Anna Karenina Summary | Chapterly
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: A Complete Summary "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Overview Anna Karenina (1877) is often called the greatest novel ever written. It tells two intertwined stories: Anna's tragic affair with Count Vronsky and Levin's search for meaning through farming, family, and faith. Together they explore love, marriage, society's hypocrisy, and the meaning of life. Tolstoy's famous opening - "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" - sets the theme: the varieties of human unhappiness. Anna's Story The Beginning Anna, an aristocrat married to the cold bureaucrat Karenin, travels to Moscow to reconcile her brother Stiva's family after his affair. At the train station, she meets the dashing Count Vronsky. Their attraction is immediate and overwhelming. The Affair Despite knowing the consequences, Anna begins an affair with Vronsky. She becomes pregnant, confesses to Karenin during a horse race, but cannot give up Vronsky. After nearly dying in childbirth, she experiences a moment of reconciliation with Karenin, but it doesn't last. The Fall Anna leaves Karenin and her son Seryozha to live with Vronsky. Society that tolerated male affairs shuns her. She...