Character Analysis
Practical Student
Lara can be a tough character to pin down, because it's hard to tell how much of her character is actually her and how much of it is what our main man Zhivago sees in her.
That's why it's best to start at the beginning, before Zhivago even knows who she is. We find out early, for example, that Lara is an excellent student in school. As the narrator tells us, though, "Lara studied well, not out of an abstract thirst for knowledge, but because to be exempt from paying for one's studies one had to be a good student, and therefore one had to study well" (2.4.4).
While Zhivago might have an insane thirst for knowledge, Lara is more the practical type—which is no surprise, given that she's fairly poor, and she needs to save that money. She doesn't have the luxury of having an "abstract thirst for knowledge." She's every bit as smart as Zhivago, but this intelligence shows up in different ways.
Now, Lara isn't content with just being a good student. She also needs for there to be something more to life: "Lara was not religious. She did not believe in rites. But sometimes, in order to endure life, she needed it to be accompanied by some inner music" (2.17.1). In other words, Lara is a soulful person who is always on the lookout for something to give a little extra spice to her life.
Unfortunately, being sexually pursued by her mother's boyfriend isn't the spice she had in mind…
Reluctant Lover
When she reaches sixteen, Lara realizes that her mother's "special friend" Viktor Komarovsky keeps giving her a lot of suggestive looks. These looks eventually turn into compliments, and compliments into touches, and before you know it, Lara finds herself going on dates with Komarovsky and secretly having sex with him behind her mother's back.
Why does she do this, you ask?
Well, for Lara, "Komarovsky's lovemaking […] fascinated her by its covert boldness and prompted the little demon awakened in her to imitation" (2.14.3). In other words, Lara is sick of being the proper little girl who's good in school. She wants more than just good grades and work in a dressmaking shop. She wants something more in life, and being young and inexperienced, she thinks that maybe an affair with Komarovsky is the answer.
It doesn't take Lara long, though, to decide that her relationship with Komarovsky is pretty nasty. She even goes out of her way to take a job outside her mother's home and move in with another family just to get away from Komarovsky. As time goes by, she becomes more and more bitter about how Komarovsky has taken advantage of her.
This bitterness eventually changes her character: "A self-consciousness developed in her that had not been there before. This feature lent a certain pettiness to her character, which had always been distinguished by its breadth and lack of touchiness" (3.7.10). Lara is mature enough to be able to understand this change in her character and to want to deal with it. Frustrated with this change, Lara decides to pay Komarovsky back by trying to kill him with a gun.
Unfortunately, she misses.
Keen Lover
Despite her bad romantic experience when she was younger, Lara grows up to be a very devoted lover… to two different men. The first is her husband Pasha Antipov, whom she loves more than anything in the world. That's why it's so strange when Antipov just gets up one day and volunteers to fight in the Russian army. Out of love and devotion, Lara volunteers as a nurse so she can travel with him. But she quickly learns that he is M.I.A. and presumed dead.
With her husband gone, Lara falls in love with Zhivago, a married man himself. The two of them don't form any kind of relationship at first. But when fate throws them together for a second time, they start a sexual relationship. One of the hardest things about this relationship is that Lara (like Zhivago) really likes Zhivago's wife Tonya: "How wonderful your Tonya is! A Botticelli. I was there at her delivery. She and I became terribly close" (13.11.8).
One top of all that, Lara realizes that her husband Antipov is still alive while she's having her affair with Zhivago. When Zhivago asks whom she loves more, she can't lie. She says it's still her husband: "But I'm married to him, he's my husband Yurochka" (13.11.8). As you can see, Lara's feelings about being with Zhivago are really complicated. At the end of the day, both of the men in her life end up dead anyway, so there's not much left for Lara to feel by the end of the book other than regret.
Lara has a great store of love, a conscience, and a thirst for life; she becomes almost an ideal for Zhivago, the inspiration for his love and his art. The fact that she's killed off in one brief line at the end of the novel shows how little Pasternak thought the Soviets cared about real people, real life, and real art.
Larisa Fyodorovna Antipova's Timeline