Romance is a pulse. And pulses die. This is the tragedy of life.
Romance is not a candlelight dinner. Romance is not red rose and a good wine served in front of your lover's fireplace. These are merely expressions of romance. In turn, these are also expressions of tragedy.
Romance is not a candlelight dinner. Romance is not red rose and a good wine served in front of your lover's fireplace. These are merely expressions of romance. In turn, these are also expressions of tragedy.
The expressions of romance are simply the rituals of the dance - just as a wake is the ritualistic precession of a funeral.
Everything dies. Events, conversations, people, and even places die.
The large and simple fact is that romance will die. Romance, like any other noun, has a lifespan. And if it doesn't die during or after it's most invigorating stage - that of ardor - it dies down the road. And while romance does appear in fits and paroxysms during the course of an extended relationship - its expressions and pungent sensations are few and far between.
The tragic consequences of the pursuit of love for love's sake, in defiance of the rules laid down by one's peers and one's family, is an eternal story, and that story is in Anna Karenina, but that story is not, by itself, the book Tolstoy wrote. Anna Karenina is no Romeo and Juliet story of star-crossed teenagers unjustly destroyed by their elders' cruel laws, but a story of adults vexed by boundaries. It is the portrayal of a clash between an old world of rigid religious codes, duels, fixed gender roles and strict class division and a new world of divorce, separation, custody battles, women's self-determination and uncertain moral rules.
It's not that Tolstoy sympathises with high society's mixture of moral outrage and gladiatorial blood lust over Anna and Vronsky's affair. While it's true he allows Anna not a moment of sexual pleasure, he had censors to contend with, and makes it clear how unsuitable a partner for Anna her husband is. As the book goes on, in step with Tolstoy's increasing religiosity and his disenchantment with the project, he does put an increasing and sometimes oppressive emphasis on women's role as mothers. But none of this means he ever loses compassion for or patience with the painful, intricate detail of Anna's dilemmas.
Anna's love for Vronsky is a nobler affair than the infantile sexual consumerism embodied in Stiva Oblonsky, the emblem of modernity. Yet for Tolstoy the line between sexual freedom and sexual greed is not a clear one. He looks ahead to the era we live in now, where the dragon of sexual repression has been slain and sexual freedom prevails, and where, better as life is, we haven't rid ourselves of the reasons Anna throws herself under a train. A woman may still marry a man she doesn't love, still feel shame and guilt for having an affair with someone else, still hate him for forgiving her, still (more rarely, certainly) lose custody of her son, still find that people she thought were her friends side with the husband, and still find that the man for whom she left the husband, the man she loves sincerely and passionately, doesn't understand her at all.
Konstantin Levin, Stiva's friend, arrives in Moscow to propose to the eighteen year old Kitty Shtcherbatsky. She refuses him, for she loves Count Vronsky, a dashing army officer who has no intentions of marrying.
Meeting the lovely Madame Karenina, Vronsky falls in love and begins to pursue her. He and Anna are so involved with each other at the grand ball that Kitty's hopes for Vronsky are shattered. Anna, followed by Vronsky, returns to her husband and son in St. Petersburg, while the disappointed Levin returns to his country estate.
Kitty falls ill after her humiliating rejection by Vronsky. At the German spa where she takes a rest cure she tries to deny her womanly nature by becoming a religious do-gooder. Realizing the hypocrisy of this new calling, Kitty returns to Russia cured of her depression and ready to accept her ultimate wifehood.
Consummating her union with Vronsky, Anna steps into a new life with much foreboding for the future. By the time she confesses her adultery to the suspecting Karenin, she is already pregnant with Vronsky's child.
Devoting himself to farming, Levin tries to find life meaningful without marriage. He expends his energies in devising a cooperative landholding system with his peasants to make the best use of the land. Seeing his brother Nicolai hopelessly ill with tuberculosis, he realizes he has been working to avoid facing the problem of death. He also realizes he will always love Kitty.
Vronsky's career ambitions rival his love, and as he has not chosen between them, he is still uncommitted to Anna. Having rejected her husband, but still unable to depend on Vronsky, Anna finds her situation desperate. Her life is in a state of suspension.
Kitty and Levin are engaged to marry. Karenin, who has tried to maintain appearances of domestic tranquillity, finally builds up enough anger to hire a divorce lawyer. Anna is confined of a daughter, but dangerously ill from puerperal fever. At her deathbed, Karenin forgives her and feels sanctified by this surge of humanity and Christian charity. At this sudden reversal of their roles Vronsky feels so humiliated he attempts suicide. These incidents form the turning point of the novel. After Anna's recovery, the lovers go abroad and Anna refuses divorce (though Karenin agrees to it) for fear of giving up her son.
Levin and Kitty, after some initial difficulties, adjust to being married. Nicolai's death affects Levin deeply, and he realizes that emotional commitment, not reason, enables one to overcome life's problems. As if to underscore his life-affirmation, they learn Kitty is pregnant.
After they honeymoon in Italy, Anna and Vronsky return to Petersburg. Violently affected from seeing her son again, Anna's love for Vronsky becomes more desperate now that she has no one else. Despite his objections, she boldly attends the theater as if to affirm her love before conventional society. Humiliated at the opera, she blames Vronsky for lacking sympathy with her suffering, while he is angry at her indiscretion. This keynotes the decline of their relationship, although it is temporarily restored as they go to live in the country.
Among Levin's summer visitors is a socialite who pays so much attention to Kitty that Levin asks him to leave. Visiting Anna at Vronsky's estate, Dolly finds her own drab life preferable to the formal luxury and decadence of Anna's. Complaining that Vronsky is eager for independence, Anna tells Dolly she must rely on her beauty and her love to keep his interest. Vronsky feels especially burdened by the demands of Anna's love when she calls him home from a refreshing political convention.
Kitty gives birth to a son. Karenin, under the influence of his fanatically devout friend, Countess Lydia Ivanovna, becomes religious and uses his hypocritical faith as a crutch to overcome his humiliation and loneliness.
Anna, seeing the irreversible decline of her love affair, has no more will to live and commits suicide.
Vronsky volunteers for service in the Russo-Turkish war. Tolstoy uses this part of the novel to express his pacifist principles. Levin discovers salvation" when he resolves to "live for his soul" rather than for selfish goals. He realizes the meaning of life consists in living according to the goodness inherent in every individual. Understanding death as part of a reality-oriented life, Levin is at peace with himself.
Note. Every Russian has three names: first name, patronymic, last name. The root of the middle name is that of the father, plus a suffix meaning "son of" or "daughter of." Thus Anna's middle name is "Arkadyevna," while that of her brother is "Arkadyevitch." Russians call each other by the Christian name and patronymic, rarely by surname. For the sake of clarity, however, English translators use the characters' family names wherever possible.
The Oblonsky family of Moscow is torn apart by adultery. Dolly Oblonskaya has caught her husband, Stiva, having an affair with their children’s former governess, and threatens to leave him. Stiva is somewhat remorseful but mostly dazed and uncomprehending. Stiva’s sister, Anna Karenina, wife of the St. Petersburg government official Karenin, arrives at the Oblonskys’ to mediate. Eventually, Anna is able to bring Stiva and Dolly to a reconciliation.
The tragedy of romance is in what dies inside Anna while she lives - the death of her feeling, the death of her inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible for her to feel the pain.
The large and simple fact is that romance will die. Romance, like any other noun, has a lifespan. And if it doesn't die during or after it's most invigorating stage - that of ardor - it dies down the road. And while romance does appear in fits and paroxysms during the course of an extended relationship - its expressions and pungent sensations are few and far between.
The tragic consequences of the pursuit of love for love's sake, in defiance of the rules laid down by one's peers and one's family, is an eternal story, and that story is in Anna Karenina, but that story is not, by itself, the book Tolstoy wrote. Anna Karenina is no Romeo and Juliet story of star-crossed teenagers unjustly destroyed by their elders' cruel laws, but a story of adults vexed by boundaries. It is the portrayal of a clash between an old world of rigid religious codes, duels, fixed gender roles and strict class division and a new world of divorce, separation, custody battles, women's self-determination and uncertain moral rules.
It's not that Tolstoy sympathises with high society's mixture of moral outrage and gladiatorial blood lust over Anna and Vronsky's affair. While it's true he allows Anna not a moment of sexual pleasure, he had censors to contend with, and makes it clear how unsuitable a partner for Anna her husband is. As the book goes on, in step with Tolstoy's increasing religiosity and his disenchantment with the project, he does put an increasing and sometimes oppressive emphasis on women's role as mothers. But none of this means he ever loses compassion for or patience with the painful, intricate detail of Anna's dilemmas.
Anna's love for Vronsky is a nobler affair than the infantile sexual consumerism embodied in Stiva Oblonsky, the emblem of modernity. Yet for Tolstoy the line between sexual freedom and sexual greed is not a clear one. He looks ahead to the era we live in now, where the dragon of sexual repression has been slain and sexual freedom prevails, and where, better as life is, we haven't rid ourselves of the reasons Anna throws herself under a train. A woman may still marry a man she doesn't love, still feel shame and guilt for having an affair with someone else, still hate him for forgiving her, still (more rarely, certainly) lose custody of her son, still find that people she thought were her friends side with the husband, and still find that the man for whom she left the husband, the man she loves sincerely and passionately, doesn't understand her at all.
Konstantin Levin, Stiva's friend, arrives in Moscow to propose to the eighteen year old Kitty Shtcherbatsky. She refuses him, for she loves Count Vronsky, a dashing army officer who has no intentions of marrying.
Meeting the lovely Madame Karenina, Vronsky falls in love and begins to pursue her. He and Anna are so involved with each other at the grand ball that Kitty's hopes for Vronsky are shattered. Anna, followed by Vronsky, returns to her husband and son in St. Petersburg, while the disappointed Levin returns to his country estate.
Kitty falls ill after her humiliating rejection by Vronsky. At the German spa where she takes a rest cure she tries to deny her womanly nature by becoming a religious do-gooder. Realizing the hypocrisy of this new calling, Kitty returns to Russia cured of her depression and ready to accept her ultimate wifehood.
Consummating her union with Vronsky, Anna steps into a new life with much foreboding for the future. By the time she confesses her adultery to the suspecting Karenin, she is already pregnant with Vronsky's child.
Devoting himself to farming, Levin tries to find life meaningful without marriage. He expends his energies in devising a cooperative landholding system with his peasants to make the best use of the land. Seeing his brother Nicolai hopelessly ill with tuberculosis, he realizes he has been working to avoid facing the problem of death. He also realizes he will always love Kitty.
Vronsky's career ambitions rival his love, and as he has not chosen between them, he is still uncommitted to Anna. Having rejected her husband, but still unable to depend on Vronsky, Anna finds her situation desperate. Her life is in a state of suspension.
Kitty and Levin are engaged to marry. Karenin, who has tried to maintain appearances of domestic tranquillity, finally builds up enough anger to hire a divorce lawyer. Anna is confined of a daughter, but dangerously ill from puerperal fever. At her deathbed, Karenin forgives her and feels sanctified by this surge of humanity and Christian charity. At this sudden reversal of their roles Vronsky feels so humiliated he attempts suicide. These incidents form the turning point of the novel. After Anna's recovery, the lovers go abroad and Anna refuses divorce (though Karenin agrees to it) for fear of giving up her son.
Levin and Kitty, after some initial difficulties, adjust to being married. Nicolai's death affects Levin deeply, and he realizes that emotional commitment, not reason, enables one to overcome life's problems. As if to underscore his life-affirmation, they learn Kitty is pregnant.
After they honeymoon in Italy, Anna and Vronsky return to Petersburg. Violently affected from seeing her son again, Anna's love for Vronsky becomes more desperate now that she has no one else. Despite his objections, she boldly attends the theater as if to affirm her love before conventional society. Humiliated at the opera, she blames Vronsky for lacking sympathy with her suffering, while he is angry at her indiscretion. This keynotes the decline of their relationship, although it is temporarily restored as they go to live in the country.
Among Levin's summer visitors is a socialite who pays so much attention to Kitty that Levin asks him to leave. Visiting Anna at Vronsky's estate, Dolly finds her own drab life preferable to the formal luxury and decadence of Anna's. Complaining that Vronsky is eager for independence, Anna tells Dolly she must rely on her beauty and her love to keep his interest. Vronsky feels especially burdened by the demands of Anna's love when she calls him home from a refreshing political convention.
Kitty gives birth to a son. Karenin, under the influence of his fanatically devout friend, Countess Lydia Ivanovna, becomes religious and uses his hypocritical faith as a crutch to overcome his humiliation and loneliness.
Anna, seeing the irreversible decline of her love affair, has no more will to live and commits suicide.
Vronsky volunteers for service in the Russo-Turkish war. Tolstoy uses this part of the novel to express his pacifist principles. Levin discovers salvation" when he resolves to "live for his soul" rather than for selfish goals. He realizes the meaning of life consists in living according to the goodness inherent in every individual. Understanding death as part of a reality-oriented life, Levin is at peace with himself.
Note. Every Russian has three names: first name, patronymic, last name. The root of the middle name is that of the father, plus a suffix meaning "son of" or "daughter of." Thus Anna's middle name is "Arkadyevna," while that of her brother is "Arkadyevitch." Russians call each other by the Christian name and patronymic, rarely by surname. For the sake of clarity, however, English translators use the characters' family names wherever possible.
The Oblonsky family of Moscow is torn apart by adultery. Dolly Oblonskaya has caught her husband, Stiva, having an affair with their children’s former governess, and threatens to leave him. Stiva is somewhat remorseful but mostly dazed and uncomprehending. Stiva’s sister, Anna Karenina, wife of the St. Petersburg government official Karenin, arrives at the Oblonskys’ to mediate. Eventually, Anna is able to bring Stiva and Dolly to a reconciliation.
The tragedy of romance is in what dies inside Anna while she lives - the death of her feeling, the death of her inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible for her to feel the pain.
No comments:
Post a Comment