Hunting in Anna Karenina as a Commentary on Masculinity

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and without a familiar environment to calm his mind he fell into obsessing over matters related to his current work despite the rather base nature of its discussion in the company of government men and society ladies. Eventually he becomes so absorbed by this distraction that it completely consumes him and he rudely leaves the the Sviazhsky’s without properly excusing himself.

It is possible that the forced juxtapositions he endured every hunting venture with his aristocratic friends finally drove Levin to avoid the activity all together, as he never went on any expeditions again until after his marriage to Kitty. He finds great happiness in his relationship, and the first few months he is with her he believes their love will melt his problems away, but is disappointed to find that he has the same insecurities about life under it all. Kitty gives him something positive to balance it out so that he does not become so engrossed by his own shortcomings that he fails to live his life, but he still finds himself overwhelmed by his failures of masculinity. This bottled up insecurity finally takes its toll when Kitty’s cousin Vaslovsky comes to visit and begins to flirt with Kitty rather inappropriately. Levin is consumed by jealousy as he reverts to his premarital fear that Kitty finds him ugly and only married him for his money in one moment of complete despair that he tries to mask with his usual anxiety-invoked, graceless conversation.

“Levin’s jealousy went further still. Already he saw himself a deceived husband, looked upon by his wife and her lover as simply necessary to provide them with the conveniences and pleasures of life…. But in spite of that he made polite and hospitable inquiries of Vassenka [Vaslovsky] about his shooting, his gun, and his boots, and agreed to go shooting next day.” (1,240)

Though he does finally confront Kitty about the issue and she snaps him out of his delusions so that he may appreciate Vaslovsky for the kind hearted man he is, the incident proves only the precursor to the masculine damage of pride he would experience during the actual hunt with Vaslovsky and Oblonsky.

Again Levin was faced with his antithesis Oblonsky, this time the two were accompanied accompanied by Levin’s greater inverse, Vaslovsky. Despite leading a life even more unsatisfactory to Levin than Oblonsky’s, Vaslovsky was actually on good terms in Levin’s mind because Levin was trying to make up for his initial jealousy upon meeting him and without Kitty around there was nothing the chipper young man could do to provoke his wrath. This allows Levin to enjoy the company of the two optimistic men, though there is one moment of tension that finally hardens Levin to accept his insecurities. In an oddly out of character moment Oblonsky actively tries to undermine Levin’s conception of masculinity by telling him in reference to his tendency to let Kitty know his location at all times that “ a man must be independent; he has his masculine interests. A man has to be manly," (1, 277) This implies that even in what Levin thinks to be his ultimate demonstration of conservative Russian machismo, a stable marriage, is still an example of his virile deficiency in the eyes of his peers. He is told not to worry so much about his morals and go and enjoy hedonism and all of its benefits and repercussions as he will be much happier for it as long as he does not let it affect his home life. Levin does not agree with this latter statement, but does acknowledge that he relies too heavily on Kitty.

“ [Oblonsky] may be right, I’m not manly with her, I’m tied to her apron-strings…. Well, it can’t be helped! Negative again….” (1,279)

Rather importantly it seems he resigns to accepting Oblonsky and Vaslovsky’s hedonism as not sinful acts but merely as alternative forms of masculinity he does not care to engage in while accepting the flaws of his own situation as necessary evils to his happiness. It may be no coincidence that the next day after finding peace in the deficiencies in himself and others does Levin shoot and kill the most amount of avian game in the entire story, to the jealousy of Oblonsky himself.

The story moves past Levin’s earthy insecurities by having him accept that the world does not turn based on his own perception of how it should work, but still retain the ideals that got him to his respectable position in life. He could easily be a man like Oblonsky, an adulterer and hedonist who lives each day without a care, but accepts the fact that it is just not who he is, and also that he should not feel so anxious around Oblonsky for taking a different path in life than he. Levin learns of the different faces a man can have and still be a good man in a world that is not as morally black and white as his personal anxieties made him believe it to be. Ironically it is this confidence that allows him to keep an open mind regarding the faults in his fellow hunting party members as they together face self reflection within the secure, masculine isolation of shooting animals in the wild. He accepts that he has a certain outlook on life that makes him behave a certain way that he does not particularly wish to change, and finds peace in finally realizing that he is a good man and need not compare himself to others