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The unifying role of Tolstoy's conception of childhood
History of European Ideas Printed in Great Britain
Vol.
17, No.
4, pp.
503-515.
1993
0191-6599/93 56.W + 0.00 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd
THE UNIFYING ROLE OF TOLSTOY’S CONCEPTION OF CHILDHOOD CLAUDIA MOSCOVICI*
In his fictionalised autobiography entitled Childhood, as well as throughout his more purely fictional writings, Tolstoy expresses a sense of nostalgia for the childhood years. In many of his works, the author presents the state of childhood as being far preferable to adulthood, and especially to ‘civilised’ adulthood. The following quote, taken from The Death of Ivan I&h, is emblematic of this sentiment: ‘But strange to say none of those best moments of his pleasant life now seemed at all what they had then seemed-none of them except the first recollections of childhood. There, in childhood, there had been something really pleasant with which it would be possible to live if it could return.”
The purpose of this essay is to explore some of the personal, artistic and intellectual forces which play a role in Tolstoy’s idealisation of childhood by focussing primarily upon his positive yet problematic depiction of children and childlike adults in War and Peace. Tolstoy’s vision of childhood in this text, supported by similar representations in some of his other works, will be interpreted as his partly successful effort to find a unifying force for his diverging opinions about the ‘ideal’ individual and society. On the personal level, Tolstoy’s idealisation of childhood reveals his artistic need to reshape his own less than happy early years. Andrew Baruch Wachtel provides an accurate description of Tolstoy’s real childhood by stating that ‘The author’s own childhood could not have been a happy one, at least in any conventional sense. His mother died before he was two. . . . His father died when Tolstoy was eight, and thereafter he was shuttled between the homes of grandmothers and aunts.‘* Tolstoy chooses an optimistic focus upon childhood in particular, because as a point of origin, of maximal potential and of greatest flexibility, childhood offers the artist the greatest opportunity to improve the individual and by extension, society at large, according to the leanings of his imagination. No less importantly, this absolute creative freedom enables Tolstoy to grasp the elusive immortality he sought with particular fervor while he was working on War on Peace: ‘I reel and reel under the load of death and barely feel strength in myself to put a stop to it,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘But I don’t want death, I want and love immortality. There’s no point in choosing. The choice was made long ago. Literature, art, pedagogy and the family.‘3 Tolstoy frequently begins his refashioning of society negatively, by specifying what his alternative society excludes. For the most part the author eliminates, not without some reservations and contradictions, all the elements of (mostly aristo*Brown University, Department 02912, U.S.A.
of Comparative
Literature, Box E, Providence,
RI
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Claudia Moscovici cratic) civilisation which generate, prescribe and perpetuate conventions that, by civilisation which generate, prescribe and perpetuate conventions that, by definition, run contrary to spontaneous, natural life. Thus we may state that partly because the author generally attributes his personal unhappiness to the ‘corruptive’ conventions of civilised society, he attempts to induce a restorative, childlike state in himself, his readers and more generally, in society as a whole. For example, during the time he was working on Childhood, Tolstoy expressed his dissatisfaction with the idle existence of the Russian gentry: ‘Oh, my God, my God, what difficult, sad days there sometimes can be! And why are you so sad? No, the consciousness that you are sad and do not know why you are sad, is not so much sorrowful, but rather painful. [. . .] I lived for the third winter in Moscow, a very irregular life, without job, without occupations, without aim [. . .] I say: of a young man who combines several conditions; namely education, a good name and an income of some 10 or 20 thousand. The life of a young man who combines these conditions is most pleasant and completely carefree, if he does not work, but is simply around and loves to be lazy. All salons are open for him, he has the right to have an eye to every potential bride; there is no young man standing higher than he in the esteem of society.‘4
Through his ideahsation of childhood Tolstoy attempts nothing short of a historical deconstruction-and then reconstruction-of individual and collective human identity by retracing the steps of civilisation backwards, towards its putative infancy. As argued by Patricia Carden, this movement backward towards a collective origin retrieved and preserved by the power of our memories-and especially of our memories of childhood2can lead to a movement forward by safeguarding ‘the continuity of human experience against the dissolution imposed by temporal flux, which separates our every movement of experience from every other.‘5 In many of Tolstoy’s works the recuperativeand unifying-powers of memory usually discover and express timeless truths through an intuitive, infantile perspective as simple as Natasha’s when she states remember everything, you ‘You know, I think.. . that when you remember, remember ail the way back to what was earlier, before you were on the earth.‘6 Thus, children assume a privileged role in Tolstoy’s works both because the author believes that they offer the clearest vision of our spiritual continuity, and because they help resolve his ambivalence about primitive vs certain civilised modes of existence by eluding, and in a sense preceding, both social categories. Tolstoy’s idealised fictional children can hardly be labelled either ‘civiIised’though their milieu is usually aristocratic-or ‘primitive’-though they behave naturally and spontaneously. Rather, their personalities harmoniously combine socialised influences and natural tendencies, such that they provide a sharp contrast to the artificial behaviour of most of the aristocratic adults around them, but usually know quite well how to integrate into their social environment. Before illustrating how Tolstoy’s exemplary children partly reconcile his ambivalence concerning nature vs civihsation, it would be useful to briefly examine the nature of his misgivings. It is generally known that throughout his life Tolstoy oscillated between his identification with a largely Westernised Russian aristocracy and his longing for a ‘natural’ and particularly Slavic lifestyle, such as that of the Russian peasantry. Caught between these two poles,
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which are themselves ramified,’ he alternatively praised and criticised both the ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilised’ ways of life. On the one hand, a pervasive theme in Tolstoy’s writings is the e~ly-romantic belief that peasants live in harmony with the ‘purity’ of nature, whereas ‘civilised’ society leads a ‘spoilt’ and superficial existence, centred around absurd conventions which discourage some of the most valuable human qualities: spirituality, sincere emotion and undistorted communication. Tolstoy borrows this general romantic ideology from Rousseau, repeatedly acknowledging his intellectual debt: ‘Since I was fifteen, Rousseau has been my teacher. Rousseau and the Gospels have been the two great and benevolent influences on my life.‘8 Supporting and elaborating this claim, Bakhtin traces Tolstoy’s literary development to the idyll, and in particular to Rousseau’s novelistic version of the ‘sentimental’ idyll: ‘In novels
of the Rousseauan
contemporaries,
type, the major protagonists are the author’s people who had already succeeded in isolating individual hfe-
sequences, people with an interior perspective. contact with nature and the life of the simple wisdom of life and death.‘9
They heal themselves through people, learning from them the
One certainly identifies here some of the major Tolstoian motifs. For example, Tolstoy focusses on ‘unique’ and introspective protagonists, such as Prince Andrei, Levin and Pierre. These types of characters attempt to ‘heal’ themselves through contact with nature and with ‘natural’ people, such as the ingenuous women Natasha and Lisa, or the peasants Karatayev and Gerasim. One of the most notable examples of Tolstoy’s appreciation of simplicity vs civilisation can be found in 73e Death of Ivan Ilych. In this short story the protagonist realises, partly through contact with his ingenuous son and with the peasant Gerasim, that ‘Everything progressed and progressed and approached the ideal he had set himself. . . . He saw what a refined and elegant character free from vulgarity, it would all have when it was ready (p. 265). [. . .] And the further he departed from childhood and the nearer he came to the present the more worthless and doubtful were the joys’ (p. 295).
As Bakhtin describes it, Tolstoy’s protagonists feel disappointed with the progressive chronotope (or temporal and spatial makeup) of their contemporaneous civilisation and turn towards the regressive chronotype of the earlyromantic idyll.“’ This movement backwards usually manifests itself temporally as a nostalgia for childhood or for ‘primitive’ ways of life, and spatially through the idealisation of the human contact with nature .‘I The effect desired by Tolstoy is similar to the one proposed by Rousseau in Le Contra? Social: namely, that the reversion of each individual to a ‘simple’ state of being collectively engenders an harmonious society of such authentic individuals. Although the importance of the romantic influence on Tolstoy cannot be overestimated, we should take into consideration some of the notable differences between the Rousseauistic and Tolstoian outlooks. The main difference concerns different modes of presentation, or styles, which reflect the widely divergent attitudes of the authors. As Boris Eikhenbaum points out,i2 even thoughTolstoy
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often expresses romantic themes, he presents them in a particularly ‘prosaic’13 manner which deromanticises their content. Instead of focussing almost exclusively upon the moral and emotional turbulances of a few faultless characters-like Rousseau does in his paradigmatic romantic novel, La Novelle Ht%Yse-Tolstoy follows and contributes to the realistic tradition of describing the peripheral, mundane, and seemingly insignificant aspects of life. In his works we witness a great number of dinner parties, of trivial conversations, of absurd military ventures, and ofevents which have no apparent relevance to the whole of the novel. Even Tolstoy’s endorsed protagonists remain reIatively inideahsed, presented with many unendorsed flaws by the implied author. For example, in War and Peace, Pierre is mocked for his repeated ‘spiritual revelations’ and is taken seriously only when he stops looking for ‘grand’, ‘unifying’ principles. Similarly, upon dying, Prince Andrei discovers an unsensationalised ‘truth’, described through details which are deprived of universal significance: ‘The first time he had felt it was when the shell had spun like a top in front of him, and he had looked at the stubble field, at the bushes, at the sky, and knew that he was face to face with death’ (p. 1173). In several of Tolstoy’s writings death itself loses some of its tragic impact when conveyed as a completely natural and spiritual experience. The character of Ivan Ilych, who experiences this type of ‘prosaic’ death, is surprised by the simple serenity of the end he had anticipated with such anguish: ‘How good and how simple!’ he thought. ‘And the pain?’ he asked himself. [. . .] He sought his former fear of death and did not find it. ‘Where is it? What death? There was no fear because there was no death (p. 302). Similarly, in some of his descriptions of the peasantry Tolstoy refrains from exaltation. The depiction of Karatayev, particularly in the scene in which the peasant relates his personal and family history, illustrates the implied author’s unidealising perspective: ‘Well, dear man’, and a smile changed the tone of his voice, ‘we thought
it was a misfortune, but it turned out to be a blessing! If it had not been for my sin, my brother would have had to go. And he, my younger brother, has five little ones, while I, don’t you see, left only a wife behind’ (p. 1159).
This scene proves unidealised in several ways. Stylistically, it imitates the simple style of peasant language without inflating it or rendering it more ‘poetic’. Tolstoy’s description of Karatayev’s circumstances betrays an even more telling critical stance. When Karatayev mentions his ‘misfortune’, he is referring to the fact that he was flogged and conscripted for stealing wood in order to warm his family. This constitutes a less than ideal representation of the Rousseauistic ‘harmonious interaction’ between the gentry and the peasantry. In his characterisation of Karatayev himself, the author manifests some misgivings. Although he presents the peasant as a man of emulable simplicity, he also discloses-perhaps involuntarily-the limitations of this simplicity. For
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instance, Karatayev’s remark that he left ‘only a wife behind’ can be construed as lacking sensitivity and emotional depth. Contrasted with characters such as Pierre, Prince Andrei, Anna, Levin, or even Natasha, Nikolai and Lisa, the peasant appears too well-adjusted to life to be able to experience it deeply. This somewhat critical depiction of Karatayev may be viewed as a matter of the reader’s interpretation. However, Tolstoy’s diary notes make his ambivalence, towards both ‘civilisation’ and ‘noncivilisation’, much more explicit. For example, when working on War and Peace, the author responded to the critics’ charge that he focussed almost exclusively on a Frenchified Russian gentry by unabashedly asserting that the aristocracy interests him, whereas the peasantry does not: ‘The life of clerks, merchants,
seminarists and peasants is uninteresting and half unintelligible to me; the life of the aristocrats of that time, thanks to documents of that period and for other reasons, is intelligible, interesting, and dear to me.‘14
On the other hand, as we have already seen, in many other diary notes as well as throughout his fiction, Tolstoy harshly criticises the ‘frivolous’ and ‘artificial’ lifestyle of the Russian aristocracy. One can hardly hold Tolstoy to any of his extreme claims, since as a complex human being and writer he holds a number of and changing beliefs. The variations and different, often contradictory, contradictions we have been examining are significant not because they call for conclusive resolutions, but precisely because they illuminate the author’s inherently ambivalent perspective. As Renato Poggioli points out, Tolstoy places too much emphasis upon the uniqueness of each individual to be a populist, but expresses too much attraction for primitive society to be an uncritical aristocrat.15 Despite their irreducible polarity, these vacillations provoke the search for tentative correlation of Tolstoy’s social perspectives in order to arrive at some lucid, though necessarily incomplete, understanding of the author’s conceptions of nature and civilisation. The theme of childhood provides a relatively stable point of departure: one of the author’s more consistent tenets-which he espoused up to his latest and almost exclusively religious writings-is his preference for the childlike point of view. The reversion to childhood, as previously suggested, reveals Tolstoy’s attempt to eliminate some of the difficulties he has with existent modes of society and to stimulate a collective spirituality. This project is facilitated by the author’s own imaginative regression to a less critical, purifying childlike perspective when engaged in descriptions of childhood. However, this explanation does not address the objection of why the artistic ‘infection’ with an even less critical, peasant optic does not always achieve similar results. We have proposed that this discrepancy occurs because Tolstoy applies different standards to children and adults. He judges adults according to contradictory criteria. Sometimes he wishes them to be simple and uneducated like peasants or Tartars (The Cossacks); at other times he displays more authorial sympathy if they are well-educated and contemplative, like Prince Andrei, Pierre and Levin. Only children evade these dualities, since only they can combine the simplicity of ‘primitivism’ and the sophistication of ‘culture’ without incurring the criticisms
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applicable to either of these two categories. In children simplicity is disassociated from limitations, and intelligence is disassociated from the artificiality and unhappiness which Tolstoy attributes to culture. Thus, through his conception of childhood Tolstoy hopes to unify his preference for simplicity with his aristocratic sensibilities. It is worth examining in more detail the nature and success of Tolstoy’s attempt to present childhood as a unifying ‘solution’. When reading War and Peace, we are struck by the fact that the characters described in the most favourable light are either children, childlike adults or parents devoted to their children. Tolstoy’s Rousseauistic perception of children as naturally good is axiomatic. Although it can be challenged by alternative conceptions of human nature-such as the Freudian model-for the purposes of this essay we will accept Tolstoy’s premise. Natasha provides one of the most clear examples of Tolstoy’s conception of a childlike character. She is described as girlish, impulsive and affectionate. Her feminine instincts enable her to integrate naturally in society, without abiding by its aristocratic conventions. For example, in the scene in which we are introduced to her, Natasha bursts into the guest room in the middle of her parents’ party, unheeding the codes of propriety applicable even to children: ‘Escaping from her father’s embrace, she ran to her mother and, not paying the least attention to her severe remark, hid her flushed face in her mother’s lace collar and broke into laughter. She sank onto her mother’s lap and went off into such peals of laughter that even the decorous visitor could not help joining in’ (p. 69).
Despite this obvious lack of propriety, Natasha behaves so naturally and goodnaturedly that even the most decorous adults are not offended by her lack of restraint. On the contrary, her spontaneous entrance and childlike laughter add a hint of freshness to the drawing room without disrupting its atmosphere. Natasha seems to have an intuitive grasp of how to integrate into different settings, of how to behave in different circumstances while still remaining true to herself. Unlike the more awkward Pierre, she naturally combines unconventionality and decorum. The adults’ receptivity to Natasha’s girlish charm reveals not only her intuitive adaptability, but also the adaptability of adults, who despite their conventionalism respond to her in a positive, accepting manner. The aristocrats’ relative malleability can be attributed to Tolstoy’s belief that adults can empathise with the naturalness of children despite their multiple layers of ‘culture’. Once again this conviction-or hope-relies upon the early-romantic premise that although corrupted by civilisation, human nature is not completely destroyed by it; that its latent natural elements can be recovered and developed. It is this premise which lies at the foundation of Tolstoy’s efforts to reform adult society by inducing a childlike perspective. Nevertheless, it is also important to note the distinctions drawn by the author between acceptable childlike characteristics in children and in adults. To some extent the criteria remain the same. For example, even as an adult Natasha captivates people with her unaltered infantile charm. Although she appears to live in an extended present chronotope, we could hardly call her static. On the
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contrary, her life in the present is energetic and elastic, since like all the Rostovs, Natasha is aware of the present’s many possibilities. By continuing to characterise her favourably, Tolstoy indicates that, at least in part, childlikeness is desirable in adults. However, as we will later see, the childlike belief that ‘everything is possible’ is admired by Tolstoy for its energy in children but criticised for its lack of responsibility in adults. Natasha the girl is allowed to run carefree, whereas Natasha the young woman has to pay for the lack of judgement she exhibits in her involvement with Anatol. It becomes apparent that in Tolstoy ‘childlikeness’ must assume somewhat different shapes in children and adults. An examination of their common characteristics would help elucidate the author’s concept of a childlike adult society. Natasha’s effect on the adult Prince Andrei points to the common features of the adult and childlike worlds. I have described Prince Andrei as ‘adult’ because in many ways he provides a foil for Natasha: he is highly educated, cosmopolitan, disciplined and already cynical, not only about aristocratic society, but also about what life in general has to offer. Nevertheless, he too is affected by Natasha’s contagious appetite for life: ‘In Natasha Prince Andrei was conscious of a special world pervaded with unknown joys and wholly alien to him-a strange world which even in the avenue at Otradnoe and at the window on that moonlit night had begun to tantalise him (p. 564). [Infected by her energy he decides] I must make the most of my liberty while I feel such youth and vitality in me. . Pierre was right when he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead; while one has life one must live and be happy!’ (p. 565). I would suggest that this description
of a rejuvenated Andrei offers us an example of Tolstoy’s image of the ‘ideal’ childlike adult: intelligent, sensitive and refined yet also authentic and eager to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. We are moved to question how Natasha succeeded in provoking such a radical shift in Andrei’s attitude towards life: and more generally, what process is involved in the restorative transformation of adults by childlike personalities. For some answers we can begin by looking in greater detail at the character of Natasha. In War and Peace Natasha is depicted as a highly ‘restorative’ character. She both literally and figuratively rejuvenates people, infecting them with her youthful ability to see the rich potential of life. I used the term ‘infecting’ deliberately, because it is the term employed by Tolstoy to describe the means of artistic transfer. In What is Art? the author specifies that the aesthetic function of art should be subordinated to its moral function, namely, to ‘infecting’ a correct moral attitude. Characteristically, Tolstoy defines art mostly in a negative fashion, by establishing what it is not: ‘Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious Idea of beauty or God; . . . it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.‘i6
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Since Tolstoy intends for the process of infection to occur both intertextually and extratextually, it is important to examine not only how Natasha’s personality infects the other characters in the novel, but also how her childlike optic is transferred to the readers, and hence to society in general. In part the infection of the readers corresponds to the infection of the characters: Natasha’s appealing and vibrant personality, her generous impulses and her natural spontaneity endear her to characters and readers alike. Nevertheless, because readers are extratextual beings, we can be infected by literary techniques to which fictive characters have no access. For example, we can listen to the author’s authoritative descriptions of his heroine, which are almost always positive. We also have access to all of Natasha’s thoughts and actions, which allows us to perceive her in a more three-dimensional fashion than the characters who temporally and spatially interact with her on the same textual plane. The Russian Formalist Victor Shklovsky has provided an insightful analysis of a central technique employed by Tolstoy to convey the desirable childlike optic. According to Shklovsky, the technique which enables art to provide us with this fresh perspective is precisely the optic Tolstoy presented through Natasha’s eyes-the unfamiliarised, or to use Shklovsky’s terminology, the ‘defamiliarised’ perspective. ” This perspective enables us not only to notice things we otherwise omit by force of habit, but also to see them in an artistic fashion: ‘The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.‘r8
However, while Shklovsky views defamiliarisation as an artistic end, Tolstoy uses the technique merely as an artistic means. As we have already noted, for Tolstoy the purpose of art was primarily moral, not aesthetic as for the Formalists. In the following scene, Natasha’s uninitiated view of the convention of the opera is supposed to infect the readers with a childlike perspective which is morally critical of cultural conventions. ‘The stage consisted of smooth planks in the centre, with some painted cardboard representing trees at the sides, and a canvas stretched over boards in the back. Girls in red bodices and white petticoats sat in the middle of the state. They were all singing. When they had finished their song the girl in white advanced to the prompter’s box, and a man with stout legs encased in silk tights, with a plume and a dagger, began singing and waving his arms about’ (p. 678).
Let us follow Natasha’s ‘naive’ optic. First she focusses on the centre stage and notices the decorations as artificial, rather than mentally bypassing their visual aspect and seeing them as the setting they are supposed to symbolise. Then she notices the singers, once again taking no mental shortcuts. What naturally catches her eye is their visual reality-their gender and the bright colours of their dresses-rather than their intended representation. Next she observes their action: namely, that they are singing. Once again, she remains ignorant of what the singing is supposed to signify. Finally, she observes the comical and
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seemingly irrational nature of the opera, as manifested by the incongruous outfit and gestures of the singer. Throughout her entire telescoping vision, Natasha assesses the opera as it is, rather than as it is supposed to be interpreted. Seeing it without having had any previous knowledge of its meaning and conventions, she notices the nonrepresentational reality which more experienced viewers are conditioned to overlook. The readers are compelled by the narrative structure to go along with Natasha’s process of discovery, which is implicitly critical of convention. This criticism becomes more explicit when Natasha emulates ‘society’ and assumes their uncritical view of the opera. Since for Tolstoy artistic and moral spheres are inextricably tied, Natasha’s acceptance of artistic operatic conventions is immediately followed by her acceptance of ‘immoral’ conventions, as illustrated by her infatuation with Anatol. Tolstoy uses similar defamiliarisation techniques to convey the childlike personalities of Pierre and Nikolai. Like Rousseau, Tolstoy draws a ‘natural’ distinction between feminine and masculine childlike behaviour. For example, Nikolai matches his sister’s spontaneity, but adds to it a particularly ‘masculine’ independence and idealism. His brotherly and generous sentiments towards his fellow soldiers, his idealised love for the Tsar, and his distance yet affection for his family reveal his boyishness. Nevertheless, both sexes share the most fundamental element of Tolstoy’s conception of the childlike personality: namely, the intuitive detachment from artificial conventions. Just as Natasha had involuntarily questioned artistic conventions, Nikolai, although a valiant soldier, questions the conventions of war when he is faced with having to kill an ‘enemy’ soldier as innocent-looking and youthful as himself. As with Natasha, this form of naive questioning of what society offers as ‘given’ is appropriately conveyed through a defamiliarised point of view: ‘Rostov reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see what sort of man he had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping along the ground on one foot, the other being caught in the stirrup. He looked up at Rostov, his eyes narrowed with fear, and flinched as if expecting another blow at any moment. His pale, mud-spattered face-fair, boyish, with light blue eyes and a dimple in the chin-was not at all hostile or suited to the battlefield, but the most simple, familiar kind of face. . Rostov, riding with the rest, was conscious of feeling strangely heavyhearted. Something vague and confused that he could not account for had come over him with the capture of that prisoner and the blow he had dealt him’ (pp. 787-788).
Tolstoy describes here a rudimentary and, for this reason, authentic morality. Rostov’s instinctive sense of compassion exceeds and subverts the ethics of war. Noticing not the abstract notion of an ‘enemy’ but the reality of a fellow man, he is struck by the adversary’s fearful gaze and childlike features, which reveal a ‘fair, boyish’ young man, ‘with light blue eyes and a dimple in the chin’. The soldier’s ordinary looks and natural emotions underline the similarity of the two men, and, symbolically, of human beings in general. We have noted that the differences in sex between Natasha and Nikolai were bridged by their underlying similarity of temperament. However, Tolstoy’s
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concept of ‘childlikeness’ becomes increasingly confusing when we examine the personality differences between the central male childlike characters, Nikolai and Pierre. Nikolai’s instinctive moral qualms provide a foil for Pierre’s metaphysical considerations. On the level of plot, Tolstoy indicates a preference for Nikolai’s simple morality over Pierre’s unnecessarily complicated one. Nikolai’s instincts enable him to manage his estate efficiently and charitably, whereas Pierre’s idealism thwarts his good intentions to help the serfs. Nevertheless, Tolstoy betrays his characteristic ambivalence towards simplicity vs complexity in his juxtaposition of Nikolai and Pierre. It is not altogether clear which childlike personality he sets up as a role-model. In many ways, Pierre is presented as a more appealing character than any of the Rostovs. He complements their natural detachment from conventions with an admirable mental astuteness and a penchant for introspection. Although he is somewhat contaminated by the stultifying education of an aristocrat-an education which, as for Tolstoy himself, proves to be his most difficult burden-Pierre retains childlike characteristics until he himself is ready to be a father. For example, it is Pierre’s authenticity and outspoken honesty which threatens Anna Pavlovna’s soiree, his way of talking about things as he sees them. The following description of Pierre’s unfamiliarised optic when faced with the formalities of inheritance illustrates the young man’s artlessness and lack of materialism: ‘Anna Mikhailnovna, with a meek, sorrowful, all-forgiving expression, stood near the door with the unknown lady. Prince Vasily was on the other side of the door close to the invalid chair.. . . He held a taper in his left hand and was crossing himself with his right, turning his eyes upward each time he touched his forehead. His face wore a look of serene piety and resignation to the will of God. ‘If you do not understand these sentiments’, it seemed to say, ‘so much the worse for you’(p. 116).
We see through Pierre’s eyes a portrait of greed and expectation as the entire family awaits to profit from the old count’s death. The artificiality of these people is so unfamiliar to Pierre that he is not even aware of it. However, this defamiliarised optic is only partially Pierre’s. The young man perceives the situation through an objective prism which refracts external reality-in this case conventions-into their minute components. Tolstoy complements this vision by adding moral indictments, through an internal depiction of the characters’ subjectivities, to his character’s uncritical perspective. In turn, Pierre’s innocent point of view enhances Tolstoy’s condemnations of artifice by providing a sharp contrast to the surrounding selfinterested perspectives. The author’s sympathetic treatment of Pierre, despite the character’s education and contemplativeness, once again introduces the problematic issue of Tolstoy’s ambivalence towards ‘civilisation’. It is likely that Tolstoy’s sympathetic portrayal of this protagonist reveals less his image of the ideal civilisation than an identification with the created personality. In part, Pierre represents an autobiographical characterisation. The similarity between the author’s and his character’s self-deprecating and moralising diary notes reveals
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their resemblance. Nevertheless, in elucidating this issue it is helpful to draw a distinction between Tolstoy’s identification with a character and his moral precepts. As the author’s diary notes reveal, these two factors are often at odds. Like Pierre, Tolstoy repeatedly expresses his desire to be a less contemplative and thus happier personality, perhaps a Nikolai. Nonetheless, Tolstoy appreciates the cultivated intelligence and introspectiveness of Pierre. I would suggest that the author’s reconciliation of these two opposing tendencies can be found in the post-war characterisation of Pierre. After experiencing the trials of war and learning to appreciate life in its most basic manifestations, Pierre is able to combine simple enjoyment of life with intellectual preoccupations. This harmony is illustrated by his simultaneous involvement in family life and revolutionary politics. Although the war taints his childlike naivete, this quality is perpetuated and preserved through the education of his children. Hence in adults ‘childlikeness’ manifests itself through the enjoyment of interacting with children, especially when this interaction ‘infects’ adults with children’s authentic modes of thought, emotion and action. For this reason family life plays a very important role in Tolstoy’s chronotope of regression to childhood. The benefits of the parent-child communication are reciprocal: the process of educating children rejuvenates adults and encourages a healthy moral development in children. The three childlike characters we discussed are a part of Tolstoy’s representation of the family, most obviously illustrated by the Rostovs. The Rostov’s familial orientation, manifested by their almost exclusive focus on nurturing their children, is depicted by Tolstoy as an exemplary lifestyle. When the Count and Countess are not childlike themselves in their carefree enjoyment of life, they are facilitating their own children’s happiness by providing an affectionate and unrestraining domestic atmosphere. Nevertheless, Tolstoy also indicates that this warm family life proves too indiscrimate with respect to the moment’s many potentialities. The older Rostovs lack a sense of duty and stability because they are too involved in enjoying the many satisfactions potentially offered by life. In the end they pay for their lack of adult responsibility with the loss of their estate and their happiness. However, the positive elements of the older Rostovs’ mode of life are preserved and improved by the new generation of families: namely, Natasha and Pierre, and Maria and Nikolai. Unlike their parents, these young couples have been matured by the hardship of war and have learned to combine family happiness with a sense of responsibility. They continue to reinforce the value of childhood not through their former childlikeness, but by becoming model parents. Natasha changes into a big, matronly figure whose life revolves around her husband and children. Tolstoy presents Natasha’s transformation from a girl to a mother as exemplary, in terms which resonate with Rousseau’s delimiting conception of women’s roles: ‘The subject that wholly absorbed Natasha’s attention was her family, that is, her husband, whom she had to keep so that he should belong entirely to her and to the home, and the children, whom she had to bear, give birth to, nurse and rear’ (p. 1383).
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Pierre becomes her perfect complement, assuming the nineteenth-century male responsibility of providing a functional societal link for his enclosed family by concerning himself with business and politics, while still remaining devoted to the family nucleus. The particular manner in which this couple educates their children is not elaborated; only its Rousseauistic emphasis upon the ‘natural’ is specified: ‘Their way of life and place of residence, their friends and ties, Natasha’s occupations, the children’s upbringing, were all determined not only by Pierre’s expressed wishes, but by what Natasha surmised them to be from things he mentioned in conversation.. . . Pierre one day told her of Rousseau’s views, with which he was in complete agreement, that to have wet-nurses was unnatural and harmful. When their next baby was born, [. . Natasha] insisted on having her own way, and from that time nursed all of her children herself (p. 1385). It is the second family, the new Rostovs, who fill in the gaps of vagueness concerning children’s education. With the systematic determination characteristic of the Bolkonskys, Princess Maria devotes herself not to nurturing but to educating her children. She observes and checks their behaviour by keeping a diary account of it, fulfilling her maternal functions with the rigour required by a scientific study. Much more so than Natasha, she retains significant elements of her former personality-such as her intelligence, aescetic spirituality, education, aristocratic poise and self-discipline-which are now focussed upon her children in her role as mother and educator. Princess Maria and Nikolai gradually form a successful, interdependent couple: he relies upon her spiritual guidance and mental strength, while she benefits from the energetic common sense he exhibits in effectively managing their estate and amending his parents’ losses. Through both couples Tolstoy not only illustrates the benefits of family life, but also delineates its ideal organisation, which is structured, in a traditional fashion, around the complementarity of gender roles. Because of the author’s changing and diverse beliefs, it is difficult to wholistically assess the success of Tolstoy’s attempt to reconcile his contradictory opinions of culture and simplicity through positive depictions ofchildhood. This achievement is particularly difficult to measure because of Tolstoy’s prosaic approach, which presents all characters in an unidealised fashion. However, what emerges from the author’s nostalgia for childhood is a process which does contribute to the creation of an integrated self. This process operates through multiple artistic chronotopes: the author’s reversion to memories of his own childhood in the creation of chiidlike characters; the intratextua1 interaction of children or childlike characters ‘infecting’ other characters with this optic; and the readers’ infection by the author’s and his characters’ mnemonic regression to childhood, which reveals the coherence of the self and offers a glimpse of the immortality of the soul. The continuity of this multiple process is ensured by the readers’ interest in Tolstoy’s instructive depictions of childhood and of the cycles of family fife. Claudia Brown University, Providence
Moscovici
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NOTES 1. Leo Tolstoy, ‘Death of Ivan Ilych’, taken from Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy, trans. Louise and Alymer Maude (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 294. 2. Andrew Baruch Wachtel, The Battle for Childhood: Creation of a Russian Myth (CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 44. 3. Quote taken from Patricia Carden’s article, ‘The Recuperative Powers of Memory’, found in The Russian Novelfrom Pushkin to Pasternak (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 81. 4. Quote taken from Grown-Up Narrator and Childlike Hero by Alexander Zweers (Paris: Mouton, 1971), pp. 36-38. 5. Patricia Carden, ‘The Recuperative Powers of Memory’, p. 83. 6. Ibid., p. 85. 7. I am referring not only to the differences between the Slavophiles and Westernisers but also to the diverging points of view within these two main groups. 8. Quote taken from The Battle for Childhood, p. 38. 9. M.M. Bakhtin, The Dialogiclmagination, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 228-230. 10. Bakhtin uses the concept of the ‘chronotope’ to explore the interconnected temporal and spatial dimensions of a text. In the DialogicZmagination he provides the following explanation of this concept: ‘We will give the name chronotope (literally, “time space”) to the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature . . . We understand the chronotope as a formally constitutive category of literature. . . In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole’ (p. 84). 11. In describing Tolstoy’s chronotope as ‘regressive’, I use the term in a non-normative sense to denote a temporal and spatial movement backwards to a former individual or societal state. 12. Boris Eikhenbaum, The Young Tolstoi (translation), Gary Kern (ed.) (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1972). 13. The term ‘prosaic’ is used here in the senses attributed to Bakhtin by Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson in Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics, (1990): ‘Prosaics encompasses two related, but distinct, concepts. First, as opposed to “poetics”, prosaics designates a theory of literature that privileges prose in general and the novel in particular over the poetic genres. Prosaics in the second sense is far broader than theory of literature: it is a form of thinking that presumes the importance of the everyday, the ordinary, the prosaic’ (p. 17). 14. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, ‘Drafts for an Introduction’, trans. Ann Dunnigan (Signet Classics, 1968), p. 1365. 15. Renato Poggioli, ‘Tolstoy as Man and Artist’, Tolstoy: a Collection of CriticalEssays, Ralph E. Matlaw (ed.) (NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967). 16. Leo Tolstoy, What is Art?, trans. Alymer Maude (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1981) p. 52. 17. Victor Shklovsky, ‘Art as Technique’, Lemon and Reis, Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965). 18. Ibid., p. 12.
Vol.
17, No.
4, pp.
503-515.
1993
0191-6599/93 56.W + 0.00 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd
THE UNIFYING ROLE OF TOLSTOY’S CONCEPTION OF CHILDHOOD CLAUDIA MOSCOVICI*
In his fictionalised autobiography entitled Childhood, as well as throughout his more purely fictional writings, Tolstoy expresses a sense of nostalgia for the childhood years. In many of his works, the author presents the state of childhood as being far preferable to adulthood, and especially to ‘civilised’ adulthood. The following quote, taken from The Death of Ivan I&h, is emblematic of this sentiment: ‘But strange to say none of those best moments of his pleasant life now seemed at all what they had then seemed-none of them except the first recollections of childhood. There, in childhood, there had been something really pleasant with which it would be possible to live if it could return.”
The purpose of this essay is to explore some of the personal, artistic and intellectual forces which play a role in Tolstoy’s idealisation of childhood by focussing primarily upon his positive yet problematic depiction of children and childlike adults in War and Peace. Tolstoy’s vision of childhood in this text, supported by similar representations in some of his other works, will be interpreted as his partly successful effort to find a unifying force for his diverging opinions about the ‘ideal’ individual and society. On the personal level, Tolstoy’s idealisation of childhood reveals his artistic need to reshape his own less than happy early years. Andrew Baruch Wachtel provides an accurate description of Tolstoy’s real childhood by stating that ‘The author’s own childhood could not have been a happy one, at least in any conventional sense. His mother died before he was two. . . . His father died when Tolstoy was eight, and thereafter he was shuttled between the homes of grandmothers and aunts.‘* Tolstoy chooses an optimistic focus upon childhood in particular, because as a point of origin, of maximal potential and of greatest flexibility, childhood offers the artist the greatest opportunity to improve the individual and by extension, society at large, according to the leanings of his imagination. No less importantly, this absolute creative freedom enables Tolstoy to grasp the elusive immortality he sought with particular fervor while he was working on War on Peace: ‘I reel and reel under the load of death and barely feel strength in myself to put a stop to it,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘But I don’t want death, I want and love immortality. There’s no point in choosing. The choice was made long ago. Literature, art, pedagogy and the family.‘3 Tolstoy frequently begins his refashioning of society negatively, by specifying what his alternative society excludes. For the most part the author eliminates, not without some reservations and contradictions, all the elements of (mostly aristo*Brown University, Department 02912, U.S.A.
of Comparative
Literature, Box E, Providence,
RI
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Claudia Moscovici cratic) civilisation which generate, prescribe and perpetuate conventions that, by civilisation which generate, prescribe and perpetuate conventions that, by definition, run contrary to spontaneous, natural life. Thus we may state that partly because the author generally attributes his personal unhappiness to the ‘corruptive’ conventions of civilised society, he attempts to induce a restorative, childlike state in himself, his readers and more generally, in society as a whole. For example, during the time he was working on Childhood, Tolstoy expressed his dissatisfaction with the idle existence of the Russian gentry: ‘Oh, my God, my God, what difficult, sad days there sometimes can be! And why are you so sad? No, the consciousness that you are sad and do not know why you are sad, is not so much sorrowful, but rather painful. [. . .] I lived for the third winter in Moscow, a very irregular life, without job, without occupations, without aim [. . .] I say: of a young man who combines several conditions; namely education, a good name and an income of some 10 or 20 thousand. The life of a young man who combines these conditions is most pleasant and completely carefree, if he does not work, but is simply around and loves to be lazy. All salons are open for him, he has the right to have an eye to every potential bride; there is no young man standing higher than he in the esteem of society.‘4
Through his ideahsation of childhood Tolstoy attempts nothing short of a historical deconstruction-and then reconstruction-of individual and collective human identity by retracing the steps of civilisation backwards, towards its putative infancy. As argued by Patricia Carden, this movement backward towards a collective origin retrieved and preserved by the power of our memories-and especially of our memories of childhood2can lead to a movement forward by safeguarding ‘the continuity of human experience against the dissolution imposed by temporal flux, which separates our every movement of experience from every other.‘5 In many of Tolstoy’s works the recuperativeand unifying-powers of memory usually discover and express timeless truths through an intuitive, infantile perspective as simple as Natasha’s when she states remember everything, you ‘You know, I think.. . that when you remember, remember ail the way back to what was earlier, before you were on the earth.‘6 Thus, children assume a privileged role in Tolstoy’s works both because the author believes that they offer the clearest vision of our spiritual continuity, and because they help resolve his ambivalence about primitive vs certain civilised modes of existence by eluding, and in a sense preceding, both social categories. Tolstoy’s idealised fictional children can hardly be labelled either ‘civiIised’though their milieu is usually aristocratic-or ‘primitive’-though they behave naturally and spontaneously. Rather, their personalities harmoniously combine socialised influences and natural tendencies, such that they provide a sharp contrast to the artificial behaviour of most of the aristocratic adults around them, but usually know quite well how to integrate into their social environment. Before illustrating how Tolstoy’s exemplary children partly reconcile his ambivalence concerning nature vs civihsation, it would be useful to briefly examine the nature of his misgivings. It is generally known that throughout his life Tolstoy oscillated between his identification with a largely Westernised Russian aristocracy and his longing for a ‘natural’ and particularly Slavic lifestyle, such as that of the Russian peasantry. Caught between these two poles,
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which are themselves ramified,’ he alternatively praised and criticised both the ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilised’ ways of life. On the one hand, a pervasive theme in Tolstoy’s writings is the e~ly-romantic belief that peasants live in harmony with the ‘purity’ of nature, whereas ‘civilised’ society leads a ‘spoilt’ and superficial existence, centred around absurd conventions which discourage some of the most valuable human qualities: spirituality, sincere emotion and undistorted communication. Tolstoy borrows this general romantic ideology from Rousseau, repeatedly acknowledging his intellectual debt: ‘Since I was fifteen, Rousseau has been my teacher. Rousseau and the Gospels have been the two great and benevolent influences on my life.‘8 Supporting and elaborating this claim, Bakhtin traces Tolstoy’s literary development to the idyll, and in particular to Rousseau’s novelistic version of the ‘sentimental’ idyll: ‘In novels
of the Rousseauan
contemporaries,
type, the major protagonists are the author’s people who had already succeeded in isolating individual hfe-
sequences, people with an interior perspective. contact with nature and the life of the simple wisdom of life and death.‘9
They heal themselves through people, learning from them the
One certainly identifies here some of the major Tolstoian motifs. For example, Tolstoy focusses on ‘unique’ and introspective protagonists, such as Prince Andrei, Levin and Pierre. These types of characters attempt to ‘heal’ themselves through contact with nature and with ‘natural’ people, such as the ingenuous women Natasha and Lisa, or the peasants Karatayev and Gerasim. One of the most notable examples of Tolstoy’s appreciation of simplicity vs civilisation can be found in 73e Death of Ivan Ilych. In this short story the protagonist realises, partly through contact with his ingenuous son and with the peasant Gerasim, that ‘Everything progressed and progressed and approached the ideal he had set himself. . . . He saw what a refined and elegant character free from vulgarity, it would all have when it was ready (p. 265). [. . .] And the further he departed from childhood and the nearer he came to the present the more worthless and doubtful were the joys’ (p. 295).
As Bakhtin describes it, Tolstoy’s protagonists feel disappointed with the progressive chronotope (or temporal and spatial makeup) of their contemporaneous civilisation and turn towards the regressive chronotype of the earlyromantic idyll.“’ This movement backwards usually manifests itself temporally as a nostalgia for childhood or for ‘primitive’ ways of life, and spatially through the idealisation of the human contact with nature .‘I The effect desired by Tolstoy is similar to the one proposed by Rousseau in Le Contra? Social: namely, that the reversion of each individual to a ‘simple’ state of being collectively engenders an harmonious society of such authentic individuals. Although the importance of the romantic influence on Tolstoy cannot be overestimated, we should take into consideration some of the notable differences between the Rousseauistic and Tolstoian outlooks. The main difference concerns different modes of presentation, or styles, which reflect the widely divergent attitudes of the authors. As Boris Eikhenbaum points out,i2 even thoughTolstoy
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often expresses romantic themes, he presents them in a particularly ‘prosaic’13 manner which deromanticises their content. Instead of focussing almost exclusively upon the moral and emotional turbulances of a few faultless characters-like Rousseau does in his paradigmatic romantic novel, La Novelle Ht%Yse-Tolstoy follows and contributes to the realistic tradition of describing the peripheral, mundane, and seemingly insignificant aspects of life. In his works we witness a great number of dinner parties, of trivial conversations, of absurd military ventures, and ofevents which have no apparent relevance to the whole of the novel. Even Tolstoy’s endorsed protagonists remain reIatively inideahsed, presented with many unendorsed flaws by the implied author. For example, in War and Peace, Pierre is mocked for his repeated ‘spiritual revelations’ and is taken seriously only when he stops looking for ‘grand’, ‘unifying’ principles. Similarly, upon dying, Prince Andrei discovers an unsensationalised ‘truth’, described through details which are deprived of universal significance: ‘The first time he had felt it was when the shell had spun like a top in front of him, and he had looked at the stubble field, at the bushes, at the sky, and knew that he was face to face with death’ (p. 1173). In several of Tolstoy’s writings death itself loses some of its tragic impact when conveyed as a completely natural and spiritual experience. The character of Ivan Ilych, who experiences this type of ‘prosaic’ death, is surprised by the simple serenity of the end he had anticipated with such anguish: ‘How good and how simple!’ he thought. ‘And the pain?’ he asked himself. [. . .] He sought his former fear of death and did not find it. ‘Where is it? What death? There was no fear because there was no death (p. 302). Similarly, in some of his descriptions of the peasantry Tolstoy refrains from exaltation. The depiction of Karatayev, particularly in the scene in which the peasant relates his personal and family history, illustrates the implied author’s unidealising perspective: ‘Well, dear man’, and a smile changed the tone of his voice, ‘we thought
it was a misfortune, but it turned out to be a blessing! If it had not been for my sin, my brother would have had to go. And he, my younger brother, has five little ones, while I, don’t you see, left only a wife behind’ (p. 1159).
This scene proves unidealised in several ways. Stylistically, it imitates the simple style of peasant language without inflating it or rendering it more ‘poetic’. Tolstoy’s description of Karatayev’s circumstances betrays an even more telling critical stance. When Karatayev mentions his ‘misfortune’, he is referring to the fact that he was flogged and conscripted for stealing wood in order to warm his family. This constitutes a less than ideal representation of the Rousseauistic ‘harmonious interaction’ between the gentry and the peasantry. In his characterisation of Karatayev himself, the author manifests some misgivings. Although he presents the peasant as a man of emulable simplicity, he also discloses-perhaps involuntarily-the limitations of this simplicity. For
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instance, Karatayev’s remark that he left ‘only a wife behind’ can be construed as lacking sensitivity and emotional depth. Contrasted with characters such as Pierre, Prince Andrei, Anna, Levin, or even Natasha, Nikolai and Lisa, the peasant appears too well-adjusted to life to be able to experience it deeply. This somewhat critical depiction of Karatayev may be viewed as a matter of the reader’s interpretation. However, Tolstoy’s diary notes make his ambivalence, towards both ‘civilisation’ and ‘noncivilisation’, much more explicit. For example, when working on War and Peace, the author responded to the critics’ charge that he focussed almost exclusively on a Frenchified Russian gentry by unabashedly asserting that the aristocracy interests him, whereas the peasantry does not: ‘The life of clerks, merchants,
seminarists and peasants is uninteresting and half unintelligible to me; the life of the aristocrats of that time, thanks to documents of that period and for other reasons, is intelligible, interesting, and dear to me.‘14
On the other hand, as we have already seen, in many other diary notes as well as throughout his fiction, Tolstoy harshly criticises the ‘frivolous’ and ‘artificial’ lifestyle of the Russian aristocracy. One can hardly hold Tolstoy to any of his extreme claims, since as a complex human being and writer he holds a number of and changing beliefs. The variations and different, often contradictory, contradictions we have been examining are significant not because they call for conclusive resolutions, but precisely because they illuminate the author’s inherently ambivalent perspective. As Renato Poggioli points out, Tolstoy places too much emphasis upon the uniqueness of each individual to be a populist, but expresses too much attraction for primitive society to be an uncritical aristocrat.15 Despite their irreducible polarity, these vacillations provoke the search for tentative correlation of Tolstoy’s social perspectives in order to arrive at some lucid, though necessarily incomplete, understanding of the author’s conceptions of nature and civilisation. The theme of childhood provides a relatively stable point of departure: one of the author’s more consistent tenets-which he espoused up to his latest and almost exclusively religious writings-is his preference for the childlike point of view. The reversion to childhood, as previously suggested, reveals Tolstoy’s attempt to eliminate some of the difficulties he has with existent modes of society and to stimulate a collective spirituality. This project is facilitated by the author’s own imaginative regression to a less critical, purifying childlike perspective when engaged in descriptions of childhood. However, this explanation does not address the objection of why the artistic ‘infection’ with an even less critical, peasant optic does not always achieve similar results. We have proposed that this discrepancy occurs because Tolstoy applies different standards to children and adults. He judges adults according to contradictory criteria. Sometimes he wishes them to be simple and uneducated like peasants or Tartars (The Cossacks); at other times he displays more authorial sympathy if they are well-educated and contemplative, like Prince Andrei, Pierre and Levin. Only children evade these dualities, since only they can combine the simplicity of ‘primitivism’ and the sophistication of ‘culture’ without incurring the criticisms
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applicable to either of these two categories. In children simplicity is disassociated from limitations, and intelligence is disassociated from the artificiality and unhappiness which Tolstoy attributes to culture. Thus, through his conception of childhood Tolstoy hopes to unify his preference for simplicity with his aristocratic sensibilities. It is worth examining in more detail the nature and success of Tolstoy’s attempt to present childhood as a unifying ‘solution’. When reading War and Peace, we are struck by the fact that the characters described in the most favourable light are either children, childlike adults or parents devoted to their children. Tolstoy’s Rousseauistic perception of children as naturally good is axiomatic. Although it can be challenged by alternative conceptions of human nature-such as the Freudian model-for the purposes of this essay we will accept Tolstoy’s premise. Natasha provides one of the most clear examples of Tolstoy’s conception of a childlike character. She is described as girlish, impulsive and affectionate. Her feminine instincts enable her to integrate naturally in society, without abiding by its aristocratic conventions. For example, in the scene in which we are introduced to her, Natasha bursts into the guest room in the middle of her parents’ party, unheeding the codes of propriety applicable even to children: ‘Escaping from her father’s embrace, she ran to her mother and, not paying the least attention to her severe remark, hid her flushed face in her mother’s lace collar and broke into laughter. She sank onto her mother’s lap and went off into such peals of laughter that even the decorous visitor could not help joining in’ (p. 69).
Despite this obvious lack of propriety, Natasha behaves so naturally and goodnaturedly that even the most decorous adults are not offended by her lack of restraint. On the contrary, her spontaneous entrance and childlike laughter add a hint of freshness to the drawing room without disrupting its atmosphere. Natasha seems to have an intuitive grasp of how to integrate into different settings, of how to behave in different circumstances while still remaining true to herself. Unlike the more awkward Pierre, she naturally combines unconventionality and decorum. The adults’ receptivity to Natasha’s girlish charm reveals not only her intuitive adaptability, but also the adaptability of adults, who despite their conventionalism respond to her in a positive, accepting manner. The aristocrats’ relative malleability can be attributed to Tolstoy’s belief that adults can empathise with the naturalness of children despite their multiple layers of ‘culture’. Once again this conviction-or hope-relies upon the early-romantic premise that although corrupted by civilisation, human nature is not completely destroyed by it; that its latent natural elements can be recovered and developed. It is this premise which lies at the foundation of Tolstoy’s efforts to reform adult society by inducing a childlike perspective. Nevertheless, it is also important to note the distinctions drawn by the author between acceptable childlike characteristics in children and in adults. To some extent the criteria remain the same. For example, even as an adult Natasha captivates people with her unaltered infantile charm. Although she appears to live in an extended present chronotope, we could hardly call her static. On the
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contrary, her life in the present is energetic and elastic, since like all the Rostovs, Natasha is aware of the present’s many possibilities. By continuing to characterise her favourably, Tolstoy indicates that, at least in part, childlikeness is desirable in adults. However, as we will later see, the childlike belief that ‘everything is possible’ is admired by Tolstoy for its energy in children but criticised for its lack of responsibility in adults. Natasha the girl is allowed to run carefree, whereas Natasha the young woman has to pay for the lack of judgement she exhibits in her involvement with Anatol. It becomes apparent that in Tolstoy ‘childlikeness’ must assume somewhat different shapes in children and adults. An examination of their common characteristics would help elucidate the author’s concept of a childlike adult society. Natasha’s effect on the adult Prince Andrei points to the common features of the adult and childlike worlds. I have described Prince Andrei as ‘adult’ because in many ways he provides a foil for Natasha: he is highly educated, cosmopolitan, disciplined and already cynical, not only about aristocratic society, but also about what life in general has to offer. Nevertheless, he too is affected by Natasha’s contagious appetite for life: ‘In Natasha Prince Andrei was conscious of a special world pervaded with unknown joys and wholly alien to him-a strange world which even in the avenue at Otradnoe and at the window on that moonlit night had begun to tantalise him (p. 564). [Infected by her energy he decides] I must make the most of my liberty while I feel such youth and vitality in me. . Pierre was right when he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead; while one has life one must live and be happy!’ (p. 565). I would suggest that this description
of a rejuvenated Andrei offers us an example of Tolstoy’s image of the ‘ideal’ childlike adult: intelligent, sensitive and refined yet also authentic and eager to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. We are moved to question how Natasha succeeded in provoking such a radical shift in Andrei’s attitude towards life: and more generally, what process is involved in the restorative transformation of adults by childlike personalities. For some answers we can begin by looking in greater detail at the character of Natasha. In War and Peace Natasha is depicted as a highly ‘restorative’ character. She both literally and figuratively rejuvenates people, infecting them with her youthful ability to see the rich potential of life. I used the term ‘infecting’ deliberately, because it is the term employed by Tolstoy to describe the means of artistic transfer. In What is Art? the author specifies that the aesthetic function of art should be subordinated to its moral function, namely, to ‘infecting’ a correct moral attitude. Characteristically, Tolstoy defines art mostly in a negative fashion, by establishing what it is not: ‘Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious Idea of beauty or God; . . . it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.‘i6
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Since Tolstoy intends for the process of infection to occur both intertextually and extratextually, it is important to examine not only how Natasha’s personality infects the other characters in the novel, but also how her childlike optic is transferred to the readers, and hence to society in general. In part the infection of the readers corresponds to the infection of the characters: Natasha’s appealing and vibrant personality, her generous impulses and her natural spontaneity endear her to characters and readers alike. Nevertheless, because readers are extratextual beings, we can be infected by literary techniques to which fictive characters have no access. For example, we can listen to the author’s authoritative descriptions of his heroine, which are almost always positive. We also have access to all of Natasha’s thoughts and actions, which allows us to perceive her in a more three-dimensional fashion than the characters who temporally and spatially interact with her on the same textual plane. The Russian Formalist Victor Shklovsky has provided an insightful analysis of a central technique employed by Tolstoy to convey the desirable childlike optic. According to Shklovsky, the technique which enables art to provide us with this fresh perspective is precisely the optic Tolstoy presented through Natasha’s eyes-the unfamiliarised, or to use Shklovsky’s terminology, the ‘defamiliarised’ perspective. ” This perspective enables us not only to notice things we otherwise omit by force of habit, but also to see them in an artistic fashion: ‘The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.‘r8
However, while Shklovsky views defamiliarisation as an artistic end, Tolstoy uses the technique merely as an artistic means. As we have already noted, for Tolstoy the purpose of art was primarily moral, not aesthetic as for the Formalists. In the following scene, Natasha’s uninitiated view of the convention of the opera is supposed to infect the readers with a childlike perspective which is morally critical of cultural conventions. ‘The stage consisted of smooth planks in the centre, with some painted cardboard representing trees at the sides, and a canvas stretched over boards in the back. Girls in red bodices and white petticoats sat in the middle of the state. They were all singing. When they had finished their song the girl in white advanced to the prompter’s box, and a man with stout legs encased in silk tights, with a plume and a dagger, began singing and waving his arms about’ (p. 678).
Let us follow Natasha’s ‘naive’ optic. First she focusses on the centre stage and notices the decorations as artificial, rather than mentally bypassing their visual aspect and seeing them as the setting they are supposed to symbolise. Then she notices the singers, once again taking no mental shortcuts. What naturally catches her eye is their visual reality-their gender and the bright colours of their dresses-rather than their intended representation. Next she observes their action: namely, that they are singing. Once again, she remains ignorant of what the singing is supposed to signify. Finally, she observes the comical and
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seemingly irrational nature of the opera, as manifested by the incongruous outfit and gestures of the singer. Throughout her entire telescoping vision, Natasha assesses the opera as it is, rather than as it is supposed to be interpreted. Seeing it without having had any previous knowledge of its meaning and conventions, she notices the nonrepresentational reality which more experienced viewers are conditioned to overlook. The readers are compelled by the narrative structure to go along with Natasha’s process of discovery, which is implicitly critical of convention. This criticism becomes more explicit when Natasha emulates ‘society’ and assumes their uncritical view of the opera. Since for Tolstoy artistic and moral spheres are inextricably tied, Natasha’s acceptance of artistic operatic conventions is immediately followed by her acceptance of ‘immoral’ conventions, as illustrated by her infatuation with Anatol. Tolstoy uses similar defamiliarisation techniques to convey the childlike personalities of Pierre and Nikolai. Like Rousseau, Tolstoy draws a ‘natural’ distinction between feminine and masculine childlike behaviour. For example, Nikolai matches his sister’s spontaneity, but adds to it a particularly ‘masculine’ independence and idealism. His brotherly and generous sentiments towards his fellow soldiers, his idealised love for the Tsar, and his distance yet affection for his family reveal his boyishness. Nevertheless, both sexes share the most fundamental element of Tolstoy’s conception of the childlike personality: namely, the intuitive detachment from artificial conventions. Just as Natasha had involuntarily questioned artistic conventions, Nikolai, although a valiant soldier, questions the conventions of war when he is faced with having to kill an ‘enemy’ soldier as innocent-looking and youthful as himself. As with Natasha, this form of naive questioning of what society offers as ‘given’ is appropriately conveyed through a defamiliarised point of view: ‘Rostov reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see what sort of man he had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping along the ground on one foot, the other being caught in the stirrup. He looked up at Rostov, his eyes narrowed with fear, and flinched as if expecting another blow at any moment. His pale, mud-spattered face-fair, boyish, with light blue eyes and a dimple in the chin-was not at all hostile or suited to the battlefield, but the most simple, familiar kind of face. . Rostov, riding with the rest, was conscious of feeling strangely heavyhearted. Something vague and confused that he could not account for had come over him with the capture of that prisoner and the blow he had dealt him’ (pp. 787-788).
Tolstoy describes here a rudimentary and, for this reason, authentic morality. Rostov’s instinctive sense of compassion exceeds and subverts the ethics of war. Noticing not the abstract notion of an ‘enemy’ but the reality of a fellow man, he is struck by the adversary’s fearful gaze and childlike features, which reveal a ‘fair, boyish’ young man, ‘with light blue eyes and a dimple in the chin’. The soldier’s ordinary looks and natural emotions underline the similarity of the two men, and, symbolically, of human beings in general. We have noted that the differences in sex between Natasha and Nikolai were bridged by their underlying similarity of temperament. However, Tolstoy’s
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concept of ‘childlikeness’ becomes increasingly confusing when we examine the personality differences between the central male childlike characters, Nikolai and Pierre. Nikolai’s instinctive moral qualms provide a foil for Pierre’s metaphysical considerations. On the level of plot, Tolstoy indicates a preference for Nikolai’s simple morality over Pierre’s unnecessarily complicated one. Nikolai’s instincts enable him to manage his estate efficiently and charitably, whereas Pierre’s idealism thwarts his good intentions to help the serfs. Nevertheless, Tolstoy betrays his characteristic ambivalence towards simplicity vs complexity in his juxtaposition of Nikolai and Pierre. It is not altogether clear which childlike personality he sets up as a role-model. In many ways, Pierre is presented as a more appealing character than any of the Rostovs. He complements their natural detachment from conventions with an admirable mental astuteness and a penchant for introspection. Although he is somewhat contaminated by the stultifying education of an aristocrat-an education which, as for Tolstoy himself, proves to be his most difficult burden-Pierre retains childlike characteristics until he himself is ready to be a father. For example, it is Pierre’s authenticity and outspoken honesty which threatens Anna Pavlovna’s soiree, his way of talking about things as he sees them. The following description of Pierre’s unfamiliarised optic when faced with the formalities of inheritance illustrates the young man’s artlessness and lack of materialism: ‘Anna Mikhailnovna, with a meek, sorrowful, all-forgiving expression, stood near the door with the unknown lady. Prince Vasily was on the other side of the door close to the invalid chair.. . . He held a taper in his left hand and was crossing himself with his right, turning his eyes upward each time he touched his forehead. His face wore a look of serene piety and resignation to the will of God. ‘If you do not understand these sentiments’, it seemed to say, ‘so much the worse for you’(p. 116).
We see through Pierre’s eyes a portrait of greed and expectation as the entire family awaits to profit from the old count’s death. The artificiality of these people is so unfamiliar to Pierre that he is not even aware of it. However, this defamiliarised optic is only partially Pierre’s. The young man perceives the situation through an objective prism which refracts external reality-in this case conventions-into their minute components. Tolstoy complements this vision by adding moral indictments, through an internal depiction of the characters’ subjectivities, to his character’s uncritical perspective. In turn, Pierre’s innocent point of view enhances Tolstoy’s condemnations of artifice by providing a sharp contrast to the surrounding selfinterested perspectives. The author’s sympathetic treatment of Pierre, despite the character’s education and contemplativeness, once again introduces the problematic issue of Tolstoy’s ambivalence towards ‘civilisation’. It is likely that Tolstoy’s sympathetic portrayal of this protagonist reveals less his image of the ideal civilisation than an identification with the created personality. In part, Pierre represents an autobiographical characterisation. The similarity between the author’s and his character’s self-deprecating and moralising diary notes reveals
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their resemblance. Nevertheless, in elucidating this issue it is helpful to draw a distinction between Tolstoy’s identification with a character and his moral precepts. As the author’s diary notes reveal, these two factors are often at odds. Like Pierre, Tolstoy repeatedly expresses his desire to be a less contemplative and thus happier personality, perhaps a Nikolai. Nonetheless, Tolstoy appreciates the cultivated intelligence and introspectiveness of Pierre. I would suggest that the author’s reconciliation of these two opposing tendencies can be found in the post-war characterisation of Pierre. After experiencing the trials of war and learning to appreciate life in its most basic manifestations, Pierre is able to combine simple enjoyment of life with intellectual preoccupations. This harmony is illustrated by his simultaneous involvement in family life and revolutionary politics. Although the war taints his childlike naivete, this quality is perpetuated and preserved through the education of his children. Hence in adults ‘childlikeness’ manifests itself through the enjoyment of interacting with children, especially when this interaction ‘infects’ adults with children’s authentic modes of thought, emotion and action. For this reason family life plays a very important role in Tolstoy’s chronotope of regression to childhood. The benefits of the parent-child communication are reciprocal: the process of educating children rejuvenates adults and encourages a healthy moral development in children. The three childlike characters we discussed are a part of Tolstoy’s representation of the family, most obviously illustrated by the Rostovs. The Rostov’s familial orientation, manifested by their almost exclusive focus on nurturing their children, is depicted by Tolstoy as an exemplary lifestyle. When the Count and Countess are not childlike themselves in their carefree enjoyment of life, they are facilitating their own children’s happiness by providing an affectionate and unrestraining domestic atmosphere. Nevertheless, Tolstoy also indicates that this warm family life proves too indiscrimate with respect to the moment’s many potentialities. The older Rostovs lack a sense of duty and stability because they are too involved in enjoying the many satisfactions potentially offered by life. In the end they pay for their lack of adult responsibility with the loss of their estate and their happiness. However, the positive elements of the older Rostovs’ mode of life are preserved and improved by the new generation of families: namely, Natasha and Pierre, and Maria and Nikolai. Unlike their parents, these young couples have been matured by the hardship of war and have learned to combine family happiness with a sense of responsibility. They continue to reinforce the value of childhood not through their former childlikeness, but by becoming model parents. Natasha changes into a big, matronly figure whose life revolves around her husband and children. Tolstoy presents Natasha’s transformation from a girl to a mother as exemplary, in terms which resonate with Rousseau’s delimiting conception of women’s roles: ‘The subject that wholly absorbed Natasha’s attention was her family, that is, her husband, whom she had to keep so that he should belong entirely to her and to the home, and the children, whom she had to bear, give birth to, nurse and rear’ (p. 1383).
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Pierre becomes her perfect complement, assuming the nineteenth-century male responsibility of providing a functional societal link for his enclosed family by concerning himself with business and politics, while still remaining devoted to the family nucleus. The particular manner in which this couple educates their children is not elaborated; only its Rousseauistic emphasis upon the ‘natural’ is specified: ‘Their way of life and place of residence, their friends and ties, Natasha’s occupations, the children’s upbringing, were all determined not only by Pierre’s expressed wishes, but by what Natasha surmised them to be from things he mentioned in conversation.. . . Pierre one day told her of Rousseau’s views, with which he was in complete agreement, that to have wet-nurses was unnatural and harmful. When their next baby was born, [. . Natasha] insisted on having her own way, and from that time nursed all of her children herself (p. 1385). It is the second family, the new Rostovs, who fill in the gaps of vagueness concerning children’s education. With the systematic determination characteristic of the Bolkonskys, Princess Maria devotes herself not to nurturing but to educating her children. She observes and checks their behaviour by keeping a diary account of it, fulfilling her maternal functions with the rigour required by a scientific study. Much more so than Natasha, she retains significant elements of her former personality-such as her intelligence, aescetic spirituality, education, aristocratic poise and self-discipline-which are now focussed upon her children in her role as mother and educator. Princess Maria and Nikolai gradually form a successful, interdependent couple: he relies upon her spiritual guidance and mental strength, while she benefits from the energetic common sense he exhibits in effectively managing their estate and amending his parents’ losses. Through both couples Tolstoy not only illustrates the benefits of family life, but also delineates its ideal organisation, which is structured, in a traditional fashion, around the complementarity of gender roles. Because of the author’s changing and diverse beliefs, it is difficult to wholistically assess the success of Tolstoy’s attempt to reconcile his contradictory opinions of culture and simplicity through positive depictions ofchildhood. This achievement is particularly difficult to measure because of Tolstoy’s prosaic approach, which presents all characters in an unidealised fashion. However, what emerges from the author’s nostalgia for childhood is a process which does contribute to the creation of an integrated self. This process operates through multiple artistic chronotopes: the author’s reversion to memories of his own childhood in the creation of chiidlike characters; the intratextua1 interaction of children or childlike characters ‘infecting’ other characters with this optic; and the readers’ infection by the author’s and his characters’ mnemonic regression to childhood, which reveals the coherence of the self and offers a glimpse of the immortality of the soul. The continuity of this multiple process is ensured by the readers’ interest in Tolstoy’s instructive depictions of childhood and of the cycles of family fife. Claudia Brown University, Providence
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NOTES 1. Leo Tolstoy, ‘Death of Ivan Ilych’, taken from Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy, trans. Louise and Alymer Maude (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 294. 2. Andrew Baruch Wachtel, The Battle for Childhood: Creation of a Russian Myth (CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 44. 3. Quote taken from Patricia Carden’s article, ‘The Recuperative Powers of Memory’, found in The Russian Novelfrom Pushkin to Pasternak (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 81. 4. Quote taken from Grown-Up Narrator and Childlike Hero by Alexander Zweers (Paris: Mouton, 1971), pp. 36-38. 5. Patricia Carden, ‘The Recuperative Powers of Memory’, p. 83. 6. Ibid., p. 85. 7. I am referring not only to the differences between the Slavophiles and Westernisers but also to the diverging points of view within these two main groups. 8. Quote taken from The Battle for Childhood, p. 38. 9. M.M. Bakhtin, The Dialogiclmagination, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 228-230. 10. Bakhtin uses the concept of the ‘chronotope’ to explore the interconnected temporal and spatial dimensions of a text. In the DialogicZmagination he provides the following explanation of this concept: ‘We will give the name chronotope (literally, “time space”) to the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature . . . We understand the chronotope as a formally constitutive category of literature. . . In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole’ (p. 84). 11. In describing Tolstoy’s chronotope as ‘regressive’, I use the term in a non-normative sense to denote a temporal and spatial movement backwards to a former individual or societal state. 12. Boris Eikhenbaum, The Young Tolstoi (translation), Gary Kern (ed.) (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1972). 13. The term ‘prosaic’ is used here in the senses attributed to Bakhtin by Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson in Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics, (1990): ‘Prosaics encompasses two related, but distinct, concepts. First, as opposed to “poetics”, prosaics designates a theory of literature that privileges prose in general and the novel in particular over the poetic genres. Prosaics in the second sense is far broader than theory of literature: it is a form of thinking that presumes the importance of the everyday, the ordinary, the prosaic’ (p. 17). 14. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, ‘Drafts for an Introduction’, trans. Ann Dunnigan (Signet Classics, 1968), p. 1365. 15. Renato Poggioli, ‘Tolstoy as Man and Artist’, Tolstoy: a Collection of CriticalEssays, Ralph E. Matlaw (ed.) (NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967). 16. Leo Tolstoy, What is Art?, trans. Alymer Maude (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1981) p. 52. 17. Victor Shklovsky, ‘Art as Technique’, Lemon and Reis, Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965). 18. Ibid., p. 12.