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Get every literary device explanation for Anna KareninaPlus so much more...
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Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—The Nightmare:
After Anna sleeps with Vronsky for the first time, she feels an unparalleled wash of shame. Soon, nightmares begin to accompany her torment, and the narrative uses situational irony to paint her guilt within these dreams:
She dreamed that they were both her husbands, that they both lavished their caresses on her. Alexei Alexandrovich wept, kissing her hands and saying: ‘It’s so good now!’ And Alexei Vronsky was right there, and he, too, was her husband. And, marvelling that it had once seemed impossible to her, she laughingly explained to them that this was much simpler and that now they were both content and happy. But this dream weighed on her like a nightmare, and she would wake up in horror.
Anna's feeling about the dream upends what readers might expect her to feel. She dreams what seems to be a situation that is too good to be true, where both Karenin and Vronsky are her husbands and all three of them are happy. Yet upon waking, Anna compares this dream to a nightmare and admits that it absolutely horrifies her. The comparison of her ideal dream to a nightmare is an example of situational irony, for her dream of all-around happiness causes her to "wake up in horror." Perhaps Anna is so horrified by this false reality because she knows that it is an impossibility and that all three of them cannot be happy. The horror is a representation of the guilt that she feels towards her treacherous feelings and actions.
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