woman. By understanding her motivation, the readers are able to learn that wealth, high-living standard, and high social status do not always become guaranteed factors
for someone to get happiness and satisfaction in life. The readers can also be enlightened that the existence of love is one of the most important factors in marriage
and in building a relationship with someone.
B. Problem Formulation
Referring to the background of the study, there are two questions presented to lead the analysis in this study. The questions are:
1. How is Anna Karenin, as the main character, described in Leo Tolstoy‟s
Anna Karenin?
2. What are the motivations of Anna Karenin for breaking her expected
gender roles as a noble woman of Russian Royalty in Leo Tolstoy‟s Anna
Karenin?
C. Objectives of the Study
The objectives of this study are used to answer the two problems that the writer has mentioned in the problem formulation. The first objective is intended to
describe Anna Karenin‟s characteristics in the novel. The second objective is to find out Anna Karenin‟s motivations to break her expected gender roles as a noble woman
of Russian Royalty which is portrayed in Leo Tolstoy‟s Anna Karenin.
D. Benefits of the Study This study can give benefits to English lecturers and future researchers to
enrich their knowledge on how the Russians in Victorian Era determine the proper roles and behaviors of women in society, and to learn how a heroic Victorian woman
named Anna Karenin is able to emancipate her position in society.
The first is to the English lecturers. They can use this study to develop interesting and interactive teaching-learning activities in Prose Class. Through this
study, they can let the students have a greater understanding on gender roles of Victorian women in Russia. They can also enable the students to make a comparison
and an interrelationship between the roles of women in the past and the role of women in today‟s era.
The second benefit is addressed to the future researchers. The writer expects this study can give meaningful contribution to other researchers who want to conduct
further studies on the same novel. The writer also hopes this study can provide the researchers an additional reference on how to change the conservative mind of the
society toward women emancipation.
E. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding, it is important to explain the meaning of some terms used in this study. The definitions of important terms that will be
explained are: motivation, gender role, and noble. The first definition of term is motivation. According to Huffman and Vernoy
2000, motivation is necessity, interests, and willingness of a person which urge behavior toward goals. In this study, motivation is the needs, interests, and
willingness within Anna Karenin that urge behavior to leave her responsibility as a married woman and achieve her self-satisfaction.
The second is gender role. In a book titled Gender: Psychological Perspectives, Brannon 1976 states that gender roles are “…socially encouraged patterns of
behavior exhibited by individuals in specific situations.” p.168. The meaning of patterns of behavior here is the appropriate ways of women and men in acting
feminine and masculine. In this study, Anna Karenin, as the main character, should show her femininity as a woman. After being married to Karenin, Anna should be a
dutiful wife for her husband and take care of her son appropriately. However, she escapes from those responsibilities to reach her own freedom of loving and living.
The last is noble. According to Cambridge Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary 3
rd
Ed., the word “noble” is defined as “belonging to a high social rank in a society,
especially by birth”. In Russia, the word for noble is “dvoryanin”, which means a status, a social category of a person. In the novel, it is mentioned that Anna Karenin
is a princess by birth from Russian Royalty. Therefore, Anna Karenin is called as a noble Russian woman in this study.
9
CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter consists of three parts, they are; review of related studies, review of related theories, and theoretical framework. In the review of related studies, the
writer reviews previous works done on the same novel, states her new discovery in the study, and shows the differences between her study and the other studies. Review
of related theories is used to review the theories which are relevant to the study. The last part is theoretical framework. In this part, the writer explains the contribution of
theories and reviews in solving the problems of the study.
A. Review of Related Studies
L eo Tolstoy‟s Anna Karenin has been used in three previous studies. The first
study focuses on Anna Karenin‟s character development and motivation to commit suicide, the second is about the personality changes of Anna and Levin in searching
for the meaning of happiness, and the last discusses the biblical values conveyed through Anna‟s and Levin‟s characters.
In this study, the writer discovers a new aspect of the novel that has not been discussed and analyzed in those three previous studies. It is about the motivations of
Anna Karenin, the main character of the novel, to break her expected gender roles as a noble Russian woman.
