Finding War in Peace: Andrew's Journey of Introspection

Finding War in Peace: Andrew's Journey of Introspection

War is a self-perpetuating problem. However, war is not the only thing that war begets; peace can also be a product of war. In fact, war might even be necessary to engender peace. As we see in Tolstoy’s text, individual peace may be found in the process of fighting a war, whether that war be a literal, external war or an internal, mental struggle. Although all of the significant characters in the text come to some form of peace as a result of their war-like surroundings, for the purpose of this paper, our group has chosen to focus our analysis on Andrew Bolkonsky, the character who most fully embodies the central theme of the text: the discovery of peace in war. Andrew begins the text in peaceful surroundings, but he is miserable; it is only when Andrew goes to war that he finds an inner peace in the midst of his suffering that surpasses in strength all the horrors of the war around him.

Andrew, who some would call the protagonist of this epic tale, has moments in battle that are somewhat peculiar. A man who we know to be introspective is able to, what feels like, freeze time and completely focus on a particular moment. As human beings, we all know that war can be a very treacherous and difficult journey. We know that war can sometimes bring out the very worst in people, and we know that war can kill not only men’s physicality, but their mental capacity as well. Andrew, for a good portion of this book, is able to keep himself together through what seems like times of reflection and peace in the midst of war. It is surreal to see such human emotion in such a chaotic time.

One particular moment we see this sort of introspection is in the heat of battle. Andrew, who had been battling for hours already, was fiercely fighting the French. Men were dying left and right, and in the midst of this chaos Andrew falls to the ground. He tries to realize what had just happened, but instead he took note of the amazing sky above him. Looking up, he thought to himself:

How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran… How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? 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![1]

What a feeling to have! In the middle of something so terrible, so painful, so frightening, Andrew is able to put his current condition aside and admire all that God had bestowed upon this earth. It took a quick fall for Andrew to realize the true beauty that surrounded him. It took a war to help Andrew find peace. He thanks God as he lay there admiring the artful sky. An experience one would expect to have in a peaceful time instead happens in the most chaotic.

Later in battle, Andrew is able to come face to face with someone who he has admired and considered to be a hero. Staring into the eyes of Napoleon, one would think that Andrew would be completely immersed in the moment. One would think Andrew would be giddy with excitement and grasp any opportunity he had to speak and embrace the situation. Instead, Andrew used that moment to think about something completely different:

Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood, suffering and the nearness of death aroused him. Looking into Napoleon’s eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life who no once could understand, and the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one alive could understand or explain.[2]

Andrew sees that nothing is certain, “nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand”.[3] At a moment when pain and agony was taking over his body, Andrew felt most at peace. As the stretcher was bringing him to safety he thought about his family, friends and future life with Napoleon merely an afterthought. It took a moment of supposed importance to make Andrew realize the unimportance of some things, and the importance of others.

Andrew finds peace in war for the second time when he is wounded in battle after rejoining the armed forces and taken to a medical tent. There, he recognizes Anatole Kuragin on the next operating table and watches as one of Anatole’s legs is amputated. Lying in a state of shock and disorientation from the trauma of battle and from having his wound treated, Andrew realizes that he and Anatole are connected through their suffering and that this connection is a source of peace.

Suffering first connected the two men when Anatole stole the affections of Andrew’s fiancé Natasha, an action that led to the dissolution of Andrew and Natasha’s engagement. Consequently, Andrew hates Anatole, but his hatred is a result of the pity he feels for himself after being done such a wrong. It is the experience of a different kind of suffering, a mutual suffering, that brings Andrew out of his self-indulgent hatred for Anatole and into empathy for the man who is sharing his situation in the military hospital tent.

Andrew realizes that he and Anatole both suffer as a consequence of the war. Watching Anatole weep over the loss of his leg, Andrew is moved to tears, and “ecstatic pity and love for that man [overflows] his heart”.[4] In the face of his surroundings, Andrew can no longer justify hating Anatole for stealing Natasha because the mutual suffering that connects the men is greater than the suffering that that drove them apart. When Andrew was not in war he could indulge hating Anatole, but now that Andrew sees how much greater all the suffering of war is compared to just his own personal suffering he is capable of empathizing with Anatole. Instead of just feeling for himself, Andrew now feels for another. He has realized a greater emotional depth and is at peace with the suffering that Anatole previously caused him.

Beyond empathizing, Andrew is now also able to forgive Anatole and Natasha, the ones who caused him so much suffering before. He goes from hatred to empathy to forgiveness. Forgiveness is the ultimate restoration of peace between people. With forgiveness comes closure, and with closure comes peace. It takes war to make Andrew understand the insignificance of his own suffering in comparison to the rest of the suffering in the world. With this understanding Andrew is able to get past his suffering and forgive those who hurt him. In this forgiveness he finds peace.

In Book Twelve, with his wound still unhealed and his life ebbing away, Andrew fights the last and most physically and emotionally taxing battle yet. Andrew is forced to confront his views on life, love, death, fear, and his feelings for Natasha, and when the warring is over, he comes to ultimate peace not only in death, but also in his spirit and his mind. It was only by fighting through the raging war that this ultimate peace was generated, and this juxtaposition results in the utter culmination of the esoteric implications of Tolstoy’s chosen title.

In the beginning of his physical torment from the bodily fight between life and death, Andrew realizes that he no longer fears death and instead feels a pervading sense of calm and “unfettered love” within his soul.[5] This love is different than any he had experienced throughout his life, and while contemplating it, in conjunction with his confined solitude in time of suffering, he “unconsciously [detaches] himself from earthly life”.[6] While struggling to hang on to life, he considers a love that requires detachment from earthly things. He in doing so “[renounces] life and…[destroys] that dreadful barrier which – in the absence of such love – stands between life and death”.[7]

When Andrew reunites with Natasha, his recent contemplations on the unimportance of earthly love are forced into new confliction. He recognizes his desire for that love and a conscious (in addition to bodily) desire to prolong his life and avoid the death he had just been on the verge of welcoming. This revives the tormenting fear of death of which he had just freed himself. He voices his contention asking, “Can fate have brought me to her so strangely only for me to die? ... Is it possible that the truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent my life in falsity?”[8] This conflict brings him to ponder love again. Andrew concludes that love is life and hinders death, and that everything exists only because of love. Further, he realizes that God is love, and that through death one returns to God and so is part of love again. This recognition brings him to a new state of inner peace.

But again, this peace of mind doesn’t last long, because while asleep, Andrew dreams that death tries to come in his door. Andrew has to fight to keep him out of the room, where death would consume him. However, once more through the conflict Andrew arrives at peace. Just as death breaks through the door, Andrew wakes, and concludes that death is an awakening, and from that moment on an inner light and peace surged throughout his body and did not leave. He is finally freed from all fear of death and all attachment to life. His physical toil continues, but the inner peace prevails until the last battle between physical life and death ends.

Andrew’s contemplation of life, family, and the basic unimportance of what he thought was important was crucial for the development of his character. In a time where one would find it difficult to even have one or two fluid thoughts, Andrew is able to think about the deepest and most confusing issues to man. The reason why he was able to be so introspective was because of the war. When one is torn away from what one knows, what one is comfortable with, that is when he or she, surprisingly, is most free. “Man, in connection with the general life of humanity appears to laws which determine that life. But the same man apart from that connection appears to be free”.[9] For Andrew, war was the peace he was looking for. He made a connection with God and nature during his most painful times. He was able to find the peace he needed in war, and war was able to connect Andrew to the free life he had been missing. War and Peace are not merely terms representing the state of armies, but clearly encompass much more in the lives of all people in any part of society. Tolstoy chose this title because the novel is not about the characters within, but rather about the highs and lows of life that every human being encounters. The characters are not to be the focus of the novel, instead the audience is to identify with the different situations, different representations of war and peace, and recognize the extensive implications within everyday life. The audience can extrapolate that lesson, and are reminded of the lesson learned by the title Tolstoy has carefully and rightfully chosen.

Miriam Olsen, Matthew Rauh, and Andrew Reyes

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[1] Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1996), 244.

[2] Tolstoy, 254.

[3] Tolstoy, 255.

[4] Tolstoy, 726.

[5] Tolstoy, 868.

[6] Tolstoy, 868.

[7] Tolstoy, 868.

[8] Tolstoy, 869.

[9] Tolstoy, 1064.