Anna Karenina: Specular Moments in the Lover’s Discourse

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Anna Karenina: Specular Moments in the Lover’s Discourse

E. Conclusion

Thinking, as opposed to perceiving, takes place only through language. Through the novel Anna relies on language in her attempts to define her new place in society and in the amorous relationship with Vronsky. By the end of the novel she comes to realize that this leads to nowhere. Language only leads to more language. We find similarity between her discourse and Levin’s in that they both unrelentingly desire to find the perfect, limpid, that is, completely literal sign. In this Anna betrays a certain linguistic disorder: in her longing for immediacy she cannot read for figural meaning. Later in the novel Levin finds satisfaction in his relationship with Kitty, he recognizes the meaning of his life, the essence of his existence and his place in the universe only after he has abandoned the linguistic sign as the tool to understanding the ultimate signified. In her study of Lacan, Anika Lemaire reminds us that, “The single word implies a series of references to other words in the code, so that one could go right through the dictionary and still come up with nothing but a tautology. The final signified for which one searches is radically excluded from thought as it concerns an incommensurable dimension, namely the Real” (41). Kitty and Levin in this novel, and Pierre and Natasha in War and Peace find happiness in marriage once they come to realize that the ultimate purpose of their existence and of history is beyond human reason (Singer, 53).

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AuthorGeorge Mitrevski
2018-08-21T17:23:08+00:00 June 19th, 2007|Categories: Essays, Literature, Blesok no. 54|0 Comments