Despite these differences, there are also many similarities between the two. The plot similarities are obvious, including the fact that both have affairs beginning and continuing in similar circumstances. Both have husbands that they do not wish to leave, partly out of habit and partly out of pity. They compartmentalize their lives and are able to think of themselves as somehow different people when with their husbands and with their lovers. In this, as in their inability to choose a partner, to overcome their fear and guilt and shame, or to find something in their lives that makes them truly happy, both of these Annas are very ineffectual and weak. In both cases there is a sense of guilt and shame associated with the affair, even though in the Russian Anna's case this sense of shame is far greater than in the modern Anna's. She obsesses constantly on her shame and her fear that the man will no longer respect her: "You don't respect me now... I have become a vulgar, vile woman whom anyone may despise." (Chekov, 216) the American Anna, while still feeling the same shame, seems to think that it is shared equally with her partner in adultery: "she felt a declaration of shame between them." (Oates, 228)
There are other similarities and differences between the two which may be owing more to the point-of-view from which the story has been written than from the actual characters involved. For example, in Chekov's version there is a sense of Anna as a very innocent creature who may be being drawn into this affair without realizing quite what she is getting into. However, in Oates version this perception is both addressed and denied....
Likewise in Chekov's work the man considers that she does not truly know what a beast he is. He describes how he had actually been ironic, condescending, and had had "the slightly coarse arrogance of a happy male..." (Chekov, 218) which she had not noticed because "She had constantly called him kind, exceptional, high-minded; obviously he had seemed to her different from what he really was..." (Chekov, 218) However, in Oates' retelling, Anna has certainly not failed to notice precisely this trait: "behind this man's ordinary, friendly face there was a certain arrogant maleness" (Oates, 232) Even the fact that Chekov's narrator is obviously aging and becoming gray is not actually lost on her in Oates' version, where she admits: "he will grow old, but not soft like her husband..." (Oates, 231)
In conclusion, these two characters are obviously meant to be the same in most ways -- Oates is less "updating" the story than she is rounding it out and displaying the other side of the tale. The differences between them are relatively minor, and in some ways counterintuitive (is a modern American woman really less likely than a Victorian-era Russian woman to be the one to travel to her lover or take initiative in continuing an affair?), and in most cases…
