The Roles and Fates of Women in Society - Case Study Example

Comparing Moliere and Tolstoy Table of Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 4 Conclusion 6 1Works Cited 8 Introduction This paper undertakes a comparison of the roles and fates of women in society as those are embodied in the lives of the primary characters in their works. Both Moliere and Tolstoy wrote vividly and explored with great probity the inner lives and sensibilities of their key women characters, and therefore their works are rich mines for insights into the modes of being of women in their respective times, as well as into the specific interfaces between the inner lives of the women on the one hand and the larger society that they belonged to. Those interfaces between the personal and the public are arenas where the private aspects of the women’s lives and beings, such as aspects of their sexuality and the way they wielded to sexuality to secure their personal spaces and to secure their standing in their social and family circles, are vital points of departure for understanding how women were. Those interfaces also shine a light on the state of society and the way society regarded and treated women in their persons, and as occupying certain family and social roles. An earnest comparison between the works and ideas of Tolstoy and Moliere from this perspective is a potentially fruitful way to arrive at such understanding. The comparison too, is potentially able to surface differences and similarities between the social roles and expectations tied to women in two disparate historical periods on the one hand, as well as surface similarities and differences in the understanding of how women were in their private lives, in their thoughts, feelings, and interactions with those in their most intimate relationships. One can therefore undertake this comparison, from the perspectives discussed above, in the spirit of exploring the rich mines that are the minds of works of two masters, to be surprised and blindsided maybe, and certainly to come up with new and deep insights into those (Tolstoy; Moliere). Discussion In Tolstoy one does not have to look very far to find suitable women characters for analysis and introspection about the nature of women in their social and private spheres. Anna Karenina of course is a seminal and popular work, and one too that stars a woman whose depiction is sufficiently complex and brilliant for the purposes of this present comparison and analysis work. Of course in this novel Anna goes on to be unfaithful to her husband, and in the end she is unable to handle the social and internal pressures of such an act and commits suicide, but this simplistic plot also provides a framework for a deep exploration of the inner workings of the minds and personality of Anna on the one hand and the way various aspects of her being clashed with the social roles and conventions that society had reserved for Anna and her kind during Tolstoy’s time. Just looking at the plot, it is easy to conclude that Tolstoy condemns women who commit adultery, and sees such women as ultimately doomed, and ultimately having the fate of a person who careens directly into a brick wall. On the other hand, with Tolstoy one expects something more, and that things are rarely black and white. Indeed, while a surface reading shows Tolstoy depicting adulterers as ultimately doomed, yet Tolstoy in the same vein, by his piercing and intimate portrayal of the subjective reality of Anna, nevertheless shines a light of compassion on Anna and all women who lived during Tolstoy’s time. On one extreme there may be those who will summarily dismiss the actuations of all women as crazy, that adultery does not pay, and that the subjective reality of women are to be glossed over, in favor of them fulfilling certain social roles, roles that are safe and tried, such as mother, husband and friend. The one extreme views women as not capable of subjectivity, or at least not capable of subjectivity that is worth taking seriously, and so they are better off just living within the parameters set for them by society. Otherwise all is chaos, and women who sleep with other men and follow their feelings and passions are doomed to stray away from the safety of social conventions, and risk death. Certainly this is what happened to Anna. On the other extreme is Tolstoy, who wrote a novel where Anna herself, even in her own ultimately tragic fate, was worthy of the piercing eye and the compassionate treatment of Tolstoy. In Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina the subjective reality of the woman is valuable and worth investigating. She is not merely crazy and therefore must remain confined to proven roles. Anna, while doomed, was a person to be taken seriously, whose emotions, thoughts, passions and fate had the weight of a universe and the best artistic effort of a master like Tolstoy (Tolstoy). In Moliere too, in Tartuffe and his portrayal of Elmire, one finds a sympathetic master who depicts women and their ways of being as not necessarily worth putting on a pedestal on the one hand nor worthy of being condemned and straight jacketed on the other. The sexuality of Elmire is viewed with much sympathy and understanding, and is in fact used to lure a charlatan and expose a fraud in Tartuffe. Yes in the play Elmire overtly uses her sexuality to achieve an end, but here the end is noble, and besides that Elmire had employed her seductive powers with the complicity of her husband, with the goal of pinning down Tartuffe and of making Orgon see the folly of his blind trust in a hypocritical and manipulative man. One can say too that in both Tolstoy’s Anna and Moliere’s Elmire there is a compassionate portrayal of the subjective lives of the two women. They are not merely roles, but are complex beings, and that moreover their sexuality are a deep source of fascination and a deep mystery, able to reshape fortunes, reveal truths, ruin lives, disrupt families, break men’s hearts, and cause great masters to create works of great complexity and beauty in the case of Tolstoy and Moliere (Moliere; Tolstoy). On the other hand, the differences in Moliere’s women and Tolstoy’s women, as reflected in the portrayals of Elmire and Anna, are also profound. In Tartuffe Elmire wields her sexuality for noble ends, and within the confines of family and her role as a loyal wife and preserver of the family. It is a sanctioned wielding of sexuality and Elmire does not really stray from social expectations. Anna, on the other hand, makes a complete and bold break with social expectations of her. She dares to give in to her passions and to be unfaithful to her husband. In a way it is Tolstoy who is the true revolutionary in portraying Anna in this way and in exploring the possibilities of an adulterer’s life with so much compassion and without fear. For Moliere Elmire’s person and her femininity and sexuality are treated within the safer confines of convention and within the bounds of acceptability relative to the social expectations of women during the time of Moliere (Moliere; Tolstoy). Conclusion In the compassionate and earnest way in which Tolstoy explored the life of an adulterer in Anna, and to a lesser extent of a seductress in Elmire by Moliere, one can see the way the two works by these two masters broke new ground in taking the subjective and personal lives of women, in all of their flaws and their mysterious aspects, very seriously. The subjective and personal lives of women matter, and that this matters, and that the two writers demonstrated it to be so, is a powerful statement. At the same time, one can see too that there are stark differences in the way Tolstoy went further and explored the life of a woman who chose to live outside of social conventions and rules, and to employ the same compassionate but true eye to the unfolding of such a life all the way to its end (Tolstoy; Moliere). 1 Works Cited Moliere, Jean Baptiste. Tartuffe on The Internet Archive. 2000. Web. 2 March 2015. Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina on Project Gutenberg. 1998. Web. 2 March 2015. Read More