Anna Karenina offers a deep exploration of the inner psychology of its characters who are all very human.

Tolstoy explores two visions of love experienced by the two main characters, Anna and Levin. Both are tortured by love in their own ways.

For Anna, love traps her in a loop of jealousy and self-destruction. She escapes from a loveless marriage to live out a passionate affair with Vronsky that gets increasingly tainted by resentment. She resents his freedom while she as a "fallen woman" has everything taken away from her. Their relationship eventually descends into a petty fight for power over the other with Anna paranoically doubting Vronsky's love for her. Nobody can win so Anna decides to have the last laugh by killing herself.

For Levin, love both feeds and transcends his inner neuroses. Love saves him from nihilism but makes him a neurotic, constantly worrying about Kitty and his place in the world. We see in Levin somebody who is frequently at psychological and spiritual war with himself, someone who is plagued by self-doubt and restlessness, and who lives way too much in his own head. Yet, through moments of enlightenment, he always seems to get shaken back to his senses and at the end he simply accepts not needing to understand the bigger picture and to just accept God and the goodness that surrounds his new family.

Do I feel sorry for Anna? Not really.