1. Why do Tolstoy’s characters have to come to terms with death in order to understand life? (See “General analysis,” commentaries in Part 3.) 2. Discuss Tolstoy’s philosophy in terms of the “natural life” of the country and the unnatural life of the city. (See “General analysis” and commentaries in […]
Read more Study Help Essay QuestionsCritical Essays Themes in Anna Karenina
Marriage Containing a discussion of at least three marriages, rather than just one as in Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina provides an authoritative and thorough, if not definitive, treatment of the subject. Stiva’s relationship with Dolly suggests the incomplete relationship between Karenin and Anna. The Oblonskys’ problems only seem lighter because […]
Read more Critical Essays Themes in Anna KareninaCritical Essays Plot Structure and Technique in Anna Karenina
In the middle of his work on Anna Karenina, Tolstoy experienced his own moral “conversion” just as Levin does at the novel’s conclusion. This was the time when Russia’s greatest artist begins to despise art for being an idle, voluptuous, immoral luxury; where Tolstoy discovered life’s significance must be self-denying […]
Read more Critical Essays Plot Structure and Technique in Anna KareninaLeo Tolstoy Biography
Leo Nicolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) was the next to youngest of five children, descending from one of the oldest and best families in Russia. His youthful surroundings were of the upper class gentry of the last period of serfdom. Though his life spanned the westernization of Russia, his early intellectual and […]
Read more Leo Tolstoy BiographyCharacter Analysis Stiva Oblonsky
Stiva seems to typify the corruption of human values that Tolstoy blames on city refinements. His “natural goodness” perverted by a life of pleasure seeking, he fails to appreciate his wife’s worth and destroys a significant part of her life. His unwitting powers of destruction are echoed in the incident […]
Read more Character Analysis Stiva OblonskyCharacter Analysis Dolly Oblonsky
Although she is a successful woman, in Tolstoyan terms, Dolly fails to retain her husband’s love. Compensating this lack by a redoubled interest in the children, Dolly maintains her equilibrium. After her visit to Anna, she is definitively reassured that living like a “hen with her chicks” provides more meaning […]
Read more Character Analysis Dolly OblonskyCharacter Analysis Kitty Shtcherbatsky
Kitty bears a resemblance to Sonya, Tolstoy’s wife, and the courtship scene in Part IV is autobiographical. While Kitty’s character lacks the interest of Anna’s, she is important as an example of a successful woman. Like Karenin, Kitty once embraced a spiritualistic religion to overcome the humiliation of unrequited love, […]
Read more Character Analysis Kitty ShtcherbatskyCharacter Analysis Alexey Karenin
Priding himself on his rational, intellectual nature, Karenin symbolizes the very bureaucracy which governs Russia from its capital seat in St. Petersburg. But institutionalized procedure provides no answer to basic life problems. Tolstoy makes this clear when Karenin faces not only his domestic difficulties, but must directly confront the life […]
Read more Character Analysis Alexey KareninCharacter Analysis Count Vronsky
Implying Vronsky’s attractiveness as well as his rigidity, Stiva characterizes him as “a perfect specimen of Petersburg’s gilded youth.” Despite having intense interests — horse racing, politics, his regiment — Vronsky’s life depends on various self-gratifications. He has no inner core of identity as Levin has, for his career depends […]
Read more Character Analysis Count VronskyCharacter Analysis Anna Karenina
Anna, the other part of Tolstoy’s dual scheme, symbolizes the effects of an urban environment on Tolstoy’s “natural man.” Like Levin, Anna seeks a personal resolution between spontaneous, unreflecting life and the claims of reason and moral law. Being a woman, however, whose human destiny is to raise children and […]
Read more Character Analysis Anna Karenina