In keeping with the tail end of Scott’s post, I’ve also been
thinking a lot about characters’ origins and how Tolstoy’s been playing with locales
as a means of characterization and social commentary. It seems significant to me that the Vronskys,
upper-crust characters of debatable moral fiber, are from St. Petersburg, while
Levin, a lower-class noble but an ultimately more sympathetic character,
prefers country life, kasha, and peasant traditions to the conventions of high
society. I especially enjoyed Vronsky’s conversation
with Levin where he expressed that all Muscovites “have something edgy about
them” and “keep rearing up for some reason, getting angry, as if they want to
make you feel something,” and the
inclusion of the passage where Kitty’s father describes Vronsky as a “little
fop from Petersburg” who’s been “made by machine”. We’ve also come across the trope of the wealthy
noble selling off country estates to pay his debts in the form of Prince
Oblonsky, who is also wrapped up in the business of city life,
government work, and adultry. At the
very least, Tolstoy seems to be critiquing the nobility’s disconnect from their
Russian roots; beyond this, it seems he is equating urban life with
mechanization, modernization, and the importation of European culture, all processes which he portrays as corrupting and antithetical to traditional Russian life.
I also think Tolstoy is trying to draw parallels between adultery
and the adoption of European customs and culture. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that Stiva
cheats on Dolly with the French governess, and I also think it’s significant
that a good number of the Russian princesses have adopted European
nicknames. Beyond this, the periodic
inclusion of lines spoken in French and English seems to contrast with the many
allusions to Puskin (some accurate, others not so much). SO. What do you guys think? Do you see any other ways Tolstoy plays with
setting or concepts of Russian national identity in his characterizations?