Women in literature: some are pretty, some are kind, a
few may possess virtues; there are witches and there are saints, mothers and
lovers, and not much more.
Female characters were – historically - all too often
presented and viewed by most male authors in stereo-typical straitjackets.
Their images were plain, stale and almost lifeless, they were rarely viewed in
all their complexity. They provided a decorative contour to the plot, or a
brush-stroke of colour to the setting. Women made secondary appearances, leaving
to the male characters the roles of importance and weight.
So it was until authors such as Leo Tolstoy came along
with his “Anna Karenina” and John
Galsworthy with his “Forsyte Saga”. These two authors had the audacity to put a
woman centre stage and made of her a complex and interesting character around
which the whole story evolves. They revolutionized the whole literary world that
finally accepted the idea of a woman as an independent figure that could be - and
was - of greater interest than the male characters.
Whatever our personal attitude may be towards Anna
Karenina and Irene Forsyte we cannot deny that these are two of the most
fascinating female characters in literature. Anna and Irene are both stunning,
brilliant, irresistible, aristocratic women who contrast with everyone else.
They move with grace, they talk politely, they look at you lovingly, they shine
in company and are able to talk about anything. Their beauty is never vulgar nor
too evident; their faces are painted beautiful with a subtle hue, showing only
a peek of the true beauty of the gentle soul. But despite the outward
impression of being seemingly calm and reserved, both women have a burning fire
of passion hidden deep within that tears them apart. It is exactly that desperate
contradiction between social duty and
the heart’s pulsating passion that makes the characters so challenging for
Tolstoy and Galsworthy to create and so attractive to the reader to discover.. Each story has the same beginning: a young girl, left without money, unhappy and desperate accepts the offer of marriage from an older wealthy man, without ever loving him. The husbands Alexei Karenin and Soames Forsyte both move in high society, important and influential figures. Both husbands are described as devoted and loyal to their wives, but lacking passion and obvious expressions of love. Both are more than happy to spend money on Anna and Irene, giving them expensive jewelry or building houses, but no outlay of cash can leave the women content or happy. Both marriages seem to be prefect on the outside: a rich man possessing a young, gorgeous wife, but the relationships are fatally flawed.
The characters of Anna and Irene, though, seduce by
their complexity. These are no bodice-ripping adulteresses. The longing they
feel is no superficial pleasure hunt but rather a developed spirituality and a
gnawing lust for beauty that is beyond the understanding of their husbands. No
amount of expensive gifts or the pleasures of being in high society can leave
them content. Their needs, hidden inside the dark, hot, unexplored embers of
their souls go beyond anything material or superficial.
This sensual and spiritual ache is something that
neither Soames nor Alexei are able to perceive; it is something unattainable
and unimaginable for such men. Anna and Irene, young and beautiful, have a
strong desire for passion and romantic love that they had never experienced.
Thus it comes to pass that Anna meets Count Vronsky
who is courting her friend and a family relation Kitty Tscherbatskaya. And
Irene meets a young architect, Philip Bossiney, a fiancé of her dear friend and
relative Jules Galsworthy. Both Anna and Irene, visibly in love with these men,
however make serious attempts at refusing them. But both stories are very
similar: the passion is so overpowering that soon after they start extramarital
affairs.
Neither Alexei Vronsky nor Philip Bossiney seem to
have any moral scruples about breaking their previous engagements or breaking a
family.
While Irene’s love for Bossiney can be described as
spiritual and based on common interests in the first place, Anna’s love of
Vronsky is more carnal, based mainly on passion. “Looking at him she felt
physically humiliated and couldn’t speak. He felt what only a murderer could
feel when he sees the lifeless body.” From the very beginning of their affair, the
love between Anna and Vronsky is perceived as something dangerous and impure. It
is as if like the horse with the broken spine that he shoots, Vronsky breaks also
the structural core of Anna’s life and
in consequence her life will have to end
as well.
It is here perhaps that we see the biggest difference between
the two women: while Irene fulfills her desires by finding her soulmate, Anna
ends up with a seducer who believes himself to be in love but disappoints her
expectations and ruins her life.
As we penetrate the novels we see how Alexei Karenin
is more bothered with his image and his family status than by the betrayal
itself. In an astounding insight into upper-class morality Tolstoy exposes how
Alexei sees it as disrespectful to himself to be jealous of Anna. It bothers
and irritates her: “I would respect him more if he killed Vronsky, if he killed
me.”
Soames on the other hand does everything possible to
vindicate himself with Bossiney and ruins him with a lawsuit. Galsworthy calls
him “the man of property”. This is exactly how Soames sees Irene – his legal
property. And to prove the right to his possession he uses her for his sexual
needs without her consent. Soames is the opposite of the gentleman Alexei – as
he fails to conquer Irene’s heart his love turns into madness.
While Karenin does his best to ignore the harm and the
public humiliation and even agrees to divorce, Soames follows his obsession
with Irene that makes of him a miserable man. Soames, consumed by his unreciprocated
love, siezes every possibility to approach Irene. But he fails in all his
attempts, always wondering how he deserved to experience such hatred and
disrespect.
I confess I have always
pitied these two men for what they must have experienced. They both behaved at
times more than respectfully, loving and forgiving their wives no matter what. They
both would have accepted their return and would have loved them even more than
before.
But the biggest difference between the Russian Anna
and the English Irene is the attitude of the authors, their “fathers”. While
Galsworthy does his best at remaining impartial, we still are more inclined to
pity Irene and her loneliness after Bossiney’s death. And as the story progresses
Galsworthy gives Irene another chance and her happiness is finally restored. As
for Anna, Tolsoy is less merciful to her. Throughout the whole novel he opposes
her unholy, impure love to Vronsky to his ideal love that he creates between
Kitty and Levin (little Leo- the one who expresses his ideas). Tolstoy views
the passion that consumed Anna as something diabolic, a spiritual death that
could only end with physical death.
And while Galsworthy seeks happiness for Irene (whose
story was inspired by his own wife), and keeps on punishing Soames with all the
unhappy events that come his way, Tolstoy is more complex in his analysis of
the main character.
Undeniably Anna is nobler than Irene. She despises
herself for having an affair, she despises her husband for forgiving her, she
despises Vrosnky for not understanding her nature and she despises the
judgmental society in which she is entombed. It is only as we look anew at the
picture that Tolstoy so masterfully painted with words, we finally see how
beautifully complex Anna is. And that her complexity, her Russian-ness creates
the biggest difference. This is why she, looking for forgiveness, throws
herself under the train and Irene, having no scruples about the broken marriage
and the broken lives of either Soames or Jules, re-establishes her happiness,
finding respect and understanding of those who previously hated her.
Anna and Irene are like no other women in literature.
Indeed they may have become icons for a new blossoming of female
characterization. No longer are women madonnas or whores, beautiful or sinful;
they are all of the above, in large part due to these magnificently complex
portraits of the deep recesses of the female soul.
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