6 - Engendering agape
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Summary
After many vicissitudes, Levin (Constantine Dmitrich Levin) and Kitty (Ekaterina Shcherbatskaya) finally arrive at the church for their wedding. Throughout Tolstoy's novel, their developing relationship serves as the positive counterpart of Anna Karenina's adulterous relationship with Count Vronsky, which offers her an escape from a loveless marriage but ends with her suicide. The wedding is the hinge on which the whole novel turns. Starting from the intense emotional experiences of the couple at the centre of the event, the narrator moves outwards into the concentric circles of relatives and friends and of interested spectators of this ‘society wedding’. As the service proceeds, members of these inner and outer circles comment on the unfolding drama like a Greek chorus.
All Moscow was in the church – relatives, friends and acquaintances. During the ceremony of plighting troth, in the brilliantly lit church, among the throng of elegantly clad women and girls, and men in white ties, frock-coats or uniforms, conversation in decorously low tones never flagged. It was mostly kept up by the men, for the women were absorbed in watching every detail of the service, which is so close to their hearts. (Anna Karenina, 480)
Yet the women have their say as well as the men. Like a roving microphone, the narrator picks up snatches of conversation. ‘Why is Marie in lilac? It's almost as unsuitable at a wedding as black.’ ‘With her complexion it's her only salvation.
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- Information
- Agape, Eros, GenderTowards a Pauline Sexual Ethic, pp. 219 - 259Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000