Anna Karenina Themes

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Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a novel established on the themes of love and marriage in a nineteenth century aristocratic Russian society where both major and minor characters play an important role in surfacing the main motifs that Tolstoy wishes to expose in the book. Fulfilment and satisfaction from love and life is one of the chief themes of the book that Tolstoy represented through his characters Anna Karenina and Konstantin Dmitrich Levin. Throughout the book both Anna and Levin experience conflicting yet contrasting opinions based on their understanding of where one can derive personal fulfilment. Tolstoy depicts theses changes in Anna and Levin’s thought process and their search for meaning in life by achieving a sense of realism and practicality in them. In both these characters Tolstoy gives one a range of human behaviours and realization in response to the same situation. Initially both Anna and Levin have reached the same conclusion about the fulfilment that they can derive from love but towards the end of the novel we can see that both characters realize the flaws in their original views about love and satisfaction
However only one of Tolstoy’s characters is able to rise from a sense of epiphany and is successful in encountering true fulfilment in life-that character is Levin. We first come across Levin when he arrives in Moscow to propose to Kitty Shtcherbatsky. When Kitty refuses his proposal, Levin has been defeated in the first step he feels is necessary for personal satisfaction. After the refusal, Levin becomes depressed and returns back to his country house in hopes of finding personal satisfaction in the country life style much suited to him. In efforts to finding true satisfaction from his life he resolves t...

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...the things that draw Anna to Vronsky that eventually lead to the downfall of their relationship and Anna's eventual suicide. Anna was drawn to Vronsky mostly because of his social status and the life he led. She found his carefree lifestyle, untamed personality and military involvement to be desirable. However, it is these exact things which bring about indifferences between Anna and Vronsky as Vronsky's political duties and social lifestyle limit the time he spends with Anna. Vronsky is unable to quench Anna’s thirst for attention and complete devotion which as a result makes her doubt his fidelity. Seeing that her only way to attain personal fulfilment through Vronsky had failed her, Anna realizes that she has now lost everything, her lover and her child, because of her misleading view that only physical love could provide her with a sense of personal fulfilment.

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