What is the relationship between the content and form in The Lady with a Pet Dog?

The narrative style used by Chekhov in "The Lady with the Pet Dog" is third person, somewhat cool and detached like the character of Gurov himself. In this story, however, the third-person point of view is not entirely omniscient (in which one knows everything and can go anywhere) because the reader never directly perceives the thoughts of Anna Sergeyevna. It is a limited third person, through which the reader can understand Gurov's thoughts and feelings, and it is through Gurov's thoughts and perceptions that we learn about Anna. In the very first sentence, for example, the third-person narrative is subtly limited to Gurov's point of view: "A new person, it was said, had appeared on the esplanade. . . ." An omniscient narrator knows everything, and would simply know there was a new person; he would not need to hear about it. It is Gurov, then, who hears things said about a new female arrival. Moreover, the title of the story itself advertises Gurov's point of view, for an omniscient narrator would know the lady's name. All that Gurov knows at first is that there is a lady with a pet dog. Chekhov explores at length Gurov's shifting thoughts and feelings about Anna. Interestingly, Gurov never thinks about how his family will be affected by his infidelity; his thoughts are only of Anna. To the extent that the story has a "rising action" and a "climax," these are largely internal, as Gurov goes from viewing himself as a casual seducer of a "lady with a pet dog" whose name he does not know to the true and responsible lover of Anna Sergeyevna, whose name means more to him than any words in the language.

At the very end of the story, the third-person point of view becomes fully omniscient as Chekhov reads the thoughts of both his lovers at once: it "was clear to both of them that the end was still far off. . . ." By breaking the rule and entering Anna's head as well as Gurov's, he underscores their love by having them now, at last, thinking with one mind and feeling with one heart.