The Student & The Lady with the Dog
This is a scribble(BS) of my thoughts after reading Anton Chekhov’s The Student, and The Lady with the Dog.
They confused me from the beginning: "the student", "the lady with the dog". Usually, a title can sum up what a piece is about. However, for this one, it seems to be very straightforward (which makes it confusing). It’s almost impossible to predict what the piece is about, just by looking at its title. Well I guess it means something though. (Perhaps I’m not good enough to understand Anton’s “masterpiece”)
For The Student, I kind of get how it sums up the story. Ivan here is the “student” of the story who experiences and grows through his interaction with the widows. It’s interesting that the story is so meta. While he tells the widows the story of Peter’s betrayal of Jesus, (I think) it actually relates both to the widow and to himself. Ivan thinks that Vasilisa(the mother) cried because she thought of an event in the past that had been triggered by Peter’s story, and he somehow gets “enlightened” by the connection between past and present. At the same time, his actions portray him as Peter. He comes to the fire, talks, and leaves when the others came-just like Peter the apostle who ran away from the fire and the people. Indeed he learns something from the experience; he becomes a student, a disciple.
For The Lady with the Dog, with it's straightforward plot, honestly, was more confusing(idk why). Why ‘the lady with the dog’, not ‘the lady with the unforgettable face’, ‘my secret love’, or something like ‘my lovely ann’? Gurov had wanted her so bad; I’m pretty sure he described her with something more than ‘the lady with the dog’. In fact, that attitude was the one thing that they wanted to avoid. They wanted to get out of their secret meetings; they wanted to know each other as ‘lovely Anna and lovely Dimitri’, not as a ‘man and lady’ from nowhere. Perhaps Chekhov wanted to exaggerate their inescapable fate from secrecy at that time by titling it The Lady with the Dog, back to the first description that they knew each other.
It’s sure that there are some satirical points related to Russian history. I don’t think that it was a coincidence that Chekhov used the names Ivan and Peter-the name of Russian emperors. It would have been better understanding these two works if I had known better about Russian History. I’ll reread these after studying AP European history. ^^
They confused me from the beginning: "the student", "the lady with the dog". Usually, a title can sum up what a piece is about. However, for this one, it seems to be very straightforward (which makes it confusing). It’s almost impossible to predict what the piece is about, just by looking at its title. Well I guess it means something though. (Perhaps I’m not good enough to understand Anton’s “masterpiece”)
For The Student, I kind of get how it sums up the story. Ivan here is the “student” of the story who experiences and grows through his interaction with the widows. It’s interesting that the story is so meta. While he tells the widows the story of Peter’s betrayal of Jesus, (I think) it actually relates both to the widow and to himself. Ivan thinks that Vasilisa(the mother) cried because she thought of an event in the past that had been triggered by Peter’s story, and he somehow gets “enlightened” by the connection between past and present. At the same time, his actions portray him as Peter. He comes to the fire, talks, and leaves when the others came-just like Peter the apostle who ran away from the fire and the people. Indeed he learns something from the experience; he becomes a student, a disciple.
For The Lady with the Dog, with it's straightforward plot, honestly, was more confusing(idk why). Why ‘the lady with the dog’, not ‘the lady with the unforgettable face’, ‘my secret love’, or something like ‘my lovely ann’? Gurov had wanted her so bad; I’m pretty sure he described her with something more than ‘the lady with the dog’. In fact, that attitude was the one thing that they wanted to avoid. They wanted to get out of their secret meetings; they wanted to know each other as ‘lovely Anna and lovely Dimitri’, not as a ‘man and lady’ from nowhere. Perhaps Chekhov wanted to exaggerate their inescapable fate from secrecy at that time by titling it The Lady with the Dog, back to the first description that they knew each other.
It’s sure that there are some satirical points related to Russian history. I don’t think that it was a coincidence that Chekhov used the names Ivan and Peter-the name of Russian emperors. It would have been better understanding these two works if I had known better about Russian History. I’ll reread these after studying AP European history. ^^
I think the titles are simple and unromantic due, in part, to the nature of "realism." As well, in the early paragraphs when shopkeepers and other long term residents of Yalta notice this unusual (and perhaps attractive) woman who is "new" to the place, they simply call her "the lady with the dog." It contrasts how she went from being an unknown and perhaps "typical" attractive woman who Gurov would regard as just another "lady" to satisfy him, with how she became a rounded and dynamic individual whom he did not anticipate as someone who would upend his entire life. I like the "scribble" approach and the honest line of questioning just how "masterpiece" these stories really are. Considering how many stories he wrote and who he was, and how these were noteworthy at the the time, are key.
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