What\'s Love Got To Do With It

8 Pages 2010 Words

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

“The Lady with the Pet Dog” is Joyce Carol Oates’ updated version of Anton Chekov’s “The Lady with the Dog”. Oates did a wonderful job restructuring the plot and changing the protagonist from the man to the woman. If the essay was about Checkov’s “The Lady with the Dog”, the theme would have to of been appearance versus reality. However, Oates’ modern version places the woman as the narrator, and by doing so unmistakably changes the theme to Love. Not just the shameful love of a man who is not hers, but the love she has for herself.
The story starts at the rising action, and continues with a cyclic plot of flashbacks mixed in with the present. The setting in the first part of the story keeps with the theme and takes place in the DeRoy Symphony Hall, where seemingly happy couples who are in love have come to enjoy a show. Anna, the protagonist is at the theater with her husband (the antihero) who is off getting them drinks. While he is away, she sees her lover, who is the antagonist. Seeing her forbidden man when she least expects it causes her to panic. She is sick with what she calls shame that feels like “mucus, like something thick and gray, congested inside her, stuck to her…” 749. But, the shame is not shame at all. What is stuck inside her, even coating her eyelids, is love. She briefly admits it to herself in the middle of her panic. “How slow love was to drain out of her, how fluid and sticky it was inside her head” 749. Her shameful, lustful love for a man who was not her husband reigned over her. Her love for that man made her fee alive and purposeful again.
Her husband, a clumsy, soft, aging man loved his wife the best he could. “Sometimes he failed at loving her, sometimes he succeeded” 758. He was self absorbed, and probably made Anna feel as though she wasn’t important. “He talked to her always about his plans, his problems, ...