Mr Endon
04-25-2012, 06:40 AM
(In response to manolia's and Kelby Lake's arguments in http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32974&page=3)
It's not a black-and-white thing, but on the whole I agree with the misogyny accusation levered on Tolstoy. To be sure, there are the two good points against that notion:
1) one could argue that his treatment of women isn't any more misogynistic than the general Russian 19th century mindest (that is, we fall prey to the famous historian's fallacy);
2) Anna Karenina, a female character with whom the reader is supposed to empathise, essentially claims that her right to pursuit happiness prevails over (then) contemporary social conventions and notions of a married woman's obligations.
This last point sure seems to hint at proto-feminism to me. But the novel isn't a proto-feminist one because in the end Anna is punished for her waywardness. She's a 'fallen woman' who in the end achieves nothing to be proud of. This is reminiscent of the novella 'Family Happiness', an interesting precursor of AK. In it, the female character, portrayed as being rather immature, flirts with the idea of adultery, but doesn't do it, and, upon letting her husband know she's unhappy in her marriage, she's told to forget about her lusts and find happiness in raising her child, which she does. Both stories together form what I think is what Tolstoy might have thought about what's 'right' and what's 'not right' when it comes to love and marriage.
But what do you think? Is Anna Karenina misogynous or proto-feminist, or neither?
It's not a black-and-white thing, but on the whole I agree with the misogyny accusation levered on Tolstoy. To be sure, there are the two good points against that notion:
1) one could argue that his treatment of women isn't any more misogynistic than the general Russian 19th century mindest (that is, we fall prey to the famous historian's fallacy);
2) Anna Karenina, a female character with whom the reader is supposed to empathise, essentially claims that her right to pursuit happiness prevails over (then) contemporary social conventions and notions of a married woman's obligations.
This last point sure seems to hint at proto-feminism to me. But the novel isn't a proto-feminist one because in the end Anna is punished for her waywardness. She's a 'fallen woman' who in the end achieves nothing to be proud of. This is reminiscent of the novella 'Family Happiness', an interesting precursor of AK. In it, the female character, portrayed as being rather immature, flirts with the idea of adultery, but doesn't do it, and, upon letting her husband know she's unhappy in her marriage, she's told to forget about her lusts and find happiness in raising her child, which she does. Both stories together form what I think is what Tolstoy might have thought about what's 'right' and what's 'not right' when it comes to love and marriage.
But what do you think? Is Anna Karenina misogynous or proto-feminist, or neither?