What struck me about the character of Anna was how her behavior fits that of someone suffering from the personality disorder known as
Borderline Personality Disorder.
Explaining her behavior as a personality disorder sounds simplistic but if you've ever worked with or had to deal with someone who has this disorder, the similarity is uncanny. Her actions, her moodiness, her self-destructive behavior seemed predictable if I asked "What would a person with BPD do next"?
I think Tolstoy's genius was in describing this disorder so well without having any name for it (although I think Dostoyevsky used the term "infernal woman" or less often, "infernal man" ). Having read AK, I realize it was around long before it was described in the medical literature.
jay