Tolstoi gets into everyone’s mind, even Laska’s-the dog. Yet each sees the world and events in a different light. Tolstoi sees the irony, hypocrisy, and superficiality of conventions-societal, religious, legal. He also employs a technique called “defamiliarization” in which a common occurrence is presented from a unigue perspective so that we the readers can experience the old and familiar in a refreshingly new way. What have you learned from the assignment?
Seryozha’s lesson is a great example of Tolstoi using different perspectives to show the world in a new way. The ordinary occurrence of lessons and school for a young boy seen through his own eyes provides a full commentary on whom he loves and trusts, and how he feels about his parents (especially his mother). Through his father’s lessons, we see the insecurity of a little boy wanting his father’s love and the devotion he shows for his absent mother. This also plays into Tolstoi using children and their views of the world to reveal the ridiculous habits and conceits of adults and the society of which they are part. Seryozha is thirsting for knowledge, but he lets no one in without loving them and feeling their love. It provides a different perspective on Anna and Vronsky’s affair – love and being with the people you love is all that matters. Dolly echoes this later when she explains to Anna why she has come to visit her at Vozdvizhenskoe, saying that you love someone for who they are, not who you’d like them to be (614). Seryozha hates that his father is only interested in him as an “imaginary boy,” and doesn’t love him for himself (525). By looking at the common of occurrence of a daily lesson from the child’s perspective, Tolstoi shows the whole family dynamic in a new light and offers a different view of love and Anna’s affair. While we would have assumed that Seryozha might not enjoy his lessons, we learn it is not out of laziness but out of lack of love for his pedagogue and his father; this offers us a whole new view of why and how children learn or refuse to pay attention, and proposes love as a motive behind even the most everyday and simple actions.
Besides presenting events from a different perspective to draw out a conclusion, Tolstoi often emphasizes how the perspective a character brings to a situation affects their actions. For instance, Tolstoi points out how Anna’s mental imaginings of Vronsky’s character (formed when they’re separated) must be reconciled with his actual character. Anna’s idea is formed in the absence of her lover at a moment surrounded by the unpleasantness of her husband. And consequently “at every meeting, she was bringing together her imaginary idea of [Vronsky] (an incomparably better one, impossible in reality) with him as he was” (357). Any disappointment occurs not because of concrete reality but because of the perspective she brings.
Levin advocates the same. He suggests to Stepan “once you understand it clearly, everything somehow becomes insignificant” (375). He suggests that you can “spend your life diverted by hunting or work in order not to think about death” (376). Thus it is with a certain perspective that you can approach life and find happiness and meaning without getting overwhelmed by either small trifles or great looming death. Levin is suggesting that once you understand that greater insignificance, you can cease to be bothered by things and enjoy the good (i.e. the hunting and fishing) that is there without being consumed by the negative. While Levin is still on a journey to find that transcendence in this story, Tolstoi asserts the importance of perspective in approaching a situation through Levin’s realization, though he may not live it out.
I think that with the different perspectives seen in Anna Karenina, Tolstoy accurately gives insight into the madness that is real life. This book is in my opinion, what amounts to a soap opera, full to the brim of high drama. However, events like this happen in real life, and the characters that Tolstoy creates are almost too realistic. Although maybe the chance of such a huge number of scandals and break ups spurred on by these unique characters is slim, Tolstoy, with the different perspectives, makes these enormously romantic events almost sensible. Levin’s bouts of jealousy seem terribly unreasonable, which they are, but, with Tolstoy’s characterization, we understand him, meaning that he is so beautifully characterized that we truly understand who Levin is. Tolstoy shows him through the public’s eyes, as the self-exiled, awkward, and rough man, who goes against the grain of Russian aristocracy and focuses completely on farming. However, Levin also is an intensely intellectual man, who thinks differently than most other characters in the book, making sense in his own way. Anna also is described almost disturbingly thoroughly. At the beginning, her magnanimity is shown through all around her, including the children, who absolutely adore her. However, as soon as she sees Vronsky and dances the markuza with him, things begin to change. The public’s view of her slowly deteriorates for the rest of the book, which Tolstoy clearly illustrates. However, the reader is also privied to Anna’s state of mind throughout the transformation, giving us a view into how she begins to slowly slip away into a state of overwhelming emotion. What Tolstoy does with this beautiful characterizations, is give us a realistic example of what goes on in other peoples minds. I believe that in reading this book, one can see another’s actions and apply Tolstoy’s understanding of people to them. Tolstoy gives us a lens, with which one can understand others, that is uniquely accurate and insightful.
I was struck in class on Tuesday when Professor Beyer mentioned the importance of children in Tolstoy’s novel, and reading Hillary’s post has reminded me of something that I found very special in Anna Karenina. One of the images from the book that has stuck with me most comes as Karenin peers into Seryozha’s room, where he is studying with one of his tutors. Through Karenin’s eyes, the narrator describes the boy, now grown from when we first met him, leaning close over his desk, with one leg curled underneath him on the seat of his chair. Thinking now about this question, about the “defamiliarization” idea, I think that these details have remained because of what Seryozha represents within the novel, and at the same time how real Tolstoy portrays in his subtleties. Seryozha, it is true, is a victim of the social society in which the story is grounded. As Anna leaves Karenin, the boy is caught in the middle, and becomes a pawn in his father’s game to salvage his political reputation and hurt Anna, leading father and son to have a relationship that is strained and reproduced (cf. 524-5). Tolstoy’s criticism runs deep through Seryozha’s character; such an unfortunate situation not only comments on the society that demands Karenin to appear unfazed, but of the Orthodox Church that forced third parties into unsatisfying lives in their stance on divorce, and the contemporary idea of aristocratic parenthood, as Karenin can get away with not loving his son with relative ease, as the boy is regularly pawned off to nannies and tutors. All of this is apparent, not only through Seryozha but throughout the book (note Dolly’s children and Anna’s unnamed daughter). Through Seryozha, however, Tolstoy puts a new coat on the motif, and presents the boy in all the confusion that would realistically feel, while at the same time maintaining the image of youth that, despite orders from his entourage, is still naïve by nature.
Tolstoy’s insight into Stiva’s feelings regarding his own infidelity versus the way that Anna feels about hers displays his deep understanding in the broad range of human emotions. While Stiva feels no guilt about his sexual engagements with women besides his wife, Anna is deeply reflective and emotionally disturbed. With the contrast of these two chracters, Tolstoy seems to comment on gender and personality differences despite experiencing the same upbringing.
Even amidst Dolly’s initial devestation when she finds out about his infidelity, Stiva is “smiling joyfully” about his good digestion. Conversely, Anna is repetitively described as extremely guilty, from crying “tears of shame” to labeling her relationship with Vronksy as a “guilty union”.
Considering that they are siblings and were presumably brought up by the same moral standard, the huge discrepancy in their reactions to the same actions is quite interesting. Anna is a woman, the one who carries the illegitimate child. Meanwhile, Stiva is the man of the house, who “almost everyone in the house-even the nurse, Darya Alexandrovna’s best friend-sided with”. Tolstoy understands the place of a woman in society, and clearly illustrates this double standard through Stiva and Anna.
The reactions surrounding their respective infidelity is about more than what society dictates, however. Anna’s reaction seems to show the capability of depth in human character. She is at once thrilled and tortured by her affair with Vronsky. Stiva sees his infidelity as a simple pleasure which he deserves. Stiva’s and Anna’s feelings concerning adultery demonstrate Tolstoy’s keen understanding of human nature.
Tolstoy manipulates the third person omniscient narrative to his advantage in every part of the novel. He is constantly letting us inside the thoughts of his characters, whether it is a passing peasant, or his central protagonist. And as enlightening as this character development often is, Tolstoy also uses the technique of withholding information from his reader to emphasize a character’s silence.
In cases such as the Countess Lydia Ivanovna, insight into the interworkings of her personal thoughts is not particularly fascinating. She adores and is infatuated with Alexei (Karenin) and Tolstoy takes the time to show us her loving thoughts towards him. This seems somewhat superfluous as in the same passage she gazes at him passionately and speaks ardently, so that her intentions are more than clear. However, it is in other cases when his characters are outwardly silent and stoic, like Vronsky, that an account of inner turmoil is most revealing. Throughout the novel Vronsky’s motivations, emotions and ambitions would have been completely obscured from the reader without this omniscient narrative. This allows Tolstoy to create a closed character without leaving him undeveloped, and a mystery to the reader.
Tolstoy succeeds in defamiliarizing or foregrounding the text (the background of which is the Russian elite community in the city and country in the late 1800s) through his agile manipulation of third person omniscient narration. By presenting situations through the thoughts and commentary of the characters involved, one is immediately forced to question what is fact, what is interpretation and what is delusion. Indeed, it is rare in this immense novel for the reader to be provided with an objective recounting of events—rather the events are defined by reactions to them. As Ben noted, the book essentially concerns itself with gossip and soap opera worthy drama, infused with the thematic and symbolic complexities of great literature. It is in the reactions and deepest thoughts of the participating characters that we can find any redeeming, valuable material. When Anna and Vronsky escape to Italy, we can find value in their true, subtle dissatisfaction—just as when Levin wanders the frigid streets in a delirious daze of love, love that exists perhaps solely in fiction. However, Tolstoy does not allow for the reactions (subtle and otherwise) of his characters to be the sole informants, dictating where the story will go. By juxtaposing very real, at times mundane issues (Levin’s agricultural work) with heightened literary drama and symbolism, the author weaves a very large tapestry of social norms and conflicting emotional, religious and erotic desire.
Tolstoy uses various different perspectives to discuss how different people think about death. In this novel there is an emphasis on death as this ominous thing that awaits us all, it rolls into the novel with the train and the death of the watchman on the tracks. We get to see the shock and horror of Stepan, Vronsky and Anna when they hear of this accident. The most interesting reaction to this is how Anna sees this as a bad omen. Other than this being foreshadowing it shows the viewpoint of superstition towards death. This is a fatalistic way of looking at death that tells us a little about how Anna thinks. After Vronsky follows Anna, Kitty gets love sick and goes abroad to a place where there are many people who are dying. Kitty learns from Varenka how to care for people who are dying and though she does not choose to live like Varenka or Mme Stahl, she finds a faith that comforts her in the face of death. Then there is Levin’s brother Nikolai, who is wasting away quickly. Levin is faced with the cold reality of his mortality and is constantly trying to come to grips with it. Levin cannot disengage himself from what his brother is facing because he was once very close to his brother. He is also a naturally thoughtful person, who cannot help, but think about the big questions in life. When Nikolai is on the brink of death Levin and Kitty’s viewpoints are compared and Kitty’s quiet faith gets the better of Levin’s logic. Levin watches his brothers last moments with despair and confusion; he cannot grasp the meaning of anything, he cannot understand what his brother is going through. Kitty calmly cares for Nikolai and tries to help him any way she can, comforting him in his final moments. I also found it interesting that the chapter, in which Nikolai dies, has the title “Death”. Aside from being obvious about what will happen, I think this is the only chapter Tolstoy names in the entire novel. Tolstoy is bringing attention to the importance of this theme and all the different perspectives surrounding it.
Tolstoy manipulates time in this narrative to allow the reader to view the specific psychological states of his characters and how they pertain to the events revolving and evolving around them. The first notable instance of this is the train that arrives in Moscow that brings Anna to her first meeting with Vronsky. We are led to believe prior to this that Vronsky is awaiting his mother so as to get her permission to marry Kitty, yet shortly after we are able to see Vronsky’s true colors that of the vacuous socialite with a propensity for amorous dalliances. Meanwhile Anna, we learn, has been talking to Vronsky’s mother in a prolonged conversation about their respective sons. This parallel is created so as to make the impact of their meeting more portentous. Followed by the death on the train tracks there is a clear foreshadowing of what is going to happen to Anna. The same occurs with Anna’s message to her husband and Countess Lydia’s reply. Lydia’s concern for Seryozha’s well being as Christian is mirrored with Anna’s disillusionment upon discovering the Countess’s lack of Christian charity. It is Tolstoy’s handling of the temporal nature of his novel that allows for the intricate retelling of events to better understand the nature of all his intertwining characters. It is this device in particular that makes Anna Karenina a distinctly psychological novel.
Tolstoy does a very good job at showing us two different people’s perspectives on the same situation and at pointing out the regular miscommunications of life. After Kitty and Levin get married, they have a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications that the reader can quite clearly see through, but that the characters cannot. To the reader, it is obvious that Kitty wants to accompany Levin to see his dying brother in order to comfort him, but Levin gets it into his mind that Kitty just doesn’t want to be bored being left at home. This kind of disconnect between two people is relatively common and often does not merit much attention, but Tolstoy is able to make it something more. As readers, we can understand both characters exactly, but in real life we are unable to see the larger picture. In the book however, we have the whole picture, and can thus appreciate a common occurrence and situation in a new light. We can simultaneously identify with the character and have an almost out-of-body experience via this identification. We can hold two opposing limited perspectives at the same time. It gives us both a fuller appreciation of the novel, and of real life, which is perhaps why Tolstoy is considered such a great novelist.
As has been mentioned before, Anna Karenina appears to mark the birth of the ultimate soap opera. Every body is in every ones business and the misfortunes of the members of high society are in everybody’s mouth. There are intrigues, Love, hate, jealousy, in short a ton of juicy drama. And yet it is considered to be one of the greatest works of literature.
The latter is the case, exactly because the omniscient narrator describes the thoughts of the characters in so much detail. Whether it is Levin while mowing, or Anna before killing herself, or Serjoscha’s thoughts on his mother, the narrator provides us with the characters feelings to such an extent, that we can really put ourselves in their shoes and empathize with them. That in itself is quite powerful, but it is the description of how these feelings shape the impressions they have of various situations, and, more importantly, how their then resulting perceptions of their surrounding as well as the actions of others’ multiplies their initial feelings, that makes it relevant for world literature. The variety of characters that are presented and the depth in which they are described allows every reader to find somebody to identify with significantly. With the insight into the minds of people that are so unlike us, the cause of fights and misunderstandings must necessarily become utterly clear to the reader. And such a topic will always be interesting and relevant as long as humans are interacting with one another.
I think Tolstoi does a great job sort of allowing everyone to have a say. By changing the narratives from Anna’s point of view, to Kitty, Vronsky and Levin, to name some of the main characters; we get to see into each character’s mind. Not only do we get to see the thoughts of the character but also their interactions with other characters and how it affects them. Like Ben mentioned, Anna is introduced into the book as this magnificent, mysterious, lovely lady who is caught in between being faithful and admiring Vronsky. As soon as the two begin to interact, we see how the others change their ideals about Anna. She slowly loses her status and importance in her higher circles and she is led to throwing herself under a train, committing suicide. (Which I hated this, really Tolstoi?)
I’ve learned from this book more about people interaction and its effects. We see that at first Kitty takes Levin as a bad choice for marriage, yet she then ends up marrying him and having his child. Anna who is married with a son risks it all with Vronsky and ends her life tragically. Levin saw the world different then saw Kitty religion wise yet at the end reconsiders and believes to have found God again. It’s interesting because here in college we have different interactions everyday with people and they differ depending on different factors. Let’s just hope we aren’t suffering like Anna from these interactions.
After reading so many books about Russian men, it’s refreshing to read one that’s at least ostensibly about a woman. I do think Tolstoy gets admirably into her head, describing all the ambiguities and conflicts she encounters, rather than just painting her as an immoral woman who sacrifices her reputation and her son for love. But I also think the book should really be called Konstantin Levin. Levin gets all the spiritual crises and the conversations about the state of Russia. We spend more time watching Levin mow a field than we spend watching Anna do anything, really, up until she decides to die. Tolstoy confines Anna’s sphere of interest so thoroughly to love and motherhood and social games that he has to create Levin to experience the obligatory moral and spiritual struggle, but I think he could have used his admirable ability to get into people’s heads to broaden Anna’s world a little. Or, even if Tolstoy is accurately representing the narrowness of a 19th-century Russian woman’s world, he could have just spent a little more time on it.
I was particularly interested Vronsky and Karenin’s unintentional meeting at the threshold of Karenin’s house. This meeting is extremely distasteful to both of the men, but in significantly different ways. Vronsky finds Karenin’s passivity intolerable, while Karenin is more distraught by the fact that his wife is incapable of following his only demand. Only Anna highlights the ridiculousness of the situation in her mockery of her husbands bow. The narrative device works well because it passes the meeting quickly, then moves to focus on Vronsky and Anna’s tryst and then takes Karenin’s perspective. It’s also moderately entertaining how little the meeting of the men embarrasses Anna and devoid of any reason finds it Vronsky’s fault for arriving late. On Karenin’s side my favorite detail is his scan of the coat-rack for the absence of a military cloak. One gets the sense that he hopes the chance meeting may have been just a figment of his imagination. These events also immediately precipitate Karenin’s consultation with the famous Petersburg lawyer. A scene made quite ridiculous by the lack of substance and moral discretion in the legal advice and the lawyer’s habitual snatching at moths. Furthermore, Tolstoi’s perspective into the lawyer’s mind is revealing of his bias – only thoughts of payment and upholstery seem to reside there. What does one learn from this? Well, I suppose it emphasizes that different folks with different values can have irreconcilably disparate and justifiable perspectives on a single situation…it escalates my dislike for Anna.
It would be easy to breeze through a story like Anna Karenina from one perspective – from Anna’s, from Vronsky’s, from Karenin’s, from Levin’s…it could be done. The novel would lose its larger-than-life scale, but most importantly, it would lose its depth, the three dimensional quality of its narrative – what gives it life. In the real world, opinions and perception are dynamic; they vary interpersonally, bounce off one another, interact, reflect, become gossip spoken loudly in the back rooms of the theater. But there is nothing static about the human brain in its capacity to approach a topic – this is life.
Tolstoy’s merciless bouncing between characters – even those we do not or are meant not to like, such as Karenin – gives a wider, more human frame for Anna. It’s not unlike the two portraits of Anna – one new, one old – which are commented on variedly as the narrative trundles onward. This static vision of Anna will make a thousand impressions, as will the developing image of Anna.
Even though I disliked Karenin, I found his opinions refreshing because they place him relative to other characters like Vronsky or Levin, or Stiva – even Kitty and Anna. What works best about this narrative technique of his, I believe, is that each character, in addition to viewing Anna from the corner of his or her eye, sees everyone else, senses their worldviews, and comments on them. The result is a rich network of feelings and convictions; we know that each knows the other well, but as such knows their weaknesses and strengths, and knows their own weaknesses and strengths, and so sees the world as such. As Betsy once said of Lydia Ivanovna, if she were as ugly and old as she, perhaps she too would be just as religious.
Like professor Beyer mentioned in class, Anna Karenina is a simpler version of “24”. Each perspective adds more color and suspense to the plot, and because we are able to see things from so many different perspectives, it makes this story more psychologically real than the others in that there are more complications and we are unable to come to quick conclusions about any single person.
I do not feel Tolstoy is saying that any particular thing is absolutely right or wrong – rather, the perspectives show us just how complex life is. Once we come to know a person and understand their motives and dilemmas, we are less harsh when judging them, so that Anna’s cheating, Vronsky’s persistence, and even Oblonsky’s cheating don’t seem so bad.
What I’ve learned is how hard it is to write a good novel. I’m very impressed by how observant Tolstoy is. While many people have trouble trying to put themselves in others’ shoes so that we can sympathize with them, Tolstoy writes a book in both a woman and a man’s perspective, and does a great job of it as far as I can tell. The scene after Levin proposes to Kitty is especially striking – he shows us How Levin, Kitty, Vronsky, and the Princess feels.
The concept of defamiliarization was a really interesting one to consider after not knowing about it earlier. What is the point of this unique perspective on events that are otherwise mundane? I don’t believe that Tolstoy has the same intention as Gogol – Gogol perverted the mundane in order to show an absurdity that presupposed the existentialist movement of the twentieth century. Tolstoy seems to use these unique perspectives to add weight and importance to these events, and that’s why we might liken Anna Karenina to a soap opera. Without being too anachronistic, however, I’d like to propose that this defamiliarization fits with Tolsoy’s later writing and ideas of Tolstoyan Socialism or Christian Anarchism (whichever you think it is). Tolstoy envisioned a society that was totally pacifist and able to overcome the chains of conventional society, and where every mundane moment – whether it was farming, talking to someone, or praying – would be imbued with immense gravity and joy. Perhaps in using this technique in this novel, Tolstoy is belying his own tendency to view others in a way that is romanticized and utopian. Even though the characters themselves are quite far away from living utopian lives, the fact that every moment can seem to mean so much to each of them is, I think, a recognition of the possibility that we are all self-aware enough to achieve some sort of utopia – I know this is what Tolstoy thinks.
Tolstoy’s technique of entering into everyone’s mind is not just about psychologizing his characters. Fully expressing the mental state of one character, and simultaneously exposing contradictory thoughts in another, is an expressive technique to defamiliarize the reader, in my opinion, from the very experience of reading. Think about Levin, for instance: first lovesick, he is moody, irritable, and uncooperative with his workers; then, once Kitty has finally accepted his proposal, he wanders the streets in a sleepless daze. The reader is privy to both of these mentalities, but strangers who run into him in the fictional, literary reality will be a bit bewildered, and won’t understand why he’s acting so out-of-character. He and Kitty are misunderstood in Tolstoy’s Russia construct because it takes a lot of interaction with the suffering characters (Stepan on Levin’s and Dolly on Kitty’s part) to diagnose the lovesickness that we, as omnipotent readers, comprehend from the get-go. Thus, the author unveils a reader’s position as an incredibly privileged one, defamiliarized from those of people in reality. Moreover, we are more careful to judge both real and fictional characters because we realize, potentially, that internal states may differ wildly from the way someone outwardly interacts with those unaware of these thoughts.
In contrast to what I understand Helena proposes as the strength of Tolstoy, Anna Karenina is not necessarily an interesting novel because we empathize or identify with one character or another. Rather, I see an uncanny power in the way every character’s whole self, flaws and all, is revealed. Tolstoy could easily have neglected Levin’s moodiness, jealousy, occasional superiority complex, uxoriousness, and so on, especially since this persona is based upon the author himself. We as readers are defamiliarized from these characters, if for any reason, precisely because we become disillusioned in our identification in them. They are depicted much truer or larger than life, I believe, because Tolstoy makes sure to expose or contextualize individualistic and prideful ideas; he shows everyone’s perceptions, in addition to the manner in which they are perceived. In reality, however, we have very little, if any, access to this kind of omniscient distance and mild humility about ourselves, which would permit us (if we had them) to admit those more negative qualities drawn out by our impression on and of others, or our opinion of our own selves.
By using the method of defamiliarization and allowing the reader to be omniscient, Tolstoy makes the reader become a part of this “soap opera” as it has been called previously. However, the reader is not just any ol’ character, but rather one that has been allowed into everyone else’s heads and who does, in fact, know everything, unlike all the other characters in the book. In a sense, this is the root of all soap operas; knowing too much or not knowing enough. The defamiliarization in Anna Karenina is yet another advantage to the reader; being able to know the inner thoughts of many of the characters allows the reader to know the character better, and this gives the reader an objective way to interpret the events in the story, disregarding the society, religion, and law that form the setting of the story. If this was one of Tolstoy’s intentions, then there is a contradiction: despite the multiple affairs that take place, Anna, the woman, seems to be the worst off. If she were a good, moral woman, she would have found satisfaction in her family and in the satisfaction of her husband, and she would never have fallen for Vronsky in the first place. Her suicide is her paying the price for her immorality.
I agree with Jacob- considering defamiliarization after reading the novel provides a whole new way to reflect upon the novel. Before, when I would think about the novel as a whole, I always came to the conclusion that Tolstoy is an absolute master of realism. I feel like every character in that book could walk right off the page and begin making decisions and forming relationships (even though the 21st century would probably confuse them at first). This realism is most certainly due to the fact that Tolstoy takes the time and space in his novel to break down judgments, decisions, and impressions that, had they occurred in real life, would have occurred in a split second. Tolstoy slows things down dramatically for the reader, which in turn defamiliarizes. I remember being struck by how frequently Tolstoy mentioned characters, especially Anna, “searching” the faces of others. My gut reaction was, “Huh. I don’t do that.” But in fact, I was just used to that action occurring in the blink of an eye and subconsciously. Tolstoy brought that phenomenon to consciousness- to MY consciousness- and it actually from time to time effects the way I interact with others. Well done, Tolstoy.