What have I done?
For the first time in his life he experienced the most extreme misery, an irredeemable misery, and one for which he was himself responsible. (Part II, Chapter XXVI)
He felt what a murderer must feel, when he sees the body which he has deprived of life... (Part II, Chapter XI)
The first of these quotes is about Frou-Frou, Vronky's horse, and the second about Anna.
There's an old Peanuts comic strip in which Charlie Brown says "I wonder what dogs think about." Snoopy is sitting on top of his dog house, thinking: "What could Anna Karenina have seen in Count Vronsky?"
It's a good question. (Well, both are good questions, but only the latter concerns us here.)
Vronsky is attractive, wealthy (though a spendthrift and a gambler), a dashing officer, and unattached. Anna was married off early -- the "marriage market" of the 19th century was a truly depressing affair from our modern point of view, as fathers tried to negotiate the best deals for their daughters. Daughters in Russia "belonged" to their fathers almost as property, until marriage, whereby the ownership was transferred to the husbands.
Marriage was not about love in the 19th century, or at any rate not often; frequently it was an alliance between families, or a means of injecting wealth into an estate, or even a social obligation. At a certain age, a man should get married. For women, who "came out" at 18 and had a "season," it was important not to be left on the vine, so to speak. (Notice that Kitty is having success in society in her first season -- see Part I, Chapter XII -- measured by the fact that she has several interested suitors.)
Anna married Karenin without any love, had a child with him, lived with him for almost a decade, and yet she was unfulfilled: the "excess of vitality" in her (Part I, Chapter XVIII) spills over and attracts not only Vronsky, but Kitty as well ("there is something strange, satanic, and enchanting about her," Kitty thinks at the ball). That "excess of vitality" makes Anna seem animal-like; she does not necessarily have control of her body or her emotions.
How different was the winter season of balls from, say, the Greene County Fair? After her humiliation, Kitty feels that Society is really just a "shameful exhibition of goods awaiting a buyer" (Part II, Chapter XXX). A sobering thought for a young girl, and one that Kitty runs away from. (Notice how well Tolstoy portrays the inner feelings of a girl; on the day of the ball where Anna "steals" Kitty's suitor, Vronsky, Kitty feels good in her clothing, identifies it as one of her "happy days"; later at the spa she wants to deny that she has a burgeoning sexuality at all. As girls become women they really do feel both empowered and humiliated by the potential of sexuality and of their bodies.)
In his descriptions of society, Tolstoy shows one of the differences between family-oriented Moscow and frivolous, cold Petersburg. In Petersburg, we see that different circles of society have different ideas about marriage and infidelity. Vronsky believes that "every one might know or suspect, but no one must dare to speak about the matter, or he was prepared to silence the speaker and make him respect the non-existent honour of the woman he loved" (Part III, Chapter XX).
These words are the narrator's. Anna has given up her honor for passion, perhaps for love. In Part III Vronsky is only beginning to understand that for love he will have to give up his ambition. (See his conversation in Part III, Chapter XXI with his friend Serpukhovskoy, who argues that "if you drag that load without marriage, your hands are so full that you can do nothing else.")
Vronsky killed Frou-Frou, his beloved horse, and we might blame his hurry, his lateness, and his distraction, all of which were the fault of his relationship with Anna. But if Tolstoy portrays Vronsky looking down at the dying horse in the same manner as he portrays the successful seducer looking down at the adulterous woman, will Vronsky be the cause of Anna's death as well? or merely her dishonor?
Do you blame Anna for her decision to commit adultery? Or is society at fault, society that forgives adultery in such characters as Princess Betsy, or indeed in virtually all men, but does not permit it in a married woman who is also a mother, such as Anna?
There's an old Peanuts comic strip in which Charlie Brown says "I wonder what dogs think about." Snoopy is sitting on top of his dog house, thinking: "What could Anna Karenina have seen in Count Vronsky?"
It's a good question. (Well, both are good questions, but only the latter concerns us here.)
Vronsky is attractive, wealthy (though a spendthrift and a gambler), a dashing officer, and unattached. Anna was married off early -- the "marriage market" of the 19th century was a truly depressing affair from our modern point of view, as fathers tried to negotiate the best deals for their daughters. Daughters in Russia "belonged" to their fathers almost as property, until marriage, whereby the ownership was transferred to the husbands.
Marriage was not about love in the 19th century, or at any rate not often; frequently it was an alliance between families, or a means of injecting wealth into an estate, or even a social obligation. At a certain age, a man should get married. For women, who "came out" at 18 and had a "season," it was important not to be left on the vine, so to speak. (Notice that Kitty is having success in society in her first season -- see Part I, Chapter XII -- measured by the fact that she has several interested suitors.)
Anna married Karenin without any love, had a child with him, lived with him for almost a decade, and yet she was unfulfilled: the "excess of vitality" in her (Part I, Chapter XVIII) spills over and attracts not only Vronsky, but Kitty as well ("there is something strange, satanic, and enchanting about her," Kitty thinks at the ball). That "excess of vitality" makes Anna seem animal-like; she does not necessarily have control of her body or her emotions.
How different was the winter season of balls from, say, the Greene County Fair? After her humiliation, Kitty feels that Society is really just a "shameful exhibition of goods awaiting a buyer" (Part II, Chapter XXX). A sobering thought for a young girl, and one that Kitty runs away from. (Notice how well Tolstoy portrays the inner feelings of a girl; on the day of the ball where Anna "steals" Kitty's suitor, Vronsky, Kitty feels good in her clothing, identifies it as one of her "happy days"; later at the spa she wants to deny that she has a burgeoning sexuality at all. As girls become women they really do feel both empowered and humiliated by the potential of sexuality and of their bodies.)
In his descriptions of society, Tolstoy shows one of the differences between family-oriented Moscow and frivolous, cold Petersburg. In Petersburg, we see that different circles of society have different ideas about marriage and infidelity. Vronsky believes that "every one might know or suspect, but no one must dare to speak about the matter, or he was prepared to silence the speaker and make him respect the non-existent honour of the woman he loved" (Part III, Chapter XX).
These words are the narrator's. Anna has given up her honor for passion, perhaps for love. In Part III Vronsky is only beginning to understand that for love he will have to give up his ambition. (See his conversation in Part III, Chapter XXI with his friend Serpukhovskoy, who argues that "if you drag that load without marriage, your hands are so full that you can do nothing else.")
Vronsky killed Frou-Frou, his beloved horse, and we might blame his hurry, his lateness, and his distraction, all of which were the fault of his relationship with Anna. But if Tolstoy portrays Vronsky looking down at the dying horse in the same manner as he portrays the successful seducer looking down at the adulterous woman, will Vronsky be the cause of Anna's death as well? or merely her dishonor?
Do you blame Anna for her decision to commit adultery? Or is society at fault, society that forgives adultery in such characters as Princess Betsy, or indeed in virtually all men, but does not permit it in a married woman who is also a mother, such as Anna?