TOLSTOY AND LEVIN: ANNIHILATING THE NIHILISTS

by

Hugh R. Whinfrey

What is the purpose of life? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my existence? These metaphysical inquiries are often collectively referred to as the central question of human existence.

In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy clearly presents a very post-Slavophile view of the answer to the central question. Over and over he makes the point that syllogistic reasoning is not capable of deducing the great universal answer. Over and over he makes the point that there is a functioning part of the universe that is not accessible through rational cognition.

Konstantin Levin seeks the answer through a Nihilist point of view, in fundamental contrast to Tolstoy's view. Levin makes the statement (261)¹ that self-interest is a universal and philosophical principle, a clear connection with Chernyshevsky. Given the way Tolstoy has framed the issue, Levin is thus pre-destined to serve as a vehicle to refute Nihilism.

Tolstoy advances the thesis that the only way people who seek the answer through logic can be happy, is in the seeking itself. "Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in finding it"(173). This is also known as the thrill of the hunt.

Appropriately, the snipe hunting episode with Stepan is used to give Levin an opportunity to perceive Tolstoy's view of the answer, since this is really the figurative object of the hunt. Levin looks at the sky (consistently symbolizing the great universal truth) and makes out the stars of the Great Bear (Levin himself) and then loses them again. (Levin had called Kitty "Little Bear" when she was younger.) He resolves to wait until Venus (Roman God of love, i.e. Kitty) rises above it so the Great Bear will be plainly visible. After the shaft of the Great Bear is visible, he eventually unexpectedly asks Stiva if Kitty is married yet. While they are talking, Laska, the dog, pricks up her ears, looks at the sky, then looks at them reproachfully and thinks "They'll miss it"(175). And they do miss the opportunity to realize that the question about Kitty was expectable at that moment. Kitty's marital status was written in the sky, and Levin had just verbalized what he had perceived through an other-than-rational mode of cognition. While the human Levin fails to grasp what he has just done due to his denial of the influence of nature, the dog Laska, who is closer to nature, sees it at once.

Tolstoy creates many missed opportunities for Levin to grasp the reality existing outside the realm of logic. The most explicit example is the external force that he feels while mowing the hay (270). The sky, whenever Levin looks at it, is always such an opportunity. The rain that falls during the mowing on Levin's estate (265), is a mis-judgment of the sky that Levin does grasp. But as with all the sky scenes, Levin comes to a point where he cuts off the thought process so as to avoid contemplating the literal significance of it all.

Levin noticed when Sergey was arguing with the professor, that every time they got close to the chief point, a hasty retreat always followed (28). However he doesn't notice himself doing it. Levin's answer to the central question is all around him, he just refuses to recognize it because it's not the answer he wants to hear.

What Levin does want to hear is that he is the center of all things. This is the crux of Levin's inner conflict. He is trying to be a Nihilist but the evidence he is accumulating refutes that philosophical view rather than reinforces it. Bluntly, Tolstoy is painting Nihilists as ego-centric individuals.

The full conclusion of Nihilism, as Tolstoy sees it, weighs on Levin at the end of part 3, "He saw nothing but death or the advance toward death in everything. But his cherished scheme engrossed him all the more. Life had to be got through somehow till death did come. Darkness had fallen upon everything for him; but just because of this darkness he felt that the one guiding clue in the darkness was his work, and he clutched it and clung to it with all his strength" (372).

The only sustaining purpose Levin had was the improvement of his estate, the thrill of the hunt. This was also what what Kitty had meant to him. His love for Kitty was really a love for the "mystery of the proceedings"(25). Levin felt that "he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women"(26). It was the pursuit of the mystery that had enchanted him, and with Kitty's refusal he had simply abandoned that hunt for the new one of improving his estate.

Given Tolstoy's thesis of the necessity for a good Nihilist to have an ongoing hunt to serve as a distraction from the central question, Levin could have gone on about his business and remained with the philosophy, except for the fact that he got married. With the ensuing birth of his son, Levin was deprived of a hunt, as all his material goals had been attained. So he was plunged back into introspection because he no longer had a vehicle for avoiding the question.

Levin, being convinced that the materialists offered no solution, read and reread all the works of the non-materialists, including Plato, Schelling and Hegel(820). As he wrestles with their philosophies (821), Tolstoy explicitly states his attack on the Nihilists. Levin compares life itself with these philosophies and finds the artificial edifice falls to pieces like a house of cards(821).

Levin even rejects the religion of Khomyakov, the Slavophile, who he had read at the suggestion of his brother Sergey. In spurning materialism and the non-materialisms, Levin proves wrong his brother Nikolai, the communist materialist, who had told him that he would eventually have to choose between his two brothers(97).

The answer finally comes to him through a native Russian peasant. To live for one's soul. How simple. Levin is transformed, seeing now all the clues that he had been unconsciously ignoring for so long, finally being able think without retreating from the point. Tolstoy has completed the exposition and proof of his philosophy.

It is an appealing philosophy, it sets down a single simple principle that one must abide by in order to have a clean conscience, live for truth, which is equivalent to God. All other philosophies are then necessarily just ways to hide a guilty conscience.

However, the proof that Tolstoy offers ends in one very big contradiction. Through this philosophy, Levin is able to rationalize all the events that he has experienced in the book. All of those things that didn't make sense are now included in the category of things beyond reason, which has now become a justifiable category to use in syllogistic reasoning, and we are right back smack in the middle of Hegel's philosophy of rationalism, despite all of Tolstoy's efforts to the contrary.

Seattle, March 1991.

Endnotes