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Anna Karenina is a novel rich in characters, emotion, and nineteenth
century Russian culture. Through his precise and Lyric prose, Leo
Tolstoy paints a detailed picture of the Russian aristocracy’s life:
the frivolity and excess most partake of in the city and the calm and
serene family life a few pursue in the country. Tolstoy’s Epic
discusses everything from views on religion to human morality. Woven
through all of this description and discussion is the tale of Anna
Karenina and her lover, Aleksey Vronsky. Tolsty details Anna’s
frightening journey from a poised and enthralling socialite to a
desperate and broken women. Anna Karinina follows Anna as her life
falls apart and she descends from a position of privilege and beauty to
one of despair and isolation, yet Anna remains a sympathetic character
to the reader until the end.
In the beginning of the novel, Anna is a woman of society, cultured
and refined, to whom both the characters of the novel and the reader
are immediately drawn. In her first appearance in the novel, she is
described as having an, “elegance and modest grace that [is] apparent
in her whole figure” (72). Vronksy, has at first, “a vague recollection
of something stiff and tedious [emotion] evoked by the name Karenina”
(69), and yet he is immediately taken by Anna, thinking that she is,
“very charming” (75). Vronsky too is a man of society, a man who has
learned to be unaffected by a women’s charms. However, Anna breezes
through these defenses in a moment, and Vronsky finds himself,
“delighted [by Anna], as though at something special”(69), and falls
deeply in love with her. Immediately upon meeting Anna, Vronsky finds
her irresistible.
Anna’s attractiveness is not just apparent to men. Kitty too finds
herself, “in love with [Anna], as young girls do fall in love with
older and married women”(84). At the ball the two women attend, Kitty
comments how Anna’s appearance in an understated black dress is,
“simple, natural, elegant, and at the same time gay and animated.”
(92). Anna is “enchanting”(96), and the men and women in the novel both
fall under the spell of her beauty, self-confidence, and poise.
The reader also falls in love with Anna, due to both her beauty, and
her sympathetic nature. After Dolly learns of her husband’s infidelity
Anna comes to act as a mediator. Dolly is immensely upset, but Anna is
able to soothe her simply by saying, “I don’t want to speak for him, or
try to comfort you . . . But darling, I’m simply sorry, sorry from my
heart for you” (79). Rather than entreating Dolly to be Christian and
forgive, or attempt to console her, both of which would be more cruel
than kind, Anna merely empathizes with Dolly and thus demonstrates her
compassion. Tolstoy notes that, “Sympathy and sincere love were visible
on Anna’s face” (80). In the end, Anna is able to achieve a, “full
reconciliation” (87) between Dolly and Stiva. Through her sincerity and
consideration, Anna is able to comfort Dolly and reconcile her with
Stiva, which endears her further to the reader. Anna’s beauty,
compassion and controlled demeanor cause her to captivate other
characters in the novel as well as the reader.
By the end of the book, Anna has become a completely different
person: selfish, jealous, needy, and at times almost repulsive. The
attraction everyone has for Anna at the start of the novel recedes, for
everything that was once attractive about her is lost. Her beauty
begins to fade and she becomes fearful of losing it completely, even
interpreting, “[Vronsky’s] desire to have children . . . as proof he
did not prize her beauty”. (845). Anna loses her self-reliance and
becomes dependant on Vronsky, which gives rise to intense bouts of
possession and jealously. At one point she screams at him, “All I can
want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing.”(841). At
another time she accuses him saying, “You don’t love me; you love
someone else”(842).
Worst of all, Anna loses her poise and has become adversarial to a
fault, fighting with Vronsky over everything, even imagined things,
thinking, “All the cruelest words that a brutal man could say [Vronsky]
said to her there in her imagination, and she could not forgive him for
them, as though he had actually said them” (848). Anna even stoops so
low as to say things to purposefully hurt Vronsky. She tells him, “A
heartless woman, whether she’s…your mother or anyone else, is of no
consequence to me, and I would not consent to know her” (845). In the
end Anna she feels that, “The one thing that mattered was punishing
him”(849). Some psychotherapists, in the tradition of R. Alvarez, call
suicide the ultimate act of aggression, in which a person directs their
anger towards outward situations inward. The way in which Anna kills
herself certainly fits this theory, for in her suicide she succeeds in
punishing Vronsky. By the end of the novel, Anna has fallen into a
state of dependence on one hand and hostility on the other, alienating
herself from the other characters, and leaving the reader struggling to
understand her transformation.
Anna remains an appealing character to the reader, because of her
lucid flashes of self-recognition and self-loathing. These episodes
both frighten by sharpening the contrast between what was and what is,
and elicit sympathy by reminding the reader of what they once found so
attractive in Anna and Anna’s inability to change her situation. Anna
clearly sees how she antagonizes Vronsky and, “For an instant she [has]
a clear vision of what she [is] doing . . . but even though she [knows]
it [is] her own ruin, she [can] not restrain herself, [can] not keep
herself from proving to him that he [is] wrong, [can] not give way to
him” (840). One of the most repugnant characteristics that Anna has
acquired is her need to fight, and here it is obvious that even she
recognizes the wretchedness of this trait.
Finally, for an instant Anna sees to the heart of it all, musing to
herself, “My love keeps growing more passionate and selfish, while his
is dying and that’s why we’re drifting apart . . . I rouse aversion in
him, and he rouses fury in me, and it cannot be different. Don’t I know
. . . that he won’t desert me! I know all that, but it makes it no
easier for me” (862). Anna knows that her suspicions are unfounded, and
she knows that the situation cannot remain as it was, for both she and
Vronsky have changed. And although Anna recognizes that things must
change, her situation leaves her unable to act on this knowledge, and
she is forced to slip back into the old patterns. It is this
recognition of the situation, but inability to fix, and the way in
which these flashes mimic Anna’s old behavior that keep the reader
sympathizing with Anna until the end. By the end of the novel, Anna has
changed completely, she has become selfish, antagonistic, and
dependent, yet her inability to resolve her situation, and the remnants
of her former self keep the reader’s sympathies.
Anna Karenina is a tragic novel. Although the book contains
happiness and joy, and although it finishes on the high note of man’s
innate goodness, in the end, it is a tragedy. It is a tragedy of
constraints, a tragedy of what could have been, and above all, a
tragedy of that which is destroyed unnecessarily. Anna is broken, and
it is this shattering of her spirit that ultimately kills her. She
remains true to herself, and in doing so violates the laws of society.
Ultimately, the repercussions of this violation kill her. Society’s
constant and unrelenting disapproval eventually breaks through Anna’s
defenses. Anna dies because she lived in a society which would not
allow her to follow the morals in her heart.
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