Love and Morality - Essay Example

The story is based on two individuals who have different and separate lives but who have not experienced true love until they meet one another while on vacation in Yalta; this puts them in a state where they are obligated to choose between continuing their lives as they were before they met when they separate or find a means of exploring their love further, which leads to the development of an affair as both characters are married. It is through the decision to continue the affair that the story shows that true love cannot be ignored by those affected by it.

The story brings to light the characteristic that true love is unexpected and cannot be planned ahead of time. This is seen in various parts of the story whereby neither Gurov nor Anna expect to fall so deeply for one another as shown in statements such as “A month or so would pass and the image of Anna Sergeyevna, it seemed to him, would become misty in his memory, and only from time to time he would dream of her with her touching smile as he dreamed of others” (146.) Gurov assumed that he would be able to easily forget the woman he met while on vacation once he got back to his normal routine but soon found out that this was not possible and to his surprise as time passed on he found he was still not able to stop thinking about Anna.

This is seen in the statement, Both characters had gone to Yalta on vacation with no expectations of finding love but as a result of circumstantial meeting ended up finding an individual that they could see themselves spending their entire lives with. The correlation between love and morality also plays a part in the story as well; both Anna and Gustov married young and were in a relationship for a number of years before they met, but this fact does not stop them from falling in love. It is also seen that they are in fact not in love with their spouses when Chekhov states that