(1828 – 1910) Essay, Research Paper
Leo Tolstoy is considered one of Russia’s
greatest nineteenth-century novelists, an honor he shares with Dostoievsky.
Tolstoy, however, focuses his novels on the vicissitudes of the upper-classes
rather than on Dostoievsky’s underprivileged peasants or criminals.
Tolstoy foresaw the end of the aristocracy
in Russian society. Serfs had already been set free; the working class
was beginning to expand in power. Moreover, new mores and morals were being
imported from the West, and society’s upper crust was the first to feel
the strain of these changes – a strain running an undercurrent throughout
Anna Karenina.
The novel reads like a soap opera, with
the exhaustive cast of characters continually creating their own problems.
Contrast Anna’s tragic quest for love and personal fulfillment with the
spiritual odyssey of Levin. Through hard work and the support of an understanding
family, his search is rewarded by happiness. Thus, Tolstoy’s gripping masterpiece
revolves around the dissimilar paths of these two characters, allowing
a forum for the author’s commentary on Russia’s maze-like social system,
fraught with unresolved incongruities.