Chekhov likened his characters to a child who is just starting to understanding a new concept and meaning of love, leading him to further evaluate himself not just as a lover to Anna, but as a man and individual as he appears to Anna and other people: He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know…and another life running its course in secret… everything that was essential, of interest and value to him…was hidden from other people; and all that was false in him…all that was open.

While Gurov admitted and acknowledged the hypocritical life he led by carrying on a love affair with Anna while still living with his wife, Anna remained confused and uncertain about herself and her lover in Oates' redevelopment of Chekhov's original short story. Created to complete the missing information on events surrounding Anna and her lover's affair in Chekhov's story, Oates' the Lady with the Pet Dog primarily centers on Anna's feelings and thoughts throughout the affair. In Anna, Oates developed a contemporary spin to Chekhov's story, albeit the plot and essential events in the original story remained and were highlighted by looking at Anna's life and point-of-view of the events that occurred between her and her lover. Noticeable was Oates' use of 'friend' as reference to Anna's lover instead of directly naming him, which further reinforced the fact that the story...

Just like Chekhov's Gurov, Anna finally acknowledged that she actually loves her lover, even though she has denied him many times in her mind. This acceptance was mirrored in this flood of realization from Anna: "…she did not hate him, she did not hate herself any longer… it was obvious to her that she had, all along, been behaving correctly" (371).
These endings and realizations make up a complete love story between Anna and Gurov (in Oates case, Anna's friend/lover): Gurov's acceptance of the 'wrongness' of his love affair and Anna's realization that her affair was actually a correct behavior for her meant that their love affair has transcended morality towards pure love between the two. The fact that both Anna and Gurov felt right about their feelings for each other prove the 'rightness' of their love affair, defined from their own understanding and experience of love, loving and lovers.