The Lady with a Pet Dog by Anton Chekhov and Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway

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The Lady with a Pet Dog by Anton Chekhov and Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway

              The Lady with a Pet Dog and Soldier’s Home are two books that have been written with a touch that lives the readers yearning to read them more and more. While the two books seem to be borrowing a lot in terms of structure and setting, the two books also have different layouts in terms of structure and general styles. Hemmingway starts the story by setting the general tone of the story. He does this by use of small sentences that bring the emotive mood. This is contrary to the Chekhov handling of the start of the story. The short sentences used by Hemmingway in Soldier’s Home help in attracting the attention of the reader’s attention.

Chekov deals with his characters in a manner that shows that he is empathizing with their character. Introducing the two main characters, he finds sadness in the fact that they are promiscuous and tries to empathize with their situation. This is contrary to Hemingway’s who handles his characters from a very objective perspective. Chekov does not end his story with a dramatic reunion. This is contrary to the wider expectation of the readers who expect that there will be a reunion. The conflict that emerged at the start of the story is left hanging. This is contrary to Hemingway in Soldier’s Home who does end his story with some form of calmness and understanding between the characters.

For Hemmingway, time is used not just literally but to bring up every other time a new issue. Each period represents a thought in the head of the soldier. The more there is the issue of time change, the more the soldiers feel the effect of the war. This is contrary to The Lady with a Pet Dog where the author tries to minimize the time navigation. This means that time does not have much significance but just to depict the aspect of being fresh or new.

The change of venues in Hemmingway’s Soldier’s Home has helped the writer use many descriptive statements that would have not been used. This words and statements used by Hemmingway have been able to give the story the humor and direction as a reader passes through the work. In The Lady with a Pet Dog, the author has reduced the physical setting of the story. This makes it easy for him to explain the various occurrences without having to refer to the locations. However, description as a style has not worked for him, as the locations are well known and predetermined.

Chekov has used the style of irony more than Hemmingway has done in his Soldiers’ Home. While we find a couple that is in trouble due to promiscuity, Chekhov looks at them with empathy yet he describes their behaviors in a manner that calls for punishment to the couples. To the reader, he expects that a bad scenario be displayed when the married couples engage in extramarital affairs. This does not happen in Hemmingway’s Soldiers Home. Hemmingway has approached the whole issue with a totally objective mind.

Chekhov has used many interruptive ideas in his story. These interruptive ideas have played a role of leaving the reader to contemplate of what has just happened before getting back to the story. This explains why it is very easy for any reader to understand the flow of the story. In the contrary, Hemmingway has not incorporated many rather he has left his story to flow. This has been supported by the reduced number of physical settings that his story rotates about. The use of the interruptive statements and stories within a story have enabled Chekhov’s work to get the hanging effect or suspense that leaves the reader to have the urge of reading the story further and find out what’s next.

The main theme in Chekhov’s The Lady with a Pet Dog is all about Romance and Love. To bring out this theme so well, the author had to narrow down to the lives of individuals. This forces him to narrow down to a couple who get challenges in their marriage to the level that they become promiscuous. The pain that comes with this tension between the two brings to the reader the virtues of love and what it can do to humans. For this case, the love that they had before has gone sour and promiscuity has taken charge.

The two stories bring to the reader kinds of work that are well formulated to ensure that the message is delivered. While the two stories have so much that is different, all the aspects used in the stories have enabled the authors to state their arguments and defend them well. The two authors have demonstrated their maturity by limiting their personal views in the stories and letting the reader to conclude over various issues by themselves. This has allowed the readers to steadily follow up the stories and come up with conclusions based on the content and not the author’s opinion.