Discussion 3, AK - Tuesday DISCUSSION 3 ANNA KARENINA...

Tuesday, November 19, 2013
D
ISCUSSION
3: A
NNA
K
ARENINA
.
Romantic Love
Anna and Vronsky.
 The unknown, transcendental experience connotes romantic love.
 Kitty with Vronsky: swept away by him and picks him over Levin. However, Kitty leanrs
romantic love is fleeting, and has her heart broken.
 Betsy (Anna’s friend)
 Whole social circle is based on that kind of love. Vronsky feels at home in Anna’s social circle
– laugh at institution of marriage, raising kids.
 Levin experiences romantic love for Kitty intiailly but developed into familial love.
 Happiness not as grand when they are married but not any less.
Familial/platonic love
 Levin and Kitty = prime example of this platonic love.
 Karenin and Anna before she met Vronsky (noticing that he goes to bed 5 minutes early).
 Dolly; the whole Scherbatsky family has this familial love.
 Intimacy: When Levin and Kitty fight, they are not two opposing forces, they have a level of
connection and union that makes them intimate and know each other very well. Levin says
that they can share experiences and understand each other when they fight. When Levin and
Kitty get in a fight, he feels that when he hurts her, he hurts himself. They don’t see
themselves as two different people.
 Stiva is a sensualist; carnal, sexual love ; Karamazov sense of love. It’s not romantic but it’s more
hedonistic; he is trying to extract pleasure from life; consumer of life’s carnal pleasures.
 Karenin experiences Christian love while Anna is on her deathbed.
o Loving your enemy and forgiveness are examples of Christian love. What do we learn
about Christian love in the novel?
o Girl in the store (Varenka) has a true experience of Christian love and it is a lifestyle that
she has adopted and it is sustainable. When Kitty tries to follow this, it does not work
because she is simply trying to emulate a way of living as opposed to actually
experiencing it. Varenka contrasts with Karenin. Varenka is more to do with everyday,