Anna Karenina: Summary and Analysis

At over 800 pages and packed with interconnected storylines, I won’t lie: Anna Karenina is intimidating.

Throw in twenty-odd characters with confusing Russian names, and it can be tempting to give up on Tolstoy before you start.

But let me ask you this: have you ever struggled with family problems? Or felt the spark fade in your relationship and wonder if it’s possible to keep the romance alive?

Like all classics, Anna Karenina tackles timeless themes that are as relevant now as when they were written. From the first line, Tolstoy tells us that his epic novel is about family relationships and all the ways they can go wrong.

Plus, Anna Karenina’s characters are stuck between opposing ideologies, social norms, and moral codes. As American ideological polarization hits an all-time high and conflicting moral messages run rampant, well … let’s just say we moderns can learn a few lessons from Tolstoy’s epic novel.

So put on some Russian Romantic period music, take a sip of vodka, and dive in with this Anna Karenina summary.

Table of Contents

Anna Karenina Summary

The novel is named after one of its protagonists. But it’s not a straightforward story about her.

It’s a network of interconnecting plots that connect overlapping families and social circles. There’s way too much meat in the story to tackle here, so I’ll give a quick summary of the main plot.

The story follows two protagonists, Anna Karenina and Konstantin Levin.

Anna, a beautiful and accomplished young woman, is the wife of an important government official. She travels by train to Moscow to meet her brother, whose family is in turmoil after discovering that he is having an affair.

On the train, she meets a dashing military officer, Vronsky, and the two feel an intense attraction to each other.

Meanwhile, a socially awkward estate owner, Levin, has come to Moscow to propose to Kitty, the daughter of an aristocrat. The catch: Vronsky is also courting Kitty.

Kitty turns down Levin’s offer of marriage and waits for Vronsky to propose. However, Vronsky pursues Anna instead and the two begin an affair.

At this turn of events, Kitty is so devastated that she falls dangerously ill. Levin flees fashionable Moscow society to return to his family’s estate, seeking a simpler life among the Russian peasantry.

Vronsky resigns from the army to be with Anna, but Russian high society shuns her for her infidelity. Anna’s husband Karenin wants to maintain appearances, so he refuses to divorce her.

Finally, after Anna nearly dies giving birth to Vronsky’s child, Karenin forgives Anna and agrees to allow her to divorce.

However, she resents his forgiveness and rejects his offer to divorce her. She and Vronsky then travel to Italy, where they live an idyllic, yet boring, life.

Levin returns to Moscow after a period of hard work among the peasantry.

He encounters Kitty, whose suffering has deepened her character. She falls in love with Levin again and they marry.

Anna and Vronsky return to Russia where their relationship deteriorates. Anna becomes possessive and jealous while Vronsky grows cool towards her.

Anna’s jealousy leaves many wondering, “Did Vronsky cheat on Anna?” Although Vronsky seems to lose interest in Anna, he remains faithful to her.

After the couple has a fight, Vronsky goes out for the evening, leaving Anna at home.

Anna desperately pursues him to the train station but becomes overwhelmed with despair. She commits suicide by throwing herself under a train.

What Happens at the Very End of Anna Karenina?

Anna’s suicide leaves Vronsky shattered. He abandons high society to join a group of freedom-fighting Serbians.

Levin is unpleasantly surprised that married life has difficulties, including quarrels between himself and Kitty. He finds himself preoccupied with pondering the meaning of life.

Finally, Levin finds meaning in persevering in marriage despite its hardships and in serving God instead of himself.

Anna Karenina Characters

Anna Karenina involves over twenty characters — and they range from princesses to prostitutes!

Tolstoy used his novel to paint a nuanced portrait of Russian society, including all walks of life. With so many characters, though, it can be hard to keep track of who’s who.

Let’s keep it simple by focusing on the most important characters and how they contribute to the meaning of the novel.

Anna Karenina

A young, beautiful, intelligent socialite, married to a much-older government official. She is also an accomplished children’s book author.

Alexei Karenin

Anna’s husband, a reserved, moralistic official who is important in the Russian government. Although Anna accuses her husband of being “a puppet” and a slave to social conventions, he is surprisingly generous and forgiving towards Anna.

Count Alexei Vronsky

A wealthy, handsome military officer who first courts Kitty, then abandons her to pursue Anna. Vronsky’s womanizing makes him seem callous, but he shows genuine feeling by giving money to the poor and staying faithful to Anna.

Konstantin Levin

An idealistic young man who owns his family’s traditional farming estate. Chafing against the shallowness of high society, Levin is awkward yet warm-hearted.

Kitty (Princess Ekaterina)

A naive debutante and daughter of Russian aristocrats. While Kitty initially embraces the glamorous world she was born into, she eventually marries Levin and chooses a simple, rustic life.

Stiva (Stepan Oblonsky)

Anna’s brother, a member of the Russian aristocracy and government. Though kind and likable, Stiva’s weak character leads to philandering that almost destroys his family.

Themes of Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is packed with tons of themes for readers to dwell on. Here are just a few of the themes we've identified as ones that will, if you spend meaningful time considering them, leave a profound impact your life.

Is Love a Choice or an Excuse?

Do we fall in love, or do we choose to love?

This isn’t the first love story to address this question. It also comes up in Romeo and Juliet, arguably the greatest love story of all time.

Anna Karenina is full of people who use “being in love” as an excuse for bad behavior.

The story starts with Anna’s brother, Stiva, claiming that his passionate feelings justify his extramarital affair.

Anna’s story is a dramatic example of the same principle. Her feelings for Vronsky are so strong that she feels that she can’t resist them.

To her, they justify all her actions — even abandoning her son.

On the other hand, Levin opposes the idea that feelings justify immoral behavior. True to this principle, he perseveres through the problems of married life and stays faithful to Kitty.

In other words, he chooses to love. Tolstoy rewards him with a spiritually fulfilled life.

That’s not to say that Tolstoy paints Anna as an immoral monster. She’s an intelligent, adventurous woman stuck in a loveless marriage, and we can’t help but have compassion for her.

At the same time, we can’t ignore the damage Anna does to her husband, child, and friends. Even though our hearts bleed for her, can we really believe that she had no control over the destruction she caused?

Romance and Pragmatism

Is Anna Karenina a love story? If so, who’s the hero, and who’s the villain?

Many people who read Anna Karenina come away believing that Anna is a tragic romantic heroine who made a noble attempt to cast off the shackles of a repressive society.

However, Tolstoy invites us to look deeper.

Anna speaks and acts like a romantic heroine. Other characters in the novel even say that she reminds them of one.

Unlike most romantic figures, though, she clashes uncomfortably with the real world.

For instance, Anna and Vronsky try to escape social pressure by running away to Italy together. But their “happily ever after” doesn’t last forever: it gets stale, and they return to Russia when they get bored.

Anna’s romantic happiness is marred by prosaic consequences like pregnancy, legal battles, and cabin fever.

Levin is the only character who is as romantic and emotionally honest as Anna. Unlike her, though, he doesn’t run away from practical problems.

From marital struggles to farming difficulties, he faces the issues of life head-on.

It’s painful to watch Anna struggle with the consequences of her actions. It’s enough to make you doubt romance altogether.

But Levin’s story offers a glimmer of hope. We can’t escape the problems of life through romanticism, but by facing them, we can experience true love.

Progress and Tradition

Within 50 years of Anna Karenina’s publication, Russia underwent a bloody revolution that wiped away its historic way of life.

Tolstoy saw these changes on Russia’s horizon.

The old, farm-based way of life was giving way to mechanized conveniences. At the same time, new progressive values were sweeping away the established moral codes.

To Tolstoy, these changes were like a train barreling down the tracks. He wrote Anna Karenina partly as a warning against embracing too much change too fast.

The character of Anna is associated with trains: she meets Vronsky on a train and eventually dies by one.

Tolstoy is linking the industrial changes, including the new train system, to the moral revolution happening in Russia. Over the course of the novel, Anna tossed away her traditional values and embraced the new, permissive morality that was taking Russia by storm.

Tolstoy wants to warn us that unrestrained progress is like a brutal machine that will mow down those who get in its way.

On the other hand, Levin finds himself drawn to the slow-living ways of old Russia. He spends time working alongside peasants, building up his family’s farming estate, and remaining close to nature.

It’s a slow and painstaking process, but for him, it leads to peace and meaning.

If this all sounds unrelatable, ask yourself: why are Millennials and Gen-Z-ers abandoning city life for homesteads? Why is slow living a thriving topic online?

Tolstoy wouldn’t be surprised by our obsession with simple living and #cottagecoreaesthetic — his epic novel was a warning that we’d come to regret giving up simpler ways of life for the sake of novelty and convenience.

What is the Lesson of Anna Karenina?

Anna Karenina is a story about extremes: progressivism and traditionalism, glamorous society and peasant poverty, industrialization and simple living.

Tolstoy presents conflicting viewpoints so skillfully that many readers come away believing that he’s advocating one or the other.

For instance, many modern readers think that he’s advocating for Anna’s romantic, permissive values. They come away thinking that the lesson of Anna Karenina is that society holds us back from being our true selves.

Others think Tolstoy is on Karenin’s side, advocating for the rigid moralism of the old Russian aristocracy.

But Tolstoy isn’t doing either of those things.

Levin, the character who ends up the happiest, doesn’t embrace any of these ideological extremes.

He finds a way to integrate his romantic desires with the moral principles that he holds. Instead of devoting himself to high society or rural living, he finds a way to balance the two.

Finding balance isn’t easy. Levin struggles for hundreds of pages against himself, external problems, and others’ expectations, but the happiness that he’s rewarded with makes it all worth it.

He gets to marry the woman of his dreams, learns how to stay in love, and discovers the meaning of his life.

The lesson of Anna Karenina isn’t that we should throw ourselves into one ideological extreme or the other. Rampant moral permissiveness won’t make us happy, and lifeless moralism won’t either.

Tolstoy wants us to reject easy ideological answers and think for ourselves. It’s the only way to resolve our inner conflict so that we can start solving our family problems and healing political divides.