Anna Karenina · Chapter
I explained
Levin attends confession in preparation for his marriage to Kitty.
What happens
Levin attends confession in preparation for his marriage to Kitty. He struggles with religious doubt, finding the rituals meaningless yet feeling unable to dismiss them as mere formality. During the service, his mind wanders to thoughts of Kitty. The priest questions his faith and warns him of his future responsibilities as a father. Levin leaves feeling relieved the ordeal is over but with a lingering sense that his spiritual uncertainty is unresolved.
Themes in this chapter
Search for Meaning
Levin's entire internal conflict centers on his search for authentic spiritual meaning. He cannot believe, yet cannot fully dismiss faith, leaving him in a state of uncomfortable doubt.
Social Conventions vs. Individual Desire
Levin feels compelled to participate in the social and religious convention of confession before marriage, but his individual desire is to be honest about his disbelief, creating a clash between outward conformity and inner truth.
Hypocrisy and Social Pretense
Levin is acutely aware of the hypocrisy of performing a ritual he does not understand or believe in. He fears his position is 'not clear and not clean,' mirroring the pretense he criticizes in others.
Characters to notice
- Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin
Attends confession, wrestling with profound religious doubt and feeling hypocritical. His mind drifts to memories of Kitty's hand. He is gently challenged by the priest about faith and future paternal duties.
- Kitty Shcherbatskaya
Present in Levin's thoughts during the service. He recalls her laughing and examining the lines on his hand, a memory that distracts him from the prayers.
- Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky
Mentioned in Levin's memory as having advised him to see the priest, comparing the experience to a painless tooth extraction.
- Nikolay Ivanovitch Sviazhsky
Levin reflects that his own vague religious position is the same one he dislikes and blames in his friend Sviazhsky.
- Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya
Levin spends the evening after his confession at Dolly's with his betrothed, in high spirits.
Key passages
“Levin found himself, like the majority of his contemporaries, in the vaguest position in regard to religion. Believe he could not, and at the same time he had no firm conviction that it was all wrong.”
Levin, like many of his peers, was caught in religious uncertainty. He couldn't bring himself to believe, but he also couldn't definitively reject faith.
Captures the quintessential modern doubt and spiritual ambivalence of the character and his era.
“"What sort of bringing-up can you give your babes if you do not overcome the temptation of the devil, enticing you to infidelity?"”
The priest asks how Levin can raise children without a firm faith to guide them and protect them from worldly temptations.
The priest shifts the argument from abstract doubt to concrete paternal responsibility, using social duty to pressure Levin toward faith.
“Levin felt more than ever now that there was something not clear and not clean in his soul, and that, in regard to religion, he was in the same position which he perceived so clearly and disliked in others.”
After confession, Levin felt his spiritual confusion more acutely, recognizing the same hypocrisy in himself that he despised in other people.
Highlights Levin's self-critical nature and his painful awareness of internal contradiction.