A story of love lost and born again: Anton Chekhov's 1899 original plus Joyce Carol Oates' version of "The Lady with the Lap Dog" deal with love lives and unhappiness. of two individuals. Anton Chekhov tells the story of Gurov, a wealthy Moscow man disillusioned by his unsatisfactory marriage. While vacationing in Yalta, Gurov meets Anna, a young upper-class woman who, it turns out, is also disappointed in her love life and her husband. What begins as a simple affair between Gurov and Anna turns into a relationship that neither wants to give up. Both end up seeing each other regularly and discover that they want to continue their affair while being aware that this is not accepted by the society in which they live. Staying together is the only thing that makes them feel safe and happy. Joyce Carol Oates takes this original plot and creates a new story that describes a similar problem from the woman's perspective. In addition, she transposes the entire setting to adapt it to the atmosphere and societal circumstances of the 1970s. Here, the main character, Anna, meets a man, identified only as "the stranger" , during a vacation trip to Nantucket, Massachusetts. As in Chekhov's version, the two characters fall in love with each other and thus finally find new hope and love in their lives. Chekhov's character Gurov can be defined as a man who has lost faith in his wife and his marriage because he feels he can no longer relate to her. . He recognizes that she, Matthias M. Edrich, is “of limited intelligence, narrow-minded and nerdy” – by no means as “worldly” and educated as he would like. So, Gurov killed...... middle of paper ...... the story is played by the pet dog. In the first text, the dog is the only element that helps Gurov recognize Anna during his first meetings with her. The white Pomeranian is the only detail that sets Anna apart from everyone else in Yalta – not her “blond hair” or “average height” which could apply to anyone. Similarly, in Oates' version, the dog's main purpose seems to be to add a point of reference to the "stranger" or to further attract Anna's attention and provide an initial interface between her and the man. According to the text, the dog not only makes Anna feel comfortable talking to her owner, but also provides the "stranger" with an excuse to start a conversation. Perhaps the situations in both versions of the story would not have happened without this "pet dog" as the initial intermediary between Anna and her future lover. Matthias M..