WOMAN EXISTENCE AS REVEALED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN LEO TOLSTOY’S ANNA KARENINA

This research was written in order to analyze the existentialist feminism toward the main character in Leo Tolstoy‟s Anna Karenina using Simon de Beauvoir‟s theory of Existentialist Feminism (2011). Anna Karenina is a novel published in a serial form 1875-1877 and has been published 625 times and translated into 41 languages. This novel tells about a tragic story of a married woman named Anna Arkadyevna Karenina (Anna Karenina) as the main character. In this research, the researcher assumes that Anna Karenina tries to be free from the unhappy life and gains her happiness by doing her own decision. This condition shows the crisis relates to existential crisis that leads Anna to do the existence. This study used qualitative method in analyzing the data. The data were in the form of utterances, descriptions, and dialogues from Anna Karenina novel, published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc, New York, 1998, consist of 831 pages and eight chapters. The result of the study showed that there are three existential crisis experienced by Anna, they were: existential crisis by the society, existential crisis by the family, and existential crisis by the lover. Based on the crisis that has been found, there were two reactions of Anna in showing her existence, they were; the existential by making affair and committing suicide. Besides, her decision to have an affair and commit suicide is a wrong choice and break the social construction, but, in Existentialist approach, both of Anna‟s decisions demonstrated that she has the rights to choose her own fate. It can be inferred that Anna‟s decision to having an affair and commiting suicide portrayed the existence of women which concerned to find out who and what are women in the meaning of life as their efforts to free themselves from the unhappiness condition. Keywords: Existentialism, Simon de Beauvoir, Anna Karenina novel