Women's images of the novel war and peace - an essay. Reception of comparison and opposition

Women's theme takes important place in the epic novel by L. N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”. This work is a polemical response of the writer to supporters women's emancipation. At one of the poles artistic research there are numerous types of high society beauties, mistresses of magnificent salons in St. Petersburg and Moscow - Helen Kuragina, Julie Karagina, Anna Pavlovna Sherer; cold and apathetic Vera Berg dreams of her own salon...

Secular society is immersed in eternal vanity. In the portrait of the beautiful Helen Tolstoy sees the whiteness of the shoulders, the gloss of her hair and diamonds, a very open chest and back, and a frozen smile. Such details allow the artist to emphasize the inner emptiness, the insignificance of the high society lioness. Place authentic human feelings occupies a monetary settlement in luxurious living rooms. The marriage of Helen, who chose the wealthy Pierre as her husband, is a clear confirmation of this. Tolstoy shows that the behavior of the daughter of Prince Vasily is not a deviation from the norm, but the norm of life of the society to which she belongs. Indeed, does Julie Karagina behave differently, having, thanks to her wealth, a sufficient selection of suitors; or Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya, placing her son in the guard? Even in front of the bed of the dying Count Bezukhov, Pierre's father, Anna Mikhailovna does not feel compassion, but fear that Boris will be left without an inheritance.

Tolstoy shows high society beauties and in family life. Family, children don't play in their life significant role. Helen seem funny words Pierre that spouses can and should be bound by feelings of heartfelt affection and love. Countess Bezukhova thinks with disgust about the possibility of having children. With surprising ease, she leaves her husband. Helen is a concentrated manifestation of complete lack of spirituality, emptiness, vanity.

Excessive emancipation leads a woman, according to Tolstoy, to a misunderstanding own role. In the salon of Helen and Anna Pavlovna Scherer, there are political disputes, judgments about Napoleon, about the situation of the Russian army ... Feeling false patriotism forces them to broadcast only in Russian during the time of the French invasion. High-society beauties have largely lost the main features that are inherent in real woman. On the contrary, in the images of Sonya, Princess Mary, Natasha Rostova, those features are grouped that make up the type of woman in the true sense.

At the same time, Tolstoy does not try to create ideals, but takes life as it is. In fact, there are no consciously heroic female natures in the work, like Turgenev's Marianne from the novel "Nov" or Elena Stakhova from "On the Eve". Is it necessary to broadcast that Tolstoy's favorite heroines are deprived of romantic elation? Women's spirituality is not contained in intellectual life, not in the passion of Anna Pavlovna Scherer, Helen Kuragina, Julie Karagina with political and other male issues, but only in the ability to love, in devotion to the family hearth. Daughter, sister, wife, mother - these are the main life situations in which the character of Tolstoy's favorite heroines is revealed. This conclusion may start to be questioned upon a superficial reading of the novel. Indeed, the actions of Princess Marya and Natasha Rostova at the time of the French invasion are patriotic, and Marya Bolkonskaya's unwillingness to use the patronage of the French general and the impossibility for Natasha to stay in Moscow under the French are also patriotic. However, the connection between female images and the image of war in the novel is more complex; it is not limited to the patriotism of the best Russian women. Tolstoy shows what it took historical movement millions of people so that the characters of the novel (Maria Bolkonskaya and Nikolai Rostov, Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov) could find a way to a friend.

Tolstoy's favorite heroines live with their hearts, not their minds. All Sonya's best, cherished memories are associated with Nikolai Rostov: common childhood games and pranks, Christmas time with fortune-telling and mummers, Nikolai's love impulse, the first kiss ... Sonya remains faithful to her beloved, rejecting Dolokhov's offer. She loves resignedly, but she cannot refuse her love. And after the marriage of Nikolai Sonya, of course, continues to love him.

Marya Bolkonskaya, with her evangelical humility, is especially close to Tolstoy. And yet exactly her image personifies the triumph of natural human needs over asceticism. The princess secretly dreams of marriage, of her own family, of children. Her love for Nikolai Rostov is a high, spiritual feeling. In the epilogue of the novel, Tolstoy paints pictures of family
of the Rostovs’ happiness, emphasizing by this what Princess Marya found exactly in the family true meaning life.

Love is the essence of Natasha Rostova's life. Young Natasha loves everyone: the resigned Sonya, and the mother countess, and her father, and Nikolai, and Petya, and Boris Drubetskoy. Rapprochement, and then separation from Prince Andrei, who made her an offer, makes Natasha suffer internally. An excess of life and inexperience is the source of mistakes, rash acts of the heroine (the story of Anatole Kuragin).

Love for Prince Andrei awakens with renewed vigor in Natasha. She leaves Moscow with a convoy, in which the wounded Bolkonsky ends up. Natasha is still possessed by an exorbitant feeling of love and compassion. She is selfless to the end. The death of Prince Andrei deprives Natasha of meaning. The news of the death of Petya makes the heroine overcome her misfortune in order to keep her old mother from insane despair. Natasha “thought her life was over. But suddenly love for her mother showed her that the essence of her life - love - was still alive in her. Love woke up, and life woke up.

After marriage, Natasha refuses secular life, from "all its charms" and wholly given family life. Mutual understanding of the spouses is based on the ability "with unusual clarity and speed to understand and broadcast the thoughts of a friend of a friend in a way that is contrary to all the rules of logic." This is the ideal of family happiness. Such is Tolstoy's ideal of "peace."

Tolstoy's thoughts about the true destiny of a woman, I think, have not become outdated even today. Of course, a significant role in today's life is played by women who have devoted themselves to politics or social activities. But still, many of our contemporaries choose what Tolstoy's favorite heroines have chosen for themselves. And is it really not enough - to love and be loved?

These two, in many respects similar, women are opposed by ladies of high society, such as Helen Kuragina, Anna Pavlovna Scherer, Julie Kuragina. These women are similar in many ways. At the beginning of the novel, the author says that Helen, "when the story made an impression, looked back at Anna Pavlovna and immediately assumed the same expression that was on the face of the maid of honor." The most characteristic sign of Anna Pavlovna is the static nature of words, gestures, even thoughts: “The restrained smile that constantly played on Anna Pavlovna’s face, although it did not go to her obsolete features, expressed, like that of spoiled children, permanent consciousness her sweet lack, from which she does not want, cannot, does not find it necessary to get rid of. Behind this characteristic lies the author's irony and dislike for the character.

Julie is the same secular lady, "the richest bride in Russia", who received a fortune after the death of her brothers. Like Helen, who wears a mask of decency, Julie wears a mask of melancholy: “Julie seemed disappointed in everything, told everyone that she did not believe in friendship, or in love, or in any joys of life and expects calm only “there”. Even Boris, preoccupied with the search for a rich bride, feels the artificiality, the unnaturalness of her behavior.

So, women close to natural life, folk ideals, such as Natasha Rostova and Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, find family happiness after going through a certain path of spiritual and moral quest. And women, far from moral ideals, cannot experience real happiness because of their selfishness and adherence to the empty ideals of secular society.

1.1. "I'm still the same ... But there is another in me, .."

The novel "Anna Karenina" was created in the period 1873-1877. Over time, the idea has undergone great changes. The plan of the novel changed, its plot and compositions expanded and became more complicated, the characters and their very names changed. Anna Karenina, as millions of readers know her, bears little resemblance to her predecessor from the original editions. From edition to edition, Tolstoy spiritually enriched his heroine and morally elevated her, making her more and more attractive. The images of her husband and Vronsky (in the first versions he had a different surname) changed in the opposite direction, that is, their spiritual and moral level decreased.

But with all the changes that Tolstoy made to the image of Anna Karenina, and in the final text, Anna Karenina remains, in Tolstoy's terminology, both a "lost herself" and an "innocent" woman. She stepped back from her sacred duties as a mother and wife, but she had no other choice. Tolstoy justifies the behavior of his heroine, but at the same time tragic fate it turns out to be inevitable.

In the image of Anna Karenina, the poetic motifs of "War and Peace" develop and deepen, in particular, they affected the image of Natasha Rostova; on the other hand, at times the harsh notes of the future Kreutzer Sonata are already breaking through in it.

Comparing "War and Peace" with "Anna Karenina", Tolstoy noted that in the first novel he "loved folk thought, and in the second - family thought." In War and Peace, the immediate and one of the main subjects of the narrative was precisely the activity of the people themselves, selflessly defending native land, in "Anna Karenina" - mainly family relationships heroes, taken, however, as derivatives of general socio-historical conditions. As a result, the theme of the people in Anna Karenina received a peculiar form of expression: it is given mainly through spiritual and moral quest heroes.

The world of goodness and beauty in Anna Karenina is much more closely intertwined with the world of evil than in War and Peace. Anna appears in the novel "seeking and giving happiness". But on her way to happiness stand up active forces evil, under the influence of which, ultimately, she dies. Anna's fate is therefore full of deep drama. The whole novel is also permeated with intense drama. The feelings of a mother and a loving woman experienced by Anna are shown by Tolstoy as equivalent. Her love and maternal feeling - two great feelings - remain unconnected for her. With Vronsky, she has an idea of herself as a loving woman, with Karenin - as an impeccable mother of their son, as a once faithful wife. Anna wants to be both at the same time. In a semi-conscious state, she says, turning to Karenin: “I am still the same ... But there is another in me, I am afraid of her - she fell in love with that one, and I wanted to hate you and could not forget about the one that was before. But not me. Now I'm real, I'm all." "All", that is, both the one that was before the meeting with Vronsky, and the one that she became later. But Anna was not yet destined to die. She had not yet had time to experience all the suffering that fell to her lot, she also had not had time to try all the roads to happiness, to which her life-loving nature was so eager. She could not become Karenin's faithful wife again. Even on the verge of death, she understood that it was impossible. She was also no longer able to endure the position of "lie and deceit".

Prince Vasily Kuragin is one of the most significant characters in the epic novel War and Peace. His family, soulless and rude, impudent and acting ahead when there is an opportunity to get rich, is opposed to the delicate and kind-hearted Rostov family and the intellectual Bolkonsky family. Vasily Kuragin does not live by thoughts, but rather by instincts.

He, meeting influential person, tries to get closer to him, and this happens automatically for him.

Appearance of Prince Vasily Sergeevich

We first meet him in the salon of Anna Pavlovna, where all the intellectual and what a wretched color of St. Petersburg gathers. While no one has arrived yet, he has useful and confidential conversations with an aging forty-year-old "enthusiast". Important and official, carrying his head high, he arrived in a court uniform with stars (he managed to receive awards without doing anything useful for the country). Vasily Kuragin is bald, fragrant, sedate and, despite his sixty years, graceful.

His movements are always free and familiar. Nothing can bring him out of balance. Vasily Kuragin has grown old, having spent his whole life in the world, and brilliantly controls himself. His flat face is covered in wrinkles. All this becomes known from the first chapter of the first part of the novel.

Prince cares

He has three children whom he loves little. In the same chapter he himself says that he has no parental love to children, but he considers it his great task to attach them well in life.

In a conversation with Anna Pavlovna, he, as if inadvertently, asks who is destined for the post of first secretary in Vienna. This is his main purpose of visiting Scherer. He needs to attach his silly son Hippolyte to a warm place. But, by the way, he agrees that Anna Pavlovna will try to marry off his dissolute son Anatole to the rich and noble Maria Bolkonskaya, who lives with her father on the estate. Vasily Kuragin received at least one benefit from this evening, because he was not used to a useless pastime for himself. In general, he knows how to use people. He is always attracted to those who are above him, and the prince has a rare gift - to catch a moment when you can and should use people.

Prince's wicked deeds

In the first part, starting from chapter XVIII, Vasily Kuragin, having arrived in Moscow, tries to take possession of Pierre's inheritance, destroying his father's will. Julie Karagina wrote about this ugly story of Maria Bolkonskaya in more or less detail in a letter. Having received nothing and having played a “nasty role,” as Julie put it, Prince Vasily Kuragin left for Petersburg embarrassed. But he didn't stay in that state for long.

He seemed to absentmindedly made an effort to bring Pierre closer to his daughter, and successfully completed this business with a wedding. Pierre's money should serve the prince's family. So it should be, according to Prince Vasily. An attempt to marry Anatole's rake to the meek, ugly Princess Marya also cannot be called a worthy deed: he only cares about the rich dowry that his son can receive at the same time. But his such immoral family degenerates. Hippolyte is just a fool who no one takes seriously. Ellen is dying. Anatole, having undergone a leg amputation, is not known whether he will survive or not.

The character of Kuragin

He is self-confident, empty, and in the tone of his voice, behind decency and participation, mockery always shines through. He always tries to get close to people high position. For example, everyone knows that he is in good relations with Kutuzov, and they turn to him for help in order to attach his sons to adjutants. But he was used to refusing everyone, so that at the right moment, and we have already talked about this, he could use favors only for himself. Such small dashes, scattered in the text of the novel, describe a secular person - Vasily Kuragin. L. Tolstoy's characterization of it is very unflattering, and with its help the author describes elite generally.

Vasily Kuragin appears before us as a great intriguer, accustomed to living with thoughts about a career, money and profit. "War and peace" (moreover, the world in the time of Tolstoy was written through the letter i, which is unusual for us, and meant not only peace as the absence of war, but also, in more, the universe, and there was no direct antithesis in this title) - a work in which the prince is shown against the backdrop of high society receptions and in his house, where there is no warmth and cordial relations. The epic novel contains monumental pictures of life and hundreds of characters, one of which is Prince Kuragin.

IN novelL. N. Tolstoy female images play significant role. It is with them that the theme of “peace”, that is, society, family, happiness, is connected in the novel. The writer showed us different families: Rostovs, Bolkonskys, Kuragins, Bezukhovs, Drubetskys, Dolokhovs and others. Women in them are different, but their role is significant everywhere. The fate of the family, its way of life depend on the character of women, on their mental make-up, moral values are formed.

Most of all, Tolstoy loves two of his heroines: Natasha Rostova and Marya Bolkonskaya. The girls who read the novel generally like the cheerful, spontaneous and unpredictable Natasha.

I like both girls. But if I had to choose one of them as a friend, I would choose Princess Marya. Maybe with Natasha it would be more fun, brighter, but with Marya I would be more interesting and reliable.

It was not easy for her to live with an old father and a French governess. Ugly, lonely, with all the wealth of the Bolkonskys, she is deprived of much: she has no close friends, no mother. The despotic father and the coldly reserved brother, busy with the service and his own problems, did not dispose to communication and the manifestation of tender feelings.

But Princess Marya built her spiritual castle, strict and pure. She is smart for real kind and natural in every step she takes. Even her religiosity is respected, because God for Princess Mary is, first of all, justice, her faith is demanding of herself; to all others she asks for weaknesses, to herself - never.

In the actions and words of Princess Marya there is no vanity, no frivolity. Self-esteem does not allow her to cheat, keep silent, not stand up for the person she respects. When Julie Kuragina wrote in a letter about Pierre that he “always seemed to her an insignificant person,” the princess answered her: “I cannot share your opinion about Pierre. It seemed to me that he always had a beautiful heart, and this is the quality that I most appreciate in people. Princess Mary in a letter expresses her sympathy for Pierre: “So young to be burdened with such a huge fortune - how many temptations he will have to go through!”

An amazing understanding of people and the complexities of life for a young girl!

She will be able to understand the stumbled Natasha, she will be able to understand and forgive her father, she understands the situation of the peasants and orders them to give them the master's bread.

The death of her father freed Princess Mary from eternal fear, from constant control and guardianship. But now, surrounded by enemies, with a young nephew in her arms, she herself had to make decisions. IN difficult moments the decisiveness and dignity of her father and brother woke up in her: “So that Prince Andrei knows that she is in the power of the French! So that she, the daughter of Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky, asked Mr. General Ramo to protect her and enjoy his blessings! And her offended vanity results in quick and decisive action. In this difficult period for the princess, Nikolai Rostov appears as a savior and protector. She drives away thoughts that she would like to see her future husband in him. Self-doubt prevents her from believing that happiness has come to her.

The inner beauty of Princess Marya, her mind, purity, naturalness make you forget about her external ugliness. Nikolai Rostov also sees only her radiant, shining eyes, which by the end of the novel are filled with a radiance of happiness.

Of course, every girl should have a thirst for life, love and happiness, as in Natasha Rostova. But in every girl there should be Princess Mary, with her self-doubt, with her secret conviction that love will come to anyone, but not to her, with a deeply hidden dream of happiness. Without this, she will turn into Helen Bezukhova.

Marrying a rich bride in St. Petersburg did not work out for Boris, and he came to Moscow for the same purpose. In Moscow, Boris was in indecision between the two richest brides - Julie and Princess Mary. Although Princess Mary, despite her ugliness, seemed to him more attractive than Julie, for some reason he was embarrassed to look after Bolkonskaya. On her last meeting with her, on the old prince's name day, to all attempts to talk to her about feelings, she answered him inappropriately and, obviously, did not listen to him. Julie, on the contrary, although in a special way, peculiar to her alone, but willingly accepted his courtship. Julie was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers, she became very rich. She was now completely ugly; but I thought that she was not only just as good, but much more attractive now than she had been before. She was supported in this delusion by the fact that, firstly, she became a very rich bride, and secondly, the fact that the older she became, the safer she was for men, the freer it was for men to treat her and, without accepting no obligations, to enjoy her dinners, evenings and lively society that gathered with her. A man who ten years ago would have been afraid to go every day to the house where there was a seventeen-year-old young lady, so as not to compromise her and not to tie himself up, now went to her boldly every day and treated her not as a young lady-bride, but as a a friend who has no gender. The Karagins' house was the most pleasant and hospitable house in Moscow that winter. In addition to evening parties and dinners, every day a large company gathered at the Karagins, especially men who had dinner at twelve in the morning and sat up until three. There was no ball, theater, festivities that Julie would miss. Her toilets were always the most fashionable. But, despite this, Julie seemed disappointed in everything, told everyone that she did not believe in friendship, or in love, or in any joys of life, and only expected peace. there. She adopted the tone of a girl who has suffered great disappointment, a girl who seems to have lost a loved one or was cruelly deceived by him. Although nothing like this happened to her, she was looked at as such, and she herself even believed that she had suffered a lot in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her from having fun, did not prevent the young people who visited her from having a good time. Each guest, coming to them, gave his debt to the melancholy mood of the hostess and then engaged in secular conversations, and dances, and mental games, and burime tournaments, which were in vogue with the Karagins. Only some young people, including Boris, went deeper into Julie's melancholy mood, and with these young people she had longer and more solitary conversations about the futility of everything worldly and opened her albums filled with sad images, sayings and poems. Julie was especially affectionate towards Boris: she regretted his early disappointment in life, offered him those consolations of friendship that she could offer, having suffered so much in her life herself, and opened her album to him. Boris drew two trees for her in an album and wrote: "Arbres rustiques, vos sombres rameaux secouent sur moi les ténèbres et la mélancolie." Elsewhere he drew a tomb and wrote:

La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille
Ah! contre les douleurs il n "y a pas d" autre asile

Julie said it was lovely. — Il y a quelque chose de si ravissant dans le sourire de la mélancolie! she said to Boris word for word the passage she had copied out of the book. - C "est un rayon de lumière dans l" ombre, une nuance entre la douleur et la désespoir, qui montre la consolation possible. To this, Boris wrote poetry to her:

Aliment de poison d "une âme trop sensible,
Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
Tendre melancolie, ah! viens me consoler,
Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite
Et mêle une douceur secrete
A ces pleurs, que je sens couler.

Julie played Boris the saddest nocturnes on the harp. Boris read aloud to her " Poor Lisa and more than once interrupted his reading from the excitement that captured his breath. Meeting at big society, Julie and Boris looked at each other as if they were the only people in a sea of indifferent people who understood each other. Anna Mikhailovna, who often traveled to the Karagins, making up her mother's party, meanwhile made accurate inquiries about what was given for Julie (both Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests were given). Anna Mikhailovna, with devotion to the will of Providence and tenderness, looked at the refined sadness that connected her son with rich Julie. “Toujours charmante et mélancolique, cette chère Julie,” she said to her daughter. - Boris says that he rests his soul in your house. He has suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive, she told her mother. - Oh, my friend, how I became attached to Julie Lately she said to her son, “I can’t describe it to you!” And who can't love her? This is such an unearthly creature! Oh Boris, Boris! She was silent for a minute. “And how I feel sorry for her maman,” she continued, “today she showed me reports and letters from Penza (they have a huge estate), and she, poor thing, is all on her own, alone: she is so deceived! Boris smiled slightly, listening to his mother. He meekly laughed at her ingenuous cunning, but he listened and sometimes asked her attentively about the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates. Julie had long been expecting an offer from her melancholic admirer and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to marry, for her unnaturalness, and a feeling of horror at the renunciation of the possibility true love still stopped Boris. His vacation was already over. Whole days and every single day he spent with the Karagins, and every day, reasoning with himself, Boris told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in the presence of Julie, looking at her red face and chin, almost always sprinkled with powder, at her moist eyes and at the expression on her face, which always showed readiness to immediately move from melancholy to the unnatural delight of marital happiness, Boris could not utter a decisive word; despite the fact that he had long in his imagination considered himself the owner of the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates and distributed the use of income from them. Julie saw Boris's indecisiveness, and sometimes the thought came to her that she was disgusting to him; but immediately a woman's self-delusion offered her consolation, and she told herself that he was shy only out of love. Her melancholy, however, was beginning to turn into irritability, and shortly before Boris's departure, she undertook a decisive plan. At the same time that Boris' vacation was coming to an end, Anatole Kuragin appeared in Moscow and, of course, in the Karagins' living room, and Julie, unexpectedly leaving her melancholy, became very cheerful and attentive to Kuragin. “Mon cher,” Anna Mikhailovna said to her son, “je sais de bonne source que le prince Basile envoie son fils à Moscou pour lui faire épouser Julie.” I love Julie so much that I should feel sorry for her. What do you think, my friend? Anna Mikhailovna said. The idea of being fooled and losing for nothing this whole month of hard melancholy service under Julie and seeing all the income from the Penza estates already planned and used in his imagination in the hands of another - especially in the hands of stupid Anatole - offended Boris. He went to the Karagins with the firm intention of making an offer. Julie greeted him with a cheerful and carefree air, casually talking about how fun she had been at the ball yesterday, and asking when he was coming. Despite the fact that Boris arrived with the intention of talking about his love and therefore intended to be gentle, he irritably began to talk about women's inconstancy: about how women can easily move from sadness to joy and that their mood depends only on who looks after them. Julie was offended and said that it was true that a woman needed variety, that everyone would get tired of the same thing. "For that I would advise you..." Boris began, wanting to taunt her; but at that very moment the insulting thought came to him that he might leave Moscow without achieving his goal and losing his labors in vain (which had never happened to him). He stopped in the middle of her speech, lowered his eyes so as not to see her unpleasantly irritated and indecisive face, and said: “I didn’t come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary…” He glanced at her to see if he could go on. All her irritation suddenly disappeared, and restless, pleading eyes were fixed on him with greedy expectation. “I can always arrange myself so that I rarely see her,” thought Boris. “But the work has begun and must be done!” He flushed, raised his eyes to her, and said to her: "You know my feelings for you!" There was no need to say any more: Julie's face shone with triumph and self-satisfaction, but she forced Boris to tell her everything that is said in such cases, to say that he loves her and has never loved a single woman more than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests she could demand this, and she got what she demanded. The bride and groom, no longer remembering the trees that showered them with darkness and melancholy, made plans for the future arrangement of a brilliant house in St. Petersburg, made visits and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.

"Rural trees, your dark boughs shake off gloom and melancholy on me"

Death is saving, and death is peaceful.