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Part 1, Chapter 12
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
While preparing for the party in which she knows she will likely receive a marriage proposal, Kitty is compared to a young man preparing for battle. Levin sits down with Kitty and proposes to her. Love floods through her for a moment, but then she remembers Vronsky and says, “It cannot be...forgive me.”
Tolstoy likens the preparations of a woman getting ready for marriage to a soldier approaching war. Although Kitty is instinctively filled with love when Levin proposes, she believes that she is in love with Vronsky, so she refuses him.
Themes
