Women's images of war and peace are real. An essay on the topic “female images in the novel l.n. Tolstoy war and peace. Prototypes of female characters in the epic novel “War and Peace”

Plan: Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

Secondary school s/p “Pivan Village”

Essay

Female images of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace".

Completed by: Olya Rubashova

Checked:_______________

2008

1. Introduction

2. Natasha Rostova

3. Maria Bolkonskaya.

4. Conclusion

Introduction

It is impossible to imagine world literature without the image of a woman. Even without being the main character of the work, she brings some special character to the narrative. Since the beginning of the world, men have admired, idolized and worshiped the fair half of humanity. A woman is always surrounded by an aura of mystery and mystery. The woman’s actions lead to confusion and bewilderment. To delve into the psychology of a woman and understand her is the same as solving one of the most ancient mysteries of the Universe.

Russian writers always give women a special place in their works. Everyone, of course, sees her in his own way, but for everyone she will forever remain support and hope, an object of admiration. Turgenev sang the image of a persistent, honest woman, capable of making any sacrifice for the sake of love. Chernyshevsky, being a democratic revolutionary, advocated the equality of men and women, valued intelligence in a woman, saw and respected a person in her. Tolstoy's ideal is natural life - this is life in all its manifestations, with all the natural feelings inherent in man - love, hatred, friendship. And of course, such an ideal for Tolstoy is Natasha Rostova. She is natural, and this naturalness is contained in her from birth.

Many writers transferred the character traits of their beloved women to the images of the heroines of their works. I think this is why the image of a woman in Russian literature is so striking in its brightness, originality, and strength of emotional experiences.

Beloved women have always served as a source of inspiration for men. Everyone has their own ideal of women, but at all times, representatives of the stronger sex have admired women’s devotion, ability to sacrifice, and patience. A true woman will forever remain inextricably linked with her family, children, and home. And men will never cease to be surprised by women’s whims, seek explanations for women’s actions, and fight for women’s love!

Natasha Rostova

Tolstoy showed his ideal in the image of Natasha Rostova. For him, she was the true woman.

Throughout the novel, we follow how a little playful girl becomes a real woman, a mother, a loving wife, and a homemaker.

From the very beginning, Tolstoy emphasizes that there is not an ounce of falsehood in Natasha; she senses unnaturalness and lies more acutely than anyone else. With her appearance at the name day in a living room full of official ladies, she disrupts this atmosphere of pretense. All her actions are subordinated to feelings, not reason. She even sees people in her own way: Boris is black, narrow, like a mantel clock, and Pierre is square, red-brown. For her, these characteristics are enough to understand who is who.

Natasha is called "living life" in the novel. With her energy, she inspires life in those around her. With support and understanding, the heroine practically saves her mother after the death of Petrusha. Prince Andrei, who managed to say goodbye to all the joys of life, seeing Natasha, felt that all was not lost for him. And after the engagement, the whole world for Andrei seemed to be divided into two parts: one is where Natasha is, where everything is light, the other is everything else, where there is only darkness.

Natasha can be forgiven for her passion for Kuragin. This was the only time her intuition failed her! All her actions are subject to momentary impulses, which cannot always be explained. She did not understand Andrei’s desire to postpone the wedding for a year. Natasha tried to live every second, and a year for her was equal to eternity. Tolstoy endows his heroine with all the best qualities, moreover, she rarely evaluates her actions, most often relying on her inner moral sense.

Like all his favorite heroes, the author sees Natasha Rostova as part of the people. He emphasizes this in the scene at his uncle’s, when “the countess, raised by a French emigrant,” danced no worse than Agafya. This feeling of unity with the people, as well as true patriotism, pushes Natasha to give away all the carts for the wounded when leaving Moscow and leave almost all her things in the city.

Even the highly spiritual Princess Marya, who at first did not love the “pagan” Natasha, understood her and accepted her for who she is. Natasha Rostova was not very smart, and that was not important to Tolstoy. “Now, when he (Pierre) told all this to Natasha, he experienced that rare pleasure that women give when listening to a man - not smart women who, while listening, try to remember what they are told, in order to enrich their minds and on occasion to retell the same... but the pleasure that real women give, gifted with the ability to select and suck into themselves all the best that is in a man’s manifestations.”

Natasha realized herself as a wife and mother. Tolstoy emphasizes that she herself raised all her children (an impossible thing for a noblewoman), but for the author this is absolutely natural. Her family happiness came and was felt by her after experiencing several small and large love dramas. I don’t want to say that the author needed all of Natasha’s hobbies only so that after them the heroine could experience all the delights of family life. They also have another artistic function - they serve the purpose of outlining the character of the heroine, showing her inner world, age-related changes, etc. Tolstoy distinguishes between her early hobbies and her later, more serious ones. The heroine herself notices the transition from childhood amorousness to true love. She talks about this when she fell in love with Andrei Bolkonsky: “I was in love with Boris, with the teacher, with Denisov, but this is not the same at all. I feel calm and firm. I know that there are no better people than him, and I feel so calm, good now, not at all like before.” And even before, it turns out, she did not attach much importance to her affections, without reproach she admitted to herself her own frivolity. Let us remember how she contrasted herself with Sonya: “She will love anyone forever, but I don’t understand this, I’ll forget now.” According to fifteen-year-old Natasha, she never wanted to get married at that time and was going to tell Boris about it when she first met him, although she considered him her fiancé. However, the change of attachments does not indicate Natasha’s inconstancy and infidelity. Everything is explained by her exceptional cheerfulness, which gives the young heroine a sweet charm. Beloved by everyone, a “sorceress” - as Vasily Denisov put it, Natasha charmed people not only with her external beauty, but with her spiritual makeup. Her face was not particularly attractive; even the flaws in it were distinguished by the author, which became more noticeable when she cried. “And Natasha, opening her big mouth and becoming completely different, began to roar like a child.” But she always remained beautiful when her girlish appearance was illuminated by the inner light. Tolstoy tries with all poetic means to convey her feeling of the joy of being. She experiences the happiness of living, peering inquisitively into the world, which surprises and pleases her more and more. Maybe this comes from the fact that she feels within herself all the potential to be loved and happy. The girl felt early that there was a lot of interesting and promising things in the world for her. After all, Tolstoy says that moments of experiencing feelings of joy were for her “a state of self-love.”

She surprised Andrei Bolkonsky with her cheerfulness: “What is she thinking about? Why is she so happy? Natasha herself valued her joyful mood. She had a special regard for an old dress that made her cheerful in the morning. Natasha's thirst for new impressions, playfulness, and a sense of delight were especially evident when she met her brother Nikolai and Vasily Denisov, who came to the Rostovs on leave. She “jumped like a goat all in one place and squealed shrilly.” Everything was extremely interesting and funny to her.

One of the sources of joy for her was the first feelings of love. She loved everything that seemed good to her. Natasha the girl’s attitude towards her loved one can be judged by how Yogel shows her well-being. “She was not in love with anyone in particular, but she was in love with everyone. The one she looked at, the minute she looked, she was in love with.” As we see, the love theme does not acquire independent meaning in the novel, serving only to reveal the spiritual appearance of the heroine. Another thing is love for Andrei, Anatoly Kuragin, Pierre: it is somehow connected with the problems of family and marriage. I have already talked about this to some extent and will continue to talk about it ahead. Here it should only be noted that in the scandalous story with Anatoly Kuragin, which cost Natasha difficult experiences, the view of a woman only as an instrument of pleasure is condemned.

Maria Bolkonskaya

Another female image that attracted my attention in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace", is Princess Marya. This heroine is so beautiful inside that her appearance doesn't matter. Her eyes emit such light that her face loses its ugliness.

Marya sincerely believes in God, she believes that only He has the right to forgive and have mercy. She scolds herself for unkind thoughts, for disobedience to her father, and tries to see only the good in others. She is proud and grateful, like her brother, but her pride does not offend her, because kindness, an integral part of her nature, softens this sometimes unpleasant feeling for others.

In my opinion, the image of Marya Bolkonskaya is the image of a guardian angel. She protects everyone for whom she feels even the slightest responsibility. Tolstoy believes that a person like Princess Marya deserves much more than an alliance with Anatoly Kuragin, who never understood what treasure he had lost; however, he had completely different moral values.

She lives by the naive worldview of church legend, which evokes the critical attitude of Prince Andrei and does not coincide with the views of Pierre Bezukhy and Tolstoy himself. At the time of the best state of his health and spirit, that is, before the crisis of his near-death experiences, Prince Andrei did not take Mary’s religious teachings seriously. It is only out of condescension towards his sister that he considers her religiosity. Taking the cross from her on the day of his departure for the army, Andrei jokingly remarks: “If he doesn’t break his neck by two pounds, then I’ll give you pleasure.” In his heavy thoughts on the Borodino field, Andrei doubts the dogmas of the church professed by Princess Marya, feeling their unconvincingness. “My father also built in Bald Mountains and thought that this was his place, his land, his air, his men, but Napoleon came and, not knowing about his existence, like a puppy from the road, pushed him and his Bald Mountains fell apart, and all his life. And Princess Marya says that this is a test sent from above. What is the purpose of a test when there is none and there will never be one? Never again! He's gone! So who is this testing for? As for Tolstoy’s own attitude towards the heroine, the very mood of the image of Marya should be taken into account, putting her mysticism in connection with the difficult circumstances of her personal life, which in turn gives a special psychological depth to the typification of this character. The novel hints to us at the reasons for Marya's religiosity. The heroine could become like this due to the severe mental torment that befell her and instilled in her the idea of ​​suffering and self-sacrifice. Marya was ugly, she worried about it and suffered. Because of her appearance, she had to endure humiliation, the most terrible and insulting of which was the one she experienced during Anatoly Kuragin's matchmaking with her, when the groom arranged a date with her companion Burien at night.

What is a novel without women? He won't be interested. In relation to the main characters, we can judge their character, behavior, and inner world. War is war, but it ends someday. There are many women in the novel. Some images are positive, others negative.

One of the main female images beloved by the author is the image of Natasha Rostova. We watch her throughout the entire novel. Tolstoy constantly emphasizes that she is not a beauty. From a little girl who dances after a hunt, to an adult lady, wife and mother of the Bezukhov family. But she is beautiful with spiritual beauty. It was this kind of wife that Pierre needed, and not the cold beauty Helen Kuragina.

Some kind of inner fire burns in her. What is beauty? “...a vessel...in which there is emptiness, or a fire burning in the vessel...” Do you remember Zabolotsky’s poem “The Ugly Girl”? It was precisely in Natasha, as in a vessel, that this fire burned. And the reflections of this fire made her face so spiritual and alive. Therefore, she is so attractive to the opposite sex. Men like lively, smiling women, “laughing women”. How she danced after the hunt! Incendiary, selfless. The eyes are burning, the cheeks are flushed, the skirt is spinning like a top. Well, what man can resist here!

Yes, Natasha is wrong. And the arrogant and cold Prince Andrei does not forgive her. Or maybe Tolstoy did not specifically connect their destinies? Maybe he specifically gave her Pierre Bezukhov as a husband, this bear with the soul and heart of a child? He idolized her. Look how she blossomed with him, opened up like a woman. It seems to me that she would not be so happy with the prince.

Faith

The direct opposite of her is her older sister Vera. Her smile did not attract, but rather repelled. Children's laughter and squealing irritate her and prevent her from caring about herself.

It feels like Vera is a “foundling” in this family. She is not related to the Rostovs in spirit. Well, God apparently selects couples according to his image and likeness. He found the same husband for her. Two of a Kind.

Andrei Bolkonsky's sister is Princess Maria. If the prince can escape from his oppressive father to serve, then, alas, the girl cannot do this. And she is forced to endure it. She sacrifices her life for her father. For some reason, planting an inferiority complex in her, her father constantly humiliates her. But she also wants to be happy. She wants, like all women, a family, a husband, children.

Tolstoy describes her eyes in such a way that you don’t even pay attention to some of the flaws in her appearance. Moreover, as my mother said: “Beauty will fade, kindness will not deceive.” But she is very kind at heart. Her sacrifice finally finds a worthy recipient - Nikolai Rostov. He saves her, and she saves him.

Helen Kuragina

Here is the narcissistic soulless beauty Helen Kuragina. Dear painted doll without a soul, without a heart. Whether brother or sister, both are the same. Both are completely deceitful and inhumane. Someone else's life means nothing to them. She took it in passing and helped her brother deceive one person, Natasha. And ruin the lives of two people.

The second berry of the same field is Julie Kuragina, who became rich after the death of her brothers and became the richest bride. In order to somehow attract attention to herself, she put on a mask of decent melancholy. But one of the suitors, Boris, instinctively feels that she is “overacting” and turns away from her.

I remember the film adaptation of the novel “War and Peace” directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. Lyudmila Savelyeva played Natasha Rostova. I’m writing an essay and I see her in the Amazon galloping on the hunt. And then her fiery dance after the hunt. They picked the right actress for the character. For me, this is the best image of Natasha Rostova.

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Municipal educational institution Derevyankskaya secondary school No. 5

Literature abstract on the topic

Female images in the novel "War and Peace"

prepared by: Gavrilova Ulyana

checked by: Khavrus V.V.

Introduction

War and Peace is one of those books that cannot be forgotten. Its very name contains all of human life. And “War and Peace” is a model of the structure of the world, the universe, which is why the symbol of this world appears in Part IV of the novel (Pierre Bezukhov’s dream) - a globe. “This globe was a living, oscillating ball, without dimensions.” Its entire surface consisted of drops tightly compressed together. The drops moved and moved, now merging, now separating. Each tried to spread out, to capture the largest space, but the others, shrinking, sometimes destroyed each other, sometimes merged into one. “This is life,” said the old teacher who once taught Pierre geography. “How simple and clear this is,” thought Pierre, “how I couldn’t have known this before.” “How simple and clear it all is,” we repeat, rereading our favorite pages of the novel. And these pages, like drops on the surface of a globe, connecting with others, form part of a single whole. So, episode by episode, we move towards the infinite and eternal, which is human life. But the writer Tolstoy would not have been a philosopher Tolstoy if he had not shown us the polar sides of existence: life in which form predominates, and life that contains the fullness of content. It is from these Tolstoy ideas about life that we will consider female images, in which the author highlights their special purpose - to be a wife and mother. For Tolstoy, the world of family is the basis of human society, where a woman plays a unifying role. If a man is characterized by an intense intellectual and spiritual search, then a woman, having a more subtle intuition, lives by feelings and emotions. The clear contrast between good and evil in the novel was naturally reflected in the system of female images. The contrast of internal and external images as a favorite technique of the writer is indicative of such heroines as Helen Kuragina, Natasha Rostova and Marya Bolkonskaya.

Helen is the embodiment of external beauty and internal emptiness, fossilization. Tolstoy constantly mentions her “monotonous”, “unchanging” smile and “antique beauty of her body”; she resembles a beautiful soulless statue. Helen Scherer enters the salon “noisily wearing her sick white robe, decorated with ivy and moss,” as a symbol of soullessness and coldness. It is not for nothing that the author does not mention her eyes, while Natasha’s “brilliant”, “shining” eyes and Marya’s “radiant” eyes always attract our attention.

Helen personifies immorality and depravity. The entire Kuragin family are individualists who do not know any moral standards, living according to the inexorable law of fulfilling their insignificant desires. Helen marries only for her own enrichment. She constantly cheats on her husband, since the animal nature prevails in her nature. It is no coincidence that Tolstoy leaves Helen childless. “I’m not such a fool as to have children,” she says blasphemous words. Helene, in front of the whole society, is busy organizing her personal life while still being Pierre’s wife, and her mysterious death is due to the fact that she got entangled in her own intrigues.

Such is Helen Kuragina with her disdainful attitude towards the sacrament of marriage, towards the duties of a wife. It is not difficult to guess that Tolstoy embodied the worst feminine qualities in her and contrasted her with the images of Natasha and Marya.

novel fat woman image

One cannot help but say about Sonya. The peaks of Marya’s spiritual life and the “peaks of feeling” of Natasha are inaccessible to her. She is too down to earth, too immersed in everyday life. She is also given joyful moments of life, but these are only moments. Sonya cannot compare with Tolstoy’s favorite heroines, but this is rather her misfortune than her fault, the author tells us. She is a “barren flower,” but perhaps the life of a poor relative and the feeling of constant dependence did not allow her to blossom in her soul.

3. Natasha Rostova

One of the main characters in the novel is Natasha Rostova. Tolstoy draws Natasha in development, he traces Natasha’s life in different years, and, naturally, over the years her feelings, her perception of life change.

We first meet Natasha when this little thirteen-year-old girl, “black-eyed, with a big mouth, ugly, but alive,” runs into the living room and runs into her mother. And with her image the theme of “living life” enters the novel. What Tolstoy always appreciated in Natasha was the fullness of life, the desire to live interestingly, fully and, most importantly, every minute. Overflowing with optimism, she strives to keep up with everything: to console Sonya, childishly declare her love for Boris, argue about the type of ice cream, sing the romance “The Key” with Nikolai, and dance with Pierre. Tolstoy writes that “the essence of her life is love.” It combines the most valuable qualities of a person: love, poetry, life. Of course, we don’t believe her when she “in all seriousness” tells Boris: “Forever... Until my death.” “And, taking him by the arm, with a happy face she quietly walked next to him into the sofa.”

All of Natasha’s actions are determined by the demands of her nature, and not by rational choice, therefore she is not just a participant in a certain private life, for she belongs not to one family circle, but to the world of a general movement. And perhaps Tolstoy had this in mind when he spoke about the historical characters in the novel: “Only unconscious activity bears fruit, and the person playing a role in a historical event never understands its significance. If he tries to understand it, he is struck by its futility.” She, without trying to understand his role, thereby already defines it for herself and for others. “The whole world is divided for me into two halves: one is she, and there everything is - happiness, hope, light; the other half is everything where she is not, there is all despondency and darkness,” Prince Andrei will say four years later. But while she is sitting at the birthday table, she looks at Boris with a childish look of love. “This same look of hers sometimes turned to Pierre, and under the gaze of this funny, lively girl he wanted to laugh, not knowing why.” This is how Natasha reveals herself in unconscious movement, and we see her naturalness, that quality that will constitute an unchanging property of her life.

Natasha Rostova's first ball became the place of her meeting with Andrei Bolkonsky, which led to a clash of their life positions, which had a huge impact on both of them.

During the ball, she is not interested in either the sovereign or all the important persons to whom Peronskaya points out; she does not pay attention to court intrigues. She is waiting for joy and happiness. Tolstoy clearly distinguishes her from everyone present at the ball, contrasting her with secular society. Enthusiastic, transfixed with excitement, Natasha is described by L. Tolstoy with love and tenderness. His ironic remarks about the adjutant-manager asking everyone to step aside “somewhere else,” about “some lady,” about the vulgar fuss around the rich bride present us with a petty and false world, while Natasha among all of them is shown as the only natural being. Tolstoy contrasts the lively, ebullient, always unexpected Natasha with the cold Helen, a secular woman who lives according to established rules and never commits rash acts. “Natasha’s bare neck and arms were thin and ugly in comparison with Helen’s shoulders. Her shoulders were thin, her breasts were vague, her arms were thin; but Helen already had a varnish on her from all the thousands of glances sliding over her body,” and this makes it seem vulgar. This impression is strengthened when we remember that Helen is soulless and empty, that in her body, as if carved from marble, lives a stone soul, greedy, without a single movement of feeling. Here Tolstoy’s attitude towards secular society is revealed, Natasha’s exclusivity is once again emphasized.

What did the meeting with Andrei Bolkonsky give to Natasha? As a truly natural being, although she did not think about it, she strove to create a family and could find happiness only in the family. The meeting with Prince Andrei and his proposal created the conditions for achieving her ideal. As she prepared to start a family, she was happy. However, happiness was not destined to last long. Prince Andrei strove for Natasha, but did not understand her, he did not have a natural instinct, so he postponed the wedding, not understanding that Natasha should love constantly, that she should be happy every minute. He himself provoked her betrayal.

Portrait characteristics make it possible to expose the main qualities of her character. Natasha is cheerful, natural, spontaneous. The older she gets, the faster she turns from a girl into a girl, the more she wants to be admired, to be loved, to be the center of attention. Natasha loves herself and believes that everyone should love her, she says about herself: “What a charm this Natasha is.” And everyone really admires her, loves her. Natasha is like a ray of light in a boring and gray secular society.

Emphasizing Natasha’s ugliness, Tolstoy asserts: it’s not a matter of external beauty. The riches of her inner nature are important: talent, the ability to understand, to come to the rescue, sensitivity, subtle intuition. Everyone loves Natasha, everyone wishes her well, because Natasha herself does only good to everyone. Natasha lives not with her mind, but with her heart. The heart rarely deceives. And although Pierre says that Natasha “doesn’t deign to be smart,” she was always smart and understood people. When Nikolenka, having lost almost the Rostovs’ entire fortune, comes home, Natasha, without realizing it, sings only for her brother. And Nikolai, listening to her voice, forgets about everything about his loss, about the difficult conversation with his father that awaits him, he only listens to the wonderful sound of her voice and thinks: “What is this?.. What happened to her? How is she singing these days?.. Well, Natasha, well, my dear! Well, mother." And Nikolai is not the only one who is enchanted by her voice. After all, Natasha’s voice had extraordinary merits. “In her voice there was that virginity, pristineness, that ignorance of one’s own strengths and that still undeveloped velvet, which were so combined with the shortcomings of the art of singing that it seemed that it was impossible to change anything in this voice without spoiling it.”

Natasha understands Denisov very well, who proposed to her. She desires him and understands that “he didn’t mean to say it, but he accidentally said it.” Natasha has an art that is not given to everyone. She knows how to be compassionate. When Sonya roared, Natasha, not knowing the reason for her friend’s tears, “opened her big mouth and became completely bad, roared like a child... and only because Sonya was crying.” Natasha’s sensitivity and subtle intuition “didn’t work” only once. Natasha, so smart and insightful, did not understand Anatoly Kuragin and Helen and paid dearly for the mistake.

Natasha is the embodiment of love, love is the essence of her character.

Natasha is a patriot. Without thinking, she gives all the carts to the wounded, leaving things behind, and does not imagine that she could do anything differently in this situation.

The Russian people are close to Natasha. She loves folk songs, traditions, music. From all this we can conclude that the passionate, lively, loving, patriotic Natasha is capable of feats. Tolstoy makes it clear to us that Natasha will follow the Decembrist Pierre to Siberia. Isn't this a feat?

4. Princess Maria

We meet Princess Marya Bolkonskaya from the first pages of the novel. Ugly and rich. Yes, she was ugly, and even very bad-looking, but this was in the opinion of strangers, distant people who hardly knew her. All those few who loved her and were loved by her knew and caught her beautiful and radiant gaze. Princess Marya herself did not know all his charm and strength. This gaze itself illuminated everything around with the light of warm love and tenderness. Prince Andrei often caught this look on himself, Julie recalled in her letters the meek, calm look of Princess Marya, which, according to Julie, was missing from her, and Nikolai Rostov fell in love with the princess precisely for this look. But when she thought about herself, the sparkle in Marya’s eyes dimmed and went somewhere deep into her soul. Her eyes became the same: sad and, most importantly, frightened, making her ugly, sickly face even uglier.

Marya Bolkonskaya, daughter of General-in-Chief Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky, lived constantly on the Bald Mountains estate. She had no friends or girlfriends. Only Julie Karagina wrote to her, thereby bringing joy and variety to the dull, monotonous life of the princess. The father himself raised his daughter: he gave her algebra and geometry lessons. But what did these lessons give her? How could she understand anything, feeling the gaze and breath of her father above her, whom she feared and loved more than anything in the world. The princess respected him and was in awe of him and of everything his hands had done. The main consolation and, perhaps, teacher was religion: in prayer she found peace, help, and a solution to all problems. All the complex laws of human activity were concentrated for Princess Marya in one simple rule - a lesson in love and self-affirmation. She lives like this: she loves her father, brother, daughter-in-law, her companion, the Frenchwoman Mademoiselle Burien. But sometimes Princess Marya catches herself thinking about earthly love, about earthly passion. The princess is afraid of these thoughts like fire, but they arise, arise because she is a person and, be that as it may, a sinful person, like everyone else.

And so Prince Vasily comes to Bald Mountains with his son Anatoly to woo. Probably, in her secret thoughts, Princess Marya had long been waiting for just such a future husband: handsome, noble, kind.

Old Prince Bolkonsky invites his daughter to decide her own fate. And, probably, she would have made a fatal mistake by agreeing to the marriage if she had not accidentally seen Anatole hugging Mademoiselle Burien. Princess Marya refuses Anatoly Kuragin, refuses because she decides to live only for her father and her nephew.

The princess does not accept Natasha Rostova when she and her father come to meet the Bolkonskys. She treats Natasha with some internal hostility. She probably loves her brother too much, values ​​his freedom, is afraid that some completely sensitive woman might lead him away, take him away, win his love. And the terrible word “stepmother”? This alone already inspires hostility and disgust.

Princess Marya in Moscow asks Pierre Bezukhov about Natasha Rostova. “Who is this girl and how do you find her?” She asks to tell “the whole truth.” Pierre feels "Princess Marya's ill will towards her future daughter-in-law." She really wants “Pierre to disapprove of Prince Andrei’s choice.”

Pierre doesn't know how to answer this question. “I absolutely don’t know what kind of girl this is, I just can’t analyze her. She’s charming,” says Pierre.

But this answer did not satisfy Princess Marya.

“Is she smart? - asked the princess.

Pierre thought about it.

“I think not,” he said, “but yes.” She doesn’t deign to be smart.”

“Princess Marya again shook her head disapprovingly,” notes Tolstoy.

5. All Tolstoy’s heroes fall in love. Princess Marya Bolkonskaya falls in love with Nikolai Rostov. Having fallen in love with Rostov, the princess transforms during a meeting with him so that Mademoiselle Bourrienne almost does not recognize her: “chest, feminine notes” appear in her voice, and grace and dignity appear in her movements. “For the first time, all that pure spiritual inner work that she had lived until now came out” and made the heroine’s face beautiful. Finding herself in a difficult situation, she accidentally meets Nikolai Rostov, and he helps her cope with the intractable peasants and leave Bald Mountains. Princess Marya loves Nikolai not at all the way Sonya loved him, who constantly needed to do something and sacrifice something. And not like Natasha, who needed her loved one to just be there, smile, rejoice and speak loving words to her. Princess Marya loves quietly, calmly, happily. And this happiness is increased by the consciousness that she finally fell in love, and fell in love with a kind, noble, honest man.

And Nikolai sees and understands all this. Fate more and more often pushes them towards each other. A meeting in Voronezh, an unexpected letter from Sonya, releasing Nikolai from all obligations and promises made by Sonya: what is this if not the dictates of fate?

In the fall of 1814, Nikolai Rostov married Princess Marya Bolkonskaya. Now she has what she dreamed of: a family, a beloved husband, children.

But Princess Marya did not change: she was still the same, only now Countess Marya Rostova. She tried to understand Nikolai in everything, she wanted, really wanted to love Sonya but could not. She loved her children very much. And she was very upset when she realized that something was missing in her feelings for her nephew. She still lived for others, trying to love them all with the highest, Divine love. Sometimes Nikolai, looking at his wife, was horrified by the thought of what would happen to him and his children if Countess Marya died. He loved her more than life itself, and they were happy.

Marya Bolkonskaya and Natasha Rostova become wonderful wives. Not everything in Pierre’s intellectual life is accessible to Natasha, but in her soul she understands his actions and strives to help her husband in everything. Princess Marya captivates Nicholas with spiritual wealth, which is not given to his simple nature. Under the influence of his wife, his unbridled temper softens, for the first time he realizes his rudeness towards men. Harmony in family life, as we see, is achieved where husband and wife seem to complement and enrich each other, forming a single whole. In the Rostov and Bezukhov families, mutual misunderstandings and inevitable conflicts are resolved through reconciliation. Love reigns here.

Marya and Natasha are wonderful mothers. However, Natasha is more concerned about the health of the children, and Marya penetrates into the child’s character and takes care of his spiritual and moral education.

Tolstoy endows the heroines with the most valuable qualities, in his opinion - the ability to subtly feel the mood of loved ones, share other people's grief, and selflessly love their family.

A very important quality of Natasha and Marya is naturalness, artlessness. They are not able to play a predetermined role, do not depend on the opinions of strangers, and do not live according to the laws of the world. At her first big ball, Natasha stands out precisely because of her sincerity in expressing her feelings. Princess Marya, at the decisive moment of her relationship with Nikolai Rostov, forgets that she wanted to remain aloof and polite, and their conversation goes beyond the scope of small talk: “the distant, impossible suddenly became close, possible and inevitable.”

Despite the similarity of their best moral qualities, Natasha and Marya are, in essence, completely different, almost opposite natures. Natasha lives excitedly, seizes every moment, she does not have enough words to express the fullness of her feelings, the heroine enjoys dancing, hunting, and singing. She is highly endowed with love for people, openness of soul, and talent for communication.

Marya also lives by love, but there is a lot of meekness, humility, and self-sacrifice in her. She often rushes in thoughts from earthly life to other spheres. “The soul of Countess Marya,” writes Tolstoy in the epilogue, “strove for the infinite, eternal and perfect, and therefore could never be at peace.”

Leo Tolstoy saw the ideal of a woman, and most importantly, a wife, in Princess Marya. Princess Marya does not live for herself: she wants to make and does make her husband and children happy. But she herself is happy, her happiness consists in love for her neighbors, their joy and well-being, which, however, should be the happiness of every woman.

Tolstoy resolved the issue of a woman’s place in society in his own way: a woman’s place in the family. Natasha has created a good, strong family; there is no doubt that good children will grow up in her family, who will become full-fledged members of society.

In Tolstoy's work, the world appears multifaceted; here there is a place for the most diverse, sometimes opposing characters. The writer conveys to us his love for life, which appears in all its charm and completeness. And looking at the female characters in the novel, we are once again convinced of this.

“How simple and clear it all is,” we are once again convinced, turning our gaze to the globe, where there are no longer drops destroying each other, but they have all merged together, making up one big and bright world, as at the very beginning - in the Rostov house . And in this world remain Natasha and Pierre, Nikolai and Princess Marya with the little Prince Bolkonsky, and “it is necessary to join hand in hand with as many people as possible to resist the general catastrophe.

Literature

1. Newspaper “Literature” No. 41, p. 4, 1996

2. Newspaper “Literature” No. 12, pp. 2, 7, 11, 1999

3. Newspaper “Literature” No. 1, p. 4, 2002

4. E. G. Babaev “Leo Tolstoy and Russian journalism of his era.”

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L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” is an epic novel that spans more than one decade and tells about more than one family and, of course, not about the life of one person. There are main characters and less significant ones. Each of the main characters is constantly looking for himself, follows the path of struggle with himself, doubts, makes mistakes, falls, rises and continues the search again. These are Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Nikolai Rostov and many others. They are in a state of constant search for the meaning of life, find it and lose it again. But what is especially surprising is that this does not seem to concern the heroines of the novel, they know who they are, they know how and what they are supposed to do, and there is no place for struggle in their souls, since harmony reigns there.

The lives of people in Tolstoy's novel are divided into true and false, and exactly the same clear distinction exists among female characters. Princess Marya Bolkonskaya and Natasha Rostova undoubtedly live a true life, while Helen Bezukhova and Julie Karagina are representatives of a false life.

The main principle of the novel’s composition, stated already in the title, is opposition; it is also maintained in the construction of female characters. In the novel, Helen Bezukhova and Natasha Rostova are antipodes. Helen is cold and calm, Natasha, on the contrary, is very noisy, cheerful, cheerful - “gunpowder”. Tolstoy emphasizes this difference in every possible way, choosing opposite epithets to describe them: Helen is “beautiful,” “brilliant,” Natasha is “an ugly but lively girl.” Despite her outer beauty, Helen is completely empty inside. She enjoys success in society, is considered an intelligent woman - in the society that represents “a false life” in the novel. Natasha, for all her angularity and ugliness, is a beautiful soul. She is “a particularly poetic, full of life... girl” who has the ability to penetrate the feelings of other people, understand them and respond with all her heart to other people’s troubles.

Helen represents a mature person, while Natasha at the beginning of the novel is “at that sweet age when a girl is no longer a child, and a child is not yet a girl.” The novel shows Natasha's development, her maturation, and Helen plays a huge role in this process. Their clash in the work, which becomes the impetus for the novel between Natasha and Anatole, is a clash of morality and spiritual baseness, humanity and inhumanity, good and evil. Under Helen's influence, what was always strange for Natasha becomes natural and simple. This test had a serious impact on her: without changing fundamentally, she became completely different - more serious, adult.

These two heroines live according to completely different, opposing principles. Natasha Rostova openly enjoys life; she is guided not by reason, but by emotions. One has only to remember about another heroine, who is always guided in everything exclusively by the voice of reason, and a chill immediately blows through. Helen stands firmly on her feet and always knows exactly what is beneficial and necessary for her.

Thanks to her character, Natasha is the soul of the Rostov family. Only she knows how to see everyone’s grief and help, only she knows how to bring her mother back to life, while forgetting about her own grief. To highlight her image, Tolstoy draws images of two more girls, also raised in the Rostov family: the eldest daughter Vera and niece Sonya.

Vera “was good, she was not stupid, she studied well, she was well brought up.” She represents a kind of “mistake” of Countess Rostova: she was kept in strictness and “educated”, unlike Natasha. Perhaps Natasha could have been like this if she had been raised differently. Vera, with her cold, reasonable mind, is contrasted with Natasha: they are completely different, although they have “the same last name,” as Berg says.

Another pupil of the Rostov family, niece Sonya, “resembled a beautiful, but not yet formed kitten who would be a lovely cat.” Tolstoy repeats this comparison more than once, drawing attention to something “catlike” in Sonya in order to better explain to the reader her unsuccessful love, her future fate, and her behavior. Her amiability is combined with the ability to “let out her claws and show her cat nature” at the right time. Like a cat, Sonya “has taken root not with people, but with the house in which she lives,” which explains her position in the epilogue. Having come to terms with her purpose as a “barren flower,” she lives calmly in the house of the Rostovs and Bezukhovs. It seems that without Sonya there simply could not be other heroes, just as there is definitely a barren flower on the strawberries.

Another contrast that is present in the novel, although not emphasized so clearly, is the comparison of Princess Marya Bolkonskaya and Julie Karagina. They are united by the position that they both occupy in society: rich, ugly girls, a profitable match for anyone. In addition, they are friends, as far as girls so different can be friends. Julie, unlike Princess Marya, lives in the capital, is perfectly familiar with all the rules and habits of secular society, she is its integral part - part of false life.

In describing the appearance of Marya Bolkonskaya, Tolstoy draws the reader’s attention to “the princess’s eyes, large, deep and radiant.” In the novel, Tolstoy offers two visions of Princess Marya - through the eyes of Anatole and through the eyes of Nikolai Rostov. The first finds her ugly, bad: being a completely immoral person, he is simply unable to see the light emitted by the princess’s beautiful eyes. Rostov sees something completely different in her: he perceives the princess not as a desirable match, but as a “defenseless, grief-stricken” girl, notes “the meekness, nobility in her features and expression.” It is for Nikolai that Marya saves that radiant look, “which made her forget the ugliness of her face.”

If A. N. Tolstoy makes the choice between Natasha and Helen through Pierre, then in the second case the “exponent” of the author’s position is Nikolai Rostov. He sees nothing in Julie, although he is well aware that she would be a profitable match for him, nevertheless he prefers Sonya to her. Marya “bewitches” him with her inner beauty, and he, despite internal doubts, still makes a choice in her favor. The depth of her spiritual world, revealed to Nikolai, makes her especially attractive to him. He involuntarily compares her with Sonya, and compares not their financial situation, but the “poverty” in one and the “wealth” in the other of those spiritual gifts that he himself does not have.

Princess Marya, like Natasha, lives by love, only this feeling for her is not all-consuming, like Natasha’s, but timid, afraid to come out. They are similar, both are pure, deeply moral natures, it is no coincidence that the author gives them a similar trait - ugliness, thereby contrasting them with Sonya, Vera and Helen. L.N. Tolstoy compares not only the characters of the heroines, but also their appearance, manner of behaving and speaking in order to most clearly reflect the main idea of ​​the novel - the opposition between true and false life.

In Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" a huge number of images pass before the reader. All of them are excellently depicted by the author, lively and interesting. Tolstoy himself divided his heroes into positive and negative, and not just into secondary and main ones. Thus, positivity was emphasized by the dynamic nature of the character, while staticity and hypocrisy indicated that the hero was far from perfect.
In the novel, several images of women appear before us. And they are also divided by Tolstoy into two groups.

The first includes female images that lead a false, artificial life. All their aspirations are aimed at achieving one single goal - a high position in society. These include Anna Scherer, Helen Kuragina, Julie Karagina and other representatives of high society.

The second group includes those who lead a true, real, natural lifestyle. Tolstoy emphasizes the evolution of these heroes. These include Natasha Rostova, Marya Bolkonskaya, Sonya, Vera.

Helen Kuragina can be called an absolute genius of social life. She was as beautiful as a statue. And just as soulless. But in fashion salons, no one cares about your soul. The most important thing is how you turn your head, how gracefully you smile when greeting and what an impeccable French pronunciation you have. But Helen is not just soulless, she is vicious. Princess Kuragina marries not Pierre Bezukhov, but his inheritance.
Helen was a master at luring men by appealing to their baser instincts. So, Pierre feels something bad, dirty in his feelings for Helen. She offers herself to anyone who is able to provide her with a rich life full of secular pleasures: “Yes, I am a woman who can belong to anyone, including you.”
Helen cheated on Pierre, she had a well-known affair with Dolokhov. And Count Bezukhov was forced to fight a duel in defense of his honor. The passion that clouded his eyes quickly passed, and Pierre realized what a monster he was living with. Of course, the divorce turned out to be good for him.

It is important to note that in the characteristics of Tolstoy’s favorite heroes, their eyes occupy a special place. Eyes are the mirror of the soul. Helen doesn't have it. As a result, we learn that the life of this heroine ends sadly. She dies of illness. Thus, Tolstoy pronounces sentence on Helen Kuragina.

Tolstoy's favorite heroines in the novel are Natasha Rostova and Marya Bolkonskaya.

Marya Bolkonskaya is not famous for her beauty. She looks like a frightened animal because she is very afraid of her father, the old Prince Bolkonsky. She is characterized by “a sad, frightened expression that rarely left her and made her ugly, painful face even more ugly...”. Only one feature shows us her inner beauty: “the princess’s eyes, large, deep and radiant (as if rays of warm light sometimes came out of them in sheaves), were so beautiful that very often... these eyes became more attractive than beauty.”
Marya devoted her life to her father, being his irreplaceable support and support. She has a very deep connection with the whole family, with her father and brother. This connection manifests itself in moments of emotional turmoil.
A distinctive feature of Marya, like her entire family, is high spirituality and great inner strength. After the death of her father, surrounded by French troops, the grief-stricken princess nevertheless proudly rejects the French general’s offer of patronage and leaves Bogucharovo. In the absence of men in an extreme situation, she manages the estate alone and does it wonderfully. At the end of the novel, this heroine gets married and becomes a happy wife and mother.

The most charming image of the novel is that of Natasha Rostova. The work shows her spiritual journey from a thirteen-year-old girl to a married woman and mother of many children.
From the very beginning, Natasha was characterized by cheerfulness, energy, sensitivity, and a subtle perception of goodness and beauty. She grew up in the morally pure atmosphere of the Rostov family. Her best friend was the resigned Sonya, an orphan. The image of Sonya is not drawn out so carefully, but in some scenes (explanation of the heroine and Nikolai Rostov), ​​the reader is struck by the pure and noble soul of this girl. Only Natasha notices that “something is missing” in Sonya... She really does not have the liveliness and fire characteristic of Rostova, but the tenderness and meekness so beloved by the author excuses everything.

The author emphasizes the deep connection of Natasha and Sonya with the Russian people. This is great praise for the heroines from their creator. For example, Sonya fits perfectly into the atmosphere of Christmas fortune-telling and caroling. Natasha “knew how to understand everything that was in Anisya, and in Anisya’s father, and in her aunt, and in her mother, and in every Russian person.” Emphasizing the folk basis of his heroines, Tolstoy very often shows them against the backdrop of Russian nature.

Natasha's appearance, at first glance, is ugly, but her inner beauty ennobles her. Natasha always remains herself, never pretends, unlike her secular acquaintances. The expression of Natasha's eyes is very diverse, as are the manifestations of her soul. They are “shining”, “curious”, “provocative and somewhat mocking”, “desperately animated”, “stopped”, “pleading”, “frightened” and so on.

The essence of Natasha's life is love. She, despite all the hardships, carries it in her heart and finally becomes the embodied ideal of Tolstoy. Natasha turns into a mother who completely devotes herself to her children and husband. There are no interests in her life other than family ones. So she became truly happy.

All the heroines of the novel, to one degree or another, represent the worldview of the author himself. Natasha, for example, is a favorite heroine because she fully meets Tolstoy’s own needs for a woman. And Helen is “killed” by the author for not being able to appreciate the warmth of the hearth.