Constantine Levin's two crucial experiences contribute significantly to the psychological tapestry of Anna Karenina because these moments of crisis bring out and highlight the subjectivity of the life experience of the hero. The novel's overall theme of emerging moral conscience is therefore foregrounded in these scenes which feature important shifts in self-awareness. The reader is asked to compare these scenes first on the basis of their differences in symbolic content, then on the narrative terrain of subjectivity. Levin's shifting patterns of assumption, projection, and understanding convey to the reader the foundation for the character arc that will result in his religious conversion. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Throughout the novel, Levin and the other characters are often described as having "unconscious" attitudes and "involuntary" actions, so the presence of a linguistic design specific focus on lack of self-awareness is not a very obvious link or specific between death and birth scenes. But since there are other more obvious similarities and contrasts in the descriptive elements of these scenes, the reader is already taught to connect the text in these parallel scenes, and can thus examine the deviations between the narratological elements as they arise. the scenes provide the most immediate distinctions in symbolism. The "dust and unkemptness" of the Levins' hotel is also noticeable in the "dirty room" in which Nicholas wastes away, while little attention is given to the material environment of the Levins' house where Kitty gives birth, apart from references to the lighting of the rooms. When Levin wakes up, he sees for the first time that "a light was moving behind the partition" and Kitty emerges with a "candle in her hand" (639). As he leaves, he notices a waiter “cleaning the glass of the lamps” (642). These details are made metaphorically significant by Tolstoy's reference to the child as a new life that flickered “like the flame of a lamp” (648). It is a particularly significant detail that the first reference to the baby's successful birth is not a realistic vision of his body, but an abstract representation of his living light. At least from Constantine Levin's point of view, birth is not directly linked to physical existence, it is an event that transcends its immediate environment. The intangibility of the setting is further designated by Levin's lost sense of time, once again represented spatially by the candles: “Hera was surprised when Mary Vlasevna asked him to light a candle behind the partition, and learned that it was already five o'clock in evening” and “he didn't know if it was late or early. The candles were all blown out” (645, 646). Tolstoy's focus on light gives the birth scene a symbolic identity characterized by the non-physical, in contrast to the way death is presented in corporeal detail. The dark setting of the pre-death scene is introduced by concrete background images, such as “a dirty uniform”, “a dirty coat”, “a dusty bouquet” and a “spit-stained nut” (445, 446). This material focus is made especially significant by Kitty's transformation of this dirty atmosphere with “beds made, combs, brushes and mirrors laid out and blankets spread out” (452) The physical reality of “folded linen” and other atmospheric improvements is enough to give to the dying man who “lay between clean sheets in a clean shirt” a “new look of hope” (450). Whether through misery or joy, the dying man's moral vision is irreversibly linked to his physical condition shown most distinctly at the time ofhis death, when the final indicator of Nicholas' diminished will to exist is found in his mannerism of "clinging to himself as if he wanted to get something out" (458). While this chapter focuses most of its narrative and dialogic commentary on the metaphysics of death, the descriptive action of the scene ends with Nicholas literally coming to terms with “the reality of his suffering” (454). Just as the abstract representation of the child at the moment of birth embodies the non-physicality of the birth scene, the physical culmination of death exemplifies the symbolic meaning of the entire fatal episode. The dichotomy between physical and non-physical symbolism is just one of the multiple links that polarize the meanings of these scenes, letting us know that they are directly comparable. The shared language of consciousness, however, is a more subtle connection between scenes than binary symbolism. As in much of the novel, the focused narrative explicitly states what the characters do and do not know, what they can and cannot understand, and how they interpret each other. Levin, in particular, expresses a great deal of self-awareness regarding his understanding of the thoughts and intentions of others. The death scene introduces many of these neuroses, and the birth scene resolves one, but lets others haunt him until the end of the novel. The most frequent and tortuous attitudes that plague Levin's self-consciousness are those that are openly "incomprehensible" or come "involuntarily." In both scenes Levin encounters an insurmountable inability to understand his fellow man, and in both scenes the recognition of this fundamental disconnect occurs against his will. It is said that, as he looked at his dying brother, Levin “involuntarily meditated on what was happening inside his brother at that moment, but, despite all the efforts of his mind to follow it, he saw . . . that something became clear to the dying man that for Levin remained as obscure as ever” (455). If we are to believe the narrator, Levin's involuntary contemplation of the mental processes of others allows him to spot when one is experiencing an epiphanic moment, but it does not extend far enough to allow him to see what that profound insight entails. The innate mental division between self-knowledge and other-understanding applies to any gap in understanding, but Tolstoy demonstrates this most dramatically with Levin's "envy" of that knowledge which the dying man now possessed and would have could no longer have. share” (456). Of all the painfully incommunicable human experiences, none are as impossible to share as the feelings aroused by death. Levin gains a painful awareness of his general inability to fully understand his fellow man when he is unconsciously confronted with his specific inability to share his dying brother's epiphany. The same consciousness is produced, also by an unconscious shift in empathy, when he considers the suffering of his pregnant wife. While “involuntarily looking for a culprit to punish for these sufferings,” and realizing that there is none, Levin sees “that something beautiful was happening in his soul, but . . . it was beyond his understanding” (641). In this scene, Levin realizes once again that he can recognize, but not feel, another's joy that arises from pain. Once again, Tolstoy emphasizes a more universal point by illustrating an extraordinary case: Levin tries to understand an experience that he cannot possibly have during his lifetime, because childbirth is even more inaccessible to him than death. But, since they fit into the novel's refrain of "involuntary" thoughts and "incomprehensible" feelings, these extraordinary experiences.