The author Leo Tolstoy had a privileged upbringing, however, despite being born into Russian nobility, he wanted nothing more than to live the simple life of a peasant. As a young man attending Kazan University, Tolstoy was prone to gambling, drinking, smoking, and hunting. He eventually dropped out of school and abandoned his sensual lifestyle, opting for a simple life. Tolstoy was an intellectual who preferred the heart to the workings of the mind and, throughout his life, was skeptical of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He came to believe that the church was corrupt and abandoned organized religion entirely, instead developing his own set of beliefs. According to Tolstoy, Anna Karenina arises from three separate events. The first dates back to 1870, Tolstoy developed the idea for a story about a woman who commits adultery and abandons her husband for another man, loosely based on his sister's life. The second was a newspaper story about a woman who, after being abandoned by her lover, threw herself in front of a train. The third was a phrase from Pushkin's Balkin Tales that read: "The guests were arriving at the country house." This apparently inspired Tolstoy so much that he finished the first draft of the novel within a few weeks, although it was published only five years later. Although the main narrative and title of the novel favor the character of Anna Karenina, the main plot is mirrored by Konstatin Levin, who has a plot of his own. Levin, in many ways, reflects Tolstoy himself and holds the same philosophy and has the same reservations. Levin is a farmer whose search for happiness and satisfaction leads him to ask tough questions about... middle of paper... returning to sin. Finally, as shown in Levin's conversion, true faith, which comes from God alone, is the only thing that can intersect with the sinful nature of humanity because it is an entity completely separate and completely from God. After Levin and Kitty they get married, marks a turning point in Levin's search for the truth. He is forced to confess in order to get married and, while he is wary of religious dogma, the doubts he expresses to the priest set in motion the chain of thoughts that will lead to his eventual conversion. Levin is an example that no man is an island, and his marriage to Kitty is an affirmation of his participation in something greater than himself: being part of the larger will of God. Although Levin does not fit necessarily in the mold of the Russian Church, just like Tolstoy, this does not discredit his faith or make it less valuable.
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