Injury, Pain, and Change in War and Peace

Physical pain plays an important but unusual role in the War and Peace . In the pre‐twentieth century literary landmarks in which physical pain figures prominently, pain is closely linked to the idea of justice. In Dante, it is condign justice; in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Dostoevsky, injustice that threatens the national or world order. In Tolstoy, by contrast, pain is much more closely associated with revelation, transformation, and truth. We can see this plainly in the changes that take place, through pain, in the lives of two of the male protagonists, Nikolai Rostov and Andrei Bolkonsky. Pain of course also plays a significant role in The Death of Ivan Ilyich , but I have chosen to focus, at least here, on War and Peace , because War and Peace presents the relation between pain, revelation, and truth in greater detail, over a much longer period of time, and in radically dissimilar characters. What at first Nikolai and Andrei seem to have in common is that their physical pain stems directly from their battle injuries. Nikolai is injured at Schöngrabern in 1805; and Andrei at Austerlitz in 1805 and again at Borodino in 1812. But there are also surprising similarities regarding the effects of pain in their lives, similarities that need to be examined–as well, of course, as dramatic differences–if we are to achieve a better understanding of Tolstoy's use of physical pain as a transformative catalyst. By analyzing Nikolai's and especially Andrei's traumatic injuries and both their short and long‐term effects, I hope to show how Tolstoy employs the shock of excruciating physical pain as a means of leading two of his male protagonists toward spiritual transformation and the revelation of truth

Acute pain · Ancient history · Art · Battle · Economic Justice · Injustice · Literature · Pain and suffering · Political science · Revelation · Transformative learning · Historical and Scientific Studies · History · Law · Medicine · Military History and Strategy · Philosophy · Psychology · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought