Chapter 11 Tolstoy complex

We turn our attention to the world-recognized literary masterpieces. Just like the opening quotation of this work "Vengeance is up to me, I will repay", what Tolstoy originally wanted to describe was a fallen woman who did not love her family and had no sense of responsibility. Cast aside by the upper class, he eventually died in pain.But after the work came out, it has been called the most beautiful love story by thousands of readers, and it is a great work that sympathizes with and understands women. Various statements can be made about the sociological, literary and aesthetic significance of this Russian masterpiece.Today, we just want to point out an unnoticed "Tolstoy complex".

We know that there are two male protagonists in this book, Vronsky and Levin. In a sense, this is Tolstoy's two parts: Vronsky represents His human side; Levin represented his other side. When he used these two sides to face Anna and Kitty respectively, the hidden meaning here is the author's concept of love and marriage: he regards Anna as his lover who really has lust for him, and Kitty as his legitimate wife .When facing a woman like Anna, the author is a wild man full of lust and pursuing enjoyment; when facing Kitty, he is a well-behaved man who wants to pretend to live in society.

It is the two women, Anna and Kitty, who correspond to Vronsky and Levin, that is, the duality of the author's personality, which expresses Tolstoy's complete view of love and marriage.He is looking for a pure, socially acceptable woman to be his wife.However, true love can only be shared with someone who is full of sensual stimulation and femininity.The fame and status of this woman is irrelevant.Perhaps this injustice of fame and status just stimulated his lust. Anna's death may be due to the power of realism and the arrangement of life itself. In the novel, this arrangement may be a natural logic.

However, we still say that it is the subconscious that determines everything.When Tolstoy arranged the ending of Anna's death, it just showed the author's subconscious attitude towards women like Anna, and Anna could only die. It was Anna's death that made Vronsky repent.Here, it is better to say that Tolstoy produced confession than Vronsky produced it. After Tolstoy made such an arrangement of Anna's fate, the author's subconscious of confession is displayed like a picture.When Anna walks through some picture vaguely with a candle in her hand in her imagination, and when Anna lies down on the railroad tracks in despair, the work reveals the author's deep confession complex towards women.

This complex is shown in a more complete way in another of his literary masterpieces: Nekhludoff in the book can still be regarded as the incarnation of Tolstoy. In, still a fallen woman, still a penitent man.The reason why the man repents is that the fall of the woman is related to him, just as the death of Central Anna is related to Vronsky. It is in the connection and correspondence between and that we see Tolstoy's complete views on love and marriage. In the novel, Nekhludoff failed to marry Maslova in the end, which also showed Tolstoy's same view on marriage in the novel: as a decent man in the upper class, he could only marry Kitty; A man with intense erotic desires, longing for Anna and lusting after Maslova.However, this passion can ruin a decent man's fortune.The story can only end with the destruction or sacrifice of the woman; having accepted this sacrifice, the man offers his penance.

In this sense we can say that writing his own confession to women was one of Tolstoy's great creative drives.This confession is also related to his profound and contradictory views on marriage and family. He wants a wife who is justified, but longs for a lover full of lust and excitement. This complex is actually exactly the same as the relationship between Zhongjia Baoyu and Xue Baochai, Lin Daiyu and Xiren in China.In the rendition of love, it is Baoyu and Baochai who finally get married, which shows the victory of the orthodox concept of marriage.Similarly, in the novel, let Lin Daiyu die for him as a spiritual lover, and let Xiren sacrifice for him as a carnal lust.

Jia Baoyu's affection for women actually includes remorse.In a sense, it is also Cao Xueqin's literary works that naturally reveal women's confession psychology. When we look down on the great Tolstoy with this kind of vision, we will clearly see a basic complex hidden in many of his works, and we can also see that the society in which Tolstoy lives is in love and marriage. The huge contradiction in life -- the contradiction between real emotions and rational choices that take into account interests. This is actually a contradiction faced by quite a few men in modern society.It finally came to expression through the works of Tolstoy.

Of course, we can do more similar analyzes about Tolstoy’s works and Cao Xueqin’s works. What I want to explain here is that the so-called "Jia Baoyu Complex" and "Tolstoy Complex" are just the works of these great works. of a level. Through the superficial rational framework of these great works, many hidden subconscious structures can be discovered.These structures, like our analysis, will also reflect multi-layered symbolic meanings. In the end it was Nekhludoff who did not want to marry Maslova, so the arrangement was made. In the end, Vronsky wanted to get rid of Anna as a burden, and only Anna's suicide by lying on the rails was the only way he could accept—he didn't want Anna to leave him in other ways, such as finding another lover—he It is also because of this ending that more confessions have been made.

Tolstoy's attitude towards women should be said to be full of contradictions and "hypocrisy", which is the "hypocrisy" of quite a few men in modern society. To be fair, this is "hypocrisy" that should not be forgiven and condoned. Many noble and moral acts in human history originate from repentance, and repentance originates from moral indebtedness and guilt. This is a fairly general rule. Tolstoy did embody a subconscious complex in these two books. He has a sense of guilt towards women, and he is writing for confession and redemption. In essence, he was resolving a conflict in his own mind.Generally speaking, this kind of inner complex may not seem so tragic. Looking at Tolstoy's life, it may be difficult to find any strong events recorded that made him have such a strong confession and redemption towards women.

However, human psychology is like this. Some past lives that seem to have been covered up by reason, and some past events that seem to be drowned by time, have sunk deeply into the subconscious.It overflows when dream thinking and artistic thinking unfold. Tolstoy truly showed this strong complex in his artistic writing. It is no accident that a writer writes the same story and the same melody with the main works of his life. In a more profound sense, his works blame the society for the male protagonist's harm to women. It is the society that caused the cowardice and selfishness of men, and it is the society that killed Anna Karenina and Maslova.This kind of blame should be said to be legitimate logic.

However, it is precisely because his subconscious mind, which is deeper than this imputation, is his penitent psychology, that makes his criticism of society so poignant. Human psychology is often expressed in the form of conversion. Tolstoy and the protagonists in his novels, precisely because of the psychological need for repentance (to dilute their own guilt), so they must express themselves in the process of criticizing the sinful society. Awe-inspiring justice. By criticizing the society, one can free oneself spiritually. The logic in the novel is very similar to the real logic in life: a man, in the situation of Nekhludoff and Vronsky, can only make his own life a reality by gaining a sense of justice while criticizing the society. The sense of guilt is relieved and the balance of the mind is obtained.This is the root of the literary aspect shown by these two books. It can be said that a large number of men with "Nekheludoff complex" get the satisfaction of resolving life contradictions once in the works. In this world, quite a few men have a Nekhludoff complex.They go beyond moral norms and constraints to pursue, seduce, and possess women; and because of utilitarian considerations, moral pressure, or other social norms, they commit acts that hurt women.As a result, they have a deep sense of guilt, repentance and atonement needs that are not necessarily perceived by themselves. Tolstoy's work helped them resolve this contradiction.It makes them revisit the happiness and pleasure of chasing women, and release their confession towards women; once they put the responsibility on the society and impose justice on the society, they free themselves. Tolstoy's novels allow many men to "experience" Nekhludoff's story, enabling them to resolve their inner conflicts in the fantasy of art. Even for those men who have not experienced this kind of life story, the emotional structure of their hearts can easily resonate with Nekhludoff.This is a common structure caused by modern social culture.Therefore, for this part of the male readers, they also resolved this contradiction in a sense of the future tense. "Tolstoy complex" or Vronsky and Nekhludoff complex is essentially a man's confession complex.This is a complex that some men who have succeeded in the world of women in modern times often have. It is a cultural landscape worthy of special attention. Examining the occurrence of this complex, we can mostly see the following reasons: First, a man's guilt towards a woman is first cast by maternal love, which is rooted in his guilt towards his mother.This is an easy guilt for a boy who grew up under the care of his mother. The mother gives a lot of love to the son, but the son rarely repays the mother.This kind of repayment was not achieved in childhood because of weakness, and it was not enough because of inadvertence when growing up.If the mother's love is extraordinarily broad and selfless, and the son has been willful, burdensome and even hurt the mother a lot in his life from childhood to adulthood, but the mother takes care of the son as warmly as spring, then the son will naturally have deep feelings for the mother. guilt. This kind of guilt may often be unconscious, especially when the mother has always faced the son happily without complaint, and the son seems to be accepting all this on the surface.However, in the subconscious, the guilt for the first woman's mother in the world may be deeply buried. This world should be a world of peer-to-peer exchange of love.When a son owes his mother, although neither he nor his mother is aware of it intellectually, the subconscious is already dominating his mental activities. As a counter-evidence to this truth, we can cite many cases: If a boy has not received the necessary maternal love since he was a child, and is even abandoned for no reason, then it is not only difficult for him to form a "Tolstoy complex" of guilt towards women ’, and perhaps even, on the contrary, that the female world owed him, that he always had a nameless, vicious hostility towards women. Two, a boy who grows up under full maternal love, and later gets more care from women, is cast by women's love, and may become a successful person in dealing with women.Women give him a lot, he gives women less, and as a result, he owes women. Just like Anna Karenina gave Vronsky a lot, Vronsky was far from giving back in equal measure.Just like Maslova dedicated everything to Nekhludoff, but Nekhludoff left after a night of lust. A man who is loved by a woman owes a woman. A man who succeeds in front of a woman may be a man who robs a woman. This kind of emotional "unequal exchange" sometimes sends a strong accusation to the man who robbed her in the form of Anna Karenina's suicide by lying on the rails and Maslova's deformity; They seem to be at the mercy of fate, and some women are even fond of those men who have robbed their innocence and left in good memory for a long time. At this time, successful men seldom repent explicitly, they are still living in their own way. However, the law of equal communication governs everything everywhere, and the unequal exchange of emotions has cast a deep sense of guilt in the subconscious of these successful men.They owed women, and they felt uneasy and guilty. In the end, a "Tolstoy complex" was formed. This is the complex of confession to women. It may be hidden in the depths of the soul for a long time, and it will be revealed irresistibly when it meets the opportunity, resulting in actions of repentance and redemption. Third, men who have a confession complex towards women often have more psychological reasons.In their unequal emotional interactions with women, they will not only use his superiority to plunder each other openly—just like Vronsky did, he never used any tricks on Anna Karenina— ─Sometimes a lot of unethical tactics are used, including deception. When a so-called "successful" man robs women of affection, if he uses these improper methods, his guilt takes on a new moral content. This is a picture of life that is often seen in modern society. Fourth, men's guilt towards women is essentially a moral and ethical self-blame. The psychology of confession summarized by "Tolstoy complex" is inseparable from the social culture with the ethics and morality as the core of modern society. In a society that absolutely despises women and regards women as slaves, men cannot form a confession complex towards women.Just like in the records of many ancient nations, we often read that women are regarded as cattle and horses.In those ancient texts, women are lowly, evil, and often the source of evil and evil. However, the new civilization formed in modern times has enabled women to strive for a position close to equality. Under this cultural background, the unequal emotional exchange between men and women, and the free possession of women's love by men will inevitably lead to a deep sense of indebtedness. . This kind of indebtedness tortures the hearts of men, and they must repent. They started the penance operation.They are not necessarily conscious, nor are they necessarily known to the society. They tend to be the most positive force in celebrating women. Women are great, women are sublime, women are good.In literary works, men's confessions are turned into words that eulogize women.On the surface, these praises come from the objective understanding of women, but they are actually the brightest manifestations of men’s repentance and atonement . A man with a "Tolstoy complex" must show the greatest tolerance to women. In this world, no matter what field or subject, as long as the evaluation of women is involved, they will always be more lenient than the average scale of society.For social phenomena where men and women clash, they definitely put greater sympathy on the side of women.They will always attribute more responsibility to men, whether it is for the social responsibilities that men and women need to bear together, or for conflicts between men and women in relationships, marriage, divorce, etc., they will give more excuses to women. If they encounter the phenomenon of women's depravity, they often firmly attribute the cause of their depravity to the man who harmed them, and to the society ruled by this man.When the general public opinion of the society criticizes these "degenerate" women, they will make a deeper voice, pointing out the social roots behind these degenerate phenomena. Furthermore, for those male chauvinists who discriminate against women, men with "Tolstoy complex" are likely to become the vanguard force to attack them. They are not necessarily feminists, but they may become prophets who criticize deformed patriarchy.Any unequal treatment given to women by society, they all have grievances from the depths of their feelings.When women are humiliated and damaged, they are determined to teach men who discriminate against women a lesson in order to defend the dignity of women. In the field of culture and thought and even in real life, men with this complex often sharply expose the hypocrisy of men in love.They are highly sensitive and responsive to any predatory behavior in male-female interactions.They often firmly expose and criticize men's "bullying" of women. In this way, some images of men with noble morals that are accepted by modern society and respected by women appear. To some extent, they show the "complex of flower guardians" in the modern sense. The "Tolstoy complex" of confessing to women and Jia Baoyu's "Hua Shen complex" are two different complexes, and the psychological mechanisms formed are also different. However, there is a connection between them. In "Tolstoy Jia Baoyu's "Huahuashen complex" can easily be formed on the basis of "complex". "Tolstoy complex" is an adult complex formed on the basis of special childhood experiences in the background of modern society and culture. It is a complex that powerfully governs the conduct of life of not a small number of men.Recognizing this complex is necessary to recognize many personalities and gain insight into many social and cultural phenomena.