The Kreutzer Sonata presents Tolstoy 's moral ideals through the medium of an artistic narrative, and its principal theme is the corrupting power of sex and attendant jealousy. For him, sex is the worst of the bad arts. Tolstoy defines art: “Art is a human activity which consists in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, communicates to others the sensations experienced by him, so that other men are infected by these sensations and pass through them” (Tolstoy 183). Art is capable of, according to Tolstoy, infecting the spectators, the hearers “by the same feeling which the composer experienced” (Tolstoy 183). He keeps repeating the word “infect” many times to reassure his definition of art and what art can do. And by art, he means there are two types: good art and bad art. Good art unites all man in the universe and bad art disunites them. These two types of art can do such things because, as I mentioned above, a subject of art, in general, infects us by the same feeling the composer experienced. …show more content…
Unfortunately, sex in Kreutzer Sonata opposes his philosophy of life. It disunites people (adultery) and is the pure, disgusting enjoyment of only men and a degradation of human race. Because of that attitude towards sex, Tolstoy sees the problem in the masterpiece of Beethoven: The Kreutzer Sonata. He sees sex in it. The Kreutzer Sonata is played by two different musical instruments which one leads and one follows. It contains endless energetic dynamics and power with a lot of ups and downs, climax then silent then climax then silent. That explains why our persona, Pozdnyshev, murders his wife even though he just listens to her and Trukachevsky playing the Kreutzer Sonata. Because of playing that exact song, Pozdnyshev already thinks that they are having