"War and Peace". Reading a novel

What right does a person have to forget the deceased, to experience his grief, to return to the joys of life, to love again?

Princess Marya was upset when she saw how Natasha changed when she met Pierre. “Did she really love her brother so little that she could have forgotten him so soon,” thought Princess Marya...”

But she, with her keen moral sense, felt that “she had no right to reproach her even in her soul.”

For Tolstoy, the beauty and greatness of life are, first of all, in its diversity, in the interweaving of grief and joy, in the eternal human desire for happiness. That’s why he loves Natasha so much, because she is overwhelmed with the power of life and knows how to be reborn after shame, resentment, grief to new joys. This is a natural quality of a person, and one cannot condemn it, otherwise life would stop.

Natasha was revived by a new grief - the death of Petya.

After the death of Prince Andrey, she felt alienated from her family: her mother, father, Sonya, of course, sympathized with her, but they could not fully share her grief. Something irreparable has happened in her life; their life went on as before - this separated her from her family.

But then misfortune befell the family - and above all the mother.

Natasha, completely immersed in her grief, did not immediately understand what had happened. She now avoided even Princess Marya, who, earlier than she, “was called by life” from their common “world of sadness.” Princess Marya needed to take care of Nikolushka, the restoration of Bald Mountains, and the Moscow house. All this was alien to Natasha: until recently, “to recognize the possibility of the future seemed to them an insult to his memory” - to both of them, and now Princess Marya is busy arranging this very future!

Natasha endlessly repeated in her mind her last conversations with Prince Andrei - now she answered his questions differently, told him tender words that she did not have time to say. And the thought that “it will never, never be possible to correct” what was said before - this thought drove Natasha into despair.

“What kind of misfortune do they have there, what kind of misfortune can there be?” - thought Natasha, going to her mother’s call. But when she saw her father, she understood. “Something hit her terribly painfully in the heart. She felt terrible pain; It seemed to her that something was being torn away from her and that she was dying. But following the pain, she felt an instant release from the ban on life that lay on her.”

When a loved one dies before our eyes, we still find it difficult to force ourselves to believe that he is no more. But when we are separated from him and remember him alive, cheerful, full of strength, and the news of his death comes, it is impossible to believe, and the old countess frantically shouts the very words that mothers and wives shouted in all wars: “It’s not true, it’s not true. .. He’s lying... Killed!.. ha-ha-ha-ha!... not true!”

Of the four children, one Natasha is here, nearby. And the most beloved, the youngest, was killed. Only Natasha can - no, not console, not bring her mother back to life, but at least protect her from madness.

Natasha “thought that her life was over. But suddenly love for her mother showed her that the essence of her life- Love- is still alive in her. Love woke up and life woke up.”(Italics are mine. - N.D.)

In the penultimate version of the novel, Tolstoy forced Natasha to love only Pierre from childhood, everything: her childhood infatuation with Boris, and her short passion for Anatole, and her love for Prince Andrei - everything was unreal.

And in the final text, Natasha loves Andrei with all the strength of which she is capable, comprehends his own unclear thoughts, wants to understand how he feels, “how his wound hurts”; Having entered his life, she lives by it - that’s why her life ended when he was gone. But love for the mother awoke, and life also awoke.

Pierre, returning from captivity and learning that his wife had died and he was free, did not immediately rush to look for Natasha. “He heard about the Rostovs, that they were in Kostroma, and the thought of Natasha rarely came to him. If she came, it was only as a pleasant memory of the long past.”

Both of them are too pure people to, after all the grief, all the losses and feelings of guilt that gripped not only Natasha in front of the memory of Prince Andrei, but also Pierre in front of the memory of Helene, seek new happiness after all this.

It came by chance - and Pierre did not immediately recognize Natasha in the woman with sad eyes sitting next to Princess Marya, to whom he had come. “Nothing now happened in Pierre’s soul similar to what happened in it in similar circumstances during his matchmaking with Helen.”

These were not similar circumstances! Then Pierre did not understand and did not strive to understand what his chosen one was feeling, what his chosen one was thinking, and even more so Helen was not interested in knowing what was going on in Pierre’s soul. Now, recognizing Natasha in this pale and thinner woman without a shadow of a smile, Pierre felt “that all his former freedom had disappeared. He felt that over his every word and action there was now a judge, a court that was dearer to him than the court of all people in the world.”

First love brought Pierre bitter pangs of shame, because there was no spiritual principle in it and it made him worse in his own eyes. Love for Natasha filled him with pride, because he felt moral and spiritual judgment on himself.

Speaking about Helen's death, he looked at Natasha and noticed "in her face the curiosity about how he would respond to his wife." He told the truth: “When two people quarrel, both are always to blame. And one’s own guilt suddenly becomes terribly heavy in front of a person who no longer exists. And then such death... without friends, without consolation. “I’m very, very sorry for her,” he finished and was pleased to notice the joyful approval on Natasha’s face.” He told the truth, and this truth coincided with what Natasha expected from him. She will love in him the very thing that he respects in himself - Pierre doesn’t know this yet, but he feels it, which is why he so joyfully recognizes Natasha’s judgment on himself.

And she is still all in her grief, not yet ready to free herself from it. But it’s natural for her to tell Pierre all the details, all the secrets. last days her love for Andrey. Pierre “listened to her and only felt sorry for her for the suffering that she was now experiencing as she spoke.”

When Natasha left the room, Pierre “didn’t understand why he was suddenly left alone in the whole world.”

These two people - Natasha and Pierre - are made for each other. Created by Tolstoy in his imagination, and at first he saw them as old men who had lived a long and difficult life together. Even in the first novel he conceived about a Decembrist who returned from hard labor, they were husband and wife, although at that time they bore a different surname - the Labazovs. Returning from the historical era of the sixties to the origins of Decembrism, Tolstoy saw them as young, Natasha as a child. But he knew, from the first pages of his novel, that these two were destined for each other.

And so they met - it seemed that after Natasha’s confession it was no longer possible to talk about anything else...

“Do you drink vodka, Count? - said Princess Marya, and these words suddenly dispersed the shadows of the past.”

Princess Marya, who has just heard Natasha's story about her love for her brother for the first time, is no less shocked than Pierre. But she is the mistress of the house, and dinner is served, and these simple everyday words suddenly return everyone to the fact that “besides grief, there is also joy.”

For Pierre it is a joy and a “rare pleasure” to tell Natasha all his adventures during captivity. For Natasha, joy is listening to him, “guessing secret meaning all Pierre’s spiritual work.”

But they are both still young - their whole lives are ahead of them. Natasha is twenty-one years old, Pierre is twenty-eight. The book could begin with this meeting of theirs, but it comes to an end, because Tolstoy wanted to show how a person is formed, created. Both Natasha and Pierre went through temptations, suffering, and hardships before our eyes - both of them did enormous spiritual work that prepared them for love.

Pierre is now a year older than Prince Andrei was at the beginning of the novel. But today's Pierre is a much more mature person than that Andrei. Prince Andrei in 1805 knew only one thing for sure: that he was dissatisfied with the life that he had to lead. He did not know what to strive for, he did not know how to love. This is what Pierre knows now: “They say: misfortune, suffering... But if they told me now, this minute: do you want to remain what you were before captivity, or go through all this first? For God’s sake, once again captivity and horse meat.”

But Natasha, having been reborn to new happiness, took with her the bitter experience of previous mistakes and suffering. “Hearing that he was going to St. Petersburg, Natasha was amazed.

To St. Petersburg? - she repeated, as if not understanding.”

In exactly the same way, at one time she did not understand why Prince Andrei was leaving: the power of life that had awakened in her required immediate and complete happiness.

“- But why come to St. Petersburg! - Natasha suddenly said and hastily answered herself: - No, no, this is how it should be... Yes, Marie? This is how it should be..."

The love that united these people now, when they both have spiritual experience, will enrich them both and, perhaps, it will make them happier than if they had found each other several years ago, when Pierre had not yet gone through captivity, and Natasha had not yet gone through delusions. , shame, grief.

The “joyful, unexpected madness” that took possession of Pierre during his stay in St. Petersburg is very similar to the state of another Tolstoy hero, Konstantin Levin, when he proposed to Kitty. In the same way, all people seem to Pierre to be beautiful, kind and happy, and she also seems to him to be an unearthly being: “completely different, higher.”

But then, throughout his life remembering this state of his, Pierre “did not renounce... these views on people and things.” During this period of “happy madness” he learned to see their best sides and, “loving people without reason, I found undoubted reasons for which it was worth loving them.”

This skill will be useful to him in that difficult, long and wonderful life, which he will live neither uselessly nor alone - Natasha will always be next to him now.

Introduction

In the novel "War and Peace" Natasha and Pierre are central characters. They faced many trials that they had to overcome in order to find personal happiness at the end of the work.

Characteristics of Natasha Rostova

Natasha would hardly be able to amaze anyone with her facial features. But the lack of external attractiveness is more than compensated for by the heroine’s inner beauty. It is no coincidence that Tolstoy often draws the reader’s attention to Natasha’s “shining” eyes. After all, eyes, as you know, are a reflection of the human soul.

Natasha's main advantage is her ability to love. She loves her parents, sister and brothers. Then, feeling the inner wealth of Andrei Bolkonsky, she gives her heart to him. At the end of the novel, the reader has the opportunity to observe how the love of Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov arises and grows stronger.

Natasha loves nature and her people. She likes to listen to her uncle's songs, the girl herself starts dancing with pleasure. “She knew how to understand everything that was ... in every Russian person.”

Love and compassion for ordinary people forces Natasha to persuade her mother to give carts to the wounded. But they contained the meager belongings of the ruined Rostovs, including her dowry.

Characteristics of Pierre Bezukhov

The reader first meets Pierre Bezukhov in the Scherer salon. What distinguishes him from other representatives of the world is his intelligent and observant look. It is this look that worries the owner of a secular salon.

Pierre's life is full of sharp turns and vicissitudes. From the illegitimate son of a nobleman, he suddenly turns into a rich man and the most eligible bachelor in the capital.

Pierre is gullible, so he often becomes the prey of nosy and unscrupulous people. So, for a while he makes friends with Dolokhov and Kuragin, who use him to their advantage. He falls under the influence of Prince Vasily, who almost forcibly marries him to his daughter. The hero gets the first beauty, Helen Kuragina, as his wife. Is he happy? At first it seems to him that yes. Over time, it becomes clear that Pierre and his wife are complete antipodes. Bezukhov hides a beautiful soul behind his not-so-attractive appearance. And the dazzling Helen has no soul at all.

An unhappy marriage pushes Pierre onto the path of moral quest. He is trying to change the world for the better and enters into Masonic lodge. But here he will be disappointed. All the ideas that the Masons preach are hypocritical talk. It turns out that only Pierre is seriously ready for real transformations.

Pierre's character completely changes during the war. From an unnatural and unreasonable desire to kill Napoleon, he comes to the realization of what is truly important and valuable after saving someone else's girl and living among soldiers in captivity.

Getting to know the characters and developing their relationships

Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov meet for the first time in Moscow in the novel War and Peace. Pierre, having appeared in the Rostovs' house, was struck by the warmth and mutual understanding that reigned in this family. Thirteen-year-old Natasha immediately attracts Pierre’s attention with her liveliness and naturalness, “and under the gaze of this funny, lively girl he wanted to laugh himself, not knowing why.” Although Pierre is 7 years older than Natasha, they are brought together by spontaneity and kindness.

Having learned that Natasha cheated on Andrey, trying to run away with Anatoly Kuragin, Pierre cannot believe it. He cannot calmly think “about her baseness, stupidity and cruelty.” It is Pierre who, having learned that Helen contributed to Natasha’s shame, tries to restore her reputation. An opponent of all violence, Pierre challenged Dolokhov to a duel and almost strangled Anatole. Bezukhov’s action is quite understandable. He secretly loves Natasha. The hero confesses to the French officer Rambal, who he saved, that he fell in love with her as a girl, and that this love will remain with him forever.

Love of Natasha and Pierre

At the end of the novel we see Natasha as Pierre's wife and mother of four children. “She gained weight and fatness, so that it was difficult to recognize in this strong mother the former thin, active Natasha.” The heroine finds happiness not in visiting salons and fashionable evenings, but in her family. Happy is Pierre, who has found not just a beloved wife, but a faithful friend who takes part “in every minute of her husband’s life.”

Conclusion

I would like to end my essay on the topic: “Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov in the novel “War and Peace” with the quote: “It is joyful to realize that worthy people, whom fate has tested for so long, receive a well-deserved reward at the end of the journey.”

Work test

One of the main characters in the novel was Natasha Rostova. The writer pays a lot of attention to her and this is not surprising, because Natasha’s soul is a whole novel in itself, a life story, and all the most important and important things are manifested in her spiritual qualities and actions.
In the novel, the words “Natasha” and “love” are inseparable. Love is part of her soul. Love for father and mother, for Andrei and Pierre, for Nikolai and Sonya... Each feeling is different from the other, but they are all deep and true. Let us remember the meeting of Natasha and Andrei at the ball. They understood each other suddenly, at a glance, and felt something uniting them both. Prince Andrei looked younger next to Natasha. He became relaxed and natural around her. But from many episodes of the novel it is clear that Bolkonsky could remain himself only with very few people. “Prince Andrei...loved to meet in the world that which did not have a general secular imprint on it. And that was Natasha.”
But true love still won and woke up in Natasha’s soul much later. She realized that the one whom she idolized, whom she admired, who was dear to her, lived in her heart all this time. This man was Pierre. His “childish soul” was close to Natasha. And he was the only one who brought joy and light into the Rostov house when she felt bad, when she was tormented by remorse, suffered, and hated herself for everything that happened. She did not see reproach or indignation in Pierre's eyes. He idolized her, and Natasha was grateful to him only for the fact that he existed in the world and that he was her only consolation.
Natasha Rostova is the most beautiful in a feminine way in Russian literature, which is unusually real and at the same time divine. This is exactly what a woman-mother should be. The image of Natasha embodied the ideal of a woman for Tolstoy - a woman for whom family is the meaning of her whole life.

L.N. Tolstoy shows us the young Pierre Bezukhov for the first time in Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s salon as an obvious violator of both public peace and the smooth flow of the evening in general. What distinguishes him from everyone else in the living room is his intelligent, observant gaze. It is he, and not his enormous height or brown tailcoat, that inspires Anna Pavlovna with anxiety. Pierre is greeted with a bow that belongs to people of the lowest hierarchy. He is the illegitimate son of Catherine's nobleman, Count Bezukhov, and later his legal heir. In a short time he becomes the owner of thousands of souls and millions. And now he is a welcome guest in all salons and houses of both capitals.
Count Leo Tolstoy, without a doubt, loves Count Pierre Bezukhov very much. He makes him the most eligible bachelor in Russia, but, at the same time, marries him to a stupid and depraved creature, the brilliant St. Petersburg beauty Helen Kuragina. And in that seemingly most “romantic” moment, when Pierre “asks” for Helen’s hand in marriage, he constantly relies on the word “seems” in his thoughts: “seems” I love, “seems” happy.
He seeks happiness in married life and does not find it. His search for the truth leads him to the Masonic lodge. It seems to Pierre that in Freemasonry he found the embodiment of his ideals. The thought of improving the world and himself embraces him. The ideas of brotherhood, equality and love are what most attract a young person to Freemasonry. He wants to act, to benefit people. First of all, he decides to ease the lot of the serfs. But hypocrisy and hypocrisy also penetrated into the environment of Freemasonry. There is no personal happiness either. A period of disappointments and mistakes begins in his life.
Natasha's love is Pierre's reward for all the hardships and mental anguish. She, like an angel, enters his life, illuminating it with a warm, gentle light. Finally Pierre found his happiness in family life.
He becomes a member of a secret society. Pierre speaks with indignation about the reaction that has occurred in Russia, about Arakcheevism, theft. At the same time, he understands the strength of the people and believes in them. With all this, the hero resolutely opposes violence. In other words, for Pierre, the path of moral self-improvement remains decisive in the reconstruction of society.
Intense intellectual search, the ability for selfless actions, high spiritual impulses, nobility and devotion in love (relationships with Natasha), true patriotism, the desire to make society more just and humane, truthfulness and naturalness, the desire for self-improvement make Pierre one of the best people of his time.
Epilogue.
Natasha and Pierre are two “poles”, completely different people, separated by an abyss of worldviews. But their love became a bridge across this abyss, brought them closer and united them.

Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov in the novel "War and Peace" (2nd version)

In the epic novel “War and Peace” by L. N. Tolstoy, drawing historical paintings life of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, pays special attention to his favorite characters, Pierre Bezukhov and Natasha Rostova, revealing their spiritual clarity and simplicity, the love relationships that develop throughout the entire work.

The young Count Bezukhov first meets Natasha Rostova, a thirteen-year-old cheerful and spontaneous girl, in Moscow, where he is exiled for carousing and rowdyism in the company of Prince Kuragin and Dolokhov. Invited to the name day of the old countess, he, who did not know parental warmth and love (an illegitimate son), raised by strangers, is amazed by the comfort, joyful atmosphere and hospitality of the Rostov family.

“Big, fat and humble,” Pierre is shy at first, but soon feels at ease, “looking more and more pleasantly at the guests” and at Natasha, who sits “opposite him” and looks at Boris Drubetsky with loving eyes. “This same look of hers sometimes turned to Pierre, and under the gaze of this funny, animated girl he wanted to laugh himself, not knowing why.”

Natasha, with her open and trusting heart, immediately becomes imbued with respect and sympathy for this man who came from abroad. “You know, this fat Pierre, who was sitting opposite me, is so funny!” - she says to Sonya. The girl, “laughing with her eyes and blushing,” trustingly approaches him, inviting him to dance, and Pierre does not refuse her, although he dances poorly.

From the first pages of the novel, L.N. Tolstoy shows the spiritual closeness of his characters, their mutual understanding: “...Pierre sat down with his lady. Natasha was completely happy... She sat in front of everyone and talked to him like a big girl.”

Entangled in the flattery and insidious intrigue of Prince Vasily Kuragin, Count Pyotr Kirillovich, having married Helen, an empty and calculating social beauty, realizing that the marriage with her is unhappy, is more and more drawn in soul and heart to Natasha, who has become the bride of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who sees Pierre has a “heart of gold.”

Bezukhov treats the charming and charming girl with tender devotion, admires and admires her. Therefore, having learned about Natasha’s betrayal of Prince Andrei, at first he cannot come to terms with it: “The sweet impression of Natasha, whom he knew from childhood, could not be combined in his soul with a new idea of ​​​​her baseness, stupidity and cruelty.” But, having learned that the naive girl was seduced with the help of the depraved Helen, he flies into a rage, almost strangling Anatole, forcing him to return Natasha’s letters and leave Moscow. Subconsciously, Pierre does not believe in the “fall” of the young countess and believes that “it is his responsibility to hide the whole matter and restore Rostova’s reputation.”

Seeing Natasha after her failed escape with Anatole, he understands what is going on in her heart and is imbued with a feeling of true love for her: “... now he felt so sorry for her that there was no room for reproach in his soul.” For Pierre, Natasha is pure and immaculate. In a gentle, sincere voice he speaks to the girl, calling her “my friend,” offering his help and advice: “... if... you just need to pour out your soul to someone... remember me... I’m happy I will, if I am able...” In a fit of tenderness and compassion, he confesses to Natasha: “If I were not me... and were free, I would this very minute on my knees ask for your hand and love.”

Filled with despair and shame, humiliated and crushed by her grief, rejected by society, Natasha finds in Pierre a truly close person to her and cries “with tears of gratitude and tenderness.”

These tears evoke the joy of life in the count, renewing his tormented soul with the desire to act.

Having survived the horrors of war, having lost loved ones and relatives, L. N. Tolstoy’s favorite heroes meet again as different people. Seeing Natasha’s “stern, thin and pale, aged face”, her dear, sweet and attentive eyes, Pierre feels a long-forgotten happiness that “has embraced and absorbed him all.” He “wanted to hide his excitement. But the more he wanted to hide it, the more clearly, more clearly, than in the most definite words, he told himself, and her, and Princess Marya that he loved her.”

For the first time after the death of Prince Andrei and Petya, Natasha experiences pleasure from communicating with Pierre, her “kind and sadly questioning eyes... lit up,” and she tells him about her last meeting with Prince Andrei, seeing sincere sympathy in Pierre. And he understands “that over his every word and action there is now a judge, a court that is dearer to him than the court of all people in the world - this is Natasha”

The trials endured are even greater.

They bring together the heroes of the novel, who see their happiness in simplicity, goodness and truth. Talking about his captivity, Pierre feels Natasha’s attention: “... she did not miss a word, a hesitation in her voice, a glance, a twitch of a facial muscle, or a gesture from Pierre. She caught on the fly the unspoken word and brought it directly into her open heart, guessing the secret meaning of all Pierre’s spiritual work.” For the first time after the sad loss of her loved ones, a joyful and playful smile appears on Natasha’s face.

Pierre feels the presence of Natasha with his whole being and is surprised by her: “She was in the same black dress with soft folds and had her hair done the same way as yesterday, but she was completely different... A cheerful, questioning sparkle shone in her eyes; there was a gentle and strangely playful expression on his face.” Only now Pierre realizes that he cannot live without Natasha and says to Princess Marya: “... I have loved only her, I have loved her all my life and I love her so much that I cannot imagine life without her.”

Love transforms Bezukhov. He thinks about the “incredible happiness ahead.” He is overcome by “joyful, unexpected madness,” “the whole meaning of life... seemed to him... only in his love and in the possibility of her love for him.” People seem to Pierre to be nice, friendly, attentive, kind and touching, he wants to tell everyone about his joy: “All the judgments that he made for himself about people and circumstances during this period of time remained true for him forever... love filled his heart , and he, loving people for no reason, found undoubted reasons for which it was worth loving them.” The world became beautiful for Pierre. He rejoices at the riders and carpenters, traders and shopkeepers who look at him “with cheerful, shining faces,” and admires the streets and houses.

And Natasha? In the devastated soul of the girl, “the power of life and hopes for happiness” suddenly awaken. She, for whom everything was in love, fell in love again and surrendered to this feeling with all completeness and sincerity, joy and fun: “Everything: face, gait, look, voice - everything suddenly changed in her... She spoke little about Pierre, but when Princess Marya mentioned him, a long-extinguished sparkle lit up in her eyes and her lips wrinkled with a strange smile.”

The meeting with Pierre Bezukhov after his return from captivity, his attention and love finally heal Natasha, who has found her happiness in her husband and children. Love and harmony reign among the Bezukhovs, created by Natasha the mother and wife, who always strived for one thing - “to have a family.” to have a husband”, “to whom she devoted herself entirely - that is, with all her soul.” She runs her house in such a way as to fulfill all of Pierre’s wishes: in everyday affairs, in raising children, in the Count’s activities, and in the very spirit of the house. She doesn’t just listen to Pierre, but absorbs his thoughts and feelings. He sees himself reflected in his wife, and this pleases him, because in the disputes “Pierre, to his joy and surprise, found not only in the words, but also in the actions of his wife, the very thought that she was arguing against.” Without understanding husband's mind, Natasha guesses what was most important in his activities, shares his thoughts only because Pierre for her is the most honest, most just person in the world. In the family, in Natasha’s love for him, Count Bezukhov draws spiritual strength to fight evil and injustice. L.N. Tolstoy writes: “After seven years of marriage, Pierre felt a joyful, firm consciousness that he was not a bad person, and he felt this because he saw himself reflected in his wife... And this reflection did not happen through logical thoughts, and to others - a mysterious, direct reflection."

The novel “War and Peace” embodied L. N. Tolstoy’s thoughts about the secrets of happiness and love, about the purity of moral feelings of the heroes of the work, their attitude to good and evil, truth and lies, to family life as one of the forms of unity between people.

Love of Natasha and Pierre

At the end of the novel we see Natasha as Pierre's wife and mother of four children. “She gained weight and fatness, so that it was difficult to recognize in this strong mother the former thin, active Natasha.” The heroine finds happiness not in visiting salons and fashionable evenings, but in her family. Happy is Pierre, who has found not just a beloved wife, but a faithful friend who takes part “in every minute of her husband’s life.”