Reading Journal 3

(From Nikolai Leskov's novella, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District)

Rather than go chapter-by-chapter (I just finished doing that by writing the plot summary for the story over at Wikipedia to refresh myself on various points of the book before responding) I think I'll just respond to the novella as a whole.

The basic story has Katerina have an affair with Sergei and murder (only sometimes with Sergei's help) anyone who threatens either their relationship or their inheritance of her husband's estate. Victims include a range of characters her father-in-law Boris, husband Zinovy, child-nephew Fyodor, who isn't even old enough to realize that he might be in the way, and Sergei's later lover in the convoy, Sonya. The motivation for all of these killings, although with Boris seeming to be a reaction to oppression at first, eventually through Katerina and Sergei's dialogue appears to actually be due to a sort of overpowering romanticism. Sergei convinces her that he's a true romantic, and that the highest moral good is for them to be together. This seems to be the thing to which Katerina is existentially committed, even long after Sergei has discarded it in repenting of the murders to which it led: The first three murders happen on account of things threatening Sergei and thus their relationship, but the last is solely on account of the threat to Katerina's involvement with him. Leskov even paints "loose" characters (men and women) in a much better light than romance-blinded Katerina: Sergei as the first we hear of, and Aksinya the peasant cook, and finally Fiona in the prison convoy all feel much more human than she does (at least at times--admittedly Sergei is a mixed story all his own), despite their sexual immorality. Aksinya and Fiona in particular seem to be, respectively, a source of wisdom and comfort, respectively, to her in a way that no other characters are, yet none of the women, romantic or not, approach being Tatyanas to be sure. Katerina is particularly damnable when we find that she actually was acting caring towards Fyodor before deciding to kill him, and when her own son is born, reacts with a sharp, "Don't bother me with it!" and never sees him again.

Some themes from the course that recur here are that of romanticism (as already mentioned), virginity, the forbidden love between social classes (minorly--Katerina was originally not well off and had no choice but to marry; Sergei is a hired farm-hand under her authority in some sense), and the sublimation of egos within a relationship. Virginity in the case of all of the characters is not physically a reality from the beginning of the story, but Katerina seems to lose a kind of alternate virginity in the sense that there's no going back from murder, but also in the sense of a kind of awakening that occurs within her due to her affair with Sergei: in chapter four Leskov describes to us that "suddenly her expansive nature made itself fully apparent," and this is what lets her both ask for Boris to release Sergei and to kill her father-in-law when he refuses.

The sublimation of egos is probably the most striking theme, given the time period. Sergei waits with extreme patience outside on the roof upon Zinovy's return, given that Katerina doesn't tell him what's going on (contrast this with Prince Ivan in Maria Morevna), and with vigorous watch, solely because she tells him to do so. But if that's extreme, it's almost not even noteworthy compared to what Katerina does with the perception that it's "for Sergei". Even her decision to off young Fyodor occurs long after Sergei had stopped bringing up the topic of their lost inheritance with her. Her outstanding self-abasement and Sergei-worship is so extreme that, even when Sergei has repented of their murders and rejected Katerina, she still wanders around dazed: "She did not understand anything, or love anybody, not even herself," but continued her pursuit of her ex-lover despite his growing disgust for her person and return to his womanizing persona. When she finally sees herself as equals with the "easy" Fiona she had only been able to be tolerate at first by condemning in her mind, she "turns to stone" in Leskov's words and her homicide-suicide are not far in the future; at this point her ego-sublimation is over, she has gone insane, and now acts out of jealousy and in line with the unrepentant murderer she has become. In the end she mimics Sergei's mocking-reminiscing words, mumbling to herself, "How we sat out the long autumn nights together and sent people out of this world with violent death," and in one last violent act takes Sonya and herself out of the picture.

All of this violence and sexual betrayal was seemingly born from just one foray from Katerina's sanctuary within the house while her husband was gone. The first chapters' focus on her plight, though, turn this from "women should stay in the terem" to women having a sort of general catch-22 to deal with in their lives. Katerina is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't, but she isn't the one who has placed her self in this position at the beginning of the story. Rather, the rules of society are called into question.