The concept of happiness in A. Tolstaya’s novel “The Restless Heart”

This article analyzes A. Tolstaya’s novel “The Restless Heart” from the author’s perspective of the personal and family happiness concept. Written in the late 1870s and early 1880s, A. Tolstaya’s novel was a response to the questions posed by the author of “Anna Karenina” and an attempt at a dialogue with him. Each of the three female main characters of “The Restless Heart” has her own idea of “happiness”, striving to achieve it. For one of them, happiness is an eternal search, difficulties of choice and internal doubts; for another, it is work and sacrifice; for the third, it is an orientation towards self-esteem and the desire to achieve harmony with the surrounding world. Some situations, in which the main characters of the novel find themselves, refer to the biography of A. Tolstaya, since she experienced similar difficulties. We can find these facts in the works of A. Tolstoy’s biographers, as well as in the letters and memoirs of A. Tolstaya and her relatives. Our analysis of the documentary element and fiction synthesis helps us more accurately define the ideological scope of the novel “The Restless Heart” and understand the author’s point of view. The author of the novel admits that each of the three models of happiness is somewhat one-sided, and their combination is beyond human power. That is why, the reader’s heart remains “restless” in the end – having touched upon the possibility of happiness, but not having found the path to achieving it. 

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