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Anna Karenina Analysis

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Thesis: An in-depth analysis of Anna Karenina, Doctor Zhivago, and War and Peace, yields significant insights into the expectations of women throughout the course of Russian history, thereby showcasing the esteemed virtues conventional of Russian feminine culture during each of the respective eras. (Anna Karenina: Victorian, Doctor Zhivago: Soviet, and War and Peace: Realist)
Christian, R. F. “Tolstoy’s War and Peace: A Study.” Novels for Students, Clarendon Press, 1962, pp. 293-298. Professor R. F. Christian is one of the most notable scholars of Russian literature in the past century. In addition to graduating from Oxford University with a first-class honors degree in Russian and authoring numerous publications concerning …show more content…

“Critical Essay on Doctor Zhivago.” Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2008, pp. 18-20. Joyce Hart is a freelance writer and published author who has received numerous print offers over the course of her career. In the aforementioned essay, Hart examines the possible reasons as to why Pasternak’s protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, finds such difficulty in maintaining lasting relationships with the women in his life. In her essay, Hart argues that the political struggles of the novel foreshadow the developing tensions throughout the narrative. She asserts that the role of failed ideals, in addition to the collapsing social order and fractured political state in which the novel is set, are ultimately responsible for the shattering of Zhivago’s psyche, noting familial detachment and emotional distance as symptoms of his inability to maintain interpersonal relationships. Hart’s essay lends a unique perspective through which one can analyze the role of women in Russia during the Soviet era. Throughout the novel, many traditional Russian views regarding the role of women prevail, providing interesting contrast to the Victorian female featured in the works of …show more content…

“The Judgement of Anna Karenina: Feminism Criticism and the Image of the Heroine.” Framing Anna Karenina: Tolstoy, the Woman Question, and the Victorian Novel, Ohio State University Press, 1993, pp. 34–57. Amy Mandelker’s feminist interpretation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina challenges previous assertions of Tolstoy’s misogyny by interpreting Tolstoy as a radical feminist at the frontline of Russia 's “woman question.” By debating Anna Karenina as a modernist novel that breaks with preceding Russian tradition, Mandelker shows how Tolstoy compares the theme of female representation in society to the representation of women in art, critiquing the bourgeois traditions that downplay feminine beauty as a commodity within society. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy examines the liberation of the individual. Consequently, Mandelker contends that the liberation of the heroine rejects the conventions of realism and the typical representation of women, thus acting as a leading feminist symbol in opposition of the societal norm of the Victorian Era. Amy Mandelker is an associate professor of comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is known for her numerous publications regarding Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and her work serves as an essential for scholars and students of nineteenth-century Russian and Victorian literature from a feminist

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