Junwoo Lee's Blog

 Rating: 7/10  Dmitri Gurov is a unique character who shows more emotional bondage with women that that with men. As he dislikes his intelligent wife, he has various affairs with other women. This story is about a particular 'lady with the dog', Anna Sergeyevna. Unlike other women he had met before, he truly falls in love with her and even visits her town where she lives with his husband.   Throughout the story, I particularly enjoyed the expressions that was made by Gurov(or Chekhov) when elaborating his emotions about Anna. Also, the unseen gap between Anna and Gurov was partly shown through the elaboration of these two characters, and this was another interesting point of this short story. Meanwhile, as I personally don't enjoy unclear, vague ending, I would like to see another finishing style of <The Lady with the Dog>.

 Rating: 6/10  I hadn't had much interaction with Russian writers before, so this short story was another fresh contact to Russian writings. The story was about Ivan, who meets two widows and tells them about Peter's denial. By listening to the story of how Peter denied Jesus several times and finally realized his awful mistakes, the two widows were moved and their eyes shed tears. After observing their reactions, Ivan walks away with satisfaction. His feeling of peacefulness shows by the description of the background as Ivan walks home.  To interpret this story through Hero's Journey, I personally don't see the point where any of the characters take part as a 'hero'. Throughout the story, the only character who 'can' be called a hero is Peter from Ivan's story. For Ivan and any other characters such as widows, I personally don't see any action which can be step 5, 'crossing the threshold'. As I believe it would not be precise or exact to...