A Labyrinth of Linkages in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina

The renowned Russian writer Leo Tolstoy created a realistic masterpiece

in "Anna Karenina" (1878). In the same work, moreover,

he utilized allegory and symbol to an extent and at a level of sophistication

unknown in his other works. In Browning's study, the

author identifies and analyzes previously unnoticed or only briefly

mentioned "linkages and keystones" found in two highly developed

clusters of symbols, arising from Anna's momentous train ride and

peasant nightmares, and of allegories, rooted in Vronsky's disastrous

steeplechase. Within a labyrinth of symbol, allegory, and structural

patterning lies embedded much of the novel's most significant meaning.

This study will be of particular interest to students and scholars

of Russian literature, Tolstoy, symbol, allegory, structuralism, and

moral criticism.