What I Took from Part Four of Anna Karenina

The Cost of Living Outside the Rules

Part Four brings the novel into sharper focus. Much of the tension that simmered through the earlier parts now begins to surface. Social expectations and personal choices collide more openly. For Anna and Vronsky, the consequences of their affair can no longer be held at bay. For Levin, the question is no longer just how to live, but how to live with clarity.

Anna’s Fracture

Anna’s life is coming apart, and the pain of it is visible now. She gives birth to a daughter, nearly dies, and for a brief moment seems to reach toward reconciliation. But her husband’s response is cold, religious, and performative and only deepens the rupture. Karenin’s decision to forgive Anna while standing above her deathbed is less an act of grace than of control. It leaves her feeling exposed, indebted, and even more desperate to assert her love for Vronsky as a kind of salvation.

What’s striking here is how isolated Anna becomes. She is losing her place in society, her son, and her own sense of security. Her position with Vronsky is precarious. They are together, but not yet free. Her emotional state is uneven, flickering between romantic defiance and anxious despair. Tolstoy does not offer easy sympathy, but he makes the pain real.

Vronsky’s Isolation

Vronsky seems less certain now. His status has taken a hit, his ambitions feel unfocused, and the social circles that once gave him confidence now cast shadows. The suicide attempt following Anna’s illness is not lingered on, but it’s telling. It reveals something hollow at his core, or at least something too fragile to name. His connection to Anna is no longer thrilling. It is weighty, binding, and filled with risk.

There’s an undercurrent of aimlessness in Vronsky now. He continues forward, but with less clarity. His choices no longer lead anywhere certain. The world has narrowed. Anna’s love demands a kind of sacrifice he hadn’t fully reckoned with, and Tolstoy begins to let that tension take root.

Levin’s Uneven Path

Levin continues his quiet, internal struggle. He proposes again to Kitty, this time sincerely, and she accepts. Their engagement is not triumphant or sentimental. It is tentative, awkward, and deeply human. The scene where they communicate using chalk and initials is one of the most memorable in the novel so far. Not for its romance, but for how delicately it captures the vulnerability of two people trying to find their way back to each other.

Even in this moment of happiness, Levin’s doubts do not disappear. He still wrestles with his place in the world, with questions of meaning, faith, and morality. The engagement gives him hope, but not certainty. That’s what makes it feel real. He is not rescued by love. He is steadied by it, just enough to keep searching.

Closing Thoughts

Part Four is about a reckoning. The characters have made choices, and now the costs are showing. Anna is adrift, Vronsky is constrained, and Levin is still trying to orient himself. Tolstoy doesn’t rush any of it. He allows for silence, disillusionment, and the strange mix of fear and hope that comes with transition. There’s something sobering about this section. Less beauty and more weight, but that feels honest too. The consequences are real now, and no one gets to escape them untouched.