Platón Karatáev as New Title for War and Peace

Platón Karatáev as New Title for War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace is an overwhelming assortment of competing themes that is difficult to encompass in a succinct phrase. Similarly, Tolstoy’s characters experience their own difficulties as they question the world around them and search for meaning in their lives. Despite their apparently disjointed nature, these many themes and characters are intertwined through the central spirit of the work. In short, this central spirit teaches that meaning can be found in the acceptance of a higher order beyond human understanding. Although Andrew, Nicholas and Pierre desperately seek meaning by questioning the world around them, they find that they are unable to answer the question “what for?” Platón Karatáev, on the other hand, ceases to question the world around him and is therefore able to accept whatever may befall him. Andrew, Nicholas and Pierre only find meaning in their lives after they have espoused the philosophy of Karatáev. In fact, a close examination of the multifaceted struggle to find meaning demonstrates that Platón Karatáev should replace the title War and Peace in the newly published edition of the classic work.

Before the importance of Karatáev can be discussed, it is first necessary to understand the failed attempts of Andrew, Nicholas and Pierre to find meaning in their lives by questioning the world around them. After Prince Andrew experiences the tragic death of his wife, Lise, his conscience is haunted for the greater part of the book. The tragedy of Lise’s sudden death is intensified by her innocence and childlike nature. [1] As Andrew arrives at her deathbed during childbirth, he is tormented by her final facial expression: “I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done to me?”[2] In her final moments, Lise desperately grasps for her life’s meaning and her purpose in the world. Lise’s depressing death probes into a perennial religious problem: how can these undeserved ends be justified in a world order anchored by a good and loving God? Andrew’s disillusionment is perhaps most evident in his conversation with Pierre, in which he expresses his relatively pessimistic worldview:

Dear friend–life and death are what convince. What convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound up with one’s own life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to make it right” (Prince Andrew’s voice trembled and he turned away), “and suddenly that being is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to exist… Why? It cannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there is… That’s what convinces, that is what has convinced me.[3]

Clearly this passage demonstrates that Andrew is searching to understand the meaning of Lise’s life and death. He questions the idea of a higher order and the possibility of an afterlife in an attempt to understand Lise’s unjust death.

Nicholas also questions the world around him through the conventional definitions of honor, loyalty and heroism, and attempts to attribute meaning outside of these established definitions. Even though Denísov heroically risks his own career for the lives of his soldiers when he steals provisions for them, nevertheless the military court-martials him and the Tsar refuses to pardon him. Although Denísov’s actions were an affront to the system of internal military order, his actions were well intentioned and just. The juxtaposition of this seemingly unjust event with Nicholas’ observation of Napoleon’s arbitrary choice to bestow the Legion of Honor on the “bravest” Russian soldier highlights the tension between the conventional ways of commending loyalty in the military through obedience to orders and civil disobedience for the higher sake of justice.[4] As Nicholas questions the order of the world around him, his inability to understand the injustices he witnesses immediately overwhelms and frightens him.

Meanwhile, Pierre’s experiences represent the most comprehensive illustration of a search for meaning in the novel. Pierre is a relatively innocent character, and often becomes disillusioned with his changing ideals as he struggles to identify a coherent sense of purpose and meaning. His unhappy marriage to Hélène serves as a catalyst for this struggle, which initially leads him to submit to the guidance of the Masons. Subsequently, he tries to implement a broad land management and labor reform as an expression of his new Masonic beliefs.[5] Later in the novel, he believes that he can find meaning by contributing to the war effort through the formation and maintenance of a regiment. Eventually, his search leads him to assign a contrived significance to his own life by proclaiming that he is destined to end Napoleon’s power, yet the French army arrests him as an incendiary before he can act on his plans.[6]

Pierre arrives at the shed as a prisoner of war in the midst of an existential crisis after losing all faith in God and humanity at the public execution of the “incendiaries.” However, his new acquaintance Platón Karatáev helps him reexamine his questions about the world and finally points him in the right direction on his quest for meaning.[7] The way in which Karatáev lives his life in the shed serves as a great example for finding contentment in a human existence fraught with suffering and pain. “Karatáev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre understood them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life brought him in contact with, particularly with man–not any particular man, but those with whom he happened to be.”[8] More importantly, Karatáev recognizes God in everyone and thus is able to see someone like the French soldier, an enemy, as a human being with a Christian soul. This perspective of the whole helps Karatáev accept individual injustices and is exemplified by the powerful yet cryptic story that he relates around the fire.[9] The story represents the culmination of his teachings and the way he lives his life, emphasizing the importance of forgiving one’s fellow human beings and an acceptance of the incomprehensible world order anchored by God. The unjust punishment of the man in Karatáev’s story demonstrates that human happiness and contentment can be found in a world fraught with suffering and pain.

Karatáev’s teachings are evident throughout the novel in various passages that discuss the happiness of the Christian peasants. In the shed, Karatáev teaches Pierre “that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity.”[10] The most striking example of this pure happiness occurs when Nicholas and Natásha visit Uncle after their hunting expedition. During their visit, Nicholas and Natásha appreciate the peasants’ food, music and dancing. Although these pleasures are simple in comparison to the luxuries to which they are accustomed, they perhaps bring them greater happiness than they have ever experienced. In fact, as they return home, Natásha tells Nicholas, “I know that I shall never again be as happy and tranquil as I am now.”[11] Like the peasants’ happiness, the later experiences of Andrew, Nicholas and Pierre demonstrate the influence of Karatáev’s philosophy of life.

Although Andrew and Nicholas are not directly connected to Karatáev or his teachings, they find meaning by living in accord with his philosophy. Andrew exemplifies two of the major characteristics of Karatáev’s philosophy: forgiveness and an awareness of his relative insignificance as a mortal human being. Although Andrew’s conscience has been haunted by the death of the little princess, he eventually forgives himself for her death and allows himself to hope for future love and happiness.[12] While he initially wants to challenge Anatole for his behavior with Natásha, he forgives each of them as he remembers the importance of loving one’s enemies.[13],[14] After his final injury, Andrew’s slow deterioration and death eventually bring about an awareness of his relative insignificance as a human being. His injury underscores his attachment to the material world, which begins to fade as he realizes the primary importance of love.[15] This love, however, is more profound than his prior love for Natásha, and is directly related to his recognition of God’s divine presence in the world. Andrew can finally accept his death once he recognizes that God is love, he is a particle of love and that in death he will return to the ultimate source of love, God.[16]

After Nicholas realizes the artificial nature of the meaning that he initially found in the regiment, he returns home to a simple life of farming and devotion to his family. As he adapts to his new lifestyle, he looks to the peasantry as a prime example of the simple practicality that he strives for in the management of his estates.[17] In fact, Nicholas humbles himself in the sense that he disregards his social responsibilities and truly seeks to emulate and become more akin to the peasants that he observes. Clearly, he finds meaning in accord with Karatáev’s philosophy through the full appreciation and espousal of the simple, humble lifestyle of the peasantry. As Tolstoy notes, “he loved ‘our Russian peasants’ and their way of life with his whole soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one way and manner of farming which produced good results.”[18]

While Andrew and Nicholas exemplify the teachings of Karatáev and the value of the peasants’ simplicity and humility, there is no doubt that Pierre represents the most comprehensive example of this philosophy. Perhaps most of all, Karatáev teaches Pierre to humbly recognize his relative insignificance in the world as a human being. Similarly, he teaches him to derive meaning from simplicity and the recognition of God’s omnipresence:

In his captivity, he had learned that in Karatáev God was greater, more infinite and unfathomable, than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the Free-masons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into the far distance finds what he had sought at his feet. All his life he had looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes.[19]

Finally, after his ordeal as a prisoner of war, Pierre is able to implement what he has learned from Karatáev, and finds meaning in simplicity, humility and his willingness to forgive his late wife Hélène. As he embraces simplicity and humility, he derives inner peace from the realization that God is in all things, regardless of their meaning.[20] Despite Karatáev’s relatively brief appearance in the novel, Pierre often thinks about him even after his death, consciously using his philosophy to guide his actions. In fact, at the end of the novel, it is clear that there is no one Pierre respects more than the late Platón Karatáev.[21]

Many of Tolstoy’s central characters, especially Andrew, Nicholas and Pierre, question the world around them and struggle to find meaning and purpose in their lives. On the other hand, while Platón Karatáev only makes a short appearance in the novel, he ceases to question the world around him and is therefore able to accept whatever may befall him. Meanwhile, Andrew, Nicholas and Pierre only find meaning in their lives after they have espoused this philosophy. In fact, the central spirit of the novel teaches that meaning can be found in the acceptance of a higher order beyond human understanding. In conclusion, a thorough analysis of Andrew, Nicholas and Pierre’s struggles to find meaning demonstrates that Platón Karatáev should replace the title War and Peace in the newly published edition of Tolstoy’s tome.


-Stephanie Mills and Michael Wrapp

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] “She is quite a child: such a dear, merry child… think what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to, to be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her condition! It’s very hard!” (89).

[2] Tolstoy 285.

[3] Tolstoy 339.

[4] “Róstov stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could not bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he remembered Denísov with his changed expression, his submission, and the whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self-satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an Emperor, liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed arms and legs and those dead men? … Then again he thought of Lázarev rewarded and Denísov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened” (Tolstoy 364).

[5] “He told them that steps would be taken immediately to free his serfs–and that till then they were not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing their babies were not to be sent work, assistance was to be given to the serfs, punishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals, asylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates” (Tolstoy 329).

[6] “His love for Natásha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the comet, 666, L’Empereur Napoléon, and L’russe Besuhof–all this had to mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive, and lead him to a great achievement and great happiness” (Tolstoy 592).

[7] Tolstoy immediately draws the reader’s attention to the philosophical importance of Karatáev with the allusion in his name to the Greek philosopher Plato.

[8] Tolstoy 861.

[9] For the complete text of the story, refer to pages 938-940 of War and Peace.

[10] Tolstoy 937.

[11] Tolstoy 455.

[12] “Then he would look away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled à la grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She did not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply, merrily, and inquisitively at him” (372).

[13] “Prince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender loving tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their errors. ‘Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand—that is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me had I lived. But now it is too late. I know it!’” (726).

[14] Tolstoy 818.

[15] “During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium he spent after he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the new principle of eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciously detached himself from earthly life. To love everything and everybody and always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, not to live this earthly life. And the more imbued he became with that principle of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he destroyed that dreadful barrier which – in the absence of such love – stands between life and death. When during those first days he remembered that he would have to die, he said to himself: ‘Well, what of it? So much the better!’” (868).

[16] “‘Love? What is love?’ he thought. ‘Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything, that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.’” (870).

[17] “When Nicholas first began farming and began to understand its different branches, it was the serf who especially attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely a tool, but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first he watched the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they considered good and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give orders while in reality learning from their methods, their manner of speech, and their judgment of what was good and bad” (1011).

[18] Tolstoy 1012.

[19] Tolstoy 977.

[20] “The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had continually sought to find—the aim of life—no longer existed for him now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared temporarily—he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at this time.

He could not see an aim, for he now had faith—not faith in any kind of rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity he had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling what his nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In his captivity he had learned that in Karatáev God was greater, more infinite and unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the Freemasons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into the far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life he had looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes” (977).

[21] “Judging by what he had said, there was no one he had respected so highly as Platón Karatáev” (1040).