This story first starts out with chaos in the Oblonsky’s household. Prince
Stephen Oblonsky's wife Dolly found out that he was having an affair with their
children’s French governess and threatened to move out of the house and take
the kids with her. Stephen Oblonsky does not feel bad for having an affair. What
he feels bad for is getting caught by his wife. Even though he is upset he is
happy to hear the news that his sister, Anna Karenina, is coming to town though.
Later in the section Anna convinces Dolly to stay with her husband and not move
out. It did not take much to convince her because her threats were empty.
Oblonsky is the head of a distinguished Government Board in Moscow. He is glad
to leave his house and go to work to meet his friend Levin after a committee
meeting. He remembers that he friend Levin is in love with his sister-in-law
Kitty Shcherbatskaya. He later asked her to marry him, but she declines his
proposal. Kitty is waiting to marry Count Vronsky. When Anna comes to town her
and Vronsky fall in love despite that she is already married. Kitty realized
that Vronsky was not going to marry her. She got sick and went abroad to
recover. Anna lies to her husband which make them drift farther apart, but she
and Vronsky draw closer. C. Analysis: The way this book is starting out it seems
like Leo Tolstoy has written it about the love and the marriage of higher
powered figures in Russia. He started out the story with the fighting in the
Oblonsky household. That seems to refer to the downside of some marriages
because Dolly found out about her husband cheating on her. In the Oblonsky house
Tolstoy also shows loyalty from Dolly. She knows her threats were empty and she
knows that she will forgive her husband. Tolstoy shows different angles with
each couple. Anna and her husband Karenin are well off and have an established
marriage with a son. Then Anna falls in love with someone else and that marriage
takes a turn for the worse. Levin loves Kitty, but Kitty does not see love for
Levin in the first part of the story. She sees love for Vronsky. When Tolstoy is
telling the story he always has a problem with some characters going on. He
breaks up a couple, but then another couple gets together and solves a problem.
There was never a dull moment in this part of the story. You had to keep up with
what was going on just like a soap opera. Different characters kept getting
mentioned and placed in different situations. Part one of this story really
introduces the main themes and characters of the book. It describes their
relationships and sets up the events that will become the main points and plot
of the story. Each little story makes up the book. They all cross each other and
run parallel with each other. This first section that I read seems to flow real
nicely and it had some well-written parts that made the story come to life. A
theme in the book is how each family and each character shows their social
behavior. Social behavior is something that would be looked upon greatly with
these characters because they are all high-class people. They are people who
have respectable jobs and know everyone else. An example would be how Anna and
Vronsky were talking at Princess Betsy’s house and everyone thought of that to
be something wrong because Anna was married and her husband was in the same
room. The characters have to appeal to the society. D. Personal Reaction: In
this story so far I have thought it to be like today’s society. Even though
these people are from high-class people and hold high powering jobs they still
have things happen to them in everyday life that make things difficult. There
are people that would fit nicely on Jerry Springer with all their love
triangles. People who have family problems that they need to work on. Also, the
social stature of these people does not seem to mean quite as much sometimes.
Just like how it was here with the president and all the scandals that happened.
I find this story interesting to read. I did not quite catch on about all the
things at first. It seemed a little boring. Now I want to find out what is going
to happen to all the people and how everything is going to turn out.