"All happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In 19th century aristocratic Russia, Anna Karenina, a young, beautiful woman of high society, lives in a suffocating family with her prominent political husband and their young son.
The balance is disrupted when Anna meets and falls in love with a young army officer, Count Vronsky. Wanting to avoid a social scandal, her husband refuses to grant her a divorce. He even refuses when Anna becomes pregnant and has a child with Vronsky.
Against the social conventions of the time and moral laws, her own insecurities, and her love for her son, Anna leaves her family to live with her lover and their newborn daughter. However, the social condemnation soon saddens and devastates her.
Isolated, she begins to suspect that Vronsky is cheating on her. Gradually, she loses control of herself and is led to a tragic impasse. Self-destruction becomes a one-way street. And the jealousy that lurks within her ultimately proves to be more powerful than love.
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is one of the most influential stories ever written.
