Anna Arkadyevna Karenina is the title character and protagonist of Leo Tolstoy's 1877 novel Anna Karenina, an intelligent, magnetic aristocratic wife whose love affair with the officer Count Vronsky sets her against the rigid moral codes of Imperial Russian high society. Torn between her son, her marriage to the cold bureaucrat Karenin, and her passion for Vronsky, Anna's pursuit of authentic feeling in a society that offers her no honorable way to obtain it leads to her social ruin and eventual suicide beneath a train, a fate the novel sets in ironic counterpoint against Konstantin Levin's own search for meaning through domestic life and labor. Anna's psychological depth and the novel's unsparing portrait of a woman crushed between desire and convention made her one of the most studied heroines in world literature. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Narrative RoleSourced to the subject's own accountProtagonist and tragic adulteress whose affair and its social consequences form the novel's central tragedy 1 Defining TraitSourced to the subject's own accountPassionate yearning for authentic love that collides fatally with the rigid social codes of Imperial Russian high society 1 Narrative role (class)Sourced to the subject's own account Narrative role (class)Sourced to the subject's own account Connections
Character In
Source Anna Karenina, character (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Anna Karenina, character (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationCharacter list section
Anna Arkadyevna Karenina: Stepan Oblonsky's sister, Karenin's wife and Vronsky's lover.
- Character In: Anna Karenina
View the Source Anna Karenina (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead section, trains-motif sentenceQuote, Lead section, trains-motif sentence
Trains are a motif throughout the novel, with several major plot points taking place either on passenger trains or at stations in Saint Petersburg or elsewhere in Russia.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are trains such an important motif in Anna Karenina?
Trains recur at the novel's major turning points, foreshadowing Anna's own fate.
Trains recur throughout the novel at major turning points, with pivotal scenes taking place on passenger trains or at stations in Saint Petersburg and elsewhere in Russia. The motif is set up early and pays off at the novel's tragic climax, tying the machinery of modern Russian life directly to Anna's own fate.
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