• [Reference] [Relevant reading point appears around page 690]

Anna Arkadyevna Karenina - The Passionate / Tragic Woman

Tolstoy: Sexist or Stoic?

• [MYTAKE] [Anna's punishment raises the question of Tolstoy's moral frame] I find it interesting that in many stories a woman as virtuous as Anna should receive a higher reward than dying by suicide. Is Tolstoy sexist for suggesting that a woman who seeks standard male virtues such as courage, intelligence, and authenticity ends by suffering? Or is he stoic for saying that, in a patriarchal society, a woman who challenges the structure is doomed to fail?

High-Class Virtues

• [Class virtue] [Anna represents nobility and composure]

High-Class Costs

• [Class cost] [Anna represents elite loneliness]

Feminism

• [Quote] [Anna's life is reduced to dependency and motherhood] "Her husband might put her to shame and turn her out, Vronsky might grow cold to her and go on living his own life apart (she thought of him again with bitterness and reproach); she could not leave her son. She had an aim in life."
  • [MYTAKE] [Anna's situation exposes patriarchal confinement] Isn't the dreadful the situation of women in a patriarchal society.
• [Quote] [Anna imagines love without freedom] "She would never know freedom in love, but would remain forever a guilty wife, with the menace of detection hanging over her at every instant; deceiving her husband for the sake of a shameful connection with a man living apart and away from her, whose life she could never share. She knew that this was how it would be, and at the same time it was so awful that she could not even conceive what it would end in. And she cried without restraint, as children cry when they are punished."
  • [MYTAKE] [Dead ends produce obsessive repetition] This resonates with my own life experience. When you are in a dead end, you can keep iterating through the same situation, the same problem all the time. Probably because you do not want to do the RCA and actually change the same thing.

Anna Has the Will to Live

• [Quote] [Anna wants to inhabit the lives she reads about] "If she read that the heroine of the novel was nursing a

sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about the room of a sick man; if she read of a member of Parliament making a speech, she longed to be delivering the speech; if she read of how Lady Mary had ridden after the hounds, and had provoked her sister-in-law, and had surprised every one by her boldness, she too wished to be doing the same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the smooth paper knife in her little hands, she forced herself to read."

• [MYTAKE] [Anna is more active than victimhood alone suggests] This is a very interesting point, because many times while we read the book it is laid upon us the idea that Anna is just a poor guy that life problems were laid upon her, and not a real protagonist.
• [Quote] [Anna feels fear and bliss at emotional intimacy] "Though she could not recall her own words or his, she realized instinctively

that the momentary conversation had brought them fearfully closer; and she was panic-stricken and blissful at it."

• [MYTAKE] [Vronsky may make Anna feel alive for the first time] It's crazy that probably Vronsky made her feel alive for the first time, which is crazy and amazing at the same time.

Escapism

• [Quote] [Anna's son disappoints her imagined version of him] "And her son, like her husband, aroused in Anna a feeling akin to disappointment. She had imagined him better than he was in reality. She had to let herself

drop down to the reality to enjoy him as he really was."

• [MYTAKE] [Cheating can function as escape from life] Interesting how cheating can be simply a way to run away from life.

Ubermensch Woman

• [Quote] [Anna's posture and presence signal force] "She was standing holding herself, as always, very erect, and when Kitty drew

near the group she was speaking to the master of the house, her head slightly turned towards him."

• [MYTAKE] [Anna sees in Vronsky a copy of her own force] In some ways, Anna Karenina sees in Vronsky a copy of herself, in terms not necessarily of will to power but in elegance, beauty, and strength. Maybe that is why she fell in love with him.

The Affair Consumes Her Whole Life

• [Quote] [Anna thinks constantly of happiness and unhappiness] "But you're ill or worried," he went on, not letting go her hands and bending

over her. "What were you thinking of?" "Always the same thing," she said, with a smile. She spoke the truth. If ever at any moment she had been asked what she was thinking of, she could have answered truly: of the same thing, of her happiness and her unhappiness.

Unhappiness

• [Quote] [Anna denies unhappiness while naming her unhappiness] "I unhappy?" she said, coming closer to him, and looking at him with an

ecstatic smile of love. "I am like a hungry man who has been given food. He may be cold, and dressed in rags, and ashamed, but he is not unhappy. I unhappy? No, this is my unhappiness.

Authenticity and Sincerity

• [Quote] [Anna confesses hatred and love without disguise] "No, you were not mistaken," she said deliberately, looking desperately into his cold face. "You were not mistaken. I was, and I could not help being in despair. I hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his mistress; I can't bear you; I'm afraid of you, and I hate you.... You can do what you like to me."

Stiva Oblonsky - The Hedonist / Social Man (ESFP)

Ambiguous Morality

• [Quote] [Stiva recognizes his own fault] ""Ah, ah, ah! OO!..." he muttered, reaclling everything that had happened. And again every detail of this quarrel with this wife was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and worst of all, his own fault."
  • [MYTAKE] [Stiva has some moral awareness] Even though he is not the most moral of the characters, we can see that he in fact has some level of morality.

Lack of Authenticity

• [Quote] [Stiva inherits his opinions like fashion] "Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these

political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn."

• [MYTAKE] [Stiva represents mindless hedonism] He seems to be a character with minimum intellectual ability, who does not seem to care too much about life in general.

ADHD and Avoiding Tough Feelings

• [Quote] [Stiva performs humility while glowing with health] ""Dolly!" he said in a subdued and timid voice. He bent his head towards his

shoulder and tried to look pitiful and humble, but for all that he was radiant with freshness and health."

• [MYTAKE] [Stiva uses pity to avoid guilt] He is so pathetic; he is running away from the fact that he cheated on her by playing with her emotionally and making her feel pity.
• [Quote] [Stiva promises help that never arrives] "Towards the end of May, when everything had been more or less satisfactorily arranged, she received her husband's answer to her complaints of the disorganized state of things in the country. He wrote begging her forgiveness for not having thought of everything before, and promised to come down at the first chance. This chance did not present itself, and till the beginning of June Darya Alexandrovna stayed alone in the country."

Empty Suit / Nepotism Beneficiary

• [Quote] [Stiva receives office through family connections] "This post he had received through his sister Anna's husband, Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin,

who held one of the most important positions in the ministry to whose department the Moscow office belonged. But if Karenina had not got his brother-in-law this berth, then through a hundred other personages--brothers, sister, cousins, uncles, and aunts--Stiva Oblonsky would have received this post, or some other similar one."

• [Quote] [Stiva's life is sustained by networks] "Half Moscow and Petersbur were friends and relations of Stepan Arkadyvetich"
• [MYTAKE] [Stiva's weakness comes from unearned position] This man is so pathetic; he is weak because he received everything without any effort, and therefore he has no real skill.
• [MYTAKE] [Success depends heavily on social connections] We can see how much success in life is about social connections, especially at that time.

Dumb / Superficial Knowledge

• [Quote] [Levin sees Stiva being exploited in the forest sale] ""Oh, well, the higher power of Ryabinin can. Not a single merchant ever buys

a forest without counting the trees, unless they get it given them for nothing, as you're doing now. I know your forest. I go there every year shooting, and your forest's worth a hundred and fifty roubles and acre paid down, while he's giving you sixty by installments. So that in fact you're making him a present of thirty thousand.""

Hedonism

• [Quote] [Stiva shapes life around bachelor tastes] "He had bachelor tastes, and it was in accordance with them that he shaped his life."

Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin - The Seeker / Integrated Man

Why Levin Is My Favorite Character

• [MYTAKE] [Levin's authenticity makes him spiritually central] He is authentic, whereas others follow guidelines and principles either because they are easy, because they feel like doing so, or because they have been told to do so. Levin follows them because he believes in them. Not only that, but he also recognizes his own flaws after a lot of pain and therefore is willing to fix them in the end.

True Love

• [Quote] [Oblonsky sees Levin's love for Kitty] "Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had long known that Levin was in love with his

sister-in-law, Kitty, gave a hardly perceptible smile, and his eyes sparkled merrily."

• [Quote] [Levin is ashamed of his desire to propose] "When Oblonsky asked Levin what had brought him to town, Levin blushed,

and was furious with himself for blushing, because he could not answer, "I have come to make your sister-in-law an offer," though that was precisely what he had come for."

• [MYTAKE] [Levin's proposal motive reveals a beautiful soul] One of the first interactions we have with Levin is him suggesting proposal to Kitty, showing what a beautiful soul he has. He is straightforward and incapable of the mannerisms required to be successful in social life.

Levin's Love for Kitty

• [Quote] [Levin sees Kitty as far above him] "But Levin was in love, and so it seemed

to him that Kitty was so perfect in every respect that she was a creature far above everything earthly; and that he was a creature so low and so earthly that it could not even be conceived that other people and she herself could regard him as worthy of her."

• [Quote] [Levin remembers Kitty's charm vividly] "When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself,

especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness and good-humor. The childishness of her expression, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made up her special charm, and that he fully realized."

• [MYTAKE] [Levin's inexpressive love is painfully relatable] Bro, his inability to express his love properly is so sad, because it is very intense. I can definitely relate a lot with this character.
• [Quote] [Kitty appears as Levin's dream of family life] "Seeing her, he found himself face to face with one of the pictures of his daydream of family life."
• [Quote] [Levin's pride blocks hope after rejection] "Darya Alexandrovna, he said dryly, I appreciate your confidence in me; I believe you are making a mistake. But whether I am right or wrong, that pride you so despise makes any thought of Katerina Alexandrovna out of the question for me,--you understand, utterly out of the question."
• [Quote] [Kitty contains all brightness and meaning for Levin] "He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world that could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty."
  • [MYTAKE] [Levin's vision of Kitty names a universal longing] Isn't this what every man has always wanted in their life?

Levin Is Cute, Oblonsky Is Not

• [Quote] [Levin cannot understand adultery] "I'll tell you. Suppose you're married, you love your wife, but you're fascinated by another woman. . . Excuse me, but I'm absolutely unable to comprehend how. . . just as I can't

comprehend how I could now, after my dinner, go straight to a baker's shop and steal a roll."

• [MYTAKE] [Levin and Stiva embody opposite moral styles] It is so funny this friendship between Stiva and Levin. They are different not only because their lives are governed by different philosophies, but because Levin is strict with those axioms whereas Stiva is relaxed.

Achilles Heel

• [Quote] [Levin fears being fully seen by his brother] "Instead of a lively, healthy visitor, some outsider who would, he hoped, cheer him up in his uncertain humor, he had to see his brother, who knew him through and through, who would call forth all the thoughts nearest his heart, would force him to show himself fully. And that he was not disposed to do."
  • [MYTAKE] [Levin's pride comes from excessive rational inflexibility] He is so prideful, but his pride comes from a lack of flexibility, something about excessive rationalism.
• [Quote] [Kitty's mother dislikes Levin's uncompromising nature] "In the mother's eyes there could be no comparison between Vronsky and

Levin. She disliked in Levin his strange and uncompromising opinions and his shyness in society, founded, as she supposed, on his pride and his queer sort of life, as she considered it, absorbed in cattle and peasants. She did not very much like it that he, who was in love with her daughter, had kept coming to the house for six weeks, as though he were waiting for something"

• [MYTAKE] [Levin deserves pity more than Stiva] He is so autistic and pitiful. It is funny his asymmetry with Stiva, because Stiva demands pitifulness but is not worth it, whereas Levin is but does not demand it even though he deserves it.
• [Quote] [Levin's rational mind collapses before death] "I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all end; I had forgotten--death.. He sat on his bed in the darkness, crouched up, hugging his knees, and holding his breath from the strain of thought, he pondered. But the more intensely he thought, the clearer it became to him that it was indubitably so, that in reality, looking upon life, he had forgotten one little fact--that death will come, and all ends; that nothing was even worth beginning, and that there was no helping it anyway. Yes, it was awful, but it was so."
  • [MYTAKE] [Levin's rationalism makes ordinary life harder] He is so autistic. This is an advantage that normal people will always have over us: life is not rational, it does not make sense from beginning until the end. But they do not care about that; ignorance is truly a blessing.

Levin Faces His Achilles Heel

• [Quote] [Levin directly names Kitty as humiliation] "No; I don't know whether you know it or not, but I don't care. And I tell

you--I did make an offer and was rejected, and Katerina Alexandrovna is nothing now to me but a painful and humiliating reminiscence."

• [MYTAKE] [Levin facing rejection is cute] It is so cute when he faces his "achilles heel."
• [MYTAKE] [Love forces Levin to face his central weakness] What distinguishes Levin from the other characters is that love forces him to face his main Achilles heel, and that is why he is the truly rewarded one from God.

INFP Feeling

• [Character trait] [Levin prefers direct beauty over verbalized beauty] Konstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him took away the beauty of what he saw.

Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky - The Romantic / Ambitious Man

Character Introduction

• [Quote] [Vronsky is introduced as brilliant gilded youth] "Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovitch Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of Petersburg. I made his acquaintance in Tver when I was there on official business, and he came there for the levy of recruits. Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, an aide-de-camp, and with all that a very nice, good-natured fellow. But he's more than simply a good-natured fellow, as I've found out here--he's a cultivated man, too, and very intelligent; he

a man who'll make his mark."

• [MYTAKE] [Vronsky is introduced as Nietzschean force] We see Nietzsche's ubermensch right from his character introduction.

Will to Power

• [Quote] [Anna instantly recognizes Vronsky] "She looked round, and the same instant recognized Vronsky's face"
  • [MYTAKE] [Vronsky pursues desire with frightening capability] This happened right before he left Moscow; that guy, when he wants something, can do anything that is possible.
• [Quote] [Vronsky declares that he must be near Anna] "What am I coming for? he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. You know that I have come to be where you are, he said; I can't help it."
  • [MYTAKE] [Vronsky's courage is shocking] Mano o maluco eh muito foda, how did he have the courage to say that with Alexey nearby?

Spousal Choice

• [Quote] [Marriage makes love convenient for ambition] "Women are the chief stumbling block in a man's career. It's hard to love a woman and do anything. There's only one way of having love conveniently without its being a hindrance--that's marriage"
  • [IMPORTANT] [This is one of my favorite quotes in the book]
  • [MYTAKE] [Tolstoy's marriage stoicism feels persuasive here] Tolstoy is well known for applying stoicism to marriage problems. Nonetheless, I have to admit this is one of the things I agree with most because finding a girlfriend is harder than a full-time job.

Not Attached

• [Quote] [Vronsky lacks real home life] "VRONSKY had never had a real home life. His mother had been in her youth a brilliant society woman, who had had during her married life, and still more afterwards, many love affairs notorious in the whole fashionable world. His father he scarcely remembered, and he had been educated in the Corps of Pages."

Will to Power in Love

• [Quote] [Vronsky courts without intention of marriage] "He did not know that his mode of behavior in relation to Kitty had a definite character, that it is courting young girls with no intention of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil actions common among brilliant young men such as he was. It seemed to him that he was the first who had discovered the pleasure, and he was enjoying his discovery."
  • [MYTAKE] [Vronsky treats women before Anna as prizes] Interesting how Vronsky changes his intent from Kitty to Anna. It is as if for the girls before Anna they were simply prizes. We can clearly see that Vronsky is not a super moral character, which is contradictory with his care for Anna.

Masculine Dominance

• [Quote] [Vronsky feels himself a conqueror] "Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of this mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he arched his chest, and his eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror."
  • [MYTAKE] [Tolstoy mocks masculine conquest] Vronsky can symbolize the spirit of masculine dominance, but also the silliness in that endeavor. Contrary to Nietzsche, Tolstoy laughs at the idea of the Ubermensch.

Selfish People Also Love

• [Quote] [Vronsky's life centers on seeing Anna] "He knew only that he had told her the truth, that he had come where she was, that all the happiness of his life, the only meaning in life for him, now lay in seeing and hearing her. And when he got out of the carriage at Bologova to get some seltzer water, and caught sight of Anna, involuntarily his first word had told her just what he thought. And he was glad he had told her it, that she knew it now and was thinking of it. He did not sleep all night."

Me Diga Com Quem Tu Andas e Eu Direi Quem Tu Es

• [Quote] [Anna sees Karenin weaponizing property against her] "You see, I'm engrossed

with business! I want a lawsuit, because I must have my property. Do you understand the folly of it, that on the pretext of my being unfaithful to him, she said contemptuously, he wants to get the benefit of my fortune."

Publicity of Defiance

• [Quote] [Society envies the public danger of Vronsky's affair] "But in spite of

that, his love was known to all the town; every one guessed with more or less confidence at his relations with Madame Karenina. The majority of the younger men envied him for just what was the most irksome factor in his love--the exalted position of Karenin, and the consequent publicity of their connection in society."

• [MYTAKE] [Vronsky appears extremely chad]

Lack of Moral Principles

• [Character relation] [Yashvin reveals Vronsky's immoral social environment] Yashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without moral principles, but of immoral principles, was Vronsky's greatest friend in the regiment.

Some Moral Awareness

• [Quote] [Vronsky recognizes Anna's insecurity] "Yes, she was unhappy before, but proud and at peace; and now she cannot be

at peace and feel secure in her dignity, though she does not show it. Yes, we must put an end to it, he decided."

Existential Crisis by Defiance

• [Quote] [The race becomes Vronsky's bitterest memory] "Yashvin overtook him with his cap, and led him home, and half an hour later

Vronsky had regained his self-possession. But the memory of that race remained for long in his heart, the cruelest and bitterest memory of his life."

• [MYTAKE] [Vronsky's limitation is exposed by the race] How will he react upon this? Will he realize his finite limitations, or continue to disregard them?

Vronsky's Fall from the Horse

• [Quote] [Vronsky destroys Frou-Frou through one clumsy mistake] "She flew over the ditch as though not noticing it. She flew over it like a bird; but at the same instant Vronsky, to his horror, felt that he had failed to keep up with the mare's pace, that he had, he did not know how, made a fearful, unpardonable mistake, in recovering his seat in the saddle. All at once his position had shifted and he knew that something awful had happened. He could not yet make out what had happened, when the white legs of a chestnut horse flashed by close to him, and Mahotin passed at a swift gallop. Vronsky was touching the ground with one foot, and his mare was sinking on that foot. He just had time to free his leg when she fell on one side, gasping painfully, and, making vain efforts to rise with her delicate, soaking neck, she fluttered on the ground at his feet like a shot bird. The clumsy movement made by Vronsky had broken her back. But that he only knew much later. At that moment he knew only that Mahotin had flown swiftly by, while he stood staggering alone on the muddy, motionless ground, and Frou-Frou lay gasping before him, bending her head back and gazing at him with her exquisite eyes. Still unable to realize what had happened, Vronsky tugged at his mare's reins. Again she struggled all over like a fish, and her shoulders setting the saddle heaving, she rose on her front legs but unable to lift her back, she quivered all over and again fell on her side. With a face hideous with passion, his lower jaw trembling, and his cheeks white, Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the stomach and again fell to tugging at the rein. She did not stir, but thrusting her nose into the ground, she simply gazed at her master with her speaking eyes."

Kitty Shcherbatsky - The Innocent / Growing Woman

Too Pure

• [Quote] [Kitty feels sorry for Levin even after choosing Vronsky] "It was Levin's face, with his scowling brows, and his

kind eyes looking out in dark dejection below them, as he stood listening to her father, and glancing at her and at Vronsky. And she felt so sorry for him that tears came into her eyes. But immediately she thought of the man for whom she had given him up."

• [MYTAKE] [Kitty's compassion is unusually pure] Can you imagine, she is so pure that she cries for other people's sufferings.

Downside of Pure Heart

• [Quote] [Kitty's unanswered loving look wounds her for years] "Kitty looked into his face, which was so close to her own, and long afterwards--for

several years after--that look, full of love, to which he made no response, cut her to the heart with an agony of shame."

Good Side of Pure Heart

• [Quote] [Kitty alone understands her wounded position] "No one but she herself understood her position; no one knew that she had just

refused the man whom perhaps she loved, and refused him because she had put her faith in another."

• [MYTAKE] [Kitty can recognize beauty in Levin's heart] It is interesting because her heart is so pure and beautiful that she is able to realize that beauty in Levin's heart.

Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin - The Rationalist / Bureaucratic Man

Despair of Defiance

• [MYTAKE] [Karenin loses marriage through emotional inexpression] This guy lost his marriage because he was not able to express his feelings, and because of his lack of it. It looks very pathetic, but the same thing happened for me in Waterloo.

Great Introduction

• [Quote] [Karenin is introduced as outside Vronsky's world] "I know him by reputation and by sight. I know that he's clever, learned, religious somewhat. . . But you know that's not. . . not in my line, said Vronsky in English."
  • [MYTAKE] [Alexey's introduction captures his essence] It is interesting because Alexey's intro is exactly what he is.

Achilles Heel

• [Quote] [Karenin prioritizes petitions and papers over Anna] "ALEXEY Alexandrovitch came back from the meeting of the ministers at four

o'clock, but as often happened, he had not time no come in to her. He went into his study to see the people waiting for him with petitions, and to sign some papers brought him by his chief secretary."

• [MYTAKE] [Karenin is incapable of expressing love] He is a man incapable of expressing love.
• [Quote] [Karenin's motto substitutes duty for feeling] "Unhasting and unresting,

was his motto. He came into the dining hall, greeted everyone, and hurriedly sat down, smiling to his wife."

• [MYTAKE] [Karenin uses work to flee marriage] He uses his work as a means of running away from his marriage.
• [Quote] [Karenin notices impropriety only through others' eyes] "ALEXEY Alexandrovitch had seen nothing striking or improper in the fact that

his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart, in eager conversation with him about something. But he noticed that to the rest of the party this appeared something striking and improper, and for that reason it seemed to him too to be improper. He made up his mind that he must speak of it to his wife."

• [MYTAKE] [Karenin's strictness blocks looseness and intimacy] He is such a poor man; he is so strict, he cannot let himself loose. I can relate to him as well.
• [Quote] [Karenin prepares domestic speech like a report] "Thinking over what he would say, he somewhat regretted that he should have to use his time and mental powers for domestic consumption, with so little to show for it, but, in spite of that, the form and contents of the speech before him shaped itself as clearly and distinctly in his head as a ministerial report."
• [Quote] [Anna thinks Karenin does not know love] "For an instant her face fell, and the mocking gleam in her eyes died away; but

the word love threw her into revolt again. She thought: "Love? Can he love? If he hadn't heard there was such a thing as love, he would never have used the word. He doesn't even know what love is.""

• [MYTAKE] [Karenin deserves pity]
• [Quote] [Anna calls Karenin a machine] "That's what will

happen. He's not a man, but a machine, and a spiteful machine when he's angry,"

• [Quote] [Karenin morally condemns Anna] "No honor, no heart, no religion; a corrupt woman. I always knew it and always saw it, though I tried to deceive myself to spare her, he said to himself."
  • [MYTAKE] [Karenin's defensive mind avoids root cause analysis] I feel sorry for him; he is completely blind. His mind protects him from doing the 5 Whys, the root cause analysis, ergo he is destined to forever face the same mistakes until the end of times.
• [Quote] [Anna sees Karenin as an official machine] ""He's not a man, not a human being--he's a doll! No one knows him; but I know him. Oh, if I'd been in his place, I'd long ago have killed, have torn to pieces a wife like me. I wouldn't have said, 'Anna, ma chère'! He's not a man, he's an official machine. He doesn't understand that I'm your wife, that he's outside, that he's superfluous.... Don't let's talk of him!...""
  • [MYTAKE] [Anna's attack on Karenin is darkly funny] KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

Karenin Knows He Is Being Cheated On

• [Quote] [Karenin seals away his family feelings] "He did not realize it, because it was too terrible to him to realize his actual position, and he shut down and locked and sealed up in his heart that secret place where lay hid his feelings towards his family, that is, his wife and son. He who had been such a careful father, had from the end of that winter become peculiarly frigid to his son, and adopted to him just the same bantering tone he used with his wife. "Aha, young man!" was the greeting with which he met him."
• [Quote] [Karenin knows the truth without admitting it] "He did not allow himself to think about it, and he did not think about it; but all the same though he never admitted it to himself, and had no proofs, not even suspicious evidence, in the bottom of his heart he knew beyond all doubt that he was a deceived husband, and he was profoundly miserable about it."
  • [MYTAKE] [Defensive mechanisms protect the deepest weakness] It's interesting how powerful the defensive mechanisms of a human being are for its major weakness.

Vronsky's Fall from the Horse

• [Quote] [Karenin reads the truth on Anna's face] "He examined that face again, trying not to read what was so plainly written on it, and against his own will, with horror read on it what he did not want to know"
  • [MYTAKE] [Karenin is forced to face the truth] I just love this moment. In fact, it is so epic that even when he tries as much as possible to hide himself from the truth, he is forced to face it sooner or later.

Darya Alexandrovna (Dolly) - The Dutiful / Resigned Woman

Low Self-Esteem

• [Quote] [Dolly is trapped in humiliating family breakdown] "Dolly could not help sighing. Her dearest friend, her sister, was going away.

And her life was not a cheerful one. Her relations with Stepan Arkadyevitch after their reconciliation had become humiliating. The union Anna had cemented turned out to be of no solid character, and family harmony was breaking down again at the same point. There had been nothing definite, but Stepan Arkadyevitch was hardly ever at home; money, too, was hardly ever forthcoming, and Dolly was continually tortured by suspicions of infidelity, which she tried to dismiss, dreading the agonies of jealousy she had been through already."

• [MYTAKE] [Dolly shows how bad life can become comfortable] I can relate to Dolly, because once one person gets used to a bad life, then it is very comfortable to get used to it. She is a very likable and relatable character and powerless of mankind.

Alexey and Vronsky

• [MYTAKE] [Alexey and Vronsky both live under despair of defiance] I find it poetic that both are in fact under despair of defiance. One does not want to change or admit that his lack of emotion in the marriage is ruining his life.

Levin and Oblonsky

• [MYTAKE] [Levin and Oblonsky reveal opposite capacities for love] Even though Levin is close friends with Oblonsky, it is insane how different they are, and how Levin is a man capable of true love and true integrity, whereas Oblonsky is not.