Love in - Literature review Example

Tapestries of Love: Chekhov’s Use of Realism In Creating Literary Representations of Love in Human Experience Anton Chekhov wove realism into his short stories of love with the artistry of a painter and the care of a physician. And, indeed, he was a practicing physician for much of his life. In a letter to a friend he wrote, “Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.” (Garnett, Letters of Anton Chekhov, Letter to Alexei Suvorin, 11 September 1888, p.69) With the precision of his “lawful” profession and the daring creativity of his “other” life work, Chekhov wove together tapestries of realism and romanticism in creating love stories. For after all, any true attempt to depict love in literature must necessarily combine what the experience and emotion of love truly is – a joining of reality and romanticism. Chekov’s use of realism is clearly evident in his location, activity, and character descriptions and in his use of dialogue between characters. His nearly complete subversion of realism is clearly evident when the characters and their activities begin to experience the varying and confusing emotional vicissitudes of love. With this contrast of using realism as the detailed framework for the encasing of the story, its contents of love emerge in the center as compelling and potent, without being overly romantic. In The Lady With the Dog, the title itself sets the tone for the well-constructed framework of realism within which an unexpected love eventually emerges and in the end overshadows the realism which had encased it for nearly the entire story. In About Love, love emerges for only an instant from its objective constructs created through the use of a third person narrator recounting his own story. And then it returns to its refuge in realism when the narrator concludes and a detailed description of the activities of the “listeners” ensues. Yet the final impressions of the listeners are a reflection of the reader’s own feelings and again, but in a more subtle and ingenious manner, the realism is overshadowed, this time by the reader him or herself. An examination of Chekhov’s depictions of the various characters in his stories reveals the reality of their everyday lives. “A fair-haired young lady of medium height, wearing a béret; a white Pomeranian dog was running behind her” is the commonplace manner in which Chekhov introduces the reader to Anna Sergeyevna, a very uncommon woman who is actually the Lady with the Dog. Dmitri Gurov, the main character who falls in love with her, is also briefly described with detached realistic detail: “He was under forty, but he had a daughter already twelve years old and two sons at school. He had been married young, when he was a student in his second year…” Dmitri’s wife, attitude toward women, and experience of dining in the gardens at Yalta are then all related with few words, yet conveyed with detached precision. And in their midst, almost buried, with a slight tone of subjectivity, is what proves to be the thematic statement of this story: “Every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes unbearable.” (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 1) Immediately following this subjective morsel, Checkhov returns to reality In the gardens at Yalta Dmitri makes the acquaintance of Anna Sergeyevna and their dialogue is a classic example of realism’s use of “the exact word” without interpretation or embellishment. “The Pomeranian growled: Gurov shook his finger at it again. The lady looked at him and at once dropped her eyes. "He doesnt bite," she said, and blushed. "May I give him a bone?" he asked; and when she nodded he asked courteously, "Have you been long in Yalta?" "Five days." "And I have already dragged out a fortnight here." There was a brief silence.” (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 1) This terse dialogue proves to be the perfect foil for what follows. Upon their second meeting the affair begins and Chekhov maintains his use of realism in his descriptions of people, places and things – except where love slips in and invites more. After their first intimate encounter, for example, Chekhov utilizes an illustration to further clarify the feelings and adds a sense of how things seemed not just how they actually appeared: “…there was a sense of consternation as though someone had suddenly knocked at the door. The attitude of Anna Sergeyevna – ‘the lady with the dog’ -- to what had happened was somehow peculiar, very grave, as though it were her fall -- so it seemed, and it was strange and inappropriate.” (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 2) Then almost as an apology for this brief turn into a more romantic style, Chekhov again returns to a pointed exacting realism. “There was a water-melon on the table. Gurov cut himself a slice and began eating it without haste. There followed at least half an hour of silence.” (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 2) Slowly as if awakening from a deep sleep, Chekhov begins to add more descriptive words here and there as the story continues such as “the town … had a deathlike air;” the sea still broke noisily on the shore; a lantern was blinking sleepily on it. (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 2), yet he still maintains the air of realism in the dialogue between the main characters. And then an eruption of romanticism, brief but rife with emotion: “…the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it must have sounded when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it sounds now, and it will sound as indifferently and monotonously when we are all no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection. Sitting beside a young woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, soothed and spellbound in these magical surroundings -- the sea, mountains, clouds, the open sky -- Gurov thought how in reality everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence.” (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 2) Here Chekhov captures with superb artistry the way in which thoughts wander into idealism, magical thinking, and eternity when persons are in love. Then suddenly he ends the second chapter with a startling return to realism once again. “Here at the station was already a scent of autumn; it was a cold evening. “‘Its time for me to go north,’ thought Gurov as he left the platform. ‘High time!’” (The Lady with the Dog, ending of chapter 2) And chapter three begins as chapter two ended, with clear precise descriptions of life in Moscow through the eyes of Gurov, including a very realistic reflection of a very unrealistic expectation of Dmitri Gurov that Anna Sergeyevna would fade from his memory and be just another of his amusing diversions with women. Ah! But no! One sentence filled with emotion emerges to remind the reader of the undercurrent of passion now beginning to carry this story. “He was tormented by an intense desire to confide his memories to someone.” (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 3) The presence of two words: ‘tormented’ and ‘intense” bring the emotional current to the surface again briefly, before a return to realism in a dialogue between himself and an official person with whom had had spent the evening. However, this time the romantic swirls of emotion push to the surface and the main character Dmitri, himself can no longer stand the realism because he now sees it differently. Now, for him, what was real before is the illusion and what was just fleeting illusion is now his reality. “What savage manners, what people! What senseless nights, what uninteresting, uneventful days! The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the continual talk always about the same thing. Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of ones time, the better part of ones strength, and in the end there is left a life groveling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it -- just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison.” (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 3) So, to escape his prison, he goes to see her. The dialogue and descriptions of activities, characters, and activities such as the play return to the safety of realism until they meet face to face once more and then an outburst of emotion: filled with words of emotion, but this time the dialogue does not return to realism but stays full of highly charged emotion until the beginning of chapter four when Dmitri returned to Moscow and the simple exacting realism returns. “With him walked his daughter, whom he wanted to take to school: it was on the way. Snow was falling in big wet flakes. "Its three degrees above freezing-point, and yet it is snowing," said Gurov to his daughter.” (The Lady with the Dog, chapter 4) However, the return to realism is brief, reflecting the fact that, try as he might, Dmitri could not ever see his life the same way again. He recognized that his life was now much more compassionate, more tender, more honest, and therefore more real than all that he had considered real until that point. And because of that life would now be far more difficult. In About Love the story is told by one of the characters, Alehin, narrating his own story, thus providing a more realistic base as well as third person distance for this tale of love. The story begins with trying to make sense of the mystery of, “how love is born.” (About Love, paragraph 2). A woman loves a man who it appears is neither compatible with her personality nor able to love her in the manner in which she loves him. Alehin is among the observers of this love reflecting with consternation as to how such an attachment could possibly be formed. In an attempt, not so much to answer the question as to preserve the mystery, Alehin spins out his tale of love. He begins with his work in the fields trying to pay off a debt, trying to live in his cultured habits while working with his hands in the fields but cannot make a dual lifestyle work and thus writes: “Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my fathers service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.” (About Love, paragraph 5) All told in the precise realism of the situation except for the word ‘painful’, thus giving the reader a first glance and the heart of the man compelled to share his own love story. Alehin becomes a justice of the peace and meets one of the circuit court judges whom he befriends. He is invited to the house for dinner and falls in love with Anna, the judge’s wife. Up until this point, all has been told with realistic detail, but now introduces an element of vagueness: “It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her…” Alehin tries to convince the listener and himself that this is “of the past” and is only a vague memory, yet he describes her as “exceptional.” Yet feelings enter in immediately, “I felt her at once someone close and already familiar…” and the listener is not convinced that this “all a thing of the past.” (About Love, paragraph 7) With clipped and precise dialogue between characters and careful descriptions, Alehin keeps his love story bound in realistic objectivity but love is not and will never be an obedient servant of realism and phrases that reveal his continuing love for Anna cannot do other but step out of the confines of the reality he tries to construct. “I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.” (About Love, paragraph 10) Alehin tries to incorporate his love into his everyday life. “They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.” (About Love, paragraph 17) Yet his words would eventually betray his unsuccessful attempts to make an everyday occurrence out of a “once in a lifetime” love. “"Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on me of something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important.” (About Love, paragraph 19) And a then in the center of the story like the heartbeat of a person, the rhythm of his unhappiness emerges to direct the flow and pace of the remainder of Alehin’s story. “I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young womans marrying someone so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having children by him…I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.” (About Love, paragraph 23) Then Anna herself began to experience “low spirits”, but Alehin related this with a detached objectivity until the very end when, in a brief parting moment they actually confessed their love for each other face-to-face. Then in the end Alehin reflected poignantly, “how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.” (About Love, paragraph 28) That last phrase aptly sums up not only the role of “reason” in relationship to love, but for Chekhov the role of realism as well. His balanced and brilliant use of it transcends giving mere form to creative literature of which he is the author. For Anton Chekhov, realism is not his literary means of expressing stories of love in life, but rather is his means of exposing love in life’s story. Sources Cited Chekhov, Anton. “About Love.” Blackdog Media at Classic Reader.com, 16 June 2008. http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/bookid.1597/sec./ Chekhov, Anton. “Letters of Anton Chekhov.” Compiled by Constance Garnett . Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004. Chekhov, Anton. “The Lady with the Dog,” in 201 Stories by Anton Chekhov. Lycos, Inc. at Tripod .Com, 16 June 2008. http://chekhov2.tripod.com/197.htm Read More