War & Peace

11 Pages 2809 Words

rkers and peasants, were the important factors in resolving the

national crises of country.”

Tolstoy creates a contrast between two generals, two great leading men of two

opposing armies. Napoleon is portrayed as a critical, sharp thinker who develops great

plans and strategies. Kutuzov is portrayed as an old, wise man who knows through

experience that no strategic plan can help predict or lead to the outcome of a battle. This

is Tolstoy’s own mentality. “ … the course of war is quite arbitrary, depending less on

the strategies of generals than on the spontaneous actions of individual soldiers in the

front lines.” Tolstoy scorned and mocked attempts of generals to employ planned tactics

on battlefields. “Tolstoy would later suggest throughout War and Peace that people who

resist the current of fate experience defeat – whereas those who flow with the tide

ultimately emerge victorious.” Such was Tolstoy’s view of Napoleon, who is considered

a great figure in history but in Tolstoy’s reality had little to do with influencing historical

events. In War and Peace he writes, “A tsar is the slave of history.” Tolstoy likens

Napoleon himself to a “ … carved figure on the bow of a ship, which, savages think,

powers and directs the vessel – and to a child who, grasping the ribbons and braid that

decorate the inside of a carriage thinks he is driving it.” In Tolstoy’s portrayal of

Kutuzov, the general “recognizes the impossibility of controlling events.”

In the novel, the theme of bravery was presented during battles, among the

peasants and counts equally, and away from the heat of battles in the highest circles of

the society. On the front, panicked soldiers from an unexpected attack suddenly turned

around and galloped into a sea of bullets. “One soldier followed, then another, till the

whole battalion had run...