentation of adultery, its consummation and its side effects are completely different.
The circumstances of the adultery in both stories are very different. In Chopin’s story Calixta and Alcée sleep together almost by accident.
The storm comes unexpectedly and Calixta’s husband and son are at Friedheimer’s store where they stay to shelter from the storm. Alcée arrives at Calixta’s house just as the storm is beginning and helps her collect the washing to save it from the rain. Calixta expresses concern about her husband and her son, and about her house faced with the growing storm. Alcée embraces her to comfort and reassure her, and this embrace “aroused all the old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh” (Chopin 342). It is clear at this point that Calixta and Alcée have had feelings for each other in the past, but have ended up marrying other people, for reasons that Chopin does not elaborate on. Chopin presents what happens next as entirely natural and unavoidable: “there was nothing for him to do except gather her lips in a kiss” (342). By contrast, Gurov in “The Lady with the Pet Dog” is a serial adulterer and is always on the look out for someone to have an extra-marital affair with.
Furthermore, unlike the spontaneous passion that overtakes Calixta and Alcée in “The Storm,” Chekhov presents Gurov as calculating and devious in his pursuit of Anna Sergeyevna. He deliberately manipulates his meetings with her and Chekhov presents Anna as just another sexual conquest for Gurov. Chopin shows that Calixta is concerned for her husband and son because of the storm; Chekhov tells us that Gurov hates his wife.
The act of sex is presented very differently by each author. Chekhov does not describe it directly but ignores it and concentrates on the aftermath: Anna is deeply upset and guilty: she calls herself “a bad, low woman” (132). By contrast, Chopin presents the sexual act as joyous:
as Alcée rides away he “smiled at her with a beaming face” and she “laughed aloud” (345). Chopin is more explicit too about the act itself which brings the lovers clear sensuous pleasure: Alcée obviously relishes Caixta’s “round, white throat and her whiter breasts” (344). Chopin makes it clear to the readers that the act of sex is deeply fulfilling for both of them:
The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached (344).
Here the sex is enjoyable; in Chekhov sex makes Anna and Gurov unhappy – Anna because of her guilt and Gurov because he feels no love for Anna.
Nature is central to Chopin’s story. The storm is a symbol and a parallel for the storm of passion that overwhelms the lovers, and is accepted as something natural. In a similar way Chopin often uses natural imagery to describe Calixta: in bed with Alcée she is like a “creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world” (344) – a simile which gives Calixta stature and importance. Chekhov barely mentions nature at all, but when he does he uses it completely differently. As Gurov and Anna look down at Yalta, Chekhov uses the scene to remind us, not of life, but of death – “the eternal sleep awaiting us” (133).
The long term aftermath of the adultery is different in both stories, although perhaps equally unexpected. In “The Lady with the Pet Dog” Gurov, the habitual womanizer, falls in love with Anna and the story ends on a note of complete misery, because Anna reciprocates his feelings but they cannot imagine a future together: “they had a long, long road before them, and the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning” (Chekhov 136 What is more, there is no ambivalence in Chekov’s story: their feelings for each other are unequivocal, even if their future is unclear. Chopin’s ending is much more ambivalent with Calixta seemingly enjoying a happy family meal with her husband and son, as if her night of intense passion with Alcée had not happened. Chopin’s final sentence – “So the storm passed and everyone was happy” (347) – can be read as deeply ironic. Can we imagine that Calixta and Alcée will not try to repeat their rapturous love making? Why does Alcée immediately write to his wife assuring her that she can stay away for longer if he does not anticipate making love to Calixta again? This very ambivalence has given rise to critical debate in a way that Chekhov’s story has not done. Stein has wondered whether “Chopin [is] suggesting that the quotidian is so banal that the adulterous passion is a necessary life-giving escape, one that can make the daily routine more endurable?” (56). He goes on to ask whether passion is transient and the stability of the quotidian is what we must commit ourselves to. Part of the point, Stein argues, is that Chopin leaves the answer unclear. It is certainly true that Chopin’s final two chapters are in very ordinary prose which does not reach the heights of the lyrical, beautiful language used to describe the love-making during the storm. Stein also observes that Chopin presents the storm in an ambivalent way too. The storm has “sombre clouds” and a “sinister intention” and its approach is accompanied by “a sullen, threatening roar” (Chopin 343). However, a few lines later we are told that the storm “seemed to be ripping great furrows in the distant field.” Here the furrows suggest the act of ploughing which is a preparation for the planting of seeds which bring new life. Stein concludes that “The storm is necessary to growth and thus, although frighteningly powerful, a great and good procreative force” (49).
There is one final difference that needs to be explored, and that is the question of gender. Calixta could be said to be trapped in a sexually arid marriage and, according to Stein, she is trapped too in society’s expectations of what women should be and could do: “At home hanging up clothing and washing and sewing while the males in the story are out in the world manifests the limited sphere of activity available to her and makes the longing for a transgressive outlet of some sort seem all the more understandable” (50). In contrast with Calixta’s subservient role in a patriarchal society, Gurov’s problem, as expressed towards the end of the story, is much more commonplace: “His hair was already beginning to turn grey” (Chehkov 136). Anna is twenty years his junior and in a sense this story could be dismissed as the fantasy of a middle-aged man, frightened of growing old and seeking affirmation and rejuvenation in the arms of a much younger woman.
Works Cited
Chekhov, Anton. “The Lady with the Little Dog.” Pages129- 136. Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov. 1994. Oxford University Press. Print.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Other Selected Stories. 2000. New York: Oxford University Press. Print.
Loehlin, James. The Cambridge Introduction to Chekhov. 2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Print.
Stein, Allen F. Women and Autonomy in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction. 2005. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Print.
