Love Against Society - Anna Karenina and Awakening (set of 2 books)

The set includes 2 books: "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy and "Awakening" by Kate Chopin. The work combines several themes, one of which is the depiction of women as individuals with desires and needs that women were not allowed to... experience at that time. "Anna Karenina". The classic is relevant in any historical era because it touches upon themes close to each individual. The author does not have to provide direct answers to pressing questions; it is even better if this opportunity is given to the reader. Tolstoy does not give them. On the contrary, he aphoristically introduces us to the matter with the single sentence: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," immediately mixing everything up, not even choosing special words: "Everything was mixed up in the Oblonsky household." And then it is the reader's task to traverse all the paths of the plot with the burden of their own life experience and find these answers themselves. Each answer is different. And that is a classic. "Awakening". Edna Pontellier spends the summer with her husband and children on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico at the Lebrun family's boarding house. Her acquaintance with Robert Lebrun changes something in Edna; their friendship awakens thoughts and feelings in her that she has not experienced before, and her previous passion for painting revives within her. But as summer draws to a close, the boarders return home, and Robert suddenly announces that he is leaving to try his luck in Mexico and wants to stay there forever, which deeply saddens Edna, though she does not understand why. Upon returning to New Orleans, Edna longs for Robert, reexamines her family life, and decides to focus less on her duties as a hostess and more on painting. She increasingly distances herself from her family and her usual social circle, which worries her husband Léonce. The frank depiction of a woman who refuses to accept the role of a wife and mother imposed on her by society and seeks to find herself as an individual shocked American society. This novel can be placed alongside "Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert and "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy.