Levin’s hunting in Anna Karenina

Abstract

Through analysis of the depictions of Levin’s hunts in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, this article argues that hunting scenes and allusions help develop the novel’s theme of marriage and family happiness. Levin’s first hunt with Oblonsky advances the narrative thread around his marriage when his hopes of marrying Kitty are rekindled after hearing from her brother that she has not wed Vronsky. The next instance finds Levin hunting a she-bear, hinting at his efforts to successfully woo Kitty, whom he called a “tiny bear” in her childhood. The novel’s longest hunting scene in which a pregnant Kitty sends a reassuring message to her concerned husband demonstrates that the couple has achieved a state of family happiness based on mutual trust and consideration. The final allusion to hunting, near the novel’s end, comes when Levin, now a loving husband and father, takes up beekeeping (literally “bee hunting” [pchelinaia okhota]) as a family pastime. Levin’s turn to this new type of “hunting” once he is happily married underscores hunting’s connection to a happy family life: the motif reappears throughout the narrative arc of Levin’s personal journey to selfhood through marriage and family life.”