Anna Karenina: A Tragic Character Through the Prism of Modern Psychology

Exploring the Complexities of Leo Tolstoy's Iconic Heroine

WARNING: This essay contains spoilers. If you have not read Anna Karenina and plan to, you may wish to refrain from reading this essay until you finish the book. Also, this essay assumes the reader has a basic understanding of the plot.

I enjoy analyzing literary characters from the perspective of modern psychology. In this essay, I will look at the character of Anna Karenina from the book by Leo Tolstoy of the same name. I hypothesize that Anna suffered from what we now refer to as borderline personality disorder (hereafter referred to as BPD). I will review the symptoms of this disorder and compare them with how Anna is portrayed in the book. I will also look at her personality more generally and speculate on where she might fall on the Big Five personality traits.

Diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder

First, I will review the diagnostic criteria for BPD as laid out in the DSM-V-TR and see how Anna’s behavior compares. The DSM states that BPD is defined as “a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following [symptoms].” I will present the symptoms, followed by a comparative analysis of Anna’s behavior.

1.     Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Early in the book, when I look at Anna’s relationship with her husband, I see a cool distance between them. They do not seem emotionally close. Anna may perceive a level of emotional abandonment from her husband, and her affair may partially be an attempt to get some kind of reaction from him. To wake him up, get him to fight for her, and not take her for granted.

In those days, husbands in such a position might challenge the rival man to a duel. However, Anna’s husband responds to her affair with excessive tolerance, which could be viewed as weakness or cowardice. He even agrees to let Anna continue with her affair while she still lives with him and is supported by him, as long as she does not bring her lover (Vronsky) to their house. Anna chooses not to abide even by this rule and allows Vronsky to visit her at home, which leads to her husband demanding a separation and considering divorce.

The way she continually pushes and disrespects her husband makes it seem like she is trying to get attention from him like a child provoking an inattentive parent. The whole affair could be viewed as Anna trying desperately to get her emotionally distant husband to pay attention to her. I get the sense she feels emotionally estranged from him and also disgusted by the weakness she perceives in him.

Her frantic efforts to avoid abandonment are displayed more explicitly later in the book as her relationship with Vronsky progresses and begins to cool off. Anna displays extreme paranoia that Vronsky no longer loves her. In the latter part of the book, she imagines he has fallen in love with another woman and displays envy of this imaginary woman. She overreacts with anger at any sign she interprets as her lover potentially being involved with another woman. She fantasizes about killing herself and how sorry Vronsky would be when he realizes how much pain he caused her.

Since becoming an adulteress, she is ostracized and abandoned by society but still makes desperate attempts to regain her position in upper-class Russian society. For example, she goes to a theater production where the audience recognizes her and hisses at her for being a known adulteress. She wants to have it both ways: to behave inappropriately and be accepted by society. She makes some desperate attempts at this balance but is ultimately unsuccessful, which makes her increasingly isolated. She goes from being very popular in society, with many friends and acquaintances, to having no friends and only her lover and servants to keep her company. This causes her to be excessively dependent on the companionship of her lover, making her even more worried about his potential abandonment.

2.     A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. When we meet Anna, she is in a state where she completely devalues her husband, Alexei Karenin. I do not know if earlier in their marriage she idealized him. That would not surprise me. But during the time we know Anna in the book, she devalues Karenin to the point of disgust and loathing.

She then becomes infatuated with Vronsky and completely idealizes him. As that relationship continues, it becomes more tumultuous as she starts to fear the loss of his love and his abandonment. Her obsession with this fear becomes the main aspect of their relationship. It does not seem like she really loves Vronsky anymore (if she ever did), but she is afraid of what will happen to her if he abandons her. She also does not love the child she has with Vronsky. This also points to her not truly loving Vronsky, but more just using him for impulsive pleasure and to provoke Karenin.

When she is very ill after giving birth to Vronsky’s child, both Karenin and Vronsky are with her. They manage to tolerate each other because they both care about Anna so much. Prior to giving birth, Anna tells them she thinks she will die in childbirth, and it looks quite likely that she may die during her illness afterward. This is when her desire to die is first brought forward. In her mind, dying would solve her impossible situation. She is caught between her feelings about her husband and her feelings about Vronsky. Toward her husband, she feels boredom, disgust, and also guilt at her betrayal of him. Toward Vronsky, she feels idealistic infatuation and impulsive obsession. The fact that she has a child by Vronsky, and also had a previous child by her husband, further complicates all of the relationships.

She also alternatingly idealizes and devalues her relationship with society and her upper-class social circle. When we first meet Anna, she is very popular in society. Everyone is enamored with her. However, she seems to feel bored with her position and does not value her popularity and high status. Once she becomes a known adulteress and is shunned by society, she realizes what she has lost. As mentioned before, she makes desperate and unsuccessful attempts to return to society. This could be viewed as her shifting to idealizing society, thinking that she could just return and be accepted again despite her fallen status, and also feeling like this acceptance is something she actually wants.

3.     Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. Anna is clearly dissatisfied with her roles as a popular society woman and wife. This dissatisfaction could relate to an unstable sense of self—feeling like this is not who she truly is and also not knowing or understanding who she is. Although she connects with her role as a mother early in the book, with her love of her first child, she does not love her second child. So even her sense of being a mother is unstable.

Becoming an ostracized adulteress is also part of herself she cannot accept. It seems as though she is unable to connect fully with any aspect of herself, leaving her feeling empty and isolated.

Although not explicitly stated in the book, I could see how Anna might feel in every role like she is pretending. She is playing the part of society woman, wife, mother, and adulteress, but never feels she is truly any of these things.

4.     Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Anna easily qualifies for this symptom with her illicit love affair, and everything related to that, as well as her opium addiction later in the book.

5.     Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior. Anna expects to die during childbirth with Vronsky’s child and feels like this will solve her problems. She tells people she expects to die, which could be interpreted as a suicidal threat.

Later in the book, she fantasizes about killing herself by drinking her whole bottle of opium. She also makes veiled suicidal threats to Vronsky. And finally, she does end up committing suicide by jumping in front of a train. Up to ten percent of people with BPD commit suicide.

6.     Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). This definitely describes Anna. Her instability of mood gets more pronounced throughout the book as she becomes progressively more isolated. This reminds me of how friendships and associations with other people help us regulate our moods. Although she experiences boredom and dissatisfaction early in the book as a popular woman in society, her mood seems much more stable at that time than it does once she becomes isolated and ostracized. Having fewer people around her lets her symptoms become more out of control.

7.     Chronic feelings of emptiness. Anna’s lack of connection to herself and her identity leads her to feel bored and empty. I think this feeling of emptiness is part of what makes her susceptible to Vronsky’s advances. The excitement of an affair seems to fill the void. However, like most impulsive pleasures, it is a temporary fix that does much more harm than good to everyone involved in the long run.

8.     Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). This symptom is primarily seen toward the end of the book when Anna becomes paranoid about Vronsky no longer loving her. She tries to control her anger at times and is unable to. This is described in the book. Her anger and jealousy cause Vronsky to become more distant, further isolating her in her delusions.

9.     Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms. Anna is described as having both of these symptoms. She has paranoid ideation about Vronsky falling in love with another woman. In her final scene, leading to her suicide, she thinks everyone is talking about her, saying rude things, and laughing at her.

There is a scene early in the book where she is on a train and has a weird dissociative experience. It is a bizarre scene and sounds like a description of a psychedelic experience. This foreshadows early on that there is something seriously disturbed about her mental state.

As you can see, arguments can be made for Anna having all of the symptoms of BPD. To be diagnosed, a person just has to have five out of the nine symptoms. I think Anna clearly qualifies for this diagnosis.

Anna’s relationships with her children

Anna’s relationships with her children are worthy of special attention. She has feelings of affection toward her son and tries unsuccessfully to get her husband to give her custody of him after they separate. However, while she is off frolicking around Europe with Vronsky, she rarely thinks about her son. She feels guilty when she notices this. She knows she should love her son more than she does. This lack of ability to form normal attachments and relationships is also indicative of BPD.

I also feel like if she really loved her son, she would not have this affair. One could argue that the affair starts as an impulsive act where she is not thinking about the repercussions. However, as it continues, her husband gives her every opportunity to come to her senses. She has plenty of time to consider the effects this could have on their son and choose to repent and return to her husband. She chooses not to. She chooses fleeting impulsive pleasure and excitement over her son’s well-being. One could argue that this shows she does not actually love her son. Or one could argue that this just proves the depths of her lack of self-control, lack of healthy attachments, and the intensity of the emptiness and lack of meaning she feels in her life.

She then has a daughter with Vronsky. It is stated clearly in the book that she does not love this child. She does not know why. I speculate, as previously mentioned, that this is because she does not truly love Vronsky. She confuses lust with love. Another possibility is the fact that she is very ill after the birth of her daughter. This might have prevented her from bonding with her early on. She probably was not ill after having her son and was able to bond with him more naturally.

I also wonder if her lack of attachment to her children could be related to the way children were raised in upper-class Russian society in the 1800s. It seems like they were mainly supervised by governesses, nurses, or similar servants and not actually raised by their parents. For a parent who is already inclined toward unstable attachments and relationships, I could see this contributing to a pathological level of detachment.

The Big Five personality traits

I will now look at Anna’s personality through the lens of the Big Five personality traits and use the model where each of the five traits is broken down into two aspects. I will use a scale of 0–100 for each aspect and average the score between the two aspects to provide a rating for the trait as a whole. Zero means very low in a trait and 100 means extremely high. For example, on trait agreeableness, a 0 would indicate a person is very disagreeable and a 100 would indicate an excessively agreeable person. More information on this method of personality evaluation can be found here. I have listed each of the traits followed by their respective aspects and my analysis of each aspect in relation to Anna.

Agreeableness: 45

-Compassion: 10

I think Anna is low in compassion as evidenced by betraying her husband, abandoning her son, not being interested in her daughter, and putting her own impulsive desires before the well-being of her family. This is also suggested by her paying attention to and dancing with Vronsky at the ball where Kitty was hoping for a marriage proposal from him.

-Politeness: 80

Likely high in politeness as proven by her popularity in society prior to her fall.

Conscientiousness: 40

-Industriousness: 20

Fairly low in industriousness as reflected in her inability to stick with the hard work of maintaining a marriage and being a good mother.

-Orderliness: 60

A bit above average in orderliness as suggested by her dedication to maintaining her physical appearance and dressing/presenting herself impeccably in society. Also, her ability to attain and maintain a respectable position in society for a significant period of time despite her mental illness suggests some level of conscientiousness that could be associated with orderliness.

Extraversion: 40

-Enthusiasm: 60

Slightly above average in enthusiasm. She has enthusiasm about being noticed and respected in social gatherings, but she also has a pervasive sense of boredom (lack of enthusiasm) with her life.

-Assertiveness: 20

Fairly low as suggested by the way she allows Vronsky to seduce her. However, somewhat assertive in that she "follows her heart" even with the disapproval of her husband and society, although I would argue that is more due to uncontrollable impulsivity rather than intentionally standing up for herself.

Neuroticism: 85

-Withdrawal: 50

In the beginning, she expresses boredom with society, implying a desire to withdraw from social situations. Later, she is forced to withdraw due to being ostracized, leading to loneliness, opium addiction, and excessive reliance on her lover to provide social support.

-Volatility: 100

Anna is portrayed as having extremely volatile moods, swinging from boredom to excitement, anger, envy, obsession, and disgust. Her moods get more volatile toward the end of the book as she becomes more isolated, insecure, and delusional.

Openness: 70

-Intellect: 70

Moderately high intellect. Although not discussed much in the book, being a popular upper-class socialite, she is fluent in multiple languages and knowledgeable enough about politics, philosophy, current events, etc. to carry on intelligent conversations in upper-class society.

-Aesthetics: 70

Moderately high in aesthetics. She is very good at presenting herself in a beautiful way. She enjoys the theater and appreciates art, although she does not create art herself.

Conclusion

The character of Anna Karenina is portrayed as having significant mental instability despite having risen to a high level of popularity in society. It could be argued that she displays all the symptoms of borderline personality disorder. She is also likely high in personality trait neuroticism, which is often associated with mental illness. I think the diagnosis of BPD explains most of the harmful and confusing behavior she is described as engaging in.

What do you think? How would you describe Anna Karenina’s psychology and personality? Do you agree or disagree with my analysis? I would love to hear your thoughts.