L.N. Tolstoy's "The Kreutzer sonata" as a work on the body politic

Abstract

This thesis examines L. N. Tolstoy's representation of sexuality in late­ nineteenth-century Russia through his novella, The Kreutzer Sonata (1889).* I draw on recent theoretical works of Michel Foucault and Alphonso Lingis to investigate the political and economic factors significant to the development of sexuality in capitalist cultures such as nineteenth-century Russia. I show that Tolstoy's depiction of the political empowerment and economic motivation behind sexuality are the most significant factors in shaping human sexuality, which concurs with the recent theoretical models. I then show how women are subordinated to comply with male sexuality to achieve its political and economic ends. From this emerges a masculine view of women as subservient lower animals. I incorporate an historical account of human relationships with animals and how women became included in that lower order by men, which is vividly portrayed in The Kreutzer Sonata and supported by feminist theory. After building a representative picture of sexuality and relations between the sexes, I demonstrate how Tolstoy articulates the protagonist in his novella to create a polemics against the foundations of that society. Tolstoy rehabilitates the status of a woman in favour of equality between the sexes, thus subverting all modes of life based on perceived masculine superiority. This thesis will conclude, therefore, that Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata is an indictment and condemnation of capitalist social organisation based on the exploitation of populations through their sexuality in Russia as in the West.