Family thought in the novel "War and Peace" (School essays). Family thought in Leo Tolstoy's epic novel "War and Peace" How family thought is realized in the novel

The novel "War and Peace" very clearly emphasizes the huge role of the family in the development of the individual and society as a whole. The fate of a person largely depends on the environment in which he grew up, because he himself will then build his life, following the attitudes, traditions and moral standards adopted in his family.
In "War and Peace" the focus is on three families, completely different in the nature of the relationship between people within each of them. These are the Rostov, Bolkonsky and Kuragin families. Using their example, Tolstoy shows how much the mentality that has developed during growing up influences how people build their relationships with others and what goals and tasks they set for themselves.

The Kuragin family is the first to be presented to readers. The nature of relations that has developed in it is typical for a secular society - coldness and alienation from each other reigns in their house. The mother is jealous and envious of her daughter; the father welcomes arranged marriages of children. The whole situation is imbued with falsehood and pretense. Instead of faces - masks. The writer in this case shows the family as it should not be. Their spiritual callousness, meanness of the soul, selfishness, insignificance of desires are stigmatized by Tolstoy with the words of Pierre: "Where you are, there is debauchery, evil."

Relationships in the Rostovs' house are built in a completely different way - here sincerity and love of life are manifested in every member of the family. Only the eldest daughter, Vera, fences herself off from the rest of the family with her cold and arrogant demeanor, as if wanting to prove her own superiority to herself and others.

But she is nothing but an unpleasant exception to the general situation. Father, Count Ilya Andreevich, radiates warmth and cordiality and, meeting guests, greets and bows to everyone in the same way, not paying attention to rank and title, which already greatly distinguishes him from representatives of high society. Mother, Natalya Rostova, "a woman with an oriental type of thin face, forty-five years old", enjoys the trust of her children, they try to tell her about their experiences and doubts. The presence of mutual understanding between parents and children is a distinctive feature of this family.

Having grown up in such an atmosphere, Natasha, Nikolai and Petya sincerely and openly show their feelings, not considering it necessary to hide themselves under an artificial mask, they have an ardent and at the same time soft and kind disposition.

Thanks to these qualities, Natasha made a huge impression on Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who saw her for the first time at the moment when he was in a state of mental devastation and loss of strength. He did not feel the desire to live on and did not see the point in his existence, and she differed in that she did not occupy herself with the search for her highest destiny, and simply lived on the wave of her own feelings, radiating warmth and love of life, which Prince Andrei lacked so much.

The main distinguishing feature of the Bolkonsky family was their proud, unbending disposition. Self-esteem is heightened in all members of this family, although this manifests itself in each in different ways. A lot of attention was paid to intellectual development. The old prince, Nikolai Bolkonsky, had a great passion for order. His whole day was scheduled by the minute, and “with the people around him, from his daughter to servants, the prince was harsh and invariably demanding, and therefore, without being cruel, he aroused fear and respect for himself, which the most cruel person could not easily achieve. ".

The old prince brought up his children in strictness and restraint, which taught his children to also be restrained in the manifestation of their feelings. However, this coldness was external, and the great love of the father still made itself felt. “Remember one thing, Prince Andrei,” he says to his son, seeing him off to the war, “If they kill you, it will hurt me, an old man.” It was thanks to this upbringing that Prince Andrei was able to feel sincere love for Natasha, but the habit of being restrained and a mocking attitude towards emotional ardor made him doubt the sincerity of her love and agree to his father's demand to postpone the wedding for a year.

The ingenuity and breadth of the soul characteristic of the Rostov family, in which there was something childish, naive, gave these people, on the one hand, extraordinary strength, and on the other hand, made them vulnerable to someone else's deceit and lies. Natasha failed to recognize the vile motives of Anatole Kuragin, who was courting her, and the cold cynicism of his sister Helen, thereby exposing herself to the danger of shame and death.

Bolkonsky failed to forgive Natasha for her betrayal, regarding her actions as a manifestation of depravity and hypocrisy, which he was most afraid of discovering in her. "I said that a fallen woman must be forgiven, but I did not say that I can forgive."

But the strength of her soul did not allow her to be disappointed in people. Natasha remained just as sincere and open, which attracted the love of Pierre to her, who experienced a feeling of great spiritual uplift after talking with her, realizing that all the actions of this girl were dictated by her open tender heart. “All people seemed so pathetic, so poor in comparison with the feeling of tenderness and love that he experienced; in comparison with that softened, grateful look with which she last looked at him because of tears.

Natasha and Pierre were united by a sincere love for life without artificial embellishments, embodied in the family they created. Marriage with Natasha helped Pierre find inner peace after a painful search for the purpose of his existence. “After seven years of marriage, Pierre felt a joyful, firm consciousness that he was not a bad person, and he felt this because he saw himself reflected in his wife.”

We meet the same feeling of harmony in the family of Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya. They successfully complement each other: in this union, Nikolai plays the role of the economic head of the family, reliable and faithful, while Countess Marya is the spiritual core of this family. “If Nicholas could be aware of his feeling, then he would find that the main basis of his firm, tender and proud love for his wife was always based on this feeling of surprise before her sincerity, before that, almost inaccessible to Nicholas, the sublime, moral world, in where his wife has always lived.

It seems to me that the author wanted to show how fruitful the atmosphere reigns in houses like the houses of Natasha with Pierre and Marya with Nikolai, in which wonderful children will grow up, on whom the future development of Russian society will depend. That is why Tolstoy attaches such great importance to the family as the fundamental cell of social progress - the correct moral principles and foundations inherited from the ancestors will help the younger generations build a strong and powerful state.

Krinitsyn A.B.

The family plays a huge role in shaping the character of the characters. This is a kind of microcosm, a world unique in completeness, outside of which there is no life. It is the family that is the smallest, but also the most important unity, from the multitude of which a society and a nation are formed. In his novel, Tolstoy examines the families of the Kuragins, Rostovs and Bolkonskys in most detail. In each of the families, both the older (parents) and the younger generation (brother and sister) are depicted in detail, which makes it possible to trace the family traits of the family.

In the Bolkonsky family, a common character-forming feature is a spiritual, intellectual beginning. Spiritual life presupposes intense internal mental work, and therefore inevitably combines in Tolstoy's understanding with intellectuality, rationality, and also with the development of individualism. The image of the old Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, an atheist and Voltairian, makes us recall the rationalism of the eighteenth century. This is one of the "Catherine eagles", a general of the Suvorov school, a real statesman who cares for the interests of Russia, and not for career advancement (which is why in modern times he remains out of work, retired). His character is dominated by mind, will and authority, combined with coldness and irony. Tolstoy especially highlights his surprisingly sharp mind (one question or even one glance is enough for him to fully understand a person). In his son, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, he brings up a serious attitude to life, masculinity, independence, a sense of honor and duty. It is no coincidence that Andrei, leaving for the war, asks his father to raise his grandson himself, not giving him to his daughter-in-law. Despite his advanced age, the prince never changes the once established order of the day, he reads and works a lot. Even living without a break in the countryside, he remains up to date with all the latest political news in Europe. With age, he develops a distrust of the new time, the merits and significance of which he in every possible way underestimates. He scolds all new politicians, preferring to all of them his idol - Suvorov, whom he imitates even in his manner of behavior and sometimes funny antics (for example, he orders to deliberately throw snow on the already cleared road to the house before the arrival of Prince Vasily Kuragin, because he does not want to show to him "excessive" respect). His family is afraid of him, but they respect him for his uncompromising character.

However, over the years, his oddities become more and more cruel. The strong love for children, which he does not like to show, becomes frankly selfish: for example, he does not allow his beloved daughter, Princess Mary, to marry, keeping her with him in the village, and also does not give consent to the marriage of Prince Andrei with Natasha (he generally dislikes) earlier than a year after the engagement, as a result of which the marriage is upset. Not wanting to show his feelings, he gets used to hiding them under the shell of external severity and coldness, but this mask, imperceptibly for him, grows to his face and becomes his nature. As a result, he torments his daughter with cruel antics and ridicule the more painfully, the more he feels guilty before her, alienating her from himself and mocking her faith in God. He also quarrels with his son, who dared to openly reproach him for being wrong. Then he painfully struggles with himself, wanting reconciliation and at the same time afraid of dropping himself.

The princess notices her father's suffering by the way he changes his place to sleep every night, most of all avoiding the usual sofa in the office - he had too many difficult thoughts to change his mind there. Only already at death, half paralyzed after the blow, in despair from the abandonment of Smolensk by the Russian troops and from the news of the approach of the French to the Bald Mountains, he gives up his pride and wants to ask for forgiveness from his daughter, but she, due to her habitual fear of her father, somewhat once approaching the threshold of his room, he does not dare to enter him on the last night allotted to him in his life. So he pays for his former cruelty ...

Princess Mary is a "feminine", contemplative type of spirituality - religiosity. She lives entirely by faith and Christian ideals, confident that true happiness is not in earthly goods, but in union with the source of “every breath” – with the Creator. The main thing in life for her is selfless love and humility, so she is very close to Tolstoy's philosophical ideals of the world. Earthly feelings are not alien to her either: like a woman, she passionately desires love and family happiness, but she completely trusts the will of God and is ready to accept any fate. She catches herself in bad thoughts about her father, who fetters her freedom and dooms her to loneliness. But every time she manages to overcome herself by doing her usual spiritual work in prayer: faith in her is stronger than all other feelings, in which she is unexpectedly similar to her father, who also considers all human feelings weakness and subordinates them to the highest imperative of duty. Only the old prince identifies duty with reason, and the princess with religious commandments, which oblige her again to feelings, but of a higher order: to love God with all her heart and mind, and her neighbor as herself. As a result, for Princess Marya, the duty to obey her father is inseparable from sincere love for him.

There was only a moment when she caught herself thinking that she rejoiced at the imminent death of her father, which should free her. But immediately, horrified by this thought, the princess began to fight with her and won, feeling joyfully that the temptation had been overcome and she again loved her father. “- But what is to be? What did I want? I want him dead! she exclaimed in disgust at herself. When the dying father asks her for forgiveness, the princess "could not understand anything, think about anything and feel nothing, except for her passionate love for her father, a love that, it seemed to her, she did not know until that moment."

Her brother, Prince Andrei, combines all the best qualities of the Bolkonsky family: will, intelligence, nobility, a sense of honor and duty. The coldness and harshness of his father in relation to strangers and people unpleasant for him are combined in him with the warmth and gentleness of his sister in dealing with people close to him. Tenderly and devotedly he loves his sister, immensely honors his father. We learn from Prince Andrei the father's independence and ambition, growing to a desire for worldwide fame, similar to that of Napoleon. Just like his father, Andrei is subject to painful, protracted spiritual crises, and just before his death, suffering from a mortal wound, he comes to faith in God and is imbued with it with no less force than his sister Marya.

Tolstoy treats all Bolkonskys with respect and sympathy, but at the same time shows how these noble, intelligent and exalted people, despite their love and mutual devotion to each other, spiritual sensitivity and complete mutual understanding, remain divided due to the self-centeredness of father and son and unwillingness to show their feelings. They protect their complex inner world and their love too much, so they are often late with it, like Prince Andrei, who only after the death of his wife realized the pain that he caused her with his coldness, or the old prince, who for a long time pestered his beloved daughter with his imperious whims . Over the years, as the prince ages, a cold and wary atmosphere develops in their house, which gives them more and more moral torment, for they judge themselves with the most severe court.

A completely different atmosphere reigns in the Rostovs' house. The invisible core of their family is the life of the soul. These people are cordial and simple, in all of them there is something childish. The pride of the Bolkonskys is alien to them, they are natural in all their spiritual movements and, like no one else, know how to enjoy life. Rostovs can never contain their emotions: they constantly cry or laugh, forgetting about decency and etiquette. The brightest and sincerely lyrical scenes of the novel are generally associated with the Rostovs. Holidays, balls - their element. No one knows how to arrange dinners so generously and on such a grand scale as Ilya Andreevich Rostov, who is famous for this even in hospitable Moscow. But the most fun in the Rostovs' house is not crowded gatherings, but family holidays in a narrow home circle, sometimes improvised and all the more memorable (such as Christmas time with mummers). However, they generally live in a festive atmosphere: the arrival of Nikolai from the army, Natasha's first ball, hunting and the subsequent evening at uncle's turn into a holiday. For Nikolai, even Natasha’s singing after his terrible loss to Dolokhov becomes an unexpectedly bright, festive impression, and for the younger Petya Rostov, the visit to Denisov’s partisan detachment, an evening in the circle of officers and the battle the next morning, became his first and last.

The old count, because of his natural generosity and habit of taking everyone's word for it, turns out to be a bad owner of his wife's estate, because housekeeping requires systematic, rigor and will to order, which Rostov lacks. Under his leadership, the estate is slowly but surely going to ruin, but, what is very important, none of the household reproaches him for this, continuing to love him dearly for his tenderness and kindness.

Mother - "countess", as her husband affectionately calls her - always remains the best friend for her children, to whom they can always tell everything, and for her they always remain children, no matter what age they are. She generously endows all of them with her love, but she gives the most spiritual warmth to those of them who at this moment need it most of all. It is no coincidence that Natasha's betrayal of her fiancé, Prince Andrei, takes place precisely in the absence of her mother, when Natasha is staying with Akhrosimova and is temporarily deprived of the cover of maternal love and protection.

Only the eldest daughter, Vera, falls out of the general harmony of the Rostov family, because she is too reasonable and cannot share the general sentimentality, which she, sometimes rightly, finds inappropriate. But Tolstoy shows how her rationality turns out to be, although correct, but not close - she does not have that spiritual generosity and depth of nature that the rest of the family members are endowed with. Having married Berg, Vera finally becomes what she was created - an arrogant, narcissistic bourgeois.

If the best features of the Bolkonsky family are most clearly embodied in Prince Andrei, then Natasha is undoubtedly an outstanding representative of the Rostov family, because if the spiritual and intellectual life is more characteristic of male consciousness, then women are more gifted with emotionality, sincerity, wealth and subtlety of feelings. An example of a man who lives mainly in the world of emotions is shown to us in the person of Nikolai Rostov. In it, feelings always take precedence over reason. This does not mean that he is less firm and courageous in character than Andrei Bolkonsky, but it makes him a much more mediocre and primitive person, because he does not know how to think independently and bring a decision to the end, but is used to living by the first strong impulses of the soul. They may be noble (as is almost always the case with Rostov), ​​but in the end doom him to follow the thoughts and ideals of society without testing them. For Rostov, such ideals are the honor of the regiment, the oath and the emperor Alexander himself, with whom Nikolai falls in love like a girl.

Because of his impressionability and emotionality, Rostov does not immediately get used to war and the constant danger of death. In the first battle (near Shengraben), when Rostov is wounded, we see him miserable and confused, but in the end he becomes a brave and truly skilled officer. War and military service bring up important masculine qualities in him, but they deprive him of Rostov tenderness. The last time the Rostov principle is clearly manifested in him after a terrible loss to Dolokhov, when he cannot stand the proud pose in which he intended to ask for money from his father. Considering himself the last scoundrel, he is on his knees, sobbing, begging for forgiveness. Rostov apparently "humbled himself", but readers cannot but approve of him for this impulse.

Tolstoy does not share all the ideals of Rostov: for example, he clearly does not sympathize with his hero when, in order to maintain the honor of the regiment, he refuses to expose officer Telyanin, who stole Denisov's wallet. Even more ridiculous and even harmful seems to Tolstoy the blind and naive attachment of Rostov to the emperor. If in the eyes of Rostov the emperor is the father of Russia, then the author considers all representatives of power and kings in particular the most useless and harmful people who carry out the state ideology of justifying and glorifying wars. Tolstoy gives Nikolai Rostov the opportunity to be convinced first of the emperor’s helplessness (when he, confused and crying, flees from the battle of Austerlitz), and then of his immorality: after the Peace of Tilsit, the former enemies - the emperors Napoleon and Alexander - ride together, arranging a review of their guardsmen and rewarding soldier of the allied army with the highest orders. Joint feasts of two courtyards are arranged, champagne is poured. Rostov arrives at headquarters to submit a request to the emperor to pardon his colleague Denisov, and receives a soft, beautiful refusal from the adored emperor: “I can’t ... and therefore I can’t, because the law is stronger than me.” At that moment, Rostov, "beside himself with delight" and without thinking about the refusal, runs with the crowd after the emperor. But soon painful doubts come to him: “A painful work was going on in his mind, which he could not bring to the end. Terrible doubts arose in my heart. Then he remembered Denisov<...>and the whole hospital with these torn off arms and legs, with this dirt and disease.<...>Then he remembered this self-satisfied Bonaparte with his white pen, who was now the emperor, whom the emperor Alexander loves and respects. What are the severed arms, legs, murdered people for? Then he remembered the awarded Lazarev and Denisov, punished and unforgiven. He found himself thinking such strange thoughts that he was afraid of them.

Tolstoy directly leads Rostov to the idea of ​​the criminality of the war, for which, it turns out, there was no reason, and, consequently, to the idea of ​​the criminality of both emperors, who unleashed it with complete indifference to the suffering of their subjects. But Rostov cannot and does not want to abandon the worship of his idol, and decides simply not to think, to close his eyes to the embarrassing facts. To make it easier to do this, he gets drunk and shouts, embarrassing his comrades at the feast with his irritation:

“- How can you judge the actions of the sovereign, what right do we have to reason ?! We cannot understand either the purpose or the actions of the sovereign!<...>We are not diplomatic officials, but we are soldiers and nothing more,<...>They tell us to die - so die. And if they are punished, it means that they are to blame; not for us to judge. It is pleasing to the sovereign emperor to recognize Bonaparte as emperor and conclude an alliance with him - then it must be so. Otherwise, if we began to judge and reason about everything, nothing sacred would remain that way. That way we will say that there is no God, there is nothing, - Nikolai shouted hitting the table.

From that moment on, the hussar, soldierly beginning finally becomes the main thing in Nikolai's character instead of the Rostov, spiritual one, which does not disappear at all, but recedes into the background. The rejection of thought gives him rigidity and firmness of character, but at a high price - he becomes an obedient instrument in the hands of others. Prince Andrei and Pierre are often mistaken, they do not immediately find an answer to worldview questions that torment them, but their minds are always at work; thinking is as natural to them as breathing. Nikolai, in spite of the fact that Tolstoy likes him as a pure, honest and kind person, comes to a readiness to carry out deliberately cruel orders and justify any social injustice in advance.

It is significant that Rostov does not love Prince Andrei precisely for the imprint of intellect and spiritual life that appears on his face, which is not characteristic of himself, but at the same time Nikolai falls in love with Prince Andrei's sister Marya, reverent for her because she has her own sublime , inaccessible to him the world of faith. It turns out that they complement each other, forming the perfect combination of hardness and softness, will and mind, spirituality and sincerity. Rostov, from Tolstoy's point of view, despite his mediocrity, has something to love and respect for. It is impossible not to appreciate, for example, his dedication when, after the death of his father, which was immediately followed by the final ruin, Nikolai retires to be with his mother. He enters the civil service in order to earn at least some money and provide her with a peaceful old age. We see that he is a reliable and noble person. Out of a sense of honor, which did not allow him to ever be in the “servant” position of adjutant, he does not want to seek the hand of the “rich bride” Princess Mary, despite the fact that he loves her touchingly, so their rapprochement occurs on her initiative.

Having taken possession of a large fortune, Nikolai becomes, in contrast to his father, a wonderful owner - driven by a sense of duty and responsibility for the future of his children. However, rigidity remains in his character (he cannot stand small children, gets annoyed with the pregnant Marya, treats men rudely, to the point of assault), with which Nikolai constantly fights, submissive to the beneficial influence of his wife, and does not allow breakdowns. One of the last episodes of the novel characterizes him negatively, when he sharply responds to Pierre’s words about the need to critically approach the actions of the government: “You say that the oath is a conditional matter, and I’ll tell you that you are my best friend, you know that, but if you form a secret society, if you begin to oppose the government, whatever it may be, I know that it is my duty to obey it. And tell me now Arakcheev to go at you with a squadron and cut down - I won’t think for a second and go. And then judge as you wish. These words make a painful impression on everyone around. We see that that long-standing decision of Nicholas to obey the government without reasoning like a soldier is now rooted in him and has become the essence of his nature. However, Nikolai is right in his own way: the state rests on people like him. Tolstoy condemns him from his point of view as an anti-statist who dreamed of a Russoist anarchist "natural" idyll, but we, already from the perspective of social cataclysms that have happened to our country over the past century, can look at Nicholas from the other side: we know what happens, when the state is destroyed. If in 1917 Russia had been dominated by people like Nicholas, officers who remained loyal to the tsar and tried to save the army from the decay in the chaos of the revolution (started by reformers and revolutionaries like Pierre), then the country could have been saved from many troubles, including from the Stalinist dictatorship.

Finally, the Kuragin family causes only contempt and indignation in Tolstoy. Its members play the most negative role in the fate of other heroes. All of them are people of high society, and therefore are false and insincere in all their words, deeds and gestures. The head of the house, Prince Vasily, is a cunning, dexterous courtier and an inveterate intriguer. Tolstoy strongly emphasizes his deceit and duplicity. He thinks first of all about his successes at court and about moving up the career ladder. He never has his own opinion, turning like a weather vane in his judgments for the political course of the court. During the war of 1812, Prince Vasily at first spoke with contempt about Kutuzov, knowing that the emperor did not favor him, the next day, when Kutuzov was appointed commander in chief, Kuragin began to exalt him in order to renounce him at the first displeasure of the court due to abandonment them of Moscow.

Kuragin also perceives his family as a means to gain social status and enrichment: he tries to marry his son and marry his daughter as profitably as possible. For the sake of profit, Prince Vasily is even capable of crime, as evidenced by the episode with the mosaic briefcase, when Kuragin tried to steal and destroy the will of the dying Count Bezukhov in order to deprive Pierre of his inheritance and redistribute it in his favor. During these hours, as Tolstoy paints, “his cheeks twitched nervously” and “jumped” “first to one side, then to the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression that never showed on the face of Prince Vasily when he was in the living rooms” . So inadvertently his predatory nature comes out. When the intrigue breaks down, Prince Vasily immediately “rebuilds” in such a way as to still maintain his own benefit: he instantly “marries” Pierre to his daughter and, under the guise of family and trusting relationships, deftly puts his hands into his son-in-law’s money, and then becomes the main actor face in the daughter's salon. Tolstoy specifically emphasizes that Prince Vasily was hardly guided by a conscious calculation: “Something constantly attracted him to people stronger and richer than him, and he was gifted with a rare art of catching exactly the moment when it was necessary and possible to use people.” Thus, when describing the psychology of Kuragin, the author again focuses our attention on feeling, intuition, instinct, which come to the fore, turning out to be more important than conscious will and reason.

“Worthy” of Prince Vasily and his children, Helen, Anatole and Ippolit, who also enjoy brilliant success in society and universal respect. Helen, having married Pierre, soon arranges a chic salon in his house, which quickly became one of the most fashionable and prestigious in St. Petersburg. She does not differ in intelligence and originality of judgments, but she knows how to smile so charmingly and meaningfully that she is considered the smartest woman in the capital, and the color of the intelligentsia gathers in her salon: diplomats and senators, poets and painters. Pierre, being much more educated and deeper than his wife, turns out to be in her salon something like necessary furniture, the husband of a famous wife, whom guests indulgently endure, so that Pierre gradually begins to feel like a stranger in his own house.

Helen is constantly surrounded by men caring for her, so that Pierre does not even know who to be jealous of and, tormented by doubts, comes to a duel with Dolokhov, whom his wife clearly singled out more than others. Helen not only did not feel sorry for her husband and did not think about his feelings, but made a scene for him and severely reprimanded him for an inappropriate "scandal" that could drop her authority. In the end, having already broken with her husband and living separately from him, Helen starts an intrigue with two admirers at once: with an elderly nobleman and with a foreign prince, wondering how she could remarry and get settled in such a way as to keep in touch with both of them. For the sake of this, she even converts to Catholicism in order to declare an Orthodox marriage invalid (how different this unscrupulousness in matters of religion differs from Princess Mary's ardent faith!).

Anatole is a brilliant idol of all secular young ladies, a hero of the golden youth of both capitals. A slender, tall, handsome blond man, he drives all women crazy with his proud posture and ardent passion, behind which they do not have time to discern his soullessness and thoughtlessness. When Anatole came to the Bolkonskys, all the women in the house involuntarily burned with a desire to please him and began to intrigue against each other. Anatole does not know how to talk to women, because he never finds himself to say anything smart, but he bewitchingly acts on them with the look of his beautiful eyes, like Helen with a smile. Natasha, already at the first conversation with Anatole, looking into his eyes, “felt with fear that between him and her there was not at all that barrier of shame that she always felt between herself and other men. She herself, not knowing how, in five minutes felt terribly close to this man.

Both brother and sister are incomparably good-looking, nature has rewarded them with external beauty, which irresistibly acts with its sensual attraction on persons of the opposite sex. They seduce even such noble and deep people as Pierre Bezukhov, who married Helen without love, Princess Mary, who dreamed of Anatole, and Natasha Rostova, who was carried away by the handsome Kuragin to the point that she left her fiancé for him. In Helen's appearance, the antique beauty of the shoulders and bust is emphasized, which she deliberately exposes, as far as fashion allows.

The author even casually notices about the strange, unhealthy relationship that existed between sister and brother in childhood, because of which they had to be separated for a while. On the pages of the novel, they often act together: Helen acts as a matchmaker, introducing and bringing Natasha closer to her brother, knowing that he should not visit her, the bride of Prince Andrei. As a result of this intrigue, Natasha's whole life could be ruined: she was ready to run away with him, not suspecting that he had been married for a long time. Thanks to the intervention of Pierre, Anatole's plans collapsed, but Natasha paid for her gullibility with the loss of Prince Andrei's love and a deep spiritual crisis, from which she could not recover for several years. “Where you are, there is debauchery, evil,” Pierre angrily throws to his wife, having learned about her insidious act.

Thus, the main features of the Kuragin family are secularism and an animal, carnal principle. In the depiction of Tolstoy, secularism inevitably implies deceit, unscrupulousness, selfishness and spiritual emptiness.

Hippolytus becomes a symbol of the spiritual disgrace of this family. Outwardly, he is surprisingly similar to Helen, but at the same time he is "strikingly bad-looking." His face was “clouded with idiocy and invariably expressed self-confident disgust. He cannot say anything clever, but in society he is met very kindly and all the absurdities he said are forgiven, because he is the son of Prince Vasily and the brother of Helen. In addition, he is very impudently wooing all pretty women, because he is unusually voluptuous. Thus, his example reveals the inner ugliness of Helen and Anatole, hiding under their beautiful appearance.

Family. How much this word means to each of us. Family is the circle of people where you will always be supported and understood. For Leo Tolstoy, the family meant no less. The family is for him the beginning of all beginnings. That is why his main work - "War and Peace" is based on the history of the "growing up" of three families: the Kuragins, the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs. On the example of his heroes, Lev Nikolayevich vividly showed the variety of models of family relations, the positive and negative aspects of each of them. Lev Nikolaevich portrayed the conventional types of families so plausibly that even in our time we can meet the selfish Kuragins, the rational Bolkonskys and the hospitable Rostovs.

The Kuragin family unites people who do not know the rules of morality.

Our experts can check your essay according to the USE criteria

Site experts Kritika24.ru
Teachers of leading schools and current experts of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation.

Their relationship is dominated by selfishness and pride. They constantly act either as the instigators of scandals, or at the center of intrigue and gossip. What is the role of Prince Vasily in the story with the "mosaic portfolio" or Anatole's participation in the frustration of the wedding of Prince Andrei and Natasha Rostova. The Kuragin family is a high society family. Their whole life is guided by the ideals of high society. Prince Vasily arranges the fate of his children, strengthening their financial situation, and Helen enjoys the realization of her unspoken title of "the first beauty of St. Petersburg."

The antipode of the Kuragin family is the Bolkonsky family. If for the head of the Bolkonsky family, Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, there are only two virtues - “activity and intelligence”, which he instills in his children: Princess Marya and Prince Andrei, then the head of the Kuragin family, Prince Vasily, has no life guidelines, no moral standards, and he conveyed his vision of the world to Helen and Anatole. Marya and Prince Andrei differ from all other noble children in their ideals, which their father instilled in them. In their family, we will not see manifestations of such love that the Rostovs have, but it is not absent, like the Kuragins. It is different, if for the Rostovs it is expressed in words, then for the Bolkonskys it is unemotional, it is expressed in attitude and actions. So the old Prince Bolkonsky teaches Princess Marya the sciences, wishing that she would not become a toy in the hands of others. Their relationship does not look as warm as that of the Rostovs, but they are strong, like links in one chain.

Of course, the type of family that is close to most of us is the Rostov family. They are fundamentally different from the two previous families. If all the actions of the Bolkonsky family are subject to the rules and concepts of honor, then in the Rostov family everything is subject to emotions and feelings. They are frank with each other, they have no secrets, they do not condemn each other even in the most critical situations (such a situation was a major loss at cards to Nikolai Dolokhov). Their family happiness extends to everyone who can enter their hospitable Moscow home - the mother and son of the Drubetskys, colleague Nikolai Denisov, Pierre Bezukhov.

Thus, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, presenting the reader with different models of family relations, expresses his view on the future of the members of these families. The future belongs to the Bolkonskys and Rostovs, and not to the Kuragins. After all, it is in the family of the latter that after the war of 1812 only the old prince Vasily remains alive, and the children, dying, do not leave offspring. And in the epilogue of the novel, we see two new families. This is the Bezukhov family, ideal according to Tolstoy, because this family is based on complete mutual understanding, trust and spiritual kinship between Natasha and Pierre, and the Rostov family, based on mutual respect between Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya. Princess Marya introduced high spiritual and moral values ​​​​that he lacked into Nikolai's worldview, and Nikolai retained the Rostovs' family comfort and soulfulness, something that Marya lacked all her life.

In the epic novel L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" before the eyes of readers appears several noble families, whose way of life and the principles of raising children are typical for Russia at the beginning of the 19th century and at the same time differ significantly from each other. In the Rostov family, in which one of the main characters of the novel, Natasha, who first appears on the pages of the book as a 13-year-old, not yet formed either physically or morally, is brought up, love and attention to each of the children reigns. It is for this reason that a girl from an early age learns to love not only her loved ones, but also other people, animals, the vast world of nature.

Natasha grows up sincere, open, truly feeling and emotionally experiencing every, even insignificant event in her life. At the same time, the older sister of the girl, Vera, is completely different, she always keeps herself dry and restrained, however, Natasha and the rest of the family do not like her, Vera seems to be in the wrong place in the world of the Rostov family, filled with love and joy, and everything is sincere rejoice when she leaves her parental home, getting married.

In the same period of time, there are no warm, sincere relations in the Kuragin family, the father never paid too much attention to the children. As a result, Anatole and Helen become extremely selfish and cold egoists in adulthood, thinking only about their own benefits and pleasures, for which they, without hesitation, use other people and transgress through their feelings. Brother and sister are very similar to each other precisely by the lack of moral principles, unscrupulousness and coldness, they bring a lot of grief to the main characters of the novel, Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov.

In the Bolkonsky family, the old prince sincerely loves his children, Andrei and Marya, but he always treats them harshly and harshly. Marya is also devoted to her father with all her heart, the girl does not want to be separated from him, get married, create her own family. Marya is well aware that she is unattractive in appearance, and does not even dare to hope for a happy marriage, devoting her life to caring for her father and other people whom the princess considers unhappy and in need of help.

Prince Bolkonsky, despite all his outward harshness, loves his daughter very much, worries about her future, but at the same time believes that Marya should hardly become anyone's wife. He believes that his ugly, timid, awkward daughter can only be married out of selfish calculation for a solid dowry and his connections, and Marya will definitely not be happy in marriage, so it’s better for her to stay alone. In addition, before the eyes of the old prince there is an example of the son of Andrei and his first wife Liza, who are unhappy in marriage, although Andrei is a decent, honest person, and Liza is kind and charming, although not too smart.

In the most difficult years of the Patriotic War, Natasha Rostova clearly shows the qualities that her family instilled in her, the girl turns out to be capable of generous, selfless, courageous deeds. She becomes in fact the only support for the mother, who has lost her son and is extremely painfully enduring this loss, after which Countess Rostova subsequently could not fully recover.

Having created, after much suffering, her own family with Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha devotes herself entirely to her husband and children, absolutely no longer thinking about her appearance or about any activities that are interesting to her. She gives all her mental and physical strength to her family, especially to children, she does not need anything else for happiness. In the image of Natasha, the author seeks to show that a woman can fully realize herself only as a wife and mother, that her main and only life task is love and care for loved ones.

Closely connected with the theme of the people in the novel is theme of family and nobility. The author divides the nobles into "haves" (these include Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov), local patriots (old man Bolkonsky, Rostov), ​​secular nobility (Anna Pavlovna Scherer's salon, Helen).

According to Tolstoy, the family is the soil for the formation of the human soul. And at the same time, each family is a whole world, special, unlike anything else, full of complex relationships. In the novel "War and Peace", the theme of the family, according to the author's intention, serves as the most important means of organizing the text. The atmosphere of the family nest determines the characters, fates and views of the heroes of the work. In the system of all the main images of the novel, the author identifies several families, on the example of which he expresses his attitude to the ideal of the hearth, these are the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, the Kuragins.

The Rostovs and Bolkonskys are not just families, they are lifestyles based on national traditions. These traditions were most fully manifested in the life of the representatives of the Rostovs - a noble-naive family, living with feelings, combining a serious attitude to family honor (Nikolai Rostov does not refuse his father's debts), warmth and cordiality of family relations, hospitality and hospitality, which distinguishes Russian people. Talking about Petya, Natasha, Nikolai and the elder Rostovs, Tolstoy sought to artistically recreate the history of an average noble family of the early 19th century.

In the course of the story, Tolstoy introduces the reader to all the representatives of the Rostov family, talking about them with deep interest and sympathy. The Rostov House in Moscow was considered one of the most hospitable, and therefore one of the most beloved. A kind, carefree and all-forgiving spirit of benevolent love reigned here. This evoked good-natured mockery from some, but no one stopped them from using the cordial generosity of Count Rostov: kindness and love are always attractive.

The most prominent representative of the Rostov family is Natasha - charming, natural, cheerful and naive. All these features are dear to Tolstoy, and for them he loves his heroine. Starting from the first meeting, the writer emphasizes that Natasha is not like other characters in the novel. We see her as a daring child, when at the name day she fearlessly, despite the presence of Countess Akhrosimova (whom the whole world was afraid of), asks what kind of cake will be served for dessert; then matured, but still just as lively, spontaneous and charming, when she has to make the first important decision - to refuse Denisov, who made her an offer. She says: “Vasily Dmitritch, I feel so sorry for you! .. No, but you are so nice ... but don’t ... this ... but I will always love you like that ... ”There is no direct logic in Natasha’s words yet they are touchingly pure and truthful. Later we see Natasha with Nikolai and Petya in Mikhailovsk, visiting her uncle, when she performs a Russian dance, arousing admiration from those around her; Natasha in love with Prince Andrei, and then carried away by Anatole Kuragin. As she grows older, Natasha's character traits also develop: love of life, optimism, amorousness. Tolstoy shows her both in joy, and in grief, and in despair, and shows in such a way that the reader cannot doubt: all her feelings are sincere and genuine.

In the course of the story, we also learn a lot of important things about Count Rostov: about Ilya Nikolayevich's money worries; about his hospitality and good nature; about how inimitably and provocatively he dances to Danila Kupor; about how much effort he makes to arrange a reception in honor of Bagration; about how, in a fit of patriotic enthusiasm, returning from the palace, where he heard and saw the emperor, he lets his youngest minor son go to war. Tolstoy almost always shows Countess Rostov through Natasha's eyes. Her main feature is her love for children. For Natasha, she is the first friend and adviser. The Countess understands her children perfectly, she is always ready to warn them against mistakes and give the necessary advice.

With especially touching sympathy, Tolstoy treats Petya, the youngest son of the Rostovs. This is a wonderful, kind, loving and beloved boy, so similar to Natasha, a faithful companion of her games, her page, unquestioningly fulfilling all the desires and whims of her sister. He, like Natasha, loves life in all its manifestations. He knows how to feel sorry for the captured French drummer, calls him to dinner and treats him with fried meat, just as he called everyone to his house to feed and caress, his father, Count Rostov. The death of Petya is a clear evidence of the senselessness and ruthlessness of the war.

For the Rostovs, love is the basis of family life. Here they are not afraid to express their feelings either to each other or to friends and acquaintances. The love, kindness and cordiality of the Rostovs extend not only to its members, but also to people who, by the will of fate, have become close to them. So, Andrei Bolkonsky, being in Otradnoye, struck by Natasha's cheerfulness, decides to change his life. In the Rostov family, they never condemn or reproach each other even when an act committed by any of its members deserves condemnation, whether it be Nikolai, who lost a huge amount of money to Dolokhov and put the family at risk of ruin, or Natasha, who tried to run away with Anatoly Kuragin. Here they are always ready to help each other and at any moment to stand up for a loved one.

Such purity of relations, high morality make the Rostovs related to the Bolkonskys. But the Bolkonskys, in contrast to the Rostovs, attach great importance to their generosity and wealth. They don't accept everyone indiscriminately. A special order reigns here, understandable only to family members, everything is subordinated to honor, reason and duty. In all representatives of this family, a sense of family superiority and dignity is clearly expressed. But at the same time, in the relations of the Bolkonskys there is natural and sincere love, hidden under the mask of arrogance. The proud Bolkonskys are noticeably different in character from the comfortably homely Rostovs, and that is why the unity of these two clans, in the author's view, is possible only between uncharacteristic representatives of these families (Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya).

The Bolkonsky family in the novel is opposed to the Kuragin family. Both the Bolkonskys and the Kuragins occupy a prominent place in the social life of Moscow and St. Petersburg. But if, describing the members of the Bolkonsky family, the author draws attention to issues of pride and honor, then the Kuragins are portrayed as active participants in intrigues and behind-the-scenes games (the story with the portfolio of Count Bezukhov), regulars at balls and social events. The lifestyle of the Bolkonsky family is based on love and solidarity. All representatives of the Kuragin family are united by immorality (secret connections between Anatole and Helen), unscrupulousness (an attempt to arrange Natasha's escape), prudence (the marriage of Pierre and Helen), false patriotism.

It is no coincidence that the representatives of the Kuragin family belong to the high society. From the first pages of the novel, the reader is transferred to the St. Petersburg living rooms of high society and gets acquainted with the “cream” of this society: nobles, dignitaries, diplomats, ladies-in-waiting. In the course of the story, Tolstoy rips off the veils of external brilliance and refined manners from these people, and the reader discovers their spiritual poverty, moral baseness. There is neither simplicity, nor kindness, nor truth in their behavior, relationships. Everything is unnatural, hypocritical in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Sherer. Everything alive, whether it be thought and feeling, a sincere impulse or a topical witticism, goes out in a soulless atmosphere. That is why the naturalness and openness in Pierre's behavior scared Scherer so much. Here they are accustomed to the "decency of tight masks", to a masquerade. Prince Vasily speaks lazily, like an actor in the words of an old play, the hostess herself carries herself with artificial enthusiasm.

Tolstoy compares an evening reception at Scherer's with a spinning shop, in which "spindles from different directions evenly and incessantly rustled." But in these workshops important matters are resolved, state intrigues are woven, personal problems are resolved, mercenary plans are outlined: places are sought for unsettled sons, like Ippolit Kuragin, profitable parties are discussed for marriage or marriage. In this light, "eternal inhuman enmity boils, the struggle for mortal blessings." Suffice it to recall the distorted faces of the “mournful” Drubetskaya and the “benevolent” Prince Vasily, when the two of them clutched at the briefcase with the will at the bedside of the dying Count Bezukhov.

Prince Vasily Kuragin - the head of the Kuragin family - is a bright type of enterprising careerist, money-grubber and egoist. Entrepreneurship and acquisitiveness became, as it were, "involuntary" traits of his character. As Tolstoy emphasizes, Prince Vasily knew how to use people and hide this skill, covering it with subtle observance of the rules of secular behavior. Thanks to this skill, Prince Vasily achieves a lot in life, because in the society in which he lives, the search for various kinds of benefits is the main thing in relations between people. For the sake of his selfish goals, Prince Vasily unfolds a very violent activity. Suffice it to recall the campaign launched to marry Pierre to his daughter Helene. And without waiting for Pierre's explanation with Helen, the matchmaking, Prince Vasily bursts into the room with an icon in his hands and blesses the young - the mousetrap slammed shut. The siege of Maria Bolkonskaya, Anatole's rich bride, began, and only chance prevented the successful completion of this "operation". What kind of love and family well-being can we talk about when marriages are made according to frank calculation? Tolstoy tells with irony about Prince Vasily, when he fools and robs Pierre, embezzling income from his estates and keeping several thousand rents from the Ryazan estate, hiding his actions under the guise of kindness and care for the young man, whom he cannot leave to the mercy of fate .

Helen is the only one of all the children of Prince Vasily who does not burden him, but brings joy with her successes. This is because she was a real daughter of her father and understood early on what rules to play in the world in order to succeed and take a strong position. Beauty is Helen's only virtue. She understands this very well and uses it as a means to achieve personal gain. When Helen passes through the hall, the dazzling whiteness of her shoulders attracts the eyes of all the men present. Having married Pierre, she began to shine even brighter, did not miss a single ball and was always a welcome guest. Having openly cheated on her husband, she cynically declares that she does not want to have children from him. Pierre rightly defined its essence: "Where you are, there is debauchery."

Prince Vasily is openly burdened by his sons. The youngest son of Prince Vasily - Anatole Kuragin - is disgusting already at the first moment of acquaintance. Compiling a characterization of this hero, Tolstoy remarked: "He is like a beautiful doll, there is nothing in his eyes." Anatole is sure that the world was created for his pleasures. According to the author, "he was instinctively convinced that it was impossible for him to live otherwise than he lived," that he "should live on thirty thousand incomes and always occupy the highest position in society." Tolstoy repeatedly emphasizes that Anatole is handsome. But his outer beauty contrasts with his empty inner appearance. Anatole's immorality is especially evident during his courtship of Natasha Rostova, when she was the bride of Andrei Bolkonsky. Anatole Kuragin became for Natasha Rostova a symbol of freedom, and she could not understand, with her purity, naivety and faith in people, that this is freedom from the boundaries of what is permitted, from the moral framework of what is permissible. The second son of Prince Vasily - Ippolit - is characterized by the author as a rake and a fat man. But unlike Anatole, he is also mentally limited, which makes his actions especially ridiculous. Tolstoy devotes quite a bit of space to Ippolit in the novel, not honoring him with his attention. The beauty and youth of the Kuragins takes on a repulsive character, for this beauty is insincere, not warmed by the soul.

Tolstoy portrayed the declaration of love of Boris Drubetskoy and Julie Karagina with irony and sarcasm. Julie knows that this brilliant but impoverished handsome man does not love her, but demands for his wealth a declaration of love in accordance with all the rules. And Boris, uttering the right words, thinks that it is always possible to arrange so that he rarely sees his wife. For the Kuragins and Drubetskys, all means are good to achieve success and fame and strengthen their position in society. You can join the Masonic lodge, pretending that you are close to the ideas of love, equality, brotherhood, although in fact the only purpose of this is the desire to make profitable acquaintances. Pierre, a sincere and trusting person, soon saw that these people were not interested in questions of truth, the welfare of mankind, but in uniforms and crosses, which they achieved in life.