/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17367248]

Was I supposed to feel bad for Anna through any of that?

[Anonymous No.17368112]

>>17367248
>Is coffee good for you?

[Anonymous No.17368206]

>>17368112
There were parts where it felt like Tolstoy was trying to generate sympathy for her, but I can't feel bad for whores.

[Anonymous No.17368259]

Sort of. Tolstoy portrays her as a multi-faceted human being but his own moral position is clearly against her, although there is a lot more sympathy for her than Flaubert gives to Madame Bovary. Some of her actions (especially towards her children) are fairly unforgivable. Essentially you should feel a bit bad for her because she's a person and people are inherently flawed, but not too bad because she made some terrible choices that directly harmed others. Tolstoy also believed a lot of flaws come from your childhood (which is what makes gives such a brilliant quality to the families in his novels) so many of Anna's are just as present (and even more present sometimes) in Stepan, which makes it somewhat weird that most people here tend to like him far more than they like Anna.

This topic is pretty interesting because a lot of adaptations portray Anna as a heroine whose only flaw was being born in a system which represses her. It's so far away from Tolstoy's creation that it feels like a different story entirely. You can pick out someone who has seen a film adaptation but never read the novel easily because of this.