Abstract
This paper explores Anna Karenina’s multifaceted love(s) towards three men – her son, her husband, and her lover – using psychoanalytic perspective. While Joe Wright’s film adaptation (2012) serves as the primary object of analysis, the paper also draws upon the source text by Leo Tolstoy. The essay demonstrates ways in which psychoanalytic theory may be deployed to understand Anna’s motivations. Specifically, it suggests interpreting Anna’s love decisions in terms of what Freud called a love versus desire divide, originally attributed to men. As analysis shows, Anna seeks love and desire in two separate male figures, with Karenin being more like a father to her, and Vronsky – a sexual object or a “bad boy,” to use Bruce Fink’s term. Anna thinks in terms of “exchange” not of her husband’s but of her son’s love for that of Vronsky, thereby equating those seemingly different love(s). The paper looks closely at the specific scenes as well as stylistic techniques such as a whip pan, close-up, point-of-view shot, etc., which shed light onto Anna’s psychological conflict.
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