- Pictures of Russian history (Battles of Shengraben and Austerlitz, the Peace of Tilsit, the war of 1812, the fire of Moscow, the partisan movement). - Events of social and political life (freemasonry, Speransky's legislative activities, the first organizations of the Decembrists). - Relations between landowners and peasants (transformation of Pierre, Andrei; rebellion of the Bogucharov peasants, indignation of Moscow artisans).
Display of various segments of the population (local, Moscow, St. Petersburg nobility; officials; army; peasants). - A wide panorama of everyday scenes of noble life (balls, high society receptions, dinners, hunting, visiting the theater, etc.)
A huge number of human characters.
Long time span (15 years).
Wide coverage of space (Petersburg, Moscow, Lysyye Gory and Otradnoye estates, Austria, Smolensk, Borodino
Thus, Tolstoy's idea required the creation of a new genre, and only an epic novel could embody all the author's conditions.
The main method of composition of the novel is antithesis. Its poles are Napoleon and Kutuzov, embodying diametrically opposed philosophical and moral principles. All the main characters are distributed between these poles.
Antithesis- (from Greek, antitesis - contradiction, opposition) - opposition.
A distinctive feature of the composition of "War and Peace" is that the writer transfers the action from one place to another, moves from events associated with one storyline to events associated with another line; from private destinies to historical events.
In order to sharpen the features of certain character events, the writer often resorts to the method of contrasts (antithesis). This is expressed in the very title of the novel: war is peace, and in the vital material that formed the basis of the work. The contrast determines the images of individual heroes (Natasha Rostova and Helen Bezukhova, Princess Marya and Julie Karagina), and historical phenomena (Austerlitz battle - Battle of Borodino), historical figures (Kutuzov - Napoleon).
On the basis of the principle, antitheses are also introduced into the general structure of the work and images of two cities - Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is in Moscow that the main significant events of the novel take place. Tolstoy's favorite and most dear heroes live in this city: the Rostovs, Bezukhov. Moscow is presented in the work as a soulful city, relatives, relatives. In the current heroic situation, Moscow is, as it were, on the verge between war and peace: if Napoleon captures it, then selfish arbitrariness will win, and if Kutuzov defends, then the principle of unity, the tribal principle.
Petersburg, on the other hand, acts as an unnatural, alien city, it can be taken out of the "swarm" unity formed by the inhabitants of Moscow and the city itself. The war does not affect St. Petersburg, but even when they learn terrible news from Moscow, the inhabitants of the city on the Neva do not make any attempts to help people in trouble, and are outside the heroic situation.
Also, the separation of St. Petersburg from the tribal whole is facilitated by one of the existing myths about its foundation - that it was built at the whim of the king, and not according to the needs of the people, and stands on the bones. Tolstoy does not sympathize with this city, and, accordingly, with those heroes who, at the request of the author, turn out to be its inhabitants - regular visitors to the salons of Anna Scherer and Helen
Contrastingly compared in the novel are the types of human natures - emotional and ideological. So, the Bolkonsky family embodies the intellectual and rational principle, the Rostov family embodies the emotional and intuitive.
The very movement of the plot in the novel is due to the principle of "linkages" (L.N. Tolstoy), which leaves the impression of a mosaic of events. There are several storylines in the work, five hundred and fifty nine characters, among which there are real historical figures, fictional heroes, and nameless characters (“the general who ordered”). The artistic time and artistic space of "War and Peace" are extensive. The content of the novel covers a large period - from 1805 to 1820. From Russia, the action is transferred to Prussia, Austria, Poland, from Smolensk to Moscow, from St. Petersburg to the countryside. Before us are the emperor’s palace, the salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer, the mansion of the dying Count Bezukhov, the Rostovs’ estate in Otradnoye, the Bolkonsky’s house in Bogucharovo, a peasant’s hut in Fili, the fields of Austerlitz, Shengraben and Borodino battles, camping tents of soldiers.
In the center of the novel lies a chronicle of the life of three noble families - the Rostovs, Bolkonskys and Kuragins. At the same time, in the life of each of the families there are culminating events. Thus, the episodes depicting Natasha's passion for Anatole, her refusal to Prince Andrei Tolstoy, was assessed as "the most difficult place and knot of the whole novel." So did the readers. “The main interest of the book, as a novel,” wrote V.F. Odoevsky, - begins with this climax. And he added: "A curious denouement." However, the author himself noted that in the novel "the death of one person only aroused interest in other persons, and marriage seemed mostly the plot, and not the denouement of interest." The death of Count Bezukhov, Pierre's marriage to Helene, the failed courtship of Prince Vasily - thus, important initial, but not defining plot points of the work. At the same time, the personal life of the heroes is inextricably linked with the most important historical events of the era.
The flow of private life in the novel organically merges with the historical plot. “Three main historical events form the pivotal line of the plot development. The plot is 1805, the beginning of the war with Napoleon, the period, the main events of which are the battles of Austerlitz and Shengraben.<…>These events of the first military stage precede the epic of the people's war of 1812 and serve as the beginning of the further development of the lives of the heroes - Andrei Bolkonsky, Nikolai Rostov, Dolokhov and others. 1812, the battle of Borodino is the climax of the novel"
The battle of Borodino and the abandonment of Moscow is a whole epoch in the spiritual development of the heroes, a kind of focus in which their destinies converge. It is with this event that the formation of new qualities in them, new views on the world and society is connected. Through the test of fire, suffering, death, all the main characters of the novel are carried out. Shortly before the Battle of Borodino, the old man Bolkonsky dies, and Princess Marya takes his death hard. 1812 changes a lot in the life of Pierre Bezukhov. This is a period of restoring spiritual integrity, introducing him to the “general”, affirming in his soul his sense of the harmony of life. An important role here was played by Pierre's visit to the Rayevsky battery during the Battle of Borodino and his stay in French captivity. Being on the Borodino field, among the endless roar of cannons, the smoke of shells, the screech of bullets, the hero experiences a feeling of horror, mortal fear. The soldiers seem to him strong and courageous, they have no fear, no fear for their lives. The very patriotism of these people, seemingly unconscious, comes from the very essence of nature, their behavior is simple and natural. And Pierre wants to become "just a soldier", to free himself from the "burden of the external person", from everything artificial, superficial. Faced with the people's milieu for the first time, he keenly feels the falsity and insignificance of the secular-conventional world, he feels the fallacy of his former views and attitudes. The Battle of Borodino becomes fateful for Prince Andrei. In battle, he is seriously wounded, after which he is operated on. Here the hero again feels the proximity of death, and a turning point occurs in his worldview. After suffering, he feels "a bliss that he has not experienced for a long time." His heart is filled with a feeling of Christian love that he had not experienced before, he finally overcomes his vanity, selfishness, aristocratic prejudices. He feels pity and compassion when he sees the wounded Anatole lying next to him. “Compassion, love for brothers, for those who love us, hate us, love for enemies - yes, that love that God preached on earth ...” - all this is suddenly revealed to Prince Andrei. Bolkonsky dies, and his death becomes the greatest grief for Princess Marya and Natasha. Finally, the Battle of Borodino becomes a turning point in the development of the historical theme, symbolizing the victory of Russia.
The denouement of the novel is the victory over Napoleon, the defeat of the French and the emergence of new ideas in Russian society. These events determine the personal destinies of the heroes, without obscuring, however, the writer's human personality. historical events are shown by Tolstoy through the prism of various destinies and characters.
An important role in the novel is played by the author's digressions, which reveal Tolstoy's philosophical and religious-ethical views, his thoughts about the historical process. The philosophical problems of the author's digressions are the structure of the world and the place of a person in it, the role of the individual in history, the relationship between freedom and necessity in the fate of a person, true and false values in life. In the novel, Tolstoy reveals his views on the war of 1812, on its participants. These views are based on historical fatalism (personality does not play a role in the historical process). History, according to the writer, is a movement of huge human masses (Tolstoy considered the Russian people to be the main character of the novel, noting that he most of all valued "people's thought" in "War and Peace").
The compositional role of author's digressions is different. Thus, in the third part, the author discusses the war of 1812 as a people's war of liberation, and this digression plays the role of a kind of generalization of the artistic chapters. The introduction of the author's journalistic and philosophical reasoning "expands the boundaries of the narrative and at the same time combines the historical, philosophical novel and the psychological "essay on morals" into one organic whole.
It is worth noting that the author's voice “reignedly dominates the novel. The author is omniscient, he rises above the characters and events to an unattainable height. According to M. Bakhtin's definition, Tolstoy's novel is "monologic" (in contrast to Dostoevsky's "polyphonic" or "polyphonic" novel)"
Thus, once again we note the artistic originality of "War and Peace". Tolstoy created a work that organically combines the features of an epic, a historical novel, a chronicle, an essay on morals, generously nourishing it with philosophical problems and psychological analysis. The novel does not have a single intrigue, we see several storylines, each of which is correlated with the most important historical events of the era. Life in Tolstoy is presented in all its diversity. All these artistic properties made the novel a masterpiece of world literature.
The work of T. marked a new stage in the development of Russian and world realism, threw a bridge between the traditions of the classical novel of the 19th century. and literature of the 20th century. The realism of T. is characterized by a special frankness of tone, directness and, as a result, will crush, strength and sharpness in exposing social contradictions. Direct emotional contagion, the ability to recreate the very "flesh of life" are combined in Tolstoy's work with flexible and sharp thought, deep, extremely sincere psychological analysis. Healthy, full-blooded realism T. strives for a combination of analysis and synthesis, gravitates toward a holistic understanding of the world, awareness of the laws by which human life moves. Not trusting the prevailing opinions and prejudices, T. wants to look at everything anew and in his own way; discarding various types of literary cliches, he builds his art only on what he himself saw, understood and guessed. T. capture the spiritual being of the individual, the tension of the seeking thought, the anxieties of conscience. But his realism is also characterized by plastic modeling of characters, vivid verbal painting in everyday life, historical and genre scenes.
The realism of T., closely connected with the national Russian tradition, which developed and consolidated it, also carries an enormous universal content. The traditions of realism in T. were accepted and assimilated by the young Soviet literature. They still remain for Soviet writers one of the most important and viable traditions of the classical heritage.
T. had a huge impact on the evolution of European humanism, on the development of realistic traditions in world literature. In France, Romain Rolland, F. Mauriac and R. Martin du Gard, in the USA E. Hemingway and T. Wolfe, in England J. Galsworthy and B. Shaw, in Germany T. Mann and A. Zegers, in Sweden A. Strindberg and A. Lundqvist, in Austria R. M. Rilke, in Poland E. Ozheshko, B. Prus, J. Ivashkevich, in Czechoslovakia M. Puimanova, in China Lao She, in Japan Tokutomi Roca - each in his own way experienced The influence of T.'s creativity was great. T.'s influence on the culture of India and on the activities of M. Gandhi. Works T. countless times filmed and staged in the USSR and abroad. T.'s plays have been repeatedly staged on the stages of the whole world.
The study of T.'s work in domestic and world literary criticism began during the life of the writer. Articles about it by G. V. Plekhanov and V. G. Korolenko and M. Gorky’s essay “Leo Tolstoy” (1919) were of significant importance for the study of the subject. After the October Revolution of 1917, interest in T.'s legacy increased noticeably.
Report
Genre features of the novel "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy
Iva Zyuzina
III course, f.s. 4636
Russian philology
The novel "War and Peace" is a work of great volume. It covers 16 years (from 1805 to 1821) of the life of Russia and more than five hundred different heroes. Among them are real characters of the historical events described, fictional heroes and many people whom Tolstoy does not even give names, for example, "the general who ordered", "the officer who did not arrive." Thus, the writer wanted to show that the movement of history occurs not under the influence of any specific individuals, but thanks to all the participants in the events. In order to combine such huge material into one work, the author created a genre that had not been used before by any of the writers, which he called the epic novel. This is one of the few works in the world literature of the 19th century, to which the name of the epic novel is rightfully proposed. Events of a large historical scale, common life, and not private life, form the basis of its content, the historical process is revealed in it, an unusually wide coverage of Russian life in all its layers has been achieved, and as a result, the number of actors, in particular characters from the people's environment, is so large.
The novel describes real historical events: Austerlitz, Shengraben, Borodino battles, the conclusion of the Tilsit peace, the capture of Smolensk, the surrender of Moscow, the partisan war and others in which real historical figures manifest themselves. Historical events in the novel also play a compositional role. Since the battle of Borodino largely determined the outcome of the war of 1812, 20 chapters are devoted to its description, it is the climax of the novel. The work contains pictures of the battle, which are replaced by the image of the world as the complete opposite of war, peace, as the existence of a community of many and many people, as well as nature, that is, everything that surrounds a person in space and time. Disputes, misunderstanding, hidden and open conflicts, fear, hostility, love... All this is real, alive, sincere, like the heroes of a literary work themselves.
The breadth of coverage of the Russian nation in the work is striking: noble estates, aristocratic metropolitan salons, village holidays and diplomatic receptions, the greatest battles and pictures of peaceful life, emperors, peasants, dignitaries, landowners, merchants, soldiers, generals. We meet more than 500 characters on the pages of the novel. All of them, especially the goodies, are in constant search. Tolstoy's favorite heroes are not perfect, but they strive for perfection, they seek the meaning of life, calmness for them is tantamount to spiritual death. But the path to truth and truth is difficult and thorny. The characters created by Tolstoy reflect the moral and philosophical research of the author of the novel himself. The novel tells about the events taking place at three stages of the struggle between Russia and Bonapartist France. The 1st volume describes the events of 1805, when Russia, in alliance with Austria, waged war on its territory against France. In the 2nd volume of 1806-1807, when Russian troops were in Prussia. The 3rd and 4th volumes are devoted to a broad depiction of the Patriotic War of 1812, which Russia waged on its native land. The epilogue takes place in 1820.
The most complex artistic, historical and philosophical fabric of the novel is woven from everyday life and historical paintings, from the depiction of epoch-making events in the life of the people and the culminating moments in the life of individuals - great and unknown, real and fictional; from the speech of the narrator and passionate monologues of the author himself, who, as it were, came to the fore and removed his heroes, stopped the action of the novel in order to talk with the reader about something of the utmost importance, to sharply challenge the generally accepted point of view of professional historians, to substantiate his principles.
The very first and common theme of any epic is war and peace. The title is in the highest degree consistent with the "spirit of the epic", which, as recognized by all, is filled with Tolstoy's book. What the theme and main event of the book tells about is war and peace, and in the composition the main division is carried out into chapters into “peaceful” and “military”, replacing each other. At the same time, the meaning of the title seems to be doubled - namely, the meaning of the second concept: the world. Here it is no longer so unambiguous and simple - the question arises in what sense the word "world" is given, because the text of the book provides a basis for this. After all, this word is not only in the title, but also penetrates the entire text of the novel, covers a wide range of content and forms a whole network of meanings. The "world" in the text of Tolstoy's novel is essentially untranslatable. This is not only that “peace” that is the opposite of war, a sign of silence, peace and harmony, but also “peace”, which is in the sense of the cosmic meaning - “the whole world” or “all people”.
In the “world”, the author gives the specific meaning of worldly life, all the boundlessness of connections in human life with its diversity of relationships, opinions, events, comprehensible or not goals, in which it is necessary to navigate and make decisions. This life "in the world", which is the image of the "disorder of the free world", is opposed to another meaning of "world" in Tolstoy's novel. In the context of the novel, another meaning of "world" is the antipode of the word "earth", which already approaches the meaning of the word "heaven" and reassembles with the concepts of God, faith and death. The world is not just a general connection of human life, which more than once appeared to the characters in Tolstoy's books as chaos, a game of chance, but it is also a special expedient connection, a harmonious whole, the "kingdom of truth." Within the boundaries of the original text, this difference is also conveyed by the different spelling of a specific word - “peace” and “peace”, where the concept of “peace” appears in places where it is clearly opposed to war, and “peace” is used in the meaning of “the whole world / all people”.
There are many attempts to study the main composition of the novel, fundamentally different in their approach. At first, the researchers saw their task in finding the main stages in the development of the action in the novel, as they should be according to generally accepted concepts of composition - a tie, a climax, a denouement. Of the author's works on this topic, T.L Motyleva can be noted, who clarifies in her research that despite the lack of a plot in the generally accepted sense of the word - the initial event that would determine the further development of the action, there is a brewing conflict from the first pages of the work that underlies the epic. Namely: the contradiction and the brewing war between the Russian state and the Napoleonic army. The main spring of the action is the concrete deepening and development of this storyline, the Battle of Borodino can be considered the climax of the story, and the denouement is the expulsion of Napoleon from Russia. In this case, the place of the denouement itself is rather unusual - since the action of the novel does not stop after it. This traditional view of the composition of the novel, according to other researchers, is too general a scheme that does not cover the completeness and logic of the plot lines of the novel, nor does it subjugate many of the life processes depicted in the book.
Another attempt to interpret the composition of the novel can be noted in the works of B. Bursov, who decides to move away from the traditional theoretical and literary scheme. He adheres to the theory of separate compositional centers of "War and Peace", which are the most significant moments of the historical event in it, but taken separately. In the first volume, such a center, according to Bursov, is the battle of Austerlitz, and in the third - Borodino. What does the significance of the Battle of Borodino is considered here, not only as the compositional center of the third volume, but of the entire work as a whole.
A completely different principle of considering the features of the composition of the novel is derived in the monograph by A. Saburov. The episode of the Battle of Borodino is recognized as the culmination of the work, but the leading role in this development is occupied by its so-called “external structure” of the self. This development examines the correlation in the novel of the factual side and fiction, war and peace, the author's reasoning and the narrative part, the scenic and descriptive elements. As a result, this work examines the features of the genre composition of the novel separately from the specific views of the writer on life, from the features of his world outlook. A method that was not accepted by the other part of the researchers, who focused in their developments on the moral and philosophical ideas of the author and Riva. the development was accepted. defines the features of the genre composition of the novel separately from the specific views of the writer on life, a specific novel (V. Selinov, S. Leushev).
Of course, without taking into account the philosophical basis of the novel, it is impossible to understand the methods of its construction. Here everything is determined by the writer's desire to artistically substantiate his view of people, life, and society. The author's fiction occupies no less place in the novel than reliable material in terms of significance, and also contains many philosophical premises in understanding not only military operations, but also in the everyday civil and everyday life of people. Particular attention is paid to the role of the masses in history, the ethical ideas of the best and thinking people from the advanced families of the nobility, the material and career motives of the ruling class, the problems of love, marriage and family.
Fiction in the novel also expands from the intentions of the writer, in addition to the historical event, to show in its entirety the life of people who are not always directly connected with the ongoing war. According to the writer himself, reflected in the draft version of the preface, he distinguishes his task from the task of the historian: “The historian and the artist, describing the historical epoch, have two completely different subjects. How wrong the historian will be if he tries to present a historical person in all its integrity, in all the complexity of its relationship to all aspects of life, and thereby involuntarily misses and obscures its main task - to indicate the participation of a person in a historical event, so the artist will not do his job , understanding the face in the same way as a historian, always presenting it in a historical sense" (13.57). Precisely these words of the author himself show that he considers it his duty to touch on all aspects of life and, of course, to illuminate them from a philosophical point of view. The writer set the task of creating an epic, i.e. as it seems to him, a complete picture of the life of society at the beginning of the century with all kinds of life and customs of serf Russia. This intention mainly explains the exceptional completeness of the description of everyday phenomena of life - the birth and death of a person, the experiences of lovers, hunting, card games, duels, illness, disobedience of peasants to a mistress, experiences of a soldier's mother, poisoning of a lover, religious feelings of a person - in a word, everything that then a man lived. Throughout the reading of the entire novel, one can see how the writer tries to fully cover the life of the era, describe the life of mankind at a certain historical stage, show the sequence of events and how exactly people lived then.
The author assigns two equal halves a place in the novel to both military operations and events of civil life. In this regard, the alternation of military and everyday scenes is given in approximately the same parts, it is in balance with respect to the whole volume of the novel. Interrupting descriptions of hostilities, the narrative describes the development of almost all lines of the family chronicle - the life of the Kuragins, Bolkonskys, Bezukhovs, Rostovs. In the work on the first half of the novel, the description of all families takes place as a rule - for example, after the Battle of Shengraben, in connection with the development of the plot, the Kuragins, Pierre Bezukhov and the Bolkonskys are shown. No events of the Rostovs' family life are mentioned here, but the author mentions them, observing the accepted order of keeping them in the field of view of the narrative.
In the author's mind, the two halves of the novel - military-historical and civil - correspond to the meaning of the title - "War and Peace" and serve as its clarification, i.e. peace here is again conceived not only as a state opposite to war, but also as the everyday civil, non-military life of people. In comparing one and the other, however, there are also semantic shades that speak of the impact of war on the world, people, their views, feelings and behavior.
The connection of the family chronicle with the events of the people's war is the main core of the development of the action in the novel. In a skillful interweaving of two-sided action, the author traces the private destinies of people with vital observation, finding out how people of different positions, views and characters withstood the great test and behaved, what influence a crucial historical moment had on them.
In accordance with this, the novel begins by showing the world, and then moves on to pictures of the war. Thus, the reader gets acquainted with the main characters before they become participants in the war. And this already affects the very perception of the description of the war as a phenomenon - this is no longer just a war, but a war with the participation of familiar faces who have their own lives, thoughts and aspirations.
L.N. Tolstoy himself called the principle of depicting the characters of heroes «
the dialectic of the soul.
Personal in relation to the characters is that
- change, improve, strive for an unattainable ideal,
- unloved characters are static.
As a means of revealing the characters of the heroes of the novel "War and Peace", the writer, in addition to the expressed author's position, also uses a number of artistic techniques.
Artistic means of revealing characters in the novel
Portraits of the heroes of the novel
In the portrait of his heroes, Tolstoy emphasizes one recurring detail: the thickness of Pierre, the marbling of Helen's shoulders, the radiant eyes of Princess Mary, the trembling of Napoleon's thighs, the decrepitude of Kutuzov ...
Tolstoy is not afraid to show the ugliness of his characters. Natasha may
“dissolve your big mouth, becoming completely bad”,
the ugliness of Princess Marya is constantly set off by her radiant eyes. In moments of strong shocks, a transformation can occur with the heroes. Describing the meeting of Natasha and Andrei in Mytishchi, Tolstoy writes that his face was scary for Rostova, but at the same time, the most wonderful feelings unite the heroes. When Princess Mary fell in love with Nikolai Rostov,
“for the first time, all that pure spiritual inner work that she had lived until now came out”:
the appearance of the heroine becomes beautiful: breast feminine notes appear, femininity and grace are manifested in the movements.
Character characteristics
Characteristics of this or that character can be given by another hero. So, Pierre thinks about Helen:
“Elena Vasilievna, who never loved anything but her body, and one of the most stupid women in the world, seems to people the height of perfection, and they worship her.”
The author himself can single out the dominant character.
"The essence of her life - love - is still alive in her,"
- says Tolstoy about Natasha.
Tolstoy, explaining the mistakes of his heroes (Pierre, Natasha), each time speaks of an intuitive feeling of something bad, repeats the words of synonyms: “nasty”, “forbidden”, “unnatural”, “dishonest”, “something indecent”, "indecent intent".
Contrast as an artistic means in the novel "War and Peace"
One of Tolstoy's favorite tricks for revealing the characters of his characters is contrast.
So, at the reception of contrast, there is a description of the first ball of Natasha Rostova, when her living, pure beauty is compared with the marble beauty of Helen and is opposed to her, as true - false. As antagonists, the images of Kutuzov and Napoleon appear in the novel (see:).
Nature in the disclosure of characters
The character of the hero is also determined by his ability to feel.
This ability has:
- Prince Andrei (the sky of Austerlitz, an oak tree on the road to Otradnoye),
- Pierre (starry sky),
- Natasha (night in Otradnoe)
All of the writer's favorite characters. The dialogue between Natasha and Sonya is built on the contrast at night in Otradnoye. Sonya is alien to the charm of a summer night.
Heroes' speeches as a characteristic
The speech of the character himself can also serve as his characteristic. The order of the old Prince Bolkonsky to his son before leaving for the army speaks of high moral requirements for noble honor and service to the Motherland, about hidden love for his son, about anxiety for his fate:
“Remember one thing, Prince Andrei: if they kill you, it will hurt me, an old man ... and if I find out that you did not behave like the son of Nikolai Bolkonsky, I will be ... ashamed!”
Comparison as a means
Often, to characterize the hero or his state, the writer uses comparisons:
"always spoke lazily, as an actor speaks the part of an old play"
(about Prince Vasily Kuragin),
an evening at Anna Pavlovna Scherer's is compared to a spinning workshop in which
“Spindles from different sides evenly and incessantly rustled”,
about Pierre's condition:
“It was as if the main screw on which his whole life rested was curled up in his head.”
Description as a technique for revealing the characters of "War and Peace"
Important events in the hero's life can be commented on through the description of the episode. About Prince Andrew:
“A new, gratifying and reassuring feeling seized him when, looking at these girls, he realized the existence of other, completely alien to him and just as legitimate human interests as those that occupied him.”
When describing the character of the hero, his actions, the manifestation of the author's irony is possible, as, for example, when describing the behavior of Prince Vasily when Kutuzov was appointed commander in chief.
Showing the dialectic of the soul of his characters, Tolstoy allows us to penetrate into the aspirations, experiences, the essence of the actions of people whose lives are separated from ours by almost two hundred centuries.
Did you like it? Do not hide your joy from the world - shareThere was fierce debate about the meaning of the title of Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace". Now everyone seems to have come to a more or less definite interpretation.
Antithesis in the broad sense of the word
Indeed, if you read only the title of the novel, then the simplest opposition immediately catches your eye: a peaceful, calm life and military battles, which occupy a very significant place in the work. The meaning of the name "War and Peace" lies, as it were, on the surface. Let's look at this side of the issue. Of the four volumes of the novel, only the second covers exclusively peaceful life. In the remaining volumes, the war is interspersed with descriptions of episodes from the life of various parts of society. No wonder the count himself, naming his epic in French, wrote only La guerre et la paix, which is translated without additional interpretations: "war is war, and peace is only everyday life." There are reasons to think that the author considered the meaning of the title "War and Peace" without additional subtext. However, it is embedded in it.
Old controversy
Before the reform of the Russian language, the word "peace" was written and interpreted in two ways. These were “mir” and “mir” through i, which in Cyrillic was called “and”, and Izhitsu, which was written as “and”. These words differed in meaning. "Mir" - time without military events, and the second option meant the universe, the globe, society. The spelling could easily change the meaning of the title "War and Peace". Employees of the country's main Institute of the Russian Language found out that the old spelling, which flashed in a single rare edition, was nothing more than a typo. One typo was also found in a business document that caught the attention of some commentators. But the author wrote only “peace” in his letters. How the name of the novel appeared has not yet been reliably established. Again, we will refer to our leading institute, in which linguists have not established exact analogies.
The problems of the novel
What issues are addressed in the novel?
- noble society.
- Private life.
- People's problems.
And all of them are somehow connected with wars and peaceful life, which reflects the meaning of the name "War and Peace". The artistic method of the author is opposition. In the 1st part of the first volume, the reader has just plunged into the life of St. Petersburg and Moscow, as soon as the 2nd part takes him to Austria, where preparations are underway for the Battle of Shengraben. The third part of the first volume mixes Bezukhov's life in St. Petersburg, the trip of Prince Vasily and Anatole to the Bolkonskys and the battle of Austerlitz.
Contrasts of society
The Russian nobility is a unique layer. In Russia, the peasantry perceived him as foreigners: they spoke French, their manners and way of life were different from Russian. In Europe, on the contrary, they were looked upon as "Russian bears". In any country they were strangers.
In their native country, they could always expect a peasant rebellion. Here is another contrast of society, which reflected the meaning of the title of the novel "War and Peace". For example, let's take an episode from the third volume, part 2. When the French approached Bogucharov, the peasants did not want to let Princess Mary go to Moscow. Only the intervention of N. Rostov, who accidentally passed by with a squadron, saved the princess and pacified the peasants. Tolstoy's wartime and peacetime are intertwined, as is the case in modern life.
Movement from west to east
The author describes two wars. One is alien to a Russian person who does not understand its meaning, but fights the enemy, as the authorities order, without sparing himself, even without the necessary uniforms. The second is understandable and natural: the defense of the Fatherland and the struggle for their families, for a peaceful life in their native land. This is also evidenced by the meaning of the title of the novel "War and Peace". Against this background, the opposite, antagonistic qualities of Napoleon and Kutuzov are revealed, the role of the individual in history is clarified.
The epilogue of the novel tells a lot about this. It compares emperors, commanders, generals, and analyzes the issues of will and necessity, genius and chance.
Contrasting battles and peaceful life
In general, L. Tolstoy divides peace and war into two polar parts. War, with which the history of mankind is completely filled, is disgusting and unnatural. It causes hatred and hostility in people and brings destruction and death.
The world is happiness and joy, freedom and naturalness, work for the benefit of society and the individual. Each episode of the novel is a song of the joys of peaceful life and a condemnation of war as an indispensable attribute of human life. This opposition is the meaning of the title of the epic novel "War and Peace". The world, not only in the novel, but also in life, denies war. The innovation of L. Tolstoy, who himself participated in the Sevastopol battles, lies in the fact that he showed not her heroism, but the wrong side - everyday, genuine, testing all the spiritual strength of a person.
Noble society, its contrasts
The nobles do not constitute a single cohesive mass. Petersburg, the high society, looks down on the inveterate good-natured Muscovites. The Scherer salon, the Rostovs' house and the unique, intellectual Bogucharovo, which stands apart in general, are such different worlds that they will always be separated by an abyss.
The meaning of the name "War and Peace": composition
Six years of his life (1863 - 1869) was given to L. Tolstoy to write an epic novel, about which he later spoke with disdain. But we appreciate this masterpiece for opening the widest panorama of life, which includes everything that surrounds a person day after day.
The main technique that we see in all episodes is the antithesis. The whole novel, even the description of peaceful life, is built on contrasts: the ceremonial salon of A. Scherer and the cold family way of Lisa and Andrei Bolkonsky, the warm patriarchal Rostov family and the rich intellectual life in God-forgotten Bogucharov, the beggarly quiet existence of the adored Dolokhov family and its external, empty , throwing the life of an adventurer, meetings with masons unnecessary for Pierre, who do not ask deep questions of the reorganization of life, like Bezukhov.
War also has polarities. The foreign company of 1805-1806, which was senseless for Russian soldiers and officers, and the terrible 12th year, when, retreating, they had to give a bloody battle near Borodino and surrender Moscow, and then, having liberated their homeland, drive the enemy through all of Europe to Paris, leaving him in intact.
The coalition that was formed after the war when all countries united against Russia, fearing its unexpected power.
L. N. Tolstoy (“War and Peace”) invested infinitely much in the epic novel of his philosophical reasoning. The meaning of the name is not amenable to unambiguous interpretation.
It is multidimensional and multifaceted, like the life itself that surrounds us. This novel has been and will be relevant at all times and not only for Russians, who understand it more deeply, but also for foreigners who again and again turn to it when making feature films.
Antithesis (opposition) is one of the most commonly used techniques used to reveal images in a work of art. The essence of antithesis as a trope is the juxtaposition of opposites, antagonistic concepts or images. One of the most striking works built on the reception of opposition is the novel by L. N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". In it, the antithesis is the main technique, laid in the foundation for constructing a system of images.All the characters of the epic novel can be quite unambiguously divided into two camps, or two worlds - "alive" and "dead". The action in the novel unfolds in two parallel planes - the plane of "peace" and the plane of "war". For each of the planes, the author chooses certain differentiations of heroes, the belonging to the “dead” or “living” principle is determined.
When describing the world, the dominant criterion on the basis of which the characters are contrasted is the attitude towards the family, towards children. In a "dead" world, where everything is subordinated to the only goal, which is to increase one's own fortune by any means, marriage is only one of the possible means. For no one belonging to this camp is it difficult to step over the family, as well as over other moral foundations. In this regard, the image of Helen is the most striking. The only purpose for which she married Pierre Bezukhov, the heir to the entire fortune of Count Bezukhov, was to receive part of the inheritance. Breaking up with her husband and getting more than half of his wealth is the logical conclusion of the intrigue she built.
As an example of the absolute insignificance of moral principles for representatives of the “dead” world, one can cite the scene of the “fight” for the mosaic briefcase of the dying Count Bezukhov. Drubetskaya, equally striving to win the "fight" by any means.
A completely opposite attitude to moral values reigns in the "living" world. For its representatives, the family, children are the highest ideal, become the true goal of human life. The Rostov family is most indicative in this respect, the atmosphere in which - love and complete mutual understanding - is directly opposite to the intrigues, envy and anger in the Kuragin family. The Rostov House is open to everyone, and anyone who comes to them will be received with due kindness and cordiality. It is no coincidence that after returning from the front, Nikolai Rostov goes to his parents' house. The difference between the attitude towards children in the families of the Kuragins and the Rostovs is also characteristic. The only desire of Prince Vasily is to quickly get rid of the "calm fool" Hippolyte and the "restless fool" Anatole, while also increasing his fortune. On the contrary, for the Rostovs, children are of great value and no child can be unloved.
But in addition to the plane of the world in the novel, there is a plane of war, where the characters appear in a completely different hypostasis. The main criterion in this plane, according to which people are divided into "camps", Tolstoy chooses the attitude towards the Motherland, the manifestation of patriotism.
The “living” world is the world of true patriots, whose feelings towards the Motherland are completely sincere and genuine. Andrei Bolkonsky is not guided by any other considerations than thoughts about defending the Fatherland when he tries to resist the general panic and retreat at Austerlitz. Prince Andrei does not think about promotion or awards, he obeys only his own sense of duty. The complete opposite of Andrei Bolkonsky is Boris Drubetskoy. He sees his main task not as the defense of the Fatherland, but as a promotion, and not by merits on the battlefield, but by flattery, hypocrisy, and sycophancy towards the authorities. For him, the fate of people means nothing, he is ready to sacrifice them for the sake of his own promotion and presentation for a reward.
The Rostovs show patriotism in a slightly different form. Nicholas cannot kill a man, no matter which side he is on, but when retreating from Moscow, the Rostovs sacrifice their own property to save the wounded. Berg behaves in a completely different way. Taking advantage of the general distress and confusion, he manages to acquire a "chiffonier" for a negligible price, and this "deal" becomes the subject of his pride.
True patriotism is also shown by heroes who do not belong to any of the worlds and act only in the plane of war, but also opposed to the "dead" camp. The most indicative in this respect is the feat of Captain Tushin, and especially his perception of his heroism. Tushin did not even think about the heroic essence of his act - on the contrary, he is trying to justify himself and asks for help from Andrei Bolkonsky. According to Tolstoy, a true patriot does not even notice the fact that he accomplishes a feat - for him it is only a duty to the Motherland, devoid of any heroic flair. Under this definition, the feat of both the Tushin battery and the Raevsky battery, accomplished by the most ordinary, unremarkable people, fits.
Thus, the reception of antithesis is basic for building a system of images of the novel and characterizing the main characters.
In fact, antithesis, the opposition of two worlds - "dead" and "alive" - forms the basis of the work, determines its structure. And, building the novel on the principle of antithesis, Leo Tolstoy debunks the "dead" world, shows its inconsistency and affirms the human and Christian ideals that guide the "living" world.
