Spread over a range of disparate characters, Tolstoy shows striking emotional astuteness and sympathy. So real, and in many cases, personally recognisable, are the depictions of the psychological and emotional machinations of his dazzling cast that I was left in awe his mastery of the internal life. There is such an abundance of interesting situations, individuals and relationships I feel like I could study its contents almost endlessly. This being the case, what follows will be necessarily superficial and will, no doubt, exclude huge swathes of material of equal or higher value than what it contains.
Anna is a character of incredible charm and social tact. All bow before her perfect manners, enchanting good looks and impeccable demeanour. This inherent agreeability she shares with her sibling Oblonsky, who is portrayed as the personification of good nature, warm feeling and clubby bonhomie. However, Oblonsky’s preeminently calm, gentle and soothing social manner is juxtaposed with the tumultuous state of his finances, his lazy attitude to work and his relaxed approach to adultery. As with her brother, Anna’s considerable charm is not left unsullied by other aspects of her character. However, as with most of the characters, you don’t feel you’re being shown a cast that have been preordained simplistically as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. I’m reminded of Chekov’s comments on the duty of an artist, “A court must put the questions correctly, but it is up to the members of the jury to decide, each according to their own taste”. To me, Tolstoy achieves this in the same manner as George Eliot in Mill on the Floss. The possible exception to this impartial presentation is Varenka, whom Kitty meets while recovering from her rejection by Vronsky in Germany and who later almost receives a marriage request from Levin’s academic half-brother Sergei Koznyshev. Anna married as a young woman not knowing love and subsequently fell in love. This is the root of her various difficulties that eventuate to a sad and horrible fruition. Can this be described as a crime? I don’t think so. To me it speaks more of the evils of an inflexible social structure that cannot accommodate change. However, one could easily argue that if a society accepts too much ‘change’ then there will quickly be no structure at all. Anna is a deeply sociable person and becomes consumed by boredom and jealousy when isolated from society. She is intelligent and self-critical, acknowledging her own evil in her actions towards her husband. However, despite his evolving actions and motivations, she holds her hatred of him firm. What does this point towards? Perhaps it is evidence of her own regret at having made the wrong decision and the social turmoil recognition of this fact causes her; Karenin is the externalisation of her own anger with herself. Whatever the cause, the pain and deterioration that occur to Anna as a result of her effective exile, a terrible punishment for one who seems to thrive on social interaction and appreciation, are acute. Her descent into suicide is excruciating to read and the grim inevitability of the sequence does nothing to lower its tension.
Vronsky is another character blessed with excellent social manners and a surfeit of charm. He too is a mixture of acts that we both condone and condemn, leaving our final judgement of him quite unsure. He is a talented man as indicated by his successful career, his mastery of his horse racing and his meticulous management of his estate after his elopement with Anna. This also displays his love of detail. He also seems to hold the esteem of his peers. However, against these broadly positive representations we have other less complimentary incidences. His courting of Kitty surely doesn’t endear him to all readers, however, is he to blame for falling in love with Anna? Again, while his actions towards Kitty are hardly desirable, I feel he can’t be blamed for falling in love. He also displays a violently emotional side, which seems to be most in evidence when he is under pressure. He falls in love with Anna immediately and absolutely and gives up his career for her without a second thought. He falls at the last hurdle in his important horse race. He shoots himself in the chest when his love of Anna becomes confused and unbearable in the face of Karenin’s magnanimity towards Anna during her illness. Here Tolstoy summarises the experience of real, deep seated confusion, “He felt himself knocked quite out of the rut along which he had hitherto trodden so proudly and lightly. All the apparently solid habits and rules of his life suddenly seemed false and inapplicable”. He is reported to be almost inconsolable upon Anna’s suicide after which he elects to join the Serbian war with the words, “As a man I have this quality, that I do not value my life at all and that I have physical energy enough to hack my way into a square and slay or fall - that I am sure of. I am glad that there is something for which I can lay down my life which I not only do not want, but of which I am sick! It will be of use to somebody”. In sum, I find him implacable. He seems more sure of himself than Levin and more conservative too but, at once, he seems more passionately in thrall to his emotions too. I feel like the love that Anna and him share is admired by Tolstoy and that he may even ascribe to it a mystical quality. I take as evidence for this the nightmare they share about the peasant talking French that they never discuss. The dreadful effects that arise from their pursuit of their love seem more to do with the circumstances Anna finds herself in once society has judged her and Vronsky’s response to losing Anna to suicide; he can find no love in the world once Anna is taken from him.
Karenin’s character moves through differing phases too. At first he seems the boring antithesis to Anna’s vivacity; capturing this social bird of paradise in a dull cage of status seeking officialdom. However, we feel his pain when he is wronged through little fault of his own and, to a degree, admire his stoicism and equanimity. Nonetheless, this initial reaction could be reinterpreted as self-deception in light of his later hatred of Anna and his wish for her death. This, in turn, is followed by what appears to the reader as an attitude of genuine forgiveness and magnanimity. However, these ‘true’ Christian feelings quickly metamorphose into spitefulness masquerading as magnanimity and a parading righteousness deceitfully claiming a loss whilst secretly booking a profit of indignation. Lydia Ivanovna’s involvement in this stage is despicable and makes us think much less of Karenin for consorting with her. The climax of this false Christianity is their encounter with Oblonsky and the sleeping savant! Here, Anna’s former friend and her estranged husband effectively decide her fate via the expedient of French charlatan, Landau, who claims to offer God’s opinion through his sleep-talking. I like the name of the savant especially, ‘pram’ in French, seeming to simultaneously refer to his sleep induced revelations and, perhaps, the childishness of such ideas! I see Lydia Ivanovna, in this guise of Karenin’s spiritual guide, as the personification of the society that was once so charmed by Anna turning against her and exacting pointless revenge on what it deems a ‘fallen woman’.
Levin’s moods are spectacular in their variety and depth but, as anyone would know from an honest assessment of their own feelings, they are hardly unusual for being so assorted. In a small way, the reader suffers with him as he grasps hold of a new notion, full of enthusiasm and zeal, only to have these feelings abandoned as sophistry or overturned in favour of newer, seemingly more suitable, schemas. His infatuation with Kitty at the skating rink quickly turns to embarrassment and dejection following his refused proposal. Following this, we see him turn to the management of his estate with renewed zeal and resolve to occupy himself in agricultural matters. As he moves through these phases, it seems to me that his feelings and emotions are the most vividly and believably displayed of all the characters, which is a real distinction in a book that deals with the emotions so adroitly. This deft treatment continues through the various, delicately described incidences of his life. The rekindling of his romance with Kitty is a masterpiece of reawakened love and restitution of feelings that had been previously abandoned as hopeless but which were never totally discarded. Again, as with Vronsky and Anna, Tolstoy seems to show a potentially metaphysical or mystical side to love when the pair decipher implausibly long chains of letters, drawn in chalk on a card table, into complete sentences. Levin’s rapture about Kitty’s acceptance, his nerves and agitation in preparation for the wedding and his wild jealousy at Veslovsky’s flirting with Kitty when Oblonsky brings him to stay at Levin’s estate, his mixed feeling about his child’s birth. All treated with the same exceptional skill by Tolstoy; making us feel and relive the same, or approximate, emotional events from our own lives. I see Levin as an emotional man, but in a very different way to Vronsky. While Vronsky may appear to be more measured and conservative during his day to day life, he is overcome by feelings so strong that he takes extraordinary actions. Levin’s feelings, on the other hand, receive more minute description from Tolstoy but do not result in such devastating consequences. Alternatively, Levin seems to be able to find a way of rededicating himself to something else or is capable of recourse to actions that aren’t as final as attempting to die; either via suicide or fighting in a war. At bottom, I feel Levin is an optimist. He cares deeply about his serfs and servants and has an altruistic desire to improve their lot, as evidenced by his co-operative schemes and attempts to introduce superior foreign farming techniques. Despite their reluctance, or the disappointing results of such schemes, he perseveres in his care for them. Indeed, one feels that he is quite right to think primarily of the character of the labourer when considering farm management, which is the thesis for his book that he works on sporadically. The love of the countryside and a simple rustic life seem central to any understanding of Levin. Excluding his romantic interactions with Kitty he’s happiest after a long day mowing the grass with his labourers or out shooting with his dog before his companions have arisen. When in town he’s astounded at how so much time can be spent essentially in pursuit of small talk and is upset at how little he achieves whilst he is there. However, against this seeming placement of rural life above urban it is also noteworthy that Levin and Kitty only fight in the countryside and not in the town. Equally, Anna and Vronsky’s disagreements reach their zenith during their rural exile. However, this may be little more than a coincidence given that Levin and Kitty don’t spend much time in town and that a deeply social creature like Anna is bound to suffer while in exile; both physically and emotionally. Despite this, I feel like Tolstoy is, at some level, showing us the pros and cons of both lifestyles. The town is filled with diversion and interaction, which we all need, whilst the country life can be more simple and solitary but, equally, can be socially claustrophobic and lonely. Whatever the niceties of Tolstoy’s view of urban living versus rural living, to understand Levin I think it is central to locate the nub of his character in simple, visceral, religious rural life. For me, the most moving passage in the book is his religious experience in Book 8, Chapter 12. Here, Levin discusses the character of another serf with his carriage driver who refers to this man as someone who, “lives for his soul and remembers God”. Levin proceeds to interrogate him about what this phrase means in practice. The driver struggles to elaborate beyond a very general, “you know what I mean”! Levin continues to reflect on the driver’s comments and the role of reason in spiritual matters, here I will quote at length as I think it is so well written:
“To live not for one’s needs but for God! For what God? What could be more senseless than what he said? He said we must not live for our needs - that is, we must not live for what we understand and what attracts us, what we wish for, but must live for something incomprehensible, for God whom nobody can understand or define. Well? And did I not understand those senseless words of Theodore’s? And having understood them, did I doubt their justice? Did I find them stupid, vague or inexact?
No, I understand him just as he understands them: understood completely and more clearly than I understand anything in life; and I have never in my life doubted it, and cannot doubt it.”
“I, and all other men, know only one thing firmly, clearly, and certainly, and this knowledge cannot be explained by reason: it is outside reason, has no cause, and can have no consequences.
‘If goodness has a cause, it is no longer goodness; if it has a consequence - a reward, it is also not goodness. Therefore goodness is beyond the chain of cause and effect
‘It is exactly this that I know and that we all know
‘What greater miracle could there be than that?”
“And in all of us, including the aspens and the clouds and the nebulae, evolution is proceeding. Evolution from what, into what? Unending evolution and struggle...As if there could be any direction and struggle in infinity!”
“‘What should I have been and how should I have lived my life, if I had not had those beliefs, and had not known that one must live for God, and not for one’s own needs? I should have robbed, lied and murdered. Nothing of that which constitutes the chief joys of my life would have existed for me.’ And although he made the greatest efforts of imagination, he could not picture to himself the bestial creature that he would have been, had he not known what he was living for”
“‘Where did I get it from? Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love my neighbour and not throttle him? They told me so when I was a child, and I gladly believed it, because they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason! Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.’”
To me, this is a very powerful exposition of a feeling I have experienced many times when considering spiritual matters. I feel I know what is “right” in my “heart” but find excuses or explanations that override it via reason. However, a rationalist would probably respond that my intuition amounts to nothing more than accumulated social prejudices and that if I lived in another time, in another society that I would have a different set of prejudices thus demonstrating the fundamentally unreliable nature of such feelings. Against this objection, I would point to the real emotional consequences of attempting to live a rationalist or nihilist philosophy in practice. Both Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground and Crime and Punishment make this point. In any case, Levin is overwhelmed by a feeling of revelation and I would see this as the most important passage in the book for him. Indeed, Levin’s struggles with rationalism and atheism earlier in the book appear to solved by this experience and it seems to me like this chapter sees Levin find a way of expressing himself, or understanding his experience, that brings him closer to his nature and living in accordance with it. It’s unclear to me whether Levin’s all encompassing revelation amounts to an endorsement of Christianity by Tolstoy.
Kitty strikes me as one of the less intensely analysed characters in Anna Karenina. Perhaps this is because I feel more affinity with the male characters but I still believe that she is something of a carte blanche, especially when compared to Levin or Anna. One explanation for this could be her age. Kitty is young, ingenuous and emotional. She seems to be mainly the object of others intentions or emotions but this is not to say that she doesn’t have feelings or show emotional development. Indeed, there are several interesting instances of this: Her encounter with Varenka is interesting as it seems to mark a movement away from youthful self-absorption, although this change is not immediate. She is, however, immediately in awe of Varenka’s selflessness and ability to show love to all people in spite of, and perhaps because of, her own pain. This change in Kitty continues through her love for Levin and their marriage and reaches its climax when she is nursing Levin’s dying brother; an act we, and Levin, think her incapable of when in reality she performs this most difficult of duties with aplomb. In contrast to Levin’s struggles with reason and religion, we are shown Kitty as a steadfast and simple Christian believer and it is possible that she is part of the theme exemplified by Levin’s driver; unsophisticated, inexplicable faith that is actually far more advanced than the seemingly urbane sophistry of those who employ reason in pursuit of a similar aim. For example, Levin and his half brother Sergei.
Levin’s brother Nikolai, is a form of tragic hero to me. He evokes strong and contradictory feelings in Levin from repulsion and disgust to pity, respect and deep seated familial love. Levin’s recollection of him as bright young man; attractive, full of life and loved by everyone contrasts starkly with the angry, selfish and depressed alcoholic we encounter in his filthy bedsit. The particulars of his life seem to echo some of the themes we find in Anna’s experience. I think of him as a vivacious young man whose keen intellect and considerable strength of mind bring him to a rejection of the corrupt and confused society he sees all around him. The same society that casts Anna out into exile and, ultimately, brings about her suicide. His decision to marry a prostitute seems to indicate his liberal, autocratic leanings and disregard for conventional wisdom. However, he seems to lack the strength or ability to turn this rejection into something positive. To be sure, he falls into the category of those who use reason when probing spiritual questions and, in this sense, he appears condemned to endure a cold life by the standards of this novel. This is the case for both Levin’s brothers. His desperate and sporadic appeals to God during his last moments are terrible.
Anna Karenina is a book about love and the magic, madness and tragedy it can produce. In the religious sense, we see Tolstoy reject intellectual and rational attempts to explore meaning in life. As is shown in Levin’s religious experience, we see that love of God, or good, is irrational and unreasonable at it’s heart. Levin is, in some ways, helped to this understanding by his marriage and his romantic love of Kitty. However, other romances in the novel don’t have such positive outcomes. Anna and Vronsky’s love is condemned by society and drives Anna mad, removing the meaning from Vronsky’s life. Nikolai’s love for his former prostitute wife is frail and becomes consumed by his hatred in the face of his illness. Levin’s other half-brother is so intellectual he seems incapable of even beginning a romance with Varenka. However, I wouldn’t wish to draw a distinction between the happiness of those who love God and the despair of those who do not. The story is far too nuanced to support such a simplistic interpretation. Love, either of God or of other people, is an endlessly complicated and intricate emotion. However, love does seem to me to be the central theme. It produces wildly different outcomes for the various protagonists but, in every case, it is the thing that gives meaning to their lives. Much of what we see that appeals to us as readers must be classified as love of some type or another and much of what repels us is hatred of one form or another. The most extreme instance of this hatred is that which is shown to Anna by society and this indictment also strikes me as a central theme. As such, I would see the book as condemning the hatefulness, which is often associated with societal judgement and those judged by it, and endorsing the simple, visceral love that I feel sure everyone feels for the world at certain points in their lives. Varenka shows free and indiscriminate love despite the pain in her life while Nikolai’s pain turns to hatred and judgement of it’s own. Levin finds love and also finds a way to love the world whereas Anna and Vronsky’s love destroys them, in Anna’s case because she may love the approval of society too much and in Vronsky’s because he may love Anna too much. Love in Anna Karenina is mystical and unavailable to rational analysis, but it is the animating force of the world and all that occurs in it.
