Kreutzer Sonata Essay

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Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata is a powerful example of the consequences of a strained marriage. In this novella, Tolstoy touches upon the importance and relevance of love in relationships as seen through the eyes of a man name Pozdnyshev living in the mid-nineteenth century. His experience in his failed marriage gives him a unique, if not a disturbing, view of love. Pozdnyshev relates his tragic story to others not only to prevent them from making the same mistake as he did, but also to analyze his own actions and to understand at what point he lost control of his marriage. From his experiences, he comes to three generalizations: that women are deceitful, that relationships between women and men can never be anything but physical and that emotional love is just a temporary feeling that will never be able to sustain a strong a long term relationship such as marriage. Through the culmination of these generalizations, he comes to the conclusion that there is no such thing as eternal love. In the story, women are constantly described as devious beings that need to be dealt with caution in relationships such as marriage. Pozdnyshev believes that women are naturally weaker, and therefore lack the rights afforded to men. Despite this discrepancy, women can easily level the playing field by utilizing what Pozdnyshev calls their “sensuality.” Once this option is exercised, the inequalities are not only erased, but reversed, and the woman gains full control. Clearly being discomforted by this notion, Pozdnyshev states: Women have made of themselves such an instrument for arousing sensuality that a man cannot deal with a woman calmly. As soon as a man approaches a woman, he succumbs to her spell and gets befuddled. Even before, I always felt awkward, eerie, when I saw a woman decked out in a ball gown, but now I’m downright scared, I see something downright dangerous for
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