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• 1 media/Screen Shot 2021-10-15 at 11.48.30 AM.png media/Screen Shot 2021-10-15 at 11.48.30 AM.png media/Screen Shot 2021-10-15 at 11.48.30 AM.png 2021-10-15T03:22:40+00:00 Analysis of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk 18 Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Analysis plain 2021-10-15T15:22:26+00:00

  Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov

  Guilt manifests in complex ways, often through practices of self-sabotage and loathing. With this comes the inability to find any contentedness within life— the person housing this guilt becomes deeply dissatisfied with the life they are living, apathetic to the world around them. Even when they crave something more worthwhile in life, there still exists an inability to feel accomplishment or joy when finally achieving their goals. This can be seen as working oneself into a state of depression, though with more defining factors that contribute to this futile search for happiness. Guilt in this form functions instead as a means of punishment, rather than simply an emotion.
  

  In the short story, Lady Mabetch of Mtsenk by Nikolai Leskov, the main character’s guilt manifests internally through her inability to properly experience life, as opposed to a more common and direct reaction to the acts Katerina has committed upon others. These are focused around the murders she herself has taken part in, often being the ringleader in the execution. Despite her awareness when committing these acts of violence, she manages to keep a clean conscience and lacks any true sense of wrongdoing. This, however, begins to manifest into more sinister forms of guilt. 

  Katerina’s guilt presents in her inability to find contentedness within her life. These fruitless efforts are apparent throughout the entirety of the narrative, as Katerina is unable to find any form of contentedness within her life. She’s repeatedly striving towards goals she has set for herself, and yet remains unsatisfied when she ultimately does eventually acquire these major feats— often by intense means and at the expense of others’ lives. This constant sense of yearning turns into more a hopeless effort in search of a better life, working Katerina into a state of depression as an internal punishment for her irreparable actions.

  Eventually, Katerina is confronted with the fact that this form of suffering— as a more indirect result of her doings— is truly inevitable. She has no way of escaping, as her means of survival have proven require the destruction of anything within her path. In a way, she is her own avenger for the sins she has enacted. Katerina’s acts of self-sabotage spare nothing, including her own previous joys she had previously dedicated substantial work towards as she becomes blinded by these new goals. Despite the weight of these previous wishes— for example, her yearning for a child to love— Katerina manages to move on in an almost terrifying fashion past these losses, without any acknowledgment of them, as Leskov articulates “​​Katerina Lvovna was satisfied with this and gave up her child with complete indifference”(48). She seems to have little care for things once they cease to benefit her, despite previously willing to dedicate her entire life towards them— a common act of someone who deems they have little worth left and, as a result, nothing for them to lose. This, in Katerina’s case, seems to come in response to her losing any sense of morality and connection to herself and those around her. 
  

  Katerina seemingly has lost any sense of morality as a result of constantly seeking out justification of her crimes, a futile attempt that drives her to only become further lost— both in connection to herself, as well as the society she lives within. Morality is what drives us and provides for us human connection, and without this, Katerina seems to only slip further from her humanity. The line “neither light nor dark, neither bad nor good” suggests Katerina’s inability to see any faults in her wrongdoings. She has grown incapable of deciphering what is truly bad in this world, as she sees personal motives behind each of her actions. 

  The paragraph introduces the contrast between different positive and negative concepts of how we interpret life. More specifically, it speaks on how Katerina is still, despite her best efforts, unable to acquire either. For example, she lacks the ability to exist within light, but also the juxtaposing darkness. These contrasting examples serve as an illustration of how lackluster her life has become- even after receiving everything she has craved from the world up to this point. There are no positives in her life, and as a result, no opposing negatives. Leskov’s usage of the opposite to each concept is introduced to illustrate this sense of vast emptiness that Katerina Lvovna’s life has become. With this, he repeatedly uses the word “neither” in the form of an anaphora while listing these ideas. They exist in an echo of repetition, carrying a dismissive tone as they all exist in quick comparisons without any further description. Leskov uses this technique to show how desolate Katerina’s life has become throughout the development of her story. 

  In these contrasting comparisons, there exists a tone of hopelessness for the ongoing future. For example, the fragment “But then nothing now existed for her at all”, which uses specific wording to create an ongoing time frame for the continued duration of Katerina’s now insubstantial life. Not only is there a time frame introduced in the wording when looking into the future, but the author also makes it clear that Katerina once had previously found these concepts within her life with the usage of “but then” and “now”.  These phrases suggest a change has occurred from her previous state of thinking. It’s clear that this is a newfound struggle Katerina has been faced with— this inevitability of emptiness as a form of torture within her own conscience, and that it will continue to exist moving forward.

  Katerina Lvovna is painted as an apathetic character in this paragraph, despite her previous dreams and goals previously mentioned in the passage. She begins as someone who longs for freedom and something so much greater within her life, and as a result, seems to actively work to achieve these goals that are often always for her own benefit. Katerina craved a happier relationship, more freedom as a woman, a child— and although these means of achievement may not have been the most reasonable or productive, she still managed to attain most of these things through sheer determination. Despite this, through the criminal acts she has performed, Katerina seems to lose any sense of care towards the greater world— and even herself. Though her motives begin to appear selfish and simply for her own gain, they slowly begin to spiral out of rationality as she loses touch with what she truly wants. Katerina has no real sense of direction by this point, acting upon impulse in response to emotions rather than with any intention. She seems distant by this point in the narrative, having no true concept of or real connection to life. 

  There lies in this paragraph conflicting statements: one mentioning Katerina has no love for anyone, while towards the end suggesting her intense longing to be reunited with Sergei— “She understood nothing and loved no one… Hoping once more to see her dear Seryozha, she was living only for the moment of their departure for Siberia”(49). This inconsistency insinuates that Katerina has lost any ability to love as a result of her own suffering. However, it becomes more apparent when observing the rest of the narrative that Sergei is the one person she still managed to find any love for. This concept is also mentioned directly leading up to this statement, that being her everlasting and passionate love for him—“Her love for the father, like the love of many excessively passionate women”(48). She no longer seems to care for life itself unless it is somehow involving Sergei, as he becomes the driving force for her life. This is a common occurrence throughout the story, Sergei’s existence being Katerina’s living motivation for nearly everything she does. There are few exceptions for this, as even her murders are sourced from her longing to be living solely with Sergei and free from outside expectations. On one hand, it can be argued that this is all for Katerina’s own personal gain, Sergei existing as a mere excuse for her actions. But upon further observation of Katerina’s actions, it does seem realistic that Sergei truly is, in her mind, the reasoning behind everything she does. Sergei is Katerina’s end goal, to which she allows nothing to stand between. She even admits this fact on page 47 in her short but powerful line in response to Sergei feigning innocence in the murders— “For him.”
  

  Throughout the story, Katerina’s true goal never changes: a life of freedom. Sergei soon becomes a definitive addition to this plan, and her objective quickly changes to a free life with Sergei alongside her. Though with this development, Katerina gains and loses pieces along the way. The narrator stresses Katerina’s intense longing for a baby in her life, in some attempt to fill this inescapable loneliness that her loveless marriage has infected her life with. There exists a sense of hope that she will instead be gifted someone to love and have love returned by— a being to nurture and grow alongside her. Even despite Katerina being infertile, she still longs for a child of her own. Though when this dream does finally solidify into reality, Katerina is dissatisfied once again. She is painfully dismissive towards the child she had housed for nine months and spent so long aching for, and seems even irritated by the presence of her own child, as Leskov describes she “gave up her child with complete indifference”(48). It seems as though no matter what Katerina acquires in life, she can never truly be satisfied and continues to suffer as a result of these unfulfilling circumstances.

  Katerina Lvova’s story is one of great loss and destruction that leaves Katerina with nothing in the end. Even despite the focus on her glorious acts of murder, she still had once only hoped for a simple life of freedom with a man who truly loved her and could seemingly bring her joy. Though, her choices in execution proved to be quite unsavory and resulted in Katerina drowning within her own guilt. This guilt further manifested into practices of self-loathing, as Katerina lost any sense of connection to the world around her. Katerina works herself into a state of depression, much like the one she had lived in at the opening of the passage, though this time to no one’s fault but her own. Through her selfish acts, Katerina damned herself to a life of vacant bitterness.
  
  Works Cited
  Leskov, Nikolai. Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. 1865.