Dissatisfaction About Life

In this short story “The Lady with the Dog” by Anton Chekhov, both of the main characters has some dissatisfaction about life.

The male character, Dmitri, has negative feelings toward women including his wife, but Anna Sergeyevna is an exception.  He does not show the real “him” in front of other women, because he believes other women are deceiving him.  It really shows some of the attitude the people have in this world.  Some people believe they should not let others to know themselves too well.  It is because no one knows what will happen in the future; no one knows will one’s best friend become one’s enemy one day.

However, like the feeling Dmitri has toward women.  There is always exception.  Dmitri feels Anna is different from other women, so he likes to be with her.  I often make decision and do things based on my feeling too, when I am uncertain about something.  Using feeling to make decision and judgment is one attitude that human has toward living, because it helps us to get rid of vexation and anxiety.

Also, Anna is dissatisfied with her living too.  She is married but she lives in a house with fences around.  The fence is symbolic of no freedom. I think this may tell that freedom is really important to human, but women in the 19^th century did not have so much freedom.  Living with no freedom can make a person depress and get tired of living just like Anna. I feel she cries a lot in front of Dmitri, because it is one way for her to release her depress. Freedom is an important factor that affects human’s attitude toward living. Some people would fight for their freedom, but some might just bear to this kind of living and living unhappily.

On the other hand, Anton Chekhov wrote Anna and Dmitri just fall in love with each so deeply without describing tell the reasons.  They only met once and for not really a long time which make me wonder are they really love each other. Although I feel it is a little weird, I think that is kind of interesting. It is because I think that is a strategy that the author uses by not tell things so clearly, so the readers would think of the story more and deeper.