The image of Konstantin Levin in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina"

Levin Tolstoy Karenina

A heavily built, broad-shouldered man with a curly beard. A smart, courageous face. At 32, he is a very energetic person. Educated, hardworking, honest. Not a believer, but respectful of other people's beliefs.

Levin is a whole, active, ebullient nature. He only accepts the present. His goal in life is to live and create, and not just to be present during life. The hero passionately loves life, and this means for him to passionately create life.

Very strong but difficult character. A man who listens to his conscience, who lives by Christian rules, loving and compassionately treating his neighbors, with slogans: against war, for honesty, for hard work, for love in the family; and not recognizing God. This is the image of a rich gentleman who has everything and absolutely does not need anything. In principle, he can achieve everything he needs himself, by an effort of will, or simply buy it for money. He chooses a safe lifestyle. Alienating himself from the "high society", from the world, he lives in a quiet and peaceful village, where the likelihood of stumbling and getting lost in life quest much less than in a big city. But he does not need to just live his days in solitude and tranquility, he strives to make his life better and even better. Constantly struggling with wrong orders and stereotypes. Levin strives for noble and honest work, simple human happiness and love.

He not only could not imagine love for a woman without marriage, but he had previously imagined a family. His ideas about marriage were therefore not similar to those of most of his acquaintances, for whom marriage was one of the many community affairs; for Levin this was the main business of life, on which all his happiness depended.

The image is partly written off from Tolstoy himself (as evidenced by the surname Levin - from Leva, Leo): the hero thinks, feels, speaks directly on behalf of the writer. Tolstoy gave him the details of his own biography - thus, Levin's explanation with Kitty in small capital letters of the words on the card table reproduces exactly his own explanation with S. A. Bers, as described by T. A. Kuzminskaya from the words of his sister. Small details of grooming, the reading of his diaries by the bride, being late for church because of a starched shirt - all this was simply written off by Tolstoy from himself. The moral searches and sufferings of Levin in the last part closely correlate with what the author will soon talk about in his "Confession" (1879-1889). Nikolai Levin is also given the features and details of the life and death of his brother Dmitry, to whom Lev Nikolayevich came to Orel before his death in 1856.

It all started with his arrival in Moscow. The purpose of the trip was to propose to Kitty, his friend's sister-in-law.

Levin came to Moscow from the countryside always agitated, hurried, a little embarrassed and irritated. In Moscow, he had to communicate with different people they talked about new railroads, about communism, about politics. Levin, of course, was an educated man, but from these conversations he was overcome by a confusion of concepts, dissatisfaction with himself, shame before something. Simply, it was precisely that pretentious imposition of public opinion and order that left such a residue in him.

But as soon as he came home to the village, he saw everything that filled his life: his sleigh, his horses, his coachman - who told the news that happened in his absence - internal state he was improving, he felt that little by little the confusion was cleared up, and shame and dissatisfaction with himself were passing away. Only here he could feel confident and remain as he is. Only here he could treat with sobriety and wisdom what was happening to him in Moscow and look at it from the other side. Now he only wanted to be better than he was before. Such an attitude towards oneself speaks of self-criticism and optimism of the individual. The village is a place of life, that is, joys, sufferings, work - said Levin.

But even here in his possessions, where he was his own master, where he arranged his own life, where all the people and problems that filled his vain days were part of his life, a part of himself, even here he faced resistance. These were thoughts - associations that arose in his head at the sight of old things in his study: deer antlers, shelves with books, a stove mirror with an air vent, his father's sofa, a large table, a broken ashtray, a notebook with his handwriting; things that filled his life since childhood. When he saw all this, for a moment doubt came over him in the possibility of arranging that new life, which he dreamed of after Kitty's refusal. All these traces of his life seemed to have seized him and told him: “No, you will not leave us and will not be different, but you will be the same as you were: with doubts, eternal dissatisfaction with yourself, vain attempts to correct and fall and the eternal expectation of happiness. which was not given and is impossible for you.”

Tolstoy, in this person shows us the real clash of two internal forces. Let's call them: good and bad. The good one, of course, strove for love and happiness, while the bad one tried to destroy him and kill the desire for happiness in him. He chose the positive option, and tried to direct all his efforts towards the realization of his dream - to be happy. Levin worked hard and thought a lot. Time passed and did its job. He felt that in the depths of his soul something was being established, subdued and settled down.

During his intense work, Levin made a very important conclusion for himself about his work and economy. He clearly saw now that the economy he was running was only a stubborn and cruel struggle between him and the workers, in which on the one side, on his side, there was a constant intense desire to remake everything on the model considered the best, on the other side, - the natural order of things. And in this struggle, he saw that, with the greatest effort on his part, and without any effort or even intention on the other, the only thing that was achieved was that the economy was in a draw and, quite in vain, beautiful tools, beautiful cattle and land were spoiled. In essence, what was the struggle? He stood for every penny of his, and they only wanted to work calmly and pleasantly, that is, in the way they were used to. For a long time Levin had felt dissatisfied with his attitude towards the household. He saw that his boat was leaking, but he did not find and did not look for leaks, perhaps deliberately deceiving himself. The household that he led became not only uninteresting to him, but disgusting, and he could no longer deal with it. This is by no means a weakness of character and not self-doubt, this is just the very wisdom that implies the correct approach to the problem. He looks at the problem from all sides, and looks for all the pros and cons. He does not jump to conclusions and does not rest on one opinion that could have developed in a lack of information. Levin shows the same wisdom in his disputes with his brother Sergei Ivanovich Koznyshev. Just because Levin looked at things from different angles, and was looking for the most correct and true answer, he did not pursue the goal of proving his opinion as the only true one and did not pursue the status of a sage, his brother always won in these disputes. He had a firm, unshakable opinion, which he did not want to give up because of his pride.

Soon Levin decides to completely change his economy. He says that he will work hard and try hard, but he will achieve his goal.

Tolstoy in this novel showed and compared the two most important feelings human. Love and hate. Levin experienced love for all the people and problems that surrounded him on his wedding day, and Karenina's feeling of hatred at the moment of death experiences. By opposing these two characters, one can see more broadly and more specifically one of the main goals of the novel, the meaning of which is to compare two types of love. One love was with a lost lady with high moral concepts and a beautiful appearance - Anna Karenina, the second love - in a spiritually resurgent master, with his stubborn approach to figure everything out and a desire for life's happiness.

Anna Karenina's love was doomed from the very beginning. First, she cheated on her husband and betrayed her entire family. Secondly, all her love, despite her strong passion and irrepressible attraction, was based only on carnal need and selfishness. Anna wanted thrills, romance, passion, carelessness. For the whole novel of Tolstoy, Anna never once gave the concept of love, and did not explain the experiences of this feeling. All those arguments that she came up with to denigrate her husband's attitude towards her had no basis, she did it only because she wanted to somehow justify herself in her own eyes. After she realized that she was not being given the attention that she so dreamed of in a relationship with her lover, her suspicious nature again began to come up with excuses for herself, accusing her lover of crimes that he did not commit. Precisely because it was not real, not pure love, or rather, not love, but the usual selfish lust, because of which her whole life was destroyed, she felt disgust and hatred. And hatred, of course, led to revenge. Revenge was death. This is the only way to escape from yourself, to escape from problems and shame. And at the same time, this is revenge for the neglect of her love.

We see a completely different picture in Levin's relations.

Let us recall that evening when Levin confessed his love for Kitty for the second time, and she answered him in return. He was filled with a feeling of delight and happiness - it was love. That evening, in order to somehow pass the time until the next day, he went with his brother to the meeting. At the meeting, everyone was arguing about the deduction of some sums and about the installation of some pipes, they were very animatedly sarcastic to each other.

Levin listened to them and clearly saw that they were not all angry, but that they were all such kind, nice people, and everything went so well, nicely between them. What was remarkable for Levin was that they were all visible to him now, and by small, previously unnoticeable signs, he recognized the soul of each and clearly saw that they were all kind. Especially to him, Levin, they all loved him exceedingly today. This was evident from the way they spoke to him, how affectionately, lovingly even all the strangers looked at him.

The man, with whom he had previously felt some dissatisfaction, now seemed to him intelligent and kind, invited him to drink tea. And Levin could not even remember what irritated him in him, and stayed with him until 2 o'clock in the morning. Upon returning to the hotel, the hero saw a lackey, whom he had not even noticed before, and he also turned out to be very smart and good, and most importantly, kind person.

He hardly ate anything, could not sleep. Though the room was fresh, the heat was suffocating him. “All night and morning Levin lived completely unconsciously and felt himself completely withdrawn from the conditions of material life. He felt completely independent of the body: he moved without muscle effort and felt that he could do anything. He was sure that he would fly up or move the corner of the house if necessary. And what he saw then, he never saw afterward. Especially the children on their way to school, the blue-gray pigeons that had flown from the roof onto the sidewalk, and the rolls sprinkled with flour, which an invisible hand had put out, touched him. These poles, pigeons and two boys were unearthly beings. All this together was so extraordinarily good that Levin laughed and wept for joy.

It was not an earthly feeling, a feeling of love. This love was expressed in everything, it filled him from the inside and illuminated everything around him. These relationships were indeed well built. Levin did not set the frame of a slave for his future wife. He did not want to marry just because of the satisfaction of his natural desires. First of all, he wanted a family of mutual love; without love, he did not see the point in it. He also built his relationship on complete openness and trust. And even despite the fact that he was an unbeliever, he agreed to fast and go to Divine services. In principle, he wanted the same human happiness as Karenina, but everything that Levin did for this love points to self-sacrifice. While Karenina did not sacrifice herself at all, for the sake of her imaginary love. She sacrificed her family, her husband, her son, but not herself. She sacrificed everything that was built by the joint efforts of her family, that is, she destroyed everything that love should build.

Precisely because Levin's love was pure, it had a future, it had a further development.

“Levin was married for the third month. He was happy, but not in the way he expected. At every step he found disappointment in old dreams and a new unexpected charm. Levin was happy, but as he entered into family life, he saw at every step that it was not at all what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a person would experience, admiring the smooth, happy course of a boat on the lake, after he himself got into this boat. He saw that it was not enough to sit up straight without swaying, but he also had to think, not for a moment forgetting where to swim, that there was water under his feet and that he had to row, and that unaccustomed hands hurt, that it was easy to look at it, and that to do this, although very joyful, is very difficult.

In this passage, the writer of the novel shows us that love, even with the right beginning, has great difficulties that must be overcome with great effort. Levin, like all men, involuntarily imagined family life only as the enjoyment of love, which should not be hindered by anything and from which petty worries should not be distracted. Jealousy, probable betrayal, cooling of the feelings of the second half, love for another person - all the depressing feelings that Karenina experienced for Vronsky, Levin also experienced for his wife. And despite all the doubts and disappointments, Levin understood everything and moved on, trying to overcome all difficulties.

After exploring love in Levin's life, we are left with only one important moment in his life - "to believe or not to believe?" - this question arose before him after all the difficulties experienced: Kitty's refusal, mutual love Kitty, family conflicts, death of a brother, birth of a child. All this in his life did not pass without a trace, but it helped him to somehow settle and strengthen on his feet in this world. It is precisely such difficult turns in his fate that lead him to faith and need for God. And he, as if raising all the thoughts from the depths of his soul, ponders over this necessary important question - to believe or not to believe?

“Levin for the first time looked at the issues of life and death through those new, as he called them, convictions that, imperceptibly for him, in the period from twenty to thirty-four years, replaced his childhood and youthful beliefs, he was horrified not so much by death, how much life without the slightest knowledge of where, for what, why and what it is. The organism, its destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the law of conservation of force, development - these were the words that replaced his former faith. These words and related concepts were very good for mental purposes; but they gave nothing for life, and Levin suddenly felt himself in the position of a man who would exchange a warm fur coat for muslin clothes, and who for the first time in the cold, no doubt, not by reasoning, but by his whole being, would be convinced that he was all the same what naked and that he must inevitably die painfully.

From that moment on, involuntarily, unconsciously for himself, he now looked in every book, in every conversation, in every person for a relationship to his question and its solution.

In addition, he could not forget that during the birth of his wife, an unusual event happened to him. He, an unbeliever, began to pray, and at the moment he prayed, he believed. But this minute passed, and he could not give this mood of that time any place in his life.

These experiences tormented and tormented him now weaker, now stronger, but never left him. He read and thought, and the more he read and thought, the further he felt from the goal pursued by him.

It would seem that everything has found a normal explanation for everything: Comprehension of divine truths is not given to a person, but is given to a set of people united by love - the Church. He was pleased with the thought of how easier it was to believe in the existing, now living Church, which constitutes all the beliefs of people, having God at its head and therefore holy and immaculate, and from her to accept beliefs in God in creation, in the fall, in redemption, than to begin with God, the distant, mysterious God, creation, etc. But, after reading the history of the Church by a Catholic writer and the history of the Church by an Orthodox writer, and seeing that both Churches, infallible in their essence, deny one another, he became disillusioned with the Church.

Now, all those explanations of life that humanity gives, based on the fact that a person is a bubble and this bubble will senselessly hold on and burst, were associated in Levin's head with an evil, nasty force that could not be obeyed.

“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, it is impossible to live. But I cannot know this, therefore, it is impossible to live,” Levin said to himself.

And happy family man healthy man, Levin was so close to suicide several times that he hid the string so as not to hang himself on it, and was afraid to walk with a gun so as not to shoot himself.

But Levin did not shoot himself or hang himself, and continued to live.

Slowly but surely he grounded himself, went into life, into work, into the vanity of his days.

One sunny day in the country, Levin got into a conversation with the muzhik Fyodor, and the muzhik said to him very interesting words: One person lives only for his own needs, only fills his belly, and Fokanych is a truthful old man. He lives for the soul. God remembers.

The words spoken by the peasant produced in his soul the action of an electric spark, which suddenly transformed and rallied into one a whole swarm of disparate, powerless, separate thoughts that never ceased to occupy him. These thoughts, imperceptibly for himself, occupied him.

That is, from his words, Levin understood that to live for the soul, to live for God, is to live in goodness. Kindness in itself is a real miracle. “But I was looking for miracles, I regretted that I had not seen a miracle that would convince me. And here it is a miracle, the only possible, constantly existing, surrounding me on all sides, and I did not notice it! Levin argued.

He also understood that he lived (without realizing it) by those spiritual truths that he sucked in with milk, and thought, not only not recognizing these truths, but diligently bypassing them. And he understood that the answer to his question could not be given by his mind, the answer was given to him by life itself. That is, something unearthly, incomprehensible, mysterious, put an answer into his soul. And his mind taught only to live in pride, only for himself, and to strangle everyone who interferes with the satisfaction of his desires.

It feels like everything that he experienced was necessary for him in order for him to find happiness, find answers, find the true God and faith. Because every time the hero had to choose between two paths, between evil and good, he always chose the path that was laid in his soul by true goodness, true God.

In fact, despite the fact that Levin did not want to accept the Church, he very correctly understood all the basic spiritual truths inherent in God. And the more he thought and looked for answers, the closer he became to faith and God.

And in order for us to be absolutely sure of his salvation and the correctness of the choice, we can turn to those very two roads in a person’s life. “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many go through it; for narrow is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” - Matthew 7:13,14.

Levin found and chose just that narrow and difficult path that leads to salvation. This means that he will not shoot himself, will not deviate from the true faith, and will certainly accept the Church into his life.

God has a rule - everything has its time.

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Levin Konstantin Dmitrievich - nobleman, landowner. Strongly built, broad-shouldered, with a curly beard. A kind and stubborn man with a troubled conscience. Moral and economic quests lead him to deny the evil of civilization: urban secular life, post-reform bourgeois transformations in Russia and to the approval of the goodness of nature, manifested in rural family life, peasant and landlord joint work. Konstantin Levin is an autobiographical hero. Tolstoy formed his surname from his own name "Leo", which he pronounced as Lev.

At the beginning of the novel, the hero comes from the village to Moscow to ask for the hand of the youngest daughter of Prince Shcherbatsky, whose family he has known since his student years. Her refusal becomes a heavy blow for him, increasing his distance from the world and prompting him to seek solace in the landowner's daily village worries and frantic economic projects. Valuing his aristocratic origin, insisting on the need for the nobles to do creative work to increase their property and income, indignant at the careless and squandering aristocrats, Konstantin Levin in the novel Anna Karenina feels himself a part of the people and is happy when he has the opportunity to verify this, as, for example, on the mowing, where, while working, he revels in the energy of collective activity and complete dedication to the common cause.

Levin is convinced of the harmfulness of the bourgeois forms of economic management brought from the West, primarily from England, which negatively affect the life of the peasant. This applies to factory production, the network of banks and exchanges, to new form communications - railway. From the point of view of the hero, all these economic institutions are obstacles in the development of peasant farms, responsible for the crisis in the agrarian sphere of production. In addition to Western innovations, displeasure and protest of Konstantin Dmitrievich are also caused by zemstvo institutions: the world court, hospitals, schools. He does not see the point in enlightening the peasants, which only complicates their lives and prevents them from working properly. Konstantin Levin in the novel "Anna Karenina" believes that it is necessary to take into account more fully the national identity of the Russian peasantry, which consists in the vocation to populate and cultivate vast unoccupied spaces with the help of traditional and traditional ways of managing that have become natural. The hero sees the personal, proprietary interest of the peasants as a priority in peasant management. By giving the peasants a share in the enterprise, by redistributing property, it is possible, Levin believes, to increase the incomes of both the peasants and the landowners.

The practical initiatives of Konstantin Dmitrievich meet with a very moderate interest of the peasants in Pokrovsky, who love their master, but do not fully trust him as a landowner and want to work in the way that suits them. Konstantin Levin does not lose hope of overcoming their deaf unwillingness to improve the economy, he persuades, seeks concessions and hopes for the best. He writes an economic treatise in which he expresses his views, inspired by the dream of the "greatest bloodless revolution", which begins in his plans with a local local experiment.

He checks and strengthens his position in disputes with his brothers Sergei Ivanovich Koznyshev and Nikolai, who are visiting him, an unbearable, terminally ill person, as well as with the marshal of the nobility Nikolai Ivanovich Sviyazhsky, experienced in complex and fruitless polemics. Brother Nikolai convicts Levin's projects of being close to communist utopias. Koznyshev and Sviyazhsky make him realize his lack of education. These circumstances prompt Konstantin Levin to go abroad to study.

But at the moment of complete capture by his household, the author returns his hero to the path of love and to the question of the family. In the neighboring village of Ergushevo, owned by the Oblonskys, Konstantin Dmitrievich visits Dolly, who has come for the summer with her children. A conversation with her about Kitty reopens Konstantin Levin's wound. He is convinced of an irreparable loss, and therefore intends to plunge into economic activities and even takes seriously the idea of ​​​​marrying a peasant woman - an idea that he had previously rejected. But, having accidentally met Kitty on the road when she is going to her sister, returning after treatment, Levin becomes delighted, forgets his recent family forgiveness program and realizes that only with her can he be happy. The moment of the hero’s insight is depicted by Tolstoy in relation to the changing appearance of the sky: the mother-of-pearl shell turns into “a smooth carpet of shrinking and shrinking lambs spreading over the whole half of the sky.”

Upon arrival from abroad, Konstantin Levin meets Kitty at the Oblonskys. They understand each other less than half a word, explaining themselves with the help of a game of secretaire - Guessing words by initial letters. Sympathetic intimacy turns into telepathic insight at this point. Levin forgives Kitty and becomes engaged to her the next day. Having forgiven and wanting to be forgiven himself, this hero of the novel Anna Karenina shows his diary to the bride - evidence of "non-innocence and disbelief." His disbelief does not bother her, but "non-innocence" offends and horrifies. She finds the strength to forgive the groom, who wants to become completely open before her in this way, but this is not enough. From an intoxicated happy state, Levin suddenly passes to despair and, overwhelmed by doubts about his ability to make Kitty happy, proposes breaking off the engagement. To her, imbued with sympathy and understanding to painful limits moral quest her fiancé, manages to calm him down.

The confession before the wedding aggravates for Levin the question of faith and the meaning of life, and, happy, he undertakes to himself to thoroughly think over this question later. Having married, Levin and Kitty leave for the village. Their family life is not easy. They slowly and difficultly get used to each other, now and then quarreling over trifles. The death of Nikolai's brother, at whose bedside Levin and Kitty spend several days, gives a new measure of seriousness to their relationship. The sight of his brother fills Konstantin Levin's soul with disgust, horror at the incomprehensible secret of man's finiteness, and Nikolai's departure plunges him into a stupor. Only the pregnancy of his wife, which the doctor announces, diverts his attention from focusing on "nothing", brings him back to life. The image of the closeness of life and death touches upon the most important problem of the novel - the question of the boundaries of being and non-being. The couple returns to Pokrovskoye to wait for the birth. An idyllic stay there surrounded by relatives and friends: the Shcherbatskys, Oblonskys, Koznyshev, Varenka - for Levin is overshadowed only by an outburst of jealousy for the cheerful Vasenka Veslovsky - his guest, who decided to flirt with Kitty. Levin simply kicks him out.

The time of childbirth comes, and the spouses move to Moscow. They try to occupy their time, having become unaccustomed to the capital-secular life. Here Konstantin Dmitrievich becomes especially close to his former university friend, now a professor, Fyodor Vasilyevich Katavasov, a positivist scientist, with whom he often argues about the meaning of life. The birth of his son Dmitry shocks the hero with the secret facet of being and non-being that has been revealed to him again, just like during the death of his brother. Levin misunderstands the doctor's word "ends" during Kitty's birth. The doctor means the end of childbirth, and Levin hears a death sentence for his wife. He is upset that he does not feel love for his son, but only disgust and pity. The question of faith, of finding one's place in life, confronts the hero in full height. Returning to the village with his wife and son, Konstantin begins to think through the problem thoroughly.

He is disappointed in all the philosophical and theological worldviews known to him, despairs and thinks about suicide, but gradually comes to the conclusion that the knowledge of the good he is looking for is innate and therefore unknowable. Levin believes that reason is to blame for the painful futility of his searches, which, out of “pride” and “cunning,” makes him look for answers to unsolvable questions, provokes despondency and despair. This conclusion leads the hero to deny the rights of the mind to decide the meaning of life and to affirm the laws of love and conscience given to man from birth.

Overwhelmed with enthusiasm, Levin is briefly distracted by Katavasov and Koznyshev, who have arrived in Pokrovskoye and sympathize with the Serbian war volunteer movement that has begun. The old prince Shcherbatsky and Levin speak out in a dispute with them against national-confessional speculations. Konstantin Dmitrievich sees in the arguments of Katavasov and Koznyshev that very “pride of reason” that almost drove him to suicide, and once again he is convinced that he is right.

Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina ends with a lyrical thunderstorm scene and Levin's enthusiastically didactic monologue. The hero, having experienced fear for Kitty and Dmitry, taken by surprise by a short summer thunderstorm, joyfully begins to feel long-awaited love for his son, which immediately finds an answer in the child: the boy begins to recognize his own. This circumstance gives the intonation of the hero's final monologue an almost odic sound. Levin rejoices in his openness to goodness, love for his neighbors and the world. His words seem, according to V. V. Nabokov, "rather a diary entry of Tolstoy himself." Thus ends the "conversion" of the hero.

In the novel by L. N. Tolstoy, along with storyline Anna Karenina presents another, very significant line of the life of Konstantin Levin. It is with the image of this hero that many important moral, philosophical and social problems works. Levin's spiritual quest largely reflects the author's moods and thoughts that he developed in the critical era of the 1970s. Vigorous, thinking person, sincere, Levin, like some other heroes of Tolstoy (Pierre Bezukhov, Andrei Bolkonsky), tirelessly seeks the truth and meaning of life, seeks to penetrate the essence of social relations in order to change and improve them. He does not know the ways to this, and therefore his thoughts are so painful for him.

Levin sees the instability, the steep character of the breaking of the old order. He, as a nobleman-landowner, is worried about the impoverishment of the estate economy under the onslaught of new post-reform relations. Sees Levin and the meager life of the peasants. His attempts, while retaining the rights to land, to reconcile the interests of "conscientious" landowners and the people, to create a rational system of land ownership for these purposes, ended in failure. He is struck by the uncompromisingly hostile attitude of the peasants towards the landowners-nobles, towards everything that the "master" interprets and promises them. He is perplexed and tries to understand the reasons for this attitude, and distrust is prompted to the peasants by all their centuries-old experience, which does not allow the thought that “the goal of the landowner could be anything other than the desire to rob them as much as possible.” In the depths of his soul, Levin agrees with the reproach of brother Nikolai: "You want to be original, to show that you are not just exploiting a peasant, and with an idea."

Levin gets acquainted with various forms of activity of the nobility, is present at the election of the leader, in the world court - and from there he takes out the impression of the vain emptiness and futility of what is happening. Only in the countryside, in close proximity to nature, in communion with peasant labor, in continuous household chores, does he find consolation and temporary peace.

In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy goes deep into folk life. This is evidenced by the wonderful mowing scene in the Kalinov meadow, Levin's conversations with the peasants, his passion for their natural, wise, working life; The young happiness of Ivan Parmenov and his wife, the fullness and integrity of their feelings excite and attract the hero. He dreams of marrying a peasant woman, of living the same working life that the working village people live. These dreams are not coming true...

Levin's family life is developing happily, but he cannot be satisfied with a narrow personal sphere, even if it is so attractive. The hero seeks to find a way out for himself in the "people's truth", in the naive faith of the patriarchal peasant. From Fyodor's story, he learns the thoughts of old Fokanych about the need to live "for the soul, in truth, in God's way." These words are perceived by Levin as a revelation... Fokanych's concept of good bears a religious connotation, which Levin also perceives,

The hero of the novel, as we see, does not find real ways of social transformation and tries to solve the issues that concern him in terms of abstract moral perfection. This, no doubt, reflects the contradictions of the worldview not only of Levin, but also of Tolstoy. And yet, essential in Levin's spiritual development is his attraction to the people. In essence, the hero remains at a crossroads, his search is not completed, and new opportunities for growth seem to be opening up ahead.

Konstantin Levin is one of the primary characters in the novel Anna Karenina. Compared to the storyline involving Vronsky or Karenin, his life seems to be more calm, without particularly sharp turns. But the finely written movements of Levin's soul testify that the author endowed him with his own experiences and considered them as important as the events of the outside world. The similarity of the hero and his creator is evidenced by the consonance of names (Lev - Levin), and the external description: "a strongly built broad-shouldered man with a curly beard", "an intelligent, courageous face".

From the very first chapters of the novel, Tolstoy describes Levin as a restless person: he blushes easily and gets angry easily, mocking the way of life he does not understand. He is proud and does not tolerate when he is perceived not as Konstantin Levin, but as the brother of the famous Koznyshev. He is extremely shy and values ​​himself so low in front of the girl with whom he is in love, "that there could be no thought that others and she herself would recognize him as worthy of her."

These feelings, which so easily take possession of Levin, testify to the fact that he fully and passionately feels every minute of his life. For Konstantin, there are almost no halftones: doing housework, you need to go into every little thing and go to the mowing; having received the bride’s consent to marriage, you need to endow everyone you meet with your euphoria; while idolizing your wife, you need to protect her so much from everything “unworthy” that you can even put the guest out (as they did with Vasenka Veslovsky).

His nature can be called immature, and not only because of almost teenage maximalism, but also because of the eternal search for the meaning of life, the "truth of life."

Tolstoy created his hero after the night of the "Arzamas horror", which made him rethink everything that exists. The only chapter of the novel that has a special title ("Death") shows us Levin's special attitude to leaving for another world. What was "understood" for his brother Nikolai remained a mystery to the observer. “Horror at the unsolved and at the same time the nearness and inevitability of death,” Levin feels, the same feelings swept over Leo Tolstoy in Arzamas. As if not wanting to leave his hero alone with these experiences, the author shows Levin a new miracle - the expectation of a child.

In this period, Konstantin is again shown as a man of great passions: his attitude towards his wife ("you are such a shrine to me"), his behavior during Kitty's birth are extremes. But extremes, coming from sincerity, from the fullness of the feeling of life. This strong man has an equally strong nature that captivates him beyond conventions and limitations.

For a nobleman of that time, these features are not very characteristic: the younger generation was just beginning to seriously think about whether everything in this world should be arranged as it is. Levin's views, expressed in his small world (after all, he prefers his cozy, calm estate to a noisy life), throwing nature in these quite comfortable conditions sometimes look a little ridiculous. And this, perhaps, is the only thing in which Tolstoy condemns his hero: he is limited only by his own life, does not want to look beyond its limits, to think about reorganizing not only the economy, but society as a whole. The revolutionary views characteristic of Lev Nikolaevich are not reflected in the image of Levin.

A special desire for sincerity, passionate, stubborn, which distinguishes Konstantin, is extremely rare in men. To give diaries describing intimate experiences to your beloved, innocent, “like a dove”, is an act as bold as it is short-sighted. This desire is selfish: caring only that there are no barriers between him and his wife, Levin does not at all think about how much pain these records will cause Kitty.

The same applies to his attempts to comprehend life: in thinking about its meaning and purpose, he comes to a standstill, and this affects him so much that Konstantin, a happy family man and a hospitable host, seriously thinks about suicide, again completely ignoring his loved ones. And when he begins to seek healing in the family, in the usual household chores, he immediately “grounds himself”, high aspirations leave him. The author is both happy about this change in the life of his hero, and condemns a little for it: exchanging for a comfortable life, according to Tolstoy, meant the end of spiritual life.

Standing firmly on the ground, a passionate, sincere and thinking person, Levin remains so until the last line about him. And only his reconciliation, a compromise with the "wrongly arranged" reality shows that the author himself wanted to avoid such a fate and considered it unworthy of such a person.

• The image of Vronsky in the novel "Anna Karenina"
• The symbolism of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina"

Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin is one of the important characters from L.N. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina".

In the novel, Levin is thirty-two years old. A broad-shouldered man with a beard. On the face, he is not handsome, of average appearance. He always walked with furrowed brows, but kind eyes. It can be unpleasantly harsh, and sometimes very sweet.

Konstantin Dmitrievich comes from a noble noble family, which has always enjoyed respect in society. His father and mother died early, he did not remember anyone. Although Levin lives in the village, he is considered rich. The youngest of the children in the family. He had an older brother, an older sister, and another maternal brother.

By nature, he is simple, honest, noble and kind. It is believed that Leo Tolstoy put his own traits into this character. But Levin did not see other versions of the truth of life, except for his own, which the author himself condemns. Energetic on his own, but shy. He loves to work in his village. Food also prefers the usual, homemade. The boastful luxurious life of society is considered meaningless, prefers calmness, comfortable simplicity.

Levin considers himself ugly and unattractive. At the same time, he likes women who are mysterious and mysterious. He loved Kitty Shcherbatskaya for a long time and thought that such a girl would never pay attention to him. After his first proposal to marry him, she refused him. Konstantin Dmitrievich was very upset by this refusal. He tried to completely immerse himself in work, he had no time to be bored at work. The second time, Kitty had already agreed.

She was much younger than him. When Levin graduated from the university, Kitty was still very young.

He loved his wife very much and believed that he should completely give himself to his wife, considered her sacred. Always content with what he has and had Golden heart. But after these events, Levin begins an unpleasant streak in life. During this period, he begins to think about God and realizes that he does not believe in him.

Despite the fact that Konstantin is a simple man, he is very educated and reads a lot. At the end of the novel, he was trying to find his purpose and meaning in life. I read various philosophical works of scientists, but did not find any answer. As a result, he becomes disillusioned with life and becomes unhappy.

Composition about Konstantin Levin

A huge number of diverse characters appear before us when we read the works fiction. Leo Tolstoy singles out his heroes in a special way in the novel Anna Karenina. One of the most important and vivid images in the work - Konstantin Levin.

At the beginning of the novel, Levin is presented to readers as an educated landowner living in the countryside and running his own large farm. Konstantin is a man of strong build, the owner of a broad back, with a beard. His face was masculine and not particularly attractive. He truly appreciates the way he lives, life in other conditions seems to him unthinkable and simply boring. In his estate, he could always find something to do, Konstantin is an energetic person. He has two brothers: the eldest, Sergei, a writer, and Nikolai, who was part of a bad society. Parents die early, so Levin was transferred to the Shcherbatsky family to be raised, which can explain their closeness to Kitty's family. Despite the fact that Konstantin was brought up in a strange family, he cherishes the memory of his ancestors, appreciates his family estate.

Konstantin looks at life soberly and fights for it. He has a special sympathy for nature: there he finds peace and tranquility, he is close to nature and obeys its laws. Levin often communicated with the peasants and tried to actively transform their lives through reforms, he considered the peasants an important lever for the development of the entire state. In addition, the image of an ideal family for Konstantin was a family of peasants: large and friendly. Having made an offer to Kitty, and having been refused, Levin completely withdraws into himself, into his estate, believing that he is doomed to a lonely life. But having tried his luck a second time, he connects his life with the youngest daughter of the Shcherbatskys, whom he loved immensely. The first three months of their marriage consisted only of quarrels, misunderstandings, but discussing problems and realizing their insignificance helped them save the family. Later, they have a son, to whom Levin treats with awe and love.

One can say about Konstantin as a person who thinks not only about himself. He tried to help his brother Nikolai improve his life and improve his health. In addition, Levin could not find a place for himself during Kitty's birth, he went to the doctor, demanding to go with him immediately.

Coming up with the image and character of Konstantin Levin, the author of the novel, Leo Tolstoy, took himself as a basis, his inner world.

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