Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Anna Karenina, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Marriage and Family Life
Adultery and Jealousy
Physical Activity and Movement
Society and Class
Farming and Rural Life
Compassion and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
They finish mowing the meadow. Levin reluctantly returns to his house and boasts to Koznyshev about finishing the meadow. Levin eats a late supper, and Koznyshev gives Levin a letter from Oblonsky, which asks Levin to help Dolly on her country estate. Koznyshev tells Levin that he solved two chess problems that day.
Levin does not want to leave the peasants, preferring to stay in the fields. Dolly is on her country estate, and nothing is going right, but Levin, well versed in country things, can help. While Levin has been working all day, Koznyshev solved chess problems—he used his mind but did not work.
Themes
Koznyshev says that the main disagreement between Levin and himself is that whereas Levin takes personal interest as the main motive, Koznyshev thinks that education makes people interested in the common good. Levin, however, isn’t paying attention. Suddenly, Levin realizes he’s forgotten to ask about Agafya’s arm, which Kozynyshev says is better; Levin runs to check on her.
Koznyshev has continued to intellectualize and categorize the brothers’ disagreement over the peasants, but Levin has put the argument out of his mind, instead focusing on the physical efforts of the country. Levin breaks out of his gloating over the mowing to remember Agafya.
Themes
