Hi guys! I hope everyone had a great Monday. I know Mondays can be a total drag, especially coming back from such a great Fourth of July weekend, but I hope that this blog post puts a smile to your face 🙂

So, I have to confess. I’m a little bit tired (and it’s only 7pm here in America) because of the fact that I took a run then did some major working out at home with my handy-dandy Total Gym set. I’m sure that it’s ancient compared to the new workout systems they have nowadays (like seriously, combining the mechanics of walking and spinning in one machine). Oh, and I did some yoga too. It’s weird that I haven’t written about how much I work out actually because of how constant I tend to do it throughout the week.

Anyway, after exhausting my gluteus maximus for a spell, I thought it was time to watch the very amazing (yet not-so-true-to-the-book) movie adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law. I mean, it was shown awhile back in the theatres, but I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t watch it unless I read (and possibly finished) the book.

Sidenote: I’m currently on Part Two of the nine-hundred or so page novel, and quite frankly, there are parts where I just want to throw the book at a wall and there are others where I just want to hug Mr. Tolstoy himself. Case in point, it’s very hard to read especially with such a busy schedule. Trying to juggle a multitudinous amount of workload, hobbies, and finishing a summer reading list is really, really difficult. Procrastination is a total pain in the you-know-what and everyone knows it.

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SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT — DON’T TELL ME I DIDN’T WARN YOU.***

Anna Karenina dies. No. She kills herself by hurling her dainty Russian body underneath a train (oh, let’s look back to Part One when the filthy worker was ran over by the train as well.. I hate foreshadowing sometimes -_-). Anyway, I could not keep my mind off Kate Chopin’s coming-of-age novel The Awakening when I found out that Anna dies. Chopin’s heroine, Edna Pontellier, also commits suicide through drowning herself in the ocean. (Or did she? 😉

Both novels centralize around the way society dictates how a woman must act whether she is seen outside of her home or not. Anna and Edna are both well-endowed from the very beginning due to their husbands’ acquired ranks. Both husbands are also thought of by society as “saints.” I don’t necessarily disagree with this term; in fact, I acknowledge it.

Now, let’s get to the point.

There were moments in both novels where I really utterly hated how the women lived and how they acted. For example, Edna’s petite country-charmer-of-a-house signified her branching out from her husband, but there were signs that she showed that she was lost. Her constant admiration for Mme. Reisz was so painstakingly annoying at times that I literally screamed at the book for Edna to GET A LIFE. Then I realized that that was exactly what she was doing. Anna Karenina also annoyed the living wits out of me when she would argue with Vronsky for no apparent reason, later blaming it on the “demon” inside of her.

Both women also left their children, which I completely disagree with. No child should ever be left by their own mother.  Though deep down, I think Anna always loved her son more than Edna loved her children. But that’s just my opinion.

Anyway, here it is. So, my question is that why do these two authors kill off their protagonists? And why do they have to  both be women? Is it a sign of weakness? Or is it a declaration that a constricting life, though having its perks, is worse than an afterlife where women were not so pressured to be absolutely perfect?

The last question was rhetorical.

All I have to say is that I am thankful that our society today refuses to have a constricting and painful lifestyle for women. Though we are not liberated as we would want, I think we have come a long way, and we have a lot to be thankful for. 🙂

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Comment for any questions/concerns. As always, have a great rest of your night and stay beautiful!

xx,

NathalieApple