Question by Shmoooo: Anton Chekhov the lady with the dog. What is the town of S?
I just read the story and am curious what town is being referred to. Why doesn’t it say the name of the town? It is just referred to as the town of S throughout the story.
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Answer by Kate S
You’ll get this in older literature: It is simply to imply that the town’s location isn’t as important as Moscow–we need to only know that it’s a slow provincial town that bores Anna out of her wits.
Occasionally, you’ll see stuff like ‘Mr. C–‘ or whatever (Balzac uses it a lot, if memory serves), and that’s also meant to imply either unimportance of the name or that the reader wants the character to remain “anonymous”. (Although if I say that I want to talk about “President B–,” you know whom I’m talking about–occasionally stories play coy like that.)
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tonydal says
I don't know. But I'll betcha it was in the country of R—— in the year 18–.