ADULTERY IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIAN AND GERMAN LITERATURE
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2020-5-155-163
Introduction. The article describes the changes in ideas on the family and the role of woman in public consciousness at the end of the nineteenth century. The aim and objectives. The aim of this work is to study the reflection of female emancipation process in Russian and German society at the end of the nineteenth century. Material and methods. The material for research is the novel by L. N. Tolstoy “Anna Karenina” and the novel by Th. Fontane “Effi Briest”. The analytical and descriptive, comparative, cultural and historical methods are used in this work. Results and discussion. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, European and Russian society faced the crisis of the family institution. The global historical, political, socioeconomic and ideological changes had their influence on the understanding of the role and place of women. The problem of women emancipation is widely represented in the works of the European and Russian writers of the given period. L. N. Tolstoy in the novel “Anna Karenina” gives a critical eye to the state of the “family matter”. The writer indicates the discredit of the traditional ideas on marriage in the society of Moscow’s and Petersburg’s nobility. L. N. Tolstoy exposes the hypocrisy of nobles, vicious in all spheres of life (official, family, economical spheres) but advocating for decency. In “Anna Karenina” we see how inequitable social gender roles are. The heroine of the novel was rejected not due to the adultery, but because of the aspiration to live openly. The conflict of the emancipated person against the ossified society becomes a plot engine in “Effi Briest” novel by the German writer. We found the coincidence of the key personality traits of the Th. Fontane and L. N. Tolstoy protagonists. The unifying quality is the ambition, based on the undisclosed emotional potential of a woman from noble society. If the social ground of Anna Karenina’s tragedy in the Tolstoy novel is the hypocrisy of the high society, the Effi Briest catastrophe is due to (in Fontane’s opinion) misconception of honour in the German noble society. Similar features are found in the male characters of the novels. However, there is a moral superiority of Karenin over Instetten that can be explained by peculiarities of the mentality. Conclusion. The comparative analysis of L. N. Tolstoy’s and Th. Fontane’s works allows us to conclude that there is coincidence of the created social and psychological situation and the characters’ emotional reactions to similar collisions without proven interference of the texts. In both works, developing women’s emancipation is portrayed as a complicated and dramatic process, which testifies to the epoch’s crisis.
Keywords: L. N. Tolstoy, Th. Fontane, novel, emancipation, adultery
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Issue: 5, 2020
Series of issue: Issue 5
Rubric: TOPICAL ISSUES OF LITERARY CRITICISM
Pages: 155 — 163
Downloads: 1408