Anna vs. Stiva and adultery

[aphymans]

Hi, I have been thinking about this upon finishing the novel: Why is Anna condemned for her passion toward Count Vronsky when Stiva can engage in it with immunity from criticism? What accounts for this? Adultery, ego, gender roles? I would love another opinion. thanks!

[Gladys]

...Why is Anna condemned for her passion toward Count Vronsky when Stiva can engage in it with immunity from criticism?!

She is condemned because, unlike Stiva, she is:



a mother


a woman


prepared to desert both marriage and child.



I suspect the last point is the most damning. Stiva, of course, has less need to desert.

[Ecurb]

Of course Anna is compared directly to her brother. Their situations are similar; their fates are different. Doubtless the double standard has something to do with the difference in outcome. However, as Vronsky's mother says, it is Anna's "dangerous passions" that have more to do with it.

Anna's tragic flaw is that she loves too passionately. Her personality is similar to that of her brother -- both are gregarious and charming. But her loves are pitched at a deeper level than Stiva's.

By the way, Anna is also compared directly to Kitty, who idolizes her, is in love with Vronsky, and who thinks Levin will fall in love with Anna. The entire book is structured around comparing and contrasting the various characters.

[bazarov]

Hi, I have been thinking about this upon finishing the novel: Why is Anna condemned for her passion toward Count Vronsky when Stiva can engage in it with immunity from criticism? What accounts for this? Adultery, ego, gender roles? I would love another opinion. thanks!

Anna is female, Stiva is male - that is the main difference.

Tolstoy tried to show how would society act in situation when male and female act in same way, but consequences are much different. Stiva is well respected, no matter of having also wife, more then few children and tricky financial situation. Anna is also a parent, with lousy husband; but she is expeled from society and everybody judges her. This is actually one of the first books in (The Doll's House comes also on my mind) that deals with woman's question, which was started to be examined in 19th century.

Generally, Tolstoy's novels are his view on society, given through story of few typical characters that represent some ideas which will then be examined through the novel.

[Gladys]

Anna is female, Stiva is male - that is the main difference.

I see this view as reinterpretation of Tolstoy through a 21st century lens. There are significant differences in the choices made by Anna and Stiva.

Similarly in The Dolls House, Ibsen is almost as much concerned with the plight of the pariah Krogstad as he is with Nora. The play is less about feminism than a call for integrity in human relationships: honesty in a society riddled with sanctimony. Of course, Nora's departure is the shocking denouement - a characteristic of all Ibsen plays.

[kelby_lake]

It can't be denied that a large part of the reason why Anna is condemned and Stiva isn't is down to gender roles, but it's also their personalities. Anna is very passionate- Stiva isn't. Stiva has a bit of fun with his women but he will always go back to Dolly because those affairs are secondary to his marriage. With Anna, it's very much 'all or nothing'.

[Alexander III]

I have to disagree and say Gender roles have not much to do with it, and that is mostly a modern perspective, the notion of all those poor women in the past who were slaves to society. Women in society had affairs all the time and it was tolerated the same as men who had affairs. The thing is that Stiva had an affair - something wrong but tolerable for most of the russian society, and acceptable for certain more rakeish circles.

What Anna does is completely different. She falls in love to such a degree that she abandons her child and husband for this love. Had she only had an affair with Vrosnky the whole thing would have had little impact - but society draws the line at abandoning your child.

Even nowadays if a celebrity woman had an affair, the public would tolerate it, but if she abandoned her children and ran away with another man - the public would burn her alive (figuratively of course)

[kelby_lake]

Gender roles does account for some of it. Without wishing to make any sweeping generalisations, women tend to be more overtly emotional than men. It's more likely that Anna would get herself into an emotionally demanding affair than Stiva. Even if women having affairs was tolerated in society, chances are that the men would prefer a faithful woman than someone who was liable to cuckold him.

[Alexander III]

Gender roles does account for some of it. Without wishing to make any sweeping generalisations, women tend to be more overtly emotional than men. It's more likely that Anna would get herself into an emotionally demanding affair than Stiva. Even if women having affairs was tolerated in society, chances are that the men would prefer a faithful woman than someone who was liable to cuckold him.

Well I assume that the the type of women who had affairs were married to the type of men who had them too. In any time period, it is easy to differentiate between a Rake or and Honest person.

Also I agree that Women are more emotional on average, but a lot of this is also that women are allowed to show more emotion than men. Even if a man and woman had the same level of sentimentality, it would always appear that the woman was more sentimental as the man could not show it at risk of appearing effeminate. As there is nothing most alpha guys hate more than effeminacy - Or I should not say effeminacy, rather showing effeminacy is what they hate. Seen even seen in the novel when Vronsky and his friend comment on the two effeminate officers.

[Gladys]

Even nowadays if a celebrity woman had an affair, the public would tolerate it, but if she abandoned her children and ran away with another man - the public would burn her alive (figuratively of course)

In Ibsen's The Dolls House of 1879, Nora ultimately abandons her children and husband. For the première German performance, Ibsen was compelled to rewrite the ending, something he afterwards regretted.


It's more likely that Anna would get herself into an emotionally demanding affair than Stiva.

Anna has little in common with Stiva and his affairs. She didn't so much get herself into an affair than, like Nora in The Dolls House, deliberately decide on a more authentic way of living, a radical departure from a barren marriage with Karenin.

[cl154576]

It can't be only gender roles – Anna is also compared to her friend Betsy in this respect, and Betsy is still in high society.

[kelby_lake]

She didn't so much get herself into an affair than, like Nora in The Dolls House, deliberately decide on a more authentic way of living, a radical departure from a barren marriage with Karenin.

I agree that Anna did want a new life and would sacrifice her old one for a new life, but I don't think Vronsky is simply a means of escaping her marriage. He provides the chance to do that but if she really wanted a new life, she'd just leave Karenin (though I doubt she'd have the courage to do that). Anna isn't obliged to have an affair with Vronsky, and the demands she places on him suggest that it is a passionate affair.