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Anna Karenina
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Part 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 8, Chapters 1-10 Summary
Two months after Anna’s death, the reader joins Sergei Ivanovich Koznyshev on his way to the Levins’ for the summer. His latest book comparing Europe and Russia has not been well-received. He has become newly devoted to the cause of Pan-Slavism, unity of Slavic peoples: in this case, specifically liberation of the Balkan states from Ottoman rule. He also remains devoted to the peasantry as the repository of a more authentic Russia and looks forward to this aspect of visiting his brother.
Sergei goes to the Kursk, one of Moscow’s main railway stations, and finds it full of men preparing to volunteer in the Balkans, and those who are seeing them off. He learns Vronsky, who he distantly knows, is among them. He also meets Oblonsky, who tells him he will find Dolly at Levin’s. Oblonsky is only distantly saddened when Vronsky is mentioned. The narrator notes when Sergei sees Vronsky, his face is “aged and full of suffering” (775). Levin’s friend Katavasov, accompanying Sergei, is less impressed with the volunteers. Sergei meets Vronsky’s mother at one of the stops, who explains that Anna has ruined her son’s life, and Karenin has taken his daughter. The countess asks Sergei to speak to her son. Unmoved by Sergei’s confidence in him, Vronsky explains that he welcomes death. Being in a train station reminds him of Anna, who he can only remember in the tragic terms of her death and no longer as the lovely, vibrant woman with whom he fell in love.
Sergei arrives at Levin’s home, and is greeted by Kitty, embarrassed by the suggestion Levin has contrarian views on the war. She introduces him to her father, who is also visiting. Kitty goes to care for her son, Mitya. She knows Levin is tormented by his lack of faith, but can only think of his service to others: his sacrifices for Dolly and for her. She tells Mitya his father is his best guide for how to be a good person, despite the doubts that plague him.
Since Nikolai’s death and Mitya’s birth, Levin is tormented by what he believes about the world if he is not a Christian. He realizes all those he loves are believers in Christianity, and recalls praying during his son’s birth as a consolation. He tries to read all the major philosophers but this nearly drives him to death by suicide.
Part 8, Chapters 10-19 Summary
Levin finds refuge in his daily tasks, which give him purpose where philosophical contemplation does not. He intensely focuses on farming to leave his son a successful inheritance, like that which he gained from his own father. This sense of duty drives him , though he remains haunted by doubt.
On the day his brother arrives, Levin is particularly focused not only on the harvest but also on his doubts; he sees the laborers around him almost as walking corpses, preoccupied with their deaths and spiritual fates. When one of the workers describes how an older man “lives for the soul, for God” (797). This gives Levin an epiphany—a realization that he has always tried to live this way. This is a truth derived from the universe that has always driven his life forward and explains his happiness in his marriage. He declares, “reason cannot discover love for the other, because it’s unreasonable” (797), so his childlike faith was always the source of good in his life, not rationality. He realizes philosophy is only a kind of poison. He decides that none of his questions about organized religion detract from the essential truth about goodness and God as its source, and he cries with gratitude.
Levin returns home and meets his coachman, who tells him he has visitors. He imagines he will no longer have any quarrels nor tension with his brother or any other guest now that he has faith. He finds this is not true, however, as his brother is still distant, but he realizes his faith is still present. The guests discuss Vronsky’s trip to Serbia, and Levin disagrees that private citizens should be engaging in a war their government is not officially fighting. Sergei insists that Pan Slavism is a mass popular movement, but Levin points out that most people are like his beekeeper, unaware and uninterested. Levin’s father-in-law says that wars are like Stiva’s new civil service post—merely a source of profit for newspapers. Levin gives up the argument when Sergei quotes Jesus in the Gospel, claiming he has “brought not peace but a sword” (810). Levin briefly wonders why revolution is not as legitimate as a populist war, but he decides to give up the argument in the name of family peace.
A thunderstorm comes and Levin begins to worry for Kitty and Mitya, in the woods under a tree—especially when he sees lightning. He runs into the woods, seeing a tree is fallen, and begins to pray for their safety. He finds them, relieved, and embraces Kitty, reproaching himself for scolding her. Dinner is pleasant, and Kitty draws Levin away from talking world politics to the nursery. He finds he is newly drawn to his spiritual epiphany, forgetting the dinner debate. Kitty shows him that the baby recognizes them, and they discuss that now Levin feels more love for his son than fear or anxiety.
Levin goes to look at the stars, deciding he does not have to resolve whether practitioners of other faiths outside Christianity are also saved. Kitty comes to find him, and he decides not to tell her about his epiphany. He knows he will be just as flawed as before, but now his life will have higher purpose.
Part 8 Analysis
With Anna’s death, the novel’s world becomes almost exclusively that of men, and Karenin, mentioned only in passing, exits the narrative. Sergei, nearly a stranger to the reader, emerges as a representative of the intelligentsia: Russia’s educated class of nobles. He has abandoned the traditional question of Russia’s relationship to Europe in favor of Pan-Slavism which was the cause of the day at the time the novel was written. He has become a passionate defender of Balkan independence, seeing in it another expression of popular will, as in his adulation for the peasants as the repository of genuine Russianness. His idealism, as always, contrasts with Levin’s pragmatism, but now also with Vronsky and Oblonsky. Vronsky sees the war only as an escape from the tragedy of his life, wishing for death as Anna did. He is haunted by her, and there is no higher cause in his escape. The reader is left no clues to his fate, as though he is no longer relevant without Anna, just as he claims.
Oblonsky, in contrast, has seemingly forgotten his own sister, focused only on his new post that will resolve his debts. But he is apart from Dolly, just as he was when the novel began, and still a cheerful man with little in the way of serious convictions. He is the only major character who is unchanged from beginning to end, even, perhaps, unchanged by his sister’s death. In a way, he is a failed man, as Levin has assumed much of the financial and social responsibility for Dolly and his children.
Levin, too, has taken up a cause, and finally resolved his torments. His abandonment of rationality saves him from suicidal ideation, as does his conviction that goodness has an external source, which must be God. He partially reaches this conclusion because he concentrates on work, service to others, and his life in the country, far from Moscow. He cannot fully reckon with the dilemma of mortality, but he can imbue his life with new purpose through renewed love for his wife and child. Levin’s commitment to a general belief that is not necessarily institutional mirrors much of Tolstoy’s later spiritual life, which would see him excommunicated from the Orthodox church. Tolstoy seems to suggest that with a secure family life, an isolated person like Levin can escape torment, which may explain how his fate differs from Anna’s.
The novel’s final act is, in some sense, haunted by Anna’s absence, as Vronsky is—the characters converge but the action is falling, mundane, concentrated on everyday details like bathing a baby or harvest time, rather than grand social drama. Tolstoy has apparently answered whether women can find happiness by leaving marriages of convenience for passion, in the emphatic negative. He suggests, instead, that happiness occurs when isolated individuals join to universal causes: Levin becomes like other believers just as all happy families are alike.
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