Big Book 2019

Tolstoy is often praised for the accuracy of his portrayals of female characters in War and Peace. Indeed, the women in the novel have more depth and dimension than many female characters written by his contemporaries. Tolstoy takes the time to develop each character within the narrative, paying special attention to how they relate to the world around them as they mature and learn. The three female characters with perhaps the most interesting development through the book are Natasha, Helene, and Marya. All three characters are significantly different by the end of the novel, having been tested by and grown through difficult circumstances. Interestingly, it seems that much of each character’s development centers largely around how they relate to the men in their lives, whether that be their brothers, suitors, husbands, or fathers. Each character is vastly different and has unique experiences that influence their eventual fate, but they all have complicated relationships with men. Tolstoy consistently measures their maturity and inherent goodness in the context of these relationships.

Princess Marya’s character arc is perhaps the most obvious example of this. For much of the novel, but most prominently in the first half, she is completely under the control of her abusive father. Tolstoy portrays her as a victim and means to elicit pity from the audience, but she also appears weak, broken, and almost not a whole person. She is initially confined to the role of victim, which dehumanizes her in a way. She is meant solely to demonstrate the abusive nature of her father. Her true personality and nature becomes evident only once her father dies and she is able to live her own life. (Continue to talk about life post-father’s death, marriage, friendship w natasha, etc) (also add evidence for first part!)

Outline from here on:

• Natasha’s development/arc
  • youth/childishness/naivete/innocence/purity, especially surrounding courtship and the first ball she goes to (think about the male gaze)
  • Initial relationship with Andrei (her age/immaturity change things, destabilize relationship)
  • Relationship with anatole literally functions to show her lack of maturity and decision making ability
  • Rebuilding relationship with andrei, and then grieving andrei is a parallel process of losing her innocence and gaining some semblance of adulthood along with love
  • Finally – relationship with pierre and her role as a mother (and how tolstoy paints that picture – her in the ideal position for women)
• Helene’s arc
  • Relationship to pierre (weird and loveless, esp bc tolstoy identifies her her primarily with her beauty and how she attracts other men)
  • Cheating on pierre with dolokhov (and being weirdly public about it)
  • Her relationship with her brother, how she supports his situation with natasha, she’s cast as sort of a female version of him (?)
  • Helene as a society woman, separated from pierre and being fairly open about her affairs and such
  • Her death and how it plays into how tolstoy portrays her character in a larger sense (as a woman who’s actively interested in men, is very beautiful, is seductive, etc)
• Conclusion – comparison of all three, discussion of possible archetypes, ??

Introduction

The military is an instition that allows governments to use force and intimidation for peace keeping or war. From the oldest militaries to the modern military, leadership have been at the core at running these institutions. With a very clear hierachal order, military leaders must be effective in order to accomplish their objectives. In War and Peace, Tolstoy uses Napoleon and Kutuzov to demonstrate how different leadership styles affect their prospective military campagins. These two generals are very different from one another, and I will attempt to distinguish the two real-life characters through their leadership methods in a time of war. Furthermore, I will discuss what it really means to be a leader on a battlefield, since Tolstoy seems to have strong opinions on both characters. My final goal is to write a takeaway from the novel and the historical figures. I will explore some lessons learned from Tolstoy’s commentaries and historical accounts regarding both Napoleon and Kutuzov.

A Difference in Leadership

Tolstoy’s national allegiance to Russia may have clouded his judgements on Napoleon throughout the novel, but it is clear that he believes the French general never deserved the fame and acclaim that he received.

Tolstoy’s War and Peace is filled with thousands of details ranging from comments on a character’s clothing to insight on characters thoughts. Viewed individually and in such a grand scale, these details seem overwhelming and unconnected. However, Tolstoy’s careful attention to detail allows the creation of unity as the plot progresses. The first soiree highlights several themes and ideas through the use of these details which are then further developed as the book progresses.

As a reader one of the first, if not the first, things you notice about the introductory soiree is French. Tolstoy has left most of the French spoken in this seen directly in its purest french form. Readers are required to avert their eyes to the bottom of the page to read the english translation. Careful reader’s may be left wondering why all the french? Isn’t this a book about Russia? No explanation is directly given in this first scene and it is not until much later that Tolstoy directly gives the answer, most of the upper class has been educated abroad or had a foreigner tutor. And it is not until even later that as readers we understand the scope of Tolstoy’s careful linguistic transformation as French is phased out with war against Napoleon.

Outline beyond this point:

What can this scene tell us about the linguistic transformation/meaning and intention behind it?

Ippolit insists that he tell a story in Russian > so that the “salt of the story” (21) can be felt. This idea potential connects to Natasha’s Russian dance scene at the Uncle’s > purity and simplicity in the russian language?

Ippolit has trouble with pronunciation > example of upper class not being fluent in own language  

Andrei addresses Ippolit in Russian when he is in his way. Andrei being rude? > making fun of him for his earlier trouble with pronunciation?  

 

Throughout War and Peace, Tolstoy references the ideas of chance and circumstance and how all events are reliant on the preceding events. In addition to explicitly stating his thoughts, Tolstoy also uses Andrei, Pierre, and Napoleon to put forth his views. By around the end of the book, Andrei adopted all of Tolstoy’s views and became the fictional representation of Tolstoy in War and Peace. Pierre’s whole story is explained through chance and fate. Tolstoy’s comments on the role of Napoleon in the war are based in the ideas of circumstance and fate, in that Napoleon didn’t really do anything to aid the French and wasn’t the genius everybody claimed him to be. Tolstoy argues that anything Napoleon was given credit for was actually caused by all the events that came before.

One example of when Tolstoy brought up circumstance was when Pierre was about to be lined up next to other prisoners and killed and he had accepted it. “It was the other of things, the turn of circumstances. Some order of things was killing him — Pierre — depriving him of life, of everything, annihilating him” (965). Since Pierre was about to be killed, his final thoughts revolved around the reasons for his death. Pierre thought about his fate and how chance led him to the point he was at. Pierre’s whole life has been led mostly by chance, from getting his inheritance and joining the masons to joining the war and managing not to die.

In creating a believable story and sympathetic characters, Tolstoy seems to have applied various theories on human interaction which at his time were yet to be established. We have discussed this in class, mostly in regards to an individual’s psychology or how one reacts to trauma such as when… , but the way Tolstoy’s crowds react to threats is fairly consistent with modern Social Defense Theory as well.

Social Defense Theory is centered on the idea of attachment patterns: essentially  “When people experience their caregivers as responsive and supportive, they develop a sense of attachment security, along with constructive strategies (e.g., support-seeking) for coping with threats and regulating emotions. Conversely, when caregivers are perceived as unavailable or unreliable, a person tends to develop an insecure attachment orientation marked by either attachment-system deactivating strategies for regulating emotions and social behavior (avoidant attachment) or attachment-system hyper-activating strategies (attachment anxiety).” –PARAPHRASE QUOTE

Describe adv and dis for regular social contexts

Social Defense Theory takes these individual attachment patterns and applies them to predict how each archetype would respond in the face of danger and, more importantly, how each contributes to the group response to a threat…

Describe adv and dis for each

Character that fits each pattern and why

How they respond to threat

• Examples of characters of each type and why
  • Secure
    • emperor Alexander (since it’s nice when he shows up but doesn’t ultimately do a ton)
    • Old count bolkosky (refuses to leave estate, keeps others believing there isn’t a problem)
  • Anxious
    • Rastopchin riling up crowds in Moscow
  • Avoidant
    • Kutuzov.
    • Pierre pre imprisonment (seemingly absent parents fits)
• Examples of these characters and other crowds reacting to danger
  • Pierre and battalion at Borodino being jovial while everyone around them is dying (secure dominated)
  • People in Moscow ignoring threat of Napoleon (secure dominated)
  • Other examples given in Nico’s post https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/157418834/posts/898
  • Rastopchin riling up the people of moscow as french arrive
• Compare
• How tolstoy’s thoughts differ

What characteristics are the most morally important and beneficial to individuals? What determines personal successes? Via the successes and failures of characters in War and Peace, Tolstoy instills moral messaging about human behavior into the text. According to Tolstoy, there are certain traits that fit an individual’s place in Russian society that will make them successful. In War and Peace, many women lead successful lives while others’ story arcs  have tragic conclusions. Intelligence is one characteristic that is often applied to women and explored by Tolstoy. Tolstoy often views women differently than society does, and his messaging both informs us of societal ideals and Tolstoy’s view of women’s roles within society. The objective evaluation of characters presented to us through an opinionated lens does not seem possible. The way that Tolstoy depicts Helene and directs our opinion or her seems at odds with society’s view of her and yet we will never know if Helene is simply two-faced or if Tolstoy himself simply disagrees with societal views. To what extent can Tolstoy’s depiction of women be trusted to show their true nature’s and how does his narration cloud an objective view of the women in War and Peace with his own idea of the ideal woman?

Women’s values are important in their ability to complement men’s characters.

In society’s opinion, Intelligence in women can either be off-putting in some characters and enticing in others. Vera and Helene are both described as intelligent characters, but Helene is viewed in an entirely different light than Helene.

• “But the smile did not embellish Vera’s face, as usually happens; on the contrary, her face became more unnatural and therefore unpleasant. The elder one, Vera, was good-looking, far from stupid, an excellent student, well-brought up, had a pleasant voice, and what she said was correct and appropriate; but, strangely, everyone, both the guest and the countess, turned to look at her, as if wondering why she had said it, and they felt awkward. / ‘One is always too clever with the older children, wanting to do something extraordinary,’ said the guest” (43)

General intelligence and intelligence that allow a command of the domestic sphere are viewed differently by Tolstoy. Intelligence in women is not inherently negative, but it is important to Tolstoy that women fulfill their roles in society within domestic spaces.

• Helene uses her intelligence to be a host.
• Marya uses her intelligence for religious piety.

Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace, covers the storylines of three interconnected families   highlighting their individual as well as shared struggles in 19th century Russia. The length of Tolstoy’s novel gives  readers a long durée view which allows them to fully understand the background and experiences of each character and how they relate to one another. From soirées  to bloody battles, romantic love to death, each character is unique in their reactions to different situations. While they are all incredibly different people, they all begin the book sharing a lack of acceptance of their  national identity. The Russia they knew fell behind and was no longer the center of progress. Russia wasn’t at the center of the industrial revolution, and it spent decades trying to catch up to the innovations of the West. Even throughout the course of the book, Russia’s economy is mostly agricultural and mirrors the socio-economic structure of Middle Age Feudalism. Russian leaders quickly noticed the advancement  of their enemies arms and technology and began highly encouraging the immigration of Western technology. With these Western innovations inevitably came Western culture. The most widely available and prolific texts and literature were French. With the novel set right after the French revolution, the influence of French philosophical thinking and revolutionary ideas were at an all-time high. Russia’s inability to modernize quickly forced it to seek out foreign technology, creating a foundation for French culture to thrive among the nobility. The clash of cultures amongst the Russian nobility is brought to a head  when Russian troops fight the French at Austerlitz and more evidently when Napoleon invades Moscow in 1812. During peacetime, the conflict is of culture among the nobility, but during wartime, the conflict broadens and applies to all aspects of Russian life. War and Peace carefully examines the struggle of characters to gain their own sense of self, but also the nation as a whole.

French influence over Russian culture causes  Russian culture to become obsolete and representative of the lower tiers.  While the nobility is  physically free to choose what they do or how they act, many of the noble characters of the novel struggle with societal pressures and issues that the serfs are blissfully ignorant of . Tolstoy notes that “such is the inevitable fate of all men of action, and the higher they stand in the human hierarchy, the less free they are” (682). After inheriting his wealth and title, Pierre was thrust into soirees at the beginning  of the book. He expressed his disdain for them but was forced to attend and make a presence because of his status. This societal pressure to conform among nobles allowed French culture to quickly seep in and replace Russia’s own. Rather than eating the delicious yet simple meal prepared by Uncle Rostov that was composed of ”an herb cordial, liqueurs, mushrooms, flat cakes made from dark flour and buttermilk, honey in the comb, still and foaming mead, apples, fresh and roasted nuts, and nuts in honey” (509), nobles will order exotic foods from all over the world to prove their wealth and honor to their guests. These meals included dishes like  turtle soup (62), pineapple ice cream (64), and foreign champagne (67). Importing of exotic food stems from the court of Louis XIV. His absolute reign over his subjects created an environment where nobles wanted to host dinners to impress him. Formal dining and exotic food that is seen in the novel was established by the French, but the ham and nut meal cooked by Uncle Rostov is viewed as rustic. The impact of French influence on social life caused a rejection of Russian language in favor of conversing predominantly in French. Tolstoy made a point of this throughout the novel by having sections written in French rather than Russian to illustrate the ease with which they transitioned into and spoke French. His use of the French language in his writing is especially prevalent at the beginning of the novel when  the French are not at war with Russia. However, even during Napoleon’s invasion in the war of 1812 Russian nobles still chose to speak French. Because of this, the government began issuing fines for speaking French in the public sphere. The nobility was forced to reject the customs they had come to accept as their own in favor of a patriotic spirit that was foreign to them. They found their native language “boring—impossible to speak!” (748), not knowing how to express themselves in Russian, asking “how do you say it in Russian?” (749). Similarly, when Natasha broke into a traditional Russian dance, her family and friends were surprised that she “brought up by an emigre Frenchwoman” but managed to “suck[] this spirit in from the Russian air she breathed” (512). The belief of the nobility about the inferiority of Russian culture and tradition is what ultimately leads to their initial defeat in the war of 1812 and Napoleon’s invasion. Just as at Austerlitz, the soldiers weren’t exactly sure what they were  fighting for, they did not have their own identity.

French influence over Russian culture expanded to all aspects of their lives, including the ways in which they fought wars. Prince Andrei comes to embody  Tolstoy’s own thoughts in his comments before the battle of Borodino, the bloodiest battle of the invasion. Prince Andrei notes that he “would take no prisoners” because the aim of “chivalry” is to make the “whole war […] less cruel” (774). He believes that they are “playing war” (775), normalized by the influence of chivalry. The root of the world ‘chivalry’ stems from French ideals of nobility and honor in battle. This ideal is what drives Kutuzov to offer battle at Borodino despite believing that he should wait for more reinforcements and more advantageous position.

For this blog, I’ve written out a rough draft of my first body paragraph and included a rough thesis, as well as an outline (mainly quotes) for the remaining paragraphs in my essay. The introduction has yet to be thought through…. Also, the bracketed parts are bits that I need to reread or need to put some more analysis into OR might move around. Lastly, the first body paragraph will be cut down. I was just free writing and am very wordy.

(super duper rough) Thesis: Tolstoy  elicits an emotional response from the reader with his carefully constructed death scenes, which are broadly divided into three parts: the build up to their death, the death scene itself, and their mourners’ reactions within the book (most notably Marya and the Rostovs’). The reader’s emotional response is also determined by whether or not a character’s complete story arch as been fulfilled.

Our first major death of the book is old prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, who Tolstoy originally presents him as the two-dimensional villain of Bald Hills: a cranky, old man who is cruel towards his daughter; however, in the lead up to his death, we develop more sympathy for him in his senile state, but our alliances, as a reader, ultimately still remain with Marya, who can not grieve for him. Indeed, his death lacks the pathos that other characters have, since the reader doesn’t have such a strong positive emotional attachment to him. [Bald hills scene where Anatole shows up and the old prince tells Marya that she looks ugly — makes her cry. — essentially our first introduction to him, or at least the most memorable moment. Only one or two sentences to give some context to his character preceding his death sequence]. Several hundred pages later, though, we see his ultimate decline in his old age. After having a stroke, the prince is rendered useless and his time is clearly coming to a close: “the old prince was unconscious; he lay like a disfigured corpse. He ceaselessly muttered something, his eyebrows and lips twitching, and it was impossible to know whether or not he understood what was going on around him. One thing could be known for certain – that he was suffering… both physically and morally” (713). Even though we don’t have reasons to pity for him in terms of his character, his physical and mental state are painful to watch as they decline so rapidly. His state reminds many of us of watching grandparents age, and this death seems to be one of the most relevant to an everyday reader, as watching your elders die is part of the life. Additionally, to watch him lose his mental capacity is extremely difficult, since, although he was cruel, he was whip-sharp and was managing his estates completely until the very end. Likewise, we have sympathy for him when he finally apologizes to Marya: “‘Thank you… daughter, dear friend… for everything, everything… forgive me… thank you… forgive me… thank you’” (716). Although cliche in terms of death scenes, Tolstoy’s allowance for the father and daughter to reconcile closed the story arch of the father. Indeed, once he apologized, we, the readers, were ready to let him go. [As Tolstoy concisely put it when Kutuzov died: “there was nothing left but death. And so he died” (1102). — move into introduction?] Tolstoy ensures that characters have fulfilled their parts in the story before they die. Here, Bolkonsky has reconciled with his daughter, distanced himself from his lover, and Andrei is managing most of the estates. He is no longer actively assisting in the war planning, nor is he equipt to move to Moscow to escape the oncoming French. Indeed, all that’s left for him is to die. Marya, though, notably, does not really mourn for his loss, both because his role had been played and because she could finally imagine a “free life without the eternal fear of her father, even thoughts of the possibility of love and family happiness” (714). Directly following his death, she does feel a sense of horror when she sees his body and she is struck by the grim reality of death: “Instantly the whole force of the tenderness for him which she felt in herself vanished and was replaced by a feeling of horror at what lay before her…,. ‘He’s no more, and in the place where he was there is something alien and hostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repulsive mystery’” (718). [analysis] His death comes and goes within five pages, and there is not much mourning, nor does the reader feel any true pathos because we side with Marya, who feels more guilty about her lack of sadness than sad for her loss. The reader feels sympathy and pity, but very little sadness, if any.

Andrei Bolkonsky

• Andrei has had a pretty linear path to death, and we get a lot of what Andrei was thinking before he died on the spiritual level
  • Infinite sky moment
    • “Formerly he had been afraid of the end. Twice he had experienced that frightful, tormenting feeling of the fear of death, and now he no longer understood it” (982) → battlefield with infinite sky and when he literally got shot at Borodino
  • “Prince Andrei not only knew that he would die, but felt that he was dying, that he was already half dead” (982)
  • “To love everything, everybody, always to sacrifice oneself for love, meant to love no one, meant not to live this earthly life. And the more imbued he was with this principle of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he destroyed that dreadful barrier which, without love, stands between life and death” (982)
  • “‘Love? What is love? Love hinders death. Love is life. Everything, everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is connected only by that. Love is God, and to die — means that I, a part of love, return to the common and eternal source’” (984)
• Death for Andrei feels more like a hug than a gun hot like it did for Petya, for example
  • “Once more [death] pushes from the other side. His last supernatural efforts are in vain, and the two halves open noiselessly. It comes in, and it is death. And Prince Andrei died” (985). → not actually his death but i think it’s the best description of his death
• Natasha, Nikolushka, and Marya’s reactions (maybe draw a comparison between Andrei’s death and his father’s since neither of them are mourned in a really public way — Natasha mourned more when she cheated on him than when he died)
  • “Nikolushka wept from a suffering bewilderment that rent his heart…. Natasha and Princess Marya also wept now, but they did not weep from their own personal grief; they wept from a reverent emotion that came over their souls before the awareness of the simple and solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished before them” (986). → the only person who truly grieves for Andrei in a hyper-emotional way is his son. Everyone else has seen is death coming and weep over death, itself, rather than Andrei’s death. (IMMEDIATELY AFTER)
  • “When the dying one is a person, and a beloved person, then, besides a sense of horror at the annihilation of life, there is a feeling of severance and a spiritual wond which, like a physical wound, sometimes kills and sometimes heals, but always hurts and fears any external, irritating touch.” (1075) → delayed grief for the reader (we are not experiencing it directly after his death — we’re nearly 100 pages later)
    • “To acknowledge the possibility of a future seemed to them an offense to his memory…. But pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy…. Life did not stop, and one had to live…. The cares of life called for her participation, and she involuntarily surrendered to them” (1075-6)
    • Natasha talking to an imaginary Andrei: “‘You know that for me there is nothing in life without you, and to suffer with you is the best happiness for me’” (1077)
  • Natasha and Marya though both move on. Time heals their wounds in a way we don’t really see for Countess Rostov.
    • Pierre to Natasha: “‘As long as there’s life, there’s happiness. There’s much, much still to come. I’m saying that to you’” (1118)
  • Once Natasha starts talking about Andrei, instead of sitting in her repentive silence, she really starts to recover and end her grieving process. She is finally free to move on once Andrei is no longer an omnipresent ghost, haunting her. He becomes a figure in her life, more of a memory or touchstone, rather than the entirety of it.

Petya Rostov

• Buildup to death (heroic visions of war and battle, but death was never part of the equation for him) → Tolstoy really makes us feel for him in a way that we didn’t have to based on the narrative thus far (that is, we never got to know Petya except directly before his death)

• Very clear that he’s still just a kid based on the magical thinking
• “Petya ought to have known that he was in the forest, in Denisov’s party, a mile from the road… but he knew nothing of that and did not want to know. He was in a magic kingdom, in a which there was nothing resembling reality” (1054)
• “Whatever Petya might have seen now, nothing would have astonished him. He was in a magic kingdom in which everything was possible” (1055)
• Petya to Dolokhov after infiltrating the French camp: “‘No!’ he cried, ‘you’re such a hero! Ah, how good! How excellent! How I love you!’” (1052)
  • “And Petya told the Cossack in detail, not only about his ride, but also why he had gone and why he thought it was better to risk his life than to act any old way” (1053)
• Death itself →  dies alone, on the battlefield, and with no honor or heroism
  • Petya fell heavily onto the wet ground. The Cossacks saw how his arms and legs jerked rapidly, though his head did not move. His head had been pierced by a bullet” (1058)
• Denisov + Dolokhov response (this part will be max one sentence)
  • Dolokhov: “‘finished,’ he said frowning…. ‘Finished,’ Dolokhov repeated, as if uttering this word gave him pleasure” (1058)
  • Denisov: “‘Killed?! Cried Denisov, seeing from far off the familiar, undoubtedly lifeless, position in which Petya’s body lay…. Denisov did not reply. He rode up to Petya, got off his horse, and with trembling hands turned Petya’s face towards him. It was stained with blood and mud and already turning pale” (1058).
• Impact it has on the family → we have this really deep, emotional mourning that none of the other characters get (because it’s the Rostovs who are just more emotional, but also because he’s a kid. He hasn’t had the build up to death. There was no reason for him to die) → the grieving that we see feels especially painful considering it’s only 20 pages after his death (contrast to Andrei and Prince Bolkonsky)
  • “Suddenly it was as if an electric shock ran through Natasha’s whole being. SOmething hit her terribly painfully in the heart. She felt a terrible pain; it seemed to her that something had torn inside her and she was dying” (1078)
  • “And again, in her strengthless struggle with reality, her mother, bu refusing to believe that she could live while her beloved boy had been killed in the flower of life, tried to save herself from reality in a world of insanity” (1079)
    • “The wound in the mother’s soul could not heal. Petya’s death, which had found her a fresh and cheerful fifty-year-old woman, she came out of her room an old woman — half-dead and taking no part in life” (1080)
• His death acts as a plot device for Tolstoy’s point of the casualties of war are those who are stuck in the crossfire, not those who are making the decisions → feels more like Tolstoy’s pawn to make a point

Conclusion — Helene and Liz

• Pivot sentence — something along the lines that we mainly see husbands grieve (or rather not grieve and have some other type of emotions), and in Helene’s case we see the commercialization of her death. Women are not afforded the same grieving process as men, nor are their deaths given as much attention
• Mention liz (she died super fast, we didn’t get to know her very much)
• Helene
  • Pre-death
    • Sequence with her lovers and Pierre’s feelings about her (paraphrase but how we don’t like her since our sympathies lie with pierre — much like with Old prince bolkonsky)
  • Death itself
    • “The news of the day for that day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezukhov” (936)
    • Countess Elena Bezukhov had died suddenly of that terrible illness, the name of which it had been so pleasant to articulate. Officially, in large gatherings, everyone said that Countess Bezukhov. Had died of a terrible attack of angine pectorale, but in intimate circles details were recounted of how [she had been prescribed] small doses of some medicine to produce a certain effect; but Helene, tormented by the old count’s suspicions and by the fact that her husband, to whom she had written (that wretched, depraved Pierre), would not answer her, had suddenly taken a huge does of the prescribed medicine and had died in agony before aid could be given” (939).
  • Post-death
    • No one grieves for her, especially not Pierre. Although her death is put on par with the loss of Kutaisov and the sovereign’s uncertainty (939), it’s the day’s news. Her death is also shrouded in gossip about her adulterous affairs with her two lovers (between whom she was trying to decide who to illegally marry).
  • Comparison to Marilyn Monroe (APAH connection) and the commercialization of her death. Also make a strong comparison to Old Bolkonsky since they are both villains in the narrative. Although they were both villains, she wasn’t given the same respect or any type of mourner like Bolkonsky was. Tolstoy decidedly made a point to highlight his death more and make us more sympathetic towards him, even though he had previously been a pretty 2D villain. Helene, on the other hand, maintained her position as a 2D villain with nothing in her brain. Her death was not sad, but was more of a device to show how she couldn’t handle the possibility of people gossiping about her and her husband finding out that she (most likely) was pregnant by another man.

Through our exploration of War and Peace so far, I find myself most compelled by Tolstoy’s views on nature and history. His thoughts seem to be decades ahead of Western realizations in the inherent, deeply troubling flaws of our societies, especially when I consider Junior year Western Civ. These authors argued for progression of civilization, destruction of nature, and a general assertion that an ordering of all things, a deviation from the “life world” (as David Abram calls it) , is the way of living towards which people should aspire and partake in. Tolstoy, however, presents a different set of ideals. He presents several instances when characters have profound interactions with nature. Whether Andrei’s experience with the sky or the oak tree, Pierre and the comet, or Natasha and Nikolai in the rural dwellings of their estate, these interactions with nature seem to offer some of the most grounding or spiritually stirring scenes for our aristocrats.

One of my favorite lines comes at the beginning of the 3rd volume, when Tolstoy posits some of his feelings about the stories he is recounting. Countering the traditional view of history, Tolstoy claims, “Their every action, which seems willed by themselves, in the historical sense is not willed, but happens in connection with the whole course of history and has been destined from before all ages” (606). Unlike a linear view of history, one that seems to dominate Western thought, Tolstoy presents a cyclical, interconnected view. Unlike Descartes, Galileo, Bacon, and countless other philosophers who attempted to rationalize, compartmentalize, and unbend the bendy world around them, Tolstoy suggests that historical events, significant or not, are part of a larger web. This web is alive and reliant on the natural world and all beings with which it interacts.

I don’t think these views would stand out to me if not for Environmental History. Many of our documents have emphasized the importance of the ‘life-world’, a belief that all life and beings engender the interconnected system of earth. I found this idea obvious, but it wasn’t until books like Spell of the Sensuous, and excerpts from similar books, laid out the ways in which, humans are meant to be far more active in this system than we have become. This idea was accompanied by First Nations people and First the Forests, sources which proposed life is circular and not linear; it is a system which, like Tolstoy believes, is not an independent system where events occur in isolation one another, it is the direct opposite. Tolstoy also supports the notion that through living in the life world, though his characters tend to stay fairly civilized otherwise, in nature they seem more at ease. Natasha and Nikolai come to the rural, natural setting of their uncle to only feel better, and more human. “Natasha was in such merry spirits, she felt so good in these new surroundings, that she only feared the droshky would come for her too soon” (510). I found this case the most compelling example. Natasha has been sad Andrei is gone, and the court and all its luxuries cant make her feel better. Living without those physical and societal artifices, however, seems to do her a world of good.  

There have been some really interesting examples of nature in relation to the war in these past few readings. In Environmental History we are reading a book called Spell of the Sensuous, a text that essentially argues in Western Civilization we have become detached from our senses. We ignore our bodily interactions with the life-world and have become stuck in our own heads, obsessed with ideas about war strategy and violent technology. This detachment from our senses has made us, in a word, senseless. That is, we have lost compassion and communication with the land we live in because we see it as something that can be compartmentalized and ordered. In the case of War and Peace, we see that in the Battle of Borodino.

At the end of the battle, Tolstoy recounts the extreme carnage that has just occured. The beautiful field Pierre had been admiring is now coated with bodies of young men and their shed blood. Tolstoy then offers us a profound line, the response from the land itself, saying: “ ‘ Enough, enough men. Stop now… Come to your senses. What are you doing?’”(818). Not only is the word choice pretty spot-on, the phrase itself is one I imagine the land has not stopped uttering since then. Granted, I believe Tolstoy was not picturing the lack of connection with the earth to be the problem, but the violence between humans. Yet even still, both come from a disconnect from the earth. The war and all its strategies, “honor”, technology, and suffering are ideas that came from the Western canon. They have isolate the men from each other and the men from the earth.

Tolstoy seems to support this idea in a few ways. When Nikolai runs into that young French soldier, for example, there is a humanizing moment where he questions himself and his motives, and the war itself after actually facing his enemy. Andrei too, right before his injury has a moment of candor. “ ‘ I can’t, I don’t want to die, I love life, I love this grass, the earth, the air…’ He was thinking all that and at the same time remembered he was being looked at” (811). Deep down he knows what is important to him, and in this moment of vulnerability he allows himself to think about it: the grass, the earth, the air. Yet he remembers that now he can’t allow himself to behave this way, to enjoy what his senses perceive. I find these occasions especially interesting given the time Tolstoy was writing this big book. As far as I can tell, in the educated and upper class of Russia and Europe, it was not popular or not allowed to be in touch with one’s senses since it was not in line with the Catholic or Russian Orthodox Church.

I think from here I will want to expand more on the interaction between Andrei and the Oak tree, and maybe talk about my own experience talking with a tree. I also want to talk about Andrei’s interaction with the sky and a reflection I did for Env. History. Lastly, I want to talk about Platon and how he is the one to change Pierre, and how Platon represents nature. I think the order I want to go in is first talk about Andrei and the tree/sky, then Natasha and Nikolai in the forest, then the battle of Borodino, and finally Pierre and Platon.

Tolstoy’s writing is chock full of metaphors and literary devices but often they seem misplaced or random. On a first pass through it appears that many references to animals and their behaviors seem like an odd way to describe current situations. However, it is my understanding that Tolstoy uses these metaphors as methods to comment upon human behavior as we revert to primitivism and a survival mentality. Throughout the book the metaphors appear not when the people of Russia are at their peak during peace but when they are at their lowest in a state of desperation during war.

The greatest example of Tolstoy’s use of animal metaphors is his comparison of a beehive without a queen to Moscow after it was abandoned by Kutuzov and the army, “Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, there was still a fiftieth part of all the former inhabitants left in it, but it was empty. It was empty as a dying-out, queenless beehive is empty”(874). As a beekeeper myself I can say that Tolstoy’s description of bee behavior is spot on as he describes the Russian people’s behaviors as they lose public order and leadership. Specifically, when Tolstoy writes “To the beekeeper’s tapping on the wall of an ailing hive, instead of the former instantaneous, concerted response, the hissing of tens of thousands of bees, menacingly tucking their behinds under and producing this vital, airy sound by the rapid beating of their wings, there comes in response a scattered buzzing that resonates at various points of the empty hive”(874). When you actually disturb or get too close to a healthy beehive you become entangled with many sentries who relentlessly buzz and search for an opening in your suit. If you open the hive the bees act aggressively in unison with the common goal of protecting their Queen as more will engulf you and you will  become encircled by a swarm. However, when you meet a hive with many sick bees already ravaged by disease or after a recent swarm (where the queen and the healthy swarm leave to a new location) you are left with the undesirables. Bees will be crawling on the ground not strong enough to fly back up to the hive or with the swarm. The bees are left abandoned and have no purpose to serve after their leader is gone. Just like these bees, the people left in Moscow are without a leader. Their government has left and there is no order or structure. Citizens and Kutuzov’s army have left them just as the swarm of bees left following their queen. Now these people, though still crawling along, have no purpose to serve and wander aimlessly.