War and Peace
Tolstoy's War and Peace evokes powerful contemplation about the meaning of life, of the nature of the human soul, and of the nature of suffering. In these excerpts alone readers can understand what Tolstoy was trying to convey through his characters' experiences. Both passages address the motif of human flesh: the corporal nature of existence. Through characters like Andrew Tolstoy encourages thought on the relationship between our minds and our bodies and whether or not human beings can or even should transcend their physical realities. Tolstoy is concerned with corporeality and with the effects of pain, pleasure, and all sensations on the human psyche.Andrew offers compelling reasons to believe that the body is integral to the soul. His physical and sexual passion for Natasha is one way Tolstoy illustrates the effect of the body on the mind, emotions, and spirit of a man. His wartime experiences and his brush with death further drive home the intensity of physical sens
His detachment becomes mature because he does not place too much stock into pain or pleasure, life or death. Ironically flesh, for Andrew, is the key to transcending itself. Through Andrew, Tolstoy shows his readers that sensations, whether pleasurable, painful, or a combination of the two, shape the human spirit. He becomes detached from his body first as a means of defending himself against pain. However, Andrew struggles with his physicality. Therefore, human beings are double entities: comprised of both a body and a soul. A clear sign that human beings are both body and soul is when the amputee cries out to see his leg. He feels disgust so deeply in his body that he becomes overwhelmed and detaches from the world as a person in shock. For instance, his first marriage fails and his love for Natasha also dissipates because he does not surrender to the potential for pleasure. Thus, he is an evolved soul who knows that there is more to life than sexuality, pleasure, and pain. Yet seeing the leg drives home the fact that the man is more than his body. When he feels "disgust and horror" because of the "immense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond," Andrew underscores the need to remove the mind from the body. It is the same flesh he witnesses and the same flesh that prompts his emotional reaction. Because he is detached from his body so completely Andrew isolates himself from other human beings and cuts himself off to the potential to forge pleasurable human physical bonds.
Common topics in this essay:
Andrew Tolstoy,
War Peace,
Natasha Tolstoy,
body soul,
detached body,
human body,
pain pleasure,
andrew learns,
andrew tolstoy,
feels disgust,
bodies pond,
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Acceptance Essays
