Anton Chekhov wrote a short story in 1899, entitled "The Lady with the Pet Dog." It is about a love affair seen from the eyes of the involved man named Gurov. The story occurs in nineteenth-century Russia, in a town called Yalta. Joyce Carol Oates, in 1972, did a wonderful job of rewriting the story, changing the protagonist from the man to the woman. Her version also changes the setting to Nantucket Island in twentieth-century America. Looking at both stories, one can learn a lot about the couple's affair. Although the man and woman have different motives and ways of dealing with guilt, both condone the relationship while still married to separate people.

There are three factors which all affairs contain: factors that "shove," factors that "pull," and "societal" factors (Vaughan 1). At the beginning in each story, Gurov is "pushed" into the affair; just as he was pushed into his...