Tags :Literary realism

Anna’s psychological monologue before her death stands as one of the nineteenth century’s most extraordinary pieces of psychological writing. It’s difficult to imagine what state Tolstoy must have been in while composing these passages. The voice recording these sentences seems to belong to Anna herself—and if we consider Anna’s suicide as the novel’s climax, then the figure standing at this peak, surveying everything below, is not Tolstoy but Death itself. The Shadow of Death The shadow of death hovers over the entire novel from its opening pages. We first encounter it when Anna and Vronsky meet for the first time, at the scene of a railway suicide. This is followed by Anna’s brush with death during childbirth, then Vronsky’s failed...

Like(0)North Ward2026-01-19Anna Karenina Views(58)Comment

No matter how hard I try to stay balanced and self-aware, I still get anxious sometimes. When those moods hit, my go-to remedy is diving into the heavyweight stuff—Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, those massive books. I just finished rereading Anna Karenina. The masters always leave you with so much to feel, yet somehow words fail you. So here I am again, just rambling through whatever thoughts come to mind. There’s too much to say anyway. I read Anna Karenina once when I was little, skimmed it really. By the time Anna and Vronsky finally got together, I lost patience with the rest. I felt cheated—not even a kiss scene! But even then, I knew Tolstoy was something special, because that famous ball scene...

Like(0)North Ward2026-01-05Anna Karenina Views(65)Comment