Reading Journal:
The Lady with the Dog
While I was
reading this short story, an idea struck me: both of the characters, Gurov and
Anna Sergeyevna probably got married from some kind of coercion or force, not
from true love for their partners. I inferred this idea from the fact that they
both do not feel any guilt when they are so-called "having affairs,"
betraying each of their partners, and that the way their encounter is described
is very much like that of the first love, the true love. If they were married
for the genuine love, they would at least feel guilt and have internal struggles
on their own to choose from the two.
Thus, technically,
they can be said to having affairs, because they ARE, of course, secretly going
out without their partners' notice. However, I think this is like the story of
"Romeo and Juliet"; some people may treat the love between Gurov and
Anna as dirty cheating, but I see this as an effort to search for true love,
and the final realization of true love between them.
Based on this interpretation, I could
easily relate this story to the reality of the marriage culture in Korea. A few
decades ago, my parents' generation tended to get married by the coercion of
the parents who believed in fortune-tellers' marriage compatibility, and that
anyone who first can get married. My grandparents' generation was not even
allowed to look at each other's face before the marriage. This only seems like
a story of the past, but this stupid practice is still carried out today, in
the 21th century! Today, many of the millionaires, especially the children of
noble birth, such as those of the CEO of big companies like Samsung still tend
not to marry according to their own wills. Instead, they get married for the
profit of their companies and businesses.
Particularly in
Korea, the kinship and family love are valued as one of the most important
morals of all. Therefore, if children of tycoons get married once, unless they
get divorce, the tycoons cannot easily inflict harm on each other. In other
words, they are united as one force once they get married. This is basically
why many children of rich family are forced to marry certain spouse. This tradition
is, of course, slowly fading out of our society, but is still widely practiced
these days.
This irrational tradition should cease to
exist. The children of these rich families have the right to lead happy lives,
and marriage is one of the most important parts of the people's lives. The
parents of rich family should not take away their rights in the name of
"future prosperity." Most of these "marriage of convenience" end
up in misfortune, such as leaving their child and getting divorced, betraying
each other for the sake of money, living in an unhappy family forever, and even committing suicides.
For these reasons, I really hope Gurov and
Anna would get together, get married, have children of their own and live
happily ever after.
We can hope for that at the end, but the odds of it happening during that time and in that society are slim. As for your post, it gets off to a good start with your claim that neither character felt "guilt," BUT it is clear that Anna does feel guilt. A lot of it. How much of it for how her husband might feel versus how society might view her? I think she's more afraid of what society would say rather than hurting her husband. In Dmitri's case, he isn't that careful or fearful of anything. He's good at what he does. So, while your claim is a good one, and accurate, why not back it up with some of the text from the story? How about when Anna describes her husband as a flunkey? On that note, it seems Anna "married up"
ReplyDeletein the world, using her beauty to get a rich man who could furnish her life with opportunities. She may regret that decision, but I don't know if we can conclude that she was forced. Same with Dmitri. If you make a claim, try to back it up with few samples of text.
Otherwise, good stuff. But from now on I'll be encouraging more interaction with the texts.