War and Peace Themes

Among the novel’s aristocratic characters, human relationships—like marriages and friendships—are often tools for gaining and maintaining a desirable social position. In other words, social standing and wealth are ends in themselves, and the rest of life serves those ends, causing people to sacrifice their own desires, and ultimately their happiness, for the sake of money and status. In particular, aristocratic characters—like Pierre Bezukhov and Sonya Rostov—postpone happiness or miss it altogether because they’re stuck…

Throughout the novel, Tolstoy contrasts aristocratic Russia (which is European-influenced, contrived, and often pretentious) and traditional Russia (which is more instinctual, more honest, and more authentic overall). Aristocrats aspire to “European” traits, like an obsession with French culture and the adoption of complicated German war strategies. However, these don’t work well in the long run—or at least they can’t suppress authentically “Russian” instincts in the novel’s characters, such as religious piety and love of life…

Much of the novel focuses on major events of the Napoleonic Wars, especially during the years 1805-1807 and the French invasion of Russia in 1812. Tolstoy examines the details of war from many different angles—from councils of generals pre-battle to young hussar cadets under fire for the first time. Though Tolstoy discusses the broader scale of the wars and their international impact for decades to come, he also examines the behavior of individual soldiers to…

In War and Peace, most major characters wrestle with how to live fulfilled, happy lives in a world that seems to be overwhelmed with suffering. For example, Pierre seeks meaning and stability in Freemasonry, a spiritual brotherhood that promises to cure him of his youthful debauchery, but he’s soon disillusioned by its members’ hypocrisy. Princess Marya, who’s otherwise an exemplar of genuine religious faith, finds that her virtue makes her vulnerable to a…

In reaction to the rising prevalence of scientific theories in his day, Tolstoy opposed the notion that reality could be explained solely in terms of theories and systems. In his view, such systems push the possibility of divine will and the complexity of human events to the margins of history, thereby trying to reduce life to the easily explainable. In other words, people apply sweeping theories to life, or attribute historical movements to larger-than-life personalities…