Patterns of Character Development in Tolstoy's "War and Peace": Nicholas, Natasha, and

Mary
Author(s): John Hagan
Source: PMLA , Mar., 1969, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Mar., 1969), pp. 235-244
Published by: Modern Language Association

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 PATTERNS OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN
TOLSTOY'S WAR AND PEACE: NICHOLAS,
NATASHA, AND MARY
BY JOHN HAGAN

AT THE HEART of War and Peace is the change is effected in his life and outlook. But
what
conception of the spiritual pilgrimage, ofI the
wish to emphasize now is that the terms
journey toward enlightenment or truth-a "war"sub-
and "peace" as used by Tolstoy are also
ject which is central to the whole of Tolstoy's
metaphors-metaphors for the true and false val-
ues by which the characters live, and for the
lifework. Each of the five protagonists-Prince
Andrew, Pierre, Nicholas, Natasha, and statesMary
of soul which living by those values pro-
duces. Theor
-is on a moral quest, undertaken consciously false values can create not only literal
unconsciously, which leads ultimately war, but strife and disorder in the soul, whereas
to some
the true values lead ultimately to spiritual peace.
form of redemption. Tolstoy, in his inimitable
While
fashion, presents five studies of profound the action in the public realm in War and
moral
Peace
education which, in the hands of any other moves first toward and into literal war and
writer,
would provide the material for five then separate
away from it, so in the private realm a com-
parable journey takes place within the soul of
books. Nor are these stories combined arbitrarily.
Not only is the plot of the novel so constructedeach of the protagonists. My discussion is in-
that all the protagonists eventually come into
tended to determine the specific nature of this
contact with and influence one another in deci- journey-the nature of the war and the peace,
together with the process by which the one re-
sive ways, but the stories are played off against
each other in intricate patterns in such a way places the other-in the stories of three of these
that rich parallels and contrasts emerge at every
protagonists whom the critics have least analyzed,
Nicholas, Natasha, and Mary.
turn, the development of any one character there-
by serving in some measure as a commentary on
that of all the others. In another article I have I

tried to explore a number of these relationships

The pattern is probably clearest and least com-
in some detail.'
plex in the case of Nicholas, as befits the simplici-
Now I should like to go a step farther and, nar-
ty of his character. Nicholas moves from war to
rowing the focus, examine the careers of three ofpeace in a quite literal way by undergoing a
the protagonists. Far from being casually con-
transformation from soldier into model farmer,
structed, the life history of each protagonist fol-
husband, and father-by changing, in short, from
lows a definite plan, passing through a number ofone who destroys to one who creates, from one
carefully differentiated phases, and obeyingwhose a values are life-denying to one whose values
rhythm, logic, and consistency all its own. At the
are life-affirming. One of the first things we learn
same time, each life history is united with the about him when he is introduced to us at the be-
other stories by means of a certain general meta-ginning of the novel as an impetuous and enthu-
phorical conception intimately related to the factsiastic youth is that "he is leaving the univer-
that all are spiritual pilgrimages. The key to this
sity ... and entering the military service" as a
unifying conception lies in the words of the nov-
member of the Pavlograd Hussars.2 When his
el's title, "war" and "peace." On the literal level
father, the old Count, charges him with taking
the war is simply the Napoleonic struggle and this step merely because of his friendship with
peace is the nonmilitary activity which takesBoris Drubetskoy, who is already an officer of the
place in peacetime and wartime alike. In part,Guards, Nicholas flares up and emphatically as-
the narrative is structured so that these two
serts that "it is not from friendship at all; I
realms, at first sharply separate, move closer and
simply feel that the army is my vocation" (WP,
closer together as the war makes its way into
Russia (a process climaxed by the burning of
1 "On the Craftsmanship of War and Peace," Essays in
Moscow in Book xi) and then draw away again,Criticism, xIII (1963), 17-49.
as the French are driven back and the fighting2 War and Peace, trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude, World's
comes to an end. The war also functions as a cata- Classics, 3 vols. (London, 1933), I, 50-51; L. N. Tolstoy,
Sobranie SoUinenij, 20 vols. (Moscow, 1960-65), iv, 57.
lyst in the development of each of the five pro-
Henceforth these editions will be abbreviated as WP and SS,
tagonists: directly or indirectly, each one is respectively, and volume and page references will be given in
touched by it, and as a consequence, a decisive parentheses.

235

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236 Character Development in Tolstoy's "War and Peace"

i, 51; SS, iv, 58). By the end of the novel, how- merits by placing Nicholas in the company of
ever, his attitude has changed, and Nicholas' Boris Drubetskoy, whose careful, deliberate, and
"vocation" becomes something quite different. discreet behavior already marks him as the very
"Having started farming from necessity [i.e., in different and very distasteful type of the "young
order to pay off his father's debts], he soon grew man on the make." But, with all of his virtues,
so devoted to it that it became his favorite and
Nicholas, like the other two male protagonists of
almost his sole occupation" (WP, III, 439; SS, the novel, Andrew and Pierre, is radically flawed
vII, 285), though earlier he had revealed nothingat this point by having fallen into the youthful
but distaste and ineptitude for it. And having errors of romanticizing war and worshipping a
married Princess Mary, in whom "he daily dis- supposed great man of history. This hero wor-
covered fresh spiritual treasures" (WP, II, 445; ship, to be sure, is not a completely negative trait;
SS, vII, 290) which have opened up to him athere is a grain of value in it which Tolstoy brings
whole new "lofty moral world" (WP, III, 477;out in Book iii by contrasting Nicholas not only
SS, VII, 322) and taught him to moderate hiswith Boris again, but also with Berg (Nicholas'
characteristic pride and anger, he has become the future brother-in-law) and even Andrew. For
head of a household abounding in love and family whereas Andrew desires military glory chiefly to
happiness. aggrandize himself, and whereas the equally self-
This process of transformation is a long and centered Boris and Berg are always scheming for
gradual one, involving numerous incidents and ways in which to further their military and social
passing through various stages. As with all of his careers, Nicholas possesses the great gift of self-
characters, Tolstoy is characteristically skillful surrender. Though his devotion is misplaced, it is
in creating the illusion that we are witnessing a this capacity for transcending himself, for subor-
completely natural evolution, obedient not to art dinating his will to something outside himself,
but only to its own organic laws. In reality, how- which will eventually enable him to submit to the
ever, each event is carefully planned, and if we higher laws of nature and (through Mary) of God
read with an awareness of this fact, we can locate and thereby to achieve his final happiness and
the exact point at which Nicholas' destiny takes peace. But early in the novel this development is
its decisive turn-the pivot or hinge upon which still a long way in the future, and, although his
Tolstoy has contrived that the whole structure of early values are repeatedly tested as his story
Nicholas' story will move. This point occurs in goes on, for a long time the direction of his life re-
the several chapters in Book vII (the book that mains unpromising.
marks almost the exact physical center of the en- The first hint that Nicholas will undergo a
tire novel) dealing with the wolf and fox hunts moral and intellectual growth appears when
during the autumn of 1810 at Otradnoe (Chs. Dolokhov, who has proposed to Sonya and been
iii-vi) and the Christmas games in the same year refused, takes a cruel revenge by beating him at
at the Melyukovs' (Chs. x-xi). These scenes are cards for a staggering sum of money. The break
famous ones-and deservedly so-but what has with Dolokhov which follows and the guilt Nich-
usually been praised in them is merely their olas feels for burdening his already financially
vividness and charm. Their crucial structural im- embarrassed father with the debt show him ac-
portance for the development of Nicholas' story quiring a new understanding of reality and a new
has been ignored, and yet they contain the be- sense of responsibility which augur well for his
ginning of the revolution in Nicholas' entire sense future. Again, when he returns to his regiment,
of values and outlook on life.
determined to atone for his mistake by becoming
In the early chapters of the novel, Nicholas is"a perfectly first-rate comrade and officer" (WP,
the victim of two closely related false ideals: that I, 525; SS, v, 141), when he provides his own
of achieving glory in war and that of sacrificing lodgings for a starving Polish family who are vic-
his life wholly in the service of the Emperor tims of the war, and when he undertakes to de-
Alexander. Nicholas possesses, it is true, manyliver to the Emperor a petition for the pardon of
admirable qualities: though lacking in much in-his good friend Denisov, who is in danger of being
tellectual or spiritual depth, and though hot- court-martialed, we have encouraging signs that
tempered and imprudent, he has the saving Tol-his earlier romanticism and callow egotism are
stoyan virtues of sincerity, spontaneity, ardent gradually being overshadowed by the virtues of
feeling, and natural good-heartedness, and he sober professionalism, tenderness, and loyalty.
displays a gauche, naive boyishness of consider- In spite of this, however, Nicholas continues to
able charm. Indeed, when Tolstoy first intro- reveal his serious limitations by his uncritical de-
duces him, he makes us sharply aware of these light in the army's restrictions, routines, and sim-

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 John Hagan 237

pie certainties: "When he had again entered into something else. Indeed, though he is discouraged
all the little interests of the regiment and felt him- when he fails to catch not only the wolf, but even
self deprived of liberty and bound in one narrow a fox and a hare, his discouragement vanishes al-
unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense most at once, and he goes on immediately after-
of peace, of moral support, and the same sense of ward to spend a delightful evening at "Uncle's,"
being at home here in his own place, as he had where he joins his sister Natasha in her "spon-
felt under the parental roof" (WP, I, 524; SS, v, taneous merriment" and thrills to Uncle's mar-
140). These sentiments show that same capacity velously natural singing (WP, II, 128; SS, v, 292).
for submission which Nicholas displayed earlier The things that matter most to Nicholas, even
in his worship of the Emperor, and which are as from the beginning of his hunting experiences,
profoundly equivocal now as they were then. To are the physical activity, the way of life, the land,
do what is "clearly, distinctly, and definitely or- and the people who live close to the land, with
dered" by the higher laws of life is, from Tolstoy's which the hunting can bring him into intimate,
point of view, man's profoundest duty and the restorative contact, as with the heart of nature
only way in which true peace and moral support and the life-force itself.
can be found. But here, for Nicholas, peace is still To make clear the nature and importance of this
identified with activities dedicated only to war. development Tolstoy uses two distinct patterns
The horror and meaninglessness of war begin to of symbolic images. One is especially subtle be-
dawn on him only a short time later, after the cause it first appears much later, in Book ix,
Battle of Friedland in 1807, when Napoleon and Chapter xv, and works retrospectively. At that
Alexander meet at Tilsit to ratify the peace trea- point Nicholas achieves his first personal victory
ty. But although Nicholas is deeply troubled on in combat by striking and capturing a young
this occasion by what seems to be Alexander's be- French officer. Instead of feeling elated, however,
trayal of the Russian cause, and by the stark con- as he would have felt at the beginning of the
trast between the pompous ceremoniousness of novel, he experiences only a profound "moral
the Emperors and the terrible realities of the hos- nausea" (WP, ii, 322; SS, vi, 77). The reason is,
pital in which he has just visited Denisov, he at of course, that the hunting experiences in Book
once suppresses such radically disturbing feelings vII have helped to alter radically all his former
by drinking and by settling himself once again values. But how does Tolstoy make us under-
into the comfortable mindlessness of military stand this? He does so, quite naturally and effec-
routine. tively, by comparing the war itself to a hunt and
Thus, though various episodes in the first six Nicholas in his role of soldier to a huntsman:
books of the novel clearly prepare Nicholas for "Rostov, with his keen sportsman's eye, was one
his transition from the values of war to the values of the first to catch sight of these blue French
of peace, they do not actually effect it. The deci- dragoons pursuing our uhlans.... He acted as
sive moments occur, as I have indicated, during he did when hunting, without reflecting or con-
the scenes of the hunt and the Christmas games sidering.... With the same feeling with which
in Book VII. In the former Nicholas discovers for he had galloped across the path of a wolf, Rostov
the first time a delight in the land, and in the lat- gave rein to his Donets horse" (WP, II, 320-321;
ter he resolves for the first time to marry. "The SS, vi, 75-76). From this point on, in fact, a com-
autumn in Otradnoe with the hunting, and the parison of the French to a wounded animal and
winter with the Christmas holidays and Sonya's of the Russians to its hunter becomes one of the
love," as Tolstoy sums up at the beginning of novel's important tropes: "The French invaders,
Book ix, Chapter xii, "had opened out to him a like an infuriated animal that has in its onslaught
vista of tranquil rural joys and peace such as he received a mortal wound, felt that they were
had never known before, and which now allured perishing" (WP, II, 545; SS, vi, 299); "The
him" (WP, II, 309; SS, vi, 65). French did not move. As a bleeding, mortally
Hunting is a "new pursuit" for Nicholas, and wounded animal licks its wounds, they remained
one into which he throws himself with all the inert in Moscow for five weeks" (WP, III, 7; SS,
"passionate enthusiasm" of an "ardent young vI, 304); "The beast wounded at Borodino was
sportsman" who is "being carried away by that lying where the fleeing hunter had left him"
irresistible passion for sport which makes a man (WP, III, 229; SS, vII, 82); and so on (see WP,
forget all his previous resolutions, as a lover for- III, 252, 275, 343, 377; SS, vII, 107, 129, 195,
gets in the presence of his mistress" (WP, In, 225). By thus imaging two kinds of hunt-a
105-107; SS, v, 270-272). The success or failure metaphorical hunt, as here, in the realm of war;
of the hunting per se, however, counts less than and a literal hunt, at Otradnoe in Book vII, in the

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 238 Character Development in Tolstoy's "War and Peace"

realm of peace-Tolstoy enables us to measure poses "a drive in his troyka" to-significant-
Nicholas' spiritual growth by contrasting the ly-Uncle's, where he found such delight and
"moral nausea" now aroused in him by the freedom in the autumn. The atmosphere has now
former with the delight he previously took in the totally changed: "a merry holiday tone . .. pass-
latter. Image and idea fuse perfectly. ing from one to another grew stronger and
The second symbolic image which Tolstoy uses stronger and reached its climax when they all
to dramatize the significance of the hunting chap- came out into the frost and got into the sledges,
ter in Book vii is that of physical liberation. The talking, calling to one another, laughing and
phrase "narrow unchanging frame," used earlier shouting" (WP, ii, 148; SS, v, 312). The marvel-
to describe the army routines which heretofore ous ride through the moonlit snow follows imme-
have provided Nicholas with security and satis- diately, with Nicholas racing the lead sledge and
faction, was not chosen casually. This "frame" is emerging the victor.
now becoming a constriction from which Nicho- All of this is a preparation for the key scene of
las is unconsciously about to break out into the Nicholas' romantic encounter with Sonya in the
freedom of the natural world and discover the next chapter (xi), where the imagery of libera-
true law of his being. Accordingly, at the begin- tion, fusing elements of both the mumming and
ning of Book vII, Chapter iii, Tolstoy develops the hunt-morning scenes, reaches a culmination.
an image of his awakening on the day of the wolf In the spirit of the Christmas games being played
hunt:
at the Melyukovs', Sonya has decided to test her
On the 15th, when young Rostov in his dressing-gown fortune by waiting in the barn, but Nicholas hur-
looked out of the window, he saw it was an unsurpassa- ries out the front way to intercept her: "Nicholas
ble morning for hunting: it was as if the sky were melt- went hastily to the front porch, saying he felt too
ing and sinking to the earth without any wind. The hot. The crowd of people really had made the
only motion in the air was that of the dripping micro- house stuffy.... 'I am a fool, a fool! what have
scopic particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the I been waiting for?' thought Nicholas, and run-
garden were hung with transparent drops which fell on
ning out from the porch he went round the corner
the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in the kitchen-
of the house and along the path that led to the
garden looked wet and black and glistened like poppy-
seed and at a short distance merged into the dull moist back porch" (WP, ii, 155; SS, v, 318). A few
veil of mist. Nicholas went out into the wet and muddy moments later his meeting with Sonya and their
porch. (WP, II, 106; SS, v, 271) declaration of mutual love has settled his fate:
before the end of his furlough he has "firmly de-
These actions-the looking through the window, cided, after putting his affairs in order in the
the fusing of earth and sky suggested by the mist, regiment, to retire from the army and return and
the dripping of the water, and the moving from marry" her (WP, II, 161; SS, v, 324).
indoors to outdoors-all mirror the expansion, By the end of Book vII, then, the decisive
the ripening, the liberation, the fulfillment which turning point in Nicholas' career has been
the hunt will presently bring about in the depths reached, and the book has served one of its prin-
of Nicholas' soul.3 cipal functions in the structure of War and Peace
Metaphors of physical liberation also appear as a whole. The rest of Nicholas' story is simply
several chapters later to provide a transition to a working-out of the implications and conse-
the second phase of Nicholas' development in quences of his "passionate enthusiasm" for the
Book vii-his decision to marry. Although hunt and his decision to retire from the army and
Christmas has come, in the Rostov household marry. Although now he takes to hunting as an
there is only a stifling atmosphere of gloom, leth-
argy, and irritability, created chiefly by Nata- ' The use of imagery of frames, doors, windows, and sky to
sha's unhappiness at being separated from Prince focus the theme of liberation is not confined to the story of
Nicholas alone, as we shall see presently in our discussion of
Andrew, her betrothed. Suddenly, however, on Mary. Such imagery is part of Tolstoy's habitual way of
the third day of Christmas week, a group of mum- metaphorically representing certain kinds of spiritual experi-
mers bursts upon the scene, "bringing in with ence throughout the novel-indeed, an essential element in
them the cold from outside and a feeling of gaie- the structure of his whole vision of life. Especially important
is the role it plays at crucial points in the development of
ty" (WP, II, 147; SS, v, 311). As they push their Andrew and Pierre, a subject too large to be discussed here,
way into the ballroom, "where, shyly at first and but some of whose dimensions may be suggested by such
then more and more merrily and heartily," they passages as the following: Andrew: WP, r, 369, 385, 386, 431,
start "singing, dancing, and playing Christmas 516; i, 7, 67, 68, 286-287, 534; In, 135, 219-220; SS, iv, 380,
397; v, 48, 132-133, 174, 235-236; vi, 41, 287, 433; vII, 74-75.
games," the members of the household, caught by
Pierre: WP, I, 476; iI, 252; III, 31, 124, 268-269, 397-398; SS,
their spirit, also don costumes, and Nicholas pro- v, 91, 414; vi, 329, 422; vni, 123, 245.

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 John Hagan 239

escape from the estate management which he man than he exists, and I am calm and contented
loathes, whereas at the end of the novel he will now" (WP, ii, 102; SS, v, 267). Nicholas himself
harmoniously combine these activities, and al- sees her as "even-tempered and calm, and quite
though now he believes that it is Sonya whom he as cheerful as of old" (WP, ii, 103; SS, v, 268).
will marry, whereas at the end he actually mar- Her happiness is shown at its height in the scenes
ries Mary, he has, in effect, renounced one set of of the hunt and of the evening at Uncle's. There
life values and acquired quite another. Nothing is, indeed, an extremely effective counterpoint
less than a revolution has quietly taken place in working here, for while the same scenes repre-
his soul. sent the whole new set of values toward which

II
Nicholas is beginning to turn, they also represent
the state of blissful innocence from which Na-
Tolstoy's careful planning is also exhibited bytasha is about to fall. She insists upon Nicholas
the story of Natasha. The crucial turning point taking her and Petya with him on the hunt, call-
in her life too occurs in Book vnI; but whereas her
ing it "my greatest pleasure" (WP, ii, 108; SS,
brother Nicholas moves literally from war to v, 273). A few moments later we see her, "muffled
peace, she charts metaphorically a contrasting up in shawls which did not hide her eager face and
course from peace to war. At the very time he isshining eyes," sitting "easily and confidently on
beginning to grow out of his youthful errors, she
her black Arabchik" and reining him in "without
is about to begin committing hers. effort with a firm hand" (WP, ii, 110; SS, v, 275).
Through Book vnI, Chapter vii, Natasha is one One of the hunters says that she resembles "Di-
of the loveliest images in fiction of the innocence
ana in her passion for the chase as well as in her
and happiness of sheltered, aristocratic girlhood.
beauty" (WP, ii, 121; SS, v, 286)-and, it might
She is, of course, by no means a paragon: with all
be added, in her virginity. When the hare is final-
of the charm of her vibrant nature, she is dis- ly captured, she "screamed joyously, ecstatically,
tinctly marked by a number of flaws-vanity, and so piercingly that it set every one's ears
superficiality, and naively romantic feeling, to tingling" (WP, ii, 125; SS, v, 290). Later, at
name the most important-which are plainly go- Uncle's, this mood continues. At first her gaiety
ing to lead her astray and cause her to suffer. She
is inspired simply by the strangeness of Uncle's
is more than a little akin to her genial but heed-
peasant-like way of life, which is so different from
less father, whose good-natured extravaganceher own. But gradually, as a result of her suscep-
nearly brings the family to financial ruin. Even tibility, she begins to feel "so light-hearted and
one of the qualities we find most attractive in her
happy in these novel surroundings that she only
-her great intuitive receptivity which makes her feared the trap would come for her too soon"
so wonderfully responsive to every facet of life (WP, ii, 129; SS, v, 293). The artificial class bar-
around her-will, in her adolescence, become ariers which have kept her-a "young countess,
source of danger when it fuses with her strongly educated by an emigree French governess" and
emerging sexuality. But until the middle of Book"reared in silks and velvets" (WP, ii, 132; SS,
v, 297)-separated from such a household as
vnI all of these developments are in the future. Al-
though Natasha has been through a number of
Uncle's fall away, and she achieves for the first
significant experiences (falling in and out of lovetime a profound instinctive rapport with a sim-
with Boris Drubetskoy, rejecting a proposal fromple, natural, Russian life, to which she herself is
Denisov, attending her first grand ball as a six- so unconsciously akin. Only once is her mood
teen-year-old debutante, dancing there with the darkened, when she thinks of Prince Andrew far
handsome Prince Andrew, falling in love with away in the army and, with unwitting irony, asks
him and becoming his fiancee), these experiences herself, "Where is he now?" (WP, ii, 133; SS, v,
have been quite conventional, and while they will297), the very question she will later ask as she
contribute in the long run to her growth, they stands over his corpse. But this mood "lasted
have not yet radically changed her. In the first only a second. 'Don't dare to think about it,' she
seven chapters of Book vni, Natasha, as her said to herself, and sat down again smilingly be-
mother puts it, is still "living through the last side 'Uncle,' begging him to play something
days of her girlhood" (WP, ii, 103; SS, v, 268). more" (WP, ii, 133; SS, v, 297).
She is still in a condition of peace. These scenes mark the farthest reach of Na-
Tolstoy dramatizes this fact in many ways.tasha's girlish contentment. The words she
When speaking to Nicholas about her romance speaks to Nicholas at the end of Chapter vii, as
with Prince Andrew, for instance, Natasha says, they ride home from Uncle's-"I know that I
"I feel at peace and settled. I know that no bettershall never again be as happy and tranquil as I

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240 Character Development in Tolstoy's "War and Peace"

am now" (WP, ii, 135; SS, v, 299)-are prophet- stiffness, and the sounds were always high-
ic. In the very next chapter, as she broods upon pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost femi-
Andrew's absence, her mood begins to darken, nine" (WP, IIi, 203; SS, vnI, 59). This reference
and her soul is invaded by sorrow and disorder. to the "feminine" quality of Platon's voice re-
While Nicholas' thoughts are turning ever more minds us, moreover, that Natasha herself has
seriously to the ideal of marriage and family hap- been shown to have a beautiful, untrained voice:
piness, Natasha is beginning to feel that for her- "While that untrained voice with its incorrect
self such an ideal is becoming unattainable, and breathing and labored transitions was sounding,
with the arrival of the Christmas season, her even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only de-
loneliness, restlessness, boredom, frustration, and lighted in it and wished to hear it again" (WP,
general malaise increase almost unbearably. "Ah, I, 451; SS, v, 69). All three characters-Natasha,
how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!" the Uncle, and Platon-are thus related by their pos-
countess reflects. "Her maternal instinct told her session of a similar gift, a gift which testifies to
that Natasha had too much of something, and the vital naturalness of their lives. In striking
that because of this she would not be happy" contrast to this is the kind of singing, by trained
(WP, ii, 147; SS, v, 310). The appearance of thevoices and professional performers, which Na-
mummers, the enchanting ride through the snow,tasha hears in Moscow at the opera (Bk. vIIi,
and the games at the Melyukovs' revive Na-Chs. ix-x). Here, as Tolstoy makes clear by em-
tasha's spirits, but only momentarily. When ploying his heaviest-handed satire, everything is
Sonya claims to have seen a vision of Andrew dominated by "artificiality." The point, of
"lying down" (another unwitting forecast of his course, is that it is while she is here at the opera
that Natasha first becomes infatuated with Ana-
death), she is filled with horror; and as her separa-
tion from him continues to lengthen, she grows tole Kuragin and is thereby nearly led to her ruin.
"more agitated and impatient every day. The Thus, just as Nicholas' different reactions to the
thought that her best days ... were being vainlyhunts in the realms of peace and war were an in-
wasted with no advantage to any one, tormented dex to the great change taking place in his values,
her incessantly" (WP, ii, 162; SS, v, 325). Thus,so now the contrast between the singing at
though Natasha's fall does not take place until the Uncle's and at the opera corresponds exactly to
next book, when Anatole Kuragin enters her life, the contrast between the states of happiness and
by the end of Book vnI the necessary conditions misery-of peace and war-in the life of Na-
for that fall have already been firmly established.tasha.4
A movement from peace to war has taken place in Tolstoy dramatizes the transition between
her soul and remains only to be completed by the these two phases of Natasha's life by going still
actuality of the near-disaster to which it leads. farther. In addition to the general contrast be-
But there is more to the pattern of Natasha'stween the scene at Uncle's and the scene at the
story than this. If it is analogous to the patternopera, he establishes a much more subtle one be-
of Nicholas' story in that the latter too has its tween Natasha's responses to these occasions. At
center in the transition between antithetical val- Uncle's, as already noted, she first appears as a
ues which takes place in Book vnI, it is also analo- young countess, "reared in silks and velvets,"
gous in that this transition is retrospectively un- who finds everything there an amusing novelty;
derscored by an almost identical technique: as in when she enters the house, she winks at Nicholas,
Nicholas' story we have two kinds of hunt, so in and both burst "into a peal of ringing laughter
Natasha's we have two kinds of singing. The first even before they had a pretext ready to account
kind is that which she hears at Uncle's, and which for it" (WP, ii, 128; SS, v, 292). But as the eve-
Tolstoy describes as "like the song of a bird"
(WP, ii, 133; SS, v, 297), for Uncle's singing has 4As a further indication of Tolstoy's careful planning of
all the unconsciousness, the spontaneity, and the Natasha's story, one may note how subtly the encounter be-
inevitability of a force of nature. Much later in tween Natasha and Anatole is foreshadowed. When the latter
the novel, the same metaphor is chosen to charac- is first introduced to us in Bk. I, it is in the chapter (WP, Ch.
ix; SS, Ch. vi) immediately preceding our introduction to the
terize the singing of the exemplary Platon Kara- Rostovs, who, at the time, are celebrating Natasha's name
taev, who saves Pierre from despair by virtue of day. Moreover, in Bk. vnI, Ch. ix, as the restlessness and
an even greater harmony with nature: "He did loneliness which are going to make her vulnerable to Anatole
not sing like a trained singer who knows he is grow more intense, we are told that Natasha "picked up her
guitar ... and began ... picking out a passage she recalled
listened to, but like the birds, evidently giving
from an opera slie had heard in Petersburg with Prince An-
vent to the sounds in the same way that one drew" (WP, II, 141; SS, v, 305; italics mine). The irony is
stretches oneself, or walks about to get rid of obvious.

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 John Hagan 241

ning wears on, she finds herself growing more and the remainder of it is designed just as carefu
more in tune with her surroundings, until at last After her near-fall in Book viii, the second half
she is eating Uncle's peasant cookery with the the novel charts her recovery-her movemen
greatest relish, spontaneously dancing the folk back from war to peace. This movement is n
dance, and discovering in Uncle's and the coach- needless to say, merely a return to the peace
man's singing "the acme of musical delight" knew earlier. In the pivotal developments be
(WP, II, 130; SS, v, 294-295). She moves, in tween the beginning of Book VII, where she w
short, from a realm of artifice to the realm of na- living through the last happy days of her gi
ture, and this, like Nicholas' breaking out of the hood, and the end of Book vIII, she has been cat
"narrow unchanging frame" of army routines, is pulted into the adult world of evil and sufferin
represented as a vital liberation. At the opera, out of which, as the necessary condition for h
however, Natasha's emotions chart a course new and higher happiness, she has to be rebo
which is exactly the reverse. The artificiality ofHer earlier happiness is epitomized in Book
the performance at first repels her, and Tolstoyby the uninhibited cry she utters during the hun
leaves no doubt in our minds that this is a thor- it is a happiness of the earth. But her new happ
oughly healthy, uncorrupted, natural reaction.ness is epitomized at the end of Book vIII by
But as the atmosphere of the theatre begins to image of what is not of the earth-the comet
intoxicate her, and, particularly, as Anatole be- 1812, "which, having travelled in its orbit w
gins to attract her attention with his flatteringinconceivable velocity through immeasura
glances, which cause her to grow increasingly in- space, seemed suddenly... to remain fixed in
terested in him, the opera seems less and less bi-chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erec
zarre and more and more "simple and natural" shining, and displaying its white light am
(WP, II, 201; SS, v, 362), until by the end of the countless other scintillating stars" (WP, II, 25
third act she is sharing the box of Anatole's de-SS, v, 414). To be sure, it is through Pierre's eye
praved sister Helene and joining the crowd in itsthat the reader sees this comet, and it is Pier
wild enthusiasm for the leading singer. In so do-who feels it responding to what is happening
ing, she has moved completely from the realm of his own soul, but the same words can, with equa
nature to the realm of artifice; thus, when, a justice, be applied to Natasha, who, only a fe
moment later, with almost melodramatic appro-chapters later, experiences remorse for her tran
priateness, "a whiff of cold air came into Helene's gression,6 receives Holy Communion, again tak
box, the door opened and Anatole entered" (WP,up her singing, and, above all, awakens joyfu
II, 204; SS, v, 365), her downfall has become in- to the fact that Pierre is now in love with her.
evitable.
I mention this phase of Natasha's story now
Finally, Tolstoy dramatizes the pivotal signifi- however, only because it is necessary for a p
cance of this moment in Natasha's life in yet an- spective on the character development of anothe
other way, for it is paralleled a few chapters later, protagonist, Princess Mary. That Natasha's ne
at the opening of Book ix, by the beginning of happiness continues to have one of its sources
Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Just as Natasha, that vitality and sexual energy-that naturalne
who has been virtually identified in the scene at and earthiness-epitomized by the hunting cry
Uncle's with the spirit of the Russian land and is undeniable, for at the end of the novel she ha
people (her dancing, for example, shows that she achieved fulfillment in an exemplary Tolstoy
"was able to understand all that was in Anisya way by becoming Pierre's wife and a prolifi
and in Anisya's father and mother and aunt, and mother. But it is usually forgotten that in th
in every Russian man and woman" [WP, II, course of reaching this goal she has also develope
132-133; SS, v, 297]), is nearly violated by Ana- morally, achieving a transcendence of self by dis
tole, so the Russian land and people are actually covering the equally essential Tolstoyan virtues o
violated by Napoleon, who at one point even love, humility, and self-sacrifice. By undergoi
thinks of Moscow, spread out before him, as a an evolution which comprises her momentar
beautiful woman whom he is about to rape (WP, but sincerely repentant return to religion, her d
II, 70; SS, vi, 366). The personal and national cision to sacrifice the family property in order
calamities each become metaphors of the other. help evacuate the wounded from Moscow, he
III
6 Note that this remorse occurs immediately after Nichol
There is, of course, more to Natasha's goes through his comparable experience of feeling "mor
story
nausea" for wounding the French officer (Bk. ix, Ch. xv
than I have outlined, and if space permitted it
War and Peace, as I have already suggested, is filled wit
would be possible to demonstrate in detail how and synchronizations of precisely this sort.
correlations

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242 Character Development in Tolstoy's "War and Peace"

reconciliation with Andrew and her begging him siveness of her father, the irascible old Prince
to forgive her unfaithfulness, her passionate love Bolkonski, who subjects Mary and his entire
and pity for all who share her grief for him, her household to a fanatically rigid discipline and
acceptance of the rightness of his death, and her preaches the doctrine that "there are only two
self-forgetful, healing love for her mother at the sources of human vice-idleness and superstition,
time of the death of Petya-Natasha ultimately and only two virtues-activity and intelligence"
comes to participate in the values understood (WP, i, 111; SS, iv, 119). Throughout the novel,
from the beginning by Mary, the child of God. At both explicitly and implicitly, Tolstoy relies
the same time, by quite another process, Mary heavily upon the familiar Romantic contrast be-
has come to appreciate the values understood tween the vital and the mechanical-between
from the beginning by Natasha, the child of Na- that which changes, grows, and develops as na-
ture. Just as in the first half of the novel Na- ture ordains and that which remains fixed,
tasha's story counterpoints Nicholas', so in the changeless, dead. The former process is sym-
second half Mary's counterpoints Natasha's, bolized by the blossoming of the old oak tree in
with the result that each character is completed the famous passage in Book vi, Chapters i and iii,
by the other in a vital way. describing Andrew's visit to Otradnoe, whereas
Specifically, Mary's story is a movement from the condition of stasis is symbolized by the image
war to peace which takes the form of a struggle of the Prince's lathe, which, together with mathe-
against her natural desire for husband and family matics, writing his memoirs, gardening, and
and the resolution of that struggle. An index to superintending the building on his estate, occu-
this conflict is her initial hostility to Natasha, pies all of his attention. By means of this image
which develops at the time of the latter's en- the Prince is subtly linked with the false, stereo-
gagement to Andrew. Mary's "involuntary en- typed world represented by Anna Pavlovna's
vy" of Natasha's "beauty, youth, and happiness" Petersburg salon, where everyone is playing a
(WP, II, 192; SS, v, 353) springs from a desire for role and going through an established ritual;
love and marriage which she has carefully tried to where Prince Vasili Kuragin, "like a wound-up
suppress. At the beginning of the novel, she is ab- clock, by force of habit said things he did not
sorbed in religion, and religion alone seems to even wish to be believed" (WP, I, 4; SS, iv, 8);
suffice her. When she receives a letter from her and where conversation is like a "spinning-mill"
friend Julie Karagina, for instance, who speaks which Anna Pavlovna must keep "in steady,
proper, and regular motion" (WP, I, 11-12; SS,
affectionately of Nicholas, she replies that a love
Iv, 17).6 The image of the lathe also links both
which is far "worthier, sweeter, and better" than
romantic love is "Christian love, love of one's the salons and Prince Bolkonski with Napoleon,
neighbor, love of one's enemy" (WP, I, 117; SS, who thinks of the human body as "a machine for
Iv, 126-127). Two or three paragraphs later she living" and "a perfect watch" (WP, Ii, 502; SS,
refers in the same tone to Anatole's forthcoming vI, 255). Prince Bolkonski is not, of course, a
suit. On first reading we may be inclined to mere villain; not only are we plainly meant to ad-
accept these remarks at face value, especially mire his consistently adamant opposition to
since there is much else in this letter (such as French aggression, but beneath his harshness and
Mary's preference for the "Epistles and Gospels" irritability we can detect a genuine capacity for
over "mystical books," and her attack on war as tenderness. His problem is that though he knows
a violation of the laws of the "divine Savior, Who he is wrong in stifling Mary's life, he cannot help
preached love and forgiveness of injuries") which, himself. Each of his acts of cruelty toward Mary
it soon becomes clear, is endorsed by Tolstoy fills him with remorse, but because he cannot en-
himself. But the farther we read the more we see dure that remorse, he strikes back at Mary all the
that Mary is rationalizing. There can be no doubt more harshly for causing it. In this way the vi-
that her religious feelings and yearnings are genu- cious circle goes on, the Prince growing "the more
ine; her religiosity is not merely the result of sexu- cruel because he loved her and for that reason
al repression (as, for example, the religiosity of torment[ing] himself and her" alike (WP, II, 172;
Emma Bovary so largely is). But sexual repres- SS, v, 333).
sion has led to a certain exaggeration of these The result is a conflict in Mary's own mind be-
feelings and yearnings, until she has come to rely tween, on the one hand, her natural desire for
almost exclusively on them as a compensation for
6 The parallel between the Bolkonski household and Anna
the frustration of other desires which are equally Pavlovna's salon on the score of their fixity is also established
natural for her.
by what Tolstoy says in two later passages: WP, n, 287-288,
At the root of the problem is the selfish posses- 395; SS, vi, 42, 145.

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 Johna Hagan 243

love and marriage, and, on the other, a profound spells not more frustration and unhappiness, but
feeling of guilt, for to admit the existence of that the fulfillment at last of her yearnings for love
desire would be to defy the father whose ambiva- and marriage and an end to the conflicts which
lent behavior arouses both her fear and her rever- the suppression of these yearnings has been
ence. She dares to assert her religious faith in the causing. Book x thus becomes as pivotal in
teeth of his scepticism, but not her sexuality. Mary's story as Book vnI was in the stories of
However cruelly he treats her, she refuses to ad- Nicholas and Natasha; her father's collapse and
mit to herself that he has frustrated her. Instead, death turn out to be the occasion not only for
she rationalizes herself into believing that re- her suffering, but ultimately for her rebirth, her
ligion, a solitary life devoted to serving her liberation. Tolstoy's imagery suggests this at
father and nephew (on whom she lavishes all her the moment of the collapse itself, for when Mary
pent-up maternal love), and her otherworldly sees the men hurrying toward the house to
dream of someday becoming a holy pilgrim like announce what has happened, she runs "out to
her "God's Folk" can suffice her. And her dedica- the porch, down the flower-bordered path and
tion to an ethic of self-sacrifice and forgiveness of into the avenue" (WP, II, 404; SS, vi, 155),
injuries is, in some measure, an expression of this just as Nicholas "ran out from the porch...
rationalization. [and] went round the corner of the house and
Signs of the resulting conflict-the war-in along the path" at the Melyukovs' when he
Mary's soul begin to appear relatively early anddecided to declare his love to Sonya. Mary's
grow increasingly apparent as the novel contin-liberation is thus not only effected by Nicholas,
ues, finally reaching their climax in Book x, at but echoes his own before he actually arrives on
the time of the Prince's first stroke. All her re- the scene.
sentment against her father's tyrannical stiflingAnother image of liberation connected with
of her natural life now forces its way abruptly to the old Prince's collapse and linking Mary to
the surface of her consciousness in the form of a Nicholas is that of her seated "by the window
desire for the old man's death, and fills her with listening to . . . [her father's] voice which reached
horror and self-loathing. After the Prince's funer-her from the garden" moments before he is
al, she looks back upon her behavior toward himstricken (WP, ii, 404; SS, vi, 155). Inside the
in his last days with a profound feeling of guilt, house there is only the rigid, life-denying do-
and, remembering the appearance of his face mestic routine analogous to the "narrow un-
while he lay in his coffin, she runs from her room,changing frame" within which Nicholas lived
screaming hysterically. To make the significancein the army; but outside, through the window,
of Mary's crisis perfectly clear, Tolstoy resorts to lies that same larger world of earth and sky
the technique he had used earlier in Natasha's that Nicholas saw when he too looked "out of
story: he parallels the inner, private warfare the window" on the day of the wolf hunt, dis-
with the outer, public one. Just as Natasha'scovered that "it was an unsurpassable morning
near-seduction by Anatole took place shortly for hunting," and presently stepped "out into
before Napoleon's invasion of Russia, now the wet and muddy porch." Thus, though
Mary's ordeal occurs just after the French haveMary, after her father's funeral, shuts herself
bombarded nearby Smolensk and are marchingbehind "the closed door" of her room to brood
toward the Bolkonski family estate of Baldupon "the irrevocability of death and her own
Hills on their way to Moscow. spiritual baseness. . . which had shown itself
By the end of Book x, Chapter xii, then, theduring her father's illness" (WP, ii, 417; SS,
first phase of Mary's story is complete. Imme- vI, 168), no sooner does the sun begin to shine
diately afterward, in Chapter xiii, the second "into the open window" than her thoughts take
phase begins, the countermovement toward an entirely new direction: "Unconsciously she
peace. It is in this chapter, when Mary's state sat up, smoothed her hair, got up, and went to
of mind and her fortunes have reached their the window, involuntarily inhaling the freshness
nadir, that Nicholas, on a foraging expedition,
of the clear but windy evening. 'Yes, you can
suddenly rides up to her house at Bogucharovo,
well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no
rescues her from the troubles caused byone herwill hinder you,' she said to herself, and
recalcitrant serfs, helps her to depart, and sinking
falls into a chair she let her head fall on the
window-sill" (WP, ii, 418; SS, vi, 169). The
in love with her at first sight. Unlike the earlier
appearance of Anatole in her life (as in Na-
pattern is completed when, by Chapter xiv, the
tasha's), which was a thoroughly calculated
world beyond the window has become specifically
move, Nicholas' is quite unpremeditated associated
and for her with Nicholas: as she rides in

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244 Character Development in Tolstoy's "War and Peace"

her carriage to Moscow, she "leaned out of the of the war between the nations. It is true that
window and smiled at something with an ex- the peace she finds in marriage is only a relative
pression of mingled joy and sorrow.... Some- one, for her religious yearnings for a "sort of
times when she recalled his [Nicholas'] looks, happiness unattainable in this life" (WP, II,
his sympathy, and his words, happiness did not 452; SS, vII, 297) remain as strong as ever; her
appear impossible to her. It was at those mo- soul is always striving "towards the infinite,
ments that Dunyasha [her maid] noticed her the eternal, and the absolute, and could there-
smiling as she looked out of the carriage window" fore never be at peace" (WP, III, 480; SS, vII,
(WP, ii, 436-437; SS, vi, 188). 325). But this does not lessen the fact that the
Mary's development is now virtually finished. happiness afforded her by marriage and mother-
She must still learn to appreciate the qualities hood is a very real happiness. She has always
of Nicholas' sister Natasha-to overcome the needed both religion and marriage, both the
hostility which has existed between them from
infinite and the finite, and this need persists to
the beginning-and to marry Nicholas; the
butend. But while the former desire, by its very
these commitments to a "belief in life and its nature, can never be satisfied, the latter can be
enjoyment" (WP, II, 355; SS, vII, 204-205) are
and is, and Mary is at last free from the neces-
implicit in what has already taken place by the sity of denying that it is essential to her true ful-
middle of Book x. By then the war in Mary'sfillment.
soul is over, and she is on her way to the attain-
ment of peace. Her marriage takes place, like STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Natasha's, in 1813, the year following the end Binghamton

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