"Discuss the representation of society in "The lady with the dog", showing how it relates to the theme"
             Anton Chekhov's "The Lady with the dog" is a story of a bored, married banker from Moscow, Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who meets a young married woman, Anna Sergeyevna, while on vacation in Yalta at the beginning of the century. They drift into an affair that turns into true love, yet the conventions of society and the couple's need to feel respectable force them to return to their old lives. Over the years they meet, but they cannot find the strength to break with their past. In this story the theme of the effect of society on personal freedom can be examined with reference to Gurov, Anna and their situation.
             Gurov's life is unhappy. His marriage does not fulfil his expectations and that is why he does not respect his wife. He finds in her many disadvantages and he does not appreciate her as a person ("he secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant." P.123). Due to these thoughts he has began being unfaithful to her. His looking for sexual experiences is also apparent from the thoughts he makes when he sees Anna for the first time ("If she is here alone without a husband or friends, it wouldn't be a miss to make her acquaintance," Gurov reflected"p.123). Because of the fact that he had sexual experiences with many women and also because he did not respect his wife, every woman he has something negative to say ("he spoke ill for women and used to call them "the lower race" P.123). Because of the fact that neither in his wife nor in any other woman he has found what he really wanted, he underestimated women and thought he was superior. Although Gurov has many times slept with other women, he does not divorce his wife and the only reason for that is society. Everyone would accuse him for leaving his wif
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