Love and Trauma in “The Lady with Dog” and The Great Gatsby

Abstract

This article is devoted to introduce a literary comparative study between two literary works written by the Russian novelist Anton Chekhov’s short story "The Lady with the Dog" and his American counterpart F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel "The Great Gatsby". The goal lies in revealing the possibility of an existed influence between the two authors. Also, it reveals the similarities and differences of the aspects of love, ego, and trauma. Multiple articles dealt separately with the theme of love in both case studies, thus; the novelty lies in comprehensive comparative of the theme of love between the original authors and their protagonists, as well as with the protagonists themselves. Another novelty is presented in comparing other psychological aspects of trauma and ego of Gurov and Gatsby. The research employs the historical, analytical, comparative, and psychoanalytical methods. The author, specifically, bases his comparison on the Freudian view of love and trauma to analyse the psychological struggle after the love loss experienced by both protagonists; Gurov and Gatsby. Both of them fall in love with women they cannot be with because they are both married to other men, so they both experienced traumatic situation that the protagonists could not get over it. The acquired results can be used both in the practice of literary psychoanalytical criticism, and practice in the filed of comparative studies.