Discussion Questions

"The Lady with the Dog" Discussion Questions

From the very beginning, Dmitry was an untrustworthy character. I guess he was set up to be known as a guy who would cheat on his wife but that makes him untrustworthy throughout the entire story. His character doesn't really change at all, besides the fact that he falls in love with Anna, which seems uncharacteristic of him.

At first Anna isn't fine with the affair, she is scared of the results and that he will soon not respect her for who she is. But in the end of the story, she wants a way to be with him and to be "happy" with him in their new life where they would be together and not have to sneak away to see one another.

Anna's house seems to represent her prison that she is living in. Her fence is described, to me, as a prison bar, where there are spikes on top of the poles and just surrounding the entire house. My imagination leads me to believe that it is meant to place Anna as a prisoner inside her own house. The house also seems to be gloomy, where everything thing else described is almost happy and/or quiet, her house is just something you wouldn't want to look at besides the fact that it is apparently in a very nice neighborhood.