Gender Roles and Autonomy

Elena asserts her independence by choosing her own husband and leaving her family, challenging the passive, domestic role expected of women in her society, and embodying a new kind of female agency.

Anna Vassilyevna is portrayed as a passive, emotionally fragile wife who endures her husband's infidelity without direct confrontation, illustrating limited female autonomy in 19th-century Russian marriage.

Elena's independence from her parents and her yearning for a purposeful life challenge the passive feminine ideal of her time.