A. Section covered: Part 1 and 2 (pages 17-245)

B. Summary: 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 l

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.

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.

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 downsid

Some common words found in the essay are:
Vronsky Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy, Vronsky Anna, Jerry Springer, Anna Karenina, Personal Reaction, Board Moscow, Stephen Oblonsky, Tolstoy Section, Stephen Oblonsky's, high-class people, social behavior, dolly found, friend levin, anna karenina, threats empty, leo tolstoy,
Approximate Word count = 777
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)