Judgment in Anna Karenina Essay -- Tolstoy Anna Karenina Essays

The question of mind and sympathies in Anna K atomic number 18nina is one that seems to become to a greater extent(prenominal) complicated each time I read the novel. The basic line with locating the voice of judgment is that throughout the novel, there are places where we tincture less than comfortable with the seemingly straightforward, at times even didactical presentation of Anna and Vronskys fall into sin alongside Levins constant moral struggle. As Annas story unfolds in its episodic manner within the context of the counterbalance of the novel, Tolstoy seems to be trying to make the fact of her guilt more than and more clear to us at the same time though, we have more and more difficulty in tracing out the specific locale of that guilt. In a novel as consummately constructed as this one is, we are tempted to look for places where the undercurrents of the text, the places where the text takes on its own life and force, run against, or at least complicate, the discernment of authorial judgment. By closely examining Tolstoys preaching of Annas moral crisis as compared with his handling of Levin, we might attempt to unravel the books instead layered and complex system of condemnation. The novels epigraph sets a certain tone for us before we even begin reading the biblically inflected Vengeance is tap I will repay, plants in our heads the idea that wrong will be done and punishment exacted. Indeed, we come across a wrong in the very first lines of the opening chapter, in Stepan Arkadyichs dalliance with the French governess, which has propel the Oblonsky house into confusion.(1) Tolstoys descriptions of Stepan Arkadyich as a pleasant, honest, well-liked bon vivant seem at times to drop off with contempt. He is lazy and mischievous(14), his life... ...he end, perhaps because Tolstoy was a better source than he was true moralist, Im not sure that Tolstoy ever reconciled the novels judgment of Anna with his own sympathy and love for her. The result is a novel divided, nauseous with the vengefulness of its own condemnation, perhaps proud of its over-riding message of living for truth and the corking(817) in life, but ultimately unable to fully convince us that it gravitates toward its own confused and forced moral center. Works Cited and Consulted Cherneshevsky, Nikolai. The Anthropological prescript in Philosophy in Edie, Scanlan and Zeldin, eds., Russian Philosophy Chicago quadruplet Books, 1965. Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina, trans. Constance Garnett New York The Modern Library, 1993. Turgenev, Ivan. Sketches From a Hunters Album, trans. Richard Freeborn London Penguin Books, 1990.