My previous blog got me thinking again about Anna’s affair in Anna Karenina. To what extent does Tolstoy blame Anna, and to what extent does Tolstoy blame Karenin? Where and how do they go wrong? It seems to me that, despite what she says, Anna was completely happy in her marriage before she left for Moscow (to reconcile Stiva and Dolly). It’s only when she comes back that she suddenly sees all these flaws in her husband. She says things like, “There was an old, familiar feeling, similar to that state of pretence she had experience in her relations with her husband; but previously she had not noticed it, while now she was clearly and painfully aware of it” (104). I don’t think Tolstoy wants us to trust Anna here, when she says that this pretence existed before, but her meeting of Vronsky has somehow opened up her eyes to this falseness. I think her expectations of her marriage changed in Moscow, and now she’s struck by the lack of “real” passion (see post below!). She suddenly disappointed with everything she once loved (she seems to have once loved). There’s something about Anna’s “seeker” nature (her quest for happiness, meaning), and her foray outside the home that has changed Anna, thrilled her that Tolstoy sees as the corrupting to what was once a happy marriage.
Granted, we see how unappealing Karenin is as a husband. He is proud, duty-obsessed, ambitious, and society-focused, and fits Anna into his schedule like he would schedule a bath. Yet, he seems to love Anna, but can’t express it. Karenin keeps trying to talk about how much he missed Anna, but it’s almost like he’s embarrassed to reveal too much emotion. Instead of saying he missed her, he makes jokes, mocking his “burning desire” to see Anna (104) and makes it sound like her absence inconvenienced him rather than grieved him: “my solitude is ended. You wouldn’t believe how awkward (he emphasizes the word awkward) it is to dine alone” (110). Later, when Karenin confronts her about Vronsky, he acknowledges that he has been too self-focused in the marriage, but he is afraid to feeling, afraid that Anna will hurt him,: “For the first time he vividly pictured to himself her personal life, her thoughts, her wishes, and the thought that she could and should have her own particular life seemed so frightening to him that he hastened to drive it away” (143-44). When also see Karenin through Anna’s eyes after she’s already fallen for Vronsky and “closed the depths of her soul to him” (paraphrased from 146), which really upsets him and is probably why he become so cold to her later.
I think when I was reading Anna Karenina, I kept being tempted to declare Anna’s marriage to Karenin empty and dead, but I don't think it was dead on arrival. I think Tolstoy wants to show that Anna and Karenina slowly kill it by closing their souls to each other and refusing to salvage their marriage. I don’t think Tolstoy intends us to see Anna and Karenin as mismatched people, but rather people who are both not trying hard enough to make their marriage work.
1 comment:
It's passion that kills it, isn't it? Anna, we are told, had despite her loveless marriage worked hard at reinventing herself as a mother to Seriozha--as it should be, Tolstoy might add--but these maternal feelings are eventually outweighed by her need for passion. Sex, lust, and desire are selfish and egotistical quantities: they require fulfillment and are bottomless pits.
One might ask Tolstoy: what is a person like Anna supposed to do in such an unhappy marital situation? And he might respond that she was doing what needed to be done prior to meeting Vronsky by devoting herself entirely to her child and avoiding the meat market that is society and Betsy's circle in particular. According to Tolstoy's definition, a good mother is wholly selfless; her needs and desires are no longer an issue. By opening the door to passion, Anna indulges in egotistical behavior because passion is, by its very nature, a selfish impulse.
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