The significance of the plot in Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Lady with the Pet Dog”
The Lady with the Pet Dog by Joyce Carol Oates is a retelling of a story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, but this time the author creates a ‘mess’ in the storyline that ultimately leads to our better understanding of the situation. The author uses the ‘in medias res’ plot strategy for better depiction of Anna’s mind.
An ‘in medias res’ way of telling a story is when we are brought into the middle of some important moment in the plot. This is used to interest us more into the events that took place before the one we are being told, and to insure a reader continues his reading. The story is put in a third-person limited omniscient point of view, form Anna’s perspective.
The story begins with the opening lines: “Strangers parted as if to make way for him. There he stood. He was there in the aisle, a few yards away, watching her.” (Oates 200). This situation when he came to see her on a concert repeats itself three times through the whole story, once in each chapter. This shows us the significants of this moment which is also the climax of the story (when being viewed in a chronological sense). We are being brought back to this moment several times during the story because the main character Anna recalls this moment in her mind. Going back to it she expects to find a resolution of her situation. This also helps us to see the …show more content…
Their meeting is placed at the very end of the story (appearance at a concert, drive to Albany, her life with her husband, concert again, their meetings in hotels, how they met, concert, end in a hotel). At first the narrator introduces us to the relationship between Anna and her lover and only later on do we find out how they really met. This is unfolded in such a way to show us how to Anna it is less important how their relationship came to be rather than what was born out of
The Lady with the Pet Dog by Joyce Carol Oates is a retelling of a story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, but this time the author creates a ‘mess’ in the storyline that ultimately leads to our better understanding of the situation. The author uses the ‘in medias res’ plot strategy for better depiction of Anna’s mind.
An ‘in medias res’ way of telling a story is when we are brought into the middle of some important moment in the plot. This is used to interest us more into the events that took place before the one we are being told, and to insure a reader continues his reading. The story is put in a third-person limited omniscient point of view, form Anna’s perspective.
The story begins with the opening lines: “Strangers parted as if to make way for him. There he stood. He was there in the aisle, a few yards away, watching her.” (Oates 200). This situation when he came to see her on a concert repeats itself three times through the whole story, once in each chapter. This shows us the significants of this moment which is also the climax of the story (when being viewed in a chronological sense). We are being brought back to this moment several times during the story because the main character Anna recalls this moment in her mind. Going back to it she expects to find a resolution of her situation. This also helps us to see the …show more content…
Their meeting is placed at the very end of the story (appearance at a concert, drive to Albany, her life with her husband, concert again, their meetings in hotels, how they met, concert, end in a hotel). At first the narrator introduces us to the relationship between Anna and her lover and only later on do we find out how they really met. This is unfolded in such a way to show us how to Anna it is less important how their relationship came to be rather than what was born out of