From the texts we read during the nineteenth- century, we can see that women in the nineteenth- century were pretty independent and were valued much more than before. Woman thought more individually and they were no longer understrapper to men. Women were also able to speak out their thoughts and stand up for their own rights. The most significant characteristic that female characters from texts of the Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov and La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats showed that these two women were courageous enough to pursue love in the nineteenth- century. The female characters had strong will to change their lives. Women before that era didn’t really have the will to change their lives and most of them followed social convention. This was a big step in history because women became more independent and started to make their own decisions.

In the Anton Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog, the female character dared to pursue her love even though she knows that this was against social convention. In the 19^th century, women made the choice of whom they really loved and whom they want to marry to. Anton Chekhov described how a man and a woman, who were not satisfied with their lives, fell in love with each other. The lady tells Gurov about her husband, “I was only twenty when I married him, and I was devoured by curiosity, I wanted something higher. I told myself that there must be a different kind of life I wanted to live, to live…I was burning with curiosity…” The lady was unsatisfied with her life and had a strong will to change her life. The lady was not happy with her husband because he was a flunky could not offer her a life she wanted. The lady wanted a passionate life and she is so curious about life. The lady loved Gurov so much and she pursued her love regardless of social convention. She was not fine with her life and love, so she wanted to find a better way to live. When Gurov came to see the lady, the lady said: “I’ll come to see you in Moscow. I have never been happy, I am unhappy now, and I shall never be happy- never!” The lady was not happy with her current marriage and she want to pursue the possibility of happiness.  So the lady made the decision to break the shackles of tradition and pursue her true love with Gurov.

Similarly, in the nineteenth- century, John Keats also gave us a female character who was brave enough to chase her life no matter what was her purpose. The beautiful lady knew what she wanted and she was moving to her goal. John Keats described how the beautiful lady expressed her love in the La Belle Dame sans Merci. The speaker said “She found me roots of relish sweet, and honey wild, and manna dew, and sure in language strange she said “I love thee true. ’ ”. What the beautiful lady said showed that she tried to do something to pursue her love and confess her love. Keats use “sure” in this sentence showed the lady is confident enough to confess. The lady spoke aloud her thoughts and she was not afraid of being rejected, which showed women during nineteenth- century were independent and brave.

These two texts really show the reader how independent women were during the era of the nineteenth- century and how they pursued their love. The attitudes they had were dissimilar from the attitudes women had before, and I think that was a huge step for women in history.