The Army Is Soldiers

Tara Gilbride Caitlin Kelly Brennan McLoughlin PLS 43101 03 Michael DeGruccio 25 September 2009

"армия есть солдиерс" ("The Army Is Soldiers") The task of naming a novel with a large breadth is daunting, so much so that even Tolstoy backed away from the challenge. Renaming the novel The Army Is Soldiers keeps true to Tolstoy's original title and to the main action of the novel while also incorporating what we believe is the central and unifying motif: turning away from the self and finding meaning in others. Tolstoy's original title War and Peace, while incorporating one theme of the book, does not fully attest to this

central spirit of the novel. The Army Is Soldiers as a title is both obvious and nuanced, stating that an army is comprised of soldiers, but also reminding the reader that an army is composed of individuals each with experiences and concerns. It was crucial to retain a military theme in the title. The war is the framework within which the main action of the plot occurs. Although it is only one of several themes, the motif of war nevertheless is a unifying idea: the huge scope of the war provides the contrast for the smaller scope of the individual. The war is both impersonal and highly personal: Tolstoy speaks of crowds of armies crossing continents to engage in battle, but also of the intensely personal nature of war, such as the scene with Dolokhov and the French soldiers (152). The army as soldiers reflects Tolstoy's belief in the necessity of focusing on the communal rather than the individual. In fact we feel that the notion of turning from individual interests toward communal ones is the unifying theme of the book. We see it in Pierre and Andrew's searches for meaning,, in Natasha's journey to the love of family, in Nicholas's quest for glory, in Mary's attempt to love universally, and in Tolstoy's comments on Kutuzov and the spirit of the army. All of these things could have been books unto themselves, but they are united here in The Army Is Soldiers, and in the motif of turning from the individual to the general. Pierre Bezukhov is one of Tolstoy's most sincere and misguided characters. He seeks to understand the meaning of his life, but he does not know where to look for his answers. Initially, Pierre seeks fulfillment through the approval of others. He attempts to demonstrate his sharp intellect at society parties and weds a great beauty, Helene Kuragina, only to find himself thoroughly disappointed in Russian high society and his marriage. Next, Pierre turns to religion as a means of finding fulfillment in life. He converts to Freemasonry, but becomes frustrated with the religion's complacency and eventually abandons his practice of religion all together. Pierre also fails in his personal attempts to change the world from which he feels alienated. For example, Pierre attempts to improve the lives of the servants on his estate by implementing progressive social reforms. Unfortunately, his efforts backfire and further complicate the lives of his serfs. It is not until Pierre meets the peasant, Platón Karatáev, and experiences the horrors of a prison camp that he begins to understand how one lives a fulfilling life. Platón Karatáev teaches Pierre that "things happen not as we plan, but as God judges" (1074). Pierre learns that contentment can never be achieved through personal striving. Rather, it is achieved through an appreciation for one's small role in the midst of a chaotic, inexplicable world. Pierre's interactions with Platón Karatáev help him to turn his mind away from his individual desires. He learns that love lends meaning to life on both a personal level and on a universal level. Tolstoy illustrates this point when he describes Pierre's reaction to falling in love with Natasha, commenting that, "The whole meaning of life, not for him alone, but for the whole world, seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of being loved by her" (994). Pierre undergoes a spiritual transformation. By the end of the novel, Pierre has lost his awkward self-consciousness. It is replaced by a spirit of fraternity with humanity.

Like Pierre's, Andrew's life is marked by sharp changes all of which manifest in him turning away from himself. His vibrancy in war at Austerlitz signified a sharp break from the provincial world of society with which he was so bored; his first wound turned him away from that and from his Napoleonic dreams and set him face to face with "something incomprehensible but all-important," death (255). While his wound convalesced, he retreated into himself: "To live for myself... is my whole philosophy now" (335). His life after this is characterized by hope and disillusionment: he is led from these thoughts by Pierre and his Freemasonry, but his hopes for meaningful political contribution end when he is disillusioned with Speranski (410). His love for Natasha gave his life meaning and possibility (cf. 372, 419), but even this was crushed by her infidelity. All of these passions, while better than his state at Boguchárovo in Book Six, still were accompanied by a fatal flaw. When he was revising laws, he did so with the hope of changing things; when he was in love with Natasha, his hopes revolved around releasing the infinite inside of him: It is not enough for me to know what I have in me--everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be lived for myself alone while others live apart from it, but so that it may be reflected in them all, and they may live in harmony! (371-2) His chief struggle was with his limitations, and ultimately his death; Natasha represented to him infinite possibility (cf. 411, and 692 "it was that soul I loved in her"). He had come a long way, but it was only his final wound (cf. 686, 722) and his death which led him away from his search for the infinite: compassion for Anatole (726) and for everyone (868) rendered him detached from the world. In his last moments he described love as the principal component of life. Andrew's final turn from himself consists in this movement towards love. Natasha Rostov's personal journey through the novel also represents a turning outward of the self towards love. From her first introduction at the age of 12, she is obsessed with searching for love. Her first attempts at this are severely misguided and fail. These failures are due to the fact that her conception of love is immature and focused on her own infatuation rather than on the idea of fully giving herself over to another. For this reason, she is easily persuaded to break off her engagement with Andrew and elope with Anatole, because her "love" of Andrew dies as soon as she becomes infatuated with Anatole. By the end of the book it is clear that Natasha has grasped the true meaning of love, as dedicated through her devotion to her children. As a mother, she has almost completely lost her sense of self due to her obsession with her family (1283). It is through this absorption with her family that Natasha finds guidance and meaning. Her mother alludes to this outward turning by stating that Natasha always needed a husband and children, to be able to stop focusing on herself and begin focusing on others (1284). Like Natasha, Nicholas Rostov has a fervid temperament. He joins the Russian military in the hopes of satisfying his cravings for action and glory, but abandons this tract when the Emperor Alexander’s peace pact with Napoleon pits Nicholas

face to face with the emptiness of such pursuits. Nicholas is initially reluctant to surrender his old ideals. He shouts, “How can you judge what’s best? How can you judge the Emperor’s actions? Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That’s all….” (453), but as he murmurs these words, he becomes aware of how naïve they are and decides to drown the disappointment of his disillusionment in alcohol: “Another bottle!” (453). As Nicholas’ character develops, he learns to replace his self-centered zeal for action and glory with rigorous dedication to those he loves and is responsible for. Having abandoned the army life, Nicholas devotes himself to diligently paying back the gambling debt he had incurred against his family’s name as well as managing his estate and serfs with care. The peace pact Nicholas witnessed between Emperor Alexander and Russia’s sworn enemy made vivid the inconsequentiality of Nicholas’, or anyone’s, role in the army. The inconsequentiality of this role sits in marked contrast to the love and respect Nicholas enjoys when he stops serving himself and starts serving others. While Nicholas’ impetuous nature once drove him to satisfy only his own needs, it later motivates him to become a successful businessman, master, brother and husband to Mary. Mary is the least dynamic character, and must make the smallest change in order to turn her inward focus outward. In a fashion similar to Pierre, Mary's extreme devotion to religion helps guide her journey. Initially she is shown to be very pious, but her piety is demonstrated mostly through personal actions such as prayer. As Mary matures in her faith, her piety becomes turned away from herself and towards others. Her devotion to the religious pilgrims and her orphaned nephew represent the middle of a journey, that is finally completed with her devotion to her children and husband. Similar to Natasha, it is only once she has her own family that Mary truly understands the meaning of love and is fully able to enact her religious beliefs. Mary already had the tools, but needed to learn how to use them correctly in order to achieve contentment. In contrast to Mary's role in speaking to Tolstoy's opinion on marriage, the character of Kutuzov plays a central role in communicating Tolstoy's opinion on war. Through the example of the eight parties confusing the military process (565) and other similar examples, Tolstoy explained the impossibility of strategically planning way; through the example of Napoleon and especially the example of his orders before Borodino (696-8) he lampooned the possibility of being a "great man" as Napoleon purported to be and as Andrew once dreamed of being. But it was through Kutuzov that Tolstoy provided a positive example of how a person should act in war. Kutuzov worked not by disseminating orders, but by tapping into the spirit of the army and spreading the attitude (720). Kutuzov, through patience, time, and an understanding of what the Russian spirit wanted, accomplished what no other general could have: what he intended to be done was done. The model of the submission of Kutuzov's will to the spirit of the army is comparable to more general theme of recognizing our lack of free will (much like our title, though directly referring to war, points to the larger issues). By turning away from his personal motives as Napoleon and the bureaucrats did, and embracing the spirit of the army, Kutuzov gained some of Tolstoy's highest praise as an individual to be imitated.

Many feel that the title War and Peace inadequately encompassed the many themes of Tolstoy's novel. We feel that our title,The Army is Soldiers, aptly articulates the novel's unifying theme. All of the novel's main characters exhibit signs of turning away from the self and towards greater society. They acknowledge their roles as parts of a whole, and in doing so, each character comes to a fuller realization of their true self. We have melded this concept with the spirit of Tolstoy's original title in order to create what we feel is a more dynamic title. Work Cited Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace. trans. George Gibian. New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1966.