Plot Development in War and Peace

The first scene included describes the aftermath of the Battle of Austerlitz and how its results ultimately affected Andrei and his state of mind. The battle in itself was actually an utter disaster for the Russians and the Austrians. Andrei becomes wounded when he anarchically echoes a delusion from which he denies existence in part during the battle scene. This is after he grabs a banner and pushes his compatriots forward with him, where he then gets penetrated in the back by a French soldier’s bayonet and falls right down where he literally becomes forced to watch the skies; beginning his worldly trance that will ultimately change his life.

“Above him there was now nothing but the sky—the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty with grey clouds gliding slowly across it. ‘How quiet, peaceful, and solemn, not at all as I ran,’ thought Prince Andrei—‘not as we ran, shouting, and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before.

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And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God.’” (Tolstoy, 244)

In this quote, Andrei encounters an illuminating moment in time where it seemed unequivocal and quintessential to a seemingly godly concurrence.

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Stating this, Andrei sees the true beauty of the sky where he is starstruck by its astonishment and almost engulfs him to the meer point of death. In this particular moment, Andrei happens to uncover the sheer exposure of his conceitedness and by being entangled by this essence, he becomes completely lost in equanimity as there is a raging war going on around himself. As he was indeed suffering through immense pain induced through his battle wound that led him to gaze upon the sky in the first place, he also realized that the pure amusement and gratification that he seeked for senselessly in battle and grandeur, had died off with his confrontation of the skies and this celestial essence which overtook his attention completely.

Soon after, before being captured by the French, he encounters his hero, Napoleon himself, when he inspects the dead--shedding light onto the transition of Andrei’s self stratification. The confrontation of the lofty and absolute sky changes his perception of Napoleon throughout and stops Andrei from seeing him as a great man of everlasting resolve anymore. Andrei “knew it was Napoleon—his hero—but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a small and insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it.” (Tolstoy, 253)

Tolstoy then indicates soon after the change that succeeded within Andrei and the perception of thinking he does after his encounter with the looming, infinite sky. In this change, Andrei says he “was glad that people were standing near him, and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to understand differently.” (Tolstoy, 253) Badly wounded and in need of medical support, Andrei seems to be driven by rapport now where he has “learned to understand differently”. The just longing for others overall reflects on the transfiguration of his character going from appearance-based conceitedness to a complimentary people’s person that exemplifies fondness and compassion. This new perception of life given to him by the sky overall trumps the previous longing for glory and his overarching self idolatry that puts him before others.

“It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised. At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet of 18l2 - the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable space, seemed suddenly - like an arrow piercing the earth - to remain fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.” (pg. 534)

This quote is exemplified after Natasha reaches out to Pierre and with him being galvanized to an extent, Tolstoy manages to preview for the readers how Pierre is being prepared for a more essential role while also using him for a development model to bear the personal theme unto the essence of the cosmos. This comet in question was indistinguishably allocated to Napoleon’s advances across Europe which served as a harbinger for many that there was indeed dread headed their way, however, Pierre took the message of the comet a disparate way. Pierre, as a struggling character himself that many can agree with, spent the first half of War and Peace grappling with himself and falling short at everything life threw his way which most would become very discouraged through.

With this fact, Pierre saw the comet as a challenge to do exceptional, to improve himself to exceed his own expectations, and to follow the feeling in his heart to become the very authentic individual he strives to be. Furthermore, the brilliance of the starry night relieves Pierre from the frivolousness and indignity of a complete mundane civilization. The sheer tranquility and clarity of the sky also unveil a disreputable illusion that comes about through these mundane acts of life and hateful desolation from social formalities that Pierre among others interact with. With this enlightenment, Pierre chooses not to loom over a possible omen in the sky but to see it in a positive light where the most important aspect deciphered is to never cease opportunities to better oneself.

The last scene to be mentioned in this paper is when Pierre is in the camp where he has been taken prisoner by the French soldiers in camp after the Battle of Krasnoe. Pierre is captured by the French and is confined in a primitive camp for a whole month, then becomes forced to march west where the French themselves are retreating. During the first afternoon of the march, Pierre sit off by himself after leaving his companions towards an unharnessed cart where he sunk in thought. He then bursts laughing so loud, that people around him turned to him with surprise and astonishment.

“The huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with the crackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet, the red campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in the light sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp, unseen before, were now visible in the distance. And farther still, beyond those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling stars in its faraway depths. 'And all that is me, all that is within me, and it is all I!' thought Pierre. 'And they caught all that and put it into a shed boarded up with planks!' He smiled, and went and lay down to sleep beside his companions.” (Tolstoy, 901)

This became the instance of Pierre’s central renewal; where he had learned through his own being of life that humanity has always been conceived for happiness, and that this happiness flows through him which satisfies this human right and need. According to Tolstoy, the purpose of life is the developing process in which the personality needs to be overcome and to completely divulge the spiritual self to live justly. Pierre being a captive, and confronting his own apparent and imminent death completely paralyzes his spirituality. By Pierre looking at the sky and realizing “the soldier did not let [him] pass. They took me and shut me up. They keep me prisoner. What “me”? Me? Me---my immortal soul! Ha-ha-ha!Ha-ha-ha!...”, he has a revelation of his true immortality and the thought of which his avoidance of stasis is the reason why he can never truly die but only keep living.

The question is, does Tolstoy develop an idea or trace a pattern about his characters and how they inhabit the world. The answer to that is of course that he does indeed. In this paper, only Pierre and Andrei were the characters that were descri bed, but with their encounters with the celestial sky and the introductions of outerworld thinking proving to them that their lives can be altered and morphed to give it a better sense of meaning despite the inner struggles of the protagonists. The pattern in itself, is the eye-opening moments that decipher the concepts of process, development and movement all in character where the visualization of the lofty skies and stars illuminate the spiritual self and help Pierre and Andrei find themselves.

The moral significance of nature shows itself as an apparition and a companion of human inevitability, where the physical manifestations including that of the skies do insist on actualizing the innermost endeavors of the protagonists, instead of just being a framework for human destiny. Tolstoy’s interpretation shows his presentation of nature’s detachment of humanity’s struggles, exemplified in Prince Andrei’s moments of clarity looking up at the peaceful sky during a brutal war and Pierre’s enlightenment while being imprisoned in the enemy’s camp. This alienation of nature and humanity is what raises the issue of searching for the true ambition and direction of life. Tolstoy introduces the sky in the novel to suggest that conflicts and war do have a comprehensive efficacy to drive humans away from civility and humanity back towards a capacity of nature and the real reasons for a man to live, which is shown through Pierre’s and Andrei’s efforts to new beginnings.

These characters along with others do, however, grow and reestablish their old archetypes with new ones, elucidating their corresponding delusions with intuition of their own state of mind unto a true nature of life around them. By stating this, one can deduce how viewing the outer-worldly skies and nature’s perspective can separate oneself from their own mundane society onto something greater, and how the perception of life can alter as well. The sky comes to symbolize both transformation and enlightenment as it introduces the worldly view to Pierre and Andrei while being subtle enough not to be noticed by others.

References

Updated: Dec 12, 2023
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Plot Development in War and Peace. (2022, Feb 11). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/plot-development-in-war-and-peace-essay

Plot Development in War and Peace essay
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