Anna Karenina characters Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin
Main characters
Anna Arkadyevna Karenina (Анна Аркадьевна Каренина): Stepan Oblonsky's sister, Karenin's wife and Vronsky's lover.
Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky (Алексей Кириллович Вронский): Anna's lover, cavalry officer.
Prince Stepan "Stiva" Arkadyevich Oblonsky (Степан "Стива" Аркадьевич Облонский): civil servant and Anna's brother, man about town, 34 years of age. (Stepan and Stiva are Russianized forms of Stephen and Steve, respectively.)
Princess Darya "Dolly" Alexandrovna Oblonskaya (Дарья "Долли" Александровна Облонская): Stepan's wife, 33 years of age.
Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin (Алексей Александрович Каренин): senior statesman and Anna's husband, twenty years her senior.
Konstantin "Kostya" Dmitrievich Levin/Lyovin (Константин "Костя" Дмитриевич Лёвин): Kitty's suitor, Stiva's old friend, landowner, 32 years of age.
Nikolai Dmitrievich Levin/Lyovin (Николай Дмитриевич Лёвин): Konstantin's elder brother, impoverished alcoholic.
Sergei Ivanovich Koznyshev (Сергей Иванович Кознышев): Konstantin's half-brother, celebrated writer, 40 years of age.
Princess Ekaterina "Kitty" Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (Екатерина "Кити" Александровна Щербацкая): Dolly's younger sister and later Levin's wife, 18 years of age.
Prince Alexander Shcherbatsky (Александр Щербацкий): Dolly and Kitty's father.
Princess Shcherbatsky (no name or patronymic given): Dolly and Kitty's mother.
Princess Elizaveta "Betsy" Tverskaya (Елизавета "Бетси" Тверская): Anna's wealthy, morally loose society friend and Vronsky's cousin.
Countess Lidia (or Lydia) Ivanovna (Лидия Ивановна): leader of a high society circle that includes Karenin, and shuns Princess Betsy and her circle. She maintains an interest in Russian Orthodoxy, mysticism and spirituality.
Countess Vronskaya: Vronsky's mother.
Sergei "Seryozha" Alexeyich Karenin (Сергей "Серёжа" Каренин): Anna and Karenin's son, 8 years of age.
Anna "Annie" (Анна "Ани"): Anna and Vronsky's daughter.
Agafya Mikhailovna (Агафья Михайловнa): Levin's former nurse, now his trusted housekeeper.Plot introduction
Anna Karenina consists of more than the story of Anna Karenina, a married socialite, and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky, though their relationship is a very strong component of the plot. The story starts when she arrives in the midst of her brother's family being broken up by his unbridled womanizing—something that prefigures her own later situation.
A bachelor, Vronsky is eager to marry Anna if she will agree to leave her husband Karenin, a senior government official. Although Vronsky and Anna go to Italy, where they can be together, leaving behind Anna's child from her first marriage, they have trouble making friends. When they return to Russia, Anna suffers shunning and isolation due to the relationship. While Vronsky pursues his social life, Anna grows increasingly possessive and paranoid about his supposed infidelity.
A parallel story within the novel is that of Konstantin Levin, a wealthy country landowner who wants to marry Kitty, sister to Dolly and sister-in-law to Anna's brother Stepan Oblonsky. Levin has to propose twice before Kitty accepts. The novel details Levin's difficulties managing his estate, his eventual marriage, and his struggle to accept the Christian faith, until the birth of his first child.
The novel explores a diverse range of topics throughout its approximately one thousand pages. Some of these topics include an evaluation of the feudal system that existed in Russia at the time—politics, not only in the Russian government, but also at the level of the individual characters and families, religion, morality, gender, and social class.
roles protagonists personalities figures casts