Serf ownership was abolished in 1861 and Csar Alexander II took over the rule of Russia. False hope flickered accrossed every eye and the crippled society, including one-year-old Anton Checkhov's family. Living in a merchantile city off an extension of the Black Sea, times were and had been rough for at least 80% of Russia's population, suffering debts owed to their masters. Times would only sink further after Pavel, Anton's father, went bankrupt because of debts to try and move to a better street. To escape prison, Pavel fled the family to Moscow where part of his family lived. Anton stayed in Taganrog to begin tutoring. In 1879, he passed his university entrance examination and went to Moscow to live with his parents. The slummed basements is what the Checkhov's called home, but Anton never gave into the dark depression such conditions reek. To escape his his reality, Anton inspired many with his imaginative stories. He enjoyed visiting his grand father where he learned of the milieu of the Landowners' country houses, often present in the contents of his palys. The setting to his imagination was always Russia and it never escalated pass that. Anton felt that the peasants were the "true Russia." He traveled many times out of the Russian lines, but he only wrote about Russia, Russians, and Russian life. He wrote about what he related to and what he understood, making him an author of the twenthieth century.
One of Anton Chekhov's most intriguing pieces, "Lady with a Lap Dog," shows the vices that were so prevalent to society in his time. Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov was a man that broke many young girls' hearts. What went around came around for him, however, when he met his true love, Anna Sergeyevna. The problem was that Anna was already married. Contrary to Joyce Carol Oates "Lady with the Pet Dog," the story is told through the man's eyes and emotions. Anna and Dmitry had grown closer with each hidden meeting they had. They felt their lives were terrible because they loved each other extremely, but divorce was uncommon and highly looked down upon. They could only hide to be together. The story ends abruptly just like that: Anna and Dmitry working together to find the answer, realizing that there might not be one, but willing to fight untill the end.
Born and raised in a small, five-house town of Millersport, along the Erie canal does not allow much of a social life. Joyce Carol Oates is a product of her own environment, living a life of obscurity. "When you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence," explains Oates. In such a small town, Oates dreams up a society that is challenged with the trials of human nature. She conjures up stories while keeping a careful distance from the world.
In "The Lady with the Pet Dog," Oates takes a common human sin (adultry), and turns it into the right thing. This story is seen through the woman's point of view rather than Chekhov's male point of view. The reader gets filled in as the story goes on. Anna has had an affair with a nameless man, labeled by her as a stranger. The man surprisingly appears after six months from their last meeting, and Anna drives back to Albany with him for a couple of days. Shame is mentioned continuously throughout the story and Anna cannot make up her mind as to why she is with this man. She definitely feels shame with her husband because their relationship is loveless and cold. In their last meeting together, Anna and the stranger part forever, but she is extremely happy. Her lover is puzzled, but Anna has finally come to grips with her internal battle, realizing that she is really married to this stranger, and "she had all along been behaving correctly; out of instinct" (page 721).
Music and film were Milan Kundera's passions growing up in Brno, Chechoslavakia. He joined the Prague Acedemy of Music and Dramatic Arts, which allowed him to find his inner-self and express it freely. This set the table for the direction of writing. He has a knack of capturing human emotions on paper that make the reader reflect and ponder. He says of himself, "I invent stories, confront one with another, and by this means I ask questions. The stupidity of people comes from having an answer to everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything."
One of Milan's works, "The Hitchhiking Game," shows a harmless game played between two lovers that was taken too far. The game was simply role playing between the two. It was a means of a life of desired personality for the woman, but an annoyance that caused hatred for the man. Both, at different times, wanted and hinted to stop the game but to no avail, each were ignored. The woman enjoyed her character, which progressed, because she felt it was a freeing of who she really was. The man never saw the woman's part in the game and the hatred was directed at her in reality. The game, including the story, ended with emotionless sex and it would be a long time before the man could feel love for the woman because this game drove him so far away.
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