The poetics of the “multiplied” plot and the open ending in L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina”

Doklady Bashkirskogo Universiteta. 2023. Volume 8. No. 1. pp. 58-66.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33184/dokbsu-2023.1.8

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The article discusses the important features of the poetics of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina”: the “multiplied” plot and the open ending. Turning to the “multiplied” plot, Tolstoy could not ignore the experience of Shakespeare, the author of “King Lear”, “Henry IV”, “Hamlet”. The parallel unfolding of two event lines connected with the fate of different persons performs important functions in Tolstoy’s novel, as in Shakespeare’s tragedies. The “multiplied” plot creates the effect of repeatability and universality of the life situation. In addition, thanks to such a plot in the work, the effect of “density”, “density”, the complex complexity of life arises. The novel “Anna Karenina” vividly demonstrates another feature of Tolstoy’s poetics: the absence of a “final curtain”. The eighth and last book of the novel, written under the impression of the Russian-Turkish war that began in 1877 and published by the author separately from the main body of the work, is perceived as a vivid expression of Tolstoy’s pacifism and a bold criticism of Russia’s official policy. Within the framework of topical themes, Tolstoy skillfully weaves the main plot lines of his novel. The characters of the main characters correspond to the new atmosphere. The novel ends with pastoral motives, while Levin remains on the threshold of an important decision, at the beginning of the acquisition of Tolstoy’s Christianity. “Confession”, on which the writer began work in 1878, begins where “Anna Karenina” is finished, or rather, where she is “torn off”. The open ending of the novel gives rise to the effect of a life continuation, in which a separate narrative is only a short fragment.