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A character in Anna Karenina

Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky

Anna's cheerful, unfaithful brother, called Stiva, loved by everyone and always short of money.

What they want

He wants pleasure, a good dinner and a better-paid post.

The book

Anna KareninaLeo Tolstoy, 1877

A woman leaves her husband for a cavalry officer, and a landowner in the country tries to work out what life is for.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Stiva is good-natured, lazy and pleased with life. He betrays his wife without much guilt and gets away with it, which is the novel's first lesson in who society forgives.

How Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The idiotic smileIn Part One, Chapter 1, when Dolly confronts him with the letter, he smiles, and cannot forgive himself for the smile.
  • The governessIn Part One, Chapter 2, he remembers the French governess's black eyes and her smile, and wishes only that he had not been found out.
  • Oysters with LevinIn Part One, Chapter 10, he orders oysters and champagne for Levin at a restaurant called the England, and asks about Kitty.
  • At Lidia Ivanovna'sIn Part Seven, Chapters 21 and 22, he sits through the séance with Landau to plead for Anna's divorce, and runs out into the street.
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Stiva fails to get Anna's divorce. The day after the séance Karenin sends his refusal, and Stiva understands that it rests on what the Frenchman said in his trance.

If you like Anna Karenina

Four books that share themes, tone, or setting with this one.

If you like Leo Tolstoy

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    French writer and philosopher whose novels, memoirs, and social analysis examined freedom, gender, responsibility, aging, and the material conditions that shape a life.

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    American novelist and composer whose expatriate fiction explores dislocation, unstable intimacy, fatalism, and North Africa.

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    Henry Miller

    The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.

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