Synthesized answer
The marital discord in the Oblonsky household has caused significant disruption. The wife, Dolly, has not left her room, and the husband, Stepan Arkadyevitch (Stiva), has been away from home for three days [1]. This unhappiness has led to a breakdown in household order: the children are running wild, the English governess is looking for a new position after a quarrel with the housekeeper, the man-cook has left, and the kitchen-maid and coachman have given notice [1]. Stiva wakes up in his study instead of his wife's bedroom and recalls the details of their quarrel with despair [1, 3]. Dolly, when confronted by Stiva, appears bewildered and suffering, with her face betraying her distress despite her attempt at a severe expression [4]. She resents Stiva's apparent happiness and good nature, which she now hates [4].
The pervasive nature of their unhappiness extends to the functioning of the household, as evidenced by the departure of staff and the disarray among the remaining servants [1]. Stiva's inability to sleep in his marital bed and his subsequent despair illustrate the depth of his own distress stemming from the quarrel [3]. Dolly's inner turmoil is apparent in her physical…
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From the book
and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given warning. Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky—Stiva, as he was called in the fashionable world—woke up at his usual hour, that is, at eight o’clock in the morning,…
adyevitch was happy and cheerful, but not so as to seem as though, having been forgiven, he had forgotten his offense. At half-past nine o’clock a particularly joyful and pleasant family conversation over the tea-table at the Oblonskys’ was broken up by an apparently simple incident. But this simple incident for some reason struck everyone as strange. Talking about common acquaintances in Petersburg, Anna got up quickly. “She is in my album,” she said; “and, by the way, I’ll show you my Seryozha,” she added, with a mother’s smile of pride. Towards ten o’clock, when she usually said…
s, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressing-gown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife’s room, but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows. “Ah, ah, ah! Oo!...” he muttered, recalling everything that had happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and worst of all, his own fault. “Yes, she won’t forgive me, and she can’t forgive me. And the most awful…
gest was unwell from being given unwholesome soup, and the others had almost gone without their dinner the day before. She was conscious that it was impossible to go away; but, cheating herself, she went on all the same sorting out her things and pretending she was going. Seeing her husband, she dropped her hands into the drawer of the bureau as though looking for something, and only looked round at him when he had come quite up to her. But her face, to which she tried to give a severe and resolute expression, betrayed bewilderment and suffering. “Dolly!” he said in a subdued and timid…
the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” Levin sighed and made no reply. He was thinking of his own affairs, and did not hear Oblonsky. And suddenly both of them felt that though they were friends, though they had been dining and drinking together, which should have drawn them closer, yet each was thinking only of his own affairs, and they had nothing to do with one another. Oblonsky had more than once experienced this extreme sense of aloofness, instead of intimacy, coming on after dinner, and he knew what to do in such cases. “Bill!” he…
More questions about this book
- "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." How does the immediate portrayal of the Oblonskys' household both illustrate and complicate this famous opening statement?
- Compare Stepan Arkadyevitch's internal experience upon waking (his dream, his search for slippers) with the external reality of his home's chaos. What does this juxtaposition suggest about his character and Tolstoy's narrative strategy at the outset of the novel?
- If you had to explain the core conflict and initial atmosphere of *Anna Karenina* to someone who has never read it, using only the first two paragraphs, what would you emphasize and why?
- Consider the phrase "the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys." What does this statement reveal about the nature of family, community, and connection within the context of the Oblonskys' crisis?