The Lady with the Pet Dog by Joyce Carol Oates
"The Lady with the Pet Dog" by Joyce Carol Oates explores the complexities of love, infidelity, and emotional turmoil through the character of Anna, a married woman engaged in an adulterous affair. The narrative unfolds in three overlapping sections, beginning with a pivotal encounter at a public concert where Anna meets her lover. As the story progresses, it delves into Anna's conflicted feelings about her relationships, revealing her dissatisfaction with both her marriage and the clandestine affair. Despite moments of passion, Anna grapples with feelings of emptiness and suicidal thoughts, particularly when faced with the reality that her lover will not leave his wife. The narrative structure challenges readers to piece together the chronology of events, enhancing the emotional weight of Anna's experience. Ultimately, the story culminates in a moment of ambiguous happiness, where Anna envisions her affair as a form of empowerment, leaving her lover surprised. This text poses significant questions about the nature of love, commitment, and personal fulfillment, making it a poignant exploration of human relationships.
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The Lady with the Pet Dog by Joyce Carol Oates
First published: 1972
Type of plot: Psychological
Time of work: The late 1960's or early 1970's
Locale: Nantucket, Massachusetts; a town in Ohio; the road to Albany, New York
Principal Characters:
Anna Her lover Her husband
The Story
"The Lady with the Pet Dog" covers the major phases of Anna's adulterous affair with a married man. Anna, a married woman, meets her lover for the first time at a beach. After they decide to terminate the relationship, he drives her to Albany, and she eventually returns to her husband in Ohio. In the central scene at a public concert, the lover secretly confronts her; the next day, they resume their affair, meeting in hotels. Finally, Anna has a vision of happiness that remains ambiguous. This chronology of events, however, is broken up into three overlapping sections, and each narrates successively more events.
The first section consists of the central scene at the public concert. By beginning in the middle of events, the story challenges the reader to discern who the characters are and how they are related. The silent encounter between Anna and her lover goes unnoticed by everybody else; it seems so unreal that she feels as if she had imagined him. Her husband notices that she is not feeling well, takes her home, and they make love clumsily, symbolizing their unhappy marriage.
The second section goes back six months, starting with the car ride to Anna's sister in Albany, New York, leading up to the central scene, and ending with the resumption of the affair. Although Anna feels the car ride bonds her to her lover, her emotions are confused and conflicted. She rehearses significant conversations in her mind but is capable of only trivial utterances. She knows that she and her lover do not have a future together, yet she does not want to return to her husband. When she does, she feels like a "nothing" and contemplates and attempts killing herself.
Because the next key events of Anna's encounter with her lover at the concert and of the clumsy lovemaking with her husband are repeated in the second section, the reader now knows that the characters in the first and second sections are indeed the same and what the chronological relationship of these two sections is. Anna's lover calls her the morning after the concert. He persuades her to meet him, and they begin to see each other in hotels when he is in town. However, she remains unhappy, even suicidal, because she realizes that he will not leave his wife.
The final and third section tells the entire story, this time from beginning to end. Anna is spending some time away from her husband at her family's old beach house in Nantucket, Massachusetts. There she meets a man, his nine-year-old son, and their dog. The boy is blind, something the man later claims his wife uses against him. As they begin a conversation, the man makes several sketches of Anna, one of which shows her with his dog (hence the story's title). Although both are married, they eventually begin an affair.
Confused and insecure, Anna decides to end the affair and to visit her sister in Albany, where her lover takes her. Then events already contained in one or both of the previous sections are recounted: the drive, the concert, and the resumption of the affair. Section three continues with Anna again feeling suicidal because her life is stuck in repetitions. The section ends, however, with Anna's joyous vision of her affair as a true marriage; her resulting happiness surprises her lover.
Bibliography
Bender, Eileen Teper. Joyce Carol Oates: Artist in Residence. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Views: Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Cologne-Brookes, Gavin. Dark Eyes on America: The Novels of Joyce Carol Oates. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.
Creighton, Joanne V. Joyce Carol Oates: Novels of the Middle Years. New York: Twayne, 1992.
Daly, Brenda O. Lavish Self-Divisions: The Novels of Joyce Carol Oates. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996.
Johnson, Greg. Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Dutton, 1998.
Johnson, Greg. Understanding Joyce Carol Oates. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1987.
Wagner-Martin, Linda, ed. Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979.