Social Norms vs. Nature - Essay Example

Their inner self connects and they find what they were looking for, in each other’s souls. Annie Proulx implies in Brokeback Mountain that when Jack and Ennis shy away from their natural urges they perish. Suppressing what is natural to them causes them pain and suffering that leads to the demise of their love, on the other hand, Anton Chekhov portrays how a man (Dmitri) pursues what is natural to him and embraces his natural urges with open arms, and in the end finds his true love. In the story The Lady with the Lapdog, Chekhov creates the setting for romantic spark between the two characters Dmitri and the lady.

Dmitri’s romantic yearnings are simply unquenchable. He is bored with his wife and constantly seeks the love and affection of other women but never sticks with one. He constantly hunts down “fresh romance” as the old ones get on his nerves. This might sound unromantic but this is what Dmitri feels deep down inside. He doesn’t love his wife; to Dmitri she is too stiff and boring. This is the context as intelligent readers can guess that either Dmitri will start an affair with the lady, Anna, or at least the desire to have one will burn in his heart.

The nature of Dmitri and the way he has transformed into a womanizer predicts that he will look for more chances of betraying his wife. Similarly, in the story Brokeback Mountain, the romance takes place between two men, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, a homosexual romance which has absolutely no place in their society. It is obvious that what these two men feel, they will try to get it and in turn betray the social norms. That is how the setting of both these short stories builds a perfect setting for infidelity.

However in The Lady with the Lapdog, the author plays with the pre-defined roles of characters, as when Dmitri and Anna hookup, they both fear the same thing, is the other person really interested or he is in it for the time being? This is the part where the readers predict that knowing Dmitri’s nature, he is in it for the game, he is bored as always and seeks new romance but as the story progresses things get more complicated than Dmitri’s simple urge to stay away from home and cheat on her wife, an aging seducer.

In the book, The Lady with the Lapdog, the motivation for infidelity is not something that the society would look up to. Dmitri is on the verge of breaking up with his wife. He is simply frustrated by his wife’s cold nature and feels betrayed himself. He doesn’t consider it to be unjust to wander around and have flings with other women; he thinks he is taking revenge on his wife. Although there is not one motive for Dmitri’s disloyalty, however one factor that stands out is that Dmitri was not that much into his marriage from the beginning.

He just stood in awe of her when they wedded but the wife’s imposing nature lingered on. She considered herself a “thinker” and used to call her husband not by his real name but called him “Dimitri”. Dmitri probably felt emasculated by her actions, and that is why he preferred staying away from home. But the motive for infidelity in the Brokeback Mountain is in drastic contrast to Dmitri’s situation. Ennis and Jack are portrayed as characters struggling with their affectionate feeling toward each other but on the other hand, feeling afraid of being called homosexual.