Anna Karenina Short Summary

Introduction

Anna Karenina’s story involves two schemes that appear parallel to each other in the novel: the characters of Anna and the character of Levin. Levin’s character depicts Tolstoy’s rustic nature and verification of the author’s vision of a human’s humble life. Levin gets lost in the beautiful seasons together with the practical harvesting chores. Apart from absorption with nature; Levin has a social life that is comparable to Anna’s mysterious and confusing romances. The author uses Anna as a symbol of destruction to a calm situation damaging the peace of the earth (Anouilh et al, 97).

The story commences with a predicament at home. Stiva, Anna’s brother was caught cheating on the wife, Dolly. She threatened to leave but, Anna’s convinces her to forgive him. Anna’s husband, Karenina, is a responsible, high profile man. They appear happy in their marriage relationship as the novel starts (Anouilh et al, 45).

Later on in the novel, Anna encounters Vronsky, the two characters fall in love and start engaging in an affair. Anna becomes pregnant; she talks the matter to her husband who denies her divorce to protect his social status. The husband attaches more value to society than his own happiness; meanwhile, Anna continues with his secret love, Vronsky. One day Karenina saw Vronsky leaving his premises and decides to pursue a divorce. When Anna learned of it he tries to flee with Vronsky (Anouilh et al, 33).

Shortly, Anna gives birth to Vronsky’s baby and fell ill. Karenin speculates that it is her time to die and forgives his wife. After recovering, Anna forgets of her husband’s kindness and continues going out with his lover Vronsky. Vronsky’s guilty conscience hits when Anna was sick and had her husband by her side, he tries to kill himself, but he did not succeed. The two love birds’ leaves for Italy whilst Karenin denies Anna divorce to aggravate her guilty conscience (Anouilh et al, 65).

The scene hits the climax when Anna’s life worsened; all her friends become disgusted of her despicable behavior. The situation worsens when Anna cannot go out alone or with Vronsky due to rumor projects. However, Vronsky continues with his life normally. Frustrated with her own life, Anna begins monitoring Vronsky’s life worsening the situation; the two would always fight (Anouilh et al, 52).

At this point in life, Anna realizes that she is not Vronsky’s wife neither is she his mistress. Her life revolves around Vronsky for love and quietness. She eventually comes in terms with the fact that her emotional desires are incurable. She is suffocated by the life she chose and settles on taking her own life. She accomplishes it by jumping in front of a train (Anouilh et al, 78).

On the other hand, Levin happens to have the same characters as Anna. Levin, a landowner, and a countryman visit the city to ask for kitty’s hand in marriage. Contrary to his expectations, Kitty rejects her proposal since she had her eyes on Vronsky. The circle gets bigger as Vronsky has never forgotten about Anna (Anouilh et al, 27).

Kitty frustrates Levin, who heads back to the village, and focuses on his land activities. He ends up composing a book on reasons as to why Russian landowners should provide land to their peasants to motivate them into working harder. Levin’s disinterests frustrate Kitty who falls sick and recovers only to realize that her love for Levin still thrived in her soul. This time Levin proposed and Kitty accepted her proposal. Their marriage yields a son named Mitya (Anouilh et al, 32).

Conclusion

Total uses Anna’s story life as a symbol of city life which is associated with vice. Contrary he uses Levin to show the importance attached to land which binds the society together and ensures a family. Levin is also a metaphor for rural life; hr preserves his family and concentrates on the betterment of his own life (Anouilh et al, 57).

Works Cited Anouilh, Jean, Guy Morgan, Julien Duvivier, Alexander Korda, Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Kieron Moore, Sally A. Howes, Hugh Dempster, Henri Alekan, Russell Lloyd, Constant Lambert, and Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. New York, N.Y: 20th Century Fox Entertainment, 2007.