Deep Analysis of Anna Karenina Part One: Meet the Characters (Chapters 1 to 9) (Patreon)

Let's get into Part One of Anna Karenina and start meeting the characters together!

This video covers up to Chapter IX of Part One and covers some of the following topics:

• 0:00 “All unhappy families are alike” 
• 3:30 Mozart’s Don Giovanni 
• 5:06 Viktor Frankl, reflexes, Pavlov, and psychology 
• 6:51 Do we have free will? 
• 13:00 The first time we hear about Anna  
• 14:05 A nice example of complex characterisation 
• 15:00 Tolstoy’s time, characterisation, and realism  
• 18:25 Tolstoy’s theory of art and beauty  
• 21:20 Mill and emancipating the serf through education 
• 22:00 What is character? 
• 27:20 Dolly, Stepan, and Tolstoy’s narration (chapter IV) 
• 37:00 Tolstoy’s mastery of time  
• 38:00 The introduction of Levin  
• 50:00 Tolstoy’s novelistic sensibilities

Reflexes of the Brain (1863) - Ivan Sechenov

Sechenov was a precursor of Pavlov. I’m sure you know about Pavlov’s dogs and Pavlovian Conditioning (also known as Classical Conditioning), whereby a biological stimulus can be paired with a neutral stimulus to produce a response – landmark stuff in the history of learning and behavioural psychology. Simply put: ring a bell whilst simultaneously giving a dog a bowl of food and, eventually, you can induce salivation simply by ringing the bell and without the food.

Sechenov’s theory is basically this: the psychological life is impossible without sense organ stimulation.  No external stimuli? No internal/psychological activity. All psychological activity is a reflex response and men are mere machines, without consciousness, without free will, acting as an automaton. Knowing this, what are the implications regarding morality, good and evil, in Anna Karenina? What are the implications for characters who exist in a world that has ideas like this as the cultural background? And do you agree? I personally favour Viktor Frankl’sbelief that ‘between stimulus and response there is a gap’, and in that space, you can choose your response in any given moment regardless of your environment.

Here is a key quote to consider whilst reading Anna Karenina, and perhaps this is the quote we find Levin semi-pondering in Part One:

All acts of conscious or unconscious life are reflexes.

I also highly recommend you read Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), or listen to the Viktor Frankly Podcast, Hardcore Literature Episode 2.

Don Giovanni by Mozart (1787)

Mozart’s opera is based on the legendary (fictional) exploits of a womanizer, and is eminently concerned with retribution, revenge, and sin. 

Any guesses as to why Tolstoy makes Stepan dream of an aria from this great work? Namely, this aria, ‘Il mio tesoro’, from Act 2, Scene 2:

My treasure, meanwhile,

Go and console.

And from her beautiful eyes, the tears,

Try to wipe away.

Tell her that the wrongs against her,

I'm going to avenge,

That only of killing and death

As announcer will I return.

The Wikipedia page for ‘Il mio tesoro’ has a lovely audio-clip of this aria from a 1955 recording from the Wiener Staatsoper. 

If you have an evening to spare and want something other than the usual fare, why not watch/listen to the entire opera? 

And keep in mind my good friend and scholar Misha Thomas’ assertion that Don Giovanni’s problem is that he ‘loved all the women’. How does that tie into what you know about Stepan and the world of Anna Karenina?

Specific tasks to deepen your reading journey

1) Collect a handful of your favourite episodes, sentences, phrases, character descriptions, or even whole chapters. File them away, mark them, journal upon them, or let the whole group know your favourite parts. If we talking about Part One, I simply adore the chapters at the ice rink, the ball, and the train carriage during the blizzard.

2) Analyse two or three of your favourite parts so far (either in your journal, in a typed-up review, or simply talking aloud to yourself, someone close to you, or the book group). What do they add to your understanding about the characters and the world of Anna Karenina? What do they add to your understanding of yourworld and yourself?