Ways of finding the meaning of life by the main characters of the novel War and Peace. All school essays on literature
Essays on literature: Ways of finding the meaning of life by the main characters of the novel War and Peace
The highest task of talent is to make people understand the meaning and value of life through their work.
V. O. Klyuchevsky
V. I. Lenin highly appreciated artistic heritage famous Russian writer L.N. Tolstoy. “His legacy contains something that has not become a thing of the past, that belongs to the future,” wrote V.I. Lenin about Tolstoy.
From his father, a participant in foreign campaigns of the times Patriotic War, L. Tolstoy inherited self-esteem, independence of judgment, pride. Having entered Kazan University, he showed extraordinary abilities in studying foreign languages however, he quickly became disillusioned student life. At the age of 19 he leaves the university and goes to Yasnaya Polyana, deciding to devote himself to improving the lives of his peasants. The time begins for Tolstoy to search for a purpose in life. He's going to
Going to Siberia, then going to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg; then he decides to join the Horse Guards Regiment... During these same years, L. Tolstoy was seriously involved in music, pedagogy, and philosophy. In a painful search, Tolstoy comes to the main task of his life - literary creativity. Total great writer created over 200 works, including the epic novel War and Peace. According to Turgenev, “we have never had anything better
It was not written by anyone." Suffice it to note that the text of the novel was rewritten 7 times; its composition is striking in its complexity and harmony.
Studying human consciousness, prepared by introspection, allowed Tolstoy to become a deep psychologist. In the images he created, especially in the images of the main characters of the novel, inner life human - a complex contradictory process usually hidden from prying eyes. Tolstoy, according to N. G. Chernyshevsky, reveals the “dialectic human soul", i.e. "barely perceptible phenomena... of inner life, replacing one another with extreme speed"... /N. G. Chernyshevsky/
Tolstoy said: “People are like rivers...” - emphasizing with this comparison the versatility and complexity of the human personality. The spiritual beauty of Tolstoy's favorite heroes - Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and
Pierre Bezukhov - manifests itself in the tireless search for the meaning of life, in dreams of activities useful for the entire people. Their life path is a path of passionate quest leading to truth and goodness. Pierre and Andrey are internally close to each other and alien to the world of Kuragin and Scherer.
They meet on different stages life: and at the right time happy love prince
Andrei to Natasha, both during the breakup with her, and on the eve of the Battle of Borodino. AND
Each time they turn out to be the closest people to each other, although each of them goes their own way towards goodness and truth. Wanting to get out of the social and family life that has bored him, Andrei Bolkonsky is going to war. He dreams of glory similar to Napoleonic, dreams of accomplishing a feat. “What is glory?” says Prince Andrei. “The same love for others...” But during Battle of Austerlitz the desire for fame leads him to a deep spiritual crisis. The sky of Austerlitz becomes for Prince Andrei a symbol of a high understanding of life: “How come I haven’t seen this high sky before? And how happy I am that I finally recognized it. Yes! Everything is empty, everything is a deception, except this endless sky.” Andrei Bolkonsky realized that the natural life of nature and man is more significant and important than the war and glory of Napoleon. Further events- the birth of a child, the death of his wife - forced Prince Andrei to come to the conclusion that life in its simple manifestations, life for himself, for his family, is the only thing left for him. But active nature Bolkonsky, of course, could not limit herself to this. The search for the meaning of life begins again, and the first milestone on this path is a meeting with Pierre and a conversation with him on the ferry. Bezukhov’s words - “We must live, we must love, we must believe” - show Prince Andrei the path to happiness. Meeting Natasha Rostova and the old oak tree help him feel the joy of being, the opportunity to benefit people. Prince Andrei is now trying to find the meaning and purpose of life in love, but this happiness turned out to be short-lived.
The most significant milestone in Andrei's life were the events of 1812.
The highest goal His life becomes the defense of his homeland from the enemy. Dreams of personal glory no longer concern him. To live, helping and sympathizing with people - this is the new ideal that awakened in the soul of Prince Andrey during the days of severe trials for his homeland. It is in a conversation with Pierre on the eve of the Battle of Borodino that the unity of thoughts of Prince Andrei and the fighting people is felt. Expressing his attitude to the events, he says that his thoughts are in tune with the people: “And Timokhin and the entire army think the same, “The life of Prince Andrei, his search for the meaning of life ends in unity with the people fighting for their native land.
Pierre Bezukhov followed different paths in life, but he was worried about the same problems as Prince Andrei. "Why live and what am I? What is life, what is death?" - Pierre, whose image was conceived by Tolstoy as the image of the future Decembrist, painfully searched for an answer to these questions. At first, Pierre defends the ideas of the French Revolution, admires Napoleon, wants either to “create a republic in Russia, or to be Napoleon himself...” Not yet finding the meaning of life, Pierre rushes about and makes mistakes, one of which is his marriage to the low and vicious beauty Helen Kuragina. His search for truth and the meaning of life leads him to the Freemasons. He passionately desires to “regenerate the vicious human race.” In the teachings of the Freemasons, Pierre is attracted by the ideas of “equality, brotherhood and love,” so first of all he decides to alleviate the lot of the serfs. It seems to him that he has finally found the purpose and meaning of life: “And only now, when I... try... to live for others, only now I understand all the happiness of life.” This conclusion helps Pierre find the real path in his further quest. But disappointment soon sets in in Freemasonry, since Pierre’s republican ideas were not shared by his “brothers,” and besides, Pierre sees that among the Freemasons there is hypocrisy, hypocrisy, and careerism. All this leads Pierre to break with the Freemasons. Just like for Prince Andrei, the goal of life, the ideal for Pierre becomes love for Natasha Rostova, overshadowed by marriage with Helen, whom he hates. But his life only from the outside seemed calm and serene. "Why? Why? What is going on in the world?" - these questions never ceased to bother Bezukhov. This ongoing inner work prepared his spiritual rebirth in
Days of the Patriotic War of 1812. Contact with the people on the Borodino field, and after the battle, and in Moscow occupied by the enemy, and in captivity, was of great importance for Pierre. “To be a soldier, just a soldier!.. Enter this common life with the whole being, to be imbued with what makes them so" - this is the desire that took possession of Pierre after the Battle of Borodino. With the images of Prince Andrei and Pierre Bezukhov, Tolstoy shows that, no matter what in different ways the best of the representatives high society in search of the meaning of life, they come to the same result: the meaning of life is in unity with their native people, in love for this people.
It was in captivity that Bezukhov came to the conviction: “Man was created for happiness.” But the people around Pierre are suffering, and in the epilogue Tolstoy shows Pierre thinking hard about how to defend goodness and truth. The path of quest leads Bezukhov into the secret political society, fighting against
Serfdom and autocracy.
The problems raised by Tolstoy in the novel "War and Peace" have universal significance. His novel, according to Gorky, is “a documentary presentation of all the quests that a strong personality undertook in the 19th century in order to find a place and business for himself in the history of Russia...”
From his father, a participant in foreign campaigns during the Patriotic War, L. N. Tolstoy inherited self-esteem, independence of judgment, and pride. Having entered Kazan University, he showed extraordinary abilities in studying foreign languages, but quickly became disillusioned with student life. At the age of 19, he leaves the university and leaves for Yasnaya Polyana, deciding to devote himself to improving the lives of his peasants. The time begins for Tolstoy to search for a purpose in life. He is either going to go to Siberia, then goes to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg, then decides to join the Horse Guards Regiment. During these same years, L.N. Tolstoy was seriously involved in music, pedagogy, and philosophy.
In a painful search, he comes to the main work of his life - literary creativity. In total, the great writer created over 200 works, including the epic novel War and Peace. According to Turgenev, “nothing better has ever been written by anyone.” It is enough to note that the text of the novel was rewritten seven times; its composition is striking in its complexity and harmony.
The study of human consciousness, prepared by introspection, allowed Tolstoy to become a profound psychologist. In the images he created, especially in the images of the main characters of the novel, the inner life of a person is exposed - a complex contradictory process, usually hidden from prying eyes. Tolstoy, according to N. G. Chernyshevsky, reveals the “dialectic of the human soul,” that is, “barely perceptible phenomena ... of inner life, replacing one another with extreme speed.”
Tolstoy said: “People are like rivers...”, emphasizing with this comparison the versatility and complexity of the human personality. The spiritual beauty of Tolstoy’s favorite heroes - Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov - is manifested in the tireless search for the meaning of life, in dreams of activities useful for the whole people. Their life path is a path of passionate quest leading to truth and goodness. Pierre and Andrey are internally close to each other and alien to the world of Kuragin and Scherer.
They meet at different stages of life: both at the time of Prince Andrei’s happy love for Natasha, and during the break with her, and on the eve of the Battle of Borodino. And every time they turn out to be the closest people to each other, although each of them goes to goodness and truth in his own way. Wanting to get out of the hell of his social and family life, Andrei Bolkonsky is going to war. He dreams of glory similar to Napoleonic, dreams of accomplishing a feat. “After all, what is fame? - says Prince Andrey. “The same love for others...”
But during the Battle of Austerlitz, the desire for glory leads him to a deep spiritual crisis. The sky of Austerlitz becomes for Prince Andrey a symbol of a high understanding of life: “How come I haven’t seen this high sky before? And how happy I am that I finally recognized him. Yes! Everything is empty, everything is deception, except this endless sky.” Andrei Bolkonsky realized that the natural life of nature and man is more significant and important than the war and glory of Napoleon. Further events - the birth of a child, the death of his wife - forced Prince Andrei to come to the conclusion that life in its simple manifestations, life for himself, for his family, is the only thing left for him.
But Bolkonsky’s active nature, of course, could not limit itself to this. The search for the meaning of life begins again, and the first milestone on this path is a meeting with Pierre and a conversation with him on the ferry. Bezukhov’s words “You have to live, you have to love, you have to believe” show Prince Andrey the path to happiness. A meeting with Natasha Rostova helps him feel the joy of life, the opportunity to benefit people. Prince Andrei is now trying to find the meaning and purpose of life in love, but this happiness turned out to be short-lived.
The most significant milestone in Andrei's life were the events of 1812. The highest goal of his life becomes the defense of his homeland from the enemy. Dreams of personal glory no longer concern him. To live by helping and sympathizing with people - this is the new ideal that awakened in the soul of Prince Andrei during the days of severe trials for the Motherland. It is in a conversation with Pierre on the eve of the Battle of Borodino that the unity of thoughts of Prince Andrei and the fighting people is felt. Expressing his attitude to events, he says that his thoughts are in tune with the people: “And Timokhin and the whole army think the same.” The life of Prince Andrey, his search for the meaning of life ends in unity with the people fighting for their native land.
Pierre Bezukhov followed different paths in life, but he was worried about the same problems as Prince Andrei. “Why live and what am I? What is life, what is death? — Pierre, whose image was conceived by Tolstoy as the image of the future Decembrist, painfully searched for an answer to these questions. At first, Pierre defends the ideas of the French Revolution, admires Napoleon, wants either to “create a republic in Russia, or to be Napoleon himself...”. Not yet finding the meaning of life, Pierre rushes about and makes mistakes, one of which is his marriage to the low and vicious beauty Helen Kuragina. His search for truth and the meaning of life leads him to the Freemasons. He passionately desires to “regenerate the vicious human race.” In the teachings of the Freemasons, Pierre is attracted by the ideas of “equality, brotherhood and love,” so first of all he decides to alleviate the lot of the serfs. It seems to him that he has finally found the purpose and meaning of life: “And only now, when I... try... to live for others, only now I understand all the happiness of life.” This conclusion helps Pierre find the real path in his further quests. But disappointment soon sets in in Freemasonry, since Pierre’s republican ideas were not shared by his “brothers” and, moreover, Pierre sees that among the Freemasons there is hypocrisy, hypocrisy, and careerism. All this leads Pierre to break with the Freemasons. Just like for Prince Andrei, love for Natasha Rostova becomes the goal of life, the ideal for Pierre.
But his life only from the outside seemed calm and serene. "For what? For what? What is going on in the world?” - these questions never ceased to bother Bezukhov. This ongoing inner work prepared for his spiritual rebirth during the Patriotic War of 1812. Contact with the people on the Borodino field, and after the battle, and in Moscow occupied by the enemy, and in captivity, was of great importance for Pierre. “To be a soldier, just a soldier!.. To enter into this common life with the whole being, to be imbued with what makes them so” - this is the desire that took possession of Pierre after the Battle of Borodino.
It was in captivity that Bezukhov came to the conviction: “Man was created for happiness.” But the people around Pierre suffer, and in the epilogue Tolstoy shows Pierre thinking hard about how to defend goodness and truth. The path of quest leads Bezukhov to a secret political society fighting against serfdom and autocracy.
The problems raised by Tolstoy in the novel War and Peace have universal significance. This novel, according to Gorky, “is a documentary presentation of all the quests that a strong personality undertook in the 19th century in order to find a place and business for himself in the history of Russia.”
IN art world Tolstoy has heroes who persistently and purposefully strive for complete harmony in peace, tirelessly searching for meaning life. They are not interested in selfish goals, social intrigue, empty and meaningless conversations in high society salons. They are easy to recognize among arrogant, self-satisfied faces. These, of course, include the most vivid images novel "War and Peace" - Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov. They stand out noticeably among the heroes of Russian literature of the 19th century century with its originality and intellectual richness. Completely different in character, Prince Andrei and Pierre Bezukhov have much in common in ideological aspirations and quests.
Tolstoy said: “People are like rivers...” - emphasizing with this comparison the versatility and complexity of the human personality. The spiritual beauty of the writer's favorite heroes - Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov - is manifested in the tireless search for the meaning of life, in dreams of activities useful for the whole people. Their life path is a path of passionate quest leading to truth and goodness. Pierre and Andrey are internally close to each other and alien to the world of Kuragin and Scherer.
Tolstoy chose dialogue as a means of revealing the inner world of his characters. The disputes between Andrei and Pierre are not idle chatter or a duel of ambitions, it is a desire to understand one’s own thoughts and try to understand the thoughts of another person. Both heroes live an intense spiritual life and benefit from current impressions general meaning. Their relationship has the character of a spacious friendship. Each of them goes their own way. They do not need everyday communication and do not strive to find out as many details as possible about each other’s lives. But they sincerely respect each other and feel that the other’s truth is just as much gained through suffering as his own, that it grew out of life, that behind every argument in the dispute there is life.
The first acquaintance with Andrei Bolkonsky does not evoke much sympathy. A proud and self-satisfied young man with dry features and a tired, bored look - this is how Anna Pavlovna Sherer’s guests see him. But when we learn that the expression on his face was caused by the fact that “everyone who was in the living room was not only familiar, but was already so tired of him that it was very boring for him to look at them and listen to them,” interest in the hero arises. Further, Tolstoy reports that a brilliant and idle, empty life does not satisfy Prince Andrei and he strives with all his might to break the vicious circle in which he finds himself.
Trying to get out of his boring social and family life, Andrei Bolkonsky is going to war. He dreams of glory similar to Napoleonic, dreams of accomplishing a feat. “What is fame? - says Prince Andrey. “The same love for others...” The feat he accomplished during the Battle of Austerlitz, when he ran ahead of everyone with a banner in his hands, looked very impressive in appearance: even Napoleon noticed and appreciated it. But having done heroic deed For some reason, Andrey did not experience any delight or elation. Probably because at that moment when he fell, seriously wounded, a new high truth was revealed to him along with the high endless sky, spreading a blue vault above him. The desire for fame leads Andrei to a deep spiritual crisis. The sky of Austerlitz becomes for him a symbol of a high understanding of life: “How come I haven’t seen this high sky before? And how happy I am that I finally recognized him. Yes! Everything is empty, everything is deception, except this endless sky.” Andrei Bolkonsky realized that the natural life of nature and man is more significant and important than the war and glory of Napoleon.
Against the backdrop of this clear sky, everything former dreams and the aspirations seemed small and insignificant to Andrei, the same as his former idol. A reassessment of values took place in his soul. What seemed beautiful and sublime to him turned out to be empty and vain. And what he so diligently fenced himself off from was the simple and quiet family life, - now seemed to him a desirable world full of happiness and harmony. Further events - the birth of a child, the death of his wife - forced Prince Andrei to come to the conclusion that life in its simple manifestations, life for himself, for his family, is the only thing left for him. But Prince Andrei’s mind continued to work hard, he read a lot and thought about eternal questions: what power controls the world and what is the meaning of life.
Andrei tried to live a simple, quiet life, taking care of his son and improving the lives of his serfs: he made three hundred people free cultivators, and replaced the rest with dues. But the state of depression, the feeling of the impossibility of happiness, indicated that all the transformations could not fully occupy his mind and heart.
Pierre Bezukhov followed different paths in life, but he was worried about the same problems as Prince Andrei. “Why live and what am I? What is life, what is death? - Pierre painfully searched for answers to these questions. At the beginning of the novel, at an evening with Anna Pavlovna Scherer, Pierre defends the ideas of the French Revolution, admires Napoleon, wants either to “create a republic in Russia, or to be Napoleon himself...”. Not yet finding the meaning of life, Pierre rushes about and makes mistakes. Suffice it to recall the story with the bear, which caused a lot of noise in the world. But the biggest mistake Pierre made during this period was his marriage to the low and vicious beauty Helen Kuragina. The duel with Dolokhov opened up Pierre's A New Look to the world, he realized that it was no longer possible to live the way he was living.
His search for truth and the meaning of life leads him to the Freemasons. He passionately desires to “regenerate the vicious human race.” In the teachings of the Freemasons, Pierre is attracted by the ideas of “equality, brotherhood and love”, so, first of all, he decides to alleviate the lot of the serfs. It seems to him that he has finally found the purpose and meaning of life: “And only now, when I... try... to live for others, only now I understand all the happiness of life.” But Pierre is still too naive to understand that all his transformations lead to nothing. Tolstoy, talking about Pierre's activities on the estate, sneers at his beloved hero.
Returning from a trip to the estates, Pierre stops by to visit Prince Andrei. Their meeting, which had great importance for both, and which largely determined their future path, took place on the Bogucharovo estate. They met at a moment when each of them thought that he had found the truth. But if Pierre’s truth was happy, he had recently become familiar with it and it filled his entire being so much that he wanted to quickly reveal it to his friend, then Prince Andrei’s truth was bitter and devastating, and he did not want to share his thoughts with anyone.
Andrei's final revival to life occurred thanks to his meeting with Natasha Rostova. Communication with her reveals to Andrey a new, previously unknown side of life - love, beauty, poetry. But it is with Natasha that he is not destined to be happy, because there is no complete mutual understanding between them. Natasha loves Andrei, but does not understand and does not know him. And she remains a mystery to him with her own, special inner world. If Natasha lives every moment, unable to wait and postpone until a certain time the moment of happiness, then Andrei is able to love from a distance, finding a special charm in anticipation of the upcoming wedding with his beloved girl. Separation turned out to be too difficult a test for Natasha, because she, unlike Andrei, was not able to think about anything other than love.
The story with Anatoly Kuragin destroyed the possible happiness of Natasha and Prince Andrei. Proud and proud Andrei could not forgive Natasha for her mistake. And she, experiencing painful remorse, considered herself unworthy of such a noble, ideal person and renounced all the joys of life. Fate separates loving people, leaving bitterness and pain of disappointment in their souls. But she will unite them before Andrei’s death, because the Patriotic War of 1812 will change a lot in their characters.
When Napoleon entered Russia and began to rapidly advance, Andrei Bolkonsky, who hated the war after being seriously wounded at Austerlitz, joined the active army, refusing a safe and promising service on the headquarters of the commander-in-chief. While commanding a regiment, the proud aristocrat Bolkonsky became close to the mass of soldiers and peasants and learned to appreciate and respect the common people. If at first Prince Andrei tried to arouse the courage of the soldiers by walking under bullets, then when he saw them in battle, he realized that he had nothing to teach them. From that moment on, he began to look at men in soldiers' greatcoats as patriotic heroes who courageously and steadfastly defended their Fatherland. So Andrei Bolkonsky came to the idea that the success of the army does not depend on the position, weapons or number of troops, but on the feeling that exists in him and in every soldier.
After the meeting in Bogucharovo, Pierre, like Prince Andrei, expected bitter disappointments, in particular in Freemasonry. Republican ideas Pierre was not separated by his “brothers”. In addition, Pierre realized that among the Masons there is hypocrisy, hypocrisy, and careerism. All this led Pierre to a break with the Freemasons and to another mental crisis. Just like for Prince Andrei, the goal of life, the ideal for Pierre became (although he himself did not yet understand and did not realize this) love for Natasha Rostova, overshadowed by the bonds of marriage with Helen. "For what? For what? What is going on in the world?” - these questions never ceased to bother Bezukhov.
During this period, the second meeting of Pierre and Andrey took place. This time Tolstoy chose Borodino as the place for the meeting of his heroes. Here the decisive battle for the Russian and French armies took place, and here last meeting main characters of the novel. At this period, Prince Andrei perceives his life as “badly painted pictures,” sums up its results and reflects on the same eternal questions. But the landscape against which his reflections are given (“... these birches with their light and shadow, and these curly clouds, and this smoke from the fires, everything around was transformed for him and seemed something terrible and threatening”) , a sign that something poetic, eternal and incomprehensible continues to live in his devastated soul. At the same time, he continues to think and remain silent. And Pierre is eager to know, eager to listen and talk.
Pierre asks Andrey questions that have serious, not yet formalized thoughts behind them. Prince Andrei does not want to engage in conversation. Now Pierre is not only alien to him, but also unpleasant: he bears a reflection of the life that brought him a lot of suffering. And again, as in Bogucharovo, Prince Andrei begins to speak and, unnoticed by himself, gets drawn into the conversation. This is not even a conversation, but a monologue of Prince Andrei, which is pronounced unexpectedly, passionately and contains bold and unexpected thoughts. He still speaks in a maliciously mocking tone, but this is not embitterment and devastation, but the anger and pain of a patriot: “Prince Andrei, who thought that he didn’t care whether they took Moscow or not, since they took Smolensk, suddenly stopped in his speech from an unexpected spasm that grabbed him by the throat.”
Pierre listened to his friend, ashamed of his ignorance in military affairs, but at the same time he felt that the moment Russia was experiencing was something very special, and the words of his friend, a professional military man, convinced him of the truth of his feelings. Everything he saw that day, everything he thought and reflected on, “lit up for him with a new light.” The separation of Pierre and Andrey cannot be called warm and friendly. But just like last time, their conversation changed the heroes’ previous ideas about life and happiness. When Pierre left, Prince Andrei began to think about Natasha with a new feeling, “long and joyfully,” with the feeling that he understood her, who had caused him a serious insult. In a conversation with Pierre on the eve of the Battle of Borodino, the unity of thoughts of Prince Andrei and the fighting people is felt. Expressing his attitude to events, he says that his thoughts are in tune with the people. The life of Prince Andrei, his search for the meaning of life ends in unity with the people fighting for their native land.
After meeting Pierre, Prince Andrei moves into a new, completely new phase of life for him. It had been ripening for a long time, but took shape only after he expressed to Pierre everything that he had been thinking about for so long and painfully. But, according to the author, he could not live with this new feeling. It is symbolic that at the moment of his mortal wound, Andrei experiences a great craving for simple earthly life, but immediately thinks about why he is so sorry to part with it. This struggle between earthly passions and love for people becomes especially acute before his death. Having met Natasha and forgiven her, he feels a surge of vitality, but this reverent and warm feeling is replaced by an unearthly detachment, which is incompatible with life and means death. Having revealed in Andrei Bolkonsky many remarkable traits of a nobleman-patriot, Tolstoy cut short his path of quest with heroic death for the sake of saving his homeland. And in the novel, his friend and like-minded person Pierre Bezukhov is destined to continue this search for higher spiritual values, which remained unattainable for Prince Andrei.
For Pierre, the conversation with Andrey became initial stage his spiritual cleansing. All subsequent events: participation in the Battle of Borodino, adventures in Moscow occupied by the enemy, captivity - brought Pierre closer to the people and contributed to his moral degeneration. “To be a soldier, just a soldier!.. To enter this common life with the whole being, to be imbued with what makes them so” - such a desire took possession of Pierre after the Battle of Borodino. It was in captivity that Bezukhov came to the conviction: “Man was created for happiness.” But Pierre does not rest on this either.
In the epilogue, Tolstoy shows Bezukhov as active and intensely thinking as at the beginning of the novel. He managed to carry his naive spontaneity through time; he continues to reflect on eternal insoluble questions. But if earlier he thought about the meaning of life, now he is thinking about how to protect goodness and truth. The path of quest leads Pierre to a secret political society fighting against serfdom and autocracy.
The disputes between Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov about the meaning of life reflect the internal struggle in the writer’s soul, which did not stop throughout his life. A person, according to the writer, must constantly reflect, search, make mistakes and search again, because “peace is spiritual meanness.” This is how he himself was, and he endowed the main characters of the novel “War and Peace” with these qualities. Using the example of Prince Andrei and Pierre Bezukhov, Tolstoy shows that no matter how different paths the best representatives of high society take in search of the meaning of life, they come to the same result: the meaning of life is in unity with their native people, in love for this people.
L. N. Tolstoy is a writer of enormous
truth on a global scale, and the subject
his research has always been about people
human soul. For Tolstoy the man -
part of the universe. He is interested in what
the path the human soul travels in striving
to the high, ideal, in attempts to know
yourself. It is no coincidence that when reading Tolstoy
th we remember the term first introduced -
brought into literary use by N. G. Cher-
Nyshevsky, - “dialectics of the soul.” According to him
According to him, the writer is most interested in
myself mental process, its forms, its
horses, dialectics of the soul...
How is this process shown in the immortal
the epic novel by L. N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”?
The main problem posed in its
novel writer - the problem of human
happiness, the problem of searching for the meaning of life. His
favorite characters - Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre
Bezukhov, Natasha and Nikolai Rostov, people
searching, tormented, suffering. For them
characterized by restlessness of the soul, desire
to be useful, needed, loved. Most
favorite and close hero to the writer - Pierre
Bezukhov. Like Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre
honest and highly educated. But if Andrey -
rationalist (his reason prevails over
feelings), then Bezukhov “nature directly
vein, capable of acutely feeling, easily
get excited." Pierre is characterized by deep
thoughts and doubts in search of the meaning of life
neither. Life path its complex and winding.
At first due to the recklessness of youth and
influenced environment He
makes a lot of mistakes: he behaves recklessly
new life of a social reveler and a slacker,
allows Prince Kuragin to rob himself and
marry the frivolous beauty Helen.
Pierre shoots himself in a duel with Dolokhov,
breaks up with his wife, becomes disillusioned with life.
He hates everyone's admitted lies.
secular society, and he understands the need
the possibility of a different path.
At this critical moment Bezukhov
meets Freemason Bazdeev. This "sermon"
Nick"' Lorco sets before the gullible
graph of the network of religious and mystical society
society, which called for moral co-
improving people and uniting them in
the principles of brotherly love. Pierre understood Freemasonry
as a teaching about equality, brotherhood and love,
and this helps him direct his strength to
improving the lives of serfs. He was going to
free the peasants, establish hospitals,
shelters, schools.
The War of 1812 forces Pierre again
eager to get down to business, but his passionate
the call to help the Motherland causes general distrust
freedom of the Moscow nobility. He again
fails. However, embraced by the patriotic
with a magical feeling, Pierre, with his money, sleeps
mounts a thousand militia and remains in
Moscow to kill Napoleon. Or died-
nut, or stop the misfortunes of all Europe,
originating, according to Pierre, from one
Napoleon. This is how he arranges his strength in this moment.
ment author.
An important step on the path of Pierre's quest
is his visit to Borodino Field
during famous battle. Here he is
realized that history is created by the most powerful
The greatest force in the world is the people. Kind of lively
and sweaty militia men, with loud voices
the thief and laughter of those working in the field,
acted on Pierre more powerfully than anything else
saw and heard. He is still talking about the solemn
the significance and significance of the present moment.”
Pierre's even closer rapprochement with pro-
real people happens after the meeting
with a soldier, a former peasant, Plato
Karataev, who, according to Tolstoy,
is a particle the masses. From Kara-
Taeva Pierre is gaining peasant wisdom
ity, in communication with him “finds that calm-
vigor and self-satisfaction, to which he vainly
strived before."
The life path of Pierre Bezukhov is typical
chen for the best part of the noble youth
that time. It is from such people that
an iron cohort of Decembrists was formed.
They have many things in common with the author of the epic, who
was faithful to the oath he took in his youth:
“To live honestly, you have to rush, get confused,
struggle, make mistakes, start and quit again,
and start again and quit again, and forever
struggle and lose. And calmness - du-
wicked meanness."
Other gays are just as mentally restless.
swarms of Tolstoy's novel: Andrei Bolkonsky,
who achieves harmony with himself
only on the Borodino field, Natasha - when-
May she become a wife and mother, Nikolai -
having made a military career. The fates of heroes
novel Tolstoy confirmed his main
thought: “Man is everything... is a fluid thing-
society." In his work L. N. Tolstoy
managed to complete the main task - to catch
and show the moment of fluidity of life.
MOU average comprehensive school № 175
Leninsky district of Nizhny Novgorod
What do the main characters of the novel by L.N. see as the meaning of life? Tolstoy "War and Peace"
Completed by: student of class 10 “A”
Goreva Anna
Checked by: literature teacher
Grishina Lyudmila Leonidovna
N. Novgorod, 2010
Introduction
L.N. Tolstoy inherited from his father, a participant in foreign campaigns during the Patriotic War, a sense of self-esteem, independence of judgment, and pride. Having entered Kazan University, he showed extraordinary abilities in studying foreign languages, but quickly became disillusioned with student life. At the age of 19, he leaves the university and leaves for Yasnaya Polyana, deciding to devote himself to improving the lives of his peasants. The time begins for Tolstoy to search for a purpose in life. He is either going to go to Siberia, then going to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg; then he decides to join the Horse Guards Regiment... During these same years, L. Tolstoy was seriously involved in music, pedagogy, and philosophy. In a painful search, Tolstoy comes to the main work of his life - literary creativity. In total, the great writer created over 200 works, including the epic novel War and Peace. According to Turgenev, “nothing better has ever been written by anyone.” It is enough to note that the text of the novel was rewritten 7 times; its composition is striking in its complexity and harmony.
The novel “War and Peace” was created by Tolstoy in the 1860s, and the final edition appeared in the 1870s, when there were debates in Russian society about further paths development of Russia. The epic basis of the work is the feeling of life as a whole and being in the full breadth of this concept. According to Tolstoy, life is specific in national and socio-historical content; it is presented in the diversity of its forms and contradictions.
Issues of life and death, truth and lies, joy and suffering, personality and society, freedom and necessity, happiness and unhappiness, war and peace constitute the problems of the novel. Tolstoy showed many spheres of existence in which human life takes place.
The study of human consciousness, prepared by introspection, allowed him to become a profound psychologist. In the images he created, especially in the images of the main characters of the novel, the inner life of a person is exposed - a complex contradictory process usually hidden from prying eyes. He is interested in the path a person’s soul takes in its quest for the high, the ideal, in its quest to know itself. It is he who helps the reader learn to highlight the most important thing in his life, to direct his strengths and talents in the right direction. Depicting a modern society for his era, Leo Tolstoy clearly divides its representatives into those who are constantly in search, who are not satisfied with generally accepted norms of behavior, who do not stop there and constantly improve their soul, and those who go with the flow and are afraid to turn into side, look deep into yourself, who prefers to succumb to the established rules of life. That is why such heroes as Andrei and Marya Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha and Nikolai Rostov, who are the best people born into noble Russians noble families, are clearly contrasted with the Kuragin family, Boris Drubetsky, Colonel Berg and many other representatives of secular society.
Spiritual quests of the main characters (using the example of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Count Pierre Bezukhov)
Heroes of L.N. Tolstoy is very difficult to define unambiguously. They are not divided into good and bad, kind and evil, smart and stupid, they simply live, search, often making mistakes in their search.
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is one of the brightest and most tragic figures in the novel “War and Peace”. From his first appearance on the pages of the work until his death from wounds in the Rostov house, Bolkonsky’s life is subject to its own internal logic.
And in military service, and in political activity, both in the world and, most strangely, in love, Andrei remains lonely and misunderstood. Closedness and skepticism - here distinctive features Andrei even in his communication with his loved ones: father, sister, Pierre, Natasha. Marya tells him: “You are good to everyone, Andre, but you have some kind of pride of thought.” But he is far from a misanthrope. With all his soul he wants to find a use for his mind and abilities, “with all the strength of his soul he was looking for one thing: to be completely good...” But his life is not like a search for the new, but like an escape from the old. A sharp mind pushes him to activity, but the inner feeling of the elements of life stops him, pointing out the futility of a person’s efforts. Andrey's endeavors end in disappointment. His sincere desire to serve the homeland, the cause faces general indifference.
A man with a sober and skeptical mind, Prince Andrei could not find a place for himself in the environment of deceitful self-interest and flattering careerism that reigned in secular and military life. His patriotism and responsibility for the cause are most clearly manifested in the service of Speransky and in the War of 1812: “He was completely devoted to the affairs of his regiment, he was caring about his people and officers and affectionate with them. In the regiment they called him “our prince,” they were proud of him and loved him.” But gradually he comes to the conclusion that all his efforts are nothing more than vanity.
The life path of Prince Andrei is a story of disappointments, but at the same time a story of comprehending the meaning of life. Bolkonsky is gradually getting rid of illusions - the desire for secular fame, military career, to socially useful activities. In a dispute with Pierre, he denies the possibility of transformation even within the estate. However, he himself reforms his farm and sets the peasants free, which was an unheard-of innovation at that time.
The main thing in Andrei Bolkonsky’s nature is honesty and sincerity, so he is afraid of big words and promises. It is better to remain silent and inactive, and if you do something, then also without further ado.
Even with Speransky, he behaves warily, although in his heart he welcomes his endeavors.
The prince considers any talk about love for “neighbors” to be hypocrisy. You should love yourself and your family first. And by respecting himself and acting with honor, a person will inevitably be useful to people, in any case, he will not harm them. Andrei considers responsibility for other people an exorbitant burden, and making decisions for them as irresponsible and narcissistic.
Prince Andrei's periods of disappointment are replaced by periods of happiness and spiritual rebirth. Such a happy time for him was the battles at Austerlitz, his service in the military commission, and his love for Natasha.
But instead of this happy moments inner devastation and disappointment came again.
One of the most important questions that tormented Andrei Bolkonsky was the question of man’s place in life. He is convinced that everything happens not at the behest of heroes and leaders, but by itself, by chance or by the will of fate.
This truth was revealed to him especially clearly on the eve of the Battle of Borodino. Honest and frank with himself, Andrei wants the same frankness and clarity in the expected events: “If there is war now, then war. War is not a courtesy, but the most disgusting thing in life, and we must understand this and not play at war.” He reaches the value of life individual person, from marshal to soldier.
The wound and the dying thoughts that followed it turn Andrei’s consciousness upside down. For him, it becomes clearer what he always carried within himself, but did not let out, an understanding of the simplicity of life and love as main value, which makes people people. Dying, he forgives Natasha, Anatoly Kuragin, and the whole world with all its shortcomings.
Andrei Bolkonsky went from ambitious egoism and pride to self-denial. His life is an evolution of pride human mind, resisting unconscious kindness and love, which constitute the meaning of human life. A lonely and proud hero, even if very smart and positive in all respects, according to L.N. Tolstoy, cannot be useful to this world.
The image of Pierre is presented in the work in a process of constant development. Throughout the entire novel, one can observe the train of thought of this hero, as well as the slightest fluctuations of his soul. He's not just looking for life position, in particular, convenient for himself, but absolute truth, the meaning of life in general. The search for this truth is a search through all of fate.
In the novel, Pierre first appears in Anna Pavlovna Scherer's salon. “He had not served anywhere yet, he had just arrived from abroad, where he was brought up, and was for the first time in society.” At the beginning of the epic, Pierre is a weak-willed young man, constantly in need of someone’s guidance and therefore falling under various influences: either Prince Andrei, then the company of Anatoly Kuragin, or Prince Vasily. His outlook on life is not yet firmly established. Pierre returned from France, overwhelmed with ideas French Revolution. Napoleon for him is a hero, the embodiment of the French national spirit. Going to Assembly of the Nobility, he recalls the communication of the monarch with the people in 1789 and hopes that he will see something similar to what happened in France. In the epilogue, Tolstoy makes it clear that Pierre takes an active part in the secret Decembrist societies.
As a personality, Pierre has not yet formed, and therefore his intelligence is combined with “dreamy philosophizing,” and absent-mindedness, weakness of will, lack of initiative, unsuitability for practical activities - s exceptional kindness.
Pierre is just beginning his life and therefore has not yet been spoiled by social conventions and prejudices, by that environment for which only dinners, gossip and, in particular, who the old Count Bezukhov will leave his inheritance are interested in.
Gradually, Pierre begins to understand the laws by which this society lives. Before his eyes there is a struggle for the mosaic briefcase of Count Bezukhov. The hero also observes a change in attitude towards himself that occurred after he received the inheritance. And yet Pierre is not characterized by a sober assessment of what is happening. He is perplexed, sincerely surprised by the changes and yet takes it for granted, without trying to find out the reasons for himself.
In Anna Pavlovna's living room, he meets Helen, a person completely opposite to him in spiritual content. Helen Kuragina is an integral part of the world, where the role of the individual is determined by her social status, material well-being, and not the height of moral qualities. Pierre did not have time to recognize this society, where “there is nothing truthful, simple and natural. Everything is saturated through and through with lies, falsehood, callousness and hypocrisy.” Before he had time to understand the essence of Helen.
With the marriage to this woman one of the important milestones in the life of a hero. “Indulging in debauchery and laziness,” Pierre increasingly realizes that family life is not working out, that his wife is absolutely immoral. He acutely feels his own degradation, dissatisfaction grows in him, but not with others, but with himself. Pierre considers it possible to blame only himself for his disorder.
As a result of an explanation with his wife and a lot of moral stress, a breakdown occurs. At a dinner in honor of Bagration, Pierre challenges Dolokhov, who insulted him, to a duel. Having never held a weapon in his hands, Pierre must take a responsible step. He wounds Dolokhov. By shooting with him, the hero defends, first of all, his honor, defends his own ideas about moral duty person. Seeing his wounded enemy lying in the snow, Pierre says: “Stupid... stupid! Death... lies...” He understands that the path he followed turned out to be wrong.
After everything that happened to him, especially after the duel with Dolokhov, Pierre’s whole life seems meaningless. He is plunged into a mental crisis, which manifests itself both in the hero’s dissatisfaction with himself and in the desire to change his life, to build it on new, good principles.
On the way to St. Petersburg, waiting at the station in Torzhok for horses, he asks himself difficult questions: “What’s wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live, and what is...” Here Pierre meets the freemason Eazdeev. The hero happily accepts his teaching, because, tormented by the consciousness that he is in a spiritual dead end, he tries in vain to resolve the question of what is Good and Evil. In the Freemasons he sees precisely those who give him the answer to painful questions and establish firm life principles that need to be followed. For Pierre, truth lies in moral cleansing. This is what a hero needs.
And Pierre tries to do good, guided by the Christian ideas of Freemasonry. He goes to Kyiv to his southern estates, trying to make the peasants happy, to introduce culture and education in the villages, although it turns out that his innovations are of no use.
Over time, Pierre becomes disillusioned with Freemasonry, but from the “Masonic” period of his life he retains many moral concepts associated with the Christian worldview. Once again, a spiritual crisis occurs in the hero’s life. Pierre enters that stage of development when the old worldview is lost, and a new one has not yet emerged.
The climax of the novel was the depiction of the Battle of Borodino. And in Bezukhov’s life it was also a decisive moment. Wanting to share the fate of the people of Russia, the hero, not being a military man, takes part in the battle. Through the eyes of this character, Tolstoy conveys his understanding of the most important in folk historical life events. It was in the battle that Pierre learned who THEY were. “THEY, in Pierre’s understanding, were soldiers - those who were at the battery, and those who fed him, and those who prayed to the icon.”
The hero is surprised that the soldiers, going to certain death, are still able to smile, paying attention to his hat. He sees soldiers laughingly digging trenches, pushing each other, making their way to the miraculous icon. Pierre begins to understand that a person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. He who is not afraid of her owns everything. The hero realizes that there is nothing terrible in life, and sees that it is these people ordinary soldiers, live true life. And at the same time, he feels that he cannot connect with them, live the way they live.
Later, after the battle, Pierre hears in a dream the voice of his mentor, a Freemason, and thanks to his preaching he learns a new truth: “It’s not all about connecting, but it’s necessary to connect.” In a dream, the benefactor says: “Simplicity is submission to God, you cannot escape him, and they are simple. They don’t say it, but they do it.” The hero accepts this truth.
Soon Pierre plans to kill Napoleon, being “in a state of irritation close to insanity.” Two are the same strong feelings are fighting in him at this moment. “The first was a feeling of the need for sacrifice and suffering with the consciousness of general misfortune,” while the other was “that vague, exclusively Russian feeling contempt for everything conventional, artificial... for everything that is considered by most people to be the highest good of the world.”
Disguised as a tradesman, Pierre remains in Moscow. He wanders the streets, saves a girl from a burning house, protects a family that is being attacked by the French, and is arrested.
An important stage in the hero’s life is his meeting with Platon Karataev. This meeting marked Pierre's introduction to the people, to the people's truth. In captivity, he finds “that peace and self-satisfaction for which he had vainly strived before.” Here he learned “not with his mind, but with his whole being, with his life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in satisfying natural human needs.” Introducing to the people's truth, the people's ability to live helps Pierre's internal liberation. Pierre always sought a solution to the question of the meaning of life: “He looked for this in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in absent-mindedness social life, in wine, in the heroic feat of self-sacrifice, in romantic love to Natasha. He sought this through thought, and all these searches and attempts deceived him.” And finally, with the help of Platon Karataev, this issue was resolved.
The most essential thing in Karataev’s character is loyalty to himself, to his only and constant spiritual truth. For some time this also became an ideal for Pierre, but only for a while. Pierre, by the very essence of his character, was not able to accept life without searching. Having learned Karataev's truth, Pierre in the epilogue of the novel goes further than this truth - he goes not Karataev's, but his own way.
Pierre achieves final spiritual harmony in his marriage to Natasha Rostova. After seven years of marriage, he feels like a completely happy person.
By the end of the 1810s, indignation was growing in Pierre, protest against social order, which is expressed in the intention to create a legal or secret society. So, moral quest The hero's journey ends with him becoming a supporter of the Decembrist movement emerging in the country.
Initially, the novel was conceived by Tolstoy as a narrative about contemporary reality. Realizing that the origins of the contemporary liberation movement lay in Decembrism, the writer changed the previous concept of the work. The writer showed in the novel that the ideas of Decembrism lay in the spiritual upsurge that the Russian people experienced during the War of 1812.
So, Pierre, learning more and more new truths, does not renounce his previous convictions, but leaves from each period certain life rules that are most suitable for him, and acquires life experience. He, in his youth, obsessed with the ideas of the French Revolution, in maturity became a Decembrist revolutionary, from the Masonic life rules he retained faith in God and the Christian laws of life. And finally, he learns the main truth: the ability to combine the personal with the public, his beliefs with the beliefs of other people.
Conclusion
L. N. Tolstoy’s epic “War and Peace” has become one of the most significant works world literature, affecting moral problems and providing answers to such important historical and philosophical questions that relate to the meaning of the life of an individual and its role in the history of all mankind.
The problems raised by Tolstoy in the novel have universal significance. His novel, according to Gorky, is “a documentary presentation of all the quests that a strong personality undertook in the 19th century in order to find a place and business for himself in the history of Russia...”
By showing the fates of his heroes, Tolstoy confirmed his thought: “Man is everything, all possibilities, he is a fluid substance.” Tolstoy managed to fulfill the main task - to show and capture the moment of fluidity.
