For a three-act plot analysis, put on your screenwriter’s hat. Moviemakers know the formula well: at the end of Act One, the main character is drawn in completely to a conflict. During Act Two, she is farthest away from her goals. At the end of Act Three, the story is resolved.
Act I
Zhivago grows up from a sensitive little boy into a stubborn young man. He marries Tonya Gromeko and has a son with her, but he also gets called away to work as an army doctor during World War One. While working as a doctor, he meets Lara Antipova and falls in love with her. He resists the temptation to cheat on his wife, and he returns to Moscow when the war is over. Unfortunately, the rise of Communism has made it almost impossible for him and his family to survive in the city, so they head for Tonya's ancestral home in the Ural Mountains.
Act II
While living in the Urals, Zhivago reconnects with Lara and starts having an affair with her. On his way home from her apartment one day, he's kidnapped by a band of merry men and forced to work as their doctor while they fight against the anti-Communist White Army. He eventually escapes years later and makes his way back to the Urals to find that his family has been deported. He goes to Lara and the two of them begin to live as husband and wife.
Act III
Zhivago's blissful life with Lara doesn't last long, because his unwillingness to blend in and accept Communist ideas has made him a target for the Soviet authorities. Hoping not to be arrested, Zhivago flees with Lara to live in the woods. Again, this situation doesn't last long. Zhivago eventually tricks Lara into fleeing for safety without him, and he returns to live in Moscow, where he dies of a heart attack nearly ten years later. Lara is also arrested after attending his funeral, and she reportedly dies in a concentration camp.
After Zhivago's death, his friends publish some of his writings, which turn out to be very popular. During World War II, these friends also find out that while Zhivago was with Lara, she became pregnant with a child whom she later named Tanya. The final Part of the book shows us 25 poems that Zhivago wrote during his life.