Anna Karenina
19 December 2002
Who Shapes Things?
“Things will shape themselves,” (5) advises Oblonsky’s valet in the second chapter of Anna Karenina. With the word “things,” Matthew refers specifically to Oblonsky’s troubles with his wife and family, but the generalness inherent in the word “things” also invites the reader to interpret “Things will shape themselves” as a philosophical statement, meaning that the events of all the characters’ lives are not within their control. The plot of Anna Karenina demonstrates the truth of Matthew’s maxim as it sweeps characters along with it to their fates.
Oblonsky’s unique situation permits him to follow Matthew’s advice by submitting to life and its events without resisting or changing them. He recognizes what “things” are in his power to shape, and what “things” are outside of it. Oblonsky’s way of taking care of his problems is to ignore them as they work themselves out: After he asks himself “What am I to do?” the narrator says “He could find no answer, except life’s usual answer to the most complex and insolule questions. That answer is: live in the needs of the day, that is, find forgetfulness” (3). Other characters do not forget their questions and problems; they vainly struggle against “things” that cannot be changed.
Oblonsky’s world does not place many inconvenient limits on him. Nothing keeps him from doing almost anything he pleases, including leaving and returning to his family on whims to enjoy clubs, social life, and hunting vacations in the country. Oblonsky need not struggle to satisfy his desires. He can have food, money, and women easily because he inhabits a world that has been architected to cater to a married, aristocratic man. Oblonsky never lacks anything he wants; he is free and able to obtain everything he desires. The narrator demonstrates this feature of Oblonsky’s life by the way that he has been provided with a career:
The distributors of earthly blessings in the shape of posts, rents, concessions and such, were all his friends, and could not overlook one of their own set; and Oblonsky had no need to make any special exertion to get a lucrative post. He had only not to refuse things, not to show jealousy, not to be quarrelsome or take offense, all of which from his characteristic good nature he never did. It would have struck him as absurd if he had been told that he would not get a position with the salary he required, especially as he expected nothing out of the way; he only wanted what the men of his own age and standing did get, and he was no worse qualified for performing duties of this kind than any other man. (Part 1, Chapter 5)
Oblonsky is content with the shape of his world and he does not attempt to change it, as illustrated by the way he adopts established political opinions and is not interested in shaping his own political opinions or those of other people: “Oblonsky’s tendency and opinions were not his by deliberate choice: they came of themselves, just as he did not choose the fashion of his hats or coats but wore those of the current style. Living in a certain social set, and having a desire, such as generally develops with maturity, for some kind of mental activity, he was obliged to hold views, just as he was obliged to have a hat” (6). The phrase “liberalism that was in his blood” (Part 1, Chapter 5)* reinforces how Oblonsky accepts his world as it is. Oblonsky’s political persuasion is assigned to him like an hereditary trait.
A shallow character, Oblonsky experiences emotions intensely but briefly, without being deeply and permanently moved. He is very distressed by seeing the run-over workman’s mangled corpse at the train station: “Oblonsky was evidently upset. His face was puckered and he seemed ready to cry” (59). Moments after, he forgets his distress as he celebrates and admires Vronsky’s charity gift to the workman’s widow: “‘You have given it!’ exclaimed Oblonsky behind Vronsky, and pressing his sister’s arm he added ‘Very kind, very kind!” (59).
Anna does not express her emotional responses to these events as demonstratively as Oblonsky does, but she is more deeply and permanently moved than Oblonsky. She does not immediately remark on the guardsman’s death, but when she and Oblonsky board Oblonsky’s carriage, Oblonsky has already ceased to be affected by the guardsman’s death while Anna still reels from its emotional impact: “Mrs. Karenina got into her brother’s carriage, and Oblonsky noticed with surprise that her lips were trembling and that it was with difficulty she kept back her tears” (60). Oblonsky’s surprise at his sister’s emotional response reveals that he does not expect other people to be permanently and deeply emotionally affected because by their experiences because his emotional responses are not permanent or deep.
This episode also illustrates a difference in the role and power of emotion in Oblonsky’s and Anna’s lives. Oblonsky is never beset by insurmountable passions, but Anna can be swept away by emotion. Anna’s love affair with Vronsky is unpredictable and uncontrollable compared to Oblonsky’s affair with the English governess, which is not out of his control. The lack of control Anna and Vronsky have over their affair is demonstrated when, meeting Anna at the train station, Vronsky says, “You know I am going to be where you are… I cannot do otherwise” (Part 1, Chapter 30).
Though Oblonsky’s affair produces troubles with his society and family, he is never tormented by passion, like Vronsky and Anna are: After having sex for the first time with Vronsky, Anna sobs. The narrator says “She felt so guilty, so much to blame, that it only remained for her to humble herself and ask to be forgiven” (135). For Vronsky, this episode is also emotionally trying: “There was something frightful and revolting in the recollection of what had been paid for with this terrible price of shame” (135). Without experiencing revulsion, fright, guilt, or shame in his extramarital affairs, Oblonsky is less subject to deep, confusing, or powerful emotions. He is emotionally freer than Anna and Vronsky.
Each character’s feeling of personal freedom depends upon the fulfillment of their needs and desires. A character who cannot achieve what they want or need feels trapped in the present circumstances of their life. Oblonsky never feels trapped. He does not want anything he cannot have, his passions do not force him to act, he is comfortable with his own personality and does not feel limited by it in his relationships with other people, and he is not overwhelmed by intellectual dilemmas. It seems, however, that Oblonsky never consciously or willfully developed his freedom. Rather, it is a blessing bestowed upon him from outside. For Oblonsky, “things” have shaped themselves well.
Anna does not enjoy the same freedom Oblonsky enjoys — “She would never know freedom in love” (Part 3, Chapter 16). She desires Vronsky’s full loving attention and freedom from Karenin’s influence on her life, but never achieves these desires. She struggles against society’s judgments and limitations and her “irrepressible” passion.
For women in Russian society, “things,” are not shaped nearly as ideally as they are for men like Oblonsky. Oblonsky suffers practically no permanent societal repercussions for his affair. Anna suffers serious repercussions. She loses the social position she occupied as Karenin’s wife, but remains legally married to him. Responding to Vronsky’s question “Isn't a divorce possible?” Anna “shook her head, without answering” (Part 3, Chapter 22). At a later point in the novel, the narrator says, “[Divorce] seemed to her [Anna] an unattainable happiness” (Part 4, Chapter 21). Divorce may have seemed unattainable to Anna because it rarely occurred in Russian society, offering Anna few, if any, precedents. Dolly expresses the generally held fear Russian women had of divorce in response to Karenin’s talk of divorcing Anna when she says, “No, it is awful! She will be no one's wife; she will be lost!” (Part 4, Chapter 12).
The difference in the severity of repercussions resulting from Oblonsky’s and Anna’s affairs is a testament to the inequality of freedom allowed to men and women in Russian society. While Oblonsky can afford to let things “shape themselves,” Anna cannot, because the society she lives in judges women who commit adultery more severely than it judges men. Oblonsky’s passions are much less dangerous to him than Anna’s are to her. Society allows Oblonsky the freedom to follow his passions while compelling Anna to attempt to resist her passions.
The narrator emphasizes the power of Ann’s emotions and implies she unsuccessfully attempts to stop herself from expressing them by describing their expressions as “insuppressible.” This description occurs frequently throughout Anna Karenina, firmly establishing Anna’s helplessness to her emotions. When Karenin first confronts her about her relations with Vronsky, she cannot help herself from faintly laughing at him: “‘I have nothing to say. And besides’ she said suddenly, with difficulty repressing a smile, ‘it’s really time to be in bed’” (Part 2, Chapter 9). In one instance when Anna speaks to Karenin she cannot keep herself from showing her irritation: “‘But I’ve said so already, so why repeat it?’ Anna suddenly interrupted him, with an irritation she could not succeed in repressing” (Part 4, Chapter 20). When Anna meets Vronsky at the train station on her way to Petersburg, she cannot repress her joy at seeing him, “‘I didn’t know you were going. And why are you going?’ she said, letting fall the hand which had grasped the doorpost. And irrepressible joy and animation shone in her face” (Part 1, Chapter 30). Once, when Anna and Vronsky meet each other, the narrator says passion “infected” Anna, comparing it to a disease that has taken control of her body:
Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she would say to him, but she did not succeed in saying anything; his passion mastered her. She tried to calm him, to calm herself, but it was too late. His feeling infected her. Her lips trembled so that for a long while she could say nothing (Part 4, Chapter 23).
The narrator shows how Anna is ruled by emotions in the train station scene at the end of the novel. Anna watches a couple riding in the same train carriage as she: “Anna saw distinctly how weary they were of one another and how they hated each other. And it was impossible not to hate such ugly wretches” (693). In this passage, the phrase “impossible not to hate” tells the reader that Anna cannot control her emotions. The word “impossible” also implies that Anna tries to control her emotions but cannot.
While Anna banters with Karenin after he receives her at the Petersburg train station, the narrator says she was “involuntarily listening to the sound of Vronsky's steps behind them” (Part 1, Chapter 31). The word “involuntarily” connotes that Anna actively resists listening to the sound of Vronsky’s steps but cannot help listening. Anna initially attempts to deny to herself that she is infatuated with Vronsky: “‘But what have I to do with that [Vronsky’s footsteps]?’ she said to herself’” (Part 1, Chapter 31).
In Princess Betsy’s drawing room, Anna attempts to resist demonstrating her love for Vronsky: “She exerted all the powers of her mind to say what she ought [anything that would not refer to their desire for each other]” (127). Her attempt fails as she is overwhelmed by emotion: “but instead she fixed on him her eyes filled with love and did not answer at all” (127). Anna unsuccessfully attempts to deny her love for Vronsky again but her passion overwhelms her, seeming to spill over: “‘Do this for me: never say such words to me, and let us be good friends.’ These were her words, but her eyes said something very different” (127).
When Anna lies about her relationship with Vronsky to Karenin, she speaks automatically, as evidenced by how she “said what came into her head” (132). She also “wondered” at her words as though they did not come from her consciousness: “As she spoke she wondered at her quietly natural tone and at her correct choice of words” (133).
Anna’s communication with Vronsky and Karenin, in which she expresses ideas and sentiments unintentionally, is a sign of how her affair with Vronsky is out of her control, a thing that will shape itself. The course of Anna and Vronsky’s feelings for each other and the events of their affair travel a rollercoaster-like course that neither of them is able to predict.
Anna’s entire emotional life, and the range of options of action available to her in life (that is, actions she considers as possible to willfully chose) becomes subject to the conditions of her affair. The difficulty of her position makes her believe that she is locked in it, and nothing she can do could change her life:
‘Well, I get divorced and become Vronsky’s wife! What then? will Kitty cease looking at me as she did this afternoon? No. Will Serezha stop asking about my two husbands? And between Vronsky and myself what new feeling can I invent? Is any kind — not of happiness even but of freedom from torture — possible? No! No!’ She now answered herself without the least hesitation. ‘It is impossible! Life is sundering us, and I am the cause of his unhappiness and he of mine, and neither he nor I can be made any different. Every effort has been made, but the screws do not act…’ (691).
Anna “is locked in the prison of her own subjectivity” (Elizabeth Frank). Anna believes her emotions are a sign of the state of the entire world; she does not believe they are confined to her individual reality. She does not try to view the world objectively. As she experiences emotional turmoil between Vronsky and Karenin and herself, she believes for the moment that all human relationships are as terrible as her present relationships with Vronsky and Karenin. “Are we not all flung into the world only to hate each other, and therefore to torment ourselves and others? (691).
From a single absolute idea in Anna’s mind stem other ideas in accordance with that idea. Thus, one absolute idea can severely limit her freedom of thought. As Anna considers that human beings “are flung into the world only to hate each other,” she remembers her son Serezha without remembering the motherly love she felt for him. This love was demonstrated earlier in the novel when Anna is overwhelmed by her love for her son and her recognition of how much she needs him. She had not been able to punish him for eating a peach “on the sly.” Instead, “She felt that tears were coming into her eyes. ‘Can I help loving him?’ she said to herself” (Part 3, Chapter 15). But under the influence of her absolute thoughts she seems to forget her love for Serezha, instead of regarding it as evidence that “we” are not “flung into the world only to hate each other.” She disproves her love for Serezha to herself: “‘Serezha’ she remembered. ‘I thought I loved him, too, and was touched at my own tenderness for him. Yet I live without him and exchanged his love for another’s, and did not complain of the change as long as the other love satisfied me” (691).
Under the influence of this absolute idea, her distrust of the possibility of love extends not just to her own life but to the lives of everybody else: “The clearness with which she now saw her own and every one else’s life pleased her. ‘It’s the same with me and Peter and Theodore the coachman, and with that tradesman, and with all the people that live away there by the Volga where those advertisements invite one to go, and everywhere and always’” (691). The narrator’s statement that “The clearness with which she now saw her own and everyone else’s life pleased her” (691) emphasizes the absurdity of Anna’s thought by its ironic tone. Anna believes she is seeing everyone else’s life with clarity but she is actually extremely deluded. Thought, a way characters express free will, is narrowly limited for Anna by her limited way of thinking. In her thoughts, as in her life, Anna is confined to a narrow range of options.
Character’s lives are controlled by outside forces they cannot control. But characters’ fates and lives are most often decided by their own actions, sometimes willed, other times unwilled. Characters are subject to the forces of life, but they are also acting forces, however embedded within life. That is, the forces of life express themselves through the characters.
Anna is led to her fate by forces outside herself, such as society’s harsh attitude towards women adulterers, but her fate is mostly decided by her own actions. These actions are caused by forces of life that express themselves through her, but are outside the control of her will. In the passage where Vronsky first meets Anna at the Moscow train station, the word “vitality” refers to the forces of life that express themselves through her. This force of life is so strong in her that she is powerless to control it: “It was as if an excess of vitality so filled her whole being that it betrayed itself against her will, now in her smile, now in the light of her eyes. She deliberately tried to extinguish that light in her eyes, but it shone despite of her in her faint smile” (56).
In suicide, Anna is the victim of the forces of life that express themselves through her, her “excess of vitality.” In a last attempt to control them she finally succeeds in extinguishing “that light in her eyes.”
The plot of Anna Karenina proceeds like a train on a track. Anna is carried along with it: “With rhythmic jerks over the joints of the rails, the carriage in which Anna sat rattled past the platform and a brick wall, past the signals and some other carriages; the sound of wheels slightly ringing against the rails became more rhythmical and smooth; the bright evening sunshine shone through the window, and a breeze moved the blind. Anna forgot her fellow-travelers; softly rocked by the motion of the carriage and inhaling the fresh air, she again began to think” (693). The train functions as a metaphor for other forces that have shaped Anna’s life. The train conveys her through the sounds and sights of life, as she travels alone, alienated from the other passengers on the train who do not know or understand her.
The train and Anna's thoughts move together, suggesting how Anna’s thoughts are joined to events and forces outside of her control. The train's arrival at the station coincides with her own near arrival at the decision to commit suicide: “Why not put out the candle, if there is nothing more to look at?" (693).
The simultaneity of Anna's arrival at a decision in her thoughts and her train's arrival at the station communicates to the reader a sense that, while Anna consciously chooses to die, her suicide is inevitable, and she is carried to it by outside forces, represented by the train carrying Anna along its track.
At the moment of Anna’s suicide, Anna forgets why she is killing herself, as if she did not arrive at the decision to commit suicide on her own, but was compelled to commit suicide by an outside force: “At the same moment she was horror-stuck at what she was doing. 'Where am I? What am I doing? Why?'” (695). Immediately before the train runs her over, she suddenly wants to live, “She wished to rise, to throw herself back,” but the forces already in motion overwhelm her will, as “something huge and relentless struck her on the head and dragged her down” (695). The narrator’s choice of the vague term “something huge and relentless” instead of “train” invites the reader to ascribe additional meaning to the term and let it stand for all the relentless forces of life that have brought Anna to her inevitable fate.
The forces of life crush Anna because she is not at peace with them. She cannot control herself because the forces of life, too strong, express themselves by animating her being against her will. Like Anna, Levin is not at peace with the forces that shape life. He is dissatisfied with his life as it is. Instead of surrendering to the forces of life, he tries to assert his own will over them. His difficulty with the forces of life stems from over-consciousness of his will, which is almost always opposed to events in his surroundings.
One of the ways Levin insists on asserting his own will rather than surrendering to the forces of life is his resistance to go with the flow of social situations. The narrator brings out Levin’s unwillingness to fit into society by contrasting him with Oblonsky, who socializes automatically and easily: “But the difference [between how Oblonsky and Levin laughed at each other] was that Oblonsky, since he was doing the same as everyone did, laughed assuredly and good-humoredly, while Levin laughed without assuredness and sometimes angrily” (Part 1, Chapter 5). Oblonsky easily fits into social situations by going with their flow. His weak-willed habit of life is exemplified by the way he chose his political views according to the current style, as shown in the passage included on page 1 of this essay, “Oblonsky’s tendency and opinions were not his by deliberate choice…” (Part 1, Chapter 5). Levin creates awkward situations by willfully refusing to go with the flow of social life.
One way Levin’s will expresses itself is by judging people around him instead of passively accepting them for who they are. During his trip to Moscow, he immediately judges Oblonsky’s board-fellow, Grinevich, according to his value system: “Levin was silent, looking at the unfamiliar faces of Oblonsky’s two companions, and especially at the elegant Grinevich’s hands — with such long yellow nails, curved at their end, that apparently these hands absorbed all his attention, and allowed him no freedom of thought.” Levin looks “with hatred at Grinevich’s hand” (Part 1, Chapter 5).
Levin also judges that wealthy businessmen and bureaucrats in the cities live dishonestly by exploiting lower classes. He disapproves of the people and events Oblonsky tells him about:
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Levin, rising on his heap of hay. ‘How is it that those people don’t disgust you? I understand that lunch with a good claret is very nice, but is it possible that the very luxury does not disgust you? All those people, like the holders of our drink monopolies formerly, got their money in ways that earn contempt — they disregard that contempt — and afterwards, by means of what they have dishonestly earned, they buy off that contempt (532).
Levin doubts almost all ideas before he proves or disproves them. An example of this is when he goes to confession and tells the priest “My chief sin is doubt. I have doubts of everything, and for the most part I am in doubt… I sometimes even have doubts of the existence of God.” (Part 5, Chapter 1). Levin wants “to enter into a metaphysical discussion” with the priest, but senses it would be improper. Oblonsky, in contrast to Levin, takes up ideas without testing or considering them as in the hat example, “Oblonsky’s tendency and opinions were not his by deliberate choice…” (Part 1, Chapter 5).
Levin’s frustration with life, and refusal to surrender to things as they are includes his self. He often feels limited by his own character. For him, achieving a feeling of personal freedom necessitates changing and controlling himself. This is illustrated in his return home after he has been rejected by Kitty:
He was overcome by a momentary doubt of the possibility of starting the new life of which he had been dreaming on his way. All these traces of his old life seemed to seize hold of him and say, “No you will not escape us and will not be different but will remain such as you have been: full of doubts; full of dissatisfaction with yourself, and of vain attempts at improvement followed by failures, and continual hopes of the happiness which has escaped you and is impossible for you.”
That was what the things said, but another voice within his soul was saying that one must not submit to the past and that a man can make what he will of himself. And obeying the latter voice he went to the corner where two thirty-six pound dumb-bells lay and began doing gymnastic exercises to invigorate himself (86).
Levin’s greatest need is to feel satisfied with himself and his actions: “He only wished now to be better than he had been formerly. First of all he decided that he would no longer hope for the exceptional happiness which marriage was to have given him and consequently he would not underrate the present as he had done. Secondly, he would never again allow himself to be carried away by passion, the repulsive memory of which had so tormented him when he was making up his mind to propose” (85).
To be satisfied with himself and his life, Levin feels he needs to be in control of his life, but he cannot control his life because natural forces control it. He wants to know why he lives and acts beyond the reasons given by physical laws. Readers are briefly reminded about the philosophical issue of materialism at the beginning of Anna Karenina, when Sergius Koznyshëv and a professor of philosophy follow the question of “whether a definite line exists between psychological and physiological phenomena in human activity” (21). This discussion prepares the stage for Levin’s thoughts:
Of old I used to say that in my body, that in the body of this grass and of this beetle (there, she didn't care for the grass, she's opened her wings and flown away), there was going on a transformation of matter in accordance with physical, chemical, and physiological laws. And in all of us, as well as in the aspens and clouds and nebulae, there was a process of evolution. Evolution from what? Into what?- Eternal evolution and struggle... As though there could be any sort of tendency and struggle in the eternal! And I was astonished that in spite of utmost effort of thought in this direction I could not discover the meaning of life, the meaning of my impulses and yearnings. (Part 8, Chapter 12)
Levin’s refusal to accept that natural processes are in control of his life is exemplified by his difficulty in accepting death as an inevitable natural event. He fears death because it is “irresistible”: “Death, the inevitable end of all, for the first time presented itself to him [Levin] with irresistible force. …If not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, in thirty years- wasn't it all the same?”(Part 3, Chapter 31).
Levin feels he performs action unwillingly when he is forced to act by the dictates of tradition or familial and societal obligations:
To live the same family life as his father and forefathers- that is, in the same condition of culture- and to bring up his children in the same, was incontestably necessary. It was as necessary as dining when one was hungry; and to do this, just as it was necessary to cook dinner, it was necessary to keep the mechanism of agriculture at Pokrovskoe going so as to yield an income. Just as incontestably as it was necessary to repay a debt was it necessary to keep the patrimonial estate in such a condition that his son, when he received it as a heritage, would say "Thank you" to his father as Levin had said "Thank you" to the grandfather for all he had built and planted. And to do this it was necessary to look after the land himself, not to let it, and to breed cattle, manure the fields, and plant timber.
It was impossible not to look after the affairs of Sergei Ivanovich, of his sister, of all the peasants who came to him for advice and were accustomed to do so- as impossible as to fling down a child one is carrying in one's arms. It was necessary to look after the comfort of his sister-in-law and her children, and of his wife and baby, and it was impossible not to spend with them at least a short time each day (Part 8, Chapter 10).
When Levin performs action unwillingly, as in the above passage, he feels his life loses meaning and he is driven to think of suicide:
…So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and what he was living for, and harassed at this lack of knowledge to such a point that he was afraid of suicide, and yet firmly laying down his own individual definite path in life (Part 8, Chapter 10).
From the judgments Levin makes on other people’s actions, the reader learns that Levin thinks about action and expects actions to be justified by reason and morals. Thus, when Levin cannot find reasons to justify his own actions, and when his choice of action is confined to a narrow range, he is frustrated to the point of considering suicide. The narrator portrays the source of Levin’s frustration by juxtaposing his “lack of knowledge,” that is, his indefiniteness, with the “definite” path he lays down in life. The narrator seems to take on Levin’s voice to express Levin’s dilemma. The words “firmly” and “definite” emphasize the inalterable nature of action, which is problematic for Levin because he cannot justify action by definite knowledge.
Levin solves this problem for himself by belief in God. Human ceremonies, obligatory tasks, and natural impulses of the body that previously troubled Levin because he could not morally justify them, and therefore did not willingly perform them, become untroublesome to Levin after he comes to believe in God. Belief in God provides him with meanings for natural phenomena that Levin cannot explain in any other way: “And I was astonished that in spite of utmost effort of thought in this direction I could not discover the meaning of life, the meaning of my impulses and yearnings” (Part 8, Chapter 12).
“I have found the master,” Levin thinks (Part 8, Chapter 12). By discovering a will beyond his own, and morally superior to his own, Levin need no longer be frustrated by being unable to assert his will throughout all of his life. Through faith that the “seemingly random chain of causes and effects” he is implicated in was created by a moral God, Levin comes to surrender to the forces of life as they are, “accepting life on its own terms” (Elizabeth Frank).
Levin finally recognizes that even his own will is subject to laws beyond himself: “Yes, the one unmistakable, incontestable manifestation of the Divinity is the law of right and wrong…” (Part 8, Chapter 17). He submits to the law of right and wrong. For Levin, coming to understand the forces of life means learning how to live a moral life.
In the end, Levin thinks “I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will be still the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife; I shall still go on scolding her for my own fright and being remorseful for it; I shall still be as unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it” (Part 8, Chapter 17).
Levin recognizes the limitations of his will and understands its role — to put “the positive meaning of goodness” into his life. He surrenders to the forces of life that control everything — including him. He recognizes what he can and cannot change, and he learns to let things he cannot change “shape themselves.” By coming to understand the forces of life, Levin avoids Anna’s fate of unhappiness and suicide.