Anna Karenina: analysis and summary to understand the book of Tolstoy

Ana Karenina It is a novel written by Leo Tolstoy published in 1877. It is one of the masterpieces of Russian realism and one of the great novels of world literature.

His argument centers on the life of Ana Karenina, a woman married to a high official who falls in love of a young military man and decides to leave everything for him, thus defying the strict social conventions of the epoch. Finally, she ends her life as a victim of a society that condemns her.

Despite the passage of time, this work continues to have a special status among the great novels. But what does this novel have? What can we extract from it today?

Let's get to know in more detail Ana Karenina through a summary and analysis of the book.

Summary of the novel

Approach

The story begins the marriage formed by Stiva and Dolly, which does not go through the best of him due to his infidelity with the governess of his children.

Ana, Stiva's sister, travels from Saint Petersburg to Moscow with the intention of avoiding the couple's divorce. Upon her arrival, the young woman meets Vronsky at the train station and love at first sight arises.

At the same time, the story of Levine, Stiva's friend, is told. The young man is interested in Kitty and intends to ask her to marry him. But the girl seems interested in Vronsky and she rejects him.

At a party, Ana meets Vronski and Kitty discovers the complicity between them. The young woman is upset when she sees that the count does not ask her to marry him.

Ana returns to Saint Petersburg and Vronsky also goes there to spend more time with her. Karenina is torn between her love for Vronsky or her fidelity to her husband Karenin, with whom she has a son.

Soon the lovers begin to see each other at high society parties and their relatives' suspicions of a possible romance grow. Situation that later reaches the ears of Ana's husband, who is more concerned with preserving appearances.

Knot

Everything goes wrong the moment Ana becomes pregnant by her lover and confesses her love for Vronski to her husband.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Levine and Kitty takes hold when he decides to propose to her. Once married they are able to overcome the different difficulties that arise. They also form a family with the arrival of their first child. Despite this, Levin is continually invaded by doubts about the meaning of life.

Ana's life becomes more and more complicated, her society despises her and her husband does not want to give her a divorce either. This causes problems to invade his relationship with Vronsky. Little by little, the protagonist feels fears and insecurities. She also does not trust Vronski's loyalty and she thinks that he no longer loves her, she even believes that she maintains relationships with other women.

Outcome

One day, after an argument with Vronsky, the protagonist resolves that the only solution to end her problems is to commit suicide. Thus, Ana throws herself onto the train tracks asking for God's forgiveness.

Months after Ana's death, Vronsky goes off to war as a volunteer. Levine and Kitty are in their prime. The young man seems to have a revelation and feels that faith and goodness are the way he should follow, because family and a good economic position do not bring happiness.

Analysis: 7 key aspects of Ana Karenina

Although different characters appear in Tolstoy's work, we can see that there are two main stories, that of Ana and that of Levine. Two characters whose experiences are narrated in parallel and who have Stiva as their connecting link. Ana is his sister and Levine is his friend and brother-in-law.

Ana's life is marked by a society that judges her when she decides to bet everything for love. Levine's for a continuous attempt to seek happiness and meaning in life. Two apparently different experiences, marked by the same context.

Let's see, next, 7 key aspects of Ana Kareninathat help us understand this extensive novel from the point of view contextual, thematic, stylistic.

1. Context: liberalism vs conservatism

This work is published in 1877 and is set in Russia at the end of the 19th century.

Different changes were taking place in the country that gave way to a more liberal society that She wanted to gradually leave behind her more conservative position, very attached to the Russian society of the moment. However, liberal ideas had not yet emerged.

It is evident that this clash of ideals allows us to guess, to a certain extent, Ana's tragic future.

The protagonist has the need to face social conventions to defend free love. And, as with the liberalism of the time, Ana seems not to fit in with the iron rules established.

The characters in the novel belong to the high Russian social spheres, in which a change of mentality is not perceived. Rather, there is an attachment to conventions and traditions. In the play aristocratic double morality is questioned in order to always safeguard honor and appearances over happiness.

2. Ana Karenina Theme

Ana Karenina is a love-themed novel whose main axis is adultery. He is present from the beginning of the play when the brother of the protagonist is unfaithful to his wife and it is, after all, the reason why Ana travels to Moscow and leads her to meet Vronsky. However, the issue of infidelity is not essential, although it is how it is judged and condemned.

Likewise, the novel also explores different marital conflicts, all of them in an aristocratic context.

3. Marriage and family

The beginning of the book begins with one of the most famous phrases in literature and talks about families:

All happy families resemble each other, but each unhappy family is in its own way.

Throughout the work, we can see how the author examines different types of family and marriages. Also what kind of commitments are successful and which ones are not.

On the one hand, Ana and Karenin represent a marriage of convenience, there is no love between them, everything is based on appearances. Dolly and Stiva's is in crisis at the beginning of the novel due to his infidelities, of which he does not regret either. And that of Kitty and Levine, the only couple who finally end up succeeding, perhaps because they are less dependent on each other and the only ones who really commit.

These family unions are described with their strengths and weaknesses. But what kind of family triumphs in the play?

Tolstoí seems to contrast two very different love experiences. Ana and Vronski's is governed by rapture and is more passionate. It also entails the destruction of a family nucleus to be carried out.

Meanwhile, Levine manages to find the family balance with Kitty, in part, because her love is he builds slowly, at the same time that they evolve personally and get to know each other more other.

With this, the author seems to imply that the relationships that they consolidate little by little win against furtive love affairs.

Likewise, Tolstoy questions ancestral questions, especially in relation to the marriage tradition of high society based on convenience. Characters like Ana show that free love does not have to be a crime, yet society is not ready to accept it.

4. The role of women

Ana is a woman ahead of her time who sacrifices her social position for love, before the gaze of a society that was more accustomed to marriages of convenience and does not judge the extramarital affairs of men, but those of women.

Some recent investigations of the novel reveal the possibility of making a feminist reading of the work.

In this sense, we can highlight the character of Ana as a woman who wants to be free and independent, she has thoughts and feelings of her own. She is not a decorative object that she dedicates exclusively to accompany her husband in society and safeguard her appearances. She also does not intend to be in the background and this also causes rejection by the aristocracy.

With this character the author seems to open a debate: what is the place of women in society? Is the Russian society of the late 19th century ready for the freedom of women?

Ana's experience brings with it the answer.

5. Social rejection and the future of Ana

Ana chooses Vronski and dismisses the idea of ​​staying with a man she does not love. Her husband denies her divorce, because at this time this decision falls on the man.

In the novel, Ana is condemned to be a lover, to lose her son, whose father has told him that her mother is dead, and she earns the scorn of her social circles. Meanwhile, Vronsky's act is not frowned upon and he continues to attend the acts without being judged.

The psychological evolution of the protagonist in the novel had such an impact that today it is still denominating as Ana Karenina syndrome, which is explained by having an absolute dependence on the loved person. Ana becomes obsessed with the possibility of losing Vronski, one of the great reasons for her anguish, this stubbornness ends up destroying her.

Ana commits suicide when she sees that her attempt at freedom does not succeed, she also does not manage to have the relationship with Vronski that she had imagined. Coincidentally, the end of Ana Karenina occurs in the same train station where she met the count. That day a man throws himself onto the train track. The beginning of this relationship and the bad omen of the protagonist predicts her own end.

A death that, on the one hand, could mean the only way Ana finds to be free from oppression that invades him and, on the other hand, as a sign of revenge to her lover Vronski, who seems not to love her like her want.

6. Levine as Tolstoy's alter ego

Levine is the most "spiritual" character in the novel. Some research suggests that Levine represents some of the author's ideas, since in him it is possible to appreciate some existential, philosophical and religious concerns that the writer had during his last years. She represents the search for the meaning of life.

Tolstoy was born into a Russian aristocratic family and was brought up with these values. However, his life journey made him torn between his wealthy origins and his more modest way of life. Levine is a character who prefers to live in the country and stay away from the hypocrisy of city people.

In this character there are different criticisms of the system. Levine often feels lonely, a fact that makes him consider the life around him. Despite joining in marriage and thinking that it would change his status, he actually ends up taking refuge in faith. Although, like Ana, Levine considers the idea of ​​suicide as a solution to his problems, he does not end up carrying out the act.

7. The style of the work

Ana Karenina It is a realistic novel and as such offers features of this literary movement. On the one hand, the presence of a third-person narrator allows the author to make precise descriptions of environments and characters as if it were almost a photograph.

On the other hand, the psychological analysis of the characters, typical of realism, is evident, thanks to the use of the interior monologue. This narrative modality is clearly used in the characters of Ana and Levine, of which we can know in detail some of their deepest feelings and thoughts.

Characters

Anna Arkadievna Karenina

She is the protagonist of the novel, which is named after her. She is an elegant woman who belongs to the high Russian aristocracy of the time in which the work is contextualized. She is married to Alexis Karenin, a senior government official in St. Petersburg. A man he does not love and with whom he has a son named Serge.

In one of the visits that Ana makes to her brother Stiva, she falls in love with Vronski, a count whom she meets at the train station by chance and with whom she falls in love with her.

Konstantin Dmitrièvitch Levine

He is the main male character in the play. He is a rural man who prefers the country life and is very involved in agricultural work. He is thirty-three years old and is a friend of Stiva, Ana's brother.

The young man is in love with Kitty, for whom he is rejected at the beginning of the novel but later becomes his wife.

Alexis karenin

He is Ana's husband. A man belonging to high society with a great concern for preserving appearances. He hardly has affection for his wife. Alexis represents Russian conservatism, this is shown when he finds out about the infidelity of his wife, more than the fact itself what he cares about is what others may think.

Count Vronsky

Young count who belongs to the Russian nobility. He is smart, handsome and in great demand by some young women. At the beginning of the novel he is about to get engaged to Kitty, but he abandons the idea of ​​her when he meets Ana, with whom he falls in love almost at first sight.

He is one of the most superficial characters in the play, he gives up almost everything for love. However, he is still marked by conventions.

Prince Stepan Arkadievich Oblonsky (Stiva)

He is Ana's brother and Dolly's husband, to whom he is unfaithful with the governess of her children. This fact makes Stiva ask her sister for help to try to save her marriage, for this fact Ana meets Vronski. Stiva is a good friend of Levine.

Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya (Dolly)

She is Stiva's wife, Ana Karenina's sister-in-law and Kitty's older sister. Dolly is a woman dedicated to the six children of her that she suffers from the infidelity of her husband, of whom she does not want to know anything when she discovers that she is having an affair with the caregiver of her children.

Katerina Alexandrovna Shcherbátskaya (Kitty)

Kitty is eighteen years old and is Dolly's younger sister. At first she rejects Levine's marriage proposal because she wants to marry Vronsky, but he falls in love with Ana and does not ask her to marry him. After her, not feeling reciprocated, she goes through a depression. Eventually, she marries Levine and becomes her mother.

Cinematographic adaptations

Since its publication, this novel became one of the most popular works and a topic of conversation present in the society of the time. Her interest has surpassed the time barrier and she has been taken countless times to the movies. Here are some of the most popular adaptations:

• Anna Karenina (Maurice Maitré, 1911): the first film version of the novel, at the dawn of the medium. It stars M. Soronchtina and M. Trojanov.
• Anna Karenina (Vladimir Gardin, 1914): a few years after the first version, this Russian film starring Mariya Guérmanova emerges.
• Sees it (Edmund Goulding, 1927): This version of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is the first American film adaptation of the novel. Two movie stars, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, were in charge of starring in the film. A film with two alternative endings, the tragic one, for European audiences, and the happy one, the one chosen by American exhibitors.
• Anna Karenina (Clarence Brown, 1935): this version was more popular than the previous one. Greta Garbo reenacts Anna Karenina in one of the best moments of her career as an actress.
• Anna Karenina (Julien Duvuvier, 1948): this British version stars the great Vivien Leigh.
• Anna Karenina (Aleksandr Zarjí, 1967): it is a Russian version of the work, considered one of the most faithful to the original. Starring Tatyana Samojlova and Nikolai Gritsenko.
• Anna Karenina (Bernard Rose, 1997): it is the only adaptation of the novel from the 90s and it stars Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean.
• Anna Karenina(Joe Wright, 2012): it is one of the most recent versions and the leading role of it is assumed by the actress Keira Knightley.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Literary realism
• The 45 best romance novels