Teeth Scavenger Hunt

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Anna Karenina Textual Scavenger Hunt: Teeth and Peasants Teeth: Teeth are always used when describing a person: Tolstoy uses teeth throughout his novel to describe the characters. It is often the first characteristic noticed. Tolstoy depicts Vronsky as strong and puts a lot of emphasis on his physical appearance and less focus on who he is as a person, given Vronsky’s undesirable personality. When the author mentions Vronsky, he repeatedly describes Vronsky’s “compact row of strong teeth” (Tolstoy 106; pt. 1, ch. 34) and “close-set teeth” (Tolstoy 117; pt. 2, ch. 4). The author’s focus on teeth, e.g., when Vronky’s smiles, demonstrates the focus on what this character looks like, rather than on who he is as a person. The author’s writings…show more content…
The little that the peasants do have, is “taken from them by the capitalists” (Tolstoy 82; pt.1, ch. 25). Despite all of these circumstances, they live a simple, yet happy life. The “nimble children ran about the drying paths… (and there)…was a merry chatter of peasant women over the linen at the pond” (Tolstoy 137; pt. 2, ch. 12) and even though the peasants and their children are in the midst of a work day, their attitudes remain positive. Some members of higher classes even “felt the injustice of (their) own abundance in comparison with the poverty of the peasants.” The peasants were inspirational and Levin who “had worked hard and lived by no means luxuriously…would now work still harder, and would allow himself even less luxury” (Tolstoy 87; Pt. 1 Ch. 26). Levin saw the lifestyle these peasants lived and saw it as beautiful. He hoped he would find a more enlightened life where he was just as happy or happier, but simplistic in his way of

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