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The Lady With The Pet Dog

In reading the short story The Lady With The Pet Dog by
Anton Chekhov and A Respectable Woman by Kate
Chopin one can see key similarities of the two works. The
short story by Anton Checkov deals with a man and a
woman who are both married but regardless of this fact they
fall in love with each other and have a secret affair. The short
story by Kate Chopin deals with a married woman who is
tempted to have an affair with one of her husbands friends,
but she resist unlike the characters in The Lady With The
Pet Dog. Both of the works deal with the fact that each of
the characters are involved in committed relationships, but
they are tempted to cheat in their relationships. The
characters in the short story The Lady With The Pet Dog fall
in love with each other and have an affair regardless of the
fact that both of the individuals are married. A lady arrives in
town with a little white dog, which would give her her name
initially since no one knew of her true identity. "She walked
along, always wearing the same beret and always with the
white dog no one knew who she was and everyone called
her simply ‘the lady with the pet dog'"(194). The man that
has an acute interest in this young woman is named Dmitrich
Gurov who is married with a daughter twelve years old, and
two sons away at school. He is dissatisfied to say the least
with his present situation and his marriage to his wife.
"…while he privately considered her of limited intelligence,
narrow-minded, dowdy, was afraid of her, and did not like
to be at home"(294). This man would often cheat on his wife
because he is unhappy and thought very little of his wife. "He
had begun being unfai! thful to her long ago—had been
unfaithful to her often and, probably for that reason, almost
always spoke ill of women, and when they were talked of in
his presence used to call them ‘the inferior race'"(194).
When this man seen a new woman in his town he decides to
introduce himself and find out...