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Dmitri’s Children
One of the first pieces of information that the reader learns about Dmitri is that he has three children: a daughter who is twelve and two sons who are schoolboys. The reader also learns that Dmitri is not even forty yet so it is logical to conclude that Dmitri had children young. This assumption is supported in the following line when the narrator says that Dmitri and his wife have been unhappily married ever since they were “talked into” marrying during Dmitri’s second year of college. The children are barely present in the story. The sons never make a single appearance and the daughter is only in the story for a few lines when Dmitri walks her to school, but the interaction is brief and Dmitri spends most of their walk thinking about Anna because he is intending to meet her at a hotel as soon as he drops her off.
Dmitri’s children may have a limited presence in the story but that does not make them insignificant or arbitrary. In fact, they have crucial symbolic functions. To begin with, Dmitri’s three kids symbolize the domestic life that Dmitri feels trapped in. They are physical proof of his unhappy marriage because they are the product of Dmitri and his highly resented wife. Dmitri essentially admits as much to the reader when he says that he has grown “sick of his children” after he returns to Moscow, and that even the sound of their laughter causes him to long for the peace that he and Anna carved out for themselves in Yalta. The children are also unnamed in the story, suggesting Dmitri’s total lack of interest in being a family man.
The Fence
Dmitri tries to forget Anna after they both depart from Yalta but he is ultimately unsuccessful. Desperate to see her again, Dmitri leaves Moscow and heads for Anna’s hometown where he stands on Staro-Goncharnaya Street and stares at her house. Dmitri does not offer any descriptions of the home Anna shares with Von Diderits. However, he does mention the fence that surrounds their estate several times which he describes as being “long” and “grey” with “inverted nails hammered into the tops of the palings.” Dmitri walks along the length of the fence in vain, trying to get a glimpse of his beloved, but he is ultimately unsuccessful.
The fence that surrounds Anna’s estate is a physical barrier that represents the metaphorical barrier that keeps Anna and Dmitri apart. The sheer length of the fence and the sharp nails that have been hammered into the top of it gives the fence a sinister, prison-like appearance that both literally and figuratively traps Anna from leaving her husband and being with Dmitri. Furthermore, Dmitri thinks that he can hear Anna playing the piano within the confines of the house. As a result, Anna, who is essentially playing the piano while in captivity, can be compared to a songbird that sings from within the confines of a birdcage. Chekhov makes his use of symbolism abundantly clear when Dmitri looks at the fence and says the phrase “A fence like that is enough to make anyone want to run away” to himself.
