Anna Karenina is a story told in three locations: the two Russian major cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg and the rural countryside. Each location holds special connotations that are reflected in events and characters that live there. Tolstoy, a fan of the countryside himself, uses the lives of Levin and, to a lesser extent, Kitty to illustrate the moral superiority of the countryside over its more urban counterparts. On the other end of the spectrum is St. Petersburg, a city of superficiality
Anna Karenina: Comparative Analysis Name Institutional Affiliation Anna Karenina: Comparative Analysis Introduction “Anna Karenina” is a 19th-century novel written by Leo Tolstoy. The book narrates a story about family bonds, love and culture. The tale focuses on two specific characters. These characters are Anna Karenina and Konstantin Levin. Anna is an urban housewife married to a politician. Initially, she is the reasonable person since she acts as a mediator during the conflict faced
The Anna Karenina principle is important because it explains “a feature of animal domestication that had heavy consequences for human history.” Specifically how suitable big wild mammals were never domesticated and most domesticated animals are Eurasian. The Anna Karenina principle directly applies to domesticating animals because to be domesticated, a species must “possess many different characteristics,” as there must be many characteristics of happiness in the principle. Diamond states that lack
In Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy presents marriage in a realistic sense, marriage is not an easy institution; couples must work through the rough patches in order for it to be strong; he also presents passion as a force that can have a positive influence, but simultaneously presents passion as a factor that can have a corrupting power on a person’s life. These two couples, Levin and Kitty and Vronsky and Anna, are compared throughout the course of the novel. Levin and Kitty differ from Anna and Vronsky
The juxtaposition of two characters helps depict the themes of the novel as a whole. In the novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, there are two dissimilar people with similar desires. Levin is a young man ready to propose to the woman he is infatuated with; while Anna Karenina is a young woman that realizes her marriage is dissatisfying after meeting her lover, Alexei Vronsky. Throughout the novel, the two characters change their viewpoints in life and become different people than what they once were
the novel decidedly contrasts the death of Nicholas Levin. Anna Karenina, after falling from grace and her elevated social stratum, desperately searches for meaning in her life. She fears that she no longer provides Count Vronsky with any sort of pleasure and constantly seeks to improve herself in order to keep his attention and love focused on her. In a constant state of inadequacy, Anna cannot even sleep without a heavy dose of opium. Anna grows dependent upon the drug, and one night, “She poured
Tolstoy foils Anna against Levin. His rise surmounts as her fall does. At the beginning, both Levin and Anna visit Stepan and Dolly. Anna’s reasoning is to keep Dolly committed to her disgraced marriage, while Levin’s is to ask for advice in proposing to Kitty. Tolstoy obviously favors Levin over any other character in Anna Karenina. This is evidenced even by Levin’s name—a play on Tolstoy’s actual first name, Lev, and translated to “Lev’s son” (Leontiev 226). Levin makes an effective transition
Leo Tolstoy presents two extremely different deaths in Anna Karenina: one of a sickly brother losing his battle with illness, and one of a woman brimming with intricate complexities committing suicide because she does not feel like she has a purpose in her life. As Fyodor Dostoevsky asserts in his work evaluating the novel, “In Anna Karenina is expressed a view of human guilt and criminality. People are portrayed in abnormal circumstances… caught in a whirl of deceit, people commit crime and fatally
The question of judgment and sympathies in Anna Karenina is one that seems to become more complicated each time I read the novel. The basic problem with locating the voice of judgment is that throughout the novel, there are places where we feel less than comfortable with the seemingly straightforward, at times even didactic presentation of Anna and Vronsky's fall into sin alongside Levin's constant moral struggle. As Anna's story unfolds in its episodic manner within the context of the rest
Regaining Control in Anna Karenina Anna Karenina features significant clusters of scenes, all of which describe notable moments in the development of the novel's major figures. One of the most important clusters is when Anna travels to see Vronsky. On her way her perceptions change; she throws her "searchlight" upon herself. Arriving at the next station she sees the rails and knows what must be done. Anna has had control over her own life taken away from her, due to the societal limitations