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Situational Irony
Volume 1, Part 3: Chapters 14–19
Explanation and Analysis:
In War and Peace, Tolstoy uses a style that combines fact and fiction in order to tell the story of the Napoleonic Wars as experienced in Russia. In the novel, he places real historical figures, such as French leader Napoleon Bonaparte and Russian military general Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, next to fictional characters, such as the members of the Rostov, Bolkonsky, and Kuragin families. In one notable section of the novel, Nikolai Rostov, a fictional character, encounters Emperor Alexander I:
“But that can’t be him, alone in the middle of this empty field,” thought Rostov. Just then Alexander turned his head, and Rostov saw the beloved features so vividly imprinted on his memory. The sovereign was pale, his cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunken; but there was all the more loveliness and mildness in his features. Rostov was happy now to be assured that the rumor of the sovereign’s wound was incorrect. He was happy to see him. He knew that he could, even must, address him directly and convey to him what Dolgorukov had ordered him to convey.
Nikolai, like many other Russians, idolizes the Emperor. He is both immensely relieved to find that the Emperor is safe and too star-struck to speak with him directly, despite his strong desire to make himself known to the Emperor. Here, as elsewhere in the novel, Tolstoy bends fact and fiction, depicting the interactions between fictional characters and major historical figures, such as the Russian Emperor. This quote also captures Tolstoy's use of third person omniscient perspective to tell the story from many different characters' points of view—from larger-than-life emperors to boy soldiers—thus creating a sweeping historical epic that's as attentive to small family dramas as to broad historical forces.
Related Themes:
