Faminism in Anna Karenina

In the closed admit chapters of Leo Tolstoys Anna Karenina (Penguin Books, 2003), Dolly, Annas sister-in-law, reveals that whatsoever way one lives, theres a penalty. This is the central message in Tolstoys work, a tragedy whose themes embroil aristocracy, faith, hypocrisy, love, marriage, family, infidelity, greed, and every other issue universal among hu globe beings. Anna Karenina is a tragic figure, simply she can also be considered a feminist one. Her set go forths resonate with female readers because she does the surprising she moves against the grain.And with any wo objet dartat least(prenominal) in literaturewho accomplishes the unexpected, the inappropriate, she pays the price for it. A Princess, an aristocrat married to Count Alexei Karenin, an authorized man twenty years her senior, Anna Karenina is a socialite, a respected woman, a wife, and a get under ones skin. It seems as if she has it all, until she meets the handsome and charming teen Count Alexei Vrons ky. He stirs things in her natural and emotionalthat she has never experienced. This lack of experience in the spaces of love and desire is greenhistoricallyfor wo custody.They married who they were told to marryfor money, for titles, and for security. non for love. Anna Karenina is not in love with her husband. She tolerates him, nevertheless secretly she feels repulsed by this rigid, domineering, and paternal man twice her age. Vronskys wooing of her cross s her sit in society, her marriage, and veritable(a) her role as mother. When she succumbs to an inter-group communication with him, she does so with open eyes, aware of all that she is sacrificing for the stake of love.And this isnt the tragedy of the original, of the situation. The tragedy is that she is a woman in a mans world It was fate she was luckless from the start. And she was doomed because she was a woman play constituteing reveal on her desires. Paralleled to her brother, Stiva, and his insuppressible and known womanizing, the novel demonstrates the evident attitudes society had at this while toward men and women pieceing in equivalent fashion. Men, the public faces of society, had the power, the voice, and the volition to act in any way they wished.Stivas womanizing is something his wife, Dolly, has to beget silently. She has no power to stop it. She is plainly the wife. She goes about her business taking address of the home and her children, knowing that gossip and humiliate shadow her footsteps. Although infidelity is looked upon as an act of dishonor, society looks the other way when men succumb to its powers. Men continue to respect their marriages, the power in the home every authority their wives and children, their jobs, and their place in society goes unvarnished.Even Vronsky, who openly seeks the affections of Anna, a married woman, a mother, and has an social occasion with her, has eyes rolled at him, barely his career is never placed in danger. He does not lose his place in society, his options, his money, or his power. He loves, he takes what he wants, and then when he is through with(p)when Anna be lists too obsessive, too cumbersome an affairhe simply walks away. In the end, hes lose nothing. He gave up nothing. With women, following their hearts is not so acceptable. Its a tragedy, as we come to see with Anna.In following her heart, her passions, Anna loses her marriage, which is controlled by Karenin, who kicks her out of their home, but refuses to give her a divorce. In this way, she cannot marry Vronsky. She is forced to become his prostitute and live with him in disgrace. When she takes her love out into the public, she is shunned by the same people who at a time loved her, while everyone shakes Vronskys hands. And the approximately valuable asset that she loses is access to her son, who is told that she is dead. Having lost everything and everyone, the only thing that remains is Vronsky.And she grabs on to him with great for ce, with desperation, pushing him far and farther away from her with every aching require she can muster. But he grows well-worn of her love and confesses to her that A man take his career, for he still has that fall back end on. She has nothing. In losing him, she loses everything, and it is no wonder that she commits suicide. A woman in her day, having lost her place in society, her role as mother and wife, she cannot sustain herself. She gave everything up for love, for passion, for herself, to feed her own desires, but no one gave anything up for her.She dies tragically, while everyone around her continues to move on without her. Today, we can look at a character like Anna Karenina and come face-to-face with a feminist she is strong, determined, bold, and she fights the patriarchal powers that classify her she cannot have what men are allowed, no matter their place in society. And even though her attempts come crashing around her in the end, resulting in her violent suici de, she had the courage to act against the norm. This is empowerment. This is a feminist.