Résumé
Résumé de Anna Karenina
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love character and family drama, passionate love tested by social judgment, and the search for meaning in marriage, work and daily life.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Anna Karenina is a novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published in installments between 1875 and 1877 and then as a book. It follows two stories side by side in the Russia of the 1870s. One is the story of Anna, a married woman in Petersburg high society whose life is thrown into upheaval by a passion she cannot master. The other is the story of Konstantin Levin, a landowner who searches for love, work and a reason to live.
Tolstoy wrote it after finishing War and Peace, and he turned from the Napoleonic wars to the world he knew: country estates, Moscow drawing rooms, railway stations, horse races and the quiet fights inside a marriage. He wanted to show how people really live, and how a whole society judges them. It is built from short scenes that stay in the mind. It gives you a large cast of people who feel real, and it never settles for easy answers about who is right.
In the next fifteen minutes you will meet the main people, follow the two plots as they unfold, and see what the book is really about and how Tolstoy tells it. We begin in Moscow, in a house where everything has gone wrong.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A Broken Household Sets Everything MovingFree
- 2Levin Asks for Love and Is Refused
- 3A Ball Changes the Course of Two Lives
- 4Karenin, the Husband Who Cannot Feel
- 5Society Judges, and Anna Stands Alone
- 6Levin Finds Meaning in Land and Labor
- 7Two Marriages Show Two Kinds of Love
- 8What the Novel Is Really About
- 9How Tolstoy Tells It and Why It Lasts
Point clé 1 sur 9
A Broken Household Sets Everything Moving
The novel opens in Moscow in the house of Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky, whom everyone calls Stiva. His wife Dolly has discovered that he has been unfaithful with the family's French governess. The house is in confusion. The servants quarrel, the children run wild, and nobody has planned a proper dinner. Stiva is no cold villain. He is charming, kind and easy-going, and he is truly sorry, yet he cannot quite feel how deeply he has wounded his wife.
Tolstoy uses this small domestic crisis to set the tone for the whole book. Stiva wakes from a pleasant dream and then remembers the trouble. He is a man who loves life's pleasures and who forgives himself with ease. His job, his friends and his appetite for good food all make him popular. Tolstoy shows him with humor and with a clear eye, and he never makes him a monster.
Stiva sends for his sister, Anna Karenina, who lives in Petersburg. She is married to Alexei Karenin, a senior government official much older than she is, and she has a young son named Seryozha. People who know her describe her as warm, intelligent and full of life. She agrees to come to Moscow to help save her brother's marriage.
On the way, Anna shares a train compartment with an old countess, who talks proudly about her son, an officer named Count Alexei Vronsky. When the train reaches Moscow, Anna steps onto the platform and a railway worker is killed by an engine. She takes it as a bad omen. Tolstoy plants this early, and the railway will return again and again as the story goes on.
Anna's visit to Dolly succeeds at first. She speaks to her sister-in-law with such feeling that Dolly decides not to leave. Anna seems to understand the pain of a marriage that has gone wrong. The irony is plain to anyone who reads on. The woman who mends one household is about to put her own in danger.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Who’s who
- Anna Karenina
- A married Petersburg society woman, Anna is Karenin's wife, Stiva's sister, and the focus of Vronsky's passionate attention.
- Alexei Karenin
- Anna's husband is a senior government official whose devotion to duty shapes his relationships with his family.
- Count Alexei Vronsky
- A wealthy young cavalry officer, Vronsky courts Kitty before his attraction to Anna disrupts their social circle.
- Konstantin Levin
- A serious country landowner and Stiva's friend, Levin loves Kitty and questions the purpose of his life.
- Kitty Shcherbatskaya
- Dolly's younger sister, Kitty is a Moscow noblewoman who attracts both Levin's devotion and Vronsky's attention.
- Stepan Oblonsky
- Anna's charming brother, nicknamed Stiva, is Dolly's unfaithful husband and a friend of Levin.
- Dolly Oblonskaya
- Stiva's wife and Kitty's sister, Dolly struggles with her husband's infidelity while caring for their children.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 359,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 23 h 55 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about Anna Karenina
What is Anna Karenina about?
It follows two stories in 1870s Russia. Anna, a married woman in high society, falls in love with an officer and faces the cost of that choice. Levin, a landowner, searches for love and meaning.
Is Anna Karenina based on a true story?
It is fiction, though Tolstoy drew on real life. Levin shares many of his own views and experiences. A woman in his circle who died under a train is often said to have inspired Anna's story.
Who are the main characters in Anna Karenina?
The novel centers on Anna, a Petersburg society woman, and Konstantin Levin, a country landowner. Around them are her husband Karenin, the officer Vronsky, Kitty, and Anna's brother Stiva with his wife Dolly, whose household crisis opens the story.
What does the epigraph about vengeance mean?
The book opens with a line about vengeance and repayment, taken from the Bible. Readers disagree on its meaning. It may warn against judging others, or point to consequences. Tolstoy never explains it.
What is the main message of Anna Karenina?
There is no single message. The book shows how love, duty, honesty and social judgment pull people in different directions. It asks readers to be slow to condemn, and to look for meaning in honest daily life.