Friday, April 12, 2013

Can we blame Anna less?



No, I haven’t read it again, as I’ve done with most of my favorite novels just to see if my ‘reading’ changes over time, nothing of that sort, however, watching Tom Stoppard’s modern ‘version’ on Tolstoy’s novel gave me the opportunity to recall the time I read it and the time I still used to think that no, nowadays society is not that judgmental after all, and I almost grew up and went through my teenage years believing it.  What happened afterwards? well, of course as years passed I’ve familiarized myself with watching people priding themselves on being non-judgmental. Still, priding and actually doing it are two separate things and of course one would not be indifferent if a friend is being dumped by her husband, or if somebody would actually give up her kids for the sake of a lover, or if one would embarrass ‘the other’. No, of course that one can’t help it even if one claims to be cool with all that. No, I don’t think society changed too much as far as human relationships are concerned. That we’ve grown more mature and found other ways to get out of a relationship, true, thinking that nobody would dare to judge your behavior, however, everybody does it, starting with yourself obviously.  
Tom Stoppard’s contemporary adaptation couldn’t reflect better what is actually the current state of affairs, though probably now we cope better with guilt or shame than at the time. It’s puzzling only when you think that doing whatever brings about self-fulfillment might actually pose threats to one’s zone of comfort. No need to be discouraged, after all psychology took over and taught us how to deal with guilt maybe.  If issues of what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ are just irrelevant then why only a  few would behave like Anna? And I mean, men as well.

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