What happens in Part One of Anna Karenina?
Part One opens in the Oblonsky household, where everything is in disarray: Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky (Stiva) has been discovered by his wife Dolly having an affair with their children's French governess. Dolly has locked herself in her room, refusing to see him, and the servants are on edge, unsure of their roles. Oblonsky wakes up on the leather sofa in his study—banished from the marital bedroom—and for a fleeting moment, forgets why he’s there before the reality of his situation crashes back down on him. He gets dressed, goes over his appointments for the day as the head of a government office, and tries to speak with Dolly, who coldly rebuffs him with devastating precision. Into this domestic turmoil steps Oblonsky's sister, Anna Karenina, called from St. Petersburg to help mediate. The chapter ends with the household caught in a tense, unresolved standoff, the marriage neither mended nor officially ended, and Anna's arrival seen as a potential spark for change—though the specifics of that change remain completely uncertain for now.
Analysis
Tolstoy's well-known opening—"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"—does more than simply state a theme; it actually embodies one. The saying is quickly undermined by what follows: Oblonsky's unhappiness is quite ordinary, stemming from a typical infidelity, and Tolstoy's irony is already at play. The chapter's skill lies in its dual perspectives. We first enter through Oblonsky's thoughts, portrayed with a warm, almost affectionate humor—his joy in his dream, his instinctive vanity as he looks in the mirror—before Tolstoy shifts to Dolly's viewpoint, which is stark, wounded, and completely devoid of self-deception. This tonal shift is precise: the same event appears as a farce from one perspective and as quiet devastation from another. Oblonsky's failure to feel genuine remorse and his tendency toward self-pity and social distractions create the novel's central moral framework: feeling is not the same as having a conscience. The chaos in the household—servants gossiping, routines interrupted—reflects the inner turmoil, a technique Tolstoy will use repeatedly. Anna's unseen arrival at the end of the chapter introduces the novel's true central character as a presence felt before she is actually seen, a structural choice that gives her an air of significance and connects her, from the very beginning, to the theme of disruption.
Key quotes from Part One
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
The novel's celebrated opening sentence, setting the ironic and philosophical frame for everything that follows.
“He felt that he was not to blame, but that was not the point. He was to blame, but he could not feel it.”
Oblonsky's self-assessment after Dolly's confrontation, exposing the gap between intellectual acknowledgment and genuine moral feeling.
“She could not forgive him, because she could not forget.”
Tolstoy's compression of Dolly's inner state, distinguishing her paralysis from mere stubbornness and grounding it in involuntary memory.