Understanding Self and Others: Marriage Scenarios in Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina

Abstract

Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina establish a literary and cultural dialogue through the exploration of the individual’s private space. The two writers are undoubtedly intrigued by a fluid nature of the individual: marriage appears to reveal inner conflicts, doubts, anxieties, as well as longing for happiness. Although pursuing different agendas when indulgingly devising sentimental love stories and outrageous adulteries, Ford and Tolstoy echo each other when delivering their vision of self and other. This essay explores the topos of marriage as an element that amplifies the textual double-coding and reveals ethic and aesthetic values Ford and Tolstoy communicate.