The purpose of the lesson:
Methodical methods:
Lesson equipment:
During the classes
I. Teacher's word
In the center of the novel L.N. Tolstoy - the life of several families, their history. The question arises: why, after the epic novel "War and Peace", dedicated to the study of the history of the people, their struggle, movement, Tolstoy turns to the study of private, family life?
Finishing "War and Peace", Tolstoy once quoted an old French proverb: "Happy peoples have no history." In Anna Karenina, the family story - "what happened after the marriage" - is filled with struggle, movement, dramatic tension.
As for happiness, it, as a special, exceptional state, "has no history." And marriage, family, life are not only happiness, but, as Tolstoy believed, “the wisest thing in the world”, “the most difficult and important thing in life”, which also has its own history.
View document content
"Family Thought" in the novel "Anna Karenina"
Lesson 3
"Family Thought" in the novel "Anna Karenina"
The purpose of the lesson: determine the meaning of "family thought" in the novel; develop the ability to analyze text.
Methodical methods: teacher's lecture; questions conversation.
Lesson equipment: portrait of L.N. Tolstoy by Kramskoy; edition of Anna Karenina.
During the classes
I. Teacher's word
In the center of the novel L.N. Tolstoy - the life of several families, their history. The question arises: why, after the epic novel "War and Peace", dedicated to the study of the history of the people, their struggle, movement, Tolstoy turns to the study of private, family life?
Finishing "War and Peace", Tolstoy once quoted an old French proverb: "Happy peoples have no history." In Anna Karenina, the family story - "what happened after the marriage" - is filled with struggle, movement, dramatic tension.
As for happiness, it, as a special, exceptional state, "has no history." And marriage, family, life are not only happiness, but, as Tolstoy believed, “the wisest thing in the world”, “the most difficult and important thing in life”, which also has its own history.
Thus, Tolstoy's "family thought" turns out to be connected with "people's thought".
Before talking about the embodiment of "family thought" in Tolstoy's novel, let us turn again to Pushkin's novel and try to find the origins of this thought.
II. Working with a group
Let us recall how Belinsky explained the actions and characters of Pushkin's heroes in the light of their relationship to the family.
(About Eugene Onegin, Belinsky writes: “If he could still be interested in the poetry of passion, then the poetry of marriage not only did not interest him, but was disgusting to him.” This largely explains the sermon that Onegin read to Tatyana in love: “No matter how much I loved If I get used to you, I’ll fall out of love immediately". As for Tatyana, in her character Belinsky was most struck by loyalty and attachment to the "family circle". A sense of family, a sense of duty, loyalty to this word do not allow Tatyana to respond to Onegin's awakened feelings, despite that she still loves him.)
Teacher. Tolstoy recalled an incident that happened to Pushkin. Once he said to one of his friends: “Imagine what a thing my Tatiana did to me! She got married. I never expected this from her." Tolstoy could say about the same about his heroine: “In general, my heroes and heroines sometimes do things that I would not want: they do what they have to do in real life and as it happens in real life, and not what I I want to".
Tolstoy in his novel gave full scope to both the "poetry of passion" and the "poetry of marriage", connecting them with his "family thought". He seemed to be thinking about what would have become of Pushkin's Tatyana if she had violated her duty. The fulfillment of the most passionate desires, requiring so many sacrifices, such a decisive disregard for the opinions of others, does not bring happiness to either Anna or Vronsky.
In Anna Karenina, in contrast to the idyllic idea of "family happiness", Tolstoy explores the phenomenon of family unhappiness. In one of the drafts, he wrote: “We like to imagine misfortune as something concentrated, an accomplished fact, while misfortune is never an event; and misfortune is life, a long, unhappy life, that is, a life in which the atmosphere of happiness remains, and happiness, the meaning of life, is lost.
How do you understand this idea of Tolstoy? Do you agree with her? What examples illustrate Tolstoy's idea of discord, of family unhappiness?
(The motive of general discord sounds throughout Tolstoy’s novel. This is especially noticeable precisely in a narrow, domestic, family circle. The novel opens with two phrases that can be considered as brief introductions. The first phrase: “All happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in my own way"–philosophical introduction, second: “Everything is mixed up in the Oblonsky house”–event-driven.
Misfortune, discord reigns in the Oblonskys' house: "All family members and household members felt that there was no point in their cohabitation and that at every inn people who accidentally came together were more connected to each other than they, family members and Oblonsky households." Anna is unhappy in the house of Karenin, who has entangled her in a "web of lies." She does not find happiness in life with Vronsky, the search for happiness, disappointment, despair lead her to tragedy, to death. Even in Levin's estate, in a seemingly happy family, a shadow of misunderstanding, discord, doubts glides, separating loved ones. The “family thought” takes on a special poignancy and becomes an alarming factor of the times.)
One of the early drafts of the novel was called Two Marriages. This theme remains in the novel.
How does Tolstoy portray the families of Karenin and Levin?
(It seems that the family stories of Anna and Levin are built in contrast: the unhappy Karenin is opposed to the happily married Levin. On the other hand, there is something in common between these heroes. Both of them are supporters of the indissolubility of marriage. But the Karenin family is being destroyed, despite his efforts to maintain at least the appearance prosperous family. Karenin bitterly realizes that love is no more. Tolstoy writes about him even sympathetically, considering his view of the family to be true. However, Karenin is helpless before the new trends of the times, before living life.
For Levin, "duties to the land, to the family" constitute something whole. But he, too, feels vague anxiety, is tormented by doubts, and realizes that the established course of life has been disrupted. Kitty plays the leading role in Levin's family history. She understands Levin, even guesses his thoughts (remember the scene of the explanation). They seem to be meant for each other. But Kitty is too selfish, and in accordance with this, she arranges life in Pokrovsky. She considers Levin's feelings, his inner life a matter of his conscience and does not try to delve into it. She keeps family happiness in her own way, not noticing that it gradually loses its inner content, the meaning of life is lost. Levin was increasingly captured by the idea of simplification, renunciation of property, a break with the nobility, "life according to conscience", and relations with his wife inevitably become more complicated.)
Teacher . The fate of the characters is dependent on family traditions. Karenin, Anna, Vronsky, who grew up practically outside the family (Karenin "grew up an orphan", Anna too; Vronsky was brought up in the Corps of Pages), could not create or maintain a real family. The Oblonsky family, although "unhappy", is held together thanks to Dolly. Dolly, like her sister Kitty, grew up in a "real" family, which helps Kitty build a family with Levin. Tolstoy emphasizes the leading position of a woman as the keeper of the hearth.
Karenin is unsuccessful in the role of the head of the family, Levin is unsuccessful in the "science of the economy." Just as Levin was looking for “simplification” in family life, so in household affairs he comes to the idea of renunciation: “It was a renunciation of his old life, of his useless knowledge.” The writer looked for the pledge and origins of the revival of the family principle in the life of the patriarchal peasantry. Levin, as it were, repeats the path of Tolstoy. Thus, the “folk thought” in Anna Karenina grows out of the grain of “family thought”.
III. Homework.
Select and analyze episodes related to the image of Konstantin Levin.
"Family Thought" in the novel in L. Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina"
Plan
I. The creative concept of the novel
1. History of creation
2. Predecessors of work
II. "Family Thought" in the novel
1. Tolstoy's views on the family
2. The development of the theme in the novel
III. Meaning of the novel
I . creative intent
1. History of creation
Happy is he who is happy at home
L.N. Tolstoy
"Anna Karenina" occupied the creative mind of the writer for more than four years. In the process of artistic implementation, its original design has undergone fundamental changes. From a novel about an "unfaithful wife", which at first bore the names "Two Marriages", "Two Fours", "Anna Karenina" turned into a major social novel, reflecting an entire era in the life of Russia in vivid typical images.
As early as the beginning of 1870, Tolstoy's creative mind outlined a story about a married woman "from high society, but who lost herself", and she was supposed to look "only pathetic and not guilty." Numerous ideas and plans that then occupied the writer, all the time distracted him from this plot. Only after writing "The Prisoner of the Caucasus", publishing the "ABC" and the final decision to refuse to continue the "Peter's novel", Tolstoy returned to the family plot that arose more than three years ago.
It is clear from the letters that Tolstoy himself imagined his new work to be rough-finished already in the spring of 1873. In fact, however, the work on the novel turned out to be much longer. New heroes, new episodes, events, themes and motives were introduced. The image of the title character underwent processing and rethinking, the individual characteristics of other characters were deepened and the emphasis in the author's assessment was shifted. This greatly complicated the plot and composition, led to a modification of the genre nature of the novel. As a result, the work stretched out for a whole four years - until the middle of 1877. During this time, twelve editions of the novel were formed. From January 1875, the publication of Anna Karenina began in the Russky Vestnik magazine, and in 1878 the novel was published as a separate edition.
Initially, the work was conceived as a family-household novel. In a letter to N. Strakhov, Tolstoy says that this is his first novel of this kind. The statement is not accurate: Tolstoy's first experience in the genre of a family novel, as you know, was Family Happiness. The main, basic idea that Tolstoy loved and strove to embody artistically in his new novel was "a family thought." It arose and took shape at an early stage in the creation of Anna Karenina. This thought determined the theme and content of the novel, the relationship between the characters and the essence of the novel conflict, the dramatic intensity of the action, the main plot line and the genre form of the work. The atmosphere surrounding the characters was of an intimate chamber character. The social space of the novel looked extremely narrow.
Tolstoy soon felt that within the framework of the family plot he was cramped. And, continuing to develop the same plot situation - about a "woman who has lost herself", Tolstoy gave the story about the intimate experiences of the characters a deep socio-philosophical meaning, an important topical social sound.
Tolstoy always responded to the demands of modernity with extraordinary sensitivity. In the previous epic novel, there was only "the secret presence of modernity"; the novel "Anna Karenina" is burningly modern in terms of material, problems and the whole artistic conception. As the novel's plot unfolds with increasing tension, Tolstoy "captures" and introduces into the narrative many questions that worried both the author himself and his contemporaries. This is not only family relations, but also social, economic, civil, and generally human. All the most important aspects and phenomena of modernity in their real complexity, intricacy and mutual cohesion are fully and vividly reflected in Anna Karenina. Each of those families that are depicted in the novel is naturally and organically included in the life of society, in the movement of the era: the private life of people appears in close connection with historical reality and in causation by it.
In its final form, "Anna Karenina" became a socio-psychological novel, retaining, however, all the qualities and genre features of a family novel. Being a multi-problem work, the novel "Anna Karenina" acquired the features of a modern epic - a comprehensive narrative about the fate of the people as a whole, about the state of Russian society in a difficult, critical period of existence for it, about the future of the country, nation, Russia.
The time of action in Anna Karenina is synchronous with the time of the creation of the novel. This is the post-reform era, more precisely: the 70s of the XIX century with an excursion into the previous decade. This is a period of greatly shaken and "turned over" Russian social reality, when the end of the patriarchal immobility of Russia has come.
Tolstoy expressively and aptly defined the essence of the fundamental changes that have taken place and are taking place in the words of Konstantin Levin: "... now that all this has turned upside down and is only just fitting in, the question of how these conditions will fit, there is only one important question in Russia ...".
Tolstoy's heroes live and act at the very beginning of this period, when life put before them "all the most complex and insoluble questions." What answer would be given to them, neither the writer himself, nor his double Levin, nor the other heroes of Anna Karenina had any clear idea. There was a lot of obscure, incomprehensible and therefore disturbing. One thing was visible: everything had moved from its place, and everything was in motion, on the road, on the way. And the image of the train that appears more than once in the novel, as it were, symbolizes the historical movement of the era. In the running and roar of the train - the noise, roar and rapid run of time, era. And no one knew whether the direction of this movement was determined correctly, whether the destination station was chosen correctly.
The crisis, turning point of the post-reform era appears in Tolstoy's novel not only as a historical and social background, against which graphically clearly “drawn” characters rich in realistic colors appear, frames of a dramatic narrative run and the tragic denouement of the main conflict takes place, but this is that living, objective a given reality in which the heroes are constantly immersed and which surrounds them everywhere and everywhere. And since they all breathe the air of their era and feel its “tremors”, each shows a characteristic imprint of the “shattered” time - anxiety and anxiety, self-doubt and distrust of people, a premonition of a possible catastrophe.
The era was reflected more in the emotions of the heroes of the novel than in their minds. Tolstoy, in all complexity, completeness and artistic truth, recreated the social, moral and family atmosphere, saturated with lightning charges, which, either explicitly and directly, or most often indirectly and covertly, affects the state of mind of his characters, their subjective world, psyche and stock. thoughts, on the general moral character of people. Hence the intensity of experiences and the intensity of human passions that the most significant heroes of Anna Karenina live by, their sharp reaction - positive or negative - to what is happening in life, the intricacies of their relationship.
2. Predecessors of work
Tolstoy's literary activity after "War and Peace" is characterized mainly by two trends: the expansion of sociality and the deepening of psychologism. The social scope of phenomena has expanded significantly and become more diverse, and the psychological analysis of human nature has deepened. This process was interdependent.
While writing the last pages of the epic novel, Tolstoy, despite the fact that he had been working to the point of exhaustion for more than six years, felt the need to turn to new themes and images. Already in the autumn of 1869, when the last point had not yet been put in the manuscript of "War and Peace" and the chapters of the epilogue were being printed, Tolstoy had the idea of writing a "folk novel". To the creative imagination of the writer, this novel was generally presented as an epic narrative based on the material, motives and images of oral folk art, in particular on epics. The protagonists of the novel Tolstoy was going to make epic Russian heroes, among whom Ilya Muromets was seen as the main character, only significantly updated and mentally transferred to the present: this is a Russian intelligent person of the middle of the century, widely educated, well aware of modern philosophical systems, currents and schools and at the same time closely connected with the folk origins of life.
However, the idea of a "folk novel" was soon supplanted by another - a historical novel from the Petrine era. Tolstoy began writing a novel about Peter I and the people of his time at the very beginning of 1870 and, sometimes briefly breaking away for new urgent literary and social affairs, continued to work for almost three years. But this novel, too, had to be shelved. The writer himself explained the reason for this as follows: "... I found it difficult for me to penetrate the souls of the people of that time, before they are not like us." There was, apparently, another important reason: the deeper Tolstoy penetrated into the personality of Peter I, comprehended the originality of his moral character and the essence of his practical deeds, the more he felt antipathy for the tsar as a person and a statesman. He was repelled in Peter by cruelty and buffoonery. Later, Tolstoy will say unequivocally: "Tsar Peter was very far from me." Be that as it may, the novel about Peter remained unwritten; numerous sketches of individual chapters have been preserved, including over thirty variants of the beginning of the novel.
When the first sketches of the future "Peter's" novel were being made, Tolstoy gradually began to think over the plan for a book for children's reading and elementary education of children, and at the same time began the preliminary collection of materials. The educational book conceived by Tolstoy, called the ABC, went out of print at the end of 1872. Three years later, Tolstoy, having significantly altered the ABC, updated and supplemented its content and, dividing it into two halves, published two separate books - The New ABC and Russian Books for Reading (1875). At the very height of work on the ABC, Tolstoy wrote to one of his friends: “My proud dreams about this alphabet are as follows: only two generations of Russians, all children from royal to peasants, will learn from this alphabet, and they will get their first poetic impressions from it, and that By writing this ABC, I can die in peace.
"ABC" was an educational and pedagogical book: it is both a school manual for primary school students, and a kind of collection of literary texts and popular science articles, that is, something like an anthology. The ABC is divided into four books, each of which in turn consists of four sections: first comes the material for reading exercises, then the texts in Church Slavonic, then the initial information on arithmetic and the natural sciences, and finally the methodological instructions for teachers . Author's advice and instructions addressed to teachers and containing an originally developed methodology for teaching writing and counting, and numerous article-stories on physics, astronomy and natural science, and works of art proper - everything in this book was written or radically reworked by Tolstoy himself. Considering that the ABC has about eight hundred pages, it is easy to imagine what a colossal work the writer spent on its creation.
The purpose of the "ABC", intended mainly for peasant children and the broad masses of the people, who are just joining the primary education, determined the characteristic features of the artistic form of the literary works included in it. They, as a rule, are small in volume and are built on an entertaining and instructive plot, they are distinguished by the utmost conciseness of the narration, clear composition, clarity and simplicity of the author's language and dialogic speech. In the "alphabetic" stories there is neither that in-depth Tolstoyan psychologism, which is called the "dialectic of the soul", nor the syntactically complex construction of the phrase, nor the difficult vocabulary. Poetics, style, language - everything in the "ABC" is new compared to what and how Tolstoy wrote in the previous twenty years. But to his confession, he decisively changed the former "methods of his writing and language." Speaking about new methods of writing and deliberately polemically sharpening his thoughts, Tolstoy declared at the beginning of 1872 that he now did not write and would never again write such "long-winded rubbish" as "War and Peace". Now he strictly demands that in a literary work "everything should be beautiful, short, simple and, most importantly, clear." As for his own "alphabet" stories, Tolstoy sees their artistic merit "in the simplicity and clarity of drawing and stroke, i.e. language."
It was these qualities - the simplicity, conciseness and dynamism of the narrative - that Tolstoy at that time discovered in Russian folklore, and in Pushkin's prose, and in ancient literature. "... Songs, fairy tales, epics," Tolstoy wrote in March 1872, "everything simple will be read as long as there is a Russian language." And further: "... the language that the people speak and in which there are sounds to express everything that a poet may wish to say, is dear to me<...>I just love the definite, clear and beautiful and moderate, and I find all this in folk poetry and language and life, and the opposite in ours. "According to the testimony of the writer's wife, Lev Nikolayevich was carried away by the dream of" superfluous, like all ancient Greek literature, like Greek art". It is known that Tolstoy knew ancient literature and ancient art perfectly, and in order to read the works of ancient authors in the original, from the end of 1870 he began to independently study the Greek language and within three months mastered them to perfection.
The model of those “techniques and language” that Tolstoy at that time began to use in his work and also intended to use in the future when writing works not only for children, but also “for adults”, the writer himself recognized the story “Prisoner of the Caucasus” ( 1872). The story was written specifically for the "ABC". Executed in a new stylistic manner, this work was an outstanding artistic creation of Tolstoy in the early 70s. With the story “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” and the cycle of stories in the “ABC”, Tolstoy laid the foundation for realistic prose for children in Russian literature.
Simultaneously with writing the ABC, Tolstoy devoted much energy and talent to the cause of public education and school-pedagogical activity, which he resumed after a ten-year break. Tolstoy considered it his duty as a writer and a man to provide energetic practical assistance to make the entire population of Russia literate, to introduce the entire people - and, above all, of course, the peasantry - to education and culture. He was convinced that in Russia the cause of educating the masses of the people can and should "be put on a footing that it does not stand on and has not stood anywhere in Europe." Tolstoy devoted an article to this vitally important problem, "On Public Education" (1874), which was published in Nekrasov's "Notes of the Fatherland". The article sparked a lively discussion. In the Yasnaya Polyana estate, Tolstoy opened a school in January 1872. Classes with students were conducted by the whole family - both Lev Nikolayevich himself and his children Seryozha, Tanya, Ilya.
Tolstoy was alarmed by the abnormal situation in which, due to poverty and widespread illiteracy, undoubtedly talented people are dying among the Russian people! They need to be saved as soon as possible, in every possible way to help him show his natural abilities. At the end of 1874, Tolstoy wrote: “I don’t reason, but when I enter a school and see this crowd of ragged, dirty, thin children, with their bright eyes and so often angelic expressions, anxiety, horror, like the one that I would experience at the sight of drowning people. Ah, fathers, how to pull it out, and who before, who was too tired to pull out. And here the most precious thing sinks, precisely that spirituality, which is so obviously evident in children. I want education for the people only in order to save those Pushkins, Ostrogradskys, Filarets, Lomonosovs drowning there. And they are teeming with every school.” These thoughts and moods, which did not give the writer a day of rest, permeated his greatest work of art of the 70s - the novel "Anna Karenina".
II . "Family Thought" in the novel
1. Tolstoy's views on the family
The family has always been and will be the “ontological” center of any social and personal upheavals and cataclysms: wars, revolutions, betrayals, quarrels, enmity, as well as peace, love, goodness, joy, etc. Tolstoy himself called his "family experience" "subjective and universal." He considered the family model of human relations as a universal, universally significant basis of brotherhood, love, forgiveness, etc., since it is to relatives that we tend to forgive, endure insults from them, forget the evil they have caused and pity them for this evil, because kinship itself, life together itself turns their “evil” into their “weakness”, the inability to be kind, makes us, as it were, “participants” in this “evil”, since a morally normal person simply cannot help but feel guilty that a person close to him is “bad”.
And at the same time, only within the framework of family life, kinship ties can there be obvious deviations from the “law of love”, flagrant violations of the principles of humanity and morality, which in other situations do not look so shocking (for example, the son’s envy of his father, from which Tolstoy suffered, the wife's hatred for her husband, etc.), when with good reason it can be said that "the enemies of a man are his household." And Tolstoy deeply experienced all these situations, knowing both aggressiveness, and cunning, and the variety of such evil. Remaining in the family until the last days of his life, Tolstoy acted consistently and on principle. His life in the conditions of contrast of luxury and poverty, slavery and freedom, "hatred" and "love" proceeded in the most tense, central space of a person's moral existence. Neither war, nor exile, nor social disasters, etc. could not give him as much experience of contact with the vices of life as "family war", "family exile" and "family trouble" gave.
In the family, a person is born and dies; his whole life passes in it. Here, for the first time, he encounters the requirements of the "general", goes through the first school of relations with people and learns with complete obviousness to irrefutable certainty that his happiness is inseparable from the happiness of others and that others are himself.
Tolstoy was convinced that "the human race develops only in the family." Consequently, its destruction in his eyes was fraught with the most terrible consequences for all mankind. The family is the basis, the source of both the genus and the personality. It is necessary for the existence of both "general" and "personal". If the "general" - the human race, the people, society, the state - cannot do without the family, then the individual, according to Tolstoy, lives a full, serious life only in the family. A general need in the form of a deep personal need. And the writer's contemporaries lost the proper understanding of the family, its deepest significance in the life of an individual and society.
2. The development of the theme in the novel
Tolstoy gives a number of views on the family in the novel. Yashvin and Katavasov are episodic heroes, but with their own definite and characteristic views on marriage. Both look at the family as a hindrance to something more important: one - playing cards, the other - science. For Serpukhovsky, a young, prosperous general, "marriage is the only means with comfort without interference to love and do one's job." And finally, the attitude towards family life of secular youth, to which Vronsky belongs, is most fully developed. He and his friends see in it something base, prosaically boring, the lot of gray and ordinary people. Tolstoy showed in the novel many very different people: Oblonsky, Yashvin, Katavasov, Serpukhovskaya, Vronsky, Petritsky, who treat the family as a secondary matter. Moreover, their views on the family are not theoretical, but purely practical. The characters are guided by them in life, so their beliefs are real, albeit incorrect, from the point of view of the author. They create a spiritual atmosphere pointing to the deep troubles of modern society, which was tragically expressed most clearly in the fate of Anna Karenina.
Tolstoy's "family thought" is revealed in a complex combination of all episodes, events, descriptions of heroes, but still its core is formed by two storylines: Anna - Vronsky, Kitty - Levin. It should not be forgotten that, although the novel is named after one heroine, her story takes up only about a third of the entire volume of the work. Levin, who has no direct relation to the fate of Anna, is given no less attention than she is.
The stories of the heroes obviously develop in parallel and in different directions: Kitty and Levin come from disappointment and difficult experiences to lasting and calm family happiness. Anna and Vronsky are steadily and inevitably moving towards tragedy. The relationship between Kitty and Levin is life, the relationship between Anna and Vronsky develops under the sign of death. “How happy it turned out for Kitty then that Anna came,” said Dolly, “and how unfortunate for her. Quite the contrary,” she added, struck by her thought. Anna was so happy then, and Kitty considered herself unhappy. How quite the opposite!" On the contrary, why? On the contrary, the ideas of happiness and good that prevail in society. The reason for the opposite fate of the heroes is their different attitude towards family and marriage. These views do not collide in the public arena of disputes and disputes, and therefore it is impossible, fundamentally impossible, for an eventual, plot connection between the two lines. But the essence of the views of the heroes is fully revealed by their life, their fate. Here Tolstoy follows the philosophical traditions of the Russian realistic novel: Pushkin, Lermontov, Goncharov, Turgenev. Just like his predecessors and contemporaries, the author of Anna Karenina shows the impact of the environment on a person, using the same methods of arranging positive and negative principles: exploring how good, honest, just people violate the moral law.
The marriage of Anna and Karenin - this is quite obvious - was almost accidental for her and involuntary for her husband, and for both of them, one of those marriages that are rarely lasting and do not give people happiness, because they are made without the active participation of the heart. without mutual love. About such marriages, Anna herself would later hear frequent conversations in the salon of Betsy Tverskaya. The envoy's wife expressed a view widespread in secular society: feelings, passions are not needed for a happy marriage, love is not needed. “I know happy marriages only by reason,” said the envoy's wife. Vronsky, who participated in the dispute, objected to this: “Yes, but how often the happiness of marriages according to reason scatters like dust precisely because that same passion appears that was not recognized ...”. This is exactly what happened in the Karenin family.
Anna and Alexei Karenin lived together for eight years, but very little is said about their married life in the novel, and the first years of their marriage are not mentioned at all. It is not known, for example, how long Anna was the "governor" in the provinces and when she and her husband moved to St. Petersburg. Having settled in the capital, Anna freely and easily entered the highest aristocratic society. She was given access to three different circles of select persons of the St. Petersburg world, where, according to the author, she "had friends and close ties." One consisted of high-ranking government officials who were closely associated with Karenin and therefore often visited his house, but this "service, official circle of her husband" was rather boring, and Anna avoided him whenever possible. With much greater willingness, Anna appeared in that circle, the center of which was Countess Lidia Ivanovna; Anna usually came there accompanied by her husband, who highly valued the countess. Anna was especially closely connected with the people of the "croquet party" - with the circle of Princess Betsy of Tver. Anna was introduced to this salon, which united the cream of Petersburg society, by its mistress, Princess Betsy, who was a distant relative of Anna - the wife of her cousin - and was Vronsky's cousin. Anna willingly and often visited this salon, which later became the place of her meetings with Vronsky.
Obviously, Anna, in marriage, indulged in the usual secular entertainments and pleasures, for which she had a lot of free time. But she did not resemble the young ladies and ladies of St. Petersburg society in that she was distinguished by her modesty of behavior and unconditional marital fidelity. Although there was something "false in the whole warehouse of their family life", outwardly, Anna's life with Karenin looked quite prosperous, monotonously calm, as they say, without storms and upheavals. Anna had a child, and she sincerely took up the upbringing of her Seryozha, whom she loved very much. She was strict about the duties and duties of her wife, and Karenin had no reason or reason for distrusting her, for jealousy and family scenes. In the part of the novel that deals with Anna before her betrayal of her husband, there is not even a mention of clashes between them, quarrels, mutual reproaches and insults, and even more so, hatred for each other. It is not clear that Karenin was faithful to her during the years of their marriage. In a word, for the time being, Anna decidedly did not express any dissatisfaction with her family life with Karenin, her fate and her position in secular society.
Karenin is far from being an ideal husband, and he was not a match for her. But all the same, one should not forget that harsh, pejorative and annihilating judgments came to Anna's mind after her betrayal of Karenin and that her words were dictated by hatred for him, which was born of a flared passion for Vronsky. Accusing her husband that he does not know what love is, does not know at all whether it exists in the world, Anna is silent about the fact that she herself, honestly and conscientiously fulfilling marital duties, also had no concept of love for a long time, until Vronsky awakened this feeling in her.
And just at this time - at the moment of sharp upheavals of her soul and the subsequent abrupt change in her behavior, views and lifestyle - Anna appears before the reader in all her proud beauty and female charm.
Often in critical literature one can find an opinion about Vronsky as a person unworthy of Anna's high love, which they see as the main reason for the death of the heroine. But Tolstoy, without idealizing Vronsky in the least, nevertheless writes that he was a man "with a very kind heart." Charm, beauty, justice, Anna's spiritual and intellectual originality are beyond any doubt. From here, thought most often follows a stable path: all the best perishes and must perish in this accursed world of bourgeois hypocrisy and lies. Indeed, how many novels do we know that tell about obstacles in the way of lovers suffering from broken hopes. In Anna Karenina, a tragic situation develops after and as a result of the fulfillment of the wishes of the characters. The center of gravity is shifted from courtship, rivalry, the expectation of love to the depiction of the life of lovers.
If, for example, in Turgenev's novels the hero is tested by love, by the ability to take one decisive step toward an explanation with his beloved, then in Tolstoy the essence of the hero is revealed in family life, in the process, and not in the moment. In the works that tell about the hero's desire for love, happiness is presented as the fulfillment of desire, and the rest of life, as it were, is deprived of value and meaning. Tolstoy polemically rejected such a view as distorting the essence of a person's life path. According to the author of Anna Karenina, the life time of a person, so beloved by novelists, is not yet life, but only the threshold of it. For the writer, the most responsible and serious period begins when the lovers, united, lead a life together, it is then that a person is revealed and the true price of his ideals and beliefs is revealed.
Undoubtedly, society is to blame for the tragedy of the heroine, but not in the hypocritical condemnation of Anna's connection with Vronsky, but in the actual encouragement of her. As in the novels of Russian writers, Anna Karenina analyzes the impact of social ideals on a person and his fate. Tolstoy's personality has several levels, and the true essence, its core, determining actions and deeds, is not fully realized by the hero. The ideals of the heroes do not become the subject of reflection, discussion, and disputes. They are not theoretical, but organic in nature and are perceived by the heroes as something indisputable, true and poetic, which is recognized by all advanced, real people.
"Vronsky never knew family life" - this is how the chapter tells about his attitude towards Kitty. The phrase is key to the image of the hero, defining and explaining the love story of Vronsky and Anna. It is here that we must look for the origins of the tragedy of these heroes.
Vronsky did not receive a true and although elementary, but most necessary, according to Tolstoy, education in the family. That education that introduces a person to the spiritual foundations of life, not with the help of books, educational institutions, but through direct communication with his mother, father, brothers. He did not go through the primary school of human education, where the foundation of personality is laid. “Marriage was never an option for him. He not only did not like family life, but in the family, and especially in her husband, according to the general view of the bachelor world in which he lived, he imagined something alien, hostile, and most of all, funny.
Tolstoy, following the precepts of the Russian realistic novel, spoke about the upbringing of the hero, which formed the core of his personality, which is made up of sympathies, antipathies, and most importantly, what he loves. Only the upbringing of two heroes - Levin and Vronsky - is reported in the novel, which indicates their special significance for revealing and understanding the tragedy of the main character. The contrast of the beginnings in which Levin and Vronsky were brought up determines the different directions of their life paths.
Tolstoy does not tell in detail how they were brought up, what books they read, who were their teachers and tutors. He reports only one thing, the most important and essential - about the family atmosphere and about the attitude of Levin and Vronsky to their parents, and above all to mothers. Vronsky "in his soul did not respect his mother and, without realizing it, did not love her ...". For Levin, the concept of a mother was "a sacred memory, and his future wife should have been in his imagination a repetition of that lovely, holy ideal of a woman, which was for him a mother." The line connecting the image of the mother with the wife was drawn by Tolstoy clearly and definitely. Maternal love, which has fallen to the lot of a child, forms a true, deep and serious attitude towards a woman. “He (Levin) not only could not imagine love for a woman without marriage, but he first imagined a family, and then that woman who would give him a family.” And if the general, theoretical views of the heroes of the novel change easily and sometimes even imperceptibly for themselves, then the feelings taken from childhood form a solid foundation of personality. By their very nature, theoretical views must change, develop, and Tolstoy lived just in the era when the emergence and development of ideas in Russia made a qualitative leap, when the abundance, inconsistency and their rapid change became a new phenomenon in Russian public life. And in understanding the family as an institution invariably necessary for humanity, a person had to be guided by a reliable, in the eyes of the writer, means - a feeling acquired in life experience. After all, Tolstoy was convinced: "A person fully knows something only by his life ... This is the highest or, rather, the deepest knowledge."
Vronsky was deprived of that positive experience of a happy life in a family that Levin had. Vronsky's mother blamed Karenina for her son's misfortunes, but in reality the blame lay more on her own. “His mother (Vronsky) was a brilliant secular woman in her youth, who had during her marriage, and especially after, many novels known to the whole world.” The image of the mother, the feeling of the family received by Levin in childhood, guided him in life. Why was he so sure that happiness was achievable? Because he already had it. What should be the family, how to build relationships between husband, wife, children? Levin knew the exhaustive answers to these questions - the way his mother and father built them. Seriously ill, homeless, wandering around hotels, Nikolai conjures his brother: “Look, don’t change anything in the house, but rather get married and start the same thing again.”
The "deepest knowledge", acquired by the heroes in childhood, largely predetermined their fate, gave rise to a special system of feelings in each. Tolstoy shows how what was embedded in the feelings of the characters unfolds into fate.
Levin and Vronsky - each in his own way experiences, feels his love. These are, as it were, two different, mutually exclusive kinds of love that do not understand and are completely closed to each other.
Vronsky's love closes him in on himself, separating him from people and the outside world, and, in fact, impoverishes him. If before he “amazed and excited people he did not know with his appearance of unshakable calmness, now ... he seemed even more proud and self-sufficient. He looked at people as if they were things.<...>Vronsky saw nothing and no one. He felt like a king, not because he believed that he had made an impression on Anna - he still did not believe this - but because the impression that she made on him gave him happiness and pride.
Tolstoy, even speaking about the feelings of the hero, not only conveys them, but carefully analyzes them. It shows the strength, the attractiveness of Vronsky's feelings and at the same time reveals their egoistic essence, although it does not have anything repulsive or sinister in its real form. Tolstoy's main subject of depiction and research is human relationships, which puts an ethical assessment at the center of his artistic world. And it is present even in the description of the love feelings of the characters, in an implicit, hidden form. Let us note the percussion words from the above passage that carry the ethical meaning: “proud, self-sufficient”, “looked at people as if they were things”, “saw nothing and no one”, “felt like a king”. In Tolstoy's world, a person, remaining alone with himself, experiencing the most personal, deeply intimate feeling, reveals himself in relation to all people.
The ethical attitude of the author of "Anna Karenina" in the analysis of Vronsky's love experiences is fully clarified by comparing them with the feelings of Levin, who was in a special state of mind after declaring his love to Kitty. “It was remarkable for Levin that they (the people around him) were all visible to him now, and by small, previously imperceptible signs, he recognized the soul of everyone, and clearly saw that they were all kind.” True love makes a person wiser. Levin is not in a state of enthusiasm, intoxication, when the illusion of a beautiful world arises, but in a state of insight, revealing what was hidden from him before. In Vronsky, who fell in love with Anna, interest in people and the world around him decreases, the world seems to disappear for him, and he is completely absorbed by a sense of contentment and pride in himself.
In parallel to the tragic fate of Anna with her unhappy family life, Tolstoy draws the happy family life of Levin and Kitty. This is where the various plot lines of the novel are brought together.
The image of Kitty belongs to the best female images of Russian literature. The meek, truthful eyes, in which the childish clarity and kindness of her soul were expressed, gave her a special charm. Kitty longed for love as a reward for her beauty and attractiveness, she was completely seized by young girlish dreams, the hope of happiness. But Vronsky's betrayal undermined her faith in people, she was now inclined to see only one bad thing in all their actions.
On the waters, Kitty meets Varenka and perceives her at first as the embodiment of moral perfection, as the ideal of a girl living some other, hitherto unfamiliar life. She learns from Varenka that, in addition to "instinctive life," there is a "spiritual life" based on religion, but not an official religion connected with rituals, but a religion of lofty feelings, a religion of self-sacrifice in the name of love for others; and Kitty became attached to her new friend with all her heart, she, like Varenka, helped the unfortunate, looked after the sick, read the gospel to them.
Here Tolstoy sought to poeticize the religion of "universal" love and moral self-improvement. He tries to show that only on the path of turning to the gospel can one save oneself, get rid of the power of the “instincts” of the body and move on to a higher life, “spiritual”. Varenka lives such a life. But this "creature without youth", devoid of the "restrained fire of life", was like "a beautiful ... but already faded, odorless flower." Both an even attitude towards people, and outward calmness, and her “tired smile” testified that Varenka was deprived of strong vital passions: she did not even know how to laugh, but only “limp” with laughter. “She is all spiritual,” Kitty says of Varenka. Rationality suppressed in her all normal human feelings. Levin contemptuously calls Varenka a "holy man." And indeed, all her “love” for her neighbors was artificial and concealed the absence in her of a calling to real, earthly human love.
Kitty, of course, did not and could not become a second Varenka, she was too devoted to life and quickly felt the “pretense” of all these “virtuous” Varenek and Madame Stahl with their “fictitious” love for their neighbors: “All this is not that, not that !..” She says to Varenka: “I can’t live otherwise than according to my heart, but you live by the rules. I fell in love with you simply, and you, right, only to save me, to teach me! Thus Kitty condemned the deadness and unnaturalness of Varenka, who at first seemed to her ideal. She was cured of her moral illness and again felt all the charm of real life, not driven into any artificial "rules".
In subsequent episodes of the novel (an unexpected meeting of the carriage in which Kitty was riding, Kitty's meeting with Levin at Stiva's, an explanation, a new proposal, a wedding), the writer reveals the full power of his heroine's spiritual charm. The chapter devoted to the wedding is imbued with Tolstoy's deep sympathy for the girl's fate and the girl's dreams of happiness, which life often smashed so ruthlessly. The women present in the church recalled their weddings, were sad that the hopes for happiness for many of them did not come true. Dolly thought of herself, remembered Anna, who, just as nine years ago, “stood clean in orange flowers and a veil. Now what? In the remark of a simple woman: “Whatever you say, I feel sorry for our sister,” expresses the mournful thoughts of millions of women who, in a privately owned society, could not find true happiness.
In the very first days of her family life, Kitty took up housekeeping, "merrily making her future nest." Levin mentally reproached her that “she has no serious interests. No interest in my business, in the household, in the peasants, or in music, in which she is quite strong, or in reading. She does nothing and is completely satisfied” (19:55). Tolstoy, however, defends his heroine from these reproaches and "condemns" Levin, who did not yet understand that she was preparing for an important and responsible period of her life, when "she will be at the same time the wife of her husband, the mistress of the house, will wear, feed and educate children. And in view of this “terrible work” ahead of her, she had the right to moments of carelessness and the happiness of love.
After Kitty's birth - "the greatest event in a woman's life" - Levin, barely holding back his sobs, knelt and kissed his wife's hand, he was immensely happy. “The whole world of women, which received a new meaning for him, unknown to him after he got married, now rose so high in his concepts that he could not embrace it with his imagination.”
The cult of the woman-mother underlies the image of Darya Aleksandrovna Oblonskaya. Dolly in her youth was as attractive and beautiful as her sister Kitty. But the years of marriage have changed her beyond recognition. She sacrificed all her physical and mental strength for the love of her husband and children. Steve's betrayal shook her to the core, she could no longer love him as before, all the interests of her life now focused on children. Dolly was "happy" with her children and "proud of them", here she saw the source of her "glory" and her "greatness". The tenderness and pride of a mother for her children, her touching concern for their health, her sincere grief when they committed bad deeds - that is what determined Dolly's spiritual life.
But one day, quiet, modest and loving Dolly, exhausted by many children, household chores, her husband's infidelity, thought about her life, about the future of her children, and for a moment envied Anna and other women who, as it seemed to her, did not know any torment, but enjoyed life. She thought that she could live like these childless women, not knowing the bitterness of life; but already the confession of the young woman at the inn, who said that she was glad for the death of her child - "God unleashed" - seemed to her "disgusting". And when Anna declared that she did not want to have children, Dolly "with an expression of disgust on her face" answered her: "This is not good." She was horrified by the immorality of her judgments and felt her deep alienation from Anna. Dolly realized that she had lived correctly, and her whole past life appeared before her "in a new radiance." So this "very prosaic", according to Vronsky's concepts, a woman revealed her moral superiority over the "poetic" world of Vronsky - Anna.
Such Tolstoy heroines as Natasha Rostova, Marya Bolkonskaya, Dolly, Kitty, carry a lot of charm, they captivate with their true femininity, fidelity to marital duty, they are good mothers - and this is the positive content of the best female images of Tolstoy.
So, we see two forces, completely different and, moreover, opposing: the brute force of public opinion and the internal moral law. It is the latter that is personified in God, and for the violation of his person, an inevitable punishment befalls, which is expressed in the epigraph to the novel: “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.” Whether we understand by “az” a person who has broken the law and punishes himself for this, or a god punishing the criminal, both will be true. The point is not that Anna cannot be subject to human judgment, since people are weak and sinful, but that their judgment is an insufficient and unreliable legal authority. Social ideals change, have a historical character, and therefore cannot guide a person in what, according to Tolstoy, bears the stamp of eternity.
The society depicted in the novel is hostile to the spiritual and moral nature of man; it did not condemn, but loved adultery. No one in their hearts condemned either Anna or Vronsky, or sympathized with Karenin. The lawyer, to whom Karenin turned for advice on a divorce, could not hide his joy. “The lawyer’s gray eyes tried not to laugh, but they jumped with uncontrollable joy, and Alexei Alexandrovich saw that there was more than one joy of a person receiving a profitable order - there was triumph and delight, there was a brilliance similar to that ominous brilliance that he seen in the eyes of his wife. The feeling of a lawyer who has learned about the misfortune of a client is involuntary, it comes from the very depths of his being, it is real. And this joy is universal. Karenin noticed "in all these acquaintances a hard-to-disguise joy of something." Everyone rejoices at Karenin's misfortune and hates him because he is unhappy. “He knew that for this, for the very fact that his heart was tormented, they would be merciless towards him. He felt that people would destroy him, just as dogs would strangle a tormented, squealing dog in pain. The protection of the family, which for millennia has been the source of life and the school of mankind, cannot be entrusted to transient state institutions or public opinion. The family is preserved by a more powerful and completely inevitable force - the inner nature of man, the absolutized form of which is God.
III . Meaning of the novel
“Family Thought” is not only the theme of “Anna Karenina”, but also an edification. An edification about what a family should be, and since the family is connected with the house, this is also an edification about the house. Let's read the famous beginning of the novel. In the very first phrase, the word "family" will meet. The next noun is "house". Next come "wife" and "husband". And the vengeance of the epigraph hovers over these main characters.
The "thought of the people" in "War and Peace" was revealed as patience, fortitude, non-violence. Revenge is out of the question both from the point of view of Karataev and from the point of view of Kutuzov and Bolkonsky. “Do not think that people have made grief. People are His instrument, - says Princess Marya in War and Peace. “We have no right to punish.”
According to M.S. Sukhotin, Tolstoy himself defined the meaning of the epigraph to the novel "Anna Karenina" in this way: "... I chose this epigraph ... to express the idea that something bad that a person does has as its consequence everything bitter that comes not from people, but from God, and what Anna Karenina also experienced.
"War and Peace" is a doctrine of non-violence, and the novel "Anna Karenina" is a work of art about modernity, which does not pretend to be a comprehensive doctrine of life, but is instructive in one issue - home and family. However, in these two works, the common idea is that he who raises the sword brings misfortune first of all on himself. In War and Peace, this is Napoleon. In "Anna Karenina" - the main character. And the sword she raised - it is her unwillingness to endure, her challenge to fate. She put her passion above everything else. For which she paid.
Tolstoy appeared in Anna Karenina, as in the epic novel, as a brilliant realist artist. Tolstoy called his creative method, which he used to recreate reality in Anna Karenina, "bright realism" (62, p. 139). The realism of images, in the system of which the truth about a person and an era is captured, life authenticity, genuine psychological depth and a variety of uniquely vivid characters, the dynamism of action and the sharpness of conflict situations, the social richness of the content, the philosophical intensity of reflections on modernity and life in general - this is what distinguishes Tolstoy's novel and makes him an outstanding phenomenon of Russian and world realistic art.
The novel "Anna Karenina", according to Dostoevsky, is "perfection as a work of art<...>with which nothing similar from European literature in the present era can be compared. In the creator of this novel, Dostoevsky saw "the extraordinary height of the artist" whose equal cannot be found in modern literature. Of exceptional importance. spiritual enrichment and development of the self-consciousness of Russian society and all of humanity have those social, philosophical, moral and ethical ideas that Tolstoy pursues with such passion and artistic persuasiveness in his novel: “People like the author of Anna Karenina are the essence of the teacher of society, our teachers, and we are only their students...”, wrote Dostoevsky.
Anna Karenina is the greatest social and at the same time family psychological novel of the 19th century. The writer's contemporaries read to them, following through magazine publications the ever-increasing tension of the human drama in which the characters are involved. Time has not erased the amazing freshness of the pictures of the past life, brilliantly drawn by Tolstoy.
List of used literature
1. Tolstoy L.N. Full composition of writings. - Reprint. playback ed. 1928 - 1958 – M.: Ed. Center "Terra", 1992. - V. 18, 19, 20. Anna Karenina: a novel.
2. Tolstoy L.N. Full composition of writings. - Reprint. playback ed. 1928 - 1958 – M.: Ed. Center "Terra", 1992. - V. 61. Letters. – 421 p.
3. Tolstoy L.N. Full composition of writings. - Reprint. playback ed. 1928 - 1958 – M.: Ed. Center "Terra", 1992. - V. 62. Letters. – 573 p.
4. Artemov V. M. Freedom and morality in pedagogy L.N. Tolstoy. // Social. - humanite. knowledge. - 2001. - № 3 . - S. 133 - 142.
5. Bursov B.I. Leo Tolstoy and the Russian novel. - M.-L.: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1963. - 152 p.
6. Dostoevsky F. M. About art. - M.: Art, 1973 - 632 p.
7. Kuleshov F.I. L.N. Tolstoy: From lectures on Russian literature of the 19th century. - Minsk, 1978. - 288 p.
8. Linkov V.L. The world of man in the works of L. Tolstoy and I. Bunin. - M.: Publishing house of Moscow State University, 1989. - 172 p.
9. Meleshko E. D. Christian ethics of L. N. Tolstoy: [monograph]. – M.: Nauka, 2006. – 308 p.
10. Rosenblum L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky: ways of rapprochement // Questions of Literature. - 2006. - No. 6. - S. 169 - 197.
11. L.N. Tolstoy in the memoirs of contemporaries. - M.: Goslitizdat, 1955. - T. 2. - 559 p.
12. Tunimanov V.A. Dostoevsky, Strakhov, Tolstoy (the labyrinth of links) // Russian Literature. - 2006. - No. 3. - S. 38 - 96
"Anna Karenina" occupied the creative mind of the writer for more than four years. In the process of artistic implementation, its original design has undergone fundamental changes. From a novel about an "unfaithful wife", which at first bore the names "Two Marriages", "Two Fours", "Anna Karenina" turned into a major social novel, reflecting an entire era in the life of Russia in vivid typical images.
As early as the beginning of 1870, Tolstoy's creative mind began to outline a story about a married woman "from high society, but who lost herself," and she was supposed to look "only pathetic and not guilty." Numerous plans and plans that then occupied the writer, all the time distracted him from this plot. Only after writing "The Prisoner of the Caucasus", publishing the "ABC" and the final decision to refuse to continue the "Peter's novel" Tolstoy returned to the family plot that arose more than three years ago.
It is clear from the letters that Tolstoy himself imagined his new work to be rough-finished already in the spring of 1873. In fact, however, the work on the novel turned out to be much longer. New heroes, new episodes, events, themes and motives were introduced. The image of the title character underwent processing and rethinking, the individual characteristics of other characters were deepened and the emphasis in the author's assessment was shifted. This greatly complicated the plot and composition, led to a modification of the genre nature of the novel. As a result, the work stretched out for a whole four years - until the middle of 1877. During this time, twelve editions of the novel were formed. From January 1875, the publication of Anna Karenina began in the journal Russkiy Vestnik, and in 1878 the novel was published as a separate edition.
Initially, the work was conceived as a family-household novel. In a letter to N. Strakhov, Tolstoy says that this is his first novel of this kind. The statement is not exact: Tolstoy's first experience in the genre of a family novel, as you know, was Family Happiness. The main, basic thought that Tolstoy loved and sought to embody artistically in his new novel was "a family thought." It arose and took shape at an early stage in the creation of Anna Karenina. This thought determined the theme and content of the novel, the relationship between the characters and the essence of the novel conflict, the dramatic intensity of the action, the main plot line and the genre form of the work. The atmosphere surrounding the characters was of an intimate chamber character. The social space of the novel looked extremely narrow.
Tolstoy soon felt that within the framework of the family plot he was cramped. And, continuing to develop the same plot situation - about a "woman who has lost herself", Tolstoy gave the story about the intimate experiences of the characters a deep socio-philosophical meaning, an important topical social sound.
Tolstoy always responded to the demands of modernity with extraordinary sensitivity. In the previous epic novel, there was only "the secret presence of modernity"; the novel "Anna Karenina" is burningly modern in terms of material, problems and the whole artistic conception. As the novel's plot unfolds with increasing tension, Tolstoy "captures" and introduces into the narrative many questions that worried both the author himself and his contemporaries. This is not only family relations, but also social, economic, civil, and generally human. All the most important aspects and phenomena of modernity in their real complexity, intricacy and mutual cohesion are fully and vividly reflected in Anna Karenina. Each of those families that are depicted in the novel is naturally and organically included in the life of society, in the movement of the era: the private life of people appears in close connection with historical reality and in causation by it.
In its final form, "Anna Karenina" became a socio-psychological novel, retaining, however, all the qualities and genre features of a family novel. Being a multi-problem work, the novel "Anna Karenina" acquired the features of a modern epic - a comprehensive narrative about the fate of the people as a whole, about the state of Russian society in a difficult, critical period of existence for it, about the future of the country, nation, Russia.
The time of action in "Anna Karenina" is synchronous with the time of the creation of the novel. This is the post-reform era, more precisely: the 70s of the 19th century with an excursion into the previous decade. This is a period of greatly shaken and "turned over" Russian social reality, when the patriarchal immobility of Russia came to an end.
Tolstoy expressively and aptly defined the essence of the radical changes that have taken place and are taking place in the words of Konstantin Levin: "... now that all this has turned upside down and is only just being put in place, the question of how these conditions will fit is the only important question in Russia... ".
Tolstoy's heroes live and act at the very beginning of this period, when life put before them "all the most complex and insoluble questions." What answer would be given to them, neither the writer himself, nor his double Levin, nor the other heroes of Anna Karenina had any clear idea. There was a lot of obscure, incomprehensible and therefore disturbing. One thing was visible: everything had moved from its place, and everything was in motion, on the road, on the way. And the image of the train that appears more than once in the novel, as it were, symbolizes the historical movement of the era. In the running and roar of the train - the noise, roar and rapid run of time, epoch. And no one knew whether the direction of this movement was determined correctly, whether the destination station was chosen correctly.
The crisis, turning point of the post-reform era appears in Tolstoy's novel not only as a historical and social background, against which graphically clearly "drawn" characters rich in realistic colors appear, frames of a dramatic narrative run and the tragic denouement of the main conflict takes place, but it is that living, objectively given reality, in which the characters are constantly immersed and which surrounds them everywhere and everywhere. And since they all breathe the air of their era and feel its "tremors", each shows a characteristic imprint of the "shattered" time - anxiety and anxiety, self-doubt and distrust of people, a premonition of a possible catastrophe.
The era was reflected more in the emotions of the heroes of the novel than in their minds. Tolstoy, in all complexity, completeness and artistic truth, recreated the social, moral and family atmosphere, saturated with lightning charges, which, either explicitly and directly, or most often indirectly and covertly, affects the state of mind of his characters, their subjective world, psyche and stock. thoughts, on the general moral character of people. Hence the intensity of experiences and the intensity of human passions that the most significant heroes of Anna Karenina live by, their sharp reaction - positive or negative - to what is happening in life, the intricacies of their relationship.
Rereading "Eugene Onegin", Leo Tolstoy thought about what would happen to the heroine if she cheated on her husband. Thus, "thanks to the divine Pushkin", the idea of "Anna Karenina" was born. At the very beginning of work on the novel, Tolstoy, I think, wanted to "flog" his heroine for breaking the sacred bonds of family marriage. But over the four years in which the novel was written (1873-1877), the attitude towards the image he created changed dramatically: yes, Anna Karenina retreated from her sacred duties as a mother and wife, but she had no other choice. Anna married without knowing love, and Karenin held a high position and was a brilliant match. Clever, educated, educated, busy with important state affairs, he hardly bothered her. The birth of her son brought something new into her life, bestowing the great happiness of motherhood. But this was not enough for Anna, she wanted full-fledged female happiness. Even reading was not a pleasure, because "she wanted to live too much herself." The meeting with Vronsky changed her life. His sincere, passionate, all-consuming love for her could not go unanswered. Anna doesn't give up right away. Her spiritual world is split in two. She tries to convince herself that she should live the old way, but nothing comes of it. No more pretending. Previously, she tolerated her husband, even respected him, but now she hates him. Love for Vronsky has taken precedence over everything else, and Anna goes towards her happiness - and her death, for happiness is now inseparable from misfortune. The path that Anna took after meeting Vronsky leads her to a break with her husband, with secular society, and, finally, with Vronsky himself. Karenin announced to her that she was a criminal wife and mother, and demanded that external decorum be observed. But outward propriety is the least of Anna's concerns. In the soul of Anna Karenina, there is a constant struggle between the duty of a mother and the feeling of a loving woman. To leave everything as it was is to lose Vronsky, to go to a loved one is to lose a son. Anna's suffering was aggravated by the fact that she was losing faith in Vronsky's boundless love for herself. But she continued to love him endlessly - to love and suffer. The thought of death arose in Anna's soul before the birth. The most passionate desire of the dying woman was to receive forgiveness from Karenin for herself and for Vronsky, to reconcile her husband and lover. And Karenin forgave them both. Before her death, Anna wants to connect what she could not connect in life. She associates with Vronsky her idea of herself as a loving woman, with Karenin - as an impeccable mother of their son and a once faithful wife. She wants to be both at the same time. In a semi-conscious state, she says, turning to Karenin: “I'm still the same. But there is another in me, I am afraid of her - she fell in love with that one, and I wanted to hate you and could not forget about the one that was before. But not me. Now I'm real, I'm all." "All" - that is, both the one that was before, before the meeting with Vronsky, and the one that she became later. Only the dying Anna could feel happy. But then she was not destined to die. She had not yet had time to experience all the suffering that fell to her lot. After the birth of the girl, Karenin agrees to everything, even to the continuation of the connection between his wife and Vronsky, "if only not to shame the children, not to lose them and not to change their position." But Anna cannot live in an environment of "lies and deceit." She goes to Vronsky, goes abroad with him, but even there she does not find happiness and peace. Vronsky is bored by idleness, weighed down by his position, Anna even more so. And most importantly, her son remained at home, in separation from whom she could not feel happy in any way. Returning to Russia, Anna is convinced that she has no future. The scene in the theater drives her to despair. She sees around lies, hypocrisy and hypocrisy. But this sanctimonious and, in general, depraved society is judging her! To be at the highest social level, to be respected by everyone and suddenly find yourself in the position of a fallen woman! It's probably impossible to survive. But more difficult trials await Anna. First, she was deprived of the right to see her son, whom she loved so much and who loved her so much. Secondly, her relations with Vronsky became extremely complicated. Only the love of her son and the love of Vronsky tied Anna to life. Having lost the opportunity to see her son, Anna pins all her hopes on Vronsky, she especially needs his love now. She became the only meaning of her life. Anna cannot live without love. She does not find this love, and a charming, intelligent, sincere woman in her feelings, “seeking and giving happiness,” kills herself. Why? Because she had no other means to protect her human dignity. M. Tsvetaeva was right when she advised girls not to succumb to passion, like Anna Karenina, “who, from the fulfillment of all desires, had nothing left but to lie down on the rails.”
He said that the problem is to make it
this woman only pathetic, and not guilty.
S. Tolstaya
After finishing work on the novel “War and Peace”, Lev Nikolayevich “carried away” with the problems of family and marriage. The reality surrounding him gave a lot of material about family life, and Tolstoy began work on a new novel, Anna Karenina.
The theme of the family, put forward at first, turned out to be interconnected with public, social, philosophical issues - the work gradually grew into a major social novel, in which the writer reflected his contemporary life. The plot is simple, moreover banal. A married lady, mother of an eight-year-old child, is infatuated with a brilliant officer. But everything is simple only at first glance. Anna suddenly realized that I cannot deceive herself, she dreams of love, that love and life are synonymous for her. At that very decisive moment, she thinks of no one but Alexei Vronsky. The inability to deceive, the sincerity and truthfulness of the heroine involve her in a serious conflict with her husband and the society in which she lives.
Anna compares her husband to a soulless mechanism, calling him an “evil machine”. Karenin checks all feelings by the norms established by the state and the church. He suffers from his wife’s infidelity, but in a very peculiar way, he wants to “shake off the dirt that she splashed on him in her fall, and continue to walk along her path of an active, honest and useful life.” He lives with the mind, not with the heart. It is his rationality that prompts the path of cruel revenge on Anna. Alexey Aleksandrovich Karenin separates Anna from her beloved son Seryozha. The heroine has to choose, and she takes a “step” towards Vronsky, but this is a disastrous path, it leads to the abyss. Anna did not want to change anything in her life, it was fate that turned everything around. She follows the path prepared for her, suffering and tormented. Love for the abandoned son, passion for Vronsky, protest against the false morality of society were intertwined in a single knot of contradictions. Anna is unable to solve these problems. She wants to get away from them. Just to exist happily: to love and be loved. But how unattainable for her is simple human happiness!
He said that his task was to make this woman only miserable and not guilty. S. Tolstaya After finishing work on the novel War and Peace, Lev Nikolayevich became interested in the problems of family and marriage. The reality surrounding him gave a lot of material about family life, and Tolstoy began work on a new novel, Anna Karenina. The theme of the family, put forward at the beginning, turned out to be interconnected with public, social, philosophical issues, the work gradually grew into a major social novel, in which the writer reflected his contemporary life. The plot is simple, even banal. A married woman, the mother of an eight-year-old child, is infatuated with a brilliant officer. But everything is simple only at first glance. Anna suddenly realized that I cannot deceive herself, she dreams about love, that love and life are synonymous for her. At this decisive moment, she thinks of no one but Alexei Vronsky. The inability to deceive, the sincerity and truthfulness of the heroine involve her in a serious conflict with her husband and the society in which she lives. Anna compares her husband to a soulless mechanism, calling him an evil machine. Karenin checks all feelings by the norms established by the state and the church. He suffers from his wife's infidelity, but in a very peculiar way, he wants to shake off the dirt that she splashed on him in her fall, and continue to follow his path of an active, honest and useful life. He lives with the mind, not with the heart. It is his rationality that prompts the path of cruel revenge on Anna. Alexey Aleksandrovich Karenin separates Anna from her beloved son Seryozha. The heroine has to choose, and she takes a step towards Vronsky, but this is a disastrous path, it leads to the abyss. Anna did not want to change anything in her life, it was fate that turned everything around. She follows the path prepared for her, suffering and tormented. Love for the abandoned son, passion for Vronsky, protest against the false morality of society were woven into a single contradictory knot. Anna is unable to solve these problems. She wants to get away from them. Just live happily: love and be loved. But how unattainable for her is simple human happiness! Talking to her brother's wife, Anna admits: You understand that I love, it seems, equally, but both more than myself, two creatures Seryozha and Alexei. Only these two beings do I love, and one excludes the other. I can't connect them, and this is the only thing I need. And if it doesn't, then it doesn't matter. It's all the same... Anna realizes with horror that for Vronsky only passionate love is not enough. He is a man of society. He wants to be useful, to achieve ranks and a prominent position. A quiet family life is not for him. For the sake of this man and his ambitious plans, she sacrificed everything: peace, position in society, her son ... Anna understands that she has driven herself into a dead end. The writer is still in the epigraph: “Vengeance is for me and I will repay,” he said that his heroine should not be judged by secular hypocrites, but by the Creator. This idea is repeatedly confirmed in the novel. Anna's old aunt says in a conversation with Dolly: God will judge them, not us. Koznyshev, in a conversation with Vronsky's mother, states: It is not for us to judge, Countess. Thus, Tolstoy contrasted state and religious legality and secular morality, which affirmed evil, lies and deceit, with the wisdom of the biblical saying taken for an epigraph. Initially, the author wanted to portray a woman who lost herself, but not guilty. Gradually, the novel grew into a wide accusatory canvas showing the life of post-reform Russia in all its diversity. The novel presents all strata of society, all classes and estates in the new socio-economic conditions, after the abolition of serfdom. Speaking about Anna Karenina, Tolstoy showed that she was concerned only with purely personal problems: love, family, marriage. Not finding a worthy way out of this situation, Anna decides to die. She throws herself under a train, as life in her current position has become unbearable. Unwittingly, Tolstoy passed a harsh sentence on society with its deceitful hypocritical morality, which drove Anna to suicide. In this society, there is no place for sincere feelings, but only established rules that can be circumvented, but hiding, deceiving everyone and yourself. A sincere, loving person is rejected by society like a foreign body. Tolstoy condemns such a society and the laws established by it.
