Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is considered by many to be one of the greatest novels ever written. This study of its morally ambiguous protagonist, Anna, discusses Tolstoy’s troubled relation to the feminine in terms of the fantasies, hopes, and fears that she represents. In Reflecting on Anna Karenina, first published in 1989, Mary Evans presents an original, feminist reading of Anna’s life and times for both students and the general audience. She argues that Anna is the embodiment of all those female characteristics that so captivated Tolstoy, and which he felt so compelled to punish in his writing. Evans indicates how author and central character are locked in a contradiction which can only be resolved in the novel by Anna’s death, but which in real life must be overcome by women’s assertion of their moral and sexual autonomy.
| ISBN: | 9781138803398 |
| Publication date: | 18th October 2016 |
| Author: | Mary Evans |
| Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 110 pages |
| Series: | Routledge Library Editions: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers |