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Deep Analysis of Anna Karenina Part Three: Alexei's Interior Conflict (Chapter 13) (Patreon)

Published:
2021-02-26 17:10:47
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

How are you all enjoying your deep-read of Anna Karenina so far? Have your thoughts, feelings, attitudes to any of the characters changed since Part One?

The next few video lectures are going to deep dive into Alexei and his self-talk, the opening six chapters with Levin and his brother (pivotal stuff), Anna and her son, the inner life of Vronsky, and surrounding talks on Aristotle and Benjamin Franklin among much more.

Timestamps to different topics have been ordered for you below as per usual. You'll see we're trying to tie this book from almost 150 years ago into the present day.

  • 0:00 What chapters we're looking at together
  • 1:25 A masterful display of self-talk in literature
  • 2:45 Mental health in the time of COVID
  • 3:30 Alexei and complex characterisation
  • 4:30 On personal brand-building (and containing multitudes)
  • 7:00 "He tried to suppress in himself any manifestation of life"
  • 7:30 Freud and a textbook case of repression
  • 8:30 The value of jealousy
  • 12:00 A hurt man scorned
  • 13:00 The liberation of sacrifice (analysing the crucifixion)
  • 20:00 The long-running monologues of an introvert
  • 23:00 Alexei's "virtue" is born out of weakness, not morality
  • 25:30 Revenge, judgement, mercy
  • 33:00 Alexei's letter to Anna

Happy reading!

And thank you in advance for any thoughts you might share. They've all been really nuanced and fascinating additions to the conversion so far. Please keep them coming!

Files

Previews only

Deep Analysis of Anna Karenina Part Three: Alexei's Interior Conflict (Chapter 13)

Comments

Dawn

I wanted to get someone’s thoughts on the significance of the French language in this novel. Since you mention here that Alexei writes his letter in French, I wanted to ask about a previous scene that I don’t think you did a video on. When Levin is with Dolly and observes her speaking to her children in French and expects the children to speak French in return, his pleasant mood changes. “Why does she speak in French to the children?” … “All his merriment had vanished and he left feeling awkward.” Is there a historical reference in Russia to speaking French at the time? (I’m referring to part 3, chapter 10, page 271 of P&V)

Daphna Kedmi

I'm joining the conversation with more than two years delay, but I'm writing this more to organize my thoughts (writing always helps me in that respect), without expecting input. I read this probably as a teenager and it was all pretty straightforward. Karenin is the villain who deprives Anna of love. Vronsky is the dashing hero who will eventually become a villain, and Anna is the tragic heroine. Re-reading it, of all the characters, Karenin is, in my opinion, the most tragic figure, more so than Anna. His "fatal flaw" is his great love for Anna, and his inability to provide Anna with the external trappings of love that she so desperately needs. In his cynical banter, he actually speaks the truth, much as do the fools in Shakespeare's tragedies. He cannot express his love so he self-consciously banters. I expect he courted her, I expect they spent time together, and I expect that he wasn't warm and extroverted in his external expressions of love for Anna even then. I also assume that she was courted by more than one eligible suitor. But, for whatever reasons, she decided to marry him. Karenin is stable, and although we do not have their backstory, I am sure that his personality was known to her before they married, and did not change drastically after the event. Anna falls in love with Vronsky, who is everything that Karenin is not- unstable, a gambler, a fop, a man devoid of the ability to execute his ambition as portrayed in the comparison to his friend who is already a married and much decorated General. Anna succumbs to her passion, risking everything without too much thought, the greatest risk being the loss of her son. You say, Ben, that she is too vibrant for life; I think she is spoilt and heedless even of her son. She is a mother, but her needs come before those of her child, and, knowing that she will lose him, she still prioritizes her passion. Karenin, who still loves her, is devastated but naively imagines a golden rainbow to the way things were. And yes, he wants to punish her, he wants vengeance, he wants her to suffer as he has. But underneath that is his great love for her. That is his tragedy. In this later reading of mine, Anna could very well be branded the villain. But the beauty of this novel is in the complexity of the characters. They all have several sides to them and do not lend themselves to an absolute branding, either good or bad, either hero or villain. Thank you Ben. What a great adventure it is reading these works with you.

Marina Leban Jacobsen
>>97104346

I am also currently reading AK before I embark in the W&P journey :) really nice comment! I never considered Alexis to be “in love” with Anna. But maybe I haven’t digested the story yet. To me it seems that he takes her to be his trophy wife, and is a man with a lack of confidence and an inferiority complex. That is why he tried to compensate it all by being “successful” at work, and ticking all the boxes that Society dictates one to be successful: a wife, a son, a high positioned job, religion, and high intellect (or at least to be knowledgeable on most matters). All this is a shield to disguise the fact that he has no confidence, and is afraid to expose himself. That is also why he becomes so jealous and angry, and wants to “punish” Anna - the only person who could actually harm his ego.